Elemental Omen (Paranormal Public Book 10) (21 page)

I met Keegan’s eyes. He had been watching me closely as I mulled over the recent history of paranormal evil.

“Oh, boy,” I said.

The tree sprite nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t stop thinking about Keegan and his mother. They were used to being attacked and having to move, then being tracked down and attacked again. The Quest government was so weak that there wasn’t much anyone could do about it except what we had done with Rake’s help the night before.

I nearly went to visit the Lady Witch, but I didn’t have the Golden Rod to take to her, and anyhow, I wanted to save her counsel for something truly threatening. Instead, I just thought of the pool under the castle and wondered if she slumbered.

When I wandered outside later that morning I found Zellie sitting on the patio puffing on a cigarette, with a plate of biscuits on a nearby table. Paranormals did not do well with stimulants, but some indulged in cigarettes now and then without much consequence. Zellie was one of those.

I scrubbed at my face as I looked around for the tree sprites, but so far the only one I had seen was Keegan. They had been shocked and honored that Duke Dacer had invited them to stay on his property, and in return they had offered to help keep the grounds. Dacer usually used magic for mundane chores like choosing which blue and pink trees to plant, but all the foliage fared better if it was cared for by hand.

The morning mist was so heavy that the air around Zellie mixed with the cigarette smoke to make a floating gray cloud around her head. Her black eyes were like lights shining through a fog, and I realized that until this moment I had not seen her look content.

“What’s happening today?” said a voice behind me.

I spun to find Keegan. Unlike the other tree sprites, Keegan wanted to throw himself into everything the castle had to offer. Without hesitation I told him about the trial. “I don’t think you can go, though,” I said. “You’re probably needed here.” Slash he isn’t an important enough paranormal to be allowed into the Citadel.

His eyes glowed in annoyance as he looked at me. “Right,” he said. “We aren’t high enough in the ranks of any paranormal type to be considered worthy to partake in government. We’re just worthy of being killed.”

“Oh shut up, both of you. Really, it’s like you’re children,” Zellie said. We had shattered her calm and she waved us over, looking irritated. As we exchanged glances and walked over to her she said, “Then again you
are
children, aren’t you?” After another pause she shrugged as if to say, “Oh well,” and ordered us to sit down and talk to her.

Keegan, his eyes wide, watched her stub out her cigarette. “Those things are bad for you,” he said, rather bravely in my opinion.

She gave him a trollish look as if she expected him to read her mind. When he didn’t, she sighed and said, “I’m a vampire.”

“Cigarettes can’t kill her,” I supplied when it looked like he still didn’t get it. “We have the list of what can kill vampires, and the government hasn’t added cigarettes.”

“My theory is that they left cigarettes off the list so they could weaken a couple of us and get at us that way,” said Zellie.

“That’s a pretty depressing theory,” Keegan said.

“These are depressing times,” said Dacer’s cousin. She leaned back in her chair and folded her fingers over her middle, looking out at the expansive grounds. “If they weren’t, you wouldn’t all have come here bedraggled and . . . wet.” She wrinkled her nose as if the wetness was the really offensive part.

Keegan sat up. “We were doing just fine. It’s not our fault we didn’t know how to fight those things.” He turned to me, looking desperate. “How did you know how to deal with them? You weren’t even surprised.”

“I’ve seen them before,” I said. “My sister and her friends were attacked just like you were last night, and I was there.” I told Keegan and Zellie the story of how the attackers had gotten within reach of a gathering of the most powerful paranormals in the country, then just tried to go after me. They both gave me dumbfounded expressions.

“What?” I hunched one shoulder, not feeling comfortable with their eyes on me.

“You are also one of the most powerful paranormals in the country,” said Keegan. “The fact that you’re doing everything you can to pretend it isn’t true doesn’t change it. Your eyes are gray. It’s a fact.”

Zellie nodded. “Dacer was always hoping you would come home and help your sister.”

“Everyone wants me to help Charlotte,” I said, “but I just want to be my own paranormal. I don’t want to live in Charlotte’s shadow.”

