Chapter Two
That Sunday morning had begun as a typical shift at The Daily Grind, a downtown coffee shop where she had worked for eight months. Cassie usually did short, four-hour shifts on school nights. It was rare for her to do an opening shift, but she liked to work the occasional Sunday for the money. Early on, the customers were mostly retired people who walked to the shop for coffee as part of their weekly routine, some staying to read a newspaper. The early weekday morning rush— that gaggle of caffeine-craving commuters who kept the shop in business— was something Cassie had never seen. Dwight and Khalil sometimes complained about it, speaking of lines wrapped around the block, but she had reason to believe they were exaggerating.
The Daily Grind was somewhere in between a typical chain coffee shop and a funky independent outfit in appearance. Technically DG was part of a chain, but the franchise was mainly focused on the west coast; isolated from management, Dwight, the wiry musician who managed the shop, had the freedom to make his shop a little less generic. He had dressed the place up with pieces from local artists and his tropical fish tank, which Cassie was sure must be some kind of health code violation.
Dwight himself was busy stocking the fridge with juices from that morning's delivery, his coppery red strands pulled into his typical ponytail. Khalil, their assistant manager, was doing some paperwork at one of the cafe tables, his dark head bent over the clipboard in front of him. If she asked, he would probably say he was doing inventory; she had no idea if he was ever actually doing inventory.
Sam, their barista, dishwasher and espresso-machine-fixer extraordinaire, was in the back, cleaning a few dishes from the previous shift. Their sanitizer, which cleaned the plates, had broken several weeks ago, and they were still waiting for a replacement. Normally under these circumstances the shop would have to close, but Sam had taken it upon himself to clean all the plates, by hand, to hospital-level standards of cleanliness. It meant that he spent a fair amount of time in the back room, but since Dwight had made it clear that Sam was not to do customer service under any circumstances, that was pretty much fine with everyone.
Really, four people (assuming Sam even counted as a person) was too much staff for a Sunday morning, but sometimes Dwight liked to put on more people than strictly necessary so there would be time to get the place organized and sparkling clean— one of the reasons, perhaps, why the shop managed to stay in business while the chain stores nearby both had larger menus and undercut their prices.
Cassie herself was on the register. She had counted out her till, and technically she was supposed to be pricing the merchandise in a cardboard box on the counter while she waited for customers, but she really wasn't doing much; just enjoying her (complimentary) cafe mocha and the smell of baked goods—which she totally wasn't going to eat, because they were unhealthy. Very unhealthy. Right.
Because she was basically doing nothing, she was the first to notice Serenus enter the shop, despite being across the room.
"Good morning, Dr. Zeitbloom," she said in her best happy-cashier-girl voice.
"Helloooo, Bette Davis!" said the thin, nearly bald man in a pinstriped gray suit. Serenus gave her a big smile as he made his way slowly to the counter, balancing on his silver cane. The professor had a habit of calling her the name of a different old-time movie star every time he saw her. She supposed it was flattering, but she usually didn't recognize the names he came out with; at least Bette Davis, she'd heard of.
Khalil and Dwight both said good morning to their regular customer, Dwight with a warm smile and Khalil barely sounding human. Khalil had a friendly personality normally, but he wasn't himself before nine in the morning. That was about how long it took for him to absorb all the free-floating caffeine in the air, he said. One would think someone who helped open the store at six a.m. almost every morning would be used to being up early by now, but apparently not.
"So, what'll it be today? Five-pump iced vanilla latte with three shots of regular, four decaf, and soy milk? Mocha brewed to exactly 201 degrees?" said Cassie, naming some of the professor's famous drink orders. The man was notorious for ordering drinks that were nearly impossible to remember or make. Most customers who did that sort of thing were considered worse than criminals by the staff, but for some reason it wasn't as infuriating when Serenus did it. Maybe because he didn't get mad at them if it took them three tries to make his stupid drink; in fact, it seemed more like he was rooting for them to get it right above all else.
"Hmm, what to drink, what to drink today...small daily blend, Betty Davis Eyes," he said.
Cassie raised her eyebrows, "Just black coffee? That's it?"
He gave a small shrug. "I'm feeling old fashioned."
