DAMAGED - A Bad Boy Romance (16 page)

“We are close to the bookstore where I can buy the map,” he told them. “I think I see it over there, next to the bathrooms.” Dion pointed to the other side of the concourse.

The girls looked to see a new bookstore in the space occupied by a blank wall just a few days ago. The mall management had a good way of concealing any place which was not rented. They had a portable wall, which could be spread across the front of the empty storefront. It concealed its true nature, and no one would ever notice. When the mall was initially opened, there were quite a few of them. They prevented the mall from looking underutilized. Now most of the spaces were rented and there was no need to conceal empty space.

The bookstore was called “The Ramses News Agency” and had an Egyptian theme to it. This didn’t surprise Lilly, as the King Tut exhibit was still fresh in many people’s minds. She’d stood in line with her parents for hours to see it when the show passed through Cincinnati. It was the talk of the summer that year and the exhibit left many cultural artifacts in its wake. There were hit records and nightclubs with faux Egyptian themes that remained popular for years. She decided this news agency, or bookstore, was trying to ride what was left of the fame.

“This is the place,” Dion said. “It will have what I need.” They both followed him into the store.

“Wow,” Emily said to Dion. “You really made a plant grow. That’s incredible… can you make a plant sing?”

“No,” he told her as he walked through the entrance. “It’s a very bad thing to make a plant sing.”

The door to the store was slid back, which allowed everyone the chance to walk inside it. As they walked through the entrance, Lilly looked up and noticed the images of two Egyptian goddesses who joined hands over the transom and looked down at the customers as they walked under them. She thought they might be supposed to represent Isis, but wasn’t sure.

The news agency was filled with books and magazines, just as they had expected. Lilly thought the name for it was a little odd, as most places which sold books and magazines, were called “book stores” and not “news agencies”. Still it was a minor point and one she didn’t trouble herself over.

In the front of the store was the magazine rack. It stretched down one entire side of the store. Lilly walked up to it and noticed the rack displayed publications in all languages. She was impressed as it carried the latest fashion magazines from Paris and local ones too. She looked up and didn’t see the usual “This is not a library!” sign. Nor did she see any security mirrors, which usually covered the store and allowed the clerks to see if anyone was shoplifting.

The air smelled of exotic spices and herbs. She found it a pleasant scent, even if it did remind her of a head shop. She looked down the length of the store and noticed several older men at the end of one rack trying to conceal the magazines they were perusing at the top row of the display. She snickered, as the subject matter was obvious. Funny how you would know just from a walk into the store what they read.

Dion was in the middle of the store in search for what he needed to find. Lilly couldn’t locate the map section, but was sure it was there somewhere. This was a news agency, so where else would you find one? Even Emily was perplexed where you would look. Didn’t they sell maps?

“Can I help you?” a voice said to Lilly from the side.

She turned to face an older man who appeared to be from the Middle East. He was tall, thin and had a very birdlike appearance to him. This had to be the owner, or manager, she decided and noticed he held a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. He would know what they needed to find and where it was located.

“We’re trying to find your map section," she said to him. “My friend doesn’t trust the directory to find what he needs in the mall and he claims you can help him.

“Permit me to introduce myself,” he said to her as the man placed his pen into a pocket on his jacket. “I am Mr. Jehuti. I opened this store myself last week and I will be glad to help you find what you need.”

“Yourself?” a voice said behind him and a very regal woman stepped out from behind the counter. “Don’t I get some credit?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. This is my lovely wife, Maya,” he introduced her. “She keeps me in line and restores the divine harmony we need to keep this place running.”

Lilly noted the woman had long coarse hair tied back by a headband. For some reason she had a feather in the headband. She wore a long dress that brushed along the floor. The woman radiated energy and all three of them could feel her presence.

“We need to find the special map of the mall,” Dion said to them. “Not one of the regular ones. I need the map which shows me all the places not indicated on the regular ones.”

Mr. Jehuti looked at him for a few moments and closed his eyes. His wife came up behind him and touched his shoulder. He opened his eyes and smiled at the three young people in front of him.

“You have come to the right place,” he told them. “You want the map produced by Come Forth By Day Cartographic. It just so happens I have one behind the counter. Dear, would you please go get it for our honored guests?”

The woman walked back behind the counter, her skirts swirling as she went. She returned with a scroll that was tied with a ribbon. She handed it to her husband.

