Elemental Fate (Paranormal Public Book 12) (4 page)

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.

When I pulled the curtains aside, though, all I saw was spotty clumps and waves of old snow. Where the snow had blown away or melted, pale dirt or withered grass showed through.

There wasn’t a single hellhound in view.

Frowning, I hurried out of my room and down the stairs. Keegan was standing at one of the windows in the entryway, peering to one side. He knew exactly what I was so anxious about.

“There’s just one left,” he said. “It’s standing in front of the door, and it looks pretty threatening. Big.”

I came to stand next to him and peered in the same direction. True enough, a hellhound still lounged in front of Astra. If it hadn’t been so huge or its fur so dirty, I would have thought it was a large dog. There were no students in sight. I had a feeling that every single paranormal on campus was avoiding Astra Dorm at this point.

“Think word has spread?” I said.

Keegan shrugged. “Probably, but I don’t know what they told anyone. Like, yeah, sure, there are hellhounds. Ricky’s gone over to darkness and now commands the red-eyed dogs.”

“Umm, thanks for that. If rumors get started, remind me to check with you first,” I said.

As for the solitary hellhound, Lisabelle might still think I was in danger, or she might just be trying to make a point. Either way I realized that I didn’t mind that it was there.

“Breakfast?” I said to Keegan.

“Hey, the world is falling apart, but we should still eat,” he said, following me into the Astra kitchen.

When Keller came back later in the day to fix the door, he explained that Charlotte had gone to Dacer’s. By that time I had figured as much, so I wasn’t surprised by the news. She would stay there, administering her students’ final exam remotely, until the wedding celebration.

I hadn’t seen much of Keller all semester, and I wondered why he was now at Astra playing carpenter. When I asked him just that question, he laughed.

“It’s Astra. I don’t want anyone else in here. I’m sure the majority of the carpenters we could find are trustworthy, but in the event that there are any who aren’t, I’m not going to take the risk of letting them anywhere near you. After finals you leave Public for Duckleworth, and it can’t come soon enough.”

“Did Bertrum tell the police anything useful?” I said.

Keller shook his head. “Cale told me they released him this morning. Bertrum lives with his mother, and she came to collect him. He’s still in pretty bad shape, so he couldn’t really tell them anything useful. He said that Sip was like that when he got there, then you came, then Lisabelle came. Cale really wants to talk to Lisabelle, but he must have forgotten what she’s like. In any case, I doubt it’s going to happen.”

After that we weren’t at Public much longer. I did take my finals like everyone else. If I thought the students had treated me like a pariah before, now it was almost comical. In every classroom I entered, one chair sat alone, away from the other students, that they wanted me to sit in. Just as often, Keegan and Eighellie pulled up chairs to keep me company, which I appreciated more than I could put into words. The finals were just as boring as the classes had been, with Professor Penny administering such a mind-numbing test that when I walked out I couldn’t remember my response to a single question.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Keegan after the last exam. “I’ll see you at Duckleworth for the Christmas party.”

“Is your mom coming?” I said.

Keegan shook his head. "I don't think so. Safety and all that.”

“I’m going,” said Eighellie, beaming. “I can’t wait to go to a party!”

“Of course you are,” said Keegan. “Of course you can’t.”

A brutal attack . . . culminating in a shocking murder in the town of Surround. Unlike the pranks of last semester, this is no laughing matter.

The town of Surround is built up around the struggling Paranormal Public University. The school was supposed to have closed at the end of last semester for failing to do most everything right or even decently, but instead the president and the board decided to keep Paranormal Public open.

Had the school closed, the comprehensive revamping that Public is going through would have stopped or been scaled down. It’s likely that Public would be used for government administrative offices were the University to cease to exist.

Last semester the students, fun creatures that they are, liked to play pranks on each other. These pranks were all in good fun.

BUT NO MORE!

There has been a murder in Surround, and the sad state of affairs that Paranormal Public finds itself in only makes it all the more pressing that the killer be caught. Paranormal Public couldn’t afford any bad publicity to begin with, but what with the semester going so poorly last time around, a murder might just be a nail in the proverbial vampire coffin.

A young woman has been murdered in the town of Surround. Her name was Ms. Cernal, and she worked in the TP office. The office was closed at the time of the killing, and it is suspected that she had gone there only to gather some of her personal belongings when the crime took place. It is further believed that when she entered, she stumbled upon an intruder (someone who wasn’t supposed to be there) and was unable to defend herself!

Brutal killings have become commonplace in the paranormal world since Lisabelle Verlans became the darkness premier, with all due respect to Lisabelle Verlans (which isn’t much due respect). This publication truly does wonder when the killings will stop.

The killing of Ms. Cernal is thought to be related to the TP office’s function and is believed to be a singular incident. Nevertheless, residents are advised to be cautious.

Ms. Cernal’s family asks for privacy during this very difficult time. They will have a private service. The investigation is ongoing.

I read this article while sitting in a coach on my way back to Duckleworth, wondering what Keegan thought about it. He had had a crush on Ms. Cernal, even though he had only seen her the one time. He would be devastated.

The statement was contradictory. Did the police believed Ms. Cernal’s murder to be an isolated incident, or did they think the citizens of surround were still in danger? The article left the question unanswered.

Either way, it didn’t sound like the killing had anything to do with the attack on Sip.

Dacer had been so manic getting Duckleworth ready for the party that when the day of the extravaganza came, he didn’t have anything for me to do.

Oh, he was plenty busy. He had to tell all his minions the proper way to set the table, and when he finished he had to check every setting meticulously.

