Page 20 of Possess Me at Midnight (Doomsday Brethren #4)

Chapter Sixteen

Sabelle

A round midday, Ice and I arrive at the outskirts of Ludlow.

Thomas MacKinnett lives in a renovated nineteenth-century estate about five kilometers from Stokesay Castle.

The golden sun burns through the haze to shine in a perfect blue sky.

Everything here is lovely in a stark, December sort of way, yet my skin prickles with unease.

The air feels disturbed. Even without seeing the house, I sense something is wrong.

“It’s quiet out here.” Ice frowns. The farther up the winding dirt road I drive, the more his frown deepens.

Too quiet. Ice may not have said it, but he’s likely thinking it. “Indeed.”

“MacKinnett had no children other than Auropha?”

“No. And his mate died over a decade ago. Other than servants, he lives alone.”

“Perhaps that’s the reason the estate is so quiet.”

I’m not convinced. I step on the accelerator and move our borrowed car farther up the muddy lane. When the house comes into view, I slam on the brakes.

Sun filters through the clouds, patchy rays of light playing on the battered roof.

Age stains and ivy both crawl across the stone facade.

The shutters have been closed over the windows.

The house seems frozen, as if terrified to even take a breath.

Utterly unmoving. Even the trees don’t dare sway with the breeze.

“Bloody eerie,” Ice murmurs.

Indeed. “Do you sense any magic protecting the house?”

Ice pauses, and his frown turns to a scowl. “Nothing. Hardly seems like the actions of a paranoid bloke.”

“My thoughts exactly. We were here a few weeks ago. He had magical protections all over the house, up the lane. Early warning sensors… Now, nothing.”

It worries me.

Gripping the steering wheel, I direct the car to the front of the house. Columns line the wide porch. Elegant plaster bespeaks wealth. The well-manicured garden looks dormant. Neglected. It’s most unusual. I shiver.

Parking the auto, I peer under the eaves and finally catch a glimpse of the shadowed front door. It stands wide open.

Ice curses. “I think we’re too late.”

I fear he’s right. “We’ll have to enter with caution. Maybe…he’s fled? After all, Mathias knew Thomas lived here. Perhaps someone warned him in advance, and he left before he could be slaughtered.”

I don’t believe that for an instant.

The way Ice scans his surroundings, clearly on edge, neither does he. I try to stop trembling, but it’s impossible. Fear permeates me.

“You all right?” he asks, taking my hand in his. Warm. Protective. Engulfing.

I place my other palm over his fingers, grateful for his strength. “Let’s have a look around.”

He shakes his head. “You wait in the car. Keep the motor running and guard Bram. I’ll take a look inside. If it’s safe, I’ll come for you.”

And leave Ice to face the fear and potential danger alone? No. I’m not a coward. Nor am I the sort of witch to let others do the difficult work on my behalf, like my mother. I won’t start that rubbish now.

But as I step away from the car and toward the waiting tragedy I fear lies just beyond that gaping door, I can’t deny I’m terrified.

“I’m coming with you.” When Ice opens his mouth to argue, I cut him off. “You have combat skills, but I know MacKinnett and this house. We’re stronger as a team, and I feel safer with you than sitting alone.”

While the appeal plays to his protective nature, it isn’t untrue. Ice has this air of invincibility about him. At the very least, I know he’ll fight with all his considerable skill and power to ensure the book remains out of Mathias’s hands. I can’t hope for more. And I can watch his back, too.

With a sharp nod, Ice exits the car, places some invisibility spells and other protections around Bram and the vehicle, then begins the trek uphill to the waiting house. It wails in silence, seeps an oddly suppressed violence. It screams distress. What will we find inside?

At my side, Ice squeezes my hand. “I’ve got you.”

I send him a distracted smile of thanks. “Do you sense anyone else here?”

“No one. It feels like a battleground after the fight. Filled with ghosts. Stay close to me.”

He’ll get no arguments from me.

Together, we step onto the porch, past the stately plaster columns, through the open door, into the foyer.

Chaos everywhere. Furniture overturned, walls smashed, glass shattered and littering the stone floor. Evil lingers in the air, bleeds from the walls.

Mathias has definitely been here.

“Oh, god,” I murmur, my heart pounding roughly as I pull the straps of my backpack tighter to feel the book closer to my body.

“Shh. Hopefully MacKinnett escaped. It’s possible he did.”

