Playing With Fire (2 page)

The head of one of the workmen popped out of the trench. His eyes were huge clean circles amid his dirty face. "It's getting bigger," he announced and disappeared again.

"What's getting bigger?" I asked.

Sylvia finally caught up to us. She was puffing hard, and her hat sat askew on her head. "Why is there a big hole beside the house?" she asked.

"Yardley was worried the repairs were damaging the foundations at this end," Jack said. "He dug the trench so he could reinforce them."

Sylvia put a hand to her breast. "Is it quite safe? Should we evacuate?"

"The foundations are strong now, ma'am," Yardley said. "Stronger than they've ever been. There's no basement in this part of the house, so we were able to get in easy enough. But my men discovered something just now as they were preparing to backfill."

"A dungeon," Samuel said on a breath. "You didn't know it was there?"

"No," Jack said. "There was talk that the previous house on this site had one."

Sylvia, Jack and I exchanged glances. They'd told me the stories of the children that had been kept in the dungeon by their father many years ago in the grand manor that used to occupy this site. I'd not really believed them. Tales from centuries past had a way of growing out of control and becoming distorted by each storyteller along the way. None of us had taken them seriously. But that was before we knew there was a dungeon beneath Frakingham. How much more of the stories had been real?

The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I was happy to let Sylvia wrap her fingers around my arm and hold tight. It was a comfort, of sorts.

"This house couldn't have been built on the foundations of the old one," Yardley said. "The dungeon isn't under the house." He stomped on the ground. "It's here. We discovered it when a clump of soil fell away from the trench wall."

We all looked down. "Under our feet?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am. It appears to run the same way as the current house, but we won't know for sure unless we go in."

"You haven't been in yet?" Samuel asked.

"We only just stumbled upon it this morning, sir. When the soil gave way, it revealed a stone wall and some rotted wood which must have once been the door. The doorway is now filled up with earth. My men dug a hole through it to look inside and realized it was another room. It was empty except for some rubble in the corner and chains attached to the walls."

"Chains!" Sylvia squeaked.

"That's why we think it's a dungeon," Yardley said. "It looks old too. The walls are stone, not brick, and thick. I'd wager it's medieval and probably been closed up since then too. It stinks like rotted meat."

"I wonder why it smells that bad," I said.

Yardley shrugged.

"So what's happened now?" Jack asked. "Before…I thought I heard something."

Yardley's mutton chop whiskers twitched. "Heard what, sir?"

Jack's gaze shifted between all of us, then he shrugged. "If no one else heard it, I must have been mistaken."

Nobody questioned him, and all seemed satisfied that he did indeed make a mistake. Except me. Jack didn't make mistakes. If he thought he'd heard something, then he had. I tried to catch his attention, but he was looking into the trench, not at me. I was close enough that I could reach out and touch his hand, but I didn't dare. Ever since we'd touched somewhat passionately in the old abbey ruins, we'd had to avoid contact of that nature. Otherwise the fire within us would be stoked, and we'd burn up from the inside. I hated it. We both did.

"So why have you called us here?" Samuel asked the foreman. "Why not simply board it up and backfill the trench?"

"Because the hole we made in the doorway…" He cleared his throat and stretched his neck out of his collar. He looked worried, something that I'd not expected to see on the weathered face of the burly, no-nonsense foreman. "It sounds odd, but the hole is getting larger of its own accord."

Jack shrugged. "Perhaps it's just caving into the cavity beyond."

"It's caving in all right, but into the trench, not into the dungeon."

As if someone were pushing out the soil from the inside.

Sylvia's hand clutched mine so hard my fingers turned numb. "Ghosts," she whispered, a tremor rippling her voice.

"Perhaps you should take the ladies inside, Gladstone," Jack said.

Samuel huffed out a derisive laugh and didn't move.

I extricated myself from Sylvia and crossed my arms. "I'm not going anywhere except down there."

"Hannah!" Sylvia cried. "You can't."

"Why not? The men are."

"Yes, but we're ladies."

I snorted. "I'm not. My parents were servants, remember?"

"Come with me, sirs," Yardley said to Jack and Samuel. He climbed down the ladder into the trench.

