Hungry Earth (Elemental Book 2)

by Oxford, Rain

  “How did he kill her? Was it magic? Did he shift into anything?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t remember it until you shot me. He shot my mother. I remember I was sitting in a pool of her blood. This reminded me of it,” she said, waving in a general gesture at the destruction.

  “Do you want me to try to see it?” I asked.

  She shook her head violently. “I don’t want to see it.”

  “I just need to see the person who killed them.” She shook her head. Someone handed me a glass of water, which I tried to offer Astrid, but she wouldn’t take it. “We need to get out of here. I can drop you back off at Stephen’s coven.”

  “No, I’m not going back until I find and destroy the one who killed my friends.” The shock was fading and strength bled into her expression. “They were in the same coven as me, which made them the closest ones I had to siblings. That’s why you’re here, right?”

  “Yes. Let’s go.”

  “I can go with you?”

  “Yeah, but we have to hurry.” The sun was going to be up within an hour. We got to the front door before Clara found me.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  I passed her and headed for the car. I was wrong about having an hour; the sky was already beginning to lighten. “Get in the car,” I said. “Where is the closest motel?”

  “A couple of blocks from here,” Astrid said.

  She gave me the directions and I pulled into the cheap little motel. I parked in the closest spot to the door, left the car on, and ran inside. The man behind the counter was sitting in a chair reading a magazine. When I approached the desk, he looked at me, blinked, and gaped. “I need a room.” I was covered in water, blood, and plaster.

  “Um… we’re full up,” he said.

  “There aren’t that many cars out front. You have to have something.”

  “Well… check-in isn’t until–”

  “I will pay for a week’s worth. I need a key now.”

  “I might have a room, but I’ll call the cops if there is any suspicious behavior. It’s five hundred for a week.”

  I knew he was padding the bill, but I didn’t have time to argue about it. I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and handed over my debit card. He took his dear sweet time and I had to sign way too many pages promising not to damage anything. When he finally handed me the key, I rushed back to the SUV and drove around to the other side of the complex, where I parked right in front of the room. The tip of the sun was visible over the horizon.

  I turned off the engine and unlocked the room. As soon as the door was open, Clara and Astrid ran from the SUV, ducking, and burst into the room. I shut the door and then pulled the blackout curtains over the white lace curtains on the window.

  Suddenly, I was yanked off my feet and tossed onto the king-sized bed. Clara was on top of me before I could ask what she was doing. When she kissed me, I forgot to push her away. She was desperate and hurried, on the verge of a panic, but she was a damn good kisser. Instantly, my body was ready for more.

  She broke the kiss and her lips traveled to my throat. Between gentle sucking and licking, I felt her fangs scrape my skin lightly. The reasonable part of me wanted to shove her off. The rest of me was stuck on the fact that I hadn’t been with anyone since Regina. She sat up, putting pressure on my groin. Her hair was mussed and she panted. She leaned back down, going in for the bite… and was gone.

  I barely saw Astrid move in the dark, but she collided with Clara and I was abruptly alone on the bed. Astrid and Clara faced off. When Clara tried to get back to the bed, Astrid hissed at her, and they bared their fangs at each other. Although Clara was a little taller, Astrid was faster from what I had seen. Clara circled the bed, but Astrid wouldn’t let her gain an inch. When they were on the other side of the bed, I rolled off, ran to the window, and buried my fists in the curtains. “I’m tearing these off in five seconds!” I yelled. “Five… four… three…” They both ran for the bathroom and shut themselves in. I left the blackout curtains alone, flopped down on the bed, and was asleep in seconds.

  * * *

  Fire spread across the carpet, destroying everything it could catch until it met blood. A baby girl, only about a year old, was sitting in a pool of her mother’s blood. She was dressed in a tiny white t-shirt, which was soaking up the blood in splotches like a tie-dye design. She didn’t cry even as the air filled with smoke.

  I saw her through someone’s eyes, but there were no mirrors to see whose. If it was the one who killed her parents, why would he leave her alive? She looked up at me with huge brown eyes and raised her arms to be picked up.

  * * *

  The perverted side of me realized very quickly that I was in bed with two women. Not just in bed with… they were wrapped around me. Then the human side of me reminded the rest of me that I was actually trapped between two blood suckers.

  I opened my eyes. The room was typical of all motels; between the stained white walls, the stained brown carpet, and the stained flower-patterned blankets, it was obvious sanitary measures had not been taken to uphold this place. The television was the only thing that looked even remotely clean, especially since the wooden dresser it was sitting on was covered in gum.

  Astrid sighed in her sleep and brought her leg up slightly. Since her thigh was currently wedged between my legs, it made me gasp. Her hot breath fanned across my neck, which was uncomfortable in a different way. I sat up, waking both vampires.

  “Why are you not in the bathroom?” I asked sharply before they could fully wake.

  Astrid rubbed her eyes. “The floor was hard.” She rolled over and went back to sleep.

  “And you were much warmer,” Clara said, stroking her fingers down my back.

  I got out of the bed like it was on fire. “No way. I would rather curl up between a couple of pythons than two vampires.”

