A noise distracted me. I turned in time to see a dark shape shoot by us and stop by the next intersection of corridors.

  “A kitty,” I exclaimed, taking a few steps toward it and slamming into the invisible wall of the binding. Undeterred, I crouched a step back and extended my hand as far as it would go, making purring noises.

  The cat hissed. I snatched my hand back.

  “Okay,” I murmured. I felt Aidan come to stand behind me.

  “What are you doing?” he asked in the most disgusted tone.

  “Nothing.” I got to my feet. The movement quickened my pulse.

  After giving another hiss, the cat disappeared. By then, a shudder was building between my shoulder blades in tandem with my blood. I squirmed, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. In fact, it tightened around me, threatening to cut my breathing.

  Slowly, I dared a glance over my shoulder. My heart jumped. “Oh, crap.”

  “What?” Aidan demanded, following my gaze. His hand gripped my arm. “Hell.”

  The lights at the end of the short corridor were starting to dim at an alarming speed.

  He pulled me forward, and I had no option but to follow, unable to tear my gaze from the tendrils of black vine expanding across the walls.

  “Why is it so fast now?” I asked, refocusing ahead when Aidan’s steps grew faster.

  “It must be attuned to the binding, in case the sleep potion didn’t work.”

  “Not the artifact?”

  “I think the man came to put down a couple of traps of his own before selling the artifact and got caught on the ones already set.”

  “So, not a thief.”

  I got another of his patented exasperated looks for that one. “Why would you keep such an artifact in a filing room in a basement?”

  I grinned, momentarily forgetting the mass of darkness stalking us. “Excellent point. You really do know everything.”

  He ignored me and upped the pace until I was forced into a half run to keep up with him. “We have to find a way up,” he said tersely. “Creatures’ magic is too embedded into the earth. It’s unlikely it can follow us outside the basement.”

  The feeling of dread increased along with our speed. Another glance over my shoulder told me the creature was having no trouble keeping up with us. Enjoying the hunt, I realized with a bolt of genuine fear. And like the prey we were, we were starting to run without a plan, taking whatever corner felt like it would take us away from it.

  “We’re lost,” I said in despair between gulps of air. The fast pace and the anxiety squeezing my lungs was making it hard to breathe.

  Aidan’s face was harsh and cut in stone. His strides were long and fast and ate the ground with ease. The fact that he was feeling the same dread I was made my fears diminish a little. I wasn’t alone. We were together in this.

  He gave me a fast, hard look. “Don’t you know your way around here? You work here.”

  Or maybe not together, exactly. I frowned right back at him. “Why would I know my way? Nobody comes down here.”

  “Then why did you?”

  The accusation in his tone made me want to defend myself, so I wasted some precious air doing so, my tone as disapproving of his lack of faith as I could make it. “I was sent to the archives by my boss.”

  “Strange they sent you there if they were expecting a visitor, don’t you think?” I was about to answer when it dawned on me he was suspicious of me, not my boss. Confirming my thoughts, he added, “Why would they send you?”

  I winced. “Well…”

  “Well what?”

  I kept my focus on the ground ahead of us. “I, uh, was supposed to go into the other room, but I saw the open door and sensed the broken ward, so…” I managed a lovely little flourish with my hand. “You know.”

  “What the hell?” he asked, baffled.

  I snorted. It came out somewhat garbled and more like wheezing. “Okay, Mr. Institute, like you’ve never poked your nose where it didn’t belong.”

  “You can sense wards?”

  The honest curiosity in his question surprised me. It contrasted with the expression on his face, all stern and forbidding and like he wanted to punch things.

  “I can sense Fae magic.” At his look of disbelief, I added, “I’m one-sixteenth Fae, you know. Are you part Fae, too?” He probably was, since he worked for the Institute.

  “I’m part none of your business.”

  “Okay. And the rest?”

  He stumbled and I took hold of his arm, ready to pull him up if needed.

