Hypnotizing Beat

by Katherine McIntyre

  Trevor lifted a brow. “Come on now, I’ve been relegated to guitar boy?” He couldn’t help the grin that rose to his lips. He’d love to chalk it up to her leannan sidhe charm, but he’d met plenty of her kind. Danica could effortlessly make him laugh, her brand of sharp wit and weird something he doubted he’d ever tire of.

  “Yep,” she responded. “Better pull out the stops to wow me if you want a bump up on the nickname list.” Danica gripped the golden stones framing the pond as if she prepared to launch into the water.

  Unease filtered through his veins. It couldn’t be this easy.

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Wait a minute. Let me try something first.”

  They must’ve triggered a trap on the ground before when they first walked into the tunnel, and he didn’t trust this to be sitting out unprotected. However, they couldn’t have been the first to ever attempt stealing Alberich’s treasure. He sank deeper into himself, watching his breaths while they cycled slower and more evenly. Even though his abilities were as natural a part of him as his limbs, he’d isolated himself from them ever since he escaped his prison.

  The last time he’d exercised this one was when Ky went missing. If any trauma or violence had occurred here, he could tap into the past memories. Trevor reached down and brushed his fingers across the water before closing his eyes. The surface rippled, and the icy chill of the water hit his fingertips. Echoes reverberated back at him.

  The scene unfolded like a black and white film, shuddering and faint behind his eyes.

  A redcap stomped through the water, sending cascades splashing across as he went. He neared closer and closer to the center where a single mirror lay nestled at the bottom. Even with a flashing glimpse, the mirror imprinted in his memory, circular, with an intricate metal frame and patterns carved across the surface. Trevor didn’t need to know the wording to understand that an item of power lay at the bottom.

  The redcap leaned forward, one step closer, and then reached. His foot landed on a thick striation in the rock below, circling the mirror. The off-colored band appeared a natural part of the mottled bed beneath the surface, but when his foot touched the band, the water bubbled. In the blink of an eye, the once crystalline water blackened and the redcap began to scream.

  The liquid had turned to acid.

  The substance corroded his leg, and even when he tried to splash a couple of steps forward, soon the limbs dissolved into the water, skin melting away. He continued to dissolve bit by bit, first the legs, then the torso, until those undulating screams silenced, and the redcap dissolved into the inky pool.

  Trevor yanked his hand out of the water like he’d been burned.

  His throat dried in the process, and as he looked at the glistening surface before him, all he could see was the shadowed memories of the inkspill of acid that spread throughout to devour the intruder whole. Even if they bypassed the initial trap, who knew what other ones Alberich stationed beyond the perimeter to protect the mirror once they lifted it from its spot.

  “Are you okay, Trev?” Danica asked, placing her hand over his. The touch startled him, as did the sheer amount of relief that rushed through in response. He hadn’t expected that sort of comfort from the woman, but in this place they only had each other to rely on.

  “Yeah, just wanted to make sure we wouldn’t die a grisly death the moment we stepped into the pool,” he muttered, running a hand through his thick strands to give them a tug. “Because, that’s happened here before—I’m sure more than once.”

  Danica tapped a finger to her lips, like he needed any more reason to stare. “I forgot that’s part of your banshee mojo. What a handy trick.”

  He cast her a wan glance. “I don’t do tricks. I’m not a circus performer,” he started when she put up a finger and winked.

  “Yet you get on stage and strut your stuff every night, so, point to me.” She grinned and pushed down on the golden stones in front of them, lifting herself to the edge. “What am I dodging?”

  “We’re looking for a mirror in the center, beneath the surface of the water.” He pointed to where it lay, clear as sunlight to him now. “Whatever you do, don’t step on the surrounding band that blends with the stone—it triggers some bad times ahead.”

  “Right,” Danica said, pushing over the edge to dip her feet into the pool. “Don’t press the uh-oh button.” She strode forward, each step cautious and her gaze sharpening on the stone beneath the surface. The pixies bounced above them, ignoring their presence. Their lights flickered on and off, and the occasional threads of their chatter echoed through the air.

