“Summon the storm. I know you’re thinking about it.” She didn’t sound entirely confident in my abilities.
“Well, maybe. I mean, what better time to try? We don’t usually get many thunderstorms, and it just seems like it might be a good chance to flex my magical muscles.” I stepped away from her, gauging my position. We had several tall trees in the yard and I didn’t want to send one crashing through our roof. But the drive to try, now that I’d thought of the idea, seemed overwhelming, and I was determined to see if I could at least coax one measly bolt of lightning out of the sky. I wanted to be cautious, though, because I remembered all too well the shape Raven had been in when the lightning had forked through her body.
“Let’s see…I don’t want to call it down to the ground, I just want to jiggle it loose, to see it flash,” I said to myself, frowning at I ran over how to do that. Raven did it via incantations, but she was a witch. I wasn’t—not really. Not in the same way.
“I wonder…” I closed my eyes, reaching out, searching for any water elementals that might be riding the winds, caught up on the currents of air. When it was pouring rain, sometimes you could find a rogue elemental, caught up by the energy. Usually, water elementals stuck to bodies of water, even though it might be one as small as a puddle. But the majority were found in rivers, ponds, lakes, and the ocean.
I searched, looking for any sign that an elemental might be nearby. And then, as I sorted through the various energies filling the airstream, I found what I was looking for—the signature of a water elemental. I snagged hold of it, searching, trying to follow it back to the source. Sometimes, finding the source of something meant that I’d be able to figure out how to manipulate it—especially anything to do with water.
The energy was thick on the clouds now, rolling through the atmosphere, approaching the tops of the trees. That meant the storm was close. I wasn’t sure whether to call out, or just wait and see. But a sudden gust of wind caught me up and I found the thread of the elemental, the strand leading to its consciousness. It was riding a gust of wind, and the freedom made me want to jump aboard, to join it, and go gallivanting over the treetops.
Hello, I whispered. Can you hear me?
After a moment, a long slow breath answered. Hello…Sister Water. Who are you?
My name is Ember. I’m part Leannan Sidhe. I felt you nearby and wondered about the storm. Is it viable? Sentient?
Sometimes storms were sentient, in which case the best choice was to leave them alone, because a sentient storm usually brooked no interference and, beyond that, they were almost always dangerous and wildly unpredictable.
The storm is a storm. It holds no consciousness. It’s simply passing through.
Well, that was good news. I frowned, trying to gauge how strong the lightning was. If it had not yet built up sufficient power, it would fizzle and I could disperse the storm altogether. If it was strong enough, then I could grab hold of the bolt and aim it.
I held out my arm. The hairs were standing straight up, and my hair felt all a-frizz. “All right, Angel, move back. Get out of the way because I’m going to try to call down a bolt.”
She quickly backed away. “I still think you’re crazy. Just be careful? Please?”
Nodding, I turned to face the street. I reached out, searching for the next bolt that was readying itself. There it was. I focused on it, trying to figure out how to trigger it. Then, I saw the structure of the bolt, and something very like a fulcrum. One side was weighing down, heavier than the other, and I understood that if I pushed just a little harder, it would overload it, triggering the lightning bolt. So I exerted all the force I could, focusing on pushing those scales beyond the breaking point.
The next moment, a brilliant light flashed as a loud rumble echoed through the air. Lightning split the sky directly overhead as the thunder sent me to my knees. Angel screamed and dove to the side, rolling away as the bolt hit the ground between us, plunging deep into the earth.
“Holy fuck, Ember! What the hell are you playing with?” Angel