Igniting Spirit (Gathering Water Book 3) (23 page)

My Elements started Bending to my will without my thinking about it, and the circle we stood in glowed brighter as a result.

Kaylus gaped down, marveling at the glow coming from our feet. Using my abilities made him happy; using my abilities would help unlock the gate to another realm.

I stopped immediately, and Kaylus looked sharply up at me. His face was a mask of rage, and I flinched as an arm of black energy reached towards me from his center. It did nothing, though, thanks to my necklace.

Instead of becoming angrier, Kaylus smirked. His black arm of power was still by me, and it reached up like a true limb and caressed my necklace.

“It took me a while to discover why you were sometimes immune to my power, and other times not. Then I remembered Ethan and his strange attachment to your ancestress. He always was clever. I assume it’s one of a kind?” He asked with the same type of curiousity someone has about a secret ingredient in a favorite recipe. I remained silent.

“Well, I can’t coerce you into using your powers against me this way.” The black tendril retreated back to his aura. “But there are other ways.” A knife appeared in his hand, edge shining in what I now knew was Death with a capital “D”. I knew from my Reading what he was about to do, knew he was about to reach down and run it through his son’s heart. I didn’t think, only reacted, which had been the point I think.

I Bent air and pulled Ezra to me as quickly as possible, but Kaylus had a firm grip on his son. I succeeded only in pulling Kaylus down to his knees — in pulling that darkly glittering blade closer to Ezra. Everything was in slow motion except my heart, which was beating frantically beneath my chest. I was going to watch, again, as Ezra died.

They were only a few paces away, but that was still far enough that I couldn’t stop Kaylus from plunging his knife deep into Ezra’s chest. Couldn’t stop the certainty that I was too late to save him as an echo of that pain seared my heart. Cold rage filled me, and my elements stormed around me as a reflection.

I made it to Kaylus before he could even look up with his unfeeling eyes.

I made it to Kaylus and drove one of my spikes deep into his center in a righteous parallel of what happened to Ezra.

I made it to Kaylus, and watched as he fell to his knees with confusion etched onto his face. He tried to heal himself, and when I started draining his Spirit energy and prevented that, he resorted to his other energy. With a zealous look to his eye, he tried Gathering the Death from his own body. But taking Death away doesn’t give something life. Finally his eyes went dim and he fell over completely, having succumbed to the same power he’d used against so many others.

Journal
,

It has been months since I’ve written last, because this journal is a painful reminder of what I’ve lost. It was on a whim that I’d grabbed it from the drawer in the motel room and shoved it in my purse, and I’m glad I did. It’s a good distraction right now.

I’m also glad I made myself check out a hospital last week in case the baby came a little early. I was on the bus, halfway to the beach, when the first contraction hit. I’d never seen the Pacific though, and was determined to finish my journey. Labor always takes ages, that’s what they say. I’m glad I did, though. This ocean is so different than the one I grew up on, but it still reminded me of home. And having bits of sand still stuck to my toes as I give birth to my daughter just feels right. I didn’t make it to the water before I had to stop walking. A very nice life-guard called an ambulance for me. Did I leave my shoes on the beach? I’m rambling. Anything to distract myself from the pain.

Oh, yes! The Dr. just performed an ultrasound. They’re worried about me, apparently my heartbeat is weaker than they’d like. The ultrasound showed I’m having a little girl! Delilah will be her name, after our ancestress Delilah Deare.

But I’ll call her Della.

The pain is getting stronger, and I’m so tired already. Soon though, I’ll hold my baby girl in my arms and this whole journey will have been worth it. I’ll make Derek read this journal entry one day so he can know how crazy and exhausting labor makes you. I don’t know how other women have the energy to yell and shout at their husbands. I could almost sleep if the pain weren’t so great.

So tired.

Soon, Della…

*****

The lock beneath my feet started to shake and I felt an all too familiar hand on my shoulder.

“Della, what did you do?” Ezra, wonderfully alive Ezra, asked. I rushed to him and threw my arms around him with my cheek pressed against the new scar over his heart.

“You’re… how?” I asked. Even the Ethnos were hard pressed to survive a puncture to the heart, especially one that was laced with Death energy.

“I’m assuming because we connected once you were close enough to me.” His gaze was caught on his father’s body.

I pulled back and looked up at him. “But you were dead, Ezra.”

He looked down at me, and a ghost of his dimple popped through. “Maybe I was only mostly dead. Miracles are known to happen for a noble cause.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. Now was not the time to make movie references. “Or maybe my aura healed you before you actually died.”

