Elemental Fire (24 page)

I swam toward the noise, knowing
I shouldn’t. If I were a good paranormal competing in the Ultimate Tactical,
I’d just let her drown. But I couldn’t.

“Betsy?” I spit water out of my
mouth.

I had to call her name several
times before she calmed down enough to start yelling, “Charlotte? Help! Help
me.”

I heard several more splashes,
knowing they meant that both teams had started to jump in earnest. I wondered
if they could hear our screams from above or if they’d looked on the magical
Dash screens and seen that we had jumped and not died.

The Dash screens were giant
stretches of magic imaging that allowed spectators to see the action from close
up, even if they were far away. Each viewer could control his or her own view
of the screen, even if from a distance it looked like one giant TV. If such a
TV got out, it would totally revolutionize human households, Lough had joked.
Lisabelle had demanded an explanation and Lough had told her that families
fight over the TV all the time. Lisabelle had told him she wouldn’t put up with
any of that.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to
get to Betsy. “I’m coming,” I said, looking desperately around at the jumble of
limbs in the water. I swam toward the fallen angel, but by the time I got to
her she couldn’t really keep herself up anymore. She had started to sink into
the black depths of the waterways.

I wrapped my arms around her
prone form and kicked upward. Her arms were pointing at an awkward angle as I
burst out of the water.

I had seen both boats while I was
looking for Betsy, and I headed for those. One was sleek and black and looked
brand new, the other was old, wooden, and, I felt sure, leaky. They were both
tied to a great rock outcropping, and my plan was to leave Betsy on the
outcropping if her teammates weren’t going to save her. At least then she
wouldn’t be dead.

But just as I reached the
outcropping, I saw a face appear in the sleek black boat.

Camilla was smiling down at me,
her green ring sparkling and alive.

She gave me a dirty look. There
was a maniacal glint lighting her eyes as she pounced, sending a stream of
green dust swirling at Betsy and me. It thickened and solidified as it flew
right at my face. If I ducked I would have to let go of the unconscious Betsy.
If I didn’t I’d be unconscious right along with her.

I ordered the water to rise. If
Vale was going to dump me in one of the four elements of my own magic, I was
going to take advantage of it. The black water rose up greedily to swallow
Camilla’s pixie arrow. She glared at me, but I ignored her.

I plunged forward and laid Betsy
on the rock. Luckily, I didn’t need to perform CPR on a fallen angel; she was
just unconscious from fright. I made sure she wouldn’t roll into the water if
she thrashed around a bit, then darted back to the boats. Camilla had gotten to
the nice boat first, which meant that the Glories would have a great advantage.
Was it possible that we had lost the race before it even started?

“Charlotte, over here,” called
Lisabelle, waving her arms from the other boat. It looked like someone had
poked a million tiny holes in it. If it was still floating, it must have been
by magic.

“Didn’t you jump after me?” I
asked Lisabelle as I clattered over the side into the boat. Rake helped me,
while Sip was busy trying to plug as many of the holes as possible. My friends’
faces were grim.

“I tried,” said Lisabelle grimly.
“Vale held me back long enough to give Camilla a chance. She probably wouldn’t
have let you make it to the good boat, either, so don’t feel bad.”

I nodded numbly, but I felt worse
than bad. I felt like I had already let my team down. Trafton, wet and soggy as
hew as, slung an arm over my shivering shoulders, and that gave me some
comfort.

“Try all you want,” Daisy’s
gleeful voice shot out of the darkness, “but you aren’t going to get anywhere
saving paranormals who are better off being allowed to die.”

“She referring to her teammate?”
Rake asked, shocked. “How do they know they won’t need a fallen angel in the
next rounds of this game?”

“They don’t,” said Sip. “And I
hope we don’t either.” She gave Vanni a sour look. Our own fallen angel was
curled in on herself in a corner, rocking back and froth.

“Why didn’t we get any pixies on
our team?” I asked, remembering Camilla’s attack. We’d be much better off
fighting Camilla with another pixie.

Rake snickered. “None wanted to
be on our team.”

“Oh, and I suppose you had
something to do with that?” Sip asked.

“A little light, maybe?” Trafton
asked me, ignoring the banter. I nodded. The other boat might already be
pulling away, but their light was awkward. My powers had the advantage down
here. I could control the wind, the current, and the fire.

I called to the fire up ahead. It
was much easier to use existing fire than to create my own, especially since we
were in a wooden boat, but the fire wouldn’t come. Sighing, I tried again and
again. Still nothing. Sweat had now broken out on my brow.

“Just leave it,” said Lisabelle,
“and get us moving. They’re almost out of view.” I had been concentrating so
hard on calling the fire that I hadn’t even noticed that the other boat wasn’t
there anymore.

I called again to the black water
and the still air. Power flowed through my ring and out, gently nudging each
element into movement. Our boat started to make a strange rocking motion. The
winds and water tried to get us moving, but the boat didn’t want to budge.

“More,” cried Lisabelle, who was
sitting with an oar in her hand. “More and more and more.”

I closed my eyes and raced to the
side of the boat. My teammates got out of the way as I plunked myself down and
stuck my hand in the water. Direct contact shouldn’t have been necessary, but I
suspected that the water would move faster if I touched it, and I was right.

It surged forward, carrying our
boat along with it, and as we raced along I heard the sounds of splashes and
voices coming from up ahead. The use of my magic had made me hot, but my pink
clothing was still soaked through. And now, blasts of heat were hitting our
faces.

“Careful going around this turn,”
Sip yelled to Lisabelle. “I have a bad feeling about it.”

Lisabelle cast her eyes forward.
This was no time to argue with her roommate, and when we rounded the bend we
saw that Sip had been right. A ball of black fire hurtled toward us, screaming
through the air just as we reached the curve. Vanni whimpered as Sip and
Trafton cried out. I held fast, urging us forward as the fireball surged
directly over our heads, throwing sparks into the boat.

