Fire: The Elementals Book One

by Gilbert, L. B.

He failed completely.

  The Elemental rolled her eyes. Someone had to be really cute to look good doing that… and she was. Although cute didn’t cover it. Hot does, but that’s too on the nose.

  “Well now that you’ve acknowledged that I’m not a complete waste of your time—”

  “I don’t believe I’ve acknowledged anything other than a desire to mock you or set you on fire,” she said, cutting him off.

  He ignored that. “I can tell my mother’s servant, Dietrich, was down in the basement last, presumably cleaning up on Mother’s orders. He locked it after he left.” There was no reaction, but he hadn’t spontaneously burst into flames, so he continued. “I think there were at least four witches,” he added carefully, watching as she spun around to the basement door.

  It was at the half-way mark between the dining area and the living room space. How did she even know where it was? Did she detect the evil or did Mother Nature beam the floor plans directly into her brain like in the Matrix? He decided not to ask. She still looked annoyed.

  “If you insist on staying here, don’t touch anything,” she said repressively.

  Putting her hand on the door, she unlocked it with a rush of hot air he could feel from where he was standing.

  That is so awesome. Impressed despite his desire to appear cool and composed, Alec stifled his enthusiasm and put on a passive expression. A witch would have needed an incantation spoken aloud to open the door without touching it. He stepped closer to the doorway as she started down the dark staircase.

  “Do you need a light?” Alec asked.

  She didn’t answer as she disappeared from view.

  “Yeah, that was probably a stupid question.”

  * * *

  Diana ignored the vampire as she made her way down the stairs. Why wouldn’t he go away? She had been right. There was something wrong with that one.

  Refocusing her attention on the scene in front of her, she could see he’d been right. There were indeed four witches who used this threshold frequently in the past month. And most recently two vampires, one of them Elva and another younger male vampire.

  So Alec Broussard was a sensitive.

  A sensitive vampire would be able to sense the presence of one of his own. If he knew them from before, he could probably identify them. But that wasn’t a universal vampire skill like mesmerism or their supernatural stealth and speed. And sensing past visits from the Otherkind? That meant there was some serious talent there. Very rare for a vampire.

  But that didn’t explain his insistence on ‘helping’. Honor wasn’t a good enough answer. There was the small possibility he was lying and was involved with the witches somehow. But her instinct said he wasn’t. Still, she would have to keep an eye on him.

  Saving that thought for later, she faced the dark expanse of the room.

  Dietrich does fine work, she mused. How annoying.

  The room was preternaturally clean. The only thing in it was a neatly arranged tool shelf at the back wall. The tools had no energy attached to them at all, meaning they hadn’t been used in months. Maybe a year or more. Plus, they were dusty, despite the Spartan cleanliness of the rest of the room. It practically sparkled.

  Diana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In her mind’s eye, she could still see the room like a tape playing backwards, the amorphous shapes of the people who had been here. Dietrich’s impression was strongest. Diana watched as he cleaned backwards in jerky motions. She couldn’t see what he was cleaning. The debris didn’t have a heat signature, although she could sense where it had been. Its presence left a dark stain only visible to her.

  And maybe the damn vampire upstairs. A sensitive vampire of all things. Did he feel the ley lines? And how did his knowledge manifest? Her ability worked in a way uniquely tied to her fire gift. She could only guess how the vampire sensed what he did.

  Diana turned her attention back to the image of Dietrich, annoyed with herself for thinking of the other vampire at all. Dietrich was farther back in time now. He was gathering things—maybe cleaning supplies. A moment later, he was retreating up the stairs. She skipped back to the earlier and fainter heat signatures: Elva and Dietrich coming in, Elva gesturing wildly.

  Further back, Diana willed. For a moment, there was nothing, and then the images started, even fainter now.

