Maite turned back to the bay. The large ships sat quite, rocking almost peacefully, belying the threat they posed for the city and the inhabitants. Maite shook her head. She was sick of the death and destruction that seemed to follow her at every turn, that seemed to be at the heart of every bubble she had visited so far. Did the zatiak seek out these times of conflict or was it that humans were always at conflict and it didn’t matter where the zatiak went? 

“Humans are always at conflict,” murmured Garuna in the back of her mind. “The only solution is forced compliance, for a superior being to guide the flock, to keep it in line.”

“And I assume you are that superior being?” asked Maite, rhetorically.

Not catching the irony, Garuna replied “Of course.”

“I assume the whole reason you wanted to come with me is to reestablish yourself, to find a way to resume power again. Is that not right?”

Garuna was silent for a moment. “You are too clever,” it eventually replied. “Yes, that is my goal.”

Maite nodded to herself. “And you think the zatiak are a path to that power?”

“I do not know what the zatiak are, but I do expect they can help me achieve my goals.”

Maite sighed. “And then what? Subjugation of humans? Making us do what you think is best?”

“Isn’t what I think is best better than what you have all been doing?”

Maite fell silent. She hated that Garuna might be right, that humans might be better off with an all powerful, but benevolent, dictator. The thought made her stomach churn, but how could she argue that humans had done a good job of things so far? Thinking of Kepa’s body laying in that street, she couldn’t.

“Kepa. That’s all that’s important,” she thought to herself. “Damn the rest.”

The fort stood in front of her. She could feel the pull of the zatia from within. She knelt down and placed her palms on the ground in front of her. Small bolts of electricity snaked from her fingertips and along the damp ground. As they reached the stone fort, they found any bits of metal to aid their journey as they fanned out and spead across the entire structure. They snaked their way better stones, up walls, across the ceiling, until they found the zatia. 

“There,” said Maite, standing up. “It’s in the center.”

She approached the door, two massive wooden structures hanging in front of her, keeping her from bringing Kepa back. She placed her palms on the doors and let out an electric discharge. She squealed as the electricity jumped back at her, almost knocking her over. 

She shook her head as she wiped her brow. “The wood is insulating,” she muttered to herself in disappointment. She looked down at her fingers. Blisters were starting to form on her fingertips. 

“Humans are always rash, never thinking ahead, never evaluating the situation,” rumbled Garuna.

“Isilik!” she barked out loud in a voice full of anger and frustration. “Shut up!”

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Maite walked down the middle of the cobbled street, oblivious to everything around her. Miniature lightning bolts flashed from her eyes. Her fingers sparked with electricity but she barely felt it. Her heart was numb. She thought seeing Kepa die once would be the hardest thing she would ever experience. She was wrong.

A French soldier burst onto the street in front of her, his rifle raised but shaking in his hands as he yelled. “Arrête, sorcière!” Maite kept walking as if the man – perhaps, maybe no more than a boy – wasn’t there. Sweat poured down his brow as he pulled the trigger. The musket made a loud bang and a cloud of smoke as the musket ball flew from the mouth of the rifle toward Maite’s chest. Maite kept walking as the ball approached, disintegrating as it hit the electric field surrounding her. And stil she kept walking. The young man screamed as he frantically tried to reload his musket, pulling out his powder horn. But Maite simply walked on by. The boy turned and yelled “Arrête!” one more time. Maite turned, the expression on her face never changing, as she touched the boy’s cheek. A shock of electricity poured from her arm through her finger and into the boy. His body fell to the ground, stunned. 

Garuna’s voice echoed in the back of her head. “The logical thing would be to eliminate him.”

Though Maite had just lost her lover, and she knew that killing this boy would be temporary at best, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She shook her head. “Ez,” she whispered, more to herself than to Garuna.

“And this is why you humans will eventually fade away,” said Garuna. “You do not possess the ability to do the necessary. You are illogical.”

