Elemental Shining (Paranormal Public Series) (27 page)

“Thanks,” I said. “I chased after the Shadow as hard as I could, because I knew I would come here afterwards.”

I was trying to make Keller feel better, but he only looked more grim. “I don’t want to be the thing that causes you to get hurt,” he said quietly.

“Ha,” I said, grinning. “I’m the only elemental in the world and all the demons are trying to kill me and you think when I get hurt it’s your fault? Get in line.”

He looked at me a little sheepishly and I grinned wider. “Your aunt’s been alright. After the kiss.” I blushed at the memory of our public display of affection.

“Yeah, she’s trying to accept the fact that you’re my girlfriend.”

But his grin lost some luster and he ran his hand through his hair when he said, “The rest of my family’s kind of another story.”

“I haven’t met the rest of your family,” I whispered, thinking about Keller’s powerful mother and father. Keller leaned forward and kissed the top of my head.

“I know,” he murmured. “But you will. And they will love you. Like I love you.”

Now I pulled back and met Keller’s serious eyes with mine. Then I leaned forward and kissed him.

I didn’t leave Aurum that night. I slept there, safe in Keller’s arms. I didn’t care if we got in trouble or got caught. If I had to stand up to the demons I wanted to spend every extra second I could with Keller. There was nowhere I’d rather be.

An urgent call from Sip sent me tumbling out of bed on a cold morning in late October. We had just finished our midterms and there was a lull in classes. I had gone to sleep excited to spend most of the morning in bed, but a frantic call from my friend sent me scurrying over to Airlee. I left Keller sleeping in bed beside me; our sleeping arrangements had changed pretty quickly after the first week of the semester. He had started to accompany me on my nighttime visits to the Long Building and then walk me home. We soon agreed that we didn’t want him to go back to Aurum, so he would just stay. Mrs. Swan was none the wiser and all we did was sleep. My mom had made me promise before she died not to do much else until I was very sure. If she hadn’t died I might not have listened, but she had. I found that I slept much more soundly with his arm wrapped comfortingly around me.

It had all started one night in late September, when we got stuck in the Long Building during a hailstorm. We could have made a run for it, but neither of us was in any rush to get back to campus, so we waited out the storm where we were.

I blamed the demons for the storm. The weather had become unpredictable since they had returned, even if we couldn’t see them anymore. After that first night when Daisy fought them off, which is what she claimed she was trying to do, there had been no visible sign of them, but I no longer believed that they weren’t there. I was sure they were, lurking right outside our view, just waiting for their chance to attack.

When we finally got back to Astra in the middle of the night Keller was just going to see me to the door, as usual. But on an impulse, I invited him up to my room. Once he was there the kissing started and I asked him to stay. He was reluctant at first, since we had a lot on our plates, and escalating the relationship quickly was not something that either of us wanted. But eventually we agreed that sleeping together would be comforting, so sleep we did.

Keller liked going to the Long Building with me, because he had a lot of healing to practice. He would shut himself in the room next to Artle’s study and work on magic far advanced from what he was supposed to be working on as a junior, while I worked on my elemental magic. I was taking Dacer’s advice to heart and practicing suffocation. It was a strange sensation every time I did it, like nothing I had experienced before.

It sort of felt like I was squeezing my hand around a plastic bag filled with air until it burst. In fact, until I did it for real (if I ever did; could I really kill—even a demon?) that was basically what it was.

One night, after we had been working separately as usual for a long time, Keller joined me in Artle’s workshop. It had been a particularly bad day. Not only were the paranormals angry at me because of Mound’s words, but they were angry with Keller for dating me. He was standing by me, but with his aunt so unsupportive of us as well that I wondered how long he could hold out. I tried not to let myself think about that, because it hurt too much, but sometimes the fear seeped out into the forefront of my mind.

“How’s it going?” he asked, laughing as he watched me shriek when a cobweb from one of the corners fell on my head.

“It was super until about two seconds ago,” I said mulishly.

My irritation only made him laugh harder. Carefully, he got up and made sure that the cobweb was totally gone from my hair. Then, while I continued to drag furniture around so I could keep practicing, he started to dust.

“Does this remind you of first semester in Astra?” he asked. “We had no idea we were cleaning it up for you, but I’m glad we did.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that day in the attic.”

“Right,” he mused. “You were going to tell me exactly what you thought of me. Care to do it now instead?” He was grinning at me, a broom propped in the crook of his arm. I blushed.

“Um, no. I think you know perfectly well what I think of you. You’re amazing. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Is that right?” he asked softly, his eyes intent on mine. I stopped moving furniture. The only sound in the room was our breathing. Then there was a slight pitter pattering overhead, and I looked up to see what was causing it. When I looked down again, I saw that that Keller’s eyes had never strayed from me.

“What?” I asked.

He smiled. “Nothing. It’s raining.”

“Actually, I think it’s hailing,” I sighed. “It’s going to make getting back to Astra fun.”

“Then let’s not go back,” he said. His hands gripped the broom handle more tightly.

“What?”

“No one will miss us,” he said. “Mrs. Swan won’t notice. She’s too busy doing whatever secretive things she does. I still say she reports on you to Dove.”

