Elemental Light (Paranormal Public Book 9) (16 page)

“At some point I’d like to see Lough give Gargoile a living nightmare,” said Sip. “That’s all I have to say.”

Waves of cold were coming at us, but otherwise there was nothing but silence.

“What was Faci doing out here?” Sip whispered to me.

“I have no idea,” I said, my eyes straining ahead into the nothingness.

“What if this is a trap?” she whispered.

“We’ll get out of it,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t really feel. “We can fight.”

“Yes, well, and we do all the time,” said Sip. She sounded tired.

“There,” I pointed. Around the bend there was nothing but a bit more road, and some old trees. Right in the center of the dirt road was a cage, large enough so that it could hold three small people.

And it did.

“Wow,” Sip breathed as we broke into a run. I no longer cared if we were walking into Faci’s trap. We had to get those kids out of there.

I skidded to a halt. It was now extremely cold, and I wondered, if any rain were coming, whether it would now come down as snow.

“Those are children,” Sip cried, staring through the bars.

The cage was taller than I was, with thick black bars. The metal was marked and dirty, as if the bars had spent years being beaten on by objects. It was probably about as long as Razor and four times as wide. All three children, the oldest of whom was probably only a year or two older than Ricky, were curled up, asleep.

“Wake up,” Sip yelled, but none of the children moved. They were on a pile of dirty black blankets that may or may not have started out as some other color. I felt sick to my stomach looking at them. None of them looked like they were sleeping easy.

“What’s with the twitching?” Sip asked me desperately.

“Living nightmares,” said Lough, coming up behind us. “The demons have given them living nightmares. Cold helps keep them in the sleep, so that the living nightmares can attack their minds. It’s horrible. I’m surprised there isn’t screaming.”

“There might have been,” I said. “We were just too far away to hear it.”

“How can we get them out?” Sip asked. Her eyes were bright with tears as she stared down at the girl and the two boys. The girl had a massive mop of dark brown hair that fanned around her. Small hands were tucked below her cheekbone, cushioning her head. She was about Sip’s size, only she looked eight or ten years younger. One boy was fair-haired, with pale skin and full lips. The other was darker, with black hair and a strong jaw. Both were thin, but still much bigger than the girl. She slept between them, for all the world as if she belonged there.

“I’ll do it,” said Callum, striding up behind us and shaking his head. “Poor things. It looks like the girl fought hard.”

It was only now that Callum pointed it out that I noticed the bruising on her hands and arms. I sucked in a breath. What had Faci done?

The oggles had followed Callum at a distance, and at that point we decided to stop for at least long enough to wake up the kids in the cage. That seemed more important than meeting with Gargoile’s boss on time. But first, Sip had to figure out how to get them out.

“I don’t know what game he’s playing at,” said Sip angrily, striding back and forth. “He has a protective spell on it,” she said by way of explanation when she realized that all the oggles and even Lough and I were looking at her with concern. She threw her arms wide in preparation for a speech, then made it. “He doesn’t want these kids to wake up, so he knocked them out with something and put magic on them to keep them asleep. My guess, from the bruises, is that they were fighting the demons. Now we’ve just got to figure out why. Darkness usually transforms kids instantly. They don’t keep them as pets or prisoners.”

“There are several reasons why they might,” Callum offered.

“Yes,” said Sip, glancing again at the cage. “I just hope that once Faci gets far enough away the spell will break, and they can explain it to us themselves. Guessing is not pleasant, and it may be dangerous.”

“What do you think the most likely explanation is?” Rose asked. She had stuffed her sword back into the folds of her clothes and was once again holding her pitchfork.

Sip gave the oggle a troubled look. “The possible explanations, as I see them, are these. Ransom, obviously. One of these, or all of them - maybe they’re siblings or something - has a powerful family member whom darkness needs for some dark purpose. Holding the kids hostage until he gets what he wants would be just like Faci.”

“But giving up his leverage instead of killing it before he got what he
wanted doesn’t make any sense,” said Lough. “Faci would just kill them before giving them to us if they were the ones he cared about.”

“I agree,” said Sip, “which discredits the second option, that these are the
people he cares about. They aren’t. At least, not much, so what does that leave? My guess is paranormal trafficking OR leverage. Faci needs them alive, and realistically they are more likely to stay that way if they aren’t with him, which brings me to the unpleasant conclusion that we just helped Faci, again.”

“So, we return to leverage?” I asked.

Sip looked troubled. “We’ll have to see when the power wears off. They’re all too young to wear rings, so I’m not sure what they are, except that none of them are werewolves.”

“What aren’t you saying?” I asked. I could see something was bothering Sip, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

“Well,” said Sip. “Who could Faci possibly want leverage from? He took these kids for a reason and kept them alive, kind of, for a reason. Why? Also, they aren’t werewolves, pixies, dream givers, darkness mages, oggles, or faeries. There’s a slight chance one is a vampire, but who’s to say until they try to drink blood? So, what are they? Whatever he wants, it must have something to do with the war.”

“Are you sure they’re even paranormal?” Lough asked. “I mean, what if they’re just humans?” His eyes went wide. “What if they’re the children of an important senator, or even a president, and they’ve been kidnapped in an effort to bring the humans into our war? And here they are, dropped in our lap, and we’re the only ones who can save them?”

Callum patted Lough on the back. “That’s ridiculous, but nice try.”

Lough grinned up at him. “That’s what they keep me around for, didn’t you know?” Callum grinned in return.

I felt a slight cold pinching on my skin and stared at the cage. “I think the protections, if you can call them that, might be wearing off, but I don’t think we can stay here and wait for the process to finish. We have to keep moving.”

