Inside the ring of fire, his mother crumpled to the floor when she was done explaining.
“What kind of charms?” Alec asked with the sinking feeling that this was simply too much of a coincidence.
A child missing wasn’t something out of the ordinary in the human world, but it was in theirs. He remembered the wards on the apartment building where Elias was taken. A skilled witch could have circumvented them.
“Just some beauty related charms, and some listening spells. Nothing big. No black magic.”
“But you were concerned enough to check out the house, right?” he asked, causing the Elemental to look over at him and frown.
What? Was she the only one who was supposed to ask any questions?
His mother shuffled inside the ring. “They left so quickly, and Fiona’s servants couldn’t track them. That in itself was odd. She used a scryer and there was still no sign.”
Of course it was Fiona, Sylvan’s scheming mother. She was Elva’s oldest cohort. They frequently had their little cat fights, but they always forgave each other in drawn out public scenes of reconciliation. They fed off the drama. Alec found it exhausting. But Fiona sometimes displayed some sense. Like using a scryer. The fact the scryer hadn’t found anything was telling. Fiona must have really wanted those charms.
“It was too strange that they would disappear like that. Fiona isn’t someone you cross. So I went to the house to check things out.” His mother seemed to be regaining her composure. Her eyes were focusing now, alternating between him and the Fire Elemental. She sounded relieved to be getting things off her chest. “I found evidence of a black rite. At least, I think it was one. I’m not sure what they look like. Never seen one, don’t know what kind of things are used. But the trash left behind, the things scattered around, they weren’t nice things.”
“What about the child?” the Elemental’s voice was implacable. “Was there a body?”
“No. But in the one of the bedrooms, there was a blanket and pillow.” His mother sucked in a breath. “And some toys. Children’s toys.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” his father said from somewhere behind him.
“Why would I? We did nothing wrong. All I did was lend one of our properties. And maybe the child is fine. It was probably one of their own children. Even a black witch wouldn’t harm their own child,” his mother burst out, but she didn’t sound convinced.
Alec passed both hands roughly over his face. “Is that what you’ve been telling yourself since you went to the house?” he asked.
His mother knew he was looking into Pedro’s son’s disappearance. How could she keep this kind of information from him?
“Of course it is. Why would I tell myself anything else?” his mother asked so incredulously he almost laughed in disbelief.
“Where is the house?” the Elemental demanded impatiently.
“Sixteen Citrus in Dover. It’s by a stream, but I had it cleaned out the day before yesterday. There won’t be anything there.”
His mother turned away from all of them, wrapping her arms around herself.
The flames surrounding her died down, and the fire in the fireplace went out at the same time as the electric lights above. The room was thrown into darkness. Alec blinked as his night vision adjusted. His father was standing over his mother, gathering her in his arms.
The Elemental was gone.
6
It could have gone worse, Diana thought bracingly, trying to ignore the tightness in her chest. At least she had some information now—a place to start. She had been hoping to get lucky and find the guilty party among the vampires, but she supposed that would have been too easy.
She should have known this would lead to black magic.
Diana expelled a frustrated breath. She was far from the coven house now. Blocks away. The streets were wet, and the rain was really starting to come down. She should drop by the Elemental’s safe house to pick up keys to the bike she kept in this city. They also kept a few cars, which would be better for the rain, but she preferred the bike. It was more maneuverable in tight spaces. And she was too keyed up to be boxed-in right now.
What the hell was up with their son?
In her experience, almost everyone ran like hell when she showed up. But not him. He came right up to her despite the fact she was threatening his parents, the leaders of his coven. Crazy or stupid?
According to what she’d heard about the scion of House Broussard, he was neither. She closed her eyes, and his image snuck into her mind. He was really tall, at least six foot four and muscular. Neither was common for a vampire that age.
Men from that era, especially those born into privilege, were never that well built. Muscles were for the lower classes. His black hair and dark blue eyes were especially striking with those sculpted cheekbones.
If there were real angels, he could pass for one of the fallen. Her mind ground to a halt and she gave herself a small shake.
Enough.
All vampires were handsome. They used their looks to draw in prey, so it wasn’t surprising she’d noticed him. But he wasn’t involved and was of no further significance to her investigation. Unlike the other Elementals, she was pretty good at detecting deception. She’d had a lot of practice, most of it acquired early in life.
By the time she arrived at the safe house, she was soaking wet. The nice apartment near the waterfront was used by all of them to some degree when they were in the area. They had many like it all over the world. Diana liked to sleep there. Not all of them did. Serin, who was sometimes accompanied by her partner on her missions, usually chose to stay in a hotel when he was with her.
A hotel was an option open to all of them. They had unlimited funds in bank accounts all over the world, established long ago by their predecessors from the gifts of precious metal and jewels the Mother provided. She had wanted them to always be free to do her will. But Diana liked to be surrounded by the clothes and supplies left behind by the others. She felt closer to them that way.
