Elemental Earth (Paranormal Public) (11 page)

“How are you, Nolan?” I asked the
werewolf.

He smiled brightly.

“I’m good,” he said. “Glad to see
the Public crowd again.”

“Did you read my latest missive
in the Tabble?” Sip asked curiously.

Nolan laughed. “All business,
huh? As a matter of fact, I did. Very well written.”

We passed several Golden Falls
students. They dressed in gold every day, apparently, and each one we passed
smiled brightly at all of us and nodded to me in particular. I blushed, feeling
uncomfortable.

“Do you want to come over later
and help me draft the latest round of plans?” Sip asked. “We have a whole suite
to ourselves.”

Before Nolan could answer he
scooted to the side of us, his eyes suddenly filled with worry. “Faci’s
coming.”

Indeed, Faci was coming down the
hall with Daisy walking next to him. We were heading right for them; there was
no way to avoid an encounter.

Faci came to a stop in front of
us and smiled. Well, sort of. It looked more like a cat about to eat a mouse.

“How are the newest Golden Falls
students settling in?” he asked coldly. “You know, I like it here so well I’m
thinking of staying on into next semester.”

“Bye,” said Lisabelle, crossing
her arms over her chest and pointing in the opposite direction. Her eyes were
pure steel.

Faci barely spared her a glance.
“Of course, I’d hate to leave you all alone. What would you do for fun without
me?”

“I’m sure we’d find something.
Just leave a picture of yourself. We’ll use it for dart practice,” said
Lisabelle, her jaw set as she lowered her hand.

Now Faci did look at her, but it
was Daisy who spoke. “You think you’re so clever. Just wait until the semester
is over, then see how clever you think you are.”

“Is that a threat?” Lisabelle
asked quietly, her dark eyes flashing. Daisy stepped forward, but Lisabelle
stood her ground, staring coldly at the hybrid.

“Maybe,” said Daisy. She gave a
thin smile. “Maybe it is.”

“Golden Falls doesn’t condone
violence,” said Nolan warningly. Daisy gave him a once-over with her eyes and
sniffed disdainfully before returning her attention to Lisabelle. I saw Nolan
pale from the hybrid’s attention.

“Well,” said Lisabelle coolly,
“I’ve been threatened before.”

Daisy shook her head. “Not like
this. Just watch yourself. You aren’t at a school anymore that will tolerate
your antics.”

“News flash,” said Sip, “Public
didn’t tolerate her antics either.”

“Daisy,” said Lough, stepping
around us. “How is it that Dobrov is looking more and more like a paranormal
and you’re looking more and more like a boiled sweet potato?”

Daisy lunged at Lough, but Faci
caught her. “Don’t waste your energy,” he advised. “There will be time enough
later to deal with dream givers who don’t know their place.”

“I have a pretty good idea of my
place,” Lough gritted out. “You’re the one who’s confused.”

Now Faci really did smile. What
passed for his lip curled back and his sunken eyes got smaller. His gums were
black around the edges. “Let’s go.”

Once they had passed, Sip said,
“Are those two dating?”

Nolan, who had flattened his back
against the ornate wall as the duo passed, unstuck himself. Lisabelle gave him
a bemused look. “Here I was thinking you were brave.”

“Ew, could they really be
dating?” said Lough in horror. “I swear, if Faci has gotten a girlfriend before
me. . . .” He just shook his head angrily as Sip gave him a sympathetic pat.

“Maybe he’ll stay here next
year,” she said. “They can beat the darkness right out of him.”

“Not likely they’ll want to keep
him,” said Nolan. His eyes were fixed and his voice shook.

“Still, maybe we’ll get lucky,”
said Lisabelle. “Then again, he didn’t seem to think we were going to live
until next year. We can’t die this semester. We have too much to do.”

The only reason I’d been worried
about coming here this semester was because other than missing Paranormal
Public, I felt sure that it would set me back in my efforts to find the objects
on the Wheel. Despite my hopes to the contrary, it was probably also going to
set me back in my attempt to understand why elementals had murdered my mother,
who was the mother of her own elemental. But I was here now, and I had to make
the best of it, starting with breakfast.

