Strange Fires

1

I had two glorious weeks of freedom before I learned a valuable lesson about life in the human world: people here notice if you spend too much time ogling naked men.

It wasn’t that people didn’t notice on the island where I was born and raised. There just weren’t as many men, what with the whole matriarchal society thing, and I was related to most of them. They spent little time running around naked, and I spent even less time attempting to find out what was under their clothes.

That was not the case in a college dorm. Sure, there were a few modest men who insisted on wandering around the halls fully clothed, but they were the minority. Tahoe, after all, was known for its wealth of outdoor activities, and I was surrounded by men who spent hours on skis, snowboards, kayaks, and mountain bikes. They had the muscles one would expect from constant exercise and absolutely no compunction about showing them off to the only girl on their floor.

I had no aversion to seeing those muscles, either, which was part of the problem.

“I don’t see why I have to move.” I attempted to smile winningly at the resident advisor. He was perched on the edge of his single bed, having offered me the room’s only chair. Unfortunately, he was one of the floor’s shy residents and wouldn’t actually look at me long enough to appreciate the effect of that smile.

I tried logic, instead. “I’ve already unpacked. And I have a single, so it’s not like anyone else has to live with me.”

The RA nodded, pretending to consider my argument. “Yes, but Aidan, you’re a girl.”

Even I would have difficulty arguing that point, though I still tried. “I never said I wasn’t. My dorm application said girl. This is where they put me.”

“Likely because your name is Aidan.”

“So?”

“Aidan is a boy’s name.” The RA spoke patiently, as if I was especially slow or perhaps drunk.

Condescension never brings out the best in me.

“I disagree. Aidan is totally a feminine name. Haven’t you seen
Sex & the City
? Why do you think they named the beta male Aidan? It’s a chick name that’s been misapplied. I’m reclaiming it.” I nodded firmly, daring him to question my logic. The best thing about my logic was how quickly people realized it was practically impenetrable.

“You’re...” His eyes scanned his shelves, as if hoping a baby name book would appear and prove me wrong. He blinked twice and refocused. “The point, Aidan, is that regardless of how the mistake was made, it was made. This is a boy’s dorm, and you are a girl.”

“And?”

“The reason we separate the genders is so people feel comfortable on their own hall.”

“I’m very comfortable. Thanks for checking.”

He let out a deep breath and finally met my eyes directly, trying to determine if I was being flip or just really dense. I smiled happily, offering no help.

I knew this wasn’t particularly nice of me. He was just doing his job, and even if he was comically bad at it, there was no reason to make his life harder—except he was trying to move me to a different dorm, and I didn’t want to go.

“Some of the men have complained about having a girl on the floor.” The words came out in a rush, likely because he was one of the men. Based on what I’d seen, most of the men thought it was hilarious, and a few even dropped their towels the moment I appeared.

Really, I’d learned more in the dorms than I had in my first week of classes. The university should advertise such a service rather than try to shut it down. After all, “Turning overprotected, sheltered girls into informed perverts since 1956!” was the kind of slogan that boosted admission numbers.

Unfortunately, the RA did not see it my way. “A transfer has been arranged to Willow Hall, to the girl’s floor. You’ll move tonight.”

Though the words came out in a rush, his relief was obvious. No matter how many specious arguments I drummed up, there was no way this man would allow me to stay on the floor.

I’d lost. I spared a moment of silence for all the buff, naked men I would never see, then accepted my fate. Mostly.

“I thought there weren’t any singles in Willow.”

“There aren’t. You’ll have a roommate. It was the only available option, Aidan.”

“Fine,” I muttered, though I didn’t mean it in the slightest. “Who’s my roommate?”

Looking pleased by my graceless acceptance of the inevitable, he withdrew a paper from my file. “Sera... something. She’s from Hawaii. Here we go. Sera Blais.”

My head snapped up when I heard the name. Elementals were born from the earth’s original magic, giving us the ability to control one aspect of nature. Over thousands of years, that original magic had been diluted with human blood. Only the most powerful old ones, those who only had one or two human branches on their family trees, used the original surnames. Brook was one of those names. Blais was another.

I’d never met a fire in person, but I knew they craved warm environments. Lake Tahoe definitely was not warm, at least in winter. I’d never thought to meet one here. For the first time, I was intrigued about my change of circumstances.

It looked like my education would extend beyond naked men, after all.

2

“Room 213?” I asked the woman studying in the lounge. With her perfectly pressed clothes, straightened hair, and flawless skin, she looked like a walking Banana Republic advertisement, the sort of respectable woman who would know where I was supposed to be. There was a small potted plant near her. Her left hand rested against the soil, suggesting she was either an earth or a dirt fetishist.

She glanced up from her laptop, masking the annoyance that flashed in her hazel eyes. I didn’t blame her. I got the same look when someone interrupted me when I was writing in my journal. “Down there,” she told me, pointing to the eastern hallway. “Follow the noise.”

I murmured my thanks and headed in the direction she’d indicated, struggling under the weight of two oversized suitcases.

