Sorcerer: Elemental: Power of Air (Book 5) Read online

  Sorcerer: Elemental

  Power of Air (Book 5)

  Author: D. L. Harrison

  Copyright 2016. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Afterword:

  About the Author

  Other books by D. L. Harrison:

  Book Description

  Chapter 1

  Wednesday, July 6th, 2016, 9:43 AM

  It was a hot day. The mild summer had given way to the high nineties. It was absolutely miserable out thanks to the humidity factor, being outside felt like breathing soup. Luckily for me, I was a sorcerer and it wasn’t bothering me at all. It was child’s play to leach the heat from the air between my shields and skin as I walked down the street. I’d gotten a vision earlier, and would have to deal with it myself, there wasn’t time to call anyone else.

  I walked into the bank that was about to be robbed, and looked around. Normally bank robberies wouldn’t even be on my radar, and on the off chance I ever got stuck in one, I’d honestly most likely just ignore it. Not from callousness, I just had enough on my plate dealing with the supernatural world. I couldn’t play super hero.

  Thing was, I wasn’t here for the robbery itself, at least not directly.

  I was here for Monique Washington, a six-year-old child that was about to become a human shield, and then a hostage, and finally, never to be seen again. Simply because the bank robber would get careless and allow her to see his face.

  I couldn’t allow that to happen.

  While the world of the normal humans wasn’t mine to police, it was a habit to interfere where kids were involved, specifically kidnappings. It was a habit I just wasn’t willing to give up.

  Not to mention what would happen to her mother, shot in the crossfire between a security guard and the culprit. She would bleed out and die before help could arrive. Ironically, the security guard would be just fine, after two surgeries and a couple of weeks at the hospital, followed by a few months of physical therapy.

  I’d considered simply moving the girl and her mother with a few persuasive words, and if that didn’t work, I could outright mesmerize them to get them to move away from the wall that would be bathed in bullets very shortly. The problem was, that wouldn’t work, the guy already had decided to use her as a hostage if the police arrive before he could leave. That meant my only real option was stopping the robbery itself.

  I read the man in front of me, Martin Sorrentino. He had a sob story, and a hard life. I felt sorry for him a bit, but then I knew plenty who’d had it worse growing up. Who in fact had gotten even more screwed by the system, and who hadn’t turned to bank robbery, or taken to hiding behind little girls. So that feeling wasn’t much of an excuse for his future actions, at all. I simply noted it, and felt a small amount of compassion, I could relate. He was also on parole, which admittedly I couldn’t relate to.

  I mesmerized him with a thought, and put him under compulsion to turn himself in to the police. He wouldn’t go to jail for twenty years for armed robbery, since he didn’t actually rob the bank, but he would end up doing another five-year stretch for violating his parole by carrying a gun. I wasn’t sure how right what I’d just done was, but I knew little Monique and her mother wouldn’t have argued about the morality of it. I stayed a few minutes after Martin left, and then went out the door and back toward my office.

  This was my new thing, apparently I saved kids before the kidnapping these days. Oh, I still did it the other way around too, when Mike or Aiya called me for a lead in a case where the trail had gone cold. Or a concerned parent or sibling came to visit in the office. But for me, and my visions, over the last month I’d been nipping them on the bud before it even happened…

  It’s been around a month since I’ve taken over running the city’s supernatural population, or perhaps more accurately, since the city has been running me. So far I’ve been lucky enough not to have to kill anyone, and I’m dreading it when the time comes. I suppose I owe my reputation for that, killing two thirds of the vampire council had the city’s vampires walking on eggshells.

  Still, I’d never had qualms about self-defense. When I’m protecting my own life, or the life of another, I felt fairly justified killing a rabid rogue werewolf, or a vampire that got their jollies from killing humans. Self-defense, I never lost a wink of sleep over it, not since the first time anyway.

  I also understood on an intellectual level, those that risk exposure, and disregard the secrets of our world, were playing with fire. They might start a war between humans and the supernatural races, and they usually were unbalanced in other ways as well. They needed to be put down. I really got that, and agreed with it. But… I’d never had to do that. In my heart, I knew there was a big difference between self-defense, and an execution for crimes against the supernatural world.

  But that was my job now. Chicago was mine to police, at least when it came to supernatural beings who’d break our most sacred rule. I understood the need, but I also dreaded it in my heart.

  My magic hadn’t increased since that day above Tara’s store, when I’d fed my power to Aitheria and learned some truths, but some things come easier now.

  Much easier.

  My magic is more responsive and sensitive to my smallest desire, which requires greater control on my part, a disciplined mind. My air traveling is even faster now, a little less than three second to get from Chicago out to the suburbs.

  That’s somewhere around twenty miles a second. Roughly, I never actually got out a calculator and precisely looked at the distances and time involved.

