Insidious Winds Read online

  Insidious Winds

  Elemental Book 4

  Rain Oxford

  Insidious Winds © 2015 Rain Oxford

  All Rights Reserved

  Edited by Crystal Potts

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  “I didn’t take it.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” the man said as he cocked his gun. The dirt-covered woman on her knees before him cried harder.

  Joy Marina, nineteen, was the girl-next-door, overachiever type. Valedictorian, perfect attendance, always smiling, and the last person anyone expected to get involved with a drug-dealer. Then she met “Robbie” in her first month at college and everything fell apart for her. The first time he beat her, she went crawling back to her parents, but he wouldn’t let her go. He tried to isolate her and although he was successful in driving away her friends, her older brother was tenaciously protective.

  When her parents were hospitalized from a suspicious car accident, her brother contacted me. I soon found out it wasn’t love that Robbie was after; a large amount of his drug supply went missing and he blamed his girlfriend. Whether he got the young woman on drugs or not, I didn’t know.

  I watched from the catwalk in the old warehouse. Robbie and his three lackeys boxed Joy against a wall of crates. I wanted to wait until I could get any more information on his accomplices, but he wasn’t going to do this the easy way. He smacked Joy with the gun and she screamed.

  “Where is it?!”

  She shook her head. “I swear I didn’t take it. I just want to go home.”

  He took a step back and aimed the gun at her again. “You’re never going home again.”

  I sensed the approach of more humans and pushed a box off the catwalk. It hit the ground loudly and all four men turned to look automatically. The second their guns were off the girl, I reacted with my magic. I no longer had to push my own sensations at people or animals to make them feel it; I barely thought of fire. Fueled by my anger, fire filled their psyche. All four men screamed, dropped their guns, and clutched their heads in pain. From their perspective, it was like having a nightmare of fire that hurt in real life

  Police sirens could be heard in the distance. When I was sure none of them were getting up, I let their minds go and left them to the police. Of course, I watched from the distant forest as the police manhandled the men into the patrol cars. Joy’s brother arrived to take her to the station for a statement.

  * * *

  I believe humans are always born innocent. No matter where they were born or who they were born to, there was nothing malevolent about them. That doesn’t mean they don’t have the genetic predisposition to do harm to others. I believe the difference between the man who opens fire in a bank and the man who steps in the way of a bullet to save others is equally attributed to nature and nurture.

  Paranormals complicated the matter. They were born just as innocent, but their actions had much more to do with nature than nurture. Shifters were part animal, so their human morality was in constant struggle with their animal instinct. Fae and vampires had no human side. Although fae cherished nature, they could be extremely arrogant and violent towards people who violated nature. Vampires, whether they were born or turned, survived by preying on people, but they didn’t have to kill. Wizards were basically human with powers. I learned from John that that could be a very bad thing.

  When I was a child, I knew there was something very different about me. Fortunately, I wasn’t powerful enough then to realize what I could do. Had I developed my powers before a sense of morality, I probably would have turned out very different.

  Yet here I am looking to make a deal with a demon. Then again, I did marry Regina.

  Ironically, after haunting my dreams since her death, Heather stopped as soon as I got a magic fire sword… which I got by following magic fire salamanders.

  I sighed and picked up my coffee. It was going on three in the morning in the middle of January and I was sitting in my car worrying about making a deal with Heather in order to rescue my childhood friend instead of focusing on my job. In this instance, my job was to catch my client’s husband cheating on her. If it were for any other client, I would have been too busy to let my mind wander.

  Mrs. Thomas hired me three times previous and she was always very relieved when I told her that her husband wasn’t cheating on her. Each time, she had an excuse for thinking what she did, but she came to me and paid a very high fee to make sure she didn’t get caught investigating him. Since she was embezzling money from his company, lying to him, and cheating on him, I actually wanted to get caught. Unfortunately, that would end my career and I wasn’t ready to retire just yet. Thus, I watched the dark windows of the couple’s house and kept my mouth shut.

  Recently, Mr. Thomas came into a lot of money and started staying at work late. That was excuse enough for the wife to hire me again to watch their house while she was spending the night with her sister. Since the husband turned off the light to go to bed at half past midnight, I was expecting a long and boring night.

  I scowled at my lukewarm coffee and set it down. Of course, I knew how to control fire, but somehow I didn’t think warming my coffee was an appropriate use of magic.

  When the living room light came on in the house across the street, I grabbed my camera from the passenger seat. After a moment, when no car pulled into the driveway and no one looked out the window, I felt like I should get a closer look. Trusting my instincts, I pulled the door handle and was surprised when the door didn’t open.

  “Are you joking?” The door was frozen shut.

  I put my hands flat on the door as if I were going to push it open. I focused on heat and imagined pushing that heat into the door. Because I didn’t want to set anything on fire, I didn’t think about flames. Instead, I thought of running in the summer. As my heart beat faster, the gold scorpion prickled against my skin, which had been shocking the first time it happened. This time, I ignored it, since it wasn’t even close to critical yet.

