The Elementals Collection

by L. B. Gilbert

  “It’s this place,” Diana murmured.

  “What about this place?” The hills were picturesque, like most of the land in this part of Ecuador, but there was nothing special about it that he could see.

  Diana sighed. “There was a village here once. It was overrun by insurgents. Marco, Gia’s mate, came here to help. He was shot by someone, a case of friendly fire. This is where he died.”

  Holy fuck. His eyes flew to Gia. She faced away from him, but he could see her tension. It was in the line of her shoulders, the way she held herself. John was a master in psychological warfare—the piece of shit.

  “Man, I really want to kill this guy,” he muttered.

  “You’ll have to get in line. A very long one,” Alec replied. “Besides, didn’t you take an oath to do no harm?”

  “That is for doctors. I’m a curandero, which is also a witch.” And he believed in justice more than he believed in keeping his hands clean. True, he had never been in a battle like this, but he’d had plenty of hand-to-hand fights. He’d even fought off a trio of muggers intent on assaulting one of his distant neighbors. This couldn’t be that different. He just had to pick an opponent while staying aware of his surroundings. How hard could it be?

  “What happened to the village?” he asked, scanning the empty hills and fields. Marco hadn’t died that long ago, a few decades at most. There should have been derelict buildings or at least foundations, but there was no trace of anything now.

  “Serin moved the stream that provided the water to the villagers,” Diana volunteered. “The people followed it. The Mother quickly reclaimed what was here, leaving it like new, untouched.”

  “Okay.” He hoped Gia had found that therapeutic instead of a heavy-handed attempt to erase her pain…

  “Are you ready?” Alec asked. Salvador nodded, stretching his fingers. His hand ached after having finished the arduous task of giving six or seven dozen wolves toxin-proofing injections, but his pockets were loaded down with spell vials. His arms were also prepped with protective and defensive runes. “It’s almost time.”

  “Do you really think he’ll show?” Engraved invitation or not, Salvador was skeptical. That would qualify as terminal stupidity.

  “Despite the impressive assortment of malcontents he has assembled, I don’t, not really. It would be suicide,” Alec murmured.

  Salvador opened his mouth to agree, but he was forestalled when Gia turned, having heard their entire conversation.

  “John is already here,” she announced. “He’s behind the others near the trees.”

  “The one shielded up the wazoo?” Serin asked. “I noticed him, too.”

  “Are you sure?” Logan asked. “I just read Fae from that guy.”

  “Yes, he’s disguised as one of the gnomes.”

  “Like that’ll help the fucking coward,” Diana growled.

  Logan asked the question Salvador wanted to. “If he’s back there, what are we waiting for?”

  “I didn’t want anyone to be caught unawares,” Gia said, pointing to the sky.

  Scowling, Salvador glanced up, catching the strange whine for the first time. “What is that?”

  “Drones.” Gia put her hand on Logan’s shoulder. “Take care of them, then circle back. There are three choppers coming up right behind them.”

  Stunned, Salvador froze, expecting death from above, but the Air Elemental was on it. She disappeared, too intent on her task to acknowledge the order.

  Ahead of him, Gia nodded to her other two sisters. She and the other Elementals ran forward as the world exploded in light off to the right where the bombs crashed less than half a mile from their position.

  “Shit,” he muttered, running as fast as he could. He was quickly overtaken by their wolf allies, ending up somewhere in the rear guard.

  A wall of fire rose as the choppers appeared, complete with men belaying down from tactical ropes, enough for it to rain hell down upon them. Logan blew them off course. The helicopters spun out of control, the armed personal swinging from them like an enthusiastic stripper’s tassels. He didn’t see where they landed.

  After that, the adrenaline fragmented his perception. He caught snatches of breathtaking scenes that were like something from an action movie—Serin washing away a squad of camouflaged soldiers, clearing the path for the wolves to get to the Black Darrig. Those deadly Fae ran straight down the middle of the field, leading dog-sized…err… somethings. The animals had short torsos, and they were earless with huge jaws and smooth round heads. They tore into the wolves with snarls and crunches that sounded too much like bones breaking for Salvador’s peace of mind.

