Five Elements

      The hide flapped closed behind them as he pushed his way into the interior tent. An elderly woman sitting crossed legged in the centre tossed aside her stitching and immediately rose to her knees.
      “My, my, my, my,” the old woman chided quickly, “Now what happened here?”
      “I don’t know!” Dean confessed immediately. “I found her like this!” He knelt carefully and placed Evangeline at the mystic’s knees.
      The yurt’s entrance whipped open again, and Michael cried, “It was my fault! It was after me!” as he tumbled in behind them. “She’s alright, though, isn’t she? She’s not hurt?”
      “Michael, what? What was after you?”
      “Fire Demon,” the healer growled low, her knobby hand hovering over Evangeline’s chest. Reverently, she closed her eyes and slid her fingers over the invisible peaks and valleys of the girl’s protective aura, from her head to her hips. Her unnaturally wide eyes cracked open again and she said, “The girl is strong.” She focused on Michael’s taught face. “Stronger than you. Why the demon chose the more difficult target to capture, I do not know.”
      “Stronger? What do you mean she’s stronger?” Dean asked in confusion.
      “Her spirit, boy, her spirit! Most people are hindered by the one or two Elements that dominate their nature,” she explained irritably as she reached behind her and produced a halved gourd full of water. As she sprinkled it over Evangeline’s face with a broad feather, she continued, “But this girl is remarkably well-balanced, and her spirit contains all Elements so she can harness each at will if she chooses. Right now, she’s drawing on her Water properties to repress Him, but He’s fighting her.”
      The woman drew the bowl aside and stared into Evangeline’s crumpled face. Concern wrinkled her brow, and she placed the palm of her hand in the bowl and then pressed it to the girl’s forehead.
      As the healer began to mutter incantations under her breath, Michael too breathed out in worry and clasped Evangeline’s hot, sweaty hand in his own. After a moment, the old woman was startled from her light trance. Dean and Michael watched in horror as Evangeline’s limbs began to twitch convulsively. Raking her huge eyes over the girl’s trembling body, she caught sight of Michael’s closeness and swatted his hand away.
      “Don’t touch her!” she barked.
      “What? Why?”
      “You’re Fire, can’t you sense it? It feeds on you! Back away!”
      But even as Michael scrabbled backwards, her face scrunched in pain and her body tried to curl in on itself. “What’s happening?” he yelled.
      “Yaar mlaah kokatl!” the woman screamed hoarsely. They didn’t know if the curse was directed at Michael or the Demon, but she instantly upended the bowl over Evangeline’s core, drenching her clothes in herbed water. With deft fingers, she kneaded the girl’s spastic muscles into a mild submission, but Evangeline’s internal struggle still warred on her face.
      Rolling cool glass beads over her face and neck seemed to have no effect, and even with the added incantations and sage smoke, Evangeline’s legs began to shudder again. The woman muttered under her breath, and then her eyes went wide. She threw the marbles aside and pointed her tasseled arm to the space between Michael and Dean.
      “You! Earth! Come over here, I need you.”
      Both Dean and Michael turned in surprise to find a tall, dark figure standing rigidly against the wall near the exit. The sudden attention didn’t seem to sit well with him, for he shifted his weight nervously.
      “Lucien!” Dean exclaimed, “You’re here!”
      “Now!” she demanded.
      With halting steps, Lucien approached the two women and knelt awkwardly before them. “W-what do you want me to do?” he asked hesitantly.
      The old woman was holding down Evangeline’s shoulders with her palms. “I need you to ground her.”
      “I don’t speak ‘mystic’, woman! Speak plainly!”
      “Ground her, damn it, ground her! With your hand – like this!” She snatched his right hand and placed it on Evangeline’s chest just beneath her breastbone. “Hold her down not just with your might, but with your mind,” she stressed, tapping her own wrinkled temple.
      “What? How?”
      “Think rock, soil, tree root. Deep. Dark. Solid. Safe. Think it. Let her feel it.”
      He licked his lips. “Can’t you do this?”
      “I am! With Water. I need your Earth to offset the Demon’s Air. Now concentrate.”
      Lucien’s uncertain eyes flicked from the side of the healer’s head to Evangeline’s face contorted with pain. Then, with a suddenly even expression, he closed his eyes and pressed his hand harder into her chest. The demon reacted to the combined efforts of Earth and Water by twisting the girl’s limbs into claws in order to tear their repressive hands off her body; Lucien instantly caught her arm and pinned her wrist down with one knee without cracking an eye open. The old woman increased her murmured chanting to a hoarse, rapid incantation.
