“You need to be protected,” said Lisabelle. “The best way for that to happen is for us never to leave you alone. Do you realize that the president of Golden Falls has been asking if you’ll be there? They want to know everything about you.”
“So do a lot of paranormals,” I said hotly. “I’m the last elemental, so they’re curious. It’s only normal.”
“Right, well, we don’t like curious,” said Lisabelle, “unless it’s coming from Sip.”
“Or normal,” Sip put in. “Who wants that? Totally overrated.”
“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’ve made it this far and I don’t want you to worry.”
“And we want to see that you make it to a nice, ripe old age,” said Lisabelle. I looked at my friend. She was totally serious, and Lisabelle was hardly ever serious. Bitter and sarcastic often, but seriously so, no.
I took a deep breath. “Does Keller count as a babysitter, too?”
“Do I count as a babysitter?” My boyfriend strode through the doors into the kitchen. He looked tense, but I saw his shoulders relax as he looked at us.
I just shrugged and waved at Sip. “You tell him. I’m going to get ready for bed.” I pushed away from the counter, and before any of my friends could argue, I retreated upstairs.
I heard their voices long after I had crawled under the covers, but I couldn’t sleep. Part of me was waiting for Keller while another part was trying to calm down. My mind was racing, and I couldn’t get it to stop. I was excited about the semester and I was hoping for a fresh start. I knew my friends would be there, except for Dacer, who was staying behind to “take care of the little ducklings at Public,” as he put it. Having my friends at Golden Falls too should only have made it better. Now I wondered a bit. But I knew that in the end it was just annoyance and stress.
When Keller finally came to bed I felt the mattress sag. I was relieved that he was there, but I didn’t turn around. Then a strong arm snaked around my middle and he pulled me close.
I snuggled next to him, anxious to soak up every second I could in his presence, but there was a pit in my stomach that overshadowed the excitement, because I could tell there was trouble with his parents. Something told me we didn’t have much time left together.
Chapter Six
“Everyone ready?” a gruff voice called out. I kept my head down. All the students who were going to Golden Falls had shuffled out at dawn to stand shivering and barely awake in front of the library. The voice wasn’t addressing us, but one of the professors helping us get ready to leave. We were all waiting for our ride.
“I miss that place as a dining hall,” said Lough forlornly. All around us was an expanse of snow, and Lough looked like he had gotten up about five minutes ago, which he probably had. “Was it really necessary for us to get up this early?”
“It’s just because you woke up hungry and want to pop in for a muffin,” said Sip, yawning. “And no. It never is. I dream of the day real adults will understand that.”
“Nope, it’s not about muffins” said Lough, pulling a dinner roll from the night before out of his jacket pocket. “I’m always prepared.” He took a massive bite.
“This is unnecessarily early,” Lisabelle agreed for once. She didn’t look tired. In fact, I wondered if she had slept at all. It was hard to tell, because she basically wore the same black clothing every day, so there was no way to distinguish one day from another by what she had on. But unlike the rest of us, she had no dark circles under her eyes or pillow lines on her face.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” said Sip, rubbing her mitten-covered hands together.
“Oh, we will,” said Dove, who happened to be standing right in front of us. “And then you’ll regret wishing for such a thing.” He had been speaking quietly with Dacer, but when my mentor went off to check with one of the other professors, the vampire sidled closer.
“Why?” Sip asked. She never missed the opportunity to ask a question.
“Because,” said Dove, grinning, “we’re going into demon territory. There’s no way we’ll make it to Golden Falls without at least one battle.”
Sip shrugged. “I like beating the pulp out of demons, and so does Lisabelle.”
Dove shrugged. “Big words for a little werewolf.”
“She’s small, but you don’t want to mess with her,” said Lisabelle. “I’d pick her in a fight every time. Little thing has a temper.”
“I do not,” said Sip hotly.
“See what I mean?” said Lisabelle.
