Elemental Air (Paranormal Public Series) (2 page)

Cale’s teeth flashed in a smile.
“I’m sure he’ll get better at those.”

“Why are you here?” I said.
“You’re going into senior year at Public. Shouldn’t you have an important
internship or something?”

Cale looked away, down our porch
steps. I knew he had been having a hard time since he and Camilla had broken
up, even if that was probably the smartest decision he could ever have made.
Seriously, no one should be crazy enough to date Camilla, let alone a
sweetheart like Cale. But a rock could have made the decision to leave her
sooner than he had.

“I have stuff to work out,” he
said. “I might not come back to Public.”

I stared at him, open-mouthed.
“Not come back for senior year? Why?” I couldn’t imagine my life anywhere but
at Public. Cale and I had our differences, but I also had a hard time imagining
Public without him.

“What will you do?” I asked. “You
can’t stay here.”

Paranormals rarely lived among
humans. My mother had tried it with disastrous results. Of course, now I
realized that my mother had been doomed from the beginning.

“I’m thinking about the
Paranormal Police Academy,” he said. “I want to help. I’ve enjoyed this summer,
keeping an eye on Ricky, and I think I’d be good at it. The Police Academy is
getting record high enrollment, and they’re starting younger than I am now, so
if I’m going to join, it needs to be soon.”

“I guess you won’t have the
problem of your parents asking why you haven’t finished college,” I said,
trying for lightness. Of course, Cale’s parents didn’t know he was a
paranormal, because Cale was adopted. It would have come as quite a shock to
them to learn that the son they had nurtured since he was a baby was really a
pixie, but they weren’t likely to find out.

Cale grinned. “I think they’d be
pretty surprised to learn the truth, but I like the idea of telling them that
I’m helping those I care about. I just have to leave out the fact that those I
care about are paranormals.”

“But how can you go to the
Academy now? Don’t you have to apply and stuff? Isn’t it a hard process?”

I didn’t like the idea of losing
friends of mine to the Police Academy. Yes, I would be very proud of Cale, but
I also knew that the work was dangerous, and I couldn’t stand the idea of
something awful happening to one of my friends.

“I applied last fall,” he said.
“I got accepted, and then I told them I had to think about it. There aren’t a
lot of pixies who do well there, because pixies are normally smaller than I
am.” He smiled again, and this time it was a wolfish grin. Cale had always been
great at sports, and he had been equally good at Dash and Tactical at Public.
He hated to lose.

“It’s one of the big fights
Camilla and I had. She didn’t want me to go,” he explained.

I hated the idea that Camilla and
I agreed on anything, but I knew that the Paranormal Police Academy was set to
become our primary defense against the demons. I knew we had to fight fire with
fire, but still, I worried about Cale.

“Can’t you finish at Public and
then figure out what you want?” I asked.

“You’re trying to talk me out of
it too? I thought you’d understand,” he said. “Your own life has been in danger
ever since I walked you home that night two years ago. You of all paranormals
should want me to do this.”

Cale had been protecting me even
then, and remembering that night helped me to realize that this was the work
that he was meant to do. “I’ll miss you at Public,” I said. “Everyone will.”

“If Lisabelle actually cared at
all about me one way or the other, she’d do a happy dance that I was gone,” he
said dryly. “Don’t try to tell me otherwise.”

Now it was my turn to grin.
“Okay, maybe Lisabelle won’t miss you. But I will.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said,
wrapping his arms around my shoulders. “You’ll be so wrapped up in your
boyfriend you won’t even notice. Besides, it’s not like we’re never going to
see each other again. I’ll be back to visit.” He squeezed me tighter as I
hugged him back.

“When do you leave?” I asked.
“Are you sure Ricky’s okay?”

“I leave in the morning,” he
said. “As a new recruit I have to be there earlier than the other students. As
for Ricky, I’m sure he’s fine. It was probably just my nerves or something. He
has good protection. Does he . . . I mean, you haven’t told him he’s a
paranormal?”

