Broken Elements (5 page)

“I’ll wait until you return,” I said. I wasn’t procrastinating. I was just waiting for the right time. The fact that I was kind of hoping the right time was the fifth of never was beside the point.

“Nah, don’t wait. I was there, remember. I don’t need to hear it.” She stared directly at me, her fidgeting momentarily stilled. “And I know that you’ll tell the story accurately.”

Her words were loaded, but glancing around the car, no one else seemed to pick up on any meaningful subtext. I, however, was overwhelmed. For the last ten years, whenever I’d thought of the fire and its aftermath, it seemed as if Sera and I had very different versions of events. Now, she was explicitly trusting me to tell one story and incorporate her experience into my own memories of the night. She was forcing me to be honest and to recognize her point of view. The woman was diabolical. “Brian, you want to come? You already know the story, and you can help, if…” she tapered off, trying to think of a believable way he could be helpful. I knew she was giving him an excuse to avoid reliving the past.

“If you need anything kept moderately chilled?” he finished for her, laughing. He was unconcerned about the less than impressive way his powers manifested. “Are you asking because you know I love all that science-y stuff?”

“I’m asking because you love the women in lab coats.”

“There’s that. Not as much as I love Aidan, however,” he assured me, making a surprisingly gallant bow for someone strapped into a car seat. “I’ll stay and hear the story.”

Several minutes later, Mac pulled into the driveway. Sera immediately transferred to the Mustang and took off, her music clearly audible even through closed windows. I found myself faced with the task of telling three people I barely knew about the worst night of my life. I really could have planned this better. I briefly wondered if there was any plan I could have made that would have left me alone on a Caribbean island for the next week.

We headed inside and gathered around the dining room table. It was a more formal setting than the living room couches, and this wasn’t a story that encouraged comfort.

“So, should I start at the beginning? How much do you already know?”

“Tell us everything. I want to hear your version,” said Mac.

Everything. Excellent. “Ten years ago, Sera, Brian and I were students at the college, and friends. We met when we lived in the same freshman dorm. There were a lot of elementals here, back then. I don’t know where they all went. Some might still be around. I’d have to ask Sera. But most left, once the killings started.”

“I was one of them,” said Vivian. “I thought it was the smart thing to do. Now, I just feel like a coward for running.”

Simon looked at her. “There is a fine line between cowardice and self-preservation. Do not be so sure you landed on the wrong side of that line.” She shook her head, unconvinced.

“Everyone left because it was an elemental doing the killing,” said Mac, keeping us on track.

“Yes. The humans… their hearts were frozen solid. It’s how they died. With the first body, we hoped it was just a freak natural occurrence. I guess we were trying to be as good at denial as the humans. But then there was a second body, and a third, and we couldn’t do our ostrich imitation anymore.” I glanced at Brian, who gave me a slight nod. “One of them was Brian’s girlfriend, Felicia.” The rest looked at him, their faces a mix of shock, sympathy, and that strange uncertainty when someone has no idea what to say.

I continued with the story, wanting to move past the painful memory. “An elemental was killing humans, and it became obvious he was targeting humans involved with elementals. One of the reasons we live so long is that we are really good at conflict avoidance. You wouldn’t believe how fast the town cleared out. Everyone wanted to distance themselves from the murders. Soon, the only members of our old group still in town were the three of us. I guess we’d spent too much time watching
Perry Mason
as kids, because we decided we could find this bastard and bring him to justice, or something like that.” Vivian, Simon and Mac all looked blank. Apparently, none of them had been born in time to catch my reference. I didn’t even think Brian was old enough. I opted not to point out their deprived childhoods, lest I simultaneously point out how old I actually was.

“Why didn’t you leave, too? It would seem like the far more sensible choice,” said Simon.

“Yeah, well. What evidence have we given you that we are sensible people? No matter how old we were in human years, we were still dumb college kids. We thought we could do anything. We live so long and are so powerful that the threat of mortality never entered our minds. We wanted excitement, and we wanted to do something important. Maybe, we also wanted to do the right thing, but I can’t say that was the driving force, not then.”

