Elemental Havoc (Paranormal Public Book 11) (19 page)

“Romantic Comedy night,” said Sip, rushing in with an overflowing bowl of popcorn. I was sitting alone on her white sofa. “Where’s Lisabelle?” I asked.

She looked around as if despite what she had just said, she was surprised not to see the darkness mage. Then she shrugged.

“She goes to hell for nights like tonight,” said Sip. “She finds it preferable.” When I looked at her with shock, Sip shrugged. “I mean literally, she’s friends with Satan. Or something. So she claims. She won’t introduce us. She says I would annoy him and he’d singe my hair, which wouldn’t be a good look on me. Charlotte and Lanca try to join me sometimes, but Keller won’t let your sister travel now and Lanca’s preoccupied with the task of decimating interlopers on her land.” Sip shrugged. “Always another problem.”

We were just settling in when Sip’s Contact Stone started to go crazy. At first she ignored it, but when it persisted, she gave in and turned on the video, and there was Bertrum. I had the sense that he was excited but trying not to show it.

“Are you embarrassed about romantic comedy night?” I asked him. Most guys I knew liked a romantic comedy or two, but most of them, most of the time, let out loud groans whenever they were asked to take part in events like this one was turning out to be.

In response to my comment, Bertrum pushed his glasses further up his nose, slowly. “I am not excited,” he said. “This is outside the purview of my job description, as President Quest knows. However, she insists on my presence, and so I am here.”

“What if I need something right in the middle of the movie?” Sip asked, staring at the screen and nearly bouncing up and down.

“Like what? A tissue?” I asked. Bertrum gave me a look that said he appreciated my coming to his defense, even though I wasn’t sure that’s what I was really doing.

Then he grabbed a pillow and held it to his chest, as if looking for comfort. Sip gazed at him for a long time, as if to inform him that not even a pillow could help him now. I grabbed a handful of popcorn. One way or the other, I was going to get a show. Paranormal Public felt very far away.

“It seems like we’re seeing a lot of each other this semester,” I said to Bertrum.

He nodded sadly. “We can’t have everything.”

On top of everything else, Lisabelle’s compound overlooked a breathtaking waterfall. If you stood still and looked out over the expansive forest that surrounded her home, all you could hear was rushing water. Sip didn’t like the waterfall. She said it was too high, and although it was pretty, it made the place feel cold. Instead, her own back yard was made up of that enormous garden, a riot of color, as I had seen on my first day, but not of scent. Her plot mate, as she liked to call Lisabelle when she was feeling funny, could not have abided the scents of flowers too close to her own house. She told a story of the one time she had tried to plant lilies and had found them all dead from some inexplicable fungus that she had named Lisabelle’s Tantrum.

No, Sip had a garden full of rare trees and plants. She even had some plants that were used in the making of tea. Oftentimes if you were looking for her you could find her out there, or not find her, as the case might be. The garden was crisscrossed with many twisting paths, all of which Sip could easily lose herself in when she didn’t want to be found. Lisabelle was the only one who knew the paths as well as Sip did, and you knew that if you asked her she would send you the wrong way just for daring to speak to her.

And because she would think it was funny when you got lost.

The more time I spent at the Compound, as Lisabelle called it, or Neon Mountain, as Sip called it, the more amazed I became that both Sip and Lisabelle’s houses were still standing, that neither of them had destroyed the other’s in an angry rage. Tonight it was Sip’s turn to be furious, although at first I thought it was Lisabelle who was angry. I had no idea how they had found this place or decided to build here, but clearly, as with most things, they had not entirely understood each other throughout the building process.

We were waiting for the Paranormal president in roof-covered porch that was painted black. The table was long and also black, not to mention filled with food, but Lisabelle wasn’t eating.

The darkness mage was quieter than usual, looking pensive and staring off into the distance. I knew better than to ask what was wrong.

When Sip arrived home from “the office,” she took one look at Lisabelle and said, “What’s happened?” She dropped her bag, her other bag, and the stack of papers she held on one side of the black table, looked at them disapprovingly, then pulled up a chair and sat down heavily.

Lisabelle glanced at her, the first eye contact she’d made since I arrived. “Sip, I realize that your life is in danger, but sometimes I think you intentionally behave foolishly.”

“What are you talking about? I never behave foolishly. Anyway, you’re my barometer for foolish.”

“You’ve been getting death threats,” said Lisabelle, “yet you still persist in working late at night with the windows unlocked.”

“How do you know that?” Sip was suddenly very suspicious. Lisabelle didn’t seem to realize or care that she was on shaky ground with her friend. “Did you go around trying all the windows to see if I’d locked them? I like a good breeze,” she said defensively.

