Free Demon's Vow: Part 2 of the Final Asylum Tales (The Asylum Tales series) by Jocelynn Drake

insane.
    I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to step into the open black pit. My heart clenched as my foot fell a couple inches, pulling my entire body down before it hit a solid floor. I stepped the rest of the way into the opening, so that it looked as if I were hovering in open air. Without needing to close my eyes, I thought of the location of Simon’s old rooms and my body was thrust upward at a startling rate by an unseen force. The openings for the other floors flashed by in a splash of white light before I suddenly stopped just a couple floors from the top.
    As I stepped off into the foyer of the floor, a terrified scream echoed up through the empty chamber, sending all the hairs on my neck to standing on end. The scream came from a child, likely a new apprentice who had yet to grow accustomed to this mode of travel through the Tower. I’d seen too many warlocks and witches push their new wards into the tunnels so that they could wring a scream out of them. Travelling up wasn’t so bad as you had a base to start with. Descending to the lower levels almost always left you confident that you were going to smack into the hard paving stones at the bottom, shattering every bone in your body. It took years for that fear to finally subside. Luckily it only took a few months for a new apprentice to stop screaming. But at that point, the mentor usually gave them something new to scream about.
    The empty shaft opened into a short narrow hallway that led to the main foyer of the floor. The circular foyer was surrounded by four doors that led to the private rooms of four different warlocks or witches. A dim light glowed in the center the foyer, lacing all with a thin gray shadow.
    Everything was silent as I stood there, looking at the other doors. It was nearly five in the morning in Dresden and soon the apprentices would be stirring from their tiny cots and uncomfortable pallets to prepare the morning meal for their mentors. I tried to move silently, but I was sure they had already heard my footsteps across the stone floor. The smart ones learned not to sleep too deeply. There was no telling what would sneak up on you when you were at your most vulnerable.
    With some reluctance, I finally dragged my gaze off to the left, where Simon’s door stood. The shadows were thicker there, as if whatever malevolent spell he’d set on his rooms was leaking out into the main foyer in search of fresh territory to conquer. Closing my eyes for a second, I took a deep breath and pushed my memories of the bastard to the back of my brain. Simon Thorn was dead. I had killed him and sent him down to the Underworld. He wouldn’t hurt me any longer.
    I needed to stay focused on unraveling the spells that lay before me.
    Stepping closer to the door, I put out my hand and immediately snatched it back. I was right. The protection spell was starting to leak out. The air wavered slightly and there was a tingling along my skin like little needles digging into my flesh. Apparently if you left whatever he had created running too long, it decided to expand its reach. That or it was affected by all the magic that hung in the air within the Towers because of all the damn magic users. I had heard of incidents where spells went a little wild because of the errant magic, but hadn’t personally encountered it until now.
    With a frown, I decided the best course was to start with the easy stuff that I knew he’d still have in effect. Patting down my pockets, I located a piece of white chalk I had started carrying with me at all times. On my knees outside the door, I put the chalk to the bottom of the frame and whispered a cleansing spell. After a couple seconds, writing along the frame shimmered into view. Simon was fond of using invisible chalk to inscribe some of his wards. I just had to go back over them in reverse to undo each of them.
    As I completed the last one, there was loud cracking sound as if part of the wooden frame split. I leaned close to