Elemental Origins: The Complete Series

by A. L. Knorr

  "Georjie," I tried to say, but I was so astounded at what she'd just done and what was happening that it came out as a rasp.

  She’d just exposed herself. Big time. But she'd saved several students from being flattened. I noticed at least one person standing off to the side, gaping at the tree which had appeared out of the school's foundations, holding their phone up and taking photos or videos.

  "Oh, this is bad," I groaned, watching as another student joined the first, this one definitely filming both the tree and the approaching storm.

  "Get out of here!" I yelled at them.

  Cracks shot through the mortar of the school walls like the building was made of glass. Dust crumbled and drifted over the tree and the grass, turning the green to gray. Or was it the dust doing that? I squinted at the base of the school, watching the color leach out of everything. It wasn't the dust turning everything to gray…

  A stampede of people came running through the parking lot, looking over their shoulders and screaming. Behind them, a fuming gray fog that was almost smoke, or smoke that was almost fog, swept across the city, swallowing buildings and cars and turning people into silhouettes stumbling through the haze.

  I heard sounds of disgust and screams of terror, people yelling out names in panic, looking for one another. The strangest thing about this smoke was that it had edges. There were stark borders between the fog and the clear air around it.

  A terrific crack filled the air and the sound of grinding rock and crumbling concrete drew my attention back to the school. The cracks were huge now, and wove through the side of the high school where Georjie's tree reached up from the earth and along the brick wall like a hand hoping to catch something.

  "The whole building is coming down." Georjie's tone was not panicked, her voice not even loud. Maybe something about the wraith she'd fought in Ireland had taken the edge off strange events like this, but my heart was pounding like war-drums.

  "Georjie, let's go!" My voice was husky and an awful crawling feeling was all over my face and arms, making my clothing feel heavy and caked in swamp guck.

  The grinding noise increased and my eyes flew up to the second story of the high school. A section of the storm, moving independently from the main body, swung toward the school like a huge fist. Blue daylight flashed at me through gaps in the fog-smoke. I blinked and tried to refocus my eyes, unsure of what I was seeing.

  "It's a thing," Targa whispered beside me, her hand gripping my shoulder. "It looks like a freak storm but it's something else, right? A…creature? Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

  I nodded and felt my inner fire bellow to life. What was this force? If it was a natural phenomenon, it was the strangest one I had ever seen. But strange things had happened before. I'd read about them in the news, like how spiders rained from the sky in Australia, or the sky turned bright red in Wales after a tropical storm blew metallic dust across the ocean.

  I squinted, watching with disbelief, as a disembodied part of the storm crashed through the school. At first there seemed to be no effect. The 'fist' passed through the bricks and windows like a ghost. But moments later the school's walls swayed, leaned dangerously, and groaned like the building had a soul and it knew it was dying. More fat cracks threaded their way through the brickwork.

  "Saxony." Targa tugged on my arm. With monumental effort, I tore my eyes from the ghostly fist and followed Targa's gaze.

  Georjie had become the Wise. She looked the way she had in the photograph I had thought was photoshopped. The face was hers, the form was hers, but Georjie's expression was alight with a terrible and beautiful wrath.

  Goosebumps swept up the back of my neck. I barely recognized my friend. Her eyes were white lights, her arms lifted and fingers flexed. Dirt covered her feet and disappeared up her pant legs.

  The walls of the school gave way.

  "There are students still inside!" I made to dart forward but Targa kept me back. "Let me help," I rasped.

  "Wait!" Targa's hand squeezed, almost painfully. "What are you going to do? Light the whole thing on fire? She has a plan!"

  I glanced at Georjie and her body seemed to surge with tension.

  Trees and vines and surfeit of plants wound their way through the walls of the school, wrapping tendrils and green muscular arms around chunks of brick wall and crumbling cement. Huge vines as thick as tree trunks snaked around and through the building as kids crawled from the first-floor windows and ran from the doorways, dragging one another, helping each other escape. Like the tentacles of some subterranean kraken, the plants whipped and unfurled to thread themselves through the building, holding it up.

