Inferno : Elements Series Book One

Gwen

It feels like forever before we get to Hanks office. The minute we enter we get to see the change. He goes from normal Hank, who is surprised but glad for our impromptu visit, to super-bad-ass-leader-of-the-people-Hank who stands ten feet above his adversaries and is the reason the bogey man checks his closet before he goes to bed each night.

“Where were they?” he asks. It sounds more like a command, can questions be commands? I don’t think so.

“We were at the base of the cliff just outside Gwen’s arena when she sensed them,” explains Derek. I didn’t know until now about the respect people had for him. This is a tense situation but everyone here, including Elijah, has turned to Derek.

“Sensed them?” Hank asks me. “Tell me everything.”

I’m a little taken back by the urgency in his tone, I haven’t seen this side of Hank before, but I’m only distracted for a second.

“It was subtle at first. I was using vibrations to carve out sculptures when I sensed that my frequency was being interrupted as the vibration travelled through the rock. I thought maybe it was just like, feedback or something, from these guys,” I indicate my friends and Elijah. “But it kept happening so I reached out with my mind and found these two. I focused and tried to sense their energy and the moment I made contact I recognised them and told the group.”

I’m not sure what expression is on his face, maybe surprise, but it’s gone in a flash and Hank is all business once more.

“Elijah, run ahead of us and find Jasper. Tell him we need two cells and make sure that they are separate from one another. We’ll follow on shortly.”

Elijah nods and runs out the door.

“We?” asks Derek. Something’s caught his attention.

“Yes, we,” says Hank. “I have a feeling that these guys were looking in on your group in particular and if that’s so then you need to hear what they have to say. Besides, Gwen will ruffle their feathers. She did just humiliate them in less than ten seconds.”

Everyone chuckles, clearly I don’t get what’s funny, and Hank moves toward the door.

“Let’s get moving, it won’t take them too long to set up those cells and I’d like to get these guys talking as soon as possible.”

A wave of unease settles over me. Get them talking how? I have a horrible feeling that I’m not going to like the answer. We move off, the Recruiters still unconscious and floating along beside me as we walk through the corridors, moving to a place that I haven’t seen yet.

“Are you okay Gwen?” Derek pulls me out of my thoughts. “You’ve been carrying those guys for a while, do you need a break?”

I’ve been flying these guys through canyons, doing barrel rolls, for weeks now. He knows I can handle this.

“I’m fine, it doesn’t take much to hold them up,” I say. I feel a little nudge at the barriers I still have up around my mind and a look passes across his face as he realises he can’t get in. I glare at him. He shrugs it off and keeps on walking.

We’re walking for nearly ten minutes, moving further and further underground, before we finally reach a brightly lit hallway with large doors set evenly into the walls. Jasper walks out of a doorway at the far end and looks up, motioning for us to move forward.

“In here,” he says, indicating the door he just came out of. I feel him staring at me as I walk through first and- wait. Isn’t this supposed to be a prison cell?

I’ve stepped into a large circular room with heaps of windows and a simple table with a chair on either side placed in the centre of the room. Something shiny is hanging from the underside of the tabletop and when I look a little closer I see that they are shackles. Diamond shackles and there are diamond ankle restraints that have been driven into the floor. Diamond? I take a closer look at the ‘windows’ I saw as I came in and sure enough I realise that they aren’t windows at all; they’re cell doors. I stomp my foot, as subtly as I can, and send a wave of vibration out in all directions. Each cell is made of 100% genuine diamond. Each has roughly nine square metres of floor space and the walls, floor, roof and door are made from solid foot thick slabs of pure diamond.

“I’m guessing no one told you about this room,” says Jasper, correctly interpreting my silence.

“No, they didn’t,” I respond. “What’s with all the diamond?”

“It’s one of the strongest materials in existence and is readily available to Earth users. It took a while for a group of earth users to summon this much diamond, but they did it. It is also nearly impossible to get out of, at least on your own. Even Elijah, who is the strongest earth user here, needs a second person to help slide one of these doors open,” explains Jasper. “I’m actually curious to see how you fair against these doors.”

