The Elementals Collection

by L. B. Gilbert

  “Ah.” Serin hadn’t realized. It was strongly suggested that all the island’s candidates read their predecessors histories, but most of the records stopped when their service ended. If there was more, it wasn’t custom for the archivists to add it to their reading list.

  “Do you understand now?”

  Serin took a deep breath, dislodging a bit of weight she’d been carrying on her shoulders for years. She squeezed Dalasini’s hand. “I do.”

  “But do you forgive me? For pressuring you to bond?”

  Serin wasn’t certain, but she nodded anyway. “I’ve always known you had my best interests at heart. Never doubt that.”

  Her mother rose, still shaky. “Good. I…uh…I will speak to your father about Daniel. He will learn to accept him.”

  A corner of Serin’s lips turned up. “Will you?”

  Dalasini’s mouth opened and closed. “He’s what I always wanted for you.”

  Her mother didn’t mean a human mate. She thought Serin had found her anchor.

  Dalasini left after promising to make Serin’s favorite meal for dinner that night.

  Once the door closed behind her, Serin turned back to the window. “Did you catch all that?”

  Romero stepped into view. He’d been standing out there leaning against the wall for some time. “You were holding back. What is it you didn’t you tell her?”

  Serin leaned forward, staring at his handsome human face. How odd that the Mother would decide this was the man for her. “The call of the sea, the one that whispers in your ear, beckoning you to come…”

  “Yeah, that one. I want to know more about it.”

  He was so fierce Serin assumed he’d heard the call, too, but that didn’t surprise her somehow. Nothing about Romero would shock her at this point.

  “It doesn’t get louder as time goes on,” she said after a pause. “It’s there from day one, as loud and as clear as you are speaking now.”

  His dark face paled. “Holy shit.”

  She shrugged. “Do you know that Irish expression?”

  “There are lots of Irish expressions.” Daniel’s voice was flat. “Which one do you mean?”

  Serin put her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “A body can get used to anything—even hanging.”

  Romero stopped, spinning around at the top of the bluffs in wonder. The jagged rock line above the ocean gave him a spectacular view of the beach and ocean on one side and the island temple on the other. In the center was the mountain, a dormant volcano.

  Was that music? It almost sounded like the wind was playing faintly on a set of pipes. That’s so weird. I am Julie fucking Andrews spinning like a fool on a mountaintop.

  It was amazing but strange. Everything about this place was strange in a wondrous and jaw-dropping kind of way. There were plants everywhere, along with lichen and moss, and more mushrooms than he’d ever seen outside of a grocery store.

  The air was rich with the scent of flowers, the breeze cooling. Serin had told him everything that grew on the island was edible or medicinal. Even the gorgeous blooms were one or the other. Nothing was ornamental. The water that ran down from Mount Siba was the most delicious thing he’d ever drunk. The island boasted numerous springs and hidden pools, even a lagoon on the east side. The ocean around them was so clear sharks and seals could be spotted miles away from shore. He’d even seen a few whales.

  The entire island had an air of unreality. It was as if he’d wandered onto a holodeck. He’d been exploring for a few hours, ever since the healers had shooed him out of Serin’s room that morning.

  “This place is fucking incredible,” he said aloud after a moment. There wasn’t a soul in sight, but he knew he wasn’t alone.

  “You’re getting very good at that.”

  He pivoted to see Gia standing a few feet away. “You can’t have hiked all the way up this path without me hearing you,” he said, checking around his feet in case he was about to step into a hole.

  “No.” Gia was amused. “I didn’t come up the path. But you can relax; I closed it.”

  “Yeah, I’m just surprised at how quietly you can do that.”

  He hadn’t caught her coming out of the ground when she’d come to Serin in that alley because he’d been fixed on Serin and the bullet hole in her stomach. The rest had happened like a movie being played on fast forward. He’d turned to see Gia’s arm grabbing Ray. His partner had flown through the air and then there had been that unvoiced ultimatum.

  “I’m not leaving her,” he yelled at Gia, clutching Serin’s limp body to him. Loki had come up behind him, grasping his shoulders in silent support.

  Gia had stared at him, her eyes narrowed, and then she’d simply given him a short nod. Before he’d known it, the ground was closing over his head. If it made a sound, he’d missed it, but again, he’d been cradling a bleeding Serin in his arms. Gia had been holding on to them all.

  And I thought traveling via drain pipe had been freaky. It didn’t compare to racing through the soil like a tremor in the earth’s crust. He didn’t ever want to do that again. It was too much like being buried alive.

  “I need the phone Serin confiscated from the arms dealer,” Gia said.

  He should have guessed she hadn’t come up here to chat. “Oh, uh, sorry. I don’t have it on me. Serin said your magic might be able to get more from the damaged memory card.”

  Gia cocked her head. “You sound skeptical, Agent Romero.”

  “No,” he assured her. “Not anymore. Not after what I’ve seen. I can have it sent somewhere to be picked up, but I think I’m out of range here.”

  He pulled out his work phone to show it to her. It had no bars.

  “There are no cell towers on T’Kaieri,” Gia replied, reaching for the phone. She took it out of his hand before waving her fingers over it. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t reach your people.”

