Elemental Darkness (Paranormal Public Series) (8 page)

Dacer cleared his throat, looking amused. “Why don’t you get some coffee from Sabel and pull up a couple of chairs?” he offered.

Lough glanced at the bakery case, his eyes lighting up at all the sticky, sugary goodness waiting for him there.

“I can manage that,” he said, “but no coffee. Gross. The stuff tastes like tar with a side of concrete.”

“Charming,” said Professor Dacer dryly, “always charming.”

I didn’t say anything while we waited for my friends to join us. Dacer too appeared content to sit in silence. He even gave me a bit of a skeptical look, and I wondered if he thought I was likely to start throwing things and yelling in frustration at the idea that I was being sent home.

“When do I leave?” I asked quietly.

Dacer, who’d been looking dreamily off into the sunlight, said, “Tomorrow morning.”

I nodded. But just as Sip and Lough came over I realized something. “What about President Caid?”

“He arrives tomorrow evening,” said Dacer evenly, his eyes never leaving my face.

I didn’t bother to comment on what a coincidence it was that the paranormal president was arriving just after I was leaving, so that we wouldn’t be seeing each other at all.

“Doesn’t he want to hear about Golden Falls?” I asked, making one last, desperate attempt to convince Dacer to let me stay on campus.

Sip set her mug down with a clatter as Lough brought over two more armchairs.

“He’ll hear about it from Professor Zervos,” said Dacer, his voice now laced with a note of warning.

“Am I being sent home as well?” Lough demanded indignantly. He had taken a giant bite of chocolate chip muffin before speaking, so his voice was muffled.

“Of course,” said Dacer amiably. “It’s summer. Students don’t stay here during the summer months unless they’re doing research or working for a professor.”

“I could work for you,” I said, brightening. “Like I’ve done in the past.”

Dacer gave me an exasperated look.

All this time Sip hadn’t said a word, but now she placed her mug on the glass coffee table between us.

“What assurances will you give us that Charlotte will be safe, should she agree to leave Public?” Sip said into the silence.

Even Dacer looked stunned as he turned to look at the little werewolf with the spiky blond hair.

“You heard me,” said Sip, matching Dacer’s tone for evenness.

The vampire sputtered for a second, staring wide-eyed at Sip while he tried to come up with a response.

“You have no right to make demands,” he said finally, his jaw working. He wasn’t so much angry as at something of a loss to know how to deal with this new, steely, uncompromising student.

“I have every right,” said Sip, her eyes starting to glow while the rest of her stayed steady.

Dacer raised his perfectly manicured eyebrows.

“What I think she’s trying to say, if I may,” said Lough, “is that what you all don’t seem to understand is that we’ve done a lot of adult things, and yet we’re still being treated like children. We’re seniors in college now.”

Dacer gave Lough a sympathetic look. “I do understand that,” he said with more kindness than I had heard him use today. “What
you
need to understand is that I’m the only one who thinks that way, and that it’s not just about you. All the paranormals here are struggling. Many of them are senior paranormals who were busy all over the country living normal lives, until they couldn’t anymore. They would barely understand or believe what happened at Golden Falls, because it would just make their lives more complicated than they already are.”

“That’s all well and good,” said Sip, “especially the part about realizing that it’s not just about Charlotte. Now, if you could answer my question about her protections, please?”

Lough gave Sip a gentle elbow in the ribs, but she wouldn’t be deterred.

Dacer sighed and took another long drink of coffee.

“Very well,” he said, lowing the mug. “I’ll answer you to the best of my ability.” He paused and took a deep break, then plunged in. “Charlotte Rollins is the single most protected paranormal known to us. Her layers of protection run deep,” he said. “First, when she was a Starter, Malle put protections on her.”

