Chapter One
I left before morning. Ricky e-mailed me later to ask me if my visit had been a dream, because he had only seen me in the dead of night. He was upset that I hadn’t stayed longer, but I explained that I couldn’t. When he asked if I had looked for Mom’s locket, I had to tell him that I had completely forgotten about it.
Dacer wanted to know where I had been, but once I explained to him what had happened, he knew not to press me on it.
“Good for Cale,” he said as we headed for the library and yet another day’s research. “The boy followed his heart and didn’t let anyone tell him differently. Reminds me of myself at his age.”
“What did you do?” I asked curiously. Dacer rarely talked about when he was young.
The vampire chuckled. “You don’t think I always had such spot-on fashion sense, do you? I had to cultivate it. Much to my father’s dismay,” he added ruefully.
Today Dacer wore a blue blazer that in the right light sparkled with a million crystals, plus pants to match. Since he never wore sandals, today he wore white shoes.
“I agree,” I said, smiling. “Your fashion sense is one that would have to be . . . thought out.”
Dacer gave me a sidelong look, trying to detect if I was kidding. Then we both burst into laughter.
A cool, slightly damp wind blew across my face. Instead of turning away, I turned to face it. I let it wash over me, hoping that with it my bitterness would be blown away.
“I love Vermont. I am merely looking forward to loving it from a distance,” Dacer gritted out. It was late August, and the country air was still almost unbearably hot.
Unfortunately, Dacer’s flamboyant preferences in clothing, which would really only be considered commonplace, well, nowhere, had drawn attention here in the town of Harring, population eighteen hundred.
For example, his penchant for wearing parachute pants, and dress shirts covered in daisies, complete with brass-buckled shoes, top hats, and makeup, while also throwing in a cane as a fashion accessory, was rather unfortunate in a small town that had had no exposure to vampires. This was true even if none of the townspeople knew he was one. He explained his choices to anyone who asked by saying it was too hot to wear jeans. I tried to tell him that many men found a middle ground between jeans and dresses or flowing pants, but he would hear none of it.
I grinned at my professor. We were packing up our cabin on the outskirts of Harring, a wooden lodge at the base of a mountain, and there was no one anywhere near us. If there had been other travelers around for the summer, I felt sure Dacer would have scared them off in the first week, or talked them to death, I wasn’t sure which.
In an hour we would embark on the journey back to Public, with a stop for a couple of nights at President Caid’s summer home along the way. I couldn’t wait to get going. I had enjoyed the summer, but I missed my school desperately, and I had unfinished business there. This would be the fall semester of my junior year, and I was hoping for new developments in the conflict between the paranormals and the Nocturns. President Caid, the president of the paranormals, had somewhat accepted that there was a threat from the demons and was acting accordingly, a hopeful sign. My friends would all be back at Public, and I held out a small hope that my fellow students Faci, Daisy, and Camilla would be nowhere to be seen after the previous semester.
“Ah, a smile,” said Dacer, beaming at me as he tilted his hat to reveal his raccoon eyes. “I see those so rarely from you.” He hunched his shoulder up, as if bracing for me to yell, but I didn’t. There was no point. I had told him everything and he had been maddeningly calm about it.
I tried to hold the smile in place, but it when it started to tremble, Dacer looked away. He didn’t want to see my happiness disappear. You would think that the fact that I had spent my summer vacation in a musty old library searching for information we couldn’t find, or the fact that I wasn’t with my friends or my little brother Ricky, or that Dacer and I had set up an elaborate system to protect ourselves from demons, would have put me in a bad mood, but none of it had. In fact, all those things paled in comparison to what was eating me alive.
“I have a gift for you,” said Dacer, brightening. “I’ve been saving it all summer. Didn’t want to let it go to your head. Besides, it’s important to maintain some sense of trickery and wonder. Sometimes I worry that the work we do will banish it from our hearts.”
