Page 36 of Salem’s Fall (Dark Seasons Thriller #3)

A faint, muffled whimper cuts through the stillness.

I whip around, my stomach lurching as my gaze lands on a bound figure in the corner. A woman, eyes wide with terror, gagged and tied. Her wrists and ankles are raw and bleeding, the ropes biting into her skin. Her blood…

That must be what I saw on Hargrove’s sleeve…

“Professor,” I breathe, my stomach clenched with terror. The reality of the situation seeps into my bones, a sense of betrayal flooding over me. “What is this? What’s going on?”

“Please understand, James,” he says, locking the door behind us, trapping me inside.

“They took everything from me. I should’ve been the most renowned occult studies professor in the country, but because of the Blackhollows, I was dismissed.

Humiliated. Forced to work in a tiny little curiosity shop, begging for scraps.

They made me into a joke!” His eyes narrow, fury radiating off him.

“But now”—a dark, twisted smile spreads across his face—“I finally get it all back. Even better, the Veil is going to give it to me.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“I needed proof and now I have it,” he says. “You’ve told me the rituals are real, that they work. I can have what they have.”

I back away slowly, chest tightening with fear as I realize exactly what he intends to do. He’s going to kill this poor woman right in front of me.

“But you can’t,” I whisper, my voice trembling. “It won’t work like this. It takes four sacrifices—each on Halloween—on Veil Night. You told me that.”

He chuckles, though his gaze is cold and resolute.

“Oh no, James. I see you haven’t been fully paying attention.

” His hands clutch the book from earlier, The Book of Eternal Rites , and I see he brought it in here with us.

“That’s for the Ascension Ritual—to lead the Veil, remember?

For my purposes, a single, precise offering at any time will suffice. ”

“Please, you can’t do this,” I plead. “You can’t kill her. This isn’t right.”

The woman in the corner whimpers louder, fighting desperately against her bonds as if she’s just realized how much danger she’s in.

Hargrove barely looks at her. It’s like she’s little more than an object, a component for his crazy experiment.

Then his gaze shifts back to me, a terrifying glint of excitement there.

“You’re absolutely right, James. It isn’t right. Not when the better sacrifice—a Tether—stands before me.” He smiles as he says the words, slow and deliberate, like he’s savoring the moment. “You.”

A cold, sickening dread crashes over me as I realize this man doesn’t just have an unhealthy fascination with the Blackhollows and the Veil—he’s obsessed. Unhinged. Professor Hargrove is totally and utterly bat-shit crazy.

His hand shoots out, locking around my arm like a vise.

Panic surges through me.

“Please! Don’t!” I gasp, struggling against him. “Let me go!”

My hand brushes against something cold on a nearby table.

Without thinking, I grab it—a small vial of some strange liquid—and smash it against his face.

He stumbles back, growling in pain, his face now bloody and gashed from the broken glass.

I rush for the door, but I can’t get past him, can’t reach it.

And then he’s coming toward me, blade in hand. That’s when I realize where the ritual knife from the glass case went. It’s been down here all along, waiting to be used for this very moment.

“Don’t fight me!” he cries, his eyes filled with a fevered light. “You’re going to be part of something meaningful. Something beautiful. I’ll never forget your sacrifice for me.”

My heart races, a wild, erratic beat that fills my ears as the realization sinks in. This is the end for me. I’m going to die here in this shitty hidden room inside the Wandering Raven, and no one will ever even know what happened to me.

Maddie and Lucky will be all alone.

I won’t be able to save my father.

I thought I’d have more time. But as Hargrove’s eyes gleam with terrifying satisfaction, I know there’s no escaping my death.

The room closes in around me, the walls pressing tighter, the air growing heavier. My mind scrambles with panicked thoughts: I’ll never see my family or friends again, never have a life beyond this room, beyond this moment. All the things I fought for, all my hard work… and for what?

For this?

Suddenly, Hargrove lunges forward, the dagger glinting as it catches the dim light.

I throw my hands up, and pain explodes down my arm as the blade grazes my skin.