Even though she rarely saw them in person, the other Elementals were her only family. Not that she got to see them that often. In fact, it was forbidden for all of them to be in the same place at the same time, a safeguard the Mother had put in place in the early days when She feared rebellion. Sleeping among the possessions of the others was a poor substitute, but it did make Diana feel better.
Sighing, she took off her jacket and tried to stop feeling sorry for herself. Despite her more recent dissatisfaction, she had a strong purpose in life. But sometimes she couldn’t help craving more. Like wishing she could see the others more often, to stay in their homes and eat with their families. Well, Serin and Logan’s families. Gia’s people were still around, but her immediate family was long gone.
Diana scolded herself. The other girls were always on missions too, and they rarely went home to their families. Really, it was easier for her. And it wasn’t as if she couldn’t speak to the others. All she had to do was light a candle or small flame. But now was not the time for another group chat. She didn’t want to talk to Serin or Gia before she went out to the house in Dover to confirm what Elva had said. No one was going to like the news that a black circle was involved—one they hadn’t been aware of before now.
She stripped off the rest of her wet clothes and took a quick shower. Then she fixed a quick meal from the well-stocked kitchen and peeked in the closet in the bedroom. There was a new wool coat hanging on a peg along with several flowing skirts. Serin must have been here last. Without Jordan? If he was with her, she would have stayed at a hotel. But the clothes were definitely Serin’s style. Logan and Gia dressed more like her, in jeans and leather.
Also, if Logan had been here last, the bed would not have been made.
Diana hurriedly ate her meal. Having a lead for Katie meant pulling double duty here in town, but both cases were important.
Her primary target in Boston was the Denon Corporation. She’d cased her targets there this morning. C
orporate jobs required a lot more legwork than her usual cases, but she didn’t mind them.
Corporations leveraged ridiculous amounts of power these days and were capable of hurting a lot of people. Especially nameless, faceless, poor people in faraway countries.
The Denon Corporation had exploited many small villages in Africa, coming in and plundering the most valuable resources and leaving the poisonous waste that resulted without any effort to clean it up. She and the others had already decided exposure would serve them best, although her kind of judgement would have been a lot more satisfying.
She had planned on breaking into the Denon Corporation headquarters tonight to try and dig up some evidence on their toxic waste disposal procedures, but now searching the house in Dover was her priority.
Elva said the house had been cleaned, but she should still be able to find some signs. Black magic always left its mark. It just wasn’t always visible.
* * *
Later that night, Diana was in back of sixteen Citrus in Dover. The drive was less than an hour from the coven house, but the contrast between that place and this neighborhood couldn’t have been more pronounced.
The house was in an isolated part of town in a wooded area. It was a tall elegant two-story structure with wooden shutters and a mansard roof, giving it an elegant old world look. However, the house felt much newer to her. Diana guessed that it had been built in the late eighties.
Gia could have pinpointed its exact age. She was capable of feeling the echo of movement in the Earth. It would whisper its secrets to her, like the wind told Logan what she wanted to know, though it didn’t speak as often. To some extent, Serin could divine past events from water, but the oceans were vast and sparsely populated, despite the navies and fisheries of the world. And unconnected water, like fire, had no memory.
The stream Elva mentioned was little more than a trickle in the height of summer. But this was still a place of power. Diana could feel it. Here it was possible for a practitioner to connect to the Mother in a tenuous way. The witches called them ley lines. They were conduits of power they could tap into and, with enough skill, use to direct and move energy.
When it came right down to it, that was the basis of all witchcraft, both white and black. The way witches did it wrapped layers of ritual on top of ritual to bring about their desired effect. They weren’t dissimilar to the rites the fae used for their magic, and to a smaller extent the shifters and the vampires in their creation ceremonies. However, as each group had evolved, what worked for one group no longer applied to the others. A witch couldn’t use fae magic any more than a fae could work a witch charm.
Which was a blessing. Imagine what trouble a faery could cause with a black magic rite. Fae power was centered on life, whereas some witch magic called for death. Which was why the damn witches were so much trouble.
Diana continued walking around the perimeter of the dark house. She had a few more hours till dawn, and she wanted to be back in the safe house by then. The area was totally quiet except for the trickling of the stream. No animal sounds. No insects, for that matter. Like her, they could feel the darkness that had been done here and they avoided the area. The residual black magic permeated the air like smog. She could practically taste it.
Diana went to the back door. She was about to unlock it when it gave under her hand. Scanning the interior with her other sense, she finally realized someone else was there. Irritated that she’d missed the fact that she’d had company the whole time, she stalked through the kitchen and into the adjoining room. Except for the kitchen, the first floor was an open floor plan with a dining room blending into a sitting room and foyer that faced the front of the house. The dining area was next to the kitchen closest to her.