The woman hadn’t been kidding about the noise. As I approached the room, all I could hear was discordant guitars struggling to keep up with manic drum beats. It was music, I supposed, in the same way men who played spoons on the street wrote songs.

I released the handle of one suitcase and knocked on the door. Then I knocked louder, and finally I pounded. At last, the music stopped and the door was wrenched open. My suitcase, propped against the door, fell over. The woman in the doorway ignored it.

Sera Blais stared at me for a long time, and I returned the favor. She wasn’t a tall woman, but something about her filled the room. She had the classic coloring of the fires, eyes and hair so dark they were nearly black, and a body made of well-muscled curves.

She’d apparently performed the same study on me. “You’re a skinny bitch, aren’t you?” The words contained neither jealousy nor malice.

“I prefer lithe.”

“I prefer to think The Clash never broke up, but that doesn’t make it true.” She stepped back, letting me into the room. She still watched me closely. “Aidan Brook. Where are you from?”

I knew what she was asking. Humans weren’t supposed to know elementals existed, so we’d long ago established a series of coded questions, our version of a secret handshake. It didn’t matter that I had one of the old names and a water’s coloring. Sera still needed to be cautious.

“An island in the San Juans. My whole family lives there.”

She relaxed when I confirmed her suspicions. There aren’t many elemental enclaves, and only one in the northwest. I might as well have worn a pin that read “I’m a child of magic. Ask me how.”

“You a full?” Sera asked.

I shook my head. I looked it, with my blond hair and gray eyes and the unimpressive curves she’d already commented on, but my father had been human. “Half. You?”

“Three-quarters. My mom was half fire.” She turned from me as she spoke, so I had a view of her back when she used the unexpected past tense. Elementals weren’t immortal by any means—a gunshot or sudden accident could claim our lives as easily as a human’s—but we were extremely long-lived, thanks to the restorative power of our magic.

I’d never known anyone who lost a family member. Hell, my great-grandmother still lived on the island with the rest of my family, and in human terms she didn’t look a day over fifty.

I wanted to know more, but I feared questions would not be welcome. Instead, I pulled my suitcase toward the unmade bed on the left side of the room and changed the subject. “Why didn’t you have a roommate before me?”

“I did. She left.” She glanced back at me but offered no further explanation. There was something in her eyes, though. It wasn’t annoyance or boredom with the questions. In fact, I was pretty sure it was a challenge.

“What? Did she snore? Were you forced to dump her body in the lake one night?” I hauled my suitcase onto the bed and unzipped it, pulling out my clothes and organizing them in the closet.

Sera threw herself on her bed. Her sheets were blood red. With her dark hair and black outfit, it was a dramatic image, one I suspected she created deliberately.

She tilted her head, studying me with a little more interest. “She was a delicate flower,” she elaborated, while still providing no useful information.

“So, she reclined on her bed all day reading books by the Brontës?”

Sera wrinkled her nose. “She didn’t like my music.” Her black eyes fixed on me, her expression unreadable.

Most of the time, we have no idea when our lives are about to change, but this wasn’t one of those times. Though I couldn’t articulate why, my response mattered. Whatever I said next, it would be judged, and it would set the tone for the nine months I was about to spend living with Sera Blais.

This was when most people would offer a polite lie or a noncommittal bit of nonsense to ease over an awkward moment with their new roommate.

Most people also had a working brain-to-mouth filter.

I sat on my own bed, scattering t-shirts out of the way, and met her eyes directly. “To be fair, your music sucks.”

The right side of her mouth twitched. The movement lasted a fraction of a second before her face returned to its impassive mask, but I saw it. If that had been a test, I’d just passed.

She walked toward me, peering into my suitcase. Before I could protest, she grabbed several CDs out of the side pocket and studied them with growing horror. “Dolly Parton? Patsy Cline? Hank fucking Williams?” She dropped them on the bed and shook her hands violently, as if to remove the country cooties. “You play these, you’ll find yourself dumped in the lake.”

“Oh, please don’t throw me in that briar patch,” I said in a weak approximation of a southern accent.

“Damn water,” she muttered.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You got stuck with some quiet, studious type you could scare with your whole bordello in hell decorating scheme and ability to stare without blinking for hours on end, and she bored you so much you tormented her until she left. Is that about right?”

Her expression shifted, became something close to wary. “I wasn’t aiming to torment so much as cause a reaction, but you’ve got the gist of it, yeah.”

“Only child?”

She nodded.

“Me, too. So, if neither of us are used to sharing, there may be an adjustment period. Complete with, you know, compromise.” I tried to speak that last word as if it wasn’t profanity. I’m not sure I succeeded.

I picked up one of my CDs and walked to her stereo, where I swapped out The Cramps for The Jayhawks. Not quite as hardcore country as the rest. Compromise. I could do it if she could.

She watched every movement I made. “So, you’re saying you’re not a delicate flower, then?”

We stared at each other. Her gaze was unsettling, and it took every bit of control I had not to crumble beneath it. “Try me.” I wanted to applaud myself for my extra-cool delivery, but I thought that might ruin the effect.

