Treasure of the Fire Kingdom (The Elemental Phases Book 4) (12 page)

Icy
blue eyes widen almost imperceptibly.  Gion knew the film was going to screw
him over.  Sullivan could see the gears in his head spinning frantically
wondering what Sullivan knew.  For one glorious moment the smirk actually
faded.

It
was beautiful.

“You
have a tape?”  Gion looked like he was already thinking up excuses for whatever
it showed.

“It’s
a DVD, actually.”

Ty
bit her lower lip, her gazed locked on the screen.  “Uh-oh.”

The
TV showed Ty’s cousin, Nia; Tessie, a former bartender here in town; and Gion
arguing by the customer service counter in Home Depot.  The footage didn’t have
sound and was taken about thirty feet from them, but they were still easy to
identify.  Gion’s cape alone cut way down on possible misidentifications. 
Sullivan kept his attention on the live version of Gion as the camera got
suddenly fuzzy and the store’s overhead lights started exploding.

Suddenly,
and from out of nowhere, a new man appeared in the Home Depot aisle.

He
just
appeared
out of nowhere, as if he’d been teleported into the store
direct from the
Enterprise’s
deck.

Ty
sucked in an audible breath.  Not in shock that the new guy had zapped into
frame like some sci-fi dork’s wet dream, but that Sullivan had it recorded for
posterity.

“You
moron!”  Alder shouted at Gion, apparently sharing Ty’s horror.  “You and
Chason let yourselves be caught on camera!”

“Shut
up.”  Gion snarled.

Sullivan
gave a smirk of his own.  He had no idea how to explain that Chason guy’s
otherworldly materialization, but he knew what it meant.

He
had Gion by the balls.

Dead
silence filled the police station as the footage went black.  Whatever powers
Mr. Spock had used, they shorted out the camera.  But, it didn’t matter. 
Sullivan had still seen enough to know that the Cult would
not
want this
DVD becoming public.

“You
know, I think that has the potential to be the greatest YouTube clip of all
time.  I just can’t get enough of it.  I’m thinking of making it my
screensaver.”

Gion’s
gaze flashed back to Sullivan.  “Oh, it’s a very impressive fabrication. 
Congratulations.  You know how to use computer editing software.  If YouTube’s
a bust, perhaps you can sell it to the
Alien Autopsy
people.”

Sullivan
arched a brow.  “You really wanna argue that I faked it?  That’s the best
explanation you can come up with?  I was hoping for, at least, some kind of
X-Men
inspired
mutants-are-in-hiding-in-plain-sight-because-they’re-scared-of-human-prejudice
story.”

“We’re
not afraid of the humans.”  Alder scoffed.  “And we aren’t
mutants
.”

“Shut
up, Alder.”  Gion repeated harshly.

“Why
the fuck should I, huh? 
I’m
not the idiot who let the stupid little
humes videotape me, am I?  You think you’re such a badass, but now the Fire
House is going to have to kill this guy and find all the copies of the DVD and
it’s all ‘cause of
you
.”

Sullivan
rolled his eyes, not particularly worried that firefighters might try to
assassinate him.

“Don’t
you dare threaten Sullivan!”  Ty jumped to her feet and rounded on Alder.  “He
belongs to the Wood House.  He’s Parson’s grandson and…”

“The
what house?”  Sullivan interrupted.  “And how do you guys know my grandfather’s
name?  Did Melanie tell you?”

They
ignored that.  “He’s protected by the Council and you know it, Alder.”  Ty
stabbed a finger at him.  “I mean it.  Stay away from Sullivan or else.”

Gion
sighed.  “Angel, can’t we just let the Fire Phases do what they want to him?  It
would be so much simpler.”

“No!”

Sadly,
Sullivan was used to the Cult’s Dungeons and Dragons speak, so he didn’t even
bother to ask for an exact translation of the argument.  They were threatening
to kill him or something.  Again.

“Alder,
unless you want to be locked in a cell for more than just the arson charge, I
suggest to zip it.”  He made a slashing motion across his lips.

Alder
gave an affronted scowl.  “Shut up, human.  Gion’s actually said something not
stupid for once.  Fire Phases can do whatever we want.”

God,
Sullivan hated it when they called him “human” like that.

“If
Ty doesn’t want the human killed, then no one will kill him.”  Gion didn’t even
bother to glance Alder’s way.  He kept his long suffering gaze on Sullivan. 
“No matter how tempting it is.”

