by Jae Vogel
Randi stood there and looked at him directly. Her eyes shifted in the direction of the map under Dion’s arm. He knew exactly what she had in mind. She smiled at Sean, allowing him to see the white teeth beneath her lips. Sean looked across at her and saw the clear, tanned skin on her arms and the glow in her hair. She’d done her best to make herself up to be the kind of young woman Sean had dreamed about all his life.
The shoppers continued to walk past, oblivious to what took place in front of them. If someone had stopped to take the tableaux in, it wouldn’t have made much sense. All they would have noticed was a squad of high school cheerleaders in their tight little uniforms standing out in front of four kids of the same age. Unless the onlooker knew anything about the mall or who built it, they would be clueless as to what was unfolding. A close examination might show the hair of the cheerleaders blowing behind them although there was no wind or air currents in the mall. The cheerleaders all had long hair, even the ones with curls. It rose up behind them in a golden and black pattern to merge into one harmonious mane. The stood there and remained silent while people avoided them as they went through the mall.
Dion turned and saw the eyes of Sean fixated on one of the cheerleaders. He realized what was taking place before him and tried to break their hold, but it was too late.
Chapter 8
The combined power of the air elementals disguised as cheerleaders was too much for Dion.
He wanted to reach across the void to his friends, but they were no match for the strength of the elementals multiplied by a factor of twelve. He could feel their energy pulse across the floor of the mall. A kind of bubble was developing around them all, with the shoppers going around them to avoid the give and play of their standoff. Dion knew he would have to fight hard to save what he could, but there was still a chance.
He lacked the power to bind them and they knew it. The whole incident was arranged to get him close to the hobby shop and then pounce on him through his friends. He could feel the cheerleaders’ wills merge into each other and overpowering his. This was their intent all along: to get Dion into a location where they could focus on him and strip him of his abilities. But he still had a few games to play, they didn’t.
“Don’t look at them!” he yelled, but the others already were entranced by the cheerleader elementals. Sean’s eyes had expanded so that the pupil almost occupied all of his eyes. Emily stood motionless with her mouth slightly open. Only Lilly turned her head away from the sight before them and tried to focus her eyes in another direction. The cheerleaders’ eyes began to glow as they attempted to take control of their minds. Dion realized he dealt with something far more powerful than had ever been sent against him.
Sean couldn’t hear Dion. All he could see was the eyes of Randi in front of him. She was beautiful, lovelier than anything he had ever seen before. Sean had a girlfriend once, or thought he did. He was only fourteen at the time and it ended all too quickly leaving him wounded on the inside and a sucker for any high school girl which would give him the time. Randi offered him a lot more. He could hear the blond cheerleader talking through the noise around his head. There was too much noise with the shoppers walking past and thinking about the purchases they wanted to make the deals which could be found the colors they needed to match the shoes they needed to buy and more. The noise began to scream into his head and threatened to drown him out.
Sean was in a nightmare world where the ghosts wouldn’t shut up. They wouldn’t stop screaming over his thoughts and they wouldn’t leave his head.
All except Randi, who locked into his mind and soul. She told him there was a way out and she could help him. Sean just wanted the noise to stop and this very nice girl could take care of him. She looked divine and the light from behind her lit up her flowing hair. Her hair shimmered in the air as silk did when the summer breeze struck it.
Dion grabbed hold of Lilly and pushed her face into his jacket. If he could prevent her from seeing the cheerleader elementals, he still had a chance to save them all. He could resist, but his three friends were a different story. He would have to fight the elementals for possession of their minds. Lilly he could keep from looking at the cheerleaders. As long as he moved her vision from theirs, she was safe. The other two were different stories.
He saw Sean looking directly into the eyes of one cheerleader and she began to walk closer to him. If he didn’t do something soon, he could lose him completely in the mirror maze of Sean’s mind.
