Christmas with Nick Klaas

Part 25: Sound the Alarm

Noelle woke with a start. The room was still bathed in darkness, but Nick was way ahead of her, hurriedly pulling on his clothes at the foot of the bed. He'd obviously reacted faster to the unexpected interruption, although the loud whomp, whomp, whomp of an alarm that rivaled any tornado or air raid siren was impossible to ignore.

"What's going on?" she asked, sitting up and yanking the blankets up to her armpits. The room was colder than she'd remembered from when they finally fell asleep, although that was after a pretty good workout. While both were dripping with post-romp sweat, they thankfully hadn't disturbed the natural order of the world.

At least they didn't think they had.

Still shirtless, Nick bounced up and down on one leg as he tugged on his pants. "I don't know," he answered curtly, focusing on his singular task.

Noelle covered her ears with her hands. "Then why is the alarm going off?" she yelled.

"I DON'T KNOW!" he repeated the denial more forcefully while grabbing a pile of clothing off the floor. After throwing the garments at her, he bent down again to find his sweater, but continued to hurriedly speak. "Get dressed. We need to go."

His abruptness was uncharacteristic, so Noelle knew something was deeply wrong. Whether he really had no clue about what was going on or just didn't want to share it to protect her didn't matter. Following his instructions, she put on her rumpled clothes in record time and was ready to leave by the time he opened the bedroom door.

The ground seemed to glow, but after Noelle had taken a better look, it was just the type of LED light strips embedded on one side of the baseboards that airplanes had in the aisles to illuminate the way out for emergencies. Otso was also standing at the end of the hallway, and when he saw them emerge from the room, he wagged his tail, barked, and turned the corner, as if urging them to follow. Although Nick pulled her in that direction, Noelle hesitated.

"Wait. What about Avery? We can't leave her," she said, nodding toward the door diagonally across from Nick's room. The air smelled of ash, and while there was no smoke, if this was the precursor to a fire like at the inn, then they'd need to evacuate her friend, too.

Nick nodded, as if belatedly also remembering that they hadn't been alone in the house. "Of course," he said, running to the other door before forcefully knocking. "Avery! Open up!"

There was a thump of something landing on the floor before a loud meow answered.

"Cat Damon!" Noelle exclaimed, pushing Nick aside and trying the doorknob. It rattled, but didn't open. There was no keyhole, so the door must have been locked from the inside. "You'll need to break it down," she said, moving aside to give him space.

Instead of backing up for more leverage to throw his shoulder at the wooden panel, Nick held his left palm flat against the handle.

"What are you doing?" Noelle asked, but as soon as the words left her mouth his intentions became clear.

Even in the dimly lit hallway, she could see the air around his extended hand vibrate and feel the immediate surroundings become a few degrees warmer. As he rotated his palm, the knob moved in the same direction even though it wasn't being touched. Then, the door popped open.

Magic. Nick Klaas wielded the power of magic.

Noelle was momentarily stupefied, staring at the knob with open-mouthed amazement. But as soon as the gap was large enough, the cat ran out. Slipping past her legs, he got halfway down the corridor before noticing the Husky who'd also backtracked. Not taking his chances with the dog, Cat Damon slowly reversed and jumped into Noelle's outstretched arms.