The Elementals - The Ice Princess

Chapter 29

"What the hell are you doing here?" is all I can muster out of my mouth. I struggle to find other words and am completely stunned by the person who stands before us. This is the last person I ever thought I would see standing in front of me again.

"Relax Eira," is the first thing that she says. Although it comes out more like "reeeelax". "You guys are lucky I didn't shoot you. You should know better than that Alex." Alexander looks a bit embarrassed and he walks over to greet Laney Michaels, the girl from school. I can't believe that she is standing in the room in front of us. The last time we saw each other, it didn't exactly end well. We were toe to toe and I felt like she was going to pummel me into the ground because Alexander was hanging around me. Now she looks even scarier. She is dressed in black skin tight pants and what looks like a leather halter. Her hair is tied back in a tight braid and she has two long handles that are attached to her black leather belt.

"Well hello!" Jared says when he gets a good look. Laney walks past Jared, completely ignoring him and stands right in front of me.

"I'm guessing we should talk," she says and grabs ahold of my arm and directs me to the couch. I eventually sit down in between Jared and Alexander who have already seated themselves to listen to what she has to say. Laney stands in front of us almost as if she were going to be doing some kind of stand-up comedy routine.

Jared takes a quick moment to introduce himself and Laney seems less than interested, but shakes his hand regardless. After that brief pleasantry is over, she turns her fiery green eyes to me.

"So, I've been tracking and watching over you for years and have kept a close eye on you, protecting your secret. You probably don't recognize me and that's because I haven't always looked like this." As she talks, her body transforms and takes on a completely different look. She is no longer the 16 year old girl that once stood in front of us. She has completely changed and is now a 30 something young man with a deep voice, wearing blue jeans and a construction jacket. She then changes again to Mr. Jeffrey, our biology teacher and then once again back to the original shape that she had when we first walked through the door.

Jared is stunned, his mouth hangs wide open and I can tell that his mind is completely blown by what has just happened. Based on what has happened to me in the last few weeks, this doesn't surprise me as much as it once would have.

"What are you?" I ask.

"I'm a morphling, what your fantasy world would call a shape shifter. I come from the same world as Alex. I was sent here, to this particular world, to track down any elementals that might be here and protect them. As you can no doubt see, I have a unique set of skills."

"How did you find us?" I ask.

Alexander steps up and says, "That was me. I've been in touch with Laney since we left." He pulls his phone out and gives it a little shake towards us. "It's completely untraceable and was perfected by your dad who found that he could bounce signals off other phone towers at random times."

He also reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small slip of paper. He hands the paper to me. I unfold it and read it.

"She's the one that we want, I'm certain of it. Protect her."

I look up from the note a bit confused.

"I don't get it," I tell the crowd of people after reading it out loud.

"That's the note that Laney passed to me in class a few days ago. I flicked it off the table but was able to jump to it and catch it before it hit the floor and jump back to my seat. You didn't even notice," Alexander says with a sly smile.

"So I am here to do two things. The first is to deliver a warning. The second is to train you. We have to get you prepared so that your element doesn't fall into the wrong hands, but we don't have a lot of time. Things are bad out there." She turns and looks directly at Alexander who waits for her to finish her story.

"About a week ago, we lost contact with the Orilian. The earth elemental is presumed captured, or worse." She looks down at the ground as if embarrassed to tell us the rest. "The darkness is growing and it's growing fast. Each day it becomes more powerful and each day it moves closer to unleashing itself on this world and every world."

Everyone sits and ponders this daunting task for a minute. Laney then turns her gaze towards to me. "There's more. The darkness is amassing a huge army of souls. It's going to be very tough to..." she trails off a bit as if remembering something painful from her. She looks like she is fighting back tears and after a few moments regains her composure.

Jared breaks the silence. "Ahh no big deal, army of souls, bounty hunting red-eyed things after us, clouds of death trying to take up shelter in our bodies. Sounds like a walk in the park!"

The room is dead quiet as people digest the latest news.

"I'm glad you find this amusing," Laney says to Jared. "I haven't even told you the worst part yet. The darkness has a dragon on its side."

The room is ominous. No one is speaking and everyone looks shocked at this latest news.

"Did you say a dragon?" I am able to muster.

Laney looks over at Alexander.

"You haven't told her?" she says directly to Alexander who simply shrugs his shoulder.

Laney shakes her head as if to clear the thoughts out of it and turns her attention back to me. The room remains eerily quiet as Laney tell us about the dragon.

"Legend has it that the darkness can absorb souls into itself. They are the souls that it has chosen for whatever reason to be part of. Most of them are attempting to pass from one world to the next, usually the living world to the world of the dead. Once it has enough souls and has become powerful enough, it is able to manifest those souls into something. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."

"I've seen it too..." I say unexpectedly. "I mean, it sort of found me. The night that I left the shelter, I crouched behind a tree when I felt something closing in on me. It was ripping apart the tree that I was sitting behind. Alexander scared it away...Did you know what it was?" I turn to look at Alexander who no longer looks comfortable with this conversation.

After a few seconds of looking at the floor, he nods his head ever so slightly a few times. "I...kind of thought that it might have been..."

"You let me leave my dad when a dragon was roaming the forest?" I try to keep the calm when I talk but I fail miserably at this feat. "How could you?"

"In his defense," interrupts Laney, "the dragon must not have been fully developed so it was a good thing that Alex got you away when he did. They don't take long to grow."

"How can you tell?" Jared says from the other side of the couch.

"Well for one, it wouldn't have been scared of someone who was roaming through the woods at night and second, had it been a fully grown dragon, it would have ripped the tree in half and her along with it in a matter of seconds."

Hearing that doesn't make me feel any better. If Alexander were to look at me, he would know how upset and angry I am at the moment, but his gaze remains firmly placed on the beige carpet. My hands are clenched and my jaw is locked. I concentrate on breathing to try and calm myself and after a few moments and with all eyes focused on me, I am able to ask.

"How do we fight a dragon?" I ask after a few moments.

Without hesitation, Laney responds, "We don't. You do. And that is why I am here because it won't be long before you will come face to face with the Achlys or the dragon. My job is to give you a fighting chance."

"And how do you suppose we do that, and stay away from all of the things that are hunting us?" I ask.

"I have a bit of plan that Alexander and I have come up with." And with that, Laney transforms herself again, but this time into someone much more familiar, someone who I know quite well. The person who Laney has decided to become for this phase of her plan, is me.