There were two more spots of blood; a spatter on the grass midway between the fence and the house, and another close to the steps that led up to the back door. There was no blood on either the door or the handle, but the kid was still screaming inside, and it was rather odd no one was making any attempt to calm him down. Especially when he sounded far too young to be left alone.
“Oh God,” Monty murmured. “I hope the hone-onna hasn’t done a two-for-one deal on victims.”
“I don’t think she has,” I said. “Her blood might be on the bottom step, but I have no sense that she lingered here or even went inside.”
And there were no further blood spots to be seen, either on the path that led around the edge of the house or on any of the nearby shrubs. And given the regularity of the drops that had led us here, there should have been.
I returned my gaze to the back door. “She wanted us to come here. Because of the kid.”
Monty blinked. “That’s a bit of a jump.”
“Not really. Not given her efforts to protect Jack. It might also explain why the anger got stronger the deeper we went into the house—she was hearing the upset kid.”
Monty’s expression was one of disbelief. “It’d be extremely unusual for a dark spirit to be in any way concerned about human life, young or not.”
“And yet dark spirits do breed, and they certainly do raise offspring. Who knows, maybe this one lost a child somewhere in the past and now holds a soft spot for them.”
“You two can discuss the finer points of all that at a later time,” Aiden said. “We need to get inside. Now.”
He drew his gun, then padded up the steps and pressed his hand against the door. It opened. Magic briefly shimmered.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Monty said.
Aiden glanced at him. “What is?”
“There’s a protection spell in place across the doorway.”
“Would it have stopped the hone-onna from entering?”
“No, but her entering would have shredded it. It’s intact.” He paused, gaze narrowing. “It’s also not wrapped around the entire house; just across this doorway and, from the faint echoes I’m getting, the front one.”
“Can you dismantle it?”
Monty immediately did. I touched Aiden’s arm and said, “I’ll take the front door and meet you inside. Just give me a couple of minutes to get around there.”
He nodded and glanced briefly at his watch. I ran around the corner of the house and followed the concrete path toward an old wooden gate. There were no further droplets of blood and no indication our spirit had climbed through any of the windows along this side of the house—but one of them was open, and there was an old wooden box sitting under it.
Our spirit might not have climbed inside, but someone definitely had.
I unlatched the gate, made my way through an empty carport, then stopped at the end of the house and peered around. Agapanthuses lined the path that led up to a covered concrete porch. The screen door was open, but I couldn’t see the main door from where I was standing.
I headed for the porch, ducking under each of the windows in an effort not to be seen. Though I was absolutely certain the hone-onna wasn’t here, someone with bad intent definitely was.
I quietly bounded up the steps, then pressed back against the wall and peered around. The front door was closed, so I leaned forward and pressed my fingers against it. Magic stirred against my fingertips, its touch clean and pure. It wasn’t immediately obvious who it had been designed to protect the homeowner against, and though I could have found out with a little time and effort, I was growing more certain time was the one thing I didn’t have a whole lot of. Not if I wanted to stop the bad thing that was about to happen.
I reached for the door handle. It was locked, but a quick spell soon fixed that without disturbing or deactivating the protection spell.
I pressed the door open and warily stepped inside. The carpeted hall wasn’t very long and there were two rooms running off it, both on the right side of the house. The overwrought kid’s desperate, frightened screams might dominate the airwaves, but they didn’t erase scents. There were two people in the room with him and neither appeared to be making any effort to comfort him. One of them stank of fear; the other was all anger. If not for those two scents and the sharp rasp of breathing, it would have been easy to believe that the kid had been left alone.
Unease ratcheted up several notches, and energy unfurled around my fingertips, ready to be unleashed. But as much as I wanted to rush toward the kid’s room, caution was needed. One room lay between us, and this might yet be a trap.
I carefully opened the first door. It was a large bedroom—probably the master—though it didn’t have an en suite and there were a couple of freestanding wardrobes instead of built-ins. The bed was neatly made, and there was nothing to indicate a problem.
Relief stirred but just as quickly died. As I quietly moved down to the next room, I briefly considered waiting for Aiden and Monty. But I just as quickly dismissed the idea. Time was of the essence. I was certain of that if nothing else.
I called on more energy and glanced down as it rolled around my right hand and formed a thick ball—one that could be thrown as a weapon or shield. I just had to hope it would be enough to protect the kid and stop whatever the hell was going on inside the room.
I carefully peered around the doorway. The first thing I saw was the little boy. He was standing in his cot, his face tear streaked and bright red, his arms raised and reaching desperately for his mother. She stood to the left of the door, her hands clenched by her sides and her breathing so fierce her whole body shook with it. Sweat beaded her pale skin, and she stank of fear and horror.
I only had to look right to realize why.
Standing on the other side of the room was the second person I’d sensed. He was tall, broad, and muscular, his physique that of a bodybuilder or weightlifter. His expression was cold and his pupils were pinpoints, suggesting he was either drug- or alcohol-fueled.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
At the end of one outstretched hand was a gun. I knew enough about them now to see that the safety was off. As Aiden had once said to me, “red and you’re dead.”
“Jim, please,” the woman said, her voice low and shaky. “Please, we can work this out. You can’t do this. You don’t want to do this.”
I clenched my fists to hold back the magic pulsing furiously around my fingers. I wanted to unleash it, wanted to intervene, but I had no idea if my magic would ever be faster than a finger already resting on the trigger.
If I made one wrong move, someone could end up dead.
For several seconds, the man didn’t reply. Then, with a low, incomprehensible growl of fury, he fired.
Not at the woman.
At the little boy.
Chapter Ten
“No!” I screamed, and threw the sphere of energy.
It hurtled across the room and flung itself over the child a heartbeat before the bullet hit. It flared fiercely, bending briefly to absorb the impact energy before rebounding. The bullet dropped harmlessly to the floor.
The man swung around to face me and suddenly all I could see was the gun barrel pointed straight at my face. Anger burned through my limbs, and without thought, I flung out a hand, spooling energy from my fingertips in the form of a rope. His finger twitched on the trigger at the same time as my rope ripped the weapon up and then out of his hands. The bullet meant for me smashed into the ceiling instead, and plaster dust rained down. I flung the gun away, then, as a look of sheer surprise crossed his twisted, ugly features, I launched forward, hitting the floor and twisting around in one smooth fast motion. My boot struck his shin hard enough to knock him off his feet and land him on his butt. He cursed, but nevertheless scrambled upright, his fists clenching and unclenching as he lunged toward me.