ELEMENTARY VIRTUE: The Savior

by Sonja Wuthrich

  He grinned wickedly, “Angela, what a pleasure. Please call me Vincent dear,” he said, with a slightly nasal French accent that made Angel laugh.

  “No problem. And please call me Angel, if you don't mind.”

  He made a welcoming gesture.

  “Come on in to our modest command center. The others haven’t arrived yet, so you’ll have to put up with me for now.”

  She swept her copper-colored hair out of her face. It had been tousled by the wind.

  “Did you provoke the storm? My father says that you are master of water not air.”

  He looked at her with narrowed green eyes.

  “Your father doesn’t know shit about me.”

  His French accent was definitely gone.

  “Hey, don't freak out, Vincent! Your vocabulary is really irritating and your choice of words is quite fascinating.

  I already noticed this morning when I saw your charming T-Shirt.”

  She took her purse and rummaged through it.

  “Can I smoke in here?"

  Her reaction surprised him. She apparently was not intimidated at all.

  "No problem. You can smoke on the terrace. Come with me.”

  She followed him on the terrace, lit up a cigarette and leaned against the balcony railing.

  She was impressed the terrace was huge. It was bigger than the loft her daddy had rented for her during her stay. She inhaled deeply and blew the smoke of her cigarette right in to his face challenging him.

  “There are some things that have to be clarified between you and me. My father has given me the assurance that the two of us will run this operation as equal partners. The recruits will inform both of us how things are proceeding. Therefore I would be glad if you let go of this macho shit my dear, as I am in no way your Bimbo you can bully around.”

  Her voice had taken on a sharp tone. He didn't say a word, but his arrogant face got her further into rage, yet she carried on well and gave him an indifferent look. She was seething inside, imagining how she would put a few drops of a particular potion in his morning coffee at the next opportunity. Then finally, he would understand where his arrogance led him. Her cool gray eyes held his stare and they glared at each other a while. Neither of them was willing to back off. The doorbell buzzed again and Gabe averted his gaze reluctantly. He went for the door. Angel was apparently a hard nut to crack. He really looked forward to their next confrontation. It was like some kind of enticing foreplay. When he opened the door, he was completely in control again, the attentive host. The remaining six newcomers had arrived, all wet to the bone. Gabe grinned at them pityingly and made a welcoming move.

  “Come in to the dry, there seems to be quite a storm out there today.”

  His ironic gaze wandered across the terrace outside. The sun was shining and there was no wind.

  “Sit down,” he said, pointing to a welcoming elegant lounge. “You can call me Vincent. I can’t tell you my real name unfortunately, because some people at the Scarborough high know me from when I was a kid. You all know why we're here. The situation is serious. Our leader has ordered me to tell you that the prophecy has to be taken seriously and that according to rumors, the subject to be eliminated is actually in the Scarborough High School. Our mission is clear. We need to track him down and eliminate him, yet we must be careful because he sure as hell is not operating on his own and could have other Akandos at school helping him keep his cover.”

  “It will be your job to find out who they are. This should be easy since all Canadian Akandos have a tattoo with their element on the upper arm. Our subject however is not likely to have this. So keep your eyes open and report any observations to Angel or me. We’ll meet here every Tuesday. If something urgent should come up, you can always reach us on our mobiles. Now I would like you to introduce yourselves briefly with your name and element.

  “He pointed out to two blonde girls with long hair. They looked almost identical except one of them had a ponytail and the other wore her hair open. They could hardly be kept apart. The girl with the ponytail was first.

  “I’m Sarah and I come from Bournemouth, England. My element is fire.”

  The second girl introduced herself. I am Lisa, Sarah's twin sister and my element is fire too. Then there were Edward and Luke both from Vancouver who also ruled fire and Lorenzo from Florence with the same element. Last was a tall boy, who was already some time at the Scarborough High school, but hadn’t known about his task and his skills until his parents had told him lately.

