The Ables (27 page)

Henry moved his gaze around, and I counted at least fifty men and women, all standing completely still inside a crater the size of a sports arena in the middle of Mr. Charles’ farm.
Where the heck is that guy? He’s just going to let this happen?
They were spaced apart in uneven increments, but the overall effect was that they were arranged in some kind of symbol or pattern. In the middle of the giant hole in the ground stood a strange square machine standing on four squatty legs.

We stood in silence as Henry and I took it all in.

Finally, Finch spoke. “Are either of you familiar with the story of Elben?”

We were, and he knew it. Every kid knew the story of Elben, the ancient one of our kind who had possessed every power all at once and had nearly decimated the entire population of the planet. Hearing his name aloud was cause for a shudder, but from Finch’s mouth, it rang out even more ominously.

“I see, then.” Finch added unnecessarily. “I wonder, have you ever heard of the prophecy which foretells Elben’s return?”

Again, both the question and his waiting for our answer were unnecessary.

The prophecy of “the one who can do all” was considered by many to be a load of hogwash. My father, for instance, did not believe in it for even an instant. Nor did the pragmatic Mrs. Crouch. But a twelve-year-old boy can find a way to believe in even the most unlikely thing when it’s scary enough.

“These men and women you see here have dedicated their lives to the belief that Elben is coming back. They, along with me, are Believers.”

The hair on my arms began to stand up.

Finch continued. “You see, long before America existed … indeed, long before America was even discovered, this place, this city—this very SPOT—was central to our people:
your
people.”

The whirring of the giant machine in the center of the crater distracted all three of us, and we turned to see it lifting slowly off the ground. In the center, a huge boulder could be seen being pried from the dirt.

“‘Be thee wary. Be thee watchful. Signs will appear but only to those looking. ’” Finch was quoting the well-known ancient prophecy regarding the return of “the one who can do all.” He went back into kindly old teacher mode. “Elben is the only custodian in history to have every single known ability. And Freepoint … was his home. It wasn’t called Freepoint, then, of course. But long before your parents gentrified this place into a heroes’ town, it was home to a darker power. And though dormant, that power surges still today.”

“So, you’re digging up the bones of Elben for some kind of goat sacrifice, then?” It warmed my heart to see that Henry dished out his usual bluntness to enemies as well as friends, though I suspected it was just a defense mechanism to mask his own fear.

Finch just laughed. “Sort of. But, no. Elben’s instructions for his Believers require us to make a few … how shall I say … preparations just prior to his arrival.” I immediately thought of my parents hushed discussions about the Believers as well as the recent kidnappings.

“Elben does not and will not require resuscitation. In fact, he’s already here. He’s already been reborn. We just have to find out who he is, which we won’t be able to do until he reveals himself at the appointed time. Until then,” he paused, true excitement in his voice, “there is much to do.”

“So you’re like the leader of the Believers?” Despite all my better instincts, I felt myself relaxing slightly. Perhaps it was Finch’s intoxicating tone that set me more at ease.

“Of
these
Believers, yes.”

“For a second, there, I thought you were going to say you were Elben,” Henry chuckled.

Finch smiled politely. “Oh, probably not.”

I breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

“It’s likely that I’m something different … entirely.” He smiled strangely, then turned suddenly and called out to the workers below. “Time to wrap it up, boys. Get what we came for, and let’s get out of here. Company is coming.”

Company
? Henry looked at me in confusion and then turned to see what the Believers were doing in response to Finch’s command, but to my surprise—and his own, no doubt—they were gone. The mammoth hole in the ground was gone, replaced by the peaceful cornfield that had been there prior to the hole’s existence. No sound, no light, no indication whatsoever that they’d gone. In an instant, just like that … it was as if they’d never been there.
Had they even been there?

“Ordinarily, we have two options in situations like this.” Finch’s voice was more serious than normal, with an edge I hadn’t heard before. “Invite you into our clan of Believers or kill you.” He stopped there to let those words sink in. “Now, obviously you’re a little young to be Believers, and I’m not quite certain you’ll be willing to just pretend tonight never happened.” He was right on both counts. “So I’m left with a bit of a conundrum.”

