Elemental Fate (Paranormal Public Book 12) (12 page)

Our next stop on the how much fate can we tempt in one night tour was the Long Building, where Eighellie had something to show us.

As she explained on the way, she hadn’t really had much time to do research into darkness mages, except to conclude that what she was attempting wasn’t working. She had therefore decided to try coming at it from a different angle, which was to find out where the darkness mages were now. She thought that from there she might be able to backtrack and eventually find out more about who had killed her parents.

“I know where Risper is, kind of, and I know where Lisabelle is, but aside from that family, where are the rest of the darkness mages? What happened to the ones who weren’t killed during the war? Are they still Nocturns? I don’t think so. I think Lisabelle kicked them all out. So, where are they now? That information should be easier to get than the other things I’ve tried to work on. Anyway, I wanted to show you the map,” she said.

We headed for her usual room in the Long Building, but Keegan had handled this visit a little differently from his usual questioning, skeptical attitude. He spent the walk through the corridor peering at furniture.

“What are you doing?” Eighellie demanded.

“Exactly what it looks like,” he said. “I’m shopping.” Eighellie scoffed in frustration.

When we reached the room she used for her researches, she held something out to us and said, “Here’s the map of current darkness mages.”

At first I didn’t see what she was talking about. Then I did.

“They’re all clustered around Sunken Vallen,” I murmured. Sunken Vallen was a place that had belonged to paranormals – like, it was their own town – before the Nocturn War. Darkness had come and obliterated it, making it almost the first place to go. Until Eighellie told me darkness mages were living there, I would have said that nothing remained of Sunken Vallen but charred earth.

“And now they’re all still there?” I said. “How do you know?”

“That’s where their property records are,” Eighellie explained. “Property records are one kind of document that’s public, which is partly why I decided to start with them. I did some research over break and just wrote down addresses, but I didn’t have a chance to plot them on a map until now . . . that whole going to college and doing homework thing.”

I nodded, staring at the map. The dots were virtually in a circle.

“Do you think they’re planning something?” I mused.

Eighellie’s face was clouded. “Not that they could wreak any more destruction than they already have, but yeah, I think they’re planning something. At the very least, they’re forming a band and looking after each other.”

“That’s what all the other paranormal types have done. Why shouldn’t they do it as well?” said Keegan.

“Do you think we’ll know what their plan is any time soon?” I said.

“I sure hope so,” Eighellie said, her voice very cold. “In fact, I’ll be very disappointed if we don’t.”

We were careless when we left the Long Building that night. It had been so long since we’d seen Fallgrabber that we didn’t really expect to run into him; usually, moving across campus at night was easy. Vampires were out, but they didn’t tend to go near the Long Building. I had a vague suspicion that Dobrov had warned them away.

So when we walked outside and almost instantly a bright light shone in our eyes, we were taken by surprise. “What do you think you’re doing?” the woman’s voice asked. Inwardly I groaned.

Professor Heather stepped out from behind the light, her eyes glittering dangerously. The fact that she was petite and pretty totally belied the other fact that she was as mean as a fire whip.

“We were just out for a walk,” I said. We were far enough away from the Long Building that she might not suspect we had gone there. The doors were technically supposed to be locked, after all, but in Eighellie’s quest to become a world class assassin she had fixed that little problem. Hopefully Professor Heather wouldn’t find out.

“At night? You aren’t supposed to be out walking at night,” she hissed. The lantern in her hand swung dangerously.

“We needed fresh air,” said Eighellie. “We didn’t mean any harm. We’re going to study right now.”

“Oh no you aren’t,” cried Professor Heather. “I’m taking you to Fallgrabber.”

“Shouldn’t you take us to President Valedication?” Keegan said.

She smiled coldly. “Fallgrabber is the protocols enforcement officer. You have broken protocol. I’ll take you to him. Now follow me.”

The three of us did as we were told, but once she had turned her back on us and started marching, we exchanged worried looks.

“It was almost as if she was waiting for us,” whispered Eighellie.

“She was waiting for something and caught us. We shouldn’t have been so careless,” I said, thinking about how we had just been strolling in the open as if nothing bad had ever happened before.

“I have an idea,” said Keegan.

“What?”

“Let’s make a break for it,” he whispered.

“Um, no way,” said Eighellie. “Do you want that bat crazy woman chasing after us? I think not.”

“You have a point there,” he said.

“I dream of the day when you accept that I almost always have a point,” she said.

“At least you said almost,” said Keegan.

Professor Heather spun around and got right into Keegan’s face so quickly that he nearly stumbled.