Maite forgot about Garuna as more soldiers, maybe five, appeared in front of her. These did not hesitate to fire and soon the street was filled by the stench of burnt gunpowder. Musket balls whistled through the air at her only to explode as they hit her body, the electric aura protecting her from any damage. Still she walked, her steps taking her by the cowering soldiers. At least one dropped his musket and ran. Another attempted to grab her hand and screamed as an electrical pulse swept through his body. 

“They cannot harm me,” said Maite. “There is no need to kill them.”

“They will not stop until you do,” replied Garuna.

Maite shrugged. “And so?”

Maite continued on a rocky path that led up the side of Mount Urgull. She could hear a larger contingent of soldiers behind her, their excited chatter reaching her ears. Every once in a while a musket ball would fly through the air. Most missed by a wide margin, smashing into a tree or ricocheting off a rock, but once in a while one would be true. She could feel the pop against her skin, as it shattered against her, but she simply ignored them. They weren’t hitting hard enough to leave a bruise, much less do any real damage. 

Within minutes, she was at the top of the mount. In front of her stood walls of an old fort. She stopped to look around. In the bay, large ships rested, their canons eerily silent at the moment. She half expected swarms of British and Portuguese to flow from the ships but no one came. She saw the city, smoke swirling from some of the buildings that had been bombarded the night before. While much was different from the city she was about to call home, there was still much that was familiar. She almost smiled when she realized there was no McDonald’s nor Starbucks in sight. But, the musket balls that began pelting her body brought her back to the present. 

Maite turned to see maybe twenty or more soldiers at the edge of the clearing. They were shouting at her and each other in French. Muskets fired and balls burst as they neared her. She knelt down and touched the ground with her finger. A burst of electricity spread through the wet earth in an instant, finding the soldiers and snaking up their bodies, which convulsed briefly before falling to the ground. The few soldiers who had been in the back and standing on rock, and thus insulated against the shock, dropped their muskets and fled down the hill.

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“You know,” said Kepa as they made their way through the narrow streets that intertwined in the Parte Vieja of Donostia, “if we can just point our way to the zatia, that will make our lives a lot easier.”

Maite nodded. “If we could have done this with Donnie, you wouldn’t have gotten shot.”

Remembering the bullet that had pierced his heart made Kepa wince. He had thought he was over it, but a pain shot through his chest and he stumbled. 

“What’s wrong?” asked Maite, obvious concern in her face as she put an arm around his shoulder to keep him from falling.

“Just the thought of Donnie’s bullet, it’s overwhelming at times.”

“It is for me too, and I wasn’t the one who got shot.”

“I’m ok,” said Kepa as he straightened up. “Let’s keep going. Where did you say the zatia is?”

Maite pointed. “That way.” Her finger was pointing to Urgull, the small hill that rose out of the end of the old part of town. In his time, this is where the San Telmo museum stood, at the base of Mount Urgull. He didn’t expect to find any tourists this time.

They rounded a corner and nearly bumped into a group of three French soldiers. Before the soldiers could respond, they turned and ran.

“Halt!” cried one of them as the other two began pursuit. The first one raised his musket and fired, a ball ricocheting off the walls next to him.

“Dammit!” cried Kepa as they turned another corner. He was beginning to lose his sense of direction, buried deep in the Parte Vieja without any visible landmark to guide him. He wasn’t sure which way he was going. It didn’t matter, as he could hear the heavy footsteps of the soldiers and their boots behind them.

“When we make it out of this bubble,” said Maite between panting breaths, “we need a proper vacation.”

Kepa nodded silently as he pulled her around another corner. He suddenly stopped. In front of them was a wall. 

“Dammit!” he cried, his face scrunched in frustration. He turned, putting Maite between himself and the wall as the French appeared in front of him. Two of them had their muskets raised while the third, a young man no older than Kepa with a dark mustache and a sickening smile, approached them.

“Why do you run?” he asked in broken Spanish.

“We want no trouble,” replied Kepa.

“Then you should not run,” said the soldier. His smile slowly transformed into a snarl. “No one is allowed out of doors.”

“We needed food,” said Kepa. 

“There is no food here,” snapped the soldier. “But there is plenty in the cells.” He waved to his comrades. “Take them.”

