"Ashley?" she called over the pounding music, fighting her way through the heaving nightclub towards the blonde. "Ashley Magnus?"
The pale girl knocked back her shot, then turned and raised her eyebrows. "Who's asking?"
"Oh, I just…. Went to school with you, that's all," the dark haired young woman replied, her voice thickened with the slight trace of an accent.
Ashley slipped a hand down the side of her pants, suddenly on her guard despite the alcohol flowing through her veins. "I was home-schooled."
"Okay, I'll cut the crap," the darker girl laughed, taking a seat at the bar next to Ashley. "I'm Tia. Big fan of yours."
She watched as the hand came back out of the pants and rested on her hip, the blonde's mouth now turned up in a sneer. "I'm not one for the celebrity act. That's more my mother's gig." Her eyes flickered over Tia. "So what are you? Ghoul? Vamp? Witch?"
"I am not one of your freaks," Tia snapped, in a way that reminded Ashley of her mother. "Look, I do a little ghoul tracking here and there and can hold my own in the research stakes. I've hit a rough spot and was hoping there was a vacancy."
"You're going after a vamp. Cliché lawyer type," Ashley started, drawing an example from her recent past.
Tia grinned, crossing her bare legs and leaning lazily on the bar. "Something that operates on a sonic frequency. Exploit the bat-vamp relationship. Cliché like that's just waiting for some smartarse with holy water and two cloves of garlic."
"Three witches awoken from the distant past," Ashley continued brusquely.
"The Morrigan?" asked Tia with a chuckle. "Chances are slim unless you go looking for them… after all, they come heavily guarded."
"Answer the question," she growled.
Tia pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, thoroughly amused by the proceedings. "Wouldn't do anything. Firstly, they only affect men. Secondly, they're Celtic in origin: their purpose is to create nothing but harmony and balance. Unless they've been brainwashed, that is."
"A 157 old woman who thinks she knows everything?"
Tia laughed. "I'd threaten to withhold the grandchildren."
Ashley grinned and nodded. "Good answer. So, how did you here about the sanctuary?" she asked, slamming her hand on the bar for the tender's attention.
"Your mother's name is legend," Tia told her, tugging at the hem of her short skirt. "Her presence was prophesied many moons before her forefathers came into being."
Ashley slowly turned her head and regarded the girl with curiosity, taking in the details for the first time. Tia was tall and slender with unduly pale skin for her dark hair, which she wore pulled off her face with a head band, cascading down her back in dark ringlets and waves. Her eyes were green, the sort of green often found in Southern Europe, and they regarded Ashley with shrewd wisdom.
The thing that intrigued the young Magnus most, however, was that despite the miniskirt and skimpy top, the typical young club wear, Tia seemed to have spoken with a formality that was somehow ancient and ethereal.
"Middle English, Anglo-Saxon, Greek and Latin," the woman read in her clipped mid-Atlantic accent. "An impressive resumé, Miss Alba."
Helen Magnus was reading from a folder, slowly pacing the library as she did so. It was highly unusual that she interviewed for positions within the Sanctuary – most of her employees seemed to fall into their positions either through headhunting, or through no particular doing of their own.
"In addition to French, Spanish and German," Tia replied coolly. "Particularly useful for early 20th Century medical journals, Doctor Magnus."
The woman perched on the table seemed relaxed and confident, wearing a light brown suit with hair tied back in a ponytail. Her demeanour spoke volumes about her attitude and self-assurance. She knew she was going to get this job, and Helen wanted to know why.
Helen lifted a large tome off the shelf and thumbed through to find a suitable passage. Satisfied, she slid the book across the table towards Tia, raising her eyebrows and shooting a challenging smile. "If you could indulge me for a moment, Miss Alba…"
"Simultaneous translation," Tia returned with a matching expression. She stood up from her perch and turned to the book, beginning to read a passage from Beowulf in the original Anglo-Saxon.
A quick nod to Ashley, and the trio swiftly and silently moved into action. Helen picked up a cross-bow and aimed at a point just above Tia's left shoulder. The Butler began to creep up from behind and the daughter positioned herself to the candidate's right.
In quick succession, and with lightening reflexes, Tia caught the arrow, kicked up her heel into the manservant's groin and deflected an attack from Ashley. Helen watched on with mild interest as the two women exchanged blows, both seemingly fighting with minimum effort and commitment.
"That's enough, thank you," the doctor acknowledged, raising a hand. "Miss Alba, welcome to the Sanctuary."
The dark haired doctor turned on her heel, leaving the successful candidate in her wake, a secretive and satisfied smile playing on her face.
A putrid smell lingered on the streets of Whitechapel, the summer heat turning discarded sewage into a breeding ground for disease. Despite the late hour, the streets bustled with activity, the district coming alive with the business of prostitutes and gin palaces.
The doctor crept carefully in the shadows; silence on cobbled streets an acquired skill from years of practice. Her skirts betrayed only the slightest rustle as she went in search of her prey, a single lock of bright, yellow hair gleaming in the lamplight.
"You will not find that which you seek," a voice cut, its echoes reverberating from the terraced walls in the quiet backstreet. "Your quarry is aware of your presence and wishes to remain undetected. You shall not find him tonight, Doctor Magnus."
Helen stepped into the light, raising her face up from under her wide-brimmed hat in order to see the woman who addressed her so forthrightly. Not many dared speak to a Magnus with such boldness.
"How do you know this?" she asked the figure in front of her, who was shrouded in swathes of material so that the doctor could not see her face. "Who are you?"
A glimpse of an upturned corner, the woman was smiling at her as she pressed an envelope into Helen's hand and whispered into the doctor's ear.
"A friend, I hope."
Ashley sauntered into the library, carrying a couple of Starbucks in a cardboard container. She set them down on the large, oak table and shrugged off her jacket, revealing a low-cut white tank underneath. Her leather trousers creaked as she bounced up onto the table and leaned back on her arms.
"And when did it become permissible to bring coffee into a library?" Tia asked sharply as she walked towards the table, books under her arm.
Ashley raised her eyebrows to show her lack of amusement. "About the same time as it became permissible to wear jeans to work."
Tia looked down at her outfit and shrugged. Sure, most people expected the tweed suit, the nerdy glasses, the whole Giles-from-Buffy look, but only half her job involved shelving books. The other half involved protecting them from all the forces of evil – which was kinda hard to do in an A-line skirt.
"Thought you could use these," Tia told the blonde, sliding some books across the table towards her. "They'll come in useful."
"For what? Throwing at ghouls?" the Magnus girl laughed scornfully. "Seriously, Tia. The reading thing? Not really my style…"
"That's more your mother's gig," the librarian finished with a sigh. "Figures."
She stood for a moment, regarding the young, leather-clad blonde with interest. "Just humour me. Take the books."
Ashley was filled with an uneasy feeling as she grasped at the locket around her neck, the one at which Tia had been staring at intently. Cautiously, she slid off the table, picked up her things and the books that the librarian had offered her, and retreated from the room, keeping her eyes fixed on the dark haired woman all the while.
"Mom, you've got to get rid of her," Ashley begged desperately, whizzing round in front of her mother as the doctor turned to try and avoid her daughter's manic path.
"Ashley, my darling, you're over-reacting again," Helen said calmly, holding a piece of mutant flesh with tweezers and pulling it up to her goggles for closer inspection. "You were the one who insisted that I interview her, after all."
Ashley knocked the object out of her mother's hand and grabbed her upper arms, her face contorted with rage. "Will you just listen to me? For once? She's a freak, Mom!"
The two glared at each other for a brief instant, before Helen detached herself and swept her dark fringe out of her eyes.
"I suggest you go and inconvenience Doctor Zimmerman with your deluded psychosis and egotistical whining," the doctor told her coldly.
The blonde drew a deep breath and flexed her fingers, as if she longed to punch her mother but was exercising the greatest restraint that she knew. Coolly and with a controlled voice, she spoke to her mother once more.
"I said that she was a freak, Mom. Monster, Weirdo, Freak? Any of this registering?" she asked, now folding her arms across her chest.
Helen frowned as she picked up the pieces that had fallen to the floor. "I've asked you before not to use such language in my presence, Ashley," she chided, before standing upright. "But before you protest, I have indeed considered such eventualities and agree that Miss Alba is indeed in possession of a gift."
"Mom," Ashley insisted. "She was staring at the locket."
Helen sat in the parlour, her long, blonde, ringlets cascading down her back. She was certain that the encounter she recalled had been a dream, but the envelope sat in her hands told her another tale entirely.
She turned the package over carefully, considering all she had seen the night before. Who was the strange woman and where was she from? She had spoken with a slight accent, one that sounded familiar in some strange way. Her wording had seemed archaic and formal, even considering the formalities of Victorian speech, and she had not belonged.