“It has all the hidden places marked,” the storeowner told Dion. “You will find what you need on this map. I caution you to be very careful with it, as these are hard to obtain. You don’t want the wrong sort of people or things to find this. The map company would be very disappointed if they discovered it fell into the wrong hands.”

“How much do I owe you for this?” Dion asked as he took the map from Mr. Jehuti.

“Nothing. It was sent to me because I knew you would come by and need it sooner or later.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“No need. Knowing we have helped and allowed you to continue on your search is all the gratitude we need. I record things around here and your visit will make for such an entry.”

The woman turned to Dion. “You should be very careful about what you do inside the mall. There are many who do not want to see you succeed on your journey.”

“I’m aware of that,” Dion told them, “but I must continue. My parents’ lives are at stake and I am the only one who can rescue them.”

“Do you have knowledge of what you are up against?” she asked.

“A little.”

“Good. Know that there are many agencies in this mall you do not see, but once they understand you are here, they will do what they can to prevent you from succeeding. I want to see harmony established again, it is why I am here with my husband. I can’t do much from the inside, but you know who to come and see if you need advice.”

“Thank you,” Dion said. “Glad to know I have some help if I need it. Not so glad to know there are so many against me, but it was something I suspected.”

“Wait,” Mr. Jehuti said to Dion as they started to leave, “how much knowledge do you have of the elementals that reside in this mall?”

Dion and the girls turned back around to face him. “I know there are some here and about,” he said. “We were introduced to the ones who work for Officer Karanzen. I didn’t realize they have such a back story.”

“Those are not elementals,” Mrs. Jehuti told them. “They are something else which he controls, but we are not sure what. I think they were humans at one time and now he has control of them.”

“Are you telling us the security guards are some kind of zombies?” Emily asked, one foot crossed over the other, half-confused, half-scared.

“How free is it to talk in front of them?” Mr. Jehuti said to Dion. “I understand why you are here, but they don’t seem to share your abilities.”

“It’s okay. I’ve shown each of them what I can do and they are satisfied of it.”

“I think we need to take this conversation somewhere else,” his wife spoke. “Would any of you mind if we moved to another location to talk about it?”

“I have no objection,” Dion said. He turned to the girls. “What about the two of you?”

“It’s all fine with me,” Lilly told them.

“I suppose,” was Emily’s response. “But who will watch the store for you?”

“We won’t be gone that long,” Mrs. Jehuti replied. “Relative to the subjective time, that is.”

Then the entire store vanished.

Chapter 4

Emily opened her eyes again to see a sun in the sky overhead. She looked at it just long enough to focus on it. It seemed to her there was something next to the sun in the sky, but she could not see it very well with the glare from the light.

Emily shielded her eyes with her hand and looked again. There was something behind it, pushing it along. It didn’t move very fast, but the thing that pushed the ball of sunlight was exerting itself. What was it?

A beetle.

A beetle?

Emily shaded her eyes and looked again. It was a giant beetle, which moved the sun in the sky. The light hurt her eyes and she looked around her.

Dion and Lilly were with her in a vast desert. She looked down and found herself shoeless and standing on the hot sand. She no longer wore the painter’s pants and blue top. Now she had on a wrap-around dress, which lacked a back. Dion and Lilly were dressed in a similar fashion. Dion had a scarf over his head. It was secured with a band around it in the form of golden snake.

“Where are we?” Lilly asked. And given their surroundings, it was an honest question.

“Someplace… else,” Mr. Jehuti said. He and his wife were with them. He too wore a scarf around his head and was dressed in a long robe, which fell to the ground. In one hand, he carried a scroll. His other hand rested on a staff.

“Don’t worry,” his wife spoke, “the subjective time of this place won’t register when you return. We find it better to come here to hold conferences. There are less ears to hear and eyes to see. In the other place, we don’t have enough power to block those who would interfere.”

Mrs. Jehuti wore an elaborate skirt, similar to the one she had on in the news agency and a backless top. Her long woven hair was tied back by a headband, just as it was before. But this time the feather in the headband was much larger and elaborate. She too held a staff in one hand.

Lilly looked off in the distance. There was a pyramid under construction. The work crew was busy hauling stones across the sand from the river using a sled pulled by oxen. As they headed toward the pyramid, a man came running up to them and held out a set of plans. The foreman of the crew consulted the plans, pointed out a few things, and then the man ran back in the direction of the building project with his plans under one arm. The work crew continued to move the stone block in the direction of the construction site.

“Amenhotep wants to make sure it’s done on schedule,” Mr. Jehuti chuckled. “He’s never satisfied with any of his design work. Such a perfectionist.”

