Desprite Measures: The Caledonian Sprite Series, #1

1. COVEN

Well, this wasn’t at all what I’d expected.

When my best friend, Alison, had broached the idea of joining a coven, a stereotypical image of old ladies with wild, unkempt hair, prancing around a bubbling cauldron, had sprung to mind. Swiftly followed by an alternative scene of willowy maidens in long fern-green gowns doing unfathomable things within a grove of trees beneath a full moon.

Perhaps I’ve been watching too much TV.

The splendid wood and glass eco-house nestled in a clearing of the Caledonian Forest not far from the outskirts of Inverness did not gel with either of my visions. Nor did the long line of high-end cars parked nose-to-tail the length of the drive. I amended that slightly: the odd ancient banger nestled comfortably between polished Mercedes and BMWs, almost as if the swanky vehicles protected their less affluent cousins, daring any critic to utter disdain about the rust and dents of their companions.

We’d arrived in Alison’s battered old Peugeot. At sight of the line of up-market vehicles, Alison had almost lost her nerve, but the presence of that handful of older cars enabled me to coax her into giving the meeting a chance. After all, it had been her idea in the first place.

I recalled the conversation.

I know it’s not your kind of thing, Cassie, but will you come with me? Please say you will,

I’d considered for a millisecond before committing. Aye, of course I will, as long as you’re certain it’s what you want.

She’d frowned at me. What, to become a witch, or go to this meeting?

The meeting, dear heart. I have no problem with you trying out witchcraft. All that communing with nature is so you. I’m just none too sure about this group.

We’d studied the website on Alison’s laptop.

Look at this list of events. I’d pointed to one corner of the screen. Like this one: ‘Self-development through equine partnership’. What’s that all about?

But that’s only one thing, Alison had protested. Look at the rest. Crystal dowsing, aura reading, herbalism, etcetera, etcetera.

Okay, okay! Of course I’ll come with you. It can’t hurt to go to one meeting, can it?

If only I’d known how wrong I was.

But I get ahead of myself. The front door swung open before we’d finished mounting the steps, and a rather large lady beamed at us with what I read as genuine friendliness. 

New faces, how wonderful! Come in, come in. I’m Saffron, High Priestess of the coven. Welcome to my home.

Older than Alison by at least a generation, Saffron was taller than the pair of us and probably combined our waist measurements beneath her voluminous midnight blue velvet dress. Mystical symbols in glittering rhinestones swirled across the fabric, and I eyed her jet-black hair, which was about as real as her inappropriate name. But her wide smile radiated genuine warmth, and I took to her at once, even though she made me feel distinctly plain, having gone with the maxim ‘you can’t go wrong with a little black dress’.

We introduced ourselves and Saffron waved us in. Do tell how you found us? she asked as she guided us through a spacious sitting room dotted with furniture upholstered in loud floral patterns.

Um, I found your website and thought it looked intriguing, Alison answered.

Saffron led us out through open patio doors—triple glazed, I noted with approval—and down a small flight of steps to a broad lawn enclosed on all sides by trees. I noticed that the wood of the house had been colour treated to match the bark of the Scots pines, so it blended in nicely.

Marvellous! Saffron enthused. I hardly know how to turn a computer on, but some of our younger members are very clever with them. A young chap who joined us recently created our lovely website. She scanned the group of chatting people dotted about on the grass and waved a hand cluttered with chunky, sparkling rings towards a figure lurking on the outskirts. There he is, dear Liam. I have no idea how he found us, but it was so generous of him to take over the webby side of things.

I noticed Alison’s gaze drawn to the expensive jewellery Saffron wore with such ease, and didn’t miss the slight downturn of my friend’s mouth. I grabbed her arm as Saffron left us in her wake. You’re not backing out now, I whispered in her ear.

But Cassie, they all look so wealthy. Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea after all.

What about him? I pointed towards Liam, scruffily outfitted in baggy jeans and an old Black Sabbath t-shirt. He’s clearly not rich.

Before I could look away, Liam glanced round and met my eye. One corner of his thin lips twitched, and an uneasy feeling squeezed my chest. There was something calculating in the way he studied me that made me want to put distance between us.

I grabbed a fold of Alison’s rust-coloured woollen jumper and steered her around to the other side of the group members. There, we found several ladies dressed in quite ordinary outfits chatting perfectly amiably with a pair of the designer-clad fraternity.

Frankly, so far, the coven members were turning out to be unexpectedly normal. Or as normal as any group of humans might seem to a water sprite masquerading as a human being.

