Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) (7 page)

“Who is that with him?” I asked.
Standing a few feet away was a figure shrouded in dark clothing.

Helen squinted. “I can’t see his
face.”

“Something’s wrong here,”
muttered Lisabelle. “If the government wanted to send us a message about dear
old Charlotte, this is not how they’d do it.”

“Did you just call me dear?” I
asked, teasing despite the darkness around us.

Lisabelle didn’t respond. She
didn’t like it when we teased her about her loyalty to us, and to be fair, I
knew she would be loyal until the end.

“What did he say?” Sip asked
eagerly as Hyder came back to the car. I watched Doblan walk toward us.

“He said that the main roads
aren’t safe,” said Hyder grimly, putting the car into reverse. “He suggested we
take some of the back roads to steer clear of the demon patrols.”

“We should have run and let them
fly,” said Helen worriedly as the car got moving again. “They said not to take
a car.”

“We just didn’t have time,” said
Hyder defensively. “And since when is car travel not safe for paranormals?”

“Since the demons started
patrolling,” said Sip, but she wasn’t looking at her dad, she was looking at
Lisabelle. Our darkness friend was sitting ramrod straight in her seat, staring
around.

“This is bad,” she said, her
voice low. “I am not sure we should listen to Doblan.”

“Just because you don’t trust
anyone doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t,” said Helen. “Doblan is an old friend
and a member of the council. He can be trusted.”

“Maybe before he could be,”
Lisabelle cautioned. “But nothing is as it was.”

“We don’t really have a choice,”
said Hyder, his voice tight. “He warned us off the main road and there is just
this one back road. The three of us could run and Lisabelle could probably
manage, but that still leaves Charlotte.”

“I’d be fine,” I said, trying to
sound confident. “There are some serious protections on me when I leave
Public.”

“But you are our responsibility,”
said Mrs. Quest. “We can’t just leave you and there’s no point in changing form
if we can’t run.”

“Maybe I should take the car
alone, or Lisabelle, can you conjure a broom?”

Lisabelle shrugged. “I could try,
but I’ve never done it before. It might not work very well. Have you ever
flown?”

“No,” I said, sighing. “And using
magic might not be the best idea right now. All it would do is draw attention
to us.”

“Attention from the demons who
are supposedly crawling everywhere that we’ve seen no sign of?” Lisabelle
asked, her voice biting.

“Lisabelle,” said Sip. “Do you
really not trust Doblan?”

Up front, Mrs. Quest made a
disappointed noise in the back of her throat. Her daughter was betraying her.

“I think we should be ready for
anything,” said Lisabelle. “And no, I don’t.” She continued to stare out the
window; her eyes never stopped moving.

“That’s unfortunate,” said Hyder,
“because he’s riding the rest of the way with us.” Lisabelle didn’t have time
to protest, because after one nod from Hyder, Doblan climbed into the front
seat as Helen scooted into the middle next to her husband. After brief
introductions, which were awkward because Lisabelle refused to speak, Doblan
bundled up his coat and appeared to go to sleep. We drove on in silence.

“Charlotte, what did Dacer say
when you called him?” Sip whispered to me.

“He told me to be careful and
that we might enact The Power of Five at the coronation,” I whispered back.

Lisabelle nodded absently. “So,
he’s expecting trouble?”

“I think it’s safe to say we and
trouble go hand in hand,” said Sip. “I mean, what would a semester be without
trouble?” She sighed thoughtfully. “I might learn to knit or something.”

“Like I’m going to hang out with
you when you’re holding sharp objects,” said Lisabelle.

“I hang out with you and you
still have your tongue,” said Sip.

Lisabelle took her eyes off the
road long enough to stick her tongue out at her roommate.

“Clever.”

“Thanks.”

It was now fully dark.

The road in front of us was still
pavement, but it was bumpy and cracked in places. Trees created a canopy on
either side of the road that took away the view of the hills in front of us and
the night sky above.

Every so often a star winked
through, but mostly the world around us was black shadow. It reminded me of
last semester when we went out into the woods to fight demons.

This was just like that.

We were in the demons’ favorite
environment. Suddenly what Doblan had said didn’t look so convincing.

As I watched the road, our two
pinpricks of light from the car's headlights reaching only a little bit ahead,
I started to get nervous. I could see that Sip’s parents were on edge as well.
Hyder might have tried to sound relaxed about our change of course, but beads
of sweat were dripping down the sides of his neck and the knuckles that gripped
the steering wheel were turning blue from the tension of holding on so hard.

Next to him Helen was silent, but
her eyes held fear. Doblan was snoring quietly. For the first council member I
had met he was pretty unimpressive.

“Doblan wouldn’t lie to us, would
he?” she whispered to her husband.

“I don't know anymore,” Hyder
murmured back, eyeing the sleeping fallen angel. “But we didn't have a choice.”

He said it as if he was trying to
convince himself as much as he was trying to convince us. Doblan was a powerful
fallen angel, and if he told Hyder to take a different route, particularly if
he put the weight of the council behind it, there was not much Mr. Quest could
do about it.

I now felt in danger and exposed,
whereas before I had simply been looking forward to getting to Vampire Locke,
as much as anyone can look forward to traveling to console a dear friend on the
death of a loved one. And for Lanca, it was also the death of the life she had
expected to have. There had never been any denying that Lanca would one day
rule, but everyone had thought that day was far off.

Now - it was not.

Next to me, Sip and Lisabelle
were silent. At some point Sip’s ring had started to glow, which meant that she
was getting ready to call on it if necessary.

