Opening my eyes I looked again. Of course. There it was. A faint blue shimmer flowing underground. I knew how we were going to get in now. Lough and I were going to swim. I grabbed Lough’s rain-soaked arm and propelled him forward.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.” He didn’t protest. He was too busy staring at the black cone of magic that was encasing Astra, keeping everything out, and in.
“What are we doing?” he asked, when he saw that I was taking him around the back of the dorm.
“Looking for a pool, or a stream,” I told him absently. “I think.”
“You realize it’s December, right?” he asked. “We can’t go in the water in December.”
“Why not?” I demanded. I never stopped looking from side to side, up and down, searching for the way in.
“Because it’s cold,” Lough informed me.
“No kidding,” I replied.
Lough stopped. “Are you serious about making us swim?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay, then this way,” he said, turning on his heel he walked toward the small hill that sat on one side of Astra. We rounded the side and there, moving with the impact of thousands of tiny raindrops, was a stream. I followed it with my eyes. Lough was right. It led right toward Astra.
“Since some of the elementals were specialists with water it made sense that they would have their own personal underground lake inside their dorm,” said Lough. “A bit spoiled if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” I told him. He gave me a wet smile and I grabbed his arm again. “Come on. There’s no time to waste. Let’s find Lisabelle.”
At the mention of why he was there, Lough roused. “Yes, let’s.” He beat me to the water, pulling off his jacket.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he told me. “And I hope I’m better at holding my breath than I think I am.” He dove in. I followed him.
I barely heard him cry out, “That’s freezing,” before I jumped.
I hit the icy water and couldn’t breathe. I fought to the surface, my body shivering, and looked around for Lough, but he was nowhere to be seen. Taking a deep breath, I plunged under again.
I tried to open my eyes, but the weight of the water made that impossible. Besides, my magic was there to guide me. Lough’s dream giver power blazed ahead of me and I swam toward him. I grabbed him and didn’t let go.
Everything about magic was new. I hadn’t known there was so much I was missing. Now that I could tap into elemental power, I realized that I had only touched the surface of what magic could do. Underwater, where no one could see me, I smiled.
I reached for Lough, my eyes still closed, and pulled him with me. As we moved together I didn’t have to swim. Astra magic was pulling me along, Lough close behind. My hands and head were numb, and I was sure that my lungs would explode if I didn’t get air soon. It was only a small comfort that the water was starting to warm up.
Just as I started to panic, the magic pushed me to the surface. I wanted to resist, because I didn’t know where the water had taken us. What if it pushed my head into a floor and I was knocked out and drowned? But instead, I trusted the magic. It was my magic after all. Elemental magic.
Lough and I surfaced in a cellar. There was a faint light filtering in from somewhere nearby, but my vision was blurred. The pool we were in was small and much warmer than the water outside. I smelled damp earth.
Lough came splashing to the surface, coughing and wheezing.
“Get…me…out…of…this…water. Now,” he sputtered.
“Where are we?” I asked, wiping my eyes.
“We better be in Astra,” said Lough as he hauled himself up. I placed my hands on the edge of the pool. Dirt grated under my fingers. We were still underground. “That worked well, don’t you think?” I asked.
Lough gave me a dirty look as water streamed off his shivering body.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s find ourselves a hellhound.”
“It might already know we’re here,” I offered. “Plus, you’re having way too much fun with this.”
“It’s a quest,” Lough said. “We’re saving Lisabelle. And you too,” he added as an afterthought.
Men in love. I rolled my eyes.
“Can you do anything about the light?” he asked.
I shook my head, but realized he couldn’t see that. “No. I don’t know how.”
“Elementals don’t have very useful magic,” Lough sniffed. I didn’t see what he did, but a second later a small light was shining near his hand.
I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the light. “Yeah, but dream givers are wonderfully useful.”
“There’s a door over here,” he said, pointing. He was right. Buried in the wall was a wooden door. A circular metal ring was its only handle.
