Elemental Fire (7 page)

“Any time now,” said Lisabelle.
She had moved in front of us, heading for the locked back entrance of Airlee.

“So, we’re getting our stuff in
here?” Sip said.

“At least essentials,” said
Lisabelle. “But given how hard it was to get here I don’t think we should weigh
ourselves down with anything unnecessary.”

Sip and I agreed and followed
along behind.

Lisabelle put her hand on the
metal door and pushed, and unlike the last door we had tried to go through, it
opened noiselessly.

“Now, before you get all on your
high horse,” said Lisabelle over her shoulder, “just remember that you’re used
to seeing me break rules.”

Sip let out a puff of air next to
me. Obviously she had been about to tell Lisabelle off.

“How’d you know the password?”
she breathed.

Lisabelle grinned over her
shoulder. “Uncle Risper told me that there might be times when I had to sneak
out to help him or Charlotte. Well, there was no use sneaking out if I was just
going to get in trouble for it, so he gave me the password for sneaking back in
as well.”

“How good of him,” said Sip
dryly. “The committee member promoting delinquency not only in his own
students, but in his own blood relations.”

“Hey, it could be worse,” said
Lisabelle. “They could have locked us out of college during finals week.”

Sip gasped in horror. “So that we
couldn’t finish the semester?”

Lisabelle snickered when Sip
realized that she was being made fun of.

“Let’s get to your room,” I said.
“Did Lough need anything?”

“Not that he said,” said
Lisabelle. “He’s a guy. His room probably barely has anything in it anyway.”

Airlee was in complete darkness.
The only light was from the moon, streaming in through the windows.

“Aren’t the curtains usually
pulled at night?” Sip asked.

“Yes,” said Lisabelle and I in
unison.

“So, maybe the students aren’t
here after all,” Sip mused.

We walked single file through the
building. I could feel the carpet under my feet, but in the dim light it was an
eerie, unsettling gray. There were no noises as we padded up the stairs, and
when the wood under my feet creaked I flinched at the loud noise it made.

“Charlotte, how are your powers?”
Sip whispered. She was still bringing up the rear, while Lisabelle, the most
clearly formidable of us, was in front.

“Low,” I murmured back. I didn’t
want to admit it, but getting us here had exhausted my magic. “I’ll need a
little time to recover.”

“Hopefully we have that,” said
Lisabelle. “We haven’t been caught yet.”

“As I keep telling you,” said Sip
irritably, “my plans are foolproof.”

In front of me Lisabelle paused,
appearing to consider what to say, then shook her head. “Nope, too easy. Not even
going to touch that one.”

“Here we go,” said Sip.

We were outside the door of my
friends’ room now, but I felt only marginally better. I had kept an eye on the
space between the bottom of the doors and the floor, hoping for any sign of
light, but there was none.

Gently, Lisabelle eased us into
their room. It was pitch black, because Lisabelle had put black curtains over
Sip’s neon ones. Not even the sun could visit their room. Unsurprisingly, my
friends knew where everything was, basically without light. I was sure that
Sip’s werewolf eyes helped her get around, while I couldn’t explain Lisabelle’s
easy movements. It was Lisabelle, though, so I just didn’t think too hard about
it.

“What all are you bringing?” Sip
asked Lisabelle.

“My wand, for starters,”
Lisabelle said. “I kept it just in case. It hasn’t fully disappeared into my
arm, and I don’t want to think about what happens if it falls into the wrong
hands. Other than that, just a change of clothing and a couple of curses. Plus
one or two things Uncle Risper gave me for safe keeping. You?”

Before Sip could answer there was
a thump against the door and a rasping noise, as if someone was fighting to
breathe.

We had been found.

Chapter Six

Lisabelle motioned us back just
as there was another knock on the door. She frowned, and I knew why; there was
clearly something wrong. Dove would not have knocked, he would have just barged
in. It was likely that Professor Erikson would have done even worse than that.

Sip got in front of me, but when
I made a noise of protest she just glared. She had a point. My magical reserves
were so low that I probably wouldn’t be able to protect myself from whatever
came through that door. Lisabelle positioned herself on the side of the door
jamb and carefully reached for the knob. Another, sharper knock made me jump.

“What sort of demon knocks?” Sip
mouthed to me. I shrugged.

Lisabelle was using the arm that
had her wand to open the door. She hadn’t pushed up her sleeve, but even
without that I could see black fire burning through the thin fabric that
covered her power. Whatever came through that door was in a world of trouble.

She popped the door open and
jumped in front of it, throwing a wall of black fire between herself and the
opening.

“Lisabelle, stop it right now,”
came a familiar, if terrified, voice. The black fire instantly disappeared, and
Sip, Lisabelle, and I stared in open-mouthed shock at the young man standing in
front of us. He had sandy blond hair, gorgeous blue eyes, the body of a surfer,
and a bloody lip.

“Trafton!” exclaimed Sip, in
obvious relief. Making her way around Lisabelle, who was standing in front of
the door glaring, she darted forward and wrapped her arms around the Airlee
dream giver.

“So, there are students here?” I
said thoughtfully. Then, looking at his amused face, I added, “I mean, nice to
see you, Trafton.”

He gave me a crooked grin as he
wrapped his arms around Sip’s shoulders. She barely came up to his elbow.

“I’m here,” he said. “But I wish
I weren’t. I was one of the first to get back, because I wanted to get
comfortable before the start of the semester and I had heard that Locke was in
chaos. That plan didn’t work out so well.”

“What’s going on here?” I said,
still keeping my voice low.

“It’s bad,” he said grimly.
“Imagine the worst possible scenario, and I can assure you that it’s worse than
that. But I’ll just have to show you.”

