He looked up along the line of the stairs, the damp, dark strands of his hair sliding back. “The old-blood smell is strongest up there.” Scanning the lower floor and taking in the multiple doors on either side of the hallway, he said, “We clear these together.”
Holly didn’t argue. Ash and Janvier had taught her that you never left your partner alone in an unknown situation. “We should lock the front door.” It’d make it harder for anyone to sneak in behind them and launch a stealth attack.
Removing the old-fashioned key from the lock afterward, she put it in her jeans pocket just as the bare lightbulb dangling from a wire in the ceiling flickered for a second. It had been on when they entered, and while its light was anemic, it was better than the storm gray gloom.
As it settled again, throwing shadows into the corners, she watched Venom’s back while he opened the first door. No sign of life, the room beyond empty of anything but a broken-down sofa with cigarette burns on the arms, the foam stuffing visible where the dirty fabric was torn.
Holly took the next door; she was half expecting Venom to attempt to hijack the search, but he remained at her back, an alert, watchful presence while she looked inside and pronounced the room free of threats. He took the door after that, Holly the next, until they’d completed the entire first floor.
All the internal walls were painted a teal blue shade that had been discolored by time and cigarette smoke to have a sickly yellowish edge. Several boasted holes probably caused by punches, while one had a large black stain. As if someone had thrown a jar full of ink at the wall.
The majority of the rooms were furnished with either a ragged foldout couch or a dirty mattress. Clothes were scattered about on both couches and mattresses. Bedrooms of a sort, she realized. The last room proved to be a living area set up with three large couches that all sagged in the middle and faced a curved television screen that took up most of one wall.
Unlike every other item in the place, the TV was clean and cutting-edge.
A second later, she spotted the box that had held the TV. The lack of stains or cobwebs on it seemed to indicate the television was a recent purchase.
Holly gripped Venom’s arm when he would’ve stepped inside to examine the items on the glass-topped coffee table that sat between the sofas and the TV. “Needles,” she said, pointing down.
His lip curled. Taking off his sunglasses, he hooked them in the front of his shirt. “Someone’s mother didn’t teach them to keep a clean house.”
Holly blinked. Though she’d asked him about his family, she’d never really thought of Venom as a man who’d had a mother. And definitely not one who’d taught him how to maintain the cleanliness of a home.
“Just be careful.” Vampires weren’t vulnerable to disease, but being stuck was still disgusting—and ever since the Falling, no one could be certain a needle hadn’t been adulterated with some kind of virus or infection that could affect immortals.
Holly probably shouldn’t know that it was the Archangel Charisemnon who’d created the disease that had struck vampires and dropped angels from the sky, but it was hard to work in the Tower with high-level vamps and not pick up information. After what Venom had told her outside, she figured Charisemnon had gained a disease-causing gene in the Cascade.
Not a gift she’d want, but she wasn’t an archangel bent on power.
“I’m guessing there’re a lot of syringes lying around,” she said. “The vamps shoot up the junkies right before a honey feed, so that the high is stronger, lasts longer. No one’s in a state to care about the syringes afterward.”
Nodding, Venom walked to his original destination. He picked up something rectangular with squared edges, opened his hand to let it fall.
“Whoa.” Holly stared at the hundred-dollar bills floating from his hand, then took in the new TV again. “Vampires who live in this area don’t have access to that kind of cash.” Most were out of Contract and had used up the money they’d been given when that Contract was complete—but not found well-paying jobs in the aftermath.
Venom rubbed a white powder between his fingers, brought it to his lips for a small taste. “Cocaine. From the amount of dust on this table, it’s likely the source of the cash.” Dusting off his hands, he said, “Let’s go up. There’s no threat here.”
Holly headed up the steps in front of him, his presence a coldly silken danger at her back. She knew he could kill her as fast as a cobra strike—Venom might wear three-piece suits and look like he’d stepped out of a high-fashion magazine shoot, but he was a predator under the skin.
Rotting blood. Old urine. Other, more noxious body fluids.
Holly pressed a hand against her stomach as she tried not to breathe in the increasingly fetid odor. “They’re up here . . . and they’re probably dead, right?” The idea made her stomach lurch, the response primal.
“Not necessarily. Our targets aren’t human.”
Exhaling, Holly nodded. Vampires could survive significantly more blood loss than humans. They could even survive multiple-limb amputation in traumatic circumstances. She’d heard the limbs would eventually grow back—but for most vampires, that would take a long, long, long time. It wasn’t as if they were angels, after all.
For vampires like Dmitri and Venom, however, she had a feeling the timeline was shorter—a lot shorter. “Have you ever lost a limb?” she asked in an effort to distract herself from the smell.
“Once,” Venom answered easily as they took in the layout of this floor. “It was in battle—my left arm.”
“How long for it to regenerate?”
“Three quarters of a year. I was a lot younger then.”
Three quarters of a year was still nothing in comparison to the vast majority of vampires. Holly knew a century-old vamp who’d lost his pinky in a bar fight when another brawler bit it off. A month after the incident and it was still a ragged stump.
“I’ll go first into these rooms,” Venom said, his eyes glinting at her.
Holly straightened her spine. “I don’t need to be protected.”
“I’m stronger. If these vampires are drug maddened, I’d rather put them down quickly than watch you flail about.”
Holly gave him the finger. Asshole.
Smile becoming deep, taking him from handsome to fucking handsome, the beautiful asshole turned and walked to the first doorway. Holly watched his back instead of giving in to her bizarre compulsion to enter that room. He didn’t say anything about the room, though he spent thirty seconds standing in the doorway.
He then quickly checked the other rooms.
“Let’s clear the third level,” he said after he was done. “Then we can deal with the mess in the first room.” He turned on a light in the hallway, as if there was no longer any reason for stealth.