“I’d like to know how you amateur Holmes and Watsons actually managed to find this guy. At the moment, it sounds like a rather implausible movie plot,” said Simon, the man who turned into a cat.

“Well, nothing would have happened without Sera’s father,” I began. I didn’t make it any further than that, however. A loud whistling noise pierced the air, followed by the unmistakable sound of broken glass in the living room. There was a split second in which we all froze, looking at each other and hoping we hadn’t heard what we all knew we had, then we moved as one.

Simon immediately shifted, a process that took the blink of an eye. A small black cat ran out of the neck of his t-shirt, leaving a pile of clothes behind. He clambered his way up the wood posts and ran along the beams that decorated the living room’s ceiling. He was in the room a moment before everyone else, and his furious yowl confirmed that something unpleasant was waiting for us.

We entered the room as a group, and immediately pulled to a stop. Vivian gasped. The sofa was ablaze, the fire already rising with unnatural speed. The hungry flames sought out the floor-length drapes and the plush rugs, eager to consume anything in their path. In a few minutes, the entire house would catch fire, and the wooden A-frame would be nothing but a burnt-out shell soon after. If the fire was left unchecked, everything would be destroyed.

I’d seen this in my nightmares. I’d watched fires rising and rising, unstoppable, ravenous forces capable of taking everything from me. I’d dreamt of fires destroying my childhood home, my first apartment, my haven in the country. I had lived this moment so many times in the last ten years, imagining the horror, the screams, the absolute sense of powerlessness. It had finally found me.

“Get out,” I hissed, not looking at anything beyond the hypnotic flames, dancing gleefully and mocking me with every snap. “Everyone, get out,” I said, loudly this time. Vivian gave my arm a quick squeeze, the only support she could realistically offer, then ran from the room.

“You want me to call the fire department?” Brian asked. I shook my head, and he reluctantly stepped away, leaving the fire to me.

“You too,” I said to Mac.

“I’m not running while my house goes up in flames. There’s an extinguisher by the door.” The door was on the other side of the room, with a wall of flames separating us. It wasn’t an option. Mac didn’t seem to care. He’d ripped off his flannel shirt and was tying it around his face, an impromptu smoke mask. I decided he was both quite brave and an absolute idiot.

“Get out of here. I can handle this, but I need to focus, which will be a lot easier if I’m not worried about you dying from smoke inhalation.”

He looked doubtful, and shook his head. “I’m not leaving you to the same fate.”

I was running out of time. I turned to face him, giving him my best glare, one I meant with every fiber of my being. “I am a water, you stubborn ass. This is something I can do. But if I’m more worried about extinguishing you than the sofa, I won’t be able to give all my attention to finding water molecules. Molecules this fire is rapidly eating, by the way. So get the hell out and let me work.”

He looked uncertain, but he didn’t budge. “Now,” I insisted. I couldn’t afford this. With each passing moment, the fire grew more intense. Slowly, reluctantly, he turned and walked back through the dining room. I had to assume he was leaving through the back door. Not even a minute had passed since we’d discovered the fire, and I hoped our conversation hadn’t just cost him his living room.

Taking a deep breath, I found my fear and locked it away in a distant part of my mind. Later, it could have free rein, but right now I needed no distractions. I called the magic that rested in my very core to the surface, feeling it spread throughout my body and fill up every cell. My skin started to vibrate, the power clinging to each pore. I waited until the sensation intensified, until I felt all my humanity slip away and I was nothing but pure magic.

I hadn’t been wrong when yelling at Mac. The fire was rapidly eating every molecule of oxygen in the room, taking the last bit of humidity with it. It wasn’t going to be enough. I guided the magic through the house, sending some of it backwards to the dining room, the rest upstairs to the bedrooms and even higher to the loft above. Splitting the magic required further concentration. I tried to take another calming breath, but the fire had filled the room with enough smoke that I ended up coughing instead. My concentration dimmed, and I felt a long moment of panic as the fire climbed higher.