Cassie smiled as she grabbed a small paper cup from under the counter for his coffee. True, he normally ordered ridiculous drinks, but he also normally came in when Sam was on the espresso bar. It figured that without his favorite barista to torment, he just wanted a cup of coffee like everyone else.
In the four months Sam had been working at DG, Dr. Serenus Zeitbloom was the only person who seemed to be anything like a friend to him— hell, the only person who even seemed to know him outside of the shop. If Khalil was to be believed, the professor had gone on academic sabbatical from his job teaching biology at a prestigious university elsewhere in the country just for the pleasure of tormenting Sam on a regular basis. How the two knew each other wasn't clear, and Sam certainly wasn't talking, but most of the staff at DG guessed that he was Sam's former teacher at one point— at least, before Sam decided to devote himself to washing dishes like nobody's business.
"So, what are you doing up this early, Professor?" she asked as she set his coffee on the counter. Serenus didn't have a regular time you could set your watch by like some of their customers, but she was pretty sure that 8:15 on a Sunday morning wasn't one of his typical visiting hours.
Serenus frowned as he got out his wallet. "I wish I knew," he said, fixing his narrow gray eyes on her with a seriousness that surprised her. "I'm up today, and I'm never up this early on the weekend. I wonder why that is?" he said slowly, as though he was expecting her to know the answer.
"Uh...too much sun in your window?" said Cassie, taking his offered bills and putting them in the register.
"I doubt it," he said, picking up his coffee and taking a small sip. He looked at her over the rim. "Cassie."
She jumped; it was the first time he had ever called her by her actual name. She wouldn't have thought he knew her name, actually. "Uh, yeah?" she said helpfully.
He leaned down so he was at her eye level, careful not to spill his drink. "Just be careful today, alright? Pay attention."
"Oooo...kay..." said Cassie. Well, that was creepy. Even for Serenus, who was definitely on the creepy side, as much as she usually liked him.
He nodded like he'd said his piece and moved to go.
"Hey, uh, Sam's in the back. I can get him if you, uh...wanna say hi," she said awkwardly.
"No, that's alright; he's probably cranky enough this early in the morning without my contributions." And with that, he gave Khalil a friendly nod, and left the shop. Once again, they were customer-free.
Cassie picked up one of the cream-colored tumblers she was supposed to be pricing and felt the weight of it in her hands, thinking. What had that been about? It had been like Serenus had come in to talk to her specifically, but for what purpose? Other than the fact that she sold him coffee at times, they had no connection that she was aware of.
As she played with the large cup, suddenly the door to the back room behind her slammed, causing Cassie to nearly drop the thing. "Hey, no slamming the door!" said Cassie, turning around.
Sam stood before her looking annoyed, one hand clutching a beverage packet. "This was on the wrong shelf. Did you put it there?"
Cassie looked at the packet. "There was no room left on the UBB shelf, so I put it on the CB shelf. Why, does it matter?"
Sam looked her like she was either two years old, an idiot, o
r both. "There is plenty of room on the UBB shelf. You would have realized that if you ever spent five seconds looking before you just shoved things in anywhere they'll fit."
Cassie opened her mouth to respond to his attitude in kind, but Khalil's sleepy voice interjected before she got a chance to. "Seriously, guys? It's a little early for this."
Cassie swallowed what she was going to say. "Sorry," she said, not meeting Sam's eyes. It just wasn't worth arguing with him.
Sam gave her an incredulous look, like he couldn't believe she had the nerve to apologize to him for the heinous crime of putting a beverage pouch on the wrong shelf, and went off to start his work behind the espresso machine. Cassie glared at his retreating back: they always got on each other's nerves, which in and of itself wasn't so bad— she was used to getting on people's nerves and vice-versa— but the fact that she had a crush on him somehow made her feel like he had won every argument, and that was really starting to bother her.
Stop crushing on him! She yelled inside her head. No one is hot enough to act like he does and me still have a crush on them! What the hell?
He was attractive, that she didn't deny. An inch or two over six feet, he had a slender frame with broad shoulders and narrow hips; not bulky and muscular, but he had just enough meat on his bones to keep him from looking skinny. He had deep-set eyes that seemed to look through everyone, so dark brown they looked black unless you were standing very close to him, and pale hair that she'd assumed was dyed when she first saw him. His eyebrows were almost as dark as his eyes, usually a tip off that someone was a bottle blond.
