Pool of Crimson (13 page)

Chapter 9

The oversized white French doors, overlooking the back deck of the brick mansion in Victorian Village where I’d nearly been raped and eaten a few nights ago, loomed over me like a gateway to my nightmares. Talk about warm and fuzzy memories. Yeah, right!

The three-inch heels I wore were not helping with my attempt at a stealthy entry into the house. I’d ditched my office at lunch to practice a little Breaking & Entering. Now that I stood at the threshold of a felony, I was, understandably, having second thoughts.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with cool autumn air that smelled of decaying leaves and wet grass. I squared my shoulders. The time for hesitation was over. Jade had already been hurt in the crossfire. When I crossed said threshold, there’d be no going back. The vampires would smell me all over everything. They’d know I’d been there but I needed to know.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a worn brown leather envelope. I rolled up the sleeves of my crisp white dress shirt, readjusted my black sweater vest and matching tie, and opened the little leather case. Several stainless steel lock picks gleamed back at me in the mid afternoon sun.

I’d bought the set while I was still in high school. The purpose was to pick the lock on my band director’s cabinet—where he kept the popcorn. I wasn’t bad, but if the lock had more than three tumblers, I was sunk. If I needed, I could just break one of the panes of glass in the French door and reach inside. That approach lacked
finesse
and made a lot of noise, though so I’d try the lock first.

I knelt down in front of the lock and slipped the tension wrench into the keyhole. I spun it gently half a turn clockwise. I slipped the long slender pick from the case and inserted it into the keyhole alongside the tension wrench, hooked end first. I found the first tumbler easily, then pushed the pin up into the housing and the second then the third fell into place.

SHIT!
Sweat beaded on my upper lip and brow as I searched for the fourth.

“Come on, you sonovabitch,” I cursed under my breath as I shifted the pick in the casing. After a few harrowing moments of desperation, the fourth tumbler slid into place. I pushed it up into the casing with a quick flick of my wrist and a sigh of relief. The lock clicked open with a sound that echoed in my ears like a coin in an empty metal drum. I turned the knob and shoved the door open.

I leapt to my feet and waited for all hell to break loose.

No alarm.

No guard.

Not even a guard dog.

I stepped over the threshold cautiously, quietly.

The room appeared large enough and grand enough to be a ballroom with its high ceilings and beautifully patterned parquet floors. A sofa, loveseat, and several tables sat in front of the enormous stone fireplace. Anything that big could only be characterized as a hearth. The stonework crept up the entire wall to the vaulted ceiling, creating a conversation area. The room felt as if someone actually lived there with a grand piano in the corner resting comfortably on a beautiful red and gold Persian rug. The walls were bare; no pictures, paintings, or art. I wasn’t sure what I expected. It wasn’t like they’d have family pictures hanging everywhere.

I crept across the floor to the closed double doors at the opposite end of the room. The click, click, click of my heels on the parquet floors echoed through the house eerily. I’d thought about taking them off but I might need my hands so I left them on.
The vampires were asleep anyway.

I reached for the door to the rest of the house and tugged.

The winding stairs to the second floor, where I’d perched and listened, were off to my right. The office where Patrick, Ebony Goddess, and the Marlboro Man discussed me was on my left. The door was shut and I gave a silent prayer it wasn’t locked. I scanned the familiar foyer, took a few steps out into the emptiness, and peered up the stairs into the dark for signs of movement.

Nothing.

I stepped out further into the foyer and the click of my heels once again echoed through the dead space. I bounced up to the balls of my feet and walked on tiptoes to the office door.

I stopped, frozen in my tracks. A waft of sulfur tickled my nose as a breeze brushed across my feet from under the door several feet down from the office. I hadn’t noticed it the other night. The closer I got to the mysterious door, the stronger the putrid odor. A faint line of light emanated from the space between the floor and the door. My gut tightened and adrenaline shot through me in a hot rush, tightening every muscle in my body. My instincts shouted at me not to open that door. My heart pounded in my chest. My stomach twisted in knots. A soft warning growl reverberated in the back of my mind. I was scared shitless. But I had to look. I reached out hesitantly and turned the knob slowly.

