Paranormal Public (Paranormal Public Series) (37 page)

Lough came splashing to the surface, coughing and wheezing.

“Get…me…out…of…this…water. Now,” he sputtered.

“Where are we?” I asked, wiping my eyes.

“We better be in Astra,” said Lough as he hauled himself up. I placed my hands on the edge of the pool. Dirt grated under my fingers. We were still underground. “That worked well, don’t you think?” I asked.

Lough gave me a dirty look as water streamed off his shivering body.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s find ourselves a hellhound.”

“It might already know we’re here,” I offered. “Plus, you’re having way too much fun with this.”

“It’s a quest,” Lough said. “We’re saving Lisabelle. And you too,” he added as an afterthought.

Men in love. I rolled my eyes.

“Can you do anything about the light?” he asked.

I shook my head, but realized he couldn’t see that. “No. I don’t know how.”

“Elementals don’t have very useful magic,” Lough sniffed. I didn’t see what he did, but a second later a small light was shining near his hand.

I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the light. “Yeah, but dream givers are wonderfully useful.”

“There’s a door over here,” he said, pointing. He was right. Buried in the wall was a wooden door. A circular metal ring was its only handle.

“Think it’s locked?” he asked.

“There’s only one way to find out.” I walked over to the door. Taking a deep breath, I wrapped numb hands around the cool, rusting metal and pulled. Nothing happened. I pulled harder. To my surprise and great relief it swung open soundlessly. Beyond it was darkness.

Lough appeared at my elbow, holding the light. Despite his brave words about finding hellhounds, his hand quivered slightly. The light cast shadows over a dusty wooden staircase.

“You first,” said Lough, sweeping his arm out in front with an elaborate bow.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Who says chivalry is dead?” I asked.

Lough laughed softly.

I took one careful, deliberate step into the stairwell, Lough close behind me. “They need to teach us some practical magic,” he said.

“Like what?” I whispered back. I didn’t want the hellhound or whatever was in this dorm to hear us coming.

“Like, how to dry your clothes in ten minutes or less.”

When we reached the top of the stairs there was a door identical to the last one we had come through. Again, I held my breath to see if it was locked, and again, it opened without a sound. I took deliberate steps, pausing to listen. Astra was silent.

We came out in the kitchen. The floors and countertops were still pretty clean from when Lisabelle and Sip had been coming to Astra on Saturdays. Everything in the kitchen was white or steel. It was large, large enough to support banquets in Astra’s ballroom. Light filtered in through the cloudy day and the grimy windows.

“Hey, this is nice,” said Lough quietly in my ear. “Good place for a party.” His soggy clothes dripped onto the floor.

“Yeah, Lisabelle would make one hell of a housewife,” I said.

At that I heard a faint banging.

Lough and I exchanged a glance.

“That was coming from the freezer,” he said, pointing. He was right. In the back of the kitchen was a large metal door to a walk-in freezer.

“We have to open it,” I said, hurrying forward. My muscles protested the quick movement; I was still cold and stiff from my winter swim.

“Wonderful,” Lough muttered. “Just once today I would like to be warm.”

The banging was getting louder.

“Don’t you want to think about this?” Lough asked as I reached for the metal handle. He had extinguished the globe of light and was now standing next to me, his hands braced on his hips. “The hellhound could be back there.”

“Lough,” I said, “if you’re right and Lisabelle didn’t run away, but was kidnapped, why would the hellhound be the one locked in a freezer?”

One sharp bang split the silence. Lough lunged for the door. When his hand touched the handle I heard a loud hissing sound, followed by Lough’s cry of pain. He pulled his hands away. Red welts were starting to form across the palm.

“That’s magicked,” he informed me. “Be careful.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said. I took a deep breath. I gathered my magic around me. It came easily now that I wasn’t wearing the Airlee ring. I nudged it into my hands, hoping it would offer some protection. Holding my breath, I reached out and took the handle.

Nothing happened. I tugged. Nothing. I tugged harder, still nothing. The banging was getting more insistent now.

“Put your magic into it,” Lough urged.

“I thought I was,” I muttered, pulling harder. I shoved my magic into the handle and the lock. With a groan, I started to feel it splinter. I shoved more magic into it.

Before I knew what was happening, the air popped and Lough and I were thrown backward. Gasping, I went crashing into a table while Lough hit the floor. The door was destroyed. Sitting in the freezer, which looked like it hadn’t been turned on in years, was Lisabelle.

Her dark eyes burned with a triumphant light. She tried to speak, but the gag made it sound like she was gurgling. Lough, quicker than I was, got to his hands and knees. He was covered in a thin layer of dirt, but he managed to crawl over to her on all fours. He removed her gag first, then unbound her hands.

“What the hell took you so long?” she demanded, rubbing her wrists to get the circulation back.

Lough gave her a tired grin. “You’re welcome for rescuing you.”

