Hungry Earth (Elemental Book 2) (24 page)

The castle finally stopped shaking.

Knowing I had to do something, I thought of Regina
and the words she screamed at me after I caught her cheating on me. When Marcus
had called me to tell me to go home, I had known already what I was going to
find. I just couldn’t believe the woman would blame me for it.
In my own
home…

Heat quickly built in my chest. I let that heat grow,
fueled it with more memories of my ex-wife, and held up my hand to the golem to
focus. Before I let the fire of my anger out, I thought of the gnome that
warded the tree off. He could face a foe much larger than him because he was
the essence of earth, which was strength and grounding.

The essence of water was to trust and love. I learned
to trust Henry and Darwin and I learned to let go of much of my hate for
Astrid. I had been so afraid of becoming like John… like either my biological
father or the man who raised me. That was why Hunt assigned me to the earth
element this semester; earth was the element that would keep me in control of
myself. Earth was strength of mind, not body. If I was strong of mind, it
didn’t matter how large my opponent was.

By allowing myself to use my anger as a tool and not
just try to fight it, I was taking control of it. I unleashed the heat from my
body. Fire formed in my hand and struck the golem. I felt a moment of fear that
my fire would hurt Henry, but I needn’t have worried. As my roommate tried to
claw the golem’s throat out, my fire split apart to avoid the jaguar and only
struck my foe.

The golem threw Henry off and vanished back down the
hole. Henry sniffed the air, still growling, and turned to me. He snarled.

My fire had died when the golem ran, but it wasn’t
like I would burn Henry even if I could.
Except Henry said his jaguar was a
different being entirely
. “Calm down, Henry, I’m not your enemy,” I said
gently. He growled and opened his mouth to display every damn sharp tooth.

I reached out with my magic to connect with his mind,
like I had always done when threatened by dangerous animals. His ears flattened
in anger as he sensed my invasion. “Shift,” I told him aloud. He growled again.
The jaguar’s mind was one of the strongest I had ever encountered.

“Okay, okay.” I let his mind go. “We’ll do this the
hard way.” I put my hand out flat like I was training a dog, hoping I would
still have a hand in the next few seconds. “Stop,” I said harshly.

The cat’s ears twitched. He was probably wondering
how crazy I was and if that would affect how I tasted.

“Henry, back off! Bad!”

He snarled and his body lowered, forcing his head to
angle upward. His hind legs crouched and rocked as if he was about to pounce. I
stepped forward, not allowing any fear or hesitation take hold, since I knew
shifters could smell it. Instead of biting my hand, he retreated several steps.

“Better, Henry. Now shift!”

He growled and did a fake lunge at me, but I held my
ground. He retreated further. Although the jaguar may have had a different mind
than my roommate, they were still connected. Henry was nothing if not
protective.

“Henry, shift.”

The jaguar’s hair started to recede and I heard bones
crack. I wanted to look away, but the change from cat into man was too quick.
He was faster than any of the shifters I had seen and before I knew it, Henry
was standing in front of me, naked, panting, and covered in sweat.

“It takes a lot of energy,” he explained.

“Well, you may need to shift right back into the
cat.” I passed him and exited the castle. Outside, more mayhem was taking place
on the practice field. Using force fields, the headmaster was able to prevent
four relentless golems from getting to the students. But only barely, for he
couldn’t attack and defend simultaneously. “Can you go again?”

“I need a minute to regulate my blood sugar and
dehydration.”

“You can self-regulate your blood?”

“I can shift into a cat nearly twice the size of any
lion and camouflage my
fur
. Are you honestly surprised? I can regulate
my blood sugar, sodium levels, insulin, and even my body temperature output.”

Damn
. “I have a job for you if you ever want one.”

He nodded. “I’ll take you up on that if I can ever
kill my parents without getting caught.” He shifted in the blink of an eye and
took off for the golems. Before he singled one out, he became invisible.

I reached the group just as Vincent appeared behind
Hunt in the cloud of darkness that seemed to be the hottest means of
transportation for overly-powerful wizards. I dared to hope he was here to
help.

