Elemental Havoc (Paranormal Public Book 11) (21 page)

Once Keegan finally managed to release his hand, Eighellie glared at him. “Happy?” she demanded.

“N-n-n-n-n-n-n-o,” he managed to get out before he started to collapse. His eyes were wide, showing white all around, and his green hands were unnaturally stiff. I darted forward and grabbed his arm. It felt hot, and I felt a slight shock when I touched him, but I didn’t let go. After a few moments he revived a bit – at least he didn’t lose consciousness and fall – and gave me a grateful look. Eighellie, meanwhile, stepped forward and touched her ring to the door. For a split second a brightness flared, then the door dulled again.

Keegan frowned. “Why didn’t I think of that?” he demanded.

“Because you don’t do your homework,” she said.

“How do you know?” he shot back, his energy gradually reviving.

“Because you just let a door electrocute you,” she said.

She pointed to each corner of the door, and now that she had pointed them out I could see four small red gems, one set into each corner. When I sent my magic searching, I could feel magical currents on the gems. For someone who knew to look, they were actually easy to spot.

“Gloating isn’t attractive,” said Keegan.

“Neither is your hair,” she said.

The tree sprite tried to tamp down his hair, which was still standing on end from his contact with the door. But he gave up quickly when the door to the lower reaches of Cruor swung open. He still couldn’t resist one last retort, though. “Is your response for everything I do wrong that I didn’t do my homework?” he asked.

“Do something wrong for a different reason and I’ll have a different response,” said Eighellie.

The black stone steps echoed as we started down, and I felt a cold dampness all around us that I couldn’t place. Eighellie still led the way. Keegan was still having trouble walking on his own, so I kept one hand on his shoulder while I brought up the rear.

I didn’t like that the darkness mage was going first, but I had to admit that at the moment she was clearly the most capable and reliable among the three of us. I did have essence on my side – at least I thought I did – but I hadn’t had any chance to explore it, and my powers had been unpredictable all semester.

“This is a bad idea,” said Keegan, looking back at me. “My only consolation is that she’s going first.”

“When you go first you get electrocuted.”

“I wasn’t expecting it,” said Keegan defensively. “They’re vampires. Why would they do that to a door? Shouldn’t they have mist swirling around that turns into one of them or something?” He blew out a breath and watched it drift through the air.

“They know their artifacts are valuable, and all the vampires probably know about it,” said Eighellie.

Just then, with no warning at all, something huge slammed past us and sent both Keegan and me sprawling, falling, and bounding down the steps. Eighellie barely had time to yell “Duck!” before it had set upon us. The light she had been carrying, powered by her ring, was extinguished, and we were plunged into a blackness darker than night.

Slam, thump, bump, slam! I rolled to a halt. My shoulder, hip, and back were throbbing. In fact, my whole body hurt. Somewhere below me I heard a moan that told me that Keegan was in about the same damaged shape. I didn’t hear a peep from the darkness mage and I had no idea if that was good or bad.

A long flapping met my ears and I blinked furiously, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. It didn’t seem to make any difference. I still couldn’t see.

“Ricky,” Keegan whisper-yelled. I cursed the echoing walls and the surprises, but I figured that whatever giant bird was attacking us, it probably would have known where we were even if we made no noise at all. It would be relying on smell or some ridiculous power I didn’t know about because I hadn’t done my homework.

The sound of a burst of wings made me throw myself into the wall, but I was too late. As the great beast swooped past us again I smelled dirty feathers and something metallic, then I brushed against something so covered in what felt like oil as to be almost dripping. For a split second I let the gross feel overcome me, but then I forgot about that. The oil told me what I needed to know.

“It’s a fire bird!” I yelled. “No homework necessary!” At first I had thought it was a really big bat, but it wasn’t. Vampires surely had bats somewhere here at Cruor, but our first test was not destined to be that. Fire birds weren’t native to the area around Public, and I had only ever heard of them in tales and legends. Strict rules prohibited paranormals from keeping menageries or zoos, so rare and legendary creatures like fire birds and Oggles were rarely seen. But they abounded in this world, and to lock one up was a serious crime. Of course, given the state of our criminal justice system at the moment, that might not deter paranormals determined to keep captured creatures as much as it had in times past.

This was the first time I had encountered a fire bird in the feather, and I was sure the same could be said for Eighellie and Keegan. And what the hell was it doing in the basement of Cruor, I wondered!

