All Basilisks Wild & Sparking by T.M. Baumgartner

Author:T.M. Baumgartner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Speculative Turtle Press

SEVENTEEN

Outside, everything was weirdly silent. No cars moved on the streets and the background hum of the nearby freeway was absent. Because of the portal storm, I realized. Everyone else had taken shelter.

A portal shimmered into existence across the parking lot, glided ten feet, then disappeared. Fiona gave a happy squeal. "Oh no. You like that? What a good baby." I flattened myself against the wall and edged around the building. The roof might be the safest place, but the key to unlock the cage blocking the lower rungs was inside the building. I wasn't sure I could climb while holding Fiona anyhow.

Partially hidden by the bushes in front of the building, I took out my phone and texted Christopher. Help! No message showed up next to it, saying it had been delivered. He was still out of range. My phone rang before I could put it away, with Antonia's name flashing on the display. I held it to my ear with one shoulder as I resettled Fiona. "Antonia? Is everything okay?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing. There are two verdirans in the yard looking in your windows, and I don't recognize them."

I grabbed the phone with my hand so I didn't drop it as I dashed to the next building. Another portal shimmered in a path along the middle of the street. "You're upstairs at your place?" Antonia's bedroom was on the second floor of the cottage, the perfect place to stay during a portal storm. It was the whole reason we'd designed the cottage with two stories.

"Yes. Carmela, Louise, and I are here with the foster kittens."

Carmela was legally blind, and Louise was still recovering from hip replacement surgery. Neither was in any shape to evade verdirans or moving portals. "Barricade your bedroom door as well as you can and stay away from the window. If they haven't seen you, they may not know you're there." With any luck, the strangers wouldn't realize the cottage was part of the property.

"Don't worry about us. We all have pepper spray."

Thinking about Carmela aiming at anything that moved made me wince, but I was glad they had something to protect themselves with. "Good. Someone tried to grab Fiona, but I've got her and I'm outside." I needed a good hiding place until Fred came back. Antonia knew the area better than I did. "What's the nearest place where I can get up on a higher floor?"

"Either the library or the courthouse." She paused, listening to one of the women talking behind her. Then she spoke into the phone again. "The courthouse. The library is closed this afternoon while they fix the steps out front, but the courthouse should be open for the Saturday sessions." Our local court didn't have enough magistrates to hear cases, so we had a rotating pool of judges from Sacramento who came in to hear minor matters on Saturdays. Antonia paused. "Be careful."

"I will." Hanging up before we got embroiled in messy emotions, I looked around.

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