Bishop's Flight: A Paranormal Mystery Romance (Elemental Covenant Book 4)

Four nights. Three days. The human son of two powerful vampires has been taken from his home, and if Carwyn and Brigid can’t find him, the delicate balance of power in an immortal haven might just go up in flames.

Las Vegas holds a special appeal in the immortal world. It’s a city of darkness, debauchery, and vice; a city where inhibitions are low and blood runs hot.

Rose Di Marco and Agnes Wong have been running this city as immortal bosses for nearly a century, but when their son is kidnapped, they turn to their neighbors for help.

Carwyn and Brigid know how to find the lost, but what they don’t know is why Zasha Sokholov, a Siberian fire vampire and offshoot of an old crime family, became fixated on them. Carwyn has his suspicions, but all Brigid can think about is a fifteen-year-old boy who’s been taken as bait. She’ll need a clear head and the help of some unexpected allies to find him.

Bishop’s Flight is the fourth book in the Elemental Covenant series by Elizabeth Hunter, ten-time USA Today Bestselling author of the Irin Chronicles and the Elemental Mysteries.

“We may try to run from our past, but it finds us. We can put continents—even millennia—between us, but in the end, the sins of the fathers will come back to visit.”

Chapter One

Rebecca Garcia O’Hara exited the freeway onto Flamingo Drive and headed west, her trusty minivan joining the last dregs of revelers early on Monday. The roads near the Strip were mostly clear. After all, it was eight in the morning, not at night.

“Mama?” Her two-year-old daughter Anna spoke from her car seat in the back. “Anis and Wose?”

“Yes, baby, we’re going to Aunt Agnes and Aunt Rose’s house today. You’re going to work with Mommy because Cece has the week off, remember?”

“Dey wake up?”

Lucas piped up to answer her question. “They aren’t awake during the day, remember, Anna? They’re asleep because they’re different from us.”

Rebecca smiled. Her children understood as much about vampires as was safe for them to know. It was hard for her not to explain everything to bright and curious Lucas, but Anna was still a baby. She accepted what her mama told her even if it meant missing out on her two favorite people… vampires. People. They were people first.

It had been a shock and a process she’d had to work through when she first discovered the truth while working at the casino. She’d been nothing more than a housekeeper until she’d stumbled onto Rose feeding on a problem guest in a room she’d been sent to clean.

Rebecca had been certain she was going to die until the vampire with blood dripping down her chin noticed her seven-months-pregnant belly. Rose’s eyes had lit up and she’d cooed. “Ohhhh! When are you due?”

Life for the past six years had been one surprise after another.

Rebecca’s minivan wound through the sleepy streets until it went into the hills and reached the guard gate of the exclusive community where Agnes Wong and Rose Di Marco made their home.

Or rather, Rebecca made it for them and they enjoyed it.

Felix the guard stepped out of the guardhouse and peeked at the kids. “Hey, guys! You going to work with mom today? Hey, Rebecca.”

“Hey, Felix.” She waited for the gate to slowly open. “How’s Tiffany?”

“She’s good!” Felix bent down to Rebecca’s window. “I heard that you and the kids were going to be moving in with Agnes and Rose—is that right?”

Rebecca put a finger to her lips and nodded to Lucas. “It’s possible they finally convinced me.” She kept her voice low. “There are some empty rooms on the second floor that might be occupied soon.”

“I feel like you already live here.” Felix laughed.

“That could be how they convinced me.” She smiled. “They kept adding hours to my day.”

It was partly true.

Felix waved her through, and Lucas and Anna waved their little hands.

“See you later, Felix!”

“Bye, guys!” The friendly guard grew smaller in her side mirror as Rebecca pulled into the lush and private gated community where Agnes and Rose lived. Where she would live soon. They were the last house in the corner of the neighborhood, butting up to the edge of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

Agnes had told her once that it was important for her and Rose to be near open space. Rebecca wasn’t quite sure why, but she didn’t question it. She knew as much as she needed to about the vampire world of Las Vegas that Agnes and Rose managed, and she didn’t really want to know more.

Rebecca turned in to the side street next to the walled estate and hit the button for the automatic gate. She waited for the gate to close behind her, as Agnes had instructed, then pulled into her parking spot and got the kids out of the car.

“Mom, can I go play in the game room? I want to play chess.”

“By yourself?”

“Agnes probably made her moves on the boards.”

“Oh right; go ahead.”

