by Jeff Altabef
Help me.
“Remember the test in the Cathedral? When you joined hands you were connected with the others. That was the true purpose of the test. You are the Alpha—you can harness their power and use it to defeat your enemies.”
I concentrate on the other Chosen and send them a vision of us joined together at the Cathedral. I hope it works like it did for Troy when we were at the consulate. It’s all I can muster.
Gagarin sneers; a lethal twinkle sparkles in his eyes.
Connor’s energy floods to me. The link comes easily, and a rush of power bolsters my own energy.
Then, Blake’s and Akari’s energies links to mine.
Our collective power channels through me and I feel like the sun, full of unspeakable strength.
He must sense that I’m different because his voice falters. “What’s happened to your aura?” He squints his eyes. “It’s so bight and full of... color?”
“I’m the Alpha.”
He attacks, but he seems to move in slow motion. I easily knock his side cut away with my blade and slap him with the back of my left hand across his face.
He spins around, blood dripping from his lips. When he regroups, he jabs his blade at my chest.
I sidestep the thrust and plant a front-kick in his stomach.
He stumbles backward. “What’s happening?”
“For an advanced race you’re not too smart.”
I flick my wrist and cut his arm with my sword before he can react. Another flick and I slice his chest. “You’re losing.”
He glances toward the other Chosen, but his strength is gone and the force field shatters. He swipes his sword at my head in desperation.
I duck and punch him in the face with the hilt of my sword.
Crack!
His nose breaks as he stumbles against the Boathouse. He drops his sword and it clatters to the ground. His hands shake and blood gushes from his nose.
I point my blade at his throat.
His eyes narrow to small pricks of light. “I can’t believe they would stoop so low. You’re an... an abomination. It’s prohibited!”
“What are you mumbling about? I’m the Alpha.”
The other Chosen crowd around me, with Connor right beside me.
Troy joins us and stands beside Connor.
Gagarin smiles a sickly grin. “You’ll find out.”
I press the tip of my sword against his flesh, and blood trickles down his neck in a small river. “Where can I find the Prime Elector.”
“Never.” His eyes are wild like those of an untamed horse. “Some fates are worse than death.”
He won’t tell us where to find the Prime Elector. He’ll stay defiant until the end.
The moment I’ve dreaded for so long is here. I have to kill him. He deserves to die and we have no other choice. Still, I hesitate.
“Ha!” he laughs. “You are too weak to kill me. You can’t do it!”
I’ve lost the connection with the other Chosen. The sword is frozen.
He starts to use his mind and the blade trembles. In a few more seconds, he’ll turn it on me.
Connor wraps his hand around mine. “We’re all in this together. You don’t have to do this alone.”
Akari and Blake add their hands. We are linked again and the power returns.
Troy layers his hands on top of ours. “It’s time to send this devil back to the spirit lands.”
My sword’s blade blazes with an intense bright light that threatens to blind me as I glance into Gagarin’s wild, defiant eyes.
He’s too strong to keep as a prisoner. He’ll either escape or find a way to kill us. He’s chosen this fate for himself.
His sneer turns to panic at the last second.
I nod and we push the blade into his neck.
He gurgles as blood spills from his mouth. He opens his mouth as if to utter a last defiant word, but he can’t. He collapses to the ground and reaches out for his sword. The hilt slides into his outstretched hand. As his aura fades, the hilt cracks and turns to dust.
An eerie quiet settles over us as we stare at his lifeless body. I expect to feel remorse for killing him, but I’m numb. Maybe it will hit me later, but I don’t think so.
The blood has drained from Blake’s face and his voice trembles. “We had to kill him, right? We had no choice.”
Troy nods. “He was a dark spirit. We did the right thing.”
I stare at his lifeless figure and can’t help but wonder what he was going to say with his last words.
I have the sinking feeling they might have been important.
Connor grumbles. “All this and he’s not the bloody Prime Elector. We’re back where we started.”
