Alec rubbed his temple above his left eye, which was starting to twitch. “I’m not going to have this argument with you again. I have more impor—”
A whoosh from the fireplace distracted him mid-sentence. The flames flared high and coalesced into a form. Shaking embers from her long red hair, Diana stepped out of the flames, and Alec sagged in relief. So much so that he forgot the presence of his father.
He moved close to her and put his arms on her shoulders before drawing back to check her up and down. She wasn’t even dirty. Not even a speck of soot. The tight worry he’d had at his core since she’d left relaxed.
“Are you all right? Did it work?” he asked.
She ignored him and looked over his shoulder with a carefully blank expression.
He turned back to see his father was watching Diana with a look somewhere between distaste and fear. It was, however, carefully controlled into a rigid mask.
Alden was staring a hole through her.
“Diana, you remember my father?” Alec asked as if they were in a polite drawing room a hundred years ago.
Blergh. She put her hands behind her back.
“Yes, of course. How do you do, Mister Broussard? I trust you and your wife are well,” Diana said with studious politeness.
Serin would have been proud of that delivery.
“We’re as well as can be expected given the circumstances,” Alden said with equal formality.
Diana kept a neutral expression as she looked to Alec for a little guidance. What was she supposed to do now? Talk about the weather? Thank him for his son’s help?
Well, why the hell not?
“Your son has been very helpful in my inquiries. I’m satisfied your house was not responsible for the disappearance of the children.”
“Good. I trust this matter will be resolved quickly, and my son will be able to resume his duties here soon,” Alden said, doing his best impression of someone with a broomstick up their ass.
What duties? She and Alec exchanged a look. One Alden did not miss. He glared at the way Alec’s right hand still held her shoulder securely, which made her realize it was still there, too. And she hadn’t pushed it off yet.
Ignoring the hand, Diana smiled at Alden.
“I’m sure he’ll be free to go on his way soon,” she replied evenly with the faintest stress on the his.
Alden scowled. “Good,” he said before stalking out.
“That went well,” Diana said in a perfectly serious tone. “I think he’s warming up.”
Smiling faintly, Alec turned to her. “Sorry about that. His age allows him to wake several hours before sunset, but he can’t go outside in actual sunlight.”
“How did you explain being awake at this hour?”
“I didn’t,” Alec said, bending to clean up some stray logs.
“Well, that’s one way to avoid an awkward discussion. Ignore it.”
He dismissed her comment with a wave. “Were you successful? Did you get anything useful?”
“I don’t know. Nothing was clear. It was all very confusing. And I have a raging headache now. Why don’t we get out of here before we have to have a real show and tell for the rest of the coven.”
She rubbed her head, and his face creased with concern. He put his arms around her shoulders.
“All right, let’s go.”
26
A little later, Diana was on the computer in the apartment she shared with the other girls, flipping through images of pastoral scenes. Her headache was gone, and she was starving, so Alec had called his men to bring some take out to the safe house after Diana admitted that she did not cook—she only reheated.
“What are you looking for?” Alec asked.
He’d been prowling the apartment restlessly since his run in with his father. She’d already had to scold him for using the Koto sword as a light saber.
“I’m not sure exactly,” she admitted. “Trying to commune with the Mother is kind of like trying to mind-meld with a giant sperm whale, only the whale is all knowing and probably the size of a small city.”
“Really? No wonder you had a headache,” he said, taken slightly aback as he sat next to her.
Diana could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he digested this new bit of information. Personally, she didn’t care about the pain because she had successfully made contact with the Mother in the fire. Sort of.
As she’d built the flames high into a tower, a sensation of intense pressure had overtaken her. It was like being squeezed all over. And then her head had split wide open. Or at least it had felt that way. A roaring sound that had nothing to do with the wildfire burning around her had filled her head. It was soon followed by a flood of memories and images so vast it had threatened to burn her brain out.
It had been hard to make anything out of the data dump. The few images she had seen had burned behind her eyes before she’d fallen out of the stream, coming back to herself as the flames around her died down. A little dizzy, she’d walked back into what was left, trying to be happy she had made some form of contact.
It was more than Gia had gotten the last time she tried, but not much more.
“I did see a few images I think She intended me to see. Enough to know who I’m dealing with but not where they are. The witch responsible is a Burgess by blood. But they weren’t raised on the inside. I got snippets of Hillard Burgess with one of his mistresses. The child is theirs. When the relationship ended, it was messy and the kid and mother were cut off. I didn’t see anything else about the child, not enough to even know what sex we’re dealing with. I’m lucky I saw anything at all,” she said, massaging her temples.
The headache was gone, but its memory lived on.
“Shouldn’t one of the big seven have been monitoring their own so something like this wouldn’t happen?”
The Burgess was one of the oldest lines of practitioners. Unlike the Delavordos, they had a much more upstanding reputation. For witches anyway. . .