Another test, this time to see of they’d be able to lock me up here. Not a chance in hell.

“Yeah, because testing me out on your strongest cells to see if you’d be able to lock me away in one isn’t suspicious at all,” I say. Even I’m surprised by my tone but it has the desired effect and telegraphs my distrust.

“Oh no, that’s not what I wanted at all!” he looks nervous. Good. “I just, um- it was just-“

He flounders, looking to Derek and Hank for help. It doesn’t look like he’s getting any.

“It doesn’t matter. Just tell me what you want me to do,” I say. The sooner we get this over with the sooner I can leave this place. There’s energy in here that doesn’t sit right with me.

“Well,” says Jasper looking relieved at the subject change. “We put them in their cells and wake them up. The first to wake is the first to be questioned.”

He indicates the table with the shackles and I can’t help but wonder how they will be questioned. Images begin flashing through my mind of all sorts of medieval torture techniques and horror movie scenes and I feel the colour drain from my face.

“You aren’t going to torture them, are you?” I ask. I need to know. I didn’t sign on for torture.

“It won’t come to that,” he says evasively. He didn’t say no.

“No, it won’t,” I say, trying to make my words sound powerful. I feel magic surge through my veins and just act on instinct. This used to worry me but over the weeks I’ve come to trust that rush of energy and the magic that comes afterwards. I watch, just an observer, as I let my magic take charge. All of the large diamond slabs burst open and the Recruiters peacefully float inside two of them. I lay them gently on the small, uncomfortable looking beds and swipe my hand quickly like I’m closing a sliding door. The diamond slabs close once again and when I look up everyone is looking at me, expressions on their faces ranging from impressed (Derek and Hank) to intimidated (everyone else). There is complete silence and they must be truly surprised because I start picking up on their thoughts.

“It should have taken at least two people to open just one of those doors!” speaks Elijah.

“They should know by now not to upset her,” thinks Anya.

“What did she just do?!” I can’t really decipher the tone behind Oliver’s thoughts; I hope there is some sort of positivity in there.

“Well, she shut me up I guess. And to think I’m supposed to be in charge down here,” the bitterness in Jaspers thoughts is palpable.

“Nice one.” Just two words from Derek, I’m pleased to know that I didn’t scare him off.

“About time someone put Jasper in his place down here.” Hank’s thoughts are tinged with pride. At least I think its pride, I can’t be sure.

The tension in the air is so thick that I’m genuinely surprised that no one is choking on it.

“I’m sorry,” I say. I don’t know why, I’m not sorry for what I’ve just done, but I need to break the tension. “What do we do now?”

No one says anything for a few seconds, they’re still staring at me and I feel incredibly uncomfortable, but I tough it out.

“We go get Mags so that she can wake those two gentlemen up,” says Hank. He smiles at me; I think he’s trying to make me feel more at ease. There is a small cough and I turn to Oliver. With a small smile he says;

“Well, we don’t really need to go and get Mags, do we? Gwen can wake them up,” all eyes are back on me as he continues. “She’s been training with Mags for weeks and she was a wicked healer even before then, when she pulled that icicle out of my chest. You were there Jasper, you’d know.”

A stony expression settles on Jasper’s features and I feel my expression fall. Not because of Jasper’s attitude, but because there is no way I’m going to heal these Recruiters.

“No,” I say immediately, surprising everyone. “We definitely need to go and get Mags. This healing requires working with their minds and I’ve mostly worked with physical wounds.”

Derek is looking at me with, I think concern, but before he can speak we hear a cough coming from our left. Saved by the bell! Or, in this case, cough. One of the Recruiters is awake.

“I suppose we have our first volunteer,” says Hank. He turns to me. “Gwen, could you please open his cell for us?”

I get the strangest feeling that this question, addressed to anyone else, would be an order. He’s giving me an out, a chance to leave. I appreciate what he’s trying to do but I did just, sort of, make a power play here with Jasper (even though I truly didn’t mean to) and walking away now would send the wrong message. I don’t start a fight and walk away, even ones I didn’t mean to start in the first place. I raise my hands and make the same swiping motion, the door opening for me immediately, and a man steps forward. He drags the Recruiter from his cell, he doesn’t protest, and moves him into the centre of the room towards the table. It’s an incredibly unpleasant sight and for a moment I regret my decision to stay. They get to the table and the man throws his defenceless prisoner down into the chair and begins fastening the shackles. The Recruiter cries out in pain with every click and then I hear a voice ring out through the room.

