Page 49 of The Elementalist
“Yeah. Nigel Farrington.”
“Nigel?”
Crystal laughed. “Isn’t therealwaysa Nigel in those rich families?”
“Only in British sitcoms.”
She giggled. Actually giggled… and it was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen.
“So, who is this guy?”
“Umm…” She bit her lip. “I think he’s Bradford Farrington’s brother.”
I glanced at her. “Great. That tells me everything I need to know. And in case I’m not being clear, that’s sarcasm.”
She sighed. “Bradford is the current elder patriarch. His younger brother, Nigel, is in his sixties, but doesn’t have a lot of clout within the family.”
“Enough to get a truckload of guys with rifles to chase us around. Guys that I freakin’ killed.” I rubbed my forehead.
“You don’t know that…”
I blinked at her. “They went off a forty foot cliff and blew upin a fireball.”
She shrank a little. “Okay, maybe we do know that. But still… they were shooting at us.”
“Right.”
“And they tried to kidnap me!” She made this imploring face at me that melted away my guilt. Fairly sure she used some kind of charm power on me. Suppose being a sucker for a pretty face goes hand-in-hand with being a private detective, but even I’m notthatbad. Wide blue eyes don’t normally erase guilt over taking life. But, okay… if someone was about to shoot Crystal, I’d put a .44 in their heart without a second thought. I’d probably be messed up about it for a while afterward, maybe forever, but I couldn’t let someone hurt her.
Unable to sort out how I felt about causing that crash, or, worse, how I felt about not feeling much of anything about it at all, I settled down in the seat and let Crystal drive us to Ironside.
Great. A city full of werewolves—just what we needed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ironside
Ironside got its name from mining.
At least, I was fairly certain it had. The town stood damn close to the mountains, and much of its economy had been based around the extraction of iron ore. About thirty miles of forest—and one tunnel where the road cut through a swath of rocky hills—separated it from Shadow Pines.
It boasted a bizarre combination of outdoorsy and industrial. The inner parts of the city felt a lot like Pittsburgh from about twenty years ago, while everywhere not ‘downtown’ had a vibe more like Boulder, Colorado. Some of the ironworks still operated, though with the glut of steel being imported these days, most of the smelting plants stood idle. Half the town reinvented itself as a ‘go to’ tourist destination for people looking for the ‘outdoorsman’s experience’ who also didn’t have much of a budget. Some even referred to Ironside as the ‘poor man’s Aspen.’
The town offered plenty of cheap hotels, ski lodges, hiking guides, small mom and pop coffee places, and so on. After what Crystal said about werewolves, the abundance of that ‘natural’ vibe here took on a new light. Conflict—of sorts—did exist between the ‘rugged’ types who’d been there forever and the influx of new hipster nature people. I guess the old guard thought of them as posers, acting all concerned for the environment, but doing it more to be trendy than out of any true connection to nature.
No one paid us much attention as we drove into town. We stopped at the first place I spotted that looked like it’d make for a decent, fast meal. I didn’t realize they only sold vegan burgers until after we got back into the truck with our dinner. Oh well. How bad could they be? At least the fries smelled real. Fromthere, we took a room at a tourist hotel called the Trail House Inn. The guy behind the counter really overdid the stereotype: burly dude with a beard, red flannel shirt… I couldn’t help but feel like I’d stumbled into one of those movies where a town appears all innocent during the day but everyone turns into flesh-eating monsters at night.
We sat at the little table in the hotel room to eat. And, okay, the vegan burgers didn’t taste bad. I’d never mistake it for real meat, but at the moment, I didn’t much care. My thoughts about my damaged truck, the case, possibly having one of the Founding Families after my head, the general existence of vampires, werewolves, succubi, and actual magic all fell by the wayside. Sitting so close across the table from Crystal, I found myself uncharacteristically lost for words.
Did she style her hair like that on purpose because she thought the ‘draped over one eye’ thing would endear her to a private detective? I can’t say I’d seen too many girls rocking a retro style like that. But it worked for her. She could totally pull off the vintage Hollywood bombshell, but more to the ingénue side than femme fatale. Looks could—and often were—deceiving. In her case, very much so. After all, I’d seen the girl throw a chunk of bannister through a vampire’s chest.
And that thought jogged my brain out of the schoolboy crush haze it had been floating in ever since we sat down to eat. Crystal was a succubus, or at least a half of one. Her real father had been a creature she referred to as an incubus—which I assumed to be the male version of a succubus. Without doing any research, I had only bits and pieces of folklore I’d picked up on over the years to go by. And, some people might think that wouldn’t amount to much, but if the residents of Shadow Pines had anything, it would be an abundance of folklore. Which made sense, considering this shit was all real. In hindsight, everything I grew up hearing and thinking of as ‘crazy old people tellingstories’ was sounding more and more like serious life advice.
Well, I’d thought of succubi as demons, which may not be accurate. However, they also supposedly charmed and devoured men. (Or women in the case of Incubi). Considering that Crystal’s mother remained alive, and had given birth to her, that suggested that some of those rumors of ‘devouring’ had been overstated. Demon or not, those thoughts didn’t change my sudden doubt that the feelings she stirred inside me from first sight might not be genuine. When I’d first laid eyes on Justine—well not thefirsttime.Meaning, we’d both grown up in this town, so it wasn’t as if I’d never looked at her. I’d known of her for most of my life, but didn’t reallyseeher in that way until a few years ago. Yeah, it’s shallow now that I think about it, and she’s probably right to call me an asshole, but with her, things had been heavy on the lust. Something about her ‘take no shit’ attitude, confidence, and utter lack of fear had turned me on big time.
She claimed I ‘hurt’ her, but it wasn’t like I cheated on her or ignored her or did anything I’d consider really bad. Part of it came from our arguing over her not thinking private investigation amounted to a ‘real’ job and wanting me to get something more stable. The rest of it came from me avoiding conversations whenever she brought up that whole ‘long term commitment’ thing. Perhaps something deep inside me knew she wasn’t the ‘right one’ for me. Whenever she started talking about anything long term, I’d kinda zone out or change the subject. And, yeah, I guess that counted as being an asshole. I should’ve been straight with her.
But refer back to the lust part...
