Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ophelia clocks it as soon as they exit the car. Mateo catches the coppery sweet and decaying yogurt sour smell within a few feet of Linnéa Nystrom’s beautiful row home. It’s just like at Christopher’s office. Four dark smears along the doorframe, crusted into brown from age.
There’s a blood ward on Topher’s mom’s front door.
“Same magic as at the office,” Ophelia says, all three of them keeping a few steps away from it in the sheltered porch.
Quincy’s waiting in the car two blocks away but Topher’s vibrating beside them, gaze locked on one of the blood smears on the frame.
Mateo hadn’t wanted Topher there, but it’s his mother and he’s worried.
Couldn’t be dissuaded—even though the most likely discovery within is her body.
“Can you tell if it’s, like, offensive?” Mateo asks, scouring the frame with his eyes, trying to understand the symbols. Anything to give him a clue what it does.
“I don’t think it is,” Ophelia says slowly, that subdued quality to her voice that means she’s not entirely with them. “The one in the office would have done something. This one’s … passive. Not very much intention to it.”
Mateo doesn’t know any passive blood magic spells. Anything he’d ever seen his mom do was of the maim variety. The wards on his own house were technically passive, but they were non-blood spells altered with blood to be more murder-y.
Meaning, there’s only one way to find out.
He slaps his palm flat on the door.
“It reacted,” Ophelia hisses, and Mateo braces, expecting flames or knives or something.
But nothing happens.
Glaring, Ophelia says, “We don’t know what that did.”
“Then we better be fast.” He says it like he’d been confident.
Pushing him aside, she crouches in front of the door while he stands extremely conspicuously between the covered porch where she’s forcing the lock and the rest of the world.
“Got it,” Ophelia says, rising from her crouch and backing up.
Mateo moves in front of the door and pushes it open. Nothing happens, so he steps in.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Linnéa’s rich too, but the different flavor to her fortune is striking. Christopher’s home was the flavor of wealthy that was purchased full price and put on show so everyone understands how many more digits exist in his bank account than yours.
Linnéa Nystrom’s wealth feels cozy. The row house had to run multiple millions, but it’s not the biggest on the street.
The foyer has a warm pale wood and floral motif.
There’s a simple coatrack, hung with a lady’s long wool coat and scarf.
A pair of off-season boots are pressed to one side.
It smells like flowers and fresh-cut grass, and as he listens in the foyer for sounds within, he tries to work out what could be making that pleasant scent.
When he doesn’t drop dead, Ophelia and Topher slip in behind him.
They give Topher a moment to stare around, but the sudden watery look in his eyes makes it clear the townhouse feels mom-ish to him. They’ve got the right place.
Mateo cranes around the stairs to look beyond. A few doors, one must be the garage, and a room lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. He takes the lead.
No body on the floor of the garage, no pentagram painted on a wall in blood, no sacrifice in the middle of the library. There’s a candle that smells like fresh grass, so there’s one mystery solved. None of the stink of the blood magic on the door is inside. It’s a perfectly normal home.
A silent yet heated conversation later and Mateo is still leading the way even though Ophelia in her tiny paper-thin girl shoes would be quieter on the creaky stairs.
Extremely recently they’ve been made aware that getting knifed and burned isn’t a game ender for him, so he gets to win every who should lead fight.
Topher takes up the tail.
Keeping to the wall edge of the stairs, Mateo steps as slowly as he can in his chunky boots. Every third step produces a soft creak followed by them pausing to listen. Nothing stirs each time, so they continue up.
The second floor has a kitchen and dining space.
It’s been redone, but not into minimalistic modern hell.
Might even be the original cabinets. Shabby-chic.
Rich people’s poor people play. Not a lot of places to hide here.
Mateo checks the fridge because he’s seen enough horror movies to have the passing thought that sometimes the body’s in there.
Thank fuck it’s not.
One more floor. Up they go.
A new smell reaches him just before the top, and this time he knows what the unfettered sweetness means.
The third floor is airy and bright, a large window letting in the midday sun. It also highlights the stark rust streak of dried blood on the eggshell couch, splashed across two cushions and onto the white area rug beneath.