Elemental Earth (Paranormal Public) (8 page)

“What the darkness do you think
you’re all doing standing there?” Zervos bellowed as he reached us. Behind him
I could see Marcus, but still no Keller or Sip. I tried to force myself to be
calm. The young fallen angel had a bruise spreading across his cheek and he
looked disoriented.

“Why isn’t he healing himself?”
Kia cried, pointing at Keller’s friend.

“He doesn’t have the energy,”
said Zervos. “He already had to use it to reattach his arm.”

“Power of Five,” said Lisabelle,
pointing at Marcus. “Now we can. Is he able?”

Zervos looked momentarily taken
aback, but he recovered quickly and said, “We can give him enough strength to
manage it, but most of the power is going to have to come from the rest of us.”

“I’ve barely used mine,” said
Rake. “I can help.”

Trafton and Lough both nodded.

Zervos nodded approvingly at our
circle. “Ms. Verlans. Why aren’t you joining?”

“I wasn’t going to,” she said.
Again, Zervos didn’t argue. “One dream giver in the Power, the other with Ms.
Verlans.” Both Lough and Trafton started forward to stand with Lisabelle, and
Zervos rolled his eyes. “Lough, with the Power,” he ordered. “You know
Charlotte better, and that will help. Trafton, with Ms. Verlans. Do whatever
she says.”

“With pleasure,” said Trafton,
neatly stepping around a red-faced Lough.

“Demons,” Rake pointed. Marcus
stumbled forward. I reached out to grab him and he held on, looking up at me
with blank eyes.

“Are you alright?” I whispered to
him, unsure he’d be able to perform any spells, much less protect us from a
horde.

He nodded once, then slumped
forward.

“Let me help you with that,” said
Rake, stepping up to him. The massive vampire threw the fainting fallen angel
over his shoulder with ease and brought him into line.

“I can help him,” said Kia,
hurrying forward. She knelt by Marcus, pulling out her bag of pixie dust. “It’s
only a temporary fix. This obviously isn’t our specialty,” she said with
frustration. “I can only do so much.”

“Just do what you can,” said
Lough, who took my hand.

We formed the circle.

In front of us Lisabelle and
Zervos prowled. Trafton stood a little behind, his hands working living dreams
that looked like mixed rainbows.

“We should have stayed at Public
this semester,” Lough grumbled.

I took a deep breath and then
another, tuning out the yells from my friends and the crashing around me. I had
used up a lot of my power controlling the winds, along with whatever I had done
when we landed on the ground and the impact hadn’t crushed our bones to
smithereens.

Lough’s firm grip on my hand
steadied me, and I felt Kia tentatively take my other hand. Rake and Marcus
completed the circle of protection. I opened my eyes briefly to check on my
friends and saw Evan on the ground, leaning against a tree, useless from pain and
blood loss. Zervos, Lisabelle, and Trafton had gone to challenge the demons
that had made their way through the woods.

“The demons are holding back,”
Lough murmured to me. “They should be here by now.”

“Let’s not hurry them,” said
Rake. “I’m perfectly fine with having them take their sweet old time or, you
know, never coming at all.”

“Fat chance,” said Lough.

“Any time now,” Zervos yelled
over his shoulder. The fear in my body spread. What if I didn’t have enough
left? What if Marcus or one of the others didn’t either? What if Kia panicked?

“I just want to say,” said Kia as
I closed my eyes again, “it’s great that we’re working together. All these
different paranormal types. Just this once.”

The sadness in her voice struck
me, and I wondered what it was that she feared so deeply.

The last thing I thought about
before the magic started to pour out of me in stripes was Keller. I sent a
little bit of the protection we were creating his way, and just hoped that the
wind would bear it home.

“Now,” Lough cried, just as I
heard a fresh burst through the woods and Trafton yelling at the top of his
longs.

Elemental, Vampire, Dream Giver,
Fallen Angel, and Pixie powers combined. The mixed bag of my magic melded
perfectly with those of the red blood, the whimsical white, the healing silver,
and the mischievous green. I felt better as they combined, stronger, more ready
to fight. I felt a dome created above our heads and nudged it outward and
forward.

I opened my eyes to see
Lisabelle, Zervos, and Trafton running toward us, waving their arms. Lisabelle
pointed upward and I looked. A fallen angel was gliding toward us, and he held
something in his arms. Gasping, I could see a blond head poking out from above.

Sip was with Keller.

There was no better news in the
universe right now than that Sip was alright.

