Magic of the Wood House (The Elemental Phases Book 6) (17 page)

Her
head tilted to one side.  “Do you believe you’re my Match?”

Frustrated
as he was, Sullivan didn’t want to insult her.  “I believe that
you
believe it.”  He temporized.

She
seemed stunned.  “Sullivan, did you even
try
to Phaze or…?”

The
doorbell rang before he could answer that.  Teja glowered towards it.  “Who’s
that?”  She demanded.  “The Council’s going to be looking for us, you know. 
You can’t invite people over.”

“I
seriously doubt intergalactic bounty hunters would use the bell.”  He headed over
to check who it was and then unbolted the lock.  “See?  It’s just my secretary,
not Boba Fett.”

“You’re…?” 
Teja stopped short as she saw Randa through the glass partition in the door.  Her
eyes narrowed.  “Randa, of the Stone House is your secretary?”

“Her
last name is ‘Goldrush,’ according to her W-2.”  He opened the door.  “Hello,
Randa.”

“Chief
Pryce.”  As usual, Randa looked like a down-on-her-luck Jackie Kennedy.  Good
breeding and perfect bone structure, under a layer of baggy clothing and lost
dreams.  “I’m glad to see you’re safe.  I’ve been concerned.”

“That’s
thoughtful of you.”  He muttered distractedly.  Randa was always professional
and she seemed wary whenever they weren’t in a public space.  If she’d come to
his house looking for him, he could only imagine the rumors she’d been
hearing.  Sullivan gestured for her to come inside, because whatever she had to
say it had to be better than listening to Teja dump him some more.  “I’ve been
having a strange couple of days.”

“So
it seems.”  Randa had never been in his home before.  She looked around the
antiseptic décor with obvious approval.  “This is very clean.”  She headed for
the sofa, ignoring Teja.  “Now, are you alright, Chief?”

“He’s
fine.”  Teja said sharply.

Randa
glanced at her and then turned back to Sullivan.  “Some Phases came to the
station looking for you.  I told them I hadn’t seen you since you went out for
tacos.  I strongly hinted they should try Mexico.”  She arched a brow.  “I got
the distinct feeling that they wanted to arrest you for something.”

Going
for tacos seemed like a lifetime ago.

“There
was a bomb in the Cold Kingdom.”  Sullivan explained with a sigh.  “Hopefully,
you know how the Elemental justice system works, because I might need a
lawyer.”

“Oh
dear.”  It was impossible to rattle Randa, but she did frown.  “Well, we’ll
have to clear that up for you.  It shouldn’t be difficult.  No one could
ever
believe that you’d do anything nefarious.  I’d be happy to testify that you are
--by far-- the most honorable man I know.”

“Isn’t
that sweet.”  Teja sneered and leaned a shoulder against the wall.  “Of course,
considering some of the men you’ve known, it’s not
such
a ringing
endorsement.  Didn’t your last lover try to end the world, Randa?”

“Parald
wasn’t my lover.”  Randa said flatly.  “He was just the man who locked me in a
cell.  When someone tells you to sleep with them or they’ll kill you, you sleep
with them.  That doesn’t mean you like it.”  She arched a brow.  “Only the Fire
House turns kidnapping into a dating service.”

“We
just kidnap our Matches.  No one else.”

“Then
explain why you took Chief Pryce hostage.  Some Phases may blame
him
for
this, Teja.  Did you even consider that?  He’s popular, but there are still
anti-human bigots out there.”

Sullivan
felt the need to defend Teja.  God knew why.  “That wasn’t her fault.  She
thought I was going to be her Match, but it didn’t work out.”

Teja
flashed him a glare.  “Because you’ve been sandbagging my efforts.”

He
scowled back at her, pissed off that she was still blaming him for ripping out
his heart.  “Maybe my emotions are frozen.”  He snapped.  “That excuse means I
never have to feel anything, right?”

Teja
didn’t appreciate that crack.  “You know, I’ve been wondering why you’re being
so difficult towards me.”  She looked pointedly at Randa.  “Maybe it’s because
you have the Stone House’s most famous
beauty queen waiting in the
wings.”

“Even
if that weren’t
epically wrong
… what the fuck do you care?”  He shot
back.  “You just told me to find a new girlfriend, didn’t you?”

Teja’s
jaw set so tightly it was a wonder her teeth didn’t crack.

Randa
squinted.  “Wait… Teja’s your girlfriend?  Elementals don’t
have
girlfriends.”

“Girlfriend. 
Match.  Whatever you want to call it, we broke up.  In fact, I’m not even sure
we were ever together.”

“You
weren’t saying that last night.”  Teja retorted.

“Last
night you hadn’t told me that I wasn’t good enough.”

“I
never said that!”  She shouted.  “That’s a complete lie and you know it,
Sullivan.  You’re twisting everything around, so
I’m
the one being
unreasonable.”

