by Jae Vogel
“She should be around here soon,” the captain said as he consulted his watch. He wore a big mariner’s watch on his wrist. It was built sturdily to be used on ocean vessels. The watch was sealed in a special case so it could survive a sudden plunge underwater.
The captain paced back and forth. He seemed out of place in this mall. People in Ohio only thought about the sea when on vacation. It was too far away for even a weekend trip. With the Pacific Ocean far away across the Rocky Mountains on one end and the Atlantic separated by another mountain range, there wasn’t much of a casual opportunity to visit them. Even the gulf region was so far away it didn’t make a difference. When people spoke about the beach, it usually meant the one at a lake.
Sean had allowed himself to be a bystander most of the time today. He didn’t mind as it gave him some time with Emily. He wished they could talk alone, but the whole reason they came to the mall today was to support Dion. To leave would be dangerous, as he wouldn’t have the coverage he needed to protect himself against his uncle. Emily had enjoyed her day too, especially after seeing the couples emerge hand-in-hand from the pool store. Perhaps something good could happen at this mall. No idiotic security guards to bother them, which was a blessing after the initial confrontation they’d encountered this morning. Somehow, she didn’t think it would last all day and she enjoyed the brief reprieve.
Dion felt an air current and saw an air elemental sylph shoot into the corridor above him. It was one of the smaller ones, but he still could communicate with it. No one else, even the sea captain, could recognize the elemental. Even Dirce looked up and saw it only with great difficulty. She decided it wasn’t anything to be concerned about and returned her attention to Dennis.
The small air sylph didn’t talk as much as send impressions to Dion. All it could tell him was that three suspicious women had taken James and Cynae out with them. Dion asked it where they’d gone and it couldn’t remember. Then it had a second thought and sent him an impression of the group entering the aquarium store toward the entrance of the mall. Dion could visualize the name of the store, Amphitrite Tropical Fish, from it as he’d walked past the place earlier in the day. The sylph wanted to know if it could get something in return for the information and Dion told it of a cloud bank which was due to roll in this evening. As an Air Elemental Master, he had some advance knowledge of the weather patterns from the sylphs who rode the storms. Dion noticed a side exit door, walked over to it, and let the small elemental fly outside.
“We’ve got another problem,” Dion told his crew when he returned. “There is someone else in the mall working against us. I just had a small air elemental tell me three women pulled James and Cynae out of an ice cream parlor and took them over to the aquarium.”
“Any clue who it might be?” the captain asked.
“If they’re in this part of the mall, I would guess some kind of water elemental. It sounds like my uncle had a back-up plan and just initiated it.”
Dion closed his eyes and tried to get a visual on the three women the sylph had shown him by way of an impression before it left. What he could see wasn’t quite as clear as a photograph and it was filtered through the sylph’s sensations. They had uniforms on and left without much resistance from the couple. He felt something very strange about them and then the faces were clear.
“They’re the same three women who took care of me when I was little,” he said. “The same ones who tried to do me harm until the truck driver intervened. Now they’re back.”
When he saw the confused look on the captain’s face, he explained what happened with the elemental nannies that’d raised him until he was just about ready for school.
“Did you parents ever give you a reason for why they acted that way?” the captain asked him.
“Never,” Dion said. “They didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I walked past that aquarium store when I came into the mall,” the captain continued. “It seemed a little funny, but I didn’t stop long to check it out.”
“We can assume it’s where the rest of the chess club and other Naiads are right now,” Dion said. “I don’t want to storm the place, but we need to find out why they were taken there. Fortunately, I have the map.” He unrolled it on the bench and looked at the papyrus while the captain strained his head to get a look. “It’s a special map, it shows places you won’t find on the regular ones.”
Dion looked the map over and tried to make it out. The words became fuzzy, but he was able to find most of the landmarks near the mall entrance. However, no aquarium was listed on it. There were the usual mall stores and places not open to the general public, but he could not find a trace of the aquarium supply store he’s seen earlier in the day. It had to be there as the captain had noted it too.
As he looked at the map, the letters began to fade and slowly lose their coherence. The light faded from his background and he realized that he was being taken from the mall and sent somewhere else. He could’ve resisted the transfer, but at this time he needed all the information he could find and the person who was sending him elsewhere just might have a valuable piece he needed. He waited for the transfer to complete and closed his eyes until he felt the warm sun of a desert on his face.
Dion opened his eyes and found himself in the familiar Egyptian landscape. This time it was Mr. Jehuti alone who greeted him. Dion didn’t wear the robes of the old kingdom as he’d done before, but stood in the same jeans and jacket he’d worn before the transfer. This had to be very important for it to happen so fast without any time to adjust his appearance. He was alone this time, which meant he was transferred in the fastest way possible.
“Good afternoon, Dion,” Mr. Jehuti said. He was alone and wore the same suit and tie as the one he kept on at his newsstand. “I needed to speak to you right away and didn’t have time to make many adjustments. I hope you don’t mind. When you return, it will be at the same time you left, give or take a second. So you don’t have to worry about tarrying very long.”
