Elemental Origins: The Complete Series

by A. L. Knorr

  They expected a vengeful wind, and a vengeful wind was what I would give them.

  There was a pop of gunfire. A bullet whizzed by my head. I spied the gun and the man behind it, lying on his stomach in the sand. He took aim a second time. I flicked a hand with a snap and a bellowing twister of sand sprang up and swallowed the man from view. I relaxed and the grains fell, making him visible once again. He was nothing but a head poking out of a man-sized molehill of grit, clenching his eyes shut and spitting.

  KA-BOOOM!

  I dropped to my stomach as something exploded behind me. The sound was huge and thick, almost guttural. My eardrums sucked inward as the air changed. A sudden blast of hot air slapped over me, strong enough to have knocked me flat if I hadn't already been on my belly.

  Glancing back while keeping my cheek against the rock, I could see black smoke billowing up from a crevice in the mountains. Flaming pieces of rock arched through the air and fell among the terrain and the campsite. The canvas of the tents snapped like bullwhips. The air tasted metallic and smelled like smoke. Blood and fury beat in my head.

  I caught the frightened faces of Jesse and Ibby as they peeked up from the crack. I held a palm out at them, don't move.

  That blast, had it been closer, could have killed someone. For all I knew, it had killed someone. I didn't know where Ethan, Molly, or Sarah were hiding. It had been only a single explosion but I had lost track of the bombs ferried out of the metal box and distributed.

  I hopped to my feet and with a hoarse, angry cry, I chose a vehicle and shot my palm forward like I was batting away a projectile. There was a sharp creak and the sound of metal denting. One of the Jeeps with a gun in the back lifted high into the air. It turned end over end three times as it flew away from the campsite and landed upside down with a crash in a dune beyond the tire tracks. Its tires spun uselessly and reminded me of the way a beetle stuck on its back thrashes its legs.

  My wind picked up sand and whipped it into the air. Cries from the men became faint as the gale howled like a living entity. I could sense the air; I could feel where it was and how much power it had. It wound and spun through the rocks and through the excavation site like a living thing. It was as though it knew my enemies, for the wind did not disturb the dig pits, or behind me where Ibby and Jesse were hiding. It made a pocket of protection around Chris even as it pummeled the others it found, throwing them through the air as they reached for weapons or ran for cover, their hands protecting their heads and faces.

  I slapped away the vehicle behind Chris. In his own bubble of stillness, not a hair on his head was disturbed. He turned and watched the truck arc into the air. Before it landed, I hit it again, volleying it high and spinning into the air. Random objects flew from its open windows. It smashed against a cliff face, glass shattering. Chris watched this, frozen, then peered back at me. I couldn't be sure but it looked like he was grinning.

  I punched at three more vehicles in succession. One fell straight back and tilted up on its bumper before flipping over backwards. With a scream of twisting metal, another tumbled end over end like a weed blowing in the wind until it landed on its side, looking for all the world like a giant hand had crunched it like an aluminum can.

  I spied a man army-crawling across the sand from behind Chris's van toward a crack in the mountain. With a sweep of my hand, I buried him with enough sand to keep him busy for a while.

  Our van jostled and squeaked as sand filled the air. Two tents came unpegged and the canvas spiraled into the air like kites. Someone’s pillow was caught in a cyclone and whirled in a circle up high over the desert and out of sight.

  Ghostly shapes appeared in the sandstorm, lifting up from the ground and from cracks and crevasses around the campsite. I blinked in confusion at these until I realized they were guns and bombs and other metal objects such as dig tools, thermoses and cookware. They hovered, unaffected by the sandstorm, but being lifted by some unknown force all the same.

  A sound turned my head.

  "Ibby!" I cried out as she stepped up beside me. "Get down!"

  She shook her head. Her eyes were locked on the site below us. With a wave of her arms, all of the metal objects—bombs, guns, and dig tools—moved together into a cluster. They began to make a pile on the sand in the middle of our campsite, unaffected by my whirling storm. The clank and ting of metal against metal was muffled by the sound of wind and blowing sand.

