Chapter 135: 135 Echoes of Power

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135: Echoes of Power 135: Echoes of Power The woman’s presence seemed to bend the very air around her, like heat waves rising from summer pavement.

Mishka remained standing, deliberately positioning herself between the intruder and the door.

“The naval base was just the beginning,” the woman said, running one finger along the edge of the phonograph’s wooden cabinet.

“Your friend Mr.

Cameron’s designs aren’t just fashion, are they?

The fabric responds to more than just body heat.”

Mishka’s expression remained carefully neutral.

“If you know enough to break into my home, you know enough not to waste time with obvious statements.”

“Fair enough.” The woman’s smile was razor-thin.

She withdrew something from her coat—a piece of fabric that seemed to shimmer and shift, even in the dim light.

One of Bruce’s prototypes.

“Do you know what happens when you combine his technology with certain…

ancient frequencies?”

“The naval base incident was contained,” Mishka said, though she knew the words rang hollow even as she spoke them.

Graham’s “cleanup” had been thorough, but some things couldn’t be erased.

Some energies, once awakened, refused to be put back to sleep.

“Contained?” The woman’s laugh was colder now.

“Tell that to the thing in your harbor.

Tell that to the other sites that are awakening.

Tokyo isn’t just about Fashion Week, is it?

The location was chosen very specifically.”

Mishka felt a familiar vibration in her bones—the prelude to something ancient stirring.

The last time she’d felt this, the naval base had nearly been torn apart by forces beyond human comprehension.

“Who are you really?” Mishka asked, though she was beginning to suspect she already knew

the answer.

The woman’s presence felt oddly familiar, like a reflection in dark water.

“Someone who, like you, stands at the crossroads of worlds.”

A text message lit up Mishka’s phone: Bruce.

“Don’t trust anything she says about the designs.

Meeting compromised.

Graham tracking new energy signatures.”

The woman glanced at the phone, her smile widening slightly.

“Mr.

Cameron is quite protective.

But he should be more worried about what’s happening in his own workshop right now.”

Mishka’s phone buzzed again—this time with an alert from Bruce’s studio security system.

Multiple breaches detected.

Temperature fluctuations beyond normal parameters.

“What do you want?” Mishka demanded, dropping all pretense of polite conversation.

The woman moved to the window, gazing out at the thick woods.

“The same thing they want?”

“No,” the woman agreed.

“Not Tokyo.

And certainly not this.”

She placed Bruce’s prototype fabric on the phonograph, letting it drape over the still-spinning record.

The material began to pulse with an inner light, its patterns shifting in time with the music’s haunting rhythms.

Mishka’s phone exploded with messages—from Bruce, from Graham, from others connected to their hidden world.

Something was happening, not just here but in multiple locations.

The fabric on the phonograph glowed brighter, its patterns now moving like living things.

The woman’s final smile was almost sympathetic.

“Then what happened at the naval base will seem like a gentle wave compared to the tsunami that’s coming.”

She left as she had arrived—between one breath and the next, there and then gone.

The prototype fabric continued to pulse on the phonograph, its rhythms matching the increasingly turbulent movements in the harbor below.

Mishka reached for her phone, but before she could call Bruce, every light in the mansion went dark.

The darkness felt alive, pulsing with an energy that made Mishka’s skin crawl.

Her phone’s screen provided the only illumination, casting a pale blue glow across her features as she finally connected with Bruce.

“They’re in my workshop,” he said without preamble, his voice tight with controlled anger.

“The prototypes—”

“I know,” Mishka cut in.

“She was here.

She had one of them.”

The lights came back on.

From upstairs, she could hear her father’s steady footsteps—he’d always had a sixth sense for trouble—and the lighter, more hurried steps that could only belong to Grandma Myrtle.

Her grandmother’s fortune-telling abilities might be questionable, but her timing was impeccable when it came to inserting herself into sensitive situations.

“What did she do with it?” Bruce’s voice pulled her attention back to the phone.

