Time seemed to stand still inside the store, and after a few hours, the workers began asking me if they could help me find anything. I said no, but was a little disappointed that it had taken them hours to offer their assistance.
Several of the workers left to go home or on break, while others were just starting. I don’t remember how many customers came in, finished their shopping, and left before I had even filled up my basket.
I checked my watch. Four and a half hours. Maybe he’s not coming.
Unsettled, I took a quick bathroom break and came back to a nightmare. The yellow lights overhead flickered, spitting sparks. And one by one, the lights in the frozen foods section clicked off, until the entire store fell dark, no light shining inside except for the sunlight that made its way through the dirty glass windows.
Customers looked around, whispering, confused, halting their grocery shopping instantly. A few Hispanic teens took selfies together, no doubt sending those pictures directly to Instagram or Snapchat, while a few worried mothers ushered their concerned children out of the store, abandoning their carts at the registers.
Me? I kept my eyes open. Zakhar was here. I knew it. Coincidences happened, but this wasn’t a coincidence. Who else would have caused an outage with me inside? Where are you, you scumbag?
To my surprise, people began rushing into the grocery store. In droves they burst through the doors, shoving each other out of the way just to get inside. Confused, I made my way to the glass windows, jerking my shoulders out of the way as panicked people brushed against me.
Easing up to the window, I heard an ear-ripping crack! A bolt of lightning snapped down from the heavens, then exploded out of one man in five different directions. Before I could shield my face with my arms, the glass window shattered, and I was flying backwards overtop the aisles.
I slammed against the canned goods, knocking the shelves down one after the other. Green beans and corn and asparagus cans rolled across the floor, slipping under frantic customers’ feet and sending them flailing to the floor.
To keep from getting trampled, I decanted to an eagle, soared up amongst the shrieks of people who must have seen my transformation, and I raced outside to where Zakhar was already charging another lightning bolt between his hands.
His gelled black hair stood up from the electricity just before he zipped a bolt up at me.
“Lyle, he found the truck!” Stephanie shouted, racing away from the box truck that was already on fire.
An explosion boomed in the parking lot. Melted tires spiraled off the axels while hubcaps Frisbeed straight at me. Still in eagle form, I barrel-rolled to the side, then decanted to myself, pointing at him. “Fire the AE-17’s!”
The green double barrel rocket launchers that Carter, Umara, and Stephanie carried belched out clear orbs at Zakhar who dashed out of the way, rolling on the ground, then standing up, hands bent like claws as if he were summoning something.
Beneath my feet, the concrete began to crack and split. Raw red dirt towered in a column out of the ground, and as Zakhar wound his hands around one another, the clay began to round into a ball. Rearing back and forcing his hand forward, the mound of dirt flew straight for me.
I jumped out to the side, landing on my back, horrified as the dirt smashed into the grocery store. People screamed as others were crushed underneath or impaled by the structure.
“You cannot outwit me, Mr. Lyle.” He charged straight for me, his hand solidifying into a spear of ice, then he struck at me as I scrambled to my feet.
I smacked the ice to the side, ramming my foot into his chest. He stumbled back, then fired a bolt at me. I sprawled out flat, as Stephanie shifted into a tree form. Roots ripped through the concrete, drilling into the soil. Though her body was bark and branches, her face was still the same, except her skin was pale brown.
Branches coiled out of her arms, twisting around Zakhar, squeezing his body, spiraling up his neck and curling around his ears. When he tried to scream, limbs gripped his throat. Every breath he took, her hold on him tightened.
“Stephanie, let him go!” I shouted, realizing that because of her connection to the ankh, she was suffocating Zakhar as well as herself.
But she didn’t listen. More branches creaked out of her sides, drawing Zakhar closer to her body so that she eyed him face to face. Tears welled in her eyes. “I would rather die…than watch you hurt…these people.” The words were faint and feeble, each one weaker than the one before as she tightened her hold.
