Broken Elements (7 page)

“Well, this doesn’t feel creepy at all,” muttered Sera. “Got your high heels on? I hear that’s the standard footwear for dealing with serial killers.”

I knew that humor was Sera’s primary defense, and she was probably using it to cover her own uneasiness, but I was in no mood to banter. “What’s the plan?” We’d never bothered to discuss what we’d do if we ever found the guy.

“Wait here.” Sera took off with no further explanation, and for several minutes I was alone. Nothing is louder than the sound of a forest on a windy night. Every crack, every brush of the leaves sounded like someone sneaking up behind me. I took several deep breaths, trying to center myself.

I found the core of magic within me and let it glide through my body, let it reach out and find all nearby sources of water. We weren’t close to the river, but the impending storm provided plenty of humidity. I let the magic attach and simply held it there, asking it to wait until I needed it. As always, I found comfort in this simple act, this reminder of the energy that gave me life every bit as much as my beating heart.

Sera silently returned. “We’re good. There are no windows in the sides or back, and only one door. I already set a fire by the door, blocking that one. Assuming they were here when we arrived, they’re still here.”

I felt my calm control slip. Her impetuousness had cost us the element of surprise.

“Dammit, Sera. This is your plan? Run in like Butch Cassidy and the fucking Suicidal Kid? Besides, he’s an ice, you idiot. He can put out a fire.”

Looking at her, I was shocked to see that she was excited. She wanted to storm in like the conquering heroes, knocking down walls and saving the day. She’d been waiting for this for months, and she would not be denied her moment of victory. “Not like you can. He can put out a fire eventually, and only with enough melted ice. It was a big fire. It would take an old one to summon a block of ice big enough to put this one out. We’ve got this, Ade. I’ll create a lovely, fiery trap, and you just keep an eye on everything, make sure it stays under control.” She actually grinned. “I don’t think control will be at the top of my priority list.” Still smiling, she summoned a fireball to her hand and redrew it until she appeared to be holding a revolver. “Let’s go, Butch.”

In moments, she was through the door, and I had no choice but to follow her. The warehouse was a long rectangle, with the front door directly in the center. Entering, we could see most of the ground floor, a vast empty space in which our footsteps seemed to echo. We knew not even to whisper, lest our voices carry where we did not intend them to go.

It was even darker than it was outside, and our eyes needed time to adjust. The only light came from Sera’s fireball and the rear door directly across from us, with the fire illuminating the cracks around the door frame. The smoke wasn’t creeping into the building yet. It appeared the wind was favoring us, at least for now.

To our right, three closed doors suggested hiding spaces, and a rusted metal staircase on our left led to a catwalk that wound around the building, creating what amounted to a second story. Several rooms with large windows were at the top of the stairs, likely offices from the days when the warehouse was still in use. There was no light in any of them, and the rooms were so dark the windows might as well have been opaque. It was as likely a hiding space as the far rooms, and we were stuck between them. Checking the upstairs offices would give him the chance to escape through the front door, an unacceptable option.

Using a complicated series of hand gestures, Sera told me to stay put. I didn’t mind. If she did encounter our prey, fire was a far more effective weapon than water. Unless I was willing to drown him or carry him away on a displaced tsunami, there was little I could do other than get him very wet. I didn’t think a clean serial killer was our goal at the moment, so I stayed where I was, between the various rooms, trying to simultaneously watch every hiding place and keep an eye on Sera as she cautiously moved toward the first door.

With the fire held before her, she twisted the handle of the first door and pushed it slowly open. I completely forgot to look anywhere but at her, my breath caught in my throat.

Everything remained still and quiet. Finally, she thrust the fire into the room, illuminating the darkness and revealing a completely empty room. I wanted to pause for a moment, but she was already at the second door, repeating her actions. Again, the room was entirely vacant and covered in dust. It did not appear that anyone had set foot in this building in years, if not decades.

Sera tried the final door. Nothing happened. She turned to face me. “Locked,” she mouthed across the room. They had to be in there. Grinning, she increased the size of the fireball, and bounced it from hand to hand. The damn woman was psychotic.