"Who's that from, dear?" Gregory Magnus, Helen's father, asked, standing at the doorway to the parlour.
Helen looked up and smiled politely. "John," she lied, referring to her fiancé. "It's from John."
Her father nodded in approval and left the room, calling back, "Aren't you going to open it?"
"Yes, Father," she muttered quietly, sliding a long, elegant nail underneath the flap of the envelope and tearing it open.
Into her hand fell a silver locket on a chain and a piece of parchment. Beautiful foundation script adorned the paper, reading;
When the time comes, you shall know it.
"Adze, Aitu, Akka, Asanbosam, Astomi, Baba Yaga, Cambion, Changeling, Chichevache, Churel, Cihuateteo, Ciguapa," Tia recited, sliding books across the oak table. "Rather flattered by the last one, I must say."
She returned to her shelf and started to select another batch. "Cyhyreath – that's wishful thinking. Dhampir, interesting, trying to guess at the accent now? Edimmu, Empusa, Enchanted Moor. Fir Bolg, Goddess, Hag, Hamingja, Houri…. Jiang Shi? Ugh!"
Another set of books were set flying across the table towards a puzzled Helen Magnus.
"Kyuketsuki, Leanashe, Muse, Nawao, Nymph, Ordog, Pontianak, Qareen, Soucouyant, Spectre, Strigoi, Succubus, Tennin, Tipua, Valkyrie, Varcolac, Werecat, Werewolf, Witch, Witte Wieven, Woodwose, Yakshi, Yuxa."
Tia flopped down in a chair and folded her arms. "Look all you like, but you won't find a single description to fit me."
"How did you….?"
"Foresight is a beautiful thing, Doctor Magnus," the young woman told her, barely concealing the lazy smile that threatened to dance across her face. "I'm fortunate enough to possess that particular gift."
Helen gazed at the librarian, trying to assess the smile that played on her features. She thumbed through the leaves of the book, wondering what particular gift it was that enabled her to predict the doctor's line of questioning and prepare the resources so deftly.
The foresight and the smile seemed oddly familiar to Helen, and, after snapping shut the book in front of her, she asked the question that had been burning to be spoken aloud.
"Who are you?"
Tia smiled and got to her feet. Leaning over the table, she whispered into Helen's ear. "You've asked me that before, and you shall ask me that again before our time is out."
Ashley was restless. She moved round her room uneasily, jumping up and down from her bed, off her dressing table and generally climbing onto any surface she could. Anything to take her mind off things.
Half of her wanted to leave the seminary and get on her bike, drive far away from this incessant madness, but the other part of her was inexplicably drawn to the books that the librarian had given her and the truths that they had revealed.
No, they weren't truths. They couldn't be truths, because that would make her one of them, and she was different. She wasn't going to be locked in a cell for the rest of her life, that wasn't the reason that her mother kept such close tabs on her, it was just that Helen cared. Yes, it was that she cared.
Or was it?
The young woman picked up the book that lay on her bed and threw it at her mirror, creating a ripple effect on the glass as if it was a pebble tossed into water. She shrieked and hurled another one in the same direction, creating a long fissure that led to a second set of spirals.
She wasn't one of them, she couldn't be. Her father… that wasn't her father, her mother was lying. Her father was dead. And even if he was, what where the chances?
Faster than me, if that's possible.
She hurled another book at the glass. No, her speed and strength were just pure skill, perhaps genetics, but nothing… nothing like…
She grabbed at her necklace and pulled it off ferociously. It couldn't be, and she'd prove it. There's no way that she could –
Helen walked into the room to see a flash of blue-green light. Panicking, she ran to the spot where she had briefly seen her daughter, and saw the silver pendant on the floor.
With a deep sigh, the dark-haired doctor lifted up the pendant and held it in her palm, sitting on the edge of her daughter's bed. She noticed a few of the books that still rested there, unusual for Ashley to be reading, and lifted them up in turn, flicking to the bookmarked pages.
"Silver kills all magic," a voice stated calmly. "Except the divine."
Helen looked up and saw Tia stood in the doorway, hands in the pockets of her ripped and faded jeans. Her tousled hair fell over her shoulders and she watched Helen through the disturbingly wise and time-weathered eyes.
"Believe me when I tell you that I do not hire just any candidate," the doctor told her, letting the book fall to one side. "You have a power, and your employment was meant as a means to monitor your abnormality."
"I prefer the term 'gift'," Tia told her sternly, moving into the room and perching on the edge of Ashley's dresser. "But you are, as yet, unable to determine its nature."
Helen traced her finger over the bedknob and watched the girl carefully. "What intrigues me is the way your demeanour changes so swiftly. As if you are wise far beyond your years. You say you have foresight, but it is my belief that you have much hindsight as well."
"Very good, Doctor Magnus," Tia replied in good humour. "Though the extent of that hindsight may surprise even you."
"So this is all to do with Druitt," Will replied, a puzzled expression on his face as he tried to follow the conversation. He was trying to take notes but with the three of them in the back of Magnus' sedan, he was having trouble writing without elbowing the woman next to him.
Tia nodded. "He is Ashley's father and has a genetic condition that runs through his maternal line."
"John was not the first patient in his family to visit the Sanctuary," Helen added, staring out of the window at the dark urban surroundings.
"I thought you said he was your first patient," Will cut in, now thoroughly confused.
Tia shook her head. "You don't understand. He was Helen Magnus' first patient. Druitt's mother, Ann Druitt, née Harvey, was also a patient at the Sanctuary, then based in London and run by Magnus' father, Gregory."
Will looked down and saw a folder on the librarian's lap, one that he swore hadn't been there a second ago. He took it from her and looked through at the case files, detailing the family history.
"And you never suspected that Ashley would fall victim to this condition?" Will asked, adjusting his glasses as he read.
Helen tapped her fingers impatiently against the glass. "Indeed I did, Doctor Zimmerman," she told him quietly. "In fact, I was certain of the fact, as both John's father and his mother were carriers of the gene. The symptoms are always more prominent in the females of the line, so there was very little question of Ashley's condition."
"And yet you brought her to term," the psychologist challenged, fascinated by the mindset that would lead to such a decision.
"We have already had this discussion, Doctor Zimmerman," Helen told him hastily, and Will knew that he had overstepped the mark. She sighed and withdrew her fingers back into her lap. "I am sorry, but it is a sensitive issue, as I am sure you are aware. I knew of Ashley's condition, or at least presumed it would be present, and that, amongst other things, was one reason I prevented her birth for so long."
Tia watched them for a moment before interjecting. "There is a legend of a woman who treads the line between good and evil, straying between the two like a needle and thread, drawing them ever closer to each other, until the line becomes indistinguishable. She bridges the gap so that evil can be unleashed on the world…."
"And you think this woman is…."
"Ashley," Helen confirmed with a business like attitude. "Yes, Doctor Zimmerman, of this there is no doubt. Up until this point we have kept Ashley's 'inheritance' from her, and protected her in all that we could."
"You can't control her forever," Will sighed, remembering the conversation between Helen and her former fiancée.
Helen smiled sadly. "And I'm afraid that with his powers, John is privy to far more information than either you or I."
"Since the age of five, Ashley has worn this locket around her neck," Tia continued, passing the silver charm to Will. "It is silver."
Will pushed his glasses up his nose and shook his head. "No, no. Silver is used against werewolves. Ashley isn't a…"
"Folklore and poppycock," Helen scolded impatiently. "Silver is considered the bane of the werewolf, when in fact it is a remedy for all dark magics."
Tia poked the locket in Will's hand so that the two halves fell open. "In this locket was sealed a powerful compound, one that bore specific spacial and temporal markers, bound to Ashley's DNA."
"Most objects in the universe have such markers, ones that tether us to a specific point in existence," Helen continued, picking a broken piece from Will's hand and inspecting it. "Studying John's genetic make up showed an absence of these markers, allowing him to shift freely between time, space and reality. Over the years, I was able to synthesise these markers and bind them in a compound to Ashley's DNA. This was sealed within the silver locket to be something that she would wear, cherish and something that would be protected from anyone who would wish to interfere."
Will frowned as he tried to comprehend the situation. "So when she pulled the locket off…"
"She broke free of her anchor," Tia concluded.
"Mommy!" called the child, running across the craggy, moonlit landscape towards the figures that lurked in the shadows.
Helen swung round, her chestnut hair flying dramatically in the wind, and she instantly sprung into action, calf muscles tensed to launch herself towards the infant.
A hand gripped her upper arm, refusing to let her go. "Magnus, wait," the man hissed. "She can look after herself. It's what you've trained her for. Don't risk your own life as well as hers."
"She's five, for God's sake," Helen snapped, wrenching her arm free. "She's not even supposed to be here."
Across the plateau, creatures emerged from the shadows, circling the young blonde child menacingly. Silvery light rippled across furry hides and bared fangs could be seen gleaming in the distance.
