“That’s where I came from.” She turned around and looked at the road. “And here’s where I waved down Donley.”
“So down that way?” I took off my sunglasses and stared off into the distance. Then I looked down at my phone with the map filling the screen. I scanned over the map to get an idea of the area. “There are some roads in that direction. Let’s keep driving, see if anything comes up.”
We got back into the car and I started her up. I drove forward down the road, but I kept it below the speed limit. If Dakota got a sense of anything, it’d be more effective if we weren’t racing down the street.
“I want you to close your eyes,” I told her.
“What? But I won’t be able to see—”
“It was really dark and there’s not much out here in the way of landmarks,” I said. “Cambions have a natural affinity for magic; they can sense the world in a way humans can’t. And while you’ve got one inside you, you can tap into those powers.”
“But you’re a cambion, right? Can’t you find the farm?”
I shook my head. “I’d need something of the girls’ in order to track them like that. But you—you were there. You can find it again, if you rely on your other senses.”
“Like a cat always being able to find its way back home?”
I snickered. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Okay, here goes.” Dakota took a breath and closed her eyes. She held a hand out and when I looked at her face, I saw she was focused. A look of intense concentration.
“You look like you’ve been constipated for a week,” I said.
She grunted and glared at me. “So what am I supposed to do?”
“Don’t force it. Let it flow over you; feel it. Think of the farm, let the magic do the rest.”
“Right, got it. Don’t force, feel…” Another breath and she closed her eyes.
“Just relax,” I told her, glancing over every now and then to make sure she was doing it right. No more constipated face, thankfully. She looked completely calm.
“I can…feel it.”
“Good, now just direct me.”
“How can I direct you if I can’t see the road?”
“Just try. You’d be surprised what you can do.”
“I don’t understand how—oh. Turn right.”
I smiled and did as she told me. She directed me the rest of the way and we drove for a good hour. When we finally came to a stop, I looked at my phone and saw it had no signal. But that wasn’t important. What was important was the gate we’d stopped in front of. And just past the gate was a dirt road cutting through unkempt fields, leading to an old farmhouse with a large barn beside it.
“Here,” she said, opening her eyes. “This is it.”
14
The gate wasn’t locked, so I pushed it open. Dakota and I both got back into the car and we drove slowly up the road. She didn’t say a word and she didn’t have to—a mixture of fear and anger clouded her mind. The emotions were so strong, I could practically taste them in the confines of the Camaro.
Not that I could blame her. Thinking of Dakota made me think of the mother I’d never met. A woman who had also been violated by some demon and his human lackey, just like Dakota. And that thought made me tighten my grip on the wheel.
My mother didn’t survive giving birth to a cambion. Very few women do. But I wasn’t going to let that happen to Dakota.
I stopped the car and climbed out, setting my polished, black shoes on the dusty ground and fixating on the small farmhouse. My eyes narrowed behind my sunglasses and I took a deep breath. While slowly exhaling, I held my hand out towards the house, as if reaching for it.
There were traces of energy here. Lingering magic. Far as I could tell, whatever was here had since left. But if the Minister was as powerful as this faded magic suggested, he could probably ward himself against my senses.
No, it was best to approach with caution.
I closed the door and went to the trunk. Before I opened it, I heard the sound of the passenger door opening and then closing. Ignoring Dakota’s questioning stare on me, I opened the trunk and took both the dagger and revolver and slid them into their holsters on my person. Then I took hold of the bag of supplies and closed the door.
“Stay in the car,” I said.
“What’s going on?”
Her footsteps trailed after me as I walked towards the house. I stopped and faced her. “It appears that the Minister is gone. But appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes you need to see things with your naked eye.”
“Fine, then I’m going with you.”
I scoffed. “The hell you are.”
Dakota frowned and folded her arms over her chest. “Those are my friends in there, okay? One of them’s already dead and the others could follow. Now, we can either stand here arguing about it and waste time, or we can get this over with and go together.”
This woman was gonna be the death of me. I sighed and acquiesced. It would shut her up for now. And besides, with that baby, she was probably safer than me. Granted, if the baby did freak out about some threat, it might not be capable of distinguishing between friend and foe—or even want to, for that matter.
“Stay close and keep quiet,” I ordered.
Dakota nodded and we continued toward the house together, taking slow steps. The farmhouse was two stories and looked like it would collapse if you breathed on it too hard, constructed out of rotted wood that was broken in several spots. The paint was chipped and peeling off. There were different-colored patches on the roof, suggesting it had been repaired a few times over the years.
The barn beside it didn’t fare much better. Ostensibly red, but the deterioration of the paint made it more of a splotchy red by this point. My guess was no one who cared about this place had lived here in a very long time. More than likely a foreclosed property the Minister was squatting on.
If I was right, that increased the chances he’d be gone. He probably chose this place because of its isolation. Now that Dakota had escaped, this place lost the only thing it had going for it. That meant they could be anywhere by now.
