Earth (20 page)

“Excuse me?” I called over the wind and rain
to the officer directing traffic; he pretended not to hear me.
“Excuse me, but where are we supposed to park?” I yelled a little
louder.

“Where ever you want, school’s closed, it’s
flooded. Now move along, you’re causing a backup,” the officer
explained.

“Nice!” I heard Steven say over my shoulder.
I cranked the wheel and turned us out of the driveway and back onto
the road. “’Bout time they made up for the snow days kids get back
East.”

“Dude, if Shay’s right and this is because of
this weekend, this isn’t a holiday,” Jodi admonished. Steven sunk
back into his seat like a scolded child.

“Then shouldn’t we be doing something about
it? We are Elementals after all,” Steven asked, sounding father
away than he actually was.

“I don’t know…” I said. “I’m reluctant to
cast against something I don’t know much about.”

“We don’t have to cast against the casters,
we can just try to do something about the weather,” Steven said,
still not coming forward like he usually did.

“Yeah, it’d really just be calling a balance
to things,” Jodi said. I chewed my lip, staring at the blurred red
light in front of me. I hadn’t automatically headed home. I had
debated going to see Deb again, but I knew getting to the store
would be hell. “Shay?” Jodi asked, touching my wrist. The light had
changed and I hadn’t noticed.

“Sorry,” I eased into the intersection, not
wanting to cause the water to rise up in waves around us. “Even if
we wanted to, where could we possibly cast in all this mess?” I
asked.

“Maybe we could make it work in your room,”
Jodi said, a distant look on her face as she thought.

“I still don’t know how I feel about doing
this without really knowing what’s going on. We may just make it
worse.” I came to another red light. In this traffic I didn’t think
we’d make it anywhere.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’d like to
know what it means,” Steven said, changing his mind. “Should we go
see Deb?”

“She’s been really reluctant to give us any
information so far, I don’t think she’d answer our questions now,”
Jodi said and I nodded in agreement. “Ok, I agree with Shay. If we
meddle in something and not know what’s going on, then we could
just make it worse.”

I had to practically creep home, not wanting
to get us stranded in the water because I had flooded something. I
gripped the steering wheel tight enough to make my numbing fingers
ache with the effort. I didn’t know what we were going to do but I
wanted to be home, under the protection of my shields, free to
think clearly.

Another forty-five minutes later and we were
finally pulling up to the curb at my house. The water was so high
it had come over the curb and the sidewalk and front yard were
under a foot of water. We waded up to the front door. I fumbled
with the keys, my fingers growing numb because I had forgotten
gloves. We dripped uncontrollably just inside the front door,
shivering despite the many layers of fabric we each had on.

“Don’t move,” my mom said as she walked past
us into the hallway. I heard the linen closet open and a moment
later she was back, carrying half a dozen towels. We each took one
and she laid out the rest on the floor. We stepped on to the towels
and toweled off like we’d just come in from swimming. “Its about
time, I wanted you home sooner than this.” My mom had her hands
balled into fists on her hips, but I knew she wasn’t really
mad.

“Dude, we left the school almost an hour ago,
trust me, you didn’t want me even close to the speed limit in this
crap,” I said, wringing out water from the ends of my hair, now so
wet it looked black.

“I think you two should call your parents and
let them know you’re here,” she said, looking at Steven and Jodi in
turn.

“We called on our way over,” Steven said with
his best smile that most moms loved.

“I’ve got a kettle of hot water on the stove
if you guys want tea or hot chocolate,” my mom said, taking our
towels from us and walking out to the laundry room to dispose of
them.

Jodi and I started down the hall for my room
while Steven went to the kitchen. Steven and Jodi were here so
often my parents looked at them like adopted children, so Steven
felt comfortable enough to raid the kitchen and make three cups of
hot chocolate for us without me being there. Jodi followed me to my
room. I could feel her anxious aura pressing against my back like a
hand shoving me down the hall.

