Slaughtering the Hadleigh siblings in front of a crowd of drunk college students sounded fun, but wasn’t worth the ensuing fall out from Hell.
“I take it you didn’t find the grimoire?” Rae asked from behind me, watching me as I felt along the underside of the shelves.
Oh, yes, I found the grimoire. But I’m too obsessed with you to leave you, so here I am, still risking life and limb to be near you, still driven absolutely mad by your voice and smell and eyes —
“No, didn’t find it yet,” I looked back over my shoulder and gave her a wink. “Lucky for you.”
The more I reminded her how “lucky” she was that I was still here, the more I felt like a complete asshole. Implying that the grimoire was the only thing keeping me from leaving was a vile lie, one she couldn’t possibly believe for much longer. I’d gladly admit I was generally a dick, but Rae made me want to be…nice…to her.
Only to her. Everyone else could get fucked.
In a far corner of the shelf, my fingers grazed over a cold metal plate set into the wood. I pressed it, stepped back, and the bookshelf moved silently across the track, slipping into the wall and revealing a stairway leading down into the dark. Rae gasped, stepping forward eagerly as if she was ready to run straight down into the dark. I pressed my hand against her chest, stilling her as fluorescent lights flickered on and illuminated the cold, concrete stairwell.
“Are there cameras down there?” she whispered, as if the stairs themselves might hear and tattle. “Or motion sensors?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. There’s only one room down there I’ve been in. We need to be quick.”
She nodded determinedly. There was a flush to her face, and her heartbeat had sped up again. She was excited — of course she was. Facing down a dangerous adventure? Better than a walk in the park apparently.
There was something so painfully hot about this tiny woman’s foolhardy bravery.
She went ahead and I followed, pressing another metal plate on the inner wall to close the bookshelf behind us. We went down two flights of stairs, and more lights flickered on overhead.
“Wow.” Rae’s eyes widened as she peered around the space. “This looks like a supervillain’s headquarters.”
“It may as well be.” I was getting a creeping, nasty feeling up my back being in here. The black-painted concrete walls and wooden floors couldn’t disguise the claustrophobic crushing weight of this place. Demons weren’t meant to be underground, yet that was where the Hadleighs had always kept me.
“Is this his evil conference table?” Rae said, smiling at her own joke as she circled the long, shining wood table set up in the middle of the room, lined with chairs. She’d taken her phone out of her pocket, and as she wandered around, she held it up to record. I didn’t have much faith in human justice systems, but if the Hadleighs wanted to make my girl disappear, it would only be harder for them the more records that remained of her whereabouts. Recording her exploration here was probably a good idea.
“I’d hear them talking sometimes,” I said. “His closest members of the Libiri would meet with him here.”
“And behind all these doors?” She looked up and down the room, at the thick metal doors secured with keypads. “How can we get in?”
“Electrical locks are easy enough to influence,” I said. “Take your pick. I don’t know what’s behind any of them, except the one at the end.”
She looked toward the far end of the room and the nondescript metal door there. When I was under Kent’s command, the only way in and out of that room was with his permission. Now? I was far from eager to step foot in it again.
“What’s in there?” Rae said, and I sighed, extending my energy across the room to influence the electricity in the door’s lock and pop it open.
“See for yourself.”
The creak of the door’s hinges was familiar. I could swear it was the only door in the entirety of this house that Kent allowed to squeak. And the smell inside — stagnant, damp, dust, mold. I turned away from the open door, just so I wouldn’t see the familiar flicker of its pale fluorescent bulb.
I used to break that bulb every day until Kent figured out what I was doing. Then he broke my fingers in return.
I didn’t want to be in here. I didn’t want to smell the cold damp concrete, the metallic iron. I didn’t want to hear the hum of the air filtration system through the vents. The walls were solid concrete except for those vents that blew in cold, sterile air. Air that smelled like nothing, air that was as oppressive and stifling as the walls.