Elemental Darkness (Paranormal Public Series) (23 page)

Sometimes it occurred to me that it had been a bad idea to take over a room meant for a professor or dorm mother. My bed was so massive I felt lost in it. Keller and I could have slept comfortably with a tempest, a lightmare, and three furryhairings between us, and not complained of a lack of space. Now that I was alone I had the opposite complaint.

I turned one more time, only to pause at what I saw.

My door, which I always kept closed, had cracked. I knew because the air pattern in the room had changed, even though there had been no sound. I held my breath, debating whether to use my magic to make Dobrov leave again. He had a lot of nerve coming to Astra at all; I hadn’t talked to him since that first night, and I didn’t plan to.

Now wide awake, I waited to hear footsteps. When I didn’t, I grew anxious. My door had been opened by someone I hadn’t invited into Astra, and I couldn’t just lie there, so as quietly as I could, I peaked over my shoulder to see who or what had intruded on my sleep.

There was nothing.

Frowning, I sat up. I could see the light pouring into the crack from the nightlight Lough kept on in the hall. “I prefer to fight bad paranormals I can see, thank you very much,” was what he had said when Sip complained.

Now I was puzzled, and more than a little alarmed. Demons were not usually stealthy or small, but whatever had opened the door seemed to be both. I was just lowering myself onto my back, my eyes still wide and staring, when something fast and white soared above me. I nearly cried out, then I realized who it was.

Bartholem landed on my bed without so much as a thud. He started to examine it, specifically the middle spot where there were lots of pillows, and then he proceeded to ignore me as he found a place to sleep.

“Nice to see you, too,” I said dryly. He twitched his whiskers, but that was the only sign he gave that he could hear me at all.

Shaking my head, I fell back on my pillows. I’d reached a new low if I was talking to a cat, although I felt completely sure that Bartholem could understand me perfectly well.

“Just make yourself comfortable,” I said, waving my hand. “It’s not like this is my room and not yours or anything, or that Lough is taking care of you and not me.”

I felt the blanket pull ever so slightly near my left shoulder and heard a gentle purring. And that was the only response I got.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Bartholem’s white form, now curled up between two of my pillows. For all my sarcasm, I was glad he was there. I didn’t want to be alone.

I left the door ajar in case the cat wanted to leave the way he had come, and closed my eyes. I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard the swish of the door moving and felt the air pattern change once again.

Annoyed, I sat up. “Look, we don’t have room for a dog in bed as well, and we don’t have one anyway,” I said heatedly.

Sip was standing in the doorway, clutching a blanket. “What about a werewolf?” she asked quietly. I could just see her spiky hair and purple eyes in the dark.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, glad it was Sip and not a demon.

Sip nodded and came over to the bed. “I see I wasn’t the first to think of coming here for company,” she said. “Does Lough know?”

At this Bartholem raised his head and I grinned. “Let’s keep it between us.”

Sip climbed into the other side of the bed, careful not to disturb the cat.

Once she was snuggled into the pillows and blankets on the left side of the big bed I could barely see her.

“It’s so comfortable,” she said. “Shame on you for keeping it all to yourself.”

“For a long time I didn’t,” I said quietly.

Sip was silent for a minute. “I’m sorry,” she said.

I nodded into my pillow.

“I miss him too,” said Sip. “Not like you, of course, but I really liked Keller. He was the most kind and reliable fallen angel I’d ever met, and that’s saying something.”

Kind and reliable were lovely qualities of Keller’s, but they weren’t the qualities I missed most.

“Do you think he thinks about me?” I asked.

“All the time,” said Sip without hesitation. “He didn’t want to leave either.”

“No,” I said, “he didn’t. But sometimes blood is stronger than loyalty.”

“I hope I never have to make that choice,” whispered Sip.

“Why would you?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Sip said slowly. “My parents worried about the influence Lisabelle had on me, whatever that means. I tell them they read too much of the bad part of the Tabble, but they don’t really listen.”

“I’m sure it’ll never come to that,” I said.

Then we talked about Lisabelle long into the night. When she had visited Hyder and Helen Quest before Lanca’s coronation, Sip’s parents had been skeptical, but she had finally won them over until they had treated her almost as part of the family. Sip talked fondly of how her dad had grumbled that Lisabelle was alright for a darkness mage. It sounded a lot like how we usually talked about pixies.

“We haven’t heard from Lisabelle,” Sip whispered.

“I know,” I said, the hollow ache in my chest spreading.

“Everyone thinks she went over to darkness because she wanted to,” Sip said, her voice trembling, “but she didn’t. Right? You were there. She didn’t want to go, did she?”

“No,” I said firmly. “She didn’t want to go.”

“I know that after the sacrifice she made for me, the worst thing I can do is to lose faith,” Sip said.

The gentle hum of Bartholem kept us company, and finally I saw Sip’s hand reach out in the dark and gently stroke the cat.

“I like having a cat here,” she said. “I like that he is Lisabelle’s.”

Bartholem purred louder. The soft noise helped me finally fall asleep.

The next day I thought Faci gave me a particularly smug look, but I ignored him. I didn’t tell my friends what had happened as I walked home the night before; I didn’t want them to worry. Besides, I’d spent enough time being babysat by them.

It was the first day of Tactical and I was nervous. It was to take place at dusk, with the entire school participating. I had heard stories of several paranormals, like Vanni, trying to get out of it, without success. She had complained of a stomachache and asked to go to the infirmary, but Oliva wasn’t having it.

We split off into our teams. I waited until the last second, having a very bad feeling about this particular Tactical.

I knew the professors liked to change up the parameters of Tactical to keep us on our toes, but it just made the margin for error larger. Now we had to find a key, and none of us even know what it unlocked.

