DAMAGED - A Bad Boy Romance (43 page)

“There is something he wants very much from this place,” Dion said. “I’m not sure exactly what it is, but he seems to think it will make him more powerful than he already is. The mall is the key to it.”

“Here? In this town. Come on, what could this little berg have that would make him a big player? They were still milking cows out here five years ago.

“What he’s trying to control doesn’t have to exist here in a way you’d recognize. All he needs is a place where he can manipulate it. From there he can pretty much do anything he wants to.”

“You make it sound like he’s building a nuclear weapon or something.”

“It wouldn’t be far from the truth.”

Jones shook his head and stepped a little closer to Dion. “You need to know the FBI is ready to turn this over to someone else. Someone else with more ammunition than they can muster. I don’t know what they’ve found in Washington, but something has scared them very badly. I know they hauled in some guy named Simon and drilled him for information. He didn’t seem to know anything, at least what they wanted to know. The feds won’t stop there. They’ll keep at it until they have decided whether or not your uncle is a threat. If they don’t think he’s a threat, I’ll get to make nice with the county and see what we can do because this place is out of my jurisdiction. If they think he’s a threat, it could get real nasty.”

“How nasty?”

“Nasty as in armored personnel carriers moving into position.”

Dion looked at the wall.

The situation with his uncle was going to get much worse before it was better. How in the world was he supposed to get his parents free if he had to worry about some massive assault from the government? It shouldn’t be a concern; his uncle could summon up forces far more terrifying than Uncle Sam. But if they were looking into his uncle’s work, they might have some idea what he was capable of doing. Perhaps there was a mystical division at the Pentagon, which looked into sinister forces from the abyss and tried to figure out what they could do against them. It wouldn’t surprise him.

“How far do you think they are from making some kind of decision?” he asked detective Jones.

“I don’t like to speculate with the feds,” he replied. “But I think they’ll make their mind up in a matter of days instead of weeks. If they think your uncle is trafficking in any kind of weapon system, they’ll start to move the minute they decide what to do.”

It was something else he had to contend with: an armed response. Dion looked around the new mall and was filled with a hideous vision of paratroopers in the parking lot and soldiers smashing in through the windows. He knew it would only come to that as a last resort, but his uncle played a dangerous game if he thought he could use the power of the abyss and no one was ever going to notice. Someone had, that was for sure.

“Just keep me informed what you learn,” Jones told Dion. “The heavy stuff may come down sooner rather than later and I want to be on top of it.”

“I will,” Dion assured him. “I do have one question though.”

“What?”

“How did you know where to find us? We were on the other side of the mall yesterday.”

Jones pointed across the hall at a bench. “He told me.” Then he walked away.

Chapter 3

Wearing a tracksuit and holding a bottle Doctor Cola, this year’s marketable soft drink, was Edward. He had matching shoes on and a terry cloth headband around his forehead. He stood up, dropped the plastic bottle in the nearest trash receptacle and walked toward the four friends.

“I see you managed to subdue the sylphs,” he said to Dion. “I congratulate you on such ingenuity. Even with full air elemental abilities, few element manipulators would’ve understood how to handle that whirlwind.”

“Thank you. Oh, and the car key gambit worked. It took out the cheerleader elementals the moment I tossed it into their midst.”

“I used it before with other objects. Once you understand the nature of these creatures, manipulating them becomes very easy.”

“Not always,” Lilly said. “Dion just told us that his elemental nannies almost killed him when he was little.”

“I’m aware of what happened there. Did you ever talk to your parents about the incident?”

“No,” Dion said. “My father was furious over the elementals attacking me and refused to ever use them so close again. He told me they can be very unstable and you should never turn your back on them.”

“He never mentioned why the woman had given them a command to injure you?”

“I assumed it was something to do with their nature. She said the wrong thing and it created a coded message in their heads that set them off.”

“I see. And you never wondered why the truck driver just happened to be in the same location when you were forced to run?”

“I assumed he was another elemental worker and I was fortunate that he was around. He recognized what was happening and might have saved my life.”

“We need to talk about this later,” Edward told him. “I would prefer your parents talk with you about it first.”

Dion looked at him for a few seconds then allowed the line of discussion to drop. “So, Edward, you always make you appearances for a reason. What are we to learn from you this time?”

“I’m here to tell you to beware of you uncle. You’ve met him and he is not someone to take lightly. I assume you understand this after your brief conversation.”

“He did seem like someone with a definite goal in life.”

“You uncle wants it all. And he won’t stop with the mall. He’ll take control of the state and everything else before he’s done. If he can achieve world domination, he’ll do it too.”

