This phone was meant to get me back into that elevator.

  Why was I even thinking about going back into that elevator?

  Because an unformed thought had been playing around the recesses of my mind ever since I’d escaped.

  When Thorne found out, he’d… I have no idea. Fine me? Take me to the cops? I didn’t know. But that apartment was my alibi.

  If I could make it back to it with the elevator, maybe no one would ever know I’d left?

  I needed this phone to get to the elevator now that the apartment block had burnt down.

  “It doesn’t matter. Maybe the phone can get me into that elevator even if it’s not on?” I muttered to myself. This time I was smart enough to do it a lot more quietly. The last thing I needed was any more attention.

  As the rain drove down, it guaranteed there’d be fewer and fewer pedestrians. Even the ones that were out were all emergency officers, and they clung to their cars and vans.

  I’d always assumed this was a peaceful city.

  Growing up in it, I’d believed all the stories. This was one of the first places where the magical community had come together and realized that to live in peace, they needed to understand one another.

  That’s why we had one of the more powerful Magic Councils.

  No. That’s why we’d had one until the recent past.

  Unless I could get this frigging talisman to Thorne….

  I didn’t even know what time it was. I wanted to say that it was only 12 o’clock. I felt like it was later.

  I hadn’t lost much time in the tunnels, but I had no idea exactly how much time I’d wasted.

  For all I knew, the Council might have already sat.

  I somehow made it deeper into town.

  If I thought I could just wander into the Magic Council, good luck. It was guarded. The entire street, in fact. That’s where those army trucks had been heading, apparently.

  I slunk around a corner to see it in the distance. My stomach shook with fear.

  “How the hell am I gonna get past that?”

  I clutched the talisman again. Perhaps it thought I was about to give up on it. It shimmered slightly.

  I stared down at it.

  You know, I’d never actually bothered to pause and look at it properly.

  Something told me to have a gander at it now.

  I turned it around in my fingers.

  I looked at the back.

  And that’s… wow. That’s when I saw a map of the Council.

  That I had most definitely never seen, even though I was technically a member of one of the clans.

  It wasn’t just the Council building. It included everything underneath.

  The tunnels were legendary. No one thought they were real. And to be fair, if I was in any other frame of mind, I would’ve concluded just because they were on the talisman it didn’t mean they were real. But right now my frame of mind was a particularly hopeful one. If there was any chance, any chance at all I could get into the Council building, I needed to take it.

  I grasped the talisman harder.

  I twisted it.

  I figured out where I was in relation to the building.

  I realized there was a tunnel nearby.

  “There’s one right under my freaking feet….”

  I stared down. The tunnel did not have a handy entrance beneath me, you wouldn’t be surprised to find out.

  That didn’t stop me from searching around.

  The building to my side was a well-known department store.

  It was obviously closed. It wasn’t just the time – but the fact the entirety of downtown was closed. Did that mean… I could sneak in? And by sneak in, you probably knew I meant break in.

  I didn’t have any other option, did I?

  I maneuvered down the laneway I was ensconced within until I saw a window. It was high up. Presumably they didn’t want anyone doing precisely what I intended to do now – breaking into the side of the building.

  There was no one to stop me.

  I reached up. I intended to pull the glass out. But presumably there would be motion detectors within – and security equipment.

  I paused.

  I thought it through more clearly.

  What if I could connect to all of the glass in a certain area at once? What if I could pull it all out at once? I would deal with not just the window in front of me, but the security system too.

  Without bothering to think it through, I grasped that little glass bead. I wasn’t going to use it, but it just… sank through my mind, giving me more clarity.

  Clarity I used.

  As it settled hard into my palm, I knew precisely where all of the cameras and motion detectors were on that level.

  Then I pulled.

  It was starting to become such a memorable motion.

  It was just the same as breathing, really.

  In a shimmering moment, as the glass in the window above me disappeared, reforming around my wrist to pull me up the wall, I realized I'd done it. It deposited me down onto the floor of the store. Fortunately there were a lot of mannequins, and no one could see me from the street. I saw lights, however, cutting across at regular intervals. That would be the army, then.