He rummaged in one of his many bags, his shoulders disappearing into the black leather depths. Seriously, he packed enough for six people. The amount of clothing he had brought could have outfitted the entire town of Harring twice over, not that the townspeople would have agreed to wear any of it. With a triumphant cry, he reappeared out of the depths of his overstuffed bag holding something wrapped in silver and blue paper. He held it out to me, but I already knew what it was. Scarcely daring to breathe, I unwrapped one of the elemental masks that normally lived in the Museum of Masks back at Public.
It wasn’t a mask I had seen before, which was strange. Dacer had initially wanted me as an intern, or allowed me to exist in his orbit, as he explained it, because I was an elemental and could help take care of the elemental masks in ways that other paranormals could not. But of all the masks I had helped him take care of over the semesters, I had never seen this one.
The mask was green, but it changed colors to sharp browns and deep blues as it moved, with flashes of white as I turned it from side to side. The mask wouldn’t cover my whole face, just my cheekbones, nose, and forehead. The straps used to tie it around my head were black and had a small shimmer to them. I found myself smiling broadly as I studied the mask.
It had already been glowing when Dacer unwrapped it, but the glow intensified the longer I held it. It also warmed to my touch, recognizing my power. I desperately wanted to put it on, let it touch my skin, my cheeks, let the burning sink deep inside me until the magic and I were one.
“It’s called Alixar,” said Dacer.
“Thank you, Dacer. What’s this for?”
Dacer wasn’t a big gift-giver, but he was looking at me with what could only have been described as warmth and pride shining in his eyes.
“It’s a mask,” he murmured. “A special mask. You’ve worked hard this summer, and it belongs to you, but really, I’ve wanted you to have it for a lot longer than the last three months. Now feels right.”
“But what does it do?” I murmured, turning it over in wonder. The inside was painted white and it smelled like something I couldn’t name, a sort of flower or herb.
“It was Queen Ashray’s,” Dacer explained, taking it out of my hands and flipping it back to face us. He pointed to the lower right corner, where there was a small design in the shape of a thistle.
“This was her insignia,” he explained. “I found the mask in a box when I first became the curator of the Museum. It was tucked away in a place where no one had noticed it for years, but though all the other objects in the box had gone dull and gray, this one still shone as if it had been worn just the day before. Sigil might know something about it. He might even have seen it used. Queen Ashray had names for all her most prized possessions.”
He pointed to a spot on the right inside corner of the mask, where it would lie against my cheek. There was one tiny word inscribed: Alixar.
I took the mask back reverently, afraid of dropping it. Queen Ashray was the elemental who had pushed to found Public and led a charge to defend the school from demons when they first attacked it. From all the reading I had done I had concluded that she was one of the most respected royal paranormals in history.
I snorted at Sigil’s name. “Silly ghost,” I muttered.
Dacer laughed. “I still need to meet the ghost that would dare to cross you.”
I grinned. “So, you’ve never tested it?”
Dacer looked aghast. “A lot of my work with the masks is to keep the magic fresh and usable. This one obviously did not need that. I don’t know whether Queen Ashray put some of her ow
n powers into it, so that its power comes ultimately from her, but it obviously doesn’t need any help from me to thrive. It doesn’t need yours either, but I just thought it would be best to have it in the possession of someone with whom it would feel at home.”
I stared at the mask in wonder, realizing that there was a very easy way for me to discover what it did. Acting on that impulse, I started to put it on, and the brightening mask immediately turned into a flame in my hands. Dacer cried out and lunged for it, yanking it away from me before it could touch my skin.
I gasped and stumbled forward.
“What did you do that for?” I was staring at him, my fingers warm from the touch of Queen Ashray’s legacy.
Dacer’s eyes were bright and a little wild. White showed all the way around his pupils as he stared at me.
