No Peace for the Damned

it?” Theo asked. “Tell which direction Banks was taken?”
    “I can feel it all over the sidewalk.” I looked around but there was nothing to actually see. “I guess if we just keep walking around I’ll be able to feel when it disappears.”
    “First, let’s check the house,” Thirteen said and led the way up the front steps to Banks’s splintered front door. The door had had a dark cherry frame and the glass had been etched with the same exquisite detail that was still evident on his neighbors’ homes.
    “Did Banks have money?” I asked. I didn’t know how much the Network paid, but since Thirteen lived on the same block as my previous safe house I knew that he, at least, didn’t live like
this
.
    “Earlier in the year he came into an inheritance,” Thirteen answered. We stepped carefully through what remained of the door and entered an elaborate foyer with high ceilings and an ornate chandelier. The floor was black-and-white checkered and classical artwork covered so much of the room I could barely make out the color of the wall paint.
    “The blood was found in the bedroom,” Thirteen whispered and motioned us to the wide antique stair. The artwork continued along the staircase. Maybe there weren’t really walls at all. Maybe the home was simply held up by the paintings’ frames. We climbed twenty steps to a long, narrow landing at the second floor, then another twenty steps to the third.
    No one spoke and no one turned on the lights. The two went hand in hand somehow. All the while, I felt the same silky fog on my skin, as if the energy circled me as I walked.
    The stairs ran out at the third floor, ending where a set of double doors opened to Banks’s bedroom. We walked hesitantly into the room. A very large four-poster bed, high enough to need a step stool, faced the doorway. The bedding was rumpled, but the rest of the room seemed in order. On the far wall was a wide fireplace with no screen. The exposed bricks rose from the hearth to the ceiling. This was the only part of the house I’d seen where the walls weren’t hidden behind an endless array of artwork.
    “The blood is over here,” Jon said, crouching by the fireplace.
    I met Thirteen next to Jon and looked down at the blood.
That’s it? Seriously?
It was just a couple of drops on the carpet. The others crouched beside Jon. They might have been doing some important data gathering, but it looked just like staring to me. I bent down beside them, finding a space between Shane and Thirteen.
    “Do you still feel the foggy stuff from outside?” Shane asked me in a hushed voice.
    “Yeah, it’s all over the place in here.” I reached out and ran my finger through the blood.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    “Don’t touch it!”
    “What do you think you’re doing?!”
    And a barrage of other words and thoughts snapped at me in whispered yells. Theo grabbed my hand. For a moment I held my breath—now was
so
not the time for some supernatural reaction to his touch. Fortunately, the urge was manageable. A longing still flared inside of me—his touch so warm and firm—but there was no burst of energy. No disturbing images or feelings.
    “You can’t touch the blood, Mag,” he said softly. “It’s evidence. We can’t tamper in any way with a crime scene. Ever.”
    My face burned. I jerked my hand from his grip.
    “I wanted to see if I could tell anything by it,” I hissed. “The power is so much stronger here. I figured if it was blood from my family, I’d feel it.”
    “So was it?” Shane asked.
    My cheeks burned hotter. “I can’t tell.”
    We stood in a tight broken circle around the bloodstains. The gray moonlight was fading fast, the sky more purple now than black. Dawn was coming. Along with the police. The Network might work alongside the regular law enforcement when necessary, but the whole secret agency thing kinda made it a strained relationship.
    Thirteen motioned us back to the stairs. “We got the confirmation we needed—one of the Kelches was definitely here in Banks’s room. Let’s head back outside and see if we can get a sense for anything more before we head out.”
    Thankfully, no one said anything more about my CSI faux pas. We headed down the stairs single file, me taking up the rear. As the sky brightened, the images in the artwork became more apparent. Flashes of bright colors swam around us. Moving, swirling, almost alive. I watched the steps, clutched the railing, tried to avoid