“Can we go now?” asked Sip, nervously looking over her shoulder at the door we’d all come through. “I don’t know how much time has passed, but we have to be back in our suite before Golden Falls kids are up for breakfast, and we probably don’t have very long.”
The rest of us agreed. Lisabelle replaced the file, and we quickly made our way out of the medical wing. I tried not to look left or right; the disturbing images already felt like they were burned into my brain.
“Lough’s not going to like any of this,” I said, as we all headed through the second door and then the first. The more distance we put between us and the strange laboratory the easier I felt.
“It’s strange,” Sip mused, as we started down the stairs, “it almost feels like it’s not for magic, you know? Where was the magic in there?”
“Yeah, what exactly do you think they’re experimenting on?” I asked. Despite all the stuff in the room, there was no evidence of what they were actually doing or who or what they were doing it to.
No one knew. I didn’t even have a theory.
“Whatever it is, they don’t keep it there,” said Lisabelle. “Most of the files were student health records. There might be something else there, but it’s buried.”
Dawn was just rising through the windows as the sun peeked over the mountain, washing the valley in yellow light. Despite what we had just been through, I couldn’t help but notice how stunningly peaceful the place was. The valley barely seemed to know it was winter, unless you went up to towers you weren’t supposed to be in. The waterfall glittered in the early morning light, almost making me smile.
“We need help,” Sip mused. “I have an idea.”
Lisabelle raised her eyebrows. Sip said nothing, she just smiled a little.
We were careful to make as little sound as possible as we walked, afraid of who might hear us and come looking.
I desperately wished the corridors were carpeted. We were nearly to the girls’ suite, which was on the way to the guys’, when we heard footsteps.
My heart sank.
“We made it so far,” said Sip mournfully, as Zervos came around the corner.
We didn’t have time to hide. We were caught.
Chapter Twenty
Zervos’s footsteps barely faltered. He blinked once, and then again, the only sign that he even saw us. His back was razor straight and his eyes were sharp. The four of us stood there like statues as Zervos simply breezed past us without even making eye contact.
The blood pulsed in my temples. I gulped and turned my head just enough to watch him continue to stride down the hall. None of us moved, even after we no longer heard the sound of his footsteps. Unlike us, he was not trying to be quiet.
“Did that just happen or was it an apparition I was seeing, caused by lack of sleep?” Lisabelle asked, a frown creasing her brow.
“Did we suddenly turn invisible,” said Sip, “or did Zervos just choose not to yell at us for clearly breaking rules, because I’m pretty sure he chose not to yell at us, but that just sounds so crazy and out there . . . like Lisabelle wearing pink. . . .”
“May the darkness take me if I ever do,” Lisabelle muttered.
“He just walked away,” said Keller in shock. “He definitely just breezed past us.”
I found myself reaching for Keller’s hand. When my fingers brushed his he stuffed his hands into his pockets, never looking at me. I saw Lisabelle’s eyes flick to us. She had seen. My heart felt like stone.
“Maybe he wanted us to be doing what we were doing?” Sip said. “The evil professor paranormal wanted us to be sneaking around? Wow.”
“Let’s figure it out after we get back to our rooms,” I said, and we hurried into the suite. I turned around to say goodbye to Keller, but he was already striding down the hall. My heart clenched.
I watched him walk away until Sip grabbed my arm and pulled me inside.
“No moping,” she said, waggling a finger at me. “We have to get in bed.”
Feeling bone tired, I climbed into my own bed, but I didn’t close my eyes. Instead I stared at the ceiling for a long time, afraid that if I let myself fall asleep I would dream of a falling pixie I just couldn’t save.
After three weeks, nothing much had changed. Golden Falls classes were hard and we all felt constantly behind. Every free second was spent doing schoolwork. We studied runes and veneers. We learned about concealment. Golden Falls students were clearly used to the workload, and unlike the Public students they rarely looked like they were sagging under the weight.
Sip continued to write about paranormal union and freedom. She published to the Tabble regularly and was developing a large following. Every so often Mount would publish a response. The two had started something like a respectful rivalry.
I still hadn’t worked out the problem of getting in touch with Dacer. I knew Zervos would be of no help, although he had never mentioned our little morning run-in.
Keller and I were barely speaking, and I had no idea how to fix it. I wanted to ask him, but part of the problem was that we were hardly ever alone.
But the quiet was about to be shattered, just not in the way I expected.
One morning Sectar, whom I rarely saw, joined us for courtyard breakfast.
“‘Presenting’ spells are actually quite complicated,” Sip was saying between mouthfuls of brown sugar-covered porridge.
I shielded my eyes. “Do you think the waterfall is an illusion?”
Sip snorted. “Not likely.”
We were in the middle of the meal - I had two pancakes covered in strawberries - when Sectar raised his hands for silence.
“It has come to my attention,” said the tall man, “that some of the Public students are worried about the fallen angel Vanni, who has been in our prisons since she murdered her Public classmate in cold blood. I want to set your minds at ease,” he explained. “I do not want you to worry about a traitor. You have enough to worry about, for example your schoolwork, so that you do not need to concern yourselves with the affairs of your elders.”
