Elemental Flame (7 page)

M
y wet jeans
chaffed minutes into the traffic-laden ride back to the shop. Add in a drizzling rain and the drive back took an hour longer than it should have. I parked the Jeep in the back and the three of us piled out and jogged to the shop. The only noise between us was the sound of my soaked jeans rubbing together between my thighs.

A few customers milled around inside. I assumed they were there to get out of the rain. I stopped in my tracks when I saw Dharma with one of the customers. The Cleric was dressed in black with very red lipstick and blue nails. The fact she was a Cleric was the first mark against her, the second was she held my Undine when I was warlocked, but the biggest thing I didn't like about her —she was dating Ivan.

This isn't a jealousy thing. It's a me not being one hundred percent sure of her loyalties thing.

I gave Dharma points when I discovered she let my Undine help me where she could against Circe, and she seemed genuinely infatuated with Ivan, to the point of knowing exactly what kind of Witch he was and not reporting it to Parliament. Why was that such a problem? Mostly because I didn't trust this group—not after they chose to warlock me instead of Arden Vervain when the Malleus Maleficarum disappeared. Yeah, I had it, but all the clues pointed to Arden. Arden was a public figure and took the credit for finding the Changeling children, so of course they didn't dare punish her. That would make them look bad in the magical community. So they chose me. The rogue. The one on the outside. The one who hadn't professed loyalty or fealty or whatever it was they wanted to the Witch's Parliament.

After that, I swore to myself I would never hand over my measure to them. And forget any service. They'd destroyed trust with me.

So the thought of letting them know that Ivan Westerfield had a yet unknown power within the world that actually worked with the Electronic World that had interfered with our magic since the invention of the light bulb filled me with dread. I'd seen their idea of "justice" and "understanding." I was terrified they'd invite him to participate in some experiments and then I'd never see him again.

No. I vowed to keep Ivan safe. He was my friend, my employee and my coven member. I would protect him and Kyle with my life.

Ivan finished checking a customer out and had obviously seen my reaction, since I was still standing in the middle of the store soaking wet, my hair in my face, while Kyle and Grey moved into the break room. Ivan had his hands up and spoke in a low voice. "I needed some help and she was on her way over so we could go to dinner, okay? So don't freak out."

"Why do you think I'm going to freak out?"

"'Cause you got that look on your face, or what I can see of it. And I know you Arcane'd out over at Crwys's place."

"How did you know about that?"

"'Cause Kyle texted me."

"Fine," I moved past him, ignoring Dharma, and stomped into the break room. Kyle stood at the kitchen sink filling up the electric kettle. "I'm getting a shower. We need to talk about what happened." I looked at the clock on the microwave. It was just before five. "Close the shop at five-thirty."

"Sure."

Grey lounged on the couch in the living room when I plodded up the steps and yanked my boots off. Shivering, I stripped down on the way to the bathroom. I filled the sink with water for my Undine, turned on the shower and stepped in. I left the bathroom door open. I always leave it open now, ever since I was attacked by a crazy Cleric while I showered.

Fred.

I hadn't thought about Fred in weeks. He attacked me and I killed him. I just…let the Arcane have its way and made him disappear. Maybe that was what bothered me about so much of this. I was always conscious when I took on its power, but it always felt as if I were just watching and not participating. I didn't actually see what happened to Fred. I didn't actually see what happened to my dad's body, or Pauline's, or the nurse, or even the house. It was all just…gone.

What did that say about me?

And what am I supposed to think about what just happened at Crwys's? I'd barely said yes to that voice before I was charged with power and took out those little monsters with little thought. If it weren't for my Undine and her cold shower, what would I have done? Killed Blackwood before he could escape?

Did the Arcane know the Ceremonial Magician was there while I didn't?

I didn't have a magic book or some kind of manual to tell me what I was supposed to do because no one, especially not a Witch, is supposed to use this power. I let the hot water wash over me as I put my hands on the scar at my chest. I hadn't looked at it since that night at the restaurant. But knowing now that it was possible Crwys hadn't rejected me, that he hadn't just dumped me and left town, gave me courage to finally look down.

