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Nick grimaced, but he nodded. “Alright. Let’s go.”
Inside was creepy, to say the least. None of them spoke, but it was dark, gloomy, and there was a suffocating silence that filled the entrance hall. Three doors were boarded up, and the only way they could go was up the rickety staircase.
Every wooden step creaked, and several of them bent slightly as they were stepped on, softened by age and neglect. The wood barely shifted under Cara, and it creaked under Jay’s weight, but Nick was bigger, and by the time they neared the top, he was waiting for one of the steps to crack and break beneath him.
Nick noticed that the windows were all sealed up. Not just curtains drawn - they were covered with boards and black-out materials.
It looked like a homemade attempt to seal the windows and block out the sunlight, but as they moved further into the building, it grew more professional. Instead of being boarded up, the glass was covered with thick black material. Nick didn’t know what it was, but it did a great job of keeping the sunshine out.
He stopped beside one of the windows, touching the black material with his finger. It felt like thick paper had been glued to the window, but he still couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Nothing, yet,” Cara whispered.
He turned to her. Her hands were extended slightly, sensing things in the air that Nick couldn’t understand.
Ahead of her, Jay murmured his agreement. They were both doing some kind of witch thing to sense danger, Nick guessed, but he couldn’t do that, so he kept his eyes sharp and scanned every shadow and corner for threats.
It was too easy. It had to be.
Cara stopped on the next floor. “I think I sense Brett. There’s a human below us. Maybe a few floors down? I’m not sure. We need to find a way down to the next level or the basement.”
“It’s a good thing we went upstairs, then,” Nick whispered.
Jay looked back at him. “Is now the time for sarcasm?”
“It’s a coping mechanism.”
They kept moving, and Nick spotted something in the next room. It was a large drawing room, the kind of thing that didn’t exist these days. Like something out of a movie from a hundred years ago.
He glanced around the dust-covered furniture, cobwebs, stained rugs and rotted wood floor. It clearly hadn’t been renovated in decades, and he would have guessed it was abandoned entirely, except he could see the paths in the dust from people walking through it again and again.
The only thing that didn’t fit was the lighting. Instead of lanterns or torches, or primitive versions of electricity, there were modern light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. They were weak and a lot of them were cracked and broken, but enough of them still worked, so the room was filled with eerie, pale artificial light.
Nick spotted the stone fireplace, and he crossed the room, picking up the iron poker propped against it. He tested the weight in his hand and nodded to himself. It was surprisingly heavy, and he decided it would be more than enough to take down a vampire if he needed to.
“No fire,” Cara murmured, looking up at the light bulbs.
“Are vampires vulnerable to fire?” Nick asked.
“Everything’s vulnerable to fire,” Jay said. “Obviously.”
Nick glared at his back. “Are you really-”
The door crashed open ahead of them and several pale-faced people lunged into the room. Nick yelled and the witches threw up their hands, drawing their magic.
***
Chapter 19 - Nick
Nick swung wildly at the first vampire. He dodged it, but he was forced back, and it gave Cara and Jay time to use their magic.
Jay threw out his hands and a dust-covered armchair lifted into the air and hurled towards them. Three of the vampires jumped out of the way, scattering like bowling pins, but one of them was too slow. The chair hit him and knocked him back.
Another vampire lunged at Nick, swiping at him with sharp claws and forcing Nick to swing again, trying to keep some distance between them.
Cara conjured fire in both hands, and every vampire turned to her with a vicious snarl. Their dark eyes locked on her. Cara threw a fireball at the nearest one, and he tried to avoid it, but the flames caught his arm. She twisted her hand, and the flames billowed and consumed him. He screamed and stumbled away as he flailed wildly.
Two other vampires grabbed a huge bookcase and lifted it off the ground. It wasn’t possible, but they heaved it into the air over their heads.
