Elemental Earth (Paranormal Public) (15 page)

“And what if Golden Falls is
trying to do just that?” Sip demanded.

“They aren’t,” I said, “because
they arrested Vanni for the crime.”

Sip couldn’t argue with that.

“Okay,” I said, “so, after lights
out we go to the medical wing. Sip, do you know how to get there?”

The werewolf nodded, then we all
settled in to wait.

Later, once we were ready, we
said goodbye to Lough. “I wonder if they’re going to send Kia’s body home to
her parents,” said Sip quietly. “I bet her mother would like that.”

“Want me to create a good enough
dream to scare them away?” Lough offered.

“You can do that?” Lisabelle
asked.

“I like that you’re constantly
surprised by my competence. At least it keeps the bar low.”

“It probably depends on how she
died,” said Lisabelle thoughtfully. “Let’s go find out.”

Once Lough had left and it was
just us, Sip said, “Charlotte, I’m not sure you should go with us tonight.”

I looked at her with surprise,
but I should have known it was coming.

“I’m going,” I said flatly. “I’m
not going to sit here while my friends risk their lives.”

“We can’t talk you out of it?”
Lisabelle asked quietly.

I threw up my hands. “Kia’s
dead,” I said fiercely. “She’s dead and it’s probably because she was trying to
talk to me. No way I’m going to stand by and not find out who killed her. Faci
or Camilla probably killed her and then beat up Vanni for it. It’s despicable.”

“She wouldn’t want you to put
yourself in danger,” said Sip. “She would want you to stay safe.”

“I’ll be safe the day Malle is
dead,” I said quietly. “I’m always safe when the three of us are together.”

Lisabelle stood thoughtfully for
a few moments, then, with a nod, she whispered, “Ready?”

I gave her a small smile in
return. “Let’s go.”

As quietly as possible, the three
of us filed out of our suite. Golden Falls refused to act as if anything was
wrong, which meant that there were no Happiness Officers in the halls outside
our rooms. I was relieved. I didn’t want to feel like a prisoner in my own
home.

Candles blazed so brightly along
the walls that it felt like broad daylight, and through the floor to ceiling
windows in the corridors I could see the outline of the mountain in the
distance, with the moon shining down on the rushing water of the falls.

“It’s still the most beautiful
place I’ve ever been,” I murmured.

Sip and Lisabelle agreed.

“Are you alright?” I asked Sip.
She hadn’t said a word, but now she nodded.

“I’m fine,” she said. “In fact,
yelling at Zervos helped me feel better.”

“Any one of us could say that,”
Lisabelle muttered.

“What if Sectar’s not posting
guards near our door is intentional?” Sip asked worriedly.

“What do you mean? He doesn’t
believe in it and he trusts us,” I finished, but even my words sounded hollow.

Sip shook her head. “Maybe he’s
giving us just enough rope to hang ourselves with,” she muttered. “First Kia
and then Vanni.”

“Good thing we’re not taking the
bait,” said Lisabelle dryly. We were walking in single file, but Lisabelle had
insisted on going first. Sip brought up the rear.

“You think Sectar expects us to
do this?” I whispered.

Lisabelle shook her head. “No,
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think we’re that stupid.”

“Boy, did we fool him,” said Sip.

We followed Sip through a maze of
doors. The further we got from our part of the castle, the less pretty it
became. The doors were no longer gilded and the walls weren’t wallpapered in
gold. The air felt close and musty, as if very few paranormals came this way.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,”
said Sip, touching her fingertips to the dusty walls. “There are probably
guards and magical traps that we’re walking right into.”

“Ah, there’s the Sip I know and
love,” said Lisabelle, but she didn’t stop. Instead she increased her pace. The
air was getting colder as we moved away from the heat sources Golden Falls used
in the winter.

When we reached a set of stairs,
Sip paused for a split second, then headed upward. Now there was a smell beyond
must, with something tangy under the odor.

As the stairs got steeper and
narrower, Lisabelle slowed.

“We should have seen a guard by
now,” I whispered. “They can’t be so trusting that we just have the run of the
place. Lisabelle, are you sure we haven’t triggered any magical alarms?”

The darkness mage shook her head,
“But I do think we should have seen guards by now.”

“Yeah, where oh where are the
demons? I so miss them,” said Sip sarcastically.

Lisabelle went flying backward so
fast I had to duck. She slammed into the wall of the stairwell and slid down
it. The light she had held, a black tint from her ring, went out, and we were
plunged into thick darkness.

I knew Sip had transformed into a
werewolf even though I couldn’t see her. My own ring started to blaze, stabbing
at the inky blackness.

I heard a snarl in front of us.

“Defenses,” I breathed.
“Wonderful.” Golden Falls wasn’t so trusting after all.

All I could see was a pair of
burning red eyes.

“Lisabelle, you okay?” I called
out, without taking my eyes off the hellhound.

From a bit down the stairwell
Lisabelle’s voice floated up to me. “Yup, all’s good here. Just broke my back,
shoulder, and both kneecaps. No big deal.”

“Good,” I called back. “I’d hate
to think something was really wrong.” After a pause I added, “This one’s mine.”

Sip snarled, but she let me pass.
I couldn’t see the hellhound in front of me, but I didn’t need to.

To my magic, the stones of the
walls and stairs felt moist and damp. I sucked the water out of them, and then,
swirling my ring in front of me, I created a shield. I pulled cold in around me
and pushed it to surround the water, making it ice. My next step was to make it
as jagged and sharp as possible, then, just as the beast lunged at me, I sent
the ice flying at its red eyes.

The hellhound might have avoided
my attack if it hadn’t already been airborne, mid-jump. I heard the shattering
of ice and the thud of hard object impacting hard object, then a whimper as the
hellhound dropped.

