Elemental Darkness (Paranormal Public Series) (2 page)

“Public has something like that,” said Lough wisely. “Her name is Martha. I like her cookies, although her attitude leaves something to be desired.”

Dacer raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow at the dream giver, but didn’t comment. Lanca smiled. “Lough, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I missed you.”

“We missed you too, Lanca,” he said, but without his usual cheer.

“Anyway,” she whispered, “I was able to call enough power to destroy all the demons around me, but unfortunately, I never saw any of the other vampires. There was old Tictoc, who should have been there to greet us at the door. I’m afraid he’s dead. I tried to go to my father’s study to get the Fang First, but Vital wouldn’t let me. It’s really infuriating that even when he has a hole in his shoulder he’s still ordering me around.”

“You came straight here?” Dacer asked sharply. “No detours for silly objects you don’t need?’

“We need the objects on the Wheel,” Lanca protested. “It’s the best way to keep Charlotte safe and fight the Nocturns.”

“Not at the cost of your life,” said Dacer, his eyes steely.

Lanca shrugged. “Dacer, I was charged with ruling the Rapier vampires. I wanted us to prosper. Instead we were overrun and killed. I’m not a very good queen. I deserved to die with my subjects.”

Dacer shook his head. “You’re wrong about that,” he said. “This is unprecedented. Most royalty don’t have to deal with Nocturns, especially not when they first take the Blood Throne. And I’m sorry to point this out to you, but you’re also very young.”

Lanca looked away. Nothing any of us said could console her at this point.

“We came straight here. Vital wouldn’t go anywhere else. It was the only place left that I trusted,” she finished with a whisper.

“You could always go back to Caid,” Dacer offered.

I couldn’t help it. I scoffed, and Dacer glanced over at me. “What? Caid’s summer house is a fortress. The demons presented themselves there, but they never would have attacked.”

I couldn’t be quiet any longer. I had resisted telling Dacer about seeing Caid meeting with Cy
nthia Malle, but with all my friends gone I wasn’t going to resist anymore. Now I told him, and everyone there, what had happened.

In the end, I was the one who was shocked - because they weren’t. Dacer merely shrugged. Even Lanca didn’t look surprised.

“Of course he knows Malle,” she said. “Malle is still straddling the paranormal world, as Keller’s charming parents have proven so ridiculously. Caid would meet with Malle just to try and convince her to stop killing paranormals.”

“That’s not what they were doing,” I said hotly, flabbergasted that no one agreed with me. “He has to be helping the Nocturns.”

“Caid is completely trustworthy,” said Dacer, his voice cold. “He would never let the Nocturns boss him around.”

“If Caid is so strong and good, how did we get into this mess?” I said, shooting to my feet, my blood hot with anger. “He’s done nothing. The demons are overrunning paranormals in hordes, and he’s still doing nothing.
Sip wouldn’t have had to start the Sign of Six if Caid had been protecting us properly. The demons would never have taken her if she hadn’t been forced to act.”

“The demons were aiming to kill all of us either way,” said Dacer. “Caid has been working against bloodshed.”

“He’s not doing a very good job,” I said bitterly.

Dacer gave me a dark look but said nothing more. President Caid, Mound, none of them had believed in the threat the demons posed, and now Lisabelle was gone. Keller was gone. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. I knew for a fact that if they didn’t come back I was never going to recover. I might have Ricky, but even Ricky . . . I didn’t yet have the courage to ask Dacer about my little brother. I knew he was fine; I would know if he wasn’t. But what to do about Ricky, how to keep him safe, was an urgent problem, and I hadn’t even begun to address it.

There were just so many urgent problems.

“What now?” Lough asked, reading my thoughts.

“Now,” I said, pausing, “I have no idea.” I looked at Dacer, hoping he’d have some sort of suggestion.

“Charlotte,” he said, “you cannot blame Caid for what has happened. He is arriving in the morning, hopefully, and we will discuss our next steps.”

“Is he somewhere safe?” I asked dully. Even if I didn’t like Caid, I knew it would be awful if the demons killed him. Then the paranormals would
really
not know where to turn.

“Yes,” said Dacer. “He is safe with the rest of the government and the resistance.”

“You mean the real resistance, not what Ms. Quest thought passed for resistance,” Oliva said, re-entering the room. He still looked tired.

“I knew I didn’t like him,” Lough whispered to me.

“You are all still students of Public,” Oliva said. “Until such time as you are told what to do next, I advise you to return to your dorms. We’ll call you in the morning when we’re ready to let you know what we’ve decided.”

“Now see here,” Lough said, “we were the ones at Golden Falls. You left us there without protection. Again. Also, Charlotte is the only elemental; no one else can represent the elementals. If there’s any planning to be done, we want to be involved.”

Oliva gave him a dark look.

“We have a right to be involved,” Lough pushed.

Oliva stood up. He wasn’t one of the smallest pixies, but he wasn’t very large either. Lough, who had filled out over the past couple of years, towered over him.

“You will go to your dorms,” Oliva ordered. “Or are you proposing to defy the President of Public?”

Lough stood for a minute, staring at Oliva. I couldn’t work out what was happening behind his soft eyes, but I had a feeling that that was exactly what Lough was proposing to do. Without Lisabelle I didn’t think Lough cared for much of anything anymore.

“Hopefully in the morning my mother and Professor Zervos will also have arrived,” said Dacer.

“Zervos just makes everything better,” said Lanca dryly.

I was glad she had said it, because I probably wouldn’t have been so kind, and Oliva couldn’t get mad at the ruler of the Blood Throne, at least not openly.

Lough nodded his thanks to her.

“Dacer. . .” I said. But I didn’t know how to continue. He looked at me sympathetically.

