by Giger, S. L.
Alex’s heartbeat let me know he was somewhere in the building like on the previous days. However, some blond boys kicking around a soccer ball caught my attention. Their short blond curls shone like small suns in the grey square. The resemblance between my friend Sam and his little brothers was unmistakable. If Sam’s brothers were there, the chance was big he’d be somewhere close as well. I scanned their faces while restlessly moving along the fence in Siren speed, in order not to be discovered. With a small jump of joy between my steps, I spotted my friend who had been my confidant during high school. He was skinnier than I remembered but all in all, he looked good. The shelters were not only bad. Nobody had died of a sickness or a riot inside a shelter. There were the executions but exclusively of magical creatures. Not that the humans were aware of that though.
I was relieved to see Sam was safe and longed to speak to him. Hopefully, soon, he and all the other people in the shelters could return to their homes since I was getting quicker and securer with the singing. Nothing justified that all these people, including my friends, were kept like animals and it was my duty to get them out if I could.
Why didn’t Alex show himself outside though? He must know that I would come looking for him and the least he could do after disappearing was making it easier for me to see him. Didn’t he miss me as well? By not showing himself, he only managed to ensure that my worry about him grew with each passing day. Had they already imprisoned him for something? This uncertainty mixed with the hard singing practice made my body ache for new adrenaline sooner than normal. Great timing to desire more hearts than usual, now that they were so hard to find. Before going on my quest for new adrenaline, I set the TV on recording, so I could check the deaths and execution announcements when I got back. I couldn’t afford to miss if Alex got himself into trouble.
I left a note for Luke and Melissa that I was out hunting. I didn’t know how far I’d have to travel this time and how long it would take me until I got back.
Luckily, I didn’t have to enter China this time. Or, I shouldn’t say lucky, as the scene I found was a heartbreaking one. A sailboat had turned over in the South Pacific Ocean. Several people must have been on the boat, but I could only feel one remaining heartbeat. A woman had managed to pull herself onto the bottom of the turned boat and was lying there like a wet packet of newspapers.
“Christie,” she whispered over and over in a feverish dream, when I approached her. It was difficult to balance on the boat because it was slippery, and the waves pushed it around like a play ball. The woman was too weak to balance on the surface and was about to fall off and drown or die of dehydration. I caught her just before the next wave washed over us and put her out of her misery by extracting her adrenaline and shot it inside my heart. Afterward, I closed her eyes and watched her glide into the water which swallowed her like a mouth. “Goodbye.” I whispered and then took off quickly, to make sure I wouldn’t sink as well. I could only hope the ocean would bury her with her friend or family which she’d lost in this accident and that they’d rest in peace. With every step I ran away from the accident and closer to Cape Cod I could shake the bad feelings of having witnessed how yet another person died. Besides, the adrenaline was a boost of strength. I clenched my fists. I was ready to present a little show for Monica.
At home, I found Melissa who was watching the death show on TV.
“Anything interesting?” I held my breath.
“Not to us anyway”, she replied, taking my tension away for now.
“Where is Luke?”
“On the way here with two magicians from the ministry. Samantha is actually the minister of magic and a powerful wizard.” Melissa gave me a meaningful look. “It’s an honor that they even talk to us with their busy schedule, but they did not only talk to us, they even think your singing will work.” Melissa smiled.
Great, two more important people I didn’t want to disappoint.
“They can take over afterward or be there as a safety measure. In case something goes wrong they’ll try to stun Monica.” Melissa pursed her lips.
Her last words only added to the pressure I already felt weighing down on my shoulders. “And if it goes right?”
“Gregory is the head of the department of hypnosis and spirituality. He will take over Dr. Palmer and Samantha will erase and restore people’s memories in case it gets too crazy for the human witnesses.”
I puffed my cheeks and nodded approvingly. Melissa and Luke have found the support we needed. Now, we had to work on the details of our attack. “So, how are they coming here?” The Library was all the way down in New York City. I imagined them riding on broomsticks.
“Walking and bicycles.” Melissa frowned. “Since it’s too dangerous to use magic until it’s time for the hypnosis and cars make too much noise, they have no other choice.”
I chewed my lower lip. Something felt odd about this. Then, it dawned on me. “But what is the point of having them here if we need to get to Monica? We’d better have some magicians in London.”
“Yes.” Melissa nodded. “However, we concluded that London is her home base where she will be most protected. Even if she travels with her complete entourage, we have the moment of surprise more in our favor when they aren’t in their familiar surroundings.”
“So, we should meet her somewhere else.” That sounded reasonable.
“Yes, or...”, she trailed off and I knew I wasn’t going to like what she wanted to say.
“Or what?” I crossed my arms in front of me.
“Perhaps Alex’s idea wasn’t as reckless as we thought. If we stir up enough trouble in Orleans’ shelter, they might travel here.” She smiled encouragingly.
