Page 41 of The Elementalist
I winked. “Be back in a sec. One of them is getting away.”
“Hey, that was a rhetorical question!” she yelled after me. “You can’t leave me here, you asshole! And where did all that wind come from?”
Except, of course, I had already sprinted out the door after Crystal.
Following the tromping of footsteps, I raced down the stairs to the ground floor. Crystal wasn’t quite as fast on her feet as thevampires, but damn, the girl could move way faster than I had any hope of going. She’d gotten out of sight by the time I made it to the main hallway, though my gut told me they’d gone down the basement steps.
Hmm. Why the hell would Piper go to the basement? Oh… maybe so I can’t knock out another window board and weaken him. I scrambled after them as fast as I could down the rickety wooden stairs. One good thing about that vampire being tall, he ate all the cobwebs.
A loudthudwith a strange energetic buzzing twang echoed up from below.
Crystal grunted like she’d flown into another wall.
I rushed to the bottom of the stairs and skidded to a stop at the sight of a wide column of green light a short distance in front of me, surrounding Crystal. Wisps moved within the energy, like smoke passing through a laser. She pounded at the other side, evidently trapped inside a force field about eight feet across. Paint on the floor outlined the area of the circle along with various indecipherable squiggles and writings I couldn’t even identify the language of, much less read.
No sign of Piper, who must’ve kept going deeper into the basement. Crystal’s will-o-wisp still hovered close to her, also trapped inside the… whatever. Walking into a pitch black basement to hunt a vampire without any light source sounded like an exceedingly stupid idea.
Even for me.
“Damn.” Crystal kicked at the barrier. “Wasn’t expecting anything like this.”
“Crimony biscuits,” I muttered.
“Shit.” Crystal bonked her head against the force field.
“Sorry… didn’t mean to make you think of her.”
Crystal whirled to face me. “No, it’s not that. Dana must’ve found out about someone in the family turning against me, butthey killed her before she could warn me.”
“You’re saying this whole thing was a trap foryou?”
She squatted, examining the floor. “Doubtful. This is too hastily made. I’m sure they only meant to kill her to keep her quiet, but when I hired you…”
“Those two nitwits led us right here... and into a trap.”
“Or at least set this up on the off chance I came with you.”
I pressed a hand against the energy wall, smooth as glass, neither warm nor cold.
Crystal abruptly grabbed her chest and collapsed to one knee, grimacing in pain.
“Shit. What happened?”
She took a few rapid, shallow breaths. “Can’t teleport out.”
Piper’s haughty laughter drifted out of the shadows.
I let my arm drop and walked around the column. “Be right back.”
“Wait… it’s dark. He’ll be all over you if you can’t see him.”
Arms raised to either side, I surrounded myself in swirling tendrils of fire that swam around and around me like flying serpents. “I can do light, too.”
She pressed herself against the barrier, staring at me like a young wife watching her new husband sail off to World War II, knowing she’d never see him again.
Or maybe she just had that kinda face.
“Be right back.”
