“Like you’re ever anything else,” said Sip, laughing.
Lough nodded, looking resigned.
We were almost back to our apartment when Sip gave a little cry and covered mouth with her hand. Hanging in front of us was something that was white and a dull copper color.
The puppy was dead, hanging by its tail, which looked battered. His face was bashed in and his white coat was covered in blood and black dirt. Sip stuck her face into Lisabelle’s shoulder and my friend wrapped her arms around the shorter girl as Sip cried quietly.
“I feel sick,” Sip said, pulling away from Lisabelle to reveal a tear-stained face.
“Darkness,” said Lisabelle, patting her on the back comfortingly. “It has risen.”
Chapter Nineteen
Once Sip, Lisabelle, and I were safely back in our own room we performed the debug spell again, just in case. There were no new smoke curls.
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Sip. “I hate it when my good work is undone.”
“Your good work?” Lisabelle asked, eyes flashing in amusement.
“I mean, you helped,” said Sip generously.
“I’m going to bed,” I said. None of us talked about the puppy, but it had clearly been a message to us: Faci was warning us to mind our own business. Obviously he did not know Lisabelle well.
I couldn’t stay awake any longer waiting for Keller. I crept into my dark room and banged the door shut behind me as Lisabelle and Sip stared after me questioningly.
There were no windows in my room. It was so dark I couldn’t even see my dresser, and I didn’t bother with the light, I just pulled my covers back enough so that I could crawl under them and forget the paranormal world. I got in, pulled the blankets up to my chin, and closed my eyes. Soon I fell into a deep, deep sleep.
My dreams were uneasy. When I woke up in the morning I wondered if they had been dreams at all, or something more real.
I stood in a long, angular room with strange muted light coming from each corner. My body wanted to walk toward the light, but my mind shouted at me not to move. Overhead, exactly in the middle of the room, was a black chandelier with dozens of ornate branches cascading outward, its lamps giving the room an eerie glow.
The carpet was checkered black and copper and I found myself trying to avoid standing on the copper squares. They reminded me of the puppy’s blood.
Over and over again I just repeated to myself: Do not move.
The walls were covered in peeling black wallpaper and the room smelled faintly of wet books and rot, as if it had once been a library but had been cleared out and deserted.
In front of me stood a hooded figure, its head bent low. All I could see were her hands. They were gnarled and contorted, as if she had suffered a serious illness and never fully recovered. With her wide bony shoulders and a thin, long body, I had the impression that she had been partially sucked through a tube and gotten stuck partway along.
Finally, the gaunt figure looked up. But I already knew who it was.
Hollow, entirely black eyes looked at me, and I couldn’t look away. I was rooted to the spot, like an ancient tree that had been there for centuries.
Her nose was beak-like and the skin around her lips was pinched, making it look as if her face was being sucked into a vortex that was pulling at her nose.
“Malle,” I said tonelessly, flinching as my voice rang through the hall. I didn’t want to wake the soundly sleeping shadows.
“At last we meet again,” she rasped. I tried not to wince at the grating sound of her voice.
“Can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to it,” I said, as dryly as I possibly could.
Her lips carved upward in what might have been her version of a smile, but which in reality just looked as if someone had taken her face and slashed it in half, leaving a gaping, tooth-filled red hole.
“I wanted to meet you here,” said President Malle, waving her hand around listlessly.
“What happened to you?” I asked. There was no point in beating around the bush. The last time I had seen her she had been a middle-aged woman in very good condition, and now she looked disgusting and horrible.
“Wielding power changes you,” said President Malle. Her voice had no inflection. She didn’t appear to care that she was a shell of her former self. “I control the demon depths. I control the hell in the hellhounds. We become Nocturn. You cannot expect your body to survive the battering unscathed.”
“Right,” I muttered, trying very carefully to check my ring to see if it was ready. I didn’t know what I was doing there, but given Malle’s desire to see me dead it couldn’t hurt to be ready. The only problem was that I didn’t know where “there” was, or if I was really there or only my dream self was there. I would have to ask Lough, if I ever saw Lough again.
“Someday you’ll understand,” said Malle, her voice like gravel on sandpaper. “You have immense power. You have only just begun to realize it and you have not taken advantage of it at all. But one day the paranormals will push you too far, and then you will. That will be an interesting day. If you live to see it, which I will try to make sure you don’t.”
“I will never understand how you can be so power-hungry that you would kill innocent paranormals,” I spat. “Especially my mother.”
“Ah, yes, that, you are still bitter about it, I see,” Malle said, shaking her head sadly, as if she believed that if I only understood, then I wouldn’t hate her.
Black fire started to curl around her, thick and solid, with long reaching tendrils. My eyes searched for the orange, yellow, reds, and blues of normal fire, but I saw none. It was as if someone had taken orange fire and painted it a thick black. I had a feeling that if any of that fire touched me it would burn me alive, but as it licked at President Malle’s feet there was no reaction except a slight, sick smile.
“What do you want with me, then?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
“I just want you dead,” she said, her eyes hollow. “It is only a matter of time.”
