Elemental Light (Paranormal Public Book 9) (40 page)

Keller met my eyes, and in that instant I knew he had no idea. It would come as a shock to him as much as it would to the all the other paranormals who were suffering from the onslaught of darkness. Somehow that felt like a relief, if not a victory.

“Darkness calls to darkness,” Malle screamed. “He did not see the right in darkness, so he died. Will you all suffer the same fate? What do you say, Master? Premier Erikson?”

I felt a wrenching in my gut as Professor Erikson, now revealed as
the Darkness Premier we had dreaded and resisted for so long, stepped through the crowd of demons, followed closely by Lisabelle Verlans.

Seeing my friend now made my faith in her constancy waver for the first time. She looked thinner than ever and she was dressed entirely in black leather, not in her usual dress. She looked ready for a fight. I knew we were about to do battle, but just whose side was she on?

As soon her eyes met mine, though, I pushed away the thought that she might have told Darkness Premier Erikson our plan. She didn’t move or nod and she didn’t smile, but somehow I knew there was still goodness in there somewhere.

Premier
Erikson was another matter entirely. She didn’t look anything like she had in my room just a little while ago, but that was to be expected with so much darkness coursing through her. Her white robes had turned black, her hair in its strict bun was now white and gray like the moon, her eyes were large black orbs, and her skin was taut and stretchy, more like rubber than flesh. As she approached, Malle, Faci, Camilla, Daisy, and the other Nocturns knelt, as they would to a queen.

On the edge of her robes were flames. The Darkness
Premier came to a stop in front of Keller, who had started forward as soon as he had seen his aunt, his face filled with pain.

“Keller,” she said, speaking to him but pitching her voice so that we could all hear what she said, “this is why you’ve been working for Cynthia Malle, and this is why you had to be here: so that you can take your rightful place at the head of this new order.”

Premier Erikson wasn’t smiling, but she somehow looked eager, her face drinking in her nephew as if she’d never seen anything so glorious. When Keller didn’t speak, she continued. “This is why you couldn’t marry that trash. Elementals are beneath you, they always have been and they always will be. We will keep that thing away from you and find you a proper Nocturn to marry.” She didn’t look at me, but we all knew who she meant.

After a visible struggle, Keller finally managed to open his mouth and speak. “How. Could. You?” His voice shook and his hands clenched at his sides. I wondered if
Premier Erikson even noticed, or if she was so deluded by power and darkness that she was oblivious to what was actually in front of her.

She gave a gusty sigh, much like the one we often heard from Lough when he had spent too much time with all sorts of exasperating girls. “I worried you’d be difficult,” she said, shaking her head and glancing at Faci. “My lieutenants warned me that you wouldn’t come easily, but I had faith. You’ve worked for Cynthia for a long time now. She was good enough to take you under her wing and show you the ropes. I honestly hoped you would understand the right in all of this.” She shook her head.

“The right?” Keller choked out. “Aunt Ebbie, we’re fallen angels. You’ve killed! We don’t kill unless provoked.”

“
He
has killed,” Premier Erikson said, pointing to Lacy’s grandfather, his body still sprawled on the platform.

“It was his job as a protector - to protect,” Keller cried. “He did
his job.”

“As I have done mine,” Premier Erikson hissed. “All of this was to protect us from the encroachment of discord that has eaten away at the paranormal types!”

Keller looked like he was working to breathe, and his eyes never left his aunt. She was staring at him as if she couldn’t possibly see why he didn’t understand.

“I did this for the family,” she said, her voice softer. “I wanted us to have a life for many generations to come, and we weren’t going to have that if the types kept battling. Now we are all united under darkness.”

Keller flinched a bit at the last word, as if it had really brought home to him what she had become.

“Which is exactly what we can’t have,” he said. “Darkness isn’t good if all it does is kill, if it’s totally divorced from light. How can you think killing is justified?” He started to say something else, and I was pretty sure he intended to remind her again that she was a fallen angel, but he stopped himself. She had clearly moved an unreachable distance away from his understanding of what that meant.