Rose had made it clear that nothing in the house was off-limits for the kids except the usual things that would be unsafe for a child. The indoor pool, the sauna, and places like that. But her employers gave her the run of the house and made her children welcome too.

Once Agnes had taught Lucas chess, the game room was his favorite place to be. They had half a dozen chessboards set up on the game table, and they took turns making moves on each.

“Mama, I stay wit you.” Anna was wearing her pink backpack, but she’d already taken her stuffed yellow duck out to hold. “Me and Wack.”

“Oh good.” She picked Anna up and smooched her chubby cheek. “I was hoping you and Quack were going to keep me company.”

She started by checking any messages left that morning on the household line. There was one from the electrician about the dead outlets in Rose’s bathroom—a semiregular problem with vampires—and another one from the tree trimmer. She made notes to return both calls when the house cleaners arrived.

“Anis and Wose?” Anna was tugging on her leg.

“Yes, baby, we’re going to Agnes and Rose’s room now.” She grabbed her cleaning supplies from the utility room off the kitchen, put on her apron, and let Anna lead the way.

While Rose and Agnes employed a team of cleaners to keep up their nearly ten-thousand-square-foot mansion, only Rebecca was allowed to clean their rooms while they slept for the day. It was a trust that Rebecca honored. She felt protective toward both the women; while they were deadly predators at night, during the day they were as vulnerable as Anna or Lucas.

She let the fingerprint scanner and retina scanner unlock the room, then poked her head in, being quiet even though she knew the women were essentially in a vampire coma.

Anna scurried into the room and immediately climbed up on the bed between the two women, Rose in an elaborate chiffon dressing gown and Agnes wearing what looked like a smoking jacket and a pair of velvet trousers.

Rebecca’s heart jumped for a moment, but then she took a breath.

“Hi, Anis.” The little girl kissed Agnes’s cold cheek; then she turned to Rose and lay down next to her. “Wose, I have Wack!” The little girl pressed the duck’s fuzzy face to the sleeping vampire’s cheek, and Rose’s hand moved with ghostly languor to stroke Anna’s soft brown hair.

Rebecca’s heart settled and she let out her breath.

It had happened the first time by accident. Anna had toddled into the room when her mother had been distracted, not understanding that her two doting vampire aunties were asleep. Rebecca had come from cleaning the second bathroom to find her daughter snuggled up with two vampires, Rose’s hand resting on Anna’s forehead.

She’d been horrified until Rose had told her she sensed Anna’s presence and it was comforting.

She set to cleaning the two bathrooms, the floor of the room, the dressers and dressing area, making sure to sort Rose’s delicate dresses and lingerie for the laundry maid to take care of.

There were three maids who cleaned the house from top to bottom every day, a gardener, and a cook. The full-time cook was new, and Rebecca suspected she had been part of the plan to lure her into living with them since Agnes and Rose ate very little besides blood.

Rebecca managed all the household staff, but Agnes and Rose had been trying to convince her to move in since Jason had died when she was pregnant with Anna.

Her late husband had been Rebecca’s childhood sweetheart, and he’d been working on his contractor’s license when he collapsed on a job site, his heart giving out from a previously unknown genetic defect.

Jason and Rebecca had both grown up in foster care. They were disconnected from any living family, so they were each other’s everything. They’d been kids on their own, in love and determined to make it without any help. It had been rough, but they’d been making progress. They got jobs and a shitty apartment. Then they got a better apartment. Then they got married. Then Lucas came and they were a little family of three.

Losing Jason had been devastating in a way that robbed Rebecca of words.

After his death, it had been Agnes and Rose who took care of her and Lucas, not the other way round.

Still, she hadn’t wanted to make any big changes right away. She’d stayed in their little two-bedroom condo in Henderson, the first place that had felt like her own home. She’d found a babysitter in the complex and had been promoted by Agnes and Rose to manage their house instead of clean at the casino.

Now she was making a salary she’d never even dreamed of and was going to live in a mansion.

Lucas popped his head in the bedroom just as Rebecca was finishing up and Anna was snoozing next to Rose.

“Mom, I think the cleaners are here.”

“Good,” she whispered even though she couldn’t wake the vampires. “I’ll grab Anna. Can you get my cleaning caddy?”

Always happy to have a job to do, Lucas perked up. “Sure!” He picked up her cleaning caddy with both hands while Rebecca went to get Anna from the bed.