The child turned on the spot, grimacing back at the creatures, baring her teeth back at them, imitating and standing her ground, despite the growing worry and disquiet inside. A large, clawed paw swept down towards her face and Ashley closed her eyes in fear and desperation, praying for salvation.
As she ran across the space, Helen saw the paw descend and stopped dead in blind panic. A second later and a flash of blue green light illuminated the centre of the circle. Ashley was gone.
It was quiet outside, most of the area's population were huddled away in the warmth of their homes or the numerous public houses that littered street corners.
Ashley had never been to England; well not unless you counted the hunting trip from three years ago. She didn't. And she certainly hadn't been to England in September 1888, the date on the stray newspaper flapping around her ankles.
The idea of being in Victorian England should have hurt her head somehow, but it didn't. It all made sense, it was what she was born to do and it felt so natural. She had memories, distant memories of intense emotions and an ability to flee them.
The young woman instinctively pressed herself to the wall as she peered through the glass of the tavern on the corner, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible, given that she was clad in her leather biking gear, with poker straight hair and smoky make-up.
A young man sat surrounded by women, laughing and bantering, pouring gin into small goblets as he charmed his way around. Ashley wrinkled her face in disgust as she recognised the identity of the dark haired man. He may have had a full head of hair in place of the scarred cheek, but there was no mistaking his mannerisms and gestures.
She watched him get to his feet and walk towards the door, collecting his overcoat and top hat on the wait. Swiftly, she moved into the shadows as he exited the bar, stealthily following him through the backstreets of Spittalfields.
"Ah, Catherine," he murmured in a low, rumbling voice, one that sent chills down Ashley's spine, "How lovely to see you."
Catherine nodded her head back at the man, her dark auburn ringlets bobbing underneath the black straw bonnet. There was something demure about the way this petite woman dressed, in her fur trimmed coat that she wore buttoned to her neck, her flat, men's boots and her spectacles. Ashley could hardly imagine this woman walking the streets.
"Mister Druitt," she replied with a frown.
John smiled coldly as he circled her. "It has been too long since you last graced the fair city, Kate," he told her. "Though I have heard a fascinating story on the reason for your return."
"Nothing more than to earn a pretty penny, Sir," she told him.
Ashley heard the laugh, the cold, merciless chuckle that she recalled from the station where he had kidnapped her. She clenched her fists as she continued to move in the darkness.
"You think you can apprehend the Whitechapel Murderer, do you?" He laughed, moving closer to her. "Your audacity is somewhat appealing to me, Kate."
"For you, Sir, there would be no charge."
Ashley grimaced at the thought of him, her father, and…. The tremor in the woman's voice, she had been scared, terrified. Did she know what Druitt was capable of?
"It pains me to do this to such an intelligent woman as yourself, Catherine," he breathed into her ear, an arm around her neck. "You were one of the few schooled and sensible women left in the city. But, alas, too quick for your own good."
The girl saw a flash of metal as Druitt unsheathed the blade concealed in his cane and slashed it up her middle with unsettling ease. She watched as Catherine dropped limply to the floor, leaving her father to flick at her innards with the end of the blade, pulling out her entrails and playing with them, arranging them in a somewhat artistic fashion. Some sort of code left for her mother, perhaps?
"So where are we going?" Will asked in exasperation. He appreciated the exposition, but really, he would be happy with the basic 'who, what, when, why, how'.
The car braked suddenly and Helen smiled. "Here."
She alighted gracefully from the car, leaving Will staring in confusion. Tia placed a hand gently on his knee.
"Don't worry, she's always been like this," she told him, sliding out of the black sedan herself.
He opened the door and joined the women on the rain-slicked pavement, shivering slightly in the cold and damp surroundings of Old City. Without a word, he followed Helen and her staff along the high street.
They turned a corner and disappeared amongst the shadows, the doctor leading the quartet into a small, run down shop that looked like it hadn't seen business in many moons. She kept a hand underneath her elegant, black, floor-length overcoat, presumably resting on a gun.
"Ah, Miss Magnus," a voice sounded out of the darkness, the southern English accent cold, clear and crisp.
Will watched as Helen paled.
"It's Doctor Magnus, you know that all too well, Geoffrey," she replied coolly, grip tightening on her weapon.
The owner of the voice stepped out of the shadows, a leering, manic grin on his wizened face. He walked with a limp, hunched over his cane and his hair and appearance was ratty and unkempt. His eyes slid over Helen's tall, graceful and elegant form, then her butler's hulk, and grazed Will's body before settling on the librarian. His smile faded and eyebrows raised as much as his decrepit body would allow.
"Indeed I do, Helen," he conceded, eyes still on Tia. After a moment, he turned his head to face his guest once more. "What is it I can do for you today? I presume it is little in the way of business."
Will looked around him at the items for sale. Hundreds of clocks adorned the upper portions of the walls, below which shelves filled with dust covered trinkets cluttered the space. Objects, cabinets, shelves and toys filled the room, all covered with dust and all showing signs of age. Curiously, he picked up a small globe of glass, one which contained a model building, much resembling the seminary in which they worked.
"I need to find John," the doctor replied brusquely, sweeping through the shop and into the back room, followed closely by Geoffrey and her two staff.
Will brought up the rear, dashing furiously between cluttered shelves as he called, "John? As in Druitt? As in homicidal ex-fiancé Montague John Druitt? Are you completely insane?"
The back room was dusty and timeless, whitewashed walls and old, wooden floorboards. A few hard, wooden chairs stood in the room and Helen strode over and sat on one, crossing her ankles – as a lady should.
Geoffrey pulled out a small electronic device from his trouser pockets and passed it to Helen, who expertly adjusted the settings, as if done many times before. She held the small rod-like attachment to the air, to her coat, to the stool and then stood up, placing it on Will's glasses, Tia's bag, her butler's waistcoat. Seemingly satisfied, she nodded at the old man and resumed her seat.
Will flapped his arms and sighed. "Okay, I give up. What's going on and how is it going to find Druitt? And why are we finding Druitt?"
"The device calculates time specific elements in our surroundings. For example, mild radiation emitted from electronic devices, the smog left on our clothes from exhaust fumes, all those things that we take for granted in our time, but might show up in another," Tia explained. "We can use this to locate him, as to how we get him back…" she met Geoffrey's eyes for a moment.
Geoffrey nodded and took the device from Helen, wandering back to the front room and waving the rod near various stacks of shelves. Will followed him inquisitively, watching as he picked up a small, porcelain doll.
"It is either John or another from our time," the old man announced quietly, inspecting the doll.
Will approached him, a puzzled expression on his face. "How can you tell?"
"Elements of our time faded with age. Someone from this time touched this doll many years ago, it's left a mark," a female voice explained.
Will turned to see Tia stood behind him, having entered quietly. He raised his eyebrows at her whilst he tried to form the question.
"I don't… Magnus, I get it. She's older than any of us. The amount she must have learnt in her time is phenomenal," the doctor blathered, "But how do you know…. You're the new girl, and…" he paused for a moment and considered something, something said earlier that had only just hit him. "How do you know that she's always been like this? What aren't you telling us?"
Tia smiled at him. "I've told you everything. I am gifted with foresight. As well as hindsight." She nodded at Geoffrey and took the porcelain doll from him, as well as the electronic device. "Will, you need to get back in the room with the others."
Will nodded blankly and retreated to the room, puzzling over what he had just heard and witnessed. Who was this Tia and why did she have such "hindsight"? How did she know so much about Magnus' past, about what was happening and why did Geoffrey seem to take such an interest in her?
The little girl stood in her room, pouting furiously as her mother berated her for disappearing once again. The flashes were automatic, she couldn't help it – whenever she got scared or angry or frustrated she found herself in somewhere safe, warm and happy.
"Ashley, please can you try to comprehend the gravity of the situation," the doctor begged, crouching down to her daughter's level and grasping her arms. "You could appear anywhere and I have no way of finding or helping you, sweetheart. I only want you to be safe."
The girl wrinkled her face and backed away, confused by the change in her mother's tone. Suddenly she sounded scared and concerned rather than angry.
Ashley folded her arms. "Shan't compre….compre… whatever you just told me. I'm gonna do just as I like." She stuck her tongue out at her mother and stormed over to her box of crayons. Grabbing a fat, orange one, she climbed up the bookshelf and scrawled "HATE" in bold, bright letters on the top.
"Get down here, right this instant," Helen snapped, walking over and grabbing the girl's wrist, pulling her down from her perch. "And if you DARE blink out on me, I swear I'll…."
Ashley's nanny walked in quietly and set down the tray of snacks on the dresser. "I'm sorry, Doctor…"
"No, Victoria, please stay," Helen insisted to the dark haired girl. "Perhaps you will have more success than I."