“Langril is about to get the key!” he shouted.

Hunt looked right at me and mouthed that he was sorry
before he and Vincent disappeared. “You bastards!” I yelled, too late.

Maseré and his pack were in shifted form, as were the
remaining thirty or so shifters who had stayed at the school. The shifters were
all ready to take Maseré’s lead, but the wizards and fae had no idea how to
fight these things.

Unfortunately, neither did I.

“Darwin. How do you kill golems?”

“Not fire. That can make them stronger depending on
how they’re built. He must have an artifact of creation; a message on his
forehead, and amulet, something. Otherwise he would have no purpose. I bet the
shadows that possessed them are hiding it.”

I assessed the group of remaining students. Most of
them were years younger than me, but they had grown up in Hunt’s magic schools.
By chance, I saw Len and Dan, which gave me an idea. “Darwin I need you to go
to the dorms.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I need that mud creature on my desk.”

“It’s probably been destroyed. Can’t you make another
one?”

I shook my head. “Langril wouldn’t have given it to
me without a reason. That one has magic in it that he specifically put in it.”

Darwin nodded. “Okay.” He didn’t look happy about it,
but he turned and ran to the dorms. When one of the golems tried to go after
him, it was taken down by Henry.

“If you know how to use force fields, use them!” I
said to the group. Several of the wizards put up shields, although the shields
weren’t very powerful. The shifters had already figured out that biting the
golems didn’t work. “Shifters, hold the golems back, don’t try to take them out.
Those of you who can use shields, protect the shifters. If you can control the
elements, start doing some mix-and-matching. Combine your powers and see if you
can find something that works.”

Everything from fire tornadoes to burning balls of
mud were shot wildly through the practice field. Fortunately, the shifters were
very effective at keeping the golems from advancing, while the shields kept
them from getting seriously injured.

A startled yelp distracted me and Henry returned to
my side, covered in a goopy, black substance that looked like tar. “What
happened to you?” I saw the golem he had been fighting was just a puddle of
gunk on the ground. “How did you do it?”

He nudged his muzzle against my chest. When I tried
to push him away, I felt the chain hanging out of his mouth.

“Let me see,” I said, trying to pull it out. He
snarled, so I slapped him. He clamped his mouth on my shoulder, not breaking
the skin, but a clear warning. I slapped him again. “Cut it out!” He let me go
and spit the pendent out at me. It was a weird, silver pendant only about two
inches tall with foreign writing on it. “Good job. Try to get more of these.”
He growled at me and clamped down on my arm this time. That was going to leave
marks.

Frustrated and impatient, I bit his ear hard,
thankful it was a spot clear of the black goop. He let me go and backed off. I
figured he was in shock that I would bite back, but then he just turn and
continued fighting the golems.

Darwin returned then with the dried figure. “Are you
going to make a golem yourself?”

“I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do.” I took the
figure, careful not to touch Darwin’s skin accidentally, and set it on the
ground. I focused on the essence of water and earth, since I hadn’t learned
fire and air yet. I narrowed my focus like Tanaka-sensei had taught us and
visualized what I wanted, like Remy had talked about.

I imagined the creature absorbing the power of earth
and water, but I also imagined it having a functioning mind. It wanted peace
and was adaptive like the undine, and was strong and wanted balance like
gnomes. These two were part of the fabric of the world and it was only natural
for the creature to absorb them. The last thing I added was part of me; part of
my power.

Lohem
. I shared with it my soul and it shared
its name with me.

“Protect us, Lohem,”
I told it.

The creature began to grow, so everyone backed away
from it. Within a few seconds, it was as big as the other golems. Fortunately,
a basic face formed on the creature. It didn’t have a nose or ears, but it had
a mouth. Two clear eyes formed, somewhat like small crystal balls. Unlike the
golems, it had a brain, and since I knew what to go for, it did too. Lohem
struck the first golem by putting its massive fist through the golem’s chest.
When Lohem retracted his arm, it held one of the pendants and the golem
dissolved into black goo.