  Don’t think about it, I told myself.

  I ran to the back of the room. I knew from experience there was a set of stairs that led down. There was a basement level where customers could go then an even deeper basement level where the store kept backup stock and files. I ran down the stairs, taking two at a time, just knowing Thorne was running out of time himself.

  Did you remember Thorne, the guy who had a secret that could destroy the entire city? Thorne, who was meant to be my coldhearted boss? But Thorne, who, apparently, could activate my calm whenever I needed it?

  Trust me, I hadn’t forgotten him.

  The sense of him pulled me on.

  I reached the true basement. I flipped the talisman around again. “Now… it should be around here somewhere.”

  I let it lead me, not just with the map on the back, but with the sense of it in my hand. You could question why it would want to help me. I wasn’t a member of the Council. But maybe it just knew I was on the Council’s side and ultimately on the side of peace.

  I wandered down a dark hallway until I stopped. I faced a wall that was out of place. There were deeper rooms on either side, but this looked like it had come out of nowhere.

  I reached a hand out and pressed my fingers toward it. Then, taken by the moment, hoping it would work but without any evidence it could, I pressed the talisman against it.

  The wall suddenly shifted. A mandala appeared over it, glowing brightly. It sank down into the concrete and stone, parted it, and revealed a tunnel.

  … I’d freaking done it.

  But before my excitement could derail me, I threw myself into a run. The sense that I had almost entirely run out of time grabbed my shoulders again and shook.

  My imagination kept getting the better of me. It kept throwing up thoughts of what might be happening to Thorne right now. Had Mr. Glass appeared out of the shadows with that dagger in hand? Would he… would he kill Thorne?

  I couldn’t think about that. Because apparently a thought like that could do a lot of damage to a girl like me at a time like this.

  I became unstable, my balance cutting out from underneath me. Fortunately I grabbed hold of the wall in time, but I still felt weak and reminded myself of how freaking injured I was.

  “Just a little more. Come on, just a little more,” I encouraged my body.

  I ran until I knew I was in the Magic Council.

  The sense of everything changed. This overpowering feeling of age struck me. It was the same as what had happened when I had grasped up that glass bead. I was currently walking through the halls of history itself.

  But history is a fickle master.

  As I ran down the halls, I could see while some of them were clean and well maintained, others weren’t. I think I could even see the gouge marks in one.

  What werewolf or vampire had done that out of passion or anger over the years? And while I was assuming it had been done in the past, who knew? When you take someone who has been civilized and you yank every known rule out from underneath them, what do they become?

  It was a question I would soon learn the answer to.

  I ran until I struck a set of stairs.

  According to the talisman, this would lead up to the major Council room.

  I could hear heated voices from beyond. “He’s lost the talisman. This is a waste of time. The city has gone to hell. He was meant to protect it—”

  “Correction,” a deep voice echoed out. It wasn’t Thorne. It sounded like Bailey. “We are meant to protect it as one. The Magic Council stands for our ability to work together. It is upon every single member here to do what we can to push back this darkness.”

  “Brave words,” another irate voice pointed out, “but he’s lost the talisman, so this is irrelevant. There are rules.”

  “I know there are rules,” someone said.

  And I said someone, even though I knew who it was. Even though I would always know who it was.

  Something happened to me the moment I heard Thorne’s voice. Something sharpened my senses, reminded me of what I was doing, and proved to me why this was so very frigging important.

  My heart… it did something, okay? I can’t tell you what. I couldn’t describe it myself. But it shuddered with this energy that told me I had to—

  A hand descended on my shoulder. It was cold, its fingers were stiff, and it was accompanied by a hiss right by my ear.

  I never got the chance to hear what happened above.

  Somebody suddenly threw me to the side.

  They opened the door, and I tumbled through. Then they slammed it closed behind them.

  My ears rang. I cut my lips on my teeth as I tumbled. And as my blood splashed down against the floor, the ghoul vampire loomed above me.

  He tilted his head to the side. A sick smile spread his lips. “You.”

