She was on fire, burning from the inside out.
Burn it.
Jade thought she would die. It would be better than living with the knowledge that she had killed her little sister. She fed the fire with her own energy, feeling the heat lick her skin.
Chapter 19
~~ Raven ~~
Raven could barely walk in a straight line, but she had seen how hard Jade was fighting for control. She knew what she had to do. Taking the bottle of Keeper’s water out of her jacket pocket, she forced herself to walk to Jade. It wasn’t far in terms of distance, but Raven had nothing left.
Between the beating she took from the vampires and the power she used to help Air fan the flames, Raven could barely walk in a straight line.
Jade was getting worse. The fires had all gone out.
Raven could see that it would be too late if she didn’t do something. She had already lost Mindy. She wouldn’t lose Jade as well.
Raven removed the stopper from the bottle, holding it in her right hand. When she reached Jade, Jade’s fangs were extended. Jade wanted to feed.
Raven wiped her nose on her left hand letting the blood drip on her fingers and held it out.
Jade latched on. Raven didn’t give her a chance to feed. She slipped her hand away and before Jade could figure out what happened, and dumped the water down her throat.
Several things happened at once.
Jade began caterwauling as if someone had just dumped her in a pot of boiling water…maybe Raven had. The air glittered around Jade, as if a thousand fireflies were dancing in the air around her.
In the dark of the night under the stars, Jade began to sparkle. There was no other way to describe it. As if lit from within, her skin shimmered. There were several pops and smoke rose into the air. It seemed to come from nowhere, but Raven thought Jade had something to do with the smoke.
And then the light faded.
Jade wept, tears streaking down her face. She pulled Raven into a huge hug, “Thank you.”
The sisters turned toward Mindy. Raven stepped over a pile of ash that was once a vampire. She reached the altar first. She hadn’t started crying yet. Jade hadn’t stopped crying.
When Raven released Jade from the hug, her sister collapsed. Raven wanted to comfort Jade, but Mindy might still be alive. Raven held out the hope that her sister somehow survived the stabbing.
Raven’s flashlight slowly inched its way along Mindy’s body. Raven kept swallowing bile, afraid of the moment when the light settled on a pool of blood. That moment never came.
As the light settled on Mindy’s face, Mindy said, “I’m okay.”
The tears started flowing then. Raven said, “Mindy? Where did the vampire stab you?”
Raven didn’t want to say Jade’s name. Saying the word vampire created distance, even though it was Jade with the knife. She didn’t want either sister to have those words ringing in their ears. “Little trick,” Mindy said and put a finger to her lips, “Shhh...”
Raven yelled to Jade, “Jade? Mindy’s okay. I’m untying her now.”
Jade shuffled forward, wiping the tears from her eyes. “She’s really okay? But I saw…I saw the knife come straight down. How?”
Shrugging, Raven cut the first of Mindy’s bonds, “She said it was a trick.”
The sisters gathered around the altar. The wind rose and piles of ash that had once been vampires drifted on the breeze. Raven was shocked at her sister’s sudden transformation from vampire back to human. The whole last week felt like a dream, a nightmare. The nightmare was over. Raven wanted to convince herself of that, but the vampires were only the start. They still had to find Mom.
~~ Jade ~~
Jade couldn’t stop crying. Mindy held out her arms to Jade, “I’m fine, really. Only my head hurts.”
“They hit her hard,” Raven said.
“Looks like they hit you hard, too.” Jade said to Raven as she picked up Mindy. It was the shortest carry ever, “I’m sorry, Cricket, I’m too tired to carry you.”
Raven was looking for a way out. With a sigh she said, “The cars are all burnt. I was hoping to get out of here.”
Jade sniffed. Tears were still running.
“It’s over. You can stop crying,” Raven teased.
But Jade couldn’t. Because she remembered things no daughter should ever remember. She said, “I’ll probably be weepy for a while.”
Fire nudged Jade.
“Oh,” Jade turned, “Fire told me that there is a car left. She knew we’d need to get out. She just didn’t want to leave one near where the vampires were dying, in case they tried to escape.”
“How far is it?” Raven didn’t think she could move another step, let alone ten, let alone one hundred.
“I’ll get it and bring it around,” Jade said. She wanted a little time away. She needed to cry for a while, and somehow it seemed better to do it walking through the night looking for the car than sitting next to her sisters.
