House of Shadows

by Morgan Hawke

  Klaus smiled and it was far from human. “But you are strong enough to hold his attention.”

  Rowan shook her head. “Look, I found the thing for you. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve done you enough favors. Go get him yourself.”

  Klaus stared at Rowan. “Are you afraid?

  “Hell, yes!” Rowan took a step back. “What ever he is, he’s nasty. I know I can’t take on something like that, I’m not stupid!”

  Klaus shrugged. “Rickart and I will handle this one, you need only…”

  “Rowan stays here.” Rick’s voice came out through clenched teeth.

  Klaus leveled a crimson glare at Rick. He pointed an overlong finger at Rowan. “Her power will be irresistible to one such as he.”

  Rick abruptly stepped between Rowan and Klaus. “I said, Rowan stays here!”

  She shook her head. “My soul isn’t corrupt enough to interest a demon anyway. I haven’t killed anybody.”

  “This is not a demon.” Klaus abruptly stepped away. “It is a very old, very lonely creature from a world that no longer exists.”

  Rick frowned. “What the Hell is this thing?”

  Klaus glanced at Rick with annoyance then stared at Rowan. “The creature hides behind a wall of magic that I cannot pass, but he did not cast it. He is using a sorcerer that is little more than an animated corpse. The temptation to replace that one with a living ved’ma as strong as she, will bring him from his lair.”

  “You are not using her as bait for that thing.” Rick shook his head. “She’s too fragile to take on this kind of hunt.”

  Klaus glowered from where he stood by the kitchen door. “This will be fruitless without her.”

  “Fragile?” Rowan said through gritted teeth. “I’m not that bad!”

  Rick turned to frown at her. “Would you prefer the word mortal? As in: easily killed?”

  Rowan felt her cheeks grow warm. “Hey, I held off two vampires.” She crossed her arms. “I’m not completely helpless.”

  Rick turned and took her shoulders. “Only because neither of us thought to use a gun. Why? Do you want to go?”

  Rowan raised her hands. “Oh, Hell no! I’m just protesting the fragile stuff.”

  “Good.” He tilted her chin up and dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “You can argue with me about being fragile when we get back.”

  Rowan smiled thinly. “Count on it.”

  Rick nodded then pulled his cell phone from his pocket and checked to see that the battery was fully charged. He glanced up. “You still have my cell phone number, right?”

  Rowan blinked. “Yes, actually. It’s in my small pouch.” She pressed her hand against a small red bag on her left hip, tied to her belt.

  “Good. There’s a phone right here in the kitchen.” He pointed to cordless phone mounted on the wall by the doorway to the hall. “Call me if you need anything.”

  Rowan nodded. “No problem.”

  “That is an excellent idea,” said Klaus.

  They both turned to look at the ragged vampire.

  “Take this as well.” Klaus held out a thick black string about as long as Rowan’s hand.

  Rick frowned. “What is it?”

  Klaus dropped the string on the kitchen table. “It is a thread from my robe.” He looked at Rowan from under lowered brows. “Use it to call me if you have need.”

  Rowan blinked in surprise. “All right.” She stepped over to the kitchen table and picked up the string. It may have looked like a string, but it felt like a strand of tightly coiled and vibrating otherworldly darkness. She hastily put it back on the table. What ever that really is, it stopped being thread a long time ago.

  Rick tilted his head to the side. “With a piece of thread?”

  Rowan made a sour face. “It’s a direct connection to his spirit. I can use it to call him magically.” Wait a second; Klaus actually gave me a literal piece of himself for me to call him with?

  Rick frowned. “Oh...” He turned to the elder vampire. “So what the hell are you taking me into?”

  Klaus raised a brow at Rick. “It is nothing that you have not dealt with before. You will see.” Klaus actually smiled. Abruptly his form shattered into smoke that dissipated in seconds.

  “I hate it when he does that,” Rick snapped.

  I await you outside…

  Rowan looked at Rick. “Did you hear that?”

  Rick’s brows shot up. “Shit, you heard it too?”

  “Is that bad?”

