Page 44 of Shadow's End

Thathad obviously been discovered after Belle and I had left, and it somehow made the whole situation even more appalling.

Aiden led us up the steps, his boots echoing on the old wood as he strode toward the door. He pulled on the gloves and booties, then glanced at me. “Nothing on the doorknob I have to worry about?”

“No.”

He opened the door and warily pushed it wide, but didn’t immediately enter. The air that stirred sluggishly past us—suggesting there was an air con on somewhere in the house—was filled with blood, death and, to a lesser extent, the eggy smell of gas. Weirdly, unlike in the cavern, there was no cloud of fear or pain, which was decidedly odd given the heaviness of the firsttwo scents. But maybe there was some sort of magic at work here, even if I couldn’t immediately sense it.

The hall beyond was wide and relatively short with a left turn at the end, which no doubt led to the longer L section. There were two doors, one on either side, and the flooring was tiles rather than wood. White tiles, which made the thick smear of blood that started on the wall itself and then continued to the end of the hall and around the corner starkly obvious.

Either someone had dragged his or her bleeding body away, perhaps in a desperate last attempt to escape, or whoever was behind this destruction had dragged them away. But why only one? Why not move the person who lay in the room to our right? I didn’t know, but I suspected we’d find out soon enough. I shivered and rubbed my arms.

Aiden glanced at me sharply. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “Unlike the cave, there’s no shroud of emotion here.”

“Which is another oddity,” Monty said. “Whoever that smear belongs to had to be feeling something pretty damn powerful.”

“Unless they were already dead when they were moved.”

“The bulk of the blood scentiscoming from deeper within the house,” Aiden said. “But we keep together until we know what else might be waiting.”

We both nodded. Once Monty and I had gloved up and put the boot protectors on, we cautiously moved on. The room to our left was a study lined with bookshelves, though most of the shelving was empty. The large antique-looking desk sitting under the front window was dust-covered, and the chair tucked in underneath it looked to have seen better days. What was interesting was the two mattresses sitting on the floor, both of them neatly made up. Maybe whoever had rented this place had been expecting guests.

Had those guests come bearing a grudge rather than gifts?

Instinct whispered no.

Instinct was fucking annoying.

We moved on cautiously toward the room on the right. I wrinkled my nose against the sharper smell of blood and Aiden reached into his pocket, handing me the tub of mentholated ointment without comment.

We skirted around the smear and went into the other room. It was a living area, though there was no TV or sofas, just a couple of mattresses on the floor. The body of a man lay sprawled face down on the carpet halfway between the door and the window. His hand was outstretched above his head, suggesting he might have been throwing something—maybe the something that had broken the window. There was blood in his hair, blood down his neck, blood on the back of his shirt, and … horror surged, and I couldn’t help but step away from him. A large hole had been punched right through his body. I could see the bloody carpet underneath him. See the shattered remnants of bone, the torn lines of muscle and veins, and the streaks of yellow that looked like fat, both within his skin and without.

This hadn’t been done with a gun, a shotgun, or even magic.

This had been done by someone powerful enough tophysicallypunch a hole right through flesh. The imprint of a clenched fist had been burned into the carpet, and the blood that had leached from the victim’s body had not fouled or hidden it. It was as if that imprint somehow repelled any attempt to do so.

This body—that imprint—was a warning.

For several seconds, none of us moved.

Then Monty sighed and said what we were all thinking.

“Well, for fuck’s sake, the last thing we need to be dealing with is another goddamn monster.”

“What kind of fucking monster can punch a hole through the middle of a man’s body?” Aiden asked. “Are you sure this isn’t the result of magic?”

“There’s no magical residue, though it is possible it simply faded away.” Monty squatted next to the body, carefully avoiding anything that might be evidence. “It has to be a monster of some kind—look at the size of that imprint. None of our vamps have hands like that.”

“That we’re aware of,” I said, remaining right where I was. My stomach was behaving itself, but I wasn’t about to push it. “We haven’t seen all of Marie’s crew, remember.”

“True.” He rose. “I’m thinking we need to see the rest of the bodies before we can make a judgment call on our killer.”

Aiden nodded and led the way out. We followed the bloody smear down to the end of the hall and around the corner and found a second body. This one was a woman, and though she had a cleanish hole punched through her torso, her head was twisted at a strange angle and her face was visible. Her expression was one of horror.

So why were there no emotions staining the air? I really had no idea, and that was scary.

I gulped but nevertheless looked at the hole in her body, and the tile visible through it. Unlike the carpet under the first victim, there was no shadow of a fist here, but the tile had been smashed. Anything that could dothatwith a mere punch without doing serious damage to its hand and leaving at least some blood behind very definitely wasn’t human.

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