Heart to Heart

Evy flagged down a cab for us. We all piled in, after of course I had peeled my broken body off the ground. Jon slipped out of the cab quite literally when we got to our destination. Rick pulled him up, not happy with his antics.

"Rick, Rick could you get the cab?" Jon asked. I rolled my eyes pulling out a five from my bra.

"Does it look like I have a wallet?" I heard Rick ask Jon sarcastically. My family all got out and into the club before me. I gave the money to the driver thanking him for not asking us questions. Jon put some ice from behind the bar into a pitcher and started pouring us drinks. Rick took the ice and poured it into a napkin promptly wrapping it up, took the drink and downed it, before putting the ice on his crotch. Jon had his own ice putting it to his head and drinking the whiskey in his hand straight from the bottle. I rolled my eyes. God that was getting common, as much as I loved my family I was tired of them.

"You know I would've killed the Emperor, if you two hadn't blown my cover. I had everything under control." Alex said as he took his tie off from around his neck.

"Oh, yeah, that's exactly what we were thinking." Rick started, I walked up behind him and gripped his shoulder telling him to pipe down. He tensed up and then relaxed into my touch.

"Oh yeah, good going, you raised another Mummy." Alex said as Tori sat quietly next to her aunt.

"And this bugger has superpowers." Jon threw in.

"He's got control over fire, water, metal and who knows what else." Alex continued.

"And you dug him up anyway." Tori started.

"You ain't gonna pin this one on me okay, Tori? You helped quite an awful lot if I remember correctly." He yelled at her.

"HEY!! Don't you yell at her, you both had equal parts in this, there's no use placing blame." I jumped in before it could get ugly between the two cousins.

"Stop it, all of you! No one's to blame here. Wilson manipulated all of us." Evy said as she forcefully pulled off her fake eyelashes from the night.

"Well, that's true." Rick agreed with her.

"I apologize for my parents. But, I... I thought, we worked really well together." Alex said to his new friend. I saw Evy and Tori get curious about the new woman who joined our little gang.

"Except we failed." She told him, she was an interesting one. Seemed not very caught up with the times, judging by her outfit.

"I'm sorry, we haven't been properly introduced. Who are you exactly?" Evy said waltzing up to the young woman.

"My name is Lin. My family has watched over the Emperor's Tomb for centuries. The Emperor cannot be killed, unless he is stabbed through the heart with this..." She pulled out a unique looking dagger. "My mother put a curse on it long ago." She had dark hair with some purple highlights mixed in. She was quite pretty in her own way. I admired her. She kind of reminded me of myself at that age.

"Mhmm... Quick family meeting, Alex?" Evy said as she eyed the dagger and looked at Alex as to why he brought this strange woman along with us. She purposefully walked us into a family meeting not too many feet away from the newcomer. Tori walked over to us with Alex, Rick and I as Jon leaned over the bar to participate.

"Sit down!" Evy told him, breaking up the two words and sounding quite commanding. "Well. What do you really know about this girl?" She questioned Alex with a light tone.

"Well, not much. But after I helped, I'm willing to go on a little faith." Hmm those words sounded a bit familiar to me. I nodded.

Rick started to talk but was cut off by our new friend. "Fai-"

"Time is running out." Lin stated walking up behind me.

"You do believe in the concept of personal space, don't you?" Rick asked as he stood up, putting his arm around me, pulling me to his chest, closely watching the woman.

"If the Emperor reaches Shangri-La and drinks from the pool of eternal life he will raise his army, and no one will be safe." She told us trying to get us to move forward with our task.

"And let me guess? He'll wipe out the world?" Rick questioned. Jonathan rolled his eyes.

"I just kinda like to say this, boys stay handsome forever. Shangri-La is crock." Jon added, he knew this area better than us seeing as he's been in China for a long while.

"You know, that's what you used to say about Mummies too, Jon. You did pretty well with it." I told him gesturing to his bar we were currently standing in.

"Well said." He smiled at me.

"The gate way to Shangri-La lies in the mountain pass, high in the Himalayas. Beyond it, is the golden tower. Once the diamond is placed on top it will point the way to Shangri-La. Yang still has the diamond, and that is where he and the Emperor will go." She told us.

"She's right, all the legends of 'The Eye' mention the gateway." Evy added in, starting to believe Lin and the story she was spinning. China was not my forte so we were in good hands with Evy and the kids who have been studying it. Jonathans knowledge would get us far in the city not so much the mountainside.

"I like her, Alex, she knows what's what." Jon added into our family meeting.

"Let's just say, that we were to believe you. Could you guide us there?" Rick asked her again starting to get back into the swing of things.

"Yes, I have been there once. I remember the way." Lin said, Tori was looking down at the floor this entire time. I think she was jealous her cousin had someone else paying attention to him. Alex and her had always been attached at the hip. Just now was the time she was going to have to be without him. Learn to be without him.

"Himalayas? Means we're going to need a plane." I butted in.

"Huh... I just know the 'Mad-Dog' for the job." Rick said. I smiled at him though he couldn't see it as he was holding me. We had gotten a hold of Mad Dog and finally convinced him to let us come along for a ride on his plane. We all went to some stores and picked up a couple winter coats for us to traverse the mountain on without freezing our asses off. Then off to the airstrip we went, where I had planned on talking to Tori and see how she was doing.

Flying Death Trap

"I know, no self respecting pilot, would land on the valley floor but I don't have any self respect, so what I'll do is put you down the mountain half ways." Mad Dog told us from his pilot seat.

"That still will give us the advantage." Evy told us all. I was sitting across from Rick next to Tori and behind Evy. Alex was behind me chatting with his new girlfriend.

