The theft wasn’t as easy as it looked. Charles had ended up stumbling around in the dark college restoration classroom at UCLA, which he thought he knew by heart. He was fairly certain that someone had cleaned up the scraps of leather and scrambled projects of delicate chunks of paper, then rearranged the furniture. He knew this because he had kneecapped himself on a particularly vicious chair, and the tables’ cool metal surface was clear when he’d half fallen on it.


    Squinting into the dark made a familiar tingle of unease run up his spine, and he backed up a few steps, patting his pockets until he found his new black penlight that had little purple and green flames up the sides. His friend Lena had given it to him at the graduation just a few hours ago. Bouncing up to him and shoving a brown paper bag at him. It was cinched with sparkly pink washi tape tied in a bow.


    “I got you something,” she said, “Before you go back to Colorado! I hope you don’t mind the wrapping. I had a catastrophe with the paper!”


    Then, while he was unwrapping it, Lena couldn’t hold in the surprise anymore and burst out, “It’s a tiny flashlight! You know how you told us that books were your passion and that when you were little you’d keep one under your bed so you could read books under the covers? Now that you have your Archival Science Master''s, you can use it to read or find books or restore books whenever!”


    “Why would he need a penlight for that?” Brent, another one of their mutual friends, had laughed.


    Charles protested that he loved the gift, which was true. He also hadn’t been sure when he’d actually use a penlight, but the thought was sweet.


    He sighed, weighing the small light in his hand. He didn’t think his first time turning it on would be because he was going to steal a book. But it was necessary. He was supposed to have left campus by now since he had graduated. On top of that, it was also after hours for studying in this building, so turning the lights on in this room would look suspicious.


    He shivered as he took a few more steps into the room. The penlight was surprisingly bright, although it only illuminated a small circle in a way that washed out familiar colors. The tiny wavering circle of light didn’t feel like enough. The shadows stretched too far and seemed to fill up the room and close in on him, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The book he’d come to steal was definitely still here, and whatever was trapped inside couldn’t get to him. Not quite yet. He just had to hope he could find it before he got within the hidden thing’s reach.


    He felt something cold bump his arm and yelped. However, the wildly swinging penlight only illuminated a medium-sized, stocky brown and black Airedale Terrier with her eyebrows raised in bemusement. He let out a sigh of relief, patting the quiet dog’s red work vest with the name Mitzey stitched in clean white letters next to the black seizure-alert dog patch on the shoulder of the vest. She blinked up at him with melted chocolate eyes, her stoic, flappy triangle ears alert from her position next to the closed door behind him, probably informing him in dog language to be less clumsy during his next break-in.


    She nosed impatiently at the rest of the room, anticipating his next command. Mitzey helped him hunt down strange puzzle creatures, which Charles called Enigmas, that only he and Mitzey were able to see. There were no other humans who could see Enigmas. At least… no one that he knew of. He’d told a few people about the creatures when he was younger, but none of them believed him, and he hadn’t told anyone since. Instead, he’d settled into a routine with Mitzey as his confidant. She would find them, and he would solve them to keep them from hurting people.


    The Enigma hiding somewhere in the dark was only a Structural Enigma, rather than a more dangerous and sentient Feral Enigma, so it would be easy to find. Structural Enigmas always acted mechanically; most of the time, they couldn’t even move independently.


    Mitzey’s tags jingled as she padded over to him, pulling him out of his thoughts. He could tell by the set of her ears that she was pleased she didn’t have to wander around in the dark.


    “Ready, girl?” He scratched the large dog’s triangular ears. She flicked an ear in his direction by way of response. Charles was thankful for the dog’s presence. The silence, the darkness that seemed to press in around his little circle of light, and, well, what he was going to steal transformed the rather bland room that smelled like paper, leather, glue, and the chemical smell of leather dye into something sinister.


    The beam alighted on the empty tables, and Charles’s heart dropped. “Damn it, Mitz. They moved the books.”


    Mitzey blinked up at him, then padded into the shadows around the edge of a table to his left. Charles picked his way carefully through the chairs, sweeping his penlight over the main worktables.


    He was so focused on searching for the book that he almost fell over Mitzey when she stopped, tail up, nose pointing at a small table tucked in the back of the room with several neatly arranged books. They had originally been badly damaged and had been donated to the university to help students learn book restoration. There were six in total, and all of them had brand-new spines that exuded the fresh smell of leather and a hint of glue.


    “Enigma, Mitz. Find the Enigma.” Charles whispered, glancing down at his dog.


    Mitzey stood more clearly at attention, ears and tail up, her velvety nose twitching. Then, she circled the table, sniffing at the edge. When she reached the furthest corner, snuffling up at the book above, she froze, glaring up at the table above her. She glanced at Charles, then up at the book.


