The Fledglings' Mentor

by C L Amos

  Marcelle raised her eyebrow, “Good, are her eggs still viable?”

  Dylan shrugged, “It all depends on how quickly we can retrieve the eggs. You see, as soon as you die, your body shuts down and rigor mortis sets in as the lactic acid builds up in the muscles. The trick would be to slow down the onset of rigor mortis, so that we can save any viable eggs and harvest them before the chemical changes destroy their integrity.”

  Marcelle touched her nose, “Got it…Go ahead and do whatever you have to; I don’t care how much it costs as long as you get me at least one viable egg.”

  Dylan nodded, “I’ll get right on it… the longer we leave it the less chance we have.”

  “Good, I will see you in the morning, but first I must go visit my new guests next door.” She smiled as she left… “I am having such a wonderful day.”

  Dylan looked down at Sasha’s body, “I doubt this fuss is all about your mother.” He looked carefully at the canister. “So, this must be about your father… it must be someone really important if she is trying to harvest your eggs.”

  Chapter 4 Formal Introductions

  Julia had just closed her eyes when she shot up, looking bewildered.

  Tom was concerned, “What is it Jules, what’s wrong?”

  Julia reached out her hand, “It’s Sasha. She is here!”

  Tom looked around the room, “Jules, it’s only me and you in the room!”

  Julia stood up and traced her hands along the glass; she felt a sudden warmth, turned to Tom, and pointed … “She is over there…”

  Tom jumped up, “You mean she is still alive?”

  Julia closed her eyes and placed her hands on the glass. Tom stared in complete shock and grabbed her away before anyone else saw. “Jules, how the fuck are you doing that?”

  Jules turned to Tom, “What do you mean? I am just trying to sense Sasha’s energy!”

  Tom looked around frantically, “Your hands were glowing in a dark blue, almost pur…”

  Julia cut him off… “An Indigo light?”

  Tom nodded, “That’s it! How did you do that?”

  Julia shrugged, “I don’t know! Nothing is normal Tom… It’s like the events of today have torn a tiny hole in the fabric of time…nothing is as it should be… nothing is normal… there is an imbalance that needs to be corrected.” As she spoke, the indigo haze covering her eyes started to dissipate, and her vision of this realm and the next became crystal clear. Her new sight was a gift from the Mother Goddess it allowed her to see through each veil as she pierced through the very fabric of time and space. “I know what we have to do Tom… there is a chance we can still save her!”

  Marcelle interrupted… “Save who? Your family?” She laughed, “I have my best trackers searching for them! It’s only a matter of time before we catch the last four tricky buggers.”

  Tom’s heart dropped as she said, ‘last four’.

  Julia knew she was bullshitting but didn’t give her secret away. She placed her hand on Tom’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Tom. Don’t let her anger you.”

  Marcelle laughed, “I am always amazed by the special bond twins form… it’s going to be interesting to find out just how close the two of you are.”

  Tom shouted, “What do you want from us?”

  Marcelle pulled a stool up and sat down on it, “I don’t take kindly to bullshit and games, so I am going to give you a few things to ponder overnight. Firstly, you obviously know more about your destiny than you have let on…I want to know who told you and exactly what they told you. Secondly, I know you have some connection to the Faction, and your actions today have cemented that fact for me - I want to know everything about their operation.”

  Tom shook his head, his resolve still strong and his eyes filled with defiant rage.

  Marcelle folded her hands and stood up, “You know, Tom, you are actually responsible for the fate of your pack…if they had surrendered, they would still be alive. How much blood you still want to stain your hands is entirely up to you…” She started walking off and turned… “Oh yes, one of my men said you are rather protective over children… perhaps we will bring a few to play truth or death. It’s your choice Tom… sleep on it.”

  Tom smashed his fists against the glass, “You bitch! I will rip you to shreds if I ever get my hands on you!”

  Marcelle waved dismissingly and laughed as she walked off, “Oh, Princess! I am way too much for a man like you to handle… you wouldn’t know where to start!”

  Julia grabbed Tom, “Relax, Tom, she is trying to get into your head, the pack made it out.”

  Tom looked at her, “Are you sure? How?”

