The Elementalists

by C Sharp

  The pilot of Air 1 was coming in fast and low. He pulled up short when he saw the giant winged monster perched above the smoking remains of Air 2. The rhythmic thump of the rotors bounced across the concrete lot with a disorienting echo.

  Chloe sat up again with her head beginning to throb along with the concussive beat. “Uktena, no!” But the dragon growled and charged, taking chunks from the roof with every surging step. “No!” She shouted again below the din as the pilot pulled back on the stick and prepared to turn.

  Another jet of lightning launched out of Uktena’s throat and caught the evading helicopter midair. The pilot banked right and aimed for the grassy knoll in front of the building, but the upper blades sparked and faltered as the rear rotor burst into flames. It started to tilt and drop.

  Without thinking, Stan dropped the camera and thrust his hands out. At once, a concentrated vibration moved through his palms, and his fingers became a stinging blur. He could feel the wild energy contained there transfer to the air as a wind whipped forward in a focused cone. He clenched his eyes and grimaced as the rush of supercharged particles shot out toward the listing helicopter. The living air wrapped around the doomed aircraft and thrust it into an abrupt spin that kept it aloft.

  It hit the snowy grass right side up, though still with enough kick to knock the pilot unconscious as a choking plume of smoke rose from the fried controls. Uktena kept charging.

  Stan fell to his butt, dazed and pale. “That was me,” he muttered in shock. “I did that.” His bluish lips and chattering teeth made it obvious that the buffering presence of the camera between him and these events had been the only thing enabling him to keep functioning. Now he was about to pop.

  Uktena roared again, feral and bristling with destructive potential as Chloe shook her head, unable to fully grasp what she’d unleashed on the world. What have I done? “We need to get down there!” she shouted while searching for an external set of stairs or a fire escape. There was nothing. She looked to Ezra, hoping for some grounded direction or an encouraging word, but his shaken stare followed the enraged monster.

  As her hope passed to Kirin, he held her frantic eyes with a nod. He extracted the grappling hook from his bag and pointed to the edge.

  Chapter 31

  The Getaway

  The cockpit of Air 1 was quickly filling with smoke, and Dr. Markson was coughing violently as he stepped around and yanked open the pilot’s door. Bert Vilmes was one of the best helicopter pilots working in the private sector with more than ten years of combat experience in a Black Hawk and another ten in high-end commercial work. There was a bloody gash on his forehead where he’d smacked into the window; his unconscious slump was held up only by the four-point seatbelt strapped across his chest.

  Dr. Markson didn’t want to move him, given the risk of spinal injury, but the smoke would kill him in minutes if he didn’t. He pulled the collar of his jacket across his nose and leaned in to unclick the buckle with his other hand. He was not a very strong man, but did his best to support Bert’s weight while struggling to ease him down to the cold grass below.

  Richard Roberts hunched nearby, red-faced and bellowing into a walkie-talkie between hacking fits that left trails of spit streaked across the front of his camel hair jacket. On the other side of the downed helicopter, Mr. Allen and one of his most intimidating thugs had handguns drawn and their smoke-burned eyes locked on the top of the building. All three of them would have let Bert Vilmes die of smoke inhalation before they’d stopped to think about it.

  Things were happening a little too quickly for Dr. Markson, who was accustomed to the often glacial pace of science. First the success of his patented lightning tower design, and then the groundbreaking numbers that started streaming in from the positron trap on the satellite. The initial data had sent his longtime team of engineers into an eruption of congratulatory cheer, but he hadn’t been able to enjoy the success, not while watching Mr. Allen’s smug and dangerous smile grow bigger with every passing minute… And not while knowing that he’d sent a teenage girl, younger than his own son, on a suicide mission to attempt the rescue of what was probably the most dominant predator the world had ever known.

  Dr. Markson couldn’t even begin to process the fact that the same predator was now very much awake and loose, and that it had just spat what seemed to be a highly charged fork of electricity from its mouth. He watched as it crested the edge of the building with hooked black claws that sent the upper panels of the mirrored façade to shatter on the walkway below. He felt its will stab into his consciousness as it growled with a guttural rumble and looked down at them with shining reptilian eyes. That was when Mr. Allen and his henchman opened fire.