    “Good girl!” Charles caught her service dog vest. “Back up, I’ve got it.”


    He kept his flashlight trained on the book Mitzey had alerted him to. The damaged spine had been repaired with a leather binding and stained a tasteful rusty color to match the book’s original cover. Other than that, it didn’t look any different than the other books, although, now that Mitzey had picked it out, he could feel it exuding a low thrum of power that had set the hairs on the back of his neck prickling since the moment he’d stepped in the room.


    “Stay,” Charles told Mitzey, pulling on a pair of faux leather gardening gloves. He unzipped the largest pocket on his backpack and set it near the edge of the table. Creeping closer to the book, he felt another jolt of discomfort travel down his spine. For one second, he thought he caught the out-of-place smell of still-green woodchips.


    He took a deep breath, fighting off the lingering anxiety, and reached for the book.


    A tendril of red snapped through the cover.


    Charles yanked his hand back as it whipped towards his wrist. The tendril narrowly missed and retreated back beneath the cover, leaving a long scratch on the back of his gloves. Mitzey flashed her teeth at the book. Charles settled the quiet dog down by scratching one of her ears.


    Charles frowned, running a finger over the scratch. It could probably cut right through the lining of my backpack. I don’t have anything else to transport it in. I’ll just have to dismantle it here.


    Charles let out a slow breath and reached for the book again, this time flicking open the cover. He yanked his hand back and stepped back quickly, but the page only contained the publishing information. The author’s name glared at him from what would have been a title page on a normal book. This one was an older journal, subsequently only marked by a number.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    He let out a huff of breath, mumbling, “It’s locked onto a specific page, isn’t it?”


    Adjusting the penlight in his hand so it wasn’t facing the book, he crouched beside the table.


    Mitzey settled back into an uneasy sit as Charles took another breath. He set the light down on the table at an angle so he could still see, but he would have both hands free to turn the book carefully so it rested on its new spine. Just touching it sent odd tingles up his arms, which made him want to drop the thing, but instead, he opened it roughly at the spot where he’d seen the flash of scarlet light.


    Another tendril came lashing out. Charles dodged the swipe, but it doubled back around and curled around his right wrist starting to squeeze into the insufficient gardening gloves, dragging him closer to the book. He could start to feel the stinging edge of what felt like a razor against his skin. He dropped the page, gritting his teeth, and peeled the tendril away from his wrist with his left hand. The tendril writhed between his fingers, digging through the gloves in places. Then, just as quickly as it had come, it ripped out of his fingers, leaving long bloody scratches down his fingers and vanishing back into the book. A small crimson stain marked the place where it disappeared.


    “I think that’s enough of that.” Charles snatched an awl off of the leatherworking portion of the tool assortment and used it to shuffle through a few pages.


    Finally, Charles got his first good look at the Enigma. It was embedded in the center of page 122 and was smaller than he’d suspected, only about the size of his fist. It was a solid dodecahedron made of twined lucent threads that shifted and wove threateningly at him.


    He’d just have to take the Enigma apart. It would be easier than taking the book now. The puzzle looked relatively simple: untangle the threads that made it up, and it would most likely unravel and dissipate like smoke. He’d done it thousands of times before.


    However, as soon as Charles reached out a hand to one of the threads, they all sprouted long spines, and the Enigma pulsed an angry scarlet. Mitzey pressed herself against his leg, tail straightening.


    “No, you don’t.” Charles snapped at the Enigma. He tugged out a thread on the edge of the top face of the dodecahedron using the reach of the leatherworking tool. He tracked the same thread to another point and carefully tugged that point free, too.


    Damn it! Damn it! I don’t know if I can solve it before someone notices I’m here. It’s a lot more complex than I expected. Charles gritted his teeth and tried to keep his hand from shaking as he prodded the last tangle. If he were caught, he’d be kicked out of the building, and this Enigma seemed very inclined to stab people.


    Charles silently swore; the thread wasn’t budging. He switched his grip on the awl and dug the tip under the thread between it and the last tangle, and yanked as hard as he could, gripping the edge of the table for leverage.


    It dislodged and retracted its spines with a sickening pop, disintegrating into a dusty grey powder as it unraveled, collapsing in on itself. Charles let out a sigh of relief, the tightness draining out of his shoulders. He sank into the nearest chair.


    Now, all he had to do was go back to his dorm, pack everything up, make sure his roommate had cleaned everything out of the bathroom, which Charles sincerely doubted, and get a decent night’s sleep before he had to fly out to Colorado in the morning…


    Charles frowned. The odd, jittery feeling Charles had at touching the book had suddenly intensified. The darkness seemed to press at him, feeling thick and oily.