“Look,” Henry said, exhausted. “If you’re going to kill us, just freaking do it already. Honestly … we already had a long and tiring night before even running into you, and I don’t think I have the patience for your games, okay?”

It’s funny how a few minutes of calm conversation can relax a person who should still be very much on alert.

“I don’t want to kill you, that’s for certain. But unless you can guarantee me that you two can remain silent about the events here this evening, I’m afraid I can’t let you go. The library … that was … something different. Not like this. This … we need you to keep to yourselves.”

“Yeah, right,” Henry scoffed. “Do you even have any idea how kids work? We can’t keep quiet about anything, man, much less a plot to take over the world that starts with digging giant holes in cornfields!”

“So then, you understand my predicament.”

“Should we even be afraid of you?”

“Uh, Henry,” I offered, too late.

“You’re not the bad guy, you’re just some … lackey. And you already sent your Believer buddies away too. So exactly why should we even listen to you?!”

“There is more than one evil in this world, young man.” All trace of kindness and warmth had gone from his voice, replaced by a chilling tone. “Elben is … merely one of them. Powerful, sure. But far from the worst thing there is to fear on this earth. You’d do well to remember that, Mr. Gardner.”

“Bah!” Henry waved his hand in contempt, grabbed his wheels, and spun around his wheelchair in dismissal. “Come on, guys; let’s get out of here. Grandpa’s going to be preaching for a while, and I don’t think he has anything more to say that we should listen to.”

Finch merely smiled and puffed on his pipe. I warily eyed him as I turned to follow Henry and Donnie, not wanting to truly take my eyes off this man completely. Something inside me told me there was more to Finch than we currently knew and that the rest of what there was to learn about him would be all terrible. But I also wanted to get the heck out of this situation as quickly as possible, and Henry had managed to create the first legitimate opportunity to do so. Finally, I turned my back to Finch completely, hoping against hope that “out of sight, out of mind” would become more than just a saying for one night only.

I shuffled my feet through the grass, following the sound of Donny’s footsteps and Henry’s wheelchair a few paces in front of me. I held my breath, waiting for a rebuke from Finch. For several steps, there was none. But any hope of easy escape vanished quickly.

Finch sighed audibly. “You guys are really going to make me do this?” We stopped, not turning around, and then continued walking. “I was really hoping to save the whole ‘display of powers’ thing for a little further down the road. And honestly, after Cleveland, I’m kind of surprised you aren’t a little more wary of my abilities than you are.”

Henry turned around, and following the images in my brain instinctively, so did I.

“Ooh, you can read minds AND teleport people! Some of the least-scary powers there are, mister. And now that we know you have an army of Believer whatevers at your disposal, well … maybe I’m not so convinced you have any real powers yourself anyway, okay?”

Before he’d finished his sentence, a blast of red light shot out of Finch’s eyes and scorched the ground near Henry’s left wheel. It was the single loudest noise I’d ever heard in my life, a high-pitched static noise, and the sound alone stopped my heart for a couple beats. The grass sizzled in the silence.

Henry, maybe stop antagonizing the bad guy!

I’m sorry, I didn’t know he had freaking eye-beams!

“That’s not all I have, gentlemen. You see, I’m an absorber. But a unique one.”

At this point, both Henry and I were afraid to do anything. I was personally still reeling from the ear-ringing eye-blaster we’d just witnessed in action.

Finch continued, as though sensing our fear and pouncing on it. “Most absorbers can only use another custodian’s power while in proximity to that absorber. Thanks to … good fortune … I’m actually able to use absorbed powers for several hours after contact with the original custodian, so even though my friends have left us alone here tonight, I’ll have full use of each of their powers for, oh, more than long enough to take care of the three of you.”

If what he was saying was true, it changed everything we knew about how absorbers work, and that was already a rare enough power to begin with. It created some potential issues for crime-fighters and protectors like my father, that’s for sure. But I wasn’t thinking about that right now. Instead, I was thinking about survival.