  Dr. Markson dropped to his knees and took cover below the helicopter, but his gaze didn’t waver from the remarkable specimen that loomed above. He watched with a mixture of terror and awe as it reared up a hundred feet onto its hind legs and inflated with a glowing ball that traveled up its long throat toward its open mouth.

  • • •

  Chloe let go of the rope and dropped the last eight feet to the ground. She sprinted toward the front of the building while screaming out to Uktena in her mind. Please! Don’t hurt anyone else!

  The night sky flashed brilliantly just before another sharp crack of thunder sounded ahead. She started to run faster, despite Kirin’s pleading from the roof above.

  “Chloe, WAIT!” he yelled to deaf ears.

  They were supposed to head straight for the van and speed off without looking back, but Chloe couldn’t let her actions, or inaction, lead to the death of still more people. She rounded the corner of the building and saw the smoking helicopter with Dr. Markson and Richard Roberts cringing on one side and two burning bodies splayed carelessly on the ground on the other. The bodies were charred beyond recognition with parts of their extremities and clothes turned to ash.

  Chloe kept moving with the impulse to scream and throw up at the same time. Then the hulking mass of Uktena landed in the drop-off loop before her with enough force to shake the earth. She lost her footing and stumbled into a face-plant in an evergreen hedge. Her palms were scraped bloody and mulch was ground into the wounds, but there wasn’t time for pain. She sprang to her feet and hurdled a metal bench with her sights locked on the dragon’s ridged back.

  He seemed even bigger than he’d been only moments earlier on the roof, and now his scales reflected the building’s lights with a metallic gleam as he circled the two heads of the Daedalus Group like a lion preparing to attack. Richard Roberts turned to make a run for it, but the immense serpentine form slid around to block any escape with preternatural grace. Roberts blubbered into a handheld radio and averted his eyes from the giant snarling head that extended toward him.

  UKTENA! “UKTENA!” Chloe roared with her thoughts and voice at once.

  The dragon flinched as if slapped, and his furious eyes turned on her. “You presume too much, human,” he warned.

  “No!” Chloe called defiantly as she stopped running and marched to where Dr. Markson was kneeling over a third man lying unconscious in the grass with a bloody gash in his forehead. She stood between them and Uktena’s looming bite. “If you’re here to kill everyone, then start with me!” she challenged.

  Uktena shifted his attention to the whimpering of Mr. Roberts. His long jaws began to open mechanically, the same way they had to receive the chunks of tossed meat.

  “You say your death was meant to spark the Ascension, but it was me who woke you up in the first place!” she yelled. “And it was me who saved you now from death… ME, US, this is all part of the prophecy then, too!” she realized. “What if this moment—your survival—this is what was meant to happen all along?”

  The savage rows of hooked teeth snapped shut, and Uktena looked at Chloe with undulating waves of power held in his gaze. “I have seen into this man’s heart,” he said. “He is the one who poisons the water and meat—caring for nothing but his own wealth and power. He is the
one who drove away your father and gave you all of your longing and anger. He does not deserve to witness the end of your kind.”

  Chloe moved beside Mr. Roberts and raised her open, bloody palms before the dragon. “He can change,” she declared. “He can at least live long enough to say good-bye to his daughter…something that I never got to have from my father.” With a quick glance to Mr. Roberts’s red quivering face, she reached up to place her hands against Uktena’s muzzle. Her blood smeared against his protruding teeth and his nostrils flared. “Humans can change if given the chance, and so can you.”

  The flash of lightning quieted in Uktena’s eyes, and he stared at Chloe for a long moment. “I envy your human hope, Chloe McClellan… I am truly sorry that it will not be enough to save you,” he finally said.

