Paranormal Public - Elemental Rising Part 26

"She would definitely hit you," said Trafton with appreciation. Lough glared at him. Apparently he wasn't entirely over Trafton flirting with Lisabelle.

"I don't understand," I said with despair. Lealand/Oliva. Why was a Committee member masquerading as a student? "Is this some kind of joke?"

"No. We wanted to have someone on the inside, so to speak," said Oliva. "I was the best choice, because no one knew me. I had grown up abroad and I was the youngest. Once the vampires became sick I started trying to discover what was happening, which was why you saw me *sneaking around,' as you so flatteringly put it."

"And you and Lanca?" I asked. I remembered the two of them always together. I had thought that he liked her, but now I knew that was probably unlikely. A committee member would never be so careless as to fall for a student, even one as beautiful as Lanca.

"Lanca figured out who I was early," said Oliva. "She paid attention and saw that the other committee members, Risper especially, treated me differently. She confronted me, I think partly because she might have sensed that something was wrong with her. She wanted my help and I liked her. Besides, she is well respected on campus. Once I had her approval I didn't really have to worry about anyone else. Well, Camilla didn't like it, but she doesn't like anything that she didn't think of all by herself."

I stared at the pixie, who I now knew had already graduated from college. He had obviously befriended me and my friends in an effort to better understand the climate on campus, but that had gotten sidetracked when the vampires were attacked by a faceless foe. Now he was here, explaining everything, and to my deep relief it all made sense.

"So, you do believe me when I say there's something with the masks?"

"Absolutely. At this point there's no reason not to. Look what happened to the Tower," said Oliva.

"And how does Trafton fit into this?" I asked, my irritation returning so insistently that I glared at the surfer boy dream giver. I wasn't even upset that I hadn't figured out Lealand was not who he said he was. At the moment, in fact, I barely cared at all. What frustrated me was that all my a.s.sumptions had been wrong and I was back at square one. What's more, I had been hanging out with a Committee member all semester!!

"I'm here too," said Trafton. "I exist as a person. A very good-looking person at that, if I do say so myself. You can speak directly to me."

"He's just a goof," I continued, still not talking to Trafton. I was annoyed and I wasn't going to be annoyed alone.

"He already knew me," Oliva explained, "so he had to be in on it. Otherwise he would have caused all manner of trouble."

"Geeze, that's so hard to picture," I drawled.

"I am so stealthy," said Trafton, lounging back in the chair and grinning like he owned it. "I played like I was a goof and everyone believed me."

"Best acting job I've ever seen," I muttered.

"I second that," added Lough, polishing off his m.u.f.fin and grabbing another.

"So, if you aren't the Mask Thief, who is?" I asked.

Oliva shook his head. I was still thinking of him as Lealand, but it would be disrespectful for me to call a Committee member by anything other than his name.

"I have no idea. I've ruled out students and I've ruled out professors, which leads me to believe it's staff. Possibly one of the guards, maybe someone who has it out for the vampires because of stories from the old histories."

"Wouldn't the screening process have dealt with that?" I asked. "I thought it might be an undead, but how could one get onto campus?" The people who worked at Public were totally checked out before they were hired. Mrs. Swan had told me about the rigorous screening process she had been through.

Oliva shrugged. "Obviously, whatever we think is going on isn't really what's going on, because the vampires are dying."

He had a point.

"Besides, it's entirely possible the President helped an undead onto campus ages ago and he's just been biding his time. There are endless possibilities, but it's obviously someone with a grudge against the vampires."

"That makes sense," said Lough, "but there's no way to tell the undead from normal-looking paranormals or humans, is there?"

"Undead are difficult, because they're just super strong, and if they want to let you see them in their true form, and how gross it really looks, then they can, but if they want to hide it, that's easy for them too. Other than that there isn't much that's special about them."

"Which makes it easier to hide in plain sight," Lough mused.

"Exactly," said Trafton. The two smiled at each other, then remembered they were fighting over the same girl. Lough chomped on his m.u.f.fin angrily.

