Heart of Darkness - A Standalone Bad Boy Romance Novel Read online

She stood there and maintained the standoff.

  The pharmacy owner was a tall woman, who appeared to be of African ancestry. Dion stood there and thought he’d never seen a woman so black in all his life. She was the color of anthracite coal in a mine at midnight. He didn’t think it was possible to make a person so dark in complexion. She wore a lab coat over a short dress and had a pair of boots, which were made from tooled brown Moroccan leather. Her hair was teased out but tied back by a black wrap that descended down to her shoulders. She was tall and had to be a good six foot two in height, and the boots she wore made her appear that much taller.

  “Fifteen minutes, you hear me?” she said to the ghouls. “You are gone in fifteen minutes or else.” The door shut hard behind her as she returned to the pharmacy.

  “That’s her!” Dion said to his friends. “It has to be the Earth Element Grandmaster! She matches the description on the map! And Baron Sam told us about her!”

  “What description?” Emily said to him as she rolled the map up. “I didn’t see one.”

  “It’s there if you read Coptic. And I felt the power from her. Didn’t you?”

  “Oh, I felt something all right,” Lilly said, “but it was mostly her wrath.”

  “If she’s the Elemental Grandmaster,” Emily said, “then why don’t we just go over and meet her? The heck with those idiots trying to keep us away from the pharmacy.”

  Still carrying the map, Emily leaped up from the table and walked in the general direction of the pharmacy. Dion and Lilly tried to say something, but her mind was made-up. Emily had a reputation for being headstrong and nothing was about to stop her from going in the direction of the ghoul cleaning crew.

  She got as far as the first line of the ghoul crew.

  Before he could do a thing, Dion watched Emily being grabbed by two of the ghouls. It wasn’t so obvious as to attract the attention of the shoppers. They were incredibly organized and coordinated, better than he ever thought possible.

  The first ghoul acted as if he was ready to let her pass. Emily ignored him and walked right into the middle of the ghoul assembly as another ghoul innocently dropped a bucket of water in front of her. Emily stopped at the puddle, which formed in the floor as another ghoul took her by the shoulders and pushed her in the direction of yet another one. She started to say something but the final ghoul grabbed her by the shoulder as the one before him took the other shoulder and walked her to the nearest service exit. The doors swung behind them as they vanished into it. The remaining ghouls finished cleaning the floors and fixtures, picked up their cleaning implements and followed their brethren into the service corridor.

  The entire episode took less than thirty seconds.

  Lilly looked at Dion in disbelief. “What are we going to do? They just kidnapped Emily!”

  Chapter 6

  “We’ve got to stop them!” Dion said and began fast walking to the service corridor, just in time to be confronted by officer Karanzen and four of his security guards.

  The guards materialized out of nowhere, blocking him as he approached the service door and stopped both him and Lilly from walking further.

  “Bella, Bert, Bayer and Izzy,” Dion said to them as he remembered their names. “Let me guess, you ran out of B’s and had to make with a last minute replacement?”

  “Check this out,” Bert said, his bad breath already assaulting the nose of Dion. “The kid remembers our names. We have a real smarty here.”

  “Yep,” Izzy agreed, “he’s so smart we may have to find him a school. Who gets to take the smart boy to detention?”

  “That is my job.” It was officer Karanzen who’d materialized out of nowhere. “We have a problem here, guys? Something I need to know about?”

  “Our little friend was causing a commotion,” Bella announced as he continued to fidget. He slowly withdrew his nightstick from the holder on his utility belt. “Did you see him throw a punch at me? I think the little punk just swung at me.”

  “Put the stick back,” Officer Karanzen snapped at his guard. “Nobody starts anything unless I give the order. Get fresh again and I’ll send you back to where I found you.”

  Karanzen’s words had the right effect. Bella returned his stick to the belt and became glum.

  “So what really happened?” he demanded from Dion and Lilly. “I come around the corner and my boys are ready to stomp you flat. Now talk!”

