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I heard nothing other than the gentle ticking of a clock. There was no breathing, and no sign of life, in the immediate vicinity. Only the scent of new death.
And yet... I wasn't alone in this place.
Someone was here. Someone other than the zombies.
Maybe Jacques was still alive. Maybe Joe was. A street kid would have the smarts to get the hell out of Dodge when death came calling.
Or maybe it was neither of them. Maybe it was the sorceress waiting to spring her trap.
I grabbed my laser from my back pocket and switched it on. The soft whine as it powered up filled the edgy silence, but nothing or no one moved as a result of it. If the zombie master was here, then she wasn't too worried by the weapon.
I crept forward, my footsteps soft on the dusty floorboards. At the doorway into the living room I stopped, back against the wall and nostrils flaring as I sought to capture some of the room's fainter scents. It was pretty much useless-the aroma of death and evil was just too great for my senses to handle. And it didn't do my stomach a whole lot of good, either.
I licked suddenly dry lips, then slipped low and fast into the room, laser raised as I scanned for trouble.
Only the broken remnants of life remained as a reminder of its presence.
Like our previous vamp victims, Jacques had lost his head. It had rolled to one side of the champagne-colored sofa, his blue eyes staring at what remained of his body. Unlike the others, though, his torso was intact, and his blood had created a wide dark pool around his body. There were also arterial sprays up the wall. Obviously, the sorceress had no intention-or no time-to save the blood from this kill. Meaning this was probably a straight vampire kill rather than some form of bloody retribution.
Not far from his feet lay a zombie. Its head was laying at an odd angle and all its limbs seemed to have been broken. Even so it lived, because its fingers were twitching against the carpet, as if it were trying to drag itself forward. Maybe it didn't realize its partner had already completed their mission.
That partner was close. The overriding scent of death and decay might be playing havoc with my olfactory senses, but my psychic senses were in fine working order and they were tingling with awareness. Of course, they didn't actually tell me what was in the house with me. That would be far too helpful.
I crept forward, carefully avoiding the blood. Jacques's dead gaze seemed to follow me and chills ran down my spine. The closer I got to the body, the stronger the scent of evil became. It seemed to be centered around Jacques himself, and yet he wasn't evil. I'd met him-talked to him-many times at the Directorate, and never once had I received this sort of feedback.
So why was I getting it now?
My gaze scanned the floor around him. Maybe it was the dust. It was on his face and sprinkled across the carpet, and given that the dust had also been present at the vamp murders, there had to be a connection. And yet here it felt slightly different. There was another scent entwined within the evil of it, and it was different from the aroma so evident at the other vamp murders.
But I didn't have the time to stand here and examine it. I had to find Joe. Had to find out who, or what, was in this house with me.
I went through the next doorway fast and found myself in the kitchen. There were vegetables on the counter and a pot of water bubbling away on the stove.
The scent of evil and decay wasn't as strong here, suggesting the zombie and whoever was controlling him hadn't come this far. I checked the next doorway anyway-it turned out to be a small laundry area. There were clothes dumped on the top of the washer, and they smelled of Joe.
I retreated back through the kitchen and then the living room, and out into the hall. The stairs waited, leading up into the silence of the next floor. I climbed slowly, keeping my back to the wall and my laser aimed at the level above me.
Nothing jumped out at me. Nothing moved.
Yet the certainty that something or someone was up here grew, and tension twined through my muscles, making my fingers twitch against the laser's trigger. The weapon whined, the sound resting uneasily against the silence.
I reached the landing and stopped. Shadows filled the upper hallway, but nothing waited within. Four doors led off this corridor-three to the left, and one to the right, beyond the stairwell.
I went through the first doorway low, dropping to one knee, laser held at the ready as I scanned the room. It was a bedroom, and smelled more like Jacques than Joe. Not that he would have been using the bed. Vampires didn't actually need to sleep, even during the day. They just needed to keep out of direct sunlight, which is why vamps made good guards in these sorts of situations-as long as you kept them fed. Otherwise, snacking on the neck of the person they were supposed to be protecting became something of an issue.
I moved back out into the hall and into the next room. Another bedroom, and one that smelled like Joe. He wasn't here though, and neither was the source of the evil I was still sensing.
Which left two rooms.
Two rooms with their doors opposite each other.
I didn't like it, even though I couldn't sense anything living in either of those rooms. I couldn't sense anything dead, either, though I sure as hell was smelling it.
And the magic-it was much stronger here. It burned across my skin-a foul thing that made me want to take a shower and wash the sensation away.
Something waited in one of those two rooms. Something that had evil on its mind.
For all of two seconds I thought about firing the laser through the walls into both rooms, doing a sweep, and killing whatever waited in either of them. But I had no idea where Joe was-if he was still alive, that is-and until I did know, I couldn't risk anything that might kill him. And a random laser shot would certainly do that.
