Episode 53: Mixed Elements and Major Head-Pain
- Crystal Crawford
- May 2
- 6 min read
Updated: May 3
“Something sharp?” I asked.
“Just something I can prick each of their fingers with,” Trenchcoat Man said. “I only need a drop of blood from each type of elemental. They carry their elemental magic in their blood, and I need to mix the four types.”
Right. Because that was a normal, everyday thing to do.
“And what exactly will happen when you mix them?” Collin asked.
Trenchcoat Man looked at him and shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve done this before, but in the best-case scenario, it will create a counter-surge of power that will destabilize the orb so it can’t drain them any further. If I’m correct in my theory that this orb is what’s powering the dampening wards on this place, then once the orb is shut down, the wards might go down with it and I can travel us all out of here.”
“And in the worst-case scenario?” Lockley asked.
Trenchcoat Man winced. “The blood might explode when the magic types mix. But I’m only taking a drop from each—it should at least be a small, contained explosion.”
We all stared at him.
“Are you sure about this, Marshall?” my dad asked.
Trenchcoat Man turned to him. “That it will do what we need it to? Not in the slightest. But that it won’t kill any of us? About 99.9%. It shouldn’t even hurt anyone, as long as you all stand back. I’ll move over by the outer door to mix them.”
“What about you?” Dad asked.
Trenchcoat Man shrugged. “I’ll be fine. Besides, we don’t have many other options.”
My dad studied him, then nodded. “Okay, let’s try it. How can we help?”
“Just something to take the blood with—something sharp. I can handle the rest.”
I glanced at my dad. “You probably have something in your briefcase, right?” He still had his briefcase with him, though it was probably waterlogged, and he’d produced a gadget for so many other scenarios.
But he shook his head.
“There’s not a gadget for this?” I asked my dad. I was honestly surprised.
“The gadgets I’ve got are mostly round or disc-shaped. Nothing has sharp edges.” Dad shrugged. “Maybe the briefcase itself, if there’s no better option—the locking mechanism has straight edges, but they’re all pretty smooth, not sharp.”
I turned to Jillian. “Nail clippers?”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “You think I just carry those around?”
I started to argue that lots of girls did, but I didn’t have nail clippers on me, either.
“I have a pocket kni—” Collin started, but when he reached into his pocket, his expression fell. “Oh. It must’ve fallen out in the whirlpool thing.”
I was impressed he even carried a pocket knife.
It made me think I should start carrying a pocket knife.
“Maybe we could smash that vial the woman gave you,” Jillian suggested, “then use a shard of glass.”
“That’s a good idea.” I grabbed the vial from where I’d set it next to Chloe’s cell.
“Everyone stand back.”
Chloe scooted away from the barred door of her cell and the others took a few steps back.
I chucked the vial at the floor as hard as I could.
It bounced, then rolled into the small gap underneath one of the other barred doors—unbroken. Apparently, I hadn’t needed to take a knee-dive to keep it from breaking.
It clattered to a stop next to one of the unconscious supernaturals, inside his locked cell.
“I think I can reach it,” Lockley said.
“It still might not break,” I said. “Wait. I think I have a pencil sharpener in my backpack.” I slid my soggy backpack off to unzip it—and had a moment of panic as I realized how wet it had gotten in our fall… but everything inside the backpack was surprisingly dry.
Whatever waterproof layer the manufacturers had put inside this thing, I might write a letter later to thank them—if we all survived this.
I dug out my pencil sharpener and held it up to Trenchcoat Man. “Maybe you could use the blade.”
He took it from me and turned it over, looking at it. “Yes, I think I could. Thank you.” He popped off the part that catches shavings and handed it to me, then dropped the rest of the sharpener on the floor and stomped on it with his boot.
The plastic shattered, leaving jagged edges of hard plastic and a partially exposed metal blade. He would have his choice of what to jab fingers with.
He picked up the sliver of metal, then looked up at me. “Can I have that lid part back? I need something to catch the blood in.”
I winced at the thought, then handed it back to him. “Uh, sure.”
“Thank you,” he said again.
He was oddly polite for someone about to take blood from unconscious people’s fingers, but I just nodded. “Mm-hmm. You’re welcome.”
Trenchcoat Man hurried to the farthest cell in the semicircle—the one with the dark-haired guy who looked to be in his twenties—and knelt down by the door. He reached in and pulled the guy’s hand out, then lifted one of the guy’s fingers and carefully pricked it with the edge of the metal blade.
A small drop of blood bubbled up. Trenchcoat Man collected it in the sharpener lid, then set the guy’s hand back down.
“One down,” he said, looking up at us. “Three more to go.”
He hurried around the semicircle, repeating the process with two more elementals. He skipped the next one—the man in that cell was another water elemental, and he already had a drop from that magic type—then moved toward the final unconscious elemental.
He turned back to address the rest of us. “I’m going to collect this one on the flat part of the blade itself, so I can move away from Chloe and the rest of you before I add it in.”
He turned back to his task, and a moment later, stood up with the blade in one hand—holding a tiny drop of blood—and the lid in his other hand. He hurried over toward the outer door of the room, while the rest of us gathered back near Chloe.
“Wait,” Chloe said. She looked at me through the barred door of her cell. “What if this makes the orb explode? You’re all too close to it.”
Her whole cell was close to it. There was only so far back from it she could go.
“Scoot as far back as you can, Chloe,” Trenchcoat Man said. “Against the back wall. The rest of you, she’s right. Step back against the other cells. They’re slightly farther from the orb. Just don’t come too close to where I am.”
We all nodded and moved as instructed, though I stayed as near Chloe’s cell as I could without being right up next to the orb—I wasn’t going to leave her alone.
Trenchcoat Man glanced out at us. “Well, here goes.” He slid the final drop of blood into the mix of the others.
There was a crack from the direction of the orb—
A sharp pain shot through my head.
“Aubrey!” Somewhere far away, Mom yelled my name.
A scream tore through my ears.
A moment later, I came to with everyone standing over me, and realized the scream had been me. I could still feel the rawness in my throat.
“Aubrey!” Mom yelled again. She was leaning over me, looking panicked. “What’s wrong?”
I reached for my head. “What happened?”
“You collapsed and started screaming,” Dad said, peering over her shoulder. “Only for a second, but it scared us to death.” He knelt down beside me. “Are you okay?”
I blinked up at them. “I—I think so.” The pain in my head had subsided, and the room seemed normal again. Other than my sore shoulder from how I’d apparently hit the floor, I felt fine… but I could still hear the echo of my scream in my head.
And maybe it was just my imagination, but I could’ve sworn I wasn’t the only one screaming.
***
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