by Safari,B. C
‘Oh...so what do you propose we do?’ hissed Charlotte.
‘When I was in the locker room, I overheard some of those football youngsters talking about the large lake at Shorebridge town park. Apparently it’s frozen over and is almost perfect for ice-skating. We should go!’
‘So this is what normal teens do when they’re not tracking down supernatural murderers?’ muttered Sasha, impassively.
‘Guess so,’ chuckled Felix, ‘I adore skating. In the winter of 1905, when the Caspian Sea froze over, I skated for days along the whole lake with a couple of Scottish travellers.’
‘Is there anything that you have not done, Felix?’
Scratching his hard-gelled hair, Felix replied, ‘nope … I’ve more or less done it all.’
Felix led the way along a narrow path, through the town forest, which ended at the town park. At the end of the path, Charlotte, Sasha and Junior were all surprised to see the beautiful frozen lake, and the entire population of St. Andrew’s upper sixth class skating over it. The park appeared to be in pandemonium, due to the dangerously high number unsupervised teens skidding over slippery ice. The usually separate cliques of St. Andrew’s seemed oddly integrated as they slid across the ice; skating was the universal sport that united them. Ricky Grimshaw and the footballers all flashed mischievous smiles. Charlotte was pleased that it had not snowed the night before; if it had, Charlotte was almost certain she would’ve been pelted with hard snowballs as she tiptoed onto the ice.
‘This is brilliant!’ beamed Felix, bolting onto the frozen lake and knocking down anyone in his path. Some stumbled to the ground, bewildered that the wind had pounded them so hard. One student even accused her friend of purposely pushing her. Felix chuckled at the mischief he had created. Sasha dropped her baggage and tip toed onto the icy surface. Soon, Sasha, Charlotte and Junior were leaping about the ice with the other St. Andrew’s students.
‘Okay, this is more fun than parlery lessons!’ cried Charlotte, skidding across the glazed lake.
Felix caught her fall, ‘I told you so,’ he sneered.
Sasha and Junior, who had both been miserable for most of the day, appeared euphoric as they soared above the ice. If all the meres were not around, this would have been the perfect opportunity for Junior to test how fast he could skid around the entire lake; he figured it would take him less than a second. Every now and then, Beau Bennet and Delilah attempted to trip Charlotte up. Felix always caught Charlotte in the middle of her fall, so Beau was completely astonished at how Charlotte managed to defy gravity. After long, Felix, who was annoyed by Beau’s antics, resulted to tripping the rosy-cheeked blonde in return. The other students sniggered as Beau fought with the air, struggling to heave herself up from the ice. Felix chuckled devilishly. Once they’d secured a bare section of the lake, Felix materialized.
‘You didn’t have to go that far,’ sniggered Charlotte.
‘If I didn’t haul little Miss Bennet to the ground, she’d have carried on trying to trip you over. I should be getting a thanks.’
Sasha’s elation was short-lived. Skating over the ice had transiently dampened her gloomy mood, but it was gradually creeping back.
Sasha stroked her dark curls, ‘is Ricky Grimshaw looking this way?’ she asked.
Junior flinched suspiciously.
‘Nope,’ said Charlotte, ‘he seems far too preoccupied with Lena Gwen.’
‘He hasn’t glanced over at me once today!’ whimpered Sasha. ‘I was so sure that he was going to ask me to the Winter Ball!’
‘There, there, young one,’ soothed Felix, ‘he is definitely not worth sulking over. I’m sure he’s not even a good dancer anyway.’
‘You’re probably right!’ scowled Sasha.
Felix, who had never been learned in the art of taming his tongue, blurted, ‘if Junior had not, so tactfully, told him that you already had a date, you may have actually been asked by the silly oaf…now you won’t have to bother!’
Felix gasped, ashamed of his impulsive verbal vomit.
‘Junior did WHAT!’ barked Sasha, turning at Junior. A rage-filled expression worked across her face. Dazed by both the looseness of Felix’s tongue and how quickly it took for Sasha to turn on him, Junior staggered backwards. He hadn’t enough time to prepare for this moment which, given Felix had not spoken out of place, would never have occurred. Junior said nothing at all, he was clueless of what he could say to redeem himself. Anger worked across Sasha’s face; she was preparing to scowl back at any useless excuse that Junior dared to concoct.
