Paranormal Public (Paranormal Public Series) (15 page)

After breakfast we headed outside. The day was gray and it looked like it was about to rain. I zipped my dark blue fleece up to my chin as we walked.

“Do you know who’s meeting us?” asked Sip. She was walking between Lisabelle and me, her head bent low to avoid the wind.

“No idea,” said Lisabelle. “I just hope it’s not one of the pixies. Can you imagine Kia ‘helping’ us? Charlotte has us in enough trouble with them.”

“It’s not my fault,” I said irritably. I was tired of feeling like everything was my fault. I hadn’t spoken to Cale since that breakfast. I had planned to avoid him, but not ignore him when he actually walked past me. Now whenever I saw him around campus he turned the other way. Cale’s ignoring me made everything else that was going on worse. I should be the one ignoring him; he was the one who hadn’t told me about Camilla.

“Why would a nice guy like Cale date a girl like Camilla?’ Sip asked.

Lisabelle opened her mouth to reply, but Sip whirled on her. “Do NOT make a joke about guys and their blood-flow.”

Lisabelle doubled over laughing. “You said it, not me.”

Sip went bright red.

We walked in silence until Sip said, “Here we are.” As we rounded a bend in the path, Astra Dorm came rising into view in front of us. Without even realizing it, we had arrived.

There was no other way to say it, Astra Dorm looked cool. As the oldest dorm on campus it was built entirely of stone, and each corner of the building had a tower. The towers were different colors -- green, blue, white and red -- which represented Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. There was also a larger tower in the middle painted black.

“I was wondering when you three would show up,” an amused male voice said from behind us.

I turned around and stared into dancing blue eyes. Keller Erikson was standing in front of Astra Dorm. My tutor was also the one who would help us clean.

“You again!” I cried, as Keller walked towards us. The more nervous I am the more awkward I get, and I had come to the uncomfortable realization that Keller made me nervous.

Lisabelle and Sip, who had been slower to turn around, were just realizing that Keller was the one who would be helping us.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring.

“Sometimes you rival me for sweetness,” said Lisabelle to me.

Keller handed me a mop. “Stop it,” he chided me. “I haven’t done anything to you.”

I blinked and fumbled to take the mop from his outstretched arm. He was right. He hadn’t.

I felt my face turning hot and looked away from everyone.

“Aw, come on,” said Keller. “Apologize to me. You know you want to.” He smiled.

“Sorry,” I mumbled into my shoulder, wishing I could disappear. “It’s been a long week.” Just once I would like to be as confident as Keller seemed all the time.

“It must have been,” Keller commented. “Otherwise there’s no way Cynthia would have asked me to help you three out.”

“Who is Cynthia?” ask Lisabelle, Sip, and I in unison.

Keller grinned. It lighted up his whole face as if someone had turned on the switch in a room. “The President,” he said.

“You call her by her first name?” I asked, incredulous.

“Of course,” he answered, leading the three of us up the overgrown path. “What else am I supposed to call my godmother?”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Lisabelle, hurrying so she could walk next to him. “That old dragon is your godmother?”

Keller laughed as we reached the front door. “Yeah.” Somehow he was more relaxed here, away from the glare of the school and all the other students. She had asked him to tutor me. I should have known she would ask him to do this as well.

“Why you?” I asked.

Keller lifted his shoulders. “She trusts me.”

He pulled out a large metal key and fitted it into the lock. Just as the four of us entered Astra, a cool light mist started to fall.

Inside I felt warmth and comfort surround me. It was a feeling I hadn’t had since I’d come to Public. The whole week I’d been stressed and worried, but inside Astra Dorm I felt happy and oddly relaxed. I must just be glad to be away from the main campus, I thought.

“What do you think?” Keller asked. His blue eyes, which never seemed to miss anything, were directed towards me.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, looking around. The floor was some sort of white stone, covered in blue carpets. The furniture consisted of a table with a large lamp, another table in front of a silver-edged mirror, and two armchairs that stood next to a winding staircase. Everything in the room was covered in a thick layer of dust, but even the grime couldn’t obscure Astra’s magnificence.

Keller walked past me and set down the cleaning supplies. As he moved we brushed shoulders, and I was conscious of the touch long after it was gone. I watched as his back bent and stretched. He was always graceful. Maybe it was a fallen angel thing or maybe it was a Keller thing. Afraid of getting caught staring, I quickly looked away.

“So, this is the dorm,” he said, straightening up. “Sip and Lisabelle, I was thinking you two could do the kitchen,” he continued, pointing straight ahead. “It’s probably in the best shape and with two of you it shouldn’t take very long.”

“How often is this place cleaned?” asked Lisabelle, running her hand along the edge of the mirror. It came away covered in dust.

Keller shrugged. “Every couple of weeks. Any time the President catches a student doing something wrong, so it’s pretty often.”

“We aren’t in trouble,” I said.

