Page 24 of Bonds of Magic (Vesperwood Academy: Incubus #3)

CORY

“ C an you glamor me?” I asked Ash. “So I can follow them?”

“What?” He finally looked up from his doughlephant and stared at me. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” I hissed. “And you have to hurry. I want to see where they’re going.”

Sean and Tim had disappeared through the doors by now. Every moment counted. I stood up and grabbed Ash’s hand, pulling him away from the table, while nodding at Felix.

“Come on, we don’t have much time.”

Felix shot me a confused look.

Ash shrugged. “Apparently, the role of Jessica Fletcher will be played by Cory tonight.”

“Who’s Jessica Fletcher?” I asked.

He gasped. “Do not tell me you haven’t seen Murder, She Wrote .”

I stared blankly.

“Cory, you uncultured swine. Next, you’re going to tell me you’ve never seen the Golden Girls .”

“No, I’m going to tell you to hurry up.”

Felix closed his book and stood, but he looked doubtful. “Are we really doing this?”

“We are, if you two would stop objecting. Come on, before they get too far ahead of us.”

“We’re coming, we’re coming,” Ash complained. “Cool your jets, Nancy Drew.”

But there wasn’t time to cool anything. By the time we made it out of the refectory, I could just see Sean and Tim disappearing around a corner at the end of the hall.

“Where are they going?” I muttered, heading after them. There were no freshmen rooms on this level.

“This is ridiculous,” Ash groused. “ I’m supposed to be the person who drags us into poorly-thought-out schemes. You’re usurping my role.”

We made it to the end of the corridor and turned the corner—but Sean and Tim had disappeared.

The hall dead-ended in front of a dark, polished wood door that was heavily carved with vines, and repeating images of an arrow crossed by an axe. A huge copy of that symbol was set in a circle in the center of the door, its obsidian gleaming dully in the dim light at the end of the hall.

We were standing at the entrance to Hunt Haven.

I suppressed a shiver. I knew Hunt had their quarters on the lower level, but never had reason to walk down this hall before. I hadn’t realized how close their haven was to the room where I ate three meals a day. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

“Of course,” Ash said in tones of disgust. “Of course they’d go in there.” He looked at me. “Well, you got your answer, at least. You know where they are. But we can’t exactly go in after them.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Can’t you just—” I waved my hand around in front of my body “—make us look different?”

“I’m touched by your faith in me, but I can’t just make us look different . If we’re going to infiltrate Hunt Haven, we need to look like actual Hunters. But we have no idea who’s already inside, so I’d run the risk of duplicating people, which would make things worse if we were caught.”

“Besides which, we can’t even get in,” Felix said.

“Why not?”

“Because Hunt’s door can’t be opened by any paranormal students. Hunting paranormal beings is their raison d’etre , after all. They’re not exactly going to let us waltz in and make ourselves at home.”

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t just carry books around for fun. I actually read them, from time to time.”

“But Tim and Sean aren’t officially Hunters yet. How come they can go in?”

Felix shrugged. “Take it up with Hunt. I don’t make the rules.”

Fair enough. But if Tim and Sean were inside Hunt Haven, there was only one thing to do. I squared my shoulders and walked forward.

The door couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away, but I still felt like I walked a mile to reach it. Invisible eyes seemed to watch me as I approached. Like animals in the woods at night, waiting to pounce.

I took a deep breath and put my hand on the doorknob. I tried to twist it, first right, then left. Nothing happened. I tried pushing and pulling. Nothing. I took my hand off the knob and pressed both palms against the door itself, then jerked them back.

The door felt warm . Like the body of an animal. I could have sworn I’d felt it rise under my palms, like an inhalation of breath.

“Told you,” Felix said. He and Ash were still standing well back from the door. “It won’t work.”

I frowned. Sean and Tim were up to something. Something that might involve Valeria. Who was Erika’s sister. I wasn’t going to rest easy until I knew what it was.

“It felt alive ,” I said. “Is that normal?”

“I don’t know if it’s normal, but it’s definitely creepy.” Ash rubbed his hands up and down his arms. “Can we get out of here? I’ll glamor you however you want if we can go somewhere else.”

But I’d intrigued Felix. “Alive how?” he asked.

“Like an animal or something. Like a dog guarding a door. Warm and breathing.”

“Huh. I’ve never heard anyone describe the spell on the door that way before, but maybe it’s... ” He trailed off as he walked down the hall to join me.

