The man who stood up wasn"t as tall as Dove, but he was far more solid, and it was all muscle. Through his black clothes I could see his biceps bulge. I tried not to gulp. His hair was long and black, pulled back into a ponytail, sort of like a surfer demon. He didn"t wear a ring, but neither did I see any sign of a wand. There was a chance he didn"t need one. Once you got to a certain level of power, a wand simply got in the way. All indications pointed to Lisabelle getting that strong, but it was a few years off yet. Risper might already have gotten there. Examining him closely I could see that his skin was darker than Lisabelle"s, leathery and weathered.
Unlike Dove, he didn"t even try to appear pleasant. "I"m Risper. Call me Risper. I don"t like people or students, so don"t come to me with your problems. I have spent the last twenty-five years as a bounty hunter. My niece, Lisabelle Verlans, is a student here. I understand that she"s the scariest thing on campus now that the President is gone. She learned everything she knew from me."
And with that he sat back down. I was pretty sure a couple of the students in the hall had had heart attacks, and even I, as accustomed as I was to Lisabelle, found myself trying to breathe.
"That"s exactly what I would have imagined a relation of Lisabelle to be like," Lough whispered next to me. "Although I don"t think he had to call her out in public."
I nodded, my eyes still on Risper, who was draining a gla.s.s of wine. Another dangerous sign. Alcohol had strange effects on paranormals, so for him to be drinking it meant that he either had a very high tolerance or used the effects to his advantage. Either way, it made him more dangerous.
Risper didn"t bother to introduce the next Committee member, but it could only have been Keller"s aunt. She was small and compact, with a grace and self-possession that only comes with having done lots of impressive things. Or so I thought, because I sure wasn"t graceful like she was. She wore a long white dress and her hair was pulled back in a severe bun.
She had the same piercing blue eyes as a certain other fallen angel on campus I was very partial to.
"Good evening," she said, her voice more feminine than I would have expected, but still strong and clear. As she spoke she clasped her hands in front of her waist.
"I am Professor Erikson. I have been on sabbatical for the past two years, doing research in Canada. I was a professor of advanced flying techniques for fallen angels, and my research focuses on how to perform spells while simultaneously maintaining control in the air. It is not an easy task."
We were supposed to have learned more about fallen angels in cla.s.ses the previous semester, but with everything that had happened no one had ever gotten around to teaching us much. The small amount I had learned I had promptly forgotten. All I knew was that Keller was very fast and very strong, and that he was special, but of course that was because he was Keller. I had to physically force myself to keep my eyes on his aunt and not turn my head to look at him to see his reaction to her speaking.
"It is odd to return here as anything other than a professor, but we will all do our best to run the school with as little disruption as possible. Now Oliva, the pixie representative, is running a little late, but do not fear, he will be here. And of course the elementals are not represented on the Committee for obvious reasons."
I had a hard time not bristling at that. Obviously, I couldn"t be a member of the Committee, because it was made up of all senior paranormals who were the best of the best, but I resented that there was no one else there like me.
"Dove, Risper, and I are more than capable of handling things," she continued. "We will speak after the Demonstration, but now let"s get these new students introduced."
With that she swept back to her seat. Dove, Risper, and Erikson were all very different, and it was difficult to imagine how they would govern together. It was also difficult to imagine what a guy like Risper was doing there. He didn"t seem like the type to want to spend some extra time around his niece.
Without hesitation, three new students walked up to the podium. They were all boys.
"I was wrong about the other dream giver being a girl," Lough whispered in my ear. He did not look happy about it.
The first of the new students was handsome in an "I"m blond and blue-eyed and grew up at the beach" kind of way. He had gentle curls cropped close to his head and wore a necklace of seash.e.l.ls. Lisabelle snorted.
He stepped up in front of the school, the picture of confidence, and smiled.
"See if you can guess what I am," he said, his voice rumbling to my ears.
And we could.
In a flash of light I saw a familiar scene before me. I was transported out of the dining hall, so that even though my eyes were open I could no longer see it. Instead, the lake by the President"s house came before my eyes, where my mother had appeared to me. I could see the frozen water, smell the cold, and rub my food in the scraggling dirt at the water"s edge. Only this time Mom wasn"t there. Instead, it was simply a head floating.
Feeling sick, I inched forward, simultaneously repelled and pulled towards what was stuck in the ice.
My initial feeling hadn"t been wrong. It was a head, but whose? Lisabelle"s? The hair was dark, the skin pale.
