Dark Waters (Elemental Book 1) (10 page)

“So what does it mean to you?”

“It doesn’t really mean anything. It’s a fact of
life; you need water to live.”

“Can you swim?”

“No.” I had never bothered to learn.

“Well then, today is a good day to learn.” The boat
suddenly halted. When she stood, it didn’t even rock an inch. “Spend every
single minute of your free time studying the correspondences of water. Meet me
here Monday at dusk.” Then she stepped out of the boat, her boot touched the
calm surface… and it held. Like ice, the water was undisturbed by her weight as
she stepped out of the boat and walked away.

She walked on water.

I reached over and stuck my fingers in, only to be
instantly nipped by something in the murky waters. When I looked up, Remington
was gone and I was alone in a stationary boat, at night, in the middle of the
lake.

*          *          *

An hour later, I had decided the witch wasn’t coming
back for me, so I figured I wouldn’t stress over it.
Surely she wouldn’t
have really put me in any actual danger.
I was just about to nod off when
the boat rocked. Startled, I sat up.

The boat rocked again.

I hesitantly leaned over to see what was rocking the
boat and nearly shrieked. Its skin was greenish yellow like a reptile’s and it
had straw-like, bright red hair that stuck straight out to the sides of its
head like a hat. On top of its head, however, was a bald cavity filled with
water. The creature’s face was predominately beak and eyes, as the beak was
wide and brown while the eyes were huge and round. There was no white in its
eyes; it had light brown rings surrounding large pupils. I couldn’t see its
body in the water except for its brown and green, webbed hands that reached out
of the lake to push the boat.

“Stop,” I said.

The creature squeaked with surprise and vanished into
the water.

I hadn’t meant to scare him. “Wait, come back!” He
didn’t immediately return, so I mentally searched for his mind. I sensed fish,
but their minds were too simple to communicate with. Soon, I felt one of the
oddest minds I had ever encountered. This was a creature driven to be
mischievous, obsessed with politeness, and compelled to repay a debt. I
explored the creature’s mind for joy and I found, of all things, cucumbers. He
liked cucumbers. “If you come back, I will bring you cucumbers tomorrow.”
Assuming he couldn’t understand English, I envisioned him returning to the boat
and then myself tossing a cucumber in the lake at dusk. I knew he got the
thought I sent him.

A few minutes later, the creature’s head poked out of
the water a good six feet from the boat.

Politeness and favors
. “Hello,” I said as
softly as I could. “Thank you for coming back. I will bring you a cucumber
tomorrow.” As I spoke, I visualized my promise. “Can you move the boat to the
shore?” I asked.

He sent me a feeling; not a picture but an
affirmative thought.

“I will owe you a favor if you get the boat to the
shore. Then, when I bring the cucumber tomorrow, you can tell me the favor. As
long as it doesn’t mean hurting any person or animal, I’ll do what I can to
help you.”

I knew it was a big promise, but if the creature was
malevolent enough to ask me to do something unethical, I could exploit his
weaknesses. They were clear in his head. After only a moment of hesitation, the
creature slipped back underwater and appeared at the edge of the boat. His
webbed hands turned the boat easily and guided it back to shore. I stumbled
out, a little amazed at my luck, and turned back to the lake.

“Thank you,” I said, but he was already gone. As
quickly as I could, I headed for my room, where Henry and Darwin were waiting
up.

“You made it alive!” Darwin exclaimed excitedly.

“Yeah, don’t act so surprised.” I told them about
Remington leaving me out in the boat.

“She’s kind of a bitch,” Henry observed. We both
stared at him because he normally didn’t talk that way. “So you used water
magic to escape?”

“No, I didn’t know any magic to use to move the
boat.” I didn’t know any magic at all, but I didn’t trust them enough to tell
them that. Then I told them about the water creature and the deal I made.

“Wow. You caught a kappa. That’s pretty awesome, bro.
I didn’t even know there were kappa in the lake.”

“What are kappa?”

