Page 24 of The Elementalist (Four Elements #1)

Wind and Fury

Crystal reacted to the shift in my expression from confused to devilish grin by dropping into a stance. She looked ready to charge in the door as soon as I did something.

And do something I did.

I raised my arms, palms up, and called the wind, pushing it into the room. Streamers of rotting wallpaper peeled off the walls and went flying. Paintings sailed, small tables collapsed, little vases smashed.

“What the fuck is this?” yelled Derek over the gale.

A woman screamed again.

I lifted my hands higher, increasing the force of the blast. More paper, and some plaster bits, ripped off the walls on either side of me.

A sconce or three went flying as well, lightbulbs shattering.

Crystal might have amazing reflexes, but she didn’t weigh that much.

She flew into me from behind and wrapped her arms around me, sheltering inside the small area of calm at the eye of the storm I’d made.

Bangs and crashes came from the room along with the tinkle of smashing glass.

Daylight burst into the corridor, no doubt from the hurricane tearing the boards off the windows.

Hundred-mile-per-hour winds weren’t meant to exist inside a house.

The same woman emitted a yowl of pain. At the thud of a body hitting the floor, I decided to roll the dice and charged through the door.

The large bedroom looked like… well, it looked like a tornado tore it apart.

Both windows were little more than rectangular openings in the wall, now with no glass or curtains.

Two bright beams of sunlight slanted into the room.

Papers and trash still fluttered in the air over a single queen-sized bed, along with glittering dust motes.

Piper’s legs stuck up from a pile of smashed furniture at the far left corner.

I figured he took a marble-topped table straight to the face.

Closer on the right, Derek stood beside another college-age woman with red hair.

Her little green dress, runny makeup, and earrings told me she’d went out for a fun night and found the exact opposite.

Fortunately, I didn’t see any blood on or near her neck, but they’d cuffed her hands behind her back, tethering her by a six-foot chain to another radiator.

These two seriously got on my nerves.

A handgun sat on the rug within lunging reach of Derek.

The instant his squinting gaze shifted from me to the gun, I covered it in ice, freezing it in place on the floor.

He zipped behind the redhead and stared at me intently.

Dark crimson light glowed from deep within his eyes in time with a sudden upwelling of the strong urge to destroy him.

His cocky grin faltered to worry. As if by magic, a hunting knife appeared in his hand, held to her throat.

“What the hell is going on?” shouted Derek.

The young woman squirmed, equal parts furious and terrified. “You kidnapped me, you asshole! That’s what’s going on. Get off me!”

“Game over, man.” I said, raising my hands.

“You… you just stand right there and let Piper end your ass, or I’m gonna kill this bitch.

” Again Derek’s eyes glowed, and my anger grew.

A small tug at my temples told me he’d been trying to pry his way into my thoughts.

This was his attempt to control me, but it didn’t work. And thank God it didn’t.

Piper groaned and pulled himself out of the pile of furniture pieces. Crystal slipped in behind me, still holding the stake she made from the railing.

I waved my hand, and the gentle nudging at my temples disappeared. “That’s not much incentive for me. Didn’t Justine tell you? I’m an asshole... among other things.” I wagged my eyebrows. “Besides, you were going to kill that young woman anyway. You’re really bad at negotiation.”

The redhead pushed herself up on tiptoe, trying to move her throat away from the blade. Derek’s eyes glowed, and my anger grew. I literally saw myself smashing his face in with something... fist, rock, block of ice, whatever.

“Get on the floor,” snarled Piper while staring at me, along with a flash of glow in his eyes. I felt another nudge at my temples. Yeah, I was supposed to get on the floor, per his telepathic command. Except, of course, his mind tricks didn’t work on me.

And now I wanted to smash his face in, too.

“It don’t work on him,” rasped Derek. He shifted his stare to Crystal and his eyes pulsed with the crimson light of his mental powers. “Kill that asshole. And when you’re done, kill yourself, too.”

“I don’t feel like it.” She shook her head. “I kinda like the guy. And I kinda like me, too, for that matter.”

Piper rubbed his forehead. “You idiot. Why are you even trying that on her? You know what she is.”

“What the hell is going on?” whispered the redhead.

Both vampires shouted, “Shut up!” at the same time, though Derek added ‘bitch.’

“Hey, don’t be mean to her.” Crystal wagged the stake at him.

“I think they’re well past the point of mean… unless she’s into being handcuffed and chained to a radiator, which I doubt.”

Derek glanced to his right at Piper with an ‘is this guy for real?’ expression.

The instant he looked away from me, I conjured as much water as I could, lifting a standing wall of it about seven feet high before projecting it forward at Derek and the college girl.

They both went over backward from the force of the impact.

Piper leapt into a sprint at me, but Crystal chucked the stake at him.

A split second before it perforated his heart, he blocked, winding up with a stake impaling his left forearm.

I tossed a fireball on Derek, but his soaked clothes prevented him from igniting. The redhead threw herself away from him, rolling to the side as best she could while still chained.

Wood didn’t exist in my talent set, but I could do stone.

Unfortunately, being on the third floor of a house put me kinda far from the earth, which made calling stone exhausting.

That bullet shield in the hallway damn near made me want to sleep.

Damn. Ice time. I made grabbing motions toward the carpet, gathering some of the loose water up into a rapidly-freezing spear-shaped lance—that I rammed through Derek, pinning him to the floor.

