Elemental Fire (Paranormal Public Series)

by Edwards, Maddy

  “I rather like it,” said Sip. “It reflects our personalities, which is what a room should do. There’s honor in honest decorating.”

  “What she’s not saying is that she’s spent the last year trying to force me to get rid of the black and she’s failed.”

  Once they finished arguing I insisted that Lisabelle tell me what had happened. But there wasn’t much to tell.

  “Vale said that there was no room for disrespect of professors at Public. She didn’t want to hear that I hadn’t disrespected anyone, I’d merely threatened to kill them, and of course a Fire Whip was there. Those guys need to lighten up. At first he didn’t want to hurt me,” Lisabelle said smugly. “I informed him when he finished cutting up my arms that he hadn’t, and that I would kill him.” Vale then insisted that he use the Fire Whip on me again, but when she realized that the whip was going to break before I did she sent me away. The Fire Whip was sweating.”

  “You got sent to the President because you threatened murder, and your solution was to threaten murder again?” Sip was appalled, but her hands carefully changed the dressing on Lisabelle’s wounds. “Yours is a singular kind of ‘logic.’”

  “No,” said Lisabelle comfortably. “I threatened to kill the pixies. I promised to kill the Fire Whip.”

  “That’s my girl,” said Trafton, leaning against Sip’s desk.

  “I’m not anything to you,” said Lisabelle disdainfully. “Especially your girl.”

  “Agree to disagree,” said Trafton. The fact that Lisabelle’s surliness no longer bothered him was the surest sign that he was now part of our merry little band of friends.

  “Want me to get Vanni? Or Nate?” I offered. Nate was a friend of Keller’s. He didn’t hang around us much, having a lot of his own Aurum friends, but I knew he’d do me a favor if I asked, and Lisabelle could certainly have used some healing.

  But she shook her head. “I’ll see Vanni tomorrow. She’ll help.”

  “Serves you right if she doesn’t,” Sip muttered. “Why don’t you tell the committee members what Vale did?”

  “Because they aren’t running the school anymore,” said Lisabelle. “They’re merely figureheads now. Decoration. They ‘chose’ a new president. There’s nothing they could do.”

  “She has a point,” said Trafton, rubbing his chin. “I mean, what does it mean when Professor Erikson, one of the very committee members who is charged with our well-being, is the one who sent Lisabelle there?”

  What did it mean indeed?

  The next day was Ultimate Tactical number two, fight to the death! - as Sip sarcastically called it. I had barely slept, thinking of Lisabelle. Needing comfort, I’d made the mistake of opening my mind up to dreams. But it wasn’t Keller I dreamed.

  Malle stood on the same dry plane. There was nothing but dirt for miles.

  “No,” I spat out. “Not right now. WHAT do you want?”

  “You’re right,” said Malle. If possible she was even more bent than she’d been before. You are busy looking for your missing Mirror Arcane, are you not?”

  My blood ran cold. To tell the truth, I had tried to search, but we had nothing to go on. It had just disappeared into thin air. My friends and I had agreed that once the second Tactical was over we would go to good hiding places on campus where it might have been left, including the Long Building and the deep reaches of the library. But we had to get through the second Tactical first, and given how the odds were stacked against us there was no evidence we’d make it to a third.

  “I just wanted to make you a promise,” said Malle, trying to shrug. It didn’t look like her shoulders worked properly any more.

  “Oh? What’s that?” I seethed. “I have sleeping to get back to. It’s more important.”

  Malle took a deep breath. “For centuries, the darkness has lain dormant. There have always been demons and hellhounds to fight against, but without organization they’ve been useless. They are not useless now. We have a group, the Nocturns, we have a darkness council, and we have power. I may not rise to be Queen of Darkness, but someone will. Of that you can be sure.”

  “Good to know,” I said coldly. “I’m rolling over now.”

