Elemental Omen (Paranormal Public Book 10) Read online

  “Here’s the thing,” said Lisabelle as we retreated to the garden. “We want you to attend Paranormal Public starting this fall.”

  The beating around the bush was over, apparently.

  “I’m not old enough,” I said quickly, “I just turned seventeen.”

  “It’s where you should be,” said Sip, “and the age requirement is flexible.”

  “There aren’t any other elementals attending. I don’t want to be alone. Besides, it will require a lot of work with my sister, and I won’t know if that’s the best idea.” Besides, I have nightmares, and it’s not my job to save the world!! Charlotte and I had gotten to a place where, except for when I freaked out and disappeared, we got along great. I wasn’t sure that would extend to her being my instructor. Essentially, we worked best when we didn’t have to talk much.

  “I travel a lot,” said Charlotte, her voice very soft. “I’ll be there to answer questions, but we all kind of agree that learning from books, masks, and other professors is the best option.”

  I didn’t want to tell them that I was afraid, that going back to the paranormal life was a responsibility so great I thought it might crush me.

  Sip stepped forward and put her small hand on my arm. “Work sustains me,” she said. “It’s not like you’re alone in the horror you saw. We are with you in it. If you don’t think about it too much, it’s bearable. I just try to think about the good, what came out of it.”

  “What good came out of it?” I croaked, the sea of bodies swimming before my eyes. Did Sip know what I saw? Did she see it too? I knew Lisabelle didn’t.

  “There were those who loved us and loved the paranormal way enough to fight for it. Maybe it doesn’t help, but it was us or them. If we hadn’t fought, more would have died than did. We did not start the war, all we could do was finish it.”

  “A purpose gives you air, something else to think about in the morning when you’re fighting the fear,” said Charlotte.

  “You could have a purpose at Public,” said Lisabelle. “Think about it.”

  I might have been cynical about the way they were taking turns, but I wasn’t. Somehow, the darkness premier brought weight to this little meeting. I didn’t necessarily trust my sister; I thought she just wanted to surround herself with family, which was great, but maybe not what was best for me, or maybe for her, either. Sip was the president of the paranormals. I knew she would never wish me ill, but it would also benefit her directly if I came back.

  Lisabelle was different. The only thing that benefited Lisabelle was Lisabelle. She might say something to make Charlotte or Sip happy, but it wasn’t as if she had any problem disagreeing with them, either. Instead, she’d gone to a whole lot of trouble to bring me to Duckleworth. That told me that my presence was important to her. What it didn’t tell me was why.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I was waiting for Dacer and the others on the stone terrace. The view was incredible; in every direction, I could see colorful trees and lush grass. The sky was a bursting riot of colors, as if someone had smeared a rainbow as the backdrop for the sun. A slight breeze wafted past us, but the air was more cool than cold. It was nearly time to get ready for the play.

  “Tonight we head for the theater,” said Dacer, beaming. The vampire still wore black, but his face was less pinched than it had been. My sister’s visit must be doing him good.

  The duke loved the theater and all things theatrical. Anyone who knew Dacer knew that he reveled in performance, but I had a sneaking suspicion that there was an ulterior motive behind everything that was happening on this visit. The pretty sunset wasn’t just a pretty sunset, it was a pretty sunset with paranormal leaders in attendance, and it formed the backdrop of battles raged in shadow. I felt as if my sister and her friends weren’t going to give up until they had gradually convinced me to attend Public. And by gradually I mean as much time as I would allow them before I left again.

  Because I was leaving sooner or later; I had no doubts on that score, despite Lisabelle’s encouragement.

  “I’m not going to the theater,” said Lisabelle, following Dacer outside and flinching a little as if the very air annoyed her. It probably did. She preferred to breathe in soot and smog, and all this health and vitality was wearing thin. “The last of my tolerance seeped away years ago. I cannot abide comedy and performance.”

  “When did you ever abide comedy?” I asked. The darkness premier quirked her eyebrow at me as if to agree that I made a fair point.