“No, of course not. I used the secret tunnel to come in and check,” said Lisabelle.

Sip’s face got more and more contorted until it looked like she was beside herself with rage, a fact that didn’t appear to be bothering Lisabelle like it would bother someone with feelings.

“How DARE you!” Sip cried. “A tunnel!”

That was all the angry werewolf seemed able to manage for the moment.

“Of course there’s an underground tunnel that connects our houses!” Lisabelle sputtered. “How else am I supposed to get in when you lock me out?”

“It’s called PRIVACY and RESPECT,” Sip cried. It made me wonder how Charlotte had spent years listening to this kind of thing.

“This from the girl who thinks she has a right to tell me not to put a tattoo on my own body. It’s MY body,” said Lisabelle.

Among their friends, one of the more famous stories of Sip and Lisabelle’s roommate adventures, not known among the public at large, was about the time when Lisabelle realized that for her to be able to use her magic most effectively, a wand was not the ideal conductor. Instead, so as never to be without her powers, as I’ve sometimes been without my ring, she gave herself a magical tattoo. I’ve never heard of anything like it before or since, and much to Sip’s desperate anger, Lisabelle thought it was the best and easiest solution to her problem. On top of that, she didn’t trust anyone to do her tattoo properly except herself, so, in their dorm room, she had, over time, given herself an elaborate wand tattoo. To call this crazy is being kind. When Sip found out, she had a total meltdown. It was the only thing Lisabelle had done that I’m not sure Sip had truly forgiven her for. And given that Lisabelle is the premier of all darkness, that’s saying something.

“Do you think Lisabelle has a death wish?” Sip asked, turning to me. I wasn’t sure, but I decided she must be talking about privacy again. I sunk lower in my black chair.

“Because she’s friends with you?” I said.

“Being friends doesn’t earn you a death wish,” Sip looked suddenly bemused, “but defining me might.”

Of all the times I remember seeing Sip angry, of which there were many, when they weren’t related to Lisabelle they usually centered around the mistreatment of other paranormals. Sip was very sensitive to following rules and taking care of the less fortunate. She hadn’t become the president of the paranormals due to her lack of caring, for sure. She was the president and she took her job very seriously, and she considered taking thought for the welfare of all paranormals to be part of the job. Lisabelle said she took her job too seriously, but Lisabelle would say that when she didn’t understand why Sip cared so much about the well-being of werewolves who didn’t care if Sip lived or died. “I care if you live or die, and you’re more concerned with their feelings than with mine,” Lisabelle whined.

In the middle of Sip yelling at Lisabelle, a sudden creaking sounded from above. Lisabelle tilted her head back and said “Shush” in the direction of a set of small skulls that hung from the ceiling. In case all the black hadn’t made it clear that this was Lisabelle’s part of the property, the decorations clarified the point.

“Lisabelle, are you talking to a skull? I know you’re crazy, but is that really a healthy thing to do?” I asked.

“I like talking to stuff that doesn’t talk back,” said Lisabelle. “If you wanted me to enjoy talking to you then maybe you could get on board.”

“You mean let you talk to me, but never say anything myself?”

“That’s such a great suggestion!” Lisabelle gushed.

“Oh, go talk to your skull,” said Sip. “You probably just like it because it doesn’t tell you how plum crazy you are. And I’m further surprised that you even bother to listen,” said Sip. “I thought I just talked at you, but that you didn’t take any of it in. I take that skull as proof that you can hear me when I speak.”

“It sounds kind of like the chomping of a deranged animal,” Lisabelle mused. “So I guess from that point of view, yeah, I can hear you.”

Sip rolled her eyes, but she didn’t keep arguing. She had learned by now that arguing with Lisabelle had its limits, even for her. “I want to see that tunnel,” was all she said.

I was studying for my finals later that night when I heard a commotion that sounded like a train coming into the station on fire.

All day I had felt a deep sense of foreboding, as if something dark and dangerous was coming. I tried to concentrate on my work, but I couldn’t. The darkness premier was at home, her home, but Sip was nowhere to be seen. Lisabelle had not invited me to her place and I had a feeling that she wasn’t going to.

Nor had she entertained any visitors, at least none that I knew about. This place had to be pretty secret, both for Sip’s political career and because all the president’s and the premier’s enemies would attack it in a minute if they knew where it was.

