"A neighbor driving by on his way into town," Kent shrugged. "I was on my way there when you called. Headed that way when we're done here."
"I'd like to go with you, if you don't mind," Cliff said.
No, I begged silently. I never wanted to set foot in Ross' house again.
"No problem. Blake asked me to check on it—as a personal favor—and report anything we find to him. I can put somebody else on this," he patted the pocket that held Rob's drawing. "It'll be a good thing—to separate me from conveniently finding the tree," he added.
* * *
Kent James took ten minutes to make a phone call to a colleague about the tree on the edge of a neighbor's property, then asked us to ride in his unmarked car to Ross' mansion.
I worked to keep myself from hyperventilating in the back seat while he and Cliff talked in the front.
"Something wrong?" Rob lifted an eyebrow at me when I twisted my fingers together.
"N-no," I stuttered before pulling my tablet from my purse and pretending to read. My insides felt so shaky they could have been made of gelatin. I needed a friend. Someone to confide in. I needed Parke more right then than I'd ever needed him before.
Terrible memories threatened.
Memories of Ross handing me to some of his—what almost happened that night terrified me, still.
No, they hadn't raped me.
They wanted to.
Ross decided to teach me a lesson after I'd had the temerity to disagree with him. He'd watched while they'd torn my clothing away and I screamed. That was the last time I'd been to his mansion, less than a year and a half before.
Yes, I was grateful he was dead.
More than grateful. Shortly after, I'd asked Aunt Shelbie for help getting Destiny away and then ran for my life from Alabama.
Parke didn't know anything about this.
I wasn't about to tell him now. I'd left a message for him—with his assistant and with his mother.
He hadn't bothered to call back.
"We're here," Rob tapped my arm. I jumped and stifled a shriek.
* * *
Cliff Young
"She doesn't want to go in," Rob whispered. Cassie hung back while Kent unlocked the front door of Ross Diablo's antebellum mansion.
"You think something happened to her here?" I asked, keeping my voice soft.
"I do. I don't know whether to force the issue or let her stay outside."
"Bring her in. We should tell her we know about the forced engagement."
"All right, but don't say I didn't warn you," Rob said.
* * *
Cassie
Rob came to get me when I hung back. I wanted to refuse to go inside, but forced my feet to take the steps. I kept reminding myself that the house was empty and Ross was dead as I walked reluctantly through the front door.
Everything looked the same; the expansive, marble-tiled foyer and twin staircases greeted me as I walked inside. So many women would have agreed to marry Ross just from a peek inside his home.
They'd have fallen at his feet if they'd caught a whiff of his offshore bank accounts. I knew what he was the moment I'd been shoved in front of him when I was fourteen. I'm sure a down payment had changed hands between him and my father shortly after.
One year later, my mother was missing. A part of me understood she was dead, but I didn't say it—Destiny wanted to believe she was alive, so I left her with that illusion.
She knows now, I reminded myself.
"Everything looks like it belongs where it is—no dust rings or anything, to show something's missing," Kent said, breaking the silence. On the left side, the grandfather clock ticked.
I remembered that clock and the distinctive, clicking noise it made.
Panic rose and almost closed my throat. "Somebody's been here," I choked out before the floor burst open with a roar at our feet, flinging shards of tile everywhere. My vision was blurred by splintered wooden beams and debris at first; I was knocked backward and halfway through the front door when the rock demon emerged from the hidden cellar beneath the house, bellowing his fury at our presence.
Two werewolves—Kent and Cliff in werewolf form, were covered in marble dust as they growled and backed away from an angry rock demon.
Where was Rob?
I blinked—it felt as if it took forever to blink once and then twice—Rob lay on the antique wood floor halfway inside the right front parlor. He was unconscious, or at least I hoped he was unconscious.
He could be dead, a small voice informed me.