Sitting on the far side of a large oak dining table was the coven leader’s son.
7
“What the hell are you doing here?” the Elemental demanded.
“I’m waiting for you,” he answered with a little bow of acknowledgment.
The Elemental scowled at him. “Why? Do you have a death wish? If you do, I can provide a handy stake or at least a pencil. . .” She paused. “Since walking into the sun won’t work for you.”
He froze. Alec was rarely surprised by anything these days, but this tiny redhead had already floored him once and now she was doing it again.
He had stumbled on the first mention of the ritual of Ra when looking into the origins of his kind. But it hadn’t worked, no matter how many times he repeated it. In the following decades, he had hunted down rituals written by civilizations both older and far younger than ancient Egypt. As it turned out, there were hundreds of them, all frustratingly inconsistent. It had taken him years to cut through the bull and make the connections between the different rites and rituals. In the end, it had been deceptively simple to call on the magic and ask for the blessing of sunlight.
Well, simple only after all those years of research. It was his greatest accomplishment and most closely guarded secret.
“You can tell? Even my parents can’t tell.”
“No offense, but your parents aren’t exactly rocket scientists.”
Even though he’d had that very thought on many occasions, Alec was indignant to have it pointed out by someone else. Especially someone who had only just met them. He frowned and she softened a little. . .very little.
“They’re intelligent enough, I suppose,” she continued. “But they haven’t exactly made the most of their extended lifespans, now, have they? They’re content to pass the time enjoying their wealth and doing little else.”
“They’re not that bad,” he protested, aware he was uncomfortably close to lying.
The Elemental raised her brows and looked him up and down. “You still haven’t explained why you are here. And I want the real reason,” she said, using a delicate white finger to trace a figure eight pattern on the table. The satiny oak surface smoked as the infinity sign burned in deep. “I’ll know if you’re lying.”
Alec’s aggressive instincts and indignation rose to the fore. He was the son of a privileged noble house, and no one ever questioned his honesty.
“I came here to see you. I want to help,” he bit off with aggravation.
His house had indirectly helped a group of black witches, and he needed to repair the damage. It was his duty.
The Elemental looked at him with a disbelieving expression. “Listen, Team Edward, people don’t volunteer to help me. Instead they take great pains to run in the other direction. Those are smart people. Why don’t you follow their example and take your metrosexual butt back to the coven house.”
Team Edward? Who’s Edward? “Look, my mother didn’t know what she was doing when she lent this house to the witches. I only want to make things right and reaffirm my house’s commitment to the covenant. We don’t harm children.”
She backed away from him slightly, cocking her head to one side and studying his face intently. “No,” she said after a moment. “That isn’t it. Try again.”
Can she read minds too? Fuck. There wasn’t anything in the old legends about mind reading.
But those ancient stories fell far short of the reality, didn’t they? Probably because most people did run in the other direction. When he didn’t add anything more, the Elemental waved an irritated hand in front of his face.
“Hello? I don’t have time for. . .wherever this is,” she said waving her hand in a circle to encompass all of him.
“I simply want to help,” he said in a low, even voice. “My house is involved in this, albeit unintentionally. I need to make reparations.”
The Elemental continued to give him the stink eye as she leaned across the table to stare him down. She looked like she was seriously considering leaping across it. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like she was gearing up to do something truly shocking, like kissing him.
No, she looked lethal. Bracing himself to run, he was surprised when she suddenly smiled.
Oh, wow. Alec’s who
le body flushed at the sight of that sweet smile. Even if he didn’t trust it for a second.
“I know you’re hiding something, and I don’t give a rat’s ass about the vampiric code of chivalry,” she said in a voice like sugar. “If you are keeping something from me, I’m going to burn this place to the ground—starting with the floorboards under your feet.” She gave him another smile. . .but not the same one.
Okay, back to cold, very cold. Redirect.
“I haven’t been in the basement. I think that’s where they did their ritual,” he said to distract her.
She stopped moving and stared at him, cool and untouchable. The moment stretched, and with an admirable effort at hiding his discomfort, he said, “I can tell that is where they were conducting their rites. I’m sensitive to that kind of vibration. Maybe a little bit how your kind feels. . .what it is that you feel.”
The wood under her palm smoldered a bit. “Would you like to know how I feel things?” she asked, suddenly cheeky.
Yes.
“No,” he said decisively. The wood was really smoking now.
He continued, “I didn’t want to interfere with your process, so I didn’t go down there. I didn’t want to risk adding my own heat signature on top of whomever else went down there. Not that there’s a lot of it, but I am generally a little above room temperature if I’ve been moving around.”
“Hmm. So Alec Broussard’s not just a pretty face,” the Elemental said sarcastically.
“You know my name,” he said quietly, trying not to let on how inordinately pleased he was.
Fire: The Elementals Book One Page 4