  “You’re too cheeky for your own good,” he muttered, regaining his equilibrium. Then he cursed foully and broke into a full run. I was forced to sprint after him, which only got faster after I looked down.

  The tendrils of darkness were nipping at our heels, stretching ahead of us then allowing us to overtake them just to grow another yard.

  We were out of time, no exit in sight.

  Until we rounded the next corner.

  5

  The gleaming doors of a wide elevator shone like a beacon at the end of the hallway. Some sort of freight elevator. Thank God.

  “Elevator,” Aidan exclaimed, as if I were a block away and blindfolded.

  He barely broke his run, landing with an oumph against the wall and slamming his hand on the up arrow button. I arrived a second later, holding my sides and fighting for air.

  Aidan cursed, punching the button repeatedly. It remained unlit, the display panel inert. “Is it out of service?”

  “No, wait, look, an electronic lock,” I told him, pointing at a card reader. “Must be so visitors can’t use it.”

  He began to pat his pockets, looking for anything that could help.

  A lightbulb switched on in my head.

  “I can help,” I said, licking my lips, “if you agree to let me keep the ball.”

  He rounded on me. “What?”

  I brought out Lisa’s keycard. “I have a card and you don’t. Promise, and it’s yours.” It came out in a kind of sing-song voice.

  Aidan made a grab for the keycard, but I turned sideways and brought it out of his reach. He was big, draping around my body in his attempt to reach my outstretched hand. But I also knew he wasn’t really trying. There was a lot of power thrumming in his body when his muscular chest molded to my side. He could throw me to the floor and wrench my hand open with no problem, but he was unwilling to actually hurt me.

  And I was fully ready to take advantage of it.

  I might go to Hell, but I’d do it while working for the Institute.

  “Give me the damn card,” Aidan growled. His voice reverberated through my body in the most interesting way.

  “Nuh huh.” I tried to stretch farther. His arms were so damn long. “Promise first.”

  He tried to turn me around. “Don’t be stupid. Use the damn card!”

  “Promise first,” I muffled against his chest.

  A low growl rumbled along the walls.

  We froze. The hairs in my arms and the nape of my neck stood straight. Slowly, we turned to look at the pit of black oil swallowing the end of the corridor.

  The growl came again. Louder, longer, grinding into my ears. A vicious mix of menace and underlying triumph. It stopped suddenly, and the sound of claws scratching against cement took its place. Two red eyes appeared from within the darkness. A shadow slunk forward.

  I used the damn card.

  The display came to life. A large red six popped on it. Aidan punched the arrow button.

  A low whirling came from behind the metal doors. The six changed to five.

  The outline of the beast became clearer. It must be a hound, as Aidan had guessed earlier—a dog-shaped creature that reached up to my chest, its ears unnaturally long, pressed flat against an unnaturally long skull.

  Four.

  Aidan pressed the button a few more times.

  The hound advanced, its legs dragging the shadows along from the darkness, the vines spreading with each touch of its claws on the floor. Its skin seemed to be swirling oil, reflecting what light was left with each movement of its muscles and bones. It had no fur, no fat, every muscle out in the open, its teeth a perfect white. This beast wanted you to see the instrument of your death. This beast was made for fear.

  Three.

  I flattened myself against the wall. We weren’t going to make it.

  Two.

  The hound prowled forward, releasing another of its growls. Aidan’s spamming of the button became frantic.

  One.

  My hand went to the neckline of my sweatshirt and t-shirt. We weren’t completely defenseless. I had the Fae artifact.

  A musical ping split the air, and the elevator doors began to open.

  Relief so intense it froze me in place flooded me. I couldn’t move until Aidan shoved me through the still-opening doors.

  Guessing its prey was about to escape, the hound advanced faster.

  The elevator was deep and wide, made to carry large items. Aidan didn’t take his eyes off the approaching hound as he pressed buttons.

  I hid on the other side of the door, examining the panel on my side and pressing the close doors button. The doors began to close slowly, so unbelievably slowly. I punched the button harder. Yikes, who had built these things?

