by Gabi Moore
“Do you have any idea what our combined strength can do to you?”
“I’m a sphinx, you idiots. I’m made out of stone. This is just a convenient form I use. This form is made out of stone too, although I look just as human as the next man does. Now get out of my way. You can’t burn stone!”
“Ever see molten rock? Lava? Magma? I think you should reconsider.”
“Boys,” Karanzen said. “I am out of here. Matt, have fun, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.”
The next second, Karanzen was gone, replaced by a cloud of flies. The flies buzzed all over the back office and spread everywhere until they pulled together and swarmed out of the room. In a few seconds, the flies could be heard in the hallway as they made for the nearest outside exit.
“So what happened to them?” the security guards said to the human version of Matt, whom they had cornered in the office. “Talk or we turn this entire wing of the mall into a volcano. And we can do it.”
“I don’t doubt you can,” Matt told them, “but you’ll have to deal with someone else as I’m needed elsewhere.”
And he vanished. The chair behind the security chief’s desk was empty.
“You forgot to tell us he could do that,” one of the security salamanders said to their leader, who had stood directly across from Matt before his disappearance.”
“Guess that leaves the kid they were supposed to corner,” he said. “We’ll need to find him if we want to know what happened to our people. Anyone know where he might be?”
“I’d expect it would be in the fire element section of the mall,” another one of them said.
“Okay, let’s go find him.”
Chapter 12
“Dion, you are in great danger,” a voice said to his left. Dion turned to see the form of his grandfather standing next to him. The old man had appeared out of nowhere, but he was used to it by now. Even his three companions didn’t find the sudden appearance to be of much issue.
“I’ve been in danger ever since I began this quest,” he told the older man. “What could possibly be worse?”
“Fire elementals. Salamanders are on their way here. You need to get out of the building right away. Take the nearest emergency exit. I’ve disabled the alarm, you can use it with your friends to leave the building.”
“Why can’t I tackle them inside the mall?”
“Too risky. They might burn the entire mall down in their anger. Several of their number was lost when your friend with the fire opal banished them today. They want to know where their companions are, but there is no way to know because the opal caused them to lose their sense of direction. Just get out now. I have to go. Bye.” And his grandfather vanished.
Dion turned to look at the emergency exit door on the other side of the concourse. He was close to this final destination, but he could not ignore this threat.
“We have to get out of here,” Dion told his friends as he took Lilly by the hand and hauled her to the door. Sean and Emily followed them.
Minutes later, they were outside the mall. Dion walked around the perimeter of the mall and saw no sign of the security guards. He walked with his friends and headed in the direction of the parking lot. There still were quite a few empty sections in it.
Dion walked around in the lot and waited. If his grandfather was right, they would be here very soon. He couldn’t understand why they held him guilty for the loss of the other fire elementals, but these creatures were not known to be the most rational of beings. At least he still had the censer in the bag next to him.
“You want me to hold the bag?” Lilly asked him.
“No, I’ll hold onto it for now.”
Sean stood there in the parking lot with Dion and waited. He seemed to feel something was about to happen. It wouldn’t surprise him. Nothing in this mall made the least bit of sense. He stood there with Emily and waited. It was hard to think of her as his fiancée, but Sean slowly adjusted to the idea. They had been through so much these past few days and knew more about each other than he’d believed possible before the adventure with the air sylphs. It wasn’t over yet and he wondered how Dion would deal with this latest challenge.
They were both about to find out.
Two minutes later the security guards poured out of the same door Dion had taken with his friends to leave the building. Dion counted at least thirty of them and the shoppers entering the mall stopped to look at the grey mob that flowed out to the parking lot. The security guards spotted Dion and company. They made a straight line to them. Dion stood his ground and watched the horde of elemental fire salamander’s march across the lot in their direction.
Fifty feet from contact, the salamanders fanned out into a pattern which enveloped Dion and his friends. As the sylphs had tried before, the fire elementals moved into position rapidly and had them completely surrounded in seconds. This time they executed the maneuver with perfection and the four of them were in the middle of a fire elemental mob. Dion knew that all the salamanders had to do was increase the temperature slowly enough and they would be cooked.
“Where are the ones you sent back?” the fire elemental nearest to him demanded. They all had names, but Dion lacked the time to learn any of them.
“Didn’t they return to your realm?” he asked. “They were sent back to wince they came. I assumed it was your realm.”
“Enough of the jokes, kid,” the elemental who faced him thundered. “We’re here on our own. We don’t work for your uncle so we don’t care what happens to your or anyone else in this mall. Now tell us where they can be found or learn what a fly under a magnifying glass feels.”
“Are you threatening me?” Dion placed his hands to each side and concentrated.
The fire elementals began to glow. Each one of them started to heat up and even at the distance they stood from Dion and his friends they could feel the heat rise from them and began to work its way toward them. The asphalt in the parking lot started to buckle and the painted lines on it began to change from a bright yellow to an ugly brown. Sean could feel the sweat on his brow began to drip off his face.
