Dark Waters (Elemental Book 1) (3 page)

It was dark and thick clouds obstructed any light the
moon or stars could have otherwise offered. The streetlights flickered
systematically all the way down the deserted road. Stores lining the main
street— the only street from what I could tell— were visibly rundown if not
abandoned altogether.

A black, nondescript Saturn drove slowly up the road
a few minutes after the bus disappeared. The streetlights blinked out as it
passed, only to flicker back on when it was far enough away. It stopped right
in front of me.

I was left with a decision; I could wander the
streets, looking for a motel that was probably run by a psychotic, axe-wielding
mass murderer waiting to find me sleeping and play show-and-tell with my
internal organs, or I could get in the car that was probably driven by a
psychotic, axe-wielding mass murderer waiting to drive me to his small cabin in
the woods and play show-and-tell with my internal organs.

I got in the damn car.

It was a two hour drive into the northern part of the
state, winding over backwoods roads where the branches of the trees often met
overhead to create dark tunnels. When the clouds cleared, the moonlight cast
eerie shadows through the trees. During the entire trip, the driver never
looked at me or said a word.

Finally, the driver stopped the car and I took a long
look at the mysterious university.

Picturesque is how one might describe the scene.
Spooky and weird would work just as well.

It was a castle, but not one from any era or country
of origin that I could identify. The closest I could describe was modern
Gothic. There was a peaceful stone courtyard in the front, which came across as
a trap. From the unsymmetrical towers and unusual windows, which were different
shapes and sizes, I guessed that the castle was built by at least three
different architects. Nestled in the mountains of northern Maine with a huge
lake to the west, it was not something that could easily be overlooked, yet
this was one of the most obscure paranormal establishments unknown to man.

Not being able to come up with any really substantial
reason for retreat, I continued with the alternative; I got out of the car with
my bags and walked up the looped gravel drive. A stone path led up to the
castle from this point, winding through bushes and trees that hid all but the
topmost part of the second floor. When I got to the front door, I looked back,
but both the road and car were hidden from view. The place was one to warm the
back recesses of any hardcore hermit’s heart.

There was a simple but massive brass knocker on the
door, yet before I could try it, the door opened to reveal the headmaster.
“Welcome, Devon Sanders. I’m Logan Hunt. Leave your bags and follow me.”
Without another word, he turned and led me through the hallways and into the
room where I met the other twelve members of the school board. Even knowing
that I was going to be accepted into the school, it was daunting.

The problem was that I wasn’t a wizard. I had to
pretend to be able to do magic well enough to fool actual witches and wizards,
not to mention shifters and fae. This was a prestigious university even in the
paranormal world; everyone was going to be asking me how I got in. Even the
deputy principal, Mrs. Ashcraft, didn’t know I was here for other reasons than
to learn.

And apparently, I had to do more than worry about
keeping my lies and covers straight; some of these people could read minds.
Fortunately, there were no vampires. I would have refused the case if vampires
were allowed in the school, because there was nothing that could convince me to
work with them.

*          *          *

The door burst opened, startling me from my thoughts.
A man who couldn’t have been more than twenty came in wearing only jeans and
socks. He had light, shaggy blond hair and deep blue eyes. At five-five, he was
fine-boned and verging on too thin, but he struck me as naturally scrawny
instead of malnourished. The man looked right up at me and smiled brightly.
“Hey, man, you must be one o’ me roomies!”

I sighed, sat up, and had to duck to avoid hitting my
head on the ceiling tiles. “I guess so.”

“I’m Darwin.” He sat in the seat under the bed with
dark blue blankets.

“I’m Devon. Are you Australian?”

“English, but I grew up all over the world. Never
spent more than six months in one country ‘til I was fifteen.”

“That must have been difficult growing up. It
probably made it hard to make friends.”

“Naw, bro. It was me mouth that got me no friends.
Never ever stop talking. I even talk in my sleep.”

Great.
“I don’t know if it’s rude or not to
ask, but are you a wizard or one of the other paranormal beings?”

“Not a wizard, bro. I’m just a throwback.”

“You’re going to have to explain that one to me.”

“He means his parents aren’t the same kind of
paranormal,” another man said, walking in through the still-open door. He shut
it behind him and turned the deadbolt. He was right at six feet tall, about
twenty five, and muscular. He wore a dark green t-shirt with jeans. “And you
shouldn’t speak so loudly about it,” he scolded Darwin.

I could sense it easily; he was a shifter. By his
black hair and gold eyes, I figured he was probably a black panther. He didn’t
have the same aura as a wolf. His naturally tan skin was ambiguous; he could
have been Mediterranean or South American. Whereas Darwin had more of an
Australian accent, the shifter had a British one.

