FACING THE FEARLESS
Nathaniel
I traversed into Marcus’s hotel room, startling him and his wife.
Marcus closed the book he was reading. “Nathan, what is it?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you on Christmas Eve, but I found Dedrick.”
Without hesitation, they both leapt from their bed. Audrey moved impressively fast for a woman in her seventies. They scrambled to change while I divulged all the information I could.
“As of now, he’s a moving target. You’ll need to meet me at Saint Katharine’s dock, as fast as you can get there. He’s hosting a party of some sort on a boat, the August Queen Anne, on the River Thames.”
Audrey clutched Marcus’s hand. She looked at me with wide, doe-like eyes.
Marcus urged her along. “Dear, we must hurry.”
“That party.” Audrey swallowed hard. “Marcus and I received an invitation.”
“What?” I asked. “From whom?”
Audrey sank onto the edge of the bed, appearing too weak to stand. Marcus held onto her arm but stared at the floor.
“James and Lillian,” he said. “Members of our kindrily. We hadn’t seen or heard from them in several years.”
Audrey clutched onto Marcus. “You don’t think they’ve joined Dedrick, do you? They couldn’t possibly—but they invited us to that party. Why would they do that?”
Marcus sat beside her. “Dedrick is building a team of Elements with the most useful abilities. Of course they would want you.”
She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Oh my word.”
Audrey was a paralyzer—the only one I had ever met or heard of. She could make anyone immobile just by looking at them. That kind of ability would be of great use to Dedrick.
“This James, what is his gift?” I asked.
Marcus blinked several times before looking at me. “He’s the same as your Anthony, a time stopper.”
“And Lillian?”
“A decoder.” Decoders had become more useful as technology became more prevalent, but James was a much bigger concern than Lillian.
“Can James stop other Elements when he freezes time?”
“Of course not,” Marcus said.
I decided not to disclose the fact that Anthony had mastered that ability. Our kindrily had agreed to keep it a valuable secret.
Anthony would have been one of my top choices to have with me for a meeting with Dedrick, but he wouldn’t be able to get here fast enough. Oddly, we might have access to someone with the same ability—inconveniently, he could be on the enemy’s side, but we still might be able to use him.
“This could work in our favor,” I said. “If we confront Dedrick in a public place, and James is with him, Dedrick will order him to freeze time so there are no witnesses.”
Audrey shook her head. “No. James wouldn’t be part of such evil. He wouldn’t.”
I wanted to explain my theory to her, that I believed some members of Dedrick’s clan were working with him against their will, but there was no time. “I must go. Saint Katharine’s Dock. As soon as you can. I’ll see you there.”
I visualized a small alcove in the Tower Bridge. I’d been there several times before, and no one would be present on Christmas Eve to see me mysteriously appear. As I finished reforming in the shadows of the dark hallway, I grew anxious. We had been tracking Dedrick for months, traveling all over Europe and India as we received one false lead after another. Now, he was within my grasp, but I’d have to confront him without the strength and skills of any members of my own kindrily.
I paced along the high walkway of the bridge, looking out of the towering glass windows and searching the River Thames below me. His boat wasn’t in sight yet, but soon it would be passing under the very spot where I stood. I hadn’t been this close to Dedrick in almost two decades. Last lifetime, he had the upper hand.
Mary had stood there, thrashing in his arms, fighting with all the life and vigor inside her until he pressed the sharp blade to her throat. He whispered something in her ear that even I couldn’t hear. She closed her eyes momentarily, and when she opened them, tears dripped down her cheeks. She mouthed the words, I love you eternally , then grabbed Dedrick’s hands and slit her own throat.
I had no idea it was our final goodbye.
If I had known that day on the beach would be our last day together, if I had known she planned to erase, I would have done more. I would have done something , anything, to stop it.
This time, when I faced Dedrick, I would have nothing to lose, and I needed to make sure he knew he had nothing to gain by coming after Maryah again.
