Dark Waters (Elemental Book 1) (22 page)

I wasn’t going to let him die.

I wrapped my power around that fear and pushed the
sensation of being hugged, kissed… and loved. I was loved by my mother and I
was loved by Astrid. I think even Regina loved me in her selfish, unusual way.
Fear relented to love, trust, and comfort like fire to… water.

I understood. Fire and water were opposites, but both
were necessary in life. What saved Darwin’s mother’s mind and heart was killing
Darwin. Fire was a powerful element that could clear away the dead and rotted
to make room for new life, but water had to be there as well. Although earth
and air were just as important, water was the element Darwin needed then. Fae
and shifters needed the power of the elements just as much as wizards.

Darwin was no longer yelling in pain and the wounds
on his face and neck started to close. I continued forcing the sense of
belonging, trust, and comfort into him until I realized the pain was gone. It
was a sudden realization that left me shaking and cold with its absence.
Adrenaline stopped surging through me and the world spun as I closed my mind to
him.

Henry kept me from falling back with a firm hand on
my uninjured shoulder. “What happened?” he asked. “Who attacked you and
Darwin?”

“Flagstone and you!” Darwin panted. He peeled the
gauze off his chest and used it to wipe the remaining blood off his face and
neck. His light blue hoodie, torn and blood soaked, was ruined.

Henry looked startled. “I… I was in sitting in one of
the dungeon cells one minute, and then I was here. I remember nothing between.”

“I was following John, and the next thing I knew,
Darwin was clawing at my throat,” Flagstone said. “I shifted and that was when
he started bleeding and screaming. I hope you have a better explanation than I
do, Devon, or Logan will kill me for attacking a student.”

“He should!” Darwin barked. “You tried to tear
Devon’s throat out!”

“The spiders.” They all turned to me. “I need to see
into your mind.”

Henry shuddered and backed away, but Flagstone merely
looked unsure. “Is it dangerous?” he asked.

“Only if I want to hurt you.”

“I apparently just tried to kill you. A shifter would
call that a justified motive.”

“Then you owe me.” Without waiting for him to say
anything else, I reached my power out to his mind. It was easy, even natural,
to take over. The wolf in him was startled at the invasion, but he knew I
didn’t want to hurt him. He could tell I was powerful and didn’t want to incite
my anger. Flagstone was confused at his wolf’s reaction. Although he was more
hesitant, he couldn’t stop me.

Rosin Flagstone was an alpha before anything else. He
was dominant with every drop of his blood and very much like the wolf he
became. Rosin had to control every aspect of his life and the people in it.
Everyone who didn’t submit, no matter if they were shifter or not, was challenging
him. The fact was he hated wizards.

Yet Logan Hunt was his best friend.

The magic that wizards produced was unpredictable to
him and his wolf, and he hated the chaos of it. All his life wizards treated
him like an animal, which only made his wolf more determined. Hunt was the
exception only because they became friends as children. There was a history
there, but I felt his mind struggle against me when I tried to see it. I didn’t
want to invade his privacy, so I relented.

I started by pulling up his memory of tracking John
Cross. The scene was dark and foggy. I saw John from the cover of the dark
forest as the wizard got in the back of a black limo. Flagstone followed the
limo out of the council driveway and onto the road. It was easy to follow, since
the road was lined with forest and there were no other cars in sight.

After about ten minutes, the car slowed to a stop in
the middle of the road. Flagstone ducked down under the brush of a fallen tree
and peered through the leaves. John stood in the street, glanced around for a
moment, and held out his hand. A flash of light caused Flagstone to flinch.
When he looked up, the road was crawling with spiders.

John looked right at Flagstone and I felt a dark
presence cloud the shifter’s mind. From then until he woke up fighting Darwin,
his mind was shrouded in a blank, malevolent fog. The wolf snarled and snapped,
realizing he had been controlled. This was enough to throw me out of the vision
and back into myself.

Flagstone was panting with exhaustion and frustration
as he reached for my shoulder. I remembered my own pain then and my head swam.
He put pressure on it to stop the bleeding, but it was all I could do not to
push him away.