“I haven’t told him about Mom,” I
said defensively. “I don’t want to worry him. Besides, he hasn’t shown any
signs yet.”

“How do you know if he’s shown
signs or not?” Cale countered. “He might not tell you.”

I glared at the pixie, his face
half illuminated by moonlight. “He would tell me,” I said with a confidence I
did not entirely feel.

“If you say so,” said Cale.

“I do,” I said.

Shrugging, Cale shifted his
weight to lean against one of the porch posts. “Maybe I’ll end up defending the
paranormal president,” said Cale. “It’s the highest honor for those in the
Police Academy.” He gave me a small smile.

I waved. The next time I saw him
it would be under very different circumstances. He would be a hardened
defender. I thought of Vital. The vampire bodyguard had never gone to school to
learn his craft, but he lived and breathed Lanca’s safety in every movement he
made. If Cale could become half that good, the paranormals would be lucky.

I left before morning. Ricky
e-mailed me later to ask me if my visit had been a dream, because he had only
seen me in the dead of night. He was upset that I hadn’t stayed longer, but I
explained that I couldn’t. When he asked if I had looked for Mom’s locket, I
had to tell him that I had completely forgotten about it.

Dacer wanted to know where I had
been, but once I explained to him what had happened, he knew not to press me on
it.

“Good for Cale,” he said as we
headed for the library and yet another day’s research. “The boy followed his
heart and didn’t let anyone tell him differently. Reminds me of myself at his
age.”

“What did you do?” I asked
curiously. Dacer rarely talked about when he was young.

The vampire chuckled. “You don’t
think I always had such spot-on fashion sense, do you? I had to cultivate it.
Much to my father’s dismay,” he added ruefully.

Today Dacer wore a blue blazer
that in the right light sparkled with a million crystals, plus pants to match.
Since he never wore sandals, today he wore white shoes.

“I agree,” I said, smiling. “Your
fashion sense is one that would have to be . . . thought out.”

Dacer gave me a sidelong look,
trying to detect if I was kidding. Then we both burst into laughter.

A cool, slightly damp wind blew
across my face. Instead of turning away, I turned to face it. I let it wash
over me, hoping that with it my bitterness would be blown away.

“I love Vermont. I am merely
looking forward to loving it from a distance,” Dacer gritted out. It was late
August, and the country air was still almost unbearably hot.

Unfortunately, Dacer’s flamboyant
preferences in clothing, which would really only be considered commonplace,
well, nowhere, had drawn attention here in the town of Harring, population
eighteen hundred.

For example, his penchant for
wearing parachute pants, and dress shirts covered in daisies, complete with
brass-buckled shoes, top hats, and makeup, while also throwing in a cane as a
fashion accessory, was rather unfortunate in a small town that had had no
exposure to vampires. This was true even if none of the townspeople knew he was
one. He explained his choices to anyone who asked by saying it was too hot to
wear jeans. I tried to tell him that many men found a middle ground between
jeans and dresses or flowing pants, but he would hear none of it.

I grinned at my professor. We
were packing up our cabin on the outskirts of Harring, a wooden lodge at the
base of a mountain, and there was no one anywhere near us. If there had been
other travelers around for the summer, I felt sure Dacer would have scared them
off in the first week, or talked them to death, I wasn’t sure which.

In an hour we would embark on the
journey back to Public, with a stop for a couple of nights at President Caid’s
summer home along the way. I couldn’t wait to get going. I had enjoyed the
summer, but I missed my school desperately, and I had unfinished business
there. This would be the fall semester of my junior year, and I was hoping for
new developments in the conflict between the paranormals and the Nocturns.
President Caid, the president of the paranormals, had somewhat accepted that
there was a threat from the demons and was acting accordingly, a hopeful sign.
My friends would all be back at Public, and I held out a small hope that my
fellow students Faci, Daisy, and Camilla would be nowhere to be seen after the
previous semester.