  “Hey, look alive, dufus.” Logan appeared out of nowhere. She snatched the spellbomb he clutched, chunking it behind him. Whirling, he heard a strangled scream as a man fell. One of John’s allies had snuck up behind him.

  “Thanks,” he called, but Logan was already gone. Small tornadoes followed in her wake.

  On his left, Diana threw fireballs at a group of vampires he hadn’t known was there. The ground thrummed under his feet. He spotted Gia, arms out, as a river of dirt crashed into a line of camouflaged soldiers, carrying their weapons away and leaving them floundering in the dirt like unbalanced toddlers in a sandbox.

  Salvador tried to do his part, but he was slower and less experienced in battle than every other person in the field. Grabbing more spell vials, he spun in a circle, trying to find a viable target. He didn’t locate one until an opposing wolves leapt on him, sending him crashing to the ground.

  43

  The snarling jaws were inches from Salvador’s neck when Gia rose from the ground next to him with a pop. She grabbed the wolf’s rear leg, twisting it until it popped out of the joint. The wolf turned on her with a snarl, so she punched it in the muzzle, tossing its unconscious body over her shoulder.

  “Thank—”

  Gia held up a hand, pointing down the hill. “We’ve got injured, and you are far more valuable as a medic. Douglas will lose wolves if you don’t get your ass down there. Go triage.”

  He looked as if he wanted to argue, but he simply closed his mouth with a sharp nod and ran down the hill.

  She grabbed his arm before he got too far. “Watch your ass and don’t get dead,” she ordered, letting him go.

  Salvador beamed. “I love you, too,” he said, bending over for a short, searing kiss. Then he pulled back, turning away.

  “That’s not what I said,” she shouted after him as he sprinted down the hill.

  “Then why did I hear it loud and clear?” he yelled back, laughing.

  Grinning despite herself, Gia twisted to survey the field. Serin had done a good job of washing away John’s toxin from the soil. He’d tried to work it into the earth, tying it to the same plague curse Jordan had detonated in T’Kaieri, but his attempt to incapacitate her and the others had failed. They’d foreseen this and figured out how to sequester the contamination with impermeable rock, pulling it down and away from the living soil. Even now, a specially rerouted underground river carried it away to the ocean where it would be diluted to the point of harmlessness.

  I have to hand it to the bastard. Even under their noses, John was doing a magnificent job of hiding. He’d shed the gnome identity as the helicopters flew in, sliding into another disguise before she could blink. It took her a number of minutes before she found him again—as a Fae burkin this time. The camouflage was intricate and must have taken him years to learn how to do, but Gia was angry and determined. She knew how to peel away the layers of magic to get to his underlying bone signature.

  But the de-masking took time, and she had to examine every man and woman on the field. No sooner did she spot the little worm than he would dive into the melee, slipping on anther disguise like he was changing coats. By the fourth one, she gritted her teeth, telling herself she was going to grind his bones into a paste.

  Not to mention, John wasn’t the only one she had to worry about. It must have taken him years, but h
e had managed to collect the worst of the worst—witches, Fae, and shifters she would hesitate to send her sisters against, preferring to take them on herself.

  At one point, she saw Diana go down, thrown to the ground by one of the Black Darrig. Reacting, Gia softened the ground, pulling Diana down and under her adversary, then raising her behind them.

  “Thanks, babe,” Di called after her fire lit up the Durrin from the inside out.

  Gia saluted, then swiveled only to find a new adversary in front of her. Well, well… She inclined her head. “Seska.”

  The witch bowed with a flourish. A product of the ill-fated union of the Morgan and Patel clans, Seska had been on her and her sisters’ watch list for years, but she’d stayed under the radar for the last decade. Gia was disappointed to see the witch here now.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me it’s not too late to return to the light and forge my own path?” Seska laughed, a hysterical sound tainted with madness.

