Page 34 of Killing Time

Where in this huge, sprawling house would the kitchen even be located? He’d thought hisprima’shouse on Paradise Lane was large, but Jasper’s residence would have swallowed up two of Charles and Abigail’s home.

“Try the back,” Devynn suggested in an undertone, as if she was still worried someone might overhear them despite the apparent emptiness of the house. “That’s usually where they put the kitchen in places this size.”

Being a Wilcox, she probably had much more experience with near-mansions than he did. They headed down a hallway that passed a dining room on one side and a library on the other, and then a study and what appeared to be another music room, until Devynn put her hand on the doorknob in front of them and slowly swung the door outward.

Yes, that was definitely the kitchen, oversized just like the rest of the house, with what looked like miles of butcher-block countertops and a marble-topped work table standing in the center of the room. However, even though the space appeared to have been designed to accommodate a veritable army of chefs, it seemed to be empty at the moment.

“Perfect,” Devynn said in that same near-whisper, then pointed toward a door on the wall opposite, flanked by racks filled with canisters and other storage containers. “I’ll bet that goes down into the basement.”

Well, their luck had held so far, so he could only hope the goddess Brigid or whoever else was watching over them would continue to guide their way.

They hurried over to the door, which was unlocked.

Seth couldn’t help frowning. Surely if Jasper was keeping Ruby down here, he would have made sure the door to the basement was secured?

One would think so. Then again, if it normally wasn’t locked, doing so might have called more attention to the door than he would have liked. The Wilcoxprimusseemed like a man used to getting his own way, and Seth knew if he’d given the order for no one to go down there, then that order would have been obeyed without question.

He pulled at a dangling cord near the doorway, and a bare bulb overhead turned on. Apparently, Jasper wasn’t too concerned about the decor in the sections of the house never seen by those outside the household staff.

When Seth and Devynn reached the bottom of the steps, the light cast by that single bulb up near the door was just strong enough to show them what you might see in most basements — boxes stacked up against walls, a few old trunks pushed here and there, what looked like possibly unused paintings covered in canvas and leaning against the two of the walls.

No sign of any life, nothing to show Ruby had ever been anywhere near this place.

But….

“What the heck is that?” he asked, inclining his head toward a long table near the far wall. It had a large black tablecloth or length of fabric draped over it, and a few feet away, pushedup against the wall itself, was a table that looked like an altar, with multiple black iron candlesticks bristling with pale candles. Above it was a painting whose tones were so murky that it was difficult for him to make them out, but he thought it might be an image of the San Francisco Peaks, impressionistic in style, so he saw more shapes and colors than a true representation of the actual mountains.

In the dim lighting, Devynn’s face looked paler than normal.

“I think it’s where….” Her words drifted off, and she seemed to pause to gather herself before she could go on. “I think it’s where Jasper plans to bind Ruby to him. From what I’ve heard, Damon Wilcox used something similar when he tried to make Angela his consort, although the ritual wasn’t held in his house because it was new and didn’t have a basement.”

Seth couldn’t quite hold back a shudder. He supposed intellectually he’d known that Jasper was going to use some sort of ritual during the black moon to make sure Ruby would be made his forever, but it was one thing to consider such a ceremony in the abstract and quite another to see the evidence of those plans right in front of his eyes.

And there, over in one corner, stood a coat tree that should have looked innocuous enough…except now it was draped with several black hooded cloaks, exactly like —

“Are those what you saw in your dreams?” he asked, pointing, and Devynn nodded.

“I think so. It makes sense — I heard that Damon’s followers wore about the same kind of cloak during his ceremony with Angela.” Another pause, one during which she looked almost disgusted with herself. “I should have recognized the damn things.”

At once, Seth went over to her so he could take her hand in his. “It’s not your fault,” he told her. “You couldn’t have knownwhere we were going to end up. For all you knew, Jasper Wilcox was ancient history.”

For a second or two, Devynn stood there in silence. Then her mouth pursed. “I suppose you’re right. And it seems pretty clear to me that Ruby was never here, so we haven’t accomplished very much.”

“I think we have,” he said immediately. “We can look elsewhere to see where she might be, and now we know for sure that this is where the ceremony will be held. Even if we can’t find her before then, at least we know she’ll be here in the early morning of November twelfth.”

“And then what?” Devynn said. “Storm in here and interrupt the ceremony and spirit Ruby away? Even with the amulet helping us, we don’t have the kind of powers that would even allow us to do that sort of thing.”

As much as Seth hated to admit it, she was right. Most McAllisters didn’t have offensive magic — fireballs, lightning bolts, and the like — and even though his ability to blink himself out of a dangerous situation could come in very useful, it still wouldn’t be enough for him to prevail against a warlock like Jasper Wilcox.

“True,” Seth replied. “So it’s something we need to think about. In the meantime, though, I think we should get out of here.”

Relief immediately shone in Devynn’s face. “Yes, please. This place gives me the creeps.”

Yes, it did, with its heavy, almost ominous atmosphere, as if some sense of what would happen here nine days from now already hung over the basement, oppressive and brooding.

And, to be purely practical, the longer they stayed here, the greater their chance of being discovered, so he was just fine with getting back to the hotel so they could decide what to do next.

“Hold on,” he told her, and immediately, the dark basement and that ominous altar disappeared, replaced by the utterly mundane surroundings of their hotel room.

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