by Gabi Moore
Chapter 2
Appias, still splashing around in the muddy creek water, turned to her sister. “You think they’ll eventually figure out Dion is already inside the mall?”
“I doubt it,” she responded while braiding her hair, “Even if they do, it won’t be until the mall is open.”
The creek was partially blocked from the mall by a grove of trees, which allowed them to watch the activity in the parking lot. The Naiad sisters shed their clothes last night when they entered the water of the stream since there was no longer any reason to pretend to be mortal women. Cynae, the eldest, had a long talk with her younger sisters about what was appropriate in the presence of humans, regardless if they were bonded to them or not. Each had chosen one of the Dion’s chess club buddies for themselves. They were bound to the young men.
For his part, Dion had a long talk with his friends after the Naiads had stripped off their clothes and swam into the creek. Their long hair served as the only bit of clothing they had while in their natural form, save whatever shells and other objects they decided to use for decoration.
“Your girlfriends are not human,” Dion told them as they watched the girls play in the water. “You will always be able to see them, but most of the time; they will be invisible to normal people. Keep in mind that they have different standards of adornment and will not be easy to take around your parents. As for how you met your girlfriends, just tell your families you found her at the mall and I introduced you to them. You can come here every day to see your girl; just don’t spend too much time around here.”
“And don’t keep me waiting too long!” Dirce called to Dennis from the water as she blew him a kiss. Her long hair flowed about her and formed a halo in the moonlight.
Dion could see the pain in his friend’s face. This was going to cause many problems. It was his idea to introduce the water elementals to the chess club members. Dion needed to sabotage his uncle’s plans to keep him away from the Water Element Grandmaster. Now that he had full water element abilities, he could order the Naiads to lift the glamor they’d put on the chess club. However, to do that would create a problem worse than the love sickness, which plagued the young men.
After he allowed them to say their goodbyes, Dion made certain the guys were loaded into cars and sent home. He even stood in the parking lot to ensure the chess club didn’t try to come back.
“I need you all up early,” he told his three companions. As usual, Sean and Emily were curled up in the back seat of Dion’s van.
“You’ve created a whole new set of problems with the chess club,” Lilly said to him as she reached over and touched Dion. “Still, the Naiads are the perfect match for those boys. Neither group wants much to do with the outside world. I’m dying to see the look on everyone’s face when they show up at the prom with those girls.”
“I’ll see about disguising the girls as another chess club,” Dion said. “At least this will provoke fewer questions from people. It’s just believable they might be a foreign chess club, but not a local swim team. That one stretches what I can get everyone to believe.”
The next morning, Dion picked up everyone the same way he’d done the day before. This time he pulled up where the willow tree stood near Emily’s house, as he knew she’d be under it with Sean. The two became quite an item after their mutual encounter with the air elementals. They were involved with each other and barely heard him pull up in the van.
It was still cold when they slammed the door on his van and pulled out of the driveway. Sean’s mother still hadn’t figured out he was seeing Emily and that was just fine with Sean. Emily’s father knew about Sean but had yet to meet him. Right now, the quest was all Dion could think about. Once he’d obtained the fourth elemental power, he could do whatever he needed to accomplish. He could free his parents from the clock tower in the middle of the mall where his uncle held them prisoner. However, to do that he would need another ability: the fifth elemental power.
It was hundreds of years since an elemental worker had obtained this power. Hundreds of years since any one of them could manifest the power of the aether, the fifth element from which the source of the others was located. His uncle had obtained the power of the fifth element and used it to control those around him. He had the power, but not that of the four before it. If Dion gained this dominion, combined with the power of the first four elements, he would be stronger than his uncle.
Like the others, the fourth grandmaster ran a shop inside the mall. All had set up operations inside the mall, even though they knew who had built the place and that it was located over the abyss. Today, he planned to be a fully qualified Fire Master. All he needed to do was reach the Fire Element Grandmaster.
Early in the morning, before dawn had broken over the horizon, Dion parked his van on the other side the grove of trees. This was where the creek ran between concrete conduits to carry its water to the river. It was hard to see and Dion realized the county would eventually force this small stream into an underground pipe as well. Too many risks involved with people falling into it and drowning. He’d heard stories in school of parties involving campfires down below the hill, just at the banks of the stream. It was only a matter of time before someone fell in. The county would be blamed for allowing this situation to take place.
He pulled the van into the woods next to the stream where it would not be seen in the daytime. This was another spot known the high school students where you could go if you wanted some privacy. Dion opened the door and kicked away four brown bottles on the ground. This was recent. He’d have to be back before sunset today because it meant whoever left the bottles planned on returning this evening.
“You think it’s safe to leave it here?” Lilly asked him as they stepped out of the van. Seconds later, Sean and Emily joined them. They too looked on in disgust at the trash on the ground.
“It will be safe until this evening,” Dion told her. “I obtain my final fire elemental power; we won’t have to worry about coming back here again. And we won’t have to worry about much of anything after I have the fifth elemental full ability.”