  The pounding in her head was starting to make her vision tunnel, but still Chloe managed to stand tall. “Go,” she commanded, just as Ezra and Kirin tore around the side of the building. At the same time, Brent Meeks slammed his way out of the front door with his wide eyes locked on the monster and his rifle shaking in his hands.

  Uktena’s focus flashed between them and then turned to face the screeching approach of Stan behind the wheel of the black van. The vehicle came to a skidding halt and shuddered in place at the far side of the turnaround.

  Brent started to raise his weapon, but Dr. Markson stilled him with a cautionary shake of his head. Uktena turned away from them all as he unfurled his wings with the sound of opening sails. “I must leave this land soon, but I would speak with you again before I go. You know where to find me,” he said to Chloe before launching into the sky with a wing beat that sent leaves, snow, and smoke spiraling into the night. With another flap, the glimmer of his form vanished into the clouds.

  Chloe collapsed to her knees and shut her eyes. Kirin knelt to help her an instant later. The van sped up beside them, and the driver’s side window rolled down in a hurry. “Dudes, get in!” Stan yelled as sirens approached in the distance.

  Brent moved in, hoping for some sort of direction from Mr. Roberts, who continued to shake and whimper with averted eyes. Instead, it was Dr. Markson who spoke up. “Stand down, Mr. Meeks,” he commanded. “Chloe and her friends will be leaving now, and as far as we are concerned, they were never here. Mr. Fitz was mistaken—the creature received no aid in its escape tonight. Is that clear?”

  Brent nodded and stood aside as Kirin loaded Chloe through the sliding door at the side of the van and Ezra claimed shotgun. Dr. Markson returned to the injured pilot on the ground as Chloe sat up and called out weakly, “Thank you.”

  Dr. Markson nodded. “For what it’s worth, our positron trap system works.” He motioned toward the red blink of the tower over the trees in the distance. “Clean, endless energy with no more environmental side effects… It’s real.” Another claw of lightning touched down in punctuation.

  “Everything has side effects,” Chloe said amid the ensuing rumble.

  Dr. Markson could only blink and swallow. “I still hope you’re wrong about what’s coming, but I’ll be here, ready to help you if you’re not.”

  Chloe nodded as Kirin moved to slide the door shut, but Brent’s boot lodged in the track as he fumbled for a moment in his satchel. He handed over the framed pictures that Ezra had given her. “Take Route 128 North; the other roads are covered,” he said with a chin thrust and an encouraging thump to the door of the van. Chloe gave him a grateful wave as Stan switched gears into ‘D’ and the van sped off with squealing tires.

  Stan took a hard turn at high speed and tore up Route 128 as the black Suburbans and police came into view over the hill behind them. Ezra looked back and lowered his head with a hard grip on the football, just before a two-foot fracture split across the road with a resounding CRACK! A moment later, an intense shiver passed through him… “Chloe, what’s happening to us?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” she admitted, unable to meet his expectant gaze. She clutched the picture frame to her chest and curled up on the backseat against Kirin as he gently brushed his hand through her hair… Stan finally broke the silence with a laugh, and after a few breaths, Kirin and Ezra both joined him in the giddy relief. They had done the impossible—freed a chained dragon from a high-security building and gotten away with it. But Chloe couldn’t shake the reoccurring mantra from her pain-wracked mind. I’ve failed. I’ve failed. I’ve failed.

  Chapter 32

  The Burning Horizon

  Chloe hurried through the barren winter woods, following a faded path that she’d once walked with her father on Sunday afternoons. Leaves crunched under the soles of her running shoes. Looking down, she could see that one rogue lace had escaped from its knot, now trailing with every step. There wasn’t time to stop and tie it now. There wasn’t any more time for anything.

  A haphazard formation of Canada geese tore overhead with a mad cacophony of trumpeting, heading south as they normally did, but this time with a frantic desperation to their cries. Chloe climbed faster, heading in the opposite direction toward the rocky outcropping on the upper hillside. When she was younger, it had been a place for sandwiches and Snickers Bars, heavy, satisfying pulls from a water bottle, and sitting quietly with her head rested on her dad’s shoulder as they enjoyed the view. The cliff jutted out from among the tallest hills for a commanding view of the rolling Virginia countryside to the north.

