Elemental Havoc (Paranormal Public Book 11) (4 page)

The town that had sprung up around Paranormal Public when reconstruction began was filled with life. Bertrum had thought that keeping the TPs as close to Public as possible was a good idea, so that’s where he had located the TP office. Charlotte and I had had a brief conversation with Sip about it not long before it was time for me to head to Public. The werewolf hadn’t been so sure about the idea, since she wanted to keep government and education separate as much as possible, but Bertrum had been insistent.

“It gives him confidence if I listen to him every once in a while,” she had said over a cup of tea. Charlotte and Sip were visiting the castle, and I had joined them for part of their conversation. It wasn’t long after the part about the TPs when Dacer had started yelling about damned dogs ruining his shoe collection, so I had to run off and deal with Crumple. I had been sad to go, since unsurprisingly the president of the paranormals knew a lot of good gossip that I wanted to hear. But if I hadn’t gone to take care of the dog, it was entirely likely that Crumple and Dacer would have had a confrontation, and I wasn’t sure which of the two was more likely to survive.

Surround was so named in order to be an example of strength.
The residents may be transient
, the name was meant to imply,
but that doesn’t mean they should be taken lightly
. The ebb and flow of commerce in the town reached its peak at midday, and another wave swelled when workers returned after a long day of working on the new and renovated buildings being constructed at Paranormal Public.

As we approached the makeshift town, various other groups were also arriving. The crowds made my heart beat a little faster after the peace and quiet of a summer at Dacer’s castle. Charlotte had offered to do her sisterly duty and meet me at the outskirts of the town, but it was the kind of offer where she knew as clearly as I did that it was a bad idea, so we settled for her making up an excuse about why it wouldn’t be the best idea, and me letting her, and feeling some amount of relief as I did so.

The day was overcast and cloudy, more fall than summer. Evenings were already crisp, relentlessly unforgiving of summer’s attempt to commandeer any more sunny days for itself. The ground was still damp from the rain we’d had the night before, and there wasn’t much of a breeze, just wisps and hints of wind when we stood still.

There was lots to look at. The town was encircled by a wooden fence topped with stakes pointing high into the air. The gates were made of crude wood, and they were wide open when we came up to them. As far as I could tell, there was no one on hand to watch them. A shack sat next to the entrance, but its windows were darkened, so for all I knew Sip and Lisabelle could have been standing right there and I would have had no idea. We passed through the gates uneventfully.

Inside, I could see that the houses were low to the ground and practical-looking. They were all painted a sort of earthy brown that made them blend easily into the landscape. All around I could hear people talking, carts being pulled, and the breeze combing through the trees.

“What’s that?” Keegan asked, obviously nowhere near as enthralled by what he was seeing as I was.

“What?” I replied, almost tripping because I was so absorbed in looking around.

“The yelling,” Keegan said.

Now that he had brought it to my attention, I could indeed hear a man’s voice shouting. In fact, it was getting louder by the moment, finally drowning out pretty much every other noise. Neither Rake nor Bertrum looked concerned.

“Keep your knees up!” called the voice. “Look sharp!” The wind didn’t need to carry for me to hear the voice calling out commands. Sounding a little wild, the man cried, “You never know when the darkness will return! It’s only a matter of time! We must be prepared! KNEES UP!”

“He’s angry,” said Keegan with a lopsided grin.

Rake glanced at us over his shoulder and rolled his eyes, his face taking on the expression of a long-suffering mother hen.

“The leader of the local militia,” he whisper-yelled to us.

“AH HA,” Keegan yelled. Rake had said something Keegan understood, even though I didn’t. He turned to me with excitement. “Herio Cumpertrumpet. This is going to be great.”

The man who’d been yelling did indeed turn out to be one Herio Cumpertrumpet. Rake and Bertrum seemed totally unfazed by Cumpertrumpet’s antics; they didn’t even slow down as the militia leader’s racket increased. I had heard that Surround had a local militia, but Dacer had said it with a roll of his eyes, as if it wasn’t worth his time or breath, so I didn’t know anything more about it. Now I knew why Dacer had rolled his eyes. Given Keegan’s love of drama, I could see why he was excited.

As the four of us turned a corner, we found a group of locals slowly milling around in front of us. The locals didn’t seem surprised by the loud yells, but it was also clear that they didn’t want to get trampled by the wild foolery of their local militia.

Rake didn’t look impressed either, but he was so obviously sick of Bertrum that at first he didn’t even notice that Keegan and I were directing questioning looks his way. When he finally turned his attention to us his smile was rueful, but he still didn’t speak, so all we could do was trudge onward after him. I would have thought that some of the people in the crowd would look at us, but not one so much as turned a head in our direction, let alone went to the trouble of making eye contact. I decided they were already thoroughly jaded by town life.

