Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) (20 page)

“This is bad,” said Sip, her
purple eyes worried. “Lough, what does it mean?”

Lough was staring darkly off into
space. All traces of sleep were gone from his expression and his eyes were
intent on something only he could see.

“It was a waking dream,” he
explained. “You weren’t really dreaming at all. It’s not like anything at all
that I could come up with. Malle called you to a place, and you went there. You
were really there. If she had caught you and . . . killed you, it would have
been real. You would be dead.”

“So, my body wasn’t here?” I
asked in wonder. “I physically went to that old library?”

“Yes,” said Lough. “I have no
idea how. It’s darkness magic. Sort of like what Castov did the other night. I
don’t like that it is happening so much. Lisabelle, do you know anything about
it?”

My friend shook her head. “It’s
far beyond me. I could ask my dad, but I doubt he would know either.”

“Dobrov might know,” said Sip,
sitting up straighter. “He
is
half darkness, after all.”

I nodded. “We should ask him.”

“Maybe let him sleep in, first,”
Lough muttered. “What else do you remember?”

“Now that I think about it,” I
said slowly, worrying my hands together in front of me, “Malle did not have a
wand. I don’t know where she was drawing power from.”

“Maybe she did something like
what Lisabelle did,” said Sip. “Horrible idea.”

“I doubt it,” said Lisabelle
dryly. “You have to be in good physical condition to do what I did and she is
not.”

“She mentioned what happened to
your parents?” Sip asked softly. “I’m sorry.”

I shrugged one shoulder, trying
not to think about it too hard. “She was trying to upset me and it worked.” But
I quickly changed the subject. “There’s one other thing. I touched her.”

“Ew,” said Sip, recoiling as if I
were somehow contaminated.

“Yeah,” I said. “When I lunged at
her. I touched her. I didn’t mean to.”

“So?” Lisabelle asked, her eyes
locked on my face. She knew there was more.

“So, this is on my hand now,” I
said, holding it out. My three friends leaned forward to look. There, on one of
the fingers that had nearly been crushed, was this:

Fang First: Vampire Locke.

“She had it written on her body
and it got on my hand,” I said grimly. “She’s after the objects on the Wheel.”

Sip bit her lower lip, staring
intently at the writing. “Let me write it down. Just in case,” she said,
grabbing a piece of paper and a pen. Once she had finished she waved me off.
“Wash. Now. If she’s still here, she hasn’t found the Fang yet. We’ll talk
about it later.”

I did as I was told, as happy to
get anything of Malle’s off me as Sip was to order me to do it.

Once I was finished, Lough yawned
again, and then again.

“I need to sleep more,” he said,
rubbing his eyes tiredly. “I think you’ll be fine. Except, you know, the most
powerful darkness mage ever has harnessed the power of the demons, formed a
council, and wants you dead.”

“Is there a way I can stop from
having a waking dream?” I asked. “What’s to keep Malle from just dreaming me
into a knife’s point?”

“Good question,” said Lisabelle.
“Is there anything?”

“Obviously,” said Lough.
“Otherwise she would have done it by now. I’m not sure she can hurt you without
giving you a chance to fight. It also might have something to do with
proximity. She’s here, right? Very close.”

I shrugged. “The sooner we get
out of here, the better.”

“The sooner the better,” my three
friends chorused, before we split up. I didn’t like the fear I heard in all
their voices. It wasn’t fear for their own safety. It was fear for mine.

The day did not start off well.
There was no sign of Keller anywhere, or any fallen angel. I was told they were
sequestered in their quarters and that Keller was probably fine. Every attempt
I made to contact him was pushed back. I couldn’t tell if it was even by him. I
thought frantically about the fact that he had said he would come right back
after he left to get cleaned up yesterday, and he hadn’t.

There was a kidnapper on the
loose and for all I knew he had Keller again, or worse, the kidnapper was
President Malle herself. I desperately wanted a distraction, but the only thing
there seemed to be to do before the evening and the next round of ceremonies
was to wander around Locke.

