Elemental Fire (16 page)

Once my friends had left I
slipped into bed, too tired to visit Sigil tonight. I would get more reading
done over the weekend and then visit him again. Maybe by then he would have
found out more about Grace Lancing.

I fell asleep with a smile on my
face.

Unlike every other night since I
had returned for my fourth semester at Paranormal Public, this time I didn’t
dream of Keller. I wasn’t transported to that grassy hill with the fragrant
scents and the warm sun shining down on us and I didn’t get to wrap my arms
around his hard body.

I had started to look forward to
sleeping almost more than to being awake, so not seeing Keller was a harsh
blow. The place I was transported to only made it worse.

Instead of finding myself with
Keller, I was taken to a wasteland. I already knew who I was going to see
before I opened my eyes on the barren, black earth.

Unfortunately, I didn’t brace for
the attack quickly enough.

With a cry of vicious fury Malle
sprung at me. I ducked and rolled away just before a jet stream of black fire
slammed into my chest. I landed hard on my left shoulder and let out an ooffh.

She looked even worse than when I
had seen her at Locke. Her chest was sunken in on itself and she was bent over,
her shoulders slumped low as if they were pulling on her neck. Her hair, what
was left of it, was in two great, gray clumps, one coming out the back left
side of her head and one on the other side. Her skin was sallow and her nose
was large and beaked looking. She was barely recognizable as the same person I
had first met two years before.

Malle came on again as I
scrambled to my feet, pushing backward in the dirt and trying desperately to
create some room between me and my nemesis.

I wanted to remember to ask one
of my dream giver friends why Malle and I only saw each other in dreams, but I
was a little busy at the moment.

“How DARE you interrupt me?”
Malle screamed at me. I saw her rotting teeth; very few were left, and most of
the inside of her mouth was covered with black splotches. I imagined that there
would also be a stench if I got too close.

She came on again, firing shots
of black fire. I dodged and rolled. Dimly I realized that I needed to avoid using
my ring in case Vale found out. More practically I realized that was crazy. It
didn’t matter what Vale found out if Malle murdered me here in the dream
realms.

“Believe me,” I said under my
breath as my eyes searched for any protection in the empty landscape, “it was
not my intention.” There was not even a tree to hide behind.

Malle halted. “Where are the
artifacts?” she demanded. “The Fang? The Map? The Mirror? The Globe? You may
not have them all, but you know where they are.”

It struck me that she hadn’t
mentioned two of the artifacts on the Wheel, and with horror I realized that
there was only one reason she wouldn’t.

She saw understanding dawn in my
face and smiled. “Ah, yes. As a matter of fact I am in possession of the
Scepter and the Wings. How very good of you to wonder.” Her face darkened then,
as if she was angry with herself for revealing something she hadn’t meant to.

Since Lanca had the Fang, Elam
the Map and I the Mirror, that just left the Globe White as the only missing
artifact. Where was it? If Malle already had two of the artifacts there was no
way I could let her get the Mirror Arcane. It belonged in Astra, and I had to
make sure it stayed there.

Malle was watching me intently,
like a shark that smelled blood. “Don’t be shy about it,” she murmured,
sashaying forward. “Worried about your precious Astra?” she spat. “It will
crumble, just like the power of the paranormals. I have the demon underworld at
my beck and call. You do not stand a chance.”

I shrugged. “That stuff’s not
really important to me,” I said casually. I saw a flash of anger in her eyes
and kept going. “I just want to survive. And you are not as powerful as you
think. You know the whereabouts of two measly objects on the Wheel. That’s it?
Pathetic. You’ve spent more than a year trying to kill me, and look, I’m still
standing. Also pathetic. You’ve tried for longer than that to destroy the
paranormals and you failed SO miserably at it that you’ve given up and started
looking for the artifacts, so that they can do the work for you.”

I was about to say more when
Malle raised her wand and fired. I wasn’t quick enough this time. I tried to
dodge, but the stream of black power slammed into my right shoulder. I screamed
in agony as my arm burst into pain. I felt my skin melting as the blast pushed
me flying backward. I had no idea how long I flew through the air; all I knew
was that I woke up in the dead of night, back in my bed in Astra, with my
shoulder throbbing in unimaginable pain. For a few seconds I just lay there,
letting my eyes adjust to the dark.

Normally when I was in pain, if I
just concentrated on something else for a few minutes the pain lessened. It
came in waves and each wave was a little less strong until it was bearable. I
had discovered this trick when I was a kid, running around in the woods with my
friends or hiding from my stepfather in the bushes. I viewed every scrape and
bruise as a game because I knew the pain would go away eventually, it was only
a matter of how long. I would focus on something else, or rub the spot around
the wound, to take away the sting.

None of that worked this time.

I waited, giving it a chance, but
the throbbing pain only got worse until I felt like it had spread to my entire
body. My temples were pulsing with such force that I could barely see straight.

Carefully I rolled onto my left
side, desperately trying not to disturb my arm. Each tiny movement was agony. I
fought with all the energy I had to keep still, but I had to get help. My flesh
was burning off my body.

I stumbled to the door, crying
out in pain as I nearly tripped and the movement jarred my arm. It was like a
poison was coursing through my veins.

I got to the stairs, feeling so
dizzy that all I wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep. Until that moment I
had avoided looking at my arm, but avoiding doing something you shouldn’t do
takes energy, and just getting to the stairs had sapped my strength. No longer
able to stand, I collapsed, tumbling down the stairs as I went.

Chapter
Fourteen

“Charlotte?”

A dim voice called, but I was too
groggy to respond. Instead I flailed, asking for peace. I just wanted to sleep.

“Charlotte? It’s time to wake up.
You’re going to miss ‘Magical Murders that go Undetected but Should Not.’”

