Dire Symbols

by W A Rowland

  “Proving a point,” Bast answered then looked at Liam, her eyes lit up with an idea. “Liam, you said that when Thea tried to hit you earlier, you absently thought that she was going to punch through you, correct?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I saw her coming and panicked a bit, I guess,” he said, rubbing his shoulder from Thea’s last kick, which had not netted an enhanced ability.

  “I wonder if it’s that easy,” Bast said to herself. “Liam, I want you to put your hand on Michael’s shoulder, but instead of thinking that Thea is going to put her fist through your face, I want you to close your eyes and imagine Michael rebuilding the wall. Try to get a specific image in your head of how he might to do it,” she instructed.

  Liam nodded and did as he was told, putting a hand on the thin man’s shoulder and closing his eyes. “Lily? Are you there?” he asked first.

  “Hmm? I’m here, what happened?” she asked.

  “Not sure, but Bast wants us to try to augment Michael’s construction power. Are you up for it?” Liam responded.

  “Sure, *yawn* let’s give it a go,” she said and Liam began to visualize Michael reforming the wall from dust.

  “Uhh boss, what’s going on—!” Michael screeched then tensed and jerked a bit falling to the floor gasping. “What the hell did he just do!” he yelled looking up wide-eyed at Bast.

  “Sorry! I didn’t mean to!” Liam said quickly and apologetically. Lily was silent again.

  “Michael, I want you to fix the wall,” Bast said commandingly.

  “I told you already, I’ll need more material to work with, that is if I can still work after whatever he just did. My guide said it felt like getting electro-shock therapy to him,” Michael said irascibly.

  “Just humor me, Michael. Try to fix the hole,” Bast said smiling.

  Michael sighed and reached out his hand from his kneeling position. The dust piled under the wall began to swirl. Pieces of cinderblock rolled and reshaped, floating into cracks and crevices.

  “Woah…” Michael gasped, his eyes closed tightly, a slack jawed expression on his face. The wall continued to reconstruct in front of their eyes, becoming fully fixed in under a minute. The last bit of dust on the carpet floated up and into the wall, and Michael opened his eyes. “That was incredible!” he said, jumping up and excitedly grabbing Liam’s shoulders. “Damn, man, what was that?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of a demi who enhanced abilities.”

  “What exactly did you feel, Michael?” Bast asked, intrigued.

  “Like I said, my guide felt like they got shocked, but when I activated my ability, it was like I could see the individual atoms in the wreckage. I didn’t just pick up the pieces and fuse them back together like normal. I could change them, tear apart, and recombine them. And it wasn’t just the wall either. I could see the carpet, the wall, the air even. Everything. It was like my sensitivity to the world was enhanced by several thousand!” he finished, still excited. “It was like nothing me or my guide have ever seen before.”

  “I see, thank you, Michael. I think I have an idea of how your ability works now, Liam. But, if you could, Michael, I’d like to keep this under wraps for the time being. Liam is brand new to his abilities, and I’d rather him not get swarmed by demis wanting him to augment them just yet,” she said calmly, then gave Liam an assessing scowl. “I think it has a price that we don’t fully understand yet.”

  “Yeah, sure, boss,” Michael said with a grin. “I get the idea, and it’s probably smart honestly. That kind of power… just, wow.” The man finished, shook Liam’s hand again, and then left the room.

  Bast turned to Liam and Thea. “Ok, now that I have an idea, I think we can give Liam a better way to practice his new ability than getting beat up for hours on end,” she said.

  “But it’s so much fun!” Thea said mockingly.

  “My body would disagree.” Liam grumped.

  “Liam, do you understand what I had you do back there?” Bast asked.

  “I think so. I focused on what I wanted him to do, and he did it,” Liam said.

  “Not exactly. You focused on what he could do and empowered him to meet that goal,” she said simply. “I have a hunch, but I need to ask you a very personal question, and I need you to seriously consider when answering it,” she said with a scrutinizing eye. “Who is your guide, Liam?” she asked.

