Mouse, walking on three legs, followed me.
There were sprinkles of blood, already dried, on the inside of the doorway.
I went on inside the house, through the entry hall, into the living room. Furniture lay strewn all over the place, discarded and broken and tumbled. The television lay on its side, warbling static on its screen. A low sound, all white noise and faint interference, filled the room.
There was utter silence in the house, otherwise.
“Hello?” I called.
No one answered.
I went into the kitchen.
There were school papers on the fridge, most of them written in exaggerated, childish hands. There were crayon drawings up there, too. One, of a smiling stick figure in a dress, had a wavering line of letters underneath that read: I LOW OU MAMA.
Oh, God.
The thumbtacks in my belly became razor blades. If I’d hurt them… I didn’t know what I would do.
“Harry!” Thomas called from outside. “Harry, come here!”
His voice was tense, excited. I went out the kitchen door to the backyard, and found Thomas climbing down from a tree house only a little nicer than my apartment, built up in the branches of the old oak tree behind the Carpenters’ house. He had a still form draped over his shoulder.
I drew out my amulet and called wizard light as Thomas laid the oldest son, Daniel, out on the grass in the backyard. He was breathing, but looked pale. He was wearing flannel pajama pants and a white T-shirt soaked with blood. There was a cut on his arm; not too deep, but very messy. He had bruises on his face, on one arm, and the knuckles on both his hands were torn and ragged.
Michael’s son had been throwing punches. It hadn’t done him any good, but he’d fought.
“Coat,” I said, terse. “He’s cold.”
Thomas immediately took off my duster and draped it over the boy. I propped his feet up on my backpack. “Stay here,” I told him. I went in the house, fetched a glass of water, and brought it out. I knelt down and tried to wake the boy up, to get him to drink a little. He coughed a little, then drank, and blinked open his eyes. He couldn’t focus them.
“Daniel,” I said quietly. “Daniel, it’s Harry Dresden.”
“D-dresden?” he said.
“Yeah. Your dad’s friend. Harry.”
“Harry,” he said. Then his eyes flew open wide and he struggled to sit up. “Molly!”
“Easy, easy,” I told him. “You’re hurt. We don’t know how bad yet. Lie still.”
“Can’t,” he mumbled. “They took her. We were… is Mom okay? Are the little ones okay?”
I chewed on my lip. “I don’t know. Do you know where they are?”
He blinked several times and then he said, “Panic room.”
I frowned. “What?”
“S-second floor. Safe room. Dad built it. Just in case.”
I traded a look with Thomas. “Where is it?”
Daniel waved a vague hand. “Mom had the little ones upstairs. Molly and me couldn’t get to the stairs. They were there. We tried to lead them away.”
“Who, Daniel? They who?”
“The movie monsters. Reaper. Hammerhand.” He shuddered. “Scarecrow.”
I snarled a furious curse. “Thomas, stay with him. Mouse, keep watch.” I stood up and stalked into the house, crossed to the stairs, and went up them. The upstairs hallway had a bunch of bedrooms off it, with the oldest children’s rooms being at the opposite end of the hall from the master bedroom, the younger children being progressively closer to mom and dad. I looked inside each room. They were all empty, though the two nearest the head of the stairs had been torn up pretty well. Broken toys and shattered, child-sized furniture lay everywhere.
If I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have noticed the extra space between the linen closet and the master bedroom. I checked the closet in the master bedroom and turned up nothing. Then I opened the door to the linen closet, and found the shelves in complete disarray, sheets and towels and blankets strewn on the floor. I hunkered down and held up my mother’s amulet, peering closely, and then found a section of the back wall of the closet just slightly misaligned with the corner it met. I reached out and touched that part of the wall, closed my eyes, extending my senses through my fingertips.
I felt power there. It wasn’t a ward, or at least it was unlike any ward I had ever encountered. It was more of a quiet hum of constant power, and was similar to the power I’d felt stirring around Michael on several occasions—the power of