  The shapes were growing less distinct, the heat signatures slowly fading the farther back she went. The muted figures were in a circle around something now, and for a moment she could see it, a metal bowl that heated slightly when they burned something in it. The heat in it flaring and then dissipating as one of the shapes moved their hand, a lit match retreating backward. She needed to find the trash Dietrich threw away.

  One of the figures joined late and settled awkwardly at the ring. It was a man, somewhat overweight. The figure who lit the fire was also a man, but the one to the left of him was smaller and slim. A woman. The last was probably a woman, too, judging by the way she moved.

  Two men and two women. A balanced black circle. She went further back, studying the forms even as they grew fainter. She couldn’t recognize any of the rites from their blurring movements. And they performed more than one. She could just see the bowl flaring intermittently as they lit fires in it, sometimes candles, too, one in front of each member of the circle.

  But the figures were too faint now to make out anything that might identify them and eventually the forms faded completely. Diana relaxed her focus. She turned around and headed back up the stairs, expecting to find the vampire waiting in the kitchen, but he wasn’t there. Flexing her senses, she spotted the slight heat vamps retained shifting around upstairs.

  Diana found him at a doorway at end of the hall on the second floor. She moved toward him, but he didn’t turn toward her till she was next to him. His expression was grave. She looked in the room past him and froze. Her insides twisted.

  In the corner of the room lay a dirty mattress, with a blanket lying half on the floor. Next to it was a small dirty pink and white sneaker.

  Diana’s temperature rose, and before the vamp could move, he was on the floor flat on his back, her hand on his neck. His shirtfront smoked slightly under her touch. She shifted her knee to his chest.

  “What do you know about this?” She gestured to the mattress.

  “Nothing you don’t already know,” he wheezed out from behind her hand.

  “Try again,” she hissed, her hand at her side sparking, fire flaring to life.

  “Okay! Okay! I came home because I was summoned.”

  She rolled her eyes and gestured impatiently for more.

  “I always keep tabs on the coven’s activities when I’m away. My parents lead well enough but they’re. . .a little careless. Not always into details. And they don’t watch what the younger members are up to unless it benefits them or they become inconvenient in some way. They’re better than the other coven leaders I know, but it’s still a good idea to check on them,” he said, trying to shift her off him, but she didn’t move.

  Diana extinguished her fire and brought her other hand down to join the first in a tight grip.

  “I was back in England, down at Oxford, checking through some of the Bodleian library collections. One of my men back here contacted me. A child had gone missing, a little boy—not a girl. It was the kid of one of our agents, a human servant. His name is Pedro Montes. He has served us faithfully, as did his father before him. He acts as caretaker for several of our properties, including the one he lives in. His son disappeared almost a week ago. Not all vampire houses treat their staff that well, but in our house the loyalty of our servants is rewarded,” he said earnestly.

  “When the boy was taken, no one saw anything and no one took responsibility. But the building was warded against everyone but humans and members of our house. And the wards hadn’t been tripped,” Alec added, surreptitiously pushing against her knee.

  He looked confused, as if he was trying to figure out why he couldn’t budge someone
half his size.

  “A boy?” Diana asked, her voice distant. The disappearance could be unrelated, but her gut told her otherwise. “How old?”

  “Five, almost six.”

  Same age as Katie.

  “That’s why I came home. When my man saw the wards were pristine, he realized one had been swapped out. That shouldn’t be possible. He questioned Pedro, but by that time he was too far gone.”

  “Explain,” she ordered flatly.

  “Pedro barely remembers he had a son. It was as if he’d been wiped clean.”

  “So it was a vampire.” From your house, she added in her head.

  “That is what I thought. It’s why I rushed home. But I saw Pedro this morning. Before you came to case the coven house yesterday afternoon.”

  I knew someone was out there. “And now you don’t think it was a vampire.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No. Pedro is still. . .messed up, and it’s been over a week. A compulsion would have worn off by now.”

  “Even if it was a very old vampire? Like your parent’s age? How old is Fiona?” she asked, smacking his hand away from her knee when he started to try and wiggle out from under it.

