“I saw him running this way,” I said, my words halting. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll lose him again and I can’t risk searching for him like that again.”
“Why,” Jodi coughed, drawing in a ragged breath, “why are we chasing him, why is this so important?”
“Well,” I said before swallowing, “he was so upset he summoned that energy without thinking about it. What if,” now I coughed and breathed painfully, “what if he unleashes it?”
“It was just faeries, Shay,” Jodi coughed again and I knew if we didn’t catch him soon we weren’t going to be able to keep up this pace. If you’re not being chased for your life, it’s hard to keep running past your breaking point.
“No, Jodi, it wasn’t just faeries, it was hundreds of faeries, hundreds, Jodi,” I panted, rounding the corner of a block instinctively. “Who can call hundreds so easily? You can’t, I can’t! We’ve only done it once and that was combining our powers and with quite a bit of effort.”
“Okay, but why are we so worried about this?” Faeries are Jodi’s favorite Air Elementals. She often called them to her when we were working, but we had a select few that we trusted to help us when needed. I had always had a relationship with faeries as a child. Earth being my element to call, I was often spending days in forests and fields where faeries dwelled and, once they recognized me as a kindred spirit, they took a liking to me. But faeries, like any elemental being, are unpredictable and just as individual people are smarter than a crowd of people, so goes the same with faeries, imps, gnomes, and goblins.
“Because, what could he have done or promised them to get so many of them to answer to his call?” I saw a figure of a man up ahead of us, a block and a half away, clearly running in the same direction we were, huddled upon himself. “You know how volatile faeries can be, and heaven forbid we’re wrong, it could be something else, something worse, posing as faeries to gain his trust.” I could feel my side splitting open like a wound, battery acid churning in my veins, my feet growing heavier.
“Okay, look, I can’t take this,” Jodi said and she stopped so abruptly that she nearly stumbled forward.
“What’re you doing?” I forced myself to stop, shocks running up my shins, and I knew I would be paying for that mistake later.
“Jeremy!” Jodi screamed out, her voice cutting through the silence of the deserted street like a siren. I actually flinched and tried to cover my ears from the shock of it. I turned and looked down the street towards Jeremy and saw him stop so quickly that he too nearly fell. “Jeremy, wait!” Jodi called out again, waving one hand up in the air frantically. “Go!” Jodi said with a shove to my shoulder and we were running again.
Jeremy hesitated, clearly confused, and we were able to get within thirty feet of him before he could start off again. “No, no, no! Jeremy wait, we just want to talk to you for a second,” I yelled after him and, with one last burst of speed, I darted forward and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, pulling him backwards into me as I stopped.
“Get off me!” Jeremy yelled frantically, waving his arms around and batting at me like a frightened child. “Let go!” Jeremy’s voice cut through me, making me cringe, and that same breeze that had swirled through the coffee shop earlier came up with such a force, swirling around the two of us, I felt caught up in a vortex. I heard the thrumming of the wings and felt them beat at my face and tangle in my hair. These were not my faeries, nor were they Jodi’s. I couldn’t recognize their magic. I flung a tendril of energy out to Jodi, anchoring on to her magic and opened the channel between us.
I felt the building of our air magic surrounding the vortex Jeremy and I were caught in, pushing it down and away from us, like soothing an angry cat. It began to fade and my hearing came back in stages as the wings began to dissipate and Jeremy stopped struggling against me. He turned wide and frightened eyes to me. “What’re you doing?” he asked, his voice hardly more than a whisper, but as soon as the fight went out of him so did the energy of the vortex.
It fell away from us just as suddenly as it had come, leaving Jeremy and I standing free on the sidewalk in the middle of a mundane neighborhood. Jodi reached out physically for me, taking hold of my hand and pulling me back towards her, but more importantly away from Jeremy. She stood slightly behind me but to the side so the line of her body touched mine completely. I could feel the tension singing through her body like the strumming of a violin. Something’s not right. I don’t trust him. If he uses those things again, I want us together. It’ll make it easier to call my magic. Jodi’s yellow thoughts were as tight as the muscles in her body.
