Elijah's Chariot (The Forgotten Children Book 1) (19 page)

“Quiet
down – everyone listen, I’m not going to repeat this,” Ivan barked. The
white-haired, grim-faced boy stood in front of a set of glass double doors in
an underground passageway that led to a shopping mall adjacent to Red Square.
On either side of him stood several other Black Scorpion gang members, each
armed and busily staring down the group of roughly forty children who waited
calmly for Ivan to finish. 

“We’re
taking a break from the apartment raids today to pick up some things from the
mall. You’ve got three hours to clean this place out of all jewelry, nice
coats, tools and weapons. Then, we’ll move on to the shops along Tverskaya.
There’s a prize for the first person to find…” Ivan quickly glanced down at a
slip of paper in his hand, “a diamond-encrusted platinum locket for Pyotr’s
girl. Any questions?”

Sean
leaned in front of Svyeta to whisper in Russian to Viktor who stood to her
left, “Encrusted?”

Viktor’s
eyes flicked up toward the ceiling for a moment, then turned back to Sean, and
translated into English, “Encrusted – means, filled or embedded.”

Sean
nodded and repeated the word silently in Russian.

“I’m
just impressed that you already knew ‘platinum,’” Svyeta said with a smirk, her
eyes not leaving Ivan who was answering a series of questions from one of the
younger children.

Sean
smiled and responded in Russian. “Viktor and I went over the Periodic Table of
the Elements last night. I think my favorites in Russian are Neon and Sodium.”

“In
English, mine are probably Tungsten and Phosphorus,” Viktor added, saying the
element names in English and drawing out the ‘s’s. 

“You
two are nerds,” Svyeta giggled, “in Russian and in English!”

Both
boys smiled and faced forward, waiting for Ivan to finish. It had been almost
an entire month since Viktor was rescued by the Black Scorpions. Rescued then
immediately made a prisoner. Ever since the first day Sean met him, the Russian
language had been much easier for the American boy, even to the point where he
was now able to converse rather easily about most topics. Viktor, in turn, had
picked up English rather easily as well, although he’d never even heard a word
of the language before meeting Sean. But, Svyeta’s English hadn’t improved much
at all since meeting Sean and especially now that he didn’t need her to
translate for him anymore. 

“Okay,
that’s enough – we’ve got to get to work. Remember – no fooling around. Load
everything in the truck outside. Sean – open it up,” Ivan ordered.

Sean’s
smile disappeared and he made his way forward through the crowd of children
until he stood just a few feet from the glass doors. Clenching his hands
together tightly behind his back, Sean stared at the lock. A low hum began in
his throat, sending minute vibrations through his chest and down to his toes. He
caused his voice to grow louder, but still kept the tone in the lowest register
he could manage. Directing the sound right at the metal lock on the door, he
could see the metal mechanism starting to vibrate. As it began to shake more
violently, he caused his voice to crescendo quickly into a sharp stab of sound,
focusing all the undulating sound waves into a forceful bark. The metal lock
cracked into three different pieces and shot out of the door to land with a
crunch on the tiled floor. 

His
white-knuckled hands came out from behind Sean’s back and he waved as if
shooing away a flock of pigeons. Both glass doors swung silently open and he
stepped aside as the children started slowly filing into the mall.

“Show-off,”
Alyosha whispered with a smile as he walked past.

The
corner of Sean’s mouth turned up in a grin as he fought to slow his breathing.
The concentration and strength required to perform the trick were often greater
than he let on – he knew it would take him just a few moments to recover, but at
the moment it felt like he’d just sprinted a hundred yards. 

“You’d
didn’t use the, the, uh, mind movement power – how do you call it? The
telekinesis this time, did you? Some kind of audible force – a sound wave of
some kind?” Viktor stammered in English as he walked with Sean through the open
doors. 

“Something
I picked up from Svyeta – probably that first day we met,” Sean replied in
Russian, nodding to the girl walking a few paces ahead.

