The Ninth

Part 8. Down the street

Darla lit a cigarette while sitting at the bar, drinking whiskey.

"I'll smoke with your permission. There aren't that many people anymore. I don't think I'll bother anyone."

"Yeah, okay, plus my boss won't notice. Wow, aren't these the cigarettes that existed like, well... 100 years ago?" Martha was surprised by what she saw.

"That's right. I've got loads of them. Want to own one?"

"But they are impossible to get these days! They ceased to exist back then! Yes, I would be so glad to have it!"

"Sometimes even the impossible becomes possible," she smiled again, putting the cigarette for her on the bar. And then Darla suddenly pointed her palm towards Martha and said: agi animum tuum audeo.

Martha felt a weird dizziness at that moment.

"Well, I've subdued your mind, now let's talk frankly. Tell me who do you know here."

"I have a good friend. Dean Lawrence. He looks our age, but he's 32. But... honestly, I think you are older, both in conversation and in manners, and... in everything."

"That's correct. I'm much older. A familiar name, by the way. Anyone else you know?"

"Well, I know that he lives with our police major. They rent a cottage together not far from here. I guess they are brother and sister. He also has a friend, Hal, but I don't know him, I only saw him once. And Dean has a girlfriend, Dana, though I don't like her at all..."

Nunc redeo, Darla whispered, snapping her fingers right in front of Martha's eyes. The mind control was immediately gone.

"Hal was here..." she smiled very mysteriously.

"Do you know him?"

"It's an eternity friendship," Darla said. "So he decided to come back to her... Bonds, all that. They can not be broken. Where can I find Hal?"

"I think in the same place as Dean. Dean lives in a cottage down the street like I said, on the left side."

"And you can be very useful, Martha," Darla smiled haughtily again, throwing the hood of a cardigan over her head and looking into her eyes intently. "You liked the way Dean used you, right? Then I'm taking you away from him, now you will be with me. If you see them, here's my number, call or text me. If you don't, then the twenty-first year of your life will be your last. Got it? And I think I'll just walk down the street to where the cottages are."

Invisique.

Darla literally disappeared.

Martha, almost without blinking, grabbed her phone, found a chat with Dean and started typing a message.

"Your friend is in trouble. He's being looked for. And not only him. So are you."

- - - - -

"And here it is..."

Darla was standing right in front of the house she needed. Kayla's cottage house. There was a light lit inside. Approaching the door, she knocked. Kayla herself opened the door.

"Good evening. Um... who are you?"

"Hello. Oh, you must be Kayla Sheridan?"

"Yes, it's me," she narrowed her eyes, "How can I help?"

"The connection on my phone is terrible. I need to make a call. Can I come in and try calling from here?"

"Yeah, of course, come in," Kayla let her into the house. Closing the door, Darla barely perceptibly smirked.