“Sorry.” She muttered, turning away.
Connor was the first to enquire about Mr Crombie when Terry emerged into the kitchen door. She didn’t answer. Her gaze instead found his wife. Then it returned to Connor. “I think it would be best if we discussed this in private.” She suggested.
Connor was about to reply when Jo cut in. “No! I’m fed up of all this bull shit!” she protested, storming across the kitchen. “First he disappears for several hours and can’t tell me where he’s been and I get locked in a room! And now you’re all running around whispering and avoiding me like something terrible has happened!”
“I’m sorry Jo, but it’s only because we’re trying to protect you.” Rufus replied.
“From what, exactly?” she demanded, wheeling round to face him.
Ignoring the question, Terry looked to Lyle and Rufus. “They haven’t found the metal anywhere else and none of it was taken from the mine. Everything should be ok.”
“That’s good to know.” Rufus replied, obviously relieved. “I’m very sorry for this whole mess.”
“You’ve already said sorry, doing so again will not change anything.” Lyle replied bluntly.
“I know, but still...”
“We’ve wasted enough time on this as it is.” Terry decided. “You should get home and out of that body so we can get to work on finding Edward. Do you still have that old scanner of yours?”
Rufus nodded. “Yes but I’ve not used it in years, I don’t know if it still works.”
The Alchemist shrugged. “It’s the only thing I can think of so that we might as well dig it out and give it a shot.”
Jo glared at her husband, her expression a mixture of anger and confusion.
“It can find Phantoms.” Connor whispered. But his answer only left her even more bewildered.
Still ignoring the two lovers, Terry looked to Rufus. “I had a look for it the other day but I couldn’t find it.”
“It’s not something I leave lying about.” He thought for a moment. “In fact, there are a lot of things I don’t leave lying about just in case. Brick and glass houses are pretty easy to break into if you want too.”
“That is very true.” Terry agreed. She checked the clock on the wall. It was almost 9pm. Her father and his entourage would be arriving in the morning, something she was still keen to avoid. “We better go.” She said, the others bar Lyle aware of the weight of why.
Rufus nodded. Terry looked at Connor and he knew the question. “We’re going to stay.”
“There’s no way you’re going anywhere!” Jo barked at him, grabbing his arm. Connor stayed put but Terry could see the upset and reluctance in her eyes.
Terry nodded to Rufus, who responded in kind and followed her from the kitchen. Lyle looked to Connor as he made his way to the door. “Can you check on Faye please?”
“Yeah...” Connor muttered, looking away.
******
Terry came to glance over Rufus’s shoulder as he poured over one of the many razor-thin computer monitors in his basement. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. This is just taking a little longer than usual, that’s all.” He replied without taking his eyes from the screens.
“What’s wrong?”
“One of the brakes holding the tank has jammed, so I need to disengage the rest so the weight of the tank will break that one so it can move.”
“Won’t it fall and smash if you do that?” She asked, looking at the three door hatch in the ceiling.
“No, the emergency brakes will come on and catch it. It’ll only fall several feet. Then we can lower it down as normal.”
This information did not seem to quell her fears. “I hope you’re sure about this. I don’t fancy having to scrape your body off the floor”
“That’s why I’m checking everything so thoroughly.” He suddenly stopped and looked at her, a look of realisation spreading across his face.
“What?”
“Sorry to ask but if the brakes did fail...”
“You want me to catch it?”
He flushed with guilt. “I really do hate asking, sorry. Would you mind? I know you don’t have butter fingers.”
She waved away his embarrassment. “Don’t worry about it, its fine. I really don’t mind.” She walked over to the hatches. “How much does this thing weigh?”
“Just shy of two tonnes.”
Terry flexed her shoulders. “It sounds light enough, but it’s too big to grab with these arms.” She said, assessing the size of the hatch in the ceiling. There was no way she could wrap her arms around the full thing. There was a risk gravity would take over before she could get a proper hold and the free floating side of the tank would fall, causing it to strike the floor – the consequences of which would be disastrous.
“I know you’ll need to change.”
Terry looked up again. “You’ve got a very low ceiling in here Rufus.”
“I know, sorry, you’ll just have to put up with it and please try not to smash any of the equipment while you’re transforming.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Lyle asked, coming to his side.
Rufus shook his head. “No but thanks for the offer.” He did not look at the old general, fearful of how he might react. Rufus knew his offer had been out of courtesy, nothing more.
Terry sighed and assessed her surroundings, taking note of where everything lay. If she hit the wrong computer unit or monitor the result could leave the tank stuck in the ceiling and Rufus’s real body unreachable.