“Devon, I did not mean to hurt you,” Henry said.

“I know.”

“I remember nothing since being locked up in the
cell.”

“I know. This wasn’t your fault.”

“How is it not his fault?” Darwin asked
incredulously.

“Because this was John Cross’s doing. John Cross took
over their minds and made them kill.”

*          *          *

My shoulder was numb, which was fantastic considering
the alternative. I opened my eyes to find Nightshade leaning over me, rubbing
oil into my shoulder. It took me a second to realize why that bothered me; the
oil was on fire.

And Nightshade’s pupils were diamond-shaped like a
reptile’s. She slapped my arm, startling me. “None of that,” she said sharply.

“None of what?” I wasn’t checking her out. I wasn’t
into teenagers.

“You were trying to see into my mind and see what I
am. You could have just asked.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was doing it. What are
you?”

She smiled kindly at me. “Mind your own damn
business.” She continued rubbing fire and oil into my shoulder.

I was in a soft bed, low to the floor and narrower
than a twin, which had been brought into Dr. Martin’s lab. Darwin and Henry
were each in uncomfortable-looking metal foldout chairs. Darwin’s expression
was hopeful, as if I were coming out of a coma, while Henry looked dejected. He
had a secret even bigger than Darwin’s.

Dr. Martin, Hunt, and Flagstone were nowhere to be
found. “What happened?”

“You passed out from blood loss,” Nightshade said.
“Rosin has gone into hiding until this mess is cleared up. If the council found
out he hurt a student, even under the control of someone else, he would have to
join us in the Wizard’s Watch.”

“What’s that?” Darwin asked.

“A club we made up for all those on the wizard
council’s kill list.”

“Oh, I want to join!” he said excitedly. Henry
scowled at him.

“I’m going to have to join your club myself,” the
jaguar shifter said. “I doubt the council will let me live knowing I’ve killed
five people.”

“You only killed Mrs. Ashcraft. Li Na killed Susan
Walker, the first victim. Professor Hans was killed by Cassie. Addison tried to
kill Remy, but I stopped her when the cat and I interrupted them in Remy’s
office. Then she turned around and killed Megan, I believe. Heather was killed
by Jackson, but he was coherent enough to remember some of it.”

“How did you---”

“The spiders. Everyone whose mind was invaded by John
saw spiders and had nightmares before and after. That must have been what Remy
meant when she said his ring was familiar.”

Darwin stood and scanned the floor as if he would
suddenly see spiders. “But you said the victims were poisoned. How could all
the different people have the same poison?”

“The lake. John made someone steal the aconite from
Dr. Martin’s lab and poison the lake so that anyone John controlled had access
to it. Then, if something went wrong, the poison would be tracked to the water
and someone would assume it was an accidental poisoning. That’s also why the
‘fang’ marks were different on each victim; the killers all had different
weapons. Actually, that was probably what Dr. Martin’s cat was trying to tell
me with Li Na’s hair sticks.”

“So all of Rebecca’s actions were really just
coincidence?” Nightshade asked.

“Other than her sending a vampire after me? Actually,
the vampire was just her opportunistic attempt to get rid of me, because she
thought I was investigating her. She was
a
bad guy, but not
the
bad guy. She was trying to ally herself with vampires; John wouldn’t let her
live. How he found out, I don’t know… unless he was listening in on her
confession somehow.”

“So now we know who is responsible for the murders,
why don’t we go get him?” Henry asked.

“We do not know where he is,” Hunt said, entering the
lab. “John would never use his own home to keep Remy in. He probably has many
hideouts and numerous traps. We have to be clever about this. John is smart
enough to cover his tracks and we cannot take this to the wizard council. Even
with hard evidence, they would take another council member’s side.”

“Who knows how to find John and can protect his
mind?”

“Vincent.”

“Great. Get him on the phone. Use your iron bowl.”

“That will be a problem. Vincent is missing.”

