Five Elements #1

by Dan Jolley

  Brett tried his best to focus. “So this null draak that’s running around the city now . . .”

  “Try flying,” Dr. Conway said glumly.

  “Holy cow. Okay. That’s flying around the city now. Is it looking for Gabe and Kaz and Lily?”

  Dr. Conway shrugged. “Don’t worry too much about them. Gabe especially can handle himself. He may not realize it yet, but he can. It’s in his blood. It’s the rest of the city that’s in danger.” He waved his hands around the kitchen, but in a way that indicated Arcadia as a whole. “And let’s not forget about ourselves. There are things crawling around Arcadia much, much worse than a null draak. We should stay here and gather our strength. You said you and your friends had talked with Greta, right? Well, she’ll already be working on a way to get you back home.”

  Home?

  Brett moved away from Dr. Conway, his hands shoved out in a gesture like Stop! “Are you crazy? I’m not going home! Not yet! After everything I’ve been through? Everything I’ve done?”

  Gabe’s uncle stared at Brett blankly. “What are you talking about?”

  “My brother! Charlie!” Brett wasn’t going to sit back and let this chance—this one chance—get away from him. “I can’t come all this way and not see him!”

  Aria kept puttering and clanking about the kitchen, oblivious to their conversation, but Dr. Conway frowned as he focused on Brett. “You’re talking about your brother who died? Gabe told me about what happened. But I don’t understand. Why would you think he’d be in Arcadia?”

  “Because he is.” Brett wasn’t sure he could make Dr. Conway understand, no matter how carefully he explained it.

  “Listen. You need to hear this. Arcadia is another plane of existence, yes, but it is not the afterlife. Your brother isn’t here. He can’t be.”

  “That’s not true!” Brett’s voice rose higher and higher. Aria finally stopped baking her imaginary cake and turned toward him. Brett kept talking, and even as the words poured out, he knew they sounded as if he were the one who belonged in a crazy house, not Greta Jaeger. “You’re lying to me! I don’t know why, but you are, because Jackson told me Charlie was here! He said, ‘Dead isn’t gone’! He promised me!”

  Dr. Conway’s eyebrows shot up. “Brett—”

  But Brett couldn’t stop the rush. “He told me what to do! All of it! I started seeing him in my dreams, right after I found the ring.” He whipped the ring out of his shirt, where he kept it on a thin chain.

  Dr. Conway gasped at the sight of the five-spoked wheel carved into the gold. “But that’s—”

  But Brett wasn’t finished. “The map, the Tablet, the ritual, all of it—I did it all because Jackson promised me I could see my brother again! And you’re saying it was all garbage?”

  Dr. Conway made a calming gesture. “Hold on. Hold on. This is . . . this is unprecedented. You’re saying someone from another plane made contact with you through your dreams?”

  Brett emptied his lungs in a shrill scream: “I don’t care how it happened! I just need to see my brother!” Before Dr. Conway could do anything about it, Brett bolted out of the kitchen. He sprinted down the hallway, banged through the front door, and charged headlong out into the street.

  From behind him he heard running footsteps. “Brett, wait! It’s too dangerous! You have to come back!”

  But Brett had made up his mind. Dr. Conway was either lying or confused, because Charlie was here. He had to be. No other answer made sense. No other answer . . . would let Brett live with himself. With what he’d done. If Dr. Conway’s right, if I tricked Gabe into opening the Tablet for nothing—if I’m the one who might have made it possible for the Eternal Dawn to combine Earth with Arcadia and destroy the world . . .

  No. No! He pushed the thoughts away. Dr. Conway was wrong. I just have to find Charlie!

  Brett tore off up the sidewalk, away from the house, heading deeper into the city. Just have to figure out where all the people are! That’s where I’ll find Charlie!

  He glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes bugged out when he saw Dr. Conway gaining on him. Now that he had two flesh-and-bone legs, the man could have been a freaking track star. Brett poured everything he had into getting away, and might have begun to pull ahead just a bit—

  —when the ground shook violently beneath his feet, and abruptly it no longer mattered. A group of four . . . Brett goggled at them. What are those things? A group of four creatures built like the hunters he and his friends had encountered on Earth burst out from a side street. Except these things were so much bigger than the hunters. They looked more like glistening, golden, skinless triceratops, massive horns and all. And all four of them were ignoring Brett and zeroing in on Dr. Conway

  “Sorry, Dr. Conway,” Brett whispered, massively relieved that the gigantic beasts hadn’t noticed him. But then he saw something. Dark as a storm cloud, up a side street.