I stepped forward. My eyes had
adjusted to the dark enough so that I could see the body of the creature
shivering on the ground. It wouldn’t be down for long. My heart was racing.

This is what Golden Falls used to
defend its castle? The very thing it preached against?

But I didn’t have time to worry
about it now. We had to find out what we could about Kia, and time was short.

“Lisabelle,” I said, “do you have
anything to tie and muzzle that thing with?”

“You don’t want to just kill it?”
she asked mildly. Her voice was closer now. She had come back up the stairs.

I shook my head. “It’s a prisoner
too, like the demons. I don’t want to kill something that can’t defend itself.”

“You’re complicated,” Lisabelle
muttered, but I think she did as I asked. I couldn’t really see.

Carefully we made our way past
the first guard. We knew there’d be more.

“What kind of game is Golden
Falls playing at?” Lisabelle asked quietly.

We hadn’t taken more than two
steps when something came whooshing down the stairs. I pressed to one side just
as Lisabelle let out a string of curses.

“Who said they could have a black
ghost?” she yelled in frustration. I had never heard of such a thing.

“Can I kill this one?” Sip
demanded. She must have transformed back into human form behind us.

“Yeah, sure, let me know how
getting your jaws around a ghost goes,” said Lisabelle.

“Charlotte, can you use the wind
to blow it away?” Sip changed course.

I nodded, thinking it would be
nice to blow some of the stench away while I was at it. But I’d have to be
careful. Massive gusts of wind coming through the stairs might tip off other
guards, like Happiness Officers, and I could only easily use the wind that was
already there anyway.

“What’s a black ghost?” I asked.

“Highly illegal,” Lisabelle said
angrily, “that’s what it is. Golden Falls clearly thinks they’re above paranormal
law.”

I had never heard Lisabelle use
that tone before. She might flout authority, but apparently there were some
lines you did not cross.

The black ghost was fighting both
me and the air I was trying to use to get rid of it, and we had to stop on the
stairs. I was trying to use the wind to pin it to the wall, but there wasn’t
enough to do the job.

Lisabelle stepped forward and
jammed her ring into the center of the ill-defined blob that we knew was the
ghost. It couldn’t really be called a body, it was more a collection of
tattered robes. Suddenly flames shot out of Lisabelle’s hand, entirely
consuming the black form. It didn’t scream, there was just a strange sucking
noise as it burned to bits.

Sip and I stared at Lisabelle,
all our faces illuminated by the fire. She pulled her hand away from the barren
wall. I could just see it. There were no marks.

Lisabelle dusted her hands off.

“You and fire are getting pretty
chummy,” Sip observed. “Just keep it out of our dorm room.”

Lisabelle rolled her eyes. “You
should be happy. In the winter we have our own personal heat source.”

“The party’s on Saturday,” said
Sip sarcastically.

“A hellhound, a black ghost,
what’s next?” I asked.

What else did Golden Falls have
to hide?

As we moved further up the
stairs, Sip transformed into a werewolf and went first. Lisabelle and I let
her, because I was pretty sure that whatever came at us next, Sip was going to
deal with it.

“We have to stop going up
eventually,” I muttered. My legs had started to burn from all the stairs, and
the strange, tangy smell was getting worse. I hated being in the dark,
especially when we kept getting attacked.

I heard a step and a growl, and
then there were demons. They poured out in front of us so fast that Sip didn’t
even have time to lunge at them. They just kept coming, shoving us backwards
down the narrow stairs. I fell awkwardly, twisting my ankle. A small cry
escaped my lips.

But in the end, the battle was
over quickly. Sip, Lisabelle and I called to our rings. The bursts of power
that went off around us were strong and deadly. I wondered what it meant that I
was most comfortable with the killing powers, but I didn’t want to think about
that when my life was at risk. There were sparks of light that illuminated dry
and dirty walls, black with neglect. The demons cried out and died.

Afterward, my legs shaky, I sat
down on the cold steps. My ankle was throbbing.

Lisabelle sighed and sagged
against the wall. “Let’s hope they had three guards and not six. I don’t know
if we can keep this up all night without getting caught.”

Sip transformed back into human
form. Her eyes were flinty as she said simply, “Let’s go.”

Somewhere behind us I thought I
heard footsteps, but when I paused to listen there was nothing.

Sip marched up the stairs, with
Lisabelle and I trailing behind. It was slow going for me. With each step my
ankle hurt more, not less. By tomorrow I wasn’t going to be able to walk at
all.

The air was so cold I folded my
arms and hugged my chest. Our breath puffed out in little dark gray clouds in
front of our faces.

The stairs ended in a small
landing, after which there was a hallway with a set of black double doors. Over
the doors was a single yellow light.

“Whoever they had decorate the
nice part of Golden Falls they should bring up here,” Sip commented. “It could
use sprucing.”

“Maybe they’ll hire you and you
can do it in neon,” said Lisabelle.

“That would be too good to be
true,” said Sip sadly.

As we walked up to it I read,
above the door, “Return to the silence of the earth, the only place where there
is truly a natural peace.” Just above that in larger letters was a sign that
said, “Medical Wing.”

“Ew,” said Sip, shuddering.

Lisabelle moved past both of us
and braced her hand on the door. I watched her fingers curl around the metal
and her arm strain from pulling. The door didn’t budge.

Sip and I moved to either side of
her, adding our strength to hers. I started to pull and felt my muscles strain
from the effort.

“It won’t budge,” said Lisabelle
through gritted teeth.

“Let me try,” said Keller’s voice
from behind us. I let out a startled cry and nearly toppled over. I only
managed not to fall by hanging onto the door. I guess the footsteps I had heard
behind us hadn’t been my imagination.