Elemental Earth (Paranormal Public) (6 page)

“Oh, they’re as safe as anything.
I think you’re spoiled,” said Zervos, almost to himself. “You have no idea what
it’s like out there where the demons can you get whenever you move. Nothing is
safe. Golden Falls might be even safer than Public.” His eyes glinted as he
looked to see how I would react to his grim words. I refused to give him the
satisfaction of seeing my fear.

“I’m pretty sure the other
elementals have some idea about that,” I said coldly. Even that might have been
an overstatement, though. The other elementals were dead, but I had recently
found out that they were the ones who had killed my mother, an Airlee. Now I
was more confused than ever about my past and the death of my mom, and I had to
assume my dad’s as well. But of course I had no proof, other than my mother’s
word, that he had even died.

“Hey, Keller,” I said, so that
Zervos couldn’t hear, “will you and I be in the same carriage?” I stood as
close to him as it was possible to be without actually touching him.

“I was going to fly outside,” he
said glancing up at the sky as if to check the conditions for flight. The wind
ruffled his dark hair and I smiled. “I want to keep my eyes open up there, but
I’ll fly next to your carriage unless you want me in it with you. I promise I
won’t go far.”

I blushed and ducked my head,
because I had to be strong, even if it meant that Keller wasn’t holding my hand.
“Will you mind if I keep an eye on you while you fly?” I asked, resting my head
on his shoulder. The chuckle he let out was comforting.

“Never ever,” he whispered back.
“We’re going to be just fine.”

“I know,” I said, “I just worry
about whether we’ll be fine together.”

He kissed the top of my head.
“Even if we’re not together we’re together. Trust me.”

The carriages pulled by demons
landed one by one, and I flinched each time I got a look at a new demon. There
were anywhere from one to three pulling each carriage, and they all looked
starved. I hadn’t even known that demons had to eat, or what sustained them,
but these barely had the energy to fly. Now they would be forced to carry more
weight on the return trip, with the carriages filled with students.

Each carriage was painted a
bright and shiny black. The demons - boiling masses of black, sometimes with
red sparks shooting out of strange places in their bodies, like veins winding
through skin - set down their burdens with heavy sighs. It was a strange sight
in that they didn’t really seem to know we were there, and yet I was sure they
did.

The demon closest to me took a
step forward. When nothing happened he took another step. Even if he wasn’t
looking at me he sensed my elemental core.

My pulse quickened.

Keller let out a low growl and
moved to stand between me and the darkness, stretching out his powerful wings.

“Load ‘em up,” Dove bellowed as
he strode down the line of carriages. Students quickly moved to do as he
ordered. Keeping one eye on the demon, I scurried to the nearest carriage,
where Sip and Lisabelle were already waiting. Lough was about to join us when
Trafton sidled over.

“This doesn’t really fit with the
Golden Falls reputation for hating darkness, does it?” Lisabelle murmured.

“Why don’t you join us guys for
once, instead of always hanging with the ladies?” he asked Lough. Trafton,
blond-haired, blue-eyed, and gorgeous, inclined his head over to Rake and Evan.
Lough, his brow puckered, gave us a sad little wave before he followed the
other dream giver away.

I jumped into the closed
compartment of our carriage. It smelled musty, and the couches were worn. The
windows were covered with a brown cloth, the only light coming from a flame
that was a disconcerting dark blue.

“I feel claustrophobic,” said
Sip, glaring at the covered window.

Lisabelle nodded. “It’s only for
a couple of hours. Why do you think they’ve covered the window, anyway?”

I shrugged. “Probably so that we
can’t see all the demons trailing after us.”

Lisabelle looked grim. “You might
actually be right.”

I sincerely hoped I wasn’t.
Keller would be flying outside.

“Everyone in,” I heard Zervos
yell. I glanced at the empty seat next to me. Maybe we’d get lucky and not have
a fourth.

“Kia, you’d better find a place
in the carriages or hope that some classes have open spaces for you when you
don’t make it to Golden Falls,” Zervos bellowed again.

Kia, best friend of Camilla Van
Rothson, and a tiny pixie I had never much liked, popped her head in before
Zervos had even finished yelling. She glared around at us and appeared to
shrink back, which wasn’t surprising since Lisabelle was giving her a
particularly intimidating death stare.

Kia was about to turn around when
Zervos appeared behind her.

“Ah,” he said, grinning nastily,
his black eyes boring into mine. “You’ve found the perfect place. In you go.”
He put his hand on the much smaller paranormal’s back and shoved her in. Kia
stumbled forward, grabbing onto the seat next to me just before she hit the
floor of the carriage.

“Children,” said Zervos, “have a
wonderful trip.” With one last evil grin he slammed the door shut, closing us
in darkness with Kia.

Lisabelle sighed. “It’s going to
be a very long two hours. And pixie, if you so much as breathe on me I’ll give
you a choice of torture or the window. Think about it. Two hours doesn’t have
to go by quickly . . . for you.”

We had just settled in for the
ride when it became clear that something was wrong outside.

Heat, like nothing I had ever
experienced before, blasted through the carriage, the fireball flying straight
toward where Sip was sitting. Lisabelle, who had been sitting next to me,
jumped off her seat in a flash and moved to stand in front of our friend.

The fire slammed into the
darkness mage’s chest.

Lisabelle consumed it without so
much as flinching.

The fire turned black around her
and started to dance over her skin and through her.

The heat pulsed around me and I
screamed. My ring, that old ring I’d taken from the case in the Astra ballroom,
called to water and earth, anything to dampen the flames from melting the skin
right off my bones.

Lisabelle was becoming fire. All
that was left of her was heat.

I felt my skin ripple and pushed
myself as far against the carriage wall as possible. Kia, who hadn’t said a
word since she had come into the carriage, snuggled as close to me as possible.

