“Of course he told you,” Stephanie muttered. “But to be fair, I did take it off of a guy—off the guy I killed. I’d rooted him some weeks back for a fairy I worked for in California. The guy got behind on a few payments then tried to fly the coup. That’s when I pulled the plug on him. What I didn’t know was that the guy I killed,” she drew in a breath, walking on eggshells, “well, that guy may or may not have been Zakhar’s older brother.”
“What!” I nearly kicked off the couch as I stood up straight. “How could you not know something like that?”
“It wasn’t my job to know. I rooted him with my brother’s help. That’s all I did. Had I known it was Zakhar’s brother though, it wouldn’t have mattered much, you know? The fairy made his demands, and I followed orders. Needless to say, Marcus paid off my boss big time to get me to come work in Raleigh.”
“And these connections Zakhar makes as a Shaman—how connected can he get?” I grew instantly concerned, pressing the phone to my ear, feeling my sweat wet the glass face. “Does he know the people I talk to, my phone calls, texts? What?”
Stephanie scoffed. “If only, right? The best Shamans, like Zakhar, can figure out what you’re gonna’ have for breakfast the next morning just by having one conversation with you.”
My eyes were full-moon wide. I had a drink with the guy. What does he know about me?
“If he has the ankh, that is,” Stephanie assured me.
My shoulders slumped in relief. “But can he read minds?” I leaned against the counter.
“No, but by listening to you talk—how you think—he has a knack for figuring out just about everything about you. The ankh intensifies that like you wouldn’t belive.”
“Before I came home tonight,” I said, “I hardly even knew what I was gonna’ eat for dinner, let alone what I’m gonna’ have for breakfast tomorrow.” If Zakhar could figure out those kinds of details just by having the ankh, then what else would a man like him be capable of?
This was exactly what I had warned Rebekah about—how paranormals came into areas that had just lost a head paranormal, and they tried to run it. I had no doubt that this was what Zakhar must have been planning to do. What else would bring him to Raleigh all of a sudden? Besides, Stephanie had been in North Carolina for a while now, and something had kept this Zakhar at bay for all this time—that something being Marcus. No one dared infringe on the structure Marcus had in place here. But now that Marcus was gone, the door was left wide open.
I shut my eyes, the weight of what I was about to get myself into tightening on me. “You came to me for my help.”
“I don’t need your help,” Stephanie admitted. “I just need you not to help Zakhar. He wants this ankh, and he can’t get it from me himself. He needs me to willingly give it over to someone else.”
“Why willingly?” I asked.
Stephanie was about to answer, but then she fell suspiciously quiet on her end. “Wait…you said that Zakhar just left your apartment, right? Like, how long ago?”
“I don’t know…five minutes, maybe a little less. It was right before I called you.” I looked at my phone to check the time. “Yeah, about five minutes ago.”
Stephanie’s tone rose to urgent. “Hang up the phone and get outta’ there like right now!”
By the time she’d finished speaking, the phone went dead. Not dead like she’d hung up. No, dead-dead, as if it had been completely zapped of its battery. When I observed the toaster again, I noticed that tiny blue sparks skipped from the outlet, and when I turned around to see why the television was now silent, the screen was racing through channels as if someone were flicking through the stations on the remote with no intention of watching anything.
Cautiously, I slid the phone into my pocket, my eyes glued to the front door. Electricity buzzed in the overhead light fixtures, making them flicker until the entire apartment became drenched in darkness with a deadening click as if all of the breakers had tripped at once.
Stepping back, I didn’t take my eyes off the door. The air became electric dry, and each breath made the back of my throat dryer. If he comes inside…
Minutes seemed to pass before anything happened, though I knew it’d only been a few seconds. With the hiss of lightning, the solid metal apartment door came alive with cobalt electric lines slithering from top to bottom, circling the brass doorknob in perilous zigzags, then cavorting down to the cream carpet where they settled by singeing black holes in the floor, rimming the rug in red and orange burn marks.
