Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) (10 page)

“How did you even know how to get
here?” Sip asked. “I can’t see a thing.”

“My dad made me memorize the way
when I was a little girl,” Lanca explained softly. “It was a game we would play
on rainy nights. My mom and my sister would be asleep and my dad would wake me
up and say ‘count to 100, then come find me.’”

“Did you always find him?”

“It took me years,” said Lanca,
her voice warming at the memory. I had never met the vampire king, but I had
heard of his great love for his family. Lanca missed him dearly.

“So, he wanted you to know how to
find a rock wall?” I asked. I could see enough to know that we were staring at
the side of the mountain. There was no way through.

“It’s not a rock wall,” said
Lanca, as she held her hand up and stuck it into a place that was about the
height of Sip’s elbow. Her thin hand was quickly swallowed by shifting rock.

“It’s silent,” Sip murmured in
wonder, and it was true, there were no sounds around us. Not the running of
water or the skitter of little feet, just an enveloping silence.

“This should be creepy,” said
Sip.

“But it isn’t, because you’re
with me?” Lisabelle asked cheerfully.

“No, you make things more creepy,
not less,” said Sip, staring at the place where Lanca’s hand had disappeared.

“Aww, thank you,” said Lisabelle.
“Whenever I start to think well of myself I just talk to you. Shapes me right
up.”

“Any old time, Roomie,” said Sip.
“And I like my neon decorations.”

“You’re the only person on campus
who thinks they look good, Bad Interior Decorator Party of One. And stop
calling me Roomie.”

“Make me,” said Sip, folding her
arms over her chest and setting her chin in a stubborn line.

“Don’t tempt me,” Lisabelle
warned.

Lanca gave me a crooked smile and
I just shook my head.

The rock started to crumble and
Lanca said, “Step forward.”

“If a mountain is falling in on
us, don’t you think we should step back, not forward?” Sip asked nervously. “I
prefer back.”

“Yes, but that’s not what is
happening. The door to my father’s secret study is opening. We are about to
enter the only safe haven Locke has to offer.”

Safe haven was a good description.
Burning on the other side of the crumbling rock was an eternal glow.

“Cool,” Sip breathed, as the rock
fell faster. Soundlessly the rock hit the floor and disappeared.

“It wasn’t a wall at all,” said
Lisabelle. “Impressive.”

“Of course it’s impressive,”
Lanca muttered. “It was my dad’s idea.”

In fact, we were not yet at his
study, we were in another tunnel. But this one was wider and well lit and the
floor was smooth stone instead of scraggly dirt. At the other end I could see
the door, only instead of rock it was made of heavy wood, with long black metal
straps across it.

“Nice,” Lough said. “I couldn’t
dream this up.”

“My dad could,” said Lanca,
looking around proudly. “Apparently he had it built when he had children, in
case we ever needed a safe place. Well, he probably wasn’t planning to die, but
I need a safe place.”

She stepped into the corridor as
the four of us followed behind. What could Lanca’s father have possibly thought
would go wrong that she would need a room that no one else knew about?

“Does Dirr know about this?” I
asked.

“No,” said Lanca. “Not yet. I
haven’t had time to show her, and I don’t want to worry her. She’s pretty
upset, and she just got back from Public.”

We were now in King Daemon’s
study. Each wall was lined with black leather bound books. There were heavy
black velvet drapes that could be pulled across the walls to cover the shelves
of books, and the carpet was thick and red, so plush that it felt like several
carpets stacked on top of each other. All around were chairs and sofas, and in
the center was a large desk strewn with papers.

Lanca sank into the leather chair
that was pushed up against the large desk.

I had thought she looked tired
before, but the way she wilted into her father’s chair made me realize that she
had been trying hard to appear upbeat, and now, in the safety of King Daemon’s
sanctuary, she could finally crumble.

It was a long time before she
stopped crying. Sip and I went to her instantly, while Lough sat awkwardly on
one of the couches and Lisabelle prowled the room, examining everything.

It was something I had recently
noticed about Lisabelle. She wanted to see everything in a room, examine it and
touch it, learn its nuances. I wondered why it had taken me so long to notice.

When she made a move toward King
Daemon’s papers, Lanca stirred.

Hiccupping, she wiped the back of
her hand across her eyes while Sip fished a handkerchief out of the desk.

“I know I’m being silly,” Lanca
sniffed. “I’m going to be queen, and here I am crying like a baby. No wonder my
advisors are worried.”

“Who exactly is worried?”
Lisabelle asked, still gently moving papers around on the table.

“I haven’t even had a chance to
look at those,” said Lanca. “It’s so hard to get away. Dacer had to help me,”
she said, glancing at me. My ears perked up at the sound of my mentor’s voice,
but I wanted to hear the answer to Lisabelle’s question, so I didn’t ask where
he was. I was just glad he was helping.

“Castov, for one,” said Lanca
bitterly. “And his ridiculous spawn Faci. They are pretend worried, anyway.”

“Who is Castov?” I asked. The
name wasn’t familiar, and I was only just realizing how much I didn’t know
about the paranormal world outside Public.

“My father’s ‘most trusted’
advisor,” said Lanca, shivering a little. “I never liked him, and since my
father died he has become unbearable. He has actually asserted that my father
agreed for me to marry Faci, that is, that we are officially betrothed.”

“Even though they’re not of royal
blood,” said Lough. “Castov is pushing hard for the union.”

“Basically he wants to rule the
Rapiers, and he thinks he’ll get his wish if I marry his son,” Lanca explained,
staring at the walls absently.

“How old is his son?” Sip asked.

Lisabelle snorted. “Seventeen.”

Sip rolled her eyes. “What are
you going to do?”

