Page 42 of The Elementalist
“Careful!” whispered Crystal.
Hands clenched into fists, I stalked into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Pay the Piper
The beeping of cell phone buttons came from a narrow stone archway up ahead.
Flickering orange light from my dancing flame serpents reflected from pale brick walls covered in dusty cobwebs. I walked toward the noise in the slow, deliberate gait of a horror-movie killer. I wasn’t trying to be ominous, merely careful. Though, as angry as I’d become, maybe I threw off some intense vibes. The archway led to a room lined with empty wine racks—and one agitated greaser vampire.
To be extra sure he didn’t get away, I summoned a stone slab to grow up from the floor, blocking the arch behind me, and thickened it to about eight inches. He’s not getting past me… and if I die, he’ll be stuck in here for a long damn time.
“You guys should lay off the hair products. No wonder you turn into fireballs so fast.”
Piper nearly dropped his phone, stared at me for an instant, then dashed off deeper into the basement. I moved up to a jog, following him into the next room, which held an old rust bomb of a furnace. The place still had a coal chute at the far end. He hadn’t quite made it halfway to it before I covered the chute with another sudden conjuration of stone.
He skidded to a stop, gawking at the liquefied rock solidifying before him. “Blast… where the hell are they?”
“Not sure whotheyare, but I can tell you that they’re not going to show up fast enough to make a difference for you.”
“Wait.” He faced me, backing up. “This isn’t what we agreed on. They were supposed to be here, not leave me to die.” He seemed to be talking himself.
“You’re already dead.”
He blinked, looked at me. “Now is really not the time forsemantics.”
I stepped closer, petting the orbiting fire serpents like actual living creatures. Yeah, maybe I hammed it up a bit, but I didn’t think many people could scare vampires the way they so often terrified humans. Speaking of terrified humans, I’d left four of them upstairs. Probably shouldn’t dawdle. I thrust my arm out and one of the fire serpents took off like a spear at Piper.
He blurred to the side, dodging the relatively slow projectile with ease. “Wait. Hear me out. We don’t need to be enemies, Max. I’m not even all that upset you destroyed Derek. He was too reckless, too violent. One of this town’s founding families is trying to capture that... creature who hired you.”
“We figured that out already. And it’s a bit hypocritical of you to call anyone else a creature.” I sent another fire serpent at him, trying to will it to fly faster. It rocketed forward at about the same speed as a baseball pitch.
Piper still glided out of the way like he didn’t even have to work at it. “Yes, but do you know which family it is?”
“Her own, of course. Or at least the mortal half.”
“Not quite.” Piper held up a finger. “It’s the Farringtons. I don’t know exactly what they want her for, but I don’t imagine it will end well for her. I’d be quite happy to offer you whatever assistance I’m capable of in exchange for not killing me.”
I narrowed my eyes, contemplating the odds of this not being a lie. He had been the more pleasant of the two, but that didn’t say much. He didn’t have any problem with Dana’s murder, killing me, or doing… whatever they did to those people upstairs. Still, having him on our side might be an advantage too good to throw away. Question was, could I trust him?
His gradually sneaking a hand behind his back answered much sooner than I expected with a resounding ‘no.’
I lifted my arm as if to rub my chin in thought, but thrust it forward with the desire to call lightning. A blindingly brightshaft of white energy connected my outstretched fingers to his chest in an instant, along with a painfully loudkaboom.A knife went flying off to the side, thrown by an involuntary convulsion from the electrical charge coursing through him. Momentary paralysis bought me the two seconds it took for all four of my fire serpents to engulf him. He collapsed, shrieking in agony. The skin of his face split open, revealing a fanged skull that charred to black in mere seconds. A bony arm reached out of the blaze toward me.
Sudden apprehension made me back up several steps.
Piper exploded in a shower of flaming globules of bloody slime, littering the area around him with dozens of individual fires. Only the ceiling consisted of wood, everything else either stone or concrete… so I didn’t need to force any flames out. I stood there watching him burn until the room returned to complete darkness.
“I’ve contemplated your offer, and, I’m sorry to say, I don’t think there’s any real possibility for trust between us.”
To no great surprise, Piper didn’t say anything. Just sat there looking, well… ashen.
The stink of death left the air. Only the smell of overcooked steak hung in the basement. That and a moldy wet dirt odor. Hmph. When I conjured a handful of fire to see, a glint caught my eye. Turned out to be a set of keys with a BMW symbol on the fob sticking out of the dust Piper had left behind. That might come in handy. I pocketed the key and made my way back to the larger room where Crystal paced around inside the magical prison like a fairy in a bottle. Heh. She technicallywasa fey in a bottle. Just not a tiny one. She brightened at the sight of me, but her smile didn’t last long. She punched the energy wall, which created an odd buzzing noise from the transparent field.
“Did you find him?”
I nodded. “Ashes.”