‘I …I only did it because I didn’t think that he was your type,’ stammered Junior, ‘just to save you the hassle of turning him down.’
‘Hassle of turning him down!’ cried Sasha, furiously. ‘I’ve been moping all day over not having a date to the Winter Ball …not knowing that you’d sabotaged all my chances!’
‘I’m sorry-’
‘It was never your place to decide who can and can’t ask Sasha out, Junior!’ exclaimed Charlotte.
Felix gasped at the chaos he had created, ‘200 years and I still haven’t learned to control this big mouth of mine,’ he murmured.
Junior’s cheeks flushed with colour, his anger towards Felix’s loose tongue grew by the second.
‘AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!’ A boisterous scream from the other side of the frozen lake broke the agonizing tension. All students ran, in a frenzied herd, to the origin of the cry. Felix, Sasha, Junior and Charlotte followed the direction of the ruckus. A crowd quickly formed around the weeping Mona Williams, she was caressing some spectacle on the ground. Felix’s glossy blue eyes widened. Mona was stroking a stiff Airedale Terrier, which lay across the ice, bathed in its own blood. The mutt had been freshly slaughtered.
‘My Teddy!’ wept Mona, ‘someone murdered him, somebody did this!’
The distraught teen rested her head on the dog’s midsection, immersing her hair in its blood. She moped louder, attracting a larger crowd.
‘Something’s not right,’ whispered Felix, ‘we are no longer safe here.’
‘My bracelet, it’s burning hot!’ gasped Sasha, ‘there is a new parler nearby!’
Felix spread his lanky arms around the trio protectively and whispered, ‘stay still!’
‘Look at this!’ called Ricky Grimshaw, who was also at the epicentre of the crowd, ‘it’s that p mark again …the mark of the Shorebridge Ripper!’
The animated crowd let out a chorus of shrieks and began to disband chaotically. Felix and the group edged their way to the centre of the chaos, where the dog lay in its pool of blood. The murderer had inscribed the letter P around the terrier’s corpse, using the hound’s blood as ink. Felix gasped in horror; he had seen this murderer’s signature before.
‘Ouch!’ shrieked Sasha. The weaved necklace was burning the brightest and hottest she’d ever seen it.
‘I fear that we may be expecting the company of some old friends of mine,’ said Felix, glancing at the decrepit hound.
A sudden, deafening ‘BANG!’ reverberated from all corners of the park. Colourful balls of fire flew into the air and erupted at their peak, like inadvertent fireworks. The rapidly dispersing crowd shrieked in hysteria, no one could tell where the flashes of light originated. The horrified students of St. Andrew’s upper sixth scrammed from the scene. Many of them slipped and fell on the glazed lake, terrified that the Shorebridge Ripper would capture and massacre them right then and there. Ricky and the football team bolted along the ice, helping up any fallen students.
‘Who’s there?’ Junior bellowed, ‘who killed the hound? Is it Cato? Is this a warning from Cato?’
‘Stop asking questions!’ yelled Felix, ‘this is not Cato’s handiwork… it seems that the Bukhari brothers have come out to play.’
‘The Bukhari brothers from the book?’ gasped Charlotte, recollecting the haunted schematic of Cato’s two most dreaded accomplices. She hoped that, for all intents and purpose
s, the illustrator’s depiction of the Bukhari brothers was a far cry from reality.
A chilling cackle resounded from behind them. Two figures dressed in black cloaks swaggered from the dark forest.
‘I see our reputation precedes us, Semal,’ said Damien, with a devilish grin. The brothers were medium height with dark features, they both had lustrous bronze-coloured eyes. Semal had lengthy hair that fell over his shoulders, whilst Damian modelled a short, slick cut. The luminosity of their eyes gave them a unique serpentine guise.
‘Semal… Damien,’ muttered Felix, bending his neck in salute. ‘What an unexpected visit. Courtesy should have demanded you write to me before making such a flamboyant entrance. Or, was it your intention to send the meres into hysteria?’
Damien cackled scornfully, ‘the mutt was just a gesture, I expect you know by now that the Bukhari brothers like to leave a mark. Oh, and the fireworks…the meres were having too much fun for my liking. What is the name of this sport…ice skating?’
‘Meres never fail to amuse me,’ breathed Semal.
