“I understand,” Masara said, laying a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
“He’s never been violent to my mom. He’s just not like this. I don’t understand. Something’s wrong here!” She stared up and Masara, her gaze pleading for understanding, for belief, for some explanation for what had happened to her family.
Masara sat down at the island, facing Amy, so their knees brushed. Duncan and Walker exchanged a silent glance and eased backward to lean against the kitchen wall, giving the Maja room to work.
Duncan’s gaze fell on the bay window beyond them. It was a glorious fall night, the trees awash with moonlight. A huge cedar play set dominated the yard, an elaborate cedar structure with swings, a slide, and a rock-climbing wall, topped with a sturdy fort. Oh great. She’s got kids. Kids whose grandparents have been murdering people.
“What can you tell us?” Masara asked softly.
Amy looked blindly around. Walker straightened, lifted a box of tissues off the countertop, and handed it to her. She took a Kleenex and blew her nose. “Tom and I are celebrating our fifteenth anniversary this week. We were supposed to fly to New York tomorrow night. Mom and Dad were taking the kids to Disney World -- they were going to swing by and pick them up this morning.” A tear rolled silently down her cheek, and she paused to pluck another tissue and wipe her eyes. “We were all busy packing, and I knew Dad was trying to wrap things up at his shop. When I didn’t hear anything from them, at first I didn’t think anything of it. But after they didn’t show up this morning, I decided to drop by and check on them.” A spasm of grief and horror twisted her face. “I smelled blood when I walked in the door.”
Her hand tightened hard on the wadded Kleenex, and Duncan was startled to see a crimson stain spreading through the tissue. Her fingernails had lengthened and curled into claws on her human fingers, cutting into her palms. She didn’t appear to notice.
“I thought someone had… attacked them, but the only recent scents were Mom’s and Dad’s. But he didn’t smell right. He smelled… sick. And really pissed-off.” For a moment, anger broke through her grief, and she straightened, her tone going fierce. “Jack Rand never lifted a hand to my mother, ever. Would never. Something made him do that. Some spell or sickness or… I don’t know. But it wasn’t his fault.”
It never is, Duncan thought.
Hunching in on herself, Amy began to cry. Masara slid from her seat and pulled the woman into her arms. Amy clung to her as the Maja stroked her hair, her face compassionate. The witch looked up, her gaze meeting Walker’s in a silent request for information.
“She called her husband and he called me,” the cop said quietly. “I met them at the scene. The initial attack took place in the bedroom. The bed…”
“It was a wreck,” Amy said, blotting her eyes. “They’d fought and clawed it up, and she bled… I think he must’ve bitten her. There was a lot of blood.” Her eyes went unfocused. “There’s a blood trail all the way through the house where she ran from him. He bled too -- she did fight back -- but it didn’t smell right. It… We followed the scent trail out into the woods. She stopped fighting him. I think maybe she lost consciousness. It smelled like they stayed there together overnight. We went to CyberWizard’s…”
“CyberWizard’s?” Duncan asked
“That’s Dad’s shop. He repairs computers.” Amy frowned. “There were some really weird scents there. Animal smells. Blood and sickness, but faint, as if it had been washed away. I think he must have hosed down the parking lot. We followed his trail to a grave in the field behind the strip mall where he’d buried something. We dug it up. I was afraid it might be…” She broke off, blinking hard. “But there were thirty-four rat corpses.”
Masara’s brows climbed. “Rat corpses?”
She nodded. “Big ones, too. Tom said he thought they were Norwegian wharf rats. I didn’t even know we had any of those around here.”
“Rand had killed them all.” Walker put in. “Ripped some of them to pieces, bitten others. And they all smelled of his blood. They must’ve attacked him, and he had to fight them off. From the scents, it happened several hours before he went after his wife. He didn’t smell sick at the time of the rat attack, but all the rats stank.”
“So it’s possible they’re the source of the infection.” Masara straightened, her gaze going focused and intent. “What did you do with these corpses?”
