Elemental Unity

by Maddy Edwards

  In that they were like their mistress.

  We made for the gates of Golden Falls. They were closed, and they looked as if they hadn’t been opened in a long time. Iron bars awaited us.

  I wondered if Lisabelle was going to blow them to smithereens. I still hadn’t heard anything from inside the former school, but a steady drumbeat of fear was emanating from the walls.

  Where it was coming from I had yet to determine.

  At the last moment Lisabelle stepped to the side. There in the stone wall I saw an iron door.

  She walked up to the door and knocked.

  Nothing happened.

  She knocked again.

  Nothing happened again.

  Then she tried the handle and the door swung open.

  Just as she was about to go through it, one of the hellhounds let out a whine.

  Lisabelle glanced down. “I’m sure you’re right,” she murmured.

  Then she stepped aside and let the hellhound go through first.

  All I heard was a hundred snaps. Then hissing, then thuds.

  I started forward, but Lisabelle blocked my path.

  She turned and looked at me over her shoulder. “He tried to shoot me. Very well. I guess we won’t be having a civil conversation. I never thought those got us anywhere anyway.”

  She turned and looked at some of the other hellhounds who were waiting for her command. “Go on. And don’t be nice.”

  The door started to close as if somebody was frantically pushing it shut.

  They had no chance.

  Hundreds of hellhounds tumbled through the door. Two or three at a time, they piled on top of each other in their eagerness to get in.

  Finally, from inside the former school I started to hear noises.

  They made my stomach churn.

  All the noises I heard were screams.

  “Wait for it,” said Lisabelle. And she glanced to the sky.

  I had been so preoccupied with what the hellhounds were doing that I had forgotten about the crows. Now Lisabelle let loose thousands of small, sleek bodies. They flowed over the walls of Golden Falls.

  Just then there was a snapping noise. Lisabelle glanced up but didn’t appear to think anything of the disturbance. “That’s a more elaborate defense than I would have expected. They must be using stolen artifacts to power it. Who was surprised by that?” She was talking more to herself than to me.

  As the screams slowly subsided and finally stopped altogether, Lisabelle stepped through the door.

  She didn’t tell me to stay or go, so I followed her.

  The courtyard was covered in bodies. Hellhounds prowled everywhere.

  “This way,” Lisabelle said as she swept forward.

  Chapter Six

  I hurried after her as she swept over the broken stones, around the dead, and up the steps. The next door we came to was closed against us. Lisabelle lifted her hand, and darkness blasted forth. The doors exploded in a shower of sparks and debris.

  Lisabelle never stopped moving. The hellhounds swirling around her formed a tight circle. Above her head, crows kept watch. I glanced from side to side. Never having been to this former school, I had wondered what it would be like.

  It was far more depressing than I had expected. Then again, their defenses were down. The walls had been breached. They were under attack from an enemy who had never lost a fight.

  If that didn’t sound depressing, I didn’t know what did.

  As I followed Lisabelle inside, I realized that a few of the hellhounds were staying close to me. I knew she had only been partially exaggerating when she said they’d been brought for my defense. She probably would have brought some anyway, but they could also keep an eye on me while they went about their business of destruction.

  I wasn’t certain how I felt about that, except that my ring was cold on my finger. It was as if even my essence was afraid.

  Golden Falls was not abandoned, but it didn’t look as if all the space was being used, either.

  The hall we entered was littered with broken furniture and sullied with layers of dirt and grime. Several pairs of footprints straggled up the steps and disappeared behind the stairs. Someone had been in here, and recently, but not often.

  For a moment Lisabelle paused. She stared down the long hallway as if listening for something. Someone.

  What would you do if death waited for your footsteps?

  Get comfortable.

  The hellhounds waited patiently. I shifted from foot to foot. I heard nothing at all except a slight drip of water from somewhere out of sight.

  “This way,” Lisabelle said at last.

  She swept up the stairs. I came level with her and she glanced at me. “This was once a beautiful place, a mighty place,” she said. “Oh, how things have changed. We should never have let it be taken over as it was. We just kept ceding ground.”

  She said it as if she would never let it happen again. Given her display outside and her army of terrifying hellhounds, I believed her.

  We kept moving. No one appeared to challenge us. I kept thinking Hunters were going to come running down the hall, but there was only darkness.

  Only one crow had followed us inside. I assumed that the others were waiting outside, circling in the sky. The crow that had come with us now darted forward, scouting the way, making sure there was no danger out there for Lisabelle.

  I could have told him that there was not.

  The further we got into the school, the more lived in it appeared. I decided that the outside was just an empty shell, one last safety net in case the walls were breached.

  Well, the battering ram herself had walked in.

  Periodically, Lisabelle would turn around to look at me. Given that she could sense my presence without having to lay eyes on me, I decided she was looking to see how I was taking all of this.

  I had no idea how I was taking all of this.

  Just then the crow came screeching back to hover at eye level with the premier. A warning sign. There was something ahead that we needed to be concerned about.

  “Stay behind me,” she said. Her tone was calm but firm.

  “I definitely don’t want to be in front of you,” I muttered.