The rock demon swung a massive arm, sweeping one of the werewolves out of his path and into what remained of the wall to the left. The other werewolf leapt at him, only to be batted aside like a Ping-Pong ball hit by a baseball bat.
"No," I shouted, scrambling to my feet as the rock demon crunched across what was left of the floor, heading toward the first werewolf, who was struggling to his feet.
The rock demon turned toward me, huffed out a huge, deafening breath that blew dust everywhere, determined I wasn't a threat to him and went after the werewolf again. It wasn't until I'd leapt across the chasm the rock demon created in the floor that I realized I was on fire.
Rocky had his back turned to me and was reaching for the wolf again when I landed on his back, my prelim skipped over in favor of my full, fire demon.
He roared loud enough to shake half the ceiling down on us, which caught fire the moment it touched any part of me.
"Get them out," I shouted to the half-dazed werewolf. To my ears, it sounded as if I were roaring as loudly as the rock demon, who was now screaming beneath my weight and my fire.
I didn't have time to determine what happened after that—the rock demon went into survival mode and leapt as high as his melting legs could take him, only to turn and fall backward in mid-leap, so his weight would land on top of mine.
By that time, the front half of Ross' mansion was engulfed by a thundering, insatiable fire.
The rock demon and I fell past the ground level of the mansion, into the hole he'd created when he burst through the floor. We landed hard on the stone floor beneath, but I wasn't the one whose breath was knocked out of me—the rock demon was melting fast. I had to stick to him as well as I could to destroy enough of him that he'd die.
I can't say why I wanted to destroy him—something in my brain insisted on it. My fire demon wouldn't be satisfied until he was dead, so I held on, like a burr caught in a cow's tail.
He rolled across the wide cellar, my flames lighting the depths of it eerily while he struggled to loosen me from his body. His roar had weakened, though, when he rolled again after hitting a far wall and switching directions.
I hadn't known this cellar was here.
Ross certainly had.
The rock demon and I crashed into shelf after shelf, while boxes, jars and whatever else had been piled upon them fell in a deafening heap of destruction and flying sparks, before burning around us. Yes, I should have been concerned that we were destroying evidence, but my goal hadn't been met as yet.
This one had attacked us.
He may have killed Rob, too. I had no idea as to the status of the werewolves. All I knew was that this one wasn't getting away—not if I had anything to say about it. The rock demon practiced his version of stop, drop and roll as we took another trip across the cellar, crashing into more shelves as we went.
These shelves held wine bottles.
How did I know that?
The bloom of flame and subsequent explosions were almost earsplitting afterward. The rock demon made one more attempt to dislodge me as we came to rest against another wall; this time he strained to elbow me off his back.
His body was turning into a river of molten rock beneath me, and still I held on.
Fire knows fire, the words flitted through my brain. Fire melts rock.
I heard sirens in the distance and there was nothing left of my adversary before my fire demon rose from the cellar floor and climbed out
of Ross' burning mansion. Turning humanoid and shivering in my nakedness, I walked toward the car where an injured Rob, Kent and Cliff waited.
Chapter 4
Cassie
I huddled in the back of Kent's vehicle, wrapped in Cliff's suit jacket while he, Kent and Rob talked to police and the fire department. I had no idea what tale they were telling and didn't care.
I wondered briefly if Parke would come bail me out if I were taken to jail for burning Ross' mansion to the ground.
Yes, I'd wanted to do that very thing, but never intended to make my fantasy a reality. I had no idea, too, whom I'd destroyed after he'd attacked all of us. Yes, the shock of it was setting in, and I trembled inside Cliff's jacket.
All my clothes had burned away the moment I became fire demon. It was something else to explain to the police and fire department, I'm sure—that yes, my clothes had been burned off me. No, I had absolutely no burns on my body to be treated.
"Thank goodness that's over," Rob settled himself on the seat beside me. He held one arm against his chest as if it pained him.
"Is it broken?" I asked. My voice quavered on the question.