“See you later,” she whispered to the sleeping vampires. “Anna, time to go. Let Agnes and Rose sleep.”

“Mama?” She lifted her arms, and Rebecca picked up her daughter and buried her nose in Anna’s sweet neck. Every now and then, she still smelled like a baby.

Or maybe that was Rose’s powdery perfume.

Rebecca fluffed the pillows on the couch one more time, then set the automatic lights to begin their cycle at dusk, simulating dawn for the waking vampires.

“Okay, baby, let’s go get you some breakfast from Mrs. Scott.”

“Okay.”

-------------------------------------

Rebecca was exhausted. It was almost nine by the time she loaded Lucas and Anna in the minivan. The cleaners had finished at six, Agnes and Rose had woken a little after, and they’d had dinner together that Mrs. Scott prepared.

Agnes and Rebecca had made a schedule for the move, and then Rebecca had finally announced it to the kids, who were both ecstatic when they found out they were getting their own rooms.

Then it was movies and ice cream. Rebecca was desperate to go home, but she didn’t want to spoil the kids’ time with their favorite aunts or their excitement exploring the rooms that Agnes and Rose had set aside for them.

It wasn’t just three bedrooms—it was three bedrooms with a small kitchenette, two bathrooms, and a living room that was private. It was like a small apartment within the house, and Rebecca knew she and the kids would be comfortable.

It was just a big change.

She was yawning and Anna was asleep in her car seat by the time they pulled onto Flamingo Drive and headed back to Henderson.

“Mom, are we going to learn how to swim when we live in Agnes and Rose’s house?”

“That will be one of the first things we do because you and your sister both need to be pool safe even though there’s a lock on the pool-house door.”

“Will I have chores like I do at home?”

“Of course.”

“What?” He sounded shocked. “I can’t empty all those trash cans!”

Rebecca laughed. “You won’t have to empty all the trash cans in the whole house, baby. Just the ones in our little house.”

“Oh. Okay.” Lucas yawned too. “Are Agnes and Rose our real aunts?”

“They’re real aunts because they care about you and love you,” Rebecca said. “But your daddy and I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so you don’t have any aunts or uncles like that.”

“Why didn’t you and dad have any brothers or sisters?”

Because my mother was a drug addict and killed my baby brother and I couldn’t save him.

The blackness threatened to leap into her mind. She focused on the road. Lucas was too young to understand anything about that. If she could help it, he would never know about her mother in prison. She had no idea who her father was.

“We just didn’t, honey. We weren’t lucky like you and Anna.”

“I’m not lucky because she takes my toys and doesn’t put them back.”

Lucas was naturally tidy like Rebecca, but she could already tell that Anna took after Jason and his chaotic love of clutter.

She turned onto the highway and merged into southbound traffic, which was scattered.

“Anna is little, so she doesn’t really understand the difference between your things and her things, baby. She just thinks you share everything.”

“But I’m going to have my own room soon.”

She saw him smile in the rearview mirror. “Are you excited?”

“Yes. Agnes and I can play chess every night.”

Rebecca laughed. “So you’re most excited about the chess?”

“Yes, I think—”

The sound of Lucas’s voice was cut off by the screech of tires and a rush of air. The road in front of her didn’t make sense. There were headlights coming right at her, blinding her from seeing what was happening.

“Mom!”

Her breath caught and she jerked her wheel to the right, trying to avoid the oncoming headlights. The impact hit the car on the front edge of the minivan, and there was a popping sound in her ears as the airbags exploded and the car began to spin. She tried to right it, but everything was happening too fast.

No! Her babies! God, please no!

“Mommy?” Lucas was shrieking.

“It’s gonna be okay, baby!” It wasn’t going to be okay. “Mommy is here.”

Time seemed to slow. Rebecca felt someone grab her hand and looked over to see Jason sitting next to her in the car. “Jason?”

He squeezed her hand and smiled. “It’s going to be okay, Becca.”

The car was spinning, spinning, spinning. “The kids.”

“They’re going to be okay. I promise you.” He kept his hand in hers as the baby started to cry and Lucas’s voice grew panicked.

“Mommy!”

“It’s okay, baby!”

“Agnes and Rose will take care of them. They’re going to be safe.”

“Jason.” The darkness was approaching. She could see the wall of black as the car spun inevitably toward the overpass. “Jason.”

“It’s okay, Becca.” He was whispering. “I promise they’re going to be okay.”

“I love you so much.”

Everything went black.