Elementals 3: The Head of Medusa (2 page)

“Nicole?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I smiled at him, trying to push away the disappointment. It was too much to expect him to tell me some revelation about his feelings for me here, in a restaurant, surrounded by strangers.

I probably shouldn’t expect anything at all. After all, what did I know about love? Blake had been my first kiss, and now he was my first boyfriend. Yes, we’d been through much more than what other teens our age had to deal with, and we were more powerful than any witches in recorded history, but that didn’t make me an expert on love. I didn’t even know what love
was
, at least not in a romantic sense. I was probably getting ahead of myself because this was my first relationship.

But I’d also never cared for anyone as much as I cared about Blake. He had quickly become one of the most important people in my world, and I would never risk losing him. Ever.   

“I’m not going to tell my family,” I finally told him.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because by the summer solstice, we’ll have closed the portal to Kerberos, and we can get back on with our normal lives,” I said, even though we had no way of knowing if would be true. “As it is now, I don’t want to worry them. They wouldn’t even be able to do anything to help me, since they’re all human. It’s safer for them not to know.”

“I guess,” he said. “And I know it’s different for me, since my parents are witches, but I’m glad that they know about the five of us and what we’re doing. At least if everything doesn’t go to plan, and I don’t make it back from one of our missions, they’ll know it was for a good cause.”

“Don’t say that,” I said, refusing to think about the possibility. “Nothing’s going to happen to any of us. We were given these powers for a reason—because the gods know we’re the ones who can complete this mission. We’re
all
going to make it. We have to.”

Blake said nothing, and I worried that he wasn’t convinced. “Of course, it helps that we have you on our side,” he finally said, smiling at me. “Our healer. If it hadn’t been for you, I would have died in the hydra’s cave. You saved my life. I don’t think I can ever tell you how much that means to me.”

“You don’t have to.” I reached for his hand again, giving it a squeeze. “Because I already know. I saved you first in that cave, and I would do it again in a second.”

“Even if you knew Rachael was going to die?” he asked.

“Yes.” I held his gaze, not having to think about my answer. “I would never risk losing you. Ever.”

“I wish I could tell you that you should have saved Rachael instead of me,” he said. “It would be the noble thing to say. But I can’t, because if you’d saved her instead of me, we wouldn’t have this chance to be together. And I wouldn’t give up this chance for anything.”

His eyes didn’t leave mine, and I could feel the words on the tip of my tongue.
I love you
. I wanted to say them out loud. It would be so easy—so natural.

But then the waitress came to serve us our main course, and I pulled my hand out of Blake’s, jolted at being brought out of the moment so suddenly. I had to blink a few times to reorient myself. I couldn’t believe how close I’d been to making such a huge confession.

If the waitress hadn’t come over right then, would I have said it?

Maybe.

And I knew, deep in my heart, that I would have meant it.

CHAPTER TWO

Blake and I were getting started on dessert—chocolate fondue—when our phones both lit up with a text message.

911 – I need you all at my place. ASAP.

It was from Darius, and he’d sent it to everyone in our group—me, Blake, Chris, Kate, and Danielle. Which only could mean one thing.

“I guess another monster’s escaped from Kerberos,” Blake said exactly what I was thinking.

“I guess so.” I dragged a strawberry through the melted chocolate, looking at it sadly. “But this looks so good. Darius couldn’t have waited to text us until
after
we finished dessert?”

“Apparently not.” A mischievous glint passed over his eyes, and he leaned over the table, looking at me in challenge. “How fast can you eat?”

“I’m not sure.” I raised an eyebrow, having a good idea about where he was going with this. “Why?”

“Because we’re about to have a contest.” He divided all of the items on the dessert plate in half—a mix of strawberries and bananas, and bite-sized brownies, sponge cakes, and marshmallows. “Let’s see who can finish their side faster.” He held his fork up, and I did the same, nodding to let him know that I was ready. “One… two… three…”

Before he finished saying three, I’d already shoveled the strawberry into my mouth and was spearing the brownie in preparation to dip it into the chocolate. I ate so fast that I barely had time to enjoy it. I continued wolfing it down until most of my side was gone—I’d never eaten so quickly in my life—but somehow, Blake managed to beat me.

He finished chewing and dropped his fork on the table. “Done,” he declared, sitting back and crossing his arms in victory.

I forced down the last few bites of cheesecake, even though each bite made me feel as if I might explode. But I had to finish it so I wouldn’t be
completely
defeated.