The elementals would find the one thing that a person desired above anything else and promise to give it to them. They would reach into their heart and make them all kinds of false hopes they had no plan to fulfill. If the victim didn’t realize what they were doing, they could go mad forever. Dion wasn’t about to let that happen and tried to remember how to break the concentration of the combined elementals.
Emily was lost too. Dion could see her standing in place gazing into the unknown. The elementals were pushing a lot of their power to her in an effort to gain control of Emily’s mind too. They didn’t want Sean or Emily, but knew they could use them against Dion, which was their intent all along.
Dion watched Emily’s jaw tighten and knew she was dangerously close to losing herself in the abyss over which the mall was placed.
It was coming down between the two of them and he didn’t know if he could rescue them both. This was something he had to do alone. No matter what the cheerleader elementals represented, they were nothing compared to what awaited him inside the tower. If he couldn’t break their hold on Sean and Emily, how could he stop the mall builders when he was on their own field?
Sean was no longer in the mall. He was sitting in his parent’s car at the local drive-in watching a horror movie his mother would never allow him to see if she knew what he was doing. But all objections his mother might have were dashed when he brought his new girlfriend over to the house to meet the parents. His dad nodded while he watched the game on TV, but his mother fawned over Randi that evening. She tried to find out what church Randi attended. Randi deflected everything she asked. And why not? Wasn’t Sean the most popular guy in the high school with scholarships waiting for him at twelve different schools that wanted his talents? Did he have a whole group of cool friends who would do anything he asked? Randi was just the latest girl to bring home and meet mother.
Dion saw in horror what she was doing to Sean’s mind and turned to pull him out of his fantasy world. The elemental that was in the form of a cheerleader named Randi was closer now. She reached out her hand and extended it to Sean. Dion fought the stream of consciousness, which arced across Sean to him. He couldn’t see much, it wasn’t possible to examine the inner workings of another soul in total, but what he saw shamed him to no end. All Sean wanted was Emily’s attention and he’d been the subject of it. The elementals knew it and were using it against Sean. If they could trap him in the fantasy world, he would do their bidding until someone could pull him out.
Dion gasped and slowly pulled himself over to Sean. It was the only thing he could do. He sensed Emily wasn’t as far gone as his friend. They were using Sean to get at Dion and Emily was just a sideline. Dion kept Lilly from looking at the cheerleaders; it was the only way to keep her from falling into the same trap.
Emily was somewhere else too, but she knew it didn’t make sense. She was home with both her mother and father. They were a family again after all the years her parents were separated. Her father was sitting on the back porch with his arm around her mother and all was good. The barbecue was fired up and the steaks on it were cooked to perfection. Even her grandparents, dead many years, were supposed to come over that evening.
The cheerleader nearest to Sean reached out suddenly and made contact before Dion could reach him. Then two things happened at the same time.
Sean grabbed the map from Dion, moved quickly to Emily and grabbed her, then they disappeared with the cheerleaders, leaving Dion and Lilly alone in the mall.
They stood t
here for a few minutes as the situation became obvious to them. The air was still but people were in motion. They continued about their way, clueless to what had occurred in front of them. Somehow, the cheerleader elementals had created a scenario where no one outside of their own enchanted bubble could notice what took place. Dion had watched several people who walked in their direction turn and move away as they approached them.
The air around them continued to grow still until the mall began to fade. It became dark and the sounds of the shoppers decreased in volume slowly but with fortitude, as they became echoes and then whispers.
Lilly looked up at Dion in fear.
It was obvious to her he didn’t know what was taking place about them. The atmosphere was dense and the sounds were dampened as if by cotton. Soon, everything about them had gone black.
Dion could feel Lilly by his side, but he had no control over what took place about him. Even with his mastery of the earth element, there was nothing he could do because the transition had taken him away from anything which appeared normal.
