Read Hungry Earth (Elemental Book 2) Online
Authors: Rain Oxford
Just as I had the first time, I imagined fire; the
color, the flicker, the light, the smell of wood burning, and the heat. I
imagined heat from my memories flowing through my body out and into torch. I
ignored the painful throbbing in my head and concentrated on the heat, which
spread from my thoughts to my chest and finally into the torch. Flames erupted.
I marveled at the fact that six months previous, I
had no idea I could do this.
Henry clicked off my light and handed it to me to put
back in my pocket. As I stepped cautiously towards the door, I decided I would
start carrying a knife on me if I couldn’t have my gun.
Screw Hunt’s rules.
Just before I rounded the corner, the sense of danger
vanished. I waved the torched over the entrance and heard nothing, so I peeked
around the doorway, prepared for something to jump out at me.
The room was empty.
“Try to get a scent,” I told my roommate. Henry
stepped over Dr. Martin to enter the room while I crouched beside the doctor
and started to turn him.
“Wait, he’s not–” Henry was cut off as the doctor
moaned loudly and tried to roll over.
“Hey, hey, take it easy,” I said. “Where are you
hurt?”
He struggled to sit up, so I helped, careful to avoid
the blood that was soaking his entire front. He wiped the blood from his face,
seemingly startled by it. “It’s not my blood,” he said. “I was getting blood
ready for the vampires… when something attacked. It came up from the ground.”
“I take it your attacker did this?” Henry asked. I
held the torch out so that it lit the room dimly.
There were chunks missing out of the north wall and
the sturdy wooden work desk was in pieces. Most shocking, however, were the
claw marks… on the ceiling. “What the hell did it claw the ceiling for?”
“It might have been trying to get to the other
students,” Henry suggested. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now. A bear shifter
could reach the ceiling, but he would not be able to hide his scent. Was it a
creature you recognized?” he asked Dr. Martin.
“I didn’t see it. The lights went out right before it
attacked. It wasn’t furry, though. It struck my arm when I wasn’t able to get
out of the way in time.” He indicated his left arm, which was bent out of shape
badly enough I knew he had at least two breaks as well as a dislocated
shoulder. “It was very solid and fast.”
“You need to get your arm taken care of,” I said. Of
course, I felt silly telling that to a doctor.
“Who do you take a doctor to?” Henry asked me.
Dr. Martin shrugged his right shoulder. “It’s not
that bad. I’ve had a lot worse back in–” He cut himself off, suspiciously.
“The… country I came from.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Um… Germany… I come from Germany.”
I rolled my eyes. “We need to get everyone upstairs
without them getting cooked. We have no idea when the creature could come back.
If we wait until night…” I looked up at the ceiling.
“Darwin, how many
vampire supporters do we have?”
“More than we have instigators.”
“See if any of them are willing to put up with
another roommate or two for the night and find some blackout curtains.”
I
broke the connection and reached for Remy’s mind. She wasn’t nearly as
welcoming of the intrusion.
“There is something in the underground level
that attacked Dr. Martin. We need to move the vampires out and search entire
the floor.”
I received an image of a library and frowned. Right
before I asked her why the hell she wanted me to go to the library, I realized
it was the C-One library, which had no windows.
“If someone could block the light from the glass door
that leads out over the courtyard, most of the inner hallways don’t have any
sunlight,” Dr. Martin suggested.
“Think we can get them to the main C-One library?”
“It’s not far. We can do it if we can block the light
from that one door.”
“I will get some blankets to block the light with,”
Henry volunteered. “Gather everyone up and wait for me to return.” He left.
“Are you sure you don’t need to have that looked
at…?” I asked, realizing as I did that there was no point; the lump above his
elbow had reduced in size to half of what it was before. “Is healing yourself
like that a normal wizard power?”
He shrugged his right shoulder again. “It is there,
but not here.”
“Oh, god, are you related to Professor Langril or
something?”
“I guess you could say we’re brothers.”
“You have different last names. It’s not normal for
brothers to have different last names.”
“It is in… Germany.”
I turned and left the room. I was seriously beginning
to think Darwin was the only one in the entire school who told the truth… and
he was a hacker/spy.
I knocked on the closest door. “The creature is gone
and everyone needs to move out.”
The door burst open before I could knock again and a
teenaged girl lunged at me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs
around my waist. “It got Jena!” she cried, shaking. She said something else,
but she was stuttering and her mouth was pressed against my shoulder.
