Page 46 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
And speaking of drinking, she wasn’t even seeing Asher, which was worrying him sick.
“Ember,” he’d said sternly into her voicemail this morning, his tone just short of angry, “you can’t keep avoiding me like this. What’s happened? Are you sick? Are you dead? Actually I know you’re not dead because I went into the store and that hemorrhoidal stepmother of yours told me you had the flu. Not that I believe her; she’s probably poisoned you. If you don’t call me back, I’m coming over. Do not make me use my key.”
She’d texted him back, a mere six words:
Not dead. Don’t worry. Everything OK.
Even in type, it looked like a lie.
But she wasn’t ready to see him yet. She wasn’t ready to see anyone, if truth be told. Because how could she pretend everything was normal and life was just as it had been before, when everything had been turned upside down?
When everything she had believed about the “real” world had turned out to be false?
She hadn’t even gone to the animal shelter to volunteer as she usually did on Sundays. When she called in, the man who ran the place—a grizzled, dour, bear of a man by the name of Parker—told her she’d be missed, as they were full to overflowing.
People were abandoning their cats—beloved house pets turned suspected killers—by the hundreds.
Especially the black ones.
It was worse on the news; cats were being burned, tortured, thrown from buildings. Since Christmas, when an Ikati had murdered the head of the Catholic church along with dozens of innocent bystanders, zoos all over the world had closed due to fear of retribution on their big cat enclosures from an angry, frightened public. The panic was widespread, and showed no signs of slowing.
Not only black panthers but cats of all kinds were now at the top of the public enemy list.
And what, Ember wondered, was Christian’s place in all of this? Was he a murderer, too?
The first clue to an eventual answer came one night in the form of a note slipped under her front door. In Christian’s lilting, perfect handwriting, it read, Why haven’t you shared my secret with the world? What are you waiting for?
You, she decided, the note gripped so tightly between her fingers it began to tear on one side. I’ve been waiting for you.
She burned the note, rinsed the ashes down the kitchen sink, showered, and got dressed for the first time in days. As she locked her apartment door behind her and headed down the stairs, she gripped the gold rings that hung on her necklace with one hand.
In the other hand, hidden inside the pocket of her coat, she gripped the slender metal handle of a switchblade.
“Give me fifteen minutes. If I don’t come back by then, you can leave.”
The taxi driver looked at her dubiously, then looked out the windshield. It was pitch dark, a cloudy, starless night, threatening rain, and the temperature was dropping rapidly.
“Estas seguro?” he asked. He didn’t want to leave her alone in the forest in the middle of the night, that much was clear.
She replied in Spanish, “Yes, I’m sure. Fifteen minutes, okay?”
He shrugged—suit yourself—and Ember paid him and climbed out of the cab.
The gate to Christian’s house was just around a bend in the road; as she began to walk, the sky overhead opened and it began to rain.
She started to run.
By the time she reached the massive iron gates, she was soaked through, her shoes squeaking, her jeans sopping, her hair plastered to her cheeks. Panting from the run, shivering with cold and the adrenaline mercilessly lashing through her veins, Ember lifted a shaking hand to the little electronic box beside the gate.
Before she could push the speaker button, the gates creaked open with a metallic, bone-jarring screech of metal against metal. Ember looked into the small black camera mounted high on the stone column beside the gate and stared into its unblinking red eye for a long moment, then turned and made her way toward the mansion. Silent and unlit, it appeared like a slumbering giant among the trees, the rain-slicked windows black as hollowed eyes.
She wondered if the moat that surrounded it was stocked with crocodiles.
Her “Hello?” was barely a whisper, spoken as she pushed open the massive front door which stood slightly ajar.
Silence answered her.
There was no Corbin to greet her, no lights in the foyer. Most of the house was plunged in darkness as far as she could tell. But from down the corridor she saw the wavering orange glow of a fire reflecting off the polished floor, and heard the spare crackle of burning wood.
