"Good." I scanned the home in front of us. It was nothing remarkable—just an ordinary brick house in a street filled with similar buildings. I pushed open a picket gate that had seen better days and ran for the front steps. There was a doorbell to the left of the door, so I leaned on it heavily, then rapped impatiently on the door itself. Inside, the chime and knocks echoed, but there was no response. If there was anyone inside, he or she was either deaf or dead.
"There is neither life, death, nor undead inside. The house is empty."
I glanced at my watch. Eight minutes left. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I closed my eyes and tried to remain calm. Tried to think. "Even if she's not there, there may be some clue—"
I didn't get to finish the sentence. He just caught me in his arms again and whisked us inside. I drew in a deep breath the second we re-formed, ignoring another rush of dizziness as I sorted through the various scents in the air. Lavender and furniture polish vied for prominence with the aroma of coffee. Underneath that lay the scent of femininity, though it was far more vague than it should have been if she spent the majority of her time here. Certainly in the apartment I shared with Ilianna and Tao, the dominating scents were horse and wolf, with the tang of females coming in a close third. The masculine, incandescent scent that was Tao was a distant fourth.
But there was no male scent here. Nothing to indicate she ever had any visitors, human or otherwise.
I growled in frustration and waved a hand at the first couple of rooms. "I'll search these; you search the ones at the back of the house."
He nodded and disappeared. I moved into the nearest room—a living room that was comfortably furnished and neat as a pin. I did a quick walk around, shifting various bits and pieces, but I couldn't find anything that jumped up and screamed clue.
Conscious that we were running out of time, I dashed into the room opposite. It was a bedroom—the main one, if the shoes lined up neatly along the end of the bed were any indication. I scanned the nearest bedside table, seeing nothing but change, then opened the drawers. Knickers and socks. I cursed, ran around the other side, and repeated the process. Nothing. Fuck!
"Risa," Azriel called. "Here!"
I spun and ran down the hall. Azriel stood near the phone at the end of the kitchen counter, and as I entered, he pushed a notepad toward me. On it was a series of K-shaped doodles, some with snakelike tails, some without. And in one corner, an address—Amcor, main entrance, Alphington—and a time: midnight last night.
I glanced at him. "We have four minutes left."
He didn't answer, just caught me in his arms again and swept us across the fields. This time, when we re-formed, I staggered and would have fallen if not for the fierceness of his grip on me.
He didn't say anything—he knew me well enough by now to know the futility of it—but his disapproval swept around me as sharply as any rebuke.
We'd reappeared in the middle of an old parking lot. I swung around, searching the old buildings, seeing the grime and the many shadows that haunted the place, even in the midmorning sunlight. The air was ripe with disuse, rubbish, and rats, and the wind whistled through the many broken windows. It was very similar to what I'd seen on the fields.
"There is magic in this place," Azriel said softly.