“Do you think she’d beat you?” Dove asked, his eyes boring into the darkness mage. Lisabelle looked taken aback by the question, but she recovered quickly.
“Yes,” she said finally, “if she was angry enough I bet she could.”
“How are we traveling?” Sip asked. “No way we go by foot.”
“We go by flying carriage,” said Dove, but he didn’t look happy about it. “That’s how Golden Falls travels, and they have sent some of theirs. It’s an antiquated form of travel, but safer for our purposes than using cars, and we must be respectful to our hosts.”
“That we must be,” said Zervos in a clipped voice, striding up to us. I tried and failed not to flinch. He was the professor who would be chaperoning us, and I couldn’t think of a worse combination than Zervos and Dove. I desperately wished Dacer were going, but he had outright refused to leave his beloved museum, or to visit Golden Falls, and he wouldn’t say why. As it was I would spend the entire semester missing my mentor, though I knew I would see him via Contact Stone.
Keller slipped his hand into mine and squeezed gently. He was wearing a black jacket and jeans, and his wings poked out from the back of his jacket. As usual, my full attention turned to focus on the hand holding mine and its pressure against my skin.
There were several students milling around campus, and I saw a couple of the girls give Keller appreciative looks. Lisabelle saw them too and smirked at me.
After a while I glanced around at my fellow travelers. They were all familiar, but some I knew better than others. Faci and Daisy, Dobrov and Camilla - they stood in a little group. Dobrov wasn’t wearing a coat, and he shivered a little in the wind. Faci and Daisy had their heads bent together, deep in conversation. Camilla was examining her blood-red nails. I had tried for the past twenty-four hours to catch Dobrov’s eye, but he had never once looked up.
Faci was the strangest looking paranormal I had ever seen. He didn’t have hair, and his eyes were so deeply set in his head that it looked like there were two black holes in his face. To make his appearing more damning, he had a beaked nose that tilted to the left, and his cheeks had a sucked-in look that meant he hardly had lips or a chin.
“He gets creepier every time I see him,” said Lisabelle, wrinkling her nose.
Sip shot her a warning look. “Then don’t look at him.”
Vanni, Trafton, Evan, and Rake were there, along with Sip, Lisabelle, Lough, and me. There were several other students I didn’t know well, but they seemed just as excited as the rest of us to visit Golden Falls. The other chaperone, Keller’s friend Marcus, stood a bit to the side. Despite my relationship with Keller, I had never spent much time with Marcus. He was the most studious and hard-working fallen angel I’d ever seen. Keller said that Marcus’s older sister had died young, and Marcus felt that he needed to make his parents proud for both of them, which he had done. Once he graduated he would go to work for President Caid, a very high honor.
“There they are,” Vanni cried, pointing upward. Following Vanni’s finger I craned my neck backward. As it always was in the morning at that time of year, the sun was trying desperately to poke through a gray haze.
Through the mist came the carriages, and I watched them, black dots in the sky, growing larger.
Where, oh where, were we going?
“What’s pulling them?” I asked softly, dreading the answer.
“Demons,” said Keller grimly, as he too looked upward. “Gol
den Falls keeps demons as prisoners and brings them out when they need cheap labor. They are only let out to run errands. They’ve been captives for as long as I can remember. They say it reminds them of the differences between paranormals and darkness.”
I made a face. It was the first thing I had heard about Golden Falls that was overtly jarring.
“Don’t you mean free labor?” Lisabelle asked, brow furrowed.
Keller nodded. “That’s basically what it is, but I think they trade with the demons for hellfire coals. Anyway, they justify the imprisonment somehow.”
“Hellfire coals are illegal, of course,” said Lisabelle dryly. “Charming.”
“Golden Falls has its own ways of doing things,” said Zervos coldly. He was standing at the front of our little group, but his eyes were on the carriages. “I’m sure that’s something that you can relate to, Ms. Verlans. We do not question such a staunch supporter of paranormals.”
The wind got gustier as the carriages drew closer.
