Hannah Jayne (3 page)

Clamping my mouth shut against a wave of nausea, I rapped on the door, then waited.

The hairs on the back of my neck slowly started to rise, as did the suspicion that I was being watched. I pressed the newspapers to my chest and slowly turned my head over my shoulder.

The Hendersons’ overgrown lawn and shaggy plants remained as they were and the street was empty, but I couldn’t shake the creepy feeling. I stepped off the porch and glanced up and down the street. Mainly deserted, except for a few parked cars—ticketed, of course—and an old man walking a basset hound four houses down.

“I’m just jumpy,” I muttered to myself. “Jumpy.”

I went back up the walk and I rapped again, harder this time. The door swung open. I jumped in and spun around, catching the taillights of a car as it sped down the street. The prickly feeling was still there; so I slammed the door, then pasted on a smile, ready to greet Mrs. Henderson or one of her annoying teens.

“Thank you so much,” I started to say. “Sorry, I just ... Hello?”

There was no one in the foyer and it was dim. All the curtains were drawn and the little wedge of outside light, which came in through a small crack in the fabric, illuminated dancing dust mites.

“Mrs. Henderson? It’s me, Sophie. From the UDA. You missed your appointment today...

.” I stayed pressed up against the door, my shoulder blades wincing against the cold wood. “Is anybody home?”

My instinct told me that something was terribly wrong, that I should turn around and leave, drive straight back to the UDA.

But I was never very good at trusting my instincts.

Instead, I took tentative steps down the hallway, still clutching the newspapers, still calling into the empty house.

“I’m coming down the hall now,” I announced, giving the man with a hook who was likely waiting to gut me a play-by-play. “Is anyone home?” My voice rang out hollow in the gaping hallway and I tried to think of positive things—like a surprise dragon birthday party or Care Bears.

There was a crunch underneath my foot and I let out an embarrassing yowl, dropping the newspapers in a heap and leaping backward. I clawed at my chest as my heart hammered and my sweat glands went into hyperdrive. I could feel the kinks that I dutifully blow-dried out this morning popping back. I took giant gulps of air, spinning like a maniac to catch an intruder at all sides. Nothing. I toed the newspapers and pushed last week’s away, revealing a newly crushed hot pink iPod.

“Uh-oh,” I murmured.

I casually kicked the iPod aside, covering it again with the newspaper. When I found the Hendersons, I’d explain it. Silently I continued down the hall into the kitchen. I stopped dead, wincing, then pressed my hand to my nose. Either someone had gotten in on the fertilized-duck-egg deal or something was rotting. I didn’t want to go farther, plagued with crime scene images of dismembered bodies—their milky, staring eyes—but I had to see.

The kitchen would have looked homey under any other circumstance. There was a decorative fruit bowl on the large oak table, and a valance and chair pads all coordinated with a sea of Laura Ashley–inspired roses. I walked carefully around the tiled island. A crock, which had been stuffed with cooking utensils, was cracked and lying on its side; spatulas and slotted spoons littered the gray slate floor. There were two covered pots on the stovetop and I pushed one lid back a half inch. I tried to peer inside, but the overwhelming stench of rotting food made me gag. I rushed to the kitchen sink and heaved, feeling hot salty tears rush down my cheeks.

A cold rush of air whooshed over me and I looked up, for the first time seeing the jagged hole in the glass. The sink and the counter were littered with tiny glass pieces. I had mashed my palms into some and now the blood—searing hot—was dribbling over my wrists.

I don’t know how, but suddenly I found myself outside on the Hendersons’ lawn, speed dialing Alex and shifting my weight from foot to foot, silently imploring him to answer.

“Grace?” he said into the phone.

“Oh, thank God. Alex, you have to come out here. Something’s wrong. Something bad happened to the Hendersons.”

“Again with this? Lawson, didn’t we—”

A coil of anger overtook my fear. “No, Alex. Now.” I read him the address and paced nervously, trying to work the tiny shards of glass from my palm. When I saw Alex’s SUV round the corner, not ten minutes later, I let out a breathy sigh and a torrent of tears. He jerked the car to a stop and I ran toward him.

“Alex!”

He got out of the car and sped toward me, his blue eyes stormy and looking me up and down. “What happened to you? Are you okay?”

