When she felt there was enough water in the tub, she slid into the water and sank under the bubbles. This was exactly what she needed. She stayed in the tub until the water started to cool off. She got out, dried herself off, and put her jammies on. After brushing her teeth, she left the bathroom and went to sit next to Ben on the couch.
“Feel better?” he asked, putting his arm around her.
“Mmm hmm, much,” she told him. “You should try it sometime.”
“I’m not sure a bubble bath is a very manly thing to do,” he said with a grin.
“Don’t knock it until you try it. The hot water is very soothing, and bubbles just make you happy.”
“I guess I know what to get you for Valentine’s Day then. A whole basket of bubble bath stuff.”
“I wouldn’t say no to that,” Alix said with a smile. “I just hope we make it until then. I know it’s only a couple of weeks away, but the way things have been going you just never know.”
“Nope, enough of that. No more thoughts of Grynn or anything bad tonight,” Ben told her. “Just you and me and Edward, Bella and Jacob.”
“Huh?”
Ben laughed at the look on her face. “Didn’t you see what I found on TV?”
“No,” Alix said, then looked at the screen. She smiled. “Twilight. And it just started. You’re really trying to earn points for best boyfriend of the year, aren’t you?”
“Yep. Is it working?”
“Yes,” Alix grinned at him and curled up next to him. This was exactly what she needed to end the day.
****
Alix found herself wandering around the library at Fox Hollow. She was browsing the books when she heard something. Walking out from in between the shelves she saw someone standing in front of the fireplace. At first, she thought it was Ben or Rick, but when they turned around she was surprised to see it was her ancestor William.
“Hey,” Alix said. “Nice to see you again.”
“Beware the Essus,” he said.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Beware the Essus,” he said again.
“What is an Essus William? I don’t understand.”
He started fading away.
“Beware the Essus,” he said, and faded into nothing.
****
Alix woke up with her head on Ben’s shoulder. She’d fallen asleep on the couch curled up on him.
“Hey,” Ben said smiling.
“Hey. How long have I been asleep?”
“Not long, maybe thirty minutes. You missed the end of the movie, though,” he said, with a smile.
“It’s not like I haven’t seen it a hundred times,” Alix said, returning his smile. “I had a strange dream. My ancestor William was there. He kept saying beware the Essus. I don’t understand what he’s talking about. I asked him, but he just kept repeating the same thing.”
“Maybe we can look into that in the morning. We can always ask Gordon. He’s full of information.”
“Okay.” As usual, Alix wanted answers now but knew it was late so asking anyone anything was going to have to wait.
“You ready to go to bed?” Ben asked.
“Yeah. I think I better fall asleep in bed this time rather than on you.”
“I don’t mind,” Ben said grinning.
“You will when your neck hurts tomorrow from falling asleep sitting up.”
“You’re probably right. So, get off me and get to bed,” Ben said trying to sound serious. He failed and started laughing.
Alix shoved him playfully and got off the couch. She crawled under the covers while Ben went to brush his teeth. A few minutes later he joined her under the covers. He pulled her close and Alix relaxed against him. She needed Ben’s comfort after dealing with Victor.
When she woke the next morning, she was alone, but she could hear the shower running. She turned on her back and stared at the ceiling. There were two things going through her head; how had Victor known how to find her and what was an Essus? She hoped to answer at least one of them today.
After Ben finished in the bathroom, it was her turn. She had a quick shower and got dressed. They went downstairs to the kitchen hoping they hadn’t missed breakfast. Several people were at the table, including Logan.
“Hey Logan,” Ben said, “when did you get here?”
“Not long ago. Gordon came to get me in the middle of the night,” he said, with a hint of a smile.
Alix saw Gordon smile back. “You make it sound worse than it is Master Logan,” Gordon said. “We needed you here for breakfast and I can’t help the time difference.”
“Sure, Gordon, you just like scaring people half to death in the wee hours of the morning,” Logan said.
Alix smiled at their exchange. It was nice to see that they were close.
“So, why are you here?” Alix asked.
“I think it has to do with my computer skills and the whole contact lens factory thing.”
That peaked Alix’s interest. “So, does that mean we’ve got control of the factory?” she asked Ruth.
“Mostly,” Ruth told her.
“What does mostly mean?” Alix asked.
“We’ve managed to take out all the Grynn who were in the factory and protecting the outside. The team leader wanted to give it a few more hours to see if any more Grynn showed up.”
“So, does that mean we’ll be going there soon?”
“I believe so.” Ruth looked at her phone. “It’s almost 5:00 pm in Beijing so it’s an hour until shift change. We’re going to wait until then to see what happens.”
Alix nodded and went to make her coffee. She smiled when she saw her favorite hazelnut creamer in the fridge. She took a sip and sat down at the table. Merideth had put out an assortment of muffins. Alix grabbed one. She started eating it, but her mind was back on her dream.
“Has anyone here ever heard of an Essus?” she asked the group.
“What is it in reference to?” Gordon asked.