"Sure, but no guarantee anyone will live." Mad Dog continued.

"Great." Rick smiled coyly, looking at me as if to ask if we'd made the right choice. I shrugged.

"So, Tori what's wrong?" I asked her looking into her blue eyes, once again, much like her fathers.

"Nothing mom, can we talk about this later?" She asked me as she was holding on for dear life, not used to the turbulent flying of Mad Dog.

"I'd tell you, fasten your seat belt but I'm to cheap to buy any." Mad Dog told us, right on time.

"Why am I laughing?" I heard Rick say from beside me as he let out some fake nervous laughter.

"Here we go, be calm, it's safe and secure." He said as he started a massive descent where you could practically feel the G forces and 4,000ft. per minute descent. My family all started screaming as I looked out the window to see our wing clip the mountain. Then boom!! My neck snapped forwards as we had a 3 point landing that was very hard, we continued bouncing down the slope we had landed on, going airborne again for a few seconds then settling back to the ground. Hell, I could land this plane better than Mad Dog could. The fucking plane needed less speed to land on this goddamn mountain. It was a fucking downslope for godsake you needed way less speed then what we landed with. Fucking Mad Dog was insane, it's how he got his name. The plane then started tipping and I didn't dare look outside. I clutched the seat in front of me.

"Don't anybody move! Nobody move! Nobody move!" Rick consoled us all by yelling those 2 words over and over again. Then finally we were on all three wheels as we leveled off on the ground. Mad Dog pulled his gloves off the yoke.

"Huh!" He grunted proud of his awful landing.

"What is that god awful smell?" Evy asked what all of us were thinking.

"The yak, yaked..." Jon said as I looked back at him, covered in yellow yak puke, most likely the hay it was consuming prior to our rough touchdown. Poor Jon had to ride in the baggage compartment with the yak so we could all fit. I stifled a laugh at my brother who was just having the worst of luck. We packed up our shit and quickly got out of the plane before it could shift anymore and fall off the mountain. Our walking sticks were out and we were traversing up the mountain with Evy and I in the lead.

"Delta, tango, alpha, to Ricochet. Come in Ricochet." I heard Mad Dog on the comms.

"Delta, tango, alpha, this is Ricochet. Go ahead Mad Dog." Rick radioed back to our nutjob of a pilot.

"Rick, you know that Yang fellow, you told me to keep my eye out for? He just showed up." I heard him say.

"Ricochet out, thanks Mad Dog." He thanked our colleague. "It's those people, let's go." He told me. I nodded and looked at Tori who was trailing behind the yak. I stopped my path to walk next to her.

"Would you like to get some energy out?" I asked her as I caught up to her. Nodding my head over at my sleeping brother. She smiled enjoying my idea.

"JONATHAN, WAKE UP!" Tori screamed at him. He jolted awake and we continued on with our climb towards Shangri-La. It wasn't too eventful, scaling a mountain was hard work and a lot of beautiful views. However, not much was said among us. Which was good we all needed a little space from one another.

"Hold the line. We've reached more than half way, we're gonna camp up there for tonight." Rick told our group as we approached an abandoned makeshift city is what it looked like.

"Hey Tori come help me get some wood for our fire." I told her making her come with me down the slope a ways.

"What's the matter with you, you've been down since we got here. Can't say it's got anything to do with the new girl, eh?" I asked her as she walked beside me.

"I just thought the pieces were finally coming together. Now it seems like nothing I do is good enough anymore." She told me her blue eyes welling up with tears.

"Oh, honey. You know that's not true. Look at how far you've come. Look at your accomplishments. I mean I wish you had finished your college instead of gallivanting off. Maybe you could be a director somewhere eventually for a big museum somewhere. None the less, you have made me so proud. The pieces will fall as they may, eventually, into the right places. You just need to have the courage to continue and the strength to learn from your mistakes. Not that this discovery was a mistake. You will be memorialized for it in the end. Take my word for it." I told her pulling her close to me into a hug as we reached our destination where the wood for the fire would be.

"Sit down." I told her. She followed my words and actions onto the straggled wood.

"You know, Alex is just figuring this out with you as well. Your not losing him, girlfriends will come and go. You will always be his family and there's no reason to get upset over that." I told her hoping that would cheer her up a tad. She smiled at me and put her head on my shoulder, Rick looked up from where he was a good distance away and gave me a look of confusion. I smiled and waved at him. He didn't need to know what his daughter was going through at the moment. We would keep this interaction between us.

"Regardless of the fact. Looks like Alex and his girlfriend are having a squabble right as we speak." I trailed off. Nodding towards the pair.

"We will find the gateway and we will figure this out sweetheart. Don't you worry about a thing, the pieces will eventually fall into place." I smiled looking at my husband who was cleaning out his guns he had brought with him. I stood up and looked at my daughter, nothing bad was ever going to happen to her not if I had anything to do with it.

"Well, feeling better?" I asked her she nodded and stood up beside me.

"Let's get some of this wood and head back over to Uncle Jon maybe he'll cheer us both up." I told her as I grabbed a couple pieces of the wood and headed back over with Tori in step behind me. We headed towards my brother who was most likely making conversation with the yak we had brought along with us from the plane. We set the wood down in front of the fire that was burning in front of Jon.

"It's not easy being me. Then again I don't suppose it's easy as being you is it, Geraldine old girl? Well, if I met a girl like you Geraldine. You know, hard working, you don't say much. A little bit hairy, but I don't mind that." He was talking to the yak, I knew it, just like he had the camel all those years ago. I smiled, I knew it this work, it would always work. I looked at Tori, she was laughing and petting the yak. Better, things were definitely starting to fall into their places.