I had gotten to my feet by then. “Lisabelle, where’s the hellhound?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t really chatted with the thing. It mostly just breathes smoke, but I don’t think it’s here. I think she took it with her.”

“She?” I said. “Professor Zervos is really a woman?”

“No woman is that ugly,” said Lough.

Lisabelle glared at him.

“Lisabelle Verlans, you have no idea how much I missed you,” said Lough, wrapping his arms around her despite her protests. She rolled her eyes at me.

I let them have their moment. Lough deserved it. But Lisabelle had said her captor was a female, and I had no idea who she meant. Lambros? Anania? One of the other professors I didn’t know?

When Lough showed no signs of letting Lisabelle go, she gently pushed him away.

“Who is it, Lisabelle? Please say it isn’t Lambros….” I had liked Lambros. Plus, she was a pixie. Some of the Volans students might hate me, but pixies weren’t known for conspiring with demons.

“You haven’t guessed?” Lisabelle asked quietly.

Lough and I shook our heads.

“It’s the President,” said Lisabelle. “She’s the one helping the demons.”

No way,” said Lough, jumping up. He toppled a stack of boxes and a cloud of dust puffed into the air, but he ignored it. “That old psycho-bat-boss is helping the demons?”

“That’s not the exact words I’d use, but I agree with Lough,” I said. “Lisabelle, you must be wrong.”

“You think I’m wrong?” she cried. “How could I be wrong? She’s the one who hit me, drugged me, and brought me here. She visits every so often to let me stretch my legs and give me a bit of stale bread. She has that hellhound with her. Crazy eyes. I’m NOT WRONG.”

I tried to let her words sink in. The President had been helping the demons all along.

“Why?” I asked. “Why would she do it?”

“She has darkness magic,” said Lisabelle quietly. “I don’t know how she got it. Maybe she was always a darkness mage, but it turns out I wasn’t the only darkness mage on campus after all.”

My insides churned. “I have to get my ring,” I said.

“You lost your Airlee ring?” Lisabelle asked. She was standing now, with Lough’s help.

“Oh, didn’t we mention that Charlotte here is the elemental that everyone is looking for?” Lough asked.

Lisabelle sat back down, wordless for the first time in her life. Lough explained everything and she listened, the look of shock fading only slowly from her face.

Finally I put a word in, hoping my friends could help me answer a question that had been nagging at me. “If she’s the one helping the demons, why would she want me to stay at Public? Why not just make me leave instead of putting me on probation?”

Lisabelle raised her eyebrows. “Keeping you here makes more sense than kicking you out. If she thought you were the elemental, she’d want you around where she could keep track of you. She had Keller help you so that it looked like she wanted you to learn.”

Lough nodded. “Lisabelle’s right. So let’s stop wasting time and go find your ring, Charlotte.”

“I don’t know where the hellhound is,” said Lisabelle. “I think it patrols.”

“We split up,” I said. “I’m going to the ballroom. You two check the upper floors. Who knows what else the President has hidden in this house.”

Before I left the kitchen, a rushing started to fill my ears. “Ouch,” I said, covering them. Lough and Lisabelle looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

“That hurts,” Lough muttered, covering his ears.

“What is it?” I asked, scrunching my face in pain.

“It’s demons,” said Lisabelle. “They’re coming.”

And they were.

In front of the three of us appeared a small globe of white light – Airlee’s color. It bobbed in the air like the owl’s eyes had bobbed the night before.

“What’s that?” Lisabelle demanded.

“It’s Sip,” said Lough. “We told her to contact us if Zervos was coming.”

“She doesn’t know he isn’t the one helping the demon,” I pointed out.

The globe was getting larger. It was now the size of a grapefruit, and the light started to pulse as one word came out: hurry. The voice was Sip’s, but distorted as it echoed off the walls of the empty white kitchen. As soon as the word was out, the light started to fade. I held my breath until it had completely vanished, then Lough waved his hand over the area where it had been.

“It’s like it was never there. You girls are talented,” he said appreciatively.

“Of course we are,” Lisabelle muttered, sweeping out of the room.

“I think underneath that rough exterior she’s really very sweet,” Lough whispered to me as we walked out of the room.

“You keep telling yourself that,” I whispered back. The truth was, I didn’t know if sweet was the right word for Lisabelle, but I knew she had a good heart.

We split up. I only paused for a breath to watch Lisabelle and Lough creep up the stairs. Then, steeling myself, I moved cautiously towards the ballroom. The only sounds I could hear were my own footsteps; I couldn’t even hear Lisabelle and Lough moving upstairs. But I still had to be careful. If the hellhound was in Astra, it could be anywhere.

I tried the ballroom doors. They were locked. I tugged on them, but they just creaked – and held.

I looked around for something to use to break in. Keller had used a key, but I didn’t have it. I vaguely wondered how he was doing at Dash. Everyone was probably cheering for him except Camilla, who would be cheering for Cale, until he lost. Then she would start cheering for Keller.