“I’m not really sure,” she said. “I’ve had two dreams now that warn me to beware the Essus. It sounds like a name or something, but we’ve tried looking it up and can’t find anything that makes sense.”
“I will think on it, Miss Alix,” Gordon said.
Even when they were finished eating everyone stayed in the kitchen. They were all waiting to hear from the team in Beijing. When Ruth’s phone rang an hour later the kitchen went silent. The conversation was short.
“It appears if the situation in Beijing has been contained. But there will still be a team there twenty-four hours a day to protect the factory and workers.”
“So, what does that mean for us?” Ben asked.
“A small group of us will go to the factory and see if we can get it up and running with our version of the contact lenses that will help us,” Ruth said. “Alix, Ben, Logan and Kris will go to Beijing. We’ll be met by a team of Warriors to accompany us. You must not tell anyone outside this room what our plan is. We must keep Alix safe and since we still don’t know how Victor knew where to find her, we’re going to keep this circle small. Even the teams in Beijing don’t know that she’ll be there. We’ll leave in the next hour.”
“So, I’m left out again,” Shay said.
Natalie put her arm around Shay and said, “Maybe you and I can convince Gordon to take us shopping.”
That put a smile on Shay’s face. “I like the way you think.”
“Whatever you end up doing just be careful,” Alix said. “You know I trust Gordon with your life, so I know he’ll protect you.”
“So will Rick and I,” Natalie said.
Alix had a thought. “Shay, does your mom know you’re here?”
“Yes. She said I could do whatever was needed for you as long as I kept her in the loop. And before you say it, yes, I told her not to tell a soul. If she needed to talk to anyone, she could talk to your mom but that was it.”
Alix smiled at her. “Good thinking, Shay. And I promise that one d
ay you and I will see the whole world together.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Shay said, pointing at Alix.
“I know you will,” Alix smiled. “Now I’ve got to run and get a few things from my room.”
Chapter 23
Alix was back downstairs with the Power Stone, metal bird, pearl and small white rock from Stonehenge. She still didn’t know what the rock did, but she knew better than to go to China without them. The pearl had helped her save Shay’s life, so all four items were going to go with her.
Everyone had gathered by the fireplace. The only person they were waiting for was Ruth. A few minutes later, she was there and that meant it was time to go. Alix said her goodbyes and they entered the secret passageway and headed for the room of rooms.
Ruth led the way through the blue door. Just like in Brazil, as soon as Alix stepped through the second door, she knew she was somewhere very different from Sunset Creek. The room looked like she imagined it would. Beautiful carved wooden accents all done in what she guessed was a typical Chinese style. They seemed to be in the main living area. There were chairs, a couch and a table. She wanted to explore the house, but they didn’t have time for that right now. The Warrior team was already waiting for them.
When they stepped outside Alix shivered. She put her hoodie on but was wishing she had a coat. It was a lot colder there than she was expecting. Next time, she was going through the blue door she was going to check the weather.
They got into what looked like a small cargo van. There were seats on the sides in the back of the van, but not like she was used to. She was glad there were seat belts though. Alix did her best to see out the front windshield as they drove. She wanted to see more of the city, but understood the need for a vehicle with no windows.
The safe house had been somewhat in the country, but the farther they drove the busier it got. There were people, bicycles and cars everywhere. She’d thought Rio de Janeiro was crowded but this was ten times worse. Ben and Logan were looking at everything just as hard as she was.
About an hour later, they were finally at their destination. The van pulled right into the building before they were allowed out. Alix could tell that everyone was glad to be out of the cramped van. Their group was taken to an office on the second floor. From there they could see the whole factory floor.
“Welcome to Beijing. My name is Li Wei, but you can just call me Lee,” he said to them.
“Nice to meet you, Lee,” Alix said, and stood to shake his hand.
Instead, Lee did a small bow in her direction. Alix didn’t know how to respond to that. She looked at Ruth for some direction. Ruth mouth “Bow back”, so she did.
“It is a pleasure to serve the Kaelneth,” Lee said to her.
“Please call me Alix,” she told him. “And you don’t need to bow.” Alix understood it was a sign of respect but didn’t want him to keep doing it.
Alix sat down and let Ruth take over. She knew way more about what was going on with the factory than Alix did. It turned out Lee had only been at the factory since last night. But he had experience in understanding how factories in China worked, so he’d been up all night learning everything he could about this one.
His main priority had been trying to figure out how to get Nykara magic into the contact lenses, but so far, he’d had no luck. And since the workers were human, they had no idea that they weren’t making regular contact lenses so they weren’t any help.
“I may be of some assistance,” Logan said. “Is there a computer I can have access to?”
“Of course, you can use this one,” Lee said.
He moved out from behind the desk and let Logan sit down. Logan went to start typing, but just stared at the screen.
“Um … this is all in Chinese characters. I don’t know how to read Chinese.”
