“I don’t want you killing anyone. Not for me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s my job.” This was the first time Kari had alluded to the reason she’d come to Arizona. The reason she’d found him. It was something he’d suspected, but never confronted.
“Was kissing me your job too?” The words surprised him as much as her. He sounded like a girl. Shit, he needed to get some sleep. He didn’t even care about her like that. Did he?
“Well, yeah. Kind of. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have kept doing it, you know?” She pouted a little.
“It’s fine,” he said, trying to get around her. “I’m tired. We can talk about all of this in the morning.”
“No can do, fire boy. I’ll be on my stealth mission tomorrow in the AM.”
“I don’t want you doing anything to these people. It’s my responsibility and mine alone.” He didn’t need any more deaths on his head. He was even considering the possibility of giving himself up. It would end the agony anyway.
“Look, all I’m going to do is deliver them gift wrapped. I’ll let you do the dirty work.”
“Just tell me who it is, I’ll go-”
“No can do. Like I said, I have to verify first.”
“But I-”
The wind cut him off. It howled so loudly he couldn’t hear himself try to shout over it. His feet skidded against the walkway, barely staying in place. When it stopped, he staggered for a moment.
“Like I said, I’m doing my job. You’ll find out soon enough.” And with that, she lifted off into the air and flew away.
Aedan blinked and rubbed at his eyes. What the fuck? Kari could fly? Guess that explained how she got in and out of his window like that. Maybe he hadn’t given quite enough credit to this whole wind thing. Which only made him more nervous as he climbed the stairs toward bed.
Suddenly he wished she’d never found him. That he’d remained blissfully ignorant until the Circle Operative found him and put an end to his pathetic life.
“Aedan, is that you?” Edy’s voice snapped him out of his funk.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said gently.
“Don’t be silly.” She emerged from the shadows, wrapping her bathrobe around her waist. “It was the wind that woke me. So strange for this time of year.”
“Yeah.” Aedan studied her form in the darkness. “Edy, what if-” Aedan braced himself. It helped that he couldn’t make out her face. “What if I’m something that never should have been created? What if I’m designed for evil?”
The sound of their breathing punctuated the silence for a minute, then Edy’s hand found his and squeezed. “The fact that you worry so much about it says you’re not evil, Aedan.”
“But what if I was…” he searched for the right words. “made for it? Like say, someone, I don’t know, put an evil spell on me and gave me these powers so that I’d destroy all the good in the world, and-”
“Aedan, I know it probably feels that way. I wish you could see the boy I see every day. I wish you could know yourself like I know you. But even if something that ridiculous was the case, even if you were designed as a weapon, you are still Aedan. You are the one who decides your fate. No one else can control you.”
Except maybe Morgana Le Fay. Aedan felt sick. Feverish as Edy pressed a hand to his forehead. She always seemed to know before he said anything.
He caught her hand again. “I’m going to get some sleep, and you should too.”
“Okay then, Aedan. But if you need me, I’m here. Whenever. Whatever.”
“Edy?”
“Yes?” she asked, tenderly pushing the hair from his forehead.
“Thanks for believing in me.”
“It’s more than belief, Aedan. I just wish I could make you see it too.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Aedan
In his dream, the storm roared all around him. Chaos and confusion. Earth shattering booms, and blinding flashes of light. Maya’s hand slipped slowly from his, pulled by forces beyond his control. Water rained down in sheets, and her freezing fingers fell from his grasp.
“No!” he screamed, calling to her, but it was no use. He couldn’t see or hear anything. The fire within consumed him and the world lit with flame, casting an eerie glow on everything in a five-foot radius.
But what he saw was Maya’s body lying lifeless on the ground near his feet. A knife buried hilt deep in her back. Dark blood oozed from the wound over her pale skin, like the grim reaper himself had come to claim her.
“No!” Aedan dropped to his knees, the fire raging beyond control, savaging everything around them. Consuming even the sound of the storm, but leaving he and Maya safe in the inner circle.
Only it was obvious she wasn’t fine.
Aedan woke panting to find the blaze floating above his head, in mid-air. Which was odd in and of itself. He groped beside him for a fire extinguisher. But didn’t move as fast as he normally would. This fire didn’t seem to be burning anything, just literally hovering above his head like it was waiting for some direction.
Go to the left. The blaze complied immediately, moving over several inches. Aedan concentrated. The whole thing collapsed into a fist-sized ball of orange. He reached up, palm held out, and it landed right in his hand. He balled up his fist, eyes wide, the dream nearly forgotten, and the room went dark. The fire was snuffed out.
Aedan turned over, fixing his pillow, and saw it, sitting on his nightstand. The cord with the ring Maya had given him at the library glowed lightly against the veneer top. He’d forgotten about it with everything else going on. He reached for it.
The smooth, warm bronze comforted him in a way he couldn’t exactly pinpoint. He felt calm, wide-awake, and for once in the last – well, years really – in control. Aedan’s eyes flicked upward, and above him, a small fire shone light down on it so he could see, and he examined the ring closely.