Even Alison doesn’t know my secret. I’ve learned over the millennia not to trust anyone with such dangerous knowledge. Elementals are solitary by nature but I’ve found I like having friends, and despite the potential drawbacks of living in human form, I’ve taken the risk. It has its upsides, particularly the thrill of experiencing human emotions. When your existence has flowed serenely for aeons without change, such a revelation does make you wonder what else you might have been missing out on.

Saffron appeared again and waved at us. Follow me, girls, you must come and meet our guest. Raising both arms expansively, and wafting a strong spicy perfume our way, she ushered us across the lawn, hardly pausing to draw breath as we went. It’s too exciting for words; this is such a coup!  Brian Chivers is far more important than anyone Rhona’s been able to get!

Rhona? queried Alison.

Saffron waved a hand dismissively. "High Priestess of the Ullapool coven. She thinks she’s such a big fish, always bragging about her contacts. Just you wait until she hears about this! Brian is Britain’s best water diviner; probably the best in Europe, in fact, and he’s agreed to give us a demonstration and then teach us all how to do it!"

I balked. A water diviner, of all things. 

Saffron noticed my hesitation, her awareness sharper than I’d given her credit for. "Oh Cassie, dear, don’t be afraid! It won’t hurt you, and if you’re worried about not succeeding, please, don’t be. Not everybody has this talent, and you don’t have to try. I’m sure you’ll find it fascinating anyway."

I raised both hands in a ‘stop’ gesture and shook my head. Honestly, Saffron, it’s nothing like that, I protested. Just an urgent call of nature. Back in a minute.

With barely a glance at Alison’s bemused expression, I turned and fled into the house, locking myself inside the bathroom. How could this happen to me? I couldn’t leave and abandon Alison, nor could I go out there again. But a water diviner! Was there a twisted god’s sense of humour behind this?

I closed the toilet lid—pale peach with embedded sea shells—and sat down on it. I could slip away and come back later. I didn’t even need to leave the house: the plumbing right here in the bathroom offered me as good an escape as a wide-open door. Not that I was too keen on the idea. You’d be horrified at what you find down some people’s pipe work.

I jumped as knuckles rapped on the door.

Cassie? called Alison. You alright in there?

Oh, I’m fine, I answered, aware of the heavy irony in my tone. I wasn’t sure what Alison made of it because she went silent for a while. Then, Do you want to go home?

Offered the ideal get-out, I wavered. Alison deserved some fun in her life after finding out her creep of a husband was a bigamist, and this meeting was the first thing she’d shown any enthusiasm about since making that horrendous discovery. I wasn’t about to ruin her evening, so I stood up, closed my eyes and drew a deep breath. I really was getting into this human emotion thing.

When I stepped out, Alison was leaning against the pale green wall along from the bathroom door. She searched my face. Are you sure you’re okay? We can go if you want to.

I’m fine, really, just a bit nervous. I’d like to view this from a distance, if you don’t mind?

Nae bother, Alison said with a degree of confidence I was proud to hear from her. You just stay behind me.

Only too willing to go along with this idea, I linked arms with her. We exited the house via the forest-painted hallway with its green shag-pile carpet that I think was supposed to simulate grass.

The coven, fifteen in number including the two of us, was gathered in a semi-circle on the lawn around Brian Chivers, a middle-aged, balding man whose paunch overshadowed his denim jeans and stretched the button holes on his pale pink, open-necked shirt. He brandished a split hazel rod rather in the vein of a blind man’s cane. We had arrived in time to hear the end of his explanation, and we positioned ourselves behind the others.

... you can dowse with almost anything, the most popular these days being plastic rods because they’re light and long-lasting, but I prefer to use a natural material, and hazel has a particular affinity for water.

I peeked over Alison’s shoulder as the diviner raised his rod to show it off better.

I cut this one a couple of days ago. See, he ran his finger down one side, how I’ve split it. A very delicate procedure on a branch as fine as this. And then, he pointed towards the end, which was bound with white tape, I’ve taped the end to keep the split from extending. It won’t last forever, but this will prolong it until the wood dries out completely, at which point it will need replacing.

He marched to the top of the sloping lawn. And now I’ll show you how it works. He held the split ends of the twig delicately and proceeded to walk very slowly down the lawn, with his arms extended in front of him. I’m looking for underground water courses, of which there should be quite a few in this area. Aha!

The end of the twig twitched downward.

And here we have one.

He continued his stately dawdle. As he passed his rapt audience I edged further behind Alison, but as if sensing my movement, the twig jerked sideways, almost ripping itself out of Brian’s left hand.

