The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural (30 page)

Lee raised an eyebrow, “Really? Why?” Her
finger slid under the last page of the scrapbook, but she was too
busy watching the clear water dance off the car window just past
Lotus’s ear.

Lotus exhaled and rubbed her shoulders
thoughtfully, “I guess it was just your charisma. You’re so full of
life. Everyone needs a Haileigh.”

Lee beamed, “Now I really know you’re my
sister. You know me too well and we just met. Well, re-met.” She
turned back to the scrapbook, flipped to the last page.

And froze.

Concrete angel, shallow pool, iron fence…

“
Ace…” Lee called when the
shock dissolved.

The boy leaned forward and when his eyes
rested upon the image, he felt his entire mouth go numb. That was
impossible, but in the blink of an eye, it all made sense. “Grace!
Lee do you remember?”

Of course she remembered. One never forgets
their first kiss, and in this case, Lee never forgot every detail
leading up to it. The gang had gone up to their cabin in East Side
when Ace stumbled upon a picture that sparked a sliver of
remembrance. Lee had gone with him to the place in the picture and
under the oak tree were the letters HGS and MD carved between three
vertical lines. The G stood for Grace; Haileigh Grace Stelter.

“
We knew each other!” Lee
exclaimed. She wasn’t sure if she was informing Ace or Lotus. But
at this point any doubt that she was related to Lotus vanished at
the sight of this one picture. “Lotus, you mentioned you can’t
remember who our childhood friends were. Ace is one of them, he has
to be!”

Lotus raised an eyebrow then glanced at him
through the rear view. “Uh, huh… can you explain why you think
that?”

Yes, Lee could, and so she did. She started
from the very beginning, not just of the day they went to the
garden, but from the very first moment she met Ace. She skipped
through the Krome parties and the car races, and even incorporated
bits about her life; about how she couldn’t remember anything.
Lotus bit her tongue at that. How does one not remember their
childhood? How can they have a gap of memories involving more than
half of the years they’ve been alive?

Then Lee mentioned that Ace was the exact
same way as she dove into the part about the garden and the
photograph. She said he remembered playing in the garden as a child
and having a friend he called Grace. Finally, Lee wrapped up her
story by incorporating how Lotus couldn’t remember their childhood
friends. When Lee said that, Lotus finally concluded something.

“
This was set up.” She
muttered as the scene around them began to change. “This is too
much of a coincidence. There’s something else none of us know yet,
and this is just too weird that right after we come together, we
are learning about this.”

They had driven across the dark cavern now.
Up ahead, Lee could make out more of the light colored sand. It was
similar to the scene by Oahu, but at the same time, far too
different. Steel poles dug themselves into the sand and protruded
from the ground like metal roots branching out from the city they
still couldn’t see. Heleow was just above them now, and when she
cast her eyes up through the windshield, she barely had time to
catch the blurry sight of tall glass towers before they entered
another tunnel.

This time, the tunnel into Heleow was
different from the one beneath Oahu. When the mountain hardly had a
light, this one was entirely illuminated with several strips of
brilliant white above their heads. As they sped along, the lights
sent Lee’s shadow sliding from the windshield to the back. But the
one thing that appeared most fascinating to Lee was the fact that
she couldn’t figure out what the tunnel was made out of. All she
could tell was that it the material looked like silky milk. It was
a spotless glossy white that would never be seen in a filthy and
crammed place as a tunnel. But there it was, right in front of
her.

“
I know this is going to
sound really weird,” began Lotus. She had driven to and from Heleow
so many times that she forgot how interesting every little detail
was to a new comer. “But, I got this letter from a friend
named-”

“
Mirage,” Ace finished. He
was too caught up on their conversation to even look past the
windshield.

Lotus stared at his reflection in
bewilderment, “How did you…?”

“
We were friends too.” Ace
remarked, “She gave me a letter the night she…”

“
Died,” This time Lotus
finished. “I got one too…” her voice faded as she pondered to
herself, “You are familiar with the street legend then? Both of
you?”