“So, you just want to be famous,” said Keegan.

“Have I acted like I just want to be famous?” I cried. “I ran away and hid. It’s not like I took a world tour and asked to be showered with praise and gifts.”

“Good point,” said Zellie. “You’re planning on doing that instead of going to Public, though, aren’t you?”

Zellie’s accusation left me speechless. But before I could figure out how to react, Keegan looked at me with an inscrutable expression of his own. His desire to attend Public was as low as it had ever been, because now his mother was homeless again and he didn’t want to leave her.

He sat forward, his eyes bright and feverish. “You listen here,” he said, “You have a chance to make a real difference. You’re an elemental! You can do anything! You are still everything to the paranormals. You think that ended with the end of the war? I know everyone wanted sunshine and roses, but that’s not what happened! War and death and sadness came, and our generation is always going to live with those repercussions. You want to run away and hide? Go ahead, but don’t sit there and not acknowledge that of all the paranormals in the world, you aren’t just as important as the likes of Lisabelle Verlans. It’s you and her and no one else. And you ran away.”

Keegan threw down his napkin and shoved his chair back. For a second I thought he might hit me, but instead he just stomped away. From underneath my lashes I snuck a glance at Zellie, but all she did was pick up a biscuit and take a thoughtful bite.

“My sister is more important than I am,” I said defensively. “No one has ever needed me around, because they have Charlotte. Besides, the elementals aren’t so very important any more, not like we were when we were shoring up defenses.”

Zellie shook her head. “Your sister has made her choices. They were good ones. She is starting a family with that man of hers and she is a sorely needed professor at Public. She’ll work with my cousin to help restore vital artifacts, a job that is absolutely necessary. However,” she added, putting her biscuit down as if she was actually considering her words carefully, “your sister cannot fight. She has something to lose.”

I stared at her, shocked. Was Zellie telling me that even Charlotte had a secret from me? I had always thought I had something to lose too.

Later, Zellie went inside while I stayed where I was, enjoying the quiet morning. I had a feeling there wouldn’t be too many more of them.

The quiet ended when Dacer and Sip came out to the patio. “Today is the start Camilla Van Rothson’s trial,” Dacer announced, looking at me thoughtfully. “Would it make you more or less likely to attend Paranormal Public if you went and viewed the trial? Keegan’s going to tag along.” Somehow I had felt like it was an inevitability that I’d go to her trial, so I was a little surprised that Dacer was treating it as optional. I wanted to be there, and not just to support my sister and friends.

As to his other question, in my own mind I reassured myself yet again:
I’m not attending Paranormal Public, not this fall, not ever.
Out loud I just said, with a cough and a shrug, “I’d like to go to the trial.”

It didn’t surprise me that Keegan had wormed his way in. He thought the world existed for revolution, which was easy for him to think since he didn’t have to be the tip of the spear in any battles. That role he apparently reserved for me, and what bothered me most was that I was no longer entirely certain he was wrong.

As for the trial, there were paranormal friends I wouldn’t mind seeing, and besides, I had never been to the Citadel Circle of Six, or as Sip liked to call it, her office. I once heard her describing it as “That pile of rubble filled with bits of leaves that pass for papers from which I’m expected to run the world.” Lisabelle had accused her of being bitter, and the werewolf had stoutly denied it.

The security at the paranormal government’s seat of power, wherever it was at any given moment, went far beyond the protections most places enjoyed. Sometimes they had used a ship and sometimes they had used Public, but neither of those places, though powerfully protected, was ideal for governing. The werewolf president had said that governing at Public was problematic because if a diplomat was misbehaving and she wanted to throw him out a window, she couldn’t do it if she was at Public lest she set a bad example for the kiddos. She had turned to me and explained, “My violence surprises Lisabelle and Charlotte, but if they had to listen to the mumbo jumbo those politicians call informative speech, they’d do the same.”