It was the size of a silver dollar and about the same measurement in height above my skin. The last time I'd looked at it, the tissue around it was raw and looked more like I'd been burned or branded. Odd indentations decorated the surface and when I put my hand on it, it felt like whatever it was sat just beneath my skin. Crwys and I had toyed with the idea that the scar was the mark of Arcane, the mark the Witch Finders had used to catch the Witches who used Arcane. But the more the scar changed and grew…I doubted that was the answer. The Malleus Maleficarum, in all its flawed revelations, not accounting for the viewable words given to Cowens, non-witches, told of moles and odd growths hidden on the Witch.

This sucker was not small, and it was not hidden. It was right out there for everyone to see.

My Undine appeared just inside the curtain. She was beautiful, just as all my Elementals were. And when I saw her, I felt only love, affection and appreciation. I reached up and held my hand out to catch water from the shower. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't let the Arcane take control like that."

She settled on my palm, her touch light and ticklish. When she shook her head in agreement, I smiled at her. "You're going to keep me on my path?"

That's when all of them appeared. The Sylph just behind her, the Salamander just above the nozzle away from the water, and my Gnome who peeked in as she moved the curtain. All of them nodded.

I dressed and ran a dryer over my hair, then gave up. It was thick and black and unruly. I grabbed clean clothes, jeans, a button down shirt, socks, and an older pair of boots I hadn't touched since I wore them to Savannah, Georgia nearly a year ago. My regular boots were still wet.

Everyone was in the break room when Grey and I came down the stairs. Even Dharma. That didn't make me happy. The kettle was hot and I poured myself a cup of tea before I turned and faced them. "Dharma, this is a private meeting. You can go home."

She shook her head. "I'm staying. You need my help."

"No. I don't."

"Sam," Kyle said. "Just listen, okay? I've already briefed them on what happened."

I looked from him to Dharma to Ivan and then back. "
Everything
that happened?"

Kyle matched my gaze. "Everything."

Dharma stood up from the table as her chair scraped the hardwood floor. "Miss Hawthorne, it's okay. I'm not going to tell any of the others what's happened. Ivan filled me in on how you became infected—and I can honestly say—"

"
Infected
?" That…what she said instantly pissed me off. "You think I'm infected? Little girl, do you even know what this is?" I put my hand to my chest but I didn't reveal the scar. "Do you know what I did? What made this infection possible?"

My voice must've carried some kind of weight because I swear the girl trembled where she stood. And I wasn't going to let up on her.

"Miss Water, you have no idea what I've been through from my side of things. And right now, I'm not interested in disinfecting myself. I'm interested in finding someone who might have been kidnapped and could be in some serious pain. Now, I'm happy you and Ivan are a thing, but this is personal, it's private and it's non of your business, or Parliament's."

I'll have to give her credit. I could see her shaking, but she wasn't leaving. Instead she leaned into the table, bent forward and slammed her hands down. "Now it's
your
turn to listen to me!" Her face flushed red and I actually straightened up. "I am not here as a Cleric. I am not here to spy on you and report back to Parliament. In fact, if Dryden even knew I was dating Ivan—" she glanced at him and smiled. "I'm not sure he'd approve. Because he thinks, just like all of them think, that Ivan's a Dianic Witch and nothing more. I would never betray his confidence in me, and I would not and will not betray you."

Kyle leaned back in his chair. "Did you make an oath to the Cleric position?"

"Yes."

"And are you right now, breaking any of that oath by being witness to a Witch who is infected with Arcane?"

She didn't have a ready answer for that. Dharma licked her lips. "Yes, I am breaking my oath."

I shot her a fake smile, but it faded just as fast. "Then why should we believe you now? You're breaking a sacred oath with Parliament. Who's to say you wouldn't betray me or Ivan later on when it suited your needs? Let's say you two break up?"

She and Ivan looked at each other for a long time before Dharma broke eye contact and looked at me. "Because I know what they're doing to Circe. And I…I can't condone that. I can't…I can't let them do that to you, because you're special to Ivan. And I can't even imagine what they'd do to him."