  “Are you returning to darkness?” Sip asked quietly, arriving just in time to hear Lisabelle’s comment.

  Lisabelle nodded, and I saw Sip’s shoulders sag a little. Charlotte, who had been sitting quietly, looked on sympathetically. Zellie was also on the terrace, but she had barely spoken.

  I sympathized with Sip’s disappointment, but even I knew that Lisabelle shouldn’t have been away from the dark this long as it was. The demons and hellhounds got edgy without some direction, and Lisabelle needed to be there to bash them back into submission. At least, that’s how she liked to tell it.

  “Are your guards going to the performance?” Lisabelle asked Sip. Despite the joking earlier in the day, I knew Lisabelle worried about Sip’s safety. She was a glaring target, after all.

  Sip nodded. “Yeah, I let them know I’d be there, even though it’s silly. No one knows we’re here visiting Luc, so it’s highly unlikely an attack would be staged.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” said Lisabelle, inclining her head toward Charlotte and me. I tried not to roll my eyes. The theater was about the last thing I wanted to do that night; I always had a hard time sitting through performances, even if I enjoyed them, and now more than ever I had a lot on my mind. But Dacer had insisted.

  We spent a quiet day helping him clean up and decorate the grounds. I had wanted to ask him about the pool and the witch, but I couldn’t bring myself to go against her wishes. Who knew what would happen if I defied a magical creature like that, even one that had been imprisoned for who knew how long? There was something I could ask him about, though.

  Luckily, Dacer was distracted by the news that something else that was dastardly and awful lurked on his grounds.

  “A what?” Dacer looked appalled. “Never in all my vampire’s years. They’re dirty, nasty things. They pee and make weird noises and wiggle. Disgusting.”

  “Puppies?” Charlotte laughed. “I doubt it. Are you sure it wasn’t a baby werewolf?”

  “There are no baby werewolves around here,” said Sip sharply. “I would know. Also, don’t you dare confuse the two.”

  Charlotte nodded as if to mollify her offended friend.

  “Alright, then it was definitely a lab puppy. What’s so awful about that?”

  “Oh, let me see, there’s the barking, and the shedding, and the pooping, and the adoring eyes that just say feed me more feed me more, until your hands smell like dog food and your house smells like poo.” Dacer shuddered like he was remembering a bad dream. “There are few worse things than a puppy. None of them am I willing to talk about.”

  “You must lead a charmed life, Dacer,” Charlotte laughed again. “Also, this is a castle, not a house.”

  “The point remains the same,” Dacer sniffed. “I would not allow a puppy here. There simply is not room.”

  In an instant, Zellie’s face turned into a mask of annoyance, which was all the more confusing because she wasn’t joining the conversation, she was making a great show of being absorbed in the stack of papers she was reading. I didn’t think much of her silence, but Dacer clearly thought it was odd. He gave his cousin a searching look.

  “Zel,” he said, “do you happen to know anything about puppies? Specifically lab puppies?”

  Zellie kept reading the papers she had spread out in front of her, which she had weighed down with rocks at the corners so they wouldn’t blow away, but I saw her jaw tighten as a glimmer of hope sparked in my chest.

  “I’m allowed my own things,�
�� she informed her cousin, as if he was somehow meddlesome and had interfered with something sacred like her dating life.

  “Sure,” said Dacer, “so long as those things are not puppies on the Duckleworth grounds.”

  “Well, so what if they are,” she said airily. She glanced at me. “The pup you speak of is in the stables.”

  Dacer started to blow up, but Zellie just glared at him and said, “I’m the one who cleans this place, not you. Besides, you’d barely know where the stables were if they hit you over the head. It’s not like you go there. They keep the horses company.”

  “They? . . . They? . . . keep . . . the horses . . .” Poor Dacer looked like he could barely contain himself. He braced his head in his hands and his hair flopped forward, while Charlotte busied herself examining the elemental masks he had brought out for her and Zellie went back to reading the papers laid out in front of her. Meanwhile Sip and Lisabelle picked up a couple of priceless artifacts Dacer had asked them to examine and threw them back and forth between them, stopping whenever Dacer looked their way. Whoever said responsibility made you grow up had never met those two.