“Masks don’t react like that,” he said, with a tone of exasperation. “Have I taught you nothing? Under no circumstances are you to put this on unless it’s absolutely necessary.” He took the mask back to the cloth he had wrapped it in and turned his back on me. I felt the loss of it from my vision keenly, but I tried to ignore the feeling as I straightened my shoulders and glared at my professor.
“So, if I’m in trouble you just want me to use a mask whose properties I know nothing about, and hope everything goes okay? Really, Dacer, that doesn’t sound like the best plan.”
Dacer shrugged his broad shoulders, once again looking as cool and collected as ever. I had wondered all summer how it was that the vampire never sweated, even though it was hot in Harring, sometimes swelteringly so. While I had spent a lot of time changing my shirt and wiping my brow, Dacer never perspired, not one drop. He said it had something to do with his vampire constitution, but I didn’t believe him.
“Yes,” said Dacer, nodding as he handed the bundle back to me. “That’s exactly what I want.”
I hesitated for a split second, then closed my fingers around the bundle, my eyes never leaving Dacer. “That’s risky,” I murmured.
He nodded. “Maybe you’ve lost trust in many elementals. I can see how you would have after the revelations about your mother’s death.”
“Murder,” I corrected, setting my jaw.
Dacer gave a slight shake of his head, but he didn’t argue. “Fine, her murder, but you must always trust Queen Ashray. She is above reproach.”
I looked at the mask in my hand, now safely bundled out of view, then back at Dacer. “I’m just not sure I can,” I said honestly, my voice low. “Every time I think I can be loyal to a paranormal, or a group of paranormals, I end up disappointed.”
Dacer’s eyes were sad as he looked at me, and his shoulders drooped slightly.
“I hope that is not always the case,” he said softly. “For all our sakes.” He lifted his arms slightly, as if he wanted to give me a hug, but then he appeared to think better of it.
I ignored the gesture and turned away, sighing. “I do too. I do too.”
Chapter Two
Instead of going straight back to Public, we were scheduled to stop at President Caid’s house on the way. The president was a short but imposing man with a warm smile and eyes that lit up when they looked at you, but his expression was very hard to read.
When he had snuck into Astra to visit me last semester, during that awful time when we were under the charge of Ms. Vale, I could see immediately why he was so beloved among the paranormals. When he walked into a room the atmosphere changed, because it felt like he was there just to pay attention to you alone.
He was old friends with Dacer. Other than acknowledging that friendship, Dacer had had barely ever mentioned any of his friends, and I had never heard a word about his family. Being at close quarters with him over the summer had made it even clearer to me just how little I knew of my mentor. Sometimes he would disappear for hours down the winding dirt trails that led into the leafy green woods, taking his Contact Stone with him, but I had no idea who he might be calling.
President Caid was on a short end-of-summer holiday before he returned to work, and since Dacer had been issued a standing invitation to visit, he said he thought a little stay at a summer house by a lake, in the company of other paranormals, would be a vast improvement over the summer of judgment, as he called it, that he had just experienced in Harring.
“I can wear water lilies in my shirt to my heart’s content. Really, who hasn’t heard of such a thing?” he muttered several times as we drove away from Harring.
“Or daisies,” I added helpfully.
We could have waited until evening and tried to fly to Caid’s, especially since Dacer, as a vampire, was remarkably good at floating, and Lisabelle had made a half-hearted attempt to teach me how to use a broom. But with all our (i.e. Dacer’s) luggage, it really didn’t make any sense.
“President Caid was very taken with Ms. Lisabelle and Ms. Sip,” said Dacer when we were getting very close to the lake, “so they’ll be joining us.” He chuckled when I perked up. I had written letters to my friends all summer, but with Lisabelle on the coast of Maine practicing advanced darkness techniques and Sip interning at the Museum of Unnatural History in L.A. (come on, where else would you build such a thing!), I hadn’t seen either of my friends in months.
Lisabelle had checked on Ricky once, but when we found out Cale was there she stopped making the trip. From the coast of Maine to Ricky was several hours of flying time, and she was pre-occupied with her magic.