Lisabelle crossed her arms over
her chest. “You are not taking my friends into danger.”

Trafton looked at Lisabelle
sympathetically. “This whole place is crawling with danger. If you didn’t want
danger you should have taken them home.”

The pit of my stomach fell.
Trafton looked upset, and something else. I swallowed hard. Trafton looked
afraid.

“What are you talking about?”
Lisabelle said, raising her eyebrows as Trafton rubbed his temples.

“The attack at Locke was a
distraction, or at least it was part of a two-pronged plan. There was another
point to it, which you folks at Locke apparently didn’t get wind of. The
Nocturns wanted the paranormals to think that the threat had been neutralized,
that because Faci was caught and Queen Lanca was fine, the demons had lost. But
while you all were busy cleaning up Locke and the other students were returning
to Public - for safety - the demons were waiting. Public was taken over.”

The three of us looked at him in
horror.

“Come in,” said Lisabelle, moving
out of the way to make room. “You shouldn’t be standing in the hallway when you
explain this.”

“We aren’t supposed to have guys
in our room, technically,” said Sip.

“Technically it’s unlikely that
we make it out of Public alive, so we might as well live it up,” said Lisabelle
frostily.

“I knew you’d come around,” said
Trafton, grinning despite the dire situation we were in. He snaked his arm
around Lisabelle’s waist before she could stop him and quickly planted a kiss
on her cheek.

“If you do not unhand me this
instant I will blast you into the next dimension,” she threatened, but I heard
an undercurrent of amusement in her voice.

“Are there multiple dimensions?”
Trafton murmured, his eyes sparkling, his arm still around her waist.

“There are several,” Sip piped
up. “There’s the -”

“Not now, Sip,” said Lisabelle,
disentangling herself from the ever-flirtatious Trafton. “Sit and tell us
what’s happening.”

“What are they doing here?” I
asked, but really, I already knew, and it was a terrible feeling. Public had
been the one reliably safe haven, but if not even Public was safe now, the
paranormals were like a besieged people, fighting on the run.

“They think the Map Silver is
here,” said Trafton grimly. “And maybe other artifacts. I don’t know if it’s
true, but I sure hope it isn’t. And you know, a good way of controlling
paranormals, or anyone, is holding hostage what they hold most dear,
specifically their children.”

Trafton’s words made me cold. I
didn’t have parents to worry about me, and though ordinarily I would have given
anything to have my mom and dad around, for this I was almost glad they were
gone. If need be, I could risk myself to save my friends without having to imagine
my mom’s face when she found out I was surrounded by demons.

“So, are there just demons here,
or Nocturns too?” Sip asked.

“What’s the difference?” I wanted
to know.

Lisabelle snorted. “There’s a big
difference. Demons are stupid. They are pawns, doing what they are told. Blunt
instruments to be used with force. Nocturns are the brains behind the
operation.”

“And they are darkness mages?”

“Obviously. Not stupid,” said
Lisabelle, tapping her own skull.

“Is Malle here?” Sip said. It
made sense to assume she was behind this.

“No,” said Trafton, looking
relieved. “But Ms. Vale, Daisy and Dobrov’s mother, is.”

Sip whistled as Lisabelle and I
exchanged glances. “I thought she was a slave or dead or something.”

“Personally,” said Lisabelle
dryly, “I thought she was one and then the other.”

Sip glared at Lisabelle, who
ignored her.

“Apparently Ms. Vale was friends
with Malle before Malle became the all-powerful crazy paranormal that she is
now. She’s here running the attack while Malle is off looking for other parts
of the Wheel.”

“But Malle is failing to get the
parts she needs. She didn’t get the Fang First,” I said reasonably. “Why is she
still trying?”

“First, when they started the
attack on Public, and definitely when they planned it, they didn’t know that
they weren’t going to get the Fang First,” Sip pointed out. “And second, crazy
paranormals are entirely unreasonable.”

“There are some sane paranormals
I won’t mention who are also entirely unreasonable,” murmured Lisabelle,
pointing at Sip while pretending to look away.

“Don’t call me unreasonable,”
said Sip indignantly.

“I didn’t. I just pointed in your
direction.”

Breaking into the incessant
sparring of my two friends, I started to fill Trafton in on how we had managed
to get to their room.

His first response was a whistle.
“That’s impressive,” he said. “I don’t suppose you stopped at the Museum of
Masks and got anything helpful?”

“We meant to,” said Sip sadly.
“But, uh, there were issues.”

When Trafton heard that we had
already been attacked twice, his face became even grimmer. “You think it was
the barrier set up by the Power of Five? It doesn’t sound like demon work.”

“Yeah, it was the barrier,” said
Lisabelle. “The demons are not nearly that subtle.”

“How can they possibly think
they’re going to get away with it?” Sip asked, her voice filled with a mixture
of wonder and fear.

“I have no idea,” said Trafton.
“But maybe it’s because they
are
getting away with it?”

“So, how are you free?” Sip
pushed. “Hiding out in Airlee?”

Trafton explained that since he
had gotten there early he had been in his room when most of the students had
arrived, fresh from the Battle of Locke. The darkness mages who were helping
Ms. Vale had nabbed them as they entered, including the committee members
traveling with them. Trafton had realized something was wrong when he heard
screams.

“That was only yesterday,” he
murmured. “I didn’t have a long-term plan. I couldn’t expect the siege to
last.”

“Take us to them,” said Lisabelle
suddenly, standing up like a caged tiger and starting to pace. “We have to
confront Vale head-on. I’m not running away.”

“Oh no,” said Sip grimly. “Oh,
no, no, no.”

Chapter Seven

“What?” Trafton and I chorused.