“Enough!”

Crap. That voice was mine. The Elemental Warrior looks up and my surprise at my own shout immediately turns to disgust and determination. It’s Howard, the warrior who ambushed me for Jasper a few weeks ago. I begin moving towards the table and I feel a hand close tightly around my wrist. I turn and see it’s Jasper who’s grabbed me.

“This is not your place,” he growls at me.

“I think it is,” interrupts Hank, glaring at Jasper in a way that would liquefy the kidneys of any mortal man. Hank takes hold of his wrist and pulls it away from mine, gesturing for me to go on. I’m going to take that as permission. With renewed confidence I move quickly towards Howard and the defenceless man that he probably sees as a new chew toy. I glare at him and he moves to Jasper’s side, both of them look like they’re about to explode. I don’t get distracted for long. I have much more important things to do right now. I pull out my kindest expression as I look to the man in front of me. He has brown hair, brown eyes and cheekbones that could probably cut glass.

“Can I please see your hands?” I ask him. He may be a prisoner, and I may be on the side of his captors, but that doesn’t give me the right to abandon my humanity and treat him as though he’s dirt. He has rights too. He looks warily up at me. He’s scared but he’s trying to hide it. After a moment I hear the rattle of the chains as he lifts his hands, wincing with every movement, and he reluctantly lays them upon the tabletop. Howard has tightened the shackles as far as he possibly can and the Recruiter’s hands are already dark purple. I’m surprised that he’s been able to remain silent; he must be in incredible pain. I reach down and he flinches away from me.

“It’s okay,” I say, trying my best to reassure him. “I promise I’m not going to cause you any more pain.”

I must have been convincing because he lays his hands back on the table. Slowly, I reach out and touch my fingers to the diamond cuffs. I loosen them and the colour begins to fade almost immediately as the blood begins to return. I don’t feel like that’s enough. I take his hands in mine and he gasps as my fingers begin to glow. I give him a small reassuring smile and when I’m finished I kneel on the floor and do the same with his ankle restraints. I can feel everyone’s eyes following me as I stand and take a seat in the chair on the opposite side of the table. They’re watching my every move, waiting to see what I do. I don’t care.

“What’s your name?” I ask, genuinely curious but also to start some sort of conversation.

He doesn’t answer me. I’m not going to push, I’ll just wait. He looks young, late teens at the oldest. Not much younger than me. Not that you can tell with Elementals, for all I know he was alive to build pyramids and bury King Tut. They all stop aging whenever their powers trigger. Or, I should say, WE stop aging. I’m an Elemental. I’m no longer aging. What a weird time to be struck by a thought like that? A few minutes pass and, either I wear him down or I freak him out with all the staring, and he speaks.

“Andrew,” he says. His voice is soft and kind of gravelly.

“Hello,” I smile shyly at him. I really don’t know what I’m doing, I’m no interrogator. “My name is Gwen.”

“We know who you are.”

“Okay. Who are ‘we’ exactly?” Let’s try and ease him into this, is that how you do it? I have no idea. My only frame of reference for this kind of thing is excessive Law and Order: SVU and NCIS binge marathons.

“You already know, that’s why we’re here isn’t it?” He sounds defiant, his attitude making an appearance.

“Your energy tells me that you’re a Recruiter, but I didn’t ask your energy Andrew, I asked you.”

He looks at me, a little thrown off, and eventually just shakes his head. I sigh.

“Just because your power comes from a place of darkness does not for a moment mean that I believe that you do,” I say. I have no idea where that came from; I’m just winging it here. It feels like it was the right thing to say though. I’ll just trust my gut and see where it takes me, it’s all I’ve done for weeks now and I think I’ve turned out alright so far.

Andrew looks completely stunned. I suppose when he woke up in that cell he expected a more hostile form of communication. He didn’t count on me.

