Broken Elements (19 page)

I nodded, finding words had suddenly deserted me. He returned the nod. “Good,” he said. He grabbed me and pulled me into a tight hug. It occurred to me that whoever had coined the term bear hug must have known a shifter, and then my mind simply went blank as I relaxed against him. Whatever might be between us, I knew we still had far more problems than solutions, but at the moment, wrapped in his arms, I found I really didn’t care.

It wasn’t until I heard a throat clearing behind me that I realized the hug might have lasted a few moments too long. Reluctantly, I moved away from Mac to find Brian smiling at me. “What, old friends have to take a number to get your attention these days, or what?” I moved toward him, laughing, and he hugged me every bit as tightly as Mac had.

Sera and I were both exhausted. We’d expected to crawl into bed the moment we got home, but instead we found ourselves staying up for hours, enjoying an impromptu welcome home party. The wine and company energized us, and though we briefly explained what had happened that day and what we’d told the agents, we otherwise did our best to forget about the case entirely and simply enjoy being safe and loved.

It was wonderful and necessary, and when I finally fell into bed sometime in the wee hours, I felt an unexpected sense of peace, and the knowledge that, somehow, everything was going to be all right, for all of us.

I have rarely been more wrong.

Chapter 18

The following morning dawned bright and clear, the sharp sun reflecting on the freshly deposited snow. A few birds chirped outside my window, and it seemed like winter was finally relaxing its tightfisted grasp. It was the kind of day that lured skiers from hours away, and today the slopes would be packed with people from Sacramento and San Francisco, all playing hooky to travel to Tahoe and throw themselves down the side of a mountain.

But here in the cabin, peace reigned. Downstairs, I could hear muffled voices and the quiet clink of dishes. The short whirr of a blender announced breakfast, and I decided it was past time that I joined them. I pulled on an enormous green terry cloth robe and made my way slowly down the spiral staircase.

There are few things better than walking into a kitchen where friends are already making breakfast. The coffee pot was full, the griddle already heated, and as I watched, Mac poured pancake batter into the pan. I knew he and Simon had to get their protein somewhere, but while in the house they both opted to be vegetarian, and they’d been carbo-loading with the rest of us.

A chipped plate held a stack of the early, rejected pancakes. Sera flipped one to me, and I happily caught it midair and stuffed it in my mouth. “Tastes like freedom,” I announced. I grabbed a mug and dropped in a teabag, adding hot water from the kettle and some milk.

I hopped up on the counter next to the griddle, making sure I got first pick of the next batch. Mac offered me a small smile and placed his hand on my knee, giving it a playful shake. It only lasted for a moment, a quick touch before he returned to his pancake duties, but the warmth lingered long after he removed his hand. I tried to remind myself of my words to Brian, that I was still too broken to consider this, but at the moment I was having a hard time remembering why that was so.

Brian was stretched out on the living room sofa, sound asleep under a heavy blanket. Apparently, he’d never made it to the loft after that last glass of wine. Simon and Vivian sat on barstools, looking through the morning’s paper. “It looks like it was a quiet night,” said Simon, flipping to the comics. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he was reading Garfield.

I hated the reminder of the job we still had to do and buried my face in my mug. Ostriches had nothing on me. Unfortunately, Sera had yet to perfect her pre-breakfast denial reflex.

“No suspicious fires, either? And will someone please tell me that we aren’t dealing with a fire, too? Because I cannot handle the thought of a roving gang of homicidal elementals. I’m actually starting to miss the days when it was just one motherfucker running around freezing people’s hearts.”

Vivian opened her mouth, shut it, then repeated the motion. It was strange to see. When Vivian spoke, she knew exactly what she wanted to say, or she simply didn’t speak. Uncertainty wasn’t a familiar look on her. Finally, she grabbed a section of the paper and busied herself reading an article about a local crafts fair that she seemed unlikely to actually be interested in. Sera observed all this with a slightly bemused expression. “Something to say, Vivian?” she asked drily.

