It didn’t touch Serin, either. The water danced around her, settling into the ocean like an obedient puppy dog.
Nerissa huffed in disdain before disappearing under the waves. This time, the surface of the water wasn’t disturbed by so much as a ripple. There was no way to tell where she’d gone.
Daniel turned to his mate. She frowned. “Did you do that?” she asked.
“What?”
“You pulled on my power to deflect the water.”
Daniel blinked, then grinned. “I can do that?”
Serin wrinkled her nose. “Apparently.”
He beamed. “I didn’t know that was a benefit to our relationship.”
“It’s not supposed to be.”
Daniel prided himself on being a no-nonsense and helpful mate, but this time he was beside himself with glee—for all of two seconds.
“That didn’t hurt you, did it?” he asked, concerned.
“Relax, I’m fine.” Serin still observed him like a bug under a microscope.
“But you felt it? If it happens again, will it compromise you? Like does it suck away some of your power?”
That would be bad in the middle of a firefight.
“I didn’t feel drained. I channel my gifts from the Mother. I just channeled a bit more is all.”
Daniel’s mood swung back to jubilant. “That is awesome! I bet the damn werewolf can’t do that.”
Logan’s mate Connell was like a lot of guys he’d met while in the DEA—brave and brash in addition to being smug and arrogant. And a showoff. Daniel was a fairly tolerant man, but the only person he allowed to emasculate him was the woman in front of him.
Alec was okay for a bloodsucking creature of legend, but the werewolf was a bit much even for him.
“As far as I know, Connell can’t use Logan’s talent.”
Daniel threw his arms up. “Yes!”
Serin continued to frown. “I won’t do it again, I promise. I wouldn’t want to distract you in a fight.”
“No.” Serin reached out to grab his shoulder. “I want you to do it, especially in a fight.”
She backed away. “Who knows? Alec and Connell are powerful Supes, weapons themselves. Perhaps this is the Mother’s way of evening the score.”
He threw her a bright grin. “I’m all for that.”
But Serin didn’t smile.
“What’s wrong? Isn’t this good news?”
“Of course it is,” she said after a moment. “But if the Mother is expanding your abilities this way, it must mean that whatever is coming is big—more than She thinks we can handle on our own.”
“Oh.” Daniel’s excitement faded. “Well, that is…unfortunate.”
There was a beat of silence, then Serin gestured at the rocky beach. “Don’t let me rain on your parade. You are allowed to enjoy this new development. Go nuts.”
His grin was so wide it almost hurt his face. “Show me what to do.”
24
“Don’t do that. Don’t make me like you.”
“Too late. You already do.”
Gia wrinkled her nose, replaying those words in her mind. It had only become more true in the days since, but she wasn’t ready to acknowledge it. It would only give Salvador ideas.
She adjusted her grip on the divining rod, poking it into the liquified earth between two massive tree trunks. After weeks of experimentation, Gia thought she knew how it worked now. The rod needed to resonate not just with the user, but also the land they stood on. They just needed to find the right soft spot. Thus, their current location. They were in the redwood forest somewhere between Klamath and Clear Creek. It was one of many locations they were testing with the rod.
They hadn’t heard anything from John in weeks, but time was running out. She could feel it.
Salvador hadn’t complained when their quest stretched from days to weeks. He’d been an ideal traveling companion, never objecting when they hopped from Elemental safe house to camping in the woods and back again. Very little seemed to faze him. Despite the shock of learning he was going to have a sibling, Salvador continued being genial, almost Zen.
He was well versed in spell lore, and he had quite a few interesting things to say about cursed and bespelled artifacts. Since most of the worst ones had been made by his ancestors and extant relatives, she hadn’t been surprised by that, but neither had she expected him to be quite so helpful.
Salvador also prepared meals without being asked.
Gia loved food in all its forms—gourmet, fast, healthy. Her favorite, though, was junk. Salvador was also a fan. He could cook like a professional chef, but he was just as content to drop everything and hunt down a greasy hole in the wall that made the best zeppole in Little Italy.
His fine qualities and charm were worming their way past her defenses. You are not developing feelings for a Delavordo. Not those kinds. Friendship was possible, of course. She had lived long enough to know that the knife’s edge she and the other Elementals danced on made for strange bedfellows.
Now was that a Freudian slip or was that a Freudian slip?
“Are you hungry?” Salvador asked from behind another redwood.
She gave herself a shake, giving up on her task. This place was close, but it was not receptive to the divining rod. “You read my mind,” she said, coming around to where Salvador arranged wood in a ring of stones.
No, not in a million years. And even she didn’t think she’d be doing this job that long.
Then stop picturing what he looks like without that shirt…
Salvador stood, his impressively wide shoulders on display in a V-neck woven shirt. “I should gather a bit more firewood if we’re going to be cooking here—and, before I forget, where is here again?”
“Pacific Northwest.”
“Ah.” He pointed to the redwood trunk. “I should have guessed that. Any luck with the rod? This isn’t our final destination, is it?”
“Not yet. The rod is responding, but not in sync yet. We should keep looking around. There is another leyline cluster less than twenty clicks away.” She waggled her brows. “But first, dinner.”