“That wasn’t part of the course,”
Sip panted, once she was in a sitting position again. “They threw that at us.”

“Is that the best you can do?”
Lisabelle yelled up the tunnel. We could no longer hear voices or the splash of
oars.

“They’ve gone into stealth mode,”
Trafton joked. “How very sneaky of them.”

“Sip,” said Lisabelle, her voice
as calm as ever. “Do you smell smoke?”

I heard more than saw Sip sniff
the air. We really needed light.

“Yeah,” she cried. “Must be some
of the sparks that landed.”

I heard my friend scramble to her
feet and start stamping out various places on the boat that had started to
smolder. I didn’t pay much attention, confident that she could deal with it. I
was more curious that the other team could call fire, while I couldn’t. How
rigged was this game, anyway?

“I think another fireball’s
coming,” Lisabelle cried. We’d rounded the bend and there was a little more
light now, though I couldn’t see where it was coming from.

We were in a large passageway,
basically an underground river. All around us were black rocks and water that
looked just as black. The air was close and stale and smelled like dead fish.

“Gross,” Sip muttered, covering
her too-sensitive nose.

The water was rocking gently from
the passage of the first boat. Far ahead, but about to disappear around another
bend, were the Glories. Camilla turned around to stare at us, then said
something to Daisy, who was standing next to Faci. Dobrov and Adver were in the
front of the boat, but neither of them looked back at us.

Daisy smiled and came to stand
next to Camilla. The two joined their ring hands and started to say something.

“Uh oh,” said Sip. “Is that an
incantation there’re trying to perform?”

“Incantations are sooo Starter,”
said Lisabelle smugly.

My stomach was in knots as I
watched the two Glories prepare to attack. From the look on her face I could
tell that Sip wasn’t feeling much better about it. But I forced myself to
concentrate on keeping the boat moving.

Camilla and Daisy suddenly raised
their rings and pointed directly at us, shooting balls of power at our boat. As
the orbs hurtled toward us, Trafton came over to stand next to Lisabelle, his
eyes intent on the rushing shots of power. Right before they crashed into our
boat and splintered it into a million pieces, Trafton put up a dream giver
shield. I’d seen Lough use the same defense a couple of times, a multi-colored
tapestry of many dreams, not very strong, but effective once or twice in any
given battle. Trafton staggered backward as the shots of power bounced off the
shield and plunged into the water, sparking and creating a small tidal wave.

“Hold on,” Lisabelle yelled as
the wave rocked our boat. I tried to hold on, but it was hard to do that and
keep my hand in contact with the water. Just when I thought I was failing, a
small pair of hands steadied me. Even through my stupid pink uniform I could
feel them shaking, but they held fast. I looked gratefully at Vanni.

“Thank you,” I murmured, “Now sit
down before you get sick.” She smiled gratefully and sat down right where she
had been standing, again pulling in on herself. Her skin was sallow and green,
almost like a pixie’s, and her whole body was shaking. She stayed very close to
me, almost touching.

“Is that the best you got?”
Lisabelle yelled.

“That was pretty good, wasn’t
it?” Trafton muttered, panting. I could see that fighting off the shots had
tired him. Dream givers were not known for their shields.

I watched the Glories convene
together as their boat disappeared around another bend. I wondered what they
would come up with next.

“Charlotte?” Rake said. “We could
really use some light.” It was clear that the Glories had a light source, while
we were still in almost total darkness.

I nodded and tried again. This
time I didn’t bother with the lights coming from the walls, I created my own,
plunging deep into my ring to do it. I felt Sip’s fingers close around mine,
giving me her strength to work with, and with that renewed shot of energy I
pushed further into my elemental magic. There, in the depths of the stones, I
saw a blue fire start to blaze, and I smiled. As I pushed it through my veins
to the surface I saw it turn to orange and red, blazing in my mind’s eyes.
Come
on,
I thought desperately,
just a little more and then, ahhhh, there it
was
.

“You can stop now,” said Sip
gleefully. I opened my eyes to the blazing ball of fire over our heads,
covering us like a heated canopy. I smiled.

“How’d you give me power?” I
frowned. “That’s not supposed to be possible.”

Sip grinned, her white fangs
flashing. “I didn’t. I just gave you support.” I smiled in return. “It’s
tricky, but if we’re careful I think we can get away with it.”

“Sip, I barely know you anymore,”
I told the werewolf gratefully

She beamed at me.

“No matter how touching all that
self-congratulation is,” said Lisabelle dryly, “we have some Nocturns to
catch.” It was the first time Lisabelle had called them by the name the demons
allied with Malle were going by. The naming put a stark outline around our
situation.

“Dobrov’s not a Nocturn. His dad
might be, but not him yet,” I pointed out, moving to sit next to Lisabelle in
the front of the boat. Lisabelle narrowed her eyes. “If he’s with them, then
he’s not with us.”

“I don’t think it’s his choice,”
I pointed out. She didn’t reply.

Meanwhile, delicious warmth
spread over us as the fire blazed.

“Good going with the portable
heater,” Trafton said, sitting on Lisabelle’s other side. “Can you do the same
for my room?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll get right
on it.”

“I thought this course was
supposed to be challenging,” Lisabelle snarled. “What’s going on?”

“What are you talking about?” I
said. “I feel challenged. I feel very challenged.”

Lisabelle’s eyes flashed, but it
was Rake who explained. “We’ve only been attacked by the other team. Nothing
has happened on the course. It’s a boat trip, which, although a miserable
experience in general, is not terribly challenging.” His eyes flicked to Sip to
see if she was proud of him, but she was busy examining our fire blanket. I
gave him a rueful smile.