“In a perfect world, yes. But it happens more and more these days. The Supes are splitting up, getting divorces, too. Not as often as humans but still. The kids that are the products of these unions sometimes fall through the cracks. We try to make sure it doesn’t happen but you can’t fight the future. And marriage is going the same way as the bees and the environment.”
“All right. How are we going to find them?”
“It’s a muddle, but I think I saw a location. It’s not very helpful. Just a few images of a rundown farmhouse in the countryside,” she said, lapsing into silence while continuing to scan pictures on the laptop.
Alec started wandering around the apartment again, fingering weapons and examining figurines. “These pieces are museum quality and then some. It’s an amazing collection. Do you have any old manuscripts by chance?”
“Not here. Serin’s people have scanned some of the old stories, though. Stuff they think is important, but they don’t give access to outsiders.”
“Oh. Well, maybe they’ll not consider me one in time,” Alec said.
Diana grinned at his wistful tone, but she didn’t turn away from the images on the computer screen.
“I don’t think your father is going to be okay with any further involvement with Elementals after this case is over.”
Alec frowned. “That’s not up to him. I’ve been leading my own life for a few centuries now.”
Diana considered his determined expression before replying. “He expects you to lead the coven,” she said, giving him a sideways glance while twisting a lock of her hair around her finger.
“He knows better.” Alec walked toward her until she was forced to meet his eyes. “And honestly, my father has no plans to step down in the future. It’s only that he believes, like all good dynasties, the heir should be visible to its subjects. He knows I’ve always had other plans for my life, Diana. Your presence in it hasn’t changed that.”
Not convinced, she raised her brows. “You might have a ch
ange of heart about that in the coming years. The head of the Eastern coven had a lot of pull and a lot of influence. There’s a lot you could do in that position,” she said, trying to be practical.
Alec rubbed the back of his neck. “How many times do I have to tell you that heading the coven is not something I want? I have never wanted to follow the path my parents laid out for me. It’s not even a remote possibility. I can’t stomach the empty gossip and backstabbing that passes for vampire politics.”
“Never say never. And circumstances might change. What if they really need you someday? Would you be able to turn your back on them? Because if the Mother is falling asleep, then hard days are ahead for everyone.”
He digested that in silence for a while. “It would have to be pretty extreme circumstances. And, honestly, there are some capable people in the coven despite their outward frivolity,” he said waving her concern away. “Any luck with the image search?”
“Not exactly. There were some mountains in the background and the feel of the place was familiar, but there wasn’t enough for a definitive location.” She sighed. “I don’t think flipping through pictures is the most productive way to do this. I would have to have the angles right in order to really recognize it from that. I need to narrow it down. Those mountains could be anywhere.”
“Can you draw?”
“Not even a little bit,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“Well, I’m a fairly good artist. I had to learn to sketch reasonably well to document my artifacts, although I use a camera these days. Maybe you could describe the scenes you remember to me, and we can get close to what you saw. Then we can scan it and use an image search to find similar, and hopefully, documented photographs.”
“It beats flipping through pictures aimlessly like this,” she said, putting the computer on the coffee table before stretching out on the couch.
Alec grabbed a few pens and one of the large notepads Gia kept around to sketch before sitting in an adjoining armchair. They must have resembled a therapist and his patient as Diana proceeded to detail the scene as best she could.
It went terribly for a good hour.
“I can’t do this. I just don’t have the ability to describe what’s in my head!” she finally said exasperated before throwing a pillow in Alec’s general direction. He snatched it out of the air without looking up with those freaky vampire reflexes.
“It’s all right,” he assured her. “I think we’re getting closer. I know you can’t draw, but why don’t you try and do a rudimentary sketch and then flip through some of these pastoral art books, and tell me what scenes look similar. Maybe you could draw the plant life in a little greater detail, or I could have some botany books delivered.”
Diana pulled at the threads of the last pillow left on the couch. “I guess I could try to draw some of the flowers. And Gia is not that into landscapes so maybe you should have some books sent.”
He sat up straighter. “We can’t give up. If this works out, we don’t have to keep hammering the beetle pin lead. It’s too tenuous to rely upon.”
“I know,” she grumbled before grabbing the notepad and pencils from his hand.
It took another three hours, including two deliveries from Daniel, one for books and one for dinner. The latter was ignored while they flipped through large books of landscapes, and Diana sketched the ugliest flowers anyone had ever seen.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said with a grin when she torched one of her less-than-successful efforts. “I’m personally rather relieved to find something I can do better than you.”
He missed the pillow she threw at his head that time.
When they were finally done, Diana was nearly ready to pull out all of her hair, but at least they had a reasonable facsimile of the exterior of the farmhouse.
“It is a little vague still, but the feel is European, isn’t it?” Alec mused as he turned and bent the sketch to view at different angles.
Diana shrugged. “Could be. Could be anywhere.”
“You mentioned the Burgess family. We should start by looking at their English holdings. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a match. If any of them are near mountains, we might have a starting point.”