Lanca shrugged. “I agreed to the
‘betrothal’ to shut Castov up. The more I’m around Faci, though, the more I
think I can’t possibly marry him. He is evil, maybe not naturally evil like the
demons, but evil nonetheless.”

“He’s good friends with Validification,”
said Lisabelle. She was walking slowly around the room, looking at every book.
Some she picked up and examined, always carefully, while others she merely
brushed her hand over. “They’re two peas in a black pod.”

“So, Daisy and Dobrov are here?”
I said. Dobrov Validification had turned out to be a powerful ally. He and his
twin sister Daisy, who had a hate-hate relationship with Lisabelle dating from
when they were children, had started at Public that fall. They were hybrids,
half vampire and half darkness mage. It was not a good combination. They had
boiled-looking skin that often broke out into sores. Dobrov had spent the fall
barely talking, while Daisy had made it clear that she would rather kill you
than exchange words.

But Dobrov had helped save us in
the forest the night our Tactical team was sent out to face demons. Since then,
I had thought of him as a friend - kind of.

“Daisy is here,” said Lough,
chewing on his lower lip. “Girl makes me nervous. But Dobrov won’t be here
until tomorrow. Daisy has been enough of a handful all by herself.”

“I can imagine,” said Lisabelle
dryly. Daisy’s arrival at Public last year was the first time I had ever seen
Lisabelle rattled.

“Is Castov the one spying on
you?”

Lanca sighed. “I don’t know.
Either that or it’s one of the other vampires families. Or both. You should be
careful of any vampire who does not wear my crest.” She pointed to her
shoulder, on which there was a tiny red design of a Rapier, the sign of her
sect.

“Castov wears your crest though,
does he not?” Lisabelle asked shrewdly. “As does his child Faci.”

Lanca rested her elbows on her
father’s desk and rubbed her temples tiredly. “So, just be careful of everyone.
Lisabelle, that shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

Lisabelle wandered over to the
desk and stared down at one of King Daemon’s papers. “Does Castov know about
this place?”

“No,” said Lanca quickly. “My
father didn’t tell anyone but me. It was his way of making sure that I had a
safe place to go. Recently I’ve wished I could stay here forever. He kept some
very important Rapier heirlooms here. I would not bring anyone here that I did
not trust implicitly.”

She said it wistfully, but I knew
part of her really did want that peace and safety. No matter what, from now on
Lanca would never have either, no matter how long she lived.

I wondered if one of the
heirlooms she was talking about was the Fang First. It was one of the artifacts
of the Paranormal Wheel, and I knew at least two people, Risper and Malle, who
would love to have it in their possession.

“Don’t you have other friends who
can advise you?” Lough asked. “There were always vampires around you at school.
Some gave their lives.” During my first semester at Public a vampire named Tale
had died saving Lanca when we were under attack. It was something that still
pained the vampire princess.

Lanca lifted a shoulder, her eyes
sad. “I have a couple of friends I trust, although recently they’ve questioned
whether or not that is true. But no, I don’t want to discuss these problems
with other vampires. They hit too close to home. You four, and Keller, are the
only ones I can talk to about them.”

“Is that what you wanted to talk
about? Castov trying to marry you to his son?”

“Oh no,” said Lanca. “I can
handle that. Faci is only a boy. I do believe, though, that my parents wanted
me to choose someone I loved, even if that is unusual for vampire princesses.”

“My parents just want me to find
someone who will tolerate me,” said Lisabelle thoughtfully. “They’ll be waiting
a rather long time, I’m afraid.”

“Basically, another me only less
cute, and male?” Sip asked.

“Yeah, just like that,” said
Lisabelle dryly.

“What else did you want to
discuss?” I said. My friends’ banter had a tendency to get us off track, and
Lanca clearly needed rest soon. She would have none in the days to come.

Lanca took a deep breath and I
braced myself for what she was about to say. When she tried to speak tears
filled her eyes. She needed several tries before she managed to get out, “I
think my father was murdered.”

Lisabelle frowned. “We know he
was murdered. The report is that he was attacked by demons. Do you not think
that’s true?”

“Oh, that’s definitely true,”
said Lanca. She absently shifted papers on her father’s desk. “I just don’t
think the demons tracked him down. I think a Rapier told them where to find
him. He never had a chance.”

“How awful,” said Sip, her eyes
filled with sadness. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

“Power,” said Lisabelle shrugging
to say it was obvious. Most paranormals who have it fight to keep it, and most
paranormals who don’t have it fight to get it.

“That’s not very specific,” said
Sip. “Power through . . . what means? What does a Rapier gain from King
Daemon’s death?”

“My father was trying to get
paranormals together to fight the demons,” Lanca explained. “The paranormal
police academy was his idea. Granted, it will take a while to get it off the
ground, but he was all in favor of working together and compromising. Fewer and
fewer paranormals support that these days.”

Just as Lanca was about to
explain something else, either about her coronation, her father’s death, or her
betrothal, there was a massive hammering at the door, and then the lights went
out.

Before I went to Public, if I had
been in a room that was suddenly plunged into darkness while I knew there were
assassins trying to kill me, I would have screamed.

Now I knew better. I knew to keep
quiet and keep breathing. Panic got you killed.

My friends and I closed ranks
around Lanca’s chair, forming a protective ring. Maybe it was silly to assume
that she was the target, given that we had one of a handful of living dream
givers with us, the only elemental, and Lisabelle, who, let’s face it, pretty
much everyone wanted dead.

“Can you turn on any light?” Sip
whispered. She didn’t sound scared, more like she was bracing herself for a
fight.

“Not a good idea,” Lisabelle
whispered. “We don’t want them to know where they are.” We were all touching
shoulders and arms so that we could keep track of everyone’s location even in
the dark.