“Let them in,” I ordered Lough.
When he saw who was coming he did it immediately. I sighed in relief as they
landed just in front of me, but I closed my eyes again immediately, because I
knew that if I looked at Keller I’d leave the circle. It was enough to know he
was alive. I could have flown again.

We stood there for a long time.
Every time I wanted to let my legs give out I thought of my friends inside the
circle who needed protection. My life was standing around me, and I wanted to
keep them all safe. When I felt Lough start to wobble I squeezed his hand and
he steadied. Kia proved to be far stronger than I would have imagined; despite
her earlier fears, she never wavered.

Eventually, arms came around my
waist and held me, and I opened my eyes to see Keller’s bare chest. So one
advantage of having my boyfriend go off to fight demons, and probably almost
die, was that now he’d lost his shirt. It’s the small pleasures that matter.

“It’s okay now,” he said. “The
demons are gone. Or disintegrated.”

I let go of Lough and instantly
sagged against Keller. His arms wrapped more firmly around me and held me
close.

I felt weightless, and yet at the
same time so very heavy. I didn’t feel like there was a bone in my body
anymore, because they had all turned to mush. My eyes closed again and I was
sure that I didn’t have the strength to open them. Gently, Keller laid me down.
“I have to go heal Evan,” he said. “Sip’s fine. Just roaring angry.”

I would ask later what Sip was
angry about, I decided, because right now all I had the energy to do was sleep.
I tried to tell him not to go, that just this once I wanted to be selfish and
keep him all to myself, but I didn’t have the energy.

I curled up in a ball right there
on my bed of ground. It was very soft for me. I felt other bodies come around
me and do the same. Lisabelle and Sip had moved closer. I was sure Lough was
nearby as well. Then I slept.

I opened my eyes. They felt
scratchy and dry and protested the simple movement. All I could see was
something dark green. I closed my eyes and opened them several more times, but
I had no idea what I was looking at. I’d have to move more of my body to look,
but that would be difficult because my entire body throbbed, as if I’d been
taken to a very great height and dropped over and over again, which, now that I
thought about it, I guessed I had been.

I pulled my head back just enough
and realized with amusement that I’d been looking at a single blade of grass. I
was in the exact same curled up position I’d been in when Keller laid me down.
Even in sleep I hadn’t had the energy to toss and turn.

Keller.

I turned my head to look, feeling
tiny pinpricks of pain as my muscles protested, but the warm body sleeping next
to me was of the werewolf variety. Lisabelle was on her other side, but I
couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or merely keeping us company.

Carefully, so as not to disturb Sip,
I rolled onto my back and looked up at the protective canopy of the Power of
Five.

It was like someone had painted a
shiny rainbow overhead. The silver was pulsing and strong. Keller must have
reinforced it once he got there.

I saw him standing over at the
edge of our protective Power talking quietly to Zervos, so I just lay there for
a while and watched the way his hands gestured as he talked, the serious tilt
of his head or the way his wings furled and unfurled a little depending on the
point he was making. I fell asleep again watching him, warmer now.

The next time I woke up it was to
yelling. The daylight had given way to night, and there was just a small fire
in the center of our little group keeping us warm.

Others were slowly starting to
wake up and I was also starting to understand the argument.

Apparently representatives from
Golden Falls had arrived and Zervos was furious.

“What’s he so angry about?” Sip
asked Lisabelle, who was sitting cross-legged next to her.

Sip had changed back into human
form at some point while I slept. She looked tired, but she was otherwise
unharmed. It felt like another rock was removed from my chest, and I breathed a
little easier.

Lisabelle looked grim.

“Dove’s dead,” she said quietly.
“I guess Zervos is angry despite the good relations we have with Golden Falls.”

Sip nodded sadly. “He saved my
life. The Demon of Knight was about to throw me off when Dove got there. He
stopped him, but he didn’t see the other demon. They cut off his head.”

I gasped, and Zervos’s head
turned a fraction before he continued to argue with whoever was beyond the
force field. Dimly I could see hints of splendid gold, but I couldn’t see where
it came from.

“That’s horrible,” said Lough. He
was sitting next to me, eating another dinner roll. “Did they find the body?”

“What was left of it,” said
Lisabelle. “That’s what they were saying before. Now they’re trying to get
Zervos to lower the shield.”

“He can’t do that,” Sip cried.
Lisabelle put her arm around Sip’s shoulders and comforted her. I’d never heard
Sip sound so terrified before.

“You’re right,” she said. “It’d
be much easier if one of the ones who enacted the force field would take it
down, but Zervos didn’t want to disturb any of you.”