  For the first time since my arrival I saw Zellie smile.

  Finally, it was time to get ready. If I had worried at all about dressing for the theater, I shouldn’t have, because once again there were clothes waiting for me when I went upstairs to change. When I was properly attired, I hurried back downstairs. Dacer hadn’t made his appearance yet, and we were just getting ready to go look for him when Sip glanced outside and rolled her eyes. “Bertrum’s here,” she said. “Late, as usual.” She stomped to the front door as Charlotte leaned into my shoulder. I recognized the familiar spark in her eye that said she was amused about something.

  “Lisabelle left just in time to avoid Bertrum,” she said.

  “Does she not like him?” I asked. I knew Sip had an assistant, her right hand paranormal, entirely loyal and annoying as all get out, but I had yet to meet him.

  “You could say that,” said Charlotte, looking bemused.

  “It’s gotten to the point where poor Bertrum cowers in fear if he thinks Lisabelle’s around,” said Sip, coming back into the hall where we were waiting with Bertrum in tow. “Like when we met up to come to get you.”

  “I’m not afraid of Ms. Verlans,” said Bertrum. “However, I do not like to be where I am not wanted, and of course pleasing your friends is of the utmost importance to me.” He inclined his head to Charlotte, who smiled.

  “Have you been keeping on task?” Bertrum asked, turning back to Sip. “Have you followed your calendar and kept all your appointments? Did you finish the list I gave you?”

  “Really, sometimes I wonder who works for whom,” Sip muttered. The werewolf wore sparkling black pants and a black silk shirt, both of which fit her perfectly, which meant she had either stolen them from a small doll or was having her clothes tailored now that she was president.

  Out loud she said, “We’re going to the theater. Are you coming?””

  “Of course," said Bertrum, his eyes suddenly going misty. “I am always ready for the theater!”

  “I’m going to find my cousin,” said Zellie. She wore practical black robes and her hair was in a severe bun, but she had added sparkling red earrings in honor of the occasion.

  “He’s probably in the stables,” I said. She gave me a look meant to freeze me to my spot, and I gulped. “Visiting the puppy.”

  “He wouldn’t dare,” she whispered. “He wouldn’t.” She hiked up her black dress and stomped upstairs. We heard several doors slam, then silence.

  “Nice," said Bertrum, pushing his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose. “Who goes to the stables, anyway?”

  Sip and Charlotte giggled.

  The Duke did have enough good sense not to be in the stables, and we left not long after that. I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to having chariots and carriages driving up to pick us up, but apparently a broom or a car was just too simple for the Duke of Duckleworth. As the rest of us stood waiting, Dacer and Zellie came back together, although neither of them bothered to explain where Dacer had been or why it had taken him so long to get ready. Dacer had changed into a fancier black robe, and the shirt cuffs of his black shirt now had ruffles. He wore delicate cufflinks and a placid expression.

  “What play are we seeing, and who’s performing it?” I asked, fidgeting with my tie.

  “Shakespeare,” said Sip. When she noted my look of surprise she said, “It’s not like there’s an endless supply of wonderful stories. Shakespeare is the best storyteller the world has ever seen, including all the paranormal ones.”

  “Are there some famous people in history who were really paranormals?” I asked, thinking Sip, as the president, must know all the secrets.

  “Yes,” said Sip, “but I can’t tell you who they were.”

  “Oh, come on,” Charlotte and I chorused together. “Maybe just one?”

  Sip shook her head and said with a bit of a twinkle in her eye, “I take my role as president very seriously. I will not reveal historical secrets just because a few childish leeches want to know!”

  Charlotte sat back and pouted while Dacer chuckled. He had steepled his fingers together and was staring out the window of the chariot, which was not your average chariot (is there such a thing?). This was a vehicle moving at demon speed, and yet the museum curator looked lost in a quiet thought train, as if he had forgotten where he was. No one seemed interested in disturbing his thoughts. I felt like we were riding through candy cane clouds and couldn’t help but smile.