No, not Lisabelle.
Lanca"s head had been sheered off and was now frozen in the lake of my mother. Her eyes were iced over and pupilless black.
Someone had murdered the vampire princess.
Chapter Nine.
From the sound of shouts I could tell that I wasn"t the only one who had been given a bad waking dream.
Well, at least Lough wouldn"t be the only dream giver around here this semester.
"Isn"t that nice, now we have Lough and a professional male model to represent the dream givers," Lanca murmured.
I jumped at the sound of her voice and she looked at me questioningly. I was relieved and felt a little foolish to see that her head was still attached. Well, of course it is, stupid.
Obviously no one else had had a waking dream of Lanca"s death.
"That"s enough, Trafton," said Professor Erikson sternly.
Trafton grinned at her and sat down. There was a smattering of disgruntled mutterings throughout the hall as the next student stood up.
"You are now an official member of Airlee as a second semester freshman," said Erikson to Trafton.
He nodded, still grinning, and started to make his way through the tables, joining another group of Airlee students near us.
"He"s in our cla.s.s and everything. Sweet," Lough muttered. Next to me he sank lower in his chair, looking very disgruntled.
The next student had dark hair and skin, and he didn"t bother with much ceremony. Suddenly his wings burst from his back, black and ma.s.sive, even bigger than Keller"s. Gasps went up around the hall as they stretched to their full span.
Just as quickly as he had opened them, he closed them again. They disappeared, and with that, he sat down.
With a small smile on her face Professor Erikson said, "Thank you, Michael. You may join the fallen angels as a junior."
The last boy to stand up was young and very good looking. He was small, and the slight green tint of his skin proved him a pixie.
He walked to the front of the room, repeatedly folding his hands in front of him. He looked very nervous.
"Check your pockets," he said. There was a rush of movement around the hall as everyone"s hands went to their jeans and jacket pockets. Suddenly in his hands appeared several watches and a couple of other small objects that I couldn"t quite make out.
Sip was the first to begin clapping frantically. "That is SO impressive," she breathed. "That"s hard to do, like whoa."
Other students followed suit until Lealand, the good looking pixie, had a standing ovation from everyone except a couple of the students he had pickpocketed.
"Lealand," said Risper, "join the pixies as a junior."
Lealand bobbed his head and sped away. I liked the look of Lealand and thought he might be nice, at least until he chose to sit down at Cale and Camilla"s table. So much for that.
"Now," Dove"s voice said, bringing me back to the present and the front of the room. "I would like all of you to understand some simple things. First, we are in charge by Committee, but we are in charge. The word of one is the word of all. Do not come to each of us with the same problem; you will get the same answer. And finally there is one other piece of business that those of you who arrived late might be aware of."
He paused, looking around the room slowly.
"Throughout the day, as students arrived, they were attacked by demons. We thought we"d dealt with the problem this morning" - again his eyes flicked to my table - "but that turns out not to be the case. Therefore, Public"s defensive shield has been raised. Public is surrounded by demons."
Nods and worried looks were exchanged. Students had been waiting for him to address this situation.
"Everyone is safe. The shields are strong," Dove continued confidently. He didn"t look worried in the slightest.
"Get her OUT of here," Camilla yelled, standing up. I was shocked to see that she was pointing at me. "It"s her they want. If she leaves they will leave the rest of us alone."
A shocked silence followed Camilla"s outburst.
All appearance of kindness vanished from Dove. Vampires can be like that, I thought, glancing at Lanca.
"Sit down," he hissed at Camilla. "You have no right to speak when you weren"t spoken to. Least of all about matters you couldn"t possibly understand."
"So much for her being on the side of the elementals," Sip muttered, looking with concern in the direction of the blonde pixie.
"She just needs something to b.i.t.c.h about," said Lough confidently. "Unfortunately, she sees Charlotte as a bottomless well for that very thing."
I wasn"t sure what to do, so I just kept sitting there. Dove never looked at me, he just continued to speak.
"With the activation of the force field around Public, no one will be able to get in or out without the permission of the Committee," he explained. "So, tread carefully. Cla.s.ses start tomorrow, and there is to be one new addition to the curriculum. Professor Zervos of Cruor has requested that each student be trained in battle tactics. He commended everyone"s conduct in the battle last semester, but he feels that further steps need to be taken."
Dove paused, gazing around the room while he waited for the murmurs of surprise to die down. The notion that Zervos had said something nice about anyone was truly shocking.