For her sake, I gave it a moment of sincere consideration but then I decided this was a horrendous idea. “No.” I decisively shook my head. “My High School friends are in that shelter. Not to mention Alex. Directly challenging Monica can’t be safe either way and to get her here would mean a much higher likelihood to die for everyone in the Orleans shelter. We can’t take the responsibility for that.”
Melissa sighed. “Yes, it will be dangerous. It doesn’t have to be Orleans but at least a place away from England. And now that we’ve found qualified wizards here, we should try to get her somewhere within their reach.”
“How did you even select them?” I leaned against the wall next to the kitchen counter. “If they can’t demonstrate their powers, how do you know they are good enough?”
“They were well known among the wizards and even the ghosts in the Library. Samantha excelled all the exams you have to do to work for the ministry. Nobody ever had such high scores as her. Gregory, on the other hand, wrote several books about hypnosis, including Flying donkeys: How to be the master of your ride. Other wizards said it’s an honor being hypnotized by him and that he manages to hypnotize a whole classroom of people at once.”
“You don’t say.” Was there anything that didn’t exist in the wizarding world? I swallowed. “So, I will find a shelter close to here which we could use as a decoy.”
“I can do that.” Melissa hesitated. “How’s the singing coming along?”
“Alright.” I exhaled. “When I’m on my own I’m down to six to eight minutes.” I knew that was still too slow. I had to be ready within seconds when it came down to it and probably, there would be many distractions around me as well.
“That’s good.” She slowly nodded, both of us being aware of how urgent it was that I improved even further. “Do you want to try now, with me here?”
“I should, shouldn’t I?” I shook my limbs, trying to loosen up but feeling the pressure of her expectation. The first five minutes, I wasted by being worried by the thought that I was a failure. I felt Melissa standing in front of me and each passing second turned into a small eternity. Then, I managed to block out all of that. After twelve minutes the first chords of my song broke free. Melissa folded her hands over her heart and smiled.
Once I stopped, she sighed. “Listening
to you is like a massage for my soul. Wonderful.”
“It’s like pulling myself including a whole rollercoaster cart up the highest slope and then dropping down again,” I replied and then plumped down onto the couch. “Plus, I wonder what effect it would have had on you if you were human.”
Melissa frowned. “True, it would be nice to know the effect your singing actually has on humans before we try it on Monica.”
“Speaking of humans. I need to go check on how Alex is doing.” I got up and once more returned to the fire station in search for Alex. One thing was sure, we had to attack Monica somewhere else than in Orleans.
Before I even reached the town center, I felt it would be my lucky day and sped up a little. Finally, Alex was out on the square as well. I spotted him, talking to a group of people. Nothing that looked suspicious and as if he was behaving utterly stupid.
It was good to see him. I wondered if he missed me as well and blew him a kiss. At that moment, he glanced to the spot where I had been standing a moment before and narrowed his eyes. That couldn’t have been a coincidence either. I wanted to cry out his name, tear through the fence and jump into his strong and familiar arms. The glance from before confirmed that we did have a special connection. Unfortunately, he dedicated his attention to his group again. Painfully, I forced myself to run away from the shelter. I wished I could have stayed there and watched but now that I saw Alex was okay, that would have been a waste of my resources.
I explored our area and the state toward New York a bit more. If we had to get Monica here, where would be a good place? Anywhere where I didn’t know anybody sounded good to me. I know that wasn’t fair to the innocents who were there either. Getting Dr. Palmer to come to a shelter usually meant that someone needed to die. But I had to make my choices as well and nobody could blame me for wanting to keep the ones dearest to me safe.
Chapter 17
We stayed in contact with Luke via his cell phone. They had made good progress on bicycles they ‘borrowed’. Their owners wouldn’t be currently using them anyway. Luke ran ahead for the next miles and checked whether the coast was clear of Virus Control Patrol cars. If it was, he’d return to Samantha and Gregory who’d then ride that passage. It took so long because they had to make a big detour around all the bunkers but if all continued so well, they’d be here by the next evening.
I sat in the living room with a map of the northern part of the US east coast on my lap. In the background we had the TV running with the depressing death and execution announcements. Everything was night flu related.
“What if we ask all the Sirens we know to come here and then we send a message to Dr. Palmer that we have magical powers and don’t agree with what he is doing? He’d have to react on that and surely come here.” I said to Melissa.
“I don’t think they’d come here themselves,” Melissa replied. She was looking up hospitals in the area which had a good reputation according to Dr. Palmer’s website. “They will send an army of dedicated people in the VCP who will attack us with their arms. That will only lead to a fight which we won’t win because we are not enough.”
“Right, if they sense a threat, they won’t come.” I put my forehead into my hand to perhaps pull out a better thought how to get Monica’s personal attention.
“We could also go through a hospital and publish that we have found a working remedy against the flu. Then, perhaps Monica would want to meet us, and we wouldn’t have to endanger the people in the shelter. The closest hospital which—” Melissa stopped dead in her sentence and looked at the TV. I automatically turned my head toward the screen as well and instantly felt I was getting light headed. It was one of those breaking news reports and it showed how my boyfriend was vigorously waving his arms toward an audience of people. I grabbed the remote control so that the map fell off my knees with a rustle and turned up the volume.
