Elemental Fate (Paranormal Public Book 12) (9 page)

For all we know he bought government officials over the years to keep them quiet or make them back off when they got too close to his true, SHOCKING identity.

Which is of course a hard claim to believe, but the thefts were just too miraculous to comprehend.

Also, to carry that theory further, he was at the apex of power in the paranormal world. He is the uncle of the premier of all darkness and has been privy to secrets for years that the rest of us can only imagine. He is even, as of recently, on the list of sought-after paranormals. Well, of course he is, his ability to steal is beyond measure.

This publication would like to call on all paranormals who may have knowledge of artifacts to let us know if you have heard anything of Elam as Risper, if you have seen him in the following locations, or if any of the artifacts are missing from the list of what should be there.

The list of artifacts looked like it was a mile long and I nearly went cross-eyed looking at it.

Golliar Gillardin

My mind churned. Risper was Elam and Charlotte had known. Where was Risper now? Seeking revenge on whoever had betrayed him? He must have kept his true Elam identity a closely guarded secret, so who had told? Was he still in the country? I had seen him leaving Dacer’s and smiling, and I had had no clue as to the truth.

Keegan and Eighellie, both of whom had also seen Risper at Dacer’s, were looking at the Tabble with open mouths.

“I bet Risper’s freaking pissed,” said Keegan, his mouth full of cereal.

“Now he has to go on the run,” I mused, wondering where he was now.

“I wonder who outed him,” said Keegan. He was staring at the Tabble with shock in his eyes, as if the idea of angering Risper was too ridiculous to contemplate, and yet someone had in fact done it.

“I have a feeling it was someone who wanted to get back at him for taking all the artifacts,” said Greek Harrison. As a member of our group he was supposed to sit with us every morning at breakfast, but we didn’t actually sit
near
him, because, well, all the seats around him were occupied by fawning girls.

“You think it’s revenge?” Keegan asked.

“There’s a lot of revenge going on around here,” said Greek, glancing to the girl on his left. Candace was another fallen angel; neither Greek nor any of the fallen angels sitting around him had made it to Dacer’s for the party.

Candace shrugged. “He’s broken the law and should be punished. What else is there to it, really?”

“Oh, maybe because he broke the law to protect the paranormals,” said Keegan.

“Maybe he thought he was protecting the paranormals and maybe sometimes he did, but sometimes he just stole artifacts when it wasn’t helping anyone but himself. If there hadn’t been a war he should have been in prison a long time ago. He shouldn’t be walking free,” said Candace, picking up her breakfast tray and walking away. She had gray eyes and blond hair, the most common color among fallen angels, and she was delicate-looking. But clearly she had a steely interior.

“Don’t mind her,” said Greek. “She means well.”

“No, she doesn’t,” said Keegan, picking up his tray as well and stomping away.

Greek and I looked at each other and I cleared my throat awkwardly. Greek had no enemies at Public, an impressive feat given the overflow of hostility on campus.

“Sorry for interrupting your conversation,” he said. “Wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. I’ll just be pretty interested how this all shakes out.”

“What do you mean?” I said. “Will Risper get caught?”

“Yeah,” said Greek, “that and, I mean, who tipped off the Tabble in the first place? They must have been pretty confident that Risper would get arrested if they went ahead and printed that article. I’ve seen him work and I’ve seen his niece work. He’s not a paranormal to cross.” He stopped, then shrugged. It was as if he was watching a TV drama that had no bearing on real paranormal life, but I wasn’t so sure about that.

Greek grabbed his tray and headed out. We had our first group meeting soon, and this semester we had to get serious about our year-end project. Not looking forward to that prospect at all, I glanced at Eighellie. She had been quiet during the conversation about Risper, and now she raised her eyebrows at me. But before either of us could think of anything to say, our schedules appeared in front of us. Eighellie made a grab for hers, while simultaneously glaring at me.

“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice,” she said. “I’m not thinking about anything.” Without so much as a see you later, she too grabbed up her tray and walked away.

I sat there for another few minutes, shaking my head. Then I picked up my schedule without reading it. Suddenly whatever I would be studying this semester felt massively insignificant.

