Elemental Light (Paranormal Public Book 9) (6 page)

Sip whirled to face the vampire. He was startled, and instead of doing what he should have done, either run or fly at her, he clumsily threw the spear.

Unfortunately, Sip had something black in her jaws, and she wasn’t as fast as she should have been. I let out a cry as the spear sank into her leg, while the young vampire’s eyes went wide and terrified. Sip dropped what she held in her jaws and whimpered in pain. I was sure she wanted to howl, but she was stifling the urge despite the pain because the noise would have drawn even more attention our way.

Meanwhile, the vampire’s eyes landed on me. I saw recognition glint in his eyes as he spun around to go get help.

I couldn’t let him leave, so, for the first time and against all our hopes, I summoned my power.

One blink and the vampire was trying to run, the next blink and a strong gust of air slammed him against the rock wall and he slid senseless to the floor.

I rushed to Sip, who had transformed back into her human shape.

She was lying on her back, a black spear protruding from her leg.

Our eyes met, hers feverish and mine frantic.

“Sip,” I breathed. “Are you alright?”

She shook her head and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

I examined the wound. The spear had stuck in her leg instead of going clean through it, and there was blood forming around the wound. I could see the sweat on her brow as she tensed against the pain.

“Here,” said Sip, moving her bruised wrist forward. She held a black crown in her hand and she slid it across the cold floor to me. I quickly tucked it into my pack before another enemy came along and saw what we had.

“Good job,” I said. “Now, let’s do something to make you feel better.”

“I’ll feel better when I don’t have a spear sticking out of me. Someone give me a tranquilizer,” she said through gritted teeth.

“I don’t think those are good for werewolves. Maybe I should just punch you in the jaw and knock you out?”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’ll make me feel much better,” she said quietly. Her breath was labored and her eyes looked unfocused. “Just pull it out.”

“Sip,” I whispered, “it’s a spear, and it’s stuck in your leg. You’ll bleed.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Needs to come out. You still have Keller’s healing balm, don’t you?”

Keller was a very strong fallen angel, and back when we were together he had made me a magic salve. It was a type of extremely powerful magic, and it would have been extremely expensive if it hadn’t been a gift. He had given it to me with a silly grin on his face and said, “For all those times when you refuse to take care of yourself. Just in case I can’t get there in time.” I felt sure he never would have expected me to use it to save Sip’s life.

I pulled the salve out of my bag. The big jar was still at Astra, but I carried a bit in my bag at all times, just in case.

Sip tried to open the jar when I handed it to her, but her hands were shaking so much that she didn’t have the strength. I took it back from her, opened it quickly, and handed it to her again. Then I braced my hands around the spear and forced myself to look at her wincing.

“On three,” I said. “One, two, three.”

I had never pulled anything out of flesh before. It was harder than I had expected, with the tough skin of the werewolf making the removal difficult. There was a slight squishing noise as the spear came free, and underneath that noise I could hear Sip’s pants of pain.

I clenched my jaw and fell backward, the spear in my hand. Quickly I threw it aside and grabbed the ripped bit of jacket I had to put over the wound. Sip had put all the healing salve we had on it to stop the bleeding, and it appeared to be working, but I’d still need to wrap the wound.

After a few moments, my friend’s breathing was more even and the sweat on her brow had lessened. She was taking deep breaths.

“Are you okay?” I asked. She nodded curtly. “It doesn’t hurt. We need more of that healing salve.”

I nodded. I had another small jar at Dunne ai Dorn, but that felt very far away now.

“We have to find Vital,” I said. “I think they’re having a gathering in the coronation room. Everyone’s heading that way.”

“Vital said they used that room to worship their triumph,” said Sip. “Dirr died there, and that’s where the Blood Throne is.”

“Right,” I said. “And hopefully Lisabelle’s there as well.”

“I have a feeling she is,” said Sip.

“We need a way to communicate with her,” I said with frustration. “This would all be a lot easier.”

“First we find Vital,” said the werewolf. “Help me up.”

I bandaged Sip’s leg as best I could, then pulled her to her feet. She winced, moving gingerly.

We were in a cavernous room that was nearly empty. I assumed it had once been food storage for visitors, but the new inhabitants of Vampire Locke didn’t care about feeding guests, only killing them.

“Where do you think Vital is?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really have no idea.”

As we made our way carefully to the coronation room, Sip said softly, “Thanks for not trying to convince me to leave.”

She was still leaning on my arm for support, but I could feel her getting stronger.

I snorted. “Like you’d listen.”

“Obviously I wouldn’t,” she said with a smile. “Still, I know I can do this. I know we can.”

“What if Vital was captured?”

“First,” said Sip, “I doubt it. We would have heard Locke shaking from the battle. Second, if he’s captured, all we have to do is notify Lanca. I imagine she’ll tear the whole place down to get him back.”

It hadn’t really surprised any of us that Lanca and Vital were dating. Lanca was unconventional - at this point she had to be - and she needed a man who wasn’t intimidated by the fact that she was the queen. Vital wasn’t intimidated by much of anything.

Sip’s stomach rumbled and she gave me a bemused smile. If our break-in had gone according to plan we would have been home by now. As it was, all we had was a few nut cakes for snacks. Once we finished those, we’d be out of food.

“We just have to find Vital,” I said. “Then we have to get out of here.”

“At least we have the crown,” said Sip. When Vital and I had been confronted by enemies, Sip had dashed away. It was harder for demons to sense animals, and Sip in werewolf form was fast. Lanca’s crown had been just where she said it was; the Nocturns hadn’t found it. Lanca would be stronger with her crown. If we could just get her throne back now, that would be progress.

