Chapter 4
John and Ashley sat across from each other in their almost deserted, eerie netherworld, solemnly contemplating their strange existence.
"What were you going to do? Just stay here?" Druitt asked her.
"Of course not," Ashley was indignant. "I'm not even here that much, I go and find Mom, except when I'm too tired. That's why I've been working on the energy manipulation thing."
"Tell me what you've found."
"OK," she said excitedly, happy to finally have someone to tell her discovery to. "Here it is. The Five, five people, five very different personalities. What if the power from the source blood adapted itself to suit those personalities? Walker wanted to disappear, Uncle James wanted to know everything, Tesla... there's no excuse for him," she smirked. "No, OK, he wanted it to be grand, Mom wanted enough time to complete all the work she had to do. Oh wow."
"What?" John was finding it an interesting experience trying to keep up with Ashley's ever changing thought process.
"What if all the abilities of the five are variations on a theme, all an aspect of energy manipulation. What if Mom's power isn't longevity?"
"Ashley she's 157, what else could it possibly be?"
"She's 158," she reminded him. "She could be sort of stuck... at a particular moment in time, her body hasn't moved from that moment."
"You mean, when she took the blood?"
"Or something more traumatic," she appraised the man in front of her. "Like the second you broke her heart." He looked as though she had just slapped him in the face but she pressed on with her rambling thoughts. "Then there's you. You wanted..." she looked at him expectantly, not knowing him well enough to figure it out yet. "What did you want?"
He took a moment to compose himself and found himself strangely able to confess the truth.
"To be free," he replied with a whisper. "When we took the blood I was in a difficult period of my life. I was struggling with work and with my family, I was scared of the depression I could feel creeping up on me. My mother was institutionalised for madness, my grandmother killed herself and I was terrified it would happen to me. I just wanted to get away, to be free." He laughed bitterly. "The other four were able to adapt and master their powers, all I managed was to release my darkest side and go on a killing spree."
Ashley leaned over and took his hands in hers, he stared down at the human contact. She looked determined as she said, "If you get me home, I'll get you home."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I'll master this power if it's the last thing I do. Then, I should theoretically be able to get that ripper thing out. It is energy after all."
"Ashley," his expression said he didn't think that was likely.
"We are going home together," she said. "It wasn't your fault. I saw you in the Sanctuary free from the creature. I saw you and Mom in the cell. Couldn't you hear me screaming at you? That was before I realised what had happened and I thought it was the other you. Are you even listening to me?"
He was staring right past her unseeing, his mind revisiting violent memories.
"We are going home." Ashley brought him out of his reverie. "I will do this," she promised him, looking him straight in the eye. "I can do this."
He leaned over and touched her cheek with his hand. "It's OK," he said, shaking his head sadly, she didn't have to promise him the impossible.
Feeling his despair and sadness in the unuttered emotion she could see in his eyes, she offered him hope. Evidence of her newfound abilities, her latest party trick.
"Watch, I'll show you what I can do. For the last time I am telling you, your power is not teleporting. That's only the extreme end of it. If you knew what it was and could use it properly, you could do this."
She held out her right arm and slowed her breathing focusing her attention on her arm. It turned invisible. She gasped for breath and it turned visible again.
"See," she grinned. "Or not to see."
"How did you do that?" he asked in astonishment.
"I just focus and as you told me once, think. It needs a lot of work but I'm getting better at it, I could only do a finger before." She gripped his hands tightly. "Now this one's somehow easier. Close your eyes and follow me."
"Follow you where?"
"Just follow me."
He closed his eyes and the grey mist faded away he could see himself and Ashley standing on the rocky ground, she turned and smirked at him, took his hand and made him follow her. She ran to the edge of a sheer rock face and jumped, pulling him with her. They fell faster than he believed possible and flew through thick cloud, still holding on to each other. Gradually they slowed in the air until he took further note of his surroundings and saw they were at the base of a mountain.
"Where are we?"
"I don't know, I guess Mom must be nearby."
Their surroundings were surreal like a dreamscape, sounds were muffled echoes and everything but that which they were looking at directly was blurred like tunnel vision.
"There's someone there!" Druitt pointed towards six Cabal agents running into a cave in the cliff face. "Cabal," he hissed.
"They can't hear you," explained Ashley. "They can't see you, hear you or feel you. I've tried everything."
They followed the agents through a door leading into a tunnel carved into the mountainside. As they turned a corner twenty Cabal agents ran toward them and Druitt paused in shock as they ran right through him.
"This way," said Ashley, unfazed by the ethereal goings on and grabbed his hand dragging him through a rock wall and into a huge underground cavern. The massive space could fit a jumbo jet in easily and was lit with huge spotlights and full of a variety of Cabal-black™ vehicles. Around thirty Cabal agents stood in a circle in the centre of the cavern. In the centre of that circle with their hands in the air were Magnus and Henry.
Furiously, Ashley ran through the troops and stood next to her mother.
"Mom!" No one batted an eyelid or acknowledged her presence. "Get the hell away from her," she snarled at the Cabal Lieutenant who was stepping forward from the others and addressing the prisoners.
As Ashley raged at the oblivious Cabal operative John did all he could and observed the scene. They were helpless here but the power to get the both of them out of this world and back to the land of the living where they were needed, where he hoped he was needed was within his grasp. He just had to pay the toll.
"Times up Ashley, lets go." Druitt grabbed her arm and pulled her away. "We have to get back to our bodies and find out how to get here."
She didn't take her eyes off her mother or stop swearing at the Cabal as he dragged her backwards through the rock and out into the daylight.
"How do we get back?"
"Just wake up," she muttered, her jaw clenched with frustration.
Druitt held on to her shoulders and tried to wake himself as though from a dream. His eyes opened and he looked up at the ever present creature rampaging about the unseen sky. Ashley was glaring at him with an angry and somehow at the same time despondent look about her.
"If I teleported in, I can teleport out," he said, not sounding very convincing.
"What about that thing?" Ashley nodded towards the creature running amok in the skies above.
"I suspect it will come along for the ride, as it were."
"There has to be a way to leave it here."
"I must get you home. If that's the price I have to pay, so be it. We have to teleport out. If I teleport that thing will be back along for the ride. This new idea, that it's not just teleporting, I think I'll be able to do something with that. Not yet, maybe not for a while but until then I have to back to that prison."
Ashley vowed ferociously. "We can do this, we have to do this. Nothing can touch your soul, no madness, no evil. And Mom, Mom has your heart safe. I'm not going to stop, I will figure this out, I'm the only one who can. I promise."
"When we get back... don't trust me." She stepped toward him and he held her in his arms. They both looked up at the barrier they had to cross to get back. "Ready?"
"No." She hugged him, burying her face in his shoulder. He thought he heard a muffled, "I love you."
"I love you too," he smiled, his voice full with emotion. He kissed the top of her head closed his eyes and they teleported.