by Turhan
“Mr. Parfitt,” He didn’t respond, then I saw something that might work. Plucking it from the cap of one of the crew member’s, I began tickling his nose with a feather and after twitching a few times he bolted upright as I put my hand over his mouth, “Shh, you’ll wake the others,” I let go of his mouth and he put his hand up to his head, trying to rub away the cranking headache he must have had.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
“Who are you?” He tried to get up but collapsed back on to his butt.
“I’m Sin-dy, remember?”
“Oh, yes, Sinbad’s sister, how is the old bastard, I’ve had many a run-in with him,” He continued to rub his head and reached for a half full tankard of lager. “He never told me he had a sister!?”
I figured it might be a good idea to go with the flow. “Well, you know how it is with you high seas marauders, it’s best to keep your family out of harm’s way, no sense letting the enemy know you have any weak links,” I slapped him on the shoulder, “right?”
“I knew that, I was just testing ya.”
“Listen, earlier, when you were talking to the guys,” I nodded in the direction of the passed out crew. “You mentioned the triangle−”
His eyes narrowed, suddenly he looked serious, “What of it?”
“Oh, nothing really. I just thought it was a real hoot, you know, pulling one over on the Devil himself. Only a smart pirate like you could do something like that, Blackbeard would have been,” I put my thumb up to the side of my neck and slid it across. “Dead.”
He gulped as he watched me do the throat slicing thing. “Well next time ya see the ugly ‘beard’ tell him I was asking after his self.”
“Of course, but what did the little triangle mean? The one with the three horns in the middle, why was it so important?” I reached for another tankard and pushed it into his hands and smiled the best, most sexy smile I could, if he was a lady’s man, and which pirate worth his gold doubloons isn’t? He’d have to cave and tell me.
“Listen to me Sin-dy, if I tell ya the secret, ya have to promise me something,” He cautiously looked around the cemetery. I slowly nodded.
“We were sailing in the straits of Gibraltar one summer’s eve when overhead the skies darkened, then Bang!” We looked around, everyone was still sleeping. “Me timber’s really were shivering that night, the midshipman called out ‘Man on board! Only it wasn’t a man it was a beast, from the sky and it was, dead.”
“Beast?”
“Yeah, beast from Hell, he, it, landed right on my favorite chef, he really knew how to cook a good bouillabaisse, the chef, not the beast.” Owen had a glint in his eye and really knew how to weave a tale. “I picked up my whale harpoon and ran to help him, but it were too late, the bouillabaisse was all over the deck and the seagulls were lapping it up before I−”
“Okay, I get the point,” I interrupted. “What do you want for the information about the triangle, name your price, Owen.” Mr. Parfitt wasn’t going to tell me anything until he could make a deal, I guess if he could fool the Devil what chance did I have of fooling the king of trickery.
“The price? I’ll tell you the price,” Owen stopped playing pirate and began speaking like the savant that he really was. “The triangle has dark magik, I found it in a casket, when I opened it up the poor soul still had it hanging around his neck, I guess he never got to use it.”
“Use it?”
“You really don’t know about its magik, do you?”
I shook my head, “Nope.”
“I had it hanging around my neck the day I had a visit from the Devil, after he dragged me−”
“Yeah, I know, ‘Kicking and screaming,’ ”
“How did you know−?”
“It’s all over the internet.”
“Wha−?”
I tried the sexy smile thing again, “Sorry Mr. Parfitt, I mean Owen, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“I bet the Devil I could make it disappear, he figured I was just an old cripple and didn’t know a thing about magik. We spent a lot of time on our ship playing tricks like that, it was easy, after it was gone from my hand I pretended to pull it out from behind his horns, he was mad as all, well, you know.”
I nodded, “Yeah.”
“He threw me into Purgatory after I used it.”
I was puzzled, “Used it?”
“Your turn Sin-dy, do you have something worth bartering with?”