What—? Brian snatched his twig back into its correct position, looking flustered. I guessed it wasn’t supposed to act that way. One of the older ladies in the group—a witch with a perfect Cleopatra bob in silver-grey and the eye makeup of an Egyptian maid—glanced over her shoulder, searching the ground behind us. Her eyes slid over me, seeking some other source to explain the twig’s aberrant behaviour. Evidently, she also knew it shouldn’t do that sort of thing.

Sorry ladies, I must have lost concentration for a moment. Just let me—aha! Here’s another one.

Brian proceeded down the lawn to the bottom of the slope, marking out the sites of little underground rivulets, and in one case a quite large but deep, water course that ran crosswise, narrowly missing one corner of the log cabin. And he was accurate, too. Fascinated to be for once so close to this human ability I’ve done my best over the millennia to avoid, I checked his findings by opening up my senses and reaching down into the ground, feeling where the water ran, seeing the aquifers below our feet as a 3-dimensional image overlaid upon the human vision I was using at the time.

What the—!

The masculine bellow snapped me back to the surface in time to see Brian Chivers spinning in a circle, grappling with his dowsing rod as it yanked and twisted in his grip. Horrified, I withdrew my sprite senses and the thing ceased its errant actions. Brian glared wildly around, scanning the faces of the stunned coven.

Whoever’s messing with me, you can stop right now! He glared at the stunned group of women. "I have never been treated like this!"

Saffron rushed to his side, visibly upset. She enveloped him in her ample arms.

"My dear Brian, I am so sorry! Saffron drew Brian away from the perplexed coven. Let’s take a break, shall we? Come in, come in, we have tea and cakes waiting."

The members of the coven reacted to Saffron’s announcement with enthusiasm, and followed their leader and her guest, expounding their own theories on this evening’s bizarre events as they went.

...a spirit of some kind. Perhaps a poltergeist? They can be so playful...

...he’s reading something else, not water. Perhaps he’s picking up on some kind of energy. Maybe ley lines?

...maybe Rhona’s planted a mole in our midst. What that coven wouldn’t do to get one up on us...

I noticed Alison had struck up a conversation with the Cleopatra-wannabe, so I hung back when they entered the house. There was no way I was going to go inside with that man in there.

The delicious smell of strawberries and chocolate wafted up my nasal passages, and strangely it seemed to be coming from around the corner of the house, rather than from inside. Perhaps there was a patio around there?  Images of a chocolate fountain with strawberries for dipping filled my mind, and I followed my nose, hopeful that some of the refreshments would be served outdoors, where I could more easily keep away from Brian Chivers.

I should have known my love of sweet things would get me into trouble one day, but it was too late by the time I realised someone must have studied the Facebook group I’d set up for my gym clients, and discovered my weakness. The tasty twin aromas hooked me like a fish gulping an angler’s bait. And then he reeled me in.

I stepped around the corner to find nothing more than an alleyway leading along the side of the house. My lungs filled with the crisp, fresh air of the Scottish Highlands, and I stopped, confused. Where was the marvellous confection I had been tracking?

Darkness moved behind me, touched me. Ice shot through my veins and clutched my heart with spiky claws. Panic gripped me and my mind screamed run, but the spell froze my body rigid. Held immobile by the solid scaffold of my frosted circulation, I felt my extremities beginning to liquefy. A scream bubbled up my throat but drowned before liberation.

As a sprite, becoming fluid is quite natural—after all, water is my native form. But I usually have some say over when it happens.

As abruptly as it had formed, my icy framework melted and the remainder of my human form disintegrated. The smart little black number I’d been wearing slithered to the ground, pooling like so much oil over my beige pumps. Helpless, I was channelled into a container on the ground.

I found myself staring through thick glass at a pair of hands that scooped my clothing off the floor and dumped it over my container, putting out the lights.

2. MAGICIAN

It’s just as well I’m not claustrophobic.

Even so, being held captive in a bottle was not how I’d planned to spend my weekend. It was also one of the most undignified positions I’ve ever been in. A water sprite can be squished down pretty small, but it doesn’t mean we enjoy the process.

Rainbows played across the clear glass walls of my prison, refracting through the swirling liquid of my elemental form. Taking a deep breath, metaphorically speaking, I tried to slow my agitated motion, in danger of over-heating. If only someone would uncap my bottle, I’d be able to let off steam.

I prowled the confined space. It stood around ten inches tall, or should that be twenty-five centimetres? I can’t keep up with the speed humans alter things.