“Well, what about Stuart? Maybe he knows how to find the real Prime Elector,” Blake says.
Akari pushes through the door and we race back into the banquet hall.
Stuart has collapsed against a wall.
Landon stands over him, his expression grave. “He’s been shot. It doesn’t look good.”
Stuart’s aura flickers. He’s still alive but just by the smallest margin.
I bend down and stare into his eyes. “Why?”
He looks at me, his eyes wide and moist. “Yes, yes, why indeed. They captured me and dragged me away in a Con Edison truck.” He half coughs and half laughs. “A Con Edison truck. They wanted me to betray you. They always expect the worst from Uglies. I helped them plant the email, but I told Sydney and Troy about it. That was the only way we could truly surprise them.”
Sydney nods at me.
I remember the tunics Troy found in his closet. “You weren’t really sent here to guide us, were you?”
He tries to sit up, but he can’t summon the strength and slides back down. “No, no, not me. There was an Alphian master who was supposed to be the Host. Yes, yes, he was to help, but he died after we arrived. I did my best.”
“You did good.”
He grabs my shirt. “I did this for you, not for them! To us Uglies there is little difference between the Deltites and the Alphians. We are nothing to either of them. The slave doesn’t care who his master is. But you are better than they are. You don’t deserve this fate.”
“Who is the Prime Elector?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was Gagarin, but he isn’t strong enough. Yes, yes, he was not strong enough.” He glances behind me. “If you could access the computer, you might find out. He uses it to communicate....” He coughs and spits out blood. “I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger, that I wasn’t special.”
He closes his eyes and they won’t open again. He’s gone.
He was special, in his own way. He, a slave, ended up sacrificing himself for us, and we were so self-absorbed that we barely noticed. He could have hidden from us, lived on Earth with his freedom. Still he tried to help.
Would I have done as much in his place?
Connor touches my arm. Drying blood is smeared across his forehead and his shoulder, but neither wound looks too bad.
Blake limps a bit and has a nasty burn on his arm.
Akari appears untouched.
Troy smiles at me even though blood has crusted on his lips and cheeks and drenches his shirt.
“You got hit in the nose again?”
He shrugs. “It’s my weak spot.”
I wrap my arms around him. For a heartbeat, I’m the girl I was before, before I knew about the Chosen or the Deltites, but that moment quickly vanishes.
I’ll never be that girl again. I’m the Alpha. I must stand apart, and for the first time, I think I’m strong enough to do it.
I whisper in his ear, “Thanks. You’re amazing. I should never have sent you away.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
I push him away and stomp on his foot.
“Hey!”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“Sydney only told me an hour ago. We were the back-up plan. We didn’t know the whole situation
.”
I survey the rest of the damage.
The banquet hall has been through a war. Both Deltites are dead. Blood pools on their chests. One security guard is knocked unconscious. The other two are missing. They must have run when things got weird.
Frankie limps over. He has a gash in his leg, and has tied his shirt around his thigh in a makeshift tourniquet. His bare chest looks like one of those ancient Greek statues. He shakes his head. “I thought I’d witnessed some intense stuff before, but that was the craziest shit I’ve ever seen. Good thing you’re in our family, sister.”
Amare stands right behind him. He looks unharmed, but his face is pure ash. He holds a lit cigarette in one hand that shakes, and lifts a crystal sword hilt in the other. “Where’s the blade?”
I chuckle. I’ll have to tell them the full story later, but first I need to try the crystal computer. If there’s a chance that it will lead me to the Prime Elector, it can’t wait. I lift the thin crystal and study it. It’s a little larger than my hand—beautiful, thin—and bluish light reflects from inside its structure.
Gagarin was about to place his palm in the middle to start it.
I lift my hand and inch it toward the center of the crystal. It vibrates as I press against it. It feels cool to the touch.
