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Jack put his hand against the door to stop it froot to the warehouse and the card, the ic had faded She said that the saic that had been transferred onto people"

"Obviously not, because the zo, too, so theoretically, she could trackon a blocker In the meantiet to the safe house"

"Will do, boss"

He stepped back and let the doors close, and I flicked the little button inside my earlobe, as ordered

I made it to the safe house in record time, thanks mainly to the fact that there was little traffic I parked the car in the driveway of the pretty, double-story cottage, but the minute I climbed out, the scent of blood hit It was thick and fresh, but it had the stench of evil and decaying flesh entwined within it And it was strong enough that the ithin wanted to bare her teeth

Which ht still be here

I reached back into the car forthe door I couldn’t see any crows about, so if the zo more than a lump of unresponsive flesh But I wasn’t about to bet my life on that Who knehat sort of orders the sorceress had given it? And given she was capable of telepathic contact with her creations, she probably didn’t need to be in the vicinity for them to create havoc

I scooted around the front of the car, ducking past the front s then running to the door It was s in splinters on the floor, a clear indicator of just howout of the house was heavy with the scent of decay, blood, and evil Bile rushed up ed, unable for the moment to forces rotten, that was saying so

Once my stomach was a littlethrough my mouth as I looked around The hallas e or dead, but awareness skittered acrossin the roo of a clock There was no breathing, and no sign of life, in the immediate vicinity Only the scent of new death

And yet I wasn’t alone in this place

Someone was here Someone other than the zombies

Maybe Jacques was still alive Maybe Joe was A street kid would have the s

Or maybe it was neither of the her trap

I grabbed my laser from my back pocket and switched it on The soft whine as it powered up filled the edgy silence, but nothing or no one moved as a result of it If the zombie master was here, then she wasn’t too worried by the weapon

I crept forward, my footsteps soft on the dusty floorboards At the doorway into the living roo as I sought to capture some of the room’s fainter scents It was pretty reat for my senses to handle And it didn’t do ood, either

I licked suddenly dry lips, then slipped low and fast into the room, laser raised as I scanned for trouble

Only the broken remnants of life remained as a reminder of its presence

Like our previous vamp victims, Jacques had lost his head It had rolled to one side of the cha at what reh, his torso was intact, and his blood had created a wide dark pool around his body There were also arterial sprays up the wall Obviously, the sorceress had no intention-or no ti this was probably a straight vampire kill rather than some form of bloody retribution

Not far frole and all its limbs seeers were twitching against the carpet, as if it were trying to drag itself forward Maybe it didn’t realize its partner had already completed theirscent of death and decayhavoc with my olfactory senses, butorder and they were tingling with awareness Of course, they didn’t actually tell me as in the house with me That would be far too helpful

I crept forward, carefully avoiding the blood Jacques’s dead gaze seeot to the body, the stronger the scent of evil became It seemed to be centered around Jacques himself, and yet he wasn’t evil I’d met him-talked to him-many times at the Directorate, and never once had I received this sort of feedback

So as I getting it now?

My gaze scanned the floor around him Maybe it was the dust It was on his face and sprinkled across the carpet, and given that the dust had also been present at the vamp murders, there had to be a connection And yet here it felt slightly different There was another scent entwined within the evil of it, and it was different from the aroma so evident at the other vamp murders

But I didn’t have the time to stand here and examine it I had to find Joe Had to find out who, or what, was in this house with h the next doorway fast and found etables on the counter and a pot of water bubbling away on the stove

The scent of evil and decay wasn’t as strong here, suggesting the zo him hadn’t come this far I checked the next doorway anyway-it turned out to be a small laundry area There were clothes dumped on the top of the washer, and they sh the kitchen and then the living roo up into the silence of the next floor I cli my back to the wall andjuor soh ainst the laser’s trigger The weapon whined, the sound resting uneasily against the silence

I reached the landing and stopped Shadows filled the upper hallway, but nothing waited within Four doors led off this corridor-three to the left, and one to the right, beyond the stairwell

I went through the first doorway low, dropping to one knee, laser held at the ready as I scanned the room It was a bedroom, and smelledthe bed Va the day They just needed to keep out of direct sunlight, which is why va as you kept the on the neck of the person they were supposed to be protecting beca of an issue

I moved back out into the hall and into the next room Another bedrooh, and neither was the source of the evil I was still sensing