He strode to the center of the rock and tapped a toe on it. A crack opened and a hole swept wide until it was three feet across. A snap of his fingers and new flames burst up, crackling nicely.
“How many elements do you carry?” I asked, suddenly realizing I’d seen him use . . . all of them.
“All of them.” He didn’t look at me. “Which is why I am uniquely qualified to teach you, a witch who is strong in all five elements. At least, I think you are.”
“What do you mean you think?”
“I’ve not seen you use Spirit yet, and that element is the trickiest of all. Because you are a witch, a human, you are not going to be affected like some elementals are when you use it.”
“What do you mean?” I frowned at him. I’d never heard anything about Spirit being bad.
Then again, I hadn’t heard much about elementals until the last year.
“Spirit not used correctly by an elemental can cause a great deal of damage to the soul. Like I said, though, this isn’t an issue for you, so don’t worry about it.”
I shrugged. “Well, maybe I can’t use it. Four out of five ain’t bad.”
“There you go, trying to sound American again.” He smiled and I fought not to smile back. We were not friends. Even if he had saved me as a child. I did not want to like this man. “What do I have to do then to prove myself?”
“First, I am going to teach you something so you will trust me more. It will also allow you to leave whenever you want, and I will not be able to follow.” He raised an eyebrow. “Fair?”
This sounded too good to be true.
“Before I do any task? Without any expectation of a payment?” I wanted to be clear.
“Yes.”
He held out his hand. “We need skin to skin contact for you to feel what I’m doing. It will involve Spirit, so there is a chance you won’t be able to manage. There aren’t many witches who have that ability. In fact, none, besides your mother.”
I suspected he was talking about Jumping the Veil. Something Milly had learned from a demon, something destructive to the soul the more it was used. I swallowed hard. I would do this.
“Milly knew how,” I said.
He shook his head, a lock of dark hair sweeping over his brow. “No, she didn’t. She was powerful with spells and learned how to use them to bend people to her will, but it wasn’t using Spirit.” He still held his hand out to me.
“You aren’t talking about Jumping the Veil?”
He snorted. “Jumping the Veil has nothing to do with Spirit.”
I put my hand in his. What I expected perhaps was a rush of darkness, of power and anger. But it was just a hand, no different than my own.
“So . . . I’m confused. The only way to travel fast is to Jump the Veil.”
“Goddess, no.” He grunted. “That’s a trick of demons and weak witches and it damages the Veil as well as the soul doing the jumping. This is an elemental trick, only available to those who control Spirit at a visceral level.”
I blinked up at him, not sure I believed him. “Then why have I never heard of it before if it’s so much better than Jumping the Veil?”
He frowned. “Did you not hear me? It is an elemental tool. And not widely known even amongst them, seeing as most Spirit elementals are dead.”
Slowly, I understood. While I was familiar with elementals because of Lark, the supernatural world for the most part was not even aware they existed as a people. They were like a legend of legends, myth in the mist. They didn’t exist.
Except, of course, they did.
Excitement coursed through me. Learning was my drive. I wanted to know everything. To be strong in everything. To fill the role being offered to me. To be at Rylee’s side in all the fights she would face. “What do I have to do?”
“Nothing, just watch me and feel the sensations of what Spirit is doing. Then you will try to duplicate it.”
His hand became warm under my own and there was a flicker of sparkles around his arm. I narrowed my eyes and drew closer to watch them dance above his skin. Like tiny prisms of light, the color twinkled and moved.
“What are you looking at?”
I looked up at him. He had a deep wrinkle between his eyes as he frowned at me.
I frowned right back at him. “Watching the sparkles. You said to do that. You said to watch what you did, didn’t you? Or have you changed your mind?”
He tipped my head up with one finger under my chin and stared into my eyes. “What do you mean you can see the sparkles?”
I shrugged. “I can see the damn sparkles. How much more clear can I be?” I fought not to roll my eyes. Gods, it was like we were speaking two different languages.
He drew a slow breath. “Perhaps you have more of your father’s blood than I thought. I believe your step-aunt on his side can . . . see the elements at work.”
My heart picked up speed. “You mean I have another aunt, then?”
He gave a sharp nod. “She’s dangerous, though. You don’t want to let her know . . . that you have met me. That would not bode well for you.”
I wasn’t sure I understood. I shrugged. “The only elemental I know besides you is Lark, and she’s a friend.”
He tightened his grip on me. “Let’s start again.”
Once more the sparkles began to trickle around his hands. Not so many that I was overwhelmed with them but enough that I could tell something was happening. They were multi-hued and sparkled like diamonds across his skin. Slowly they spread up his arms.
“Does it always take this long?”
He grunted. “I’m going slow so you can see the process.”
“Oh.”
I concentrated on watching how the sparkles spread from him to me and how they slid through our skin, but still they glowed with a life of their own as if I were lit up from within. The light intensified and then there was a sudden pull through my center that spread through every pore of my skin. Not quite painful, but uncomfortable as though I was being pinched over my entire body, my skin tugged in every direction.
