Elementally Priceless (10 page)

“Red, I’ve got to do this on my own, I think the archway is protected by a spell.” In fact, I was sure of it, and didn’t want Red to fly through. For all I knew, the spell went up and over the walls too.

“Not a good idea.”

I glanced at him, frowning. “You want to be fried chicken because you don’t believe I can do this on my own?”

He leapt into the air, the tips of his wings brushing my face. “Fine. But you better tell Lark this was your choice, not mine.”

I strode forward, paused at the archway, and then stepped across the threshold. The tingle of a spell slid over my skin, cooling my temperature to the point I thought I’d been wrong. Maybe I wasn’t going to be Immune to this spell. But the sensation faded and I breathed evenly.

Jonathan turned and slowly looked up at me, his crossed eyes distant, his whole body shaking with whatever affected him.

“Your name is Rylee.”

Surprised, I nodded and walked toward him. “Yes, that’s me. I’ve come to take you home to your parents.”

He shook his head. “They don’t want me. I scare them. But you are in danger.”

I gave him a smile and crouched by his side. His hand was still writing even though he wasn’t looking at it, shaking with a force that made me think his hand had to be cramping up. Creepy. “I’m always in danger; that’s part of my job.”

His eyes latched onto mine, the intensity in them for such a young kid—unnerving.

“You’re going to die.”

What a great way to start introductions.

I did my best to ignore the grave chill of his words. “Listen. Everybody dies, but you have to come with me, right now. I’m here to take you somewhere safe.” I put a hand over his to stop the writing and he went still.

“I can’t go, the Shadow Walker won’t let me.”

Giving him a smile, I tugged him gently to his feet. “Don’t worry about the Shadow Walker, I have a friend helping me with him. Our job is to get you out of here. But we have to hurry.”

He let out a heavy breath and pointed at the book he was writing in. “I need to take this.”

“That’s fine.” I grabbed the book and flipped it shut. Thin with nearly see through paper, it was very light. The outside was bound in a rainbow of scales.

“That’s dragon skin,” Jonathan whispered, his finger tracing down the book.

“Great, let’s go.” Much as I wanted to rescue this kid, he was creeping the hell out of me. I grabbed his hand with mine and dragged him toward the archway.

“No, I can’t go through there it hurts!” He jerked and pulled me backward, shocking me with how strong he was. Damn.

“Well, how else can we get out?”

Red dropped down to my shoulder. “Lark is coming. Wait for her.”

“Yeah, we’ll wait for Lark.”

The small hand in mine began to shake. “Too late, we’re too late. The Shadow Walker is here.”

I turned slowly in the direction Jonathan stared.

A black liquid oozed from the marble walls, sliding downward into a puddle that looked like oil on the sand. “Stay behind me, Jonathan.”

“He won’t hurt me. But you, you he wants to kill.”

I dropped the dragon-skinned book at my feet and took up a defensive stance, my sword ready. Pulse hammering, blood singing in my veins, I couldn’t help the rush of excitement flooding me. I could prove I was strong enough to face down the biggest and baddest of the uglies out there. And now I had my chance.

“We’ll just see about that.”

Lark

All around me, the marble broke and crumbled. I didn’t hold anything back, just let the power of the Earth flow through me as I destroyed the Shadow Walker’s playground. His creations were buried under the rubble and where I could, I commanded the ground to suck them down and hold them deep below. Every step I took I matched with a flick of my hands, blasting through the material like the finest of silks meeting the katana I’d given Rylee.

After twenty years of pent up power, the flavor of the Earth poured like a heady wine that, instead of quenching my thirst, begged me to drink it down.

To let it loose.

To be the Destroyer as my abilities and temperament had branded me.

Twenty years ago, my world had come apart; everything I believed turned on its head, and every person I thought I could trust turned on me. All I had left was my connection to the Earth, and even that had been taken from me at one point in my past.

Screw. Them. All. I would take on every elemental to prove I was right.

The earth shook and groaned as my power pushed through it. Everything around me bowed to my whims.