  Whatever it was, it was hidden behind other buildings. Brett squinted, trying to see it clearly, but Arcadia’s strange, blurred-edge distortion prevented him.

  Something with . . . tentacles? The gold-tinted air swirled around the thing like heat waves.

  Something colossal.

  Brett stood rooted to the spot. Very dimly, as if from a mile away, he heard Dr. Conway screaming at him. It sounded like “Get away” or “Run.” He couldn’t really tell, because the tentacled thing gripped every last shred of his attention.

  And it was coming closer.

  Finally Brett’s feet broke loose from their imaginary moorings, and he ran. Away from the massive tentacled storm cloud thundering its way through the city. Away from the horned super-hunters. Away from Dr. Conway. Brett ran and ran, through the twisted, desolate, shattered version of 1906 San Francisco. And as his legs and arms pumped, he realized he was faster than he’d ever been on Earth. When he jumped, he jumped higher and sailed farther through the yellow-orange-tinted air. Bit by bit, second by second, Brett forgot the terror of the Thing behind him and began to revel in the strength, the sensation of power as it steadily soaked into him.

  Lily would love it here. I bet her asthma would be gone, just like Dr. Conway’s leg regenerated.

  Another thought struck him like a sledgehammer.

  I bet Charlie loves it here, too! If he’s okay. I have to get to him. I have to save him!

  His heart filled back up with an impossible hope. Brett skidded to a stop at the crest of a steep hill. Below him, past the blasted buildings and broken streets and slaughtered horses, a shining sea stretched away, looking for all the world like molten gold. And thrusting up out of the shimmering, flashing liquid, far offshore, an immense rock outcropping . . . and a massive walled fortress.

  Brett concentrated. Turned his head slightly to hear better and . . .

  Yes. From across the water, carried to him by the waves, came the sounds of hundreds of tormented screams.

  Arcadia had transformed it, just as it had transformed everything else about the city, but Brett would know that place anywhere:

  Alcatraz.

  14

  Gabe almost had to push his own jaw shut. “Catch a dragon. You want us to capture the null draak?” When Greta nodded, Gabe sputtered, “How?” loudly enough to make the other customers turn and look at him. He ducked his head and slid down in his seat, and in a much lower tone said, “How are we supposed to do that?”

  “It’s not like we can call in the National Guard,” Kaz said gloomily. “They’d get torn to bits.”

  “But you know a way, don’t you?” Lily put her elbows on the table and leaned toward Greta. “What do we need to do?”

  Greta took a sip from her coffee. “It’s like this. That null draak doesn’t belong here any more than Brett belongs in Arcadia. And it’s attracted to magick, because magick reminds it of home. So we can set a trap. But we can’t dawdle. Ordinary people might not be able to see the null draak for what it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less dangerous to them.”

  “I
fear we are ignoring a central issue here,” Jackson said in pinched tones. He toyed with the straw sticking out of his Icy Mocha Blast. “If your goal is to retrieve ‘Uncle Steve’ and your friend Brett, that means exchanging the null draak and myself. And I did not accomplish all this just to be returned to Arcadia.”

  Gabe bristled, but before he could say anything, Greta Jaeger spoke. “Mr. Wright, dangerous though Arcadia is, Steven Conway can defend himself—and Brett as well, if they’re together. The null draak, on the other hand, is only going to grow more and more deadly the longer it stays here. It has to be our first priority. Once we have Brett back, then we can figure out how to rescue Steven. And how to deal with your . . . predicament.”

  Jackson glared at her sullenly. “I suppose I am slightly better off staying with you lot than I would be striking out on my own at this point.”

  “Gosh,” Lily said, oozing sarcasm. “That’s so nice of you to say.”

  “Okay.” Gabe straightened in his chair. “What do we need to do?”