Fire didn’t understand distance the way a human did. The car was a Ford Mustang parked in one of the slow-car turn-offs up the road. After a long hike, Jade spent several minutes looking for keys and ignoring Fire.
Finally Fire gave up on trying to convince Jade. While Jade was poking around in the glove box, Fire turned over the engine. Jade lifted her head, “Oh, I really don’t need keys.” That was what Fire was trying to tell her.
Fire wasn’t a talker, not like Air or Water. She did the Fire version of shrugging by making a few sparkling flickers in the air around Jade. Jade drove the car back to the field, bouncing along the uneven ground.
Raven got into the back seat with Mindy. It made sense, but Jade had a wide range of emotions from guilt to humiliation. The thought crossed her mind that maybe Raven was afraid of her or didn’t like her anymore or remembered Jade’s part in their Dad’s death.
“Where’s Claire?” Jade rubbed her temple. Her head hurt. It had been a long week and right now she was feeling like she’d been hit by a freight train going a hundred miles an hour.
Raven blinked. She had forgotten Claire. She put a hand to her forehead and said, “She was underground. Air said she was okay, but then the vampires grabbed us and I lost track of her. Maybe Air can find her again.”
Raven asked and Air went searching.
Jade said, “I might as well get to the main road while we wait for Air, in case there are other vampires around.”
The forest was eerily quiet. Jade tried not to block everything out of her mind, but she kept replaying the moment when the vampires burned, the foul smell in the air, the sickening sensation that she wouldn’t be able to stop. Worse than that, the memory entwined itself with the memory of her father’s death. She focused on the road, on that bare patch of visible gravel struck by the headlights. She tried to zone everything else out.
“Anything about Claire yet?” Jade asked Raven.
Raven rubbed her eyes. She had fallen asleep, as had Mindy. “What?”
“I was just wondering if you’d heard from Air.” Jade said. She drove slowly, at least ten miles under the speed limit. The roads were empty. She was so tired she was afraid that she’d fall asleep at the wheel.
“Nothing yet…I hope Claire’s okay,” Raven said.
Once they hit asphalt Jade just guessed at a direction and drove. She wanted distance between them and the vampires, if there were any left alive. The next town she reached they’d take their mother’s credit cards and…Jade had a horrible sinking feeling. “Raven, did you grab Mom’s purse?”
“Um…no. Surrounded by vampires, remember?” Raven asked in that snotty superior way that sisters sometimes have.
“Okay. Okay. It’s just that we don’t have any money for a hotel room…or gas…or anything else,” Jade felt an avalanche of overwhelmed. A glance at the gas tank gave her some relief. At least it was over halfway.
“We just took out a hundred vampires. A little cash-flow problem can’t get us down,” Raven said. She lea
ned her head back against the seat. She hurt so bad. Her face felt like it was one of those giant balloons that kids jump in, the ones with a thousand little balls and it felt like the kids had been jumping on it all day. Raven figured the way her head ached in rhythm fit the analogy.
Jade sighed, “Easy to say, but we’re exhausted and we don’t know what else is out there.”
Raven straightened in her seat, “Yes, we do. We’ll ask for help from Wayne in Bend. Long story. I’ll give you directions.”
Jade shoulders relaxed just a little. Maybe they would get out of this mess. But she wouldn’t feel completely at ease until they all were together.
She said, “I just hope Claire’s okay.”
~~ Claire ~~
It was the middle of night in the middle of nowhere and every step felt like torture. Claire hefted the duffel from one hand to the other. The thousand pound bag, with water and jerky, a teddy bear, a few clothes, Mom’s purse, and Raven’s favorite CD bounced along her back. Claire felt guilty that she didn’t find any of Jade’s favorite things to bring. She did put in the copy of Day Soldiers that Jade was reading. That book had special meaning now that she knew vampires were real. Until this summer, vampires had always been fiction.
Claire shuddered.
She tried to think of happier things. Water. Sunlight. The park during winter when they all went sledding. Anything but the fact that she was walking on the side of an empty road at night and could possibly be watched or stalked by vampires.
Something stirring in the night air gave her the creeps. She couldn’t stop from shivering. It was as if she were sitting in a freezer. Claire couldn’t get warm. Whether it was the stress of the long, wet climb-and-carry out of the tunnel or the terrible fear she had for her sisters, Claire focused on taking one step and then another, all the while shaking so hard her teeth rattled.