  My fire abilities have improved as well, I can see the connections between others without effort, and in a way it actually takes effort to not see them now. The only thing that hasn’t become easier is the visions, if anything they’ve gotten worse, and I’ve failed to control them every time. Luckily, I’ve only gotten one every three days or so, the rest of it has been just pulling information which works the way it always had. After each vision I always feel wrung out and need sleep, although thankfully it hasn’t knocked me out yet.

  My enemies were still out there, I have no doubt they’re still preparing, but they haven’t attacked yet. I’ve had a month to prepare, practice, and plan. I couldn’t imagine I’d be given much more time than that, but I wasn’t in a hurry either.

  As for my soul mate bond with Aitheria, I’ve come to terms with the idea of it. I’ve also accepted I don’t completely understand it yet. I couldn’t deny that I loved Aitheria, she’d been my companion for life, but it wasn’t a mortal love, there was no physical component to it. It was… like the devotion and love toward family, but not quite that either because there was a kind of intimacy, a close sharing. Still, that was closer to the truth than any other description I could give.

  Plus, Sierra didn’t have a problem with it, so it seemed foolish for me to do so, or to waste time worrying over it.

  It was hard to believ
e it had just been a year since I got my powers back that night on my twenty first birthday, and I’d found out what I was. My birthday was in just three weeks, so in one way things had moved so much faster than I expected. That was my fault of course, for not keeping a low profile. At the same time, it’d been incredibly frustrating, and there were so many things I still didn’t understand or know yet.

  Not about my elemental powers, that I was content to learn in time. It was all about my enemies, who they were, why they were after me, and all the rest of it.

  I walked into my building and on my way up to the office I felt Kira Downs, the reporter, up in my office. I wondered what she was doing there, I’d given her a compulsion last time not to chase me down for stories anymore. When I reached for the information, I had to suppress a chuckle. Her visit had nothing to do with a story. Her younger sister had gone missing.

  Chapter 2

  Wednesday, July 6th, 2016, 10:08 AM

  Kira was standing by my door when I got upstairs, wearing a pair of jean shorts, and a clingy shirt. She was an attractive woman. She’d have to be to get a field reporter position. She had golden blonde hair, blue eyes, and a heart shaped face. She carried herself well, was willowy, and looked good on camera, and off for that matter.

  I didn’t think she held a candle to Sierra, though I might have been biased about that.

  She looked nervous, not about me, but worried about her younger sister.

  I opened the door and waved her in. I decided to put her out of her misery, the young reporter was in turmoil.

  “Take a seat, Karla is safe by the way, do you want a drink?”

  The usually graceful woman almost tripped over her own feet when I said her sister’s name, but she caught herself and slipped into the chair in front of my desk. She looked up at me, obviously wanting to question me about my statement, but she took a deep breath and answered my question instead.

  “Coffee? I know you have some.”

  I laughed lightly and said, “I am a bit of a coffee addict.”

  I walked over to the sideboard and poured a couple of cups from the vacuum sealed coffee pot. It was still hot, so I just added a little cream and sugar and handed her a cup before I sat behind my desk with mine.

  Kira asked nervously, “Karla’s really okay?”

  I nodded, and took a sip. Kira mirrored me and waited pretty patiently for me to answer. She had… poise under pressure.

  I had no desire to make her wait or drag things out, but I took a moment to read a little bit more about her life, and reached out with the power of air.

  Kira had been twenty and a junior in college, when her mother died in an accident. Her father had been absent from the picture since she was five, so he was no help. She’d found herself with an eleven-year-old sister to raise, and had impressively met the challenge, even while she finished college and then pursued her career. That was seven years ago now.

  “She’s fine. Just… you’re not going to like it, but it’s also not as bad as you think.”

  She gave me a pleading look, so I went on.

  “Bart isn’t such a bad guy, and he’s really going to make her happy.”

  The blood drained from Kira’s face, “That young man is a…”

  I held up a hand to stop her diatribe, “He’s her husband, as of two hours ago. They ran off to Vegas to elope as soon as Karla turned eighteen. They’re staying at the Hilton, and will be back here tomorrow night.”

  They’d only had enough cash for a one-night honeymoon.

  I was really trying my best not to laugh. It wasn’t at all funny to Kira. She was convinced her baby sister was throwing her life away, but in this case it wasn’t true.

  Strangely, I was positive he’d be a good husband, and father. The information was all there, in the future. He’d do his best to keep Karla happy, and wouldn’t bail when kids came along, which was something Kira’s and Karla’s father had been unable to do.

  Clearly though, Kira wasn’t happy at all about it. Hopefully she wouldn’t fight it so hard, all she’d accomplish would be putting a rift between her and her sister, who she loved like a daughter. That part I wasn’t sure about at all, maybe because it could still go either way?

  Still, it was rather precipitous to run off and get married at eighteen to your high school sweetheart, but this just happened to be one of the few times it would actually stick, and work. One of the exceptions that proved the rule.