“Stop talking,” she commanded. His eyes went wide, but he did as he was told. None of us said a word the rest of the way.

The one new campus building that had been completed so far was an enormous house, and that turned out to be where we were headed. The building was divided into several units, and its placement behind Aurum dorm accounted for the fact that I had never had occasion to walk past it before. It had a big porch, with several doors that apparently led to apartments or hallways that were lined with more apartments.

Professor Heather pounded and pounded on the door with “Fallgrabber” stenciled on it. We must have stood there for ten minutes, during which one door opened and snapped shut again before I could see who was behind it. Whoever lived in that apartment obviously didn’t want to argue with Professor Heather. I did manage to see that the name on the door that had opened was Hallfer. There was a professor of that name whom I knew of as teaching older students; my sister ran into him sometimes, and I wondered what he had against Professor Heather.

Professor Heather kept pounding, her little hand keeping up a steady racket on the door. After long enough that I thought her hand must have started hurting, Fallgrabber opened the door, clearly having been awakened from a sound sleep. He looked about like he did when I saw him around during the day, that is, tightly put together. This time, in recognition of bedtime, he was wearing striped pajama pants and a matching top, not to mention a long over robe.

“Yes?” he said, his voice staying even as his eyes scattered over us.

“I found these three walking around tonight, clearly without permission,” said Professor Heather, breathlessly.

For a second Fallgrabber didn’t respond, then he just said, “And you thought it necessary to wake me up?” After his initial glance he hadn’t looked at us again. Professor Heather’s eyes widened. She had clearly not expected his indifference.

“Of course it’s necessary! They broke the rules!” cried Professor Heather, much louder than was called for. Fallgrabber blinked several times.

“Goodnight,” he said, not glancing at us again. He closed the door with a loud click and immediately turned his light off. Professor Heather stood there in shock, as if the world had tilted in an unexpected direction.

Then I heard a step on the stairs behind us. When I swung around, I saw Trafton coming up the porch steps. He was dressed not in a professor’s robes but in slacks, a button down shirt that was mostly unbuttoned, and a large bright yellow necklace. Once a surfer dude always a surfer dude.

He raised his eyebrows at us.

“What do we have here? Looking for Grabber?” he said. I had not heard that nickname before, and I decided right then and there that I didn’t spend enough time talking to Trafton.

“We were,” said Keegan, before Professor Heather swooped in.

“He was called upon to assist in a little matter of disobedience. He failed to do so,” she sniffed, still looking utterly perplexed.

Trafton, who was good with women, slid an arm around her shoulders, shocking her. “Well, maybe I can help. I’m sure you’ve done enough for the evening and have other pressing and important matters to attend to, given the breadth and depth of your responsibilities at Public.” Dazzling smile. “I plan on being awake for a while, so I’d be more than happy to handle these three for you.” In one swift motion he stepped up, unlocked his front door, and ushered us inside, all before Professor Heather could say a word.

Once the three of us were safely on the other side of the door, Trafton swiftly released Professor Heather, stepped in behind us, and stuck his head out. “Do have a good night,” he said. He closed the door softly but decisively, leaving Professor Heather alone on the dark porch, swaying slightly in confusion and attraction.

Trafton didn’t turn a light on, so we couldn’t really see where we were. He whispered that since he had one of the upstairs apartments, we had to climb some stairs.

“The newest Public employees get to live here,” he said. “Mercifully, Professor Heather has been here longer than I have.”

We passed a landing where the light under the door kept flashing like a disco ball and the air smelled of hazelnuts and rosemary. The next door was equally confusing. It was painted a bright gold.

“This place is bigger than it looks,” said Eighellie in awe.

“Yeah,” said Trafton. “Most of the professors like to keep to themselves, but we do have a weekly card night.”

Trafton opened a plain-looking, light tan door made of some kind of tightly grained wood and ushered us in.

His apartment was sparse, with several star and constellation charts hanging on the walls, plain white furniture that looked brand new and unused, and not much else. I hadn’t thought of Trafton as a fruitcake, but the star charts seemed like they might change my mind.

“Please sit,” he said, turning on a light near the kitchen, which looked just as sparse and new as the rest of the apartment.

“Now, tell me what was going on out there,” he said sternly. He went and sat in the one piece of furniture I thought he might actually care about: a great red armchair.

The three of us exchanged glances. Eighellie was still looking around, while Keegan was fidgeting. Keegan didn’t like other paranormals, and he especially didn’t like his fate being in their hands.