I forced the tension from my arm into the door to keep it steady and tight against the jamb.
Don’t squeak. Please, don’t squeak.

Lights flickered at the bottom of the stairs. The smell of sulfur hit my nose like a wave of toxic fumes. The steps leading down were not the dilapidated rotting wood of my parents’ home like I’d thought. A house this old should have had old rotting wood somewhere but these were solid stone. I sighed in relief as quietly as I could and said a silent thank you. At least I knew I wouldn’t fall through and break my leg.

Each step I took downward gave way to a larger expanse that opened up before me. The basement was large enough for almost two whole houses. The area was two stories tall and wider than a single football field.

The air was chilly and damp. I breathed in the mix of moisture held in by the stone walls and the searing smell of rotten eggs. I could smell the water seeping through the cracks of the stones, giving the air a musty, almost mildewed, feel. The expanse was silent and claustrophobic, like a tomb.

I did my best not to slip on the sandstone steps. Sandstone’s like a sheet of ice when it gets wet, and the moisture in the air had made the stairs slick and dangerous. I reached the bottom in one piece without tripping, falling, or slipping. I smiled, impressed with myself.

Gas lamps lined the north wall, providing a soft, flickering yellow glint. The ceiling had barrel arches with large pillars throughout as support. My heels echoed, thanks to those arches. The floor ahead of me sank into an amphitheater, with long lines of cement circling the center stage like a stadium. A giant pentagram had been etched in the stone floor, and a familiar stern woman with white hair and vibrant blue eyes stood in the center of it. The same ghost that had watched me in the attic smiled at me as her stark white hair whipped around her in a wind I couldn’t feel.

“So this is why you’re all here,” I said softly as I stepped closer to the pentagram. A shiver ran up my spine as I crossed the pentagram circle and a sensation of pure evil crept into my bones. The spirit moved aside and allowed me to get a better look at the pentagram. A dark brown stain, thick and viscous, in the center of the pentagram turned my stomach as dread sank into my toes. Blood. Old blood.

A wash of unease swept over me like a cold wind in December. My skin crawled and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I knew evil when I felt it, and I stood in the middle of something that would taint me for the rest of my life. I looked up at the old woman with a question in my eyes as she floated slightly above the blood on the floor.

“I don’t know if I can fix this,” I whispered with resignation and an apology, making my voice thick after a few moments. “I’ll do my best though,” I whispered and, even as quietly as I had spoken, my voice echoed in the empty, cold, damp basement.

The ghost faded in a translucent wave, like air rippling above hot pavement. I was alone again. I shook off the chill in my bones and raced toward the stairs.

I couldn’t get out of that basement fast enough. I high- tailed my ass up the stairs without a second thought to the slick surface of the stone steps, then closed the door silently and breathed a sigh of relief as my hands shook with fear.

I hadn’t really believed demons were involved. I hadn’t wanted to believe. But the creepy feel of evil that had swept over me in that basement wouldn’t let me deny it any longer. Vampires were one thing. Demons were something else entirely.

I also couldn’t ignore the side effect of that pentagram, trapping spirits in the mansion, and they didn’t like it. I took a couple of deep breaths to try and keep my heart from pounding out of my chest. I wasted a few precious minutes standing with my back firmly pressed against that basement door.

I stepped away hesitantly. I found it difficult to pull my body forward, like I was the only thing holding that evil back. I closed my eyes and took a big step. An incredible sense of lightness filled my mind and body, overtaking me with each step away from that door and the pentagram hidden behind it.

I stopped in front of the office door. I turned to look over my shoulder at the stairs. Still nothing. No movement, no shifts in the air, no smells, nothing. I took the cool knob in my hand and said a quick prayer and made the sign of the cross over my chest in a long forgotten habit, hoping for a break. I was pretty sure God didn’t give a shit if I got a break, but it couldn’t hurt. I turned the knob. The handle turned. Open.