  Kira frowned, “Why Vegas?”

  I shrugged, “Fast and cheap. Plus, I think she was worried you’d find out if she did it here, you have all those contacts down at the courthouse, and there’s that waiting period involved.”

  She was kind of in a daze, so I was patient and just drank some of my coffee while she processed this.

  Kira finally said, “They’ll be back here tomorrow night then?”

  I nodded, “Yes, and I know Bart is… colorful right now. But he will step up in a big way, it’s not as bad as you think.”

  Bartholomew Cross, he was kind of a hell raiser, or he had been in high school.

  Kira’s eyes narrowed, and I saw her reporter instincts kick in. I’d told her many times my psychic power only worked on kidnap victims and missing children, and that I couldn’t control it. She was wondering how I knew about Bart if that was true, and I decided I’d said enough. I suppose I was just a sucker, because I hadn’t wanted her to be so worried. It also occurred to me I hadn’t even mentioned money, or even charging her at all.

  That was interesting, maybe I thought about her as too close to treat like a customer. Which was weird, because she wasn’t a friend, just an acquaintance, and one I didn’t particularly like either. Probably that hero complex I had. Beautiful upset woman, equals me being an idiot trying to make her happy.

  Kira asked the expected question, “How do you know that?”

  “Know it? I guess I don’t. When I felt where she was, it just seems like a good thing. I don’t get any bad vibes, like she’s making a mistake. On the contrary, I get the feeling she’s exactly where she needs to be at this time in her life. I trust that feeling.”

  Hopefully that was vague and mystical sounding enough to get her reporter instincts to lie back down. Psychics said that kind of general crap about life all the time in the movies and books. I really didn’t want to have to whammy her again if I could help it. I didn’t have a problem with a compulsion when it was necessary, but I had qualms over using it at the drop of a hat. Especially when it was my own mental laziness that caused the problem to begin with. I should have guarded my tongue better.

  Kira who was clearly unconvinced about Bart’s goodness asked, “Fine, what do I owe you?”

  I smiled, “Don’t run a story on it, and we’ll call it even.”

  I knew there was no way in hell she’d run a story on her own sister, but she seemed to appreciate the sentiment. She seemed grateful even, deep underneath her consternation, and she finished her coffee in a few quick swallows. We said our goodbyes and she moved out with a purpose. I had a feeling she’d be tracking them down at the hotel, no matter what I’d said about it being a good thing. Maybe I shouldn’t have given her the hotel name, although honestly, that would have only slowed her down for a half hour tops.

  I was also just as sure the newlyweds would be way too busy to answer the phone.

  Chapter 3

  Wednesday, July 6th, 2016, 10:32 AM

  She ghosted in as I filled my cup, and finished off the pot of coffee. She was dressed in a woman’s suit. Black pencil skirt, a black jacket that conformed to her womanly curves and was open down to her navel, with a yellow strapless shirt underneath it that clung to her body like a second skin. She had on a pair of two inch heeled shoes.

  Her hair was a gorgeous and shiny blue black, her eyes a warm gray color, and her beautiful face wouldn’t have gone amiss in a modeling magazine. We’d grown a bit closer over the last month, from trusted business associates to a true friendship. She’d been su
rprised when I gifted her with earrings so she could contact me if she was in trouble, and that seemed to be the point when we started to grow closer.

  She’d never been afraid of me, past the night we met anyway, but now she was even more comfortable in my presence. Considering what I was, and the stories about sorcerers, that was a rare thing. Even better, she got along with my mate very well, which in our world was odd. The whole vampire and werewolf thing with opposing elements.

  She looked nothing like Diana, but I’d always felt a twinge of pain and remembrance for the first supernatural I’d ever met outside of Aitheria whenever we got together. Still, they weren’t that similar, it was merely because they were both vampires, and both worked with me as the contact person for the vampire world. Even that wasn’t the same though, since Caroline reported to me, not the other way around.

  I also didn’t feel awkward around her at all, despite her beauty. I still got twinges of that, when I met a beautiful woman I didn’t know. But considering I was mated to one, and was friends with several others, it just didn’t bother me anymore. Especially when I knew them well enough.

  I didn’t pull any information, I preferred to speak to friends without foreknowledge when possible, plus even an air sorcerer deserves to be surprised on occasion.

  “Caroline, I can put on another coffee for you?”

  She shook her head and smiled, “I’m good, thanks. I have news. Good and bad.”

  I turned my head and smiled at her, “Good first please.”

  “Tim found a job, and is toeing the line. He is… grateful for the mercy of a second chance.”

  I sighed, I didn’t pull the information, but I still had a guess as to what the bad news would be.

  “Alright, hit me with it.”

  She replied, “Mark is gone. He complained about your sentence almost constantly the last month, and we think he took off last night.”

  I took a sip of coffee a I pulled that information. Mark was definitely running.