by Jae Vogel
“The mall owner is not happy about what happened yesterday,” he repeated to them from the message from Matt. “We need to do better if all of us want to continue working here. I happen to like my job and I don’t need to worry about making the people in the tower mad.”
“I don’t know what else we can do, Boss, “Woody said to him. “We did everything we were supposed to do yesterday. No one was hurt and you had those kids in your office for a while. I thought everything was fine.”
“They’ve got it in for those two. I don’t know why, but they don’t want me to ban that kid Dion or any of his little friends from the mall. They seem to think they can handle the situation better than I can. Fine. We’ll be on standby until they want us. In the meantime, continue to watch them and look out for anything funny. Keep in mind there are four of them today.”
“Funny like those cheerleaders who just disappeared?” Lab asked him. “They just popped away when that Dion kid faced off to them. The weird thing was that no one seemed to act as if anything strange happened. The audience walked away as if they’d never been there.”
“Keep a record of those kinds of incidents,” Karanzen said to them. “I want to know about them. The management may be playing with fire and I don’t want to get burned.”
“What do you think they might be up to?” Woody asked. He tended to be the suspicious one. Years of clandestine missions in the jungles of South East Asia had taught him not to ask too many questions. It also made him suspicious of the motives of anyone who gave an order.
“I’m not sure. I don’t like it, I will tell you that. Right now, we work for the mall directly, I’m sure they’d like to save money and hire an outside security contractor. If that happens, we’d all have to find new jobs. Not right away, but I can assure you they would try to replace every one of us.”
“Not always.” It was Lab, who looked on the positive side of life. “I worked for a post lieutenant who kept his job through five different contract companies. He had some inside with the plant management so they always had him appointed as lieutenant.”
“I don’t think we’d be so lucky,” Karanzen told them. “Just watch for anything strange and careful what you say inside the mall. Too many ears in those cornfields. I don’t worry out here because I doubt the management can reach this far. But I can’t be sure. If I suspect anything else we might have to start meeting off-site.”
He didn’t tell them what he knew about the nature of the mall. All of them would quit if they realized they were positioned over the abyss. Who would stick around if they knew they were supposed to guard the passage over the bottomless pit of midnight? He felt guilty not telling them the truth, but the truth was more than anyone of them could tolerate. Even he couldn’t fully deal with the truth and he knew what the mall was all about the day they hired him.
Karanzen closed his eyes and tried to forget the day Matt had found him living in the van near the Atlantic shore. He’s been sleeping in it every night since the dreams started. The dreams, which took him, back to Korea and human wave assaults. Every night he would find himself walking out from behind the tank to see the endless wall of Chinese soldiers walking down the hill in his directions with their bayonets fixed. He couldn’t tell them about it, not the gunfire and the solid steel pin of fear that went through him when he saw what he was up against. Not the cries of his men as he turned and ran in the other direction. No one knew about it, except Matt when he knocked on the side of the van and told Karanzen he had a job for him.
“You alright, Boss?” Lab asked.
Karanzen opened his eyes and saw the two men starring at him. “I’m fine,” he said and turned in the direction of the mall. “I thought about another meeting after work, but I’ll hold off for the time being.”
Chapter 6
“I think we need to go back and see Hobbs.” Dion said to his friends as they wandered through the mall.
Something seemed very wrong about the atmosphere of the mall. Dion had the map and knew where the location of Jupiter Hitch’s hobby store could be located, but the cheerleaders’ sudden appearance worried him. The elementals knew he was there and would do everything possible to keep him away from the Grandmaster. Plus there was the issue of the security guards.
“Why do we need to go see him?” Lilly asked. “You need to buy something else from his store?”
“I might. I’m not sure about the kind of people who are inside this mall. He might have something to help me plan things out today. If anyone would have what I needed, it would be him.”
“That short guy who runs the head shop?” Sean asked him. He wasn’t sure if Dion had noticed him talking to the cheerleader Randi or knew that she wanted to get the map away from him. It still sickened him that Emily paid Dion so much attention. Why? Couldn’t she just leave him to Lilly? What was it that these girls had to compete for attention? It made no sense to him.
“That’s the man I’m talking about,” Dion said. “We need to go back to the other side of the mall and have a word with him.”
The trip to the part of the mall where they had been the previous day went quick. Lilly noticed a few of the ghoul cleaners who bowed to Dion as they went past, but otherwise didn’t say a word. The whole atmosphere changed in this section once they were inside it. Dion was master of the earth elementals and they were prominent in this section.
She also noticed the bull platform was gone, hauled off since it hadn’t done what it was supposed to do. Even the pharmacy where he’d been bestowed with the full powers of the earth elemental was closed. There was an “On Vacation” sign on the window with a notice of who to call until the owner returned. Lilly wondered if the owner, the Earth Elemental Grandmaster, Athena West, hadn’t planned that vacation a long time ago and waited until Dion came to her before she took it.
