Elemental Omen (Paranormal Public Book 10) Page 11

  What made the ride all the more difficult was that I still wasn’t sure it was worth it. I hadn’t agreed to do anything except go with them; I had hardly had a choice under the circumstances. But being with them was definitely going to be temporary.

  We flew for so long that the sun was just rising into a pale gray sky by the time we halted, and my eyes felt grainy and kept trying to close. I took several deep breaths as we began our descent, hoping that this would be the last time I’d have to fly for a while. I didn’t enjoy it, I wasn’t very good at it, and I had found keeping track of Lisabelle taxing. After hours of it, I had started to daydream about what would happen if I just landed my broom in the nearest clump of trees and laid my head down. When I wasn’t thinking about solid ground I was stewing, because this most definitely wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. Sure, they had rescued me from the clutches of certain slavery, but I wasn’t going to give them my soul for it, that would just be a different version of the imprisonment I had escaped in the market. Then again, I knew they wouldn’t ask for my soul, so I was still left with the question: What next?

  When I touched down, Lisabelle was waiting next to Sip on the ground. The darkness mage looked just as she had the night before, not tired or remotely ruffled by hurtling through the air in the dark for hours. Not even the strange flow of visitors who had silently come to speak with her and then flown off seemed to have disturbed her calm in the slightest. I, on the other hand, felt like I was an exploded magical spell, all over the place and flattened.

  Sighing, I looked at Sip. At least she had the decency to look a little tired. “Where are we?” I wondered out loud.

  “About a day’s ride from Paranormal Public,” said Sip. I raised my eyebrows. We were closer to home than I had thought.

  “Charlotte’s coming off the grounds to meet you,” said Lisabelle. “Somehow she thinks you might not like what she has to say.”

  “Where are we meeting?” I asked, looking around. I cared enough about my sister that I really wanted a shower before I gave her a hug.

  Sip beamed. “We’ve been offered rooms at the Duke’s summer palace.”

  “The Duke?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

  “Yes,” said Sip, “Duke Dacer.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I had a vague idea where we were headed, and I was looking forward to it. Professor Luc Dacer, Curator of the Museum of Masks at Paranormal Public University, was now the Duke of Duckleworth as well, having acceded to the title officially when his mother, the Duchess through marriage, had abdicated because of deteriorating health. Sip said that the Duchess was still alright, but that her decision had been very upsetting for her son, at least at first. But Luc, who always handled everything with flare, had taken to his new role with gusto once his immediate worries about his mother’s health were allayed. He had wanted to maintain his role as a Professor at Public, especially now that his favorite student of all time was a professor there as well, and he was carrying his dual roles with his usual panache.

  After we landed, the three of us walked for about half an hour until we reached an imposing golden gate that swung open as we drew near. The dirt road was well worn and lined with pine trees, making me think that we might be in New England. In tune with the Duke’s sense of style, even the pine trees had flare. The branch tips looked as though someone had painted them with colored glitter, and what was more, I got the sense that they were very proud of that fact.

  For a brief moment before we walked through the gates, I saw a dark shadow, a thin face and large black eyes fading into the plush background. I glanced at Lisabelle and Sip, but when they didn’t say anything I thought I must have imagined it. The Duke’s grounds were probably the least favorite corner of the paranormal world for evil-doers of all stripes. There was nowhere to hide but in bright, pink-colored bushes.

  “It’s organic tree paint, or something,” said Sip, seeing where I was looking. “It doesn’t hurt them at all.”

  A horse and carriage awaited us. There was no driver in evidence, but I climbed into the carriage gratefully, willing to see what would happen next. It had been a long couple of days, and I was just happy that the flying was over for this portion of the journey.

  None of us spoke as the carriage lurched forward on its own. The animal was not fazed by Lisabelle - making me realize how much I had come to expect every sentient creature to be fazed by Lisabelle - and it knew exactly where we needed to go.

