Two boots appeared in my peripheral. “You all right?” I asked without looking up. I couldn’t stop staring at those eyes. Those deep watery pools were glazing over, like a pond choked with algae—stagnant. Dead.
“I’m good,” Morales said above me. “How much you wanna bet Mr. Daniels is nearby?”
Something tickled the back of my mind. Some sensory memory. “Wait,” I said, “the blood.”
Morales made a pitying noise with his mouth. “Yeah that happens when you hit their carotid.”
I shook my head and stood, my eyes finally scanning the room as a whole instead of flashes of input from when we were being shot at. A ratty sofa under a pair of windows looking out on the courtyard. The chintz armchair I’d used for cover. In the corner, a small, warped wood table with an old gas lamp. A river-rock hearth and mantel with weathered pictures of proper ladies and dapper gentlemen in old-timey costumes. But no blood, except the rapidly spreading pool at our feet.
“Prospero? What’s going on in that head?”
I pulled my gaze from the photos and looked at him. “When we came in—before the first shot—I smelled blood.”
The skin between his brows puckered, and his eyes scanned the room. “You’re right. I forgot about it once the shotgun shouted hello.”
The sound of running footsteps outside had both of us reaching for our weapons again. But instead of Mr. Daniels or Dionysus, the rest of our team came through the door. “We heard more shots.” Gardner froze, her eyes on the corpse on the ground.
“Mrs. Daniels, I presume,” Shadi said.
“Did you find anyone in the barn?” I asked.
Gardner shook her head. “Wine barrels and potion ampoules, though.”
A timid sort of relief bloomed in my chest. If we’d been wrong about the connection between Dionysus and the winery, we would have had a lot of explaining to do about the rapidly cooling body at our feet and why we’d gone to the vineyard in the first place.
Our earpieces buzzed. Mez’s voice boomed in our ears. “What the fuck is going on in there?”
“We’re all good,” Gardner said. “Morales and Prospero took down a civilian with a shotgun. We’ll need the ME. Where’s my backup?”
“The bomb threat was a hoax, so Sheriff’s sending the tac wizes.”
“Shit,” I said. “If they were at the county jail, it’ll take them twenty minutes minimum.”
“Thanks, Mez.” Gardner looked around at all of our curious expressions. She sighed like she needed the oxygen to steel her resolve. “All right,” she continued, sounding older suddenly, “let’s clear this house. The husband’s around here somewhere.”
“Or his body is, anyway,” I said. “We smelled blood when we walked in.”
They nodded solemnly and split off toward the kitchen. To get there, they had to step over Mrs. Daniels’s body. Funny how now she seemed just another set piece, another prop in this drama.
Shadi went through the kitchen first. “Goddamn.”
We pushed through the doorway. The stink of dirty copper was stronger there.
The floor and walls were covered with Rorschach inkblots of blood. A gory butterfly. A sinister jack-o’-lantern with fangs. A melting clown’s face.
A fucking mess.
“Where’s the body?” Morales asked suddenly.
The room’s layout offered up two possibilities. To our right a set of stairs led to the second floor. There was blood on the stairs, but from where I stood it appeared to be more spatter instead of the smears that might indicate a dragged body.
To our left, a closed door probably led down to the basement. Blood on the door, more on the knob.
“Shadi and I go up,” Gardner said. “You two go down.”
We watched those two climb the steps before approaching the door.
Morales grabbed a dish towel from the sink and used it to turn the knob. He stayed out of the way in case there was a nasty surprise waiting for us on the other side. Only silence and inky darkness greeted us. A single, bare bulb hung above the risers, but I didn’t flip the switch because it would make us a target to anyone below. We’d have to rely on the glow from the kitchen that illuminated the first few steps down.
I stepped forward. “Cover me.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but a raised brow on my part convinced him to keep his argument to himself. I took up less space. Easier for me to plaster myself against the wall on the right side of the steps and make it past the meager pool of light to see what was waiting on the dark side.
I pulled air in through my nostrils, willing it to shoo away the wasps swarming in my stomach. One step, two.
My heart was a distant drum in my ears and competed with the rushing of air in, out and in, out and in, out. Three, four, five.
The shadows played tricks on my eyes. Was that really movement beyond the light or an illusion?
Step six brought me to the edge of the wall. Beyond that point, two thin rails sat on either side of the staircase. I knelt down, my knees popping in protest, and squinted into the cave-like area beyond.
It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust. Those few seconds were all my mind needed to offer up a highlight reel of horrors. Knowledge from deep in my marrow whispered in my ear: He’s down here.
The cold fist in my gut also told me there was a gun aimed at me. Inside that gun was a casing with my name engraved. And inside that casing was a bullet that wanted to make itself a home in my chest.
I squinted toward the center of the large basement. It took a moment before I saw the movement. Something swaying in the shadows. I raised my gun and pointed it at the… thing or person. “Put your hands up.”
No response, except for a slight creak and a constant drip, drip, dripping.
With a trembling right hand, I grabbed the pin light from the utility belt at my waist. I turned it on and pointed it in the same direction my gun was focused. It took a few seconds to realize what I was seeing. A pale, hairy arm, a naked torso, another hairy arm. Back and forth it swung like a pendulum.
I lowered the light’s aim, and the source of the dripping became clear: a large puddle of blood. I stuck the light between my teeth and groped for a switch with my right hand. Finally, my fingers found my goal and flipped the lever up. Another bare bulb in the center of the basement exploded into sudden brightness.
Pain behind my eyes. Confusion. Then… horror.
I grabbed the light from between my lips. “Morales.”