by Daco
The Mayor licked his lips with anticipation. “My favorite,” he said.
Yurdlemon then poured the hollandaise sauce over the creation and admired the dish with clasped hands. “Will there be anything else, Mayor Baumgartner?”
“Please tell Ms. Manchester that I must see her.”
Yurdlemon knitted his brow in protest—he was clearly unaccustomed to playing errand boy. “I’ll so inform Gladys.”
Moments later, Alexa came into the dining room. Not a strand of her hair was out of place. Her beautiful honey-blond locks were now dried and perfectly styled. She was dressed in a dazzling white dress that flowed like a dancing lily. She was simply gorgeous and filled the room with her Chanel No. 22 perfume.
“Mayor Baumgartner,” she said.
The Mayor rose from his seat and smiled his most debonair smile. “Come, come, my dearest Alexa. We’ve known each other for years. It’s Bobby. You’ve always called me Bobby.”
“Not since you made it clear that you want to become prime minister. You’re an important man. Please sit down.”
He sat, drawing his chair close. “You needn’t worry about what happened at The Mick.”
“Oh really? You were there. It was a disaster.”
“I’ve got some good news. The river is running high, brimming at the banks. There was an unexpected snowfall in the highlands. You can increase the capacity of the conventional generators and needn’t worry about repairing The Magpie right away. You have time to determine what went wrong. Or to abandon it and develop something else.”
“I wouldn’t dare throw my father’s dream out the window.”
“Of course not,” he said unctuously. “I wasn’t suggesting you do. I just wanted to let you know that you can rest assured that the immediate crisis is over. I thought you should be the first to know. I knew it would ease your mind.”
“Well, yes, but it’s only a temporary solution.” Her brow creased thoughtfully.
Bobby frowned; she was getting distracted. He rose from his chair and went to her side. He gazed deeply into her eyes, striving to present her with a moody, broody, love-stricken gaze. “Please,” he said, extending a hand. “There is something that I’ve been wanting to speak to you about, Alexa.” When she stood, he continued, “We’ve known each for a very long time now. I was a great friend of your father’s. He was a role model to me. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be mayor. I like to think that he helped make me the man I am today. And he had great hopes for our future.”
Alexa turned away, her face flushing pink. When she tried pulling her hand back, he clasped her other hand so that he now held both. “You see, Alexa, dearest. I would make you a fine husband.”
“Bobby, no! We haven’t even dated.”
“We don’t need to date. I’ve known you almost all your life. Besides, in more innocent times, marriages weren’t based upon a random kiss, but upon a good match. We make a perfect match. Besides that, you are truly the most beautiful woman I have ever set eyes upon.”
“I ... I don’t know what to make of this.”
He gave her a polished smile, one that always worked to melt the hearts of the ladies. “Dearest Alexa, please do consider making me the happiest man alive. If you will have me, I will cherish and adore you, make you the happiest woman alive. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Alexa’s jaw dropped, though she didn’t look entirely displeased. “I hardly know what to say, Mayor ... Bobby.”
He retrieved the ring from his pocket and slipped it onto her finger. “Just promise me that you will think about it.” The ring had protected him for years. Now he needed it to work its magic on Alexa.
“I can’t accept this,” she said. “I haven’t agreed to ...” She began to tug at the ring, but he stopped her.
“Wear it until you say yes.”
“I don’t know that I will.”
“Then wear it until you say no. Take your time, because I know that your heart will find me waiting inside of it.”
The front doorbell rang.
“Now who’s here?” Alexa asked, pulling her hands away from Bobby’s. She tried taking the ring off her finger, but it wouldn’t budge. “I’m sorry, it seems to be stuck.”
Bobby pulled her close to him and kissed her. Not just kissed her, but made passionate love to her with his kiss. At first she struggled, but soon she melted in his arms like all the women did. When he finally released her, he said, “The ring once belonged to my grandmother. She always hoped you’d be the one.”
