Read Online Burn Me Deadly: An Eddie LaCrosse Novel by Alex Bledsoe - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alex Bledsoe
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settled down enough for me to again hear the outside world, I confirmed nothing seemed to be moving within. I tried the handle; it was unlocked. I pushed it open and went inside.
My eyes took a long moment to adjust to the dimness. The tiny one-room shack contained only a table with two chairs and an odd box on the floor near the fireplace. Three walls each sported curtainless windows, and the fourth boasted a crude fireplace and hearth. The breeze tickled thick cobwebs by the ceiling, and detritus accumulated in the corners. Nobody lived here, but it didn’t mean it was entirely abandoned. Someone had gone to the trouble of fixing the ravages of time, after all.
The furniture was simple and cheap, but the box got my attention. While it most resembled the kind of strongbox miners might use to hold their precious findings, it had leather padding along all the edges and big loop handles were attached to either end for a carrying staff to thread through. I could think of nothing small enough to fit in the box that would also need two or more people to lift it. Well, sure, gold, but there was no gold to be had in these mountains. Using my sword, I flipped the single latch and carefully opened the lid. It was empty. The inside, though, was lined entirely with thin sheets of lead. Gold wouldn’t need that.
The place gave me the creeps. The wind weaseled through tiny unpatched gaps in the stone and made soft, agonized sounds. The smell contained odors of dust, decayed wood and abandonment. Yet the box was so new its leather still reeked of tanning.
I checked the fireplace. It was summer, but this high the nights might require a little help. The ashes were cold, but they were also fresh. Then my eye fell on a stain on the floor in a shadowed corner. The way the light from the window reflected from it was unmistakable.
It was dried blood.
I looked directly above it. From a beam across the ceiling hung two manacles on very short chains. Someone suspended from it—say a short girl with blond hair—would dangle helplessly well above the floor.
I knelt by the stain. Tiny dark strips were matted into the dried liquid, and when I tapped them they did not crumble like ash. I realized they were small ribbons of human skin that had been peeled or cut from Laura Lesperitt.
Something little and cold went snap deep inside my chest. I should’ve been scared, but I wasn’t. Instead I was a hair’s breadth from full-on battle rage. I’d claimed I could help her, volunteered to help her, and yet in the end I’d done nothing. If she hadn’t met me on the road, she might’ve gotten clean away. Perhaps this blood on the floor should be on my hands.
And then that damn horse let out another loud, self-pitying neigh.
I really wanted to split her equine skull with one blow, but I stuck with my training. I scooted to the wall beside the window and peered around the edge. Another horse, this one dark brown, appeared around the boulder. Its rider was hidden beneath a hooded cloak designed to blend in with the forest greenery below, less useful here among the scraggly mountain flora. Behind him came my horse, led by the reins far more complacently than she’d have let me do it. It made me hate her that much more.
I ducked out of sight and heard the man dismount. He did not walk away from his horse, though. I’d made no effort to hide my tracks, so if he was halfway observant he’d spot my boot prints in the dirt outside the door. I listened more closely, trying to separate stealthy human noises from the sighing wind and my own thundering heart. Was that the sound of a sword being drawn, expertly and quietly, from its scabbard? Did I hear a stealthy foot crunch very slightly on the rough ground outside the door?
The man kicked the door open, and it slammed back against the wall with a loud crash. Sunlight shot through the opening and would’ve blinded anyone who didn’t expect it. He’d removed his cloak and, when he rushed in, he
My eyes took a long moment to adjust to the dimness. The tiny one-room shack contained only a table with two chairs and an odd box on the floor near the fireplace. Three walls each sported curtainless windows, and the fourth boasted a crude fireplace and hearth. The breeze tickled thick cobwebs by the ceiling, and detritus accumulated in the corners. Nobody lived here, but it didn’t mean it was entirely abandoned. Someone had gone to the trouble of fixing the ravages of time, after all.
The furniture was simple and cheap, but the box got my attention. While it most resembled the kind of strongbox miners might use to hold their precious findings, it had leather padding along all the edges and big loop handles were attached to either end for a carrying staff to thread through. I could think of nothing small enough to fit in the box that would also need two or more people to lift it. Well, sure, gold, but there was no gold to be had in these mountains. Using my sword, I flipped the single latch and carefully opened the lid. It was empty. The inside, though, was lined entirely with thin sheets of lead. Gold wouldn’t need that.
The place gave me the creeps. The wind weaseled through tiny unpatched gaps in the stone and made soft, agonized sounds. The smell contained odors of dust, decayed wood and abandonment. Yet the box was so new its leather still reeked of tanning.
I checked the fireplace. It was summer, but this high the nights might require a little help. The ashes were cold, but they were also fresh. Then my eye fell on a stain on the floor in a shadowed corner. The way the light from the window reflected from it was unmistakable.
It was dried blood.
I looked directly above it. From a beam across the ceiling hung two manacles on very short chains. Someone suspended from it—say a short girl with blond hair—would dangle helplessly well above the floor.
I knelt by the stain. Tiny dark strips were matted into the dried liquid, and when I tapped them they did not crumble like ash. I realized they were small ribbons of human skin that had been peeled or cut from Laura Lesperitt.
Something little and cold went snap deep inside my chest. I should’ve been scared, but I wasn’t. Instead I was a hair’s breadth from full-on battle rage. I’d claimed I could help her, volunteered to help her, and yet in the end I’d done nothing. If she hadn’t met me on the road, she might’ve gotten clean away. Perhaps this blood on the floor should be on my hands.
And then that damn horse let out another loud, self-pitying neigh.
I really wanted to split her equine skull with one blow, but I stuck with my training. I scooted to the wall beside the window and peered around the edge. Another horse, this one dark brown, appeared around the boulder. Its rider was hidden beneath a hooded cloak designed to blend in with the forest greenery below, less useful here among the scraggly mountain flora. Behind him came my horse, led by the reins far more complacently than she’d have let me do it. It made me hate her that much more.
I ducked out of sight and heard the man dismount. He did not walk away from his horse, though. I’d made no effort to hide my tracks, so if he was halfway observant he’d spot my boot prints in the dirt outside the door. I listened more closely, trying to separate stealthy human noises from the sighing wind and my own thundering heart. Was that the sound of a sword being drawn, expertly and quietly, from its scabbard? Did I hear a stealthy foot crunch very slightly on the rough ground outside the door?
The man kicked the door open, and it slammed back against the wall with a loud crash. Sunlight shot through the opening and would’ve blinded anyone who didn’t expect it. He’d removed his cloak and, when he rushed in, he
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