“I bagged one of them for you. It’s in the back of the SUV. I reburied the others, since I was afraid they were contagious.”
“Good thinking. I’d like to see this rat.”
Amy reached out and caught Masara’s wrist. “Do you think it was a spell? Or some kind of disease?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know. It could be, but we’ll need to learn more.”
Amy bit her lower lip. “If it is, will you be able to cure it?”
“I don’t know.” Masara gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “I will certainly do everything I can.”
* * *
The four of them walked out to Walker’s sheriff’s department SUV. Walker pulled his keys from his pocket and thumbed the fob. The trunk popped open. “It’s right in… Holy shit!”
Among a neatly organized collection of police gear lay the remains of an empty plastic bag and shreds of duct tape. “What the hell? My car was locked!” The sergeant started to snatch up the plastic bag. “How did somebody get in to steal…”
“Don’t touch it,” Masara ordered. She gestured, and the bag floated upward. Amy gasped at her, eyes huge. Duncan realized it must be the first time she’d seen a witch work magic. “Let me check that bag first.”
Walker stepped back from the SUV as he stared around warily, scenting the air. To Masara, he said, “Hey, would you cast one of those invisibility spells of yours? I want to sniff around.”
She nodded. “Of course.” She gestured and the smell of ozone filled the air like smoke, magic flared around the cop as he shifted.
The big werewolf sniffed the SUV, then the bag still hovering in the air. “Nothing on the truck. Not smelling anything on the bag either. And if Rand ripped it open, his scent should be all over it. I’m not smelling anything but rat.”
Amy recoiled, her eyes going wide. “Do you think it… escaped?”
Walker frowned down at her -- at least, Duncan thought that was a frown. “It was dead. Disemboweled. I may not know what the hell is going on, but I know dead.”
“Maybe another rat got it,” Duncan suggested.
“The SUV was locked,” the cop protested. “How the hell would it have gotten in?”
“Is there such a thing as shape-shifting rats?”
Walker glowered. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Duncan pointed a finger at each of them in turn. “Hey, vampire, witch, werewolves. Why not shape-shifting rats? Or, hell, zombie rats?”
“Because it’s bullshit. I’m going to look for a scent trail.”
“I’ll help.” Drawing on the Mageverse as he’d been taught, Duncan shifted to wolf form -- and so did Amy, to his surprise. She was a delicately built Dire Wolf next to Walker’s muscular bulk, with fur as red as an Irish Setter’s. Together they searched the entire area, but they found nothing.
“Maybe whoever took the rat drove away in a car,” Masara suggested after they all shifted back.
“They would still have had to walk to the car,” Walker told her. “There’s no scent trail at all. It’s as if it just flew away.”
Flying zombie rats? Duncan kept the thought to himself. He had the feeling no one would appreciate the joke. He eyed Masara, whose attention had returned to the hovering plastic bag, her long fingers flicking to turn it this way and that. “Anything?”
“Whatever was in this bag was definitely dead. Now, whether it was dead when it left the bag is a different question.”
“Are you saying it got out of that bag under its own power?” Walker demanded, a definite canine rumble in his voice.
“I don’t know,
but it does appear the bag was torn open from the inside.”
Amy stared at her. “So we are dealing with a zombie rat?”
“Not necessarily. Could be a spell.” She flicked a hand, and a box appeared in her palm. It flipped open and the bag floated into it. The lid snapped closed and she gestured. The box vanished with an audible pop. “I’ll take a look in the Mageverse where the magic’s stronger. There are a few spells I can try there I can’t work here. Whatever that rat was, I don’t think it’s immune to magic.”
“First good news we’ve had all day,” Walker growled.
* * *
As they returned to the kitchen, Amy caught Masara’s arm. She looked very young. Very vulnerable. “Can you help them? If it’s a black magic spell, can you break it? Can you heal them?”
Not if spells don’t work on them, Duncan thought.
Masara wrapped her strong fingers around the other woman’s and gave her a comforting squeeze. “We’ll do everything we can. Do you have any idea where they might have gone?”
