Elemental Rising.

(Paranormal Public).

by Maddy Edwards.

Chapter One.

In the quiet morning, surrounded by the grey dawn, Sip and I trudged through the forest. I knew now that I hadn't gone to Public in the normal fashion first semester, not that suddenly being yanked out of my home town and reappearing at a totally different college than the one I had planned on could ever possibly have been the normal way to go.

But what I now knew was that I'd been dragged to Public by a President who would have done anything to keep me under her eye, even if it meant spiriting me there while I was unconscious. Luckily, she had failed to carry out the final phase of her evil plan. If she hadn't failed, I wouldn't have been in the woods just then with Sip. I would have been dead.

I shivered. It was now the dead of winter, and the forest was more white than brown or green. The air, always crisper when it was colder, held the promise of more snow.

I concentrated on my friend's small back. She was wearing a parka, or, as our friend Lough affectionately called it, Florida in a jacket. Her spiky blond hair was covered by a red hat and she even had snow pants on. I, who hated the cold with a pa.s.sion I normally reserved only for brussels sprouts, was also dressed warmly in a blue jacket and a knitted hat and gloves. The bad weather made it difficult for me to tell if my desperation to get to Public had to do with how much I missed the school or how badly I wanted to be out of the cold, sitting by a hot fire until the warmth seeped so deep into my bones it could never leave.

Sip, tiny, purple-eyed, and a werewolf, looked over her shoulder. "How was home?" she asked. Usually she carefully avoided the mention of my home, because I hated to leave my little brother, Ricky, alone with my stepdad. But she knew I had gone for a visit over break, and I knew she wanted an update.

"It was good," I said. "Ricky's like the dad I never had. He was telling me to do something and I asked him if he realized he was ten and I was in college and he told me that age was just a number and not to let it get in the way of doing the right thing, i.e., listening to him."

Sip threw back her head and laughed. "Imagine having five brothers. All of them older, so when they act older than you they actually think you should listen to them."

Sip was the youngest of six children and the only girl. All her brothers had already finished at Public. She shook her head sadly. "They are so confused about who's in charge."

"Yeah," I said. "Ricky would fit right in with them." A lump formed in my throat and I thought about how odd it was that I thought he would fit right in with a bunch of paranormals.

"I'm never getting a boyfriend," Sip announced, her purple eyes lighting with mischief. "Well, that I'm telling them about. They would kill him and I'd never find the body."

I grinned, then tripped, then caught myself on the closest tree.

"Maybe we should slow down," said Sip, stopping so that I could regain my balance. Sip didn't slip. She never tripped. Werewolves were too graceful. They were right up there with fallen angels.

"No," I said. I couldn't wait to get there. "Let's keep going." My hands had grabbed a patch of sap dripping down the tree, and I spent the next ten minutes trying to wipe the sticky, sweet liquid off my gloves. While I worked to clean off my hands I said, "Tell me again how we get onto school property?" I was nervous, thinking vaguely that there would be an invisible force field around the place that would repel known elementals or something.

From in front of me Sip explained, "There's a force field around the grounds. We have to go through it. The field was only penetrable by the demons because the President must have lowered our defenses. She was the only one who had the power to do that. My guess is that she had been preparing to do it all semester. Besides, with the defenses weaker without an elemental there to add the fifth power. . . ."

She trailed off. She knew I felt bad about being an untrained elemental when elemental powers were so badly needed. Sighing, she continued, "So, the barrier can usually detect if what is trying to get through has good intentions or not."

"It's a wonder Lisabelle ever gets in."

Sip laughed. "Or Camilla. Anyway, the point is that once we're at the barrier, all we have to do is stick our hand into it, whichever one has our ring on it, and it should let us through. It will be able to detect our magic, and the rings tell the barrier we're students. It's easy peezy."

Up ahead I heard a whooshing noise, as if all the air was being sucked into a vacuum, then a crash.

Sip turned around and looked at me, her eyes now laced with worry.

"That's odd," she said. "Maybe a bear or something."

"Oh yeah, just a bear," I muttered. "Just a ma.s.sive animal. No big deal." Bears were dangerous, but usually only deadly if they thought you were threatening their children. Of course, for all Sip and I knew we were about to walk into a group of bear cubs.

"You're elemental," Sip reminded me. "You fought off demons. I think you can handle a bear."

