Furious Flames (Elemental Book 3) (20 page)

*          *          *

Professor Nightshade was waiting for me when I got to
the burn field. “What have you learned about fire?”

“I learned that passion is just as much associated
with fire as anger. I also learned that fire can destroy something, but it’s
not merely destructive. People have used fire as a source of light, heat, and
cooking since the time of cavemen. I also realize that I really know very
little about it, yet I use it all the time. It might be the most complicated
element so far.”

She smiled. “That’s a good start. You’re already
comfortable with making fire, right?” I nodded. “Then today, we’re going to
work on your control over fire. If you can control the fire you wield, you can
control the fire in your heart.”

“So I can control who I love?”

“If that were possible, everyone would know about it.
Is there someone you love who you wish you didn’t?”

“I’m not sure what I want anymore.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I know I don’t look it or
act it, but I’m far older than you. I can tell you that love is beautiful. It
can also hurt for no reason. The one you love can hurt you more than anyone
else in the world and with one simple word. It changes you, sometimes into
something you don’t want to be, something you hate. It can make you do stupid
things for stupid reasons. Some days, you can’t breathe, even if it’s going
well, because you know nothing lasts forever. When it ends, it’s the worst pain
imaginable, yet sometimes, not ending it can hurt worse. It can kill you.”

“How is that beautiful? Why would anyone want that?”

“Because there is nothing better to live for.” She
waved her right hand in a circular motion at the candles around us and they all
instantly lit. “Blow it out.”

“I haven’t used air yet. Hell, that’s the one I
couldn’t do in the board room before the first day of school.” Of course, she
knew that. She also wasn’t my air elemental mentor, which meant either she was
just messing with me (which was entirely possible) or I could do it with fire.

I reached out with my mind for the nearest candle. It
was very different from sensing minds. Using all the training and practice I
had with intense concentration and visualization, I focused on finding the heat
of the candle. It would have been easier if I had created it myself or if the
flame was bigger.

Soon, I noticed a vague warmth coming from the
candle. Whether it was imaginary or not, I locked onto that. Using the same
method as creating a shield, I imagined an air-tight bubble around the flame.

Nothing happened.

“Boring. Maybe if your girlfriend was about to be
killed with fire, you would be more motivated.”

The image came to mind of Astrid and me in the
science museum. When the light of the fire illuminated her face in the dark, there
was no fear or worry on Astrid’s face. Really, I couldn’t remember her ever
showing true fear.

“Interesting,” Nightshade commented, pulling me back
to reality. “Imagine her burning.”

“No.”

“Fire isn’t about visualization and concentration.
You have created it because you needed it. Feel and project. To put out a
candle, you can use any element, but none of them will help you when you really
need it. You have more power than you realize and I know you put a lot of work
into controlling it your entire life. Now it’s time you learn to use it.”

I tried it again. I imagined a smaller, thicker
bubble. When that didn’t work, I made it even thicker. I let my entire mind be
consumed in smothering that tiny flame. I focused for over an hour before I the
flame flickered gently… and went out.

“Good,” Professor Nightshade praised. “Do the next
one.”

*          *          *

I received quite a shock when I returned to the room
to find Darwin on the floor with Amelia on top of him. My initial reaction was
to assume he was about to have a fit from the skin contact, but when he didn’t
immediately scream in pain, I noticed how they were positioned. Amelia’s arms
and legs were not touching his, and although their bodies were pressed together,
there was no skin touching skin.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I said, shutting the
door. Deciding to kill an hour or two, I got some cucumbers from the kitchen
and fed the kappa at the lake.

Remington sat beside me about half an hour later and
took one of the cucumbers. “When I first attended Quintessence, murder was
unheard of at the school. Fights, accidents, and betrayal were inevitable, but
my father’s defenses were unbeatable. He kept the outside world out, so the
school was one of the safest places in the world for us. Now my father learns
one of his students is murdered and he just sighs.”

“You don’t think he cares?”

“I think he finds it inevitable now. I don’t know
what is going on between him, Vincent, and Keigan, but it’s not good for the
school. Rosin couldn’t have left at a worse time.” She shook her head,
thinking. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, but I think it would be
best if the school was shut down for a few years.”

“You know it would never reopen.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s better than more students getting
killed because of some crap between those four. The world is a much darker
place with every passing day.” She held out her hand and a small stream of
water shot out to form a liquid butterfly in her hand.

I took out my penlight, clicked it on, and held the
LED light against the water creature. Like a crystal, it projected bright
sparkles and tiny rainbows on the lake surface in front of us and on Remy
herself. “There are two ways of spreading light: To be the candle or the mirror
that reflects it.”