“We will have to get to Ricky soon,” he said. “This was a multi-pronged attack. They attacked Caid, and many others less well known. They attacked the Paranormal Police Academy, although they were driven back from there. I’m sorry, but Ricky’s home has to be on a short list of places they will attack soon.”

In my heart I knew it was true, but that didn’t mean I wanted to talk about it.

There seemed to be nothing more to say for now, and we left the room in silence. I gave Dacer and Lanca one last look, but neither wanted to infuriate Oliva any further. Dacer merely nodded and said he’d see me tomorrow. Lanca smiled and said, “Can I stay in Astra with you?”

I sighed in relief; I’d been dreading going back to Astra and its lonely silence. I nodded. “Vital too.”

“Yes,” she said, as if taken by surprise.

We left Oliva’s, and Lough was barely out the door before he burst out in anger, “Well, that didn’t go the way it should have,” he cried. “How dare Oliva talk to us like that? What has he done since this whole mess started? He’s only made it worse.”

Lough’s shoulders were shaking with anger. I didn’t know what to say, because there wasn’t anything comforting left to offer him.

We were walking through a spring evening at Public, the warm air and the soft glow from the windows of the beloved buildings merrily lighting the path to our dorms. There were crickets chirping, and I could smell things growing. It was a beautiful evening.

I wanted to hit someone.

Neither of us said anything else. We were both painfully aware that Sip and Lisabelle weren’t there, and that was really all we needed to know.

Normally, returning to Astra was comforting for me; I felt my family there. Normally, Keller would be waiting for me, and I had always loved the feeling of expectation that gave me.

But now I knew that elementals had killed my mother.

And Keller was with Malle.

Everywhere my thoughts went, there was gloom.

“Earth to Charlotte,” said Lough, waving his hand in front of me.

I glared at him. I was too tired and too sad. “What?” I demanded.

He pointed to Astra.

There were lights winking at me from a distance. I frowned.

“Maybe Martha’s back,” Lough said hopefully. “And baking.”

“I doubt it,” I replied. “Although she did say she’d come back and bake from time to time.”

“I don’t think even a cookie could cheer me up now,” said Lough sadly. He was probably right. I didn’t think a cookie would cheer me up either.

“You don’t have to come in with me,” I said, as Lough made it clear he wasn’t going to Airlee.

He shrugged. “I don’t really want to go back to Airlee if Sip and Lisabelle aren’t there. Besides, you’re the only friend I have left.”

He took a shaky breath. “I just turned my back for one second. You know, it’s one of the many prices of hanging around with girls. Well, no, there’s another: you aren’t in the same suite with them, so you can’t protect them when Happiness Enforcement Officers come, and girls are crazy.”

“I think you’ve said that before,” I murmured.

He nodded. “I’ll keep saying it. Makes me feel better.”

“Anyhow, I think there are people in Astra,” I said

Lough followed as I hurried forward with my heart clenched, wondering what else could possibly go wrong. Dacer and Oliva had both told me to return to my dorm; if something awful had happened there, wouldn’t they have warned me?

“Let me go in first,” said Lough. He stepped in front of me, his face grim.

“No,” I argued. “Not this time. I’m sick and tired of being protected.”

I didn’t even wait for him to react. The thing with Astra, and me being the only elemental, was that the dorm’s old powers recognized me as its owner. I might not have been as strong as a senior paranormal, but I was getting there. My junior year in college was over, after all.

I stepped around Lough and blew the doors off. It barely took any effort, I was that angry.

In front of me there was a snap and a massive puff of dark gray smoke, obscuring my vision. Behind me I heard Lough coughing. What was more interesting was that there were worried cries coming from beyond the smoke.

Ignoring any worries about my own safety, I held my breath, then darted through doorway and into Astra.

“You trying to kill us?” Rake asked. He was half laughing, but sweat had broken out on his brow.

The thick smoke prevented me from seeing a face, but I recognized the voice and the massive shoulders of the burly vampire.

“Huh?” I said, staring at him in shock as the smoke started to clear. “What are you doing here?”

“Do you mean here as in Public or here as in Astra?” Trafton asked sweetly. The beautiful dream giver, another friend of ours who nursed an unrequited crush on Lisabelle, came forward. He had a long cut on his cheek, which he had probably gotten in the escape from Golden Falls, but it was already starting to heal.

“I had no idea you were here,” said Lough. He only sounded kind of glad. Trafton was not his favorite paranormal.

“We just got here,” Trafton said. “Dragons are awesome, but they got tired carrying us.”

“They got tired carrying
you
,” said Vanni, stepping delicately around him and meeting my eyes. Vanni had a crush on Keller, and for that reason and others I had never particularly liked her. But in recent semesters she had tried to be brave, and I had to respect her for that.

“We’re glad you’re okay, Charlotte,” she said, smiling shyly at me.

I looked beyond them into the house and saw sleeping bags everywhere. It looked like the Astra entryway had been turned into a campsite.

“You too,” I said, and I meant it. But I also had no idea what was going on, so I took the most direct route and asked, “Um, what are you all doing here?”

Trafton looked around. “Oh, you don’t usually have piles of sleeping bags in your walkway? Strange.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”

“We’re staying with you in Astra,” said Vanni stoutly. “At least, most of us are. The pixies are staying in Volans. They’re seriously annoying. Camilla materialized just as we were returning to Public, but I swear no dragon gave her a ride. Lots of vampires are staying in Cruor, because of the coffins.”

“We like our coffins,” Rake explained.

“But most of the rest of us are here,” Vanni said, sweeping her hand behind her.

I peered around and saw that most of the sleeping bags were filled with my classmates, who were now staring wide-eyed at me. There were also several freshmen, no longer Starters, whom I barely knew.

I bristled. “I don’t need protection,” I said hotly. “I just need sleep.” Like I was going to be able to get any of that.