Paranormal Public (Paranormal Public Series) (36 page)

“How do you know?” Lough demanded.

“Because there’s some sort of protection around it,” I said. “I couldn’t get in. And it makes sense if the hellhound is in there. He’ll be ready for any elemental who tries to get in.”

Lough shook his head. “So how do we do it?”

“Lough,” said Sip, incredulous. “It’s a paranormal dorm! You can’t just walk in! And Charlotte thinks there’s a hellhound spell protecting it? You’ll have to think of another way.”

“Look,” said Lough, his jaw jutting out, “Lisabelle is in there. I’m not just going to stand here and hope she makes it out on her own. Yeah, there are hellhounds, crazy professors, and demons, but everything that involves Lisabelle ends in fireworks.”

I almost laughed. “Lisabelle would be proud of you,” I told him.

Lough grinned.

Sip sighed. “I still think it’s crazy,” she said. But as she eyed Lough’s set face and his arms crossed over his chest, she knew this wasn’t an argument she would win.

She took a deep breath. “Will Keller help?”

I shook my head. “He has to compete in Dash. There’s nothing he can do until tomorrow afternoon.”

“We can wait until after Dash, can’t we?” she asked.

Lough said we couldn’t. If we were going to sneak around campus, the best time to do it was when the whole campus was distracted: during Dash. Zervos would be at the field, so there would be no danger of his catching us breaking into Astra. Assuming we could break in at all.

“What if the demons come before the professors get back?” Sip asked. “We can’t fight them off on our own, particularly not if Zervos is helping them.”

“We could ask the other dorms for help,” Lough suggested. “You saw Camilla. She wants there to be an elemental as much as the rest of us do.”

“I don’t think we’re that desperate yet,” said Sip.

“No,” I said, “not Camilla, not the pixies yet, but I think we can talk to Lanca.”

“We can’t fight demons on our own,” said Lough as if he hadn’t heard me “I mean, Lisabelle could and we could try, but we’ll get trampled on.” Then he realized what I had said and gulped. “Wait, what? Lanca? She scares the shit out of me.”

I grinned. “I think she scares the shit out of everyone. And I think she likes it that way.”

Lough shuddered.

“When the demons come, everyone will fight. Until then our job is to figure out how to get Lisabelle,” said Sip.

“Alright,” I said, “I’ll go find Lanca.”

“A vampire? At night?” Lough asked. “Are you crazy?”

“Besides, we are on lockdown, so there’s no way you’ll make it to Cruor,” said Sip, folding her arms over her chest.

I chewed my lower lip. I knew she was right. I glanced out the window and started to smile.

There, sitting on the branch of a tree not far from my window, was a dark owl, his eyes glistening in the night. He stared back at me. I looked back at Sip and smiled. “I have a better idea.”

“I hate it when you get that look in your eye,” Sip muttered. She got up and looked out the window. “Yikes!” she squealed.

I gulped. I knew nothing of the strix except that they were mean. Really mean, but I walked towards the window anyway.

There was cold air slipping over the sill as I slid the window up. “Good evening,” I said to the owl, feeling like a total idiot for hanging out a window at night and talking to an animal like he could understand me.

The owl’s huge gold eyes floated in front of me like globes of light suspended in the air.

“Could you give Lanca a message for me?” I asked.

The strix ruffled his feathers.

“I’m sorry, but could you tell Princess Lanca that the demons are coming? Maybe tomorrow? And that I know what she means now?”

The strix considered me. In future semesters I would have classes that went into detail about paranormal animals. Until then I would just have to hope that strix didn’t expect gifts before they would carry messages. I shifted nervously under its gaze, but after a brief hesitation the owl pushed off. It was much larger with its wings spread than it had looked perched in the tree; I was glad it hadn’t attacked me. I could only hope that it had understood me, and that Lanca would understand me as well.

“You done talking to animals?” Lough asked from inside the room. “Maybe we could get some real stuff done?”

As I tried to sleep, a million thoughts piled through my mind, but chief among them was that I was an elemental. The only elemental. The demons had spent years trying to exterminate them – us – me, and until recently, they had thought they had succeeded. My dad was dead. All that had happened to me this year couldn’t have been a coincidence. Now they were coming after me: to finish what they had started.

And I was relying on a bunch of freshmen and some vampires for help and protection.

I was screwed.

I should have slept more, but as I chased sleep it remained one step ahead of me, so after lying in bed for a couple of hours I got up. Sip, who couldn’t sleep either, kept vigil with me. Now that I was looking for it I felt a badness coming toward me and I wondered how long it would take the demons to penetrate Public’s defenses. Not long if Zervos let them in. When I told Sip what I feared she said, “We can’t think like that.”

There was a gentle knocking on the door, and Lough poked his head in. “Ready?” he asked. “Everyone’s heading down to the field. I don’t know why. Keller has it in the bag.” In the belt of his jeans he carried Lisabelle’s wand, which she had left behind when she’d been arrested. His ring shone.

I looked around my room at all of Sip’s neon stuff and wondered if I would ever see it again. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but I knew we were bracing for an attack. It was a battle we very well might lose.

