I walked across. "Does it say anything useful?"
He smiled, though it failed to reach his eyes. "There is some sort of symbol resembling a stylized whirlpool and, underneath, a word that is incomplete because of the tear – Pénom."
"That has to be Pénombre Manufacturing. It can't be anything else." Not in this instance, surely. And that meant we'd finally caught a break, even if only a small one.
"I wouldn't think so." Azriel pushed upright. "It also gives us our next target – that warehouse you and Jak discovered."
I frowned. "But there's nothing there."
"There will be something there, but it is possible it can only be accessed via magical means."
"Which doesn't do us much fucking good, given neither of us is capable of magic."
"No, but it is still worth checking. Magic lingers here, which suggests its use was recent. If she did not use it to set a trap, what, then, did she do?"
"I have no idea." I flared my nostrils and drew in the electric scent again. There was an odd sense of energy and movement in its undertones and I frowned. "Maybe it was some sort of transport spell."
"Which is why we should check that warehouse. Perhaps the only way to reach whatever secrets that place holds is via the use of such a spell."
"Which still isn't going to help us."
"No, but if the scent lingers there as it does here, then perhaps we could uncover her den via more practical means."
He held out a hand, and in a matter of seconds we were inside the empty warehouse. It was pitch black and the air still and cold. Moonlight filtered in through the grimy windows, but its cool light did little more than puddle around the area immediately underneath them. I stepped away from Azriel and drew in the scents. Magic lingered, as he'd predicted.
He drew Valdis. Flames burned down her sides, casting a bright light around us but throwing deeper shadows beyond it. "Where?"
I glanced at him. "You can't sense it?"