Mary rested on the bed, the covers tucked under her chin. Her eyes were open and wide, as if they were fixed on something truly horrible, and her hands were frozen into what looked like claws that clutched the bed sheet.
“Well, that doesn’t look natural,” Zoe noted as she moved closer to the bed. She made sure to give Cormack a wide berth, probably out of respect, but she was intrigued enough to get directly in Mary’s face. “There are no marks on her.”
Aric lifted his nose and began to scent. It was only then that I remembered the shifter in him. He was likely to be able to pick up on almost anything ... including an outsider.
“Anything?” I asked after a few seconds. “Was anyone in here?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” He exhaled on an exaggerated sigh. “The smoke hangs heavy in here. Maybe in a few days it would clear out enough for me to pick up on different scents, but right now it’s too overwhelming.”
“It’s okay.” I flashed a smile and then moved closer to Cormack, who stood looking at his mother, deadly silent. On impulse, I put my hand on his shoulder. I wanted to make things better but understood there was nothing I could do to fix what hurt inside of him. We were well beyond that.
Cormack lightly patted my hand for a beat and then turned away from Mary. I knew it took tremendous effort. He was a man who refused to focus on the past, so all he could do was look to the future.
“Whatever happened here was fast and brutal,” he said. “We have no idea if revenants were involved, or reapers, or something else entirely.”
“What do you want to do?” Aric asked.
“I’m not sure yet. I need to think.”
“Then let’s get out of here,” I suggested. “There’s no benefit to us lingering. It will only draw more questions.”
“Good point.” Cormack’s smile was kind as he slipped his arm around my shoulders. He clearly needed the contact. “We should go. There’s nothing more we can do here.”
Six
“Foul!”
Redmond picked himself up from the foyer floor, barely sparing us a glance as we filed through Grimlock Manor’s front door. His gaze was completely fixed on Sami.
For her part, the teenager was having none of it. “You said there were no rules.”
“No, I said we had very few rules. You can’t use magic. That’s cheating.”
Rather than agree, Sami planted her hands on her hips and smirked. “Um ... I believe this is a game of speed and agility. Everybody has to use the gifts they have at their disposal. That means magic for me.”
“She has a point,” Aisling offered from her spot behind Sami.
Redmond glared at his sister. “You’re just saying that because you’re on her team.”
“You’re the one who picked the teams.”
“We have uneven teams without Braden. It’s not my fault.”
“Well, you need to suck it up.” Aisling glided past her brother in her socks, giving him a little ear flick before coming to a stop next to Sami. “I say she scored.”
From her spot on her father’s lap on the stairs, Lily let loose a terrific laugh. Cormack chuckled when he saw her radiant face and immediately swooped in to collect her. “Are you having fun?”
Griffin ceded the baby without a word of argument, his concerned gaze scanning his father-in-law’s face. It was obvious he saw weariness there ... and grief. Cormack might want to pretend everything was fine, but he couldn’t hide the truth from those who loved him best.
“What happened?” Aisling asked, shifting her attention to us.
“The house was hit,” Braden replied. “Three guards died — were ripped apart, essentially. Grandma’s dead, too, although we’re not entirely certain how that came about. Her body wasn’t in the same condition as the others.”
“Oh.” Aisling’s expression was hard to read. She didn’t exactly look broken up about the turn of events. “That’s ... sad. I guess.”
Cormack snuggled the baby close, resting his cheek on her head and staring at the oil painting on the wall. Braden said it was something his mother had commissioned when he was a child. It featured the Grimlock parents and their lone son. I’d never paid it much mind when visiting the house before. Now the painting seemed almost tragic. Both his parents were gone, and to make matters worse, they’d betrayed him before they died.
“I’m sorry about Grandma,” Aisling offered her father, moving closer to him.
“I’m not.” Cormack flashed a smile. “We knew she was dying, Aisling. It simply happened a bit sooner than we expected.”
“Yeah, but ... .” Aisling trailed off and then shook her head. “Okay, well, what do we think happened? Was it revenants?”
“That’s the assumption,” I offered. “We can’t know for certain, though.”
“So what do we do?” Sami queried. She’d taken up a position next to Redmond and I had been convinced she wasn’t even listening to the conversation because of the overtly flirty looks she kept shooting his way. Apparently I was wrong.
“Right now, we’re going to let the Grimlocks deal with what happened,” Aric replied, holding out his hand. “We’re going to head back to the hotel.”
“Yeah, but ... .” Sami looked confused. “Don’t we usually hunt monsters when they do stuff like this? I’m thinking we should find them and kick some ass. They’re really easy to blow up.”
Aric shot her a look. “There will be no more blowing things up this evening.”
“You’re such a bummer,” Sami muttered, although she shifted away from Redmond and toward her father. Even though she was young, her expression told me she understood about grief. “I guess we should go, though. I am kind of tired.”
Aric shot her a grateful smile. “I think we all are.”
“I still won,” she told Redmond, giving Aisling a light high-five before moving toward the door.
“We’ll get out of your hair,” Zoe offered. “Um ... I’m going to tap some old contacts down here. I don’t know that they’ll be able to help but
