Friday. 9:01 PM

It wasn’t a meeting room.

In fact, I wasn’t sure what I’d describe it as, exactly. The space was thirty feet across. There were shelves of lumber, steel, and brass, toolboxes and pegboards, a big shelf of screws and bolts in various sizes.

Dominating the center of the room, surrounded by an elaborate rig of crystalline lenses and brass wires, was an enormous pit.

It was ten feet wide, and seemed to go straight down. I couldn’t see the bottom from where I stood, and as I crept forward, that didn’t change. It just went down, deeper than seemed remotely reasonable. I approached even closer, fascinated, at a loss for what I was even looking at.

I almost didn’t notice the side door until Ben grabbed my wrist, pulled me behind one of the shelves, and put his other hand over my mouth. I couldn’t tab the flashlight on my phone fast enough, but I pressed it against my body, covering the light.

Agnita stepped out the door, stripped out of her tactical clothes and dressed in a comfortable T-shirt and shorts. She’d put a proper brace on her hand, and she had on a wireless headset that covered both her ears.

“Uh-huh. Yes, we’re still on schedule, sir.” She paused, listening for a moment, approaching the hole. “I recalibrated this morning. It’s still set to go in two weeks…”

I held my breath and pushed Ben’s hand away, turning so I could slowly look around the room. Her bag was against the wall. She wasn’t armed, as best I could tell. If she spotted me, I’d have to get to the bag, get out the door, and get upstairs before she could catch up.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, sir. There’s a problem with the journalist.”

I stopped planning. She had my interest.

“I told him that, yes. He won’t give it up.” A pause, as she nodded, stepping up to the pit and looking down. “Yeah… I tried that too. He got away.”

A couple more seconds pause, and another nod.

“No, sir. I haven’t contacted them yet. As far as they’re aware, it’s still just a straightforward case.” She paused. “I mean, no. I haven’t spoken to them about that. It’s my assumption.” Another pause. “Do they know about the well? If I could bring them in, the three of us would have a much easier time coordinating—sorry, sir. No. I’ll keep this internal.”

She adjusted one of the crystalline lenses, tilting it ever so slightly.

Looking at me, Ben mouthed, ‘Well?’

Well what? I don’t have a plan. I shook my head, shaking off the thought. I didn’t have anything to say to him. If she goes back into the side room, we can grab the bag and run for it.

Then, it struck me what he meant. ‘The well’.

I looked back at the open pit, the lenses above it. It wasn’t a pit; it was a well. And they weren’t digging for water.

Everything clicked into place. I knew why Andrea had been killed.

“He has to still be in town. Probably talking to people locally. I’ll keep my ear to the ground and figure out where he went.”

Reaching down, I gently moved my hand on my phone, turning off the flashlight so it wouldn’t give us away. Once it was off, I spun the phone around, turned on the camera, turned off the flash, and raised it.

Waiting for the device to focus, I held it pointed at the well, adjusted my framing a little, and took a snapshot.

Click.

The phone made a fake camera shutter noise, and Agnita blinked. Surveying the room, she said, “Sir, I need to call you back.”

Shit.

Taking off her headset, Agnita scanned the room. It was dark on our side, and the shelves provided cover. Maybe, with luck—

Seeing us, her eyes widened.

No more reason to keep my thoughts quiet. “Shit!”

Straightening, I got ready to run as Agnita lunged back the way she’d come, to the side room. She was going for her weapons.

“Go!” I shouted, and Ben scrambled for the exit while I rushed to get to her bag. There was no time to go through it to get just the phone, I simply grabbed the whole bag, carrying it by the strap and running for the door.

Agnita was close behind. As I fled into the hallway, glancing back over my shoulder, she stepped out of the side room holding several feet of a heavy brass chain.

It didn’t take much thought to guess what that would be used for. Binding magic. If she hit me with a spell channeled through that, I wouldn’t so much as be able to run.

At least it’s not a gun.

Scrambling down the hall, still clutching my phone, I ducked into the men’s room. I couldn’t see where Ben had gone, whether he’d fled straight to the stairs or found another hiding place. I just had to hope he’d gotten out safely, and that Agnita wouldn’t guess which door I’d gone through.

Out in the hall, she called something out in a language I didn’t recognize. Something of an old European flavor, and of an unknown purpose.

Then, a thin wisp of light began to glow, tracing the path I’d taken when I ran into the bathroom. I stepped away from it, but the light followed, making a direct path to wherever I went.

So much for hiding.

Unslinging Agnita’s bag, I slid it across the room, ducked into the rightmost stall, latched it, then dropped to the ground. I moved on my hands and knees as many doors down as I could go, grateful that this bathroom hadn’t been in use in probably years.

Footsteps came in behind me as I got to my feet, hopping up onto a toilet as quietly as I could manage so my feet wouldn’t be visible. I was still clutching my phone. Silently, I made a wish, hoping that my little delaying tactic would trick Agnita into mistaking which stall I’d gone through.

“Give it up!” she called, walking into the bathroom. “You can’t hide. I don’t want you to get hurt in the struggle, but if you fight, I won’t hold back.”

She walked up to the rightmost door, following the tracing spell, her footsteps echoing in the enclosed space. With a heavy shove, she popped the latch.

