Elemental Air (Paranormal Public Series) (17 page)

Next to him, Oliva nodded. “If
you can get past the trickery and our untrusting natures, sure.”

We talked for a little longer
about the book. Korba said that it was old, but not rare, which was why it
simply sat in the living room at Volans instead of being locked up.

“Charlotte, do you have a class
with Professor Dacer this semester?” Oliva asked.

I nodded. “We’re calling it
Advanced Masks. I have it next.”

Oliva nodded. “Good, the more you
can work with real magical objects the better off we’ll be.”

With that he seemed to forget I
was there, and turned his attention back to the parchment he and Korba had been
working on before I came in. The signs and letters looked similar to those of
the book I had just had Korba translate for me, which meant that I had no idea
what the parchment said. It didn’t matter, my head was already spinning a
little. It was clear that Oliva had worries that he had not shared with the
students of Public. What he said was cryptic and strange, but I didn’t have
time to worry about it just now. I had my next class to get to.

From Korba’s classroom I headed
straight for the Long Building, where Dacer and I had agreed to meet so that I
could practice with the masks. I had become pretty good with the elemental
masks, and now Dacer wanted me to start practicing using the other masks. My class
with him would meet at random, whenever we wanted to schedule it. Today we had
decided to have it right before dinner.

When I got to the Long Building I
called out to Dacer, expecting that he’d already be there. He had made sure I
had a key to the Museum, so I let myself in and wandered around. But there was
no sign of my mentor.

“Dacer?” I called, over and over
again, but he was nowhere to be found. I frowned. He hadn’t mentioned that he
wasn’t going to be there for our meeting. On his desk in the back room I saw a
stack of papers and went over to look through them. He had obviously been there
recently, because today’s Tabble was in the pile.

I glanced at it, then quickly
looked away. Mound had written another article, but at least this time it wasn’t
about me. Instead, it was about Caid and the attack.

I sat down in Dacer’s chair to
read.

I had the
great pleasure, at least that’s what I thought it would be, to spend a weekend
at President Caid’s summer residence not too long ago. Yes, I mean the president
of the Paranormals, our most important and revered elected official. He is the
man we look to for guidance, for leadership, to always make the right decision.
To stand in the face of hardship and say not today. When all else fails,
President Caid is the backbone of the paranormals.

I am
deeply saddened to say that I have never been so disappointed in my life.

First,
President Caid is a very personable and jovial man. I have a feeling that this
quality was more important in his election than any faultless record of
leadership. President Caid gathers powerful paranormals around him, whose
accomplishments are beyond reproach. He therefore gives the appearance of
competence, without actually possessing any competence himself.

If he had
not allowed the election of the pixie Oliva to go through, I would have lost
all hope.

As it
happened, there was a demon attack while I was at dinner at President Caid’s;
it occurred in front of all of his guests. I can only surmise that his lack of
any real response has to do with his fear of standing up for the paranormals,
as there can be no other explanation.

The black
darkness came toward us, lit up with fire, and President Caid simply stood by
and watched it. At no point in time did he move to engage. He
asked
the demons to leave. This, my
friends, is not the behavior of a true president. It is the behavior of a weak
paranormal masquerading as powerful.

I call on
all of you to disregard this facade.

I call on
all of you to stand up for your fellow paranormals. If those in power will not
defend you, will just sit idly by while we are murdered in droves, then it is
up to the regular paranormal, our average citizen, to take a stand and say
enough is enough.

I know
for a fact there are powers at work, gathering to fight the Nocturns. I call on
you to support that fight.

We failed
to do this with the elementals. We could have saved our most delicate type, and
instead we let them die. Now we are left with only one, a wisp of a girl who is
afraid of her own shadow. I have met her, and I can tell you that we cannot
rely on her for the Power of Five or indeed for anything. I demand action. I
demand we fight. And I demand we do it now!

I sighed. Mound was at it again.
At least this time his vitriol, or most of it, was directed at Caid, and I
couldn’t necessarily say he was wrong about the paranormal president. I had
also wanted Caid to act, and he had not.

A rushing sound filled my ears
and I glanced around. There was till no sign of Dacer, and it was almost dinner
time, so I left the Tabble where I had found it and headed for the exit. In the
musty hallway, lit only by the fading light of the sun, I again thought I heard
a noise deep down the corridor.

I had spent a lot of time in the
Long Building since the Tower fell. Last semester Sip, Lisabelle, and I had
even snuck in through the catacombs. We had nearly died doing it, with Public’s
defenses trying to keep us out. Now I wondered if the passages we had used to
come through had ever been closed.

Frowning, I carefully made my way
into one of the storage rooms. They all looked the same, and in the action of
the moment last semester I hadn’t tried to make sure I’d remember which one we
used.

Trembling, I put my hand on the
doorknob. There was a scratching noise on the other side of the door.

I turned the handle and opened
the door just a crack.

Beyond, there was no light, only
a black room. I had barely gotten the door open when it crashed backward on top
of me. I stumbled and fell, with the door pinning me to the floor.

A hellhound stood over me, its
red eyes inches from mine. It gazed at me malevolently for a moment, then let
out an earsplitting growl.

The hellhound’s breath was rancid
and dank. The stench was so bad it took all I had not to gag. Desperately I
tried not to move, but it didn’t matter; the hellhound knew its prey was
underneath it. The door had my arms pinned at my sides, and I was face to snout
with the great black creature.

