The Mantis Synchronicity - Book Five - 21. Chapter 21 - Abernathy's Apothecary

It was night.

Abernathy was still in his apartment testing his enhanced senses, when Croosen returned.

“This is miraculous,” he began to say, speaking about his enhancement.

“I took the other mantis gland,” Croosen blurted out, “and I did something bad.”

Abernathy frowned at her. “What are you talking about? I noticed it was gone when I looked for it earlier, but I just thought you either forgot to leave it here or wanted to hang onto…” He stopped speaking as she pulled down the bandage over the wound from her self-surgery. “What did you do?”

Croosen placed the grimoire onto the counter and opened to the page about the five Demifae subjects who all received similar treatments and gained psychic abilities. “It’s in my neck,” she whispered. “I can see monsters with my waking eyes. They are with me. They’re in my mind and I fear that they’re taking over.”

Abernathy was appalled, but it was clear to him that Croosen was in distress. “How can I help you? What do you want me to do?”

Croosen looked at him with pleading eyes. “I think we need to go back to the witch.”

Even though the hour was very late, the ethereal woman was awake; Croosen and Abernathy could hear her cackling inside her home as they approached. She answered the door before they knocked on it, but the witch just kept laughing. She pointed at the bandage around Croosen’s neck and laughed with tears in her eyes. Through her tittering, the witch managed to say, “No spell will undo what’s been done!” and her wicked amusement continued as the travelers left her home again.

Croosen and Abernathy returned to the city under the rising sun, and to their alarm, the front door of Abernathy’s shop was broken.

“Bleeding Shift-lovers!” he growled as he pushed it open.

He and Croosen entered, but they saw no signs of theft or damage inside.

“Someone clearly kicked the door in,” Croosen noted. “Why do so much damage to the front, if they had no intention of taking…”

Abernathy held up his hand for her to stop speaking. He inhaled deeply and whispered, “Intruders.” He pointed to the stairs that led up to his apartment, and the two of them stayed motionless. Abernathy could hear nothing, no creaky floorboards, no heartbeats from anyone besides himself and Croosen, no sound of breathing from whoever had broken in; he could hear nothing. His shoulders relaxed, and he said at a normal volume, “I think they’re gone. I can smell them; someone was in here.”

He and Croosen could find no sign of any disturbance on the first floor in the main part of his shop, and they approached the bottom of the stairs.

“Wait here,” Abernathy said, and he climbed to the top and searched his apartment, but he could not determine what had transpired. “It’s all clear!” he called down. He could smell that the intruders had gone through his apothecary and his home above, but their aromas were dissipating, and they were garbled to his enhanced sense of smell. He could not tell how many people had invaded his space, and no one seemed to have touched a single thing. It was as if they walked through his home and simply left again.

“What a mystery,” he murmured, looking out at the sunrise over the waves★