A Taste of Ice (The Elementals)

by Hanna Martine

  Michael dropped the phone into the pocket of his long coat. “Look, asshole. The last time I saw her was at Helen’s party. When she left me for you. Maybe I should be asking you the same thing.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “What the fuck’s wrong with your eyes?” Michael was trying to laugh, but Xavier heard the fear behind it. And the wonder. And something else.

  He bent even closer to Michael, let him see the sickly silver irises that were probably pulsing with magic and anger. Let him be all that Michael saw. “You had lunch with her yesterday.”

  Michael may have been an accomplished liar, but not even he could cover that one up. “Oh yeah. Forgot about that.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I. Don’t. Know.”

  Xavier lifted a fist. Michael did exactly as scripted, flinching away. But he recovered quickly, glancing knowingly around to remind Xavier they weren’t alone, that a public assault would be on his head. Any other day Xavier wouldn’t have cared, except today Cat needed him, and getting busted would only pull him farther away from her.

  “You thought she’d become yours after a week?” Michael scoffed. “Even I wasn’t that deluded. I’ve been working on her for two years.”

  “We’ve already gone over this. She’s not anyone’s.”

  That brought out the strangest reaction, one that made Xavier shiver. Michael got in Xavier’s face now, his neck blotchy with rage. “Fuck you.”

  Then Michael shoved past Xavier, knocking his shoulder hard.

  Xavier gave him a good lead, watched him hurry up to the pudgy valet standing in front of the Margaret’s revolving doors. The valet ran around the side of the hotel to the parking garage. Three minutes later a Lincoln Town Car pulled into the Margaret’s horseshoe drive. Michael slid behind the wheel, his face twisted into something possessive and angry, and the car turned away from the square.

  Xavier slipped around to the side street lined with waiting cabs. He ran for the first cab in line, tapping it on the roof as he fell into the backseat.

  “Follow that Town Car. And don’t make it obvious.”

  The cabbie enthusiastically threw his sedan into drive, grinning like he was stunt driving for one of the movies being shown here in town.

  Xavier perched himself in the middle of the backseat and stared out through the windshield at the Town Car up ahead.

  I’m coming for you, sweetheart.

  The two vehicles swerved higher into the foothills, only one of them visible.

  The moment Xavier’s cab pulled out of downtown White Clover Creek and away from other cars, he’d cloaked the entire vehicle in illusion. The cabbie had no clue; he just puttered away, whistling, following Michael’s car as it climbed farther and farther away from homes and civilization.

  A huge house appeared around a bend, nestled perfectly in a little valley and overlooking a ski run. The home was beautiful and desolate, and just ostentatious enough for someone like Michael. It made Xavier’s blood run cold.

  Michael sped his car into the long driveway and stopped with a spray of snow by the front door.

  “Don’t go in the drive. Stop right there, just outside the gate, on the curb.” Xavier threw money at his cabdriver as the white sedan rolled to a stop. “Now get out of here as fast as you can.” Because he could only hold an invisibility illusion a certain distance away from his body, and if Michael witnessed a taxi appearing on the road out of thin air, well, Xavier could kiss his advantage good-bye.

  The cabbie looked at him funny, then shrugged and peeled off, back down the road toward town. Xavier stood on the curb, watching the taillights disappear, feeling the strain of the illusion pull and pull, like a rubber band stretching too thin and too hard.

  The rubber band snapped. Magic slammed back into Xavier and he stumbled where he stood. There was very little power left in him and his energy quickly drained; the two went hand in hand. He had to get inside that house before he had none left.

  He sprinted up the driveway, trying simultaneously to cover up his footprints in the thin dusting of snow. His vision was starting to turn fuzzy, his stomach a little nauseous. It took extra effort to move his legs, but there was Michael, just up ahead, starting up the rounded front steps to the house. Seeing that man worked like a checkered flag waving Xavier around the final turn.

  He dug deeper. Ran harder.

  The front door to the house opened. A young man stood with his hand on the knob, watching Michael approach with a grave expression.

  “I don’t like this,” said the younger man, his voice carrying easily in the quiet mountains.