∞
We planned on waiting until they were off the boat, and following them to a place where we’d be out of the public eye—until the boat stopped several yards from the dock. The world around us stilled. The waves no longer lapped, the wind stopped, even the trees became motionless.
“James.” Audrey gasped. “It must be.”
Most of the guests on board were frozen, but we saw movement inside the cabin and then a bald man stepped onto the deck carrying a limp girl with a bag over her head. He and another red-headed woman were binding her hands and feet together.
“What are they doing?” Marcus peered through binoculars, but I could see clearly.
Dedrick followed after the bald bloke. His mouth moved, but even my ears couldn’t make out his words. However, his flailing arms revealed his anger, and when Baldy returned carrying an anchor, it became obvious.
“They intend to drown her,” I said. “We need to go right now.”
Audrey grabbed my jacket. “We don’t know how many there are.”
Marcus replied before I could argue. “We can’t let an innocent girl be killed.”
Audrey nodded and Marcus turned his back to her, squatting low with his arms reached behind him. She climbed aboard him like a five-year-old ready for a piggy back ride. The established routine made me envious that I couldn’t take people with me when I used my gift.
Marcus nodded at me. “See you on board.”
As if a solid road lay before him, he stepped off the dock, jogging on air. Audrey bobbed up and down on his back with each step. I had seen Marcus aether walk before, climbing through the air to reach something on a high shelf, gliding down the stairway in his home as if flying because he said the impact was rough on the knees. But seeing him running over the River Thames with nothing but air and energy beneath him evoked a new level of marvel within me.
They had almost reached the boat, and by the looks of it, the red-haired woman had spotted them. I focused on the space behind Dedrick and traversed to it.
Dedrick had his back to me, facing starboard, watching Marcus and Audrey glide onto the boat deck. “To what do we owe this pleasure?” Dedrick bellowed. “I do believe you two responded to my invitation that you were unable to attend.”
“Behind you,” the redhead hissed to Dedrick.
He turned, gave me a once over then stared into my eyes. I let him study them. No more sunglasses. For years we hid behind dark shields hoping to never be recognized by the Nefariouns, but now I wanted Dedrick to know it was me.
Slowly, a vile grin exposed his crooked, yellow teeth. “Nathaniel, how nice of you to join us.”
Baldy was ignoring the rest of us and tying the motionless girl’s feet to the anchor.
I glanced at her, then at Marcus, and he must have known what I was thinking. “Dedrick,” Marcus asked. “What are your intentions with this girl?”
Audrey crept out from behind Marcus, navigating between immobile guests: some frozen in mid-sentence with their mouths open, many with drinks in their hands half raised to their lips. One woman stood pointing at something in the distance. Audrey ducked under the frozen woman’s arm. She assessed the scene like a feral cat, ready to pounce if anyone moved too quickly.
I hadn’t seen Audrey use her ability yet. I prayed it worked fast and efficiently and that she could handle disabling more than one person at a time: all good questions I should have asked before we were surrounded by Dedrick and his goons, goons who no doubt, all had powerful abilities of their own.
Dedrick’s grin didn’t falter. “My intentions were to lure Nathaniel aboard this vessel.”
My stomach dropped. He wanted me aboard this boat, and I fell right into his trap. What evil reasons did he have for confronting me? “Here I am,” I growled. “Speak your peace.”
“Stop following me around like a stray dog. My affairs are none of your concern.”
“Stay away from any and all members of my kindrily and we have a deal.”
He rubbed his dark beard. “You still sound bitter about our last encounter. Your lass cut her own throat. Perhaps you’re carrying around misplaced anger. She ended her last life, not me.”
Rage boiled inside of me. I needed to stay calm, but his taunting comments also gave me reason to act as if I didn’t have control of my emotions, to plant the seed of vital information that would hopefully keep Maryah safe. I changed the tone of my voice to sound shaken. “What did you say to her right before she did it?”
His gaze darted around, landing on nothing particular, like he was searching for the memory. “I’m an old soul, lad. You can’t expect me to recall one minute in time from nearly twenty years ago.”