“No,” said Keller. “Of course not. She just sent you down here to help me clean out of the goodness of her heart. Oh wait, she’s the President of Public, she doesn’t have a heart.”

I felt my face flush and occupied myself by examining the wall.

“Where’s the kitchen?” Sip asked. She’d already gone over to the cleaning supplies and picked up a pair of latex gloves. She put them on and smacked her hands together. “I’m ready to do some damage.”

Lisabelle rolled her eyes. “To what? Dust? You can’t damage dust.”

“Sometimes I think you’re too literal-minded,” Sip said to her.

“Better to make sense than be you,” said Lisabelle, grinning.

Sip threw a towel at her, but Lisabelle ducked out of the way.

“Are they always like that?” Keller asked me, watching.

“I’ll let you know,” I told him. For some reason he found that funny.

“So,” said Lisabelle, now that she was done harassing Sip, “kitchen?”

“Through there,” Keller said, pointing to a plain wooden door. It had a wheel with four spokes carved into its center. “I’ll get Charlotte set up, then come check on you.”

I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being left alone with Keller. I was left alone with him enough when he was tutoring me, and now through my own foolishness I was forced to spend the weekend with him too. But Lisabelle and Sip ignored all of my pleading looks and walked away.

“Come on,” said Keller, motioning for me to follow him. “This way.”

I followed him through a maze of rooms. Each room we passed through was more beautiful and distinct than the last. We walked past what had to be sitting rooms, a classroom, and even a game room that was in the shape of a diamond. Most of the furniture had white linen thrown over it.

“Why are all the rooms so different?” I finally asked.

“Most elementals specialized in Earth, Air, Fire, or Water,” Keller explained. “A few could control all of them, but the ones who couldn’t had clear affinities for certain things.” That explained the different colored towers I had seen when we came in. He pointed. We were in a room that must have been decorated by a fire elemental. The walls were a red that you mostly saw on fire engines, and over the mantel was a picture of a field alight in flames.

“Charming,” I said. Our feet hitting the stone floor was the only sound, which should have been creepy, but even the silence was strangely comforting here.

Keller shook his head. “These were very powerful mages. They commanded respect.”

“What do you mean?” Even when he wasn’t tutoring me he was tutoring me. The professors at Public were good, but they obviously thought all the Starters needed to know about were the basics. And I wanted to know more.

“It’s obvious,” Keller said. “Fire is essential to a fire elemental, so they are going to surround themselves with as many representations of fire as they can. If nothing else it’s comforting.”

“That makes sense,” I replied, still looking around the room. “Do you know what happened to the elementals?” It was something I had wanted to ask, but I had sensed that the topic was taboo.

When Keller didn’t answer immediately I lifted my hand to poke him in the arm. I caught my breath. I couldn’t bring myself to actually touch him. I dropped my hand.

“I don’t know what happened to them, really,” said Keller. His voice sounded wistful. His back was turned so he hadn’t seen me freeze. “It’s not something a mere student tutor gets told. But it was bad. Really bad.”

“You mean no one knows?” I asked. I was walking around the room, inspecting the walls and furniture. I wasn’t sure what had piqued my curiosity, but now I wanted to know everything I could.

“Oh no, I’m sure someone knows,” he answered, “just not a lowly sophomore at Public. Everyone knows it was the demons, but that’s about it.”

“You’d think it would be common knowledge how one of the power branches of paranormals became extinct,” I commented.

“What makes you think they’re extinct?” Keller asked. His blue eyes were following me around the room and I tried to not let it make me nervous.

I glanced at him with surprise. “Do you see any elementals here?” I asked, waving my arms around.

Keller smiled. “No, but I think the professors and all the senior paranormals are hoping that there are still elementals out there.”

“Because of the demons?” I asked.

Keller’s face hardened. He scuffed his foot on the floor, his lips pursed tightly shut, before answering. It was the first time I’d seen him show any major emotion that wasn’t rooted in sarcasm. “Yeah. Because if there aren’t we just might be doomed.”

Then he turned on his heel and headed down the hallway. “Come on,” he said, and I hurried to catch up. He reached out his arm to grab a door handle. I watched the muscles in his arm flex as he moved.

“Through here,” he said, opening one of the doors.

I followed him into the grandest room I’d ever seen. Most of what I’d seen at Public had been beautiful but modern and practical. The classrooms weren’t decorated, they didn’t have strange magics going on in the corners. None of the paranormals flaunted their abilities. But this room looked like it was fit for royalty. It was lit with sconces in the walls and massive floor to ceiling windows.

I looked up and up to the cathedral ceiling stretching high into the distance. More silver-edged mirrors hung along the walls, interspersed with massive tapestries. The images were of what could only be elementals, battling against demons and hellhounds. One showed an elemental standing in the ocean, water swirling around her, as demons came down from all sides.

“Wow,” I breathed. “Giants could fit in here and still have room for a couple of elephants.”

“Right?” said Keller. “None of the other dorms have this.”