The Scarlet Tide by Stephen Osborne

Author:Stephen Osborne [Osborne, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub

THE fire alarm was going off.

Or maybe it was just my cell phone. I stirred and rolled onto my side, but made no effort to reach over to the nightstand and answer the call. I didn’t feel like moving my arms, and they agreed with me. The phone kept up with its annoying chirp, however, and seemed to sound more insistent with each ring. Finally, with a groan, I reached over and fumbled around until my fingers located the damn thing.

“Hello?” I said. “And before you answer, I must warn you that if you are a telemarketer, I may have to kill you.”

“My, we’re sounding cheery this evening!”

I frowned. My fogged brain began to function, although it was still very confused. Evening? I looked at the window. The sun had said good-bye to the day and night had fallen. How long had I slept?

“Gina,” I said, trying not to sound like one of the orcs in Lord of the Rings. “Sorry. I was just taking a little nap.”

“You don’t take naps.”

I also don’t crash my cars into lampposts, but things change. “Rough day. But how are you?”

“Missing you, of course, but it feels good to be having a vacation. The town may have changed over the years, but it’s still Salem. It’s still home. And it feels strangely comforting.”

“That’s good. Now for the big question. Have you told Mark?”

“I have.”

I knew that the result hadn’t been catastrophic, or her tone wouldn’t have been so upbeat, but she obviously wanted to drag out the news. I played along. “And?”

“He took it well. Of course there was a lot of confusion at first, and I had to convince him that I wasn’t some Wiccan or a weird sort of pagan that danced nude around a campfire at midnight waving palm fronds.”

“You do dance around campfires nude. I’ve seen you.”

“Yes, but only for fun. And then I had to assure him that it wasn’t some kind of Bewitched thing where all I had to do was twitch my nose and poof, suddenly Dick York is a cat.”

“I must have missed that episode.”

I propped myself up on one elbow. My head was clearing and the world was falling back into place. Robbie was beside me in bed, twisted around so that he could watch me while I chatted on the phone. He was lying on top of the covers, wearing his usual basketball shorts.

“So he took it well?” I wasn’t exactly surprised, as I knew Mark worshiped the ground Gina walked on, and that if she told him she was the Masked Avenger, he would have gone along with it, but I was still impressed. Good guy, Mark the Dentist. “How exactly did you explain it to him?”

“We were just strolling down the street and we passed some window with a poster of a wart-nosed hag on a broomstick in the window. I told him it was such an incorrect depiction and went on from there. Naturally he thought I was kidding at first.”

“Naturally.”

“Finally, he believed me.

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