“It’s a what? How do you know!” I heard Eighellie yelling from above. Despite our dire circumstances, I felt almost smug that I had known something she hadn’t. “They are not native to vampire dwellings! There’s only about a three percent chance it’s what you say!”

“I don’t know what that means,” cried Keegan, who sounded as if he was very close to me.

I felt sure that Eighellie was almost physically forcing herself not to explain three percent to Keegan.

“It means I know what to do,” I said, listening to the bird turn and start to come at us again. The only problem was that I had yet to do it without a functioning ring.

“Burn,” I whispered, staring hard into the darkness. “Burn.” I felt my hand light on fire, starting from the remains of my ring and racing up my palm. Soon my arm was covered in the flame I had kindled and the entire stairwell was revealed by its light.

Keegan darted for my legs and I heard him fall heavily behind me.

“Don’t burn me,” he yelled. I promised I wouldn’t burn anything, least of all him.

Now I could see the fire bird clearly. She wasn’t truly black, but rather a deep, shimmering mix of maroon and orange and yellow and gold. Her eyes were a clear purple, and her beak was black.

She flapped to a halt when she saw the fire, then glided slowly down, her eyes never leaving the flames with which I had enveloped my entire body.

“Wow,” whispered Eighellie, who had hurried down the stairs. “Just, wow. I’ve heard that there’s been a huge bird terrorizing Surround, but until now I only half believed the stories.”

I nodded. “They must let her out at night.”

“She’s gigantic,” said Keegan. “Let’s get out of here.”

“She’s not going to hurt us,” I said. “Not now.”

“That’s what you think,” said my friend. “She’s a giant fire bird, and I’m pretty sure it’s hard to keep promises about giant fire birds.”

“He might have a point,” said Eighellie, coming to stand next to me.

“You look orange,” I said.

“You look warm,” she offered.

The bird drifted through the air and then turned, flapping until it was just out of view. When none of us moved, it wheeled around and came back. This time we followed it, despite Keegan’s protests.

“This is fascinating,” Eighellie murmured. “A bird of this size in this space, and you knew what it was without performing any scientific tests. Truly impressive.”

“You’re the weirdest darkness mage I’ve ever met,” said Keegan with feeling.

“How many more flights down?” I asked.

“How many can you count?” Eighellie demanded.

“There’s no way Hunters would try to get all the way down here,” Keegan argued. “They’d go for something easier.”

“I’m afraid they’ve already gotten all the easy stuff,” said Eighellie.

She wasn’t wrong. For the entire semester, whenever I had seen Charlotte I had known that she was worried, and that her worry was growing. I also hadn’t taken it as a good sign that I hadn’t seen Rake since he dropped us off, except for when he’d shown up at Lisabelle’s with a very angry vampire queen. Keegan had noticed too. One morning we had both just started looking at old newspaper clippings in the library, trying to find anything at all about missing artifacts. It turned out that there were a lot of them. In fact, someone had seen an opportunity – that someone being the paranormals who were now collectively called the Hunters – and gone around while the war was going on, stealing anything they could. Their success in this enterprise had been made possible by darkness and by the lack of good policing; the police had been too busy helping to fight the war to have any time left for fighting crime. Now we were paying for it.

“But they aren’t going to get the Cruor artifacts,” Keegan muttered. I found myself smiling.

Then another voice intruded, one that I didn’t recognize and could barely hear. It said, “In the land of darkness and light there can be only one all-powerful. As long as Lisabelle Verlans commands the demons, we cannot dethrone Sipythia Quest. In order to get to Sip we have to go through darkness. Always dark before light. I plan on speeding up that process.”

I leaned forward, trying to hear the voice more clearly. I wasn’t sure who I was listening to, just that it wasn’t Professor Erikson or Cynthia Malle. Surely it couldn’t be either of them!

I looked at Keegan to see what he made of it, but he wasn’t paying any attention. Frowning, I strained again, but this time there was nothing. The voice had disappeared as quickly as it had come. Keegan apparently hadn’t heard it at all, and Eighellie didn’t look the least bit fazed either. Shaking my head to clear it, I tried to concentrate, but it just felt like something was wrong. I’d been in such a rush to get down here and protect artifacts, but there turned out to be no need. The place was deserted. It didn’t look like anyone had been down here for ages. A swooping in the darkness above made me look up. The only thing up there was the bird.

