Windburn (The Elemental Series #4) (13 page)

I tumbled off the ledge and into the room, grabbed the table and flipped it onto its side. Cactus let out a sigh, “I’m sorry, I just—”

“Now is not the time,” Peta said. The Troll lurched to his feet, bleeding but otherwise not bothered by the injuries we’d inflicted. He backed up and I shot forward. We needed to get moving, and obviously the Troll wasn’t going to have any answers.

I drove my spear into his neck and jerked it to the left, cutting his head most of the way off. Cactus gagged, and from Peta through our bond came a definite sense of satisfaction that lasted a split second.

The Troll was a Firestarter, which meant his death was not going to be as easy as taking his head.

His body combusted as it fell, bright orange flames the exact shade as his skin curling up in the doorway, completely blocking it. The flames were so hot, I had to back up as they reached for the ceiling.

Worm shit. I refused to ask Cactus for help. Which only left the window option. Peta nosed the book on the floor that had the least amount of troll shit on it. “I think this actually might help us.”

I scooped the book up and tucked it into the back of my pants under my belt.

“Peta, you ready?” I tapped my shoulder. She shifted and leapt into my arms. I put her onto my shoulder and went to the window.

“I can stop the flames, Lark,” Cactus said, his voice contrite.

“No, please don’t bother yourself. I’d rather climb than put you out again.” I kept my voice as neutral as I could make it.

“Don’t be like that.”

I spun and jabbed a finger into his chest. “Be like what? Expect you to be a team player? To know your strengths and mine? To think you would be there to help me when I
did
need your help? Pardon me for thinking you were adult enough to actually be a help and not a hindrance.”

I turned away from him and pulled myself into the window. Anger fueled me, which made it easy to manipulate the stone the tower was built of—at least that was what I was banking on. I knocked the last of the glass out of the window and then eased out so I hung by my hands.

I placed one hand on the stone wall a foot down from the window ledge. The rock eased around my fingers like soft clay before firming up.

“Tell me again why I shouldn’t be able to do this?” I asked Peta as I made my way down the wall, handhold by handhold as I created them. The last thing I wanted was a lecture from her about being nicer to Cactus.

“From what I understand, what you are doing is manipulating the material down to its most basic matter. As a Terraling, you can move sand the way sand moves, you can encourage plants to grow, you can communicate with animals. But taking a hard stone and softening it to the point of reforming it is something not done since the beginning of Terralings. It is an ability thought to be lost.”

I dropped to the cobblestone at the same time Cactus stepped out of the main doors. He wouldn’t look at me, and I was glad. I strode toward the side wall of the courtyard and flicked my hands at it. The stone blew apart and I walked through, ignoring the humans staring at me as I strode out.

“He’s making it easier on you to choose Ash,” Peta said.

“That he is.” I stared straight ahead.

“I hate to be the voice of reason, because I do not think Cactus is the right one for you . . . but does it seem like him to pout? To put you in danger?” Her words were soft, and they gave me pause.

“Why would he do it, then? Why would he put me in danger?”

“I can only think of one reason.”

I glanced back to see him trailing behind us, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head lowered. “What reason?”

“He knows he’s already lost you to Ash, and so he is going to make it easy on you.”

I came to a complete and total stop. My heart thumped wildly against my chest. No, no, no. I did not want to believe she was right, but . . . it was something Cactus would do. He’d taken pain for me before, when we were children and had gotten in trouble together. The strap had fallen on him, not me.

I closed my eyes and tried to slow the beating of my heart. Cactus stopped a few feet behind me. I slowly turned to him.

“Are you trying to make me angry with you? Trying to drive me away?”

His eyes never left mine. “I want you to be happy, Lark. I love you enough to lose you if it means you will be happy.”

Damn him. My lower jaw trembled. “I cannot focus on this while we are trying to save my father. We can discuss this later, but I need to know if I can depend on you or not.”

He stepped forward and took one of my hands, raising it so he could kiss the underside of my wrist. “I am always here for you. I’m sorry, I . . . I could see the guilt in you, and I didn’t want to make it worse.”

I let him pull me into his arms. Slowly I dropped my head to his shoulder. “I can’t choose, Cactus. Don’t make me.”

“One day you’ll have to.” He kissed the side of my head.

“Enough. We have to go,” Peta said, her voice sharp.

I stepped away, my hands lingering in his. “You almost got me killed.”

“Nah, you handled it fine. I knew you would.” He patted at a few charred spots on my vest as he winked at me. I could admit I was relieved even while I was exasperated.

He reached around me and tapped the hard-backed book I’d taken. “Let’s see what we’ve got, then.”

Taking the book out, I held it in front of me. The title was
Africa in Pictures
. I flipped it open and grimaced as the scent of troll shit wafted up. “Disgusting creatures. I can’t understand who thought they were a good idea.”

“Some witch on a power trip,” Peta muttered.

Figured.

