Elemental Air (Paranormal Public Series) (28 page)

My dress was the color of ferns,
and mints, shamrocks and the sea, a spraying ocean and a fire burned down to
embers.

Once the three of us were ready,
we headed out. I was excited, and I could see by the nervous way Sip kept
fidgeting with the hem of her dress and Lisabelle kept absently rubbing the
spot where her wand was that they felt the same.

Both my friends had been single
for a long time now. Lisabelle, of course, claimed that she wanted nothing
else, despite Trafton’s advances. She still acted like she had no idea about
Lough. Even the smartest paranormals could be incredibly dense when they (she)
wanted to be. I had Keller, for whom I felt particularly grateful today.

It was dusk by the time we left
Astra. To my great relief, Martha was already gone. She had needed to be at the
gala early to help set up her display of cookies and treats.

“Come on,” said Sip, veering us
away from the massive tent that had been set up to help celebrate Oliva’s
appointment.

“That thing’s heated, isn’t it?”
I asked, shivering.

Sip chuckled and nodded. “You’re
the worst cold-blooded paranormal I know.”

“I’m the worst cold
blooded-paranormal you know,” Lisabelle corrected.

“Hello again,” said a voice, and
a much calmer Lough appeared at our side and smiled at us. His blond hair was
nicely combed and his cheeks were their usual shade of cherry red. He was still
wearing the outfit he had showed us earlier, but he didn’t look as mortified
about it. In fact, he looked downright happy.

“This is awesome,” said Lough,
beaming at us as he tucked his fists into his robe pockets.

Lisabelle rolled her eyes. “Who died
and left you happy?”

“My mother said laughter is
infectious,” said Lough proudly.

“Must be one of those diseases only
people who are nice to begin with catch,” said Sip, glaring at Lisabelle.

“How much does the cure cost?” asked
Lisabelle. When she laughed at her own joke, everyone glared at her. "If
there is no cure, please cough in the opposite direction."

“I used a Contact Stone to get in
touch with my folks,” Lough explained, squinting in front of us. “They were
really supportive. Kair is so jealous about our gala she could hardly contain
herself. She said nothing like it ever happened when she was in college.”

“There was just one president the
whole time she was here?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “The same
president led the place for a long time, before he passed away.”

“He was probably murdered by
demons so Malle could take his place,” said Lisabelle.

We were all silent, uncomfortable
with how right Lisabelle might actually be.

“Where are we going?” Lough said.
“You know that the party - and the food - is in the other direction, right?”

“Of course I know,” Sip scoffed.
“I’m showing my friends the dragons. There have to be some perks for being
friends with me.”

At the sound of our excited cries
Sip grinned with pleasure.

“I know, I’m the best,” she said.

We were nearing the Long Building
just then, the very section that we had tried to paint. Set up in front of it
was a black cage that stretched high into the sky.

“What do you know about dragons?”
I asked carefully. It was not a topic any of our lessons had covered, and
though I felt sure Sip wouldn’t take us where we’d be in danger, I knew enough
to believe that dragons were deadly.

“I know lots now,” said Sip
proudly as we neared the cages. I could hear clawing against metal, and
periodically I saw flashes of light, as if a fire were being lit and then
quickly extinguished.

“They breath fire, obviously,”
she said. “They fly. Since they aren’t very large, basically the size of a big
man, they are very adept in the air. That will be part of the show tonight,”
she explained. “They will do tricks. They are also very intelligent for animals
and are never the first to attack, though they’ll defend their families if
provoked.”

“Yeah, that’s the part I’m
worried about,” said Lough.

“No families are present
tonight,” said Sip. “It’s three young unrelated males. According to the
faeries, they perform all the time.”

“That’s who brought them?” I
said, astonished.

Sip nodded, her face unreadable.
“It turns out that’s who owns them. At least we know they aren’t on the side of
the Nocturns.”

