Fire: The Elementals Book One

by Gilbert, L. B.

  “I’ll make arrangements for that before we leave town,” he said, looking up at the wrought-iron balconies of the French Quarter, the ones that always ended up on postcards, before changing the topic to Mardi Gras.

  As they strolled the cobblestone streets, Alec talked about the celebrations he’d seen in Rio and Quebec. Diana had been hunting a rogue werewolf in Rio during Mardi Gras once but hadn’t paid much attention to the festivities.

  He peppered her with questions about her hunt as they walked, while she absorbed the festive and open atmosphere of the Quarter. Eventually, they wandered to the French Market, where Alec badgered and wheedled until she agreed to have beignets from the Cafe du Monde. He nibbled one as well while Diana inhaled the rest, washing it down with a cafe au lait.

  “It’s a good thing I literally burn calories, you fat enabler,” Diana said half-grumpily when she’d finished.

  Alec was still laughing when his phone rang. He moved away and began talking animatedly. Diana watched him from a distance. It was probably his go-to man, Daniel, on the other end of the line judging from the way he was interacting on his end.

  She liked his laugh. She did not like the fact he had to drink blood.

  From across the way, Alec gave her a thumbs up. He hung up the phone and came back to their table. “I got a better description of the insect pin. It’s not a bee. It’s a beetle with red and orange enamel. Daniel’s sending a picture of the sketch he had worked up.”

  “He talked to more people at the club?”

  “Yes. The staff as well. The bathroom attendant got a good look at the brooch when our mystery woman decided to use the facilities. Do you have a cell? I can send the picture to you.”

  “I don’t use one. Just show it to me,” she said, reaching for his phone to examine the drawing.

  “Who would choose a beetle?” Alec asked with a frown as she studied his screen. “Other than Haldane?”

  “Who?” Diana asked absently.

  “J.B.S. Haldane. A naturalist. He once said something to the effect that God, if he exists, has an inordinate fondness for beetles.”

  Nerd. “Well, I doubt we’re looking for a beetle biologist. Hopefully it’s a family heirloom or something traceable.”

  The brooch was an elaborate piece. Probably an antique from the looks of it. The pin certainly didn’t look modern. Diana turned away, lit a match, and blew it out. She sent the mental image of the brooch into the aether, knowing one of the others would eventually receive it when they next communed with their element.

  “Did I just witness Elemental email?” Alec asked.

  “I guess that’s one way to describe it. Any reason to stay in New Orleans?”

  “No, unfortunately.”

  “You really like those oysters, don’t you?”

  “I do, but we might as well head back to Boston since you have other things to take care of. I’ll call for the plane.”

  They headed back to the hotel, and Alec picked up his bag while Diana grabbed her pack. She headed outside and breathed in the night air, wondering how long it would take to track down the beetle pin woman.

  A few minutes later, Alec came out of his room, and they were on the road to the airport.

  An hour later, they were back in the air. Diana slouched in the comfortable leather chair, surreptitiously watching Alec. He was on the phone again while messing with his tablet. From the sound of things, he was wheeling and dealing, making what were probably multi-million dollar deals.

  He’d already checked on Pedro and had seemed genuinely concerned for the man. Diana was even ready to admit that it wasn’t an act for her benefit. There was no pretense or deceit in his manner. He was just being himself.

  And she’d spent a little too long staring at him. When Alec looked over at her, she quickly averted her gaze and contemplated the interior of the plane.

  I wonder how Logan would react to being inside a plane. The Air Elemental had never flown in one. She’d never had to. Diana made a mental note to ask. She’d sent her a message to check out Katie’s mother Brenda, but Logan hadn’t heard anything about the woman’s whereabouts yet.

  It was so frustrating not being able to track humans. The non-serial killer ones anyway. She closed her eyes for a minute only to be startled by the smell of fresh beignets. Alec had stopped working and was waving one under her nose. She breathed in a little powdered sugar and sneezed on his hand for his efforts.