Alexa opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
Bobby gave her forehead a quick peck, turned, and started off toward the front door, calling back to her. “See you at the town meeting, my dearest. And don’t you worry. I’ll take care of everything.”
Chapter 6
In the hallway ...
With one ear pressed to the doorway next to the dining room, Sigfred used every bit of willpower he had not to shout out in protest. Sneaking around corners and listening in on other people’s conversation weren’t normally his modus operandi, but this morning hadn’t exactly been normal. In all his years of service, Sigfred had never expected to hear The Mayor proposing to Alexa, the heir to the Manchester fortune, and it added up to nothing short of stink. He’d have to convince Alexa that politicians were the only things worse than snakes: they both bite, but only politicians want something in return for the antivenom.
When the doorbell rang, Sigfred reluctantly pulled himself away to answer it. The courier standing on the landing handed him a package for Ms. Manchester just as the dining room door opened. Without asking for a signature, the courier left and hurried back to his motor scooter. Sigfred thought to stop him and give him a tip, but just then, The Mayor, smiling from ear to ear, entered the foyer and appeared to be making his way toward the door.
“Top of the morning to you, Siggy,” The Mayor said before he walked out the door.
“Yes, sir,” Sigfred replied. He hated being called Siggy. He and The Mayor were both thirty-seven, and yet The Mayor treated him like a young lackey.
Sigfred turned back to look for the courier, but the man had driven away.
Sigfred entered the dining room, but Alexa was no longer there. Where was she? He would’ve seen her if she’d gone up the main staircase to her suite, and after the morning they’d had, it was unlikely that she was taking a stroll in the gardens. That left Chef Yurdlemon’s kitchen—few but Alexa dared to tread across Yurdlemon’s floors. When Sigfred entered the kitchen, there she was, standing at the sink with her hands under the water, ringing them wildly.
Sigfred set the package on the counter. “I wonder if I might be of some service to you, Ms. Manchester.”
Alexa stopped to rest her hands on the edge of the sink. “Oh, Sigfred,” she said. “It’s only you. I thought ...”
Apparently, she’d been expecting that sleazy politician to come back. “I’m sorry to intrude, madame. I’ll go.”
“No, stay! It’s just been a trying day. First, Luke almost drowning in my pond, and now Mayor Baumgartner has proposed marriage and we’ve never even dated. And what’s crazy, Sigfred, is that as soon as he put this ring on my finger, I considered saying yes.” She turned back to the sink, pumped the soap dispenser, and thrust her hands under the water again, from which steam was rising steadily.
“Careful,” Sigfred warned, but she wasn’t listening. She kept her hand under the scalding water, tugging furiously on the ring.
Sigfred couldn’t be sure whether The Mayor’s proposal pleased or displeased her, but it wasn’t his place to ask. He could do one thing—help her get that blasted ring off her finger. He went to the pantry and retrieved a bottle of olive oil—cold pressed extra virgin, of course, because this was Yurdlemon’s kitchen.
“Let me help you get that off,” he said.
“No, I’ll do it myself.” She paused suddenly, staring at the big green stone as if transfixed. “Maybe I’m not sure I
want it off.” She shook her head. “But I do, I do. Oh, I don’t know what I want.” She sighed. “Wait! Yes, I do. I want to talk about last night.”
“Of course, if you wish.” He waited for her to speak, but she seemed stumped.
Then she said, “What did you think about last night?”
He cleared his throat and said, “Yes, right. It was quite—”
“Sigfred!” She slapped her hands down on the sink and looked back at him. “It was nothing like quite, it was more like Oh-My-God in the highest order. No offense.”
“Yes, quite.”
“Don’t keep saying quite! You could say yes, shocking or even jiminy crickets or holy ‘expletive omitted,’ but there was nothing quite about last night. I mean you were there, you saw everything.”
He couldn’t think of an appropriate response—at least, not one that he could articulate to his employer.
“Am I right, you did see everything?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “It was unintentional, of course, Ms. Manchester. I found you lying on the floor next to The Magpie.”