“The amount of detail that vampire can keep in his head at once would make a library jealous,” said Zellie when she found me outside throwing a stick for Crumple.

I was about to ask her who she was talking about when she said, “Your friend is here.”

“Which one?” I asked.

“Did you have two?” With that parting shot Zellie walked away.

I threw Crumple’s stick as hard as I could one last time. Then, instead of watching where it landed, I turned around and headed for the castle. I hadn’t gotten very far before Keegan materialized from around a corner of the building, his thick shoulders, green hands, and dark hair clear against the gray day.

I waved and he waved back. By the time we reached each other, Crumple had returned and was hopping around like a pogo stick, desperately trying to get me to throw the ball again. I obliged as Keegan said, “This place is crazy getting ready for the party.”

He was right. Out front was an endless stream of vehicles that looked like moving coaches, plus countless brooms and a never-ending supply of packages. Some were wrapped in shiny black paper and had titles written on them in gold that said stuff like, “Party Favors for the Vampire Who Has Everything.”

I nodded glumly. “I can’t wait until it’s all over. Dacer’s especially nervous, because every fallen angel he invited RSVP’d that they were coming, so it’s a lot of food to put together, and a lot of pressure.”

Keegan nodded. “How are they going to keep the peace? With paranormal relations as poor as they are, does Dacer really expect that there won’t be some kind of fight breaking out during the festivities?”

I shrugged. I had long since stopped trying to figure out what Dacer did and did not expect.

“Maybe he thinks they’ll all be on their best behavior because of Charlotte and Keller.”

“Ha. At a wedding? No way,” said Keegan. He lapsed into silence, and I knew what was coming next. “Sad about Ms. Cernal. Who would do that to such a nice lady?”

Crumple came back at that point, and I threw the ball again as Keegan went on, “She’d never hurt anyone, and now there are police tramping all over the TP office. What’s the point of the Surround militia if they can’t prevent a murder?”

He had a point, but I didn’t think the Surround militia could have kept a loaf of bread from being stolen, let alone stop a determined criminal from committing a murder.

“Have you heard anything about it since you’ve been here?” Keegan asked.

I shook my head. “Not a word. Bertrum’s probably devastated too.”

“Is he coming tonight?”

“Dacer doesn’t know,” I said. “He and his mother were both coming, but that was before what happened with Sip. Now I guess it will depend on whether he’s up for it. I haven’t heard anything further.”

“That’s a common theme,” said Keegan dryly. “All those adults doing important things, don’t they know you could help?”

I said I didn’t think they had any idea.

“There’s a new article about the murder in the Tabble,” he said. “Have you seen it?”

I hadn’t. I had been so pre-occupied with the fact that it was party day that I had forgotten to check the Tabble.

“No. What does it say?” I asked.

Keegan handed it over to me and went to throw the ball for Crumple while I read it. What it said gave me chills:

Ms. Cernal was the only full-time employee left at the TP office, and she was in charge of shutting down operations. She had finished most of the work, locked the office for the day, and left. She had forgotten a couple of personal items, the police are not saying what, that forced her to return to the office on the night in question. She told a friend whom she was meeting for dinner that she was running a few minutes late because she had to stop by the office to grab something, then would come on to dinner. It isn’t clear if the police know what she was returning for or if they do not. It does seem to be clear that Ms. Cernal believed she had something at the office she needed to retrieve, that she did not have plans to meet anyone there, and that she did not expect to encounter an intruder.

When Ms. Cernal failed to materialize for dinner half an hour after the expected arrival time, her friend, who also isn’t being named, grew worried and Contacted the police. The result was that the police went searching for Ms. Cernal. It did not take them long to find her at the TP office.

Up until this point, the killing could simply be viewed as a normal, run-of-the-mill murder. However, the strangest thing about the scene police encountered when they arrived was that Ms. Cernal was dead, but there was no sign of how she had died. Her body was not visibly injured in any way. It is thought that some sort of an electrical current could have killed her, but more tests are needed. What the police are sure about is that there was no pixie dust at the scene of the crime, and no sign of vampire bites.

Now, to the interesting part! The TP office was locked, but a townsperson from Surround said they thought they had seen someone entering the building who was not Ms. Cernal. They couldn’t be totally sure, because at the time they hadn’t thought it was important. Sources here say that liquid blindness might have been involved. The TP office itself was in perfect condition. If a paranormal had broken in they did not need to turn the place upside down to find what they were looking for. Unfortunately, the only cost was to Ms. Cernal’s life.

Essentially, the mystery of how Ms. Cernal died and who killed her and what they were after is only deepening.

I looked up. Keegan had just finished another throw for Crumple and turned to me with a quizzical expression.

“What do you make of it?” he asked.

“The TPs were a failure,” I said. “Once they were stolen and someone used them to get onto the Public grounds illegally, the whole system was doomed. As to the rest of it, it’s all very strange, isn’t it?”

“But there was no sign of forced entry, the place didn’t look broken into, and if the police think something was actually taken they certainly haven’t said so. So why would anyone kill such a lovely lady?” Keegan looked truly perplexed by this mystery.

“Maybe it was something personal she was mixed up in,” I said. “Maybe she just happened to be at the TP office when it happened.”

Keegan looked at the article again. “Maybe,” he mused, “but I think there’s more to it.”

“My friends always do,” I said.

“KEEGAN! RICKY! Help, if you please,” Dacer bellowed from the back terrace. He was wearing a long white lace nightgown that looked like it was made of about eight different layers. He was also waving his arms above his head.

“Is that a hair mask?” Keegan said.

“I think so,” I said.

“Just checking,” said Keegan.

We hurried to do as Dacer commanded.