The Elementals Collection

by L. B. Gilbert

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said.

  He rose to his feet and edged around her, then led them out of the VIP room. They walked along the upper story balcony and looked down onto the dance floor. The club was going strong now. The well-dressed masses writhed on the floor below them with the vibrant red light shifting underneath.

  The club’s main office was directly opposite. Carter shifted to one side of the double doors, looking around as if expecting his employer to appear from thin air to give him hell. Diana moved to the lock, and immediately Alec moved to hide her from view.

  There was a simple keypad coupled to a standard locking mechanism. She covered each with her hand and fried the connection between them. More direct heat, and the tumblers of the lock shifted and the doors swung open. Carter looked surprised, as if he had expected her to whip out some sort of lock picking set.

  Diana decided it was time for him to go. “Your help is no longer required. You may return to your duties.”

  Carter practically ran away as she and Alec moved inside, pulling the door shut behind them. The noise from the club ceased. It was more than soundproof; a spell muted the noise absolutely.

  “What are you looking for? I doubt he kept a record of his meetings or anything to identify the witches,” Alec said, walking slowly around the room.

  “I just need something of his, or theirs, that’s special enough to them, and then I can track the object back to the person,” Diana replied as she examined their surroundings.

  If he was going to insist on tagging along, he would figure that out on his own soon anyway.

  “Really, like a witch scries?” he asked, intrigued.

  Some skilled witches could track in that fashion, but the gift was rare, especially if they hadn’t met the person. Vampires could track their blood donors if they had given them their own blood. Unlike the fiction in the movies, tracking was the only purpose for a vampire giving blood most of the time, since most of their donors didn’t have the innate ability to be turned.

  “We are not entirely dissimilar,” Diana admitted reluctantly as she searched the desk.

  “But you didn’t need anything of Fiona’s to find her.”

  Perceptive bastard.

  “No. She was at the coven house. I didn’t need anything else after I’d been in her presence. I’m wired to track Supes.”

  “Oh,” Alec said quietly. “But you need something if you haven’t been around them before?”

  “Or if enough time has passed since I’ve seen them,” Diana shared before deciding it was high time to shut up.

  Alec searched the desk for an object of sufficient personal value. He picked up and examined a paperweight while she looked for a hidden safe.

  There was no obvious safe in the wall, but a guy who ran a club had to have one. Turning her attention to the floor, she searched for irregularities and soon hit pay dirt. A small Brown model safe was installed under the desk’s seating area. Rather than waste time trying to reason out the combination, she sent a blast of heat to fuse the mechanism before wrenching the handle open. The whole door came off in her hand with a protesting shriek of metal.

  Alec raised a brow but kept silent as she tossed the door aside and crouched down next to the open safe. Inside were a large gun and a lot of cash, but nothing related to witchcraft or something that resonated with J’s specific vibration.

  Annoyed, she stood, spinning around to examine the rest of the room. Unlike the others in the club, this part of the building wasn’t outfitted with glowing walls and floors. It was painted a deep dark green, a shade close to black. Sleek and expensive lamps lit the room. On the right side of the room stood a tall cabinet made out of a deep reddish wood. Its shelves were littered with small objects, a collection of baubles and curiosities that must have taken years to accumulate.

  Diana leaned in closer to run a finger over a delicate glass globe. There was something odd about it. It was out of place next to the other objects, which were more of the weapon or totem variety.

  She picked it up. Inside it, a light flared briefly. It was a spell, contained in a glass globe. There were particles shifting inside, not exactly glitter, more like dirt in red clay tones. It was perfectly sealed round globe, rather unusual for a spell. More unusual was that its power had been muted until she touched it. Usually she could see spells like beacons in the night, but this one only had a dull glow.

  Enclosing a spell in a glass globe wasn’t a practice of the various witch covens. They might use a stoppered vial, but nothing like this. It was something a new practitioner, untrained in the craft, but with talent to spare, might make to house spells with a kind of flourish. A unique touch to impress other practitioners and consumers of spells.

  She held it up to Alec. “This was made by them but wasn’t for them. It must have been commissioned by J.”

  “Can you trace them directly now?”

  “No. It wasn’t theirs to begin with. It was always meant for someone else. I can’t trace J with it either because he didn’t have it long enough to make it his.” She expelled a harsh breath, frustrated. “We will have to track J first after all.”

  “We?” Alec smile peeking out. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Do we know what type of spell it is? Or do you have to break it to activate it?”

  “No to the last. Hold on,” she said and picked up a cut crystal paperweight from the desk.

  She melted a layer of glass onto her hand and placed it over the globe. As the surfaces made contact, she melted the inner layer of glass and for a minute she touched the spell. Technically the second layer was unnecessary but it was added protection, in case the spell was lethal.

  It probably wouldn’t have hurt her, but Alec might be vulnerable, although there weren’t many spells that could affect a vampire. To some degree, vampires were impermeable to most forms of magic, but there were always exceptions to the rule.

