Elemental Fire (8 page)

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said
Sip, then she caught a glimpse of Lisabelle’s face. “Of course you’re not
kidding. You’re you.”

“We have to see what’s going on,”
Lisabelle explained. “If for no other reason than to report back.”

“It’s dangerous. We could be
killed, or worse, kidnapped,” Trafton sputtered. “I’m not going.”

“You are too,” Lisabelle insisted.
“We can’t leave you here alone and you need to show us exactly where to go so
that they don’t catch us. Are you sure there are no demons?”

“I didn’t see any,” said Trafton
quickly. “But I was never anywhere near the woods or the gate. I saw a couple of
hellhounds, but that was a while ago. They seem to be using Malle’s old office
as a headquarters, just in case any of the students forget why they’re there.”

“So, they’re by my mother’s
lake?” I murmured. My mother was Airlee, but that was all I knew about her. I
had met her in the lake during my first semester, the most solid interaction I
had had with her since she was murdered while I was still in high school. I now
knew that she’d been murdered because she was trying to hide me - the only
elemental. That is, it was my fault that my mother was dead. I swallowed hard,
trying not to think about it, because every time I thought of her I was
overwhelmed by guilt and pain. The only saving grace was that I intended to get
revenge on the people who had killed her.

“Charlotte? Earth to Charlotte?”
Lisabelle’s voice sounded a distant call and I snapped back to the present.

My eyes wide, I looked at my
friends. “Where’d you go?” Sip enquired. They were all looking curiously at me.

“Nowhere,” I said, shaking my head
and trying to forget. My breakup with Keller had brought on panic attacks that
centered around the image of my mom’s dead body. Keller had been a stabilizing
force for me in the paranormal world, and with him gone I felt adrift. When I
felt bad I thought of my mother, which only made me feel worse.

“We go,” I said. “Trafton comes
with us. We have to see what they’re doing. Then, when we get out, we can tell
Dacer or Saferous.” I had decided to trust the fallen angel who was a member of
the paranormal government, or maybe I just wanted to feel closer to Keller. At
least he wasn’t there, and in danger.

Trafton sighed and slowly rose to
his feet, groaning. “Fine, but you’re going to regret it,” he insisted.

“That’s what makes it fun,” said
Lisabelle as the three of us left the room.

I felt shattered, hot and cold at
once, as if each piece of my now-destroyed body was a different temperature.
Public was sacred, at least in my mind, but the Nocturns knew no limit to their
evil. My mother’s death should have taught me as much, but I kept being
surprised at just how bad they were. The only thing that kept me from turning
around and running back to Lough was the thought that my classmates were in
danger.

We made short work of our walk to
the center of campus. I was lost in dark thoughts and barely heard the
discussion going on around me. Trafton explained that the students hadn’t been
allowed to stay in their dorms the night before, but instead had been penned in
like cattle until . . . whatever was going to happen did.

“So, this Ms. Vale?” Sip said.
“Do we know anything about her?”

“Just that she was a slave who
had twins with a vampire, and the evil nasty twin, by the name of Daisy, takes
after her dear old mom,” said Lisabelle. She walked in back, her wand arm blazing
so strongly that it was like a flashlight beam every time she raised her arm.

“Why is your wand like that?”
Trafton asked. “Did you perform a spell? It shouldn’t be that bright until you
have a ton of magic.”

When he got no answer from any of
us, he whistled softly. “I knew you were powerful, but I didn’t realize you
were that powerful.”

“Learn something new every day,”
said Lisabelle. “Will it mean you stop hugging me?”

“Ha, not a chance,” said Trafton.
He was leading the way, his broad shoulders and well-muscled arms tense. I felt
bad putting him at risk, but his very presence meant that his life was in
danger.

“Girl can dream,” Lisabelle
muttered.

We walked in silence after that.
I was in no hurry to reach Vale, but we got there soon enough.

