would be sadness.”
My magic led us deep into the woods to a clearing with several run-down buildings. Years of abandonment hadn’t done the place any favors, although the structures seemed sound enough except for the roof of one of the smaller buildings, which had begun caving in. “That building no safe.”
“We’ll have to be careful when we check around that one, yes. It looks like your trail is going inside the main building.”
I followed after my magic, which had gone for the route of least resistance, entering through a broken window, one too small for my mass. “Put kitten on back, I stand still, you go inside and open door like good Queeny should. Open door for lady.”
“What lady?” my husband asked, although he did as asked, placing Avalanche on my back. The ocelot stretched, nestled into my thick fur, and resumed her nap.
“Best burn. So many burns today. Not sure how I will recover. You must help me tonight with recovery.”
“We’ll see.” Smirking, he climbed through the broken window. The instant he made it inside, my magical trail disappeared. He headed to the front door, and careful not to dislodge my furry passenger, I followed. After a few minutes and some cursing, he opened it.
“The lock is rusted and the hinges were stuck,” he announced, shouldering the door fully open so I could walk inside. “We’ll have to detox.”
“Gorgons?” I asked.
“They didn’t even bother trying to hide it in this one. We’ll need a scanner. I’m going to take the pets to the SUV and call the CDC. They left me with a meter, and it can scan the dust types, so if this is the original dust sample, we’ll know about twenty minutes after I start processing it. Alan showed me how to do the test early. He seems to think you are the queen of finding trouble.”
“I am the queen of finding trouble. I found you.”
He gave me a round of applause. “That was well done. Soon enough, I will have you trained to do that intentionally more often than blurting things when you’re nervous.”
“Clever boy,” I praised, stepping into the battered bed and breakfast.
Sunny halted at the threshold, barked twice, sat down, and barked three times.
“Oh, get rabies and dust. Sunny best puppy. Sam no go in. Out, out. Go get scanner. Only need one rabid person. Take kitten. We treat all pets tonight. No dust on pets.”
Quinn scooped Avalanche off my back, leashed both of our puppies, and headed for the SUV. To make sure he didn’t get lost, I gave a soft snort and stomped my hoof.
A pink, shimmering trail appeared, leading off in the direction of our rental.
“Good magic.”
The entry seemed normal enough, and I followed Quinn’s snowy footprints to get a better feel for what had unnerved him. I passed through a short hallway to a large, rustic sitting room, one meant to entertain many people.
Rather than entertained people, decaying barrels rested on the floor while the desiccated bodies of male gorgons hung from the rafters, dust trickling off their bodies to pool over the floor. A shimmering barrier kept the dust to one half of the room, although it, too, eroded from time.
Quinn had come within several feet of showing off his gorgon-incubus doohickey form, and I flattened my ears, counting the bodies, stomping my hoof at the brutality of their deaths.
Like the poor male at the other bed and breakfast, their serpents had been decapitated.
“Who?” I demanded, stomping my hoof again in fury over so many lost lives. Worse, the gorgons had been killed in a fashion nobody deserved.
The dust swirled, creating a haze within the dying barrier, which broke under the onslaught of new magic.
My magic, given life by anger over those killed, ignored its usual rules, spelling out the name of a man I learned to hate to a whole new level.
Morrison.
I resisted the urge to snort, which might erase the precious evidence of Morrison’s misdeeds.
“Need proof,” I whispered to the dust of the fallen, wondering if ghosts might truly exist. If anywhere in the world might have them, the lounge corrupted into a ghastly tomb surely counted as such a place.
The dust settled, erasing the bastard’s name and leaving me alone among the decaying dead. I explored their final resting place, the gray clinging to my legs and trailing in my wake, its damp chill penetrating through my coat. The furniture fell to ruin like everything else, but several books on an end table endured despite the