Instead of wandering, I decided
to practice magic. I knew there was a training yard for vampires in the lower
levels, and I insisted that Sip and Lisabelle accompany me down there. On our
way Lisabelle spotted Vital eating breakfast with some of the other vampires,
and waved him over.

“It’s about time we did some
fighting,” she informed him when he walked up to us.

“Near as I can see, that’s about
all you do,” said Vital dryly, taking in Lisabelle’s spread stance and crossed
arms.

Lisabelle shrugged. “Would hate
to get out of practice. We wanted to train, and we’ve heard there’s a training
yard in the lower levels. Can you show us or do you have to get back to Lanca?”

“The Princess is with her sister
preparing for this evening,” said Vital carefully. “I should have some time.”

He waved to his friends and fell
into step next to us. I turned to wave to Lough and Dobrov, who were finishing
breakfast. Lough had not gotten any more sleep and had begged out of training.
Dobrov had explained that due to his skin condition he was not able to do any
real fighting and would stay with Lough.

We had not filled Dobrov in on
what had happened to me yet, even though I needed to ask him about waking
dreams. We had agreed, given who his sister was, that it might not be the best
information to share with him. Instead, we had spent breakfast discussing the
opening ceremonies and what the fallen angels might be doing at that moment. I
took heart that I didn’t see any fallen angels around and let myself start
believing that Keller might be okay.

But the wait was killing me. To
distract myself from worrying, I decided to put my energy into fighting.

Vital led us down several dark
staircases, each smaller and more close than the last. Once we reached the
training yard I understood why vampires were so feared. It was an awesome
space.

“I could get some real work done
here,” said Lisabelle. Even she was impressed.

Vital smiled. “Whenever you are
ready to fight,” he murmured, “just let me know.”

Lisabelle smiled back. “I’m
always ready.”

The training yard was so
cavernous I couldn’t see the sides of the walls. We just stared into a black
tunnel. All around were mats, rocks, and metal bars. Interspersed with those
were weapons racks. Many of the weapons I had never seen before.

“Let’s stay away from the
cleavers,” said Sip, pointing to one particularly formidable-looking weapons
rack. A cleaver was a type of hatchet, and although they varied in size, all
the cleavers hanging on the wall were probably too large for me to lift. I
hated to think of the vampire that could. This was definitely a side of Lanca’s
sect I had never seen before. The cleavers had black wooden handles and large
rectangular blades. I found myself staring at them more than I stared at, say,
the racks of crossbows, knives, swords, axes, spears, or poles.

“This place is a museum of
weapons,” Sip murmured. “You have enough for an army.”

“One can only hope,” said Vital
grimly. “We might need them.” I found myself wondering who he thought they
would be fighting, but this was not the time to ask. He probably wouldn’t have
answered anyway.

Without warning, three vampires
sprang out of nowhere, all young males. Two had black hair, one was wild and
curly, the other cropped short. The third was a little more unusual. His hair
was white gold and long, pulled away from his long face in one smooth ponytail.
He was taller and stronger-looking than the others, and his movements were
impossibly fluid. The three of them went to stand around Vital. Each wore light
black pants and black t-shirts, to make movement easy.

“Well, shall we?” Vital asked. He
was smiling.

“You want us to fight the four of
you? The three of us? That hardly seems fair.” Lisabelle’s voice was relaxed,
almost lazy, but there was nothing lazy about the way her eyes darted around
the room or how she carefully moved her feet into a parted, fighting stance.
She was ready for anything. Sip had already crouched low; if we fought
vampires, even just as an exercise, she would transform to werewolf .