“I am a Recruiter. I am now, and will always be, your enemy. You won’t fool me with this act. Whether you continue to show this fake kindness or let your henchmen show me pain, you won’t break me.” He’s nearly yelling towards the end. I think he’s trying to convince himself more than me and I start to see him clearly. He’s terrified and he lacks the conviction of his words. He isn’t a Recruiter by choice. He was forced into this and right now I am immensely grateful that something made me stay here and fend off Jasper and Howard. I need to earn his trust and a plan takes shape in my mind.

“You can see it like that if you wish, Andrew. You can act like this if you like but either way I won’t let anyone hurt you. We may not be able to let you go back to your people but that doesn’t mean that I am going to forego my humanity the way that Howard was so willing to do,” I glare at Howard and, just as I expected, he starts stomping back towards us. Hank and Jasper, who looks a lot calmer, make a move to stop him but that would interrupt my plan. I shake my head at them, subtly I hope, and speak quickly to their minds.

“Let him go. I have a plan to earn Andrews trust but for it to work I need Howard to make an arse of himself.”

They step back and Howard continues walking towards us. He gets to the table and leans down over me, trying to intimidate me. He’s playing his part perfectly.

“Listen to me you bitch! You don’t get to give the orders here and you sure as hell don’t get to be in control of this interrogation. I can do whatever the hell I want to these idiots! They’re Recruiters and they’re stupid for getting caught. They’re even more stupid for getting caught by you!” He finishes his tirade by jabbing his finger into my chest, I’ll probably have a bruise there later, and then he turns on Andrew.

“I’m going to ask you this once, and once only. It is in your best interest to answer me,” he pauses, probably for dramatic effect, before continuing. “What was your mission here?”

Andrew looks straight at me and shakes his head. Now that I’ve figured him out I can see the terror in his eyes.

“Fine,” says Howard. A wicked grin splits his face as he draws his arm back and aims a punch to the side of Andrew’s skull. It never makes contact, I make sure of that. I look into the air, locating all the water I can, and move it to form a solid block as a shield to protect Andrew. I freeze it into a solid block of ice just in time for Howard’s hand to strike it. The glow fades from the fractal patterns on my forearms as Howard’s scream echoes around the room. Andrew’s eyes are so wide I’m afraid they might fall out of their sockets and I can hear snickering coming from the group still waiting by the entrance. I look to see Derek, Hank and, surprisingly, Jasper trying to stifle their laughter.

“What the hell did you do?!” screams Howard, a look of pure rage on his face as he cradles his injured hand. I thought a solid block of ice suddenly forming to protect Andrew would be more obvious.

“You just heard me give Andrew my word that I wouldn’t allow any harm to come to him. I won’t break that promise for anyone, least of all you,” I tell him. My voice sounds cold even to my own ears.

A sudden flash of understanding shoots through to me from Hank and Jasper’s minds. They’ve caught onto my plan.

“I’m thinking it’s time for you to leave,” says Hank, barely hiding his amusement as Howard gawks at him. Jasper is staring Howard down. Howard shoots one last murderous glare at me over his shoulder before he stomps out the door.

“Are you alright?” I ask; turning my attention back to Andrew who still has shock written all over his face. It takes him a moment to get over it.

“Why did you do that? Why would you make an enemy out of someone on your side, just so that you could defend your actual enemy?” He’s completely bewildered and I have yet another epiphany; Andrew has not been witness to much kindness.

“Just because he fights on my side doesn’t mean that he’s my friend or that he’s a good person. Similarly, just because you fight on the side of my enemy does not mean that you’re actually a bad person.” I try to explain my actions to him but his expression just grows more confused.

“What about them?” he asks, jerking his chin in the direction of my friends. I telegraph one quick plea to my group before I respond;

“Please don’t make my next words a lie.”

I catch a few nods in my peripheral as I speak to Andrew.

“They’re my friends. They’ll show you the same respect that I do. The only time that I can see you getting hurt is if you decide to attack someone and they’re forced to defend themselves.”

He looks down at his hands for a while, clearly thinking. I let him have his time. A few minutes go by before he looks back at me, a look of acceptance on his face.