Amy shook her head. “We looked everywhere we could think of.”
Duncan caught a flash of movement out of the corner of one eye. He turned to see a young boy hovering in the doorway, looking tense and frightened. The kid had a head full of dark curls and big brown eyes, and though he was older and his skin paler, something about him reminded Duncan of Farijaad.
The kid saw him looking and retreated quickly. The fear and vulnerability on the young face made Duncan long to comfort him. He found himself following. He rounded the corner to see the child perched on the flight of steps leading to the second floor, hands twisted together in anxiety. “Is my granddad dead?” Enormous dark eyes stared pleadingly into his.
A lie leaped to Duncan’s mouth, but he swallowed it. “We don’t know. We don’t think so.” He dropped to one knee in front of the kid and offered his hand. “I’m Duncan Carpenter.”
The boy hesitated a moment, then solemnly took his hand, squeezed, and shook once, as if following parental instructions. “My name’s Liam Harrington. I’m ten. And a half.” He bit his lower lip. “Grandpa did something bad to my grandma, didn’t he?”
“We don’t know that either. Not for sure.”
“Mama picked up the scents. I heard her and my dad talking. She said it smelled like Grandpa bit Grandma. Bit her bad.” In a rush he added, “But he loves my grandma. He wouldn’t do that. Did witches put a spell on him? Did y’all do something to him?”
“We don’t do things like that. We’re the good guys.” Duncan managed a reassuring smile. The suspicion in those brown eyes reminded him far too much of Afghanistan.
“I heard the policeman say my grandma and grandpa killed a jogger lady. Did a bad witch turn them into serial killers?” His lower lip trembled. “Are they going to kill me too?”
“Of course not. Your grandparents love you. They’d never hurt you.” Never mind that he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. “We’ll find your grandparents, and we’ll do everything we can to help them.”
“Are you really a vampire?”
He blinked. “Well… yeah.”
“If you try to bite me, my momma will turn into a werewolf and eat you.”
“I don’t bite little boys.” I save my bites for grown witches. Preferably Masara. “We’re the good guys, remember?”
Liam eyed him suspiciously. “The vampires on television are evil.”
“Television people also think werewolves are evil.”
Liam considered that solemnly. “Mama says they make stuff up.” He appraised Duncan. “You promise you’ll save them?”
Reaching out, he gripped the kid’s knee, gave it a little squeeze. “We’ll do everything we can.” I just hope it’s enough.
A tall, dark-haired man stepped out into the hallway, carrying a red-haired little girl in one arm, though she was well past the age of being a comfortable burden. Tears tracked the child’s face, and her big blue eyes were swollen and red.
“Time for bed, Liam.” Tom Harrington was muscular, with a long, bearded face and dark eyes that matched his son’s. The boy nodded and scrambled up the stairs ahead of his father. The two men exchanged a nod as Duncan stepped back, giving the children’s father room to pass.
Heading back into the kitchen Duncan found Masara still talking to Amy.
“It would be best if I cleaned your parents’ house sooner rather than later,” the witch said. “Eventually someone’s going to go by and check.”
“You can… you can do that? There’s so much blood. I was dreading…”
Masara’s eyes were warm with compassion. “I can take care of it all with my magic. Even the smell will be gone.”
“Thank you. That’d be a big help.” But she didn’t smile when she said it.
Duncan didn’t blame her.
* * *
He’d seen some gut-twisting shit overseas -- hell, he’d been directly involved in some of it. But there was something about the Rand house that made his hair stand on end.
That was partly because of his new vampire senses. He’d known terror had a scent -- the jogger’s body had reeked of it. But there was so much sickness, fear, and desperation hanging in the air at the couple’s home, it made him want to jump out of his skin.
A couple of days before, the place must have looked like somebody’s Pinterest page. Except for the blood trail, it was perfectly clean and beautifully decorated, with care in the selection of every photo, houseplant, and stick of furniture. All of which made the pall of blood and horror more gut wrenching.
