On that same cold morning, Vlad Masters resided in perhaps the opposite in all extremity to Danny Phantom's rigid dwellings; that was, the well-kempt, well-dressed man was comfortably lounging in a plush armchair in front of the fire place, where a warm blaze devoured a stack of wood and filled the room with a crisp, sweet and still somehow musky scent as it did. Still however he seemed not to desire the coziness—in fact, he had refused to untighten his bow or to remove his shoes; his jacket remained on his shoulders and his hair was still bound in a red tie.
And in keeping with this attitude his eyes were wide awake, and there seemed to be in that light not a trace of sleepiness—only a hungry, watchfulness, the desire to be awake and alert, to lose not an hour of life to something so moral as sleep. His fingers gripped the armrests, almost casually, but the gesture was measured, purposeful, as if his hands needed to rest there should they suddenly tighten to fists. For now, they would drum; would toil, would pace. By the fire it was apparent that he was nervous, uneasy. It was as if he was, in those late hours of the night, early hours of the morning, day break, waiting for something—someone, some bad news, maybe both.
His cat, a fluffy, regal ball of fluff, sat in a considerably more relaxed manner on the ottoman near his feet, purring softly in the heat the fire radiated, placated, her red eyes dimmed into a peaceful pink glow. She was watching him, seeming to sense the difference in her usually so collected owner, but she seemed far more interested in lounging across the length of the piece of furniture she occupied than in comforting Vlad with a rub against the legs, a head-butt, a little placating meow; as if to mock him, even the cat who had the name of his love would not give him the affection he so desired—not even the cat.
He looked up at her, this realization taking hold of his mind, with cold, annoyed eyes.
"You know I really don't like cats," he said coolly, moving his hands to create a rest for his head as he lowered it to glower more evenly at the cat's level. "The only reason I got you was so you'd at least act like you cared. Do I have to get rid of you and find something else?"
The cat's face seemed to twist innocently to the man in the plush armchair; she seemed to say gently to him with her pink, almost seductive eyes, "Oh, you mean you'd get rid of me? But I thought you loved me and I loved yoooouuu..." At least, this is what the man heard as he stared at her—what should not have been an odd occasion considering he could carry out conversations with the cat and the cat alone at any given time—and he immediately regretted his previous harsh words against his replacement.
"Oh, Maddie, I'm sorry," he mumbled, and looked away, distractedly, with something, something unseen in the eyes of the once so fierce and mighty Vlad Masters, something which seemed in that beautiful fiery glow to be despondency, compunction, a sense of seclusion—none of which seemed to be in favor of the cat but which the little devil would flatter itself by understanding to be his apology—and something that, to anyone who'd known Vlad for any length of time would think completely impossible, simply legendary, myth—fear. "It's not you…I've…just had a terrible feeling …"
He stared into the fire, watching as the flames sent little specks of wood up into glowing ambers which burnt out upon connecting with the bricked surface of the fireplace. There was quiet in the room, broken only by the soft sounds of the fire, snapping and popping within the hearth. It should have been calming but instead it took about it an eerie, almost haunting quality, as if the man expected something to suddenly burst through the door, a corpse from the grave or a ghost sent from hell—something to happen. It was that sense of foreboding and it set his mind into an uneasy spiral which could only be remedied by the sound of his voice, breaking up that haunting silence; he made himself hear Maddie's voice questioning him about the details of his "terrible feeling" and asking him what she could do to help, and he answered readily, though not without a tired, hesitant quality about him; it was as though he wanted to talk, but not about this, per say.
Unfortunately, he felt as if he'd shatter into a million tiny pieces if he didn't share this burning information, like hot glass on a frosty table. He couldn't keep it in any longer.
"I don't know what it is, Maddie," he murmured, his attention still drawn to the fire where the log had been mostly eaten away, a charred husk its only remains. The snapping and popping had dwindled, but only slightly. "I woke up yesterday morning with the feeling that something was terribly wrong—I checked my bank accounts, I called the offices, I inspected the house—and I petted you of course, and everything was in place…but I still feel so thrown off…and this morning…last night…the feeling has grown and has not left.
"I don't think I've felt this way before," he continued, he gaze becoming more distant, faraway, deep in thought as if he were some poor soul drowning in an icy bath held only afloat by his own words. "I don't think I've ever…not known what to expect…and I feel like I do know what to expect but I can't put my finger on it…"
As the man drifted further and further away from that life-ring of speech, his cat watched him, almost in an interested fashion; again, it would have been a slap in the face to the man if he had been present enough in that world to realize that the cat, like the real woman he desired found him amusing more than anything—interesting like a lab rat more than respectable and husbandly like a king. Maddie's tail swished lazily and interestedly across the ottoman; her eyes gleamed with something like sadism, a sick interest, and one observing would swear that cat wore a smirk on its face. But perhaps it was only a trick of the light—perhaps the cat was a cat and there was nothing else in that room, but the sinking man, the fire, the cat…
For some reason, Vlad suddenly found himself staring at the white thing, looking into her glowing yellow eyes with a look of awe, as if he'd never seen a cat's eyes—or a cat at all, like she was a foreign creature, an alien. His brow was downturned and his mouth had actually fallen open slightly; now he looked nothing like Vlad Masters, but rather a poor sap who'd been played the fool and would respond with fresh betrayed tears. Like this cat was to him, so was he to any familiar onlooker.
"Maddie…you're…I feel that…it's something to do with you…" he mumbled, staring at her with that same perplexed expression.
When she looked directly into his eyes, her own gently and knowingly gleaming, and smiled, he suddenly became very wary of her—frightened in fact. He suddenly had a vision, a hateful, deadly vision; a white coat of fur stained red—no, a body covered in the blood of a young corpse, tears of pain and betrayal, and…
The phone rang; the cell phone, the one he used primarily for work rang out with its plain but still surprisingly obnoxious ringtone, making him jump so violently he rattled the table next to the chair on which he sat and knocked over a mug of stone cold coffee onto the floor, where it shattered slowly, almost hesitantly, as if in slow motion, or in a dream. And in a similar fashion, Vlad sat there, shaken, recovering only after the third ring of the phone, before picking it up to see who was calling.
When he saw the name Danny Fenton spelled in tight digitized letters across the screen of his fancy cell phone, a wave of dark knowledge washed over him and seemed to drown him like the wave up until then he had miraculously avoided; it was blood red, and cold—cooling.
The cat Maddie sat there, smiling, her tail swishing.