“Tell me he’s our other chaperone. Go on, ruin my day before it’s even begun,” said Lough.
“He’s our other chaperone,” said Sip. “There, see? Not so bad. It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid. Just do it in one go.”
Lough frowned at the small werewolf. “It was an awfully big Band-Aid.”
“Are these things safe?” I asked, pointing at the first black carriage. It looked old, and I wondered if it was sturdy enough to pull us through the air. “Especially with the demons pulling them?” I added, more or less redundantly.
“Oh, they’re as safe as anything. I think you’re spoiled,” said Zervos, almost to himself. “You have no idea what it’s like out there where the demons can you get whenever you move. Nothing is safe. Golden Falls might be even safer than Public.” His eyes glinted as he looked to see how I would react to his grim words. I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear.
“I’m pretty sure the other elementals have some idea about that,” I said coldly. Even that might have been an overstatement, though. The other elementals were dead, but I had recently found out that they were the ones who had killed my mother, an Airlee. Now I was more confused than ever about my past and the death of my mom, and I had to assume my dad’s as well. But of course I had no proof, other than my mother’s word, that he had even died.
“Hey, Keller,” I said, so that Zervos couldn’t hear, “will you and I be in the same carriage?” I stood as close to him as it was possible to be without actually touching him.
“I was going to fly outside,” he said glancing up at the sky as if to check the conditions for flight. The wind ruffled his dark hair and I smiled. “I want to keep my eyes open up there, but I’ll fly next to your carriage unless you want me in it with you. I promise I won’t go far.”
I blushed and ducked my head, because I had to be strong, even if it meant that Keller wasn’t holding my hand. “Will you mind if I keep an eye on you while you fly?” I asked, resting my head on his shoulder. The chuckle he let out was comforting.
“Never ever,” he whispered back. “We’re going to be just fine.”
“I know,” I said, “I just worry about whether we’ll be fine together.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Even if we’re not together we’re together. Trust me.”
The carriages pulled by demons landed one by one, and I flinched each time I got a look at a new demon. There were anywhere from one to three pulling each carriage, and they all looked starved. I hadn’t even known that demons had to eat, or what sustained them, but these barely had the energy to fly. Now they would be forced to carry more weight on the return trip, with the carriages filled with students.
Each carriage was painted a bright and shiny black. The demons - boiling masses of black, sometimes with red sparks shooting out of strange places in their bodies, like veins winding through skin - set down their burdens with heavy sighs. It was a strange sight in that they didn’t really seem to know we were there, and yet I was sure they did.
The demon closest to me took a step forward. When nothing happened he took another step. Even if he wasn’t looking at me he sensed my elemental core.
My pulse quickened.
Keller let out a low growl and moved to stand between me and the darkness, stretching out his powerful wings.
“Load ‘em up,” Dove bellowed as he strode down the line of carriages. Students quickly moved to do as he ordered. Keeping one eye on the demon, I scurried to the nearest carriage, where Sip and Lisabelle were already waiting. Lough was about to join us when Trafton sidled over.
“This doesn’t really fit with the Golden Falls reputation for hating darkness, does it?” Lisabelle murmured.
“Why don’t you join us guys for once, instead of always hanging with the ladies?” he asked Lough. Trafton, blond-haired, blue-eyed, and gorgeous, inclined his head over to Rake and Evan. Lough, his brow puckered, gave us a sad little wave before he followed the other dream giver away.
I jumped into the closed compartment of our carriage. It smelled musty, and the couches were worn. The windows were covered with a brown cloth, the only light coming from a flame that was a disconcerting dark blue.
“I feel claustrophobic,” said Sip, glaring at the covered window.
Lisabelle nodded. “It’s only for a couple of hours. Why do you think they’ve covered the window, anyway?”
I shrugged. “Probably so that we can’t see all the demons trailing after us.”
Lisabelle looked grim. “You might actually be right.”