“But,
I’ve never done that – if I’d tried I would have only shattered the glass,”
Svyeta responded.

“I,
uh…” Sean searched quickly for the word in Russian, “improvised. I bet you
could do the same thing – you just have to really concentrate on focusing the
sound and then just let it slowly build.”

Viktor
nodded, his bushy brows knit in concentration. Svyeta smiled faintly then
continued walking, pulling her sister Zhenya away from a store that used to
sell bright-colored children’s clothing. 

Sean
silently chided himself – he’d momentarily forgotten that his abilities
occasionally made the other kids, especially Svyeta, nervous, even sometimes
frightened. She rarely used her power – only when absolutely necessary. It was
still something that she didn’t understand and would have actually preferred
not to have at all. The fact that Sean was already better at it than she was
made her all the more uneasy. The other children were merely awed and somewhat
fearful of the range and variety of Sean’s powers. Some of the kids hadn’t yet
exhibited any sign of a newfound ability and those who did only had one such
strange gift. As if his foreign nature hadn’t been odd enough… now he had
something else that kept him separate from the other kids.

“Have
you been able to reproduce Kostya’s little feat from last night?” Viktor asked
as they walked into a shop filled with black, leather coats. 

Sean
thought back to the previous evening’s incident. Kostya, a spirited four-year
old who was usually assigned to water duty for the work crews, had somehow
managed to ignite an entire tapestry in the hotel conference room where the
children slept. Several of the others had witnessed the event, describing how
the boy had become angry during a game of catch and waved his arms violently,
causing a stream of flame to shoot from his hands at the tapestry. They’d
managed to get the fire out, but it had scared Kostya and many of the other
kids – including Pyotr and Ivan.

Sean
shook his head. “Haven’t had a chance yet, maybe later today when we’re out on
the street.” 

He
glanced at Viktor out of the corner of his eye as they pulled leather jackets
into large baskets that some of the girls had brought in with them. Sean
thought it somewhat strange that they had become such close friends in so short
of a time. But, this is a different kind of life, Sean thought. Nothing like
being in school back in Pasadena. Still, he mused, we share something – more
than anything we have in common with the others. We’re both different: me
because of being American and all of my powers and Viktor because he’s
handicapped and has a speech impediment. Neither of us fits in here. 

Sean
watched the boy limp around the store pulling down coats with his weak arms.
Viktor had said that both his movement and speech impediment had been much
worse before Ilya, or Jerry, landed and claimed that the meteorite’s fall had
somehow healed him. Sean tried to imagine his friend confined to a bed, not
being able to get around very well by himself. And here he was now, able to
work and converse fairly normally. If it was the meteorite that healed him,
Sean thought, then I guess Jerry’s arrival wasn’t all bad for everyone.

“Have
you felt anything from Ivan yet? Has the rushing feeling been there when you’re
around him?” Viktor asked as he dragged one of the full baskets out of the
store.

“I
don’t know,” Sean said as he waved at one of the other boys to take the basket
up to the truck waiting on the street outside. “Maybe, but there are always so
many other kids around it’s difficult to tell for sure. I could have felt it at
some point, but I haven’t seen him do anything special.”

Viktor
paused to catch his breath and rested his hands on his hips. 

“Remember
Pyotr’s ability to sense people’s emotions or even my heightened ability to
learn things quickly. You acquired both of those powers and were able to use
them before you consciously knew what was happening, correct? It could be the
same here. It’s even possible that Ivan himself doesn’t know what his power is,
but he may already be using it and you may have already picked it up.”

Sean
nodded silently and watched his friend continue to think.

“It’s
important for us to know his ability now. What’s your phrase? Sooner rather
than later? I like that. Yes, we should find out what he can do so that we can
use it to our advantage.”

