Chapter 21 – The Pigeon Call
~~~~Paris Sanctuary~~~~
Will peeled the medical gloves off and looked at Pierre who had a puzzled expression on his face.
They had searched every inch of Dorian's body and found nothing; it was just like he had been dead for years.
Will wondered how Nikola could've done this, but of course, "Professor Hidden Agenda" was good at keeping people guessing.
All the unknown properties of this case sent Will's mind in a frenzy.
He suddenly heard his phone bleep and he took it out of his jean's pocket.
His eyes widened as he read the message he had received.
"Pierre, call Magnus, I think she'll want to see this!"
Pierre nodded his head; he learned long ago not to ask questions when something urgent came up.
He went to the Sanctuary wide intercom system and called for Magnus and Jacques.
A few minutes later they came running in, nearly out of breath, the rest of the team shortly behind them.
"What's the news Will?" asked Henry.
"I got this message, not too long ago, from your cell phone Henry, can you explain?" said Will, handing Henry the phone.
"Uhh, no, it's not from me…in fact…I don't even know where mine is…" Henry patted down the usual places he stored his phone. He found a quarter and a tissue; useful for MacGyver, not useful in this particular situation.
Will smirked.
"I didn't think so," he looked at Magnus.
"You think Nikola did this?" asked Helen, her eyebrow quirking almost in disbelief.
"He's not completely gone yet, Magnus, I know Henry had his phone when we left EscCor, so I doubt it's a trap to lure us into an ambush, our best bet is that Nikola stole the phone before leaving to find the location of EscCor's secret base, putting his talents and bloodthirst into practical use!" Will smiled proudly at his deductive reasoning.
"Nikola hasn't been back since he escaped last night, I would know!" Helen said shaking her head.
"Helen, you know Tesla is smart enough to go unnoticed, especially if he didn't want to be! I tell you he has a plan, and the reason he sent us this text message is because he needs us!" cried Will ecstatically.
"You don't know that Will! He might be so far gone that he is luring us to this location to kill us all! We have no idea what's going on in that mind of his!" Helen crossed her arms; her eyes brimmed with sadness. "As much as I'd like to believe that Nikola is on the other end asking for help, it's just not adding up."
"Well, we at least have to try!" said Will, glaring hard at Magnus.
She finally exhaled in defeat.
"You're right, we can't lose faith in Nikola just yet."
~~~~EscCor Underground Facility~~~~
Laura Mongrove stared in wild excitement at the troop of small homemade soldiers standing in formation.
The miracle of genetic engineering and advanced DNA splicing allowed the advanced military training and skill to be already ingrained into their little heads, it was like 'Army In A Can.'
The looked no more than 12 or 13, all of them male, they made inhuman clicking noises in the back of their throats, like an engine revving up, they were just waiting for the green light.
Laura examined every one of them with her highly observant eyes.
Each one was perfect, and in time would grow to full capacity and be even more vicious, cunning, and skilled. A perfect unnamed, unloved, unmissed soldier, born a soldier, designed a soldier. A soldier for her cause.
These were to be the peacemakers of society, a veritable pool of different genes, different DNA all accumulated, grown and harvested for the greater good.
EscCor had nearly cleaned out sperm banks from Europe to America in pursuit of this achievement.
Some would argue that making one and cloning it a hundred times would be easier, but with the high level of uncertainty with cloning Laura couldn't risk it, she needed each one to be perfect and flawless.
Jeffries and his team had created the perfect army; an army that with one fell swoop could dessimate every military branch in the world; an army that would never see the bloodshed of the battlefield.
She smiled proudly at her soldiers. This was only the first batch, but she was pleased with the results.
She turned from them and strode over to Jeffries.
"Well done, Jeffries, you've done very well," she clapped a hand on his shoulder. Finally things were going her way.
"Thank you m'am, but don't get to excited yet. We've lost contact with the guards, and we've also lost camera feeds, something tells me that our missing patron, Mister Dorian, may have been found by a certain Dr. Magnus," Jeffries gulped nervously, as in his nature.
"Why was I not notified sooner?" Laura growled fiercely.
"I don't know, I was just informed myself!" he panicked, his body tensing.
