Chapter Thirty-Five
Thirty-Five
He used the Wells jammer to open the back door of the small residence.
Once inside he paused for a moment, absorbing the atmosphere.
He could feel the ominous pulse of the vortex energy all the way to his bones.
Mark was right. The casitas were sitting close to the hot zone.
With the lights turned off inside Grant’s place and the shades closed, the vibe was very noticeable.
He heightened his senses. His night vision kicked in. The small space was now illuminated in colors that emanated from the far end of the spectrum, shades for which there were no names. He thought of them as ultra colors—ultraviolet, ultragreen, ultrablue.
He went about a fast, methodical search.
The closet was crammed with shirts, jeans, and a tux—all in black. What was it with artists and black clothes? Then he thought about his own closet. Okay, it wasn’t entirely filled with black, but there was a hell of a lot of it. Maybe he should get an aloha shirt.
He shut the closet door and continued the search, moving quickly. He was beginning to think he was going to come up empty when he found the collection of sketchbooks under the bed.
The books were dated. He opened the first one and flipped through it. He was the first to admit he didn’t know much about art, but it seemed to him that Grant had some genuine artistic ability and an eye for revealing the unexpected details in an otherwise ordinary scene.
He also had a taste for the macabre. There were a number of floral sketches and watercolors, but the plants were all carnivorous.
Tiny insects were shown struggling to escape the jaws of flowers.
One sketchbook was filled with pictures of elaborately decorated crypts, coffins, and graveyards.
Another contained highly detailed, extremely gory crime scenes.
Evidently Grant had not lied to Sophy about that aspect of his work, although there was no way to know if the drawings were official police sketches.
The succubus images started appearing in the most recent sketchbook. And then the bodies showed up—three of them. They all looked like down-and-out street people. There were no signs of wounds but their faces were contorted death masks, as if they had died confronting horror.
He studied the drawings for a few minutes, trying to comprehend what they were telling him. It wasn’t just the evolution of the subject matter that sent a chill through him. There was something else going on, as well. Something ominous.
A shock wave flashed across his senses. He had to get back to Sophy. Now.
He shoved the sketchbook under the bed with the others and headed for the door.