The Descent by Alma Katsu Read Free Book Online

He’s so mysterious, and smart—and dead sexy, too. I’ve never met a man who could do the things he does in bed. . . .” She caught herself and gave me a brief, embarrassed smile. “Let’s just say they don’t make them like that in Bristol, where we come from.”
    “They don’t make them like him anywhere, ” I offered.
    “Which is why we figured you came to get him back.”
    I shook my head. “Adair and I found out the hard way that we’re not right for each other. We’re just friends.”
    “If you say so . . .”
    “Look, he’s wonderful—in some ways. He’s all the things you said of him, but there’s more to Adair than meets the eye. I’m not trying to talk him down, but . . . you can trust me on that.”
    I was trying to convince her that she had nothing to fear from me, but everything I said seemed to have the opposite effect. Maybe she thought I was being patronizing, maybe she thought I was trying to trick her, for she jumped off the stool, bristling. “You talk like you’re done with him, but you’re not. I can tell. I can see it in your eyes plain enough, and if you reallybelieve what you just told me, you don’t know your own mind. You’re fooling yourself if you think it’s over between you.”
    “You’re wrong, Terry,” I said, trying to calm her, feeling as though I’d been pushed into a fight I didn’t want. “I’m not trying to come between you and Adair. You’ll see: once I’m gone it will go back to the way it was, and you two will have Adair to yourselves.”
    She tossed back her hair, defiant. “Oh no, it won’t. Everything’s changed. Can’t you feel it? The minute you walked into the house it’s like something came between us, me and Robin and Adair. And it’s because he’s still in love with you—but you don’t need me to tell you that. You know it already.” Her face was flushed; her anger rose up like a storm inside her, fighting to get out. She looked at me sharply one more time, hatred in her flashing eyes, before bolting from the room.

    It took a few minutes for me to calm down after Terry left. The house fell silent again. I sat at the table listening for noises from the floor above, straining for some sign that Adair had risen. I waited patiently until, sip by sip, I’d emptied my cup. Still, there was no indication that he was about to come downstairs. Restless, I decided I might as well go exploring.
    To say the house was peculiar would be an understatement. It seemed to have once been a fort before it was converted into a residence. The house was deceptive; like a handkerchief tucked up a magician’s sleeve, you didn’t know what might be hidden inside. From the outside it looked small, but inside was another matter. As I meandered down long, lonely hallways and went up and down winding staircases, the house seemed tounfold continuously before me as though it sprang to life from an M. C. Escher design. As best I could tell, the house’s four wings made a perfect square, with a courtyard at its center.
    On the first lap, I managed to lose my way somehow, and though surprised, I was amused by my inattention. However, it stopped being funny when, on the second lap, I still hadn’t found my starting point. By the third lap, I was near panic, thinking I might never find my way through this strange, telescoping maze. That is, I think I made several laps of the building, but I couldn’t be sure because I never seemed to take the same hall twice. Nor could I reliably say how many floors there were, or if these were floors in the conventional sense, as some staircases were only a half flight in length before stopping abruptly and leading to yet another hallway.
    I noticed something else strange about the house, too: there were no maids, no housekeeper. There was no sign that there was anyone in the house except Adair and the two women, and yet someone had to be taking care of the place. A house this size undoubtedly needed a number of