Breakfast was served outside in
the walled courtyard we’d feasted in the day before. I expected a simple setup,
with maybe some cereals, toasts, and jams, after last night’s extravaganza, but
I was starting to find out that Golden Falls University didn’t do simple. They
did spectacle, and they did it very well.

“Who are they?” As I said it I
pointed to two men dressed in bronze, who flanked the glass double doors we had
just come through.

“Golden Falls Happiness
Enforcement Officers,” said Nolan brightly, as if it should have been obvious.

“Ah, um, I guess the name says it
all?” I asked uncertainly.

Nolan chuckled. “They just help
keep peace.”

“Given how opposed this place is
to war, I’m surprised they’re needed,” Lisabelle commented. Her customary black
clothing contrasted sharply with all the gold and other bright colors around
us. As usual, she didn’t appear to care.

“Hi, I’m Pearl,” said a Golden
Falls student who came up to me just as we were getting our food, and stuck out
her hand. She had masses of brown hair, a sprinkling of freckles, and a bright
smile. She was only a little taller than Sip.

“Um, hi,” I said, trying to
balance the plate I had piled high with food while shaking her hand. I had gone
a little overboard on breakfast. We all had, never having seen so many good
things to eat in one place before. Pearl just had fruit and a biscuit on her
white porcelain plate.

“I wanted to welcome you to
Golden Falls,” she said, giving me a warm handshake. “We’re thrilled to have
the last elemental here this semester.”

We talked for a few minutes. She
informed me that if we ever had any questions, any at all, we should come
straight to her, or really any Golden Falls student. The only time her chipper
behavior slipped was when Lisabelle joined us. She tried to keep the
conversation going, but her heart wasn’t in it. After only a couple more
sentences she excused herself, giving Lisabelle a wide berth.

“She left fast after I showed
up,” the darkness mage commented, chewing on a strawberry.

“I’m sure she just wanted to let
us eat our breakfast in peace,” said Sip, munching on peach slices covered in
honey.

After breakfast Nolan led us to
our first lesson. I was expecting something amazing, and of course we got it.
The class was run by a woman named Annabelle, who was dressed in a silvery
gown, with silvery hair piled on top of her head. She was going to teach us the
art of “Veneer,” which was basically a form of concealment. “Given these
dreadful times,” she explained, “we need all the help we can get.”

I left the class completely
confident that if necessary I could hide the small pimple at the base of my
cheek, although what that had to do with stopping demons was any paranormal’s
guess.

The next class was much the same,
right down to being taught by another beautiful woman. It didn’t surprise me
when one of the Golden Falls students told me that this was Annabelle’s sister,
Marybelle. They looked strikingly similar. She wanted us to learn “Presenting,”
which Lisabelle said historically was a form of proper dueling, but in this
class had more to do with serving an excellent dessert.

“I still like this place,” said
Sip thoughtfully, “but they have strange ideas about what’s important.” She had
tried to bring up the Sign of Six but had been shut down with a curt, “We do
not discuss violence here.” Sip had sat back and folded her arms, looking
disgruntled.

We were on our way to our third
class, still full from lunch, when Kia finally appeared. We hadn’t seen her
since the night before, because at some point she had disappeared with Camilla.
Now, luckily, she was alone.

But she passed us without
looking, as if she was afraid to make eye contact. Sip punched Lisabelle in the
arm.

“What’d you do?” demanded the
small werewolf, her eyes blazing. “You scared her off.”

“I did not,” Lisabelle protested,
holding up her hands in surrender. “I haven’t even talked to her since we got
here.”

“Well, something’s wrong with
her,” I said, watching Kia walk away. She passed a mirror gilded in gold, but
she didn’t pause to look into it. She passed other Golden Falls students, but
she jumped out of their way as if they’d burn her if she got too close.

Lisabelle grabbed my arm and
pulled me down the hall. “You can talk to her when we’re all back in the suite
tonight.”