Sip had insisted that all government employees work from the Circle of Six whenever it was feasible, so as to centralize an institution that had not proven itself very effective in recent years. She thought that if one official couldn’t fix a problem you should be able to walk down the hall and find another who could. What Sip hadn’t realized was that in that mode of governing there would be a lot more pressure on her to manage things she had no interest in and didn’t view as a priority.

As it turned out, for serious crimes the Circle of Six was also where the trials took place.

Sip was looking at me, but I couldn’t read her expression. Finally, when I didn’t elaborate, she said, “I’m glad you’ll be coming. It will be nice to have you there.”

I didn’t want to be rude and contradict her, but Sip wasn’t going to care if I was there. I would care, because I’d feel the usual pressure to perform as the spare elemental to the last elemental, but it wouldn’t make any difference to anyone else. I was used to the dance. Paranormals wanted to get close to me because they suspected I had my sister’s ear, and it was common knowledge that Charlotte was one of a handful of paranormals in the world who could call up the Premier of All Darkness and ask for anything she wanted.

“We should be going soon, shouldn’t we?” said Sip, who had started pacing around the patio and seemed to be getting impatient.

“You know, paranormal presidents don’t usually get all antsy,” said Bertrum, coming up and looking on with prim disapproval.

Sip skidded to a halt next to the table where I was sitting, coming so close that the teacups rattled.

“I’m a new kind of president,” she said. “I make my own rules. I’m an adult and stuff, after all, even if you can’t seem to remember it.”

“Have your tea,” said Dacer, “there’s a good werewolf.”

Sip obediently sipped her tea, apparently more ready to listen to Dacer than to Bertrum.

“We’re going to be late,” said Charlotte, coming into the garden in her turn. She was wearing her professor’s robes, and I thought she looked like a cross between serene and regal. It made me smile, and my chest tightened at the sight of her elemental ring sparkling on her hand. The ring was beautiful, and it made my own ring sing in response. I wondered what it would be like to have a lot of such rings around.

“You’re staring,” said Sip, raising her very blond eyebrows at me. I grabbed a scone and headed for the front yard as she said, “Last one to the carriage has to listen to a Dacer lecture on tree fungus!”

I was not expecting to be met by a procession as I walked down the path toward the gate, but there they were: eight gold carriages, all with gleaming brown horses attached to them. I knew the coaches could fly, and the horses would suddenly turn into the winged creatures that would carry us to the Citadel Court where Camilla Van Rothson’s trial was taking place. But it was still impressive to see them.

“Who are they here for?” I asked without thinking.

“For the president of the paranormals,” scoffed Bertrum, as if I was an idiot.

Sip glided past me, almost comical in her sudden formality. She held herself very erect, and her bleached blond hair was even spikier than usual, but she was still dwarfed by almost everyone else who was there. Judged only by her size, she would have been more at home among a group of children. But her nearly white hair was tipped with gold and her manner was regal in a way I had never seen before.

I felt remarkably out of place.

The day was overcast, so the robes most of the paranormals wore weren’t making them sweat. Before long we were moving out in the middle of a very large procession, and I was learning more about presidential security than I ever wanted to. When all these security paranormals had arrived at the castle I had no idea, but they weren’t actually making me feel better. I was looking forward to getting to the journey’s end at the Court of Iniquity; I couldn’t remember the story, but clearly there had been someone around with a sense of humor when the institution was named.

When flying in a coach, it’s sometimes difficult to hear over the rush of wind. Today was one of those days. I liked having a window seat in Dacer’s carriage, because unlike many carriage owners he left the windows open. Keegan was having a grand time, sticking his head out at every opportunity to feel the wind on his face. The breeze came flying in and I smelled clouds and fall foliage. Summer was quickly fading into the colder months and the sure darkness that followed. There was something carefree about summer, something that told me I didn’t have to make decisions. Fall was the opposite. I felt the weight of responsibility as the leaves changed. I blamed middle school.

I slunk low in my seat as we flew onward; I had a lot to think about. My conversation with Keegan kept churning around in my thoughts, but I also managed to keep half an eye on what was going on around us.

