Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) (19 page)

“Mind if I come back to your room
with you for a while?” Dobrov asked Lough. “I’ll be quiet,” he added when he
saw Lough start to squirm.

“Like you’re ever anything else,”
said Sip, laughing.

Lough nodded, looking resigned.

We were almost back to our
apartment when Sip gave a little cry and covered mouth with her hand. Hanging
in front of us was something that was white and a dull copper color.

The puppy was dead, hanging by
its tail, which looked battered. His face was bashed in and his white coat was
covered in blood and black dirt. Sip stuck her face into Lisabelle’s shoulder
and my friend wrapped her arms around the shorter girl as Sip cried quietly.

“I feel sick,” Sip said, pulling
away from Lisabelle to reveal a tear-stained face.

“Darkness,” said Lisabelle,
patting her on the back comfortingly. “It has risen.”

Once Sip, Lisabelle, and I were
safely back in our own room we performed the debug spell again, just in case.
There were no new smoke curls.

“Well, that’s a relief,” said
Sip. “I hate it when my good work is undone.”

“Your good work?” Lisabelle
asked, eyes flashing in amusement.

“I mean, you helped,” said Sip
generously.

“I’m going to bed,” I said. None
of us talked about the puppy, but it had clearly been a message to us: Faci was
warning us to mind our own business. Obviously he did not know Lisabelle well.

I couldn’t stay awake any longer
waiting for Keller. I crept into my dark room and banged the door shut behind
me as Lisabelle and Sip stared after me questioningly.

There were no windows in my room.
It was so dark I couldn’t even see my dresser, and I didn’t bother with the
light, I just pulled my covers back enough so that I could crawl under them and
forget the paranormal world. I got in, pulled the blankets up to my chin, and
closed my eyes. Soon I fell into a deep, deep sleep.

My dreams were uneasy. When I
woke up in the morning I wondered if they had been dreams at all, or something
more real.

I stood in a long, angular room
with strange muted light coming from each corner. My body wanted to walk toward
the light, but my mind shouted at me not to move. Overhead, exactly in the
middle of the room, was a black chandelier with dozens of ornate branches
cascading outward, its lamps giving the room an eerie glow.

The carpet was checkered black
and copper and I found myself trying to avoid standing on the copper squares.
They reminded me of the puppy’s blood.

Over and over again I just
repeated to myself: Do not move.

The walls were covered in peeling
black wallpaper and the room smelled faintly of wet books and rot, as if it had
once been a library but had been cleared out and deserted.

In front of me stood a hooded
figure, its head bent low. All I could see were her hands. They were gnarled
and contorted, as if she had suffered a serious illness and never fully
recovered. With her wide bony shoulders and a thin, long body, I had the
impression that she had been partially sucked through a tube and gotten stuck
partway along.

Finally, the gaunt figure looked
up. But I already knew who it was.

Hollow, entirely black eyes
looked at me, and I couldn’t look away. I was rooted to the spot, like an
ancient tree that had been there for centuries.

Her nose was beak-like and the
skin around her lips was pinched, making it look as if her face was being
sucked into a vortex that was pulling at her nose.

“Malle,” I said tonelessly,
flinching as my voice rang through the hall. I didn’t want to wake the soundly
sleeping shadows.

“At last we meet again,” she
rasped. I tried not to wince at the grating sound of her voice.

“Can’t tell you how much I’ve
been looking forward to it,” I said, as dryly as I possibly could.

Her lips carved upward in what
might have been her version of a smile, but which in reality just looked as if
someone had taken her face and slashed it in half, leaving a gaping,
tooth-filled red hole.

“I wanted to meet you here,” said
President Malle, waving her hand around listlessly.

“What happened to you?” I asked.
There was no point in beating around the bush. The last time I had seen her she
had been a middle-aged woman in very good condition, and now she looked
disgusting and horrible.

“Wielding power changes you,”
said President Malle. Her voice had no inflection. She didn’t appear to care
that she was a shell of her former self.
“
I control the demon depths. I
control the hell in the hellhounds. We become Nocturn. You cannot expect your
body to survive the battering unscathed.”

“Right,” I muttered, trying very
carefully to check my ring to see if it was ready. I didn’t know what I was
doing there, but given Malle’s desire to see me dead it couldn’t hurt to be
ready. The only problem was that I didn’t know where “there” was, or if I was
really there or only my dream self was there. I would have to ask Lough, if I
ever saw Lough again.

“Someday you’ll understand,” said
Malle, her voice like gravel on sandpaper. “You have immense power. You have
only just begun to realize it and you have not taken advantage of it at all.
But one day the paranormals will push you too far, and then you will. That will
be an interesting day. If you live to see it, which I will try to make sure you
don’t.”

“I will never understand how you
can be so power-hungry that you would kill innocent paranormals,” I spat.
“Especially my mother.”

“Ah, yes, that, you are still
bitter about it, I see,” Malle said, shaking her head sadly, as if she believed
that if I only understood, then I wouldn’t hate her.

Black fire started to curl around
her, thick and solid, with long reaching tendrils. My eyes searched for the
orange, yellow, reds, and blues of normal fire, but I saw none. It was as if
someone had taken orange fire and painted it a thick black. I had a feeling
that if any of that fire touched me it would burn me alive, but as it licked at
President Malle’s feet there was no reaction except a slight, sick smile.

“What do you want with me, then?”
I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“I just want you dead,” she said,
her eyes hollow. “It is only a matter of time.”

“You have failed so far,” I
pointed out, feeling the need to hold my own. My mind was racing. I needed to
get back to my bed, wherever that was.

Malle took two steps toward me;
watching her walk was painful. She sort of hobbled, her knees clearly almost
incapable of supporting her weight.