“Gion.” 
Ty chided.  “Be nice.  Obviously, Sullivan has some questions and we need to
give him some answers.  We should tell him the truth.  Then, he’ll understand. 
I’m sure of it.”

“I
don’t think that’s a good idea.”  Gion shook his head.  “He won’t believe you.”

“But,
he deserves to know.”

“Damn
it, Ty.  Why do you always favor this human so much?”

“I
told you before, Sullivan is my friend.”

Sullivan
felt a smile twitch at her words.  He’d met Ty while busting her for breaking
into a hospital.  The fact that she’d see him as her friend was bizarre… and
charming.  No wonder she was one of the few people he could stand to be around.

Gion
snorted dismissively, not nearly as moved by Ty’s declaration.

“And
he’s Parson’s grandson.”  Ty added pointedly.

Gion’s
jaw got tense.

Ty
looked back over at Sullivan.  “Gion knew your grandfather, you know.  They
were very close.”

“Sure
they were.”  John Parson had died two decades before.  Gion would’ve been about
ten, at the time.  “You guys meet at the seniors’ center, Peterson?  Playing
shuffleboard and bitchin’ about the Great Depression?”

Gion’s
mouth curved.  “Mostly, we practiced the violin.”

Sullivan
glanced at him sharply.  John Parson
had
played the violin.  Sullivan
could still remember the sound of it.  How did this arrogant, violent
son-of-a-bitch know that?

Alder
glowered at Gion, schoolyard bully style.  “I don’t take orders from the Water
House and I especially don’t take ‘em from
you
, fuckwad.  I can kill
anybody I like.”

Ty
focused on Sullivan with a determined smile, tuning out that pronouncement. 
“Now, I know how odd this all must look to you.”  She gestured towards the TV. 
“Chason jumping in like that with the sword.  He’s a bit… dramatic.”

“And
magical?”  Sullivan drawled, folding his hands behind his head and leaning back
in his chair.

He
couldn’t wait to hear the spin on this.  He had absolutely no idea how that
Chason guy pulled off his little trick in the Home Depot, but he certainly
didn’t believe it was magic.  Sullivan had
never
believed in magic. 
Even when he was a kid, he knew the rabbit was really under the table.

“Let
me just explain all this to you, so you’ll understand.”  Ty was a trooper.  She
kept going no matter how unreceptive the audience.  “We’re not magical.  We’re
very close to humans biologically.  We just have… a little more power.  Not
magic
powers just…”  She screwed up her face in deep concentration.  “Just think of
this way:  If you told some person a hundred years ago that… Oh…” she squinted
up at the ceiling, “I don’t know… that it would be possible to travel faster
than the speed of sound in huge, flying jets, they’d think it was impossible,
right?  That you were talking about magic.”

“They’d
think I was lying.”  Sullivan corrected pointedly.  “And –Jesus-- are you
claiming you’re
time travelers
, now?”

“Oh
no.  Of course not.”  Ty paused.  “Well,
most
of us aren’t, anyway.”

“The
Time Phases shouldn’t count as time travelers.”  Alder scoffed.  “I mean, they
can
travel through time, but they
don’t
.  It kills them in –like-- fifty-two
seconds or whatever.  Total pansies.  If the Fire House had those powers…”

Sullivan
cut him off with a “kill me now” groan.  “Oh my God, you think you’re time
traveling mutants.”  What could he even say to that?  He really liked Ty, but
enough was enough.  He leaned forward in his chair again, and went back to
threatening Gion.  “Alright, here’s how this is gonna work.  I’m gonna give you
the DVD and you’re gonna pack up your circus tents and get the hell outta my
town.”

“I’m
not done searching this town!”  Alder protested.  “This is where my Match might
be.  This is where Uriel got his.  I’m not leaving her stuck here in the human
realm.”

Sullivan
glared over at him.  Uriel’s “Match” was Melanie, Sullivan’s cousin.

The
door to the police station opened, the little bell attached to the hinge
ringing merrily.  Sullivan absently glanced at it, his attention still on
Alder.  “You try kidnapping any girls for whatever sick little fantasy life
you’ve got going on and I’ll personally…”  He stopped talking.  Stopped
blinking.  Stopped breathing.

Everything
inside of him just
stopped
as he processed the woman who walked into his
station house.  She was so damn stunning it was a wonder his eyes weren’t
bleeding just from staring at her.

