There in the hallway stood Dobrov Valedication, the president of Paranormal Public University, quietly looking at us.
“Um,” said Keegan.
“That’s what I thought,” said Dobrov, his arms folded over his thin chest. Eighellie came back to us slowly, although she did keep glancing over her shoulder as if she wanted to keep going in the other direction.
“I have it on good authority, Ricky Rollins, that you’re supposed to be staying out of trouble. You’re doing a poor job of it,” said Dobrov.
There was nothing for me to say.
“We thought we heard someone,” said Eighellie. “We wanted to make sure they weren’t breaking into the Museum.
Dobrov looked at her with bemusement.
“Of course we heard someone,” Keegan said out of the side of his mouth. “We heard the only paranormal with the ability to kick us out of school and we came running while we were violating the rules.”
Dobrov looked impressed. “After you let yourselves get caught so easily, tree sprite, I wouldn’t have said you were smart. But – good explanation.”
Keegan gave an appreciative grin, then he remembered that Dobrov wasn’t a big fan of his and his face fell again.
Dobrov shook his head. “Get out of here. Now.”
Chapter Sixteen
Classes were going well. Professor Penny continued to be the most boring and uninterested individual I had ever come across. Professor Heather clearly had no use for me, she made that clear whenever she could. She wasn’t openly hostile – yet – but she did her best to pretend that I wasn’t there. I had a feeling that if the darkness inside me acted up again she would do whatever she could to get me kicked out.
One morning not long after our trek to the Long Building, our breakfast notes included the following:
LECTURE
There will be two lectures today as part of the inaugural lecture series started by the first elemental.
This was not news to me. Charlotte was a kind and loving sister, but when she had asked me to come to the lecture series she had inaugurated, she indicated by subtle understatement that if I didn’t show up and bring friends, she’d kill me dead. Luckily, I now had two of them to bring along.
After Eighellie’s confession in the Long Building, we three had become closer. She still went out there, but sometimes now she would tell us what she learned. Basically, it wasn’t much. It wasn’t as if meticulous notes had been kept on who did what on the side of darkness during the Nocturn War. Or at least, there were none as far as she could discover or gain access to.
The Tabble hadn’t been terribly helpful during that time, trumpeting sensationalist headlines and avoiding bringing down any real terror on themselves as much as they could. The Tabble had been threatened just like everyone else who had wanted to put anything in writing, but they had somehow managed to walk the fine line that kept them free to publish.
Without any accounts from darkness mages themselves, Eighellie was nevertheless laboring through firsthand accounts of what had happened, mostly in the form of correspondence she had gathered that had been sent among her family and friends. She was particularly interested in how the enemy had found her and her grandmother. They had been well hidden, but even so it hadn’t been long after her parents had sent her away and been murdered that darkness had come for her as well. Because darkness had known exactly where she was, she believed she’d been tracked.
Keegan had pressed her about whether her grandmother could accidentally given away their location, or if it was a place that would have been known anyway. Eighellie had fiercely denied both of these possibilities, to the point that she was offended by them. Keegan had apologized, but he still looked skeptical.
Now, sitting next to me at breakfast and reading the notice about the lecture, Keegan said, “Does that make you the second elemental?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “How many of us do there need to be before we stop keeping track?”
“Humm, six?”
“Is that a scientific number?”
“No,” said Keegan.
“I didn’t think so.”
“What are you looking at me like that for?” Keegan looked uncomfortable, so I kept staring at him.
“Yeah, I’d love to come! All the other things I’d rather be doing are definitely less fun. See you there!”
“Thanks,” I said. “It means a lot to Charlotte.”
“Yeah, I know. The first elemental.”
“Cool, I’ll meet you there later. I need to do something first,” I said.
The flyer my sister had put up all over campus went something like this:
A DIFFERING VIEW
Want to know more about the paranormal world you will soon be a part of? Think there’s more than one viewpoint on the battle between light and dark? Then there’s a new lecture series on campus just for you! The first lecture is a joint affair. To start us off, Judge Yeast will explain some of the current problems in paranormal government. To bring us around full circle on the day, Professor Fussfus will discuss the ever-exciting topic of artifacts!
Charlotte had given that flyer to Sip to provide her customary pep, or I wasn’t really her sister.
All around the dining hall there were mutterings. Students now looked at the Tabble for news of artifacts, Dobrov’s firing, or anything in between. They were as hostile as ever, and many were impatient with the classes they were taking at Public. I could feel the anger simmering underneath the surface, and I suspected that it was only a matter of time before the issues came to a head.
If there were any more problems at Public, a fire would be started and the anger was likely to boil over and explode.
Unfortunately, on the very day of the lecture, the Tabble brought yet another damning headline, one of a constant stream:
IS DOBROV VALEDICATION EVEN STILL RUNNING PUBLIC?
WHY IS PRESIDENT QUEST ALLOWING A LAME DUCK TO LEAD?
Sighing, I tried to focus on homework, but it was so dull it nearly brought me to tears. We were supposed to have finals at the end of the semester, and every one of them would be on theory, theory, theory. Most of the homework assignments had us a reviewing old philosophy texts that were hard to read, dense, and dull.
