Page 55 of Once Upon a Curse for True Love
She nodded, her face pale but determined.“I’m fine.”
Donatello didn’t waste another second.He strode to the wall and smashed the fire alarm with the heel of his hand.Instantly, shrill bells rang throughout the building, and a cool, automated voice instructed everyone to proceed to the nearest exit.
As chaos erupted, patrons and staff rushing toward the exits, Donatello pulled Andromeda close, one arm wrapped around her waist as they joined the exodus.He kept glancing behind them, half-expecting Graves to burst through the sealed door in pursuit, but the lich didn’t appear.
Outside, in the relative safety of the street, they watched as the archives emptied, people spilling onto the sidewalk in confused clusters.Fire trucks wailed in the distance, their sirens growing louder.
“He’ll escape in the confusion,” Andromeda said, her voice steady despite everything they’d encountered.
Donatello nodded.“I couldn’t risk a fight with so many bystanders.”He pulled out his phone, already dialing the station.“We need backup.A lot of it.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Welcome to the Bureau of Try Not to Die
DONATELLO
Donatello’s hands were shaking as he escorted Andromeda through the station’s back entrance, one arm still protectively curled around her waist.The adrenaline that had carried them from the archives to his car was ebbing, replaced by an awareness more chilling than Graves’s death magic.They’d faced a lich—an actual, part-zombie, mega-powerful dark wizard—and barely escaped.And now he had to convince a roomful of pragmatic law enforcers that one of Salem’s most respected dignitaries was an undead, souls-harvesting maniac.
“Sure you’re okay?”he asked Andromeda for what must have been the tenth time since they’d fled the archives.
Some of her usual sass returned now that they were in relative safety.“I’m fine.No physical damage.”She shrugged, and a strand of blonde hair fell across her face.“But I might need a new mental filing system for ‘terrifying magical encounters I never expected to survive.’”
Despite everything, he smiled.Even after facing down an abomination of nature, she maintained her sharp wit.It was becoming one of his favorite things about her—right alongside having her curled against his chest this morning, warm and soft and alive.Any of Graves’s lightning strikes could’ve ended all that—killed her.The idea made his blood run cold.
“Come on.”He beckoned her toward the stairwell.“Chief King’s office is on the second floor.”
He mapped out his approach to King in his head.The chief wasn’t known for his openness to fantastical theories, even in a department dedicated to magical crimes.Liches were considered legends, bogeymen from ancient texts.
As they approached King’s office, Donatello turned to Andromeda.
“Let me do the talking,” he whispered.
The door was open, the chief himself standing at the window, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed out over Salem.At six-foot-two with broad shoulders and a military-straight posture, Riley King cut an imposing figure.Dark hair, an obsidian gaze that caught everything, and the sternest scowls Donatello had ever witnessed made him the perfect chief inquisitor—perceptive, analytical, and about as flexible as granite.
Donatello knocked on the door frame, and King turned, his sharp eyes taking in their disheveled appearance with one sweep.
“Malatesta,” he acknowledged.“Swan.”His gaze lingered on Donatello’s hand, still resting at the small of Andromeda’s back, but he made no comment.“You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge maze.Backward.”
“Sir, we need to talk.”Donatello shut the door behind them.“It’s about the Arcanet case.”
“Found the killer?”
“Yes.But it’s… complicated.”
King arched an eyebrow, gesturing for them to sit.He settled into his high-backed leather chair, hands folded atop his polished desk.“Complicated how?”
Donatello took a deep breath.“The killer is Lionel Graves.”
“Salem’s head archivist?”King’s expression remained neutral.“Evidence?”
“We confronted him at the archives.He attacked us with death magic.”
King nodded.“So we have a dark wizard with a grudge against technological advancement.I’ll assign a tactical team to—”
“He’s a lich,” Donatello interrupted.
The office went silent.King’s face remained impassive before he tilted his head.“Come again?”
