Last Chance

Felicity scanned the musky old study. Neat rows of books lined the walls. Scattered on the floor beside an oak desk was a wreckage of torn papers, broken drawers ripped from their cavities, and occult books strewn about. Behemoth claw marks gouged the herringbone floor.

“There appears to have been a struggle.”

Gareth fixed a chair under the doorknob and pinned his shoulder against the door, his face contorted with effort.

“Ya think, Flick?” The door shook with an inhuman thud. The impact pushed him away. An acrid stench breached through splintered cracks. Gareth rammed his shoulder and thigh back against the door. “Where’s the book?”

“It’s not here!”

“It has to be!”

She checked the spine of several fallen books. “It’s not. What do you want from me?”

“You said it’d be here, Flick. You promised. What do we do?” Felicity stood, facing the question with sad eyes. Gareth rolled to face her; his back pressed against the heavy door. His desperate eyes met hers. “What do we do?”

An explosive impact flung Gareth forward; the door loosened from its frame.

Her dour expression and the smallest shake of her head answered him before she could whisper, “I’m sorry.”