Elemental Flame (13 page)

"Like in the Malleus Maleficarum."

"Yeah. The mark of Arcane."

"Bummer," Ivan smiled. "I don't think that mark has anything to do with the Hammer. But the book did keep itself intact."

"And I recreated it in the shape of a unicorn."

"Yep. Give me a few minutes and I'll make you a copy of that one. But I suggest you keep that original in a safe place and not as a unicorn. What shape would you like me to remake the copy into?"

I thought about that for a few minutes and only one answer came to me. "Make it in the shape a very important looking old book. Make it look like a magic book out of a movie. The gaudier, the better."

B
rendi wanted a magic book
; I'd give her a magic book. As Ivan worked, I readied my backpack and thought about how I was going to contact Brendi and lure her here. But by the time he finished, I didn't have any ideas. Bringing a Faerie into our world wasn't a good idea for the Faerie. None of them risked the threat of death. And the only way to move on the earth was to create the Faerie mist, which only happened in certain conditions.

Or if summoned by a Witch.

I whistled at Ivan's creation. Hand tooled leather cover, embossed with gold filigree along the trim, and in the center a magical symbol that made no sense to me. I pointed at it.

Ivan shrugged. "I don't know if it means anything. I just made it up. Looks impressive, huh?"

"Yeah it does." I placed the book in a velvet bag with shielding wards embroidered all over it. The bag was something Mom had me make when I was seven and the quality of the thread work definitely showed my age. But the magic woven into it was solid. Once I pulled the drawstring, the book became invisible.

Ivan excused himself and went into my tiny spare bedroom and collapsed on the bed. I pulled a blanket over him and checked for fever. He was warm, but not alarmingly so. My magic, and Kyle's, pulled from different sources. Magic was like any other power generator—there had to be a way to fuel it.

We weren't sure where Ivan's power came from. I still wasn't sure how his magic worked. From the look of his gray skin and the circles under his eyes, I assumed he'd used his own energy.

"What the hell did you do to him?"

I wasn't prepared to hear Dharma's voice so I jumped a little when I turned to face her. She stood at the door to the small bedroom and she'd also just entered
my
home without
my
permission. "He's fine, Dharma. He just needs rest. Now get out."

"I am not leaving him."

"Yes you are. This is my apartment.
Mine
. Not yours. Not get the hell out of my place, or I swear I'll banish you from the entire store!"

She wanted to fight me. I could see it in her body movements. The way she balled her hands into fists and spread her feet just enough for a fighting stance. I could see the sparkle of blue around her fingers and became aware of her own Water Elemental around. Hers wasn't so different than mine, though her Undine's tale was much less decorative. And I'm pretty sure it had her face.

"Don't fight me, Dharma. Ivan's fine. I had him do me a favor. He's done it before. What he needs right now is rest. So go."

"I want to stay with him."

"Not up here." I moved to stand in front of her and without even calling them, all of my Elementals manifested, facing her. "Give him time to sleep. Uninterrupted."

She looked at my Elementals and then gave me a
KILL!
look. After a few seconds she turned and headed to the stairs. "You have a visitor," was all she said as she headed down.

Another visitor? Great. Just what I didn't need. I closed the door to the bedroom, shoved the bag with the book in it into my backpack, and then pushed the pack under my table. Grey met me at the steps and we went down them.

Bastien stood just inside the door to the shop, on the break room side. He was dressed in his usual shirt, jacket, ridiculously tight jeans and boots. He was letting his beard grow along his jaw and the whole package looked inviting. But I wasn't in the mood. "Bastien—"

"
Chérie
, please just listen to me," he held up his hands. "It's become serious. Regine hasn't eaten or slept in over a day. She wants you."

I felt bad for the little Regine, but I didn't know what I could do about nightmares. I needed to get everyone together so we could find this Cairn, set up a trap, and call Brendi to show her the book and let her sense the Arcane in it. "Bastien, I just don't have the time—"

"It's not just the pup,
chérie
. It's happening to most of my pack. You shut us out, but they have called out to you. We've had mate attack mate, fights that have no purpose. It's like some kind of
diable
is attacking us."

