I let my empty hand drag along the ocean floor, and after a few yards, I felt a rivulet begin to cut through the ground under my hand, growing wider the longer I concentrated on it. The nymphs were swimming faster than anything I had ever seen, even faster than the first day they had caught me. I knew they weren’t paying attention when the Earth answered my call and opened to me and let my body sink down. The ground rushed over me, covering me like a freshly planted seed, and I felt the nymphs’ arms jerk and their hands spasm around my legs when the ground swallowed their arms up to their elbows.
Suddenly I could breathe again, my blood rushing with relief and my lungs expanding gratefully, air coming as easily to me as it did to Jodi underwater. I could feel my ribs knitting back together from the magic of the Earth. The nymphs’ claws raked at my skin as they tried desperately to free themselves, yanking and pulling and scrambling frantically. I took a moment to revel in their fear, letting it wash over me and cleanse me. Their panic was melting chocolate on my tongue and I didn’t even notice the damage they were doing to my legs because the Earth was healing me already, and every new gash they created was sewn back up without a mark. I concentrated on my body, making sure I had succumbed to the Earth entirely before I moved, afraid if I broke the connection, I would be crushed under the weight of it. Once I was sure I had my center, I pushed my way to the surface of the ocean floor, making sure to keep the nymphs’ arms trapped at the same time, leaving them each one free arm, so I would have to be careful.
They were gnashing their green razored teeth at me and their black eyes were wild with anger, but I was far enough away from them that they couldn’t reach me now. I realized, floating there in front of them, that they were the same two young nymphs that I had been able to knock out with a shock wave.
You should have stayed where I left you, I thought at them, letting them hear my genuine disappointment at what I had to do now. I had decided that if they were stealing human souls to stay alive, then they had to give themselves over to human law, and when I crushed the spine of the male nymph and he withered and died while his leader did nothing to save him, I knew I was right. My stomach was a riot of nerves as I readied myself for this terrible deed, but took courage in knowing I was saving so many lives by doing this.
I swam over to one of the nymphs and he lashed out with his black-clawed hand and I struck out with my knife, severing his hand. Black blood gushed in a cloud around him and he screamed, making my head feel like it was being cleaved in two, but I blocked it out as I dove for him, plunging my knife into his throat and wrenching it free with all of my strength. The screaming stopped.
The other one was lashing out at me wildly, a feral scream pouring out of his mouth over and over again until I was sure my ears were bleeding. I fought my way through the black cloud of the nymph’s blood until I was within arm’s reach of the other. He slashed out at me again and cut my face with the tips of his claws, but I was able to grab his wrist with my free hand and use it as leverage as I planted my feet into his chest and pushed his torso down to the floor and held him there. Holding onto his wrist to keep my balance, I drove my knife down into his chest. It was awkward and I caught the blade on a bone, but I closed my eyes and concentrated on the motion and angled past it until I pierced his heart. It took longer than I expected, but he eventually went still under me and I was able to pry my athame free of his body, his blood coming off easily in the water.
My stomach lurched as I looked down on the two bodies, and I almost forgot the need to breathe as the air I had taken from the Earth was starting to dissipate inside of me. I begged the Earth to take them and the sand rumbled below me, coming up in dusty clouds as the Earth answered my call, opening up to the nymphs and swallowing them, entombing them in the ocean floor.
I kicked off from the ground and swam for the surface, breaking through with a ragged gasp, bobbing in the water like a cork. I laid my shoulders back so I could turn my face up to the pouring sky and gasp until I caught my breath. But my respite was short lived as I both felt and heard Steven and Jodi’s panic ripping through me and setting my nerves afire with pain again. Jodi was being overpowered and she needed me, right now.
Chapter Seventeen
I was blinded by a lightning strike so close to me that I felt the water crackle with electricity, snapping along my body. I watched the blue and white current jump between my fingertips as I lifted my hand out of the water and thought of Jodi’s body alive with that same power. If I could get her to hone into the electricity the storm was producing, she could use it against the nymphs and turn their own power back on them.