  He frowned down at her. “As far. I know, only a vampire’s victim should be able to hear a vampire’s thoughts.”

  Rowan bit her lip. “But the only vampire that’s bitten me is you.”

  “Yeah, but he’s been drinking my blood, remember?” His frown deepened. “Anyway, pack your shit in your car as soon as I’m gone. I want us both out of here as fast as we can arrange it. Don’t bother with my stuff. I can buy more on the way.”

  Rowan nodded. “You got it. Get back here as quick as you can.”

  Rick grinned. “Count on it.” He waked to the open the back door.

  “Rick?” Rowan called out.

  Rick turned in the doorway with the doorknob in his hand. “Yeah?”

  Her hands fisted at her sides. “Don’t get yourself killed.”

  Rick gave her a tight grin. “I’ll try not to.” He closed the door quietly behind him.

  - Fourteen -

  Scry

  Kneeling on the kitchen floor, Rowan shoved her books back into the brown case. She placed the last notebook on top. Her eyes caught sight of a tiny corner of off-white paper sticking out between the suitcase’s lid and the interior satin lining. She frowned and pulled out the small piece of neatly folded parchment. Opening the paper, she sighed at the colorful diagram drawn on it.

  “Let’s make this a little easier on Rick, just in case we have to actually run.” She tore the small parchment in half and felt a tiny shiver as her spell broke.

  “One anti-theft spell, down the tubes.” She plucked a small piece of folded parchment from beside her knee. “Insert ‘feather-weight’ spell here,” she said softly, then tucked the folded paper where the anti-theft spell had been. She slammed the lid down and fastened it closed.

  She stood, grabbed the handle then tilted the huge suitcase onto its wheeled end. She lifted the suitcase experimentally. “Well, it’s not exactly light as a feather, but it’s light enough to carry with one hand.” She hauled the huge suitcase to the back door where her other, smaller suitcase sat waiting. She checked the fastenings on both suitcases. “Good thing I found that ‘feather-weight’ spell in the books this afternoon, or I never would have gotten that puppy up the stairs, wheels or no wheels.” A suitcase in each hand, Rowan headed out the back door to her car.

  Rowan unlocked the trunk to her Saturn, then lifted the larger case. It wasn’t exactly heavy but it was awkward to maneuver. She shoved it in as deep as it could go and grabbed for the other suitcase. She lifted the suitcase up until it teetered on the edge of the car’s trunk.

  Rowan heard a loud ringing bong. She looked up. “What the hell was that?” Something in the base of her skull flared white-hot as though she’d been struck. Rowan gasped. The world turned green around the edges of her vision and seemed to tilt. She grabbed for the edge of the car’s trunk to keep upright. The suitcase hit the ground.

  The bong came again. Pain flared viciously in the back of her skull and she whimpered. The green flare became very pronounced. The world tilted harder and she fell, landing on her suitcase. Her stomach abruptly tried to turn over and she suddenly gagged.

  There was a sound of crows flapping and screaming overhead. Moaning with a bad case of motion sickness and the mother of all headaches, she looked around. It was full night and there wasn’t a bird in sight. “Why am I hearing crows?” She could still hear the crows as though she was sitting right in the middle of a squawking murder of them.

  She closed her eyes and tried to think. “A murder of c
rows, a green flare and I feel like I want to throw up...” She took several deep breaths and her stomach settled down. The sound of the birds began to fade as though passing away. She rubbed the back of her head and the ache seemed to be fading too. Her head shot up.

  “Oh, my gods, the property barrier is green and I used a crow feather in the spell to mark a warning. Something big is trying to pass the property barrier!” Rowan got clumsily to her feet. “Gotta phone Rick.” She grabbed her suitcase and levered it into the car’s trunk. She slammed it closed and bolted toward the house.

  A thunderous bong rang out. Pain flared from the base of her skull down her spine and she screamed. The night sky blazed bright lightning green and she heard a powerful rip of thunder. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her knees folded.