"But they're so cute," I murmured. My mind was never far from the events of last semester. Finding out that I was the only elemental known to be left alive, and that the whole demon universe wanted to kill me, would have been a revelation for anyone. For me, in the midst of trying to adjust to a new life at a paranormal college, it was overwhelming.

"They shouldn't let you out here alone anyway," said Sip. "You should be better protected. There should be a group of armed paranormals to meet us and escort you in or something. What if something happens to you?"

I snorted. "I'm sure they know where I am at all times," I said, glancing down at my ring. The blue stone shimmered in the light. It was an elemental ring, taking from the elemental house, Astra, so that I could properly use my magic. It had worked wonderfully. The moment I had finally slipped it onto my finger I had known that I was, in fact, meant to wear it.

"Who is *they?'" I asked. It was one of the many questions I still had about last semester. Everyone was concerned about me, but with the President gone, who was actually in charge? Who would I have to deal with now? And would they also turn out to be on the side of the demons?

Sip shrugged. "I have a feeling we'll find out soon enough."

"Maybe," I said, "but people in charge usually think they're right just because they're in charge. It's going to be a long semester."

Sip grinned. "Don't be bitter, Charlotte. Once we get back to Airlee we can relax."

"Where is Lisabelle meeting us? And why did she come back early?" I asked.

Lisabelle was the other member of our little group of friends. She also lived in Airlee, because as a darkness mage she had to be put somewhere; there weren't enough darkness mages to have their own dorm. Airlee was for all the misfits, which included mages, werewolves, dream givers, and any other random paranormals. Lough, a dream giver, was another one of our friends. His gift was deemed pretty useless compared to, say, the powers of vampires, but he worked hard. Lisabelle, though, was one of the most powerful mages on campus, regardless of her grade or magic type. She was also bitingly sarcastic at the best of times, independent, and fiercely loyal, even if she would rather have died than admit it.

"She said she would meet us in the woods by the crossing into Public," said Sip. Then she grinned. "She was so depressed about having to go home for Christmas she said she wanted to get back to Public as soon as possible. I think her mother wishes she wore pink or something. Lisabelle can only take so much of that."

"Not every darkness mage wears black?" I asked, amused at the thought of Lisabelle in anything but her customary dark hues.

Sip gave a bark of laughter. "I'm not sure, but Lisabelle's mother isn't a darkness mage, her dad is. Her mother is an interior decorator or something. Lisabelle's idea of decorating is grabbing a can of black paint and splashing it against the walls, then napping. I don't think she and her mother always see eye to eye. But anyhow, what about Lough? Didn't you say you'd talked to him?"

"Yeah," I said. "He sent me an e-mail. He's there already too."

Sip nodded. "He went on a cruise with his family, and they dropped him off on his way home. I would have liked to meet his sister, but I guess I will eventually. He's probably hiding out from Lisabelle."

Even though Lough had been in love with Lisabelle all through the previous semester, he had been too afraid of her to actually talk to her.

Sip was about say something else when she was interrupted by another crash. This time we both came to a halt.

Sip squared her shoulders. "That didn't sound like a bear."

"No," I said. "It's coming from ahead of us."

"Well, I was worried about keeping my skills sharp," she said, sighing. "I guess there's no way to start a semester like knocking some heads together." She gave me a cheerful grin.

The grin disappeared as a black shape darted through the trees in front of us. I felt my muscles tense; I knew that sort of black shape. I had see many of them last semester on the fields of Dash.

"As usual," said Sip under her breath, "the worst case scenario is the right one. Seriously, just once I would like it to be a greeting party with vanilla cake or something."

"Sip," I said, "this is no time to joke."

"Oh, alright," she murmured. "I would settled for chocolate."

I glared at her.

Then, together we turned to fight the demons.

Chapter Two.

"They shouldn't be this close," muttered Sip. "Demons. They should be far away by now. The professors shouldn't let them be hanging out in the woods while students are trying to come back. Especially you. It's just rude."

She glanced at me. It didn't surprise me that she could tell how worried I was. "Of course, there can't be many of them," she continued. "Probably just a couple of lesser demons or something. You could handle them alone."

"Then why are you as pale as the clouds overhead?"

"Because tanning beds are bad for you," said Sip, "and hopefully Lisabelle meets us soon."