Premier Erikson swallowed. “You will come around, Keller,” she said, her voice sounding sure. “You are young and you have made several mistakes yourself, all of which I’ve forgiven you for, although it wasn’t easy. You will see that this is right. You will understand. With enough time and training, all this will be yours.”

Keller looked sick. Behind him, Lisabelle looked impatient.

“Young love,” said Premier Erikson wistfully, “is so foolish. This will pass, and once it does you will be the better for it, I promise you that, dear boy.”

“If he doesn’t want to lead, let’s just kill him,” said Lisabelle. “The biggest inconvenience it would cause is having another body to burn.”

Premier Erikson turned with the speed of a striking snake and swung at Lisabelle’s face, but the darkness mage moved backwards even more quickly, just out of reach, and the Premier was knocked slightly off balance. She righted herself and turned eyes filled with malice on my friend, but Lisabelle met her glare for glare.

Breaking the moment,
Premier Erikson stepped toward my darkness friend. “If I want to strike you, I will,” she seethed. But she didn’t try to make good on her threat, perhaps because deep down she feared the outcome of challenging Lisabelle so openly. Before Lisabelle could say anything else, the Premier had swung around again to face the crowd, including me and my friends.

Her eyes passed over me
as if I wasn’t there. It looked like she was assuming that soon enough, I wouldn’t be.

“Tonight marks the beginning of a great change,” she said. “I’m delighted to note that all we have worked so hard for is finally coming true. Here we have gathered the very last of the leaders of the paranormals on this continent. We have the last elemental, who has foolishly caused us so much trouble, but not enough to stop us. All pain will be at an end tonight and we can start anew. For many years I have known this to be necessary. I have worked with my good friend Cynthia to make my dream a reality, and here we stand, for once and all, ready to put in place the new order of the truly right. Light and darkness will cease to exist, now there will just be Nocturns.”

She raised her hands in triumph as a roar went through the crowd and flames erupted in every corner. I couldn’t take my eyes away from Keller, who stood, whiter than his aunt’s hair, swaying slightly. He looked so defeated that I wanted to rush forward and wrap my arms around him. But I didn’t move; I bided my time and waited for the moment I knew had to come, the moment when we would fight.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Of all the pain that had been concentrated into this gathering, the part that made me saddest was the notion that darkness and light were absolute. I had always been taught that I had to choose. I was supposed to be all elemental, but I dreamed. Lisabelle was supposed to be bad, but she’d thrown her life down in front of her friends. Fallen angels were supposed to be infallible, and here was one of their own, a professor, at the forefront of the most violent and cruel wars the paranormals had ever seen. Nothing made sense anymore. Premier Erikson had said that she had done everything for her family, and that was like saying she had done it for love. But it was a sick and twisted love. She thought the paranormals were tearing themselves apart, so she had finished the process for us. She had gone over to darkness without a single hesitant thought. Now her nephew, in whose name she had done all this evil, was staring at her as if he’d never seen such a monster, and she didn’t even notice. A personal war had become a struggle for the survival of all the paranormals.

Here’s to fighting.

“Many of the paranormals have surrendered, there are only a few outliers left, and once they surrender I will have complete control,” said Premier Erikson. “The battle is over and I have now won the war.”

I thought of Lanca struggling to get back to Vampire Locke, and I wondered how many other paranormals were still out there fighting, ou
t of sight of the rest of us. Certainly there were no other powerful queens, and it was likely that there were also only a few battered and broken ordinary paranormals left, hidden here and there and doing what they could. Of course they would surrender to the Black Ring in the end. It was that or death.

“Here, we will get the last Object on the Wheel, solidifying our power irreversibly,” said Premier Erikson, again stepping forward. She looked at me before motioning to Lisabelle to stand next to her. My friend’s
Black Ring blazed, and as she threw back her shirt sleeves she revealed that there was nothing beneath them but a solid covering of intricate black tattoos. I could see through the collar of her shirt that they had even reached upwards to wind around her neck. Soon they would cover her face.

