The Omega Children - The Return of the Marauders - Book 1

by Shane A. Mason

  His face registered shock.

  ‘Well don’t look so alarmed. We do this every year.’

  He nodded and saying nothing, left, barefooted.

  ‘Tell Jeeves to go and get supplies today not tomorrow,’ Aunty Gertrude yelled out after him, ‘and watch out for Pembrooke as well. He seemed upset before and said he was going into the forest to un-muddle his head. And tell the brats to keep quiet. Heavens to Murgatroid, I heard such a din before. Lucky for them I did not catch them.’

  ***

  Outside Ari could hear Quixote kicking up a rumpus way off in the distance and headed for the fields beyond the stone wall. There close to the forest’s edge Quixote rambled around pretending to be a cowboy, firing off his pistol. Ari placed his hand over his mouth and pretended to make an Indian battle cry and an immense noise filled the air, sounding as chilling as a hundred men yelling in full battle charge. Ari stopped, amazed at what had just poured forth from him. Quixote spun about and yelled, ‘INJJUUNNN,’ and drawing a bead on Ari charged at him, firing bullet after bullet into his body though the hot lead bullets disappeared into nowhere. Ari blinked and shielded his eyes from the gun-flash bursting out of the muzzle, and then ran at Quixote and kicked the pistol out of his hand. Quixote stared at his empty hands and at the smoking pistol on the ground, and then at the others rushing up to meet him.

  Melaleuca surveyed the scene, throwing an unpleasant look at Quixote.

  ‘I shudder to ask,’ Lexington said. ‘Pray tell how you knew Ari would remain unharmed.’

  Quixote looked the closest he had ever come to shame. ‘I didn’t. I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I do not think we should continue to underestimate these accoutrements of great, seemingly accomplished power hence forth,’ Lexington said in a rush. ‘Elementary logic dictates circumspection and may I be as forward as to suggest that in due consideration of forethought and sagacity that a caveat be imposed until further illumination.’

  ‘What?’ Melaleuca said.

  ‘It’s blastingly clear, dash it all. These bracelets should be treated with caution lest it not be a window smashed but a wall bashed, and as my auricular apparatus still smarts from Ari’s bellicose lung inflated bellowing.’

  ‘Take the bracelet off and then speak again,’ Melaleuca said.

  Lexington tugged at her bracelet and then spoke. ‘We need to be careful. We know nothing about what these are capable of.’ She motioned toward Quixote. ‘He had no control of himself.’

  ‘No nor did you,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Did you hear the big words you just used?

  Lexington looked puzzled.

  ‘Exactly. Now...’

  Quixote picked up the pistol and took off again yelling, ‘Sorry. Won’t happen again. Notes said play and use imagination.’

  He started to pretend to ride a horse fast and then slow and then galloped until he became lost again in his imagination.

  ‘You need to stop him,’ Lexington said.

  ‘Let him go,’ Melaleuca replied. ‘The notes said to follow our hearts and even though we aren’t sure who is leaving them, it will be okay.’

  ‘Lex. Relax,’ Ari said trying to reassure her. ‘These costumes give us the power to find out what’s going on,’

  She slipped her bracelet on and thought.

  ‘That’s just the problem. We don’t know how much power or what that power is capable of.’

  Quixote ran around flipping his pistol in and out at lightning speed and started ducking, bobbing and weaving behind bushes, and leaping on and off small mounds of grass-covered earth.

  ‘Well, let’s see then,’ Melaleuca said.

  She leapt into the air and somersaulted. With a sense of freedom she cavorted through the air, leaping and bounding like a lamb in spring time.

  ‘We will be fine out here Lex,’ Ari said before taking off.

  He pranced around in circles letting out great whooping sounds, dancing up a storm of savage energy.

  A swelling feeling of excitement swirled amongst them as if the dams holding in the mystery broke loose. Nothing seemed to hold them back and an utter sense of freedom overtook them. Invincible and invulnerable they all let the costumes take them over. As Quixote rode his horse, Ari strode the land feeling it beneath him, and Melaleuca delighted in the feel of flying through the air. Even Lexington felt her mind sharpen though she impatiently waited for them to finish so she could start her investigation.

