The Elementals: The Rise of the Deviants

Chapter 9

Chapter nine

“A pretty, pretty boogieman angel!”

Cameron, Helena, Evanesce, Chimera and I stood in a row watching Blake roll around in the mud talking complete nonsense in his delirious state. “How long do you think this will last for?” Cameron asked amusedly.

“I believe it has something to do with the size and amount of spikes that pierces the skin...” Evanesce murmured, staring at Blake with a raised brow.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, think about it” Chimera spoke up, “Helena’s effects lasted the shortest and the spike that pierced her throat was only small while Derrek had several hit him and his effects lasted quite long. Now Blake... well look at the size of the spike that was lodged in his ankle...”

I looked down at the spike that been dislodged from Blake once he started dancing and prancing and noted the size. It was nearly the size of my forearm and as thick as my wrist where as the spikes that were shot at me were the size of my palm. Helena’s were barely half the length of my pinkie and both hers and mine weren’t as thick. When I looked at it that way, Chimera and Evanesce had a good point. I tried to think of the amount of poison that would have injected itself into Blake from the size of the spike and shivered. Helena was lucky it wasn’t her that was hit with a spike that big, otherwise she’d be dead.

I tore my gaze away from Blake and looked farther down the muddy path. As another flash of lightning brightened the sky it illuminated a large castle-like building and I swiped at the rain falling into my eyes to squint at it.

There.

Malum and our friends had to be there.

Whether it was my disintegrating Stinger abilities or just a gut instinct I just knew that they were there. Knots twisted in my stomach as the wind picked up and the rain never wavered with its merciless pounding. I turned back to the others and saw them huddled together... just waiting for Blake to overcome the effects of the poison.

It was another five minutes before Derrek’s dancing and mud-swimming stopped and his singing slowed down and began to slur that we knew he was finally coming around. By now he was nothing but mud, with the exception of his eyes and mouth, and the rest of us were drenched with rain and splattered with the mud he found hilarious in throwing at us, except the shadow girls who had already changed back into the shadow.

“My head kills...” Blake moaned clutching at his temple and ankle. “And my leg feels like I broke it”

“Stop whinging, Frosty! We spent the last who knows how long waiting for the poison to run out and right now I’m about two seconds away from blasting your head off!” I snapped. The girls refused to let me throw a couple of fireballs at Blake during the wait and I was anxious to find Val. Not only that but the rain had severely weakened me and no amount of heating and evaporating the rain was worth the element of surprise we had over Malum at the moment. If we still had it.

“I’m just saying...” Blake moped.

“Come on! I want to get out of this rain!” Cameron growled.

Blake limped lightly over to Helena and offered a smile before she swiped her hand as though shooing away a fly and the mud flew off him like it had never even been there. We all turned towards the castle and began our somewhat long walk with determination. Who knew what Malum had up his sleeve and what disfigured or shocking Elementals and people he had roaming and locked up in that castle.

For ten minutes we trudged through knee deep trenches of mud and sludge while all our clothing clung to us and the clouds cried desperately above but nothing, nothing, could wipe the determination away from me. We were so close. So, so close to saving the girls and finding Malum that I could practically taste it. I didn’t care that the rain had drained me physically and ability-wise, or whether everyone else was complaining or moping. Like a dead man walking towards the light I kept pushing forward with clenched teeth and tight jaws.