At the same time, I pressed the button on the recovery website.

Across the room, Andrea’s phone began to ring, getting Agnita’s attention. “Huh?”

It’s your only chance.

Lunging out of the stall, I came out two doors further down than Agnita was expecting, with her back turned to me. Jumping frantically forward, I grabbed the chain in her good hand and pulled.

In a fair competition, she would have beaten me easily, but I had two arms and the element of surprise. The chain came free, and I scrambled away, searching for traction on the tile, scooping up the bag on my way out the door. There was still a trail of light following me, but she was disarmed, and I just needed to stay out of her reach.

Easier said than done. I was two steps out of the bathroom when she slid out into the hallway behind me, surging forward, her good hand out to grab the back of my backpack. Fingers caught on one of the straps and my legs went out from under me.

I had the sense to throw the chain as far forward as I could, so she couldn’t wrestle it away from me, but I was still on the ground while she was standing. It was no contest.

That’s when Ben lunged out of a broom closet, waving a mop over his head like a berserk janitor.

The tool made for a pitiful weapon. It snapped like a toothpick over Agnita’s back, but it served as an excellent distraction. While she turned to face him, I scrambled up to my feet, looking around for something to use to distract her so Ben could get away.

“Just run!” Ben yelled. “I’ll hold her off!”

I wasn’t going to argue with that logic. Turning, I sprinted down the hallway, bag slung over my shoulder, my helmet thumping against my leg. As I ran, I scooped up the chain, too, weighing myself down with even more luggage as I got to the stairs.

Apparently, Agnita thought I was a bigger danger than Ben, because she didn’t stop to detain him. With one heavy slug, she dropped him to the floor, then turned and barrelled towards me, long legs carrying her far with every step.

I need some kind of weapon. Some kind of tool I can use to slow her down, trip her up, or—

I looked down at the chain in my hands. Oh. Right.

Other than a couple primer classes, I had no real experience with magic. I didn’t know how to cast spells, point blank, and I didn’t know what magic words or activation was necessary to make this chain function. But it was still a long, heavy length of chain.

Trying to pull out the bundle so it wouldn’t be tangled, I spun, gauged my throw, and tossed the whole thing at her legs.

It worked, mostly. She hadn’t been ready for a counter attack, and while the chain didn’t wrap around her legs like a lasso or anything, it did send her sprawling on the slippery tile floor.

While she kicked at the chain, I continued my flight to the exit. I threw open the doors, taking the steps three at a time, no longer concerned if I was seen trespassing.

I made it to the top of the stairs and five paces out into the upstairs hallway. I just had to get to the public area and she wouldn’t be able to grab me.

There was a shout and a surge of power in the air, and I could do absolutely nothing about it. “Långsam!”

My ankles went numb. It was as though I’d been sitting on them for hours and had suddenly tried to stand without wiggling my toes to regain sensation first. It wasn’t as totally paralyzing as the spell that’d been used on me in the garage, but taking out my feet was more than sufficient to stop me. My body dropped, stumbling onto the floor, and Agnita stalked up behind me.

“Alright, that’s enough,” she said, panting as she stepped up, wrapping the chain around her good arm so that she could hold onto it and still use that hand. “You’re coming with me. No more ‘easy way’.”

I tried to push back, to scramble away, but without control of my feet, my legs found no traction.

“Please,” I stammered. “You can’t hide this. You can’t—” I blinked, spotting Ben on the stairs behind her, moving slow and silent. Before she could notice my attention slipping, I raised the volume and kept going. “The truth is going to get out! What are you going to do when everyone hears what you did?”

“They won’t know who, just what,” Agnita said, shaking her head. “And by then, it’s going to be too late, anyways. Now—”

Ben lunged, and Agnita spun, her hand shooting out and catching him by the throat. He made a quiet ‘hrrk’ sound as she lifted, holding him up. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re coming with me too until we sort this out. Anyone mixed up with him is trouble.”

Clutching at her arm, making the chain rattle, Ben wheezed tried to stammer something. “I—Ah—Leh… Longsum?”

He said it more like a question than a statement, and the pronunciation was off, too much stress on the vowels. Even so, his hands were on the chain, and… it worked.

Agnita stumbled. She kept her footing, but she had to drop Ben to do so, and when she did, he shoved forward, a general bull rush of an attack.

She tripped backwards, off balance.

Ben lunged forward, took my hand, pulled me up. “Can you walk?”

I had a little sensation back, but that was all. “Not really!”

Pulling my arm over his shoulder, he helped me stagger to the door. It was only a few paces away. Behind us, Agnita shouted in frustration as she got to her feet, coming after us with a wobbly, unsteady gait.

With one last heave, Ben lunged forward and we crashed through the push doors, landing in a heap of limbs and bags out in the open floor.

I stole a look back. Agnita looked furious, almost as mad as she’d been with the vampire, but she’d stopped pursuing. With a snap of her hand, the glowing trail behind me went dead as well, and she shot me a look that was probably intended to say, you’d better start running.

Getting to my feet, standing awkwardly under my own power, I was more than happy to oblige. I turned, and ran, about ten paces.

That’s when the security guard stopped us.