“You have failed so far,” I pointed out, feeling the need to hold my own. My mind was racing. I needed to get back to my bed, wherever that was.
Malle took two steps toward me; watching her walk was painful. She sort of hobbled, her knees clearly almost incapable of supporting her weight.
“I don’t think you understand,” she said, her sickly smile still in place. “I will not kill you for a long time. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it would be nice to see you dead tomorrow, but I can be patient. I have waited most of my life for the events that we are currently in the middle of to transpire. I can wait a while longer. What I am going to do is make you suffer. You have friends, dear ones, yes?”
My blood ran cold.
She saw my fury in my face, because her smile widened.
“Yes, you do,” she murmured. “Everyone has a button, a trigger, something to push. I just have to find out what it is. You have a boyfriend, yes?”
Time slowed. I was still in the strange place, staring at the woman who used to be the President of Public and was now a black shadow of her former self. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I was aware that this was a dream - I would have to ask Lough what kind - and that I would wake up back in the apartment I shared with Sip and Lisabelle. But at this moment all I could think about was wrapping my small hands around her thin, yellowed neck and squeezing until every vein in her eyes popped and blood dripped down her cheeks like water. I had never wanted to kill something so much as I wanted to kill Malle in that moment.
Blood pounded in my ears, sounding like great gongs and a million drums beating in furious unison.
Without even realizing what I was doing I lunched forward, my hands outstretched like claws. I imagined I was a great bird with talons flying toward my prey, intent on the kill. I saw hot blood and felt skin rip. I screamed as I fell to the hard floor. My shoulder slammed into granite and my fingers, caught under my arm, were crushed and bruised. Th
e stone was so hard that I bounced off it.
“You think you can just attack me?” The President’s voice echoed around me, through me, vibrating in my eardrums. I held my bruised hands up to my head and tried to block out the noise, but there was no escaping it.
I cried out and rolled, but the President followed me. I had made the mistake of jumping toward her, and now that I was within arm’s reach she chased me. I rolled and rolled and rolled again.
“I’m coming for him. Do you know where he is now? Everything you ever loved will be dead. That I can promise you. Did you learn nothing from what happened to your parents? I do not allow happiness. There is no light. I will have no light. You will die and die again. I will stick Keller like a pig on a spit. I will hang him upside down by his insides and watch him cry out for you, while you are helpless. He will die. He will die. He will die.”
I continued to roll, crying out, as Malle followed me, screaming at the top of her lungs. All I wanted was to wake up from the nightmare.
Chapter Twenty
“WAKE UP, YOU IDIOT. SHEESH!”
Lisabelle’s voice entered my consciousness. I felt arms tangle with mine, trying to stop my frantic rolling. Another pair of hands, smaller, grabbed my ankles.
“What a racket. It’s like Sip every night, only more contained,” Lisabelle muttered again.
“I don’t roll,” said Sip indignantly. “I glide.”
I stopped, realizing that I was in bed in my own apartment, with my two best friends - whose lives had just been threatened - trying to calm me down.
“She might be able to hear you better if you took her hands away from her ears.”
Sip had a point. Her voice was coming through muffled.
“She has a vise-like grip at the moment,” said Lisabelle. “I’m sure once she realizes I’m here she’ll calm down.”
“My presence is more soothing than yours,” said Sip. She was dressed in an oversized white sweatshirt and purple sweatpants, while Lisabelle was in head-to-toe black. Sip’s hair was a tousled mess, while Lisabelle’s was pulled back into a severe bun.
“Not if you’re talking. You’re like a never ending jack-in-the-box. Every time I think I have a handle on you, you just pop up again.”
“Can you two just have a normal conversation for once?” I said, glaring at the werewolf and the darkness mage.
“This is a normal conversation for us,” said Lisabelle. “You wouldn’t want us to be boring, would you?”
“Actually, I would love it if you were boring,” I said. “Boring would be great.”
“Well, you can’t have everything,” said Lisabelle, without missing a beat.
“What happened?” Sip asked as she handed me a glass of water. I drank greedily, trying to keep down the bile that kept rising up from my stomach. When the glass was empty Sip took it back, worry clear in her purple eyes.
“I’ll tell you,” I said, taking deep breaths, “but Lough should be here.”
“I’ll get him,” said Lisabelle, getting up. “Stay here.”
“Like we’d go anywhere without you. We need to perfect communicating without being together,” Sip commented thoughtfully.
“We could,” said Lisabelle, rubbing her chin. “But there are usually too many magical protections in the places where we hang out to make it an effective use of our time.”
Sip nodded, chewing on her lip.
Lisabelle came back with Lough in record time. While she was gone Sip made sure I was comfortable. “I’m not an invalid,” I said hotly. “I just had a bad dream. I think.”
Lough followed Lisabelle into my bedroom, covering a big yawn with the back of his hand as he looked at us groggily.
“Good evening,” he said, grinning. “This better be good. I’ve never had such a fright.”
“Who says fright under the age of eighty?” Lisabelle asked.
