Page 115 of Bound By the Sleeper’s Harp

I found a delivery driver entry point with a gate arm. I walked over and slipped beneath. Goosebumps crawled across my skin and I glanced around the parking lot. The asphalt was cracked; weeds grew up between. There were small trees in the planters, but they looked neglected.

There weren’t any cameras on the outer walls of the building. I breathed a relieved sigh and walked closer. It was an industrial style, so I didn’t expect many windows. Metal doors were spaced every hundred feet. I walked around to the back side where I found the loading bays. One of them was open, and several cars were parked nearby.

A scuffing shoe made me whirl around. I froze. A tall female walked toward me, perhaps twenty feet away, looking in my direction, coming straight for me. I went rigid. “Shit,” I breathed, glancing around. I could run. Instead, I opened my mouth to formulate an excuse⁠—

She didn’t slow, didn’t even stop. In fact, she gave no sign that she even saw me. Instead, she walked right through me and continued on through the open bay door. And that’s when I knew I was in deep trouble.

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My heart raced as I spun, looking after the ghost-thing that had just walked through me. That had happened, right?

I should have run in the opposite direction, but instead I crept close to the wall, then looked in through the open bay. I could not help myself. What if Bastian was in there? Or…his ghost. I couldn’t just leave him here, not if I could help him, speak to him, and perhaps figure out how to fix all this.

The lighting was dim, but I could see that the warehouse was filled with racks of boxes. Perhaps some kind of distribution center. I hadn’t planned to break in, just have a look around. But now?

I pulled my backpack off and removed the handgun. I also tucked the sheathed dagger in the waistband of my pants, wishing for all the world I hadn’t lost the one Bastian had glamoured for me in the alley. I slipped around the opening and kept to the shadows, walking along the nearest rack. I heard voices farther into the building. None of the boxes were labeled, and I didn’t want to make any noise by pulling them down and checking their contents. Any one of them could have hidden the harp.

A figure appeared at the end of the aisle. I froze, backing against the rack. There was nowhere to hide. A male, I realized, as it grew larger. He walked with his face forward, carrying a large box. Like the other, he didn’t even look at me. I reached out as he passed, and my hand went right through him.

Otherwise? He looked completely solid. Real.

“What the fuck?!” I whispered. Some weird ghost shit was going on, and I was not cool with it. I crept along after it, sticking to the shadows. More of these strange ghosts appeared—or, I assumed that was what they were—moving boxes, working together as they created stacks of them.

“Eleanor Rose Kennedy. My, my.” I went rigid, heart nearly bursting in my chest. I recognized that voice. “Did you come looking for your boyfriend?”

I whirled around, coming face to face with⁠—

“Marsh Thadur?” I lifted my handgun, pointing it at him. His eyes darted to it before finding mine again.

He smiled. “You seem surprised to see me.”

“What did you do to Bastian?” I punched the gun forward so he’d get my point.

“The same thing I did to all of them.” He lifted a shoulder as if no big deal. “Barbara!”

A woman, the one I’d seen earlier, walked over. “Take her. Cuff her to the rail over there.”

Adrenaline flooded me and I whirled toward the ghost approaching. Barbara wore the same blank look as earlier. My breaths turned shallow and I pulled the trigger on my handgun. Shots rang out and went right through Barbara’s ghost.

She came straight to me, not stopping, and pulled the gun from my hand, flinging it away. Her fingers wrapped around my wrist and dragged me through the central open area of the warehouse. I kicked at her, and my foot went right through her.

“What the fuck?!” I hissed.

It made no sense. I couldn’t touch her but she could touch me?

I tried to get free, punching her in the face with my free hand. That went through her too. She dragged me to a set of racks and ripped my backpack free, flinging it away. Pulling a zip tie from the tool belt at her waist, she snapped it around my wrist, tying me to the bars. She put a second in place, just to be thorough.

I struggled against her the whole time, but nothing I tried worked.

“She’s a specter, Elle darling. You’re wasting your time.”

My head whipped around to Marsh. He walked toward us, his steps unhurried. The expression he wore was amused.

“I don’t understand,” I managed.

He laughed. “And here I was told you were an artifact aficionado. What aren’t you understanding? The Sleeper’s Harp pulls the specters from their bodies, putting them into a deep sleep. I control them, as the harp’s owner. They do as I say. Anything beyond that and they are untouchable. If whatever you try is outside the description of their job, it will have no effect whatsoever.”

My brows pulled together.