Wait a minute. "
Everyone's
having these nightmares?"

"
Oui
."

Dharma stepped away from the stove where she put on another kettle of water. "And your people are fighting each other? Like one accusing the other of things?"

Bastien nodded his head. "Even I have had a few problems. I thought I had faced the Alpha that would unseat me, and I attacked, but I discovered I'd attacked my uncle. Luckily, I didn't kill him."

Dharma looked at me. "Worst fears."

She and I nodded and said in unison, "Boggarts." Apparently, Ivan had shared his and Kyle's little mishap that morning with Cordelia.

"Mr. LeBlanc, do you have a Cairn in your woods?" Dharma asked.

"
Je sais pa, m'selle
," he looked back at me. He didn't know. "You will come with me.
Now
."

I
t took a bit of convincing
, but Bastien consented to all of us accompanying him into his pack land, with the promise that I'd keep my link to the pack open. That way the pack would know Bastien was with me and we weren't all strangers. I would have preferred one of us remained at the shop—because I was starting to worry about the bank account. Crwys had made a hefty deposit at the beginning of the month, but after bills were paid, that usually drifted into the scary double digits.

Dharma, Ivan (against mine and Dharma's wishes) and Grey piled into Dharma's white Gremlin (you gotta be kidding me) while I rode on the back of Bastien's motorcycle. I didn't even know he had one since the only thing I'd seen him drive was a van. The bike was a Harley. I wasn't sure of the make and model but it looked good under him. He handed me a red helmet, donned a black one, and we wove around pre-Mardi Gras late night traffic in the direction of Pontchartrain.

To say where Bastien's pack lived would be hard, since I wasn't sure of the land myself. And it was night; pitch black outside once we left the city lights. I knew the pack's land was out past Arden's Gypsy Gardens, just inside the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge. But once we neared Blind Lagoon, we pulled off the main road and onto a side, dirt road made up of little more than ruts in the path.

I smacked Bastien's back when he maneuvered around a chain between two posts blocking the road, visible in the bike's headlight. The bike could get around it, but the Gremlin couldn't. I looked back to see Ivan and the others get out of the car as we retreated.

Mom!

I know. Just hold on. You need to see the baby without interference from anyone else.

I narrowed my eyes behind the helmet's faceplate.
You knew Bastien was going to kidnap me?

Grey's sigh was loud and I heard it echo as she switched to talking to me through the pack's link.

That didn't help my mood. Or my anxiety. Crwys was being held and tortured somewhere in
Alfheim,
and I had to find a way to bring him back into my world. If I didn't find a Cairn on the other end of this sidetrack, I was gonna be pissed.

The bike continued speeding down a small path, through puddles of mud that splashed up on my boots and my jeans. Just when I thought we'd never get there, Bastien turned the bike down a well-hidden path and we came upon what looked like some kind of compound in the middle of nowhere. There were maybe a dozen nice cabins, a center well and smoothed dirt pathways. Everything was lit by a string of lights that draped from one cabin to the next. I had no idea where they were getting their electricity, but the whole set up was impressive.

And I might have been more awed if I wasn't hangry, dirty, muddy and ready to stab Bastien in the back.

Once the bike stopped, I hopped off before he could lower the kickstand, ripped the helmet off and threw it at his head. Luckily, he was still wearing his own damn helmet or I might have put a dent in his thick skull. "
Lady Darksome!
What the hell are you thinking? We can't leave my friends back there." I resettled my backpack, actually considering taking it off and smacking him around with it.

Bastien sat on his bike, the expressionless helmet facing me. The one I'd tossed remained on the ground as members of his pack came out of the circle of nicely built log cabins. I recognized a few faces from our previous adventure, but others—I might recognize their wolf forms better.

Bastien finally removed his helmet and raked his fingers through his red hair. "Your friends are safe,
chérie
. No harm will come to them in these woods."

The crack of gunfire interrupted my response and pretty much destroyed Bastien's credibility on the safety statement. I felt and heard the whiz of something fly past my head really fast. I went down just as Bastien leapt off his bike. He landed on all fours—paws, that is. His bike? Not so much. It went over in a painful crunch noise.