I stared out through the glass. Despite the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision of my fluid form, I could see nothing but blank brick walls and benches. Stuff littered every surface: wicker baskets, beakers, jars of herbs and cages of fluffy bunnies, guinea pigs, mice, rats, chickens.

Several computers peeked out of the mess, and some weird-shaped metallic objects that looked like they should buzz and whirr, but I couldn’t be sure as no sound penetrated my thick glass prison. I didn’t know if this meant there was no sound—unlikely given the number of animals out there—or that I was under a sound-muffling spell. Perhaps the glass containing me was simply too dense. I did know it was too thick for me to bust out by expanding myself—a trick I’ve used to shattering effect in the past.

Movement caught my attention. A door, swinging shut behind my captor.

The scruffy young man from the coven meeting. What had Saffron named him? Oh yes, Liam.

I’d known there was something shifty about him! If only I’d paid more attention to the feeling of unease he’d raised in my human body, but I still wasn’t good at always heeding its many perplexing sensations.

Liam picked up my container and peered at me short-sightedly through wire-rimmed spectacles. His eyes behind the two layers of distorting glass were like a pair of fried eggs with vivid blue yolks. I retreated as far as I could, but there was nowhere to go.

He put me down again and sauntered over to one of the benches, treating me to the delightful view of his waistband sagging below the elastic of his boxers.

I’m sorry, but his youth was no excuse for his atrocious manners. Nor would it save him from my wrath when I gained my freedom.

So, back to escape plans.

Such a pity I had none. I’d already tried everything I could think of.

This left me with nothing to do but watch Liam tapping on a keyboard. For all I knew he was answering emails, but even through the glass walls of my prison I sensed a certain excitement. Over the centuries, I’ve become pretty good at reading humans—even before I chose to live as one—and his twitchy movements along with frequent wiping of his palms on his jeans screamed anxiety.

Without warning, he whipped around and lunged towards me. The feverish glow on his face set my already jittery nerves jangling. Before I knew it, I was swinging through the air, my bottle clasped in his hands. His sweaty palms left smears on the outside of my prison after he dumped it on the floor.

Now that I could see the floor, I could also see the large circle chalked onto the granite slabs. Typical Highland flooring, and even through the numbness of the spells I could feel the pull of the tides and the rush of a river not too far away. Wherever we were, we hadn’t gone far from my native Scottish waterways.

With his back towards me, Liam fumbled amongst the clutter on another bench. He spun round with a triumphant grin and strode back into his circle carrying a metal thermos, his hands encased in huge padded gauntlets. He put it down a few feet away from me.

I had a bad feeling about this.

Liam returned to rummaging through the contents of another bench, and I realised I’d plastered myself against the rear of my bottle. Silly, I chided myself. As if a few extra inches might make a difference.

I cringed as Liam re-entered the circle, and was a tad miffed to see him treat the thermos with far more caution than my bottle. If he thought he would be safe once I was free, well, he’d learn otherwise. That was assuming we all survived whatever it was he had planned.

He pressed a lump of sticky stuff to the neck of my bottle, and then taped on a small black box with a winking red light. He repeated the procedure with the thermos, again handling it with infinitely more respect.

Now I was truly offended.

I had a pretty shrewd idea what the contraption was designed to do, although I’d only seen suchlike in movies.

Satisfied with his preparations, Liam stepped back out of the circle and picked up a bowl. He proceeded to sprinkle a white powder—salt, I guessed—in a continuous overlay of the chalk, his lips moving all the while as he muttered what I assumed to be an incantation.

Next, he opened one of the wicker baskets and extracted a frantically flapping cockerel. One swift machete chop later, and he was marching around his circle again, this time holding the headless corpse so that its blood drained to mingle with the salt. The poor bird’s legs were cycling as if trying to run away, not yet realising it was dead. The exercise kept the blood flowing freely from its severed neck.

Gross.

Liam completed the circuit and stood back to view his handiwork. He appeared satisfied.

Nervous, but satisfied.

After the magical preparations, he took some time laying thick, heavily insulated cables around the exterior of the circle. These black hi-tech snakes were interrupted at intervals with gizmos sprouting coloured wires, which in turn trailed off beneath the various benches around the perimeter of the room.

After a final lengthy survey of the completed layout, Liam reached up to a large junction box on the wall and pushed up a lever. A double row of green lights lit the board below, and a deep hum penetrated my prison, vibrating the stone floor. Mesmerised by the rows of ready lights, I realised with a start that I’d lost sight of Liam before spotting him near the door, behind a stainless-steel unit. Visibly agitated, maybe worried that his nerve might fail, he snatched a wallet-sized black box off the work surface, pulled out a stubby antenna and ducked down behind the metal barrier. A disembodied hand appeared above the work surface and, despite my silent scream of <NO!>, his thumb depressed the red button.

