Elemental Fire (20 page)

“Parties aren’t allowed on
campus,” said Daisy coldly.

“What are you? The party police?”
Evan giggled at his own joke. A lot of the other vampires there, who had moved
to flank him, laughed as well. Daisy’s eyes hardened. “Do not laugh at me,” she
hissed. “You have no right.”

“I have every right,” Evan shot
back, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “You’re interrupting my good
time. All these paranormals came to relax and have a nice night and here you
are, ruining it.”

Daisy stamped her food in
frustration, for all the world like a small child who’d just been told she
couldn’t have a cookie for dessert.

“You will cease this at once or
I’ll tell Mom,” she seethed. “Cease!”

I glanced sharply at each of my
friends in turn, not sure if we should intervene. We were all the way on the
other side of the room and it would be difficult to get to Evan quickly.

Faci stepped forward and placed a
hand on Daisy’s shoulder, his sunken eyes intent on Evan. The girl jerked, then
stilled as Faci’s eyes went wide. Obviously she didn’t like to be touched, but
Faci kept his hand on her shoulder, talking urgently into her ear. I watched
Daisy’s face clear as Camilla continued to stand there quietly, as if she
didn’t care at all what was being said.

It only took a second. In one
breath Daisy was standing there, relaxed. In the next she had launched herself
across the room, slamming into Evan before he even had a chance to raise his
hands in defense. Daisy was small, but she looked like a miniature train
slamming into a piece of flimsy cloth.

Evan crumpled as Camilla’s lip
curled with sick amusement. Faci clasped his hands behind his back, a proud,
almost fatherly look in his dead eyes.

Evan gave a cry of pain and
struggled madly, but Daisy was hard to dislodge. She sank to the floor on top
of him, biting, kicking, screaming, and wailing. Evan raised his arms over his
head to try to protect himself from the small blows that rained down. Daisy
used her fists, her little hands punching wildly. Next to me, Sip gave a sharp
intake of breath. Her grip on my arm was painful.

“Lisabelle, should we stop this?”
I breathed. Evan was already breathing shallowly, and his struggles were
slowing down.

“Lisabelle?” I unglued my eyes
from the fight, as everyone else continued to look on in horror.

Lisabelle was no longer next to
me. Gasping, I looked around frantically. Of course, Lisabelle was making her
way to the front of the room. Our fellow students were so intent on the battle
that Lisabelle was forced to move many of them bodily out of her way.

“She’s something else, isn’t
she?” said Rake in admiration. He was still standing behind us. Even if he
wasn’t fighting, I felt safer with the massive vampire at my back.

Sip gave a bewildered look
around, but when she realized Lisabelle wasn’t there she swore. “Why are we
still standing here?” She was waving her hands around furiously, and nearly
yelling. “Rake? Pick me up! Let’s move.”

His eyes widened in surprise, but
as Sip started to give the command again he merely nodded. Gently, he wrapped
his massive hands around Sip’s tiny waist and lifted. He placed the werewolf on
his shoulders as if she weighed no more than an apple.

“Maybe you should shape change?”
I suggested. It had been a while since Sip had used her werewolf form, and I
thought she might have better luck getting through the crowd if she dodged
around legs.

She looked over her shoulder and
down. “No, I don’t want to be caught in that form when Vale finds us all here.
Anyhow, I like this view.” Then she commanded Rake to get moving. Her hands
were clasped under his chin, giving him an awkward look, as if he was wearing a
baby’s bonnet.

He nodded and started to move
through the crush of party-goers. Unlike Lisabelle, he didn’t have to throw
anyone out of his way. They just moved.

“Get the lights back on,” Sip
told me as I started to push through the crowd.

I nodded. The red lights were not
enough to see well by. For all we knew the Baxters were already there, or there
was another student on the side of the Nocturns who was about to stab Evan in
the back. We had reached the point where we were at war with our fellow
students. Conflicts that had been simmering for years had now hardened into
open battle.