  And with that I woke up, drenched in a cold sweat and with my eyes staring, unseeing, at the ceiling. Malle’s promise was not one I wanted to think about. But when I did I wondered who, if not Malle herself, could rise to be Queen of Darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The second Tactical started in the same place as the first. It was easy to find the field. Since massive piers of fire burned on each corner, all I had to do was follow the smell of smoke. Lizards were everywhere, more than I’d ever seen before, their black scales flashing in the spring sunlight. Students were afraid of the giant creatures and gave them a wide birth. The lizards themselves looked coiled, like they would attack at any moment.

  My team stood out from the crowd. Our pink uniforms had been scrubbed to shining, embarrassing perfection again.

  Unlike last time, I was one of the first to arrive. I imagined that Lisabelle was taking her time trying to figure out how to dress her wounded arms appropriately. It would slow her down, she’d said, especially because in order for her wand to be available for use, it would have to burn through some of the fresh cuts on her skin. Vanni was nowhere to be seen, and I could only hope that she was with Lisabelle.

  The Glories team was already assembled. Evan was now on their team and he looked positively miserable. Dobrov’s head was still down, but to his credit he stood close to the vampire. Cale, the only alternate left, stood off to one side near the center, his hands clasped in front of him. I noticed that Camilla kept shooting glances his way, but he did not meet her eyes.

  Rake was the only one of my teammates who was already there, and he gave me a welcoming nod. Shortly after I joined him the rest of my team showed up, and we all stood close together. Lisabelle looked impassive, but Sip still looked furious.

  I tried to listen closely to the instructions. My life depended on it, after all, but it was hard to concentrate after a night of broken sleep, plus the worry and fear that built upon everything that had happened in the last few weeks. Perhaps worst of all was that I still didn’t know where the Mirror Arcane was, or even where to start looking for it.

  Vale explained in detail what was about to happen. We would each be placed in a glass box. Anything at all could be in the box and it would be as large or as small as Vale demanded as long as each box was big enough for one of us to fit inside. The outside of the box would be covered in order to obscure visible escape routes. There would be a platform beneath the boxes, and she didn’t want us to see how far above the platform we’d be falling when we escaped. As for the platform, whichever student got to it first had to deal with the challenges awaiting us there, and then we had still to get off the platform . . . and hit the ground, not dead. The student who did that first, from either team, won the second Tactical.

  “Now,” said Vale, her voice booming out over the crowd. “If you would please?”

  From out of the sky came the glass boxes. It didn’t look like anything was holding them up, except a very thin wire that disappeared high into the clouds. I gulped.

  “Why does everything we do here have to involve heights?” I muttered. “Why can’t we all just hang out on the ground like sane paranormals?”

  Sip smiled a little but jerked her chin in the direction of Vale, who was waving her arms wildly and calling out orders to the lizards.

  “I see your point,” I said grudgingly. Sip nodded.

  “Let’s have the Glories first,” said Vale, beckoning the gray team over. Trafton looked grim. “She’s doing that to give them more time in the boxes. Since it’s a race to get out first, whoever goes in first has an advantage, unless she blindfolds them or something. But obviously she won’t do that.”

  I hadn’t even thought of that, but now I saw what Trafton meant. The Glories walked up to the boxes slowly, examining their outer wall
s. Each box was made of black glass, not something I’d ever seen before. The lines were perfectly cut, so smooth I couldn’t see where one panel started and the next ended. They were also smaller than I’d been envisioning.

  “They’re like coffins,” said Rake, cheerfully. “For once I’ll be in a place where I’m comfortable.”

  “Yeah, isn’t it lovely,” said Vanni, her eyes snapping wildly and her voice dry. She stood next to Lisabelle, a delicate hand on the darkness mage’s arm, still trying to get a little healing in.

  Once all of the Glories were in their individual boxes, the black containers rose high into the air. I craned my neck backwards, but they really didn’t go very far. They were probably as high up as the top of the Tower had been before it collapsed.

