Elemental Flame (15 page)

"
Chérie
—"

"Shut up, Bastien," I said as I locked my eyes with Dharma's. "Where. Is. Ivan."

She didn't look away and I could feel despair as it radiated from her. "He—he ran out to help you. I told him to stay with me, but he said he couldn't just sit there and not help. I—I told him to just grab you, but he took the staff—"

I staggered back and into Bastien, who put a hand on my shoulder. "Ivan…Ivan took the staff…" I looked over at the smoking circle, at the charred earth, at the dead bodies. "Where…"

"Dead, Samantha," Blackwood said as he stepped into the ruined ring and touched the staff. I watched as it turned to ash and was whipped away by a sudden, cold wind.

T
he hole
in my stomach broke wider at the thought I'd just lost Ivan. Ignoring Blackwood, I stumbled into the scorched circle and searched the ruins for remains. My Arcane flared as I sent up small suns, balls of bright yellow light, into the air to illuminate the destruction. I sent my Elementals out to find Ivan. Any trace of him—any clue that could tell me he wasn't dead.

Blackwood stepped back from my Elementals as they manifested around him. I felt and saw the surge of Arcane Power as my despair and horror coalesced into the very solid form of a glittering red angry unicorn. It turned on the Magician and stalked him, shooting yellow fire from its flaring nostrils. Blackwood backed away until he was outside of the blackened ground.

I pushed my fingers past my cheeks and into my hair and held it back from my face. "What…did you do?" My voice sounded small, but it echoed in my head. The pack was listening.

"I did my job, Miss Hawthorne. It is our duty to destroy the monsters that come into our world, isn't it?" he gestured to the bodies strewn over the ground. "These were monsters. And they came in through this Cairn."

"Our job isn't killing innocent Witches!"

"He got in the way," Blackwood said as he straightened his cloak. He looked at everyone but me and the angry horse glaring at him.

-
We could do to him, what he did to the Witch
.-

For once, I agreed with the voice. But I didn't want to act irrationally. "Ivan tried to protect me."

"Then it was his fault. The staff was already set to destroy the Cairn. He shouldn't have been touching it when I—" he stopped and seemed to rethink what he was about to say. "He shouldn't have touched it."

"When you what?" Dharma said as she came from my left. I glanced at her. She glowed a brilliant blue and white in the darkness. The Cleric was fully charged and broadcasting her identity. If he didn't know she was a Cleric before, he knew it now. And I assumed from the look on his face when he spotted her, he didn't know this before. "When you triggered the spell? You
knew
he was holding the staff, an innocent Dianic, and you acted anyway?"

But then he regained his composure and narrowed his eyes. "As a Cleric, isn't it your duty to report the infected to Parliament?"

Dharma didn't back down. "You murdered a Dianic Witch."

"And you are aiding and harboring an Arcane wielding Elemental, young lady. Exactly whom do you think your Parliament will side with? Me. Because to them, the life of a Dianic isn't worth its magic. I saw an opportunity to destroy this Cairn and I took it. No magical court in this country would ever convict me of murder."

"I don't need a judge and jury," I said as I felt myself slip into the warm, glittering blanket of Arcane. It fed my need for revenge, it fed my need to destroy, and it fed my need for retribution. "We're in the swamp. There is no Hive here. No laws to bend and break."

"And you will do well to listen to me, Samantha Hawthorne. I have a recording of you using that forbidden power. And all I have to do is give it to Cromwell and no one will ever see you again."

I took a step toward him. "With today's special effects, I'm pretty sure that recording can be explained away as nothing more than a fake, Mr. Blackwood. So let's settle something right here. Why did you really destroy the Cairn? Is it because you don't want me rescuing Crwys Holliard?"

Blackwood didn't step back. In fact, he looked amused within the deep contoured shadows of his face. "You think you can rescue a Dragon?"

I took another step.

"You will not, Hawthorne. No one will. He was the price of Arden Vervain's deal and he will remain in
Alfheim
, away from this world and punished by the ones he nearly destroyed a long, long time ago," he took a step toward me and pointed a long finger at my chest. "Now you listen to me, and you do as I say because I own you now. Just as I own Arden. Given another day or so that Witch will be dead and I'll own all of her land and holdings free and clear. You're not going to
Alfheim
. You're not going to touch a Cairn, or I'll make sure to deliver you personally to Cromwell with my evidence."

