thick with the stench of leather and old blood, and he was forced to sip the air to prevent himself from gagging.
Methodically, he checked each of the main rooms on the first floor and found nothing save more dolls. He eased into the foyer, passed a small fireplace, and headed for the stairs. Moving to their base, he glanced up quickly, holding his Glock at the ready, and saw only more darkness. The entire house was silent and void of any apparent signs of life.
As he mounted the first step, worry gnawed at him. What if he was too late? What if Alex had already been moved to another location, or worse, killed?
He thrust the thoughts aside. He would not succumb to his fears.
Hugging the wall, he slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Peter crashed through the flimsy mental shields Alexandra tried to erect. Every barrier she placed before him, he knocked aside. He would not be denied. He would strip away all her memories of Varik Baudelaire and give her new memories—his memories.
He plunged into her mind, pressing against the last of her shields until it collapsed. He sensed her fleeing before him, trying to hide from him. He pursued and cornered her, enveloping her consciousness with his.
Get out of my head! Anger colored her thoughts a bright red.
Love me.
No!
It wasn’t a request, my tricky chickie.
She screamed and lashed out, and he backed away. She lunged at him in an attempt to drive him out.
He deflected her assault, using the momentary opening to dive into her core. He burned a path through her subconscious. Thousands of memories flashed before him, but he was only interested in a select few. Images of Varik appeared and he delighted in reducing them to cinders. Some he replaced with those of his choosing and others he left to smolder, consigned to the realm of the forgotten.
A memory of her first kiss with Varik played before him. They were covered in mud and hiking up a steep riverbank. She stumbled and fell into his arms. They laughed and suddenly Varik kissed her.
Hatred fueled Peter’s attack. The memory exploded before him and he felt her shudder as he ripped another hole in her mind. A new memory stitched itself into the fabric of her subconscious, one in which he caught her as she fell and he kissed her.
A flash of yellow passed through her mind and he paused. Something tickled the back of his brain. Following the sensation, he withdrew from her mind and returned to his own.
He groaned, weak from the effort of changing her past, and fell to the attic floor beside her unmoving form. His head pounded with a chorus of voices, shouting and screaming for help. The dolls were crying out, calling to—
Peter bolted to his feet, staring at the attic floor as if he could see through it.
He was here, in the house.
Peter growled and rushed to the attic stairs. Now was the time for him to take what he started in her memory and finish it in his reality.
Varik stopped his search of the second floor when he heard a faint thump. He waited, hoping to hear the sound again to determine its direction, but the house refused to give up its secrets.
He entered a bedroom and the familiar scent of jasmine and vanilla rocked him. His pulse tripled and his breath came in sharp, shallow gulps.
Alex had been in there, recently.
Circling the bed, he noted the signs of a struggle and knelt before a window. A few drops of blood stained the hardwood floor. He dipped his finger in one of the congealed puddles and rubbed together his finger and thumb. The warmth of his skin released a faint smell of leather and decay.
He stood, wiping the blood on the leg of his jeans. It was the Dollmaker’s blood, not Alex’s, and he suppressed a smile. If she was fighting hard enough to draw blood, his chances of locating her greatly increased.
Another thump sounded nearby and this time he was able to determine it came from the hallway. Sliding to the door, he peeked around the corner and saw only an empty corridor. He waited a moment in case someone appeared from one of the other rooms. The hall remained empty.
Varik left the bedroom to resume his search, passing an oversized print of Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase. A small draft ruffled his hair as he passed, and the scent of jasmine and vanilla combined with leather