My thoughts and speculations on what Parliament would do to me and to Ivan had always been just that. Speculation. I had no idea about what they'd do to Ivan and his new power. I just assumed he'd disappear in some Witch government run building and be experimented on. And when it came to Arcane users, I always thought they were hunted and killed. I thought that was what happened to Circe.

Kyle and I exchanged looks as Grey came to sit at my feet. She leaned against me and I reached down to scratch her neck. "They didn't terminate Circe?"

"Hell no," she looked wounded. "They're using her. Testing her. Seeing what her power can and can't do."

"What the hell for?" Kyle asked.

It was Ivan that answered. "Because they want to develop some kind of protection against Arcane. Develop something that would neutralize it. So she's a guinea pig under the care of the Parliament. In secret."

I watched him. "You've seen this place."

"I've broken in and looked—"

"Ivan!" Dharma whirled on him and smacked his arm. "I told you not to do that! They could catch you doing that."

"How? Present day cyber surveillance isn't even all that good when it comes to hard keying information. How can they find soft key intrusions?"

Assuming he meant hard key was manual inputting like keyboards and point and click, and soft keying meant with the mind, like he did, I followed his defense. But I also liked the way she smacked him. Jumped on his ass just like I would, and her tone and reaction had been genuine. She really cared for him.

Of course she does. If you opened up you could feel how much she loves him.

You like her too?
I sent this to Grey.

I do. She balances him.

Well, she had my mom's approval. "Okay fine. Look, everyone sit down." I waited for Dharma to sit. "Since you all know what happened at Crwys's, the real problem here is if Blackwood tells Dryden or any other Cleric."

"Or worse, if he recorded you going all Arcane and creepy," Ivan said. "I'd already cleared the place of any signals when I unlocked that door. But if he had some kind of hand camera that wasn't Wi-Fi enabled and recorded you, I wouldn't have seen it."

So much for the obsoleteness of older tech. "Can you make a program or something that'll like…I don't know…sit out on the web and look for something like that? Just in case he uploads it to a cloud?"

Ivan blinked a few times and then gave me a crooked smile. "I—I guess I could. I don't know. I haven't tried to do that."

"Try it. Can you access his phone?"

"I'd need his phone number. If he's got a burner then it makes it hard to tell who's initiating the call."

I pointed at Kyle. "What did you see in the first car? The one I flipped?"

Kyle looked at each of us. "There's not much to say. I bent down to look inside and I expected to see a body. There was a body—and it looked like a man—but it was made of stone."

I blinked. I hadn't expected him to say that. "A stone driver?"

"You mean like a golem?" Dharma said.

"Like a clay man," Kyle put his hands on the table, palms down.

"Yeah," Dharma said. "One of Blackwood's crowning achievements in alchemy is making golems, formed from clay or dirt. They're damn creepy. When Blackwood presented this to the Parliament as a possible project for funding, they rejected him and forbid him to create any more of them. There's a moral code involved in their creation."

"Moral code?" Kyle said.

"Blackwood puts a bit of himself inside of the golem. Like a touch of his own soul. Last I heard, they were still debating the legitimacy of golems being sentient or property. I think they tabled it when Higgins was killed."

"He makes golems?" I pursed my lips in thought, then shook my head. "Explains the Fetches, since he likes to animate things."

"Yes. Which is why I'm not surprised you had trouble fighting them. He's the best there is. And if he created a golem and used him as a driver, for whatever purpose, then I'm sure Blackwood's going to send a clean up crew out there to get rid of evidence. He can't afford to have evidence of his rule-breaking lying around for long."

"I didn't know this about Blackwood," I said. "I just considered him a Ceremonial Magician."

"None of us really know him. Except Cromwell and a few of the Elders," she clasped her hands on the table. "Blackwood's the closest thing the magical community has to a mafia. He's strong, powerful and patient. And he's got a lot of money and influence in all the right places. A few members of the Parliament grew up with him, know him and even trust him."

Kyle put his teacup on the table with a thunk. "Now that's a scary thought."