“We were sent here to watch you,” he finally says and it takes a lot of effort to supress a massive sigh of relief.

“Why?”

“I can’t say,” he says, suddenly looking uncomfortable.

“Can’t or won’t?” I ask, a little more forcefully than I intended.

“Can’t,” he says apologetically. “I wasn’t born into this. I didn’t choose this at all! I was captured five years ago and forced to be this monster! One of the leaders broke into my mind and, sort of, downloaded everything I needed to know to be his slave. I know why they’re so desperate to get to you but I’m physically incapable of telling you. It’s some kind of mind control and I can’t break it. They just programmed me to follow orders and to never be capable of revealing their secrets. Please believe me, if I could break this I would have escaped years ago. They’re such horrible people.”

He finishes and puts his head in his hands. It appears that I’ve opened up the flood gates and the damaged broken man that is Andrew has come tumbling out. I have nothing but sympathy left for him.

“I’m so, so sorry that they did that you,” I say, meaning every word. I shouldn’t be the only one to hear this. The others need to be part of this conversation too. “Andrew, would it be okay if my friends joined us? They won’t touch you and you don’t even have to speak to them if you don’t want to.”

He nods, telling me that it’s okay. Using the same earth magic that I used earlier to make a statue of Hank, I summon six chairs and, using air magic, I move the table to the other side of the room. Hank and Jasper take the seats on either side of Andrew, Oliver and Elijah take the seats that were at either end of the table and Derek and Anya take the seats beside me. Once everyone has taken a seat I flick my wrist before Andrew’s shackles and hear his shocked gasp as they unlock and fall to the floor. My friends look at me in surprise as Andrew rubs his wrists, but no one raises an argument.

“Can you tell us more about this mind control?” I ask.

“Does it even matter to you?” he responds.

“Of course it does!” I say; have I not shown him that I care yet? “We have someone here who specialises in Mentalism and she’s very powerful. The more we can tell her about what they did to you, the better the chance that she will be able to remove it.”

Panic and outright terror enter his eyes and it takes a second for me to understand why.

“Don’t panic. We’d only ever do that with your permission. No one is going to enter your mind unless you allow us to.”

“Oh, thank god,” he says, and his whole body relaxes making his relief obvious. “If it’s alright, I’d rather no one entered my mind at all. I’m not trying to be difficult, I swear, but I’ve had enough people messing about in my head.”

I’d be lying if I said his response wasn’t disappointing, but I understand completely. An image of the faceless man who toyed with my brain a few weeks ago flashes unwelcome in my mind.

“I understand completely,” I say, deciding to change the subject. “Can you tell me as much as you can about why they wanted you to watch me in particular?”

“I can try,” he says, screwing his face up in concentration before he continues. “They’re threatened by you. You have a lot of power and they hate that they weren’t able to get to you first. They tried, but you wiped the floor with the people they sent. They thought that taking you shortly after you got your powers would work, but they underestimated you. They won’t try and take you again until they have more information, which is why there are people watching you. They think that you are – AH!”

He begins to scream and his hands fly to his temples, gripping on for dear life. I watch as he falls from his chair and catch him just before his shoulder slams into the floor. He immediately curls up in pain, tucking his knees to his chest, still screaming. I kneel beside him, trying to talk to him and figure out what’s happening. The others have knelt too, but they are as lost as I am. It feels like forever before the screaming stops and he sits up, tears still wet upon his cheeks and still holding onto his head.

“I ch-change, m-my mind,” he manages to stutter. “I w-want this mind c-control gone!”

I help him to his feet and back into his chair. Using a little earth magic, and some of the diamond in this room, I fashion a glass and fill it with water from the air.

“What happened?” I ask as I hand him the diamond cup. He takes a few sips of water and tries to calm himself before he responds.

“That’s what happens when we get too close to revealing a piece of information that they want to keep locked away inside of our heads. It feels like an electric migraine and large spikes being drilled through the side of your skull,” he pauses and pins me with a look that’s just so broken and pleading. “Please, Gwen. Please help me, get inside my head and please end this.”