Faerie by Jenna Grey

with a great deal of gunfire in it, so she wasn’t a threat – if she needed the loo, she’d use the downstairs one. She could hear Kieran in his bedroom, rapping along to whatever artist was playing on his iPod. She doubted she’d see him again until morning, but if he did come out and catch her, she would just say that she was doing some sort of science project and she’d bribe him to keep quiet with more downloads.
    The bathroom was down on the first floor, which meant bumping the damn thing back down the stairs and up again, but there was really no other way she could do it. She snuck down the stairs and looked both ways, making sure the coast was clear, and dragged the chain down, wincing at every bump and rattle.
    You are on a fool’s errand.
    A voice in her head, dark and chilling.
    She looked around, casting a frightened glance into the heavy shadows on the landing.
    “May Hecate bring down her wrath upon you,” she hissed over her shoulder, trying to keep the fear from her voice. It was a curse her mother had taught her and just about the worst curse any witch could lay on someone.
    She looked down the darkened hall to the heavy shadows at the furthest end, close by the bathroom door and would swear that she saw them moving.
    You cannot win this game.
    “Sod off!” she snapped, in a fierce whisper. Not exactly a witch’s curse, but very cathartic all the same. She felt a sudden wave of sickness wash over her. The image of chess pieces sprang bright to her mind and this time it was the white pieces that lay toppled, as the Black King towered over them. She forced back the dizziness, the feeling of overwhelming terror and kept moving towards the bathroom. That voice had come from so close by, a whisper in her ear, so close that she could almost feel the chill of its breath on her face.
    “You can’t stop me,” she whispered. “I won’t let you stop me.”
    She thought she heard a laugh.
    The darkness around her suddenly seemed so much darker, so much more intense, as if it was trying to swallow her up. She could see the light coming golden and comforting through the glass panel at the top of Kieran’s door; it threw a glowing square of butter yellow on the hall carpet, and Lily’s immediate urge was to run to it and let it wrap her in its bright warmth. She had to risk turning on the hall light; there was no way she was going willingly into that darkness. She flicked the switch and the bulb flashed its death throes, and plunged her back into darkness. Lily muttered a curse under her breath.
    “Fine, if that’s how you want to play it, just fine,” she murmured.
    She mumbled another thousand curses under her breath, and looked back along into the darkness. There was movement there, she was sure of it. At least that confirmed one thing – those creatures did not want her to have this new weapon. She decided that she had to risk it, hoping against hope that whatever was lying in that darkness could do her no real harm while she was protected by the very thing they were trying to keep from her. There was a certain irony in it.
    As she got nearer to the bathroom, she felt a great coldness brush over her, as if someone had opened a door close by into some Arctic waste. She shuddered, her arms coming up in goose bumps, her scalp prickling and her hair standing on end. She could feel something like an electrical current running through her entire body, tingling on her skin like a thousand tiny pin pricks, nipping at her.
    Something touched her, just a brush against her shoulder, a shadow hand reaching out of the darkness, and she jumped back, turning to glare at whatever it was. She thought she saw the vague shape of a hand reaching out of the darkness, but it was gone before she could register it properly.
    She finally reached the bathroom and dragged the chain inside, without putting on the light until she was safely inside and the door firmly closed. She could still hear Kieran in his room, rapping