This was my nightmare brought to life, a living, burning reminder of my utter uselessness and the knowledge that I wasn’t truly in control. I indulged the panic, longer than I wanted, before I remembered this wasn’t a dream, and this wasn’t some figment of my imagination.

This was the result of a firebomb. Someone had deliberately set the fire, had tried to hurt or even kill us, and I was not letting the bastard win. I might have a few neuroses to work through, but I was also competitive as hell, and I was damn sure going to use that. I refused to be afraid or panicked. I refused to even be angry. Suddenly, my focus returned, sharp and pure. I became nothing but the magic.

The fire continued to grow, now blackening the walls and reaching for the ceiling. I closed my eyes, blocking out the fire until I could only feel the magic as it found every cool particle of water in the house. It went willingly, happy to find the element from which it was born, so many millennia ago. Gently, I attached the magic to the water molecules. I waited just a moment, letting the union settle, then gave a tug.

Eagerly, it rushed downstairs, from the loft to the second floor and then down the staircase, picking up more water as it flew ecstatically through the air. The magic reached me as a wall of water. I grabbed it and pushed, directing it toward the charred sofa, putting the fire out at its source. Water met fire with a hiss, but the fire surrendered, unable to defeat the powerful wave crashing over it.

It wasn’t enough. The source of the fire was eliminated, but it had already spread too far. The flames had consumed all the moisture in the room, so I couldn’t simply make another go. I was running out of time. Soon, the flames would reach the ceiling, and there was nothing I could do against a ceiling collapse. Nothing except get crushed and die, that is.

I still had the magic I’d moved into the dining room, and I sent the rest in to join it. I was losing oxygen rapidly. I crouched down, desperate to get below the smoke. This was my last chance. If this didn’t work, I would need to abandon the house to the fire. With no other options, I performed the elemental equivalent of a Hail Mary, asking the magic to find any water it could. Its nature is to find and attach to water, so I didn’t worry about that. I only worried that there wasn’t enough water left in the house to put out the flames.

When I felt the power settle, I knew it had joined to as many molecules as possible. On my hands and knees, coughing, I gave one powerful tug, pulling everything back to me and sending it toward the living room. I felt the water fly over my head, cold and determined, and heard the sizzle as it beat against the remaining flames, extinguishing them instantly.

Slowly, I raised my head, fearing that it hadn’t been enough. I needn’t have worried. Though the room was still filled with smoke, there wasn’t even the slightest flicker of a flame. Water covered everything. It soaked the carpets and the furniture and ran in rivulets down the blackened walls. Exhausted and yet oddly triumphant, I crawled into the dining room, reveling in my success. I’d done it. Screw the memories, screw the nightmares. I had just controlled a fire intended to harm me. Years of counseling couldn’t produce as satisfying a breakthrough as I enjoyed at that moment.

Hearing a rustling near me, I pulled myself up to sitting. There, on the dining room table, sat an extremely wet cat with singed whiskers who obviously hadn’t listened to my order to get out. He cast me a baleful glance before grabbing his jeans in his mouth and dragging them outside. I followed his progress and saw Mac, standing in the kitchen doorway with a fire extinguisher he’d apparently grabbed from his trailer. He was as wet as the cat, his clothes plastered to his body and his hair dripping water. A puddle was forming where he stood, but he seemed completely unaware of that fact. He stared at me with a bemused expression.

“Did you just re-route the Truckee River through my house?” he asked.

Chapter 5

“Well, this complicates things,” noted Sera, looking around the charred living room. “I just ordered a new rug, and it doesn’t go at all with this new ‘damp and burnt’ design aesthetic.”

“It’s ‘incendiary chic,’” I explained. “Only your finest domestic terrorists can really pull it off.”