I laughed. Or the Arcane laughed. "You really think you're a match for me? That I'll obey you and do your bidding?"

"Yes. I do." He held out both of his hands. I felt a slight pressure in the air, something that drilled slowly through my personal shields until I was on my back with something invisible and strong wrapped tightly around my neck. I grabbed at it but couldn't wrap my fingers around it, and the whole time I was screaming in my mind, trying to figure out how a Ceremonial Magician had broken through my Arcane shields to choke the crap out of me.

I heard voices and snarls and then the shout of Dharma's voice. The thing around my neck disappeared and I gasped for air as I flailed on the crisp, dead ground. Bastien leaned over me and took me into his arms, pulling me up to my feet but holding me close to him. He smelled of grass and all things living.

"
Chérie
?" his voice was soft and I heard the name in my head as well as with my ears.
"Êtes-vous bien?"
He leaned down and kissed the top of my head.

"I'm…okay," I said before I turned to see Dharma standing between Blackwood and myself and Bastien. She was lit up like a floodlight and her Undine was beside her, five times its usual size. Dharma was not messing around. I could only imagine the hurt in her heart right now, and though she was a Cleric, I was pretty sure she was having a hard time
not
killing Blackwood herself.

My horse snorted and approached Blackwood. He held up his hand as if to fire something at it just as a shadow moved to his right. It grabbed his wrist and pinned it behind him. More shadows appeared until a dozen or more Lycans in human form held Blackwood where he was.

I told my stallion to stop. It didn't want to…but it did.

Bastien released me and strode forward to stand in front of Blackwood.

"You wouldn't dare harm me." The arrogance in the Magician's voice was real. And it had a strange ring to it. It stirred an old memory, but I was too angry to think it through.

"You are on
our
land. Your council has no jurisdiction here."

"I certainly do—"

"Tais toi!"
Bastien roared and his voice echoed in the woods.

More shadows closed in around us and I wasn't entirely sure they wolves. I saw their glowing eyes in the half-light of my dozen or so suns, but I couldn't make out their bodies, either wolf or human. Whatever they were, they set Blackwood on edge. Though I'd seen his own men fighting before, I didn't see any standing now.

"You killed on our land. Land set aside by the
treaty between the Parliament and our Elders. I will petition the council to have your ass handed over to
numéro un
," Bastien grinned and his canines shown under the light. "I will ask for your life. For now I mark you as prey. You have six seconds before the hunt begins. The clock is ticking,
mon ami.
"

Blackwood blinked a few times and fell to his knees when the Lycans released him. Then to my enjoyment, they barked and struck at him as they chased him out of the woods.

Dharma would have collapsed on the spot if one of the pack hadn't run to her. An older male caught her and hefted her into his arms. Bastien came forward and touched his hand to her forehead. After a few seconds, he spoke in a low voice to the one holding Dharma.

When the Lycan took off into the woods, I looked at Bastien as the stallion disappeared and the Elementals remained. "Where—"

"I told Ben to take
ma pétite
to the nursery to rest. Your mother is there with Regine. She came to protect the pup the instant that bastard attacked."

"Oh," I put my hand to my own forehead and stared at…nothing. "Did your pack destroy his men?"

"He brought a few of his group, but we sent them back to him," Bastien put a hand to my face. "
Chérie
…I am sorry…"

-Gather the souls.-

"No," I shook my head as I looked around at the carnage. Gather the souls?

-Reform. Remake. Repair.-

I heard the words in my head but I wasn't sure exactly what they meant. "Remake? I don't understand."

"Samantha?" Bastien moved back.

I was so tired and the voice of the Arcane was so loud. My Elementals gathered around me as I went down on my knees, and they settled beside me as the sparkling red magic moved from my chest, over my arms, my legs, my face…until I bent forward and pushed my hands into the earth. My Gnome hummed as she closed her eyes. My Undine, Sylph and Salamander all joined into the eerie, almost lulling song that came from the Gnome.

I closed my eyes, as once again the voice moved from inside my head to outside of it. I watched as I felt the power burrow into the soil like roots seeking water, seeking sustenance, seeking…life.

It found life, then three, then four and then more until there was enough power to lift and sift, sort and mold those things that did not belong in the swamp. Around me, the remnants of the dead broke down into their smallest, base parts before they moved into the center of the circle.

