Chapter 7
A short teleport later to the location Tesla described and Druitt and Ashley had landed at the Cabal base. Ashley ran through the tunnel into the Cabal facility, toward the cavern she could see opening out ahead of her. A woman in a white lab coat scurried toward her, her head down and bumped into Ashley as she tried to go past, hopefully and hopelessly heading for the security checkpoint. Ashley stopped and stared at her as the woman nearly made a human shaped hole in the wall at the sight of the young woman before her, and froze to the spot like a deer caught in headlights.
"What do you want?" she gasped.
"Hello Dana," said Ashley, calmly.
"What? I'm, I'm not..."
"You can change your appearance but not the sickening stench of manipulation on you," she sniffed to emphasize her Cabal induced vampire skills. "Anyway, thought I'd just drop by and say 'Hi.'" She smirked, full of malicious intent. "You remember my dad."
"Doctor," Druitt spoke, his voice a low rumble of menacing thunder.
The woman whipped around so fast her glasses slipped off her nose and she pulled a muscle in her neck. John stepped out from the shadows of a doorway and stood in front of the woman, Ashley blocked her path back into the cavern, she was trapped between them. Dana stared in slack jawed horror at the predators.
"What happened to your face?" asked Ashley, mildly curious.
She gulped and stepped as far away from the both of them as possible which was only as far as the wall, she put her back to it, there was no way to escape.
"He left me for dead," she said in a hoarse whisper. "Left me for the vultures to pick to death, I had reconstructive surgery."
"Bummer."
"There's security everywhere, they'll be here any second," Whitcomb desperately tried to help herself. They stared at her in terrible heavy silence. Waiting for what, she didn't like to think.
Ashley, she was afraid of, but she had had control over her once and believed she could do it again, conditions permitting. Druitt however, instilled pure shaking terror into her. There was one other person Dana Whitcomb feared, more than anything or anyone else, the one person she had totally and utterly wronged and Jack the Ripper was a pussycat compared to when Helen Magnus lost her temper.
"I don't think they will," said Magnus, stepping out from the door carved into the rock face nearby, gun pointed at Whitcomb's head. She didn't so much as glance at John and Ashley, suspecting them to be more Cabal trickery or hallucinations, it wasn't like she'd never seen them before in her dreams.
"We have control of the Cabal systems, Henry is downloading all your data and then he's going to wipe out all your systems, but not before sending emergency shutdown protocols to all Cabal operatives. The Cabal are over. It takes a lot to make me lose my temper, Dana. You attack the Sanctuary and I will fight back. You attack my friends and family and I will fight you to the death. Still, to make me lose my temper, to make me come here and wipe out the Cabal, completely obliterate it from the surface of this planet..." If looks could kill Dana Whitcomb would be six feet under already. "You went and laid a finger on my daughter."
"I'm not the head of the Cabal, I'm not in charge," Whitcomb futilely whimpered.
"Whatever makes you think I care?" asked Magnus.
"They're using me as bait, to distract you. They've sent a team to take the Sanctuary."
"Do you know what happens to manipulative, traitorous bitches like you?" Magnus could only see the woman responsible for the greatest pain she had ever known before her.
"You can talk," snarled Whitcomb, lashing out in a last ditch of desperation.
"Mom."
Ashley's voice brought her back down to earth. It sounded so unfamiliar at first, so quiet and calm, but it was only the length of time they had been apart which made it seem like that.
"Mom, it's really me."
Magnus stood motionless, frozen to the spot, gun pointed at Whitcombs head but her eyes now fixed intensely on Ashley.
"We have to get back to the Sanctuary, Mom. Leave her."
Magnus looked up from Whitcomb to her daughter's worried face, meeting her eyes. Ashley was desperately trying to read her mothers thoughts, she had never seen her like this before. Stone cold. Ashley gave her mother a small smile which Helen unconsciously mirrored. The spell was broken.
"You asked me what the most amazing thing I had ever seen was," Magnus spoke to Whitcomb but didn't move her eyes from Ashley. "The answer is, my daughter."
Ashley launched herself into her mother's arms and threw her arms around her neck burying her face into her shoulder. They held each other as Druitt's murderous gaze pinned Whitcomb to the spot. No other measure was needed to prevent her from running.
"That's twice you've saved my life," Magnus whispered to her daughter. Tears ran down her face as she held Ashley's face in her hands.
"Twice?" Ashley whispered back.
"When I had you, it was you or my life, and today the same again."
"She's telling the truth Doc," Henrys voice came through on a walkie talkie. "A black ops team was dispatched about 15 minutes ago, headed for the Sanctuary. ETA, two hours."
"Recall them."
"I cant, they've gone radio silent. Doc, this is serious. They've got a bomb. They're going to blow up the Sanctuary."
"Meet us outside in ten minutes Henry, we're leaving."
"Us?" said Henry, but he didn't receive an answer.
Magnus walked away down the tunnel without another glance at Whitcomb, her arm around Ashley. She called back over her shoulder.
"You also asked me what the worst thing I had ever seen was. The worst thing I have ever seen is in a man."
Dana started to shake uncontrollably as the Magnus' walked away, leaving her standing before a cranky serial killer.
Magnus and Ashley stepped out of the tunnel, blinking at the daylight, both shaking with emotion but unwilling to let each other go. They slid down the rock face and sat in the dust, not needing to speak, simply holding on to each other as though if they let go the other would disappear.
"Where, what, how... is it really you?" Magnus asked in hushed tones.
"It is," Ashley murmured, her head resting on Magnus' shoulder. She closed her eyes and held on to her mother tightly. "Dad came and got me. It's a long story, but until there's more time, there's something I need to tell you."