She snorted and laughed. “Where do you come up with
that shit?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. It annoyed Regina,
though, so that’s probably why I do it. She hated when she couldn’t goad me
into a fight.” I stood and tossed the rest of the cucumbers in the lake. “I
like this school. I don’t want to see it close down. Give me some time to try
to stop this, and consider giving your father the benefit of the doubt. He has
it rough right now, but he strikes me as the kind of man who will always come
out on top.”

*          *          *

It was a bit late for dinner, but Amelia and Darwin
were sitting in their usual spots in the dining room when I entered. I got a
plate of food, carefully sidestepping the purple goo on the floor in front of
the buffet. Amelia didn’t meet my eyes when I sat down, but Darwin pretended
like nothing had happened. “Does this look like there’s butter in it to you?”
he asked, scrutinizing his mashed potatoes.

“It could be margarine,” I said, then laughed when he
shuddered dramatically. “So what happened this morning?”

Amelia blushed. “I don’t know.”

“Did you have any odd black-outs or…?”

She shook her head. “I had a dream and felt the need
to act on it… Please… Please forget it. I don’t feel that way. Ever. Not about
anyone. It was some weird hormonal imbalance caused by fear and probably
dehydration. Maybe it was backlash from absorbing too much of someone’s mood.”

Darwin smiled brightly. “It’s called asexual. I can’t
touch her and she doesn’t want me to touch her. We talked about it this morning
and she agreed to marry me.”

I choked and spit my coke all over the table. The few
students all turned to see the commotion. “You did what?!” That was all I could
get out between coughs. Thank god it wasn’t coffee.

“Well, Mother has been pushing me to find a wife and
Amelia can stand her.”

I took another drink, both to settle my coughing and
to consider my words. Darwin was brilliant, so I figured he would at least take
the time to think it over. “You’re twenty-two. Have you considered what you’re going
to do after you graduate?”

“We both want to travel. We’re not going to rush into
this. I mean, I’m not daft. We’ll tell our parents now, but we’ll set the date
for years away. After graduating, we’ll spend at least five years traveling and
living together first.”

I cleared my throat. “It sounds like you thought it
through.”
In half an hour.
It wasn’t my place to talk him out of it.
Marriage didn’t have to end in divorce… it could end in death instead. Besides,
there were people who met in high school, got married, and lived happy lives
together. At least I thought there were. Addison sat across from me and I
sighed. “He’s safe and he’ll be back soon,” I said.

“I know. The council can’t hold him forever. I just
don’t think he’ll want to be with me when he does return. I was upset and
thought I should stay away so I didn’t say anything I would regret later. I
never know what he’s thinking.”

“Henry rarely gives out expressive clues. I think
you’ll find it a lot more helpful to
ask
him.”

She stood with a huff. “You have no idea what cat
shifters–” she was struck mid-sentence by what appeared to be lighting, but
on a smaller scale. She clutched her stomach and gasped as her fingernails
shifted into claws. When her normal ears changed to ocelot ones, I sensed
something was wrong. She didn’t grow fur, the rest of her body remained
humanoid, and the gold-to-chocolate colored, furry ears were proportional to
her person size instead of her cat size.

“Why are you shifting?” Amelia asked.

“I’m not!” she shouted in panic.

Hushed laughter from behind her clued us in and Addie
hissed, baring sharp teeth. Three women who sat two tables down were trying not
to laugh. One of them, holding a half-carved wizard’s staff, turned. “I am so
sorry, Addie!” she said, completely insincere. She was one of the C-Five
students who had tried to seduce Henry.

“What did you do?!”

“I was playing with my new staff and accidentally
fired a spell I learned Friday. It’s like an electrical impulse that simulates
a shifter’s magic just enough to cause a partial shift.”

Addie started to panic. “Why can’t I shift back?”
Movement caught my eye and I looked down. The claws, teeth, and ears weren’t
the only change; Addison also had a long, light brown, black-striped tail.

The woman laughed. “Don’t worry. It only lasts a few
hours until your body realizes it’s not right.”

Before Addie could attack her, I grabbed the
shifter’s arm. “Is there a way to stop a shifter from shifting or make them
reverse their shift?” I asked the woman.

She shrugged dismissively. “Probably. You’ll have to
ask Professor Watson. He’s the one who teaches the C-Five self-defense
classes.”

I let Addie go so she could attack the witch and
turned to Darwin. “Can we take classes early? Is it against the rules for me to
take a C-Five class?”