Sip started to protest, obviously assuming that those protections were probably a danger to me. But Dacer held up his hand and said, “Once Malle was gone, the committee members - that is, Dove, Oliva, Risper, and Erikson - gathered together to perform a layering spell. It is meant to confuse the demons as to your exact location, making you harder to track down and kill,” he said, turning to me. “The layering spell makes it more difficult for the demons to pinpoint you when you’re around lots of other paranormals, so it’s really for when you’re traveling, or at home with your brother. Still, as you’ve seen over the years, it is not perfect. There is also a series of spells we’ve seen around you, very subtle, very powerful, and very unobtrusive, that we had nothing to do with.”

Now Sip was on her feet, and no amount of asking from Dacer would quiet her.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she cried indignantly. “How could you let that happen? For all you know it’s demons! Charlotte’s life could be cut short at any moment.”

“I sure hope not,” I said dryly. Sip rolled her eyes at me.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “It’s just dangerous. Dacer, how could you let this happen?”

Dacer steepled his fingers. “We didn’t let anything happen. The spells were just there, and there’s really nothing we can do about it.”

Sip looked like she was about to say something else when Dacer shook his head, asking for peace.

“Ms. Quest. The spells surrounding Charlotte are elemental,” he said. “We can’t trace their origin, but they are friendly. They bolster the defenses of the committee members, especially now with Dove’s passing. The intricate web can only be stronger if it’s made more intricate.”

“Wait,” I said, barely able to contain my excitement. “If there are elemental spells around me, does that mean there are elementals casting them?”

Dacer looked at me a little sadly. I knew he hated to disappoint me.

“It means that at one time or another a spell was cast to protect you. It doesn’t mean the elemental that cast
it is still living. Although it
is
very strange. That sort of spell isn’t easy to pull off. It would take a lot of knowledge and a lot of willpower, not to mention just a lot of magic.”

I couldn’t hide the hope in my face. This was the first time since I had moved into Astra that I’d had any new leads about elementals.

“Maybe they’re relatives of my father,” I said excitedly. “Maybe they were friends.”

“You shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” said Dacer slowly. “We were just glad that an elemental was looking out for you.”

My heart sank a little. There had been an elemental looking out for me at some point. There were also elementals who had killed my mom. Maybe I should go talk to Sigil again, take him some cookies, reconnect after the semester away. But how much time would I have to do that if they were sending me away this very day?

This time when the door to the coffee shop opened, I heard it and turned around. As soon as I realized who it was, I wished I hadn’t bothered. Professor Zervos was coming through the door, his salt and pepper hair swept up off his forehead and his dark eyes snapping. He looked better rested than he had the whole time we’d been at Golden Falls.

Zervos sneered at the group of us in the corner. “Dacer, are you supposed to be speaking with this lot?” he asked nastily, his eyes flashing back and forth between us.

Dacer didn’t appear the least bit concerned. “I have every right to speak to my students, Thads.”

Zervos’s lip curled upward, but he didn’t respond. Instead he turned to me.

“You are ordered to return to Astra. First thing in the afternoon you are to report back to President Oliva’s private residence. He will see you in the garden, along with Professor Erikson.”

I flinched at her name. I wasn’t sure I could look her in the eye after what her sister had done.

“Ms. Quest’s presence is also requested,” Zervos added.

Sabel had again appeared out of the back in case Zervos wanted to order something, but he ignored her. Turning on his heel, he gave us all one last nasty look, then marched back out of the cafe and into the spring sunlight, his dark robes contrasting with the green of the grass as the door swung open.

Sip, Lough, and I exchanged glances.

And so
, I thought sadly,
we must separate again
.

I met Sip outside of Oliva’s. I had returned to Astra to pack, facing the inevitable, and then realized that I really wouldn’t be taking much home with me. A couple of pairs of shorts and another history of Queen Ashray was about it. I went in search of Sigil, but he was nowhere to be seen. An unusually large amount of cookies was missing, though.

I thought of Lisabelle and the dream I’d had about her. I still hadn’t had a chance to tell Sip about it, and that bothered me. I knew why Oliva wanted to see me, but I was worrying about why he wanted to see Sip
.
I assumed she was being called to this meeting to recount what had happened to her when she was kidnapped from Golden Falls, explaining Lisabelle’s absence, but underneath I was worried that things were not - again - going to go the way I expected.

