Page 40 of The Elementalist
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 myeyebrows. “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. Piperleapt 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 anicelance: 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 hertoomuch, 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?”