My bottle imploded, showering slivers of glass through my vapour as I drew myself together and pulled every molecule up and away, retreating as far as the warded circle would allow. I hung somewhere near the high ceiling, plastered against the dome of magic that flared into the visible spectrum when I brushed against it.

Damn, but that smarted! Like getting zapped by an electric fence.

Just the top of the thermos had blown off, leaving a ragged lip of melted aluminium and an ominous orange glow deep inside. Even as I watched, the golden light rose up, emerging as a tiny flicker of flame which blossomed into a miniature inferno.

Salamander!

A fire elemental.

My opposite.

I caught a glimpse of movement outside the circle. The idiot who’d trapped together two inimical elementals stood there watching. Did he have any idea what might happen if we inadvertently touched? Or was that the experiment? Dear gods, was he that stupid?

At the very least I’d expect a severe earthquake, far higher on the Richter scale than anything Scotland had experienced in thousands of years. It could even sunder the rift that runs through the Highlands—the Great Glen, stretching from Inverness to Fort William—splitting the top section of Scotland away from its adopted home, cracking the south-eastern edge off the Island of Mull and running on to play havoc with Ireland.

At its worst, there might be a large smoking hole where Scotland used to be. I wasn’t sure, and I had no wish to find out.

Yet I was clueless about how to prevent it. Salamanders have notoriously short fuses, and for all I knew this one might lash out without thought of consequences. It was already uncomfortably hot in our joint prison, and my extremities were vibrating with increased energy. If I was forced to expand into steam, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep enough distance between myself and my fiery companion to prevent the unthinkable.

There had to be a way out of here. Keeping half my attention on the angry swirl of flames prowling the circle at ground level, I quested out with my senses, seeking the water I could feel so tantalizingly close by.

There! A tumbling, quick-running river, not more than a few feet away and I realised we were inside a decommissioned hydro-electric power station. Whatever the reason it had been mothballed, the river that once supplied its power still flowed past undisturbed.

I poked at the spells containing us, and a sense of calm spread through me. Liam had made his first mistake. When the bottle shattered, so too had the binding spells that blocked my powers. Oh sure, we were still enclosed in the warded circle, unable to escape. But I was no longer helpless.

Failing to recognise his miscalculation Liam stood there watching, hoping that my fiery friend and I would do what—touch each other? Mate with each other? Did he think he was going to create a new breed of elemental? The possibilities were too horrifying, not to mention bizarre, to contemplate.

Returning to the matter at hand, I quested out with my essence to attract the stray water droplets I could sense beyond the walls. Stretching further, beyond the building and the banks of the dark river that bounced and bubbled over a nearby waterfall, I drew moisture to moisture to form a puddle on one of the flat slabs of black rock. Spray doused my puddle, aiding its growth, peaty dark water on dark stone. The puddle became a pool, and—

<Ouch! That was too damned close!>

The lower parts of me smarted where a tongue of flame had licked upward and almost touched me. <I’m trying to get us out of here, you dimwit. Keep away from me!> I thought as hard as I could at the salamander.

He seemed to understand and withdrew, smouldering down as far away from me as possible until the heat in our prison dropped a little.

A muffled noise drew my attention back to our jailor, standing with his toes almost touching the outermost of his thick black cables. One look at his face and the muted swearing that made it through the warding told me he was displeased by the status quo I’d achieved. He was waving his arms in what looked alarmingly like incantation-mode and, sure enough, something stung the rear of my vapour cloud.

I cringed as the force-bubble zapped me again, and realised with a sickening, sinking feeling, that the dome was inexorably contracting, forcing me to move downward towards the floor and my dangerous co-captive.

No time for second chances. If he squashed the dome flat enough we would never be able to keep sufficient distance between us, and then, BOOM! Bye-bye Scotland, at least as we know it.

I sent my awareness shooting back outside. Some of my puddle had started to leach away, dragged back into the torrent rushing towards the Moray Firth and thence on out to the North Sea.

Abandoning any finesse, I reached fluid fingers from the puddle into the river flow, joined my water to the wild water, and drew it towards me as an adult draws a curious child towards a treat. Clasping the river more firmly in my watery fingers, I drew it over the rocky bank and towards the door of the old power station. It came with surprising ease, almost as if it was keen to try out a new course. The puddle outside the door became a pool, and then a waist-high flood filling the stairwell that led down to the door. For a panicky moment I thought the door might be too well sealed, but