by Jae Vogel
Dion waited a few minutes and beeped the horn.
Emily looked over Sean’s shoulder as he turned around with a look of embarrassment. Both of them tried to act normal as they walked up to the van. Sean had turned beet red by the time he was opening the van door.
“I hope we didn’t interrupt anything,” Lilly said to them as they climbed into the back. Dion was quiet; his attention was on the road and the quest that lay in front of them.
Dion parked the van near the third section of the mall. He starred out of the windshield and looked at the main entrance door, which marked the interior to the “water” side of the mall. He couldn’t see Karanzen or his security guards, but he knew they were inside.
The previous evening, Dion had dropped Emily off at her father’s house right after they took Sean home. Emily was quiet all the way back, until, a mile from their destination; Lilly spoke and broke the silence.
“What brought all that on?” she asked Emily. “You’ve been tolerating Sean for the past year and now you’re acting like he’s your long lost soul mate? What changed?”
“I saw a lot of what was inside him. He saw a lot of what was inside me. Something about those cheerleaders, being in close proximity to them merged us on the inside. I don’t know how to explain it, but it brought us together. I woke up an hour after you left and realized where I was in that back room.”
After their encounter with the elementals the previous day, Dion had let them sleep in a back room at a bedding company.
“Do you know,” she continued, “Sean was sitting in a chair fast asleep because he didn’t want me to think he would take advantage of me? He’d moved the chair to the front of the door. He wanted to be there in case anyone tried to come in before I was awake. I knew what happened outside the mall when you stood down those cheerleader elementals. He remembers too. Neither of us could do anything, but we were there when it happened and saw it all. It wasn’t until we were awake that we were in full control of our own minds. In between, we blended somehow and saw a lot of the bad stuff in each other’s heads. He knows about the way my I found my dad in the backyard alone when mom left. I know the hurt his own mother caused him all the years he was growing up. I can’t be separated from him now. I don’t know how to explain it, but we know too much about each other.”
Dion knew the elementals could alter a person’s inner mind if they were too close to them for any length of time. It was one of the reasons so few people could see elementals or even know they existed. It was dangerous to work with any particular elemental for long. Humans could build an attachment to them and would lose their sense of perspective. From there it was a short trip to insanity. This, however, was the first time he’d ever heard of more than one person being around elementals as powerful as those air sylph cheerleaders were.
That night, they’d let Emily off in front of her father’s house. Dion and Lilly watched Emily bounce up to the front door. She unlocked it with her key and let herself in. The light inside stayed on as they pulled away.
“What do you think?” Lilly asked Dion. “Seems to me she’s in love.”
Emily had locked the door from the other side and turned to fix her face in the mirror. She adjusted her top and removed her shoes before turning off the living room lights. In the family room, she could hear the noise of the TV. It was late, but her father liked to stay up and watch the news and then whatever was on afterwards. These days most of the TV stations stayed on the air until the early hours of the morning. On the weekend, several of them never quit broadcasting as the late, late movie finished just in time for the daily farm report. Someday they might run nonstop.
“How was your trip to the mall?” her dad asked. He was an average-sized man who worked in a technical field where most of his colleges were other men.
“It was fine,” she told him. Emily turned to see her reflection in the window to the backyard just in time to see the bite mark on her neck.
“Sure you strictly went to the mall?” he asked her again. “You know, in my day the girls had enough sense to wear high collars.”
Emily looked to the ground in embarrassment. What was she going to say? Her dad had caught her again. When her mother was still at home, she didn’t have to worry. He was too busy staying up at night wondering if his wife would ever return home to give his daughter much concern.
“I know I haven’t been the best father you could ask for, but, Emily, I worry about you. I know your mother isn’t around to and never took much interest in you when she was at home, but I’m trying to make up for it.”
“Daddy, I’m in love,” she said.
Her father was speechless. What was he to say? He’d been there himself and vowed never to remarry after he divorced from Emily’s mother. He didn’t even date other women. His field consisted, for the most part, of men with poor social skills. He’d been alone with his daughter for the past two years, although the divorce wasn’t finalized until a year ago. Her father had the look of a man beaten down by the universe. He’d married the wild bartender girl a year after college when she came weeping to him about her pregnancy. He paid for his mistake over the years.
Inside his mind, he was worried Emily spent too many nights out. She returned home with boys of which he didn’t approve. What could he do now? Her grades were good and she would start college in the fall. He should have cracked down years ago, but now it was too late.
Love? Emily was in love? Kids still used that word after everything they saw? It was almost a relief to hear it from her.
“Anyone I know?” he asked her. It was time to find out. Just in case.
“A boy named Sean. You’ve met him. He’s been over with Lilly a few times?”
“The tall kid who drives the van?”
“No, you have him confused with Dion. Sean is the chunky boy. I need to work with him. He has a good heart and his mother has messed him up.”
