Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) (25 page)

Lisabelle snorted.

“But I will explain it to you,”
Sip continued, undaunted. Lisabelle snorted again. Sip ignored her.

“We’re all in this together,
trite as that may sound. We always have been, and I have told you that from the
beginning. Lanca is dead and she would not want us to sit back idly and watch
you die, too. Besides, we have to find out what happened to Dirr and Vital and
everyone else.”

My lips quivered. I didn’t want
my friends to die, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand it. I hadn’t even touched
the loss that was Lanca . . . Lanca . . . gone. The enormity of it was almost
overwhelming. My mother’s death was the only time I had ever been sadder.

“They will come to us,” said
Keller, rubbing the back of his neck. My fingers itched to rub it for him. “Or
tomorrow we will go to them. Either way, tonight we rest and gather our
strength. We also have to discuss a plan. It would be easier if we could
communicate with Vital, but even without that we have a good idea of what he
and Dirr would want.”

“What would they want?” I asked.
Keller made it sound like it was obvious, but it was not obvious to me.

Keller’s beautiful blue eyes
burned.

“They would want us to kill them
all,” he said. “They would expect us to fight.”

“Come on,” Sip cajoled. “Sleep.”

“You really should,” said
Professor Zervos, his tone as icy as ever. I stared at my professor. He had a
long gash down the side of his cheek and his hair was mussed. His fancy black
robes - he was Rapier - were wrinkled and torn; he must have been standing
close to the blast that killed his queen, my friend.

Zervos hated me, but I wasn’t
thinking about that at the moment. Instead, my heart started to pound.

“Dacer?” It might have been my
imagination, but Zervos’ eyes, black pools, softened just a fraction.
“Unknown.”

My breath hitched.

“He’s fine,” said Keller, his
hand making small circles on my back. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

Others nodded. I knew we had a
conversation in front of us; some of the paranormals, faces I didn’t recognize,
looked wary of me, or at least of being near me. I knew I shouldn’t be
surprised. Instead, I wondered if I would yet be thrown to the demons.

But I decided I wouldn’t think
about them right now.

“We don’t know that Dacer is
fine,” I said worriedly, forcing air into my lungs as panic threatened to
overtake me again.

“We just have to trust that he
is,” said Lisabelle. “It’s Dacer, after all. One look at his outfit and the
demons wouldn’t know whether to kill him or display him.”

“He’s one of the few people,”
said Zervos quietly, “who is just as capable as he seems.”

The conversation turned to other
paranormals whose whereabouts were unaccounted for. It was believed that the
Committee Members had all left before the worst of the fighting and were headed
back to Public, but little information was known about any paranormal who was
not already in the crypt.

“We should eat something first
anyhow,” said Lough when we had run out of updates to share with each other.

“Who can think of food at a time
like this?” Lisabelle muttered. She ate only when she had to. She didn’t have
my, or Sip’s, or Lough’s love of food or snacking. She viewed food as fuel and
nothing more.

“Who can’t?” Lough demanded,
matching the object of his love glare for glare. Lisabelle rolled her eyes and
said, “I’m going to sleep. You guys have fun scavenging for food in crypts.”

Lough wrinkled his nose, having
momentarily forgotten where we were. “Maybe I’ll wait until morning.”

Now Saferous, who had apparently
joined us when we fled the great hall, came forward. “I’ll find food. I’m not
tired, so we’ll have breakfast in the morning.” He never looked at me and it
felt intentional, as if he was trying to erase my presence. Still, I was
grateful for his offer, and I lay down between Sip and Lisabelle on the hard
ground.

A couple of blankets had been
found somewhere, but there were no pillows, and as we all lay down the dust
whooshed up to fill my nose and mouth. Clearly, sleep was going to be difficult.

I waited for Keller to join me.
At Public last semester I had grown used to his spending the nights with me,
wrapping his arms around me and helping me forget the world and just focus on
what was important - him. Here, he had become protective and concerned for my
safety. I thought he had known from the beginning that my life was a series of
risks. How could it be otherwise with the last elemental? Then again, how could
he have understood that when even I had not?

He didn’t come.

I should have had trouble
stopping my mind from spinning, but I quickly fell into a heavy sleep. It would
have been better if I could have stayed awake, because I had forgotten that
Malle had learned how to enter my dreams, as she did again while I lay safely
between Sip and Lisabelle in the crypt.

Her damaged and bruised body
stood before me like a challenge.

“So, you got away,” she said, her
voice as icy as a river that flows between mountains. “Not for long. You think
you’re safe, but you’re not.”

“Who attacked me the other day?”
I asked. “Keller and I were locked away. Was it you?”

Malle grinned. “No,” she said.
“It wasn’t me. You’re not looking at it from the right perspective. Typical for
an elemental not to understand. I shouldn’t expect you to be smart enough to
see what is right before your face.”

“Typical for you to lie,” I
snapped.

Malle had changed. She had traded
her fancy robe for simple black pants and a black turtleneck. It looked like
she was trying to cover as much of her body as possible. Her hair was pulled
back in the usual severe bun, but it looked grotesque. Clumps were missing, and
it was now mostly stringy and gray. I didn’t want to have to look at her for
long, but somehow I could not look away.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” I
said. “You should never have been invited to the coronation.”

“Of course I should have,” she
said, shrugging. The motion was slow and jerky, as if her muscles didn’t work
properly anymore. I supposed they shouldn’t have, given how much magic she was
trying to channel. “It is the only place where I can find what I need.”

