Shadows Rising (Darkness Falls Book 2)

Chapter Eighteen

I stood on the corner of Mayview Road, staring at a house I'd hoped to never see again.

"This is it, right?" Ethan asked, his eyes raking over it.

I nodded. It was a scummy-looking little bungalow, sitting opposite a boarded-up off-licence and a fish and chip shop that was already open for business despite the sun barely being up. We'd been here just once before and I'd hoped never to go again. This was Caleb's bungalow, his base of operation for slaughtering innocent vampires and anyone else that got in his way.

It was also where I hoped we'd find Riley.

I knew Leon had been here, otherwise he couldn't have found Caleb's latest journal. The PI he'd hired to track Caleb down could easily have found his last place of residence and passed that information onto Leon. If there was anywhere in Dalwick that Leon might be hiding a kidnapped teenage girl, I reckoned this was it.

At least, I hoped it was, hoped with every breath in my body.

"Come on then," Ethan growled.

He stalked up the cracked, weed-choked pathway. The bungalow was exactly as I remembered it – paint peeling off the front door, dark blinds covering every window, the garden a tangle of weeds. My lip twisted with bitter irony. Looking at it through the eyes of a hunter, I'd have guessed that a vampire lived here.

"Ethan, wait," I hissed, hurrying after him. The last thing we wanted was for Leon to know we were here.

But Ethan either didn't or wouldn't hear me. He pounded on the door like he was trying to break it down with his bare fists.

There went the element of surprise.

Ethan waited a moment, then pounded on the door again. I grabbed his wrist and stopped him before he ended up breaking his knuckles. Now that we'd lost the surprise, we had to rely on being better fighters than Leon. If it was simply two against one, it wouldn't have bothered me – both Ethan and I could have taken Leon alone – but he had Riley, and that meant he had the upper hand.

No one came to the door, and the blinds at the window didn't so much as twitch.

Ethan snarled, his hands curling into fists. "If he doesn't answer the door, I'll break the bloody thing down."

"Ethan, stop," I cried, jumping between him and the door before he could try and kick it in. It's not as easy as it looks on TV, and Ethan was more likely to break his own foot than Caleb's front door.

"Get out of the way, Kiara."

"Listen to me." I pointed past him, in the direction of the fish and chip shop across the road. "If someone sees us breaking in, they will call the police. Is that you want? You're no good to Riley behind bars."

That was what finally got through to him. The furious haze lifted from his eyes, his tense stance relaxing a fraction. I knew that all-consuming urge to rush in and protect a loved one, but we had to think logically.

We fought through the jungle-like garden until we found a small window at the back of the house. Like all the others it was covered by a dark blind, but this one couldn't be seen from the shops opposite. I eyed the window. Just because Leon hadn't answered the door didn't mean he wasn't inside. There was no quiet way to break in, no way to keep him from getting to Riley before we did, but we didn't have much choice. Ethan had already given us away by knocking. Coming up with another plan of action would take time, and every second that we did that, Riley was left with her kidnapper. Our best bet was to get in as quickly as we could.

"We need to find a rock –"

Ethan promptly jabbed his elbow at the window, shattering the glass. He knocked out the remaining shards and hauled himself through the small frame. As soon as he was inside, I heard him shouting Riley's name, his voice echoing through the house.