Sean had walked slowly up to his parent’s house after Dion dropped him off. He leaned against the car in the driveway before he walked up to the house. There were only two trees in the front yard and he considered going out into the back yard to calm down before he dealt with his mother. His dad was working the second shift this month because it paid better. Although Sean suspected there was another reason.
Both of his sisters were gone. One worked the evenings at a restaurant, the other was over at a friend’s house. Sean noted they spent less time at home the older they got. He was told they were working and preparing for college, but Sean thought they just wanted an excuse to get away from their mother. The woman acted stranger the older she became and Sean wondered if there might be a medical reason. Of course, she would never admit it. The only person who was ever subjected to a medical examination was Sean when he became sullen three years ago.
He knew his mother would either be on the phone in conversation with one of her sisters or watching TV. He betted on the latter, which meant he would be subject to interrogation the moment he stepped through the door. She would stare at him until he told her what she wanted to know. He ran through a list of stories he’d prepared for her in order to get some peace.
There was no way he was going to tell her about Emily. She would immediately want to know everything about her. Over the next hour, she would demand to know where her family lived, what her parents’ names were and the location of her church. If he didn’t know these things, she would find a way to discover them.
Sean closed his eyes and thought about the back of Dion’s van. He’d never been that close to a girl before. What was wrong with him that he felt guilty about being in love? He’s seen the inside of Emily’s mind when they were both trapped by those demon cheerleaders. She had just as much pain in her life as he did. Perhaps more. Her mom was out of the picture and was a continual source of embarrassment to Emily when she would visit. They had this to bond over mothers who were problematic. What was it about this part of Ohio that created such things? He knew too many kids with similar f
amily problems.
Sean had never felt so close to anyone in his entire life. He was already trying to figure out a way to attend college on the same campus where Emily had applied. She wanted to attend school at Cincinnati that fall; he was supposed to go to a local college. He knew why his parents wanted him to stay close, they claimed it was to save money, but his mother didn’t want to let him out of her sight.
Once upon a time, he’d tried to initiate a relationship with another girl in school and it turned into a disaster. Sean never told anyone how depressed he was after she spurned him. He thought about arranging for a disappearance at the time. It used to happen. Guys could run off and join the military or even sign up with an ocean vessel. A quick trip to the library squashed these ideas. The American military was in the middle of major cutbacks after the Vietnam fiasco and it was impossible to get a position on a ship without your merchant marine papers. At least any decent ship and he had no desire to end up missing at sea. Sean swallowed his pride and returned to school that weekend with a better sense of his own place in the great scheme of things. At least only a few people taunted him.
No, the time had come to face up to his mother. He was older now, and if she couldn’t deal with him as a legal adult, it was her problem, not his. He walked to the door and found it open. Yep, she was waiting up for him.
Sean stepped inside and saw his mother at the kitchen table. For some reason, the house was built on one level and the kitchen was visible from the main entrance. His dad talked about doing something so there would be a direct entrance to the back porch. However, he needed to find the time to make the modifications to the house. Right now, he worked too many hours to even think about it. His father didn’t believe in hiring people to work on the house as he felt it was his job.
“Hello, Sean,” his mother said from the coffee table. “Is everything alright? I was worried when it turned nine and you weren’t home.”
“I’m fine, mom. Tired and I need to go to bed. I’m supposed to meet up with Dion and Lilly tomorrow at the mall. I might look for a job while I’m down there.”
His mother had continued to stare at him in the eyes as he walked into the house. He looked away instinctively. It was something he needed to stop doing: assume the submissive tone of a whipped dog. He knew what she was doing, but right now, he just wanted to get to bed and away from her. The last thing he needed was a confrontation.
“Are you sure?” she told him.
Sean kept walking. She would probably leave him alone this evening. At least she hadn’t said anything about the bruise on his color bone. He’s made certain to cover it up before going in the house. Almost to his bedroom, had to be careful not to arouse any suspicion.
“Never felt better,” he told her when he closed the door behind him. There, he’d made it. Now all he needed to do was get in bed and dream nice things about a girl named Emily.
Chapter 2
It was a short hike to Emily’s house the next day and Sean left a note for his mother. He claimed he was headed to the mall with some friends to find a job. Walking anywhere in their neighborhood was a challenge as the subdivisions weren’t built with foot traffic in mind and there were no sidewalks. Anyone walking down the road was seen as a potential troublemaker. He managed to get up early enough to avoid the looks of people leaving for work.
Finally, he arrived at Emily’s house. By his wristwatch, it meant he was just in time to arrive when they’d agreed. Dion would be ready to show up and they would head back to the mall one more time to see what awaited them. After yesterday, he was ready for whatever the mall sent in their direction. All he really wanted was to see Emily again.
She was waiting for him out front when he arrived. Sean walked down the driveway and she almost ambushed him from the hedges. One minute he was wondering if his clothes were presentable, in case her father was still home, the next he felt her arms around him and her lips on his.
“Wow,” he told her. “Do you always greet guys this way?”
“Only you,” she said. “Is everything alright? Did your mother give you a hard time last night when you went home?”