The brothers strode closer, narrowing in on their prey. Charlotte noticed that when they walked, it was in unadulterated sync. Damien, the slightly taller brother, was missing an index finger on his left hand. A minute ago, the park had been thriving with life; it was now almost barren, with only the foursome, the bloody corpse of Teddy–the–hound and the two new sinister brothers as occupants. Damien circled the group teasingly and spat onto the ice.
‘So this is what you do nowadays, Felix?’ he hissed, ‘fellowshipping with meres and juvenile parlers… Cato always said you’d be a disgrace.’
‘Ha!’ cried Felix, ‘so that’s why you’re here, Cato’s bidding.’
‘If only,’ bellowed Semal, ‘the word on the street is that Cato’s back…if he is, then he is working undercover.’
‘So what is the purpose of your sudden visit?’
‘Now we’re talking,’ spat Semal, ‘I heard, through-the-grapevine, that Shorebridge is harbouring in its midst, the elected ones. A boy and a girl. Their description fits those juveniles who are trembling in their boots behind you.’
‘So you plan to kill us, is that it?’ gasped Charlotte.
‘…and then suck whatever feeble power you possess, deary,’ sniggered Damien, ‘on second thoughts, we might just kill you and forget the power. Any power worth taking, you would’ve used to escape when you saw us approaching.’
Searching into Felix’s mind, Semal grinned, ‘the girl can see visions, eh? Not exactly an exhilarating power but it should suffice. And the boy, I sense that his power is a little more exciting.’
Damien glowered at Sasha, ‘I’m undecided on whether I should kill the mere first, or save her for later,’ he murmured.
Junior hissed at his predators and sprawled his brawny arms over Sasha and Charlotte.
The Bukhari brothers howled, ‘the boy thinks that he can protect them from us!’
Junior glanced at Felix hopelessly; his only wish was that the unusually silent invisible man had come up with an escape plan. Pressing both arms behind his back, Felix cried, ‘enough with this foolishness! If not Cato’s, then whose bidding is it that you do?’
To unobservant eyes, it may have looked as if Felix was innocently attempting to stand upright. But moments later, the shiny blades which Felix flashed behind his back told that his actions had an entirely different purpose. Catching on quickly, Sasha grabbed the blades.
‘That has always been your problem, Felix,’ Damien teased. ‘You’re neither here nor there, you had your chance to join the winning team and then tossed it away…fool.’
Sasha gripped the blades in her hands and positioned them exactly as she had done the night before.
‘Cato’s team was never the winning team,’ spluttered Felix, endeavouring, with all his will, to distract the brothers from Sasha’s blade. ‘No doubt you and Semal have been in hiding since Cato’s conquest. I wouldn’t call that winning.’
Damien hissed scornfully and rolled his fingers into a curved fist. Within his palm, a flaming ball of fire collected. Sasha suddenly recollected Felix’s teachings from the night before; she had one of three targets: the centre of the head, the gut and…the palms of the hand. The palms! Sasha assessed her target. Clasping one eye shut, and stabilising her grip on the blades, the young woman silently alerted Charlotte and Junior of her plan. They figured that the cue to run would be the moment Sasha released the blade. She winced at the thought of missing her target. Unlike yesterday, which was child’s play, her ability to hit the target would be a matter of life and death. Sasha sucked in a deep breath and flicked the blade, seamlessly, into a straight path that ended at Damien Bukhari’s palm. The razor edge of the blade speared the centre of the parler’s hand. Silver blood gushed across the ice.
‘AHHHHHHHHHHHH!’ shrieked Damien Bukhari. He gawked at the gaping hole that Sasha’s blade had gored through his palm and realised that he could no longer draw fire. Before Semal could decipher the cause of his brother’s howl, Sasha had already positioned the second blade. It swam through the air like a darting hawk, goring the centre of Semal’s head. Semal’s wail was even more raucous than his brother’s. The Bukhari brothers fell to their knees, yelping in agonizing pain.
‘Good work Sasha!’ cried Felix, ‘they’re down… at least for now!’
Glancing at Junior, Felix uttered, ‘now do exactly as I say. You need to tap into your power – you need to freeze everything, right now! Grab Sasha and run as quickly as you can to the Willow Lodge.’
‘What about Charlotte!’
