I bent and peered at the lock. It looked solid enough, but the same could not be said about the frame. It very much looked as if sometime in the past, someone had kicked this door good and hard and had taken some of the frame with it. And though it had been patched, I suspected it wouldn’t take much to force it open again. I clenched my hand and gave the door a thump. It sprung open instantly. I caught the edge before it could smash back against the wall, then closed it again, making sure it still looked locked.
The room itself had obviously been a small office, though it held nothing more than the remnants of a whiteboard, a broken office chair, and strings of dusty cobwebs. I moved on. The next door wasn’t locked, and it led into a room that was long and dark. Given there was no wall to my left, it also had to be the same room that held the trapdoor into the pit. I glanced down sharply, seeing bare concrete rather than wooden flooring, but didn’t immediately move. The uneasy sensation of magic crawled around me, and I wasn’t about to ignore it.
“Amaya, flare brighter.”
She did so. Her flames revealed the room was twice the size I’d imagined. The roof soared high above me, snaked with metal lines and some sort of conveyer system. Several small offices sat on the right-hand side of the building, and the concrete was stained with rust lines and grime, reminders of machines that had once stood here. To the left, there was that large square of wooden flooring Jak and I had fallen through the first time. Obviously, whoever had made that trap had repaired it after we’d left.
“Why would they set the trap over only one door?” My voice echoed in the cavernous room and something seemed to stir in the shadows down the far end. Or maybe that was simply imagination and fear.
The stairs are closest to the middle door, so most of those who use them would logically choose that door. Azriel’s voice held a hint of amusement. Why do you ask the question out loud rather than in your thoughts?
“Because I don’t feel so alone.” Which was stupid, because I was.
Not, Amaya grumbled. Am here.
Yeah, but it’s not quite the same hanging on to you as it is Azriel.
Her static filled the far reaches of my mind. I might not understand it, but I was pretty sure she was swearing at me. I ignored her and stepped forward, every muscle tense, ready to jump should the concrete show the slightest inclination to drop out from underneath me. When it didn’t, I took another step. The crawling sensation of magic grew no worse or better. I bit my lip and walked on, moving past the wooden flooring that concealed a trap and into the warehouse proper. Though I scanned high and low, I couldn’t see anything that suggested this place had been recently used in any way.
I checked out the offices to the right, but didn’t find anything more than rubbish – although in the last one there was a large rat’s nest. It had been made with shredded paper, odd strips of material and wiring, and what creepily looked like human hair. Hair that was dark and long.
I wondered if it had come from someone who’d stumbled into the pit and, unlike us, hadn’t been able to escape.
I shivered, but let the rats be and continued on. I was about halfway down when I felt it.
Not magic, but something else. Air stirred the hairs on the back of my neck, cool and almost otherworldly, sending goose bumps skittering across my skin. I stopped, my grip tightening on Amaya.
There was nothing here. Nothing but shadows in the far reaches of the building where Amaya’s flames did not reach.
I glanced toward the street. Several windows had been broken along this section, so it was logical that the air would stir. The wind might be light outside, but it was nevertheless there, and it wasn’t about to hurt me. I scanned those shadows again.
Still nothing.
“Azriel, has anything changed? Can you sense anything other than me and the rats in this place?”
No. But if you fear something, retreat. It is not worth the risk.
“I can’t retreat every time I feel threatened,” I muttered. “I’d never get anything fucking done.”
The trouble with that statement, he said, mental tone exasperated, is the fact you haven’t retreated. Not once.
“That’s an exaggeration. I have retreated, and you know it. I’m not that much of a fool.”
What sounded like a mental snort rolled down the line between us. I ignored him and continued on.
The air stirred again, this time whisking behind me, making the small hairs at the nape of my neck stand on end.
Something definitely was here.
I stopped again. Amaya, can you sense anything?
No foe, she said. No fair.
I half smiled, despite the tension running through me. She was obviously feeling a little put out. I mean, it had been hourssince she’d killed anything.Funny not, she muttered.
My smile grew. I walked on, my gaze constantly scanning the walls and the floor, looking for some clue as to what might be here, and whether it was dangerous. I couldn’t see or sense anything untoward. Even the dark caress of magic began to fade as I moved farther from the pit trap, until it was little more than a faint buzz of wrongness that scratched at the far edges of my senses.