I reached for her. “Stephanie, don’t!”
I could see it in her eyes though. She wasn’t going to quit. She wasn’t going to release him. What little breath she could draw in, she sucked through her teeth, then squeezed.
“No!”
As the word came out, an explosion sent me flying backwards. My bare back—cloaked by the Semblance—scraped against the concrete. I winced, covering my face while the fallout fell. Stephanie screamed as flames traced up her trunk as she unrooted herself from the ground, stumbling back. Bark became tattooed flesh that spilled water down her scorched sides.
Zakhar was engulfed in flames, furious. Fire streamed from his hands at Stephanie who was trying to jam her foot in between the cracked pavement, so that she could draw power from the earth to recharge.
“Get away from her!” I raced at him, full out.
With an inflamed grin, he turned to me, then shot his hands forward to burst out fires, but two orbs slammed dead into him—one from Carter, the other from Umara.
My shoulder rammed into Zakhar’s gut, knocking the breath out of him as we toppled to the ground. To no avail, he swatted up at me, trying to get back his wind, as I dropped elbow after elbow into his forehead.
Lightning cracked in his eyes, but before he could react, I decanted into a black mamba, twisted around his ankle, snapped into his calf twice, three times, four times, hissing out venom until my fangs were empty. In rage, I decanted into a silverback gorilla, wrenched him off the ground by the throat, glaring into his eyes as I rammed his head against the concrete.
His hands gripped my powerful wrists, as his eyes faded every time I slammed him against the pavement. Something visceral deep within me took pleasure in that, and I just couldn’t stop. I kept right on slamming him to the ground, his gelled hair staying in place with each drop.
I let out a furious roar, strings of saliva connecting my top fangs to my bottom. Both hands clenched Zakhar’s throat, and as I went down for the kill, a powerful hand—one far stronger than my own, snatched Zakhar’s body right from my grasp.
Panting, shoulders bobbing up and down as my chest flared, I eyed Carter as he held Zakhar’s limp body in one hand, Zakhar’s feet dangling lightly atop the pavement.
“You kill’em,” Carter said, “and we don’t know for sure just why he’s here. Besides, last time he bit the dust, he resurrected himself back to full power. Think I like’em better just like he is.”
Carter didn’t have to extrapolate on that, but he was right. Though we knew that the Fairy Godfather probably sent Zakhar after me, I still needed to know why, especially if there was something they knew about me that I didn’t even know about myself—some way they wanted to use me.
And Zakhar had those answers. What concerned me was that if some mob boss way out in California had his eye on me, then just maybe a lot more people were in danger than any of us really knew.
Furious, I pounded my chest, releasing another feral roar that echoed down the street while onlookers stood by. People ran in horror, while others took pictures and video on their phones—not something I hadn’t been a part of before, though I despised it just as much every time.
In the distance, police cars and fire engines were well on their way, and so Umara strapped Zakhar up with some cables that she’d designed herself, and we all raced off the scene before the authorities arrived.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Black cables—three to be exact—laced around Zakhar’s m
idsection back at the undisclosed apartment with the sofa and the Tiffany lamp. Fortunately, Umara was a thinker, so though her first box truck had been blown to smithereens, she had another truck about a half-mile from the grocery store. As we made our getaway on foot, this white vehicle barreled down Hwy 55 and scooped us up, back doors flapping open as it rounded onto US 1.
Zakhar was in the kitchen tied to a chair, wearing a hiker’s teal button-down shirt and some blue jeans, and he wouldn’t stop smiling as he peered at each of us.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Umara assured him, “so you may as well tell us what you know. And if you try anything, those cables will do what they do best.”
In his thick Belarusian, Zakhar chuckled, “I have gotten out of more challenging situations these.”
Umara eased towards him. “You make one spark, one ember, anything, and these cables will slit you in thirds. And here’s the thing about resurrections, Zakhar Nesterov, they require an amperage—an amperage that the inductors in these cables will not allow even after they sever you into pieces. You’ll be gone for good.”