  The next set of boxes floated out of the sky as gasps went up from the other students. These boxes were much bigger and the glass was just a shade darker. Trafton leaned over to me, his voice angry. “Bigger boxes means more for us to have to break out of before we’re free,” he explained. “Another trick against us.”

  “Now, the Verrmins’ turn? If you will?” Vale beckoned us over. Lisabelle stepped out first. On Vale’s left stood several Fire Whips, their hoods pulled over their faces, but Lisabelle seemed to be staring at one in particular, who was taller than the rest. I wondered if he was the one she planned to kill. She stared at him all the way into her box, as if the box didn’t even matter. But the instant she was inside, the glass panel slid over the opening and she shot into the air.

  After that the rest of us quickly got into our own boxes. The students had crowded forward with a murmur to watch us enter, but silence fell as the black glass doors slid back, revealing the thicker blackness inside.

  I was the last one in. As I braced my hands on either side of the door the glass felt smooth and hot, hotter than the sunlight. Without hesitation I pushed myself through.

  Instantly the door slid shut behind me and I was in darkness. I blinked several times, trying to get my bearings as the box shot up into the air, stumbling against one side and then another. The wild swinging had not looked so bad from the outside, but once inside the moving box I could barely stay standing.

  The box kept shooting up and up and I forgot about everything except not throwing up. We (I assumed it wasn’t just me) were going much higher than I’d seen the other team go.

  Of course. I had always hated roller coasters, probably because of my fear of heights, but this was much worse. And somehow, Vale had known it would be. If she had called the fire Tactical “The Roller Coaster” she should probably call this “The Roller Coaster’s Bigger Cousin.”

  Eventually the box came to a sudden halt and I stumbled forward. The box was still rocking gently, but each side to side motion was less than the one before and I breathed a little easier.

  Then something slithered across my foot and I jumped. Unfortunately, I landed on something else wet and slimy and screamed again.

  The room was stifling. I needed light. My body was already sweating so much that my shirt was nearly drenched through.

  But I didn’t bother with just any light, I wanted fire. Red and orange heat quickly burst out of my ring, to hang in a globe above my head. I could hear the air whistling around my cage, but no shafts of sunlight came through the corners of the box. It was perfectly sealed. I was trapped.

  Instantly I knew that activating a light source had been a mistake. I was in a box of lizards, just like the ones that walked around on the ground, only these looked like sleeping babies. There were tons of them, so many that they covered the floor. If I moved at all, I’d step on one. A couple were awake, but blinking slowly. It was only a matter of time before they came to full attention.

  I gulped. This was why the room was hot. The lizards liked the heat, and they especially liked fire. I always saw them congregating around the flames on campus. Sip had once suggested that Vale was really a lizard. We had all laughed, but seeing how many of them were here I started to wonder.

  Okay, I thought. I can do this.

  I just had to figure out how to get out of there without waking any of them up. No big deal. Gingerly, I stepped around the first tiny body. Taking a deep breath I looked for the next place to set my foot.

  Now, halfway across the room, I saw a tiny bit of light coming from a spot on the floor: a trapdoor, or so I hoped. But there was no way I was going to get through it (probably to fall to my death from hundreds of feet in the air) without waking the baby lizards, which was not high on my to-do list, or, you know, anywhere on my to-do list.

  My next step was a mistake. I knew it instantly. There wasn’t enough room for my foot anywhere, so I had tried to just put my toes down as gingerly as possible so as not to create any vibrations in the floor.

  But as careful as I was trying to be, I still felt something slimy slide under my foot as soon as I tried to set it down. I gulped, but I didn’t have any time to think up a new plan because in the next instant there was a burst of flame before my eyes, and I flew backward. I slammed into the wall behind me and tried to open my eyes, but the heat that was blasting into my face made me change my mind in a hurry and squeeze them more tightly shut. There was heat everywhere. I felt it burning through my clothes all the way down to my shoes, licking at my forehead, and pushing up my nostrils. The entire container was filled with fire.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I didn’t know what to do, but the situation forced me into motion. The glass at my back was growing hotter, and I had to lift my shoulder blades away or get seared. I felt my ring pulse, and relief that it wasn’t melting down my arm gave me my first ray of hope.

