Who: Miriam and Anthony Where: Their house in Overlook When: Morning, December 28 Status: Complete
When Miriam woke on Thursday morning to find the fog still remained, her anxiety level began to rise. One day of being cut off she could handle, but not being able to reach her children when the city was shut down was too much for her. Caius could handle himself, she knew that, but Sera… she would have felt so much better if Sera had been home, where she knew she was safe. Anthony had so many wards on their home that she doubted the devil himself could walk through the door, but Sera, over at a friend’s house, was vulnerable. It drove Miriam crazy not knowing.
She paced in the kitchen, still in her robe, a hot cup of coffee in her hand as she tried to think of something useful to do. It was then that she heard it, a noise at the back door, like someone scraping up against it. She walked closer, eyes darting to the windows, but they gave nothing away, a cloud of white blinding them out. “Anthony?” she called out, then heard the noise again, like something scraping against the outside of the house. Miriam pressed her hands against the glass, trying to see what was out there, but could see nothing. She called her husband again. “Anthony, honey?” Had he gone outside? She didn’t think so, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.
Miriam opened the back door, shivering at the blast of cold air that hit her like a freight train. She wasn’t dressed for this weather, not at all, and only took a few steps out onto the back patio before stopping. “Anthony, are you out here?” Then she heard it again, so very close, but now that she was outside she could tell it was more of a slithering, something almost inhuman. As soon as she turned to look she knew she’d made a mistake.
She should never have come outside. Long, sharp claws swiped towards her and she screamed, pain flashing through her as they made contact with her arm and shoulder, scraping across her chest. Miriam fell backwards, breaking her fall with her hands, but still hitting her head on the ground before she began to crabwalk backwards with a speed and agility she didn’t know she possessed. The creature, whatever it was, lurched towards her again, but then she was inside the house, pushing the door shut, the weight of the monster slamming against it enough to shove her back onto the ground. Miriam continued to scream, fearful it would follow her inside and shred her to pieces. The only thing stopping it was its ability to fit through the door.
Anthony had been in his office upstairs, using his own brand of Obscurities to check on his children. Sera was safe with a friend, and Caius was in his office, no doubt keeping an eye on Reagan. Anthony understood. He had checked in on Veronica a couple of times, but he had a feeling she could feel it when he was, so he kept that contact minimal. Anthony knew what was happening, who was causing the fog, but it wasn't his place to get involved. He would remain untouched, which was more than he could say for an idiot stupid enough to go outside in this weather.
He had just left his study to find his wife when he heard her screaming downstairs. He lunged into action, running down the staircase to find her in the foyer on the floor, bleeding profusely. With the door open. Dammit. Anthony hurried to slam the door shut, locking it quickly. He knew the wards on the house would keep evil out - most evil, anyway, but he couldn’t fathom why the door had been opened in the first place. "What happened," he asked, crouching down to immediately lift her up into his arms. The blood didn't bother him, in fact the metallic scent of it calmed him beyond the fact that his wife was seriously injured. He was unconcerned by the creature outside. It wouldn't be able to get in, even if it wanted to. "What did you do?" Anthony asked as he carried her swiftly into the kitchen.
“I thought I heard you outside,” Miriam cried. “I went to see what you were doing. I barely stepped away from the house.” There was so much blood it frightened her, but it was the pain that made her frantic-- sharp, stabbing pain that felt like lightning jolting through her body. She’d always prided herself on being able to maintain control of her emotions, but this was pushing her to her limits. “There was a creature, this--this thing, with claws. It came out of nowhere!” Not that she could see very far in the fog, but it was the shock of it all. One minute she’d been calmly calling for her husband, the next she was bleeding on the floor.
He didn't bother asking her why on earth he would be outside in all of this, because she didn't understand what was happening the way he did. Anthony set her down carefully into one of the kitchen chairs before getting a better look at her injury. It looked gruesome and he had to imagine it was painful. "Just breathe," he instructed, cupping her face to lift her gaze to his. "Breathe. I'm going to get some stuff to clean it out and stop the pain, okay? Stay right here and don't move." She probably needed stitches, but they couldn't venture out in this right now. Stitches would have to wait for the hospital, but Anthony could get a temporary fix on things now.