  I watched, my jaw going slack. I closed my mouth with a snap and looked at Ibby, who was now relaxed and staring back at me. I realized then who had twisted the gun out of Mifta's hand.

  I was not the only supernatural being here.

  "You can stop the storm now." Her words bounced around our little bubble of safety. “They can’t hurt us anymore.”

  I looked down at the wreckage. Vehicles were shattered beyond repair, lying in heaps across the desert and at the base of basalt cliffs. A pile of weapons and bombs lay on the sand. Sand shifted where men worked to dig themselves out before they suffocated. The sky was yellow and opaque with clouds of swirling grit. Wind screamed through the cracks and valleys of the mountains, whistling and furious.

  I relaxed, and the winds died immediately. The sound of sand raining down and spattering filled our ears. Slowly, the sky shifted from a brown haze to a clear blue. The campsite fell into silence.

  Jesse climbed up and joined us, eyes like saucers. The three of us stood and surveyed the damage for what seemed like a very long time.

  Chapter 17

  The sound of tires on sand made me lift my hands again, heart jumping, eyes on the desert horizon. But the trucks that raced up to the dig site and slammed on the brakes, spitting sand from their tires, their noses dipping as they came to a halt, were not like the other vehicles. These were two white Escalades, decked out and glimmering with chrome. The logo on the sides had the letters 'TNC' emblazed on the white paint.

  "It's Miss Marks," said Ibby. "Thank God."

  I blinked at her. "Jody Marks? Our sponsor?"

  She nodded, and her hands relaxed to her sides. "Ethan would have contacted her when you went missing." Ibby tilted her head back to the sun and closed her eyes. Sweat shone from her brow and beaded across her upper lip.

  I stared at her, still processing the fact that she'd been keeping her secret from everyone all along.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, quietly.

  She opened one eye and squinted at me. "Same reason you kept yours a secret, too."

  One corner of my mouth tugged up. "Touché."

  "Come on." Jesse made his way off the rock and turned to help Ibby and me climb down. The three of us snaked through the crevasse back to the campsite.

  Chris was on his feet and came running across the sand to hug me. Sarah, Ethan, and Molly emerged from their hiding places. I was relieved to see everyone was okay and someone had cut Molly out of her bonds.

  A tall woman in dark glasses and a white scarf wrapped over her head and across her mouth got out of the passenger's side of the Escalade. A slim Asian man with exquisite cheekbones got out of the driver's side. He too wore dark glasses, but I could see his eyebrows arch above the frames of his glasses as he looked around the site.

  A third Escalade, this one with a light blue paint-job, pulled up and parked beside the white ones. Two more people joined the tall woman. One of them was broad and dark, with skin the color of coffee. The other was a petite redheaded woman in glasses and a white pant-suit. They were speaking to one another in low voices.

  The tall woman in the white scarf walked toward us and stopped in front of Ibby and me. "Everyone all right?"

  She took off her glasses and studied us with teak colored eyes. Her skin was smooth and unlined, but the bangs poking out from under her scarf were light gray. The nearly white strands caught the sun and turned to silver.

  There was a murmur of sounds which made it seem that yes, everyone was alive, but everyone was also so dazed at the day’s events that they didn't know w
hat to say. Everyone took their turns gaping at the pile of metal on the sand and the wreckage of vehicles scattered across the desert.

  "Hello, Ibukun," the woman said.

  "Miss Marks," Ibby replied, her voice respectful.

  I looked from one to the other, surprised that they knew one another. Ibby had never said anything about knowing our sponsor personally.

  "How many were there?"

  "Hard to say for sure," said Ibby. "At first there were only five, but after they called for backup,” she shrugged, “maybe a dozen more. Right, Petra?"

  I nodded. I felt Jesse join me and slip an arm around my waist. I smiled up at him and he gave me a squeeze.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  I nodded. "You?"

  He nodded, but his face was pale and serious.