Darwin didn’t seem to notice the stranger’s
admonishment. “Aye. Mother’s a forest spirit. Dad’s a wolf shifter. I can
neither do magic nor shift.”

The shifter began reorganizing his already-organized
books. “If a paranormal and a human have a child, nine times out of ten, the
child will take the stronger paranormal gene and be just fine,” he explained.
“Of those remaining ten percent, nine out of ten will be considered gifted
humans.”

“And that last tenth of a percent?” I asked.

“They are children who end up with maybe wolf ears
and a tail or wings or something, but will be unable to shift or do magic.
They’re called throwbacks. However, when two different kinds of paranormals
have a child together, the chance of the child being functional is only about
fifty percent. Those who are messed up are also called throwbacks.”

Darwin showed no sign at all that he was upset over
basically being called a genetic screw-up. “If you have no magic or shifting
abilities, how did you get in here?”

“My parents went here and I was smart enough to get
into the sapling. I guess they just pushed me through because my parents were
so successful. Hunt suggested I could be a scientist or something. What are
you?”

“Wizard. What is the sapling?”

“It’s a nickname,” the shifter answered. “This school
is strictly for adults, but there is another school for children and an
orphanage for paranormal children or children whose parents were paranormals.
Stemming from the Tree of Life stuff, this is the tree, the school for children
is the sapling, and the orphanage is the seedling. How did you get in without
knowing at least that much?”

I considered my words carefully. Without breaking my
cover, I was going to have to live with these two guys. They would figure out I
didn’t know anything and I would screw up if I pretended to. “I know very
little about the paranormal world.”

They both stared at me for a moment. Then, finally,
the shifter shrugged. “You must have been good enough because they let you in
here. I’m Henry Lycosa, jaguar shifter.”

“I’m Devon Sanders.”

“There’s something very odd about you, Devon Sanders.
Something my cat senses.”

“I’m Darwin Mason,” our other roommate volunteered.

“Good,” Henry said. “Now that we have all met, I
suggest we go to bed.”

“We’re not going to get to know each other?” Darwin
asked, despondent.

In response, Henry began turning off the lanterns. It
seemed like Darwin was going to be great at keeping suspicion off me.

I woke way too early in the
morning to persistent knocking. When it didn’t go away on its own, I sat up and
hit my head on the ceiling. After cursing the ceiling, I climbed down the
ladder carefully and leisurely. If someone was rude enough to wake me at this
time of night, I wasn’t going to kill myself rushing to answer the door. When I
finally made it to the door and opened it, I was surprised.

Remington Hunt stood outside my room with her hair
down in loose curls, her dark blue satin blouse just a little too low, and her
tight black skirt just a little too high. Instead of wearing pumps, she had on
leather boots that went up to her knees.

“Are you still in bed?”

“It’s like, four in the morning.”

“It’s five. You should be more enthusiastic about
your first semester here.”

So I did what any man would do when a gorgeous woman
woke him up too early; I shut the door in her face and went back to bed. I was
halfway back to sleep a few minutes later when I was hit in the face by ice
cold water. Not used to being in a small bed, I rolled right over the edge and
crashed into the floor with a bang loud enough to wake my roommates. I looked
up, vertigo trying to claw its way down my stomach, and saw Remington.

She smiled kindly. “Good. Now that you’re awake, I
just wanted to let you know that I am your water elemental master and you will
meet me at the lake at dusk. Oh, and here is your schedule.” She dropped a
manila envelope on my chest, turned, and walked out of my room.

“Bro, when a professor comes to the door, you
listen,” Darwin advised.

Sound advice.

Embarrassed, I climbed to my feet, sat in the chair
at my desk, and opened the envelope. Inside was a handbook on rules, a map, and
a schedule. Oddly, the handbook, which was little more than a dark blue,
spiral-bound notebook, was very short. I set it aside without reading it and
checked my schedule. I had
Metals
,
Fundamentals of Potions
, and
History
of North American Magic
on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On Tuesdays
and Thursdays, I had
Laws of Magic: Circle One
,
Magic in Everyday
Life
, and
Beginners Martial Arts
.

How the hell am I supposed to investigate this
when they give me a full schedule?

“Whoever that was, you obviously made a great
impression on her,” Henry said.

“That was Remington Hunt, daughter of Logan Hunt,”
Darwin said. “She’s on the level of a master witch, but she hasn’t taken over
the sapling because she has a major temper. I bet you’re her first ever
apprentice.”

“Great. I’m looking forward to being bossed around by
a moody witch.” Again.

*          *          *

I found my way to the showers, which were in the
style of a locker-room. It occurred to me that since they had no electricity,
the indoor plumbing and hot water was powered by something else, but I didn’t
know what.

The shower stalls were sturdy and each had a white
plastic curtain. I showered quickly, dressed, and was about to shave when I
stopped.