Trafton was right, it was worse
than we had thought. The center of Public, still being re-built after the fall
of the Tower, looked like a battlefield. The earth was charred and stamped, as
if the fire had just taken place yesterday. Everywhere I looked there were
black pens, the kind of cage in which you might find hardened criminals or
animals. But here, in the heart of campus, the pens were filled with students.
Some I recognized, like Vanni, a freshman fallen angel from my Tactical Team
last semester. She had simpered over Keller every time she had seen him, and I
had been forced to suppress the urge to throttle her. With a lump in my throat
I realized that since he was now free, he might actually date her.

But I couldn’t afford to be
distracted by that right now. Shaking my head to clear the ugly thoughts away,
I continued to look around. All around the pens were bonfires, lighting the
night sky, and now I saw other faces I knew. Nate, a fallen angel friend of
Keller’s, was huddled near Vanni. Marcus, another friend of my ex-boyfriend,
was on his other side. In another pen was a group of Airlees I had lived next
to when I was a Starter. They looked dirty, but otherwise unharmed.

“There’s something wrong here,” I
murmured to my friends. They looked at me like I was crazy.

“I mean, something more than the
obvious,” I clarified. “Where are the pixies?” I saw vampires, fallen angels,
members of Airlee, but nowhere did I see a single pixie.

“Oh, they’re over there,” said
Trafton, his voice steady. “The all-star treatment.” I looked where his shaking
finger pointed. He was trying to hide his fear, but only half-successfully.

The pixies were in a corner,
close to a brightly burning bonfire. They were not in a pen, or under any sort
of lockdown. They were not tied up like their fellow students.

“Why are the darkness mages
favoring the pixies?”

“Poor taste?” Lisabelle said.
“Camilla is probably in heaven.”

Indeed, I could see Camilla. She
was basically sitting on Cale’s lap, close to the fire. Her blond hair looked
like it had just been washed and combed, and she wasn’t dirty and bruised like
the other paranormals. The happy face of my pixie nemesis only increased my
ire. Cale, for his part, looked somber and a little worried. His round face was
filled with sadness. Cale just wanted everyone to get along. He had always been
nice to me, but secretly. He just didn’t have the balls to be nice to me in
front of Camilla.

“They’re going to let the pixies
go and kill the rest?” Sip said frantically. “That’s gross.”

“They won’t kill everyone,” said
Lisabelle confidently. “At least not yet. They need them, if for nothing else
than to serve as a distraction while Ms. Vale searches for the Mirror Arcane,
which they believe in on the grounds of Public somewhere.”

“You remember at Locke when we
suddenly woke up to find Faci torturing the puppy?”

“You mean when he wanted an
audience for his insanity, so that we all knew to be afraid of him?” Lisabelle
whispered back.

“Yeah, that,” said Sip, her eyes
intent on the pens. “Think this is like that?”

“This isn’t anything like a
dream,” said Lisabelle quietly. “More’s the pity.”

“I can see why you hid in
Airlee,” I said to Trafton. He was standing behind us, grim-faced.

“Just wait until you see the
mages,” he cautioned. “Then you’ll understand.”

Just as he spoke, something moved
into sight from around one of the nearby buildings, and a scream caught in my
throat. It looked like a demon, all blazing orange and red fire, but when I
looked more closely I realized that it was merely a figure in robes and a hood
of dark maroon. It was what the figure was holding that was blazing.

“Fire whip,” said Sip. “That’s
all kinds of not good. I thought those things were illegal.”

“They are,” said Lisabelle, her
voice shaking with anger. “Feel free to go tell the darkness mage holding it
that he isn’t allowed. See how well that works. I would do it from at least
twenty feet.”

“I mean, they could at least have
the courtesy to fight fair,” Sip muttered. “I hate rule-breakers. So
stressful.”

Trafton chuckled softly behind
us.

“Is that Ms. Vale?” I asked,
glancing over my shoulder at Trafton.

“No,” said Trafton. “I don’t see
her.”

