DARK FAÏZ Book 3: Dawn never keeps its promises

by Sandra L. Kiss

  "Bring the weapons," he commanded Goareb and another Leviathan of an equally imposing build and unorthodox style.

  "No, wait," intervened the CIA's deputy director. "You can't just..."

  A large metal suitcase was thrown on the table. Faïz opened it without delay and began to distribute AK-47s and Glocks with their magazines to Ray, David and his fellow men.

  "I can't what?" he asked, in a threatening tone to the high-ranked chief. "From now on, you will follow my instructions."

  "Faïz," Barthey intervened, raising his hand in front of him. "You can't kill Pavel, if so the stone..."

  "I know!" he barked. "The ruby will only have an effect if he's still breathing."

  He reloaded the gun in his hand with a quick motion.

  "And don't worry about that, he will still breathe," added Faïz, a fierce expression on his face.

  Then he turned to me and laid his eyes on my necklace, which was hanging around my neck. With an agile gesture, he tore it off with ease.

  "What are you doing?" said, shocked.

  "The ruby is inside the jewel. You had it with you from the beginning," he explained without adding anything more.

  My arms fell down along my body in front of this revelation. He then addressed Ray and David before I had time to add anything else.

  "Go to Elora. Take a first-aid kit with you."

  The two young men executed the orders. Ray glanced tenderly at Asarys before leaving the room with David in a hurry.

  "Barthey, take as many men with you as you can to free the population from the hands of these rebel warriors."

  "I'd need a Leviathan in every unit," said the inspector without paying attention to Peyton's glare.

  "All right. Goareb, can you handle this?"

  The gallant soldier nodded and told Barthey to follow him. Faïz turned towards Masha, then his gaze fell on the girls and me:

  "She's going with you," he declared, leaving me no choice.

  "We don't need her! I have no desire to have her around."

  A grin appeared in the corner of his lips.

  "We'll solve your little jealousy problem later," he murmured while handing out weapons. "Right now, my only priority is my daughter."

  His forehead frowned and I perceived at that moment, a great authority in the sound of his voice.

  "When you're with Elijah, leave him in Masha's hands. You and your friends will wait for me at my house."

  I wanted to protest, but his icy irises stopped me in my way. He looked over my shoulder.

  "Asarys, Lexy, take care of her."

  When I turned to my two acolytes, I saw that their eyes reflected a determination to do whatever it took.

  "Faïz," called out Lexy, embarrassed. "It was Jul who dropped us off here earlier. We don't have a car."

  He took a quick glance at one of the Leviathans who hastened to give my friend the key to his car before adding in a deep, rocky voice:

  "It's a vintage black Chevrolet, so the..."

  "I'll be OK, thank you," Asarys said unkindly as she took the keys from Lexy's hands.

  She looked up at the ceiling before she left the room grumbling:

  "Men and their cars, it's unbelievable!"

  The early afternoon was gloomy, although the rain had stopped falling. As for the wind, it was increasing in intensity. We sat in the Chevrolet, parked outside the building. We were stunned by the intensity of the gusts that slapped our faces. Lexy and Masha sat in the back while I hurried into the passenger seat alongside Asarys who had decided to drive.

  "What's this now?" my friend screamed at the steering wheel as she discovered the gearbox.

  "It's manual, so what?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "Why isn't it an automatic? All the cars are..."

  "The owner tried to warn you," Masha said in a dull tone. "But you ran away with his keys, without even a thank you."

  The three of us turned to her. The young woman, who possessed such natural beauty, suddenly got up uncomfortably before our eyes, which expressed no sympathy for her.

  "I can take care of kicking her out now if you agree," said Asarys in an acidic voice while continuing to shoot her a dark gaze.

  "Hey!"

  Lexy challenged Masha in a tone full of animosity.

  "You're not part of our group! No one's giving you the floor here, and no one's asking you to take it. OK?"

  The young woman stared at us one after the other, frowning, before retorting:

  "But are you serious? Your group, I don't care. I just said... whatever, forget it."

  She swept the air with a gesture of her hand and turned towards her window, without adding anything.