“This is ridiculous,” said Keegan out of the corner of his mouth. “What are we doing here?”

“Um, trying to get an education?” I offered.

Keegan rolled his eyes. “Like that’s a good answer.”

For a town that had only recently sprung up out of nothing, Surround looked awfully well settled. It was already dug into the countryside around Paranormal Public University, which until lately had always thrived in the middle of nowhere, far away from distractions. That was all changing, it seemed, so that as summer faded into fall, any surviving remnants of the old Public were fading too. Unlike the changing seasons, I had a feeling that the way of life my sister had known would never return.

“How far along is the work at Public?” I asked, hoping Rake would at least answer a direct question. Charlotte had told me that Public was ready to open again, which of course was why I was in Surround in the first place. But by no means did that mean that the rebuilding was completely finished. In fact, according to Charlotte, the whole place was still more like a construction zone than a fully functioning college. I could see now that the planners, contractors, and builders employed by the university weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. What I had envisioned as a temporary project looked as if it was there to stay, and I said so out loud.

“That’s probably why they think having a local militia is a good idea,” Rake mused.

“You don’t agree?” Bertrum asked sharply.

Rake briefly closed his eyes, clearly regretting his decision to speak. Keegan ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, trying not to look too entertained. But before Rake and Bertrum could get any further, the same voice that had been yelling since we came into earshot boomed out, “The Militia is Necessary!” We had come upon the marching regiment.

Cumpertrumpet – the shouting man couldn’t be anyone else – glared at us mulishly. He and his band of followers stood in the middle of the street, right where we wanted to walk. The street was surfaced only with dirt, or as of this morning, mud, and my shoes were making a sticking noise every time I raised a foot. Cumpertrumpet paid the mud no mind; he merely sighed gustily at the sight of us, giving no sign that he recognized my companions as paranormals who belonged in the forefront of the Quest government. His mouth moved as if he was chewing something, but his lips stayed firmly pressed together. He looked like he was speaking to Rake as one would speak to a bug under his foot. I imagined that if he had been a dragon, flames would have been coming out of his nose by this point.

The leader of the Surround militia wore a frilled white shirt, a battered, dark blue coat, and brown britches, while the paranormals flanking him and idling behind him wore coats of a lighter blue. Clearly they had put a lot of thought into their outfits. Some carried wands that looked like they’d been salvaged from dumpsters, while Cumpertrumpet wore a hat with a feather in it.

“Do you think he and Dacer go shopping together?” Keegan asked.

“Don’t let the Duke hear you talk that way or I have a feeling he’ll never let you past the gate at Duckleworth again,” said Rake.

Three recovered artifacts go missing. A powerful dream giver thought to be working with the Hunters.

Artifact count: One hundred ten.

“Who goes there?” Herio boomed. Some of the militia standing behind him, covering a wide range of paranormal ages and types, exchanged apprehensive glances. One, a potbellied paranormal of about the same age as Herio, with ruddy cheeks and a spreading white beard, grunted, “I don’t believe we’re supposed to be challenging any old paranormal who isn’t exhibiting threatening behavior.”

Clearly he had said something to set Herio off. The leader of the militia turned around slowly. “Threatening behavior, is it?” he said menacingly. “Did President Malle show threatening behavior when she lured Charlotte Rollins to near certain death? What about Premier Erikson, who took young Keller under her dark wing! And now Lisabelle Verlans . . .”

“I’m rather certain, point of order, that Lisabelle shows lots of threatening behavior,” Keegan muttered to me, but I was sure that Herio didn’t want to hear reasonable arguments. He just wanted to yell wildly and confront all strangers, which of course was what he was doing. It was clear from the expressions on the faces of many of those standing behind him that they agreed with the second paranormal who had spoken up, but didn’t dare say so.

For a split second another of the militiamen caught my eye; something in the way he paid attention to us made me uneasy. He was small, with a red hat and bright blue eyes. The second he noticed me looking at him he melted back into the anonymity of the group.

Given that Herio held a bayonet-style weapon, I didn’t really blame them.

“We must always be prepared for any and all eventualities,” he cried. “Who are these ruffians coming into our town! Walking on our streets!”

“I dare say they’re students,” ventured the paranormal who had stolen Santa’s beard.

“You know who I am,” said Rake dryly. “And this one too.” He pointed at Bertrum.

“Now see here,” said Herio, bustling forward with his pot belly stuck out importantly. “You can’t just wander around town without supervision or permission. Besides, I have a lot to say to your boss” – he pointed at Bertrum – “and yet she won’t return Contacts. There’s a whole lot she needs to know around here and I’m the only paranormal who can tell her!”

“I’m Bertrum and this is Rake, if you’ll remember,” interjected another voice. Sip’s secretary had clearly tired of listening to these paranormals, who were so obviously below his considerable intelligence, and he had stepped forward to put a stop to it.