Her eyes widened, and her eyebrows arched upward in disapproval. “I didn’t mean that, Sigfred. I’m talking about my hands shooting those bolts of lightning from my fingertips—pure electricity!”
He cleared his throat again. “Ah, yes. And there was that.”
“It’s ridiculous. Absurd. People don’t emit electricity. Gladys says I should see a doctor. That I must have been exposed to the Electromite. Am I cursed?”
“It doesn’t seem to be life-threatening. On the contrary, you’ve become stronger by it, or so it seems. If I’m not mistaken, you saved the child from drowning because of it. Perhaps it’s not a curse, but a gift.”
She seemed to consider this, absentmindedly pulling at The Mayor’s ring.
“Just a moment,” he said. “I think I can assist you with that little problem you’re having.” He opened the bottle of olive oil and drizzled some over her ring finger. Then, very gently, he began working the ring back and forth. He thrilled when he touched her, but she didn’t seem to react.
“I can fly, you know,” she said, her tone surprisingly casual.
“Yes, madame. I suspected that’s how you saved the boy.”
“What happens if I try to fly, and then these magical abilities suddenly vanish?”
“Perhaps they won’t ever vanish.”
“Yes, perhaps you’re right,” she said in a quiet, serious voice. “And that would mean I haven’t been infected at all. Instead, I’ve been inalterably changed. It would mean that there’s no cure. It means my body and spirit have been transformed into something ... alien. It means I’m not Alexa anymore.”
“You’ll always be Alexa,” he said, reaching up and tipping her chin toward him with slippery fingers. His eyes locked on hers, and he spoke with hushed solemnity. “Nothing can ever change that.” He wanted to call her lovely Alexa, kind Alexa, beautiful Alexa, but of course, that was impossible.
“When I was inside The Magpie, I heard my father’s voice. Is that crazy?”
“Not at all, Ms. Manchester.”
She studied his face. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”
“Not at all.” And he meant it. Things went silent as they looked into each other’s eyes. Sigfred had just swayed imperceptibly closer to her when a sudden dull thunk interrupted them. The ring had finally fallen off, clattering into the sink. The moment was lost. He realized, with some awkwardness, that he was still touching her face and dropped his hand.
She colored and looked away, speaking a bit brusquely. “My father called me Electromancer. I get the ‘electro’ part of it, but what’s a ‘mancer’? Have you any clue?”
“You’ve got me there, madame.”
“Mancer? It must mean something.”
“Almost like Romancer.”
Her jaw dropped. “Oh, Sigfred. Not you, too.”
He stiffened. He wasn’t about to explore his feelings with her or to take the liberty of allowing his romantic thoughts about Alexa to go unrestrained. It was his utmost duty to remain her servant and protector, always physically near but emotionally distant. But when she’d transformed into this Electromancer, he had to admit to himself that she was absolutely and without a doubt the sexiest woman alive. Any red-blooded male would be hard pressed to deny that fact.
“What are you going to do about The Mayor’s proposal?” he blurted out. So much for knowing his place. “He’s not worthy of you.”
“Bobby Baumgartner is The Mayor of Kensington City. He might be prime minister one day.”
“I don’t care if he’s prime minister, king, and president of the Americanas combined. He’s beneath you.”
“And just who are you to talk about rank?”
Her words stung, the pain more intense than the damage those thugs had inflicted the previous night. “Quite right, madame,” he said. “My station is lowly. But I’m one thing The Mayor isn’t. I’m a man of integrity.”
“I saw the way you looked at me last night. I may have been Electromancer, but I know when a man is gawking at me.”
“I wasn’t gawking. I was appreciating the qualities of ... You’re a beautiful woman, madame.”
“You mean, Electromancer is beautiful.”
“No, madame. I mean you. Alexa Manchester.”
She looked at him in surprise.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Chef Yurdlemon bellowed from across the room. “Who is invading my kitchen? You are trespassers.” He pointed at Sigfred. “Especially you, Sigfred Sawyer.”
