Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) (21 page)

“HEY!” Lisabelle yelled from
where she was grappling with Vital. “Hurt her and die.”

Sip, too, was losing her battle.
The vampire was on top of her, even as the werewolf twisted and howled wildly,
trying to dig her claws into his flesh and buck him at the same time. At least
she didn’t look like she was in pain.

But Lisabelle’s concern for us
was punished by Vital, who slammed her to the ground for her break in
concentration. Watching her fall, I suddenly realized that my friends weren’t
fighting the way they should be - because they were worried about me. That was
stupid. They needed to protect themselves.

Dirr was the only one holding her
own, but she was sweating, whereas her opponent didn’t even look winded. He
looked as if he could go on for days. I was not sure how much longer Dirr could
last.

I pushed my vampire away from the
others, expanding the fight to the rest of the cavernous training yard. Once I
was out of my friends’ sight lines they would be forced to concentrate on their
own battles and not worry about mine.

I also needed a sword.

My vampire realized where I was
pushing him and started rolling and dodging, trying to steer us away from where
I wanted us to go. But instead he steered us right toward the cleavers.

He was getting sloppy, having
realized that I had never really fought before, so on his next swing at me I
waited until his blade struck the ground. I took the risk and lunged, knocking
the sword out of his hand and forcing him to scramble backward to retrieve it.

While he did, I sprang to my feet
and yanked one of the cleavers out of its holding rack, the loud clang as it
came free ringing in my ears.

I had never held a cleaver
before, and it felt heavy in my hands, and good as I hefted it. I would need
all my strength and some of my magic to do wield it. Just add it to the list of
things I had never thought I would do.

Now I had a weapon, but what on
earth was I going to do with it?

Fumbling, I didn’t see the
vampire raise the sword to strike again.

Before he could bring it down, a
blow that would almost surely have severed my hand, I heard more than saw a
knife come flying through the hair, and then I heard a sharp clang as my
opponent’s sword went flying for a second time.

Dirr had thrown her own knife to
knock the sword away. If we had been in a real fight she would just have saved
my life, or at least my hands from being severed.

I quickly turned the cleaver in
my hand. Maybe I wasn’t graceful, but anyone could take something heavy and
smack someone with it - a good life lesson right there, I thought grimly.

It was a lesson I put into
practice immediately. The vampire was so busy paying attention to his sword and
Dirr that he didn’t see me coming. I swung my arms back, feeling my muscles
protesting the movement. It was harder to swing the cleaver forward than I had
thought it would be, but the thud when I connected with my opponent’s jaw was
endlessly satisfying. Vampire bodies were hard, and hitting his jaw with my
metal weapon sent vibrations all the way through my arms to my toes. I hung on
as long as I could, but I was finally forced to drop the weapon.

It fell heavily to the ground as
the vampire staggered backwards. Behind me, where my friends were fighting, I
heard yelling, but it took me a second to gather my wits and see what was
happening.

“Dirr!! DAMNIT.” Vital’s voice
rang through the training hall, slamming into the walls and reverberating back.
I wanted to cover my ears, but I didn’t want to look weak in front of Lanca’s
followers.

“WHAT?” Dirr yelled back. She
wasn’t going to back down an inch. Well, of course she wasn’t, she was Lanca’s
sister.

“You can’t put yourself in danger
like that,” Vital yelled. He was furious. His eyes were bulging out of his head
and I could see the rise and fall of his chest from here. He was vibrating with
anger, but I felt sure there was something else there, something underneath all
of that: fear. It was fear for Dirr, of course, but she was so angry at being
yelled at that she didn’t appear to see it.

He marched over to her, waving
his own knife. I stood and watched, fascinated, as the much taller vampire
towered over the teenage princess.

“She was in danger,” Dirr
screamed back, her tiny fists balled at her sides. “He was chopping about like
a madman.”

“You are a PRINCESS! It is not
your place to protect paranormals,” Vital yelled back.

“She was in danger,” Dirr
repeated, standing on her tiptoes to yell back. “I was not going to sit by and
watch.”

“It is not your place,” he
repeated. “Your sister would never forgive me if something happened to you.”

“If it is not my place to protect
Charlotte than it is not your place to protect me,” Dirr shot back. By now the
rest of us had gathered around to watch the argument. Vital was about to say
something else when Dirr added, “And I would argue that it is all of our places
to protect Charlotte.”

That stopped Vital. He looked at
me clearly. He knew what I was - who I was and how important I was to the
paranormals and the Power of Five, and therefore how badly the demons wanted me
dead.

“There are others to protect
her,” said Lisabelle quietly. “Sip and I have already made that clear. It’s
difficult when Charlotte does stupid things and doesn’t let us keep her safe,
but we’re working on her about that.”

Dirr was still glaring at Vital.
“I will do as I please,” she said. Her chin jutted out stubbornly. “You cannot
stop me.”

“You might be strong and you
might be a princess, but don’t think for one second that I will not lock you
away in the deepest dungeon to protect you.”

“You just don’t get it, do you,”
Dirr said, still furious. It was a statement, not a question. “Men. Never. Do.
Amazing.”

“Aren’t you a little young to be
so jaded?” Sip asked kindly, like a mother hen worried about one of her chicks.

“In relation to men it never takes
long,” said Dirr. Her eyes darted to the light-haired vampire and I wondered if
he didn’t have something to do with her bitterness. “Anyway.”

“Yes, now that you’re finished
making sweeping statements about gender, please continue to yell at me,” Vital
invited, crossing his arms over his chest as if he had all the time in the
world. Dirr barely reached Vital’s shoulder. If I hadn’t seen what an
exceptional fighter she was, this interaction might have been funny.