  Trevor pushed himself in, wincing as he dipped his bare feet into the water, as if it was the acid he’d seen corrode the redcap. Whenever he used his ability, the images and sensations lingered like they were a part of his own memories. The silt washed off his feet in the water, drifting to the bottom, and the cold slithered from his feet up.

  By the time he strode forward, Danica had already made it halfway across the pool. His heart leapt in his throat at how far she’d gotten without him. Trevor forced down a deep breath as he continued to wade through. The crisp scent of metal tickled his nose from the surrounding towers of hexagonal stone, either from the clusters protruding out or the veneer that had attached itself.

  “What’s Alberich doing collecting mirrors?” Danica called out. “The asshole’s vain enough as is. He doesn’t need the encouragement.” Some of the water splashed when she waded through a deeper patch that came up to her calves. The sound caused his hands to ball into fists on instinct. Who knew what other traps Alberich had set up. One wrong step, one wrong movement and they would die in this cave.

  As he stepped closer, he got a solid look at the thick colored band in the stone surrounding the mirror. Even knowing what to avoid, his breath caught in his throat.

  “I’m going to hang back a couple of feet,” Trevor said even as he placed one foot in front of the other, deeper and deeper into this pool. “If we need a quick escape, I can tug you forward, and we’ll vault to the edge as fast as possible.”

  Danica snorted. “I see how it is. Dangle me in front of the danger. It’s okay, guitar boy, I won’t tell anyone you were scared.”

  A grin curled his lips despite the way his heart thudded. He didn’t trust there not to be another trap if they removed the mirror. “Terrified,” he responded, bracing his shoulders. He could reach out and grab Danica, but they had a couple of feet to cross before reaching the other edge of the pool.

  Danica slowed when she got closer to the mirror. Her paces grew measured as she inched nearer, zeroing in on the shift in the colored stone under the surface of the water.

  Trevor wanted to pluck them both out and run. Every step of this heist had been fraught with hurdles—this wouldn’t be any better. His firsthand knowledge of Alberich’s vindictiveness painted his insides with a slick paranoia.

  She tipped forward, avoiding the massive band of color by a few inches. One sneeze, the slightest askew move, and this entire pool would turn to acid. The breath snagged in his throat. Trevor reached out on instinct, his fingers tensing. Any second, she’d make the grab. He’d tug her out as fast as possible.

  Danica bent at the hips and plunged her hand into the water, the skirt of her black dress sodden. She tilted her head to the side, and her cheek skimmed the surface when she wrapped her fingers around the mirror.

  Trevor forgot to breathe.

  Danica plucked the mirror from its resting place beneath the water. She tugged it tight to her chest and stumbled back several paces. Even as she moved fast, she avoided the thick colored band in the stone below. She had retrieved the item, but his chest still squeezed tight.

  Danica’s gaze met his, and he took a step forward, reaching out to grasp her hand.

  The water beneath them remained crystalline, merely disturbed by their small rippling movements. Silence stretched through the cavern for a moment, as stale and laden as the surrounding air. Trevor’s heart skipped
a beat. Danica broke through the quiet, sloshing toward him until her hand rested in his. He gripped tight and moved.

  They had taken several strides forward when Trevor made the mistake of looking up. The pixies no longer bounced around, the lights frozen as if in suspension. A deep rumble sounded from above, one that rolled through the entire cavern like a crack of thunder. The stalactites trembled, quaking with ominous intent.

  That’s when the first one dropped.

  On the far right of the cavern, the stalactite plummeted to the ground. The crash splintered through the expanse, and as if a spell broke, the pixies began darting in every direction possible. Trevor met Danica’s eyes.

  “Run.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Danica wasn’t an idiot.

  She didn’t think they’d just be able to pluck the mirror from the ground without facing some sort of consequences. However, she had expected something more along the lines of mutant fishman or unleashed beasties—creatures they could physically fight and kill.