What if I just stopped walking?
Claire was just thinking the thought to herself, but Water overheard. Water said, You could join me. We’ll just become one forever. You’ll never be too cold or too hot. You can dance on the Earth and play in the Air.
It sounded so good, especially now that the road was heading up a steep incline. The air was so cold. Claire wished she had a pair of gloves and a hat. She thought it would be nice to turn into Water, to play endlessly. There was a danger to playing too long as an Element. Aunt Bertha warned her several times to control herself, that Elementals had been known to lose themselves in the Element. Their souls could be trapped forever as the Element they favored.
Claire was too tired, now. She was sure to lose herself if she allowed Water to talk her into changing form.
Trudging up the hill and around the bend, Claire shifted the duffel bag several times. Water didn’t have good news about her sisters. They were trapped by the vampires miles away. Walking she didn’t have a prayer of catching up.
The night was still and silent. Claire felt lonely to the depths of her bones. Not just lonely in a human way, but lonely in an animal way, as if she didn’t belong anywhere at all. She didn’t miss anyone specifically. She missed everyone.
As she breached the top of the hill and started working her way down, Claire had the feeling of being watched. She turned completely around a few times, only to come out of the turn with a stronger feeling that something was out there and a terrible fear because she couldn’t see who it was.
She didn’t see him coming. Not at all.
Claire took a step right into him.
He grabbed her arms, his thick hands so cold that her skin felt freezer burn where he touched. She felt him there, grabbing her, but when she tried to see him, her eyes slid off him in the weirdest way, as if the man himself was an optical illusion.
She surely felt him, though.
His grip was tight.
Claire tried to become water. He seemed to know what she was doing and prevent it. Claire didn’t know how, only that she felt a frozen electricity running along her arms and she couldn’t change.
Water didn’t ask for permission. She didn’t even indicate that she was going to do anything. Water blasted the man, every droplet available on the floor of the forest, a few spouts from a nearby stream flew in a water spiral at the man.
He was surprised and loosened his grip for just a second.
Claire yanked herself away, letting the change take her.
As she changed, she could see the man more clearly. A man who was not a man. A dark shadow that could see without eyes, hear without ears. It hunted them.
He raised both of his arms. A jolt of electricity pierced Claire and she lost her thoughts. When she came out of her daze, the man was gone. Her knees buckled and she crawled into the grass, throwing up again and again, her stomach heaving even when there was nothing left.
“What was that?” Claire asked, when she was done heaving.
A servant of the void.
“How do I get away? Where do I run?” Claire’s heart seemed to skip a few beats as it pitter-pattered in a desperate rhythm.
Water answered, He got what he came for.
That made no sense to Claire. Nothing had been taken. He had grabbed her arms, though. She thought back. She was still talking to Water, so she didn’t lose her Elemental status. What could he have taken? Finally, she gave up trying to figure it out on her own, “What did he come for?”
Knowledge. He knows the Gift of Time is not with you. He will seek out your living relatives.
“Is he dangerous?” Claire asked.
Unpredictable. They kill some Elementals, take others to become Void, and leave the rest alone. Only the Void’s Master knows why.
Claire rubbed her arms. She felt so homesick. She had a thought that she shared with Water, an idea about how to get home.
She asked Water, Do you think you can do it?
Water splashed excitedly.
Chapter 20
~~ Mindy ~~
Mindy opened her eyes. She was in the back seat of a strange car, but at least Raven was next to her, and Jade was driving. Mindy felt strange. Something had awakened inside of her, something dangerous.
Earth would know.
She reached for Earth.
Earth didn’t answer.
“Jade?” Mindy said.
“I’m here.” Jade sounded tired, but worse, she sounded worried and stressed.
“No Earth.” Mindy said.
Jade nodded, “It’s okay. You’re tired. When you feel better, I’m sure Earth will talk.”
Mindy sighed and leaned back, “I’m tired.”
“I know you are, Cricket. We’ll try to get home soon.”
Raven stretched, “Where are we?”
“A few miles from Bend. I think we’ll make it.”
Raven gave Jade directions to the little church. She had a few missed turns, but eventually they pulled into the parking lot.
Mindy rubbed her eyes. Seeing the church, she said, “No. No. No. No. No.”
Raven coaxed her, “Come on, Mindy. It’s not that bad.”
A Time To Kill (Elemental Rage Book 1) Page 20