“Think it’s locked?” he asked.
“There’s only one way to find out.” I walked over to the door. Taking a deep breath, I wrapped numb hands around the cool, rusting metal and pulled. Nothing happened. I pulled harder. To my surprise and great relief it swung open soundlessly. Beyond it was darkness.
Lough appeared at my elbow, holding the light. Despite his brave words about finding hellhounds, his hand quivered slightly. The light cast shadows over a dusty wooden staircase.
“You first,” said Lough, sweeping his arm out in front with an elaborate bow.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Who says chivalry is dead?” I asked.
Lough laughed softly.
I took one careful, deliberate step into the stairwell, Lough close behind me. “They need to teach us some practical magic,” he said.
“Like what?” I whispered back. I didn’t want the hellhound or whatever was in this dorm to hear us coming.
“Like, how to dry your clothes in ten minutes or less.”
When we reached the top of the stairs there was a door identical to the last one we had come through. Again, I held my breath to see if it was locked, and again, it opened without a sound. I took deliberate steps, pausing to listen. Astra was silent.
We came out in the kitchen. The floors and countertops were still pretty clean from when Lisabelle and Sip had been coming to Astra on Saturdays. Everything in the kitchen was white or steel. It was large, large enough to support banquets in Astra’s ballroom. Light filtered in through the cloudy day and the grimy windows.
“Hey, this is nice,” said Lough quietly in my ear. “Good place for a party.” His soggy clothes dripped onto the floor.
“Yeah, Lisabelle would make one hell of a housewife,” I said.
At that I heard a faint banging.
Lough and I exchanged a glance.
“That was coming from the freezer,” he said, pointing. He was right. In the back of the kitchen was a large metal door to a walk-in freezer.
“We have to open it,” I said, hurrying forward. My muscles protested the quick movement; I was still cold and stiff from my winter swim.
“Wonderful,” Lough muttered. “Just once today I would like to be warm.”
The banging was getting louder.
“Don’t you want to think about this?” Lough asked as I reached for the metal handle. He had extinguished the globe of light and was now standing next to me, his hands braced on his hips. “The hellhound could be back there.”
“Lough,” I said, “if you’re right and Lisabelle didn’t run away, but was kidnapped, why would the hellhound be the one locked in a freezer?”
One sharp bang split the silence. Lough lunged for the door. When his hand touched the handle I heard a loud hissing sound, followed by Lough’s cry of pain. He pulled his hands away. Red welts were starting to form across the palm.
“That’s magicked,” he informed me. “Be careful.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I said. I took a deep breath. I gathered my magic around me. It came easily now that I wasn’t wearing the Airlee ring. I nudged it into my hands, hoping it would offer some protection. Holding my breath, I reached out and took
the handle.
Nothing happened. I tugged. Nothing. I tugged harder, still nothing. The banging was getting more insistent now.
“Put your magic into it,” Lough urged.
“I thought I was,” I muttered, pulling harder. I shoved my magic into the handle and the lock. With a groan, I started to feel it splinter. I shoved more magic into it.
Before I knew what was happening, the air popped and Lough and I were thrown backward. Gasping, I went crashing into a table while Lough hit the floor. The door was destroyed. Sitting in the freezer, which looked like it hadn’t been turned on in years, was Lisabelle.
Her dark eyes burned with a triumphant light. She tried to speak, but the gag made it sound like she was gurgling. Lough, quicker than I was, got to his hands and knees. He was covered in a thin layer of dirt, but he managed to crawl over to her on all fours. He removed her gag first, then unbound her hands.
“What the hell took you so long?” she demanded, rubbing her wrists to get the circulation back.
Lough gave her a tired grin. “You’re welcome for rescuing you.”
I had gotten to my feet by then. “Lisabelle, where’s the hellhound?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t really chatted with the thing. It mostly just breathes smoke, but I don’t think it’s here. I think she took it with her.”