We were in the same place as in
the last dream, what I thought of as an abandoned library, only this time there
were more books strewn on the checkered carpet. I looked down and saw that all
around my feet, up to my ankles, were books. Some were old, with bent spines
and wear along the covers, while others looked brand new, like they had never
been read. Many had pages torn up and crumpled in little piles all around me,
and all I could think of was what a waste it was. There was a little more light
than last time, and after a while I realized that it was because I was standing
directly below a chandelier, the black antlers snaking out like thin arms to
hold dying embers aloft.

“You like this place?” Malle
asked. “We could go elsewhere. Any number of places to go.”

“If I tell you I like it will you
burn it to the ground?” I shot back.

Malle clucked disapprovingly.
“No, no, you see, I am not malicious. Merely practical. The paranormals are a
disease, therefore you must be wiped out. Sicknesses breed and infect others. I
am merely the cure.”

“Yeah,” I shot back. “You look so
healthy.”

Malle’s face changed and
contorted with my words, but she quickly recovered herself, the lines of fury
smoothing out, her eyes subsiding from tempest black to dark pools.

“You are but a child, you do not
understand. Sacrifices must be made. I am only too happy to sacrifice if it’s
for the good of the whole.”

“You think demons are good for .
. . who exactly?” I pretended confusion, trying to buy time. I didn’t think
Malle could hurt me here, but I was worried about my body back in the crypt.
She must have read the concern on my face, because she smiled, showing rotting
teeth.

“I think the demons are already
evil, so they can’t do more harm. It’s so sad when a paranormal, a pixie, for
example, should be good, and instead only leans toward evil.”

I remembered the story of Malle’s
family being murdered after having been tortured, and I understood more clearly
than ever that her hatred was ingrained in her, as physical a part of her as
the blood in her veins.

There was no reasoning with
crazy.

Looking at Malle in this dream
space, I tried to remember what had made me so angry in the hall,
besides
Lanca’s death and Malle’s demand
that I die. Finally I remembered.

“You leave Ricky out of this,” I
said. There was no point in not mentioning him. She already knew he existed,
and she had already threatened his life. “He’s just a kid.”

Malle shook her head. “Sacrifices
must be made. I cannot risk it.”

“But my mother was Airlee,” I
said desperately. “Airlee is not a threat. Only elemental is.”

“Exactly,” said Malle. “You must
remember, parentage is a complicated thing. It’s difficult to know who really
sired a child, and as long as the risk is there it is one I refuse to take. As
I have said, sacrifices must be made in order for the demons to rule. The
paranormals must die.”

My throat worked, but nothing
came out. I hated the idea of Ricky being in danger, but I hated even more
having to listen to Malle’s crazy rantings.

“Look,” I said, “no offense, but
your whole ‘take over the world’ philosophy is getting old. I’m busy trying to
stay alive because you have, for no good reason, made it your life mission to
kill me. So can you stop wasting my time with your ranting and get to the
point?”

For once in my life I had a set
goal for an interaction: I was trying to make Malle mad, and boy did it work.
It worked a bit too well, in fact, but I consoled myself with the idea that
Lisabelle would be proud of me.

Fury lit Malle’s face as the
books all around us burst into flames. I heard the crackling of fire and the
spark of heat as she ignited every piece of paper in the library. Her face
contorted like a wrung out dish cloth as she raised her arms up, drawing the
flames higher.

I should have felt fear, but I
didn’t. I was past that. Lanca’s death had taken every last bit of emotion out
of me. I was pure sensation now, and all my energy was directed at fighting.

“Fine,” she hissed. “I tried to
reason with you, to help you understand that we are both actors playing on a
stage, and that this is all for the greater good, but you refuse to understand.
I wash my hands of you.”

Wasn’t that what she was
doing when she tried to kill me?
I thought. Then the flames were licking up my legs, and the library
disappeared. I awoke with a tiny scream in a dark, cold space. Two bodies, one
much closer than the other, were cuddled around me. I looked at my sleeping
friends, sweat dripping down the sides of my face, my breathing labored. They
looked peaceful, and I wondered if I had looked that way too while I listened
to the tale of my own demise.

“Go to sleep,” said Lisabelle,
glaring at me in the darkness.

It was hard to go back to sleep
when I had no idea what time it was or how much of the night had passed. For
all I knew it had been days or minutes. I didn’t like it, but I did what my
friend told me to do.

I tossed myself back down on the
hard ground.

“Don’t let her take away your
rest,” Lisabelle whispered in my ear. “It’s all we have.”

I fell asleep again. This time I
didn’t dream.

I woke up to fingers diggings
into my shoulder.

“Charlotte?” Keller’s voice was
in my ear, but I didn’t want to wake up. Normally it was Mrs. Swan who woke me,
but she was one of the very few paranormals who had stayed away from the
coronation. As she had said, someone had to take care of Public and she wasn’t
especially social anyway.

“Go away,” I grumbled.

He chuckled softly. “Say that to
the demons.”

I opened my eyes, remembering
everything. A shot of anger boiled through my blood at Keller for reminding me
of Malle’s demand that I die, but once my eyes landed on his tired face I
quieted. The dark circles under his eyes were so pronounced it almost looked
like someone had smudged charcoal under them. His lips were pulled tight with
tension.

“What’s wrong?” I murmured,
putting my hand to the side of his face. He didn’t flinch, but he didn’t look
grateful at the touch either, and a seed of hurt planted itself in my belly and
stayed there. Keller was my rock. I didn’t have a mother or a father to turn
to, and although it was true that I had Sip and Lisabelle, without Keller’s
support added to theirs I would be nothing.

“Nothing,” he sighed and broke
the contact. The seed of hurt grew. “We don’t have much time.”

I glanced at my friends, still
sleeping, and nodded. I pushed the blankets off my legs, grateful to get off
the hard floor, and followed Keller. All the other paranormals were still
asleep.