Paranormal Public (Paranormal Public Series) (38 page)

I took a firmer grip of the door handle, calling my magic. This time it sprang easily to my fingertips.

I wasn’t prepared for what waited on the other side of the door. About twenty feet in front of me lounged a great black hound, identical to the one that had followed me over the summer. His massive jaws were open as he panted, whether with the warmth of the room or with eagerness to get at me I didn’t stop to wonder. At close range I could see that even his tongue was black.

At the opening of the door he sprang to his feet, snarling. His red eyes glowed as they locked on me.

I staggered backwards as the muscles in the hellhound’s shoulders bunched and its body coiled. Then, remembering what would happen if I failed here, I gathered my wits and what courage I had left and stepped forward, flinging the door closed behind me. The hellhound and I were alone in the ballroom, and it was ready to attack.

“You’re in the way,” I told it. Last night I had talked to a strix as if it could understand me, now I was trying to reason with a hellhound. Surely I was losing it. The hound just walked toward me, head lowered a little, red eyes never leaving my face.

“So, you should just move,” I suggested. He deserved fair warning. I was getting my ring, one way or another.

He snarled.

I shifted my feet, preparing to fight.

The black hound sprang forward, closing the distance between us in massive bounds. When he was fifteen feet away, I bent my knees. Anyone who had seen me in that moment wouldn’t have known if I was preparing for a magic fight or to play defense in a basketball game, but I didn’t care. I felt better bracing myself for the oncoming attack.

When the hound was ten feet away I sent a burst of power towards it, but without my ring I couldn’t control the power well and it bounced in front of the hellhound without touching him.

He slowed, but now he was only five feet away. I tried again. I missed again.

He snarled and lunged. I dove sideways, avoiding his snapping jaws by inches. He came again, and this time he hit me on my right side. The great body felt hot against my leg, like it burned with an inside fire. I covered my head with my arm, trying to call my magic. I didn’t know if I would have time before the beast bit a chunk out of my body.

Just then the hound gave a short howl of pain, and I peeked around my arm to see black fire coursing around it, attacking. The fire wasn’t coming from me.

I looked at the doorway and there was Lisabelle, leaning on the door jamb, concentrating.

“You should have let me deal with him to begin with,” she called. “I owe him this.”

“If I had known he was here, I would happily have left him to you,” I called back.

“Well, you clearly can’t function properly without me,” she retorted. “You should remember that next time. I have no idea how you’ve survived the last week.”

My ring.

I scrambled to my feet. The hellhound had all he could handle from Lisabelle. I raced to the case. I touched it and it sprang open for me. The artifacts were already blazing, and there, in the center of it all, was my ring.

The silver metal around the multicolored stone was already etched with designs, which meant that it had belonged to someone else. But I didn’t have time to wonder who.

I slipped it on and instantly felt my power focused, increased. Not just mine now, but that of generations of elementals who were coming together, concentrating my power and enhancing it. I felt like I was floating. This is for my family, I thought. My dad, the other elementals, whatever happened to them. I’m going to find out. And I’m going to finish this.

The hellhound was now on his side, wrapped in black fire. “We have to find the President,” I said, looking back at my friends. Lough was standing behind Lisabelle. Once he had given her the wand, there was nothing more he could do.

“We know where the President is,” said Lough. His breathing was hard, and his hands trembled a little. “Sip called again. Demons are attacking students at Dash.”

Into the rain-soaked Astra yard we ran. Lough and I had barely dried off before we were drenched again. “You couldn’t have saved me on a sunny day?” Lisabelle asked. Lough laughed and his breath came out as a gray puff. “I vote we only go on quests in the summer from now on.”

Lisabelle, Lough, and I raced for the Dash field, but it was slow going. Lough and I were cold; Lisabelle was weak from being tied up for days. We supported her on either side until she started swearing at us that she wasn’t dead. We let her walk on her own after that.

My mind was racing. We knew that the demons were already battling the other students, and I just hoped that Sip was okay and that Lanca had had a chance to prepare some of them. I wondered how long we could last.

If there was any comfort in the situation, it was that at least now I would be able to fight alongside everyone else. I no longer needed to be protected. If anything, the demons would need protection from me.

“Are you alright?” Lisabelle asked, sweeping wet strands of her dark hair out of her face.

“Yes,” I said.

Lisabelle smiled. “You look determined, but we could always get them to tear Public to pieces. I’m not that fond of the place.”

I grinned. “But then we couldn’t hang out. Once the President is gone Public will get better.”

“Yeah,” said Lough. “Zervos will probably be put in charge.”

I shuddered. Even if Zervos wasn’t in league with the demons, I still didn’t like him. Putting him in charge of Public would be like hiring someone to teach your kids who had a history of torturing puppies.

Lough looked unhappy. Lisabelle asked him what was wrong. He said, “Charlotte might be elemental, but she hasn’t trained as one. What happens if we can’t reunite the Power of Five?”

“We’ll be able to,” I said. “If we can get everyone together, we will. At least we have to try. We have to fight. We can’t just let the demons overrun Public. I don’t care if you don’t like it.”