  “Here, have a fresh one,” he said, laughing and extending the bag to her.

  Diana didn’t argue, taking a beignet from the bag and eating it. For the rest of the trip, she created little fireballs in her hands. She really needed to get one of those e-readers or a tablet if she was going to continue to be driven and flown around by Alec. Then she could read. Or play Angry Birds or Candy Crush.

  “Why don’t you have a phone? Or a computer?” Alec asked, clearly honing his mind-reading skills.

  “Don’t need it to get in touch with the others most of the time. And computer hardware doesn’t have a long shelf life around me. Water has the same problem. Air and Earth, especially Earth, do a lot better with electronics. There are laptops in every safe house. I try not to stay on them too long. Shortens their lifespan.”

  “Which means unless we find you an extremely heat tolerant phone, we should stick together for the duration of this investigation. . .” he suggested with a smile.

  “Nice try. I have some stuff I need to do solo in Boston. I can pick up a burner phone. We keep several in each stash and replenish them often,” Diana said, one of the corners of her mouth turning up.

  “Yeah, that one was a long shot.” Alec murmured before adding in a louder voice, “of course. I’ll do my thing and get in touch with any news. If you need a hand with your Denon case, I would be happy to pitch in.”

  “I think I’ve got it covered,” Diana said, rubbing her neck.

  “I also give great massages,” Alec drawled, with more suggestion in his voice than he’d allowed around her before.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” she told him flatly. “We’re not exactly in coach here, but I’m not used to sitting so much.”

  She punctuated her statement by reclining her chair to its horizontal position and closing her eyes. Once he resumed typing she peeked at him from behind her lashes, interested in the way his hands moved over his tablet.

  20

  After they landed, Diana and Alec split up. She rode her bike out to the safe house and left messages on the aether for Logan about Katie’s mom and checked in with the other two.

  After showering, she turned her attention back to the Denon Corporation. She still had to gather evidence of their systematic abuses during their mining operations. Digging into the box Gia had sent, she pulled out the Earth Elemental’s latest creation.

  It looked like an innocuous fuse, something she could easily plant on the internal network’s power source. From there, the little gem would copy all of the information in a completely untraceable manner. It circumvented the need to access the server room itself, which was accessible only by key card. She had planned on stealing one, but now she wouldn’t have to.

  Too bad. This meant that she would have to get back in there with her temp disguise. Maybe another secretary would have car trouble this time. It was kinder than the food poisoning.

  She looked through the company’s internal directory for a secretary on the right floor. A few more of Gia’s tricks, and she found a home address and made sure she was at the top of the temp roster. She went to sleep after going over the electrical plans for Denon headquarters.

  The secretary Diana had targeted for car trouble was a particularly well paid one in the upper echelons of the Denon Corporation. She worked for one of the senior vice-presidents, Donald Price.

  Diana hated having to target the little guy when doing these large corporation cases, but it was for the greater good.

  At seven AM the following day, she waited patiently under an elm tree for
Ms. Ellison to leave for work. In a few minutes, the older woman came out of her suburban home, coffee in hand. She started the car, and in another minute, her repeated attempts only resulted in a lot of smoke pouring from under the hood.

  Across the street, Diana controlled the small fire she’d set in the engine block, making sure it looked alarming enough for Ms. Ellison to call in absent to work. Luckily, the woman did not appear to live with someone she could ask for help, nor did she have a second car. When she saw Ms. Ellison get on her cell phone and start making call after call, Diana slipped away and went to a gas station to change into her temp disguise.

  She planted Gia’s bug around lunchtime when the building was more empty than usual. It took only moments, but if all went well, it would bring down a company for over forty years of flagrant malfeasance overseas.

  Satisfied, Diana went back to Ms. Ellison’s desk and ate the tuna sandwich she’d packed for her lunch. She chewed with some dissatisfaction as she remembered eating out with Alec.