  Lexington stood in one spot, her mind whirling with ideas while watching the others in action, trying to calculate what it all meant. She quelled her mind and tried to relax her fears. She could feel her intellect warring with a desire to play.

  While Melaleuca felt alive and buzzing with energy, Lexington’s words stirred in her. As thrilling as the costumes were, many questions had yet to be answered - especially around their parents. The note said that soon all would be revealed but had said nothing of their parents’ whereabouts. And she could see Lexington waiting to talk to her. She somersaulted over to Lexington.

  ‘Okay. Grab the boys and let’s start planning how we are going to move forward. Your brains, our energy.’

  Lexington beamed bright at this suggestion.

  They turned to look in the boys’ direction - they were nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 16 - The Borstal

  The Harbinger watched the cousins from one of his many hiding places though instead of the children he saw four Marauders. Lexington appeared as a gaunt-looking lady, clad in detective clothes, while Melaleuca twisted and turned - a sleek gymnast cart-wheeling gracefully. A tanned muscley North American Indian chatted freely to an unshaven cowboy who looked as if he had never bathed. Confused how they found them so quick, though pleased they had, the Harbinger walked toward the forest with stealth. He headed uphill until he reached a large tree, similar to the trees on the front lawn. He sat in-between a pair of roots and hid himself. Rough bark pressed into his skin as he peered through the cover of the trees. A gentle wind blew, breaking open a gap large enough just to make out the Throughnight Cathedral-Mansion in the distance.

  Without warning someone loomed over him and yanked him to his feet, spun him around and stuck a knife under his throat.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Argus North rasped and tightened his arm under the Harbinger’s throat.

  The Harbinger stiffened.

  ‘Do you hear?’ Argus said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I ask the questions and you answer right away. If you hesitate, I’ll know you’re lying. Understand?’

  Argus squeezed his throat a little more.

  ‘Y...y..yes.’ The Harbinger tilted his head back to keep his breathing clear.

  ‘Where am I?’ Argus asked.

  ‘New Wakefield.’

  ‘Why is it called Agorrah?’

  ‘Named that before the British arrived.’

  ‘How do I get out of here?’

  ‘B’barakai’s Incognia, mountain cave, or one of the great rivers of Golgotha.’

  ‘Do you know the way?’

  The Harbinger hesitated.

  ‘Answer!’

  Argus pressed the knife in.

  ‘It’s...it’s been too many years,’ the Harbinger said.

  Argus felt the tension melt from the Harbinger’s body, as if the memory weakened him. He let him go and spun him around.

  ‘Take me to one of them.’

  ‘Perhaps, Argus,’ the Harbinger said, glaring at him with an inner strength. ‘But if you remember, you will know the way.’

  Argus brandished his knife close to the Harbinger’s face.

  ‘How’d you know my name? Talk!’

  The Harbinger reached up and pushed the blade to one side, backing away unafraid. He sat on the tree root, relaxed and calm.

  ‘It was hoped that being bought back, you would remember. The outside world has made you such a fighter.’

  Understanding flashed across Argus’s face.

/>   ‘You’re with that bloody Antavahni.’

  ‘What of Antavahni? Tell me. Did he make it?’

  ‘Nah. He died and you will too if I don’t get out of this place.’

  The Harbinger lifted his arms up, extending them out wide. ‘Then do it. Take your blade and perform it quickly.’

  Argus jabbed his knife forward and snarled. ‘Don’t mess with me. I have killed greater than you.’

  ‘Argus - that might be true if you knew who I were.’

  ‘Last chance granddad. Tell me why I should let you live.’

  ‘I found you as a child wandering amongst the Great Southern Wasteland, Golgotha as it has become known over the ages. After months of observation I selected you. It was I who put you on the raft and set you afloat down the river.’

  ‘LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! YOU LIE!’

  ‘Then explain this land?’

  Argus screamed and fell to his knees, grabbing his hair. ‘I CAN’T!!’

  He pulled his backpack off and pulled out a video camera.