‘Don’t worry about her, I will cloak her with invisibility and we will run right after you, just not as fast, of course…when you get to the Lodge, I want you to find chalk. Use it to draw a ring around the cottage. Draw the ring all along the pebbles and grass, make sure every corner of the cottage is enclosed within the chalk loop.’
‘Chalk? How will that help the situation-’
‘Just do as I say!’ snapped Felix.
‘Okay,’ sighed Junior. The young man realised that he’d only ever once been able to manoeuvre his powers on command, and that was when he desperately needed sugar in his tea. Junior knew that he could do it again, but only if he focused with every last shred of will. Junior closed his eyes and recalled what Felix had told him the night before. ‘Think of your body as a magnet and your ability as the metal… it will be drawn to you naturally.’ Spreading his arms wide and clasping shut his eyes, Junior felt a pulse of energy dissipate within him. When he opened his eyes, he saw that time had stopped. Unlike the last occasion which he had conjured his power, there was no slow, dragging motion. Rather, every living entity was in a perfect freeze frame, aside from Junior himself. Junior lifted the frozen version of Sasha into his arms and bolted into the dark forest. The young man leapt between leafless trees; he could hear nothing but his own drumming heartbeat. His breaths, deep and laboured, soon became shallow, panicky gasps. When the Willow Lodge was within his sight, Junior began to sense the effect of his freeze frame wearing off. The sound of nature increased around him, and Sasha began to curl restlessly in his arms. Luchia’s bubble-gum car was nowhere in sight. When he’d reached the cottage and saw that no-one was at home, Junior tossed Sasha onto the couch and stormed into the doctor’s study.
‘Chalk, chalk… where is the chalk?’
Scattering Dr. Willow’s documents over the desk, Junior spotted a jar of white stone.
‘Chalk!’
He bolted out of study, leaving a trail of dishevelled papers behind him. Outside the cottage, Junior broke the gritted stone into two pieces and handed Sasha the other half. Together, they began to etch a white line which spanned the entire circumference of the cottage.
‘Wait up!’ called out a panting voice.
Felix and Charlotte materialized on the tapered bridge, sprinting as fast as they could, towards the large cottage. When they arrived, Felix and C
harlotte stepped over the section of the white circle which had not yet been chalked.
‘Hurry up, they’re not far behind!’ said Felix, snatching the white stone from Sasha and chalking the rest of the circle. When the circumference was complete, a glossy permeable barrier assembled where the lines of white chalk had been. The barrier rose into the sky and curled above the house, forming a protective globe.
Felix dusted his hands.
‘Chalk is a natural protective enchantment,’ he muttered, ‘it blocks the powers of parlers.’
‘I wish you’d have said that before,’ croaked Junior, his throat dry with angst.
‘They’ll be here any moment,’ panted Charlotte, ‘Semal’s stab wound had already begun healing when we started running. I’m sure he’s ready to kill now.’
‘Grab some garlic!’ chanted Felix, stretching his gaze over the tapered bridge, ‘it’ll act as a deterrent.’
Sasha and Charlotte disappeared into the cottage and returned with a fistfuls of garlic. Felix clasped his hands over his mouth and let out a nauseous whimper.
‘Throw – it – out – there,’ gagged Felix, pointing to the world outside the glossy orb.
Charlotte and Sasha each launched pieces of garlic into the air. Outside the chalk shield, the garlic pieces dispersed along the lawn and the tapered bridge.
‘What will the garlic do?’
‘The garlic will repel the Bukhari brothers… but not for long,’ groaned Felix. ‘In all honesty, the scent is making me feel nauseous.’
Charlotte, Sasha and Junior scanned the land in anticipation and Felix crawled over the floor; the scent of garlic was slowly debilitating him. Colourful balls of fire flew into the air, signalling the arrival of the Bukhari brothers. They bolted over the tapered bridge with ease, like two synchronous panthers. Distressed by the pungent odour, Damien launched a sweltering ball of fire at the scattered pieces of garlic. After the repulsive odour cleared, he redirected his attention to the youngsters, who stood motionless, at the other side of the protective glossy orb.
‘The filthy mere thinks that she can stab Damien-Bukhari-The-Great,’ yelled Damien, his fiery eyes burning at Sasha, ‘you will die tonight, mere!’