  Liam was taken aback. Logically, the question made sense, but his mind recoiled from it. It was like she had just asked him to reveal his darkest secret or fantasy. His reaction to the questions felt equivalent to if someone from off the street had walked up to him and asked if he was wearing boxers or briefs. It was awkward and not something you should talk about in polite company. The familiar knot in his gut came back each time he thought about it. It was a similar feeling to when Kat and Rich had brought up Anna too soon after their breakup.

  “My guide?” His brain felt fuzzy. In his head, he felt Lily shrink back a bit.

  “Focus, Liam,” Bast said. “I know it feels wrong to talk about it. It feels like someone just asked you the most awkward question possible. That’s a natural reaction. Your guide, ‘Lily’ you called her earlier. She’s part of your soul now. A part of you, and a very intimate one at that. It’s normal for your brain to file that away as uncomfortable information, but it’s important, Liam. Your guide is the source of your power and influences how you connect to the astral plane. Knowing your guide’s nature will tell me if I’m right in how I think your ability functions.”

  Liam stood there, his body almost shivering as he considered telling her about Lily. Even after only a day, he felt like she belonged with him and him with her. He hadn’t realized till this moment just how embedded into his mind she was. He felt her panicking in his head. “Liam, don’t. I’m not ready for them to know. We need more time,” she said.

  Liam remembered meeting her, how timid and scared she seemed. Her insecurity and fear before he picked her, and her possessiveness afterwards. She was scared again now, but why?

  Liam decided that now wasn’t the time to push it. He realized that he was extremely tired and only wanted to go back to his room and sleep for the rest of the day.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, Bast, I can’t talk about her, not yet anyway,” he finally said, looking at the demigoddess in front of him.

  “Ok, Liam. I figured it was probably still too soon. Your bond is still new and unbalanced, but I needed to ask the question anyway. Please go and rest, but think on what I said. If you’re able to figure out the exact trigger for how you augment other demis… well, I can’t even begin to tell you what that could mean for us,” she finished.

  “I understand, I think,” Liam said quietly and then turned to walk away.

  “Oh and Liam,” she said as he turned to go. “Good work this morning. You’re improving at an incredible rate. I just wanted you to know that.”

  Liam nodded then wearily left the room.

  BEST LAID PLANS

  Liam lay down on his bed and had almost fallen asleep when someone started pounding on his door.

  “Liam! Open up!” Hand’s voice called through the wood.

  “Just a second,” Liam grumbled and made his way over to the door. Hand was there along with Jax and Sarah.

  “Liam. We just got a call from Steven; he said your phone was off and he needs to know if you’ve heard anything from your friends,” Hand said quickly, entering the room.

  “Apparently, he thinks something may be wrong,” Jax said, walking over languidly and flopping into a desk chair in the corner.

  Liam looked over to the nightstand and spied his phone. He picked it up and pressed the home key, but only got a lightning bolt on the screen. “Battery’s dead. Must have forgotten to charge it in the commotion yesterday.”

  “Toss it here,” Sarah said, putting her hands out.

  Liam tossed her the phone and immediately heard it buzz when she caught it, and saw the screen power on. “What?” he questioned.

  �
��Energy absorption,” Sarah said in way of an explanation. “That should give you a few hours of charge,” she said and tossed the phone back to Liam.

  He looked at the screen as it finished turning on and his home screen loaded. He waited for a minute and nothing happened. “Doesn’t look like…” He trailed off as his phone erupted in a constant buzz for almost 10 seconds as texts, missed calls, and voicemails rumbled in. He had almost forty notifications in all when it was done.

  He started opening texts. At first, they were the usual “Where’d you go?” “Are you ok?” But then all texts from Kat disappeared and Rich was frantically asking if he had heard from Kat. Then a few hours later, all texts from Rich stopped as well. Liam’s stomach dropped as he opened his voicemail folder. The first few were the same as the first texts, normal messages asking where he was, then he got to a message from Kat. It started out normal, she trying to make sure he was ok, but then a commotion broke out on her end of the line. He heard her scream and some scuffling, then the call ended.