“Do we trust whoever’s on the
other side of the shield?” Sip still sounded nervous.

Lisabelle shrugged. “We don’t
have a lot of other options.”

“We could contact Public,” said
Sip hopefully. “There’s still time to go back for the semester. We’ve only
missed one day of classes and I’m sure the professors wouldn’t hold it against
us. I’m sure Dacer wouldn’t.” She gave me a pleading look.

“I can’t believe we’re still
going to Golden Falls if Dove’s dead,” said Lough. Unfortunately, he’d
forgotten to keep his voice down, and that earned us a glare from Zervos. I
could barely see him in the darkness, and any good feelings I had had about him
joining us earlier evaporated into the cold January night.

Dove was dead.

We were alone at the mercy of
Zervos, at least until we reached the safety of Golden Falls. Could there be
anything worse?

As if to mirror my thoughts Lough
said, “Could this get any worse?”

“Students,” came a voice out of
nowhere, “please lower the shield. As the representative for the president of
Golden Falls I can assure you that you are in the best hands.”

I turned to look and found that I
could now see more clearly what was outside our shield. A very tall man stood
there. He had dark skin and black eyes that I couldn’t read. Sip sucked in her
breath. “He’s a werewolf,” she murmured.

“Well that’s not surprising,”
said another voice, which I recognized as Faci’s. “At Golden Falls they think
they’re too good for vampires. There is no darkness there at all.”

“There will be this semester,”
said Lisabelle, cracking her knuckles.

Sip scowled. “I wish you wouldn’t
do that,” she muttered. Lisabelle shrugged.

“What’s that guy’s name?” I
whispered, looking at the first Golden Falls paranormal I had seen.

“Sectar,” said Sip. “He does
everything for the Golden Falls president, whom no one has seen in years. He
just hides away and sends directions down through Sectar.”

“Why don’t they replace the
president if he’s too old to do his job?” I asked quietly.

“It’s an honorary thing,” said
Sip. “He’ll be replaced once he’s dead.”

Somehow, that didn’t make me feel
good about Golden Falls. I glanced back at Sectar, whose eyes were on me. I
felt like I was looking at a lion who had just seen his dinner. I gulped.

“Lower the shield,” said Zervos
tiredly. As he looked at us and waited, I could see how his shoulders drooped
and the corners of his mouth hung slack. I had never seen him look so sad
before.

“They’ve been arguing for at
least an hour,” said Lisabelle. “Learned some new swears.”

“Zervos looks upset,” I said.
“Does he not like Sectar?”

“Everyone likes Sectar,” said
Sip, staring reverently at the tall man. “He’s done so much for the
werewolves.”

Faci was standing nearby, but
with a lot of distance between himself and the Golden Falls representative.
Faci looked miserable and his eyes were more sunken than usual, but he was
outside the barrier, on the same side as Sectar, which meant that he had also
come back and found our campsite after running from the battle.

“What’s the matter, Faci? Your
plan for getting us killed backfire?” Lisabelle asked coldly.

Faci glared at her. “They were
not my demons,” he said.

“Oh, really?” said Sip, stepping
forward.

Zervos and Sectar were watching
us with interest. The problem was, Faci didn’t look disheveled in the
slightest, while I felt like I had been run over by a truck, and my friends
looked about the same.

“You didn’t fight with us,” Sip
accused, her lower lip trembling.

“Where’s the demon that brought
him? I believe Faci went on ahead and left us here to die, and now we’re
supposed to just lower our shields to him? Look at Evan’s arm.” I pointed at
Evan, who was standing next to Keller with his arm in a makeshift sling.

“Yes,” Faci glared, stepping
forward and ignoring me and addressing Sip. “You think you can make demands of
me? You ridiculous little werewolf. What are you to darkness?”

Without warning he lunged
forward, his hand outstretched. When it made contact with the barrier he
screamed.

As his arm came through the
barrier, our protections stripped away his jacket and shirt. All his outer
layers turned to dust, and then our shield started in on his skin.

But he kept pushing, and before
he stepped away he had grabbed Evan. The vampire was still out of it from the
pain he was in, and he didn’t have the strength to resist as Faci yanked him
back through the barrier.

Faci’s arm was a boiling mass of
wounds, and even from a few feet away I could smell burning flesh. He didn’t
seem to care.

Evan, on the other hand, could
leave the barrier unharmed, but once he was out he wouldn’t be able to get back
in. I wasn’t quick enough, and my power was too burnt out to let the shields
down before Faci slammed Evan backward toward us.

The vampire hit my barrier with a
sickening thud and a hiss, followed by a bone-chilling howl.

