"Pam, can you check out Laura; she's not waking up." Sebastian said. He did his best to hide his worry. For some reason, he always tried to look tough even if he was melting inside.

"Seb, it's been just one day. Forget the sleeping beauty and get back to work. Have you asked - " She began with her usual blah blah blah.

Last night, when Sebastian had been sitting beside Laura, trying to subdue a volcano of worries and trying out every method of waking her up, Pamela was up all night gaping at her laptop screen. She'd then switched to her self-invented master phone when her similarly built up laptop finally refused
to execute her long tedious programs. And the entire system crashed as one of her programs generated a deadly virus. Now, she'd also destroyed her phone in frustration and had switched to the traditional method - scanning every page of a heap of scriptures and handbooks she had in her limitless depository. And the fury and frustration in her eyes was so intent, she would perhaps end up ripping apart every book of her treasure, including the 'Psychiatricana Ritualis'

"No, you gotta check her. Look, she's not even breathing." Sebastian said.

"It's supposed to be that way, Seb!" Pamela said. She was tired of answering the same question over and over again. And not finding anything about the Mark wasn't helping her mood.

But then she noticed 'breathing' and paused.

"Actually, then there might be some problem." She said and saw Sebastian's eyes widen with fear.

Pamela hurried and checked Laura's pulse and even her eyes bulged out. The pulse was about to die, if it hadn't already.

"Seb, can you pass me on the Silmethella?" Pamela said hiding her fear.

"Pam, what's going on?" Sebastian said worriedly.

Pamlea said no word and kneeled down to find Silmethella. She found the goblet in which the liquid was still frothing giving out nasty vapours. But now, the liquid was no longer blue green. It had now turned grey.

"Pam?" Sebastian asked again. But the petrified statue won't answer.

"Well, I think I added the wrong ingredient." She said.

"I made Promethella stead of Silmethella and-" she paused.

"And?" Sebastian asked, clearly not understanding the difference between the two.

"Promethella is a strong poison. Very strong." She completed and Sebastian felt as if someone has dragged all the blood out of him. Was he having hearing problems?

"Wait, I...I can heal her."

"I think."

She tried to lift up the atmosphere but Sebastian needed no psychic eyes to see what was going on in her mind. Nothing. She'd no clue of reviving Laura.

She closed her eyes and thought for a moment, while Sebastian struggled to form words or maintain his brain straight. How could the best researcher in the world make a mistake this huge?
Pamela then hurried further inside the house while Sebastian still stood still like a statue, dazed.

Before Sebastian would loose his control, Pamela quickly returned, holding a huge pot, a burner and an ancient looking hat, the kind witches wore.

She again went in and brought a set of beakers filled with a variety of shrub juices and chemicals.
She then mixed small quantities of the chemicals and poured the mixture into the pot. She placed the burner beneath the pot and switched it on.

At first, nothing happened. Then the mixture started frothing and becoming denser. The green liquid grew more and more violet as it kept on frothing. Soon, a dark violet layer formed over the surface of the mixture.

"Pamela, what are you doing?" Sebastian asked.

"Magnella. It's the only antidote which could counter Promethella's effects." She said.

"Don't worry, I've checked the procedure twice." She said like she'd checked it ten times at least.

Sebastian opened his mouth to say something but decided against it. He just stood there, as silent and lifeless as a sculpture.

Pamela poured a few drops of yellow chemical and the violet layer broke down. The entire mixture went from violet to thick black and dark violet fumes started rising from it.

She stepped away from the pot and put the hat upright over it. The hat slowly started expanding as more and more fumes entered it through the black mixture. Soon, the hat was full and it took its complete hat shape. Through a narrow hole at the top of the hat, a fine stream of dark violet fumes started rising.

Pamela bend down so as to reach the top of thehat and placed her mouth closer to the opening through which the vapours were rising. To Sebastian's great surprise, she opened her mouth and inhaled the dark fumes.

"Perfect." A smile formed on her sweaty face when she finished preparing the Magnella.

"Seb, help me sit Laura at the table." She said as she made a motionless body of Laura sit. Sebastian pulled the couch closer to the table so that Laura's head was hovering just above the angry fumes of Magnella. Seb quickly moved the pot away.

"No, keep the pot near her." Pamela said.

"Are you kidding me? She can't take those vapours." Sebastian said.

"Seb, this the antidote. Magnella won't harm her, it will cure her." She urged but Sebastian won't listen.

After getting convinced that Sebastian won't move the pot, she went over to him, took the pot and hurried towards Laura, whose supportless body had again fallen back on the couch.

"You sure this is the cure?" Sebastian asked when he could no longer ignore the need of the medication.

"The only cure." Pamela nodded.

"Fine. But if something happens to Laura-" Sebastian began but Pamela cut him off.

"Sebastian, you know what, have some faith in your ex girlfriend, we've known each other all our lives. Why would I want to kill your current girlfriend?"
She said and realised the answer was hidden in her question itself.

"No, Seb, I ain't killing her." She said when Sebastian looked confused.

He then helped Laura rise again and brought her face closer to the fumes, just like Pamela had done, but not too closer.