I nodded. Sip and I were more than capable of handling a demon by ourselves, at least I thought we were. But it was always nice to have Lisabelle. She actually liked beating things up, especially demons.

Without warning Sip changed into a werewolf; it always surprised me how fast she did it. Now that she had transformed I couldn't talk to her, but I didn't need to. I had spent all of Christmas break, except for my short visit home to see Ricky, with the Quests - Sip's werewolf family - and they had spent a lot of time as werewolves. We knew each other very well by now, and I knew that at the moment, Sip wanted to hunt demons.

"I guess that takes care of the paleness," I murmured. One of the best things about Sip was that she always had a sense of humor.

Sip knew better than to try and tell me to stand somewhere safe and out of the way. She knew quite well that instead of staying behind with my back against a tree, ready to defend myself, I would follow her further into the woods.

When a movement flickered to my left, I halted. With her heightened sense of smell, Sip had already realized that there was something moving close to us. She c.o.c.ked her head, and oddly enough, she didn't look at all worried.

I frowned, staring hard at the place where I had seen movement. Next to me, Sip's tail started whipping back and forth like a metronome.

"Is what's coming towards us not dangerous?" I asked my friend.

I thought she might have shrugged, although with her in wolf form it was hard to tell.

"Humm," I murmured. "What is dark and dangerous, but not to us?"

Then my face broke into a wide grin.

Wearing her customary black dress, with sleeves that covered her pale wrists and a hem that almost made her feet invisible, Lisabelle stepped out from behind trees.

Sip, still in werewolf form, would have yipped if not for the danger. Instead, she dashed towards our friend, hopping around with glee.

Lisabelle held up her hands. "I don't do hugs."

I was positive that if werewolves could have rolled their eyes, Sip would have. Ignoring Lisabelle's protests, Sip rubbed her furry head against Lisabelle's legs. To Lisabelle's credit, she didn't move away, she just groaned.

I gave her a big smile and wrapped my arms around her, ignoring the face she made.

"Nice to see you," I whispered.

"It will be nicer once we deal with that demon," she murmured in my ear.

"You saw it?" I had been hoping it wasn't real, that we had just made it up.

Lisabelle nodded and said to Sip, who was still nuzzling her with the top of her head: "Enough of that out of you. You'd think you were a cat or something."

Sip stepped back and glared up at us. Werewolves hated cats. Without so much as twitching, she turned herself around and raised her tail in the air.

"That's very attractive," said Lisabelle. "Feel free to stay that way."

Another crash interrupted our friendly reunion.

Sip trotted forward, not giving Lisabelle or me a chance to go first.

"You'd think they would have guards around the gates," I said.

Lisabelle shook her head. "They weren't expecting trouble, and it draws more attention to the entry points."

"Draws attention? Is that what you call life-saving guards?" I asked. "Lisabelle, have you gone soft?"

Her answer was a razor sharp grin that made it perfectly clear that she hadn't.

Since it was January, it was supposed to be cold. But there's a difference between ordinary winter cold and the kind of biting iciness that was sucking all the light from around us. I glanced up at the sky, which moments before had been filled with light gray clouds. They were quickly darkening to black.

"I think there's more than one demon," I said.

"Move faster," Lisabelle hissed to Sip. We couldn't be far now from the crossing onto Public grounds. Once we were there, the demon wouldn't be able to penetrate the protection. There was no President to let them in now.

Sip picked up her pace, but we couldn't move fast enough.

I forced myself to calm down. We had defeated demons last semester. I had my ring. We would be fine.

I felt the rush of air on the back of my neck as a demon swooped over us and came slamming down in front of Sip. Snow and orange dead leaves were blasted in all directions. I felt a foul wind slam into my face.

I couldn't tell which kind of demon it was, except that it wasn't on fire. But it didn't matter. There was now a demon between me and Public.

Sip skidded to a halt and snarled. Before she could launch herself at the demon, I stepped in front of her and raised my ring. The demon wasn't expecting me to move away from my friends, and it hesitated for a moment. It was all the opening I needed.

I raised my hand, calling my magic. It still felt odd, to call my magic and - unlike last semester - have it actually come, rising happily from deep within me.

The demon tried to avoid the blasting stream I sent slamming towards it, but it wasn't fast enough. Instead it gave an ear-splitting howl.