Those things? You didn’t recognize them as faeries either, did you? I asked her, keeping my eyes on Jeremy.
No, I’m not sure what they were.
“How did you do that?” Jeremy’s strangled whisper was hard to hear.
“We actually wanted to ask you the same thing.” I said carefully, suddenly thinking of a trapped rabbit in the woods, not wanting to make any sudden movements to scare it away.
“Did what?” he asked.
“Oh, come on!” Jodi said impatiently. I reached back and took her hand in mine and gave it a squeeze.
Don’t, he’ll run. I thought at her. “Jeremy,” I said to bring his attention back to me. “Jeremy, were you trying to do anything back there, in the coffee shop when your brother upset you?” I was trying to be careful with my choice of words; I could still feel the stinging anger and humiliation coming off of him in hot waves. I very much wanted to call up a soothing breeze through my connection with Jodi, but I was afraid Jeremy would know what we were doing.
“I was trying to read a poem,” he said, sounding very much like a petulant child.
“No, I know that,” I said patiently, “I mean after you stopped, when you got upset.”
“I’m always upset,” he said, but he’d said it so quietly I think he was talking more to himself just then. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t care, but you’re not going to do that weird shit to me again.” The strength came back into his voice and he nearly spit the last word at me like a curse before he turned on his heel and started to go.
“Wait, okay, um…” Jodi had started to speak, letting go of my hand and reaching towards him. I could feel the electric pulse of her energy start to bite against my skin, she was calling her magic, maybe to reach out to the first kindred spirit she’d found since I helped bring her into her magic, but I didn’t trust Jeremy just yet.
“Don’t,” I whispered to her, grabbing her upper arm and keeping her against me. I opened my channel to her and started flooding her electric magic with my own grounding earth magic.
“What are you doing?” Jeremy asked again and when we turned to look at him he was running his hands up and down his arms like he was cold, but in the warm summer night he was already wearing a jacket. Jodi’s electricity had touched him too and he was trying to chase away the goose bumps that had risen on his skin. But before either of us could say anything, Jeremy suddenly shook his head, fear and confusion plain on his face. He turned and ran. This time we didn’t try to stop him.
We walked quickly back to the coffee shop, huddled close together as if it were a cold winter night. We were arm in arm, more for safety than anything else, but also for comfort. I could feel the tension in Jodi’s body almost vibrating against mine. “Okay, so what the hell? We ran like a mile to catch him and then you just let him go? Nothing, no questions answered, no explanation!” Jodi said furiously.
“I know, I know, but you saw him, he was completely freaked. First his brother humiliates him for the millionth time in public, then the… well… whatever the hell those things were, come on him and we chase him down, he gets caught up in a vortex of those things and then we put on a magic show for him.” I paused to swallow and lick my suddenly dry lips. The parking lot was only a block away now so I stopped, pulling on Jodi’s arm to stop her with me. “I think if we’d’ve forced him to stay there and talk to us, he wo
uld’ve shut down and not only not told us anything, but probably would’ve thought we were trying to trick him or something.”
“Yeah, maybe. So you don’t think those were faeries?” Jodi asked, looking a little confused.
“I think they sounded like faeries, yeah, but have you ever seen faeries behave that way? It was crazy!” I shuddered at the memory of so many tiny elemental beings swirling around me.
“Well, if you endanger one of their own or invade their home, yeah, they get really, really pissed off. When faeries are mad, it’s not a good thing to be around,” she said with a shrug. I knew she was right, we’d seen it happen before, but they became mischievous, irksome, not some swirling vortex of anger.
“Yeah… I’ve just never seen anything like this before.” I looked off in the distance, not really seeing the street around me.