“At least,” said Lisabelle
grimly. As we got closer to the cage, the noises were getting worse. I wanted
to cover my ears to block the high-pitched clawing.

“This is wrong,” Sip glowered.
“They shouldn’t be in pain.” The werewolf rushed forward, glaring into the
darkness.

Quickly it became clear what the
problem was, and it had nothing to do with faeries torturing dragons, or
dragons fighting among themselves.

It seemed that Faci really did
have a penchant for torturing animals. He wore all black; the vampires didn’t
have a lot of options when they dressed for important events. It was just a
nicer pair of black pants and a black shirt, with a black jacket over it. Faci
didn’t have a tie, but I could see his red ring, set in black stone, blazing on
his hand.

I worried about the day when he
might catch Bartholem alone, then I thought about the cat. There was no way in
the paranormal world that Bartholem was just a normal cat, and whatever he was
doing with us was more than catching mice. I had a feeling he’d be fine, and in
fact, if anyone was likely to suffer from the encounter, it would be Faci, not
the cat.

“What do you think you’re doing?”
Sip screeched, reaching the cages. Faci stood with Camilla, the pixie’s long
blond hair flowing down her back as usual. Faci’s sunken eyes and barely-there
chin trembled. He was excited.

“Visiting,” he said curtly. “Do
you have a problem with that?” His voice was soft and smooth, filled with the
customary malice.

I clenched my jaw to keep from
retaliating, but of course Lisabelle was not so shy.

She came forward, pushing Sip
behind her just as Faci mirrored her motion. Sip gasped, but she did let her
friend protect her.

“Where do you think you’re
going?” Faci sneered, glaring at Sip in her lovely silver and white dress.
Lisabelle was still coming forward.

“No,” came a clear female voice.
I saw Lisabelle flinch; her shoulders hunched and her eyes squeezed tight. Uh
oh, I thought. This was going to be even worse than I had thought at first.

Daisy Validification stepped
forward. She was brandishing a black club with little silver chains hanging
from it. Next to her, Dobrov also came into view. It made me sad to see him.

“I’ll deal with the darkness
mage,” Daisy said, her lip curling as Dobrov’s smile froze in place and Faci’s
sunken eyes glinted with anticipation.

Next to me, Sip trembled and
Lough took a painful grip on my arm, silently insisting I not interfere.

“This was a long time coming,”
Lisabelle said icily. “You should never have come to Public.”

Daisy shrugged. “I wanted the
best education possible.” Her smile grew wider. “And I wanted to be in class
with the little elemental.”

“Don’t you look at her,”
Lisabelle hissed, her anger boiling over. “You should have left the dragons
alone.”

“We just came to see how they
were doing,” said Daisy innocently.

Behind them I heard biting,
chomping, and spitting and was very glad for the cage the faeries had created.
If the dragons were allowed, they would fight back, and I wondered: Where was
Oliva when you needed him? Of course, I knew were he was. I could hear the
sounds of the party starting up from here, with Caid as the guest of honor. And
we really needed to be there; our absence would be noted. At this very moment,
Keller was probably wondering where I was.

Daisy gave a very unladylike
snort, and as I glanced at her I saw surging black masses in the darkness
behind her. My heart rate quickened and I blinked quickly, stifling my fear.
There was nothing visible but swaying black trees, but the aura of darkness was
unmistakable.

“This is bad,” Sip moaned.

“I’ll handle it,” Lisabelle
growled.

My friends must have sensed the
same thing I had, but Lisabelle just gave Daisy a cold smile and glanced at the
wrist cuff of her dress, slowly, painfully slowly, starting to roll up her
sleeve.

“See, Daisy,” she said, almost
conversationally, “what you have never understood is that you just don’t know
everything.”

Daisy watched the darkness mage,
her eyes filled with excitement. She liked this, I realized, the fighting, the
terrorizing. She positively enjoyed it.