Four symbols were etched across the surface. Aedan squinted. They looked like symbols for each of the four elements, earth, wind, water, and fire. A mountain, swirling lines, a wave, and a flame. He was sure of it. But how strange that Maya would have something like this.
Or was it?
What if she was the Operative? Aedan’s stomach sank. No. Like Keri had said, if she was, she’d have already tried to kill him, not kiss him repeatedly. He shook his head, trying to clear it and ran his finger over the water symbol. Aedan snapped his hand back as a tiny stream of cool wet liquid spilled out and over his hand. The fire above him flared, and he cleared his throat bringing it back under control.
Gingerly, he traced the little flame that seemed to flicker. It sprang straight out of the metal like a tiny flamethrower, burning hot against his skin. A normal human would have dropped it, with at least second-degree burns. Aedan gripped it like a lifeline in the dark but held it away from his blankets.
He snapped and the fire above went out. But the ring remained lit against the black velvet of the night, pulsing with an audible hum. It was trying to speak to him. He was sure.
“If I understood you, I bet you’d be able to help me with all of this.”
The ring vibrated in response.
“Sometimes I feel like a solution is just beneath the surface.” He felt silly talking to a piece of jewelry. But at the same time, it was the safest confidant he had. And it didn’t have a life to lose.
“What would you tell me if you could speak?” he whispered.
The ring glowed brighter before settling back down. Aedan blinked. The four symbols were gone. Now it was just a fancy M engraved in the bronze.
M? Morgana? Aedan swallowed hard and stuffed the ring in his nightstand drawer. If this was something from the Scimitar he didn’t want it. Did that mean Maya was one of them?
Throwing the covers over his head, Aedan rolled onto his side. That would be worse than if she were hanging around so she could kill him. Maya wasn’t evil. She couldn’t be. He couldn’t fa
ll in love with someone evil.
Then again the ring made him feel so comfortable. So at ease. What if he really was evil, like he’d feared and that’s why he felt secure with dark magic?
A headache crept up the back of his neck and into his skull as he mulled it all over, one thought more confusing than the one before it. It didn’t fit. Maya couldn’t be one of them either. Keri would have known.
He was finally on the cusp of sleep when he heard a knocking coming from the side of the bed. The ring must have thrown itself against the drawer like a bouncing ball. Aedan yanked the nightstand open and caught it as it jumped into his hand.
He held it up again, staring at the M. “Is the M for Morgana?” he hissed at it, half believing it could answer him.
The bottom corner of the M sparked and began traveling along the side of the ring, etching more letters in its wake until the entire thing was covered in intricate script. Aedan turned it slowly in his hand, eyes widening with each letter.
Merlin.
He was the good guy. This had to be a positive sign. Aedan pulled the cord around his neck and the bronze heated against his chest again, feeling like home.
No room left in his head for trying to piece together how Maya came to have this thing, Aedan sank back down into the pillow. He was going to have to face the Circle Operatives tomorrow. Somehow the ring made him a tiny bit less worried. There’s hope was his last thought before succumbing to much-needed sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Maya
Maya wandered through the empty streets of the small deserted western town, arms folded around herself, eyes cast downward, toward the hardened dirt. She hadn’t known where else to go. She knew she couldn’t face Toby. Not yet. And there was no telling how late he’d be up, engrossed in his world of miniature robotics and fire retardant and what not.
She envied him. How he’d probably been bent over that table all day, the stupid cat his only company while she rode an emotional rollercoaster beyond imagining. A sudden surge of anger ran through her. But she wasn’t really mad at Toby. This was hardly his fault. She was mad at the world. At Morgana Le Fay, and Merlin, and Arthur, and her parents.
And herself.
She should have never gotten involved with him. She should have used a Flashball that first day, and not have played games trying to get in his pants. But if she’d done that, she would have killed him. Taken the life of a truly good and beautiful and pained human being. One whom she now loved.
“Aargh!” she screamed, kicking hard at the dirt, and forcing a cloud into the air.
The little shops that bustled with activity during the day sat dark, and sleepy all around her. Wooden planked sidewalks, and quaint decorations framed each one along with silly signs and props filled with fake bullet holes, and purposely misspelled wanted posters. She watched each one as she circled again. The fudge shop, the Native American gift store, the restaurant where they cut off your tie if you’re brave or stupid enough to wear it inside. Silly, stupid, pretend games that tourists played without so much as a thought about the true nature of the old west. The harsh reality of settling in a barren and inhospitable land with little law or governance at hand. A place where you were just as likely to be killed by a rattlesnake or the elements as by an outlaw.
People saw what they wanted to see. Acknowledged what they wanted to acknowledge. The Circle included. They were so used to passing down their grand prophecies and training soldiers for the sole purpose of maintaining this whole stupid curse that they never stopped to question their convictions.
Not once.
Until now.
But what was she supposed to do? This was so much bigger than just her. And the minute they were on to her hesitation, they’d send someone else to take care of it. Maybe even Toby himself.