  Rowan jolted awake. She was lying facedown in the grass. She rolled to her side, grabbed the back of her head and moaned. “Gods, my head... What the hell just happened?” She blinked. She looked around with pain squinted eyes. No sound of crows. “I heard them last time, why not this time?” Her skin began to crawl. Something bad was coming. It was on the property and it was coming in fast.

  She rolled to her hands and knees and promptly emptied her stomach onto the grass. She gasped and spat. “The barrier... It broke my spell, that has to be why I passed out.” Whatever it was, if it was able to break through her barrier, it was definitely much too big for her to handle.

  “The house...Got to get to the house.” Moaning, she climbed to her feet and hurried to the back door. She had to call Rick, but there was no way he’d get here in time. I think I’m in trouble...

  Rowan slammed the back door closed behind her and locked it. Rowan gasped for breath and tasted bile. She grabbed the cordless phone off the wall, then fumbled through her belt pouch to find the card with his number scrawled on it. He answered on the second ring.

  “This is Rick...”

  Rick!” she gasped out. Her stomach was trying to empty itself again. She grabbed her coffee cup from the kitchen table and stumbled to the sink for some water.

  “Rowan? What’s wrong?”

  “The house barrier... Something’s broken through it.” She took a mouthful of water and spat it into the sink to get rid of the taste of vomit. “Something’s here. Whatever it is—it’s big and it’s ugly, but I don’t think it’s another vampire.”

  “We’re coming back right now. Get to the vault and lock yourself in!”

  “I’m going! I’m going!” She left the cup in the sink and headed out of the kitchen.

  Klaus’s shout came over the phone, loud and clear. “No! Go to the top of the house! The creature after you can move through the earth!”

  “What?” Rowan stopped in front of the door leading to the vault. “What’s after me?”

  “Never mind, just do what he says, get to the top of the house. Go to the storage room next to the TV room, there’s a small balcony outside the big window. Wait for us there.”

  “Okay, okay...” She grabbed the stair railing and began to climb, pulling herself up the staircase. “How come I can still hear Klaus if you’re on your way back? I thought he didn’t like cars.”

  “We’re not using the car.”

  Her stomach was tying itself in knots and she had the phone jammed tight to her ear, making it hard to hurry. “Rick? What’s going on? Where are you?”

  “We’ll be there in a few minutes, just get upstairs...”

  Thumping came from the front door. “Open up—this is the police!”

  Rowan stopped on the landing. “They’re banging on the front door—they’re saying, they’re the police!”

  Klaus’s voice came over the phone. “They may well be. This creature can control the minds of others.”

  “Now you tell me?” Rick shouted. “Rowan, don’t you dare answer that door!”

  “No problem!” Rowan grabbed the railing and hauled herself up the stairs toward the third floor. The TV room was on the fourth. One more floor to go...

  There’s a loud crunch. Something heavy hit the wood floor with a crash. Someone yelled. “She’s on the stairs!”

  “Oh, shit...Rick, they’re in the house!” Boots hammered on the staircase behind her. She tried to run faster and crashed to her knees on the fourth floor landing. She scrambled to her feet, turned the corner and bolted down the hall.

  “Don’t panic, just get to the balcony in the storage room—we’re in sight of the house. Hurry!”

  “I’m going, I’m going...” Rowan tore around the corner and grabbed the doorknob of the room right next to the TV room. “I’m there, I’m there...”

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  She turned and saw two uniformed police officers on their knees pointing guns at her. The gun barrels yawned like black holes. Rowan froze with her hand on the knob. Every hair on her stood up and a fine trembling started all over her body.

  “Put your hands on your head,” one of the officers snapped.

  Slowly, Rowan raised her shaking hands.

  “Rowan? Rowan!” Rick shouted from the phone.

  Very carefully, Rowan moved her thumb and shut off the phone. She put her hands on the back of her head and felt her heart trying to pound its way out of her chest. She was too terrified to think of a damn thing to say.

  One of the officers got up and approached her. He holstered his gun, then grabbed the phone and threw it. It crunched against the wall. Her wrist was snatched, yanked behind her and a handcuff was snapped around it. He took her other hand and cuffed it as well. She didn’t even think to resist. She knew that she had done nothing wrong and that these cops were not here to serve and protect, and yet everything in her was conditioned since childhood to respect the police.