The journey to the Citadel of Six wasn’t as strange as my flight away from the Black Market with Sip and Lisabelle, but it came close. Flyers would join us, then they’d disappear and more would replace them. Sometimes a vampire would fly past, usually moving faster than we could. The weather changed from warm to colder, making it uncomfortable to keep the wind in my face. Many of the paranormals who joined us or flew past peered into our coach with strange expressions, as if they couldn’t resist trying to see who was inside. I caught a couple of them looking at me and smiling, then giving me a tentative wave as if they knew me. I was a very recognizable face, thanks both to Charlotte’s tireless hard work and to the fact that I was on all the Bounty Hunter lists that routinely made it into issues of the Tabble. I didn’t realize just how tense all the attention had made me until we arrived at the Citadel and I nearly toppled out of the coach with relief, my legs wobbling a little as I put my weight on them.

I made sure to stay right behind Charlotte as we started to walk toward the building. She had been there before and she obviously knew where she was going, whereas I was nervous about being out in the open and exposed again instead of safely hidden away at Dacer’s estate. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there must be a horde of Bounty Hunters waiting for me somewhere nearby.

The Citadel of Six was not at all what I expected. The whole place was dusty and rickety, like a very old building that had been abandoned for years. It was as big and boring as a warehouse, and it felt like a place that had been built up and added to willy nilly over the years as the government invited more and more paranormal departments to establish offices there. The Court itself was located at the center of all of the makeshift office buildings, which made up a sort of moat that surrounded it as if it was a fortress that needed protecting. At least that’s what it seemed like to me, especially on this particular day, with Camilla’s trial set to begin.

“Come on,” said Dacer, who had caught up with Charlotte and me. We had come to the central courtyard around the Court of Iniquity, and I suddenly realized that out here in public a very clear hierarchy reigned. Sip would pass all of us to meet with the judge before the proceedings began, then she would be one of the last to enter the court.

I hadn’t seen any pixies yet, but I figured they must be around somewhere. Standing between Charlotte and Dacer, I felt the weight of history on my shoulders. The stones I stood on and the buildings that surrounded me had seen many more generations and many more fights than I could even imagine. I was just some small elemental waiting for the first pixie to show up and the excitement to begin. I watched as Sip’s procession gathered and moved past us. I thought she probably hated all the pomp and circumstance, but she looked perfectly absorbed as she went by. If she was playing a role, she was doing it well.

Meanwhile, paranormals were starting to pour from every door and hallway. “Where are the guards?” I whispered to Charlotte with a frown of unease.

“Hidden among the crowd, mostly,” said my sister without taking her eyes away from Sip. I could tell that this sort of thing made the last elemental nervous, even though she knew that her friend had to do it.

Camilla van Rothson had once been pretty. With her lush blond hair and nearly translucent green skin, she had been the talk of her school. I know this because my sister and her friends have always talked about it like one of those things, oh, she’s pretty but she’s awful and how did she fool a nice guy like Cale.

The pixie who was led into the courtroom in chains was not pretty. Her hair was cropped so closely to her scalp that at first I thought she was bald. When I realized that it was just because she would have very blond hair if they let any of it grow, I still had the impression that she was old beyond her years. Big brown eyes protruded from a sunken face. Her skin was greener than it should have been, even for a pixie; Charlotte said that stress was to blame, but Sip said that in jail, where pixies didn’t have an outlet for their magic, it just built and built inside of them and ultimately changed their skin color.

“Is she crazier too?” I asked.

“Not sure that's possible,” said Charlotte, “but maybe. I remember a doctor visiting her right after she was imprisoned, and he came back looking very concerned about her mental health. In the old days, most of her fits of anger were focused on Cale, and I don’t know how she would channel those feelings in jail.

“Poor Cale,” I said.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” said Charlotte ominously.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“Dating is bad,” she said, “women are bad news. So are pixies.”

“Does that make Camilla double bad news?”

“There’s no such things as double bad news.”

“I seem to remember telling you not to date, and then one of the first things you did when you went off to college was get a boyfriend. And you still have him.”

“I’m me and you’re you,” she said. “I win.”

