Wind-Scarred (The Will of the Elements, Book 1) (16 page)

Ezra's brain leapt into a
flurry of thought and planning. Kirsten could smell a lie about a
mile away. He needed to spin the truth here, set it up just right.
“I went with Gal,” he began tentatively, “to meet up with them.
After some...”
Hunting. Planning.
Fighting. Um, um
“
...negotiations with a...”
Criminal!
Kidnapper! Super powered lunatic!
“
...different client, who had some
rather...”
Violent! No, uh,
sadistic!
“
...interesting opinions of what would be acceptable, we
drafted up a really...”
Explosive, or
maybe, hot. Scorching! Interesting! No, already used that.
“
...good plan of action.
You could call it a...”
Ninja strike!
Flying ninja strike! Freaking awesome flying ninja flame
strike!
“
...slash
and burn, operation. Then, afterward, we met up for a...”
Night of drunken revelry! No, wait, don't say
that.
“
...celebratory drink.”

“
Hey Ezra,” Mat's voice sounded from down the walkway. “I found
Doe and Liza already on their way over here and- Why hello Kirsten!
You're looking especially lovely today! I can just send these kids
on ahead if you'd like to-”

Kirsten O'Donnell cast a panicked look over
her shoulder. She gave Ezra a brittle smile. “Ezra, I believe you
have a prior engagement today and I won't keep you up from that.”
Then, quickly turning to Sarah and Sebastian she continued, “We can
look this over back in the study. If you'll just follow me please?”
Sebastian gave Ezra a lopsided grin and Sarah rolled her eyes
behind Kirsten's rapidly fleeing back as they walked past.

“
Aw, she was just here a second ago!” Mat grumbled as he
reached the door.

“
Hi Ezzy! Oh, and you better watch out Mat, I hear Seb works
fast.” Gal slipped gallons on implication into the last two
words.

“
Oh, you mean that gentleman at the door? Yes, he did seem like
quite an efficient young man,” Liza commented, nodding her head as
if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Gal
snickered.

Mat gave the house's interior a concerned
look. “Maybe she didn't hear me. I could just go back and check on
them, maybe catch up with guys later...” He absently started
pushing the gym bag toward Ezra, forcing him to juggle his
half-eaten lunch.

Ezra chuckled. “Well, I have it on good
authority that she really likes a man who sticks to his
commitments.”

Mat stopped and perked up at this. “Really?
Well then, time's wasting. Guess I'll just have to make sure you're
too sore to stand tomorrow, then maybe Miss O'Donnell and I can
spend a little quality time together.” He gave Ezra a playful clap
on the back that nearly sent him sprawling. The four headed off
joking and laughing.

And so went the next few weeks. Gal
occasionally vanished on missions, but none came through for Ezra's
team. Things fell into a rhythm for Ezra. Mornings were spent
delving into wormhole theory or upgrading the Guild's systems,
under the cover provided by his contract with JaM Products.
Afternoon saw him at the gym learning how to manage himself in a
fight or, when Liza couldn't make it, training at the Guild gym
with firearms or other modern weapons. Evenings found Ezra with the
mission reports, building up his knowledge and looking for patterns
in the data.

Years and years worth of missions were
represented, startlingly more after the advent of wormhole travel.
Through the accumulated knowledge in his data sheet, Ezra was able
to glean information about the elementalists in the outside
world.

Wind-scarred: masters of the air. Many were
capable of slowing or even freezing air molecules in place,
creating walls of force or invisible restraints. Some could call
down tornadoes, or fly freely on the wind. Distinguishable by the
patterns of fine scars that covered their bodies, their ranks
seemed to be almost universally composed of criminals. Con men and
thieves, mercenaries and even pirates; nearly all of them had a
history of violence and a complete disregard for people and
property. According to the data other teams had collected, many
were well known miscreants even before their powers manifested. The
fact that they exploded on death, an event dubbed the 'surge', was
well documented. The vast majority of missions dealt with a
wind-scarred in some capacity, be it stopping a rampage or rescuing
stolen goods or people.

Thunder-struck: zealots who brought forth
lightning from the skies and their fingertips. They appeared to
have a halo of ambient electricity surrounding their heads. Amongst
themselves and anywhere within earshot, they were the Children of
Lightning, spiritual leaders in what passed for organized religion
in the outside world. Ezra was unable to find a single reference to
any thunder-struck that was not a part of this religious
organization. Looking through the mission reports, however, he
concluded that that might be due to their aggressive recruitment
techniques. Many areas had fallen off the radar entirely as they
were swallowed up in the mass conversions initiated by the
thunder-struck; the events for which the Guild was called in showed
them for what they were: fanatic lunatics. Report after report
detailed thunder-struck literally smiting those who refused to
convert, declaring it the will of the heavens. There was a reason
that the words 'thunder' and 'struck' had become profanity in the
world outside: having one of these elementalists visit rarely went
well for anyone. Their own 'death spark', a sudden release of
unimaginable amounts of electricity, was noted and cautioned
against. Just over a third of the mission reports detailed
overzealous thunder-struck conversion campaigns.

Fire-kissed: those who could call forth fire
to do their bidding. They had amazingly high body temperatures and
actually exhaled small flames or smoke, particularly noticeable
when they became excited or agitated. Many were politicians or
local community leaders. In fact, they all seemed to be part of
some kind of centralized governmental body and all were notable for
their passionate belief in whatever it was they were involved with.
Few fire-kissed were actually killed; most were just frightened or
humiliated in some way, but they too released a tremendous amount
of energy when they died in a flare of sorts. Guild teams really
only encountered the corrupt in their ranks, the ones who had
turned their power against the people they were supposed to
protect. Fire-kissed problems were typically few and far
between.

