Page 27 of The Vampire and the Case of the Baleful Banshee

‘He’s in my truck,’ Gunnar admitted. ‘I didn’t want to leave the little fella on his own.’

‘I appreciate that.’

‘Let’s get to work,’ he said purposefully. ‘Crowd control.’

People had gathered on the other side of the street from the burning house, milling around, muttering amongst themselves, but they were getting ever closer to the burning building. ‘Everyone back!’ Gunnar barked.

We spread out and pushed them back, mainly for their own protection but partly to ensure that the firemen weren’t falling over people while they did their job. Once we’d taped off the area, I looked around and noticed that most of the supernatural council were among the spectators. For once they weren’t fighting amongst themselves, which was probably a sign of how serious this situation was.

Liv was there, as were Calliope, Connor, Mafu and Thomas. Stan appeared to be missing, which didn’t look great given that the wind gem was supposed to be his responsibility.

With the scene secured, Gunnar joined the council members and Sidnee and I followed. Connor came to my side and the warmth from his presence helped buoy me. It had been a long, grim day.

‘Was anyone in the house?’ Gunnar asked.

The mayor, Mafu, came forward. ‘We don’t think so. We won’t know for sure until the fire is out but the wind witch is with Liv, and her family is accounted for.’

Liv was talking to a woman with shoulder-length, wavy dark hair. She had her arm around the woman – she almost looked nice. Maybe I’d give her a piece of my mind another time.

Gunnar relaxed slightly when he saw the wind witch was alive and so did I. One death a day was enough to deal with. We might be in a lot of trouble if the barrier came down, but until then the more people we could keep safe the better.

Connor’s fingers brushed mine and the zing followed immediately. I gave a small, involuntary gasp that he must have heard because when I looked up at him he gave a quick smile. I wished things were simple enough for me to lean into him; I really needed a hug right at that moment. Instead I stood straighter and put my work head back on. ‘Has anyone reported seeing anything out of the ordinary?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Connor replied. ‘We’re waiting to see if the wind gem and its box are damaged.’

‘The fire could have been set to hide a possible theft,’ I pointed out.

He sighed. ‘Yeah, that’s certainly possible, but we can’t do anything until the fire is out.’ He looked around. ‘I think that’s why all of the council showed up.’

‘Where’s Stan?’

‘He was out on the boat, fishing. I let him know. He’s on his way back in.’

Since Connor and Stan were always an inch from each other’s throats, I wondered how that had gone down. At least the rivalry about fishing was older than their recent rivalry over me. Despite that, they’d managed to work together on multiple occasions when the need arose and I guessed this was also one of those times. ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ I said in Stan’s defence.

Connor’s countenance darkened. ‘The hell it wasn’t! Wind is his responsibility.’

‘So, you still blame yourself for the theft of the fire gem?’ I countered, wincing as soon as the words left my mouth.

‘Yes,’ he growled.

Of course he did. I sighed. ‘Well, don’t. The fire gem was taken by someone who could teleport. There is no defence against that.’

His gaze softened again. ‘Perhaps, but the magic users upped the wards after that. No one should have been able to teleport anywhere near the rest of the gems.’

‘What do the wards do if someone attempts to breach them?’

He looked at the flames and I followed his gaze. ‘Instant immolation,’ he said finally.

I was shocked; that gave the fire a whole different meaning. Could it be a ward-defence flame rather than another fire-gem flame? ‘Do you think that crossing the ward could have caused this fire?’ I gestured to the burning house.

He shook his head. ‘No, because that type of fire would be confined to the person. It would leave a hell of a scorch mark on the floor, but it wouldn’t catch on anything that wasn’t biological.’

‘What if someone’s child or pet brushed up against the ward?’ I could hear the note of horror in my voice. No wonder Kostas had been so paranoid about making sure the ward was down before we trounced through his closet. Killing the Nomo officers would have been a bad look.

‘Don’t worry. It would only activate if someone was actively trying to take the gem. Intent is part of the ward.’

I relaxed slightly. Perhaps the gem was still safe in the burnt-out shell of the house. I couldn’t imagine how someone could survive that kind of ward long enough to steal the wind gem, but there was a good chance that the person who’d taken the gem from Aoife had been here and tried to steal it. The question remained; had they been successful or not?

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