*          *          *

There was no doubt that I was dreaming, because under
no other circumstances would I be sitting at my coffee table in my apartment
playing poker with Remy, Astrid, and Heather. Astrid was fully grown in this
dream, but she was wearing the same nightgown she wore when she was a child.
Remy and Heather were both wearing the last outfit I saw them in. Heather
didn’t have a broken neck or blood, but her blue blouse was open, displaying
her black satin bra. Either I had a really inappropriate subconscious, or my
mind was trying to figure it out.

Then, suddenly, her shirt was closed.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Remy asked. “Heather is dead,
you want Astrid dead, and I’ll be dead soon if you don’t find me.”

“There’s nothing funny about that,” I said.

“No, it’s funny that we’re playing poker. How can
Heather play poker with a broken neck?”

“I don’t even know how to play poker,” Astrid added.

“My father taught me. My father here, not there.”
Heather said.

I set my cards down. “What is that? What do you mean?
Professor Langril said the same kind of thing.”

“The note in my pocket was supposed to be destroyed.
I got detained.”

“How did you get detained from destroying a tiny
piece of paper? You could have burned it or tore it up. What did it say?”

“What is written cannot be unwritten, and what is
said cannot be unsaid. When you are ready to understand, you will find your
answer.”

“Funny,” Remy repeated. “It’s not that often that you
learn something in your dream.”

“I’m learning poker,” Astrid said.

Heather folded. “I wonder if Logan Hunt can speak
Enochian.”

*          *          *

I groaned when I was awoken by a small weight moving
on my head. “Go away,” I moaned. I knew even without opening my eyes that I was
asleep at my desk. The weight left my head and I sat up. Vincent’s book, which
I had fallen asleep on, was open to one of the many pages that detailed the
science of magic.

With my head now up, Adesra, the first undine who I
met, sat down on it. Her blue wings fluttered nervously. Henry and Darwin were
still asleep in their beds, even though it was well into the day and sunlight
streamed through the window. I turned out my gas lamp.

“You have opened yourself up to the way of the water,
Devon Sanders. We are pleased. This does not mean that you will never turn to
the darker forces of magic, but it does mean you have a chance.”

“Yeah, I learned to use water, that’s great. Now,
what element can I use to find Remy?”

“The power to find the one you seek is already inside
you. Water can help strengthen your bond with her. Allow me to show you what
your power can do.”

A distinct cat’s growl made us both look up. The damn
cat was on my bed, peering down at us.

“Ghost, you coward. How dare you growl at me?” Adesra
said. The cat jumped down onto my desk and hissed at her.

“Do you know this cat? He certainly knows you.”

“Ghost is angry with me because I refuse to help his
master anymore.”

“Anymore?”
Why would Dr. Martin know Adesra?
And then I took my first good look at the cat; at his familiar blue eye and the
scar down his face. He wasn’t Dr. Martin’s cat.

“Vincent Knight is not a good man, Devon Sanders. He
has used blood magic.” She regarded the book beneath her like gum on a
sidewalk. The cat hissed at her again and she glared for a moment before
disappearing with a small
pop
.

“Wait! How do I find Remy?”

“I will help you.”

I turned at the deeper sound of her voice to find her
right behind me. Only, she wasn’t six inches tall anymore. She was more
beautiful at five-five, which was odd because there was nothing discernibly
different about her. Her wings swept the floor lightly as they fluttered, since
they had grown proportionally to her.

“What do I do?”

“Think of the one you seek. Think of finding her, of
her voice, of her smell… I will help you.”

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I went over every
interaction with her, every thought, from the first moment I saw her at the
school board meeting. As I did, I also focused on the dark place she was kept
in and the feel of the spiders.
I have to find her.

This time, when I sent out my power to reach her
mind, I found her immediately. As an undine, Adesra could be anywhere. She was
amplifying my power.

I felt Remy’s consciousness as she startled.
“Don’t
worry, it’s me,”
I said to her. She settled down and opened her eyes. I
could make out more this time, but it was still dark. There was a window with a
dark curtain over it. I couldn’t make out anything about the curtain, only the
outline of light around it.