      Evangeline’s flesh was like molten lead, her blood boiling beneath her red skin. Pausing only a moment to catch her breath, the healer warned quietly, “Don’t let go. We’ve got Him now.”
      The girl’s back arched off the floor from her waist down to her neck up, but Lucien’s stone palm kept her chest firm against the packed earth of the floor. Her head off the floor, Evangeline cried out in horrible agony. Instantly, the mystic lunged forward and grabbed hold of something that had snaked out of the accursed girls’ mouth. She yanked hard, and Evangeline’s head jerked forward as if she had been caught by her tongue. The mystic used all her strength to haul on the invisible rope that was slowly drawn from Evangeline’s mouth – as she pulled away, she twined her arm around it and hauled again. This she did two or three times, though the true form of the hostile entity remained invisible to the stunned onlookers. Finally, the mystic rose from her kneeling position and gave one last long pull.
      Evangeline’s head fell back to the earth with a hard thud and every one of her muscles relaxed simultaneously, turning her body to soft rubber.
      Lucien rose to his feet immediately in order to help the old woman who was now wrestling the invisible constrictor on her arm. As she pushed it off her elbow, Lucien pulled at it from her wrist and began coiling it into the hollowed gourd at her feet, simultaneously kicking clumps of dirt into the bowl on top of it.
      “See to your girl!” the Seer commanded the others as the last coil came untwined from her arm. Dean and Michael hurried forwards and helped Evangeline find her way back to consciousness. Meanwhile, the mystic spat into the bowl five times, saying a prayer between each. After a tense silence, the mystic finally relaxed, her shoulder sagging in exhaustion as she dabbed her forehead with the cloth bracer on her forearm. She glanced sidelong at the sturdy mercenary standing in front of her.
      “You’ve done this before?” she asked quietly. Lucien stoutly ignored her. The mystic’s eyes smiled. “There must be a Monk in your family,” she assumed rightly.
He spun on his heel and marched to the entrance of the yurt. “I’ll be outside,” he said curtly.
      Behind her, Evangeline was now sitting upright and shivering under a thick woolen blanket.
      “Excuse us now, boys. You’ve done enough. I’ll take it from here.” She shooed them away with a flick of her wrists and folded her rickety legs beneath her. Dean and Michael seemed put off by her abrupt manner, but obeyed her instructions nevertheless. Dean patted Evangeline’s shoulder as he rose and Michael murmured that they’d wait for her outside. Once they had gone, the old healer stared through the young woman before her with her orb-like eyes.
      “You contain the fifth element. Do you realise this?”
      Evangeline frowned in acknowledgement. “You feel that way now only because you are untrained. With time and attention it will become your greatest weapon.”
      “We have no time,” she stated, pulling the blanket closer around her shoulders.
      “Make time. The Priest still preaches. Unpredictable powers like yours will tip the scales in our favour in the battles to come.”
      “Powers like mine,” she scoffed. “What a joke. I couldn’t even hold back a lousy demon.”
      The old woman regarded her with her keen Seers’ eyes. “It was strong, but it couldn’t have taken you by force. You must have let it in.”
      Evangeline averted her eyes and nodded solemnly.
      The mystic growled a stony sigh. “Why would you do something so mindless?”
      “It would’ve taken Michael. Made him do things. ...I didn’t want that.” She paused and passed her fingertips over the sweat cooling on her brow. She could still sense the negative space looming above her friend’s shoulders, still hear the voice in her head; the amber leaves of Tauphas swirled around her mind’s eye. Evangeline opened her physical eyes again and focused instead on the very real grit of the packed earth under her legs. “I thought... I could fight it.”
      The old woman grunted. “Fire Demons are tough.”
      She shook her head. “I’ve beaten them before. Why didn’t it respond to my Water?”
      “Its secondary property was Air. Made it slippery.”
      “Fire-Air,” she breathed, and followed it with a tired nod. “That’s why I couldn’t see it.”
      “And why it was so powerful. A demon with two reigning elements is twice as hard to defeat. Don’t let Them catch you off guard like that again. Next time, I won’t be there to pull Him out.”
      “I thank you for that.”
      “It is the Acrushe way,” she responded reverently, the palms of her hands upturned. “Now, come,” she said finally, bringing Evangeline to her feet as she stood. “Let us ensure your friends of your well-being.” Before she raised the hide flap on the entrance to her yurt, the mystic lowered her voice and advised, “Try to avoid too much contact with that little Fire Mouse for the next few days. Take it easy. And let the Stone Guard take care of you. He’s a good man.”
      “Lucien?” Evangeline asked. “He wants nothing to do with me.”
      “I think not,” she responded certainly. “You will see.”
      The animal skin flapped closed as she pushed Evangeline out into the light.