Vivian looked up reluctantly. “It’s just that, I was thinking…”

“We were thinking,” interjected Simon.

She gave him a grateful look. “We were thinking this last body wasn’t like the other murders. And not just because it was a different magic source. I, ahem, accessed the coroner’s files this morning. He’d updated the cause and time of death. The fire didn’t kill this man, because he was already dead from a bullet wound. We’ve never seen that before. Every other time, it appeared the killer took pleasure in being the direct cause of death, of using his—or their—magic to take the life. If I was profiling this person, I would say the murderers found a sense of superiority over their human victims by killing in this way. But this man was killed quickly and relatively mercifully, in comparison to the others’ slow deaths.”

Simon nodded. “It’s also worth noting that neither of you ever had sex with him, assuming you are remembering accurately.”

“Hey! We didn’t sleep with all the victims.”

“I don’t know why you’re so determined not to be the Tahoe Tramps,” called Brian from the living room. He was finally waking up, yawning and stretching his way back to life. “It would be an excellent band name.” Without sufficient caffeine in my system, a clever retort eluded me. I finally settled on raising a single finger in his general direction. It wasn’t my index finger.

Vivian ignored my protest and continued making her point. “This murder doesn’t fit the pattern. All it has in common with the others is that, based on the lack of an accelerant, we know an elemental was involved, and the body was dumped in a lakeside campsite.”

Mac placed several pancakes on a plate, but not before handing one to me. “You’re thinking copycat, is that it? An elemental copycat?” he asked. He didn’t look thrilled with the possibility.

“Copycat, or…” she hesitated. Whatever she was thinking, she really didn’t want to say it aloud.

Simon had no such reservations. “Or someone who could use the murder to accomplish a goal.” He paused dramatically, clearly waiting for the rest of us to gasp in shock at his revelation. Our blank faces were an obvious disappointment. “Think about it, please. Sera is locked up for killing a bunch of people in inexplicable ways. Based on the current evidence, she appears somewhat less than innocent. Is there a better way to exonerate her than for another body to appear while she is sitting helpless in jail?” Now, he sat back triumphantly, certain we had enough information to put the pieces together ourselves.

As unlikely as it sounded, there was one person capable of lighting that fire who had as strong an interest in protecting Sera as the rest of us. Strong enough, in fact, to cause him to overlook his stated desire of keeping all elemental activities strictly hidden from law enforcement. I didn’t want to believe it, but it made sense. “Josiah?”

Sera’s face was perfectly still, her eyes thoughtful as she considered the possibility. Finally, she nodded slowly. “It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. It’s not like my father has an excess of respect for humans, and he’d do pretty much anything to protect his family. But still, for him to be a killer? I don’t know.”

“He would have been pretty angry,” said Brian, nudging Sera out of the way to reach the coffee pot.

She laughed, though there was little humor to it. “We’re fires, you idiot. We’re a hot-headed bunch. And yet, we manage to get by all the time without killing people. I don’t know that a single night of his daughter being incarcerated would have been enough to make him lose control.”

“I’ll ask Carmichael to keep us in the loop about the investigation. A bullet in the brain means actual forensic evidence, so you know they’re following this one up like crazy. Maybe they’ll find something that will help us.”

As I wandered off to make the call, I heard Mac mutter to Sera, “Which one’s Carmichael?”

“The pretty one.” I was sure Sera thought she was helping somehow, but it took a tremendous amount of restraint not to turn around and glare at her. “So, Viv, does your mom have any pointers about how to ask family members if they’ve killed anyone lately?”

The call to Carmichael went surprisingly well, considering how uncertain he’d been the night before. Maybe eight hours’ sleep had given him time to process, or maybe he’d decided we were all delusional and was choosing to humor us. In either case, he was sticking to his word and planned to trust us with information no civilian should really possess. The cops were currently tracking down every reported gun shot from two nights ago, and he was pursuing every likely lead. “Should I wear my flame-retardant suit when I go on interviews?”

