“She’s right,” Drew agreed, albeit grudgingly. “It is why we’re here. Evidence of the bleeding walls phenomenon is on that phone now. And I think—”
Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off by another one of those eerie screams in the distance. Madeline leaned back into the hallway to see if she could spot the source, but saw nothing. Drew leaned closer, too, trying to look where she was, and she couldn’t resist the temptation.
Right next to his ear, Madeline whispered softly, “Boo!”
He jumped, knocking her phone out of her hand again, and then glared at her. “What the fuck, Maddie?”
She cracked up. “Sorry, trying to lighten the mood.”
*
Tamerlane
He couldn’t help but think she was fearless. Just as gorgeous as she’d been in her other incarnations, if that was what this was. It seemed unlikely that she’d been sent to him, since part of his punishment was isolation from all other demons, but he could think of no other reason for her presence at the in-between.
While her human friends practically scuttled around like overturned turtles, she remained calm and only mildly amused. Remaining invisible to them on this plane, he strayed near her, hoping for a whiff of her scent to verify whether she was indeed a human or Other, like him. Her head snapped in his direction, as if she could sense his presence, but he learned what he needed to know. She wasn’t human—not by far—but yet she was clearly associated with the three humans she’d arrived with. Perhaps she was enduring some sort of punishment of her own?
“Does anyone smell cookies?” she asked her companions.
The taller of the males gave her a rude look before saying, in a snide tone, “If you’re hungry, Maddie, I packed some snacks in my bag. But, no, I don’t smell cookies. I smell mold and rot. It is a moldering mansion… and you smell cookies?”
They were investigating the downstairs of the house, deep into the basement, and the spirits of the dead were swarming around them. Eagerly, they sniffed at the waves of fear clouding around the three humans. They fed on it, growing more powerful by the second. If the humans didn’t calm down, they’d have enough energy for more shenanigans pretty quickly.
But his lady showed no such fear. Not even when her group stumbled on a pile of bones which they couldn’t immediately identify. Their screams had the spirits in a tizzy, spinning around and greedily gulping at their fear.
But Magdala simply stood back until the other humans moved out of her way. When she was able to get to the cause of their fright, she nudged the pile with the toe of one black leather half boot before saying, “Aha.”
The tall man—Drew, if he’d overheard correctly—squealed like a stuck pig when Magdala reached into the haphazard pile of ivory sticks and pulled something out. Since their flashlight beams were swiveling around the room at a hyper pace nearly as frenzied as that of the intangible spirits, it took the humans and him a second to realize what she held aloft for them to see.
The skull was clearly that of a deer rather than a human, and her human companions calmed, but it was too late for them. They might not realize it, but their latest burst of terror had glutted the spirits wise enough to follow them to the basement. With so much power, they’d likely be causing havoc shortly, and he truly couldn’t bear the idea of Magdala being accidentally injured in the chaos that would ensue.
He told himself that was his only reason for lingering, waiting for her friends to head back up the stairs before scratching at the wall in the furthest corner of the basement. The sound wouldn’t be loud enough to alert the others—they might even think it was a rodent—but he trusted Magdala to have the same curiosity he’d always known her to have. She’d investigate.
Or he hoped she would.
As he’d hoped, she paused before following her friends up the rickety stairwell. Her flashlight beamed to shine right in his face, but he knew she couldn’t see him.
Not yet.
He scratched again.