Haunted (55 page)

"A psychic slug," Melanie said dryly. "She hit Amber, too. Amber?" Frantically, she looked around. "Where is she?"

"You don't know?"

She shook her head. "She was here."

"Okay, tell us what happened," the chief said gently.

Melanie took a deep breath and exhaled noisily. "Amber was showing me the doll. We could smell lavender, and she said Lizzie was here, but then that horrible odor drowned it out, and something--Christabel, I guess--made her throw the doll."

David followed her gaze across the room and saw the shattered, but bloodless, effigy of Lizzie lying there.

"Christabel materialized. We saw her. She knocked Amber down, and then I could sense Lizzie again. She sort of got on me." Shocked, she looked into David's eyes. "She can't protect Amber anymore, David. She told me Christabel will kill her." She rubbed her forehead. "Oh, God, I remember now."

Quickly, she told the men what Lizzie had said they had to do to stop Christabel and save Amber. "She must have taken her away somehow."

"She can possess," David said. He turned to Eric. "You and Melanie stay here. Craig and I are going downstairs. We'll be right back with flashlights."

Swenson followed him out, silent until they reached the first floor and David pulled two small flashlights from the parlor cabinet. Then he shook his head. "Those won't last ten minutes. Bring them for spares and come with me."

He led David out to the cruiser and took two huge fluorescent lights from the trunk, and his revolver, twelve-gauge shotgun and billy club from the cab. "You know how to shoot?"

David shook his head

"Damn, Eric can't either. Guess you can figure this out though." He handed him the billy club, then replaced the rifle in its rack, withdrew his holster, and fastened it around his waist. He slipped the handgun into it with practiced ease.

"Let's go."

"I don't think a gun's going to stop what we're after," David said as they dashed into the house.

"Can't hurt."

David couldn't argue.

Melanie and Eric came out of Amber's room as they approached He handed one of the smaller flashlights to Eric then turned to give the other to Melanie. Suddenly, he halted. You idiot! In his worry over his daughter, he'd forgotten to get Mel out of there. "You've got to leave. Come on, I'll see you safely out."

"I'm not going anywhere," she replied sternly, "except into that damned dungeon. Give me the light. And the nightstick."

David knew what her tone of voice meant, so he didn't waste time arguing with her. "Let's go," he said grimly.

He felt only the barest trace of fear as they entered the dormer room, and he was relieved that it felt empty and undaunted. "Damn," he said as he studied the bookcase that Patton's notes said contained the hidden latch.

"What's wrong?" Swenson hissed.

"I should have brought the schematic. I don't remember how it works." His words trailed off as he caught a faint whiff of lavender. "Lizzie?"

The scent strengthened and then he sensed, more than saw, a slight turbulence in the air, like heat waves undulating above a desert highway. Slowly, it approached, then paused, hovering a foot from him. "Lizzie," he said softly. "Help me."

She moved onto him like a cool, fresh breeze, and then he felt her in his mind, shared her sorrows over her failure to first redeem, then her failure to destroy, her own daughter. And he knew her fears for Amber's safety, which were so like his own.

Let me use your hands, she ordered. At first, he didn't think he could let go enough, but somehow he did and, a moment later, he watched as she directed his fingers to the proper places. Suddenly, the opening in the floor slid open on the cool, rancid darkness below, and then Lizzie vanished.

Find the trunk and destroy her body. Destroy the doll. The looks on the others' faces revealed that they, too, had heard the words.

Body House: 2:17A.M

They were coming now, but Christabel was not yet ready for them. Perched in Theo's mind, she urged her host to move quickly. The woman was enjoying her task--tying Amber Masters to the table that would become her sacrificial altar--and was lingering over it. Normally, Christabel would have approved, but not now.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jerry Romero yelled again. He'd been yelling from the moment he'd laid eyes on the skeletal corpses scattered around the room. To get him out of the way, they'd quickly tied his hands then pushed him down and trapped his legs in a set of stocks located in a shadowy comer about ten feet away from Amber. Theo glanced back at him.

Ignore him! Hurry! Christabel urged as she sensed the trap door four stories above them slide open. Hurry! She suspected enough of her strength had returned to allow her to take over Theo’s body instead of relying on the woman's cooperation, but she didn't dare waste it, not now. You can have your fun with Amber later; she promised Theo. You need to open the cabinets now.

Far above, the stairs creaked.

Everything had taken longer than Christabel had planned. The ancient candles in the wall sconces had to be lit, as well as the brazier that now glowed red not far from a massive wooden chair that sported heavy metal manacles. In the brazier was what remained of the doll of Peter Castle. With sorrow, she had removed the power from his spirit and then sent it away.

It had also taken longer than expected to get the girl downstairs. She had come to before Theo could make it back up to the dormer room and Christabel had to knock Amber senseless again to stop her flailing and screaming--the girl was a fighter. It had also taken twice as long as she expected for Theo to carry Amber downstairs into the dungeon since Christabel didn't want to waste her energy giving Theo a boost, and the woman was not as strong as she appeared to be. Then, when she'd finally laid her on the table, its built-in leather straps came apart in her hands and they'd spent more precious time finding enough good rope with which to tie her down.

"Done," Theo said as she finished the last knot.

Go to the cabinets on the short wall. Open them for me.

Theo crossed the huge room quickly, apparently unaffected by the sight of the corpses manacled to the torture devices scattered about the room. In fact, Christabel realized with amusement, Theo was in a mild state of sexual excitement, especially now, after tying up the girl.