"Send out the troop, call it a test run, I want them to bring me any unauthorized personnel!" Laura spat angrily and Jeffries nodded sending out the command to the troop.
They silently stalked out, like a lion hunting for a lonely gazelle.
The only sound coming from them was the animalistic clicking sound they made.
Laura clenched a fist as she watched them.
She was not going to be brought down again, she had an appointment with the UN in 24 hours, and by heaven, she was going to keep it.
~~~~Elsewhere~~~~
"Do the pigeons talk to you?..."
Nikola stopped walking for a moment, pressing a hand to his forehead. He had been ignoring the pain to the best of his ability since he had left the Sanctuary, but sometimes it threatened to overpower him. No man was meant to have 2 litres of source blood pumped into his veins, you'd be better off dumping a pound of cocaine in there; a weaker man would roll over and die, but Nikola, being who he was, was not a weak man.
Nonetheless, the source blood was taking it's toll on him.
He shook his head and kept going, stumbling slightly, but determined anyway.
He couldn't stop thinking of her, ever since this whole thing started, ever since the source blood entered his veins he couldn't stop thinking of her, of everything they had gone through together, every memory of her kept flashing in his mind. It went from their early days at Oxford to their heated passion nearly days ago. It was torture to him. Like his brain was trying to torture his heart slowly.
Even now, he was still thinking of her, perhaps he never stopped thinking of her.
~~~~Puerto Rico 2002~~~~
Ashley Magnus sat in the back of the taxi clutching her bag to her.
She was not overly nervous, as a 16 year old, her childhood couldn't exactly be considered normal; she had been around the stuff of nightmares since she was old enough to walk. Her mother had taken her to the most dangerous regions of Mumbai when she was 12. As a birthday present when she turned 14 she had gotten her own gun. But this was the first time she was on her own, really, and it was her mother that needed saving.
That was why she was riding a taxi in the middle of downtown Puerto Rico.
The Sanctuary had gotten a tip off from a contact that her mother was being held here and she nearly ran out of the Sanctuary life a freed jailbird.
The same contact gave her the address of someone, in Puerto Rico, that was an old friend of her mother, a Javor Dragoslav.
The name brought up no results in the database, in fact there were no legal records of a Javor Dragoslav in any database, so this 'friend' of her mothers was almost to sketchy to risk it.
But she had, and she was prepared for the worst.
Henry, since he was 19 and had his driver's license, became her accomplice in the mission, and was keeping Big Guy out of the loop as best as he could.
Whatever psycho had her mother, she didn't want to have to put the rest of the team in danger.
The cab stopped in front of a nice hotel, beach side and she paid him while scooting out of the taxi, her bag, backpack, and gun in hand. She double-checked the address and then went inside the air-conditioned building.
Ashley walked cautiously over to the main desk.
"Hello miss, can I help you?" asked the manager with a smile.
"Um, yes, I'm looking for someone, he's supposed to be staying here, a Javor Dragoslav," she showed him the scrap of paper she had written the name on.
He looked at it.
"Yes, Mr. Dragoslav is here, may I ask who you are?" said the manager.
"I'm a daughter of an old friend of his," she said and he nodded walking out from behind the desk and waving her to follow him to the outdoor, beach front bar.
He stopped her and she examined all the men, and women, luxuriating in the shade of the bar's canopy. There was a group of heft businessmen sitting, drinking scotch and martinis, a very tanned woman clad in a very small bikini sipping a cocktail and flirting with the bartender, a couple on their honeymoon making moon eyes at each other, and a lone man, in the back, his face hidden by the days newspaper, a glass of red wine on the table in front of him.
The manager walked straight over to him and whispered into his ear.
The manager came back to her.
"Come this way, he says he's been expecting you," Ashley looked at the man suspiciously but followed anyway.
"Madame meet Javor Dragoslav," said the manager politely before taking his leave.
The stranger put down the newspaper and looked at her with very inquisitive blue-grey eyes. She looked back at him with just as much scrutiny.
"You look just like her, you know," he said finally, retrieving his wine glass and sipping it.
"And who's that?" she said, still gazing at him.
