Elemental Havoc (Paranormal Public Book 11) (8 page)

“She’s a fallen angel named Heather. I think my sister knows her,” I said. She was beautiful and delicate. The room was light and airy with lots of plants, and scattered all around it were rows upon rows of white, silver, and gold bowls.

“We’re going to do pottery,” Keegan whispered to me. “This is ridiculous.”

“Welcome, I’m Ms. Heather. I’m so delighted you could join me,” she smiled. “Please, everyone find a station and some clay to work with. No need to jostle each other, you pixies and vampires. There isn’t any benefit to any particular placement in the room.” She smiled again, but now she looked vaguely concerned, as if the need for discipline was something she couldn’t conceptualize. “Our particular focus is on using magic on objects, like bowls, that don’t hold magic well. A bowl can never be an artifact. And as we go along, do please remember that all peace and tranquility begins and ends with your rings.”

I blinked several times. Quickly, I scanned the room with frustration. There was nothing here that was going to defend us against attackers like Hunters!

This time Keegan and I chose seats in the back, hoping to lessen the risk of getting called on. Eighellie had walked to class more slowly than the rest of us because she was reviewing her Theory 1 notes, so she ended up coming in after all the seats were taken except the one next to me. She looked toward the front of the room with disappointment, then slid onto the only open stool and smiled as she examined the beautiful clays in front of her.

We got to work. At first, students took the assignments seriously and the room was so quiet that all I heard was the periodic slurp of mud. Soon, though, students started to question the need to learn about magical bowl-making in the first place.

“This is a lot like normal bowl-making,” said Keegan. “What’s the difference?”

Eighellie was about to answer when Heather appeared in front of him.

“Bowls can be used to protect, if melted in the right way and using the right gentle magic,” she said. “Any paranormal can learn the art to some extent, but it is difficult to become a true master.”

“And we have an entire semester on it, why?”

“It’s important to learn the basis of the magic,” she smiled. “Theories form our understanding of more complex magical properties. Bowl-making is an excellent example of a starter magic that can become as complex as you wish.”

“I bet a whole lot of paranormals wish, huh?” said Keegan.

“Oh, well, some,” said Heather seriously, not recognizing Keegan’s sarcastic tone. Then she abruptly turned away from us and strode back to the center of the room so that all the students could see her. In that position, she was surrounded by clay as she said, “Alright, students, let’s try something a little different now.”

As she turned her attention away from our little group, I remembered with a sinking feeling that Dobrov had been threatened and that we were in the middle of a construction zone. I had been so preoccupied with getting to my classes and meeting the professors that for a couple of hours I had forgotten what had been happening over the past few days. Looking at my fellow students, who had appeared to be concentrating on their work until Heather drew their attention to herself, I wondered if any of them were Hunters. I wondered if any of them hated Lisabelle so much that they’d do anything, kill any paranormal, acquire any artifact, to see her dead. I suspected there were some who did.

“Here’s what I want you to do next,” said Heather. “I want you to call your power through your ring and put it into the bowl. If power doesn’t come naturally to you, say if you’re a vampire and you aren’t the all-powerful Blood Queen, just do something simple. Bite it if you wish. Pixies, you may use glamour, or whatever is at your disposal. If you are an elemental I suggest water, for it can make beautiful abstract designs in bowls.” She didn’t even look at me when she said it, as if she was doing her best not to single me out, an effort I appreciated.

“She must have looked at Beautiful Elemental Water Remnants,” Eighellie whispered to me, sounding excited. “It’s a book of elemental art.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s the only place in the world she could have looked,” Keegan confirmed.

Eighellie sniffed. “I’ll show you the book and then you’ll know I’m right.” Then she groaned. “She makes this sound so easy! But it isn’t.”

“Theory getting to you, huh?” Keegan said gleefully.

I was concentrating as hard as I could on my water magic, but nothing was happening. Whenever I looked at it or felt it pulse in my ring, something dark and strange and yet still somehow familiar was also there. It was as if my power was confused. It kept welling up, as if I was under attack, even though I was in a quiet classroom.

My ring kept sparking with heat and I kept feeling fire well up inside me, despite the fact that there was no fire in the room. I was starting to get frustrated and discouraged when something shifted weirdly inside me. The room started to fade, and Heather, who was still talking about something or other, started to sound distant. All I could hear was the rushing sound of flame and water. The darkness inside of me had confused my own power. My temples started to pound and perspiration leaked down in front of my ears. I felt my body started to shake.

