Breathe Under Water - Shadows of the Night 1

Chapter 27

I'm going to die.

Wide eyed I held on to the one thought: Not like this.

I reached out for my element, reached out with the violent desperation only mortal fear could bring. Air swooshed and rushed past me. Michael cursed. The pain stopped, sudden and unexpected. I felt myself falling, crashing into the lake again. The water was cold and rough, its surface cracking and parting reluctantly. Water reclaimed space in my clothes, pooling into openings and cracks of my body until it had conquered me wholly. I was still waiting for it to come: death.

A ripple. A sensation. My eyes exploded open like seams tearing. Power blasted in my skull.

I stared at my fingers through clear rippled liquidity, moving them in front of me. I could see where the element touched and connected, could feel the faint current tugging at my clothes and tracked it back to the point where the waterfall tore into the lake's surface. An army of molecules and particles, varying shades of blue see-through, surrounded me like a moving, liquid glass palace. Gazing at the aquarium surrounding me, I felt the stirring of life, fish plowing their way through the element, wetness adrift in an animate, yet silent land of blue.

And it was all mine. Mine to take.

I lowered my hands. Water regrouped, retreated, and I pushed. I shot out of the water and broke through the surface. Time stopped and stared at me, movement and action frozen as the world took a rest and ceased turning.

Clarity, acuity, and sharpness bit into my perception.

My vision was drenched in blue, but I could feel nature and every living being within the radius of a mile. There was fighting up the road, the presence of the Cellinis a cold pulse of power in the far distance. Amongst them another red light aura. Marco, the second human servant, was also a shapeshifter. The information barely registered. It was nothing in the wake of another.

Something familiar. Alexander was somewhere very close. I could feel him, almost taste his aura on my tongue as if it was my own. Dark. Bitter. And sweet.

Time was nudged, spurred into winding action, as my eyes locked on my target. I stared at Michael. He stared back. Tainted in blue, he was standing on the shore-line.

You shouldn't be able to do this," Michael said. "You should be dead."

I felt the smile settle on my face. "No, you're wrong. You should be."

My fingers curled in the water, working the element with the ease of a skilled artist. It followed my movement, the silent army of water molecules ready and eager to obey and conquer what was theirs, ours. A fountain of water shot up, making its way through air. Sliding into position, the particles and elemental units formed a hand-shaped water sculpture.

For the first time I saw fear in Michael's face, and I liked it. I closed my fist, water following my command, and plucked him out of the sky like an unworthy aerial acrobat. The water began to snake and swirl around the rogue witch. The water vortex slowed down until it came to a complete standstill.

Hands outstretched, I lowered them, palms facing the lake. I smiled. I was going to tear him down to the deepest parts of the lake.

The lake's surfaces rippled, wet smoothness disturbed as Michael's lifeless body went under. I didn't make my way to the shore until the ripples were gone.

For a long time I was standing at the shore, watching the water. Then I felt him and turned my head. Alexander was standing a few feet away in the shade of one of the trees, watching me with stoic silence. Blueness still clung to my vision, my heart a cold lump in my chest.