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“Get back in the house,” V barked. “Right now.”
The servant snapped to attention, like he was coming out of a trance, and as he’d been trained, immediately shot inside. Two seconds later, the shutter protocol was engaged, everything locking down.
That fucking doggen was a star.
V slowly scanned the driveway, and then looked out to the street beyond. As Rhage and Tohr both outed weapons, Tohr spoke softly into his earpiece.
A moment later, three other brothers came on scene.
No one moved.
Spitting out the hand-rolled, V flared his nostrils. No scent anywhere. Nothing moving on the property.
Somewhere to the east, a dog barked, and then the wind swirled by, carrying the smell of fertilizer like some gardener had started prepping for annuals planting. A car passed by out on the street, heading deeper into the neighborhood. Then another car approached—
And stopped at the end of the driveway.
Its turn signal started flashing, after which the tiny, road-legal-for-no-good-reason Matchbox entered onto the narrow stretch of pavement that led right up to Vishous.
The gray-and-black Mini Cooper came to a halt, and the sound of its passenger’s side window getting put down seemed loud as a scream.
Eddie, the fallen angel, stuck out his head. “You still okay with us parking here while we’re gone?”
V glanced around. “Yeah.”
“You sure about that?” The angel’s brows went up. “Because if it’s really a ‘yes,’ I think you need to lower your weapon and take a step back out of the way?”
With a nod, V got his reverse on, but he kept his gun right where it was.
When the proverbial coast was clear in front of the Mini, Eddie put his window up, and the pocket-sized vehicle was piloted so it went grille in to the left bay of the garage. Then the engine was killed.
The two angels both got out—and V knew exactly when they keyed into the disturbance. They went statue, and swiveled their heads around to stare across at him.
It felt like an eternity, all of them static in their boots, so many weapons up, nobody moving their bodies, everyone’s eyes roaming over the house and yard. At least Fritz was well off the property by now. Per protocol, the butler would have gone down to the subterranean bedchambers, hit the escape tunnel, and proceeded underground.
He should be three estates over to the east at the moment, getting into a bulletproof Range Rover and driving away—
All at once, the warning sensation was gone. Sure as a light was extinguished when power was lost, so was the cutoff that distinct: Here. Gone.
Binary.
And they all felt it at once, tension easing in shoulders, Adrian the angel muttering a curse of relief.
Except no one seemed to be able to recognize what the presence had been.
V went over to the back door. Putting his forefinger on a discreet keypad, he disengaged the lock, opened the way in, and peered into the kitchen. It was weird to check out the all-normal, the counters free of clutter and wiped off, the cabinets shut tight, none of the burners on the stove sporting flames.
He felt like the Audience House was now a mess, everything ransacked like a robbery had taken place.
Entering, he swept his gun left to right, even as he realized that was stupid. For bullets to work, even the ones he had in his magazine, ones that carried not just lead but water from the fountain in what had been his mahmen’s private quarters, you had to have a physical target to shoot at.
There was none that he could see.
At the pantry, he back-flatted himself and reached out to push open the door. Willing the lights on inside, he popped his head around the jamb.
Nothing but commercially canned goods, homemade jars of preserved peaches, boxes of pasta, and bags of flour, sugar, and coffee.
As he continued on through the meal staging area and into the dining room, all of the other brothers went out the far side of the kitchen, proceeding down the hall that led to the front entrance, foyer, and staircase. He tracked their progress through the creaking of old floors, just as he knew they were doing the same for his footfalls.
The dining room was empty.
Everything where it should be.
He strode across the great Persian rug to the partially open double doors. Peering through them, he saw Rhage working the waiting area like it was a crime scene, those baby blues assessing everything.
When he and Hollywood reconvened at the front door, John Matthew and Qhuinn came out of the back parlor and held up a closed fist for “clear.” V did the same.
Tohr was the one who went upstairs, but he wasn’t alone. Sahvage dematerialized up ahead of him, re-forming on the top landing.
As Rhage looked over, the question in that brilliant aqua stare wasn’t something V could answer.
He had no fucking clue what that had been out there.
