Page 45 of The Elementalist
She nodded. “What about the others?”
“Might take your friends a bit to wake up.”
She glanced down at the key in her hand, then back to me. “Wait. Why?”
“A little while ago when I said they were going to kill you anyway, I think I might have unintentionally lied. I don’t thinktheywere going to kill you. They’d been keeping you here to give to your friends as their first meal. All three of them weremost of the way to becoming vampires. Guess someone wanted reinforcements.”
Shiloh gasped. “No… they’re dead?”
“Nah.” Crystal patted her on the shoulder. “Pretty damn close, but we killed the one who’d bitten them… and since your friends hadn’t yet fed, the curse didn’t set in. Not sure how long they’ll be out of it, but they’re probably going to need a trip to the hospital. All of them are low on blood.”
“Might as well carry them outside,” I said with a shrug.
Crystal lifted her head as if listening to something. “We should get out of here right now. Shiloh, find somewhere to hide until it’s clear.”
“What?” I asked.
“At least two vehicles are coming.” Crystal dashed for the bedroom door. “Come on.”
Shiloh ran after us down the hallway, but ducked into the room with her friends instead of following us down the stairs. As soon as the door shut, Crystal returned and did something with the lock.
She grinned. “My magic works both ways. Not only will this door not open until I return, the bad guys won’t see the door.”
“Red won’t like it.”
“Nope, but she will be alive when we return for her.” And with that, my new and very beautiful friend raced off again.
I hauled ass, trying my best to keep up with Crystal as she ran down two flights of stairs, across the ground floor, and out the front door. A black Cadillac sedan with a red pickup truck following it crept up the dirt road and they both had trouble written all over them. They’d written it in all capitals on the truck, as it carried six or seven guys in the bed with rifles.
“Hang on.” I stopped on the porch. “They’re gonna pick us off if we run for my truck. I’ll give us some cover.”
Since I had no idea who might be in that car or whatthe Farringtons may or may not be involved with, tipping my proverbial hand as anything more than an ordinary private investigator was unwise. I closed my eyes, trying to infuse the air with water vapor without using flashy hand motions. In my mind’s eye, I pictured the lot in front of the boarding house, all the trees, the weeds, and everything vanishing behind a thick layer of white fog.
“Wow. That’s so creepy. You did it. Come on.” Crystal pulled at my arm.
I opened my eyes to a fog so thick I couldn’t see six feet away. It’s possible they didn’t notice us on the covered porch, but they definitely would’ve seen us running across the lot. Now, we ran blind into the mist, in as best a guess as I could remember to where I parked. Crystal held my hand, for once following me. Whether my senses detected the weight of the truck upon the earth or the large collection of metal in front of me pulled me toward it, I made my way to my Ford with relative accuracy—and only stumbled on weeds three times.
We got in together, pulling the doors closed as quietly as possible. Crystal hunkered down, sitting on the floor while I slipped the key in the ignition. I didn’t trust my memory enough to attempt driving in fog this thick, especially with two cars coming in the only road out. The shouts of men complaining about the mist passed by in front of us. Most blamed the vampires for it while one felt certain ‘that some other weird shit’ caused it.
Confident they no longer stood between us and the way out, I cranked the ignition, cut the wheel to the left, and accelerated while simultaneously commanding the fog in front of me to form a tunnel of clear air. It worked well enough that I managed to swerve and prevent crashing into a stray tree that had invaded the parking area.
“Hey, there they go!” shouted a guy behind us.
“Where?”
“Shoot out the tires!”
“I can’t see shit.”
“Uh oh,” said Crystal.
“Yeah… ‘uh oh’ is right.”
The sound of a few car door slams came from behind.
I couldn’t concentrate on thickening the fog behind us while driving, so I decided to make a run for it. The far end of the mist tunnel revealed a wall of impassable trees. Out of desperation, I commanded all the fog in front of us to condense into rain, which cleared the air and let me find the road… about fifteen feet to the right of where I’d been steering. My truck handled pretty well for an old war horse, and didn’t roll over on me at the hard swerve. Once on the road—or what attempted to be one—I accelerated to about forty.
Crystal popped up to peer backward. “The truck went into some trees, but the car made it to the road. He’s not going too fast. We’re leaving him behind.”