The light began to return and they found the atmosphere around them returning to normal. Soon, there were shapes which resembled objects they remembered: chairs, tables and even a floor. Light filled the room and they could see. However, it was most definitely not the mall where they were sent. This was somewhere different and outside the time circles that Dion understood. How had they been sent to this place and for what reason?
They were in a small room with shuttered windows. In front of them was a fireplace where a log crackled away. It was still early spring and Dion understood the reason for the heat, but most places around him didn’t need fireplaces to keep the house warm. Most had central heating which, gas, oil or coal did the job nicely. His aunt and uncle’s house was provided with a forced air oil heater, which was placed in the basement and did its best to warm up the rest of the dwelling.
They were standing on a large rug in the middle of a wooden floor. The chairs in the room were all facing the fireplace, which is why Dion assumed it was to keep the house warm.
Dion looked at the walls and noticed strange paintings of unknown creatures with three eyes and six legs. Over the fireplace was mounted the head of a tiger with its teeth posed to strike.
The walls were lined with bookshelves. Lilly could read the titles from where she stood and saw them to be printed in gold with authors such as “Cornelius Agrippa” and “Simon” displayed all over the shelves. She couldn’t tell the subject matter, but guessed it had to do with their sudden translation to his point in time. She also noted all the books were of the same construction. She could even smell the leather from where she stood.
In between the chairs was a silver tea service. A few scones where on a tray next to it and the steam continued to rise from the teapot. The service was polished to a reflective shine, which showed their images in it. She noticed an owl motif on the tray and the small creamer pitchers next to the empty cups. There was a plate with piles of sugar cubes.
“You have any idea where we are?” Lilly asked Dion.
“Not the slightest. I’m guessing it has to do with those cheerleaders who took Sean and Emily. I hope the person or persons who sent us here are on our side because I don’t think any of my abilities work in this place.”
“Why? Is there some kind of lock on what you can accomplish?”
“No, but I don’t think it works here. We’re not in our world any longer. I don’t know how we got here or who sent us, but I suspect we’ll find out pretty soon.”
Dion went over to the bookshelf and looked at the titles up close. Some of the authors he recognized. There were ones by Kenneth Grant and C. S. Lewis. As Lilly had noted, the binding was the same on each of them: fine vellum with the author’s name stamped in gold letters. The titles seemed to be of less importance than the author. Most were of the same thickness, although it appeared they were all special editions. The name of the publishing house was not listed anywhere.
Lilly focused on the wall paintings. She couldn’t recognize the artist, but was sure it was someone whose work she’d seen in the past. The colors used on each oil painting were brilliant and bright. The scenarios varied, but the colors used made them appear to be jungle landscapes. Whoever did these paintings had some real talent, but she didn’t recognize the initials at the bottom of each one. All were framed and illuminated by a candle beneath them. Someone had wanted to give each one respect and dignity. She was reminded of the paintings in a Russian Orthodox Church she’d seen a long time ago and the way they were mounted with care and decorated with silver. However, these paintings didn’t appear to be devotional, but the result of a trip to another planet.
The voice cried out to Dion as he reached out to pick a book off the shelf.
“I wouldn’t do that,” a familiar voice said behind them. “Most of those books have leather which was post cured by smearing dog feces on them. I don’t touch any of those books unless I’m wearing gloves.”
They turned around to face Edward again. This time he was wearing a smoking jacket with a fez on top of his baldhead. He wore a pair of pajama bottoms and his feet were encased in Turkish style slippers with the toes curled up. He held no cigar, but did have a glass of something in one hand. As he sipped the glass, Edward closed the door behind him and entered the room.
“It’s true, you know,” he told them as he tossed the glass back and sat it near a clock on a table. “Most of the time the books were done that way to counter the action of the tannic acid use to treat the leather in the covers. There used to be a profession called ‘Pure Finder’ where people went out and looked for the best doggie doo to use and sold it to the tanneries. Imagine that, having to earn your living chasing after pooches all day long. I suppose we all have to make money, but I’ve never been able to figure out a way to do it. Not much call for a mystic, I’m afraid.”