Masara, Duncan, and Walker searched the house, the cop in Dire Wolf form, the Magekind with swords drawn. Though Walker had already been through once with Amy and her husband, there was always the possibility Jack and Ellie had returned.
Moving through the kitchen and down the hall, they carefully sidestepped the dried blood trails, dark brown against the pale hardwood of the hallway. Some of those paw prints were only a little smaller than dinner plates.
The cop and the two Magekind examined the trail grimly. “We definitely have to clean this up,” Duncan said.
“That’s putting it mildly.” It was obvious neither the victim nor her attacker had been human.
They followed the trail to the Rands’ master bedroom to find the splintered door hanging from one warped hinge. “See the way it’s smashed?” Walker said. “I think she broke it down trying to get away from him.”
Glancing inside, Duncan swore. The king-sized oak bed looked as if a pig had been slaughtered on it. The mattress and comforter were covered in blood and clawed to ribbons. A bedside lamp lay on the floor, shattered, and the oak bureau lay on its side, half crushed, as splintered as the door. “Looks like she tried to block his path with it, but he crashed right through.”
Masara studied the scene grimly. “I’m going to have to burn that bed and create a new one. Magic is not going to get that blood out.”
Walker shifted back to human. When he saw Duncan’s questioning glance, he explained, “I don’t think we’re likely to be attacked here. Judging by the scents, they haven’t been here in a couple days.”
“What did you learn when you searched the house with Amy and her husband?” Masara asked.
The deputy shoved his hands in his uniform pants. “It’s a little hard to tell because of the way the scents are layered, but I don’t think she was sick when she lay down with him. She was worried as hell, though.”
“She had good reason to be,” Duncan said.
“Sometime during the night, he attacked her.” Walker gestured at the wall, where blood splattered a framed wedding photograph of a lovely redheaded woman in what looked like a mile of white silk, lace, and seed pearls. Her green eyes sparkled as she smiled up at a tall, handsome man in a white tux, who grinned down at her, obviously besotted. Duncan winced. Poor fuckers.
As he studied the wedding photo, he felt an uncomfortable combination of pity and a kind of aching envy. No matter ho
w it had gone bad at the end, at least they’d had that radiant love for more than thirty years. He and Masara had barely managed a single night…
“Here’s what I think is the timeline,” Walker said, jolting Duncan out of his moment of self-pity. “Sunday night infected rats attack Jack Rand as he’s leaving his business. He fights them, kills them, and buries them in a hole behind the shop, then hoses down the parking lot so his neighbors won’t see the blood everywhere when they come to work the next morning. By the time he gets home, he’s already sick. He and his wife go to bed. Sometime in the middle of the night, Jack attacks her. He chases her through the house and out into the woods, where she collapses. He doesn’t attack her again, just stays with her. Judging by the scents, she starts getting sick. By ten o’clock the next morning, she’s as crazy as he is. They both kill the jogger.”
“And it starts with those rats,” Masara said.
“Killer rabid zombie rats,” Duncan added.
“Not funny,” Walker growled.
“Nope,” he agreed, and turned to Masara. “What kind of Night of the Living Dead crap is going on here?”
“I have no idea.” She glared at the bed. “But I’m going to try a scrying spell and see what I can find out.”
Walker frowned. “Scrying spell?”
“A spell to see the future, past, or something some distance away in the present. I don’t know if it’ll work, given that we’re dealing with werewolves, but if they interact with humans, I may be able to see the mortals.” She shrugged. “It’s certainly worth a try, and it’s not as if we have a lot of other leads.” Masara began to pace around the room eyeing the arrangement of furniture. A gesture sent a rocking chair sliding into the corner, followed a moment later by the chest that stood at the end of the bed. A wave of sparkles splashed over the bed, lifting it as if it weighed no more than a paperback and wafting it into the middle of the room. Duncan and Walker stepped hastily out of the way.
“What the hell is she doing?” Walker asked Duncan as she began to walk a slow circle around the bed. Where she stepped, a line of something that glittered appeared on the hardwood floor.
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