Elementals Book one Light and Shadow

Mysterious Information, Magic, and Ice Cream.

We spent the rest of that afternoon sitting in silence. As the sun began to set, I said

"Do you want to go get some ice cream?" I know, definitely something you say when you had just died and your best friend just mysteriously froze and learned some freaky stuff about portals that shoot demons out of their butts and, apparently, the elder elementals.

"Yeah, why not." then I thought about it (Yes Aeolus, I do think about some things before I do them, now shut up.)

"How are we going to get there? It's almost dark."

"You were mostly right about your shadow magic, but it shapes reality, manipulates minds, time, and space."

"That is all very fascinating, but it doesn't answer my question." Now apparently, he knew more about my power than I did.

"Yes it does, your power manipulates space, and time. If you add those together, you can manipulate the time it takes to get somewhere, by manipulating the space between where you are and where you want to go."

"In third grade english please."

"You can create portals."

"See, that wasn't so hard was it? Mr. Magic Genius."

"I gave you what was in my head."

"And how did it get there?" he sighed.

"I don't know." another lie, he was starting to make me mad with all the lying

"That is very helpful."

"I honestly don't. Okay, do you want me to show you how to make the portal?"

"Sure." I said out loud, but under my breath I mumbled "Change the subject, I'm only your best friend. No need to tell me why you were frozen. Or explain why you scared me half to death and can't tell me why.''He didn't seem to hear me, but if he did, he ignored it. I found that infuriating.

"Okay, so imagine your destination." I did so, imagining the Cold Stone on Harkness avenue.

"Got it." I said, trying not to lose my concentration.

"Okay now imagine the distance from your destination to us."

"Kay..." I zoomed out the picture, like I was looking at a digital map. I imagined a line from where we were to the Cold Stone.

"Okay, now imagine that distance being drawn into one spot, us." As soon as I did, a swirling black cloud with swirls of red and orange appeared in front of us. "Great job!" he said grinning.

"So... now what?"

"Serena, how do portals work?"

"I don't know!" he sighed.

"You step through them." I rolled my eyes

"Well yeah, I know that, but like, does it hurt? Are we going to disintegrate and then get put back together?"

"I don't know." he admitted

"Well you seem to know everything else! You know what, forget it." without even waiting for him to answer, I stepped through the portal. When I came out the other side, I was standing in front of Cold Stone. I turned, focused on the portal, and changed it's destination to the cold stone on Flatbush Avenue before Aeolus could follow me. If he was already inside, I didn't know what changing the destination would do. Oh well, that was his problem, he wanted to keep secrets? Fine. I walked into the ice cream shop and ordered a large waffle cone with two scoops of chocolate and every chocolate topping they had. I walked back out to the portal, changed the destination to the campsite, and hopped through.