Demon Marked

she knew that the turn onto the lane shared by the Boyles and their neighbors was coming up. When he did turn, she anticipated the crunch of gravel beneath the tires, because she knew the Boyles and their neighbors paid a private contractor to plow and sand the driveways after each heavy snowfall.
    Her gut-deep excitement boiled over. “We’re almost there.”
    Nicholas threw a glance over his shoulder—probably to check that she was still hidden. “How do you know?”
    “It’s familiar. It’s all so familiar.” She had to force herself to stay down. In just a few moments, the Boyles would be able to look out of their living room windows and see the vehicle approaching. She still couldn’t picture their faces, but she could visualize the house. “It’s the Craftsman with the red door. The driveway is marked with a gated entrance between two brick columns—but the gate is always open, and there’s a concrete garden gnome on top of each column, because . . . because . . .”
    “Because?”
    Disappointment pierced her excitement. “I can’t remember why. They mean something, but I don’t know what. Will you ask them?”
    He didn’t answer for a moment . . . and then several moments. Ash tried to recapture her anticipation. They were driving closer, closer—but no, something was wrong. Something was un familiar.
    Nicholas began to slow. Ash shook her head.
    “No, this is wrong. You’ve passed the house—”
    “On purpose. Now sit up and take a look before it’s out of sight.”
    Ash turned in the seat. Through the back window, everything appeared as she’d expected: the columns flanking the driveway and the snow piled around them, the gnomes, and farther back from the lane, the house and the red door.
    A red door cordoned off with yellow police tape.
    Her fingers tightened on the back of the seat. “What happened?”
    “I don’t know.” His voice had lowered to a murmur. As soon as the house was hidden behind a stand of pine trees, he stopped in the lane and cut the engine. “Can you hear anything?”
    Only his heartbeat and hers and the ticking of the motor and a few winter birds and the cracking of branches beneath the ice and snow and the wind through the pine needles and the snuffling of some animal out in the woods and a neighbor’s dog scratching at a door and the tumbling of an electric clothes dryer—
    No. She could focus. She had to focus on the Boyles’ house.
    She recognized the sounds a moment later. “Two people are inside the house, talking,” she said softly. “I can’t make out what they are saying, but it’s definitely a man and a woman.”
    “The Boyles?”
    A man and a woman . . . maybe they were the Boyles. If so, they weren’t familiar.
    The realization brought an unexpected lump to her throat. Their voices weren’t familiar.
    “Ash?”
    “I don’t know,” she finally answered. “They are—Wait.”
    She frowned, listening. Had they gone so silent? Why couldn’t she hear anything at all from the house now?
    Why didn’t she feel anything?
    “They’re gone,” she whispered. “They’ve left.”
    “In a car? There wasn’t one in the drive.”
    No, there hadn’t been—and she hadn’t heard the garage door open, or an engine start. What the hell?
    Frowning, she glanced back at Nicholas. “They’re simply gone. And there’s something more I just realized: I couldn’t sense them at all. Their emotions were blocked, like yours are. Actually, more than yours. I can feel the barrier you put up. I couldn’t feel theirs.”
    “Fuck.” His heart sped up. “Guardians. We’ve got to go.”
    “No!” Ash scrambled into the front seat, snatching the keys from the ignition before he could turn them. She didn’t give him time to become angry. Before he’d had more than a second to stare at the empty keyhole, she said, “Nicholas, something happened in that house. I need to know what.”
    “The Boyles aren’t there.”
    “No, because something happened. I have to know.” When he hesitated, she added, “Please.”
    “The Guardians might come back. If they do, you’re dead.”
    She didn’t care. “I need to look. Please .”
    It didn’t matter if he agreed. In another second, she’d jump out into the snow and go, anyway. But he set his jaw and nodded, holding his hand out for the keys.
    He needed to know, too, she realized. Discovery by the Guardians could jeopardize their bargain and his search for Madelyn, yet he’d agreed to go back to