Unbound

Bones rolled as soon as he hit the floor, staying low and searching the room, careful not to let any green shine from his eyes. He wasn’t going to make it easier for them to find him, if they’d determined the noise they’d just heard was him instead of more objects being hurled through the windows.

The room was empty of all but furniture. Bones inhaled, trying to track Becca by scent, and then swore. The room stank of embalming fluid, a noxious scent that masked damn near everything else. Clever bastards, he thought. That was all right; he could still pick up the heartbeat as a beacon, though now that he was inside, it sounded like there were two heartbeats. Both in opposite directions from each other.

He chose the one that sounded stronger. Since Becca was their most recent victim, it made sense that the other, fainter heartbeat belonged to someone the LaLauries had acquired before her. While Bones felt pity for that unknown person, Becca was his primary concern.

He crept forward in a low crouch. The lights were off, not that ghouls needed illumination to see. There was no sound inside except for those heartbeats, his own stealthy movements, and the occasional smash from whatever item was still being flung at the windows.

Yet Bones could feel the energy in the house. Delphine and Louis were here. Waiting. Whatever trap they’d set had been sprung as soon as Bones entered the house. Now all he could do was see it through to the end. Everyone’s got to die one day, Bones mused with grim determination. Come on, you sods. Let’s see if you’ve got what it takes to make today my day.

10

Bones edged down the hallway toward the sound of the heartbeat, careful to watch for any hint of an imminent attack. So far, he didn’t see anyone, but all his internal alarms were ringing. The trap would be where Becca was, true, but he couldn’t just abandon her. After all, it was his fault Delphine took her in the first place.

The heartbeat was coming from the room at the end of the hall. Four menacing, open doorways stood between him and it. Bones pulled two knives from his coat, one steel, one silver. He gripped one in each hand as he kept low and moved forward. Come out, come out, wherever you are…

Everything in him tensed as he crept up to the first door, his nerve endings anticipating a sudden slice of pain from a knife or other weapon. Bones sprang into the room, braced to counter an assault—but there was nothing. Just more furniture with dust covers over them and that noxious embalming odor that neutered his ability to track anything by scent.

One down, three to go.

Bones repeated the same routine with the next door. This time, he was hit in the face by a spiderweb, but nothing more threatening than that. The third room was empty, as was the fourth room, but the fourth room had blood in it. A lot of blood.

Bones knelt by one of the wide, pooling spots, giving it a deep sniff. Even above the chemical fumes in the room, he knew it was Becca’s blood. Which meant the pieces of bones tossed almost casually in the corner were hers as well.

He rose, the swell of killing anger in him making him calmer, not crazed. Bones approached the last room with the heartbeat just as slowly and cautiously as he had the others. If the LaLauries had thought the grisly display of their leftovers would have him dashing in with reckless abandon to save her, they were wrong.

This room was empty of furniture except for one long, dark coffin where the heartbeat came from. Bones waited before entering, his senses tuned for any nuance of noise or movement. Nothing. Then again, a ghoul didn’t breathe, and could hold as still as a statue if need be. Delphine and Louis could both be in there, waiting for him.

Bones dove into the room, rolling immediately to counter any frontal assault, the blades gripped in his hands seeking flesh to bury themselves into. Nothing. Not even a whisper, except for that steady heartbeat. The closet in the room had no doors, so no one was hiding in there, and unless Delphine or Louis had acquired Ralmiel’s dematerializing trick, they weren’t in this room.

He approached the coffin, taking in another deep breath. There was the scent of the embalming fluid, Becca’s blood, and something else. Metallic, though too faint to decipher over the stink of the chemicals. Muffled noises consisting of mmph, mmphh! interspersed with ragged breathing from inside the coffin. Someone was alive in there. Gagged, from the sounds of it.

Bones ran his hand along the coffin’s lid. This was too easy. Was Delphine in there with Becca, waiting to thrust silver in his heart as soon as Bones lifted the lid?

If she was, she’d soon find out the futility of that.