They moved me into the shade. They kept me alive. And what did they want?

The Book of Light.

I had given it to the newly minted king of this world to defeat the Dark and within hours of that, the greed of man was already back in play. From where my survival was impossible, now I had the slightest of chances.

My plan required two elements: 1) I would need to get them apart, and 2) The man who could read-- the one who called himself Yusef-- would need to be the more avaricious.

-A Seller of Dreams

###

Tyré was a city of 200,000 at the edge of the world which meant flights in were limited to two a day. So Kael scoured the docks. It would have been easier to shove Bartholomew in a shipping container versus some luggage anyway.

Faced with the question, ‘how do you chase a ghost?’, his answer was blunt stupidity.

Kael had given up the pretentious game of detective work after his two weeks of failure in Einhurst. It wasn’t immediate: he held his temper for two days looking for strange happenings, getting to know names, faces, shipping magnates, how a man might be smuggled in. But on the third day— Election Day— Kael woke up and smashed in a department store window. The shopping quarter was completely empty thanks to the holiday and massive drifts and snow.

If he started a manhunt, best to shift the blame, try to see where the police looked when they thought a murderous assassin was at large. Kael pieced together a cheap facsimile of what the ‘Dark Element’ wore and stuffed the outfit into a bookbag. As stores didn’t sell wizard robes, his black-as-a-wet-starless-night trench coat (with snap on hood) would have to do.

He could change behind a dumpster at the docks. Which he did.

Next, Kael blew a hole—more smoke than boom-- in the side of the central most building that oversaw dock operations. He pulled the dumpster as much as he could to cover the entry point, but even with wheels the container wasn’t exactly mobile.

The inside of the building wasn’t large: two floors like a warehouse with the offices (not even locked) up some stairs. Kael sat down and dug in, ripping open manifests he pulled the steaming remains of a safe that had rested boldly on top of a filing cabinet.

He didn’t know what he was looking for, but it was already apparent that finding an irregularity was going to be an issue. Fake fronts behind shell companies, behind multinational conglomerates bought out by an even bigger corporation. And that was the kind of business that the average judicial system considered legal. Hard to find a specific piece of trash at the dump. Let alone what was essentially human trafficking.

“You!”

Kael swiveled around in the chair to see a man standing at the door, lanyard around his neck. His office. Kael didn’t breathe, only sat still with his fingers interlaced, contemplating what to do.

“Why are you checking our books? Is this an audit?” the dock foreman asked.

Oh, that was interesting. Kael raised the hood over his eyes to get a good look at the man in time to see the dumb founded terror on his face. The costume must have looked better than Kael thought, at least in the dark, but he wasn’t sure how anyone could have gotten past the sneakers.

One look to those and the shock passed and the foreman stepped forward, closing the door behind him. “What are you doing in here kid? Put that stuff away, empty your pockets, we’re going to the police.”

Kael threw his hood back and grinned. “Who did you think I was?”

“What? I didn’t—”

“Because I know who you thought I was.” Kael stood as the foreman fumbled backwards for the door handle. Kael snapped his fingers. The metal on metal didn’t explode, the heat merely released, resulting in a slight metal sluice that welded the door shut. The dock manager yelped, releasing the handle and backing into the corner.

Kael advanced on him in a practiced way, in a manner that gave enough space from the incoming attack to build the dread, enough space that the man’s mind would be wild imaging the possibility of escape.

“And now we have a choice to make,” Kael said. “We play the game: Is getting out of here alive or hiding that this ever happened easier?”

The clock on the wall ticked slightly louder every other beat. tick, Tick; tick, Tick. Kael took one step towards the foreman on every Tick. Kael grabbed him by the shirt, ran his power through their clothes so even the foreman could see the orange glow.

“Looks like your time is up,” Kael said.

###

A cartoon dog was teaching the alphabet and Joshua had never hated anything so much in his life. He turned from the television with Emilie sitting cross-legged six inches under the screen and moved to the window. He pushed the blinds back and looked at a solid wall of white. It was snow and would be snow for the next few months. He had opened the blinds eight times already today.

“Could you turn that down?” Joshua asked. “I've seen this one before.”

She giggled before pulling the remote out from under her butt. “Have you really?

He had meant it as a joke, but it was unfortunately true. “I have a little sister at home, your age, not too much older than you.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

She placed her hands on her face and seemed to try deciphering Joshua’s very literal comment.

Joshua flopped his hand around in the general direction of the television as he lay back down. “Still too loud.”

Joshua had lapsed into sleeping close to fourteen hours a day. Emilie couldn’t reach the top latch so that wasn’t a problem, and Kael spent the days out adventuring so Joshua wouldn’t have to explain. His brother got naggy when Joshua wouldn’t leave the bed by noon. And Joshua would feel awful too, because right now, he didn’t want it to end. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to see what came next in this little trip of theirs. With any luck, Kael would never find a lead.

A knock at the door, because that’s how juxtaposition goes, roused Joshua worse than a high-pitched screech. He took a deep breath, seeing if the thump would sound again. It did. He slowly looked at the clock and saw how early it was. That was a bad sign for procrastination.

“Want me to get it?” Emilie asked, now trying to touch her forehead to her toes. She had dealt with the shut in better than expected, but Kael still needed to bring her to the hotel gym and walk her on the treadmill nightly.

Joshua ignored the girl and rolled to his side till he was clear off the bed. He stepped over Emilie who was attempting to do a headstand. Eye at the peephole, he saw Kael looking around impatiently. Joshua undid the chain, the main lock, and the doorstop. It wouldn't do much if the Dark Element had tracked them to Tyré, but it made for quieter dreams.