“Okay, okay, I need you to let go. Calm down and we
can find her.” I was able to pry her off me, but her legs wouldn’t hold her up,
so I ended up crouched beside her as she wrapped her arms around her knees and
tried to stop wailing. I stroked her hair. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“The ground… it opened up… like it fucking ate her or
something!” As clear tears streamed from her huge, celadon eyes down her face,
she looked so much like any human girl who saw something horrific. Her fluffy
white-blond hair was streaked with what appeared to be ash and blood. I
realized why when she ran her hands through her hair; her hands were badly
scraped.
“Where did this happen?”
She sniffled and her hand shook as she pointed down
the hallway. “Outside the morgue. We heard someone had died and we were trying
to see who.”
“There’s a lower level. She could be alive,” Dr.
Martin said, taking off down the hallway before I could ask anything else about
what happened.
I ran after him and was followed closely by the
vampire. The system of tunnels was a maze, but Dr. Martin apparently knew it
well, because he led us straight to a set of stone steps down to an identical
floor. “Are there vampires here, too?”
“No. The upper level was cleared of traps. This level
hasn’t been.” He froze and held out his broken arm to stop us from going
further. I raised the torch and didn’t see anything. A roar shook dust from the
rock slab that made up the ceiling.
“What the hell is down here?” I asked. The vampire
grabbed my free arm. “What’s your name?” I whispered.
“Roselyn. Call me Rosie.”
“I’m Devon.”
“Watch your step,” the doctor said, creeping along
the wall. Rosie and I stayed close to the wall until we saw a pile of rocks and
dirt. Rosie shrieked and ran for the debris. I followed with the torch as Dr.
Martin glanced around nervously. “Hurry, hurry.”
In the center of the pile was a small crater where a
woman was unconscious. Rosie started shaking her. “Careful,” I warned. “You
could hurt her worse if she has broken bones.” That was assuming she was still
alive.
“We once explored the dragon’s lair,” Dr. Martin
muttered in a poetic tune. “… to find all the treasure that was buried there…”
I knew it was a nervous reaction, but it was ominous
enough down here without senseless rambling. “Dr. Martin, I don’t think this is
the time.”
“… but out we came, lickety-split, ‘cause all we
found was dragon–”
“Help us move her,” I demanded. That got his
attention and he rushed forth to help. The woman moaned and Rosie began crying
again, but it was with relief.
Then a gust of wind blew through the tunnel from
deeper in the complex.
Danger
. My instincts suddenly demanded that I get
out. The torch died, bathing us in utter darkness. Rosie screamed. I dropped
the torch, reached out, pulled her into my arms, and put my hand over her
mouth.
I sensed its movement because it was huge, but I
couldn’t see anything at all. It was oddly silent; I only heard something when
Dr. Martin grunted. It sounded like he hit the wall and then there was a loud
scraping sound of rock against rock.
When I felt movement behind me, I reached out with my
magic to grasp control of whatever mind I could.
I encountered a strong mental wall around his mind,
but it was enough that I recognized who he was. Professor Langril was fast and
ran for the threat as if he could see perfectly. The darkness was finally
broken by none other than a sword. Only this sword wasn’t like anything I had
ever seen. It was metal— sort of— but as he swung it, the blade emitted a cool
blue light. What it struck left me speechless.
The creature we faced, obscured in darkness, was as
black as space and had a slick hide, which sounded like stone when the blade
struck it. Sparks flew and the creature roared. To my shock, Langril roared
right back at it; an unearthly roar no human could make. His blade darkened as
he lowered it and instead raised his hand, from which the same red lightning he
had used on me burst. It was immensely brighter, blindingly bright even, so I
had to blink the spots out of my eyes when it was pitch-black again.
Fire erupted from the torch, which Langril was
holding. I saw that the creature was gone as the room filled with light. Dr.
Martin was calmer than I had expected. “Did you get it?” he asked Langril.
The professor sighed. “I almost had it, but Vincent
got in my way. Those damn familiars are getting to be a problem.”
“You two can be cryptic later. Help me get everyone
onto the ground floor,” I said. Dr. Martin immediately walked over and picked
up the half-conscious woman as if she was a sack of feathers.
When we got back upstairs, we found Henry, Hunt, and
Remy clearing out the vampires, who had all apparently seen one form of
destruction or another. Hunt glared at Langril as he passed the professor and
helped an injured man to his feet. It looked like several walls had collapsed,
injuring ten vampires, while a dozen more had been chased out of their rooms by
the creature that crashed through their wall.
It took two hours to evacuate thirty-five vampires.