Faci yanked Evan forward and
slammed him back again. I could see the barrier burning away Evan’s skin; the
back of his head was now spotted with patches and painful-looking red welts
where he’d hit the barrier. Evan flailed desperately against Faci, but there
was nothing he could do.

Faci paused for just a second,
his black eyes meeting my gray ones. They looked like two smooth surfaces, with
no soul behind them, no passion, no pain, no love, only a longing for
destruction.

“Faci,” I said hoarsely.
“Enough.”

Sectar, who had watched the
proceedings in horror, nodded sagely. I was shocked by how calm he was. Had
Oliva been there, the pixie president would have been barking orders and
beating Faci to a pulp for such a public display of savagery. “He is darkness.
His behavior is not a surprise,” was all Sectar said. His quiet tone and his
succinct statement said that the most awful things would not be a surprise if
they were acted out by paranormals who partook of darkness.

Lisabelle’s eyebrows shot upward,
and I prayed to the paranormal gods that she’d keep her temper.

“Isn’t it?” Faci demanded,
slamming Evan back again.

My friend gave a whimper. I eyed
Zervos, who stood there, his mouth pressed into a line.

“How can you not be doing
anything?” I yelled at him, throwing my hands up in the air in disgust and
frustration. “How can you just let them win?”

Zervos stared at Faci, but still
he didn’t speak.

In anger I slammed my power
forward, but I stumbled in exhaustion as I did it. There was hardly any power
left for me to use.

Faci just kept smiling. The place
where his lips should have been stretched wide over his gums. I didn’t even
want to look at him for very long, let alone talk to him.

“Exhausted from a recent battle?”
he asked lightly. “You should take better care of yourself.”

I stared at the crazed vampire in
front of me.

“I can’t believe a father
actually raised you,” I spat out. “Mine’s dead and I’m still a better
paranormal than you.”

The smile disappeared from Faci’s
face. He slammed Evan forward once more. The vampire screamed and dropped to
the ground, landing awkwardly, half on his injured arm.

Behind Faci something stirred,
probably Sectar backing away to a safe distance. “I cannot participate in such
violence,” said the Golden Falls representative by way of explanation.

“I was no part of the attack
earlier,” Faci said breathlessly. “I attack in the open, which is where I will
kill you.” He pointed a shaking finger at me, but I matched him glare for glare
before he turned on his heel and whirled away.

Sectar stepped forward now, a
bastion of calm. “You all need your rest,” he said lightly. “My camp is nearby
and we will be safe there. In the morning we should finish your journey. Your
arrival is eagerly awaited.”

I was so shocked by what Faci had
just done that for a few seconds I couldn’t move. Keller hurried forward and
reached through the barrier to Evan, touching him lightly and healing the worst
of his wounds.

“He’s healed enough to pass
through the barrier,” Keller said.

I reached through the barrier and
grabbed Evan. At first he tried to push my hand away, afraid that when he
touched the barrier again it would rip his skin, but I shushed him. “You’ll be
fine,” I murmured. “Promise.”

I glanced at Keller, but he
didn’t look back at me, he just continued to work on Evan. Hurt by his refusal
even to glance my way, as if the fact that Evan had been injured on my barrier
was somehow my fault, I went back to my friends. Sip was wide-eyed and staring
as Lough tried to comfort her. Lisabelle was standing a couple of paces away,
her face a worried mask.

“This is the first time I haven’t
been able to help her,” she told me quietly, glancing at Sip. The small fire
that was still lit in the center of our safety zone cast strange shadows on her
face. I was still shaken from Keller’s anger at me, which made no sense.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Lisabelle glanced at Sip and then
away. “She’s so small and kind. She always sees the best in people. Today she
almost died. She doesn’t deserve any of this. We all almost died today,” said Lisabelle.
“I’m okay with dying. I’m not okay with you and Sip dying.”

“It’s the nature of war,” I said
quietly, although I wasn’t sure if that was all there was to it. Lisabelle gave
me an angry look.

“Okay, so maybe it wasn’t Faci,
but someone sold us out,” she said. “Probably someone at Public. The demons
knew we were coming. They were waiting for us and they would have killed all of
us if they could have. On of these times we’ll need more luck even than today,
and it won’t be there for us, and then what will happen?”

It was almost morning when I
decided to stop waiting for Keller to come to me.

He was sitting by himself near
the fire, while the rest of our friends talked in hushed tones. Zervos was
standing where he had been the night before, as if he was waiting for Faci to
come back. The vampire had stormed away from our shields and we’d not seen him
since.