Something was terribly wrong.

I saw Keegan’s eyes grow wide with concern, but then even he faded out. I was alone with the bowl . . . and the hot ring.

A sweeping heat had taken over my body, seeking the darkness, and the magic coursing through me was suddenly glowing in five colors.

Just as quickly as it had happened, it was over. The smell of wet clay wafted up to my face and I blinked several times. At first I couldn’t see or hear anything, and my ears continued to ring. I wanted to take deep, calming breaths, but it was impossible with the smell of mud right under my nostrils.

“Ricky Rollins, you’re in big trouble now,” came a shrill voice from somewhere in front of me. I looked around, but all I saw was Heather. Her face was as white as the walls and her hands were on her hips.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she gasped out, clearly panicked and terrified. I could see that I had made a mess of the bowl I was holding, and the faces of all the other students were turned around to face me. Their eyes were wide and staring.

“I, um,” I stumbled out, feeling my neck go hot.

“I’ll bet you do! I don’t know who you think you are, but Professor Valedication will set you straight, that’s for sure!” Heather spun away from me while I was left to wonder what was happening.

I had no idea where it had come from; there hadn’t been darkness anywhere near me, yet suddenly it was inside me, mixing with my own power through no choice of mine.

I left the classroom as quickly as I could once Heather signaled the end of the period. She waved me off before I could offer to help clean up the mess I had made; she obviously wanted me nowhere near her. My pulse was pounding in my ears and I felt faint. I wasn’t terribly worried about disobeying a professor, that was bound to happen now and then. But I had never pictured myself as the rule breaker sort, in fact I was just the opposite. So this incident was scaring me. I could have hurt someone. We were talking about darkness.

“If he had wanted to get out of this stupid class you think he could have been less dramatic,” I heard one of the students mutter.

“He just likes attention,” another said in response.

“Yeah, he’s sick of his older sister getting all the glory,” said a third.

I felt sick to my stomach. I had come to Public to learn, not to scare other paranormals. Now they thought I was some sort of rebellious showoff.

“Hey, you okay? Think you could walk any faster?” Keegan had caught up to me, but the pace was making him take great gulps of air.

“Yeah, sorry, I just couldn’t sit there listening to people say nasty things about me,” I said. My throat felt tight, and I could barely look at Keegan.

“I thought you had a pretty good handle on your powers,” he said. “I mean, I’ve seen you perform magic before, and from what I saw you did whatever you wanted.”

He had a point. In fact, I had been hurrying back to Astra because I wanted to think about just that problem. What had happened? Since when could I not call a little magic to my bidding? Was it my ring? I didn’t think so, but something was terribly wrong with me, and I had no idea what it was.

I went back to Astra and ate cheese and bread for dinner. My stomach was churning and I didn’t really feel like eating, but I knew I shouldn’t skip dinner entirely so I ate as much as I could get down. Then I intended to go and see Dobrov. Even more ridiculously, I kept furtively glancing out the window to see if any professors or senior paranormals had arrived with locks and pitchforks to put me away. Part of my mind kept telling me I had done something really terrible. I mean, we’d gotten a letter telling us to behave this semester, and at every turn I had been doing everything but. If it ended up being my fault that a decision was ultimately made to close Public, I wasn’t sure Charlotte or anyone else would ever speak to me again.

There couldn’t be darkness inside me. I wasn’t a darkness mage!

I headed out as soon as I had eaten my light supper. While the students and senior paranormals who lived on the grounds of Public waited for the new buildings to be completed, an office had been set up for Dobrov in the old archive building. I had a feeling he might stay there even after some fancy new presidential office was completed, because I figured he liked being surrounded by all the history. Right now, I wasn’t looking forward to checking out his office, history or not.

As I walked, I did my best to take little-used paths and enjoy the falling dusk. I was now so worried that I thought this might be the last time I would get such a view. I had destroyed a bowl in class, in direct violation of what a professor had ordered me to do. I didn’t know what the consequences would be, but I had a feeling they would be dire. Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I wondered how it would feel to leave Paranormal Public so soon after I had arrived.

I tried to tell myself that Dobrov he wouldn’t send me away, but I had a feeling that even if he didn’t, it would only be because of his friendship with my sister, or because he didn’t want some crazy, uncontrollable paranormal wandering the streets. That thought wasn’t much consolation.

