Elemental Fate (Paranormal Public Book 12) Read online

  “Tell me what happened,” I said. Bertrum nodded dumbly, but he still didn’t speak. When I realized I’d get nothing more out of him this way, I decided to take more drastic measure. “Come on,” I said, tugging him away and leading him out of the cottage and over toward Astra. Keegan followed quietly.

  But I had forgotten what was waiting for us outside. At the sight of the hellhounds, Bertrum engaged in a fresh round of hysterics. It took several more minutes to calm him down enough so that we could resume our slow plow toward my dorm.

  “What do we need to be guarded for?” Keegan demanded. “We can fight.”

  I gave a start at his words. It hadn’t occurred to me that they were there to guard, but now that Keegan had said it, I knew he was right. Lisabelle had left an army of hellhounds at Astra to send a message. I could only wonder how the recipient felt about that.

  “We’re scaring our fellow paranormals,” said Eighellie, striding up. She looked different: purposeful, and not the least bit off in an academic dream world as she sometimes was. I had a glimpse of what she was fixing to become. “I like it.”

  “Huh?” I said, and glanced over my shoulder. Other students were fleeing the scene in droves. They would walk up the path, see the blanket of black hellhounds, and run away screaming and yelling. Some of the hellhounds would sniff after them, seemingly for their own amusement. They had probably picked that habit up from Lisabelle, because during the Nocturn War I didn’t remember the hellhounds liking jokes.

  “Let’s get inside. I’m sure we’ll have company soon enough,” I said. If Fallgrabber showed up in the next few minutes and tried to speak to me, I wasn’t sure what I would do. Hopefully at least Dobrov would be with him to calm him down and keep him in line. I very much hoped that Dobrov would come soon, if he was still on campus. And Charlotte. And Keller. I wasn’t used to dealing with a crisis alone.

  In fact, my sister and her friends had done everything in their considerable power to make sure I never had to come face to face with a crisis on my own.

  We had just made it into the fire sitting lounge when Dobrov did arrive; he brought along a cold evening and thick darkness, which cast funny shadows all around the room. Fallgrabber wasn’t even with him, so I had worried about the protocols officer’s arrival needlessly.

  Dobrov had first gone to my sister’s cottage, taken one look at the spreading bloodstains on Charlotte’s floor, and headed to Astra. As he entered the lounge he said, “Who?” I wasn’t sure if he was talking about who had committed the act or who was injured, but Bertrum informed him that it was the paranormal president who had been hurt.

  Dobrov, pale at the best of times, went a shade whiter, and Bertrum was still barely coherent. He tried very hard to accept that Lisabelle had taken Sip away and that Lisabelle’s quick action would give the werewolf her best chance at survival. Despite his efforts, he barely managed it. He just kept wondering over and over to himself what had happened. I wondered the same thing, but my main concern at the moment was Charlotte. Lisabelle had taken Sip, and there was nothing more I could do for the werewolf until it was time for vengeance.

  My chest kept ached and I felt hollow. The darkness premier had told me that my sister was fine, but until I laid eyes on her there would be a part of me that felt uneasy. There were events on my mind that I just couldn’t put together in a coherent pattern. Yet. Events had unfolded while I had been away at the Compound, a.k.a. Neon Mountain, that had proved that Charlotte’s assistant, Luther, was working with the Hunters, but for a very personal reason. My friends had filled me in on the story when I got back to Public.

  It turned out that Luther’s only daughter had died during the Nocturn War, and he wanted someone to blame. He had landed on Charlotte based on the notion that if she hadn’t wasted so much time, many paranormals’ lives would have been spared. I thought that view was spectacularly unfair and so did everyone else, but Luther was so lost in grief he didn’t care. I was starting to realize that much of the damage being done had started with an ideology, like that of the Hunters, but was being finished by a quest for revenge.

  I wondered if the cycle would ever cease. All I knew was that it wasn’t going to stop with me after what had happened to Sip.

  Anyhow, Luther had been taken into custody for questioning, but I didn’t know whether he was still being held.