The hinges of the door melted, but not before scorching bright orange, dripping down the wooden threshold while the door wobbled, rattling in the frame. With an electric snap, the door cracked off the hinges, tearing burning wood from the threshold, soaring at my head, top first.
As the door came near, I decanted into a Wraith—a form that I’d absorbed from Daniel. The top of the door barely kissed my forehead when every part of me cloaked into the invisible apparition.
The world went pale blue—wavy vapors streaming from every object in the living room and kitchen. The door crashed through my bedroom wall behind me, spiraling sideways after the impact until it rammed into my wooden headboard, cracking it before settling on the bed, then tilting over the edge and crashing to the floor.
Zakhar stepped inside my apartment, lightning rippling about his body, snapping at his waist and torso. “It appears that you have chosen the wrong side, Mr. Lyle.”
He was a wafting white and blue vapor to me, since I was still in Wraith form. Every nook and groove in his joints or his eyes or clothes appeared darker than the other parts of him. Materializing in front of him cell by cell so quickly that it was barely noticeable, I delivered a vicious left hook to his right jaw that sent him spinning into the kitchen counter.
Before stumbling to the ground, he caught himself on the counter with both hands, then glared back at me with electricity in his deep-set eyes, sparking so bright that the darkness in my apartment hummed with an eerie night-blue.
Without flinching, my hand jammed into my pocket, touching the obelisk. I reached for the wooden counter to conjure a wooden elemental, but before my hand could make the connection, Zakhar spun to me, shoving both hands into my chest, palms open.
It wasn’t until I was in the air, flying horizontally over the couch, that I realized Zakhar’s hands had been laced with flames. My entire body burst into a ball of fire as I smashed into my flat-panel television, slinging it sideways into the wall, dragging power cords and hdmi cables with it. Glass from the screen shattered in chunks when it hit the floor.
While the flames were on me, I couldn’t decant into a Wraith and heal the second and third degree burns I was suffering. If I did, then the fire would erupt into a deathly conflagration since Wraiths couldn’t ward off flames. Instead, while on the ground, rolling to my side near the beige loveseat, I touched the obelisk and conjured fire.
Instantly, Rebekah and I became one, her soul flowing through me like warm water, as she bonded herself with the flames. The fires around my body submitted to my command, swirling over top of me in a circle like an auburn python. I couldn’t control it though. The chaos swarmed in my head, making the world twist and turn. Dozens of spirits called to me, beckoning me into the darkness.
But the fire was intoxicating. I stumbled backwards, singeing the loveseat and the carpet and couch.
The darkness in the apartment became a blaze, burning the wooden walls and carpet. Black smoke plumed to the ceiling, and the smoke detector screamed overhead. Zakhar laughed as he sauntered through the fire over to me. Flames licked up his skin, but he didn’t take his eyes off me, unharmed.
“Mr. Lyle,” he tsked. “It did not have to end this way.”
Zakhar r
eached through the swirling fires around me, clenching my arms in both of his hands, making sure to only grab the tattered fabric of my shirt so that I could not decant him. I tried to pull back, but the fire summon consumed me, controlling every part of my mind as it allured me into darkness.
His face went taut, as he gritted his teeth, and just like that, he absorbed the flames into himself! The swirling chaos from the fire summon ceased, and I stared into the electric eyes of the Shaman who refused to let me loose.
Instantly, something like a thousand volts channeled through me, racing through my veins and muscles. No matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn’t for the life of me make a sound. I couldn’t scream; I couldn’t get away. In deathly jolts, I quivered in his grasp, feeling as if my insides—bones and all—would explode.
The wall to the apartment burst into flames, consuming the wall until the panels creaked apart. A gaping hole emerged, breathing hot fire into the warm outside air. Black smoke and heat and vapors rolled out.
