Elemental Havoc (Paranormal Public Book 11) (20 page)

Returning to Paranormal Public from Neon Mountain, a.k.a. the Compound, had been a shock to my system. I had missed a lot, and both Keegan and Eighellie were furious with me, despite the fact that Charlotte had tried to reassure them that I was fine and had just gone to spend some time with Sip and Lisabelle.

Eighellie had apparently yelled something about how could that possibly mean I was fine. Keegan had told her how we had ended the summer with an unexplained werewolf attack followed by an unexplained vampire friend attack. This had only furthered her rage.

One of the biggest things I had missed was an announcement from President Valedication. The attack on Astra had been the last straw, and he was being forced to resign. The latest president of Paranormal Public hadn’t even lasted a semester.

Too much had gone wrong and remained unexplained, and Dobrov, as head of the university, had become the scapegoat for all of it. He was scheduled to give a speech to that effect the morning after my return.

Unlike when I had left, snow lay heavy on the ground as I headed back to Astra. The cold rushed over it to brush against my cheeks, and even when I was inside the house, looking out the windows made me shiver. If any sign of the fire that had drawn me out a few nights ago survived, it was covered under a blanket of cold. The dead of winter was coming, and with it a darkness that was enveloping the future. Not to be corny, but I found myself thinking of Public as a delicate plant, like one of Sip’s exotic garden denizens, that needed warmth and sun to blossom. Instead, there was now only night.

After my friends had finished yelling at me, I went to sleep knowing that it would be the last evening with a hybrid at the helm of Paranormal Public University. Who would protect the artifacts now? Before I nodded off I made a list, putting everything that had happened together in my mind. It went like this:

1.               From the start of the semester there had been subtle fights and discord between the paranormal types. Could relations be salvaged, or was something – someone – stoking the clouds of anger into a storm?

2.               My powers had behaved increasingly strangely, until I was in so much danger that something wonderful had happened. It turned out I had powers involving a fifth element, but so far I didn’t really know anything about it. Did the Hunters? At least it was not darkness.

3.               Through Ports were missing and the TP office was closed. Bertrum was upset about it, and who could blame him? The idea had been his baby.

4.               The semester was ending with more questions than answers, and I hated that.

5.               Who had burned the Power of Five Logo?

6.               Were the attacks on Public and Astra, and the fire, pranks or something more?

When I woke up the next morning, it didn’t surprise me that I was back in my bed in Astra. It was as if it had all been a dream.

I shook myself awake. I had a lot to do.

I trudged with Eighellie and Keegan toward the dining room, where Dobrov was due to give his resignation speech. My mind felt mushy, as if it intended to reject any efforts on my part to use it for anything useful, like trying to keep Dobrov on as the president of Paranormal Public.

What about the artifacts, the attacks on Fussfus, the attacks on Astra, and the missing TPs? Were they all connected, or were they separate acts, all swirling around the very unusual business that was a paranormal college? My thoughts were in a ferment of questions to which I had no answers.

“What’s eating you?” Keegan asked, peering at me. “You’ve been quiet since Lisabelle let you live.”

I shrugged. “Dobrov shouldn’t have to resign,” I said. “Just because a professor got attacked here doesn’t make it his fault. If it’s anyone’s, it’s Charlotte’s. She’s the one who invited Fussfus here.”

Oh yeah, and I had forgotten about the lecture series where the professor had been attacked.

“You want your sister to get kicked out?” Eighellie asked, sounding aghast. “She’s the one who was in charge of that. Even Fussfus himself isn’t angry with her.”

“No, I just don’t think Dobrov should take the blame,” I said. “It’s like he’s taking the blame for everything, even though none of it was his fault.”

“He’s at the helm of the university. It’s his responsibility,” she said.

“Maybe he’s taking the blame because some paranormal has to,” argued Keegan. “It can’t be your sister, anyway.”

“Why?” I said.

Keegan sputtered. “She’s the last elemental!”

I spread my arms wide. “Clearly not.”

At that my friends lapsed into annoyed silence, while I continued to chew on my lip. Just because Keegan had a point didn’t mean I had to like it. We walked without saying anything further for a moment, then, just as we were about to enter the dining hall, a realization pushed its way through my fuzzy brain.

Without a word, I stopped dead and looked around campus, surveying the buildings in light of the thought that had just come to me. They – Hunters, of course – wouldn’t hit the Museum of Masks; they would surely want more time to prepare if they were going to mess with Dacer.

What did that leave? Paranormal Public, of course, housed many valuable artifacts. Even through the Nocturn War the paranormal community had managed to keep many of them displayed and safe. There were artifacts and old books in the library, in the dorms . . . that was it! Each dorm! I racked my brain, trying to remember which dorm had which artifacts.

Students streamed past me, some shooting glares at me because I was in their way. I ignored them. At first, Eighellie and Keegan didn’t notice that I was no longer behind them. They just kept on walking and arguing while I stood stock still, every muscle in my body feeling strange and primed.

Then, without a word, I raced off toward Cruor, heedless of the fact that Keegan and Eighellie had turned to gape at me in confusion. The vampires had been giving me trouble all semester, and I had finally realized why: It was because they thought I wanted their artifacts. Now that I had figured it out, I intended to tell Averett how ridiculous that was before another hour went by. If I had wanted her artifacts I would have taken them using essence and masks, and neither the vampires nor anyone else would have been able to stop me. Having taken so long to realize this obvious fact demonstrated an astounding degree of stupidity on my part, but I intended to be stupid no longer.

“Where are you going?” Eighellie demanded, grabbing my arm. Having raced after me when I took off, she was now standing there blinking at me. “I thought we were going to listen to the speech together.”