A little while later we were sitting in the oldest building on campus, the one we’d had class in with Professor Penny last semester. Now we were waiting for the dream giver, Professor Rooks, to come. The class consisted of familiar faces. Fog and Frances were there, as were Hannah and Candace. Greek wasn’t there and neither was Averett, but Matthew was. He was so big that the seat next to him had to be left empty, and he stared around the room as if challenging other paranormals to sit there. No one looked like they wanted to take him up on it.

From other student groups there were the Burble siblings, all four of them. “Are they ever separate?” I whispered to Eighellie. She had cooled down after breakfast, walking away from the dining table and instantly stopping to read her schedule – she just couldn’t wait.

Now she shrugged. “I doubt it,” she said, “except that Huky is a girl.”

Huky, the lone female Burble, was sitting in front of the professor’s desk. She wasn’t pretty; her face was so flat she could have balanced a vase filled with water on it if she were lying flat on her back. Her hair was a short, dull black and she had dark circles under her eyes. She was neither short nor tall and her frame was stocky, even athletic in an “I’ll pound your head into the ground” sort of way. To be fair, she did have three brothers.

The three boys were a little different. One had a nose ring and had attacked Eighellie last semester when she’d tried to break up a fight. I hadn’t known how important a role he would play in my future at public. The other two Burble brothers were fraternal twins and looked the opposite of each other. One was short and one was tall. One had a sort of pot belly while the other was remarkably skinny. If Averett hadn’t said something about their being twins, I wouldn’t have had any idea.

The room was made of stone from floor to ceiling and very cold in January. The windows had bars over them. “Why are towers always creepy?” Eighellie mused. “I’ve never seen a tower that wasn’t creepy.”

“Maybe because no one can use them for anything,” said Keegan. His surly mood hadn’t improved much since breakfast, so Eighellie was ignoring him even more than usual. I tried to stay neutral, but I wondered what had Keegan so up in arms.

“The Astra library isn’t so bad,” I said. “It’s just a lot of books.”

“Oh, it’s run by a ghost?” Eighellie said.

“I’m not sure what Sigil’s doing these days,” I said. Although I had checked for the Astra library ghost a number of times, he was never there when I went looking for him. “I suppose it’s possible he’s hiding from me. I know he wanted to move on and stop being a ghost, but I don’t think that happened.”

“Maybe he
is
hiding from you,” said Keegan. “You’re pretty scary. What’s so great about you anyway?”

“Nothing is great about either of us, and yet Eighellie wants to be friends.”

I grinned at the darkness mage, who raised her eyebrows and said, “Keegan has a point.”

“What’s with you two?” I demanded. “Just because the paranormal president might die and the paranormal world is falling apart, there’s no reason to be in a bad mood.”

Keegan sighed and crossed his arms tighter over his chest. He was determined to be grumpy, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it.

“Good morning, new students,” said Trafton as he breezed into the room. His robe today was the same gray, only this time it was held firmly together by a blue sash, and gold buttons ran down the front of it. His perfectly curly hair was swept away from his bright blue eyes to reveal his tanned face. He looked more like a model than a full professor. “Maybe you should all be saying ‘Good morning, new professor’? Oh well.” He winked.

Hannah blinked at him several times, her green skin turning a shade of what I imagined was pink for a pixie. “Thanks so much for teaching us this semester. It really is such an honor. Dream givers are so rare and talented,” she gushed.

Frances and Fog, who took their lead from Hannah, all nodded in agreement. Trafton gave them his patented bright smile.

“Thanks for welcoming me,” he said. “Of course I’m delighted to be here with so many talented and driven students.” He said the last bit with a touch of irony. College students were not known for working hard, or at least if they did, they also liked to play hard.

“This semester we’ll be concentrating on evasive maneuvers for all paranormals,” said Trafton. “Because I’m a dream giver, the bend of my magic is very much toward avoiding or re-directing a confrontation, one way or another. I am going to show you my ways.” He grinned broadly around the room. No one moved or spoke except Hannah, who was panting a little.

“Let’s get started,” said Trafton.

“I like him,” said Keegan. “I might have misjudged him before.”

We’d had the most interesting class I had experienced at Public, and we were discussing what a good professor Trafton was as we walked away from the classroom.

“I can’t believe your sister is friends with all these cool important people,” said Eighellie. “Is she back yet?”

“She was supposed to come back with Keller today,” I said. I had been ignoring the pit in my stomach that I knew would be there until my sister returned safely home. I trusted her and Keller, but I knew she was still a target. She and I were still on the sought-after paranormals list, a fact that must have accounted at least in part for our quick rescue by Trafton when Surround attacked us.