Miriam did as she was told, her breaths big and gasping as she tried to get a handle on herself and the pain. “We have to lock the doors. Close the blinds. Warn the kids! Gods, it hurts,” she shuddered, closing her eyes and holding on tightly to the kitchen table, her nails biting into the wood. She could hear her husband rushing to get what he needed, wondering if he had anything strong enough to really stop the pain. Anthony always had something. He could fix this, could stop her from bleeding to death, if it was that bad. It was hard for her to tell; it just seemed like an awful lot of blood.
"Nothing is getting in this house," Anthony said as he returned with what he needed. "Caius can take care of himself, and Sera is okay." He could explain that he had already checked in on them without their knowledge, but he was busy getting a couple of jars open. "We need to get your robe off of your shoulder so I can see the damage. You may need stitches, but I can get the bleeding to stop until we're able to get to the hospital." He couldn't believe she had actually gone outside. But then, he hadn't warned her not to. Anthony reached for a small white pill bottle and popped the top off with his thumb before handing it to her. "Take a few of these. It will numb the pain quickly."
“How do you know?” Miriam worried, finding it easier to focus on her fear for her children than the pain. It reminded her of electricity flowing through her veins, in through her shoulder and out through her feet. She looked down at her shoulder, just to make sure she wasn’t actually being shocked in some way, then began to peel her robe off. They should probably just cut it off. It was ruined anyways. “What is it?” she asked, popping the pill in her mouth before she got an answer. When it came to medicine, she trusted whatever her husband came up with, medicinal or magical. It didn’t really matter which, so long as it worked, though she did like to know what she was taking.
"Because I'm a witch and I can check in on my children," Anthony explained, trying hard not to snap at her. But damn her questions right now. She was bleeding and could go into shock, so he needed to get her cleaned up as soon as possible. He helped her with the robe, frowning at the sight of the gash. Torn flesh. She would definitely need stitches, but he could clean her up until they could get to the hospital. "It's a pain killer," he responded absently as he left her to grab a couple of clean rags from one of the kitchen drawers. He got one damp and then brought them both to where Miriam sat. "I'm going to press this against the wound," he told her, shaking the dry rag first. "That will help start to slow the blood flow. I'll only be able to clean it up once that's finished. But you're going to need stitches too. That will have wait to wait, I'm afraid."
She hated answers like that and he knew it. It made him sound omnipresent, like some kind of god, and she knew that wasn’t the case. But right now she didn’t feel like pulling the answers out of him, in too much pain to endure such an exercise in futility. It didn’t stop her from glaring at him, further annoyed that he’d failed to disclose what she’d taken, until he explained what was going to come next. “Fine,” she said, clenching her jaw shut tight as she prepared for what she expected to be worse pain. “Just… get it over with.” She could ask questions later, provided she didn’t pass out from blood loss.
Anthony got to work, trying his best not to hurt her, but it was probably inevitable. He couldn't tell yet what she might have been infected with, if anything, but he supposed they would find out soon enough. Once he was sure the blood flow had slowed, he began to drip some of the liquid from one of the jars he brought to the kitchen into the wound. The pills he had given her may or may not have already numbed her and he kept a good eye on her face and body language just to make sure she was breathing and doing all right.
While the pressure he put on the wound was painful, Miriam could withstand it. It was only when he began to mess with it that it felt like torture, her shoulder throbbing with each tiny drop of that damn liquid. Miriam gasped and grit her teeth, her hands gripping the table and chair as they trembled. She tried to focus on her breathing, each shuddering breath sending a little ripple through her body, a wave of energy that built up with each drop. One, two, three, four. On the fifth, every small object in the room shifted away from her by one inch. Miriam couldn’t feel it, she couldn’t feel anything except the gash in her shoulder, but even with her eyes closed she knew something was wrong. “Stop!” She gasped, eyes flying open.
Anthony gripped her other shoulder to keep her in place. "It's okay," he said calmly. "I know it hurts. It will stop soon, I promise." But he supposed that might be enough for now and he set the bottle back on the table. "As soon as the fog lifts, even a little, I'll drive you to the ER. For now we need to wrap this up tight. I'm going to go get the gauze and tape from the bathroom. Do you feel as though you might pass out?" If so, he would need to move her to a couch rather than risk Miriam falling from the chair and banging her head.