It lasted just long enough for the heat to become uncomfortable. Lilly looked to Dion with fear as the elementals began to burst into fire around them. She found herself in the middle of pillars of fire and no way to escape. Surely, Dion had to do something, didn’t he?
A clap of thunder changed everything. She felt the cool breeze of spring roll through the parking lot as the sky darkened. Seconds later the rain began to fall. First, it was just small drops but in minutes, it turned into a torrential downpour with sheets of rain that drenched the earth. The fire elementals began to send up clouds of steam as the rain washed over them. Lilly saw the glow on each of them recede in the path of the rainstorm and fade. She too was drenched from the storm, but at least it felt cool inside their midst, not deadly hot as it had felt moments ago. Soon, the salamander elementals were back to their human form in wet grey uniforms. They continued to stand in place as the rain pounded them.
A large puddle of water gathered around Dion and friends were they stood and turned into a small pond. It encompassed the elementals as the water began to flow up from the ground. They were in a part of the parking lot where there weren’t too many cars, but it was plain to see the water had cooled the fire elementals to the point where they couldn’t do any further damage.
“You want this to continue?” Dion asked them. “You know I can freeze each of you in place if I desire to do so. I’m thinking it would be a good time for all of you to leave.”
There was a flash of light and the fire elementals were gone. Dion closed his eyes, concentrated some more and the sky began to clear as the clouds dispersed. In a few minutes, the storm was over and the rain ceased. The clouds rolled back and the sun returned to the sky. As the water sank back into the earth, the ground around them began to dry.
They were soaked. All four were in the midst of the storm which Dion had unleashed. Sean and Emily knew
better than to complain because Dion had saved them all. Had the elementals increased their heat output, they would have all cooked by now. Once again, he’d found a way to thwart the elementals, although this time it appeared they weren’t under the control of Dion’s uncle.
“What are we going to do about our appearance?” Lilly asked Dion. “We can’t go back in the mall soaked the way we are.”
“Give me a second,” Dion said. “There have to be a few fire elementals left around here. The salamander’s display should have attracted some attention.” He concentrated until he found one nearby and made a deal with it.
A small fireball leaped from the ground and into the air. Seconds later, it had bloomed over them and sent radiant heat down on all four. With the help of a few air sylphs, Dion was able to direct enough drying heat on him and his three companions to get the water out of their clothing. It felt as if they were in a big clothes drier, which in fact they were.
“I assumed you would use that censor against them,” Lilly said to Dion. “But you didn’t. Care to tell us why?”
“I don’t think the censer will work more than once,” Dion explained. “Plus, I don’t think I could have made it work in enough time. In any event, we still have it to use if we need it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sean said. “I don’t want to tangle with those creeps again.”
Dion felt the warmth from the small fire elemental pour over him and considered what his next move might have to be. His uncle was deadly serious about taking him down or at least keeping him away from the final elemental grandmaster. The salamanders might be running independently, but they still wanted him out of the way. They didn’t trust anyone and held him responsible for the loss of their comrades. Where had those other elementals gone when Lilly banished them with her fire opal ring? He assumed the realm of their birth, but might they have decided to venture somewhere else? There was no way he could know.
“Is everyone dry?” Dion asked his friends. They nodded.
“I’m dry,” Emily told him, “but I feel like a mess. I’ll have to have my hair redone soon. That storm ruined it.”
Dion looked up at the small elemental over him and gave it permission to leave. The fireball condescended into a small sphere and then a flame no bigger than a lit match. A single spark fell to the ground and rolled away. He watched it as the trail of smoke zipped across the parking lot and was soon gone.
“Of all the elementals you’ve run up against here,” Lilly told him. “Those have to be the worst. They are the most dangerous ones. You can’t argue it.”
“They’re all potentially dangerous,” Dion said. “It all depends how you work with them. I’ve done it on a small scale all my life, so I know what to watch out for. An ordinary person and could get into some very bad trouble.”
“Lilly,” Dion continued. “You’ve been with me the entire week through this quest. You could have left at any time, but you’ve stayed with me. Why?”
“I can’t help but notice how you’ve carried yourself all the time,” she told him. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
“You’ve got college already planned, haven’t you?”
“Of course, haven’t you?”
“Depends on what happens today. So much has to do with rescuing my parents. I don’t think beyond what happens until I can get them out. And I want you to keep that ring, by the way.”
Lilly looked up at him and didn’t know what to say. “Why? Don’t you want it back? It’s expensive?”
“You can keep it until I get you one of gold.”
Lilly threw her hands around Dion’s neck and kissed him. “That is the most wonderful thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“I figure it gives you and Emily enough time to start planning,” he told her. “We can make it a double wedding.”
Lilly held on to him and didn’t know what to say. Although she’d known Dion the entire school year, she hadn’t been close with him until this week. What would her parents’ say? And did she care?