“Depends. Is it pin-striped? ’Cause that’s always a classic.”

He laughed, a welcome sound. Carmichael hadn’t been smiling much the day before, and I dared to hope that he really was coming to terms with our revelations.

“So you know, Sera and I are thinking this could be a regular old human murder that some crazy elemental decided to turn into a bonfire. We’re not even sure it’s related to the other murders.”

I feared I was saying too much. Decades of secrecy was a hard habit to break, and I really wanted to keep their thoughts from straying down the same path Vivian and Simon’s had followed. The agents might not know about Josiah, but they could still figure out that someone was protecting Sera. But we had promised to help, even if we hadn’t anticipated regretting that decision quite so soon.

“Really?” Carmichael seemed eager to believe me. I suspected he was a lot more comfortable chasing down a human than actively seeking a supernatural pyromaniac.

“Tell you what. You look at the humans, we’ll handle the magical side of things, and we can swap info later today. Sound good?”

He agreed readily, promising to stop by later that day. I hung up and tried to reclaim the relaxed feeling of the night before. Instead, I only felt tension build along my spine. I was trying to balance too many things, and it seemed like only a matter of time before they all came crashing down.

Our investigation into the elementals’ role in the fire murder took precisely one minute. Sera called Josiah, reached his voice mail, and asked him to call her. Considering our job done, we proceeded to lounge for the better part of the day. We made a token effort to understand the events of the last month, rehashing the murders, the firebomb, the man in the forest, and Sera’s and my connection to it all. We ended up exactly where we had started: certain of absolutely nothing.

Finally, we gave up, discouraged. Besides, after a day spent in jail, we figured we’d earned a little downtime. Sera was never a fan of doing nothing for long stretches of time, but as the sun made its steady way across the sky, she lay across the pillows with the rest of us, swapping stories and barbs.

At one point, I glanced over to see her trying to sneak up on Simon. He’d switched into cat form, the better to enjoy the sunbeams streaming through the window, and she was determined to pull his tail. Her face was pure, concentrated mischief, and I burst out laughing before I could stop myself.

That was the moment I knew, beyond any doubt, that I had made the right decision. The right decision coming here to help. The right decision telling the agents and getting us both out of prison, no matter the cost. The right decision forgiving her.

Before my thoughts could dip further into sentimentality, Brian threw his hand of cards to the floor in exaggerated disgust. “If I’m going to keep losing to you, my wounded pride is going to need the sweet salve of vodka. I fear we have a mere inch left in the bottle.” He draped an arm over his forehead, the very image of a distressed maiden.

I stood, eager for an excuse to get out of the house. The direction my thoughts were taking was not unexpected, but neither was it entirely welcome. If I was really accepting Sera back in my life, and it seemed I was, it raised all kinds of questions about my quiet future in a quiet house somewhere in the middle of Nowhere, Oregon. I wasn’t even ready to think about those questions, let alone answer them.

“I think we drained it last night. I’ll make a run.” I snagged Sera’s keys and was out the door before anyone could offer to join me, grabbing whatever solitude I could find while there was still some to be had.

Chapter 19

I was so lost in my thoughts that the trip back passed in a daze. I had no memory of my drive other than a vague impression of a curving mountain road lined with snow. Perhaps, if I’d been paying more attention, I would have been prepared for the black cat that came flying onto the car’s hood as I slowed to turn onto the road that led to the cabin.

I swore loudly and swerved before righting the car. The small black body swayed with the car’s erratic movement, and the green eyes staring through the window looked decidedly annoyed. Muttering a slew of insults under my breath, I pulled over to the side of the road and put the car in park. While I willed my heart to resume a normal rhythm, the cause of my distress leaped delicately to the ground. A moment later, a naked human was sliding into the car.