  I meant to make the cadence of my voice low enough so that she couldn’t hear me, but somehow she did. I saw her shoulders curve slightly with mirth. Several of the hellhounds turned red glowing eyes on me.

  “No more jokes,” I told them.

  Lisabelle was already sweeping forward. I hurried to keep up, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else. I wanted to see exactly what she was about to do.

  She didn’t disappoint. The second she came around the corner, arrows of fire shot at her. She didn’t even have to lift a hand for darkness to consume every last bit of flame. The color around her deepened.

  Down at the end of the hallway I could see several figures, each of them larger than your average paranormal. Maybe they were part Ogre or Oggle, I couldn’t be certain. Either way, they held bows.

  Another volley of arrows shot our way. I didn’t so much as duck as another black wall of darkness rose up and consumed the attack.

  This time the wall of sheer magical power didn’t fade. Instead, it moved forward. I saw the figures at the end of the hall start to shift. One fired one last desperate arrow. Then they turned to run.

  As they tried to get away, the wall of magic sped up. I closed my eyes. There was no question as to how this would end.

  Screams echoed down the hallway amid the clatter of metal falling to the floor. I heard one last hiss as the flame in the sconce our attackers had used to see by was snuffed out.

  Now all I could smell was smoke and despair. Again my stomach rolled.

  Nothing remained of what had just attacked us. “Didn’t want to keep them for questioning? What if one of them was the one we’re after?” I asked.

  “I know who we’re after,” Lisabelle shot back, drenched in darkness and controlled fury.

&
nbsp; Not an ounce of forgiveness emanated from her.

  “Who are we looking for, then?” I asked.

  “The Coordinator. The Hunters operate in small units, each unit searching out artifacts or meeting with Nocturns or causing me other problems. One unit doesn’t know where the other units are, or what the others are up to,” she explained.

  “Safer that way. If one Hunter gets caught, he can’t rat on the others,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “But the Coordinator knows where everyone is?”

  “After the fact, yes. They have to report to him. That’s how they keep track of progress,” she said.

  “And what are you hoping this coordinator will tell us?” I asked.

  “I want to know who of the Hunters were in the area when Sip was attacked. She was set up. They were waiting for her. There is no other explanation. She was well defended. We all made certain of that. You know she wasn’t stupid or reckless, not like me. For them to have gotten to her, they’d need the right artifacts. You must understand, Ricky, all of this comes back to the right artifacts. That is an explanation for more than you seem to realize,” she said.

  I frowned at her back. She was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t getting it. Maybe when we weren’t in such a deadly situation I’d have a clearer head.

  Admittedly, the situation was deadly for everyone else, not us. Lisabelle and I were doing just fine. The hellhounds now started trotting along in front of us. The crow had disappeared entirely.

  We finally entered what appeared to be living quarters, large spaces with many imposing doorways. It was clear that paranormals used these rooms regularly.

  Lisabelle and I started picking through any clues the defenders had left behind. The faint smell of recently cooked food and brewed coffee hung in the air. Although it was clear that the space was lived in, apparently nobody cleaned it. A level of dust hung in the air that made me sneeze.

  “We don’t have time for this,” said Lisabelle after a few minutes of searching. She was turning her head from left to right, peering down hallways and through doors that led off in different directions. “The night is wearing on,” she muttered. We were having no luck finding this Coordinator, or even a hint as to where he might be.

  Lisabelle turned back to the door that we had come through. Clearly she was going to move on. Just as she reached it, a raven appeared.

  I could only see her face in profile, but that was enough to tell me that she was pleased. “What did you find for me? It’s in the tower?” she asked the raven. “Lead the way.”

  Where the raven had come from I had no idea. I thought all the birds I had seen earlier had been crows. But Lisabelle didn’t just have one secret as a backup. She had layers of them.

  The bird spiraled higher and higher, emphasizing a winding staircase of stone steps that circled upward. I could feel the wind rushing through the tower we had been exploring. I had no idea where we were or how to get out of there. If Lisabelle decided to leave me, I’d be in big trouble.

  Luckily, I was not remotely worried that she would. I mean, even after all these years, she never had.

  The raven moved quickly, knowingly, as if the bird and Lisabelle had done this before. Many times she had followed this creature to something hidden, no longer so once she reached it.

  We moved at a fast clip.

  Obviously dark creatures of evil had no trouble keeping up with us.

  “There,” I pointed. A little distance ahead of us was a thin strip of yellow light. It moved slightly, and I realized that it was a candle, or maybe somebody walking in front of a candle, seen through a crack in a doorway. Either way, we had tracked down a Hunter who had not yet come to attack us.

  My companion gave the tiniest nod, and we started moving forward a little more slowly.

  As we reached the door, Lisabelle swept her hand up. After a moment of puzzlement, I realized that she was searching for any traps that had been laid in our path.

  I decided I could help. My ring was still cold, but it didn’t take much power for me to call a bit of wind, especially when the wind was already rattling through the tower. I sent the magic rushing into the room in front of us. Whoever was in there would be distracted. Papers would fly and possibly catch fire, the chair would overturn, and maybe the windows would flash open.