She
was part of the Cult, that much was obvious, but he’d never seen her before. 
He
definitely
would have remembered.  Dressed in a long letterman style
cardigan and battered jeans, she still could’ve doubled for Sophia Loren’s
waaaaay better looking sister.  In less than a second, the woman recalibrated
all of Sullivan’s previous ideas about beauty, blowing the curve for every
other female on the planet.

Oh,
wait.

The
Cult wasn’t
from
this the planet.  They lived in a different dimension
or something.

Right.

“Thank
Gaia!”  Alder bounded out of his seat.  “Someone’s finally come to rescue me
from this hellhole.  You have no idea what I’ve been through!  It was
total
police
brutality.”

Sullivan
barely heard him.  In a last bid for sanity, he tried to remind himself that he
wanted to evict the insane criminals from his life, not strip the clothes off
this woman’s
in.cred.a.ble
body and beg to go rattle tambourines in
airports right alongside of her.  Rational thought was really hard to grasp
onto in the face of a living, breathing fantasy.

She
was perfect.  Seriously perfect.  A scientifically perfect example of the
feminine form.  Perfect face, with perfect cheek bones and perfect lips. 
Perfect hazel eyes, with foot long lashes and radiant green flecks that glowed
like emeralds.  Her hair captivated him the most.  Shoulder length and black,
it fell in a halo of perfect curls.  And, at her temple, there was a streak of
pale blue.  Sullivan had no idea why he found that so intriguing, but he found
his gaze drawn to it, wondering what it would feel like against his hands.

The
woman was so far out of his reach that she might as well have been the moon,
but he still felt a punch of heat as he gazed at her.  Something inside of him
woke up with a deafening roar, leaving him dizzy.  Something familiar, but that
he couldn’t explain.  It burned though his usual resigned apathy, screaming at
him to lunge over the desk and grab her before she could slip away.

He
didn’t. 
Obviously.  He just gaped at her.

It
took him a moment to notice that she was gaping back.

“Oh…
shit
.”  She whispered, her hazel eyes wide with horror.

…And
that’s when Sullivan remembered the scar.

Woman is
an essential element of perfect health and happiness to the soul of man.

Henry C. Wright- “Marriage and Parentage”

“You
have such a comfortable home.”  Hope turned in a circle, gazing up at the
frescos on the two story high ceiling in Kingu’s torture chamber like they were
touring a tea garden.  “This mural with the blood is especially lovely.”

Kingu
was having a difficult time keeping his attention off of Hope’s face, so he
didn’t bother to look up at the roof.  He knew what she saw.  He’d designed the
damn paintings.  Every body being torn limb from limbs by wild horses, every
screaming victim of the iron maiden, every person begging for mercy that
wouldn’t come as their skin was burned off by fire.  All the stuff of his
nightmares.

There
was no way this perky little gumdrop could find it “lovely.”  His house was
full of morbid instruments of death and grisly depictions of carnage.  Most of
the rooms were either painted demonic black or Satan red.  Or both.  Most the
furniture was ominously big in order to accommodate his frame and decorated
with bones.  Most of the hallways were mazes that led straight down into his dungeons.

Hope
had
to be faking about her delight in the macabre surrounds.  He had a
fish tank full of piranha and she petted them through the glass, for gods’
sake.  It had to be a trick.  A lie to lure him in and Kingu
hated
being
lied to.  No matter how unpleasant, he’d always rather just face the
unvarnished truth and deal with it head on.

He
scowled at her.  “You like it, huh?”  His voice was too harsh.  He should have
been trying to win the girl over, but all wanted to do was push her away,
before it was too late.

She
was so dangerous.

“Oh,
I love it.  Especially the fire.”  She took her eyes off the scenes of torment
on the ceiling, her attention slipping past his extensive collection of racks,
spiked wheels and other mechanized means of suffering.  She cast a dreamy look
at the fifteen foot tall fireplace.  “Very homey.”

Sure
it was.  Because the Color Phases always had raging infernos in their homes,
with an iron spit inside suitable to roasting someone alive.  Such a little
liar.  “Well, I think I have just the bedroom for you, then.”

She
glanced over at him, the picture of innocence.  “Oh, I’ll have my own room?”

The
question cut through him.  “
Yes
.”  He bit off the word.

What
the hell did she think?  That he was a rapist?  That he’d force her to sleep
next to him?  Kingu wouldn’t even know what to do with this fragile creature in
his bed.  He wouldn’t know what to do with
any
woman.  It wasn’t like
his mother had let him date in captivity.  The closest he’d ever come to sex
was witnessing the twisted form of ecstasy Kay drove herself to while she
tortured him each night.

