Paranormal Public (Paranormal Public Series) (39 page)

And they were. Demons and hellhounds were battling towards me, and more were converging on Lisabelle. I moved to stand alongside her, using my magic to batter the demons. I didn’t have time to see if Sip was alright. We had to keep going.

We were close to Zervos now. He saw us coming, and leaving Nancy’s body he fought towards us. He darted forward, fangs out, and latched onto one of the demons attacking us. The demon, a thin black mass, gave a loud shriek, clawing at Zervos. But it was no use. The Public professor held on until the demon crumpled, with bloody scratches all down his left arm. While Zervos attacked a second demon, Lisabelle went after a third, a Demon of Fire like the one that had attacked Keller and me. It was having trouble with all the rain; there was a constant hissing as water met fire.

“Why mess with a good idea?” Lisabelle called to me over her shoulder. She called more water to dump on top of the fire demon.

The hissing and crackling fire that made up its body dimmed and sputtered.

I looked up to find that Zervos was fighting his way to my side. He was bloodied and his ankle was hanging at such a funny angle that I tried not to look at it. But his black eyes were still bright. While Lisabelle kept on fighting the demons, Zervos limped over to me.

“That ring suits you better, does it?” he demanded, pointing at my Astra ring.

I nodded. “It was the only one I could find.”

“It was the old Queen’s,” said Zervos. “She would want it to be used for this.”

I could only nod.

“We have to stop the demons before they overrun this place,” said Zervos. He looked at Lisabelle, doggedly fighting them off.

“Was it the President?” he asked in an undertone.

“Yes.”

Professor Zervos closed his eyes briefly. “Get Keller, Cale, Lisabelle, and Lanca,” he ordered. “That should do it.”

Everywhere there was battle. It had taken Lisabelle ten minutes to get us to Zervos, and he hadn’t been very far away. I had yet to see Cale or Lanca. There was no way I could find them without getting killed – or worse – by a demon. Students were fighting and dying everywhere.

Zervos saw the look on my face and placed his bloody left hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Lanca prepared everyone as best she could. She will make a great leader one day.”

I nodded, but I didn’t feel like sending the Strix to Lanca with my warning had been enough, not if students were still dying.

“How do I get them?”

Zervos gave a thin smile and reached a finger toward my ring. It sparked at his touch. He moved his hand away, his smile widening.

Shaking off my frustration and fear, I tried to block out the battle around me. Now I touched my ring myself, and power blazed. It was a comforting hum through my body.

As if from a distance I saw Zervos nod his approval. Just that morning I wouldn’t have listened to him if he had told me a piano was about to fall on my head, and now I was putting the fate of the paranormal world in his hands. I just hoped I was right.

I thought of the people Zervos had told me to call: Lisabelle, who was always ready for a fight; Cale, who was loyal to Camilla; Lanca and her dark confidence; and Keller, who was brilliant, reliable, good at Dash, quiet, observant.... Okay, I had to stop now. Demons were attacking.

I continued to think of the four of them until a hand gripped my shoulder. It was Cale. He had a long scratch down one side of his face, but otherwise he looked unharmed. Keller and Lanca stood behind him. Lisabelle was still blocking demons, but Zervos had gone to help her. She would be with us soon.

Lanca looked fine, but her eyes had gone a disturbing shade of red. I didn’t know that happened to vampires and I definitely didn’t want to know why. Lisabelle joined us.

“It’s about time,” said Lanca.

“Hey,” said Lisabelle. “I’m supposed to be the sarcastic one of the bunch.”

Lanca smiled. “There is room enough for both of us. In fact, there is room enough for five.” Her smile was without humor as she watched the demons come.

We clasped hands. Just as we did, the demons converged on us, sensing my power. All other fighting stopped as the demons dropped weapons and stopped throwing fire. They were barreling toward us.

Zervos went down. Now demons had a clear path to us, converging from all sides.

“Now,” cried Lanca. The five of us joined hands. Keller was on one side of me, Lisabelle on the other. Keller’s hand was calloused and warm. I held it tighter. When the five of us clasped hands, power surged. This whole time I had worried that we were missing something. We couldn’t afford to get to this point and then fail. It was a relief to see our rings blaze, to feel power coursing through my body, to know that the five of us were enough.

“Now,” I cried.

Lanca was the one directing our combined power. Keller was right behind her. All they needed was my type of power, but any elemental would have done. The five powers screamed together, rushing into one ball of fiery magic. Lisabelle’s was black, but also white, for Airlee. It mixed with Keller’s silver, Cale’s green, and my blue. Lanca’s magic was a deep maroon, a pooling of black and red. It wrapped around the rest of our magics, cradling them.

The hellhounds weren’t smart enough to stop. The first hellhounds that came towards us leapt, hitting our wall of magic. They incinerated.

The demons slowed. Through our wall of power I could see the Demons of Knight hesitating. Two Demons of Speed darted forward. They thought they were faster than our magic. They thought they were faster than Keller’s reflexes. They were wrong.

In all of our concentration on the demons, one hellhound got through. I heard Cale cry out as the demon tore into his arm. He had some protection because he was still wearing his Dash uniform, but I could see blood seeping through his clothing.

“Don’t let go,” Lisabelle yelled. Cale looked at her, pain filling his eyes.

