by Gabi Moore
“Nor should it be,” Edward told them. “Oh well, my time is short, as the ghost said.” He pulled out the round watch on a chain from his pocket. “Just about time for me to go. I have to deduct it from the total time allowed, but I wanted to be here to see him get his first degree, such as it is. I must be off.” And, as before, he vanished.
“I wasn’t surprised to see our Greek Chorus waiting for me,” Dion told Lilly as they looked at the empty chair recently occupied by Edward. “I did a double take over his choice of clothes. It really doesn’t suit him.”
“That outfit didn’t suit anyone,” Lilly made clear.
“So what can you do with the earth elementals now that you have full power over them?” Lilly asked Dion. “Maybe you can make those ghouls apologize to Emily for kidnapping her.”
“I think Emily doesn’t want to be around those ghouls ever again. So long as I am in the vicinity, she won’t have to worry about them. They know by now that I’ll bind them underground if they ever try something like that again. But I doubt it will happen as they were put up to the deed by the mall management.”
“You learned this from the pharmacist?”
“It’s obvious. Can’t you see it? Whoever runs this mall doesn’t want me to obtain full elemental abilities. They are doing what they can to throw up walls and prevent it. As long as I’m here with just a few abilities, I’m not a threat. If I obtain full elemental powers, I could be a credible threat to whatever they are trying to do with this mall. What they really worry about is what happens if I can work the fifth element.”
“Why?”
“Because then they will have no power over me at all. And I will have authority over them, which is something they can’t bear to contemplate. So they will stop at nothing to keep me from my quest. It’s why all the Elemental Grandmasters are in this mall. They enticed them here so they could be kept under watch. The management built this mall as a fortress to keep me from reaching out to them all. They couldn’t just lock them up, so they built a secure facility where they could monitor any entrance to and from them. Now they are really worried because if I can reach one Elemental Grandmaster, I can reach all four. And with all four elemental abilities, maybe I’ll be able to get the fifth and then they’ll be obedient to me.”
“They built this entire mall to stop you from finding them? Wouldn’t it have been cheaper just to find a way to take you out years ago?”
“There is a limit to what they can do. Work any kind of violence on an elemental worker and the rest find out about it. Then they would have every elemental worker turn against them and hunt them down. They wouldn’t last long with every elemental turned against them. So they decided to secure the Elemental Grandmasters here by guile in hopes they could keep them away from me until their plans were realized.”
“What kind of plans do they have?”
“I don’t know. But it can’t be good if they are willing to spend so much money and energy to build this mall to keep me out of it. I think whatever they are doing is coming to a head because why else would they go to these lengths to keep me out of the mall?”
“I think that is a good enough reason to leave,” Lilly said.
As they walked out of the mall, Lilly and Dion noticed the few cars remaining in the parking lot. It was after nine in the evening and everyone who worked there was almost gone. The night was full of stars, as it was a dark night without a moon.
Lilly put her hand in Dion’s as they went outside and stopped to look at the countryside. It was still a rural area with plenty of room for new developments. The interstate was visible in the distance and it was lit with the headlights of cars going back and forth between the major cities it connected. The cool night air had settled in over the ground as well.
“Do you need a ride?” Lilly asked him.
“No… my car is that old van over there. I use it a lot to get around. Sometimes I even sleep in it. My aunt and uncle are pretty busy. They don’t have any other children at home and I think having me move in was pretty disruptive. I’ve tried not to bother them too much.”
“You mean that van?” she said and pointed to a lone car in the distance.
“Yep, that’s it. It was an old delivery van and it holds up very well. I have to do maintenance on it from time to time, but you expect these things after a while. Not hard to do if you can find a place on the side of the road to pull over and don’t leave a mess. I keep all the tools I need in the back.”
As they walked closer, Lilly suddenly noticed heads popping out around the other side of the van. Someone was staring at them from behind it. This didn’t look good, as the pharmacist had warned Dion in front of her that all manner of forces would be against Dion after he’d attained elemental mastery. Could this be some elemental trying to strike back already?
They heard a conflagration of voices behind the van and a tire began to roll away from it. Dion stopped and his eyes narrowed. “Dammit,” he said, “I just had a new tire put on that van. That’s the one I paid for last week!”
A very human figure ran after the tire and caught it. As soon as he did, a white sedan car shot out from behind the van racing at him. The car stopped and the thief threw the tire in the backseat. He jumped into the back of the car, slammed the door, and it sped away.
This last adversary was very human indeed. The tire thieves were in the process of finishing their job when Dion and Lilly made their appearance.
“That tire cost me all the money I had,” he said. “I had to use my emergency money to get the onyx necklace. I don’t even have the cash to buy gas for tomorrow.”
Lilly could see Dion fight to control his anger, but it was boiling up inside him. It was one thing for elementals to have a run at him; they resented his ability and looked upon Dion as competition. But for fellow humans to steal something so trivial, yet so important to him, was beyond understanding. They didn’t care about his situation one bit. She watched his face go rock hard as the car sped away toward the exit.
