Chapter 5:
The two sorcerers walked down the sidewalk towards the apartment building Stephen saw in the orb. People on the street gave them curious looks as they passed by which, for New York, was a big deal. Down the way, there was a middle-aged man dressed in a Brioni suit who was looking at them very intently, his eyes were drawn to Stephen in particular.
"Oh great," the mystic, muttered beneath his breath as he realized just who this was. Before Clea could ask what was wrong, the man approached them.
"Oh my god, Stephen, is that you?" He asked in a heavy French accent, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"Guillaume, how are you?" He asked, forcing a polite smile as he tried his best to be cordial to the surgeon who had refused to help him just so he could maintain his high success rate.
"Wonderful, thank you. I'm in New York for a conference," said Guillaume. "No one's going to believe I ran into you."
Clea noticed Stephen's shoulders stiffen. The uncomfortable tension between the two men, on Stephen's end anyway, was palpable. This man must have been a former acquaintance of his.
"Fantastic," said Stephen, through thinly veiled sarcasm. The man before them seemed not to have noticed. "Clea, this is Doctor Guillaume Faure. Guillaume, this is my partner, Clea."
"Actually, we're just friends," Clea corrected, giving Stephen a pointed look as she extended her hand to Guillaume.
"Who work together," Stephen added smartly, eliciting another look from her.
"Sounds complicated," said Guillaume.
"Um, a little," said Stephen.
"No, not really," said Clea, answering at the same time, making the moment even more awkward.
"Well, either way, it is a pleasure." The French surgeon smiled as he took her hand in his and turned it over to plant a kiss on it.
Clea inwardly cringed. So did Stephen. One thing that caught his attention, however, was that her bond had not hurt Guillaume. Come to think of it, she had also hugged Wong without affecting him either. It made him wonder why he was the exception.
"She looks like a princess. She's not is she?" Guillaume asked Stephen, both flattering and ignoring her at the same time. Clea was really starting not to like this man.
"No, just the daughter of a three thousand year old Celtic mystic," She told him, answering the question herself.
Stephen laughed at her boldness. Guillaume just took it as a weird joke and forced a smile.
"Yes, that must be it," he said uncomfortably before turning back to Stephen. "How are you doing these days? Looks like you found something a bit more interesting than the OR. New religion or spiritual group?" He asked, the note of judgement in his tone was easy to pick out as he looked Stephen up and down.
Clea grit her teeth wanting to tell him off, but kept her mouth shut. It wasn't like she could tell the truth.
"Uh yeah, something like that," said Stephen.
Before tensions could come to a head, there was a sudden quaking that rippled beneath their feet, causing all three of them to be thrown off balance. There was a pause and then suddenly the door two buildings down from where they were standing suddenly exploded out into the street. It hit several cars passing by, causing a nasty pileup.
"Sorry to interrupt what was probably going to be an amazing Mean Girls moment, but we're very late," Clea said, grabbing Stephen's sleeve and pulling him down the sidewalk with her.
The two sorcerers pushed passed the people escaping the explosion. Stephen slipped on his sling ring and began making a portal in front of them.
"Clea, I have an entrance!" He shouted among the ensuing chaos.
Clea took her magical staff from her belt and extended it before running inside the ring of sparks. Stephen followed immediately behind her. Once the two were inside, the portal closed with a final wink of magic. Guillaume slowly backed up, his mouth agape in both wonder and horror, before running to safety.
Inside the apartment building, Stephen and Clea ran from the laundry room into the lobby which looked as if a bomb had hit it. The front entrance was completely blown out and the walls were scorched. Burnt letters from a bank of destroyed mailboxes lay scattered across the floor among the concrete ruble.
There was a familiar metallic smell in the air mingling with the dust and smoke, a scent very familiar to all mystics. The building was heavily laden with black magic residue. Something very powerful had created this explosion.
The two sorcerers exchanged glances as they cautiously made their way to the stairs which spiraled around the walls like a large stone snake.
"What could have done this?" Clea murmured, running her hand along the broken marble bannister. As her fingers grazed over it, the cracks began oozing a glowing dark emerald green substance. She immediately pulled away, grossed out. "Maybe don't touch anything."
Stephen nodded, looking at the otherworldly plasma. It was clear that something had torn through to their reality. "We have to get to the girl quickly."
