“What has gotten into you, Oakley? Don’t make yourself a target! They are only searching for the Eye. That’s all. You go out there, and they’ll kill you!” Francesca sounded angry.
Ansel pressed his lips into a thin line. He’s just as hotheaded as his father.
“Listen to your mother. You are no match for the Sumrects,” Basil said, still holding on to the Eye.
“And you Basil, nothing will ever appear on that blasted thing again. Haven’t you heard? The Sumrects have surrounded Chesterfield—swamped the place—and Ansel still hasn’t done a THING! He’s probably not even here, which explains why Vance’s soldiers are jumping at this opportunity—”
“They surrounded Chesterfield?” Basil’s head shot up. “What’s Vance up to now?”
There was banging at the door. On the roof, Ansel grew alert.
“Do it now!” Francesca hissed at Basil.
But it was too late. The front door exploded into pieces as Francesca’s youngest daughter, Opal, let out a cry of horror. Immediately, Basil dropped the Eye into the pocket of his jeans. He backed against the windowsill where he placed a hand on the gun lying there behind him.
Three Sumrects clad in brown entered the small house. Ansel gritted his teeth at the sight of them. The one in the middle surveyed the inhabitants with his hollow, expressionless eyes. While the other two soldiers started to search every available inch of the dwelling, he strolled to Basil, who appeared tense but defiant.
“I’m looking for an Eye of Elektron.” The Sumrect spoke in a monotone voice. The words sounded rehearsed, as if he had said them way too many times. “If you don’t have one, we kill you. One shot each to the head. If we find it, or if you run, we still kill you. But”—he paused to lick his lips—“slowly.”
One of the Sumrects searching the house snickered. Ansel saw Basil tighten his grip on the gun behind him. At the same time, Oakley whipped out his gun and fired at the Sumrect in front of Basil. The bullet struck the Sumrect straight in the chest.
“NO!” screamed Basil and Francesca in unison, though it was no use.
Unharmed, the Sumrect rolled his eyes in annoyance. He squinted down at the human teenager. Oakley watched dumbly while the soldier in brown plucked the bullet from his chest and hurled it across the room, puncturing the wall.
“Please don’t hurt him! My son doesn’t know any better!” Basil begged the soldier.
But the Sumrect ignored his plea and advanced toward the boy.
Clunk.
Oakley dropped his gun onto the floor, astounded by what he had just witnessed.
“He’s a child! Please!” Francesca cried, pinned down by another soldier.
“Perfect aim.” The Sumrect now towering directly over the boy ran a finger down Oakley’s cheek. “What a shame it wasn’t aimed at a human instead. Would’ve been more useful.”
Outside, Ansel had seen enough. With catlike agility, he leaped from the roof onto the front step.
Turned away from the entrance, the soldier did not notice Ansel’s quiet landing. The soldier raised his right hand over his head, and suddenly, Ansel could feel powerful gusts of wind rush past him through the doorway.
“Wait! This is what you want! The Eye! I have the Eye of Elektron!” Ansel heard Basil’s desperate plea from inside the house.
The Sumrect soldier froze mid-action.
He saw. Ansel heaved a deep sigh. For eleven years, he had protected the Brightons from afar, keeping his distance partly out of shame and partly out of fear. As the most powerful Sumrect in a thousand years, he feared nothing except his own past. But he must confront it now.
Like a hungry beast, the soldier lunged at the Eye.
And missed.
Chapter 5
The fall was short, and the landing, soft. Dawn and Kai sank into a massive cushion that absorbed all impact from the drop. Their movements lit up hundreds of amber pieces lining the damp tunnel, which appeared to stretch on forever into a dark abyss.
For at least five minutes, they walked down the amber filled passageway in silence, trying to piece together the puzzle in their heads. Gail’s body, the glowing orb, the painted auroras, the familiar lavender field… something connected them, but what?
Why is amber everywhere at Chesterfield? And what about the woman in the paintings? Why all the gray sheets?
Though Dawn still could not be certain whether Ansel Cassadian was friend or foe, she was sure of one fact: He saved her life. If Ansel truly wanted her dead, he would not have sent a message warning them of Vance’s Sumrects.
