Page 92 of How I Met Your Murderer

“What happened?” Eric shouted over the noise to Caoimhe. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, her bun falling from its pretty silk tie, her eyes wide and awash with fright. “I—I fell asleep in my office. Getting ready for—for the opening!” she shouted. “Something grabbed my shoulder. I woke up and saw a shadow—”

Eric and I exchanged a worried glance.

“Is Jordy here? Pepper?” Eric asked her quickly, and she shook her head again.

That was one small miracle. Two less souls to worry about in all this.

“Let’s go wait this out in the van!” I told them both over the wails that would have put any banshee to shame. Was the elemental mocking Caoimhe and her plans for a costume by taking a banshee’s form? Had it been listening that night in the parlor when she told me about that? Watching and listening afterward, while Eric and I made love?

I tugged his hand, nodding urgently toward the oak front door even though part of me wasn’t sure it would open to our touch anymore.

It was half a plan at best. Less than.

But Eric’s hand in mine, warm and real, made me determined to try.

We were only a few steps from the door when something grabbed the chain of my protective pendant and gave it a firm yank. With the disorienting shrieks continuing, at first I thought maybe Caoimhe was trying to hold onto me in her panic.

Then I felt the chain tighten and twist, and I clawed at it uselessly as it bit into my neck and cut off my air supply.

“Póg . . . mo . . . thóin,” I choked out to the entity.

As soon as he noticed, Eric gave a sharp cry and started trying to pull the chain free from the unseen hand that held it. Even Caoimhe helped, or at least I think she did, her hands tugging along with Eric’s. I was getting lightheaded, stars bursting at the corners of my vision.

I needed air. I needed to get Eric out of here, more than anything. I needed him safe, so we could start our life together. I needed—

A streak of white shot past my awareness, and suddenly, I was free. I dropped to my knees, gasping and gagging and clutching my neck, and Eric pulled the chain up over my head and tucked it in my pocket so the elemental couldn’t try that again.

Apparently, it was too strong for the black salt to do anything now.

I let Eric drag me back up to my feet, clinging to him to stay standing. He rubbed my back, his arm squeezing my waist so tight that it wasn’t helping me breathe, but I wasn’t about to tell him to let go.

As I rubbed my throat and swallowed a few times, convincing myself I wasn’t dead yet, something semi-transparent flickered against the stones. Something that was locked in a battle with the entity we still couldn’t see. I knew that figure, even with her features blurred and some of her skin missing, even without her beautiful curls she’d once taken such pride in.

Síofra.

She had freed me from the elemental’s grasp, stepped in before Eric could do something risky and ruin his second life, but she wasn’t strong enough to fight it for very long.

“What’s happening?” Caoimhe demanded tearfully as a long, tall shadow danced across the wall, drawing Síofra into the stone as if the walls themselves were consuming her. “Raff, are you all right? We need to call someone, ring an ambulance, the Gardaí—”

I didn’t need to glance at her phone to know none of us had service to call for any of those things. And I wasn’t sure how they would help us, anyway. I wasn’t even sure Niamh could have helped if she were here, no matter how much she had done for Eric.

I needed to think fast. Tears streaked down Eric’s face as he threw the rest of the black salt from the jar at the place where Síofra was disappearing, but like my pendant, it made no difference now against the entity’s strength. There was nothing we could do, and in a few moments, it was going to turn its attention back to us. Turn its power on us. Kill us with a touch, I supposed, like it had once done to Eric.

Tearing my gaze from Síofra, I glanced toward the far corner of the room by the stairs, where a steady green light blazed under the watchful grin of a burned-out jack-o’-lantern. The ADA-404 had finally stopped blinking, having charged fully overnight.

Maybe, for once, one of Gerald’s company-issued weapons wouldn’t let me down.

But if we had any chance here, we needed to be able to properly see what we were dealing with, to know where to aim the machine’s power. And for once in my life, I was glad for those early, lonely nights I’d wasted on this job skimming through The Handbook, because something dead useful came back to me now:

Rule #89: If you're having trouble visually tracking the entity, consider using glitter.

It’s guaranteed to stick no matter the type of entity, but it’s an absolute nightmare to clean up, so only use it as a last resort.

Lucky for us, thanks to Caoimhe and Basil’s manic Halloween decorating, there was glitter everywhere. Cute, colorful vials of it sat on an end table in the foyer, waiting to be lovingly sprinkled like pixie dust right before the grand opening.

As the elemental made a deep, groaning sound like the stones shifting—like its meal wasn’t going down easy—I turned to Eric and Caoimhe and quickly explained what we needed to do, my heart twisting as I caught sight of Eric’s stricken face. Síofra’s sacrifice had saved us both. Given us a chance to stay together. But I couldn’t let myself feel anything in the moment beyond the need to get Eric out of here alive. I needed my wits about me to end this tonight, before anyone else got hurt.