AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Camil e leaned against the counter. "I don't know. Can't be vampire if they're out in the daylight. But you're right--she did seem terribly vivid, although she responded to my glamour."
"Unless she was faking it." With that unsettling thought, we headed into what turned out to be the living room. Again, al the proper furniture, but no sign that people actual y lived there. Everything was tidy, neat, dusted . . . but no personal pictures, no personal effects, nothing that clued us in on just who Van and Jaycee were.
"I don't like this," Camil e said. "It's . . . too antiseptic. We have to hurry, though. More than ever, I'm thinking they have some warning system and may be on their way now. And considering what we're not finding, I'm feeling awful y uneasy here. Look for a basement. What better place to hide someone?"
We began peeking in doors, looking for steps leading down. The first two I opened led to smal rooms--what looked like a parlor, and a bath--again, both with nothing to indicate this was anything but an empty house. But third time's the charm, and I opened the door to find a set of steps. I motioned to Camil e. She held up her hand and flipped out her cel phone.
"I'm cal ing home--letting them know where we are . . . just in case."
I didn't like thinking just in case, but it was a good idea. She left a message with Iris, tel ing her if she didn't hear from us in twenty minutes, to send somebody looking. After she stowed her phone, we headed down the steps.
"This is too reminiscent of when we fought the hel hound for comfort," I whispered as I found a broom--new and untouched--to use for a tapping rod.
"At least this time we haven't caught the scent of Demonkin."
" Yet. You can't believe those two haven't been cavorting with demons." Van and Jaycee seemed the perfect couple to cal in a demon here or there for favors.
"Believe it or not, not al evil comes from the Sub Realms. There are plenty of evil people in the world, plenty of evil beings in the astral."
I tapped on the first couple of steps with the broom handle. They were stable, so down we went, our conversation fal ing to the wayside as we descended further into the basement of the house. I glanced around. No cobwebs? That was impossible. Every basement had cobwebs. Unless they had some magical housecleaning service that spiffed everything up with the blink of an eye.
The steps seemed to go on forever--this basement was deep, deeper than our own, which housed Menol y's lair, deeper than the one in which Chase had been imprisoned. But after awhile, we came to a door at the bottom.
I jiggled the handle. "Locked. I don't know if I can pick this one."
Camil e held her pen-sized flashlight on the keyhole as I worked it, first one way, then another until final y, the lock sprang.
As the door edged open, a bright flash blinded me, and I cried out, ducking to one side. Camil e let out a sharp scream as the wood burst into flames, licking out at us. She turned tail and scrambled away from the stairs, which were acting like a wind tunnel, sucking the flames up toward the top.
I pressed against the wal , and she joined me.
"What do we do? That's magical fire, and I guarantee you, I can't put it out. I don't know how long it wil last--"
But even as she spoke, the flames died down, the blast fading. The door was a pile of charred splinters, but the steps and sides of the basement hadn't caught fire at al . I frowned.
"How the hel did that happen?"
"Magical fire can be geared toward one target. My guess, it was aimed at any living thing in its path. The steps aren't alive. The door charred because of the blast, not because of the fire." She gingerly peeked through the hole in the door. "We were lucky. Let's get a move on. I need to check in with Iris in ten minutes."
We climbed through the hole in the door--there was no use trying to open it anymore, considering only the frame was left intact--and found ourselves in a laboratory. Here, it seemed, the Thomases actual y lived. Or at least worked.
Benches lined the wal s, with beakers and jars, test tubes and powders and Bunsen burners and everything necessary to produce compounds of al sorts. In the center of the room rested a basin large enough to hold a body. Drains were evenly spaced along its length, and what looked to be blood stained the porcelain. I grimaced, realizing they were used to drain away body fluids.
"This is where they make it--the Wolf Briar. They must be working with the coyote shifters--the shifters procure the werewolves and the . . . whatever they are . . . Van and Jaycee do the dissection here. But I don't see any cages, and there doesn't appear to be an inch of wal space leading to any secret chambers.
Camil e stared at the basin in horror. "I've had to learn some pretty graphic and repulsive spel s lately, but we've never touched someone alive. Raising the dead is one thing . . . kil ing the living for spel components is another. There's one way to find out if there's anything behind the lab benches."
With one leap, she was at the edge of the first. She took it in hand and heaved, tipping the table so that al the glass crashed to the floor. Fluids mixed with potions, and there were several smal explosions and hisses as the reagents combined. In another moment, she'd tipped the table entirely, crashing it to the floor amid the broken glass. Then, grabbing a broken piece of wood, she thumped along the wal behind the overturned lab bench.
"Nothing here," she said, moving on to the next.
"Al ow me." I stepped in and sent the next table flying. Again, the crash of glass, the hiss of burning chemicals, and again, nothing behind the wal s. And then the frustration of the situation took hold, and we gutted the place like maniacs, tossing beakers, smashing the glass off before sending the tables sliding across the floor.
"This is for Paulo," I growled . . .
"And this is for Mary Mae and her baby . . ."
By the time we'd destroyed the room, Camil e motioned to her watch. "I need to cal Iris before she sends someone over--"