  The castle shone out at us like a beacon, and as we got nearer to it I found myself staring in shock. Each window pane was painted a different hue and color, the first floor blues of many shades from dark to light, the second yellows, but from light to dark. The next level was pink, then purple and red. The walls were built of a light blue washed-looking stone.

  Then there were the gardens that surrounded the castle. They were plush and just as colorful as the building, with flowers the size of trees planted in perfect rows that stretched as far as the eye could see. I had never seen anything like it in my life, not in person and not in pictures. These were not the grounds of your typical vampire aristocrat.

  “It looks like a candy store exploded on the façade,” I said.

  “Or some fireworks,” said Sip. “I think that’s why Duchess Leonie abdicated instead of letting Luc wait until she died, because she wanted to see what he’d do with the place.” It was strange to hear Sip use the professor’s first name, since he had always held a sort of older, in-charge place in my mind. But I reminded myself that Sip was now the president of the paranormals, and she bowed to no one. She brought my mind back from wandering by remarking, “Now there are visitors who come from far and wide just to see it.”

  Next to me, Lisabelle sighed. She was staring out at the grounds, unblinking.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Fresh air,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s going to be the death of me.”

  “Oh, yeah, what does it feel like to breathe in something other than soot and smoke?”

  “It’s awful,” said Lisabelle. She did look a little ill. “Hopefully it won’t last long.”

  Sip shook her head. “If Luc has any say, you’ll stay for a couple of nights.”

  “He doesn’t,” said Lisabelle, looking appalled.

  Sip leaned over to me, her eyes twinkling. “Luckily, Lisabelle rarely feels the need to make a point. If she was planning to stay for a couple of nights she won’t change that plan just because she now knows we want her to stay.”

  I glanced overhead at a bird flying above us, white and too big not to draw attention. When Sip saw me looking she smiled. “Yes, be sure to check out her eyes if she lands.” Crazy as it sounded, the bird looked kind of like a swan. I had never seen such a paranormal creature before, but Sip didn’t seem to think it was odd, so I decided not to worry about it. I felt like I was in a very strange sort of twilight zone and that I was about to see Luc Dacer again sooner than I expected.

  We hopped out of the carriage one at a time as the horse pranced to a stop. Immediately it drove itself away, presumably heading for the stables.

  “Well-behaved,” I commented.

  Lisabelle rolled her eyes. “At least someone is.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a dig at me or at Sip, but at the moment I was so excited about the prospect of being clean for once that I didn’t care. My sense of sweat and grime wasn’t helped by the weather. The morning air hung gray and wet, as if we were walking through a rain cloud. Overhead the sky was one large gray mass, in wry contrast to the Duke’s grounds.

  The door opened to reveal a vampire. She was short and squat and her face kind of reminded me of Dacer. Her hair was pulled back into a thick black bun and her lips were pursed.

  “I’m Zellie, Luc’s cousin,” she said. Judging by the thin line of her mouth and the pinching around her eyes, I didn’t think she was happy to see us. At least, not what I imagined was happy for most people.

  But Sip stuck out her hand and in
troduced herself as if everything was fine, so Zellie was pretty much forced to respond in kind. She looked a little unsure when Sip got to Lisabelle, but she shook it off quickly. She didn’t smile at me; instead she gave me a look that said, “If you break anything in this castle you’ll buy it.”

  Duke Luc Dacer emerged from the house and inhaled deeply. His radiant smile took us all in as he said, “Sometimes I think the wind chooses to take the path through the trees, over the fields, and diving into streams that is most covered with flowers. And sometimes, I think, it does not.”

  “Hello, Luc,” said Sip, beaming. She raced to her former professor with outstretched arms and he gave her a big hug in return.

  Lisabelle was excited to see the professor in a very Lisabelle-ish way. That is, she nodded and tried not to yawn.

  “Lisabelle, I would be sorely offended if you treated me any differently from the way you treat everyone else,” said Dacer.

  “I treat everyone the same,” said Lisabelle. “It’s less confusing that way. For them.”

  “You hassle me more than you hassle anyone else,” Sip pointed out.

  “I’m perfectly happy to confuse you,” said Lisabelle.

