by R J Johnson
Alex took it and wiped his face off.
“Thanks kid…” he said, handing the towel back.
“What are you? Some kind of super man?” the kid asked.
Alex chuckled and shook his head, “Nope, but I can stop a bullet. And I can do this…”
He snapped his fingers as a flame protruded out of them. The six-year-old’s eyes went wide.
“Cooooooooooool!” he exclaimed. “What else can you do?”
Before Alex could show him, the kid’s mother rushed up to him, grabbing her child, pulling him away. “Get over here Kyle!”
“But Mom!” the kid protested, “I’m talking to Superman!”
The mother ignored her son’s pleas and dragged him off to their car presumably to get away from the crazy homeless guy telling people he was Superman in the park.
Scott would’ve appreciated that… Alex thought to himself. He sat up. Scott! He needed to get back to his plan of finding his friend before he lost control.
He stood, and began moving quickly to the parking lot. He needed transportation and quick.
Surveying the lot, he spotted a BMW and walked up to it. Looking around to see if anyone was watching him, he snapped his fingers and the driver side window blew out.
The alarm went off and Alex closed his eyes, using the fire stone to short out the car’s alarm. Opening them, he looked around to see if anyone was looking at him.
But, then, no one seemed to care about car alarms anymore.
He brushed the glass off the seat and sat down. Grasping the wheel with both hands, he ran them under the dashboard hoping to find the wires necessary to hotwire the vehicle, but couldn’t find them.
Stymied, he thought about his situation for a moment when he considered the fire stone. The car ran on a combustible engine. After all, he’d been able to keep a nuclear reactor from melting down, starting a car should be a breeze.
He held the fire stone in his hand, rubbing it with his thumb and willing the car to start. To his surprise, he heard the throaty roar of the BMW as it started. Alex pumped his fist in celebration and pulled the shifter, putting the car in gear.
Alex pulled out of the parking lot, heading for the freeway that would take him to LA. He didn’t know where Scott had gone, but he had a pretty good feeling his friend’s apartment would be a good place to start.
Hold on Scotty, he thought, I’m coming for ya.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lorelei Decklund stepped out of the private jet and onto the Berlin tarmac. After twelve hours of traveling without any answers about her husband’s situation, she was ready to explode.
A man wearing dark sunglasses and suit approached her quickly the second she stepped off the jet’s stairway.
“Ms. Decklund? I’m Garrison Walsh. We spoke on the phone earlier?” The man approaching her extended a hand. Lorelei ignored it.
“Where’s my husband?”
“This way ma’am,” he said politely. He indicated that Lorelei should follow him to the waiting town car. They got in and as soon as Walsh closed the door, the car began moving down the runway, heading for the exit.
“My husband,” Lorelei repeated, “What have you learned? Have there been any demands?”
Walsh removed his sunglasses and looked uncomfortable, “I’m afraid… there have been no demands.”
Lorelei was surprised by this. “No demands? No one asking for his company to get out of the country? No rebels demanding ransom?”
“Not so far I’m afraid…” Walsh said. He leaned forward touching her knee, “Ma’am, I can assure you that our organization is quite good at this. We’ll get your husband back…”
“And if you don’t?” Lorelei asked, her eyes narrow.
“I find that way of thinking unproductive,” Walsh replied quickly. “I think we should concentrate on where your husband was taken. If we can come up with a pool of suspects, we should be able to narrow down exactly where he is. The lack of demands tells me he was probably taken by an independent group.”
“An independent group? Lorelei asked. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Walsh nodded, “We’ve had difficulties in that region with kidnappers. My guess is he’s been taken as part of a human slavery ring.”
Lorelei felt the pit in her stomach grow even larger. “You can’t be serious…”
“I’m afraid so,” Walsh said. He reached into his pocket and withdrew his smartphone checking for any new information. “I know this is a terrifying situation for you, but I find telling the truth first the right thing to do. No need to get anyone’s hopes up.”
Lorelei felt her world shatter. Johan was the reason she got up in the morning. She was his raison d’etre. They loved each other because they had no other choice. To hear that her husband might be ripped away from her forever was almost too much to handle.
“What about your people?” Lorelei asked desperately. “Wasn’t he supposed to have an entire contingent protecting him and his project?”
“I’m afraid we haven’t heard from them either,” Walsh said, his expression deadpan. “We are currently operating under the assumption that they have all been killed.”
She felt her stomach drop, and the tears begin streaming down her face. If her husband’s security team had been wiped out, what possible chance did Johan have?
She looked over at Walsh, who had looked away, allowing her the privacy to fall apart. She wiped away the tears, feeling ashamed of them. She was Johan’s rock. What kind of rock wept?
The stone flashed in her pocket and she felt it vibrating against her hip. She began to feel her strength return. She made a decision. He couldn’t possibly be dead. She’d have sensed it. She’d have KNOWN.
“Where is my husband?” she asked quietly.
