Darknight (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 2) (22 page)

“But what about all those girls?” I burst out. “Have you ever heard of a wild animal that attacks only a certain physical type? It’s not possible!”

He didn’t exactly look away from me, but I could see the way his gaze shifted, the way he wouldn’t quite meet my eyes. “There has to be some rational explanation — ”

“Then tell me what it is, because I sure as hell haven’t been able to come up with one.” I went to him then, took both his hands. At least he didn’t try to pull away, although normally he would have twined his fingers through mine. Instead, his hands just sort of sat in mine, limp and cool. Fine. I tightened my grip on his fingers. “Look, Connor, I would love for you to prove me wrong.
Please
prove me wrong. Just — I don’t know — call him.”

“And what if he doesn’t answer? He hates phones anyway, and if he’s not feeling well — ”

“Then let’s go out to his house. Make something up as a reason…we wanted to welcome Jessica to the family or something.”

His expression told me that was a silly idea. “Jessica’s already in the family, remember? Distantly, but still. They’ll know we’re snooping.”

“So what? If I’m wrong, I promise I’ll never suspect Damon of anything again. Isn’t it worth looking a little foolish to clear this whole thing up?”

For a few seconds he remained silent, clearly thinking it over. At last he let out a breath and gave a reluctant nod. “Okay, if only because it means you’ll finally let this thing go. Then we can get back to normal.”

Normal. I wasn’t so sure about that. How could anything be normal when young women were dying horribly? But at least if Damon was cleared of suspicion, it would mean this whole horrible killing spree was just some bizarre quirk of nature, with no darker motivation behind it.

“Thank you,” I said simply, and I meant it. Connor might not believe me, but at least he was willing to indulge me.

He pulled his car keys out of his pocket. “Let’s go.”

T
he ride
out to Damon’s house was a tense, silent one. I watched the bleak late-winter landscape with its dead, dry grass and small patches of ice pass by outside the car window and tried not to think about what would be worse — having the
primus
laugh at me for entertaining such foolish suspicions, or having those suspicions confirmed.

Connor drove without looking at me, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Goddess only knows what he must have been thinking. That I was wasting his time, that if I really cared about him, I would have taken him at his word?

I couldn’t say, because he sure wasn’t talking, and I didn’t have the courage to ask.

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.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, even as I raised a hand to my mouth to keep myself from gagging.

The place looked like a whirlwind had struck it. Furniture toppled over, lamps and vases smashed. But that wasn’t the worst. Lying on the floor, arms stretched toward the entryway as if she had been desperately trying to escape, was Jessica Lowe. At least, I assumed it was her — I thought I recognized the spill of long honey-colored hair. Mercifully, she now lay face down.

Even from where I stood, I could see the blood spattered across the wooden floor, the dark spray on the walls. The shirt she wore was shredded, claw marks showing clearly on her pale flesh.

“We need to go,” I whispered, laying a hand on Connor’s arm and beginning to tug him back toward the door. “We have to call the police.”

“No. Not the police. Not yet,” he whispered back. He didn’t try to free his arm from my grasp, but he did use his other hand to pull his cell phone out of his jacket pocket.

“What are you talking about? Something killed her!”

“I know that. But think about it, Angela. Think about how much attention this will bring on all of us. We can’t afford that kind of scrutiny.”

As much as I hated what he was saying, I knew he was right. The McAllisters obeyed the same rule — do what you must, but never risk bringing unwanted attention on the clan. It was the only way we’d survived undetected for so long.

I nodded mutely, my body tense, somehow knowing the threat was still here, although the house was completely still. Flesh crawling, I wondered if who — or what — had killed Jessica was watching us as we stood in the entryway. At least we could be out the front door in a few steps if necessary.

Had Jessica thought the same thing?

I shivered, and watched as Connor selected someone from his contacts list and waited while the call connected. “Lucas?” he said. “I need you to come out to Damon’s house now. We’ve — well, we’ve got a situation. And bring Marie with you.” A pause as he listened to Lucas’s response. “I don’t know. Just get here as quickly as you can.” He ended the call and turned toward me. “I think we’d better wait out in the car. Just to be safe.”

