Elemental Omen (Paranormal Public Book 10)

by Maddy Edwards

  I was almost lost in the power of my own magic when something strange happened to jolt me back to the present. My power stopped moving, as if it was confused. It coursed through the fire, but there was already magic coursing through the fire, a spell of some kind. I took a deep breath and tried to see more clearly, but every time my magic surrounded the magic that was already there, that alien magic flitted away. The fire was not just intentional - that much had been obvious from the start - but had a magical element of its own.

  What on earth?

  A scream from behind me ripped my concentration, and the gleeful fire threw my magic out of itself. The next second I heard Bertrum yell, “It’s now or never!”

  It was indeed. With a deep breath I slammed every bit of magic I had ever felt into the fire blocking our path, ordering it the hell out of my way. Then I raced to stand in front of everyone else as the fire came for me. It slammed up my legs, tore over my chest, and engulfed me in burning air.

  I let it come. I wanted it, and it delighted in my wish.

  Once I had as much of the fire as I possibly could wrapped around me, I opened my eyes. There was the door, and there were the trapped paranormals streaming past me on either side, rushing through it. My vision was a dark orange, a deep red, and a bright yellow. A confusing array of colors, but I was not confused about what I had to do.

  A smile tugged at my lips: the fire had done exactly what I had hoped it would do. I called to my magic, I let my ring, so long unused, blaze, I unleashed as much power as I could muster, all the power I’d been storing. I let the magic rip the attacking blaze to smithereens.

  The next thing I knew I was kneeling on the floor and someone was shaking me. I forced myself to pay attention and found myself looking into the concerned eyes of Professor Dacer. “Come on,” he breathed. “Goodness, of all the paranormals in the clouds, your sister would never forgive me if I let something happen to you while she was unconscious after failing to save all of our lives. Which you did, by the way.”

  I tried to tell Dacer that there was no way I’d be able to stand, but he didn’t wait for me to say anything, he just hauled me to my feet. I wheezed as I got my legs under me and took one wobbly step, then Dacer’s strong fingers tugged me through the doorway I had cleared. The wood was now black, thinner than it had been, and laced with holes. I was sure it was about to collapse. I stepped over wet debris, which made me think someone had tried to put the fire out with water. Oh, yeah, that was Charlotte. She always had tended toward the water element a little more than the others.

  Water was all well and good. Today proved that fire was better.

  “What did you do, anyway?” Dacer was asking. His voice was raspy, whether from yelling or smoke I wasn’t sure.

  My lips moved, but they felt strange, as if I had never actually moved them before. Once I got them working I replied, “The fire had magic in it.”

  Dacer looked at sharply. “And not the kind that was trying to stop it from burning the place down?” I shook my head, and Dacer’s face went a shade darker. “And?”

  “And the magic pushed my magic out, but I knew that if the bad magic came into me, it couldn’t push me out. Fire likes me,” I added thoughtfully. I had never thought much of it, letting a flame dance on my fingers when I was little, when my dad - well, stepdad - had been starting the woodstove or lighting a candle.

  Dacer looked grim. “So, a magicked fire burned the Court of Iniquity down just as we discovered that the entire court is corrupt and Camilla van Rothson is walking free.”

  “Charles?” I asked.

  Dacer’s face took on the mask quality again and he shook his head once, as if it pained him too much to put into words that his old friend Charles had escaped.

  I stopped dead. Dacer kept moving for a couple more steps, then stumbled when he realized I wasn’t with him. He looked back at me.

  “Yes, that’s right,” I said. “Camilla is free. And so it begins again.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Before we had barely begun to collect ourselves, a darkness started to advance in the sky, a darkness so deep and thick that even the fire that was still burning behind us shrank. I felt tiny pellets of rage slam into my skin just as other paranormals started to flinch.

  I looked around for Hunters, but there were none to be seen, just the smoke and burning they had filled the sky with.

