Page 33 of The Elementalist
“Got an idea where to look.”
“The old boarding house?” she asked.
“You know about it?”
“I’ve had my suspicions. Let’s go.”
I nearly told her to stay here or go home, but I saw the resolve in her eye. It was, after all, her half sister and brother-in-law who’d been murdered. Plus, I suspected she could take care of herself, when push came to shove. “Do you want to follow me or move your car somewhere?”
“It’s okay. I can get back to it if I have to.”
I glanced over at her. “Uber?”
She giggled. “Not quite. Horns aren’t my only extra body parts.” She made a wing-flapping gesture. “But, I’d rather you gave me a ride back.”
“Sure.” I started the engine. “Givin’ a pretty girl a ride is the least I can do.”
And, wait. Did she just imply she could... fly?
She did. My God, she did.
Chapter Eighteen
Shadow Pines Manor
It might not have been the best time to pursue a confrontation with vampires, being only a few hours before sunset.
Then again, no time like the present, right? That, and sitting around not doing something about them could get more people killed. That word ‘people’ bounced around in my head for the entire fifteen minutes or so it took me to drive from the quarry, across town, and to the old boarding house. Both the quarry and the vampires’ lair sat in the outskirts of Shadow Pines, but not on the same side. Piper and Derek—or whatever their actual names had been—used to be people, but I couldn’t dwell on that now. Whatever humanity they once possessed had disappeared a long time ago. For all I knew, they could have been born during the Great Depression as easily as the Civil War or hell, even the American Revolution.
Though, their ‘greaser’ fashion sense probably meant they’d died in the fifties. My operational knowledge of vampires remained limited, though I had heard that they tended to become more powerful with age. If such rumors had any truth to them, I damn sure hoped these two were only around sixty years as vampires and not hundreds.
Crystal kept quiet as we drove across town and headed onto one of the backwoods roads to the southwest.
The isolation of the remote country made me think back to how little fight the two had put up when they confronted me at home. Initially, I’d wondered if it had been due to my not inviting them in, but even after I’d pursued them outside, they kept running. It didn’t seem likely that I’d frightened them senseless. Most ordinary people probably would have shit themselves and run from a guy conjuring ice and lightning fromhis hands. However, as far as I knew, even lightning wouldn’t cause permanent harm to vampires. Sure itcouldlight them on fire if I got lucky. Neither one of them knew I could conjure open flame yet. Okay, so I superheated the gun, but heating metal and making fire fly out of my hand isn’t the same. The hot-hand on the gun was far subtler than throwing fireballs. Call me silly, but I hadn’t wanted to risk burning down the building I live and work in.
I didn’t want to delude myself into feeling like this would be easy, as if I were an exterminator going after roaches. I’m sure these two wouldn’t simply roll over and die like pests, especially not when I’m the one invading their home. Regardless of what made them run last time, I had a sneaking suspicion that wouldn’t be the case today, and I couldn’t allow myself to become overconfident.
Hell, I didn’t even feel confident yet.
This elemental thing is too new for me, and part of me still waited to wake up.
A few minutes after we left downtown behind, I spotted an old wooden sign and pulled off onto an overgrown road—more of a pair of tire ruts in dirt with gravel between them than an actual road—that veered off into the woods. I stopped to gather my thoughts, staring at the sign I’d seen so many times before but never bothered to take a close look at. It had, at one time, been plain white with black lettering, but five decades of sitting out in the forest with no maintenance resulted in varying shades of brown and fungus.
Shadow Pines Manor
Boarding House
Men or Women welcome
Rooms by the month - $150
Rooms by the week - $40
“The name of that place makes it sound like an old folks’ home,” I muttered.
Crystal glanced at me with an expression that said she found my observation lame, but also faintly endearing. “Technically, it is housing the elderly. Theveryelderly… though they’re not people anymore.”
“We’ve got maybe two hours of daylight left.”