"Can I go to the Museum?" I asked thoughtfully. Something was nagging at me about the fact that it was still intact. I was sure there must be some clue there.

Oliva hesitated for a second, but Lough said, "Oh, let her go. She has as good a chance of figuring this out as anyone. Other than Dacer, she knows the Museum better than anyone."

Oliva nodded. "Alright, go. I need to report to Risper and Professor Erikson, then I'll join you there."

We agreed to meet at the Museum in an hour, and after Oliva made me swear to be careful I headed off toward the Museum of Masks.

It had been a long time since it snowed at Public, and at this point the ground was just bare and frozen. The gra.s.s was dead, showing off a dull brown. Since the infirmary wasn't far from the crumpled Tower, my mind did not have long to wander and invent what the Museum now looked like. The gla.s.s windows were all shattered and gone, and the walls of the Museum itself sat amidst large heaps of rubble. It must have been powerful magic indeed that had lowered that Museum from the top of the Tower, but why hadn't the fire destroyed it in the first place? I kept returning to that question and to a desperate hope that finding out the answer would point me to the Mask Thief.

I stepped carefully around burned and charred furniture and boards, some still smoking, towards the Museum's rooms. They were covered in ash but appeared to be intact. I was sure that if anyone had described all this for Dacer, he must be having fits. His beloved Museum was in ruins.

I picked my way through the rooms. The masks were still hanging on the walls, though some looked the worse for wear. My guess was that several had fallen from their pegs and been replaced in the aftermath of the fire, as people explored the rubble. Each room had a second, makeshift room above it, created hastily, with the help of a lot of magic, in an effort to keep out any rain or even snow that might fall before the Museum could be fixed. Everywhere I smelled burning.

Other than dirt and superficial damage, the Museum had held up perfectly.

I didn't understand it.

In the midst of all that fire it shouldn't have survived.

I stared around, from one room to another. It even looked like someone, probably Mark, had started to clean again. Well, he had done it every day for years, keeping the Museum perfectly preserved, why not now?

I continued to pick my way towards the Cruor section, determined to examine the masks that hung there, but to my surprise there was a magical protection across the doorway. That made some sense, since no one wanted anything else to go wrong before we found the Mask Thief.

Then it struck me, as if Lisabelle had just slapped me in the face and yelled at me to wake up. No one had tried to destroy the Museum of Masks. All the damage was superficial, nothing of importance had been harmed. The Museum hadn't been attacked by someone who wanted to ruin its contents, it had been attacked by someone who loved it. And who loved the Museum too well?

There was only one someone left.

Chapter Thirty-Six.

I didn't stand amidst the rubble much longer. There was no use staring at the devastation. It was what it was. Maybe if I hadn't been so stupid I would have been able to stop this, but between suspecting Lealand and the demon threat I just hadn't thought about the thief in the right way.

It's always almost physically painful when you go along thinking about something so carefully and you're sure you're doing the right thing, only to realize later, after there are no more opportunities to change the outcome, that you were totally wrong.

That's how I felt, standing in the rubble.

If I had seen more clearly I might have stopped him sooner.

Because I hadn't, there was a dead vampire and probably more to follow.

I thought about waiting for Lealand to get there, so he could go with me, but I had already wasted enough time. I didn't want to waste another second.

I turned on my heel and headed away from the Museum and towards my confrontation with the Mask Thief.

Slowly I made my way down to the polishing shed, Mark's territory and the place where he had tried to wipe the vampires out of existence. It had come to me all in a rush: Mark must be one of the undead, and he was seeking revenge for the death of his family ages ago. He had access to the Museum. It was the best taken care of place on campus, because he had been there for years and he loved it. The only reason that note had been lying on the floor was because he had dropped it there while he was cleaning. If it hadn't been his and he had found it, he would have turned it over to someone in authority. Since he himself was the undead who had written it, that would never have happened in any case, and it was only good luck, if you can call it that, that had brought the sc.r.a.p of paper to anyone's notice.

