Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) (24 page)

It slammed toward Malle with the
most force I had ever used. I braced for impact, knowing I would have to keep
shoving magic at her. Behind me I could hear Sip or Lisabelle cry out. I
ignored them.

For Lanca, I thought, who is gone
and just wanted to take care of her family. For everyone else hurt today and
for everyone else who is afraid. Especially for my kindred who were murdered. I
will not die like you.

Malle was surprised by my attack,
but the moment of surprise was not enough. My magic slammed into a solid wall
of invisible glass and bounced back at me. It was not something I had trained
for. With a cry I threw myself sideways, narrowly avoiding dying by my own
magic.

Luckily, my ring knew more than I
did. With the ancient centuries of wisdom it sucked my magic back into itself,
redoubling the power. I felt my hand start to throb as my body moved and
stretched to take in the old power even as it was newly formed.

I tried to scramble to my feet as
Malle came on, her eyes intent on the kill.

My heart beat wildly, but I
wasn’t fast enough.

I had only ever seen darkness
magic from Lisabelle, and hers was a black river of power.

Malle’s was too dark to be black.
In it there was a lacing of heavy scarlet, like the velvet drapes that
surrounded us, thick and nearly solid. I had never seen anything like it as it
hurtled toward me, threatening to envelop me as surely as a grave.

Sip and Lisabelle, behind me,
were not fast enough to save me. I wasn’t sure that Lisabelle could have helped
in any case, since darkness called to darkness.

But Lough came to my rescue as
only a dream giver could. He slid down next to me, one inelegant motion that
was basically falling in a heap at my knees, weaving a beautiful dream as he
landed.

I stared in wonder as Malle’s
magic, now a thick hammer crashing down toward my head, slammed into a shield
as colorful as a rainbow, as strong as granite, and as clear as water.

Lough was tottering to his knees,
holding his hand, ring first, in front of us. Sweat had already broken out on
his brow as the evil hammer slammed down again and again. Every time it hit,
his rainbow lost a color and the dream lost hope. The hammer was relentless and
I looked helplessly on as Malle came forward, her magic only seeming to grow in
strength as Lough’s faded, darkness eating goodness.

I didn’t know what else to do, so
I grabbed Lough’s free hand. My touch invigorated his tired eyes and his back
went from slumped to razor straight. Eyes that had stopped seeing cleared and
focused in front of us, and his dream came back to life in a brilliant array of
power.

Dream givers were not useless
after all.

Above our heads the hammer, now
as big as a dragon’s head, raised high, soaring into the air with the black,
starless night behind it. For the briefest second everything was still and my
breath caught. In a terrible way it was beautiful.

Then the hammer came down with
enough force to split the world.

Lough’s dream broke and shattered
into a million pieces, like Lanca’s hope for the future, like my mom’s wish to
spend her life with her children, like Lambros trying to protect her students,
like the elementals’ wish to live.

Dreams and dear ones do not
protect you from the inexorable death that the demons bring, and I was next.

Lough gave a cry and collapsed to
the ground.

I scrambled to my feet, ready to
put the last of my strength into a last stand, but before I could rejoin the
fight the hall broke into chaos around me. Pixies swooped down, darkness mages
tossed back their hoods and cloaks and jackets and attacked, fallen angels
shone and took flight, every paranormal of Airlee started to fight. Paranormals
scattered in every direction. I gasped as Malle’s hammer disappeared in the chaos,
but before I could do anything else rough hands grabbed me around the shoulders
and yanked me backward.

Without another thought we ran.

There was so much magic flying
around us that it was hard to see, let alone leave the circular hall safely.

I stumbled and nearly fell again.
Lough was close behind me, so I reached around the strong body pulling me away
and grabbed his sleeve. He looked dazed and his eyes were watering, probably
from the sudden shattering of his dream.