I touched the toadstools, the grass, the grains that make the dirt, the carbonized components of magic that had once been a staff of rowan, and within that culmination of information and knowledge I saw the way to reform, remake and repair.

Everything spun around in the center of the Circle in a perfect, living spiral. The parts coalesced and mated, making new life and in the end, it all formed a doorway. Something that was stable, yet moveable. Something to be used. Something…

Wonderous.

When it was done, the Arcane mist subsided and I opened my eyes as I came back to where I'd been. Still bent over on all fours, my hands sunk deep under a carpet of new, just born grass. I pulled my hands from the earth and winced as tiny roots pulled from the skin of my fingers like ant bites.

I felt Bastien's warmth, inhaled his scent, and looked up into his beautiful golden eyes. His hair was dark under the light of my suns and I saw my Salamander touch his cheek. A blessing?

"
Chérie
…what…what did you do?"

I smiled at him as the Gnome's song ended and I thanked my Elementals, and I, at last, thanked my Arcane. "I have no freak'n idea," I said before I closed my eyes and sighed in his arms.

I
woke up to a thick
, wet tongue in my face.

Raising both of my arms to fend off the onslaught of puppy kisses was hard, but not impossible. My muscles protested with tiny bursts of fire. When I opened my eyes, I saw the cute and adorable face of a wolf pup as she tried to clean my nose. "Ugh…Regine…"

I heard a giggle in my head. It was answered by soothing and cooing from the rest of the pack. Great. I really needed to shut that link fast.

"She really loves you," said a voice to my right. It was a voice I didn't recognize. "Your mother sleeps to your left."

I turned my head to the left first to see Grey's beautiful wolf face. She rested on her back, her chest rising and falling as she breathed deep, and I put my hand against her neck as another set of hands took Regine away.

Trailing the pup, I saw the hands belonged to the man I'd seen take Dharma away. Bastien had called him Ben. And that's when the previous events came rushing back and I remembered that Ivan…was gone.

The emotion I felt because of that hit me hard and I wiped at my eyes. Ben set Regine on the floor and she tried desperately to jump back up on the bed. "It's okay. Don't hide those. You need to shed them. You've suffered a terrible loss."

Ben didn't have the Acadian accent like Bastien, like most of his pack. Ben sounded more Georgian, or closer to South Carolina. He had salt and pepper hair cut short and a string of tattoos along the back and side of his neck, dotting around to his chest. He wore a green plaid shirt and silver hoops in both ears. "Apogee?"

"Yep," he smiled. Apogee meant he'd been turned to the life of a Lycan, and not born like the little puppy running around. Regine was perigee. "Everything working?"

"I think so." I pushed myself up on my elbows first and then Ben helped me sit up as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. I spotted my boots next to the chair Ben had been sitting in. I noticed sun coming through the windows of the cabin and put my hand to my lips. "What time is it?"

"It's just after eight."

"In the morning?"

Ben laughed at the stress in my voice. "Yes. You needed the sleep. You and the little Witch. Dharma? Is that her name?"

"Yeah. Is…is she okay?"

"I think she's coping. She's quiet, pulling into herself. Bastien was with her earlier while they surveyed the battlefield this morning."

"Battlefield?" But yeah…I guess it could be called that.

"Mmhmm. Hungry? I'm sure there's breakfast in the kitchen."

I assumed he meant a communal kitchen. I could be wrong. "No. I'm not that hungry." My stomach let out a loud noise. "Okay, so I'm not in agreement with hunger right now."

"Sick to your stomach?" he sat back in his chair and faced me. "I wouldn't be surprised. You channeled a lot of magic last night."

"Channeled?"

"Yes. When you made that," he pointed to the door.

Leaning on the frame beside the door was the rowan staff, whole and complete. I had a few faint memories of seeing pieces of the wood reforming, of watching something happen. "I'm not sure…I did that?"

"Yes."

"But it destroyed the Cairn."

"Yes," he nodded. "Originally. But that's not what it does now."

I slipped off the bed and walked toward it. It had a presence. Something tangible that both repelled and attracted. "What does it do now?"

Ben scooped Regine into his arms and joined me at the door. "Let's drop the pup off at the nursery and I'll show you."