“Now, kids,” said Helen, half
turning so that she could look directly at us, “in the event that there is
something wrong I don’t want you fighting. Let Hyder and me take care of it.”

“But Mom,” Sip started to
protest.

“No,” said Helen firmly. “I would
never forgive myself if something happened to you or your friends. For once in
your life, please do not argue.”

“That’s asking a lot,” said Lisabelle
with amusement. “Let me know how that goes for you. I tried to argue with her
about our neon room decorations . . . and she shut me right down!”

“Lisabelle,” said Helen, “for
once it would be nice not to have the sarcasm.”

“Mom,” said Sip hotly. “It’s how
she communicates. Leave her alone.”

“The road is turning to dirt up
ahead,” Lisabelle murmured.

“How did you know that?” Helen
asked.

But she was not destined to get
an answer.

I had never been in a car
accident before, so when something slammed into the front of our car I felt at
first as if I was flying forward in slow motion. I didn’t see it coming, and it
was not like we hit it. It hit us. I felt Sip’s hand close around my wrist, the
only solid anchor in a world suddenly shattering.

The next thing I knew I was
flying from the car.

Lying on cold grass.

Screaming.

A burst of light and fire.

Crackling.

The smell of smoke.

Silence.

Growling.

An explosion. Definitely the car.
Or what used to be the car.

Throbbing. Somewhere close by. I
looked down. Sip’s hand was still closed around mine.

I felt a slight dusting cold all
over my body and looked down to see a million tiny diamonds.

Sip and I had been thrown from
the wrecked car together.

Turned out the windows had
shattered on top of us.

We now lay side by side at the
base of the trees. As I raised my head to stare at my friend I saw that she was
lying prone, right next to me, and that there was something black snaking down
the side of her head.

She was unconscious and bleeding.

I looked around, waiting for my
eyes to adjust to the carnage.

I wanted to get up, but I didn’t
want to stop touching Sip. Somehow it felt like that connection kept us safe.

“Sip?” I asked, rolling toward
her and trying to rouse her with my free hand. “Sip, please.”

My friend’s eyes fluttered.
Quickly, I used my sleeve to press against her wound, while my eyes searched
for other injuries. She looked otherwise unharmed. Sighing with relief, I
called her name over and over. Smoke drifted over us from the car, periodically
obscuring her too-pale face.

Finally her eyes opened.

“CHARLOTTE? SIP?” came
Lisabelle’s frantic scream.

“Aw, roomie misses me,” Sip
muttered. “Isn’t that adorable?”

“It’s something like that,” I
muttered. “Can you stand?”

“Yes,” said Sip. “I think I’m
fine. Lisabelle came running toward us. She looked completely unharmed. Even
her hair was still perfect.

“Sometime you have to teach me
that trick,” said Sip.

My darkness friend was a sight to
see when she was angry, so much so that I was relieved that she wasn’t angry
with me. Her eyes blazed and her shoulders were thrown back, while her mouth
was pressed into a thin, red line of fury.

She knelt down next to Sip. “Nice
to see you’re making it a thing to hit your head. It explains a lot.”

Sip glared at her roommate.
Lisabelle was referring to the previous semester, when Sip had been attacked in
the Long Building.

“Maybe if I stopped hanging out
with you, I’d stop getting injured so much,” Sip growled, pushing herself into
a sitting position with our help.

“Naw, you would miss me too much.
Besides, it’s Charlotte’s fault,” said Lisabelle, nodding in my direction.

“Thanks,” I muttered. Lisabelle
gave me an apologetic shrug. We both knew this sort of thing devastated me.

“Maybe it wasn’t Charlotte,” said
Lisabelle. “Doblan is probably sending all the paranormals this way.”

“Where is Doblan?” I asked,
looking at the carnage.

“And my parents,” Sip added
quietly.

We all looked back at the
wreckage.

“What hit us?” I asked, finally
remembering that we were probably still in danger.

“I have no idea,” said Lisabelle.
“But I haven’t had time to eviscerate it yet.”

“You have such a charming way
with words,” said Sip.

“Can you stand?” Lisabelle asked
Sip.

“Of course I can stand,” said Sip
indignantly.

With Lisabelle helping her on her
left side and me on her right, Sip got into a standing position - and wobbled.

“What were you saying about
standing?” Lisabelle asked, her firm hands supporting Sip.

“I never said I could do it
without help,” said Sip, grinning tiredly. “Parents.” She didn’t need to say
more.

“Right,” said Lisabelle grimly.
“Be careful.”

The fire from the car was already
dying down. As we made our way toward what used to be the car, I tried to keep
an eye on my surroundings. Something had slammed into our car with enough force
to throw me and my friends into the woods, and whatever it had been, it was now
nowhere to be seen. That just could not be good.

“I don’t see them,” said Sip, her
air of calm cracking a little. All around us was burning, charred, luggage
interspersed with small pieces of the car, but I didn’t see any bodies.

“I’ll go look,” I said, releasing
Sip to Lisabelle’s care. I knew neither of my friends wanted me to do that, but
Sip needed Lisabelle.

I called to my ring. Power flowed
through me as my vision washed in blue; it felt good after having been left
dormant through all of Christmas break. I thought about putting out the fires,
but decided there was no point. Whatever was out there already knew where we
were, and if they wanted us they could come and get us. My power was strong
from having rested for so long, and it flowed up from my core to pour easily
out of my hands. I found myself smiling as I looked for any sign of Sip’s
parents.

“Do you see them?” Sip called. I
was nearly to the other side of the road, where I felt heat from two familiar
bodies.