I should have fought the hands
dragging me away: because Malle was my fight, and because I was being dragged
into danger and certainly as I was being dragged away from it. I owed Malle
death, but I just didn’t have the strength. Instead of fighting to get free, I
held onto Lough as tightly as I could, feeling my fingers dig into the fabric
of his sleeve. I hoped there would be more fight in me tomorrow than there was
now. At the moment I was just tired and afraid.

We kept moving down. Locke was a
massive mountain that I had not even begun to explore, and except for the
training hall and Keller’s and my strange prison experience the day before -
was it really only the day before? - I had no image of what might lie below us.
I had assumed it was private vampire quarters that I would never visit, but as
we kept going down I realized that private vampire quarters was exactly where
we were headed.

The air got colder and less
sticky, the smells changed. There was a tangy sweetness, almost like blood and
the smell of metal. I sniffed and then coughed.

“We’re almost there,” came a
familiar male voice. Heat rushed through my body, awakening tired limbs and
lighting a fire in my heart. Relief broke open like a blossom inside my mind
and released a tension I had not realized I held. Keller had come back to me.

“Okay,” Lough wheezed. “I would
say this sucks, except that I just faced the demon queen.” I had not heard the
term applied to Malle before, but I had a feeling this would not be the last
time anyone used it in that way.

I heard a heavy door open, the
scraping of metal. I felt like I was going through a portal into safety, even
if I had yet to open my eyes. I let myself sag, my back scraping against a
rough rock wall. I did not care.

Keller let me fall, gently, until
I was curled up with my chin between my knees. Then his hands let go,
carefully, as he always held me.

I heard several pairs of
footsteps shuffle past me into a space that echoed like a cavern. The sound was
muffled, because my face was buried, and then it faded away. Wanting to block
out the world, I wrapped my arms around my head to cover my ears. I tried
desperately not to think.

Remembering was the enemy of
sanity.

I heard the creaking of hinges,
the scrape of metal on rock, and the slamming of something heavy and solid. It
was quieter after the door closed. My mind refused to think about what had
happened to all the other paranormals in the hall. I had left them to be
attacked by darkness. What had Malle called them? Ah, Nocturns.

I don’t know how long I stayed in
my position on the floor, but eventually I felt a hand on my shoulder. By some
sixth sense I knew it was Lisabelle. Of course she was there. She and Sip would
not have allowed us to be separated.

“Charlotte? You should eat
something.” Her voice was as soft as I had ever heard it, just like the times
when Sip had been hurt and unconscious and Lisabelle did not want Sip to know
how much she cared about the little werewolf. It made me smile to know that she
cared about me almost as much.

“Okay,” I breathed. But the
moment I moved, the moment I acknowledged I was alive, memories flooded me of
the powers of darkness slamming overhead and Malle’s threat to kill me.

“Don’t worry,” said Lough as I
opened my eyes. “We won’t kill you.”

It was a feeble joke, but it
broke the tension.

“Where are we?” I asked, looking
around, bleary-eyed. The cavern was black with spots of light unevenly spaced.
The specs of light were lamps, but they didn’t do much to push away the
darkness. I also saw black mounds in neat little rows, so many they disappeared
into the distance.

“Crypt,” said Lough cheerfully,
noticing where my eyes went. “Vampires have crypts. We thought it was a safe
place to take refuge in.” He waved his hand around to encompass the thirty or
forty paranormals gathered there, among whom I saw many friendly faces. Sip and
Lisabelle were there, of course. Keller was there, talking quietly to Mrs.
Quest and Mr. Quest and Lough’s parents. Dobrov and Rake were also there. I
looked for Vital, but he had not made it. There were several other vampires,
but Rake was the only one who looked familiar.

“Are there vampires here?” I
asked. My voice sounded high even to my own ears. Maybe the paranormals who
were with us now were trustworthy, but the ones in the crypts might not be.
Lanca had warned us that even the Rapiers were untrustworthy.