  But now, as her aching muscles fought against the elevation, she was terrified of what she might see from the familiar granite shelf. She exhaled with a last big step up to the lookout she’d once cherished, and immediately a surge of horror lodged in her throat.

  The northern horizon glowed with a sickly orange light, and above that, a thick, black cloud gathered in the sky. Washington, D.C. was burning, an entire city engulfed in fire. Even from a hundred miles away, she could see the distant dance of flame. The wall of rising smoke threatened to block out the sun. All she could do was tremble and stare.

  At first, it looked like a long tendril of the black smoke was approaching, as if with a mind of its own. But then it raced overhead in a blanket of mad chatter, and Chloe saw that the movement was comprised of many thousands of birds, all streaming south in a frantic attempt to escape the destruction. She sank to her knees and brought her hands to her face. She had caused this. Her actions had sparked this fire, and it was she who had failed to stop it!

  She shut her eyes, trying to block out the madness or will it away. Instead, a hot wind cut through the cold to find her tear-streaked cheeks, and a hundred thousand voices sounded in her thoughts at once, all crying out in panic and pain…

  Chloe woke up screaming. She was in her own bed, and daylight burned through the cracks in the shut drapes. She was drenched in sweat and shaking as her mother moved from the nearby chair to comfort her.

  “Shhhh.” Audrey held out a warm cup of tea and brushed a clinging strand of hair from Chloe’s cheek. “You’re okay, honey.”

  The dull ache still clung to her temples, but Chloe could tell that the worst of it was over. In fact, she felt oddly alive and alert considering all that had transpired—as if the pressure that had been slowly building in her head since the headaches first began had now, finally, been released for good. She sat up and took the tea with both hands, thankful for the warmth of the mug in her fingers and the reassuring sting of it against her Neosporin-covered palms. “What day is it?” she asked, bringing the steaming brew to her lips.

  “It’s your birthday, Chloe, a little after ten in the morning.” Audrey smiled as she pointed to the chocolate cake waiting on the nightstand with a big ‘SWEET 16’ blazoned across the top in yellow frosting. Audrey had heavy bags under her eyes and moved a hand to the painful knot in her neck.

  Maybe it’s okay; maybe I’m just crazy after all? Chloe took a sip, and it burned her tongue. “It’s December 21 and everything is still normal?” Chloe reiterated hopefully.

  Audrey’s smile failed. “Well, no…not really.”

&nb
sp; • • •

  The TV signal was intermittent again with heavy bands of static that interrupted service for sometimes twenty minutes at a time. But between the breaks, Chloe could piece together enough of what was happening.

  At 6:35 a.m. in Northern Tanzania, the tallest peak of Mount Kilimanjaro had broken off the mountaintop and tumbled down the Western Breach to kill thousands of unevacuated refugees and the remaining aid workers. The helicopter and cell phone footage was dodgy with static, but all seemed to show what appeared to be an eight-hundred-foot lizard climbing out of the explosion of magma and ash.

  A few hours later, at 3:00 p.m., local time, in the Quinghai province of China, the ground broke with an earthquake that registered at more than twice the strength of any in recorded history. A fissure opened so wide in the earth that the largest lake in East Asia spiraled into an immense whirlpool that drained into an underground river of lava. The ensuing steam geyser was so great that it would raise the surface temperature across the entirety of the planet by two degrees in forty-eight hours. The ground shook with such ferocity that more than two million lives were snuffed out in minutes. Numerous surviving witnesses spoke of glimpsing a giant red serpent wreathed in flame amid the super heated cloud above.

  Then, at 7:15 a.m., the unprecedented late-season, class 5 Hurricane Zamilla reached land along the eastern coast of Honduras with fast-moving floods and devastating winds that reached gusts of more than 225 miles per hour. No images or commentary got out from the strike zone, and the newscasters had nothing but the repeat satellite imaging of the cloud spiral to fill their stunned, awkward silences.