A new wave of nausea overcame her as she pictured Toby slitting Aedan’s throat. His beautiful ocher eyes drained of life. A small pathetic whimper escaped her lips as she finally stopped her pointless march, and slid down against the splintered railing, coming to rest on the top of the three steps leading up to the walkway.
Options. She had to think of options. If she could somehow manage to keep Aedan alive until one of the other Elementals was taken out… She’d still be expected to find and eliminate him, but the urgency would be gone, and maybe she could stall them long enough to get them to listen.
Maya tried to picture this. Pleading Aedan’s case before the unyielding eyes of the Noble Ones. It would never fly. Not even if she managed to convince Toby of Aedan’s nature.
The next obvious step was to confront him. He may not know what he was, but he obviously knew about his powers. Maya’s hand pressed over her mouth. He’d been so reserved, tried so hard to keep her away from him because he was worried about hurting her. She’d been trying to kill him, and he’d been protecting her.
But just as she decided the best thing to do was to find him right then and there, the memory of the wild-haired girl assaulted her. Kari, he’d called her. Who the hell was Kari? And why wasn’t he worried about hurting her?
You’ll never know until you talk to him. She sighed, tucking her knees up to her chest. Or should she talk to Toby first? Maya had never been so confused in her whole life. Her purpose had always been clear. And the worst part was that she may still have to carry that out when it was all said and done.
Because no matter how wonderful Aedan was, he was still the Fire Elemental. And she was still the Circle Operative responsible for him. And if she did manage to protect him, there was still the possibility that he could contribute – whether knowingly or not – to bringing about the end of the world.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Maya
The pallid light of dawn crept over the storefronts, banishing the shadows to the crevices between buildings. Maya blinked. She’d paced and huddled and generally fretted away the entire night. And now she wasn’t the least bit sleepy, but she was exhausted. Every muscle in her body felt heavy, stiff, and bloated. And she was still no closer to knowing what to do.
She stared at the half-sized train tracks that ran all the way around the perimeter of the fake town. She was going in circles too. And time was running out. She stood, stretching her limbs. She’d start with a hot shower, and a change of clothes. Then she’d pack up every weapon she had, and go have a heart to heart with Aedan.
Even after hours of indecision, Maya found herself moving about as fast as a slug as she dragged her way toward the parking lot and her jeep. She drove carefully, telling herself she was probably not at her most alert after that all-nighter. But somewhere inside she understood there was no way she was going to be able to rush this.
By the time she pulled up in the carport, the sun was high. She crunched up the fast food bag from her early breakfast, and sucked hard at the remainder of her ice-coffee, slurping in the air along with the dregs at the bottom. Then she tossed them both in the backseat with the rest of her trash, and got out.
But as she climbed the steps to the second layer of apartments, she noticed it. A difference in the air. And she shivered, hauling herself up by the banister, panic rushing through her blood. The door came into view, leaning up against the metal railing across from the apartment, torn right off its hinges.
Maya swung into gear, a dagger emerged in each hand as she raced forward, silent and deadly. The second she stepped over the threshold, every hair on her body stood on end from the power still evident in the room.
If you could still call it a room. It looked more like a garbage dump, every item, every bit of paper, glass, and metal hurled around the room in a spiral, as though a cyclone had risen then suddenly died right in the center of the living area. Nothing was left untouched. Cushions, television, tables, chairs. Everything bent and bashed and ruined.
Maya’s eyes darted about the room soaking in every detail, searching for any hint of a threat still present. And when she caught movement stirring in her bedroom entryway, she barely had tim
e to readjust the aim as she threw the blade, so that it stuck in the doorjamb and not Copernicus’ throat.
The cat darted out mewing loudly, as though he was trying to explain what happened. Maya stooped to scoop him up and pressed her cheek against his soft fur.
“Where’s Toby?” she asked it.
Copernicus stared back at her with sad yellow eyes, and fear shot through her veins. Where was Toby? Had he been here? Of course, he’d been here. Where else would he have been? Probably fallen asleep at his table, his goggles cutting into his skin, waiting for Maya who’d never shown up.
This was her fault.
“It couldn’t have been him,” she whispered to Copernicus. His small warm body vibrated against her as he purred in answer.
Maya took in the room again. No burns. No ash. No evidence of fire or smoke. Not even the scent left behind. No. This was more chaotic. Fire didn’t lift the door off its frame. It didn’t leave everything spewed across the floor. And it was definitely dark magic. She could sense it with every fiber of her being.
But what could have done this?
Satisfied that whatever it was had gone, or it would have already attacked, Maya began searching. It wasn’t hard, the apartment was small. But each time she entered a space hidden from the front entrance, the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedrooms, she cringed, afraid she’d find Toby torn to bits just like everything else in the place.
She didn’t let out her breath until she finished her search. It was clear that Toby was not around, dead or otherwise. Which meant he was likely still alive. Being questioned? Tortured for information? She shuddered. She had to find him.
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