I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of a platform and trains are whooshing past me at top speed—not one train, but an endless progression of trains, one after the other. Each zips past me from different directions and misses me by inches. I’m whipped in all directions at the same time as thoughts, images, and ideas ricochet through my mind with each whoosh. I concentrate on only one thought: the Prime Elector.
My hand starts to burn, sizzling from the heat emanating from the computer.
The crystal cracks.
The trains stop and I see a face. He looks young, his eyes an arctic blue—the color of pure ice, with electric lavender swirls that pulse inside them.
They blink.
I realize he’s looking back at me, and I drop the tablet.
I fall, and the world spins from gray to black.
A soft breeze warms my face as the sun brightens a cobalt sky. It’s a spring sun, the kind that lightens the world with color and clarity. The air smells fresh—a mix of grass and earth and recently fallen rain.
Sicheii stands next to me, wearing a white linen shirt that billows in the breeze. His favorite pair of Lucky jeans fits loosely around his legs. Comfortable deerskin moccasins cover his feet, and a wide brim hat with a hawk’s feather stuck in the band tilts on his head the way he always used to wear it.
We’re standing on a small nob of a hill with a herd of buffalo grazing around us. They stretch out as far as I can see, an ocean of brown furry giants content to munch grass and soak up the sun.
He grins at me.
“Am I dead? Is this the spirit lands?” I’m not scared. I just want to understand.
“Yes and no. Maybe some of both.” He shrugs. “Do you remember the conversation we had when you were little? How I wondered what it would be like to stand among the great herds as they existed when our ancestors roamed the plains?”
“Yes, but those herds have died away. This has to be my imagination.”
He lifts his arms outward, the wind gusts, and his shirt flaps in the breeze. “The spirit of the herd lives. Such a strong spirit could never vanish completely. Time does not run in a straight line. It flows like an ocean with currents that move at different speeds. The surface travels much faster than the deep bottom.”
I turn and watch the animals in silence for a long moment, transfixed by their beauty and power—not individually so much, but collectively, as if they are of one mind and body.
“I’m not like them. I have no herd. I’m alone.”
Sicheii frowns. “You are not alone, never alone. You stand apart, yet you remain part of the herd. You are strong enough to face the wind without shelter from other trees. So you must face the wind even when it gusts.”
I recall how I linked my energy with the other Chosen. We were joined, if only for a moment. Still I had to face Gagarin alone. It was my responsibility to defeat him. But I’m not finished. Not yet. I remember the young eyes in the crystal computer and shudder. My destiny is intertwined with those eyes, the electric orbs of the Prime Elector.
Sicheii touches my cheek with his fingertips. “I never told you this, but you have your grandmother’s smile. There is much of her in you.”
I grab his hands, the strongest hands I have ever known. “Will you stay with me?”
He pulls them from me. “I am always with you, but you know that already.”
“I’m afraid this destiny will be too hard, that I’m not strong enough.”
His stare reaches deep inside of me, to a place deeper than muscle and blood and bone. “We all have demons to contend with and fears to conquer. True strength is fighting back against them and still doing what is right.”
I think of Landon and the demons he brought back with him from Afghanistan, and of Frankie, who regrets his early life in the projects. I think of the other Chosen and Stuart. They all have flaws. No one is perfect. Still, they wrestle with their faults and find a way to overcome them.
“But what if he’s stronger than me? Those eyes from the crystal scare me.”
“Those are Coyote’s eyes, the trickster. They should frighten you. Only a fool or a child would not be afraid of him. You are neither.” A hawk squawks above us. “There is more I must tell you.”
He looks remorseful as he sweeps his long white hair from his face.
“Tell me now.”
“Coyote is not all bad, just as the Wind Spirit is not all good. You will be faced with a choice. Follow your heart.”
“What choice? What should I do? Tell me!”
“This I cannot help you with.” He turns from me and strolls down the small hill. “You are the Chosen. Only you can decide our fate.”