Helen swept out of the room, her jaw clenched as she tried to fight the onset of tears. She couldn't stand the thought of her own daughter resenting her, yet she knew it was for her own good.
Victoria poured a glass of milk from the carafe on the tray and sat down on the bed. She smoothed out her pleated, tartan skirt with one hand and offered the milk to Ashley with the other.
"Thank you," the child sighed sulkily as she took the drink and sat on the bed next to her nanny. "I hate her. She's always busy and never spends time with me."
"That's not true," Victoria told her kindly, bumping her shoulder. "You went on holiday to France last week! She takes you everywhere with her."
"Sure," Ashley muttered, rolling her eyes. Sometimes she wished she could take Victoria downstairs and show her what her mother really did, but she knew the doctor wouldn't approve. The whole point of hiring Victoria was that she was sweet and normal, with her pleated skirt and loafers and the pink headband that matched her sweater.
Victoria folded her legs up under her. "You know, you might not see it now, but in a few years, I reckon you and your mother are gonna be one heck of a team."
Ashley giggled. "You swore!"
"Yepp, I guess I did," the girl replied with a chuckle. She stroked Ashley's hair as she gazed idly across the room. "You're a very special girl, Ashley… very special indeed."
"It will not work," the man stated glumly, his cane thumping against the wooden floorboards as he hobbled towards Helen.
The dark-haired doctor jumped to her feet and stood with her hands on her hips. "What do you mean 'It won't work'? It always works," she insisted, her temper rising.
The man shook his head, though his eyes were fixed on Magnus' librarian. "It will not work. Not this time."
With a single, swift motion, Helen drew her gun and pointed it square at Tia's chest, speaking with a gentle quietness that resounded with suppressed anger. "What have you done? What are you doing with my daughter?"
"I am doing nothing," Tia replied calmly, a small smile turning up one corner of her mouth.
Will watched in amazement as the gun in Helen's hand ceased to exist there and reappeared in Tia's. She clicked the safety back on and shook her head sadly as she started to pace the room.
"I need John," Helen said slowly, deliberately, her voice shaking slightly, though no-one knew whether it was from anger or from awe. "I need my daughter back, and you are the one standing in my way."
"It's not time," the librarian told her, equally slowly.
Helen swung round and grabbed the girl by the shoulders, gripping sharply with her nails and shaking with rage. "Who are you to tell me about time? One Hundred and Fifty Seven Years! Is that not time enough? And you expect me to watch as my daughter's life is taken from her, as I am robbed of my one…"
"Please," Tia cackled, pulling free of the doctor's grip and waving at her dismissively. "157 years? You are nothing but a child in the eyes of the universe, little more than a whining brat, throwing her toys from the cradle." She looked at Helen through scornful green eyes and smiled. "It's time to stop living in the past, Helen, and witness the present."
"I shan't ever want to get married," the tiny, blonde figure announced, as she smoothed out her silks over her crinoline undergarment. She stood still as her teenage nursemaid, Lottie, tied a ribbon into her cascading ringlets.
The governess sat on her stool and tipped her head, regarding the curious child with interest as she waited for her pupil. The girl was always so composed and well behaved, highly unusual for one of so few years, yet she spoke her mind as a young boy would do.
Sir always insisted that his daughter was educated in the same manner as any male heir, and that she be provided the same opportunities and respect as the opposite sex. However, he also valued the arts that were socially deigned suitably for the female, which meant twice the work for Bessie.
"You never know what folly your future may offer, Helen," the governess returned as she clipped her own dark curls back.
The five year old shook her head furiously and sat herself at the desk. "I shall be a doctor like Father and I shall be famous. I shall dine with the Queen of England herself, and shall travel the world.
Lottie muttered as she crossed the room. "Don't be silly, Miss Helen. Everyone knows that women can only become nurses. A doctor is a man's profession."
Bessie smiled at the younger child who now sat, looking dejected. She bent down so that her strange green eyes were on a level with Helen's blue ones, and spoke to her in a conspiratorial whisper. "They might say that now, but in a hundred years I bet there will be thousands of women doctors!" she told the girl.
She touched a hand to the locket that hung around her neck before she spoke again. "You know, Helen, good doctors come and go. But you won't be a good doctor, you'll be a great one, because you will believe in things that seem impossible – just like you do now – you will see past the things that stop normal people."
A crooked smile crept across the child's face as her governess spoke to her. "You mean believing in the unbelievable?"
"Lose her?" Will asked incredulously, pushing his glasses up his nose. "What do you mean 'lose her'?"
The tension in the room was tangible, Tia still glaring at her employer in challenge, and Helen returning the expression, though somewhat more taken aback. The shopkeeper had disappeared, leaving Magnus' butler between the two women as a referee.
"She's explained this before, the madness," Tia told him in exasperation.
Will shook his head. "I don't understand, there's therapy. There's all sorts of different approaches we can use once we get her back."
"It's not that simple," Helen told him sadly. "It's not just a psychological condition triggered by the jumps, it's permanent and irreversible madness."
Decade to decade, reality to reality, city to city.
Ashley blinked through the ages, the adrenaline surging through her as she soared to dizzy new heights. From the pyramids at Giza in the height of the Egyptian dynasty, to the end of humanity as we know it, Ashley witnessed it all first hand, a whirlwind tour of both history and possibility.
Her mind spun, giddy from the rush of euphoria and the overwhelming power that coursed through her body. There was nothing that she couldn't do or achieve, no-one that could stop her doing as she liked. She had supreme authority in the world…
She watched the girl on the cobbled street, ambling round, touting for business. She could slit the girl's neck in a second and who would know? Who would catch her? She was beyond reproach, she was all-powerful… a goddess.
Silently, she slipped out of the shadows, grabbing a loose length of cord from the crates that sat at the edge of the alleyway. She crept behind the girl, tying the ends of the rope around her hands.
Ashley smiled manically at the reality of what she was about to do, No-one would ever catch her and it would be attributed to her father.
Deftly, she threw the cord around the girl's neck and pulled her hands deftly back, crossing them behind her head. The victim scrabbled at her neck in vain, gasping for breath, causing Ashley to laugh scornfully at her efforts.
In the darkness, a man tipped his head, curiously watching this frantic and vicious blonde creature.
Throughout the city, crowds of people stood on the streets looking at the dark plumes of smoke that rocketed hitting some invisible barrier and flattening out, like a stone pine tree emerging from the mountain. Not mountain, she reminded herself, volcano.
Tiberia Alba, or T. Iunia Pom. Alba to give her the proper address, adjusted her purple wrap that she wore draped over her dark green tunic. Though she had never experienced such signs, she had heard the stories from Sicilia, and knew that it was time to do as Pliny had done and take to the bay of Napoli's waters.
She hurried along the streets towards the boathouse, not wishing to underestimate the strength of the mighty mountain under whose shadow she had lived her life. Tiberia was afraid, but she was practical.
"Tiberia Alba!" A male voice shouted to her. "Alba!" He caught up with the girl and stopped her, turning her round to face him. His eyes opened in concern. "Quid tibi est?" What is it?
"Caveat," she warned, "De pilo pendet." Danger. It hangs by a thread.
"Brutum fulmen!" he scoffed at the mountain, treating the plume of smoke like an empty threat from a man with little courage. There was no danger, no 'hanging by a thread', it was nothing more than Hercules' anger at Pompeii's sinful ways.
She shook her head and insisted that she would leave, at least until the smoke had stopped. She explained how she, along with so many others, had lost her home and many friends in the quake of 62, and how she had no desire to fall victim in this eruption.
He allowed her to walk away, but did not follow her, leaving Tiberia to walk down to the boathouse alone.
She waited impatiently for the young men to prepare her sailboat, with which she planned to sail off-shore and find one of the larger craft that were sailing in the bay.
With a final nod, she stepped into the boat and sat , picking up an oar and starting to row herself out towards the open waters. Whatever the others might think, she was certain that this would not end well for her town and her fellow townsfolk.
Tiberia adjusted the sails into a beam reach position to compensate for the south-easterly wind. As she moved out into the more open waters, she could see the debris raining down to the south on the cities of Pompeii and Oplontis.
Sitting back and allowing the wind to take its course, the dark-haired woman reached into her bag of belongings and pulled out a small parcel wrapped in fabric. Along with it was a note, written by her uncle.
"Tiberia," it read, in ancient Greek, the language of the great founder Hercules and the tongue of her grandfather, "You have been blessed with the gift of time, the gift of life. But you have also been charged with great responsibility. For the Prophesy that is to pass speaks of one who shall oversee, who shall bear witness and bring the tools of salvation. My dearest Tiberia, you are the seer and you shall bring the victory of which has been told. Tiberia Victoria, worthy of the greatest of agnomina, victorious over time itself, you would do well to flee Herculaneum, for we are in our final days. Do not ask how I know this, just trust that I do. Quod Sum Eris, Tiberia. I am what you will be."
