Winter’s heart skipped a beat at this wonderful news. This was exactly what he needed to know, and it saved him from having to search every inch of this place. Too often prisoners were kept either in a basement or even another building on the grounds. Winter didn’t have time to check out every inch of Damon’s place, and he certainly didn’t want to come back another night.
“Thanks, Cara!” He turned on his heel and started to jog toward the stairs, but Cara’s shout stopped him.
“Wait! Are you going to kill Damon?”
Winter paused with one foot on the bottom stair as he turned to look at her. “Not tonight, but very soon. I promise.”
“Good,” she said with a sigh. “And if you could make it really painful, I know a lot of us around here would appreciate it.”
Winter grinned. “I’ll do what I can.”
Cara laughed and started to do a twirling dance across the main hallway. She held up the middle finger on both hands, flipping off the front door guards as she passed them by. He had a feeling she was going to gleefully flip off all the vampires she passed in the house as she celebrated Damon’s coming demise.
Resuming his trek up the stairs, Winter found the door she’d indicated, with two vampires standing guard outside of the room. He leaned against the wall opposite them, scratching his jaw. How the fuck was he supposed to get past these bastards? Well, he could kill them, but it would be damn hard to quickly hide the bodies and any blood splatter that would inevitably happen. And if he didn’t work fast enough, they could raise the alarm. He might be able to escape, but Damon would definitely put extra protection on his precious prisoner.
No, he needed another distraction. Something that would draw the guards away from their posts.
Pushing off the wall, Winter headed along the hallway in the opposite direction. Most of the doors were open, revealing empty bedrooms that were extravagantly decorated. He doubted they were ever used. Just opulence for the sake of opulence. Marcus’s house might be a tad over the top, but at least his rooms were regularly used by family. There was no way Damon was allowing his security staff to sleep in here. He probably had a plain dormitory-style room dedicated for his bodyguards. A dungeon for his poor blood donors.
It was a shame he couldn’t set free anyone else trapped on the premises, but there wasn’t time, and he had to keep his focus on the witch. She was the key to everything. Taking care of her meant the Variks were one step closer to getting rid of Damon.
At the end of the hall, he stepped into a large empty bedroom overflowing with lace and flowers. The room looked as if it would belong to someone’s eccentric great-aunt whose mind was trapped about a hundred years in the past. Old wooden dolls with wide, unblinking stares sat in doll-sized chairs. Their hair was arranged in fat sausage curls. The room was straight out of a horror movie, and Winter couldn’t think of a better place to start a fire.
Just a little fire.
It had worked outside and if he kept it small, he’d be able to draw the guards away from their door to the room.
Winter grabbed the bottle of starter fluid from his pocket and began searching around the room for a perfect spot. It wouldn’t make sense for a fire to spontaneously break out in the middle of the bed or in the cluster of creepy dolls. Fuck, he hated those damn dolls and their eyes.
But some faulty wiring could definitely spark a fire.
He checked along the wall, searching for something plugged in. Settling on an outlet with a bedside lamp, he parted the veil enough to spray the last of the fluid around the plug and up the wall as if the fire had followed along the wiring. He had no clue if an electrical fire would act like that, but it would at least look convincing. The point was to buy himself a couple of minutes to get to the witch and take care of her. He couldn’t have the guards looking for him while he was dealing with the witch.
Winter tucked the empty bottle away in his pocket; then he struck a match and held the tiny flame to the fluid nearest the outlet. It took only a second for the liquid to catch and rush up the wall, eating into the floral wallpaper with a loud crackle.
Winter put out the match and shoved it into his pocket, leaving behind no evidence as he closed the veil. The accelerant had no smell, and the acrid scent of smoke was already overpowering any odor created by the match. With a smile, he left the room and started down the hall. He crossed past the staircase and found the same two vampires outside the room as the smoke alarm closest to the burning bedroom shrieked.