Jack shook his head at me and sighed. I took that as resignation and smiled back. His lips tilted up at the corners, a sure sign that he wasn't in the least angry that I was flouting his orders. "I'm sure there's a perfectly rational explanation."

He peered over the side then jumped down, avoiding the ladder altogether. Samuel did the same. It was too far for me. I gathered up my skirts and put my foot on the top rung.

"Hannah, have you gone mad?" Sylvia cried.

"Quite possibly. Being kept prisoner in an attic can do strange things to one's mind." I looked cross-eyed at her.

She groaned. "For goodness sakes, be serious. There's nothing amusing in what happened to you, and there's nothing to be gained by going down there. Let Jack and Samuel report back to us later."

I didn't know where to start with that, so I simply ignored her and kept climbing down. As my face grew level with the ground, I had the satisfaction of witnessing her stomping her booted foot.

"Hannah, I think you should listen to Sylvia," Samuel said from below.

"Save your voice, Gladstone," said Jack. "She'll do as she pleases so you might as well help her."

If Samuel thought it odd that Jack wasn't helping me himself, he didn't say and I couldn't see his expression, backing down the ladder as I was. It may not be the time for passion, but Jack's determination to keep from touching me was testament to the fact he knew desire could flare with the barest brush of skin against skin.

Samuel took my elbow and steered me to the trench floor. I thanked him and risked a glance at Jack. His gaze was fixed on Samuel's hand, still holding me. He blinked slowly and looked away.

"Are you safely down?" Sylvia called out from above.

"Yes. Care to join us?" I teased.

"No thank you. I'm going inside where it's warm, and there's no threat of the house falling on my head."

"The house won't fall on us, ma'am," Yardley said. "We're not going under it." He pointed to the wall of the trench away from the house where some large stones had indeed been revealed. A workman stood there, watching a hole the size of a fist at about waist height.

Soil trickled from the edges of the hole down the earthen wall to the trench floor. A little pile of loose dirt formed a pyramid there.

"We'd made the hole about so big," said Yardley, indicating it had come up to his chest. "After we looked inside, we filled it up again. Then this started happening just a short time ago."

Jack bent down as more soil was pushed out. He cocked his head to the side, listening.

Then he jumped back and stared at the hole. I'd never seen him look so alarmed before. It was most unlike him.

"Jack?" I asked. "What is it?"

He frowned. "You didn't hear it?"

I shook my head. Samuel and Yardley did too.

The workman who'd been squatting nearby stood. Another two builders working further along the trench put down their spades. They looked to each other, their eyes wide, frightened.

"Freak House," one of them whispered.

"I'll have none of that talk," Yardley growled. He pointed a stubby finger at each of them. "You're being paid well to not worry about idle gossip."

From the looks on the men's faces, I suspected they no longer thought they were being paid enough.

The sudden shift in their focus told me something was happening with the hole. Then the man beside me gasped loudly. I turned to see the hole had gotten much bigger. It stretched from my waist to my shoulder and kept growing.

Someone grabbed my wrist and jerked me back. Jack, I realized, somewhat startled. There were no sparks between us, no heat. We only grew hot when we touched with desire, and there was nothing romantic in the way he pinned me into his side.

"Bloody hell," he muttered. "What's that?"

"What's what?" I asked.

He blinked. "You can't see it?"

I stared hard at the hole. "No."

"What can you see?" Samuel asked quietly. He normally had a deep, melodic voice, the voice of a hypnotist, but there was nothing melodious about it now. It was edged with worry.

"Can't any of you see it?" Jack asked.

"All I see is an empty void," Samuel said. "But I don't doubt that you can see something more."

I had no time to contemplate what he meant. Jack suddenly pushed me behind him. My bustle bumped the damp earthen wall, and I couldn't see the hole anymore, only Jack's back. His breathing seemed to stop. His hands spread out to either side, protecting me.

"What is it?" I whispered.

"What can you see?" Samuel murmured, edging away from the hole.

Jack half shook his head, but said nothing. Tension gripped his shoulders. The veins in his neck strained.