“I hope Delia is okay.” Dawn broke the silence at last.
“She should be fine. It’s not Delia they are after. But I am worried about those poor Sumrect soldiers Vance sent all the way over from Crimson.”
“You are worried for them? Whose side are you on, anyway?”
Kai snickered as he cracked his knuckles. “Once Ansel sees the damage they’ve caused while he was gone, he’s going to throw a fit! That’s one Sumrect you don’t want to tick off. Vance placed tons of his patrols all over town to monitor Ansel and the humans, but they are all too afraid of Ansel to mess with the townsfolk or follow Vance’s directives such as, for instance, slaughtering humans.”
“More afraid of him than Vance? That’s hard to imagine.” The incident in Vance’s study still burned fresh in Dawn’s memory.
“That’s because you have only seen him at Crimson doing nothing except drinking tea and riding ponies with—what’s her name—Moira? Anyway, when I first came to Chesterfield, I thought I had never met anyone more intimidating.”
Dawn stared at him in disbelief.
Kai shook his head. “You don’t believe me… Sure, he saved my life, for which I’m eternally grateful, but the things I’ve seen him do when he’s angry…” He looked away and shuddered. “And he’s not much of a talker. Moody? Yes. Unpredictable? Always.”
“But not a murderer?”
“Never.”
“I wonder then, why Vance hates him so. It can’t all be jealousy.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised… WHOA!” Kai stopped dead in his tracks, causing Dawn to walk straight into him.
“Look! What’s this over here?” He gestured to a section of the tunnel wall where, instead of being covered by amber pieces, an unfinished poem had been carved faintly into the stone.
Lord of Water, Earth he conquers,
Destroys what his foe most treasures,
And catches the Eye of New Light,
In Fire finds life, in Air, his might.
Sovereign –
Even though the dark tunnel had protected much of the carvings from corrosion, some words were still barely readable in the dim light.
“What do you suppose it means?” he whispered.
Dawn frowned, trying hard to commit the poem to memory. “I don’t know, but does the ‘Eye of New Light’ have anything to do with the Eye of Elektron?”
“I was wondering the same… And ‘what his foe most treasures…’ Whose foe?”
“Kai,” Dawn said, suddenly alarmed, “I don’t know why and when someone left this poem, but the fact that it is here means someone had been down this passageway before!”
“And?”
“And we can’t be sure that Vance’s men—I mean, Sumrects—are not aware of this tunnel’s existence!”
“But Ansel told me, no one—”
“Well, it sure doesn’t seem likely that Ansel was the one who came down here one day and left a half-written poem on the wall of his own secret tunnel! Come on, we need to keep moving!”
“Right…” Kai took one last look at the poem and continued onward with Dawn, keeping a brisker pace than before.
What if Vance’s Sumrects are already in Ansel’s study, moving aside the painting with the blonde girl at this exact moment? Dawn sucked in a deep breath and pushed the thought out of her head.
After what felt like forever, the tunnel made a sharp ninety-degree turn, but the end
was still nowhere in sight. Here, ten feet underground, there was only one way out. Forward.
✽✽✽
Blinding light engulfed the tiny wooden house. For a second, Ansel almost lost sight of his target. Then, as quickly as it came, the light vanished, and the soldier in front of Oakley was dangling upside down in the air along with his two companions, screaming at Ansel for help.
Basil Brighton gaped at the three upside-down Sumrects, seemingly bound together with an invisible rope.
“An-An-Ansel! Y-you are not s-s-supposed to be h-h-here!” stammered the Sumrect who had just threatened Oakley.
“Unfortunately, soldier, you are mistaken. What’s your name?” Ansel said, his voice cold as ice.
“Z-Z-Zachary.”
“Well, Zach, you better report to your boss that his brother aborted your mission here. And if Vance takes issue with your message, he is welcome to confront me at Chesterfield. But should you and your men harm another human life, I will send you all back to Panatomius. Dead. Do you understand?”
Zachary whimpered in midair but did not reply.
The Sumrect squeezed next to him piped up, “We have orders to follow—AHHH!”