"Your mother, Dr. Helen Magnus, of course, I couldn't mistake it," he gave her a cheeky grin.
"For a guy named Javor you don't have much of an accent," Ashley observed him, he was peculiar, unlike the bikini and speedo clad Hawaiian shirt wearing tourists sitting on the same beach as him he was dressed in a crisp white cotton shirt and dark dress pants with a black vest unbuttoned. His hair was a dark brown with a cowlick at the front. And for someone vacationing in such a beautiful location his face was cleanly shaven, she could smell the aftershave; he looked like he had just gotten back from a huge business meeting and hadn't cared to change into his beachwear.
"Well when you travel enough, my dear, you tend to lose your accent," he said with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
"You know my mother then?" she said changing the subject.
"Yes, we are very old friends," he said calling over the waitress.
"You can't be more than your late 30's," Ashley scoffed.
"Yes, well, like your mother, I'm not as young as I look, chalk it up to health and a good moisturizer," he smiles at the waitress. "Another wine for me Isabella, and a sangria for the girl?" he looked at her with a big cheeky grin, and Ashley felt the incessant urge to slap him.
"Just water, please," said Ashley, glaring at the man.
The waitress nodded and walked away.
"Conservative, so very Helen, I like it," he leered at her and she crossed her arms at him.
"You said you know where my mother is?" she asked, growing impatient with him.
"Yes, she has found herself in the hands of local drug overlord Richter Von Hagen, and if you're thinking he sounds like a pasty white fat man, you couldn't be more right, he's just as fat as he is ugly and he's responsible for a certain drug cartel in these parts, selling exclusively to abnormals. Why? Who knows, he's kinky that way," Javor slides a picture across the table to her.
He was indeed in need of a diet.
"What does he want with her?" she asked.
"He wants her, that's the problem, aside from being an unsightly overweight and unattractive man, he is also delusional, he wants gold, power, and beautiful women, my sources tell me that she is being brainwashed into being his little belly dancer," the waitress comes over with their drinks and sets them on the table.
"So you're saying Fat Albert is trying to turn my mom into his own personal stripper," Ashley asks incredulously.
"Yes, believe it or not, you can't deny his good taste," Javor smirked again.
"Why would he do that?" she glares at him.
"For power, for control over the Sanctuary Network, I don't know, maybe he just wants a really good lap dance, all I know is that he's not going to get it from Helen, not if I can help it," Javor took a swig of his wine.
"And why do you care so much? I don't even know if my mom actually knows you, let alone trusts you, what is your proof?" she glared at him coldly and he let out a sigh.
"I thought you were going to ask me that eventually," he reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a worn old picture and showed it to her.
She looked at the photo intently.
"Where is this?" she lifted it up to look at it more closely.
"London, 1938, I was riding out the depression for a few months, I was in quite a lot of debt at the time, she and I were very good friends back then, this was before World War II, we'd actually known each other a long time, shared lots together, we had that taken at a small fair just out of town, the night before I went back to America," he smiled fondly at the memory.
"Was that the last time you saw her?" asked Ashley, they seemed so happy in the photo, she could just imagine her mother's laugh.
"No, I saw her a few years later, we had a bitter reunion, I had done something she wasn't quite happy with, we haven't spoken since, regrettably," he looked down sadly.
"A-are you-"
"No, I'm not," he interrupted her, as if her had read her mind. "Just a friend is all I am, nothing more."
She sighed and handed the photo back to him.
"You care for her though, don't you?" she looked directly into his eyes.
"Yes, very much," he had sincerity in his eyes and in that moment Ashley decided to trust him.
"What's your plan?" she looked at him and he smiled his irritating smile again.
"I'll tell you, but first you must promise me one thing," he leaned closer to her, his elbows resting on the table.
"What?" she leaned in as well.
"You mustn't tell Helen I was ever apart of it…"
~~~~Present~~~~
Nikola made his way silently through the underground facility, his mind racing and his ears pounding with the sound of wings.
Fludda-tut-tut-ta
Fludda-tut-tut-ta
Fludda-tut-tut-ta
He muttered as he went along, one word, almost incomprehensible, even to himself.
"Pigeons…pigeons…"