  He rounded on me and kicked me in the stomach.

  Pain exploded up my side.

  I coughed.

  But I realized one thing. Thorne was just there.

  I went to scream.

  All he had to do was click his fingers, and a spell settled into place over the room.

  “Scream all you like,” he hissed. “Nobody can hear you. Now, give me the talisman.”

  “Go to hell.” I tried to lock my fingers around it and hold it in place.

  He grabbed it.

  When I was kicked, I’d dropped the glass bead.

  With his other hand, he reached over and plucked it up. “The master wishes to meet you. But he didn’t say what state you need to be in.”

  A cruel smile flashed across his lips. Then he kicked me again.

  My mind… everything went sideways. It all threatened to shut down for good.

  He kicked me again, and.… I… Thorne…. He was the only thought my mind could hold onto. Everything else just disappeared into the background. Thorne. I was kicked again, but… Thorne.

  I just… Thorne. I had to get to Thorne. I had to save Thorne.

  The ghoul went to kick me one last time. I would fall unconscious.

  Except I didn’t. Because I threw a hand out.

  I threw a hand out, and I caught a ghoul vampire’s foot.

  I didn’t do it with glass magic. I just… did it.

  For a shaking moment, he didn’t move.

  He stared at me. I stared at him. He hissed and lurched toward my throat, obviously realizing there was a quicker way to end this.

  But I punched to my feet. “Thorne,” I roared. It was like my own special magical word.

  It initiated something deep within me. That glass bead was still right there. Right there. I didn’t need to call to it. It came to me.

  I reached this sudden point where everything aligned, where it all made sense, where inside me I opened up. Most importantly, within, everything became clear and reflective. It reflected me, and I reflected it back….

  Most people practice magic with brute force.

  But there’s another way. A way where you don’t bother to gather spells and acquire knowledge. A way where you magnify magic instead.

  It was not a path that could be taken by every practitioner, and as I had already told you, it could be a treacherous one.

  Vampires couldn’t do it. Werewolves couldn’t do it. Even most witches couldn’t do it. Me… I could. In that moment – in that moment as I aligned with the glass bead and it reflected me back to itself a million times over, it magnified my magic beyond compare.

  I threw a hand out. The glass bead clunked into my grip. I twisted it around. Just before the vampire could grab my throat, I punched him.

  My fist connected.

  It slammed into the base of his throat. Ghoul vampires have scent glands in their throats. They were at once one of the strongest yet weakest points in their bodies.

  I cracked right through his. He was flung back. By the time he struck the wall and slid down it, he was unconscious.

  I knelt there, panting. Then I felt the sensation of time slipping through my fingers.

  I threw myself around. I went to make it into the corridor beyond.

  I thought better of it. There was a door right in front of me. I flipped the talisman over.

  This one would lead to a short corridor, a small room, then beyond to the primary Council room.

  I threw myself toward it. I thrust into the corridor. Then I grabbed hold of the handle that led to the small antechamber. I ran through it and reached the last door between me and the Council chamber. I eased it open. Nobody was in there. There was the great Council table. It was massive, and around it you could probably fit the representatives from not just every clan in this city but every clan in the country.

  It wasn’t hard to tell where the head should sit.

  I ran to Thorne’s chair. It was more like a throne, really, though it was specifically and conspicuously carved out of old wood.

  I placed the talisman down in front of it. I heard voices.

  They were so very angry. It sounded like a mob.

  I picked up Thorne’s strained but still calming tone. “The future… isn’t set in stone. Yet.”

  I winced. But I smiled, too. As I ran back out of the door that I had entered through, I mouthed, “No, Thorne, it isn’t. Because you’ve still got me around. For now at least.”

  The end of Ancient Bonds Book One. This series is complete, and there are four books in total, so continue the journey today.

  Antique Instincts is the 6th installment of the Your True Vampire series. In a world where vampires know their true love at first sight, love brings trouble.

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  Odette C. Bell, Ancient Bonds Book One: Your True Vampire Series 6

 

 

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