“I knew I should have bought that chandelier hand made from detonated grenades when I saw it on Etsy. I’ll never be able to pull the room together now.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic. A few throw pillows will make all the difference.” I paused. “What’s an Etsy?” She only shook her head at my ignorance.

We stood in the middle of the room, shivering in the chill. All the windows were open to air out the house, and we’d turned off the power until we had a chance to check the electrical damage, so the house was currently without heat. Just for fun, the gathering clouds and rapidly dropping temperature indicated it would soon be snowing, as well.

Vivian looked between us, trying to decide if we were being enormously inappropriate or simply deranged. I wasn’t sure I could help her out, either.

“Someone tried to kill us,” she pointed out.

“It sure looks that way,” agreed Sera.

“Why?” Vivian asked. Sera shrugged, unable to offer a clear answer. “I’m not okay with that.” Vivian sounded scared, but her stiff back and the stubborn set of her jaw suggested she wouldn’t be giving in to the fear anytime soon.

Sera agreed. “It is a bit discomfiting.”

“Whoever did this, they know where we live. Do you think they know where I live, too?” she asked. She looked nervously around the room, possibly looking for assassins hidden behind the burnt remains of the potted palm.

“It’s a possibility,” I acknowledged. “You and Brian should probably move in here full-time. He and Simon can share the loft. Safety in numbers and all that.”

Vivian considered this for a moment. “Wouldn’t it be safer to move to a completely different house?”

Sera shook her head, determined. “I don’t run. It only makes you look like prey. Hey, Mac,” she called as he entered the room, hauling a bucket filled with warm, sudsy water. “Is it okay if we turn your home into a fortress?”

He looked around the room, noting the damage that someone’s deliberate actions had caused to his home. He was not a happy man at the moment, but at least he wasn’t throwing things. A man who funneled his anger into cleaning was one I could deal with. “Do whatever you need to do to protect us, Sera. Just keep the boiling oil to a minimum, okay?”

“Of course. That stuff never comes out of carpets. Get your coat, Ade. We’re going shopping.”

Several hours later, Sera had loaded Mac’s Bronco with window film, security cameras, bags of soil, and several large plastic bins. We also found some severely discounted curtains and several rolls of wallpaper in the sale bin of a local shop. We needed to be frugal, because it had been a long time since my last major withdrawal, and I knew she avoided using her father’s money whenever possible. Fortunately, it’s easy to find good deals if you’re willing to buy bright orange drapes and teddy bear wallpaper.

“We’ve got one more stop to make,” she said, passing the turnoff for the house. “I need you to meet some people.”

“That’s… very vague of you. Where are we heading?”

“Stateline.” That was over an hour away, on the Nevada side. Before I could protest, she added, “It’s the local FBI resident agency.”

“We’re bringing the feds into this? Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the opportunity to use ‘G-men’ in everyday conversation, but don’t we usually avoid the feds?”

“Usually, yes. Unfortunately, they’ve invited themselves. It’s what happens when bodies start crossing state lines. They’ve connected the murders, not just the ones from this year but from ten years ago, too. The method of death might be different, but he’s using the same dumping grounds. The local police are far out of their league and doing their best to ignore the weirdness, but the agents are actually trying to solve the case.”

“So, what’s the plan? We visit their office and try to convince them we saw the bad guy heading out of town on a black horse, and he’s probably halfway to Stockton by now?”

“Wouldn’t that be nice? No, we’re going to go tell them everything we know about Christopher. Someone who doesn’t know about elementals or shifters will never be able to see the real link behind the killings. But it will tell us what they know, and maybe we’ll get some new information. Until we know more about these guys, we’re going to cooperate.” There was no disguising the disgust she felt for that last word.

“How’d these guys find you?”

“Oh, it was so romantic. There I was, studying the toe tag on a Jane Doe, and in they walked, all shiny and serious, wanting to see the inside of a man’s chest cavity. They asked me if I came there often, we compared bodies, and fate just took over from there.”

