You see her too, don’t you? Jodi’s thoughts came to me and I knew I didn’t even have to ask Steven if he could, knowing he couldn’t.
Yeah, yeah, I see her, Fae, I answered her.
But is it like you really see her or more that you just know she’s there? I felt Jodi’s confusion more than heard it in her words.
You’re sharing my vision. I’m getting it from his emotions and, since the link is so strong right now… I felt the understanding echo back from her without her saying anything. I turned my full attention back on Jeremy. I summoned up more power from the ground and gave a little mental warning to Jodi and Steven to keep their heads in the game before I spoke, pouring the power into my words.
“Jeremy, I know you’re not weak,” I coated my words with the power and my Empathy, willing him to trust me. “That’s why I wanted to help you. I’ve never lied or tricked you…” I pushed a little harder with the last part and was rewarded by the change in his eye; I struck something inside him. “She’s tricked you, hasn’t she?”
He hesitated and I knew he wanted to answer me, but there was something stopping him. He was afraid of the Sylph that was nuzzling him. I drew on my lines between Jodi and Steven for strength and then sent the impulse of mistrust through my connection with Jeremy, pushing at his doubts that the Sylph only had her own interests at heart, not his.
Jeremy looked at me then and, for the first time since before all hell broke loose in the jail, he looked at me clearly; no magic, no tricks. I nodded at him, let him feel my sincerity, let him feel all of our concern for him. He took one slow step towards me before I heard a disembodied scream rend the eerie calm we had created. I had one second to decide who to protect, but there really wasn’t a choice. I cut my ties from Jeremy in a skin burning jolt and flung my powers out behind me to Jodi, Steven, and finally Jensen, leaving myself more exposed than I normally would.
I watched the fear and confusion on Jeremy’s face as tears sprung in his eyes and a shadow reared up in front of him, distorting his figure and finally hiding him from our sight. In the next second, he was gone. The screams continued, turning towards us. I heard Jensen behind me, yelling my name, running towards me. I braced for the impact again and was vaguely aware that this time, it wasn’t going to work; I had left myself too exposed. The wind ripped at my face and battered my body. A jagged cut opened over my cheek and a burning sensation was clawing at my arms, but I stood my ground, pouring my powers into the shields of my friends.
I fought the urge to close my eyes in the last seconds when I knew the major impact was coming and knew it would all be black in a moment anyway when I saw Steven racing to my side. His arms circled my waist and hefted me into the air. He threw me back behind him into Jensen’s arms, who caught me and spun us around, bringing us to the ground and shielding my body. I screamed my protest, trying to fight him every inch of the way. In the last few seconds before Jensen’s torso covered my face as I made contact with the ground, I saw Steven standing in the exact spot that I had been in, his arms spread wide, making a target of himself as the shadow arced above him. When my sight was lost, I had a vision in my mind of Steven standing there, body engulfed in flame, an inferno against the night. Another few moments and the screams had stopped, replaced by Jodi’s cries as she wailed Steven’s name.
I pushed at Jensen trying to get him off of me, but he was too heavy for me. I felt my anger pitch and my skin burn with it when he refused to let me up. I clawed at him, my nails finding purchase on the skin of neck and arms. He swore above me. When he flinched, he gave me just enough momentum to get my torso out from under him. I knew I was screaming at him to let me up, but he wasn’t listening. Finally, when I knew I would explode from anxiety as I listened to Jodi sobbing over Steven, I pulled my hand back and reached out to slap Jensen. Cupping my hand, I popped him over his ear, hearing the echo as I disturbed his equilibrium. He swore again and finally let me up as he covered his ear with his hand and tears sprung to his eyes in reaction to the pain. I crawled away from him and scrambled to stand, racing over to Steven.
Jodi was already kneeling on the ground at his shoulder, trying to shake him awake, but looked as though she was afraid to touch him. I understood why when I fell to the ground at his other shoulder. There were burn marks on his face and his clothing was singed and frayed, holes showing red angry welts on his arms and chest. Thin lines of smoke drifted up from his body into the air.