Kepa raised his hand, the light from his palm beginning to grow in brightness. Just as a flash burst forth, one of the soldiers yelled “Sorcière! Witch!” while the first one, the one that had been talked, raised his pistol and fired blindly into the light. 

Maite heard Kepa scream as the soldiers stumbled, their hands over their eyes. Kepa’s body slumped to the ground. Maite rushed to his side. “Not again,” she whispered over and over to herself as she saw the bright red stain spread across Kepa’s shirt.

Tears fell across her face as she looked down at him. “Why are you always trying to play the hero?” she said between her sobs. 

Kepa coughed, his spittle bright red. “I just want to keep you safe,” was all he could muster.

His eyes glanced over at the soldiers, who were slowly recovering from the light.

“You need to go,” he said. “Find the zatia, and get us home.”

Maite was about to protest leaving him there but she just nodded. She got up and calmly walked up to the still dazed soldiers. The first one took an elbow in the nose. His hands covered his face as blood gushed down his front as he collapsed to the ground. Maite hit the second one hard in his throat with the side of her hand, knocking the air out of him. She then grabbed his head and threw it down as she slammed her knee up. The soldier crumpled to the ground. Maite approached the third soldier, who had dropped his musket and was fumbling to find his pistol. His face was ashen. “Sorcière!” he repeated. “Stay away!” he cried. 

He backed against the wall, his hands too sweaty to grab his gun. Maite leaned in, her eyes flashing with the light of the zatia. “Boo,” she whispered. The soldier fainted in a pool of his own urine. Maite turned to look back at Kepa who lay lifeless at the end of the alley, then walked back into the street, light crackling at her fingertips.

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While Kepa half expected a group of thugs or French soldiers to be waiting for them, the building was abandoned, just as Josean had promised. He reached down to help Maite up before really surveying the room. They seemed to have found themselves in a small apartment, which at one time must have been quite elegant but now had fallen to ruin. It wasn’t so much that the decor had been destroyed, it simply had been neglected for a very long time. The furniture still stood where the past owners had placed it, but now it was covered in dirt and cobwebs. Paintings of regal figures stared down at them through their grime covered surfaces. Kepa couldn’t help but feel judged by those icy stares. Light spilled in from high windows that prevented passersby from seeing inside but fully illuminated the room.

As he looked around, Kepa noticed some faint footprints on the dusty floor. 

“It’s been a while since anyone used this place,” he remarked.

Maite nodded. “I guess hardly anyone knows about this place.”

Kepa and Maite continued to explore. In addition to the living space they had crawled in, the apartment had a small bedroom and dining area, but little else. 

“I guess if it were too big, people would have noticed,” said Kepa.

“Hard to hide a mansion in the middle of town,” replied Maite with a smile. 

Kepa pulled a blanket that covered one of the chairs, waiving to Maite to sit while he brushed the dust off another before collapsing himself.

“Why does it seem that each of these bubbles becomes increasingly more challenging?” he asked with a sigh.

Maite shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe we just have bad luck.”

“Do you think Marina is here?”

“Ez dakit. But I’m not sure I want to run into her if she is.”

Kepa nodded absently. “Agreed. She is starting to become a wild card herself.” He futily looked around the room as if hoping to find the zatia right in front of him. Dejected, he slumped deeper into his chair. “What now? How do we find this stupid thing?”

Maite heard the familiar voice rumble in the back of her head. “Do the zatia not have affinity to one another?” asked Garuna, almost rhetorically.

Maite sat up, suddenly alert. “Garuna just gave me an idea…”

“I almost forgot we had a third wheel,” interjected Kepa.

Maite ignored him. “Hold out your hand,” she continued, “like this.” She held out her hand in front of her, palm up. Kepa reluctantly mimicked her.

“Now think about the zatia.”

Kepa closed his eyes, focused his thoughts on the zatia. For a moment, nothing happened. He thought he felt a slight tug when he was interrupted by Maite.

“There!” she exclaimed. 

Kepa opened his eyes. Maite had stood and her arm was pointing in the direction Kepa had felt the tug. Maite turned to Kepa, her eyes wide with excitement.

“I think we know where to go.”

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