The pictures were bright and vibrant, stark and desolate all at once. I’d never been to Africa, though there were parts of it I knew would call to me. The deep jungles, the grasslands filled with animals, the mountains where the earth stretched to reach the sky.

I turned the page and a bloody fingerprint stopped me. The same as the one on the glass, it had been smeared a little over the blue water. Sand dunes stretched out into the ocean, triangular and shaped very much like dragon’s heads. “There. That’s where she is.”

“Are you sure?” Cactus leaned over my shoulder, his body brushing against mine enough to make me forget for a moment what I was going to say.

Peta cleared her throat. “Head in the game, Lark.”

Mentally I shook myself. “Yes, I’m sure. This is her fingerprint.”

“Could be a trap.”

“Not for us. If anything, she was trying to draw someone else.”

From my shoulder, Peta nodded. “I agree. Trackers are smart, tricky beggars. Giselle said someone else was looking for her; maybe she’s leading them on.”

With a quick tear, I ripped the page out of the book and folded it up. “The sand dunes are huge. We need to get above them to find her fast.”

“How are we going to do that?” Cactus asked. “It’s breeding season for dragons, which will make them next to useless. No Sylph will give us the time of day. And I wouldn’t trust a Harpy further than I could throw her.”

I situated myself, finding east easily. The sense of where the sun would rise was bred into me as surely as the power of the earth and the power of Spirit. “Peta, what do you think?”

“I think you need your second familiar. A winged creature big enough to carry you would be helpful. That being if I could choose your second.” She tipped her head to one side.

“A dragon?” Cactus’s tone was hopeful even though he’d just disparaged the big lizards.

“No. They only bond with demon slayers. Something else. Hmmm.” She went quiet and I kept moving. Regardless of what she said, we needed to get across the channel to the continent. Once there, we could find a way to get airborne. There were several supernatural creatures we could reach out to. Harpies, though tough, could be reasoned with for a price. There were several clutches of griffins who resided there as well.

But I had a feeling that whatever Peta came up with, it would not be—

“The Bastard. He’s our best shot, I think.”

Cactus let out a laugh. “You’re kidding, right? Isn’t he in Greece?”

Peta bobbed her head. “Yes, I’ve met him before, though it was a long time ago. I think he will remember me and I could convince him to help us. We have to go almost that far anyway. Unless you want to convince a human to take you up in one of their whirly bird things.”

Nausea rolled through me at the simple thought of trusting my life to a human contraption. “No, we’ll go to The Bastard. If you’re sure.”

“The only choice we have, I think,” Peta said, “and until you get your second familiar, maybe we can convince him to help us. He is a bit of a glutton, so a food reward would work. Or the offer of some attractive ladies.”

I grimaced. I’d heard The Bastard was difficult . . . one of those few creatures who was truly alone in the world since he was a creation, not a natural occurrence. Even the Trolls got to breed and have babies. The Bastard, not so much.

“Then it’s set, we’re off to see him. And hope we can convince him to help.”

I had a feeling it wouldn’t be all that easy, but it was a long road between us and Greece. Perhaps in the interim we’d find a simpler way.

Somehow I truly doubted it, but one could hope.

“
ou think the ferry is safe?” Cactus crouched by the edge of the boat while we waited for the sun to rise and for the human who owned the boat.

“You want to swim across the channel?” I lifted an eyebrow at him and he shook his head.

“Nah. It’ll ruin my hair.”

Peta snorted and shivered lightly. “Lark, I have a funny feeling—”

There was no warning other than Peta’s words. A wave shot up above our heads with a speed that could only mean one thing. An Undine had decided we were a threat.

I bolted backward, Cactus and Peta with me, as the wave crashed down where we’d been standing. The tail end of it caught my legs and sent me sprawling onto the rough cement that touched the docks.

The jagged footing tore at my pants and ripped at my skin. Hissing, I rolled to my back to stare at where we’d been only moments before. A high-pitched giggle rebounded toward us and for a split second I thought Finley, queen of the Undines, was playing a prank on us.

A figure rose up out of the water and stepped onto the docks. Not a girl, not even a woman, but a rail-thin man stared at us. His eyes flicked from me to Cactus, to Peta, and then back to me. A full-body shiver rocked through him and he snapped his head back as it reached the top of him. He had dark eyes and darker hair and looked far too much like Requiem for my liking. Requiem had raped Bella, tried to kill Ash and me and had nearly taken the throne of the Undines. To say he was not one of my favorite people would be an understatement. If he’d still been alive, that was.

The Undine shivered again, softer this time. “Do you know who I am?”

“Peta, he look like anyone to you?”

“Mouse turds, he looks like Requiem.” She clicked her teeth together. “I thought we killed him?”

The Requiem look-alike dropped to a crouch and scuttled forward, like a crustacean. “Requiem, Requiem, he was my brother. A bastard to the core, he had me banished and here I am, mad as a hermit crab with no shell. No place to call my own, cut off from the place that feeds my soul.”