The Elementals Collection

by L. B. Gilbert

  He turned back to the horizon “I regret pursuing this case. It’s gotten…complicated.”

  Ray swore. “Are you suggesting we stop going after these guns?”

  “I didn’t say that. But we should stay as far away from Serin as possible.”

  “You mean you should stay as far away from her as possible, which is just fine by me. I, on the other hand, intend to bring her in and charge her ass with assault and administering a controlled substance, among other things. The president himself would have to bail her out. In person. Because no one messes with my partner, even when he’s gone soft in the head over a crazy, sword-wielding, Beyoncé knock-off.”

  “Hey. There’s no need to get nasty. Why bring Queen Bey into this?”

  Ray rolled his eyes. “Go home or to the doctor. Either one works for me. Don’t come back until you get your head straight. I’m gonna go back to my desk—where I’m going to do your job and mine for the rest of the day. And stay away from the boss. He’s kind of pissed at you.”

  Well, who isn’t?

  Daniel watched Ray go. As much as he resented his partner’s honesty, he couldn’t fault the man his opinion. If their position was reversed, he’d be giving Ray a serious talking to as well.

  But Ray hadn’t seen what Daniel had seen. He didn’t understand. Daniel wasn’t sure he did, either.

  The question was…who had he lied to? Had it been when he told his partner he was going to drop it, or when he’d told Serin she hadn’t seen the last of him?

  A drop of rain hit his cheek. He waited, but no more followed. Despite the dark clouds promising rain all day, only a single drop fell on him.

  It was the tiniest of nudges, but it was all he needed.

  17

  Serin slammed her head into the man’s face once and retreated, feinting right to avoid the second assailant’s inept thrust. He waved the ancient trident weapon like a switchblade or a prison shank.

  The first man screamed, blood spurting from his nose. When he doubled over, he knocked over several flasks and decanters from the counter. He dropped the Sai she’d used to find them on the floor. At the other end of the room, a thin curly-haired mark was crawling to the door, unable to stand on his feet because she’d broken his ankle.

  Her blind ambush was going well, all things considering.

  She hadn’t expected to find the Sai a second time. Anybody with half a brain would rid themselves of it. But the arms dealers she was tracking weren’t very bright. They also hadn’t been treating the Sai with any special significance as far as she could tell. One of their lowly underlings named Tony had been using it as a backscratcher in between playing with it, pretending he was a cartoon mutant reptile.

  “Really?” Serin huffed, putting her hand on her hips when the Sai clattered the ground. “I scryed for hours to find that. It’s over a thousand years old.”

  She tsked, picking up the trident and slamming the tip through the shoulder of the second man as he ran up to her.

  This one didn’t scream. His mouth dropped open in shock. “But you said it was a thousand years old,” he wailed.

  “And I honor it by employing it for its intended use.” Serin pulled out the point, punching him with her free hand.

  He went down, groaning before losing consciousness. She turned her attention to Tony, who was still doubled over, holding his broken nose.

  Serin bent at the waist, holding the weapon in his line of sight. “Where did you get this?”

  Tony only glared, breath ragged. “You crazy bitch!

  Smiling sweetly, she reached for his hand and bent one of his fingers back.

  “Fuck!” he screamed.

  “Name calling will only get you more broken bones.”

  Kicking him over, she straightened and examined the lab. It had two long workbenches. They were covered with vials, Bunsen burners, and welding equipment. There was a smelting setup in one corner. Dozens of boxes of bullets were stacked haphazardly on it. Some very large guns and a few other less utilitarian firearms were lined up neatly on the shelves—they even had a medieval crossbow hanging on the wall.

  She withdrew the second Sai from the sheath she wore on her back, admiring the pair together for a moment before holding them up to the three men groaning on the floor.