Three of the walls were of natural, unpainted stone, but the last was fitted with wooden cabinets. The steamer trunk containing Christabel's corpse was hidden in one of the huge lower cabinets, while the upper ones contained the ensouled dolls and the Erzuli figure. She needed Theo's hands to retrieve all these things, but after that, the woman would be useless. Well, perhaps not totally useless. Once Christabel was in her own body again, she thought it might be pleasant to play with the woman a little. Perhaps she would stretch her on the rack until her beautiful skin tore and her shoulders and hips left their sockets. To make this woman scream would be as great a pleasure as it would be to watch her flesh as it grew taut, stretched, and finally, tore. Then, after she'd had her fun, she would suspend her from the ceiling over a brass tub and cut her throat, just as she would do with the others. But not yet.

"It's locked," Theo said.

Christabel directed her to the place where the keys should be, but Mama must have taken them long ago. Break the lock!

"How?"

Use the branding iron from the brazier and break it! Quickly!

Body House: 2:28A.M.

"What was that?" Melanie whispered.

"Sounds like somebody's trying to break down a door," Craig Swenson replied softly. His hand rested on the butt of his .38 and, as they neared the dungeon, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and saluted. He wondered if the others felt as apprehensive as he did.

The spiral stairs seemed to go on forever and the blackness had quickly become claustrophobic. Give me a hit-and-run, Craig thought, Give me a shoplifter or a drunk. Give me anything but this.

Masters, in the lead, halted and turned off his flashlight. Immediately, Craig did the same. The cold, foul darkness threatened to consume them.

"Do you see it?" Masters whispered. "The light down there?"

After a moment he discerned the tiny moving shadows in the flickering light far below. "Candles," Craig whispered.

"Yeah." Masters turned his light back on and adjusted the hood to mute it. He shined it directly at the stairs. "Let's try to sneak up on them."

Craig didn't think that was too much of a possibility, since the stairs creaked and groaned almost constantly, but he didn't say so. If this Christabel was like every other supernatural creature he'd ever read about, she'd know exactly what they were up to anyway. "Okay, everybody," he hissed. "Go slow. If we're attacked from below, drop so that I've got a clear shot."

             "Uncle Craig," Eric said gently, "You can't shoot a ghost."

"I can try."

"I don't know how it works," David murmured, "but if she's got her old body up and running, that gun just might save our butts."

"Amen," Melanie said softly.

·

Body House: 2:34A.M.

"It won't open!" Theo cried frantically. She hit the heavy lock again. "It won't open!"

They're coming. Christabel could sense the warmth of their bodies, could perceive their fear and anger. Ordinarily, she would have savored this moment, but she had no time now. Theo! she ordered. Do as I say! She directed her to open one of the lower cabinet doors, an unlocked one, and there, just as she remembered, were several red velvet bedspreads. Take two of them and cover Romero and Amber! Do it now! Hurry!

Thanks to the dry air, the cloth was intact and Theo swiftly covered the still-unconscious Amber, but Romero started to yell when she approached him. "Shall I knock him out?"

"Yes, quickly."

"Please, no. No!"

After she delivered a rabbit punch to Romero's temple, the man groaned, then slumped. Theo studied him a moment, pinching his cheek hard to make sure he was really out, then threw the cloth over him.

We haven't much time. Until we’re rid of them, you’re going to have to do everything I tell you, exactly as I tell you, Theo. Can you do that?

"Of course."

Can you kill for me if you have to?

"I'll do anything for you."

That was what Christabel wanted to hear. She didn't want to use up more energy than she had to, and Theo's cooperation made all things possible. After sensing the pleasure the woman took in restraining Romero and Amber, she knew that Theo's promise wasn't empty: this woman, at least while she was under her influence, was perfectly capable of killing, and enjoying it.

They're almost here. We 'II have to open the cabinets later. Here's what I want you to do now...

Body House: 2:35A.M.

The dungeon looked like it belonged in a horror novel.

David stepped off the staircase and into the shadows of the arched stone doorway that led into the huge room beyond. The room appeared to be deserted now, but candles, perhaps fifty of them, flickered in high wall sconces, casting golden light that shifted maniacally throughout the closer portions of the huge room and chasing shadows into the darkness at the far end. Throughout the dungeon loomed the darkly ominous silhouettes of tables, stocks, pillories, and man-sized crosses, all instruments of torture, some with metal manacles hanging from them. He squinted, thinking that the lines weren't clean enough. He realized that there were bodies on some of them. They were thin, still corpses of the missing victims from the 1915 massacre, and though David had been virtually certain they were down here, the sight, even at this distance, shocked him.

He stared hard, aware that Melanie and the Swensons had joined him and were doing the same. Toward the far end of the room, he could see coals glowing red in a waist-high brazier of some sort, and beyond that were several more torture devices, two of which were shrouded.

He turned, 'startled, when someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was Craig Swenson, his gun drawn and pointed into the air.

Silently, he gestured at David to let him pass. He did so, nodding as Swenson made it clear that he wanted him to remain where he was and wanted Eric and Melanie to stay farther back in the shadows. Heart racing, David nodded.

Swenson edged into the archway, his back against the cold stones, gun straight up. He paused then turned, peering along the inside wall, first toward David, then behind himself. David sent him a questioning look; he answered with a shrug. Swenson moved into the center of the arch, paused, then took two solid steps into the dungeon. He stopped, his legs braced apart.

"Come out with your hands up!"