He walked over to the teapot and poured two cups out. When finished, he placed each in a dish and looked up at Dion and Lilly. “Do either of you take sugar in your tea?”
They shook their heads.
“Good. I could never understand why someone would flavor their sugar with tea; it seemed to defeat the purpose to me. However, I have never been able to understand why you Americans like your tea served cold. Seems beside the point as well. Scones?”
Again, their heads shook.
“Also good, I’ll eat them myself. These days I don’t have to worry about my weight. Unbelievably I used to be the epitome of good health. I even went mountain climbing in the Himalayas. Had to give it up when my money ran out.”
He stood up, took the teacups in the saucers to them, and handed each one a cup. This he followed with a towel.
“Sorry, I don’t waste good money on paper. I feel you should clean up the mess with a towel. Saves money and is less wasteful. But what do I understand about things? I spent my youth waited on by servants. I’ve had to learn to do many things on my own.”
Lilly and Dion took their cups and starred at him. Both had expected the transformation might have something to do with Edward; he tended to pop up at moments where he was needed, so it only made sense.
“Please, sit down,” he said motioning to the chairs on the right. There were three of them and they faced the fireplace. “We need to talk and figure out what to do next.”
Chapter 9
Lilly sat down between Dion and Edward. The chair was leather and upholstered with a fine layer of fabric. She felt the stuffing in it, but the chair wasn’t hard. She could feel the springs in the bottom as she sat down in it.
“In case you wanted to know,” Edward told them, “I had you brought here instead of going to see you. I managed to put in a request for your transportation when I saw those air elementals were about to do you some harm. I didn’t have enough time to make the trip to where you were and I’m running low on my time allotment. So I sent word to the right people of quality and you were pulled out of that nasty situation and sent t
o me. Sorry, I didn’t have time to explain it, but my time was short and I needed to get the both of you out of there.”
“Why didn’t you pull Emily and Sean out of there too?” Lilly asked him. How could Edward have saved them and left their friends to the elementals?
“I could only save two of you and they were lost already.” His glass was refilled and appeared on the table between him and Dion. Edward picked it up and took a big sip before placing it back on the table. “They had built a trap in their minds and took them away before I could do anything. It’s how you lost your map again, dear boy. They knew which one was the weakest link in the chain and they fixated on him. Emily was only a bit less weak, so they concentrated their power on her next. They would have had you, my dear girl, if your friend hadn’t pulled your eyes away from them. They knew, so long as Dion was focused on saving his friends, he would be vulnerable. All they had to do was show your friend Sean a mirror of his innermost desires and they had him. They did the same to Emily, but on a smaller scale. Had you looked in their eyes too, Lilly, they would have trapped your soul as well. But Dion held you away from them which allowed you to escape.”
“So how are we supposed to get them back?” Dion asked. “I have lost the map again and I can’t use it to find wherever they took them to. I suspect they’re inside the tower, but I have no way to find the entrance to it without the map.”
“They won’t be in the tower. That would be too obvious. I’m sure, given time, you could find a way into the tower on your own. They will take them somewhere else where you can’t reach. They know you need to get to them or you’ll never be able to achieve your abilities.”
“Can you send us to where they are now?” Lilly asked.
“I can have it done, yes. But you need to listen to me. The elementals who took your friends have trapped their minds in a cage of their own construction. It won’t do me much good to send you there to rescue them unless you have the key. Sean’s ego has been battered down since the day he was born. His mother had constantly told him he was worthless every time he did something that displeased her. The combined effects are not physical, but mental. A person can only take so much abuse and then they start to shatter every time a rock is thrown at their fragile shell. I don’t see a good future for him unless he gets away from the dominance of his mother. In some cases, the boy’s father could have stood up to her, but he’s become weakened too. I say this not as something you need to know, but as something, you have to do if you are truly going to help him.