Lisabelle held a large black tray in both hands, and there, sparklin
g in the darkness, were the other Objects on the Wheel. I felt the Mirror Arcane hum in my pocket, as if it knew its brethren were there. Separated for so long, they drew the same longing from both sides of the warring paranormals tonight: our one common hope was for them to come together. The only catch was that we wanted that result for opposite reasons.

The Fang First, power held in blood; the Pinion Wings; the Globe White, larger now, as if it had grown, holding dreams; and the Scepter Silver, with silver designs made of silver jewels in a silver inlay: they were about to be reunited with the Mirror Arcane at last.

I felt a sharp intake of breath as the Mirror heated up against my hip. I wasn’t sure how long I could hold it there; it wanted to break free and I wanted nothing more in the world than to have Lisabelle suddenly run toward me, and I to her, to unite the Objects on the Wheel before Malle or Erikson could do anything about it. But the surrounding demons held me back, and I didn’t dare risk challenging them yet, lest I inadvertently deliver the Mirror to our enemies myself.

We were about to make the move we had planned
in such secrecy when something caught my eye. At first I ignored it, assuming it was a stray flash of fire, but it wasn’t, and it didn’t go away. In the woods, at the treeline, was a small figure, unnoticed in the din that had greeted Premier Erikson’s speech.

I swallowed at the realization that there were still unknown factors that might upset the balance and interfere with our plans. Glancing again at the man who lay dead, I watched as Premier Erikson made for the platform where all the senior paranormals were held. Even as she moved, Cynthia Malle came toward me with Lisabelle next to her, still holding the tray. They stopped in front of us.

“You swore we wouldn’t be harmed,” I whispered. “You swore.”

“CHARLOTTE, NO!” Dacer roared, his eyes frantic. As soon as he spoke, a Demon of Knight came over and hit my professor in the stomach with the broad side of his sword. Dacer doubled over in pain, and I could see Zervos off to the side, his eyes blazing. I had no idea what he was thinking.

“Yes,” said Lisabelle, her eyes two black chips of night and her mouth a thin line, “we did.”

“Lisabelle,” Sip whispered, “we were your friends.”

Lisabelle turned away and walked back to Premier Erikson, throwing the words back over her shoulder: “I don’t have friends.”

Sip swayed gently next to me and Lough looked like he was about to explode. I took his arm to keep him steady as Cynthia Malle smiled at me.

“You put up a valiant fight,” she said, “pity you never had a chance to live.”

As I watched Malle I found it hard to breath
e, but the spotlight moved away from her again as Premier Erikson ushered President Caid forward. His hands were shackled and his face was hanging so that his chin nearly touched his chest, but otherwise he looked unharmed. I watched Keller standing as if stunned, still in shock at what his aunt had become.

Premier Erikson was reaching out to touch Caid when I heard a cry. It wasn’t a demon, because it was female and filled with life, while the demon cry is a hollow shriek that assaults the ears
. From every direction, even from the sky, rebel paranormals poured in. I saw Mrs. Swan, her flowing blue robes cascading around her, piercing the air as she leaped from a flying chariot. The vehicle had clearly been built to withstand blasts, with armor on the outside and only tiny slits for windows. I mouthed a silent thank you to whoever had designed it for my former dorm mother.

Malle, who was still standing in front of me, yelled, “Lisabelle, get to your Premier.”

But Lisabelle was already there. Momentarily distracted by the attack, Premier Erikson had turned to stare in astonishment at the sky.

“She had no idea there were still so many of us ready to fight,” cried Sip. I could see my friend’s eyes searching, and I knew she was looking for her parents among the attackers. I was sure Hyder and Helen would be there, if for no other reason than to make a last stand alongside their daughter.