We stopped in an industrial neighborhood near the Lake in front of a house - the single remaining residential building on the block - that had definitely seen better days.
It was the final remnant of what had likely once been a prosperous neighborhood, a remnant now surrounded by lots empty of everything but trash, scraggly brush, and industrial debris. The Queen Anne-style home, illuminated by the orange glow of a single overhead streetlamp, had probably been a princess in its time - a once-inviting porch flanked by fluted columns; a second-floor balcony; gingerbread brackets now rotting and hanging from their corners. Paint peeled in wide strips from the wood shingles, and random sprouts of grass pushed for life amidst a front yard tangled with discarded plastic.
Catcher's duffel bag rested on the seat between Mallory and me, and I handed it to him through the gap in the front seats. He unzipped it and pulled out four flashlights, then rezipped the bag and placed it between him and Ethan. He passed out the flashlights to the rest of us. "Let's go."
Katana in hand, I opened my door.
The scent hit when we stepped outside the car, flashlights and swords in hand. Blood - the iron tang of it. I took a sudden breath, the urge to drink in the scent nearly overwhelming. And even more problematic, because she stirred. Ethan stopped and turned to me, an eyebrow raised in question.
I swallowed down the craving and pushed down the vampire, glad I'd had blood earlier.
I nodded at him. "I'm fine." The dilapidation and lingering odor of decay helped staunch the need. "I'm okay."
"What's wrong?" Mallory asked.
"Blood," Ethan somberly said, eyes on the house. "The smell of it remains."
Mallory handed Catcher's belted sword to Ethan, and we buckled our katanas around our waists.
The neighborhood was silent but for the breeze-blown crackle of a floating plastic bag and the faraway thunder of a freight train. Without comment, Catcher took the lead. He flipped on his flashlight, the circle of light bobbing before him as he crossed the street and walked toward the house. Ethan followed, then Mallory, then me.
We stood at the curb, the four of us in line. Stalling.
"Is anyone still in there?" Mallory asked, trepidation in her voice.
"No," Ethan and I answered simultaneously. The lack of sound - and thank God for predatory improvements in hearing - made that clear.
Catcher took another step forward, fisted hands on his hips, and scanned the house.
"I'm in first," he said, exercising his Ombud authority, "then Ethan, Mallory, Merit. Be prepared to draw." He looked at Mallory. "Don't go in too far. Just keep your mind open like we talked about."
Mal nodded, seemed to firm her courage. I'd have squeezed her hand if I'd had any courage to offer. As it was, my right hand was sweating around the nubby barrel of the flashlight, the fingers of my left nervously tapping the handle of my sword.
Catcher started forward, and we followed in the order he'd set, Ethan and me with katanas at our sides. This time the sound of Ethan's voice in my head didn't surprise me.
You can control the craving?
I assured him I could, and asked, What am I looking for?
Evidence. An indication of House involvement. How many? Was there a struggle?
Our line of amateur investigators picked our way up the sidewalk over broken concrete, brown glass, and plastic soda bottles. The small porch at the front of the house creaked ominously when Catcher stepped onto it. After waiting to be sure it wouldn't collapse beneath him, we followed. I risked a glance through a slender, dirt-smeared window.
The room was empty but for the skeletal remains of a massive chandelier, all but a handful of its crystals gone. It seemed an oddly appropriate symbol of the house's current condition.
Catcher pushed open the ancient door. The smell of dampness, decay, and blood spilled onto the sidewalk. I breathed through my mouth to avoid the temptation, however minimal, of the blood.
We trundled into what had once been a foyer and spun our flashlights around. There was rotting mahogany beneath our feet and flocked velvet wallpaper around us, marred by ripping peels, water stains, and slinking trickles of water. At the other end of the room, a gigantic stairway curved up to the second floor. Piles of wood and congealed paint cans were stashed in a corner, the rooms dotted here and there with threadbare pieces of heavy furniture. The building had been stripped of mold ings, light fixtures gone, probably to be sold off. I didn't see any blood, although the smell of it hung in the air.
"Choose your adventure, vampires," Catcher advised in a whisper. "East or west?"
Ethan looked toward the rooms on the east side of the house, then toward the stairway in front of us. His head lifted as his gaze followed the rising staircase to the second floor.
"Up," he decided. "Merit, with me. Catcher, first floor."
"Done," Catcher responded. He turned to Mallory and tapped a finger against his right temple, then his chest, then his temple again.
Mallory nodded. Must have been some kind of secret sorcerer code. She squeezed my hand, then followed him to the left.
The two of us alone in the foyer, Ethan glanced at me. "Sentinel, what do you know?"
I lifted my own gaze to the stairway and closed my eyes. Vision gone, I let the sounds and scents surround me.
I'd felt the stirrings of magic before - when Celina had tested me, when Mallory and Catcher fought and at my Commendation, when I'd basked in the flow of it, the air thick with the lambent magic of dozens of vampires.
Here, there were no currents. If any magic remained in the house, it was minimal.
Maybe a tingle here and there, but nothing strong enough for me to separate, identify.
The house was equally silent of living things, but for the downstairs movements of Mallory and Catcher, the steady sound of Ethan's heartbeat, and the disturbing scurry of tiny slithering things beneath our feet and in the walls.
I shivered, squeezing my eyes closed and forcing myself to ignore the ambient sound.
I focused on scent, imagined myself a predator, primed for the hunt (full though I may have been of salmon and asparagus). The tang of blood was obvious, in such quantity that it floated like a cloud of invisible smoke, flowing down the stairs and through the room, overlying the smells of mildew and standing water. I stood quietly for a moment, ensuring that I had control of myself to continue to investigate, ensuring that she was sufficiently locked down to preclude her mad rush to the second floor, to the blood.
In the silence, the quietness, I caught something else. Something above the mustiness and dust and blood.
Something animal.