Blackbird Broken (The Witch King's Crown #2) - Keri Arthur Page 0,103
light darted toward me, paused when it got close, and then retreated.
“I take it it’s designed to dart about and draw the attention of the ribbons?”
Mo nodded. “We’ll have a couple of minutes to get inside before it withdraws.”
I glanced at her. “Withdraw? Not fade?”
She nodded again. “It’ll last an hour; that should give us time to get out if we need it. Ready?”
I motioned her to proceed. She flicked the sphere toward the house, then shifted and flew upward. I changed, grabbed my knives with my claws and followed, hoping like hell that the neighbors weren’t looking our way. They might not notice a hovering blackbird, but they’d look twice at one carrying sheathed knives.
As the sphere neared the house, the ribbons snapped toward it, lashing back and forth in angry warning. The sphere twirled out of their way, then darted across to the building’s communal wall. The ribbons snaked after it and, in the process, fell away from the roofline and down past the window.
Mo immediately flew in. I tucked my wings close and swept under the window frame and into the room. But I cut it too close, and the daggers hit the windowsill’s edge. A ribbon immediately appeared, snapping after us, forcing us to fly on into the hall.
The ribbon paused at the door, then retreated to the middle of the bedroom, where it snapped back and forth for several seconds before slowly retreating.
I shifted shape and dropped to the ground, tension vibrating through my body as I studied the hallway. There was only one other room up here, and, from what I could see, it appeared to be another bedroom. There was no bathroom, but there were stairs that led up into the loft. The place was as silent as a grave and, ominously, smelled like one too.
I pushed to my feet and studied the room we’d flown through. It held a single bed and a chest of drawers, but neither had been used in some time—there was simply too much dust sitting on the top of both. I walked over to the loft staircase and peered up. Nothing but shadows up there, despite the skylights.
Mo looked over my shoulder. “There’s definitely a snare spell up there. I can’t see it, but I can feel it.”
“Then we don’t go up there.” I strapped on my knives, then drew Nex. No light flickered down her sides, which at least meant Darkside inhabitants weren’t nearby. “I’ll check out the other bedroom. You watch the main stairs.”
I stepped around her and moved down the hall. One step into the room was more than enough to see both the room and the source of the stench. I clamped a hand over my nose, but breathing through my mouth didn’t seem to help; the wretched smell of decay coated my throat regardless.
The woman in the bed had obviously been dead for some time; the blankets might be tucked up around her neck, but it was pretty evident the decomposition was well advanced—a fact backed up by the number of maggots visible.
I retreated. There was nothing I could do for the woman and, given the state of decay, no way to uncover what had killed her. That was a job for forensics.
“It’s an elderly woman,” I said. “She’s been dead for quite a while.”
Mo grimaced. “Poor thing. I daresay they killed her in order to use her house. The question is, why?”
“Could it have something to do with the ley line?”
“There’s only one way to find out. Let’s head down.”
I grabbed her arm. “Me first. Nex will react if there’s anything nasty down there.”
“Nex can’t see magic—”
“No, but I can, remember?”
Her gaze narrowed. “I have a suspicion your protective gene is unnecessarily kicking in again.”
“Possibly, but only because if I do have to raise the goddamn sword and shut the gate, I’m going to need you on perimeter defenses to keep the bastards off me.”
“A very good excuse for said protectiveness, and one I’m not buying in the least.”
I grinned and slipped past her. “Tough. Come along.”
She snorted and followed. We moved cautiously down the stairs, pausing every other step to listen. The house remained silent. Dust lay thick on the banisters, and the only coat hanging on the hook near the front door was a vivid pink that obviously belonged to the woman upstairs. From the little I’d seen of Winter, he hadn’t seemed the type to wear such a fluorescent color.