A Brown-Eyed Girl

Chapter Eight (I)

Chapter Eight (I)

        Peter saw the Salask through the bay window as he pulled up, and his heart stopped.

           They were the next thing to myth, supposedly trapped in Te’nemel at the same time the Elemenri fled for a new world. Except there was no mistaking one for anything else. The histories Darren so often gave him to read were illustrated and had whole sections dedicated to Salasks. They were deadly killers.

            Peter had never been so afraid.

            His hand was Kelsey’s front door, but he barely recalled getting out of the car or crossing the lawn. The door knob was warm in his hand, heated. He twisted it, grateful it was unlocked, and burst through. Kelsey stood directly on the other side of the door, and his momentum almost caused him to bash into her. Peter checked himself at last minute.

            Her eyes met his for a second, just a second, which hung suspended. Surprise, relief, fear, confusion, anger mixed into near black. Then Kelsey was shoving a banana leaf plant whose roots dangled in clumps of dirt at him.

"Can you do something about...," she waved at the smoldering Salask in the middle of her living room. “…that THING?!”

"Not with that wimpy thing!” The plant had been in manufactured soil and it was puny. He let it drop to the floor and forgot it.

Kelsey spluttered at him.

He ignored her, eyes focused on the Salask. Peter saw it was injured – how he had no idea – but the damn fire minion could recover anytime. They had a rather annoying knack for self-healing, one of the many things that made them so dangerous.

“We have to get out of here.” Peter had to force the words out his jaw was clenched so tight.

“But – my house –”

He saw the signature red and black flames licking up slowly up the molding in a doorway across the room, but there was nothing to be done. The Salask was starting to move again. He grabbed her hand and yanked her out the door. “Just run, Kelsey!”

They stumbled down the steps together onto her front yard.

Need something big, something healthy – powerful, he thought frantically. But even then no cast I can do will destroy it.

Kelsey’s nails dug into his hand. “Peter, what-”

“Salask.” Saying the word made him sick. “One shouldn’t be here. Can’t be here.” His chest felt tight, his breath ragged. Have to think of something.

Darren had shared personal accounts of the fire minions and the havoc they had wrecked before the Diaspora. Salasks were deadly; they could be slowed but almost nothing stopped them until they accomplished their masters’ bidding. And then, as a fallback measure, they self-destructed, destroying everything nearby.

Peter stopped in middle of the lawn, and she bounced off his shoulder, resorting to her death grip on his hand to stay on her feet. Think, you idiot. Think!

“What do we do?” Kelsey said.

Her voice was small, and it barely registered past the blood pounding in his ears. Peter had no idea what they were going to do. Unless...oh god, that’s such a bad idea. “Straight jolt of energy,” he muttered to himself. “Dangerous, but…” He spun them in a circle, searching.

There! The house next door had a large oak tree out front. “C’mon!” Peter pulled her after him again, practically sprinting.

It was risky, oh so risky. He could blow up the whole damn neighborhood or himself if it rebounded wrong. They reached the tree, and he dropped to one knee, ripping his hand out of Kelsey’s tight grip. Rude but he had no time.