“No. What about you? Is your dad all right? I know you’ve been concerned about him for a long time.” He’d felt her pain when their inner minds merged. Sean still had difficulty separating his thoughts from hers after yesterday. It was as if another person was inside his head.
“We had a father and daughter talk,” she said. “He went into work and I made him promise to get out and meet some decent women.”
“He still can’t get over your mother. He needs to let go. At least you’re eighteen and don’t have to go visit her if you don’t want to.”
“Listen to who is talking. Did you stand up to your mother last night? No? I didn’t think so. Let’s go under the tree and wait for Dion and Lilly. The neighbors will stare if we put on too much of a show. I know a neighbor is watching us right now.”
Sean and Emily continued to be inseparable in the back seat of the van when they continued onto the mall.
“Hey, you two,” Lilly yelled from the passenger seat up front, “keep in mind we have to go back into that mall today and tomorrow. You need to keep your senses sharp before we enter that place.”
She didn’t get much of a response.
“I don’t like it,” Dion said as they approached the entrance to third section of the mall. “It’s too quite outside. Where are Karanzen and his thugs? It’s past ten in the morning and the mall is open. I expect he’ll greet us very soon.
Dion closed his eyes and tried to feel if any elementals were close by. He couldn’t feel any of the stronger ones, but if this part of the mall was dedicated to the element of water, where would they be? The nearest body of water was miles away and it wasn’t more than a large creek. They would make an appearance. He knew it. The elementals had no intention of allowing him to gain power over them if they could prevent it. The others had failed in their attempts to stop him, but he still needed the other two powers. And God only knew what lay inside that tower dedicated to the fifth element…
The doors to the mall popped open the moment they reached them.
Karanzen came marching out with four of his best men. They formed a cup outside the doors with Karanzen at the bottom and the other four on the sides. It was similar to the bowl of death the cheerleader elementals had formed the day before. Same concept.
“Sorry, Dion,” the security chief informed him. “You just lost your right to be inside here.” Karanzen folded his arms across his thick chest and starred down at the four youths in front of him. “I guess your uncle doesn’t want you in here anymore.”
“Your uncle?” Sean said to him. “He owns this place?”
“Majority stockholder,” Dion explained. “Which means he can get what he wants. Don’t worry; I just learned yesterday he was the one who built this place.”
“I guess family isn’t everything,” Karanzen snickered. “Now get out of here before I call the sheriff and have you arrested. Your friends have to leave too. They came in with you, they leave with you.”
“Leave, Officer Karanzen?” Dion asked him. “Leave as you did in the Chosin Reservoir? You want me to flee the same way?”
Karanzen became quiet.
He was in the frozen landscape of Northern Korea as he fled from the burning tank. The Chinese ‘volunteers’ had destroyed the tank minutes after they found it and flowed over the hills after him and his men. He’d accidently discovered the main body of the Chinese counterattack as it swarmed across the mountains after the United Nations Forces. He ran and didn’t stop until his legs gave out. In the distance, he could hear orders and commands in Mandarin as the Chinese hunted down any troops they could find. It was cold, colder than he’d ever had to encounter in the open before. Explosions lit up the sky and it revealed the extent of the troops moving south. But he had no radio to let his side know what was on the way.
Dion watched Karanzen, as he stood there with his
mouth opened, hardly able to say a word. His own men stopped and turned to look at their boss. A few of them had seen these episodes. They were rare, but the smart thing to do was just ignore them and go about your business. No one, other than the four they were supposed to keep out of the mall, stood outside the doors. It could change in a minute with more people walking their way through the parking lot.
Finally, one of the security guards, Izzy, walked over to Karanzen and spoke to him. It was all fine for him not to respond to questions in his office, but out in front of the mall it made everyone look bad.
“Are you there, boss?” the man said to Karanzen.
As they stood and watched Karanzen’s still form, everyone heard the sound of a bus pull up in front. No one found it odd the bus didn’t make any noise as it entered the parking lot. One minute the traffic was normal inside the lot, the next minute they were startled by the sound of an English double-decked bus as it pulled up in front of the walkway to the mall entrance. The bus was noisy and let everyone know it arrived by the loud sound of its horn when it came to stop. They could hear the sound of the brake as it was set in place.
“I didn’t know those things were over here,” Lilly said to Dion. “First time I’ve ever seen one outside of movies.”
“I don’t think this is a normal bus,” Dion said to them. “I feel some elemental movement. I believe we are about to see something other than people arriving for a tour.”
The moment he finished speaking, the doors opened to the bus and a horde of young women poured out of it. For a second Dion thought, it was a return of the air elemental cheerleaders, but these girls, all of who looked no older than eighteen, wore tracksuits and flip-flops. Across the front of their designer suits the logo “Aquarian Synchronized Swim Team” was emblazed. They proceeded to climb out of the bus for a good two minutes until an older woman in the same outfit exited with them. She looked at the mall and made some notes on a pad. Satisfied, she returned to the bus, the doors closed and it continued on its way.