“Thanks for not letting me win,” I said once I was done, taking a few sips of my water to help wash all that food down.

“Is that sarcasm that I detect?” he asked.

“No.” I smiled and shook my head. “I’m serious. I hate when people let me win. If I win, I want to know that I earned it.”

“Which is exactly why I didn’t let you win,” he said. “You’re competitive. I know that. And lucky for me, you’re good competition. I wouldn’t expect anything less from a girlfriend of mine.”

I smiled, loving how it sounded when he called me his girlfriend.

“What?” he asked, as if my silence concerned him.

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just… I’ve never been someone’s girlfriend before. It’s nice to hear you call me that.”

“Then I’ll remember to say it more often.” He signed the check for our meal, stood up, and held out a hand to me. I took it, allowing him to help me up. Once our eyes were almost level, he leaned forward and kissed me, letting the kiss last slightly longer than what was acceptable in public. It was like he was announcing to the world that we were together—that I was his, and that everyone else should know it.

“Now, are you ready to go?” he asked once he pulled away.

All I could do was nod, my stomach still fluttering from the memory of his kiss.

He smiled, clearly amused by how much he affected me. “Good,” he said, taking my hand and leading the way out of the restaurant. “Because
my girlfriend
and I have some monsters to slay.”

CHAPTER THREE

“Wolves,” Kate repeated for the third time since Darius had told us what we were up against. “In the
cemetery
. It sounds like something out of a television show.”

“Just make sure you don’t get bitten,” Chris teased from the back seat of the van. “We wouldn’t want you turning into a werewolf.”

“Werewolves don’t exist,” Kate said, rolling her eyes. “But the legend of them
did
start from the story of Lycaon. He was a king in the ancient times. To test how powerful
Zeus
was, he cooked up his own son and served him to Zeus for dinner. But Zeus knew what he did, so as punishment, he turned Lycaon and all of his offspring into wolves. It’s no wonder the wolves fought against the Olympians in the Second Rebellion. They blame Zeus for being as they are.”

“You knew all of that off the top of your head?” Danielle asked.

“I wish,” Kate said, holding up her phone. “But no. I looked it up on Wikipedia.”

After leaving the restaurant, Blake and I had rushed straight to Darius’s house. Everyone else was already there. Once we arrived, Darius explained that the witches on patrol had reported a pack of wolves escaping from Kerberos. The wolves had run across the street to the cemetery, where the witches were able to conjure a protection spell to keep them trapped inside the fence. But the spell wouldn’t last forever, and it wouldn’t stop humans from entering the cemetery, so it was up to us to take care of the wolves before they could turn an unsuspecting human into a late night snack.

After hearing what happened, we gathered our weapons and jumped into the van, which was where we were now. Blake was driving, since we all agreed it would be unnecessary for Darius to come along. Darius didn’t have anywhere close to the physical strength that we did, and we didn’t want to risk his getting hurt.

It didn’t take long to reach the cemetery. Once there, we hopped out of the van, grabbed our weapons, and located one of the witches on patrol. He was older than us, but still young—probably in his mid-20s.

“A group of middle school kids tried to come in here to do who knows what, but I scared them away,” he told us. “But the cemetery won’t stay empty for long. Those wolves need to be taken care of before morning.”

“It won’t be a problem,” Blake said, stepping forward. “We’ve got this.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure about that?” he asked. “You all look like you haven’t even graduated high school.”

Blake didn’t reply—instead he flicked on his lighter, created three fireballs, and sent them flying into a nearby tree. The witch on patrol stared at the blaze, his mouth dropped open in shock.

Then a stream of water rushed towards the tree, putting out the flames in seconds.

“Really, Blake?” Danielle crossed her arms, glaring at him.

“What?” he asked, his face a perfect expression of innocence.

“That was completely unnecessary,” she said, motioning to the tree. “You used up energy you
may need for
fighting those wolves, and now that old tree is destroyed.”

“I was just showing our new friend here what we can do,” he said. “Besides, Kate can fix up the tree. Can’t you, Kate?”

“Trust me, I will,” she said. “
After
we take
care
of the wolves.”

Something howled nearby, the call echoing through the air. It was unmistakably a wolf. A sound like that belonged in the mountains of Montana—not in our town outside of Boston.

“Come on.” I turned toward the sound and reached for my bow, wanting to be ready in case anything jumped out at us. “It came from that way.”

“There’s still five of them, right?” Chris asked the guard.

