by Jae Vogel
“What kind of work did you do besides this?” Emily said. This Viking, or whatever he was, seemed pretty cute and she wouldn’t mind spending more time in the store.
“I had plenty of stupid jobs,” Thor told her, “but the one I liked best was being a stunt dummy for the cops. I’d go back and do that one again because it was fun.”
Now the rest of the group was interested. There was no one else in the store and Thor leaned back on the counter and began to spin his tale. He’d told it so many times that he could recite it in his mind. He didn’t care, the day was slow and they seemed to want to hear it.
“I was working nights at a diner as a cook while I built my stock of knives up. One day I had a customer come into the diner and start talking about how he was a professional target for the cops. I couldn’t believe what he told me. It turns out when they train cops; they use Hogan’s alleys or mock-ups of buildings and cars for them to simulate real situations. The guy belonged to some kind of actor’s guild, which hired themselves out to the cops for training. You see, they need to make these scenarios realistic to be useful. So what do they do? They hire people to be the bad guys in the getaway car or the bum on the couch who has to be woken to tell them where the suspect is hiding. It sounded like fun, so I asked him if he was looking for anyone. This was before I had the long hair and beard, but I guess I look enough like a bad guy so he hired me on the spot. It was a great job for about a year, I had a blast.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Lilly said. It wasn’t her idea of a career to be smacked around by the men in blue with guns. It sounded downright scary.
“Not really. The guns are using blanks and they’re not even allowed to use those most of the time. My last time I was playing a guy passed out on the couch at a party because they were trying to find a drug dealer. I was supposed to play possum and they were going to force me to wake up and give some information. When I sat up, a man jumped out from behind another couch, aimed a wooden pistol at the cop trainees and yelled ‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’ By the rules of the scenario, they were all dead and had to start over again. Also, I got to play the chase vehicle with a beat-up Ford while some rookie cops ran after me in an old cruiser. They managed to force me off the road, and then they had to use the proper method to get me out of the vehicle. Failed that one too when I pulled a dummy gun out of my waistband, pointed it at the cop walking up to me and said ‘Dead!’ Yeah, it was a lot of fun, but my own calling needed attention and I had to quit.”
“Well, at least you get to do what you want to do,” Sean said. “We’re about to graduate high school and I don’t think any of us know what to do. Except Dion.” Sean glared at Dion with the last few words.
Emily noted Sean’s animosity, but said nothing about it. She knew there was no love lost between the two, but it was too bad for Sean, as he’d agreed to come along. For all she cared, Sean could be trained as an Elvis impersonator.
“It’s not a bad career,” Thor told them, “but I wish the money was better. At least I had some careers before this one to compare. Again, the police dummy was fun, but it made me worry about the cops.”
“Why?” Lilly asked him.
“The ones with a military or previous cop background had some smarts. The ones right out of college who’d decided they wanted to be a cop; they had a long way to go. It takes years to build up those survival skills. I worry there are too many of them who are going to make a wrong move because they’re too new to be on the street.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Dion said. He still didn’t understand why neither Karanzen nor any of his security staff would come into the store. It made no sense, but perhaps there was some contradiction in this part of the mall which kept them out. He reminded himself to look it up when got home. There was a well-thumbed copy of the 141414, or The Elemental Worker’s Desk Reference in his room. Supposedly, they were coming out with a new edition. This one weighed in at ten pounds, he couldn’t fathom how heavy the next one would be.
Dion turned to the windows. Still no sign of the security staff. Good. They could leave this place and get over to the hobby shop where Jupiter Hitch worked. If everything went according to plan, perhaps he could get home by the early evening and figure out how to find the next Elemental Grandmaster tomorrow.
“Thanks for your hospitality,” he told Thor, “but we need to keep moving. Our destination is down the next hall and we need to get there before the mall comes up with another barricade. It seems to be good about throwing them up in my way.”
“Sometimes I think there is no mall management or builders,” Thor sighed. “I can’t help but wonder if this place just grew overnight and we’re all inside the belly of some primordial monster. No one has ever seen the mall managers and I’m not sure they even exist.”
They left the store and proceeded down the hallway where the hobby shop was located.
Emily didn’t know a lot about hobby shops, they seemed to appeal to the boys in her school, although they quit using them after a certain age. She remembered a few kids down the street who were heavily into model rocketry and who scared the stuffing out of her father when one of their attempted launches went off course and landed in their backyard. The kids jumped the fence the next minute and retrieved it, but not before her father had yelled at them.