  "Now that the Muppet show is over, can we go?" asked Lexy, addressing Asarys.

  "No!" she replied, trying to control herself. "It's a manual gearbox."

  "Yes, I know. There's plenty of them in France."

  "But we're not in France, for God's sake!" Asarys raged, her eyes revolted with anger. "You piss me off, you the French, quantifying your figures to make them as long as possible, to stick manual boxes in your cars and add the word 'little' before each word. I'm not even talking about your 'Ouh la la.'"

  "I'll drive," I said in a compassionate tone.

  "In the end, your act was definitely more interesting than the Muppet's," provoked Lexy. "All that tragedy in your voice, Ouh la la."

  "Shut up!" ordered Asarys who was sitting in my seat.

  I turned off the engine of the car near the Marina Del Ray Harbor and stuck my face in my hands to think better.

  "Where can he be?" whispered Asarys, worried.

  "We've went through the whole town, your house and the places he used to go," summed Lexy in the back.

  "He can't have left town," I thought out loud. "Elijah would never leave without saying goodbye, without seeing us one last time. All the buildings and stores are closed. The roads are blocked."

  I threw my head against the headrest behind me and closed my eyes, demotivated.

  "Your friend might be confined in one of the city's public places with other people."

  Masha's words made Asarys and Lexy sigh. Before they decided to murder her on the spot, I turned the rear-view mirror to stab my eyes into hers. The young woman seemed to be unsettled for a second by the intensity of the color of my eyes, and for once I was happy with the effect they were having on someone.

  "Elijah's not the kind of person to mingle. He's a solitary person."

  "And on top of that, he's poor as a church mouse," Lexy adds.

  Asarys turned to Masha:

  "Did Faïz tell you why he needs him?"

  "No," Masha articulated sententiously. "We talked about a lot of things, but not about that homeless uncle."

  I shook my head and swallowed my exasperation. I put the rear-view mirror back so I wouldn't have to look at her anymore.

  "What do we do now?" Asarys asked in a low voice.

  I looked away briefly to gather my thoughts. Georgia's smiling face appeared to me in that instant. Her image was heartbreaking. A sudden urge to cry made me pinch my lips to blood. Suddenly, a cliff overlooking the ocean came into my thoughts.

  "Rogers State Beach!" I cried suddenly.

  "Is he there?" asked Asarys, full of hope.

  The relief quickly faded away inside me when a shattering noise, which evoked a feeling of depressurization, tore the sky apart. The four of us raised our heads. The Dome seemed to be shaking under a shock wave, ready to explode.

  "Drive!" shouted Asarys. "Let's find Elijah before the Dome releases an overflow of energy."

  Without waiting, I started the car and hit the gas pedal to get to Rogers State Beach as fast as possible. The tires squealed as I turned into the lane, leaving a trail of black smoke behind us.

  "Pavel activated the laser shots," exclaimed Masha, also panicked.

  "What good would blowing up the Dome do him?" Lexy asked.

  "The Dome is supposed to protect the city from any
outside threat," Asarys answered in her place.

  "Pavel can't attack L.A. with atomic weapons as long as the Dome is here," Masha added.

  "The laser shots consist of what?" I asked, concentrating on the road, my foot on the floor.

  "The Dome is a shield made primarily of electromagnetic fields. These shots create an electric arc which in turn produces an emission of short electromagnetic waves with very high amplitudes. These waves heat the air until they produce a powerful shock wave, enough to destroy it."

  "Call Barthey or Faïz to warn them," I tell Asarys.

  "It's too late, the network's down. All means of communication are at a standstill," Masha warned us.

  "She's right," Asarys confided while looking at her smartphone. "Another one of the powers of these electromagnetic waves."

  We walked along the coast without paying attention to the landscape. The twilight was gradually stifling the weak daylight, helped by the threatening black clouds that had gathered over the city. Fortunately, the roads were deserted and the headlights were shining brightly on the road.

  "How much longer?" Asarys asked, nervously running her hands through her hair.

  "Five minutes," I replied in a solemn tone.