She quietly and sadly looked at the contents of the parcel; a notebook full of incomprehensible scribbles and diagrams, and a small, silver locket.
Helen sat behind her desk, fingering the silver locket in her hands. It was a curious piece of jewellery, not because of what it was, but because of how she had acquired it, many years ago. A strange woman, concealed within layers of fabric, had pressed an envelope into her hands, telling her the time would come…
How did she know?
The doctor had filled the locket with an experimental compound – a series of temporal markers bound to a sample of Ashley's DNA. She had not been able to fully identify how the markers were bound to a person's code, and had, therefore, made the decision not to directly infuse the substance into her daughter's blood, but rather to create an "anchor" that would tether the girl to the current chronological timeline.
At first, Helen had been worried about the prospect of a witch or some other creature attempting to sabotage operations by pulling the locket off her daughter, but it seemed that the unnamed benefactor had already thought of that – silver was immune to all magic but the divine, according to legend.
Though Helen rarely believed in magic, rather in genetic mutations and scientific explanations, it did seem that most creatures with altered or non-human DNA could not touch or approach the silver. In fact, it was such a useful safeguard that many of her security measures within the seminary contained trace amounts of the element.
She pursed her lips slightly and stood up, pausing to free her long, dark hair from her lab coat. It was time to visit Ashley and give her this "gift".
Helen was secretly grateful that her daughter had discovered the powers so young. It meant that when she was older, she'd have little recollection and, if she did, she would dismiss it as childish fancy, not an ability that she had lost.
The doctor knocked lightly on her daughter's door before pushing it open. The small, blonde haired girl was tucked up in bed, sucking her thumb whilst her nanny sat nearby. Helen smiled at the peaceful scene. It almost seemed normal.
"Thank you, Victoria, you may retire for the evening," Helen told the girl with a curt nod.
The babysitter smiled and stood, tossing her long dark curls back over her shoulder and then muttered her thanks to the doctor before leaving.
Helen sat at the foot of the bed and tenderly stroked her daughter's arm. Feeling the caress, Ashley stirred slightly, then opened her eyes, blinking against the light.
"Mom?" she whispered, slightly muffled, thanks to the thumb in her mouth.
Helen smiled. "It's me. I wanted to say sorry, darling."
Ashley shifted and took the thumb out of her mouth, looking up at her mother with a pout on her face. Helen had to fight the laughter that threatened to erupt.
"I should hope so too," the five year old said petulantly.
The doctor couldn't resist a smile and handed the small pouch to her daughter. "A little gift, to say sorry. It's really old and doesn't open anymore, but it's something I want you to have and I want you to promise me that you'll always wear it and never take it off."
The child's eyes grew wide and solemn as she nodded her agreement to these conditions. She pulled open the strings on the pouch and allowed the locket to slip into her hand.
"Your gift," the doctor said, sitting on the table in the library, "How does it work?"
Tia sat quietly in her chair, hands folded demurely in her lap. She looked up at the doctor and sighed sadly. "It is complex. Beyond your comprehension, I fear."
"Try me," Helen challenged, standing and walking to a chair near the librarians. "How does it work?"
Tia drew a deep breath and looked to the ceiling, as if praying for strength. She unfolded her hands and drew her feet up underneath her.
"I was born just shy of two thousand years ago, in Pompeii," she began, smiling sadly as her audience recognised the name. "Everyone tells of the eruption of 79AD, but several years before that there were earthquakes, earthquakes that brought our great city to its knees, destroying homes and killing hundreds.
"I was fifteen and sent to live with my uncle as a precaution, a rich merchant who resided in the harbour town of Herculaneum," she continued. "I lived there for seventeen years, yet still looked little more than twenty three. It was easy to pass off in those days, much could be attributed to the Gods." She shifted in the chair and looked at the table where two books appeared. "I was coached in the Prophesy and my role in it."
Helen took the books and scanned down the page. "Forgive me, my Latin is rusty."
"No matter, I have already spoken of what is to come," Tia told her, waving a hand dismissively. "It was not a gift that came instantly, but rather one that formed over time. Through so much experience and hindsight, I was able to use the past to inform visions of the future. At first it was a case of envisioning myself searching through the library, and by the time I got there, I could see the book in front of my nose. Then it grew and I could use past patterns to create future ones – If I could envision it, I could do it."
She stopped and looked at the table, where a tray of tea and biscuits appeared
"You see, I tell myself that I am going to make myself tea because I'm thirsty. It's inevitable, it will happen, and so it is so," Tia explained as she poured herself a cup.
Helen tilted her head and regarded the dark haired librarian with interest. "So, my daughter…"
"It is not yet time," Tia insisted calmly.
The man ran a weathered hand across his bald head, a small smile crossing his lips as he watched the girl wreak havoc through the ages.
"You can't control her forever, Helen," he remembered.
Suddenly, he felt himself being pulled through time and space, involuntarily. It was a sensation he had never felt before, being forced through dimensions against his will, towards a presence that was calling him.
The two figures stood face to face in the dark alleyway. He was in black leather, a scar down his right cheek, and she wore a miniskirt and kneehigh white boots.
"What year is it?" he asked her, looking at her curious attire and curly hair.
She shook her head. "The date is irrelevant. I have a message for you. An important message regarding the Prophecy."
John stood in the library, looking around him at the various luxurious surroundings. He turned to look briefly at each occupant, then nodded curtly at the librarian, much to Helen's surprise.
"You know each other?" Helen asked, trying to mask her shock.
Tia nodded. "As I have told you, all of our destinies are intertwined. If you remembered closely enough, Doctor Magnus, you would realise how well you knew me."
"Victoria," John greeted, lifting Tia's hand and bestowing a kiss upon it. "Or is that not the appellation one should use in this age?"
Tia smiled. "Not usually, but Victoria is more than acceptable in this instance, John."
"And why, might I ask, did you request my presence?" he asked her, his curiosity genuine.
The librarian could sense the eyes of all in the room resting on her, yet she knew that the answer she held would not satisfy any of the witnesses. She moved around the table, allowing one hand to trail lazily on the oak.
"I did not request your presence," she told him, averting his gaze. "I had nothing to do with you being here. I do not understand how to call you, therefore I cannot."
John sat on the table, barring her path, the leather of his long trench coat creaking as he moved. He bent over so that he was on the librarian's level and raised his eyebrows.
"If not you, then pray tell, who was it?" he asked, almost menacingly.
"You are a Goddess," he told her in his gravely voice, circling her slowly as his eyes devoured her figure and stance. "Such grace and confidence and almighty power."
Ashley's eyes moved sideways and her lips curled into a small, sly smile. She liked the way he was talking, it was amusing, yet reassuring that someone else recognised her gift for what it was.
"I could kill you right now, if I wanted to," she smirked, pushing him, trying to get a reaction. "And no-one would know. I've already killed, you know. Multiple times."
She put a hand on his jacket and started to circle him, turning the tables. From behind him, she leaned into his ear and whispered.
"Have you ever felt that rush?" she asked, voice barely more than breath on his neck. "The adrenaline pumping through you as your victim falls to the ground, powerless, helpless, meeting their inevitable demise. All because you wanted it."
She slowly walked round again, so that she was in front of him, eyeing him and noting how little reaction there was.
"I can have anything I want, you know," she told him, grabbing his shirt and pulling him in so that his lips locked against hers.
"She bridges the gap so that evil can be unleashed on the world," Will muttered to himself, pacing round the room.
Helen's jaw was set in determination. "We need more information."
"More information? What do you mean, more information?!" Will exclaimed, somewhat hysterically. "Evil, unleashed, the world. I think we've got the bigger picture here."
John looked at Helen, his eyes shrewdly assessing both her and her comment. "The good doctor is right. We need more information."
Helen turned and stared at her former-fiancé in shock. "I am?" she asked incredulously, before composing herself once more. "We need the original Prophesy. Perhaps there are options in the translation that we haven't considered."
"Between the two of us, we should be able to find a solution," John acknowledged, nodding at the librarian. "After all, we are both classically trained… after a fashion."
Will shook his head a thrust out his hand. "I don't get it? What's he got to do with this? Why does 'fate' want him involved? He's a homicidal maniac!"
"He's Ashley's father," Helen told him coldly. "And the only one here with the power to retrieve her. So if you would kindly refrain from making premature assumptions and do the job I pay you for, Doctor Zimmerman."
She watched as the two men reacted in their different ways – Will shrunk off into a corner, and John with his characteristic smirk and raised eyebrows.
Tia nodded at Druitt. "It's time to visit the vault."
He suppressed his sneer as the blonde spoke to him, kissed him, bragged of her self-importance and power. It was exactly as foretold in the Prophecy. This was the woman, the moment, the event of which it spoke.