He scowled. “The only book in the entire school I
haven’t read is the handbook. How would I know–” he cut himself off as
something occurred to him. After a moment, he nodded. “Lanna is a C-Two fae and
was talking to Jackson about Professor Lithos’s class, and he only teaches
C-Four classes. She’s Lithos’s assistant, so I’m guessing that’s the way in. If
you’re the teacher’s assistant, I bet you can take an advanced class.”

“You can’t change your schedule after ten school
days, though,” Amelia said.

Maybe Watson would be willing to show me a trick
or two.

“So, what are we going to do about Henry?” Darwin
asked, watching Addison and her opponent. “Aren’t you gonna tell them to play
nice?”

“Do
you
want to get in the middle of that? I
don’t want to get my eyes scratched out. I’d rather deal with a guy fight any
day. I don’t know what to do about Henry. At least Vincent stopped them from
executing him until the end of the month.”

Becky came up to us. While her expression was tightly
controlled, her eyes were worried.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s been another death,” she said quietly,
trying not to scare the other students.

“Nathan or Caleb?”

“Professor Watson.”

“But he wasn’t sick,” Darwin said.

She shook her head and swallowed. “It’s getting
worse. He… He burned up. I didn’t see it, but Jackson did.”

“They’re all burning up. It’s the fever that’s–”

“No.” She lowered her voice even more. “I mean he
burned all the way up. In minutes, he went from fine to dead. There wasn’t even
a body left. You have to do something before we all die of this thing. If it’s
killing in minutes…” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

“Why bring it to us?” Darwin asked.

She frowned. “You’re a cop, aren’t you?” she asked me.

It was dark at first, but within
a few minutes, my vision adapted. For the most part, at least, since it wasn’t
my eyes I was seeing through.

“Henry? Are you okay?”
The bed I could feel
under him was considerably more comfortable than the cot from the council’s
cell. In fact, Henry was in a bedroom that was bordering on over-the-top in
comfort. Between the rich, calming colors, the warm lighting of several
inconspicuously placed lamps, and the smell of incense, I had to wonder if
Henry wasn’t sticking around on purpose.

Then I felt the slight sting around his wrists and
ankles; he was chained to the bed, probably with silver-coated restraints.

“I have been better. Gale appeared in my jail cell
at the wizard council and brought me here.”

“Did he kill your parents?”

“I don’t know. This is my bedroom in their house,
so I do know they’re not here. How did Darwin do on his test?”

“He passed, we were attacked by a zombie, and the
school is under quarantine. Where is the real amulet?”

“Safe.”

I sighed.
“I went to your house. I also found your
sketch book and know about Zoe and Scott.”
There was silence for a moment,
which was odd, since I was in his head.

“I suppose you never want to talk to me again.”

“Henry, you did
not
kill your wife, or that
family. Your parents drugged you. They’re not even your–”

*          *          *

I woke with my skin crawling and knew instantly that
something very bad was about to happen. Before I could get out of bed or wake
Darwin, the room filled with light as a ring of fire erupted in the center of
the room. Kristen appeared in the flames with patches of her skin charred.

“If you ever want to see the cat again, you will
bring the amulet to the house you found your ex-wife in. Until you do, more
people will burn.”

The door burst open and the room filled with bright
white light. Similar to lightning, it struck her. She vanished along with the
light. I reached for the spare penlight I kept under my pillow and clicked it
on. Astrid, still standing in the doorway, put her hand up to shield her eyes
from the light.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“What, open the door?”

“Magic.”

“You must have been sleeping. I came in here because
I felt something was wrong, opened the door, and saw a bright flash of light.”

“Darwin, what did you–”

“I didn’t see anything, hear anything, or do
anything. Ask me when I wake up in twelve hours,” he muttered into his pillow.

Not surprisingly, Astrid got into my bed.

I wrapped my arms around her. “Go to sleep.”

After it was quiet for a few minutes, I relaxed and
forced myself to think of anything other than Astrid’s body pressed against
mine.

“I haven’t been up that long… I’m not tired,” she
whispered.

“Too late. I’m already asleep and you’re trapped.” I
felt her leave a little while later.

*          *          *

At breakfast, it couldn’t have been any more somber.
Even the weather was gray and drizzling. A startled shout made us look up just
as thunder cracked… inside. Suddenly, clouds formed close to the ceiling and
rain poured down on us.

As frustrating as it was, it helped to break the
tension.

Professor Nightshade was busy helping the sick
students, so our class was cancelled, and since Professor Watson was dead, I
didn’t have
Elemental Configuration
, either. Therefore, my only class
was Professor Nakari’s, and she didn’t feel like trying to teach. Most of the
students were afraid of the sickness, while all of them were concerned with the
quarantine.