“Dammit, did you have to go and get him all intrigued?” Ash complained.

“Where did you feel it?” Felix asked.

“When I put my hands here.” I placed my palms on the carved wooden door again.

I was ready for it, this time, but it still felt strange. Like I’d placed my hands on the back of a bear or a wolf. Like the wood beneath my skin could feel my presence, the same way I could feel it. Felix placed his hands on the door above mine, his brow furrowing.

“Don’t you feel it?” I asked. “I swear, I can almost feel a heartbeat.”

“I don’t feel anything.” His frown deepened.

I pulled my hands away, then put them on top of his, moving them into the spots mine had occupied. I pressed down on the tops of his hands, spreading his fingers wide.

“You really don’t feel anything?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

He pulled his hands away and looked at me.

“I wonder if the spell doesn’t recognize incubi the same way that it recognizes fairies or nephilim.

Or maybe…” He cocked his head to the side.

“If you’re only part incubus, does it recognize your human half?

Or maybe your human half isn’t just human. If you’re something else…”

But I’d stopped listening. The last time I’d had my hands on the door, I’d noticed a faint ticking, or thumping, and as Felix continued talking, I brought my hands back to the door. Was it a heartbeat I was feeling? Or was it something else?

I slid my index fingers up until they reached the tip of the obsidian arrow and axe.

They felt hot . And I could have sworn they vibrated at my touch.

Without really knowing what I was doing, I drew my fingers down opposite sides of the circle—and the tips of the arrow and axe came with me, until they resumed their X position, but with their tips pointing down instead of up.

“What the hell?” Ash whispered behind me. I hadn’t even noticed him joining us.

I felt light-headed. My hand moved of its own accord back to the doorknob, and I twisted it to the right.

The door opened.

Felix stared at me. “How did you know how to do that? That kind of rune work should only be possible for witches, or Hunters themselves.”

“I don’t know. It felt…right.”

“Felt right,” Ash snorted. “How helpful.”

“Can we go inside?” I asked, staring at the dimly lit room on the other side of the threshold. “If we’re paranormal?”

“Only one way to find out.” Before Felix or I could object, Ash pushed between us and walked into the room. Then he turned back and shrugged. “Not dead yet.”

After a moment’s pause, I joined him. Nothing happened when I crossed into the room. No tingles, no pain, no giant flashing alarm shouting, ‘ Intruders! Intruders! ’ Which I supposed was a good sign. I looked back at Felix, and with a pained expression, he walked into the room.

As soon as he joined us in the middle, the door swung shut behind him. Without the meagre light from the corridor, the room plunged into total darkness. But after a moment, a new, flickering light appeared overhead.

“Well, that’s not creepy,” Ash said, looking up.

I followed his gaze. There was a massive chandelier hanging above us, decked with candles that seemed to have lit themselves as soon as the door swung shut. The chandelier was made out of heavy iron and ivory. No, wait. Not ivory.

Bone. The cross pieces of the chandelier were long, straight bones that could have come from a deer or a boar.

Or a human , whispered a voice in the back of my mind.

From each candle dangled five smaller bones, and I forced myself to look away, not wanting to contemplate how much they looked like fingers.

“So what do we do now?” Felix asked, looking around.

For the first time, I realized that the room we were in was really more of a hallway. The walls in here were made of the same dark, carved wood, and the chandelier wasn’t the only place that bones featured prominently in the decor.

Set right above head height on either side of the hall were the skulls and bones of creatures I’d never seen before. And not because they belonged to exotic animals. I had the feeling they belonged to creatures who weren’t entirely of this world.

They’re trophies , I realized. The liquor store my dad used to shop at had taxidermied heads mounted on the walls. Bucks, bears, even a puma. It was the same idea here—except I didn’t think these creatures had been hunted for sport.

A shiver ran down my spine, but I pointed further down the hall, away from the door we’d come in by. “That way,” I said, stepping forward.

“Wait, wait,” Ash said. I turned back to look at him—he sounded exasperated. “I can’t believe I’m the one urging caution here, but two and a half paranormal students wandering around Hunt Haven is a recipe for disaster. I don’t want to end up as one of their art projects.”

He nodded up at a skull that looked suspiciously human, except for the giant tusks that protruded from the jaw.

“I want to find Sean and Tim,” I said. “You guys don’t have to stay, but—”

“We’re not leaving,” Felix said staunchly.