by Mia Marshall
I stepped around one of these bins on my way to an empty cushion. “Do you think we’re covered? Are you sure you don’t want any land mines, Simon?” I asked, finally making my way to a pillow.
“Why? Elementals can’t control explosives,” he replied, his concentration on the files so great that he completely missed the sarcasm.
Vivian stretched in the window, almost as fluid and languid as Simon. It seemed like Mac noticed as well, and I fought an unexpected urge to throw a cushion at his head. “I like it. When this is all over, I’m planting in this soil. I’ll turn your house into a small jungle.” I was pleased to note that Mac looked more amused than impressed by her suggestion.
“You got your fortress, Sera. A fortress of… well, it’s definitely not a fortress of solitude,” I said, looking around the crowded room.
“A fortress of the screwed and pursued?” suggested Brian.
“Too negative. It’s the fortress of the renewed,” countered Sera.
“Fortress of the slightly skewed,” said Mac.
“You’re all wrong. We’re living in the fortress of he who mewed,” I stated, nodding at Simon. “Live with it.”
“I need to shower and be shampooed,” said Vivian, her mock serious tone the perfect counterpoint to her Dr. Seuss-inspired words. She stood and moved toward the stairs.
“You hear that, Ade? She’s going to denude.”
“How very lewd.”
By now, we were all grinning. Even Simon allowed a small smile to escape. In the back of our minds, we were all aware of the events that had drawn us together, but it’s hard to maintain a sense of despair and helplessness when forming really bad rhymes.
The laughter faded. No one said anything for several long moments, preferring to enjoy the cheerful quiet that filled the room. The last few days had been strangely light-hearted, the cleanup a welcome respite from the investigation, and no one wanted to return to discussions of homicidal elementals.
Mac walked to the kitchen, where he prepared cups of tea and coffee. Several more moments were taken up by the disbursement of the drinks, the pouring of milk or sugar. Simon shuffled the papers, moving items from one pile to another for no clear reason. Even Brian, always so outspoken and charming, seemed disinclined to interrupt the quiet moment. We worked quietly, reading or writing or just relaxing on the pillows. No one spoke until Vivian rejoined us, dressed in a clean pair of sweats and towel drying her wet hair.
As usual, Sera was the one to start. “We’ve avoided it long enough. We have no more interior design left to do. We need to talk about the next step.”
There was a long moment of silence. I knew how to fill it: with the one subject that would destroy any residual good mood. “So, if you’re going to understand what’s happening now, you need to know what happened ten years ago.” Sera shifted places, moving several cushions to her left until she was sitting closer to me. I crawled through my memories, looking for the one I needed. It was well buried, held with iron chains deep in my subconscious. Reluctantly, I ripped it free, and it flew toward me as eagerly as a drowning swimmer desperate for air. It was creaky and disused but as powerful as it had ever been. It wanted to be heard. I began to speak.
It was late February, and we’d been looking for the killer for months. The bodies had started appearing in October, but it took a while for us to recognize the pattern. The first death slid completely under our radar. It wasn’t considered a murder by the local authorities, and who could blame them? There were no clear signs of foul play, just a dead body in a campsite. Someone who had apparently died from a heart attack at a freakishly young age. We did not live in an especially high crime area, but it was still like any other place: people died, and died often.
The second death was the boyfriend of someone we knew, an earth elemental in several of my classes. This time, the autopsy determined how he’d died: his heart had been completely frozen. The cops still assumed natural causes, but we knew what we were dealing with. With the third death, we saw the pattern fully. We knew we were facing an ice that killed the human partners of other elementals. This time, we couldn’t fail to notice: it was Brian’s girlfriend who died.
Brian was destroyed. He left town completely, unable to stay when he saw memories of her wherever he looked. He simply packed up his car and left, and the only thing he said to me before he drove out of town was, “Find this bastard.”
We did our best. Though we had many friends, Sera and I discovered that most were leaving town. Vivian was one of them, packing soon after the first murders. For whatever reason, that instinct for selfishness—or possibly self-preservation—had completely bypassed the two of us. We were brash, relatively young, and highly motivated. Plus, we both came from old families, and we had the power that only comes from the sort of lineage and upbringing we were given. Between the two of us, we had little doubt that we could handle one ice elemental, no matter how dangerous. As a team, we thought we were invincible. The only problem was that we had to find him first.
It took us months. We tried to identify the elementals’ partners, figuring they were potential victims, but that proved little more than an exercise in frustration. After all, it was still a college town, and many people swapped partners more often than they changed classes. When we did find a probable victim, we could only follow him or her, hoping to catch the killer if he struck. It was a far from ideal plan, and after an afternoon spent sitting in a car, waiting for an earth’s girlfriend to finish getting her highlights done, we scrapped that plan entirely. She died a month later.
At this point, Sera phoned her father. We were clearly in over our heads and wanted his help. Josiah Blais had little interaction with humans, but he did have a vested interest in making sure no unstable elemental was risking our exposure.
He provided motion sensor cameras, similar to the ones currently in the fortress. He hired a man to install them throughout all the parks, and each morning we scrolled through the footage from the night before, simultaneously hoping and fearing that we’d catch the killer on film. This continued for weeks. Then, one morning, there was finally some movement on one of the tapes.