  “I don’t give a fuck,” said Michael. Only not the Michael climbing the steps. It was another Michael. A Michael who was pushing past the younger man to exit the house.

  Xavier skidded to a stop. Holy stars in hell. There were two. Twins? was his first thought. They looked exactly alike. Even wore the same clothes, parting their silvering hair in the exact same way. Then…no.

  The Michael from the car hopped up onto the top step. The Michael from the house rushed to meet him. For a brief moment it looked like they were going to embrace like long-lost brothers, the momentum was that strong. Instead, the Michael from the house slammed into Car Michael, chest to chest. Hard. There was a pause, a glimmer, a shifting of images, like someone had taken two pictures of the men and overlapped them, then slid them together until they matched perfectly.

  And then they were one man. One Michael Ebrecht.

  Holy fucking stars in hell.

  The singular Michael stood motionless for a moment, head bent, gathering himself. Then he shook it off and lifted his eyes to the young man who didn’t look remotely surprised to see any of this.

  The two men turned to go into the house. The door started to close on silent hinges. Xavier shook off his shock and surged forward, sprinting with everything he had, not able to maintain the footprint illusion and his speed at the same time. He bounded up the steps. The door was just wide enough for his body, but it was closing, closing. He shot through the opening, past the younger man—careful not to touch him—and into a brightly lit foyer done in white marble and darkly stained trim.

  The younger man, his hand still on the doorknob, stiffened, his eyes shifting around wildly. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Michael wrenched off his coat and stretched to hang it on a tall, freestanding iron rack.

  The other man shut the door with a click and turned the dead bolt. He looked spooked. Good. “I felt something. Like wind. But not.”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “You’re in the goddamn mountains. We have another problem—”

  A blond woman came rushing into the foyer from down the hall. There wasn’t anything threatening about her appearance except for the vicious point of her finger at the front door, the wildness in her eyes…and the words that came out of her mouth.

  “Someone else came in, Sean,” she cried. “Another Secondary. A new Secondary.”

  Who were these people? And Michael had an Ofarian with him?

  With a giant breath, Xavier released his illusion. Visibility shimmered over him. “Yeah,” he said, fists tight and ready, “that would be me.”

  The blonde’s eyes widened. Her skin paled. Xavier didn’t give Michael time to react.

  “You motherfucker,” Xavier snarled, whirling. His knuckles connected with that cocky prick’s face.

  Michael went down hard, but not before Xavier saw the complete shock in his eyes over having been done over by Xavier, the poor townie. He lifted a boot, ignoring the weakness in his muscles, and pressed it into Michael’s wheezing chest.

  “Where. Is. She.”

  Even if Michael had answered, Xavier didn’t hear. Because one second he was prepping to crush Michael’s ribs under his foot, and the next the floor had swept up to crash against his head.

  Xavier rolled over. A jet breaking the sound barrier exploded through his brain. His vision was winking out. Before it completely
disappeared, however, he was pretty sure he saw Sean standing over him, that big metal coat rack clutched in both hands.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Xavier came to. Searing pain pounded against the left side of his skull. He’d been moved. The right side of his face pressed into a cold, rough slab of concrete. The daylight from the foyer was gone, replaced by the bluish tinge and incessant hum of a fluorescent light.

  “Michael,” a strange man’s voice called, distant and throbbing. “He’s waking up.”

  With a groan, Xavier rolled onto his back. Michael appeared in a stairwell. His fuzzy form crossed the floor toward Xavier then crouched five feet away. A giant purple shiner blossomed across his cheek and expanded the skin around his eye.

  Xavier grinned. “You look good.”

  Michael bared his teeth. “Hell of a punch. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Oh, I have a lot more in me.”

  “Yeah,” Michael murmured, assessing Xavier’s prone body. “You do have more in you. Don’t you.”

  Xavier seized the unexpected moment, those few precious seconds as Michael let down his guard. He shoved aside pain and harnessed his own fear and anger. In one motion he swept to his feet, intending to take Michael down to the concrete and finish him. Michael’s body position was weak and Xavier owned the power advantage. Roaring, he surged forward, arms cocked back and ready to thrown Michael down.