I glanced around the next hallway and saw two demons moving away from us. Once they disappeared around the corner we kept moving.

Sip’s steps were getting stronger, and she seemed to have more energy. “How’s your power?” she asked.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Vital made sure I didn’t have to use any of it.”

“Very nice of him,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Right,” I said, smiling.

“Now if he hadn’t gotten himself captured . . .”

“We don’t know that he was,” I said. “I was just knocked out. When I woke up he was gone. He must have made sure I was safe, and then kept going.”

“It’s too quiet,” said Sip, echoing what I was thinking.

It was way too quiet. But it had been since we arrived, and I couldn’t figure out why.

“We came at the perfect time,” I said. “Hate for it to be boring.”

“We’re going to die never having been bored,” said Sip. She didn’t sound like she thought it was a good thing.

“Hopefully later rather than sooner,” I said.

“Hopefully.”

The coronation room wasn’t far away, and we both knew where to go from our visit to Locke for Lanca’s coronation. Already I could feel the subtle circulation of air coming through from the open roof.

“What do we do when we get there?” Sip asked.

“We find Vital,” I said. “We see who else is here. Lanca said there aren’t that many missing Rapiers, and she doesn’t think many joined darkness. But I do think she wants to know who has died. Maybe we can also get a look at Lisabelle and the Premier.”

Sip nodded.

“What do you think is happening?”

“I don’t know,” I said. The gathering in the coronation room had been on my mind since we had arrived at Locke, and it scared me. Whatever was going on was surely major, otherwise all the guards wouldn’t be gone and we’d have been captured a long time ago, or fighting for every inch of the way out.

As we got close to the room where Lanca’s sister had died we started to hear noise, lots of noise. The gurgling of demons, the cries of darkness mages, and what sounded remarkably like the smacking of lips met our ears.

Sip and I exchanged glances. It was like a feast was happening.

Several voices were coming closer, and Sip quickly pulled me to the side, into what looked like a dark little nook. “Lanca showed me this when we were here. I knew it would come in handy someday.”

But the little nook wasn’t a little nook at all, it was a secret passage. When Sip pressed the correct rock it slid out of our way to reveal a door. We slipped through quickly and as quietly as we could, and immediately the rock slid shut behind us. I breathed a sigh of relief, feeling safer than I had since we arrived.

There was a narrow staircase in front of us, so thin I almost had to turn sideways to start up the steps. Sip went first, and already her limp was barely visible - the power of Keller’s healing magic at work.

It wasn’t a long climb, and at the top was another rock face.

“What is this?” I whispered.

“Advisors to King Daemon used this space to spy on meetings they weren’t allowed into,” Sip explained. “Apparently it was built centuries ago and then forgotten for a long time. But a couple of advisors found out about it, and instead of telling the king they used it for their own ends. Daemon started to realize that they somehow knew information that they shouldn’t, but instead of confronting his advisors, he followed them. When he found out about this place and what they’d been doing, he strung them up at the top of the mountain.”

I shivered. King Daemon was respected, but a respected vampire ruler was always ruthless. It was something I knew Lanca had struggled to reconcile until her sister was murdered. War with the Nocturns had given her other things to think about lately, though.

Meanwhile, Sip and I were in a secret passageway in the bowels of Vampire Locke, and Sip seemed to have a clear idea of what to do next even if I didn’t. She pressed her hand to another rock and a section of the wall slid away in front of our eyes, revealing several narrow slits designed to be invisible from the other side, but to let anyone in the passageway see into the coronation room.

I stifled a gasp. We could see directly into the huge hall, which was filled with demons and darkness mages. Everywhere I looked was a rolling sea of black and fire.

So many rings burned black, just like Lisabelle’s, that it was hard to take in the dark power concentrated in that room. But I knew that Lisabelle’s ring had always been black, unlike the others’, which were turned black. Lisabelle wore the First Black Ring, an object of power that would have killed a lesser paranormal.

In the center of the room stood a strange wooden contraption. At first, I didn’t know what it was, but Sip did.

“There’s going to be a hanging,” Sip whispered, her purple eyes huge.

“Vital,” I said.

“No,” said Sip, pointing. “I don’t think they have Vital. If they do, he isn’t here. Look.”

I followed her gesture with my eyes, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. Risper was sitting to one side of the contraption, very near the noose. His hands were chained along with his ankles, but it didn’t matter. He sat with his head slung low on his chest. I could see his hair, slick and dark.

“He’s bleeding,” said Sip. “Among vampires.”

It was true. I could see Cortov Decimatar standing among several other vampires, and he looked hungry, although for all I knew that was just eagerness to watch Risper die.

“We have to do something,” I said. “We can’t just stand here and watch them kill him!”

“Where’s Lisabelle?” Sip was scanning the crowd, but I couldn’t see our friend. “No way she lets this happen.”

“She doesn’t have a choice,” I said. “She can’t break her cover, not even for Risper. He wouldn’t want her to.”

Sip stared at me as if she’d never seen me before. “Of course she can,” she said. “She has to! It’s Risper.”

“He must have been caught trying to retrieve the Globe White,” I said.

“He would have thought it was especially urgent to get it back after Public
fell,” said Sip. “Now all the Objects on the Wheel except the Mirror are in the possession of Nocturns.”

But she stopped talking when the air in the room suddenly shifted. The anticipation was palpable.

“They’re going to hang him,” said Sip, pressing her hand to her stomach. “I feel sick.”

Two Nocturns came forward and hauled Risper to his feet. I didn’t recognize them, but I could see Risper trying to talk to them. There weren’t that many darkness mages, and it seemed that he must have known these two, and he must have been trying to get them to help him.