  Just as I did that, Lisabelle moved forward. With one tattooed hand she pushed the door open wide.

  I knew I should stay back, but I couldn’t. I came level with her and peered over her shoulder.

  It was only now that I realized that I was taller than Lisabelle. She wasn’t short, but she was very slim. My sister had mentioned that Lisabelle had lost weight since she’d become the premier. That much magic took a lot out of you, was what Charlotte had said.

  So did your best friend’s murder.

  I felt something brush against my leg, and shuddered. Even the hellhounds were curious. Eager.

  Lisabelle stepped into the dimly lit room. There was a good chance that before anyone had used a blast of power, the space had been tidy.

  Now there were countless piles of papers, many of them with rocks weighing them down, suggesting that my magic hadn’t made the mess all that much worse.

  In the center of the circular space was one large table. To my right was a fireplace. Above us was a chandelier. The room wasn’t brightly lit, but it was easy enough to see who was standing in the midst of it all: a tall thin man whom I had never seen before, frantically trying to gather papers.

  When we walked in he looked up and let out a whimper. “I knew this was going to go wrong. I knew this was going to go terribly wrong,” he cried. “I told them all that this was a bad idea. I told them all that they couldn’t protect me from you. I knew I’d get the short end of the stick.”

  “I don’t have sticks. Knives, but not sticks,” said Lisabelle, turning her head to the side.

  The man started to cry quietly. “I don’t deserve this! They should have made better plans. I told them as much.”

  For once Lisabelle let him ramble. And after all, why not? Maybe he’d say something useful.

  “How well did that work out, anyway?” he demanded. “I don’t think it did. You’re here now, and you killed everyone you met on the way in, didn’t you?”

  He had asked it as if he expected her to respond. When she didn’t, he paled even further.

  “You’re not going to tell me no, I don’t suppose. I’m going to assume they’re all dead. You’re here, and they’re dead. They were given an order to kill you on sight, of course. That’s laughable, isn’t it? It’s not as if they’d ever get close enough to see you, let alone end your life. Not unless you let them. I know how powerful you are. Everyone should know that now,” the man babbled. He was shaking so hard, the papers he was holding were rattling in his hands.

  When he stopped talking, the silence rang around us. The hellhounds only had eyes for Lisabelle’s prey.

  She finally spoke. “So what you’re saying is that my reputation precedes me?”

  The man’s eyes widened at the coldness of her tone. I didn’t know what he would have expected of the most powerful paranormal in the history of the magical world, but he started to rock from side to side.

  “Everyone knows who you are, Great One,” he said, trying to be ingratiating but in the end conveying only terror.

  He tried to bow, but he was shaking so badly he nearly dropped the papers. I stepped further into the room to stand next to Lisabelle. His eyes flicked to me for a moment. As I had gotten used to, they widened when he realized who I was.

  “I was expecting you to come alone,” the man said, looking away from me and back to Lisabelle.

  “Your expectations of me mean nothing. They will have no impact on what’s about to happen,” she said.

  He appeared to gain a bit of bravery from that. “Actually,” he said, a little more firmly, “my expectations mean everything. I knew you’d be here and I you’d want to know w
hat I knew about the Hunters who were in the area of Paranormal Public that night. I therefore made it my business not to know. In the event that you should show up here, I would not betray the cause.” Lifting his chin, he tried to keep his gaze steady.

  “You expect me to believe that the whole day is a blank?” Lisabelle asked. The tiniest edge had crept into her voice. Her hellhounds were utterly still. They could tell she had no patience.

  I wondered if this man standing before her, defying her will, could do the same.

  “I expect you to kill me anyway. When you do, I will not have divulged any secrets. I do believe that attack was unplanned, in view of where certain Hunters told me they were. I suppose that’s good for them, because it eliminates them from the subject pool. A majority, however, did not relay the information. The second I found out that the president was dead, I told everyone not to report on that day. And I mean everyone,” he said.

  The word “dead” upset Lisabelle just the tiniest bit. She was not talking about Sip in those terms, and I didn’t have the impression that she appreciated it when others did. Then again, this paranormal in front of us was a dead vampire standing, and what he did and didn’t appreciate wasn’t exactly clear.

  Maybe he honestly believed that Hunters would come to save him.

  “Okay, suppose I believe what you’re saying, then what?” said Lisabelle with deadly calm. “I expect you to hand over the information that you do have. Then I expect you to sit in the chair over there.” She pointed in a certain direction.

  The vampire glanced that way and said, “That’s not very threatening.”

  “You want me to get threatening?”

  He hesitated for only a moment, then stepped forward. He picked up a thin envelope and handed it to her. “You are smart to come after me. I should know where everyone is. Nobody else does. If I don’t know who killed her, then no one else will,” he said.

  Lisabelle turned the envelope over in her hands, then looked up at him. He took a physical step back from the expression on her face. “Somebody knows,” she said. “Somebody killed her. I intend to find them, then take my time expressing my feelings on the matter. Everyone is always telling me to do more of that.