  The hound picked up speed. The doors got closer to each other.

  Aidan cursed the doors extra special, and the panels went in for final approach.

  The hound jumped.

  I pressed myself into the wall, my heart ready to bore through my throat.

  The doors caught the beast mid-leap; it found itself stuck in the air with a strange little yelp.

  Oh. My. God.

  I stayed where I was, plastered to the wall, unable to look away from the hound. It began to thrash against its hold. Dark red saliva dripped from its mouth, coating its jagged teeth. Its gleaming muscles bunched and stretched as it clawed the air, its red eyes moving back and forth. The elevator lights dimmed then returned to full potency. My brain was stuck on the sight. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend our luck—one more second, and we’d have been minced meat.

  And then the elevator doors began to open.

  I watched in horror as they slid back with a jerk and the hound fell to the floor. Then they pushed closed once more, holding the hound again, and, before I could release the breath of relief building up in my chest, they began to open for real.

  A strangled, terrified sound made it out of my throat. I fumbled for the close doors button again, but the elevator’s doors continued to retract. Somewhere in my mind, I understood they would not close again until they had opened the whole way, but my fingers didn’t seem to be able to stop hammering the stupid button.

  The hound snapped to its feet as the doors made it fully to the sides. Before it could decide which of us to maul first, though, Aidan was there, grabbing it by the neck. The doors began their slow trip back to closing.

  “Out!” he shouted.

  I scrambled out of the elevator. The hound thrashed, and there was no way Aidan could out-muscle it, no matter how hard his chest and arms had felt during our small struggle. I suddenly remembered the Fae ball, and I fumbled to find it around my waist.

  Things were happening too fast; my hands were too clumsy. I would never make it in time. My future coworker was about to get eaten in front of me.

  But Aidan didn’t fight the hound. Instead, he used the creature’s strength against itself, rotating along as it tried to turn and bite him. At the last moment, Aidan rolled sharply into the floor, using a tug and momentum to send the hound onto its back and skidding all the way to the back of the elevator.

  I stepped forward and grabbed Aidan’s jacket, jerking him to me. He stumbled to his feet and slid sideways through the doors right before they closed firmly in our faces.

  A loud thunk made us jump back. The doors remained closed. We followed the thunks upward as they lost volume until finally disappearing into the building, leaving us in complete silence.

  “Well,” I said, quite philosophically, “good thing it will vanish outside the basement, right?”

  Aidan turned his head to look at me, very slowly, very smoothly. His skin was pale under the cheap lighting, a sheet of sweat covered his temples. “What if I’m wrong?” he asked in a carefully neutral tone.

  I resisted shriveling under the full focus of his lethal glare and tightened my ponytail instead. “Are you usually wrong?” I flinched at the high pitch of my voice.

  The intensity of his gaze didn’t waver. “Not really.”

  I patted his arm. “See? All good.”

  Aidan looked at my hand like it was a bug. I retracted it immediately. Still focused on his sleeve, and still in the same chillingly neutral tone people used when they were beyond furious, he asked, “What was that?”

  “A pat?” I ventured.

  He closed his eyes for a few seconds. When they opened, I found myself trapped once again. “The stunt you pulled with the card.”

  Okay, so I wasn’t completely stupid. I knew it had been a dumb thing to do and that I had almost gotten us munched on by a Fae hound. But a miss is as good as a mile, right? “Like you wouldn’t have tried the same.”

  Instead of answering, Aidan turned toward the hallway and began retracing our earlier steps. I caught up easily and studied him. His expression hadn’t outwardly changed, but I thought I caught a slight tightening of his mouth.

  “See? You would’ve. You won’t admit it, but you would’ve.”

  He sent me an irritated glance, and I couldn’t stop a grin. With a roll of his eyes, he focused on the corridor while my smile grew wider. He might as well have agreed out loud. It helped dull the stabs—the very, very tiny stabs—of guilt that had been prodding me nonstop since Aidan had been forced to fight the hound.