“There is always the possibility that he’s found a new or different kind of faerie, one we haven’t come across out here yet,” Jodi offered. I considered that. It had possibilities. I had no idea how many species of faerie existed. Maybe he had called faeries from the land of his heritage? It was worth looking into.
“Well then, I guess I know how I’m spending my weekend,” I said with a sigh, having looked forward to a calm, mundane weekend. That was out the window now.
“If the store is trashed, you can’t go there,” Jodi said.
“Yeah, but I can still go to the regular bookstore. They’ll have plenty of books on folklore and the occult section has books on faeries,” I said.
“None as good as what Deb’s got in the library.”
“True, but it’s a start.”
We started walking again and let the discussion lie, not wanting to be overheard. The bright lights of the coffee shop cut through the dim light of the parking lot long before we reached it. All the boys were waiting for us outside. Jensen, Jay and Steven all looking more than a little annoyed with us. We’d have some explaining to do later when Anthony wasn’t around. I knew Jodi could handle Jay on her own, so we didn’t worry about concocting a story between us before we closed the distance between us and our waiting men.
“What was that about?” Jay asked belligerently as soon as we hit the sidewalk where they were waiting.
“What?” Jodi asked and I could hear the defensive tone creeping into her voice immediately.
“You guys just take off in the middle of the night, by yourselves, down the street? You don’t say where you’re going or if you’ll be back?” Jay’s voice rose a little and he was swiveling his head back and forth between the two of us. Jay and I had been best friends in elementary school until I had met Jodi, but I still thought of him as my little brother, even though at times, like this, he would behave like an older, over-protective brother.
“And what of it?” Jodi countered. I stayed quiet. I would let them have the boyfriend, girlfriend argument first, unless Jay forced me to join in.
“What if something had happened to you? We didn’t know where you were going!” Now Jay wasn’t even worried about the level of his voice.
“What, because we can’t take care of ourselves, is that it?” Jodi asked. She had cocked one hip to the side, her hand resting on it. I felt more than saw the three other men start to edge away from Jay, as if they didn’t want to be associated with his tactic.
“Dude, that is not what I said!”
“Then what did you say, Jay?”
“I just mean that you should’ve told me where you were going, or brought us along or something.” Jay’s voice was a few octaves higher pitched than normal now.
“Because we can’t take care of ourselves,” Jodi said matter-of-factly.
“Ugh! You are a girl!” Jay said in a frustrated growl.
“Nice of you to notice,” Jodi said sarcastically.
“You two go running off in the middle of the night, you don’t think some guy just might try to attack you? Are you stupid or something?” I watched as Jay’s face paled as soon as the words left his mouth. I knew if it had been physically possible, he would have snatched the words out of the air and shoved them back down his throat before we could hear them.
“Excuse me?” I said, very carefully. I felt my eyes narrow and knew I had instinctively adopted the same angry girl pose that Jodi was standing in.
“You did not just call us stupid,” Jodi said, her voice dropping dangerously low. I knew the three other men had finally stepped completely away, not wanting to be in the line of fire or even associated with him.
“Um… no… that’s not what…” Jay stammered, putting his hands up in front of him as if to ward us off.
“Don’t say that’s not what you said again, Jay,” I said, leaning towards him menacingly. “Look, we’re not stupid, if you didn’t realize that. There was something we needed to do, it’s none of your damn business whether we tell you or not. You’re no one’s keeper, Jay. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Jay said a little lamely.
“Next time, you may just try something like, ‘Hey, you had me worried. Please don’t run off like that again,’” Jodi said, condescension dripping from her words like venom.
“We’re big girls who can take care of ourselves. You’ll do well to remember that it’s your ass we’ve saved more than once, Jay,” I said, wanting to remind Jay that we had more than once in the last couple of years had to go get him out of parties that he didn’t belong at before the cops showed up to raid them. That was the one bad thing about going to a different school; he was making different friends, friends we didn’t like. But we didn’t try to act like his mothers and tell him whom he could and could not hang out with; we just didn’t go with him when we didn’t like the company he was keeping.
