He moved to leave, but as he opened the door he paused.
“A word of advice, Charlotte Rollins,” he said quietly. “A bully only wins if you play her game. Play yours.” And with that he was gone.
For a long time I stared at the closed door, not understanding. That had sounded oddly like helpful information, but Professor Zervos hated me. He hated everyone who wasn’t a fallen angel, a vampire, or a pixie, which meant all the Airlee students. He seemed to hate me in particular because I was at a school for paranormals without showing any paranormal abilities. I was actually starting to understand his point on that one.
I lay down and closed my eyes. I don’t know how long I lay there resting before I heard the door open.
“Sip, don’t get pissed. I didn’t even do anything,” I said.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” said a familiar male voice with an ever-present undertone of sarcasm.
I gasped and sat up. “Keller,” I said. “Ouch.” My head protested my sudden movement and I was forced to lie back down.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, coming to sit on the edge of my bed.
“I’m super,” I told him.
“What happened?” he asked. He reached out and touched the bruise on my cheek with his fingertips. “That’s a big bruise.” There wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
His touch felt warm and safe all at once. Despite the blankets covering my legs I shivered.
Breathe, breathe, I told myself.
“It hurts,” I told him. It was all I could think to say because my head throbbed so badly that all I wanted to do was crawl under the covers and fall asleep. But I didn’t want Keller to leave. And I didn’t want him to see me like everyone else did as the weak Probationer.
With a pang I realized how I must look. I had bruises on my face and arms. I was sure there was dirt in my hair. I probably smelled bad. And Keller was inches away from me.
I forgot about my hair when I realized that Keller’s hand was still on my cheek.
At that moment, he realized it too and let it drop.
“Who did it?” he asked quietly.
“No one,” I told him.
“It’s pixie magic,” he said thoughtfully. “I know only one pixie who would attack you.”
“So why did you bother asking if you already knew?” I said.
“I wanted to see if you would tell me the truth,” he said. “You wouldn’t.”
“It’s nothing,” I repeated.
“You have to learn how to defend yourself,” he said. He moved back on the bed a bit, giving me some much needed space. Having him so close made it hard for me to concentrate.
“Good idea,” I told him.
The door burst open.
“What did you think you were doing walking around at night alone?” Lisabelle demanded as she stormed in.
“Nice to see you, too,” I told her. “I’m fine, by the way. My head only hurts a little. But oddly enough, it’s getting more painful by the second.”
“I am not giving you a headache and I know you’re fine,” said Lisabelle. “That’s why I’m here and not kicking the shit out of Camilla for what she did to you.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said. “I don’t need people to protect me.”
“Actually, it seems like you do,” said Sip, stepping around Lisabelle into the room. Her purple eyes were bright with concern.
Lisabelle, apparently having had enough of yelling at me, turned her wrath on Keller, “And you,” she said. “Are you always around?”
“Lisabelle, you’re such a sweetheart,” he told her.
For the first time all day I laughed and laughed.
Chapter Fifteen
My good mood evaporated quickly with the realization that I was running out of time. The President was being unnecessarily kind, and at any moment she could change her mind and send me home. I was there by her good graces, but as long as I wasn’t performing magic, as long as my ring sat there as a dead weight on my finger, and as long as I wasn’t earning my keep as a member of Airlee, I was in serious danger of losing everything I wanted. I wondered if any of these credits were transferable to normal colleges.
I had surprised myself by liking Public. I had wanted to be there to honor my mother, to make her proud, but it had never occurred to me that I would come to love the place. Yes, my friends were a little odd: a mage of darkness feared by most of the campus, and a chirpy werewolf, not to mention Lough. But they had become my family. It was nothing like the college experience I had expected, but maybe that wasn’t so bad.
It reminded me of something Ricky in his infinite wisdom had said to me: Sometimes life doesn’t go as planned. And sometimes that’s okay.
I knew Ricky was talking about my mother, but really he could have been talking about anything.
As we got deeper into classes, the topics got more serious. Professor Zervos was determined to teach us as much as he could about demons, and I wondered if it had something to do with the conversation Sip, Lisabelle, and I had overheard that first week, about the demons getting stronger and attacking Public. I wondered just how close they were.
“All students must understand that there are several different types of darkness magic, but that the worst is from demons,” Zervos barked out at the start of one class. “What are the demon classifications?” he continued, gazing around the room.
As usual, Camilla’s hand shot up. I hadn’t even looked at her since the night she had cornered me. I knew that if I did my hatred would be clear on my face.
“Demons of Speed, Demons of Burning, Demons of Knight, and Demons of Pain,” she said smugly.
“And do the hellhounds follow any demon or just one type in particular?” asked Professor Zervos.
“They follow all of them,” Camilla explained. “The Demons of Speed are the weakest, while the Demons of Knight are the strongest. There are also the fewest of them, but since they are so powerful they are still able to maintain control over the other classes and over the hellhounds.”
“Very good,” said Professor Zervos, his black eyes scanning the room. “I hope all of you will take note of Camilla’s excellent explanation.”