I couldn’t think of a damn thing that was going to grab his attention, so I took a huge risk, I grabbed his groin instead and put my knife up against them, or is that against it?
“Mr. Parfitt, I may not be a pirate’s sister, but I do have a couple of tricks of my own,” I alter-witched into a Great Ape for a few seconds then back to myself again, he was shocked. “If you tell me how to use it.” He raised an eyebrow, I rolled my eyes impatiently. “The triangle Owen, then I promise to make it worth your while.”
“You put it here,” he pointed at his tongue, I thought he was being smart so I pushed the knife harder against his groin. “No, really, someone has to put the triangle in your mouth when you’re dead, it brings you back to life again.”
I thought, a second chance at life? “Who put it in your mouth?”
“When I pulled it out from behind his horns I put it in there myself, I was in Hell, already dead.”
I let go of Mr. Parfitt’s private’s.
“Wait a minute, what about our deal?” He asked.
I didn’t know why this had been bugging me to know about the triangle, It was on my sword, I had seen its shape at Sector Seven above the doorways to each building and before that on the gold tunics Xenakaz used to tie us together when I helped him fly out of danger.
“What? Oh that, if you get all your men out of here, right now, I’ll tell you where there’s some more buried treasure.”
He nodded, excitedly.
I pointed into the distance, at a gravestone, it was at the far end of the cemetery. Owen spun around, focused his eyes, and jumped in excitement. Yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs he ran toward the grave. The entire crew woke to the sound of his jubilations as he started digging with his knife and they ran to see what the commotion was. It was the perfect time for me to head back to Sarturas. I spun the vortex and while I was being slowly sucked downward I could see Owen looking at the gravestone, it read:
Owen Parfitt
Born 1713 ~ Died 1763
Beloved brother of Susannah Parfitt.
Here lyeth Owen’s ‘Greatcoat’
To keep him warm until he’s found.
I wasn’t sure if our paths would ever cross again, but I had guessed that hidden somewhere inside that Greatcoat was a treasure that only Mr. Parfitt himself knew of, but I was sure about one thing, he had many adventures that still lay before him. As I spun downward, I caught sight of Owen one last time, he was looking at me and with a mischievous smile nodded his appreciation.
Now, I had a race against time, Ophelexa no doubt had already used her own channels to return to Sarturas. She would be joining Sarine to initiate the start of the mass rape ‘Impregnation Ceremony’ of the millions of helpless girls. Their only hope lay in our hands. I had a deep and anxious feeling in my gut, something was telling me that we were not going to come out of this in one piece.
Chapter 18
The Tornado
It was going to take us several hours to get to Sector One in our effort to trap Sarine and Ophelexa, not just because of the distance but there was now a civil war raging across parts of Sarturas. Being familiar with our destination, Xenakaz had taken the lead and just to be cautious, instead of making our way directly there, we had decided to fly through remote areas that appeared to be undisturbed, but lost our way a couple of times.
Looking around I was comforted to some extent to have my sisters and Amber with me, but this time we also had Jasmine with us and it was her new gift of being able to transform glass into virtually anything she wanted that allowed us
some hope of seeing our plan succeed.
By this time I had already started missing Sin-dy, especially after she told me that it was making her feel bad that my girlfriend Enya “deserved better from both of us,” She was right, but my feelings for her were getting stronger every day and as we were flying I looked down at the burgundy wrist-cuff she had given me.
***
After texting her that I knew what to inscribe on the wristband, she texted right back that she could hardly wait to see it. We made a second date and this time it was to meet at her apartment.
“Come in quick,” Sin-dy pulled me in and slammed the door shut behind me. “Sorry about that, I have nosey neighbors and they ask a lot of questions.”
“Yeah, sure, no proble−” Sin-dy was more forward than me, and had given me a wet kiss right on the lips before I could finish speaking, it made me feel electric throughout my entire body and I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. “I’m not sorry about that though,” she teased, “are you?”
I kissed her again and smiled. “That was the best kiss I had in my life, did you know you taste like vanilla?”