  “It’s a confusion spell. It would muddle memories in normal humans and susceptible Supernaturals. A useful tool in certain situations. Not exactly endorsed by our kind, but this one is a low-level spell. J probably took the stronger ones with him,” she said.

  A flame flared inside the globe and the materials suspended inside burned to nothing. A puff of smoke and the entire globe was gone. She turned her attention back to the other items on the shelf, as did Alec. There were empty spaces. As suspected, J had taken most of the objects of value.

  “What about this?” Alec asked, pulling out an elaborately engraved dagger.

  She took it from him. “No,” she shook her head. “It was probably a gift he left out for display.”

  She rounded the desk and sat in J’s leather chair so she could examine the shelf from his normal vantage point. From here, there were a few objects closer to the eye level. One of these was far more likely to be an object of personal value, even if J himself wasn’t aware of it.

  “Hand me that figurine. The fertility totem,” she said, gesturing to one of the lower shelves.

  Alec gave it to her, and she instantly felt the connection. The totem was a focusing tool used by practitioners, an object with a long history. It was the type of thing passed down in a family. But not J’s family. His possession was an interruption of its path. However, he valued it highly, more than he knew, probably because he’d stolen or cheated someone out of it. Now it was tied to him with enough force that it had become his.

  “This will work,” she said, throwing a smile in Alec’s direction.

  Flushing slightly, he asked, “Do you know where he is?”

  She turned her gaze inward, focusing on nothing, reaching for the threads that tied the object to J. “South. Quite a ways south. Took a car. He probably thought it would be harder to track. It’s actually easier.”

  “When do we leave?”

  She looked up at him, weighing her decision to take him along. If she didn’t, he would just end up following her. It was probably better to keep him with her than have him nipping at
her heels, interfering with her investigation in ways she couldn’t anticipate.

  “You’re absolutely committed to this search?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Even if we end up in Cuba?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Fine. But if you get in my way or get all bitey on me, I will set your ass on fire and won’t even feel bad about it.”

  He smiled. “I think I can promise I won’t bite. Not unless you want me to. . .”

  She made a face. “Is that vampire flirting? ‘Cause. . .eww.”

  Alec snorted but made no reply as they walked out of the manager’s office and back into the noisy club.

  For a second, Diana felt the wild impulse to turn around and torch the expensive furnishings. But she resisted the urge and faced Alec instead. The deep bass of the current song made it hard to hear anything, so she gestured that they should leave. They were heading to the stairs when a sudden and very sharp shift in the balance hit her.

  It was like a sudden drop in the barometric pressure, but its source was localized to someone in the crowd.

  Somewhere in shifting mass of dancers, a murderer had chosen his next victim.

  15

  “What is it?” Alec asked. She had stopped so suddenly he’d almost crashed into her.

  “Shh,” she said, turning her attention to the left corner of the dance floor.

  Placing both hands on the rail in front of her, she let her vision unfocus. The disturbance and the person causing it became clearer. It was a man of average height and looks. But she could see the aura that was undetectable to others, and it was swirling violently.

  Her quarry was focused on a small brunette who was happily dancing with a group of women. She looked completely oblivious to the men in the room.

  It was obviously a girls’ night out. All the women were technically ignoring men, but this one didn’t even see them, not on this night. And that was probably the lure.

  She turned to Alec. “I have some things to take care of before we go. Things not related to this case. Let’s split up now and meet at dawn.”

  “Do you need back up?”

  Hating she was that obvious, she turned away. She had to remember to put on a better front when she didn’t want him taking an interest in all of her activities.

  “Diana?” he wasn’t going to let up.

  “Not necessary,” she assured him.

  “If you’re sure,” he said slowly. “I have a small plane I can pilot myself. Not one of the coven’s jets. I can fly us south. Can you track from the air?”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. Where will we meet?”

  He gave her the address of a small private airfield. “The coven doesn’t know about this plane. It’s not a fancy jet or anything. Just good for getting around without anyone knowing.”

  She nodded. “Okay, I’ll see you at dawn.” She started for the stairs, then stopped short. “Hey, will you pack a lunch? Maybe some more of those fig things?”

  Alec smiled. “Of course.”

  He headed for the club’s kitchen and she headed for her new mark.

  Diana blended in with the crowd near the bar, sipping a twenty-year-old scotch. She picked a dark corner and settled down to watch her prey stalk his.

  By this point, the pretty girl was drinking and laughing with a group of men who had stopped by to chat with the women. None flirted with the brunette, but at least two eyed her with interest.

  Diana checked on the mark, to see how he was taking the new development. She never knew what would make a killer lose interest. Sometimes her talking to another man was enough to cause a murderer to choose someone else. Sometimes it was why she was chosen.

  The mark was angry. It had been fine when she ignored all the other men. Seeing her smile at one enraged him. In his mind, she was already his.

  And you’re mine, asshole.

  An hour later, the girls’ night out was breaking up. The pretty brunette got her wrap from the coat check and walked to her car with one of the other women. Carpooling complicated the murderer’s plan, but he wasn’t dissuaded. He got into his car and tailed both girls.