  “Emily was grabbed by the cleaners,” Dion told him. “She tried to walk across them and they took her down the service corridor.”

  “So that explains the call I had from Mrs. West. She just let me know the cleaners were out in front of her store preventing anyone from coming inside. I called management and they told me it would be handled. I came over myself to see what was going on.”

  He turned to his men. “Did you see anyone with these two?”

  “Nope,” said Bert, “Not a soul.”

  The other three agreed with him.

  “I don’t see anyone around either,” Officer Karanzen said. He turned to Dion and Lilly. “If they took the girl, and I only have your word on this, it had to be cleared with the management. Now, the management of this mall may not be the Ace of Spades, but one thing they would never do is abduct a local girl. A local girl could cause them trouble. A local girl would involve investigations and all sorts of things bad for business. So if the cleaners took her it means the management wanted to see her for some reason. In other words, she’s safe and will be released soon. Maybe one of the cleaners saw her lift something. I don’t know, but I’ll call the main office and find out by the end of the day.”

  “I don’t believe one word of what you just said,” Dion told him. “You’re covering for someone.”

  “I’m here to keep the mall safe!” Karanzen snapped back. “Safe means dealing with punk kids who try and cause problems. Sometimes an example has to be made. This mall has the lowest thefts and least safety issues of anyone in the country. I plan to keep it that way.”

  “You’re such a model employee, Officer Karanzen,” Dion said. “I’m sure you’d haul your own grandmother off if it meant a promotion.”

  “Never had a grandmother, Junior. Or parents for that matter, so don’t try that angle either. I will warn you to stay out of my way. I’ll find out what happened to your little girl friend, but on my own schedule. And don’t cause problems looking for her. Don’t mess with the shoppers or cause any issues because if you do I’ll have you tossed out of the mall. And my boys would like nothing better than to bounce a smart kid off the pavement.” The guards behind him gave Dion a sinister grin.

  Officer Karanzen and his guards turned and walked away from the two and vanished down the concourse.

  “What do we do?” Lilly asked. “Can you go to the Earth Grandmaster and get her help? Aren’t you supposed to see her anyway, to get your power?”

  “No. Not until we rescue Emily. If she finds out I didn’t go help a friend in need, she’d most likely consider me unworthy and refuse to grant me the power. We have to locate Emily and get her back before we can do anything else.”

  “The problem is,” Dion said, “we don’t have the map. She was carrying it when they grabbed her. I’m tempted to go after them in that service corridor, but it could lead anywhere. Make a wrong turn down there and you might have the whole ghoul clan waiting for you. As a matter of fact, some of these doors are…”

  Dion stopped when he noticed the service door was gone. He walked up to the blank wall and put his hand on it. Solid. Yet, there was a door there twenty seconds ago.

  “Gone?” Lilly asked. “But I just saw them take her through a door that was mounted in the wall!”

  “Temporal door,” Dion said. “The ghouls have access to doors they can slap anywhere they need them to be. The door has a mate they keep wherever they want. The door they took her through redirects to the other one. I suspect it is down in their part of the mall, but I’m not entirely sure.”

  Dion was staring a
t the wall when a familiar face appeared next to him. It was Sam Vestal, an old friend of Lilly.

  “You been here long?” he asked. “I just got here. Need to buy some shoes. Say why are you looking so glum?” he said, deliberately ignoring Dion.

  Sam was one of the benchwarmers in the local football games. He liked to think of himself as a serious player and starter, but he just wasn’t big enough to make the starting line-up. He also possessed a mouth that made him the object of scorn throughout the school. Sam moved to the district at the start of the term last year because his dad accepted a position as athletic coach. Sam had played for a rival school the years previously. He had a better position on the other team’s line-up, right guard, but they put him a little further back in the new school. It didn’t matter as his current used him as decoy after it was noticed the other team’s school would ignore the plays to pummel him down the field. The same thing happened with the every school they played. It soon was apparent Sam hadn’t made himself very popular over the area.