I opened my channel with Jodi again and was able to figure out which direction I needed to go to get to her. Centering myself was difficult with the rain pouring down on me and the lightning striking frenetically all around, but somehow I found that deep pulse inside my body that kept me connected to the Earth. I latched onto that pulse and let it grow stronger until it flooded my entire being with its power. It was a dangerous risk, giving myself over to my elemental nature, but I was about to dive under the water without Jodi’s charm to help me breathe; it was this or risk drowning.
I hooked into Steven’s power as well to act as my anchor to reality so I wouldn’t get lost in the Earth’s pull and for him to act as a secondary source of power against these things. Then, with one deep breath and one last lightning strike that was so close I felt my eyelashes singe, I dove under the water and propelled myself through the black depths. Steven’s power warmed me against the water in a way no rash guard or wet suit could have. I felt it burning my skin and turning the palms of my hands red with his panic and anger; even my peripheral vision was tinged in the red of his aura.
I was relieved to find that my lungs didn’t burn with the need to breathe. I swam all the way down to the ocean floor before I leveled out and swam forward, feeling safer this close to the Earth while I was drawing on its power. If they had misplaced even one blonde hair on Jodi’s head, they would all pay, so much more than they would have for Dale and Mark’s lives.
You’re close, Steven’s red thoughts whispered in my mind, but I didn’t need them; Jodi’s heightened signature was like a whole package of Pop Rocks on my tongue. Watermelon flavored Pop Rocks.
I pushed on, and in a few yards, the water was swirling in a vortex in front of me, drawing me ever faster towards it as Jodi desperately called on her power to create a shield of air in between her and her would-be attackers. I could tell from this vantage that she was having only moderate success at keeping them away. She wasn’t evenly dividing her strength through the entire wall. Instead, she was focusing on the threat right in front of her and, in doing so, if one of the nymphs came at her from another direction, they were able to breach her wall.
I could taste her blood in the water now, the iron a familiar note on my palate, from the many cuts and scratches their claws had opened on her body. Rage filled me so suddenly that, for a moment, my vision went black, and I knew if I gave myself over to it, I would have drawn my blade and been like a woman possessed, slashing through anything that my blade could find purchase in. I blinked my vision clear and steadied myself, taking strength from the ground below as my stomach skimmed the sand and from the heat of Steven’s power.
I drew my blade, wanting the security of its weight in my hand before I did anything. I was surprised to see that the usually black obsidian stones looked as though they were stained a deep red, but I didn’t have time to contemplate that just then. I drew up the energy I needed and built a shield around Jodi, letting it intermingle with hers in a practiced swirl. I felt her relief wash through me, a bright yellow sun breaking through grey clouds and joining Steven’s heat in my body.
The nymphs didn’t seem to notice my presence, though they did quickly realize that they could no longer penetrate Jodi’s barrier, and their answering wails clawed at my ears as easily as their nails would have. Now that they were holding still, as still as they could while floating
in the water, I could see that there were four nymphs surrounding Jodi. Clearly these creatures had never heard of fair odds. There were a pair of females and a pair of males, but neither of the females were the one we took as their leader.
Which means there are more of them out there, Terra, Steven’s worried thoughts echoed my own as I concentrated on keeping my body still so I could plan my attack while keeping Jodi safe. I thought back to the three nymphs we had killed so far and knew that it would probably be impossible to try and draw any of them into a breach in the shield now. I let my body sink until the entire length of it was pressed to the ocean floor. I felt the sand shifting in answer to my call under the weight of my body, the floor rearranging itself as it opened up to me, allowing me to sink into it until I was enclosed in the Earth as securely as Jodi was in her cocoon of air and earth.