Lisabelle smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

A boom, like a cannon going off right next to my ear, split the air.

“What was that?” Lough asked. He held tighter to Lisabelle, and to my surprise she didn’t make him let her go.

“Battle,” said Lisabelle, looking toward the Dash field.

We were almost there. The campus was deserted; everyone was at Dash, which at this point meant that everyone was fighting off demons – or being killed. The rain was making it hard to see far ahead, but as I squinted to get a better look, I thought I saw fire.

When we reached the top of the hill that overlooked Dash, Lough gave a cry. My stomach felt like potatoes being mashed. The Dash field was in shambles. There were fiery red or black shapes everywhere: demons and hellhounds and even a few black shapes that looked like they were wearing armor, the Demons of Knight. The most powerful demons had overrun Public, and they were all battling students. The bleachers were overturned, some nothing more than twisted metal. The glass magnifiers that had made watching Dash feel so real were nothing more than broken shards of glass, as if a rock had been thrown through a glass window.

I looked for faces I knew, but the battle was such a roiling mass of bodies I couldn’t make anyone out. I couldn’t even find Sip’s shock of blond hair, and a stab of fear hit my heart. What if she was injured? What if she was worse? Then I pushed the thought away. Sip was too good to get killed by a demon.

I didn’t see the President anywhere, but even if she was still out “searching” for the elemental, she would join the battle soon. She must know that Lisabelle was free and I had the ring.

Without a word the three of us pelted down the hill. The students weren’t being beaten back; they were all standing to fight. Most had formed rings, facing outward to protect their backs. Werewolves were with pixies, vampires with mages. Fallen angels and pixies had taken to the air to fight demons coming from above. They were all fighting together.

I kept searching for familiar faces as I ran. Keller and Cale would have been on the field competing, so where were they now?

“There’s Keller,” Lough yelled at my side, as if reading my mind. He was pointing toward the far end of the Dash field where students lined up before they started to compete, and where Keller was now fighting hellhounds. I could only see his back, but he wore the silver colors of Aurum. He had transformed again, with his strong, dark wings jutting out of his back. He jumped and dived and made the hellhounds look slow in comparison.

“I never thought I would say this,” Lisabelle said to me, “but you need to find Zervos.”

I tore my eyes away from Keller. I knew she was right. If he was still alive, he would know what to do. “And Charlotte,” said Lisabelle just before we reached the base of the hill that slopped into the Dash field, “whatever you do, don’t use your magic.”

I hadn’t thought of that. If I used my magic it would be easy for the demons to tell that I was the elemental, and they would converge on me. I had to find Zervos before I was forced to fight.

I skidded to a halt. A hellhound watched us. His demon master was busy fighting a group of pixies and werewolves, but the hellhound’s eyes were fixed on me.

“I’ll distract it,” said Lough, striding forward. “You two get to Zervos.”

“Lough,” I said. “That’s a demon of speed. They are as they sound: fast.”

Lough shook his head. “I have a few tricks of my own. Go.”

Lisabelle’s hand shot out and she grabbed Lough’s arm. “Be careful,” she warned. He nodded and marched toward the hound.

“He’s kind of cute when he’s angry,” said Lisabelle thoughtfully.

I rolled my eyes. “Lisabelle,” I said, “this is no time for you to catch on.”

“What?” she asked.

“Zervos is over there,” I said, finally picking him out of the chaos. He didn’t look so good. He had a bloody slash down his arm, and he was fighting three demons, trying to hold a position in front of something lying in the mud. The rain was lessening and I could see that it was a human form. Sickness washed over me. It reminded me of the night Bailey had been murdered.

Zervos was protecting the body of Nancy, the Airlee student who had competed in Lisabelle’s place for the Dash finals. She was face down and her right hand had been hacked off.

Lisabelle sent a gust of wind, tinged with fire, to slam into the closest demon, who happened to be a Demon of Knight. His black armor didn’t do him any good against Lisabelle’s attack, and he went flying backward. Two other demons turned to see where the fresh assault was coming from, and charged. Lisabelle twitched her wand and the wind changed course, slamming into each of them in turn. She was blasting us a path to Zervos.

Meanwhile, more demons and hellhounds were turning towards the fresh attack. Lisabelle continued to use her magic as they came on in waves, but one hellhound, smarter than the others, didn’t attack her from the front or side, he tried to came around her back, where I was. Unfortunately, he was so intent on Lisabelle that he never saw me. Forgetting Lisabelle’s caution not to use my magic, I grabbed a fistful of it. The hellhound was about to spring on Lisabelle’s back when I sent a blast of ice water slamming into its head. The cold water hissed when it hit his hot body. The hellhound dropped.

But he hadn’t been alone. I tried to pull up a shield against the second hellhound, but I wasn’t familiar with my magic and I was too slow. The hound sprung.

Mid-air another animal – a small werewolf – slammed it from the side. When the werewolf hit the burning body of the hellhound, she let out a whimper but held her ground. We kept moving, but I had used my magic. I had basically lit a torch, stood in the middle of a silent room, and yelled “I’m the elemental. Come get me.”