The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,53

bricks and mortar and listened.

No sounds again.

When the whistle came, it was from down below, and he closed his eyes and ghosted back to the ground.

Z, Vishous, and Phury were standing together in the rear.

“Nothing up there,” Rhage whispered.

“I don’t see anything inside,” Phury agreed.

V stared at the house. “Then we have to assume that it’s booby-trapped.”

Yup. That was exactly what he was thinking.

“You have anything to disarm shit with?” Rhage asked.

V rolled his diamond eyes. “I’m a fucking Boy Scout. What do you think.”

“What’s the approach?”

They decided to enter through one of the windows in the kitchen. Doors were too obvious, as was the chimney, and anything through the garage.

Going around to the back porch, V removed his lead-lined glove, got out his black dagger, and went over to the window above the sink. Putting the tip of the weapon to the glass, he moved the blade in a circle; then placed his glowing fingers on the inside of the cutout and removed the section so that it didn’t fall in.

Three. Two.

One—

Silence.

Rhage glanced around, listening for anything: footsteps in the undergrowth, the click of a safety being taken off a gun, a whisper of clothing.

Nothing.

V snaked his normal hand through the hole he’d made and clicked on his penlight. Inside, a nothing-special kitchen was illuminated in the thin beam: refrigerator, stove, cabinets. More to the point, there was nothing suspicious, no boxes or bags with wires coming out of them in the middle of the room, no beeping lights, not even an alarm panel that was obvious.

“Ready?” V asked.

Rhage breathed in deep, testing the air that was escaping from the house. The scents were of male sweat, booze, tobacco, gun cleaner … a pizza … cooked meat.

And it was all fresh.

“I’m going first,” Rhage said. With his beast, he was the most likely to survive a bomb blast: any extremes of temperature, pain, or aggression, and his other side would be triggered in a split second, providing him with a set of scales that was better than any kind of Kevlar.

“Be careful, my brother,” Phury said.

“Always. I got meals to look forward to.”

Rhage ghosted in and took form on the linoleum. Cue the waiting. Again.

But there were no alarms going off. No ambushes. Nothing that screamed or even whispered attack.

He took a step forward. Another. A third, waiting for a hidden mine to get triggered.

Under his shitkickers, floorboards creaked and groaned.

That was it.

“Far enough, Hollywood,” V ordered through the window’s cutout. “Let me get in there.”

Vishous joined him as the twins stayed outside to monitor the exterior. With quick, practiced moves, V put on a headset and looked around. Took out an aerosol spray can and hit the go nozzle, moving in a circle.

“It’s clear, as far as I can see.”

Rhage glanced to the back door. “So that’s where the security pad is.”

The ADT panel had no lights glowing on its face, no green means go. No red means armed.

“We have to go through the whole house,” V said grimly.

Rhage nodded. “I’ll take care of the first floor.”

“We do it together.”

With careful steps, they headed into the front of the house, V sporting his gogs, Rhage’s skin prickling across his back as his beast joined the instinct parade.

The front room was clearly where the Bastards spent most of their time. There were a number of couches set at angles so they formed a circle, and the scents were the strongest in here—to the point that Rhage guessed the fighters had pulled the drapes and actually slept aboveground during daylight hours.

Detritus littered the floor: Empty ammo boxes that suggested they had both shotguns and forties. Dead-soldier bottles of Jack and Jim. Hannaford plastic bags filled with crushed protein-bar wrappers and Motrin bottles with the lids off and wads of surgical gauze marked with dried blood. An open Papa John’s box had a single slice left in it—that was cold, but not moldy.

“They do not live here anymore,” V said.

“And they up and left fast,” Rhage muttered as he poked at another Hannaford bag with the steel tip of his shitkicker.

There wasn’t a single backpack. Duffel. Piece of luggage. And although he wouldn’t have counted the Band of Bastards as any kind of Town & Country types with the personal effects, there wasn’t even a stray sock, backup set of combat boots, or a fucking comb left behind.

As Rhage came around to the base of the stairs, he felt his phone vibrate in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. No