As usual the courtyard was in full bloom and bathed in light.
Sectar looked around at us and nodded. Appearing satisfied, he disappeared with several of the Falls teachers. We all kept eating, and slowly many of the students trailed back inside the castle to prepare for the day’s classes.
I squinted at the dark sky and felt my body flex in fear. My feeling of foreboding deepened. “Vanni isn’t capable of killing a fly, let alone a whole pixie,” said Sip desperately.
“DUCK,” Keller yelled, before what felt like a solid rock wall slammed into me.
Public students immediately closed ranks, everyone gathering around Keller and me, almost as if the movement had been coordinated.
There was a stampede of footsteps as demons swooped down on us.
Keller’s body was covering mine. My face was pressed into the cold pavement and my arm was pinned under my body at a weird angle.
Try as I might to shove him off, he refused to budge. All around us I heard yelling and the bursts of spells being cast. Lisabelle was barking orders and Zervos was doing the same.
“Keller,” I said, my face turned sideways, “let me up. We have to fight together.”
“We have to keep you safe,” he said in my ear. His breath was hot against my skin. I shook my head, our cheeks accidentally rubbing against each other as he still held me protectively.
“We all have to fight, or die together,” I insisted desperately, trying again to push upward.
For several heart beats he didn’t move. I knew he wasn’t going to, and frustration slammed through me.
Then something changed, a shift in the wind and a dulling of my senses. The vibration of feet around us stopped, and for a split second there was silence. The peace didn’t last for long, though. The whistling in the air had turned into a hum and then a screeching. Now I could barely hear what Lough was yelling over the cries of battle.
But I did hear and it c
hilled me like nothing else had.
“Golden Falls students are gone,” he was yelling over and over again. His voice hoarse with effort. “They went inside and locked the door. We’re locked out here to die.”
Reluctantly, Keller pushed himself off me. Quickly, I used my arms to flip myself over, my hands scraping on the flagstones of the courtyard as my eyes searched frantically to take everything in at once.
“Oh no,” I whispered. The Public students had formed a protective ring around us. The sky was nearly completely blotted out with the black and red bodies of angry demons. They must have been lying in wait in the woods around Falls, just waiting for the right day to attack. Keller was standing next to me, but I saw fear in his deep blue eyes.
We were at war. Sip kept saying as much, even without a formal declaration from Caid, and here was more evidence that she was right.
We had been at war all along, but we had kept trying to call it something else. This was just the development of hateful tensions that had turned a spark into a flame, and now I didn’t think that even if Caid were here, he could call our battles against the demons by any other name.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Keller said. He had to yell. The noise of the battle was deafening. The pain in his voice clear.
It was a beautiful morning. The sky was streaked with deep oranges, pinks, and blues, which the demons were marring. How dare they turn the sky black? How dare they try to kill my friends? How dare they make me go to school with Faci? An anger buried deep in my gut started to flow through my body like a stream flooding. How dare they attack us again, especially when I hadn’t gotten any sleep. Hadn’t killing Dove been enough?
“This has to end,” I yelled.
But I was already too late. With a victorious stream of fire, one of the demons broke free of the protective shield the Public students had erected around us. My heart leapt into my mouth as I watched the fire head straight for Lough. With a searing hiss and a scream from the dream giver, the flames hit my friend full in the chest. Lough started to crumple.
Chapter Twenty-One
Keller raced around me to get to Lough, and Trafton, who’d been standing next to Lough, caught his fellow dream giver as he started to fall backward. Lough’s face was a white sheet of pain. The smell of burning flesh hung pungent in the air like wood smoke.
I started toward Lough, desperate to get to my friend, but he pointed away, shaking his head. “Fight,” he mouthed. “Fight.” His eyes rolled back in his head and Trafton gently laid him down. Keller started to work, but Lough was right, I didn’t have time to watch. Instead, I moved to where Sip and Lisabelle stood. I forced myself not to cry.
“Between Trafton and Keller he should be fine,” I said to Lisabelle, but I didn’t know if I was saying it more for my own benefit or for hers.
“He should be,” she said through clenched teeth. Her eyes were pure fire. Something shifted in Lisabelle that day, hardening her and removing some of the last traces of child. She was now a full-fledged darkness mage.
A funnel of dark power came around her as she raised her arm. Swirling in circles, the funnel grew until it ripped through the air, straight at a pile of oncoming demons. I saw a look of satisfaction in Lisabelle’s eyes that I had never seen there before.
With powers flying and rings raised, demons swooping down and our circle drawing even closer together, the wind started to whip and clash around us. I let it go. I didn’t care. My body was hot with anger and I wanted to put it to good use.
Somewhere in the distance thunder rolled.
There!
Eight demons flying in formation, riding those hybrids: they were coming right at us. I called to the earth. My ring was eager and ready; all I had to do was direct the power. I pointed my hand at the demons, but instead of a stream of power slamming into the earth, my power backfired and I went flying. With a cry I landed on my back and ended up staring at the black sky.