Finch continued. “Some among our order even think that I could be the reincarnation of Elben, given the uniqueness of my abilities.”

“So … are you?” Henry chirped.

Finch replied, “I have no idea.” He cocked his head to the side, as though considering it. “Maybe I am him. Maybe I’m not. It’s not for me—or you—to know … yet. All will be revealed at its appointed time. What should concern you at the moment is that my current power situation makes the question moot. So many powers at my disposal,” he said, a smile in his words. “How to best place you into a proper state of awe?” His earlier friendly tone had morphed into a taunting one, much like Chad’s voice had done that day in the cafeteria once he’d revealed his true intentions.

“Should I levitate myself?” He lifted off the ground about two feet, hanging there like a hummingbird. “Or shall I rain down fire from the sky?”

Instinctively, Henry jerked his head up to the night sky. Several bright stars were visible, but no fireballs were present. After several seconds of nothing—actually, enough time went by that I began to wonder if Finch was just trying to distract us—I finally noticed one of the stars was moving left to right, ever so faintly. No sooner had I made this realization than the thing sped up rapidly and began to grow in size. It was coming right for us.

Before I could process any of this, the fireball ballooned, heat filled the air, and it crashed into the cornfield to our left with a furious crash. Flames immediately danced up the stalks and spread across the crop as though the entire field had been previously doused in gasoline.

Finch spoke again. “Shape-shifting?” Henry turned his wide eyes back toward the old man. In each of his open palms, a fireball appeared. In a blur he flung both into the other cornfield on our right, repeating the instantaneous blaze from seconds earlier. He started to grow in height and size. Before we knew it, he was fifteen or twenty feet tall and entirely composed of loud, rippling tongues of fire. His shape began to change, and he morphed into something much more terrifying.

A bright blue flash of light flared behind us, but by the time Henry whipped his head around, there was nothing there, which is when we both realized Donnie was gone.
Donnie?! What did he do to Donnie?!

We both turned back toward Finch to find our nightmare was very much still a reality.

I wasn’t exactly accustomed to seeing fire. And through my distorted view of the surroundings, it looked like the cornfield around us was now completely engulfed in flames. The sharp rise in heat was intense. Fingers of bright orange fire danced off the tops of the stalks, crackling and hissing. I was terrified.

“Do you see that?!” Henry’s voice betrayed his fear.

How could I not see that?!

“Yes,” I responded, not hiding my own fear any better. Before us, maybe one hundred feet or so away, was something I can only describe as demonic. Roughly the height of a dinosaur and entirely made of fire, it resembled some kind of hybrid between a man and a dragon, complete with a reptilian head and a tail. Upright on hind legs, it sprayed fire as it swept its head back and forth in large half circles.

The heat and the noise were intolerable. I lifted up my hands and tried to visualize myself being able to push the beast back. But nothing happened. I wasn’t surprised.

“It’s going to burn down everything!” I had to shout just to be heard over the roar of the fire.

Henry yelled something back at me, but I couldn’t make it out. He tried again.

Suddenly, there was a loud explosion, drowning any hope I had of hearing Henry. We jerked our heads toward the beast to find that there were now three of them instead of just one. It had split itself into pieces.

We were clearly in over our heads here. Two seventh-graders against a self-multiplying fire monster … the odds just weren’t very good. There wasn’t any doubt any more, at least with regard to Finch’s claim to be able to wield multiple powers at once. He may as well
have
been Elben himself because the threat was just as huge in our eyes. He seemed to have more than enough powers to destroy us easily.

“We gotta get out of here,” Henry shouted, rolling as quickly as he was able.

I agreed. Instinct kicked in and I whipped around as Henry grabbed my arm to guide me to his chair, and we took off in the opposite direction.

But we were already surrounded.

I’m not sure you can fully grasp how hard it is to race through a cornfield pushing a wheelchair—all while mostly blind—until you’ve actually tried it, which I understand most of you will never get the opportunity to do. We only made it a few paces before the fire demons started slamming into the ground around us, making up the distance with a single jump. The earth shook and quaked and knocked us off balance. There were six of them now, and we had nowhere to turn.