Omens by Kelley Armstrong Page A

that I looked, I saw them everywhere—on rooftops, on gateposts, over doorways.
    “A town filled with gargoyles,” I said. “Must be well protected.”
    The cabbie looked up and muttered something in a language I didn’t recognize. Then, as the light changed, he said, “This is Cainsville. I let you out here.”
    “I have an address,” I said. “Five Rowan Street.”
    “I do not know where that is.” He pulled to the side. “You get out here.”
    “No, I have an address.” I put the window down and called to a young woman pushing a stroller. “Excuse me, do you know where I’d find Rowan Street?”
    She gave me directions, friendly as could be. Even warned us that there was no parking on the east side of the road.
    Rowan adjoined Main Street, making it an easy drive. The cabbie turned onto it but didn’t park. He barely stopped. Just took my fare and left me on the side of the road. I didn’t tip him, either. A first for me, and I thought I’d feel guilty. I didn’t. Instead, I was happy for the excuse to keep the money.
    An elderly couple tut-tutted as the cabbie sped off, then gave me smiles and good mornings, which I returned before they carried on.
    I stood on the curb for a moment, waiting for that sensory overload after the cocooning quiet of the car. It didn’t come. I smelled lilacs and freshly mown grass. I heard the wind and the distant
ding-ding
of a bicycle bell. But that was it.
    I relaxed and looked around. The apartment building was across the road. When I saw it, I had to double-check the address. The building was gorgeous. Three stories of Renaissance Revival beauty. Smooth, yellow-gray stone walls forming a rectangle. A recessed, arched front entrance topped by a triangular gable. Red-clay tiled hipped roof. Deep eaves with huge, decorative brackets. Balconies under every window, most too narrow to use.
    On closer inspection, I could see the signs that the building had not been kept in the shape befitting such a grand old dame. Disrepair is harder to spot with a place like this—the stonework will survive anything short of a bomb blast. No factories in the area meant the stone had stayed reasonably clean. But there were little signs—the crumbling edge of a window rail, the slight sag in the roof—that it was only good bone structure that left her looking so fine in her old age. Even the plain ivory curtains in the windows seemed as if they hadn’t been replaced in decades.
    Speaking of curtains … as I walked down Rowan I noticed another pretty place, this one a fraction of the size. A dollhouse of a two-story Victorian, narrow and shallow, its height making it seem bigger than it was. Weathered boards cried out for a fresh coat of paint. Ivy covered every surface. The yard was well kept, though. Exceedingly well kept, with a golf-course-perfect lawn and gardens so lush they seemed to have time-warped into midsummer. It was jarring, that juxtaposition. Like something out of a fairy tale, the perfect yard enticing the unwary into the witch’s abode.
    The witch herself seemed to be in residence, peering out from that open curtain. Below her, in the first-floor window, a sign read “Tarot, palmistry, and astrology. By appt. only.” A fortune teller? Seriously? I squinted to get a better look at the woman. The curtain fell.
    As I crossed the road, I noticed the apartment building had gargoyles, too. Under the eaves and tucked into the corners of the fake window balconies, stone gargoyles standing watch. I marveled at them, then climbed the steps and reached for the doorknob. There, above my head, was yet another Gothic touch, this one far more subtle and definitely unintended. A massive spiderweb, dew-dappled and glistening in the morning sun. The spider was there, too, big and black, waiting in the middle of its web.
    If you wish to live and thrive,
    Let the spider stay alive.
    That was a new one. Just what I needed. More superstitious crap filling my brain.
    I shook my head and