Free Elemental Dawn (Paranormal Public) by Maddy Edwards Page A

bemused.
    “You face demons and hellhounds
and are afraid of a little jump?” she teased.
    I glared at her. “I don’t like
heights.”
    “You are not going to fall,” she
said, rolling her eyes. “Besides, Keller’s waiting.”
    That’s all she needed to tell me.
Right after I jumped I realized that I was glad she could still joke about
boys. From her expression in the brief minutes since she had snuck out to get
us, she hadn’t joked much lately. With her dad murdered, there was no surprise
in that.
    Instead of falling into black
nothingness, I landed on what felt like a cushioned bench. Slowly, with a
strange creak, the bench started moving sideways and down. I gave a tiny cry
and gripped the sides for dear life.
    This was unlike any elevator I
had ever ridden before.
    “How is it?” I heard Lanca’s
distant voice call, but I was too busy gasping in shock to respond. We were
moving pretty fast, but the ride still took a while. The elevator seemed to
know where I was going, and there was just enough room for me to breathe and
lift my head, but not much else. I was in a black container in a vampire
mountain and by the time I reached the other end I wasn’t sure it was very much
better than being attacked by a Knight.
    The elevator came gently into a
small room that reminded me, I’m sorry to say, of a morgue, where the bodies
are kept in freezers and then pulled out on massive trays.
    “You look like death warmed
over,” Lisabelle commented. She was already standing with Sip and her parents,
looking very happy.
    “I was thinking about a morgue,”
I told them, sure that my eyes were huge.
    “You really must stop being so
morbid,” Lisabelle chided me.
    “Yes, she’s the one who has that
problem,” said Sip.
    I looked around the room. There
were several slides for elevators, all covered with black cushions. The walls
were painted a dull brown and the carpet on the floor was also black, but
somehow the room wasn’t really depressing. The more I looked around, the more I
realized that the impression of a morgue had come more from my morbid imagination
than from what was actually there.
    “Lanca coming?” Lisabelle asked,
glancing worriedly behind me.
    “Here I am,” said Lanca, emerging
through a door.
    “I took the long way round,” she
said, by way of explaining why she hadn’t used the lift like the rest of us.
“It’s my mountain, so I can,” she said when Lisabelle continued to stare at
her.
    “Now, where were we?”
    “You were about to explain why
you snuck out and risked getting killed to meet us,” said Lisabelle. “We’re
honored, but we were doing fine. At least I was. Sip was struggling a bit.”
    “Yes, showing up looking battered
and on a broom - not the plan - makes you seem really fine,” Lanca drawled. She
was the only one who could match Lisabelle for sarcasm. Or at least almost
match.
    “Mr. and Mrs. Quest,” said Lanca,
turning to Sip’s parents. “You must be very tired from your journey. Allow me
to show you to your quarters.”
    Mr. Quest looked like he was
about to argue, but Mrs. Quest stopped him.
    “Darling,” she said, “I think we
have a lot to learn. Chief among those items is not to underestimate our
daughter again.”
    Sip’s shoulders straightened a
little with pride.
    “Mom, Dad, don’t worry. We’ll be
fine,” Sip assured her parents.
    Hyder shook his head. “You are
all barely more than children. How can you possibly think you know what you’re
doing?”
    “We’re the ones with the
responsibility,” said Lanca simply. “How does it make sense that senior
paranormals understand our positions better than we do, when we are the ones
who must live them?”
    “You cannot underestimate
experience,” said Hyder loftily. “Your elders should be able to advise you on
matters of. . . .”
    Lanca’s eyes flashed. “They have
done nothing but advise me. They certainly do think they know what’s best for
me, but here’s the thing,” she