“I’ll start,” said Eighellie at last with a gusty sigh. And then she started, continued, and finished. She told the whole story – well, a version of it – of what had happened that night, leaving out Keegan’s treehouse and leaving out that we were in fact in the Long Building and not just out for a walk. Trafton listened without saying a word, although I noticed the side of his mouth twitching. If I hadn’t known us I would have believed Eighellie, but I was pretty sure Trafton knew better.

“So, you were innocently walking around, not doing anything you shouldn’t have been? Do you remember that a paranormal, young much like yourselves, was recently murdered in Surround?” said Trafton. “Keegan and Ricky are both on the list of sought-after Paranormals and Eighellie is the only darkness mage here. None of you are slouches, but it’s pretty irresponsible of you to go gallivanting about alone at night when there’s a murderer on the loose and you’ve been told not to. Whatever you had to do could have waited until morning.”

“But in the morning we’re busy studying for your classes,” said Keegan meekly.

Trafton closed his eyes as if to guard himself against someone making annoying comments. “That may well be, but don’t think I’ll be able to save you a second time. Now, if Professor Heather asks, tell her my punishment to you all was to dredge the pond.”

“It’s awfully nice of you to pretend to punish us,” said Eighellie.

“I’m not pretending,” he said. “Wait ten minutes and then the coast should be clear for you to return to your dorms, where I expect you to remain until the sun comes up.”

“Well, he was cool for a minute,” Keegan whispered to me.

I still hadn’t come up with the nerve to put on a show with my elemental strength, but I had decided that I would make myself do it during our first Cornerstone event. My thinking was that maybe using my power with force would draw attention away from Charlotte and Lisabelle. At least, it would if I had the nerve to actually carry through. Once I did, I knew there’d be no going back.

First, though, we had to dredge the pond. I had a feeling that Trafton was looking for evidence concerning Ms. Cernal’s murder, a puzzle that remained unsolved. Ester wrung her hands about it whenever she saw me, hoping there’d be a breakthrough in the case and saying so to anyone who would listen. My sister said that despite the worrying, Ester was the best secretary she had ever had. She wanted her to stay on for years.

“I don’t think she’s really an opportunistic attempted murderer,” said Charlotte, shrugging.

“Yeah, probably not,” I said, rolling my eyes. Privately, I wasn’t so sure.

On the morning of the day when our first Cornerstone test was to be announced, we had classes as usual. Then we had to clear the pond before the actual event that night. Such a busy day barely left time for studying, let alone anything else.

Everyone was buzzing at breakfast. As usual on the day of a big announcement, more students came to the dining hall for breakfast than on an ordinary day. Normally many students skipped breakfast in favor of sleeping later, then went straight to class.

An unease had blossomed around the idea of Cornerstone that hadn’t been there first semester. Before, the idea of a year-end Cornerstone project had been a distant idea. My group had never chosen either a name or a goal or project; like true college students, we had ignored our duties. Now we were all nervous. The Cornerstones would be competitions amongst the groups we had been assigned to at the start of the year, and our grades for the entire year would depend in part on the Cornerstones we suggested and the way we performed in them.

During Charlotte’s time at Public they had had contests called Tacticals. As the name suggested, it was all about strategy. They were assigned points based on how rare their paranormal types were, kind of like the way paranormals rated the most important artifacts. Then each group went after the others. Charlotte was a very high value target, because there was only one of her. Some of the competitions they’d had were epic, and from that point of view I was just as glad we weren’t doing Tactical anymore.

“At least, as usual, none of them bothered to get dressed,” said Eighellie. “I’d be worried that something was wrong if there was that big a change in the way they acted.”

“I’m not dressed. Are you judging me?” Keegan asked. He had come to breakfast in sweatpants. I was pretty sure he had followed Trafton’s command and slept in his room in Airlee, which I imagined was not where he was keeping his clothes these days.

Averett nodded at us from her seat down the middle of the long table. We had submitted our proposal for a Ring Race and only then found out that the other group we were submitting against had the Burble twins in it.

“We’re going to win that,” said Eighellie. “No way Dobrov’s going to choose whatever their awful idea is.”

Hannah, Fog, and Frances were all at breakfast, which was very unusual. I wasn’t sure if they stayed away from breakfast most of the time because they wanted to sleep or because they wanted to do their makeup, but today they were in the dining hall for the first time in a while. Their three heads were bent close together over the announcement plates, waiting.

“HERE IT IS,” someone cried. There was a swoosh of heads as everyone looked down.