  He got up.

  “My name is Greyson and my element is the Earth. Gabe sighed. “Thank God someone controls the Earth. We are a real fire Club so far. Angel and Greyson are the only ones controlling Earth. For my humble self, I control water and wind respectively. I am able to control two elements.

  You probably noticed when you arrived.”

  He grinned in a condescending manner, which made Angel throw him a dirty look.

  He continued looking at her in a provocative way, apparently enjoying her annoyance.

  “We must be careful, because we assume that our subject is able to control all of the four elements. This means that he has an absolute advantage considering our abilities.

  “His gaze fell on Greyson in distrust.

  “How come you didn’t know anything about your purpose until now?”

  “Guess, my parents wanted me to grow up unburdened, but Carmine Grande has probably convinced them that I must follow my purpose. Gabe watched him through narrowed eyes.

  “We need people in our organization that are convinced of their purpose and are fully committed to the cause. I suppose that you understand what I mean?”

  Greyson felt uneasy. He hadn’t felt like coming to this strange Meeting in the first place, but his mother had insisted, even almost forced him. She completely freaked out after judge Grande’s visit. Greyson felt out of place amongst this bizarre bunch, but he didn’t know how to back off either. They seemed like warriors getting ready for war. Who did they think they were anyway? Voldemort? He did not really understand whom they wanted to eliminate, but he nodded cockily and said, “I'm in. How do I recognize the subject to be eliminated?”

  He said, trying to sound positive.

  “And how do we eliminate him?”

  Gabe seemed to be satisfied with his reaction.

  “You don’t have to worry about that. This is Angel’s and my concern. Your task is to find him and then we'll talk about further actions. I think that Aiden Grande is the key to our mission. He is my cousin and I don’t want him to find out that I am here under any circumstances.”

  “Our target will certainly be found in his vicinity”

  One of the twins looked at him discerningly.

  ”Why didn’t he recognize you until now and why are you so sure that the target has to be absolutely a boy? Couldn’t it be a girl?”

  Gabe smiled pleasantly.

  “I haven’t seen Aiden for thirteen years and have signed up with my middle name and my mother's maiden name. To your second question, I have to say that the prophecy clearly defines that it is about a male target. Any other questions?”

  No one answered.

  “So spread out my sheep on your mission. We'll see you next Tuesday.”

  He turned around and looked deep into Angel’s eyes.

  “What about you Love? Fancy a drink with me?”

  She gave him an indefinable look, grabbed her purse and followed the others, without answering his question. Gabe looked after her. Angela di Benedetto was a challenge and was fair game now. The hunt was on...

  Civic Park - Covenant Church

  In the large area behind the church, the civic park adjoining School campus, Aiden and his clan members were meeting Gregory, Mila and Leyla for Training after School. Aiden explained briefly what the situation was and what these new students probably had in mind.

  He also emphasized that it was important that Gregory would be seen as little as possible with each o
ne of them. The new students were certainly sent out to check on the Akandos already attending this school for some time. It would be best if Gregory was making some new friends at school or would hang out more often with Jason. He was supposed to appear only on secret meetings. Gregory expressed his concerns about Leyla being involved. She put aside his concerns with a sweep of her hand.

  “Think at the bright side. We can continue to spend some time together, since I'm no Akando. Being under cover and all; it’s the first time that I am part of something like that. I feel like a secret agent.”

  She was all psyched up, “There are so many things I have never done before,” Gregory smirked at her.

  “Does that mean you are going to try them out with me as long as it’s a first time, if I ask you nicely?”

  Everyone laughed, and Leyla felt an unpleasant redness rising to her face.

  “Let’s hope you are not planning to do all of it while we are all sitting here,” Aiden added deviously.

  Leyla wished the ground would open and swallow her up. How embarrassing, Gregory and Aiden really sucked. She folded her arms giving them a dirty look. Mila rose to speak.