Ashley Magnus, daughter of the ages, would be his Queen, and in her madness, she would make him the most powerful being in existence.
She was one of the younger members of the team, but one of the most skilled. The more experienced archaeologists never ceased to be impressed by her seemingly natural talent for finding sites of historical importance.
She was now knelt in a trench, her khaki shorts covered with mud and dirt as she chipped away at the hardened remains of the pyroclastic flow. Her long, dark, curled hair was tied back from her face, which had regained some of its tanned complexion in the Italian sun.
"Over here!" she called loudly, alerting the others to what she found. "We've got something!"
One of the senior archaeologists rushed to the trench, crouching down at the side and peering in. "Junia, what have we got?"
"It's bone. I think we have a skeleton," she replied.
The archaeologist stood up and yelled to his colleagues. "We've got a skeleton!" he cried. He crouched back down and spoke quietly to the girl. "Do you understand the ramifications of this discovery? It's huge!"
Junia nodded numbly. The ramifactions were huge. More so than Doctor Maggi could possibly comprehend. For the Prophecy spoke of bones….
When ghosts of the flesh are unearthed, the birth of the chosen one draws near.
"Where did you get this?" John asked, delicately using tweezers in his gloved hands to handle the book that lay before him.
Tia smiled sadly. "It was given to me by my uncle shortly before I left. It's such a mixture of languages, like it was added to as time went on."
"You can see that in the mixture of papers… there's papyrus, velum, leather," he commented, looking through. "You said there were symbols that you didn't understand."
"Egyptian hieroglyphs," she nodded. "I didn't realise at first. Even when I did, I couldn't translate. Not until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone."
"And the translations evidence your understanding of the Prophesy?" John asked, gazing at the symbols through the glass.
Tia shrugged. "As much as I understand them, yes."
She sat next to him as he pored over the symbols, occasionally stopping to write notes on his pad. Tia knew that the ripper had been classically trained at Oxford, but somehow seeing it in practice was different. Like seeing Santa Claus presiding over a major court case.
She looked around her at the glass vault they were in. Special, reinforced glass which was designed to be a moisture-free vacuum when no-one was using it. Currently, the air flow was being regulated by the fan in the top of the room, but the air was indeed thin.
"The ankh with the scarab, what did you translate that as?" he asked suddenly.
Tia leaned in to look at it and sighed. "Life… the ankh means life and so does the scarab. Right?"
John nodded. "It can do. Or the scarab can signify emergence, the way it emerges from its cacoon. Emergence into life, birth, if you will."
"You mean…?"
"Ashley won't unleash evil, she will give birth to it."
In the hazy vestiges of the late summer sun, the girl walked through the park, arms swinging freely. Her green tea dress, with its high waist and wide skirt, floated around her as she strolled, the perfect image of youth in the late 1950s.
"It's curious," a man's voice said, causing her to look over to a nearby tree, against which the speaker was leaning, "You look as much a part of this time as you did mine. And yet we both know that you belong to neither."
She smiled at him and skipped over to where he was standing. "John, what a pleasure it is to see you!"
"It is?" he asked, eyebrows raised. "Last time I saw you… or next time, depending on which view of chronology you take…. You seemed incredibly close to my ex-fiancée."
The young woman patted the French twist on her head and looked around, checking for who might be listening to their conversation.
"You know the rules," she whispered in frustration, "we're on the same side here, John. Don't jeopardise this."
Helen laughed scornfully and shook her head at John and Tia.
"No," she said firmly, "Ashley wouldn't do that."
John sat on the table and lifted a foot to rest on the chair. "And just how well do you know our daughter, Helen?" he asked, keeping his usual, jeering tone to a minimum.
Will looked agitated and nervous as he spoke up. "She's not exactly into the big mother-daughter chats, is she? Who knows what she…"
"She's my daughter," Helen snapped abruptly, banging a fist against the table. "I will hear no further accusations of her promiscuity."
The two men and Tia exchanged meaningful glances as the doctor turned her back away from the table. If she wouldn't listen to them, what hope was there?
"Look, Helen," Tia said gently, moving to put a hand on her shoulder, "No-one is suggesting that Ashley would do such a thing in her normal state of mind. But she's been warping and blinking… you know what that does to a person."
Helen nodded. "And nothing in the Prophesy says that it's consensual."
"Actually," Will interrupted, but was stopped by Tia's hand waving.
"John," Helen declared suddenly. "I need you to go and find her. Bring her back here."
She waited for an argument, a sneer, some indication of dissent from her former fiancé, but there was none. He gave a silent nod and vanished in a flash of blue-green light. She breathed a sigh of relief.
"His part is over," the librarian announced quietly to the group. "It will be many years before we see him again."
He gently toyed with her layers of clothing, removing the swathes of material she used as an apron and overdress, until she was left in the Grecian chemise, the style of the present time. She unclipped her hair and let the dark ringlets fall down beside her face, changing her instantly from the young, innocent girl that she had appeared to be.
With a smile playing on his face, the man moved behind her and delicately aided her in the removal of the chemise, revealing a complex corset and petticoat combination that started just beneath her bust and fell above her knees, cinching in her waist and revealing more flesh than was usual for the time.
"Mademoiselle, ça me fait une grande surprise de voir que vous portez les vêtements d'une aristocrate," he told her, leaning into her ear, his English accent thick behind the French words.
She jumped and turned to face him, eyes wide and shaking her head. This was not the time, nor the place to be accused of aristocracy. The revolution was not kind to those with wealth and many would have been wise to have taken the same approach to social attention.
"Ne t'inquiète pas," he told her quietly, calming her as he slowly unlaced the corset. Don't worry. "Je ne dis rien." I won't say a word.
Soft, flickering light illuminated her body as the garment eventually slipped off, his worn and weathered hands tracing patterns across her form. She let out a small gasp as his hands found their way down to her hips, relishing in the physical contact that she had lacked for so many years of her life.
"Even if we could get your daughter back, we've got nowhere to hold her," Will pointed out justly, pacing around the metallic lab. "There's nothing that would stop her just blinking back to wherever the hell she came from."
"Silver," Helen muttered, her eyes meeting with Tia's. "Kills all magic but the divine."
Will looked at her and shook his head. "Are you crazy? You tried that already, she just took the locket off."
The librarian broke into a smile as she caught on to the plan that was hatching in the doctor's head. "You want to create a replica of the locket in the form of a cell, right? Infuse the cell lining with the compound which will anchor her here."
"We haven't got time to do that!" Will argued, his arms flapping wildly. "Once you've built a new cell, Baby Evil over there will be married with spawn of his own."
The two women looked at each other and broke out into wide smiles.
"Time is one thing that we do have on our side," said the doctor.
The girl's straight, chocolate brown hair hung lankly over her shoulders. She wore a cheap faux-fur coat over a red, PVC cropped bustier and black denim hot pants. With a sigh that released a cloud of steam into the icy air, she hopped from foot to foot, trying to warm herself; fish-net tights and knee high boots did little to protect from the cold.
The two figures approached the railings where she leaned under the glare of the streetlamp. Cars crawled nearby, now afraid to stop due to the new activity.
"D'you mind? This is my patch," the girl snapped at the blonde, pulling the gum out of her mouth and sticking it to a railing.
Ashley raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips. "Do I look like a prostitute to you? On second thoughts, don't bother."
"Well, I don't do threesomes," the brunette continued, walking towards Ashley, her arms folded across her chest.
"Shame," Ashley told her quietly, circling the girl and looking at the man who accompanied her. "We had great hopes for you."
She stopped directly behind the girl and silently drew her knife, then held it against the prostitute's throat. "Now beg for your life. Go on, beg."
"Will it make any difference?" the girl croaked, Ashley's grip on her strong and unrelenting.
The blonde smirked at her male companion, who watched in silent amusement. "No, but it's more fun."
"I've got a better idea," the prostitute quipped, "Let's take you home to Mom."
The man looked on as the two disappeared in a blinding flash of blue-green light.
Tia jumped off Helen's desk and picked up the tranquiliser gun that was next to her. "This thing loaded?"
"Yes," the doctor replied, thoroughly puzzled by her librarian's sudden reaction. "Why?"
A blue-green flash briefly lit the room. Tia instinctively pulled the trigger and watched as the blonde girl slumped over the brunette's back, the blade clattering to the metal-grated floor.
She set down the gun and sprinted over, pulling Ashley away from the brunette and laying her out on the floor.
"You look like a hooker," she said matter-of-factly to the brunette, without taking her eyes off the girl lying in front of her.
Helen stopped in her tracks and looked at the two of them. "I take it you two know each other," she stated quietly.
"Helen, my daughter, Charlotte," the librarian introduced, "Charlie, this is Doctor Helen Magnus."