  “She’s younger than mother but not by that much. And even my father’s compulsion would have faded after a few days without reinforcement. My man has been watching Pedro for longer than that. No vampire has come near him in all that time.”

  “Still could be one of the ancient ones—or a black witch. And we already know black witches are operating in the area and are not afraid to act under your coven’s nose. It must have been one of them that took the boy, circumventing the ward in place and compelling the father to hand over his son somehow. That last is worrisome. That kind of compulsion can’t be done with a spell. It’s a vampire thing. Trying to use another group’s brand of magic doesn’t work, at least not well,” Diana said, thinking aloud.

  She relaxed her grip on his throat.

  “I don’t think it worked well at all. This man, Pedro, he’s. . .broken. He is functioning completely on auto-pilot. He gets up every morning, showers, and goes to work. He does his job but he can’t engage anymore. It’s like his personality was wiped away. And he’s not getting better. Even a compulsion done by an ancient one would fade, although I’ve only met a few, and they’re not exactly open about the strength of their abilities.” Alec paused and then asked politely, “Do you think you could let me up?”

  Diana looked down at him. She pursed her lips and waited a full minute before shifting off him, rising in a fluid motion. By comparison, the vampire rose awkwardly, probably a first for him.

  “I need to see him. And this Fiona, too. Where does Pedro live?” Diana would find him tomorrow after she slept.

  “I can bring Pedro to you. Fiona will have gone to ground after tonight. She was in the ballroom when you. . .dropped by.”

  “I don’t need help finding Fiona. If she was there, she can’t hide from me. And I don’t want Pedro removed from his home. I want to see him there, just tell me where it is.”

  “My man, Daniel, is still with Pedro. I really think you should let me introduce you two. Pedro isn’t reacting well to strangers right now. But he’s gotten used to having Daniel around. And well. . .you will scare the shit out of Daniel unless I’m there. Remember the whole smart people running thing?” he asked as he straightened his clothes fussily.

  Diana lifted an eyebrow before turning and headed to the stairs. “I always catch them, don’t worry your pretty little head about that,” she called behind her as she went down the stairs.

  “I can find out where Fiona is, too,” he offered a little too eagerly as he followed her. Maybe she shouldn’t have called him pretty.

  “Don’t bother. As far as I’m concerned, she trafficked with black witches. I’ll find her myself and will deal with her without your counsel.”

  Or your interference, Diana tacked on mentally.

  Alec hurried down the stairs after her. “I realize it looks bad, but my mother is most likely right on this one. Fiona probably didn’t do anything wrong intentionally. My mother likes having her around because she can basically look down on her intellectually. She is the kind of vampire who’s all glitter and pomp. Her daughter’s a little brighter, but both of them are too self-involved for anything like this.”

  “If she hasn’t done anything wrong, I’ll know, and she’ll be fine. But you have no place shielding the guilty. If you really want to help, you tell me where the trash from the basement is.”

  Alec thought for a moment. “Dietrich wouldn’t have left it in a bin nearby. It’s possible he burned it or something. He wouldn’t know to throw it in the sea to let the saltwater purify it.”

  No longer surprised that he knew so much about witch magic, Diana gave the vampire another assessing look. Doesn’t make him useful, just more suspicious. But if he was hiding some evil seed, it was buried way down deep because she couldn’t sense it.

  “Let me guess, you want to offer to check with Dietrich and get the stuff if he hasn’t gotten rid of it?”

  Alec nodded. “I can get in touch with him as soon as I leave here. I don’t get a great signal close to the house.” He fingered what was presumably a cell phone in his breast pocket.

  No, you wouldn’t. The electromagnetic nature of ley lines disrupted cell and radio signals.

  She wanted to sigh in frustration. He would think he was entitled to some quid pro quo if she took him up on his offer to act as a go-between between her and members of his coven. He would do his best to shield them from her. She didn’t need that kind of help.