Despite its deceptively light tone, I figured the conversation was going nowhere, so I turned my attention back to the prisoner. Camilla’s hands were a lighter green than the rest of her skin, but they still didn’t look normal, because her veins protruded strangely. She shuffled into the courtroom without looking left or right, and I found myself leaning forward to catch any sounds she might make. But the only noise that echoed through the courthouse was the sound of her chains scraping the floor.

“Have you spoken with her since the battle?” I whispered to Charlotte. My sister shook her head. “Sip went to see her once. They didn’t want her to, but Sip’s the president of the paranormals and she does what she wants. No one really had a choice about letting her.”

“What did Sip say?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

Charlotte looked troubled. “She said what we’ve all always suspected, that Camilla’s crazy.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, though, does it?” I said.

Charlotte turned so that her gray eyes were on mine. “What do you mean?”

“She’s in prison,” I said. “She can’t do any damage from prison.”

“Some of the most notorious criminals in history ran their organizations from prison,” said Charlotte. “I doubt a little thing like bars will get in her way.”

I could feel the tension in the courtroom rise with Camilla’s entrance. Most of the paranormals in attendance, including me, leaned forward, all eyes intent on the prisoner as if she was suddenly going to grow a second and third head, increase tenfold in size, and start breathing fire. Even Charlotte couldn’t sit still, though her face was pale and I saw her hands tremble in her lap.

I reached over and put my hand on hers. My sister’s skin felt clammy, but she gave me a weak smile. “Don’t worry,” she assured me, “I don’t think there’s going to be trouble.”

After the commotion subsided slightly I looked around the courtroom. I wasn’t sure what Charlotte was looking at - probably the paranormals up front, all dressed in fine robes, their expressions stony. But I was looking at all the other paranormals. The balconies were filled with unsavory characters, some of whom looked like they hadn’t washed in weeks, or maybe even years, while others had a strange light in their eyes. Oddly enough,
they
weren’t leaning forward like everyone else, they were sitting back, and they had their arms crossed over their chests, covering the color of their rings. Sometimes you could tell what they were anyhow, sometimes you couldn’t.

“There’s definitely not going to be trouble,” I whispered back to Charlotte. She didn’t hear me. Her full attention had returned to Camilla.

I found myself wondering how long my lie would hold.

The proceedings took longer to get going than I would have liked. No one seemed to know what the delay was, but I noticed that at one point Sip stood up to go and find out. Her handlers stopped her, probably with the correct argument that she would then be appearing to influence the judge and jury. So, while we waited, I started to notice details of the courtroom that I would not otherwise have paid attention to.

The courtroom was sparsely furnished. The judge’s table had a comfortable-looking chair behind it, and on the judge’s left was a slightly longer table with three chairs set alongside that. Facing the judge were two short tables, each one big enough for only two chairs, presumably for the defense and the prosecution. All the tables were made from some sort of dark pine and were recessed in a padlocked area that glimmered with magic. After we arrived, Charlotte had made her way to the front of the room and touched the magic, and a blue flare quickly rose and then subsided. Satisfied, Charlotte returned to her seat next to me. We were sitting far enough away from the front of the court that I had a chance to watch many dignitaries walk past. I didn’t recognize most of them, but a few did look familiar. With so many paranormals packed into the limited space, the air was quickly warming up.

The first sign that something was wrong was how long it took the judge to enter the courtroom. He was tall and strong and looked more like a bouncer than a judge. He didn’t look up as he entered, and the only sound that could be heard was his heels clicking on the stone floor. I noticed Charlotte’s brow pucker as she sat quietly with her hands folded into her lap. Sip was sitting in the front row of the audience, and now she leaned forward, her bright purple eyes burning. I didn’t recognize any of the three jury members whom the judge now addressed quietly before he sat down.

The judge’s movements were deliberate, every motion executed efficiently. He shuffled papers into neat piles and examined his desk closely, almost as if he was stalling. The courtroom was hot and getting hotter while he proceeded to ignore all of us. Next to me, Keegan fidgeted.