Lying on the ground, she began to change. Rufus watched nervously as her body shifted and rapidly expanded in size. Like all her kin, she liked to stretch and flex after the transformation but he was grateful to see that this time she reframed from such an action. She pulled her legs in and sat down; allowing her some extra headroom. Her large amber eyes darted to Rufus and she growled, urging him to get on with it. Arms outstretched, she fixed her gaze on the hatch in anticipation.
“Alright, here we go.” He said, hitting the final sequence of buttons.
Terry’s antennae twitched as a hollow boom sounded high above, followed by a series of dull clanks. The hatches soundlessly slid back into cavities hidden within the ceiling. A few moments later the tank fell free. Terry arched forward at high speed, grabbing it without any effort. Rufus slumped with relief.
“Good catch!” Lyle shouted.
Terry squeaked. She then gently sat the tank down, careful not to crack the glass with her large, curved claws. She curved her neck left and low, arching it around the tank so she could peer inside. Rufus’s body appeared lifeless in the blue liquid, giving his flesh a darker complexion than normal. His long wiry limbs hung limply, the eyelids drawn shut over his large, round, sapphire eyes. An air pipe ran from his mouth and vanished into the ceiling of the tank, along with several other wires that suspended him in the centre of the tank.
She sniffed at the tank and twisted her neck back to look at Rufus and growled, prompting him to get a move on once again.
Chapter 21
Acara Awakening
The soft skin covering Rufus’s eyes peeled open, revealing two large, glittering blue marbles in his orbits. They sparkled beneath the light, revealing the extraordinary detail of the Acara’s eyes. Lines of every shade of blue ran across and through them, growing darker the further in. The sapphires ringed two smaller but also large black irises. He blinked, his pupils dilating under the light directly above his head. Rufus’s gaze drifted to one of his hands. He gently flexed his spindly fingers, re-familiarising himself with his body.
Terry appeared in his field of vision. “Are you alright?” she asked He carefully sat up, swaying slightly as the blood rushed to his head. “Easy.” She said ready to catch him should he fall. But he managed.
“I’m fine thank you.” He replied, in gentle tones. His voice sounded alien to his ears, he had almost forgotten what it sounded like. It also didn’t sound q
uite right, slightly hoarse, he decided. He placed his long fingers to his throat and swallowed. Hit throat was raw. But he still smiled. “I forgot what my voice sounded like.” His hand fell to his side. He looked down at Terry. “It’s nice to be back in my own flesh again, it feels like I am whole once more. I think I have a better understanding of what you must experience when you transform back into your original body if you have not done so for a long time.”
Terry’s smile vanished. “Speak for yourself. That part of my mind is still locked away from me when I’m like this. I can barely remember what I get up to in my primeval form.”
Rufus’s expression grew sad, his large blue eyes sparkling even brighter. “Even after so many years? Your mind has still not completely repaired itself?”
She shook her head. “No, even half an hour again when I grabbed the tank. I remember it but it’s like a faded dream to me. It still feels like I’m living someone else’s life.”
At Lyle’s home, Jo sat on the edge of her seat. “What do you mean she was never the same?” she asked, hanging on to her husband’s every word.
Connor looked saddened. After visiting with Faye for a short time in her rooms, they had retired to the lounge. There Jo had asked more about the world where he had come from and about how he met Terry. In telling the story he had spoke of the Alchemists, of the other four races and of their fight with Edward years before to save both worlds.
Sighing, he continued. “It’s hard to explain unless you knew Terry back then. She was more like her own kind. And while over the last couple of years she has leant toward her heritage a little more, she still has never fully recovered.” He leant his head back against the recliner, exhausted. “Lyle once told me he thought it was the accident that made Terry except her exile so easily.” He shook his head. “There are a lot of things from her childhood that she can’t remember and he thinks she filled the gaps with her short term memories instead, the ones she got living here among humans for several months before her exile was imposed.” He smirked, but there was no humour to remembering the years he too had longed to be a human instead. He had understood her plight, in a small way, in his teens, but he had put such silly dreams behind him years ago. He knew who he was and what he was and accepted it. But Terry had never quite reached that stage. “She should never have got so close to Edward during the ambush. If she hadn’t he wouldn’t have got inside her head.”
Rufus stood, towering over the two Alchemists. “I am so sorry Terry. I always thought things would get better for you as you grew older. The Alchemists have powerful minds and metal. I thought the metal in your blood would have found a way to heal you eventually.”
“It’s fine.” She said, waving away the conversation. “Sorry to change the subject but there’s not much time. Do you still have the scanner?”
He gave a graceful nod, his large head tipping on his elongated blue neck. With a flick of his long fingers he said, “This way.” He appeared to glide across the room as he took one elegant stride after another on lean limbs toward the door.