He laughed. “Gathering enough wood for the meal may take a while. These trees are protected, so it’s limited to what I can pick up from the ground.”
Salvador stopped speaking as the trees around them dropped some of their smaller branches on the ground. He jumped when one landed less than a foot away.
“Sorry,” she apologized. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
He sniffed. “I’d believe you if you weren’t smirking.”
Bending, he picked up the branch that had nearly brained him. He held out the meter-long length of wood. “I don’t suppose you can cut these into usable pieces?”
As if on cue, the wood severed in three places, making four conveniently sized logs.
Salvador wasn’t prepared for that. He tried to hold on to them, juggling, but ended up dropping one on his foot.
He shut his eyes, moving his foot to roll it off. “Ouch.” He cleared his throat. “Maybe a little warning next time?”
Pursing her lips together to avoid laughing, she nodded, hissing in sympathy when he began to limp. “Nothing’s broken,” she told him.
“I don’t think…hey, you have X-ray vision for bones?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
He stopped, pivoting to face her. “Why do I feel naked now?”
“I have no answer to that.”
Salvador absorbed that for a minute. He put his arm out, bracing his legs apart in a classic figure-drawing pose.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her head pulling back.
“I’m making it interesting for you.”
Suppressing a giggle, Gia held her hands above the ground. Beneath them, a spring appeared. A mound rose in the center with a round bush. It ballooned and sprouted branches, then senesced, leaving an assortment of gifts behind before the rapidly withered away.
“Cool,” Salvador whistled, lifting up a dark pu
rple fruit. “What are these?”
“Seasoned black apples. They’re pretty good. I think you’ll like them.”
“Are they real? I mean, can you still find them around?” he asked, lifting one and smelling it. “Or are they extinct like the flowers you gave my mother?”
“They’re not that common, but I think you can still find them in Arkansas.”
She held up a fleshy thing that looked like an oversized purple strawberry without seeds. “These, however, are extinct. As far as I know, they never had a name, but they taste like a cross between plums and cherries. The rest include some non-native species of fruit and vegetables.” She picked up a particularly thick and fleshy golden chanterelle. “Some are choice specimens that can be found here.”
He marveled at the size of the mushroom. “That thing must weigh more than half a pound. I know a restaurant in Berkeley that would give you a free dinner in exchange for a few mushrooms like this.”
“I think we can manage something better than Chez La Loup.”
His face lit up. “You know it?”
“Food appears to be an interest we have in common. I’m surprised you know it, having spent the last few years in the wilds of Costa Rica.”
“I did take the occasional vacation,” he said before getting down to the business of cooking.
She soon discovered that when it came to mushrooms, Salvador was an artist. Considering he prepared the entire meal without the benefit of pots and pans, he did an admirable job.
“I may have to keep you around,” she said when she was done eating.
He beamed. “Okay.”
Blinking, Gia met Salvador’s eyes. He seemed perfectly serious. For some reason, shooting him down didn’t even occur to her.
“Are we going to head out to the next leyline cluster now?” he asked.
“Uh, sure. If you’re not tired. Alternatively, we can head out in the morning if you’d rather call it a night.”
“I can make it,” he began saying before jerking his head sharply. A rending sound filled the air as the earth split right where she’d been poking the ground.
Gia groaned as a massive and roughly hewn hand appeared, clawing its way out of the earth.
“Chingado,” she swore. “We woke it up.”
25
Salvador didn’t consider himself a coward. He was the type of man who ran out of his house when there was a cry in the night, picking up a mallet or something else suitably heavy along the way.
But when the creature roared, wiggling its bulk to widen the soft spot to dig itself out of the ground, he didn’t object when Gia pushed him behind her. The fact he didn’t run away screaming was enough to soothe his masculine pride.
His mind belatedly noted the curled horns atop the creature’s head. It gurgled, dripping saliva from jaws filled with jagged and broken teeth that resembled bone tusks. Fumes emanated from the rotting moss hanging from its head.
“What the hell is that?” he asked as a distinctive ‘ting’ vibrated in the air. A sword had appeared in Gia’s hands, called no doubt by the spell he hadn’t heard over the hammering of his heart.
“I don’t know,” she replied with a grimace, obviously unable to stop from reacting to the smell emanating from the pit.
“What?” he asked.
She shrugged, her mouth pulling down. “Never seen one before. My guess is it’s one of Underhill’s forgotten. I think—”
There were more words Salvador desperately hoped were details of her attack strategy or a ‘I know just the spell to deal with this’ but the beast chose that moment to roar again, drowning out whatever she said.
The ground shook as the creature banged its tree-like limbs—and at this point, four were visible even though it appeared to only be a third of the way out—on the ground.
Gia ran faster than he’d ever seen anyone move, Alec included. She circled the creature, drawing a rapid circle with the point of her sword. Embellishments appeared, runes and symbols forming a containment spell. As the circle widened, the soil began to churn, forming a sinkhole. The beast disappeared with a final roar.
“Well, that was easier than I thought.” Salvador heaved a breath.