There were so many more interesting things happening in the paranormal world!
I had had enough, and I was tired of pretending that everything was okay when even the Tabble told us every day that it wasn’t. Paranormal Public wasn’t what I had expected, not even a little bit. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t going to be allowed to learn anything useful, only theory, theory, and more boring theory during my time at the university. That wasn’t what I had come for, and there was a paranormal I needed to speak to about it. Luckily, she was confined to campus, so she wasn’t hard to get in touch with.
I stormed into Charlotte’s office not long before the first lecture was due to start. Okay, not great timing, especially since it was my first visit to her office despite repeated requests on her part that I come by and see the place. And okay, admittedly I had been avoiding her, mostly because I was afraid she’d ask about my powers. I knew Lisabelle hadn’t told her anything, because if she had Charlotte would have been waiting for me in the Astra kitchen first thing the next morning, and she hadn’t been.
Charlotte’s secretary sat in an outer office. An elderly man with glasses and broad shoulders, he gave me a strange look as I passed him, but he didn’t try to stop me. I hadn’t met Charlotte’s staff yet, mostly because I had been so busy trying not to get killed while getting ready for college. I felt a little rude just ignoring the secretary, whose name, I knew, was Luther, but whatever. I was pissed.
My sister looked up in confusion from whatever manuscript she was reading. “Ricky,” she said, smiling broadly, “this is a nice surprise.”
“Hi, Sis,” I said, slumping down into her chair. “I have something we need to discuss.”
She put her pen down on her desk.
; “No, Luther, I’m fine,” she said. I turned just in time to see the secretary duck back outside. Charlotte turned to smile at me again.
“Yes?”
“There are no battle classes here,” I said. “It’s all theory, theory, theory.” I threw up my hands in exasperation. “We aren’t learning anything practical. I have all these abilities that I got from fighting, and no one’s teaching me how to cultivate them.”
Charlotte sat back in her chair and raised her eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t want to fight.” Her tone was neutral; I could tell she was being very careful with me, and that didn’t help my mood one little bit.
“I came here to learn to fight,” I cried, sitting forward. “Once I had agreed to come here, it was all on the table!”
“I see,” said Charlotte, although her tone said that she didn’t really see at all.
My sister’s office was in a corner of the building, and the windows where shaded by rows of tall shrubs. It wasn’t a fancy office, and I knew part of the reason she had chosen it was for safety. The shrubs made it difficult to see into, while still letting in some natural light. There was nothing grand about it; it wasn’t even the nicest office on the floor. But I liked that about my sister, that she didn’t put on airs. Even those who wanted the Power of Five to just go away couldn’t say anything bad about Charlotte, not that her friends would have stood for it anyway.
“The only reason I came to Public was to learn to fight,” I said, repeating myself in my frustration. I wouldn’t have wanted to admit it, but the nightmares were still uppermost in my mind, despite the fact that they had stopped since I had arrived at school. It still felt like they were just one bad night’s sleep away.
“But the war is over,” she said.
“Pretty sure we all agreed at the theater that it was far from over,” I said quietly. “Remember, when you told me I was going to be an uncle and all hell was breaking loose?”
Charlotte was quiet. I knew she wasn’t happy I had brought that up, but it wasn’t because of herself, it was because she was furious that her friends had been in danger.
“Don’t blame yourself,” I said. “We don’t know that the Hunters were even targeting you.”
“Oh, yeah, who else would they be targeting?” she demanded. “It’s always me. Sip and Lisabelle are too well protected.”
“Lisabelle’s her own protection,” I said.
“That’s what I mean,” said Charlotte. “For all the best paranormal protection in the world, Lisabelle will always be safer, and Sip is surrounded by the office of the president and all the protection that affords.”
Charlotte pushed herself out of her chair. It took me a second to recognize the emotion on her face. It had been so long since I’d seen it that I had forgotten what it looked like. Charlotte was angry.
“So, you came to Public to use the tools for your own ends?” she cried, glaring at me.
I was too stunned to respond, which was fine with her, because she had started pacing and ranting.
“Of course you did! You’re a teenage boy! You don’t have parents anymore and I tried, I mean I really tried, and of course I thought you’d be better off here with me and in the paranormal world than out on your own! Now all that’s happened is that you’ve learned about battle and fighting and death from VIDEO GAMES!
“You’re a paranormal, for paranormal’s sake! Instead, you go back and forth and you run away and of course I understand all that! You’ve been through a lot, more than anyone your age should have to go through, but to then want to fight! I mean, what’s the point?” It was a question, but it wasn’t directed at me. She paused for a moment to look at me in confusion, then started pacing around again. I just shook my head.
It was foolish to try and cut into her rant once she got up a head of steam, but I tried anyway. “Charlotte . . .” I said. But there was no derailing her now.
“Now you’ve done a total three-sixty! You want to go out and fight, because SURE!”
“Charlotte . . .” But she still paid me no heed, she just continued to pace and rant.