  Suddenly I realized that someone was missing. “Where’s your friend?” I asked Dacer. His eyes snapped back to the present at the sound of my voice. “Charles, or whoever he was.”

  “He left,” he said, smiling. “He doesn’t actually like to socialize. That boisterous personality is really meant to keep us all at arm’s length.”

  “Lisabelle should have come,” I said. “Watching her try to sit through the performance would probably be almost as entertaining as the actors themselves.”

  “She can’t,” said Charlotte, stone-faced. “I know she said all that stuff about getting back to darkness, but that’s only part of it.”

  I frowned. “Why not?” I didn’t really think there was anything Lisabelle couldn’t do. There was just a very long list of things she wouldn’t, like eat vegetables.

  “She and Sip can’t be seen together,” said Bertrum, “obviously.”

  “How is that obvious?” I demanded, giving Sip’s secretary a mulish look. “She came to get me with Sip. They were together. Lots of paranormals saw them.”

  “Crooks and the poor,” Bertrum said, then shrugged at my shocked expression. “NO one will believe them if they say that the great Lisabelle Verlans was there. They’re so afraid of what Lisabelle might do, they probably haven’t told the rest of their clans; they’ve probably denied the memory even in their own minds. It’s best not to think about such things.”

  “Lisabelle’s not that scary,” I said, sitting back against the plush gold cushion and crossing my arms.

  “Yeah, true, she’s not scary at all. It’s not like Lisabelle Verlans is synonymous with darkness, and darkness is the same as fear,” said Bertrum. “She’s not scary like standing at the base of an erupting volcano isn’t scary. Just your average walk over molten rock, another day in the life right before you get covered in lava and incinerated.”

  The entire carriage was staring at the paranormal, who cleared his throat and added, “Or so I’d think.”

  Clearly, Bertrum was hard to get along with. His need for rational arguments killed most friendships before they ever got started.

  “Is this like a fancy paranormal theater?” I said.

  “No, it’s a human theater,” said Dacer with relish. “I’m rather looking forward to seeing how humans . . . are.”

  “Do you want to drink their blood?” I asked.

  Everyone except Dacer looked take
n aback by my question, but he just shook his head. “No, I am long past that desire. Like so many things, it is for the young.”

  “If vampires don’t die unless they’re killed, then aren’t you all young?” I asked.

  “Just in spirit,” said Dacer, relaxing back into the cushions.

  I ignored Charlotte’s glare. She clearly didn’t like how I talked to her favorite professor, but I was just curious, and Dacer didn’t seem to mind.

  The theater was in a tiny town of less than a thousand people. I could see a smattering of houses, which Dacer declared was basically the entire town. No, there was not more of it that I couldn’t see, that was it. The road was lined with cars, so our chariot dropped us off some distance away. There was no sign of Sip’s guards, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  As we clambered out I looked around and saw that everything was peaceful and quiet. And yet, something felt very strange. I told myself it was just nerves, that I was on edge because my family wanted me to make a decision about Paranormal Public and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to make a decision, let alone ready to attend college.

  Fall was in the air and with it the promise of crisp days and the smell of drying leaves. I sighed, wishing I could just enjoy the autumn, without the decisions that came with the changing seasons.

  I knew I didn’t have to make a final decision until after we sat in on Camilla’s trial, but I also knew that the time would go by fast. Sip wanted a strong showing of paranormals in support of Camilla’s permanent imprisonment. I didn’t know it yet, but later I would learn that Charlotte’s and my presence would count for quite a lot. The last elementals, who knew Camilla well, would be there in support of her never seeing the light of day again. The judge and the board, the assumption went, must surely take that into account.

  In the confusion of all of us disembarking from the chariot, Dacer quickly leaned over and whispered something in my ear that no one else heard. He said, “If you ever have a problem, Ricky, go to the theater, it’s the fastest place to get answers in your life.”