It never made it out of the parking lot.
As the car shot out toward the ramp to the highway, the ground in front of it rose up and blocked it. The car slammed on its brakes and spun out of control, barely missing the combination of asphalt and earth, which began to rumble up around it. The car stopped and they could hear yelling on the inside of it. The thieves gunned the engine and aimed for the grass berm next to the exit lane. However, as they approached it, the ground next to the wall, which had risen out of the ground, collapsed, leaving a vast pit before them.
Once again, the car spun off in another direction and stopped. This time the driver started to inch the car forward and the ground opened up directly in front of it. Fire erupted from the pit below it and the car began to move backwards.
Everywhere the car tried to go, the earth rose up or dropped in front of it until it had no choice but it move back in the direction of the van. The white sedan slowly rumbled back toward it. When the sedan reached the old van, the car came to a full stop.
Lilly looked up at Dion and saw the rage in his eyes. He fought the desire inside him. He had to keep from destroying the van and everyone inside it. This was the wrath of an operational earth element master. Dion stood perfectly still and focused on the sedan.
The back door of the sedan opened and the thief emerged. In his hands was the tire and he shook with fear. Lilly was worried the thieves were armed, but Dion’s power trumped any weapon they could possibly carry in that car.
“Put it back the way it was!” He ordered the thief.
The tire thief, knees knocking together, stepped toward the van. He appeared to have second thoughts until the fire pit surrounding the car spread closer. Then he continued on behind the van. The sound of him replacing the tire could be heard from their side of it. After fifteen tense minutes, the thief emerged with the tire jack in one hand. He stood in front of Dion with the jack as if seeking instruction.
“Place it down on the ground and get back i
n the car!” Dion ordered the thief.
As instructed, the man placed it on the ground and slowly climbed into the car, shutting the door behind him. The car continued to idle in place.
The earthen mound in front of the exit retracted and became level with the ground. The fire inside the pits extinguished and the ground rose back up to become smooth once again. It was almost impossible in the dark to tell anything had taken place. Then ground became quiet and the rumbling, which had accompanied the movement of the earth, was gone.
The white sedan moved at a snail’s pace across the parking lot and began to pick up speed as it left the exit lane. By the time it was on the entrance ramp to the interstate, Dion estimated the car’s speed had hit in excess of ninety miles an hour. It vanished into the night, a white streak down the blacktop.
“I hope they have a good story ready if they encounter the Highway Patrol,” Dion said as he turned back to Lilly. “Are you parked on the other side of the mall? Come with me, I can give you a ride over there now that my van has all four tires.”
Lilly walked to the van with him.
Dion reached down and picked up the jack, which he tossed in the back of the van as he opened the door. The driver’s door was unlocked, as the thieves had used a coat hanger (left inside) to pull open the lock and ruffle through the inside. They didn’t find much beside the jack, but the tire was their intent anyway. He unlocked the passenger door for Lilly and helped her inside.
She didn’t know what to say. The day had begun with her watching him do small tricks with a pool of water and ended with Dion causing the earth to move around a speeding car. If ever she needed physical proof of his abilities, this was it. She quietly sat down in her seat and waited for him to start the van.
Nevertheless, it wouldn’t start. Dion swore and looked at the gas gauge in the van. “Idiots siphoned off my gas too. If I had known, I would have made them fill my tank. Looks like I’ll need a ride from you tonight.”
They walked across the huge parking lot under the stars. The arc lamps illuminated it, but not all of them were on tonight.
Lilly realized she was very much in love with Dion, but lacked the words to tell him. All she could think about was going on the next adventure with him. Be close to him. Didn’t he say he had to obtain three more elemental powers before he could work the fifth one? She wanted to be with him every step of the way.
“So what about your van?” she asked him on the drive back. “It’s going to be left out there all night? Aren’t you worried someone might try that again?”
“I left an elemental guarding it,” he said. “Anyone tries to mess with my van tonight will encounter an eight foot giant standing next to them. It’s just a golem and doesn’t have any violent tendencies, but he will be able to scare the pants off most people. It should suffice. When I get home, I’ll have my uncle and aunt call a tow service and we’ll meet them out there when they arrive. Alternatively, maybe I’ll just borrow a gas can and go out there myself. No reason to make this more involved than it has to be.”
“I’d like to meet them,” Lilly said. “You aunt and uncle, that is.”
“You will. They should still be up.”
Dion directed her to one of the many subdivisions, which lined the area, and they were soon in the driveway of his aunt and uncle’s house.
It was another modes split-level house, a style popular in recent years which had replace the ranch style castles which sprang up everywhere until ten years ago when people became tired of the same basic dwelling.
New developers began to build new models and soon houses were taking on the characteristics of their owners. Some houses were in a perpetual state of construction and addition, as the owner would always find some new project to initiate before concluding an existing one. Some houses had yards free of any traces of crabgrass while others had entire gardens growing out front. It was before the zoning laws standardized the way everything could be built. Most of them had their own water system and pumped it from the underground water table. This was all about to change with the coming of progress and shopping centers. Even cable TV had yet to reach this area and most houses were adorned with a virtual forest of antennas of all shapes, sizes and rotational controls.