    Mitzey stood up, teeth bared, as she stared up at the table.


    He glanced back at the book. As the shape crumbled, it revealed a dark, swirling black something beneath the dodecahedral outer shell. The thing was round and shifted under the light.


    “What the hell?” Charles’s eyes widened. He would guess that it was a second part of the Enigma, but the Enigma had already crumbled away to dust, which only ever happened to Structural Enigmas when they’d been solved. Whatever the thing was, it had to be something else. An artifact of some sort? Or, worse, another Enigma?


    Whatever it was, it didn’t have any obvious structure that he could solve, which didn’t determine anything for certain. He cautiously picked up the penlight and adjusted the leatherworking tool he was still holding uneasily. He wasn’t sure if he’d need it. Sometimes, Enigmas with no clear solution could be taken apart with the right poem, song, or drawn patterns, but he might be missing something.


    Or, it might just be a strange artifact. Not an Enigma at all. It hadn’t moved yet.


    Charles cautiously backed towards the leatherworking table, keeping the shifting smoky ball in front of him. It didn’t move. But something about looking at the thing made him feel like hundreds of centipedes were crawling over him. Still moving slowly, Charles risked a quick glance at the leatherworking rack so he could put the awl he was using as an improvised puzzle-solving device back where it belonged.


    Mitzey let out a full-throated snarl, something he’d never heard the quiet dog do. Before he could react, something heavy hit him in the side. Charles felt the penlight slip from his hand as he tumbled onto the table. The edge hit him with a sharp pain in the ribs that temporarily took the air out of him. He couldn’t breathe, and it felt like the air was getting thicker, darkness slithering in circles around him.


    It’s definitely a second Enigma. A Feral one, at that. Just my luck. Charles thought as his breathing evened out, although he was still wheezing a bit. A desperate thought hit him, and he fumbled at the cold metal countertop for something. Anything. But the impact had sent the tools rolling away.


    The penlight… I can’t see… His thoughts felt blurry, although he could still hear Mitzey growling, which he hoped meant she was okay. The small light was lying on the floor, illuminating the leg of the nearest table. He froze, listening just in case the Enigma was sneaking up for another strike, but there was nothing except Mitzey. He took a risk and scrambled for the light.


    The Enigma didn’t stop him, which he didn’t like. He flashed the light at the book. Sure enough, the strange shifting globe was gone, and he had the odd prickling feeling that something in the dark room was watching him.


    “Well, Fuck.” Charles coughed.


    “Hello? Is there someone in here?” Charles heard his professor’s voice outside the door.


    When did he get here? Charles didn’t know, but it wasn’t important. He had to find the Enigma before it found him.


    “It’s after hours. You can’t be in there.” His professor added.


    How can I convince him to stay outside? Maybe say there was a chemical spill?


    Charles opened his mouth to respond but couldn’t get the lie out. In the sudden silence, there was a small clacking sound behind him. Like something sharp and hard against metal. Slowly, as if not to startle a wild animal, Charles turned around. He shone the penlight on the binding table.


    A dark shape was crouched on the shiny metal surface. The globe-like structure had unfolded into a different shape that looked more like an animal of some sort. But it was fragmented, like looking at the silhouette of a predator through a spinning prism, only in shades of smokey black and gray. The only clear thing was its eyes, which were a startling yellow, and they narrowed at the light.


    The Enigma flung itself at Charles.


    The next thing Charles remembered was lying on the floor, the penlight knocked out of his hand. Mitzey howled. Mitzey only ever barked to alert him of a seizure. He’d never heard her howl.


    A professor’s voice said… something. He couldn’t make out the words. If it even was the professor’s voice. Everything felt like it was spinning, and his vision was fragmented. Whirling patterns that he couldn’t quite make out, like a black-and-white kaleidoscope.


    Charles tried to shout for help, but he couldn’t seem to move. The muscles in his throat had cemented into place. With every shallow breath, the air felt heavier.


    Then, the classroom lights came on. That’s when he noticed the black spots in his vision, and the heavy feeling started to recede.


    “Foolish.” The Enigma spoke in a whisper that was too close for comfort, in a voice that sounded like jagged glass. “You were lucky. But luck does not last.”


    The kaleidoscopic vision disappeared, leaving only the large dark spots.


    Where did it go? I have to destroy it before it hurts someone else! Charles thought wildly, trying to move. But the struggle caused the dark spots to spread until they took over. Even Mitzey’s desperate, miserable howl vanished as Charles slipped into unconsciousness.