Now though, she knew better; as he reached toward the top of the espresso machine to put fresh beans in the hopper, the morning sun streaming through the window reflected on the soft down on the parts of his arms that weren't covered by his white button-down shirt, giving him a golden sheen. Apparently he was one of those rare natural blonds with dark eyes, something she found simultaneously alluring and obnoxious. Continuing to watch him work out of the corner of her eye, Cassie suddenly remembered the other reason she enjoyed working Sundays.
Of course, it wasn't just a question of looks; there were plenty of good-looking guys around at school, teachers and students alike, and Cassie didn't feel the heat rush to her face whenever they were in the room. No, there was something about Sam that intrigued her, even when she wanted to scream at him. He had a way of doing work, even the most menial chores like sweeping and washing dishes, that made it seem as though doing them was his choice, as opposed to a job he had to endure. Even though his rank in the store wasn't any higher than hers, he was treated like another manager, and no one took issue with it; it just felt right.
Plus, there was that smile…not his typical smile that was half a sneer, but his rare, warm smile that reached his eyes...
No, bad Cassie! Bad! She thought, He's the enemy!
Just as Cassie was vowing to try to imagine Sam covered with bugs from now on, so she could muster up the proper look of disgust she'd like to fix him with (and hopefully distract his attention from the fact that she was usually blushing when he spoke to her), she started to feel something odd beneath her feet.
For a fraction of a second, Cassie thought that the vibrations she felt might be due to someone jumping up and down for some strange reason, before she realized that, no, the ground was actually shaking; everything was shaking.
Khalil met her frightened eyes for a second before jumping out of his seat. "This an earthquake?"
"I think so," said Dwight, who moved gracefully under a table, motioning the others to follow him.
Khalil positioned himself, putting his hands on the bottom of the nearest table as the vibrations intensified. "Do we even have earthquakes here? I don't remember one.”
"We do, just not often," said Dwight.
"Should I move?" Cassie called out. She was still standing at the register- she could go out to the cafe area and take shelter like they had, but she wasn't sure if moving was safe. Maybe it would be better to stay where she was and wait for it to pass. She bit her lip as the shaking seemed to intensify. She put her hands on the counter to keep from falling over.
In the cafe, a French press displayed on one of the shelves teetered and fell, shattering into a hundred glass pieces on the tiled floor. Several other vessels followed suit, and soon the rumbling noise of the earthquake was punctuated by the sound of breaking glass. In a matter of seconds, the checkerboard floor was covered with glass shards and other debris. Cassie held onto the counter with a white-knuckled grip; it definitely wasn’t safe to move to the café now. She thought the giant coffee carafes bolted into the walls behind her were too solidly attached to fall, but if they did, she was probably dead. Vaguely, as though she were only partially conscious of her body, she noticed her teeth were chattering.
Sam had slipped under the wooden board that employees flipped up to enter the bar area from the café. He pressed his back against the wooden storage unit and extended his arm to Cassie.
"You can get under the counter here," He said.
Cassie hesitated; she wasn’t stupid enough to let her discomfort around Sam stop her from taking shelter, but for some reason, her body didn’t seem to want to move when she tried to go to him. Whenever she tried to take a foot off of the shaking tiled floor, it was like a voice in her head that she couldn’t recognize screamed at her to stop.
Before she could get ahold of herself, the shaking abruptly stopped. Dwight and Khalil waited a few moments before getting out from under their tables.
"Nothing like an earthquake on the east coast to wake you up in the morning," said Khalil, indeed looking wide awake now. He was trying to make light of it, but it was obvious from the dullness in his normally twinkling brown eyes that he had been scared.
"That's the first time we had a real one," said Dwight, brushing dust from the floor off the knees of his black jeans. "We got earthquakes before, but they were so tiny, you didn't know they'd happened until you read about it online. That one though, that was serious. That was like a California earthquake.”
Cassie walked out into the café area and stood next to Khalil, choosing her steps carefully to avoid all of the broken glass and plastic. Now that the danger seemed to be over, her relief was tempered with the knowledge that this was going to be an incredible pain to clean up.
