I took it upon myself to rest the next few days. I wasn’t joking around when I told Wraith that these latest back to back incidents really took a toll on me. Both mentally and physically, I was exhausted. Surely with six of the seven stones now green and the Devil of Callist still at a distance, we’d have some breathing room around here.

Still, there was the matter of Alabaster. The Oracle saw no sign of him coming back with more goons to try and take over the mansion. Nor did he see any sign that he even survived our last encounter. I was getting to the point where I was starting to take his word on that. But you know who wasn’t? Emily.

For days, she ran on coffee and cigarettes to keep herself up and glued to her laptop. She was searching the internet and news for any signs whatsoever that he may have popped up. She was driving herself sick.

“Hey, can we talk?” I asked, as I came up behind her while she sat at the desk in her room doing research.

“Sure. What’s up?” she replied, with circles around her eyes, not caused by eyeshadow for a change.

“You think you can maybe take it easy for a bit? I mean, I’m forcing myself to as well. But we’re no good if we’re completely spent.”

“Yeah. I guess I should probably cool it a little bit. Ouch!” she cried out, as she felt the back of her neck.

“What’s wrong? What happened?!”

“Oh, nothing. I’m okay.”

I didn’t believe her. That outburst was sudden and sounded painful. But all I could do for the moment was comfort her by changing the subject. “Well, Anabel said dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you downstairs okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

We all gathered downstairs around the dining room table. Finally, we were all back together again with a sense of regularity. Arduwan was eating like a horse, Stephanie and Anabel were all smiles, for some reason me and Emilly were still acting like there was nothing going on between us, but whatever. I was happy.

After dinner, Stephanie was helping Anabel cleanup. Then suddenly, in an uncharacteristic fashion, Emily offered to help Stephanie. It wasn’t in a snide or sarcastic way. She genuinely extended herself. Stephanie seemed a little taken aback but graciously accepted. Before this mess happened right after Christmas, Steph had mentioned to me that they had become more tolerant of each other. Any progress between those two was progress.

But once they were in the kitchen, Emily started to lose her balance. Steph grabbed her by the arm and stopped her from falling. She was clearly dizzy and a little distraught.

“Emily! What’s wrong?” Stephanie asked.

Arduwan and I rushed into the room to see what was going on. Emily was now leaning on the countertop and clutching the back of her neck.

I decided to sternly ask, “Emily, what’s going on? I know something is going on with your implant and I’m worried about you. We all are!”

She recomposed herself before answering, “Alright. Yes, something is definitely wrong. I’ve tried to ignore it. Something like this has happened before. I’m gonna need to go to Murk to get it adjusted.”

“Really? Why didn’t you say something before? We can go right away.”

“Ah, that’s okay,” she said, with hesitant laughter, “I can go by myself. You need your rest. Heheh.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Don’t be foolish. We haven’t been back to Murk since all of this stuff has transpired.

Alabaster might have people still looking for you in that world. It’s too dangerous to go alone.”

“It’s okay, heh. I can take Arduwan with me. She’ll keep me safe. Besides, the place I need to go is outside Sin City. I’ll go straight to the train station once I cross over.,” she quickly suggested.

“I don’t mind going,” Arduwan remarked.

I walked closer to Emily and discreetly said, “are you nuts? How do you think Arduwan is gonna react in a world full of ghosts and phantoms?”

She thought about it a moment and said, “yeah. You have a point.”

“Besides, I whispered. It’d be kinda nice for you to show me more of your world without all the drama we dealt with last time.”

“Heheh,” she continued with her nervous laughter and a forced smile, “yea. We wouldn't want any more drama.”

“That settles it. Arduwan, you stay here and defend the mansion. You need your rest too after all you did. I’ll travel with Emily to Murk and make sure nothing bad happens but I’ll be sure to relax too. Granted it’s not been my favorite world either, but anywhere is better than Callist right now.”

* * *

So the two of us set off. We traveled down the well once more to the sewers of Sin City in Murk. It was rainy the night before, as you can guess. So the sewer was dripping. But at least the sun was out today. It kinda reminded me of the first day we went to court on my first visit here. No matter what, the place always seemed a little drab and art deco. But at least we were taking a train into the countryside so we could see some nature.

“Now boarding! Next train to Karloff,” said the loudspeaker in the train station.

We had made a quick stop at a local bullion dealer to trade some of my gold for cash while we were in Murk since Emily didn’t have much left. The train ride was going to go deep into the night and we'd arrive in the town where Emily’s acquaintance lived early the next morning.

“Hey, this is great!” I said, as we sat side by side in our train car, “it’s so comfortable in here, we’ll have no problem getting some sleep on the way.”

“Yeah, no problem at all,” Emily said.

“So who’s your friend anyway?”

“Oh, just an old acquaintance who runs a small town repair shop.”

“Well that makes it sound really simple. Surely fixing your implant isn’t as simple as changing out a phone screen,” I joked.

“Yeah, heheh. Too bad it’s not.”

Emily was acting really strange. She seemed unusually nervous. I get that she was probably worried about her spinal implant malfunctioning but she was giving me a really weird vibe. Like she didn’t want me to be here.

At any rate, the train ride was comfy and we had a good meal. I managed to get some shut eye but I’m not sure if Emily slept or not. Just before dawn, our train passed Crystal Lake. Sure glad that’s not where we were going. But before we knew it, we made it to Karloff.

The sun had just risen when we got off the train. It wasn’t dark and grimy way out here like it was in so much of Sin City. The sky was clear, there was a smell of pine in the air, and the birds were chirping. We even got a taxi cab from the train station that was driven by an actual human!

The cab dropped us off on the outskirts of town at a single story log cabin house. There was a sign in the window that said, ‘Victory Repair’. No one seemed to be home. But the posted hours said he opened at 8am and it was only a little after 6am.

“Well, what do ya know. Victor’s not here. Guess we can head back. I’m sure I can find another way to deal with this malfunction,” Emily rambled.

I stopped her, “what’s come over you? We came all the way out here and you said it yourself that he’s the only one that can fix this. Why don’t we just wait out here for a little bit?”

She just nodded and sat down on the doorstep. She was so nerved up she was shaking. I was actually starting to get worried about her. The next thing she said was the last thing I expected.

“Eric, there’s something you need to know,” her words came out of her mouth with lightning speed, “I slept with Victor! It was a long time ago. He was the young assistant to the Mad Scientist who did this to me. He was under his control too. So I made sure to wait until he was out running errands when I destroyed the lab! A few years later, this thing started acting up so I went out looking for him to get help repairing it. Well, he grew up by then and physically, we were the same age. So one thing led to another!”

I didn’t know what to say. She hit me with that all so fast. But before another word could be said from either of us, we heard the sound of a motorcycle approaching. I turned to look and there I saw him. Mr. Cool himself was rolling up.

He rode a sleek black cruiser and had a leather jacket on. His dark hair was short on the sides and long up top. He looked to be about my age, or a little younger, and hotter. He unshielded his eyes from his black sunglasses as he dismounted his bike and said, “Emily

Grimwood? Long time no see!”