A figure, clearly male, stood in front of the camera. He wore a thick winter coat, the sort you would see on half the locals. He appeared to be of average height and build, and his face and hair were covered by a skier’s balaclava. It was difficult to tell beneath the mask, but he appeared to be smiling. A moment later, ice started to form over the lens, thickening into a layer at least an inch thick. The frame was completely obscured.
Sera and I drove immediately to the park, but we already knew it was too late. The body of Steve Marconi, the longtime partner of a water we sometimes met for drinks, lay frozen on the ground. The camera was still covered with a thick layer of ice. We phoned the police, telling them we’d happened upon the body while out for a morning jog. They asked us a few perfunctory questions we could easily answer, and then we watched from outside the yellow tape as the forensics team appeared. They found nothing. There were no bootprints in the ice, no marks or fingerprints on the body. As before, it appeared Steve had died suddenly from a freak heart attack.
I watched the cops stand at the edges of the crime scene, whispering and shaking their heads. Their faces revealed their complete bewilderment and no small amount of fear. They might not want to articulate it, but they knew what they were seeing was not natural. They had no idea how a human could commit these murders, and the only thing stopping them from looking for non-humans was their stubborn belief that we didn’t exist. I wondered how long that belief could hold in the face of more impossible murders.
That night, over dinner, we quietly told Josiah about the crime scene and the cops’ reactions. The next day he made a phone call, and within hours a personal security detail appeared at his door. They all wore matching uniforms, head-to-toe black relieved only by the red collars on their motorcycle-style jackets. He assigned one bodyguard to each potential target, with the strict instru
ctions to call us the moment anything suspicious happened. The guards were humans, and therefore told not to interfere directly. It really is amazing what can be organized with a large enough bankroll.
It took another three weeks before anything happened, during which time Sera and I let down our guard a little. With Josiah assuming responsibility, we could almost pretend things were normal again. We starting hanging out at the bar like we did before, but it was different. Now, the elementals stuck together, avoiding any human contact. We never flirted or exchanged numbers anymore. We were too afraid to turn someone into a target. The only human we dared talk to was Christopher. The bar between us felt like a natural barrier, one that kept him safe. Besides, it was Chris. We didn’t know how not to be his friend.
When the call finally came in the small hours of the morning, we had nearly forgotten we were waiting for it. Josiah had returned to Hawaii. It was only the two us. The bodyguard informed us that an unfamiliar man had visited the human to whom he was assigned. Her name was Amanda Wilson. Neither of us knew her, but she had just climbed into her own car with the unknown visitor and been driven to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Truckee. They were both inside the building now, but the guard did not think she had entered the building willingly. He asked permission to enter himself, clearly thinking himself a better offensive unit than two college girls. We refused and told him to wait where he was. To do otherwise would have been the same as signing his death certificate. He hung up, unhappy, and we drove as quickly as we could to the warehouse.
When we arrived, the guard was nowhere to be seen. I don’t know why that didn’t worry us more than it did. Maybe we assumed that he didn’t want to be our lapdog and had left. More likely, we didn’t want to consider anything that would interfere with our long-awaited chance to be heroes. We ignored that warning sign, a mistake we had cause to rue every day since.
There were no houses nearby, and the warehouse stood on several acres of its own land. There was one car in front of the building, but otherwise the entire place appeared abandoned. Clouds covered the moon and the thousands of stars that normally lit up the Tahoe sky. Dawn was only an hour away, but at that moment it still felt like the deepest part of night. It was cold and windy, the trees rattling in the breeze. A storm was clearly on the way.
“Well, this doesn’t feel creepy at all,” muttered Sera. “Got your high heels on? I hear that’s the standard footwear for dealing with serial killers.”
I knew that humor was Sera’s primary defense, and she was probably using it to cover her own uneasiness, but I was in no mood to banter. “What’s the plan?” We’d never bothered to discuss what we’d do if we ever found the guy.
“Wait here.” Sera took off with no further explanation, and for several minutes I was alone. Nothing is louder than the sound of a forest on a windy night. Every crack, every brush of the leaves sounded like someone sneaking up behind me. I took several deep breaths, trying to center myself.
I found the core of magic within me and let it glide through my body, let it reach out and find all nearby sources of water. We weren’t close to the river, but the impending storm provided plenty of humidity. I let the magic attach and simply held it there, asking it to wait until I needed it. As always, I found comfort in this simple act, this reminder of the energy that gave me life every bit as much as my beating heart.
Sera silently returned. “We’re good. There are no windows in the sides or back, and only one door. I already set a fire by the door, blocking that one. Assuming they were here when we arrived, they’re still here.”
I felt my calm control slip. Her impetuousness had cost us the element of surprise.
“Dammit, Sera. This is your plan? Run in like Butch Cassidy and the fucking Suicidal Kid? Besides, he’s an ice, you idiot. He can put out a fire.”