...in Massachusetts a young man has turned insane. He is publicly calling people to destroy all our efforts for which we have worked so hard in the past months. A reporter was saying. Then they showed the video in full screen and with sound. We heard how Alex asked the people listening to him whether they really believed bad magic existed. Whether Alternatives were actually cursing the world. The people in his audience didn’t really know how to respond and exchanged a few insecure glances. Alex continued that in that case, he’d disarm their biggest fear now. He waved and circled his arms while chanting that he’d curse them all with the night flu. ‘Can you feel anything already?’ He demanded to know and lowered his arms. Then, three armed guys approached him. One of them told him to stop and Alex asked why, because they couldn’t in their right minds believe he was able to curse someone. That anyone was able to curse someone. Of course, Alex couldn’t shut up then but had to ask whether he was endangering anybody by showing them in what kinds of lies they believed in.
I dug my fingers into my knees, already knowing this wouldn’t turn out well for him.
Alex continued and asked whether they didn’t see how ridiculous it was that so many people let themselves be imprisoned in a bunker because they were suddenly afraid of being cursed with a flu.
The guy from the VCP had enough and gave Alex’s head a good hit with the back of his gun so that Alex sunk to the ground.
I flinched and fought against squeezing my eyes shut.
He calls it ridiculous that over thirty thousand people have already died because of the night flu. The reporter was twisting his words around. The critical danger of it is that we have no idea who we are up against and therefore the best way to guarantee people’s security is a radical one. We can’t downplay the magic aspect now that we have made such progress. Numbers of deaths are going down daily, and you can rest assured we will stay on it.
“The numbers of dying people are going down because there are less magical creatures which they can kill,” Melissa muttered under her breath.
This fellow from the shelter in Orleans, Massachusetts..., they showed a still frame of Alex with ‘Alex T.’ faded in below the screen, ...will have to answer to treason and endangering of society at his execution next Tuesday at 5 o’clock eastern time.
I pulled down my cheeks that my eyes formed a grimace but other than that was unable to move. Paralyzed by fear what would happen to him if we couldn’t get him out before Tuesday. Out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed that Melissa’s mouth was moving but my brain couldn’t decode her words. The unbelievable part about it was that Alex was intelligent and most likely even knew what he was doing. But why did he go off on his own?
I got up and went to the door. “We have to get him out of there.”
Melissa was next to me instantly. “Wait. We can’t just storm the shelter now.”
My shoulders sagged. “Okay, maybe not right now. But we could sneak into a truck and let ourselves be transported inside the shelter, get him out and disappear again.” I wouldn’t idly sit in the house anymore and practice singing now that Alex’s life was directly endangered.
Melissa grabbed my shoulders and made me look into her eyes. “We can’t just storm the shelter. They take their security controls seriously and watch every person who comes and leaves. It would be far more difficult than sneaking into a congress. Plus,” Melissa swallowed, “perhaps Alex did us a favor. His act was important enough that they showed it on TV. How can we make it even more notable, so Monica and Dr. Palmer find his execution important enough that they come watch it?”
“You mean, we use Alex as our bait?” I ran my fingers through my hair. I didn’t like that idea one bit.
The TV program had turned back to the tribute show of the flu deaths and I rewound until I could see the picture of Alex. At least he was wearing the magical whistle on a black shoelace around his neck.
“Well, Claire has said that Dr. Palmer is on an execution tour at the moment”, Melissa tried again. “Perhaps with this news they will extend the tour to Cape Cod.”
I took a breath and contained myself. The worst was
that from how I knew Alex, creating this kind of commotion might have been precisely what he wanted. But what was part two of his plan in case we didn’t save him? I rubbed my eyes, too tired to really think. “Do you believe this little news video will be sufficient to make his execution important enough for Dr. Palmer himself to attend?”
“I don’t know what they are basing their choices on, but we should give them some more reasons to come.”
“We have to go through Themba. He is closest to them.” I kneaded my fingers. “Of course, Roisin is even closer. If she sees the video, she will recognize Alex. I strongly hope it will bring some sense back into her.”
Melissa frowned, walked back to the couch and sank down. “We can’t count on her. But Themba could spread the message within PaNacea that Dr. Palmer needs to attend that execution. And maybe we could hang up some banners on the fence of the shelter in Orleans, saying that the night flu is only an invention of PaNacea. If PaNacea realizes an anarchy is building here, Dr. Palmer will come and make a statement.”
I grid my teeth. “Or they will blow up the whole shelter and that will be their statement.”
Melissa pressed her lips into a flat line, knowing I was right.
“My priority is to get Alex out alive.” I had already lost my family. Alex was the best thing about my present and without him, my future seemed pointless.
Melissa nodded. “Okay, Themba can support us but we need more help from the inside. Monica needs to feel like she made the decision herself to come here. Perhaps, Claire could hypnotize some of the other security guards since apparently this isn’t a form of detectable magic.”