  “We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said in his usual, and welcome, curt, grumpy way. “Whoever set the traps will want the artifact back.”

  Surreptitiously, I rolled the ball along my waist until it hung on the opposite side of Aidan. “You think they’re dangerous?”

  “He’s been linked to several disappearances.”

  “So you know who it is?”

  “We call him the Collector.”

  6

  I rolled the name in my head. “Back to the classics. I like it.”

  Aidan sighed heavily. “He’s dangerous. The Institute has kept their eyes on him for a year. He’s been increasing his collection of rare artifacts, and he doesn’t take well to people who try to fool him.”

  “Like the guy on the floor?”

  “Yes.”

  When nothing else was forthcoming, I said, “And you don’t know who he is?”

  “There are a few candidates.”

  “Sounds like the Institute needs more employees.”

  “No.”

  I beamed at him. “Don’t worry, I won’t steal your spot. I’m sure there is space for both of us.”

  That elicited a grunt. Then, as if the words were somehow forming without his consent, he added, “This morning, I learned that some kind of transaction was about to happen today.”

  “Oh, so that’s why you were skulking around earlier.”

  He gave me an offended look. It looked kinda cute in the way he lifted his chin and scrunched his brows. “I don’t skulk.”

  “Why didn’t you follow the guy on the floor?”

  “He must’ve arrived during the night to set the traps, well before the arranged time.”

  “Then why did you come—oh, you saw me upstairs.” My smile turned mischievous. “You thought I was the seller, didn’t you?”

  “No, I thought you might mess things up.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked the satisfaction in his voice. “So what’s the plan now?”

  “We find a way out of here, I get to work, and you go home.”

  “Don’t you want the ball?”

  “Don’t you want to outlast the morning?”

  “Yikes, does your boss know you threaten innocent people like this?” I asked with mock outrage.

  Aidan ignored me. “Once I can make a call to the Institute, you will turn in the Fae artifact and transfer the bind to one of my coworkers.”

  And pigs would fly.

  “Until then,” he warned, somehow assuming I’d actually agree to this plan, “make sure not to touch any animal or person in case the binding transfers.”

  One of the names on the doors in the corridor caught my attention, and I grabbed Aidan’s sleeve, forcing him to stop along with me. “Hey, that belongs to Kane’s shop.”

  “Who?”

  “My friend.”

  Aidan peered at the name. “Your friend owns the Wishing Well?”

  “He works there. We should break in. Bet there’s something we can use.”

  “You can’t just use random Fae things,” he told me in a tone meant for a five-year-old.

  “There might be something inside that can break the binding,” I answered in exactly the same tone. “Some kind of tool.”

  He perked right up. And by perked, I mean he straightened suddenly and scowled, deep in thought. “Hmm.”

  I used Lisa’s card on the electronic lock, but the light remained red. Well, it had been worth a try. “Locked.”

  His expression remained thoughtful when he took off again.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Your idea has merit. There might be something we can use around here to alter the binding.”

  He began to try the doors without electronic locks. It only took him two tries to find an open room.

  We found ourselves in an old office, the kind of room people were given when their bosses really wanted to make them quit. A lone DIY desk stood on a side, its edge flush with the wall, with a cheap chair as its only friend. Some cabinets were stacked in a corner, and an empty low shelf dominated the wall by the door. Someone had attempted to liven up the space by painting the walls a nice beige and leaving a poster featuring a flying cat over a rainbow. Damn cute.

  Since I had no idea of what he was looking for, I left Aidan to the enviable task of opening and closing drawers and took a seat on the chair. Fishing the ball from under my t-shirt took some effort, but I finally got it free. It didn’t look the worse for the wear—still a metal-like sphere with beautiful swirling vine designs. And unlike the black tendrils emanating from the hound’s darkness, these gave the impression of life. I brought it close to my nose and sniffed delicately, expecting to get a hint of green grass or flowers. I got beautiful, old, moldy dust.

 

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