A Little Wicked (The Bewitching Hour Book #4)(29)
“A vault?” asked Dante. At least he seemed intrigued by the idea. “Like with the big walls and everything?”
“Do you think the hellhounds could get through it?”
Dante tightened his lips and didn’t answer, which was kind of an answer in itself. “It’s better than anywhere else we could go,” he admitted.
She put the address in the GPS of her phone and started to navigate him through the streets of Manhattan. There weren’t many abandoned buildings in this part of town, a fact she was more than familiar with thanks to her days of living on the streets, but this bank that had been shut down during the recession was boarded up tightly enough to keep any homeless from ever using it to escape a cold night on the streets.
But that wasn’t a big deal to Dante, who set a palm on the door, and after a quick, hushed spell, it clicked open. She tried not to stare. She’d never seen him do magic that wasn’t related to his exceptional mind control abilities. It was unexpected. She didn’t even know he could do anything else. Was it strange to not know that about a boyfriend? Damn it, she still didn’t know what was normal for witches and what wasn’t.
She didn’t have time to get upset at herself any longer. She followed Dante into the dark abandoned building. It was still set up like a bank. The poles that marked where the line would form were half standing and half knocked over. There weren’t a lot of cobwebs, signaling that not even bugs made a home here. Probably no food without humans around.
Dante leapt over the teller counter in one smooth movement, and instead of trying to be as cool as him, Claire carefully climbed over.
It was easy enough to find where the vault was. The room in the middle of the bank didn’t look like the movies. In fact, there seemed to be two different vaults. One barred door that led to the safety deposit room, and in the back of that room was the solid steel door that led to the safe. If she had to choose which room to hide in, it would be behind the massive metal door.
“Do we know how to get out of there?” she asked as Dante started to see whether he could get it closed to offer them protection.
“I have magic,” he said, in a not-too-comforting tone. “We’ll figure it out. Can you help with this?”
It must’ve been stuck on something if Dante couldn’t get it. Claire moved next to him and, putting her hands below where his gripped the door, started to pull at it, but nothing happened.
She braced her feet on the ground and put all her weight behind it. The door finally budged, but just barely. “Ugh. Is something blocking it?”
“I think the hinges are rusted,” said Dante. “Come on, don’t stop. Once it starts going, we’ll be good. Come on.”
She started to pull again when something inside the building rustled.
They both stopped and stood still. She didn’t hear growling or barking. Was that a good thing? Did hellhounds growl or bark?
Dante wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back to the wall of safety deposit boxes. She tried to control her breathing so she made as little noise as possible, but what was the point of hiding? The dogs could find her magic, right? She needed to get away from Dante. She didn’t want him doing something stupid, like throwing himself between her and the dogs.
She was thinking of the best way to keep him from dying for her when a beam of light shone into the vault. Claire let out a sigh of relief. She knew almost nothing about hellhounds, but she was willing to guess they didn’t use flashlights.
Dante must’ve thought the same because he let her go and moved to stand in the beam of light. “Get your ass in here and help us,” he barked at whoever it was.
A second later, Angela Parker stepped inside. “Derek and Sam are coming soon.” She went to the door, where they all started to push on the door.
“Where are they?” asked Claire through clenched teeth. Right then, there was a boom that echoed through the building, vibrating the walls. “Never mind,” she said.
“We split up to find a way inside,” said Angela. “I’m betting they just made their own way. I found the wide-open door.”
The vault door was finally starting to move and was about halfway to closed when Claire heard it—an ominous skittering in the distance. Instinctually, she knew. A dark chill made its way down her spine and she knew death was coming for her. “They’re here,” she whispered.
At that same moment, she heard Sam scream, “Claire!”
She and Angela both abandoned the big vault door at the same time and instead slammed the barred door to the safe deposit room shut. As the lock clicked into place, something slashed at her fingers. Claire gasped and stepped back as the blood spilled from where the hound had gotten her across the knuckles.
And then all she could do was stand there and stare in horror. The hounds threw themselves against the bars. Every time they backed up to get momentum, they’d let out a deep growl that seemed to vibrate right through her.
Oh, God. She was going to die.
“Hey!” screamed Sam from behind the hounds. Angela pulled Claire away as the room was lit with fire, signaling that Sam had just tried to blast them with heat. A second later, shots rang out, signaling that Derek had joined the fight.
“We’ve almost got it,” said Dante as they all resumed positions on the door. Claire tried to get a grip again, but the blood made the door slippery, and the second she tried to apply pressure to her injured hand to help, the burning intensified and she gasped before letting the door go.