  “Was it Luther who hurt Sip?” I asked Bertrum quietly. I was trying hard not to imply that Bertrum had done anything wrong, especially because I knew how stubborn the werewolf was. But what she had been doing at Public on her own, with no guards, I couldn’t imagine.

  Bertrum continued to gaze off into the distance, not saying a word. Grief did not fix problems, and it did not kill Hunters, and I was getting frustrated with Bertrum’s inability to pull himself together. After a while I got tired of his mopey stare, stood up, and walked away. But before I was out of earshot he answered grudgingly, “He’s still in custody, so it couldn’t have been him.”

  A long silence fell, then Dobrov disappeared into the Astra kitchen. Eighellie, Keegan, and I followed him, leaving Bertrum sitting silent with his grief. I found myself wishing Averett had stayed, but I knew that Queen Lanca needed to know what had happened as quickly as possible, and Averett’s connection with Vital made her the logical choice for letting them know.

  When we got to the kitchen, Dobrov spoke to the three of us. “I’m sorry we’re meeting under such difficult circumstances,” he said. “But in light of what has happened, some changes will be coming. Don’t ever repeat that I said this to you, but under the circumstances, I’ll make sure all of you pass your tests this semester.”

  “You’re going to make us study?” Eighellie was confused. Not because she thought she would get out of doing work after what she had seen, but because she had planned on doing it anyway.

  “No. I’m going to insist that the teachers pass you,” said Dobrov quietly.

  “Averett too,” I said. “She was there, and now she’s left for Vampire Locke to inform Queen Lanca in person.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Dobrov. “Now, let’s see if we can get anything out of Bertrum before the authorities arrive to question him.” I didn’t know what that meant, but we all returned to the fire lounge. Bertrum was still sitting there where we had left him, and he didn’t look up as we entered.

  Dobrov pulled a chair over so that he was sitting right next to Sip’s assistant. Until this moment I hadn’t really thought that Dobrov looked very presidential, but he did now. His shoulders were back and his eyes looked like they could see into Bertram’s soul. He looked at the panicking paranormal and said quietly, “Did you come here with Sip?”

  When Bertrum didn’t reply right away, Dobrov reached forward and guided the tea to his lips. Bertrum took a great gulp and then another. “Did you come here with President Quest?”

  Bertrum looked up and around as if he was surprised to find himself in the fire sitting room. “No,” he said. “No. she left me a message to say I should come. So I came.”

  “Ah, so you came,” said Dobrov. “What did the message say?”

  Bertrum closed his eyes, as if he was feeling an intense pain. “It said that Charlotte was in danger and that Sip was on her way to Public. We’ve begged her, Lisabelle and I, not to go off on her own, but she gets these ideas and then . . .” Bertrum gave a shuddering sigh.

  “She came here by herself?” Dobrov asked gently.

  Bertrum nodded. “I don’t know what happened. I had just gotten there when Ricky showed up. I didn’t know where Charlotte was, either.”

  “Look, Bertrum, we don’t have a lot of time,” I said, crouching down. His eyes were unfocused and sort of glazing over again. I tried to force myself to relax, but I couldn’t. Bertrum was shutting down and this was urgent. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

  “Sip’s powerful,” said Bertrum. “So whatever attacked her . . . I mean, there are spells to protect her, but they didn’t work or they
broke through them. There isn’t a lot of magic out there that can do that. Do you think it was the TPs? I just can’t think of what else would have been powerful enough. It’s not like she’s some defenseless paranormal.”

  “I think that if someone wanted to attack Sip, they were going to do it sooner or later, especially if she was off by herself,” said Dobrov, trying to be soothing. “Not to say it’s her own fault, but she knew the risks. She’s fought in wars before. She thought Charlotte was worth it.”

  Something had stuck in my mind that the mention of Charlotte brought into focus. Lisabelle had indicated that Charlotte had been taken to safety, yet Sip had come anyway. At that point, had she known that Charlotte wouldn’t be at the cottage, or had she thought that she would?