Cale tried to hang on. For a moment he did, but the hellhound was too strong. With one last scream Cale was yanked out of the circle and the Power of Five vanished.

Our rings dulled. With the sudden loss of the wonderful magic my head throbbed. Lanca, Keller, and Lisabelle didn’t look like they were in much better shape. Lisabelle looked like she was about to be sick. Keller dropped his hands to his knees, his head bowed. Only Lanca kept her eyes on the battle. Her back was ramrod straight as she stared down the demons. We were surrounded.

“Back up,” Lanca cried, glaring at the demons.

I looked for Cale, but he was gone. There was only a bloody streak on the grass where he had been. I could feel the heat from a Demon of Burning on the side of my face. I saw shadows flicker in Keller’s eyes.

“Give us the elemental,” said a Demon of Knight. He came through the crowd, his armor clanking. I hadn’t known demons could speak. He was pointing a black sword at my heart.

Lanca was about to say something, but I stepped forward.

“I’ll die first,” I told him.

The demon laughed. It sounded like wind whipping through an empty fireplace, filled with hollowness, old smoke, and ashes.

“You’ll die anyway.” I could feel the pressure of his words. We couldn’t give the demons this kind of time. They were gathering their own darkness magic.

Then something small and green sped past my face, moving so fast it almost knocked. me back. Professor Korba materialized in front of us, and he wasn’t alone. He was making way for someone, giving her enough time to get to us.

Then Camilla appeared behind him. Keller and Lisabelle saw her instantly, and the three of them joined hands.

“Lanca,” I yelled. She was still beating up on hellhounds. At the sound of her name she spun around and her eyes landed on Camilla. For the second time this afternoon, representatives of Cruor, Aurum, Astra, Volans, and Airlee joined hands.

“Wow,” Camilla breathed. Her eyes never left my face.

Now we had the strength to drive the oncoming demons back. I never thought I would see the day that a Public professor would dive behind a bunch of students for safety, but that’s what Korba did when the five of us joined hands.

The oncoming demons never had a chance. Our power lanced out, lashing into them. My eyes were closed in concentration, but I heard popping around me as demons were vaporized. I opened my eyes to see them being driven back. Some were disappearing. Others were being chase away by students. I felt Keller give my hand a squeeze. I smiled.

“You can stop now,” I heard Lanca’s voice say. I looked at the vampire princess. She was still standing in the circle, holding hands with Keller and Camilla. There were still demons on the field, but they were no longer attacking. Many looked battered, some were dead.

“We did it,” said Camilla in awe. “I never thought we’d be the ones to do it.”

“If the professors hadn’t deserted us we might not have had to be,” said Lisabelle.

I stepped forward, letting go of my friends’ hands. Something still felt wrong.

“We still have something to do,” I said, looking around. Students were everywhere, helping other students. Many were trying to get the injured out of the rain. I wondered where nurse Tabby was, but I didn’t want to think about the injured or the dead just yet.

I saw Lough coming toward us. His arm was hanging limp at his side and there was a cut on his mouth, but he was alive. I ran to him. “What happened?” I asked, reaching him.

He spat out a mouthful of water. “You should see the other guy.”

He looked over my right shoulder, seeing something far away on the hill. “You going to deal with that?” he asked, pointing with his good arm. I turned around. There, standing on the hill, was what I had forgotten.

The President. She was dressed in black, and her steel grey hair was flowing down around her. Now that I saw her, she looked crazy. I wondered if she always had and I had just missed it. I had just thought of her as an authority figure, not as something flesh and blood that could lose her mind. Flanking her were two hellhounds. Drool and spit were coming out of their mouths. Someone, probably a few professors if any were still alive, would probably find it interesting that the President had the loyalty of hellhounds just like demons did.

When my eyes locked with hers, the hellhounds charged. Before I could race forward, my friends came from both sides of me, running up the hill to meet the hellhounds. I heard the clash of battle as hellhound met student. I was getting tired of my friends protecting me from every danger, but they weren’t. They took care of the hellhounds, but they left the President for me.

I looked for Zervos, but he was crumpled on the ground. He would be no help in a fight against such a powerful mage.

Coming down the hill toward me, she looked taller than she was. I tried not to let it scare me. Her grayish-brown power gathered around her hands and arms. There wasn’t a magical type that had grayish brown power; the color meant that her magic was sick. The sight of it was more horrifying than confronting a hellhound. I now knew what the figure of my mother had meant in the pond that morning outside the President’ office. Someone very close to me couldn’t be trusted. The President herself.

Without warning she sent power skidding toward me. I dived out of the way, rolling as I hit the ground.

“Don’t fight this, Charlotte,” she called. Her voice was high pitched and screechy. “All the other elementals fought it. Look what happened to them.”

Anger washed over me like the rain. I pushed myself to my knees. “How dare you talk about them?” I demanded.

She threw her head back and laughed. “I spent years killing them. It was so easy. You elementals never knew how to stand together. Just like the other paranormals don’t now. It makes it so easy. Nineteen years ago we thought we had gotten them all, your dad being the last. We had no idea he had gotten some woman pregnant. If your mother hadn’t been a mage we would have known about you long ago, but your mother was smart. As far as anyone in Airlee can be, that is.”