“No,” I said with a smile.
“No, I mean, look at what he’s be able to do. He’s getting stronger or those things are. First he’s able to nearly throw you off that balcony and then he’s able to break that window in the police station and those are supposed to be bullet proof and then he blew out a goddamn wall in the station.” He took a deep breath. “If he tries to hurt you again…”
“Listen, I promise, if he does, I won’t try reasoning with him this time, okay?” I said, dipping my head so I could look up into his eyes. “If he tries to hurt me again, I’ll fight back, with all that I’ve got. You know I can take care of myself, you were there last fall.”
“Yeah, I was,” he granted me a sad smile and nodded his head. “You were pretty amazing.” He pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and squeezing almost too tightly. “It just seems every time you have to deal with something like this, I’m sitting on the sidelines watching. I hate that.”
“Last time you were bound and stuffed inside a duffle bag,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“And this time I’m watching over some jerk’s house.”
“Not necessarily, you’re just doing this for me right now in case Jeremy shows up and if he does, then you’ll be here and you can help if I need it.”
“That’s true,” he said reluctantly. “But if you find him somewhere else, then here I am sitting on my ass, twiddling my thumbs.”
“Jensen…” I started to say something to comfort him, but the words died on my lips.
“God, listen to me,” he said suddenly, letting go of me and pushing me back gently. “Whining like a child, expecting you to stroke my ego when you’re trying to save the world again.”
“I’m not trying to save the world,” I said a little confused.
“You know what I mean,” he shook his head sharply and rolled his shoulders. He gripped me by the shoulders and leaned down a little to look me in the eye. “I’m holding you to your word. If you need to, you fight, fight as hard as you can.”
“I will,” I said, feeling my throat tighten.
It was time to cast again. Because I had promised my mom that I wasn’t going anywhere but to Jodi’s house, I couldn’t go back to my place for supplies, so we’d have to do with the backup supplies I always kept in the trunk of my car. We debated where to go, but ultimately decided that, since we were dealing with Air Elementals, our favorite spot, being the beach, just wouldn’t be conducive to our efforts. So we were headed to a forest. Although, it really wasn’t as much of a forest as a wooded area of a park we used to play in as children. This was the same park we first discovered faeries were real and had laid magic into the ground without ever knowing what we were doing.
“So what’s the plan?” Steven asked from his usual spot in the backseat. “We still don’t know where Jeremy is or how to get rid of these things.”
“That is the plan: trying to locate Jeremy, maybe bind him, or unbind him,” I said, turning onto the darkened street leading towards the park.
“What do you mean unbind him?” Steven asked.
“Well, it’s just a thought, but these things seem to have some control over Jeremy, so he might be bound to them. If so, we’ll have to try to break that bond before we can attack the Sylphs,” I explained. “If we try to attack those things while they’re still connected to Jeremy, we may hurt him.”
“So?” Steven said with a little extra venom in his voice.
“He doesn’t mean any harm, Steven,” Jodi chimed in for me. “He’s just in over his head. Poor kid’s been beaten down his whole life and now finally has some power over people. We agreed that if he was in his right mind when the Sylphs showed up, he wouldn’t have let them override him.”
“You agreed. I still have my doubts.”
“Good, then you can be the resident cynic this time around,” I said as I pulled the car up against a curb and cut the engine. “It’ll be a nice change in the line up.” I smiled at Jodi who punched me lightly in the shoulder before we climbed out of the car. I popped the latch on the trunk and pulled out the backpack that held our back-up supplies and pushed the trunk lid closed before leading the way into the park, towards the thick shadows that the tree line cast, cutting out all moon and star light.
“Well this doesn’t have horror movie written all over it,” Steven said as we stepped into the wooded area. All city sounds had faded away as if we had walked into a room with no windows and shut the door behind us. I hesitated a few moments, letting my night vision kick in before I continued walking. I felt my magic inside me shift automatically, swirling in my core before plummeting down into the ground only to soar back up through me in a constant revolution. My body was alive with the new energy; this place knew me, recognized me, and welcomed me back. A sudden, but gentle breeze kicked up around us, rushing through our hair and over our skin.
“Good to be home, isn’t it?” I said over my shoulder to Jodi and she smiled brightly at me with a quick nod. In that moment, she looked five-years-old again.
We walked through the trees, carefully picking our way over upraised roots and bushes, until we were so deep we couldn’t pick out a street lamp or house no matter which direction we looked. I led us a few more yards in until I found a clearing wide enough to cast our circle, finally setting my backpack on the ground and motioning to Jodi and Steven to get to work.
Usually when we drew our circles we did so with our athames, but we each only owned one sacrificial knife and therefore had no back up stashed in the backpack. An athame is almost purely symbolic; it is used to direct magical energies, cut herbs for potions, and cut open circles when we needed to pass in and out of them without breaking the circle. We never actually sacrificed anything. So tonight I fished out the container of salt from my back pack and handed it to Jodi to draw the first circle.