Dion’s uncle met him at the door.
Lilly was surprised at how much he resembled his nephew. He graciously invited her inside and told them both to sit on the couch while he went to fetch his wife.
“I’ll get some coffee brewing,” he said. “You two look as if you could use some.”
“Do you think they’ll believe what we have to tell them?” Lilly asked Dion.
“They’re family,” he reminded her. “My uncle is the element worker and his wife understands.”
“Oh, honey,” Lilly heard a very feminine voice cry out and she looked up to see a tall woman with long red hair enter the room, “Are you okay? Your uncle told me you had a bad time at the mall today. Is everything alright?”
“I’m fine Aunt Taliea,” he told her. “At least I met the Earth Grandmaster today. You should see what I can do now.”
He turned to Lilly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce you to them. This is my Aunt Taliea and her husband, my father’s brother, Uncle Rich.”
They all hugged, shook hands and sat back down again. Dion and Lilly stayed on the couch while his aunt and uncle sat across from them in chairs. It was an ordinary house, so far as Lilly could tell; the only difference was that there was no TV in the living room. She hadn’t even heard one when she entered the house.
First, Lilly phoned her parents to let them know where she was. She was careful to give them the phone number where she could be reached. Her mother was a little perturbed she had gone somewhere without checking with her first, but Lilly casually reminded her she was eighteen and should be trusted to make her own decisions. Her mother made her promise to be home by midnight.
“She acts like I’m still in the sixth grade,” Lilly said after hanging up the phone.
Dion spent an hour or more telling them what had happened during the day. His aunt put her hand to her mouth several times when they talked about the ghouls and the animated plastic bull, but she stayed silent through most of the story. When they had finished the story, his aunt and uncle stayed quiet for a while.
“Well,” his uncle finally spoke. “I’m glad you got your full earth elemental abilities. You are an earth elemental master now. Just be careful with what you can do. I’ve known Athena West a long time and I’m sure she wouldn’t have bestowed them on you unless she felt you were worthy.”
“What do you plan on doing next?” his aunt asked him.
Lilly could see the concern in her face.
“I have to go back there tomorrow,” he told her.
“Go back? After what happened today?”
“I need to see the next elemental grandmaster. The one who is the grandmaster of the air elementals.”
“But why?” his aunt cried out. “Isn’t having the ability of one enough. Your Uncle Rich is an air worker and he’s never felt the need to try and obtain grandmaster status.”
“I know, but I have to do this. I need all four of the elemental master abilities.”
“All four?” his uncle said. “Why?”
“Because I will need them in order to obtain the fifth elemental mastership. And I want that because I learned today what I always suspected; my parents are being held captive inside that place. It’s up to me to get them out. I can only do that if I have all of the elemental powers… including the fifth one.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of someone working the fifth element in hundreds of years,” his uncle said. “It’s the most dangerous one there is. Can’t you find another way to get them out?”
“No, the builders are in the middle of the mall in that clock tower. I think they’ve imprisoned my parents in there. They kidnapped them in hopes it would stop me from acquiring all the elemental powers. Well, they’ve given me a reason to
obtain them all.”
His aunt and uncle were quiet. They realized Dion had determined his path and there was nothing they could do to prevent it.
“One more thing,” Dion said to them.
“What?” his uncle asked.
“I need to borrow the gas can. Lilly is going to run me back to the van with it after we stop at the gas station before it closes. The thieves who tried to steal my tire also drained my gas before they left. I didn’t learn about it until we tried to start the van.”
His uncle smiled.
“Well, that went pretty well,” Lilly told Dion as she drove him back to the mall. They’d managed to find one gas station still open in time to fill up the gas can. “But really, I don’t see why you bother with a van.”
“Why?” he asked her as they pulled up to a red light.
“Anyone who can summon the power of the earth should be able to travel anywhere he wants and do what he wants. I can’t imagine what you’ll be able to do when you get those other abilities.”
“Just you wait and see,” he told her. Then Dion leaned over the seat, kissed Lilly on the lips, and held it.
The light turned green, but the car didn’t move until another car pulled up behind them and honked them forward.
It wasn’t long before they reached their destination. Lilly got out of her car and helped Dion pour the gas in the van, then returned the can to the trunk of her car.
“It’s late,” Dion told her as he wrapped his arms around her. “You need to go home.”
“What time should I be here tomorrow?” Lilly asked.
“Let’s get here nice and early at nine in the morning.”
They kissed one final time.
Soon, each was on their way home, with plans in the making for the next Elemental Grandmaster.
- THE END -
AIR
Chapter 1
“Jupiter Hitch?” Lilly asked Dion. “His name is Jupiter Hitch?”
“That’s what I’m told,” Dion said as they pulled up in front of the mall in his van. The tank was now full after he’d gone out the previous evening with his uncle and filled it.