Page 51 of Bonds of Magic
“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.Wasit 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 felthot. 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 flashingalarm 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.