Before Charlotte had gotten pregnant I might have asked to live with her, but I knew that was out of the question now. Even if I had a handle on my powers, which until today I thought I did, she had to start a life with Keller, and I wouldn’t be a part of it, at least not in the live-in roommate sense. So that option was out, and I was afraid to even imagine what other choices I would have once they threw me out of Public.

Dobrov’s office was in the back of the archives building, on the top floor. The first floor had been turned into storage space when they closed Public down after the war. They’d had to find places for a lot of furniture that couldn’t be left out with no one around to watch over it. Well, “no one” wasn’t technically true. Martha had still been there with a skeleton crew that tried to keep the grounds from going to complete ruin. But they hadn’t really been enough.

Charlotte had explained to me that the professors and the president were trying to spread themselves out around campus instead of concentrating their offices in one place. This plan had several benefits, including that if Public was attacked, the senior paranormals wouldn’t all be at risk in a group. It was a tactic that had been used during the Nocturn wars as well.

The result was that except for the light that burned in Dobrov’s office, the entire archive building was dark as I approached it from an old dirt path. I made my way into the building, the moon providing just enough light so that I didn’t trip over any of the chairs, benches, or rolled up rugs that were scattered all over the place.

I climbed the stairs, eager to get this conversation over with, but when I got to the office door I heard harsh voices coming from inside the room. I paused, unsure whether to knock and enter or come back later.

Of course, I decided to do neither of those things. Instead, I pressed my ear to the cold metal of the door and listened, careful to keep my body to the side, against the wall, so that my feet wouldn’t make any kind of shadow in the crack under the door.

At first I recognized only one of the arguing voices, and it was Dobrov’s. But as I listened, the identity of the other speaker became clear. To my shock, it was Herio Cumpertrumpet. “You must talk to him!” he was saying. “I don’t know what he did or what foolish precautions he took, but they weren’t enough!”

“I’m sure that if there were a problem, he would let me know,” came Dobrov’s voice, much more even than that of the excitable Cumpertrumpet.

“You’re sure, are you?” Cumpertrumpet blustered on. “Then again, you paranormals were sure this Through Port idea would work. ‘It’s the best form of identification around,’ you said. ‘The idea is foolproof,’ you said.”

“You speak as though there is just one paranormal behind all of this, when in reality there are many,” said Dobrov, his voice still even but with a bit more of an edge to it.

“I speak the truth,” he said. “You cannot expect us to look after the Through Port system without the proper tools. Maybe if you had given us the proper tools this never would have happened!”

“What exactly are you saying happened?”

“I’m not saying what exactly happened, because I don’t know! She won’t tell us! We aren’t the authority blah, blah, blah, she’ll only speak to Bertrum, as if he’s some all-powerful, all knowing paranormal!” Cumpertrumpet was clearly furious, and although I had missed the beginning of the conversation I was getting a pretty good idea why.

Something had happened at the Through Port office, something bad. Since Cumpertrumpet was in charge of the local militia, he would feel responsible for any break-ins or other crimes that took place in his town.

“Papers were strewn . . . missing . . . adequate security . . .” were the snippets of conversation I caught.

I pressed my ear closer to the door, not wanting to miss a word. It was clear that Cumpertrumpet was just getting started. Clearly, whoever had broken into the Through Port office had done something after getting inside. I wondered if he or she was the same paranormal who had sent Dobrov the threatening note, and if that turned out to be the case, was that paranormal related to the Hunters, or just a disgruntled citizen?

Before Cumpertrumpet and Dobrov could continue the argument, something loud – something that seemed to be coming from elsewhere in the building – sounded in my ears. I held my breath and looked around, but I couldn’t see anything except the shifting shadows through the windows, which gave me the creeps. When I realized that the noise I was hearing was nothing more sinister than the air going in and out of my own lungs striking a piece of old paper clipped to the wall, I tried to calm down and quiet my breath.

This was no time to fall to pieces, I had to hear the rest of the conversation. But now I heard nothing, only silence.

A tap on my shoulder was the only warning I had. I spun around and gasped.

“What are you doing?” Lisabelle Verlans folded her arms over her chest and eyed me.

“Um . . .” I said.

“Thought so,” she said. “Can’t I leave this campus for one minute?”