“She?” I said. “Professor Zervos is really a woman?”
“No woman is that ugly,” said Lough.
Lisabelle glared at him.
“Lisabelle Verlans, you have no idea how much I missed you,” said Lough, wrapping his arms around her despite her protests. She rolled her eyes at me.
I let them have their moment. Lough deserved it. But Lisabelle had said her captor was a female, and I had no idea who she meant. Lambros? Anania? One of the other professors I didn’t know?
When Lough showed no signs of letting Lisabelle go, she gently pushed him away.
“Who is it, Lisabelle? Please say it isn’t Lambros….” I had liked Lambros. Plus, she was a pixie. Some of the Volans students might hate me, but pixies weren’t known for conspiring with demons.
“You haven’t guessed?” Lisabelle asked quietly.
Lough and I shook our heads.
“It’s the President,” said Lisabelle. “She’s the one helping the demons.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
No way,” said Lough, jumping up. He toppled a stack of boxes and a cloud of dust puffed into the air, but he ignored it. “That old psycho-bat-boss is helping the demons?”
“That’s not the exact words I’d use, but I agree with Lough,” I said. “Lisabelle, you must be wrong.”
“You think I’m wrong?” she cried. “How could I be wrong? She’s the one who hit me, drugged me, and brought me here. She visits every so often to let me stretch my legs and give me a bit of stale bread. She has that hellhound with her. Crazy eyes. I’m NOT WRONG.”
I tried to let her words sink in. The President had been helping the demons all along.
“Why?” I asked. “Why would she do it?”
“She has darkness magic,” said Lisabelle quietly. “I don’t know how she got it. Maybe she was always a darkness mage, but it turns out I wasn’t the only darkness mage on campus after all.”
My insides churned. “I have to get my ring,” I said.
“You lost your Airlee ring?” Lisabelle asked. She was standing now, with Lough’s help.
“Oh, didn’t we mention that Charlotte here is the elemental that everyone is looking for?” Lough asked.
Lisabelle sat back down, wordless for the first time in her life. Lough explained everything and she listened, the look of shock fading only slowly from her face.
Finally I put a word in, hoping my friends could help me answer a question that had been nagging at me. “If she’s the one helping the demons, why would she want me to stay at Public? Why not just make me leave instead of putting me on probation?”
Lisabelle raised her eyebrows. “Keeping you here makes more sense than kicking you out. If she thought you were the elemental, she’d want you around where she could keep track of you. She had Keller help you so that it looked like she wanted you to learn.”
Lough nodded. “Lisabelle’s right. So let’s stop wasting time and go find your ring, Charlotte.”
“I don’t know where the hellhound is,” said Lisabelle. “I think it patrols.”
“We split up,” I said. “I’m going to the ballroom. You two check the upper floors. Who knows what else the President has hidden in this house.”
Before I left the kitchen, a rushing started to fill my ears. “Ouch,” I said, covering them. Lough and Lisabelle looked as uncomfortable as I felt.
“That hurts,” Lough muttered, covering his ears.
“What is it?” I asked, scrunching my face in pain.
“It’s demons,” said Lisabelle. “They’re coming.”
And they were.
In front of the three of us appeared a small globe of white light – Airlee’s color. It bobbed in the air like the owl’s eyes had bobbed the night before.
“What’s that?” Lisabelle demanded.
“It’s Sip,” said Lough. “We told her to contact us if Zervos was coming.”
“She doesn’t know he isn’t the one helping the demon,” I pointed out.
The globe was getting larger. It was now the size of a grapefruit, and the light started to pulse as one word came out: hurry. The voice was Sip’s, but distorted as it echoed off the walls of the empty white kitchen. As soon as the word was out, the light started to fade. I held my breath until it had completely vanished, then Lough waved his hand over the area where it had been.
“It’s like it was never there. You girls are talented,” he said appreciatively.
“Of course we are,” Lisabelle muttered, sweeping out of the room.
