"Hello?"
"Pogue, I figured out where Chase has Maddie, its in her house in London. I think I can find a way to get there soon, but its really risky and I wanted to let you know and-"
"Tyler?"
The voice was familiar, although not Pogue's. It sounded older, more tired, and it cracked a bit at the end of the single word it spoke.
"Tyler, I'm really sorry." Caleb said sadly. "But I really have to do this. Its for the good of everyone." He hung up and the dial tone rang aimlessly for a long time before Tyler assimilated the fact that Caleb now knew where Maddie was and was on his way to kill her.
"Shit!" he swore, and threw his phone against the wall. It shattered, and Tyler ran his hands through his dark hair. "Shit, shit, shit, shit." He groaned. He kept messing up more and more, now two people were out to kill Maddie. The only solution was to get to her before either of them did.
"Ok. Lets do this."
He paced around the parking lot for a minute wondering how the hell he was supposed to teleport to London. He thought back to his childhood when he read books about the supernatural and heroes that would save the world with their gifts. He remembered vaguely one story where a girl was trying to teach a boy to teleport properly.
Close your eyes. Concentrate on the place you want to go. Release power, just a little to start and make it more and more intense. When you feel you've done something, open your eyes.
Tyler closed his eyes. He concentrated on the only specific place he knew in London, Big Ben, the clock in the middle of the city. He concentrated hard, and started slowly releasing a flow of power. He kept intensifying it, still concentrating on getting himself to London England, until it reached his maximum. He stopped the flow, and opened his eyes.
"Shit." He swore, and kicked his truck. He was still in the parking lot, nothing had changed.
He tried recalling more of the book, but nothing came to him. He tried again.
He closed his eyes, concentrated really hard on the clock, and started releasing power. Still concentrating on Big Ben, his mind slowly drifted to thoughts of Maddie and his insane desire to save her. He eventually forgot what he was doing, until he felt suddenly really cold and heard a loud honk and people screaming. He opened his eyes with a start, and barely managed to jump out of the way of a car that was zooming towards him. He slipped in a puddle and fell onto the sidewalk, hitting his head against the building behind him. He looked up, and stared at the clock that told him that it was 4 am.
"What the devil were you thinking! Crazy kid…" The driver that had nearly run him over screamed from his car.
Tyler just sat there, agape, amazed at his teleportation and how fast he had gotten here. He tried standing after a minute and almost immediately his knees buckled and he fell again. It was then that he realized how weak he was.
He stumbled to his feet with help from a bench, and sat down on it, completely exhausted. He observed the ongoing traffic for a moment before unfolding the piece of paper from his pocket and reading the address on it.
"S'cuse me." He intercepted a passing man. "Could you tell me where… Romeo street is?"
"Romeo street? Well kiddo before finding that one you need to find Juliet boulevard!" He laughed crazily and walked away. Tyler watched him walk away, then tried again.
"Excuse me, ma'am, do you happen to know where Romeo street is?" he asked a nice-looking old lady that was walking by.
"Why yes, I do. My daughter used to live on that street." She smiled. "You just follow this street until you reach Martin boulevard. Then you walk two blocks and turn right."
"Thank you so much." He said. "Can I help you carry those bags?" he asked, motioning to the grocery bags she was carrying.
"That would be nice, thank you." She smiled a wrinkly, kind smile. Tyler picked up the three bags. "I have my car parked at the next block." She said. "it isn't far."
They walked slowly, Tyler attempting to make small talk to have something else to concentrate on than the pain and his weakness.
"You said your daughter used to live there? On Romeo street?"
"Yes, she did. She met her future husband at the park on that street when she was fifteen. Ten years later they were married, with a baby on the way." She smiled sadly. "That was before everything fell apart. She passed away a few years ago, and my son-in-law moved away with my granddaughter. I would very much love to see her again, she looked so much like her mother… What brings you to this neighborhood? You don't sound English to me."
"I'm not, I'm on…. Uh vacation," he stammered. The old lady didn't look convinced, but she didn't ask him for more. "…and I have to meet a friend somewhere… on Romeo street."
"Whatever your secret is, don't let it harm you." The lady said with a sly smile. "This is my car." She opened the trunk of the car carefully. Tyler put the bags in it. "Thank you, young man. I hope your friend is ok."
"Yeah, me too."
13 Romeo street had nothing romantic about it. It didn't seem like the dreamy, castle-like childhood home he had imagined it to be. It was huge, certainly, but the outside was completely made of geometrical shapes, with sharp corners and huge modern shiny windows. It looked more like a spaceship than a house. It wasn't until Tyler noticed the gaping hole where the back door should be (the front was locked, and he didn't feel like using pointlessly) that he suspected anything was wrong.
The door was literally missing. There were shards of wood stuck in bushes nearby, in a tree, on the ground and a few in the walls of the house, but no door. The hinges were still there, burnt, twisted and deformed. The hole was person-sized, clearly whoever made it didn't feel like bothering to unlock the door.
He stepped inside carefully, walking over a few larger chunks of wood, and passed through a modern hallway, a super-equipped kitchen and up a marble staircase. Halfway up he gagged and almost fell backwards.
Sprawled in the middle of the steps was a woman, her body twisted in the most unnatural way possible, her hair a mess, her face contorted in utter horror, blood still dripping from a hole in her chest. There were bloody footprints leading to another corpse, a middle aged man lying on his stomach, in a crawling position, his head hacked off. A large blood pool was forming mid-waist, and two clear sets of prints were visible in them. They continued into the hall of the second floor, where one set shrunk and separated from the second with larger strides, then the other person caught up and the second set disappeared completely.
Maddie tried to run. He thought.
Tyler walked through the hall, not worrying about anything but Maddie until he heard a creaking sound under his feet. He stopped walking, looked down, and noticed that the cold marble floor had transformed into old wooden floor-boards halfway through the hall. He looked up and around, and noticed that the paint on the walls had changed into wallpaper, the ceiling had changed color and a new set of people were grinning back at him from the photographs on the wall. The lights had dimmed and, if he wasn't mistaken, the hall went from smelling like fresh blood and metal to cinnamon incense.
Another creak behind him made Tyler turn around. With a flash Caleb had grabbed his hand with his right, covered his mouth with his left and immobilized him completely. Tyler swore into the leather of his gloves, which came out as an inaudible muffle. He tried kicking, squirming, fighting his way out of Caleb's grip but it was useless. Caleb shoved him silently against a wall, tying Tyler's hands together with some wire he had brought. After sufficiently gagging him with a few hankerchiefs and solidifying the bonds with power-infused tape and wire he let Tyler fall to the floor with a thump.
"I'm sorry Tyler." He said grimly, before heading off towards the end of the hall. Tyler squirmed and tried to free himself of the bonds, failing, and instead losing his balance and toppling over, his head landing in a pile of someone else's blood. He could feel the liquid seep through his hair and shuddered. He tried to pull himself up, barely managing to lean against the wall.