  “First we make a list. There are things we’ll need.” Greta grabbed a napkin. “Anybody got a pen?” Kaz obligingly handed her one, and Greta started writing carefully on the flimsy paper. “There’s a special chalk, laced with blood.”

  Gabe made a face. “Okay, that’s gross. Where do we get it?”

  One corner of Greta’s mouth twitched upward. “In your uncle’s office at the university.”

  “I should’ve known.”

  Greta went on writing. “There’s a large shard of flawless amethyst in a museum on the other side of town. That’s a must. We’ll use that ritual blade you took from the Dawn, too.” Gabe assumed she meant the silver dagger Primus had stabbed Uncle Steve with. “And we have to retrieve some equipment that your uncle and your father hid away, back when we all had our own elemental circle.”

  Kaz’s face brightened. “Equipment? What kind of equipment?” Gabe figured Kaz was happy to latch on to the thought of anything technical in the midst of all this elemental, supernatural . . . stuff.

  Greta looked up from the napkin. “You remember that show globe hanging from the ceiling in the theater? The one full of swirling, glowing energy?”

  Lily nodded. “I didn’t know it was called a ‘show globe,’ but yeah.”

  “That was energy siphoned from Arcadia. The Dawn used it to turn regular dogs into hunters. What we’ll be looking for is a vial of the same energy, which we’ll use to attract the null draak.”

  Kaz frowned. Gabe guessed he was disappointed that “equipment” involved more magick nonsense rather than electron microscopes or lasers. As if Kaz had read Gabe’s mind, he said, “Couldn’t have been anything real. Noooooo. Has to be more mumbo jumbo.”

  Jackson let out a nasty laugh. “I was aware you were all children, but it still surprises me when you prove yourselves to be such . . . children.”

  Gabe practically snarled, “Nobody asked you.” Jackson shrugged and returned to his beverage.

  Greta handed the pen back to Kaz and addressed the whole group. “Well, you can all take comfort in the knowledge that we have one big advantage here: the Emerald Tablet. That will definitely make things easier. It is perhaps the most powerful of all relics. Hideously powerful. If the Dawn ever acquire the Tablet, they will use it to merge Arcadia with this world. That is why they want it so badly.”

  Lily’s forehead wrinkled up. “And we can’t let that happen because . . .”

  Tersely, Greta said, “Reality as we know it would cease to exist, and billions of people would likely die horrible, horrible deaths.”

  The words hung in the air.

  Finally Gabe cleared his throat. “Then let’s make sure they don’t get the Tablet, huh?”

  Greta put the napkin in the middle of the table and tapped it with a knuckle. “We’ll work faster if we separate into teams. I can find the hidden vial of energy. Lily and Kaz, can you get the amethyst shard from the museum?”

  Kaz looked as if he was going to protest, but Lily immediately said, “Yup, no problem.”

  Greta turned to Gabe. “That leaves you and Jackson to get the chalk from your uncle’s office. You two will make a great team, won’t you, Gabe?” The ghost of a smile slid across her creased face.

  Gabe glared at Jackson. Just about last on his list of things to do was “hang out with the weirdo creepy liar ghost boy.” But at the same time, since Gabe trusted Jackson even less far than he could throw him, he’d prefer to keep an eye on him. “Yeah, that’s fine with me. You got a problem with that, Wright?”

  Jackson took the time to pull the very last bit of his drink through the straw, making a loud, obnoxious slurping sound, before he set down the cup and smiled. “Why no, of course not. Why would I?”

  “We need to decide where to meet once we’ve acquired what we need.” Greta stared at the tabletop. “The best place to trap a dragon would be . . .” She trailed off.

  Condescendingly, Jackson finished her sentence. “Alcatraz. Without question. The walls of this reality are thinnest there. That is how I was able to step partially through when we first met.”

  Gabe exchanged quick glances with Lily and Kaz. He thought they were all on the same page: none of them liked Jackson, and none of them trusted him, but they couldn’t argue with what he’d just said.

  “Fine,” Lily said.

  “Yeah,” Kaz said. “Okay.”

  Greta nodded, making it official. “Alcatraz it is, then.”

  Gabe grumbled as he pushed his chair back from the table.