As a safety precaution, I preferred to work within two circles, one inside the other. It makes it that much harder for outside energies and creatures to break through. Once, when we were casting at the beach a few years ago, we had cast a double circle so we could practice wind spells with Jodi and an Undine – a water elemental – tried to shimmy up the beach and into our circle. She made it within the first circle, but not past the second one, becoming trapped between the two circles. Since that night, I always insisted on double circles.
Jodi stretched out both arms, her far one holding out the salt and Steven holding her free hand with his outstretched arm, ensuring they were far enough away from the center where I was crouched pulling out supplies so that we would have enough room to work. Once Jodi had sealed her circle, Steven took the salt from her and began walking his circle, murmuring the incantation for protection as he walked, letting the salt fall from his hand in a shower of white onto the ground.
I was pulling out the candles, silver bowl, water bottle, pouch full of blessed dirt, a red candle, and a feather, each representing one of the four elements, when I felt the air shift around me and a jolt of energy race up my spine and I knew Steven had sealed his circle. I pulled out some black chalk and parchment paper, setting them in front of me, and folded up the now empty backpack and tucked it under me to keep it out of the way. I settled myself on the ground as comfortably as I could and motioned for Jodi and Steven to do the same. We clasped hands to form a circle out of our arms and closed our eyes, Jodi and Steven bowing their heads as I lifted mine to the sky.
“In this our hour of need we call upon the Four Corners, help us this night to set things right. I invoke our magical abilities, summoning Terra, Earth Element of the North, Fae, Air Element of the East, Drake, Fire Element of the South.” I said the words loud clear into the woods and felt the energy inside our circles rise around us, swirling with power. It cut through our bodies as it danced around us, leaving more and more power behind inside us each time it passed until I could feel my fingers tingling with the magic waiting to be used. I lowered my face slowly, easing my eyes open and looked upon
Jodi and Steven and saw them as their true selves, as Fae and Drake. Fae glowed with a white electric light while Drake seemed to burn with warmth and molten red light.
“I call upon the Faerie Folk,” Jodi began, keeping her eyes closed, but turned her head up to the sky just as I had done. “Join us, help us, we are familiars and beg for guidance.” I could hear a rustling in the trees around us, but not so much as a whisper inside the circle.
“We call for ability by the power of Mother and Earth,” I said as I let go of Jodi and Steven and reached out for the pouch of dirt and poured it on the ground in front of us.
“We call for guidance by the power of Intuition and Air,” Jodi said as she laid the feather in its appropriate spot on our makeshift altar.
“We call for aid by the power of Summer and Fire,” Steven said as he reached for the red candle and brought it to his lips, blowing gently on the wick, causing it to ignite. He set it carefully into the center of the pile of dirt I had poured.
“We call for insight by the power of Invention and Water,” we said in unison as I opened the bottle of water and Jodi and Steven held the silver bowl in their hands. I poured the water into the bowl and let them set it in its place. As it touched the ground, the flame on the candle flickered wildly and the feather lifted into the air a few inches as the water in the bowl began to swirl in a tiny funnel and the dirt began to swirl up around the candle it held in place.
We watched in silence as the four items reacted to our spell, growing more and more volatile until the water was swirling above the edge of the bowl and the dirt encased the candle, leaving only the now five inch tall flame visible. The feather floated higher into the air until it was hovering above our heads on a breeze none of us could feel. Suddenly a crack of thunder sounded overhead making all three of us flinch and duck our heads as a small bolt of lightning hit the feather, but when it fell back to the ground, it landed with a hard thud.
We opened our eyes to see a crude knife sticking out of the ground where the feather should have fallen. The water and dirt were settled in the bowl and on the ground and the flame on the candle flickered gently, as if nothing happened. We sat there in silence for a few more moments to be sure nothing else happened before both Jodi and I reached for the hilt of the knife simultaneously. Our fingers touched the metal at the same time, jolting us both so hard we cried out in shock as we snatched our hands away. But when we looked back, the knife was gone again, not even leaving the feather in its place. My fingers tingled where they had touched the knife and when I looked down at them, I saw a residue on the tips of my fingers.
“I think that was iron,” Steven whispered as he leaned over and looked at my hand.
“Of course,” Jodi said, looking at her own fingers and the metallic residue on them.
“Why of course?” Steven asked.
“Because iron works against Faeries,” I said, looking up from my hand to Jodi, who was nodding her agreement.
“But you said these weren’t Faeries,” Steven turned his confused face to me.
“They aren’t, but they have so many qualities that are similar to Faeries that they are often confused with Faeries. It stands to reason…” I looked back down at my hand.
“That iron will work against them,” Jodi finished for me.
“Then why did they take the knife back?” Steven asked.
“They didn’t. Fae and I have the iron in us now.” I looked up to Jodi to see if she agreed with me.
“To use with our magics to fight against the Sylphs,” Jodi said with another nod.
“I think so too,” I said, calling up a tendril of energy and pushing it into my hand, directing it out towards the silver bowl in front of me and watched as the side began to melt against the shot of power.
It took us a few minutes to regain our composure after that. It is a rare and special thing when you can actually conjure a tangible object, even if it did disappear just moments later. I reached out for Jodi and Steven’s hands before saying, “Okay, now we need to try and find Jeremy.”