  ‘I’m not crazy,’ Argus said with a maniac expression. ‘Not crazy. See I’ve got it all on this. I have to get out of here to prove it to them.’

  The Harbinger looked on him with pity.

  ‘You want revenge don’t you?’

  Argus’s rage abated.

  ‘What do you care, anyway?’

  The Harbinger rose up and an ominous air developed around him.

  ‘The whole world is about to suffer greatly. You have been groomed in secret...though....’ He looked away, doubtful. ‘Perhaps.....perhaps we were wrong.’

  ‘Oh god, let me guess. You want me to babysit those kids.’

  ‘Your job is simple. You came from the Men of Ori. You are to go back to the Men of Ori. You are to tame them and to lead them.’

  Incredulous, Argus sneered at him.

  ‘None of that makes sense. Look at me. I’m young again. I have wealth waiting for me. I don’t want to be here!’

  ‘None of us ever do, especially not at the end. We are a somewhere-else-age. Everyone dreams of somewhere else, never where they are. You are here now. That will not change.’

  Still suspicious, Argus conceded he needed information to get out of the land, and so far the Harbinger seemed the only one that knew anything.

  ‘What’s with those kids anyway?’

  The Harbinger smiled, pleased at the question.

  ‘Good. Now you’re thinking. Questions. Questions lead to answers. Answers you need,’ the Harbinger said in a chirpy tone. ‘Follow me and I will show you.’

  ‘Wait! Who the hell are you?’

  The Harbinger grinned. ‘As I am now, I am the Harbinger. I am the last one to carry the complete knowledge. Come, follow.’

  Argus and the Harbinger sat hidden behind a tree, peering out. A cowboy and an Indian tore across the fields behind the Cathedral-Mansion, and then a Gymnast and a Victorian sleuth ran after them.

  ‘Who are they?’ Argus asked.

  ‘The children.’

  ‘They look nothing like them.’ Argus snorted in anger. ‘This explains nothing.’

  ‘Those are the children. They are wearing Pangean Bracelets that bestow upon them powers. Powers that only work when they wear the costumes hidden in the Mansion and when the person is an innocent.’

  ‘Innocent.’ Argus scoffed. ‘Everyone is guilty of something.’

  ‘In the mind of the innocent all the possibilities in the world sit before them. They can do anything as they do not yet know what cannot be done. It is an uncorrupted mind.’

  ‘What a pile of ─ ’

  ‘Their parents taught them through play, and taught them to teach themselves. They are perfect.’

  Enraged, Argus turned on the Harbinger, pinning him against the tree. ‘So you’re manipulating them like you did me! What the hell are you up to? What do you have planned for them?’

  The Harbinger sighed. ‘You have no choice, Argus. You simply cannot leave, as I suspect you have already found out. By day the sea border is patrolled. Why, I don’t know, as no one can find this land. By night the seas swell and any attempt to cross them would smash you to pieces. The land to the west is impassable, and the deep reaches of the southern wasteland would freeze you to death. The mountain cave cannot be navigated alone. You are trapped. You only have one choice. Do the job you are here to do.’

  Argus fumed and eyeballed him before releasing him.

  ‘Why I would want to do this? Being trapped is not reason enough.’

  ‘Good. Another question. Follow me and I will show you the bracelets and the clothes room.’

  Reaching out, the Harbinger pressed a crease in the bark and the tree shook and its side fell into it, revealing a dark hole and some stone steps leading down.

  ‘We can’t have the Mansion staff seeing you.’ The Harbinger chuckled and stepped down with great care. ‘This will take us into the dungeons. From there...oh look, just follow, easier to show you than to explain.’

  ***

  Ari and Quixote tore through the forest, bursting with energy, stopping when they reached the spot where they had seen the scared boy.

  ‘Mighty impressed,’ Quixote said. ‘You injuns sure track good.’

  Ari crouched down, eyeing the blades of grass, and caressed broken twigs and snapped ends of leaves. The trees above them shook as if something solid hit it.

  ‘Hold up guys,’ Melaleuca’s voice said from above.

  ‘Tarnation girl,’ Quixote said. ‘How-ja get up there?’