  Jackson sat on the cable car with his legs splayed far apart, crowding into Gabe’s space. It gave Gabe just one more reason to despise the boy.

  “You realize,” Jackson started, “your dislike of me is virtually palpable.”

  Gabe gritted his teeth. He didn’t know what the word “palpable” meant, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “Can’t think of why I’d dislike you,” he grumbled. “You’ve only lied to us all, got Brett and my uncle sent to some kind of shadow dimension, and dragged us into a giant mess that’s probably going to get us all killed.”

  Jackson sighed. “Never mind all my attempts to save your lives, yes?”

  Gabe ignored him.

  Jackson said, “I hate the Eternal Dawn with an undying passion. No pun intended. I want to see them all suffer, and the best way to do that is to destroy Arcadia. I am on your side.”

  Gabe turned his head enough to give Jackson a skeptical look. “I think you’re on your side. And I think I don’t much care what else you have to say.”

  Jackson sighed again. A tense silence settled between them for several minutes.

  The silence broke when a Maserati roared past them on the street outside. Jackson practically broke himself in half, twisting around to press his hands to the window, watching the sports car disappear around a curve. He sank slowly back into his seat once the Maserati was out of sight. “Astonishing. I had glimpses of such machines from where I was imprisoned, but the sleekness, the power of automobiles today. I never dreamed they would achieve such goals. No one did.”

  To Gabe’s surprise, he found himself torn. A little part of him wanted to geek out with the kid over how cool Italian sports cars were.

  It made him think. He turned over several thoughts in his head, just sort of examining them for a minute. Jackson Wright looked about ten, but if he was telling the truth—and who knew if he was or wasn’t—he’d been stuck in some sort of interdimensional limbo for, like, over a hundred years. What would Gabe be like if that happened to him? What would it do to his personality? His mind? Would he be in any better shape than Jackson?

  The very concept that maybe Jackson deserved at least a tiny little bit of sympathy irritated Gabe. He didn’t want to be sympathetic. Gabe hunched his shoulders and folded his arms tightly across his chest, and when Jackson said “What troubles you now?” he didn’t answer.

  One thing Gabe did know for certain, though, sympathy or not. If it came to a choice betwe
en letting Jackson Wright stay here or getting Uncle Steve back from Arcadia, well, that was no choice at all. As soon as Greta Jaeger opened the connection between the worlds, Jackson was going back.

  Neither boy said anything until the university came into view. Gabe stood up. “Come on, on your feet. This is our stop.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jackson said mockingly.

  Gabe’s jaw clenched. No choice at all.

  Gabe and Jackson both craned their heads to look up at the stately building where Uncle Steve had his office. “Rothenburg Hall?” Jackson said, reading the name carved into the stone facade.

  “That’s where we are.” Gabe beckoned to him and started toward the side door. “Come on. Like Greta said, we can’t waste time.”

  Jackson moved up shoulder to shoulder with him as they walked inside. “So, what manner of place is this?”

  Gabe stopped just short of rolling his eyes at Jackson’s “small talk.” “This is a university. I know they had those in 1906.”

  Jackson narrowed his eyes at Gabe. “I was eleven. Forgive me for not paying attention to higher education at that point.”

  Gabe shrugged. “And this particular building is part of the College of Humanities. Uncle Steve is a professor of mythology and folklore.” A memory popped into Gabe’s head, and he couldn’t help but grin a little. “He said this was where they stuck all the shaggy-headed liberals. He heard one of the deans say that, and he took it as a compliment.”

  As they climbed the stairs toward Uncle Steve’s third-floor office, and after a lengthy pause, Jackson asked, “You truly love your uncle, do you not? You miss him?”

  “Of course I miss him.” Gabe bit his tongue before he could add, “dumb ass.”

  Jackson paused again. “I only remember my father. I know I had other family, aunts and uncles. And I think I loved my mother, though I’ve forgotten her face. But my father . . .”

  Gabe glanced over at Jackson’s face. Jackson had put enough icy venom in those last two words to make Gabe wonder exactly what his father had done. Not that he was about to ask. He pushed open the door to the third floor. “It’s right there. Second door on the left.”