She watched a few of their launches, some that had better success than the one which landed in her yard. To hear the kids tell it, they were going to the moon. It all seemed like a big Fourth of July show to her, with the exception of the colored sparklers. Soon, the neighborhood kids had moved onto something else and were no longer interested in the space patrol. But the memory of rockets into the sky remained with her.
All I have to do is get the map from him, Sean thought to himself. Just get the map away and hand it to that cheerleader. So easy. Then what would Emily think when her beloved Dion didn’t have so much power after all? It sickened him that Dion could get those girls to swoon over him just by walking into the room and he had no way to get them to look in his direction. All he had to do was find a way to get it out of his hands and transfer it to Randi.
Dion felt something from Sean. He couldn’t put a name to it, but this kid Emily had dragged into the quest seemed to have something going on inside him that wasn’t good. It was a brooding nightmare and he could feel it. There was something very wrong with his head and the way he looked at the world. What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn’t the girls see it? He could understand why Emily wouldn’t notice anything, but Lilly? She was very close to him. He could feel her attraction and enjoyed the sensation. Emily, she had some pull in his direction too, but it wasn’t as intense as what he felt from the other girl. Funny how he could start to feel these things, it had to be a by-product of his years of elemental studies.
Dion made a mental note not to turn his back on Sean or drop guard. If he was under the influence of some elemental, he could easily betray them all and never realize it. He made certain to keep him in visual range at all times.
A few minutes later, they came to the hobby shop. Dion stopped everyone and looked around the perimeter. He wanted to make sure no further surprises awaited them. After yesterday’s unexpected interference from the ghoul cleaners, he was ready for everything. He closed his eyes and concentrated with his other senses, but felt nothing. The only movement he saw was from a small shop, which sold wristwatches, on the other side of the hall. There was only one lady working inside in it and she didn’t pay him any attention. If the elementals or mall has something planned, he was unable to figure out where the attack would originate. For now, it appeared they were holding back. Which was fine with him.
Dion walked right up to the store and pushed on the door. It didn’t move at all. He pushed on it again and looked down. He turned the clasp was turned and found the store was locked. Dion turned and saw the notice in the door: “Back In Thirty Minutes”.
“The mall won’t like that,” Lilly said to him when she saw the sign. “He could
get fined for not being here when he’s supposed to be. They don’t like it when the store doesn’t open on time. Shoot, even the security guards walk around and note what time these places are open. It’s part of their contract and I would expect he’d know it.”
Dion rubbed his hand on his forehead. “Unless this is a plan by the mall to delay everything,” he said. “Get the owner away from the store so I can’t meet him and have my second mastery handed to me.”
They stood there in front of the store and waited. “He’ll have to come back eventually,” Lilly said. “You think it might be safe to stay here and just wait for him?”
“I’d like to, but I’m not sure if that is such a good idea with these elementals trying to get in the way. I can guarantee you that the mall is behind his absence. They probably have him down in an office right now going over a list of stupid issues they want him to see just to get him away from the shop. They might have found a reason to get one of his employees out of the way too. I wouldn’t put it past them.”
It was Emily who first saw the cheerleaders. They didn’t appear at once this time, but out of the crowd. She saw the first one walk up to them and stop. Then another one came down the hall and blocked their retreat in that direction. Another appeared from the other side and stood watch in the other direction. More of them emerged from the crowded shopping mall and filled in the gaps between the first two and the rest. Soon, there was a solid cheerleader semi-circle that surrounded them. The shoppers knew to avoid them and continued to walk past the half circle as they made a barrier around the four friends.
Sean stood close to the one called Randi. He was closer to her than any of the other cheerleaders. She looked at him with her deep blue eyes and he felt his knees go weak. He turned and looked at the people he stood with and noticed Emily sliding up to Dion for protection. Lilly was already holding onto his hand from the other side. Sean felt his inner rage take control of him. Oh, it was fine for Emily to drag him along to this for a small thing, but if she was really scared, it was Dion she ran to for help. Not Sean who’d carried the banner for her longer than he could remember. What was it that made her look down on him? Perhaps it was the time his mother browbeat him into calling her to come along to a family picnic. They’d only gone out once, but his mother decided that, since his cousins had girlfriends along, so should he. Sean was humiliated and he knew all his mother wanted to do was show her off. And perhaps let everyone know her introverted son was halfway normal. It never happened and it was months before he could phone her again. He still shuddered at the memory of calling her up from his mother’s prodding.
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.