Through the shop window, she could see a bunch of people milling around nervously out front. It seemed that dozens must have emptied out of the surrounding office buildings once the shaking started. Maybe on the west coast, people could shrug this sort of thing off, but they weren’t used to earthquakes in Sterling; everyone had vacated their buildings as fast as possible, undoubtedly thinking of the day the World Trade Center Towers fell in Manhattan.
Sam hadn't gotten up from under the counter, able to see them all from his position. After a moment of silence, his brows crossed as though he was concentrating on something. "Do you hear that?"
At first, Cassie didn't know what he was talking about, but it didn't take long for her to hear the creaking noise too. It started out quietly, but then rapidly became deafeningly loud. The group shared horrified expressions— except Sam, who was looking down. Even through the window, Cassie could hear panicked noises coming from the crowd in the street. Several people pointed towards something Cassie couldn’t see.
"Oh my God, I think one of the buildings came loose from the earthquake," said Khalil too calmly, as the whites of his eyes became more visible around his irises. "We're gonna..."
Just then there was a crack of thunder— out of nowhere, as the sky was utterly blue and cloudless— and everything went dark for a moment.
Cassie was never sure afterwards, but she thought that she must have lost consciousness for a few seconds. When the world came back to her, she was on her hands and knees on the cold tile floor, a shallow cut on her knee where a piece of glass had nicked her, and something felt odd; there was a weird buzzing between her shoulder blades that hadn't been the
re before. As if the atmosphere in the room was somehow on a different frequency than just a moment ago.
"The hell was that?" said Khalil, running his hands through his short black hair as he regained his balance. "You guys feel that?"
"Aftershock from the earthquake?" suggested Dwight, hands under his armpits for warmth. It felt like it the temperature had suddenly dropped twenty degrees in the shop.
"That wasn't the earthquake, the shaking stopped. It just felt...wrong," said Khalil, wrapping his arms around his torso. "And why's it so freakin' cold all of a sudden?" He turned toward the front window. "Oh my God," he said softly, and Cassie and Dwight followed his eyes.
The crowd of people in the street was motionless. They weren’t just standing still, but frozen as though they were wax sculptures in a museum. Several people were frozen with their arms raised, pointing at something off to Cassie’s right. On the other side of the street, Cassie thought she could see a pigeon frozen in mid-flight.
"It's like they’re frozen," said Khalil, his voice barely above a whisper as he stepped toward the window. "It's like everything outside this room has stopped."
"It has," came Sam's voice from behind them. "Khalil, go outside and see if you were right. See if that creaking noise was one of the buildings falling." He had pulled himself up and was leaning against the counter with his back to them, his hands massaging his forehead, like he had a terrible headache.
Khalil whipped around in Sam's direction. "You insane? I'm not taking one step outside this room. We don't know the hell's going on— for all we know, those people could be—"
"Just do it," said Sam quietly, still keeping his back to them. Cassie felt her stomach lurch as the realization that this situation was Sam's doing, somehow, sank in. She couldn't imagine how, but she knew that the weird buzzing sensation she felt originated with him.
Whether Khalil had just realized the same thing Cassie wasn't sure, but something in Sam's voice made him decide to listen. He ran out the door, picking his way carefully through the frozen people, clearly trying not to touch them. He made his way across the street, turning with his back against the window of the jewelry shop across from DG to get a look at the sky above the shop, following the direction of the pointed fingers with his eyes. When he came back inside, his normally dark skin had taken on a grayish hue.
"The Dowling building, on the corner— it's falling. It's frozen like everything else, but it's keeled over like the Leaning freakin' Tower of Pisa."
"Faulty construction," said Sam quietly, rubbing his face. “It won’t fall over on its side, but it will collapse downwards. A skyscraper should be able to withstand an earthquake, but if they took shortcuts….” He turned to face them gingerly, as though moving hurt, still using the counter to support his weight.
Cassie heard herself gasp, and put her hands to her mouth; instead of his normal, dark eyes, Sam's irises were an unnatural color— somewhere between the garnet earrings she sometimes salivated over at the jewelry store across the street, and glowing red LEDs. They gave off a light strong enough that it turned the top of his white shirt pink, and cast a red sheen on the glass surface of the pastry case nearby. Though she'd never seen him like this, Cassie had a nagging feeling that this was what he had always looked like— and she would have noticed if she'd ever really paid attention.