“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to piss you guys off.”
“Well, good job,” Jodi snapped at him. “You know what?” she asked, turning to look at Steven and Anthony. “I think I’d like someone else to give me a ride home. Do you gentlemen mind?”
“Yeah, sure, hon,” Steven said quickly, almost tripping over the words in his haste to answer, and to get out of here if I wasn’t mistaken.
“Oh, babe, come on!” Jay said, his hands reaching out again towards her, pleading with her.
“No, Jay, I don’t think I need to be around you just now.” Jodi shook her head stubbornly and crossed her arms over her chest before walking to stand next to Steven.
“Shay, help me out here,” Jay turned his pleading eyes to me and I couldn’t help but smirk at him. Cold, I know.
“Seriously? You scold us like you’re our father, Jodi wants some space from you so she doesn’t do or say anything one or both of you may regret in the morning, and you expect me to come to your rescue? Really, Jay, really?” I was still standing in a very defensive pose and leaning towards him, invading his personal space. He didn’t argue with me, but he did turn to Jodi, who just turned from him quickly, marching off into the parking lot towards Steven’s car. Jay hurried after her like a lost puppy and we all watched as they drifted out of earshot but we could still read their body language. He was still begging for forgiveness and for her to go home with him, but she was resolutely saying no.
“Okay, well, this has been fun,” Steven said in an overly cheery voice. Anthony laughed uncomfortably, looking between me, Steven, and Jensen.
“Have fun with your headache,” I said with a smile and walked over to give Steven a hug good-bye. If Jodi doesn’t tell you, I will tomorrow, I thought at him before breaking the connection to say good-bye to Anthony and walk with Jensen to his car. We walked past Jodi and Jay on our way to Jensen’s car. Jay was still trying his hardest to apologize but Jodi was plainly ignoring him. Most days they make a good couple, but on those days that they didn’t, well, you took cover. Jay wasn’t the brightest out of our group and he didn’t always think about what he was going to say and Jodi was pretty high-maintenance when it came to being a girlfriend. Hell, she was a little high-maintenance when it came to just being a frie
nd. But Jay needed a strong, opinionated girlfriend because he could be such a pushover.
Jay was always so worried about everyone else liking him that he almost always got himself into trouble when he didn’t have someone around to take care of him, which is why he very quickly became like a little brother to me in elementary school. He thought the best way to keep from being beaten up by the bullies was to entertain them and do their bidding. I caught him getting ready to pull the fire alarm one day and stopped him. I convinced the other boys that a teacher was on their way down the hall and they ran off, leaving Jay behind to take any punishment for being out of class without a hall pass. There was no teacher, but from that day on Jay was my shadow.
But even though Jay needed a strong, opinionated girlfriend and they had been dating for about three years now, he still hadn’t learned when to shut up and that was the cause of most of their arguments. He was that guy who answered his girlfriend honestly if she asked if a pair of pants made her look fat. Enough said.
Jensen opened my car door for me and I slid into the passenger seat and snuggled down into it, just now realizing how exhausted I really was. It had been a long, emotionally draining day and that mile run hadn’t helped. Jensen got in and started up the car. The engine was amazingly quiet compared to the roaring beast that was my Chevy Camaro.
“So,” Jensen said carefully as he pulled out of the parking space. “Are you gonna tell me what happened or are you gonna pick a fight with me like Jodi?” That caught my attention. I turned and looked at him, slack jawed and wide eyed.
“Excuse me?”
“You gotta admit she did kinda over react,” he said with a laugh.
“No, I don’t gotta do nothing. You don’t know Jay like we do. For him to imply that we can’t take care of ourselves, or at the very least need a big, strong man to protect us and to argue about it is stupid. Jodi and I have pulled his ass out of the fire more times than I care to count.” I felt my temper like the first stirrings of water just about to boil. If he pressed this, we were going to have our own fight.
Elemental Series Omnibus Edition Books 1-4 Page 31