“Has a demon ever been seen on campus?” asked Kevin, the senior pixie.
“Have they?” Zervos barked out, black eyes snapping as he waited for someone to dare to answer.
Finally Keller did. He didn’t look scared of Professor Zervos; I had never seen him look scared of anyone. “Only a couple of times,” he said. “It was at the height of the Demon Wars. They killed everyone they saw.”
Professor Zervos didn’t take the conversation any further, but it left us all with something to think about.
Since September had slipped into October it had grown colder. It was harder and harder to spend warm moments outside. Even so, on the next Saturday, the first time I didn’t have Airlee cleaning duties, I still trudged out to watch my friends compete in Dash.
Everyone was rooting against the vampires and their best player Tale, or, as the rest of campus liked to call them, the Sore Winners. They had gotten that nickname after years of going undefeated and still managing to be offended when students rooted for the underdog, which was every dorm that wasn’t Cruor.
I stepped outside Airlee wearing a light jacket, jeans, and a colorful scarf. Sip had left early so she could get to the field and warm up. Lough and I had agreed to meet in the place where we’d sat last time. I was excited.
“Hey,” said Lough as I joined him.
“Hi yourself,” I answered, stepping over benches until I could sit next to him. He moved over to make room and handed me one of the two steaming mugs of liquid he was holding.
“Here,” he said, “it will warm you up. You already look cold.”
I grinned at him. “Thanks.” I took the offered liquid and sipped carefully.
“Umm yum,” I said as the hot chocolate went cascading down the back of my throat.
“Anything happened yet?” I
asked, looking at the field. All four dorms were running around doing what I could only assume were the paranormal idea of warm-ups.
Lough shook his head. “Camilla got kicked out. That’s about it.”
“She what?” I said, almost choking on my drink.
Lough smirked. “Yup. She tried to beat up Katie Bells because she was talking to Cale.”
“Idiot,” I muttered.
“Yup,” said Lough. “Camilla shouldn’t have worried. No one dates outside of the dorm. Why would Cale bother when he could have any pixie he wanted?
“There’s really no cross-dating?” I asked. “Is it against the law or something?”
Lough snorted. “No, worse. It’s viewed as morally reprehensible. Ever since the Demon Wars there’s been no association between different paranormal types. They’re all afraid and they’re all blaming each other. I don’t know what would happen to one of us if we tried it,” he said, pointing abstractly to Airlee, “but it would be nasty.”
I thought about that. It meant that Cale could only date pixies and Keller could only date fallen angels. I don’t know why, but that thought made me a little sad.
“What about you?” I asked. “You ever going to ask Lisabelle out? She’s in Airlee, so you could.”
Lough spit a mouthful of hot chocolate all over the grass in front of us.
“What?” he asked, wiping his mouth. “Where’d you ever get a crazy idea like that?”
“Crazy, is it?” I asked.
He just stared at me.
“Okay,” I said. “Sip said she thought you liked Lisabelle.”
“Shit,” said Lough. “How’d she know?”
“She always knows stuff like that,” I said. “I don’t know how.”
The President stepped up to the side of the field and raised her hands. Black fire sprang into the air, reaching higher and higher.
“LET THE GAMES BEGIN,” she yelled.
Now that I had spent a month learning about magic, I knew how hard it was to control two large flames at once.
“The President is powerful,” I said to Lough.
He snorted. “She’s one of the most powerful mages of her generation.”
BOOM.
I probably shouldn’t have brought up Lisabelle. She’d made it pretty clear that she thought that in the grand scheme of things men were a minor inconvenience, one that she only tolerated out of the goodness of her heart. When Sip pointed out that she wasn’t sure if Lisabelle had a heart, Lisabelle just laughed.
Lisabelle viewed men more as disposable objects than as romantic interests, but Lough got all red-faced and stuttered whenever she walked into the room. I was pretty sure she hadn’t even noticed. At least she hadn’t noticed that he got sputtery because of her. It was sad. She had no way to know that he was actually quite articulate when she wasn’t around.
We watched Dash for the whole morning. The vampires won again, but so did Keller. He was becoming the hero of the school. His time was the fastest of anyone, including the vampires’ best, Tale. I cheered with the rest of them, but now so many girls were cheering for Keller that there was hardly any point to my adding my voice to the crowd. I learned that the individual wins were more important than the team wins, kind of like in tennis, so everyone was happy that Keller’s time beat Tale’s. It was the one place where different paranormals united, mostly in their hatred of the vampires.
I left the Dash field quickly so that I could get us good seats for dinner. Lough went to congratulate Lisabelle and Sip.
By the time they joined me in the dining hall I had already picked a table toward the front of the room and started in on my dinner of vegetable soup, fruit salad, and pizza.
“Nice job,” I said through a mouthful of fruit salad.
“Thank you for congratulating us on not completely sucking,” said Lisabelle drily as she started to eat.
“You didn’t suck,” I protested.