Kingu
cringed, squeezing his eyes shut as if that could block out the remembered pain
and humiliation.  He had no idea how long he stood there silently, but it had
to be awhile because Hope seemed to notice his tension.

“Kingu?” 
She laid a gentle hand on his arm.  “Are you okay?”

The
second she touched him, he felt cleaner.  Like the purity of her soul washed
away the stain of his memories.  His breath shuddered out on a sigh.

What
was happening to him?  How was she doing this?

“Kingu?” 
She repeated when he didn’t answer.

His
name sounded like it had been dipped in honey when Hope said it.  He wanted to
listen to her whisper it in the dark and scream it in pleasure.  He wanted her
to smile when she said it and then he wanted to kiss the expression right off
of her face.  He wanted his to be the only name she called for help when she
was scared and the first one she sleepily murmured in the morning.

This
was not good.

Kingu
slowly opened his eyes.  “I’m fine.”  He lied.

She’d
probably been sent to destroy him by Tessie or some higher Divine being set on
weeding out the competition.  Already Hope wielded too much power over him. 
He’d spared that bastard Lycus because she’d asked him to, which sent the wrong
message. 
He
was the captor here.  He made the rules and she was to
blindly obey.  Very simple.  Very…

“I
didn’t mean to upset you.”  Hope slid her palm down to his wrist and he
automatically stiffened.

Although
Kingu’s fingers and nails were like a human’s, the texture on his hands
resembled a dragon’s.  The rest of his body looked normal, but Kay had made
sure the parts that showed publically proclaimed him a monster.

Fuck.

Kingu
cringed and started to pull away, but Hope stopped him.  Her thumb moved along
his wrist in a caress as if she didn’t even notice the rough feel of it his
skin.  Which was ridiculous.  She
had
to notice.  Kingu was always
morbidly aware of the animalistic features of his face and hands.

Transfixed,
he watched Hope’s candy apple red painted fingertips trace along his skin. She
wasn’t pulling back from him in disgust.  She was touching him.

Willingly.

A
firestorm of desire and fire roared through Kingu’s body.  Hope might as well
have sunk to knees and taken him into her rosy mouth.  The intensity of his
reaction couldn’t have gotten any stronger without Kingu blacking out from
sheer lust, anyway.  Hope was
willingly
touching him.  The light brush
of her fingers on his arm was like an electrostatic charge to the dead center
of his brain.  Blindingly bright and scorching hot.  All his senses honed in on
Hope like a predator sighting his prey.

Breathing
hard, Hope pulled her hand back like she’d been burned.  Maybe she had been. 
Kingu was going to die from the fever building inside of him.  She gave that
same small gasp he’d heard in the arena the last time he touched her.  A kind
of whimper of surprised mixed with some mysterious heat.  Whatever it meant, it
had his whole body tighten with the need to claim her and mark her as his. 
Gasoline poured on the raging bonfire of his passion.  He could feel the
crackle of it in the air itself.

Less
than a second and he could have her beneath him.

It
was like a mantra in his mind.  In less than a second, Kingu could sink deep
inside her warm body and it would be like his own personal heaven.  The other
gods could keep their distant, unfriendly paradise.  Kingu would find his own
kind of rapture.  The gatekeepers who judged him unworthy of admittance into
salvation had missed a little blonde loophole.  As long as he had his woman,
Kingu was less than a second away from knowing what it meant to feel blessed.

He
finally had Hope and that was all he needed.

Blue
eyes flicked up to his face, the exact same shade as the infinite night sky. 
“Everything that’s happened today has been destiny.”  She whispered.  “Can you
feel it, too?”

Kingu
blinked, breaking free of the sexual haze.  Her soft words chilled him.  “I
don’t have a destiny.”  Didn’t she know what he was?  Did she still not
understand?

Apparently
not.

Her
head tilted.  “Of course, you have a destiny.  How else do you explain the two
of us meeting?”

“You
mean when I helped
capture
you?  I explain it as you being unlucky and
me being a monster.”  There was no way to break it to her gently, so he didn’t
bother to try.  “I don’t have a soul, Hope.”

Her
eyebrows climbed.  “Don’t be silly.  Everyone has a soul.”

“Well,
I
don’t
.  And if you don’t have a soul, you don’t have a destiny.  I’m
not supposed to exist at all, so the higher gods forsake me.  Everything I do
is unjudged and unguided.  So everything that happened today just randomly
happened
.”

