Page 11 of Bewitched by the Phantom (The Bewitching Hour #6)

Chapter

Eleven

I can’t sleep that night. No matter how hard I try, I toss and turn, struggling to fall into sleep when I should be getting as much rest as possible.

After all, we’re gonna have another round of competition in a few days and I have to be well rested for that, but I just can’t.

After hours of struggling to count sheep, I sit up in bed, frustrated.

Maybe a walk will help. Or a snack. I can go to the makeshift food hall and search up something to eat.

Everyone else is asleep when I slip out of our apartment so I’m careful not to make any noise as I make my way toward the food hall in an oversized t-shirt and pajama shorts.

I’m wearing a pair of tennis shoes so I don’t walk across the hard ground.

There’s no telling what’s on the floor even though they’d done a decent job of cleaning things up.

Just before I turn the corner for the food hall, soft music catches my attention.

I stop with a frown and tilt my head toward the sound.

It’s strange, warbled, echoing through the halls like it’s underwater and alive.

Before I make a decision to do so, I’m following it, curious.

I’ve never heard something like that before.

If anything, I’m curious as to what could be making the strange music when everyone is asleep.

Which band is it? I haven’t heard that sound before.

I follow the sound backstage, through corridors and utility tunnels, searching for the source.

The air grows colder the longer I walk, making me wrap my arms around my stomach to try and warm it.

The lights flicker every so often the closer I get to the music, throwing shadows on the walls I don’t look at too long in case they move.

After what feels like an hour of walking the halls but is only really a few minutes, I find a room that I’ve never been in.

It must have been some sort of office at one point, but an office that belonged to someone who cared.

There are pictures hanging on the walls, paintings even.

A broken mirror sits off to one side, reflecting the man I see standing inside.

I immediately duck behind the doorjamb, holding my breath so he doesn’t hear me. When there isn’t a pause in his garbled singing, I slowly peek from around the corner again, watching as Erik stands in front of one of the paintings.

The painting is an old oil painting, half covered in mold and decaying with time. Someone said this power plant has been decommissioned for fifteen years. That makes sense when you look at the photos and artwork on the walls.

Erik is humming low in his throat, the sound deep and strange.

As I watch, he places his hand over the painting and the sound in his throat changes.

He begins to sing quietly, his throat glowing faintly with bioluminescent veins.

I watch as the painting begins to degrade further, strokes of color flaking away into dust. The music doesn’t echo, it reverberates through him, changing him.

His voice becomes layered, corporal, as if pulling harmonies from the painting’s soul.

I watch, horrified and awestruck, as his spine arches unnaturally and a low, hungry sound thrums from his chest, like a cello scraping bone.

His mask begins to crack from the energy of it, fracturing along the jaw, revealing a strip of grey skin.

I gasp, the sound loud in my ears. So loud, I know he heard it before he jerks and spins.

His eyes meet mine, locking as we both hover in this in between moment of uncertainty.

The small bit of his face I see is glimmering with unearthly beauty, before he slaps his hand over the mask, blocking my view.

I stare at him with wide eyes, horrified. “What are you?” I choke out.

He steps back into shadows and disappears as if he was never there, leaving behind only the scorched edge of the canvas. I step further into the room, searching where he could have gone, but there are no other doors. There’s no way he slipped past me.

I’m hallucinating. Clearly. Because otherwise, what the fuck did I just witness? I don’t end up grabbing food. I quickly make my way back to our apartment and close myself inside, chalking it up to stress and the knowledge that I shouldn’t walk around alone at night.

A soft hum catches my attention and I follow the sound, frowning when I see my mic sitting on the table. It’s not plugged in, but as I get closer, it’s clear the hum is coming from it. I pick it up, confused. Now isn’t the time for our equipment to get faulty.

I shake the mic, and the hum cuts off. I stare at it for a second, shrug, and move to set it back down. Before I can, a new sound statics across the mic before it starts to play music, a recording of my duet with Erik. But I’d never recorded it. We’d never had a mic near us.

And underneath my voice, I hear his, pure, full, seductive. The song cuts off and instead, it’s him, low, growling, “I told you, Angel. You’ve known me for longer than you think.”

I drop the mic and stumble backwards, my eyes wide with fear. I rush to my small room and slam the door behind me, locking it before I shove the small chair up under the doorknob.

My heart beats against my ribcage like a beast trying to escape. Fear flickers in my chest, but beneath that, far beneath, so deep I almost miss it, is a little bit of arousal, too.