“I don’t know.” Diana was skeptical. “From what I saw, this guy has been raised outside the family and isn’t likely to be on good terms with them. Not enough to be staying at their country house, if you know what I mean,” she said, continuing to flip through pictures.
“True enough, but I’ve run into a lot of outcasts in my time,” he said, putting down one volume and picking up another. “I know you have, too, but I imagine the circumstances were different. Less screaming and running away in my case. Actually, I’ve known a few personally as friends. And while most have claimed to care less about what their family thinks of them, every last one would have done anything to be accepted and respected by them. They emulate them, buy the things they have, live in equally fine homes if they have the means. Finer if they can manage it. And when the family is doing worse than them financially, more than one has bought their ancestral home and edged their family members out. I think we should look at properties the Burgess family used to own. Farms in the European countryside, specifically.”
“Well, we don’t have any better leads. Go nuts,” she said, waving him on.
His eyes twinkled. “I’ll put my people on finding out anything about any Burgess remnants and have my bankers run down any associated properties.”
“Bankers?”
“Like I said before, it usually pays off to follow the money. I’ll tell them to go back a few hundred years.”
“Witches don’t live as long as vampires. Don’t you think one century is enough?” Diana asked.
“We’ll start with the most recent records. Why don’t you let me do the search while you heat up the food Daniel brought?”
“Okay, but I should warn you that if the head of the Burgess clan is unaware he has another heir, it’s not very likely you’ll find a trace of one yourself,” she said, getting up and heading to the kitchen.
Feeling weirdly domestic, Diana started pulling out plates and opening containers. Daniel had brought an assortment of Thai dishes, including Pad Thai, eggplant with chicken, and duck in a cracked black pepper sauce.
She opened the sweet sticky rice and mango desserts and almost squealed with delight. It wasn’t as decadent as other meals Alec had arranged, but it was a feast of favorites for her.
Damn, that man is a freaking mind reader.
She peeked over at him tapping with vampiric speed on a shiny laptop he’d brought with him.
Okay, so not exactly a man.
She finished setting out small plates with a little bit of everything and heated it all up with little controlled blasts of heat. There was no dining table, just the coffee table and the bar, so she set the plates out on the coffee table and threw pillows at Alec till he stopped typing.
Smiling good-naturedly, he set down the computer and they ate, him a little and her a lot. He pretended to fight with her over the last piece of mango, but in the end he let her have it.
Alec’s phone rang as they were clearing the plates. He picked it up and spoke for a few moments.
“Good, email me the list.” To Diana, he said, “We have leads, with pictures in some cases, on their way.”
“That was fast,” she said, throwing herself on the couch next to the sketch Alec had made. “You know, this makes me think of France more than England,” she said, studying the drawing.
“The Burgess family has holdings all over Europe, including some in France and Spain. I’ll start with the French Alps,” Alec said, leaning forward to look at her over the couch.
Diana nodded and dug out the laptop that belonged to the safe house to do her own image search. Ten minutes later, she almost flung it out the window with a panoramic view of the city.
“It’s not the Alps! It’s the Pyrenees!”
She ran out of the room to grab one o
f their old topological maps.
When she came back carrying it, Alec put his hands in his pockets and said wryly, “You know, you could find one of those online, like on the computer you just threw across the room.”
“It wasn’t across the room, only to that armchair. . .which is somewhat soft and fluffy,” she said defensively.
“I’m starting to think that heat may not be the only problem your electronics have with you.”
“It’s fine,” she huffed “And an electronic map will not show ley line hotspots or other points of magical convergence,” she added instructively, tossing the empty takeout containers into the fireplace and lighting them before rolling the map out on the space she’d cleared on the coffee table.
“What do you mean by other kinds of magical convergences?” Alec asked, leaning in.
“Like portals or time slips and loops. Stuff like that,” she murmured, only half paying attention as she smoothed out the thick oily paper.
“Portals to where?” he asked.
When she didn’t answer, he traced a ley line on the map with his finger. “Are all of these still active? I thought most ley lines drained and dissipated over time only to be replaced by new ones somewhere else.”
“Most of them are like that, transient. But not all of them disappear. The bigger ones can last decades or even a few centuries. Some only appear to dissipate, but in reality they shift along a certain geographic range. It’s kind of like magnetic fields, but ley lines are more affected by the topography of the region they are found in,” she said, poring over the map.
“I always figured it was something like that,” Alec mused aloud, and Diana wondered if she should be grateful that vampires couldn’t tap into ley lines.
“How often do you update these?” he asked.
“We inform each other about changes as we find them.”
“But this looks old, and there are no corrections,” he said.
Diana tapped on the map. It went from featuring Western Europe to focusing on the south of France.
“This is charmed. It updates if we will it to do so,” she said, flattening out the area she wanted to focus on more closely.
The Elementals Collection Page 20