  She smiled, “Aunty Janey sent the covert pack back in. They ambushed the sweepers and helped get our pack onto a cargo train heading for the coast.”

  Tom looked at her, “Are you sure?”

  Julia nodded, “I see everything clearly.”

  Tom looked over at the wall… “And Sasha? …Is she still alive?”

  Julia squished her face, “That is a little bit tricky…For all intents and purposes she is dead in every sense of the word, but her spirit is refusing to leave the void… it’s fighting the very fabric of nature to get back because, like so many others who died today, she died before her intended time without fulfilling her destiny.”

  Tom nodded, “That’s brilliant!! So, there is a chance she can still come back?”

  Julia squinted, “It depends how she died. If her body was badly damaged, she won’t be able to return to it. She will also have to return to her body before rigor mortis sets in, or even worse before it gets tossed into the furnace along with all the other bodies… if that happens, it’s tickets and there will be no coming back.”

  Tom stood up, “But you felt her energy next to us…that means she isn’t in a skip. They must have something else planned for her. How can you know so much about the wolf pack and so little about Sasha?”

  Julia nodded, “She isn’t whole. I can see her spirit clearly in the void, but I can’t see her body; the same way I can sense her body is close but not her spirit.”

  Tom shrugged, “There must be something we can do?”

  Julia nodded, “There is… but we have to be perfectly in tune with our bodies and spirits or we risk losing ourselves in the process.”

  Chapter 5 Tricking the Body

  Dylan pulled a lab stool over and took a seat next to the bed. He took the stethoscope from around his neck and placed it carefully against Sasha’s wrist and listened - there was no pulse. He picked up his clipboard and checked next to the box - deceased.

  If Dylan wanted to harvest a viable egg, he would need to do everything in his power to further delay the onset of rigor mortis. Essentially, he would need to trick the body into believing it was still alive. Luckily for him, Sasha had only been dead for 3 hours and her body had only just started showing early signs of rigor mortis.

  Dylan carefully undressed Sasha before reaching over and grabbing the remote to lower the temperature in the room to just below freezing. He then stood up and walked over to the fridge. He reached in and took out a bottle labelled GLYCOGEN and drew out 100ml into a syringe, then walked back to the bed and proceeded to inject her major muscles and liver with small amounts of the concentrated glycogen. Dylan then fetched the EMCO machine and connected it up to her main artery and a vein close to her heart - this machine would essentially bypass the heart and lungs, and pump oxygenated blood around the body. Finally, he placed small electric pads on all the major muscles and set them to a low frequency. This would stimulate her muscles, further preventing the lactic acid build up that occurs naturally during rigor mortis.

  Dylan walked over to his little office; he knew it would take around half an hour for Sasha’s body to respond to the treatment. He sat behind his desk and started checking through the database for Tom and Julia Blackberg. He started with the internment lists, but they all came up empty. This meant one of two things… either they were being kept elsewhere o
r they were dead. He pulled out a small black device; it scrambled his IP address and gave him access to the main frame from a host computer in Jim’s office. He brought up the main search file and typed in Tom Blackberg, and the folder had a level five restriction. Dylan sat back and took his glasses off his face and rubbed his eyes. There was something more than a simple wolf extermination at hand, and Sasha and the Blackberg twins appeared to be in the middle of this complex tug of war for power between the Faction and the High Council.

  Just then his phone rang, and pulled him from his daydream, “Yes, Marcelle, what can I do for you?”

  “I just left the twins and remembered that Jim said something about running tests on Julia’s venom. Do you have those results for me?”

  Dylan put his glasses back on and scratched through his filing tray, “Uh, yes, unfortunately the test was inconclusive; we couldn’t extract enough venom to run the full batch of tests.”

  Marcelle shrugged, “Pity, oh well, not to worry, you can collect a sample from her tomorrow morning.”

  Dylan nodded, “Perfect. I should have the first batch of results for you by the evening.”

  Marcelle interjected, “And Sasha… have we got a viable egg?”

  Dylan shook his head, “I have prepped the body and plan to start shortly on the extraction.”

  “Good, we will chat in the morning then.”