At that very moment her joy was so intense she failed to notice the swarm of flies, which appeared out of nowhere.
The flies buzzed all around them, but failed to land on any one of them. Soon, the cloud of flies was so intense it was hard to see and the noise they made drowned out any sound over five feet away. They were still alone in this part of the parking lot and didn’t have to worry about anyone else. The cloud of flies pulled back and formed a shape next to them as it condescended into a human form. They stood and watched as the manikin made of flies slowly transformed into a human.
It was Officer Karanzen. He was still in his uniform.
“You don’t have to worry about me anymore, Dion,” he told them. “Your uncle no longer needs my services. He’s decided to replace me with some fool named Matt, who’s an elemental himself. I guess he thinks it will save him money. He even got rid of my staff and replaced them with that crew with red hair.”
“You may not believe me, Officer Karanzen,” Dion said, “but I am sorry to hear this. When did you get the word?”
“About fifteen minutes ago. Right before those bumpkins tried to take you out in the parking lot. When I found out they were in charge, I left the office.”
“And now they work for no one,” Dion said. “Something my uncle has done made them very angry. You really don’t want to get a creature made of fire mad at you. Even if you have the power of the fifth element.”
“That corporate kid Matt is one of them too. Not from the fire elements, but from the abyss, the realm of the aether. He’s a sphinx in human form, I found out. I think he used to guard a pharaoh’s tomb until you uncle found him and made a good offer.”
“Something else I will have to consider. So where do you plan on going next, officer?”
“I’m not sure right now. Because of my condition, as I like to call it, I can go just about anywhere I please. I want to get out of this place as soon as I can. Too many bad memories.”
“I can understand how that would happen. It doesn’t have many good ones for me either.” Dion looked at Lilly. “Well, a few, but not too many.”
Lilly beamed back at him.
“You take care, kid. And watch out for your uncle. The man is terrified of you, but he won’t admit it.”
Karanzen began to melt into a diffuse form that turned into the cloud of flies a few seconds later. They stood and watched as the cloud broke down into its individual parts and swarmed across the parking lot. In a few minutes, it was over the field, which surrounded the mall, and then it vanished.
“What do you think will happen to him?” Lilly asked Dion.
“I really don’t know. But I do know one thing.”
“What’s that?” Sean said.
“I need to get to the Hades restaurant and chili parlor. Right away.”
Chapter 13
By the time they were back into the mall, the crowd watching the engagement between the security guards and Dion was gone. Once the security guard fire elementals vanished, so did the onlookers from the concourse. People would go home and talk about some kind of “altercation” in the parking lot, but it would die down in a few months. No one really had the time to worry about such things.
They walked through the entrance door to the mall and continued in the direction of the chili parlor.
Even without the map, Dion could find the Hades restaurant where the best chili in Ohio was served, as the advertisements proclaimed. The smell of cumin filled the air as they approached it and the scent of cooked red beans mixed with the brown meat scent in the air. As usual, there was already a line formed outside the place.
The exterior of the restaurant was designed to resemble a small cantina far south of the Rio Grand. Michael Hades claimed he’d passed such a place on his way north when he fled from the vengeful army of Don Gordo after he’d memorized the sacred recipe. On some nights when the place was slow, he would elaborate on the story and tell people in the restauran
t a most amazing tale.
In the elaborate version of the story, Hades had two horses shot out from under him by the guapos who vowed to bring him back to the Padron’s justice and restore his family honor. Under the light of the full moon, he’d crawled across the barren lands outside a remote town near Savona where he happened on the lone cantina. Once inside he was forced to use his charms and impress a mere kitchen maid who worked there. She hid him in the basement for the night until the gunmen from Don Gordo had passed by and no longer searched for him. From there he returned to Ohio and soon had the restaurant up and running, he paid coyotes at the border tenfold the money they usually received to smuggle people across the Rio Grande to bring her to El Norte. He celebrated her arrival with a huge wedding where peace was declared between the various factions in her town. Even Don Gordo was so impressed he called off his guapos.
If you lingered around the restaurant long enough, after Hades left for the day, the help might tell you their version of the story. They would tell you how he found the cantina design in a comic book and used it as the front piece for his restaurant. His lovely senora wife was from Albuquerque and her family had lived there six generations. Far from being a lowly kitchen maid, her father owned the largest grocery store in town and she’d attended private schools until leaving for college. Mr. Hades was forced to promise his future father in law many grandchildren before he would even consider the marriage. They had three children who worked in the family restaurant, two more at home and another one on the way.
Michael Hades was out arranging the menu display when Dion walked up to him with his friends. The other three hung back as they knew this was a private affair between him and Hades.
“Hello, Mr. Hades,” he announced himself to the restaurant owner. “I’m Dion. I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Dion,” Hades spoke to him. “So is it true your uncle had you create this entire mall at night by levitating blocks of stone from the big quarry in Scipio?”
