Page 18

Chapter

Thirteen

T he time for pussyfooting around was over.

Thane rattled the doorknob as he tried to gain access to the house the easy way.

When it became clear that the door was locked, I stepped to the window.

These old buildings were doubtless under a conservation order, so the windows were single glazed: bad for insulation; good for me.

I angled my elbow and smashed it forward, aiming for the corner of the pane where the glass would be weakest. The trick was to be fast and to fight the urge to pull back at the last second – or at least that was what I’d been told during my training at EEL.

But I’d never approached a job where I didn’t have an alternative entry point or a glass-breaking tool if I needed it, and I hadn’t undertaken any contract without knowing exactly what I was walking into. Those were the days.

Pain juddered through my arm making me clench my teeth hard, but it was worth it.

The glass had cracked and there was now a spider’s web of delicate fissures across the pane.

Thane nudged me gently aside while I rubbed my elbow, raised his leg and booted the cracks hard enough for splinters of glass to fall inside the room.

He kicked away the remaining shards and hopped into Knox’s house.

I followed hot on his heels, pausing only long enough to pick up one of the longer glass shards and hand it to him.

He grunted his thanks while I reached around and plucked out the curved dagger that I’d strapped to my back before leaving home that morning.

I might not have prepared to the point where I carried all the tools of my old trade, but I wasn’t completely witless.

Glass crunched beneath our feet as we moved quickly through the room and into the hallway. Thane turned left towards the stairs that led up to the next floor; I went right, checked inside a large cupboard, then stormed into the kitchen with my trusty knife held high.

Nobody was there. The place was immaculate, with neatly labelled jars and a row of perfectly aligned cookbooks. Yet again, I was forced to rethink the image of Knox Thunderstick I’d been holding in my head.

There was no back door and the windows were secure. A narrow alleyway lay outside but there was no direct access to it from the house, which was clearly a traditional two-up and two-down affair. I nodded grimly. Less space to cover. That was good.

Hearing heavy thumps from overhead, I spun on my heel and darted after Thane. I took the stairs two at a time until I joined him on the first-floor landing where he was shoving his shoulder against a closed door. The second door was open, revealing an empty bathroom.

‘Barricaded,’ he said between shoulder slams.

That figured. ‘Magic?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Something’s in the way – a heavy wardrobe, maybe.’ He shoved the door again and it gave an inch .

‘Knox!’ I called. ‘Knox Thunderstick! Are you in there? Are you alright?’ There was no answer.

Thane rammed the door again and it yielded another fraction. ‘I can smell blood,’ he said. ‘A lot of blood.’

I grimaced then joined in Thane’s efforts. Knox might still be breathing – stranger things had happened. ‘Ready?’ I said.

He nodded. ‘On a count of three. One. Two. Three.’

We both threw ourselves at the door. It didn’t exactly spring open, but our combined efforts did what was needed and there was a gap large enough for me to squeeze through.

I elbowed Thane aside. It would be tight but I’d manage. Expelling all the air from my lungs, I pushed my way in. When the room was revealed to me, I gave a tiny gasp. Damn.

Even with all my years’ experience of death, this was something else.

I’d seen a lot of blood in my time but the scene in Thunderstick’s bedroom felt mockingly gratuitous.

Knox lay spreadeagled on the bed, his wrists and ankles tied to the bedposts.

The sheets beneath his body might once have been white but were now bright red, and his eyes were wide and staring.

I knew he was dead but I checked anyway, edging up to his body and pressing my fingers against his sticky neck.

No pulse. His body was still warm to the touch so he’d not been dead for long; the gunshot we’d heard only moments earlier had probably killed him, though there was no obvious sign of a bullet wound.

Unfortunately, though, his hadn’t been a quick death.

The window by the bed was wide open. I cleaned my fingers of Knox’s blood and peered out, but the murderer appeared to have fled in the same manner that Knox had successfully fled the mortuary. The heavy barricade had been a simple but effective trick. I hissed under my breath, genuinely angry.

There was a loud thud as Thane, too large to slip through the gap, shoved at the wardrobe. ‘Kit!’ he yelled. ‘What’s going on?’