“Was that really necessary?” I said, eyes facing determinedly forward.

Simon settled into the back seat, making himself comfortable. “It seemed unreasonable to expect you to stop for a small cat on the road, and it seemed equally unreasonable not to expect strangers to stop for a naked man. I thought this the best solution.”

“What, clothes weren’t an option?”

“The shift was not planned. The agents are at the house, and we decided to leave before their interest in your secret developed into an interest in our secret.”

“You couldn’t walk away?”

“This was faster. And less obvious. For me, at least. Have you ever watched a black bear try to be sneaky?”

I tried to picture Bear Mac tip-toeing through the forest and managed not to giggle. Just. “There’s a blanket in the back seat. Feel free to cover yourself with it.” He made no move to pick it up. “No, really. Feel free.”

“I do not know why my lack of clothing makes you nervous. I look good naked. Besides, I suspect Mac will want it. Turn here, please.”

Following his directions, I turned onto a narrow dirt road and followed it deep into the trees. Simon didn’t need to tell me when to stop. The naked arm and leg sticking out from behind a tree trunk clued me in. Though he was definitely attempting to hide, the trunk simply wasn’t wide enough, and I had an unobstructed view of the entire right side of his body. One long muscled leg led to a naked hip, and my eyes roamed past the hip to tight oblique muscles and a chest and shoulders that should have been enshrined in marble. A really, really big piece of marble.

“Would you like me to go get him, or would you prefer to stare a little longer?” Although Mac kept his head behind the tree and hadn’t noticed my enthusiastic perusal of his form, Simon had clearly witnessed it all.

“Oh, shut up.” Sometimes, all we have is the grade school comeback. My lust-addled brain didn’t seem capable of much else. “And definitely take the blanket.” I feared that having a naked Mac sitting anywhere near me would prove detrimental to my ability to think and breathe, let alone to drive.

Simon smiled, but thankfully refrained from comment. A moment later, he had collected Mac. The two returned to the car. Simon was as unabashedly naked as ever, but Mac had wrapped the blanket firmly around his waist. This still left his entire torso on display, and it took a concentrated effort of will not to stare at the spot where his tanned skin met the fabric and think about what was hidden underneath. Or think about how salty his skin would taste, or how it would feel when I ran my hand down the long muscles of his chest.

Right, I was making the official call: ten years of celibacy was too damn long.

Once again, Simon folded himself neatly into the back seat, leaving the larger front seat to Mac. I met his eyes in the rearview mirror, and I was fairly certain he was still laughing at me. Glancing at Mac’s impromptu skirt, I asked Simon, “So, can I assume your tendency toward nudism isn’t a general shifter trait? Are you just an exhibitionist, then?”

It was Mac who answered. “He spends a lot more time in animal form than I do, so he’s bound to be more comfortable without clothes. It’s practically second nature for him.”

“Why don’t you shift more?”

“Because a small black cat is considerably less conspicuous than a large black bear.” Unbidden, the image of Mac in animal form came into my mind.

I realized I’d stopped thinking of him as anything but a man. The memory of his animal rage that first morning had long been replaced by images of the man I’d seen every day since, the one with an easy smile and an attitude of such utter competence that it made everything around him seem a little more bearable, no pun intended. Because I did not understand the beast that lived within him, I had chosen to forget about it, and the man I was lusting after was, really, only half of the complete package.

“Do you…” I began hesitantly, unsure if I was committing some sort of shifter faux pas. “Do you ever shift in front of others, the way Simon does?”

He shook his head. “No.” He did not offer any explanation, or elaborate in any way, and I let the matter drop.

When we pulled up to the cabin, the agents’ car was still in the driveway, and several people were grouped on the front porch. Loud voices suggested that this meeting wasn’t going particularly well.

“If you still don’t want to answer any questions, you better get down,” I said.

