Page 26 of The Elementalist
The tall guy pulled a gun, his movements so fast his hand blurred into a smear. “Well, now that the cat’s out of the bag, maybe we should conclude our business. I expected there was a chance you would not let us in. Luckily, a bullet isn’t beholden to the same irritating rules.”
“Kill him, brother,” said Derek. “Fuck the warning, and fuck him.”
The taller vampire nodded and lifted the gun. Something flickered inside me and I reflexively raised my hands an instant before he pulled the trigger. White energy coalesced around thefront end of the .45.
A mutedwhumpcame from the gun, loud, but nowhere near as loud as a gunshot ought to be. I stared for an instant in bewildered shock at a bullet trapped within a thick coating of ice that had frozen over the tip of the barrel. Out of nowhere, a sense of rage took me—a deep-seated aversion to these creatures’ mere existence. The back end of the gun glowed brilliant orange, melting in Piper’s hand. Turned out I didn’t just create fire... but could make heat necessary for the fire. And I could do so quickly. Same with water. I didn’t merely summon it via rainclouds, I could summon it from the air around me... and control the temperature of it as well. Neat tricks, both.
The tall vampire yelped and dropped the gun, his fingers on fire. While I hadn’t made open flame by intent, vampires appeared rather prone to combustion. He waved his hand so fast it again blurred, and the fire went out.
A glint of metal flashed from Derek’s belt. I thrust my left hand at him in a stopping motion as he went to throw a knife at me. More white energy streamed forth, coalescing into a large block of ice that froze the knife to his fingers. He grunted, struggling to hold up the weight of an icy sphere large enough to completely engulf the giant hunting knife. A normal human of his build wouldn’t have been able to lift it one handed, but he managed it, albeit with difficulty.
He stared at it. I stared, too. Unreal. Wait, no… Awesome. But that exhilaration blossomed into fury once more. These two would no doubt go on killing innocent people, perhaps forevermore. Of course, I didn’t want to burn down my house. The instant the intent formed in my mind, a light rain wet the floor in the hall, which I promptly froze into an ice sheet.
“What the hell...” said Derek, grabbing Piper, who still clutched his burned hand to his chest in pain.
I raised both arms, calling a gale that blasted them offtheir feet and sent them rocketing down the hall like a pair of limp bobsleds. They crashed into the radiator at the far end, six apartments away. Derek slammed into the wall hard enough that the ice ball broke away from his hand, the knife still stuck inside.
They scrambled upright and ran for the steps that led to the outside door. The ice on the floor evaporated to fog in response to my desire. I followed them, not entirely sure what to do next. By the time I rushed down the stairs to the sidewalk, they’d gone a fair way down the street, so I extended my right arm and summoned lightning. Two shafts of electricity connected my fingertips to their backs with an instantaneous crackle and aboomthat flung them both off their feet and sent them sliding on their chests. Derek went face first into a tree while Piper struck a parked car. The pair bounced right back up, both smoking, and took off at a superhumanly fast sprint. I didn’t quite trust my skill at the moment to chase them into a potential ambush, nor did I want to put on too much of a magic show. The last thing I needed was fame. The people of Shadow Pines would lose their damn minds if I kept doing magic out in the open.
Piper, with the burned hand, appeared the most freaked out by what I’d done. So much so, he kept looking back over his shoulder at me—and crashed into a tree.
I couldn’t help but laugh at them.
That lightning bolt should have been enough to knock the crap out of them. The last time I’d called a bolt that big while training with Michael, it had split a dead tree in half.
I made my way back upstairs, still chuckling when I closed my door.
Those two vamps had murder in their eyes. Had I been anyone less than what I was—an Elementalist apparently—I would be dead, shot through the heart... or worse if I had actually invited them in.
My case took a turn for the strange, but at least I’d found the ones responsible for the deaths. Both of them were killers, nomonsters.
They enjoyed killing.
Chapter Fifteen
Killers
The vampires rattled me.
I did some research using some websites not available to the general public. In order to access them, one needed to sign up and pay a subscription fee as well as send proof of access, like my PI license, or a valid law-enforcement ID. As far as I could tell, no record existed of men named Derek and Piper being born anywhere in this area. Of course, their names had to be false, but they’d been using them for a while at least. I found a man named Piper Burroughs registered as the owner of a handful of cars, and he owned an old boarding house a little ways outside of town. I knew of the place, but had never gone there. It sat mostly hidden behind a thick wall of shrubs and trees, and of course it had been the subject of countless scary stories.
I sat back and rubbed my face. So that’s where the town’s vampires lived. Well, at least two of them. Michael had made it clear that nature wouldn’t have summoned an elemental unless there was a real problem afoot. More than likely, I’d have to deal with more than only those two vamps, and possibly other creatures, like werewolves. If I saw an actual werewolf running in the woods... yeah, I think I would freak. Please let those be fake. Vampires I can handle. I had seen the pretty boy face of vampires. I could handle the vampires, I think. I’d certainly handled them well enough tonight, but I expected them to regroup and come out swinging. Hopefully, I would be ready for them.
I went further back in time, a deep dive into the database and resources. Piper had purchased the home... wow, twenty years ago. And neither one of them looked much older than their mid-twenties.
“They really are vampires,” I whispered. “Freakin’ a.”
I went back further, but found no additional evidence of them. I suspected these two likely changed their names often, as well as changed towns. After twenty years here, they were likely getting ready to move on again. That could explain the recent surge of attacks. If they’re planning to leave the area, why restrain themselves? Go crazy for a while, have fun, then vanish. I’d seen them often throughout the years, but never paid much attention to how little their appearance had changed. Funny how the brain worked. I suspected they might somehow change the way they looked, too, when they decided to reinvent themselves and relocate. Anything to keep people off balance. And if someone suspected anything, or asked them about their anti-aging regime, that someone probably ended up dead... or missing. I was willing to bet that huge boarding house of theirs contained more than a few skeletons in its closets, and not metaphorical ones. That place likely held the answers to the many deaths and missing persons cases that plagued this town.
I drummed my fingers for a while, lost in thought, and finally shut off my computer. With any luck, I wouldn’t suffer a nocturnal visit from an uninvited vampire. I should be able to get a decent night’s sleep.
Shouldbeing the operative word...
***
The next day, I returned to the woods, standing not too far away from where Dana Bradbury-Hayden and her husband had been killed.
I had seen the face of the killer, and he’d shown no remorse. No humanity. If anything, he had the look of a hunter proud of a kill. I told myself they merely looked like humans. Both were killers through and through, especially the smaller one, Derek. Piper, I still had a few doubts about. Then again, he had pulled the gun on me; worse, he had pulled the trigger. Yup, he’d hadevery intention of killing me. Still, I didn’t get a psychopath vibe from him. Trying to shoot me had been self-preservation. Still, I suspected taking human life didn’t exactly keep him up at night—or keep him up during the day… whatever.