The pain subsided slightly when Anthony stopped administering whatever it was that he was administering and Miriam panted as she tried to reign herself in. It had been years, decades even, since she lost control over herself like that and never in front of her husband. But he remained so calm that she wondered if it had all been in her mind. Miriam swallowed. “I think...I think I’ll be okay now. Long enough for you to wrap it up. I don’t want to get blood on the couch.”
Anthony chuckled. "Couches can be cleaned." But he would leave her there if she wanted to stay. He could grab the gauze from the bathroom and maybe check outside real quick to make sure whatever had hurt her was gone. He wondered if Caius knew about them, if he had seen them too from where he was. Hopefully his daughter had enough sense to stay inside, unlike her mother. "I'll be right back," he promised, resting his hand on her uninjured shoulder briefly before departing the room.
Miriam watched her husband leave the room, her nerves still on fire from the pain in her shoulder. She felt foolish now, but in the moment she’d not been worried about anything but the weather. A few seconds outside weren’t going to kill her. Miriam closed her eyes, trying to picture the thing that had attacked her, but it had all happened so fast that she hadn’t gotten a good look. Then she opened them and it was there, looking in the kitchen window only a few feet from her and Miriam screamed, lashing out with her powers in all directions. The force was enough to push the creature away, but it also slid her chair across the kitchen. The table slammed up against the wall and the other chairs fell to the floor. Her coffee cup hit the wall and shattered, a mess that Miriam would’ve been quick to clean up if she had dared to move. It was gone then, but she still felt eyes on her, leaving her shaken and prepared to strike out again if necessary.
The commotion was hard to miss, even in the bathroom, and Anthony ran back to the kitchen, gauze tight in his hand. He came to an abrupt stop at the sight in front of him. It looked like a goddamn tornado had come through the kitchen. Momentarily stunned, he looked at the table, the broken coffee cup, and Miriam, who looked as though she had scooted her way across the kitchen. None of the windows were broken, however, so whatever was outside had clearly not made its way in. "What... happened," Anthony said, crossing the room to his wife to make sure she was all right. There was something in the back of his mind already putting it all together, but he knew better than to assume things so quickly. "What was that, Miriam?"
“The creature--it was at the window,” Miriam said, her hands still trembling. “I thought it--that it would get in.” It hadn’t though, leaving Miriam to survey the mess that she’d made in her haste. Normally her powers were focused--she could flick one car off the road and into a ditch without disrupting the rest of traffic--but this hadn’t been a calculated move on her part and she was lucky the only casualty had been her coffee cup. If she’d taken out the kitchen windows, that thing would’ve eventually crawled inside the house, she was sure of it. Unfortunately, it had caused the exact kind of incident she’d always worked so hard to avoid. She blinked, trying to come up with a plausible explanation, the pain making it so much harder to lie on the spot. “I threw my coffee mug at it. Must’ve...scared it off.”
Anthony wanted to remind her that nothing could get in this place that would want to cause them harm, but Miriam seemed shaken up enough so he let it go. He wasn't really focused on the creature outside anyway, but the state of the room. Anthony looked around quietly before his gaze landed on his wife. He felt eerily calm, despite the situation they found themselves in. Still, there was the tiniest sliver of amusement that she thought he would actually believe her throwing a coffee mug at the window would scare off a creature who could tear her limb from limb. "Don't lie to me, Miriam," he said simply. "What happened in here."
Miriam stared at her husband, her eyes darting towards the window, then back to him. That thing was gone, but she kept expecting it to come back and finish what it started, tearing her limb from limb. It was an absolutely horrible time to have this discussion, though Miriam would’ve been perfectly happy never having it. She sighed heavily. “What do you think happened in here, Anthony?” There was a small chance that he hadn’t figured it out, but he was a smart man, and a witch, so she doubted it. That didn’t make it easy to tell him. It was the one power she had and she’d never told anyone about it, not even him. Especially not him. As much as she loved her husband, she knew him well enough to know that he used people. She didn’t want to give him a reason to try and use her.
