Artie and Claudia walked down a seldom-traveled aisle of the Warehouse, doing inventory on obscure artifacts. Artie was droning on, lecturing, and Claudia was walking behind him, bored.

Artie stopped dead in his tracks, causing Claudia to run into him. "Ooof! Jeez, Artie, what gives?" she asked, bracing her hand on a shelf to keep from falling. "You had at least another twenty minutes of talking left."

Shooting her a scowl, he checked his inventory manifest and said, "These artifacts have been moved." He pointed to a black curled-up whip and a set of leather cuffs. "Those belong in aisle seven." Artie sighed, putting on a second pair of purple gloves. "I hate it when the Warehouse moves things."

Claudia leaned in for a closer look. "Whips and chains, eh? Kinky." She looked back at Artie with a wicked grin and raised one eyebrow, making Artie glare at her. She was about to say something else when the whip darted in her direction. Claudia jumped back and bumped into Artie again.

He gave her a grim smile. "Those are very dangerous 'whips and chains,' Claudia. They belonged to the Marquis de Sade."

Claudia's eyes widened and she went pale. "Are you serious?" She stepped behind Artie, unconsciously putting him between her and the artifacts, her hands shaking slightly as a stab of fear went through her. "Those belonged to the Marquis?" she asked in a small voice.

Artie nodded as she moved behind him. "Stay back a bit. You're having a reaction to the artifact's aura and provoking it," he said as he opened a neutralizer bag. "I'm not surprised; these items aren't female-friendly."

Claudia took a deep breath and released it slowly. When her shaking stopped, she asked, "Hey, um, Artie, are two layers of gloves gonna be enough? I could go get you some tongs or a gallon of goo or something."

Artie shook his head and chuckled. "No, I should be fine." He picked up the whip and coiled it tightly so it would fit neatly into the neutralizer bag. "The whip jumped at you, but it doesn't seem to be too riled up by me."

Artie spoke too soon; as he went to drop the whip in the bag, the end snaked out and wrapped itself around his bare forearm, biting into his skin. He hissed in pain and fell against the shelf, gasping. Claudia jumped away when Artie threw his head back and roared, sounding terrified and triumphant. He tilted his head up and tore off his purple gloves.

Claudia went to stop him, but she froze when she saw Artie's face. His crooked smile was wild, and he had madness in his eyes. He leaped to his feet and reached for Claudia. She tried to dodge his grip, but Artie caught a handful of hair at the back of her head and jerked her to him, growling deep in his throat when she cried out in pain.

Claudia turned on him, trying to kick Artie's legs out from under him, but he danced aside, avoiding her feet. He pulled her close to him and hissed in her ear, "Struggle all you want, flame-haired wench. Nothing will stop my whip from tearing your flesh."

Claudia gathered her strength and rammed her elbow back into Artie's solar plexus as hard as she could, knocking the wind out of him and freeing his grip on her hair. Artie doubled over and fell to his knees, a groan escaping his lips. Claudia whirled around to make sure she hadn't really hurt him, but Artie was already getting up. His face was a mask of shifting agony, one second screaming, one second laughing, one second grimacing in anguish. Artie stepped towards her, stumbling from the inner struggle, and when he looked up at her, he used his last ounce of willpower to gasp, "Claudia, run."

Leena puttered around the B&B, dusting this, straightening that. She cast an eye on the dining room table, making sure everything was as it should be. She closed her eyes and reached forward with her mind, casting a vision on the table of who would be sitting there next. She saw Pete coming in with a class of milk. "I'm going to spill it," the ghostly Pete in her vision said, so Leena got out a coaster and a stack of napkins and set them next to where Pete would be in a few minutes. Leena extended her vision a bit further and saw Myka sitting down at the head of the table with her laptop and knock off a knife. "It will stab me in the foot," the ghostly Myka said, so Leena cleared away the silverware to make room.

Leena pushed her vision even further to see what Artie would need, and she was startled to see him sitting in the Warehouse office with his head in his hands, his body wracked by great heaving sobs of guilt. She walked into her vision to sit beside Artie.

"Artie, what's wrong?"

Artie looked at her and held out his hands for her to see. "I going to kill her, Leena. With these hands," he said, palms up, "I'm going to kill her. Then, once I've realized what I've done, I'm going to kill myself."

Leena snapped herself out of her vision. She gathered a spare Tesla and her keys, and at the last moment, she felt the urge to grab a small box sitting on one of the side shelves in the dining room. She ran to her car and drove as fast as possible to the Warehouse, praying to whomever would listen that she would be there in time.