The Elementals Collection

by L. B. Gilbert

  Gia sank into the floor, popping up on the beast’s other side. He almost cheered when she sheared off two vine appendages before scolding himself. Stop gawking and help, you idiot.

  He bounced from foot to foot, searching for his opportunity. Picking up one of the stones, he found his moment when everything in front of the beast cleared, revealing its upper torso. Rearing back like a Major League pitcher, he let go, aiming for the monster’s head.

  “Incoming,” he yelled. His heart stopped as the creature shifted, bowing to the ground just before the glowing stone hit. The explosive sailed over the beast, toward Gia’s chest, as she swung her sword at the creature.

  “No!”

  His cry made her head jerk up. At the last moment, she lifted her free hand, deflecting the stone at the creature. Then she kicked it in the back, causing it to fall over the rock. The beast’s own bulk protected her from the blast—which was large enough to throw stinging shrapnel up. He twisted to protect his eyes, but not far enough. A piece cut his cheek before glancing off.

  The direct impact seemed to stun the creature. It moved slower now.

  Gia turned, scowling. “Pro tip—if I can hear you, so can the bad guy.”

  “I didn’t think it would understand English,” he apologized lamely.

  But Gia wasn’t listening anymore. She started chanting a spell, one that seemed to encompass both containment and something else—a draining curse, something that would deplete what strength the monster had.

  If the opponent were human, this would have been the most horrible way to die. He made a fist, empathy enervating him. His grip didn’t have the strength it normally would.

  “What is happening to it?”

  The creature’s sound was both pitiful and enraged. But it wasn’t loud, not anymore. It grew quieter as the beast became weaker.

  Sadness crept over Salvador at the wretched sound. “I guess we’re not trapping it anymore.”

  Gia was going to kill the creature. Despite the fact it had been trying to cut them down and possibly eat them, pity welled in his heart.

  He crept closer to where the beast writhed on the ground. Up close, it resembled a distended Swamp Thing, vines and trees branches wrapped around boulders. “Do… do we have to do this? Couldn’t we imprison it again?”

  She shook her head. “That would be a far crueler fate. It wants to die.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Her face was somber and drawn. “Can’t you hear it?” she whispered, her eyes a well of pain and compassion.

  The plaintive cry was desperate yes—but he couldn’t make out any words. Then he gazed into the beast’s face. The eyes. They were intelligent and tormented.

  Gia knelt, heedless of the writhing vines. She touched the creature’s head, then glanced over her shoulder. “I’m going to need your help.”

  “What?”

  “You must know a spell to kill plants, yes?” she asked

  Salvador lifted his foot, untangling it from a still-twitching creeper. “Uh, can’t you do it?”

  “That’s not how my magic works,” she said, a thread of impatience entering her tone. “I can try to tear them off, even send them far away, but they will just regenerate. But a Delavordo is taught how to kill everything under the sun—I’m counting on that now.”

  Not knowing how to feel about that, he knelt, half-expecting the limp vine to be playing possum. Any second now, it would lash out and wrap itself around his neck.

  “Faster if you please.”

  Salvador steeled himself, then put his hands around the nearest vine. “Uh, okay, I’m not proud of this one, but here goes.”

  “Mortifer obnitor.”

  It was a curse he’d known for years, ever since he’d gone exploring the wilds of the Congo at thirteen with his father and cousins. Instead of hacking their way to the dreaded temple of Baphomet, his father had taken a shortcut and used a dark curse to defoliate the jungle instead. It was a spell equivalent to agent orange.

  At first, he didn’t think it was going to work. But then Gia put her hand over his. She didn’t touch him, but he felt the jolt anyway. The strength of his spell got a boost.

  The vine began to shrivel and wither away. He was right about it being wrapped around stones. The boulders and rocks were exposed as the greasy vines retracted, turning to dust.

  With a flick of her wrist, Gia sent the stones rolling away. Salvador drew back. He’d expected the stones and vines had been an avatar powered by magic. But he’d been wrong.