The remaining two golems were tougher. Henry and
Lohem converged on one while everyone else converged on the second. Between our
combined efforts of elemental magic, relentless strikes of nature, and the
discovery that some of the students could create lightning, we managed to
hinder the golem enough for Maseré to sink his fangs into the golem’s chest.
The golem struck him and sent him flying, but the pendant was lodged firmly in
his teeth. The golem dissolved.

Henry was somehow able to get a hold on the remaining
golem’s head with his long fangs, so he held it still while Lohem tore the
pendant out. Everyone was waiting in startled relief for the next thing to go
wrong, as if they couldn’t believe we had won. Lohem dissolved, not into goo
but into nothing, and I was suddenly hit with lethargy like I had never felt
before. Henry came to me peacefully this time, concerned even, when I fell back
into the mud. At least it wasn’t raining anymore.

Maseré shifted back into his person form and reached
out to help me up, but Henry growled at him. Maseré growled back, as did his
entire pack. Henry stood his ground.

“It’s okay, I’m okay,” I panted. “I think I just got
the backlash of my elemental.”

Henry sat beside me, not willing to let anyone else
near me. I tried to pet him and he growled, but leaned into my hands anyway.

“I hate cats,” I said. His growl turned into a weird
purring sound. I was under the impression that cats could either roar or purr,
but not both. “I didn’t know jaguars could purr.” He stopped himself instantly,
as if he hadn’t realized he was doing it. I sighed. “Go help get everyone back
inside. I’m just going to rest a minute.”

He shifted and did as I said. Before he went inside,
Henry turned back, his eyes wide, and I knew immediately what I had forgotten
about; the fifth golem was still active. I didn’t have time to move; I could
feel it looming over me. I looked up just as its massive fist was coming down
on me.

Bright red light met with black, swirling darkness
like something out of an alien horror flick. The golem made a cry so inhuman it
sent shivers down my spine before it burst into black goop. I was splattered
quite thoroughly with the black “blood” of the golem. Behind where the golem
had been were Hunt and Vincent.

My vision dimmed and lethargy clawed its way deeper
into me until I felt myself tip.

*          *          *

No dreams
. That was the thought I woke with,
and it was pretty fantastic to me. Maybe I was just too tired for them. I
opened my eyes to find myself in Hunt’s office again, only Nightshade wasn’t
rubbing anything on me.

I was on the couch, Darwin was on the chair across
from me, Hunt was in his office chair, and Henry was in front of me in his jaguar
form, blocking Vincent from getting near me. I sat up and rubbed Henry’s ear,
earning a sharp glare. I took my hand back before I lost it.

While I had seen Vincent several times during my
first semester and he had promised to teach me some magic, he mostly contacted
me by letter. Therefore, his appearance was still a little unexpected each time
I saw him. Although I knew he was around Hunt’s age, he didn’t look a day over
forty. He was six-four, not thin or muscular, with short black hair. An iron pentagram
hung from a thick chain around his neck, which I assumed had some magical
connotation that I would learn about at the worst possible moment. None of this
was what bothered me.

A scar, clean and thin, crossed from the far end of
his left eyebrow to the tip of his left nostril. That eye was eerie, icy blue,
while the other was dark purple. I believed this was what connected him to
Ghost, since the cat had a similarly odd condition. What bothered me was that
although other wizards had familiars, none had a scar, so I had to wonder why
he and Ghost did.

“How are you feeling?” my uncle asked.

“Like you and Hunt shouldn’t have left us to take
care of the golems on our own.”

“We can talk about that later. Stephen said you had a
vision of the castle being attacked.”

“I had a dream. I also had a dream of the vampires
being attacked and of Gale killing Astrid.”

“When you saw the vampires being attacked, did you
see anyone unusual?”

“You mean like the creepy guy Amelia saw in the
shadows? Yeah. Who is he?” I asked. Vincent and Hunt looked at each other. “Who
is he?” I repeated.

“An old enemy who Logan and I are dealing with. More
concerning right now are these visions. When did they start?”

“After I killed John. And I’m not letting this go; I
will find out who the shadow man is.”