“You realize you could be killed, right? I thought that was the problem all along! I thought, ‘What good sense my little brother has,’ you know? You knew the risks, or at least you understood them, and you didn’t want to take them!”
“I thought there weren’t risks anymore?” I said to no one in particular. After the meeting at the theatre, we had fully embraced the whole “Nothing is wrong” thing again. We had pretended that whatever had happened, hadn’t, and Keegan and I constantly acted as if the fact that the adults were out searching for Charles without telling us didn’t piss us off. In fact, it pissed us both off in a big way, to the point that it was what we had originally bonded over.
Charlotte gave me a vacant stare. “You know what, Ricky?”
Something caught my eye out the window, but I ignored it.
“What?” I said.
“Shut up,” she glared at me.
I sighed. “Look, I’m sorry, but I needed to say something. This is not what I signed up for.”
“Maybe at seventeen you don’t know what’s best,” she said. “Now, I have a lecture series to run. Are you coming?”
Chapter Seventeen
The lectures were scheduled to take place in an enormous hall. Charlotte had taken over the concert space on campus, and it was filled to the brim as the time for the first lecture approached. I watched her beam as we walked over and saw people streaming into the hall. She had been in the building all morning working on preparations, and had only just returned to her office when I came in to yell at her. Although I felt guilty about that afterwards, I did feel glad that I had said something, and that she and I had come out the other side still speaking to each other. Her rant had in fact cleared the air, and she had now turned her attention entirely to the upcoming event. She left me for “just a minute” to go check on last-minute preparations, and as soon as she disappeared, Eighellie materialized. Now that I knew that Eighellie secretly wanted to become an assassin, I looked at her differently. She moved with a sort of calculation, which I had previously attributed to her being uptight. Now I thought maybe it was both.
“Hey,” she said. Then she shouted, “KEEGAN!” and waved her hand wildly.
“Hey,” said Keegan. “My mom Contacted me this morning and informed me that I had to go to this event. She didn’t even know Charlotte was in charge of it, she just said I should hear what Judge Yeast had to say. Ricky had already given me the same orders, so here I am.”
“Your mom was right,” said Eighellie. “As the main opposition to the Quest government, Judge Yeast knows a lot and will make a lot of important points. She disagrees with Sip on a number of key issues.”
Keegan’s eyes bulged and he stared at Eighellie for a moment, then he started to laugh, plastering one green hand over his mouth in a vain attempt to hide his amusement. Eighellie’s shoulders fell a little, and I realized that she had been serious, albeit misguided, in her intention of informing her ignorant friends about the speaker.
“Um, it’s fine,” I said. “I don’t think we need help understanding basic English.”
“Judge Yeast’s whole point is that nothing is simple. The course of government is complicated and it takes a strong intellect, one like hers, to master the art of the law productively. I doubt you’ll get much out of it. Have you read her treatise on Hempiate? It’s fascinating.”
“Is that a football trophy?” Keegan screwed up his face, confused.
She rolled her eyes. “No, it’s a paranormal philosopher.” She turned to me, as if I possessed what little sense there was between the two of us. “How is it possible that you got into a paranormal college?”
“Um, the standards really aren’t that high,” said Keegan, and then he blinked several times.
“Good looks?” I offered. Keegan smirked.
She gave him that wide-eyed look that said she was rolling her eyes without actually rolling her e
yes.
“I feel very judged,” Keegan whispered to me.
Eighellie still hadn’t given up on making us be serious, Now she started in on the other speaker. “Professor Fussfus is going to be amazingly educational too,” she said. “He knows as much about artifacts as any paranormal alive. He’s very smart and very well traveled. I’ve met him several times. He’s totally dedicated to what he does.”
“Are you giving a commercial for him or do you usually speak in advertising?” Keegan asked.
“I’m being positive,” said Eighellie. “A positive attitude is a big plus given that I spend so much time with drags like you two.”
My attention was only half on the banter between my friends; I was also busy looking around to see who was in attendance at Charlotte’s event. I hadn’t seen President Valedication since that night in his office with Lisabelle, and when I looked around for him now, he was nowhere to be seen. To be fair, he had so many detractors that if he had in fact come, his presence might well have been an unwanted distraction.
Speaking of the darkness premier, I was relieved to see she wasn’t on hand either. Eighellie would have gone up to ask her questions, and Lisabelle would have set her on fire with her angry eyes.
Judge Yeast was on the list of paranormals Eighellie wanted to speak with about her parents, but there was no way she was getting near the opposition leader today. Yeast, a fallen angel, was very well guarded, with eight fallen angels surrounding her at all times. It made me wonder what exactly she thought would happen to her if she didn’t have all that protection.
“I know Eighellie is really excited about this and I know your sister created it, but . . .” Keegan shook his head. “Whatever happened to staying inside and playing video games?”
“They turn the power off at night,” I said. “We have to study by lamp and magic?”
It was true. For the last few nights there had been blasting work for new buildings, and every night the power to campus had been shut off. Many students, unwilling to give up all their nocturnal activities, studied by lamp or magic. The smart ones just went to bed with ear plugs.
Elemental Havoc (Paranormal Public Book 11) Page 12