  “Shit,” Liam said, his face going white, eyes wide.

  He scrolled through the rest of the messages till he got to the last one from Rich.

  “Liam, I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing, but something weird is going on. I haven’t heard back from Kat since this morning, so I’m heading over to her place. Call me as soon as you get this. I’ll be…What the—” Then Liam heard more scuffling and a thump as the phone hit the ground. Footsteps could be heard, then a scratching as the phone was picked up. A deep growling voice started talking.

  “Hello, Mr. Douglass. You have something that I need and you know what it is. Now, if you care to see either this dog or the bitch again, you’ll be at Cheatham county landfill tomorrow at midnight. Make any trouble and I’ll kill them myself.” Then the message ended.

  Liam sank to his knees, panic rising in his chest. He checked the time stamp. The call had been placed the day before, which meant the meeting was tonight, in about eight hours.

  Hand came over and put one of his large palms on Liam’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, Liam, let’s go talk to Bast and we’ll figure it out,” the big man said calmly. “Jax, call Steven and let him know to check the girl’s apartment. See if he can figure out who we’re dealing with.” The skinny man sighed and reluctantly pulled out his phone.

  Liam found himself back in Bast’s room, surrounded by Hand, Sarah, Jax, Thea, and Michael. Bast had asked Thea and Michael to join since Thea was their head of security and Michael knew about Liam’s ability and she trusted them to be discreet. The group was looking at a map of the landfill and Thea and Bast kept pointing at things on it going “Ah” and “oh” and “see that?”

  After a while, Liam couldn’t take any more and wanted to know what was going on. “Hey!” he shouted, drawing their attention, “I know I’m the new guy here, but these are my friends. So how the hell are we going to get them back?” he demanded.

  “Liam, I know you’re worried, but I need you to trust that we—” Bast started, but Liam interrupted.

  “Trust! I met you yesterday!” He spat.

  “Liam, you’re being an ass.” Lily spoke up for the first time since he found out about Kat and Rich.

  “What?” Liam said out loud, not bothering to try to hide his responses.

  The other demis looked slightly confused till Sarah spoke up. “His guide called him an ass,” she said simply.

  “Hey!” Liam shouted.

  “Can’t say I don’t agree at the moment,” Thea quipped.

  “Enough, you two,” Bast growled. “Liam, we’re going to do our best to get your friends back, but running in without a plan is going to get both you and them killed. The Association doesn’t exactly have a great track record with hostage situations.”

  “What does that mean?” Liam said, forcing himself to be calmer.

  “I mean that, in the past, they’ve taken whatever they wanted, then killed the hostages and the deliveryman,” Bast said flatly. “Granted, that was mostly dealing with mundanes. I’m not promising that we can get them out either. The Association has some strong muscle at their disposal. As of this morning, we know that they have at least four demis that we’re aware of, and at least two of those appear to have very nasty abilities. We don’t actually have a confirmation of who they are. The reports are third and fourth hand so far,” she finished.

  “So that’s it. Kat and Rich, they’re—”

  “Not dead yet,” Bast said. “And we’ve got some heavy hitters of our own. Plus, a secret weapon that they don’t know about yet,” she said with a predatory smirk.

  Liam looked into the demigoddesses’ eyes and saw the confidence there. Her unwavering belief that they could do this despite the odds.

  “Ok, so what are we doing then?” Liam asked, getting back around to the question that he knew he should have asked first.

  The plan was simple, but required good timing on the part of the rescue team. Liam was going to park at the landfill and wait for the kidnappers to contact him. He’d be linked via cellphone to Hand, who would be half a mile away and ready to intercept in case things went wrong.

  Sarah and Jax would be hidden in the back of the truck Liam would be taking, with Jax using one of his abilities to mask their presence from any demis or creatures that the Association may send their way. Lastly, Bast, Steven, Thea, and Michael would be up the road in a Jeep Wrangler in case they needed to enter the nearby forest. The Cheatham County Landfill was on the edge of several hundred acres of woodland, which Bast suspected the Association would be using to their advantage to mask their approach or hide people nearby, just like she was planning. For this reason, Bast had added one more person to their party: Cindy.

