Page 14 of The Elementalist
I read well into the night... and finished the book. Argh.
More. I needed more information.
Back on the computer. More research. Found a blog of interest. According to the writer—who claimed he was quite sensitive to the spirit world and wrote from firsthand experience—Elementals came in all shapes and sizes. Often they were as elusive as spirits, existing just beyond our earthly sensitivities, but sometimes, not so much. Sometimes, Elementals could manifest through humans, too.
I read every blog the guy wrote—dozens of them. I got up and rubbed my eyes, paced.
Elementals could manifest in humans? I just so happened to be human, and I could do this: I raised my hand, and a small wind blasted around my small apartment, knocking over a lava lamp, nearly breaking it in the process.
Oops.
I picked up the lamp and continued pacing. I truly didn’t know what to do or who to turn to for help. Only that blog seemed to contain any kind of useful information. Wait, the author had a contact page. I hurried back to my laptop and dashed off a long, rambling, slightly incoherent email that I sent via one of my dummy email accounts. (All private eyes have dummy email accounts.) If that guy could make heads or tails of my email, then he had to be a psychic indeed.
Another beer in hand—a cold one from the fridge—I dropped down into my overstuffed recliner. I’d gotten about halfway through it when apingcame from my computer.
Chapter Eight
Imagining Things
I paced in my apartment, waiting for the phone to ring when someone knocked on the office door downstairs.
As far as I could remember, I didn’t have an appointment today, nor was I expecting anyone. Technically, I should still be in the office, as it was just before 6 p.m. Then again, technically, I shouldn’t have been able to control the wind either. Things change.
The knocking came again, this time more urgently.
I made a living out of following cheaters and, occasionally, catching bad guys. Hell, I’d even sent my share of criminals to jail. Which was why private eyes kept guns around; after all, anyone who did this job long enough would certainly make a handful of enemies, ones highly prone to being more than a little vindictive.
It’s also why I had installed a cheap camera in a shadowy nook above my office door. Always a damn good idea to see who came pounding at your office door at all hours of the night. Anyway, I swiped on my phone, pulled up my security app, and opened a live feed of my office door downstairs.
The man standing there was a handsome devil: black hair, slender build... and a lot of attitude. He wore a leather jacket, jeans, boots. Looked a bit like an old-school greaser. I’d seen him around town a few times. Okay, more than a few. Sometimes, I’d run into him drinking at the Pines Café, hanging around some of the college kids, although he looked a little older than college. But that could have been the confident, cocky manner in which he held himself. Either way, he radiated trouble, and I wasn’t in the mood for any trouble.
His features were a bit hard to make out in the video feed, which was weird, since I’d gotten high def. I squinted, tryingto see the problem. His face was... blurry, not sharp, smudged even. Like someone had filled him in with crayons, rather than actual skin. I shook my head, dismissed it...
Wait... what was that spot on his cheek? I took a screen shot of it, blew the image up. No, it wasn’t a spot. It was... well, nothing.
Nothing at all.
Or maybe a hole, or an empty spot.
A hole or empty spot in his face. In fact, I was certain I could seethroughhis face. Yes, I recognized my office window on the other side, where his cheek should be. I rubbed my eyes, and noticed a similar blank spot in his neck... and, my God, where were his hands? Confused, I went back to the live feed. As he knocked again, I saw... nothing at the end of his sleeve. Nothing at all. Like his hands had been perfectly camouflaged with his surroundings. Or he didn’t have hands, and knocked with his stumpy wrists.
The knocking continued, and on the video, the end of the jacket sleeve stopped six inches or so from the door, where it would be if someone who possessed hands rapped their knuckles on my door. He didn’t have hands. Yet the physical knock reverberated through the quiet evening.
He paused and sort of cocked his head, as if listening. My apartment was located directly above my office. Few people knew that, especially since the apartment was leased in my mother’s maiden name, God rest her soul. Private eyes, after all, need anonymity. But I also liked to keep a close watch on my office. It was often very telling who came sniffing around.
So, I stayed quiet, although there was no way in hell he could hear me in my apartment one floor above. Still, trouble sort of... radiated from him in a way that surprised me. It was almost as if I could feel his darkened energy, but that had to be paranoia on my part.
Right?
Wait. I couldfeelhis darkened energy?
Where the hell had that hippie shit come from?
Anyway, after half a minute of listening, he gave up and started to walk away, but spotted the camera above. He cocked his head a little and smiled, and I was certain, damn certain, he had no teeth... and I could see straight through his mouth out the back of his head to the street. What the hell was going on? When he finished smiling like a creep, he continued on down the street and disappeared out of view. The scuff of boots disappeared shortly after that. I half expected to hear a knock at my apartment door, but it never came.
A minute later, the phone rang, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Is this Max Long?” asked a voice on the other end.