I snorted and covered my ears.

“Arrghhggga oonnnndd,” I
responded. Feeling satisfied with my answer, I tried to go back to sleep.

A wooshing sound was my only
warning before I was drenched in water. I cried out and came awake with a
start. I stared around blearily, although whether it was from exhaustion or the
water in my eyes I wasn’t sure.

“You can’t say I didn’t warn
you,” said the young man standing in front of me. I glared at Trafton.

“Was that really necessary?” I
demanded harshly. “I’m tired.”

“I know you’re tired,” he said.
“You damn near died.”

Everything came back to me in a
rush and I gasped. Quickly I turned to stare at the stairs, then sucked in my
breath. My ribs hurt. For that matter, my arm, hand, and hip also all hurt.
Trafton wandered away while I examined my wounds. I was covered in bruises. My
shoulder was bandaged - I didn’t even want to think about how he had managed
that - and I was sitting on a cot on the floor in the elemental fire study.

“Why didn’t you take me to the
infirmary?” I called to Trafton. He reemerged from the other room carrying a
glass of water and smiled. “Vale closed the infirmary, something about needing
to toughen us up.”

“Someone should tell Lisabelle
that Vale thinks she’s a weakling.”

Trafton grinned. His wounds were
entirely healed except, that there were some thin, pale lines where he’d been
cut on the arms that still showed when he wore a t-shirt.

“I was with Cale when we heard
about the infirmary,” said Trafton. “I was really worried until Cale made a
joke about Lisabelle, then it was just kind of funny.”

I grinned, thinking of Cale. The
smile disappeared from my face when I thought of Camilla. Trafton saw the
change come over me and nodded his understanding. “I know, they’re to the point
where it’s hard not to think of one without the other, and boy is that
depressing.”

I grinned. “Yeah, it is. I keep
hoping they’ll break up.”

Trafton shrugged. “You never know
what draws two paranormals together.”

“Don’t get all philosophical on
me,” I said. “I’m too tired.”

“Okay,” he nodded, pulling a
chair up next to my cot. I was covered with a blanket, and next to me was a
silver bowl filled with some sort of liquid. I had to guess it was a
disinfectant of some kind. There was also a stack of bandages, clearly the
supply from which my shoulder bandage had come.

“Did I know you were a healer?” I
asked. Trafton was busy jotting something down in a notebook, his perfectly
messy blond hair falling over his forehead. He looked up at me, his blue eyes
bright.

“Nope,” he said, his face
breaking into a grin. “We dream givers are just full of surprises.”

I laughed, but quickly stopped.
It hurt my ribs. And my jaw. “Yeah,” I said. “So, what did you do?”

“Well,” he said, shrugging
modestly, “I knew you were dreaming. I could sense it all the way over in
Airlee, and I knew that Sip and Lisabelle had come to see you. So even though
they hadn’t invited me, I also knew there was a way to get over here. When I
realized you were in distress, I snuck out and came to find you. I think I
covered my tracks pretty well. You’d need the Map Silver to track me.”

“Thanks for coming,” I said
gratefully. “I didn’t know dream givers could do that.”

He shrugged. “Well, we can if we
want to. I’ve been trying to keep an eye on you three since you got here.
You’re always getting into trouble, after all.”

“Could other dream givers do
that?” I said thoughtfully. “Track their friends’ well being?”

“Somewhat,” said Trafton. “It’s
harder if the person knows and doesn’t want you to do it. Lisabelle, for
example, seems to have a blanket policy on friendliness. Her policy is that she
doesn’t support it, and she’s blocked absolutely every type of tracking and
help that she possibly can.”

“Sounds like Lisabelle,” I said,
yawning. “What about my shoulder?”

“Ah,” said Trafton, his eyes
clouding. “That was a tricky one. Definitely not something I ever want to see
again, that’s for sure.”

“That bad, huh?”

He nodded grimly. “Worse. Your
skin was black. It was pretty gross. I had to dream some pretty powerful
healing spells.”

“I never thought of dream givers
as conjurers, but that’s exactly what you are, aren’t you?”

Trafton laughed. “Like I said,
we’re just full of surprises. Now, get some rest. You only have today and
tomorrow to recover. No one will be able to explain that you’re missing class
Monday because you did battle with Cynthia Malle in a dream.”

He had a point, so after thanking
him again I lay back down. He assured me that he would risk sneaking out again
to come back and sleep here. He wanted to talk to me about my dreams, and all
he had to do was sneak past the hellhounds that patrolled the campus late at
night.

“Definitely a step down from the
vampires that are usually around here,” I murmured. I desperately needed to
sleep, but I had to talk to Trafton a little more first.

My dreams sucked. I either
dreamed Lisabelle was a murderess, or I dreamed of the President or of Keller.
I wished there was some consistency instead of this back and forth between the
very best things in my life and the very worst.

This time, it seemed that as soon
as I had dozed off I woke again with a start, a cold sweat drenching my body.

“Trafton,” I murmured, lying in
the makeshift bed he had set up for me. “I had a bad dream about Lisabelle.”

He tensed, his eyes shifting to
the ground. “Recently?” His voice was strained.

“No,” I murmured. “Last semester.
I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now I’m starting to wonder.”

Trafton continued to work on my
bandages, but more in a way that said he had to keep busy than that he was
paying attention to what he was doing.

“Tell me,” he said tightly.

I told him, and his face paled as
I talked. Lisabelle was formidable, even to her friends, but the idea that she
would kill us . . . well, it wasn’t even a real possibility.

“What does it mean?” I asked. “Is
it some metaphor?”

Trafton raised his eyebrows.
“Like for what?”

I shrugged, but it hurt, so I
stopped moving. “For something innocent. You know, like, um . . . Yeah, I don’t
know.”