Elemental Darkness (Paranormal Public Series) (30 page)

The woman was dressed simply, all in black, as if she were in mourning, with a sheer black veil covering her gray hair. Her wrinkled hands were laid over a black cane, and she was so hunched over that she was nearly as short as Sip. Clearly, though, her mind was still sharp.

“Dacer said you were a professor at Public at one time?” I asked.

The old woman nodded, still eyeing me strangely.

“For many years,” she said.

“What were you a professor of?”

“Inter-paranormal relations,” she said dryly. “Speaking of which, are you here to fix my Power of Five or aren’t you?”

I nodded. “We are.”

“And you’ll stay for dinner afterward?” she asked crisply, ushering us in.

“I suppose,” I said. I wasn’t sure that had been the plan; it was already late, and I didn’t want Rake to be at a loss as to what to do about our absence. But she seemed insistent.

“I’m Evellin Earls,” she said. “Professor Earls. Don’t bother introducing yourselves. I know who you all are.” She waved Lough’s outstretched hand away. “Very good,” she said. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

She moved slowly, using her cane. Unlike with Dacer’s mother, she seemed to need it. It wasn’t just for show.

Her tiny cottage was spotless. There was a worn blue rug just inside the door and a crackling fire in the sitting room.

“Where do you need to be?” Lough asked me, looking around skeptically.

“Anywhere,” I said. “The magic of the Power of Five is all around the house. If the shield were operating, it might be better if I touched it, like when I strengthened the shields around Public. But here I’ll just sit in the living room.”

“I like it better not having to sneak in,” Sip commented, pacing around the room and looking at all the pictures.

“I have a feeling we couldn’t sneak up on her if we tried,” I whispered.

Sip grinned and nodded. “I wonder why Dacer sent us here.”

I shrugged. “I’m going to strengthen the Power and then figure it out.”

“I’m going to go help her with dinner,” said Lough thoughtfully. “She shouldn’t have to do it all on her own.”

“By ‘help’ you mean see if she has snacks?” Sip asked sternly, fixing him with a purple-eyed stare.

“Yes,” said Lough. “That too.”

He disappeared through the door to our left as Sip and I made our way into the living room. We sat in front of the fire, figuring that we might as well be warm while we worked.

Sip grabbed a book from one of the side tables and started to flip through it, while I closed my eyes and tried to relax, checking for the interconnected stream of magic that told me the Power of Five was present.

“Wow,” I whispered. My eyes were still closed and I could feel my ring pulse, but this place was different somehow. The elemental power I felt was warm and familiar, almost like it was home.

Sip might have said something or she might have kept quiet, but I didn’t know, because at that point I wasn’t paying attention. Instead, I took a deep breath and forced myself to focus. I could ask this woman what the meaning of the magic was later, after I had done the strengthening.

I reached to my right, sticking my hand right into the fire. It was another trick I had learned, as a fire elemental. I couldn’t even feel the flames. When I wanted the warmth of the fire I could have it, but that isn’t what I was after now. I wanted its power.

“It’s getting colder in here.” Sip’s voice sounded different now as my magical self streamed through me, intent on joining the other Powers of the Five.

It looked like Professor Earls had already strengthened the other layers, making them into pulsing colors of strength, while the elemental thread was a dull brown, dead for many years now.

I reached out to touch it with my magic, prepared for the prick and the need to ask permission to let my own new magic flow.

But there was no permission needed. I felt no prick. The thread just burst to life before my eyes. It stretched to envelop the other threads, to connect with them and form an impenetrable wall.

“I can feel it,” said Sip, as I slowly started to come out of my magic. I had learned that murmuring helped the spells along. Spoken spells were considered lesser, because you might not have time to say the words, or worse, you might not be able to, but in this case it gave the magic added strength. When I wasn’t under attack, I liked to say the spells. Somehow it made me feel closer to my elemental essence.

“Come on,” said Sip, as I opened my eyes. She closed the book with a thud and placed it next to the once-again roaring fireplace. “Let’s go eat.”

I was instantly glad I had agreed to stay for dinner. First, I was famished. I hadn’t eaten before we left; I’d been too excited about leaving. Second, it smelled delicious.

“Are you two coming?” Professor Earls voice called out.

“Yup,” said Sip, nearly skipping. I followed at a more leisurely pace, still trying to examine the magic I had just put into place.

The kitchen was far smaller than the living room, and it felt like mere luck that all four of us managed to fit in there. As we entered, Sip clapped a hand over her mouth, and I immediately saw why. Professor Earls already had Lough in an apron, and it was pink. There was white and blue trim, but it was more like something Dacer would have worn, it was definitely not something I ever thought I’d see on Lough. Lough ignored our reaction and kept right on setting the table.

The stove was merrily piping along, and something was boiling on top of it.

“Wonderful,” Sip cried. “It smells delicious.”

Professor Earls beamed. “Stew,” she said. “Luc’s mother always thought I had the best taste in food. They loved to have dinners at my old house.”

“Not this house?”

She shook her head. “I moved here a few years ago.” Her eyes darkened. “Well, five, nearly six, to be exact.”

Lough glanced at me. “I’m starving, and this is just the half of it. It’s not even dessert.”

“Dessert,” she said, “is cookies.”

“See?” said Lough delightedly. “I love this place.”

He glanced at me, seeing that I was not as amused as he was. How could I laugh at a time like this? It was different for him. He had grown up with his parents. He could still Contact them and hug them.

I was staring at Professor Earls. I stopped when she noticed, but it was too late.

“You have questions,” she said. “I’ll be honest. Dacer knew nothing of why I wanted you to visit. I refused to tell him, which drove him crazy. His mother knew, of course, since I tell her everything; we are old confidants. But some things really are for your ears alone.”

