Elemental Shining (Paranormal Public Series) (12 page)

“Is he seriously coming up here?” Lough muttered.

“Yes,” said Sip, her voice amused. “Be nice. He’s a decent guy. He was very nice to Lealand and kept his secret.”

“You mean he lied just like Lealand?” Lough asked. He had taken Lealand/Oliva’s betrayal well until he realized just how much Trafton had been involved. Since he was glad of any excuse to hold a grudge against Trafton, he was now angry about the whole thing.

Once we settled in our seats we were joined by Trafton, who had finally made his way through the crowd.

“Trafton, over here,” Sip waved, while Lough and Lisabelle sat stony-faced. Trafton took a seat next to me, greeting each of us with a cheery smile.

“This is great, isn’t it? Can’t wait to see what the deans have in store,” he said, breathing on his hands to warm them.

“What are you talking about?” Sip demanded. “This is for the Demonstration.”

“That isn’t all it’s for,” said Trafton. “There has to be something else going on. They wouldn’t call us out here just for that.”

“How do you know this?” Sip asked, leaning over me and staring intensely at Trafton.

“Oliva told me,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I say it now. They’re about to make the announcement.”

 “It’s really cold for this time of year,” said Lough, ignoring Trafton. He shivered as a cold wind blew into our faces and pulled his jacket more closely around himself.

“You want a warmer jacket?” Trafton teased. Lough gave him an icy glare.

“Attention,” Risper called. There was instant quiet around the stands. The chatter that had filled the air stopped, and the only sounds that dared to continue were the chirping of birds and the rattle of the wind. No other paranormal at Public had that sort of command, only Risper.

“The Demonstration will now begin,” continued Lisabelle’s uncle. “I expect a show of respect from all students. After the Demonstration is finished there will be announcements. If any of you don’t stay while the deans speak, I will hunt you down and string you up from a tree.”

There was a bit of nervous laughter, but most of the students didn’t think he was kidding. Lisabelle certainly looked serious.

“Your uncle sure is something,” said Trafton. “Impressive.”

“Are you still here?” Lisabelle asked.

Trafton just grinned. “You’ll come around,” he said. “They always do.”

The two Starters I was most interested in seeing were Daisy and Vanni. While looking at Daisy, who was dressed in a floral printed robe, I noticed a guy standing next to her who had the same boiled-looking skin.

“She has a twin?” I asked, shocked.

“Oh, yes,” said Lisabelle. “The dynamic duo.”

When it was Daisy and her brother’s turn to demonstrate, they walked up together, not touching, but close. Daisy had a more maniacal look to her, while her brother shuffled forward and seemed more contained and thoughtful. His hard eyes were turned down, letting his hair flop over his forehead and hide his expression, whatever it was. Daisy walked with her chin held high and her hair flowing out behind her in stringy lines. Watching them I had the overwhelming feeling that I wanted to vomit. It wasn’t that their skin was pussing and oozing, but it looked uncomfortable. Whatever their father had done to them it had been bad, and permanent.

“Dobrov hates this sort of stuff,” Lisabelle commented. “If it was up to him he never would have left his room. Daisy is his lifeline. Without her he would be totally lost. And way more dangerous.”

“Are you saying that Daisy is the sane one of those two?” Sip asked, horrified.

Lisabelle snorted. “Not even close. She is just capable of functioning as a paranormal. Her brother shows no signs that he is capable of functioning, period.”

Daisy was at that very moment pointing imperiously for her brother to stand about five feet from her. She had moved into the middle of the field, where no one could miss a thing she did.

“Why does her skin look like that?” I whispered to Lisabelle.

“Being half vampire and half darkness mage is very bad for the vampire side of her. The circulation throughout her body is faulty, and that’s creating a buildup of fluid, causing the boiled skin look. On top of that, vampires can’t be in the sun because their skin can’t take it. Since Daisy is only half vampire, her skin was probably very confused.”

“So her dad, what does he do?” I whispered back.

“Oh, um, nothing much,” said Lisabelle. “He basically just spouts off about how the demons are trying to make the paranormal world better and that we’re better off without the elementals. There are a lot of texts and theories that he quotes from the original paranormal founders, who wrote long documents about the best way to live as paranormals. Many of them thought that paranormal men should just run everything and forget the women.”

“That’s crazy,” said Trafton. “I don’t want to run stuff. I just want to work and have dinner waiting for me on the table when I get home.”

Even though we knew he was kidding, Lisabelle took exception to what he had said and punched him in the arm.

We weren’t the only ones watching the siblings with a mixture of shock, awe, and concern. Everyone else in the stands was doing the same thing. All chatter and talk had ceased, but unlike Risper, for whom the students had gone quiet out of respect, now the silence was thick with fear. The gray sky, which was one thick blanket of the thunder to come, hung threateningly overhead.

My eyes flicked to Keller’s and I saw that he was watching me. When he saw me looking his way he gave me a small smile and an encouraging nod. I smiled back. Vanni still had to take her turn, but at that moment he was looking at me.