I scream as a sharp, burning sting rips through my body.

My muscles shake, every nerve and fiber tensing, bracing for the final death blow.

I want to fight, but there’s nowhere to go, no one to help me.

But then—a strange red light fills the room. Hargrove pauses, his eyes widening in horror as the symbols on the altar floor begin to glow. His hand wavers, the knife trembling as if held by an unseen force.

“No!” he whispers, backing away. “What’s happening? Why isn’t it working?”

The knife seems to move of its own accord, turning slowly until the blade points toward the center of Hargrove’s chest. He fights against it, his hand shaking with terror as he tries to force the blade away, but the knife inches closer, unstoppable, as if guided by a power he can’t control.

“Help me!” he screams, his voice high-pitched with desperation. His face twists in terror toward me. “James! Please!”

I’m paralyzed as the horror unfolds before me, and the blade plunges into his chest with a sickening crunch—again and again, vicious and relentless. Each strike lands harder than the last, the sound of tearing flesh and cracking bone filling the tiny room .

Blood oozes from his body, splattering, pooling beneath him, dark and sticky, thickening in the dim light.

He seizes as he collapses to the floor, flopping around like a fish on a hook, gasping for its last few breaths of air.

Then he goes limp. His lifeless eyes fix on the ceiling, his mouth frozen in a scream.

My chest heaves as I fight for air, my mind caught in a spinning web of shock and horror. I can’t stop seeing the terrified look in his eyes. The knife savagely plunging into his chest over and over.

No! This isn’t real!

My gaze drifts back to Hargrove’s face again, twisted into something monstrous in death.

I don’t understand. It looked like the knife turned on him by some unseen force, but inanimate objects don’t just turn on people. They don’t move on their own, right?

A strangled sound—a whimper, soft but desperate—echoes in the room and I remember the woman.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you,” I say, forcing myself to turn away from the professor’s bloody corpse to help her. My hands tremble as I fumble with the knotted cloth covering her mouth.

“Thank you,” she rasps, taking in greedy gulps of air.

I focus next on the binds around her wrists, my hands sticky and clumsy with blood.

Eventually, the knot loosens and she’s free.

She lunges for the key on Hargrove’s lifeless body, fumbling only for a second before unlocking the deadbolt.

The door flies open, and she tears through it, disappearing without so much as a backward glance.

A chill seeps through my bones, holding me in place. My entire body feels numb as my mind attempts to catch up to what just happened. It seems like ages pass before my legs finally move again on their own, carrying me toward the exit, through the darkened shop and then outside into the street.

Somehow, hours have passed since I stepped inside the occult shop.

The sun is gone, night all around me. As I pull out my phone, I notice my hands are still covered in blood.

It smears everywhere as I attempt to call the police, only to realize my phone battery is dead.

I let out a hollow, empty laugh. That’s just great.

Of all the days to forget to charge my phone.

My mind scrambles, and I remember the police station isn’t too far. I can walk there. The police… they’ll know what to do.

It’s eerily quiet as I head down the street, silence pressing down on me, amplifying the hollow echo of my footsteps. I can’t shake the sensation of eyes watching, of something sinister lurking just beyond sight. I scan the empty streets with growing unease and quicken my pace.

A sudden flicker of movement catches my attention.

At first, I think I’m imagining things—just my frayed nerves playing tricks—but then I see him.

A figure, half-shrouded in shadows, lurking.

Dread pools in my stomach as I take in the now-familiar Veil Ritual Mask.

The silver-plated face gleaming beneath the streetlights. The contoured, expressionless metal.

My attacker has returned.

I try to run, but he moves impossibly fast, quickly cutting off my escape. He lunges, grabbing my arm with a force that sends shockwaves through my body, and slams me onto the cobblestones.

I struggle—twisting, kicking—but he’s too strong, his grip unyielding. His fist connects with the side of my face and pain sears through me, stars exploding behind my eyes. My vision fades. The last thing I see is the masked man, looming over me, and then…

Darkness.