Paranormal Public (Paranormal Public Series) (23 page)

She was about to attack again, and Keller was about to do who knows what vicious thing, when the door to the classroom blew apart.

Students cried out as dust and debris showered everywhere. Professor Zervos, who had been standing closest to the door, was knocked back against the opposite wall, where he ended up tangled amongst the plush purple drapes in a daze.

As several professors shoved through the doorway with Professor Lambros in the lead, I crawled, gasping and coughing in the haze, to Lisabelle. She was motionless on the floor. Standing in the middle of the room, she had taken the brunt of the blast. As I reached her she sat up, clutching her head. The dull black power that had hummed around her as she fought Keller was gone. In its place was a sallow whiteness. Lisabelle looked drained.

Professor Lambros’s eyes swept the room until they landed on her. Somehow I knew that’s what they had come for: to take Lisabelle. I had a sickening feeling in my stomach about what would happen next.

“Professor Zervos?” said Professor Lambros. Her mouth was a thin line. There was obviously another side to Professor Lambros besides the smiling one she’d always presented to me. And it wasn’t a nice one.

“What?” he croaked from the floor.

“What in all the Five Powers is going on here?” She marched over to glare down at Lisabelle, who glared right back.

“I wouldn’t advise that right now, young lady,” said Professor Korba, coming through the destroyed door after Professor Lambros.

He went to attend to Keller, who had transformed back into a human. I’ll have to ask him how he keeps his clothes intact when he’s fighting, I mused, then blushed at the thought.

Keller looked shaken but undamaged. He glared at Zervos.

“I want you,” said Professor Lambros, pointing at Zervos, “and you,” she grabbed Lisabelle, and pointed at Keller, “to come with me. Now.”

Without another word she turned on her heel and marched her captives toward the door. “Professor Korba,” she said to the venerable old teacher, “would you be willing to take over Professor Zervos’s class for today since he is…indisposed?”

Professor Korba nodded and stepped forward. Normally, I’d be excited to get rid of Zervos. But since Keller and Lisabelle were in trouble, even getting rid of Zervos didn’t make me happy.

“Let’s get this cleaned up,” said Korba. “Once the desks are back in place I’d like to hear exactly what happened.”

I thought the class would never end. Students took turns telling Korba the story. Every so often he would interrupt with a question, but then he would quickly encourage the student to finish, and go back to just listening.

Finally, he stood up. “Next class meets at Airlee Dorm,” he said.

A murmur went up around the students. You never went in a dorm that wasn’t your own, just as you did not socialize with the paranormals in other dorms. Showing paranormals around dorms that weren’t their own was unheard of.

Lough and I exchanged looks, but we helped clean up the classroom. Once Korba dismissed us, all I wanted to do was find Sip and tell her what had happened, but I still had a second half’s worth of classes to get through. By the end of the day I was so angry I slammed my way out of my last classroom of the day; since History of Hellhounds and Demons there had been no sign of Lisabelle and Keller.

I was expecting to have to look for Sip when I got to the dining hall, but by dinnertime the news of what had happened in Zervos’s class had spread through the entire school. I didn’t have a chance to look for Sip because she was standing outside the Tower waiting for me. She saw me and came running, ignoring the stares of our classmates. “What happened?” she asked breathlessly.

I filled her in, but I couldn’t really tell her anything that she hadn’t already heard. I wanted to wait until we were alone to tell her my suspicion that Professor Zervos had set Lisabelle up. I couldn’t figure out why he would do it, but I also couldn’t help but suspect it.

“There’s something you aren’t telling me,” Sip hissed as we stood in line. I looked around. Students had stopped openly staring at us, but I could tell they were uneasy. Everyone had heard what had happened in class.

“I’ll tell you later,” I whispered back.

All through dinner I felt like I was five and my mother was watching over me to make sure I ate everything. Sip finished her food as fast as she could and glared at me the whole time. When we were finished I thought she’d want to go back to the dorm, but she shook her head. “Lisabelle’s not there. I checked before dinner, and if they’d let her go she would have come to eat with us,” she reasoned. She was talking it through as we walked away from the dining hall.

“So, where are we going?” I asked.

“Library,” she said.

“Hey, wait up,” said Lough, rushing out of the dining hall after us. “Mind if I tag along?” He pushed his glasses higher up on his nose as he said it, a characteristic gesture of his.

“Come on,” I said, “tell Sip what happened to you.”

When Lough had finished the story, Sip asked wonderingly, “He put you in a trance?” Her eyes were lit with a mixture of anger and curiosity.

“It was crazy,” he said. “It was like I knew I was moving and I knew someone was talking to me, but I was stuck in a big tub of molasses. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t really do anything. I just had to do what the voice said.”

“Yeah, well, did that voice sound like a crazy vampire professor?” I asked angrily. “He’s been after Lisabelle since school started.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Sip mused. “Why would they allow a darkness mage here if they didn’t trust her? I thought we were past all that.”