Rufus had led them to another room in his home and had found the device they sought within moments. He now sat tinkering with it. His lanky fingers moved with a deft quickness that came from years of working even with the fiddly of technologies. Terry sat opposite him in one of the recliners while her uncle paced back and forth in front of the window impatiently. Rufus may have found the scanner without any difficulty but the device had failed to work when he had switched it on. He had blamed it on age and disuse and had set to it with a screwdriver and some other bits Terry did not recognise.
“I wish you had told us of this plan.” Rufus said, breaking the silence. Lyle stopped his pacing and looked across the lounge to the Acara curiously but the blue technician did not so much as offer a flicker of a large eye from his work.
Terry sighed. “I know I lied to them but if we had said anything there is a chance Edward would have known.”
Rufus lifted his head and his large eyes fell on her. What emotion they held she could not tell for galaxies swam threw them; his eyes containing as many stars within them as the sky. “I understand the reasons you did what you did, you do not have to repeat them. But the thought that either Connor or Faye could be possessed like this young man you mentioned troubles me. What if they are? What shall we do then?”
“We’ll get it out of them.” Lyle promptly replied but his eyes betrayed his anxiety.
Rufus knew the procedure of exorcism the Alchemist spoke of and he too did not take great stock in the method. It did work, but historically many possessed victims died at the ferocity of the treatment. The procedure was very invasive of the flesh.
“I don’t think either of them are.” Terry said. “They knew we were coming here to get the scanner. If Edward had possessed either of them they would have tried to stop us somehow if Edward had not tried himself.”
Lyle sighed. “I agree but we won’t know for sure until that thing is on.” he jabbed a finger in direction of the device Rufus tampered with in his long fingers.
Rufus returned his attention to the task at hand. “What time does your father arrive tomorrow?”
“Six am.”
“How many troops is he bringing with him?”
Terry shrugged. “I don’t know.” The thought unsettled her.
“Then it is a good thing that I have this fixed.” He announced, setting the screwdriver aside. Terry and Lyle gathered around him as he switched turned on. The blue screen lit up and a ripple shot out from the centre. Lines appeared on it, sketching out the local environment. Rufus turned a knob on the side of the scanner and the picture zoomed out, revealing more detail of the local geography. Rufus kept twisting it further, until its map scaled beyond that of the city. It bleeped.
“You have him?” Lyle asked, desperately hoping.
“Yes! He’s 34 miles south west of here.”
Terry’s eyes narrowed. “Cheeky sod, he’s been here the whole time!”
Lyle bolted for the door, his niece and Rufus not far behind.
Connor felt a vibration in his pocket. He and Jo were still sitting in the living room at Lyle’s mansion. He flipped it open. “Hello?”
“Connor! We’ve found Edward!” Terry shouted, as she hurried out the front door.
Connor shot up. “Where?”
“Just outside Edinburgh!”
Connor’s jaw dropped. He looked at his wife, shaking his head. “Son of a bitch!”
“My words exactly! Where are you?”
“At Lyle’s, where is he exactly? I’ll meet you there.” he said, running to the door.
“No, stay there, the mansion is on the way there. Get Faye and we’ll get you by the door. We’ll be around in a few minutes.”
“Okay, see you then.” He flipped the mobile shut. Every inch of him angled to run, to get Faye and to get Edward. But the worried look on his wife’s face stopped him in his tracks. “I have to go...”
She gave a slow nod, fighting back tears. “I know. Go.”
Scooping her into his arms they shared a desperate kiss. As he backed away, Connor cupped Jo’s cheeks in his hands and gazed deeply into her sable eyes. “I’ll come back, I promise.”
She nodded, too chocked-up to speak. Tearing himself away from her he raced out of the lounge, the weight of zero hour heavy upon him.
The silver car screeched as it did a one-eighty, sending gravel flying in all directions. Faye and Connor climbed in, Lyle putting his foot to the pedal before the fire elemental had even closed the door. Faye only spotted the two Alchemists in the driver and passenger seats. “Where’s Rufus?”
“In the boot.” Terry replied. She didn’t take her eyes off the scanner in her hands.
Faye and Connor exchanged a puzzled look. “Why is he in there?”
“Because he’s bright blue!” Lyle shouted back at her. There was no time for such questions.
The car sped down the long driveway, churning up a plume of dust in
its wake.
******
Edward looked up as a familiar face stepped over the threshold. “We have two thousand Alchemists at your disposal.” She said with a pleased smirk on her face.
Edward’s gaze narrowed, the fractured, shimmering light of the portal throwing the angles of his face into deep shadow. It made him appear even more sinister. “I know, I can see with your eyes remember?” He raised a hand and she froze on the spot. “I can hear every word you say and everything you hear.” He walked toward her until they were face-to-face, all the while holding her, frozen in place. “And I’m very disappointed. You’ve have my power and you’ve had two days and that it all you have managed to raise? They have millions buried there.”