We walked past some worse-for-wear stairs, the beams of the flashlight highlighting long, dust-covered webs that trailed like a curtain from the ceiling high above. The scent of dead flesh led us to the rear of the house. Ethan pressed open another door, took the flashlight, and had a quick look around.
“Kitchen,” he said. “There’s a cellar door to the right.”
Dead things lived in the cellars, Jimmy had said. I shuddered and had to fight the urge to run, to just get out of this house and away from the evil it sheltered. But if teenagers had the courage to go down those stairs, then I damn well could.
He directed the flashlight’s beam into the cellar door, illuminating the well-worn stairs and the boarded-up walls. The air drifting up was damp, musty, and the scent of flesh and decay stronger. I swallowed heavily and started breathing through my mouth. It only helped a little.
The stairs creaked as we went down them, the sound jarring sharply against the thick silence. The watchfulness of the house seemed to increase the further we descended into the cellar’s darkness and yet I couldn’t pinpoint it to the presence of a vampire. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t near, just that I couldn’t sense it in the stinking air.
The stairs finally met floor. Ethan swept the light across the black, the bright beam pinpointing corners, cobwebs, and shelving stocked with cans and other goods that looked as old as the house. No bones or coffins, though. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not.
“There’s another door over here.” He pointed the light to a right corner, then he reached back with his free hand and wrapped his fingers around mine. “Are you all right?”
For a moment I clung to him, needing the warmth and the strength that flowed from his grip to battle the chill beginning to invade my soul. “Just.”
“You can go upstairs—”
“No,” I cut in. “We both need to confront this evil.”
He didn’t question the certainty in my voice, just squeezed my fingers again then released me. The room seemed darker, more depressing, without his touch.
We went through the second door. Our footsteps echoed and the boards creaked under our weight. It was here we found Jimmy’s bones and coffin.
“These are years old,” Ethan said, picking up what looked like a femur and studying it.
I shuddered. It was bad enough feeling the wisps of agony stirring the air. Touching the bones of the dead would only intensify that connection, and that I didn’t need. I walked over to the coffin sitting against the wall with the lid open. It was squat and fat, and far wider than a normal coffin. And it was made of hardwood that had hastily been banged together and then lined on the inside with what looked like an old blanket. Homemade rather than professional.
“This isn’t the coffin of an adult,” I said, squatting down next to it. Strands of eagerness and darkness rose from the inside of the box, as if the emotions had soaked through the wood over time. “And it belongs to our vampire. But why would a vamp use it when they don’t need to?”
“Maybe she gets off on scaring the crap out of visiting teenagers.” He shrugged and rose. “None of these things is the source of our smell. We need to find that.”
We may have needed to, but I didn’t particularly want to. I might not be able to talk to souls, but I could hear them. Could feel their hopes, their dreams and their deaths lingering on the air, and these particular deaths already felt bad enough. I didn’t know if I could face the pain that waited where their bodies lay.
We walked on. The creaking in the boards increased, until the whole floor seemed to vibrate under each step.
“This doesn’t feel particularly safe,” I muttered.
Ethan stopped again and held out one hand. I wrapped my fingers in his gratefully. It might not be any safer, but damn if I didn’t feel more secure.
A large crack ran across the silence as we moved on. I paused, but Ethan tugged me forward. “I doubt we’d fall very far, even if the flooring gave away,” he said. “There are probably only a couple of inches between the boards and the earth, just for ventilation.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when there was an almighty snap, and the flooring underneath us fell away.
And we were falling, tumbling into deeper darkness.
CHAPTER 4
I HIT EARTH WITH A CRUNCH THAT JARRED EVERY bone from toes to neck, and fell sideways with a gasp. Wood and dust rained around me, and something sharp speared into my leg. I yelped, and scrambled to my hands and feet, moving into the deeper darkness, desperate to get out of the path of the still-falling wood.
“Grace?” Ethan said, his voice little more than a hiss of air. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just gotta stop a cut from bleeding.” I called to my wolf shape, felt the surge of magic roll my body, shifting, changing, and in the process, healing. To my wolf nose, the scents in the air sharpened dramatically, and I knew without even seeing it that bloody death awaited discovery a hairsbreadth away. I shifted shape again and said, “Point the flashlight my way.”
There were several clicks, then light flared across the utter black. I turned. Bodies lay before me. Bodies in various stages of disintegration, some fully fleshed, some not, but all rotting.
And the smell…
My stomach turned and bile rose thick and fast up my throat. I gagged and quickly backed away, not wanting to puke over those who already suffered enough. Not that they’d know, but their ghosts might.
And their ghosts were here, in this room, filling the shadows with their pain and confusion and horror. The sheer force of it flooded my senses, making my whole body shudder and my heart ache.
“My God,” Ethan said softly. “There have to be at least twenty of them.”
The ghosts were stirring, whispering. Warning. I gulped down air, trying to keep calm, trying to keep their shadows and pain at arm’s length.
And then something else stirred out there in the blackness. There was no sound, no shifting of air, nothing to indicate movement. But I felt it all the same.
Evil had woken.
I backed away until I reached Ethan, and slowly reached for the flashlight, directing the bright beam toward the distant shadows ahead.
There was a quick gleam, like the sparkle of a cat’s eyes caught in moonlight, then it was gone.
Evil was on the move.
Ethan swore softly. “Keep behind me,” he said, taking his gun from the holster. The click of the safety being released echoed across the heavy silence. I reached back, freeing the stakes and gripping them tightly.
“Can you smell it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “The reek of decay is so strong it’s overwhelming everything else. You?”
I flared my nostrils, sucking in the foul air, letting it run across my other senses. Even against the thick stink of rotting flesh, the taste of evil could not hide. “It’s to our right, near the wall. Waiting, watching.”
He swept the light in that direction. Again, eyes sparkled briefly before disappearing. “It’s retreating,” I said softly.
“Then let’s follow it to its lair.”
Let’s not, I thought, but followed him onwards anyway. The utter blackness seemed to close in on us, as thick and as heavy as a blanket. The vampire was out there, but it wasn’t running, wasn’t scared. Just moving away, trying to avoid us. Like a kid who knows she shouldn’t be out, I thought, as a chill ran across my skin.
If there was a kid, could there be a parent? Was this evil swirling through the air the sum of two vampires, not one?
The room ended in a shored-up wall. Ethan swept the light left, then right, until the bright beam highlighted a break in the wall. A break that led into stone and dirt and the chill of deeper underground.
“I didn’t know there were any caverns in this area,” I said, wincing a little as my voice echoed across the heavy silence.