She giggled, took my hand and showed me around her apartment. “And, that’s my bedroom.”
Still a little shy, I tried to change the subject of the bedroom. “Oh I brought these for you,” I gave her three roses, one red, one yellow and the last one was lavender. “I saw you looking at them at the flower stand before we went into Aquarius the other night.”
“I love them Kylar, do you know what this color means?”
“I think it means . . . ” She was looking at me with her lips ever so slightly moist and they had lavender lip gloss on them, the exact shade of the rose she was holding up. “I think it means, love at first sight” We said together, but I said it out loud and she had spoken it without saying it.
Sin-dy looked incredible that evening as she walked around getting the table laid for us to eat and showing me how she had learned to make Origami napkin swans. I’d never felt like this before about anyone. She had an apron on that looked so cute, it read, “Make me laugh and I’ll be your friend, take my breath away and I’ll be true to you.”
***
“Kylar look!” Elektra was pointing into the distance and as we got closer, hundreds of lines of buildings that stretched for miles began to come into view. They looked like they were military encampments and there was what looked like guards at the entrances and a few other creatures patrolling its perimeter and interior roadways. I signaled to Xenakaz who immediately turned and waved us down toward a stream, we landed and made our way under the bridge that connected to a road right into the enclosure.
“Why do we have to stop?” Amber inquired.
Xenakaz was nervous as he came back down from the bridge. “This is new, it wasn’t here last year, something’s going on that I don’t understand.
Kira was peering over the embankment and questioned, “Well what’s more important than us getting to Sector One right now? Whatever this place is, we can’t allow it to delay us for too long.”
Jasmine was deep in thought. “I think, it’s, it’s where all the girls will be transported to, for them to be . . . ”
Elektra moved over to Jasmine and held her hand. “What makes you say that?”
Jasmine sat down. “Amber, do you remember me telling you I overheard my Tutella talking to Ophelexa?”
Amber blinked and began to think back. “Yes, you told me Ophelexa said something like, “they can be held for nine months.”
“Dad?”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Elektra looked at me, “until we raze this place to the ground.”
Jasmine and Amber were confused but they knew something bad was supposed to happen in the buildings. For the rest of us, there was no doubt what the houses of horror were meant to be. The impregnations were going to happen right inside them.
“How do we even begin trying to destroy this place?” Kira contemplated.
My mind was racing. “I’m not sure−”
Elektra cut in, “We have to create a distraction, something really epic so most of them aren’t here, then it’ll give us a chance to destroy this pile of filth.”
Xenakaz spoke up. “I can do it. I’ll start by destroying a few buildings at the far end. As soon as they realize who it is, they’ll want to capture me and take my head to Sarine, but I’ll lead them as far away as I possibly can.”
“But we need you to show us the way to Sector One.” I said. “Sin-dy is the only other person that has been there.”
“Besides,” Kira said. “We can’t capture Sarine and Ophelexa without your help.”
It seemed like an impossible situation. Sin-dy had described her ordeal to us at Sedah Hall where Ophelexa had tortured her, but only Xenakaz knew how to get there. Even if he managed to lead the creatures away from the encampment we’d still be at a loss to find it without him to guide us.
“Dad, I remember Sin-dy said something about using Crystal Mountain as a landmark, I always remember that kind of stuff, she headed east toward it after leaving Sedah Hall, if we knew where that is, then we could go back west from−”
Xenakaz interrupted. “Yes, of course! Amber’s right, and I can tell you where Crystal Mountain is from here, if I lose my pursuers I’ll catch up with you at Sedah Hall and . . . ”
Xenakaz stopped talking for a moment, he was looking down and seemed to have something else on his mind.
“What is it?” I asked. “Do you think it’s a bad idea?”
“It’s, Qirvana, if I die, she’ll be trapped at Rock Island with Heraclese.”