“I think underneath that rough exterior she’s really very sweet,” Lough whispered to me as we walked out of the room.
“You keep telling yourself that,” I whispered back. The truth was, I didn’t know if sweet was the right word for Lisabelle, but I knew she had a good heart.
We split up. I only paused for a breath to watch Lisabelle and Lough creep up the stairs. Then, steeling myself, I moved cautiously towards the ballroom. The only sounds I could hear were my own footsteps; I couldn’t even hear Lisabelle and Lough moving upstairs. But I still had to be careful. If the hellhound was in Astra, it could be anywhere.
I tried the ballroom doors. They were locked. I tugged on them, but they just creaked – and held.
I looked around for something to use to break in. Keller had used a key, but I didn’t have it. I vaguely wondered how he was doing at Dash. Everyone was probably cheering for him except Camilla, who would be cheering for Cale, until he lost. Then she would start cheering for Keller.
I took a firmer grip of the door handle, calling my magic. This time it sprang easily to my fingertips.
I wasn’t prepared for what waited on the other side of the door. About twenty feet in front of me lounged a great black hound, identical to the one that had followed me over the summer. His massive jaws were open as he panted, whether with the warmth of the room or with eagerness to get at me I didn’t stop to wonder. At close range I could see that even his tongue was black.
At the opening of the door he sprang to his feet, snarling. His red eyes glowed as they locked on me.
I staggered backwards as the muscles in the hellhound’s shoulders bunched and its body coiled. Then, remembering what would happen if I failed here, I gathered my wits and what courage I had left and stepped forward, flinging the door closed behind me. The hellhound and I were alone in the ballroom, and it was ready to attack.
“You’re in the way,” I told it. Last night I had talked to a strix as if it could understand me, now I was trying to reason with a hellhound. Surely I was losing it. The hound just walked toward me, head lowered a little, red eyes never leaving my face.
“So, you should just move,” I suggested. He deserved fair warning. I was getting my ring, one way or another.
He snarled.
I shifted my feet, preparing to fight.
The black hound sprang forward, closing the distance between us in massive bounds. When he was fifteen feet away, I bent my knees. Anyone who had seen me in that moment wouldn’t have known if I was preparing for a magic fight or to play defense in a basketball game, but I didn’t care. I felt better bracing myself for the oncoming attack.
When the hound was ten feet away I sent a burst of power towards it, but without my ring I couldn’t control the power well and it bounced in front of the hellhound without touching him.
He slowed, but now he was only five feet away. I tried again. I missed again.
He snarled and lunged. I dove sideways, avoiding his snapping jaws by inches. He came again, and this time he hit me on my right side. The great body felt hot against my leg, like it burned with an inside fire. I covered my head with my arm, trying to call my magic. I didn’t know if I would have time before the beast bit a chunk out of my body.
Just then the hound gave a short howl of pain, and I peeked around my arm to see black fire coursing around it, attacking. The fire wasn’t coming from me.
I looked at the doorway and there was Lisabelle, leaning on the door jamb, concentrating.
“You should have let me deal with him to begin with,” she called. “I owe him this.”
“If I had known he was here, I would happily have left him to you,” I called back.
“Well, you clearly can’t function properly without me,” she retorted. “You should remember that next time. I have no idea how you’ve survived the last week.”
My ring.
I scrambled to my feet. The hellhound had all he could handle from Lisabelle. I raced to the case. I touched it and it sprang open for me. The artifacts were already blazing, and there, in the center of it all, was my ring.
The silver metal around the multicolored stone was already etched with designs, which meant that it had belonged to someone else. But I didn’t have time to wonder who.
I slipped it on and instantly felt my power focused, increased. Not just mine now, but that of generations of elementals who were coming together, concentrating my power and enhancing it. I felt like I was floating. This is for my family, I thought. My dad, the other elementals, whatever happened to them. I’m going to find out. And I’m going to finish this.
Paranormal Public (Paranormal Public Series) Page 24