  I rather thought it was the latter.

  Chapter Four

  Before I could even start to process that thought, I heard a loud banging on the front door of Astra. Before I could even get up to answer it, I could hear the door crashing open. My essence instantly rose in reaction to the intrusion, and I hurried to calm it as I felt the dorm start to shake.

  Standing in the doorway were several paranormal police, all dressed in black but with lines of color on their shoulders. None of them looked amused. I rushed to confront them, gleeful at the opportunity of expressing some of my pent-up emotion. I didn’t care who got hurt in the process.

  “What do you want?” I demanded.

  Charlotte’s old crush and fellow Paranormal Public student Cale Humphrey shouldered his way through the group. He looked very serious and older than Charlotte did by a number of years. The paranormal police had seen a lot of death and destruction, and Cale had seen more of it than most since his girlfriend had been Camilla. They had broken up, but that kind of crazy is more the kind that seeps into your bones than whiffs through the air and disappears.

  “We’ve come for Bertrum,” said Cale. “And don’t try to hide him from us.”

  I glared at my sister’s friend. They had grown apart over the years, because too much had happened and Camilla had done too much damage to the paranormal world for any of us to be able to let bygones be bygones. But still, Cale had saved me more times than I could count, so I didn’t want to meet him as an enemy.

  “He’s here,” I said. “Are you arresting him?”

  Cale rubbed his temples as the other police who were with him fanned out behind him, but he made no move to get past me. Some of the others were looking around curiously, and I wondered if they could feel the magic of the place. I resisted the urge to punch the one who was nearest to me.

  “We’re questioning him. Ricky, the paranormal president was attacked. We have a lot of questions. We’ve already been to look at the scene of the crime,” he added. I bristled; that was Charlotte’s place.

  “Was one of them home?” I asked hotly.

  “I was,” said Keller, coming in behind Cale. “Did you have to knock the door down?” he asked the pixie.

  Cale shrugged. “Yes.”

  Keller looked at me. “Charlotte’s safe. I’ll tell you where later.” I liked his implication that he didn’t trust all the paranormals standing there with Cale, but I liked it even more because Cale clearly bristled at the thinly veiled criticism.

  “Okay,” I said. “When did you get back?”

  “I came back with Cale, which is why I wasn’t able to come see you until now,” Keller explained. “I needed to show them what happened, then clean it up once they had seen it.” He didn’t say the word blood, but red liquid bubbled up in front of my mind’s eye all the same.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said. “What do you think of our new lawn decorations?”

  “The hellhounds?” Keller said with a slight smile, his expression a brief sliver of lightheartedness in a broken world. “Lisabelle does have a way with . . . statements. They barely let us through.”

  “Those hellhounds need to leave,” said Cale, but there was no weight behind his words.

  “I agree,” said Keller. “Let me know when you make them.”

  I grinned at the fallen angel.

  “Okay, Cale, you can come get Bertrum,” I said, “but I won’t have you leading him out of here like some common criminal. The others stay out here,” I added when some of them started to follow Cale through the doorway.

  “I’m not sure you’re really in a position to be giving orders, Ricky,” Cale said.

  “This is Astra and I am an elemental,” I said, suddenly allowing some of the essence to pulse through my ring. “I shall do as I please or I shall bring this place down around all of us.”

  Cale flinched a little, feeling the essence. Keller looked proud.

  “This way,” I said, leading Cale and Keller to the fire lounge.

  Bertrum was still in the sitting room and Dobrov was still with him, as were Keegan and Eighellie. I desperately wanted to know if he had said anything else while we were gone, but it didn’t really matter. I had already decided that I didn’t need his help. I would find out who hurt Sip, clues or no clues. It hadn’t been Luther, so was it someone else on campus? If not, what was wrong with the Public defenses that hostile paranormals could sneak onto the grounds? Had they come through Surround, and had anyone there seen anything? These questions churned in my mind. I was worried about the werewolf, but I was also worried about Charlotte. If she had been the original target, would she be targeted again? When?