Kael strode into the room with flakes of snow still falling off his shoulders and short, dark hair. He had unbutton the hood and held it in his left hand.

“Really made an effort with my costume idea,” Joshua said flatly.

“Hello,” Kael said, putting on a big grin and waving to Emilie. “Can you do it yet?”

Emilie teetered on her head for a second before pancaking like a bloodjelly. “Almost!”

“And how was your day Joshua?” Kael asked with the same hollow, sing-song voice, eliciting nothing more than a scowl from his brother.

“Not as fun as the manual labor back on the farm.” Joshua shrugged. “Still less stressful than going out today.” He meant every word of it.

Kael then leaned into Joshua and whispered, “Let's find somewhere private to talk.”

Joshua looked around the suite questioningly and then opened the door to the bathroom for Kael.

“So you did find something,” Joshua said, lowering the toilet lid and sitting down.

“I'd like to think our two months of hard work have paid off. Even if all the news isn't so good.”

“Let's hear the good news first.” This almost got a grin out of Kael, the corners of his mouth just barely twisting. Joshua knew it would. Kael saw him as a horribly optimistic person, even if Joshua saw himself as perhaps the complete opposite. What his brother couldn’t understand is that his good news may very well be Joshua’s bad news.

“I'll start with the bad news, because I didn't ask which you wanted,” Kael said, getting to it right away. “I was followed today. Maybe. I definitely felt, for just a fraction of a second, someone else’s Sychakentic energy.”

“So, the Dark Element knows we’re here. Since we left the County alive, it was inevitable.” Joshua reached out and picked up a small vile of shampoo to fiddle with. “Any idea how many you had to duck?”

Kael shrugged. “It was only one, but Element is in the name; we should assume they are all Syches.”

“That's a problem,” Joshua said tossing the shampoo into the air and catching it. “We had a hard enough time with one of their card-carrying members.”

“Don't give me that, J. He had some surprises but wasn't much. If I wasn't there, you could have dealt with him on your own.”

Leaning back in a stretch, Joshua considered these words. It wasn’t that Kael didn’t have a sense of humor, his was just a bit sharper. Bit more hurtful. But Joshua couldn’t see the sarcasm or the insult in what Kael just said. On self-evaluation, Joshua would have guessed the next Syche he went up against would be his last.

And then Joshua realized he had been squirming around without saying much of anything, Kael looking at him like some exhibit behind tempered glass.

“So we should keep a watch tonight. Just in case.” Joshua hastily spoke.

“Obviously,” Kael said. “On to the good news then.”

“Well there's only one good news for us in this situation: You found Doctor Bartholomew?”

“No, I found a middleman.”

“And this middleman told you where to find Doctor Bartholomew?”

“No. Can you let me tell my story?”

“I don't know. Can you not tell it so boring?”

“I found someone who knew about the Dark Element– kind of. So anyway. This middleman talks about food.” Kael saw his brother ready to interrupt and continued on to the next sentence without a breath. “Food shipments. Big crates come from the harbor with supplies for a deep-water research facility twenty-three miles outside of town, and my guy at the docks makes sure none of it ever gets inspected.

“Great,” Joshua said, tossing his shampoo aside and rubbing his hands together. “So now we find this research facility.”

“Already did it. Didn’t visit, obviously, but there is a verifiable facility out west of the city on the waterfront. They go by some generic name; Aquatic Research something-- acronym is ARPA.”

People in the know are definitely afraid of these Dark Element guys,” Kael continued. This getup–” Kael beckoned down to his all-black ensemble-- “inspires some real fear with the lights off.”

“I don't think it has anything to do with reputation,” Joshua said, looking his brother up and down. “You just look like you're up to no good.”

Kael laughed a quiet non-laugh. More of a quick evacuation of air from his lungs. “I should dress like this more often then. We're never up to any good.”

“I'd like to think we help people all the time,” Joshua snapped. It wasn't like his brother to attack him so personally.

“This is all besides the point,” Kael sighed. “We know where we’re going, we just need to hike there.”

“You said it’s twenty-three miles down the road, and you want to hike there in ten feet of snow?” Joshua asked, already imagining the painful future in store. Painful for him. To Kael the cold was nothing. He had never quite got the connection, but for Combustion Syches specifically, temperature had no meaning. It was like that undying Blood Syche's ability to be ground into pulp and still stay standing.

“It is what it is with people following us. Let's leave at first light. The longer we wait the higher chance we don't find this Bartholomew alive. All that's left to worry about is the girl.”

Almost on queue, a knock sounded at the bathroom door, Emilie's tiny knuckles tapping out a tune. “Are you both in there?” she asked.

“We are,” the boys said together.

“That's weird.”

“Only a little,” Joshua answered back. “We'll be out in a second, go back to gymnastics.” The brothers listened for the sound of small pats on carpet receding before returning to their conversation. They resumed quietly, with only the speech of their hands:

“We can't take her with us, you know that right?”

Kael straightened up and grunted. “Sure. Of course.”

Joshua scowled. “We. Can’t.”

“We don’t know how fast we need to get out of town when we find Bartholomew!

“There’s an orphanage in town!” Joshua protested, mimicking the emphasis with a flick of his two fingers upwards.

“We don't know she is an orphan yet.”

“That's not the point.” Joshua wasn't so sure that Kael didn't see his point; his brother didn't want to admit that they needed to leave the girl behind.

Kael grunted and leaned back once again. “We’ll decide in the morning.”

“We’re already going to die, not sure why you want to add another name to the KIA list.”

Kael started opening the door but stopped so he could speak. “Seriously. How many Syches do you think they have?

“Pessimistically? Five.”