Henry looked down at sleeping beauty in his living room, the early morning rays of sunlight shining through her hair. She was breathtakingly lovely, and he felt his heart jump a little in his chest. But that was just a natural reaction to a Subus, even disguised behind a mor as she was, so he let it pass.
He’d taken off his party clothes and slipped on his white T-shirt and jeans mor leaving his feet bare. This was a skill he knew he’d have to keep practicing.
He went to the kitchen and began the process of cooking breakfast. He was getting better at it. As it was the weekend, he’d make a hearty meal. Bacon, eggs, toast, jam, and orange juice.
He was feeling surprisingly good after the rough night before. His facedidhave some tender spots. Someone punched him? Some moments fromst night were still blurry.
He puttered in the kitchen, being as quiet as he could, but eventually, he heard stirring in the living room.
“Hey. When did you get up?” Marisa sleepily said as she approached.
“About fifteen minutes ago.” He watched her yawning and frowned. “If you’re still tired go lie down on my bed for a while.” She shuffled up to kiss him on the cheek, stole a piece of bacon from his te, then shuffled off to the bedroom and closed the door.
He smiled and finished making his breakfast.
With hisptop open on the breakfast bar, he started it up and brought his food over. He opened a browser and pointed it to one of the news aggregator websites. The top story was the quarantined town in Kansas again.
This time there was amateur video of terrible events happening at a high school on the edge of town. The videographer managed to set himself up in a blind at the edge of a cornfield with a huge telephoto lens and caught it all.
The story reported that the army had trapped something in the school gymnasium, but it broke free and went on a killing rampage. While faces in the video weren’t sharp due to the heat ripple over the long distance, the actions were clear enough. The creature looked like a long, wide ribbon of ck which rippled and undted to propel itself through the air. Lining its long lean body, sharp ck spikes projected outwards. That’s all the detail he could make out.
It looked like it was having some trouble getting airborne as it bounced along the ground in front of the open gym door, thrashing this way and that, impaling the startled soldiers on its spikes. Someone who looked important with lots of colorful service ribbons on his chest faced down the creature and managed to get some shots off before losing his head to a snap of a toothy maw which suddenly appeared at one end.
The beast tried flying away after the ughter, but one of the surviving soldiers opened up with a 50mm before it got out of range and brought it down. One of the rounds hit something vtile inside as it exploded with a thump, sshing the field with its guts. The army went on full alert and swarmed over the area. That’s where the vid ended.
Henry’s fork remained forgotten, halfway to his mouth which hung open. He was reliving his dream from the night before. About a nightmare creature that came from the other side and hid in a darkened gymnasium.
It wasn’t a dream. It was real!
Shit! He’d let that monster in from the other world. He let that sink in for a moment, feeling a chill work its way down his spine. The death of those soldiers was on him. That wasn’t a good feeling. Not at all.
He gave himself a little shake as that wasn’t the only thing that happened in his ‘dream’. If he’d let the monsterin, then he’d also rescued all those ss people from starving to death in the dark gym. They’d been put there by the soldiers. Left to die there buthe’dfreed them. Something good came of his actions. There was a bnce of bad and good. He allowed himself to take responsibility for both. This didn’t eliminate the pain he felt for the soldier’s death, but saving so many ss people eased it considerably. He put those feelings aside to consider the real problem, what upset him the most.
He was messing with magic. That was something he’d vowed not to do. He had no interest in magic and desperately wanted to avoid it. But no matter howbadlyhe wanted to live a normal, magic-free life, it kept creeping in, twisting and tangling his ns, and poisoning his actions. He looked at the ck ring on his finger, and a terrible rage swept through him. He wanted it gone so badly he contemted cutting his finger off. When his temper cooled, he found himself holding his knife poised above his knuckle.
A knock on his front door startled him, and he dropped the knife.
He stood, picked up the dropped cutlery, ced it on the counter, and took a deep breath to settle his nerves before walking to the door.This belongs to N?velDrama.Org - ?.
He opened it and Yuko was standing there. He blinked in surprise at her determined expression. He nced to the face of the smaller woman standing next to her. He recognized her but couldn’t ce where he’d seen her. Dark skin, long ck hair,rge pretty and dark eyes, ring in her nose with a chain leading down into her t-shirt- oh! He pulled his eyes back up to her face which now had a knowing smile on her pretty lips. The Thai restaurant. He looked back to Yuko.
“I must speak with you. May wee in?” she asked.
Still unsettled, he stepped back, and the two women entered.
They slipped off their shoes and walked into the living room as Henry followed.
Yuko looked to the closed bedroom door. “You havepany?”
He nodded.
“The blond from downstairs?” she asked bluntly.
He shook his head and struggled to get control of the situation. “Who I have in my bedroom is none of your concern.”
“I’m asking if it’s safe to talk,” Yuko exined, holding his eyes so he would understand her meaning. He nced at the smaller woman who just nodded to him.
“Oh! Yes.” They took seats on the couch.
“You are Stanley,” Yuko blurted, her voice demanding but shaky too.
He looked at her closely and saw she was trembling slightly. He began to get nervous. “I’m Henry… now.”
A shudder went through her body, and she closed her eyes. “But you were Stanley, once.”
Not sure where she was going with this, he nodded cautiously. “Yes.”
A smile bloomed on her face, and she rxed. “Why do you look so different?”
“It’s a mor… from the Fae.” He nced to the other woman whose eyes hadn’t left his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t get your name.”
“I am Kali Chandra. Mahati’s sister.”
Henry’s eyes went wide in surprise.
“Is it true you defeated her magic?” she gushed with excitement, her body practically vibrating with it.
He nodded as it suddenly felt unsafe to say more.
He looked to Yuko whose expression was showing doubt again as she ran her eyes over his body.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can see through Fae mors, but I cannot see through yours. When you were Stanley, it wasforting that you were as you appeared.” Yuko said.
Henry wasn’t about to tell them about being linked to an alternate realm of magic, but he was no good at lying, so he just shrugged. Her presence here and now was making him nervous. “Is that what you wanted to speak to me about?” That came out a little sharper than he intended.
Yuko’s eyes shed to his, and he saw hurt and doubt in them. “What have I done to earn such anger?” she snapped.
He rocked back. “Why do you continue to refuse to take responsibility for your actions!?!” Henry barked.
The bedroom door opened and Marisa stepped out with a concerned look. “Henry?”
“Marisa, this is my new neighbor Yuko. You remember her, don’t you? She’s the one who tried to use her tears to make me fall in love with her, then told her father we were engaged and, oh yeah, forced me to go to Japan to humiliate myself in front of theentire Japanese government!” Henry finished with a yell.
He caught motion in the corner of his eye and leapt on Yuko, pinning her to the couch while grabbing her hands. The beginnings of her spell snapped and copsed in his hands, and the wave of force blew outwards, tossing pillows and Kali from the couch tond on the floor several feet away with a thump.