Maybe. I hope. Or…

I don’t want to think about the or.

“If Mathias wants to eliminate a Council member so he could put himself in the wizard’s seat, he must either butcher the Councilman’s entire family or murder one without issue,” I murmur, almost afraid to speak above a whisper.

“After his daughter and brother were murdered, Thomas MacKinnett had no remaining heirs.”

In other words, a prime target.

“Fuck,” Ice mutters.

I never say that word. But at this moment, I couldn’t agree more with his assessment.

I bend and retrieve a smashed picture of Thomas and his late daughter, Auropha. The frame is bent, the glass in pieces. The picture was clearly taken during happier times. I hold it to my chest and shove back an inconvenient onslaught of tears. Emotion now is a luxury, and we haven’t the time.

Ice wraps his arms around me. “This is hard for you.”

He doesn’t ask; he knows. I’m grateful for his intuition.

“I’ve known Thomas most of my life. I remember him visiting shortly after my transition.

He brought me biscuits and candy and told me to regain my strength.

” My voice cracks. “That magickind had just inducted one of the most important witches ever. Nonsense, but they were such kind words when I was feeling so weak and overwhelmed.”

The tears well again, and I wipe them away, determined to focus on our search. Upstairs or cellar? Either fills me with irrational fear.

“Was he one of Bram’s allies?”

“Since Mathias’s return? One of the few, yes.”

I swallow when I think of those implications. I’ve known that Bram was on the evil wizard’s hit list. But seeing MacKinnett’s noble estate in shambles makes the danger even more real.

“MacKinnett was the only other Council member who believed that Mathias had returned,” I murmur. “He could hardly deny it, since the bastard had taken his daughter from him and used her so callously, she bled to?—”

“I know.” Ice tightens his grip around me. “But we can’t stand here like bloody targets. Let’s search the rest of the house.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t leave Bram alone in the car.”

“He’s protected. It’s a calculated risk. But we can search the house more stealthily and effectively without him. And if we need to fight off the Anarki…”

We won’t have our hands full, so to speak. It’s true. I simply don’t like it.

I nod. “Let’s go upstairs first.”

With a squeeze of my hand, Ice leads me up.

I’m ridiculously grateful for his support.

He’s like a rock. As much as being here frightens me, I know I would be ten times more afraid without him.

And he shoulders my fear without comment or question.

Ice will make some witch a wonderful mate someday, and I curse the fact it can’t be me.

At the top of the stairs, more destruction abounds. Furniture tumbled about and smashed into pieces like matchsticks. Charred walls and floor. And the smell… Something sickly sweet assaults my nose.

We enter the hallway. Every door is closed, and Ice puts his hand on the first door’s latch. My stomach clenches as I stand behind his broad back. He sweeps the door open.

“Oh, god!” Ice bellows before slamming the door.

He sounds as if he might be sick. Still, he pushes me away from the door and tries to force me down the stairs. But I’m faster. Shutting me out so that I don’t know how ruthless an enemy we’re fighting isn’t an option.

I duck under Ice’s tattooed arm and fling the door open.

The stench assaults me like a physical blow—terror, blood, and death tinge the air.

I struggle to process the carnage. Corpses everywhere, frozen in horrific death.

Men staked with knives to the walls, blood dried in rivulets from wrists, ankles, neck.

Women obscenely displayed, naked and bound, Mathias’s symbol branded cruelly onto their exposed mounds.

Dried blood cakes between their thighs, proving they were violated before death.

And the children—dear god, the children—hanging in a circle by their small, broken necks from ropes knotted to the rafters above, their faces twisted in terror.

Bile rises in my throat, but I slap a hand over my mouth and force it down.

The strapping manservant who always helped me with my luggage and his wife, their two children, have all been tortured and murdered.

The maid, the cook, the butler, and his son.

Humans, all of them–now dead in a war they likely knew nothing about.

These people—the staff who greeted me with smiles, who served tea and carried luggage—they deserve justice. I will not look away from what we’re fighting against.

Ice grabs my wrist and hauls me out, shoving me into the hall and shutting the door behind him. “When I push you away, witch, it’s for a reason.”

Through tear-blurred eyes, I blink at him. Shock gives way and fear sets in, so cold and absolute, like a hard knot in my belly. I shiver. “I can’t hide from reality. None of us can.”