Once they were safe in the library, Henry and I decided to go back to our room
since we had a little time to relax before Kale’s class began.
We were passing Hunt’s office, probably because I was
wondering where he had been when his vampire students were in trouble. We would
have walked right on by, except his door was open and we heard a grunt. I
looked just in time to see Hunt shove Langril against the wall.
“If
he
gets the key now, it is your fault! We
will all be dead! Does that matter at all to you?!”
It was the second time I had seen the headmaster
angry, but this wasn’t just anger; the headmaster
hated
Langril. I
thought he had been angry when John turned Flagstone against him and controlled
Remy, but there was something much deeper about this.
Langril straightened the collar of his suit. “It
matters, but if you and Vincent would just stay out of the way, I can get the
key and–”
“And you will screw up again.”
“If you get the key, I’ll never see Heather again.”
“Eavesdropping again?”
Startled, I turned to see Alpha Flagstone right
behind us. Henry had sensed his approach but apparently thought I didn’t need
to know. I looked back to see both Hunt and Langril watching me with identical
irritated expressions. “If you don’t want people to watch, don’t air out your
dirty laundry with your door open,” I advised.
“Duly noted,” Hunt said, flicking his hand outward.
The door slammed closed in my face.
I sighed and turned back to Alpha Flagstone. “Apparently,
I’m going to have to get Darwin to do all the digging.”
The shifter actually looked sad. “Devon, you are not
ready to deal with this. You may have more than enough power, but you haven’t
learned to control it. Logan and your uncle are just trying to protect you by
keeping this from you.” Flagstone sounded very sincere. Henry was silent, as if
waiting for my reaction.
“I knew I was going to be an investigator since I was
a kid. It’s what I am and it’s what I do. I’m not on Hunt’s side, the council’s
side, or Langril’s side. I will find out what’s going on and then I will decide
what to do about it, if anything. I know I have a lot to learn, and if it seems
out of my league, I can handle that… but only after I know what it is.”
It wasn’t like I never referred clients to
specialists before. Hell, all of Marcus’s clients were referred to him by me. I
just never stuck my hand into a case, passed it on, or refused it until I had
at least an idea of what I was dealing with.
Darwin was working with Clara to organize the
vampires and with Amelia to organize an activities committee. Henry wanted to
search the underground level himself, but Hunt wouldn’t let him in. I knew that
Hunt didn’t want our help, which just made me want to find out what he was
hiding. There was also the matter of the council’s amulet. Unfortunately,
dealing with the vampires had taken almost all my time.
At midnight on Thursday, I was waiting in front of
the forest for Professor Langril. For some reason I expected him to be late, so
I was surprised when he appeared from the dark depths of the forest at the
stroke of midnight, at least according to my spotty watch.
“Have you figured out what earth magic is yet?” he
asked.
“In
Elemental Configuration
, Professor Watson
said that earth takes on qualities of the other elements. We fired clay to make
ceramics on Monday. I don’t really see what that has to do with magic, though.”
“Watson is extremely figurative in his teaching. He
will never tell you something outright, so everything he has you do is a
puzzle. What do you think it meant?”
I thought about it. “Well, we shaped the clay cups
with water, and then glazed it and fired it in a kiln. I guess the lesson could
have been that when you mix elements to create something, you can’t always undo
it or separate them.”
“That is a good lesson to learn.”
“So you’re not going to shoot lightning at me again?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“How do you walk into and out of the dark?”
“Read the answer from my mind.”
“Your mind is blocked.”
He smirked. “Because you are not ready. Controlling
your power and fighting it are not the same things.”
“I’m not fighting my magic. I just don’t want to
control someone’s mind accidentally. Since killing John, I seem to react more
and more with magic— particularly my mind controlling magic.”
“It is a power you were born with and was made
stronger by John’s death. Come with me.” He turned and disappeared into the
forest. He led me to the same clearing as before and my suspicion grew, but my
instincts didn’t warn me of danger. “Have you ever had an imaginary friend?” he
asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Heather had an imaginary friend, but she didn’t know
his name.”
“That’s odd.”
“It is. Do you know why?” he asked. I shook my head.
“Because in magic, you can control a being if you know its name, and this
particular being didn’t want my daughter having control over him.”
“It wasn’t imaginary?”
“No. Unfortunately, Heather’s mother thought he was.
I found Heather in time, but Miranda was killed.”
“Did you get his name?”
“I did. However, by then, he was already too powerful
to control. How Heather survived as long as she had was because of her innate
grasp of earth magic. If she were still alive, she would be your elemental
mentor.”