“The vampires still won,” said Sip, falling into her seat dejectedly and propping her head on her fist.
“They always win,” said Lough, sitting down with his own tray piled high with food. “The point is that you went out there and tried.”
Lisabelle rolled her eyes. “When a demon is trying to kill you that won’t be good enough,” she said. “You aren’t going to be satisfied with, ‘Well, at least I tried to stay alive. Good for me!’”
“Why would a demon try to kill me?” asked Lough.
Lisabelle leaned closer. “They want us all dead,” she hissed, her eyes like bright balls of fire. “Don’t you get that?”
“Get what?” asked Keller, walking past our table. He had three fallen angel girls with him.
“Nothing,” said Lisabelle. “We missed you today.”
“You guys have to get in trouble for something else so you can come back and help,” he said, smiling.
“Charlotte, can you help me next Saturday anyway? There’s a lot more to be done in the attic,” he said. “We can practice while we’re there.”
I blushed. I hated it when he mentioned that he was tutoring me in front of people. Maybe he just liked to point out that he was doing a good deed helping the Probationer. Even worse, I wasn’t even learning anything, because the magic still wasn’t coming. “I guess,” I said.
“What else do you have to do on a Saturday morning?” asked Lisabelle. I tried to kick her under the table but she avoided me deftly.
Once Keller was gone Sip said, “He’s so nice. For a fallen angel.” That started an argument about the benefits of being a werewolf versus a fallen angel. I half listened to my friends, but I didn’t join in. Seeing Keller had reminded me of all the elemental papers he had found, and I sat there wondering why he had been so secretive about them and why he wanted to look at them so badly.
Since my friends were deep in conversation, I left the dining hall alone. It was still early and I thought I’d have plenty of time to get some studying done.
“You heading out?” asked Keller, appearing at my elbow.
“Yeah,” I said, already turning red.
“Mind if I walk you?” he asked, although he already was.
“Don’t you have a lot of girls to escort home?” I muttered as we headed out into the cold air. “I’m fine by myself.”
Keller shrugged. “I know you are.”
I had nothing to say to that.
“Have you been looking at those papers?” I asked while he zipped up his jacket.
“Yeah,” he said. “They’re really interesting.”
“What do they say?” I asked. I wondered if they said anything about the artifacts in the Astra ballroom.
“Do the elementals interest you?” he asked.
I glared at the ground. “No. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not an elemental. I’m not even a mage at this point. I guess I just like history.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“You’re a fallen angel,” I pointed out. “What do you care about the elementals?”
He shrugged. “I guess I just like history too.”
Snap. One second the two of us were standing on the stone sidewalk surrounded by nothing but the cold October air, and the next second a red blaze appeared in front of us. I gasped and staggered backward. Somehow the red blaze seemed to have eyes, and it most definitely spit fire. The air around us now shimmered with an unbearable heat as the sparks coming off the demon scorched my skin.
A Demon of Burning had just materialized on campus.
I gave a cry of pain. My whole body felt like it was being engulfed in flames. Somewhere in the distance I heard a low, dark laugh, but there was nothing I could do. I wanted to fight back. I wanted to try to use magic, but my arms were pinned against my sides, immobile in the face of the fire. If I stood there much longer I would disintegrate. In some vague part of my brain I wondered what a demon was doing here on campus, since demons weren’t even supposed to be able to enter the grounds, let alone wander around terrorizing students.
Keller’s wings were nothing like that. I’d seen him use them on the Dash field a couple of times, but that had been at a distance. Up close they were dark, almost black. They looked strong, powerful, and deadly. There was no glitter anywhere.
In response to Keller’s transformation the demon let out a scream. I fell to my knees, my hands over my ears. My eyes locked on the red ball of fire in front of me.
Keller didn’t look bothered in the least by the demon’s noise. Instead he charged. The demon, taken by surprise, swerved out of the way, then came back at me. Keller leapt in front of it, barely blocking its path. Uncovering one of my ears, I reached down and grabbed a fistful of dirt. Without thinking I flung it at the demon.
My dirt distracted the demon long enough for Keller to be able to raise his hand, silver power gathering in his palm. He was going to challenge the demon.
The next moment, furry bodies surrounded me. My shock was so great that at first I didn’t even register that a group of werewolves had heard the fight and leapt to our defense. They came running across the dark lawn, tumbling out of dorm rooms and scattering from the dining hall. Now they stood, an animal mass between the demon and me. I wondered at the camaraderie of my classmates.
Coming close behind them was the scariest sight I ever hoped to see: A mass of vampires floating over the dewy grass, gathering black power around them.
Before I could get to my feet we were surrounded by professors, led by Professor Zervos. I found it odd that he was there so quickly, but I guess I shouldn’t have. As it was explained to me later, all the professors on campus instantly sensed a demon presence and immediately reacted to it. They were embarrassed that mere students had gotten there first and were also angry that now the entire campus would know that Public’s defenses were pathetic against the only threat that could hurt paranormals.
Paranormal Public (Paranormal Public Series) Page 13