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“It confirms that both my mother and I are blind fucking fools.” I thumped the steering wheel. “Damn it, how could he keep something like that a secret for so long? Mom wasn’t an innocent when it came to the arcane—why did she never sense something was wrong until it was altogether too late?”
“The Aedh placed a spell you,” Azriel said. “What makes you think they didn’t also do the same to your mother?”
“I guess. It’s just—” I stopped and shrugged. “I guess I’m just sick of being three steps behind everyone else in this game.”
“It’s possible Mike is not aware that we suspect him. That will play in our favor.”
“Only for as long as it takes him to realize someone broke into his house. He’s going to suspect it was us.”
“Which may or may not matter to him. He needs you, remember, so if it prompts any sort of action, it’s going to be another attempt to ensnare you.”
I glanced down at my hand, remembering the somewhat slick feel of his initial handshake. “Do you think that’s what he was doing in the restaurant?”
“No. I think he was simply trying to uncover both what you knew and what you suspected. I also suspect you will hear from him sooner rather than later, probably with another invitation for dinner.”
“Over which he’ll try to magic me.” I rubbed my wrist and hoped the ribbon bracelet was strong enough to withstand the onslaught of dark magic. “Do you think he’s Lauren?”
Azriel raised his eyebrows. “That is a question you should answer, not me. You know him. I don’t, nor can I read him.”
“I’d like to think he’s not, that we couldn’t be that gullible.” My lips twisted. “But then, I’ve already had more than enough proof of that with Lucian.”
“Everyone is entitled to make a mistake,” Azriel commented sagely. “At least you rectified yours by ridding this world of his presence.”
“Yeah, but revenge didn’t taste as sweet as I’d hoped.”
“It never does.” He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Let’s dwell on the problems we can do something about, not the ones we can’t.”
“Good idea. So where the hell do you think Mike might have gone?”
“We know Lauren has at least two warehouse bolt-holes. It is possible that we have not found all that either of those places conceal.” He shrugged. “Given the relative ease with which we found that first one, it is entirely possible that she allowed us to find what we did in the hope we would then discard it.”
“Then let’s head there and see if we can pick up Mike’s signal.” I started the car and pulled out into the street.
“And if we do? We have no idea whether Mike is merely working for her or if he’s our sorceress herself, but either way, I doubt it would be wise to confront either of them in one of her lairs.”
“No, but at least we’d finally have a concrete lead.” And once the bastard stepped away from protection, well, one way or another, he was ours.
It didn’t take us all that long to cut across to the warehouse. I parked in the street behind the building, then glanced down at the tracker Azriel still held. It was deathly quiet.
Mike wasn’t here.
“It is still worth checking the building,” Azriel said. “The witches are here. If nothing else, we can see how their progress with that second barrier goes.”
I nodded, climbed out of the car, and walked around to the front of the building. It wasn’t much to look at in its current state—the wind rattled the rusted iron roof and whistled through the small, regularly spaced windows, many of which were broken. Like many of the other buildings in the area, its walls were littered with graffiti and tags, and rubbish lay in drifting piles along its length. But its bones were essentially good, and I couldn’t understand why it had lain derelict for so long; it would have made several smashing apartments.
But once again there was an odd, almost watchful stillness about the place. It was a stillness that seemed to affect the immediate surrounds, which were unnervingly quiet. Even the roar of the traffic traveling along nearby Smith Street seemed muted.
I shivered, despite the heat rolling off the man walking so closely beside me. This place had always seemed . . . wrong . . . to me. More so now, perhaps, because I knew what evil its dark interior sheltered.
There were two entrances into the building on West Street. The first one remained heavily padlocked, but the other—a roller door over what had once been a loading bay—was where we’d gotten in previously. Someone had done a rough repair job on the broken section of the door, but the welding didn’t look too good and I didn’t think it would take more than a kick or two to be rid of it. Which was precisely what I did.
I got down on my hands and knees and squeezed through the small hole. The witches had woven an exception into the magic that warded this place to allow Azriel to enter, but it seemed to have a wash-over effect on me, because this time there was very little in the way of resistance or stinging as I crawled through the small gap. I still felt it, but it wasn’t resisting me like it had previously.
I rose and dusted the dirt off my jeans as I scanned the area. The large loading dock and the offices that lined the upper area hadn’t changed, and I couldn’t smell anything in the air that suggested anyone was in this portion of the building.
Azriel rose and stood beside me. “The witches are still here, but I cannot feel the presence of anyone else.”
“I’d normally say that was a good thing, but in this particular case, I’m not sure it is.”