Hope
stared at him silently for a long moment.

Kingu
prepared himself for her pending shock and horror at the earth shattering news
that she now belonged to an abomination.

Instead,
Hope snorted dismissively.  “Wow, you are so wrong.”  This time her hand came
up to touch his cheek like she was trying to offer comfort to a man who’d done
nothing but wrong her.

This
silly, fearless Color Phase could bring him to his knees.

Panic
took over where passion left off.   He had to take some kind of control here or
the woman would enslave him.  Kingu’s powers purred that she was one, but this
had to be some kind of trick. 
Had
to be.  She was so stupidly unafraid
of him that he was halfway convinced she was deranged.

Either
that or he was.

Kingu
dragged his attention off her captivating touch and cast around for something
else to focus on. 
Anything
else was preferable to collapsing into a
useless heap at her feet.  He spotted her charm bracelet and it occurred to him
again that it must have been a gift from some man.

The
monster inside of him snarled.  Distraction fucking
found
.

“Was
that a token of affection?”

“Yes.” 
She jingled the bracelet, so it sounded like laughter and magic.  Kingu wanted
to rip the damn thing off of her.  “It was a present.  Well, many presents,
actually.  It got put together over time.  All the charms mean something, you
see?”  She held it up for him to look at, obviously proud of the trinket. 
“This is a trip Disney World.  And this was a very fun war we had with the Wood
House.  And this was the first car that I set on fire.  And this was a
butterfly I caught in…”

“How
long did this take you to complete?”  Kingu was more interested in the duration
of her relationship with the unknown Phase who’d given it to her than he was in
reminiscing about all the fun adventures they’d had together.  Adventures that
had taken place while Kingu was chained to a gods damn wall.

“Since
I was born.”  Hope was lost in her memories now, flipping through the fanciful
bits of silver and glass.  “He never forgot to buy me new charms, no matter how
busy he was.”

Fucking
hell.  “You still love this Phase who gave it to you?”  Anger boiled up inside
him like the acid moat outside.  The woman was
his
.  No other man would
have a claim on her.

“Oh,
yes.”  It seemed to be whispered mostly to herself.  “I love him more than
anything.”

Simple
and devastating, the heartfelt words fogged Kingu’s mind in red.  “Give me the
bracelet.”  He held out his palm.

“What?” 
She glanced up at him in confusion, coming back to the present with a rapid
blink.  “Why?”

“So
I can destroy it.  Here,” he snapped his fingers and tossed her a diamond cuff
worth more than several countries, “take this one, instead.”

Hope
let the priceless piece of platinum and gemstones fall to the floor.  “No.  I
want mine.”  She stuck her hand behind her back like he might try to just take
the charm bracelet right off of her wrist.  Which was actually a good guess. 
“You have no right to steal it from me.”  She regarded him with honest-to-God
betrayal.  Like she’d forgotten that he was the bastard who’d basically
kidnapped her from her
other
kidnappers.

That
he didn’t have a soul.

Her
hurt expression did
not
make him feel like a monster.  Or rather he
was
monster so the feeling was totally justified.  Better that she learn to be
afraid of him, right from the beginning.

“If
you want jewelry,
I
will give it to you.”

“But
I don’t want any other jewelry, I want my bracelet.”

She
backed away from him and that sent his rage spiraling out of control. 
Other
women backed away from him, but not Hope.  She never had before and Kingu
wouldn’t tolerate her staring now, over some pitiful man she thought she loved.

How
could this Phase meant so much to her?  What had he done to earn so much
loyalty from the woman?  Kingu could have given her rooms full of priceless
treasure in exchange for the scrap of silver and still she wouldn’t let it go. 
It
infuriated
him that she would choose another, even in this.

He
would never have Hope without some kind of manipulation.  Kingu knew it.  She
had come home with him willingly, but that just meant he’d been preferable to a
prison cell and death in the arena.  Any idiot would see that.  He certainly
wasn’t taking the plastic restraint off her ankle and giving her a chance to
leave the Cloudland.  No, if Hope truly had a choice, she’d flee from Kingu and
never look back.

Luckily,
she
didn’t
have a choice.  What was a tiny helpless Phase against a god?

He
stalked towards her.

Hope’s
eyes widened.  “Please don’t try and take it from me.  I don’t want to hurt
you.”

She
thought she’d
win
if they fought?  That there would be a fight, at all? 
Was she really that deluded?  “You’re not wearing gifts from another man!”  It
came out less as an order and more like a roar.