Daisy and Evan were still
grappling. All of the party attendees were afraid to interfere, but Faci had no
such compunctions. With a gleeful cry and a sick smile he darted forward,
landing a kick on Evan’s shoulder. The vampire cried out in pain; with Daisy
still on top of him he was unable to avoid the attack.

Unfortunately for Faci, he was so
intent on hurting Evan that he didn’t see Lisabelle coming until she used a
dose of her own black magic. I had watched in wonder as she pushed her sleeves
back, revealing her blazing wand, and I continued to watch in fascination as a
stream of black fire shot out of it and raced to wrap around Faci’s middle. He
wasn’t picked up, exactly. I was accustomed to seeing paranormals fly backwards
into a wall. After all, it had happened to me several times. But this was
different.

Faci struggled, but he barely had
time to react. The black magic was rich and deep and he never had a chance. A
crack, the sound of his head hitting the black tiled floor inside the entryway,
was met with a massive cheer from the watching students. Lisabelle never
stopped coming. Even as Faci struggled into a sitting position she slammed him
down again. Camilla stood by, watching wide-eyed, as Faci was taken out of the
fight.

Meanwhile, Rake was heading to
help Evan, who was still in the clutches of the furious little hybrid. She had
now started to slam his shoulders and neck into the floor, and while his arms
were weakly pushing against her torso, it was to no avail. She was stronger
than she looked.

“Get off him,” Sip yelled. “Rake,
put me down!”

Sip started to squirm and Rake
barely had time to set her on her feet before she raced to Evan’s aid.

Rake turned and looked at me. He
was grinning. I was liking him more by the minute. “Precocious little thing,
isn’t she?”

“Drives Lisabelle nuts,” I said,
grinning. Rake’s shoulders shook with amusement. “Lisabelle needs a little
excitement in her life,” he observed wryly.

But we didn’t have time to talk
right then; instead, we raced to help our friend. Sip had finally decided to
transform into a werewolf and was now standing over Evan, having frightened
Daisy enough to make her let go of the vampire. Sip’s teeth were bared and her
hackles were up, but I knew it wouldn’t take long for Daisy to regain her
composure. Sip wasn’t big enough to intimidate a paranormal as powerful as
Daisy for long.

“t would be good to have ONE week
where we aren’t in a battle,” I told the werewolf that was Sip. “You know, just
for something new and different.”

“I don’t like different,” said
Rake, his voice booming in my ear. Sip changed her mouth so that she could
speak and said, “You’ll learn to like it or I’ll know why.”

“Don’t mind her,” I told Rake.
“She gets crap from Lisabelle all the time.” But the big vampire only chuckled.

I went to stand the other side of
Evan from where Sip stood guarding him. He lay on the ground, unmoving. His
eyes were bruised and his shirt was torn, and I had to look away. No matter how
many times I saw a battle, or a friend injured, I didn’t think I’d ever get
used to it.

Daisy, seeing that she was
outnumbered, gave a howl of rage. Faci had regained his footing, but he tried
in vain to protect himself from Lisabelle’s onslaught. She was a trained
darkness mage and Faci was only seventeen. He was not ready for Public, and he
especially was not ready for Lisabelle.

“Help,” he screamed, his voice
cracking with fear.

Camilla jumped in on the action
and I saw Lisabelle’s eyes spark. We all hated Camilla, but Lisabelle had taken
a particular dislike to the pixie. Camilla immediately threw dust at Lisabelle,
the pixies’ best and most common defense, and as it floated through the air it
sprang to life, becoming hundreds of tiny vengeful butterflies. As they zipped
toward Lisabelle they reminded me of the knives that had fallen out of the sky
when we snuck onto Public, but I didn’t have time to think about that
connection right now. Daisy had gone to check on Faci, while Lisabelle was busy
beating away the swarm of angry insects.

Knowing that Lisabelle was fine,
even against Camilla, I knelt down next to Evan. His eyes fluttered and his
chest lifted, but he didn’t speak.