“They were there to see Mark’s body too?”

“Or there’s your boring version of events. They were postulating all sorts of unlikely theories about a killer using bags of soil and a funnel.” We’d just bought several bags of soil and a funnel. It suddenly seemed that we ought to have considered our purchases more carefully. “They have no idea what they’re dealing with. That’s the one advantage of being a creature that doesn’t exist in their version of reality. No one ever suspects you.”

We drove on without talking. It was a long drive to the local FBI office, and I enjoyed the complete quiet that fell in the car. It was the kind of rare peace one only finds in the still moments between murders and arson attempts, and I was going to take every second of it I could get.

After a few minutes, I hesitantly reached out to the radio and looked for a country station. Johnny Cash’s unmistakable bass-baritone sang to us of the pain of living and loving. This time, Sera didn’t attempt to change the station, and the sounds of “Unchained” filled the car as we circled the lake.

When we pulled up to the office, we were both in a quiet, somber mood. Johnny Cash will do that to a girl. With the local headquarters almost two hours away in Sacramento, this was a small satellite office, and about as impressive as one would expect.

Sera procrastinated for several long minutes, checking email, sending a bunch of texts, and explaining this strange new technology to me. Most elementals feel a combination of disdain and aversion when it comes to the authorities, simultaneously afraid of discovery and scornful of how little the law actually knew. Sera and I were walking a fine line even showing up at this office. “Be brave, H20,” she said, and immediately headed to the front door. I followed at a slower pace, wondering when we’d returned to nickname status.

We were immediately led to a small office that bore little resemblance to any crime show on television. There were no bright lights, no one-way glass, and no ashtrays on the table. Instead, the room held a long wooden table and four matching chairs, two on each side. It looked more like the setting for a casual meal than a tense interrogation. When they brought us cups of tea, I even felt myself relax slightly.

The door opened, and in walked two men. They at least lived up to my stereotypical ideas of the FBI. Both wore perfectly ironed suits so pristine I would have been hard pressed to find a speck of lint on either of them. I found myself wishing I could sic Simon in cat form on them, just to muss them up a little. Although their coloring suggested they came from very different gene pools, they might as well have been twins. Neither smiled, and I got the feeling they would not need to invest much money in wrinkle cream to fight future laugh lines.

“Thank you for coming in, Ms. Blais,” said the slightly taller of the two. He was the younger one and looked like he’d transferred directly from the Marines to the Bureau. His shoulders did an impressive job of filling out his suit. He kept his curly hair clipped short and worn close to the skull, and his dark face was dominated by his large brown eyes. He looked at each of us in turn, holding our gazes for just a fraction longer than was altogether polite. If he had been a shifter, I mused, he’d be a predator. “You remember my partner, Agent Carmichael.”

“Yes, of course. Agent Johnson, this is my... this is Aidan Brook. She just got into town last night, so she doesn’t know anything about recent events, but she was also friends with Christopher. We were roommates ten years ago.”

Carmichael looked me over, perhaps assessing the likelihood that I’d gone on a murderous spree during my previous time in the community. His hair was a blond so dark some would call it brown, and his blue eyes did not blink as he considered me. He seemed to be in his early thirties, the age when so many human men finally shrug off the boyishness that dogs them through their twenties and settle into their rougher adult faces. He looked like a grown-up version of the boy scout, high school quarterback, and college valedictorian, all rolled into one impressive, square-jawed package. He seemed slightly more friendly than Johnson, but that wasn’t saying much. I firmly told myself to make no jokes in front of these men.

“Please describe your relationship with the deceased, Ms. Brook,” said Carmichael.

“I didn’t know Mark… I guess I don’t even know his last name.” Both agents stared at me. “Oh, you mean Christopher?” I was off to an impressive start, I was.