“We were talking about Elementals,” Dion said to them.

“Elementals, yes,” Mr. Jehuti continued. “They are all over that mall. You, I am sure, felt them the moment you walked inside. They seldom leave the mall since it’s safer for them to stay there. The mall builders used a lot of them. They needed to get the project completed faster than anyone thought possible. There are many kinds of elementals inside the mall, but four major ones you will encounter. Right now, you must be wary of the ghouls as they thrive in their earth element. You will encounter the sylphs eventually, who fly in the element of air. There are also water nymphs, which can cause you more problems than you might expect. Lastly there are the salamanders.”

“Those lizard things I find under logs?” Emily said. “They don’t seem to be much of a problem.”

“Not the same kind of salamander,” Mrs. Jehuti informed her. “These are a type of fire spirit. They have the potential to be the most dangerous ones of all.”

“We don’t know what kind lived in the center of the mall,” Mr. Jehuti said. “We have never been to the center. And, ultimately, that is where you must travel to find your parents.”

“Once you achieve full power in each element,” Maya Jehuti added, “you will have dominion over that elemental. They don’t want to be bound to anyone, so the elementals will stop at nothing to prevent you from reaching your goal. They share this with those who control the mall.”

“How will I know what to look for?” Dion asked.

Lilly moved to one side of Dion while Emily turned to watch a boat sail down the river near where they were standing.

“You will learn to tell them from you encounters,” Mr. Jehuti said. “It will take time, and once you have located each Grandmaster of the Element, you won’t need to as they will be bound to you. Until then, be wary of groups of people who seem to be working toward a common goal inside the mall.”

“Do you have any more questions?” his wife said to them.

“Are we in the past?” Emily asked her.

“We are in
a
past. It’s not the same past you read about in school, but one which still exists. I think it is time to return.”

Instantly, the desert landscape vanished, and they were back inside the news agency.

Dion and the girls blinked several times as the trip had created a distorted sense of reality. Emily looked down and saw her clothes were back to the way they were. She looked at her wristwatch. Only thirty seconds had elapsed from the time they left to the time they returned.

“Not subjective to the local time,” Mrs. Jehuti said to her again. The couple that owned the store were back inside it, still dressed in the same matter from the time they left. Once again, the older man handed the scroll back to Dion.

“You will need this if you are to locate the Grandmasters of the Elements. I don’t worry and know you will be able to find them without much trouble. But be wary of what I told you.”

Dion thanked them both.

They walked out of the news agency and back into the main concourse of the shopping mall. It was still there. Lilly expected to return to the desert landscape and watch the work crew continue to pull the sled, but they were back to where they had been.

“So, all we have to worry about is a group of people working together,” Lilly said to her friends. “Great, that could be so many people. What do we do? Watch out for a fire brigade running into this place? We’ve already been informed Officer Karanzen doesn’t count.”

“I’m almost scared to go anywhere,” Emily said. “I just came back from the desert and don’t even know how I got there. Nothing in this place makes sense.”

“It makes plenty of sense,” a man who was seated on a bench said to them. They turned in his direction, as he hadn’t been seated there when they entered the news agency. “You have to understand the rules by which this place operates. When you know them, it becomes very clear.”

Sitting on the bench was an elderly man in a leisure suit, eating an ice cream cone. He was bald and had a gold chain around his neck. He continued licking the ice cream cone as he regarded them. The man’s voice was high-pitched and nasal, and he spoke with an educated British accent.

“Ice cream cones,” he sighed. “One of my weaknesses. The doctor says I should lay off them, but I can’t help myself. They won’t be the death of me this time, but if I continue to indulge, I’ll be sent back and I don’t want that. Oh, dear me, where are my manners? You can call me Edward.”

“So how do you figure into all this?” Dion asked the man. He was surprised, as the man was a new factor in the game in progress.

“I don’t,” he explained. “I’m just here as an enlightened observer. I can give advice, but not if it will make a difference. So please don’t ask me what form you elementals will take, I have no idea.”

“Are you here to join us?” Lilly asked him.

“Now isn’t that charming?” he said to them. “A pretty young lass asks if I want to join her. I’m not back for five minutes and my old ability returns. No, I’m just here to watch and report. I’ll be around from time to time. Think of me as a one-man Greek Chorus. Excuse me, but are you allowed to smoke in here?”

“No,” Dion told him and pointed at the “No Smoking” signs on the wall.

“That is indeed a shame. Alas, this age is so unenlightened. I expected better, but already I have seen wonders never anticipated. Is it true you all own televisions?”