As I moved into the end third of the building, the filth and grime began to build. The sludge was thickest where machines had once stood, and it smelled to high heaven. I kept to the center, between the outline of the machines, but even so it was hard not to slip and slide.
Air whisked past me again, and for a moment it felt like someone was trying to grab at my fingers. The fleeting sensation left them tingling. I flexed them and frowned. What the hell was going on? Was it my imagination, or something more?
I stopped again. There really was nothing to see. Nothing but the dirt and the grime and a few rusted remnants of the machines that had once dominated this space. If there was an entrance into the caverns below, then it didn’t appear to be here. The floor looked solid – although given the thickness of the grime, it was certainly possible that there was something here and I just couldn’t see it.
Although I couldn’t see evidence of anyone having walked through this place recently, either, and with the thickness of the muck, surely I would have. My footprints were pretty easy to spot.
Again, air stirred, but this time, ethereal fingers briefly entwined through mine. I yelped and jumped backward instinctively, my heart leaping into my throat even as my fingers burned with the icy touch of the dead.
Shit, I thought, suddenly realizing what was going on. It was a fucking ghost.
Maybe even the ghost of the person whose hair had become a bed for a nest of rats.
I swallowed heavily and tried to calm down. A ghost couldn’t hurt me. Well, maybe it could on the astral plane, but certainly not here on Earth. Besides, it was grabbing at my hand, which suggested it wanted to show me something.
“Okay,” I said softly. “I hear you. What do you want?”
An odd sense of excitement stirred around me, then that cool touch slid across my fingers again and tugged me to the right. Amaya flared brighter as we approached the deeper shadows crowding the corner of the building, but for once, her flames had little impact.
Because there was magic here.
It was faint, little more than a sliver of energy that barely stirred the hairs along my arm, but it was similar in feel to the shield that protected this building and kept Azriel out. And surely that meant there was something here they wanted to protect.
A door into the caverns below, perhaps?
If we were right in our guess that our sorcerers weren’t using any sort of high-level magic to protect their gateway, then perhaps this was the entrance they were using to get to it. As Azriel had noted earlier, it made sense that the gateway was here somewhere, simply because it was so close to the ley-line intersection.
I directed Amaya’s flames toward the floor, but the shadows refused to lift. But just for a moment, the vague outline of something small and round appeared – a stone. And it wasn’t alone, because there was an even fainter shadow sitting next to it. Stones weren’t something you’d expect to find in an old factory warehouse – bricks and roofing tiles maybe, but not stones the color of ink. And that could mean only one thing – there was a stone circle here – one that hid its contents as much as it protected them.
I raised a hand and pressed it closer to the screen of darkness. Energy rippled across my fingertips, its feel sharp and somehow dirty. I bit my lip and pressed harder. It felt like I was fighting glue, and the unclean sensation grew, until it felt like acid gnawed at my skin.
Eventually, I couldn’t stand it, and yanked my hand back. My fingers were red and tiny blisters were beginning to appear along their tips. The magic might not be outwardly evident, but it still was powerful. There was no way in hell I was going to risk stepping into it.
“Well, fuck,” I muttered. “Can nothing go our goddamn way for a change?”
Would it be worth bringing Ilianna here? Azriel said. She’s unraveled the threads of this sorcerer’s magic before. Perhaps she can do the same with this barrier.
“As much as I hate the thought of doing it, it might be our only chance of discovering both the sorcerers and the key before Mirri’s deadline.”
The ghost’s touch trailed across my fingers again. This time, there was a sense of urgency in the sensation.
I frowned and said, “Azriel —” at the exact same time as he said, Risa, hide. Someone just magicked into the building.
I swore. Where?
The office on the other side of the pit trap.
And there was no cover near, and nothing else but those rat-infested offices. I dove into the first one, sending rats scattering just as the far doorway opened. I twisted around, and saw a shadowed figure step out.
Amaya snarled, the sound soft but nevertheless echoing. Shut it, I told her fiercely, and flame out.
She grumbled, but obeyed. The shadow paused and seemed to be looking our way, although it was a little hard to tell given the ink around us. After a moment, he moved on, his stride long and lithe. Shifter, I thought, for no logical reason. He certainly didn’t smell like one – although that didn’t really mean that much in an age of scent-erasing soap. But he obviously didn’t smell me, either, and most shifters would have.