The pilot greeted them very professionally and went to the cockpit. Within twenty minutes, they were underway. Alec let them climb to their cruising altitude before he resumed the subject of J again.
“J is a mysterious character. I had Daniel dig up whatever he could on him. It wasn’t easy. J doesn’t let on about his origins at all, not even to his closest underlings. They’ve only known him for the past ten years or so. And he’s tight-lipped about his past. My hypothesis is that he works at maintaining a shady reputation intentionally. You know, cultivating a mystique to draw in customers of our kind. Or he really is a dark one, which is less likely or you would have known about him sooner.”
Diana nodded. “So how did you come up with New Orleans?” she asked with a little yawn.
He watched her get comfortable in her seat. “I followed the money. Tends to be the most reliable method of hunting people down, provided they have some, that is.”
“A lot of the people I have to look for don’t.” She gestured to the cockpit. “Getting the pilot was a good idea,” she added in a sleepier tone. “I’ve been running on empty all today.”
She shifted her seat to a nearly reclining position. Without a word, he handed her Tupperware, the requisitions from the club. When Diana opened it and revealed those figs, she let out a tiny little squeal before abruptly cutting it off. Alec hid his answering smile. She gobbled down most of the figs as well as some of the other choice tidbits in the box and fell asleep with the last fig in hand.
From across the aisle, Alec watched Diana sleep. She was curled up in the large leather chair like a child. He wanted to take the fig before she smeared it all over herself but instead waited till she dropped it on the floor before he bent to pick it up.
You don’t suddenly wake someone armed with a flamethrower, he thought dryly before reaching for his bag and pulling out his computer. Sleep would be a good idea, but the side effect of the day-walking ritual was an unfortunate state of wakefulness. He could keep going for days but still became tired.
Although tired was not the right term for it exactly. It was more like being in Technicolor and then slowly fading into black and white. Determined to test his limits, he once went as long as a week before he’d started to feel thin and stretched. The feeling had been so unnerving that he’d terminated his little self-experimentation after that.
Potentially, he could go longer than a week. If things kept up like they were, he might make it past that.
He looked back up at Diana. She was sound asleep. While they were on a case, it would probably be best to stay awake when she was asleep. Someone had to watch over her. Even if she was the last person who needed it.
* * *
The flight was too short to get a real restful sleep, but Diana still felt loads better when she woke during the landing at yet another private airfield.
“Sorry, I should have woken you earlier to make sure we were headed in the right direction,” Alec said from across the aisle.
“It’s okay. We’re close,” Diana replied in a slightly hoarse sleepy voice. “He’s in this city somewhere or just outside of it.”
She fingered the totem in her pocket. It was pulsing in waves, connecting to the animal part in the back of her brain, giving her a direction to follow. According to Gia, their parietal cortex was unique, enhanced, and likely responsible for their tracking ability. Magic and biology intertwined. In normal humans, that part of the brain was responsible for a sense of direction, or the lack of one.
They disembarked to find a town car waiting for them. “All this luxurious leather, and the polished wood accents do not go well with my badass image,” Diana announced as they settled inside, snuggling in the plush seat in spite of herself.
Alec chuckled, seemingly delighted with her unexpected frankness.
“Are you sure it’s wise to be laughing at me?” she asked with raised red eyebrow.
“Of course not. That would be extremely stupid,” he said still smiling before lifting two drinks in her direction, one a cold gourmet coffee beverage and the other a bottled water. “If you’re still tired, we can head to a hotel. Or we can start our search now.”
“It’s better to follow the trail while it’s hot or he may move on. I don’t want to have to chase him to another town and waste more time not hunting the circle directly.” She yawned and reached for the coffee.
“Then where to, Batman?” he asked, pulling out a bottle of something dark.
Probably blood, she thought wrinkling her nose.
For his kind, bottled wasn’t the preferred way to drink, but it would do in a pinch. Someone of Alec’s status would have fresh daily, delivered in the form of a young and attractive woman.
Diana felt her goodwill travel south several notches at the thought, so she shifted to professional mode. She pulled out J’s totem and focused her energy on it, pushing the vibrations that were J’s imprint and turning them outward, into a direction. She could feel the echo of a response from where J was hiding.
“South of here, and a little east, Boy Wonder.”
Alec’s lips flattened, but he didn’t say anything about her continued use of the nickname before relaying the directions to the chauffeur on the other side of the raised partition via an internal intercom system.
The sun was rising in the sky as they pulled away and headed toward the city.
17
The Faubourg Marigny neighborhood hadn’t suffered as bad as some other neighborhoods in New Orleans after Katrina, but the house J was hiding in hadn’t been favorably situated.
It was a shotgun row house with gingerbread molding in desperate need of a paint job. From the looks of it, the house had been affected by the storm more severely than others around it, or at least they had been repaired better.
Alec peeked at the house from their position half a block down. “Not what I expected a successful club owner would choose as a hideout.”
“You’d be surprised at how often someone being chased will go home,” Diana replied as she unbuckled her seatbelt and exited the car.
He followed her out. “Any plan?”