  Rowan blinked. There was something wrong with the police officer. She could feel through his skin that something was off, like he had soured. She couldn’t smell anything but his clean uniform, but at the same time, something was definitely not wholesome or human about him.

  The officer by the stairs holstered his gun. “We’ve got her,” he shouted down the stairs. “We’re bringing her down.”

  Rowan’s elbow was grabbed in a tight hold and she was turned roughly toward the stairs. Rowan felt a hot wash of anger. “What are you arresting me for?”

  The officer on the stair looked at her and smiled coldly. “We’re not arresting you.”

  Rowan stared at the second officer. He looked perfectly normal, except for the flat leaden look in his eye, but a feeling of sour decay seemed to be oozing off of him. She felt her skin break out in a cold sweat and her stomach trying to turn again. The officer that had her elbow may have been off, but this one was rotted to the core.

  Rowan was hauled down the stairs to the entryway. The front door was a splintered mess on the floor. What the hell did they use? A Battering ram?

  They towed her over the fallen door, then outside. There were two police cars sitting on the drive with their turning lights sweeping across the front of the house and the lawn around them. The officer in front opened the back door to one of the cruisers

  She dug in her heels. “What’s going on? Where are you taking me?”

  Something stepped out of the shadows directly to her right. It looked like a smallish bald man in a neat, dark suit but it was not even close to being human. The eyes were an inhuman red-gold, almost orange. There wasn’t a hair on its head, not even for eyebrows. An invisible cloak of rancid skin-shivering power swirled around it.

  She unconsciously pulled away. The officer’s hand on her elbow tightened painfully. This must have been what took out my barrier, but... What the hell is it?

  The creature walked toward her. It stopped less than a yard away and focused his blood-tinted gaze on Rowan. The bright red-gold iris sharply widened and swallowed the white. The dark pupil abruptly stretched and reshaped itself into serpentine slits.

  Rowan felt a shiver of something cold and dank brush against her thoughts. Eww, gross… She took a star
tled breath and felt her gorge rise. The creature smelled of musty, moldy dirt. What ever it is, it’s been dead for a while.

  The police officer jerked her around by the elbow to face the left. A tall man dressed entirely in silver gray stepped out of the shadows and into the glaring house lights. Long blonde waves fell from his high brow and silver brows arched over stone gray eyes. The face was sharply angled as though hewn from stone and his skin was porcelain white. The ankle-length trench coat, worn open over a perfectly tailored gray suit, did nothing to hide incredibly broad shoulders. His shirt was a crisp white and a black tie was knotted neatly at his throat. He had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat.

  Rowan’s brows shot up. He looks like an executive Viking...

  The man raised a silver brow and a small smile curled at the edge of his perfectly sculpted pale, lips. “I am Draugar.” He nodded. “And you are a witch.” The word ended with a sharp snap.

  Rowan raised her chin. “What do you want?”

  Draugar tilted his head toward the house. “It was your spell I felt seeking me and your spell on this house, yes?”

  Rowan nodded.

  He nodded and his smile broadened. “I can make use of one such as you.”

  Rowan shook her head minutely. “Sorry, not interested. I have a job, thank you.”

  “I did not offer you a choice.” His hand came out of his pocket and he made a gesture with his fingers too fast for Rowan’s eyes to follow.

  She heard a shuffling sound and saw the dead thing behind her walk clumsily toward Draugar. It stood beside the man in white, then turned to face her. The creature suddenly smiled. His teeth were serrated like a shark. He took a shambling step toward her and held out his hand. Rancid orange witch-fire curled around it.

  Rowan jerked back and felt the officer’s fingers bruising her arm. “What is it going to do?”

  Draugar chuckled. “You will merely go to sleep. When you awaken, all will be well.”

  Rowan jerked back, but the officer’s hold was unbreakable “Oh, hell no, I’m not letting that dead thing near me!” She felt her radiance blaze to life. Light bled from her skin and lit the ground around her. The officer holding her elbow released her with an inhuman hiss and stepped back.