  “It was a suit,” he breathed, staring at the man on the ground.

  “Yes.” Gia’s voice was clipped.

  The man before him was a Fae warrior, or what was left of him. Pieces of his original army uniform still remained—a brace on his arm and most of a shin guard. The flesh around it was still muscled but desiccated, like jerky strung and wrapped around the bones. His skin was pallid and grey. The man was next to dead, but his face was hauntingly handsome. His appearance was not a Fae glamour. This had been a nobleman.

  The man whispered something, Fae words in dialect so old Salvador couldn’t decipher them.

  “I understand,” Gia whispered. When she opened her hand, a knife appeared. She gripped it tightly.

  Salvador grabbed her hand. “But what if we can save him?”

  “Too late,” the Fae man rasped in plain English. “Every breath is pain. There is nothing left without the enchantment—the spell took everything. I served my regents faithfully, yet they still did this to me.”

  “That war is over,” Gia said. “The kings and queens who fought it are long dead and buried. A new queen sits on the Seelie throne.”

  “And the Unseelie?” he wheezed.

  “Hidden from this realm.”

  Salvador started, dropping his arm. He hadn’t known that. He’d assumed the Unseelie Court was up and running—same as the glittering one.

  The man said something else, but Salvador couldn’t understand him. It was then he realized the man hadn’t been speaking English at all.

  It’s because I was touching her. Like demons, Elementals had the gift of tongues. They could speak every language there was. Demons used that gift to ensnare unsuspecting humans. Elementals needed it to do their jobs. Perhaps he’d heard the translation because she’d shared some magic with him to boost his spell. He wasn’t sure.

  More words were exchanged, then Gia nodded. Salvador started to close his eyes as she brought the blade down, but he forced them open. To look away would have dishonored the warrior.

  The blow sliced the man’s neck at the jugular. After so long under a black curse, the blood didn’t run out of his body. He’d been right about that. The enchantment had used him up, turning his green blood—Fae blood tended to have an emerald tint when exposed to air—nearly solid. It oozed a bit around the cut, but didn’t run over his chest the way his blood should have.

  The little strength left in the warrior gave way. His face went slack and began to crumble, falling into dust. Salvador coughed as some of the brownish-gold powder made its way into his lungs.

  Hurriedly, he got to his feet, then staggered. “Whoa. Head rush.”

  Salvador glanced down. A spot of blood on his shirt blossomed outward. “Or not.”

  Gia shifted, then scowled at his shirt. “Hey, what happened?”

  Belatedly, Salvador felt the pain. “This is wrong. It was a tiny piece of shrapnel. I barely felt it.”

  “Mierda,” Gia spat, lifting his shirt to examine the wound. “It’s working its way in.”

  “What?”

  She swore under her breath. “Those ancient Fae kings and queens didn’t mess around. Every bit of that suit-shell was designed to destroy. The vines were poisonous, and the stones within were enchanted. Even a shard or pebble is lethal. Whatever shrapnel hit you is burrowing deeper, trying to find your heart. Our only advantage is that the spell is old, so it’s going slower than it would have when it was first cast.”

&nbs
p; Fuck. “How do I get it out?” he asked, falling to his knees. Despite what she’d said, he could feel the rock moving. It felt as if it were going plenty fast to him. “It’s a rock. Can you call it out?”

  Gia crouched, putting up her hands. Her nose wrinkled, her mouth hardening with effort.

  “Anytime would be great,” he urged, gritting his teeth. Sweat had sprouted on his brow, starting to drip down his temple. But he tried to hide how much it hurt.

  She inhaled with a hiss. “It’s not working.”

  “But it’s a rock.”

  “Apparently, it’s not from these parts.”

  “What?”

  Gia blinked, swallowing. “Shut up.”

  “But—”

  “I said shut it.” She rose, then began waving her hands over his body.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “A stasis spell. And a complicated one, so stop interrupting.”