  That’s new. “No,” Gia said slowly, adding ‘Gladio’ in a whisper. The sword she’d claimed in Sheol appeared in her hand. It gleamed bright blue in the moonlight, its edge sharper than ever. “You’ve had ample opportunity to change course. Eventually, there are no more chances left.”

  She threw the sword just as Seska released her arsenal, hurling half-a-dozen spell vials at once. Gia deflected most, but one vial hit her. She brushed away the burning mix from her arm as her sword flew out. It arced like a boomerang as she called it back with her talent.

  A normal blade shouldn’t have been able to slice through Seska’s many protection spells, but the Elven blade was still rejoicing its liberation from the demon king in Sheol. There was a slight hesitation as it hit the witch’s dark aura, but only for a second. Then it kept going, eager to please its new master.

  The witch collapsed into two pieces, bisected neatly at the waist. Gia decided to leave the body where it lay. Seska had clearly been busy in her decade of silence because her corpse was too tainted for Gia to feel comfortable sending it into the ground. Also, thanks to John, this patch would have to absorb a lot of blood and black magic tonight—too much. Instead, she’d ask Diana to burn the body later.

  Farther away, a wall of flame crashed into the web of sticky vines some unknown Fae had thrown toward the wolves. Jumping in, she peeled one of the creepers off a male—she thought his name was Terrance—when it wouldn’t respond to her magic at a distance.

  “Serin,” she called as the skin on her hand started to burn. A sticky substance covered the twisted vines, like an acidic mucus. She felt the vibration in the aether distinctive to her sister, but it was Daniel who skidded to a stop next to her.

  “Should I?” he gasped, panting rapidly.

  She waved him on, guiding his relatively untrained hand as he blasted the vines covering the wolves with a spring he called himself. Helping, she called sharp stones from the deep, bringing them to the surface by pushing and twisting her hands together. The stones tracked her movement, crushing and shearing the appendages off.

  “Not bad, rookie,” she told Daniel, helping peel them away from the wolf. Terrance’s fur—or was it Derrick?—had partially protected him, but the vines had worked into his hip, exposing muscle where it cut the deepest.

  The wet wolf twisted out of its last restraint. He jerked, as if determined to head back into the fray, but Gia grabbed him by the muzzle and pointed him sharply in the other direction. When he wouldn’t go on his own, she addressed Daniel.

  “Take him down to Salvador,” she ordered, softening the ground and sending them both down the hill, bypassing the fight.

  Adrenaline kept her hopping all over as she ran back and forth putting out fires, or, in some cases, helping start them. At one point, she twisted around to find a human mercenary behind her, but he was too frightened to do anything. He couldn’t even point the weapon he held at her.

  “Hey, guy, think fast,” she said, tossing a fist-sized rock at him. Yelping, he dropped his automatic weapon. Tsking, she rushed him and threw out a fast jab, knocking him unconscious. Keeping the hapless humans alive made her job a little more difficult, but she did it anyway… up until she spotted her real prey.

  John wore a damn fine illusion of an attractive woman, one of the human mercenaries.

  Gia tore through ‘her’ buddies, the cluster of male soldiers the faux female hid with. She tossed soldiers twice her size out of the way, making sure the spot they landed in was muddy and extra slippery so they couldn’t get back up.

  Using her booted foot, she kicked the last man soldier in the backside, sending him sliding away. Belatedly, the John-woman lifted his weapon. Snatching it out of ‘her’ manicured hands, Gia bent the AR-15 down the middle, trying to twist it like a pretzel. The metal’s tensile strength was too weak, and it ended up snapping in half.

  She grabbed the asshole by the collar as he tried to run away. Gia raised her hand, blasting the layers of magic away to reveal the pudgy and sweaty form of their enemy.

  One of the soldiers who’d managed to crawl up to them stopped short, his face twisted when he got a look at John unmasked.

  The sheer horror on his face told her that there was a story here, but she didn’t have the time or the patience to hear it. Gia let the ground swallow the soldier up, spitting him out near the tree line.

  “The breasts were a nice touch,” she told John, who still tried to break her grip. “But this ends now.”