  As I looked around, I felt something else. The clouds and the sky blackened in thick rolling waves until it felt like night had replaced day in a matter of seconds. The Hunter influence was dissipating and being replaced by something darker. The idea of flying through the air in a coach was now unthinkable. No lights relieved the darkness, and the weakening fire gave off only a disconcerting glow. I could no longer feel any heat coming from it at all.

  Suddenly, though, I felt the wind shift. Something was moving through the air above us, some creature large enough to change the atmosphere on the ground. And suddenly I knew: Dragons were coming.

  Shouts from the grounds around the courthouse confirmed my hunch.

  “It’s the premier! The Premier of All Darkness! Run!”

  “Kill her!”

  “No, definitely run!”

  Those were the words I heard being yelled around me as Sip and I knelt next to Charlotte, who was collapsed in a heap and still unconscious. I was sure it was only a matter of minutes until Keller arrived, and he would be furious. Sip’s purple eyes were large and afraid, while anger beat at my temples. Sip’s hands worked quickly at my sister’s collar, fear making her more efficient and quicker than she would have been ordinarily. A loose circle formed around the paranormal president, protecting her from harm while her back was turned to the throng of paranormals still milling about within reach of the destroyed courthouse.

  “She’s landing,” I whispered, as a huge black dragon - bigger than any of the others I had ever seen - descended into the crowd. The closer the dragon got, the smaller the flames became, and when Lisabelle Verlans landed, they were extinguished entirely.

  “She’s going to land on the courthouse! Move! Move!” came yells from the paranormals who were still milling around.

  The courthouse was still a smoldering mess. I got the clear impression that the massive dragon enjoyed doing a smash landing onto the top of the building, then stomping on it. Lisabelle was holding so much rage in check that I wasn’t even sure she noticed. More debris went flying into the air as the few paranormals left in the vicinity scattered in a collective step backwards.

  Resentment and fear were a palpable mix on many faces. But it wasn’t the unknown assailant who had destroyed the courthouse that terrified the paranormals. It was Lisabelle. The darkness premier’s obvious power over everything within reach didn’t help her case with the old guard fundamentalists who wanted Sip to arrest her or at least force her to say where Professor Erikson was being kept, but neither of those things was ever going to happen. Meanwhile, as with everything connected to Lisabelle Verlans these days, there was a grandeur to the blackness that rolled off her. She nearly skipped as she landed neatly, and the great dragon saw nothing but its dark master.

  I was used to seeing Lisabelle angry; Sip described anger as her resting face. But her expression now was deeply unsettling. Her eyes were jagged chips of black iron and her jaw was tight. Her pale skin gleamed as she strode forward carrying her staff. Her hands were so dark and thickly tattooed that I wasn’t sure where her skin ended and the wood of the staff began.

  Paranormals scattered like leaves, as if Lisabelle were a gathering gale. Wind swirled, and I wasn’t sure if it was real or imagined. Many of the paranormals edged away from her until they were peering around half-destroyed structures and objects, as if an overturned table or a charred desk might protect them from her.

  “Is she alright?” The darkness premier didn’t kneel down, and her eyes kept snapping from side to side.

  “She will be,” Sip gritted out. “Keller gave her the most badass hea
ling tools there are, and . . .”

  “And Keller’s the best,” said Lisabelle, nodding her approval. She glanced around. “But I wish Lough were here.”

  Sip nodded, her expression tight. “We all do.”

  Neither of them looked at me. That didn’t surprise me, because I felt strangely removed from the turmoil now. It wasn’t a question of whether Charlotte was alright; I had decided a long time ago that I would die first. I refused to be the last of my kind, while I knew that Charlotte could take it. She had Keller, for one thing. He was her heartbeat while I was her breath, and while both might be vital, Keller could keep both going and I could not. Even though he was a fallen angel and she and I were both elementals, he was her blood in a way that I would never be. After my initial anger at having, in effect, a brother-in-law, I had gotten over that fact.