  “But—”

  “Not again.” Gia gritted her teeth, placing her hand on her chest. “Okay, well, nothing else but to do it, I suppose…”

  She held up a finger. “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.”

  Unable to help himself, he opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but closed it when her fist reared up. That was the last thing he remembered before she knocked him unconscious.

  26

  Salvador woke up staring at the benign and nearly toothless smile of an old hag.

  “Um, hello?” he said, rubbing his head as he scooted into a sitting position. He was crammed onto a double bed. It was a standard, which meant he was too tall for it. His legs hung over the edge, but someone had covered him with an embroidered blanket.

  “That should be thank you.”

  Squinting, he peered over the old woman’s shoulder. Gia leaned against the far wall in the fire-lit semi-darkness.

  His head was still swimming, and his limbs felt too heavy to lift. “All right. I’ll play. Thank you.”

  The old woman beamed. “Que lindo,” she cackled, reaching out to pinch his cheek. “Debes de quedarte con este.”

  “Nana, stop.” Gia chided. “Puedes preparar algo de comer para el? Va necessitar toda su fuerza.”

  “Si, si.” Gia helped the old woman to her feet before ushered her out the door.

  “Nana? As in grandmother? By the Mother, how old is she?” he asked in disbelief as the door closed behind the crone.

  Practitioners were longer lived than humans, but this was pushing the boundaries of all reason. And her nana thought he was cute… and that Gia should keep him? He blushed, trying to push that thought out of his mind. Instead, he focused on what Gia had said. H was hungry, and they did need food to keep up their strength.

  “No, of course she’s not my grandmother,” Gia said, rolling her eyes. “Although she is one several times over. Everyone here calls her nana, even me, although I’m old enough to remember her in swaddling clothes.”

  Wincing, he held the spot where the shrapnel had hit. There was a bandage over the wound now.

  “It’s gone. Nana helped me get it out. She also purged the poison and reknit the flesh. It’s almost all healed.”

  “Who is we? Where are we?”

  Gia appeared uncomfortable. “You are in Telerin village. My family’s home.”

  Salvador nearly gasped, but he stopped himself because he thought it might hurt. “That woman is your actual grandmother?”

  “Of course not. I said she wasn’t. The woman who birthed my mother is long dead. But my family lives on. Nana is my younger sister’s descendant—specifically, she’s her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter—give or take a few greats.”

  “You had a biological sister?”

  “I did,” she said slowly. Salvador suspected Gia did not share these details with many people. “Her name was Isadora. She was fierce and only minimally annoying the way sisters are supposed to be. Isadora had only one surviving daughter, but that daughter had three children. Successive generations have been even more prolific. I have relations all over the globe. But this is the place I call home,” she said, gesturing to the window and presumably the village at large.

  “And Nana is the best healer in the world, although I admit you do give her a run for her money, at least when it comes to poisons and curses.”

  “She healed me?”

  “She did,” Gia murmured. “I did help a bit. But then, I owed you one.”

  He peeked under the bandage. The wound was still red, but it was no longer open. “That’s debatable. I should have let you deal with that Fae berserker on your own. I just got in your way.”

  She shrugged. “You helped. Some.”

  It was subtle, but there was a slight clipped quality to her words.

  “Are you angry at me?”

  “No.”

  His eyes widened. Gia was lying to him. “You are.” And he knew why. “It’s because I almost died. Aww. You would miss me.”

  “I would not.” She scowled, rolling her shoulder awkwardly.

  “Admit it. You like me.”

  “That’s not it,” she insisted.

  He snickered. “I’ve finally grown on you.”

  “Maybe a little,” she grudgingly admitted. “Like a fungus.”

  Now he was ready to dance a jig, or he would if he could stand. “We’ve had mushrooms with practically every meal. You love fungus.”

  Gia’s mouth firmed into a thin line. Deciding to let it go, he examined his surroundings, silently marveling she had brought him home.