  Dylan sat back. He had finally connected Julia to the guest next door that Marcelle had referred to earlier, and he thought it was fair to assume that her brother would be with her, so he reached into the drawer to send Janey an update.

  Chapter 6 Paternity

  Janey’s phone beeped; she broke free of Pete’s embrace and reached over to pick it up off the bed. She glanced back up at him, “It’s from Dylan.”

  Dylan: Good news? I have been asked to collect samples from Julia in the morning and suspect that both Julia and Tom are being kept in the holding cells next to my lab. I will send an update after visual confirmation. I cannot access the lab outside of normal working hours.

  Pete replied: Thank you. Please send location pin as soon as you have visual confirmation.

  Dylan: Will do. Uh Janey, Marcelle wants me to conduct an autopsy on Sasha, collect any viable eggs and run DNA tests to check if subject A0-10959287-FDS P0139 is her paternal father… wanna give me a heads up?

  Janey’s heart stopped as she read the message. Every muscle in her body felt a deep, yearning ache as the memories of that night came flooding back. She dropped the phone and collapsed into a sitting position on the bed and just stared out of the window, her jaw trembling.

  Pete picked up the phone and read the message. Janey had never discussed Sasha’s father with him or anyone else, it was like she had blacked it out from her memory - it was something that just didn’t exist in her mind. He had always known, or at least assumed, that it had been violent, and he doubted it had been consensual.

  He sat on the bed and put his arm around Janey, “Look they aren’t sure who her father is, at this point it’s only a suspicion; they might have it totally wrong.” He paused, “I have never pushed you on this, but it has been nearly 28 years and I can’t help you if you don’t let me in.”

  She looked over at Pete, “You are right! Why else would they be running tests?” She picked up the phone and started typing; Can you trace where DNA A0-10959287-FDS P0139 came from and who it belongs to?

  Dylan replied: I can try… can’t make any promises. As it is, I have to pull a double shift and between egg harvesting and running the DNA tests I am already spreading myself a little thin. I promised Marcelle she would get the test results by lunch time tomorrow; I can push it for you though and let you know whether it was positive or negative a few hours before that and we can take it from there?

  Janey: Please let me know as soon as you know!

  Pete turned to her, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She looked at him angrily, “Have I ever?” She stood up, folded her arms and walked to the window, trying to stare a hole into the darkness.

  Pete shook his head, “No, but that doesn’t mean I have never wondered who Sasha’s father is. I think with everything that is going on that I finally have a right to know!”

  Janey turned to him, “Bernard. There you have it… Bernard is Sasha’s father.”

  Pete ran his hand over his head, “That’s worse than I thought.”

  Janey turned to the window, “Well, who did you think it was?” She paused and laughed sarcastically, “Jim?”

  Pete nodded, “He was my first bet…” he shook his head, “Wait, I thought he and Marcelle were forbidden from siring children? I didn’t even think it was possible for him to sire a child after the…” he held his hands like scissors and did the motion for snip-snip… “Oh god, does he even know he is the father?”

  Janey shrugged, and spoke without thinking, “I don’t know if he ever suspected anything, he told me he couldn’t have children!”

  Pete scratched his head, “Wait… Are you telling me that you actually discussed this with Bernard? Why would you do that unless you were…”

  Janey cut him off, “It was a very long time ago…everything was complicated…” She looked up into his eyes, pleading, “Please just forget it!”

  Pete grabbed her arms in his big powerful hands, “I have spent the last 27 years fighting against an institution that your ex-boyfriend controls… the same institution that kidnapped Sasha and brought her up as a slave.” Pete let her go and ran his hands through his hair, “Did you ever stop to consider the possibility that Bernard sent Marcelle and Jim to kidnap her…that maybe he planned all of this?”

  Janey snapped, “It’s all I have thought about for the last 24 years! Do you understand now why I can’t let anyone have that much power and control? Bernard was once a good man, but he was corrupted by power and greed. At least he is still somewhat restricted and restrained… can you imagine what could’ve happened if he were a fiveling?”

  Pete stared her down, “Don’t you dare compare Tom to Bernard; they are nothing alike.”

  Janey shook her head, “He is still a kid, you can’t say what will happen when he changes into a fiveling and tastes true power for the first time. Read your books…it becomes a blood lust, an insatiable thirst for power and control.”

