He moved through a lair of small rooms. What had once been an interior space designed for retail commerce had many years ago been remodeled into a maze of nooks and alcoves and cubbyholes.
Designed just for this purpose? Byrne wondered.
Down the narrow confines of a tight hallway, gun waist-high. He felt a larger space open before him, the temperature dropping a degree or two.
The main room of the retail space was dark, crowded with broken furniture, retail fixtures, a pair of dusty air compressors. There was no light streaming through the windows. They were painted with thick black enamel. As Byrne ran his Maglite around the large space he saw that the once brightly colored boxes that were stacked in the corners held a decade of mildew. The air-what air there was-was fat with a stagnant, bitter heat that clung to the walls, to his clothes, his skin. The smell of mold and mice and sugar was dense.
Byrne clicked off his flashlight, tried to adjust to the dim light. To his right were a series of glass retail counters. He could see brightly colored paper inside. Shiny red paper. He had seen it before. He closed his eyes, touched the wall. There had been happiness here. The laughter of children. All of that stopped years earlier when an ugliness entered, a morbid soul that devoured the joy. He opened his eyes.
Ahead was another hallway, another door, its jamb chipped and splintered years earlier. Byrne looked more closely. Fresh wood. Someone had recently brought something large through the doorway, damaging the jamb. Lighting equipment? he thought.
He put his ear to the door, listened. Silence. This was the room. He felt it. He felt it in a place that did not know his heart or his mind. He slowly pushed open the door. And saw his daughter. She was tied to a bed. His heart shattered into a million pieces. My sweet little girl, what have I done to you?
Then: Movement. Fast. A flash of red before him. The sound of fabric snapping in the still, hot air. Then the sound was gone.
Before he could react, before he could bring his weapon up, he felt a presence to his left. Then the back of his head exploded.