“Ah, a smile,” said Dacer,
beaming at me as he tilted his hat to reveal his raccoon eyes. “I see those so
rarely from you.” He hunched his shoulder up, as if bracing for me to yell, but
I didn’t. There was no point. I had told him everything and he had been maddeningly
calm about it.

I tried to hold the smile in
place, but it when it started to tremble, Dacer looked away. He didn’t want to
see my happiness disappear. You would think that the fact that I had spent my
summer vacation in a musty old library searching for information we couldn’t
find, or the fact that I wasn’t with my friends or my little brother Ricky, or
that Dacer and I had set up an elaborate system to protect ourselves from
demons, would have put me in a bad mood, but none of it had. In fact, all those
things paled in comparison to what was eating me alive.

“I have a gift for you,” said
Dacer, brightening. “I’ve been saving it all summer. Didn’t want to let it go
to your head. Besides, it’s important to maintain some sense of trickery and
wonder. Sometimes I worry that the work we do will banish it from our hearts.”

He rummaged in one of his many
bags, his shoulders disappearing into the black leather depths. Seriously, he
packed enough for six people. The amount of clothing he had brought could have
outfitted the entire town of Harring twice over, not that the townspeople would
have agreed to wear any of it. With a triumphant cry, he reappeared out of the
depths of his overstuffed bag holding something wrapped in silver and blue
paper. He held it out to me, but I already knew what it was. Scarcely daring to
breathe, I unwrapped one of the elemental masks that normally lived in the
Museum of Masks back at Public.

It wasn’t a mask I had seen
before, which was strange. Dacer had initially wanted me as an intern, or
allowed me to exist in his orbit, as he explained it, because I was an
elemental and could help take care of the elemental masks in ways that other
paranormals could not. But of all the masks I had helped him take care of over
the semesters, I had never seen this one.

The mask was green, but it
changed colors to sharp browns and deep blues as it moved, with flashes of
white as I turned it from side to side. The mask wouldn’t cover my whole face,
just my cheekbones, nose, and forehead. The straps used to tie it around my
head were black and had a small shimmer to them. I found myself smiling broadly
as I studied the mask.

It had already been glowing when
Dacer unwrapped it, but the glow intensified the longer I held it. It also
warmed to my touch, recognizing my power. I desperately wanted to put it on,
let it touch my skin, my cheeks, let the burning sink deep inside me until the
magic and I were one.

“It’s called Alixar,” said Dacer.

“Thank you, Dacer. What’s this
for?”

Dacer wasn’t a big gift-giver,
but he was looking at me with what could only have been described as warmth and
pride shining in his eyes.

“It’s a mask,” he murmured. “A
special mask. You’ve worked hard this summer, and it belongs to you, but
really, I’ve wanted you to have it for a lot longer than the last three months.
Now feels right.”

“But what does it do?” I
murmured, turning it over in wonder. The inside was painted white and it
smelled like something I couldn’t name, a sort of flower or herb.

“It was Queen Ashray’s,” Dacer explained,
taking it out of my hands and flipping it back to face us. He pointed to the
lower right corner, where there was a small design in the shape of a thistle.

“This was her insignia,” he
explained. “I found the mask in a box when I first became the curator of the
Museum. It was tucked away in a place where no one had noticed it for years,
but though all the other objects in the box had gone dull and gray, this one
still shone as if it had been worn just the day before. Sigil might know
something about it. He might even have seen it used. Queen Ashray had names for
all her most prized possessions.”

He pointed to a spot on the right
inside corner of the mask, where it would lie against my cheek. There was one
tiny word inscribed: Alixar.

I took the mask back reverently,
afraid of dropping it. Queen Ashray was the elemental who had pushed to found
Public and led a charge to defend the school from demons when they first
attacked it. From all the reading I had done I had concluded that she was one
of the most respected royal paranormals in history.