“Most of us do,” Emily told him. “My aunt won’t have a TV in her house, but she’s the only person I know who doesn’t have one.”

“A shame. I never thought they would replace cinemas.”

“So what kind of advice can you give us?” Dion asked.

“I can only tell you what you already know,” he replied. “I can tell you to pay attention to what you won’t. Who do you think around here does most of the work associated with the earth?”

They looked at each other and thought for a while.

Finally Emily spoke.

“It can’t be a construction crew,” she said. “All of that work is done.”

“True. Now look about you and think about what the next most obvious example might be.”

They turned and looked down the concourse. Nothing was apparent.

Then Lilly noticed something.

There were janitorial workers everywhere. At least ten different people were involved in emptying the trash and sweeping the floors. They all had their uniforms on and were very busy at their jobs. One of them waxed a brass handrail, another hauled bags of trash out of a can. And every single one of them was glancing in their direction as they carried out their tasks. She watched them move closer every time they did something. This wasn’t random; the crew was closing in on them.

“The cleaners,” Lilly whispered. “The cleaners are watching us.”

“Don’t look and make it obvious,” Dion said. “Just focus on what’s in front of you.”

Lilly and Emily did their best but they couldn’t help but turn in the direction of the janitorial staff as the cleaners began to move closer to them. The cleaners did everything they could to make their actions appear normal and fit into the daily business of running the mall. However, there were a few things that anyone would find odd about them.

First of all, they all had the same appearance. Each one had a large forehead and shaggy hair. All of them wore sunglasses, even inside the mall. None of them were women, all were men. None of the cleaners appeared to be more than five foot two in height. It appeared someone had printed a basic form of “cleaner” and used the template to create a horde of them. They moved slowly, but with deliberation. Each step took them one closer to Dion and his friends.

“Excellent,” said the man called Edward. “I see you are waking up. I wish I had a cigar; there must be a tobacco vendor around here somewhere. Alas, you tell me I can’t smoke inside this place. Such a shame. You colonists have such strange values. Anyway, can you guess what they might really be?”

“Gnomes,” Emily blurted out. “They are really gnomes. The mall has contracted out to a company which uses gnomes as janitors.”

“Wrong. But close,” the man on the bench, said. “They are not gnomes, but ghouls, creatures who frequent graveyards. This is why they need to wear the sunglasses. The light hurts their eyes. They are used to activity under the light of the moon. The brightness of the sun is too much for them.”

“These are the elementals associated with earth?” Dion said to him. “How does that work out?”

“Think about it,” Edward said as he adjusted the silk shirt that he had over his corpulent body. “They live underground and do not usually come out in the daytime. But the mall has to have them work all day long, so the unlucky ones get to clean up while the mall is open. There are a lot more of them, but they stay in the subbasement in the daytime. Have you ever had to interact with a cleaner in this place?”

“I can’t say I have,” Emily said.

“Me neither,” said Lilly.

“That is how the management would like it kept,” Edward pointed out. “Most people don’t even acknowledge that the cleaners are here. They are invisible and no one could even remember what they looked like. The ghouls want it kept that way too, because it assures them a steady source of employment and a decent place to live. They can stay in the subbasement and no one is even aware they are down there outside the mall management. If you look at the nametag on their shirts, they all say ‘Bob’. Now don’t you find it funny no one has ever asked themselves why all the cleaners are called the same name?”

“From the way you describe it,” Dion said, “it sounds there’s a benefit to both the mall management and the ghouls.”

“Oh, there is. I don’t see this arrangement lasting forever, though. Eventually someone will notice and the management will be forced to hire some humans to do the job who won’t attract much notice either. In the meantime, they have a whole group of humanoid creatures who will keep the place clean and only cost them room and board. Eventually the ghouls will realize they can do better than push a broom or clean a handrail, but this will be far in the future.”

“So they don’t want Dion to gain power of the earth elementals because it threatens their status?” Lilly asked. “It seems rather short-sighted of them.”

“It might seem that way to you,” Edward said. “But you haven’t had to live in a cave all your life, afraid of the sun, afraid of the humans on the surface and starving for whatever food you could get. The ghouls are like vultures, they only eat things that are in a state of decay. There are plenty of things they can eat around here. Plenty of sandwiches tossed away every day for them to let age. As I said, eventually they will figure out who is getting the better of the relationship, and then the mall management will need to find another kind of earth elemental to live in this part and keep it balanced.”