All of them except Lucy, who was more interested in
using her newly-learned power to harass the shifters. She spent all morning
sneaking up on the shifters and using her staff to force them into a partially
shifted state. Her friends tried to warn her something would go wrong. Lucy
specifically targeted Henry’s girlfriend.

At lunch, I watched her aim for Addison, but the
ocelot shifter was standing right next to Darwin, and apparently, wizard staffs
didn’t have very good aim. The burst of energy hit Darwin, throwing him to the
ground with the force it.

I saw his ears change to stone-gray wolf ones an
instant before I felt his mind forcing a link between us. He drew on my magic
and half a second later, Lucy was on the ground, screaming in pain. Everyone
gave Darwin space as he stood. The wolf ears shifted back into his normal ears,
but there was something very wolfish about his snarl.

This wasn’t the goofy, laid-back, book-smart Darwin I
knew; this was a very powerful creature that wasn’t a wolf or a fae, but some
evolutionary combination of the two. And he was really pissed off. Everyone
else got as far away as they could, but I approached him slowly. I didn’t make
any sudden movements, just in case he was more wolf than man. He ignored me.

I felt dread. I felt like I had to stop him right
that second.

He raised his half-shifted hand to her and squeezed
it into a fist until his claws cut into his palms. She screamed louder and
clutched her chest.

“Darwin!” He ignored me, so I grabbed his arm to pull
him away. In the next instant, a dark gray wolf squirmed out of my grip and
went after Lucy. Blinding light filled the room, causing me to shield my eyes.

When the light faded and I could see again, Hunt
stood between Lucy and Darwin, who was back in his normal form, naked, and
looking terrified. I picked up his torn hoodie off the floor and tossed it to
him. He put it on, shaking. Lucy wasn’t screaming anymore. “What was that?” he
asked.

“That, Mr. Mason, is what happens when you mix a
powerful fae with a powerful wolf, lock him up for twenty-two years, attack
him, and then release him. Your wolf was trying to eliminate his attacker.” He
turned to address the room. “These pranks have gone too far. Everyone involved
will step forward now or face immediate expulsion.”

Over two dozen students formed a group in front of
Hunt, including Lucy. One of them, not to my surprise, was Jackson. “There are
some vampires, too, but they’re asleep,” he said. 

“We didn’t mean any harm,” a C-One student said. “We
tried to tell Lucy she was going too far.”

“Explain,” Hunt said.

Several of the students looked at each other, every
one of them wishing someone else would speak up. Jackson stepped forward. “A
few of us weren’t satisfied with the clubs being offered. Although it would
have made more sense to address the extra-curricular committee, we decided to
make up our own club. We created the pranks club.”

“And whose idea was it?”

“It was more of a…” he trailed off.

“A fan club,” one of them volunteered, causing
Jackson to wince.

“I wouldn’t call it that. More like we were inspired…
by Darwin. We were hoping the pranks would get his attention and he would
retaliate. We thought it would be fun and then Darwin would take over the
pranks club, make it official, and help lighten the place up.”

“Mr. Sanders, I suggest you take your roommate away
to calm him down. The rest of you, follow me.”

Darwin stood, still shaking, and followed me to our
room. Instead of sitting on his chair, he sat on the floor and hugged his
knees. I wouldn’t ask him if he was okay because I knew he would speak when he
was ready.

It took him half an hour. “I almost killed her. She
was just playing around.”

“You could feel your wolf, right? That was what you
were afraid of. Your father’s wolf is the strongest known wolf and you are
afraid your wolf would challenge his and drive him away.”

“Don’t try to give me therapy. What I did wasn’t
okay. If I learn to shift, I’ll be a wolf shifter. Male wolves often leave
their parents’ pack to create their own, but that’s not the case with wolf
shifters. I was afraid of my wolf being dominant, but I had no idea it was so
bad.”

“Hunt specifically said it had to do with your wolf
being ‘chained up.’ Maybe you need to practice.” He shook his head furiously.
“Okay. We’ll take this one step at a time. When we save the students, we’ll
figure out what to do about your wolf. Okay?”

He nodded.

“Now, about Henry. You slept through the entire
lightshow last night.” I explained my dream to him and what happened
afterwards.

“So now that we know for sure Gale framed him, I
guess we don’t have to bother looking for his parents. Henry’s at his parents’
house, but Gale wants us to go to the place Amelia and Astrid found Regina in.
It’s highly unlikely that Gale plans to return him, but Gale is also unlikely
to kill him until we give up the amulet.”

