We still need man-things!

Chapter Twenty Four

Daniela left and returned about two minutes later.

"Everything you wished, my sweet boy." She giggled and handed him a strong neodymium magnet and a four-inch-long, pretty thick sewing needle.

"Thank you!" Mike said and placed the magnet on the keyhole to test if it was powerful enough to pull this key out.

It wasn't. With a needle, he was able to get the broken part moving; however, it still stood stuck in there and refused to come out.

"Damn. This magnet is still weak. It looks like we can't go around power tools."

"Or what if I try to push it from the other side?" Daniela had a better idea.

"You mean you push this with the needle, and I use the magnet at the same time?"

"Yeah."

"It's stuck so hard that I doubt it's going to work, but perhaps you are right."

"I'll try then."

She dematerialized in the blink of an eye to use the ventilation shaft to reach the chamber like her sister Bela did in the morning, without knowing that she would almost die because of that.

Daniela was completely unaware that all the windows of her mother's private chamber had been secretly opened by an unknown intruder several hours ago, and cold mountain winds had cooled this room down to a few degrees above freezing. Feeling sudden and extremely strong pain all over her body as soon as she came in contact with this lethal air, she dropped down from the ceiling like a zapped bear from a pole pig and wasn't able to turn into a fly swarm again to escape.

"Daniela, what is happening?!" Mike shouted through the door after hearing all the horrible shrieking that followed.

"Let me out! Let me out!!!"

"What's going on there?! What happened?!"

"The room is cold! I'm freezing! Help me!"

She banged on the door as hard as she could before collapsing onto the floor with a loud thud.

"What? What the hell?"

Mike touched the floor near the threshold and realized in horror that it wasn't a prank and she was really in danger.

"Roll yourself into the carpet; I'm going to call for help!"

Seconds later, Bela and Cassandra, who had also heard the shrieking and shouting, appeared on the scene, followed by their mother.

"What's going on there?" Lady Dimitrescu was confused.

"Daniela swarmed in there and got exposed to the cold!" Mike explained while pointing towards the door. "Bela, did you leave the window open in there?"

"No, I didn't!" Bela shrieked. "I didn't do anything; why should I do this?"

"I'm talking seriously; this is not a prank. Touch it!"

She touched the threshold just like Mike before, and it felt like fire to her.

"Oh my god, mother. She's going to die there!"

Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Alcina asked Mike to get out of her way, and then she tried to break down the door by using her massive body. She went really fierce, but no matter how hard she tried, her chamber's entrance stood strongly in place as it was made of three inches of dense oak.

"Damn it!"

As she couldn't use her physical force to break through it, she ran to the bathroom to pull that infamous ventilation shaft grille down from there.