The office was dark. I flicked the switch on the wall, flooding the office with light. The walls were white and bare like the other room, stark with an antiseptic feel. A dark mahogany desk with a high back chocolate leather chair sat in the center of the room. Open books and papers were spread across the top haphazardly. A black rotary phone held down a neat stack of papers that looked like contracts with little red signature tabs sticking out of the sides.

A honey-colored leather club couch sat along the wall to my left, looking worn and lived in. A fire burned in the fireplace, identical to the one in the other room. The black scorch marks scaring the stone made it look well used. The wall behind the desk was lined with built in bookshelves filled with old books and aged, delicate texts, the kind with scrollwork and no titles on the spines.

I walked around the desk and started sifting through the odd collection of papers. The calendar on top of the pile was open to the month ahead, November. Red ovals surrounded several days and an assortment of appointments were written in black over several squares. A black line crossed through T. Dean in the margins, then continued across the entire calendar back to a square at the top. The New Moon date was circled.

I picked up the edge of the calendar and quickly leafed through the contracts beneath it. I didn’t have time to read and decipher the legalese. A brief look was all I had time for at the moment. I noticed the name at the top of the contracts, Lebensblut, Inc. I repeated it several times to myself silently so that I wouldn’t forget.

I sifted through the open books on top of the desk next, flipping through the yellowed pages. Garish pictures stared back at me. Horned beasts and flames licking the skin from tortured humans. Images of blood stained every page. Demons! I thumbed through the pages of the first book searching for any mention of Ahriman, then followed with a second book, but most of the text was in a script I couldn’t read, either Arabic or Persian. The other texts were in German and Russian. I didn’t read German and I didn’t have enough time to translate the Russian.

A few business cards were strewn about, almost forgotten in the contracts and books. One was for an HVAC repair company and was being used as a book mark in the German text. Another was propped up against the rotary phone. That one was for Crimson, a night club downtown. A third business card stuck out from under one of the books, all I could read was the bottom line of the title. It was for a construction company, Trevelyan something. The bulldozer on the corner of the card was cute. I reached for the card but stopped. A creak from the hardwood floor stopped me cold. I looked up quickly with a snap of my neck.

Patrick’s dark, intense gaze stared back at me from the doorway of the office.

He shouldn’t be awake!

I wiped all emotion from my face and gave him my version of the cold, hard stare. His power washed over me, like sitting in the middle of a stream at the beginning of April. The cool sensation of water rushed around me, over me, and finally through me as his power engulfed me.

He lounged in the doorway, arms crossed over his chiseled chest. An imposing and virile figure in red silk pajama pants, tied loosely at his narrow hips. His feet were bare, as was his chest, a perfect alabaster canvas, except for the trail of dark hair circling his belly button and descending lower beneath the line of his pajama bottoms. My mind wandered to how his skin would feel underneath my fingertips. He looked like sin standing in the doorway. I held back the grunt of approval lodged in the back of my throat.

Power, for some vampires, was a short burst of cold electricity. That kind of power could knock me back on my ass if I wasn’t prepared; quick bursts of energy that would dissipate quickly. Patrick’s power was a constant pressure at my skin and pulsed with his every move. He was much more powerful than any vampire I’d ever experienced before.

“Are you having fun?” His tone was antagonistic, his shoulders tight, his lips hardened into a grim line.

I did break into his house, after all. I suppose I couldn’t blame him for being a little annoyed.

He didn’t move from the doorway. He didn’t move at all.

“I wouldn’t say ... fun exactly,” I said, heavy on the sarcasm as I carefully laid the book back on the desk.

“No?”

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping? Taking a vampire nap?” I took a cautious step to my left. There was more clearance around that side of the desk, and I wanted room to move.

His eyes followed me, like a large cat follows its prey through the tall grasses of the savannah, his dark eyes focused and undeterred.

I felt small under that gaze, but I wouldn’t let him know that. I squared my shoulders and took another step toward him.

“I couldn’t sleep with someone banging around down here,” he said with an unexpected and quirky smile.