“Are you okay?” I whispered. His
lips cracked in a smile, a bit of blood dripping down one corner of his mouth.

“I’m fine,” he said. “My plan
appears to be working.”

“If your plan was to get beaten
to a pulp, then yeah. Solid day’s work,” I said, at which he grinned, making
his lip bleed even more.

“No,” he murmured, his voice
growing weaker. “My plan was to see if we were being spied on. In case you were
wondering, we are.”

I gave a heavy sigh. Was that
what this had been all about? We already knew we were being watched, but maybe
the paranormals who weren’t used to it had to be sure, and he did have a point:
Faci, Daisy, and Camilla had showed up awfully quickly.

Speaking of Camilla. . . .

I looked at Lisabelle and almost
laughed. She was leaning against the back of a chair, casually incinerating
Camilla’s butterflies one at a time.

“Lisabelle looks like she’s about
to yawn,” Rake said, his eyes gleaming with amusement.

Camilla, Faci, and Daisy left
quickly after that. No other Volans were there, and they were massively
outnumbered. One vampire sect was on their side, but one was not enough against
the entire remaining student body of Public. Some of the other vampires assured
us that they would take care of Evan, who had several broken ribs, a broken
nose, and three broken fingers, not to mention a sprained knee and a bruised
ego.

My friends wanted to walk me
home, but I insisted I could manage. I had already decided to let my guard down
that night. I had to see Keller, and I wanted a little time alone to prepare.
Running into the lizards was a very real possibility, but it was a risk I was
willing to take.

Once I was safely back in Astra I
sighed with relief. I was in no condition to fight Daisy or Faci. My shoulder
still wasn’t healed and I tired easily. Our Ultimate Tactical, which we still
knew nothing about, was going to be interesting. I just had to make sure my
friends didn’t get hurt trying to protect me.

I also had to make sure I didn’t
die, because we weren’t really engaging in Tactical at all. Vale had just
picked the students she liked most against the students she liked least, in the
hopes that our near deaths would distract the campus while she stole my Mirror
Arcane. Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen. Tonight was definitely a night
for dreams.

I fell into bed and squeezed my
eyes shut. Hopefully it would be Keller I woke up to.

I was not so lucky. It was Malle
who was waiting for me.

“At least we’re in a different
place,” I said, stepping gingerly over the dry and crusted ground. The barren
wasteland had not seen rain in years and in every direction I turned, all I
could see was more open space. There weren’t even any boulders to break up the
monotony.

“Where do you think we are?” she
asked, twirling her wand.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I
don’t like to hang out in places that don’t have sandwiches on the menu.”

Malle didn’t smile.

“I should’ve known she didn’t
have a sense of humor,” I muttered to myself, carefully keeping pace with her
so that she never got any closer than she had been at the start.

“Think about where we are,” she
said. “Maybe it will help you.”

Every time I saw Malle she was
the one who asked the questions. I decided that it was my turn. I don’t know
why she called these little meetings, you’d think she was preoccupied running
the demon world.

“So, my mother was a dream
giver?” I said coldly, my gray eyes never leaving her face.

Malle threw back her head and
cackled. I flinched. Her neck did not look like it was strong enough to support
her head as it flopped backwards.

“I thought you knew that! How
silly of me. I keep forgetting that you don’t know anything.”

I took a step back and she
narrowed her eyes.

“Please do not do anything
stupid. Just because you’re an elemental doesn’t mean you’re capable of beating
me. You aren’t.”

I kept moving. I was worried
she’d attack me, and I didn’t want to let her get too comfortable.

“I don’t want to fight you,
Malle,” I told her honestly. “I’m not the one who likes war, death, and
destruction.”

“Aren’t you?” Her voice was
raspy, and every time she opened her mouth I had a hard time not looking at her
broken and cracked teeth.

“Look at your track record. Every
semester you’ve been in college, you’ve fought. When the hellhound came for you
in Maine you would have fought if you had known how. You have the common affliction
of lying to yourself about who you really are. Your perception is warped.”