“Yeah, stay out of the way,” she called behind her.
Alec gritted his teeth as he followed. Playing second fiddle was frustrating. A vampire of his age and social standing wasn’t accustomed to being a mere observer. In any other situation, he would have been heading this investigation, calling all the shots.
But then you wouldn’t be with her. And he was wearing her down.
Diana was getting accustomed to his presence, warming to him. He almost snorted aloud at that last thought, but she was getting farther ahead of him and he didn’t want her walking into that house alone because, as he could see from the street, she didn’t bother knocking on the door.
She probably never does. Just walks right in like she owns the place, be it a palace or a shack. In seconds, Diana had the door opened. She moved inside, Alec hot on her heels.
J had clearly not been expecting them because he didn’t even try to hide when they came inside.
He was taller and more muscular than Alec had been expecting. Muscles bulged from behind a skintight designer t-shirt and loose shorts. He cast a surreptitious glance at Diana, to see if she was impressed with the overt display of masculinity, but he needn’t have bothered.
She had stopped short a few feet of the frozen man and paused to examine her surroundings. The interior of the house had been completely redone. It didn’t reflect the worn look of the exterior.
Diana spun in a circle, examining the costly furnishings before running a white hand over a teak end table. Unlike the table in the Dover house, this one escaped getting a brand burned into its surface.
J still hadn’t moved. Apparently, he’d decided on the ‘no sudden movement’ method of dealing with her.
“Nice place, J. A little nicer than your club actually. Who lives here now?” she asked, lifting a picture frame from a nearby table. The photo was of a much younger J and
an older woman with grey hair. “Your grandmother?”
J turned to Alec, presumably for help. Alec rolled his eyes. Were they all going to do that?
J finally turned to Diana. And unwisely chose to change the subject. “I don’t believe you are who you say you are.”
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you before, and therefore haven’t claimed to be anyone in particular,” she said, moving her hands to her hips.
“They say you’re one of them. One of those freaky Elementals.”
“Ooh, that makes me sound scary,” Diana said in a reasonable tone, cocking her head slightly in Alec’s direction.
J continued his downward slide along the IQ ladder by choosing belligerence. “I don’t believe it. I don’t have to talk to you,” he hissed, his eyes darting to the side, eyeing the door before turning back to Diana and stepping close to tower over her and sneer.
Alec waited to see what Diana would do. He was a little startled when she gave J a dazzling smile and lifted her hand, as if to stroke him lovingly. With her index finger, she drew a letter J on the center of his chest. The sizzling flesh that resulted was rather disconcerting, as was the faint, cooked pork smell.
Ouch, he thought as J wised up and scrambled as far away from Diana as he could.
“Now do you really want me to torch grandma’s house to prove you wrong?” she asked pleasantly.
Wincing, J gave Diana a wide berth as he sat in the dining room that shared the living room area.
“What do you want?” he asked grimacing, his hand hovering over the burn on his chest.
Diana tuned briefly to Alec, who’d found a convenient wall to lean against, before answering him.
“You already know that or you wouldn’t have run,” she said.
J shifted in his seat. He still seemed to be weighing his options when he suddenly bolted and threw a glass globe at her—a smaller version of the one from his shelf. It shattered against her chest, the contents splashing over her tank top.
Whatever was inside, it didn’t activate like its creator intended. Instead, it just boiled away like water against a hot frying pan.
By the time Diana looked up, J had reached the doorway at the far end of the room, but she didn’t move to race after him. Alec was about to go after him himself when J opened the door, only to be blasted back by the backdraft of a huge fire.
Fire that then started walking toward them.
* * *
Channeling her energy in a specific pattern, Diana gave the flames form. It was the massive shape of a huge animal, something like a lion. She’d latched onto the image by instinct, but past experience had taught her that her instinct was preternatural. The form was governed by the fears of her opponent.
In this case, J seemed to harbor a fear of big cats. The lion-like fire creature padded toward J, forcing him back into to the room, leaving fiery footprints in its wake.
“I knew that last fire was shaped like a snake! The one at the coven house that you wrapped around you,” Alec burst out as he left his place at the wall and crept closer to the fiery lion, making Diana sigh aloud.
“No self-preservation instincts whatsoever,” she said, sadly shaking her head.
Alec looked up at her, his smile irrepressible. “It’s so cool.”
Diana smiled back at him resignedly and waved him back as the lion circled J until the man scrambled up onto the couch. He climbed as far away from the beast as he could, his breath escaping in rapid short pants.
“Now why would you do something stupid like trying to run, making me mess up your grandma’s nice house?” she asked him with annoyance. She turned to Alec. “I hate doing that to an innocent bystander’s house. Unless she isn’t innocent,” she said, directing the last back to J. “Someone taught you the craft. Maybe Grandma taught you that questionable judgment as well. The one that said dealing with a black circle was a good idea.” She leaned against the dining room table, crossing her legs in a relaxed pose to give her words added menace.
J shook his head. “My grandmother is a practitioner. A medium,” he said. “A real one.”