The notice was short and sweet. Dobrov never wasted time on useless pleasantries. The message said:
The first Cornerstone will take place tonight. The group that won submitted the suggestion that we have a full school battle, group on group on group, in the skeleton of the new building. The builders of Surround have agreed, with the caveat that any damage be repaired after the contest. If there is damage to the structure, the offending team will be instantly disqualified. Good luck.

I sat back, stunned. The skeleton of the new building stretched high up into the sky.

“I can’t believe the builders are going to let us in there,” said Eighellie in wonder.

“They probably want us to break something so they have more of an excuse to be angry with us. Just enough rope to hang ourselves with, that sort of thing,” said Keegan.

“But it’s so high up and so exposed,” argued the darkness mage. “It’s dangerous.”

“Someone in another group has a pretty big imagination,” I said, “or they never would have suggested it.”

“We should do every man for himself,” argued Keegan. “Then I wouldn’t have to worry about what you other clowns were doing.”

“Yeah,” said Eighellie. “Ricky could join Airlee and fight with us! It’s not as if any of this is helping paranormal cooperation. In fact, tonight might just make it worse.”

Outside, the day was still and the sky was gray in the way it got just before a snowstorm. Snow on the night of the first cornerstone? That would be just great. Not.

I was worried enough about Cornerstone, about really fighting our teammates and battling for a win without dying, but I guess calculating the weather was all part of the challenge. To tell the groups apart, Dobrov had finally assigned us names.

“Oh, wow,” cried Eighellie and various other students around the dining hall. Another list had appeared, this one with the names of the groups. Dobrov had given each group a name and matched it with our advisor. Professor Penny’s group was named the Lightmares.

The team that was looking the most smug must have been the one whose suggestion had been accepted. The group next to us looked upset; they were all shaking their heads and wringing their hands.

“What do they care? They’re still going to graduate, probably,” said Keegan.

“Losing is bad. Now they don’t have bragging rights, and I’m sure they thought they had a good idea. Now they have only a day to prepare for someone else’s idea.”

“How are we going to prepare?” I hadn’t realized that Greek was listening in on our conversation. All three of us looked at him in wonder.

“Every time he says something intelligent it shocks me, then I feel guilty,” Eighellie whispered to me. I hated to admit it, but I agreed with her. Greek looked so good not talking that sometimes I forgot he could.

The fact that the fallen angel was paying attention to us meant that his posse of ladies were also paying attention, as were the rest of the vampires and a bemused-looking Averett.

“We have a pond to clean later,” said Keegan.

Greek raised his eyebrows.

Of course, the only class we had that day was Professor Heather’s, a continuation of last semester only with larger objects like chairs and tables.

These were even harder to manipulate, and I felt even dumber than before.

At least I had my essence in hand, so it wouldn’t cause any problems when I tried to do my other magic. Once I had gotten back to Astra for the semester a calm had overtaken me, and the essence had stopped struggling against me. I wasn’t worried about messing up in this class the way I had last semester.

Professor Heather assigned Keegan, Eighellie, and me to put gold-laced power around a chair in such a way that it would look like a decoration, but really be magic. She had glared sharp daggers at us as we entered the classroom, but then she seemed to resign herself to the situation and calm down a little.

“The use of this chair is twofold,” she said, demonstrating on a chair at the front of the room. Suddenly, gold stripes appeared on the legs. “It can be used for beauty, but it can also be used for function.”

She picked a book up off her desk and dropped it onto the chair, her eyes never leaving my face. The book popped right back up, but now it was on fire and the smell of charred paper filled the air. The professor let the book land on the ground with a thud.

“Keegan, would you mind cleaning up this mess, please?” she asked. Her voice had a honey sweetness that creeped me out.

Keegan hurried forward, keeping one eye on the chair. Professor Heather stopped looking at Keegan as soon as he got out of his seat, casting her eyes around the room as if to make sure we were paying close attention.

“My deepest desire is to show young minds the power they have within. I care so very deeply about all of you, your lives and well-being. In my heart I truly do just want what is the very best for you,” she said. Then she paused, the only sound in the room the swish of Keegan scrubbing the floor.

“Which is why I’m concerned. I’m deeply truly concerned that any student would encounter my methods, my powers, the knowledge that I have spent my life learning so that I can impart my immeasurable wisdom to you, and take it all for granted. Deeply concerned.” She bowed her head and placed one hand on her chest, which was covered in a silk blouse beneath her robe. Professor Heather was a fallen angel, and she had the palest skin I had ever seen. That she had not been at Dacer’s celebration wasn’t a surprise.

When she lifted her head, all the students in the room were looking at her in confusion.

“This chair is not to be used for violence,” she said, and then she smiled brightly. “Under no circumstances is it to be used for violence.”