“I’m afraid it’s not over,” Gia said, sheathing her sword. “Using the divining rod unsealed a prison I doubt anyone in the Seelie Court remembers is still there. I just buried it. We might get lucky. It’s possible it’ll suffocate.”
“What are the chances of that?”
“Not very good,” she admitted. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been buried at a leyline nexus. The energy currents must have been twisted to make a net around it.”
“One we disturbed,” he finished. “So now what?”
“Now, we fight. Get ready.”
Surprised she wasn’t trying to shoo him away, Salvador spun around, searching for anything he might be able to weaponize.
Fae, she said it was Fae. It might be sensitive to iron, but he doubted it. The trolls weren’t, and this creature was closer to that than the dryads he treated once in a blue moon. What else did that leave? Lemongrass—for some reason trolls didn’t like it. But this was the Pacific Northwest, not the tropics.
Mugwort? Shouldn’t there be some in these woods?
Crap. There was nothing like that around. He half hoped Gia would want to run, but even as he thought it, he dismissed the idea. She was an Elemental, and it was her job to make sure the creature didn’t get loose. They were miles from civilization, but that thing would tear through an army like tissue paper. Not to mention that letting it be seen by non-magicals was a violation of the Covenant.
Well, there’s no help for it. He rolled up his sleeves, checking to see his finger was still bleeding. Or was that a bad thing? What if it smelled blood like a shark? Never mind that. He needed his strongest defensive spells. Without his medical bag, he was short of supplies. Blood would have to do.
Taking the pendant off, he cut himself wider before removing his shirt.
Gia paused, taking in his bare chest in confusion. “What are you doing?”
“Need more surface area,” he bit out, tracing his bloody finger over his chest.
“Oh,” she said. She whirled away, swishing her sword as if to test its sharpness on the air. The sword continued to sing as the runes on the ground multiplied, growing into an ever-widening series of ornate and concentric rings.
“Will those help?” he asked, adding an additional protection sigil on his arm next to the one for acceleration. If the beast got loose, he was going to need to move very fast.
The ground rumbled beneath them ominously.
“I think we’re going to find out.”
Okay. Expecting comfort from an Elemental had been rather stupid under the circumstances.
Forget it. He lowered his head and started muttering, focusing on his fists and the line of sigils running up his muscled forearms.
The lines drawn in blood flared, then started to glow. The iridescence was thickest where the blood was visible, but even the bits with only a trace lit up. Good. His enchantment had taken.
The air around his fists shimmered, heating it until it resembled the space around a campfire. But this was no optical illusion. It was magic… twisting and pushing against the fabric of reality.
Another sword had appeared in Gia’s hands, giving her a matching set. She walked backward until she almost touched him. Snatching his hands away, he bent to pick up a stone. It began to sparkle, the glow transferring from his palms. When he threw it, it would detonate on impact with a force stronger than C4. He could supercharge over a dozen more before his magic was spent.
“Not bad,” Gia said, scanning the glowing stone. Several more rolled across the ground, neatly stacking themselves near him. She was giving him more ammunition. “Don’t do more than ten—you’ll need the energy to run if we don’t put it down in the first few minutes.”
She was right.
“I could tap into the leyline,” he suggested, wincin
g as another roar made his ears ring.
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I might need the cluster’s power to reform the prison if we can’t kill it.”
He was having difficulty following her again. The rumbling earth was getting loud again. Subtlety was not in the creature’s repertoire. He spared a moment to thank the Mother for that.
“Here we go,” Gia warned, her hips widening into a battle stance.
This time the creature burst out of the ground like the colossus Shai-Hulud of science fiction.
Dirt sprayed over him. Shielding his eyes briefly, Salvador started running, stooping to pick up an armful of stones along the way.
Gia leapt straight into the fray. He caught one glimpse of her sailing body, a sword in each hand. She was a few feet from the head when a thick redwood trunk obscured his vision. Clearing the tree, he pulled back his arm and hurled the rock. Gia had gone high, so he aimed low, hoping to take out the legs.
There was a thud and a roar. The rock hit its target—he was sure of it. However, there was so much dust and shrapnel thrown into the air by then, he couldn’t confirm the hit.
But then he heard the stomping footsteps. By rights, the creature should have been a legless wonder. Salvador had put a lot of juice in the stone, but it hadn’t been enough. Dropping back, he charged another stone and ran, flinging it as the haze cleared to give him another shot.
He caught a glimpse of Gia running and leaping through the air. His heartbeat seemed to track her movement, stopping and restarting when she landed on the creature’s back.
When it started beating again, he raised his arm, but so did the monster. A thick vine shot out at head height. Throwing himself on the ground, he scrambled away as the end of the vine split, grappling at the tree trunk behind him. The slimy creepers ripped a chunk out of the tree.
Gasping, he pictured his head being crushed like a grape as he crawled away. But he’d have to run to the next county to get out of range. It seemed those vine appendages were capable of growing to unspeakable lengths.
Scrambling, he backed up, watching Gia dart back and forth. He held his breath as those deadly vines lashed out, trying to wrap around her. They came within a hairsbreadth of her head. He opened his mouth to call out a warning, but she was already moving out of range. Whatever freak spatial sense Elementals had was working overtime.
The Elementals Collection Page 101
