Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) Read online

  Sip’s house was large, set back in the woods down a long dirt road. It had to be big since Sip had five brothers, although I was pretty sure there were only three bedrooms for the kids, and Sip had one to herself. I was glad to see the lights from the windows winking at us as we walked up to the house. My friend’s parents, Hyder and Helen, were warm and welcoming and I instantly felt at home.

  I could see where Sip got her looks. Both her parents had blond hair that was almost white, and while Hyder had blue eyes, Helen’s were as purple as Sip’s.

  We were ushered into the Quests’ kitchen and Helen poured us all tea. The room was a fascinating study in werewolf living. Sip had explained that when they didn’t have people there - non-werewolves - her family stayed in its werewolf form, partly because it was very comfortable for them physically and partly because it helped them stay sharp should they ever need to be in werewolf form for an emergency.

  The result was that everything in the house was low to the ground, so that as werewolves the Quests could reach whatever they needed. At first we all sat cross-legged at the wooden kitchen table without a chair in sight, but soon after Lisabelle and I arrived we moved the living room and settled down to drink our tea by the fire. For the gruesome story I was about to hear I needed all the warmth I could get.

  It didn’t take us long to get past the pleasantries and down to business. I could see immediately that Hyder was tired and worn, while Helen had dark circles under her eyes.

  The Quests explained that we wouldn’t be at their house for long, since we were leaving the next morning for the Coronation. Time was tight, and the Quests knew that we wanted to have a little time to see Lanca when we got there. Once Sip’s parents had explained the basic details, they left us “young people” alone to catch up.

  I was glad to see Sip, and the Quests were probably the nicest set of parents I had ever met, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something terribly wrong.

  “How is Public okay with all of its students going to this coronation?” Sip asked.

  “Will everyone be there?” I wanted to know. The thought of the trip was both good and bad. I missed Lough and Keller, but I had no desire to see the likes of Camilla Van Rothson or Daisy Validification.

  “This is a massive event,” Lisabelle explained. “There are only three vampire kings and one of them is now dead, but not just dead, murdered. There’s no way students will miss this. Every paranormal who can possibly be there, will be.”

  “I certainly hope not,” I said, thinking of Malle.

  My friends, knowing what was on my mind, nodded. “She won’t be there. She can’t. She’s an outlaw. I am sure the senior paranormals would kill her on sight.”

  “Can they, though?” I asked in a quiet voice. Malle was a powerful darkness mage. You don’t ascend to the very pinnacle of power, either as the President of Public or as the leader in command of all of darkness’s demons, without being strong.

  “Maybe that’s their plan,” Lisabelle mused. “To attack during the coronation when they will have all the paranormals in one place. Even Charlotte will be out in the open.”

  I glanced sharply at my friend. Sometimes I forgot how important I was to the protection of paranormals, but I couldn’t forget for long. “Thanks for reminding me,” I said dryly.

  Lisabelle smirked. “Any time.”

  “But Charlotte’s being there should make it less likely that they’ll attack,” Sip chimed in. “Not more.”

  “Why?” I narrowed my eyes.

  “Well,” said Sip, getting up and starting to pace, “because with you there the Power of Five can be enacted.”

  “So, maybe they just try to take out Charlotte before that happens,” said Lisabelle, her face clouding.

  I threw up my hands. “Nothing is going to happen,” I informed them. “If the Committee was worried about something happening, surely they wouldn’t let me go. Or Professor Dacer would have contacted me by now and told me to stay where I was.”

  “Have you had any contact with him over break?” Sip asked.

  “No,” I said, swirling my tea around. Until just that moment I hadn’t thought anything of it. Now I wondered if I should contact him before heading to Vampire Locke.

  “Charlotte,” Lisabelle broke in suddenly. “Don’t feel bad about paranormals wanting you dead. Loads of them want me dead, and I don’t feel bad about it at all.”

  “So comforting,” I muttered.

  “You’re welcome,” Lisabelle said.

  “And you don’t understand,” said Lisabelle. “No one could keep you away from this. Every paranormal will be there.”

  “Not every one,” I said, thinking of Ricky. It was true that as far as I knew no powers had manifested themselves yet in that quarter, but if our mom had been Airlee, it was only a matter of time.

  “Besides,” said Lisabelle, “this might be fun. Nothing like a little death and mayhem to start off another semester at Public.”

  “You say that like it’s a good thing,” Sip grumbled.

  Lisabelle grinned.

  “But we have so much to do,” I said. “There are artifacts to find and my mom’s death to solve.”

  Lisabelle shook her head. “What makes you think you’re ever going to solve either of those mysteries? Especially not with Uncle Risper working on the artifacts angle.”

  I got up to pace. It had been a year and a half since I found out that my mother was Airlee and my father unknown (well, he had always been unknown to me, but now it seemed pretty clear that he was an unknown elemental, one of the last), and I had made no headway in finding out what had happened to her.

  Okay, yes, I had been a little busy, what with learning magic and not getting killed, not to mention all the normal stressors of college life, like friends and a boyfriend I constantly wondered if I deserved. But I was tired of putting off finding out what had happened to my mom. My friends needed to understand that.