The door opened and Dobrov peered out.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, “and thank you for gathering him.” My mouth fell open. The president of Paranormal Public didn’t look the least bit surprised to see me.

“Where’d Cumpertrumpet go?” I asked.

Lisabelle quirked a black eyebrow at me. “Because you have a right to ask questions.”

“The main entrance is there,” Dobrov pointed. He was in a room much like a hayloft, which meant there must be a trapdoor on one side. Now that I thought about it, I remembered seeing a ladder in the wall on my way through the first floor, but I hadn’t looked closely at it. That must have been how Cumpertrumpet had left the office without running into me, and why I had been confused by the silence until Lisabelle had appeared and caught me. Then again, it looked like I had been caught before Lisabelle even showed up. Dobrov had known I was listening, and even so he hadn’t stopped his conversation with the militia leader. I didn’t know what any of it meant, except that now more than ever I didn’t want to be expelled.

Dobrov’s office was an extraordinary room. Hangings that looked like they were made of glass dangled from high ceilings and exposed beams. All around the room were books and artifacts, and I could only imagine what some of the artifacts were worth. The furniture was dark and expensive-looking, but still very practical. Dobrov’s desk had nothing on it except a black orb. Lisabelle glanced at it for a second, then went over to stand near the fire, which was burning gently.

“You aren’t going to cause problems here too, are you?” she asked, her voice serious. Without thinking, I just glared at her, but her pale features broke into a wide grin. “Joke.”

Dobrov moved back around his desk. I couldn’t remember a time when I had seen the hybrid amused.

“You used attack powers?” he asked. He didn’t sound angry, and though his tone had lost the sharp edge it had taken with Cumpertrumpet, I knew I needed to be careful. Technically my power had thought I was under attack and had acted to defend itself, but I wasn’t in a position to argue. I could barely look at Lisabelle. Did she know there was darkness in me? Was that why I was there?

I nodded as President Valedication indicated that I should sit. This put Lisabelle behind me, which despite the fact that she was my sister’s best friend, still made me a little uncomfortable. Carefully, I sat in the warm leather chair.

“Look, Ricky,” said Dobrov as if he was finally getting down to business, “we really have more pressing matters to discuss, but for the record, I will not punish you for listening in, because although it was wrong, you’ve done more than your share for paranormals over the years. But you
must
forget what was said behind that door, and you must not tell anyone about it.” Dobrov fixed me with a hard stare until I nodded my head.

What he really wanted, it seemed, was to discuss the TPs with someone who could fight back, the epitome of a brick wall, otherwise known as Lisabelle. He was also interested in brainstorming about how to protect crucial artifacts from the Hunters. Neither of those things did he want to discuss with the likes of me. In other words, I was just in the way. A nagging voice in my head told me that Charlotte had never been in the way, but I shoved it aside to meet Dobrov’s penetrating stare.

Clearly, he didn’t need me worrying about him.

Satisfied that I would do what he wanted me to, he dropped the subject and asked what had happened in class that day to get me sent to him so early in the semester.

“I thought it would take you at least a week,” he joked.

“My ring doesn’t work,” I informed him, my mouth tight. I knew he wouldn’t believe me; this, coming from me of all paranormals, was akin to saying the dog ate my homework. During my sister’s first semester at Paranormal Public her own ring hadn’t worked, but the reason turned out to be that it was the wrong ring. She wasn’t really supposed to live in Airlee. She was an elemental.

I knew that President Valedication had a job to do, and that job was to protect and teach all the students, not to sit around listening to nonsense from the mouth of just one of us. In other words, the last thing in the world I expected was to be believed.

“Your ring isn’t working because the fire power inside you is fighting the others,” said Lisabelle, her tone as matter of fact as ever. I turned around in my chair to stare at her.

“Maybe I’m just supposed to be a fire elemental,” I said. “That’s possible, right? I tried to use water and instead I got a fight. But that’s dangerous. Obviously.”

“Anything is possible,” she said, her tone still maddeningly even. I had felt ill since what had happened in class that day, and I had expected a reaction when I told senior paranormals about it. But nope. Lisabelle barely seemed to care. “I deal in the world of the probable, though, and in that world, Sip will always like tea and you will remain an elemental who can access and work with all four elements. Whatever is happening, it isn’t that you are becoming one dimensional. Something set off your power. Can you think of anything?”