“I can promise you that I will not be here for long,” he said.
“Oh, because you think your boss sold these Shaman cables to me?” Umara asked. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I found out that Anton sabotaged my lasers. No, these cables, I designed myself.”
Zakhar’s smile melted away, and he swallowed hard. “My boss will not let me die here.”
“Your boss doesn’t even know where you are,” Umara said, crossing her arms.
Stephanie pulled me into the living room, while Umara set up a few more failsafe snares on the counters, specifically designed for Shamans. I’d been to Umara’s house enough to know that her snares were thorough, and I found myself a bit concerned that the snares that she’d set up in the kitchen might trigger on one of us.
She assured me that she’d designed these herself and that they were designed specifically for Shamans, and that we had nothing to worry about, which eased my mind substantially. Still, Umara had said that she never talked to Shamans, but what was it that was now making her change her stance?
“You think this is a good idea?” Stephanie asked me, once we were in the living room. Her eyes surveyed my expression, as she anxiously tilted her weight from side to side, arms folded across her chest.
“What? Keeping him here? Of course it is.” I glanced at Zakhar over her shoulder. “He’s up to something, and if it has to do with me, I think we need to figure it out. I believe it has to do with this Dr. Ubala you brought up before.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But he can’t stay here, not with us. You’ve seen how dangerous he is.”
“What do you think we should do with him? Kill him?”
“Gods no,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What if by killing him, something happens to me?”
“You were willing to kill him in that parking lot.”
“I know…I just…I don’t know really. I just don’t want him here, not with me.”
“So we should just let him go? Back out into the street?” I eyed her. “Didn’t you see what he did to the grocery store? That man’s a hazard to everyone he comes across. I say we get some answers from him, and then we get rid of him for good.”
“I don’t mean to be selfish…” she said. “I’m just…I don’t know…facing death is not easy. I mean, in the parking lot, it wasn’t like I’d planned to do what I did, so I didn’t have time to consider whether or not dying would hurt. But actually knowing that I could be killed and planning for it…it makes me a little nervous.”
I grabbed her softly by the arms, understanding her concern and staring right into her eyes. “Listen, Stephanie, you heard Umara. Taking down Zakhar won’t do anything to you, not unless you’re the one who does it. Killing him will only set you free from the ankh’s hold.”
“You’re right.” She nodded swiftly, convincing herself. “You’re right. I just have to remember that.”
“Exactly. And think about it, did you feel anything when we took him down in the woods, or when we subdued him in the parking lot?”
She shook her head.
“So once we get some answers, we’ll take him down, and we’ll be done with this, all right?”
“Okay. You’re right.” She glanced back at him over her shoulder, and Zakhar puckered his lips at her.
“Watch it, buddy,” I said to him.
I pulled Stephanie over to the sofa out of view. “Hey, can we talk?”
She nodded, and we sat down together, frowning when she looked down at the frayed ankh tied around her thigh with the tight elastic band.
I asked her, “So remember last night when you walked out, right before you went to bed?”
“Listen, Lyle, I think I was just a little exhausted. And with that, and being tired of people thinking of me as some brainless ditz, I guess I might have overacted.”
My eyes caught hers. “I’d say you underreacted. You were right, I shouldn’t have thought that about you, and I was the idiot for even thinking it at all. From what I understand, you have to be pretty smart and world-savvy. I mean, you’ve tussled with some tough guys over the years with Anton and Marcus, and here you are, surviving it all, living life, keeping it all together. There’s no way I could do anything even close to that.”
“Ohhh, I bet you could.” She was smiling now, and though her lips lacked the gloss, they were still pink and perfect.
“No, seriously. You know where my parents live? A little town called Reidsville, probably about an hour and a half from here. Right off of Freeway Dr. They’re not rich, but they make it by. I grew up safe, and the first real crazy life I ever ran into was when I moved to Raleigh. Not you though. You seemed to have seen crazy your whole life, every step of the way. Not to mention, your brother Philo’s out there somewhere, and you just keep right on stepping. Who does that?”
