Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,109

handed me a small flashlight. “Supe light. If you use it, keep it low, out of our eyes.”

“Got it.”

She reached behind her head and drew her sword soundlessly from its invisible sheath. Blade raised, she entered the house. I followed her in, with Malcolm and Daisy behind me, and Ronan at our backs. The cat-dragon’s little claws dug into my shoulder as she balanced herself.

The thick, coppery scent of blood and eviscerated bodies made my stomach rebel. I set my jaw, swallowed hard, and forced myself to ignore the stench. The house wards, while sufficient against most threats, had apparently done nothing to protect against shades.

The first two bodies we found were large dogs—or what I thought had been two dogs—in the blood and flesh-splattered nightmare of the living room. Two adults had been slaughtered in their bedroom, one on the bed and one near the door, as if she’d tried to run to the children’s rooms before she died. I went into investigator mode, shutting down my emotions as best I could so my brain could process this house of horrors.

The three children—toddler twins and an older child—had died in their beds, their blood and bits of flesh strewn throughout their rooms and into the hallway. After I looked more closely, I realized the killings were done out of instinct, but the scattered remains were the result of play. The shades had played with the bloody remains before moving on.

It was, by a significant margin, the most horrific scene I’d ever had the misfortune of seeing…

…and it was repeated, with variations in the number of victims found, in the next four houses we entered.

An hour later, I sat on the front steps of the last house on the block, my hands dangling between my knees. My mouth tasted sour from throwing up, though I’d rinsed it repeatedly and taken a swig from Lucy’s flask. I might never get the smell of death out of my nose. I’d sure as hell never get the memory of the slaughter out of my head, or the keening of the ghosts out of my ears.

The others were in the house, searching for shades. So far, the only one we’d encountered was the one from the first house. They didn’t need me to search, so I’d come outside to be alone with my anger. Some of it was directed at the shades, though I knew they were little more than mindless echoes, killing because it was all they knew how to do. Most of my fury was directed at Mariela.

According to Lucy, shades and gravelings almost never made it out of the Underworld. I’d had a sinking feeling from the moment I heard about these attacks that Mariela was indirectly responsible. Lucy’s comment last night that visitors from other worlds and realms upset the balance of her world and caused things to happen that shouldn’t had resonated deeply with me—not because of myself or Malcolm, but because Mariela had set all this in motion. The people of Walliston weren’t supposed to be dead. The kids in this house should be in school today, not in pieces. Their parents should be at work. Their dogs should be playing or sleeping in the backyard. Mariela should have stayed in our world, where she belonged.

I understood her desire for justice for those she’d lost—I understood it all too well. I also understood how that desire became a need for revenge when the perpetrators of the Glen Grove massacre escaped prosecution. Somewhere along the way, however, her need for vengeance had blinded her to the collateral damage she might cause, and all the suffering and death.

I had no idea if some residents had holed up somewhere with better wards, or escaped. The fact no one else seemed to have responded indicated no one had made it out to warn about the shades or alert law enforcement from neighboring towns, the army, or the League. There was a good chance everyone in Walliston was dead. Unless there was some other explanation for the shades’ presence here, their blood was on Mariela’s hands.

That thought, and the memory of the torn bodies, propelled me to my feet. My anger turned cold, became resolve. I would find these shades, and I would destroy them. And then I would locate that door, go through it, find Mariela, and bring her to justice for what she’d done.

I caught a familiar scent on the breeze: iron and incense. It wafted over me like a puff