His shoulders tense. Frustration flashes across his harsh features. “No one doubts your bravery.”

“Then stop acting as if I’m too fragile to cope. This is terrible and wretched—the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but we have to move forward. MacKinnett…”

I can’t finish that sentence, and Ice doesn’t force the issue. “Let’s find him.”

My teeth chatter, and I wrap my arms around myself. Swearing, Ice grabs my hand again, squeezing it, bringing me near. His heat warms me almost instantly, and again I’m incredibly grateful for his presence. For him.

Bram would have immediately ordered me away from this horrific scene. Marrok, Duke, and Lucan—all overprotective, too, shielding me from realities they deem too harsh. Shock would look out only for himself. And Tynan? I don’t know him well enough to trust him.

Ice is protective, but he doesn’t treat me as if I’m made of glass. He lets me help, even if reluctantly. Again, it strikes me that in the middle of madness, he’s the one sane person I can rely on.

Leading me to the next door, Ice tenses as he approaches. No sounds, no stirring of life. Just the acrid scent of embers and the sickening smell of death.

Behind the second door, we find nothing but destruction. Furniture, pictures, pottery, draperies all smashed, fractured, shredded. But thankfully, no more bodies.

Behind a third door and a fourth, the same. We’ve reached the end of the hall.

Which leaves only the cellar.

“Is it possible he escaped?” Ice asks.

“MacKinnett had human connections through his late mate. He wasn’t the sort of wizard to leave his wife’s human companions to suffer their deaths alone. I want to think, for magickind’s sake, that perhaps he got away. But…”

Ice draws my cold form against him, clasping his fingers in my hair, soothing me with his palm. Again, I feel incredibly comforted by his closeness.

“Let’s check the cellar, then.”

I don’t want to, God knows. It’s likely to be a chamber of horrors. But I have to be strong. Magickind needs heroes. That’s always been Bram’s role. Without him, Ice and I will have to do.

Silently, we trek down the stairs, back to the foyer, then to the kitchen.

This room, too, lies in shambles. Pans litter the floor.

Flour scattered over every surface of the counters and stove.

An apron tossed over a lamp…and the rest of a cook’s clothes scattered across the counters.

The Anarki had rigged ropes at each corner of the nook’s table.

Blood darkens one side of the ropes, and I can almost hear the screams still echoing.

A little boy’s toy truck lies under the table in a pool of blood. I look away, shuddering, fighting tears. Ice draws me closer, kisses my cheek. “Go back to the car. Check Bram.”

Bless him, Ice is trying to spare me the horror to come. Shaking my head, I dig down for strength, refusing to give in to fear. I will not leave magickind without hope. I will not stop fighting.

“I’m going with you to the cellar.” When an argument gathers on Ice’s face, I plead, “I need to do this. Please.”

Clenching his jaw and no doubt holding in a curse, he nods and opens the door that leads down to a dark, windowless cavern.

Immediately, I’m assailed by the scents of charred flesh, blood, and hell. A shiver shoots through me again.

“Stay here,” Ice barks.

“If you go, I follow. Do you see a light?”

With a grim shake of his head, he starts down the dark steps into the utterly black room. Hands on the hard ridges of his shoulders, I follow, my legs so weak and shivery beneath me that I fear tumbling down the stairs. But I push on.

At the bottom, I grope the nearby wall for a switch. He does the same. A moment later, artificial light floods the room, glaring and stark. And I scream.

Inches from us lies what remains of Thomas MacKinnett.

My scream dies in my throat as the horror registers.

The man who once bounced me on his knee as a child, who brought me sweets and told stories of ancient magic, has been stretched across a makeshift grate like an animal for slaughter.

His wand—a wizard’s most precious possession—lies broken beside him in a final act of desecration.

The Anarki had set him aflame, burning away his lower half to ash, but deliberately stopped the fire to leave his torso and face intact. His mouth gapes in an eternal scream, his eyes bulging with the terror of his final moments.

Ice’s hand finds mine, gripping with a pressure that anchors me to the present.

Neither of us speaks—words are meaningless in the face of such calculated cruelty.

But in the silent communication of our clasped hands, a vow forms between us: Mathias will pay for this. We will make sure of it—together.

MacKinnett’s death proves in the ugliest, most tangible manner that Anka wasn’t lying. Whatever her association with Shock, and his with Mathias, it’s obvious Mathias plans to put himself in a Council seat.

God help us.