The Elementals

“No.”

Audrey felt bad saying it, but if she let Sparky out into the snow, she was afraid she’d lose him. He blinked his brown eyes at her persuasively. “Please?”

“You don’t know how to drive a snow mobile, Sparky.” She reasoned with the six year old.

Sparky stuck out his bottom lip. “Tide didn’t know how to drive a truck.”

“And we can see how well that worked out.” Audrey muttered to herself, and then said louder, “Tide is also nine years older than you. Now go play with the computers.” Having seemed to get over his first rejection, Sparky raced off to the computer room to cause damage.

Audrey wasn’t a naturally maternal person, even if she did have her own children. A government job didn’t allow much family time, so the divorce shouldn’t have come as a shock, but it still hurt when her husband got full custody of her girls. She sighed. Sparky had the same eyes as her youngest, Maddie.

The last place Audrey expected to find herself was in charge of a slew of part human kids, but they had grown on her. She just didn’t know how to deal with them. How do you entertain a child who has the attention span of a flea, and also holds about nine-hundred volts of electricity waiting to be released?

She sighed, and then jumped as a hand tugged on her sleeve. She looked down and saw Maple staring back at her with an earnest expression.

“What is it?” Audrey asked.

Maple shifted on her feet uncomfortably. “Um, I was…I was thinking.”

“About…?”

Maple blinked and glanced at the floor. “I didn’t like being locked up by the mean government people.” She said government hesitantly, mispronouncing it as “govment”.

“I’m not going to lock you up.” Audrey assured her, slightly offended.

“No,” Maple shook her head. “But…we did lock up Caelum and the other Tide…and Izila.”

Audrey narrowed her eyes slightly. “What are you suggesting Maple?”

“Well maybe because we’re doing what they did to us, and because we didn’t like what they did to us, we shouldn’t be doing it to them because then that makes us them because we’re doing what they did.” Maple said quickly.

Audrey stood silent for a moment. A five year old girl had just said something more intelligent than anything she’d heard in five years from her colleagues. Audrey internally sighed again. Maple’s heart was in the right place, but sadly the logic wasn’t quite there.

“I understand Maple, but if we let them go they’re going to keep doing the bad things. We can’t let that happen, so it’s really better this way.” Her words became more rushed as she heard a crash from the computer lab, and then the faint noises of a baby starting to cry. “Okay sweetie?”

Maple nodded, dubious. “Okay…” she said slowly.

“Great,” Audrey smiled tightly, and then raced off to quiet the twins before they stopped time.

~

Audrey had gotten the twins to sleep, and Sparky to play with something safer than electronics, when everything started to unravel.

First was that when she turned on the TV, found an American channel, and watched the news, all the headlines were about a small town in Texas. A small town called Alpine, where a helicopter had crashed and then two teenagers were escorted to the hospital, where they later escaped and then were reported speaking with two other adults in the middle of the street before running away and then never being seen again.

Also, the woman was said to be the cause of the unplanned fireworks going off for years in the town, the boy bent a lamppost and the girl caused a minor earthquake

Audrey watched with increasing horror as footage of the helicopter wreckage played. She recognized the smudged and bloodied faces of Terra and Steel. Terra wasn’t moving, and Steel was arguing with an officer.

“No…English?” he said uncertainly, sounding like some sort of Dutch.

The policeman’s next words were drowned out by a mechanical beep but Audrey was thinking enough explicit things to make up for it.

And that’s when the second thing happened.

Come.

Audrey shook her head. She had heard a voice, but it was as if she was seeing the word in her mind, not actually hearing it audibly.

Come. Open the door.

Audrey suddenly felt compelled to open the door to the outside. Almost against her will, she stood, leaving the TV flickering shadows over the wall. She made her way up the dark passage, all the while the voice pulling her there.

Hurry up! It urged impatiently.

As Audrey got closer to the door, she could hear someone pounding on it. All her instincts said not to open it, but she found herself reaching out and unlocking it.

The door opened quickly, slamming against the wall with a loud bang. Outside, shivering, stood a young African girl.

“My name is Caroline.” she said.

“Oh.” Audrey said, because suddenly she knew exactly who Caroline was, as if she had met her years ago. This was unexplainable, except that Audrey somehow knew Caroline was the psychic Elemental that Coal and Tide had gone after. She frowned. So where were Tide and Coal now?

Caroline rushed inside and started running down the passage. “We need to go.”

“What?” Audrey followed her.

“You! Blondie,” Caroline snapped, sounding much older than she was. Audrey frowned, because she was addressing someone else. “Get a snowmobile ready.”

Audrey came out of the passage and froze as she saw Caelum regarding Caroline with confusion. He noticed Audrey and his eyes widened as hers narrowed. She didn’t have to ask how he got out. She knew already.

“Hello?” Caroline snapped her fingers in Caelum’s face. “Are you deaf? Snowmobile, now!”

Caelum frowned down at the small girl. She met his eyes with an air of challenge until she turned back to Audrey suddenly, eyebrows furrowed. “Wait…” she said, but then both of them started to lift into the air. “Hey! Put me down!”

Caelum paid no attention.

“Put me down.” Caroline’s voice was hard, commanding and Audrey felt that same way again, like the voice was in her mind, and if she had been holding something, she would have dropped it.

Caelum frowned, blinking in confusion. His hand went to his head, and then he looked back up at Caroline.

“Put. Me. Down.” She repeated forcefully.

Whatever anti-gravity thing that was in place left, Caroline dropped to the floor with a shriek. They weren’t at a deadly height, only about ten feet, but the fall was enough to render the psychic motionless.

“What did you do?” Audrey cried angrily.

Caelum briefly appeared horrified before saying, “I put her down.” He looked back up at Audrey with a sickened expression. “That’s what she said to do.”

They were both silent, and Audrey was slowly lowered to the ground. She rushed over to Caroline. The girl was okay, just unconscious.

“I-I…” Caelum stuttered. He seemed about to apologize, but then Izila’s voice could be heard snapping harshly at someone.

“–alive!” she hissed into a cell phone as she paced into the room. “Of course I want them alive you moron! You say you know where they are, so find them, get them, and if you haven’t accomplished this minor task by the time I arrive, I will turn you into a coat. Have I made myself clear?”

Audrey felt slight sympathy for the person on the other end of the line. Izila snapped the cell phone shut and glowered at Caelum. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

Caelum didn’t move for a second and Izila muttered something about incompetence. Audrey felt anger bubbling up inside of her and that was before she saw the Tide clone pushing a frightened Maple and drowsy Sparky along roughly. She had a canteen of water slung over her shoulder and Audrey knew she wouldn’t hesitate to hurt anyone.

“I’m sorry.” Maple whispered when she reached Audrey.

Audrey glared at the clone and grabbed both Maple and Sparky, holding them closer protectively.

“There are two others. Twin babies.” The clone said to Izila. “The ones that control time you said.”

Izila nodded. “That’s right.” Smiling at Audrey, she said, “So nice of you to get them for me.”

Audrey felt sick.

“Now I believe I have a daughter to retrieve.” Izila said coldly. “Then we’re all having a little reunion in Hawaii.”