  Golden sunlight lit the underside of her palm. She touched the cover of the phone, transferring a bit of sparkle. Then she held it out to him.

  He hesitated, wondering if the Lithium battery could handle magic without exploding.

  “It’s quite safe. I have a way with electronics.”

  He nodded. “I believe Loki mentioned that. I’ll tell the office I’m having a specialist examine it. I should also text my partner, make an excuse for what happened.”

  “And to explain where you went,” she added dryly.

  “Yeah,” Daniel muttered, racking his brain for a suitable lie for his superiors. Disappearing on a Friday night had given him a little leeway, but that was swiftly running out. He took the phone, noting with surprise it was cool to the touch. He was about to call the lab tech when Gia put a hand over his.

  “Tell them a courier will pick it up. Logan can have it here in a couple of hours.”

  Nodding, he dialed. An automated message came up. Grimacing, he left a voicemail.

  “They’re just screening,” he explained as he hung up. “If you can pull out more of the recipe, can you help Serin heal faster?”

  “Unlikely. She’s doing as well as any of us can expect at this point. No, I’m searching for something else.”

  “Shit.” Shaking his head at his stupidity, he pulled out the phone again. “I forgot something. The recipe wasn’t from a text or an email. There was a recording.”

  He dug through the files app. “Our people couldn’t decipher anything of significance in the background, but maybe there’s something your magic ears can pick up.”

  Gia wrinkled her nose. “I’m not a werewolf, but I’ll do my best.”

  Daniel pressed play. The man’s voice began, droning slightly, listing herbs and chemicals like someone dictating a shopping list. It cut off before it was complete. Daniel was about to play the next one when Gia snatched the phone away. One look at her face made him hurriedly step back.

  The fires of hell lit her eyes. No, not hell. It was lava and molten rocks, like the brutal burning light at the core of the world. />
  “What is it?” Daniel was a seasoned investigator. He knew when someone had realized a person they trusted had screwed them over. He’d seen that expression dozens of times. “You know the voice, don’t you? Who is it?”

  The fire banked higher. “It belongs to a dead man. The words, however, are someone else’s.” She slapped the phone back in his hand. “Don’t play that for anyone but Serin. I have to go.”

  Suddenly, the ground opened like quicksand beneath her. Daniel scrambled back as the hole gaped wide. He landed on his ass. Worried the ground would solidify around his legs before he could get them out, he skittered back from the pit like a crab.

  Gia was gone before he could get back on his feet.

  27

  Serin picked her way through the archive sub-basement. There was no reason to be here, but her curiosity had gotten the best of her.

  Noomi, the head archivist, was unavailable, but her assistant Ksenia cracked the moment Serin asked for Marina’s records. The thin volume was on its own pedestal. Even though the elders and her family never mentioned her by name, the archivists could always be counted on to find a place of honor for one of their own.

  She flipped through the book, reading the brief notes on her aunt’s different missions. Her short tenure had been spectacular. So much promise…But this life wasn’t for everyone.

  Serin bit her lip, tears stinging her eyes for a woman she never met but should have known. She forced her attention back to the page, intent on reading every account before meeting Daniel and her parents for dinner.

  That was an event she was more than happy to put off.

  “Serin.”

  Romero was coming down the aisle, deftly hopping over the books the archivists had left stacked on the floor. His hair was windblown, and he was wearing a pair of jeans that would make a nun take a second look.

  Her heart leapt at the sight of him.

  Stop that, she scolded herself. No matter what Gia said, this Romero situation was not cut and dried. Maybe if she had met him ten years from now when she was scheduled to give up her position…

  A snapshot of his face when she’d been shot flitted through her mind as he stopped in front of her. He cared. She didn’t want him to, but there it was, an unasked-for gift. This was going to end badly once he saw her for what she truly was—a killer.

  The Mother had a lot to answer for.

  “I drowned the Reaper. You know that, right?”

  Daniel stopped short. “I, um, yeah. I guess I knew that.”

  She cleared her throat. “I didn’t mean to blurt it aloud like that. But I just wanted to be clear about what I do. We are not the same.”

  His expression blanked. “I never said we were the same.”

  Her hands went up. The air grew heavier despite the many anti-humidity spells in place to protect the books and scrolls. “You have implied that our jobs are similar. Nothing could be further from the truth. On my cases, the suspect has already been judged.”

  “By a jury?”

  “By the Mother and the universe.”

  He cleared his throat. “Let me guess. This is the part where you tell me you’re the executioner. After which you inform me that I won’t be able to handle it because I represent law and order as a DEA agent?”

  “In a nutshell…yes”

  “Believe it or not, I pieced together the details of what you do a long time ago. And I actually have a lot to say about it and us, but I’m afraid we don’t have time.”

  He pulled out his phone, putting his hand on her shoulder to offer some form of comfort. Judging from Gia’s reaction, this was going to be a shock. Opening the phone to the right file, he pressed play.

  Serin was quiet, her creased forehead her only outward sign of emotion.

  “I was expecting a bigger reaction.”

  Serin wrapped her arms around herself, staring into the middle distance with remote eyes. He nudged her, and she blinked.

