Walk Into The Light - Shadows of the Night 6

Chapter 25

Hey,

Back with another chapter, and I hope you like it. Oh, by the way, I loved your theories on what really happened! If you have more after this chapter, let me know! :-)

Thanks for reading.

Lara

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Chapter 25

ANDY

Giuliana and I had paved our way into the building with careful threats and mental arm-wrestling. Apparently Giuliana's threats did the trick. George Rider led us into Alexander's secret lair without a word, walking through the ward surrounding the house on silent feet.

Following him, we stepped through the ward. Adrenaline spiked. The wrong sense of blandness fell away like an empty shell. The auratic reading I got when we stepped over the threshold was stupefying. Disturbingly abnormal.

No trace of Anna or any other witch. Instead plenty of other presences.

The power of the grave seemed omnipresent, drifting out from a central, focal point. Even though the house seemed void of people, there were a number of vamps present. Hard to tell their number. The overlaying darkness made the auratic reading messy. Still, if I had to guess, I'd say there were at least one dozen vamps, perhaps more.

Bad news if we had to get away fast.

Enemy territory. Damn.

The "lay of the land" inside Alexander's lair was complex and less than ideal. I couldn't shake the feeling that the whole house was equipped for a lockdown the Circle could only dream of. Security measures were tight – human technology combined with magic that might have come from someone outside the Circle, but was impeccable.

The house smelled and looked clean too. In fact, a little too clean. Someone had used strong cleaning agents in here, the kind you smelled at a cleaned up crime scene. I wondered why.

The architectural fake-blandness Alexander had used on the outside faded away slowly as we stepped further into the house. Was this just one of many safe houses he possessed, or were we really in his private quarters?

Walls that sprouted paintings belonging to the twentieth century. A black and white marble floor that looked like a life-size chess board, as if the head vampire truly wanted his visitors to know that to him they were just chess pieces in his hands.

Right at this moment there weren't many pieces – at least not many that I could see. Still, the vamps' presence was there and palpable.

I followed George to the end of the corridor, counting doors we passed in silence. Giuliana was equally quiet, but I could feel the magic brimming underneath her fingertips. She was jumpy and trigger-happy – not a good precondition to have while stepping into the head vampire's house.

George stopped in front of the sixth door to the left and opened it. Together we stepped into a parlor that might have belonged to the early 20th Century.

I scanned the pretty arrangement of blue wing chairs and couches and found nothing.

"No one's here. Where's Alexander?"

George turned and walked back towards the door.

"Sit down."

I looked at Giuliana, seeing the same look of anger on her face I felt coming on my own.

"Wait here. Don't try anything, don't even move, got it?"

George tossed the words over his shoulder. Even without his eyes poised on us, I felt the weight of a few decades of vampiric power pushing against my inner sanctum.