“How are we going to do that?” Steven asked, keeping his voice at a whisper, as if afraid his doubt would scare off whatever was helping us.
“Using Fae’s power,” I said, using Jodi’s elemental name.
“My power, what do you mean? How?” Fae turned terrified eyes to me.
“Drake will act as an anchor and you and I will summon up a searching wind and try to hunt him out, like a bloodhound,” I explained.
“Whoa, why am I the anchor?” Steven asked quickly, sounding more than a little afraid.
“What’s wrong? You’ve anchored before for both of us.” I furrowed my brow at Steven, feeling the tension in his hand.
“Yeah, but these things…”
“Honey, we’re in the circle, remember?”
“Oh yeah, good point,” Steven said with a nod and I was glad to see and feel him relax. “Okay, go.”
“Wait!” Jodi said quickly as if on that simple command I would spring us into the air without preparing her. “What makes you think my power will work? You didn’t say anything about this before.”
“I know, but inspiration just hit, probably the magic we raised in the circle,” I said, but saw that my explanation wasn’t enough for Jodi. “I just had a thought that if these things really are Air elementals, then we should be able to track them with Air. What faster way to do that than with wind? Especially if they’re hiding him with air.”
“Yeah…okay,” Jodi said reluctantly.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to be guiding you and Drake is going to be our anchor. It’ll be safe, I promise.” I gave her hand a squeeze.
“And why is it such a good idea that I anchor?” Drake asked, drawing my attention back to him. “I mean, you’re the stronger anchor.”
“That may be, but Fire feeds off Air. If things get out of control, you can invoke your power, guided by me to Fae, and we can pull her back.” I waited until Steven nodded his agreement before turning my attention back to the center of the circle.
***
We worked quickly to clean up the altar and banish the circles when we were done. Jodi and Steven each banished their own circles, walking in the opposite directions they had gone to cast the circle, muttering the incantation and thanks needed to properly erase the magical barriers the circles created. I said a blessing for the ground where we had worked and specifically on the point where the iron blade had struck, hoping to heal any damage it may have caused. But, as I laid my hand on the ground, there was no answer of burning pain, only the rich healthy soil beneath my palm. I breathed a sigh of relief and swung the backpack over my shoulder and led us out of the wooded glen.
I had guided Jodi into a trancelike state, Steven and I still holding each of her hands as I did so. I closed my eyes and summoned my Second Sight and saw Jodi’s form alive with an electric white light and Steven’s warm, red fire off in the corner of my eye. Vaguely I was aware of a phantom weight on my back, but I tried not to pay it any attention, as whatever my higher self was wouldn’t help us right now. Carefully we focused Jodi’s energy to a point in the center of the three of us, building on it until we felt a breeze course around us, fluttering through our hair, skimming over our bare arms, looking for a way out of the circle. That was the tricky part; letting the energy out of the circle while simultaneously keeping any unwanted things out. I peeled back the layers of our circle until a small opening appeared and the breeze flew out immediately, as if sucked out. I built back the layers as quickly as I could while Jodi and Steven focused their energies on keeping the seeking wind nearby.
When I was ready, I opened the channel between Jodi and me and we sent our energies into the wind, allowing it to grow until we neared the point where we wouldn’t be able to control it anymore and then sent it out, whipping through the city, searching for Jeremy’s signature. It took over an hour for us to find any hint of Jeremy’s whereabouts, more than once finding a signature and only coming to rea
lize that it was a place Jeremy had been, not currently was. More than once I had to summon more power from my link to the ground we were sitting on and feed it to Jodi to keep her nerves calm and give her patience. Finally, when Steven was just about to pull us back, we felt the unmistakable pull that told us we had found Jeremy. He was at Jensen’s house.
Once we were out of the woods and back inside the car, I threw the gear into drive and was tearing down the street, steering with one hand and dialing Jensen’s cell phone number with the other. He answered on the first ring. After I told him what we knew, he was off the phone and running before I could tell him we were on our way. Jensen didn’t have a car with him and I debated going to get him first or just driving to his house, where his mother was alone. Jeremy didn’t live far from Jensen and I knew he’d want us to get to his mother as fast as possible and, with that thought, I slammed the gas pedal to the floor and raced to his house.
Chapter 16
As I drove, I said an incantation under my breath, hearing Jodi and Steven catch on and repeating it each once, binding the spell three times. It was more of a charm than a spell, but it made the caster harder to see and therefore my car less noticeable. Not so much that other cars would hit me, but enough that my speeding and weaving through traffic could go unnoticed by a hidden cop. It was a nifty little tool I liked to use when I was running late or at the end of the month when I knew there were likely more cops on the road than at any other time.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the sleek, dark lines of my car were blurred and gave me a small pain in my head if I tried to look at them too hard. Satisfied that the tripled casting had worked, I focused my attention forward and getting to Jensen’s house in one piece. I knew Jensen’s mom was home alone; Jensen being on a stake out for us, his brother Ian being in prison, and their father out of town at a convention in San Francisco. My gut twisted against my spine at the thought of that sweet, tiny woman at the hands of Jeremy in his tortured state of mind.
Elemental Series Omnibus Edition Books 1-4 Page 48