“Whatever you said caused her to erase.” I gritted my teeth. “She erased. She’s no longer an Element. You took her away from me for eternity.”
He let out a coarse laugh. “The most powerful astral gadabout of all time threw away all of her knowledge and power because of little ole me? Even you aren’t daft enough to think I’ll believe that. Try again.”
“She has no idea who she used to be. She doesn’t even know Elements exist. And she no longer has her ability. She’s of no use to anyone. Not even herself.”
I pictured her empty eyes. Grief flooded through me. Even after so many years, even after spending time with her and seeing no flicker of recognition, my heart ached at my own words as if I was realizing them for the first time.
“He’s telling the truth,” a familiar grainy voice said from behind me. His tall, wide form cast a shadow across the gleaming white deck. I stepped to the edge of the boat so no one else could sneak up behind me.
“Ah, well.” Dedrick sighed. “I suppose that would make sense given the uselessness of our experiment.”
“What experiment?” I asked.
The 6’5’’ matador stepped between Dedrick and me. He pulled out a dagger and stared me down. The muscles of his left arm bulged as he gripped the knife and prepared to strike.
We had fought side by side a couple times in previous lives, but I was sure he didn’t remember me. I stared into the windows of his soul, letting him really see me, hoping to study the depths of his eyes so I could figure out where he made such an evil wrong turn. But there was no history there. None. His eyes were golden with thin black slits, no timelines or identifying markers whatsoever. He looked exactly the same as he had decades ago: the same tan Peruvian skin and long black ponytail. He hadn’t aged a day. Come to think of it, neither had Dedrick.
“What’s your name, soldier?” I asked.
“Argos. And I’m no one’s soldier.”
“Nice to see you again, Argos.”
He didn’t blink, not one spark of recognition. The unnaturalness of it left me perturbed and full of questions—questions that would need to be answered later. The important thing was that I knew he was a mind reader, and his fighting style. Killing him would be impossible, but knowing him so well gave me an advantage.
Dedrick peeked around Argos and squinted at me. “You’re certain you heard all of his thoughts? Not an inkling of a chance he could be lying about the girl?”
“I’m sure,” Argos grunted.
“Well then,” Dedrick said. “We got what we needed here.” He strutted over to the restrained girl and took the bag off of her head.
“Lillian!” Audrey shouted.
Lillian wasn’t frozen, but she also didn’t react to Audrey. She only stared ahead at Baldy as if nothing was amiss.
Dedrick lifted Baldy’s chin so their eyes met. “Untie our girl.”
Baldy gave a nod and loosened the ropes around the girl’s feet and hands. Dedrick clapped and waved to the deck above. Seconds later, a young boy of about fifteen joined us. Audrey lunged when she saw him, but Marcus shouted, “No, Audrey!” and she stopped.
Based on her reaction and her pooling tears, the boy was James.
Dedrick laughed again and put his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “You both did splendid.”
I studied James and Lillian, realizing their eyes looked exactly like Argos’s—golden with black slits, and vapid. Audrey and Marcus noticed too, and Audrey wasn’t shy about questioning the change.
“What have you done to them, you hellion?”
Dedrick clutched his chest. “Such cruel names hurt my feelings. Your loved ones chose to work for me. I haven’t done anything to them.”
“Liar!” Audrey shouted.
Marcus was by her side in an instant. “Calm down, my love.”
James and Lillian hadn’t uttered a word. They barely moved. Neither had Argos, Baldy, and the redhead. It’s like they were drones who didn’t think or act on their own. They appeared to be waiting for commands from Dedrick.
Audrey hadn’t calmed down. “We’re taking them with us!”
Dedrick stepped uncomfortably close to her. “I’d love to see you try.”
She spit in his face.
All of Dedrick’s goons sprung to life, advancing on Audrey and Marcus. With a quick curling and flexing of her fingers, Audrey had all of them paralyzed. She was focused, but the feat seemed effortless. She had disabled five people with a flick of her hand.