“What was that about?” I
demanded, sitting down next to him. I was all set and ready to defend myself,
thinking that he was angry because I hadn’t lowered the shield for Faci. What
he said instead surprised me.

“You could have been killed,” he
said, his eyes filled with shadows.

I moved to touch him, but he
backed away.

“You could have been killed. It’s
this constant danger we’re all in. My parents spoke to me about it, about how
we’d never have peace as long as you were the only elemental.” He said it
softly, staring at his hands. A stone settled in the pit of my stomach.

“My parents worry that with me so
close to you . . . you’ll be attacked and I’ll be killed. Maybe it’s selfish, I
don’t know, but I’m their son. It was one of the first things they said to me
when they found out that we were dating. They didn’t congratulate me or tell me
to be happy. They said I was likely to die because of you.”

I couldn’t make any words come,
so I just sat there and kept listening.

“I don’t worry about that,
though,” he said. “I told my parents as much. They were angry, but I don’t
care. I told them that I loved you and that what worried me the most was that
if something happened to you” - now he looked at me again, and my heart broke a
little - “I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

I reached out and took his hand.
His fingers were cold, despite the nearness of the fire.

“If you die,” he said, his voice
breaking, “I have to die too.”

I squeezed his hand as he met my
eyes. I scooted forward until I sat next to him, side by side, my legs across
his.

“I feel the same way,” I
whispered. “If the demons attack me and kill you, they’d better hope they kill
me too.”

He laughed softly and I was
relieved by the sound. “Big bad Charlotte going to avenge her boyfriend?”

I grinned. “Yeah, something like
that.”

“Ms. Rollins?” Zervos came
striding over. His hair was sticking out at odd angles and the dark circles
underneath his eyes were more pronounced; he obviously hadn’t slept. “Are you
ready to lower the shield?”

I forced myself not to glare at
the professor. Zervos had done nothing for us, and now we were stuck with him,
and only him, for the whole semester. Hopefully Sectar and Golden Falls would
be better.

“How’s your magic, Charlotte?”
Lisabelle came over and knelt down next to Keller and me. My ring had remained
dull whenever I looked at it, but inside me I could feel the strength building,
and taking Keller’s hand only buttressed my resolve.

“Better,” I said quietly. “I
think I could enact the Power again if necessary.” The unspoken comment was
pointed at Faci. Surely Daisy was with them too, and I wanted to be able to
fight and die honorably if he attacked us, so that Dacer could tell Ricky I did
everything I could to get back to him.

“Good,” she said. “I think we’ll
be fine. I don’t know what game the Nocturns are playing, but it’s a slow and
steady burn, not a flaming battle. Besides, Sectar is here now.”

“Let’s do it, then,” said Lough,
joining us. He looked almost as bad as Zervos, though I knew he had slept some.
Sip was still sitting by herself, her mood mostly unchanged from the day
before. She had watched Dove die, after all. I wondered if - and when - she’d
recover.

“I’m ready,” I said, standing
with Lough’s help. His firm grip was in stark contrast to his tired appearance.
He chuckled at the surprise in my eyes. “I can take whatever they dish out,” he
said. “So can you.”

Kia and Rake joined us. Marcus
was still in no condition to perform spells, but it didn’t matter. When we
reached Zervos, Sectar and Faci were already there.

I didn’t even look at the
vampire.

“If we do this,” said Zervos,
“can you promise us safe passage to Golden Falls? No demons?” Zervos probably
just cared about his own safety, not all of ours, I thought bitterly.

Faci didn’t move. I wondered if
that smooth, pale skin was even capable of expression.

“Yes,” said Sectar quietly. “The
demons are gone and Golden Falls is the safest place I know. You will arrive
without further problems. I promise.”

Faci was standing nearby, glaring
at the tall Sectar, probably because the new werewolf was thwarting some evil
plan of his. “The danger is entirely in your mind,” said Faci. “The demons
won’t attack again.”

Lough snorted. “You’re right it’s
in my mind. The mind of a sane paranormal. Something you’re probably not that
familiar with.”

Faci stepped forward, his eyes
intent on Lough’s face. They glared at each other as Zervos and Sectar talked
quietly to each other.

Faci blinked first, taking a
quick step back. Lough must have sent some sort of dream at him, because Faci
looked at my friend with new respect.

In the early morning light, Faci
didn’t look so scary. He actually looked more like a frightened teenager,
standing there without his father for protection. He looked like he might even
have been mistaken for a bully who might one day grow out of his mean stripes
and become a productive paranormal.