Dwight was unmoving on the spot, while Khalil swore and put his hands up in supplication. "Uh, hey man, all those times I called you a pretentious asswipe— it was a term of endearment. You know that, right?"
Sam looked down and gave a weak smile, beads of sweat becoming visible on his forehead. "It's not for your benefit. I can't waste the effort to keep up the disguise anymore." he sighed. "Listen, I'm sorry but I screwed up. You all should start running, now."
"Run where?" said Cassie, somewhat proud of herself for finding her voice. Sam fixed his garnet eyes on her, and she suddenly felt uncomfortably hot despite the cold temperature in the room.
"Far enough away that you won't be trapped in the rubble when that building collapses. I wanted to fix it, but I messed up; I froze time in too big an area. Now I don't have the strength left to brute-force that thing back to stability. At least you three can still get away, though." He took a deep breath, which seemed to hurt him.
The three of them exchanged glances while Sam took deep, gasping breaths and winced in pain. Maybe someone should have been the one to say "You can't freeze time! That's absurd," or something skeptical like that, but hadn't they all sensed that something was really strange about Sam? They never talked about it, but they had all suspected.
It was little things; the way coffee always seemed to spill on customers who particularly annoyed him, the way he seemed to be able to fix anything quickly, from the espresso machine to a leaky faucet without providing any specific explanation of what was broken or what he had done. A few weeks ago, a customer who kept his eyes fixed on Cassie’s chest while he ordered was nearly maimed when a light fixture fell on him, even though Dwight said he’d just had the lights replaced six months ago.
Not to mention, if there was any doubt Sam was telling the truth now, the frozen people in the street made it kind of hard to indulge in skepticism. With only their eyes, Dwight, Khalil and Cassie all made a silent agreement to skip the "indignant disbelief" phase of the process and trust what Sam was saying.
Dwight walked up to Sam's place at the counter, slowly so as not to spook him. "What about you? Can you get away?"
Sam shook his head. "I can't move fast like this, and I don't know how much longer I can even hold it. Go now."
Cassie swallowed. "That can't be right, there's got to be a way to save you too," she said. Sure, he was a tool, and apparently some kind of literal monster now as well, but if it weren't for him, they'd all be dead already; it wasn't fair for him to die.
Sam grimaced. "What part of 'I screwed up' do you not understand?! I told you, I don't have enough power left to right the building! The only way I could do it is if I....took it from someone else," he finished quietly.
"We don't have powers, man— I'm pretty sure that's just you," said Khalil gently.
Sam shook his head slowly. "You do, humans have latent magic. You can't use it, but it's there," he said, struggling for breath now. "I-if you let me tap into it, there might be enough between the three of you for me to do what I need to do. I don't know though; might not be." A small trickle of blood began to drip down from his nose. "But if you want to try it, decide NOW, because there's no time to debate this."
"We have to try it," said Dwight immediately. Cassie and Khalil snapped their heads towards their normally taciturn manager. "It's not just him; if the building collapses, everyone nearby….”
"Could be hundreds of people..." Khalil swore under his breath. "Yeah, if we ran now I'd go crazy from wondering. Let's do this thing."
If Sam was relieved they were sticking around, he gave no sign. "Fine, person with the most magic first: Cassie."
Cassie stared. She was the person with the most magic?
"Are you waiting for a written invitation?" Sam said through gritted teeth, stretching his arm toward her like he had during the earthquake. "If you're going to do this, then do it!"
"Okay, okay!" Cassie yelled, swallowing as she took his offered hand. Sam leaned his back against the counter and slid down, leading her with him.
"Best we do this sitting down so we don't fall," he said, the effort to talk making him slur his words slightly; the effort of holding time in this state was obviously taking a toll on him. "Just try to think of something...pleasant, okay? Something nice."
"What are you going to....," Cassie started. Then, the strange vibrations she'd been feeling for the last several minutes dialed up in intensity, first a little bit, then to the point that it felt like her brain was shaking inside her skull. She screamed until the blackness mercifully came and took the pain away.