Elemental Fire (13 page)

This was our first class of the
semester with Zervos. Professor Z, as we sometimes called him behind his back,
had been scheduled to teach something else, but under the new regime, this is
what he had ended up with. The first class had been taught by a Fire Whip,
which had made it terrifying. He had gone through a list of traits, like dark
hair, that might identify you as a friend of the demons. Of course, Camilla had
a field day with the fact that Lisabelle was sitting there with her black hair,
and the Fire Whip had just ignored her.

The class was in the basement of
Cruor dorm, just for an added bit of terror. The vampire dorm was dark and
forbidding, and although the pixies were more hated on campus, the vampires
were both feared and respected.

There were not as many vampires
in Cruor this semester as there usually were, because many had stayed behind to
help Queen Lanca with her transition to being the ruler of her realm. The
basement was above the crypt and entirely devoid of furniture. We had been
forced to drag old school chairs and dilapidated desks down into the wet stone
room. There was hardly any light, but when Lisabelle offered to start some
lamps, Camilla had a fit, ranting about how Lisabelle was trying to take over
the school and kill all the pixies.

“Half true,” Lisabelle had
muttered to Sip and me.

“Which half?” I had asked,
earning a grin from Lisabelle.

“Lisabelle,” said Sip tensely.
“You can’t joke about that stuff right now. They might hurt you.”

“They might try,” said Lisabelle
confidently. We had noticed that the Fire Whips, despite the fact that they
nurtured a convincing impression of violence barely held in check, gave
Lisabelle a wide birth whenever possible. The only exception was Ms. Vale.

We were all seated and waiting
patiently for Zervos to arrive when we had another surprise: Daisy and Dobrov
Validification walked in.

Daisy came first, Dobrov having
held the door open for his twin sister. Her burst skin and hate-filled black
eyes flicked to me and then away. She was dressed in a black jacket, black
jeans, and black boots, looking for all the world like an otherworldly
motorcycle-riding chick.

Dobrov, behind her, looked beaten
down. His neck hung so low I thought his chin might be resting on his chest,
and his black hair, missing in patches from the burned skin, hung over his
forehead, almost entirely obscuring his face. Sip started to say hi, but one look
at Daisy’s face inspired her to think better of it. Instead of sitting with us,
Dobrov walked quickly to the back of the room. Daisy, for her part, gave
Camilla a bright wave and hurried over to join the pixie. Lisabelle looked at
me, her face scrunched as if she smelled something rotten, and shook her head.
Sip, on her other side, leaned forward on her desk and mouthed. “Now we’re all
in for it.”

I had to agree. If Daisy and
Camilla were friends, all we needed was Faci to show up and we’d be in for a
far worse time than we were already having. Luckily, Faci was locked away in a
Locke jail cell because of his part in Dirr’s death. I hoped his father,
Castov, was in the cell right next door.

“Could this get any worse?” I
whispered to Lisabelle.

Before I finished speaking, the
door to the dungeon clanged open and Zervos stormed through. He looked furious.
His face was contorted with rage and he breathed through his nostrils. If he
had been a dragon he would have burned us all.

He held in his hands a stack of old
books, all bound in black leather. He slammed them down on his desk, then
disappeared back out the door, only to reappear a moment later carrying another
stack of black books, which he also slammed down. He repeated this process
several times until his desk, which we had found on a junk pile and which I was
not remotely sure would hold that much weight, was sagging in the middle.

Zervos returned with the last
stack and slammed them down, only to pick up one book at a time and almost
throw it at each of us. I caught mine, but barely. Some of the edges of the
pages were bent awkwardly as the book almost fell out of my hands.

Other students were not so lucky.
Vanni didn’t get her hands up quickly enough and the black book Zervos threw at
her hit her full in the face. She cried out as the room was filled with a dull
thud.

“Luckily, she’s a fallen angel,”
Camilla sneered, her eyes cold. “Even at her low skill level she should be able
to heal that right up.”

“Ms. Rollins, would you ever so
kindly tell me the name of the book you are holding?”

“Paranormal Traitors of the 20th
Century,” I said, feeling ill. To be fair, Zervos’s specialty was history, and
this was a history of sorts. But all it would serve to do was further turn the
paranormals against each other - exactly what the demons wanted.

“Thank you ever so kindly,” he
hissed. “Now, since I’ve just taken this class over, do allow me to set some
ground rules before we begin.

“First, I am the only one who is
allowed to be late. Should any of you not arrive at least five minutes before
the designated start of class you shall receive a failing grade for
participation for that day. I do not care how much you talk after that.”

“Secondly, do not speak unless I
call on you. I do not want to see raised hands at any time. That goes
especially for you, Quest,” he said, glaring ferociously at Sip, who sank in on
herself just a bit, a phenomenon I had never seen before. Zervos clasped his
hands behind him and paced back and forth, talking fast and low. “If you raise
your hand I will be more than happy to get one of the Fire Whips to chop it
off.” His eyes moved to each of us in turn. I couldn’t tell if he was kidding,
but from the coldness in his voice I imagined he might not be, and I had no
doubt that the Fire Whips would welcome the chance to attack us overtly.

“My word here is law,” he
seethed, coming to a halt. “If you want to argue, go elsewhere. You will learn
to spot a traitor paranormal this semester. We will practice by discussing what
traits are present in each of you that most exemplify a traitor, AND, for the
student who we decide, by the end of the semester, is most likely to be a
traitor, you will receive a failing grade for the class and I will turn you
over to Ms. Vale to do with what she will.”

A surprised cry went up from some
of the students, mostly Airlee. You had to assume that Zervos would not fail a
vampire, even though they had darkness in them. And the pixies walked around
campus now with so much swagger they were clearly safe. That left Airlee and Astra.

