Page 26 of The Elementalist (Four Elements #1)

Reprieve

“The Farringtons?” she screamed, once I finished explaining what Piper said. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. At least, that’s what he said. Could’ve been lying… though I didn’t really get that feeling from him. That, and he went for a knife. No sense lying to a guy you’re intending to kill.”

“Great.” She looked around at her glowing enclosure. “I ran into this thing like a complete idiot. Now what? I guess I just sit here until the Farringtons come to collect me? Ugh.”

“Don’t you know the rules?” I smirked. “The dame who gets involved with a private eye is almost always kidnapped.”

Crystal frowned. “Real life isn’t a cliché… and why did you call me a ‘dame?’”

I shrugged. “Going with the shtick.”

She resumed pacing.

“However… I’m going to try and change the script,” I said. “I don’t really want you to be kidnapped. Or killed, since this is real life and all.”

“Great. I don’t like either one of those options, either. So, umm, what are you planning to do, Mr. Detective? Stick around and shoot icicles at anyone who tries to kidnap me?”

I studied the floor, eyeballing the stone under me.

After some quick visualization, I widened my stance and projected my willpower into the earth, pushing rock and soil aside.

A bowl formed between my feet, deepening in response to my desires.

It grew to a pit as wide as a phone booth, then burrowed downward.

I opened a passage like a giant U-bend from a sink drain, bringing the other end up into the area walled off by magic.

Directly under Crystal.

Oops.

She fell, but caught herself on the edge, armpit deep in the floor. As soon as she realized what I’d done, she let go. As if afraid the tunnel would close at any second, she scrambled up out the other end as I stepped aside, covered in dirt, but overjoyed. She even hugged me.

“Now for the hard part,” I muttered.

“Dealing with the Farringtons?”

“No. I’m hoping we can get out of here before they show up. I meant those people upstairs. If destroying Piper and Derek—and the other vampires in this place—didn’t break the curse on them, we’re going to have to put them down, too.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She sighed. “That sucks. But we won’t necessarily have to destroy them. While I admit it’s the most likely outcome, there’s no guarantee they’ll be evil. We should hurry, I can hear that one girl screaming her head off.”

“Which one?”

“I think it’s the redhead. She sounds angry. Her father must be in the Navy.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Just making a sailor joke. She’s swearing up a storm.” Crystal hurried to the stairs. “Can’t say I blame her. I’d be pissed off if someone chained me to a radiator, too… not that they could.”

“Oh? Okay, I have to ask...” I jogged up behind her.

“I have a way with locks.”

“You’re just full of surprises.”

She laughed. “You have no idea.”

“What else can you do?”

Crystal dashed across the house to the stairs in the front room. “Wings.”

“Okay, I know that one.”

“But you haven’t seen them.”

“I can’t say I have.”

“Then be prepared to be surprised... someday.”

“I’ll be as prepared as possible. Do you have a tail, too?”

“Nope.”

The redhead’s continuous screamed curses—mostly calling me an asshole among other things—reached my ears when I’d made it halfway to the second floor. When we reached the third, I shouted, “Hang on! Be right there.”

She stopped yelling, but did fire off a, “Hurry the hell up, dickwad!”

We stopped at the first room with the three prisoners in it.

I nearly fell over in relief at seeing them back to normal, no longer halfway to undead.

The effect of the change also knocked all three of them out cold.

I did a quick pulse check, confirming that they all remained alive.

None of them gave off a deathly smell, either.

“They’re good,” I reported.

“You’re sure?” asked Crystal, a note of suspicion in her eyes.

“Yeah. No stink like death and… look at them. They have their color back. Don’t suppose you have any idea how long they’ll stay unconscious?”

“Nope.”

She grasped one of the padlocks securing the woman’s wrist, and pulled it open like it hadn’t even been locked.

A tiny spritz of what I could only call ‘fairy dust’ shot out of the keyhole.

Wow, no wonder this girl is doing okay for herself.

Her kind would make amazing thieves. Can turn invisible, open any lock they want…

granted, she’d have to break into a place bare-assed and anything she carried out would still show up on camera, but…

no one would be able to tell who broke in.

Hmm. I wonder if succubi leave fingerprints?

One by one, she opened all nine padlocks, four each for the guy and girl on the bed, one on the woman tethered to the radiator. We jogged down the hall to the other bedroom. The redhead continued trying to either snap the chain or tear the radiator off its bolts.

“Hey, calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself,” I said.

She shot me a look that could’ve scorched the paint off a battleship. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her to calm down. “You left me here!”

“Had a vampire to destroy. If he got away, he would’ve done this to someone else.”

The woman huffed. “Did you at least get him?”

“Yep.”

Crystal breezed in and walked around behind her. “Found the key in the other ash pile. What’s your name?”

“Shiloh Morgan. Did someone send you to find me?”

“Not specifically,” I said. “Came here looking for vampires. How long have you been missing for?”

A magical spark flew off the handcuffs and they popped open.

“Only a few days.” Shiloh pulled her arms around in front and rubbed her chafed wrists. “They left me in here like this the whole time. I think they were biting the others. Or drinking, or whatever the hell it is that vampires do.”

“I can confirm that… but they’re okay now.” I fished out the BMW key and tossed it to her. “Here. He won’t be needing it anymore. Cops probably won’t let you keep it, but it’ll get you back home.”

She nodded. “What about the others?”

“Might take your friends a bit to wake up.”

She glanced down at the key in her hand, then back to me. “Wait. Why?”

“A little while ago when I said they were going to kill you anyway, I think I might have unintentionally lied. I don’t think they were going to kill you.

They’d been keeping you here to give to your friends as their first meal.