  If she tried to fight with the descending stalactites, the massive hunks of stone would most definitely win.

  She clutched the mirror tight in one hand, and Trevor gripped her other one, yanking her forward. Together, they raced across the pool, sending cascades of water in every direction. Droplets splashed against her cheeks. She glanced left, right, all around this room for somewhere, anywhere, to run.

  Iridescent dust rolled down from the ceiling in choking waves, and the whole structure trembled above them. Danica coughed, trying not to inhale any that swept their way. They needed to find another exit than the tunnel they came from—otherwise they’d be trapped. Trevor squeezed her hand and loped ahead with unexpected fluidity.

  The steady lights illuminating the room grew erratic as the pixies darted out of the way from the descending stalactites, which turned the ceiling into one big rave party. Another of the columns trembled, this one to the far right of the cavern. An earsplitting creak echoed through, then the massive hunk of stone dropped. Any one of these could crash down onto them. They’d be dead before they could take another breath.

  Her heart slammed in her chest, and her mind spun, but her gaze didn’t falter from the corners of the room swathed in shadows. They needed an escape, now. Trevor vaulted over the edge of the pool first, tugging hard on her arm to bring her sailing along with him.

  Danica almost slammed into his back when she landed. Her bare feet hit the ground so hard reverberations traveled up her shins.

  Darkness encroached in every corner, but they didn’t have time to investigate. Logic took over.

  “Aim for the opposite side we came in,” Danica shouted, sprinting forward.

  “Already on it,” Trevor called back even though he didn’t halt. They raced across the cavern as fast as they could manage, her bare feet scraping against the stone until they’d grown numb to the stabs and aches. She gritted her teeth, clutching the mirror tighter as they hurtled forward.

  Another creak sounded through the cavern, and her heart leapt in her throat.

  The massive stalactite dropped.

  Right in front of them.

  Splinters of stone flew in their direction, and the choking dust coated her throat, making her cough. Danica’s brain froze, shock striking her like lightning. Even with the spray of pebbles and debris before them, Trevor didn’t stop. He rushed forward, veering around the column in their way as the stone crumbled to the ground. Survive, survive, survive pounded a marching beat in her mind, replacing the steady pump of her heart until it was all-encompassing.

  Shadows along the far wall stretched even longer without the pixies lighting the ceilings, and she struggled to discern anything with the way her vision shook while she ran.

  Details. Focus on the details.

  Danica raced faster, her calves pumping as she caught up with Trevor, rushing side by side with him. Dust coated her skin already slicked by water and sweat, and her breaths came out in ragged gasps. The edge of the cavern veered even closer, but she only caught more of the walls stretching to the ceiling and formed from impermeable stone.

  A creak sounded, this time from far behind them. Another stalactite wobbled then dropped. The thundering crash followed and too fast, the screech of grinding stone echoed. The entire cavern quaked, the pebbles at her feet trembling. A boom erupted through the cavern, and Danica’s breath snagged in her throat. An entire section of the ceiling had fallen to the ground, the rubble crushing anything underneath. The more of the stalactites that dropped from the ceiling, the more sections of the cavern would disintegrate with it.

  They were so screwed.

  The edge of the caverns lay feet away, but all she could see was an unending sheet of blue stone stretching toward the ceiling. Alberich must’ve come here before. Since no one had ever stolen the item and escaped alive, this place would’ve remained undisturbed. Danica tugged her hand from Trevor’s and stopped still.

  He whipped around to face her. “What are you doing?” he snapped, his eyes flashing. “We need to run.”

  Danica shook her head. Instead of wasting her time staring holes in the walls, she scanned the ground. Her pulse hammered so loudly it was a miracle she could think let alone breathe. She seized on the patterns in the stone and cavern floor like her life depended on it. Frankly, it did.

  The gravel and cave dirt stretched out, disrupted by the stalagmites casting longer shadows to the ground, but she ignored them, sweeping her gaze across the surface. One section looked worn down, a slight, intermittent scuff across the surface.