But more were coming. I stopped
counting how many Fire Whip wielders there were at ten. I gulped.

“Are they moving them?” I asked
worriedly. All thought of trying to rescue my fellow classmates was out of my
head now. We had no hope of saving them against so many, especially while my
magic was still depleted.

“I don’t think they’re going
anywhere,” said Trafton. Then he gave a muffled cry and toppled forward. I
turned just as he slammed into my side, but it was too late.

“And neither are you,” said
Zervos’s nasty voice. His salt and pepper hair perfectly combed, his eyes wild,
and his white teeth flashing in the darkness, he stood behind us brandishing a
knife.

Chapter Eight

“You don’t want to do this,” said
Sip, clearly trying to stall Zervos from taking us down to the Fire Whips and
Vale.

“Shut up,” said Zervos coldly. He
raised his hand and slapped it across Sip’s face. The werewolf’s head snapped
to her left and her eyes lit with unshed tears. Lisabelle started forward, but
I grabbed her arm.

“Don’t make a scene,” I hissed.
“He will kill us.” Lisabelle’s eyes were furious, and her arm muscles under my
hands were taut as she glared at Zervos.

“At least let me make sure he’s
okay,” she said, tilting her chin toward Trafton. Slowly, the dream giver got
to his feet. His face was white and both his hands were pressed against the
wound in his side. Blood seeped through his tanned fingers.

“Hit her again and I swear I’ll
kill you,” Lisabelle gritted out. Zervos’s eyes blazed. As he raised his hand
as if to strike Sip a second time, Lisabelle tensed and I held my breath. I was
not at all sure which of the two would win in a fight.

Zervos slowly lowered his hand,
his smile growing wider as his eyes grew brighter.

“Watch yourself, mage,” he said
venomously. “You have no friends here and your good-for-nothing uncle is not
around to protect you.”

“You mean the uncle whose job you
want?” Lisabelle said coldly. Then, turning away from Zervos and starting down
the trail, she called back to us over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

She had taken Zervos by surprise,
but he quickly recovered. Paranormals don’t become professors of universities
without a strong skill set. He shot in front of us so fast it was as if he had
disappeared from one spot and reappeared in another.

“I will lead this little party,”
he said menacingly. “As a matter of fact. . . .”

He held up his ring. It was blood
red, but in its depths I could see flecks of black. I didn’t know what that
meant, except that it couldn’t be good for us.

In an instant, before anyone
could react, heavy black chains lashed our arms and even our feet. I felt the
weight as they clamped around my ankles, instantly bruising them. Trafton,
right in front of me, tripped. I caught him around the left arm, desperately
trying to avoid his wound, and he gave me an appreciative smile. We were now
chained to each other with no hope of escape. Sip also had a chain around her neck
that I was sure kept her from transforming into a werewolf and running.

“You are evil,” Sip spat.
“Through and through. Just when I think you might have a redeeming shred of
decency hiding in there somewhere, you stab my friend. It’s disgusting. You are
darkness. The Nocturns call and you go like a dog.”

Lisabelle gave Sip an impressed
look. Trafton tucked his head to keep his weak smile hidden while Zervos
remained unreadable.

“March,” Zervos barked, twirling
around. We had been standing a good distance from the pens, on a little hill.
As Zervos took us on the most direct path to a group of three Fire Whips
standing together, I held my head high and refused to look around. But once we
came into view, the entire camp fell silent. The only noises were the
occasional crackle of fire and an ominous snapping sound that came from the one
Fire Whip who was idly crackling his weapon.

Suddenly, the air was split with
a scream from a student who had dashed to the walls of the pen that held her.
She was Airlee, but I didn’t know her. “No,” she yelled, her mousy brown hair
tousled and her nose streaked with dirt. I was close enough now that I could
see she wasn’t wearing any shoes. “Leave them alone. Leave CHARLOTTE alone.”

It was small comfort under the
circumstances, but I was heartened that I still had defenders among the
paranormals. After what happened at Locke I had not been sure.