  “On that, we agree,” he said, lifting a spell vial that had suddenly appeared in his hand over his head.

  “Simple sleight of hand,” he grunted as he threw it at her face. “Sometimes, the oldest tricks are the best.”

  44

  Letting him go with a push, Gia put her hand out, sending the vial rushing back at John with her talent.

  “You’re not supposed to be able to do that,” he grunted. “I carved that myself—from a shooting star that fell on sacred land in the Yukon. Your magic doesn’t work on non-terrestrial stones.”

  She raised a brow. “Let me guess. You bought this meteorite online?”

  His face tightened. John drew himself up to his unimpressive height. “I purchased it on eBay from a reputable vendor. Or so his ratings said. Is no one honest?” he asked, totally without irony.

  “Well, I guess there’s only one thing left to do.” John unstopped the vial. For a moment, she thought he would try to throw it at her, but he surprised her by upending the entire mess on top of his own head. The sickly green dripped down his neck and ears. He bowed, mockingly holding out his arms. “I’m all yours.”

  She fluttered her lashes, lifting one shoulder. “I accept your unconditional surrender.”

  Screwing his face into snarl, he lunged for her, trying to wipe the excess liquid on her.

  “It’s not going to work this time,” she snapped, lifting her hand. The mud under his feet responded, drying and growing coarse. It rushed over his hand, sanding off the top layers of his skin.

  “Ow…” John whined. He put his hand on his head. The shiny round melon pulsed red, bleeding in half-a-dozen spots. Then he lifted his hand to his mouth, nursing it.

  Disgusted, she grabbed his arm and shook him, confirming there were no more hidden vials left. Around them, the sounds of fighting dimmed. The battle was winding down.

  John cleared his throat. “For old times’ sake, I’d appreciate it if Serin did the deed. I wouldn’t mind going out like Jordan. In a few thousand years, maybe scientists will find my mummified corpse and put it in a museum.”

  “The fact you think you’re important enough for a museum is just…” She swallowed, bile in her throat.

  “But I am,” he insisted. “Allow me to introduce myself—”

  She held up her hand. “Stop right there. I don’t care.”

  “But my name is—”

  “I. Don’t. Care. There’s one of you in every age. But, in every age, there is one of me to stop you,” she interrupted, punctuating every word with tr
uth.

  As for his request—that wasn’t happening. Gia wasn’t letting this turd anywhere near her sister. Not that Serin couldn’t handle the confrontation, but this kill was Gia’s.

  John didn’t even try to break free. Instead, he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Fine, so what shall it be? Will you pull my bones out of my body? Or just grind them into dust in situ, as it were? Will I spend the rest of my days as a formless lump, like the proverbial blob fish?”

  His laugh grated on Gia’s ears.

  “I’ve actually been giving this some thought,” she admitted, “weighing my options. I had the list narrowed to a few favorites, but I just thought of something better.”

  Gia let the ground soften, flying them down into the bowels of the earth as fast as her talent could carry them. When they arrived at their destination, she let him fall to the ground as the travel disorientation knocked him off balance.

  She backed up a step. “Congratulations. I’ve decided I’m going to give you exactly what you want.”

  Gia raised her arms like a game-show hostess, waving at the empty space around them. “Welcome to the Mother’s chamber.”

  It had been fairly easy to return now that she knew where it was. Also, there were no elaborate safeguards in place anymore. Why would there be? There was nothing here to protect.

  John twisted around, examining the vast blank space. “It’s empty.”

  “I know.”

  He shrugged, then stood. “Did you move Her… for Her safety?” His tone was smug, almost flattered.

  “No. The Mother has left us.”

  “What?” He threw back his head and laughed, fanning his red face.

  Briefly, she closed her eyes. “Yes, the Mother has left this world. But before you get excited, She didn’t decide to leave because of you.”

  Part of Gia still wanted to blame him, but she had long accepted the truth. The Mother had one foot out the door for years.

  John scowled. “But magic still dies now, right?”