That sounded like an excellent plan to me. I had just opened my mouth to reply when I heard a hideous growl, and a dark blur of a shape launched itself at me.

No time to think, no time to do anything except call on the power within me to flare up and outward, a flash of golden glowing light bursting away from me and knocking my attacker back a good three yards. It got to its feet, growling, and as I stared at it, a sick, choking feeling rose in my throat.

Yes, it was a wolf, a huge thing with gray matted fur and sharp bloodstained teeth showing between its snarling gums. But those were not the eyes of a wolf staring at me. No, they were black, utterly black, so dark you couldn’t see the pupils.

Damon Wilcox’s eyes.

All this went through my mind in the endless space between one heartbeat and the next. Before I could even blink, Connor had leapt in front of me, shielding me with his body. He stared down at the wolf, horror clear in every tense line of his frame.

His words, when they came, broke my heart.

“Don’t hurt her, Damon. Please. I love her.”

A low guttural growl, and the wolf — Damon — crouched lower. I stiffened, gathering my own strength to strike, should the need arise, should he leap for us, teeth bared to tear yet another throat. Then it made the oddest whimpering noise as it stared up at Connor. A shudder went through it, almost as if some part of its mind was trying to get it to move backward while its wolfish instincts were telling it to attack.

Stained teeth flashing, it leapt forward again. Once more I moved purely on instinct, somehow knowing that Connor had neither the magic nor the will to confront his brother. My hands went up, even as I focused the energy and flung it forward, this time using it as a weapon rather than a barrier.

A horrible yiping howl, and the Damon-wolf went flying backward, hitting one of the overturned tables. I heard a terrible
crack
, and thought maybe I had broken its ribs. But no, it got to its feet and shook its head, and I saw that the force of the impact had split one of the table legs in half. The wolf growled, and I raised my hands again. Beside me, Connor was taking in deep, gasping breaths, his body halfway blocking me still, as if he wanted to act as my protector but knew I was far more suited to this fight than he.

Once more I had that sensation of time stretching out, of a second seeming to take hours to pass. I heard my own ragged breathing, the low snarling growl emanating from the wolf’s throat. Those black pupil-less eyes met mine, and in them I saw a terrible hunger, a need that would never be slaked. Although the house was stuffily warm, my body went ice cold. Could I push the creature back a third time if it attacked again?

But after that one long, hideous pause, the Damon-wolf let out a sound halfway between a bark and a snarl, and slunk away, a dark incongruous shape against the gleaming wood floors and expensive rugs. Broken glass crunched under its paws, and then it was gone.

Neither Connor nor I moved. We only stood there, huddled together, bodies tense, sure it would come back at any moment. Then, from far off, I heard a drawn-out baying that could only have come from the creature. Somehow it had gotten outside, had moved off.

And then, much closer, the rushing sound of tires in the driveway. The
thunk
of one car door shutting, then another, and a few seconds later Lucas Wilcox’s tall form filled the doorway. Behind him I could see Marie, expression impassive as always, although I caught the slightest widening of her eyes as she took in the destruction around us, the limp form of Jessica Lowe’s body on the floor.

Lucas, however, was not nearly as reserved. “Fucking hell!” he exclaimed almost the second he walked into the entryway. His gaze fell to Jessica, and I saw his mouth tighten, and the glitter of sorrow in his dark eyes. “Poor kid,” he added softly. To my surprise, he went and knelt next to her, laid a hand on her head, then seemed to murmur some words, although I couldn’t make out what they were. Then he pushed himself to his feet, expression grim. “What happened?”

I opened my mouth to reply, since Connor seemed more or less stunned, still grappling with the realization that his brother had succumbed to an evil he couldn’t begin to contemplate. However, Marie forestalled me, saying,

“Damon sought power where he should not. I warned him, told him not to stray down paths he couldn’t begin to comprehend. But he ignored me, and has become the
yee naaldlooshii
.”

“The
what?
” Connor demanded, seeming to come out of his stupor.

Her eyes were a warm brown, striking against her black hair. They appeared calm, seemingly untouched by the horrors around us. “A shapechanger — what some call a skin-walker.”