“That’s easy,” said Lough. “It’s the demon attacks.”

Sip looked at me. She could see I looked worried. “Wait, attacks? As in more than one?”

Lough looked uncomfortable. “We’ve all been hearing about how the demons are getting stronger, right? Well, there have been other attacks. More than one on campus, but since the demon attacked staff and not students, they didn’t bother telling us.”

I could see my own fear reflected in Sip’s white face.

“You said that’s what the President was talking about when you overheard her. Besides, it’s not just happening on campus. It’s been happening to paranormals everywhere since the beginning of the summer,” he explained.

We were now almost to the library, and I could see the lights through the glass. It was another marvel of modern architecture, except that I was pretty sure magic was involved, because the slant of the glass walls and the perfection of the metal spirals that held them up could not exist in a world where only normal physics applied.

“Why weren’t we told?” Sip asked, incredulous.

“Because we’re just students. Besides,” said Lough, “I don’t think anyone knows exactly what’s going on.”

“Has anyone been killed?” asked Sip quietly.

“One old lady, but they don’t know if it was the demons or a heart attack,” said Lough. He pulled the door open for us and we filed into the entryway of the library. We were forced to be quiet as we walked past Mrs. Pelper, the librarian, and made our way to the top floor, where students rarely bothered to go.

As we climbed the stairs I wondered something. How did Lough know all of this?

When I asked him, his response was easy. “It’s my older sister, she works for the Paranormal Council of Power,” he explained, “and she tells me everything. I’m the mature one in our relationship,” he boasted. He sounded like Ricky.

“Obviously,” said Sip.

Lough protested, and Sip and I both laughed. The laughter sounded loud in the stairwell, which was dark and quiet. Most of the students were either still at dinner or going to bed.

“Why are the demons attacking more?”

Lough shrugged. “Rumor is they are looking for something. I don’t know what, though.”

The top floor of the library had lots of long study tables surrounded by rows and rows of old books. The carpet was a dark brown, making the room even darker. Along the walls were individual study stalls made entirely of a cool metal, and small windows, which right now were black squares.

“So, what aren’t you telling me?” asked Sip.

“I think Professor Zervos was trying to get Lisabelle in trouble,” I told them.

“But how does that have anything to do with the demon attacks?” Sip asked.

Laugh’s brow creased. “It has to do with the demon attacks because the only way a demon could get onto campus was if someone already on campus let it in….”

Sip’s mouth fell open. “Zervos thinks Lisabelle is helping the demons?” she squealed. “That’s insane.”

Lough shrugged. “There’s no other explanation. Or so they think.”

I heard a scraping noise behind me and turned. Apparently the library wasn’t as empty as we’d thought; there, standing in front of us, were Camilla and Cale. I couldn’t help but hate Camilla, but today she looked like she’d just been crying.

“Hey,” said Cale as the two of them walked past us.

“Hi,” said Sip, trying not to look at Camilla.

Camilla, who had no interest in talking to us, flipped her hair over her shoulder and marched to the door. Cale lingered. He gave one look toward his ex-girlfriend’s back, then said, “Are you going to the dance this weekend? They are better than the ones we had back home.” He was looking at me.

Why was everyone asking me about the stupid dance?

“I think so,” I told him. “Those dances were a joke.”

Cale grinned. “Yup.”

“Yes, she is going,” Sip piped in firmly. I glared at her.

“I guess I’ll see you there then,” he said, and wandered toward the door that Camilla had just stormed through.

“He likes you,” said Lough knowingly.

“We are old friends. And that’s all. Can we get back to the point?” I asked. “We have to find out what’s going on. How are the demons getting on campus, and why is Lisabelle being framed for it?”

“We don’t know she’s being framed,” said Sip. “We’ve known there were problems with demons for a while.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t know how serious,” I reminded her. “I just got attacked by one. They’re after something.”

“I bet I know what it is,” said Lough, scratching the side of his face.

Sip and I both stared at him in amazement.

“Well, aren’t you just a fountain of knowledge tonight?” Sip said. Lough grinned.

“What is it?” I prompted when he didn’t continue.

“I think they’re after the elemental,” he said. “Hang on.” He jumped out of his chair and disappeared into a stack of books.

Sip raised her eyebrows at me. “Do you know what he’s talking about?” she asked.

“Nope,” I said. “I still want to know why Zervos is framing Lisabelle. And there are no elementals, so whatever Zervos did to him must really have addled his brains.”

“We don’t know that anyone is framing her,” Sip protested again. I rolled my eyes.

“It has to be Zervos. He wanted her to compete today. Why? Because the professors can sense when darkness magic is being performed on campus, just like they sense demons. He wanted it to look like she was attacking us.”

“But there was a room full of witnesses to say she wasn’t,” Sip countered.

I chewed my lower lip. “But there has to be an explanation.”

Lough emerged from the stacks looking triumphant. He carried an old leather-bound book, the top of which was completely covered with dust. When he plunked it down in front of us the dust went flying everywhere.