Episode 61: Last Words and Lost Scents

Aubrey Lance, S.S. (Supernatural Sleuth) -- Season 1, Episode 61: Last Words & Lost Scents

“Aubrey!” 

I sat up to find my parents and the others standing around me with varied expressions of alarm.

“Why did you wake me?” I asked, still reeling from Emery’s shove, and her last words.

After the steady wave-sounds and shimmering air on the beach, the orb room seemed different from before. That faint haze that had been in the room ever since Trenchcoat Man mixed the elementals’ blood was still hanging in the air, the tubes were still lying on the floor where we’d left them, and the orb was still manically pulsing and beeping, but the haze seemed a bit thicker, and the beeping even more shrill than before. 

“Vorcos is back,” Trenchcoat Man said loudly. “They’ve got us surrounded.” 

I stared at him. “They what?” 

“They’ve cleared all people from the beach and set up a perimeter,” Jillian said, “and now they’re setting up some kind of rods along the shoreline just down from where we entered.” 

Trenchcoat Man’s face was grave. “I don’t know what they’re up to, but it can’t be good.” 

I glanced past them, at Lockley, Collin, and Chloe. They all looked terrified. 

Dad grabbed my hand. “Did you see Emery? Could you speak to her?” His expression was a mix of hope and apprehension.

“Yes, and she’s okay, but I couldn’t get her out. She’s stuck in a dream and it won’t let her leave.” 

He looked relieved. “That’s a problem, but at least she’s okay. She seemed well?” 

“She’s been stuck in a dream for two years,” I said. “She’s lonely and scared, but once she realized it was me, she seemed like herself.” 

“Oh, poor Em!” Lockley said. 

My mom pressed her hand to her chest. “Thank goodness she’s still herself. How strong she must’ve had to be, in there…” She looked at me. “How do we wake her? We’ve got to get her out of that—that thing!” She gestured to the blaring, pulsing orb. “Did she tell you what to do?” 

“No,” I said, “but I have to tell you something.” 

I quickly related my conversation with Emery, including why she’d gone to the beach that night, her theory that the orb was keeping her asleep and that she and I were essentially conduits for elemental magic…and her suspicion that Vorcos planned to use her as the gateway.

Everyone looked horrified, especially my parents. 

“We have to get her out of that orb,” my dad said. He turned to Trenchcoat Man. “Arch—” 

Trenchcoat Man ran his hands through his gelled hair. “I’ve never encountered this sort of thing before.” He dropped his hands in exasperation, leaving pieces of his previously perfect hair standing on end. “I—I don’t know what else to try, Rich.” 

I picked up the end of one of the tubes, where the needle that had jabbed into an elemental’s arm still dangled. “I might.” I looked up at my dad. “I need you to connect me to the orb.” 

Everyone gaped at me. “What?”

Collin looked especially disturbed by my suggestion. “Aubs, that needle has been in someone else’s arm.” 

“I know,” I said with a shudder. “But listen. Emery was being pumped full of elemental magic, at first, right? She thought they must’ve pumped her full of it, like a bomb ready to go off, then were using the last batch of elementals to ward her and keep her stable until they were ready to use her. But if she really is full of elemental magic…” I said, looking around at everyone. 

They all gaped at me, confused. 

Then Collin’s eyes widened. “You’re a conduit, too. You could siphon some of the magic back out of her, so they can’t use her to open the gateway.” 

“Exactly,” I said. 

“Whoa, wait,” my dad said. “We have no idea how to work this thing. If we just hook you up to it, it might start sucking away whatever you’ve got in you. We have no idea how to reverse the flow and take magic out of the orb, or if that’s even possible.” 

I had actually thought this part through… a little. “I’m a conduit for elemental magic, not a source. If this thing is made to absorb only elemental magic, then so am I… kind of.  Emery said elemental magic naturally flows through us when we’re near it, and the orb was designed to keep it from flowing back out. The way the orb works might not be suction, it might just be a natural flow of power into a reservoir, like water through a hose. If I hook myself up to the tubes, since I’m more empty of elemental magic than the orb is right now—than Emery is—then some of the elemental magic might just flow into me by default, like how in the winter, the hot air from inside the house floats out if you leave the door open, because it’s colder outside than inside and the hot air is expanding and moving, looking for a place to go…” 

I wasn’t a science expert or anything, but I thought it made sense. 

Mom stared at me. “That’s a lot of ifs, Aubrey.” 