Lisabelle was still working her
sleeve up her arm to reveal her wand tattoo. The marking blazed black, and was
it just my imagination, or had it grown in size? Now it snaked nearly all the
way around Lisabelle’s arm. At Sip’s sharp intake of breath I realized that she
must just be noticing it too. Lisabelle was growing in power, and her magic was
so advanced that pretty soon she was going to need another tattoo. That would
certainly be interesting, I thought dryly.

I spared Dobrov a quick glance
and my heart squeezed. His face was unreadable, but I could see that his eyes
were touched with sadness. While Dobrov and I locked eyes, Lisabelle lifted her
arm and pointed her wand at Faci’s back.

Sip made a desperate grab for her
and forced the arm down.

“You have your wand out!” the
werewolf cried.

“So,” said Lisabelle, clearly
disgruntled. “At least I didn’t use it.”

“We will fight,” Daisy purred to
Lisabelle, “but not today.”

“Scared of a little ink?”
Lisabelle asked, pointing to her tattoo. Sweat had broken out on Daisy’s brow,
and even Faci, who was supplied with an infinite number of insults, was silent.

“Let’s go,” said Camilla, her
pretty hair falling in ringlets over her shoulders as she stepped forward. “We
should get to the party, and let’s be honest, they aren’t worth it.”

She followed her statement with a
disgusted look. Sip raised her eyebrows as the three enemies, and Dobrov, whose
status I was no longer sure of, made their way past us. We watched them go for
a long time. While my friends looked their way, I kept one eye on the area
where I had sensed the demons, but there was still no further sign of them.
They can’t be on campus again, I reassured myself. There had been no sign of
them in weeks.

“Is Dobrov a Nocturn now?” Lough
asked quietly.

Lisabelle shrugged. “He’s looked
pretty chummy with sister dearest all semester, so it wouldn’t surprise me.”

Sip sighed. “I hope he isn’t. I
rather like him.”

“Darkness calls to darkness,”
said Lisabelle grimly. “He has more of it than most.”

“The same could be said for some
others we know, and they aren’t all bad,” Sip pointed out.

Lisabelle shrugged. “Come on,
let’s go to the party. If you think I got dressed in this getup for nothing,
you’re crazy.”

Sip grinned. “Let’s go to the
party,” she agreed.

The four of us followed the
Nocturns to the gala. I had been sure it would be an interesting night, and it
already had been, though we hadn’t even made it to Oliva’s celebration yet.
Behind us we heard the dragons give a call that sounded remarkably like goodbye.

The scene in the tent was
stunning, and Sip couldn’t stop beaming. Every student on campus had turned out
in his or her best for the occasion, as had every professor. Since we were
welcoming a new, hopefully very long-term president, all the employees of
Public, even those who barely had magic, had joined the party.

Because Oliva was a pixie, the
theme inside the great white tent was green, and more green. Moss covered the
ground, the tablecloths were olive-colored, and even the walls appeared to have
vines crawling up them.

Each table had place settings of
silver on it in preparation for hungry guests who would bring heaping plates of
food to enjoy. Along the walls were tables covered in more scrumptious dishes
than I could count. I had gotten used to a wonderful selection in Public’s
dining hall, and to be honest Martha’s baking this semester had spoiled me,
even if I was still convinced she was a horrible dorm mother.

Gazing around at the crowd, I saw
Dacer quietly talking to Caid and Oliva. Zervos was also with them, but
standing a little to himself. Professor Erikson was nearby, talking to an Aurum
group that included Vanni.

Lough left us instantly to go
sample the food, and Lisabelle went with him. I was pretty sure that after her
confrontation with Daisy she wanted something cool and sugary to drink. Sip was
about to leave me alone to go and check on something party-related when a girl
blocked our path. I recognized her as a vampire Starter, but I had never spoken
with her. She was looking intently at Sip. I took the opportunity to look
around for Keller, but I didn’t see him anywhere.