Bastien placed his red wolf form between me and the others. What I noticed was the reaction of the pack. They were huddled against trees and bushes, looking around for the gunman. Or person.

The link came to life in my head with a jumble of thoughts, everyone trying to talk over the other until finally Bastien quieted them down with a mental growl.

Matthew? I didn't think I'd met him. And why would he even think Bastien would bring me to kill him. Bastien was perfectly capable of maiming and killing all by himself.

Every pack member went down on their hands and knees, some even flipped over onto their backs as Bastien cast his dominance over the link. The shout hurt my head but it didn't have the same effect on me as it did everyone else. I stayed where I was, just to the left and behind Wolf-Bastien as he faced the compound.

There were a few tense seconds before someone came crashing through the trees to our right. Bastien moved against me and forced me back again as he put himself between us. I pushed at him and looked around the other side of his furry butt so I could see this Matthew.

He wasn't a big guy. In fact, he was kind of Kyle's size but with a broader frame. He carried a rifle in his hand. He had jerky movements, almost as if he were being dragged to Bastien by invisible ropes until he dropped the weapon and then went down on his knees. What he did have was that same frightened and angry expression I'd seen before on Ivan and Kyle's faces when I walked in on them fighting.

Bastien approached the kneeling Matthew and let out a loud, deafening growl in the kid's face. Matthew fell over in a dead faint. I couldn't blame him. I think I'd have lost control of my bodily functions.

Something moved out of the corner of my eye, just past a clump of bushes. I narrowed my eyes as I stared at the spot. It looked a lot like a distortion, like heat did when it rose up off of hot asphalt roads in the desert. The wavy movement bounced off the green of the vegetation, and though it was getting a bit muggy, I knew that wasn't heat.

While they were all focused on grabbing the abandoned rifle and getting Matthew taken care of, I slowly stood and called upon my Undine and my Sylph. I already knew what it was, but what I needed was a means to see it. Kyle had made the thing visible by combining Water and Air, and I wanted to do the same. So I silently communicated my will to the Elementals. They nodded at me and nodded at each other as they floated in the air in front of me and disappeared.

Seconds later, the entire compound lit up with a flash of green fire. Everyone, including me, brought their hands up to protect their eyes. When it was done, I lowered my hands—

My jaw dropped.

I expected the Elementals to reveal the Boggart closest to me by the tree. What I didn't expect was to see more than a dozen of them hanging around. Some were in the trees, and others were napping under them. A few rested on top of the cabin roofs while others stood in the thick of the group watching. Sweet Lady! They'd infested the pack land!

"What the hell are those?" one of the female Lycans said near Matthew.

"What the hell are they doing here?" someone else said.

"Can we eat them? They're in our home."

One of the Lycans didn't bother asking. He ran at one of the ones lazing under a tree, hauled off and kicked it.

Up until then, I don't think the Boggarts realized they were visible. But when the one kicked let out a scream and rolled away, all the little uglies scrambled out of sight.

"Wait!" I yelled out to them as I moved out from behind Bastien. "Do any of you know Cordelia?"

Out of the dozen or so I'd noticed, half of them stopped their retreat and turned to face me. A good sized one, about the height of my knees, lumbered toward me. He clasped his hands at his chest and pulled at his fingers one at a time. I figured it was a nervous habit, especially when I realized he was cracking his knuckles. "You have seen Cordelia?" This one's voice was lower than Cordy's had been and had a nasal quality.

"Yes." I glanced around at the other Lycans as they made their way to the Boggarts who turned to me. "Bastien…"

Wasn't sure I wanted to hear that. And I really wasn't sure if he was serious. With Bastien, who knew?

The Boggarts moved into a closer crowd to stand next to the speaker. I continued. "I met her. She came to my home and told me the Silver Queen told her to go through the Cairn."

All of them nodded. "Yes. She told us to flee."

"Because…" and I licked my lips. "Because the Winter Queen has a Dragon?"

Every one of them ducked their heads and covered their faces. It was a universal sign between them. They were all afraid. No…they were terrified.

"There's no Dragon here. I just need you to help me."

A few of them looked up at me. The larger one answered. "You won't let the dogs eat us?"