I grabbed the sides of the wardrobe and tugged, gaining enough purchase to slide it far enough for Thane to come in. He staggered through, took one look at Knox’s body and paled. ‘Oh.’

I motioned towards the window. ‘Whoever did this is gone,’ I bit out.

Thane’s expression hardened. ‘No. Not with the amount of blood that’s in here. I’m a fucking werewolf, Kit. I can track them down.’

I bared my teeth in an angry smile. ‘That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say. But we’ll have to hurry – they’ll find a way to hide their tracks before too long.’

Thane cast another quick glance at Knox’s body before he leapt out of the window.

‘Fuck!’ he spluttered as he landed badly.

He righted himself and inhaled, searching for the killer’s scent, while I clambered carefully out of the first-floor window then dropped onto the ground beside him.

A sprained ankle would not have been helpful.

‘Have you got it?’ I asked.

Thane pointed. ‘This way.’

He took off down the alleyway and I sprinted after him, calculating how much of a head start the killer had and which streets they’d be likely to take.

An amateur’s instincts would tell them to head for somewhere busy where they could lose themselves in crowds; that had its merits – and its dangers.

You could never account for what members of the public might do if you were pointed out to them as a fleeing criminal, and the blood would be hard to hide even on dark clothes.

If I’d been the killer, I’d have run somewhere quiet where I could hide, clean myself off, then turn the tables on my pursuers by taking them out for good – or at least identify who was on my trail.

I’d learn a great deal about whoever had murdered Knox Thunderstick by the choices they made and the direction they took.

Thane paused when he reached the end of the alley and I caught up with him.

He swung his head from left to right to establish which way the blood-covered killer had gone.

When he turned to the left, my eyes narrowed a fraction.

Interesting: the killer had chosen the crowds, most likely opting for the chaos of Hirsel Street.

They might even pass Pork Pies. I sighed. Poor Harriet.

‘The scent of blood is still incredibly strong,’ Thane said. ‘Our killer will attract attention – and not just from us.’

Good point. I glanced up at the sky. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon but this was Scotland in mid-winter; the sun would set in less than thirty minutes and the vampires would come out to play, making the most of the long nights before the long days of summer began.

There wasn’t a vamp in Coldstream who wouldn’t be drawn to that amount of blood.

Surely the killer, whoever they were, realised that and knew that time was not on their side.

We sprinted towards Hirsel Street. Although my sense of smell was nothing compared to Thane’s, I fancied I could also smell the iron-rich tang of Knox Thunderstick’s blood.

For obvious reasons I was reasonably inured to death, but the druid drummer had been tortured and that made me sick to my stomach.

Our feet pounded the cobblestones, our speed and determined expressions causing consternation on the faces of passersby as we reached the busier streets.

We swung right and then left. I’d expected Thane’s nose to lead us onto Hirsel Street itself, but instead he bypassed that junction and ran on.

Maybe the killer was making a beeline for their home; if that were the case, we’d have them cornered .

But then Thane’s feet came to a stuttering halt.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘The scent has gone,’ he growled. He backtracked five metres to the crossroads then looked left and right.

‘They were here.’ He frowned. ‘Shit! They circled around this entire area.’ He waved a frustrated hand at the tightly packed shops and business premises.

‘They could have gone into any of these buildings.’

I looked around: a barber’s shop, a coffee shop, a quiet-looking pub, a witchery store and… I stared at the red and white flag positioned above the awning of an old stone building on the corner. ‘There.’ I pointed. ‘They’ve gone in there.’

Thane followed my finger. ‘Turkish baths,’ he breathed. ‘A hammam. They’ve gone to clean themselves up.’

I nodded. ‘And steal some clothes left lying around in a locker room.’ I smiled. ‘Let’s go.’

We marched grimly towards the building. When Thane pushed open the front door, I was assailed by heady smells of essential oils: jasmine, musk, orris.

It would be difficult even for a werewolf to distinguish the scent of blood amid such strong perfumes, but Thane’s eyes flicked to mine, confirming that we were in the right place.