Lilly squeezed his hand.
“Hello, Dion,” the Naiad sisters greeted him as the stepped down to the bank on the stream.
Dion consulted his map as soon as he left the van and discovered the best way to enter the mall without being seen was to travel down the stream and enter a concrete pipe.
“Hello, Ladies,” he responded to them as the water elementals surfaced on the bank in front of him. They appeared in their natural form as beautiful young women covered by their long hair. Not hard to believe the sailors of old risked disaster on encountering them. Even his friends tried not to stare at what was in front of them.
“Are you comfortable down here?” he asked. “I know it’s not as isolated as your rock in the ocean, but I didn’t think you would be disturbed too often.”
“We miss our boyfriends already,” Dirce told him. “And we scared people last night.” She was the first one to fall for a local boy yesterday and her sisters followed as a matter of course.
“Scared them off too,” Cynae, added. “They came down here to be alone and didn’t expect to find us sitting on the bank.”
“I didn’t think they could see you,” Emily said, holding Sean’s hand.
“Only if we don’t want them to see us,” another one of the Naiads told her. “By the time they were down here we didn’t notice them. Guess we gave them quite a scare because they took off quick.”
“Which reminds us,” Cynae asked. “When are our boys coming back? We are so very lonely in this place.”
“Give them another day,” Dion told the elementals. “And don’t go find them, although I know you could do it.
“Why not?” Cynae asked him.
First of all, you’ll scare people. Second, they need time to work up cover stories for all of you. Keep in mind you were the ones who put the glamor on them.”
“But they were so cute,”
Ismene, the youngest one of them, said. “We couldn’t help ourselves.”
Dion had spent some time the evening before talking with his aunt and uncle about what might happen today. They were understanding and concerned about him. His uncle wanted to help, but Dion let them both know that he had to do it with his own abilities. His friends would be there for him, but they were only to assist and not find the elemental grandmaster for him.
“Fire,” his uncle Rich repeated to himself several times. “You’re going after the most dangerous of the four today. Be careful. My brother will have salamanders ready.”
“Salamanders?” his aunt asked, as she tossed her hair back. “How dangerous can salamanders be? I step on them all the time by the wood pile.”
“Different kind of salamander,” his uncle explained. “Fire elemental salamanders. They can burn down anything in their path. They’re almost little dragons. Be careful, Dion.”
“I intend to be careful,” Dion told him. “Besides, I have Cynae and her water elemental sisters to back me up if it gets out of control.”
“A lot of good she’ll do you if the salamanders unleash flames before they can arrive. I’ve seen those things do some serious damage to buildings. I still see them dance in the flames of burning wood. They’re everywhere.”
Dion assured his aunt and uncle he would proceed with caution, then showed them some of his new abilities by causing miniature tornadoes in the back yard and summoned a waterspout in the swimming pool.
“I know,” he told him. “Parlor tricks any stage performer can accomplish, but wait till I have the fifth elemental ability. Then I’ll have my parents back for sure.”
“One more ability to go,” Dion reminded Lilly that evening as she took her home. “Then the fifth elemental power and my uncle will not be able to stop me from freeing my parents.”
He pulled into the driveway to Lilly’s house and killed the engine. They could hear the sounds of the neighborhood in the darkness: radios, TV’s, parents calling to children. A thousand different lives lived in a thousand different realities. It was still early spring, but the air was warm enough for most people to open their windows and let the fresh breezes into the homes. Most of the houses were built on a single plane with a basement if they could afford one. A few houses had fireplaces and some had them in the basement too. Most of the houses were built twenty years ago in the big rush that accompanied the end of World War 2. Plans were in the works for another express ramp to connect the next suburban cluster to the city of Scipio.
Lilly touched Dion’s hand. “Will you want any of us to help you when you get your parents out?”
“That is one I have to do totally by myself. I can’t risk taking any of you with me when I go into that clock tower. It’s too dangerous. I don’t know if the map works inside it. Only my uncle knows what is inside the tower. He should since he built it.”
Dion turned to Lilly and wanted to tell her how much he appreciated her being around him. She’d been quiet through most of their adventures together and he didn’t feel it was right to keep her involved in his quest to obtain all his elemental powers.
However, the moment he opened his mouth a B-52 bomber flew over the neighborhood. He could hear it coming and closed his mouth. All through the neighborhood, people would place their phones down or groan because now they’d be unable to hear their favorite show for the next sixty seconds. This one was low and the ground rumbled as it passed overhead. It was a reminder to him that no matter how deadly the forces controlled by his uncle might be, there were deadlier forces at work in the world. Dion was told a nuclear explosion was one of the few places you could see the elementals of the fifth element dance.
Emily and Sean were still under the willow tree an hour after Dion had dropped them off that evening. There was a bench beneath it where they sat entwined around each other. Emily had watched the light come on in the living room after Dion dropped them off. She’d observed her father come to the window and stare at her with disapproval. She knew he really didn’t have anything to worry about, but he was still her father. She wondered how he’d take the news.