“Yes,” said Sip, “I don’t want to
be late for this next class.”

“What is it?” Lisabelle asked.

“Ancient symbols,” I said
automatically. I’d been studying our schedule, which had arrived for us in
sealed envelopes and was handwritten in gold ink.

This subject was a long time
coming for us. The magical world was filled with symbols of power, and we had
studied them a bit over the years while we focused on other topics, but this
would be different. This would be a focused study of one of the most important
elements in the paranormal world.

“Who’s teaching it?” I asked. I
had been more concerned with what we were taking than with who was teaching the
various classes. None of my professors here could possibly compare with
Professor Dacer.

“I’ve never heard of him,” said
Lisabelle, shrugging. “Then again, I hadn’t heard of Annabelle either.” She
made a fake coughing motion and covered her mouth with her hand.

We walked into the room. I had
fully expected another grand classroom, complete with a gold fountain and maybe
a piano, but now I halted in surprise, because we weren’t in a classroom at
all, but a library. Just not a kind of library I’d ever seen before.

“What is all this?” Sip breathed,
looking around. The place was nothing like the rest of Golden Falls. There were
shelves everywhere, covered in strange-looking objects. Some were just pieces
of paper, while others were wooden or metal. Some were made out of substances
that I didn’t recognize. It was like a mad scientist’s workshop.

The floor was dusty and covered
with what looked like old newspapers. It was hard to walk without stepping on
one.

“This is crazy,” said Sip.
“Hasn’t this guy heard of a broom?”

“As many of you know,” came a
voice from somewhere in front of us, sounding more scholarly and dreamy than
present, “brooms have always been the ancient symbol of witches. They were used
first by witches as a means of travel, but later they became a symbol
indicating in which direction to travel. The current use of the broom symbol is
for flying. Have no fear, that will not be on the test, though I do have a
number of eighteenth century brooms in . . . well, they’re here somewhere,
should students want to study them more closely.

We exchanged glances as our
professor came into the light.

“I’d say mad scientist is a pretty
perfect description for that guy, wouldn’t you?” Trafton said. “What sort of
paranormal is he?”

“Can you get a look at his ring?”

“Um, no, his hands have gloves on
them, probably to handle all the fragile objects he has here.”

“Maybe he too wears a black
ring,” said Lisabelle. “If he doesn’t, I bet he knows all about them.”

“Why, because he’s a mad
professor?” Sip’s voice was much softer now.

The professor had white hair
sticking up at all angles. He wore spectacles that were so large they covered
half his face. I was pretty sure he hadn’t changed his clothes in weeks,
because they were rumpled and worn and there was a bit of muffin hanging off
his sleeve. Now that I was standing in the dingy room I could see a cot in one
corner, which I’d have bet anything was where he slept. Annabelle and her
fellow teachers must hate this professor.

He clapped his hands together as
we assembled. All the Public students, plus lots of Golden Falls students, like
Pearl, were in this class.

The Golden Falls students clustered
together. One girl, standing nearby, had very long red hair and pale skin. She
smiled at me. I smiled back. She whispered something to a girl standing next to
her and the girl stared at me in wonder. Sometimes being the only elemental
meant having very uncomfortable social interactions.

“I’m Professor Ferwick,” said the
rumpled teacher, gathering our attention. “Um, let’s see, what else do you need
to know?”

The red-haired girl raised her
hand. “Can you tell us what that symbol is?” she asked, pointing to the wall.
She wore several rings, all jeweled. The symbol was a jagged line with a
rearing tiger.

“Ah, yes, that’s fascinating.
It’s a small European tribe, now extinct,” said Professor Ferwick. “They were
known for their fighting skills and their loyalty. If you left the tribe you
were never allowed to return. Unfortunately, their numbers were small, which
meant two things in their history. First, they were more vicious than most
paranormals, thus the jagged line. Secondly, they were easy for an army of
vampires to wipe out, which is unfortunately what happened. But for a while
they were feared by all.”