  When Liam questioned why the unstable girl was being brought on the highly volatile mission, Bast gave him a disapproving scowl and said, “If things go south, you’ll want her there. Trust me.” And then refused to tell him any more than that.

  Liam eventually stopped trying to understand and just got ready for his part of the plan. Except while the others were readying firearms, charging energy reserves and putting on body armor, Liam was stuck with Thea again, trying to figure out how to learn about his new ability as quickly as possible. Despite how much it took out of him each time it worked, she insisted on their continuing to train. He eventually got it to work fairly consistently on Thea, three out of four times activating what she referred to as her “Unbreakable” ability. Next, Michael was brought in and Liam was able to get his to work around half of the time. The frustration was that Liam couldn’t figure out what was different each time he augmented one of their abilities. He experimented with body positioning, where he put his hand on them, and what exactly he thought while trying, but to him, he couldn’t quite figure it out.

  He tried to talk to Lily about it, but his normally chatty guide was being exceptionally quiet, which gave Liam the idea that this ability may not be entirely based around him. If Lily had a part in how it worked, then that could explain why the results were off, but until he could talk to Lily about it, there was no way of knowing. He kept on training with Michael and Thea until around eight when Thea told him to go get some food and rest for a couple hours.

  Liam was awoken by Steven shaking his shoulder.

  “Liam, it’s time to go,” the man said, pushing a cup of something into Liam’s hands. From the smell, it was coffee, but when Liam took a sip, the effect kicked him like a mule. He was suddenly awake and alert. “Holy cow, what is this stuff!” he said, looking down at the dark brown liquid.

  “Something one of the cleverer demis cooks up in the basement. Don’t ask me what’s in it, but it’s one hell of a pick-me-up. Only downside is that you’ll crash hard in about six to eight hours,” Steven said with a shrug, standing up and gesturing to Liam to follow.

  They exited the bunker through a portal into the back of a garage. Liam guessed that Bast had had the portal exit moved for the mission. Sitting in the large ceme
nt area was the Jeep Wrangler and a Ford F250. Other cars were around but had covers on, so Liam couldn’t make out any makes or models. Hand tossed Liam the keys and climbed into the cab of the F250. The bed of the truck had a hard cover and when Liam looked inside, he saw two cushioned areas where a person could strap in facing the rear of the truck.

  There also appeared to be places to secure equipment on the side. Jax and Sarah appeared, each carrying an assault rifle and black backpacks. Jax ignored Liam as he got into the truck bed, but Sarah gave him an evil smile as she passed and began to secure herself. Liam looked over to see the rest of the team getting into the four-door wrangler. Bast had removed the top and doors to give them good access in case they needed to bail out, so everyone had on clear lensed glasses or goggles. Cindy was there and looked as skittish as ever. Thea had her hand on the girl’s shoulder, calming her as she sat in the middle of the back seat with Thea and Steven.

  Bast turned towards Liam, checking to see that everyone was in place and then started her Jeep and rolled out of the garage. Liam followed in the F250, not sure where they were exactly. He needn’t have worried though as Hand turned on his phone’s GPS once they hit the road and it gave them directions to the landfill. It was about twenty minutes away and they had two hours till the deadline. The time difference was so that the team had plenty of time to get into place and get ready. They got to Hand’s drop-off point, a few miles away from the landfill, where he’d run the rest of the way in.

  Liam spent the few remaining minutes of the drive in silence, thinking about the turns his life had taken in the last 48 hours and revaluating the advice his high-school guidance counselor had giving him when he’d graduated.

  “Don’t ever assume that what you plan is what life will let you have. You can prepare and you can set goals, but in the end, the only measure of success you’ll ever have is how much personal effort you put into your life. Sure, you can be a big shot lawyer or an actor, but if you never push yourself, you’ll never be satisfied with who you are,” Mrs. Anderson had said.