All three of them were most of the way to becoming vampires. Guess someone wanted reinforcements.”

Shiloh gasped. “No… they’re dead?”

“Nah.” Crystal patted her on the shoulder. “Pretty damn close, but we killed the one who’d bitten them… and since your friends hadn’t yet fed, the curse didn’t set in. Not sure how long they’ll be out of it, but they’re probably going to need a trip to the hospital. All of them are low on blood.”

“Might as well carry them outside,” I said with a shrug.

Crystal lifted her head as if listening to something. “We should get out of here right now. Shiloh, find somewhere to hide until it’s clear.”

“What?” I asked.

“At least two vehicles are coming.” Crystal dashed for the bedroom door. “Come on.”

Shiloh ran after us down the hallway, but ducked into the room with her friends instead of following us down the stairs. As soon as the door shut, Crystal returned and did something with the lock.

She grinned. “My magic works both ways. Not only will this door not open until I return, the bad guys won’t see the door.”

“Red won’t like it.”

“Nope, but she will be alive when we return for her.” And with that, my new and very beautiful friend raced off again.

I hauled ass, trying my best to keep up with Crystal as she ran down two flights of stairs, across the ground floor, and out the front door.

A black Cadillac sedan with a red pickup truck following it crept up the dirt road and they both had trouble written all over them.

They’d written it in all capitals on the truck, as it carried six or seven guys in the bed with rifles.

“Hang on.” I stopped on the porch. “They’re gonna pick us off if we run for my truck. I’ll give us some cover.”

Since I had no idea who might be in that car or what the Farringtons may or may not be involved with, tipping my proverbial hand as anything more than an ordinary private investigator was unwise.

I closed my eyes, trying to infuse the air with water vapor without using flashy hand motions.

In my mind’s eye, I pictured the lot in front of the boarding house, all the trees, the weeds, and everything vanishing behind a thick layer of white fog.

“Wow. That’s so creepy. You did it. Come on.” Crystal pulled at my arm.

I opened my eyes to a fog so thick I couldn’t see six feet away.

It’s possible they didn’t notice us on the covered porch, but they definitely would’ve seen us running across the lot.

Now, we ran blind into the mist, in as best a guess as I could remember to where I parked.

Crystal held my hand, for once following me.

Whether my senses detected the weight of the truck upon the earth or the large collection of metal in front of me pulled me toward it, I made my way to my Ford with relative accuracy—and only stumbled on weeds three times.

We got in together, pulling the doors closed as quietly as possible.

Crystal hunkered down, sitting on the floor while I slipped the key in the ignition.

I didn’t trust my memory enough to attempt driving in fog this thick, especially with two cars coming in the only road out.

The shouts of men complaining about the mist passed by in front of us.

Most blamed the vampires for it while one felt certain ‘that some other weird shit’ caused it.

Confident they no longer stood between us and the way out, I cranked the ignition, cut the wheel to the left, and accelerated while simultaneously commanding the fog in front of me to form a tunnel of clear air.

It worked well enough that I managed to swerve and prevent crashing into a stray tree that had invaded the parking area.

“Hey, there they go!” shouted a guy behind us.

“Where?”

“Shoot out the tires!”

“I can’t see shit.”

“Uh oh,” said Crystal.

“Yeah… ‘uh oh’ is right.”

The sound of a few car door slams came from behind.

I couldn’t concentrate on thickening the fog behind us while driving, so I decided to make a run for it.

The far end of the mist tunnel revealed a wall of impassable trees.

Out of desperation, I commanded all the fog in front of us to condense into rain, which cleared the air and let me find the road…

about fifteen feet to the right of where I’d been steering.

My truck handled pretty well for an old war horse, and didn’t roll over on me at the hard swerve.

Once on the road—or what attempted to be one—I accelerated to about forty.

Crystal popped up to peer backward. “The truck went into some trees, but the car made it to the road. He’s not going too fast. We’re leaving him behind.”

“That thing doesn’t have the shocks for a rough trail like this. Hopefully it’ll buy us enough time to get out to the pavement and haul ass for town.”

My new succubi friend looked over at me. “Max… don’t take this into town or they’ll get the police involved.”

“So? Wouldn’t we kinda want them involved?”

“The cops are under their control. They’ll arrest us both and make up whatever story they want.”

“That’s a bit much. The vampires aren’t controlling every cop. And if they could do that, why didn’t they grab you the day you confronted Justine about the shoddy investigation into Dana’s death?”

“I’m quite difficult to kidnap, and they know that. At least, with anything the police have access to. They wouldn’t have been able to hold me long enough for the Farringtons to pick me up.”

“True. But wouldn’t whoever set this up expect killing Dana would get you involved, bring you out of Ironside?”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s exactly what they wanted. I’m sure they killed her primarily to lure me away from Ironside. They knew I’d come back here at least for her funeral. It’s far more difficult for them to do anything over there. In short, they could set up a trap here.”

“Any idea why they want you dead or captured?”

“No idea, other than I don’t play by their rules... and I know most of their secrets.”

“Your sister probably rejected their ways, too.”

“Hard to say. I think she mostly went along, until...”

“Until she heard of the Farringtons’ plans to execute you.”

“Or imprison me, but yeah.”

“Okay. Well, it’s a good thing I don’t have a cat.”

“Say again?”

I grinned. “Don’t have to worry about not feeding him if I don’t make it back home tonight. To Ironside it is. But, if you want to avoid town, we’ll need to take the long way around.”

“Take whatever way around you want,” said Crystal, eyeing the side mirror. “Just do it faster… they’re gaining on us.”

Sure enough, a black Cadillac Sedan and a red Dodge pickup emerged from the trees behind us, racing around a bend in the road.

“Crap. Hold on.”