“So she was more powerful than you?”
“Like I said; I was a wizard there, not here. I am
probably the most powerful man you have ever met, yet my power doesn’t work as
well here, when it works at all. Anyway, Heather’s strength was earth magic at
its strongest. Whereas water is the element of healing and love, earth is the
element of grounding, nurturing, and strength. The earthen elementals
themselves protected and guided her.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“I know the water elementals came to you and helped
you last semester. I believe that if you can ally yourself with each element,
you can help us.”
“What is it you need?”
“A key,” he said. Instead of explaining, he sighed.
“Now, back to work.” He held his hands out in front of him and the ground
before his feet started to move. Although the disturbance was only about a foot
wide, I took several steps back. Clumps of frozen dirt rose from the ground and
formed an ice-mud snowman in midair. The professor grasped the object and
started pinching the bottom of it to form fat, stubby legs, and then did the
same with the middle section to create arms. As he molded the figure, he spoke
in a foreign language.
“What is that?” I asked, unable to identify what it
was supposed to be.
“I don’t know, but it’s yours. Your lesson this week
is to take this home and treat it like your pet. Talk to it, rant about your
stresses, dress it, whatever. Most importantly, you need to name it.”
“You want me to name a hunk of mud?”
“You need to nurture it and give it power, but you
also need to name it so it is yours.”
“I’m not a nurturing guy, and taking care of a clump
of mud is a little outside my job description.”
“It is, however, your assignment. You cannot pass
your circle without passing your element training.”
“All you wizards with your secrets and threats…” I
carefully sidestepped the torn patch in the ground and took the muddy object.
It was wet and frigid. “So, I can get a babysitter for it, right? Or a full
time nanny?”
“I guess that depends on if it is a vindictive
creature or not.”
It really didn’t resemble any creature I knew. “It
doesn’t have a face.”
“Does it need one?”
“Yes. It’s creepy without a face.”
“Interesting.” He turned and disappeared into the
shadows.
I took the muddy statue back to the dorms, hoping to
get a little bit of normalcy before bed… except this was a university of
wizards, shifters, fae, and vampires. I was lucky if I didn’t wake up with my
uncle’s cat biting me or an undine sitting on me. Fortunately, the fact that
Regina couldn’t find me here made even the bad days worth it.
Darwin met me at the entrance of the dorms. Unlike
Henry, Darwin was an extremely expressive person. His hands clinched inside the
cuffs of his hoodie the way they did when he was expecting someone to try to
touch him and his eyes were their lightest shade of blue, which happened when
he was using math in his head to predict outcomes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Word has gotten out about the vampire murder and the
other students are blaming Jackson. They’re also blaming him for the attack the
other night.”
“Jackson isn’t smart enough to pull something like
that off and not leave a scent.”
“I agree, but the vampires don’t know him like we do.
What the hell is that?” he asked when he noticed the mud doll in my hands.
“My assignment from Langril.”
“It doesn’t have a face. I hope he told you to drown
it.”
“Now, that’s not nice.” He gave me a peculiar frown
and I sighed, not sure why I just defended a hunk of mud. “Langril’s a weird
guy, but he did save me from flunking out. Where is Jackson?”
“He’s hiding in his room with his gang. He was in the
cafeteria when Landon overheard two teachers talking about the death. Landon
came running in screaming that Cooper was murdered. They all thought he had
been called back to the coven.” He yawned.
“If Jackson’s door will hold, we can deal with it in
the morning. Who did Landon overhear?” I asked as we headed for our room.
“Professor Anderson and Professor Hendricks.
Hendricks is standing guard outside of Jackson’s door in case the vampires try
to attack him again.”
“I think Anderson and Hendricks might be as bad as
Jackson.”
“They were both hired on here this year to take care
of the vampires.” We arrived at the room to find Henry at his desk, scribbling
in his notebook again. When I shut the door, he didn’t look up or react at all.
He was a shifter and therefore had heightened senses, so the lack of
acknowledgement told me he was putting all his focus into his notebook.
Darwin crept up behind him to try to peek at the
notebook. I saw the moment Henry realized he wasn’t alone; his shoulders rose,
his hand froze, and a low growl started in his chest. Darwin immediately backed
off and climbed the ladder to his bed. As nosy as he was and as badly as the
curiosity must have bothered him, Darwin couldn’t afford to fight with anyone
physically.
I knew if I set my mud doll on my desk, the water
would ruin the wood, so I dug around through my bookshelf, pulled out the old school
handbook, and set the mud doll on it.