The labyrinth cracked and buckled, the walls were materials of earth, and I pulled them apart like ripping seams from fabric. Each chunk I pulled fueled my anger, reminded me of everything that had been taken from me. Of the unjust punishment handed to me, of denying me everything that was rightfully mine, of my loves that had been stolen from my life.

That hurt the most which in turn only made me lash out more.

Emotions ran rampant through my body, surging forward and opening even more power. I felt like a stone crucible thrust under a waterfall to fill, the power spilling out of me, completely out of control like I’d never felt.

Like the Earth had its fill of injustice too. Like the mother goddess had finally given me full reins to take my revenge.

Child, I would never do that. Be wary of how much power you draw in, it will burn you out one day.

I ignored her voice.

The Shadow Walker would either give us the kid, or I would wipe him out like the insignificant bug he was. Next to me, he was nothing, a worm, shit under my boot heels. Distantly, a part of my brain struggled to remind me that while I might survive a total destruction of the Shadow Walker and his minions, Rylee wouldn’t.

Nor would the thousands of humans who walked above ground, oblivious to what lay beneath them.

I wasn’t sure I cared. This moment was a coming home, tasting all the power that was rightfully mine, knowing no one could hurt me. Not anymore. I could be hurt only if I let them.

A small, very small, part of me started to scream this was too much. All this power was not good when I had no way to contain it. The world around me was cracking and pulling apart. My emotions tangled in its raw intensity. With every last piece of strength I had, I fought the deadly seduction the power of the Earth spread through me, the warmth and sense of home, the desire to make things right. The power would take over my soul if I let it, leave me feeling invincible. Let me feel as though no matter what unintentional harm I did, it was justified because it was 
me.

Pulling back from the power left me feeling like sticky taffy stretched to its limit before breaking. I sucked in a sharp breath.

“Shit.” I gasped for air and slumped to my knees, my head spinning. Too much power, too little practice. But even that wasn’t quite true. This had been more power than I’d ever drawn in before.

Maybe more than any other elemental.

A major problem with so much of an element through your body, you lose yourself to the ecstasy running rampant along nerve endings and synapses.

I tentatively reached for that power again and got… nothing. This was not good. I ran a hand over my head. Burning out the elemental in me was a very bad idea. A tremor raced through me at the thought. Was that what I’d done—blown a fuse?

The earth rumbled lightly under my hand, like a soft laugh. No, I still had my connection to my element, but I sure as hell tapped into something I hadn’t expected. A new entity, one that was most definitely not the earth I knew.

A roar of a Minotaur snapped my head up, erasing all thoughts of the Earth and new entities.

Damn, I’d forgotten about Rylee and the kid. Forcing my legs to move, I focused on blasting a straight line to the center of the labyrinth. Sure, Rylee was strong, but if the Shadow Walker got her first, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

The center of the labyrinth reared up ahead of me and the archway was like a teenager flipping me off. Made of a hardened plastic I knew all too well, I couldn’t affect it the way I’d like. Which meant if I was going through, I’d suffer the pain etched into the arch. Or I could go deep and hope the spell didn’t extend too far underground. Worse though, in the center of the center, Rylee was squared off with the Shadow Walker. No time for niceties.

Going deep it was.

I let the ground soften and I sunk until I was completely covered. For anyone else, it would probably scare the shit out of them. But for me it was taking a dip in the ocean. No problem at all. I swam through the soil, felt the sizzle of the spell above me and then pushed toward the surface. I burst out about ten feet to the side of Rylee and the Shadow Walker.

“Okay, kids, time to shake hands and go our own ways.”

The Shadow Walker, a shadowy figure floating in and out of the corporeal, tipped his head toward me. Black, soulless eyes regarding me, then Rylee, and back to me. “Elemental, you have no jurisdiction here, yet you destroy my home, my creatures, and you come to help this one who would steal the child? A child I have kept safe from the demons that want him? A child who has no one else, so as such I can keep him if I like. He has proved most useful you know. I knew you would come. Just as I know you will die.”

Now 
that
 explained the ease of the labyrinth. The Shadow Walker believed he would prevail. He didn’t realize that prophecy, even when fresh, could ripple and shift. Change as people made different choices.