  But now I looked at Sip and Lisabelle and realized that they also must be considered. Lisabelle already tottered on the edge of sanity, and if anything happened to Sip or Charlotte she would plunge into a dark and abysmal place from which there would be no return.

  Which, as Keegan had pointed out, was why the Bounty Hunters were after us.

  Conclusion: Nothing could be allowed to happen to Charlotte, or Sip either.

  My throat felt hot and clogged as I said, “Lisabelle, can I speak with you for a moment?” It was almost as if she had forgotten I was there. Her expression snapped to me, then back to Charlotte, then to me once again, and she nodded. Sip moved closer to their friend as Lisabelle came over to me. I was still having trouble standing or moving properly after the fire, and memories were slamming in on me of the Nocturn war and making me wonder: What if I hadn’t been there today? But Lisabelle seemed not to notice the state I was in.

  “What is it?” She didn’t sound angry, just impatient. “Do you know who did this?”

  “Um, no, I don’t,” I said, shifting uncomfortably. Dacer would have plenty of time to tell Lisabelle about Charles, but that wasn’t my place. Given the darkness premier’s reaction to his presence at Duckleworth, I had a feeling she wouldn’t be surprised. I just hoped that in her anger about what had happened to Charlotte, she wouldn’t say anything too harsh to the vampire. Judging from the droop of his shoulders and the wringing of his hands, he was already beating himself up about it mercilessly.

  When I didn’t speak immediately, my sister’s friend raised her eyebrows as if to question my sanity. “Then what could we possibly have to discuss at this moment?”

  “Public,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m going to attend Paranormal Public this fall.”

  Lisabelle didn’t smile, but her eyes blazed.

  Epilogue

  I knew where I had to go. Paranormals scattered, and as they did I hauled Keegan away. I knew Charlotte was in better hands than mine and there was somewhere we needed to be.

  “What’s burned your tail?” Keegan demanded, as paranormals started disappearing from the charred remains of the courthouse.

  The paranormal seat of power, Sip’s seat of power, had burned to ashes, and writ in the sky was a message from the Hunters: there would be more. I should never have sat down. I should have gone after the horn-nosed pixie and all the rest of them. I had felt sure that I’d seen the goateed vampire, and I should have gone after him too, and stopped worrying about what other paranormals thought or if my sister would approve. I was a part of this now too. I got to make my own decisions.

  “You look determined, like you think you can do what you want,” The Premier of All Darkness said to me, falling into step as I marched toward one of the carriages.

  “I can,” I said. Not far behind me Keegan was staring wide-eyed at the darkness mage I was speaking too. I had the feeling that if I poked him he’d topple over. Ash drifted in the air and everywhere I looked the world was hazy and gray.

  “You can, so long as it doesn’t conflict with what I want,” said Lisabelle. “Capisce?”

  “Got it,” I muttered.

  “Excellent,” she said. “I have a dragon for you both, to speed you on your way.” The premier turned around and motioned at the great black dragon. For a second I thought she was kidding, but then that dragon stepped aside and a smaller dragon emerged from behind it. Keegan gave a cry of joy.

  “I can’t wait until tomorrow!” Keegan cried.

  Both Lisabelle and I gave him questioning looks. “Why’s that?” I said.

  “Because then when anyone asks what I did today I can tell them that I flew on a dragon,” said Keegan gleefully.

  “Keep him away from me,” said Lisabelle, her expression serious.

  “Sure thing, got it again,” I said. I glanced at Keegan and elbowed him hard in the ribs to stop him from giving Lisabelle a doe-eyed expression.

  Flying on a dragon with Keegan was almost as much fun as flying on a dragon by myself would have been. He was so excited he kept skittering around and moving as we soared high into the clouds. I gasped as we broke cover and continued to fly, our dragon just as gleeful as the half faery on his back.

  The dragon’s skin felt like soft leather as I clung to him. Keegan could supposedly speak to the creature, but given how excited Keegan was, that didn’t make me feel better. The darkness premier swooped past us on her black dragon, clearly with somewhere to be.