Alix and Ben looked at each other and smiled. It shouldn’t have surprised them, but they still weren’t used to travelling the world. Of course, the computer would be in Chinese since they were in a Chinese factory in China.
“My apologies,” Lee said. “There are other computers in English. Follow me.”
Not only did Logan follow him, but so did the whole group. Logan got on a computer and started hitting the keys.
“This might take me a while and it’s not going to go any faster with everyone staring at me,” he said.
“Lee, how about a tour of the facility?” Ruth asked, giving Logan a smile.
“Certainly,” Lee said, and led them out of the room.
One Warrior stayed with Logan, but everyone else was taken down to the factory floor. Alix was fascinated as she watched the contacts being made. Normally, the contacts were made from a liquid plastic but the Grynn had been able to use gelatin instead. They watched as the liquid was injected into molds. Instead of heat to cure them, infrared light was used. Alix thought the process was similar to getting your nails done.
It was the final step where she guessed the magic was added. The lenses were put in a machine that was completely covered from sight that was probably still infusing the Grynn magic in them. As far as the human workers knew, they were just making a brand-new type of contact that everyone could wear comfortably.
Alix needed to look into that machine. “Can we open this?” she asked Lee.
He shook his head. “We haven’t been able to find a way to get inside it yet.”
Alix nodded and went closer to the big box covering whatever was inside. She put her tattoo on the metal and tried to feel any residual magic that would have been left from the Grynn. As she suspected there was a barrier of Grynn magic around it. She knew how to get rid of it but didn’t want to do it in front of the workers.
“Lee,” she said, “can the workers take a break? I need to do magic and don’t want them to get suspicious.”
“Of course.” Lee said something in Chinese, and the workers all went to a door at the back of the factory floor.
Alix thanked him and went to work on the box. This felt very similar to the barrier that had been around the box Shay had been locked in. Pulling all the Grynn magic into her made her feel just as nauseous as it had last time. But she was much faster at it now. Within seconds, she had the evil energy in her hands and blasted it into nothing. They were now able to open the box and see what was inside. Ben and Alix were running their hands along the metal to feel for a door or something.
Suddenly, a door banged open and Logan ran towards them. “Don’t open that,” he yelled.
Both Alix and Ben immediately stepped back. Logan took a moment to catch his breath before speaking.
“If you open that the whole place might explode,” Logan said. “According to the plans I’ve found so far, there’s some kind of strong energy in there. We’re going to have to find a way to remove it. I also learned a little bit about how the magic gets into the contacts. I don’t know how exactly they made it, but inside that box is some kind of magical replicator. Each contact that goes through there is somehow imprinted with the magic that is the master copy.”
“So, how do we get our magic in there?” Alix asked.
“I need more time to figure that part out. I just know that the Grynn magic is still in there and if you’d opened the box, it would have been let loose and who knows what would have happened then.”
“Well, for once we had good timing,” Alix said. “You keep doing the computer thing and I’ll sniff this out with my magic. And I promise not to open it.”
“Deal,” Logan said and headed back to the office he was using.
Now that the barrier was gone and Alix had a little bit of a clue what was in the box, she could use her magic to “see” inside. She sent little tendrils of magic to scan around the box. She was looking for a way to send her magic into the box. After a few minutes she wasn’t finding anything.
“What’s up?” Ben asked.
“I can’t find a way in,” Alix told him. “It’s like it’s completely airtight. But that doesn’t even make
any sense since the contacts have to pass through it. My magic can pretty much get anywhere, even the tiniest little crack. I don’t get it.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Ben said. “Just another thing the Grynn have managed to do to confuse us.”
Alix walked away from the metal box. She needed to think. She walked around the various stations that did different things to the contacts. She was thinking about different ways to see inside the box, when her leg started feeling warm. It actually stopped her in her tracks. Why was the top of her left leg getting warm? She put her hand over the spot and realized that whatever was making her leg hot was in her pocket.
She pulled the four small things out of her pocket and noticed that the small white rock had a pulsing glow to it.
“Hey Ben, come here,” Alix said urgently. Ben walked over to her quickly. “Look at this.” She showed him the rock.
“That’s new,” he said.
“Yeah. A minute ago, I felt something hot on my leg and realized it was coming from my pocket. This is what I found.”
“What do you think it’s trying to tell you?”
“I have no idea. I was just wandering around here trying to think of a way to see inside the box and that’s when it got warm.”
“I think you should take it over to the box and see what happens.”
Alix couldn’t see anything wrong with that, so they walked back over to where everyone was still standing. She put the other three items back in her pocket and put the small rock in the palm of her hand, right in the middle of her tattoo. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but she was going to be ready for anything.
She held up her hand and put it close to the box. The rock started glowing stronger. It was a bright white light that was almost too much to look at. Then she could feel something happening to the rock and it started changing color. It took all her concentration to figure out what was happening. The magic from inside the box was somehow being drawn into the rock and the more evil energy it contained, the darker the glow became until it looked like a glowing piece of obsidian. Everyone was staring at her.
Believe Page 13