"They're still alive?" the young woman asked.
"They'll probably live twenty or thirty years," The Ancient One answered, "normally. But they'll probably become quite insane, far worse than they were before, and their own people will have to destroy them."
They entered another bedroom. There was a woman sleeping in the bed with a girl of perhaps eight and a boy of five or six. "She's yours!" The Ancient One snapped. "Go ahead! You'll find it's not that difficult."
The young woman shivered but quickly went to the woman and snatched her soul out of her body, then began to rip it apart. "Why can't you do this?" she asked.
"It's harder for me to destroy female souls," The Ancient One answered, "they try to bond to me seeking mercy. They can't adhere to you. You can feel it, can't you, they want to be repelled from you?"
"Yes," the young woman answered, "I can." She looked to the side of the bed and there was a young girl standing there about thirteen or fourteen. "Who's this?" she asked.
"The little girl," The Ancient One answered, "this is how old she reached in her last lifetime. Give me some of that!"
The young woman ripped off a piece of the soul and handed it to The Ancient One. He went over to the girl and put it up to her left breast. It quickly absorbed into her. The girl gave a startled cry. The Ancient One held out his hand, his companion gave him another piece, and he put it in the girl's other breast. He put a third piece in her crotch.
"There!" The Ancient One snapped, "That helped undo the damage they did. Listen to me," he continued. "Get up, get dressed. Dress your brother. Take him out of the house. Go towards the center of the city, cross four streets then turn left. Go down three more streets and turn right. You'll come to a cab on the curb. The driver will be taking a break. Say to him 'Sir, my parents want me to do a very bad thing. Please take me and hide me and my brother so they can't use us to hurt people.' He will take you home. His brother will come. His children were killed. They were just about your age. He still has their papers. He will take you to another province where you and your brother will grow up and live very happy lives. No men there will ask you to do the things that your father and your brother were asking you to do. Hurry up! Go!"
The young woman went over to her body and disappeared into it. She quickly rose and started to dress.
"Come on!" The Ancient One told his companion, "We're all done! Wasn't that bad, was it?" "If I hadn't come you wouldn't have been able to save her or her brother, would you? Your power would've hurt them." "Precisely!" The Ancient One answered, "Precisely why I need people like you that can control my powers and keep me stable."
"Then it wasn't that bad," the young woman answered. "Actually it was very good. They were going to send her to school with a bomb, weren't they? They were going to make her kill herself and all her friends because they went to school. I perceived it when I was destroying her mother's soul. She thought it would glorify her, sacrificing her daughter. How did they get like that? How do they become so twisted?"
"I wish I knew," The Ancient One answered. "We've never seen anything like it, not to the extent that it's going on now. But it's got to be stopped, it has to be stopped, and I can't stop it alone."
"You're not alone," the young woman answered, "you will never be alone. Sometimes those with you might not like the things they have to do, but you'll never be alone. You'd better take me home. Will I remember any of this?"
"Maybe a little," The Ancient One answered. "But it's actually a protection that you don't. Those of us that do get very frustrated that we can't use our powers when we're awake, not to this extent anyway. It's far better that you don't remember."
The young woman smiled. The Ancient One took her home, made sure she was safe back in her body, and headed home himself. "Not bad!" he muttered, "Not bad at all!"