I couldn’t see anything for the space of perhaps five seconds, and in that time, I felt nothing. Nothing on my skin, I felt no breath in my lungs, no sensations at all. But before I could panic, my vision came back, and with it, all the sensations of existing. My hands were still in Raven’s, and we stood across the clearing from where we started.
“That is about as slow as I can take it without our bodies coming apart at the seams. Faster is easier. Be bold when you do it. This is all Spirit, nothing else.”
“And if I screw it up?” I couldn’t help the spurt of fear. Pulled apart at the seams was not something that would end well.
He grinned. “Well, you’ll end up in pieces all over the place. Think of where you want to go. You don’t have to know the place; you don’t even have to have ever been there before. Spirit knows all places, by all names; it is not as constricted as the Veil is in terms of moving around. So, you name the place in your mind however you see it, and it will take you there.”
I wasn’t sure if he was teasing or not. I decided to go with teasing, otherwise, I might not ever get up the guts to try it.
Raven let go of my hands and stepped away. “Go on your own. It’s easier that way.”
“What do you call this?” I was stalling, I knew that, but I needed a moment to gather myself. “I mean, Jumping the Veil is a bad thing, and this is not a bad thing which is great. But what do you call it?”
“We don’t call it anything.” He stared at me. “Not everything has a name, Pamela. Not everything can be defined by being put into a box or a category. This world and all it holds, all the magic in it is dependent on the person who perceives it.”
“So I can give it a name?”
He burst out laughing. “Fine, you give it a name. Once you do it.”
“And there is no distance that holds me back? Like water or mountains or something?” I was thinking of Rylee’s Tracking abilities. They’d been st
ymied by large amounts of water.
He shook his head. “None. Though, I wouldn’t recommend trying anything bigger than across the clearing first.”
No more stalling then. I closed my eyes and thought of the other side of the clearing, then paused for a moment. If this was real, I could go home . . . and tell Rylee I was sorry, then leave again before she could stop me.
I wasn’t sure I wanted that.
I wasn’t sure I could stop myself from going home for a minute just . . . because that was my family.
I closed my eyes and thought of not a place, but of Rylee. I wanted to go where Rylee was, wherever that was.
My body began to tingle as I fed the power of Spirit through my body the way I’d seen Raven do. That same sensation of being pulled apart and pinched at the same time. I pushed a flood of my strength into it and let go and thought of only one thing.
Rylee.
CHAPTER 5
RYLEE’S VOICE WAS the first thing I heard, before I opened my eyes. “Damn it to fucking hell, Liam! What do you mean she’s gone? That you let her go!”
“She’s not a child, Rylee, no matter her age!” Liam roared back.
I opened my eyes and promptly slammed them shut. Apparently taking the road directly to Rylee might not have been the best idea. Liam was naked from the waist up which gave me an impressive view of chiseled abs and chest. His pants were still undone, and Rylee stood in nothing but . . . well, nothing. A few minutes earlier and I might have caught them in bed doing things. Good lord, that would have been a clunker.
“I’m sorry,” I said with my eyes still shut. “I . . . didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Pamela, what the hell?” There was the shuffle of clothes and then a pair of arms wrapped around me. I hugged her back, put my face against her neck and breathed in the smell that was home. This was my family. She was the sister of my heart if not of blood.
“Rylee, I have to do this,” I said. “I have to go away again but I wanted to tell you I was sorry for leaving. And I hope you can trust me to do this.” The words tumbled out of me, one over the other.
“How did you . . . you Jumped the Veil?” She breathed the words, fear lacing them.
I opened my eyes as I shook my head. I pushed back a little from her, so my hands were on her arms still but not so tight. “No, I’m learning something else. A way to travel that doesn’t cost my soul like Jumping does.”
She stared at me, her eyes no longer the swirling tri-color but instead a solid blend of three colors. Mostly green and gold with a fleck of deep chocolate here and there. “What do you mean?”
“I have a new teacher, and he’s taught me this. I wanted to come back and tell you that I don’t know how long I’ll be away,” I said softly, not wanting to disappoint her.
“Pamela, the world is shifting again, something bad is coming. You need to be here with us,” Liam said. I looked at him and nodded.
“I know. That’s why I left. That’s why I have to go back to him while I still have a chance to learn.”
She frowned and a bit of her fangs peeked out from under her top lip. I shot another look to Liam.
He gave me a half grin. “I’m sticking my neck out for you, kid. I think if you need to do this, just be careful. And come home.”
“Yeah, I could see you were backing me.” I broke into a sudden fit of nervous giggles. “Can you imagine if I’d showed up five minutes earlier?”
He blanched and closed his eyes. “That would have been . . . awkward.”
“Yeah, cause all she would have seen was your bare ass in the air.” Rylee shook her head, and then turned back to me. I stepped away, though, knowing my time was almost up. If I could figure out how to Jump to where a person was, surely Raven would know how to do it and he could come looking for me. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to meet Rylee.
“I have to go back.”
“Pamela, don’t. We’ll find the training you need here,” Rylee said, and I could see the worry in her eyes.
“Thank you. But I can’t refuse this chance. And Marco and I have been looking. There is no one else.”
