Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) (26 page)

Keller led me deeper into the
crypt and I tried not to think about what usually lay in the coffins. At least
it was not dead paranormals, but it gave me the uncomfortable feeling that my
mother was in something like these confined spaces, deep in the ground. I
couldn’t reach her, and that would never change. The panic started to well up
again at the idea that thousands of paranormals were, at this moment, plotting
my murder, and possibly Ricky’s as well.

I reached out and took Keller’s
hand.

He let me, but his hand was cold.
Carefully he closed his fingers around mine.

“Are you sure nothing is wrong?”
I murmured. We were now far away from the other paranormals. Just him and me.
It felt right, even now. Just him and me.

He turned his beautiful blue eyes
on me, but they were locked in shadow. I was afraid he would pull his hand
away, and that made me grip him tighter. I would die if he did. I knew that as
surely as I knew we had to defeat Malle.

“Charlotte,” he said. “I sat
there last night and watched a woman who does not even know you demand your
death. She threatened the lives of everyone around us just so that you would
die. How could you possibly think I would be alright after that? The thought of
you gone . . .” he paused and looked away. I saw the muscles of his neck work
and his eyes search the darkness for the right words. I held my breath, afraid
of what might come next.

“I cannot stand the idea of you
gone,” he said finally. His eyes filled with pain,. “I know it might be the
right thing, but I can’t stand it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked,
confused. He wasn’t talking about what I expected him to talk about, which was
a plan to get us out of here and kill Malle. That was all I wanted.

“You should leave,” he said.
“That’s what I’m talking about. You should just go and run and not come back.”

“I can
not
run,” I said incredulously. “Not
while Dirr and Dacer are here and might be injured, and what about the Fang
First? That’s another artifact on the wheel that Lanca had, and where is it
now? Does Vital have it? I thought it was safe, but what if it’s not? What if
Malle gets it?” I had hoped he would realize that this was how it had to be,
but apparently he had not.

“Who CARES?” Keller cried
angrily, releasing both my hands. “None if it matters if you die! Your life is
in danger, and all you can think about is finding some stupid artifact and
going back to Public.”

At the mention of our university
I felt something break inside of me. We were supposed to return to Public after
Lanca’s coronation, but now she was dead and Dirr was who knows where. The Fang
was still somewhere in the mountain, but what if Malle got her hands on it? The
paranormal groups were scattered at best, and possibly a lot worse. Public had
gone from being my last refuge to a total unknown. Besides my close friends, I
had only Keller to rely on. But I wanted an ally, not a protector. I didn’t
know how to react to this new Keller, who wanted me to run away.

“I will not run,” I said, raising
my chin. “Let her chase me, but I will not run. I have to make sure my friends
are safe and I have to make sure the Fang doesn’t fall into Malle’s hands.”

“You have to,” he said
desperately. “Just get out of here. We can take care of the rest.”

I had never seen Keller like this
before, but I just kept shaking my head no.

“Is everything okay?”

The soft voice made me jump; I
had thought we were alone. I turned at the interruption and saw Dobrov. His
black eyes, obscured by ugly red skin, were concerned. “Sorry to interrupt,” he
said. “I don’t sleep well.”

“And the rest of us slept like
babies,” Keller snapped. I glared at him, but he didn’t look sorry. Dobrov
didn’t look offended. He had made it clear last semester that he was used to
paranormals being mean to him.

“Charlotte is right,” he said.
“She cannot leave. None of us can. They have all the exits blocked anyway.”

“Who is they?” I asked.

Dobrov shrugged. “Mostly the
darkness mages. Lots of the pixies wanted to fight, but the senior pixies
refused to grant permission, and most of the other pixies, including your
friend Camilla, refused to desert their own, so they went back to their
quarters. Malle is furious, of course.”

“What about the fallen angels,
the Airlees, and the other vampires?” I asked. “Did they escape?”