“I don’t think you understand,”
she said, her sickly smile still in place. “I will not kill you for a long
time. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it would be nice to see you dead tomorrow,
but I can be patient. I have waited most of my life for the events that we are
currently in the middle of to transpire. I can wait a while longer. What I
am
going to do is make you suffer.
You have friends, dear ones, yes?”

My blood ran cold.

She saw my fury in my face,
because her smile widened.

“Yes, you do,” she murmured. “Everyone
has a button, a trigger, something to push. I just have to find out what it is.
You have a boyfriend, yes?”

Time slowed. I was still in the
strange place, staring at the woman who used to be the President of Public and
was now a black shadow of her former self. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind
I was aware that this was a dream - I would have to ask Lough what kind - and
that I would wake up back in the apartment I shared with Sip and Lisabelle. But
at this moment all I could think about was wrapping my small hands around her
thin, yellowed neck and squeezing until every vein in her eyes popped and blood
dripped down her cheeks like water. I had never wanted to kill something so
much as I wanted to kill Malle in that moment.

Blood pounded in my ears,
sounding like great gongs and a million drums beating in furious unison.

Without even realizing what I was
doing I lunched forward, my hands outstretched like claws. I imagined I was a
great bird with talons flying toward my prey, intent on the kill. I saw hot
blood and felt skin rip. I screamed as I fell to the hard floor. My shoulder
slammed into granite and my fingers, caught under my arm, were crushed and
bruised. The stone was so hard that I bounced off it.

“You think you can just attack
me?” The President’s voice echoed around me, through me, vibrating in my
eardrums. I held my bruised hands up to my head and tried to block out the
noise, but there was no escaping it.

I cried out and rolled, but the
President followed me. I had made the mistake of jumping toward her, and now
that I was within arm’s reach she chased me. I rolled and rolled and rolled
again.

“I’m coming for him. Do you know
where he is now? Everything you ever loved will be dead. That I can promise
you. Did you learn nothing from what happened to your parents? I do not allow
happiness. There is no light. I will have no light. You will die and die again.
I will stick Keller like a pig on a spit. I will hang him upside down by his
insides and watch him cry out for you, while you are helpless. He will die. He
will die. He will die.”

I continued to roll, crying out,
as Malle followed me, screaming at the top of her lungs. All I wanted was to
wake up from the nightmare.

“WAKE UP, YOU IDIOT. SHEESH!”

Lisabelle’s voice entered my
consciousness. I felt arms tangle with mine, trying to stop my frantic rolling.
Another pair of hands, smaller, grabbed my ankles.

“What a racket. It’s like Sip
every night, only more contained,” Lisabelle muttered again.

“I don’t roll,” said Sip indignantly.
“I glide.”

I stopped, realizing that I was
in bed in my own apartment, with my two best friends - whose lives had just
been threatened - trying to calm me down.

“She might be able to hear you
better if you took her hands away from her ears.”

Sip had a point. Her voice was
coming through muffled.

“She has a vise-like grip at the
moment,” said Lisabelle. “I’m sure once she realizes I’m here she’ll calm
down.”

“My presence is more soothing
than yours,” said Sip. She was dressed in an oversized white sweatshirt and
purple sweatpants, while Lisabelle was in head-to-toe black. Sip’s hair was a
tousled mess, while Lisabelle’s was pulled back into a severe bun.

“Not if you’re talking. You’re
like a never ending jack-in-the-box. Every time I think I have a handle on you,
you just pop up again.”

“Can you two just have a normal
conversation for once?” I said, glaring at the werewolf and the darkness mage.

“This is a normal conversation
for us,” said Lisabelle. “You wouldn’t want us to be boring, would you?”

“Actually, I would love it if you
were boring,” I said. “Boring would be great.”

“Well, you can’t have
everything,” said Lisabelle, without missing a beat.

“What happened?” Sip asked as she
handed me a glass of water. I drank greedily, trying to keep down the bile that
kept rising up from my stomach. When the glass was empty Sip took it back,
worry clear in her purple eyes.

“I’ll tell you,” I said, taking
deep breaths, “but Lough should be here.”

“I’ll get him,” said Lisabelle,
getting up. “Stay here.”

“Like we’d go anywhere without
you. We need to perfect communicating without being together,” Sip commented
thoughtfully.

“We could,” said Lisabelle,
rubbing her chin. “But there are usually too many magical protections in the
places where we hang out to make it an effective use of our time.”

Sip nodded, chewing on her lip.

Lisabelle came back with Lough in
record time. While she was gone Sip made sure I was comfortable. “I’m not an
invalid,” I said hotly. “I just had a bad dream. I think.”

Lough followed Lisabelle into my
bedroom, covering a big yawn with the back of his hand as he looked at us
groggily.

“Good evening,” he said,
grinning. “This better be good. I’ve never had such a fright.”

“Who says fright under the age of
eighty?” Lisabelle asked.

“Friends of yours who you wake up
from sleep by towering over them all in black,” said Lough. “What happened? Are
you okay?” he asked, looking at me, blinking several times to clear the sleep
from his eyes.

“I’m fine, but I had a dream,” I
said, and taking a deep breath I started to talk.

Lough took the seat in the corner
while Sip and Lisabelle perched on my bed, listening intently.

Lough’s face instantly clouded
when I started to tell him about my “dream,” and it got worse from there.
Eventually his frown was so deep and his eyes were so thick with concern that I
had to stop looking at him while I talked. Sip gasped occasionally, and
Lisabelle, at the point when President Malle threatened my loved ones, made a
noise like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. Otherwise my friends were
quiet.