Once inside, we left the door ajar just half
an inch so Steven could push it open once the drinks were ready. We
both peeled off our coats and hats and boots in silence, letting it
all fall to a pile on the floor just inside the door. I shook out
my hair and then combed it, pulling it back into a high ponytail
before picking up the pieces of clothing and hanging them up so
they’d dry. Jodi was at my stereo in the corner looking for music
to mask our conversation from prying parent ears. I had gone to my
bookshelves and was pulling books off them, piling them into my
arms.

My room was the second largest in the house
and was big enough for my queen sized bed, a desk and chair, two
bookshelves – one loaded down with books and nick-knacks, the other
was a corner bookshelf with my T.V. and stereo set up on it – and
an armchair with a small table next to it. It was almost crowded,
but came off more cozy than anything else. I put a stack of books
on the foot of the bed, the table by the chair, and on the desk so
that each of us would have material to read through.

Steven came in the room, two mugs held by the
handles in one hand and one in the other. He pushed the door closed
carefully with his foot. I had claimed the armchair and Jodi was
stretched out on my bed on her stomach already, leaving him the
desk. Steven wisely put all three cups down on the desk before
trying to hand either of us a steaming cup so he could get a better
hold on them. We didn’t need to talk. We each knew we were looking
for anything to explain this weather, even though we didn’t really
know what it was that we were looking for.

Two hours and three empty mugs later, Jodi
sat up on the bed, a book open in her lap, “Hey, listen to this,”
she said, settling back into the pillows, brow knitted it
concentration. “A spell to bring a storm. It even gives ingredients
for lightening and wind.” She looked up hopefully at us.

“But I thought we agreed this storm was a
result of a spell gone wrong, not that the storm was conjured,”
Steven said, looking a little confused.

“We did,” I said, putting aside the book I
had been reading and picked up another. “Nice try, babe.” Jodi
sighed and tossed the book aside, grabbing at another one. I had a
small collection of “black magic” spell books, not because we ever
used them, but because it was good to know what weapons your enemy
is using. If you don’t, how can you expect to fight back
effectively?

I had piled these books for myself, not that
I didn’t trust the other two to look them over, I just had a very
strong sense of protection towards them and didn’t like the thought
of them even touching the books. I could feel the frown on my face
like a mask of wrinkles. My stomach knotted and unknotted as I
skimmed through the pages. Many of the spells offended me, but I
held onto that emotion tightly, glad that they did, knowing how
seductive these spells were meant to be.

I was reading for more than an hour when I
came across a summoning spell that nearly made me drop the book. I
stared wide-eyed at the title of the spell, tiny chills racing up
my spine, setting the hairs on the back of my neck on end and my
stomach to turn. I thought I was in danger of throwing up right
there in the middle of the room. I took a slow and steadying breath
as quietly as I could. I could feel the cold sweat on my forehead
and chanced a glance at Jodi and Steven, but they hadn’t noticed
anything and were still reading carefully. I looked back down at
the book and knew I had found the spell that haunted my nightmares:
a summoning of a demon helper. I was very aware of the sound of my
own heartbeat in my ears; I had that horrible feeling of falling
backwards.

I turned the book to look at the title of it
and found that I had picked up a book that was an amalgamation of
black arts, no one deity or concept to streamline the spells
inside, just pure self-aggrandizement and evil. I had bought this
book because, with each spell, it gave a counter spell or curse for
people like me that wanted to combat black magic. This book
contained exactly what we were looking for. With blind
determination I flipped to the table of contents, scanning quickly
through the list of spells and charms listed there until I came to
a sub-section of spells for the caster to invoke the power of the
dark gods and goddesses.

“Guys… I think I found something.”

Chapter 12

“You have got to be kidding me!” Steven said
outraged, nearly falling out of his chair.

“Shhhhhh!” Jodi hissed at him, putting her
index finger in front of her pursed lips, looking anxiously at my
bedroom door. We all waited a few tense moments, expecting my
mother to come bursting through. When she didn’t, Jodi sat up on
the bed, swinging her legs over the edge and glared at Steven, who
seemed to melt under her stare.

