“Hmm.”
She picked the lock. It opened easily. In fact, the entire door opened, the deadbolt having been left unfastened. Nick looked at that and then craned his head through the doorway to see a security alarm, flashing green.
“Bolt not used, alarm turned off. Shit.” He stepped into the house and inhaled deeply. “I smell blood.”
Vanessa moved past him to survey the dark kitchen. Nick dropped to a crouch and inhaled again.
“Malcolm,” he murmured.
“Since we last saw him?”
“I can only judge the relative age of a trail, but it’s fresh, meaning it’s not from earlier.”
“All right, then. Let’s go see what he’s done.”
She lifted her gun and started forward. Then she stopped.
“Yep,” Nick said. “The guy with the nose and the night vision should lead the way.”
They reached the dining room door. Then Nick smelled something else. Burned meat. He turned back to the kitchen and sniffed, but there was no trace of the scent there.
“What’s wrong?” Vanessa mouthed.
He shook his head. If it was what it smelled like, he wasn’t telling her until it was absolutely necessary. He crept into the dining room. She covered him with her gun. He paused and inhaled, picking up only the smells of blood and burned flesh. He started forward again. He was approaching the next doorway when a board creaked. He stopped and glanced back at Vanessa. She was poised in the kitchen doorway—standing on ceramic tile.
Just as he lifted his foot, he heard the brush of a stockinged foot. It came from the left. He turned to see another doorway, this one with stairs beyond it. A second swish of fabric on wood. Too far away to be the hall. It must have come from the opposite side of the house.
As the noise came a third time, he remembered a similar sound, heard only a few hours ago. Tina dragging herself along the floor.
He could definitely smell blood. Had Malcolm repeated his trick?
He backed them into the kitchen and looked around. There was a second door, closed. He’d noted it earlier and presumed it led to the basement, but he should have checked. As soon as he looked in that direction, Vanessa cursed under her breath, as if chiding herself for the same thing. She motioned that she’d guard while he checked.
Nick cracked the door open. It led to a home office. Through it he could see a second door, leading to the other side of the house. That was where the noises came from.
Nick inhaled. A man’s scent permeated the office. Stokes’s scent. Strong. No hint of Malcolm’s.
He backed up and told Vanessa his plan.
14. NICK
Nick waited while Vanessa got in position. As he went back through the dining room, Vanessa shuffled loudly, announcing her position in hopes of luring their target in her direction.
Nick moved silently through to the front hall. The stairs were to his right, the entry door to his left. He paused and inhaled. Definitely more of Malcolm’s scent here. Two trails. One led back the way he’d come. The other went upstairs.
Nick slipped to the foot of the stairs. The stink of blood was stronger there and seemed to come from upstairs. He retreated. A leaded glass door opened into a formal living room. Malcolm’s trail didn’t cross its threshold. When Nick listened, though, he caught the brush of fabric on wood again, heading toward Vanessa.
He cracked open the leaded glass and inhaled. No recent scent other than the homeowners’. No blood, either. Yet he did detect the burned flesh smell, which gave him pause. Either Richard or Sharon Stokes was here, injured and moving toward Vanessa. That burned smell …
Although Sharon Stokes was a half-demon, her power was minor hearing enhancement, not fire. Which meant the smell … Nick didn’t want to consider what that meant.
He eased through the doorway and crossed the big living room. On the other side, if his calculations were right, lay the home office.
Nick moved on the far side of the half-open office door, where he couldn’t be spotted. The room had gone silent. Every few minutes, Vanessa would make a soft, seemingly accidental sound. But when she did, there was no answering sound from the office, which seemed to confirm his suspicion. Whoever they were dealing with wasn’t in any shape to deal with them.
He reached the half-open door and angled for a glance through. No sign of a figure. His gaze dropped. There were a few hard-to-see spots, but he could make out enough to be sure someone wasn’t lying on the floor.
He definitely smelled Stokes, though. So where was he?
Nick’s gaze surveyed the floor. Then he spotted an area of darkness beside the desk, with a sleeve protruding from it, the rest of the body tucked back in the shadows.
One last glance around, and then he zipped toward the desk, ready to find—
It was a sweater that had fallen off the back of the chair.
A faint click behind him. Nick wheeled as a closet door swung open. He dove, and a bullet hit the wall beside him. The gun fired again while Nick lunged. The bullet sliced through the back of his shirt as he dropped and hit his assailant. Another shot. This one from across the room. His attacker fell over him, his gun sailing off to the side. Vanessa snatched it up as Nick pounced on his fallen foe.
The man had twisted as he fell and now lay on his stomach. Blood seeped from his right sleeve, where Vanessa’s bullet had hit his arm.
“It’s Stokes,” Vanessa said. “Grab his hands so he can’t cast.”
A sorcerer cast with a combination of words and gestures. If the guy knew any witch magic, though, restraining him wouldn’t help. As Nick caught the man’s hands, he braced for a spoken spell, but Stokes only grunted in pain when Nick yanked on his injured arm.
Why hadn’t Stokes cast earlier? Sure, he had a gun, but a trained killer would use every weapon in his arsenal, and there were sorcerer spells like knockbacks and blurs that would have made Stokes’s closet attack much more effective.
Then there was that smell … Even stronger now, as Nick pinned Stokes. One split second of What did Malcolm do? passed through his mind. Then he knew. And his stomach clenched.
He grabbed Stokes by the shoulder and flipped him over. The man didn’t react to the pain now. Nick could see why he’d barely reacted after the shot. His eyes were glazed over. Dulled by painkillers. There was blood on his mouth. And that burned smell blasted out on his breath.
Vanessa walked over, gun still trained. “Were you expecting someone else tonight, Richard? Is that why your alarm was off? You were lying in wait for Malcolm?”
“Malcolm’s already been here,” Nick said. “And Stokes can’t answer. Malcolm cut out his tongue.”
Vanessa rocked back before catching herself. She quickly recovered but couldn’t mask the horror in her eyes.
“For snitching,” she murmured. “He cut it out for snitching.”
“With the added bonus that it robs Stokes of his power.”
He released Stokes’s hands and started to rise. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something flash. A knife. Nick wheeled, but Vanessa was already in motion, grabbing Stokes’s wrist, her fingers blazing. Stokes let out a grunt, more surprise than pain, as he dropped the knife. Before Nick could react, Vanessa had Stokes pinned on his stomach again, hands behind his back. She motioned for Nick to hold them while she used plastic cuffs.
“You’re fast,” he said.
A shaky laugh. “My field skills are coming back. Slowly.”
“We aren’t here to hurt you, Stokes,” Nick said. “Malcolm’s gone. We’re on his tail.”