Sadly for Bertrum, he was slight of stature, pale, bespectacled, and just generally not very intimidating. Unlike his employer, who didn’t need height, or a tan, to make it clear how important she was, or to convey that she must be listened to or else, Bertrum couldn’t muster intimidation. He probably couldn’t even have bought it on the open market, if anyone had been willing to sell it. In short, Cumpertrumpet paid him no attention whatsoever.

When the Surround militia continued to stand directly in our path, arguing vociferously with each other and completely ignoring Bertrum and the rest of us, Rake stepped forward. Rake, unlike Bertrum, was intimidating: he was a vampire, and he was huge. In fact, his size was his single clearest characteristic. When he decided to speak with authority, his voice was well suited to his size; in short, he put Herio’s booming shouts to shame. Keegan was so delighted when Rake took over that he was practically dancing.

“MOVE! NOW!” Rake’s voice carried down the makeshift street and reverberated off the walls. Bertrum’s shoulders came up so high he looked uncomfortable. I had never heard a paranormal yell that loudly before.

Not only did the militia stop in its tracks, but so did all the other paranormals in the street. Jaws were slack and many eyes went wide with shock. Even Keegan was shaking a bit, and Rake was his second favorite paranormal after Lisabelle Verlans.

Rake barely appeared to notice. Herio, giving Rake an angry and narrow-eyed glare that was half furious and wholly intimidated, stepped aside to let us pass.

No one’s eyes left the massive vampire as he lumbered forward, then glanced around at the rest of us. “Well, let’s get on with it!” he said. Any wisps of patience he had left were gone now that he’d had to force the crowd to part just so we could walk down the street.

“If you want to be brutish about it,” sniffed Bertrum, “I can’t stop you. You could have drawn more attention to us, but you would have needed fireworks.”

“I suppose you’d want to draw up a contract and have a meeting to get them to move,” said Rake. “The meeting on the matter will be at ten thirty, please bring your own pencil.”

Bertrum rolled his eyes as if he was hoping something would magically appear to save him from the likes of Rake. “I don’t need meetings to get my point across,” he said.

“No, you just need me,” Rake said, a grin slashing his face.

Bertrum didn’t appear to appreciate the point, but Rake wasn’t wrong. We would have stood there until lunch if we’d left the task in Bertrum’s hands, and what was really getting his goat was that he knew it.

Rake kept moving. Bertrum knew where we were headed, but Keegan and I had no idea. I kept looking for a view of Paranormal Public, but I couldn’t see it through the buildings and the trees, not to mention the fence. I was surprised that the town felt so removed from the school. I had imagined them right in the middle of each other, but that didn’t turn out to be the case.

“Just wait until this is a college town like all the other college towns, and the eighteen-year-olds will be getting stopped by real police for different reasons than we were today,” said Rake, chuckling to himself as he said it.

“I’m seventeen,” I said.

“I didn’t mean you. Obviously you’re never going to get into trouble for anything,” said Rake, his amused grin returning.

Bertrum snorted. “There,” he said, pointing to an unassuming building that stood alone, apart from its nearest neighbors. It looked brand new, as if it had been freshly set in place that very morning. Footsteps made patterns in the dirt; apparently no one had had time to plant grass or lay sod since the building had opened.

“Awfully depressing-looking,” said Keegan.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be pretty to function and produce Through Ports, now does it?” said Bertrum. He pulled his suit jacket together and straightened his shoulders. Rake again suppressed the urge to laugh.

“Just wait,” said Bertrum. “You won’t be laughing once we’re inside.”

Rake rolled his eyes as Keegan and I followed Bertrum, while Bertrum bowed his head, his chin coming into close contact with his shoulder. “Sip told me that it is not always advisable to throw my weight around. Even if I believe that I am in the right, sometimes it is best to sit quietly.”

“That must really kill you, right?” Rake smirked. But the exchange was interrupted by the fact that we were now inside the building.

The offices didn’t fit at all with the paranormal world I had come to know; they were strange and sterile and they reminded me of robots. I glanced at Rake and Bertrum, but they didn’t seem to think there was anything odd or out of place. Clearly they had both been here before, or at least Bertrum had. This project was his baby, and he was immensely proud of both the idea and the execution.

“The new Power of Five logo is looking good,” said Rake with approval. I had the impression he was trying to pay Bertrum a compliment, but Sip’s assistant was too lost in his own personal cloud of grumpiness to notice or care.

“Why did they redesign it?” Keegan asked. He had been turning his head back and froth, trying to take everything in. He had spent even less time in the paranormal world than I had, and he seemed to be finding everything about Surround fascinating. He didn’t want to miss anything, even the unaccountable emptiness of the TP office.

