Part 11 (1/2)
Hardly visible, fas.h.i.+oned out of the planks and perfectly level with the rest of the flooring.
With a mix of curiosity and foreboding, Savannah crept toward it and felt around for its seams. She pried her fingers between a couple of the planks and found the hidden, square panel was unhinged and unsecured. She lifted it, slid it aside, and sat back as a draft of cool, damp air breathed out of the dark opening.
Savannah peered down into the s.p.a.ce, trying to see if it the gloom led out of the house somewhere, or merely down to an old cellar. A p.r.i.c.kle at her nape told her it was neither, but now that she had opened the door, she couldn't simply close it again without having the answer.
A crude ladder was built into the earthen wall below. She slipped down into the hole and carefully climbed about twenty feet to the bottom.
It was a deep pit, lightless, except for the scant illumination spilling in from the kitchen above.
Had she thought the house felt like a tomb last night, when she and Gideon first arrived? This hand-hewn chamber in the cold, dark earth brought the feeling back tenfold.
Who made this?
What was it for?
Savannah peered around the forlorn s.p.a.ce. Nothing but dank walls and floor, a place of sorrow and isolation. A place of forgetting.
No, she thought, seeing the purpose of the hidden room only now--a niche carved into the far wall, created to hold the crude wooden box that had been carefully placed within the nook.
This hole in the earth was a place of remembrance.
Of penance.
She drifted closer to the alcove and the aged box it contained. Even without touching it, she could feel the anguish that surrounded the reliquary.
Where had the box come from? Why was it here? Who had set it so deliberately in this place?
She had to know.
Savannah ran her bare hand lightly over the top of the ancient box.
Grief swamped her, seeping straight to her marrow.
A young woman's remains were inside from long, long ago. Ash and bone, anointed in tears. A man's tears.
No, not a man.
A Breed male, unfamiliar to her, mourning his dead mate. Blaming himself for her demise.
Savannah saw him in a flash of her extrasensory gift: A ma.s.sive warrior with s.h.a.ggy, tawny hair and piercing gem-green eyes. Eyes that burned hot with rage and sorrow and self-loathing.
His pain was too much, too raw.
Too wrenching for her to take any longer.
She drew her hand away in a hurry and backed off, putting as much distance as she could between herself and the terrible past contained in the box.
Shaken, wanting no more knowledge of this house's hidden rooms or secrets, she ran back upstairs to wait for Gideon's return.
After pulling a B&E on the Faculty Administration building at the university as soon as night had fallen, Gideon headed into the working-cla.s.s neighborhood of Southie, his sights set on the home of one Professor William Charles Keaton.
The run-down, turn-of-the-century New Englander didn't exactly scream swinging bachelor pad, but there was a flashy white Firebird parked on the side driveway that was advertis.e.m.e.nt enough for a coed skirt-chaser like Keaton.
Or rather, a skirt-chaser like he had been.
After hearing Savannah confirm that afternoon what Gideon had suspected--that Keaton had, in fact, been bitten by the Breed male who attacked him--Gideon was pretty sure the only thing that interested Keaton now was obeying his Master's orders.
Gideon needed to know who Keaton served.
He needed to know who wanted Hugh Faulkner's sword bad enough to kill for it, and why.
He wasn't holding out much hope that Keaton would give up those answers easily, if at all. Interrogating Minions wasn't often the most productive effort. A mind slave's allegiance belonged totally to its Master.
Still, Gideon had to try.
For Savannah's safety, if nothing else.
He'd hated like h.e.l.l to have to resort to trancing her just before sundown, but he didn't see where he'd had much choice. He never would have gotten out of that house without her. Locking her inside probably wasn't going to win him any hero awards, either.
s.h.i.+t.
He'd have to add another apology to the rest he owed her--starting with the one he planned to open with as soon as he saw her again.
The one about how he'd let her go on thinking all this time that the way they first met had been simple serendipity. Fate, as she'd christened it, just before her sweet confession that she was falling in love with him.
She needed to know that despite his reasons for seeking her out in the beginning, what he felt for her now--immediately after meeting her, if he were being honest with himself--was real.
She needed to know that she mattered to him, even more than his personal quest for answers about the d.a.m.ned sword and the Breed male who'd been willing to kill for it.
She needed to know that he loved her.
He didn't know a better way to prove that than removing the threat of anyone who sought to do her harm.
Starting with the Minion inside this house.
Gideon entered stealthily, the feeble lock on the old front door no contest at all for the mental command he gave that opened it. A television blared unattended in the living room just off the entryway. A day-old dinner sat dried out in its foil container on the TV tray next to a cus.h.i.+oned brown recliner. Spread open on the seat was a state map of Louisiana.
Son of a b.i.t.c.h.
Gideon had to clamp down hard on the fury that began to boil in his gut as he noted the penciled line tracing down to the south central region of the state.
He swept his gaze all around him, searching for the bodily energy of the house's occupant with his ESP talent. He found Keaton's faint orange glow beneath the floorboards at his feet. The Minion was in the cellar.
Gideon stalked toward the hallway stairwell leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt below.
A dim light was on down there.