“Sip and Lough can hear anything you have to tell me,” I said. I actually didn’t think I could bear to hear what she had to say without my friends there to support me, but I didn’t bother saying that out loud.

Professor Earls nodded and started to carry a steaming hot pot over to the small kitchen table. Sip rushed forward to help her, and received a nod of thanks from our hostess.

“Good,” she said. “It’s a long story and I need to sit down. Besides, your friends are hungry, and I would hate to keep them from their dinner.”

The table was handmade and sturdy, but well used. Four chairs barely fit around it. Lough had done a nice job of setting it, and once the platters and pots of food were added there was no room for anything more. I took a deep breath and sat.

“This smells wonderful,” said Sip, trying to break the tension.

Lough and I agreed, but all of a sudden I didn’t have much of an appetite, since I was now far too curious about the story Professor Earls had promised to tell. My appetite brightened up a bit when I smelled the vegetable soup; the aroma almost set me at ease.

Almost.

“All the veggies are homegrown, of course,” said Professor Earls, smiling a little. “I do love cooking for friends.”

“We aren’t friends,” I said. “We’re Dacer’s pupils. I’d really appreciate it if you started telling that story.”

“Very well,” she said. She wasn’t angry with my strong words, but Sip was offended on her behalf.

“You can’t talk to her like that,” my friend cried.

“I sensed elemental magic,” I said hotly.

“Yes, well, it is the Power of Five,” said Sip.

“It recognized me,” I said, glaring. “It knew me. It was like coming home.”

Professor Earls eyes shone. “I was hoping that would happen.”

“Why?” I demanded. I stood up, pushing my chair back so that it dragged on the floor. “If you don’t answer me,” I said as my ring started to pulse, “I’ll make you answer.”

Sip and Lough both looked at me in surprise, but I just tossed my head defiantly, even though I was terrified by the thought that I’d finally get the answers to the questions I sought. What would they mean when I got them?

“Charlotte,” Sip gasped.

“No,” I said. “This is too important. This is my family. My mom and my dad. I demand answers.”

“I am planning on giving them to you,” said Professor Earls, not the least bit fazed by my answer. “I never would have pestered Dacer to bring you here if I hadn’t been prepared to explain why I wanted you and what I know.”

“What do you know?” I said, still not calming down.

“Please sit down,” said Professor Earls, “and then we will begin the tale. It is not a short one.”

We had flown all this way and I was already very surprised. I wonder what all Dacer had known when he sent me here. After all, he never did anything casually. As Sip had once said, you really need to be determined to put neon pink eye shadow at least twice a month, not to mention the blues, greens, oranges and yellows. I eyed the table. I’d sit, but I needed assurances first.

“Not until you tell me whose elemental signature is on this house,” I said.

“Very well,” she said, putting her spoon down. “It is your father’s. At least, I believe that to be true.”

I can’t say I was surprised, given that I had spent years wondering about my father and thinking that it was completely insane and nonsensical that he had been alive not ten years ago, and yet there were no paranormals now living who had known him. Of course, most of the peo
ple who had known him had probably been elemental, and the separation between paranormal types had been far worse in the generations before ours. For that matter, even now there was nothing to say that if I had had other elementals to live with in Astra, and other elementals to go to school with, I would ever have been friends with Sip and Lisabelle.

But the reality was that all of my good friends were non-elementals. And surely my father must have known other kinds of paranormals as well. It was endlessly frustrating that I didn’t know who he was, and that no paranormal had ever come forward to admit to having known him.

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” I asked bitterly.

“Earlier as in earlier in your visit or earlier since your arrival at Public?” she asked.

“Both,” I gritted out. Ever so slowly I lowered myself into the chair after Lough righted it.

“I didn’t say so earlier in the visit because I wanted to be sure. Of course it’s you. That hair, that chin, those slight freckles,” she smiled a little. “I didn’t want to startle you. As to why I didn’t say so earlier during your years at Public, it was for two reasons. One should be obvious: fear. The demons wanted the elementals killed. If there was a hint that I might be helping you, well, then they’d come for me, too.”

“What made you change your mind now?” I demanded. “It’s been years.”

“We appear to be losing anyway,” said Earls. “That, and I don’t have that long left to live in any case. As you can see, I’m old, and I’m not in the best of health. If they come for me now, I don’t mind.”

It was a selfish reason, but it was also one I could understand.

“They killed my granddaughter a week ago,” she said softly. “She was the only family I had left in the world. I had wanted to keep them from retaliating at me through her. If they hadn’t killed her, I might not have contacted you through Luc. Now I’m simply hoping her sacrifice won’t have been in vain.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. The woman’s eyes were dry, but some sadness is beyond tears. If I’d come to understand anything in the past three years, it was that. The ache in my chest for Lisabelle and Keller was always there, and neither was even dead . . . at least as far as I knew.

“Yes, well, she would have wanted me to do this anyway. I just never told her, because I didn’t like the idea of being scolded by a six-year-old.”

I took in a sharp breath at the thought that the demons would kill a child.

“Yes, well, as much as I’d like to feed your anger, it wasn’t intentional,” she said, reading our collective expressions of horror. “She was merely in the wrong place at the very wrong time.”

“So,” I said, my whole body trembling, “who was my father? He was an elemental?”

“Yes,” she said. “Asher Nascaro was definitely an elemental.”

“He was royal?” Sip gasped. “Nascaro is the royal family.”

“He was the younger son of the king,” she said. “Somewhat removed from the throne, but royal nonetheless. At the end, when the king had died and his brother assumed the throne, he became the heir to the heir.”