  “Julia and Sasha are learning how to control his power surges; they were going to keep him grounded.”

  Janey shook her head and shouted, “Sasha is dead, Pete! And as horrible as it sounds, Marcelle is the only one who can stop him now!”

  Pete shook his head in disappointment, “She is the reason your daughter is dead! How can you defend her?”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Pete; she will die at my hands for everything she has fucking done, but at least against her we have a fighting chance … we could never take on a fiveling!”

  Pete shook his head, “That fiveling is your nephew! I can’t…” He put his hands on his head. “I just can’t do this with you! Tom and Julia are your family just as much as mine! I don’t understand - how can you be so cold?” He shook his head, “If you aren’t willing to see the good in people and trust them, then you are no better than Marcelle.” With that he grabbed the door and slammed it behind him.

  Janey sat back down on the bed and sobbed into her hands, “I’m sorry Pete…I am so sorry Pete. I didn’t mean to say those things.” She smacked the bed in frustration, “Why do I always push you away?”

  Chapter 7 Uncoiling the Snake

  Tom took Julia’s hand, “We have to try; we owe it to Sasha.” He looked around at the dismal position they had found themselves in and shrugged, “We have nothing to lose.”

  Julia smiled, and cautiously warned, “This has never been done before, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to reach her…everything is upside down right now.”

  Tom Smiled, “Exactly…everything is upside down at the moment… if this is ever going to work, then now would be the best time to d
o it.”

  Julia sat down and crossed her legs, took in a deep breath, and she reached over and took Tom’s hands in hers, “I want you to picture Sasha in your mind’s eye, and hold her vision as we drop our chi and try and awaken the coiled snake so that its divine energy… the divine energy of the Kundalini flame… can illuminate Sasha’s path and guide her from the void back into the physical realm.”

  Julia squeezed Tom’s hand as she felt the energy in the room surround them like a vortex of static electricity. She opened her eyes and saw that her hands were glowing in a soft hue of indigo. The indigo light slowly spread out from her hands, moving out over their forearms, up to their shoulders and from there splitting in two as one ran up the throat, over the face, and all the way round the head to the tips of their crowns. Simultaneously, the other washed down over the torso and their folded legs as the soft indigo light engulfed them in a protective bubble. Julia closed her eyes and envisioned Sasha sitting with them, covered in the same protective indigo bubble. “Breathe in deep and capture Sasha’s scent, see her in your mind’s eye, and slowly exhale. Now, take in another deep breath, and feel the air take on the light blue energy of your throat chakra as it makes its way down, taking on the faint green hue as it collects energy from your heart chakra….changing slowly into a bright yellow… watch as the air that’s filled your lungs forces your solar plexus out. Hold it there, and let it slowly move downward as the air in your stomach and bowels start to equalize. Feel it sink down past your kidneys, taking on the distinctive orange hue of your sacral chakra, before finally turning red as it enters the realm of the sacred Kundalini Serpent. Hold Sasha’s vision in your mind and envision the serpent slowly waking from his slumber and see the two bright white flames slowly begin dance… see them rise up slowly. Feel their energy as they explode through the base chakra. Hold the energy in your mind as you let the flames rise further up, feel them coiling around your spine as they approach the sacral chakra…. Feel the flames as they first energies and then explode through the sacral chakra. Hold the energy in your mind and let the flames slither further up and burst forth into the solar plexus chakra… see it explode and feel re-energized as it starts rotating faster and faster while it fuels the flames. Use the momentum and feel the energy as the two flames begin to rise up even quicker as they approach and finally burst through your heart chakra… let the flames devour any negativity as their warmth rejuvenates your soul with love. Hold the energy in your mind and feel it rise even further up as the flames coil and snake their way up to your throat chakra. Breathe in deeply and note how the passages to your body have been cleared and opened once again. Now focus on my voice and center your thoughts on Sasha! Watch the flames snake up as they begin stretching towards your third eye chakra… feel the flames burst into your third eye. Stay focused - do not get swept away in the sea of visions flooding in… focus only on my voice and the vision of Sasha and chant with me…