  Miss Marks yelled at her team and they spread through the camp, weapons drawn. They began to flush out our attackers, all of whom were dusty and sandy from head to toe. The attackers were led to kneel in one place where the largest of Jody's team stood over them. The strangest thing was that they all seemed relaxed at this point, almost as though they were relieved the battle was over. A few of them sent me furtive glances, but their fear was not as palpable as it had been before. It was like a spell had been broken now that someone had taken charge.

  "How did you get here so fast?" I asked Miss Marks. "And with a whole team."

  Miss Marks put a hand around my shoulders and Jesse fell back. "Ethan radioed me when you went missing. I had flown into Alawenat to meet with the team leader scheduled to come in for the fall. I left Alawenat thinking we had a kidnapping of a supernatural to deal with." She let go of me and gestured around us at the mess. "Clearly that is no longer the case."

  I gave her a puzzled look. "How did you know I'm a supernatural?"

  "I radioed her after you lifted that rock and saved your teammates." Ethan came walking up to us, his face shining with sweat. Dark circles stained the armpits of his shirt. "If it weren't for you, I have a feeling this whole site would be burning rubble by now." He looked around. “It’s a mess, but the pits are nearly unscathed. Remarkable.”

  Miss Marks crossed her arms and looked at me. "You are very lucky that TNC happens to be sponsoring this dig, instead of some other corporation or authority."

  "Why's that?" I asked, really not sure what to think of this woman.

  "Because. Supernaturals are part of our business," she said simply. "We already have the infrastructure and processes in place to protect your identities and provide you with a whole safety network and the technology and opportunities to hone your abilities. For instance. Ibukun is an Inconquo, a metal elemental," she said pointedly, jerking her chin toward Ibby. "She works for us.”

  I stared at Ibby in shock and she gave me a small smile and an even smaller nod.

  “An Inconquo?”

  Ibby nodded again.

  “I have so many questions—”

  "And you," Miss Marks interrupted, putting the stem of her sunglasses between her teeth while she pondered me. "Your kind is new to us. But Ethan tells me the locals here refer to you as Euroklydon. Had you ever heard that term before?"

  I shook my head. How was it that this woman knew everything about the situation already? There was no awe or any kind of surprise on her face at what had been revealed to everyone out here in this remote desert location.

  "They are quite afraid of you," she said with a smirk. "Probably wise. Come on." She opened an arm out toward the Escalades. "Let's get you home. We have much to discuss, and I suspect the locals will be happy to see you gone."

  "What happens now?" I asked.

  "We get you out of here, as quickly as possible." She tilted her chin down and looked at us seriously from under her silver brows. "And then we have a talk about your future."

  Ibby and I looked at each other. Ibby gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “It’s all a good thing. Trust me.”

  "What about this mess?" I gestured to the disaster the dig site was in.

  "The team will clean it up and more help is on its way,” Miss Marks said. “We have more important things to concern you with than sweeping up sand and wrecked vehicles. If you agree to what is on offer, your life will change for the better, I can promise you that."

  When Ibby began to follow Miss Marks toward the Escalades, I followed too. I looked back over my shoulder to see Jesse watching me with a frown on his face. I smiled at him and it seemed he tried to smile back but failed.

  I wanted to run across the sand toward him and throw my arms around him. I wanted to talk through everything that had just happened. I wanted to kiss that serious look off his face. But he made no move to follow me or to come and say goodbye. He saw we were being whisked away and seemed rooted to the sand.

  Jesse only watched as I got into the blue Escalade behind Ibby. I felt numb and distracted by the sudden turn of events. In that moment, I thought that Jesse proved to be just as I had always warned myself he was. Uninvolved. A flirt. A fair-weather crush. All that talk of traveling to Petra together, or visiting Australia to see where he was from, was exactly what I’d suspected it was. Talk.

  Still. It stung.

  Ibby and I were whisked away to Alawenat, examined by a medical team and pronounced well, and then put up in a hotel room until our respective flights. Everything happened so fast that I barely had time to think. I hadn't even been given a moment to say goodbye to Jesse, Ethan, Chris, Molly, or Sarah.