For the next several hours, I answered approximately five hundred questions about my friendship with Christopher, and then I watched Sera do the same. The questions were, in turn, bland, repetitive, gentle, heart-breaking, and insinuating. When the interview was finally over, I wanted to curl up in the fetal position.

Since Sera had re-entered my life—was that really only yesterday?—I’d been so busy moving from one situation to the next that I hadn’t stopped to consider the tragedy that had brought me here in the first place. I knew Chris was gone, but my heart hadn’t bothered to catch up to my brain until now. Thanks to their invasive questions, I felt like I’d just relived Christopher’s and my entire relationship with two men who seemed to be composed of equal parts robotics and granite.

Finally, they thanked us for our time and released us. I barely made it out the door before I was sobbing, all the grief unearthed by the interview rising to the surface and demanding I react. As much as I loved Chris, it wasn’t only his loss causing the pain. The questions reminded me of what my life had been, and what it had since become.

Once, I had cared about those who surrounded me. I would have known immediately if one of them had died. Now, I was a hermit, hiding in my beat-up old house, deliberately unaware of events passing in the outside world. The past had long since stopped being a memory that plagued me. It had become a monster, a constant shadowy presence that stalked me slowly, attacking whenever my armor dropped. I’d learned to defend myself, to surround myself with such a barrier of apathy that the beast nearly gave up, finding no easy prey in my heart.

That had been the cost of my freedom, the only way I was able to live with myself: I chose to feel nothing.

It had taken two days amongst old friends to put cracks in the armor I’d spent years building, and another hour with the agents to destroy it altogether. The shards of my defenses crashed about my feet, useless and shattered. With no further warning, I felt again. I felt everything, and it was horrible.

Sera said nothing. She merely ushered me to the side of the building, providing me with a bit more privacy in which to fall apart. She stood quietly and waited.

She waited a long time. I sobbed until I was gasping and fighting for air. It took long minutes, but the sobs finally tapered off. I managed to build a temporary protection, just enough to function again. “That was...” I didn’t know how to finish. I wasn’t even certain whether I was talking about the interview or my subsequent breakdown.

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t realize they were going to want quite that much detail.” She dug in her purse and pulled out a packet of tissues. She gave it to me, and I attempted to clean up. She fidgeted the whole time, fingers tapping restlessly against her thigh. She had something to say and was only waiting until I was done crying to say it.

Finally, the words burst from her. “Ade, do you really hate me?”

I could only be honest. “Sometimes. If it helps, I hate myself for all the same reasons I hate you.” I paused long enough to wipe my face again. The tears were finally drying up, and my face felt tired and puffy. “Do you hate me for leaving?”

She nodded. “Sometimes.” Though her eyes were still serious, still full of the pain from the interview and my breakdown, she offered me a hesitant smile. “But I’m glad you’re here.” Deciding that was enough emotional honesty for one day, she added, “God knows why. All you do is mope and cry.”

Humans might make a face or lightly punch a friend in the arm for such a comment. I was only half-human, so I chose to hurriedly gather a bit of water from the damp air and dump it on her head. The best part was that she couldn’t get me back in equal fashion. A quick blast of water was a practical joke; third degree burns were not.

Sera glared at me. “That comment did not deserve an impromptu shower,” she protested, wiping her face with her sleeve.

“No,” I grinned, “but it made me feel better. Plus, you just subjected me to the world’s worst therapy session. What the hell did we even get out of that? They asked all the questions. We learned nothing.” Narrowing my eyes at her, I menacingly brought another ball of water toward her head.

She eyed the water, then glanced around. At least one of us was still considering whether humans were watching. I really had been away too long. Fortunately, there were no windows on this side of the building, but I was an idiot to have forgotten at all.

Embarrassed, I started to disperse the rain, but Sera was too fast for me. She drew a ring of fire around the water, letting the flames gobble up the oxygen until none of the water remained. Then, she rearranged the fire, painting a lion in the air, his fiery mane flaring behind him as he silently roared in my face. There is nothing more obnoxious than an elemental with artistic talent.