"Therefore, we"re going to spend some time this semester actually learning how to fight demons. This training will be called Tactical. It will take place over three nights during the semester and will be like a battle, with small groups of students fighting towards and against common goals. Everyone will be involved somehow, just like in a real war."
Dove smiled at the cries of surprise and delight, then continued, "I have complete faith that the professors will keep you all safe. The safety of the student body is the primary objective at Public. With that said, this will be difficult. As much as battles without rules are more realistic, they are also more dangerous."
With that, he swept back to his seat. It took a second for the students to realize they were dismissed.
"We have to fight each other?" Lough asked me nervously as we stood up with our trays. "Has anyone thought this through? It doesn"t seem like the best use of our time. I"m a dream giver. How do I fight? Look at me. I"m soft around the edges."
I shrugged.
"I don"t think they care what we think is a good idea," said Lisabelle.
"I"ll see you all tomorrow, I"m sure," said Lanca, veering off to rejoin the other vampires.
"Does she look especially pale to anyone?" Sip asked.
"Yes," the three of us chorused, and then smiled at each other. I wanted to tell my friends about the waking dream I had had when Trafton had done his Demonstration, but now that I lived in Astra I wasn"t going to have the chance any time soon. Hopefully it didn"t mean anything. Trafton was just a freshman. What did he know?
Right before we separated for the night I asked, "How"s it going, you two living together?"
Instead of either girl answering, Lough said, "I know the girl that lives next to them and she says she"s amazed she hasn"t heard a brawl yet."
"It"s going well," said Sip. "Actually, I"m learning a lot about compromise."
Lisabelle started to cough.
"Yeah?" I asked, wondering what Lisabelle was hiding.
"Sure," said Sip. "I tell Lisabelle I don"t like everything she has being black. It clashes with my neons and such, and so she works on that. It"s a lot of fun. Then she tells me that sometimes I talk to myself, like when she"s trying to sleep, so instead I"ve taken to humming."
"Lisabelle, you own stuff that isn"t black now?" I asked, not sure where to go with what Sip had just told me.
"Yeah, I got a blanket that"s midnight blue."
"It"s a total improvement," said Sip, smiling brightly.
"Girls," said Lough with confidence, "are complicated."
"Maybe it"s just Sip and Lisabelle," I whispered back to him.
"Nice try," he muttered.
I grinned.
The next morning, not wanting to stand out, or in fact do anything that would draw attention to myself, I put on a very standard outfit of jeans and a black fleece. I knew Lisabelle would be wearing black, and I could always hope against hope that people would see us together and get us confused. Then they"d really leave me alone.
I also decided to skip breakfast in the dining hall; I just wasn"t in the mood to deal with the stares of my cla.s.smates. Instead I wandered into the Astra kitchen, hoping against hope that Mrs. Swan had something for breakfast. She had said that we would need to talk after the Committee members made their announcements, but there had been no chance the night before. After hearing what the Committee had said, I could only imagine that she wanted to talk about the need for me to stay away from the force field that was hovering at the edges of Public, keeping out the demons who were beating against our defenses, trying to get in.
I was in luck; she did have a nice breakfast set out. The talk was another thing entirely.
When she started, I found myself sighing. I had worried that this kind of thing would be coming. There was no way it was going to be fun to be the sole focus of an adult"s attention, particularly one who thought that the fate of all paranormals rested on keeping me alive long enough for other elementals to be discovered.
Some of my apprehension must have showed on my face, because Mrs. Swan reached a long dark hand across the table to comfort me. "Don"t worry. These are simple things I want you to do to keep yourself safe, that"s all."
I nodded, but gloom was still settling over me like the snow settling on the ground outside.
"As you know, the demons are outside the protections of Public."
"Right. . . ."
"The force field is strong and they should not be able to penetrate it, but it"s still a dangerous situation. There should be no cause for you to leave the grounds except on approved breaks, in which case we will be able to protect you, but I must warn you. . . ."
She paused, frowning, then continued. "No student will be able to go outside the force field unless allowed by a professor. Being near the force field is very dangerous, which is why performing these Tacticals at all is such a risk."
"I"m not sure I understand," I said.
"The force field is meant to keep everyone safe, which includes students coming AND going."
"But isn"t that something they"re going to discuss with us?" I asked, still not sure what she was getting at. If the force field wouldn"t let me out, what did I have to worry about?