“You
are
fucking unreasonable!  You’re obsessed with energy, which I don’t
have!”

“Of
course you have it!  You don’t want to share it with me!”

Randa
looked more confused than ever.  “Teja, what exactly have you been telling
him?”

Teja
flashed her a distracted look.  “I told him the truth.  He’s my Match.  Then we
tried to Phaze, but he won’t even attempt to…”

Randa
cut her off in an unusually agitated tone.  “Did you explain what being a Match
means, though?”  She persisted.

“He
knows what it means!  He just doesn’t care.”

“He’s
saying you’re his girlfriend.  That’s not the same thing, at all.”  Randa
turned back to Sullivan.  “What does Phazing mean to you?”

“Sex.”

Teja
glanced at him sharply.

“So
you can Phaze with more than one person, do you think?”  Randa pressed.

Where
the hell was this going?  “Yeah.  I guess.”  He felt like he failing a test of
some kind.  “You do it with everyone you sleep with, right?  Your Matches or
whatever.”

“What?!” 
Teja sputtered.

Randa
sighed, her attention on Sullivan.  “You can have a lot of Matches, then?”

“Of
course.”

“So
when you ‘break up’ with one…”

“Then,
you ‘renounce’ them and move on to someone new.”  He sent Teja a pointed glare. 
“Which she’s trying to do, right now.”

Teja
slowly shook her head.  “Sullivan,
no
.  No to
all
of that.  Have
you gone crazy?”  She didn’t seem to know where to begin her complaints.  “To
start with, Phazing isn’t just sex.”

Sullivan
frowned.  “Nia told me that it was.”

Teja
made an aggravated sound.  “The fucking Water House is always trying to undermine
everything…”

“You
must have misunderstood Nia.”  Randa interjected.  “It’s hard for humans to
conceptualize, but Phazing is more than just humans exchanging DNA.  Ideally, it’s
an act that connects two people.  Their separate energies become one whole.  It
can only happen in a Phase-Match, so it’s very sacred to Elementals.”

Sullivan
hated meta-physical bullshit.  “Uh-huh.”  He looked over at Teja.  “Can you
translate that?”

She
looked pale.  “I thought you understood this.  You only have
one
Match. 
You don’t renounce them unless their evil or you’re crazy.  You only get one
person and they are
everything
to you.”

“It’s
a marriage, Chief Pryce.”  Randa interjected.  “A Phase-Match is what
Elementals consider marriage.  Even without Phazing, Teja sees you as her
husband
,
not her boyfriend.”

Sullivan
blinked once.  Twice.  “Oh.”  His mind emptied of every rational though.

...And
before he could think of single, intelligible thing to say, Sullivan found
himself standing in Teja’s memories.

Far be it
from me to say that in more elemental times such things could not have been.

Bram
Stoker-“The Lair of the White Worm”

Two
Years Before:  Day Four of the Fall

At
the end of the world, everyone was entitled to get a little drunk.

Even
the folks with sticks up their asses.

Zakkery,
of the Smoke House looked around the Earth Kingdom’s tavern and smirked without
any real humor.  After Job’s endless moralizing, Zakkery got a perverse
satisfaction out of seeing so many of the Earth King’s faithful subjects
drowning their fears in liquor bottles.

Job
was the High Seat of the Council and the leader of the Elementals.  He loved to
pass judgment on the lesser beings.  Yet, this was the last bar operating in
the entire realm, which was why Zakkery had been forced to come here.  All the
other pubs had been abandoned, the alcohol stolen from the shelves and consumed
by the gallon.  But, the Earth House tavern partied on.

Anyone
not inebriated or in a state of catatonic shock from the events of the last
four days, seemed to be praying.  As the plague tore through the Elemental
realm, churches became the only spots that still drew a crowd.  The reality of
impending death brought out three main reactions in the populous:  Foggy disassociation,
desperate reverence, or hedonistic freedom.

The
ones who had checked out seemed the happiest.  Unable to function as their
friends and families died, they just stopped processing the slaughter.  They
sat next to some corpse on the street, holding its stiffening hand and staring
at nothing.  Or they busied themselves with some crazy, meaningless task, like
doing laundry for people who were already dead.  Zakkery wasn’t lucky enough to
lose his mind, but he almost envied their ability to cocoon themselves from
reality.  It must have been peaceful.

The
righteous, meanwhile, saw the plague burning through the Elemental realm as a
chance to make one last sales pitch to Gaia.  They knelt beneath stained glass
portraits, lighting candles and begging for deliverance.  They listed their
good deeds and promised to do even more.  They prayed for immunity from the
disease or an end to their suffering.  They asked for help.  Those sad, pious
fools were kidding themselves, of course.