For the first time since she’d opened the door, she smiled. Not a mouth twitch, not a snort of amusement—an actual, honest-to-god smile. It transformed her face, turning her from a badass to a badass capable of human emotions.

“Don’t mind if I do. Grab your purse. Let’s see what you’re made of, Aidan Brook.” She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. She never looked back. She knew I would follow her.

She was right.

3

“You know I was joking about that whole body dumping thing, right?” I sat in the passenger side of Sera’s red ’66 Mustang, staring out the window as we drew further and further into Tahoe National Forest. It would have been a sweet car, if the upholstery wasn’t torn and the exterior covered in its share of rust spots. The filthy state of the windows suggested she washed it twice a year whether it needed it or not.

I peered through the dirt into the darkened forest, wondering where the hell she was taking me. My family’s island had its share of trees, firs and maples that thrived in the northwest’s rainy climate, but Tahoe made it look almost sparse in comparison. Here, countless pine trees lined the road, the branches forming a dense barrier between the human world and the untamed wilderness that lay only a few feet beyond the glow of the headlights.

The moon was full, large and gold as only an autumn moon can be. October was the Hunter’s Moon, but the name didn’t seem appropriate that night. Rather, it seemed the moon itself was being stalked by the heavy clouds whipped across the sky by the demanding wind. Over and over again, the night went from clear and bright to pitch black. The unreliable light made the world feel almost unreal, as if whatever I thought I saw could vanish in a heartbeat.

Sera turned left, taking us further into the woods. Her fingers tapped the steering wheel in time to the Ramones. “A guy in one of my classes said there was a party back here.”

I peered into the forest, which seemed like it would have no problem disposing of a bunch of drunken co-eds. “Seriously? Was the theme Classic Horror Movie? ’Cause I’m not dressed as a damsel in distress. I’m not even wearing high heels.”

“What are you worried about? Everyone knows the virgin always survives.”

I turned to stare at her. Her profile gave nothing away and her eyes remained fixed on the road. “How did…?” I didn’t finish the sentence. I wasn’t ashamed of my sexual history—or lack thereof—but I didn’t expect it to be common knowledge, either.

“How did I know you were pure and unsoiled? You grew up with the old ones. Not a lot of options in the enclaves, are there?”

I was glad she was making an educated guess and not relying on my virginal aura. “There were no options. When you’re related to everyone in some way or another, you find yourself spending some quality time with your hand.” I hadn’t meant to say that. It felt overly personal, the sort of thing my great-grandmother would call vulgar. It was the truth, though, and once the words were out, I was glad of it. I had a bad habit of saying whatever thought popped into my head, and if Sera was going to have a problem with that, it was best to find out now.

Instead, she laughed, and the sound held no cruelty. Rather, it sounded like she understood.

We rounded a bend, and a crowd of people appeared in a clearing. Fairy lights were strung in the trees, powered by someone’s car battery. Two pickup trucks held kegs, and people gathered around them, drinks in hand. They were laughing, everyone perfectly at ease after downing several red plastic cups full of beer.

“It’s a kegger.”

Sera turned off the engine, and the sound of the Ramones was replaced by the music of the party. Someone was blaring some new country song about the joy of women who wear tight denim shorts. “Is that a problem?” Sera asked.

I shook my head. “I just wanted to say it out loud. It’s a kegger. My very first kegger.”

“I don’t think they make Girl Scout badges for that.”

“I’ve never been drunk at a party.” I lowered my chin, speaking into my chest. It wasn’t that I thought sobriety was embarrassing. I just hated any evidence of my sheltered upbringing. It was why I’d insisted on coming to Tahoe, after all. I wanted to get away from my past, not discuss it in detail. “I mean, my aunts down wine like it contains the mysteries of the universe, and I’ve drunk with them plenty of times. It was always at home, though, with people I knew.”

I expected pity or even condescension, but Sera’s tone was matter of fact. “You don’t want to get drunk here, anyway. Too many people we don’t know. Drink no more than two of those red cups, then check in with me. Pour them yourself, directly from the keg. You’ll need to pump it a couple of times, or else it’ll be pure foam and you’ll be burping all night. I doubt that will help your virginity situation. Did you eat already?”

I shook my head, and she handed me a packet of crackers. They were bright orange and made from as many chemicals as recognizable food substances, but they’d soak up some of the booze.

“You could teach a course in this.”

“Hard won wisdom. I was a teenage ne’er-do-well. Now, stick your purse under the seat. You won’t need it, and it’s too easy to lose or have stolen. Give me your phone.” She flipped it open and punched in several numbers. “My phone number, if you need me. Keep it in your pocket.”

I didn’t want to seem weak or needy, but the thought of entering that group of laughing college students who all seemed to know each other pretty much made me want to curl up in the trunk and hide until Sera decided it was time to leave.

Somehow, she knew. “Only if we get separated,” she assured me. “There’s no way in hell I’m entering a party full of drunk jocks and the women who love them without backup. Let’s go.”

She stepped out of the car, and once again, I followed her. This was becoming a habit.

I found I didn’t really mind.