They hurried up the stairs, stepping over broken bits of ceiling and jumping across gaps from where the floor had crumbled. Coming to a particularly wide gap where the stairs were missing, Stephen looked to Clea, worried that she could not make such a long jump. He had his Cloak but he couldn't touch her to pick her up, so floating across with her was not an option. That bond of hers really was a pain in the ass, Stephen thought.
"Here, I'll give you the Cloak of Levitation," he told her, the red garment then rose from his shoulders as if on cue.
"Thank you, but I've got this," said Clea, a confident grin tugging at her lips.
The Cloak's collar stiffened as if to express insult and Stephen cocked his head to the side, about to say something to counter her but Clea was already on the move.
She closed her staff and clasped it securely to her belt. Taking a few steps back, she performed a running jump off the landing, kicked off the wall next to her, and grabbed the stairway on the other side of the gap. Pulling herself up, she looked at Stephen, who gracefully levitated across. She regarded him with an incredibly smug expression.
"I would call you a show-off, but I'm too impressed right now," he told her, hardly believing what he just saw. She must have practiced with Mordo… hell, she probably taught him. Whatever the case, he loved it.
Suddenly, they heard a woman's scream ring out from the 5th floor and it spurred them on into an all out sprint. Finding the correct apartment, they saw that the front door had been knocked off the hinges. Entering inside, they found a middle aged woman huddled in the corner next to the radiator, her shaking hands covering her mouth. She looked up at them with wide eyes. Too scared to speak, the dark haired woman pointed down the hall towards the bedrooms.
Stephen nodded in understanding and followed to where she was pointing. He could only assume she was the mother of the girl needing their help.
"Stephen," Clea said, motioning to the green plasma around the walls and floor of the hallway. "Look."
As they stepped across the floor, the plasma began to glow beneath their feet. Entering the girl's bedroom, they found giant holes had been torn into the walls. Band posters and photo collages floated outside the holes which lead into another dimension. The familiar objects were barely visible in the dark, viscous, atmosphere. The jagged black terrain of the foreign dimension was set by a background of sea green sky. The sight was surreal. The girl herself was laying in her bed asleep, as if nothing were wrong. She looked to be in her early teens.
"By the Vishanti," Clea breathed, having never seen such a violent tear between realities before.
"It's a full dimensional breach," said Stephen, in awe of the sight himself. This was truly worrisome. "We have to close the portal before whatever's on the other side of these walls gets out."
Clea nodded and then waved her hands in an intricate set of circular motions as she enclosed the room in the Mirror Dimension.
"This will keep anything from escaping into the real world for now." She said, knowing it was their only available safety measure.
"Good." Stephen headed to the girl's bedside and checked her vitals. His expression of concentration soon turned to one of serious concern. "Her heartbeat is incredibly slow. Her system is shutting down, not to mention her Astral Form is no where in this room."
"She can't be revived without it. We can't close the dimensional breach until she is. Otherwise, her Astral Form will be stuck between worlds," said Clea.
It seemed they had their work cut out for them. Stephen thought for a moment, looking from the sleeping girl to the threatening world looming outside the room.
"Can you hold things down here? I'm going to try to reach out to her Astral Form and return it to her body," said Stephen, walking over to the wooden chest at front of the girl's bed and sitting on it in lotus position.
"It shouldn't be a problem," said Clea, reaching for her staff and extending it. Once Stephen's soul was in the Astral Dimension, she would be in charge of protecting both his and the girl's physical bodies.
"I'll be back as soon as I can." He told her, worried about what might happen if he left her without backup for too long. They didn't have many options available to them and this one put Clea at the most risk. It was a tough call, but he had to trust she could handle herself.
"Be quick," she told him, betraying a bit of nervousness.
"I will." He assured her before closing his eyes.
"And be careful," she added.
"Concerned for your partner?" He asked smugly, his eyes still closed but a grin curling at his lips.
"You are not my..." her protest was then cut short by Stephen's sudden departure into the Astral Dimension. "Damn it!"
Clea knew that was his infuriating way of getting the last word, and he was loving it. She was not going to let him rope her into staying. She was going to have the final word on that once all this was over.
Only a few moments after he left, she could hear slithering noises from outside the bedroom walls. Unintelligible whispers filled the room as the mysterious world outside dimmed. Clea could feel her heart slowly climb up into her throat.
"This is not good." She said, preparing herself for whatever was about to come through those walls.
AN: Things are heating UP! I've got a good trajectory for this story and I wonder, with all the clues up till now, if anyone can guess who the villain is? (Hint: They have not been featured in the MCU). I'm going to have SO much fun with this one. Hope ya'll liked it!