“They’re Japanese water monsters known for drowning
horses and causing mischief. The bowl of the top of their heads has to stay
full of water. If a kappa tries to attack you out of water, you can trick him
into bowing. The water will pour out and he will freeze solid. Then you can
refill it with his home water and he will serve you forever. They also love
cucumbers.”

“How do you know so much about them?”

He shrugged. “I made it in here because I’m
brilliant.”

“Yeah, about that, you never did show me what your
power was.” He blushed and looked away. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”
Especially since he was more powerful than me the moment he was born as far as
magic went.

“I…” He trailed off and reached for the wall behind
his desk. The white paint flashed with a bright light that spread in every
direction until it reached the edge of the wall. What was left when the light
faded was dark green paint instead of white.

Henry and I shared a look. “Wow. That’s more magic
than I can do,” Henry said.

“It’s not anything like Devon can do,” Darwin argued.

“Don’t be so quick to praise my powers.”

*          *          *

I woke slowly to a strange sensation. Instantly, I
knew I wasn’t alone, but it wasn’t a threatening presence that I felt. The small
pressure on my chest, however, could not be ignored. I sat up quickly, knocking
the small intruder off. Instead of falling, she hovered in the air, right in
front of my face.

She was a beautiful young woman.

And she was six inches tall.

The sound that I produced, although unintelligible,
adequately expressed my shock.

She smiled warmly. “Do not fear me, Devon Sanders. I
am here to help you,” she said.

Her voice was young and warm, like a child’s. She
looked to be in her early twenties, but on account of her size, I wouldn’t make
the assumption that she was actually that young. Her eyes were light blue, as
was her waist-length hair. Her face was rounded and youthful. She wore a dress
made of some kind of ethereal, translucent, sparkling material that changed
shades of blue with her movement. Her wings were iridescent on the side of
blue, but that may have been a reflection of her hair.

I looked at my roommates, neither of whom had
stirred. “They will sleep,” the creature said.

“What are you?” I had meant to say “who,” but I
couldn’t manage to be ashamed. “Are you a fairy?”

“I am an undine; a water elemental.”

“Like a mermaid?”

“We appear as we will, Devon Sanders.”

“Why are you here?”

Her smile was regretful, as if she was afraid for me.
“We fear you are going to follow a path that will not end well for you. You
have the attention of dark forces. I have come to guide you.”

“But I’m not a wizard. I’m just here to solve a
case.”

“Devon Sanders, your problem is not with power but
with your heart. You allow hatred and suspicion in your heart instead of love.
It blinds you. It has blinded you since---”

“Stop it,” I interrupted.

“The only thing that can overcome your hate is
forgiveness. It is your choice how this will end.” With that, she vanished.

I couldn’t go back to sleep after that. When I
checked my watch, it was only a few minutes before the teachers’ assistants
started knocking on doors anyway, so I got up and headed for a shower.

*          *          *

“We talked about knowledge being power,” Alpha Flagstone
said. “Today, we will discuss the Law of Self-Knowledge, which is that the most
important kind of magical knowledge is about oneself. Familiarity with one’s
own strengths and weaknesses is vital to success as a magician.”

“It’s vital to success in anything,” I said without
thinking. When everyone turned to look at me, I cringed.

“Go on,” the professor prompted.

“We have to know our weaknesses to overcome them. We
also have to know what we excel in to really be efficient in problem solving.”

He grinned, but it wasn’t a malicious one. “Know
thyself. Very good, Sanders.”

After class, I made a detour to the bathrooms instead
of heading straight for class. There was a student following me and I didn’t
want a confrontation where other students could get in the way. I got to the
bathroom, checked the five stalls to make sure I was alone, and waited. I
didn’t have to wait long.

Five guys entered and the last one in locked the door
behind him. There was a clear leader of the pack; a man who had short black
hair, a dark, not-inherited tan, with shady, deep set, brown eyes. He was tall,
but no taller than me, and was much thinner with no visible muscle tone. Still,
I knew they were all wizards, since they all had one class or another with me.
And I was just human.