"You're going into shock," Rob said. "Let me see if I can speed things up outside." He opened the door and was gone again.
"Sorry," Cliff slid onto the front passenger seat while Rob took his seat again right behind Cliff. "Kent will be here in a few. Hang on, all right? Damn, if you hadn't come with us, we'd all be smashed flat and buried somewhere."
"H-how do you know that?" The trembling in my voice was now worse.
"Because that, dear intern, was Ross' brother, Ray."
"H-he h-has a br-other?"
"Missing for many years, because he committed murder and skipped town," Cliff said. "After a while, Ross reported him dead."
"Yo-your arm is broken, isn't it?" I accused Rob, who hadn't answered my question—he'd allowed Cliff to talk.
"Baby doll, it would have been a hell of a lot worse if you hadn't jumped Ray when you did," Rob turned away to stare out the window. Kent had returned and the vehicle was now in motion, taking us back to Birmingham.
"B-but you need help," I hissed at him.
"As do you. Kent's taking us to a healer now."
"Cassie, how did you know someone was there?" Cliff asked. "At Ross' house?"
"Th-the gra-andfather clock," I ducked my head and hugged myself tighter. "It h-has t-to be w-wound once a w-week. R-ross h-has b-been dead f-for s-several."
I hated to admit that I knew anything about Ross—before or after his death. I certainly hadn't known he had a brother.
"We know about the forced engagement," Cliff said, turning back in his seat. "Stop worrying about that shit. You were a hero today. You saved all of us."
"L-like th-that'll m-make a d-difference in class t-tomorrow," I muttered.
"Yeah. Sorry about that," Cliff sighed.
* * *
Parke
"Blake Donovan is on line one," Pauline informed me.
"What the fuck does he want now?" I mumbled before lifting the handset. "Parke Worth, here, your honor," I answered.
"There's been an incident here," Blake said right away. "Your wife was suffering from shock afterward, so she's been sedated."
"What the hell?" I was on my feet in an instant, upset and blazingly angry at the same time.
"Ray Diablo, Ross' brother, attacked her, two werewolves and an earth sprite at Ross' old place. She took him down, but she and the others needed medical care afterward. Ross' mansion is pretty much a total loss, but that's understandable, under the circumstances."
"What the bloody hell happened?" I demanded. Donovan might be an Alabama Supreme Court Justice, but right then, I was the Chancellor of all things paranormal, which included his broad, bench-sitting ass.
"I asked Cliff, her boss, and his clerk, who's an earth sprite, to go with one of our werewolf detectives out to Ross' place. It was broken into two days ago," he snapped. "Your wife had come to Birmingham with those two, to look into the District Judge's murder early this morning. She was with them when they went to Ross' place. Ross' brother, who was listed as dead fifteen years ago, attacked all of them. Your wife took him down before he could kill her and the others."
"There was a District Judge murdered?"
"Early this morning, just before dawn. I'm surprised you haven't heard."
"I've been tied up in court today," I mumbled an excuse. "Where's Cassie? Is she safe?"
"As safe as we can keep her for the moment; she'll miss class tomorrow, at the healer's insistence. I'll keep you posted on her condition," Donovan said and hung up.
That's when I remembered that Mom said Cassie had called, and that she'd also left a message with Pauline, which I'd never received.
"Pauline, can you come in here for a moment?" I tapped the intercom and asked as evenly as I could. Yes, I was pissed, and somebody was about to go down for it.
"Yes, Parke?" Pauline was dressed in a see-through blouse today, making sure that I could see the black, lacy bra she wore beneath it.
"Sit down," I indicated one of my guest chairs.
She sat, crossing her legs as seductively as she could.
"Comfortable?" I asked.
"Yes, Parke."
"Good. You're fired for not telling me my wife called. Clear out your things and leave before I call security."
* * *
Dalton King
"Our mole was fired in Seattle," I informed Morton. "I don't have anybody else lined up to apply for that position, so we'll have to have his movements tracked from outside."