Hmm. That was interesting. Charlatans were common as grass. A true medium was rare. But J registered as a shaman to her senses, so that had to come from somewhere.
“And no, Nona is a white witch, mostly,” J said, flinching away from the lion as it moved in to sniff him.
“Mostly?” Diana asked pointedly, that red eyebrow working overtime.
“So she was a little grey on occasion,” J said defensively. “Times were tough here growing up. And after the storm. But Nona would never countenance any association with a black practitioner, let alone a black circle. She’s a descendant of Marie Laveau. She does right by people, even at her own expense. But walking the righteous path doesn’t always pay the bills. Even before Katrina. I hustled, walked the line. Crossed it on occasion. And I did right by the woman who raised me. She wants for nothing now,” he finished with an emphatic sweep of his arm, which he immediately regretted as it stretched the burned skin on his chest.
“At whose expense?” Alec asked with a scowl.
“I don’t do anything that keeps me up at night,” J spat.
“Well, that’s the problem with sociopaths. Most of them sleep real well,” Diana replied.
J’s aura indicated that he was definitely in a downward slide to the black. But he wasn’t there yet. She might be back in a year or two to strip him of his magic, but that wouldn’t stop him from buying the spells of others. Either he went straight now or he was going to be a problem that got fixed in a more permanent way.
“You’re straying, J. Soon you won’t be salvageable. Then grandma will be all alone. Tell me what I want to know and turn over each and every one of your contraband spells. I have bigger fish to fry than you, and I’ll be pissed if you make me come find you again after this.”
J stopped trying to climb the wall as she called the lion to her side. She stroked its fiery surface with a sedate little smile, the way someone would pet a housecat. J looked down at the letter burned into his chest and started talking.
“I don’t know where they are. They have enough connections now to have heard they were of interest to someone dangerous. They’ll have gone underground.”
“Are you sure they haven’t gone to another property you arranged for them through my kind or another Supe?” Alec interrupted.
“That was a one-time thing. That Fiona owed me. Racked up big bills in the club, her and her girl, that they had no intention of paying. I forgave the debt in exchange for use of a property. One that suited the needs of my newest vendor.”
“And how did that start?” Diana asked.
“A young woman came to see me a few months ago. She said she was going into business with her circle. They would be selling new versions of class A spells and a few new inventions they’d come up with themselves. She left a sample, a top-notch appearance spell. Lasted several hours. Not like the common ones that are only good for a few minutes. And it was tight. More like a Fae’s glamour. It was impressive,” J said, his enthusiasm getting the better of his sense.
He was practically glowing until he noticed both of them frowning ferociously at him.
“And so you decided to become a customer,” Diana said, motioning him to get on with it.
“Hell, yeah. It was good for business. That glamour spell alone was worth the price of admission. It was the kind of thing I could offer to VIPs of the club and their rich friends. I had access to the market they wanted access to—the richest Supes in North America. In return for opening that market to them, I got a taste. And a break on the price for whatever I chose to purchase from them for personal use.”
“But you did meet the other members of the circle?” Diana asked.
This is what she needed. A real starting point for her search.
“Only once, but that won’t help you.”
Shit, Diana thought. “They were using their own glamour spell.”
“Yeah. I could tell that much,” J said a nod.
Diana looked to Alec for confirmation he was following, but he was still staring at the lion as it rubbed up against Diana’s leg. Lost in thought, it took a snap of her fingers inches from Alec’s eyes to bring him back to reality.
“Care to join me here?” Diana asked, sarcasm bleeding into her voice.
“Sorry. . .snakes. . .and lions. Um, what did I miss?”
“The circle members always use their own glamour spells to disguise their appearance when dealing with outsiders.” J recapped with a shake of his head. “I thought it was a little weird, but everyone has a thing.”
Diana rubbed her temple, annoyed. Being constantly under a glamour was unusual outside of the fae, some of whom had the power of disguise innately. But for a witch, the amount of effort required to create those spells was considerable. Making sure they lasted longer than a few hours took painstaking effort. Using them to mix with a buyer spoke of a considerable amount of paranoia. . .or the intention to get away with something very dark.
“Was there anything identifiable about their speech?” she asked. “Any accents or unique vocal patterns? Do they tend to dress in the same style every time you see them?”
“Like I said, I only saw one of them more than once. The youngest woman. At least she sounded young. I don’t know how dramatically the glamour changed her look. I’m not good with accents. I did my best to get rid of mine. And none of them had an obvious one, but the one I think is the oldest man sounded educated, like he went to school someplace fancy. Pretentious. Didn’t mind rubbing the fifty-cent words in your face. Their girl rep doesn’t sound the same. Not stupid, but flaky. Always mentioning energy and magical currents. Not trained proper. The other two didn’t talk at all. And their clothes during the meet were nice but hippie-like or new-agey. Youngest called herself Sarah and oldest Tom. They just referred to the others as brother or sister, like cult members do.” He looked up at Diana and made direct eye contact. “That’s it. There’s nothing else. They never left anything behind. Not even a stray hair.”
Fire: The Elementals Book One Page 13
