Page 78 of Cursed Shadows 5

Just like the last time Eamon tried to use that thing to talk to Bee, it doesn’t light up. It doesn’t turn on. For a moment, Eamon smacks his thumb on the face of the fone before he grunts an annoyed sound, then shoves it back into his pocket.

“That window there,” Dare lifts his chin in a gesture to the glass with the heavy white curtains, “will take us into her home.”

“Or,” Eamon sighs and moves for the concrete steps, “we could use the doors.”

Dare frowns at the back of his head, the slender braids weaved into a thicker plait that’s specked with paint, but Eamon is already at the first grey step, stained with only the gods know what.

Dare pushes into step behind him.

The front door isn’t any better than the rest of this wretched place. Thick metal painted red, peeling all over, and a frosted glass window thicker than bone. A decrepit door that opens to a decrepit place.

Eamon’s nose crinkles as he flattens his hand on the metal door—then pushes. He looks over his shoulder with a smarmy smirk, an unspoken ‘I told you so.’

Dare gives no answer. His gaze shifts over Eamon’s shoulder to the stairwell, thick with a darkness that stinks of bin liquid. That’s what it is burning his nose. The juice that leaks from rubbish piled too long, an overripe stench of citrus.

He finds the culprit, fast.

At the foot of the concrete stairs leading up to the next level, there are three black bags made from a glossy material, a material that lookswrong. They sit, slumped, in a puddle of stink.

Dare’s upper lip twitches as he shoves by Eamon and starts up the stairs, an urgency in his steps.

Eamon follows.

It isn’t until they reach the third floor that the stench of the bin puddle softens. It hardly disappears, but the burn doesn’t sting at the back of Dare’s mouth anymore.

Still, his lips are pinched shut as he moves for the next staircase—then he pauses.

Slowly, he turns his chin to his shoulder.

His gaze finds Eamon, standing, waiting for him to move, a frown on his face and he stares back at him.

Then, Eamon understands, and he shifts aside, letting Dare’s gaze pierce into the front door of a dwelling.

Eamon’s whisper is so soft, so quiet, that no human would hear it beyond that door, “What?”

Dare listens, sharp.

A rustling sound. A crumpling sound. A faint heartbeat. So faint—so near death.

He lets his focus shut his eyes, lets his instinct drive him. The human beyond that door, in that dank, dark dwelling, is dying… in bed. The rustling, crumpling sound can only be the shift of a quilt sheathed in cheap, coarse linen.

Dare slides his boot back over the concrete step, then lets it drop down onto the landing.

Eamon takes a swift step closer to him. “We are not here for that.”

Dare slides his darkening gaze to the honeyed face before him. “Don’t tell me arecruitercares for human life.”

Eamon’s mouth tenses. “I recruit for a purpose.”

“Torture or pleasure?”

Eamon tuts. “You know why. The humans are used to fuel the magick of the lands. The humans are sacrificed for our gods’ favour.”

Dare’s smile is small, dangerous. “Strange that the same practice isn’t required in the dark lands, isn’t it?”

Eamon gives no answer.

And Dare lets his smile fade before he relents, turning his back on the landing and hiking the rest of the stairs in silence.

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