  After a few minutes, I let the heat fade from my mind and tried the handle. The door opened with a hard push. Carefully minding my step, I shut the door of the black Nissan quietly. It was a car I rented because mine was too noticeable. As inconspicuous as I could be, I crossed the street and went around the garage to the back yard. Just as I was about to approach the kitchen window, my instincts pushed me to hide. I ducked down behind the trashcans beside the garage right before the kitchen door opened.

  The husband stepped out of the kitchen… naked. I had enough time to wonder exactly what the man’s fetish was before he changed. Having seen a shifter change many times, I was actually relieved when he became a gray wolf. I would lie to his wife to protect the paranormal community, but I would have told her if the husband was sacrificing virgins or something in the garage. Of course, they had a lot more to worry about between them than the wife’s lies.

  The wolf took off out the back gate, so I headed back to my car, not seeing any reason to follow him. For the second time in a matter of minutes, my instincts warned me of danger. I hid in the shadow of the garage and waited. A few seconds later, a black SUV drove slowly down the street. It slowed further when it reached me, but finally passed without completely coming to a stop.

  Once the tail lights were gone, I crossed the street and got into my car, which was just starting to freeze over again. Any warmt
h I had created inside was completely gone, so I gave the car a minute to warm after turning on the engine before heading out.

  Traffic was extremely light, but not nonexistent. I sensed someone was watching me. Since I wanted to be able to drop everything at a moment’s notice if the chance to save Astrid came up, I kept my caseload to a minimum. Thus, I couldn’t think of that many people I pissed off. There was the drug ring, but that was a small operation. If they pushed, I could get back into Robbie’s mind and coerce him into confessing everything he and his friends ever did.

  I stopped at a twenty-four-hour diner and asked for some hot apple pie and coffee. As I sat in my little booth and stared out the window, the feeling of being watched grew. After about thirty minutes, I had no excuse. I paid and went back outside into the cold. A truck, previously concealed in the dark alley beside the diner, came to life with its headlights on me and my car. I sighed. Before I could take another step towards my car, another black SUV pulled into the parking lot and stopped right in front of me. The door opened.

  “Get in.” The voice was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t see anything or anyone inside.

  “And why would I do that?” I pulled my gun out of its harness and pushed my power outwards. I sensed one very powerful shifter’s mind and one human’s. Fortunately, I recognized both of them. Without waiting for an answer or putting my gun away, I got in and closed the door. “You’re a little far from your club, aren’t you?” I asked.

  Internal blue lights switched on, revealing that the inside of the truck had two back seats facing each other like in a limo. Drake sat across from me with his Komodo dragon shifter bodyguard to his right. “Put the gun away, Devon,” he said. Despite being a human whose entire job revolved around paranormals, he was used to getting his way. He was of a medium height and average weight with slick black hair and a ritzy black suit.

  “This is my city. You don’t get to be the mafia on my turf.”

  Drake smirked. “You cops have no business skills.”

  I ignored the comment, since I figured he knew I wasn’t a cop as much as I knew he wasn’t actually part of the mafia. “What do you want?”

  “Kevin, I thought I told him to put the gun away.”

  The shifter only reached a few inches towards me before I had my gun aimed at his head. “I thought we’ve already been through this, Kevin. Also, these are silver bullets.” The shifter shrunk back.

  “I want to destroy the wizard council,” Drake said, ignoring my gun and his bodyguard’s submission. “They’ve come up with new laws, taxes, and a registering system, and they’re trying to pass it off as what’s best for everyone. They’re winning people over by offering rights and power to a few— rights and power they’re taking away and trying to sell back to us. Basic rights. If the council gets their way, every paranormal who isn’t a wizard will have fewer rights than humans. I’ve heard they’re even planning on limiting the shifters’ diets to enforce vegetarianism because they think it’ll make shifters less aggressive.”

  “What do you care? You’re human.”

  His eyes narrowed, not angrily but very close. “I am human and I live in the paranormal community. I care about paranormals. I care what happens to them.”

  “Okay.” I put my gun away. “I agree they need to be stopped, but why come to me?”

  “The council can’t implement their taxes until they have every paranormal cataloged. Logan Hunt, headmaster of Quintessence, is extremely protective of the identity of his students. For that reason, the council is going to be after Hunt’s records. I know you’re a student at the university. I also know Hunt keeps all the records of the orphanage, children’s school, and university in his office at the university. It is in everyone’s best interest if you destroy those records.”

  “I’ll talk to Hunt about it. If that’s really what’s best for his students, he’ll do it.” I grabbed the handle, opened the door, and stepped out.

  Drake didn’t try to stop me. “You know what they say; don’t keep all your eggs in one basket.”