No
one was coming to save the world.  Not God or, Gaia, or Superman.

Zakkery
and all the unrighteous sons-of-bitches out there knew that this was the big
finale.  Drop the curtain.  Roll the credits.  No hiding from the usher and
staying in the theater for the twelve o’clock show.  The end.  This was the
last hurrah before the end of days actually ended, so you might as well enjoy
yourself.

In
a way, it was liberating.  No one was enforcing laws or following rules.  If
you wanted something, you could just take it.  If you didn’t like someone --and
they weren’t already dead-- you could give the plague a helping hand.  Society
itself broke down as the plague spread.  For people like Zakkery, who never
much liked society anyway, the dystopia was one last chance to have a little
fun before the lights went out.

Figuratively,
anyway.

In
a literal sense, the lights had already been out for days.  This sort of
blackout could only mean that the Electricity House was falling on a
catastrophic level.  They usually sustained the power for all the Phases,
providing the electrical currents for lamps and TVs and blenders.  Since the
plague had started killing everybody, though, they’d really been falling down
on the job.  No ice for your drinks, these days.

Off
in the distance, Zakkery could see the Fire House’s huge funeral pyres
burning.  Again and again, he found himself looking towards the flames.  They
drew him.  The flickering, twisting light would have been atmospheric, if it
weren’t for the smell of the burning bodies.  The stench permeated the entire
realm.  Not even alcohol blotted it out completely.

No
matter how hard people worked at it.

It
took a lot for Elementals to achieve DUI levels of inebriation.  Their bodies
metabolized alcohol differently than the humans’, so they needed bottles instead
of glasses before they started slurring words and staggering when they walked. 
Still, it
could
be done.  As the death toll crept higher and higher, a
lot of Phases seemed determined to prove the philological possibility of
getting flat-ass wasted.

That
worked for Zakkery.

The
past four days had shown him that nothing mattered.  Not that he’d ever had a
lot of faith in some greater purpose to it all.  He’d always known this world
was just one long practical joke.  He was just sorry that he had nobody to
share it with.

By
nature, Zakkery was a social person.  He liked having someone to talk to. 
Sadly, being Banished from Elemental society severely cut down on his
opportunities for hanging out with other people.  Technically, he was forbidden
from even entering this realm.  The Fall meant that no one much cared about
that law, though, so he figured he might as well take advantage of the new open
door policy.  No sense in spending Armageddon alone.

He
didn’t recognize anyone in the bar, but one of the women present
had
to
be up for some end-of-the-world sex.  Zakkery had few redeeming qualities, but
he’d always been a good looking son-of-a-bitch.  With ebony hair, smoke-colored
eyes, and the face of a fallen angel, he’d spent his whole life attracting
attention.  Before he’d been Banished, he’d been voted the handsomest man in
the realm.  Granted, he’d slept with the head judge of that contest, but only
after
she tallied up the score.

Zakkery
wasn’t a cheater.

Sure
enough, a tipsy Energy Phase with a double-D chest and a rhinestone tiara
perked on her head smiled at him from the other end of the bar.  See?  Just
because everyone was going to die, didn’t mean the celebration was over.

Before
Zakkery could head towards the willing stranger, though, a Time Phase entered
the picture and fucked up his apocalypse.

He
barely noticed her, at first.  One quick glance assured him that she wasn’t his
type, at all, so he’d been prepared to dismiss her from his mind.  Zakkery
couldn’t be sure of her actual age, but she seemed terminally young, with an
innocent face and a golden-blonde ponytail tied with a bow.  Her poufy dress
was covered in a vivid pattern of cartoon snakes swallowing their own tails to
form hundreds of infinity symbols.  If she’d been born a human, he would have
guessed that she’d just escaped some sorority party.  She looked like a real
sweet kid.

Zakkery
didn’t do sweet.

He
automatically gave her a flirtatious wink --Because, too sweet or not, she was
still a female-- and started for the voluptuous Energy Phase.

The
Time Phase shifted to block him.  “Hey, Zakk.”  She said as if he was her long
lost brother.  “You won’t remember this yet, but I’m Daphne.”

The
sound of his nickname caused him to jolt.  No one called him Zakk anymore and
no one in this bar knew him, at all.  In every way that mattered, no one
anywhere
knew him.  So who the hell was this petite stranger?

Zakkery
forgot about getting the Energy Phase into bed.  All his focus centered on
Daphne, trying to place her.  He knew he’d never met her before.  The power
this Time Phase gave off was like nothing he’d ever felt, so he’d remember if
he’d encountered it.  But she
did
seem familiar.  Like he
should
know her.

Like
she was his… friend.

Except,
Zakkery no longer had any friends.

Daphne
gave him a wide smile as he studied her.  “Buy me a drink.”  She ordered and
sat down at the bar.  “Or, hell, don’t bother.  I’ll just take yours.”