The hellhound crouched down,
looking ready to spring. It bared its great jaws, and the stench become
overwhelming. I started to heave just as the hellhound snapped its head
forward, intent on taking a bite out of my face.

When it shifted its weight,
though, I moved, trying to get it off balance. It was far bigger than I was, so
I had to put some of my magic behind my effort. Luckily the door was made of
wood, so the earth part of my elemental powers flowed into it, making it
slippery and lifting it sideways.

The hellhound clawed desperately,
raking the door as it tried to keep its balance and keep me pinned at the same
time, but it was no use. I had enough room, and I scooted away.

The hellhound recovered more
quickly than I could have dreamed, and sprang at me again. This time I didn’t
have time to dodge, and the ruined door was now on the other side of the
hellhound.

Desperately I called wind. One of
the powers I had cultivated was choking, but it was no use against a hellhound.
The beast was too fast and didn’t really care if it could breathe anyway as
long as its jaws were around my neck.

The hound’s black fur was wet and
matted, but its eyes still glowed red. It crouched low again, a gesture I
recognized as preparation to spring.

It sprang forward again and
again. Each time I would roll and dodge, but that couldn’t last. The hellhound
was getting closer, its great jaws nearly snapping off first my hand, then my
ankle. I was breathing heavily as I staggered to my feet one more time.

This couldn’t go on much longer.

Running out of options, I threw
raw power at the hellhound. We were now in almost total darkness, with just its
glowing eyes providing a little of what light there was. When it blinked, it
disappeared almost entirely from view.

The many battles I had already
been in during my years at Public had not been spent fighting one on one.
Tacticals were important, but in those I usually expected to have Sip and
Lisabelle at hand, fighting with me. The spells I knew were obviously
insufficient to defend myself in solitary battle against a hellhound.

With a cry, I called to the water
that lay in the catacombs. Hellhounds hate water. When confronted with only a
little bit of it, they vaporize it. I called enough to nearly drown the
creature.

The hellhound must have heard the
water rushing up to me, because it paused before it sprang again. Just before
the flood burst through the muddy floor, it darted away.

For a long time I stared, afraid
to move in the near total darkness, at the last spot where I had seen the
hellhound. Finally, I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other. My
knee throbbed and I felt a bit of liquid, probably blood, trickle down my arm.

Slowly I made my way out of the
Long Building.

So, the hellhounds were still
getting onto the grounds of Public. Or, I supposed what was more likely, they
had never left. The catacombs underneath the Long Building stretched for miles.
There was no telling how many hellhounds Malle had let down there who had
simply lived in the darkness for years, waiting for their moment.

I sighed. I needed more of Sip’s
balm, and I needed a shower.

It was a difficult choice between
going to the dining hall for food and going to Astra first, to change and get
cleaned up.

I glanced down at my ruined
clothes. I was covered in mud and dirt and I smelled like hellhound. I had to
go to Astra.

The second my dorm came into view
I felt better, but to my great dismay the door opened just as I was walking up
the path. What, I wondered: did Martha sit at the window and wait for me to
come home?

She was dressed in the same
outfit she had worn yesterday, complete with the same stern expression.

“There’s a shower out back,” she
said, not even bothering to ask if I was alright. “I will lay out some clothes
for you there.”

“Why can’t I use my shower?” I
demanded. It felt strange to talk, and I tasted mud on my lips.

Martha’s eyes sparked. “Astra is
clean. You are dirty. There’s a shower out back. You are not fit for a real
shower at the moment. Once you learn to behave like a proper paranormal it will
be a different story. When you return from dinner we will discuss your
punishment.”

“Punishment?” I asked
incredulously. I had just nearly died at the hands of a rabid hellhound, and
this woman wanted to punish me for being muddy.

Martha nodded seriously. “You
snuck out this morning. You have now returned looking like you thought it would
be a good idea to jump in mud, and you have missed every opportunity today to
return to Astra to discuss the rules I have laid out for you. All of this means
you must be punished.”

Biting my lip to keep from saying
something I would regret, I headed around back. I knew there was an outdoor
shower, but I had never used it. It was in a small shed in a protected glade at
the corner of the building. It wasn’t like I was worried that anyone could see
me, I just felt like the woman had no right to keep me out of my own dorm.

The pipes creaked when I turned
them on, but once hot water was flowing over my bruised body I didn’t care. I
took a long time in the shower. True to her word, Martha had left me a pile of
clothing to wear to dinner. Unfortunately, she had left me dress pants and a
white, frilly blouse that I kept around for special occasions, but that really
just lived in the back of my closet. She had also left me a note from Dacer,
apologizing for not being at the Long Building. He said he’d gotten caught up
in work. It wasn’t like Dacer to miss appointments and I wondered what it had
been that was so important.

By the time I had finished
showering I had long since missed dinner anyhow. Furious and unable to walk
into Astra, I headed for Airlee. Sip and Lisabelle would be worried about why I
hadn’t shown up in the dining hall, and I wanted to tell them of the latest
developments.

I glanced back at Astra once.
High above, in the third floor, I saw a curtain swoosh shut just as I looked.
Martha must have been watching me leave.

I hurried to Airlee as it grew
dark. I didn’t have much time if I didn’t want to be out past curfew.

Sip opened the door just as I
knocked.

“Good,” she said. “Where WERE
you?” She was already in her pajamas, which just so happened to be an
eye-watering shade of purple neon.