“Nice,” said Crystal.

I grunted. “Learned that from you… on the stairs.”

Dark blood foamed out of the cocky bastard’s mouth past his extended fangs.

He emitted a roar too deep to come from anything human.

Piper yanked the stake out of his arm, tossed it aside, and tried to run at me again.

Crystal got in his way, and for the second time today, I witnessed a punching match that looked like a Kung Fu movie played at four times speed.

Only, this time, Crystal had a clear advantage in both speed and strength due to the daylight streaming into the room.

She basically beat the ever loving shit out of him, only her punches didn’t appear to cause much damage.

The redhead scrambled onto her knees, then stood, running to the end of the chain like she expected she might be able to pull the radiator up from the floor.

Alas, she couldn’t. But with her now safely away from Derek, who remained pinned to the floor, I concentrated on throwing fire at him.

That is, until he pushed himself upward…

one problem with an ice lance: it melts and it’s slippery. Okay, that’s two problems.

He twisted himself to the right hard enough to snap the frozen shaft… and I decided to stop being an idiot.

I commanded all the water saturating his clothes to spray off him in an explosion of vapor.

Now dry, Derek started to scream, “No!” but it melted into a demonic howl of agony as I covered him with flames.

Piper abruptly sped himself up, catching Crystal with a right hook to the jaw that she couldn’t get away from.

The hit didn’t bother her too much, though it did make her stagger backward a few steps and growl.

While Derek thrashed and burned on the floor, Piper sprinted into a smear of T-shirt and jeans.

He plowed into Crystal, body-blocking her so hard she flew off her feet and smacked into the wall.

The bastard didn’t bother slowing down or looking back, running out into the hall.

“Shit!” gasped Crystal as she fell and bounced off a dresser to the floor.

The redhead finally noticed Derek burning down into a molten clump of black goop. Much to my surprise, she didn’t scream, merely stared. “Umm. What the hell am I looking at?”

Ignoring her, Crystal snarled and dashed out the door, chasing Piper.

“That’s a dead vampire,” I answered.

“I figured as much. So, what does that make you?”

I grinned. “Someone who’s not a fan of vampires. Wait here.”

She rattled her chains. “Do I have a choice?”

I winked. “Be back in a sec. One of them is getting away.”

“Hey, that was a rhetorical question!” she yelled after me. “You can’t leave me here, you asshole! And where did all that wind come from?”

Except, of course, I had already sprinted out the door after Crystal.

Following the tromping of footsteps, I raced down the stairs to the ground floor.

Crystal wasn’t quite as fast on her feet as the vampires, but damn, the girl could move way faster than I had any hope of going.

She’d gotten out of sight by the time I made it to the main hallway, though my gut told me they’d gone down the basement steps.

Hmm. Why the hell would Piper go to the basement? Oh… maybe so I can’t knock out another window board and weaken him. I scrambled after them as fast as I could down the rickety wooden stairs. One good thing about that vampire being tall, he ate all the cobwebs.

A loud thud with a strange energetic buzzing twang echoed up from below.

Crystal grunted like she’d flown into another wall.

I rushed to the bottom of the stairs and skidded to a stop at the sight of a wide column of green light a short distance in front of me, surrounding Crystal.

Wisps moved within the energy, like smoke passing through a laser.

She pounded at the other side, evidently trapped inside a force field about eight feet across.

Paint on the floor outlined the area of the circle along with various indecipherable squiggles and writings I couldn’t even identify the language of, much less read.

No sign of Piper, who must’ve kept going deeper into the basement. Crystal’s will-o-wisp still hovered close to her, also trapped inside the… whatever. Walking into a pitch black basement to hunt a vampire without any light source sounded like an exceedingly stupid idea.

Even for me.

“Damn.” Crystal kicked at the barrier. “Wasn’t expecting anything like this.”

“Crimony biscuits,” I muttered.

“Shit.” Crystal bonked her head against the force field.

“Sorry… didn’t mean to make you think of her.”

Crystal whirled to face me. “No, it’s not that. Dana must’ve found out about someone in the family turning against me, but they killed her before she could warn me.”

“You’re saying this whole thing was a trap for you?”

She squatted, examining the floor. “Doubtful. This is too hastily made. I’m sure they only meant to kill her to keep her quiet, but when I hired you…”

“Those two nitwits led us right here... and into a trap.”

“Or at least set this up on the off chance I came with you.”

I pressed a hand against the energy wall, smooth as glass, neither warm nor cold.

Crystal abruptly grabbed her chest and collapsed to one knee, grimacing in pain.

“Shit. What happened?”

She took a few rapid, shallow breaths. “Can’t teleport out.”

Piper’s haughty laughter drifted out of the shadows.

I let my arm drop and walked around the column. “Be right back.”

“Wait… it’s dark. He’ll be all over you if you can’t see him.”

Arms raised to either side, I surrounded myself in swirling tendrils of fire that swam around and around me like flying serpents. “I can do light, too.”

She pressed herself against the barrier, staring at me like a young wife watching her new husband sail off to World War II, knowing she’d never see him again.

Or maybe she just had that kinda face.

“Be right back.”

“Careful!” whispered Crystal.

Hands clenched into fists, I stalked into the darkness.