by Gabi Moore
They were starting to surround him and he could feel it. The four cheerleader elementals in the front slowly began to walk to him as their eyes began to shine. Even in the bright sunlight, Dion could see the light from their eyes. It could only mean they were powering up, the same way they had done it in the mall.
Lilly began to see things in her head she hadn’t thought about in years. She heard her sister arguing with her parents about who she could go out with tonight. She saw her sister asking Lilly to cover for her while she went outside the window to meet some guy. Her parents asked her where she was and did they know where her sister had gone. She was terrified for her older sister’s safety and felt guilt that she’d help her leave the house. Her sister was married and everything was all right, so why was she scared something would happen to her? All she could think about was what might happen to her and it was all her fault.
Dion heard the crying sounds from behind him. The elemental had breached Lilly’s mind too. He used his peripheral vision and could see four cheerleaders on each of his sides. As he expected, they’d left Sean and Emily in the car and were focusing their attention on him. It was just what he wanted, but could he stop them before it was too late? Dion had lured himself right into a trap, but he was ready to spring one on them. If Edward was correct, all he had to do was let them get close enough to see the keys. Just a few more minutes.
He could see them on the sides. There were only two on each side right now, which meant two more were moving into the rear. They thought he was cut-off and had no means of retreat. Dion heard the pair of elementals behind him sliding into position. The next thing they would do would be to advance on him until they were just close enough from each other to trap him in a circle. They would cause something to happen to Lilly and break his concentration long enough to capture them both.
He didn’t know exactly what they planned, but he could pick up the strands of communication between them to realize what they were up to. The four cheerleaders in front of him joined hands and he could feel the energy crackle in the air. They were very close to the point of complete entrapment, which had been their plan all along.
Dion looked across the parking lot and realized they were in a section which had little, if any, traffic. The cars and pedestrians found reason to go somewhere else every time they drove too close to their part of the lot. The cheerleader elementals once again created a bubble around them no one could penetrate.
When he saw out of the corners of his eyes the last of the cheerleaders join hands, Dion raised the keys over his head. In that instant he felt the energy around him decrease.
The cheerleaders lifted up their heads and looked at the shiny Cadillac keys. They saw the limited edition emblem dangle from the ring. Dion could see the look of fascination in their eyes. The light, which shined from their faces, focused on the keys and what it represented. He could see them drop their hands and stare at the ring he held.
“You like this?” Dion began to taunt them back. “It’s the keys to a 1953 Eldorado Cadillac. A convertible. The best one ever made. It has chrome all over it. There is tire kit in the back with big chrome straps on it. You know what the best part of it is? The color. That’s right; the caddy is a nice powder puff pink. You want to drive it? Think about how nice you’ll look in it. All your friends will look at you with envy. You’ll be the most popular girl in school.”
Although the elementals needed nothing to travel in, Dion realized they’d been captivated by the images of the cheerleaders and everything they represented. The elemental sylphs were just as susceptible to the same wants and desire as any human in that form. All he had to do was play on those wants and desires. It was why Edward gave him the keys. So long as he kept them out of their reach, he had control over them.
There was just one small problem: he didn’t really own a 1953 Eldorado Cadillac. He didn’t even know where he could find one. The keys would eventually lose their ability to bind the elementals once they realized there was no real Cadillac around them. He had to use the keys to keep their attention until he had Sean and Emily out of the car. Until then, he needed to keep their attention.
The bull was easier to control. It was possessed by a single elemental which wanted to get out of the plastic statue it was imprisoned in. It was animated, but his onyx stones could be used to make it focus away on something other than what it was charged to accomplish. He needed to place the onyx stones around its neck and the bull would revert to its original form. Today he’d managed to coax more earth elementals into it for a few minutes, but it was a simple task. Now he had a good twelve elementals to control and keep away. Should he lose his power for just one minute, they would unleash themselves on him and Lilly. It was a much more dangerous situation he found himself today.
“Okay,” he shouted to the assembled cheerleaders, “Who wants to play catch?”
Dion sent the keys high into the air in an arch, which would take it as far as possible from the car where Emily and Sean sat. The cheerleader elementals saw it fly up in the sky and ran to be at the place where they expected it to land. At that very moment, Dion grabbed Lilly’s hand and ran with her to the car where his two friends were sitting.
“I hope she left the keys in the ignition,” he huffed to Lilly as they ran across the distance. “Because I need to get that car close to the mall in a hurry.”
The key chain came back to earth at the bottom of the cheerleader elementals that were fascinated by it. One let out a squeal of joy when she grabbed the keys, but the real excitement was yet to begin.
Dion threw open the car door. There were no keys in the ignition or anywhere else inside the car. He looked at the floor and then ruffled through the glove compartment. The keys were gone. Emily might know, but he had no time to wait for her to leave her mind cage. Dion, as Lilly looked on, threw open the passenger door to the back seat and grabbed Sean by the shoulder. Lilly saw what he did and went to the other side and took Emily out of the car.