Walsh cocked his head, “As I said, there’s no way for us to know at this point. We have…”
“NO!” Lorelei screamed. The car shook as if thrown about by some giant’s hand. “He was under your protection! Your company prides itself on bringing its people back. How dare you come to me saying you have no idea? You have all those resources at your disposal, which I’ll assume includes more than one contact at the State Department.”
Walsh backed off in alarm. He’d dealt with plenty of enraged family members before, but nothing like this.
“Ma’am,” Walsh said forcefully, “I can assure you, we aren’t hiding anything from you. There’s no possible way we could have foreseen…”
“NO!” Lorelei screamed throwing her arms up in frustration.
“Ma’am, please,” Walsh said, “If you need, we can sedate you if...”
“Don’t patronize me!” she snapped. “You have no idea what I’m capable of. I’ll move mountains to save that man!”
The car’s front wheels shot up as the earth underneath it suddenly groaned, launching the town car up off its wheels.
Lorelei felt herself tumble about inside the town car as it crashed wildly against the side of several cars parked along the road. After a few more bruising encounters with the thousand pound vehicle, the town car slid to a stop, crashing into two parked cars. She groaned and wondered what the hell they’d crashed into.
Walsh was lying in an unnatural position, his ID card stained with blood. Lorelei stood, and pushed the door open, hauling herself out of the wrecked car.
She emerged into what looked like a warzone and gasped at unreality of the scene in front of her. Where a busy four lane street had filtered traffic through the busy city center, was gone. In its place was a piece of rock that jutted out of the earth, as if it had been summoned out of the mantle. The foundations of the buildings around the street liquefied.
The buildings around her began to collapse, pancaking on top of each other as buildings, not designed to take the stress of a major earthquake fell to the ground.
She turned and looked at a bystander whose mouth was agape as he recorded the carnage on his smartphone.
“What happened?” Lorel
ei managed. The Berliner looked at her in shock.
“Fraulein? Are you all right?” the Berliner asked her, looking concerned. Her possible injuries didn’t stop him from filming however. He pointed to the sheer rock face that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the street.
“Fine,” Lorelei said, her eyes wide, as she watched the chaos unfold around her. “Berlin has earthquakes?” she asked.
“Not in my entire lifetime,” the Berliner answered. “Only in the south.”
“Then how?” she wondered aloud. The Berliner shrugged. He didn’t have any answers for the strange woman. He continued recording the scene, narrating to his unseen audience in German.
Lorelei looked at the scene in wonder until she felt the stone in her pocket vibrating once again. She slowly withdrew the crystal stone, staring at it as if seeing it for the first time.
Suddenly she understood. She had been so upset about her husband’s kidnapping, she’d accidentally made the earth move. She didn’t know how, but the stone was telling her as much. It wasn’t like a voice in her head or anything, it was more like a piece of trivia she’d just always known.
Smiling she extended her palm and closed her eyes concentrating on the road in front of her.
The earth began to slowly move back into position, the rock retreating back into the earth from where she’d accidentally summoned it. The Berliner standing next to him recording gasped in surprise and began narrating in rapid German. Lorelei had no idea what the man was saying, but if she had to guess it was something akin to shock.
Suddenly she became aware that the Berliner was recording HER using the crystal to manipulate the mountain back into the road. The stone flashed wildly as she manipulated the earth back into position.
Lorelei met the Berliner’s eye and shrugged. She clenched her fist as an enormous sinkhole opened up in the street sucking the car and buildings into the deep hole created by her newfound powers.
The Berliner screamed and began running for his life. Lorelei ignored the man and looked down at the crystal stone in her hand. This artifact was so much more than just a pretty bauble. It was the ticket to finding her husband.
If Johan was hurt or dead, no one would be able to stop her from burying those responsible under a mountain of revenge.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kline’s wounds were beginning to ooze pus and blood again. He stared at his ruined face in the mirror after carefully unwrapping the bandage that circled his face. He didn’t feel the pain any longer. His stones took care of that.
He waved a hand as a tumbler of scotch flew toward his hand. His summoning stone made his life so much easier. Being able to read his underling’s thoughts and manipulating his environment made him so powerful he was beginning to wonder what he’d do with a fourth stone, or even all twelve.
The thought of the stones helped keep his mind off his wounded face. There were more out there. He’d seen the results of Geoffrey’s plan to capture Alex McCray and so far wasn’t impressed. Mr. McCray had been able to escape the authorities at the airport. Kline had already known Alex McCray would prove to be tough to capture, but, he’d promised Tate the opportunity for his plan to work and he was nothing if not a man of his word.
He waved his hand and summoned the remote from the table across the room. Clicking through the channels, he happened to flip past a news report playing something about an earthquake in Berlin. He wasn’t sure why his finger hesitated, but he watched the story for a moment. The European headquarters for MARS Security was located in Berlin and he wanted to make sure the earthquake hadn’t been powerful enough to damage his company’s building.
But, what he found was something altogether unexpected and wonderful.
On the screen, an attractive brunette reporter was reciting the facts as a video played over her right shoulder. It was of a small cell phone video that had caught the earthquake in action. A huge mound of earth suddenly launched itself up and out of the street, throwing a large black town car up and off the road.
