“You’re not fucking thinking,” Xander said. A pregnant silence settled around us. His usage of the f-bomb caught my attention, shut me up for a second. “You would have killed every Raven down there. Yeah? Then we wouldn’t have had a witness to interrogate. The information it has is fixed. It’s not going anywhere. The house, though—it’s a hot crime scene. We only have so much time to track any spent magic or find evidence before local law enforcement gets involved. You understand?”
Shaking my head, I said, “Fuck, man. It’s Mel. My daughter.” I swallowed back all the panic and anxiety that coursed through my blood, and I breathed. Xander was right. I had to defer to his logic on this. My emotions would cloud any decision I made.
“I know,” he said. “We’ll get her back. Don’t worry.”
I stepped forward and opened the driver’s door. “Out,” I snarled, stepping aside for the driver to exit. “Or I throw you out.”
“You might want to listen to him,” Xander said.
The man scrambled from his seat, and I jumped in. I didn’t wait for my three passengers to shut their doors, let alone buckle.
The back tires fishtailed on the slick asphalt, and we shot into the storm like a fired bullet.
5
To begin the day, I had awoken to a cloudy sky, sprinklers on Derek’s green, manicured lawn, and shit smeared across my face. Now, that night, I stood in the same spot I had lain that morning, though rain showered down around me now instead of sprinklers.
I stared at the Anderson’s porch, unable to move.
The patio light illuminated the scene. The front door lay in shards on the cement. Nothing else appeared out of place or unusual. Just that front door—the symbol of safety and peace. It lay splintered and shattered. With nothing there to guard the threshold, rain beaded into the front entryway, wetting the hardwood and spraying across the walls.
An aura of spent magic covered the entire property. I allowed my magical senses to roam. I had already accessed my power, and I would now need it to find my daughter. The aura continued north, back toward Sacramento. I had a feeling I would be spending more time in the city I had abandoned five years ago.
Behind me, M.I.S. vehicles parked in the street, barring traffic from both sides. Some of the employees had set up cones and tape to cordon the scene’s perimeter, while others moved in and out of the house without the trivial effort of opening a door.
A comforting hand squeezed my shoulder. I didn’t have to turn to know that Xander stood beside me. I swept my fingers through my wet hair, trying to think of something to say. I had nothing.
“I’ve convinced the other investigators to let you walk through the house before they move anything.”
“And the Raven?” I muttered.
Xander hesitated, before saying, “I had some people escort it into the garage. The restraints are inscribed with runes, so it can’t break them, no matter its strength.”
“She’s seven,” I said, swallowing a lump of remorse. Why hadn’t I realized the distraction earlier? It had never even crossed my mind. I never should have allowed Callie’s ghost to return and haunt me. I should have stayed close to Mel, as I always had. I should have been around to protect her. “It’s my fault.”
“Joey,” Xander said. “The scene is still hot. There might be something in there that points to her abductors, to their location, to something. This isn’t cold evidence like we had with Callie. We have options. We just have to act quickly.”
“You ever see a Raven stand still and not attack?” I asked.
“Only when controlled by a Nephil,” Xander said. What he hadn’t said spoke ever louder.
“So, we’re dealing with one of those shit-heads?” I spoke my thoughts aloud, voicing an unsettling piece of suspicion lodged in my mind—like old meat stuck between your teeth. “What Nephil would want to kill Callie and return seven years later to finish off me and Mel? It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
“They’re eternal beings, Joey. They live by their own time and their own rules. What’s seven years to something that can’t naturally die?”
“I know, but still… it feels way too coincidental.”
“You think seven years means something?”
I shook my head, not knowing what I thought or how to go about it. “I don’t know. Forget it,” I said. “We can figure it out later.”
Having built enough courage to investigate the house, I stomped through the grass and onto the cement, tracking mud. I stepped onto the porch and stared at the front door that lay broken at my feet, then I entered the home.
Derek’s pale body was sprawled off to the side of the entryway. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. Both his arms were broken—bent so far in the wrong direction that it almost looked natural. Blood caked his pallid face, and he had bite marks across his entire body, as if devoured by a wild beast.
The Ravens had beaten him, broken his arms, and sucked him dry. The evidence of a Nephil orchestrating this operation piled on me. Ravens not serving a Nephil didn’t work in packs like wolves, and they worked sloppy. And normal vampires—those full on blood—preferred a quiet life of blending into the world and premeditating their kills. They chose and selected their prey as if for a higher purpose. If given a choice, they didn’t participate in mindless barbarity.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Derek’s corpse. His blood stained my hands. I had sought him out and tied him to my affairs. With nothing left to give him, I moved around his corpse and ventured deeper into my daughter’s home.
From the entry, the living room expanded. A wall of windows overlooked a dark backyard. The living room bled into the kitchen, only a bar separating the two rooms. I shuffled through them, looking for any evidence that would lead me