  “Thanks ever so,” said Sip.

  Dacer took the familiar banter in stride and ushered us into the house. His disapproving cousin had no choice but to stand out of the way, her hands clasped quietly in front of her.

  “You’re just in time for tea,” said Dacer. “Miss Charlotte and Mr. Keller got in touch and said that they should be along in time for dinner. I told them not to worry, since I figured you’d had a long trip and wouldn’t mind the chance to rest and recharge, so to speak. Fresh baths can be drawn up at your convenience.”

  As I watched Professor Dacer talk, his long, elegant, pale hands touching the air with grace and giving motion to his expressions, I realized what was different. The vampire I had always known as the most flamboyant of dressers - for his colorful suits, eyebrows, and canes - was dressed all in black. His grounds were colorful, but he was not.

  Sip was talking animatedly with Dacer, but Lisabelle had fallen into step next to me, so I asked her the first question that came to mind. “Did his mother die?” I whispered to Charlotte’s best friend.

  Lisabelle shook her head once. What I liked about Lisabelle was that she didn’t treat my questions as if they were an unusually foolish waste of time. She thought everything that wasn’t her idea was a foolish waste of time, so I never took it personally.

  “She’s fine, she’s likely to be in one of the upstairs rooms. Why do you ask?”

  “Professor Dacer’s wearing black,” I said.

  “He’s releasing the catapult a little early,” said Lisabelle, shrugging. “He’s a dramatic vampire.”

  “I heard dramatic vampire,” said Dacer, suddenly spinning around and sliding up to us. “Yes?”

  I prayed that Lisabelle wouldn’t tell him I had asked about his wardrobe. A warning looking from Sip behind Dacer’s back seemed to ensure that she wouldn’t.

  “I was saying dramatic vampires - so yes, you - throw the best tea parties,” said Lisabelle.

  Dacer grimaced a little and I saw that he was also wearing minimal makeup, a very unusual presentation for him. The fake eyelashes and flashy hats were missing; he wasn’t even wearing his trademark colorful shoes. “Mother throws better ones,” he said. “She just isn’t up for such things anymore. Besides, it’s not as if you like the tea and crumpet cakes I put out.”

  “I like them fine,” said Lisabelle. “They’re very pretty.”

  “Did you want tea or showers first?”

  “I’m not going to shower,” said Lisabelle. “Let’s you and I chat while the soft ones bathe and perfume themselves.”

  “I don’t wear perfume,” said Sip.

  Suddenly three pairs of eyes turned to me. “Ah, um, I don’t wear perfume either?”

  “We know,” said Sip, “you clearly haven’t had a hair cut since . . .”

  “Since the Nocturn battle, actually,” I said. My dirty blond hair was now pulled into a literally dirty blond ponytail at the nape of my neck. In the first city I had stopped in after I had run away, a giggling girl had come up to me and tried to touch my “man bun,” and I had been forced to tell her that I only let girls touch my man bun on special occasions. Unfortunately, she found that adorable too, although I had a feeling that I could have said just about anything and she would have found it cute.

  “It smells,” said Lisabelle, “so if you can’t wash that smell out, today’s going to be your lucky day.”

  “I thought it was already,” I drawled. Outwardly I was trying to project an air of bland familiarity. Inwardly I was fighting any sense of belonging here on Dacer’s unique grounds. I was leaving again soon, after all.

  “And you’ll wear perfume,” Lisabelle finished as if I hadn’t spoken. Since Lisabelle trampled on any and all who defied her, I didn’t take offense. Being overridden was par for the course if you hung around Lisabelle for longer than a second or two.

  “This way,” said Sip, waving to Lisabelle and Professor Dacer as she marched me upstairs. Zellie had disappeared at some point, though I couldn’t have told you when. But Sip had clearly been in the castle before and knew right where we were going. “Yours will be the first room on the right,” she said. “I’m down the hall. Luc has the entire third floor, and that’s also where his mother’s room is. Lisabelle stays in one of the lookout towers, which, as Luc likes to say, was not actually intended as a paranormal sleeping space. Unsurprisingly, that makes Lisabelle like it all the more. I trust you can find your way to the garden when you’re ready?”