Dobrov nodded. “Most did. There
was a lot of confusion in the hall when the battle first broke out. The smart
fallen angels and vampires flew out the roof and left. I think they helped some
of the Airlees to leave with them.” I nodded, relieved that a good number of
paranormals had gotten away.

“Dacer?” I asked hopefully.

Dobrov shook his head. “Still no
news. My dear sister would probably have let me know if he were dead, though.”

“Where is your family?” Keller
asked, relaxing his stance slightly.

“They’re with the other vampire
kings,” said Dobrov quietly. “They refuse to bend to the whims of a madwoman and
a pack of demons.” I had a feeling that if Daisy was refusing to go along with
what Malle wanted it had nothing to do with her loyalty to paranormals.

“So, Charlotte is safe?” Keller
asked. “None of the paranormals are trying to kill her now? We can leave here?”

“Hardly,” Dobrov scoffed. “No,
Charlotte will never be safe. Malle was right. There were very strong spells in
place protecting Charlotte and many of them have been destroyed, at least for
now.”

“Did Malle kill Lanca?” I said.
Like Lough earlier, I could barely get the words out. “Where is her body?”

“Malle didn’t set off that bomb,”
said Dobrov, his eyes cold pinpricks of fury. “Faci did. Lanca wouldn’t marry
him, so he killed her. Malle just took the opportunity to get back at you for
spending two years gloriously foiling her plans.”

Dobrov grinned at me as I stared
at him in surprise. I hadn’t known he had it in him.

“Thanks, Dobrov. I didn’t mean to
cause so much trouble. I guess it just happened naturally.”

Dobrov’s grin widened while
Keller made a disgruntled noise.

“This is no time to joke,” he
cautioned, shaking his head at us.

“On the contrary,” said Dobrov.
“This is the best time to joke.”

“We can agree to disagree,” said
my boyfriend, glaring.

“Keller, stop it,” I glared back
at him. He met my angry eyes with eyes just as upset.

“Forget it,” he said. “Get
yourself killed. See if I care.”

And with that he stormed off,
back to the group. I could hear that some of the others were awake and moving
around now and the clatter of what I hoped was plates. Dobrov’s sympathetic
look deepened.

“He cares about you,” said
Dobrov. “That’s why he does it.”

My lower lip quivered, but I
would not cry. “Yeah,” I said. “Well, he has a funny way of showing it.”

“I can help,” Dobrov offered, his
voice low and his eyes going from sympathetic to intense in a flash.

“Help with what?” I asked, taking
one deep, shaky breath. “I don’t even know what to do.”

“I think you do,” said Dobrov.
“You have to find the Fang. Everything after that is merely cosmetic.”

I snorted. “I have no idea what
that even means.”

“It means,” said Lisabelle,
coming up and giving Dobrov an icy look, “that he’s trying to get you to do
something reckless.”

“Which is normally your
department,” Sip added, never far behind. “But I have a better idea.”

“Oh?” Lisabelle asked, crossing
her arms. “Do tell.”

“We’re all going to do something
reckless,” said Sip, beaming around at us. “We’re all going to get the Fang, so
that we can get out of here.”

“Why is getting the Fang going to
help us leave?” Lisabelle asked. “Like, they’ll all still want to kill
Charlotte.”

“Yes,” said Sip, as if that
didn’t matter at all. “But we’ll have everything we need to protect with us, so
we don’t need to worry about that.”

“I would really like for everyone
to not want to kill me,” I added. “Just a thought.”

“They already don’t,” said Sip.
“If they wanted to kill you they would be banging on the doors this very
instant. It’s just the darkness mages that follow Malle, and we know how
unstable darkness mages are.”

“Hahaha. Ha,” said Lisabelle.
“Not funny.”

“It was a little funny,” said
Sip.

“There she IS,” cried a frantic
voice from behind my friends. “Get her, now!” I didn’t even have time to
scream.

