Page 15 of The Elementalist (Four Elements #1)

Of Life and Death

“You’re not my first elemental, Max.”

That’s how Michael had begun our discussion on vampires last night.

After we’d left Pedro’s and torched the shack, we’d been sitting in a clearing with the waxing moon high overhead.

Apparently, I wasn’t the first to seek him out, nor would I be the last. Because he was in the know, he had been given sensitive information.

In particular, information about the undead among us.

I found myself believing him, trusting my gut about the guy.

Much of what I assumed about vampires was true, though a surprising amount of stuff I thought would be true wound up being false.

Like crosses—or holy symbols in general.

Michael didn’t want to get into a long, belabored discussion of theology and told me that if any sort of god or higher power existed, vampires as well as other supernatural beings had to be part of that creation.

One could not, for example, use a crucifix to ward off an angry bear.

Some people regarded vampires as minions of Satan, but as Michael said, people of antiquity often blamed everything they didn’t like or didn’t understand on the Devil.

Aside from whether or not God had any opinion on vampires, Nature sure did.

Michael told me that the undead—and slipped in a comment like ‘of any type, not just vampires’ without explaining—were basically ‘anti-nature.’ Everything had its opposite.

That old adage about mountains not being mountains without flat ground and valleys to compare them to applied here.

Also, vampires tended to be more powerful than humans due to numbers.

The way Michael described it… the Earth had a finite amount of life force, and an equal—but opposite—dark energy.

Said life force was spread out among everything from microbes to plants to animals to humans.

Same applied with the dark energy and vampires (or undead in general), only they existed in vastly inferior numbers, resulting in the opposite energy not being spread as thin.

Since each vampire had more dark energy than a human had light energy, it made them more powerful.

Kind of like they’re the guys who drank ten cups of espresso each morning compared to a normal person’s one.

Anyway, something was going on here in Shadow Pines that threw off that balance, hence Nature giving me an extra helping of mojo.

So, back to vampires. Sunlight, much to my surprise, did not destroy them.

It did, however, seriously dampen their supernatural powers.

Michael said it ‘nerfed’ them. Fire, however, worked wonders.

He didn’t fully understand the why of it, but the more powerful (or more evil) a vampire was, the more easily they caught fire.

A sick bastard like the one who killed Dana would probably burn like a kerosene-soaked rag.

Bullets, swords, and so on didn’t do anything they couldn’t recover from with the exception of wooden bullets.

Naturally, I laughed at the idea, but he showed me a YouTube video.

Apparently, wooden bullets could work, but as 12-gauge shotgun slugs.

The projectiles didn’t have much stopping power in the real world, but since wood had such a devastating effect on vampires, the slugs basically behaved like a normal lead slug on a human. That is... death.

Anyway, a wooden stake in the heart would destroy them up to a certain age.

On vampires much more than a century old, a stake only paralyzed them.

Beheading could also kill them regardless of age.

Garlic didn’t do anything, and I already knew about the no reflection in mirrors thing and not showing up on video or cameras.

However, that deal with having to invite them in was true.

That threw me for a loop trying to figure out how the universe knew who could invite someone in…

and did it apply only to a ‘home,’ or would offices be protected too?

What would stop a vampire from dragging a pet human around, tossing them through a door and having their pet invite them in?

Thankfully, vampires did not have to kill to feed.

The smarter ones who wished to avoid detection as much as possible would leave their victim alive but make them forget the feeding.

With each bite, a person became more and more like a vampire.

Someone who suffered three attacks too close together from the same vampire would turn.

And it took something like four months for the negative energy of a bite to dissipate and reset the proverbial counter.

Among my many questions, I had asked how I would recognize a vampire... other than their lack of hands on my security camera, of course. His answer had been... interesting to say the least.

“You will sense them, Max. They won’t be able to hide from you. If you are like the other elementals, then you will be fully equipped to sniff out the undead among you.”

A few more questions later, I had pinpointed his meaning: the undead gave off a scent.

.. and not a pleasant one. It didn’t register with mortals, but it would register with me.

We returned to town a little while before midnight.

I invited him to stay with me, but he was too eager to get home and renew his research into the area.

***

That evening, late, I found myself back home again; that is, upstairs in my apartment.

I stood at my kitchen window, looking down on the darkening street.

Could Crystal be a vampire? After all, she had certainly known about them.

Well, she didn’t feel like a vampire. Nor did she smell anything but perfect.

Yes, I had noted her floral perfume the instant she had opened the door, recognizing her without turning from my coffee making.

Still, she had not seemed surprised about vamps. What the hell was up with that?

Michael briefly said something about their smell worsening the darker their souls had become. A ‘reasonably nice’ vampire might only smell like a dry tomb… a mild odor perhaps easily covered by floral perfume.

So was Crystal a nice vampire? Somehow, I doubted it.

I spent a while thinking about everything I’d learned and all the questions I’d come up with after he left.

He’d come over to explain things—and to train me—but it felt like he’d left me even more confused.

I hadn’t even realized how much I didn’t know until I started getting answers to the basic questions.

Annoyed, confused, and with absolutely no idea what to do next, I flopped on the sofa, bare feet up on the coffee table, and cracked open a beer.

To remind myself I hadn’t dreamed everything, I let a small flame dance over my hand, weaving it around my fingers.

Part of me still wanted to forget it all, but if the vampires knew who I was and wanted to kill me for it, I couldn’t let my guard down.

The memory of Crystal’s scent distracted me, and I wound up thinking about her more than the problem at hand, hoping with every ounce of hope I could muster that she wasn’t a vampire.

That would crush me.

A heavy knock rattled my apartment door.

I’ll admit it. I jumped, nearly spilling my beer all over myself.

I had the TV on despite not paying attention to it.

I set the beer down, considered going for my gun—considered that a little extreme—and headed over to my front door.

Admittedly, I didn’t get a lot of visitors here, not a bad thing for a self-proclaimed hermit.

As I crossed the living room, the smell of death and decay hit me. The stink of rotting corpse. Shit, had something died in my walls again?

I paused, curious, sniffing the air. I’d once come across a dead body in the back of a Buick while working a case.

The poor bastard had been bound and gagged.

.. and rotting. Not pleasant, any of it.

I’d had nightmares for months. Still do.

Anyway, I would never forget that smell.

It had a pungent sweetness to it that burned itself into the memory.

The two smells, when combined, became absolutely revolting.

I got a hint of that in the air. Not quite as strong, certainly. But there it was. A hint of decay. A hint of death.

Yeah, a rat or maybe even a raccoon definitely died behind one of these old walls.

I’d look into it later. When I reached the door—which always self-locks when shut—I looked out the peephole and recognized both men standing in the hallway, if, in fact, they were men: the handsome, dark-haired guy who had come knocking at my office door the other evening and the taller, long-faced guy with the Hollywood hair who had been at the cafe during my little demonstration with Ron.

Both appeared equally handsome, equally frightening. And seemed to stare at me in return right through the closed door.

This building used to be a hotel, but had been refurbished into a small apartment building about forty years ago. Beyond them was my neighbor’s dull red door. I hoped Ruth stayed inside and kept her curiosity in check.

Perhaps more interesting, the scent of decay gathered strength, like the dead body sat right outside the door in the hall.

They’re dead, said Michael’s voice in my memory. Always remember that. You are dealing with the walking dead.

I swallowed and considered not opening the door. In fact, I started to back up.

The taller one said, “We can hear you breathing.”

I paused, gathered myself, and mentally prepared myself for what was standing outside, if that was even possible.

After all, here be monsters.

I hesitated another heartbeat or two... then opened the door.