I wondered how my mom had dreamed when she was alive. If I had living dreams, had she had them as well? Had she been able to dream the past? Lough had said it was very difficult to dream the future. He couldn’t do it and he had tried. But there might be a paranormal out there who could.

I hurried down the path from Astra and found Sip already waiting for me when I reached Oliva’s. We didn’t even have time to greet each other before a familiar female voice from the library called out to us to enter.

“Professor Erikson and Professor Oliva?” Sip whispered to me. “I feel like I’m in trouble.”

“According to Dacer, lots of senior paranormals think we should be punished for what happened at Golden Falls, as well as for what I did when the demons brought you back to Public,” I said, just as quietly.

Sip shook her head. “Either we’re children and we don’t know what we’re doing, or we’re adults who have fought demons and should be listened to. Oliva and Caid should make up their minds.”

I agreed wholeheartedly with my small friend.

“Was Lough upset when you left him at Airlee?”

Sip grinned in the sunlight. “Not really. He was just trying to explain things to Bartholem, who showed up this morning and scared Lough half to death. Of course he’s just fine. But there’s a good chance they won’t both make it out alive by the end of the summer.”

I chuckled, thinking of Lough trying to take care of Lisabelle’s feisty and independent-minded feline.

“Poor Lough,” I said.

“Poor who?” came Professor Erikson’s voice.

She and Oliva were sitting in the chairs in his garden. He had a book closed on his lap, as if he’d been reading before she arrived, while she held a large leather-bound stack of papers. Her lips were drawn into a thin line and there were crow’s feet around the corners of her eyes that I didn’t remember being there the last time I had seen her. The war was taking its toll on us all.

“Ah, Ms. Rollins and Ms. Quest, please sit,” said Oliva. He wore green robes to Professor Erikson’s white. Sip and I took two garden chairs that faced the committee members.

“President,” I said politely, “Professor.”

Professor Erikson nodded. “We’re just waiting for Professor Zervos,” said Professor Erikson, “then we’ll get started.”

I felt a pit in the bottom of my stomach. Of course Zervos would be joining us; as our chaperone from Golden Falls, he was in the best position to explain what had happened. But I still dreaded it.

“Here I am,” said Zervos, sweeping into the back garden. There wasn’t a fifth chair and he didn’t have much choice but to stand.

“Very well,” said Oliva, looking around at the four of us, his expression troubled. President Oliva was a young pixie. In fact, during his first semester at Public he had passed for a student named Lealand and had befriended us in that guise. But his relationship to the students was different since he had been made President of Public. He was harder, colder, and there was no trace of the friendship he had once cultivated behind the eyes that now looked back at me.

“Professor Zervos, let’s start with the end, when Ms. Rollins disrupted carefully laid and very powerful spells in order to ‘save’ her friend,” said Oliva, getting right to the point.

I sucked in my breath. I had hoped Oliva would see that I had had no choice. When fighting demons there wasn’t time to talk and share information, so anyone would have had to act quickly. I clenched my fists at my sides and looked straight ahead, willing myself not to lose my temper.

Professor Zervos nodded. “Ms. Rollins does that sort of thing frequently,” he said coldly, “though she’s not as bad as Verlans. Was.” He sneered the last word, as if he relished saying it.

Oliva nodded thoughtfully before turning to me. “Charlotte,” he said, his face unreadable, “you must understand why you cannot go about disrupting the powerful workings of paranormal professors, and why it only makes sense to have you at home this summer. Dacer was going to explain. Did he?”

I nodded once, and then again, feeling numb. Why were we reviewing this? Dacer had already told me. Oliva just liked to drive the point home that I was powerless.

“If you were any other student,” Oliva mused, starting to pace, “I’d have to expel you.”

I saw Sip’s eyes go wide, but I tried to remain impassive. There was no way I’d let myself be separated from Astra.

“As it is,” Oliva continued, “I’m going to let you off with a warning.”