The shed was far away from the center of campus. I had never been there before, but Dacer had described it to me. It was where Mark lived and spent his time when he wasn't at the Museum. And it was where I was now going to find him, and call him to account. Hopefully he still had the mask.

The day was bitingly cold, but also sunny. The colors in the sky were fading; after the surge of power my elemental magic had injected, there was nothing they could do but gradually soften. Happily, there were still no demons in the sky.

I made my way towards the shed, hoping to find the masks and Mark there. I could see smoke coming out of the chimney, which was nothing more than a large log cabin. Mark had always been so nice, I thought bitterly.

I tapped lightly on the door and felt a thrill rush through me when a familiar voice called, "Come in."

Stepping into the doorway, I was instantly aware that I was entering a place that was well lived in and well loved. Mark had been kind and thoughtful to me, and his home was decorated with a comfort that reinforced my impression of those qualities. It didn't feel like the place of someone who was trying to wipe an entire type of paranormals out of existence. His comfort and care with stuff he loved was hard to reconcile with the mindset of a murderer.

"Hi, Mark," I said, my eyes searching the face that greeted me. He was pale, with a slight sprinkling of freckles. There was no indication that he was hundreds of years old.

"Hi, Charlotte," he said, rising from in front of the woodstove. He dusted his hands free of dust and wood chips.

"Are you feeling better after your ordeal?"

"Yes."

"I can't believe the Tower's gone," he commented. His eyes never left my face, but also never gave anything away. He must suspect that I know.

"I found something in the Museum," I said, "before it was burned to the ground."

Mark shifted slightly. "The Museum wasn't burned. The Tower was. What did you find?"

With shaking fingers I drew the pierce of paper that Lisabelle had read, about the murdered family, out of my pocket. Now that I was confronting Mark I was glad that I had it.

His eyes locked on the sc.r.a.p of paper. Obviously he hadn't known that he had dropped it. Something dark and uncontrolled lit his face and he said, "Oh, I see. Are you here to ask why I didn't sweep it up properly?"

His voice was laced with venom, and I felt sure that if he could have, he would have ripped the paper out of my hands and thrown it into the stove, possibly followed by me.

"I want the oval mask, Mark," I told him. To his credit, he didn't even flinch.

"How did you know it was me? My name isn't anywhere on there," he said, and even now the only indication that he was dangerous was a slight hardening of his eyes. I would have to be careful in this confrontation. I knew very little about the undead.

I was relieved he wasn't trying to deny it, because I really didn't have any hard evidence, although I supposed that if we searched his cabin and found the mask that would have been good enough.

"You love the Museum," I said. "The way you clean it every day. The way everything is always perfect. You love it. You've spent years taking care of it. I couldn't believe someone would try to burn it down, but you didn't burn it down. You just tried to burn me down," I accused.

"Sorry about that," said Mark, but the smile on his face told me he really wasn't. "I just couldn't let you catch me. I knew that if anyone was going to it would be you. Those Committee members, even Risper, they never think outside the box, but you" - he smiled expansively at me, as if I would appreciate the compliment - "you're never inside the box. Oh, well, I can still just kill you now."

Before I could reply, he reached into the roaring fire, and to my horror he pulled out a piece of flaming wood with his bare hand and flung it at me.

Instead of using my newfound powers with fire, I ducked. But he kept coming, and now he had something in his hand that wasn't a burning stick.

There had been so many masks in the museum that Dacer had never be sure how many were missing. Now Mark wielded a mask I had never seen before, gray with the color of wet rock.

I stumbled away from him, not prepared for him to wield magic, since supposedly the undead didn't have magic, they just weren't dead yet. I scrambled away from his onslaught. In my haste to get away, I ripped the sleeve of my jacket on a nail jutting out from the wall, almost drawing my own blood.

"Careful there, little elemental," he said. "If I were a vampire I would like that too well."