The girl eyed Helen with distain and laughed. "Dude, you got OLD."
"Lottie?" the doctor whispered incredulously, as she looked into the girl's eyes and recognised them from times gone by. "You don't look a day over sixteen, but that's…"
"…impossible," Tia finished, standing up from where she had been kneeling. "I seem to remember having a conversation with you once on that very topic."
The doctor shook her head in disbelief as she looked from one to the other. "Bessie? The governess? Miss Smith?" She took a step back as the memories hit her. "Victoria, that was you, and… the woman with the locket? That was you as well!"
Charlotte pulled a face and shrugged off the faux-fur jacket. "Seriously, Mom, who is this chick?"
"My employer, so I would appreciate it if you weren't so crude," Tia shot back.
A puzzled smile played on Helen's face at the bizarre familiarity of the situation in front of her. So many times had she had a similar conversation with her own daughter…. Her daughter.
"What are we going to do about Ashley?" Helen asked sharply, pacing over to her daughter. "We still haven't made any progress on the cell."
Charlotte walked across the office and looked at the blueprint on Helen's desk. "You already have a vial of the compound?"
The doctor nodded silently.
"Then I don't see the problem," She announced simply.
Tia sighed heavily. "It's not that easy, Charlie. I have to work out a way to –"
"Paint," Will contributed. "Just paint the walls. Choose a cell and get on with it. We don't want Ripper Junior going psycho on us."
"Doctor Zimmerman, I would appreciate it if you showed a modicum of social decency," Tia told him curtly, glancing at Helen's blanched face. She walked to Will and placed a hand on his back. "You must understand that Ashley is her weakness. Her one true weakness."
He sat in the flickering candlelight, his eyes blazing as fiercely as the flames which illuminated them. His Queen had been taken from him, right in front of him, and whoever was responsible would die.
There they were, mother and daughter, sat face to face in the silence of the old library. They watched each other's eyes as they focused on the task at hand, the complex nature of the various chemical, theoretical and practical elements threatening to overwhelm their unique gift.
Will stood with Henry, the Sanctuary's weapons expert, watching the women and waiting. Occasionally they would wander around the table, leaning over to inspect the many papers and books that they had between them, marvelling as another tome or item materialised in the pile.
Meanwhile, Helen sat by a pile of pillows and throws, upon which lay her daughter, Ashley. She watched over the girl, occasionally changing the IV drip that fed the blonde a constant supply of tranquilisers.
As Will turned from Helen, a movement caught his eye, alerting him that the librarian was finished. He walked over and the two shared a silent exchange.
The five year old sat in the courtyard of the villa and frowned as her father showed her the notebook. It was a hot day, even in the shade of the various buildings and foliage, and her attention span was dwindling.
"Father, if what you say is true," she told him in Latin, "Then I shall have many years in which to learn the Prophesy."
The man smiled at her sadly. "But few shall be in the company of mentors."
Tiberia tucked a stray curl behind her ear and sighed. She had heard of the Prophecy for as long as she could remember, and had been learning to read for the last two years in order to become fully versed in the scripts. She often longed to play with the other children of Pompeii, running and singing. But it seemed her life was destined for more.
The Butler lay the blonde girl on a bed in the middle of the cell. He stared at her sadly, remembering the many times they had fought side by side in battle. Though he dared not admit it to his mistress, he had little hope for the girl's survival.
He retreated from the bed and waited as Doctor Magnus keyed in the code that sealed the silver lined container, blocking Ashley from view. The sasquatch knew from the set of her jaw, that his employer was battling fiercely with her emotions. She had the same hope as he.
"I am not the daughter whom you seek," she told him quietly, as they sat out on the deck of the ship, panicked passengers around them scrambling for lifeboats as a band played its requiem.
He looked up at the moon and let out a quiet sigh. "In my heart, I always knew it was so. The good doctor would not allow me to find her so quickly."
She watched him from under her wide-brimmed hat, tucking a strand of chocolate brown hair behind her ears. She had grown to know him well over the years, over the centuries, and he was at home in the terror stricken ambience of this moment.
"You know who she is," Druitt stated calmly, quietly.
Charlotte watched as a crazed passenger threw himself overboard. "Her name is Ashley," she told the man. "But she is not yet born."
He nodded and drew a sigh. "In which decade should I find the Magnus child?"
"What does it matter?" Charlotte asked, her eyes narrowed. "You have a family, you have me. I am your daughter as well."
He laughed scornfully and stood, a tower of incomprehensible calm in a scene of chaos and terror. "You are nothing more than a bastard child, created to fulfil a prophecy," he told her, coldly. "You are no more my daughter, than your mother my wife."
"You shall find her a century from now, in an urban civilisation known only as Old City," she told him quietly. "Au revoir, Papa. Until we meet again."
She disappeared in a flash of blue-green light as the two halves of the Titanic snapped, and the ship headed into the final stages of its doomed history.
It was small at first, little more than the gentle rattle of a teacup in its saucer, little more than the tremors created by a train as it rumbled past. Then it grew. The tea sloshed into its saucer, onto the table whereupon it sat, which in turn shook on its four ancient oak legs. Books began to tremble on their shelves, jumping and rocking as the tremors grew into something more significant.
The banisters creaked, glass frames and trinkets smashed as they hit the ground, the first shelf fell, creating a domino effect throughout the old library. The sounds of crashes combined with the distant wailing and distressed calls of Helen's patients as the quake panicked them.
The chaos drowned the senses, in movement, in sight, in sound and in the smell of burning from an undefined source. As Will, Helen and Henry crouched to protect themselves, Tia and the Sasquatch stood unmoving, transfixed.
"He's coming."
In the old trinket shop, the old man Geoffrey cackled with glee as the various globes and porcelain dolls shattered around him.
For years he had cultivated a trusting, working relationship with the Magnus child, and now her unruly daughter. They came to him for help, as he watched the development of the Prophecy, its gradual fulfilment before his observant eyes.
Throughout the decades, he had seen so many Guardians, each with their own purpose, with their own persuasions and liaisons. Tia was harmless, neutral in the battle. She had not received the necessary guidance from her mentors, thanks to their early demise.
But not every Guardian had been so easy to castrate.
A flash of white hot flame illuminated the library as the figure appeared, leaving books, carpets and ceilings scorched in his wake. From the lower part of the library, the inhabitants and employees of the Sanctuary felt the blast of heat rush over them.
As they readjusted to the relative darkness of the library and the blind spots in their vision dissipated, Will, Helen, Henry and Tia stared up to the banister on the upper mezzanine.
"The day has come," he told them in a booming voice, his eyes flashing with the same white-hot rage as his entrance. "You shall all bear witness to the Age of Darkness."
He paused and held out his hand. Ashley appeared by his side, her hand in hand in his, wearing robes of pure white. Her smoky make-up was gone, leaving her with a disquieting aura of purity and calm, so unlike the daughter that Helen knew.
"In the ages to come, you shall bow before me, you shall bow before my Queen and you shall bow before the King of Shadows."
He moved his hand and turned Ashley to face him. With an insane smile on his face, flames blazed in a circle around them as the blonde's hair began to grow, her face began to age, and her belly began to swell.
Mary Elizabeth knew of her family's heritage, of their place in history. She had grown in the tutelage of these facts, in the teaching of her part in the great Prophecy. Her mother had made sure of this.
The regal-looking blonde found it fascinating that the world placed the greater importance on the position of men. After all, it was the women who truly possessed the power, bringing forth generations and nurturing them into being.
It was the women of the world that would protect it from the evil that was to come, it was the women who would bear the saviour, or the destroyer, if not properly nurtured.
Mary rubbed her swollen, pregnant belly and sighed. She would make sure that her child knew of the Prophecy, of the lineage and history. And should her child become the Woman to Bear The One, she would stand by her side, fulfilling her role, safe in the knowledge that she was playing her part in the destiny of the world.
"But silver is impervious to magic," Helen protested, despite the evidence to the contrary.
Tia's eyes were wide and she was shaking her head, fearful of the proceedings. "He's bringing her to term. It's some sort of… inverted time dilation device."
"Where did you pull that from?" Will asked incredulously.
She turned and looked at him, rather surprised. "Oh, just some Sci-Fi show I watch."
The man turned from Ashley, the flames dissipating, and he leaned over the banister, looking at the various people below, a twisted smile playing on his face.
"Truth becomes legend, Doctor Magnus, and in legend the facts become obscured by fantastic stories, invented to dramatise the tale," he told her, as he began to walk down the steps. "Silver possesses incredible power, it is true, but some things…. Some things are older than that power."
"LET MY DAUGHTER GO!" Helen bellowed at him, raising her gun.
Ashley smiled as she moved towards the opposite staircase and descended slowly. "I'm not being held captive, Mother. This is my choice. I am his queen and we shall reign together."
