SETTLING DOWN

                                                                          Chapter 5

Germaine sprang from her seat, her mouth rounding into an o. She rushed to where Cordelia stood looking shaken with broken tea cups on the floor and a large bleeding gash on her leg.

She assessed the situation and rushed to get the first aid kit. By the time she returned, the floor was clean and there was no sign of the broken tea cups. Cordelia was still standing in the same position with her mouth agape and a shocked look on her face, but there was no sign of blood on her leg, neither was there a cut. Germaine's brow furrowed and then it eased when she saw the tea cups on the dining table, all whole.

"You used your magic" She said mater of fact as a look of awe crept into her eyes. "Who are you people, and what do you want with me, with us?" She swept her hand in an arc to encompass Cordelia who looked like she was coming down from the surprised state she was in.

Keratin scoffed, but the golem just looked on. Storm who had been observing their actions with keen interest moved closer to Germaine, who backed away from him. "My lady, do not be afraid, we mean no harm, but we do need your help. Our world as we know it is in peril, and if care is not taken, yours will follow suit as well. Only one thing can help us, and that is the Talisman."

Cordelia flopped into a chair, momentarily distracting Germaine. "Earth is in danger? How come? You're still not making any sense, Storm, I'm really sorry." And then her eyes brightened and she smiled and clasped her hands. "I understand it all now, your magic is waning and you need my help in getting it back because of all the tricks you guys get up to in shows, you're scared people won't patronize you anymore and-"

"My lady!" The voice was sharp and brooked no nonsense. She looked up to see Keratin striding towards her. He stopped a foot away from her. "Come down from that make-belief story you have wrapped yourself up in, there are monsters within our world, and I am quite sure yours will be next, moon goddess only knows how many more worlds they will try to inhabit in order to become more powerful."

As if to buttress his words, a female newscaster's mechanical voice sailed in from the sitting room towards them. "-sightings of strange-looking men in the country side. These men exhibit long sharp teeth with extraordinarily pale white skin and long nails."

"They are already here!" Keratin said, casting an alert glance around the house as if he expected one of the blood-drinking things to materialize at any moment.

Germaine's face paled, she could hear her heart pumping blood in her veins. She licked her suddenly dry lips and clenched and unclenched her hands as she watched Storm and the others take a half-crouched position. She could not just sit here and do nothing, so she sprang up and fast walked to the sitting room where Cordelia sat staring at the television with a haunted look on her face.

"They were right all along." She said in a whisper without turning her face. "We're all gonna die if we don't do something about it."

Germaine sat down gently beside Cordelia and held her. "Shush! Don't say those words, we will be fine, and nothing bad will happen to us. The newscaster said the countryside, not the-"

"Listen to you speak, it's just a matter of time before they show up here in the town, don't you know?" Cordelia's voice was thick with emotion.

Germaine did not reply, instead, she tightened her hold on Cordelia, afraid if she let go she would fall apart herself. The solid comfort of holding her was familiar and soothing. What these men had said so far was unimaginable, talking about different worlds and how they were all in danger was sheer madness. She could not afford to give in to them for any reason. All that mattered to her was her bakery and keeping it afloat.

"My lady!" Storm said from behind her.

Something inside her snapped and she moved away from Cordelia and turned to face him, her eyes flashing anger. "Enough with addressing me as a lady, my name is Germaine, and I don't want to hear any more crap about you needing me on your hocus pocus mission in saving the various worlds." She closed her eyes and opened them once again and sighed. "I'm beat, if you will excuse me, I need to get some rest, see you or not in the morning." With that, she walked past him.

She made sure not to look at the other two men as she walked up the stairs, but she could feel their eyes boring holes in her back. After taking a shower, she flopped onto her bed and tried to sleep but it proved elusive. She tossed and turned, but it was not until about three in the morning before she fell into a restless sleep fraught with weird-looking creatures chasing her. These creatures had red glowing eyes and sharp teeth that were more like fangs.

She woke up drenched in sweat and a splitting headache she was sure was not because of the wine she drank the previous night. She dragged herself from her bed and after relieving herself, decided to brush her teeth. She was still debating on whether to take a shower when the smell of coffee wafted into her nostrils. She beelined to her door and opened it, there stood Cordelia, poised to knock. A cup of tea was perched in her other hand.

Germaine smiled and practically grabbed it from her. "You're a life saver, Cord, thanks a lot." And then she took a large sip and sighed. She moved back into her room followed closely by Cordelia.

"Keratin made that coffee, you know." Cordelia perched on the edge of the bed. "He's a fast learner, especially after I taught him the basics of putting the sachet of instant coffee inside a cup." She giggled.

"Fast learner indeed!" Germaine said rolling her eyes. A smile played at the edges of her lips as she took another sip. It was heavenly. She was not the type of person who liked black coffee, she preferred hers with heaps of cream and sugar.

"Don't you think the men are hot, of course with the exception of the dwarf, but most especially Keratin, with his long black hair and piercing black eyes and that build, just . . . wow. I've honestly never seen any man coming close to how good he looks.

Yeah, me neither! Germaine yawned and tried to look uninterested. She realized Cordelia had a crush on keratin. Her last two sentences were laced with attributes of how good he looked. Yeah, Keratin was a looker alright, but she had more pressing issues plaguing her mind, like the impending doom of earth and other worlds, if nothing was done to save them.

She scoffed at the thought of it all. It was ludicrous at best. The fact that there were other worlds, and that they were in peril. A small part of her knew Storm was telling the truth, but the other most dominant parts, could not just go along with it.

In a small voice, Cordelia asked. "Don't you think what Storm said yesterday was scary?"

Germaine shrugged and fiddled with her hairbrush as she downed the last vestiges of coffee and placed it on her dressing table.