As the fire grew in size, the room grew lighter, my vision better. I don’t know what caused me to turn around at that moment—some sound I heard without realizing it, a flash in my peripheral vision, a whispered warning from some ancient lizard brain part of my human mind—but I suddenly glanced above me and saw movement at one of the windows. A single figure, clearly male, was watching us. We’d found him.

Sera followed my vision. She never paused. The fireball flew from her hand to the office door, setting the rotting wood instantly on fire. I indicated the door behind me, and felt the increased heat as she set up a blockade at that exit point, too. The windows were the high, narrow kind that no one could use without a ladder, and so we left them unprotected.

This time, I led the way up the stairs. Now that the escape routes were blocked, I needed to control the fires while we corralled our prey. Fighting down my nerves, I drew water to me, providing a protective layer against the heat as we moved closer to the new fire. It was a large building, and it would take time for the smoke from the two fires to replace the clean air, but we were still working with limited time.

Reaching the first office, its door completely aflame, I peered through the window. I could just make out the man through the glass, sitting against the far wall. He was alone. The smoke was already filling the room, and it seemed he’d moved as far from it as possible, trying to buy a few more moments. That told me he wasn’t an especially powerful ice. The weaker ones can freeze small things, about the size of a human fist—or a human heart—but they cannot create the type of protective barrier I currently wore. It required more magical energy to build than they were able to summon. Relieved, I knew we had him. With his amount of power, he’d never be able to best Sera and me combined. I checked again, confirming that he was the only one in the room, and let the fire burn for several more minutes, hoping to weaken him further. It was the cruelest thing I’ve ever done, and I paid for it more than I could have ever imagined.

Eventually, I felt enough time had passed, and I indicated to Sera that she should drop the flames. She immediately drew the magic back to her, extinguishing the fire as it came in contact with her body. Sera grabbed the metal door handle, easily able to bear the heat, and turned. She held the door open and let me through, so I was the first person to see what we had done.

Against the far wall sat the crumpled, wasted body of a man, staring at us with empty eyes. He looked to be well into his 50s, but years of outdoor living had weathered his skin, and even more years of heavy booze consumption had reddened it. His clothes were old, covered in dirt, and so faded that they all appeared to be the same color. Against one wall lay a pallet covered by a threadbare blanket, and a few empty soup cans littered the floor. He clutched a single brown knapsack, holding his only possessions close to his body as if they were his treasures. They might have been. The air had slowly vacated his lungs and been replaced by the cruel black smoke, and all he had done was curl up in a ball, cradling the few insignificant items he’d managed to acquire in this world, and let death find him.

I stared for several long moments, feeling denial and horror struggle in my mind. We had caused a man’s death. This couldn’t be real. Somehow, there was another explanation for this. I knew, though. I knew that he had been alive when we entered the building, and he was dead now, and we were the reason. Beside me, I heard Sera’s intake of breath as she struggled with the same realization.

“He...” her voice tapered off. There was nothing to say.

I felt rather than saw the flames in the door grow, the earlier effect of Sera’s dampening fruitless in the face of her volatile emotions. I half-heartedly attempted to put them out myself, but I could not easily access the magic through my own rage and despair. I did not particularly care, either.

“Who do we tell?” I asked, my voice flat.

“We’ll call my dad. He should know, anyway.”

I nodded. I didn’t want to leave him like this, alone in death as he appeared to have been in life, but I didn’t know what else to do. I grabbed his blanket from the pallet and carefully spread it over him, covering his spindly legs and arms. I knew I should be careful of fingerprints, but I didn’t care. With my thumb and index finger, I closed his eyes.

It wasn’t enough. Leaning over, I pressed a soft kiss to his grimy forehead, trying to wordlessly tell his vacant body how sorry I was. I felt several tears slide down my cheek and land on his face, drawing a path through the dirt on his own cheeks. It still wasn’t enough, but I didn’t know what else I could do.