Anthony could feel his temper simmering now, though he tried to tamp down on it. She was injured and in pain and he did not feel like fighting in the midst of all of this. But answering his question with a question of her own was deflecting, and that pissed him off. "I want to hear you say it," Anthony said, tone still tightly controlled though his muscles had begun to tense with irritation. "I'm not in the mood for games, Miriam."
“Well, I’m not in the mood to talk about it,” Miriam said, so close to snapping at him. “My arm hurts. My whole body hurts. And, as you so often tell me, it’s nothing for you to be concerned about.” While she didn’t want to fight with him, she didn’t want to bend either. He had his magic, which he played so close to the chest that she often felt left out of her own family, or at least half of it. This was all she had and she wasn’t going to tell him about it just because he demanded it of her. “I’m fine,” she said a bit more calmly. “Just in pain and on edge.”
Anthony knew he could force it out of her. Wrap his hand around her throat and squeeze until she told him the truth. Or, perhaps less violently, use the Obscurities to look inside her mind and get every answer he craved. But forcing information from the mother of his children against her will was bad form, and would, if nothing else, anger Caius, so Anthony picked up the gauze to wrap up her shoulder. "Go lay down when I've finished with this," he instructed simply. "When the fog lifts, we'll go to the hospital for the stitches. If it starts to bleed again, I'll take care of it myself."
Miriam didn’t usually fear her husband, but there was something about the way he looked at her just then, just for a second, that scared her. Had it been directed at anyone else, it would have been thrilling, knowing the power he held, but Miriam had never wanted it aimed at herself. It was why she’d tried to stay under the radar because if he felt the need to manipulate her, to force her hand, she didn’t want to find out who’s mind was stronger. Or who could move faster. It wouldn’t do to have her husband know how easily she could break his neck. Miriam relaxed when he picked up the gauze, sighing as she shut her eyes. “Thank you,” she said softly, looking at him once more. “Can you warn the kids? I don’t expect them to go out in this, but...I didn’t plan to either.”
Deep in his gut he knew the secret she was still foolishly trying to hide. It gave him pause, certainly, and he made a mental note to check in with Wilkes to see if he could do a bit of research for Anthony. If Miriam wasn't going to tell him the truth, he would find out another way. "Of course," he said stoically, wrapping her arm with deft efficiency. "They'll be fine. And when this is over, and the phones are working, I'll call them both to let them know what happened and where we are." He rested his hand on her shoulder for a brief moment. "This should hold until we can get to the hospital. Do you need anything else? I should clean up the mess in here."
Miriam sighed and shook her head. “No, I think I’m going to rest for a bit.” The pain was fading rapidly, probably from whatever Anthony had done, as she was certain it would be worse without magical involvement. He had helped her, yet she was still trying to lie to him; she had been for a long time, at least by omission. Now she wondered how long she had before he confronted her again. She knew her husband well enough to know he’d want answers, would likely demand them. Hopefully by next time she’d be prepared enough not to show her whole hand, if she hadn’t already done so.
"That's probably for the best," Anthony said. He would confront her again, when she was rested and feeling better and this fog had finally lifted. He fairly adept at picking out lies, and if she tried to do it again, he would have to take matters into his own hands. As usual. "Do you need help getting upstairs?" Miriam may feel woozy or faint and he didn't want to risk her falling down the stairs. "Or perhaps you would be more comfortable laying down in the guest room down the hall?"
Miriam glanced towards the stairs, then pulled herself to her feet. “The guest room would probably be better. I feel a little light headed and don’t want to get stuck upstairs.” She knew Anthony would help her, would take her wherever she needed to go, but she didn’t like feeling completely reliant on him. In a position of weakness, she wanted to hold tight to whatever control she had left.
That was probably for the best. Anthony still didn't know what had hurt her, and what the consequences of it would be. The side effects. He stepped back when she stood, but took hold of her elbow to help her. "I'll stay down here if you need anything," he said. He had some research to do now, to try and quell whatever could possibly happen before it had a chance to do some real damage. He would have to put Miriam's secret on the backburner, at least for today.