The rest of the crowd was restless and worried. Even paranormals could be surprised, and Daisy and Dobrov’s presence had surprised everyone here. Even looking at them was making people uncomfortable.

Daisy had to motion Dobrov forward. He glared at his sister, only lifting his eyes enough to meet her face. The skies overhead were darkening with each passing second, causing black shadows to stretch across the green grass. I pulled the collar of my jacket more closely around my neck, feeling like the skies were opening up and cold was pouring down on my head.

A few students were looking at the deans, pleading with their eyes to for the deans to intervene in whatever was happening. But the deans continued to sit together, watching Daisy, motionless. They had no intention of stopping her Demonstration.

Daisy looked up, a smirk plastered across the painful-looking skin of her face. I could have sworn that she was smirking directly at Lisabelle, her eyes alight with black fire and malice.

“Uh oh,” said Sip. “Shouldn’t they stop this?”

“They can’t,” Lisabelle muttered. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Yet,” said Lough.

“Here today I want to give a demonstration,” she called. “As a half-vampire I am in a unique position.”

Her voice rang out, carrying clearly through the entire stadium. Her brother dropped his head again, not even looking at his sister.

Daisy lifted her right hand until it was balled into a fist in front of her face. Her eyes focused on nothing else as I saw black and red power gather around her body, with her hand as a focus. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized she didn’t have a ring. I told myself that without a ring she shouldn’t be able to do anything too drastic. Should she?

“Wow, her trick is that she’s going to eat her own hand, nifty,” Lough said. If the air around me hadn’t been humming I would have thought it was funny.

With her next breath Daisy raised herself up till she was on tippy toes like an avenging ballerina. Like a flash of lightening she spiked her arm toward the ground, slamming her fist into the earth. The affect was instantaneous, and shattering.

The air screamed and blew apart, flashes the color of blood sparked around her, and the earth under her feet rolled.

I had forgotten about Dobrov.

So had everyone else.

Now he stepped forward, his eyes intent on his sister like an abused puppy following the girl who kicks him.

Power gathered around him, only there were no tints of red in his, just a thick blackness that looked like the color of melting tar.

Suddenly I wasn’t sure which of the two was more frightening. In a matter of seconds Dobrov had transformed. He was no longer the huddling, scared, scrawny little brother with the drooping shoulders and the baggy eyes. Now he stood tall, his shoulders shoved back and his chest pushed out. His steps were confident and his head was held high. The wind blew his hair from his face and if I hadn’t seen it happen I would never have believed that the same boy stood before me.

He moved around until he was facing his sister, who I could barely see anymore because the cloud of power had grown so big. He made the same motion with his arm that she had done already, raising his hand, curling it into a fist, and shooting it upwards, only he shot higher than she had. It might have been my imagination, but I could have sworn that he left the ground. Then like an arrow from a bow he lanced downwards, his fist slamming into the ground right in front of Daisy’s.

“Hold on,” Lisabelle breathed. I clutched the bleachers, my pinky finger touching Sip’s, and looked down at the deans. Dove sat in the middle, his eyes fixed on the Starters, and I realized in that moment that Dove was the most cold-blooded vampire I had ever met, not excluding Zervos. Thinking back to all the times Zervos had tried to fail me and get me in trouble, it was still terrifying to see an even worse paranormal, one with no moral compass at all.

Cold, icy wind bit through our clothing and there was a stabbing pain in my fingers.

The professors were lined up in front of us, ready to block an attack from the half-vampires, and the students were there to back them.

“What part of nice-relaxing-semester is just too much for you?” Lisabelle rounded on me.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did we miss the memo that said that Lisabelle should get everything that her little heart desires?” Sip asked.

“No,” said Lisabelle. “I’m drawing one up now.”

“Someday you’re going to meet someone scarier than you are, Lisabelle, and then what will you do?” Sip said.

Lisabelle jumped to her feet. She was the first to address the danger, ignoring surprised gasps from students around her as she knocked drinks over and pushed her way down the steps. She wasn’t about to let something silly like decorum interfere with getting where she needed to go.

Risking your own life is terrible, but it’s your choice. It really is. You can weigh the pros and cons all you want. You can gather advice, but at the end of the day it’s all on you. Watching one of my dear ones risk her life for me was worse. At least when I put my own life in danger I knew I was making the choice. Watching her do it was gut-wrenching.

I had no idea what was she going to do, but I felt sure that she was going to try and stop whatever the siblings were attempting to do. I just wasn’t sure that she could.

High overhead the clouds had turned black. I could no longer see anything but the swirling magic that Daisy and Dobrov were calling toward them. Any second I expected it to stop, because surely they would eventually run out of power or the deans would put a stop to it.

Neither happened.

My teeth chattered. Next to me, Sip was so taut with emotion that she looked like she was about to break. Her hands clutched at the seat so hard her knuckles shook. I wanted to move my hand over to comfort her, but I didn’t dare loosen my own hold on the bleachers.

I watched Lisabelle make her way toward the pitch and held my breath.

“What is she going to do?” Trafton asked. He had to yell it into my ear; the air was whipping around us so loudly that I wouldn’t have heard him otherwise.