And then I smelled it. Rotting meat, just like the foreman had described. I screwed up my nose and turned my face away, but the scent enveloped us entirely, filling up the trench. Someone gagged. It wasn't Jack. He hardly moved and didn't make a sound. He was entirely focused on that hole.

"Jack," I said, "what did you hear when we were on the lawn?"

"A high-pitched voice," he said without taking his eyes off the hole.

"What did it say?"

It was a moment before he spoke again, and when he did, his voice was calm, in control. "'Let me out.'"

"Oh my God."

"Then it said 'I'm going to kill you.'"

CHAPTER 2

"Get back!" Jack ordered Yardley and the workman. "Get away from the hole!"

Yardley flattened himself against the trench wall beside me. I managed to peer past Jack, but saw nothing. What could
he
see? And why couldn't the rest of us see it?

What in God's name was in the hole?

Fear gripped my insides and squeezed. I'd been terrified when Reuben Tate had tried to kill my friends and started a fire in his laboratory, but this was different. This was the fear of the unknown. I had no idea what was happening, or how that hole was getting bigger.

"Up the ladder, Hannah!" Jack shouted. "Now!"

"But—"

"Do it!" He shoved me toward the ladder. "Take her, Gladstone, and don't argue."

Samuel hustled me ahead of him. "Go, Hannah!"

"Jack!" I screamed, even though I didn't know why. All I knew was that the most self-assured man I knew looked very worried. "Please come with us."

He held up his fingers and flames danced on the tips. Yardley shrank back, stumbling over his feet in his hurry to get away. The two far workmen stared at the flames, terror widening their eyes. The other one closest to the hole wasn't looking at Jack, but at the void, an expression of child-like curiosity on his face. He scrabbled at the edges, helping to widen it. Helping whatever was beyond the wall to get out.

Samuel swore softly. "You two have a lot to tell me when this is over." He pushed me up the ladder.

My skirts got in the way, and I scooped them up in one hand and used the other to climb. Samuel was right behind me. Climbing a ladder ahead of a man was a terribly unladylike thing to do, but propriety was not my top priority.

I was almost at the highest rung when I felt Samuel's hand on my rear. He gave one almighty shove and I sailed over the edge of the trench. I fell on my hands and knees on the muddy ground.

Before I could get up, Samuel grabbed me by the arms and hauled me to my feet. I looked around just in time to see Yardley and two of the workmen piling out of the trench.

"Get out!" Jack shouted.

"Not yet," the second worker said. "Let me just—"

"Run!"

Jack probably meant the worker, but Yardley and his other men took it as a sign to sprint off around the side of the house.

"Come on," Samuel said, holding my hand. "Let's go."

"But…Jack!"

"After what I saw him do without matches, I think he'll be fine."

I wasn't so confident, but I knew Jack was better suited to face whatever came out of that hole than any of us.

A whoosh of air blasted from the trench and a shimmer of heat rose up. A high-pitched scream followed. It didn't sound human.

"
Jack!
" I tried to pull away from Samuel, but he held me too tightly.

Another scream stopped my heart dead in my chest. This time it
was
human.

Oh God.

I jerked and fought to free myself, but Samuel was too strong. He spoke soothing words in my ear, but I couldn't hear them above the screaming and the blood pounding in my head. "We have to help!"

Samuel didn't let go, despite my struggles. He'd stopped talking though, as if he knew he wasn't getting through to me. The screams kept coming.

Another whoosh of fire and heat blew out of the trench. Immediately the screams changed. The human one stopped abruptly, and the other high-pitched one took over.

I saw it then. A mere disturbance of the air at the lip of the trench, like a ripple of invisible waves. It was coming toward us.

Samuel saw it too. He dove off to the side, dragging me with him. We landed awkwardly, but the mud and grass cushioned our fall.

I looked up as a strong breeze swept past. It ruffled my hair, warmed my skin. At this time of year, any breeze should have been cold. Samuel threw a protective arm over my head, but the disturbance had already gone.

"Jack!" I shouted, shoving Samuel away.

We approached the trench cautiously, our hands linked for comfort. Nobody emerged. A single sob bubbled up from my chest and lodged in my throat. What had happened to him?