“Yes,” he said. “From what we’ve seen of their behavior so far, they stick with their pack. There are no lone wolves in this group.” He looked back at where the sound came from, and then eyed us up one more time. “Are you kids sure you’ve got this? You don’t want any help?”

“Trust me—we’ll be fine,” I told him. “These wolves have nothing on the monsters we’ve killed before. It’ll be easiest if you just let us handle this.”

He glanced at the tree again, where the smoke was still rising up, the smell of burnt leaves filling the air. “Be my guest,” he said, motioning us to go inside the gate. “If you need any backup, I’ll be here.”

I nodded at him, and the five of us marched toward where the howl had come from, ready for a fight.

CHAPTER FOUR

The wolves were gathered in front of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia—a re-created monument in the center of the cemetery that had been built over a hundred years ago to honor the gods.
Since it was under repair, the
statue currently had scaffolding around it
.
According to the humans in town, the statue had been struck by lightning so strong that it destroyed the stone eagle Zeus had been holding. No one knew where the eagle had gone—some of the more superstitious suspected that the god had incinerated it himself.

We were the only ones who knew the truth of what had happened—how the eagle was part of a scavenger hunt set up for us by the gods. We
had to remove the eagle from the statue to find the clue hidden inside. It was now displayed in our training center in Darius’s basement.

The statue had been peaceful then. Now, we formed a semi-circle around the wolves, backing them against the statue, giving them no place to run. They growled at us, their glowing yellow eyes staring us down. Their lips pulled up to reveal their teeth, which glinted white in the light of the moon. But I held their gazes, not backing down. If they thought they were intimidating us, they didn’t know who they were dealing with.

They must not like being backed into a corner, because the wolf in front—the biggest one, who appeared to be the pack leader—pulled back, snarled, and barreled toward us.

He didn’t make it five feet before I shot an arrow straight into his heart.

“Three pointer for Nicole!” Chris called out, as if announcing a sports game. “Bullseye.” He threw a knife, and a breeze passed by my face as he used his power over the air to plunge the weapon into another wolf’s heart. “These puppies are making this
way
too easy for us,” he said with a laugh.

At that moment, Blake and Danielle charged toward the remaining three wolves, holding their swords in front of them. They swung, and two more wolves were down, the swords  covered in blood.

Chris pumped his fist in the air. “Blake and Danielle both go in for slam dunks, and they both
score
!” he said, still talking in his sports announcer voice. “There’s only one wolf left, and there’s five of us.” He rubbed his hands together, eyeing up the wolf. “He doesn’t stand a chance.”

The wolf must have agreed with him, because it backed itself into a corner, its tail down. I had my arrow strung, ready to shoot, but seeing the animal like that made me pause. Despite the unnatural yellow glow in its eyes, at that moment, it looked harmless. I didn’t doubt that it would attack if the odds were in its favor, but that wasn’t the case now. Without it going on the offense, I couldn’t shoot. It felt too much like killing in cold blood.

But that didn’t stop Danielle, who rushed forward and ran her sword through its heart. The wolf let out a final whimper and collapsed at her feet.

“Danielle goes for the final point, and she takes the team in for a win!” Chris said, clapping and hollering in victory. “The wolves should’ve known that they had nothing on the Elementals.”

Within seconds, all five wolves flickered and disappeared, as if they had never been there in the first place. They’d been sent to limbo, where they would remain for the next year until being returned to Kerberos, thanks to the poisonous serum coating our weapons.

Danielle wiped the blood off her sword and held it up in the air, admiring the moonlight glinting off the metal. “Was that ridiculously easy, or are we just getting better?” she asked, slipping the sword back into its sheath.

“You’re getting better,” an unknown, female voice said from off in the shadows. The voice was soft, although it somehow managed to be clear and strong as well—as if I could hear the echo of it inside my mind. “But that doesn’t mean that you have to be so full of yourselves. Especially given all of the challenges you have ahead.”

I turned toward the direction of the voice as a tall, ethereal woman stepped into the clearing. Her black evening gown slithered around her like the shadows themselves, the fabric billowing around her and sparkling with the lights of the stars. Her long, black hair flowed to her waist, her skin so pale that it glowed with the light of the moon.

I blinked a few times, to make sure she was real and not a hallucination. She was there, but she was also slightly hazy, as if she wasn’t there at the same time. It was like she was a ghost, or a shadow.

“Who are you?” I asked softly, still transfixed by her otherworldly beauty.

“I am Nyx,” she answered with a smile, the stars on her dress twinkling as she spoke. “The primordial deity of night itself.”