Lisabelle was the only one to
react quickly enough: she turned and took the blow that was meant for me. The
giant man - I could only assume he was a werewolf - came charging forward,
slamming Lisabelle out of the way. As my friend went flying, the giant man
changed into a giant wolf.

“I guess I wasn’t entirely
correct that no one is going to try and kill you,” said Sip calmly.

The werewolf leapt, but he didn’t
get far. He hadn’t counted on Dobrov protecting me or being as unbelievably
fast and strong as he was. But our half-vampire, half-darkness mage friend was
both. Dobrov bent left and then sprang to his right. Instead of slamming into
the attacker’s side, however, he wrapped his arms around the werewolf’s middle,
as if he was bringing down a great animal - as in fact he was. Together they
fell heavily to the ground as I stood there watching, stunned. The werewolf
gave a whimper, and at first I had no idea why, but then I realized that it was
because Dobrov was using not only his arms but also his legs to squeeze the
life out of the creature.

Quickly, Sip, Lisabelle, and
several other paranormals who had seen that something was brewing grabbed the
werewolf. It didn’t take long to shackle him while he continued to spit and
curse at me. I calmly looked back at his hatred.

“How can you do this?” he panted.
“Innocent paranormals will die, when it would be so easy for you to stop it.”

“Don’t respond,” Sip advised.
“He’s not worth your breath.”

“And you,” the man spat. “Call
yourself a werewolf and yet you’re friends with that abomination!” He tossed
his head in the direction of Lisabelle and me.

“I do hope he means me,” said
Lisabelle calmly. “Otherwise it would mean I had somehow been demoted to merely
creepy.”

“Oh, you’re creepy alright,” said
one of Sip’s brothers; I still didn’t have all their names straight so I didn’t
know which one it was except that it wasn’t Sulver. “I’m impressed my sister
lives with you.”

Lisabelle gave him a thin smile.
“She’s more impressive than you know.”

Sip glanced sharply at Lisabelle,
looking for the joke. When she didn’t see one, she merely grinned. “I’m awesome.”

Meanwhile, I went over to check
on Dobrov. No one else was paying any attention to him. Even though he had just
saved us from what might have been a much worse problem, touching a hybrid
wasn’t appealing to most paranormals, especially one that looked as gross as
Dobrov.

“Are you okay?” I asked quietly.
He was picking himself off the ground and dusting off his slacks, which had
been, until that moment, perfectly clean.

“I’m fine,” he said. “My sister
always tells me I’m a sissy, but it’s just that I can’t fight her. In general,
I like fighting. It means I can take out my anger.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Are you
angry?”

He didn’t look at me but he did
reply. “You have no idea.”

We were interrupted by a slamming
on the door. The werewolf attack was forgotten as paranormals raced to see what
new threat we faced.

In the chaos I reached out and
grabbed Dobrov by the arm. His eyes widened in surprise at my tight grip, but
when he looked at me he understood. I gave him one quick nod and he blinked in
return.

“What is that?” Saferous was
yelling, while Zervos glared around the room expectantly.

“At least you can’t blame us,”
Lisabelle said to him, not even flinching when he turned his glare on her.

“I can if I want,” he said
coldly.

“Oh, is that how it works?” Sip
demanded. “We’re just standing here.”

“It’s only a rock falling,” said
one of the fallen angels, coming back from near the door that Keller and I had
brought us through. “No one is outside.”

“Why aren’t we being attacked?” I
asked. “Shouldn’t they have come after us by now?”

“They’re waiting us out,” said
Zervos ominously. He didn’t look very concerned about it. “We can’t stay in
here forever. We barely have enough food for this meal, let alone the next one
or the next one after that.”

“Won’t other paranormals come to
help?” Lough asked. He was wrapped in his jacket, which had gone from an almost
gray silver to a dull brown from lying on the ground.

“There aren’t any still here,”
said Dobrov, relaying to the rest of us what he had been told, that most of the
paranormals had left Locke.