The ground started to shake even more, and more than just the symbols were glowing. We let go of each other and started making our way down the large steps as quickly as possible.

“Della, when you killed my father, were you by any chance using your other abilities at the same time?” Ezra shouted at me. We were close enough that our auras stayed fused, but the shaking was turning into a roar of sound.

“Maybe,” I called back.

“And was he using his Thanatos ability by any chance?”

“Maybe.” A pattern was starting to appear, and I had a sinking feeling that Kaylus hadn’t used his Death energy in a misguided attempt to heal himself.

He’d used it to provide the final key to open the portal.

“So, while you were using your elements you inadvertently healed me, while my father died from a blow
you
gave him while he used Death energy?”

We stopped running down when the entire pyramid started moving
up
.

“That about sums it up, yeah.”

Ezra turned to face me with a strange look on his face. “Della. In all seriousness,” he took a deep breath and stepped closer. “You killed my father, now prepare to —”

“I swear to god, Ezra, don’t you dare finish that quote!” I couldn’t stop myself from cracking a smile, though. He was preposterous.

I started to move away, but he pulled me by the arm and kissed me hard enough to make my toes curl.

“What was that for?” I asked him, breathless as the pyramid continued to move up and up.

“So we both remember why we aren’t going to let whatever is about to happen be the end of our story.”

I grinned. “Damn straight, we aren’t.”

Below us, the steps started glowing brighter and looking significantly less… solid. We looked at each other, and as one started moving back up the stairs. The ceiling above us started to crumble into dust starting in the center and working its way outward. At first ocean water poured in, but we were moving upwards so quickly that the morning sky was soon visible. When we got to the glowing top of the platform again, Ezra looked panicked for the first time.

“Where is he?”

“Where is who?” I didn’t know who we could be expecting. I was looking over the edge at the steps, which were becoming less and less solid; less and less real. I could see shadows start to form in the light.

“Kaylus is gone!”

I jerked my head back, and was surprised to see the platform was completely empty. I looked around, half expecting him to attack at any minute. Which was why I saw
it
coming towards us.

“Ezra!” I jabbed my elbow into his back and erected a Shield to protect us from whatever creature had just escaped the OtherRealm. It was vaguely humanoid, if humans were as wide as they were tall, with arms that looked like tree branches, and a gaping jaw that made the Scream guy look like a close-lipped fella.

It was so dark it seemed to dampen the color around it, and if it had skin, it was somehow a gooey mist. Which makes no sense whatsoever, but there you have it.

Ezra turned, and because our auras were one, I felt him reach out with his power and try to hurt it, to absolutely zero effect. I joined him, hoping our considerable combined strength would do something.

It didn’t.

“Della? Any ideas on how to kill a Nothing Monster?” Ezra asked while we both backed away from the thing.

“Um. That’s a big fat no.”

It was closing in on us, and more were joining the party. I could feel some of my energy being pulled towards them, as if they had their own gravitational pull.

“Are you feeling that, too?” I asked Ezra.

“The energy-sucking? Yeah.”

“With your Death energy, too?” I remembered hearing that these things born of nothing craved that which it lacked, which was energy: substance.

“Definitely. Everything. It just absorbs any Loa I send its way, too.”

An idea occurred to me, a stupid one that would likely fail, but we were now surrounded on all sides, and nothing I did could prevent them from eating our energy.

“Wanna try something dumb?” I asked Ezra. We were back to back, now, with more of the oddly shaped things popping up every second. I knew there were more, hundreds more, pouring out of the portal and entering the world. I just hoped that whatever Runes of Protection the Ethnos used were somehow able to keep the flood at bay.

“Sure.”

“Maybe if we
give
them some energy…”

“Infuse them with it? They wouldn’t be
nothing
anymore, would they?” Ezra sounded much happier with the idea than I did.

I had just suggested we
give
energy to the beings that were currently stealing it from us.

“Yeah.”

We both settled on the first
it
that had popped up. Easy to tell them apart, since each one was horrifyingly different than the other. I infused a bit from all my elements into the being, and knew Ezra was doing the same, when a remarkable thing happened.

Small pieces of it’s surface solidified from misty goo to something resembling cracked tree bark. But it didn't stop moving.

“Now what?” I asked. My idea had definitely done
something
, not that the something was all that helpful; it was Ezra’s turn to have a bright idea..

“Maybe hit it on the barky area?”

I grabbed a spike from my sheath and Bent it at the monster where the biggest bark spot was. The spot shattered, but the thing kept moving. I hit another solid bit, and that shattered, too.