  He struck a wall instead.

  An invisible wall. A wall that pushed back with a force ten times his own. A moving wall that abraded his face. He tumbled backward, striking the concrete hard, needles of pain shooting up his spine. Sprawled on his ass, he shook his head.

  “What the—” Xavier snapped to his feet, his brain feeling like it was sloshing around in his skull, and attacked again.

  The invisible wall thrashed him, a whiplike surge of energy that tossed him backward. Again. And again.

  Through it all, Michael just stood there, arms folded. His smirk showed no fear. “You doing okay, Jase?” He looked lazily over Xavier’s shoulder, to the far corner. Dazed, Xavier turned.

  A strange man sat on the edge of a blue-and-white-striped lawn chair. Elbows on knees, hands clasped between his legs, the one called Jase leaned forward. His light eyes focused intently on Xavier.

  “Yep. Good to go,” Jase said. “Going to have to sleep sometime though.” He slowly rose from the chair and ran a hand through the shaggy brown hair that curled around his face and neck. He looked, at best, bored. At worst, even cockier than Michael.

  Michael waved an impatient hand as if to say yeah, yeah.

  Xavier made a show of struggling to come up on one elbow, then pushed to his hands and knees. Seemed to him that Michael was expecting attacks on him, so Xavier took a deep breath, changed course, and lunged for Jase instead.

  That wall shot out, a thousand needles scraping across his body. The hardest surge yet. Xavier landed badly on his elbow. He rolled to his side, trying to hide the wince, and stared at Jase, who saluted Xavier with a tip of an imaginary cowboy hat.

  Holy shit, Jase was an air elemental. Just like Gwen had described.

  “Lea’s on it,” Michael told Jase, with a vague wave toward Xavier. “We just need to keep him contained until she gets what she needs.”

  “Is Cat all right?” The pain in Xavier’s elbow bloomed, but he didn’t cradle it, didn’t show weakness.

  The door at the top of the stairs opened and down came the little blond Ofarian woman from the foyer. Lea, he presumed.

  What the hell was Michael—who was some form of Secondary perhaps not even Gwen knew about—doing with an Ofarian and an air elemental? Or maybe the better question was: what were they doing with him?

  Lea slowed when she saw Xavier sprawled on the ground. She went to Michael’s side, her head tilted as she raked a haughty, hate-filled look over Xavier. He knew that look all too well.

  An Ofarian looking down on a captive Tedran.

  Years of thinking he wandered alone in the Primary world—and that the Ofarians, the only other known Secondaries, had been relegated to the west coast—and here Xavier was, trapped in some sort of wind cage in a basement room entirely filled by Secondaries.

  “Cat,” Xavier snarled. “Is she okay?”

  No need to ask if they actually had her. Michael’s smug look said as much.

  Michael ignored him and turned to Lea. “Did you get what you need?”

  “Not yet. What I really need is on its way, being sent by courier. Should be here tomorrow. I have these for now.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a pair of ordinary handcuffs.

  The sight of the plain metal rings made Xavier smile. Just let them try to get close. Michael’s busted face was evidence of what his fists could do. He could easily take Lea. Jase looked like he might be a bit of a challenge, but if he was anything like other Secondaries, there was a limit to his magic, and it had to run out sometime.

  Xavier heard someone moving around upstairs; his guess was Sean, the kid with the killer swing. When he peered up the steps, he saw that Lea had left the door open. Beyond, he could see the corner of an outside window, gone dark with night. If he could wrap himself in invisibility glamour and sprint out of this basement before they slapped those handcuffs on him, he could lose himself outside in the dark.

  It was a big gamble. He’d used a lot of magic getting up to the house and he could feel that the glamour in his system was almost depleted. He’d need a good long rest and food to replenish it to full capacity, but what he had left could be enough. It had to be. This was his chance.