I was six-three with a swimmer’s build; toned, but
not bulging with muscles. At thirty, I looked to be in my mid-twenties. It
wasn’t something I particularly liked. My hair was dark brown; average. My eyes
were dark green; average. My cheekbones were high and my nose was straight. I
didn’t see anything special about my face or eyes, yet people never liked
looking me in the eye.

Regina had said it felt like I could hear her
thoughts. I figured out why after I met a few shifters. Every shifter knew
there was something unusual about me, so it was only a matter of time before
Henry would be trying to figure it out. Since Regina wasn’t a shifter, I
figured my ex-wife was probably just overly suspicious.

The stubble on my face was too heavy to be called a
five o’clock shadow, but too light to be called a beard. After considering it,
it did make me look more my age, so I left it and made my way to the main
floor, where the massive dining room was.

Six long, wooden tables took up the majority of the
dining room, while the wall across from me opened to a breakfast buffet.
Sunlight was just beginning to spill in through the huge windows on the east
wall. At this time of morning, I was surprised to see about fifty students
already started on their breakfast. Only two men in the entire group looked
about my age.

I got in line and eventually filled my plate with
typical breakfast items.
Eggs, bacon, toast, fruit…
I was surprised
there were no hunks of raw meat for the shifters or bowls of lettuce for the
fae.
I should have stuck to human cases.
At least there was coffee.

I didn’t see anyone who looked like they were hiding
secrets from the paranormal community, either, so I sat at the end of one
table, far away from the larger clusters of students. I had to determine a
starting point in the case. Between shifters who could scent my proximity,
wizards who could read my mind, and fae who could shield themselves, overhearing
anything didn’t seem possible. There were no computers that were being hacked
into.

I have to talk to Hunt.

Before I could stand and dispose of my tray, Darwin
sat beside me and Henry sat across from me. Despite the warm weather, Darwin
had on a dark blue hoodie with the hood up around his blond hair. Henry was
more reasonably dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans. My green, button-up shirt
and pants were something more in between, but I still felt underdressed.

Shifters probably wore cheap clothes in case they
needed to shift suddenly. Fae were usually spotted barefoot.
Of course,
Darwin might have some kind of super weather-forecasting powers; maybe it will
suddenly get cold.

Since I didn’t mind if I was being rude, I stood with
my tray.

“So, I heard someone got in who wasn’t supposed to be
here,” Darwin said.

I sat back down. “Someone who isn’t a paranormal?” I
asked.

“Worse. A vampire.”

“No vampire could get past Hunt,” Henry said.

“The school has more students this year than ever
before. Who knows what could have gotten in? Now, you can’t tell anyone. If the
teachers think a vampire is here, they’ll shut down the school and make it
harder to get into. I think we should hunt down the vampire ourselves.”

“And what do you propose to do with this vampire once
we find---”

“No,” I said, cutting the jaguar off. “You have
obviously never faced a vampire. You can’t trust them, you can’t beat them, and
you can’t reason with them.”

“So you have faced one then?” Darwin asked.

“I have. A long time ago.”

“What happened?” Henry asked.

“Wait, don’t say yet,” Darwin said as he stood. “I’m
going to get some ketchup and then I want to hear all about it.” He was already
walking towards the buffet before he turned and plowed straight into a young
Asian woman. Instead of trying to steady her, he took several steps back and
apologized.

An Asian man just a few feet behind the woman shifted
in the blink of an eye into a tiger. He wasn’t a large tiger, but he was easily
capable of killing Darwin. Henry sighed and sipped his coffee.

I stood, regretfully, and stepped in between Darwin
and the advancing tiger. Undeterred, the shifter roared. “Stop,” I said,
staring the cat right in the eye. He froze and I felt his thoughts open to me.
He was confused as to why he obeyed, but mostly he was angry at Darwin. When I
held out my hand, he snarled and his ears flattened, though he didn’t attack. I
focused on the anger in him and soothing it by pushing a sense of peace onto
him. For me, peace was sitting in my kitchen table in the morning with a cup of
coffee, so that was what I concentrated on.

The tiger was not a mindless killer; he wanted to be
calm. It wasn’t his fault he felt the woman was threatened. He accepted my
peace and responded with a mental image of his own. I saw a baby tiger cub
wrestling around in a red silk kimono. I felt him worrying that she was going
to get in trouble. I understood the shifter’s unending devotion to this little
runt of a tiger; she was his sister.

I rubbed the tiger’s ear like I would a house cat’s.
I didn’t know if it was rude or taboo, but he seemed to like it. A change in
the air beside me, like an electrical charge, alerted me that the woman had
shifted as well. She was even smaller than the man. She sniffed me and brushed
her muzzle against my arm, so I rubbed her ears.

