Chapter Seventeen
Keller transformed. Dark wings expanded from his back, and the shirt covering his chest stretched. His hands became more like coiled wires ready to strike. His blue eyes darkened to near black.
The weight in my stomach settled. I wasn’t sure which one of them would win this. All I hoped was that they would both come out alive, if not unscathed.
Lisabelle moved in one fluid motion to challenge Keller. Every time I saw her magic I was surprised by the power. For a mere Starter, I suspected she was as strong as some of the professors. And far more deadly.
Without warning she lashed out, black fire sprouting from her hands. I thought for sure Keller would be hit, but he was too fast. He dodged around her and she was forced to turn, loosening her hold on the magic for just a second. As soon as she recovered, she threw another burst of power at him.
This time, though, he surprised us all by blocking the burst away from himself with his agile hands and directing Lisabelle’s own power back at her. She ducked and rolled, and a ghost of a smile played across her face. There weren’t many students on campus who could keep up with her, but Keller was one.
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 into a dorm that wasn’t your own, just as you didn’t 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 day’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; 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 had 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 was 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 Lo
ugh, “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’re 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’re 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.
“Nice one,” said Sip.
“Sorry,” said Lough, poring over page after page of some writing I couldn’t read.
“What are you looking for?”
“The Power of Five,” he said.
“The one where a member of each paranormal type has to use their power to make it strong?” I asked. I’d been hearing about it all year, and about how the powers had weakened after the last elemental was killed, which reminded me….
“How did the last elemental die?” I asked. “Does it say that in there?”
“No,” said Lough. “Only very important people know that. And none of us qualifies as a very important person.”
“The demons must have targeted whoever it was, though,” I mused. “Why? Why not pixies? Or vampires?”
“That’s easy,” Sip answered. “There were never very many elementals. And since they did all sorts of crazy things with their magic, they tended to die at a higher rate.”
“Charming,” said Lough.
“Anyway,” said Sip, glaring at the interruption, “the best way for demons to break the paranormals’ power is to break The Power of Five. Killing the elementals did that easily.”
I didn’t like that at all.
“Look at this!” cried Lough. He was pointing to a paragraph. I leaned over the yellowed page and squinted at the ornate writing.
“The lighting in here isn’t very good,” Sip commented.
Lough snorted. “You could put that stuff under flood lights and still not be able to read it.”
“True,” said Sip. “Nothing gets past you!”
Lough grinned.
“Read it,” I urged, still staring at the page.
Lough read: “The Power of Five: Requires a vampire, a pixie, a fallen angel, an elemental, and an Airlee mage to combine the ultimate powers. This magic has only been invoked a handful of times, each time when paranormals were fighting demons and hellhounds. The latter are particularly difficult to fight against, because as animals they are affected differently by the magic of the Power of Five. However, the werewolf powers combined with the other four defuse even hellhound magic. Each time the Power of Five was invoked, the demons were successfully driven back. The demons have tried, unsuccessfully, to break of the Power of Five.”
“Unsuccessfully, until now,” added Lough.
“What do you mean?” Sip asked. She’d sat back in her chair to listen, but now she was leaning forward eagerly. The dim light cast shadows over her pale features.
“Well, the elementals are gone, because of demons. The Power of Four isn’t anywhere near as strong as the Power of Five.”
“How does any of this apply to Lisabelle?”
“The demons are trying to break onto campus to find whatever they are looking for. Probably to further help them destroy the paranormals’ combined power. Lisabelle is in trouble because they think she’s the one who let the demons onto the grounds,” said Lough.
My stomach twisted.
“They don’t think it’s Zervos?” I asked. I felt sure that it was. I felt it in my bones
. It had to be Zervos. He was the one letting a demon onto the campus. He was evil. There were too many coincidences. There was the night he found us outside the President’s office, and the way he had been so conveniently around when I was attacked. It only made sense that he was a spy for the demons.
“It’s Lisabelle,” said Lough. “They think the demon spy is Lisabelle.”