Simon immediately lay across the back seat. Mac had considerably less room to maneuver, and his efforts to hide placed his head directly in my lap. I could feel his warm breath through my jeans, and I kept my hands firmly on the wheel, resisting the urge to push his brown hair back from his forehead. I parked far away from the other car.

“I’ll let you know when it’s clear,” I said, and reluctantly disengaged from Mac, moving to join the others on the porch. As I drew closer, I realized that most people were staying out of the fight. Brian, Vivian, and Johnson stood to the side, witnessing the argument rather than participating.

The cause of the conflict was quickly apparent. It seemed Carmichael’s easy acceptance of elementals was still a work in progress. “You’re friends with people who control earth and ice,” Carmichael was saying, his voice far more accusatory than I was comfortable with. “You didn’t think it was important to mention that?”

If I was uncomfortable with his tone, Sera was enraged. They were both standing on the porch steps, and she deliberately moved a step higher, making herself the same height as Carmichael. She didn’t raise her voice, but she didn’t need to. She leaned in until less than a foot separated their faces. “No, I knew it wasn’t important to mention that, because I actually know a whole hell of a lot more than you do on this subject. There are a lot of us, and we aren’t all the same. There are a lot of us just in these mountains. You know nothing but what we have told you, so back the fuck off.”

“It is a valid question…”

“And if you had asked it as a question, instead of stating it like an accusation, maybe I would have answered. But no one comes into my house and starts accusing my friends. I don’t care what sort of badge they carry. If you’re so sure they’re guilty, arrest them, but have fun explaining your so-called evidence down at the station.”

“How can you be so sure they’re innocent?”

“If you saw a white man with blond hair leaving a crime scene, would you go around accusing every blond white dude? Because that’s what you’re doing.”

“This is not racial profiling!” I was fairly certain he was ready to explode. I was actually a little impressed. By now, I’d spent quite a bit of time with Carmichael and had come to think of him as a clever, reasonable man. One afternoon with Sera, and veins were popping on his forehead and his neck muscles were bulging in a way that couldn’t be healthy.

“How long has this been going on?” I whispered to Vivian.

“Ever since he saw Brian form an ice cube for his drink.” She didn’t take her eyes off Carmichael and Sera, who appeared to have moved even closer to each other. She didn’t look worried. She looked like she wanted a tub of popcorn.

“Of course it was Brian. I should have guessed.” He heard me, as I’d meant him to, and grinned my way.

“If looking innocent in their eyes means drinking warm vodka, then lock me up. I have standards.”

I considered dumping water on their heads to break up the fight, but decided that as fun as it might be, it probably wouldn’t lessen the tension. Instead, I settled for asking Brian to let out a piercing whistle. They stopped mid-word and turned toward us.

“Hi there. They’re innocent because Brian barely has more elemental magic than Johnson here, and Vivian is so squeamish that she can’t watch a gruesome death in some horror movie, let alone cause one herself. I know you’re used to being the authority, but you seriously have no idea what you’re talking about, so stop acting like you do. Now, I need to head back into town to pick up some dinner. Give me a ride, and I’ll attempt to correct your ignorance.”

I had no idea if we needed food or not, but I wanted to get them out of the way long enough for Mac and Simon to dress. “Sera, your engine was making noises like an angry cat. I’d rather not drive it right now.” She nodded, understanding, and backed away from Carmichael. He glanced at me, then back at Sera, weighing his options. Finally, he decided to go with the one that seemed less likely to keep his balls as a souvenir if the fight continued.

“Fine,” he said, his voice terse. I didn’t think he was used to backing down from anything. He and Johnson headed to their car, and I followed.

I didn’t really have anything new to tell the agents, though I did repeat Sera’s key points, assuming they were more likely to be heard when spoken by a quiet, non-confrontational voice. Idly, I wondered if one of the reasons I’d initially been drawn to Sera was the way she made me feel level-headed in comparison. Growing up surrounded by so many relaxed and easy-going waters, I was constantly aware that I was a little different, a little volatile. With her around, I felt a little more balanced. “She completes me,” I muttered.