“No, I’m not kidding. I feel like all of my
nerve endings are on fire, this has to be it. Look, it even has
side effect warnings.” I turned the book around and pointed at the
end of the page. The spell itself was over three pages long with a
page full of instructions and side effects listed. “See? Weather
abnormalities!” I said, trying very hard not to grind my teeth.

“But, Shay, this is to actually summon
Lucifer. Is anyone really that stupid?” Steven was trembling a
little, trying not to show how scared this made him.

“It’s not to summon Lucifer,” I said. I stood
up and started pacing my room. Jodi had the book now and was
reading over the actual summoning. I had only scanned it. The
profane language had bothered me so much I wasn’t ready to read it
thoroughly yet.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s not for Lucifer, it’s for any god of
the Underworld.” I was chewing on my thumbnail without really
noticing what I was doing. I saw Steven’s confused face as I spun
around to walk back again. “Um, ok, basically it doesn’t name a god
or figure specifically, it only calls on any powerful figure from
the Underworld. Because you were raised Catholic, you would
interpret that, with good reason, as Lucifer. But that doesn’t mean
everyone would.” I was talking with my hands, waving them around in
the air in front of me, over my head and every which way in my
stressed state trying to get Steven to understand. “But really,
most gods have more important things to do than to answer the
prayers or summoning of mere mortals. So really, what this moron
probably did was opened a gate hoping for a god and got some low
ranking minion.”

“A demon?” Steven asked.

“Yeah, but I have a feeling they probably got
a power hungry one and a tasty little meat-puppet was just too
tempting to pass by. Now the question is,” I said a little more
loudly, turning suddenly on my heel to face them both; Jodi even
glanced up from the book to look at me, “what kind of bargain did
they strike in order for the caster to get what they wanted out of
the demon?”

“Well, according to this…” Jodi said, running
her finger down the list of the incantation, “the caster would
actually take the essence of the object into them, absorbing their
power for their own.” Her brows knitted together like something
confused her.

“What?” Steven asked. “What? What is it?” he
asked more anxiously when she didn’t respond quickly enough.

“I don’t know. It’s just this wording… How
could anyone be so careless and miss this?”

“What?” I echoed Steven’s question.

“I don’t really want to say it…” Jodi’s voice
had dropped in volume. I understood; I hadn’t wanted to read the
thing at all right now, let alone quote anything from it. We all
firmly believed words held power, and if you think that way, just
saying part of the spell out loud felt like it would give it
power.

“So just tell us the gist of what it means,”
I offered.

“Oh, ok,” she said relieved. “Basically, it
sounds like you’re allowing the thing to possess you in order to
get its powers.” She furrowed her brow at the book. “Why would
anyone take that chance?” she whispered the question, talking more
to herself at that point.

“Well, if they think they can control it,
they probably weren’t worried about the possible repercussions,” I
said a little angrily.

“Yeah, but once you lose control of the thing
it gets you in the bargain,” Jodi said and I could hear the fear in
her voice.

“What?” Steven fell out of his chair and
looked up at Jodi with wide, terrified eyes. “What do you mean ‘it
gets you in the bargain?’”

“If you read the words very carefully, it
says that you have to give yourself over to the demon truly
experience its power and then at the end here,” she started to
point to a stanza in the spell and turn the book to Steven, but he
recoiled from it, scooting backwards until he hit his head on my
desk. “It says that servant and master become one and well…” she
shrugged a little.

“It takes over your body,” I finished for
her, reaching to help Steven up. “Basically the spell tricks the
greedy into thinking they’re getting all the power in the world,
but really you’re just borrowing power and as repayment you give up
your life immediately after you lose control of the power.”

“What makes you think it’s not for Lucifer?”
Steven asked with a trembling voice.

“Because Lucifer is a Christian belief. There
are plenty of gods and minor gods and powerful demons in the
Underworld to choose from. And if Lucifer is as powerful a god in
the Underworld as most think, don’t you think he’s a little busy to
be answering to a summoning?” I said, hearing myself get more and
more excited as I went on.