Cordelia stood and walked towards Germaine, stopping when she was but a foot away. "What I mean to say is, why don't you finish hearing him out? Today is a Sunday and you don't get to go to the bakery." She put a hand on her shoulder. "Please, Gem, hear him out."

Germaine said nothing, except to nod. "Alright, where are they?"

"Right here!" The door opened to reveal Storm and the two other men. They stood at the threshold but did not come in.

Germaine's eyes widened. "You were eavesdropping on our conversation?"

"No, I wasn't, but the lady Cordelia called my name and I traced her to this room." He finished with a smile.

"And then you just so happened to stand and listen in on our conversation, because you couldn't-"

"Germaine, please!" Cordelia's eyes pleaded for peace. Germaine struggled internally. On one hand she wanted to chide Storm, but on the other, she wanted him to finish his story. After a few seconds, common sense won, and she nodded and told them to come inside her room.

They filed in and settled on the rug. Germaine's eyes widened when she noticed they were wearing normal modern clothes. Keratin had on a t-shirt that was a bit too tight for him and a pair of blue jeans which fit him snugly. Storm had on the same thing but his was a perfect fit. The Golem wore his tunic with a pair of shorts. Germaine was about to comment when she caught Cordelia's warning look. She decided to say nothing for the meantime, although she guessed Cordelia had something to do with their outfits.

"As I was saying yesterday, my la- I mean, Germaine, we need your help in getting this talisman. It is the only weapon against the blood-drinking humans. They are already amongst your people and will stop at nothing to bring you all down as they are already doing with ours."

Germaine said nothing. She was wondering how best to tell Storm to go to hell with his talks of doom. Instead, her mind wandered to Oliver, a guy she had just begun dating. Oliver was tall and broad shouldered. He had light blue eyes which turned dark with passion whenever he set eyes on her. Still thinking of him, she noticed how Storm's eyes began to flash with orange flames. He jerked upright and in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Oliver's, he began to speak. "I'm going on a date with Germaine tonight, she's got it bad for me. You know me, Cain, I'm gonna bang her brains out, she won't know what hit her after I slip a tab of ecstasy into her drink."

Germaine reared back in horror and Cordelia's mouth dropped open. Even Keratin and the golem looked shocked. Clearly, they had not yet seen this side of Storm.

"I can't do this!" Germaine got up and rushed out amidst shouts from Cordelia to come back.

Adrenaline pumped through Germaine as she rushed out. She grabbed the key of her car from the dining table and rushed to the garage. She drove round and round streets, anger pulsing wildly in her veins. Did Oliver really think that way of her? She had met him through a mutual friend of theirs. Cain was her former classmate at college, he stopped by one day to see her and came with Oliver. It was attraction at first sight, for while Cain left, Oliver had stayed for hours, talking to her.

That day he had asked her out on a date and they had been together ever since. That was two weeks ago, and now she found out from that freak, Storm, that he was just in it to bang her. Making up her mind, she turned her car round and made for his place. She would confront him even if it was the last thing she did. Few minutes later, she parked in front of his house but did not come down. Her nerves had suddenly begun to act up. She took several deep breaths and got down from the car before she could change her mind.

She closed the car door gently, not wanting to intimate Oliver of her arrival. He lived in a nice neighborhood with huge palm trees planted on either side of the street. His bungalow was modest, but she had been inside it and it boasted of high domes and expensive gilt chairs. He sold houses for a living and it brought him good money. She was about to walk to the door when she heard voices coming from the back, so she backtracked and crept towards it instead.

Even before she got there, she heard a man's laughter accompanied by Oliver's deeper one. "I'm telling you, man, Germaine's got some racks on her, I just can't wait to get my hands on those watermelons."

"I don't think she's going to be that easy, Germaine has always been a tough cookie even when we were in school." She recognized Cain's raspy voice.

"Yeah well, just 'cause you couldn't get inside her pants does not mean I won't. I'm not called The master, for nothing."

Cold dread washed over Germaine as she stood rooted to the spot. So it was true, Storm had been spot on, all along. Hearing herself being talked about and not in a nice way, was not a good feeling at all. That bastard, Cain had asked her out severally in school but she had seen him as nothing but a friend. So this was how he viewed women? As things to be passed around. Well, she would show him what stuff she was made of.

She stood from where she had been crouching and walked out into the open, relishing the shocked looks from Oliver and Cain. "Hi, Oliver!" Her smile was bright but it never reached her eyes. And then she began walking towards him. She did not bother to give Cain a greeting, for her, their friendship was over. She stopped a foot away from Oliver and her lips twisted. "Look at you sitting here feeling like Prince Charming,."

She picked up the teacup from the table in front of him, noting with pleasure, how hot it was. "Turns out you were just a jerk." With all the anger in her, she aimed, and threw the contents at him, then watched in morbid satisfaction as he screamed in a falsetto pitch. She shook her head and walked away, wondering what she had ever seen in him in the first place.

She got back to her car and started it. On the way home, she pressed hard on the accelerator, willing the car to move faster than its limit of one hundred and eighty kilometers. Luckily, the roads were free because it was a Sunday, so within five minutes, she got home. Hardly had she parked the car than she rushed out. She saw the three men in the sitting room in the middle of a conversation but they all stopped and turned to watch her. She knew without being told they had been talking about her.

"Alright, Storm, you win. I'm ready to go on this mission of yours."

It happened in an instant. The moment the words left her mouth, cracks appeared on the windows and for some weird reason, she began to shiver. She turned, just in time to see frost gathering on the edges of the window sills and underneath the door.

Storm stood and turned to face her. His eyes were engulfed with orange and blue flames and his long hair fanned out from behind him. In a voice that boomed, he spoke. "It has begun!"