Although I could breathe in the earth as easily as air and swim through it like water, I still couldn’t see through it and would have to trust my instincts to gauge where the nymphs were as I moved in their direction. Once I had shifted forward about fifteen yards, I rolled in the ground so I was face up towards the water before I began to inch my way back up to the surface. I hesitated once my face was clear of the dirt and I was able to open my eyes again and see through the water.
I had over shot my first target by about two feet, but his tail was within grabbing distance if I was willing to sit up and reach for his menacing fin and expose half of my body in doing so. I saw Jodi more clearly now that I was so close to her and she looked completely exhausted; the energy she had spent trying to keep the nymphs away from her had drained her, but I could feel her in the back of my mind as strongly as Steven.
Fae, I thought at her calmly and felt her recognition sparkle in my mind before I continued. You need to gather energy to heal yourself and to fight against these things. I can’t do it alone.
How? I can barely call up enough power to keep this shield going, she replied, and her thoughts were slower than they should have been.
Can you feel the storm?
I can feel the lightning.
Good, call it to you.
What? she asked, her mind voice tinged with a little fear at my suggestion.
If you can feel it, then it belongs to you. Call it to you, and let it give you the energy you need. It will heal you, and you can use it against these monsters. I let courage and comfort flow out of me and into her, hoping to give her the strength she needed to at least try.
I don’t know how. She almost sounded like she was crying and that broke my heart. It took a lot for Jodi to admit that she just didn’t know how to do something. She may ask for help to figure something out, but she rarely admitted any weakness.
Yes, you do; you can call air to you, it’s the same thing, I explained.
No, it’s not, it’s lightning. I could kill myself.
I’m here and Drake is here; we won’t let that happen, I tried to reassure her and the water around us warmed almost imperceptibly as Steven sent his own silent reassurance.
Can you help me? she asked, sounding so small, so childlike.
Of course, I whispered as I let myself sink back into the earth, letting it close over me so that no part of me was exposed and vulnerable as I anchored into Jodi as Steven had done for me. I slipped my athame back into my sheath so that my hands were free as I allowed myself to be overcome with the power of the Earth again.
I could still see the jumping purple and blue sparks between my fingers when I closed my eyes and I let that vision be my surface thoughts for Jodi to see as well. I hadn’t tried to do anything with that energy when it coursed through me, so I had no example to give to Jodi, but I hoped she would be able to improvise thanks to natural talent.
I pushed all thoughts of the nymphs swimming dangerously close to us out of my mind as I settled into the ever-shifting ground. Shell fragments and sand coursed through my veins and I felt my hair spin out away from my head as I became one with the Earth and let its power fill me completely, giving over to it again. After only a moment’s hesitation, I opened my channel to Jodi wide, letting her essence fill me with her electric energy while I allowed my earthen power to roll through her. All the while, Steven’s searing fire power singed my skin as he kept me anchored somewhere in the middle between them.
I knew when Jodi felt secure enough to call on the power of the storm raging hundreds of feet above us because she was suddenly a complete void in my mind. If I reached for her, I felt a stirring of a summer breeze tangling my hair and the tingling of dandelions blown with wishes over my cheeks, but that was as concrete as she got for me at that moment. She was open and raw to the storm, acting as a lightning rod, calling the bolts down through the water into her body.
All of Jodi’s fear was gone in that perfect moment when she let her power become wild, feral, greedily reaching for the power that was arching towards her. When her senses came back to her, I could see through her eyes and I watched the dirt and air swirl around her in the water, but her face was turned up towards the surface of the water that we couldn’t see. I was vaguely aware of the nymphs circling her like an animal in a cage, but Jodi was all eyes for the savage light that was cutting through the dark water, illuminating everything in a crash.
The lightning broke into a thousand shards, crashing around and into her cage. It struck at the nymphs while plunging into Jodi’s cage and hitting her full force in the chest, rocking her back. If she hadn’t been underwater, she would have been flat on her back; as it was, she couldn’t keep herself upright. Her body jerked with each strike, twitching involuntarily as the lightning filled her, making her blue eyes shine in the water and her blond hair crackle with electricity. An echo of the power reverberated through me so strongly that I felt a filling in my molar burn my tongue. Steven nearly exploded into pure flames as he was hit with the aftershocks, even after they were filtered through me.