  “We were with Emily,” she told him. “We’re trying to find her.”

  “Emily,” he said trying to put a name to a face. “Oh, her. Cute chick, don’t know why she doesn’t get around better than what she does. I used to see her at that store she worked at all the time she worked there. Place closed down when the new mall opened. I’m surprised she didn’t come to work here.”

  “Emily doesn’t like working retail,” she told him. “I’m here because I had to help with a banquet they were having last week.”

  “You should come out to The Montebello with me some night, I could get some beer and have some fun.”

  The Montebello was the local Drive-In. One of the first Drive-In movie theaters in the area. It was known as the local “cultural center” by the police who often had to visit it to break-up fights or escort kids home who tried to get inside for free.

  Dion remembered driving past it with his aunt and uncle and noticed the line of cars, which ran down the road for a good mile. On some clear nights, you could even drive by close enough and see the images of whatever movie played on the screen. Only the top guys in the school could entertain bragging rights after taking their dates to The Montebello. However, the local mating games had no interest to him, as his number one goal was to locate his parents.

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” Lilly said. “I appreciate you thinking about me, but I’m not the girl you’re looking to find.”

  “Keep it in mind,” he told her and walked away as he gave Dion a smirk while he walked past him.

  “That boy has a high opinion of himself,” Lilly said to Dion. “I don’t share it. As a matter of fact, I don’t know anyone who does. You talk behind enough people’s backs and soon no one wants to have anything to do with you.”

  “Our immediate problem is to locate Emily,” Dion said. ”I will say I’m glad he didn’t stick around. I don’t see him as being much help. He’s the type who would try to rush the ghouls and, as you just saw, that is exactly what they want you to do.”

  “So how do we find her? We don’t have the map and the door is gone. I don’t want to wait around and let that big creep Karanzen take care of locating her.”

  “Let me think about this. I don’t want to rush into anything. It could make things even worse. The ghouls won’t dare harm her. They want to use her to keep me away from the Earth Elemental Grandmaster. So long as they have her, they know we don’t dare approach her.”

  “But they can’t keep her forever,” Lilly said. “Sooner or later they have to let her go or the police will get involved, and even Karanzen is scared of them.”

  “Officer Karanzen is scared of nothing. The only thing he cares about is keeping this mall safe. He keeps it safe because so long as it is protected he has a job.”

  “He’s the guardian,” a voice said behind them. “He takes care of the Abyss.”

  They turned to see the strange little Englishman known as Edward behind them. Gone was his leisure suit. It was replaced by knee pants, a tweed cap and a short jacket. He held an unlit pipe in one hand, which he placed in his mouth.

  “Remember,” Lilly said to him,” you can’t smoke in the mall.”

  “I know, I know,” he said in his nasally voice. “Can we go outside? They still let you smoke in this beastly outdoors, don’t they?” He turned and looked for an exit. Seeing one, he headed for it with the two high school seniors behind him.

  Once outside he inhaled the air and sat down on a bench. Edward pulled out a match, struck it on the bench and used it to light his pipe. Lit, he inhaled the fumes and let them out slowly. Now relaxed, he folded his legs under him in a way Lilly had watched yoga adepts do it on TV.

  “Really can’t stand the air in that place,” he told them. “Too many people. Peasants all of them, running around like slaves at a market. You Americans, always so busy with yourselves.”

  “And where do you come from?” Lilly asked him. “England?”

  “Originally, but now I’m a traveler from beyond. Beyond is a boring place and I’m pleased they let me come back here from time to time. Dion has attracted all kinds of attention and it appears I get the role of his guardian angel. I’m not holy, but I do the best I can.”

  “I thought I was supposed to find my own personal guardian angel?” Dion said. “I didn’t think they were sent by post.”

  “You get the economy class version today,” Edward told him, as he inhaled on the pipe again. “In due time you’ll get the customized version, but right now I’m here to help. So what is it this time? They wouldn’t have sent me unless you needed help.”

