Strange Fires (3 page)

“Here’s something worth knowing.” Sera turned toward the women, uninterested in Leroy. Based on the looks they gave her, they were beginning to feel similarly. “You know how you were all ready to hail him as your own personal prophet because he can do a few tricks with fire? I can control fire and water. Can I be your prophet now?”

Leroy’s jaw fell somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. “It’s not possible. It doesn’t work that way. Everyone knows. One element only.” He was right, of course, but the women wouldn’t know that.

Sera took a step toward him, and I’d never known an unarmed college student could be so scary. “Are you sure, Leroy?” She summoned the largest ball of fire yet and held it between them.

I’d known this woman only a few hours, and yet I understand exactly what she expected. My magic was still attached to the water, and it only needed a tiny tug to pull it from the reservoir and send it crashing between them, extinguishing the fireball. Sera’s mouth quirked up, just a bit, and I knew it was her version of a silent high five.

“But… the…” Leroy stammered, looking between the reservoir and Sera. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work. You’re a freak. Maybe you’re the one the council needs to hear about.”

“Maybe. I’ll check with my father. Josiah Blais. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

Leroy didn’t turn pale. It was more like the blood fled from his skin, leaving him to do his best impression of a terrified snowman. I was a water, raised on an island enclave with only other waters for company, and even I’d heard of Josiah Blais. He was one of the most powerful old ones in the world, and not someone you wanted to cross.

Leroy was smart enough to know he’d lost. With one last glare at the woman who’d become the bane of his existence, the man dashed into the trees. It only took a moment for his black clothes to blend into the night, and soon it felt like he’d never been there at all.

No one went after him. They were too busy staring at Sera. “Can you purify us?” asked the oldest one, her voice small and hesitant.

Sera blinked several times, at a loss for words. She’d had no problem confronting one wretched man, but stripped of bravado and general badassery, she seemed unsure what to say to a group of harmless women.

“No one can.” The words were out before I planned them. I stepped into the light, revealing myself. No one jumped. I thought they’d exceeded their capacity for surprise on that night. “No one else, that is. Only you. And definitely not some freak who knows a parlor trick or two.” Keeping elementals secret from humans was so ingrained in me that the lie came easily. The women turned to Sera, seeking confirmation. She nodded, watching me.

“Exchange phone numbers. Meet for coffee. Find a church that holds bake sales instead of orgies. There’s less risk of disease with those, you know. If it’s safe to go home, do that. If you don’t have a safe home, stay with each other. And the next time a man asks you to meet him in the woods at midnight under a full moon, at least make him buy you dinner first, okay?”

They smiled, almost. The expressions were weak and a strong breeze would have stripped them from the women’s faces, but they tried. Still, no one moved.

“It’s over.” Sera’s voice wasn’t gentle, but gentle wasn’t what they needed. They took her certainty and claimed it for themselves, and soon they were pulling on their discarded clothes and walking from the circle in small groups. They didn’t speak as they left, but at least they did so together.

Then they were gone, and it was just me and Sera. I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I sat on a log near the fire and warmed my hands over the flames, welcoming the heat. The log shifted as Sera lowered herself next to me. She stuck her hands directly in the fire, absorbing its power.

“Think they’ll be okay?”

She waited, considering her answer. “Some of them will be.”

It was better than nothing. “Think we’ll be okay?”

She turned to me, eyebrow lifted in question.

“You know, the whole roommate thing.”

Sera looked back toward the fire. “I’ve been thinking about this. I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m not going to actively try to scare you off. Not right away, at least.”

I grinned. She might fool most people, but not me. I already knew her secrets. “Grease.”

“What?”

“
Grease
. Earlier, you said you were a teenage ne’er-do-well. It’s a line from ‘Beauty School Dropout’ from
Grease
. I used to watch that with my aunts all the time. You like musicals. You aren’t half the badass you pretend to be.”

She plucked a bit of fire from the pit, fashioned it into a grenade, and chucked it at me. I ducked, laughing.

“There’s no pretending here,” she said. “Just because you like songs about people losing their wives, trucks, and dogs doesn’t mean the rest of us are sentimental.”

“Softie,” I insisted.

“I am short-sheeting your bed tonight.”

“Sap.”

“And then washing all your white clothes with a red towel.”

“Delicate flower.”

“I’ll lock the stereo on talk radio and throw away the dial,” she warned.

I grinned at her, and though she hid it well, something very like a smile was right under the surface.

I almost relaxed. After the unexpected craziness of the night, I needed to release the water and call my magic back to me. I hadn’t. Somehow, I’d known it wasn’t over.