Ace chuckled. At the sound of his laughter,
tension seemed to be lifted from the air for the first time.
“There’s one thing your sister failed to mention.” He began
glancing over at Lee, “I am a supernatural.”

“
What?!” Lotus shrieked. She
was so startled; Lotus almost slammed into the side of the tunnel.
“Hails! You, him- he’s…what?”

“
You don’t believe him?”
Asked Lee. “Because Mirage was one too. She could see into the
future, that’s how she was able to write those letters.”

Lotus inhaled a deep, calming breath. “Yeah,
I know. Mirage and Shadow were my friends for the longest time.
Actually Mirage was the one that told me I had a sister. I just
didn’t know they were members of the Counsel until Michael told
me.”

“
Counsel?” Ace inquired,
“What is that?”

“
Well you know the street
Legend right? The one about the King ruling all gangs and whatnot.
The Counsel is what helps him do it.” Explained Lotus.

Up ahead, they were beginning to near the end
of the tunnel. A gigantic hole of white Hawaiian light began to
grow until Lee had to shield her eyes. When she pulled back her
fingers, it was like pulling back the curtains to the most amazing
scene she had ever seen.

Dark blue water filled every space not
inhabited by massive silver towers. They hadn’t reached the city
yet. In fact the tunnel had spit them out on a simple steel bridge
and they were climbing over the dark blue water. As the bridge
began to level over the Pacific, it eventually split into three
separate roads, like a trident. One road curved around to the north
of Heleow, one to the south, and the other straight through the
heart. That was the one Lotus took.

Lee had never officially toured the heart of
North Side, but even from a distance, she knew nothing in
Tarrillian City could relate to Heleow. Where all of Tarrillian’s
towers seemed to be squared and tall, Heleow flaunted the most
bazaar shapes. There were towers that grew in spirals, buildings
that were topped with spheres; there was even one that caught Lee’s
attention because it looked like a giant steel and glass A. But
like Tarrillian, Heleow seemed to be made of mostly glass. However,
instead of incorporating steel with the glass, a majority of Heleow
seemed to be mixed with the strange milky looking metal from the
tunnel.

But it was definitely a Stelter City. The
closer they got, the more of Stelter’s iconic bright lights began
to glitter across the city like a night sky in broad daylight. As
they approached, Lee began to make out that some of those lights
were moving, and they weren’t attached to any skyscraper. They
looked like miniature UFO’s sailing over pedestrian heads like a
military of marching lights.

Another thing she noticed, as they continued
to drive closer, was that the towers weren’t quite as big as the
ones in Tarrillian. They weren’t even close, and as her eyes
scanned the shore line, she saw that the number of crazy looking
buildings came to a stop sooner than she thought. It lacked the
powerful feel Tarrillian had, that sort of firm unmovable
foundation. But the thing that gave Heleow its invisible shine was
the potential. Regardless of its current size, Heleow was going to
grow into something magnificent.

“
Welcome to Heleow, sissy.”
Lotus remarked. “This is the most beautiful city in the
world.”

Lee couldn’t pick her jaw off the floor. She
hadn’t realized how far forward she was leaning until the seatbelt
caught to her shoulder and even that didn’t keep her from removing
her gaze.

“
Are your parents here?”
asked Ace. He too had leaned forward for a better view if the city,
but he wasn’t as speechless at its sight as Lee was.

Lotus shook her head. “I don’t even think we
have a home any more. The three of us haven’t even been in the same
room for years now.” She hesitated for a moment, “But now that
you’re here, maybe they’ll have a reason to come back. Oh my gosh!
I forgot about Kasper!”

Lee finally tore her eyes from the city,
“Who’s Kasper?”

“
My manager,” said Lotus as
she frantically dug through her massive granny tote, “He told me to
call when I found you…”

“
Do you need help?” Lee
offered reaching for the bag.

Lotus peered into her tote then sighed, “No,
I guess I can call him later. But right now I want to know what you
know about the supernatural.”