All of those things combined to make me very confused when I heard horses outside. Taking any excuse not to study boring theory, I quickly put my pen down, stood up, crept out of my room, and hurried through the now familiar corridors, racing through Sip’s house. As I passed a window I caught a glimpse of fire somewhere nearby, and I also saw something white streaking toward Lisabelle’s place. Bartholem was going to greet his master.

Tree branches obscured my view, so I had to stand on my tiptoes to figure out what was going on. But what I saw didn’t make any sense. There was a horse-drawn carriage, all in black except for a little red trim around the horses’ bridles. Two figures with their backs to me were exiting the carriage. I tensed as I saw that one of the figures was much smaller than the other. Was Lisabelle about to be attacked? Should I warn her? They hadn’t exactly come in secret, but then again no one had told me anyone was coming, and so far, the only paranormal I had seen since I arrived other than Sip and Lisabelle themselves was Bertrum.

Wanting to catch any snatch of conversation I could, I shifted to a window that was closer to where the carriage had stopped.

It took me only a few moments to recognize the voices.

“Is Lisabelle at home?” Rake asked.

“She said she was,” said Queen Lanca, Ruler of the Rapier Vampires and the Blood Throne. “I don’t think she knew I was going to show up, though.”

“If she had known it, do you think she would have lied?” Rake said.

“No,” said Lanca.

Shock raced through me. I had no doubt that the voice was Lanca’s, but she didn’t sound anything like her usual cool self. Ordinarily, Lanca’s self-control was almost other-worldly. But now her tone was so angry that her voice was shaking.

I watched the two figures marching toward her house, and then I saw Lisabelle herself coming out as if to meet them. The ruler of the Blood Throne had come to talk to Lisabelle, and she was angry. I stepped outside and ducked down in hopes of finding out what was going on without being seen. No one was paying any attention to Sip’s place anyway.

“Lough,” was all Lanca said when Rake tried to get in her way. She grimaced, and he moved.

“You want to talk about Lough?” Rake asked, addressing the vampire queen. “I’d do it from a distance.”

Lisabelle looked calm, never a good sign. Rake slowly melted away; I could only assume he was going to get Sip. If Lanca and Lisabelle tried to kill each other, Sip needed to be there, although Sip had once threatened to just let Lanca do it if she was angry enough. I wondered where Lanca’s husband Vital was, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if she had come while he was off working. He was busier than ever now that he was officially the queen’s consort.

“How could you,” Lanca gasped. “He follows you everywhere. I mean, HELL, Lisabelle, he’s been in love with you for years. He does everything without your having to ask. He spent years risking his life, when I had argued that of all of us he had the least reason to do it, or no reason. I’m queen, Charlotte’s queen, our path is illuminated by destiny, but Lough . . . You think that just because he’s a nice guy, he wouldn’t face enough danger to risk his life?”

Lisabelle went very still. The shadows around her swayed, but she did not. I was used to seeing her angry, I had even seen her so angry she didn’t move. But this was different. I had the impression that she was holding herself back, that she was thinking about flying across the courtyard and strangling Lanca herself, that or bursting into black flames.

“I didn’t ask Lough to do anything,” she whispered. “I didn’t.”

“Right, sure you didn’t. Except that I know better. I know that for years he hasn’t made a move without your say-so! He wouldn’t disappear without your permission! You know where he is!”

“Fine! You want me to say that I know where he is?” Lisabelle yelled.

“Yes!” Lanca yelled back.

“I KNOW WHERE HE IS! WHAT’S MORE, I’M NEVER GOING TO TELL YOU!” Lisabelle cried. “NEVER!”

Lisabelle stared at Lanca for another second, but the vampire queen was clearly not backing down. Then Lisabelle appeared to slump. Her shoulders sagged, her head bowed, and her eyes fluttered closed. She looked for all the world like she had been defeated.

“Lanca,” she whispered, shaking her head, then she looked up and there was pleading in her eyes.

For the first time since Lanca had stormed the Compound, she almost looked guilty, as if she was just realizing that she didn’t fully understand what was happening. Unspoken words passed between the old friends, then haltingly Lanca said, “To be fair, it’s not as if I didn’t realize that I didn’t have all the information.”

Lisabelle sighed. “You know how important my friends are to me. They are everything. I love my crazy mother, but you . . .”

“I know,” said Lanca quickly, guilt clearly starting to overwhelm her.

“So, I will do anything to help Lough, and at this point so help me the only thing left for me to do for him is to keep quiet. It is the only thing.” Lisabelle’s eyes burned with a fresh light, her jaw set in a determined line. That look was also familiar, and it didn’t strike fear into my heart.

A pair of purple eyes burned in my direction in the darkness.

There was nothing more to see. I crept back inside.

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