The lane ended at an aluminum-sided farmhouse that had seen better days. Pulling into a single-vehicle, open-air carport, he hit the brakes and killed the engine.
She didn’t move.
“Rio?”
At the sound of his voice, her eyelids twitched and she groaned, but then she seemed to sink back into sleep. Or maybe it was a coma.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Just hold on.”
Getting out, he shut things back up so that she’d stay warm, and walked over to the rear door of what he intended on being their temporary refuge. Unfortunately, the very modest two-story house was just as rough as that apartment building—and he had a thought that someday, he’d take her someplace nicer.
Which, considering where he was starting from, might include locales with such exotic luxuries as running water, reliable electricity, and central heating.
The back entry into the kitchen had an overhang that was barely hanging on, and he tested the door’s lock. When it held firm, he turned his shoulder to the panels—
And broke the fucker open.
The air that wafted out was as cold as the night, and not moldy at all—which meant there were so many windows broken, there was always plenty of breeze going through the rooms. He’d been inside once before, back when the prison camp had taken up its new residence. He’d roamed the landscape constantly back then, his wolven side desperate to get out and move under the moonlight after so many decades of forced, subterranean confinement. He’d always come back to that sanatorium, however.
The Executioner had started right off with the leverage shit.
Then again, when you had levers to pull and stuff you had to get done, you didn’t sit on your ass if you wanted to create an empire.
Lucan stepped into the kitchen. The house had been abandoned sometime in the seventies, he was guessing—because the rusty, avocado appliances and mustard-yellow linoleum floor were in the style that was popular right before he’d been thrown into the prison camp. The windows and walls were a matchy-patchy of faded sunflowers, and without any furniture to speak of, it was like a museum exhibit on rural, aspirational living that had been robbed.
A quick check through the other four rooms on the first floor yielded nothing. Quick walk around of the five-room second story was the same. He wasn’t surprised; his nose had told him up front what it took his eyes six minutes to confirm. But he wasn’t really interested in what was aboveground.
The cellar door was under the stairs and it was shut solid, yet opened just fine. As he looked down into the darkness, his hand went to get inside his jacket—but then he realized he wasn’t wearing his own clothes. And it wasn’t smart to use a phone for a flashlight, anyway. Tracers happened, which was why he’d turned his burner off.
Going over to the cabinets and drawers, he didn’t expect to find anything, but there was a surprising collection of crap left. By a stroke of luck, he found a candle, and lit it with a match from a box marked “Joe’s Steak Shack.”
Okay, fine, the candle was actually the number “5” and it had dried frosting on its foot, the forgotten marker of someone who was that age. Or 15. 25. 35 . . .
Pinching the bottom of the number between his fingers, he was careful going down the rough staircase.
Well . . . what do you know. There was a candelabra on a stand right at the base, as if the owners had had their electricity go off a lot and wanted to be prepared. Using the 5, he lit the cobwebbed four-arm and felt like Vincent Price as he moved the anchored flames around.
Fabric, everywhere. And tubs, which he assumed were for dyeing. Also long tables that looked like they’d been built in the cellar from assembled wood.
“Pretty fucking perfect.”
Putting the candles down, he gathered up bolts and bolts of fabric, and shook them out to make a soft bed. He chose behind the stairs as a location—so that if anyone descended the steps during the day, Rio’d have time to hear it and be ready to shoot whoever it was.
She would be safe here—at least that was what he told himself.
And he wasn’t going to be gone long.
At least not while it was still dark out.
The next time Rio woke up, she was stretched out on a bed in a candlelit room. As she went to sit up, the world spun around so she laid back on the mattress.
Except it wasn’t a mattress. It was . . . heavy sheets. Layers and layers of—no, fabric, like you’d find at a Jo-Ann’s, all kinds of different patterns, weights, and colors.
Totally disorientated, she tried to see beyond the halo of golden light thrown by the grouping of candles. Where the hell was she—