Alchemist (32 page)

“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.

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 quite 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?”