before he opens up hell beneath us all.”
And maybe that’s exactly what this asshole was planning to do if he was hoping to free Lilith. I shook my head. “We’ve got to figure out what this guy is and what his plans are before we tell the Towers. We saw what the guardians did to Indianapolis when they felt threatened. They’ll do it all over again, but this time it’ll be Low Town that’s a smoldering pile of rubble.”
The warlock stood in the open doorway with his back to me, his head lowered. We were trapped. We needed more help, but the Ivory Towers’ preference for blowing things away and asking questions when the smoke cleared would result in too many deaths and not enough answers.
“Let’s look around the house and do some more digging,” I said calmly, trying my best to sound reasonable rather than desperate. “Something helpful might be found in there, giving us an edge that we didn’t have before.” Anything so we didn’t have to call in more warlocks and witches.
It was with considerable reluctance that Gideon nodded his head and continued into the house. I followed behind him, clinging to what little hope I could muster that we might actually get ahead of this prick and stop him before the Towers leveled Low Town.
What we found didn’t help our cause.
CHAPTER 6
After a quick search through the ground level, where we found nothing, we descended the stairs into what appeared to be a family room and play area for the kids of the house. As with the other sites, the psychopath had been kind enough to leave behind some bodies in the basement. The only thing different was that he’d changed his style of murder, which left me torn between crying and wanting to level the city myself.
In the center of the family room, we found children tied back to back in a pair of wooden dining-room chairs. The little boy looked to be about four years old and the girl was six or seven. It was easier to guess because they both still had their heads. The fucker had punched into their chests and ripped their hearts out.
Their young faces were still streaked with tears from where they had cried for their parents before being murdered. Their horror was a palpable thing, seeming to suck the oxygen from the air. Where were their parents through this? Had the children been forced to watch their parents being murdered before they finally met their own grisly end? Or was it the other way around?
Gideon cleared his throat, dragging his gaze away from the tortured pair. “No writing this time.” His voice was rough and I pitied my companion. Sometimes I could almost understand the Towers’ edict against warlocks and witches having children. Bridgette had to be on Gideon’s mind, haunting him while he stood in the blood of children so close to her age.
“He’s not experimenting anymore,” I murmured, trying to find my own voice through the sadness and rage.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “He knows what he’s doing now. I think he perfected what he was attempting with the vampires.”
“Then why do this?” I waved a hand at the two children, starting to lose my grip on my temper.
“To get our attention. To taunt us. To bring us out so that we could finally meet, letting him show us that he’s not afraid of the Towers.”
I sighed, rubbing my head as I turned away from the kids to trudge back up the stairs. “The Ivory Towers have pissed off every race on this planet. You care to take a guess as to which one has figured out how take on the Towers and win?”
Gideon followed me up the stairs to the kitchen. The room was nearly spotless. There were a couple glasses and a plate with bread crumbs in the sink. A roast was defrosting on the counter. Someone had planned ahead for dinner that night. Our killer hadn’t resided in this house. No, he’d just stopped by to kill the kids so that we could meet at last.
“You think there’s a reason he chose this house?” I asked, turning around the island in the center of the room to face Gideon. “I mean, he took some risks coming here in the middle of the day. People would have noticed someone strange in the neighborhood.”
“Possibly. Of course, he could have been using a cloaking spell just like you.”
I shrugged. “Maybe, but I don’t sense any