“That hardly seems fair indeed,”
a light voice said from behind us. It was similar to the voice of a friend of
mine, only this voice was higher pitched. I turned around to grin at Dirr,
Lanca’s younger sister and another vampire princess. She had been a Starter at
Public the previous semester and was, if it was possible, even more beautiful
than Lanca. She was also smaller and more delicate. Lanca was fiercely
protective of her - for good reason. At the moment she hefted one of the axes I
was sure I could never lift.

“I guess you have hidden
muscles,” said Sip. “Impressive.”

Dirr grinned and twirled the axe.

“Stop showing off and get ready,”
Vital snapped, but there was pride in his eyes. Apparently Lanca wasn’t the
only vampire princess who was well respected around here.

Before the four male vampires
could even begin to agree on a strategy, Dirr threw her axe. I would have
thought her tiny body couldn’t even lift the thing, let alone chuck it at the
white-haired vampire’s head. I would have been wrong.

I gasped, sure the weapon would
slice the vampire’s head open, but of course it did not. Instead, he calmly caught
it. Dirr scoffed in frustration but didn’t miss a beat.

“Dirr, shouldn’t you be with your
sister?” Sip asked.

“She wants to be alone before the
coronation,” said Dirr, never taking her black eyes away from Vital. More
precisely, I thought, she probably wants to visit her father’s study and check
on the Fang.

Vital and Dirr started to circle.
The battle had begun.

“This is going to be
interesting,” Lisabelle murmured. “I always wanted to see Vital fight.”

As still and cat-like Vital as
was in his movements, he was twice as graceful when he was fighting. He was a
blur of motion. The blows he aimed at Dirr were fast and concentrated. I could
never tell where he was going to hit next.

For her part, Dirr had obviously
been trained by the best. She blocked each of his blows, careful never to lose
her balance or lose control. He aimed a series of quick jabs at her head and
shoulders. She dodged them easily.

“I guess we’re fighting,” said
Sip. Her eyes were steel.

“Awesome,” said Lisabelle,
putting her head down like a bull and charging Vital. Dirr broke away, her
breath coming in heavy gasps.

This was a different kind of
fight from the ones I was used to. It was gritty and physical. Before, I had
always used my magic; I had never fought physically. And I knew I was no match
for the vampires.

Next to me, Sip had transformed
into a werewolf and bared her fangs at the curly-haired vampire. He grinned and
crouched low, meeting Sip’s spring mid-air. They smacked together with a dull
thud of fur hitting flesh and fell to the ground, all body parts and snapping
teeth. Dirr was now circling the fair-haired vampire. They both had knives, and
although his was longer, Dirr was spinning hers menacingly. I wondered why
Lanca ever worried about the girl. Obviously she could take care of herself.

Meanwhile, Lisabelle and Vital
had squared off in another section of the yard. This was the fight I was most
worried about. Lisabelle was controlled, but Vital was a world-renowned
fighter, unrivaled in every kind of combat. Now, as I watched, black fire
licked at Lisabelle’s hands as she met Vital blow for blow. He moved faster
than I had ever seen a vampire move, and still he couldn’t land a punch on
Lisabelle. I had had no idea she could fight hand-to-hand like that, but I
couldn’t think about it too hard because my straight-haired vampire, who was by
far the shortest of the bunch, was engaging me - with a sword. I stared at him
with my brows raised for a fraction of a second, but unfortunately that was too
long. He swung the sword in one long, graceful arc, and then brought it down on
my head.

I moved. Or rather, my magic
moved me. I had no idea that it could act to protect me without my ordering it
to, but I felt the swirl of wind around me, the beat of water in my blood, and
the shining light on the very center of my soul that was my magic and myself. I
ducked the blade easily.

I didn’t even have time to feel
afraid. I ducked and rolled, dodged and shifted. My opponent came close only
once. I was trying to get back on my feet after hitting my knees to avoid one
of his blows, but I wasn’t fast enough. The sword sliced down, missing the side
of my face by a mere inch. Unfortunately, the sword clipped a bit of my hair,
and out of the corner of my eye I watched it drift to the ground.