“You might all be wondering what
the point of this class is,” Zervos continued into the silence; no one had made
a sound. “The Nocturns want you to turn on each other. They want you to see the
faults instead of the light. If I have my way you will do just that. Trust no
one. Not your friends and certainly not your enemies. You are now officially
alone.”

I gulped. Zervos met my gray eyes
with his black ones. They deepened to dead looking opals.

“Nothing will save you now,” he
murmured. Although he said it to the entire class, I felt like he was saying it
just to me.

Chapter Thirteen

“That was miserable,” said Sip as
we left Zervos’s class and the Cruor dungeon. “And we all have some experience
with miserable.”

“At least the class is in a cool
spot,” said Lisabelle. “Not too hot, not too cold.”

“Just too evil,” said Sip darkly.
“I’m famished. This porridge diet is going to be the death of me.”

“Me too,” said Trafton, sidling
up to us. “A growing young man needs more to sustain himself.”

“Like dirt magazines and surf
waves?” said Lisabelle sniffing disdainfully as she led us back into the weak
winter sunlight.

“No, darling, just the love and
affection of a good woman,” said Trafton, grinning at her.

“What do you think the
announcement is going to be about tonight?” Sip said, running her fingers
through her short blond hair.

“No idea,” I said. “But it can’t
be good.”

As we walked, I continued a
debate I had been having with myself about whether to discuss Sigil with my
friends. Under normal circumstances I would have, but I didn’t want to get him
in trouble by taking the risk of having him discovered, and I was worried about
eavesdroppers.

We entered the dining hall with
Sip still grumbling. With the school on lockdown, or “Re-calibration to make us
better paranormals,” we were no longer getting the Tabble. I thought that was
mostly good, because Mound was still spewing his vitriol about elementals,
meaning me, but it also meant that we had no links to the outside world. “I
miss Dacer and Lough and Keller,” she muttered. “At least if they were here it
would lighten the mood.”

“I’m not light enough for you?”
Trafton asked comically. “Here, try to pick me up and see!”

Sip grinned and shook her head.
“Glad you can retain your sense of humor.”

“Dobrov’s here somewhere,” I
said, looking around the room. Some things didn’t change. Pixies were with
other pixies, vampires with other vampires. I half hoped Dobrov would join our
table, but I saw him sitting with his sister, his head still bowed, and I
realized that it was not to be. But even though he didn’t seem able to leave
her side, she was totally ignoring him, intent on the Contact Stone she held in
her hand.
So
, I thought,
Daisy is allowed a Contact
Stone
.
I should have figured as much,
even though the rest of us weren’t allowed to communicate with other
paranormals in any way. Dobrov looked up and met my eyes for the briefest of
seconds and I gave him a slight nod, but he just lowered his head again. When I
saw Daisy’s head start to turn I quickly looked away. I didn’t want him to get
into any more trouble than he already was.

Meanwhile, I was still curious
about two men who were now seated at the high table alone, but who had sat on
either side of Ms. Vale on our first night back. As I watched I noticed that
every once in a while Ms. Vale’s eyes would linger on her children and her
features would soften just a faction.

“Who are those two men?” I said
to the table at large.

They were bald and mustached, and
although they were small they were compact. The way they moved reminded me of
Vital, Queen Lanca’s personal bodyguard and the best vampire fighter in the
world. They stepped carefully and were never off-balance. They took in their
surroundings without disrupting them in any way. They were fighters and not
just Fire Whips. They were also dressed casually, in slacks and leather.

“I heard their names were
Purhogan and Perspi Baxter,” said Trafton. “They work for Vale.”

“They look mean,” said Sip,
eyeing them once she’d gotten her ration of grits for lunch.

“Let’s not find out,” said
Trafton, looking away as if he was trying to put distance between us and them.

Once we had all finished eating,
Ms. Vale swept in. I was just cleaning my plate, and was fighting the
temptation to lick it clean because I was so hungry. I had a feeling that
licking it would attract attention I didn’t want, so I resisted the urge and
sighed.

“Afternoon, students,” she
chirped, throwing her arms wide. She gave us a big smile. Unlike during her
takeover, she was no longer dressed simply. Her face was piled with makeup,
even more than Dacer might wear, and she wore robes of the finest silk that
draped perfectly over her body. Today’s robes mixed a deep purple with a light
blue, topped off with gold chains hanging from the cuffs and hem.

No one said a word. The twins,
Purhogan and Perspi, stood to let her breeze past them. “I’m delighted that the
first week of classes is behind us. I do hope you are learning and growing as
young minds should. Of course, we have a very exciting announcement for you
this evening. I do hope you can all join me, but I wanted to say a little
something now.” She clasped her hands together, her eyes shining as she looked
at each of us in turn.

“I’ve decided to make the Baxter
brothers here my seconds-in-command. Hopefully none of the Fire Whips will be
jealous. I just wanted you all, dear students, to understand that their word,
like mine, is law.” She looked around meaningfully at all of us, while most of
the students in front of her stared at the two bald men. Purhogan and Perspi
still sat, impassive, their faces unreadable.

She beamed at all of us.

“We really might not last the
semester,” Sip mused. “Technically, we’re all prisoners. I don’t know what the
other students think about it, but if they realize. . . . I don’t care what
deal was struck.”

“You don’t think they’re going to
give up running the school once the semester ends?” Vanni asked, her voice
small. She had been quiet until then, and I looked at her with pity. Maybe she
hadn’t heard about the artifacts, or maybe she just believed that all the
darkness mages really wanted was a bargaining chip, but either way she
apparently didn’t realize that there was no way the Nocturns intended to let
any of us leave Public alive at the end of the semester.