I sincerely hoped I wasn’t. Keller would be flying outside.
“Everyone in,” I heard Zervos yell. I glanced at the empty seat next to me. Maybe we’d get lucky and not have a fourth.
“Kia, you’d better find a place in the carriages or hope that some classes have open spaces for you when you don’t make it to Golden Falls,” Zervos bellowed again.
Kia, best friend of Camilla Van Rothson, and a tiny pixie I had never much liked, popped her head in before Zervos had even finished yelling. She glared around at us and appeared to shrink back, which wasn’t surprising since Lisabelle was giving her a particularly intimidating death stare.
Kia was about to turn around when Zervos appeared behind her.
“Ah,” he said, grinning nastily, his black eyes boring into mine. “You’ve found the perfect place. In you go.” He put his hand on the much smaller paranormal’s back and shoved her in. Kia stumbled forward, grabbing onto the seat next to me just before she hit the floor of the carriage.
“Children,” said Zervos, “have a wonderful trip.” With one last evil grin he slammed the door shut, closing us in darkness with Kia.
Lisabelle sighed. “It’s going to be a very long two hours. And pixie, if you so much as breathe on me I’ll give you a choice of torture or the window. Think about it. Two hours doesn’t have to go by quickly . . . for you.”
Chapter Seven
We had just settled in for the ride when it became clear that something was wrong outside.
Heat, like nothing I had ever experienced before, blasted through the carriage, the fireball flying straight toward where Sip was sitting. Lisabelle, who had been sitting next to me, jumped off her seat in a flash and moved to stand in front of our friend.
The fire slammed into the darkness mage’s chest.
Lisabelle consumed it without so much as flinching.
The fire turned black around her and started to dance over her skin and through her.
The heat pulsed around me and I screamed. My ring, that old ring I’d taken from the case in the Astra ballroom, called to water and earth, anything to dampen the flames from melting the skin right off my bones.
Lisabelle was becoming fire. All that was left of her was heat.
I felt my skin ripple and pushed myself as far against the carriage wall as possible. Kia, who hadn’t said a word since she had come into the carriage, snuggled as close to me as possible.
“Lisa
belle,” I tried to yell, but my friend didn’t turn. The wind beat against my eardrums and drowned out any other noise. Sip, who at first had cowered away from the heat, sprang forward. She reached out to touch Lisabelle, but only got within a foot, because Lisabelle was too hot to touch. Instead, the werewolf came over to me. The carriage was burning up around us. The roof was already gone, and with it our luggage. I wondered if the demons were still on course, or if they’d gone to join their brethren. I also wondered if Keller was watching the carriage go up in flames.
It looked like we might not even make it to Golden Falls.
“Are you okay?” I yelled to Kia.
The little pixie stared at me with wide eyes. Instead of answering, she reached into her pocket, and to my complete surprise she drew out a handful of green dust. I flinched away from it. Pixies with dust were powerful paranormals, and if Kia wanted to use her powers against us, I was unlikely to be able to counter her, since all my own powers were going to keeping the heat from burning us alive.
Kia’s eyes were fearful as she looked around me at Lisabelle, who was now more orange than black. When Kia threw the dust, I thought at first that it was only going to make the fire worse. But to my intense relief, when the sparkling green cloud hit the constant stream of fire, the flames shifted, sparked, and lightened.
“It’s turning the fire into a shield for Lisabelle,” Sip yelled. “Neato!”
“Isn’t that incredibly hard to do?” I demanded. “Can it hold?”
“Yes, and not for long,” Sip yelled back. “Kia is a good pixie, but she’s no match for the demons outside this carriage. They have to get them away from us.”
Obviously she meant the professors. “Where do you think Dove is?”
When I had seen Zervos traveling at the back of our caravan, about as far from me as possible, I’d been relieved, but now that relief had turned to fear. It was clear that he was too far away, or held up by his own battle, to help us out.
Elemental Earth (Paranormal Public) Page 4