But if we were lucky, they might’ve left something behind. Something that would give us a clue as to where the Minister ran off to, or maybe even a personal item of one of the girls that we could use to perform a locator spell.
We moved up to the side of the house. I set the bag down and opened it up, taking out a container of salt and passing it to Dakota. “Use that to make a circle around the house.”
“Salt?” she asked.
“If there’s something supernatural in there, we can trap it.”
“Won’t it trap you?”
“Nah—half-human. I can cross the line. But if the demon the Minister’s working with is in there, this will keep him locked up. That’s why, once you’re finished, I want you to stay out of the circle until I say it’s okay to come inside.”
Dakota nodded and went to work. She started pouring the salt from the bottle’s spout, moving around the house and out of sight. I closed the bag and picked it up, approaching the front porch. There were wooden steps leading up to it on the side and in front, so I went up the three side steps, each one threatening to break the second I put my foot on it.
Fortunately, they held. I approached the front door and wrapped my hand around the handle, expecting it to be locked. Instead, it opened without a hint of resistance. That only helped prove my theory the Minister had high-tailed it. But I drew the revolver just in case. You never knew what sort of traps he might’ve left behind.
I walked inside, my footfalls echoing through the house and making the wood groan in protest. Past the front door, I was greeted with a staircase on the right leading up to the second floor, and a hallway to the left that ended at a closed door. A dusty, old chandelier hung above me, several of the bulbs missing or broken.
To my left was an open room with a long table and four chairs lined up at either side, with a larger chair at the far end. A rusted
candelabra was in the center of the table and the five candles resting in it were of a variety of lengths, all with black, charred wicks and hardened wax runoff down the sides. Despite the state of the walls, floor, and ceiling, the room looked like it’d been in frequent use. The table and chairs were both relatively clean without a great build-up of dust.
The room to the right of the foyer was a different story. I went there next and tested the light switch on the wall. Nothing happened. When I pulled my finger away, I noticed the remains of a spider’s web on my hand and shook it off. Looking in the corners, I saw more webbing. There was a credenza pushed against the wall beneath boarded-up windows. I rubbed my finger on the surface and saw it was covered with a thick layer of dust.
An old couch with several tears in it and stuffing leaking out was the centerpiece of the room, with chairs around it. A coffee table rested between the couch and a fireplace. In the corner beside the fireplace was a television set that looked older than me. The room was completed with a bookcase. I walked over to it and looked at the spines. There weren’t many books on the shelves. An old encyclopedia, a few copies of the Bible, and some other scattered novels and non-fiction works.
But it was all pretty standard. No grimoires of any kind, no books on witchcraft or demonology, nothing. I noticed a lot of webbing stretched across the shelves, and dust coating the spines, which meant that no one had taken a book off these shelves in a very long time. This room, in general, seemed like it was never used.
I returned to the foyer and walked down the hallway towards the door. It swung open once I pushed it and I entered a kitchen, which connected to the dining room as well. I stepped inside, allowing my gun hand to fall by my side. So far, I hadn’t seen anything to indicate there were any threats out here, and that was a good thing.
The kitchen was probably the cleanest room on the first floor. The counter, stove, and sink were spotless, dishes were neatly stacked in the cupboards, and when I opened the refrigerator, there was plenty of fresh food in there.
Yesterday morning was probably when they’d realized Dakota had gone, and it looked like they’d picked up and left as soon as they woke up. Interesting they’d play that card instead of trying to find her first. The Minister was obviously afraid Dakota was going to come back with help.
He was right.
There were three other doors in the kitchen. One beside the refrigerator led to a pantry, then another leading to the backyard. I could see the barn through the window. The third door had a padlock on it. That must lead down to the cellar. I’d check that one after having a look at the bedrooms upstairs.
I returned to the foyer and looked through the open front door. Dakota stood in front of the porch right outside the salt circle and stared back at me.
“Did you find anything?” she asked.
Shaking my head, I holstered the gun. “Still gotta check upstairs and the cellar, but so far a whole lotta nothing.”
“Can I come in there or what?”
I rubbed the back of my bald head and then nodded. “Yeah, I suppose. Doesn’t look like anything here can hurt you. Just don’t break the circle on your way in.”
Dakota nodded and stepped over the salt, then came up the porch and through the front door. As soon as she looked at the dining room, her face went blank. Her mouth was open just a little and she looked frightened by what she was staring at.
“You okay?”
No response. I snapped my fingers in front of her face and she blinked.
“Dakota?”
“I’m…I’m sorry,” she said, looking down. “Just bringing back memories.”
“What is it about that dining room?”
“It was just the way he treated us,” she said. “We had to prepare his meals and then sit there in silence while he ate. We weren’t allowed to start until after he’d finished, couldn’t even say a single word. And afterwards, we had to clear the table and wash the dishes. All without speaking. Any sound, any movement other than sitting ramrod-straight, was considered disrespectful to the Minister.”