He leaned back in his chair, signaling that he was finished with me, and turned his attention to Sip, who was sitting quietly next to me with her hands folded in her lap. Her face was equally impassive, although I was sure she was hiding a growing anger.

“Now, Professor Zervos, I would very much appreciate it if you’d recount how Ms. Quest’s missives in the Tabble caused disruptions at Golden Falls that hindered you from carrying out your proper duties as chaperone.”

I choked on my surprise. From Sip’s expression, that was also not what she had been expecting to hear.

Sip turned slowly to look at Professor Zervos, but the vampire professor didn’t bother to look at her in response. Instead, as if he was reciting one of his lectures, he started to explain in great detail, in a somewhat bored-sounding lilt, how Sip’s writing was a detriment to the paranormals and was possibly even helping the Nocturns.

Zervos launched, in great detail, into his version of how Sip’s missives had created tension with the Golden Falls students and staff. She had gone on and on, he said, without any thought to what her words might be doing to our hosts. He explained that he had dreaded the release of each Tabble and that Sip had ignored repeated requests by him to cease and desist.

At first Sip sat silently, but as Zervos’s claims became more unreasonable - he had never once told her to stop writing in the Tabble - Sip started to protest. Oliva silenced her with a raised hand.

“Ms. Quest,” said Oliva sternly, “we really are in a dire situation in relation to the demons. We are never going to reach an accord if all you do is create discord. I really thought you knew better, given that you are one of the very best students at Public.”

“I am not. . .” was all Sip managed to say before Oliva talked over her again. Sip closed her mouth with a snap.

“The Sign of Six is a child’s organization,” said Professor Erikson, cutting in for the first time. Up to that point I had had no idea what she might be thinking of the proceedings, because I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. “I can scarcely believe that any of the Nocturns take her nonsense seriously. She is, after all, still a child.”

“Lisabelle Verlans took it seriously,” said Oliva grimly. “Look where she is now.”

Sip gasped and sprang to her feet, no longer willing to stay silent. “How dare you accuse me of turning Lisabelle into a Nocturn.”

“Didn’t you?” Oliva asked quietly. “That’s the story I heard.”

Sip looked like she was close to tears as she glanced over at me. I wasn’t sure I could help, but it didn’t seem like there was anything to lose by trying.

“Enough,” I said, shooting out of my chair and glaring around the room. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning, correct?”

Oliva nodded, surprised by my reaction. I went right on and asked, “You want Sip to stop writing in the Tabble, correct?”

Oliva nodded again.

“Well, she won’t,” I said. “She can write in it if she wants. It’s still a free paranormal society, at least for now.”

“Not if I expel her she can’t,” said Oliva coldly, rising out of his chair. “Again, Charlotte Rollins, you overstep your bounds. Did it ever occur to you that your stubbornness does more harm than good?”

“No,” I said flatly, “it didn’t.”

Sip was standing next to me, while Zervos and Professor Erikson stayed seated, looking on with shocked expressions. I had a feeling that not many students had ever come in here and defied requests from the President of Public.

“You wouldn’t expel Sip, because that would give her even more time to write in Tabble AND she’s Lisabelle Verlans’s best friend. Lisabelle would come for her, and there’s just no way you want that. The Tabble would have a field day, for one thing.”

Oliva ground his teeth, his lips glued tightly together and his eyes glinting. He was clearly not accustomed to being defied. I also had a feeling that I had just pointed out several possibilities that he hadn’t thought of himself, and he wasn’t pleased about that, either. Meanwhile, Sip was standing next to me, trying to hide her smugness by shifting on the balls of her feet. It wasn’t really working.

“Now,” I said, turning and grabbing Sip’s arm on my way to the door, “we will show ourselves out. Have a special summer.” I tried to keep the fury and sarcasm out of my voice, but both seeped in.

“I can’t believe he didn’t want to hear what happened to you,” I cried as soon as we were out of earshot, though it hardly matter at this point. Ice ran through my veins. It felt like every day we had fewer and fewer allies. “I can’t believe it.”