“Oh god, I didn’t imagine it,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I don’t know how he did it,” Jodi said between sobs, covering her face that was quickly becoming streaked with makeup.
“The extra power I was feeding you, he…” I stopped, swallowing past a lump in my throat. “He must’ve redirected it.” I shook my head and laid my hands carefully on his chest, feeling his heart beat strong and steady under them and took a moment to send up a silent prayer of thanks for that. I started pulling cool, healing energy up through the earth beneath him just as we heard sirens racing down the block and closing in on the house fast. Water bubbled up from the ground, rising around his body, causing steam to billow from his skin.
“Oh god, how do we explain this?” Jodi said quickly, her head whipping up from her hands towards the house.
“We’ll say he went out to check and see if Jeremy was still here. He must’ve lit a cigarette while out here and some accident happened, we won’t be clear on exactly what,” I said, the story coming almost too easily to my lips.
“I’ll run and tell my mom so she doesn’t blow it for us,” Jensen said and before I could say anything, he was already half way across the yard. He was still holding his ear and I saw him stumble as his feet hit the back patio. Guilt stung through me for hitting him so hard, but I knew in my heart I could’ve done much worse to him if I hadn’t used physical force.
“Steven doesn’t smoke,” Jodi said, bringing my attention back to her, her blue eyes wide with anguish and fear.
“They don’t know that,” I said, my voice a little clipped. “We can’t tell them he set himself on fire to save me. They’ll lock him and us up in a sanitarium, Jodi.”
“Of course,” Jodi said, shaking her head as if trying to clear her muddled thoughts. I felt a sweat breaking out over my forehead. I was having a very difficult time blocking out the waves of terror coming off of Jodi in such close proximity while I worked on Steven, but I knew I only had moments left before the cops and paramedics came through the back door. Steven moaned quietly, his head moving just an inch and Jodi gasped, her hand flying to cover her mouth in surprise. “Oh my god, Terra, you’re doing it!”
“Terra?” Steven asked, his brow wrinkling and I could feel it was half in confusion and half in pain.
Don’t talk, I thought at Steven calmly. Help is here, just stay still, I mentally relayed our alibi for his injuries as the cops came rushing through the back door. Just before I broke contact with Steven, I realized he had no memory of what he’d actually done to hurt himself in the first place. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining it to him when he woke up later.
***
Steven was in the hospital, his wailing mother crying over his body, and we were in the hallway, the heady mixture of antiseptic, bleach, and death filling our nostrils. Jodi was sitting on a hard plastic chair, her head back against the wall behind her, and I was pacing in front of her, every nerve on edge as I held out the sheer weight of the building around me. I hate hospitals. I always have, ever since I was a child and had to come in for the first time since I was born to have stitches in my chin when I split it open in a car accident. My mom rushed me inside, blood running down both our shirt fronts, a little frantic and wide-eyed. All the while, I wasn’t making a sound.
The doctors told my mom that I was in shock so I didn’t realize it hurt, but I knew better; it was the screaming and the wailing all around me that kept me silent. I was having a very hard time breathing for all the weight that pressed down on me anytime
my mom let go of my hand. Luckily, when they finally took us in, they took us right to pediatrics, which was on the same floor as obstetrics and suddenly the weight became lighter, bearable. I learned later that I had finally found the balance in the hospital when I found where new life was coming into the building and joy and happiness intermingled with pain and anxiety.
But tonight I was stuck in the intensive care unit with Jodi and toeing the line of my sanity as the pain coursed over and through my body of so many people in pain and torment. I wasn’t going to last much longer, but the cops had asked us to stay for questioning, me especially. I had tried to leave the wing on the pretense of finding a vending machine, but an armed officer stopped me at the end of the hall and sent someone to get us some cold sodas for us.
“You doin’ alright, babe?” Jodi asked after I passed her for what must have been the hundredth time.
“Not really, no,” I said honestly as I spun on my heel and began the trek back.