The elemental cheerleader who grabbed the keys was holding them up in triumph when another one of the cheerleaders tried to grab them from her. She snarled at the one who tried to take them and let loose with a solid push, sending the imposing one to the ground. However, this allowed a third cheerleader to grab the keys from her. The original holder of the keys jumped on top of her and soon the entire squad of cheerleaders was a solid mass of elementals striking and poking at each other.
If anyone had watched, the mob of cheerleaders turned into a whirlwind as the keys were sent out and beyond their ability to grab them. The cheerleaders turned into a swirling cloud of dust, which rose into the air before the parking lot and ascended to the air as the elemental merged into one continuous sylph that had lost its collective identities in a mass of anger. The cloud soon reached the sky and broke up as the sun baked it apart.
“Just keep walking them,” Dion said. “We need to get them someplace they can sleep this off. The charm of the elementals won’t last very long now that they’ve dissipated into the air. We’ll take them to the furniture store Edward told us about and see that they are sound asleep in a few minutes.”
“What happens if those cheerleaders return?” Lilly asked him. “Why wouldn’t they try and get them back?”
“They’re out of power. They exhausted everything they had today on us and the keys finished off what was left.”
It only took them a few minutes to take their friends to the furniture company and find the contact Edward had mentioned when they were in his realm. The walked both Sean and Emily into the store with ease and asked for the name they’d had memorized. The saleslady they met nodded and went back into the back of the store and returned a few minutes later with an older man who wore a suit and tie. He introduced himself as the manager of the store.
Most of the people shopping in the store were couples looking to buy furniture for their new homes or apartments. Lilly noticed the sales staff would take them through an entire sales procedure, which invol
ved selling them the most expensive item and gradually working their way down the less expensive models. There seemed to be a whole technique to what they were doing, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. The mysteries of the sales world were almost as dense as the elemental one, but not so flamboyant.
“Edward gave me your name,” Dion told him. “I was informed you were someone we could trust to take care of our friends until they’ve had a chance to sleep. He told us you have a waterbed in the back which people sometimes use for demonstration purposes.”
The man looked at them, and then looked at the mesmerized couple with him. Dion could tell he was weighing something in his mind.
“Alright, I can help, follow me.”
They turned and walked with him as he disappeared into a door in the back.
It was a small room beyond the storage area, which was designed as a bedroom. The waterbed was resting on the floor with several brochures about its use around it. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling were subdued and designed to give it a soft glow and served as an additional selling point.
Lilly led Emily to the bed and laid her down, while Dion did the same to Sean. In minutes, they were peacefully asleep. The manager led them out of the room, turned out the light and shut the door.
“They’ll sleep undisturbed in there,” he told them. “But you have to come here by the end of the day and pick them up. I’ll let the staff know they’re not to be disturbed.”
“Thank you,” Dion told the man as they left. “You’ve been a great help. I’ll make sure to come back by then.”
“No problem. Edward and I go back a long ways and he’s helped me a lot in the past. I owe him quite a few favors.”
Outside the store, they found a bench to sit down on and think about what to do next. It was still the afternoon, but the encounter with the cheerleader elementals left them both exhausted. Dion worried about Emily, as this was her second abduction by the elementals in two days. He hoped there would be some way to keep her at a distance from the mall in the future.
“And you’re sure we don’t have to worry about them while they’re sleeping?” Lilly asked him once again. “I worry about leaving them alone, even under the watchful eye of that manager.”
“Edward recommended him. If Edward trusts him, it’s all I need to know. So far, he’s helped us every step of the way. I can’t complain about the assistance he’s given us.
“So what do we do now?” It was a warm day and she’d worn a casual outfit. Lilly liked to appear a little better when going to the mall. But today was not another shopping expedition to the department store.
“Let me think of something. I need a way to get to the hobby shop and meet with the Grandmaster. We don’t have to worry about those cheerleaders for a while, it will take some time for them to reconstitute now that they’re in their original form. They’ll be back, I can guarantee you that, but not today. The mall builder worked to bring them here and I’m sure he has more trickery to show us.”
Although Lilly was worried about her two friends, she was glad to be with Dion. To watch him take on the cheerleader elementals twice in one day was the subject of legends. It still made her upset with the knowledge they’d been inside her head, but at least the elementals were gone. If only there was some way to get the next few powers Dion needed with ease, but it was useless to think in those lines. He had to fulfill his quest before he could truly become a master of all the elements. And what was the fifth one he constantly talked about?
“Should we go back to Hobbs?” Lilly asked him. “Does he have anything else you could use?”