I could barely hear Rebekah screaming at me with the electricity funneling through my body, but I realized that Zakhar had struck me with my hand still gripping the obelisk, only making me clench the stone tighter. No longer having the fire around my body to conjure, since Zakhar had absorbed the fire summon, I struggled to concentrate on the electricity that sparked through my body.
With a thought, I called for Rebekah’s soul to merge with electricity flowing through me. A bolt of lightning snapped into the apartment from the gaping hole in the wall. The bolt cracked into Zakhar with so much force that it slung him into the bedroom wall with his feet over his head.
Not looking to see what had happened to him, I released the lightning summon, absorbing Rebekah’s soul back into the obelisk, doing my best to leap out of the fires through the chasm in the walls. When I was finally in the grass, I rolled a few times to extinguish what tiny flames were left on my ragged clothes. And to my dismay, some of my skin came off with the rolling. I could even see white bars in my forearms where the flames had eaten my skin to the bone.
The pain was barely there, probably from the shock of it all. But for whatever reason, I couldn’t feel the pain that I knew should have been there, as I lay on the ground. I’ve gotta’ get up, I warned myself, peering up at the black smoke overhead, ignoring the whine of fire engines and squad cars. I’ve gotta’ get up.
But with what the fires had done to me and with Zakhar now standing in the open chasm, I knew I could only do one thing. I decanted to a Wraith. And just like that, I was gone.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Knowing that I’d gotten myself into trouble, Stephanie’s navy Civic tore down Gorman Street just outside of my apartment. Still in Wraith form, I hurried over to her car before she could get out, and she probably didn’t see me.
Quickly, I decanted out of Wraith form, giving the passenger’s side door a few hard tugs. She was startled at first, but realizing that I was the one at her door, she clicked the locks and let me in. Then she jammed it on the gas and u-turned out of the mayhem.
Switching to Wraith form was supposed to heal all of my wounds, or so I thought. But all that happened when I switched out was that the burns were gone. Gone. Not healed. Every part of me was still on fire, and it hurt to even be touching the cushioned seats.
Castella had scorched Daniel back at Rebekah’s old place, and when he had vanished and come back, his wounds were all healed. He didn’t even show any signs of pain. I guess that after all those years, he must have gotten used to it.
The Wraith form itself was also disorienting. I was having momentary trouble remembering things as simple as my name or who I was with, but slowly, those thoughts began to come back to me. It didn’t help that I had a nasty buildup of Pith from the summons to go along with that, so my head pounded and swirled, and I felt clammy and sticky.
“Quit your moaning,” Stephanie said, giving me a few once-overs, then diverting her eyes back to the road.
I could barely open my eyes, and I just kept rolling my head from left to right on the headrest, a soothing motion to keep myself calm. There was no way I was going to put on my seatbelt. I couldn’t even reach for it with the shock-jolted bones and roasted flesh sensation. When I tried to speak, I couldn’t move my tongue, and blood leaked from the corners of my lips.
Stephanie’s cool hand touched my leg, just below my tattered gym shorts. And right before I yelped from the weight of her hand, I realized that there was…no pain—only swirling blue lights that traced her tattoos. She’s healing me.
Never had I been healed by Druid before. I have to say, the sensation was remarkable—like getting a feather massage, light and gentle and soothing. It reminded of me drinking warm tea back in London a few years ago as the cool wind brushed past my table. But that’s not what you want to hear, I know.
With her hand on my leg, I could feel my brittle bones hardening inside of me. Cartilage reformed at my knees and elbows, and a feeling like a soft, satin blanket dragged through my body.
Her hand was gone before I even thought to decant her, but looking into her darling green eyes, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I tried to snap out of it, but she didn’t look away quickly enough. Only when the stoplight turned green and she pulled through the intersection was I able to untangle myself from her, and that was moments after she softly strummed my cheek with her healing hand and put it back on the wheel.
What in the name of the nether is happening to me? Great…now I’m starting to talk like Rebekah.