Joyful
shouts echoed through the mall, coming from the direction of a central atrium
where daylight poured in from above. One of the girls ran out of a store
shrieking in excitement, a red bustier over her shirt and a long, blue-beaded
necklace around her neck. One of the gang members chased her, laughing and
squeezed her in a tight hug when he caught up. They both laughed hysterically,
then staggered arm in arm to the next store. Laughter from younger children
drifted up through the atrium from the floor below. 

Sean
picked up a plastic garbage sack and the two headed for a jewelry store where
Svyeta and Zhenya were carefully unlocking one of the glass cases with a key
they’d just found behind the register. 

“Find
any diamond-encrusted platinum lockets?” Sean asked as the boys walked into the
store.

Svyeta
glanced up, smiling. “If I do, I certainly won’t turn it over to Pyotr. I bet
the prize is an extra can of sardines for dinner. Not worth it.”

“I
hate sardines,” said Zhenya, holding up a pudgy hand now adorned with three
too-large gold rings.

As
they were pulling out the most expensive looking pieces of jewelry, Alyosha
sauntered into the store, a garbage sack in his hands.

“Hello,
fellow looters. Any tasty trinkets?” he said loudly.

Svyeta
smiled and added another necklace to the two already hanging from her neck.

“How’s
it going out there? Anyone getting any work done?”

“Not
much. I saw Sergey and Nastya going back to one of the changing rooms and
haven’t seen them since. I get the feeling that the Black Scorpions themselves
don’t get much relaxation time either.”

“Hopefully,
today won’t be too bad. I’m tired of the apartments – there’s never much there
anyway,” Viktor mumbled quietly.

Alyosha
glanced over his shoulder, then whispered, “Something’s going on with Pyotr and
Ivan. I heard him talking on his walkie-talkie and they were arguing about
something. They kept talking about ‘the Yozh.’ You guys hear anything about
that?”

Viktor
turned to Sean. “It’s the name of an animal – small, furry, has hair that
sticks up in all directions.”

“A
porcupine or hedgehog?” Sean asked in English.

Viktor
shrugged. 

“Anyway,”
Alyosha continued, “I didn’t tell you guys about this before – I haven’t had
the chance. About three days ago, I was with Volodya and Kostya waiting on the
street for the truck to come back and pick up our stuff. After a while, we see
these four boys who we’ve never seen before, pushing this big crate of food
along. It was on a wheeled cart or something and they were just pushing it down
the street. We talked to them for a second and they said they were taking it to
the Yozh. He’s some guy who has this big gang somewhere here in the center of
the city and said that anyone who brings him a lot of food can join his gang.
We asked them if they keep you prisoner and force you to work there and they
said no, you’re not a prisoner, but you do have to help out. But, it didn’t
sound like how the Black Scorpions do it.”

He
watched Sean, Viktor and Svyeta, then cast another glance over his shoulder and
continued speaking in a hushed tone. “Maybe this Yozh guy is building some big
gang and giving Pyotr and Ivan some trouble. If we could find him or contact
him somehow, I bet he would help us. He probably wants to get Pyotr out of the
way as much as we do. Then he could rule the center of the city and we wouldn’t
have to gather all this junk anymore. We’ve already picked up enough food –
it’s all this jewelry and nice clothing stuff that’s wasting our time. It’s
like Pyotr will never have enough.”

“How
can we find the Yozh?” Sean asked. “We’re constantly watched during the day and
locked up at night. They’d chase us down if we ran away.”

Alyosha
nodded, then stepped out of the store and looked around briefly before coming
back to stand next to the counter. “Watch this,” he said.

The
thin boy stood next to the display counter and held his hands above it. Closing
his eyes tightly, he drew in a few deep breaths. Sean swayed slightly on his
feet as the rushing sensation filled his mind and he had the feeling of a
large, slow river pouring over the edge of a cliff. Alyosha took a step toward
the counter, holding his body very still otherwise, then took another and
another until he was about to bump into it – but, then he just kept walking and
passed right through it like it wasn’t there.