  Diana followed at a distance on her bike, ducking behind cars to make sure her mark did not spot her. She needn’t have bothered; the murderer was too focused on not being seen by the women to notice her.

  They arrived at a small two-story house on a quiet part of an otherwise busy street. After sliding into a resident’s-only parking space, they got out of the car, chatting animatedly. The mark idled just out of their eyesight long enough to register where the girls lived and then drove away.

  The murder was not going to happen tonight. Diana started her bike and followed at safe distance.

  Mister Average lived in a three-floor walkup in a large apartment complex built in the seventies. It was clean and functional, but not especially nice. Diana trailed him to his door, making sure she wasn’t seen. She was able to watch his door from underneath the stairwell leading to the floor above.

  There was still a lot of noise in the building. She would have to wait till the building’s occupants had settled for the night. Once she was sure, she would enter the mark’s apartment and take him out quietly.

  He would make history, another bizarre case of spontaneous combustion. It was an explanation few people truly believed, but given the lack of evidence she and others of her kind left behind, one that was accepted as an infrequent oddity. Most of the kills she made left no evidence, but she was in a hurry and didn’t have time to stage an accident that would explain why this man died and why the fire didn’t spread to the other units of the building.

  Hours passed, and the mark’s neighbors were still going strong. Damn college kids, she grumbled to herself.

  She was considering taking out the building’s electrical system when the door suddenly opened and her target came out. Ducking back into the shadows, she watched as he quietly made his way down the stairs.

  It was past three in the morning. Perhaps he’d decided to go after the girls tonight after all. She followed him like a ghost, her Elemental nature masking the noise she would have otherwise made.

  Her mark went back to his car and took off in the direction opposite his future victim. Diana was starting to get really annoyed with this guy. He wasn’t heading in the direction of a potential victim, unless he was working off a list. And he was in a reminiscing mood, apparently; satisfaction came off of him in waves.

  Diana followed him for another ten minutes before he stopped at a self-storage place. She squinted at the location. It was fairly isolated and next to a highway. The perfect spot for a trophy room. Or a kill room.

  The self-storage place was locked tight for the night, but that didn’t matter to the mark. He wandered to the left side of the lot, where chain link fence had been cut. The location of the opening was shielded from the street. After rolling back enough of the fence to crawl inside, he took the time to fix it so that it looked intact.

  The mark disappeared around the corner, and Diana followed after him. She paused at the corner as he headed for the second row. As quietly as he could, he opened a door, but the mechanism needed oil. The grating metal sound made him look around nervously, but the area was completely dead at this hour.

  A quick scan confirmed there were no security cameras. It was probably one of the reasons this particular storage place was chosen. She turned back to the man. He’d lifted the door only part way and had ducked inside.

  Closing her hand into a fist, Diana followed him.

  Inside the unit, Sam Levin turned on a small table lamp that ran on batteries. He had a chair and table there—a place where he could take out his trophies and relive how he’d gotten them. Not the most ideal spot, but he couldn’t afford better for the moment. Soon, though. He was saving.

  Eventually he would buy his own house, far from other people. The long drive to work would be worth it for the solitude he would gain. Where he could be alone with his treasures.

  He always too
k something different. The thing he associated with them the most. Usually their hair. Sometimes their beautiful eyes, which he would put in a jar. His forever.

  The girl tonight was so pretty. And she’d had eyes only for him. He would take that hair and those eyes and put them here with the rest.

  Once I’m done, those eyes wouldn’t look at anyone else, he thought happily.

  A noise startled him out of his reverie. He turned around, surprised to see a beautiful girl with dark red hair in black leather standing near his shelf of keepsakes. She picked up one of his prize jars.

  “Do you always keep their eyes?” she asked, her husky voice sending a frisson of sensation down his spine.

  “Eyes are the window to the soul,” he said feeling slightly dazed. The night had grown very warm all of sudden.

  “Kind of cheesy for last words,” the redhead said.

  “What?” he asked, confused, just before he started screaming.

  Diana called the fire, like she had thousands of times before, creating a ring of it around her mark. She made sure it consumed his lungs first, so he couldn’t cry out for long.

  The fire cascaded down his throat, and he burned until there was nothing but ashes.

  Her intense satisfaction ebbed slowly away as the fire died. It was nothing but a greasy stain when Alec spoke from behind her.

  “Are you going to burn down the rest?”

  She swung around, surprised. “How long have you been following me? Christ, you’re not supposed to be here!”

  Alec looked uncomfortable, but he stood his ground. “I had a feeling about what you might need to take care of at the club. The way you zoomed in on that guy. I didn’t want you to go in without back-up.”

  “I don’t need back-up.” Diana gestured to the pile of ash and grease, exasperated.

  Alec put his hands up. “I know you don’t, believe me. I just. . .”

  “Just what?”

  “I don’t want you to have to do this alone,” he said quietly.