His skin turned translucent as he screamed and thrashed wildly. Ansel noted the flash of fear on Basil’s face and felt shame nibble at his conscience, but he did not release the soldiers. Not yet.
He merely cocked his head to one side. “I want us to have an understanding,” he said, keeping his expression as stoic as ever. Among Sumrects, he could not afford to show any signs of weakness.
Eyes wide with fear, Zachary stared at his companion. “Stop! Stop! You’ll kill him!”
The screaming continued. Blue and purple veins snaked underneath the Sumrect’s translucent skin. Francesca covered Opal’s eyes as she quickly turned her child away from the horrific sight.
“Stop it!” Opal’s older sister, Ovra, cried out unexpectedly.
Francesca tugged at Ovra’s sleeve. “Shh! Let Ansel handle this.”
Ovra… don’t you remember how he tried to kill your family? Ansel glanced swiftly at the fair-haired girl, wincing as the old memories resurfaced.
“I want an understanding,” he repeated.
“Okay! Okay!” Zachary gave in. “We’ll head back to C-C-Crimson the s-s-second you let us go.”
That was just what Ansel needed to hear. He nodded, and the three tied Sumrects crashed down to the floor, their screams subsiding into soft, pitiful sniffles.
“Go inform your friends before I find them. You will save them a lot of pain. Trust me.” He stepped aside from the doorway.
Still tied to each other, the three soldiers attempted to stand, which proved a much more difficult task than expected.
“Like this? T-T-Together?” Zachary asked.
Ansel shrugged. “Or dead.”
“W-W-We’re going now.” Zachary stood up on visibly shaky legs and started taking giant steps to the door, dragging along the other two Sumrects.
In silence, the trio arduously made their way out of the wooden house.
Only when the Sumrects were no longer in sight did Basil let out a long breath. “Ansel, how… how can we thank you enough?”
“By forgiving me for not coming to your aid sooner.” Ansel avoided Basil’s stare. He bent down to piece back the broken door by running his hand over the cracks, sealing them.
“Did you know they have taken over Chesterfield too?” Francesca said, a touch of apprehension in her tone.
Ansel brought the door upright to refit it into the door frame. When he was done, the wooden front door looked brand new, as if it had not just exploded into pieces minutes ago. “Yes, Mrs. Brighton, I was informed. That’s why I rushed back from Crimson in a hurry. Now, it seems the entire town had been jeopardized by my absence… I’m very sorry.”
“Whoa! How did you do that?” Admiration shined in Oakley’s eyes.
“Just a few neat little tricks. It was very brave of you, Oakley, to aim a gun at a Sumrect. Remember though, that instinct paired with control is the key to winning any battle.” Ansel winked at him before he turned to Ovra. “And you, young lady, thank you for stopping me… before I got too carried away. You saved a Sumrect’s life today.”
The young girl looked down at the floor, shuffling her feet, her wavy blonde hair sliding over her shoulders. For a moment, Ansel reeled from throbbing nostalgia. The resemblance is uncanny. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying hard to clear his mind from the stealthy, intrusive memories. “Well, I better get going. There are others I must attend to.” When he spoke, his tone was firm, but one could not tell whether he was talking to himself or to the Brightons.
“You be careful. And thank you again for saving our lives,” Francesca said as her youngest daughter, Opal, ran forward to give Ansel a hug.
“Before you go, Ansel…” Basil took a step forward while holding out the glass orb. “I want to ask you about the Eye—”
Ansel raised a hand and shook his head. “It’s beyond my control, Basil. The time has passed. I will protect you and yours for as long as I live, but I can’t promise you anything more. Your duty lies and ends with your family.”
“You mean to say the Eye will forever remain…?”
“I’m afraid your suspicions are correct. Good to see you all, but I must leave.” Before anyone could say more, Ansel gave a tiny bow and slid through the front door into the burning town.
✽✽✽
The amber lit passageway seemed to stretch on forever with more twists and turns than the current situation Dawn found herself in. Her mind swirled with the paintings in Ansel’s study. If Ansel painted the ocean scenes, then he must have painted the girl as well. Who was she?