“I knew there was something weird about you,” Henry
said.

The male tiger snarled at the jaguar. His sister
licked my neck and then batted at my hand playfully. As much as I knew she was
just trying to be friendly, I didn’t want to roughhouse with a fully grown
tiger. “Shift.”

Both tigers instantly obeyed. When they stood in full
human form, naked, another shifter came forth to hand the man a pair of jeans
and wrap a black cashmere trench coat around the woman, who made no effort to
cover herself. Their original clothes were shredded remnants on the floor at
their feet.

The woman bowed. “
Xièxiè
,” she said as her
brother pulled his jeans on.

The man tightened the coat around her. “Thank you for
your help, wizard,” he said with a bow. His accent was thick and he had the
same serious, almost grave expression that I saw in the martial arts movies. “I
am Zhang Wei, C-Three, South China tiger shifter. This is my sister, Li Na,
C-One.”

“That explains why you’re smaller than a Bengal
tiger,” Darwin said. “Aren’t South China tigers extinct in the wild?”

“I’m Devon,” I said, ignoring Darwin and shaking
Zhang Wei’s hand. “First circle wizard,” I added as an afterthought. It felt
weird to introduce myself as a wizard, but I had to get used to it to keep my
cover.

“Good luck with your classes, Devon. Let me know if I
can assist you.”

“If you’re shifters from China, shouldn’t you be
pandas?” Darwin asked. I could foresee Darwin’s mouth getting him in a lot of
trouble.

“You might want to keep your friend away from the
shifters,” Zhang Wei advised, then bowed and led his sister out of the dining
room. I sat back down.

“That was so cool, yo!” Darwin said excitedly. “You
got mad Jedi skills! Can you control my mind?”

“It only works on animals. A shifter can resist even
in his beast form if his human mind is strong enough. Also, I have never tried
actually controlling the mind of an animal. I can communicate with them,
influence their moods, and put them into a trance in an emergency.”

“Is that a normal power for wizards?” Henry asked.

“No way,” Darwin answered for me. “If they could,
there would be a lot more fighting in the paranormal community.”

I sighed. Some people were trying hard to study me
discreetly while others were openly ogling. I had always kept my strange
ability secret in order to stay out of the paranormal community. I wasn’t a
wizard, a fae, or any of that… I just had a unique, freakish ability.

“Don’t worry, bro; everyone does weird shit on the
first day. By the end of the day, no one will remember you mind-whipping the
Chinese mafia.”

“I doubt Zhang Wei has any relation to any mafia,”
Henry said.

“Jaguars are solitary animals, right?” I asked. “How
well do you get along with other shifters?”

“I have been conditioned to interact with other
shifters as best as a jaguar can be. Of course, I had many doubts about this
school, yet I know that the population of shifters here is increasing every
year. Alpha Flagstone is in charge of the wolf shifters, while the rest of us
are expected to control ourselves or risk expulsion.”

“Is that why you didn’t do anything when Zhang Wei
shifted?” Darwin asked. He wasn’t making an accusation, just a statement.

“Correct. Shifters from all over the world, who are
each exceptional examples of their breed, are being imported here and let loose
on each other. China tigers together with South American jaguars… I cannot see
this going well. We are people first and foremost, but our individual
personalities are highly influenced by our animal sides. Thus, we will all be
trying to find our place in the food chain, so to speak.”

“What about the wolves?” I asked.

“Wolves are the single most common shifter species.
There may be just as many cat shifters, but we can range wildly in types. Out
of the wolves, your greatest differentiation would be red wolves and timber
wolves. They are extremely pack-minded. That in itself could be a major issue,
because the wolf shifters here are leaving their normal position in their
packs. Here, they must learn their place among strangers and bond with a new
alpha.”

I watched Darwin as he picked apart his croissant
without eating it. He was examining it carefully. “Didn’t you say you’re half
wolf shifter?” I asked him.

“Aye. But forest spirits are an extremely peaceful
type of fae, so that kind of negated the dominance in the wolf gene. As a wolf,
I’m not even an omega, since I can’t shift.”

“I have to get to class,” I said as I stood.

My first class was
Metals
, which I found
easily using the map. Most of the wizard classes, the fae classes, and the
shifter classes were segregated. The classes in the main building were not
modernized like those in the dorms. Some of the rooms I saw into looked like
converted bedrooms, while some were clearly built by someone who was out of his
mind.

When I found my classroom, I was relieved that it had
a solid floor. The ceiling was vaulted, the walls were unpainted stone, and the
floors were hardwood. Two-person desks faced the teacher’s desk and the
whiteboard on the wall behind it. They were arranged in three columns and six
rows. Huge windows in the north wall provided plenty of natural light. At least
nobody in this class would have to worry about vampires.