  “They’re a pretty picture, aren’t they?” With practiced grace, she twisted them in the air, spinning them acrobatically. “Pretty, but not valuable despite what Alec thought. He’s a scholar, so he underestimates the public’s general lack of interest for true craftsmanship. Maybe they’d be worth something to the right collector, but there aren’t enough of those on the ground to make stealing them worthwhile. So why are they here?”

  No one replied. Serin narrowed her eyes at the skinny man with the broken ankle. He had head geek written all over him.

  She stepped over him, peering down at him with the eyes of a predator. “Are you sure you don’t know?”

  The man’s eyes flared and darted to the other two, but he wisely weighed his options and decided, quite correctly, that she was a bigger threat.

  “He thought it might help,” he said, gulping. His pronounced Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “We tested it because it was supposed to be special, but while the metal is old, it’s not anything rare for that time. So we set it aside and focused on his other instructions.”

  “Shut up, Hyde!” Tony shouted.

  Serin rushed over and kicked him in the testicles, eliciting a shriek from him, but at least he stopped talking. “Whose instructions?”

  “The client.”

  Finally, she was getting somewhere. She knelt in front of Hyde. “I know you’re the brains these two are supposed to be protecting. Tell me, do you make all of your outfit’s next-gen guns in here?”

  Hyde nodded, his thin mustache clumping with sweat. “I was supposed to test the metal. Our client said it might be special. He gave it to the boss a few days ago.”

  “I said shut up!” Tony wheezed, clutching his crotch.

  Serin and Hyde both ignored him. “Tell me about this new client,” she coaxed. “Have you met him?”

  Hyde’s thin shoulders shifted, curving in slightly. “No, I’ve never spoken to the man. But he’s really involved. Always calling with instructions and recipes. He wants very specific mixtures of alloys and coatings.”

  “Coatings? Do you mean on the bullets?” Coating the guns would have been pointless.

  Forgetting about his ankle for a moment, Hyde leaned forward conspiratorially. “It’s a little weird. I mean, who cares what they’re coated with? It’s the form of the bullets and how the metal pierces the body that matters, but he insists we dip every bullet in these vats of premixed solutions. The mixes aren’t even poisonous, but the stuff is foul to work with and the ventilation here sucks. But the boss won’t shift our operations to a proper lab, not until after we get paid for delivering the product—and it won’t matter afterward.”

  After standing, Serin started checking the benches around them. There were some noxious substances here, ingredients that could be components in a spell if this were any other place.

  But these were humans, not witches. Nevertheless, there had been a taint of magic throughout this affair. And they were taking their instructions from someone else. The outfit was adept at customizing or adapting to someone else’s needs.

  A witch or fae practitioner was tangled up in this. And they were dictating to arms dealers, making sure their instructions were being followed, all while helping the process along with ingredients and tools like the Sai.

  “This client has given you a lot of other things to test and incorporate into your weapons, right?” she guessed.

  Hyde nodded. “Not as much as I would like, but yeah. He’s been doing business with our boss for almost a year now. When the deal started, he shipped us boxes and boxes of stuff—weird herbs, acids, and raw spices from all over the world.”

  “Were there any pre-mixed solutions?” A few of the scatte
red vials would have been ideal to hold spells, and they didn’t fit the appearance of the other glassware. Corked bottles with beveled edges were too traditional. Modern laboratory vials were smooth and had screw-on caps.

  “How did you know?” Hyde asked. “He wanted me to take the mix apart, figure out the components, and then play with the proportions. But I’m not a chemist. Eventually, the client gave up on having me work it out. I figured he outsourced it cause he started calling in with more specific recipes for the coatings.”

  A rush of disquiet filled her.

  This bizarre tie of arms dealer and renegade fae was starting to make a lot of sense. The Supes had largely ignored the human world’s issues with firearms, but the explosion in the use of such weapons was impossible to ignore completely.

  Logan’s mate had been gunned down just a few months ago. He’d survived, but what if the bullet had been coated in wolfsbane or silver nitrite? Silver did work on wolves, but it took some time for the metal in the bullets to leach into the blood. A colloidal silver compound—something that dissolved and was easily absorbed—would be far deadlier.