Sigfred nodded slowly. He was trespassing, though not in the way Yurdlemon meant.
“This mess with the olive oil is all my fault,” Alexa said. “I was using it to try to get this ring off. It was stuck on my finger. Sigfred was just trying to help me.”
“You used my cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil to remove a ring?” Yurdlemon cried. “Such olive oil is not for ring removal. Such olive oil is to make a divine dinner as only I can make it. The olives for that oil come from a small orchard in Sicilya that produces only two hundred cases a year! Do you know what that costs? More than a Chateau Latour Bordeaux. More than a fine Sauternes. I need it for my dinner preparations. Oh, everything is ruined now. Each and every minute of preparation is accounted for. There won’t be time enough left in the day, not now. Not when I’m forced to return to the market, where I can only get inferior olive oil.” Chef Yurdlemon grabbed the sides of his head and looked as if he were about to sob. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
“Chef Yurdlemon, we’ll make it right,” Alexa said. “We’ll charter a private jet and order more olive oil from Sicilya. And while they are at it, the pilot can make a stop at Orly Airport and make arrangements to bring you back a pound of your favorite black truffles.”
As she’d done many times in the past, Alexa patted Yurdlemon’s back. That and the promised private jet seemed to console him.
The telephone rang. Sigfred picked up the receiver. “Manchester residence.”
A man spoke to him in a strange voice that seemed to be coming from inside a tunnel. He told Sigfred to turn on the television to any channel.
“To whom am I speaking?” Sigfred asked.
The man hung up.
Sigfred went to the television in the corner and turned it on. A man’s face filled the screen. He wore a shiny gold mask as if he were going to some masquerade ball. He wasn’t speaking, but rather seemed to be waiting for something. Sigfred flipped through the channels, and the man’s face appeared on every one.
“What is it?” Gladys asked, alarmed.
“My name is Momo,” the man on the television screen said in a deep voice that sounded digitally altered. “Though you don’t know me, I know you very well, Sigfred Sawyer. To answer your question, I’ve hacked your cable system. This message is for you and you alone, Alexa Manchester. Once you hear what I have to say, I know you and your employees won’t reveal this to anyone.”
“What is this?” Alexa asked.
Sigfred shook his head.
“Take a moment to collect yourself, Ms. Manchester,” Momo said. “I know this must come as a great shock to you.”
Sigfred and Gladys walked over and stood at Alexa’s side.
“What I have to say is simple, Ms. Manchester,” Momo said. “You have one task to perform. You have until Friday, five o’clock, to turn over the keys to The Mick and the Manchester mansion. I mean all software codes, all encryption keys, all forms of access of any kind. You’re also going to sign over the entirety of the Manchester holdings to an entity that I’ve designated in the package that was delivered to you earlier today.”
Alexa looked at Sigfred and Gladys. “What package? I didn’t get—”
“I’m sorry,” Sigfred said, nodding to the package on the counter. “You were with The Mayor, and with all the commotion, I didn’t ... It’s my fault.” Sigfred wanted to jump through the screen and pummel that Momo clown. Something else that was impossible. He racked his brain, trying to remember what the messenger looked like.
“All bank accounts will be transferred to that entity, all stock holdings, all deeds,” Momo said. “Again, look in the package. And then you’ll clear out of the residence—my residence. You may not take anything except for your clothes. Leave the jewels in the safe, the artwork on the walls, and the silverware in the drawers.”
“This has to be some kind of joke,” Alexa said to the others.
“I know you’ll need convincing,” Momo said. “Here’s the incentive for you to comply with my demands.”
The image on the television switched to the skyline of The Big Apple, a major metropolis in the Americanas, and zoomed in on the city streets at various locations—the Imperial State Building, the second tallest edifice in the Apple; Cyber Square, usually filled with tourists; Apple Core Park, the oasis of green located in the heart of the city. Then a helicopter camera panned out to show the vast number of skyscrapers that filled the island city. There were no lights on anywhere.