“Maybe so, but what else do we have to try?” I was growing desperate now. Vorcos had us surrounded, and Emery was trusting me to figure this out. “Besides, I’m not trapped in the orb. You can reach me. Even if I pass out as soon as I’m connected or something, you can just disconnect me.” I turned to Dad. “Please. Give me one minute. By then, I should be able to tell if it’s working. If it’s not and I fall unconscious or something, just pull the needle back out.” 

Dad stared at me for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay, we’ll try it.” 

“What?” My mom looked aghast. 

“It’s okay, Cynthia,” he said. “One minute shouldn’t do much harm, even if it does try to drain her. If she looks like she’s in pain or anything, I’ll disconnect her sooner.” He looked at me. “But we’re changing that needle. I have a spare in my briefcase.” 

I stared at him. “Why do you—”  

“One of my newer clients deals in medical supplies.” He turned to dig into his briefcase. 

We were desperate and short on time, so I saved my further questions for later. 

Soon, my dad had a new needle installed on the tube. 

I sat down near the orb, then looked away as he inserted the needle into my arm—watching it go in was usually the worst part—and then I waited, with everyone watching me intently.

That beeping was starting to give me a headache, but I braced against it and prepared myself for… well, pretty much anything. I didn’t know what might happen. 

We all watched the seconds tick by on my no-signal-bars cell phone, all the way up to one minute… but nothing happened. 

My heart sank. “It didn’t work.” 

Mom knelt beside me as Dad removed the thing from my arm, then we both stared up at Emery. 

We could still see her face through the crack, serene… but inside there, I knew she was terrified. Inside, she knew what was coming. 

“We’ll think of something, honey,” Mom said, but I could see she didn’t believe it. 

We all knew we were out of time. 

Mom pulled me sideways, into a hug while we were both still sitting. I leaned into her—then pulled back. 

“You don’t have a smell,” I said. 

She stared at me. “What?” A little laugh escaped her. “Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t—”

“No. You always have a smell—citrus perfume and apple shampoo.” I glanced around, suddenly realizing. “You always smell like your cologne,” I said to my dad, “but you were just leaning over me to attach the tube, and you didn’t have one, either.” I stared back at my parents. “And now that I think about it, neither did the beach. The beach always has a smell, too. Saltwater and ozone…” 

“What are you saying?” Collin asked, looking concerned. 

I stared at him. “I was next to you, but—” I thought back, and a chill ran down my spine. “You haven’t had a smell, either. And this room, when we first came down here, it smelled damp, but now it’s—it’s nothing!” I was starting to get freaked out. “I haven’t smelled a thing, since—” I stopped, the realization hitting me. “Since I got up after that pain shot through my head.” 

I pushed to my feet and walked away from the rest of them, back toward where I’d collapsed on the floor from the pain in my head when Trenchcoat Man mixed the elementals’ blood.

The air looked weird there, less hazy than the rest of the room… the haze that had appeared just after I’d collapsed.

I stared down at my arm, where my dad had inserted his clean, sterile needle… 

“Wait,” I said, spinning to face my dad. “You said you didn’t have anything sharp in your briefcase. That’s why we used my pencil sharpener.” 

Dad looked confused. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t usually carry needles. There’s nothing sharp in my briefcase… but when you asked for it just now, I knew they’d be in there…” He looked at me, seeming rattled. “I don’t even have clients who deal in medical equipment. Why did I think I did?” 

A chill slid down my spine.

Suddenly I heard Emery’s words in my head: “It’s always just a dream… a dream, within a dream, within a dream…” 

My heart sank. “This isn’t real.” 

“What?” my mom said. “Why would you think—” 

“It isn’t real.” I forced myself to look at them. “You might actually be here with me—your minds, at least. Maybe it’s a shared dream or something. I hope so. But this—” I gestured to the room. “It’s not real.” 

The more I thought about it, the more sure I was. Trenchcoat Man’s mixing of the elementals’ blood hadn’t broken the dampening ward and woken the elementals up, it had activated some kind of ward that had trapped us in a shared dream. 

Or at least, I was in a dream. And Emery was—the conversation I’d had with her was real, I was sure of it. But the rest of them… honestly, I wasn’t even sure if they were real.

They could’ve been my imagination, and their bodies could still be lying unconscious on the orb-room’s floor with no awareness of the past few minutes at all.

Assuming we were all still there. And alive. 

The others all stared at me. 

I focused on the subtle tear I could now see in the haze in the room—at my exit from this dream. 

How much time had I wasted, stuck in this illusion?

And what would I find waiting for me in the real world on the other side?  

I was honestly terrified to know.

“I’ve got to go,” I said, giving one last glance back at my family and friends. 

Then before they could stop me, I stepped through the rift in the haze.

***

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