“I’d think your mother would be happy to learn you were going to get married,” she whispered in his ear. “I think my dad will be happy to hear it.”
“She’ll give me a lot of grief,” he told her. “She always does.”
“It’s not like we’re the only couple planning to get married upon graduation,” she returned. “I know of four others who have made plans. My grandmother was married when she was sixteen.”
“Your grandmother was brought over from Romania,” he reminded her. “Didn’t you say your grandfather sent a letter and some money to his brothers in Bucharest and told him to go find him a suitable girl?”
“Yeah? So what is wrong with that? They’re still married after sixty years.”
“Because she never did learn English and stays in the house. Ouch!”
Emily pushed him to one side. What was wrong with him? He’d pledged his eternal love to her yesterday and she to him. Was it fading already? It seemed like they were in some kind of a movie, which continued to repeat itself over and over again with these trips back to the mall. One more trip tomorrow and then?
Dion had the previous evening on his mind when he led his friends down the bank to the secret entrance into the mall’s subbasement. It was still dark, so they were forced to be careful about where to step. Even with the Naiads in the water splashing around, they still had to avoid any slippery parts of the embankment.
“I’ll bet you wish I was a water nymph,” he overheard Emily say to Sean. “That way you could keep me in your mother’s fishpond.”
“Naiad!” he heard a voice call from the water. “Don’t forget we want to be called Naiads.”
“Naiad,” she corrected herself. “He’d like to have me quiet and some place where I wouldn’t be a bother.”
“Emily,” Sean repeated to her. “Sweetheart, we have the rest of our lives to be together. Let’s not get started off the wrong way.”
“Lives?” Lilly said to them. “Does that mean what I think it does?”
“Yes it does,” Emily said. “We’re pre-engaged.”
“You have to get a ring for that?” Dion stopped his transit and looked at them. What on earth had he provoked by keeping those too around him? Lilly turned and sighed at him with her big browns too. A few minutes away from the entrance and his companions were discussing marriage. What was this world coming to?
“Yes,” Sean said to him. “Didn’t you hear?”
“They just started selling them at the big jewelry store downtown,” Emily let them both know. “I’m sure we can find a place in the mall to sell one. Right, Sean?”
Sean leaned over and kissed her. “Let’s get Dion through his quest first, and then I’ll find you the pretty ring.”
“Pretty ring? Pretty rings?” he heard the Naiads echo from the stream. Any discussion of shiny objects attracted their attention. “We get pretty rings from our boys too?”
“Now see what you started?” Dion laughed. “We get through this and the chess club will be furious at me.”
Chapter 3
The entrance to the mall loomed ahead, just next to the culvert where the stream continued on its passage to the river. A small wall was built from concrete and stone next to the pipe to keep out accidental swimmers. A gate ran across the front of the pipe, but it was unlocked and swung open when the figure that stood watch over it saw Dion approach. It was difficult to see who stood next to the gate. Lilly put her hand over her mouth when she saw the form of a ghoul still in his cleaner uniform. Two more stood next to him.
“Don’t worry,” Dion told her. “They work for me now. They have ever since I acquired full earth elemental powers.”
Still with bad memories from her experiences with the ghouls the first time around, Emily shivered and hid behind Sean as they passed by them. The ghouls waited until Dion and his friends were inside the l
edge of the concrete pipe and then fastened the gate behind them. One scampered over to the ledge and opened a hidden door on the side of the concrete pipe. He produced a flashlight and shined it into the passage inside it.
Dion led the way and continued into it with his friends behind him.
The ghoul cleaner with the flashlight stayed in front as his two companions locked the door again. It would be a long trip down the passage into the subbasement of the mall, but they were inside the perimeter. The security team could do all it wanted to keep him out of the parking lot, but Dion was inside the mall, no matter how far from the main shopping area. It would be another task to find the Fire Elemental Grandmaster.
The tunnel was quiet and no one said a word during the long walk to the subbasement. Lilly held tightly onto Dion’s hand. Sean and Emily stayed close together and as near as they could to Dion. There were no lights in this part of the tunnel and, should the one flashlight be extinguished, they would have no way to find their way out. The only sound anyone could hear was the slow drip of condensation from the top of the tunnel. It was very damp inside the tunnel and it had to have been built as a secret access point during the recent mall construction. The concrete walls were too fresh and appeared to be poured in sections. This meant that Dion’s Uncle Seth knew about the secret entrance to the mall.
The moment Sean decided to say something was the moment the tunnel came to an end. Before he could say a word, the door to the mall appeared before them. The ghoul in front produced a key and unlocked it. He swung the door open and placed a pair of mirror shades over his eyes. Sean glanced back and saw the other two ghouls also put on their shades. It occurred to him this was the first time he’d seen the ghouls without their mirrorshades. He knew the bright light hurt their eyes, but they had good vision in the dark.
“They see into the infrared spectrum,” Dion explained as he noticed Sean watch the ghouls place their shades on. “However, too much light of any kinds throws off their balance and hurts their equilibrium.”