Kline watched with muted interest as a tall blonde woman crawled out of the wreckage and approach the man holding the camera. He unmuted the screen as the brunette anchor became more serious.
“…what follows on the recording defies description. WNN wants to emphasize that we did not doctor or alter this footage in any way.”
Kline sat up straight and watched fascinated. He watched the blond woman take out a stone that perfectly matched his own. The one the blond woman held was crystal unlike the deep red stone attached to his finger. What was even more incredible was the fact that the anchorwoman had undersold what the camera captured.
Kline watched the Swede discover the source of her power. The crystal in her palm flashed as an enormous sinkhole immediately opened up underneath the street, swallowing up the huge jut of granite that had appeared out of nowhere.
The cell phone video stopped.
He leapt off the couch, his injuries temporarily forgotten as he summoned his phone to him. The phone flew off the counter and into his hand. Kline tenderly touched his bloody face and smiled.
Putting on his jacket, he snapped his fingers and disappeared into the ether, intent on finding a fourth stone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alex approached Scott’s apartment complex cautiously. Kline’s people had already tracked him down through here once already, he didn’t need another confrontation, not with every police officer in Southern California on alert.
He’d only barely managed to stay ahead of the roadblocks. Fortunately, by the time he got to the Inland Empire, the constant police presence had dissipated somewhat. However, people were still on edge since the media was telling everyone that there were terrorists everywhere.
He exited his purloined BMW and concentrated. The car shut off.
“Who are you?”
The voice came out of nowhere and Alex jumped back, his hand behind his back grasping the handle of his pistol. That’s when he saw the blonde curly haired woman staring at him suspiciously.
Alex relaxed. The woman’s bathrobe and shoddy hair made it clear she wasn’t part of Kline’s cabal of mercenaries and assassins.
Not unless they thought a terrycloth bathrobe was sufficient body armor.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said, sounding confused. “I’m actually looking for a friend of mine. He lives here.”
“Who’s your friend?” she demanded. Alex thought better of confronting her. She was just reacting to what the media was telling her was going on.
“Scott Ermy. He lives in apartment 212?” Alex pointed over to where he thought Scott’s apartment was.
The woman sniffed, “He’s not here.”
“Are you sure?” Alex asked, frowning. If Scott wasn’t here, perhaps there was some clue as to where he was going.
“I’m sure,” she said, folding her arms, glaring at him. “His car was broken into, so I had to call the police.”
She pointed to a cruiser Alex hadn’t noticed parked down the street. He cursed his stupidity. Situational awareness was one of the few tools he had and he’d neglected to use it. If he kept doing dumb things like that, Kline was sure to catch him with his pants down.
And then the whole planet would pay for his stupidity.
“You know Scott?”
The woman shrugged. “Bout as well as anyone I guess. I manage the complex. It’s good practice to know all your tenants. Especially the ones who give you trouble.”
Alex grunted. “Noise complaints, right?”
The woman nodded sadly. “I had to make him pay for soundproofing.”
Alex chuckled and stuck his hand out, “Alex.”
The woman took it, “Sienna.”
“Nice to meet ya…” Alex pointed over at the police officer standing by his friend’s door. “They find anything?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “But from what they said the FBI and Homeland Security on are their way down here to check it out for themselves.”
&nb
sp; “They are?” he asked surprised. “Why would the alphabet agencies get involved with a simple car robbery?”
The woman looked at him suspicious, “Didn’t you hear? No one’s seen Scott since Friday night. He disappeared from JPL after the attack there.”
Alex cursed. If he was going to get a clue to where Scott was going, he’d need to get in there before the FBI and Homeland Security locked his friend’s apartment down.
“Wow, no, I hadn’t heard…” he replied. “I’ve got to get on the phone to his parents. Do you happen to have a cell I can borrow?”
She regarded him for a moment, “Where’s your phone?”
“No charge,” he said apologizing. “Just need to make sure he’s not at his house in Onyx taking care of his mom. He might not even know what’s happening.”
She reached into her pocket and withdrew her phone handing it to him. “Keep it quick.”
Alex nodded and took the cell phone from her. He turned, as if to get some privacy for his call, to withdraw the fire stone from his pocket.
“Yes, hi!” Alex said, pretending someone had picked up the phone, “Is Scott around?”
The woman shifted her weight and went back to watching the police officer stand guard over Scott’s apartment.
With a subtle snap of his fingers, Alex ignited a fire under a nearby bush.
He turned, looking back at the woman who had been interrogating him. He cried out in surprise, “Hey! Look out!”
The fire erupted next to the woman and she dropped back in surprise, watching the blaze quickly catch on the bush.
Alex ‘accidentally’ dropped her cell phone into a nearby sewer as he rushed to help pick her up.
“Are you okay?” he gasped. “What happened?”
“I dunno,” she said, confused. “It just caught on fire. Can you call the fire department?”
Alex looked sheepish and opened his palms demonstrating he’d dropped her phone, “I uhh… accidentally dropped it down the sewer.”
