He took a final look around, inserted the steel needle of the gun into the lock, positioned the tension wrench, and squeezed the trigger. The gun cocked, and Hendricksen increased the trigger pressure, causing the needle to snap into action. It made a sound like nails and concrete being mixed in a blender, but the lock didn’t open. Hendricksen adjusted the thumb wheel on the gun, jacking up the impact of the needle, and fired again. A light flicked on in an upstairs window of one of the houses to his right, casting a rhombus of illumination on the cobblestones nearby, but by then the steel rod had driven the lock pins into the cylinder. Hendricksen applied the tension wrench and felt the lock plug turn.

The front door opened, revealing a dark, undecorated hallway. A door to his right was closed, as was another straight ahead, to one side of the stairs. Hendricksen dropped the snap gun and wrench on the hall floor to reach for his Glock, easing the door shut behind him to prevent himself from being silhouetted against it: an easy target. If anyone remained in the house, the noise of the lock being broken would have brought them running, but no one emerged to investigate. Hendricksen smelled blood, and beneath it an odor ranker and more desperate, the involuntary purging of creatures at the end of their suffering.

The house felt empty. Still, he crouched and listened for five seconds, ten, twenty, just to be sure, before he stood tall again. He flipped on the flashlight for a second time. A thick trail of blood stained the stairs, with more blood on the floor of the hallway, where a body – perhaps more than one – had been dragged across the boards. From the pattern of the smearing, Hendricksen guessed that the remains had been brought down rather than up, and deposited behind the closed door to his right.

He stepped around the stain, being careful not to disturb it, and put his back to the wall. He reached across the door with his left hand, found the brass knob, and opened it with a single quick motion before pulling his hand back, his body tensed for the sound of shots. None came, only a stronger stench. Hendricksen tightened his grip on the Glock. He offered up a single short prayer and went in low, the gun in his right hand, the flashlight held beneath it in his left. Gun and light traversed the room together, but found no life.

Only death.

Chapter XVII