“I just do what I have to do,” she sighed. “You get used to it.”
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t have to—get used to it, I mean.” I wasn’t sure what happened, whether it was her or me, but my hand slipped into hers, fingers lacing between each one of hers. My body flushed, and so did she, which I could tell as the strawberry red blushed up from her chin to her cheeks.
“Lyle?” Her voice was sweet and easy.
“When you called me a few days ago, I didn’t know what it was about, and if I had it my way at the time, I might never have picked up. But guess what? I’m glad I did.”
She did that thing where she tucked a lock her red hair behind her ear. “I’m glad you did too.” Her fingers tightened on mine, then she held up our hands that were locked together. “So…what does this mean?”
“It means what it looks like. I like you, Stephanie.”
She smiled and looked at the floor, not letting go of my hand. She let it go when Carter walked in, though it wasn’t abrupt—more just a way of ending our moment, for now.
“Goin’ out,” he said.
“Carter?” The way I said his name caught his attention.
“For a breath of fresh air,” he assured me. The front door closed behind him.
For the first time ever, when that door shut between us, I didn’t feel like he was going out to feed. I felt like he was going to do what he said—go out and get a breath of fresh air. Maybe I wouldn’t have to see him standing in the doorway upon his return, mortified, as he dripped in blood. And this time, I really believed that I wouldn’t.
“So…” Stephanie said, running her hands down to her knees and thumbing to the back door, “I think I’m gonna’ go do the same.” She touched my hand as she stood, and I gave her fingers a light grip, smiling warmly as she stepped through the kitchen.
I followed after her, but stopped in the kitchen near Umara who was still running red wires from one device to another. The devices were these yellow scanners aimed straight at Zakhar.
“If he triggers any ambient movements,” she said, twisting one wire into
place, “these Shaman scanners will trigger those cables.”
To clear my head, I just had to ask again. “And you’re 100% sure that these won’t trigger for any other paranormal?”
She was leaning over the counter and looked back at me with irritated wide eyes. “Yeah.”
“All right.” I surrendered my hands. “Just want to make sure I’m not going to be drinking my meals through a straw for the rest of my life.”
She didn’t look back at me this time. “If you don’t get out of the way, that might just still happen. Now leave me alone and let me work.”
I stood over Zakhar, beaming down at him. “So you came all this way to find me. For what? Thing is, you had me when you came to my apartment, but instead of capturing me, you sent me to get the ankh from Stephanie. Seems like a rookie mistake, if you asked me.”
“To one whose mind is as simple as yours, yes, it would appear to be that way. What I need, Mr. Lyle, guaranteed, I will get.”
“Which is?”
“None of your business,” he laughed. “Say?” His eyebrows raised. “Rebekah, the girl in that stone around your neck.”
“Has nothing to do with you, you hear me?” I hadn’t ever mentioned Rebekah to him, but being a Shaman, he must have made the connections from our conversations and discovered her name. That reminded me, I probably shouldn’t have been talking to him anyway. “Umara, you think it’s safe for me to be in here with him?”
Screwdriver in hand, she looked back, giving Zakhar a once-over. “He’s not going anywhere. Make it quick though.”
“Hmph.” Zakhar shook his head. “A pawn asking for permission to have a conversation.”
“You’re one to talk,” I said. “Anton sent you here to try and snag me up and get me to go back to California with you. How’d that turn out?”
“We will see. The story is not yet over.”
“Have you…have you seen this place?” I asked smugly, pointing to the scanners and wires and cables. “It’s over for you. You heard Umara. She figured out that the Fairy Godfather sent you here, and now here you are, tied to a chair, about to face execution.” My hands were on my knees as I leaned down at him.
Elemental Damage: Confessions of a Summoner Book 2 Page 13