  ”I don't understand what she is doing here anyway. All we need now is her cheerleader friend turning up too.”

  She looked in Aiden’s direction. A general murmur of disapproval started to grow. Aiden lifted one hand, “Cool it guys, damn it. There will be no initiates and Leyla remains. She is one of us, without any supernatural ability, but she belongs to Gregory's family. There is no further discussion about that matter. So go out there and do what you have to do and inform me about every step of the gene pool.”

  While Aiden spoke, an idea was taking shape in Gregory’s mind, which scared the shit out of him but fascinated him at the same time. The longer he thought about it, the clearer it became. When they had actually reached the end of the meeting, he decided to speak out loud what had crossed his mind.

  “Guys I think I have an idea…”

  Mila - Master of poison

  Mila could not shake off the bad feeling when she slipped the vial with trembling fingers into her shoulder bag. She looked with awe at the clear liquid and the powder of dried birch bark and fool's gold dust. How could she have let Gregory persuade her for this crap? Such a stupid idea!

  It would never ever work, especially not when Natalie was involved. Natalie usually made a mess out of everything.

  She mixed up things and could rarely remember what she had to do. Actually, she was unable to follow orders. Not that she did it on purpose, but that didn’t make it any better, or did it? What a crazy idea she thought. Every time she saw that blonde new guy, she got the shivers. She knew that she could trust her feeling. There was something extremely wrong about that guy. Although he looked friendly, not that she had ever exchanged a word with him, but he did not exactly look like a serial killer. And yet in her opinion, he had cruel features. She wasn’t easily fooled by good looks. Her intuition had never failed her so far and had always proved her right.

  Ironically enough, she had been put onto this creepy guy just because Alex thought she was the best poisoner that had ever existed in history. Despite her annoyance, she smiled to herself. She knew that she was the best when it came to plants and brews. Her grandmother, Shalin; her name meant as much as humble, had taught her everything she knew about nature and its powers. Her knowledge was so big that there seemed to be no situation in life in which no plant or herb could be used as a remedy. Mila was still surprised about the effect of some harmless translucent plants or trees in combination with gemstones or spices. Who needed scientists if the most useful remedies and the worst of poisons could be found in nature itself. Unfortunately, lately, her grandmother was far too weak to work with her and equip her with more knowledge, but there was her grandmothers’ book with all the Information about Magic properties of nature she had received for her 18th birthday and promised she would guard it like a hawk.

  Her grandmother had assured her that she would find everything she needed to know to become the greatest healer that the world had ever seen. Astonishing enough, her mother had no talent at all in this respect, otherwise she would probably have been able to save her father when he was poisoned by one of the Black Vultures when Mila was still a child. Not everybody in her family was master of the earth. Some of them just didn’t seem to have much magical potential. Somehow, she had gotten the whole share of the art of healing with the treasures of the earth since last generation. Her grandmother had explained to her that since ancient times, nature skipped one generation when it came to the distribution of talent. She said the earth would only give its favor to those who did good things with their magical properties. Yet, she wondered what was so good about poisoning this guy with the mean face. Well, poison him was probably somehow exaggerated. They just wanted to manipulate his dreams, but manipulating someone was presumably not that great after all. Anyway, she had a queasy feeling when she watched Natalie while she was hiding behind a tree waiting for the right moment to follow her. She looked at her back. Her hair looked like she had just experienced some kind of explosion. Hopefully, the guy wouldn’t try to take off once he saw her coming closer.

  Gabe was sitting with a few members of his entourage on a bench in front of the football field when someone patted on his shoulder. Startled, he turned around and almost screamed out loud. Natalie was only a few inches away from him. Her face almost touched his. She looked like a member of the Cure. She was dressed from head to toe in leather. Her jacket was completely covered with rivets and her black leggings were decorated with rivets on the side. Her hair looked like she had put her fingers into an electrical outlet. Her piercings and her new lip ring was glistering in the sun. If Gabe hated something, it was someone sneaking up on him.

