Chapter 37

'I've got my sights set on you and I'm ready to aim...'

The fragment of song cut off before it could recite anymore of its lyrics. It was the third time the fragment had played like that and it was beginning to get to Kashmana. It wasn't that his patience was too thin to put up with it, if anything the opposite was true, most of the time. He just knew what music meant. Or rather, what it could mean.

'I've got my sights set on you...'

The music sounded again, making him grit his teeth tightly together. Every note of it grating through him now, making his temples throb with annoyance.

'You know you can say it, don't you?'

'Say what exactly,' he shot her a look.

'The music, you wanna know what it's lined with.'

'What makes you think I think it's lined with anything?'

'The little throbbing vain in your temple only turns that colour when you're encountering a subsonic source.'

'What colour,' he began rubbing his forehead self-consciously, 'and, for that matter, what vain?'

'Oh come on Kash, you know what I mean.'

'Yeah well…'

'I've got my sights set on you...'

'Okay then,' he growled in frustration, 'enlighten me, what is it lined with?'

'It's your third Y chromosome that does it you know,' she smirked, almost deliberately not answering him as she did. 'It makes you sensitive to subliminal vibrations.'

'But what is it?'

'Don't you mean what is it trying to do?'

'Stop being difficult little bit,' Kashmana rolled his eyes, 'just tell me what you know I want to know.'

'I've got my sights set on you and I'm ready to aim...'

'I will when I feel like it,' she shrugged, 'right now I'm enjoying that throbbing in your temple.'

'Great,' he rolled his eyes, 'well at least I know it has something to do with that then.'

'With what?'

'Your arrogance.'

'What?'

'Oh don't act so clueless,' he narrowed his gaze on her, 'you may not be the most arrogant of the three, but you all suffer from it. Whenever things work the way you want it to work you get all arrogant about it. Which means something in this music we're listening to must be bringing out the worst in you.'

'That probably makes the least amount of sense of anything you've ever said.'

'I know what connects you and music remember?'

'Oh do you now,' she gave him a more than sly look, 'and what would that be exactly.'

'You have Nymph blood, at least one kind and I may not know for sure which one of you got portions of which blood, but I'm pretty sure all of you got a little bit of Neffer blood. And Neffer Nymphs have the strongest connection to music of all the Nymphs. It gives them energy in a way it doesn't with anyone else.'

'Music gives everyone energy once you know how to tap into it,' she rolled her eyes. 'But you are right, for some reason Neffer blood is one of the few types all three of us share.'

'You'd think a guy like him wouldn't take any chances,' Kashmana folded his arms, 'creating you to different formulas makes you very different Power Limitless beings, no matter how good you are at acting like each other people would eventually twig there was more than one of you.'

'I've often wondered about that,' she lowered her head slightly, 'it's one of the points which could swing my belief in him either way.'

'I know…'

Before he could get any further through his sentence, the girl he knew to be Kasey appeared in front of them.

'I've got my sights set on you,' Kasey's face pulled with a weird smile, 'and I'm ready to aim.'

'So you're the one behind the music then,' Kashmana shot at her. 'Well stop it; there are people who are worried about you back home. You need to go to them.'

'When the dust is settled, will you make it home,' the girl's words were almost numb, as the area around them melted into a school playground. 'Our days are numbered. Our days have flown.'

'Stop it,' his Power Limitless companions sharply flung her arms out from her chest.

Almost automatically her outfit changed into a grey girl's pinafore with short sleeve white under blouse, virgin white socks and white sandals. To his amazement Kasey also changed into the same outfit, as the ground around them began to blister and crack.

'You're using powers that are not meant for you,' her gaze met with Kasey's. 'You're playing games you shouldn't be playing.'

'When the dust is settled, will you make it home?'

'Kasey,' she tried again, as the buildings around them began to crumble violently, 'you know this is wrong.'

'I'm not a mind reader, but I'm reading the signs,' Kasey seemed to be almost adlibbing now.

'Kasey, this isn't a nightmare you want to create,' she remained calm, as the ground below them began to shake. 'Jack is just manipulating you, please, learn to control yourself.'

'Who's Jack,' Kasey dropped all pretences of trying to sing now.

'The one who's telling you to do this.'

'Liar, he's not the one taking care of me. You're lying. Everybody is just a bunch of liars.'

'What do you mean he's not the one? Of course he's the one. Tall guy, with dark hair, always wears white suits. Jack.'

'He was right, everybody lies because they're stupid,' she shrugged and shook her head. 'He told me that's the reason you all lie and he was right. The one who looks after me has white hair and likes clothes which are dark.'

'What?' She stared at Kasey in confusion. 'But… then how are you able to do all this? The one who's showing you how has to be Jack, this is his power you're copying; you have to know that.'

'Nu-uh, it's his friend's power. He said his friend doesn't mind, because they both wanna help me.'

'Help you with what, exactly?' Kashmana was the one to ask the question.

'Punish you all for killing them.'

'Killing who?'

'Mummy, the Teen and Daddy. You killed them. All of you. You all killed them and you all need to be punished.'

'Is that what Jack told you?'

'I told you; I don't know anyone called Jack. The one who looks after me told me.'

'And you trusted him,' Kashmana couldn't help but gawk, 'you didn't even know him.'

'He said he was a friend of the Teen.'

'And you believed him?'

'You have no right to question what I believe,' Kasey glared at him. 'I know it was you and Mai who killed them, whilst everyone else just watched.'

'The Teen isn't dead, he just became Veronie again,' Kashmana sighed heavily, 'and your Mummy's definitely alive.'

'Liar!'

'He's not lying,' his companion shook her head. 'Look at me, would I lie to you? Don't I look like your Mummy?'

'He told me what you are,' she shook her head, 'a mimic and a liar. You're the worst of the lot of them.'

'I'm not,' she violently clapped her hands together, automatically snapping the scene around them back to Giya, 'but I am still more powerful than you are. Be careful.'

'And you,' Kasey cocked her head strangely, as she disappeared, 'because when he finds out, you'll be sorry.'