  “Follow me,” she commanded, bolting forward and not looking back. Trevor would follow—the man possessed the same levels of self-preservation she did. She kicked up dust, running for the trail and hoping beyond hope she hadn’t imagined the details. Her vision blurred as sweat stung her eyes, and she swallowed stale air, more and more dust coating her throat by the second.

  A tremble from above stole her attention. One of the massive stalactites in the center shook, a hingepin of this cave. Any moment, it would fall, and when it did, the others would follow. They’d be buried by the gravel and rock until their shallow breaths ceased and they faded away, never to see the light again.

  Trevor raced alongside her, his chest heaving.

  Danica stamped to the faint scuffs along the ground, not daring to look ahead in case she’d led them to a false end. Hope twisted tight in her chest, like overstretched, fragile glass that could shatter at any moment. She soared along the worn ground, following the only trail she’d found.

  They reached a large stone crag that jutted forward, attached to more impermeable wall. Danica’s insides plummeted. All she could do was stop and stare. They would die here, buried alive. The pixies who hadn’t already gotten crushed in the quakes flitted around, searching for holes in the stone high above to escape through. Bile rose in her throat, and she wanted to lash out, her fists balling on instinct.

  “This way,” Trevor said, grabbing her hand again to pull her forward. Their connection was the one thread of sanity that remained.

  The large column in the center of the cavern quaked. They’d run out of time.

  He led them past the crag, closer to the wall. Not like that would help. Except the moment they whipped around the opposite side of the crack, a crevasse wide enough to walk through emerged, one obscured from direct sight. The footprints continued up to it.

  A breath caught in her throat. Trevor tugged her forward even as her steps faltered.

  The central stalactite let out a groan that resounded through the entire cavern, and the air trembled. The massive structure gave one last shudder before it dropped.

  Danica plunged into the darkness behind Trevor, squeezing through the seam in the stone. She hadn’t taken one step inside when the large pillar smashed to the ground. The sound reverberated through the cavern until it hurt her ears, and dust rolled out in every direction. And that wasn’t the only thing to fall. Seconds later, large chunks of the
ceiling descended. Rubble splashed into the pool and crashed over the cavern floor, enough to destroy anything in the way.

  They both halted to watch the destruction hail from on high, as the once stunning room that glittered like jewels turned into iridescent heaps of rubble and broken stone. Half of the lights snuffed out as the pixies vanished. The ones who remained darted around so fast their rays flickered across the ground in erratic bursts.

  “Come on, let’s keep moving,” Trevor said, snapping her to the present. Navy rocks surrounded them on either side, close enough she couldn’t stretch her arms out in full. She followed him as he strode farther into the inky depths, one cautious step at a time. Even though crashes and rumbles sounded behind them and the stone above and around hummed in response, they continued forward. This had to be the way out. Danica couldn’t accept the alternative.

  Her breaths began to grow more even as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other. They groped along jagged walls in the dark, but the passage didn’t widen or divert, leaving them one pathway to follow.

  She clutched the mirror to her chest, as if reminding herself why they dove headfirst into this danger. The chaos they’d left behind in Mandalay Bay felt lightyears away. “Hope Alberich doesn’t mind we did a little redecorating,” Danica said, needing to hear a voice out loud, even if it was her own. While they left thunderous quakes behind them, the oppressive silence ahead didn’t reassure her.

  Trevor snorted. “I think that’s going to be the least of his problems when he discovers his sparkly mirror’s been nabbed.”

  Danica pulled the metal-framed treasure to her chest, feeling the cold curves through the fabric of her dress. “I’d give my right nut to know what sort of trouble this is going to cause him.”

  “Easy to say when you don’t have any to give away,” Trevor responded, his pace slowing when grays infiltrated ahead. Danica placed a hand out before she crashed into him. Instead, her palm rested on his back, and she should’ve snatched it away, but she couldn’t bring herself to. He slowed even more, as if he wanted it there too. She could feel the heave of his breaths, the heat of his body, and the faint whiff of leather she caught filled her with relief and desire at once.