  Georjie couldn't stop the school from crumbling, but she was slowing it enough to give the people inside a chance to escape.

  My jaw sagged at the sight before us. A fractured building woven through with rich green plant-life—and Georjie's plant-life did not lose its color; if anything it seemed to pulse with an ethereal green light. Amazement held me still and my heart surged with pride.

  Targa made a sound almost like laughter. "Now she's just showing off!"

  A profusion of purple flowers the size of tractor tires burst open along several of the vines, along with large green leaves which thrust outward from thick stems and unfurled like verdant green umbrellas. The whole network of plant reinforcement stretched and swayed as the school took the impact of the storm-beast.

  There was an angry rumble from both the sky and the earth.

  "Are those…" I squinted at the giant flowers festooning the school like oversized party decorations. "Are those morning glories? How is she…" I sniffed. Yes, the air had become fragrant with a floral scent.

  Georjie turned toward us, her eyes once more limpid and sweet. A moue of disgust curled her lip.

  "Go, let's go!" She wiped at her arms, trying to get rid of the slimy feeling.

  "Georjie, kids have you on film," I cried as we took off running toward the nearest blue sky.

  She didn't reply because a car came careering out of the parking lot of the convenience store across the street and jumped the curb as it barreled toward us. It sideswiped a picnic table in an effort to avoid us. Targa hit me full in the side as we dove out of the way.

  I landed hard and all the air whooshed from my lungs. As I was gasping for air I got another good look at the storm-creature. Sucking oxygen and blinking at the view behind us, I thought I saw, just for a moment, the shape of shoulders, thick swinging arms, and a turning head topped with horns. It was like a shadow-giant moving down the street, its bulk swaying.

  Then the image was gone, and if I didn't know better I would think I'd imagined it. Now it just seemed like a freak storm, sweeping across Saltford, moving fast and growing like a mushroom cloud.

  I wheezed as I rolled to my knees and grabbed Georjie's arm to help her up.

  "Go, go, go!" Targa was already on her feet and taking off.

  She nearly yanked my arm from its socket as she hauled us up and away. Her pure strength shocked me, but I was too dazed by what was happening to process it properly. I felt as though Armageddon must have struck. Was the whole world under attack, or just Saltford?

  As the storm passed near us, wind whipped our hair and lightning flashed angrily overhead.

  "Ugh!" A profoundly disgusted sound came from Georjie.

  My skin felt coated in something thick, cold, and slimy. I ran a hand along my arm and looked at it, but there was nothing to be seen. I shuddered and fought down a gag.

  Targa, Georgie, and I ran for the nearest blue sky, more than half a block to the southeast. We raced toward the clean-looking air over the beach and the Atlantic, our skin still crawling.

  Saltford had become a city bending and groaning under the weight of an apocalyptic event. My mind raced as I watched my hometown fall to pieces. What could we do? People scattered and ran through the streets, which became treacherous as they heaved. Cars swerved wildly across the blacktop as their drives tried to avoid people and other cars, so
metimes succeeding, sometimes not. Alarms and sirens signaled a city in chaos and panic. And somewhere behind us came the frightening sounds of splintering wood and twisting metal.

  People were getting injured, probably dying. Terror had taken the city.

  My blood thundered hot and fast next to my eardrums. Something exploded with a series of popping sounds, like fireworks. I squinted through the gloom to see that it actually was a collection of fireworks in someone's garage, spewing colored sparks from the open door. The garage had a dangerous lean to it, as did the house behind it.

  We reached the edges of the storm-beast and passed into sunlight. The feeling of muck crawling across my skin and being squeezed out of my hair and clothing was so bizarre that I hardly noticed the ground moving. It felt as though the invisible slime that covered us while we were in the shadows had to stay in the shadows, and as we moved toward fresh air it crawled across our bodies away from the sunshine.