“How are we supposed to bring this with us?” Lough asked. “It’s pretty heavy.”

“I’ll pull it,” said Callum. “No use wasting the horses. It has wheels, it shouldn’t be that bad.”

Nence, the small oggle child who had given me her bracelet, went and walked alongside the bars. Rose looked like she wanted to stop her, but then she thought better of it and instead just gave a sad smile.

Sip fell back next to me as we started to move out again.

“
What are you really thinking?” I asked, wondering if Sip’s reluctance to come to a conclusion had been in part because she thought the captive kids were really horrible demon monsters.

“I think there’s mage magic,” she offered. “At least partly. I think the girl, or all of them, might be
mages, but I’m not sure. It’s too hard to tell with all the darkness around them. The light-haired boy, I’ve no idea what he is, but the dark-haired boy . . .” Sip shook her head. “I’m pretty sure he’s an Iron Chaser. Which is also a type of mage.”

“A what?” I demanded. It seemed like every time I turned around, there was another new type of paranormal I had never heard of.

“They’re a type of paranormal defenders. I thought they were extinct, but that’s the only explanation I have for the power I’m sensing. They can shift paranormal powers from one thing to another. They’re deadly fighters, at least after they’re trained. They’re extremely rare and extremely dangerous. I didn’t think any were still alive in the States.”

“So where are they alive?” I asked.

“Europe,” said Sip with a slight eye roll. “They think they do everything better than we do anyway, don’t they? At least, my father said there used to be a small enclave of them there.”

“Why is a mage so special?” I asked. “Lisabelle’s a mage.”

“And who would argue that Lisabelle wasn’t her own brand of special?” said Sip. “No, because Lisabelle’s a darkness mage. She goes around killing family members and all.”

“Tell me about them,” I
insisted, not wanting Sip to get off track. I knew she had probably read at least eight books on both kinds of paranormals, and she looked worried enough so that I wanted her to share. I also had a horrible feeling that I knew where she was headed with this, and it terrified me.

“Fallen angels,” she said, “are pure blood, healing blood. It’s their hallmark. The power they derive is from heaven and cannot be corrupted, although recently we have learned that all paranormals have both light and dark in them. I’m sure that under the right circumstances even fallen angels can be corrupted into something horrible, although I’m just as sure that they would believe they were doing the right thing. Even though they have the word ‘angel’ in the name of their type, they are obviously not angels. They are all descended from one group of fallen angels, but over the centuries they have developed into their own families and houses. The First Group, as they are known, were thrown out of heaven for defending the
Last Shield. The Shield’s power was infinite, and when the ruling council of angels decided it was time for it to be destroyed, the First Group fought back. They wanted to keep the power, but they were overruled. When they tried to take the Shield somewhere safe, the ruling council threw them out of heaven. There’s been a battle of power against power ever since.”

“What happened to the
Last Shield, and what does that have to do with Iron Chasers?”

“The
Last Shield was destroyed, which proved to be a massive mistake. The power that came out of it couldn’t be controlled, even by angels. It ripped through heaven and through the angels, and they were never the same. It changed their powers. The thing was, the council had forced the First Group to be the ones to destroy the Shield, so that group’s power was altered, and of course their descendants’ power was also altered. It meant that although they were fallen angels with healing power, they also had the tools to shift other powers, a remnant of the Last Shield’s power. Of course, the council was furious that the Shield’s power still resided in some of the angels, so instead of letting them hang around and take control from the council they threw them out of heaven and the gates were sealed. They have never again been opened. The First Group’s fallen angels became known as the Iron Chasers, and they made a new home for themselves, or so it is rumored. They also welcomed any other fallen angels who were kicked out over the years, probably because they were desperate for news of their home.”

“So, there are still Iron Chasers, which are basically enriched fallen angels?”

“Oh, yes,” said Sip, “but I didn’t realize any were young. I rather thought they were all older.”

“So, are they mages or fallen angels?”

“Both,” said Sip. “It is said that one of the First Group had a mage wife, back when mages still existed. All of the Iron Chasers are descendants of the First Group and mages. They are both mage and fallen angel. They are trained to defend paranormals.”

I had known that there was no such thing as a mage at Public. There were darkness mages like Lisabelle, whose power had been distorted from something else, but there was no pure counterpart. Now come to find out that of course there was, they just didn’t attend Paranormal Public.

“Mages, then?” I asked.

“For the record
. . .” came a small clear voice from behind us. We all spun around. The girl who had been asleep was now standing up. Callum had come to a stop, and all around him other oggles were doing the same. The girl’s eyes looked like blue fire, much brighter even than Keller’s. There was a dusting of freckles across her cheeks, and the area below her eyes looked like it had been wiped with black paint. She was exhausted.

“I’ve never heard of Iron Chasers and I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” She glared out at us while her two male companions still slept.

Next to me, Sip swallowed hard.

“Did you know you were a paranormal?”

“Not until three days ago,” she said, her eyes still burning. “Now, who are you and what do you want with me and my friends? Where’s the nasty one?” The girl looked like she was even ready to argue with the assertion that she was paranormal, which was hilarious, given that, you know, she so obviously was.

“Faci gave you to us,” said Sip, striding back to the cage.

The girl appeared to ponder that, then, suddenly, her eyes went wide, her head snapped up, and she started to bang her already bruised hands against the bars. “HE TOOK MY GRAMP. WHERE’S MY GRAMP?” She shoved against the metal restraints, but they were obviously not going to break. “Get after my gran! What are you doing, you stupid paranormals!” she screamed. “He took him and got away. Go after him!” Sip tried to stem the girl’s tirade, but she was unable to calm her down.