“What is that?” Henry asked, frowning at the mud
artifact.
“I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, but Langril
gave it to me to take care of. He said I needed to name it.”
“What do you name something like that?”
I shrugged and climbed the ladder. “I’ll think of
something later.”
* * *
Friday morning was quiet. It wasn’t until the
vampires woke and demanded Jackson’s blood that the trouble started.
Only three of the seven vampires in Kale’s class
showed up. Darwin discreetly asked one of the female vampires at the table next
to us what was going on and I was able to hear the woman’s response.
“That pansy-ass jester didn’t kill Cooper,” she said
irritably. “Anyone with a brain knows he never stood a chance against Cooper.
Whoever killed my friend is about to get away with it because everyone is hung
up on a third-rate racist prick.”
The minute the sun went down on Saturday night, a
group of vampires decided to hound Jackson’s door until Professor Hendrick gave
up and left. Clara had to break up the group, but by then, Jackson had had
enough. Everyone was drawn to the commotion as Jackson left the school, saying
that he was too good for a school that allowed vampires.
It was quiet for the rest of the weekend.
* * *
On Tuesday, Remy proudly stated that we were going to
have a treasure hunt. The losers all had to clean the libraries, whereas the
winners didn’t. We got in pairs and Remy said she was going to show us the
spell only once, after which we were left on our own.
“Hopefully, you all remember the Law of Contagion,
which Alpha Flagstone taught you last year. It states that objects or beings in
physical or psychic contact with each other continue to interact after
separation. This is the key to all tracking spells that I will show you today.”
There was a white plastic table set up in the front
of the room that everyone gathered around. Remy had five boxes set aside for
later. In front of her was a white ceramic plate about a foot in diameter. She
also had a glass cup, a small bottle of silver liquid, and a gold coin.
“The spell I’m teaching you today works with most
liquids, but this is perfect.” She poured out the bottle of liquid into her
hand. It looked exactly like mercury, which was dangerous, especially if
inhaled.
“Is that mercury?” Krissy asked.
“No, mercury balls more than that. It’s gallium,”
Darwin said.
“Correct; this is gallium. Unlike mercury, this is
supposedly safe to handle.” There was a gray residue left on her palm as the
liquid poured back into the bottle, while some of it clung to her skin. She
manipulated it easily with her fingers until it balled up. “It’s not a pure
metal like mercury, and it isn’t liquid at room temperature. Instead, this can
melt in your hands. The gray residue it leaves on your hands can be washed off
with soap and water. Also, you don’t want to put it anywhere near aluminum
because it will bond and weaken the structure of the aluminum.
“Each pair is getting one vial of gallium and one
plate to use. Both members of the winning team will be given their own new set.
This works well with metal and wood objects, but not so much with cloth or
foam. I can teach you another spell for those later. Right now, we have a
single gold coin from a box of treasure. Obviously, one coin is worth a lot,
but who wouldn’t want an entire box full? So we’re going to find the box.
“First, you have to be able to imagine what the box
looks like or where the coin came from. If you know exactly what you’re looking
for, that’s even better. Picture it in your head, not the coin itself.
“Next, pour your gallium into a glass or ceramic cup.
Then you drop your object into the cup.” She did so. “Give it a few minutes in
the gallium and focus extremely hard on what you’re trying to locate.
“Lastly, pour your gallium and object onto the plate.
The gallium will form a reflective surface and act as a crystal ball; you will
see where the item you are trying to locate is. Sometimes, it’s a little
difficult to understand, because it will be tailored to whoever cast the
magic.”
When she poured the cup’s contents out onto the
plate, the gallium immediately evened out. After a few seconds, the reflective
surface fogged over with what looked like mist, which quickly formed an image
of a familiar office with a chest propped open on the couch.
Remy scoffed. “I told Rosin to hide it, not put it in
my office.”
A few minutes later, Darwin and I were given a box
and told to find the object before the others. We took the kit across the hall
to an empty classroom where we could work without distractions. In the box, we
found a white ceramic plate, a plastic bottle of gallium, a glass cup, and a
pearl necklace. The gallium was solid, so I breathed hot air into the bottle,
then closed it up and put it in my jacket pocket.
“What kind of treasure chest has pearls in it?”
Darwin asked.
“An old one? Actually, I don’t think we’re after
another chest. Maybe we should be looking for a jewelry box.” It took a while,
but we got the gallium completely liquid. It was more like tinfoil in solid
form. We put it in the cup with the pearls and focused. When I poured the cup
out, everything went exactly as it had for Remy.