Emily found the little underground shop where Dion took them to be funny and amusing. It wasn’t the sort of place she would have willingly spent much time, but she enjoyed it. She liked the abundance of black light posters on the wall and the record bin full of ninety-nine cent specials. Then there was the stuffed bear at the front. It, like everything else, was for sale. But nothing had a price tag she could find. What matter of store lacked price tags? What kind of place was this?
“Hello again, Dion,” the short man from behind the counter said. “I see you have some more friends with you. How did the seer stone work out?”
“Good, I have it in my pocket today, although I don’t think I need it. We have the map back and the lettering is stuck on English. Is it locked in place because of the stone?’
“No. The stone makes it possible for the holder of it to read the map and anyone close to him or her. If you can read the map and not hold the stone, then the map was fixed on the last language used. It depends on the map, but most of the maps made for what you are using it don’t have that ability.”
Sean had found the aquarium with Emily. Both of them were looking at the strange creature inside it. Sean tried to move close to her, but she only let him casually make contact. The moment he brushed up against her, she pulled away. He doubted she would do that if Dion bumped into her.
“You have any idea what this thing it?” she asked Sean. “It doesn’t appear to be a mouse or any kind of rodent I’ve ever seen. Wait, I think there it is again.”
The creature poked its head out of a hole and crawled over to a water pan where it took a long and slow drink out of it. Now that she could see it better, Emily realized it was some sort of lizard. It only had two front legs, but resembled a reptile in every other fashion. It was about ten inches long and turned to look at her with a scowl. Whatever it was, the creature didn’t seem to like them starring at it.
“A tatzelwurm,” Hobbs called out to them. “Be careful and don’t get too close. He’s harmless most of the time. I keep him around because he lets me know if anyone is trying to shoplift.”
“It can do that? How would it know?”
“Go ah
ead and reach behind the counter,” Hobbs told her.
Emily shrugged and stuck her hand on the other side of the glass case.
The moment her hand touched the other side of the case, the creature in the aquarium turned and looked at her. She looked back at Hobbs with a “Well?” expression on her face. Nothing had taken place.
Then a loud wail came from the aquarium, which caused every other customer in the store to turn in its direction. The wail emerged from the small lizard inside it. As Emily jumped back, she heard it continued to make the wail with its snout open. How could a little thing like that make such a loud noise? The moment her hand was down by her side, the wail began to die down. Soon it was gone, but the tatzelwurm continued to glare at her, its tail twisting inside the aquarium.
“Now do you understand?” Hobbs said. “Just don’t do it to spite him, because then he’ll get really mad.”
Emily backed away slowly from the tank and walked over to Dion. Sean followed. He made a mental note of how she’d instinctively gone to Dion and ignored him when she was frightened.
What am I, invisible? he thought to himself. All this time and she still can’t fall back to me when she’s scared. It made him recall all the other times Emily had called him for support, only to find reasons not to take his calls later.
“Where did you get that monster?” Emily asked Hobbs. “That thing scared me to death with that scream.”
“I thought it was time I showed him off. I’m sorry if he frightened you, but it’s been too long and people tend to forget he’s in the aquarium.”
Hobs turned back to Dion. “So what did you need this time?”
“Those security guards are a nuisance,” Dion explained. “Whoever owns this mall has them following me all over the place. Every time I turn around, they are there. Do you have something which will let me know when they’re about to show up?”
“I have just the thing for you,” Hobbs announced as she ducked below the level of the counter again and brought up another carved box. This box was much larger than the last one and he sat it again on the counter. As the four friends looked on, Hobbs unlocked it with a key from a collection of them in his pocket. He opened the lid to let them see what was inside.
It was a crystal ball. A plain crystal ball. The exact same kind used by fortunetellers. The ball was the size of a sixteen-pound cannon ball and polished to a smooth finish. Light passed through it, but was bent in strange patterns as it came out on the other side. The ball sat on a base of black velvet and was in the shape of a complete sphere. This one had no flat resting side ground into it. It had no fissures, cracks, or any imperfections on the surface.
“Where did you get that?” Dion asked. “I haven’t seen one of these in a very long time.”
“I doubt you’ve ever seen one like this. I bought it from a clairvoyant who was down on her luck. Too many unforeseen circumstances.” Hobbs snickered on the last comment.
“So if it didn’t work so well for her, how is it supposed to work for me?”
“It works just fine,” Hobbs said, his hairy fingers in movement across the smooth surface. “But it won’t work for just anyone. You see, the ball will tell you what you should know, not necessarily what you want to know. She bought it from some place I know nothing about, but I’m sure whoever made it knew what they were doing. You might ask how I would know this. I know this because the ball has allowed me to see things I found out later were true. Sometimes it shows me future events, but if I take precautions, they don’t come true. Now how is that? If it was something from the future, should it not happen anyway? I don’t know, but I suspect the ball fixes on the person who looks into it and allows them to see what they should. I think the ball is good at making estimations. It estimated that there would be a revival of black light art and I bought the stock of posters you see in the shop. It estimated water beds would pass as an interest, but they still sell in some parts of the country, just not like they used to sell.”