  I knew he wasn’t talking about the key because there was no way he could know about it. It still irritated me, though. I was trying to prepare for anything and have options open, but it was getting harder and harder to tell who was on my side and who was just trying to use me. My visions of the future were inconsistent, my heart could give out the next time I got angry, and my childhood friend was in Hell thanks to a teacher who wanted me to make a pact with his demon daughter. Well, it wasn’t really Hell, and Heather wasn’t really a demon. Learning that Astrid’s father was a wizard from Dothra and her mother was a vampire did not make anything easier for me.

  I made it back to my apartment in a few minutes, I entered the main building, and quietly went to my unit, only to stop outside my door. Someone was in there. Once again, I sent out my power, then sighed when I recognized the intruder instantly. I opened the door, entered and shut it behind me.

  The jaguar shifter sitting on my couch frowned worriedly. “Should I come back later?”

  “No. What’s up?” I asked. Henry looked a little tired, but not injured. There was no point at all in asking the master thief how he got in.

  “You offered me a job once. I know you were only half serious, but could you still use some help?”

  “Um… yeah. Are your parents still…?”

  “They’re alive.”

  “So you haven’t asked them about Scott?”

  “Ever since you told me that I didn’t kill Zoe, I’ve been rethinking my life. I believed you saw what you did, but it took months for me to really believe I didn’t kill them. I started listening to my jaguar more and going over those moments. My jaguar hates my parents more than anyone.”

  “So you realized your jaguar is only trying to protect you?”

  “I do not trust him unconditionally, but I want to believe I never killed anyone… except for Mrs. Ashcraft.”

  “That was John’s doing, not yours or your jaguar’s.”

  “I told my parents I knew what they did and demanded they tell me where my son is. They said they dropped him off in an orphanage and had no idea where he was. I was going to kill them… but I stopped for two reasons. The first reason is that they’re lying about not knowing anything. They would abandon him at an orphanage, but they would never give up the upper hand. The second reason is that I just found out that I wasn’t a killer. When I find Scott, I don’t want to be a killer.”

  “That’s a good reason. Did they say what orphanage?”

  “I forced it out of them. They dropped him off without telling anyone his name. I don’t know what he looks like, where he is, or even what name they gave him. He won’t even have the right birthday.”

  “There’re no fingerprint records or anything?”

  “He wasn’t born in the United States, but my mother took him to an orphanage in Arizona.”

  “How did she get him over the boarder?”

  “I have no idea. I went to that orphanage, but it had burned down and all the records of fostered and adopted kids were destroyed. There were some records of children who were moved to other orphanages, but none of them matched Scott.”

  “Babies are usually immediately adopted. There’s a big chance there was already a waiting list and Scott was adopted out before they could even put him in a crib. If he was adopted, he might be in a loving home.”

  “I know that, but he might also be a shifter.”

  “Okay. We have a week before the new semester starts. In the morning, we’ll go find---”

  “No,” he interrupted. “The council is very suspicious of us and Darwin, so they’ll be watching us. There’s also the shadow man. Unless we know for sure he’s in danger, I think it is best we wait until we’re not being watched.”

  * * *

  I groaned when my phone rang. After learning that I was a wizard, I started waking later in the morning and bought in some good blackout curtains. The phone screen was too bright because my e
yes were adjusted to the dark, so I grabbed it and answered it without looking.

  “Hello?”

  “You need to watch your back.”

  I checked the screen, surprised that there was a number, although I didn’t recognize it. “What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up. I recognized Marcus’s voice.

  “You know that problem I had a few months ago?”

  “Yeah.” Someone was following him, but he never called me for help, so I assumed he handled it.

  “Well, the problem found me. Three of my good friends were injured and six more are missing. Everyone who knows me is getting attacked.”

  “What about your computer?”

  “Destroyed. My house blew up with me in it.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “Not just yet. I’m going to try to disappear again, but I’ll find you if I need you. I have to go.”

  “Wait, one thing first---”

  “It’s in the mail. If you happen to meet---” he was cut off as the line went dead.

  Before I could set the phone down, it rang again. The number was different. “Hello?” I said when I answered it.

  “Morning, Devon. This is Cindy. Did I wake you?”

  Cindy was one of the people who told me about Quintessence before I ever got involved with John. She had hired me quite a few times to hunt down and buy some very rare magic books. “Morning. No, I’m up. Do you need another book?”

  “Actually, I heard you got involved with the craft yourself.”

  “I seem to have lost my anonymity.”

  She laughed. “Only in the paranormal community. That’s what I’m calling about. Something supernatural is happening here and I don’t know anyone else who would believe me let alone be able to help. My sister’s husband was attacked… by bees. He was hospitalized with a severe reaction to bee stings.”

  “Okay, how is that supernatural?”

  “Because four witnesses said there were no bees.”

  “What’s her address?”