“We need to get you out of here,” she said, pushing herself up as I neared her. “You’ve lost all the color in your face and I think you’re sweating.” I instinctively slapped her hand away when she reached up to check my temperature on my forehead.
“Sorry, I just can’t.” I shook my head and kept walking. “Just try not to touch me right now.”
“Some contact might help, you know,” she said, but I couldn’t hear her clearly; I was still catching snatches of long ago screams that still echoed in the halls despite how much of my energy went into blocking them. “Shay!” Jodi said sharply, grabbing my arm and spinning me to face her.
I felt my eyes go wide and a snarl bubbling up my throat. I saw the momentary fear flicker through her face, but she held onto me anyway, trusting I wouldn’t lash out at her. Her fingers dug into my skin, her nails biting into me, just sharp enough to pull me back from the edge and clear the fog in my head.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head.
“Don’t be, just anchor to me,” Jodi said as she guided me to the row of chairs she had been sitting on. It took me longer than it should have to open the natural channel between us because I was afraid to take any energy away from keeping out the hospital, but eventually I felt a cool air caressing my face, drying the beads of sweat on my forehead. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the Air and felt it swirling and building inside of me like a soothing breeze on a hot summer day and gave myself the moment I needed to bask in it.
“Better and better,” I whispered, feeling some of the tension seeping away from me. “If only they’d let me leave! Even with you helping, I can’t stay here too long; it’ll kill me.”
“I know. I don’t know why they’re keeping us here,” Jodi said and finally I heard the anger in her voice.
“It’s probably because they know Jeremy was involved,” I said with a sigh, slumping forward over my knees, keeping my hand clasped around Jodi’s, looking for all the world just like two friends comforting each other over the horror of their friend’s terrible accident.
“What I don’t get though is where my dad is,” Jodi said and when I turned my face to look at her, I saw her staring at the rookie cop at the end of the hall that had stopped me earlier.
“Probably investigating at Jensen’s house,” I said, but now it was her turn not to really hear me. “Hey,” I said, shaking her arm to draw her attention back to me. “Call your dad. Get him down here to get us out of here. We’ll go back to my place or yours and then we’ll go after Jeremy.”
“I don’t have my phone. We left everything at Jensen’s house when the ambulance came, remember?” Jodi said.
“Go over to the nurses’ station. I’m sure they’ll let you use their phone,” I said, nodding towards the counter just a few feet away from us. Jodi nodded and, as one, we stood and walked over, hand in hand so I wouldn’t lose it again, and Jodi called her father. It wasn’t long before we had our own police escort out of the building, much to the dismay of the rookie who would’ve stopped us until he saw Jodi’s father and paled at the sight of his grim face.
I fought the urge to stick my tongue out at him as we passed, noticing that one hand rested on the butt of his gun and the other on his radio, as if wondering how to best stop us from leaving. I felt my anger color my cheeks as I glared at him. How dare he threaten me like that? Jodi realized I wasn’t right next to her and turned to see me giving the rookie a death stare. I felt her hand on my arm, urging me to let the insult go. I took one last breath before I turned to leave with her.
Jodi’s father drove us to my house, planning to just drop me off and take Jodi home, but after much cajoling from his baby girl and the terrified look on my face, he consented to let Jodi spend the night on the promise that in the morning we really would be on our way to school. The thought of such normalcy startled me. I was losing track of time and days.
Not surprisingly, my parents were waiting for me at the door when we walked up, Jodi’s father having called them to tell them what had happened. We gave them the story of hearing a prowler outside, thinking it was Jeremy and Steven going out to check, saying that he had some strange accident near some yard tools where gasoline must’ve been, but we didn’t really know all the details since he was outside alone. It didn’t take near as much convincing for my parents to agree to let Jodi stay over on a school night after seeing how shaken I appeared to be. I think it was that fact alone that let me off the hook of being in trouble for leaving Jodi’s house when I promised not to. We just had to promise to get to bed early before they let us pass into the hall and head to my room.