I also hadn’t seen Ricky except for my midnight visit, and I wasn’t sure when I would get to. He had been furious when I told him I didn’t have time to come home. He had accused me of all sorts of things that had stung my heart, saying I was a bad sister and didn’t love him and that I’d rather be spending time with my boyfriend than my brother. I had tried to tell him that none of those things was true, but he just didn’t buy that I was working all summer on some boring-sounding project like researching the migration habits of birds in the northern Vermont woodland.
The real truth was that I couldn’t face him. All these years since Mom died I had vowed vengeance; I had promised redemption against those who had taken her from Ricky and me. But I had always had these evil shadows in mind, these horrible harbingers of doom who did not know right from wrong. Instead I’d been told that it was my own kind, those who should have protected and cared for her, who had senselessly murdered her.
Ricky would see the truth of it in my eyes, I was sure of it. He had always been the more perceptive of the two of us, and I was sure he would see my fury and pain. He would ask me what was wrong and I would break down in tears, and I couldn’t stand the thought of doing that. I didn’t want Ricky to carry the burden too. He was young. He should enjoy himself for a little while longer before the darkness closed around him as it had closed around me. I had always thought I’d be able to protect him from it, but now I was sure that that’s what Mom had been doing when she took us to live among humans with my stepfather . And look how badly that had failed her.
I closed my mind and tried to stop the thoughts from tumbling one on top of the other. I just hoped Ricky could forgive me, even if I didn’t think I could ever forgive myself.
“We’re almost there,” said Dacer, breaking me out of my reverie. I had felt the car bump when we left the pavement and headed down a dirt road. This wasn’t surprising, since most of the lakes in the area had summer houses around them that were accessed by dirt roads, but it was still a jolt for a moment.
I looked around. Surrounded by trees, I could have been anywhere. It reminded me a lot of Public, except that here I didn’t feel like the trees were reaching out and trying to maim me. We passed several houses, each more secluded than the last. They weren’t grand, but I could see that the owners would want privacy. President Caid’s was the last house on the road, which continued to a short dead end after that. I imagined that Caid’s bodyguards had fits every time a car drove too far down the road, looking for a house they had accidentally already passed.
Up a
head I could see a two-story house, not very large, painted a light green, with white shutters and all the windows blazing with light. There were several black cars parked out front.
Before our car had even stopped, a stream of paranormals came around the house. They must have been sitting outside, enjoying the late summer evening.
I didn’t recognize the first couple of people who came up to the car, but they looked like bodyguards. They were dressed plainly, all in black. I had heard vampires predominated at the Police Academy, with the odd pixie or Airlee or fallen angel thrown in. Obviously, when you thought of violent tendencies, vampires were at the top of the list because of their darkness, and although it required many other attributes to make a good bodyguard, a willingness to do violence was certainly required.
I felt an overwhelming sense of happiness when I saw my friends come around the corner, not just Sip and Lisabelle, but Lough too. Lough was grinning from ear to ear, his cheeks a familiar flaming red. I wasn’t sure if it was from the warm weather or happiness, and I didn’t care. Dacer’s car had barely rolled to a stop on the gravel driveway when I flung the door open so hard it nearly bounced back and slammed into my leg. Ignoring Dacer’s cautions, I jumped out and ran to my friends.
Laughing, I reached them and flung my arms around Sip. Lough came to hug both of us, while Lisabelle stood to the side. As usual, she was more reserved.
“How’s it going?” Sip murmured into my ear. “The summer has felt so long without you around!”
My smile widened as I took in Sip’s unique scent. There was always a hint of the animal about her, as if she had just changed from werewolf. There was also at the moment the smell of wood smoke and a hint of lavender. Because of her own purple eyes, Sip liked everything purple almost as much as she liked everything neon and tea and orderly.
Elemental Air (Paranormal Public Series) Page 2