  Closing his eyes, he opened every available portal to his magic. He commanded his source to yawn wide, to give him all it had. He dug into the pockets of illusion, scraping out the kernels of glamour that clung to the sides. He cobbled them together, a hasty and ugly batch of magic, but it was still usable. He whispered Tedran words, felt them doing their thing.

  Michael and Lea started to laugh. To laugh.

  Xavier forced his eyes open.

  Jase’s lips weren’t moving. He wasn’t laughing. Wasn’t even smiling. But the basement room seemed dimmer now, as though someone had shaken out a dusty sheet in an old house and the air was now clogged with months of neglect. Xavier waved an invisible arm, the air swirling in its wake. Dust motes clung to the edges of his invisible arms, perfectly delineating the placement of his body.

  “Nice try,” Michael said.

  Xavier collapsed. His glamour died, flickering and fading as the last of the wick burned out. He couldn’t hold himself upright any longer, and his head felt so very heavy on his neck.

  “Cat,” he croaked out. “If you fucking touch her…”

  “Knock him out,” Michael told Jase. “I don’t want to hit him again. Damaging the goods and all. I have a phone call to make when he gets his strength back. Raymond’ll shit his pants over this one.”

  Jase turned to Xavier without hesitation. The wind kicked up. Suddenly the air in the room came up short. Xavier scrabbled for it, trying to take deep gulps of what wasn’t there. He clawed at his throat but the other three people were unaffected. Black spots floated in front of his eyes, growing bigger, stealing his sight. Jase whipped away the last bit of oxygen and Xavier blacked out.

  The next time he woke, he was stretched on a stiff, splintered slab of particleboard, wrists locked above his head in the handcuffs, ankles fastened with plastic strapping. All limbs attached to long, heavy chunks of metal in the board that weren’t going anywhere. The pain from the earlier blow to his head had lessened some, but his magic was still gone. Not that it would’ve done him any good at that point. Because really, what good were illusions? Useless fucking bit of magic.

  Not for the first time, he wished Tedrans had something like nelicoda, the chemical that erased Ofarian water magic. If he could, he’d permanently delete what made him different. Give Michael no reason to want him. Get the hell out of there and take Cat with him.

  He did ha
ve a bit of an advantage. If Xavier was right, Michael hadn’t been hunting him or Cat. Michael had only recently learned about her powers—from Lea, surely—and Xavier had stupidly revealed himself. Michael was unprepared.

  “You’re awake.” There, on the lawn chair again, reclined Jase, the faux cowboy, flipping through a magazine. He pulled a phone out of his pocket, typed something, then set it back down and picked up the magazine again.

  “Who are you?” Xavier’s throat ached. Jase didn’t answer. “What does Michael want with Cat? With me? Who’s Raymond?”

  Cowboy’s eyes flicked up to Xavier then back down to the page. He looked to be about Xavier’s Earth age, late twenties/early thirties, and he’d mastered the art of nonchalance.

  Xavier tried another angle. “Why are you working for him?”

  That got a much longer look. Interesting.

  The basement door opened. One set of footsteps descended. Xavier prepared himself to face Michael, but it was Lea who sauntered to the edge of the particleboard rack. He looked to Jase, who’d very nearly come to attention at the appearance of the little Ofarian. Jase, who hadn’t called Michael after Xavier woke up, but Lea.

  Interesting times two.

  “Where’s Cat?” Xavier asked Lea. A broken record, but he didn’t care. He’d ask every minute until he got an answer.

  Lea shrugged and ran a finger down the board. “Upstairs. In Michael’s bedroom.”

  Xavier thrashed, the board rocking on the cinder blocks that lifted it off the floor. His whole body burned with a rage that made muscle and bone want to pop out from his body.

  Then he caught the way Lea was looking at him, and an icy chill shivered across his skin. He had to close his eyes against it, to not see that Ofarian staring down at him, her eyes roving over his body like so many others’ had before her. It made him feel dirty. Tainted. Used.

  “So you’re Tedran,” she murmured, half to herself. She touched his knee and he flinched, despite his resolve to not react. “Which means you must be that Tedran. The one who escaped and freed your people. The one the Board was most upset to have lost.”