  “Where are we going?” Keegan yelled in my ear.

  “The theater,” I said. “A friend suggested it.”

  In the dark of night the theater looked different. There were no lights in the building as the dragon landed lightly in the back field.

  “Should I tell him to wait?” Keegan whispered to me.

  I had no idea, so I said “Probably.” If what I was thinking turned out to be wrong, there was a chance we’d need to make a quick getaway. The dragon appeared content to curl up and watch the trees sway, so there we left him.

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Red,” said Keegan. “He told me to call him Red.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  We made our way into the theater carefully in the dark. The first sign that we were in the right place came when the back door was unlocked. Taking a deep breath, I pushed it open, flinching at how loudly it creaked. Keegan crept in behind me.

  As we moved slowly up the stairs, I tried to remain aware of any noises that would hint of the presence of Hunters. I gained confidence when I heard footsteps and the hum of voices above us.

  “What if it’s humans rehearsing?” Keegan whispered. I shook my head. I knew it wasn’t.

  “Stop!” Keegan grabbed my arm hard as we reached the double doors. Beneath them, through a thin slit, I could see rainbows flying.

  “What on earth?” I muttered. It was like someone was shooting colored lights around the room.

  “Disco party?” Keegan offered. I shook my head.

  Carefully I pushed open the door to the stage. Several faces, most of whom I recognized, turned to stare at me.

  “Ricky,” said Rake, as if he wasn’t even surprised. He waved me down the aisle to the stage, where there were various paranormals perched on prop Victorian furniture.

  The second we walked through the doors I could see what had caused the rainbow sparks. Duke Dacer was sitting in his own massive chair on the stage. His hands were holding his knee, and one leg was draped over the other. What was shooting off of him wasn’t light, but every color under the sun of glitter. He was covered in the stuff, his makeup, his hair frosted in black glitter, his clothes, all the way to his jacket. Leaning against the chair was a cane covered in glitter handprints. He was rocking back and forth in the chair very slowly, his eyes staring off toward something only he could see.

  Slowly, Keegan and I made our way to the stage.

  “Dacer,” I said, nodding. He nodded back at me once.

  “Are you alright?” I asked. His eyes found mine again, slowly, as if he didn’t even know who was speaking to him.

  “I am very, very, very. Very. Angry,” he whispered. I ducked a
n especially strong burst of blue glitter that shot from his jacket.

  “Charlotte!” I cried, going to my sister. She sat next to her mentor, with Keller’s arm protectively around him. His eyes were deep pools of blue anger, while his skin was so pale it was nearly translucent. I had never seen a guy as good-looking as Keller, except for Keller himself. When I told my sister as much she had just laughed and said that she told him all the time, much to his amusement, that his good looks were the only reason she was with him.

  Sip marched in, her nearly white hair standing on end.

  “Handlers?” Rake asked her.

  “Damn them all,” Sip cried.

  “She’s mad,” said Keegan. “She’s mad like my mom gets mad when cable cuts out. Times a million.”

  “What was THAT,” Sip yelled. “I thought the Hunters were under control! I thought! I thought! Now Camilla! I thought! WOW!” She was ranting so hard she nearly tripped on one of the rows of seats before she found the stage. Rake went to help her and she started to slap his hand away before she remembered decorum.

  “I’m calling everyone back! This is ridiculous! I can’t do this alone!”

  Lanca was sitting on the other side of the room with her husband Vital holding her hand. She was keeping quiet, but I remembered what Lanca looked like angry from that night in the cottage, and she looked really angry right now.

  “You can’t call everyone back!” Rake said. “They’re doing important work. Lough . . .” He stopped at Sip’s cold stare. Her lips were as white as her hair.

  “Charlotte nearly died,” she whispered. “Charlotte.”

  The door behind us swung open and we all turned to look. A paranormal hybrid walked in, looking all business.

  “Dobrov.” Rake nodded once as the president of Public nodded back.