  “Look,” I said calmly. “I know there’s a lot happening, but my mother deserves justice, and Ricky deserves to know what happened. He doesn’t know anything right now, and that is just not fair. It would be nice to be able to tell him how she died when he finds out that he has powers. Also, I’m more competent now. I’ve spent the last year and a half practicing, so it should be easier for me to do the research I need to do to find out what happened to her.”

  “Look,” said Lisabelle, about as gently as she ever said anything. “I know you’re upset and you still want to know what happened to your mom, but none of those problems are immediate.”

  I stared at her, trying not to let the hurt and anger show in my face.

  “You have no idea what I’ve been through,” I said angrily, starting to pace again.

  Stopping back in front of her, I put my hands on my hips and glared. “I’ve done everything I was supposed to do over the last year and a half. I don’t owe anyone anything. My life is constantly in danger. For all I know the demons have some master plan to kill me at this ceremony and I won’t even make it to Public again.”

  “Way to be morbid,” said Sip, looking at me sadly.

  I jutted my chin out. “It’s true. I’m in danger, and let’s be honest, everyone around me is in more danger just for knowing me. You think that’s easy to live with?”

  I was nearly yelling now, and I could feel hot, angry tears streaming down my face. I was surprised by my own emotion. I tried to take a couple of deep, calming breaths, but I could still feel the despair welling up inside me.

  “I have to know what happened to them,” I whispered, looking back and forth between my friends. Sip just looked heartbroken, her bright purple eyes downcast as she fidgeted. Lisabelle looked thoughtful, but there was no pity in her black eyes. Probably for the best. If she looked like she pitied me I was not sure I could take it.

  “Forget it,” I yelled, and slammed out the door. I was all alone.

  Chapter Five

  I didn’t know where to go after
that outburst. I was too filled with emotion to stay confined in the house, so I just grabbed my coat and walked outside.

  I walked and walked. I don’t know how far or for how long, except that when I was finished I was very tired and hungry. I couldn’t stop moving, because if I did the cold air would bite through my clothes to my skin.

  I felt a little bad for leaving my friends, but at least the majority of my anger had dissipated by the time I was ready to go back. It was clear by then that holding in such strong feelings had contributed to my short temper more than once over the past couple of semesters. I would have to be careful of that, because as Lisabelle had pointed out, it wasn’t like I was going to find relief anytime soon.

  Feeling more defeated than ever, I trudged back to the house.

  It was now fully dark, with only the moon to light my path. I thought about using my ring but decided against it. I knew exactly where I was, and I could see the lights from the windows beaming out at me in the distance.

  I didn’t understand how totally alone I was until I listened to my own footsteps. They echoed around me, through the field and into the woods. At first I just tried to walk more softly, not wanting to disturb the peace and quiet of the night, but then I realized that I shouldn’t be able to hear my footsteps, because there should have been other noises in the field I was crossing: the rustling of wind through grass and bush, the patter of feet scurrying to get away from the approaching paranormal, the pulse of night.

  There was nothing.

  Silence was my greeting and my companion.

  I increased my pace, now anxious to get home. Walking faster only made me louder, though, and as I tried again to quiet my steps I looked from side to side.

  There! A movement in the blackness. My breath quickened and I rushed forward. Maybe it was a deer or some other animal. Or maybe not.

  Sip had assured me that we were in a safe place and that if there was any danger from demons or hellhounds we would be alerted before we were at risk, but I couldn’t shake the idea that King Daemon had died before he was alerted, even though he had been an experienced vampire king.

  I was a lone elemental, barely trained, and I was not alone out here in the woods.

  Up ahead I could see the house. I knew that if I could just get there I’d be fine. But now my very breath, and the slamming of my heart in my chest, added to the noise in my ears.

  I no longer tried to be quiet. As the shadow on my right drew closer I became convinced that it was in the form of a human. At least it was not a hellhound, then. I didn’t like hellhounds. Luckily, Sip had come to my rescue on more than one occasion when I was attacked by them, but at some point my luck was bound to run out.

  Dispensing with secrecy, I sprinted for the house. The shadow behind me moved, but I didn’t wait to see if it followed me.

  My hand reached the doorknob and I felt a little better. I pushed through the door and nearly tumbled into the living room. Two pairs of eyes turned to me in surprise.

  Sip got out of the chair quickly and came over to wrap her arms around my waist. She might be small, but I could feel the strength in her limbs as they offered me comfort. After hesitating for only a second, Lisabelle followed her over. Instead of hugging me, which for Lisabelle would have been weird, she placed both of her thin, long hands on my shoulders and stared into my gray eyes.

  “Look,” she said. “We will find out what happened to your mother. We will be able to tell Ricky, if the telling turns out to ease your mind and be a good idea for him. Someone will work on the artifacts. If you want it can be both Uncle Risper - I mean Elam - and us, but you have to listen to this. . . .” She sighed and trailed off. Through my haze of anger at my friends’ not understanding, I could see that Lisabelle was working to control some powerful emotion.

  I just fought to breathe. My friends stared at me.

  “What happened?” Lisabelle demanded.

  I took a couple more great gulps of air. “I thought something was out there.”