Sounds from up ahead interrupted her thoughts. Footsteps.
“Did you hear that?” she pulled at Kai’s sleeves, stopping him in his tracks.
She listened intently. Sure enough, the faint thumping of rapid steps echoed down the passageway.
Someone discovered the tunnel!
She exchanged a petrified glance with Kai. If they kept moving forward, they would for certain run into the unwelcomed guest. If they turned back, they must face Crimson soldiers who could not wait to seize them the first chance they had.
The footsteps grew quicker and louder.
“Should we head back or keep going?” Dawn said in a low voice.
“I say we surprise our visitor by attacking him before he attacks us.”
“What if the person is not human?” Dawn bit her lip. It seemed unlikely that their pursuer stumbled upon this secret passageway by accident.
Thump, thump, thump.
The intruder was closing in fast. Inhumanly fast. Must be a Sumrect, Dawn thought.
“We don’t have any other choice.” Kai looked around him at the glowing amber. “Let’s hide in the bend where it’s much darker, and when the time comes, we’ll pounce! But first, we must run for it. On three. One, two, th—”
The lights turned off, throwing them into complete darkness. Dawn suppressed a scream, but she feared she might have already exposed their position. From the clear footsteps, she could tell their pursuer was right around the corner. Backed against the cool stones of the tunnel wall, she searched for Kai’s hand with hers. He was nowhere to be found. Kai, where did you go? She grabbed at the air, fearful of making a sound.
Thump, thump, thump.
The footsteps persisted. Unlike her, the attacker seemed to have no trouble seeing in the dark. Maybe Sumrects possessed night vision.
“Dawn? Kai?” A voice rang in the stillness.
The familiar low timbre could only belong to one individual. Dawn felt a tightness in her throat and chest as panic set in.
“Jeez, Ansel! You scared us to death!” Kai’s voice came from behind her.
The amber on the wall came to life, flooding the tunnel with yellow light. A few feet away, the dark figure of Ansel Cassadian appeared.
“I see you receive
d my message.” Relief lingered in his voice, and minor mischief twinkled in his eyes.
“Couldn’t you have waited until we got out of the tunnel?” Kai scowled, wiping away shiny beads of cold sweat on his forehead. “We were doing just fine until you scared us half to death.”
“My apologies, Kai, but debris blocked the exit of this passage when I arrived, so I thought maybe you were both trapped inside. Gave me quite a scare too.” Ansel beckoned them forward. “Come, we need to move.”
They advanced down the passageway with Ansel leading the way. Though Dawn followed, she was still hesitant to trust the Sumrect who sentenced her to death not long ago.
“By the way, does Vance know you are here?” Kai said after a while.
Ansel gave a cool laugh. “He sure knows now. This way.” He gestured to the right.
“Are you sure we—and Delia, of course—are the only ones who know about this passageway?”
“Yes,” Ansel answered sharply. “Why do you ask?”
“Earlier, Dawn and I came across an unfinished poem carved into the wall. It wasn’t you, was it?”
“No.”
The lights in the tunnel flickered.
Dawn could sense Ansel’s resistance to this topic of discussion, so she pinched Kai lightly to stop him from asking more questions. As expected, he was oblivious.
“But if you didn’t carve it, who did? Are you sure no one else has been down here before? The poem mentioned ‘the Eye of New Light.’ Do you know anything about that?”
“I certainly know of the poem, or rather, the blasted spell.” Ansel’s tone was sour, but Dawn was surprised he gave an answer at all. “As for who wrote it…” He increased his pace, and only after a long, weighted pause did he continue, “I admit, since locking up the study, I did not think the day would come when I would walk down this tunnel again… But not to fret, Kai. I guarantee you, we are safe in here.”
What a vague response! He hasn’t explained a thing.
Yet when Kai opened his mouth to inquire further, Dawn shook her head. This was not the right time. Fortunately, Kai took the hint and did not press the matter further.
The passageway veered left. At last, a rusty metal ladder appeared ahead, leading up to a wooden door on the tunnel’s ceiling.
The Eye of Elektron: A Clean Urban Fantasy (The Sumrectian Series Book 1) Page 5