by Jae Vogel
And what happened to Emily is what happens when the child feels she is the cause of her parent’s breakup. She has built a cage of her own inner torment and she must be freed from it. It is again a cage of her own construction, but it’s as real as any made from steel. The elementals figured it out early on and realized there was a way to use them against you. They would have found some way to get at Lilly too, but she latched onto you. You were able to keep her from looking into their eyes and she was able to resist their power. I can’t say what might’ve happened had I not been able to pull you out in time. I fear they might’ve returned and taken her as well. They can’t touch you, but they don’t have to so long as they can strike at those around you.
I have a way to distract them, but if I give it to you, you must be ready to use it. And you must get your friends away as fast as you can. These elementals are dangerous and they will use all their power to trap them and you. They realize grabbing your parents was only a distraction.”
Lilly stood up and walked around the room while holding her cup. The tea was very good. She’d remembered to add a little milk to it to kill the effect of the leaves, but it was worth the effort. Lilly walked around and looked again at the paintings. Once more she thought the style seemed familiar and she seemed to recognize the artist. The colors on the painting seemed to leap out and trapped her eyes in a swirl of emotions. They seemed surrealist, but those were much older than anything she’d ever seen before.
“Do you like them?” Edward asked her.
“Very much. I don’t recognize the artist. They all seemed to be painted by the same person.”
“Yes, they were, and I know the artist very well. You might say he was a close personal friend.”
“What’s his name?”
“Edward. I’m the artist.”
“Really? You did all these? I’m impressed.”
“Unfortunately the critics were not,” Edward sighed. “I spent a year in Austria trying to be successful as a landscape painter, but no one took me seriously. Then I came back to England and tried to apply myself to literary ambitions. The literary critics were impressed even less. I was only able to do this because I inherited a large fortune from my family and I could afford to travel around the world. But I did learn one thing.” He paused.
“So what did you learn?” Lilly asked.
“I learned there was a reason in this world why we have rich people. Because without the great wealth I inherited to spend on trivial pursuits, none of this would have been possible.”
“You seemed to have a charmed life,” Dion said. “Did the silver spoon taste bad in your mouth?”
“My family was very religious,” Edward continued, “so I have some empathy for your friend Sean. I understand the horror of having your mother use higher forces as punishment. My mother passed on while I was still young and only in my later years was I able to get away from her dominion. I lived a life of debauchery and paid for it later on. When my literary and artistic pursuits failed to bring me solace, I went after baser desires. And now I am here to help you because of the mess I caused.”
Lilly looked around the dark room, the candles and the portraits on the walls. “Are we dead?” she asked. It was the only thing that made sense.
“No, I am afraid you are very much alive. You are in between worlds, which is why this place seems so familiar. I can’t keep you here much longer; there are always rules to be followed. And please don’t ask me about the meaning of existence or the purpose of life. I’m not allowed to answer those kinds of questions even if I did know the answers. Just bear with me long enough and I’ll take you to where the elementals have trapped your friends. Just remember, they have them in a mental cage. You will have to get them out, but they can only come out by their own free will.”
“And how will we free their bodies?” Dion asked him.
“With this one little object which will mesmerize the elementals to the point of stupidity,” Edward told him as he held up a ring. Attached to the ring was a series of keys, and an emblem dangled from it.
“Car keys?” Dion asked. “I can lure them away with car keys?”
“Note the logo on the car keys,” Edward said.
Dion took them from Edward and held the keys up to the light. The emblem attached to the keys was that of a 1953 Eldorado Cadillac Seville. It had a special emblem he’d never seen before on any car keys set.
“The 1953 Eldorado Cadillac,” Edward told him. “Considered to be the best model they ever created. The only people who would possess that key set are those who can drive one. The manufacturer was quite specific about which ones were allowed on the market. Show them the keys and all their power will evaporate. Just don’t let them make physical contact with the keys, and they will try to touch them, of that I can guarantee you. Once they see these keys, you must not let them out of their sight or it will ruin the effect. You must also take your friends away from the mall and let them rest until they have recovered from the mental trap where they have been imprisoned. Since you cannot leave the mall, I suggest finding a particular furniture store and letting them sleep off the effects of the mesmerization in the back room on a waterbed they keep there. You will find a place called Watermatts that sells those waterbed atrocities and I think they have one or two in the back for special customers. Tell them I sent you and they can sleep off the effects of the elementals. Then you can return to your quest.”
Edward gave them the name of the store manager and told them to memorize it.
“I’d like to spend some more time in this place,” Lilly said. She never knew Edward was so talented. “Perhaps when Dion has finished his quest, we can return?”