  But she was technically in Boston to deal with the Denon Corporation. Now she had to set that aside because this situation was too important.

  Diana mulled it over. She knew her sisters would support any action she chose to take. One of them would even come to back her up if she asked. But all three of them were in far-flung corners of the world right now, dealing with their own investigations, and she didn’t want to bother them. If she needed backup, maybe she could do worse than Alec Broussard.

  What are you thinking? She inwardly berated herself. Diana didn’t need help from a vampire whose only concern was to cover his coven’s ass. Just get the stuff from him and let him introduce you to his man and then you can finish with him.

  “If he still has the trash, bring it to the meet with Pedro,” she said. “We’ll meet at two PM. I assume you will want to meet in daylight?”

  The better to hide your activities from your house.

  “Yes, I think that would be best,” Alec said.

  “Fine.” Diana swung around and walked to the back door. She was out of it and halfway to her bike when he called out from behind her.

  “Don’t you need the address? Should I text it to you?”

  “I don’t use phones. If you’re there, I will find you. So be there,” she ordered, climbing on her bike.

  “Well, that went well,” Alec said aloud to the trees as she drove away.

  8

  Diana returned to the safe house shortly before dawn, where she briefly lit a candle and, after confirming that her sisters weren’t communing, let it flare high and hot for several heartbeats. Then she let it burn out.

  The unnaturally high heat she’d generated would serve as a calling card for her sisters when they next checked in. It was just as well. She didn’t want to go into everything tonight.

  Her thoughts wandered to Alec. She should feel guilty for terrifying him. It shouldn’t be funny—the face he made when she had flipped him like a doll.

  His kind weren’t used to being outmatched. And he was at the top of the heap when it came to strength and power. Few other vampires could match him, even those older than him. But he was either very brave or very stupid if he continued to insist on tagging along during her investigation.

  She lay down on the bed and punched the pillow into shape.

  Vampire chivalry. Blech.

  * * *

>   At noon the next day, Alec still had men scrambling to find Dietrich’s dumpsite. He hadn’t learned where Fiona was hiding, but he had gotten a hold of Dietrich before dawn.

  He’d cornered him as they are prepared for the daylight rest and learned both the approximate location of the trash as well as the state in which Dietrich found the items the witches had left behind.

  Dietrich hadn’t burned the things after all, but he’d probably done worse by tossing them in a random dumpster without noting where he was. It took a good twenty minutes for Dietrich to even pinpoint the neighborhood on a map. After that, Alec only had enough time to call his men and start the search before he pretended to prepare for slumber with the rest of his house. When Alec had finally been assured that the human servants were off on their own business, he’d hurriedly dressed and slipped back out of the house.

  After watching his men crawl through two dumpsters in Somerville with no luck, Alec accepted that Dietrich’s usual precision was absent when it came to giving directions. That or he’d been too rattled by recent events. If he’d seen Diana in action, that was probably the case. So far, all of his men had found were a lot of empty pizza boxes and other way more disgusting discards.

  I’m going to have a lot of dry cleaning bills to comp, he thought, making a mental note to look into it. His staff would never bother him with such trivial matters, but the situation with Pedro had highlighted his attitude toward the people who served him.

  A signal came from one of his men near the fourth dumpster his men had searched. One of them hustled over with partially filled black trash bag. He looked inside and saw a discarded bowl and an assortment of half burned herbs stained with a sticky brown substance on top of a lot of other more mysterious items.

  He threw the bag in the back of the car, relieved he hadn’t needed to make a trip to the city dump. A city this big probably had more than one. He’d honestly never thought about it before.

  * * *

  Diana woke near noon with a start. She was sure she’d been dreaming, but it wasn’t the typical nightmare she’d had back when she was in the juvenile ward. All she remembered was that she had been lying next to someone, deep in conversation. But it was already too faded for her to hold onto to the images.