“Come on,” said Eighellie. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Does something seem strange to you?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said, “which is why I want to get out of here pronto.”

“What’s strange?” Keegan asked. “The fact that we haven’t seen any Hunters when we ran down here thinking we would see Hunters? I agree, that’s strange.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it except hope that the vampires don’t find us in their dorm. If they do, we’re toast,” said Eighellie.

“You don’t think they’d believe we were just here for a nice, friendly visit?” Keegan asked.

“I certainly wouldn’t,” I said, frustrated.

We started to slip away as quietly as we could, but as I turned to head back up the stairs I saw a vampire glide out of the darkness ahead. When she met my gaze, she stopped and stared at the three of us.

“I was waiting for the Hunters,” she said in a conversational tone. “We knew it was only a matter of time before they came for what is ours. And no, I wouldn’t believe you were just here for a visit.”

I glanced up. Now there was no sign of the fire bird.

“You were waiting here alone?” Eighellie sounded aghast.

Averett smiled. “My cousin trained me well.”

Vital was the best fighter in the world, but Eighellie refused to put stock in such trivialities as reputations. She shook her head and said, “If you had told Ricky you needed him, he would have helped you. He’s very good that way.”

Averett nodded, her eyes unreadable. “I would have been fine, but I appreciate your concern.” Her tone spoke volumes of sarcasm, but sadly Eighellie didn’t know that particular language. Averett, who understood better than I would have liked, smiled. “You three should get out of here before the others come back. They might not be as understanding.” She looked at me, and this time her eyes narrowed. “Just because your sister is friends with my queen does not mean we are friends.”

“Glad you realize that,” I told her. “If vampires would start working with us instead of blaming us we might not have so many problems.”

Averett looked like she was about to respond, but in the end she bit her tongue. “Very well. If that is what you believe, I might believe it too.” She paused, then said, “You should be more careful with what you say and where you go without permission. If I were a little less forgiving you might be in a lot more trouble.”

“Oh, please. We were doing you a favor and you know perfectly well why we didn’t tell the vampires. Y’all are crazy,” said Keegan.

“I don’t think calling a vampire who is holding our lives in her hands crazy is the best idea,” Eighellie whispered.

“To each her own,” said Keegan. “She had to know. It’s not like we came here for our own benefit.” When my friend looked at me to back him up I realized that I couldn’t.

“Actually, we came here for the good of the paranormals. Some type has to remember that we are all in this together. It might as well be the elementals.”

Keegan looked surprised, but he recovered quickly, clearing his throat and nodding. “Yeah, exactly right.”

“Some is not all. The threat of the Hunters grows, and with it the danger in supporting anyone who supports Lisabelle Verlans. No one wants to stick his or her neck out,” said Averett quietly.

“That’s what the Hunters are counting on,” I told her matter-of-factly. Then I turned and left.

As we made our way quickly out of Cruor and into the cool day, Averett bringing up the rear, it struck me that I had a lot more in common with the vampires than I might have thought. Averett knew the artifacts were at risk and had waited there, a silent watcher, for the Hunters to come. If she hadn’t been there, and anyone had found us, we wouldn’t have made it out. Maybe she was right and it was foolish to have gone in there without telling the vampires, but they hadn’t really given me any indication that they would be receptive to what I had to say.

Now that we were standing outside of Cruor, I looked back at the old building, glad to have escaped the danger we had put ourselves into.

“Where have you been, anyway?” Averett asked, peering at me.

I shrugged. “Around.”

“No, you haven’t,” she said. “I came to find you. I overheard some stuff I thought you should hear as well, but you weren’t there.”

“Who’d you overhear?”

“The Burble drudges,” Averett rolled her eyes. “It’s not even as if they’re real vampires. They’re like a disgrace to vampires.” She shook her head sadly. “If only we could kick out the ones we don’t like.”

“If you could do that, would there be anyone left but you?”

Averett’s mouth sliced in a grin. “No.”

Eighellie came marching over, her glare pounding into Averett’s chest. “We’re leaving,” she said. “What do you still want?”

The vampire looked the darkness mage up and down. Her bemusement slipped a little and I had a definite sense that Averett was impressed by what she saw in Eighellie. The darkness mage knew her stuff. I just wondered if anyone could see through her to the dark purpose that drove her.