Elemental Earth (Paranormal Public) (14 page)

“If this is the end,” said Sip
sweetly, “I just want you to know that it’s been swell, and Lisabelle, you have
a horrible sense of home decor.”

I stifled a giggle.

“Says the girl who decorates in
neon,” Lisabelle muttered.

Zervos threw open the double
doors. A cold chill slammed into us, and I sucked air in through my teeth.

“Here goes nothing,” said Lough
from behind me.

We followed Zervos out and down
the steps. In front of us was a sea of gold. All the Golden Falls students
turned to look at us. Their faces were somber. The only noise was the sound of
our footsteps and the waterfall in the distance.

Standing in the center alone was
Sectar, an apex of power in the massive square. Gold robes whipped around him
in the cool air as he stood with his hands clasped in front of him and his head
held high. His face was unreadable.

Sectar waited until we were all
assembled in front of him. Even Zervos didn’t seem to know where to look or
what to do. He just stood with us.

Silence ticked through the
courtyard. Not one of the Golden Falls students moved. I saw Pearl, Jewel, and
Devlin, each looking somber. At Public the student body had never been so
quiet. We were growing into adulthood and we were allowed our little
rebellions. I hadn’t realized how unique our situation was until I came here.

Finally, Sectar moved.

“It has come to my attention that
one of yours has died while visiting Golden Falls,” said Sectar, his eyes two
depthless pools. “I think it’s despicable of you to come here, as guests no
less, and wreak such havoc on your hosts.” Sectar’s jaw was working and I could
now see how upset he was.

The president’s representative
started to pace in front of the sea of gold, but still no one else moved,
including Zervos. I was growing more nervous by the second, realizing that
Kia’s death had violated everything that Golden Falls purported to hold dear.

“We have given you every opportunity
to learn and grow. We want this to be a place of learning and safety. We want
those who come through our gates to be happy and safe. Instead, you allow petty
fights amongst yourselves to get in the way of this institution’s functioning.”

There were no trumpets, bubbles,
or fanfare, just a deafening silence.

Still, none of us moved.

“You will be glad to know that
the criminal who murdered Kia was apprehended last night,” said Sectar, his
voice now so low that we had to strain to hear. “The Enforcement Officers
caught a Public student trying to sneak off campus. In all my years here this
is the first time the Officers have had to arrest a paranormal. It makes me
ill. I take comfort in the fact that it was not one of our own, but an outsider,
who did the deed.”

If we had been at Public it would
have taken all semester to find out who had killed Kia, and Lisabelle would
probably have been accused and arrested at some point. Who was it? Camilla?
Faci? Would the vampire finally get his due?

I had to give Golden Falls
credit. They didn’t like darkness, but Lisabelle was still standing safely next
to me. I wondered if it was Camilla they had arrested. She was Kia’s best
friend, but the two had been on the outs recently. I wished I knew why.

“We have a long and storied
history here at Golden Falls of taking care of our own, and for anyone who
comes through our gates, of being responsible for our own behavior. That this
girl was trying to leave campus after having committed such a heinous act is
unforgivable. We have dealt with her and, given her circumstances, will
henceforth insist that she be kept a prisoner.”

I glanced at Zervos, feeling
nervous. His head was down and he was motionless. If it was Camilla who was
being brought before us, it meant that a Public student had committed the
murder. That was bad, and I wondered what Zervos would be forced to do. I
looked around frantically. Standing at the very back, where she hadn’t been
when we entered the square, was Camilla. My heart sank. That meant he couldn’t
be talking about her. Then who. . . .

“Bring forth the traitor,” Sectar
cried, waving his hands in the air.

A line of Enforcement Officers
came forward, then two students who stood facing us at one end of the ring
parted. Behind them was Faci. At first I couldn’t quite see what he held in his
hand, but when I did, I started to choke.

Faci dragged Vanni forward in
chains.

I was used to Faci doing evil,
but I was shocked that Golden Falls was letting him. I was equally shocked that
Vanni had obviously been beaten.

As if reading my mind Sectar
said, “Faci was instrumental in assisting the Happiness Enforcement Officers in
the capture of the murderer. To the victor go the spoils.”

Not that I would put anything
past Faci and Daisy at this point, that’s not what was so surprising. But
Vanni’s wounds weren’t healing, and that was unthinkable. As a fallen angel she
should have been able to heal herself quickly, but she was still dripping with
blood. Murmurs went up amongst the other Public students. The Golden Falls
students remained impassive.

“Here is your murderer,” said
Sectar. “She will be held in the dungeons until such time as we can decide what
to do with her. We at Golden Falls have a reputation of acting swiftly. We plan
on keeping it.”

Now Zervos had started forward.
Sectar noticed and shrugged. “In consultation with her chaperone, of course. I
must urge the rest of the Public students to be cautious as you go about your
day. These are dangerous times, and if you cannot trust your own” - he looked
at each of us in turn - “there are few places where you will find safety.”

“When they said come to Golden
Falls and experience a new kind of college, I didn’t realize that this was what
they had in mind,” said Sip, looking sadly at Vanni.

The fallen angel whimpered as
Faci pulled her chains tighter. Of course the chains were bright gold. I
imagined that they’d never actually been used before to restrain or imprison a
paranormal.

I glanced at Keller, who had
moved to stand next to Zervos. His face was unreadable, but his bright blue
eyes flamed. Vanni was an old friend and a fellow fallen angel and we all knew
that she hadn’t touched a hair on Kia’s head.

“You know,” said Lisabelle, “this
presents another problem.”

“What’s that?” Sip asked.

“Who really killed Kia?” I
whispered.