  Deep down, I prayed for Elijah to be there. He had to be there, even though I didn't yet know how he could be useful to us in this story.

  I rushed to the small parking lot overlooking the ocean. I had the reflex to turn off the engine before getting out of the vehicle and continued the last few meters running. The girls followed me closely. None of them slowed down until they reached the top of Rogers State Beach.

  "Where is he?" cried Asarys, out of breath.

  The area was desert. From here, we had a panoramic view of Santa Monica and the nearby coasts drowned in a thick fog. The clouds were getting darker and darker, announcing an imminent catastrophe over the city.

  "The wind will eventually blow us away if we stay here!" Lexy shouted to be heard.

  Her voice was lost in the strong gusts of wind even more violent at this altitude.

  "Elijah!" I screamed in despair. "Elijah!"

  "Zoe, below!" exclaimed Asarys.

  My gaze fell on a small fisherman's hut, just below us, not far from the beach, on the cliffside. It merged with the rocks that surrounded it. My eyes widened when I saw the silhouette of Elijah waving his arms above him to signal us to come.

  The girls and I rushed into this makeshift home to escape the gusts of wind that seemed to be chasing us. The place, with its light-colored wooden facades, wasn't very big. Its only luxury was the view of the ocean, which was too rough in the early evening to enjoy. Inside, about ten people were gathered, including families with young children. All these people, glued together, looked scared by what was going on outside. Silent sobs were running down some of the faces. I could read the distress and anguish on most of them. I held my breath in the face of this surrounding tension, and with a slight nod I invited Elijah, who was staring at me with a tense face, to come and meet me near the entrance.

  "Look, you need to come with us. We need you," I said in a voice I was desperately trying to control.

  My friend looked at the girls, his eyes full of suspicion.

  "Why?" he asked with an ounce of mistrust in his voice. "Zoe, I can't abandon all these people now."

  Elijah pointed to Masha's head:

  "And who is she? What's she doing with you?"

  "We're wondering about that too!" Lexy replied with a somewhat forced laugh.

  I shot her a black gaze and she replied with big eyes.

  "It's a long story," I said, sweeping the air with a quick wave of my hand. "Faïz asked us to take you to him."

  Elijah frowned and looked at me:

  "He's preparing to fight Athanasius."

  "But why does he want me there for this? I can't help him!"

  My friend left his sentence hanging and started grumbling:

  "I didn't talk to you, Condor! It's easy for you to give orders. I don't understand their story anyway."

  "Listen to your little buddy for once," exclaimed Lexy with a supplication in her voice.

  "There it is again! "The word 'little' comes back again," sighed Asarys, raising her arms to the sky.

  "Condor? Who's that guy?" Masha asked, completely lost.

  I grabbed my friend's hands. With my tense expression, he easily guessed that something serious had happened. His gaze immediately changed from annoyance to anxiety.

  "Where is she?" he murmured in a frail voice talking about Georgia.

  His fawn eyes became like fire under ember and he suddenly seemed to be in the grip of a violent emotion.

  "Faïz needs you to find her. Please come with us."

  Elijah nodded without letting go of his dark and tormented look.

  "Meredith?" he called.

  A blonde woman with pale complexion and gray eyes appeared at our side.

  "I'm putting you in charge of the group's surveillance. I have a family emergency. Don't let anyone leave without reminding them of the danger out there."

  "The Dome is about to disappear," Masha intervened.

  The blonde woman nodded and put a comforting hand on Elijah's shoulder before adding:

  "Take good care of yourself and come back and let us know when things have calmed down outside."

  My friend stared at Meredith with a pale look on his face. I then noticed signs of deep melancholy on his dark-skinned face. He seemed not to have heard her. Instead of addressing her any answer, he turned without a word and walked out of the hut without looking behind him.

  We hit the road again without delay. Elijah, sitting beside me, was silent. His gaze turned to the window, and he focused on contemplating this apocalyptic view. It was dark, but the buildup of static electricity created by the laser shots used to destroy the Dome was creating a plasma over the city that was charged with lightning and thunder.