"That bitch," Morton growled. "I knew she'd try to get in bed with him. I told you it was a mistake."
"How was I to know he wouldn't want sex with her? The opportunity was too good if he did—she could get us inside information instead of waiting on phone calls from Daniel Frank to find out where he is. He has a shield nobody can see through, so we have to have reliable information from another source, unless we want to end up dead."
"And now that source is gone. You should have told her not to do her usual thing—this isn't one of those cases where we want to destroy somebody's reputation. This was for information to keep us alive."
"Look, it's done. At least he and Cassie are separated, now."
"We don't have an army or the resources that Ross did. We can't make a frontal assault against the Chancellor. We have to be more devious than that."
"Have you heard from Ray?" I asked.
"Not since two days ago. He was supposed to get into Ross' house, get what we needed and then get the hell out. No word on any of that."
"Call me if you hear from him. We need that information, and soon."
* * *
Parke
I was in the middle of reserving a seat on a plane headed for Birmingham when Dave walked into my office.
He looked pale. A flash drive was set on the corner of my desk, after which he backed away as if it burned him to touch it.
"What the hell is that?" I asked, nodding toward the flash drive.
"Something I didn't want to see, and something you probably need to know," he said. "I'll send an invoice for my work, and I hope you never need my services again."
"Look, today isn't a good day to play twenty questions. Tell me what this means," I demanded.
"It involves Fli-Bi-Net—and the software they stole," Dave sighed. "I'm afraid they'll show up at my door and arrest me, now."
"Who will arrest you?"
"The feds," he said and turned to go.
"Fucking hell," I breathed as I watched him disappear down the hall leading to my office. At least Cassie was unconscious and wouldn't know I was ignoring her to look at information contained on a flash drive.
* * *
Cassie
"Cassie, wake up. You're having a bad dream."
Rob's voice.
Swimming through thick unconsciousness to open my eyes was hard. Once that difficult task was accomplis
hed, I had to blink several times to bring Rob's face into focus.
"Broken." I frowned at the sling on his arm.
"It's not broken now—just really sore," he frowned back at me. It took several seconds for me to realize he was doing it to tease me.
"Where are we?" I asked. I couldn't recall where Kent had driven us, or how I'd ended up in a bed.
"Between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. New Quinlan."
"Never heard of it." I turned my head to stare at the ceiling.
"Because it's not an official place," he said. "A few supernaturals live here. One of them is a very talented healer."
"Awesome."
"The last person who said awesome to me was fired from the office two days later."
"Fire me. Please," I turned back to him.
"Not a chance, and you can say awesome whenever you want. I'd be a sprite sandwich if you hadn't saved our asses."
"How come you're not all groggy?" I asked, doing my best not to slur the words.
"Because I only had a broken arm. You had a meltdown. So to speak."
"Funny. What about Cliff? And Kent?"
"Both fine, although Kent may have a few patches of fur missing from his wolf come the full moon."
"My fault?"
"No. Mine, actually. He came back in to pull my ass out of your fire."
"Sorry." I covered my face with a shaky hand. "What time is it?"
"After eleven. You're not going to class tomorrow—the healer says so."
"But," I attempted to argue.
"His honor, Judge Donovan, also insists. He says that nobody will give you grief over it, either. He knows Evan, who knows the Dean. You'll be fine."
"Binita," I whispered in alarm. I just remembered that she and I had a study date.
"Her call came through. Cliff told her you'd been injured in an automobile accident and was under observation at a Birmingham facility. He told her she could see you Friday, when you came home. You can call her yourself if you want."
"It's too late to call tonight," I sighed. "Tell Cliff thanks for covering for me. I'll call her tomorrow, when classes are over," I mumbled.
"Good. That's taken care of. Are you hungry? Want something to eat?"
"I am hungry, I think," I said.
Your Money's Worth: Seattle Elementals, Book 1 Page 5