“Lisabelle,” I tried to yell, but
my friend didn’t turn. The wind beat against my eardrums and drowned out any
other noise. Sip, who at first had cowered away from the heat, sprang forward.
She reached out to touch Lisabelle, but only got within a foot, because
Lisabelle was too hot to touch. Instead, the werewolf came over to me. The
carriage was burning up around us. The roof was already gone, and with it our
luggage. I wondered if the demons were still on course, or if they’d gone to
join their brethren. I also wondered if Keller was watching the carriage go up
in flames.

It looked like we might not even
make it to Golden Falls.

“Are you okay?” I yelled to Kia.

The little pixie stared at me
with wide eyes. Instead of answering, she reached into her pocket, and to my
complete surprise she drew out a handful of green dust. I flinched away from
it. Pixies with dust were powerful paranormals, and if Kia wanted to use her
powers against us, I was unlikely to be able to counter her, since all my own
powers were going to keeping the heat from burning us alive.

Kia’s eyes were fearful as she
looked around me at Lisabelle, who was now more orange than black. When Kia
threw the dust, I thought at first that it was only going to make the fire
worse. But to my intense relief, when the sparkling green cloud hit the
constant stream of fire, the flames shifted, sparked, and lightened.

“It’s turning the fire into a
shield for Lisabelle,” Sip yelled. “Neato!”

“Isn’t that incredibly hard to
do?” I demanded. “Can it hold?”

“Yes, and not for long,” Sip
yelled back. “Kia is a good pixie, but she’s no match for the demons outside
this carriage. They have to get them away from us.”

Obviously she meant the
professors. “Where do you think Dove is?”

When I had seen Zervos traveling
at the back of our caravan, about as far from me as possible, I’d been
relieved, but now that relief had turned to fear. It was clear that he was too
far away, or held up by his own battle, to help us out.

I felt Sip brush past me as
Lisabelle collapsed into the werewolf’s arms. Purple eyes met gray and Sip
said, “A little help, please?”

I darted forward. Kia seemed to
have used up her bravery for the day and was again cowering against a carriage
wall that was melting away.

Now that the top and walls of our
transport were disintegrating, I could clearly see what was going on around me.

But I wished I couldn’t.

Everywhere I saw paranormals
doing battle with demons. High in the air, we were no match for them.

“I think we’re totally off
course,” Lisabelle muttered. “The demon was leading us the wrong way the whole
time.”

I shook my head. “How could that
be? Where’s Dove?”

The former committee member, who
was at Public this semester in an advisory role, was nowhere to be seen.

“We have to get out of here,”
said Lisabelle. “If I call my broom can you help it along?”

I nodded and took a firmer hold
of the winds swirling around us.

“There’s Keller,” Sip cried,
pointing. Keller was shooting toward us, his black wings outstretched. He was
easily outrunning the demon that chased him.

“He looks a little worse for
wear,” said Lisabelle dryly. The shirt he’d been wearing when we left was in
tatters, as if it had been burned off his body. I wondered what his wounds had
looked like before he’d healed them. “Not that any girl would complain about
seeing him shirtless.”

“This is a total ambush,” said
Sip grimly. “I wish we were on the ground, so that we could fight.”

Lisabelle, who was still slumped
against the werewolf, straightened. “It’s time we did fight,” she said. “I
refuse to be a sitting duck to these incompetent demons.”

“How are they incompetent?” Kia
cried. “They took us by surprise, didn’t they?”

“They’re incompetent because we
aren’t dead,” said Lisabelle. “Obviously.”

Before Sip knew what was
happening, Lisabelle had grabbed her beneath the arms. Sip barely had time to
change into werewolf form before Lisabelle launched her at the nearest demon.

Sip gave a furious battle cry as
she slammed into the Demon of Knight, who rode what looked a bit like a
hellhound with wings. Powerful haunches and paws were covered by black fur,
massive jaws dripped red saliva, or maybe it was blood. Our carriage lurched as
Sip’s weight transferred. The demon gave a roar as the werewolf’s jaw tore into
its armor. The wings of the beast beat furiously and I saw that they were
tattered and torn, with scraps of flesh hanging off them.

“What is that creature?” I yelled
to Lisabelle as we watched our friend do battle. The fear on Lisabelle’s face
mirrored my own. If Sip didn’t win that battle, student against a powerful
darkness demon, she was dead.

“It’s a hybrid and it shouldn’t
exist,” said Lisabelle grimly. The thing was trying not to move, because if it
bucked Sip it also bucked its rider. “Demons fly on their own. If they can’t,
then they don’t fly at all.”

The thing turned its burning eyes
on us and I flinched away. Something in it looked almost gleeful, and my heart
was ripped in two for my friend.

“But can’t a Demon of Knight
fly?” I yelled back, as more demons converged on the chariots.

Lisabelle nodded. “Yes, which is
why the fact that they’re riding flying animals is concerning. What’s the
point?”

“Can we worry about the fact that
we’re a mile in the air and our transport is burning around us?” Kia yelled.

Lisabelle gave one curt nod.
“That’s the first smart thing I’ve ever heard a pixie say.”

Kia was about to reply when
another burst of flames slammed into us.

The demon pulling our carriage
started to plummet downward. My screams were joined by those of Lisabelle and
Kia. I grabbed the seat, but was instantly forced to let go because it was too
hot to touch. Standing was also out of the question. I looked around helplessly
as the demon steering us continued the downward spiral at a sickening speed.

“Wow,” Kia said, almost too
quietly for me to hear. “I’ve never seen so many demons.” All around us, like a
dark sea in the sky, was a roiling mass of blackness. We’d been ambushed, and
it had been so perfectly planned that I couldn’t even see the other carriages
we’d left with.