“I’m going to go see if they’re home before I go to lunch or the next class,” I said, waving to my friends and hurrying away. I knew that Eighellie would keep on trying to get out of Keegan where he was going at night, and he would keep refusing to tell her. I didn’t need to be there for that.

As I came around the side of Astra I saw Charlotte outside, examining a window on the cottage. Before I was even within earshot she turned around and smiled.

“I was wondering when you’d get here,” she said. “I have to head to the office to interview new secretaries. Want to walk me?”

I nodded and waited while she disappeared inside and grabbed her bag. When she came out again she said, “So, you used a lot of essence last night, huh?”

I groaned. “You knew that? Of course you knew that. Yeah, I wanted to help Lisabelle. She didn’t want my help.”

“She’s never wanted anyone’s help,” said Charlotte. “Even if she realizes something would be easier with help, she doesn’t like easier either.”

“She’s ridiculous,” I grumbled. “You can’t help her. She should be coming to me.”

Charlotte gave me a comforting pat on the back. “That’s very sweet of you, Ricky. Maybe she’ll come around.”

“Or maybe she’ll dig herself so deeply into the ground that she won’t be able to find her way out again,” I said.

“Or that,” Charlotte conceded. “We’ll have to see how the semester goes.”

“Who are the secretaries?”

“One is from Surround and one is from the secretarial agency Sip told me about. I hope the one from Surround is good. If I have a local paranormal, it might ease the difficult relations between town and campus.”

“You mean since Ms. Cernal died and the Surround residents started attacking students, including me?” I said. I wasn’t even bitter about it. I was just shocked that they had been so hostile.

“Would you like to sit in on the interview?” she said. “It’s a couple of hours until lunch.”

Charlotte looked like she wanted me to, so although part of me wanted to go back to Astra and start working on my idea, I was also curious to see a Surround resident who didn’t hate students and professors.

The job applicant turned out to be a woman in her sixties who looked more like a grandmother than a secretary. She had white hair, a white blouse, a blue cardigan, and a skirt down to her ankles. She smiled at Charlotte as we walked into the waiting room. “I’m Ester,” she said, “Ester Chiffon.”

“Charlotte, and this is my brother Ricky. If you don’t mind, he’ll be sitting in on the interview.”

Ester smiled at me. “I don’t mind at all. I’ve heard you had quite a journey to get here. I’m so sorry about that.”

“Yeah, it was exciting, to say the least,” I said, following Charlotte and Ester into the office.

“How are the townspeople doing?” Charlotte asked. She was always curious about other paranormals. It was one of the qualities that made her beloved among those who had a chance to get to know her.

“It’s been a stressful month,” said Ester. “I don’t know what’s happened, but the attacks are getting out of hand. Ms. Cernal’s death only brought it all to light, but there were problems long before that.”

“It’s unfortunate that there’s no new information about who killed her or what she was really doing in the TP office,” said Charlotte. “What other attacks are you referring to? The fire bird?”

Ester scoffed. “Townspeople are using the fire bird as an excuse, but she hasn’t attacked anyone. She just flies high overhead all the time, surveying the world from above. I rather like her. She keeps us company as she burns brightly in the sky. It’s as if the sun is out even at night.”

“So, how else is Surround being terrorized?” Charlotte asked. She had clearly forgotten all about interviewing this woman for the job.

“Several townsfolk have been attacked at night. None were killed, but they all described a dark shape. Naturally they blame the vampires. The militia is being forced to patrol at all times and they’re exhausted. My husband patrols three nights a week, and I worry about him. He told me I shouldn’t worry, and that I needed to find something to do. I told him I’d find a good kick in the ass for him if he kept up what he was saying. Then I realized he might have a point. I used to be a secretary, and it’s not as if those kinds of jobs are easy to come by around here. When I heard that you were looking, after the awful stuff that happened last semester, I applied right away. I could really use the distraction.”

“That’s awful,” said Charlotte sympathetically. “I’m really, terribly sorry.”

Ester sighed and looked around the office. “I don’t need pity. I need work. Let me prove to you that I’m good at my job. You won’t regret it. I promise.”

Charlotte smiled. “I’m sure I won’t.”