“Why is the map unreadable?” he asked the newsstand owner. “And why can’t I see the aquarium store where my friends have been taken?”
“Your uncle has found a way to interfere again. He has many resources at his fingers because he built the mall over the abyss.”
“Who took my friends?”
“You uncle had another group of water elementals on stand-by in case he had some problems with his first plan. The second groups of elementals have used the same strategy with your friends who are wandering around the mall with the water elemental Naiads.”
“Why doesn’t the aquarium supply store appear on my map?” Dion demanded.
“Because it didn’t exist until yesterday. Your uncle was able to recruit these three water elementals at the last minute. He placed the store there just in case he needed them, but it didn’t go into operation until yesterday. There is a human owner of it, but she knows nothing of his plans. He’s managed to recruit all kinds of bad elementals from the water domain to stock it, so it’s not your ordinary fish supply store. I’m telling you this because you have to get in there and rescue your friends before it’s too late. He’s found a way to bind the Naiad sisters into the place so you can’t get them out as easily as you did the last time. Your uncle has become desperate and is turning to desperate measures to stop you from obtaining all your powers.”
Dion turned and looked up at the sky. The bug was still moving the sun across the heavens and the ship was still sailing behind it. Funny how nothing changed in this location. It was outside the circles of time and he didn’t have a clue where it was located. In the distance, he could see another pyramid under construction. The farmers were singing some work song as they hauled another block of stone on a sled across the sands. Hard to imagine they needed the sled and oxen to do it when it was possible to transfer him from his own time circle. What would they sing when the pyramid was finished? Would the farmers and engineers start on a bigger and more impressive pyramid than the
last one?
“If you can send me here right in the middle of all the trouble we have in my time circle,” he asked, “why can’t you deal with my uncle for me and free my parents?”
“Because you have to do it. It’s in the rules. You have to find the four elemental grandmasters on your own and you need to overcome whatever adversity is in your path. I’m allowed to help, but not directly intervene. If we did that all the time, what good would this quest be?”
“What else is he planning to do when I rescue the chess club guys who are in the aquarium? I don’t think he uses the same stagey each time. My uncle didn’t get control of his father’s company by using the same plans for each market.”
“He’ll try to ambush you with Karanzen and the security guards when you leave. You can rest assured of that. Karanzen is desperate too, but I don’t think he is so stupid as to use firearms inside the mall. The first time a gun is discharged in the mall, no one will ever come back. One of the attractions of an indoor mall is that it provides a safe place for people to ship in a controlled environment. Lose that advantage and the mall no longer becomes a good shopping option.”
“I don’t know where else they would go. What are they going to do? Order everything out of a catalogue?”
“You would be surprised at the lengths people will go to make shopping easy for themselves.”
Dion looked down and kicked at the ground. “This is getting absurd,” he said to Mr. Jehuti. “Every time I go after my elemental power, one of my friends is kidnapped and I have to rescue them. Now he’s grabbed an entire club with the girls I found for them. What does he plan to do next? Abduct the entire football team?”
“I would put very little past your uncle. He thinks he’s in control, but the abyss has affected his mind.”
Dion was reaching the limits of his endurance. All his life he’d been told by his parents about the important quest he needed to undertake someday. When they were abducted and he went to live with his aunt and uncle, they told him he still needed to finish the quest. Dion knew it was the only way to free his parents. He needed that fifth elemental power to get them out and he had to obtain it the right way, not by the false path his uncle chose.
“Those are the three elementals that raised me,” he said to Mr. Jehuti. “Aren’t they? They’re the ones, who tried to harm me before the delivery truck showed up, aren’t they?”
“You are correct on that statement. Your uncle found the elementals that were corrupted and turned them against you. He knew if once they could turn them against you, it could be done again.”
“Who was the older woman I saw them talking to before they turned on me? No one has ever said who she was or why a delivery truck just happened to be around when they came after me. There was hardly anyone on the beach that day.”
“All in due time. You will learn the answers when you need to find them out. Right now, you need to return to your own time circle and resume the rescue of your friends. I’m going to send you back right now. You will appear at the same time you left. At least so close no one will notice you’ve gone.”
Mr. Jehuti raised his hand and the scene before Dion faded. Everything went black during the transfer as it always did.
Dion blinked and opened his eyes. He was back at the corridor outside the pool store. His friends were still there watching him, ready to move out and head in the direction of the aquarium.
“Dion?” the captain said to him. “You were just talking about the fish supply store where your friends were taken. What else do you know about it?”
“It’s not on the map,” Dion said as he held up the papyrus roll and showed it to them. “The aquarium supply store was put in place yesterday as part of my uncle’s fall back plan in case the Naiads didn’t keep me from the pool store.”
Dion studied the map and watched the location of the store slowly fill in on it. Whatever his uncle had done to keep it off the map, a trip to the Valley of the Kings took care of it. Mr. Jehuti had reset the map and he could continue on with the mission. The map showed the outline of the store, but it didn’t reveal exactly what was inside it. Dion made out several large rooms in the back large enough to hold a group of people. He shoved the map in his jacket and picked the cup off the bench. Time to move out.