I struggled into a sitting position. We were so close together that someone kicked me in the leg in an effort to make a tighter circle. I gasped in pain and hurriedly got to my feet, limping a little. I was about to reach down with my ring finger when I saw that my ring wasn’t pulsing with its normal light. Instead, the light was zipping and blinking all over the place.
It looked like lightning.
A crack sounded overhead just as a flash of light brightened the sky, turning it from black to silver and back again in a split second. I blinked, trying to clear the spots from my eyes.
“Well, there you go,” a voice cried gleefully.
There was another crack. My hand was stinging, my finger felt like it was burning off, and I couldn’t see. Pain like I didn’t know existed tore through me and I let out a whimper.
My body felt like it was coming apart, and all my knees wanted to do was sag to the ground. Instead, I clenched my hands so hard that the nails dug little bleeding half moons into the flesh of my palms.
I glared up at the bright spot where the lightning had struck, daring my powers to strike again. The air rippled with heat and I noticed that the formation of eight demons was gone.
A sort of twisted satisfaction lodged in my throat. The demons hadn’t gotten away.
Sip stumbled over to me and placed a trembling hand on my arm, her eyes going wide with shock.
“You’re skin is so warm!” she said with wonder. I glanced down at my arm. It didn’t look any different, except that every muscle in my body was screaming, and it took all my energy to continue to stand.
“So, you can control lightning,” said Lisabelle. “Nifty.”
“Isn’t it?” I said dryly. My eyes still searched the sky. There were a few demons left, and they were still fighting, but the lightning had destroyed many of them. The ones that remained were no match for us, and they were scared. I glanced back at Golden Falls. The doors stood closed.
“They just left us out here!” I said incredulously.
“Yup,” said Sip.
I started to sag. I couldn’t help it, so I didn’t. I sat down heavily on the cold stones. I desperately wanted to lie down and lay my cheek against the cold ground, but with a struggle I made myself stay sitting up, because I didn’t want to embarrass myself.
A crackling of heat over my skin made me look at my hand.
“Lightning dancing,” Lisabelle murmured. “It’s rare, even for elementals like you.”
“I’m just a ball of coolness,” I said. My mouth was parched. I was likely to eat the dirty snow if I didn’t get water soon.
“Charlotte,” said Sip, “Can you control lightning?”
“Of course she can,” Zervos wheezed, pressing his fingers to his bleeding side. “Earth, Air, Fire, Water.”
Zervos looked pale, and his eyes were bloodshot. He clutched his wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but when Keller made a move to help him instead of Lough, Zervos waved him off. Another point for Zervos. The professor was a contradiction if ever there was one.
Sip grinned. “Well, that’s one bright spot, anyhow.”
“A bright spot in the sky,” Lisabelle mused, “written in lightning.”
I looked around at my friends. It was the first time I’d been frightened of my own power.
“I’ve never read anything about elementals controlling lightning,” I said.
“If you control all four varieties of elemental power, there’s a good chance you have some affinity with lightning,” said Zervos, his breathing labored. “It’s called lightning dancing, because the ancient paranormals used to think that lightning danced through the sky.
“Never mind that,” I said, “where’s Marcus?” I wanted to see Zervos attended to as quickly as possible, and Keller and Trafton weren’t ready to leave Lough yet.
Sip’s face fell. Her lip started to tremble and I could see that she was about to cry. With a shaking hand she pointed to the entrance of Golden Falls University.
I could see a body lying there, a lone demon circling far ove
rhead.
“He tried to run,” said Lisabelle tiredly. “I guess Vanni got off easy. At least she’s still alive.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The demons had started to gather again. Zervos, injury and all, strode up to the double doors and hammered on them. While he did that, Rake went to retrieve Marcus’s prone body. We weren’t going to leave one of our own out in the open regardless of the fact that the battle was still going on.
Sip let tears spill silently down her cheeks as Rake returned. Lisabelle stood impassive. I imagined that Keller would grieve when he wasn’t so busy trying to save Lough.
Zervos slammed his bloody hand against the door again and again, but we heard no sound from inside. Finally, Keller came over to him.
“Stop it,” he ordered the professor. “Let me heal you.”
Keller looked tired and his brow was streaked with sweat. I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t dare.
“They can’t leave us out here,” said Sip, her voice shaking. “We’ll die.”
“They’re afraid of violence,” I muttered. “I mean, they have Happiness Enforcement Officers, not police officers.”
“We’ll be alright if we can get inside,” said Lisabelle, her brow knitting together as she watched the gathering demons. She turned to Zervos. Now, instead of Sip, my other friend was yelling at him.
“We can’t stay here,” she said. “We’re dropping like flies.” She waved her hand at Marcus.
“A demon kill is not something we can predict,” said Zervos through gritted teeth, his face having gone a pure, sickly white. Whatever Keller was doing, it must have been hurting a lot. “We have to respect our hosts. They aren’t used to battles.”
Lisabelle shook her head. “A demon didn’t kill Marcus.”
“Of course a demon did,” chorused several voices, including Sip’s. Lisabelle shook her head again and pointed at the body. Rake was kneeling over the dead fallen angel, but as silence fell he looked up.
Elemental Earth (Paranormal Public) Page 13