Kim Harrison - Hotter Than Hell

The kid groaned. I restrained my smile and followed Ethan out to the car. Once we were on our way again, I asked, “Why would a vampire—even an energy vampire—need a coffin?”

“They don’t. But some vamps do enjoy living up to human expectations.” He shrugged.

“But if this vamp is trying to remain under the wire, why leave a coffin laying around?”

“Until we know the history of the house and whatever is in it, that’s not a question I can answer.”

I looked upwards as the car started climbing. All there was to see on the horizon was an oddly leaning chimney reaching for the sky past a line of pines.

“Maybe we should call Frank and get in some specialists.” Werewolves and shifters were fast and strong, but vampires outdid us in both areas, and had the advantage of being able to disappear into shadows. We might be able to track her with scent, but we might never get near enough to kill her. And I wasn’t entirely sure I was up to the whole killing bit anyway. That wasn’t my field of expertise.

But it was Ethan’s.

And he seemed more than a little put out by my suggestion. “We don’t need help to deal with one lone vampire.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You have the equipment here?”

He gave me a grin that had my toes curling. “I always come equipped, Ravioli.”

“Heard that about you.” I looked up at the pines we were rapidly approaching. Dusk was settling in, and the sky above the chimney was streaked with pink. “Not sure it’s a wise move to be entering a vamp’s lair on the cusp of night.”

“If we want to save that kid, then we have to move now.”

I knew all that. I just didn’t like the sensations that were already beginning to crawl across my skin the nearer we got to that house.

The road ended. We drove through an old wooden gate and up the winding drive. The house revealed itself slowly, a long, two-story building that was all angles and windows, wrapped in shadows and age.

Goosebumps tripped across my skin, and I couldn’t help shivering. This place just felt wrong , and I hadn’t even gone inside it yet.

“I can see why teenagers would enjoy this place,” Ethan commented, as he parked the car out front. “It’s kinda spooky-looking, isn’t it?”

“Understatement of the year,” I muttered, and climbed out of the car. The breeze that swayed the pine tops merely whispered across the old building, as if reluctant to stir the house to life. The air was thick and filled with a gloom that felt heavy on my tongue. Traces of darkness and evil teased my psychic senses, taunting indications of what was to come once I entered the house.

Ethan had raided the trunk, and handed me a flashlight and several stakes. They weren’t particularly large, those stakes, but thick and sharp. I shoved them into my pocket, pointy end down so they didn’t stab me in the back as I moved, and watched while he strapped on a gun.

“A bullet won’t stop a vampire,” I said eventually.

“It will if you shoot their fucking brains out.” He slammed the trunk closed. “You ready?”

No, I thought, then blew out a breath and nodded. As one, we walked up the old steps and approached the front door. Paint peeled from its battered surface like old skin, and another tremor ran through me.

Ethan raised a hand and with his fingertips pushed open the door. It didn’t creak, nor did the dying sunlight seem to penetrate very far past the threshold. The inside of the house was all shadows and gloom, just like the outside.

He took a step, then stopped, his nostrils flaring. “I can smell the dead.” He looked at me. “And not vampire-type dead.”

I drew in a breath, tasting the flavors that ran with the air. Shadows of evil and darkness ran across my psychic senses, an evil that felt old and yet young at the same time. But underneath that, the aroma of decay. Of rotting flesh and putridity.

“It can’t be the boys. It tastes older than that.”

He nodded, then motioned me to follow. We stepped into the shadows. It felt like we were stepping into another world. It was still, this house, so still and yet somehow so watchful. Though there were broken windows in the rooms that we passed as we made our way down the hall, neither sunshine nor wind seemed to go beyond their threshold. The musty smell of decay and age lay thick on the air, and yet these scents were almost pleasant when compared to the deeper, darker aromas that ran underneath.

Whatever used this house for a sanctuary, it had been here a long time. So long the house seemed a part of it, rather than merely a refuge.

We walked past some worse-for-wear stairs, the beams of the flashlight highlighting long, dust-covered webs that trailed like a curtain from the ceiling high above. The scent of dead flesh led us to the rear of the house. Ethan pressed open another door, took the flashlight, and had a quick look around.

“Kitchen,” he said. “There’s a cellar door to the right.”

Dead things lived in the cellars, Jimmy had said. I shuddered and had to fight the urge to run, to just get out of this house and away from the evil it sheltered. But if teenagers had the courage to go down those stairs, then I damn well could.

He directed the flashlight’s beam into the cellar door, illuminating the well-worn stairs and the boarded-up walls. The air drifting up was damp, musty, and the scent of flesh and decay stronger. I swallowed heavily and started breathing through my mouth. It only helped a little.

The stairs creaked as we went down them, the sound jarring sharply against the thick silence. The watchfulness of the house seemed to increase the further we descended into the cellar’s darkness and yet I couldn’t pinpoint it to the presence of a vampire. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t near, just that I couldn’t sense it in the stinking air.

The stairs finally met floor. Ethan swept the light across the black, the bright beam pinpointing corners, cobwebs, and shelving stocked with cans and other goods that looked as old as the house. No bones or coffins, though. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not.

“There’s another door over here.” He pointed the light to a right corner, then he reached back with his free hand and wrapped his fingers around mine. “Are you all right?”

For a moment I clung to him, needing the warmth and the strength that flowed from his grip to battle the chill beginning to invade my soul. “Just.”

“You can go upstairs—”

“No,” I cut in. “We both need to confront this evil.”

He didn’t question the certainty in my voice, just squeezed my fingers again then released me. The room seemed darker, more depressing, without his touch.

We went through the second door. Our footsteps echoed and the boards creaked under our weight. It was here we found Jimmy’s bones and coffin.

“These are years old,” Ethan said, picking up what looked like a femur and studying it.

I shuddered. It was bad enough feeling the wisps of agony stirring the air. Touching the bones of the dead would only intensify that connection, and that I didn’t need. I walked over to the coffin sitting against the wall with the lid open. It was squat and fat, and far wider than a normal coffin. And it was made of hardwood that had hastily been banged together and then lined on the inside with what looked like an old blanket. Homemade rather than professional.

“This isn’t the coffin of an adult,” I said, squatting down next to it. Strands of eagerness and darkness rose from the inside of the box, as if the emotions had soaked through the wood over time. “And it belongs to our vampire. But why would a vamp use it when they don’t need to?”

“Maybe she gets off on scaring the crap out of visiting teenagers.” He shrugged and rose. “None of these things is the source of our smell. We need to find that.”