  The possibilities were chilling.

  Large swaths of the fae were allergic to iron, but there was a big chunk who wasn’t. They did have other vulnerabilities. Every Supernatural species had their own weaknesses.

  Vampires were thought to be too fast for guns. That had been the case since they’d been invented, but from what she’d seen at the farmhouse, machine guns were evolving, closing that gap. Even an old vampire would have trouble outrunning that wave of bullets.

  The guns this outfit was making decimated the farmhouse. She had barely escaped with Romero. And Loki was taking too long to recover. She hadn’t given his sluggish healing much thought, but now she was worried.

  What if this mystery client had purchased items from the Elemental hoard as raw material for the manufacture of weapons, ones tailored to work against specific Supes? Or worse—those that worked on more than one kind?

  “Well, that’s the problem with bosses,” she commiserated with Hyde, her mind rapidly following different scenarios. “They find it remarkably easy to ignore their men in the trenches. Believe it or not, I know how you feel.”

  The Mother’s silence weighed heavily on her, but she shook it off. She pointed at a laptop case on the bench. “Is this where you get your information? By email?”

  Hyde shook his head. “It’s on Tony’s phone. He’s the only one the boss calls.”

  “For fuck’s sake, shut up!” Tony cried from behind her.

  Hyde stiffened. It was her only warning. She spun on her heel. Tony had grabbed a jar of liquid from the bench. She didn’t have to read the label on it to know it was acid—she could smell the caustic solution the second it began to fly, straight at her face.

  Serin reached out, calling the water all around them.

  It was a wild overreaction.

  Hyde may have been right to complain about the ventilation, but his boss hadn’t skimped on the emergency showers. They were part of all legitimate labs, ready to douse a hapless scientist when they spilled something toxic on themselves or their clothing.

  The taps on the sinks also worked.

  Water exploded from all sides, a sentient wave that splashed over her at the same time the acid did. Her skin heated, already burning, as the water rushed over her skin. It diluted the corrosive liquid before it could do any permanent damage.

  She flung an arm out, sending the water to slap Tony down with enough force to knock him off his feet. His mouth was too full of water to call her another name. He flailed on the ground.

  “Um…magic lady?” Hyde asked in a whimper.

  Serin scowled at him. “What?

  “Sorry to interrupt, but I think Tony keeps his phone in his pocket.”

  Swearing, she shut off the flow of water abruptly. Her leather boots splashed in the large puddles surrounding Tony. She reached into his pockets, fishing out a dripping black smartphone. Tony was coughing too hard to put up a fuss when she slapped one of her mother’s braided charms on his wrist.

  She took out two more and turned to Hyde, testing them with her mind to make sure they weren’t defective.

  You know they’re not. What was happening with Romero didn’t have such a simple explanation.

  “Thank you for your help. I appreciate a degree of chattiness in an arms dealer. In your case, I would strongly suggest a career change. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to remember my advice, so let’s hope you’re as bright as you seem and come to the conclusion on your own.”

  His eyes flared as she knelt next to him, then began wrapping the charm around his wrist.

  18

  Loki knew Serin had forbidden this form, but he couldn’t resist taking her skin out for another spin—not after he raided her closet.

  Grinning like a fool, he put on one of her old dresses and turned up the music, dancing around carefully to avoid opening his wound again.

  Even the air felt different in this apartment. Wiggling his hips, he stroked the gemstone countertop bar that separated the kitchen from the sunken living room. The leather and wood barstools were perfectly matched. Serin must have picked them out. She had such an amazing innate sense of style.

  He loved it here. The Elemental safehouses were always choice penthouse suites overlooking a city or cool little houses tucked away in glorious natural spaces. He’d been milking his injury for all it was worth, playing on Serin’s sympathies and extreme busyness to stay on here.