  I felt a shudder through the soles of my feet. The sound of heaving and ripping pavement could be heard behind us. But when the smell of actual smoke reached my nose, my head snapped up.

  I slowed down and did a three-sixty, scanning for fire. The skin across the left side of my body tingled, and the fire inside roared to life.

  "Saxony, look." Targa's voice pulled my attention to where she was pointing at the sky.

  The shadow was growing larger and seemed to be twisting. The way the storm was moving gave me the vague impression of a golfer drawing back a club to swing. As the shape unwound, the sound of splitting earth and pavement was so loud that we clamped our hands over our ears. Thunder swelled to a nearly unbearable volume and the strangest lightning I had ever seen forked down from somewhere in the belly of the storm-beast.

  Where it struck, fire leapt up, zooming down a block of post-war homes like they were kindling.

  Rage ripped through me at the sight of Saltford homes burning. My fists clenched as I watched the storm-beast preparing another strike. Now this thing was using my element to attack my hometown?

  Not on my watch.

  I ran. Targa's and Georjie's voices were faint behind me. I pelted through a narrow alley between houses, vaulted a chain-link fence, crossed a park, and skirted a copse of trees before reaching the street that was on fire.

  Baking air turned the world into a mirage. Fire belched from windows, fueled with supernatural energy. The heat was incredible, the speed with which the fire had spread was astonishing. Flames leaped from rooftop to rooftop. There were people in the streets frantically making phone calls–likely going unanswered. There were people in the burning houses, but it would take forever to search every home.

  I had to put the fires out.

  Running down a walkway between homes to the back alley, I lifted my hands and began to walk, suffocating the flames as I went. I wanted to run as I worked, but extinguishing these flames took time and energy. Everything about this fire felt unnatural, like they were being fed by a strange, invisible fuel. As though they were connected to the entity which had given birth to them, they resisted and fought to stay alive.

  I walked, hands lifted, eyes glowing, smothering the strange supernatural flames until I reached the last building, almost at the ocean. The street was full of half-burnt and blackened homes. They spewed toxic smoke into the belly of the storm above, which now loomed over the entire city. My blood felt like lava in my veins. In the time that had elapsed since Georjie had held up the school, the storm-beast had quadrupled in size. Why was it growing?

  My mouth went dry as the sounds of a city in panic, under siege, filled the air. How was this thing to be destroyed?

  Two running figures appeared; faint forms in the dim light. Georjie and Targa. I became aware of the cold feeling of slime coating my skin. I moved toward them and a strip of sunlight along the rocky cove.

  "The world has gone crazy," Georjie said with a cracked voice. "That thing is just getting bigger, like it’s feeding off the frenzy or something."

  A flash of light on the horizon to the east pulled my attention to the Atlantic. My brain seemed to seize up. Was it just me, or was the ocean climbing into the sky?

  "What's that?" I pointed.

  The girls followed my line of sight. Georjie's face expressed confusion but understanding passed over Targa's immediately.

  "Tidal waves follow earthquakes," she said, shielding her eyes from the sun.

  "Only earthquakes that happen underwater, though. Right?" I peered at my aquatic friend, dread looming in my belly. "Not when they happen on land."

  "Who is to say that thing didn't shake the earth out there, too? It seems bent on destroying us." Targa gazed at the rapidly growing line of blue. "Either way, that thing is a tsunami and it's headed straight for Saltford."

  Akiko

  Yuudai?

  The silence was resolute, steadfast, and unyielding. My voice was more like a thought, one that seemed to glide and echo softly, like silk slipping across skin.

  Yuudai, help me.

  I had no sense of passing time. It could have been seconds or years before I received the answer.

  Akiko? His voice was like a candle in the dark, glimmering and warm, a distant but distinct presence. What is it, little Hanta?

  I am facing something new. It’s nothing like the Oni I took down in Japan.