“A fresh paranormal world required an updating of the logo?” Rake mused, clearly trying to get Bertrum’s goat. “A rebranding, if you will?”

“Marketing the world, one new logo at a time,” said Keegan, shaking his head.

Bertrum was quiet for so long that I didn’t think he was going to answer. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had gotten down on his hands and knees and used a microscope to examine the carpet, so concerned did he look with the state of the TP office.

“Of course the Quest government needs to be marketed. She’s a politician. She must be liked, or she will not be able to continue the good work that she does and that we all believe in so strongly. Branding is everything. One must have something to believe in. Symbols are that something.” It was only then that I noticed the faded purple color of the logo.

“In other words, Sip wanted a new beacon of hope,” Rake translated. He gave Bertrum a slightly exasperated look, but he didn’t say anything further.

“I bet she thought that’s what the citadel would be,” I mused. Hunters had blown that up.

As soon as we were inside the door, the woman who seemed to be running the office leaped up from her chair and disappeared into a back room. Sitting smack dab in the middle of her desk was a memo stamped with an official seal. At the top it read, in letters so big I could read them from across the room: “To all paranormal government identification personnel.”

Intrigued, I moved closer to the desk to see if I could read the rest of the document. It wasn’t hard, and I wasn’t the only interested party; my companions edged toward the desk too. In smaller type the document continued, “Hunters are to be denied official documentation. If a Hunter presents himself or herself please remain calm. There is no benefit to confronting a Hunter . . .”

No duh, I thought. But reading about the conflict in the paranormal world couched in that bloodless officialese made me realize something I hadn’t thought about before. It was funny, and a little sad, that the only inter-type cooperation that was going on in the paranormal world was among the bad guys. As in, Hunters seemed to be coming from all the paranormal types – except for elementals, of course. Somehow, they got along well enough to put aside their differences in support of a common goal, in ways that the paranormals on the side of the Quest government had so far not been able to do.

The memo continued: “Hunters can be any paranormal type. There is no test that can be administered” – they did love their tests here in a Bertrum brainchild office, didn’t they? – “to judge whether any given paranormal is in possession of a nasty personality. Officials are to use their own judgment when denying TP.”

“Did you write that?” said Rake, pointing to the paper and looking at Bertrum. The presidential assistant’s eyes flared, and even though it wasn’t his desk, he moved a stack of papers to hide the memo.

“That is none of your business,” he sniffed. “At least we’re doing something to fight the Hunters, even though they cannot possibly be a serious threat.”

“Don’t start that again,” Rake groaned. “Someone helped Charles attack the Citadel.”

“There will always be radicals,” said Bertrum. “And opposition. That doesn’t mean they are organized, and it doesn’t mean that all Bounty Hunters, the best of whom is the uncle of the current darkness premier, have become dangerous.”

Just then the woman who belonged to the desk bustled back in, saying breathlessly, “Sorry, it took me longer that I thought it would. Funniest thing . . .” She was holding two multi-colored and very thin strips of wood and shaking her head prettily as she came back into the room. A sharp elbow to my ribs made me look at Keegan, one of whose eyes was on our escort. The woman sashaying toward us had turned Bertram bright red the instant she appeared, so that his face was suddenly the same color as her lipstick. Her tight dress didn’t leave much to the imagination, even though there wasn’t any exposed skin. Keegan himself swallowed hard. Rake was the only one of them who was immune to the woman’s charms.

“Was something wrong?” Bertrum squeaked out, sounding concerned and more than a little like a love-sick poodle. “All of the TPs should be ready to go when the students arrive,” he added, sounding sterner once he had settled into lecture mode. “We can’t get backed up with details or mistakes. We have a very small window in which to get everyone checked in, Ms. Cernal.”

The pretty Ms. Cernal faltered, but only for a second. “Yes, everything’s just fine,” she said with a bright smile. “Each of you hold out your right arms, please.” She smoothly skated over whatever mistake had taken place in the back room, and given how widely Bertrum was smiling, I wasn’t even sure he remembered that there might have been one.

“Yes, well, wonderful,” he said.

Rake coughed loudly.

“Something in your throat?” Bertrum asked.

“No, nothing like that,” the big vampire said, smiling, which made Ms. Cernal melt a bit.

Meanwhile, Keegan’s arm shot out as if from a cannon. He grinned like an idiot at Ms. Cernal and said, “I’ll go first,” as if it wasn’t already obvious that he wanted to.

Ms. Cernal was pretty, but she wasn’t my type. I just didn’t care, so I had no objection to Keegan going first. Ms. Cernal gave him the same bright smile she had been flashing since we walked in, then applied the colorful wood to his arm. Keegan’s nose twitched and he said, “I’m usually a baby about stuff like that, but that wasn’t so bad.”