  Damn. Her sad little sandwich paled in comparison to all of those gourmet meals. And she used to love tuna fish. She’d gotten spoiled, a side effect of befriending a man with an unlimited income and refined taste.

  Just before quitting time, she checked on her listening stone in the air duct. Using a partner stone, she did the magical equivalent of downloading the information recorded. There was quite a lot of it. The higher-ups had been doing a serious amount of chatting lately. There was enough data to suggest that some of the recordings were made after hours. Maybe they had realized they were under investigation. She knew she hadn’t tipped them off. Perhaps some government agency had finally gotten off their butts and started their own investigation into the company’s practices.

  Before she was able to leave for the day, Diana had an unpleasant visit from Matt Archer, a lecherous junior vice president who’d been overly friendly to her the one other day she had worked here.

  “Hi, gorgeous,” Matt said, sauntering up to her desk and sitting on the corner.

  “Do you do that when Miss Ellison is here?” Diana asked caustically.

  Matt gave her his most charming smile. “The dragon would staple my ass to her desk if I tried.”

  “If you don’t have any business for Mister Price, I need to get back to work,” Diana said in her most business-like voice.

  Hurt flashed across his face. “I just wanted to invite you to drinks. A bunch of us are going after work.”

  She wanted to snort, but she bit her tongue instead. He was lying. The slight flush and increased heart rate was enough to convince her of that.

  Now I remember why I hate these corporate jobs. This sort of thing happened every time she went undercover.

  “No, thanks, I’m having dinner with my husband tonight. It’s date night,” Diana lied smoothly.

  More smoothly than him.

  His face fell. “Oh, I didn’t know you were married. You don’t wear a ring.”

  “I can’t wear jewelry. Sensitive skin goes with the red hair,” she lied again. She actually had a few piercings, just not visible ones.

  “Well, you should call him and invite him,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”

  Liar, liar pants on fire. Literally, if you don’t go away.

  “Sorry, we have plans,” Diana finished with a polite and distant smile. A deflated Matt slunk back to his desk.

  “You were right to reject him, but if you come back to temp here, it won’t matter that you’re married,” a voice off to her left said. “He’ll definitely try again.”

  Diana turned to find Erika, another secretary on the floor, waiting with an interested expression on her face. She was a friendly and overly gossipy young woman, not quite attractive enough to have to worry about the Matts of the world. But she was nice and genuine. Diana liked her.

  “That would be unwise,” she said, completely honest for once.

  “You just defined Matt. He pushed and pushed until he got a junior exec’s secretary to see him. She was married, too. Ruined her marriage, and then he dumped her and got her fired. He’s a jerk,” Erika said, sitting on the same spot Matt had been occupying.

  “Yeah, that was clear, but thanks for the info,” Diana said. He wasn’t bad enough for her to deal with officially, but maybe there was something she could do about Mr. Archer. She gestured to the packet of papers Erika was holding. “Are those for Mister Price?”

  “Yes, he needs to sign these today.” Erika handed over some of the papers and headed back to her desk.

  Diana did not escape the rest of working day entirely unscathed. A few minutes before quitting time, Mr. Price came over to suggest he could get her a permanent position with the company if she played her cards right. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

  I should cut my hair or something. Maybe die it brown or shave it off. Her built-in jerk magnet was clearly working too well. Maybe if she got a little uglier, she’d have less asshole face time.

  “I prefer the flexibility of temping,” Diana replied with a stiff, plastic smile.

  When the governing board goes down, I will make sure you go down with them.

  “You should think about the advantages of a permanent position. More job security and better pay. And a lot of new friends.”

  His emphasis made it clear what kind of friend he wanted to be with her. Apparently, he preferred the image of her at the desk outside his office than the uber-efficient Ms. Ellison.

  Ugh. Two in a row. “I don’t think it’s for me,” she said politely.