I made myself stop long enough to say, “Get Keegan, then come and find me at Cruor.”

Starting to run again, I immediately collided with Keegan, who had also followed me. The time it had taken me to talk to Eighellie had given him a chance to catch up and head me off. He steadied me, his eyebrows raised. “Where’s the fire?”

“That’s not funny when he’s a fire elemental,” said Eighellie. “He was trying to run off without us. Rude.”

“No way,” said Keegan, all seriousness. “I never thought you’d be so excited for speeches.”

“It isn’t the speech,” I said. “It’s the Cruor artifacts. That’s what the Hunters are after.”

“How can you be sure?” Eighellie asked sharply. “All my research hasn’t told me that!”

“Yes, it did,” I said. “You just didn’t realize it. Astra and Cruor have the most valuable artifacts, but I’ll explain later, because right now we have to stop the Hunters.” I thought about trying to convince my friends not to get involved; just because I was running into danger didn’t mean they had to. But I knew they’d come anyway, and truth be told, I was relieved to have them along.

Luckily, the paths had been cleared of snow, and the frozen ground made running easy enough. It wasn’t long before Keegan pointed ahead and cried, “There’s Cruor!”

The vampire dorm looked deserted. The dorms didn’t have guards, and a campus-wide meeting meant a campus-wide meeting, so absolutely everyone except the three of us was in the dining hall by this time. If some lone vampire lurked in the crypts, we could only hope he was slumbering.

Eighellie stopped. “Are we just going to run in there?” she demanded. “The vampires have serious protections on that place. We’ll probably be attacked, either by vampires or by something worse.”

“What else do you suggest?” I said.

Eighellie paused for a moment, but it was long enough to make me almost burst. “What are you thinking?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“I think we should walk in,” she said decisively.

“That’s what we were doing,” said Keegan.

“No, you wanted to run,” she said, and sailed past him.

Keegan shook his head. “She’s short, but she’s still painful,” he muttered.

“Reminds me of someone else I know,” I offered, thinking of Sip Quest.

But Cruor turned out to be as empty as it looked. We walked over the bridge and past the frothing moat, and when we reached the front door Keegan started saying something about its being locked. Eighellie ignored him. “We are students, and since each type is working with all the other types this year, we can enter,” she informed him.

It turned out that she was right.

This was my first experience in the vampire dorm, and I paused on the threshold even as Eighellie marched forward as if she owned the place. My head still felt a little fuzzy from my return trip from the Compound, but I was trying to shake that feeling as best I could. Taking a deep breath, I followed my friends inside. Lisabelle had told me to let her know if anything went wrong at Public, but on the one hand I didn’t even know if anything was really wrong, and on the other, I felt that if it was, the situation was too urgent to allow any time for getting in touch with her. The three of us could handle it.

“You are SO going to explain all of this when we get out of here,” said Keegan. “Doesn’t it kind of look like we’re breaking and entering, and doesn’t it kind of look like we’re trying to steal the artifacts for ourselves?”

“We aren’t trying to steal them for ourselves,” I said. “We don’t even know what they are.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I knew they had been a mistake. Both the tree sprite and I looked at Eighellie, who blushed.

“It’s not my fault I do our readings,” she said. “We’ve had a ton of artifact reading this semester. You should both know what’s down below as well as I do. Didn’t you notice that we weren’t the only ones who were frustrated by the focus on theory this semester? Some of the professors also thought it was ridiculous how much we were concentrating on abstractions and philosophy, so wherever they could they threw in other stuff that was more practical. Anyway, I at least know they have silver-encrusted fangs down there.”

“Charming. I’m too shocked by what’s up here,” said Keegan, sounding awed. Cruor was decorated in blacks and reds, and everywhere I looked I saw blood. “This place is freaky,” he whispered. “Vampires.”

“Vampires are dedicated paranormals,” said Eighellie. “Don’t look down on vampires just because they’re different from you. Besides, they can levitate, so you can’t ever look down on them anyway.”

“I’m not looking down on them,” he argued. “I’m more like looking at them from a distance with concern.”

Eighellie rolled her eyes.

“You seem to know where you’re going,” I said to her.

“Of course,” she responded. “Don’t you look at dorm floor plans in your spare time?”

“Who has that much spare time?” I said. “Where do you find those anyway? That doesn’t sound safe.”

“What gets me is that you took what she said seriously,” Keegan muttered.

The dorm was silent as we followed Eighellie. She was a darkness mage, the first Lisabelle had allowed at Public. Whether the darkness premier was taking revenge on the other mages because of their involvement in the War or for some other unknown reason, Lisabelle had refused to allow most of the mages a proper education.

Eighellie was different. She said she’d been told just like any other paranormal to attend, whereas entire darkness mage families had begged and pleaded and still been denied a place at Paranormal Public.

Maybe it was because, as I was finding out, Eighellie was nothing like Lisabelle. She liked to explain everything and she liked to read. She didn’t see boundaries, but it was more because she was so desperate to learn everything she could than because she was trying to control or dominate. She loved to argue. Lisabelle’s response to most things was either to walk away or to smash something. And when she smashed something, she smashed it harder than anyone else ever could.

“This way,” said Eighellie. She was heading for a large door that I felt sure hid stone steps behind it. But we didn’t get to find that out right away.

“It’s locked,” she said, staring at it. She had come to a halt a few feet from the door, almost causing Keegan and me to tumble into her.

“How do you know?” said Keegan, starting forward. Before she could stop him he had touched the door, and we watched in dismay as something like an electric current shot through him. His hand stayed on the door for several seconds as a singed smell filled the air and he shook where he stood.