His voice came out of the trees, a hundred feet away. “That’s how you did it,” he growled. “A fucking water.” He stepped forward, and I was no longer looking at a defeated man. Energy filled him until his entire body vibrated with the need for action, and his features twisted with rage. There was no rationality in his eyes, only hatred, and in his right hand was the one thing that can kill an elemental as easily as it can kill a human.

When I heard the crack, I didn’t think. I only needed instinct, and my instinct asked the water to soar through the air. It flew past me and Sera and the fire and kept going, plucking the bullet out of the air. The water’s force pushed the single bullet into a tree trunk only inches away.

We should have dropped to the ground. That would have been the smart thing to do. Instead, Sera and I stared at each other for a heartbeat, eyes alive with shared shock, and then we charged toward him. There was another crack, but this time Sera sent a wave of fire before us, causing a small explosion when it met the bullet. The second shot was several feet off course, a last desperate shot by a desperate man.

He didn’t stay to see what would happen when we reached him. With one last glare of equal parts fear and hatred, he turned and fled into the trees. This time, we listened to the crashing sounds, making sure he was actually leaving.

“Do we go after him?” I hoped the answer was no. Now that the danger was past, I thought I might want to sit down and have a nice little panic attack for a few minutes. It was the first time anyone had ever shot at me, and I’d be perfectly okay if it was also the last time.

Besides, chasing him down sounded like a lot of work.

The crashing noises grew weaker as he fled further into the forest, and eventually they faded altogether. Though I kept hold of the water, I didn’t think there’d be more bullets that night.

Sera shook her head. “Nah. This is the sort of thing my father lives for. That stupid idiot didn’t want to answer to the council. Now he’ll have to explain to my father why he tried to kill his only daughter. That was some poor-ass decision making on his part.”

My legs shook with nerves, so I leaned against a tree trunk and let the nearby water soothe me. When I once again felt almost stable, I let the water go. My magic rushed back to me.

“You know, shit like this never happened on the island.” I thought that was a point worth making. Sometimes, it’s good to acknowledge that your life isn’t turning out as expected.

Sera was unimpressed by my claim. “Hey, nothing like this has happened to me. Ever. I think it’s you. You must attract chaos.”

“If it was me, my life would have been a lot more interesting up till now, and trust me when I say that was not the case. It’s obviously you.”

She shook her head in marked disagreement. “No way. I just had normal craziness. Booze and boys and excellent music. This is a whole other level of wacky.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it’s the two of us. Together, we exert some sort of chaos magnet on the universe.”

“That’s a terrifying thought.” Still, she looked like she was considering the possibility.

In the distance, in the direction Leroy had just bolted, a roar shattered the quiet night. The inhuman sound echoed through the trees. Shivers danced along my spine, though I didn’t think they were from fear.

Sera cocked her head, listening. “Sounds like a bear. Hell, maybe Leroy won’t need to worry about meeting my father after all.”

It was morbid and more than a little twisted. I laughed, of course.

“Back to the party?” I tried to hide my lack of enthusiasm.

She pointed us in the direction we’d come from. “Let’s just get the car. I’m starving.” We began winding our way back to the clearing where the party was held.

“Well, that’s what happens when you confront a megalomaniacal elemental with a god complex at midnight,” I told her. “You get the munchies.”

We walked another half mile or so in silence. I didn’t know what she was thinking. Me, I wasn’t thinking much of anything. Some moments just feel right, and they can’t be explained with words. They can only be experienced, and so, in the middle of the night in the Tahoe National Forest, a confrontation with a crazed fire elemental only recently behind us, I let myself experience an inexplicably perfect moment.

By the time we found the remains of the party, only a few diehard drunks lingered. The Mustang stood alone, with no one blocking us. Sera moved to the driver’s side and just stood there, arms resting on the hood.

“I always drive, so you know.”

I didn’t care. “That’s fine. I mean, you drive like an insane person, but you’re still ahead of me. I don’t even know how.”

“Well, that’s pathetic.” A smile tugged at her lips. “You either have to learn to drive or get a boyfriend soon, or else I’ll spend all year making ‘you’re a virgin who can’t drive’ jokes.”

“
Clueless
reference. Romantic comedy. You really are a total softie. I’m telling everyone.”

“It’ll be mutually assured destruction, H2O.”

I grinned. I seemed to be doing a lot of that. “Let’s get out of here.”

She nodded and unlocked the door. Before she opened it, her head popped back up. “Hey, what do you think about pancakes?”

I kept smiling. This time, I wasn’t alone.