Slowly, we turned and walked through the door, its flames now flickering merrily in marked counterpoint to our moods. As we turned toward the stairs, we heard a distinctive thump. It came from the second office.

I didn’t even look at Sera. I was certain she felt the same way I did, and even if she didn’t, she’d still have my back. This bastard was the reason we were here. He was the reason multiple people had died in horrible ways. He was the reason Sera had thrown a fireball at the door and the reason I had let it burn. There was no way that man was going to walk out of here. I felt the rage boil through me, and Sera definitely felt the same. I saw the flames rise. Even the fires still blocking the doors appeared to glow brighter.

I didn’t bother to look through the window. I didn’t bother to gather my magic about me. I simply slammed the door wide open and stepped inside, ready to face whatever waited for us in the room.

There was one other person in the office. Amanda Wilson lay on her side, her face a rictus of shock and desperate fear. I ran to her, irrational hope fueling me. Maybe he hadn’t had time to finish. I knew CPR. I could still save her. She was warm and pliable, and I doubted she’d been dead for more than a few moments. The loud thump had likely been her body hitting the floor.

I rolled her onto her back, tilted her head back, and began chest compressions, silently begging her to respond. She remained still, and completely dead. I continued the compressions, pressing down with greater force, imagining her heart beneath my hands pulsing and returning to life, picturing the water in her blood and trying to pull it through her blood vessels. I forced the magic through her inanimate cells, attaching it to her blood cells, sending it through the aorta and outward through the veins and arteries. I felt the movement, but no life.

“Take your time working on that desperate case, Aidan Brook. It just gives me more time to get away. Really, quite thoughtful of you.”

The voice rang through the warehouse, the acoustics magnifying it and blurring its origin. It could have come from below, behind, or even above us. I could continue my attempts to revive Amanda, or I could find the thing that had killed her and force a wall of water into his lungs. I made what seemed like the only possible choice at the time, though I still do not know if it was the right one. I abandoned Amanda, and I went to confront the monster that was taunting me.

He stood on the ground floor. I felt like it should be shocking to see him in person for the first time, but he looked much as he had on the tape. He still wore black clothes and the ski mask. It was too dark to make out his eyes or lips through the slits in the balaclava, but his voice told me he was smiling. The bastard was playing a game with us, and enjoying every second.

“Are you going to kill me this time? Third time’s the charm!” Without warning, a fireball sailed over my shoulder, flying at top speed toward its target. He dodged it neatly, letting it crash behind him. It caught fire where it landed, devouring the wooden floor and heading for the support beams. I took grim satisfaction in watching the fire spread near him and made no effort to stop it whatsoever.

“Temper, temper. If you kill me, you won’t ever hear what I know. And I know oh, so much, Aidan Brook. I know secrets you’ve never even imagined.”

I knew he was merely taunting me. It was part of his game, and I refused to play. I reached for my magic, determined to find enough water to shove down his lying throat, but for the first time ever, it wasn’t there. My rage and pain and frustration were blocking it. I forced myself to breathe, to be calm, and met with no success. I tried again. Nothing. Even my protective shield of water had vanished. In that moment, I might as well have been completely human.

Sera flung another fireball at him, and again he dodged it. He laughed as this one also struck the floor and caught fire, spreading across the dry wood. “Careful, there. You’re setting a lot of fires you might not be able to put out. Will you, Aidan Brook?” Sera flashed me an inquisitive glance, but before I could say anything, our quarry had left the room, opening the previously locked door of the third room and slipping inside.

“Damn him!” she swore, running down the stairs. I followed more carefully, starting to notice all the fires that surrounded us. The single fire on the upstairs door had spread throughout the room, swallowing the pallet and heading hungrily for our victim, and it looked like it was considering the room in which Amanda lay as well.

Downstairs, both doors were engulfed in flames, and the two fireballs Sera had just aimed at our target were progressing at an alarming speed. We only had a few minutes to eliminate this monster before I would also be a victim. At the moment, I wasn’t even concerned about that possibility. I only wanted him dead.