“When he finishes, I will be able to visit one more time. Perhaps longer, but the important thing is for him to rescue your friends. I don’t think it wise to send you to the same location he will be sent, but there is no arguing in this case. Both of you were taken from the last world, both of you must be returned to it as well and in the same general location. No, you will not be sent back to the mall, but very close to it. Dion, you know what you have to do. Lilly, you are not an elemental worker, I recommend staying close to Dion and learning from him, it might come in handy later. Also, do not look any of those women in the eyes or they will have control over you.”
“Alright,” Edward concluded. “Time for all of us to go. Dion, go join Lilly.”
Dion stood up and walked over to her, clasping Lilly by the hand. She looked up at him with her brown eyes and focused on his strong face. She was grateful to be sent back with him, but a little bit scared at the same time.
“You have the keys, Dion?” said Edward, who now stood in the center of the room. Lilly noticed he held a staff in one hand, but she hadn’t noticed one there before.
Dion held up the keys.
“Good. By the power of the rod!” Edward chanted and brought the end of the staff down on the floor three times. On the third rap, the two in front of him vanished.
“I just hope he listens to what I said,” Edward told himself as he left the room, the door closing behind him.
The scene faded back in and both Dion and Lilly felt the ground beneath their feet. Dion blinked and looked down at the blacktop beneath him. He could see the parking lot all around them and the white paint for the parking spaces. He glanced at his wristwatch and noted their actual time was three minutes difference from the moment they encountered the cheerleader elementals to their return. The sun was high in the heaven and he felt it on his back. Now he needed to locate Sean and Emily while he still had the time and ability to rescue them. Edward claimed the keys would work. It seemed silly, but Edward had never lied to them yet. And all of his advice was golden so far.
The cheerleaders were twenty yards in front of them. They were in the process of loading the dazed forms of Sean and Emily into the back of Emily’s car. Dion couldn’t tell from this distance if they had anything in mind or just wanted to get them out of the parking lot. What frig
htened him was the absolute look of serenity on Sean’s face and the calm face of Emily. He’d never seen them this way before and it told him something was definitely wrong. Now he understood the “cage of the mind” Edward had informed him about. These two were somewhere else entirely.
Dion counted twelve cheerleader elementals around the car. They would only need one to drive the car, one or two more could ride-along and the rest could transform into wind gusts. Edward was correct again; they didn’t plan to put them inside the clock tower where his parents were imprisoned. For some reason, the elementals had decided to take them off-site.
Dion had no way to know what they were up to, other than some other plan, which involved the abduction of his friends. It didn’t matter; they would use them as pawns again, pieces in the game to manipulate him.
They’d cornered him right outside the hobby store and used his need to make contact with the Air Elemental Grandmaster to trap his friends. He had to do something, but the only tool he understood he had was the Cadillac keys Edward handed to him before they were sent back to this world. It was a crazy idea, but the only one he could play right now. Whatever earth elementals he could summon would be useless against the ones from the air.
“Stay behind me and don’t look at them,” Dion told Lilly. “You heard what Edward said. They get inside your mind and make a cage out of it. Look what they’ve done to Sean and Emily. I can’t let them do it to you.” He dropped one hand down behind himself and let her clasp it gently.
The cheerleaders stopped what they were doing when they saw Dion approach them. The one called Randi was closing the door on the backseat where the smiling forms of Emily and Sean were seated. Another one of them nudged her and she turned around to face the advancing form of their nemesis.
Sean walked up to them slowly and continued to shield Emily behind him. In his fist, he held the Cadillac keys and made sure they could not see them. He had no intention of playing this right away. They might want to get Lilly too, but he wasn’t about to use her as bait.
“Hello, Dionnnn,” a line of four cheerleaders said at the same time. Their voices merged together and created a melody of venom.
Chapter 10
Dion realized the sylphs were the modern equivalents of the sirens, the deadly creatures from ancient Greece who lured men to their death on the rocks by singing to sailors when their ships passed by the cliffs. He didn’t need to put wax in his ears; his own will was powerful enough to resist them. But he understood they had tremendous power, which could be wielded against anyone else.
It wasn’t just the power of their voices. The cheerleader elementals radiated innocence and purity. Dion wondered how many men had been suckered by them. He could feel the charm they were radiating at him with their unblemished skin and bright white teeth. Their hair was clear and glowed in the sun. They might be of different races, but the bodies were a statement of perfection. They showed just enough of what they had to make susceptible men believe them to be the fountain of youth. These were the deadliest of the sylphs, those who were self-aware and saw humanity as a harvest to be sheered.
“Do you have something for us,” one of the cheerleaders taunted him as they began to take formation around him. Dion saw them do the same configuration they had done in the mall. Four of them approached in a line and the rest spread out.
He realized this was the classic envelopment strategy used on battlefields for thousands of years. The cheerleaders were going to surround him slowly until he couldn’t find a way out. This was the deadly bowl of doom, which would turn into a trap he could not escape unless he did something. Right now, he had one weapon which was supposed to work. Dion didn’t want to depend on it, as the keys might not work. Granted, Edward had never lied to him, but there was the possibility someone had lied to Edward about what these Cadillac keys could do to the sylphs who confronted him right now. It was poor strategy to depend on one weapon form, no matter how good you might be with it.