“Friends of yours who you wake up from sleep by towering over them all in black,” said Lough. “What happened? Are you okay?” he asked, looking at me, blinking several times to clear the sleep from his eyes.
“I’m fine, but I had a dream,” I said, and taking a deep breath I started to talk.
Lough took the seat in the corner while Sip and Lisabelle perched on my bed, listening intently.
Lough’s face instantly clouded when I started to tell him about my “dream,” and it got worse from there. Eventually his frown was so deep and his eyes were so thick with concern that I had to stop looking at him while I talked. Sip gasped occasionally, and Lisabelle, at the point when President Malle threatened my loved ones, made a noise like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. Otherwise my friends were quiet.
“This is bad,” said Sip, her purple eyes worried. “Lough, what does it mean?”
Lough was staring darkly off into space. All traces of sleep were gone from his expression and his eyes were intent on something only he could see.
“It was a waking dream,” he explained. “You weren’t really dreaming at all. It’s not like anything at all that I could come up with. Malle called you to a place, and you went there. You were really there. If she had caught you and . . . killed you, it would have been real. You would be dead.”
“So, my body wasn’t here?” I asked in wonder. “I physically went to that old library?”
“Yes,” said Lough. “I have no idea how. It’s darkness magic. Sort of like what Castov did the other night. I don’t like that it is happening so much. Lisabelle, do you know anything about it?”
My friend shook her head. “It’s far beyond me. I could ask my dad, but I doubt he would know either.”
“Dobrov might know,” said Sip, sitting up straighter. “He is half darkness, after all.”
I nodded. “We should ask him.”
“Maybe let him sleep in, first,” Lough muttered. “What else do you remember?”
“Now that I think about it,” I said slowly, worrying my hands together in front of me, “Malle did not have a wand. I don’t know where she was drawing power from.”
“Maybe she did something like what Lisabelle did,” said Sip. “Horrible idea.”
“I doubt it,” said Lisabelle dryly. “You have to be in good physical condition to do what I did and she is not.”
“She mentioned what happened to your parents?” Sip asked softly. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged one shoulder, trying not to think about it too hard. “She was trying to upset me and it worked.” But I quickly changed the subject. “There’s one other thing. I touched her.”
“Ew,” said Sip, recoiling as if I were somehow contaminated.
“Yeah,” I said. “When I lunged at her. I touched her. I didn’t mean to.”
“So?” Lisabelle asked, her eyes locked on my face. She knew there was more.
“So, this is on my hand now,” I said, holding it out. My three friends leaned forward to look. There, on one of the fingers that had nearly been crushed, was this:
Fang First: Vampire Locke.
“She had it written on her body and it got on my hand,” I said grimly. “She’s after the objects on the Wheel.”
Sip bit her lower lip, staring intently at the writing. “Let me write it down. Just in case,” she said, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen. Once she had finished she waved me off. “Wash. Now. If she’s still here, she hasn’t found the Fang yet. We’ll talk about it later.”
I did as I was told, as happy to get anything of Malle’s off me as Sip was to order me to do it.
Once I was finished, Lough yawned again, and then again.
“I need to sleep more,” he said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “I think you’ll be fine. Except, you know, the most powerful darkness mage ever has harnessed the power of the demons, formed a council, and wants you dead.”
“Is there a way I can stop from having a waking dream?” I asked. “What’s to keep Malle from just dreaming me into a knife’s point?”
“Good question,” said Lisabelle. “Is there anythin
g?”
“Obviously,” said Lough. “Otherwise she would have done it by now. I’m not sure she can hurt you without giving you a chance to fight. It also might have something to do with proximity. She’s here, right? Very close.”
I shrugged. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
“The sooner the better,” my three friends chorused, before we split up. I didn’t like the fear I heard in all their voices. It wasn’t fear for their own safety. It was fear for mine.
Chapter Twenty-One
The day did not start off well. There was no sign of Keller anywhere, or any fallen angel. I was told they were sequestered in their quarters and that Keller was probably fine. Every attempt I made to contact him was pushed back. I couldn’t tell if it was even by him. I thought frantically about the fact that he had said he would come right back after he left to get cleaned up yesterday, and he hadn’t.
There was a kidnapper on the loose and for all I knew he had Keller again, or worse, the kidnapper was President Malle herself. I desperately wanted a distraction, but the only thing there seemed to be to do before the evening and the next round of ceremonies was to wander around Locke.
Instead of wandering, I decided to practice magic. I knew there was a training yard for vampires in the lower levels, and I insisted that Sip and Lisabelle accompany me down there. On our way Lisabelle spotted Vital eating breakfast with some of the other vampires, and waved him over.
“It’s about time we did some fighting,” she informed him when he walked up to us.
“Near as I can see, that’s about all you do,” said Vital dryly, taking in Lisabelle’s spread stance and crossed arms.
Lisabelle shrugged. “Would hate to get out of practice. We wanted to train, and we’ve heard there’s a training yard in the lower levels. Can you show us or do you have to get back to Lanca?”
“The Princess is with her sister preparing for this evening,” said Vital carefully. “I should have some time.”
Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) Page 14