  "Isn't it now when your Sylphs intervene to control and protect the flow of nature?" Elijah asked indignantly.

  "They're currently mastering the ocean current near the Arctic," I replied, my eyes glued to the road, my thoughts heavy.

  "Well, can you tell us why Faïz needs you?" Lexy asked.

  "Yes, we'd like to know!" Asarys added.

  Elijah sighed deeply.

  "I don't know myself, but I want to save Georgia."

  Lexy insisted:

  "Faïz never involves anyone in his missions and even less someone ordinary with whom he has no communication."

  Elijah scowled:

  "Being an ordinary person suits me. I was fine in my corner before I met all of you and your bunch of fairy-tale lunatics and superheroes."

  "You're talking to your invisible friend," Lexy reminded him who was still looking for a confrontation with my friend.

  Condor, is this his imaginary friend? Like those children in need of affection or security who create a character for themselves?" tried to understand Masha.

  "Condor exists!" Elijah got angry. "I don't even know why I'm talking to you. My Georgia would shut you up if she heard you talking about him like that."

  At the entrance of Santa Monica Mountains National Park, I slowed down before stopping on the side of the road.

  "Masha, guide me to your father's house."

  "Who's her father?" asked my friend, intrigued.

  "It's Pavel. The Maestro has chosen his body to incarnate on Earth," replied Asarys in my place, sitting deep in her seat with her arms crossed.

  Elijah slowly turned his head towards me, waiting for me to confirm her words.

  "It's the truth."

  He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  "There's nothing I can do against the Maestro. Faïz is wrong, I'm not strong enough."

  This solid man, this rock, suddenly seemed to express a renunciation which meaning escaped me.

  I opened my mouth to reassure him, but no sound came out. I never meant to put my friend in danger. That wasn't my g
oal. Under no circumstances should he fight alongside Faïz, no! Only a Leviathan could stand up to a being endowed with evil powers, and it's not sure. What could possibly eradicate evil on Earth? Masha broke the leaden silence inside the vehicle:

  "You'll leave Elijah and me at the entrance to Pavel's mansion."

  "No way!" I objected, shooting her an evil look. "I'm going with you."

  "Me too," said Asarys.

  "I'm right with you," Lexy added.

  Masha, taken aback, pulled herself together:

  "Faïz doesn't want..."

  "Faïz suspects very well that I'm not going home to play a game of cards," I cut her dryly. "My daughter is probably there, scared to death."

  The tone of my voice at the end of my sentence almost went into a whisper.

  "But you can go home. No one is forcing you to stay," intervened Asarys with a look of contempt.

  Masha couldn't find any support on our faces. In a weak position, she nodded grudgingly, then added in a downcast voice:

  "At the next intersection, you'll have to turn right. The road isn't recommended for this type of car. I hope it will hold up."

  I turned the key and drove off. The night soaked up the Chevrolet, which sank through the tree curtains.

  FAÏZ

  The young man would never have thought, a few hours earlier, that he would find himself in this house, more frightening than gloomy, with a torch in his hand. The windows were sealed with bricks. The dusty floor and furniture suggested that Pavel's house was almost abandoned. The walls were covered in places with a thick, mold-like paste. A strong musty, damp smell emanated from the walls. As for the ceiling, soaked by the rain, it seemed to sag. Faïz, at the cost of a laborious effort, remained on his guard, concentrating only on the surrounding noise. He knew he didn't have much time left. The Dome would explode any minute. The young man touched the case at the bottom of his trouser pocket to make sure he was still in possession of the stone that was supposed to imprison the Maestro in Pavel's body forever.

  He was about to go upstairs when a rattling of chains suddenly caught his attention. The sound seemed to come from further down below the house. There must be a way down, he thought. He began to explore more carefully the corners of the old ruined building. After touching every inch of the damp wall, Faïz accidentally pushed the wooden table a little harder than he would have liked. The piece of furniture crashed against the wall which threatened to collapse. The young man spat out his lungs as he lifted the large carpet. The dust was such that it covered his clothes. His eyes fell on a padlocked trap door, which he pulled out with one hand without difficulty.