Light My Fire
Page 26

Jim rolled its eyes. “Don’t even go there.”
“OK. Then it’s up to me.” I put my hand on the wall, closing my eyes to help me focus as I opened the door in my mind.
“Aisling? What exactly do you expect us to do? Guardians are protectors, watchers of portals. We disperse beings back to Abaddon—we’re not meant to bring retribution to those who act against us.”
“I refuse to be a victim,” I told Nora, my eyes still closed as I tried to push out all the noise and distractions of the street. “We have power. We shouldn’t be afraid to use it.”
The magic door in my head opened wide, allowing me to see all the possibilities. I used my improved vision to look across the street but saw nothing that gave me any clues to who had shot at me. Turning, I swung my attention to the direction Drake and his men had run, but nothing there set off any warning bells, either. I spun around, figuring I’d call the quarters like I did when I summoned a demon, but the second I faced south, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I focused, trying to pinpoint the sensation, but nothing came to me other than the strong belief that whoever had shot at me was located in that direction.
Who am I to quibble with a hunch?
“This way.” I grabbed Jim’s leash and weaved my way through the throng of people slowly passing the remains of our building. The people on the street faded slightly into the shadows, as if the something that drew my attention was casting darkness on everything else.
“Aisling? I’m not sure we should be doing this,” Nora said slowly, following Jim and me as we dashed across a busy street. “Drake would probably not like you running off if the situation is dangerous—”
“He said to stay with you. I’m doing that. And don’t worry, Drake has been around me enough to know I don’t wait for someone else to rescue me. I’m perfectly capable of saving my own ass. Over here. We have to take the tube—I don’t think it’s terribly close.”
Nora cast out a few more gentle protests and suggestions that we wait for Drake or one of his men to help us, but I nixed that idea. “No time. I don’t know where Drake is, and since I keep forgetting to get his cell phone number, I can’t call him up to chat about the situation. Besides, I don’t intend to corner whoever shot at me—at least, not unless he or she is alone. I just want to find out who and where they are; then we’ll go in with a beefed-up force and deal with things.”
“All right, but I reserve the right to call for assistance if the situation becomes too difficult,” Nora answered. We sat side by side on a short bench in the Underground train that whisked us to an outlying part of London. The feeling that had first caught my attention continued to grow. I still couldn’t pin down any particular sensation other than a strong belief that I needed to go in that direction.
“Wait... I smell something,” Jim said as we emerged from the station into Islington, a chic neighborhood in northern London.
“What? One of the red dragons? Which one, do you know?”
Jim spun around, its nose high in the air. “Not a red dragon.”
“What then? A silver one? Blue?”
“Neither. Something better.” Jim stopped, one paw lifted, its neck thrust forward as it tried to assume a position better suited to a pointer. “Indian take-out!”
“Oh for god’s... I swear, demon, there are times when I seriously think I’d be better off without you.”
Jim grinned at Nora as I snapped its leash and hurried down the crowded sidewalk. “It ain’t easy being the comic relief.”
Nora made no comment, but every time I glanced back at her, her eyes were worried. A frown wrinkled her brow, and the closer we came to what I was sure was the location of the red dragon who’d shot me, the slower she walked.
“Is everything OK?” I asked when we reached the corner of a suburban street.
She shook her head. “I feel... there’s something here, Aisling. Something big. Don’t you feel it?”
I opened myself up for a few minutes but felt nothing out of the ordinary. “Nope. Something like what?”
“I’m not quite sure. It’s nothing that I’ve ever felt before, but I think ... I think it’s very bad.”
I looked across the street at the plain white building that stood on the end of a row of almost identical white houses. They were three stories tall, probably late Victorian row houses, now done up and home to yuppies. The house that interested me looked no different from any of the others: black railing out front, windows screened with white lace for privacy, little flower boxes at the windowsills.... It all looked perfectly mundane.
“Well, I can’t just stand here and wait for one of Chuan Ren’s people to show. I’m going to see if anyone is home.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Nora said slowly. I dashed across the street at a traffic break, marching up the stone stairs to the black lacquer front door. Just as I raised my hand to knock, she lunged at my arm, jerking me down a couple of steps. “No! Aisling, you must not!”
“Why?” I asked, confused by the terror I saw in her eyes. “Nora, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, pulling me down the rest of the stairs until we stood on the sidewalk. “I’ve never been what you would call psychic about places, but I do know that something big is in that house. Something ... terrible. And you must not face it.”
I glanced back at the house. I got nothing from it other than the sense of confidence that what I sought was in there. “I’m pretty sure that’s the place we want. Jim? You get any weird emanations from the house?”
“Weird emanations? What, I’m a medium now?” Jim shook its head. “Feels perfectly straightforward to me.”
“Hmm.” I wasn’t a fool. Much as I wanted to investigate whomever it was who was in that house, Nora was an experienced Guardian, and if she wasn’t happy with a location, then I would heed her warning.
For now.
“OK, then,” I said, slipping an arm around her shoulders as I gently steered her back toward the zebra crossing. “I won’t go in by myself. We’ll just make note of the address, and when Drake and his guys are available, we’ll check it out together.”
“No, you must not. In there is”—she cast a worried look over her shoulder at the house—”something truly evil.”