  “Bertrum,” said Cale. They clearly knew each other. Just as clearly, Cale didn’t immediately realize as he walked into the hot lounge what an impossible state Bertrum was in. When he saw what the situation was, he bent down in front of the terrified and grieving paranormal, his movements gentled and his voice softened. “Come on, old boy. Are you alright?” There was no response.

  “Was he injured?” he asked the rest of us.

  I shook my head. “Not that we could see. Just Sip. He got here after the attack was over.”

  “If you see Lisabelle, tell her I’d like to speak with her,” said Cale.

  “Sure thing,” said Dobrov, his words laced with sarcasm. I couldn’t tell if he didn’t like Cale or if he didn’t think we’d be seeing Lisabelle again anytime soon. Maybe both.

  Cale helped Bertrum up, gently, but that didn’t relieve my worry about letting Sip’s secretary leave with the police. Cale was different now. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the Cale I had known all those years ago, but maybe I just didn’t trust anyone who had been so close to Camilla for so long.

  Cale left very soon after that. As far as I could see, he treated Bertrum with respect, but I watched with some apprehension as the other officers turned on their heels and marched away behind Cale and his prisoner.

  Once they left Keller said, “I’ll come and fix the door tomorrow.”

  All of us together, including Dobrov, lifted it off the floor and put it back into place, just enough to block out the worst of the cold.

  “We’ll have to go out one of the side doors,” said Dobrov.

  “Does that mean you want a chance to talk without us around?” Keegan asked.

  “Yes,” said Keller. “That’s exactly what it means, and I’ll thank you for going along with it.”

  Keegan held up his hands and Keller rubbed his eyes, running his fingers through his dark hair. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”

  “Charlotte was in danger,” I said. “I’d be upset too.” Keller gave me a grateful look, then followed Dobrov out of the room.

  Now Eighellie, Keegan, and I were alone, and I had no idea what was next.

  “Oh, one last thing,” Dobrov said as he reappeared, giving me a questing look. “No one should know about Sip,” he said. “Sure, everyone’s seen the hellhounds, but none of them know what their presence means yet. Sip’s condition will remain private. I can’t really say any more at the moment, except that I’m yet again forced to swear you to secrecy.”

  He looked at the three of us until we all nodded. Once he was satisfied that we wouldn
’t tell the whole school that Sip might die, he disappeared for real.

  Dobrov kept his word about finals: we all passed. I had a feeling we would have even if he hadn’t done something special with our professors, because we had all put a lot of work into studying. But it felt like a hollow victory. School as things stood now felt useless. The old idea that as long as you had the degree it didn’t matter what you learned had kept me going, but now I was more frustrated than ever. I wanted my time at Public to matter!

  “I really hope the classes we take next semester aren’t this bad,” Keegan commented with a shake of his head. “I mean, come on.”

  We were sitting together in Astra that night, discussion such mundane topics as classes and which professors were good and bad. I supposed in a different life this stuff would matter, but under the circumstances it felt incredible, and not in a good way.

  It felt incredible to be discussing such mundane topics as classes and which professors were good and bad. I supposed in a different life this would matter.

  “Maybe they’ll fire a couple of the professors and get only hot tree sprites,” Eighellie offered.

  “Gosh, that’d be nice,” said Keegan.

  Eighellie rolled her eyes. “So you start off not listening for one reason and you finish not listening for another.”

  “Yeah, exactly,” said Keegan. “Wait, what?”

  The three of us went to sleep after warily looking outside and finding the hellhounds still there. I wondered how long Lisabelle would leave them on campus; I had a feeling they’d be around until she found out exactly what Sip’s prognosis was. If Sip died, Lisabelle would probably tell the hellhounds to kill all of us.

  When I woke up the next morning, at first I thought I hadn’t slept at all, but then I realized that tiredness must have overtaken me eventually, and I had dozed off for at least a few hours. The first thing I did was to throw my covers off and race to the window, eager to see what the hellhounds were doing.