“You seem to know quite a bit about my uncle.”

“I know more about him than a gentleman should admit. I know he still covets your mother and will not stop until he gets her back. But I expect you know these things too.”

“How do we stop him?” Lilly asked, interrupting their conversation.

“You don’t stop Seth, you find a way to control him and keep the man from doing too much damage. My recommendation is to seek out your abilities and then obtain the fifth elemental power. Dion’s uncle has the fifth power, but he lacks the other four. He assumes he doesn’t need it because it’s the root of the other four. He thinks he can use it to obtain ultimate power over creation, but he’s sadly mistaken. He won’t be able to stand up to Dion should Dion obtain the first four before he gains the fifth. He knows this and is determined to prevent his nephew from getting the final two.”

Dion turned to walk away but then changed his mind. “You still haven‘t told us the nature of my uncle,” he said to Edward.

“You uncle did not make it across the abyss. To master the fifth element you must conquer the dweller of the abyss and he failed to do that. As a result, the abyss now controls him. It thinks to control this world it needs an agent. It’s convinced your uncle that he can have what he needs if it allows the abyss to open the gate and let everything contained inside it across. Should such a thing happen, it will be the end of all life on earth. We can’t let that happen.
You
can’t allow that to happen. So you see, the quest you undertake is much larger than you first thought. Yes, you can free your parents, but it’s going to be much worse for the human race if you don’t stop your uncle on the way. That’s why you can’t give up.”

“So the only way to defeat my uncle is to obtain the fifth elemental power.”

“Yes. As I have said, if you possess it, he won’t be able to stand up against you. And keep in mind there are things inside that tower which will drive normal people mad just to look at them. Your uncle can call upon them if he needs to do it. But right now you need to worry about finding the Water Grandmaster. And the best way to do it is consider why these charming young ladies are here.”

Edward took a few steps forward and shook his head as he starred at the swim team parading around the inside of the store. “I was born much too soon.” And then he vanished again.

“We didn’t get a whole lot of help from him,” Sean said.

“He gave me some information about my uncle. At least now I understand the reason for this quest better than I did before.”

Dion returned to the map he carried. He unfolded and tried to locate the store where the Grandmaster was located. For some reason it was not as easy as he expected on the map. He looked at it for a bit longer after he placed it on the nearest table, which the mall provided near a few intersections for the shoppers.

This was far worse than he’d expected when he entered the mall a few days ago. Now he’d discovered the reason his parents were trapped inside the clock tower was an uncle he only met yesterday. And he had to get them out in spite of his uncle’s frauds.

Dion roughed his black hair as he tried to figure out what to do next. Lilly sat down next to him and tried to give him comfort. Soon, Emily and Sean were both sitting down at the table.

The map was confusing. The Grandmaster should be visible on the water part of the mall. Everything about this section suggested water. It was painted blue from the main entrance to the firewall between the sections. He’d seen the ghoul cleaners at work here and they bowed as he went by. The ghouls were not in their element in this part of the mall, and they knew it. Their actions were completely different from the way they behaved in the ‘earth’ part of the mall.

Lilly didn’t know what to think about the words spoken by Edward. If it was true, Dion could be in greater danger than she assumed he already was. She felt close to him, but became a little bit worried on the inside. What was it that made her feel so close to him? Both days she had gone home and felt a little bit crazy when she imagined him. She’d looked at the pop star posters on the wall and they felt part of another world. Even college in the fall seemed to be part of a different lifetime. She knew Dion needed her help to find his parents, but she did not feel up to the job of saving the world if what Edward told her was true. Edward hadn’t lied to them yet and she couldn’t imagine why he would start now.

She turned and watched Dion concentrate on the map and try to find the Water Grandmaster on it. It seemed such a silly title for someone who could manipulate the forces of nature. And what did Edward know about the story Dion told them yesterday? How did he know about the elementals that turned on Dion when he was young? The man knew so many things and yet he was barely human. Lilly couldn’t figure out if he was a ghost or not. Ghosts didn’t show up in tracksuits and carry cigars. At least none of the ones she knew about.

Meanwhile, Sean was doing his best to try to reconcile what he felt for Emily with everything else in his life. He’d managed to slip out of the house in the early morning after leaving his mother a note. He planned to check in with her soon enough to let her know he was okay.

In some ways Sean was glad she was asleep so that he didn’t have to answer questions about what he did the night before. Mom would eventually find out what he’d been up to and then she would go from there to whom he’d been with and eventually find out about Emily. And then she would find some way to show Emily off to everyone she knew. She could at last prove to the neighbors that her son was normal. From there she would try to find other ways to involve Emily in whatever machinations his mother could cook up.

