I traded a look with Archer. We’d been hearing that phrase a lot lately.
I inched closer to the bed and looked down. Blank white orbs stared back at me. The eyes are the windows to the soul, and the magical knife had drained the man of his essence, pupil and iris veiled by a scrim of milky sclera. For a moment, I wondered what it must be like for a soul imprisoned inside the dagger. Was Gabriel Horne conscious and aware of his predicament, trapped in some never-ending nightmare?
I hoped for his sake that the answer was no.
I turned back to Archer. “You mentioned a message.”
The detective nodded at one of the forensic guys and two members of the team gently turned the dead man over, almost as if they thought he was asleep and were taking great care not to wake him. My face fell as I saw the note that had been placed under the body.
It read: Don’t try to stop me, Raven.
“Do you have an explanation for this?” Archer demanded.
The energy in the room had changed. Suspicious gazes now bored into me. If part of me had still held out hope that Celeste wasn’t the one behind this murder, the message swiftly put an end to that foolish notion. She might be a victim, but she was also a killer. And she clearly didn’t know me or understood what made me tick. The warning had the exact opposite effect on me. Instead of encouraging me to back off this case, I’d do everything in my power to bring Celeste down.
My gut me that revealing the origin of the murder weapon wouldn’t go over too well, but Archer was a shrewd detective and could smell a lie from a thousand yards off.
“You know who did this, don’t you? Talk to me, Raven!”
I was still debating how to best answer Archer’s question when I noticed the fog gathering outside the gargantuan bedroom windows. No one else was paying any attention to the clouds circling around the penthouse. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have caught my interest either, but the last twenty-four hours had taught me to be wary of the mist—and the inhuman entities that traveled under its cover.
I advanced toward the windows. With each successive step, the fog drew closer, almost as if responding to my presence. The mist hung over the building like a giant shroud. As my gaze searched the white-gray cloud, I vaguely made out slithering shapes.
“Archer, tell your men to move away from the windows,” I said, my voice holding a note of urgency.
“What’s going on?”
“Let’s say I have a hunch that things are about get ugly.
No doubt about it—shadowy shapes were moving inside the swirling mist. That was never a good thing. Archer picked up on it too. We both had witnessed enough weird shit to know that something was up.
“What is it?” she asked. “Raven, damn it, if you’re somehow doing this….”
Before I could offer up an explanation, a tentacle thrashed out from the fog and slammed into the window next to my head, cracking the glass. The cops and forensic guys in the room jumped.
“Raven?” Archer asked, her voice shaky.
The tentacle withdrew. I sensed the movement it created beyond the glass pane.
The hellhounds were preparing to attack again.
The supernatural fog was serving as a bridge between worlds, just as it had outside the coffee shop.
During its first attempt to manifest, the tentacle had appeared ghostlike, more like a shadow, but with each passing moment it was gaining substance. The next time the monstrous appendage lashed out, the glass would shatter and all hell would break loose—and I meant that in the literal sense.
The events at the coffee shop were still fresh in my memory. If the hellhounds seized control of the cops in the penthouse…let’s just say a mass possession would lead to a lot of innocent people getting hurt.
Good people, like Benson and the baby-faced forensics kid.
And Archer.
I pivoted and walked briskly away from the damaged window.
“Raven, where are you going?” Archer asked.
“I have to leave. For all our sakes.”
“What are you talking about? What’s going on here?”
Good question. A part of me wanted to come clean and tell her everything. I caught myself in time. I couldn’t involve Archer and put her in harm’s way. The less she knew, the safer she’d be.
“The fog is after me,” I said after a pause that went on a beat too long.
Archer grabbed my hand. Her touch was electric. “What is going on here?”
“It’s my problem.”
“Wrong answer. This is all our problem.”
Archer had a point. But I didn’t have time this. I pulled back from her and turned away. I felt her eyes digging into me as I left the apartment. I almost had something special once with Archer, but I blew it. I’d be lucky if she ever spoke to me again. Hell, I’d be lucky if she didn’t shoot me the next time our paths crossed.
My footsteps echoed as I left the penthouse at the swift pace of a man who knew the forces of Hell were hot on his tail.
CHAPTER TEN