“More importantly, we learned that he’s responsible for
killing the students, because he used Kristen to pass on his message.”

“How is that more important than Henry?” he asked,
then rolled his eyes when I didn’t answer. “We still don’t have a motive. I can
see Gale doing this to blackmail us, but why those people? Why not me, Astrid,
Regina, Addison, and Amelia? You suggested it wasn’t random, which I agree
with, but why not people he knows?”

“Honestly, right now, I’m just glad we have the who.
I’ll worry about the why later, because we now know what we have to do.”

“Kill him. But with what? We don’t have the amulet.”

“We’ll have to find it.” I stood. “I’m going to go
check in on the infirmary. Do you want to go?”

He shook his head. “I need a minute.”

I wasn’t sure about leaving him alone, but he knew
what he needed more than I did, so I went to the infirmary.

Although Caleb and Nathan were still alive, they
showed no improvement. Fortunately, Mack and Dan were not getting any worse.
The best news was that nobody else was sick or had died like Professor Watson
did. I told the doctor that Darwin and I knew who was doing this and that we
had a plan, but he didn’t want to hear it in case we were being overheard.

Right as I was about to leave, Dr. Martin said, “Oh,
is Astrid still doing well on the synthetic?”

“Still? She threw it up, remember?”

He frowned. “Yes, and I got some blood packets in
from Stephen. She never picked them up, so I assumed she was able to keep down
the synthetic.”

I left and opened my mind for that link between us.
Nothing. Either Astrid was very far away, or her mind was somehow blocked. I
searched for Darwin’s mind and found it instantly.
“Where are you?”

“Still in our room. I’m trying to figure out where
Henry might have hidden the real amulet.”

“We have more problems.”
I made it to the room
in record time and told him about Astrid not having blood from the bags.

“So now we’re back to suspecting her?”

“I don’t want to believe she’s involved, but we need
to ask her about it.”
Again
. I ran my hand through my hair. “This has to
be the most frustrating case. It’s like we’re being bounced around. The only
thing we know for sure is that Gale is to blame and we need to find the amulet
to defeat him.”

Something small and bright red flashed across my
desk, but when I looked, it was gone. Darwin hadn’t noticed it.

“I’m really good at formulas, codes, languages… I can
tell you anything about a book I read or what happens if you mix two chemicals
together, but I’m not so good at deducing what is or is not a clue, and
figuring out a motive from it. Keep in mind that most people think I’m an
idiot.”

That had all to do with the way he spoke around
strangers. Over time, I noticed that he was much better when he was alone with
Henry and me, because we didn’t judge him. When he was embarrassed or around
strangers, his grammar deteriorated and his accent thickened.

I sensed Astrid’s presence a moment before the door
opened. “There is something wrong with me,” she said.

“What happened?” I asked, standing.

“I have missing memories. I remember things that couldn’t
possibly have happened. I have blood in my mouth and scratches on my arms that
I don’t remember getting. Someone is messing with me.”

“Okay, we’ll deal with it. Do you remember picking up
your blood from Dr. Martin?” I asked. She nodded. “Show me.”

She let me into her mind to see her memory of getting
packets of blood. There was nothing wrong with the memory. It was fake, but it
was perfectly done. “Stephen wouldn’t send more than five at a time no matter
what. By my count, I should have run out three days ago, yet I woke up at
sunset in my room with blood in my mouth.”

“Okay, so a student might be able to identify–”

“That’s not all,” she interrupted. “After that dream
about the science museum and one about us in a dark basement, I started
noticing my time was off and I would get really strong déjà vu.” She rolled up
her sleeve to show off the “X” that I made, along with over thirty tally marks.
“I used your idea and decided to make a mark every time I noticed a loss of
time or unexplained memory that didn’t line up right. I only remember the last
two I marked. They’re fading from my memory.”

“Do you think you’re attacking people?”

“I don’t know. If this is like before…” She meant
when she attacked my parents.

“I know. We’ll deal with this.” I hugged her and over
her shoulder, I saw Darwin frowning at me. I knew what I was doing, though. I
convinced her to stay with us. Around midnight, Darwin and I pretended to get
ready for bed like normal. I told her I wanted her to stay in the room with us
to monitor her marks. She agreed and we waited, pretending to sleep.

I was almost certain she would never fall for it, but
at about three in the morning, Astrid got up from the desk and left the room. I
tried to reach out with my mind and found hers blocked. We followed her out to
the woods before she disappeared into the trees.