They were starting to surround him and he could feel it. The four cheerleader elementals in the front slowly began to walk to him as their eyes began to shine. Even in the bright sunlight, Dion could see the light from their eyes. It could only mean they were powering up, the same way they had done it in the mall.
Lilly began to see things in her head she hadn’t thought about in years. She heard her sister arguing with her parents about who she could go out with tonight. She saw her sister asking Lilly to cover for her while she went outside the window to meet some guy. Her parents asked her where she was and did they know where her sister had gone. She was terrified for her older sister’s safety and felt guilt that she’d help her leave the house. Her sister was married and everything was all right, so why was she scared something would happen to her? All she could think about was what might happen to her and it was all her fault.
Dion heard the crying sounds from behind him. The elemental had breached Lilly’s mind too. He used his peripheral vision and could see four cheerleaders on each of his sides. As he expected, they’d left Sean and Emily in the car and were focusing their attention on him. It was just what he wanted, but could he stop them before it was too late? Dion had lured himself right into a trap, but he was ready to spring one on them. If Edward was correct, all he had to do was let them get close enough to see the keys. Just a few more minutes.
He could see them on the sides. There were only two on each side right now, which meant two more were moving into the rear. They thought he was cut-off and had no means of retreat. Dion heard the pair of elementals behind him sliding into position. The next thing they would do would be to advance on him until they were just close enough from each other to trap him in a circle. They would cause something to happen to Lilly and break his concentration long enough to capture them both.
He didn’t know exactly what they planned, but he could pick up the strands of communication between them to realize what they were up to. The four cheerleaders in front of him joined hands and he could feel the energy crackle in the air. They were very close to the point of complete entrapment, which had been their plan all along.
Dion looked across the parking lot and realized they were in a section which had little, if any, traffic. The cars and pedestrians found reason to go somewhere else every time they drove too close to their part of the lot. The cheerleader elementals once again created a bubble around them no one could penetrate.
When he saw out of the corners of his eyes the last of the cheerleaders join hands, Dion raised the keys over his head. In that instant he felt the energy around him decrease.
The cheerleaders lifted up their heads and looked at the shiny Cadillac keys. They saw the limited edition emblem dangle from the ring. Dion could see the look of fascination in their eyes. The light, which shined from their faces, focused on the keys and what it represented. He could see them drop their hands and stare at the ring he held.
“You like this?” Dion began to taunt them back. “It’s the keys to a 1953 Eldorado Cadillac. A convertible. The best one ever made. It has chrome all over it. There is tire kit in the back with big chrome straps on it. You know what the best part of it is? The color. That’s right; the caddy is a nice powder puff pink. You want to drive it? Think about how nice you’ll look in it. All your friends will look at you with envy. You’ll be the most popular girl in school.”
Although the elementals needed nothing to travel in, Dion realized they’d been captivated by the images of the cheerleaders and everything they represented. The elemental sylphs were just as susceptible to the same wants and desire as any human in that form. All he had to do was play on those wants and desires. It was why Edward gave him the keys. So long as he kept them out of their reach, he had control over them.
There was just one small problem: he didn’t really own a 1953 Eldorado Cadillac. He didn’t even know where he could find one. The keys would eventually lose their ability to bind the elementals once they realized there was no real Cadillac around them. He had
to use the keys to keep their attention until he had Sean and Emily out of the car. Until then, he needed to keep their attention.
The bull was easier to control. It was possessed by a single elemental which wanted to get out of the plastic statue it was imprisoned in. It was animated, but his onyx stones could be used to make it focus away on something other than what it was charged to accomplish. He needed to place the onyx stones around its neck and the bull would revert to its original form. Today he’d managed to coax more earth elementals into it for a few minutes, but it was a simple task. Now he had a good twelve elementals to control and keep away. Should he lose his power for just one minute, they would unleash themselves on him and Lilly. It was a much more dangerous situation he found himself today.
“Okay,” he shouted to the assembled cheerleaders, “Who wants to play catch?”
Dion sent the keys high into the air in an arch, which would take it as far as possible from the car where Emily and Sean sat. The cheerleader elementals saw it fly up in the sky and ran to be at the place where they expected it to land. At that very moment, Dion grabbed Lilly’s hand and ran with her to the car where his two friends were sitting.
“I hope she left the keys in the ignition,” he huffed to Lilly as they ran across the distance. “Because I need to get that car close to the mall in a hurry.”
The key chain came back to earth at the bottom of the cheerleader elementals that were fascinated by it. One let out a squeal of joy when she grabbed the keys, but the real excitement was yet to begin.