I tossed my last spike to Ezra, the third stuck in Kaylus’ chest the last I saw it. “I think this is the best we’re going to get,” I told Ezra while he jabbed the spike two quick times, and the entire thing fell to dust.

“Then, let’s get to work,” Ezra said, and as one we opened ourselves completely, infusing every monster our expansive reach touched with a mixture of all six elements.

The training I’d been doing the last several months took over, and Ezra and I moved as one supreme being atop the mountainous portal. We more than sensed each other’s movements: we
were
each other’s movements. Once we settled into a routine of “infuse infuse, jab jab” I contacted Alexander through the gems. Constantly infusing our energy into the creatures, then physically attacking them was already taking its toll on us. We needed an end-game.

*Kaylus is dead, but the portal was opened

I didn’t mention that Kaylus’ body disappeared, and how the portal was opened. We could save that for later.

-
I am so glad you are still alive. We know the portal is open. We’ve erected as much protection closing the area off that we can, but we are seeing movement come towards us.

*Those would be the creepy Nothing Monsters. We’ve found a way to destroy them

Instead of telling him, I showed him what we’d been doing. It was getting too difficult to hold a conversation down.

-Will it work with any energy, or only all six combined?

*Dunno. Lemme know if you find out. We need a way to close this portal or we all die. Tell Etta. Have to go.

I ducked just as some sort of large limb reached out for me. Ezra dusted it while I was down, and we continued the dance for what seemed like forever. There was no need to relay my conversation with Alexander; we’d discovered that while connected, we could hear each other's communications through the gems. Things did get easier when Alexander let me know that any type of energy would work, so Ezra and I were able to conserve a bit more once we stopped doing a combo of all six. I stuck to the four regular elements while Ezra used Spirit and Death. This way we were Gathering the resources around us at an even pace, and not pulling too much of any single element. We were still wearing down, and I was getting worried about our longevity if we didn’t move out of the primo monster-spot, but the only way down was literally a portal to another world. It made our would-be escape a little more difficult.

“We need to get out of here, Ezra!” I shouted over the sounds of our fighting.

“How?” he asked, not slowing his movement in the least as he bashed one, then two monsters in their heads before working his way down their bodies.

“I need more elements, can your Loa bring me some?”

Instantly I felt more energy, which I Gathered then created a sloping Shield starting at our feet and ending over the water.

“Can you hold that Shield long enough?”

I could hold a Shield forever, but I knew Ezra was talking about my concentration. It was hard to remember to breathe, let alone keep an energy Shield solid enough to walk on.

“I can hold it longer than we can hold this position,” I told him. As if to accentuate my point, something wrapped solidly around my waist and I could almost feel my atoms disintegrate before I jabbed my spike into it and freed myself. Ezra finished the sucker that had grabbed me while I ducked down.

We both moved onto the Shield without another word. I kept it solid so we wouldn’t be tempted to look down at the glowing chasm beneath our feet, and we slowly made our way further and further from the lock. I didn’t bother putting back the bits of Shield that had been eaten by the Nothing beasts. It didn’t take much time to realize we probably weren’t going to make it out of this, but I wasn’t worried about it. I didn’t have room to worry about it. My body and mind were solely focused on infusing my energy into the monsters, then destroying them. Trying to keep us alive was more of a byproduct of that, because we had to stay alive to destroy the beasts. Or we had to destroy the beasts to stay alive. My world view was too narrow to think of a difference between those.

It seemed to take hours for each inch that we gained, and Ezra and I were both slowing down. It occurred to me that I saw light near us, and it wasn’t from the sun over our head.

The army of Ethnos had come to us.

*Alexander, tell me you’re in the rescue party

-I would not call this a ‘party,’ Lady. Etta needs to get to the lock. She believes she knows a way to somewhat close the portal. If you would, stay there. We are coming your way. If you can expand your Shield platform, we can get enough people to you to help.

Ezra and I both doubled our efforts, energized by the idea that an end was in sight. An end we still weren’t certain we should believe in. He brought as many Loa as he could for me to Gather, and I worked on rebuilding and widening the Shield. I say “we” because at this point we were so closely melded that our thoughts were synced. There was no him or me, only us. We cleared a circle around us, and it grew wider as our fighting reached a new level of harmony. Ezra moved faster, taking charge of most of the physical fighting, while I held the Shield together and infused energy into our opponents to weaken them. Not that I wasn’t contributing to their dusting. I’d taken my spike and molded it into a dozen small balls, then Bent those to smash into the weak spots of the monsters. I had to make sure I hurled the projectiles instead of controlling them completely with Air energy, because the energy would die as soon as it got close to its target.