  She leapt to another tree and grabbed a branch, flipping herself around it, and then shot off to the next tree. She somersaulted with perfect grace and landed on the ground. Quixote dropped out of his cowboy character, applauding and lauding her with several, ‘Oooo’s.’

  ‘I have to have a go of that costume as well,’ Quixote said approaching Melaleuca.

  ‘Now?’

  He nodded. She laughed.

  ‘I will stand naked in the woods another day. I am sure there will be plenty of time to try them all out. Now, boys - what exactly are you doing?’

  ‘I just wanted to see if I could track the scared kid we met,’ Ari said.

  ‘We are going to rescue him and shoot us some bad guys,’ Quixote added.

  Both Melaleuca and Ari looked surprised.

  ‘I was just going to track him Qui,’ Ari said.

  ‘Exactly the problem,’ Melaleuca said. ‘We need a plan. We need to think, and we need to work out what is going on.’ Her sharp featured face assumed an “I’ve-made-a-decision” look.

  Ari started to say something but Melaleuca looked at him and he thought better of it. And just to make sure, she laid her eyes on Quixote and saw he realised not to argue the point with her.

  ‘Good. As much as I don’t like sounding like Lexington – I think it may be time to take stock.’

  Ari’s nose twitched and then twitched again and then again. He grabbed it and tried to stop it though the twitching grew out of control. He caught a whiff of a scent, and in his mind’s eye he saw Captain HeGood and FumpHee. A smell trail too tantalising to resist appeared before him and he scrambled after it, saying, ‘Sorry.’

  Garbed in her heavy detective cloak, Lexington stumbled up the hill, puffing and panting in time to see an annoyed Melaleuca watch Ari and Quixote charge off once again through the bush.

  ‘Where are they going?’ she asked.

  Melaleuca shrugged her shoulders. ‘They think they are tracking that boy Ari told us about.’

  She somersaulted off at speed, leaping from tree to tree to keep up with them. Sweating, Lexington took off her cloak. She had wanted something with intellectual power though did not think it too intelligent for this type of adventure. She folded it as best as she could and ran off after them.

  Ari followed the smell trail, stopping at a steep drop. He could see bushes smashed at the bottom and a trail leading off. It carried on back toward where he had come f
rom, though now he could see three different smell trails. With Quixote following, he headed back and came across Melaleuca soaring from tree to tree. He flashed a hand sign at her, meaning for her to follow. An out-of-breath Lexington appeared out of the trees and looked puzzled when he gestured at her to follow them as well.

  ‘Where to?’ Lexington said.

  ‘Follow,’ Melaleuca shouted back from high in one of the trees. ‘Move forward.’

  ‘But...’

  Ari stuck to the smell trail with a dogged determination and the others followed him at a steady pace. They crossed the forest for quite some distance and headed west away from the sea. Despite her own instruction, Melaleuca wanted to explore and Ari’s foray was the perfect reason to do so, and besides in truth, her feelings agreed with their mothers’ words – “move forward.”

  By midday they burst out of the forest and on to a scrubby clear opening. They dropped down through some rocks and crossed a small scree face before coming out into an open field. The field appeared out of place as if someone had mown a section of rough earth, flattened it and planted crops. Square in shape, it spread out over a vast area, though beyond it to the south and west, patches of forest and scrubby slopes carried on into the hills.

  Melaleuca took the time to assess where they were. Ari paused and along with Lexington and Quixote gazed out over the field. Ari and Quixote walked a few feet into the field and Lexington shuffled behind them puzzling over the crops.

  ‘Ow,’ Lexington cried out and grabbed for her calf muscle.

  Melaleuca leapt through the air and landed beside her, winching in pain as something sharp dug into her calf as well.

  ‘What are these?’

  Being careful not to move, Lexington bent down and pulled a long-pronged thistle out of her sock and then prodded the sharp end with her finger.

  ‘Ow. What a most malicious plant. Some type of thistle I think.’

  Quixote turned and walked back through the thistles, his boots protecting him. Ari strode through them as well, unaffected despite his moccasins being thinner than Quixote’s boots. Ari stretched his eyes over the whole field as far as he could see.