“It’s a shame,” Dedrick groused, wiping the spit off his face. Was he immune to paralysis or did Audrey intentionally not include him? “I had hoped you would consider joining us. Everyone who joins me is treated like royalty, but I don’t tolerate such blatant disrespect.”
Audrey was rigid, and her voice scathing. “I’d want a permanent death before I ever teamed up with you.”
James and Lillian’s arms and legs twitched as they struggled to move. Audrey must have been taking it easy on the two of them, that or she was losing control of keeping five people paralyzed at the same time.
Dedrick growled. “We’ll see if you still feel that way when we become the gatekeepers of this world.”
“You will never accomplish that,” Marcus said sternly.
Gatekeepers? What did he mean? Marcus obviously knew something I didn’t.
“We shall see about that.” Dedrick’s lips curled into a satanic grin. “We’re closer than you think, and we’ve got eyes everywhere.”
I struggled to keep myself from snarling. Regardless of the hatred I had for Dedrick and his evil undertakings, my mission was to get him to stop hunting Maryah. He knew she was no longer of use to him. I didn’t want to provoke him to come after anyone else in my kindrily.
I steadied my voice. “Audrey, we can’t decide the fate of anyone but ourselves. These people have chosen a path with Dedrick. We may not like it, but we must respect it.”
Dedrick stalked over to me. “Very noble and unassuming of you, Nathaniel, but I hope your precious family is ready. We have the troops required to gain control of who comes into this world, and we’ll dispose of those we no longer want here—including any uncooperative Elements.”
His plan sounded more calamitous than any of our kindrily suspected. I had to alert the others as soon as possible. I waved at Marcus, motioning for him and Audrey to leave the boat. “We will consider our options thoroughly, but for now, we are leaving.”
Marcus took his piggy-back stance and Audrey climbed onto his back while staying focused on the five people she kept paralyzed. Marcus took several steps backward so that he and Audrey were hovering in the air above the river beyond anyone’s reach.
I mentally assessed the logistics of our situation. James was still keeping time and people frozen around us, yet Audrey had him paralyzed. Was her paralysis only physical and not mental?
Dedrick pulled out a cigar. He lit it, took a puff, and blew a cloud of smoke in my face. Quietly, so no one but me could hear him, he said, “If you and your kindrily join my cause, I’ll tell you what I told your sweetheart right before she killed herself. Then you’ll know why she erased.”
My fist crashed into his jaw before I could think it through, but I observed every detail as if in slow motion. My knuckles meeting his jawbone sent his cigar flying through the air. He fell to the ground. His skull hit the boat deck with a loud thud. He was on his back, trying to roll to one side while clapping at his drones, but Audrey kept them paralyzed.
“That was for Mary.” I pressed the heel of my boot against his throat and leaned into it with all my weight, crushing his windpipe. I bent down so he’d be sure to hear my threat. “We will kill you before we ever partner with you.”
Audrey yelled my name, but at the same instant, my back felt like I’d been hit with a hot branding iron. I turned around to see Argos holding a bloody dagger.
“I’m sorry, Nathan!” Audrey cried out. “I couldn’t hold him.”
I staggered backward, but not before stomping Dedrick’s ribs.
“Go!” I shouted to Marcus and Audrey, but they hovered close to the boat. The other four Nefariouns were struggling to move, twitching and jerking, but no one else broke free. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“No,” Marcus argued. “Not until you traverse out of here.”
“Finish him!” Dedrick shouted, pointing at me. “Don’t let him off this boat alive!”
Argos stalked toward me, the muscles of his arms rippling, intent on striking again.
Fire raged through my back, but I forced a smile. “We will meet again, Argos.” Knowing he could hear my thoughts, I silently told him, Next time I’ll have an old friend of yours with me. The one person in this world who will do whatever it takes to bring you down .
He braced himself, preparing to slash me again, but by the time he swung his arm at my chest, I had vanished.