I shook my bloodied palms. “Nothing. Just broken glass. We have to go in there. Mrs.

Henderson could be hurt. She could be dying!”

I snatched Alex by the shirtsleeve and dragged him toward Mrs. Henderson’s front door.

“Something—something happened in there.”

“Was there anyone inside?”

I wagged my head, using the back of my hand to swipe at tears that had suddenly started to fall. “I don’t know.”

“Stay here.”

Alex tried to guide me back to the car; but the second he turned, I followed him. He crept up the porch and carefully pushed open the door. I ran up behind him. My breasts were just brushing against his back; my heart was thundering like a jackhammer.

“Doesn’t this look suspicious?” I whispered in Alex’s ear.

He held up a silencing hand and pulled his gun from the holster. I clapped a palm to my forehead, then grimaced at the sting from the broken glass. “I should have brought my gun.

Or at least my Taser.”

Alex gave me a cursory look. “I think you’ve done enough.”

“What is that supposed to mean? If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be here, possibly putting both our lives in dan ... Oh. I see what you mean.”

“Stay out here.” Alex gave me a gentle but firm push back.

“I’m not staying out here!” I said, pushing back against him. “The perp is probably out here just waiting to gut me!”

“Fine. Just stay quiet and close.”

I clung to Alex’s back as he walked silently from room to room. On the upper floor there was slightly more damage—pictures knocked from the wall, clothing torn and scattered on the floor, drawers left open.

“So? What do you think? Homicide? Special circumstances?”

Last year I had the opportunity to work with Alex to solve a case, so I was pretty well-versed in the police lingo.

Alex cocked an amused eyebrow, trying to keep the smile from his lips. “I thought we promised—no more CSI for you?”

I snarled, “Can we just focus on the case?”

“Okay. It’s obvious that the Hendersons are not here, but it’s not entirely obvious that this is a crime scene.”

I stomped my foot. “Crooked pictures! Broken glass! A smashed iPod. Add it all up, Alex, it spells duh. What more do you need? A gallon of blood? A note from the kidnapper?”

Alex shook his head slowly, his angelic, gentlemanly way of ignoring me, and stepped around me, poking his head into a gaudy bathroom with gold fixtures and cheetah print wall-paper. Then he rested his hand on the doorknob of the only closed door in the hall. I watched as his fingers curled around the knob in slow motion. My heart lurched, lodging itself squarely in my throat. I started to shake my head.

“I don’t think you should open that.”

Alex’s eyebrows disappeared under his bangs. “Why not? Did you hear something in there?”

I rubbed my arms, feeling the gooseflesh under my palms. “I have a bad feeling. Maybe we should wait for someone. Backup or something.”

Alex rolled his eyes and nudged the door open with his shoe, poking his head in.

“What do you see? Are they—”

I couldn’t finish my sentence as Alex’s coughing and retching cut me off. He doubled over, stumbling backward.

“Alex!”

He snapped the door shut before I could get a look inside and I rushed over to him, helping him settle onto the carpet, clapping his back as he coughed while tears streamed over his red cheeks.

“Are you crying?” I asked, huddling down. “What did you see?”

Alex’s eyes narrowed into an exasperated glare. “Couldn’t you smell that?”

I looked at the closed door, my palm closing over the knob. Alex backed away and used the back of one hand to rub his damp cheeks, the other hand clasped over his nose and mouth. He nodded—a sort of “go ahead and take your life into your own hands” look in his eyes—and I wrenched the door open a half inch. I sniffed at the tiny gap, looked over my shoulder at Alex, and shrugged.

“I don’t smell anything.”

Hand still pressed firmly over his mouth and nose, he inclined his head and gestured for me to go in. I did, pressing the door open farther, stepping into the dim room.

“Oh God,” I whispered.

The silent calm hung in the air like its own entity, oppressive and ominous. Thin shards of sunlight cut through the tears in the curtains, casting inappropriate cheery washes of light over the naked mattress, over the nightstand that was half crushed, its innards oozing out through splintered wood. My eyes immediately went to the bedclothes heaped on the floor—expensive jacquard silk and matching pillows with delicate fringe looked tramped on.

These were torn and sodden with a brackish, viscous-looking liquid. The walls were stained with the same dark water; it colored the pale paint a sooty black. This time I slammed the door as I felt the bile rise in my throat.