I fed the magic, the feel of Spirit humming through my body with no issue, no break in concentration. I thought of Raven and as my body pulled apart there was a last sensation.
The house, the place where my family hid, shook. Boomed as though a bomb had exploded right on top of it. I saw Rylee and Liam spin around as my body dissolved.
No!
I blinked and I was back in the clearing where Raven stood only a few feet from me.
“What the hell?” He had a hand on me, his eyes wide, and I wasn’t sure if it was anger or concern or both.
“I have to go back.” I tried to shake him off and he yanked me hard, forcing me to face him.
“Where did you go?”
“I went home.”
His eyes widened farther. “You . . . what?”
“I had to tell Rylee. I’ve been feeling bad about leaving the way I did. I have to go back, something happened as I Rode Spirit back here.”
A snarl escaped him. “Stay here. I’ll check on them.”
I grabbed his arm which seemed to freeze us both. “And if I don’t?”
“Then I will teach you nothing more,” he snapped as he jerked his arm from my hand. A blur of his cloak and he was gone.
I stood in the clearing, alone and unsure. I could go back. I could ignore his warning and bank on him wanting the sword bad enough that he would forgive me.
I paced from tree line to tree line. I would wait. He would come back, and if I had to, I would leave then. But what . . . what if I went back close enough to the house that he couldn’t see me? Then I could Ride Spirit back to the forest here and say I had just been wandering about. Would it work?
Only one way to find out.
I breathed out and imagined the side of the house next door to Liam’s place. Though Raven said I didn’t have to be that specific, it couldn’t hurt.
That’s what I thought.
The world went from the peaceful quiet of the forest clearing to an explosion of heat, screams, and the smell of burning flesh and the hot ash of something I couldn’t put my finger on. The neighbor’s house was not there. A burning hole behind me was all that was left. Smoke swirled up in a funnel that covered my vision here and there, leaving the scene nothing but bits and pieces.
I dropped to my hands and knees and scooted forward, using my magic to bring fresh air to my face and clear the path. I pushed through the smoke, praying I wasn’t too late.
Between one step of my hands and knees and the next I was against Liam’s house. It still stood, though the side was charred and some of the siding was missing. There was shouting and yelling, Rylee above it all.
“Mai, get the babies out!”
The ogress, Mai, who was wet nurse to the ogre triplets, burst out the front door and ran with two babies in her arms. With her was Belinda and Levi, the two new kids—partial elementals—half-breeds. Belinda carried the third baby, Bam, holding him tightly to her chest.
They bolted down the street. I watched them go, urging them faster.
Two men stepped out from between houses further in the subdivision. They had guns and leveled them at Mai. Levi lifted his hands but nothing happened.
I stood and flicked my fingers at the men, beckoned the earth up under their feet. They were flung back as Mai and the others raced past them, the precious cargo safe—at least for the moment. I watched until they were out of sight, well out of the subdivision.
What was happening? What supernatural could cause destruction like this besides a witch? I thought the strong ones were gone.
All around me were smoke and shouting. The humans who lived around us streamed out of their homes, crying and running for their lives. The subdivision was absolute and utter chaos.
I lifted my head and stared into the sky. The shriek of a jet plane shot overhead, a boom of the aftermath from its passage rolling through the air.
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The humans? They were the ones doing this, but why?
As I stared, I saw something growing larger in the sky above me. A dark shape shooting down, faster and faster.
A bomb.
Holy fucking hell, it was coming straight for us.
I lifted my hands but before I could do anything, the bomb froze hundreds of feet in the air and exploded. Shrapnel spewed out in a burst like fireworks gone wrong. Around me the bits and pieces landed, sizzling hot and searing the grass at my feet.
“Clear your people out, Huntress,” Raven said, his words not loud but still resonating in the air. “I can stop some of the bombs, but not all of them. The end of an era is coming, and cities are not the place to be.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
I crept along the edge of the house and peered around it. Rylee stood with a sword in one hand, and Marcella in the other on her hip. The jackal Nigel was at her feet, a low growl on his lips.
“An elemental who hides himself is nothing but trouble, Rylee,” Nigel said. “I know. I catered to their asses long enough.”
Liam stood at Rylee’s side in a similar position to her, only he had a gun and Zane in his free arm. They presented quite the picture, and my heart swelled with love and fear at the same time. Not for them against Raven, but against everything else. If Raven was right and it was the humans, would there be any safe place?
“This is the human government, you know that,” Raven said.
“Why would they bomb here? We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Liam said. “The government might be going to hell in a handbasket but they aren’t mindless. They don’t do things for no reason, and bombing their own civilians—”
“Because there is always a supernatural influence in the politics of the humans,” Raven said. “And they are coming for the last of the supernaturals. They will cover it with all manner of lies, but you know I speak the truth. They are coming for us all.”
Rylee took a step closer to him, her sword tip raised. “You’re the fucker who lured Pamela away, aren’t you?”
“Clever, Huntress,” he murmured, “I am training her. She needs me.”
Pamela (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 3) Page 4