I had brought a knife to a gun fight, metaphorically
speaking. I had no knife.

The kappa was in my mind for some reason; probably
because I owed him a debt. This made me think of the undine from that morning.
Could
she help?

“Everyone is talking about it nonstop,” the guy said.
I realized I hadn’t been listening to what he said.

I may have only been a few years older than this guy,
and he was possibly a very powerful wizard, but I had my pride. There was no
way I would cower or whimper in fear from this younger man. Maybe he thought I
was an easy target because I didn’t go around attacking people. Either way, his
actions were a sign of weakness and jealousy.

No one backed me into a corner. 

Even though five against one wasn’t very good odds, I
was resourceful. They weren’t shifters, so I couldn’t read their thoughts.
Still, my instincts were impeccable, and I focused on the sensation from this
morning. When the undine was there, I felt a sense of peace and harmony even
though her visit was unexpected. That was water.

Water was emotion, love, and healing. I held onto
that peace and serenity, because that was ultimately what my goal was to
achieve in life. At the same time, I focused on the anger that these five men
would try to gang up on someone because they were jealous of another’s power.

He held out his hand and a sphere of fire formed
above it.

Let them see what they’re up against.

Pipes erupted from the tile and concrete floor like
furious snakes, spewing water all over the guys. They weren’t the only objects
that burst, however; the toilets and sinks exploded and shot streams of water
at the five men.

Don’t they have shutoff valves?
The thought
occurred to me that it was way too much water, which distracted me from my ire.
With my emerging calm, the water ceased attacking. Professor Hans was the first
person to make it through the door. He took one look at us and glared.

“Who is responsible for this?” Of course, all five of
my attackers pointed to me. “Mr. Sanders, I trust you have an explanation for
this.”

I sighed because I knew there was nothing I could say
to get out of this mess. “I didn’t read the ‘out of order’ sign.”

Of course, I got detention.

*          *          *

“So, I got nothing on Susan Walker,” Darwin said,
sitting next to me.

It was still early for dinner, but I wanted to eat
and get out to the lake before my detention. I figured my punishment would
involve cleaning chalkboards or something and tried not to let it irritate me.
I was too old for detention.

“Nobody wants to talk about anything but you. From
what I’ve gathered, there was an epic battle in the C-Five bathroom between you
and Jackson’s gang. Jackson, of course, says he kicked your butt, but no one
believes it. Everyone knows the man is a jerk anyway.”

“No one is talking about Susan?”

“Well, no. They’re talking about a vampire attack and
that you already fried one vampire. Some of the students are afraid it’s a
pandemic while others are gearing up to go vampire hunting. The only thing
everyone agrees on is that they don’t want the school closed down.”

I was starting to agree on that as well.

*          *          *

At seven, I managed to talk one of the cooks into
giving me three cucumbers, which I took out to the lake. Not sure if I should
skin it or chop it up, I hesitated. After a few minutes, a familiar head popped
up a good six feet from the shore. I tossed him one of the cucumbers and he
snatched it from the air, then disappeared into the depths. When I found a
decent sized rock, I sat and waited for him to tell me what favor I owed him.

I had given him all three cucumbers by the time I
sensed his mind trying to reach mine. Once I connected with a creature’s mind,
they quickly learned how to initiate communication with me. I accepted his
thoughts. There was a taste… and a smell. It was sweet, though not pleasant. As
soon as I locked onto it, I saw images. It was too dark to see at first, but
the images slowly sharpened until I could tell I was looking upwards from the
murky lake water. A small, bloated, body floated at the top of the water. A
kappa body.

“Your water is being poisoned and you want me to stop
it?”

An affirmative thought.

Damn. Murder is becoming more popular than football
around here.

*          *          *

I didn’t have a jar so I used the ziplock bag that I
had carried the cucumbers in to collect a sample of the water. I figured that
having an idea of what the poison was would narrow down the list of suspects,
so I went on the hunt for the squirrelly chemist I rescued from the glass ball.