Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #14 May 2015 | Seite 72

laughter. Jake got up and hugged Patrick. The chair
leaned dangerously backwards.

“Nope.” Patrick put his glass down. “I didn’t have a
concept of time.”

“You’re fine, right? I didn’t mess up?” Jake was holding Patrick’s shoulders, as if he was expecting him to
faint or sprout a tentacle.

“Where were you?” Margo took a drink.

“Well, I have no clue. I know that I didn’t have a
“I’m fine. I feel great; I remember everything.” Patrick body, and that everything around me was blurry.” He
placed his hand on Jake’s wrists and looked directly in stopped and thought a little “Honestly, my memory of
his eyes. “You didn’t mess up.” He kissed Jake, then
it is fading the longer I think about it. I do remember
got up and stretched. “Now, can we eat? I’m starving. I didn’t feel anything but indifference. I didn’t feel
You two can tell me how long I have been out and
anything about anything.” He smiled. “I think it was
what happened.”
kinda boring.”
***

Margo finished her juice and got up. “Now if you
excuse me, I need to go, get some sleep and leave you
two alone. Good night.”

Patrick was finishing his third helping of macaroni
and cheese. “Seriously? He shot you?”

“Good night.” Jake and Patrick continued eating and
talking.

“I brought her back didn’t I?” Jake refilled Patrick’s
glass with juice and returned to his meal.

Margo wheeled her suitcase to her old room, the one
on the far right. One cursory glance told her everything was where she had left it, even though the
furniture was changed. She was glad she stopped by
her apartment to get her clothes, because she didn’t
have anything here that fit. She left Malik’s care when
she was just eighteen. She looked at the mini display
made of random throwing knives and stars on one of
the shelves.

“That he did.” Margo spoke with a mouthful of food.
“You’re a good cook.”
“Just like riding a bike. You don’t forget it.” Patrick
put his fork down. “Seriously, it took you only three
years? What strings did you pull?”
“I thought it was a long time.” Jake picked up his
glass.
“Let me get this straight.” Margo put her feet up on
the table. “You freaked out an over-religious mortician
half to death by having a centipede demon appear in
his bathroom through his toilet, made two kilos of sacred clay and a sacred urn from scratch, hacked into a
federal database, and then stole the scrolls from a rich
guy’s Fort Knox-like vault, convinced him not to press
charges, all the while searching for the Hand, spending around two million dollars, when it was at Malik’s
place, and you feel three years is too long?”
“What can I say, I like setting high standards for myself.” Jake turned to Patrick, furrowing his eyebrows
“And you didn’t know how much time you were
dead?”

Margo was unpacking and thinking about her death.
She was pretty sure the room she saw was the Nexus
coven’s afterlife, where the witches continued to serve
their deity after their death. If that was true, the reason
for her phasing out was the fact she was coven born,
but didn’t perform any rituals. She didn’t know what
would happen when the other witches would come
to the house and find the dead bodies and the empty
basement. She didn’t know what would happen when
the rest of the Vuur clan would find out.
‘I’ll worry about it when I need to.’ She locked her
thoughts away, undressed and went to bed. The light
in the dining room went out, showing that Patrick and
Jake had gone to sleep too.

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