Despite the fears of demon attacks, there had been a hum in the air ever since it had been announced that Tactical would continue. The hum had grown into a buzz when the teams were created, many thinking that my team, which had always done well, didn’t stand a chance this year.

“I can’t believe they think Camilla and Daisy are going to fight for you,” said Sip. “They’re going to hang you out to dry.”

“I don’t think that’s what they’re going for,” I said, although truth to tell I wasn’t sure. “Maybe Oliva thinks that if they’re forced to either lose or look after me and keep me from harm inflicted by other students, they’ll choose looking after me.”

“You say ‘look after’ like it’s babysitting,” Lough whispered.

“I mean, this is just a game, isn’t it?” I asked, Lough’s nerves feeding my own.

It was at just that moment that Daisy, Camilla, and Faci showed up. They were dressed in identical black robes that looked a lot like the ones worn by the Nocturns who had attacked me the night before. Each student’s robe was lined with red, and their black rings blazed. They spread out, each standing nearer to their teams, but they also stayed together. All my calm evaporated.

“They wouldn’t try to kill Charlotte, would they?” Sip whispered, her voice filled with fear.

“Of course not,” said Lough. “Not in front of all the professors and President Caid. They’d do it later behind everyone’s back like the cowards they are.”

When we had played Ultimate Tactical, it had been very easy to see how one of us could die. Faci had almost let a member of his team, Betsy Butter, do just that, and in a way that would have made it all too easy for him to convince the people in charge that it hadn’t been his fault, or intentional.

“We’ll look out for you,” said Sip, but she spoke too loudly.

“You’ll do no such thing,” said Zervos, who had overheard her. “Do you understand?” his voice was icy and his eyes hard. “If you are caught helping another team you will instantly be disqualified.

Normally I didn’t care about winning. I knew most of the other students wanted desperately to win, but I had always enjoyed the tactical aspect of the game for its own sake. However, since this time around I really wanted to find whatever it was that Oliva and Caid set us the task of finding somewhere on the campus, disqualification was not an option.

Sip subsided into silence, but her eyes burned.

“Evening, everyone,” Oliva cried, waving his arms for quiet.

After the fiasco when Vale had been in charge of Public, with Betsy Butter almost dying in Tactical, and in the light of the many other injuries that had put students out of commission for shorter or longer times, Starters were no longer allowed to compete in Tactical, which meant that this time they merely sat there and watched. It was a lot like what many of us had done when the Dash competitions were still being held, in a time that now seemed long ago and very innocent.

The audience made my butterflies all the worse. Trying to get a handle on the situation, I glanced at my teammates, Camilla and Daisy first of all. Then I contemplated our other two teammates, one a fallen angel named Jackle whom I had never talked to
,
the other a werewolf named Hutch. They both stood nearby but a little to the side, neither looking like they really wanted to speak to Daisy or Camilla.

“What’s the plan?” I asked at last, resigned to the fact that they were going to make me talk.

Daisy smiled beautifully.

“The plan, elemental, is to watch you die.” She kept smiling, her eyes filled with an eager light.

“Now wait a minute,” Jackle protested. “I want to win this thing.”

But he was quelled with a look from Camilla.

I liked how he said he wanted to win, not that he remotely cared about my life. He avoided eye contact with me despite my glare. So much for the improvement of cross-paranormal relations.

Meanwhile, Oliva was pushing forward with the formalities. “As I’ve said, you are looking for a Key of Light. Once you have found it, each of you must t
ry to pass through the White Ring protecting it. This is also a test of how well you’ve learned your magical protections over the years. We have set an intricate spell, so you will have to use all the powers you have learned over your years at Public.”

“Key of Light, got it,” Lough muttered. “Good thing I know what that is. Oh, wait, no I don’t.”

“I get the first shot,” said Daisy, crossing her arms over her chest.

“What happened to watching me die?” I asked. “Forget so soon?”

“That happens after I find the key,” she sniffed. “It was used by the first President of Public and has been hidden ever since. It’s rumored that only the president knows where it is, but somehow Oliva actually doesn’t.”

“Great,” said Lough, “some dead guy used it and now we have to find it.”

“That can’t be right,” I argued. “He just said he put a white ring around it.”

Daisy gave me a disdainful look. “So? He knows what it is, so if it doesn’t fight him he can place a magical spell around it even if he doesn’t know exactly where it is. He’s been looking for that stupid thing all semester and hasn’t been able to find it. He wants it for Caid.”

Suddenly I remembered Caid and Oliva searching through the archives. They had clearly known their way around the old building and had obviously been looking for something. That couldn’t have been their only visit, or their whole approach would have been different. Surely they must have been looking for the Key.

“Elemental,” said Daisy, catching my attention again. “Run.” Her black eyes were gleaming. At first I had no idea what she was talking about, but then I saw Sip and Lough looking at me frantically. I looked around and realized that Oliva must have said to start, and I hadn’t heard him.

Terrified, I looked for Faci, Lanca’s warning about his past at the top of my thoughts, but I didn’t see him anywhere. Daisy was watching me closely and smiling.

I started to run anyhow.

Many of the students had spread out, more intent on finding the hidden Key of Light than on attacking each other, but as I passed certain students, including Citrus Veer, a junior werewolf, and Ollister Immerson, a sophomore fallen angel, I saw their looks change. They became speculative and hungry, their faces feral.

If I could be taken out of Tactical, the team that did it would get tons of points. They still had to find the Key, but it would mean they could surely win. I was the only one who was the only one of something, after all; Lough and Trafton at least had each other. There was also a Starter dream giver who couldn’t participate, but who still made the total tally of dream givers three; three was a very different number from one. I had to face the fact that my own role as a target was going to play a big part in how this Tactical evolved.