  “The ghouls kidnapped our friend Emily,” Lilly told him. “They know Dion doesn’t dare approach the Earth Elemental Grandmaster if he’s abandoned a friend. They even took the map we were given by Mr. Jehuti and his wife. How are we supposed to locate Emily and get her back without the map?”

  “Don’t forget the door,” Dion said. “They took the door behind them when they left.”

  “Oh, they used one of those temporal doors, huh?” Edward laughed. “They did want to use her to get back at you, didn’t they? Let me think about what to do.”

  Edward turned and watched the setting sun and sighed. “I miss this. You do have some spectacular sunsets in this country.” He dropped to his knees and bowed.

  “Hail, Ra!” he said and stood up again.

  “Now about your problem,” he continued. “You do need the map, but I think you’ll find it in the trash somewhere. The ghouls don’t know what it’s for because they can’t read. They don’t speak either, but they have very good hearing and communicate by looking at each other a certain way. So why would they have the map? Simple, they took it when they seized her and have no clue as to what it can be used to for. So what you have to do is look around and see if it’s in any of the trash cans around the door they took with them.”

  “But what if they took the map with them?” Dion said, “Surely they dumped it wherever they went. Does that mean we’ll have to travel all the way to the subbasement to get the map?”

  “Not necessarily. They are very nimble creatures. They might’ve grabbed the map from her and dumped it before you noticed. In spite of what you might think, the ghouls are very neat creatures and don’t like to take any waste into their dwellings. Go back to the trashcans and rummage through them. You might find it there.”

  “We’ll still have to go underground to get her back,” Lilly said. “How will the map help us find the way down?”

  “The map will have the location of doors and passages which lead to the subbasement that the ghouls don’t know about. Find a passage they can’t possibly know about and use it. You will be able to tell it’s a passage they won’t use if the map shows it to be illuminated. The ghouls will avoid any passage with light as it hurts their eyes.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” Dion laughed, “but we’re supposed to find the map in the trash, use it to travel underground in a secret passage an
d rescue our friend from carnivorous ghouls.”

  “Don’t worry, they only eat carrion. Plenty of that for them around the mall. So long as the restaurants order too much food every day. Someday they’ll learn how to order food supplies better than what they do and the ghouls will move on. But right now, the arrangement works out for everyone.”

  Edward pulled out his pocket watch again and looked at it. “Oh dear, time to go. Mustn’t overstay my allotted time, I will make them very cross with me.” He inhaled on his pipe one more time and vanished.

  “So, he shows up when we’re at a hard spot?” Lilly asked Dion. “He doesn’t look like an angel.”

  “I’m not certain when he’ll show up, but he’s been a help,” Dion said.

  “Might as well go back in the mall. Will you be able to use your powers down in the subbasement?”

  “I can use them anywhere. But I don’t have very strong ones right now. Making a column of water rise, causing a plant to grow, I can do these things, but they exhaust me.”

  They walked back into the mall, passing up people as they entered it. A few of them Lilly knew, but these were not people they could share their quest to find Emily. A few of Lilly’s friends waved at her and she returned the response. Several looked at her funny, no doubt due to Dion being with her as she walked along. Dion was not one of the popular boys at the school and some of the adults in the town thought of him as a little strange. Dion’s uncle worked for the local university and taught philosophy. They didn’t blend in very well to the standard military/farmer/tradesman cliché that ran the town.

  Fromatius was originally a rural farm district outside of the urban Scipio. Once upon a time, the schools were small and the principal source of income was chicken farms. But, as the roads improved and the city grew congested, people with money began to move out of town. Fromatius was on the main road between Xenon, another town to the west, and Columbus, much further to the center of the state. As people moved into the area, developers saw the chance to make some cash and tossed up houses across the shrinking farms. Old timers would still talk about where the cow farms were in the past, but they shrank every year. Sometimes the farmhouse would remain and be surrounded by rows of new tract homes.