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“There is nothing in there other than vermin.”
“So why does it feel like a predator is about to pounce?”
“I do not know.”
“Well,” Jak said, from the other side of the car, “we’re not going to find out what’s going on by standing here.”
“No.” I hesitated and glanced at Azriel. “You really can’t get in there?”
“The wards are set just within the building walls. Destroy them, and I can enter.”
“If I do that, whoever set them will likely feel it.”
“Yes.” He half raised a hand and, just for a moment, he leaned closer, as if to kiss me. Then he stepped back. “Be careful.”
“Coward,” I muttered, then spun and walked away.
“So.” Jak’s voice was conversational as he fell in step beside me. “There’s absolutely nothing going on with that reaper and you, is there?”
“Just drop it, Jak.”
“Thought so.”
“Then you thought wrong.”
He chuckled softly. I ignored him and kept walking. There were no doors on this side of the building, and all the bars—despite their rusted appearance—were solid. But there were two entrances on West Street—one of them heavily padlocked and apparently leading into an old office area, and the other a roller door over what once must have been a loading bay. The door itself was battered and coated with grime, and the bottom edge had been torn away from the guides. Obviously, this was where the homeless had been getting in.
I took a long, slow breath that didn’t ease the tension knotting my stomach, then squatted and squeezed through the gap.
The room beyond the roller door was still and quiet. I shifted to one side so Jak could enter, and studied the immediate area. A platform ran around three sides of the dock, and there were stairs down at the far end that led up to it. I could neither see nor smell anything or anyone out of the ordinary, and yet there was something here. Something that crawled along the edges of that other part of me—the bit that saw the reapers and was sensitive to the feel of magic.
Jak hunkered down beside me. “Anything?”
His voice was little more than a whisper. Maybe he felt the closeness of something, too. Azriel? Can you hear me? There was no response. Obviously, the magic was broader than he’d suspected. I shook my head and said, “You?”
“Just rats and rubbish.”
“Yeah.” I pulled the satchel around and gave him a couple of Ilianna’s little blue bottles. “Put these in your pocket. If there are hellhounds here, pop the cork and use the water. It’ll deter them.”
“So holy water really does work?”
I glanced at him. “You investigate paranormal events and happenings, and you don’t know this?”
“Reporters are natural skeptics. Until I see it, I don’t believe it.”
“You haven’t seen ley lines or the gates to heaven and hell, yet you believe in those.”
He raised his eyebrows in amusement. “No, I believe you believe. I’m still holding out for proof.”
I snorted softly. “You may regret that.”
“Yeah, I usually do. It never stops me, though.”
A truer sentence had never been uttered. I rose and padded forward, still drawing in the scents around us, trying to find some hint of the magic I sensed was here. It might not be related to the ley line, but something was definitely going on in this place.
We followed the loading bay to its end, then carefully went up the steps and headed to the left. Several doors lay ahead. I paused and glanced questioningly at Jak. He hesitated, then pointed to the one in the middle. It was as good as any, I supposed.
I reached for the handle and felt the shimmer of . . . not energy, something else. Something darker. I said, “Be ready. Whatever is going on, I think it’s happening on the other side of that door.”
