About twenty minutes after leaving the apartment, we pulled into the long driveway and stopped in front of the garage. Parked in front of one of the garage doors was one of those odd-looking Nissan Juke compact SUVs. I raised an eyebrow at Connor, and he shrugged.
“Must be Jessica’s.”
Right. I’d forgotten that, according to Carla, Jessica had pretty much moved in with Damon. Or that was what everyone had decided, as she’d packed up some of her things and announced to her mother that she was spending “a few days” at the primus’s house. No one had seen her since, but if they were shacked up trying to make the next Wilcox heir, that wasn’t so strange.
Except that he’d supposedly been too sick to go to work.
Dead, dry pine needles were scattered across the expansive driveway and the front doorstep as well. Again, not that strange, since we’d had some bad winds a few nights earlier. But they made the place look neglected, abandoned.
Now who’s seeing things that aren’t there? I scolded myself.
Connor was frowning, though. “The gardeners should’ve been here to clear all this away. Damon has them out twice a week because the property is so big.”
“Maybe the windstorm came through right after they were here, and they’re coming tomorrow or something.”
“Maybe,” he said, but his tone was dubious. But he seemed to shrug and stepped up to the door, then rang the doorbell.
I could hear it echo hollowly through the house, but there was no answer. We stood there in silence — ten seconds, fifteen, twenty. I could practically see Connor counting off how long it was okay to wait before he pressed the little glowing button in its fancy dark bronze mounting again. Another push of his gloved finger against the bell, another wait.
Of course, it was entirely possible that Damon and Jessica had gone out, were taking advantage of his forced vacation because of the campus being shut down to take a day trip somewhere or go out to eat or shop or whatever. It was hard for me to wrap my brain around Damon doing anything so commonplace, but he’d maintained the façade of being an upstanding member of Flagstaff society for his entire adult life, and so I knew he most likely must do those kinds of things from time to time.
But even though that seemed the most plausible explanation, I couldn’t accept it. Something was wrong here, a dark, pulsing sensation of evil at the heart of the imposing house. Stepping past Connor, I drew off my glove and laid a hand against the doorframe.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I couldn’t really answer, because I didn’t know for sure. The prima fire in my belly, usually coiled and quiet and quiescent, suddenly flared within me, and I felt it more strongly now, waves of malice, of ill intent. And somewhere within it, the foul coppery stink of blood.
Retching, I lifted my hand and backed away. Connor went to me at once, catching me as I stumbled on the step that led down to the driveway. “Angela! What is it?”
“Something awful,” I gasped. “I felt it. I don’t know what’s in there, but please, Connor — I think we should go.”
“Go?” he demanded. “We just got here!”
“I know that. But I think — I think we shouldn’t face whatever it is by ourselves.”
His hands tightened on mine. “If Damon’s in trouble, if he needs our help — ”
What could I say to that? Looking into Connor’s face, I realized he would never walk away if he thought his brother was in any kind of trouble. Unfortunately, from what I’d just felt, it seemed more that Damon himself was the source of the black energy I’d sensed. But I doubted I could convince Connor of that. All I could do was be on my guard.
“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “But we need to be careful — and we need to be ready to run.”
He nodded, although he gave me a strange look, as if wondering whether this was all simply more of my overactive imagination. “All right.”
So we went back to the front door. Connor laid his hand on the heavy bronze handle, clearly preparing to unlock the door using magic. Then his eyes widened.
“It’s already open,” he murmured.
The muscles at the back of my neck tightened further. Every instinct in me was screaming to run, to get out of there as fast as my feet would carry me, but somehow I managed to stand my ground, wait as Connor pushed the door inward.
A wave of stale, warm air greeted us, bringing with it the acrid scent I’d somehow sensed mentally before I even smelled it with my nose. Blood, metallic and strong, and beneath that the cloying odor of decay.
It was dim inside, all the blinds and curtains closed. Connor reached out and flicked the light switch in the entryway, turning on the pendant lamp that hung from the high ceiling.