“Do you have a plan as to what we’re supposed to do when we reach the aquarium store?” Captain Gabriel asked Dion as they group walked down the concourse. The foot traffic had increased over the hours they’d been in the store.
“I will when we get there.”
It irritated Dion that so many of the parents with small children were not paying attention to them. Several times that day he’s seen kids walking into stores and pull items off the shelf while the adults ignored them and continued talking to the people they knew. At one point, he was forced to inform a woman her toddler had wandered out of the store while she was busy in conversation with a friend. The woman had looked in anger at him while she ran out and retrieved the child. If these were the parents, he dreaded what the future would bring.
Still no sign of the security guards. Perhaps Karanzen resigned himself to his inability to keep Dion and company out of the mall, but he doubted it. Outside a jewelry store, an armed security guard stood on watch, but he worked for the store, not the mall. Dion was certain there were plenty of undercover store detectives who were employed to keep loss to a minimum, but he didn’t have to worry about them. Every so often, he would catch a glance of a uniform in the distance, but the guards didn’t approach them.
“We could be walking into a trap,” the captain said to him. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone was kidnapped so that someone else was lured into a rescue.”
“It’s been tried twice this week. My uncle has something else up his sleeve and he’ll try it by a different method.”
The captain sighed and continued to walk with them. He was concerned Salacia hadn’t appeared when she was supposed to be there. Granted, she was never so punctual, but now he was worried. It was a good thing he’d traveled out here to check up on her. The letters were few over the past few years. She seemed excited about the new store, which was opening at the mall, but the general tone of her letter made him check in with some of the immortals he still talked with. When he learned of the mall’s location over the abyss, the captain decided it was time to go out and check on her himself.
They stood outside the aquarium supply store and looked at it. The front façade was decorated with fish and creatures of the deep. Dion thought it a little odd the pictures they’d chosen were of sea predators: sharks, eels and stingrays. If he needed a sign that the store represented the abyss, the picture on the window of the Marianas Trench was it. The lighting was not the bright spotlights used for most stores, but a series of ultraviolet lights, which reacted to the fluorescent colors on the doors to give a spectral appearance. It was impossible to see inside it, which Dion knew had to be intentional. He watched the lights turn on and off slowly, bringing the ghosts of the deep into play with each cycle.
“You wanted to know my plan,” Dion said to his friends. “Well, here it is. I’m going in there. Alone. Give me an hour, if I don’t come out call the police. I don’t think they’ll be able to do much good, but it’s the only idea I have at the moment.”
“I don’t want you to go in there alone,” Lilly said as she grabbed hold of his hand.
“I know, but I have no idea what is on the other side of those doors. My uncle has done everything he could do to stop me from obtaining my elemental powers and he his prime plan failed spectacular today. I don’t know what he’s planned for the backup, but he had his elemental harpies haul the chess club inside there somehow. I have to get them back and only I can do it.”
“What happens if Karanzen makes an appearance with his bully boys?” Sean asked him.
“Just try to hold him off until I get out of there or an hour has passed. I’m sure you can think of something. Threaten to call your parents’ lawyer or
something. The important thing is to get of them out of there and then locate Salacia Delphi. Captain Gabriel, if you see her out here, can you hold your ex-wife long enough for me to get back?”
“I don’t think it should be too much trouble.”
“Good.” Dion turned to the rest of the group. “I’m depending on every one of you. Stay put until I get back.”
He checked his wristwatch and pushed the doors open.
Chapter 12
The inside of the aquarium store was dim. The vestibule was lit by glowing fish drawings in fluorescent colors illuminated by the ultraviolet lights on the ceiling. He heard the doors close behind him and looked inside, but didn’t see anyone. The counter seemed vacant.
Behind the counter stood endless rows of tropical fish tanks. In front of them were the supplies, which could be found in any store of a similar size. Dion stepped in and listened. All he could hear was the continuous sound of air pumps running. Every now and then, something bubbled in one of the tanks. He walked over to the nearest tank and looked inside.
It was a scorpion fish, one of the deadliest and most beautiful fish on the planet. The fish was a symphony of color and textures, but it also carried a poison most people with the wrong allergy would find fatal. In the tank next to it, he noticed a lionfish, followed by a big tank with a puffer fish in it. The entire row of tanks contained venomous fish.
Dion saw a shadow move in the distance and checked his coat to make certain he’d brought along the cup from Hobbs. It wasn’t very large and Hobbs had never lied to him yet. If he said the cup would bind a water elemental, he was right. It was simply a matter of getting to the elementals his uncle had used to capture his friends.
He walked a little further back and saw a huge round tank in the middle of the store. The tank was gigantic, almost the size of a swimming pool. A diver could easily fit into it. Coral and other salt-water creatures swam inside it, but there had to be another reason it was in the store. Dion looked inside the tank, which was lit from the bottom, and saw a full-grown shark swimming around. It was impressive, but not what you expected to see inside an aquarium supply store.