  He really had to pull himself together not to push away this incredibly shaggy and gross individual that turned out to be a girl on closer inspection. He looked at her quizzically and said, “Oh my, I wasn’t aware that the Hells Angels are in town.”

  The guys sitting next to him on the bench were cackling like chicken in a den, except for Greyson. He knew Natalie and felt sorry for her. He knew that behind her masquerade was a vulnerable, and at the same time, very insecure person.

  The other guys would probably still cackle if Vincent was going to kill someone, not that he would ever do such a thing. In Greyson’s opinion, he was more into delegating and pushing around others. Anyway, Greyson didn’t like this herd instinct, but he wanted no open confrontation either. Carmine Grande had apparently threatened his mom somehow and he probably had to play along for now. He didn’t know though how much longer he could play that game. He had different goals in his life than to be one of Vincent's henchmen and to suppress or eliminate anyone was certainly not one of them. Natalie continued staring at Gabe without flinching.

  “Have you seen Gregory? He is new at school like you. I met him on the plane when I flew over from Italy. I thought I just saw him with you. I could have sworn that he was standing here just a minute ago.”

  Gabe angled his head to the side.

  “What boy? Have you lost your boyfriend?”

  The guys cackled again, as if he had made​​the best joke ever. Natalie played dumb and Mila, who was watching the scene from afar had to admit, that she played her part quite well.

  Natalie giggled.

  “No, he is not my boyfriend yet, but I am working on it. His name is Gregory and as I told you, we met on a plane from Italy to Canada last week.”

  Suddenly, Gabe seemed to be interested.

  “He is from Italy you are saying? Which part is he from?”

  Natalie was screwed. She had no idea whether she could tell him or not. They had not discussed that; what a shitty situation. She cleared her throat to gain some time and almost sighed.

  Loudly with relief when Mila came running along calling her name,Pff, she thought that had been a close call. Mila reached the bench, having an open bottle of water
in her hand. As she stopped, Natalie made​​a sudden seemingly unexpected step aside, Mila stumbled and the content of her water bottle spilled over Gabe’s Arm. He got up abruptly and shook his arm. Mila could see how his nice facade started to crumble. He looked angrily. His half-closed eyes had turned to a darker green reminding her of kryptonite. As an old Superman fan, she shuddered, "Watch where you’re going you clumsy oaf!”

  Mila stammered an apology and offered her jacket to dry his arm.

  "I can wash your shirt if you want me to,” she started stammering. He waved her away with an unmistakable gesture.

  “Get lost and take your Hells Angel friend with you.”

  He turned to the other guys, “Let’s get the hell out of here guys, before another of these clumsy oafs shows up.”

  They got up following him and leaving football grounds making some crude remarks about Mila and Natalie.

  Mila waited until they were no longer in hearing distance and raised her hand.

  “You've done an amazingly good job.”

  Natalie grinned and raised her hand for a high five.

  Gabe’s test

  Gabe woke up the next morning after having had the most vivid dream one could imagine. He woke up with the thought that he might have missed a recruit, or even overlooked him. How could that have happen to him? That was kind of strange, as usually he was very alert, and nothing got past him unnoticed. Probably he had been too stressed out in the last few days, or it was the fact that the recruit he had overlooked had already joined the resident Akandos. Either he was a clever guy or there was something wrong with him. The question was why he had not made a move himself, as it had been hardly to be ignored, that he had spoken to all the new students during the last week. Something told him that the guy was doing his own investigations somehow. Gabe had records of all Akandos at school, but none about this guy. He had checked his records once more, but there was nothing about this one. So there was only one conclusion - he was either the savior or master of the air, which was for one thing very rare and for another, difficult to track down. The rulers of the air were transparent as air and stormy like hurricanes. He had seen clearly in his dreams that this boy was important for his mission.