The only thing that could stop her was Emily herself. From his brief peek into her soul, Sean knew Emily wouldn’t sit by idly and allow herself to be manipulated. Her mother had done it to Emily’s father and tried to use Emily to get what she wanted. Emily resisted and had a bulletproof shield against anyone who tried to exploit her. Sean worried Emily would tell his mother in clear terms what she thought of her mental manipulation. Then it would be a battle of the will over who was stronger. The problem was, he still lived at home and would be caught in between.

Emily watched Dion go over his map too. It seemed like any other map until you looked at it close and discovered it was printed on papyrus and hand-drawn. Then you would notice the different symbols and stores in the mall map that weren’t supposed to exist in the normal world. She looked across at Sean and wondered if he could stand up to his mother. She’d put her own mother in place, why couldn’t he? They both had fathers who were good providers for their families, but allowed themselves to be used by their wives. Her father had to have known why his wife was out every night and what she was up to back then. His father had to have known why the children wanted nothing to do with their mother when they reached a certain age. Did love make someone so blind they became stupid? It was the only excuse she could see. She didn’t want love on unlimited terms. No one really did. If you loved someone, it was forever, she felt, but you had to have limits and reasons. You need boundaries and expectations. Perhaps their fathers had none of these.

At least Sean dressed better today. She needed to work with him on that, but at the same time, she couldn’t let him think she was the reason for his change of wardrobe. He needed to learn these things himself.

“I just can’t figure this map out today,” Dion told his friends. “It won’t talk to me or tell me where to find the Grandmaster. Usually the place they can be found shows up rapidly on the map and is highlighted. Not today. I think it might have something to do with it being near the sylphs from yesterday. Anytime it gets close to an elemental, it begins to act funny. The elementals interfere with it somehow.”

“Did you look and see if the swimsuit store is on the map?” Lilly asked. “That bikini team is still over there pulling the crowds into the place.”

“No, it’s not highlighted and it’s over here on the map.” He touched the map.

When he touched it, there was a sudden glow from it. They all looked at it and tried to find the light’s location, but it was gone the moment Dion raised his hand. Dion put his finger down on the map again and one of the stores glowed. He removed his hand and the indicated store went dark again.

“You touch the map,” he said to Emily.

Emily placed one manicured nail, coated with a glitter nail polish, on the map, but the store didn’t glow. “Guess it only works when you do it,” she said.

Dion put his finger back on the map and looked for the source of the glow. The map was illuminated and he could see the reason for it. There was one store that shone brightly among all the others marked. He leaned over and read it.

“The Wild Wet World of Wonder?” he said aloud. “What on earth is this place? Have any of you ever heard of it before? The name sounds right, I will give it that.”

“You don’t watch TV much, do you?” Emily asked him. “That place runs ads all the time.  You can’t turn on the tube without hearing some jingle about pool season.”

“You have me there,” Dion told her. “I don’t watch a lot of TV and I wouldn’t know of anything from the commercials. I like to get the news from the papers. In the evening after it had a chance to settle down a bit. The local paper only comes out once a week.”

“You sound like my dad,” Sean said. “But he reads the city paper in the morning. After he grumbles a bit he gets into the car and heads off to work. I look at it when he’s done, but only when he’s finished. I try to keep it from my mom because if she finds an advice column which agrees with her, I’ll have to listen to her read it aloud.

“Beats finding a clipping next to the cereal bowel,” Emily said. “My dad’s quiet and it’s how he likes to leave his comments.”

Dion was busy looking at the map. The guideline didn’t trace out the best way to the store this time, which meant it was safe to go there without any interference from them. This could all change in a moment. The security guards didn’t appear anywhere either, so they had to be in the middle of some kind of plan. What it was, he was certain to find out soon enough.

The map showed a much bigger location than he’d ever seen before. This store was huge and took up enough space for three or four storefronts. He traced the outline with his finger and noticed it extended out into the parking lot. There had to be some kind of protective barrier around it from the way it was placed on the map. Inside the exterior perimeter of the store was a selection of circles and ovals. He turned to his friends.

“Alright,” Dion began. “Can someone please tell me what this place sells?”

“Swimming pools,” Lilly said. “My parents were going to put one in a few years ago, but they decided the insurance was too much. I guess it scares insurance agents if they think some kid might drown on your property. So they decided not to put one in and we continued going to the local pool, even if the membership fees kept going up.”