Ace leaned back in his seat and peered out
the window. They were approaching the city now and he felt the
slight decent of the bridge to sea level. Between the towers of
silver mirrors he was beginning to make out the almost neon blue of
Heleow’s flooded alleyways. “I didn’t know about the Counsel until
you mentioned it. But it makes sense. I remember Mirage and Shadow
spending a lot of time in Hawaii. Was that because of you?”

Lotus shrugged. “They were in Heleow a lot,
but they also did some traveling with Michael. I didn’t understand
that until Michael told me he was the King.”

“
What?!” Lee exclaimed her
eyes doubling in size. “Michael… Caster? He’s the King?”

Lotus nodded, “I’m not sure if I was supposed
to say, but your boy’s a supernatural so-”

“
Wasn’t Michael the one we
saw on the plane?” interrupted Ace grasping onto the back of Lee’s
seat to lean in closer. He was speaking more to Lee now and almost
cutting Lotus out of the conversation.

Lee spun around just as Lotus exclaimed, “You
met Michael on a plane?”

Lee nodded but hardly acknowledged her sister
as she pondered, “That makes no sense… Why would he try to kill
me?”

“
Michael tried to
kill you!!”
Lotus had
burned through several shades of red so that she was practically
the same color of Lee’s sunburn.

“
No, no, it doesn’t make
sense.” Sputtered Lee. “He didn’t even know who we were on the
plane-”

“
Woah, time-out!” Lotus
exclaimed, “Go back to the beginning. Who tried to kill
you?”

The bridge had morphed into a strip of
asphalt licking across the white sand surrounding Heleow. In no
time at all, Lotus had driven up the shore and into the base of
Heleow’s metropolis canyon. For the first time, people appeared on
the streets in a strange way. Business suits were combined with
swimwear and traditional Hawaiian clothing. Jewelry stores, coffee
shops, and café’s littered the clean streets but even then, the
traffic and the amount of pedestrians lacked the numbers in
Tarrillian City. That was just one of the many things that appealed
to Lotus. Heleow was a beautiful and roomy city and she didn’t have
to share it with many people. Yet.

“
The man that tried to kill
me said he worked for the King.” Lee began, her voice mumbled by
layers of aww as her eyes scaled a nearby building. She practically
had to press her cheek to the glass as she searched for the top and
even then, the building seemed to melt into the sky.

“
And you met Michael on a
plane?” continued Lotus. “On a plane to Hawaii? So this was
recent?”

“
Yeah, we met him
yesterday.” muttered Lee. “What are those things?” she asked
pointing at the small army of moving lights above their
heads.

Lotus didn’t have to look up. “Some sort of
robot thing DiAchi Tech and Stelter invented. Some of them monitor
the weather, others are security cameras.” She replied as they
drove across one of the minty blue channels of ocean water. Lee
managed to glance down and see that a family had climbed into the
waterway with their fishing poles and played on the glass looking
ledge to make memories. “I don’t really know what they are.” Lotus
confessed as the oceanic alleyway disappeared behind the dark
granite columns of a bank. “I’ve never really cared to know. But
they look cool don’t they?”

Lee watched as a row of them hurried overhead
in organized lines. “Yeah, really cool…”

“
How is Michael the King?”
asked Ace snapping the two back into their previous
conversation.

“
He’s an
international
rock star so that alone
gives him enough fame.” Explained Lotus, “He can teleport. It makes
it easier for him to keep track of global gang
activity-”

“
That explains how he knows
Dohnalello!” gasped Lee. “Remember how he didn’t want to tell us
how he got on the plan?! For once something makes sense.” Lee let
out a relieved breath and sank back in her seat. “But he didn’t
know who I was. Why would he kill someone he didn’t
know?”

“
Why would he want to kill
someone
ever
is
what I want to know.” mentioned Lotus as they came to a stop at an
intersection.

“
Isn’t he your boyfriend?”
asked Ace.

Lotus scoffed, “Ha! Nope.
Not anymore. I think we’re still friends, but I’m not going to call
him up and be like:
Hey bestie, I was just
wondering if you have been plotting to kill my baby sister
recently.
Let’s piece this stuff together
before we reach out to other people. I have a feeling this is going
to get really complicated, really fast.”