“She does not,” I scoffed. Even when I argued with him about this, though, I wondered if he was right. Mrs. Swan was secretive, but she was also reliable and my lifeline. As Sip always said: tradeoffs.

“What would we do instead?” I asked, feeling a little breathless.

“Make ourselves comfortable,” he said. “There were some cots in one of the other rooms. We could drag one in here. I’ll clean it up, and then we just stay.”

I looked outside. As we had talked the hail had started to come down harder. Since the demons had showed up the weather had brought nothing but bleak cold.

The choice between walking back outside in that muck and staying here with Keller was easy.

“Okay,” I said. “We stay.”

He reached his hand out to me. “We stay.”

By the end of October Mound’s letters in the Tabble, and whatever other means he was using to manipulate the paranormals, had done their damage. No other students besides my friends would speak to me. Even Cale had given up, because when other pixies saw him talking to me they had fits. He was yelled at, spit on, and hit. Dirr was the only vampire who would talk to me, but at least the vampires respected me because of her.

By the end of October I would have given anything to graduate two and a half years early. I didn’t even go to the homecoming dance, because I was likely to be attacked. I never went anywhere without at least two of my friends, and I tried my best to go to places only when no one else was there. I had taken to sneaking around, a prisoner in my own home.

On the Saturday morning when I woke up to Sip’s frantic note, I had had every intention of staying in Astra all day, but she sounded so upset that I just had to risk going over to Airlee alone.

I pushed Keller’s shoulder, but his arms only tightened reflexively around me.

“Keller,” I hissed. “I have to go.”

He opened his eyes blearily. “Where?” he mumbled.

“Airlee,” I said. “Sip needs me.”

He glanced at the clock. It was only nine a.m., which was very early for a Saturday morning.

“I’ll go with you,” he said, pushing the covers off both of us.

“You don’t have to,” I protested. “I wanted you to sleep.”

He shook his head. “You aren’t walking over there alone. You never know who might be waiting for you. It’s dangerous.”

“This is ridiculous,” I said, throwing up my hands. “We should be concentrating on fighting the demons, not each other.”

Keller gave me a sympathetic look as he pulled his black hoodie on over the t-shirt that he slept in. “I know,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I’m not so sure. If pixies likes Camilla stay in charge and good pixies like Oliva do nothing, then nothing is ever going to change.”

The walk across campus was quiet. We saw only a couple of other students, and they weren’t pixies. Keller was still well respected, so even if we had seen pixies they would have left us alone. The fallen angels weren’t going to let rumors started by the pixies take down their golden boy, and everyone else liked Keller.

Over the last month and a half we had spent a lot of time in the Long Building. There had been no sign of whoever had attacked Sip, and I was starting to wonder if it had just been an isolated incident—maybe some Starter snooping around after getting to campus. In the current climate, it was easy to imagine that whoever it had been no longer dared to go searching for something in the dark. Another part of me, the skeptical part that had grown steadily since I found out I was a paranormal, felt sure that something else entirely was going on. The intrusion into Astra a while back only strengthened that hunch.

The front hall of Airlee was deserted, so we headed to Sip and Lisabelle’s room by ourselves.

“Did she say what was wrong?” Keller asked.

I shook my head. “She just said that Lisabelle was doing something terrible and I had to come.”

“That doesn’t really narrow it down,” said Keller dryly.

As we got closer to my friends’ room I could hear yelling. The door was open and the lights were on. Lough stood in the doorway, looking concerned. All along the hall, other doors were opening and Airlees were peering out. When they saw me, most ducked back into their rooms. Then they reappeared to watch what was going on, curiosity having gotten the better of fear.

“LISABALLE, STOP THAT THIS INSTANT,” Sip was screeching. She was hopping around madly, like a tiny person buoyed by massive springs.

“GO AWAY! YOU’RE LIKE A FAIRY ON A POGO STICK AND IT’S MAKING ME DIZZY!” came the equally furious reply.

“TOO BAD. YOU’VE TOTALLY LOST IT! I WANT A NEW ROOMMATE!! I WANT A DO-OVER YOU MAD DUCK.”

“DUCK? THAT’S SO PATHETIC AN INSULT I ALMOST THOUGHT YOU WERE LOUGH!! GOOD LUCK FINDING SOMEONE ELSE TO PUT UP WITH YOU! YOU’RE DECORATING ‘STYLE’ IS MODELED AFTER COLORFUL NONSENSE FROM OUTER SPACE FLUNG AROUND BY A BLIND DUNG BAT. GAH! WHO COULD LIVE WITH THAT? IT’S A MIRACLE!”

At that, Sip hurled her teacup at Lisabelle. It hung in the air for a second, then shattered into a million tiny pieces, never getting anywhere near the dark-haired girl.

“THE MIRACLE IS THAT I HAVEN’T THROWN ALL OF YOUR BLACK STUFF OUT ON THE STREET BY NOW, MS. ‘DOOM AND GLOOM!! I’M A DARKNESS MAGE AND SOOO COOL.’ PAHHLEASE! THE ONLY WAY YOU WILL EVER BE COOL IS IF YOUR ROOM IS IN A FREEZER!”

Lough saw me and stepped aside. My friends continued to yell, not even noticing that I was there. Sip stood in front of Lisabelle, her hands glued to her hips. She was hopping mad. Literally.