  She raised her eyebrows at me and I had a feeling that Sip did not like missing out on the important conversation Lisabelle and Dacer were going to have. Let’s be honest, it’s not like Lisabelle was likely to be talking about the weather.

  I nodded and Sip virtually skipped away. I figured she wanted to spend as much time with her best friend as she could while they were away from any annoying paranormal advisors.

  The room I’d been given was spacious, but sparse and practical, in other words, the direct antithesis of anything I had ever known about its owner, Duke Dacer. Everything in the room was of the highest quality, yet well-worn. The hardwood floor was bare except for a couple of thread rugs. The bed was a long cot that could have slept five of me laid shoulder to shoulder. I imagined Dacer using this house as a refuge during a war, then I flinched as images of bodies appeared before my eyes. Luckily, a tub behind a screen in the corner distracted me. It was already filled with hot water.

  I didn’t dawdle in the bath, but I didn’t rush, either. I delighted in the hot water and the feeling of being clean. I didn’t deserve it, but I certainly enjoyed it.

  Flashes of memory from the last two days kept racing behind my eyes, though, and no matter what I did I couldn’t get them out of my head. I wanted the news of the paranormal world, but I also wanted to forget everything that had just happened. At least I would get to see Charlotte soon.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Just as I was getting out of the bath I heard someone in the hallway; Sip must have been on her way back to join Dacer and Lisabelle. There were fresh clothes laid out for me, and try as my stubbornness might, no part of me wanted to put the layers of rags I’d been wearing back on.

  Once I was dressed in jeans (my correct size, of course, even though I’d lost weight since I left home) and a long-sleeved t-shirt, I ran my fingers through my hair. The length was annoying, but I couldn’t do anything about it right then.

  Daydreaming in the steamy bath, I had been careful not to think about Charlotte or wonder if she had arrived. But now, suddenly, a desperate need filled my chest and all I wanted to do was see my sister. What if she had already arrived and I had been wasting time dawdling in the tub?

  I hurried downstairs, less weighed down than I had been when I’d gone up. Most of the guilt and frustration were still there,
but at least the grime was not. Reaching the first floor hallway, I heard voices from behind the house and headed that way.

  “Ah, here he is,” Professor Dacer said with a smile. The vampire was sitting at a garden table set on a patio that was reached by a stone path lined with greenery. The table was shaded by a large maple tree and furnished with a teapot, cups, and a plate of crisps and cookies. I took the last seat, remembering that Charlotte was not due to arrive until dinner and telling myself that my impatience to see my sister was silly.

  “I trust you found everything satisfactory?” Professor Dacer said. He was carefully arranging the tea set just so, his long fingers handling the delicate china with expertise.

  “Thank you, yes,” I said, eyeing the cookies. Professor Dacer smiled a little and lifted the tray. I took a cookie gratefully, and before he set the tray back down he snagged two more cookies and deposited them on my plate.

  “What if he doesn’t like them?” Lisabelle asked, mystified as to why I couldn’t feed myself.

  “He’ll like them,” said Sip. “No one makes better cookies than Luc.”

  “Martha gives me a run for my money,” said Dacer, “or at least she used to.”

  Martha was the personification of Paranormal Public, the school’s power come to life in the body of a small woman who baked a lot. She was also crazy, but when I had last heard of her, she had still been very powerful. My sister had first met her when Martha had commandeered Astra, the elemental dorm at Public, for her baking needs. For a long time Charlotte hadn’t known who Martha really was, she had thought Martha was her new dorm mother. It was only after she complained to Luc about it that she started to figure out the truth. It wouldn’t have mattered, though; Martha was in charge at Public and tolerated no opposition to her role.

  There was a moment of silence while I bit into the cookie. As I had expected and Sip had predicted, it was delicious. The vampire was eyeing me with a silent question, and I gave him a nod to tell him how much I liked it.