“I think I will,” said Dirr
mulishly. “Charlotte is the only paranormal whom everyone wants to kill, and
whom we cannot allow to die.”

“I think everyone is an
exaggeration, isn’t it?” I asked, feeling a little squeamish all of a sudden.

“Not really,” said Dirr. “You
have a handful of friends, but everyone else hates you. According to the Tabble
they blame you for the demons, and of course the demons blame you for not
letting them rule the world. You’re getting it from all sides and not in a good
way. The fallen angels might like you except that you came up with the
brilliant idea of dating their Prince Charming, and now they hate you too. Well
done.”

“Please, don’t hold back on my
account,” I said weakly. “It’s only my life and my feelings.”

“I’m only being honest,” Dirr
snapped. “Vital must understand. If ever there was a paranormal who should have
others sacrifice on her behalf, it’s you. I realize that if, say, Lanca were to
sacrifice herself it would be terrible” - at the mention of Lanca’s name Vital
made a sort of strangled noise and struggled as if he were tied up - “but
that’s the way it is. There is a hierarchy.”

Dirr spun back to Vital and said
directly to him, “For someone who is willing to sacrifice himself, it’s a
wonder to me that you haven’t accepted that for other people. Like myself.”

“Leave the sacrificing to
others,” Vital suggested. His eyes burned as he looked at Dirr. “I don’t know
what you’re thinking, but your sister would not survive your death.”

Dirr’s face clouded and her eyes
dulled. “I don’t plan to die. I’m only telling you that if I ever have to
choose between Charlotte’s life and my own, it isn’t a choice.”

“We came around to that
conclusion a long time ago,” said Lisabelle, shrugging. “Does it make her a
less appealing friend? The whole, if we hang out we might have to die for you
thing? Sure, but let’s be honest, I need someone to eat lunch with and there
were no other takers.”

Sip turned to me and said, “What
Lisabelle is trying to say is that we care about you.”

“Lisabelle isn’t trying to say
anything,” said Lisabelle, “Boy do I hate talking in the third person. What I
said was that we understand how important you are to paranormals. So,
apparently, does Dirr.”

The four male vampires exchanged
looks. Vital looked a little bemused, while the two dark haired paranormals looked
worried. The blond one shook his head and said, “Women give me a headache.”
Dirr shot him a look that could have pulled the axes from their moorings, and
the vampire swallowed hard.

“Round two?” he asked in a
nervous voice.

“Bring it on,” said Sip, bouncing
onto the balls of her feet.

I readied my body, but my mind
was far, far away, thinking about what was to come. None of it was good.

We kept at it for most of the
day. Vital didn’t let us fight again. Instead, he trained us in basic combat.
It was unexpected, but welcome. Public focused almost exclusively on magic
skills, mostly ignoring fighting skills and rarely if ever combining the two.

As it turned out, putting both
together made you far more deadly. It also helped address strength imbalances
between male and female paranormals, because if a female knew how to use her
magic properly to give herself added strength, and a male she was fighting did
not, the female was better able to protect herself.

“I can’t move,” Lisabelle groaned,
doubling over and bracing her hands on her knees. She was winded, her breath
came in rasps, and her face was red. I had NEVER seen her face anything other
than pale.

“I need a shower before the
coronation,” said Sip, wiping her face. When our first battle had ended she had
transformed back into a werewolf. Now, in her human form again, she looked
almost as tired as Lisabelle.

At some point during the day we
had learned all the vampires’ names. They were all friends of Vital, vampires
he had known for years. Dirr never looked at Poss, the blond vampire, again
after the argument about protecting me. Vital ignored the two of them. Clearly
he was used to their spats.

Even though they looked nothing
alike, the other two vampires were brothers. The curly-haired one that Sip had
fought was Cover and his brother was Cove.

Cover was the talkative one,
while Cove, who had fought me, barely said three words the whole time.

Once we were finished we went our
separate ways to prepare for the coronation. It was time to watch Lanca become
queen of the Blood Throne.

“It’s a good thing Lanca thought
about my outfits,” I said, smoothing my hand over the blue silk tunic I wore.

Lisabelle entered. She wore a
black dress covered in ornate designs done in black thread. Her arms were
covered, but enough of her chest showed so that you could see the blood red
jewel she wore at her throat.

“Lisabelle, you look beautiful,”
Sip breathed. “I wish I could wear black.” She glared down at the brown jacket
and trousers she wore. “Or blue.” Even though I was showing signs of all the
elemental disciplines, my clothes were still blue, for water, and Sip loved
that color.

Tonight was the coronation. Once
Lanca was queen of the Blood Throne, her powers would increase threefold. All
her friends were relieved. The walk back to our rooms after our sparring
session with the vampires had been an uneasy one. We were all on edge.

We had seen no fallen angels;
they were apparently still hidden away together, and to my great frustration
that seemed to include Keller. But vampires were gathering for the night’s
events, and the four vampires with us were already very late. That just left
the other Airlees and the pixies.

At least I hadn’t seen Camilla
again, but I had a bad feeling I’d see her at the ceremony, and as usual it
wasn’t likely to be pleasant.

Other Airlees were quiet. Lough’s
family was heading to dinner when we went back to our rooms, and we waved.
Dobrov was still with them. He was clearly more inclined to avoid his own
family than I had expected.

The feeling of foreboding that
had grown inside my gut throughout the day was ready to burst. It was too
quiet.

There were no signs of the other
darkness mages, the ones on the side of the demons. They must have been put
somewhere out of sight of the rest of us, probably wherever President Malle
was.

“If you keep smoothing your hand
over your dress like that you’re going to wear out the fabric,” Lisabelle said.