Oh, I was gonna enjoy punching this guy once I got my hands on him. But for now, concentrate on the matter at hand. “Upstairs?” I asked, gesturing to the staircase.
“There are three bedrooms; a master and two smaller ones.”
“Let me guess, he was in the master.”
Dakota nodded. I started up the steps, but she hesitated at the foot, resting her hand on the newel post.
Stopping, I looked at her. “If you’d rather wait in the car, that’s fine. I can do this on my own.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I should go with.”
“All right.” I resumed climbing and after a few more steps, I heard her footsteps follow behind. The girl’d been through hell, but she was tougher than she looked. Gotta admire her for that.
I reached the top of the staircase and turned, following the path around to two rooms, their doors right beside each other. Both had open padlocks hanging from latches. Dakota came up beside me and stared at the doors.
“He’d lock us inside at night. We weren’t allowed out until it was time to prepare his breakfast.”
I furrowed my brow. “How’d you escape?”
“Easy. I went out the window.”
I blinked. “That was taking a risk.”
“What choice did I have? It was either stay and let him do God-knows-what or escape and try to find help.”
“Can’t argue with that.” I pointed at each door. “Which one was yours?”
“This one.” She pointed to the door on the right.
I took the padlock off and turned the handle, then pushed the door open. Two beds were in here, the sheets a mess. There was a dresser with chipped, white paint and scuff marks all over the surface, and a lantern with a melted candle sitting on top.
“There’s no electricity here, so we had to make do with candles.” Dakota shivered and hugged herself. She looked down at the beds. “Lynn and I slept here. Chelsea and Rachel were in the next room.”
She pointed at the wall separating the two rooms. Lowering her hand, she also muttered something else. “And Darlene…she used to be there with them.”
I pulled open each of the three drawers, but they were all empty. The Minister was smart; he knew that if any personal possessions were left behind, someone with the right knowledge could track them. In the vain hope they may have dropped something, I knelt down on the floor to look under the dresser. Nothing but dust. I checked under the beds and found the same thing.
“Did you have any possessions here? Books, jewelry, anything?”
“No, we weren’t allowed. Our first night here, we burned all our possessions in a big bonfire.”
I frowned. Great, that was going to make this challenging. We went next door to the other bedroom. It was slightly larger than the one Dakota slept in, with three beds instead of two. But other than that, nothing of use.
There were two more rooms on the second floor; one was the bathroom and the other the master bedroom. The Minister and the girls had done a good job cleaning out the bathroom, because there wasn’t anything in there—no forgotten toothbrushes or combs or anything like that.
Part of me thought the master bedroom would give some insight into the Minister. That it’d be more extravagant than the meager quarters he provided his “harem.” But I was surprised to find that, though it was larger than the rooms the girls had to share, it was pretty spartan, all things considered.
The floorboards creaked as I walked across. His bed was larger, but still very basic—cheap, metal frame, old mattress, plain sheets; a dresser that looked like the refugee of a garbage heap without a single thing left in any of the drawers; and a closet that held nothing.
“Nothing useful?” asked Dakota, calling from the bedroom’s doorway.
I shook my head. “’Fraid not.”
“You were right, then. Coming here was a waste of time.” Dakota sighed. “I should’ve listened.”
“Maybe not.” I looked up at her. “We still have to check out the cellar and the barn.”
At those words, the color drained from Dakota’s face.
15
Truth was, I had no idea what to expect in the cellar. He’d used it as a form of punishment for the girls, but Dakota was pretty quiet on what exactly that punishment was. Could’ve been beatings or could’ve just been isolation and darkness. I kicked open the door, the padlock tearing from the rotten wood.
An old staircase led down into the darkness. My eyes allowed me to see pretty well in the dark, so it was no concern for me. But when I looked back at Dakota, I saw she was scared to step down. I held my hand out, palm facing upwards, and concentrated.
“Lux.”
My eyes burned in the dark, and tendrils of energy were drawn from the surrounding atmosphere, forming into a glowing ball of light—small at first, no bigger than a marble—but growing larger until it was the size of a baseball. It illuminated the staircase and detached from my hand, casting a soft, yellow glow in the narrow confines of the stairwell.
“See? Nothing to worry about.”
Almost as soon as those words passed my lips, I regretted them. Never say there’s nothing to worry about when you’re entering the pitch-black cellar of an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.
The orb hovered in front of me, lighting the path as I moved down the steps, with Dakota following behind. Reaching the bottom, I set my foot on the concrete floor. The orb moved into the middle of the room, increasing its brightness to illuminate the entire area.
The concrete was scuffed and chipped in places. Some water damage as well, from the looks of it. There was an old workbench pushed up against one wall. I approached that, running my fingertips along the dusty surface, feeling the scratches and gouges in the wood. On the wall was a pegboard with a number of tools, the kind you’d find in most houses. Screwdrivers of various sizes, wrenches, hammers. The metal on most was marked with different stages of rust build-up, suggesting they hadn’t been used very often.
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