I wasn’t sure if I had blacked out or if Jodi had, but I knew I had lost some amount of time when I came back to myself. I could still see through Jodi’s eyes, but only if I concentrated on doing it, which meant, though still connected to Jodi, she was no longer using me as an anchor. I shifted up through the sand until my face was exposed again and I saw that same nymph still floated in the water, tantalizingly close, but he was looking away from me at the prone and lifeless body of one of his brethren that had been the victim of the lightning.
I could see Jodi in the cage. Her hair still crackled around her head as if alive with the electric current and her hands were positioned up and slightly away from her body, posed in a fighting stance more fitting a street fight. I watched as the tiny lightning bolts jumped between her fingertips in blues, purples, and white, lighting her smile in a chilling way. I pulled my eyes away from her and tried to see where the other nymphs were positioned, but it was difficult. Just as I was about to sink back into the ground and reposition myself, I heard the earsplitting keen of one of the nymphs on the other side of the dead nymph as it charged for Jodi, claws hooked and glinting in the water.
Jodi didn’t even hesitate; she flicked her wrist as she spun on the spot towards her attacker and the lightning shot out from her hand, cutting easily through the cage and striking the nymph. He froze in the water, an almost comical look of shock frozen on his face, until we smelled the burning of his flesh. Jodi flicked her wrist again, and when the lightning died, he floated lifelessly where she had stopped him.
The nymph that I had been watching didn’t make the same mistake as the first; when he launched forward to try and attack Jodi, he stayed silent. His only tell that he was going to move was letting his wide, black eyes narrow and his thin lips pull back over his razor teeth in a sneer. His tail flicked out behind him and he sped through the water towards her. I shot forward out of the earth, hands outstretched and breath held as I snatched at his tail fin. I felt my hands slide down the rough, yet slippery, scales until the curve of his fin gave me something to hold onto. My palms opened in pa
inful, bleeding cuts as if his tail was lined with razors, but I didn’t let go.
I willed the Earth to hold me in place and felt my body jerk as his momentum was stopped and he twisted at his waist – or where his waist would have been – to look down at what he had caught his tail on. His black eyes flew wide with searing anger when he saw me at the end of his tail, but before I could give him a chance to register what I was doing there, or how he had missed me, I pulled with everything I had. The Earth opened up below me and I sank so fast that my ears popped as my body slipped under the dirt and I dragged the nymph down with me.
I let go of him as soon as I felt safe enough to do so because the pain in my hands was numbing my arms all the way up to the wrists, making me scared I had severed something important. As soon as I let go, I spun in the ground and plunged my hands deeper into the Earth, praying for healing as I did so. I felt the dirt and water rush up into my hands, stinging as it stemmed the blood flow and began knitting the skin of my palms back together. The pounding of my heart began to slow back to normal when the feeling in my arms came back to me.
I could feel the trapped nymph writhing in the dirt above me, struggling to get to the surface again as he started to suffocate, but his arms were pinned to his sides and the dirt surrounding him held him fast as if he was sunk in drying cement. I reached down to my leg sheath and pulled my athame free again before I kicked upwards, shooting up. I concentrated my magic on the ground around him and pushed him up so that his head and shoulders were above ground and created a small, swirling dome of earth and sand around him. I broke the surface and was level with my captive. He tried desperately to gnash at me with his angry teeth. I shook my head at him and felt the emotion drain out of my body as I gripped my athame. It took me more than a moment to realize there was a tingling sensation pulsing through my hand as I gripped the silver handle. I glanced down at my hand. The usually black obsidian stones inlaid in the silver were glowing with a deep crimson; the stain I had noticed before was now overwhelming the black of the stones.
Elemental Series Omnibus Edition Books 1-4 Page 77
