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 whole 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 proc
ess, 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.
He failed completely.
The Elemental rolled her eyes. Someone had to be really cute to look good doing that… and she was. Although cute didn’t cover it. Hot does, but that’s too on the nose.
“Well now that you’ve acknowledged that I’m not a complete waste of your time—”
“I don’t believe I’ve acknowledged anything other than a desire to mock you or set you on fire,” she said, cutting him off.
He ignored that. “I can tell my mother’s servant, Dietrich, was down in the basement last, presumably cleaning up on Mother’s orders. He locked it after he left.” There was no reaction, but he hadn’t spontaneously burst into flames, so he continued. “I think there were at least four witches,” he added carefully, watching as she spun around to the basement door.
It was at the half-way mark between the dining area and the living room space. How did she even know where it was? Did she detect the evil or did Mother Nature beam the floor plans directly into her brain like in the Matrix? He decided not to ask. She still looked annoyed.
“If you insist on staying here, don’t touch anything,” she said repressively.
Putting her hand on the door, she unlocked it with a rush of hot air he could feel from where he was standing.
That is so awesome. Impressed despite his desire to appear cool and composed, Alec stifled his enthusiasm and put on a passive expression. A witch would have needed an incantation spoken aloud to open the door without touching it. He stepped closer to the doorway as she started down the dark staircase.
“Do you need a light?” Alec asked.
She didn’t answer as she disappeared from view.
“Yeah, that was probably a stupid question.”
Diana ignored the vampire as she made her way down the stairs. Why wouldn’t he go away? She had been right. There was something wrong with that one.
Refocusing her attention on the scene in front of her, she could see he’d been right. There were indeed four witches who used this threshold frequently in the past month. And most recently two vampires, one of them Elva and another younger male vampire.
So Alec Broussard was a sensitive.
A sensitive vampire would be able to sense the presence of one of his own. If he knew them from before, he could probably identify them. But that wasn’t a universal vampire skill like mesmerism or their supernatural stealth and speed. And sensing past visits from the Otherkind? That meant there was some serious talent there. Very rare for a vampire.
But that didn’t explain his insistence on ‘helping’. Honor wasn’t a good enough answer. There was the small possibility he was lying and was involved with the witches somehow. But her instinct said he wasn’t. Still, she would have to keep an eye on him.
Saving that thought for later, she faced the dark expanse of the room.
Dietrich does fine work, she mused. How annoying.
The room was preternaturally clean. The only thing in it was a neatly arranged tool shelf at the back wall. The tools had no energy attached to them at all, meaning they hadn’t been used in months. Maybe a year or more. Plus, they were dusty, despite the Spartan cleanliness of the rest of the room. It practically sparkled.
Diana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In her mind’s eye, she could still see the room like a tape playing backwards, the amorphous shapes of the people who had been here. Dietrich’s impression was strongest. Diana watched as he cleaned backwards in jerky motions. She couldn’t see what he was cleaning. The debris didn’t have a heat signature, although she could sense where it had been. Its presence left a dark stain only visible to her.
And maybe the damn vampire upstairs. A sensitive vampire of all things. Did he feel the ley lines? And how did his knowledge manifest? Her ability worked in a way uniquely tied to her fire gift. She could only guess how the vampire sensed what he did.
Diana turned her attention back to the image of Dietrich, annoyed with herself for thinking of the other vampire at all. Dietrich was farther back in time now. He was gathering things—maybe cleaning supplies. A moment later, he was retreating up the stairs. She skipped back to the earlier and fainter heat signatures: Elva and Dietrich coming in, Elva gesturing wildly.
Further back, Diana willed. For a moment, there was nothing, and then the images started, even fainter now.
The shapes were growing less distinct, the heat signatures slowly fading the farther back she went. The muted figures were in a circle around something now, and for a moment she could see it, a metal bowl that heated slightly when they burned something in it. The heat in it flaring and then dissipating as one of the shapes moved their hand, a lit match retreating backward. She needed to find the trash Dietrich threw away.
One of the figures joined late and settled awkwardly at the ring. It was a man, somewhat overweight. The figure who lit the fire was also a man, but the one to the left of him was smaller and slim. A woman. The last was probably a woman, too, judging by the way she moved.