  Now that his eyes were getting used to the darkness, he could make out that the rough walls of the room were adobe. A wooden bureau polished to a deep shine set flush against the wall. The surface was covered in small porcelain figurines and other knickknacks every woman over the age fifty seemed to accumulate.

  And the old woman was Gia’s descendant. It was mind-bending. This wasn’t like the vampires whose little cliques were mostly static. Gia was like a great stone in a shifting river of time. It flowed past her while she remained unchanged. But she still immersed in it, surrounding herself with her loved ones.

  “Do they know what you are? Your relatives, I mean?”

  Gia sat on the stool Nana had vacated. “Of course. I don’t have to hide what I am here. That would be ridiculous. The people of Telerin are my family.”

  Unbelievable. “But it’s not like T’Kaieri, the Water Elemental’s home. This place is open. Anyone could come here. Anyone could leave. It’s not a closed community, is it?”

  “It’s not,” she said. “I wouldn’t want that for them. This is the same land my mother and father walked—a pocket of magic hidden in plain sight. Everyone here has magic in their blood. It’s a repository of learning as well as a home. The Mother’s love is strong here—although if I were you, I wouldn’t make the mistake of believing us to be doves and diplomats. I also wouldn’t share your last name with anyone here. Not even Nana, unless you want her to spit in your food.”

  “Of course,” he muttered. The Delavordo name was supposed to open doors. That was what his mother always said. But that depended on the places a Delavordo wanted to go. Lucia couldn’t know how many of those doors had slammed in his face because of his family name.

  Salvador supposed it could have been worse. He could have lived centuries ago when the seven families were in open warfare, instead of the tense alliances and clandestine conflicts of today.

  I could have been like the Fae warrior, unwilling cannon fodder. “Did they truly do that to their own people? The Fae, I mean.”

  Gia leaned back with a sigh. “When the battles raged between the different Fae kingdoms, nothing was beyond the pale. There were more then, too. Fiefdoms, really, but some were quite powerful. Now only the two strongest remain, Seelie and Unseelie, ying and yang. They’d destroy each other if they could, but then the other would fall as well—a result of the Great Curse.”

  Salvador’s fuzzy brain supplied the
knowledge. In addition to imposing certain restrictions on lying, the Fae’s Great Curse was supposed to have done a few other things, but those had never been detailed in his history books. “Let me guess. It guarantees mutual destruction?”

  “In a word, yes.”

  He nodded, sympathy for the fallen kingdoms of the past overwhelming him.

  His growling stomach pushed him past his reverie. “By chance is Nana a good cook? I’m starving.”

  “She’s a better cook than she is a healer.”

  He brightened, but her continued serious expression put a damper on his enthusiasm. Assuming it was because they failed, he sat up straighter.

  “I’ll be ready to head out to the woods after I eat,” he promised. “Since the berserker is gone, we can try again.”

  “It’s all right. We don’t have to go back to the woods. I figured out another way.”

  “You did?” Shouldn’t she be happy about that? Gia was sober as a judge.

  True, he wasn’t a specialist on women’s moods. His few girlfriends had remained closed books, but he wasn’t completely dense when it came to Gia.

  Which was why a sinking feeling had started in the pit of his stomach. “Why do I get the feeling that I’m not going to like this?”

  He finally got a smile, but this one did little to comfort him. “Because you’re smarter than you look.”

  27

  Gia swallowed the last sweet raisin and pineapple tamale. Nana smacked her on the arm, warning her she was going to choke if she didn’t eat more slowly.

  “Ow, not so hard, Nana,” she chided, rubbing her arm even though it didn’t hurt. It was a game they’d played since Nana was little.

  She ate some more, savoring the warmth of the kitchen. Before Nana, it had been Celestina cooking here. Before Celestina, this had been Renata’s domain. Her sister’s descendants had generously opened their home to her for centuries. And, fortunately, they had all been good cooks.