“What?” Johnson asked, his eyes on me in the rearview mirror.

“I’m depleted. We’ve been driving for ages, and I’m starving. Do you have any more questions for me? Because there’s a pizza sign up there that looks like a beacon lit by god.”

Johnson moved the sedan across the yellow lines into the middle lane and waited for an opening in the oncoming traffic. “Do elementals believe in a god, then?”

“It was a figure of speech.” He kept his eyes in the rearview mirror, and my answer didn’t appear to satisfy him. I shrugged. “We believe in magic, and we believe in life. That sounds an awful lot like some definitions I’ve heard of god. But we don’t have special elemental churches and holy books, no.” I waved vaguely around me, indicating the trees that surrounded us on all sides, the mountain peaks visible miles down the road, the lake somewhere southeast of us. “We don’t need them.”

He nodded. It occurred to me that Johnson wasn’t simply asking out of curiosity. He wanted to be part of our world. It seemed that the knowledge of our existence had stirred his latent earth blood, and it wasn’t enough just to understand. He wanted to convert.

The sedan pulled into a parking lot surrounded by a bunch of single story businesses. Squished between a bait and tackle shop and a dry cleaners was a hole in the wall pizza joint. After my unproductive day, few things sounded better than a big chunk of bread covered with a pile of cheese. I assured the agents I could get a taxi home, but they both utterly ignored me.

Carmichael and Johnson at least waited outside while I placed the order for two vegetarian pizzas and one carnivore’s delight. Watching them lean patiently against the car, I added an order of wings and breadsticks. It was thanks to these men’s open minds that I was currently walking free, unconcerned about being committed to an asylum, and it seemed right to thank them with a deep-fried foodstuff.

For the first time since my visit, I let myself wonder about Lana’s brother, committed to that asylum in Eureka. Had he been in a similar position, but with no understanding human to hear his story? No, it couldn’t be that. Lana had specified that he was in a facility run by elementals. Mental illness wasn’t discussed openly by our race, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist.

There were whispers, always, about those who had simply lived too long, whose bodies had outlived the mind’s desire for sanity. I had never seen it, however, and had come to think of the whispers as nothing more than a cautionary tale for those of us who would live to see many centuries pass, a warning to remain connected to this world.

It was possible that Trent Pond’s mind had not been adaptable enough to age alongside his body. I didn’t know how old Lana was, and he was her older brother by centuries. Maybe his illness had nothing to do with being half human. I had no proof that it did, and I very much wanted to believe that there was no connection.

My reverie was interrupted by an unfamiliar voice. “Hey, you’re Brian’s friend, aren’t you?” I looked at the man speaking to me, certain I’d never seen him before. I thought he was human, though I couldn’t be sure. He looked like your typical snowboarder, average height but with a strong and nimble physique, bleached blond hair and ear plugs, and a slightly stoned grin. I nodded. “I thought so. I’m really good with faces.”

“How do you know Brian?” I didn’t care, not really, but I saw no reason not to make polite conversation, especially with ten more minutes to kill before the pizza was ready.

“Oh, Brian and I go way back. He’d hook me up at the bar, I’d hook him up with a slice. You know, that kind of thing. I’m Rob. He must have mentioned me. So, how do you know him?”

I nodded and smiled vaguely, wondering if I should wait in the car, after all. I was feeling overloaded by people already, and this conversation showed no sign of tapering off. “We go way back, too.”

“Oh, yeah? Awesome. Hey, how did you like that prank we pulled?”

I was edging toward the door, trying to be subtle. “What prank?” I asked. I was still a couple feet from the door.

“Oh, man, I forgot. You never saw my face, did you?”

I froze, all thoughts of making a graceful exit evaporating. “What are you talking about?” I tried to keep a conversational tone, but my words sounded as if they were covered in rocks, gritty and heavy.