Chapter 11 #2
Mark tried dialing every number he had for Shelly, but nothing went through. Then, he tried to get in touch with his security detail around her house. Same problem. They’d been cut off.
Mark called the Midtown Alpha back and asked for backup to be sent, but he had the sinking feeling they wouldn’t get there in time. This would be up to whoever was already there, and Mark alone was the cavalry.
Goddess help them all.
*
Shelly shivered, pulling her cardigan closer around her body and rubbing her upper arms. She was up late, which wasn’t abnormal for her when she really got immersed in a project.
Seeing the island had been inspirational in so many ways.
Ideas were sparking in her mind, and she knew she would stay up as long as she could to get as many of them down on paper as possible.
There was so much to be done there. So much they could do with that beautiful landscape and magical location.
She’d already fleshed out the sketches she’d made for the community center.
She was getting into the nitty-gritty details of plumbing, electrical, and room layouts now.
One of her favorite parts of any job. This was the stage where she could imagine people living in and using the fixtures and furniture she made room for in her designs.
It was sort of like playing with an imaginary dollhouse on paper that would, someday, become real. Full-scale.
She’d always thought that was a lot of fun. How many people got to see their dreams become reality in such a tangible way?
But something had interrupted her train of thought.
She’d been sitting at her drafting table, working the old-fashioned way with pencil and paper, rulers and grids, but something had disturbed her.
She’d stood, felt the cold and checked the thermostat, but unless it was reading incorrectly, the house was at a comfortable seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit. The way she always kept it.
So then, why was she cold?
She glanced out the window then looked again. The garden was dark. Completely dark in a way that wasn’t normal. Shelly scowled. What was going on out there? Had they forecast fog? But that didn’t look like fog…
Her hands started to tingle, and a buzzing sound echoed through the house. Only the sound wasn’t registering in her ears, but in her mind. It was a silent hum that felt like a billion angry wasps droning around her head. What the…?
A flash of sickly green roiled through the black outside like an oil slick. Only, this wasn’t even remotely pretty. It was putrid. The buzzing intensified as she watched the tendril of green ooze approach her home.
As she watched it get closer and closer, it suddenly stopped. Halted, as if it had run into a brick wall, about five feet from her house. She watched as it spread outward and then upward, seeking a break in the invisible shield that, somehow, was protecting her home from…whatever this was.
It streaked upward, right past the window through which she was looking. She leaned closer to see it go up past the rooftop then curve overhead, as if there was a dome over her house. What in the world?
Movement from the driveway caught her eye.
Shelly looked down to see the man from the elevator stepping out of the darkness.
It seemed to be coming from him, somehow.
Accepting him. Liking the feel of him. That alone made her feel sick to her stomach.
There was something very wrong with that blackness.
Something disgusting about it. Something… evil.
Antony, she remembered. He’d said his name was Antony Mason. But what in the world was he doing here? Had he been watching for her? Waiting for her to return? And why?
She had a sinking feeling she knew why. He was after Mark. He’d been way too interested in the events of that night in Manhattan. He’d been friendly with the shooter, no matter that he claimed later not to be. This man was a liar. And that was the least of his sins, she was sure.
How she knew that, she didn’t fully understand, but she felt the truth of it in her heart.
The buzzing increased again as he strode through the black wrongness that seemed to welcome him.
He walked right up to her front door—or as close as he could get to it, which looked like that same five-foot barrier that the green goo had faced.
He stood there, looking at the remnants of the green plasma, now dissipating as it swirled harmlessly against whatever that shield was around her house. Was that something Mark’s people had put in place? She’d have to ask him.
Antony lifted one hand to try to touch the barrier, but it gave him a sizzling white shock of mini-lightning that had him pulling his hand back with a curse.
Whatever it was, the barrier had stopped this Antony guy in his tracks.
He had his hands on his hips, staring at it, and his face was contorted with anger.
“You will not keep me out, mistress of the cat,” he spat, raising his gaze to meet hers as she gasped in shock. That he’d known exactly where she was standing creeped her out.
“Go away,” she shouted, unsure if he could even hear her through the glass, but needing to say something.
“I’m not going anywhere without your blood, cat-whore!” he said in a voice that somehow carried up to her window and through it to reach her ears. Or maybe it was buzzing in her mind the way that…energy…or whatever it was, had done.
“Why?” she whispered, wanting to know what fueled the rage she saw on Antony’s face. “Why Mark? Why are you doing this?”
“That fucking cat stands in the way of my plans and my promotion within the ranks of the Venifucus. Kill him and I move up to stand at the foot of the altar to the Mater Priori, Elspeth, the Destroyer of Worlds.” Antony practically salivated as he said the words, then seemed to sober.
“This was the task I was given. Kill the jaguar, and my future is assured,” he said as if repeating a sick and twisted mantra.
“Never,” Shelly said, not sure how or if Antony could hear her, but it had to be said. The world could no longer exist without Mark in it. At least not for her.
The droning sound in the back of her mind rose as Antony backed up a few paces then held out both arms in front of him, and that green plasma shot from both of his hands.
It was a concentrated attack on the barrier only a few feet away.
The green was way more intense this time.
Bright, sickly green that made her want to puke.
The feel of it against her home—for, she realized, she could feel the attack inside her own body in some strange sort of way—made her feel sick. And then, it made her angry. So angry, she marched down the stairs and threw open the front door before she even knew what she was doing.
“Stop!” she screamed at Antony, lifting her own hands and letting her rage at his attack pour out. How dare he come here and try to hurt her? How dare he target Mark for death? How dare he attack her in her own territory? On her own ground? Outrage filled her and roiled in her blood.
Those red sparks she had seen first on the island were back, and there was no doubt, this time, that they came directly from her.
Mark wasn’t around. She couldn’t explain away the magic as being some kind of byproduct of his presence.
No, this was all on her. All from her. She would own it, and she would control it.
And she would use it to defend her home in any way possible.
Much to her surprise, Antony flew back, into the trees across the width of her driveway. As he disappeared into the darkness, she heard him scream, followed by wet crunching sounds that made her wince.
Had she really just done that? Had she propelled a grown man with obvious magical power away from her house with only those innocent-looking red sparks?
Shelly looked down at her hands, expecting to see burns, but she was whole, untouched.
If she hadn’t just witnessed it herself, she wouldn’t really believe it.