Sip shrugged. “Nothing much did happen to me. They kept me blindfolded. I rode in a carriage. I sat on a dirt floor. I was really hungry, and then they brought me back.”

I looked at her in surprise. “No torture? They didn’t even talk to you?”

Sip shook her head. “They wouldn’t have tortured me, not if they wanted Lisabelle.”

When we got back to Airlee there was more bad news. Lough, who had already packed and was now at loose ends, was waiting for us, holding a copy of the latest Tabble. Apparently Sip wasn’t the only one writing for it; Michael Mound was still making his contribution as well. The headline read:

The defection of Lisabelle Verlans, by Michael Mound, Pixie President and Proprietor of Paranormals First, Last, and Only.

“Do we really want to read this?” I asked skeptically. “I feel like we’ve had enough bad news for one . . . lifetime.”

“I think we have to.”

“How did he find out so fast?” asked Lough. He’d been in the same state of deep gloom since Lisabelle had left, and I was starting to worry about him. Sip had pulled out of her dejection to start to plan, but Lough was still deeply upset. Mound’s diatribe wasn’t calculated to calm him down. It read:

Lisabelle Verlans has defected to darkness. As with the other darkness mages who went before her, it was only a matter of time. Her desertion of the paranormals and her so-called friends at Public comes as a surprise to none of us. We here at Paranormals First, Last, and Only saw this coming. The darkness always knew that Lisabelle would come to take her rightful place with them; they always wanted her. But they didn’t have to pursue her, because they knew she would eventually come on her own. They knew she could never stay light when no light existed inside her.

It is only sad that we have all wasted so much time waiting for this to happen. I do believe that I have said, and I can cite the article numbers and dates as proof, that this was bound to happen.

Charlotte Rollins and Sip Quest think they can save her. Well, I know that my esteemed fellow commentator Ms. Quest reads my articles (of course she does; who doesn’t?) and I must say, speaking directly to this sadly confused college student, that there is no such thing as saving a darkness mage.

Moving on, there is also Ms. Verlans’s family, her parents and her Uncle Risper, who for reasons that are still a spectacular mystery are still allowed to exist in the paranormal world as if they are not criminals.

The darkness is coming. We cannot stop it, all we can try to do is contain it. Ms. Verlans has just made that vastly harder by taking her considerable power (yes, I do acknowledge that she’s extremely powerful; I am fair when it’s warranted) to the Nocturns at Vampire Locke.

Sip squealed. “How does he know she’s at Locke? Is she at Locke?” Sip grabbed my arm with such force that I winced.

“She’s probably there,” I said. “You don’t have any idea where you were yourself, when you were being held?”

Sip just nodded, then got to work.

One thing we did get to do before we all left in the morning - were thrown out? - was to see Lanca again. I had forgotten how much I missed the vampire princess until I padded down into the kitchen in Astra that morning. Sip was right in front of me, so we went in together. As my friend pushed through the door, the welcome aroma of cinnamon and oatmeal met my nostrils, only to be followed immediately by a loud yelp, or yip, from Sip as she skidded to a halt. Not expecting her to stop in the middle of the doorway, I rammed into her back, causing both of us to tumble forward. In the confusion that ensued, all I could see was the white of the counters, and two very red faces.

Sip pushed herself away from me and straightened, glaring at Queen Lanca and her personal bodyguard, the best fighter in the world, Vital. Sip was rubbing the bridge of her nose so hard I was surprised it wasn’t turning red, but it didn’t matter, because Queen Lanca and Vital were red enough for all of us. Vital was now on the other side of the island, as if he was hoping that putting enough distance between them would change what we had just walked in on.

“Well!” said Sip significantly, resuming her progress into the room. She was peering hard at Vital, as if she was trying to see into his very soul. The master fighter did not look the least bit frightened, but as Sip got closer he shifted his feet just enough to betray a bit of discomfort. He was standing in front of a piping hot bowl of oatmeal, which Sip deftly pulled away from him, saying, “I’ll take this, if you don’t mind.”