Sip hugged us both before we left. Lough and I would have to be careful, she insisted. We weren’t supposed to be anywhere but in the dorms or at the Dash field, so we had to stay hidden. We both knew Sip telling us stuff we already knew was her way of calming down. She stood in the doorway of Airlee and watched us go before heading over to the Dash field.

“I’ll let you know if Zervos leaves or if anything else happens,” she promised.

Lough and I were quickly soaked by the hard rain that had started falling before dawn. “Do you think Lanca got your message?” he asked, wiping back his wet blond hair.

“I have no idea,” I said. I didn’t want to tell Lough that even if she had gotten it, she might not understand what it meant. I hoped she did, though. She had to.

“How are we getting into Astra?” I asked.

Lough snorted. “You’re the elemental. It’s the elemental dorm. You figure it out.”

I punched him in the arm and grinned. “Fine,” I said. “I will.”

Even through the rain I still thought Astra was the most beautiful dorm on campus. For a long time the two of us stood just looking at it, hidden in one of the bushes along the path. There was no movement. There was no noise. It looked empty. It didn’t look sinister. And it wasn’t, I reminded myself. It was what was inside that was sinister.

“I can’t see a shield,” said Lough, squinting. “Are you sure we can’t just walk in?”

“It’s there,” I murmured, concentrating. I was sure of that. As an elemental, I should have been able to call to the power inside the dorm. It was there, ahead of me, surging forward, elemental magic. Instead of the white of Airlee or the silver of the fallen angel, it was a soft blue, mixed with a deep burgundy, flowing everywhere I looked. Since the powers had been dormant for so long, they had had a chance to rest and strengthen. Now, at my calling, they rose up.

I blinked. The magic couldn’t reach me. There was something blocking its path that felt like a black wall. Opening my eyes, I could now see the defenses around the dorm. They were a mass of shimmering black. This was advanced magic, definitely not something I’d learned in Intro to Para Studies. But I didn’t have a choice. I would get in – or die trying.

“Wow,” Lough breathed. “I see it now.”

“Where do I go?” I asked the elemental magic. “How do I get in?”

In response, the magic disappeared. I felt its loss immediately. Breathless, I waited. What had I done wrong?

Opening my eyes I looked again. Of course. There it was. A faint blue shimmer flowing underground. I knew how we were going to get in now. Lough and I were going to swim. I grabbed Lough’s rain-soaked arm and propelled him forward.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.” He didn’t protest. He was too busy staring at the black cone of magic that was encasing Astra, keeping everything out, and in.

“What are we doing?” he asked, when he saw that I was taking him around the back of the dorm.

“Looking for a pool, or a stream,” I told him absently. “I think.”

“You realize it’s December, right?” he asked. “We can’t go in the water in December.”

“Why not?” I demanded. I never stopped looking from side to side, up and down, searching for the way in.

“Because it’s cold,” Lough informed me.

“No kidding,” I replied.

Lough stopped. “Are you serious about making us swim?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then this way,” he said, turning on his heel he walked toward the small hill that sat on one side of Astra. We rounded the side and there, moving with the impact of thousands of tiny raindrops, was a stream. I followed it with my eyes. Lough was right. It led right toward Astra.

“Since some of the elementals were specialists with water it made sense that they would have their own personal underground lake inside their dorm,” said Lough. “A bit spoiled if you ask me.”

“I didn’t,” I told him. He gave me a wet smile and I grabbed his arm again. “Come on. There’s no time to waste. Let’s find Lisabelle.”

At the mention of why he was there, Lough roused. “Yes, let’s.” He beat me to the water, pulling off his jacket.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he told me. “And I hope I’m better at holding my breath than I think I am.” He dove in. I followed him.

I barely heard him cry out, “That’s freezing,” before I jumped.

I hit the icy water and couldn’t breathe. I fought to the surface, my body shivering, and looked around for Lough, but he was nowhere to be seen. Taking a deep breath, I plunged under again.

I tried to open my eyes, but the weight of the water made that impossible. Besides, my magic was there to guide me. Lough’s dream giver power blazed ahead of me and I swam toward him. I grabbed him and didn’t let go.

Everything about magic was new. I hadn’t known there was so much I was missing. Now that I could tap into elemental power, I realized that I had only touched the surface of what magic could do. Underwater, where no one could see me, I smiled.

I reached for Lough, my eyes still closed, and pulled him with me. As we moved together I didn’t have to swim. Astra magic was pulling me along, Lough close behind. My hands and head were numb, and I was sure that my lungs would explode if I didn’t get air soon. It was only a small comfort that the water was starting to warm up.

Just as I started to panic, the magic pushed me to the surface. I wanted to resist, because I didn’t know where the water had taken us. What if it pushed my head into a floor and I was knocked out and drowned? But instead, I trusted the magic. It was
my
magic after all. Elemental magic.

Lough and I surfaced in a cellar. There was a faint light filtering in from somewhere nearby, but my vision was blurred. The pool we were in was small and much warmer than the water outside. I smelled damp earth.