There was complete silence as we began to realize that there was still so much to accomplish and so much that could still turn tragically wrong. Xenakaz had Tulaqan ‘The Sword of Retribution’ in his belt and his hand was on its hilt.
“Amber,” Xenakaz unbuckled the sword and scabbard then handed it to her. “Tulaqan is yours, wield it wisely, it is formidable.”
She took the sword from Xenakaz, then placed it over her shoulder and hung it from her back. “None of us here will allow Qirvana to stay imprisoned,” Reaching back and pulling Tulaqan from its sheath, Amber turned the sword downward with its tip in the ground and cupped her hands over its pommel. “I swear this to you, on Tulaqan, and as your friend, that as long as I am able, she will be freed.”
One by one we all agreed and Xenakaz nodded his appreciation. “We should do this now, there is no more time to waste.”
Making our way around from the bottom of the small stone bridge we stood at the top, looking down toward the encampment. “Don’t do a thing until at least an hour, or you’ll be heard destroying this abomination,” Xenakaz said.
He flew away from us and headed for the rear of the buildings, it wasn’t long before we could see flames and hear explosions at several structures. Then after a few minutes a skirmish with freakish looking creatures ensued for a short time. The battle heated up and Xenakaz started to draw them away. Pretending he was losing, he had to escape drawing the guards behind him, he took off into the sky and away from the encampment, it worked.
We did exactly as Xenakaz had instructed us, after waiting for an hour we cautiously entered the compound, the prize of Xenakaz’ head and the rewards it could reap for its vanquisher was too much of a lure, everyone had gone.
Before setting about the task of destroying this hell within Hell we decided to enter a few of the buildings. There were rows of prison cells, destined to have been where the mass rapes would have taken place.
Destroying this whole encampment was going to take quite a while and if there were any of Ophelexa’s forces in the area they would hear the noise and we’d have to battle with them too, we had to think of something else, something that would decimate this place quickly.
“Any ideas guys, how can we do this without being here for hours?” I asked.
“Yeah, the sooner this place burns down to the ground the better,” said Elektra. “It may even b
uy us some time, the bastards won’t have anywhere to take the girls to−”
“Hey sis, remember how mom and dad told us how, by ourselves we were strong but together we were stronger?”
“Um, yeah! Do you mean when they showed us how to make those little squalls using my heat and your ice?”
“Yes! That’s what is was, well what about if we−”
Elektra cut in. “Did it on a massive scale?”
“This would be really dangerous, but if we could create a lot of heat on the ground and I started freezing the air above the encampment . . . ”
I guessed what my sister Kira was trying to do, she wanted to make a volatile weather system, the hot air from below would rise and then collide with the cold air and possibly create a storm.
“I could use my electrical shots to start burning a lot of the buildings,” I said.
Elektra started to make fireballs in her palms. “I could toss these into a lot of them.”
“Jasmine, you could blow out all the glass windows so the flames would get out quicker,” Amber excitedly said.
Suddenly we heard crashing sounds and began to take defensive positions, but it turned out to be Jasmine, she was already at work smashing glass in the building we were in. “Do you mean like that? She asked.
Amber looked at me with a smile on her face. “That’s perfect, right dad?”
“Yeah, perfect, just like you two.”
“Let’s do it sis, bro.” Elektra started to walk out with one arm around Amber and the other arm around Jasmine.
We all flew up above the buildings and began the work of torching the encampment, after a while the immediate area, about a half mile radius was burning like a gigantic bonfire.
“Your turn sis,” Elektra said.
“Go back to the bridge guys,” Kira said. “You can watch from there, and be ready to leave, if this works we need to get out of its way.”
“Be safe aunt Kira,” Amber said, as she blew a kiss.
With the fire raging below us, we left and headed toward the bridge. Kira began flying in circles around the blaze, slowly at first, leaving a series of ice in her wake. She went faster and faster, freezing the air as she went. Little by little she began going higher and higher and suddenly we heard crackling, the storm was brewing, another crackle…buildings began exploding below her.