“He might, but I don’t want to get dependent on him. Hobbs has things in there he doesn’t like people to know about. Things, which we could use to reach the rest of the elemental grandmasters without any kind of interference. But if they found out I’d made use of them, they might not grant me the ability to fully work the element they rule. They would eventually find out and pull the authority if they discovered what I’d done to reach them. They are very precise on how my quest has to be carried out. I have to accomplish this as much as I can on my own without any significant help. Having you and the others along didn’t count as significant help. Summoning questionable forces from beyond with a bit of forbidden lore would not be looked upon favorably. Besides, the ultimate reason I’m here is to get my parents out. I can’t do that until I have full elemental abilities.”
“You told me your parents were kidnapped. How long ago did it happen?”
“A year ago. We were in California at the time. It’s why I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle.”
“Where you there when it happened?” Lilly glanced around the concourse where they sat. She had a strange sensation they were being watched, but she couldn’t see any security guards and no security cameras were on display.
“I was away at school. It was in the spring, almost a year to the day,” he began. “The bus let me off right at the end of our block and I went up to the house and felt something odd. I turned and saw this big black van pull away from the front of our house and head down the street. I didn’t see the license plate because I didn’t think anything was wrong. When I went up to our house, I found the front door unlocked and when inside. My mom never left the door unlocked, so I thought it was strange the door was open. I went inside and couldn’t find anyone.
Dad worked a lot from home, so I expected him to be in and out all day. Mom didn’t work after we moved to California and I could never understand why. My father was an engineer and mother would help him on the projects he did out of the house. From what I understand, she’d been an engineer too, but quit to help him manage the business he ran. Dad was often at some conference of one kind or another and mom would stay home and help him out by referencing whatever plans or documents he didn’t have with him. Same if he was at a client’s site. She would conference with him on the phone and they would work things out until both of them were satisfied. I never developed any interest in what they did, but it must have been important because they were busy most of the time.
Anyway, I walked in the house and they were gone. I went into dad’s study and looked for him, but it was ransacked. Papers tossed everywhere and plans thrown all over the place. I was very worried and went to call the police, but the phones were ripped out of the wall. I went next door and used the neighbor’s phone. The police came and took the house apart trying to find something, but they never did. I stayed with some neighbors until I was placed with my aunt and uncle.”
“And there was never a ransom note or anything?”
“Nothing, but I wouldn’t believe they were dead. I could feel something because dad was an elemental worker and I felt his trace after I came home. I believe whoever took them wanted me to be upset and give up with my training. I’ve learned to work with different elementals since I could walk.
Six months ago I received a note in the mail written in alchemical symbols. I recognized enough to them to understand it was a warning from whoever took my parents. The note confirmed they were alive, but warned me not to continue my training if I wanted to get them back.
And then the mall showed up quickly and I put it all together. After talking with some other element manipulators, I found out that all four elemental grandmasters had stores in this mall. This couldn’t be an accident, so I began to investigate the place. Sure enough, the mall was built over something to serve as a bridge to it. I had enough ability to work the elements and find out what I needed to know. I decided this would be the week to obtain all four of my powers. I just have the one now, but I’m determined to get the rest.”
“And I’m determined to help you,” Lilly said as she put her hand over his.
“I don’t want you to get harmed in my quest,” Dion said. “I’m the one who must ultimately confront the mall builders and get my parents free. Look at Sean and Emily; they’re back in the rear of that furniture store sleeping off their encounter with the elementals. I’m responsible
for what happens from here on out.”
“Sean was doing it to impress Emily,” Lilly said. “He’s had a crush on her for years. I was afraid he’d do something stupid today. I know why Emily brought him along, but I think she thrives on the attention she receives from boys.”
“I picked it up too. Sean is head over heels in love with Emily, but she doesn’t give any back. Maybe today she’ll learn that she can’t continue to play these little games with someone like Sean.”
“Sean doesn’t have the best home life,” Lilly said. “It’s not that he lacks for anything, but his mother is obsessive about him. I’ve seen her in action and when she is done manipulating him, he’s ready to give up. The best thing about today is he might have some backbone after it’s over. You don’t go up against what he did and come out ready to go back to the way things were.”
“On the other hand, he might be damaged on the inside,” Dion said. “I’ll know when he wakes up. It will take hours of a sound sleep to get him out of the trap the elementals built for both of them. We’re dealing with some dangerous sylphs here and I worry about the harm they caused. Not too much any normal person can do against them. I did my best and it took a lot out of me.”
“I know. I’m grateful. I’m certain Sean and Emily will be too once they wake up.”
Dion sat there for another five minutes with Lilly. By now, it was the late afternoon and he decided to make another attempt at the hobby store.
“He has to be back by now,” Dion said. “No way could they shut that store down too long without letting the other stores know something was wrong in there.”
The stood up and walked down the hall in the direction of the store. Dion and Lilly walked across the concourse and looked at the other store windows as they continued on.