Page 21 of A Spark of Something (A Librarian’s Guide to Witchery #1)

O llie’s eyes snapped open with a cry of fear as he jerked back to consciousness. He scrambled back away from the cat—or whatever the hell it was—that had just pawed him in the face.

“STAY AWAY FROM ME!”

Red impossibly said, “I cannot.”

Staring wide eyed at the thing, Ollie jumped to his feet, shaking his head as he did. “No, no. Not real. This is not real…”

“Ollie, please, I know?—”

“NOPE!” Ollie screamed as he sprinted from the room, not looking back.

“OLLIE!” the creature that was pretending to be his cat yelled.

But he didn’t stop, or listen, he just fled. Ollie ran as fast as he could until he was past the Rare Books section doors, which he then slammed shut before ‘Red’ could follow him out.

Chest heaving more out of panic than exertion, he pressed his back against the cool wood, trying to calm down.

MEOW!

Ollie flinched, squeaking in fear at the loud and clear sound of protest from his ‘cat’.

Spinning around, he choked on the air he’d been desperately drawing in. Ignoring the way his vision spun a bit with his abrupt movements, Ollie used his body to block one door, while holding the other closed with his right hand, and looking for the door key with his left. On finding it, he somehow managed to relock the door, even while shaking like crazy.

Heart beating away in his ears, his breathing was loud, fast, and uneven. A sharp pain began to form in his chest as Ollie struggled to take a deep breath in and out while he slowly backed away from the now locked doors.

It was silent at first…but then the creature let out another Meow , before finally speaking again. “Ollie…please, open the door. I am Red. Your Red. I won’t hurt you. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

Red… His Red? Tears started to cloud his vision, and at the same time, darkness began to creep around the edges.

“Y-you aren’t MY Red!” A slightly hysterical sounding laugh slipped past his lips, before Ollie found himself breaking down into full blown sobs. “I-I don’t… I don’t know w-what you are… B-but you are no-not…my c-cat.” He roughly threaded his hands through his hair, uncaring as he tangled it while tearing out his hair tie. “Oh, God… I’m…insane… I’m…in-insane.”

“Ollie, you’re not insane,” the voice said gently, yet it felt mocking.

With tears trailing down his face, he shook his head, backing away a few more steps. “You’re not real… This…th-this isn’t real.”

But what if it was…? Or what if Red was…possessed?! Possessed?! Impossible, but if ghosts were real… No, this…this wasn’t… This couldn’t be real. Cats didn’t talk!?

“It can’t… But this…it is-isn’t real,” he mumbled softly, this time to himself. “Insane… I need… I should…tell someone…” Letting out a stuttered breath, he reached for the phone in his pocket. “Noble, I’ll?—”

No… Talking cats…would probably be the last straw.

Red spoke again, but Ollie just shook his head, not really hearing the words. His heartbeat, his labored breathing, and the ever-encroaching darkness were too much for him to listen to anything else. His panic seemed to grow with the pain in his chest. Was he…having a heart attack?

Backing away further, Ollie stared at the door for a moment more, with tears silently trailing down his face, before spinning away with the intention of hiding. But as he turned, he found himself face to face with the female ghost that had started everything.

Staring at her, a whimper slipped out before he managed to desperately cry, “GO AWAY!”

Closing his eyes, Ollie ran right through her. Even the abrupt, devastating coldness he briefly felt didn’t stop him or make him hesitate. He just kept running. Throwing open the door he’d left unlocked earlier that day, he sprinted up the stairs to his home.

It took Ollie three tries to unlock his front door with how badly his hands were shaking. But he slammed it behind him once finally inside. Relocking it took all of the energy he had left. Pressing his face to the door, he slowly slid down it while desperately pleading, “Pl-please… Please…make it st-top.”

Ollie curled up into a ball against the door, covering his head as sobs racked through his body. “Pl-please…please…”

Taking a calming breath, Noble opened the basement door and headed down.

Elisa eyed him warily, no longer seeming to have the energy to keep up her glaring.

He took another calming breath before removing her gag. “Listen…and listen well. I’m going to let you go.”

Her eyes widened.

Noble ignored the questions he saw in her gaze and just kept going with the speech he’d hastily come up with on the drive back. “You are going to leave here and never come back. Take your family, take whoever you care about, but leave everything else behind. Fake their deaths if you have to… Change your appearance, your name…everything. They think you are dead already… I lied and told them you were, that there is no one else to worry about.” He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “If they catch even a hint that you are alive—just a hint—they will track you down and kill you. Do you understand me?! I need you to understand this, or the only thing I’m doing is putting off the inevitable.”

“I…” She licked her lips, her eyes still wide. Clearly shocked, she whispered, “Why?”

“Take it as…dumb luck. You just so happened to run into the one hunter who developed a conscience.” He smiled stiffly. “But it’s not much of one. So don’t mistake this as me being a good person. I’ve killed too many to ever be that. What heart I have left…well, it’s barely there. I won’t hesitate to kill you if you come back here, nor will I hesitate if you expose me or send someone after me. Don’t make me regret this.”

“How do I know this isn’t a trap?” Elisa asked calmly.

“You don’t. But then again, we both know that there’s nothing I can do to convince you either way.”

She swept her gaze over him, probably looking for clues, or some sort of answer to her question. But then the witch cleared her throat, her cheeks becoming oddly flushed. “Earlier today…I smelled…”

His eyes widened on realizing what she had probably smelled. Right, the woman had an affinity to the Ceaseless Hunter. “Hah…I suppose the chains wouldn’t have stopped all of your senses…”

Cheeks still red, a now familiar glare back on Elisa’s face. “Do you plan to hurt him?”

“What I plan to do with him is none of your business.”

“He hasn’t harmed…” the witch trailed off, not bothering to finish as she grimaced.

“He hasn’t, and neither have you, which is why you managed to live long enough to leave here alive.”