“There are no vampires in the
crypts,” Rake assured me, lumbering over, his large eyes searching my face. I
saw nothing but kindness looking back at me and smiled despite my tiredness and
my fear.

“Do you need anything?” Rake
asked. It took us all a heartbeat to realize that he was talking to Sip. Her
eyes widened in surprise before she told him that she was fine.

“Where do the vampires stand
now?” I said.

 “There are power struggles all
the time. Before now there was respect, but after King Daemon’s murder no one
trusts anyone else. Lanca’s marriage could have solidified shaky relations with
one of the other sects, in fact it would have been a brilliant move on her
part, but now. . .” Dobrov explained.

“What happened to everyone else?”
I asked softly, scarcely daring to meet my friends’ eyes.

“We’re not sure yet,” said
Lisabelle quietly. “We think a lot got out, but . . . we’re just not sure yet.”

“Will Dirr be queen now that
Lanca is . . . ?” Lough choked, unable to finish the sentence.

No one answered, but Dobrov just
shook his head sadly. Somehow he had managed to avoid any of the blast residue,
probably because, as he had explained, he didn’t really care about the
coronation and had been standing in the back.

“I think we are past that,” said
Dobrov carefully. “The paranormal realm is in chaos. We left before we saw the
end result, but it’s entirely possible that the darkness mages, Nocturns, as
they’re now styling themselves, are still fighting in the hall. And let me be
honest, we have no idea where Dirr is.”

“She must be with Vital,” I
murmured. “He wouldn’t leave her if he could help it.”

“He might be dead,” said
Lisabelle, rubbing her temples. “We just don’t know.”

“Malle must have a goal.” Dobrov
said. “What is it?”

I exchanged looks with my
friends, but I wasn’t ready to tell Dobrov that I knew exactly what Malle was
after. Besides my death, she wanted the Fang, and she had engineered everything
so that she could get it.

“So, what’s the plan?” Rake
asked, ignoring Dobrov.

“Rest,” said Keller, coming over.
We all turned to look at him. The other paranormals, including Sip’s parents,
quieted to listen. He wore respect as easily as most people wore shoes and
jackets. It is who he is, I realized. He was raised to lead and he will. I
wanted to melt into his arms, but I resisted going to pieces like a love-sick
girl. I would never hear the end of it from Lisabelle if I acted that way.

“There’s a paranormal war going
on upstairs and one of our - your - best friends was just murdered. And you
want to chill in a crypt?” Lisabelle asked, incredulous.

“We have to rest,” Keller
repeated, his eyes serious as they flicked to me. When no one said anything
Lisabelle took a deep breath, ready to argue, but then Sip stepped in. She
looked as tired as I felt.

“Keller is right,” she said. “But
are you sure we’re safe down here?” Her pale face filled with worry.

Keller nodded. “Rapier power is
strongest here and the Rapiers are on our side. Mostly. Darkness mages would
never make it down this far alive.”

“What about, like, pixies?”
Lisabelle asked. “They’re not exactly fans of ours, and the little buggers just
won’t die.”

“No,” said Keller, “but I don’t
think they’ll try it. Not tonight, anyway.”

“Even with Charlotte here?” Lough
asked. “We have to keep Charlotte safe.”

I sighed. I didn’t like the fact
that that was his goal.

“I should go up,” I said, so
tired I was almost swaying. “I don’t know why you brought me down here in the
first place.” I glared around at no one in particular.

“Are you joking?” Lisabelle asked
incredulously. “Of course we brought you down here. You can’t go back up.”

“I can and I will,” I said,
almost frantically. I stared around at my friends, at everyone else who would
die protecting me.

“This is not your fight. It’s
mine. I can’t have you risking your lives for me. I don’t want to die, but I
want you all to die even less.” My voice broke.

Sip shook her head. “Charlotte,”
she said, softly coming over, “I’m used to saying this to Lisabelle, but I will
say it to you, too. You are totally wrong and missing the point.”