Page 38 of The Elementalist (Four Elements #1)

Chapter Two

Time Sensitive

The clicking of my shiny black heels on the marble tiled floor is so damn loud I think everyone in Langley is watching me.

At least, everyone I can see is. Not that a grey skirt suit stands out in CIA headquarters.

A woman my apparent age might get a raised eyebrow or two since I still look like I’m two months out of college.

No, they’re really all stopping in their tracks and staring at me because I’m the Agency’s only vampire.

My bright amber eyes are a bit of a tell, at least to anyone observant enough.

Though, it could’ve been worse: red and violet are much more obvious.

Oh, the bosses are trying like hell to recruit more vamps, but thus far, I’m the only one who’s bored, reckless, idealistic, or random enough to accept.

The pay’s not bad either.

And yeah, I know my parents are loaded. But, the downside of being a vampire?

We don’t really do the inheritance thing since we’re immortal…

at least as far as time goes. Meaning, we never die of old age but there are ways to kill us.

So, their money is going to stay their money.

Not like there’s bad blood between us or anything, but our kind tends to have an independent streak.

Sharing space with a lover or spouse is one thing, but ‘living with the parents’ or even spending serious amounts of time around them stops as soon as we’re all grown up, and for me, that happened fifteen years ago.

I’m 125, but I stopped aging—the sign that we’ve reached maturity—in 2003.

It takes a few years for anyone to realize they’ve ceased appearing older, so no vampire jumps straight out of the nest the instant we ‘mature.’ And no, the moment our bodies decide they’re done growing up doesn’t come with a tingly feeling.

For most, it takes a while to even notice.

Once my parents realized I’d ‘ripened,’ we had a whole big party and everything as is tradition.

Those events are somewhere between a Bat Mitzvah and a debutante ball: a few hours face-timing all the vampires in a 200-mile radius, accepting gifts, and trying not to be bored out of my mind.

The worst part had been suffering the disapproving stares everyone gave me upon noticing I had a daughter already.

In human terms, I would’ve been eighteen when I had her back in 1983.

Fate sometimes has a strange sense of humor.

My birth year was 1893. Not that I believe in any of that ‘power of numbers’ stuff, but it’s a cute coincidence.

Still, humans get funny about girls becoming pregnant too young, and a lot of my kind have the same idea.

Then again, it’s not terribly easy for us to get knocked up—not like humans who breed like damn rabbits—so no one gave me too much attitude over it.

Propriety only goes so far when a woman having a baby once every 200 years is considered a lot.

Hell, my mother is a minor celebrity for having my sister and I so close together. My sister, Ayla, was born in 1841.

As my heels click away, Bill, a guy from the cyber unit, passes me in the hall, giving me a look like he’s checking out a hot new sports car.

He totally wants to hook up for a one night stand, but he’s too scared to ask.

I’m just guessing, by the way. I’d promised not to mind read anyone in the Agency—unless ordered to—but obvious stare at my boobs is, well, obvious.

I return a pleasant sort of ‘go die in a fire’ smile at him as we brush shoulders, then pick up my pace down the hallway.

I’m hoping for a quick meeting with my immediate supervisor and maybe a quiet week or two working at my desk. Maybe even a vacation. A week of having nothing to do sounds pretty good after spending three months in the Central American heat.

Everyone keeps looking at me as I go by, all probably wondering if I’m breaking the rules by reading their minds.

That’s one thing I had to agree not to do—reading their minds, that is—but they really only have my word on that point.

Not like any human would know if I peeked.

Still, I suppose the only thing any of us really have in this universe is our word.

And yeah, I know I’m a spy, and as a spy I need to deceive, trick, and lie constantly—but doing it to the bad guys is different and totally okay. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

My handler-slash-boss, Andrew Carson, is waiting for me in our usual conference room, where everything is blue-grey and as lifeless as any normal government-issue décor.

He appears to be in a good mood. The poor guy’s only forty, but he’s gone full silver already.

Someone started calling him ‘Grey’ like a codename and it stuck.

And yes, the jokes are quite overdone. Last year, we left fifty pairs of sunglasses in his office.

“Mina…” He stands to shake my hand as I walk in. “Nice job eliminating that problem down in Nic. Made it look like a plane crash, too.”

I sit. “It was a plane crash. Not my idea. Who knew if two idiots pump sixty rounds of 9mm into the console of a fly-by-wire Learjet the thing would have issues staying airborne? Damn idiot Garza didn’t even have a parachute on board.”

He cringes. “Do I want to know how you managed to survive that?”

“Simple matter of obeying the law.”

“The law?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Gravity.”

Andrew smirks. “Right. So, I went over your reports. You found no link to the Dominion at all?”

“I don’t generally make a habit of omitting important details from my reports.” I clasp my hands in my lap. “Garza was affiliated with them, but his activities in Managua had no discernible ties back to them as an organization.”

“Just a thug.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before. My kind aren’t any more virtuous than humans, Andrew. We have our criminals, too.”

He exhales, fluttering his lips. “Yeah. Hard to process that you guys have been around so long.”

I smile. “It is nice to be out in the open finally. Growing up, I was stuck inside all day. Didn’t really have friends.”

“Stuck inside a mansion, if I remember right.”

“A large prison is still a prison. It was either that or we moved every two or three years. Some of my kind used to move before anyone noticed they weren’t getting older, though it’s more difficult to blend in as a child who isn’t growing up as fast as they ought to be.

” I take a sip of water, wondering if Andrew forgot me explaining that my kind ages more slowly than humans, appearing to grow one year older for about every five that pass for mortals…

until we finally mature. Then we look the same until something bad happens.

“Right…” He taps his fingers on the table in a mindless rhythm. “Did you celebrate birthdays every year or every five years?”

“We age every year, just far slower than humans.”

“So is that a... yes?”

“Of course it’s a yes. We celebrate birthdays every year.”

Andrew grin makes me think he was chapping my hide.

“Anyway… nice work in Nic.” He pulls a manila folder out of a slim, black briefcase, sets it on the table, and pushes it in front of me.

I eye it, sighing mentally. “I haven’t been back in the states for a full day yet.”

“Sorry. Can’t be helped.”

“Andrew, I’m supposed to take the spawn this weekend.”

A note of regret tilts his eyebrows. “I’m sure she’ll understand. Greater good and all.”

“She’s only thirty-five. She doesn’t understand that stuff.”

Andrew blinks, then stares at me. “Oh, right. Duh. That’s like what, seven?”

“Yes, and she hasn’t seen me for the three months I’ve been down in Nicaragua.”

“Have you told her you’re back yet?”

I sigh. “Of course. What kind of question is that?”

He shrugs with a weak smile. “Just figuring it would’ve been easier on her if she never knew you were back in country before leaving again.”