  “It’s nothing earth-shattering,” she murmured.

  “Really? Because Gia literally shattered the earth when she heard it, then disappeared right before telling me to play it only for you.”

  Serin nodded absently.

  “It’s your ex, isn’t it? The one who died.” He’d heard bits and pieces, but he hadn’t wanted to press Serin for the whole story. He assumed she’d tell him in her own time.

  Well, time had just run out.

  She picked up the book she’d been reading, fingering the embossed leather cover, but he couldn’t make out the words because it was written in an unfamiliar language.

  “Jordan betrayed us,” she said after a long pause. “We assume he was being blackmailed. He stole from this archive and left, then he took his own life.”

  “Fuck,” Daniel muttered. That was some heavy shit. He’d known the man was dead, but he’d assumed he’d been killed in some sort of long-ago Supernatural battle or something. “When did this all happen?”

  “We buried him a few weeks before I met you the second time.”

  His stomach dropped a few inches. When he’d started hunting her, the man had still been alive. “That recently?”

  Swallowing, she nodded. “I’m not sure why Gia was so worked up. We know that Jordan was guilty now. He apologized in his suicide note.”

  Christ. This was getting worse and worse. Daniel flipped the recording on again. “It sounds as if he’s reading a shopping list. Is there anything in the background your magic ears can pick up?”

  Serin touched her ears self-consciously. “I don’t hear anything of significance.”

  Frowning, he took the phone back. It didn’t sound like Jordan had been under duress. If anything, the well-modulated voice sounded bored, as if he were performing a chore.

  Daniel flipped back to the electronic copy of Sandy’s report. He zoomed on the text listing the second recording, the one that had been complete but garbled. The time stamp the message was received was noted before the message, but there was another at the end.

  “That’s it.” He held up the phone. After squinting at the screen, she shrugged. “Look at the timestamps on the audio file.”

  “What about it?”

  “Them, what about them.” He pointed to the one at the bottom. “The creation date of the recording is here, too, which means it was sent as an audio file they downloaded.

  “Yes, and?”

  “The creation date was three days after our second meeting. Jordan recorded this after you buried him.”

  Daniel heaved another shovel of dirt out of the square hole.

  “Can you explain why I’m digging up the grave when you’re the one with magic powers?”

  Serin was pacing like a caged animal at the graveside, squeezing her fist reflexively. “Mainly because you grabbed the only shovel and started digging.”

  She put something in her pocket before reaching out. “Give it here and I’ll finish.”

  Regarding her thoughtfully, he used the shovel handle as a prop. “Why don’t you just flood the hole and bring it to the surface?”

  “Because we don’t want to alert everyone on the island. This is the home of most of the world’s Water talents. My mother is only one of them. Half the elders and their families would be able to sense the movement of that much water moving outside the island’s normal rhythm.”

  She continued to hold out her hand. Reluctantly, he handed the shovel over. With no hesitation, she hopped into the hole and took over.

  He climbed out, marveling at her speed and strength. “So why is there only one shovel in the village?”

  “We don’t farm, not as you know it. The island’s food crops don’t require that much intervention. We scatter seeds, and they simply grow unaided.”

  Daniel thought about the neat clusters of maize and tomato plants he’d passed earlier. It didn’t bear the hallmarks of mechanical plantation. Nothing square, no neat rows. Nevertheless, there had appeared to be some organization—spirals, circles, and ovals, irregular sh
apes that made the most of the open space and varied terrain. It was crazy to think they could just drop seeds and those patterns would appear.

  He’d never been religious. The grandmother who raised him had been Catholic, but he’d only done lip service by begrudgingly attending service on Sundays. Once she passed away, he’d stopped going. Later, he’d seen too much ugliness in his chosen career to believe in the God the priests had lectured about from their pulpits. But if he had seen this island back then, he would have fallen to his knees in worship.

  No wonder the elders spent half of every day at the temple.

  “Daniel.”

  Giving himself a little shake, he turned back to find Serin staring at him, holding out the shovel expectantly. He whistled. In his short minute of introspection, she’d uncovered a rectangular stone slab.

  “Is he in a bloody sarcophagus?”

  “His uncle chose a plain wooden box, but he requested the stone be overlaid to protect it from the seismic activity of the island. The land shifts more than you would think.”

  She leaned down and pried the slab up on one end, lifting it up and out as if it were a painted Styrofoam movie prop.

  He peered down at the coffin. The lid was roughly carved of one piece of thick wood. Kneeling, Serin touched the lid.

  “Who made the coffin?”

  “The island’s carpenters. This is made of Ash. It’s one of the trees with magical properties. It can absorb or repel spells depending on the preparation. This has been charmed to repel them.”

  He hopped down to join her. “I’ll do this. You get up.”

  Serin didn’t move, a mutinous expression on her beautiful face. Daniel would be damned if he let her open the box, though. After a brief standoff, she relented and climbed out of the hole, standing at the edge.

  Daniel leaned down and tried the lid, but it held fast. He reached for the shovel lying at the edge of the grave, then wedged the cutting edge just under the lid. It took a minute, but he managed to pry it open, breaking the seal with a hiss.