Wolf Incarnate (Shadows Over the Realm) by Tara Bennet Read Free Book Online Page B

why.
    “That won’t be necessary,” said Ngyuen. She calmly unshouldered her orange purse, placing it on the counter. Opening it, she pulled out two items. The first was what appeared to be a small glass marble with an orange core. Holding it in her hand, she whispered something into it. It flashed orange. Mrs. Ngyuen put it on the table. The second was a handgun.
    The teller reached for the silent alarm, but at that very moment a thin orange beam shot out from the marble and hit the teller in the forehead, making a brief glowing orange ripple between her eyebrows. The teller’s eyes glowed orange has she withdrew her hand from the untouched alarm.
    “Now then dearie, how about that money?” asked Mrs. Ngyuen smiling, again.
    The teller calmly and blankly pulled picked up the gun, going behind a door in the back of the bank marked “Employees Only”. There were shots and screams. The other tellers and customers looked toward the noise in shock. Mrs. Ngyuen calmly put the marble back in her purse. Dr. Eiph stood at her side once again, the matter with the other gentleman taken care of. Still standing in line, the mustachioed man was weeping, a darkened wet spot on his pants front. The other customers in that particular line seemed to have abandoned it, their horror unheard in the ensuing violence behind the teller desk.
    After a few moments the woman came back, strolling to the counter with a steel suitcase in one hand, and the gun hanging limply in the other. Droplets of blood splatter were lightly spread over her otherwise lovely face.
    She calmly placed the suitcase on the counter, her eyes wide and unseeing.
    “Thank you dearest. You’ve been such a sweetheart. Now then, I think I have a little reward in my bag for you,” she said, almost pleasantly.
    Dr. Eiph cleared his throat. His hands behind him, looking dignified. When Mrs. Ngyuen looked up at him he shook his head, eyes downcast in theatrical regret.
    “ Ah,” said Mrs. Ngyuen, catching his drift. “Well that is a shame, then. Well now, this is awkward. And after you’ve been so helpful, too!” she said, putting her coin back into her purse. Dr. Eiph picked up his dog, turning to leave.
    “ If you would do me one last favor?” she said. “finish this nasty business, yes?”
    And as the two left the bank in perfect unison, sirens in the background, there was the flash and bang of one final gunshot from behind the banks glass doors.

 
    Chapter Two
    Amber Trice clenched the steering wheel to her car, eyes slammed shut, body shivering. She felt sure that she was in shock, and knew that when she opened her eyes she’d see the passing fluorescent lights of an ER as she was rushed for immediate care or, worse, twisted within the steel of her car on the freeway, breathing her last.
    Which was why she was very surprised to find that, when she did open her eyes, she was sitting in the passenger seat of her car, which was itself sitting in the driveway of her house.
    Slowly, testing that this reality was real and not some coma dream, she opened her driver side door and placed one foot onto the solid concrete of her driveway. Getting out, she didn’ t bother to close the door, going around the outside of the car. There wasn’t a single scratch.
    As she came around to the other side of the unscathed vehicle, Amber suddenly remembered the naked man in her passenger side seat. She yanked the passenger doo r open as if he could be hiding, slumped down in his seat.
    She breathed a sigh of relief as she closed both car doors. Walking up the step to her front door she paused a moment, looking at the car. She pressed the alarm button on her key chain, and switched to her house key to open the door. Her house, which she normally thought of as a sanctuary, felt alien and foreboding. She decided two things, pulling out her cell-phone. The first was to join the girls for drinks that night. The second was that when she did join the girls, she NOT taking her car. She