"Why?"
"Because she might have more guards waiting in this place."
I drew Amaya. A high-pitched humming began to flow across the outer reaches of my thoughts as she happily anticipated devouring more shag-pile demons. She really was a bloodthirsty little person.
Not person. Demon. Better.
I grinned as Azriel whisked us across the fields. He released my hand as we re-formed in the middle of a bright and airy hallway, his gaze watchful and blue fire running down Valdis's steel sides.
The place was silent. The air held an oddly smoky, somehow electrical scent that reminded me of the smell in air just before a thunderstorm, but there was nothing to suggest there was anything or anyone else in this place but the two of us.
"There's not." Azriel sheathed Valdis. "Not even her resonance lingers."
"Something does." I held on to Amaya and swung around. "It smells like magic."
"It is, though it does not feel recent or primed to attack."
"Why would she set a trap in one home, and not the other?" I cautiously walked into the first room off the hallway, my footsteps echoing on the polished floorboards. The double bed had been stripped of linen, and the drawers from the bedside tables had been thrown on top of the mattress, suggesting someone had emptied them in haste. I walked across to the wardrobe and used Amaya's tip to open the door. It too was empty.
The rest of the house provided a similar story – beds and wardrobes stripped, rooms empty of everything other than large pieces of furniture. Genevieve Sands had taken everything that might have provided us with some sort of clue as to who she really was or where she might now be found.
The sudden urge to scream rolled up my throat, and I had to bite down on my lip to stop it. I sheathed Amaya and walked through the kitchen-diner, heading for the windows that lined the rear of the house. The small garden was immaculately tended and very pretty, filled with roses and other flowering plants. There was no sign of a cuneiform stone, however. Not even a bare spot in the garden to mark where one had once stood. I sighed and rubbed my forehead wearily.
"Another dead end. Just what we needed right now."
"That is not entirely true," Azriel said.
I swung around. He was squatting in front of one of the kitchen cabinets, and held up what looked like a torn edge of paper. "It was caught at the back of this cabinet. Obviously, whoever emptied the drawers did so in haste, and did not notice it."