Mark's face had transformed from what it had been a moment before, when he had looked like a quiet young man. Now it was something far more awful.

Mark's eyes burned. "They killed my family," he hissed. "I had a three-year-old sister, and then I didn't any more. I don't think I need to explain anything else. Vampires are evil sp.a.w.n, and as long as I live I will make it my mission to kill as many of them as I can, whenever I can."

"But why now?" I gasped out the question, feeling sure that Mark's next attack would be deadly.

Mark shrugged. "I finally found the right masks to use. It's not easy for an undead to use magical items. I practiced for years, but the events of this semester prove I finally got it right." He gave a sick smile. "I know what you're thinking, that I don't show the flakey skin of the undead. It's because I'm here," he waved his hands to indicate Public, "around so much power. I am the healthiest dead person in the world."

You're totally crazy, actually, and I would argue with you . . . but as I just realized, you're totally crazy and there's no arguing with crazy undead. I fixed my eyes on Mark and tried to stay ready.

The next instant the gray mask had adhered to his face, and to my everlasting joy I didn't have to wait long to find out exactly what it did.

It sucked air towards itself, along with everything the air contained. It was kind of like a cyclone, and since I was standing in the middle of the room I was one of the objects that was suddenly being suctioned towards Mark.

But right before I slammed into his chest he stepped out of the way, and instead of crashing into him, I felt my body crunch into the wood of the wall. I tried desperately to keep upright, but I failed and slumped to the floor. All the bruises I had sustained from walking into the force field and then racing down a burning staircase were throbbing again, but that wasn't the worst of it.

The worst of it was that I felt empty. Looking quickly inside myself for my magic, I realized something terrifying: it wasn't there. I mean, there was a thin pulse, but it was even fainter than the one I had felt when I left the burning Tower and needed Lisabelle's help to put out the flames. There was definitely not enough, now, to fight off the evil of the undead.

The mask not only sucked air towards it, it also sucked magic, in this case mine.

I glared up at Mark. "Where's my magic?"

"Safe in the mask," he answered smugly, his words m.u.f.fled through the gray mouthpiece. "Dacer never thought I was paying attention during all those endless days I spent in the Museum cleaning, while tours were going on. He never thought I listened or read the plaques, but I did. I knew everything about that Museum, way more than you'll ever know. Best of all, I learned that this mask would take away a mage's magic, so that no mage would be able to fight me off."

With a sinking feeling I thought about how carefully he had planned this. He had known all along that if I came after him I would be alone or with Lisabelle, and he had counted on being able to deal with us easily with the gray mask. And I had played right along.

I forced myself up to a kneeling position, and I watched as Mark walked towards me. I felt as if I couldn't move, and even as my body reached for my magic I knew I wouldn't find it.

"What now?" he cried. "Not so big and tough without your magic, are you? There's nothing you can do! The vampires - LANCA. DACER - are going to DIE. And there's NOTHING you can do!"

I raised one eyebrow and smiled, shocked at my own boldness.

"Well," I said, "I guess we'll have to settle this the old-fashioned way."

Mark started to laugh manically, but he didn't know that I had grown up a normal kid, after all. No magic, no rings, no wonderful powers swooping to the rescue. Granted, I was a skinny girl, but I could rough it.

I got to my feet. Mark, focused on his certainty that I had no defenses against him now, and nothing to attack with, had no idea what was going on and continued to laugh like the crazy undead he was. Without a word I reeled my hand back, bunching my fingers into a fist. I had watched enough TV to know that I needed to keep my thumb on the outside so it wouldn't be broken on impact with Mark's hate-filled face. And here my mother had thought TV wasn't educational. Ha.

Mark was now standing directly in front of me, reaching forward to do who knows what. He never saw the punch coming. My hand felt like it had shattered into a million tiny pieces, and I flinched at the impact and fell backwards, clutching my wrist. The blow was hard enough not only to shock Mark, but to knock the mask off his face.

"That's how we do it where I come from," I yelled triumphantly. "No magic necessary."