  My magic was already busy keeping my skin from burning, and I quickly realized that it was doing it by turning my skin to fire. On impulse, and with the hint from my powers, I decided to add my fire to theirs.

  I was already halfway there. With a little push and a call to my power source, my ring, flames burst out of me, slamming out in every direction and scorching through the box.

  I opened my eyes and saw nothing but fire. There was no evidence as to whether the lizard babies were still alive, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was that the walls around me were heating and exploding. Shards of hot glass burst and shattered. I ducked, and that made me realize that there was no longer a floor under me.

  Just as I had been challenged to do, I had broken out of my prison. But now I was falling toward earth and the next challenge. I could only hope I’d been fast enough.

  Breaking my fall proved to be the first easy part of the afternoon. I just called gusts of air to flow under me. I had to calm the flames that my body had become, but even that was easy. Once that was accomplished, I was able to concentrate on the platform I could see far below, and a gentle landing onto it.

  Ah, so this was the real trick. The platform was literally a foot off the ground, but Vale had said we had to land, which meant that I had to beat whatever she had waiting for me on the platform before my team could win. I could see instantly that aiming at the landing wasn’t going to be a problem, but stopping was. It reminded me of a plane (me) trying to land on a boat in the ocean (problem). More determined than ever, I hurtled onto the smooth surface.

  The platform was made of glass, and it reminded me of the windows of the Tower before it had burned. They had been rainbows and smooth, beautiful and filled with magic. But I was sure the resemblance stopped there. The magic of the platform’s glass wasn’t the good kind.

  As I got closer I could see that the platform was huge, half as big as the Astra ballroom. Each corner had a massive gold torch with fire spewing out of it, and the smoke was drifting upwards, making my throat and eyes burn.

  I tried to slow my fall so I wouldn’t slam into the glass platform, but it was no use. With a sickening thud I felt my body shudder and tremble as I landed. On my stomach - and too fast. I touched my hands to the glass and then picked them up before using them again to stop my momentum. The edge was getting closer.
I felt my skin pull as I skidded forward, unable to stop myself. The wind whipped around me and I wanted to shut my eyes tight, but couldn’t. Right before I reached the far edge my body slowed. I wrapped my fingers around the glass and peered down at the ground. I had expected to see fire, but all I saw was green grass. Relieved, I looked back along the platform’s length.

  I blinked several times. In the center of the platform what was looked very much like a rhinoceros, only the horn sticking out of its head was much bigger, and gold-colored, while its body was scaly the way I imagined a dragon’s would be. That was silly, though; everyone knew dragons weren’t real.

  I decided the beast must be the rare, semi-legendary Chimera, which was in fact a type of dragon. It was prowling around searching for prey, and I was the designated target.

  Well, here I was. I’d come right to it.

  When I tried to stand up I crumpled instead, unable to support my own body weight. The Chimera felt the impact and turned its head, its gold eyes staring out at me.

  I hoped it didn’t have as good a sense of smell as werewolves.

  But before I could even get to my knees, it charged.

  Okay, it had a better sense of smell than werewolves.

  I scrambled to my feet, my fingernails gliding over the glass without gaining any traction. I gasped as the gold horn swished past my shoulder, ripping my pink shirt. I swore, knowing that if I survived this encounter they’d just give me another one. I raced away, but I could hear pounding footsteps right behind me. The thing was fast. It had spun around and charged again.

  This time it knocked me off my feet and I went flying. My arms flailed uselessly as I tried to break my fall, and I just had time to think wryly that at least it was a shorter flight than the one I’d just taken down from my box.