“What are we doing?” Jodi asked as soon as we were inside my room and my door was shut.
“We need to get out to the tree and get some supplies and then we’ll try to link into Jeremy again and go-” I stopped short and swore an oath.
“What?” Jodi asked quickly.
“My goddamn car is parked in front of Jensen’s house,” I said, my fists clenching hard enough to let my nails dig into the palms.
“Oh shit,” Jodi muttered.
“Yeah, ‘oh shit’ is right.” I took a deep breath in and motioned with my hands for us to calm down. “We’ll just have to work from here, wait for my parents to go to bed, and then we’ll take one of their cars.” Jodi cocked an eyebrow at me as if she could see a thousand holes in my plan. “They go to bed early and my dad snores really loudly, we’ll be fine. Besides, what other choice do we have right now?”
We had to wait over an hour before I heard both my parents finally go to bed and shut the bedroom door behind them and then another fifteen minutes to make sure they weren’t coming back out again. I decided the best thing to do was not to go through the house at all, so I popped the screen off of my window and we climbed out into the backyard, racing to the ladder leading up to my tree house. Once inside, I decided to open both the windows and let the night air in since we were, after all, working with Air magic.
I could feel the tension and excitement thrumming along Jodi’s body as we pulled out the supplies we needed and began casting a protective circle around the tree house. “I know our nerves are going, but why do you almost seem happy about this?” I asked Jodi as we laid out the supplies between us.
“Because we’re stopping this now, tonight, before that Sylph can hurt the rest of us,” she said, the determination in her voice matching the energy pulsing off of her.
“We don’t have Steven here now for our anchor or for his Fire,” I pointed out.
“Yes, we do,” Jodi said, setting an obsidian crystal down in the middle between us. “We have you, that’s all we need.”
“What?”
“You can link to Steven and draw on his power,” she said matter-of-factly.
“He so far away though. I’ve never tried that so far apart”
“We could hear each other’s thoughts again tonight,” she said, finally resting her hands on her thighs and looking up at me. “You have that power, Shayna, I know you do. You’re Terra,
Earth Mother, remember?” It was a humbling moment for me, looking into the blue eyes of my sister, so much trust and faith in them, no trace of the small amount of jealousy she always seemed to carry with her. She knew I could do this with her and right now all the petty teenage rivalry was gone. I felt my eyes well with the emotion and a tear escape, rolling down my cheek and falling onto the sacred cloth we had laid down for our tools.
“We join hands this night, Earth Mother and Air Spirit, calling upon the elements to guide us in our magical workings,” I intoned, reaching out to take Jodi’s hand and felt the warmth in our hands and thought of Steven, the missing link between us. A vision of a hospital room flooded before my eyes, my legs itched under the over-starched sheets and needles pricked my arms, arms that were too long and muscled to be mine. “We join hands this night, Earth Mother, Air Spirit, and Fire Child,” I whispered and felt the air stir around us, answering our call, ready to finish this.
Chapter 18
The temperature outside was in the mid-fifties, crisp and refreshing, but inside the tree house I would’ve guessed it was well over a hundred degrees as the sweat rolled down our foreheads into our eyes, tickling the backs of our necks, plastering our hair to our foreheads. I thought the rise in temperature was Steven’s fault once I had linked to him and thought maybe his powers were manifesting out of his control considering his injuries, but somehow I knew that wasn’t right. Jodi and I both felt the burning sensation of the metal trapped in our fingers swirling under the surface of our skin. That metal was the answer to taking down the Sylph that was controlling Jeremy, but how to use it was another question all together.
I could hear Jodi’s ragged breathing and opened my eyes to see the bright patches coming to life on her cheeks, washing out any other color she had, and I felt a pang of worry that she might faint from heatstroke if we kept this up. My mouth had gone dry in the heat from speaking the incantations to raise our power and the magic needed to take on the Sylph and never before had I missed the fourth element of Water from our circle more than I did right then.
Elemental Series Omnibus Edition Books 1-4 Page 51