Two men and two women. A balanced black circle. She went further back, studying the forms even as they grew fainter. She couldn’t recognize any of the rites from their blurring movements. And they performed more than one. She could just see the bowl flaring intermittently as they lit fires in it, sometimes candles, too, one in front of each member of the circle.
But the figures were too faint now to make out anything that might identify them and eventually the forms faded completely. Diana relaxed her focus. She turned around and headed back up the stairs, expecting to find the vampire waiting in the kitchen, but he wasn’t there. Flexing her senses, she spotted the slight heat vamps retained shifting around upstairs.
Diana found him at a doorway at end of the hall on the second floor. She moved toward him, but he didn’t turn toward her till she was next to him. His expression was grave. She looked in the room past him and froze. Her insides twisted.
In the corner of the room lay a dirty mattress, with a blanket lying half on the floor. Next to it was a small dirty pink and white sneaker.
Diana’s temperature rose, and before the vamp could move, he was on the floor flat on his back, her hand on his neck. His shirtfront smoked slightly under her touch. She shifted her knee to his chest.
“What do you know about this?” She gestured to the mattress.
“Nothing you don’t already know,” he wheezed out from behind her hand.
“Try again,” she hissed, her hand at her side sparking, fire flaring to life.
“Okay! Okay! I came home because I was summoned.”
She rolled her eyes and gestured impatiently for more.
“I always keep tabs on the coven’s activities when I’m away. My parents lead well enough but they’re. . .a little careless. Not always into details. And they don’t watch what the younger members are up to unless it benefits them or they become inconvenient in some way. They’re better than the other coven leaders I know, but it’s still a good idea to check on them,” he said, trying to shift her off him, but she didn’t move.
Diana extinguished her fire and brought her other hand down to join the first in a tight grip.
“I was back in England, down at Oxford, checking through some of the Bodleian library collections. One of my men back here contacted me. A child had gone missing, a little boy—not a girl. It was the kid of one of our agents, a human servant. His name is Pedro Montes. He has served us faithfully, as did his father before him. He acts as caretaker for several of our properties, including the one he lives in. His son disappeared almost a week ago. Not all vampire houses treat their staff that we
ll, but in our house the loyalty of our servants is rewarded,” he said earnestly.
“When the boy was taken, no one saw anything and no one took responsibility. But the building was warded against everyone but humans and members of our house. And the wards hadn’t been tripped,” Alec added, surreptitiously pushing against her knee.
He looked confused, as if he was trying to figure out why he couldn’t budge someone half his size.
“A boy?” Diana asked, her voice distant. The disappearance could be unrelated, but her gut told her otherwise. “How old?”
“Five, almost six.”
Same age as Katie.
“That’s why I came home. When my man saw the wards were pristine, he realized one had been swapped out. That shouldn’t be possible. He questioned Pedro, but by that time he was too far gone.”
“Explain,” she ordered flatly.
“Pedro barely remembers he had a son. It was as if he’d been wiped clean.”
“So it was a vampire.” From your house, she added in her head.
“That is what I thought. It’s why I rushed home. But I saw Pedro this morning. Before you came to case the coven house yesterday afternoon.”
I knew someone was out there. “And now you don’t think it was a vampire.” It wasn’t a question.
“No. Pedro is still. . .messed up, and it’s been over a week. A compulsion would have worn off by now.”
“Even if it was a very old vampire? Like your parent’s age? How old is Fiona?” she asked, smacking his hand away from her knee when he started to try and wiggle out from under it.
“She’s younger than mother but not by that much. And even my father’s compulsion would have faded after a few days without reinforcement. My man has been watching Pedro for longer than that. No vampire has come near him in all that time.”
“Still could be one of the ancient ones—or a black witch. And we already know black witches are operating in the area and are not afraid to act under your coven’s nose. It must have been one of them that took the boy, circumventing the ward in place and compelling the father to hand over his son somehow. That last is worrisome. That kind of compulsion can’t be done with a spell. It’s a vampire thing. Trying to use another group’s brand of magic doesn’t work, at least not well,” Diana said, thinking aloud.
The Elementals Collection Page 5
