Free Spellbound by Kelley Armstrong Page B

that if this man had been a friend, I’d have seethed with grief and rage, and vowed to avenge him. As it was . . . well, I didn’t know the guy, and though I was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything to deserve such an awful death, it wasn’t really my call.
    â€œDo you know if that’s . . . ?” I began.
    â€œIt’s Walter Alston.”
    I looked around the office. Papers littered the floor. Books had been yanked from shelves and tossed aside. Cables on the desk led to nothing.
    â€œSearched his files. Rifled his books. Stole his laptop. This was someone nasty. Which, given the guy’s clientele, probably doesn’t narrow it down.”
    â€œIt doesn’t.” Adam knelt beside a pile of papers and thumbed through them. “If he was as careful as Holly said, we aren’t going to find clues about those two activists or what they wanted. And this”—he waved at Alston’s corpse—“isn’t our business. But now that we’ve been here, we can’t just leave him sitting there.”
    In other words, we had to dispose of the body. Since this was almost certainly a supernatural crime, as tempting as it was to walk away, we couldn’t.
    â€œI’ll check for a basement,” I said. “If there is one, I’ll see whether there’s a place down there we can stash him long enough to decompose.” Not an ideal solution, but a lot safer than smuggling him out of the house.
    Adam started to stand, as if ready to come with me. Then he hesitated and said, “You’re good?”
    I picked up the flashlight he’d set down on the desk. “I’m good. I may need to consider investing in an actual weapon, though. And learning how to use it.”
    â€œWe’ll get you a really big flashlight.”
    â€œThanks.”
    I was almost into the kitchen, searching for a basement door, when a skritch-skritch sounded behind me. I stopped. A low growl reverberated through the hall.
    We’d forgotten about the damned dog.

nine
    I turned slowly. A Rottweiler stood ten feet away, growling. Bloody froth dripped from its open mouth.
    Great. Confronted by a rabid dog the size of a lion, while I’m armed with . . . I looked down. A pocket light.
    â€œUm, Adam?” I called, as loud as I dared.
    He stepped from the office. “Shit.”
    That about summed it up.
    â€œHey, pooch,” he called lifting his glowing fingers. “How about you come play with me instead?”
    The dog took two lurching steps my way. Adam started forward, then stopped.
    â€œIf I come after it, it might charge you,” he said.
    â€œThen don’t come after it. Please.”
    â€œOkay. Remember how Lucas taught you to handle dogs?”
    â€œWith a knockback spell.”
    â€œIf you don’t have a knockback spell?”
    When I didn’t answer, Adam said, “Okay, rule one, and this is going to be really tough for you: Act submissive. Keep the dog in your line of vision, but don’t make direct eye contact. Then put your hands in your pockets and in a firm voice, say no.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œA little firmer.”
    I glowered, then did as he said. The dog seemed satisfied . . . that I’d make an easy, nonthreatening target, and staggered toward me, bloody drool trailing behind. I realized then that this pooch wasn’t rabid.
    â€œUm, Adam?”
    Creeping up behind the dog, he motioned me to silence. “Those survival tips. Do they work with zombie dogs, too?”
    â€œZombie . . . Shit!”
    The dog spun. Or it tried to, scrabbling awkwardly as it turned around to face Adam. He lifted his glowing fingertips. The dog lunged at him. I dove at it. Adam stepped to the side. The dog kept going, stumbling past him into the office.
    We stood in the hall, listening to claws scraping the hardwood, then a thump. The office chair squeaked.
    â€œThink zombie pup’s hungry?” I whispered,