Water-seers: the mysterious men and women
who had absolute mastery over water. They could be recognized by
their eyes, which were solid blue, without pupils or whites. Ezra
had a hard time placing just who they were, as only a handful of
missions actually dealt with them. He couldn't find anything
specific about any organization they belonged to, but all of them
appeared to be adept at two things. Healing and killing. In fact,
nearly every mission dealing with a water-seer was aborted upon
investigation when agents discovered that the seer in question had
been paid for services rendered, though the payment always seemed a
little steep. A man selling himself into slavery to repay a
water-seer assassin. A woman forced to give up everything she owned
to have her son cured of an unknown affliction. Ezra shook his head
at the few scattered descriptions. Only one mission resulted in a
presumed fatality for the water-seer involved, and the agents were
unable to verify the kill.

Earth-crowned: the enigmatic persons for
whom the earth moved. It appeared as though they each had a jagged
stone embedded in their foreheads, with smaller stones and gems
floating in a loose crown behind it. There was no uniformity to the
stones, they just appeared... random. Ezra deduced that they were
the supreme judicial system in the outside world. None of them
stayed still for long. Traveling from town to town, they mediated
disputes and dispensed what they considered justice. Most were
actually... reasonable. In fact, Ezra was unable to find a single
case in which the Guild agents initiated an offensive action
against an earth-crowned. The only time one was actually brought to
serious combat the team was demolished, with the only a single
member barely making it back to file the report.

Only a small number of the reports looked
into the history of the elementalists they were sent to deal with.
However, from those, Ezra learned something important. Between the
eleven year old boy who who manifested as a wind-scarred and liked
to sink boats coming in to harbor, and an eighty three year old
woman who manifested as a fire-kissed and siphoned funds from tax
revenue to pay for her grandson's wedding, there was no set age at
which powers developed. There did not seem to be any obvious
external stimuli for the manifestations either; it could be that
most of them just woke up with magical powers one day. Ezra did
notice one thing though: the people who would know the most about
how these powers came to be, the elementalists themselves, were
never spoken to. They were the ones Ezra needed to question.

During one of his late night study sessions,
while intently focused on a particularly detailed report, Ezra was
suddenly shocked out of his concentration by a light tap on his
back.

“
Ezra?” Kirsten's voice was quiet, tentative. Ezra whirled
around, shoving the data sheet out of sight, trying to get his
heart rate under control. How long had she been standing there? Had
she been reading over his shoulder? He could say it was a...
science fiction novel! A novel about... about... He paused. Kirsten
was biting her lower lip slightly. In fact, she looked... pained,
or maybe unsure of herself.

“
Ezra, I've been doing some research and...” Kirsten took a
deep breath, as if bracing herself. “And there's something I think
you should know.” Ezra glanced at the data view she had displayed.
There was a Guild of Sundry logo on the screen amongst her notes.
He felt the blood drain out of his face as his eyes crept back up
to hers in horror.

“
Ezra, I don't know how to tell you this, but I think... I
think that you might be involved in a conspiracy.” Kirsten's
intensely intelligent green eyes locked onto his. “With the Guild
of Sundry.”

“
My first clue was the Hughes family, specifically, Sarah
Hughes.” Ezra's brain tried to process what was going on. Sarah had
given it away?

“
By all accounts, she was an apt student, and, while not
brilliant, more than capable of inheriting the Hughes family
Legacy. I looked into the details of her disinheritance, and, with
some digging...” Kirsten took another deep breath, then blurted
out, “I found that she had shared Legacy secrets with a
grunt.”

“
Oh?” Ezra said, voice cracking. He was still at a loss at how
this had led her to the Guild.

Miss O'Donnell nodded, warming to her
subject. “I was able to find the Department of Ordinances report on
the occurrence and uncover the identity of the grunt with whom she
shared her family's secrets: a Mr. Robert Ralson, one of the
assistants at their lab.” A holographic display of a young man with
a rough looking face and well trimmed red hair jumped to life from
one of Kirsten's terminals.

Ezra had never seen the man before, but he
nodded, as if he had some idea what she was talking about.

Kirsten moved the image off to a corner of
the display. “He seems to have inexplicably vanished some time in
the last few months. I was, however, able to find this picture of a
slightly older Mr. Ralson at the University Plaza just before the
event known as the University Statue Caper.” It certainly looked
like the same man, even though his face was partially obscured and
his hair was longer and pulled back into a tail, but what was this
leading to? Ezra's gaze followed to where Kirsten's finger was
pointing to a person in the background and... oh god. “Ah, I see
you recognized him too. It actually took me a good deal longer, he
appears to have lost some weight since then.”

In the background of the picture was
Sebastian, distinctive tattoos clearly visible. “At first the
tattoo threw me off, but I replayed the recording of our meeting in
the study. I had the foresight to increase the room's temperature,
trying to make them uncomfortable to give us an advantage in
negotiations.” Kirsten played the recording, speeding it up to a
certain point, where Sebastian wiped his face. “There!” She froze
the frame and magnified it. Just as his hand passed over his face,
the hologram that was hiding his tattoo vanished, reappearing an
instant later...but an instant that was caught by the house's
surveillance. “I was able to map out the tattoo and it matches the
one on this man's face.” She returned to the image of
Sebastian.

“
That's, um...I-I'm, impressed.”

Kirsten flashed him a dazzling smile,
pleased with her work, then continued. “Using that as a starting
point, I searched for any images or video feeds from Guild of
Sundry events over the last few years.” More pictures of Sebastian
in various states of disguise flashed by, intermingled with those
of this mysterious Ralson person. The images finally came to a stop
on a still frame of a small, brightly smiling girl in pink panties
stepping off a shuttle on what must have been the Day of Pants-less
Shuttles. It was Gal.