  “You’re a bitch in the mornings,” she said, turning to face the window.

  According to the clock on the table, we had another three hours before sunset. “Both of you get up. We need to figure out our next step.” They both moaned and otherwise ignored me. I went to the little kitchenette beside the bathroom and started the small coffee pot with one of the two sample packs. Once it was brewing, I took two plastic cups into the bathroom, filled them with water, returned to the room, and splashed them on Astrid and Clara.

  Astrid fell off the bed onto the floor while Clara jumped up with a shriek. “Why would you do that?!” she asked.

  “If I have to work with you, you’re at least going to hear the plan. Besides, I haven’t forgiven you for last night.”

  “I’m hungry and I wasn’t thinking clearly. What can we possibly figure out before we can go investigate? I guess we could randomly call people on the phone and ask if they know something, but since there is only one phone, I’m pretty sure you could have done that without waking us up.”

  “What have you found?” I asked Astrid, ignoring Clara’s further irate rambles.

  “I know it’s more than one person killing these people, because there are multiple scents. They might be working for one person, though.”

  Not another one. “If we can find one of these people, we can track them. Actually, if we can get close enough, I can snoop around in his brain and find out who is behind this.” They both shuddered at my choice of words.

  “I can thrall someone into telling me; you don’t have to invade their mind,” Clara said.

  I nodded. “That would be better,” I lied. I knew my way was more thorough, but the looks they were both giving me made me hesitate. They were staring at me like I was a psychopath.

  Like I was John Cross.

  “As soon as the sun goes down, you two split up and try to find someone involved. I’m going back to the club to see if I can find a witness. If you find something, we’ll meet back here.”

  “How will we find you?” Clara asked.

  I let my magic out gently to communicate, like I had a
thousand times before. I felt Astrid’s mind easily because I was still connected to her. Clara was surprisingly human to me. Unlike Astrid, Clara had nothing to regret, no history of abuse, and no disturbed thoughts. Clara was nurtured by her father and respected by her coven, so she knew her place in life and had a solid code of ethics that vampires in covens were taught. She never killed anyone.

  “Can you talk back?” I asked. Animals couldn’t, obviously, but Darwin and Remy had learned to when I spoke to them.

  Instead of words, I received an image of the motel door. “Get out of my head,” she said. “I will try to send you an image if I find anything. Stay out of my mind otherwise. It’s too personal.”

  I nodded. I knew I had to fight it; that I couldn’t let this ability turn me into John. “We’ll just use it for communication then. I will try to stay out of your head, but we can communicate without me reading your mind. Now, both of you get in the bathroom for a minute so I can leave.”

  They did, but not without Clara grumbling about it. I walked back to the club since it wasn’t far and I wanted to leave the SUV for Astrid or Clara. When I got there, several cops were gathered in front along with what looked like the majority of the staff members.

  I ignored the cops and approached Drake. “Do you have any enemies?” I asked. The kind of hate I heard in the perpetrator’s head was personal.

  “I have many enemies.”

  “Great. Let me guess; no one saw anything.”

  “If they did, they didn’t stick around.”

  A cop was making his way over, undoubtedly to question me, but my instincts were tingling. I turned and headed into the crowd of people. I assumed they were employees because one of them was the bouncer. Instead of using my power to read his mind, I stopped in front of him. “Did you see anything?”

  He shook his head. “Are you the one who stopped the explosions?”

  “Frankie, don’t get involved,” one of the women in the group said. She was a shifter, and the orange-blond hair made me think she was possibly a lion.

  I ignored her. “If you know something, you could prevent it from happening again by telling me,” I said. Whether I was right or not, I was allowed to say that because I wasn’t a police officer.

  “There were two red-headed women. I got bad vibes from them, but I didn’t have a good reason not to let them in.”

  “You’re a bouncer; it’s your job to keep people who give off bad vibes out of the club. Was there anything in particular they did that made you think of them?”

  “They left with a few guys the first night I saw them. Just before they could get in their car, a red Crossfire convertible, a cat attacked one of the women. I remember because this cat was fucking ugly. Real mangy looking. He chewed up one of the girls’ ear and she freaked out over her missing earing instead of the blood gushing down her neck.”

  That damn cat. “I can work with that. Thank you.” I walked away, feeling a little proud that I didn’t have to control his mind. Why was Cooper killed by the shadows and the warehouse attacked with bombs. For that matter, why would someone who could kill with shadows turn around and use explosives? Perhaps they are not connected. Perhaps two people randomly hate vampires and want to kill them…

  That made me wonder why I wasn’t already everyone else’s number-one suspect. Whoever killed Cooper was extremely powerful, whereas whoever set the bombs relied on force over accuracy. I wanted to get out my notebook and write everything down, but I had forgotten it at the school.

  I left the crowd before any cop could stop and question me and was halfway back to the motel before I ducked into an alley. Focusing on the mind full of hate, I released my power to flow freely and find the person who caused the destruction. Hate was not a good emotion to focus on, for my mind was tugged towards many people nearby who were angry about one thing or another.