“Come back!”
He waves at me and blends in with the herd.
I try to follow him with my eyes, but he’s gone.
He’s left me with more riddles and questions, just as he always does.
A howl from a pack of wolves pierces the air, and the ground shakes. The herd has been spooked, and they stampede in an explosion of energy.
I open my eyes and see Troy hovering above me.
It takes a moment before my eyes bring Troy’s face into focus. I sit up, but it takes a few seconds for me to realize where I am, my mind still a little foggy. “We’re in The Underground?”
He nods.
Connor, Blake, and Akari join us.
Blake speaks softly, as if worried a loud noise might hurt me. “Well, we couldn’t go back to the Inn. It isn’t safe. This was the only place we could think of.”
A drill bores a hole into my head and my brains want to gush out. I wince.
“Are you okay?” Connor’s face twists with worry as his hand strokes my hair.
The hole closes and the pain in my head subsides, leaving behind a dull ache that I shake off. “I’m fine. I feel as if one of those paving trucks rolled over my head and flattened it. How long was I out?”
“A day and a half,” says Akari. “We were going to take you to a hospital if you didn’t wake soon.”
I scan the abandoned pub and find no one with us. “Where’s Landon?”
“We told him and Frankie everything,” says Connor. “They wouldn’t have believed us except they saw too much with their own eyes, and we all know how bloody convincing those swords can be. They want to help with the Prime Elector, but we gave them the slip and snuck to The Underground. They don’t know where we are.”
I sit up straighter and brush my hair from my face. I’m on a futon stuffed in the corner of the room. “Good. They’ve done enough. What about the mess at the Boathouse?”
“The police don’t know what to make of it,” says Troy.
Blake smirks. “The news is calling it the ‘Blo
odbath at the Boathouse.’ They don’t have any suspects.”
“Gagarin would have killed me if it wasn’t for you guys.” I smile at them and feel my heart burst. I’m not alone. We’ve become a team, closer even—a family. “Thanks.”
“We didn’t do anything you wouldn’t have done for us.” Blake looks taller, standing straighter with his head held high.
“That was some wind funnel you created.”
“Well, of course. Child’s play.” Blake grins and forms a miniature tornado by his side.
We all laugh and it feels good. “What about the drug in the water supply? We have to stop them.” A jolt of adrenaline shoots into my body. “If they activate that cellular signal, millions of people will die.”
“Landon knows all about it, Jules,” Troy says. “His friend at the hospital is working on it. Apparently she’s made progress. She thinks magnesium will dissolve it in the water. They just have to figure out how much to add to the aquifers. Landon thinks she’s close.”
Blake adds, “I wired him enough money so funds won’t be a problem. The hospital’s lab is working around the clock.” He lifts a water bottle. “Until then we drink only from these.”
Connor lifts the broken crystal tablet from the Boathouse. It’s blackened and shattered. “What about the Prime Elector? Did you learn anything from this to help? We all tried to start the bloody thing, but it’s cracked. I couldn’t get anything from it.”
“None of us could,” adds Akari.
All their eyes turn to me.
Their desperation and my responsibility twist together until it becomes a heavy woolen blanket that threatens to suffocate me. We have no other leads. I could tell them nothing. Maybe I should send them on their way, find the Prime Elector on my own, and leave them out of it.
I stroll toward the bar and let them follow in my wake, to allow me a moment to think. When I reach the bar, I’ve made my decision. They are Chosen like me. I can’t hide this from them. It’s not that I can’t go on without them, but it would be wrong to rob them of their voice.
“I know who the Prime Elector is. He’s young and lives part of the time in Guernsey and London. He’s strong. He’s much stronger than Gagarin. I... I don’t know how we’ll defeat him, but I’ve made my decision. I have to go after him, but each of you should make your own choice. I’ll understand if you want to sit it out.” I smile at Connor. “Go to Fiji if you like.”