"You're not yourself, Ashley, you don't know what you're talking about," the doctor snapped, her gun still trained on the mysterious figure.
Ashley cackled a cold, harsh laugh that sent shivers down Helen's spine, reminding her so much of John as the insanity took hold.
"I'm more myself now than I've ever been," she scoffed at her mother. "You took it away from me. All my powers, my life, my destiny. You can't control me, Mom."
Helen winced as she heard the echo of John's words. You can't control her forever. "Ashley, please."
"You can't treat me like one of your freaks, you can't help me, I don't want your help," the blonde continued, reaching the bottom of the staircase and rubbing her belly. "Have you ever felt the rush of adrenaline as you've slit someone's throat? The power in the knowledge that you'll never be caught, that you can go wherever you want, do whatever you like? I'm different, I have that power. You can't keep me here, you can't control me."
Will walked up to the man curiously, tilting his head and looking into his eyes. "What I don't understand is why you need her," he said softly. "If you're so powerful… if not even silver can kill you, then why do you need the child in order to rule. There's something missing from the Prophecy."
Geoffrey walked out of the bedroom, his hands and clothes covered with blood. He walked down the corridor towards his colleague's door and knocked on it.
"Come in," the voice sounded.
The doctor walked into the office and nodded quietly. "Congratulations, Gregory. You have a baby girl."
"And Mary?" Doctor Magnus asked anxiously. "How is Mary?"
Geoffrey shook his head. "I'm sorry, Gregory."
She stood on the boat, staring out to sea with tears forming in her eyes. Helen had little doubt that it was John who tipped the papers off regarding "Jill the Ripper", citing London's only female doctor as the Whitechapel Murderer. It was an easy way to ruin her life, make sure that she could never set foot in the city again, whilst taking the attention away from him.
Helen knew now, there was no way she could bring the child to term. Not in this lifetime, not until she could determine that he was gone forever. The bullet had caught him, of that she was certain. But evidently not enough to kill him. Just enough to infuriate him into exacting revenge.
"You are a contradiction, child," the demon told Tia, approaching her and brushing her face with his hand. "You possess knowledge and insight despite your lack of training, and you have borne the burden well." He leered down at her. "Without you, none of this would have been possible."
Tia turned her face away, her jaw clenched in anger. "I tried to educate her, that's all."
"You wanted informed choice, you didn't want to force either path upon her," laughed the man scornfully. "I have acknowledged your knowledge and resourcefulness, but it is in your naivety, you have brought the Prophecy to term."
"You're dying," the woman remarked quietly, looking into his eyes. "Your life force is tethered to the child's. Without it, you, and all evil like you, will cease to exist."
As a painful noise, a shriek crossed with a groan, cut through the library, the demon laughed once more.
"It is no longer of importance. You are too late."
Mary Elizabeth gasped as the contractions came more frequently. But she had to focus through the pain. She knew that secrets had been lost through the ages, that His agents had destroyed the Guardians that bore them, so now it was up to her to preserve it, for childbirth was dangerous and unpredictable. Ironically, it was the contractions that revealed the answer to her.
"Mrs Magnus, you should be resting," a man's voice told her. "You should not be looking to correspond at such a time."
Mary bit her lip as she recognised the voice that spoke. She tried to keep her voice steady and thanked the Lord that she had contractions as an excuse for her failure.
"Geoffrey," she said quietly. "I take it my husband has requested your presence."
"As the presiding doctor," he told her, as he approached from behind. "Quite convenient, wouldn't you say?"
"I know who you are," the woman replied. "And I know that you need me."
The old man laughed and shook his head. "Now, that's where you are wrong, Mrs Magnus. I do not need you at all."
He unrolled his surgeon's tools and leered unpleasantly. Picking up a scalpel, he allowed it to glimmer in the light a moment too long, giving Mary chance to seize her letter opener and jab into his leg. She hurried for the door, finding it locked and then another contraction hit her.
She screamed loudly as the pain ripped through her, but the pain turned to a gurgle as she choked on her own blood, as the scalpel tore through her throat.
Her dark hair concealing her face, Victoria stroked the parchment in her hands. She didn't want to do this, she knew how it would affect the doctor, but if Magnus was forced to flee the country, it would delay the child's birth, perhaps even prevent it.
She needed more time, time to find the answers. How to stop it. What was the tool of salvation mentioned in the ancient texts? She thought that two thousand years would be enough, but she was still as lost as the day she sailed away from the bay of Naples.
With a resigned sigh, she slipped the letter through the door, the letter that would change Helen's life forever.
"Childbirth," Helen gasped as her daughter doubled over. "That's the only way, the time before stillness and life. You can't kill it, so you stop it being alive."
"But how? How do we stop it?" Henry asked in confusion.
Will blinked. "Alcohol? We could delay it perhaps."
"Not delay," Charlotte chipped in. "We need to stop this." She turned to Helen, and the doctor saw the sadness in her eyes. "I've seen the future. It's not pretty."
The streets of Old City were dark. They always had been. But more disturbing, perhaps, was the darkness in New City. The glass pyramid stood dull, window panes shattered, small fires illuminating the lower levels. In the streets, cars lay burnt out and abandoned, and rotting corpses littered the ground.
Charlotte walked the streets, shuddering at the sights and smells that surrounded her. She stopped at the entrance to the subway and descended the steps with a death grip on her side arm.
A newspaper lay in the corridor, with a recent date on the masthead. It recounted stories of chaos, of pure evil and hatred, accompanied by pictures that made the girl sick to the stomach.
Evil was not a demon, not a single deed, it was human nature allowed to run wild.
As the screams intensified, Helen winced at her daughter's pain. If only they could get it out.
Get it out.
An image formed in Helen's mind, one of John's arm appearing through her butler's stomach. If only he was there now, if only they could…
"Charlotte," she whispered, ensuring that they went unnoticed whilst the demon's attention was focused on Ashley. "I need your help."
Another guttural scream ripped out of Ashley's throat as a flash of blue-green light illuminated the room. The demon's scream joined his Queen's as Charlotte appeared behind Ashley, her hand within her body for a split second before she flashed out once more.
The demon twisted in screams of agony, curling up, as Ashley slumped to the floor. Helen raced to her daughter's side, applying pressure to the wound, barely noticing as the man beside them burst into flame and turned to ash.
"The tools of salvation," Tia murmured gently, a tear rolling down her cheek.
Just off the coast of Italy, a group of fishermen found two bodies floating in the water, one of a brown haired woman and a new born baby. They did not understand the message they found on the body, not because it was in English, but because it made no sense.
"The fires have been quelled."
Tia stood with her duffel bag over her shoulder, hands shoved awkwardly in the pockets of her jeans. She stood in front of Magnus' desk, with the women looking at her shrewdly, like a school teacher.
"It is a great loss, Miss Alba," Helen told her softly. "You have done much for this establishment. And more for my family. For that, I am truly grateful."
Tia nodded and smiled. "Thank you for your hospitality, Doctor Magnus, even in the times that you doubted me."
Helen stood and began to walk with her former librarian. The two of them looked silently into Ashley's cell.
"I wish I could find a way to cure her," the doctor lamented, watching the still body of her sedated daughter.
Tia placed a hand on the woman's shoulder. "Perhaps you should stop looking."
Helen stared as the smaller woman walked towards the elevator. She wanted to question, but knew that no reply would be forthcoming.
"One more thing," she called after the mysterious woman.
Tia stopped and turned, a discrete smile playing on her face.
"Who are you?" she asked.
The librarian laughed. "Ever the same question, Helen."
The doctor watched as Tia disappeared into the shadows.
It was almost three weeks later that Helen found it on her desk. A plain, manila envelope. She slid a letter opener under the flap, a tool that once belonged to her mother. Sliding the documents out, she saw that they were medical files. Incredibly detailed ones, accompanied by a letter.
Dear Doctor Magnus,
My daughter Charlotte has been kind enough to deliver these documents. I hope that they will help you in the treatment of your own child.
You may wonder how it is possible for Charlotte to grant such a favour, but the beauty of her gift is that I shall never truly lose her. She will always pop up in the most unexpected places.
My only hope is that your daughter's power grants you the same gift. Don't look for the cure, Helen. It is a gift, not a curse.
Yours,
T. Iunia Pom. Alba Victoria
The doctor gasped in realisation. Charlotte had been the answer to the puzzle. The girl had the power, but lacked the insanity. As she read the files, Helen discovered the varying dopamine levels, that jumping through time and space prevented the creation of basic neurotransmitters.
With an adjusted diet and regular boosters, Ashley could retain her gift without the side effects. Don't look for a cure. Helen knew the benefits of having Ashley's power on their side. It wasn't insanity, it never had been. That had just been the assumption of a woman looking through 19th Century eyes.
Tia had been right. It was time to stop living in the past.