I don’t know how long we stood there, Roslyn screaming and crying, me just holding her. But eventually, her sobs quieted, and the vamp drew away from me.
“He might be dead, but he’s right,” she whispered. “I’ll never get away with this. Mab Monroe will come after me, after my family, after Xavier.”
“You’re right,” I replied. “You won’t get away with it.”
Roslyn gave me a look of pure horror.
“But then, you’re not going to be the one who’s done anything here tonight.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“This is what we’re going to do,” I said.
The torture was over — at least for now. I sat slumped in the chair, only the heavy ropes holding me upright. Sweat and tears dripped from my body like rain, and my hands felt like all the skin had been burned off them. Now I was glad that I was blindfolded so I couldn’t see my hands. Couldn’t see what a bloody, blistered mess had been made of them.
But the Fire elemental had gone, taking her cruel, pricking magic with her, vanished into some other part of the smoking house, leaving me tied where I was. Still, I knew that it wouldn’t be long before she came back and finally killed me—
A scream echoed through the house. Faint and small and weak, but I still recognized the high pitch in her voice, still recognized the person that it belonged to.
“Bria,” I whispered through my cracked lips.
Another scream sounded, and my breath caught in my throat. I strained my ears as hard as I could, listening, trying to determine where the sound was coming from. Then the cold realization hit me. The Fire elemental and her men. They must have found Bria where I’d hidden her. That was the only reason I could think of why my sister would be screaming.
At that horrible thought, new energy flooded my body. I struggled against the heavy ropes once more, even though I knew that it was no use, knew that I couldn’t get free of them. I ignored the searing pain in my hands and brought my stiff, blistered fingers up to my face, managing to slip the blindfold off my head. Smoke filled the room I was in like a dark, somber fog.
A third and final scream erupted from somewhere, before being abruptly cut off. I listened closely, but no more sounds came. No more sounds. I knew what that meant. That the Fire elemental had Bria — that my baby sister was being tortured even now.
At that awful thought, something deep inside me twisted and snapped, like a taut bowstring finally being loosened. This cold, great, terrible power filled me. More power, more magic than I had ever felt before. And then I started to scream.
I screamed for everything that had happened tonight. Everything that I had lost. Everything that had been done to me and my family. The power poured out of me the way my tears and sweat had a moment ago.
And it felt good … right somehow.
I kept screaming, pushing everything that I had left into that one echoing sound. All my pain. All my hurt and fear and rage and desperation and helplessness.
I felt the stones respond to me. Felt my magic rip through them like lightning, shocking them awake from their long, sonorous slumber, shattering them like they were made of the most fragile crystal. A deep rumble began in the earth below my feet, pushing upward, pushing outward. I couldn’t control the power, the raw magic flowing out of me, and I didn’t really want to. I just wanted to hurt someone, wanted to lash out at anyone who was left, hurt them like the Fire elemental had me and my family.
One by one, the stones above my head began to crumble and fall. My Stone magic spread outward, until the rest of the house’s stones were just as unstable. I felt the stones in the other rooms begin to crack, fall, and slip from the ceilings and walls. Once it started, I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop them. I knew the stones would bring the rest of the smoking house down with them, down on top of the Fire elemental and all her men.
I screamed again, this time in cruel, dark pleasure at the cold, awesome power that I was wielding—
“Are you ready?” Finn asked, cutting into one of my darkest memories.
“Yeah,” I replied, staring up at the rune before me on the stone wall. “I’m ready.”
An hour later, Detective Bria Coolidge was the first one to arrive on the scene. Her city-issued gray sedan skidded to a stop in front of Elliot Slater’s mountain mansion. Bria jumped out of the driver’s seat. Xavier got out on the other side. Guns drawn, the two cops rushed to the front door, which I’d conveniently left open in anticipation of their arrival.
Five minutes later, Xavier came outside, cradling Roslyn in his massive arms. The giant had wrapped a blanket over her, and he gently placed her inside the back of the sedan. Xavier started to pull away, but Roslyn grabbed his hand. After a moment, Xavier knelt beside her. He didn’t leave her side after that, and I knew that he wouldn’t for the rest of the night. Maybe for the rest of their lives.
Bria also came back outside, her cell phone clamped to her ear. I couldn’t hear her exact words, but the urgency of her tone drifted up to my hiding spot on top of the ridge overlooking the mansion, just inside the tree line. The same spot that I’d been in when Finn and I had first hiked up the mountain.
And that’s when the show really started.
More cars carrying more cops arrived on the scene, swarming over the mansion like ants on a crust of honey-covered bread. Spotlights were erected, along with yards of yellow crime scene tape. It wasn’t long before a news van pulled up and parked in the driveway. Then another, then another. I smiled. So far, everything was going according to plan.
Standing in the bloody wreckage of Elliot Slater’s living room, I’d told Roslyn everything — about my murdered family, about Bria, but most especially about my plan to take down Mab Monroe — or die trying.
The vamp had studied me for several seconds before shaking her head. “You’re one crazy bitch, you know that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m suicidal,” I’d replied. “So are you in or out?”
“In.” Roslyn gave me a small smile.
And just like that, we were partners. Hell, maybe even friends too.
As I watched the scene before me, I crunched a couple of aspirin between my teeth and shifted the ice pack that I’d strapped onto my broken wrist before leaving the mansion. I had one more thing to do before I could slip away and go have Jo-Jo Deveraux heal me. Finn was already in the dwarf’s capable hands, getting his many injuries taken care of.
Forty-five minutes after Bria and Xavier first arrived, a long, black limo pulled up to the very top of the driveway. Finally she was here. The limo driver got out and rushed to open the back door. A moment later, Mab Monroe stepped into view. The Fire elemental looked like she’d been out on the town. I could see the gleam of sequins on her forest green dress even from this distance. Her red hair looked like dull copper underneath the whirling, red and blue police lights, and her sunburst rune necklace flashed like a ring of golden fire around her neck, surrounding the bloody ruby in the center of the design.
At the sight of Mab, one of the cops, a senior captain whose name escaped me, walked over to her, bent down, and began speaking into the Fire elemental’s ear. I made a mental note to tell Finn to get me the guy’s name, since he was so obviously in Mab’s pocket. He might be worth paying a visit to sometime in the near future.