  Tell me. Yuudai's voice deepened and his words came slowly.

  Haltingly, and yet with a strange urgency which contrasted with the very nature of the Æther itself, I told him what I had seen. I described the way the thing appeared clearly only when I was mid-phase. I told him how I’d tried to get a grip on it with my talons and became swallowed by a cold and suffocating darkness that felt as though it would leach into my very soul.

  I could sense Yuudai listening, thinking. When I had finished he had only one word for me.

  Wait.

  The Æther was nothing but peace again.

  Silver streaks began to cross my vision. Suddenly and silently, Yuudai was there, tall and strong and beautiful. I was there, too, my human form bathed in white light. I looked down at my hands, my clothes, the ones I had been wearing last. Yuudai was dressed in a simple white button-up shirt and black jeans. His long black hair lay stark against his shirt as he looked down at me with a sad smile.

  "You're here!" Relief flooded me and I reached up to hug him. My arms passed through him.

  "Yes, and no," he said. "Hanta can use the Æther as a meeting place when the occasion calls for it, but we are not here in the flesh." He reached out to touch my cheek but I felt nothing.

  I didn't have time to learn the mysteries of the Æther. "Will you help me take down this demon, Yuudai? Between the two of us…"

  But he was shaking his head. "It's not a demon, Akiko."

  "It's not?"

  "Well." He made an expression of allowance. "It’s not just a demon. It's an Archon. An evil spirit of the ancient world, high up in the demonic hierarchy. It's above Hanta like you and me."

  "What do you mean, above us." I was outraged by this statement. How could an evil force like that be above us? We were creatures of the Æther, forces for good. Didn't that put this thing, this Archon, below us?

  "I don't mean above in the sense that it's higher up, just that it’s a stronger force than you and me, or any Hanta."

  My lips parted but I was speechless. This was not the answer I was expecting from Yuudai. Frustration burbled over.

  Yuudai could see it on my face. "Listen–"

  "I don't have time to listen to you talk about how we can't defeat it. There has to be a way. People are dying, my city is being destroyed. I can't just do nothing!"

  Yuudai began to fade as I pulled away from him.

  "Wait!" He reached out a long arm and his face was earnest. "You do have time. The Æther is a sanctuary from time. All things work out the way they are meant to, whether you visit the Æther mid-event or not. When you go back, you'll go back to the when you are needed in."

&n
bsp; I made an unhappy grunt, still smarting over the idea that this Archon could not be defeated.

  "Listen to me, so you understand." Yuudai's form cleared again and the white retreated. "In the beginning, it was not like it is now. Myths and legends of all nations and cultures are based on something real, no matter how fantastical they seem. There was a mixing of gods with humans in those days, and their offspring were giants. The giants of old were evil, cannibalistic creatures, preying on humans before the great flood wiped them out. Even now, evidence of these giants is everywhere on Earth; it is there for people to see, if they only look upon it with an open mind."

  "You mean, people see it but don't know what it is?"

  He dipped his chin in partial agreement. "People see what their belief-system allows them to see. You see this creature and recognize it for what it is, but someone else might see it and their mind will tell them it’s a storm." Yuudai's mouth quirked in a half-smile. "Neither perception is wrong. But I digress."

  "Half gods," I said, reminding him where we were.

  Yuudai nodded. "Because these giants were demi-gods, they were partially immortal. Though their fleshly bodies perished, their spirits remained trapped in the space between realms, never able to fully materialize in one or the other. There is no rest for them. They feed on chaos, death, and fear, just like any demon, but they need a great deal more of it to survive. They are cunning and manipulative.”

  “That’s what this thing is? An old dead giant?” I shook my head with disgust. “He should have stayed asleep. Why is he awake now?”

  Yuudai took a guess. “He’s probably hungry.”

  “Hung…” I halted mid-speech, remembering how the spinning columns connecting people to the Æther had blurred in the Archon’s direction. I shuddered. “Ugh.”