Besides, I had no intention of dying anytime soon.

“Kid doesn’t belong to you.” I stepped closer to Rylee, wanting her behind me.

The Shadow Walker tilted his head so his cheek pressed hard against his shoulder. Disturbing didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Possession is the law in our world, elemental. You know that.” His tongue flicked out. “Besides, the child is better protected here than anywhere else. His abilities are hidden, and there is no one to take advantage of him.”

I didn’t like how logical the walker was being. “Doesn’t matter.”

Yup, totally a good argument on my part.

Rylee shifted on her feet, the katana held in front of her. “He doesn’t seem so fucking tough for a supposed badass. Why are we standing here?”

Oh, that was not a good thing to say. Lesson number one: don’t egg on the guy who can kill you with barely lifting a finger. I lunged for Rylee as the Shadow Walker’s eyes flashed with anger.

But I wasn’t fast enough. His hand shot out and a ribbon of what I knew was black death erupted from his fingers. The magic slammed into Rylee, knocking her backward, and everything in me stilled. She couldn’t die; she was supposed to stand for the world against the demons. Without her, we were all doomed.

I rushed the Shadow Walker, jerking the earth underneath his feet and sending him tumbling to the side as he threw a spell at me, twin to what had taken out Rylee. Going corporeal, he floated above the ground. “Naughty elemental, you shouldn’t be using your powers like that, should you? Most decidedly, you are breaking the rules of your own kind.”

Snarling, I reached for the Earth’s power again this time pulling on the marble walls around us, breaking them up into tiny projectiles. With a flick of my wrist, I threw the small shards, a veritable blanket of armor piercing stone, at the Shadow Walker.

Laughing, he held his hands up in welcome as they flew through him, not doing a piddly-assed bit of damage.

A second spell spun from his hands, this one I didn’t recognize, but I’d heard of it. Draining spells stole magic from others to boost the Shadow Walker’s own abilities. “Shit,” I grunted as I spun on one heel and ran toward the far side of the room.

Rolling, I dodged the spell as it hit the wall, only I didn’t dodge it, not completely. The spell caught the edge of my right hand and bit in deep, drawing my powers like a leech drawing blood. Screaming, I fought to expel the magic, but there was no use to my flailing about. His power dug its claws in and gripped me hard, made me want to vomit. There was a way to break the spell, and it scared the shit out of me.

“Elemental, are you done?” the Shadow Walker called out.

I didn’t like going there, the dark side of me that held all the hurt and pain I’d been handed in my life, especially now that I’d discovered another realm of magic in me. But since he asked, I was bound to answer.

“You’re playing with the wrong elemental, Walker,” I bit out, my voice gritty and thick as I lifted my hands. This time I didn’t tap into just the earth, but something more primal. A side of me that caused so many problems in the past. A side I avoided whenever I could, but I was out of options. Rylee was at least hurt and most likely dead, and I had to get the boy to safety. No matter what the Shadow Walker said, he had his own agenda for the kid’s abilities that were anything but altruistic. The spell the Shadow Walker laid on me curled up and died under the onslaught of the new power surging through me, as if it had never been.

I gripped that dark power inside of me as tightly as I could, and stood, my knees shaking as I strode toward the Shadow Walker. I held the power of complete devastation, the ability to unbind the very essence of matter around me. “You think you are the biggest, baddest, and ugliest out there. But you’re wrong. There is always someone meaner. Someone stronger, and 
she
 is about to
destroy
 you.”

His eyes widened as they flicked over me. “Destroyer. I didn’t know it was you.”

“Too late.”

I lifted my hand, and my hair floated around my face, strands tickling my cheeks.

The Shadow Walker bowed his head. “I would rather not face you.”

“Again, too late.” Of course, I thought he was being serious, which meant I didn’t see the shadow detach from the wall behind me. Didn’t see it stalk close.

As I reached out a hand to deal the death blow to the Walker, his minion tackled me from behind, the darkness of its body surrounding me. Taking away my ability to sense where and when I was.

A voice echoed through the black of the shadow holding me. “You dumb ass, you can’t kill her!”