“How does it work?” Lilly asked him.
“Simple, you look into the crystal ball. Just like in the movies. You don’t ask it anything; you look and see what it will show you. If the ball decides you are worthy, it will let you see what you should know. The fortuneteller thought the ball would tell her the future, but it doesn’t always do that. Try and use it to make money and it will tell you falsehoods. Too many of her customers found this out and abandoned her. Now she’s selling real estate in Florida. Maybe she’ll be able to predict the market future, but I doubt it.”
“I don’t want to look into it,” Lilly said and turned away. “There is too much in the future and present that I don’t want to know. I’m afraid and I don’t want to know any more.” She moved away from the ball and turned her back on it.
Sean looked at the ball. It drew him in. The surface was smooth and the depths of it clear. Was there something inside the ball? He couldn’t tell. It was a clear crystal, but there seemed to be some reflection of light on the inside. He looked closely at it again and the light merged into a face. Sean blinked his eyes and the face became focused. It changed color and merged into the image of Randi, the cheerleader. She blew him a kiss.
Sean shook his head and the ball was clear on the inside again. He moved away from it. That thing was dangerous.
Then he saw Emily looking at Dion with the same look of longing she always showed him. She hadn’t looked in the ball, but Sean didn’t need to do it again to know what that represented. He turned away from the ball and faced the wall too.
Dion stared into the crystal and watched closely. He needed to know where the security guards would appear again. He might return and use the ball for more information, but he needed to know what they were up to at that very moment. He waited and the ball allowed him to see where they were throughout the airside of the mall.
The second thing he wanted the crystal ball for was to locate some place Karanzen and his goon squad would leave them alone. There had to be some place where they could go that the security chief would avoid. Within the mall were many places unknown to the regular shoppers who frequented it. All they had to do was to find the right place and make a straight line to it. But where could he find it?
Dion looked into the ball and the sparkles on the inside began to swirl and shift. He found himself pulled into the vision before him. Inside the ball, he saw a man working at forge of some kind. He had long hair and a beard to match. In one hand, he wielded a big hammer, which he used to pound at a piece of hot metal on an anvil before him. The man, a Viking from his clothing, began to sweat as he slammed down the hammer on the object in front of him. He constantly pounded away until the metal began to flatten out. This was serious work and he applied himself with diligence to it. Dion could hear the ringing of the hammer as it pounded downward on the hot steel before him.
Then the vision began to swirl again and he saw a stand in a market where the same man sold his wares. Other Vikings walked up to the objects on display and examined what he had for sale. The man who had pounded them into shape now expounded on the value of each one as his potential buyers nodded and looked them over. A few men reached into pouches and their hands emerged with gold coins to drop into the hand of the smith.
Finally, the vision faded away and the sphere was blank on the inside. The crystal ball had shown him what he needed to see that moment.
Dion looked up; he knew exactly where to go in the mall to get away from the security staff.
“There is a knife shop,” he told his companions. “We need to go there.”
“A knife shop?” Lilly said. What was it with the quest he was on and kitchens? “You mean like the cookware store where we lured the bull into yesterday?”
“No, this place sells collectable knives and weapons. They have a large medieval reenactor client base. I’ve been in it before and the ball advised me to go there. I suspect there is something to do with what it sells and Karanzen. We need to go there as soon as we can.”
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nbsp; Dion looked up at Hobbs. “I don’t know how to thank you for your help, but I can’t lug this ball around with me. How much do I owe you? Is there some way I can have it shipped to my aunt and uncle’s house?”
“Don’t worry about it. You can come back and use it whenever you need to. You family helped me out a lot over the years and I don’t forget people who do me favors.”
Hobbs closed the box and locked it. In one swift motion, he returned it to the space under the counter.
They found the knives shop quickly with the aid of the map. It showed them the best way to get to the location by way of a spotted line when Dion touched the shop’s location on the map with his finger. The line drew itself across the map and through the mall, avoiding the passageways, which only the mall employees knew about. It was a simple matter to walk the distance and consult the map at each junction. Dion noticed it changed directions several times, which he decided had to do with the locations of the guards and the human traffic in the mall. It was crowded in the main concourse, as the shoppers were there to take advantage of all the sales. A few times, he noticed the spotted line fade away, then reappear on the map, and show a better way to get to the shop.
“How does that thing work?” Lilly asked him as she watched him consult the map. She was astonished how effective it was when the lined reappeared a second time.
“I have no idea. It’s part of a system I know nothing about. But it seems to be actively finding us the directions we need.”
“Imagine having something like that in your car,” Emily said. “You’d never have to pull over and ask directions again. I used to work in a grocery store near an exit ramp from the interstate. We had to give people direction four and five times a day who were lost. With this map, it would never happen. All they would need to do would be to ask it for a location.”