The vapours fumed and completely covered Laura's face.

Except for the sudden rise in Sebastian's blood pressure, nothing happened.

Few more minutes passed and still nothing happened. But Pamela's expressions were still focused.

Another minute passed and Sebastian realised he had been moving Laura's face away from the fumes. Poison or antidote, he couldn't watch Laura's face getting attacked by some angry dark fumes.

"Seb!" Pamela shouted when she realised what Sebastian was doing. But before he could either move her head back in or protest against it, a weak cough broke the attention of both of them.

It was Laura. She wasn't fully awake yet but the cough proved the effect of Promethella had faded. Relieved and happy, Sebastian again put Laura on the couch. He spreaded a blanket over her and asked Pamela when she'd wake up.

"I don't know. But it won't take long. Now that the Promethella has faded, she should be up in an hour." If she didn't have that extreme confidence lurking in her glaring eyes, Sebastian might have asked her the same question relentlessly.

"Now leave her alone and get back to work." Pamela clapped her hands and after keeping the remaining chemicals and stuff at right place, somewhere inside the house, she returned with her laptop. A softwared had been working on it trying to bring the system back to life since a couple of hours and the irritating beeps indicated the laptop was repaired.

Pamela sat near Laura's feet and placed her laptop on the table, not bothering to wipe off the spilled black liquid which now dirtied the lower surface of laptop. Fortunately, it didn't enter the system.

"Sebastian, I said get back to work. She's your girlfriend, not mine and you staring at her like an owl won't help." She said. She was clearly frustrated. She was used to work persistently for hours together, but this time, she'd been working relentlessly for days. Before Sebastian and Laura had come here, she was busy with her research of Mor Alore and no matter what she did, she couldn't arrive at any conclusions. Then, Sebastian had come and she had to carry out a difficult psychic treatment. And now, even after searching for the mark everywhere she could lay her hands on, she hadn't got even one reference about the mark, forget the whole deal.

But the instalment of an advanced version of her previous system motivated her to waste few more hours gaping at the screen. She opened up her programming window and entered a complex program she'd been working on since morning and compiled it. Her hopes rose when the system showed no errors or any signs of crashing down. She might get it right this time. A message popped up showing remaining time for the process to get executed.

"Mr Sebastian Deathstar, I said get back to work!" Pamela eyed him through the spectacles. He had sat beside her, staring at the very first page of some book he picked up at random. But all his attention was focused on Laura. So much that he didn't even realise he had been holding the book upside down.

"I can't get this sentence." He said defensively.

"And you won't." She sighed. She took the book out of his hands, turned it upside down and saw Sebastian's face colour with embarrassment.

He spent few more minutes trying to read the very first line. But he still couldn't do it. Partly because he still was focused on Laura, partly because he couldn't do Latin.

"Oh good lord, you still can't read Latin, can you?" Pamela's jaw dropped open. She couldn't believe a Deathstar who didn't know Latin existed. But Sebastian was saved from a big tiring lecture as another prompt popped up on the laptop screen.

"Oh my god!" Pamela's eyes gleamed with such excitement that she couldn't contain her self. She almost jumped on Sebastian and kissed him right on lips. He was so surprised at the immediate change of her mood, and obviously at the kiss, he in turn jumped away from her. He saw Pamela's eyes bulging out in response to her late realisation of what she did.

"I...I'm sorry. I got dragged to the past when you and me were, you know-" she quickly apologised. This mistake was as big as the one with Promethella, if not bigger. How could she forget that she and Sebastian weren't together anymore and how could she forget that his current girlfriend was right behind them? She was so red that she resembled a tomato.

Similar was Sebastian's condition. The poor guy, out of habit, had half-consciously returned the kiss and now was feeling as guilty as Pamela did.

"Anyway, look what I found." She said, still embarrassed, and pointed at the screen. Pamela had gotten access to King Victor's database. She had assumed access to one of the biggest sources of knowledge about this other side of the world.

The news was so big that it helped Sebastian divert his attention from the guilty kiss. Such was the case with Pamela too. She rapidly typed a set of commands and entered a few key words in the search bar. A message appeared stating the remaining time for the search to get completeted. Pamela crossed her fingers and even though the screen showed that almost fifteen minutes were remaining, she, like Sebastian, kept staring at the screen. Harming your eyes was better than completing an unfinished awkward conversation.

They didn't speak a word until the search results were displayed. And in the 1000 TB of precious data, one tiny byte appeared which had a tiny reference to what Pamela had been so persistently searching for -

A N A H I TA

Pamela's and Sebastian's eyes met and they saw only one feeling reflecting in those bulged out eyes - curiosity. Pamela slowly moved the cursor and clicked on ANAHITA. She held her breath until the window got loaded.

But instead of seeing a detailed paragraph explaining who or what Anahita was, there was only one line.

A N A H I T A - A N G E L O F T H E M O O N

But the line was sufficient enough to rock Pamela's nerves the same way they did when she'd found out about Laura's Mercaptos. For what she read challenged yet another fact the hunters believed so firmly - the existence of angels.