I doubled over in the hallway and gasped, breathing in lungfuls of stale air.

“So what is that?” Alex wanted to know. “Toxic mold or something?”

I looked at him, dumbfounded, trying to work up enough saliva to unstick my jaws, to swallow down the burn in my mouth. I felt my eyes start to water, felt my nose start to run. All I could do was wag my head from side to side, my gaze fixed on the plush carpet under my feet.

“It’s blood.”

Alex let out something that was halfway between a snort and a chuckle. “Lawson, I may not be all that ... local ... but don’t forget, I’m a cop. I do know what blood looks like.”

“You don’t know what dragon blood looks like.”

Alex visibly paled and rubbed a palm over his chin.

“We have to go back in there.” His cobalt eyes raked over me and then to the closed door.

“Ready?” he asked.

I nodded, unable to form any words. He pushed open the door and the grim scene greeted me again: the dark spatters climbing like gnarled fingers up the walls, the cold destruction in the room. I felt my heart do a choking double thump as I scanned the scene.

“This is bad, Alex.”

Alex picked his way around the broken furniture, careful not to step into the black puddles soaked into the carpet. He circled the bed, peered into the half-open closet.

“There are no bodies. Do you think maybe the Hendersons got away? From the look of the—the blood, they would have been pretty severely injured.”

“No. No, they didn’t get away.” I gulped, toeing the discarded duvet, clamping my jaws shut against the wave of nausea that flashed when my fears were confirmed. There was more blood, the outline of broken bodies, singed into the carpet. “They were murdered.”

Alex put a gentle hand on my forearm and I let him lead me downstairs and out the front door. He closed the Hendersons’ door firmly behind us and turned me to face him when we were out on the front stoop.

“I’m sorry about your friends, Lawson.” He pushed a lock of hair behind my ear, his fingertips gently brushing my cheek as he did so. “Are you okay?”

I sucked in a shaky breath and pinched my eyes shut, hoping to burn the image of the Hendersons’ destroyed room out of my mind. “I’m worried, Alex. This proves it. There’s something going on in the Underworld.”

The muscle in Alex’s jaw twitched, but his eyes stayed soft, stayed focused on mine. “It doesn’t prove anything. It could have been a random attack, for all we know.”

“They were”—I scanned the sidewalks, dropping my voice—“demons. That would be a hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

Alex nodded, though he didn’t look convinced.

I shook my head, rubbing at the throb that had started near my temples. “And they were dragons. It’s not easy to take down a dragon. Who—what—ever did this knows what he’s doing. And he’s strong.”

“What are you going to do?”

I felt my mouth drop open. “What am I going to do? You’re the police. You’re a homicide detective!”

“And you work for the one entity in the entire world equipped to deal with demons.”

I stared Alex down, until he blew out a sigh.

“What am I supposed to do? Call a squad in for a disappearing dragon death?”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “You could do worse.”

“Call Dixon. Let him handle this. After what you’ve been through this past year, don’t you think it’s time to take it easy?”

Alex tried to squeeze my shoulder in what I supposed was an attempt to be appeasing and compassionate, but I dodged him, narrowing my eyes.

“I almost got blown up by a psychotic fallen angel,” I reminded.

“You almost got blown up in general.”

“Which makes looking into a demon murder look like a cakewalk.” I forced a Cheshire grin.

“So we’re on the case?”

“Let Dixon handle it,” Alex repeated.

I thought of the dismissive way Dixon promised to “look into” the incident and then looked at Alex as he beelined down the front walk, stuffing his gun back into his holster. He paused at the sidewalk and looked over his shoulder. “Coming?”

I followed Alex down to his car, where he fished out a first aid box from under the seat. He carefully, tenderly picked the last bits of glass out of my palms, then swabbed the whole thing with Mercurochrome.

I squirmed. “That stings!”

“Hold still.”

He fished out a roll of gauze from the kit.

“I shouldn’t be letting you do this,” I said finally.

“Because I’m not a doctor?”

“Because you’re an idiot. Something is going on. It could be a band of—of Mexican drug lords or a fallen angel coming to seek her ultimate revenge or, you know, crackheads. And you didn’t do a thing about it.” My eyes started to sting and I sniffled furiously, willing myself not to cry. “You’re going to feel so bad if they come back and gut me.”