His attention turned to Peter. “If you’d be so kind.”
“I’ve been waiting for this.”
I could practically hear him rubbing his hands in glee.
He said a word and in my left eye green sparks with silver threads shot from him into the seat under me where it coiled and multiplied. Fabric darted forward and wrapped around my legs. The seat belts wove around my arms and across my neck like snakes, writhing and slithering as I struggled to escape.
Every single one had a core of emerald in it. Magic. I was seeing magic. The shock stilled my struggles.
The car doors slammed around me, leaving me sitting in the car by myself, chained by a seatbelt and the fabric from the seats. Galling for a vampire. I wrenched forward but was held fast.
I was weak, but I should have been strong enough to break through this. Again that emerald teased my vision. Struggling was useless. The fabric was probably reinforced by Peter’s magic. I relaxed back into the seat.
All I could do was wait and pray.
The minutes passed as I came up with the various kinds of torture I planned to subject Liam to. I had no intention of letting him get away with this. Even if his words had the smallest grain of merit, that my presence would have weakened them, that didn’t mean he had a right to literally tie me to the car.
Strength came in many forms. I might not have had the physical strength of a werewolf or a centuries old vampire, but I had other tools. Like a brain. And a gun.
The seat belts loosened, falling away from me as that emerald faded. I jerked free and scrambled out of the car, not wanting to chance them coming back to life and entangling me in their grasp again.
Nothing moved. Like they had never done their impression of a charmed snake. To my left eye, there was no trace of the emerald I’d come to associate with the sorcerer’s magic.
It was odd that it just disappeared. Liam must know that as soon as I was released I would head for the house. I didn’t have a good feeling about this.
Something must have gone wrong in the rescue.
I turned toward the house and started jogging. I knew where it was only by chance. I’d taken a look at Liam’s phone screen when he typed the address for Brax. Now I was glad I had.
It was only two streets over and one block down. I covered the distance quickly, making sure to stick to the shadows as I crept up to a house next door. A cat started at my presence and then settled down when I clicked my tongue at her.
Her feline eyes watched as I crouched next to her and stared across the street. To my left eye, it was lit up like the antithesis of a Christmas tree, an oily inkblot coating the exterior. Under all that black were a few flickering colors as if the inkblot had tried swallowing them and now they glowed in its stomach like lightning bugs.
I did not want to go in there. In fact, every instinct in me begged to go in the opposite direction, bringing up the way I’d frozen the last time I’d encountered a sliver of demon taint. That had been nowhere as bad as this.
Staring at that inky blackness, my primal hindbrain screamed danger. It would be so easy to flee in a terrified mess.
I made myself take in the house, checking the attic windows and the entrances. No visual sign of people. Didn’t mean they weren’t there. Just meant they might be hiding. I couldn’t trust my vision. Not if they’d managed to taint Peter.
I drew the Judge from my holster before I forced myself away from my shelter and ran across the yard, keeping low and moving fast. I placed my weight carefully on each stair as I made my way onto the porch. Somehow I made it to the door and inside without the house or its occupants collapsing in on me.
I stepped to the side of the doorway and took a deep breath as I listened. Hearing is an important sense. One that is too often overlooked in favor of what we see. What you heard could tell you so much. Like the racing of a heart or the click as a round was chambered.
For now, it was what I didn’t hear that worried me. There were no screams or sounds of fighting. Both of which I’d expect if Liam and his men had stormed in here.
It was quiet. The silence before a storm when the world holds its breath, as if that would protect it from what came next.
I moved deeper into the house, pausing at the stairs. Nothing came from up there. I moved into the next room, peeking around the corner before entering.
I heard the faintest murmur of voices. I crept forward, holding the gun at the low, ready as I moved. A door separated this room from the next. Enclosed, small rooms were common in the era this house was built. No open floor plans here. It made each room a potential land mine of hostiles. On the other hand, it also allowed me to get much closer unseen.
Light came through the crack beneath the door, and the voices were slightly louder though I couldn’t distinguish what was said.
I put my ear against the door and made out a woman’s laughter.
I backed away from the door and eyed it. Opening it would instantly draw every person’s attention. Without knowing what was happening on the other side or where my people were, it would be suicide to go bursting in.
I stepped away and moved back into the hallway, noting where the room fell in the house’s layout. The kitchen was next, with a closed door leading into the room I needed to get into. Why in the world would they have shut both doors?