Sip marched up to Zervos. “How
can you let them do that?” she cried, gesturing wildly at the captured Vanni.
“She’s a student at Public and he has her in chains without so much as a trial,
and you’re just standing here There were tears of anger on Sip’s cheeks, but
she wasn’t going to stop. Zervos’s jaw tightened. Apparently Sip’s approval of
the Golden Falls doctrine of peace went only so far.

“She tried to run away,” said
Sectar smoothly, gliding over to us, his tall frame casting a long shadow.
“That is pretty damning evidence.”

“It’s not evidence at all,” Sip
yelled, swiping at the tear. “She was scared because one of us was
murdered
.”

Sectar shook his head. “We have
done something about it. We have arrested the culprit. Really, I don’t know
what else you could possibly ask of us. We have done so much already.” He
spread his arms wide and smiled around at the other Falls students. They smiled
back.

“What use are you?” Sip cried at
Zervos, stamping her foot.

She looked like she was about to
shove him. I hurried forward, but Keller was faster. Gently, he stepped between
Sip and Zervos, who was starting to show the strain of keeping his temper. I
was surprised he hadn’t already slapped Sip across the courtyard.

Keller bent down and whispered
something to Sip. Her expression didn’t change, but her hands unclenched a
little. She nodded once and then stalked back to us.

“Lough,” Sip motioned to the
dream giver, who was already starting in our direction, “let’s talk.” We
started to walk away, and I didn’t dare to look back at Zervos or Keller,
because I was afraid of what I might see.

“Yeah,” Lough said, still eyeing
Sip as if she might explode, “let’s talk about how high the body count’s going
to get by the end of the semester at this beautiful place of peace.”

“Do you think more of us are
going to die?” Trafton asked quietly.

“Not if we can find out who did
it first,” said Lisabelle, clenching her fingers at her sides.

“I thought you hated Kia,” said
Rake. The burly vampire stood with us, his beefy arms crossed over his chest
and his eyes filled with worry. I was relieved to have all of us there as we
streamed back to the girls’ suite, ignoring the curious stares of the Golden
Falls students. There was nowhere else we could go.

“She was alright,” said
Lisabelle. I could tell she was thinking about Kia having saved her life.

Nolan had started to follow us,
but Sip stopped again and held up her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but you
need to give us some space for now.”

Nolan didn’t argue. He looked
ashen against his gold uniform, but instead of saying anything he just turned
on his heel and walked away. Lisabelle raised an eyebrow at Sip. “‘Give us some
space?’”

Sip shrugged. “I wanted to be
polite about it.”

“When a demon is trying to kill
you are you going to be polite about it?” Lisabelle grumbled.

“I certainly wasn’t on the way
here,” Sip glared.

“Come on, let’s get back to our
suite. We have rules to break and ‘privacies’ to violate,” I muttered. I
whipped around and stalked away from the square.

“First we have to find out how
she died,” I said, pacing back and forth. My friends stood watching my frantic
movement. We were back in the privacy of our suite, but we had gone into our
own room, just in case Camilla decided to be around. The bedroom was just as
lavish as the rest of the suite. Everything was exactly where it should be,
except that there were blankets rumpled on the sky blue sofa, because that’s
where Lisabelle had decided to sleep, or rather nap. The darkness mage barely
slept these days.

“How do you propose to do that?”
Lisabelle demanded, hands on hips. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this
place doesn’t exactly support asking questions, or the notion that their
security might be lax. They have Happiness Enforcement Officers!”

I threw up my hands. “We could
ask Sectar how she died.”

“He let Faci have Vanni,” said
Sip quietly. “You really want to talk to Sectar?”

“No,” I said, looking away.
“You’re right, of course. You know, I’m thinking more and more that this place
might be nothing more than a very pretty cage.”

“Why does sneaking have to be
involved?” Sip complained. “Can’t we problem solve another way? Why do you say
it like it’s no big deal?”

“Look,” said Lisabelle, “I’ve
been wanting to explore anyway. What do they have hidden behind the gilded
walls and smiles? We should just see if we can find where they’re keeping the
record of Kia’s death. They must have it somewhere.”

“Okay, so after lights out we
go,” I said. “Do we know where we’re going, though? Where would they keep
records of what happened?” I hesitated, because I could barely get the words
out. “In the same place where they have her . . . body?” Over the past two
years we’d been in battles and I’d seen dead bodies. I’d even seen Princess Dirr
blown up. But that didn’t make it any easier.

Sip hopped off the couch and
hurried over to one of the bookcases. She fingered through several volumes
before hefting down a massive tome.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s the history of this place,”
said Sip. “Histories are infinitely useful in telling you things the current
generation wishes you’d forget, or never known in the first place.” She bent
her head over the text as Lisabelle and I exchanged glances.

“Here it is,” she cooed
triumphantly. “All about the Golden Falls old medical wing. Of course, it’s in
a part of the castle we haven’t been invited to see.”

“Perfect,” said Lisabelle
clapping her hands together.

“Why would they take Kia to a
part of the castle that isn’t used anymore?” I wondered.

“It makes sense,” said Sip. “If
they don’t have murders and don’t tolerate anything bad happening, there’d be
no need for a medical wing.”

“Will they have Happiness
Officers patrolling?” I asked.

“Who knows,” said Sip. “Maybe
they let those demons loose.”

I shuddered at the thought.

“Alright,” I said. “I don’t like
it, but alright.”

“Maybe it’s too dangerous,” said
Sip all of a sudden. “We’re going to break the rules of our hosts and we’ve
only just gotten here.” She was still going in and out of the mood she had been
in after Dove died.

“One of our own was murdered,”
said Lisabelle. “We have to find out why.”