  “Nonsense,” said Lisabelle. “We’re in a safe place.” She glanced at Sip because it was Sip’s house, and she should know what was going on.

  “Yeah,” said Sip carefully, staring out one of the windows into the field that I had just come from. “Maybe I should just check anyway.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Lisabelle, starting for the door. A ghostly iron hand wrapped around the darkness mage’s arm and held her fast. I glanced at Sip’s face. Her eyes were hard. Her cute exterior masked an iron will.

  “It’s my house,” she said. “You might be the most prominent scary thing around, but sometimes quiet is scary too.” Without waiting for an answer, she brushed past us and was out the door, her tail the last thing to disappear. Lisabelle turned to stare at me.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Is she?”

  I shrugged. “I imagine she knows what she’s doing, but if you don’t like it maybe you should think about that the next time you hare off by yourself to fight demons.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Lisabelle scoffed. “I’m fine.”

  “Then so is Sip,” I said evenly.

  “But what did it look like?” Lisabelle asked. “Can she really fight something like that off?”

  “I thought it looked human,” I said, trying to remember. Professor Dacer had once given me a long lecture about how the mind’s memory was a complicated mechanism, and often what you thought you saw you had not really seen, or you missed something obvious or did not understand. All his talk had done at the time was confuse me, but now, thinking about it, I wondered if the long arms and crushed-looking head of the shadow had been real, or a figment of my frightened imagination.

  We waited in silence. Lisabelle didn’t try to apologize any further for what had happened. In the end I knew that my friend supported me, but I also knew that both her parents were alive and she had grown up with them. She had never had to miss anyone. She had never had to get used to a new dad or think about what it was like to have a half-brother whose father hated you.

  These things were all my own, and no matter what my friends said about fighting the immediate threat - the demons - I planned on finding out what had happened to my mother.

  It was time.

  I would just have to plan on doing it alone if no one was ready to help me when I wanted help.

  “When Sip comes back I need to contact Professor Dacer,” I said. “I want to let him know I’m coming to the coronation.”

  We didn’t have to wait very long for Sip. The door swung open again quite soon, and our friend appeared. She was in human form again, with her spikey blond hair slightly disheveled. Lisabelle quickly went over to her and picked a twig out of her hair.

  “What happened? Are you okay?”

  Sip looked a little bit out of breath but seemed otherwise unharmed.

  “I’m fine,” said Sip. “I didn’t see anything, but I smelled fear.”

  “Are you sure that wasn’t me?” I asked, not even being sarcastic.

  “You weren’t afraid,” said Sip matter of factly. “You might think you were, but you’re more confident and capable than you realize or are willing to admit. It’s pretty impressive. I smelled concern from you, but this was different.”

  “So, there was definitely something there?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “There was, but whatever it was, it’s gone now.”

  “Are you going to tell your parents?” Lisabelle asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Sip. “They’ve already gone to bed. I don’t want to trouble them, not when we have so much to do in the morning.”

  “Yeah, let’s not tell them,” I say. “Let’s just go to sleep.”

  “I’m all for that,” said Sip, nodding. “Lisabelle?”

  But Lisabelle was staring out at the night, her eyes unfocused. She looked lost in thought, and there was a pause before she answered.

  “I’ll come to bed in a bit,” she said. The Quests ha
d a guest room, but the three of us had decided to bunk in Sip’s room, just to stay close together. Mrs. Quest had shaken her head, but she hadn’t argued. This was the first time she had seen Sip with both of her best friends together, and I think she was just trying to stay out of the way.

  “Don’t do anything foolish,” Sip advised.

  Lisabelle shook her head. “I won’t. I promise.”

  As the two of us climbed the stairs we heard the front door quietly open and then close again.

  “I should have defined foolish for her before she left,” Sip muttered. I couldn’t help but agree. At least we both knew that if Lisabelle found whatever it was she was hunting, she would win. Hopefully whatever she was hunting knew that too and would stay out of her way. The demons were not the only paranormals who knew how to kill.

  Chapter Six

  Before I fell asleep that night I got in touch with Professor Dacer. I had gathered a lot of information and heard a lot of horror stories since Lisabelle had showed up yesterday, and I wanted to have some idea of what to expect when I got to the coronation. I was also hoping that Dacer would already be there.

  Despite the whirlwind that was Professor Dacer, somehow I felt calmer when I was with him. Just knowing I would see him helped me rest easier.

  Instead of calling him I used a Contact Stone, a device that turns into a mirror in which you can see the paranormal at the other end. The stones were easy to get, and every household, including the Quests’, had one.

  Dacer had held out for a long time about getting a Contact Stone, because he said his family would be calling him all the time. But now that he had one he couldn’t live without it. He answered my call in a matter of seconds.

  “Ah, how is my favorite pupil? Studying hard?” Dacer’s smiling face came into view.

  I grinned. Today he wore a hat of brightly colored flowers, slanting to the side, that looked more like it belonged on a member of the British aristocracy than on a vampire professor. His makeup was black and catlike, and although most of his outfit wasn’t visible through the Stone’s viewer, I could see that he wore a bright blue shirt with rhinestones for buttons.