  Mr. Price’s smile turned a touch more brittle. “Well, if you ever change your mind, you know where to reach me.”

  “Of course I do,” she said with another one of those distant and polite smiles.

  She was getting too good at those. The demise of the Denon corporation couldn’t come soon enough.

  21

  Diana was counting the minutes till she could leave Denon headquarters. The minute the clock hit five PM, she was half-way to the elevator, but that still wasn’t fast enough.

  Both Archer and Price were following close at her heels, and despite the fact they entered the elevator after her, they moved behind her so they could check out her ass the whole way down. They weren’t even subtle about it. Teeth gritted, she kept her hands clenched at her sides so she wouldn’t give in to temptation.

  Mysterious elevator fires were a thing, weren’t they?

  This time Diana wasn’t the least bit surprised to find Alec waiting outside the main entrance. What was surprising was that she was actually glad to see him. He was lounging against a shiny black town car, some sort of Bentley this time. Her relief at seeing him must have been clear on her face because he sprang up and was at her side in seconds.

  Side benefit—his imposing presence, including the proprietary arm he put around her, stopped Archer and Price dead in their tracks.

  Noting their interest, Alec gave her a warm hug and whispered in her ear, “I hope you mentioned a boyfriend to those two. They seem overly interested in you.”

  “You mean in you and your shiny car,” Diana replied quietly. “And I didn’t mention a boyfriend. I mentioned a husband.” Alec froze when she stood on her tip-toes to kiss him on the cheek. “So, hi honey, how was your day?” she asked in a louder voice.

  Alec’s eyes flared, going from dark chocolate brown to a shade of light honey as they heated, along with the rest of his body. He blew right past the two men trying to casually catch their attention, handing her into the car with a flourish before he followed her into the backseat.

  As soon as the car door closed, enclosing them behind a tinted window screen of privacy, Diana relaxed her guard.

  “Ugh,” she shuddered and shook out her hands before taking a deep breath. “I was this close to torching something,” she said, holding her fingers a millimeter apart.

  Alec laughed, despite his obvious disappointment that her warm welcoming act was over. “Well, given how your admirers are practicall
y licking the windows to get at you, I must applaud your will power. Go ahead, Daniel,” he directed his driver. “Before we need to get the car washed.”

  The two men were still standing nearby on the sidewalk. Both were frowning as they realized the occupants of the car were not going to get out to talk to them, as was their due given their position at Denon. Their displeasure at being ignored was all over their faces as the car pulled away.

  Sighing, Diana leaned back. In a perfect world, she could deep-fry the chauvinists or at least singe them, but honestly, they hadn’t done anything bad enough to deserve it. She got that sort of shit all the time. The small pleasure of snubbing them was going to have to do.

  “Who’s watching Pedro?” she asked with a nod to the track-suited Daniel behind the wheel.

  “His assistant,” Alec said.

  Diana smiled. Of course Daniel had an assistant. Being Alec’s right hand was a full-time job and then some.

  “It’s a bit early for dinner,” Alec began, “but I thought we could check out a few jewelry stores and antique shops that sell jewelry. We could show them the sketch we got from the bathroom attendant unless you have an errand. Do you want to get dropped off to change? That skirt looks itchy,” he said, handing her a printed list of stores and addresses.

  Diana frowned. “It is itchy. How did you know?”

  “I know fabrics. Kind of unavoidable in the coven. Vampires tend to be clotheshorses.”

  “I knew that already,” she said, eyeing his fine tailored suit sideways. “But this outfit works for something else I have in mind. Will you drop me off at this address?” she asked, handing over a slip of paper from her purse.

  “Of course. Would you like some company?”

  “Since you insist on stalking me, do I have a choice?” she asked, unable to work up any genuine irritation this time.

  “No, not really,” he admitted comfortably. “Where are we going?”

  She pursed her lips. “That’s the address where Katie lived. I haven’t seen her mother since I brought Katie home last year, and now they’re both gone.”