Mishka’s gaze drifted to the phonograph where the fabric still pulsed with otherworldly light.

“She combined it with one of the old recordings from the library.

Bruce…

it’s responding to the music in ways that shouldn’t be possible.”

“Don’t touch it,” Bruce’s voice carried an urgency she rarely heard.

“The naval base incident started with similar resonance patterns.

Graham’s sending a containment team—”

The line went dead.

“Mishka?” Her father’s voice carried down the grand staircase.

“Is everything alright?”

Before she could answer, Grandma Myrtle swept into the room, her caftan billowing dramatically despite the lack of wind.

“I sensed a disturbance,” she announced, her eyes narrowing at the sight of the glowing fabric.

“The spirits are restless tonight.”

Mishka bit back a retort.

Her grandmother’s constant need to dramatize every situation had long been a source of tension, especially given that Myrtle’s “predictions” rarely proved accurate.

Yet somehow, she always managed to be present when genuine supernatural events occurred, claiming after the fact that she’d “known all along.”

“Dad,” Mishka called out, keeping her voice steady, “we need to secure the house.”

Her father appeared in the doorway, his expression grave.

Unlike Myrtle, he did not understand the true nature of their family’s connection to the supernatural world.

The mansion had been in their family for generations, its location chosen specifically for its proximity to certain…

convergence points.

Outside, in the woods there were flashes of light.

Could it be wolf eyes or the eyes of some preditor animals?

“Just like in my vision!” Myrtle declared, though Mishka noticed her grandmother taking several steps back from the windows.

“Not now, Mother,” Mishka’s father said firmly.

He moved to one of the mansion’s hidden panels, activating ancient wards that had protected their family for generations.

“Mishka, what do we know?”

The prototype fabric’s glow intensified, its patterns now matching the movements of the entities in the woods.

Each shift in the music spawned new configurations, as if the material was trying to communicate in a language lost to time.

“It’s connected to Tokyo,” Mishka explained, watching as her father’s face registered understanding.

“The fashion show isn’t just a show.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Myrtle interjected.

“Mother,” Mishka’s father cut in sharply, “please check the upper wards.”

It was a diplomatic way of getting Myrtle out of the room, and Mishka felt a surge of gratitude toward her father.

They both knew the upper wards were secure—they always were—but it would keep her grandmother occupied and out of the way.

Myrtle hesitated, clearly torn between maintaining her dramatic presence and following her son’s instructions.

Finally, with a swish of her caftan, she ascended the stairs, muttering about ungrateful families ignoring her gifts.

“Graham’s team?” her father asked once Myrtle was out of earshot.

“Three minutes out,” Mishka confirmed, checking her phone.

Her father nodded, moving to stand beside her at the window.

The harbor had become a churning mass of otherworldly activity.

“This house,” he said quietly, “has stood witness to many convergences.

One day, when it’s yours, you’ll understand just how many secrets these walls hold.”

“Dad—”

“Not yet,” he said gently.

“But soon enough.

For now, we need to focus on what’s immediate.

What’s in Tokyo.”

The containment team’s vehicles were visible now, their lights cutting through the darkness as they raced up the road.

Above them, Myrtle’s voice could be heard performing what was undoubtedly an unnecessarily theatrical blessing of the upper wards.

Mishka’s phone lit up with a final message from Bruce: “Found my mother’s old design journals.

These aren’t just fashion pieces.

They’re keys.

She knew.

She always knew.”

The mansion’s lights flickered back to life just as Graham’s team burst through the door.

They froze at the sight before them: Mishka and her father standing calmly by the window, while impossible creatures hovered in the woods beyond.

“Welcome to the family electronics business,” Mishka’s father said dryly to the team leader.

“I trust Graham briefed you on the unique nature of our situation?”

From upstairs, Myrtle’s voice floated down: “I predict this is only the beginning of more drama!”

For once, Mishka thought, her grandmother might actually be right.