As
she hoisted herself up onto a stool, Zakkery’s eyes went to her cowboy boots.  They
were made of some bizarre silver material that he couldn’t identify.  As he
watched, the odd leather seemed to change color like a lava lamp.  No fashion
designer in the world could make something like that.

At
least, not in this century.

The
hair on his arms stood up as thing began to make sense.  Zakkery didn’t go
around advertising his IQ, but he’d never been a stupid man.  His mind quickly
zeroed in on the truth.

“You’re
from the future.”  He whispered.

“No
shit.”  She agreed and leaned over to grab his beer.

“Which
means there must
be
a future and I --what?-- know you in it?”

“Now
you’re getting it.”  She took a swallow from his glass and made a face.  “It’s
warm
. 
Jesus’s cats.  This is
for sure
my least favorite time to visit.”

Zakkery
still wasn’t sure how this was possible.  “You can time jump without dying?” 
As far as he knew, Time Phases only got a single, fifty-two second window to go
into the past.  Then, they exploded into dust.  It was a suicide mission that
very few of them ever signed up for.

“Is
that really a question?”  She rolled her eyes.  “Come on.  If this was a one
way trip for me, would I really be spending it
here?
”  She gestured
around the bar.  “You’re usually smarter than this, Zakk.  Try to keep up.” 
She snapped her fingers at him.  “We’re on a schedule here.”

“All
I’m doing today is getting drunk and getting laid.”  He had his whole evening
planned and he didn’t plan to let anything distract him.  …Except, a time
traveling blonde was way more interesting than the Energy Phase had been.  He
found himself sitting down next to Daphne.  “What’s the future like?”  He asked
before he could stop himself.

“Chaotic.” 
She said shortly.  “And it’s getting worse all the time.  Part of that is my
fault, but --don’t worry-- I’m fixing it.”  She paused.  “
We’re
fixing
it.  That’s why I’m here.  I need your help.”

“How
did you even find me?”

She
grinned at him.  “You told me you’d be here, of course.  I mean, would anyone
else know?”

Maybe
he was already drunk, because that sort of made sense.  “So… we’re friends?”

“You’re
my best friend.”  She said simply.  “We’re partners in this.”

“In
what?
”  He asked, still suspicious.  But the idea of having a best
friend was so fucking appealing, he found himself wanting to believe her.  “How
can I be sure this isn’t a trick?”

“You
wrote you a letter.”  She reached into her pocket and pulled out an envelope. 
“I imagine it lays out the reasons you should trust me.  Aside from my
wholesome good looks, of course.”

He
recognized his own writing across the seal.  It said, “Do Not Open Unless You’re
Me.”  Already knowing that this was going to lead to badness, he ripped it open
and scanned the contents.

Shit.

Daphne
picked up his beer, again.  “You might want to skip to the part where I’m going
to save your Match.”  She suggested pleasantly.  “It lessens the sting of the
rest.”

Shit.

Zakkery
stared at the words for a moment, but only one sentence mattered:

Our
Match will die and Daphne can save her.

Conflicting
emotions swept over him, but the words were too powerful to resist.  He’d never
thought he’d find his true Match.  It would be better if he didn’t.  He knew
that.  He’d been in love once and he had no desire to ever repeat the
experience.  But, to have his Match dangled in front of him…  The one person no
one could take…  The woman who was born to be his…

Well,
he’d never been any good at resisting temptation.

“Shit.” 
Zakkery gave into the inevitable and shoved the letter into the pocket of his
jeans.  He wasn’t sure what he planned to do with a Match, but --hell-- he’d
done stupider things, for far less of a reward.  He might as well hear the Time
Phase out, right?  “What do you want from me?”

“I
want you to help me help the Fire House.”

Zakkery
felt a moment of relief.  Well, that wasn’t so bad.  He liked Oberon.  The guy
was the only Council member who hadn’t voted to Banish him.  The Fire King said
he saw potential in Zakkery. 
Potential
.  Zakkery had never forgotten
that word.  No one else had ever noticed anything special about him, so he owed
Oberon one.

“Sure.” 
Zakkery agreed readily.  “We can help the Fire House.  Like right now or…?”

“Tomorrow. 
Teja is going to do something stupid and you need to stop it.”  She nodded to
the envelope in his hand.  “Just follow the instructions in the letter.”

“Anything
else?”

“Well,
in two years, I’m going to need you to spread some rumors about this human
named Sullivan Pryce.  Tell the Air House, and every other bad guy out there,
that he has the Happiness box.”  She leaned closer to him.  “See, I can’t find
the damn thing.  I’m hoping that the Fire Phases will do the leg work for me,
if I motivate them.  Siccing a cat-load of assassins on Teja’s Match should do
the trick.”