“Feeling better?” Stephanie asked, turning right onto Western Boulevard.
I nodded, letting out a breath that I’d been holding in, finally able to strap on my seatbelt. “Nothing like before.”
The blue lights of Stephanie’s tattoos faded away as we continued along Western Blvd., passing NC State University’s campus. “I don’t live far from here,” Stephanie mentioned.
“We probably shouldn’t go back to your place, you think? If Zakhar can figure things out as well as you say he can—”
“I’m not going back to my place,” she interrupted. “That’d be the first place Zakhar would look, don’t you think?” She patted the steering wheel a few times. “There’s a park not far from here. We should probably go there and lay low for a while, just until Zakhar gets his crazy streak under control.”
“Won’t he just track us there?” I let my head lie back on the headrest, doing what I could to relax. But being that I’d been some few heartbeats from death, it really wasn’t possible to get my nerves under wraps.
“I hope not,” Stephanie said, taking a wild left turn onto Boylan Ave, pulling in front of a car and making me grab the ceiling handle to keep from slamming my head into the window. “Sorry.” Stephanie lowered her head between her shoulders, sucking in a breath between her teeth. “I’m not the safest person behind the wheel.”
No kidding. “It’s fine,” I said, readjusting myself in the bucket seat after being tossed around like a ragdoll. I took a glance over my shoulder to see that the car behind us was clearly upset that he’d been cut off, because he was riding Stephanie’s bumper with his high-beams glaring.
“Back up, buddy!” She rolled her window down and flipped him the bird, which only made him lay on his horn for a good five seconds until we turned right.
The driver didn’t let us off the hook, figuring that some swears followed by a “Where’d you get your license? Kitty City?” was enough to keep us off the main roads for a while.
To that, Stephanie just kept her middle finger held high until he passed and until she was out of sight. “People really don’t have manners these days,” she had the nerve to say, keeping along the road. “So much for Southern Hospitality.”
Keeping my eyes forward, I failed to mention anything about her California Callousness, figuring that making her aware of her driving infractions would only escalate her more. I opted for, “The South has its you-know-whats just li
ke everywhere else.”
That blanket, non-committal comment seemed to cool her off, so she sat back in her seat, both hands on the wheel, puffing a lock of red hair out of her eyes with a quick breath.
“I say we ditch the park idea, and go to Umara’s,” I said. “I know it’s late, but Umara allows for late night visits if there’s an emergency.”
“A burned down apartment complex is definitely what I’d call an emergency. She’s off of Glenwood, right?” Without letting me answer, Stephanie turned left and continued on.
“But Zakhar could probably track us to Umara’s too right?” I said. “I mean, I know he doesn’t have the ankh, but he’s still a Shaman, and a good one at that.”
“He might,” she said. “But since he doesn’t have the ankh, I don’t think we have too much to worry about. You probably know better than me, but like, Umara’s house is like a fort when it comes to paranormals. It would take more than a Shaman to break into her place.”
Stephanie considered that for a minute. Every paranormal who’d been in Raleigh for longer than a couple of weeks knew that Umara, the fairy enchanter, was not easily breached. Paranormals had tried, and sadly, they were no longer with us.
“Your legs okay?” she asked.
“They feel wobbly, like I just worked out. Or more like I just got struck by lightning seven times in a row.” I shook them out, but they felt like they’d undergone paresthesia, no matter how I shifted in the seat.
Stephanie glanced at my legs, but had to keep her eyes on the road. The streets were empty this time of night, though I saw a few evening joggers running through the intersection of Hillsborough St. and Glenwood.
“The fatigue in your legs,” Stephanie said, gesturing to me, “it’s the body’s way of introducing itself.” She saw the confused look on my face. “When new tissues grows—tissue that your body didn’t, like, generate itself—the cells that were already there have to get to know one another. They’re learning how to work together.” She smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear.
Elemental Damage: Confessions of a Summoner Book 2 Page 3