Looking at her, I was shocked to see that she was excited. She wanted to storm in like the conquering heroes, knocking down walls and saving the day. She’d been waiting for this for months, and she would not be denied her moment of victory. “Not like you can. He can put out a fire eventually, and only with enough melted ice. It was a big fire. It would take an old one to summon a block of ice big enough to put this one out. We’ve got this, Ade. I’ll create a lovely, fiery trap, and you just keep an eye on everything, make sure it stays under control.” She actually grinned. “I don’t think control will be at the top of my priority list.” Still smiling, she summoned a fireball to her hand and redrew it until she appeared to be holding a revolver. “Let’s go, Butch.”
In moments, she was through the door, and I had no choice but to follow her. The warehouse was a long rectangle, with the front door directly in the center. Entering, we could see most of the ground floor, a vast empty space in which our footsteps seemed to echo. We knew not even to whisper, lest our voices carry where we did not intend them to go.
It was even darker than it was outside, and our eyes needed time to adjust. The only light came from Sera’s fireball and the rear door directly across from us, with the fire illuminating the cracks around the door frame. The smoke wasn’t creeping into the building yet. It appeared the wind was favoring us, at least for now.
To our right, three closed doors suggested hiding spaces, and a rusted metal staircase on our left led to a catwalk that wound around the building, creating what amounted to a second story. Several rooms with large windows were at the top of the stairs, likely offices from the days when the warehouse was still in use. There was no light in any of them, and the rooms were so dark the windows might as well have been opaque. It was as likely a hiding space as the far rooms, and we were stuck between them. Checking the upstairs offices would give him the chance to escape through the front door, an unacceptable option.
Using a complicated series of hand gestures, Sera told me to stay put. I didn’t mind. If she did encounter our prey, fire was a far more effective weapon than water. Unless I was willing to drown him or carry him away on a displaced tsunami, there was little I could do other than get him very wet. I didn’t think a clean serial killer was our goal at the moment, so I stayed where I was, between the various rooms, trying to simultaneously watch every hiding place and keep an eye on Sera as she cautiously moved toward the first door.
With the fire held before her, she twisted the handle of the first door and pushed it slowly open. I completely forgot to look anywhere but at her, my breath caught in my throat.
Everything remained still and quiet. Finally, she thrust the fire into the room, illuminating the darkness and revealing a completely empty room. I wanted to pause for a moment, but she was already at the second door, repeating her actions. Again, the room was entirely vacant and covered in dust. It did not appear that anyone had set foot in this building in years, if not decades.
Sera tried the final door. Nothing happened. She turned to face me. “Locked,” she mouthed across the room. They had to be in there. Grinning, she increased the size of the fireball, and bounced it from hand to hand. The damn woman was psychotic.
As the fire grew in size, the room grew lighter, my vision better. I don’t know what caused me to turn around at that moment—some sound I heard without realizing it, a flash in my peripheral vision, a whispered warning from some ancient lizard brain part of my human mind—but I suddenly glanced above me and saw movement at one of the windows. A single figure, clearly male, was watching us. We’d found him.
Sera followed my vision. She never paused. The fireball flew from her hand to the office door, setting the rotting wood instantly on fire. I indicated the door behind me, and felt the increased heat as she set up a blockade at that exit point, too. The windows were the high, narrow kind that no one could use without a ladder, and so we left them unprotected.
This time, I led the way up the stairs. Now that the escape routes were blocked, I needed to control the fires while we corralled our prey. Fighting down my nerves, I drew water to me, providing a protective layer against the heat as we moved closer t
o the new fire. It was a large building, and it would take time for the smoke from the two fires to replace the clean air, but we were still working with limited time.
Reaching the first office, its door completely aflame, I peered through the window. I could just make out the man through the glass, sitting against the far wall. He was alone. The smoke was already filling the room, and it seemed he’d moved as far from it as possible, trying to buy a few more moments. That told me he wasn’t an especially powerful ice. The weaker ones can freeze small things, about the size of a human fist—or a human heart—but they cannot create the type of protective barrier I currently wore. It required more magical energy to build than they were able to summon. Relieved, I knew we had him. With his amount of power, he’d never be able to best Sera and me combined. I checked again, confirming that he was the only one in the room, and let the fire burn for several more minutes, hoping to weaken him further. It was the cruelest thing I’ve ever done, and I paid for it more than I could have ever imagined.
Eventually, I felt enough time had passed, and I indicated to Sera that she should drop the flames. She immediately drew the magic back to her, extinguishing the fire as it came in contact with her body. Sera grabbed the metal door handle, easily able to bear the heat, and turned. She held the door open and let me through, so I was the first person to see what we had done.
Against the far wall sat the crumpled, wasted body of a man, staring at us with empty eyes. He looked to be well into his 50s, but years of outdoor living had weathered his skin, and even more years of heavy booze consumption had reddened it. His clothes were old, covered in dirt, and so faded that they all appeared to be the same color. Against one wall lay a pallet covered by a threadbare blanket, and a few empty soup cans littered the floor. He clutched a single brown knapsack, holding his only possessions close to his body as if they were his treasures. They might have been. The air had slowly vacated his lungs and been replaced by the cruel black smoke, and all he had done was curl up in a ball, cradling the few insignificant items he’d managed to acquire in this world, and let death find him.