  Soon, I found the distinct mind I had encountered the night before. Determining spatial direction and distance was the hard part, so I let my instincts guide me. I wandered aimlessly out of the alley and started down a neighborhood street, focusing on the hate-filled mind.

  I felt Clara’s mind try to connect with mine and I received the image of the motel door. After hesitating for a moment, I continued down the road. “I’ll be there soon, but I need to check this out.” It didn’t take long for me to realize I was actually getting further away from the person I was after, but my instincts were relentless; I had to see what they were leading me to.

  About ten minutes later, I came upon a house. A person could call it peaceful, but I could feel the horrors that took place behind those walls. It was bright yellow with white accents, two stories, with a wraparound porch, and had lacy white curtains in the windows. While the house was older with original everything, the yard was well-kept with garden flowers that encroached on the porch in a colorful swarm. The image was solidified by the white picket fence.

  It looked like something a grandmother in Alabama or Georgia would have.

  I went around the back to make sure there wasn’t an attack dog waiting in the yard. The grass was longer and the fence didn’t go all the way back, so I cautiously approached the house and peered into one of the back windows. It was a perfectly decent guest room. There was absolutely nothing suspicious, but I found myself checking the window anyway. Locked.

  I couldn’t pick a window lock… at least not without magic. I placed my hands on the glass and visualized the two latches that would be on the windows. Focus. I focused on the solid latches. They would be white or metal. Visualize. I imagined them turning. They would stick because they were old, but I was a wizard; I was stronger than the lock.

  I was also breaking and entering.

  Heat built in my chest and I guided it outward. This was magic; a sort of energy I built up to influence the world around me. Like in the warehouse, I didn’t just will it, I demanded it. I focused harder, poured my willpower into it, and pushed the heat building in my chest out through my hands. I felt the latches turn so vividly that I heard it. I reached down and pushed the pane up.

  Cautiously, I entered the house. This room wasn’t significant, so I opened the door and peeked out. Clear. I let my instincts guide me through the old hallway with creaky hardwood floors. In here, I thought as I stopped at a door. I pressed my hands flat on the light blue wood and let my magic out.

  Fear clouded everything else. I opened the door, mindful of traps. It would have been identical to the guest room if it weren’t for the blood pooling on the floor. Jackson was strung up by his feet, unconscious, but it wasn’t his blood on the floor. I let my magic spread further in the house and discovered six more areas like this. Whether there was someone alive in those rooms or not, at least six other people had suffered horribly.

  I examined the scene for a moment and found a blood-covered dagger sitting on the nightstand. I took it and grabbed the front of Jackson’s sweater, carefully stepping around the three-foot wide puddle of drying blood. I had to lean up to reach the rope in order to cut it, and as I sawed at the thick rope, Jackson woke and started thrashing.

  “Settle down,” I said, too late. The rope snapped and he landed in the blood with a grunt. When he started yelling, I put my hand over his mouth. Probably because I still had the dagger in my other hand, he yelled louder. “Shut the hell up before whoever did this comes back,” I said, tossing the dagger aside.

  He slowly quieted down and struggled to his feet, slipping a little on the blood. His back and legs were soaked. “He took my power!” he said, shaking, when I took my hand away.

  “Who did?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to leave the school, I just thought Hunt would kick the vampires out if enough wizards quit. I was pacing on the road and trying to figure out how to call my girlfriend to pick me up when a car pulled up. This big dude was driving. There was a man in the back with two red-headed women. They were sisters, maybe even twins— it was too dark to tell.”

  “Tell me what you were s
ure about.” Details from a witness could be easily fabricated from other memories. Even more so, they could be influenced by suggestion.

  A witness could be absolutely certain they remembered the perpetrator with complete accuracy, yet if someone asked what color jacket the perpetrator wore, the witness’s mind could fabricate a jacket that the perpetrator never wore in the first place. Once the image was in their mind, the witness was certain of it. In fact, they usually became more certain each time they recalled the event.

  “They told me to get in and I told ‘em they were crazy ‘cause I wasn’t getting in that damn car with strangers. The big guy got out and came at me, but when I tried to burn him, my magic wouldn’t work.” He ran his hand through his hair, smearing blood in his dark strands, but he didn’t seem to notice. “He hit me and I woke up here with someone screaming in the other room. I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”

  “We need to find anyone else who might be alive.” He opened his mouth to argue. “Do you want to try to make it back to the school alone?” His mouth snapped shut and he shook his head. “Then shut up and help me get everyone else in here out.”

  “I… I heard someone upstairs, like right above this room.”

  We checked into every room we passed on the way up the stairs. In the first room on the left from the staircase was a woman strung up like Jackson had been, only she was half-shifted into a gray wolf. Unfortunately, there was blood all over the floor and her throat was slit. This killer wasn’t just after vampires.

  I sent my power out to find the mind I was most familiar with. He was the one person I could find instantly, who I knew could answer me back. “Darwin, can you hear me?”

  “Loud and clear, bro.”

  “Tell Hunt he needs to get here now. Wherever we are, I’m sure he can find us.”

  “Us?”

  “I’m with Jackson. Tell him to bring Henry, too. I need him to find the amulet.”

  “Rush level?”