  Whenever she was around, he would throw himself on the nearest flat surface, usually the expansive leather couch, making sure to be shirtless to better show off the still-healing wound in his side. He walked only when necessary, his pace that of a geriatric sloth.

  The minute she was out the door, he dropped the act. True, he still wasn’t fully healed, so he had to shake his booty with care, but he wasn’t immobile, either.

  It was a little odd how long the injury was lingering. As a lower-caste fae, he didn’t have the same sensitivity to iron his royal superiors did. He’d always imagined if he were shot, he’d snap right back, but what did he know? Getting a bullet wound hadn’t been high on his let’s-try-this-and-see-what-happens list.

  After Serin had went out earlier, he’d realized her well-stocked fridge was out of several of the major food groups—namely sugar and grease.

  I have to ask her who fills this fridge. There had been fresh fruit, vegetables, and cheese, but he had no idea how it had gotten there. He’d never seen Serin come home with anything as plebeian as a grocery bag.

  On the grounds he needed junk food to heal, he ordered a pizza before going on a quick bodega run. He returned with bags of gummy worms and cheese puffs, which he would need to finish or hide before Serin returned home.

  Munching on a fist full of cheesy crunchy goodness, he opened a bottle of excellent wine he found in the cupboard after he’d picked and put on an ethereal teal silk gown that floated and fluttered around him like a swarm of butterflies was holding it up.

  Loki grabbed more cheese puffs, then stuffed them in his mouth. Damn, he thought as cheese dust rained over the silk. He shook the bodice away from his body with his only clean fingers to dislodge the mess, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

  She wouldn’t, he assured himself. Serin hadn’t been wearing this kind of thing lately. She’d adopted a style similar to her other sisters—lots of leather and kick-ass boots with steel toes, some of which he’d found in the closet as well. He didn’t dare touch those just in case they belonged to Diana. That one had a short fuse.

  Dancing his way to Serin’s mirror, he admired his glamour, pouting and preening while glorying in the dramatic contrast of the tropical shade against his dark skin before gently shaking his booty around some more.

  With luck, Serin would be out for a few more hours. She’d been gone all day yesterday, following yet another Puck lead.

  Loki had to hand it to the bastard. Puck had l
aid so many false trails, most people had no hope of ever tracking him. But Loki’s favorite Elemental was tenacious. Serin never gave up. It was why he loved her…or wanted to be her. Either worked for him.

  The doorbell rang. Wineglass in hand, Loki sashayed to the door, throwing it open with a seductive come-hither pose Serin wouldn’t be caught dead doing.

  “You’re not the pizza guy.”

  The man on the other side widened his eyes, his thick lashes fluttering as he took in Loki’s scantily clad Serin suit.

  Oh shit… It was the cop trailing her—the one who had saved Loki’s life.

  “Uh…” Loki hurriedly straightened up, taking a step back before panicking and slamming the door shut.

  Romero started knocking. “Serin. I—I can’t believe you’re here. I was searching for someone else. We need to talk. Please open the door.”

  Whoa. Since when was this human on a first-name basis with an Elemental?

  Curiosity took a nibble before quickly consuming him. Loki cautiously opened the door a crack. Romero pushed it wide, stepping inside like he owned the place.

  “Rude,” Loki chided, pointing at him with the wineglass. He retreated to the sunken living room, hyper-aware of the orange cheese dust on his free hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Romero said, his brow creased as he watched Loki, still in Serin’s likeness, search for a towel. “It’s just that I needed to talk to you. You disappeared so…thoroughly the last time, and I didn’t know where to find you. I didn’t want it to be in the middle of another firefight.”

  The cop stepped closer in a rush. Loki stumbled back, the wine in his glass sloshing as the man put his hands on either side of Loki’s—Serin’s—face.

  Romero’s expression wasn’t one of friendly concern or even confusion. In fact, his eyes weren’t even on Loki’s face. The agent’s gaze was fixed on the well-filled neckline of the dress.