  My personal items were waiting for me in my hotel room when I returned from my physical. By the time I had been fed a wholesome meal and had a rest, I fully regretted not making the move to say goodbye to Jesse. Maybe he was just a spring crush, but we had shared something significant, and I thought that at least deserved a goodbye. Why did Miss Marks have to rush us out of there so fast? Why hadn’t she even thought to suggest Ibby and I would like to say goodbye to our dig-mates? The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

  I rooted out the contacts sheet everyone had been given on the day of our briefing, and dialed Jesse's number. There was no answer, but I wasn't overly surprised at this. The number was an Australian cell and he probably hadn't even arrived back on Australian soil yet. For all I knew, he was on a plane.

  Someone knocked at my hotel door, so I folded away the page with all the phone numbers on it and got up to answer it. Ibby stood before me.

  "Hey," I said. "How are you? Everything okay?"

  She nodded and came in when I gestured her forward. I sat down on the bed, and she sat down across from me.

  "Do you know where Jesse is?” I asked. “Or any of our team, for that matter?"

  "Miss Marks told me they've been sent home and given some pay to allow them to recover from what happened."

  "We didn't even get to say goodbye to them," I grumbled.

  "No. It certainly hasn't been business as usual around here. I guess you've got a flight home booked for tomorrow morning already."

  "Really?"

  She nodded. "TNC doesn’t waste any time, and Jody Marks in particular.”

  "What about you?"

  "My plane leaves tomorrow afternoon."

  "Back to London?"

  She nodded. She bit her lip, looking at me like she wanted to say something important. "I have wanted to explain things to you.”

  I pulled my legs up underneath me, crossing them. "Okay."

  "I've been working for Miss Marks for a year now. I'm not an archaeologist. I was brought on as a sort of undercover security agent. There is supposedly some artifact of huge significance buried somewhere at that site. Having five security agents is already unusual for an excavation. Miss Marks wanted to bolster security even more without making it obvious."

  I blinked as this sank in. "Because you're"—what had Miss Marks called her?—"an Inconquo?"

  Ibby nodded. "She didn't want anyone to know, so I wasn’t allowed to say.”

  "But why?"

  "Well, I'm a supernatural, so m
y identity is supposed to be kept secret. I'm only telling you this now because you're a supernatural, too. And Miss Marks is probably going to offer you a job."

  "I sort of gathered that from what she said at the site. What kind of job?"

  "I have no idea," Ibby said. "But whatever it is, you should take it. TNC pays extremely well and you wouldn't believe the technology they have. There are whole rosters of supernaturals who work for them."

  I let out a long breath. "But my dream is to be an archaeologist."

  "They won't stand in the way of that, Petra," Ibby said. "If anything, they'll try and facilitate it for you."

  "Do you know why they didn't let us say goodbye to everyone?"

  "You can call them. I see you've already tried," she said, looking at the folded page of telephone numbers beside my phone. "Jesse?"

  I nodded miserably. "No luck."

  "He's probably on a plane. Try again tomorrow morning."

  I fell back on the bed. "Everything has just been happening so fast. My mind is spinning."

  I felt Ibby's hand squeeze my knee. "I know. That's why they'll let you go home and rest for a while before they call you in."

  "Call me where?"

  She fell back down next to me and looked over, quirking a smile. "TNC has field stations all over the place. Wherever it is, it'll be state-of-the-art. Even if you decline their offer, you should go just to see it."

  I nodded. "Miss Marks seems nice."

  "She's a professional," said Ibby. "And she'll treat you like one, too."

  "But I'm no professional. I'm just a confused teenager."

  Ibby shook her head. "You're a supernatural. There's a whole world of supernaturals out there. It's time to take your place among them."

  Chapter 18

  Less than a week later, I got the invitation Ibby was talking about.

  “We’d like to bring you to one of our facilities to have your abilities tested,” Miss Marks’s voice came through the phone. “Would you agree to that? We can help you make sense of your nature.”