Searching For Treasure (16 page)

Tired of the game, Jack stretched out on his side, propping his head on his fist. Changing the subject, he said, "You know there is going to be a lot of 'I told you so' going on when we get home."

Dana matched his pose on the bed. "Do you care?"

"Not I. You?"

"Only in that I hate to be proved wrong. But in this case
,”
she murmured as she leaned in for a kiss, "I'm happy to make an exception."

They gazed at each other for long moments as he stroked his hand up and down her thigh. How did she not see, she wondered, and not for the first time, that she loved this man with her whole heart? "I'm such a moron for not figuring this, us, out before now
,”
she told him.

"Yeah, but you're a beautiful moron."

Dana's lips twitched. "You've never thought I was beautiful before."

"Sure I did. I just thought it best to keep it to myself."

"Uh-huh." Dana cocked her head in memory. "On second thought, you did tell me that one other time."

Jack was surprised. "I did? When?"

"When I popped Tommy Rosen in the nose for picking on Bridget Haas. You said I had a beautiful right cross."

Laughing, Jack fell over on his back, rolling Dana over until she was on top of him. He smiled at her softly, rubbing his thumb erotically across her bottom lip. "You are beautiful, D. You are so beautiful sometimes it takes my breath away."

Now embarrassed by the intensity in his eyes, she tried for a light answer. "Nah, I just scrub up good."

"I'm being serious."

Ashamed of her flippancy, she ducked her head and nuzzled his neck. "I know
,”
she whispered. She paused for a moment. "Jack, I'm sorry."

He lifted her face to look at him. "Why?"

"For waiting until now."

"Maybe the time wasn't right until now."

She placed a kiss in the hollow of his throat. "The time has been right for you."

"It had to be right for both of us, D. If the time wasn't right for you, then the time wasn't right for me."

"I love you, Jack."

"I love you, too, Dana." The kiss they shared was long and lingering, leaving both of them breathless. Dana pulled away reluctantly with a groan, rolled off the bed and picked up her robe. "Where are you going?"

"Be sure and mark your place. I have to go to the bathroom."

Jack buried his face into her pillow and peeked out. "I miss you already
,”
he mumbled.

"Yeah, yeah." Dana opened the door and danced out singing.

A few minutes later as Dana was washing her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror. She wasn't sure she knew who the woman looking back at her even was anymore. So much had changed in such a short time. Yet at the same time she still felt as comfortable around Jack as she always had. Maybe things weren't so different after all.

Throwing up her hands in defeat, Dana decided to stop trying to analyze it and just enjoy it. She loved Jack. Jack loved her. Simple. Clicking off the light, she headed back down the hall.

At first she thought she imagined the broken pieces of sound, a somber thread of tones. But she heard it again, a touch louder this time, music that seemed to ache with loss. Sad and forlorn, it spoke of pain and sorrow and wounds that scarred the soul. At first she thought it was all around her. No, wait, it was coming from the music room.

Hardly aware of what she was doing, Dana found herself padding down the hall towards the source of the sound. Dimly, she remembered that Oscar had once mentioned ghostly music in the music room as one of the reputed hauntings associated with the castle. She also knew that it was probably the easiest thing in the world to fake.

Dana paused at the door. Even though she believed it was a trick, another attempt by person or persons unknown to scare them, Dana felt her heart begin to hammer in her chest. The music seemed to rise and fall like breathing and it echoed strangely in the room. Dana felt the hairs along her neck stir. She started to turn to go back when a strange light caught her eye. It seemed to be dancing over the keys of the piano in the center of the room, as if playing a forgotten tune of long ago. It beckoned to something in her. Curiosity, perhaps? Or something else? It drew her closer.

Taking a deep breath, Dana entered the room. She took one step, two, then three, her gaze never wavering from the light on the piano keys. But she took one step too far when she walked face first into the largest spider web she'd ever encountered.

The threads enveloped her, her arms, her face; she felt them in her mouth when she sucked in breath to shriek. Her fingers frantically clawed at the fibers on her skin. But the air froze painfully in her throat when she felt an unfamiliar presence at her back.

Unable to move, unable to scream, every part of her felt frozen except where she felt a hot breath on the back of her head. Her heart had stopped in her chest, she couldn't breathe, her mind shut down, unwilling to even imagine what was standing behind her. She heard a sinister hissing, strangely like laughter. Harsh words were spoken into her ear. Then she felt a scorching tongue and teeth on her neck.

Chapter 11

The scream that ripped through the castle was a sound dragged from the very depths of the blackest nightmare. It wasn't the piercing sound so popularly heard in Hollywood movies, but a loud guttural animal sound that froze the blood of everyone who heard it.

Jack exploded from the bedroom, pulling on his pants and almost collided with Noah running from the next room. Jack's feet nearly skidded out from under him on the heavily polished wood floor. Other doors flew open, more running feet, voices babbling in confusion. Noah sprinted down the hall towards the music room, discerning before the others as to where the sounds were coming from.

They found her standing stock still just inside the door. Her eyes were screwed shut in terror. Her body paralyzed, save for her lungs that continued to suck in air and screech it out. Her fists made tiny pumping motions each time she expelled breath.

Despite Noah's head start, Jack got to her first, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Dana! Dana!" He tried to shake her. Finally he slapped her.

Dana's eyes popped open and in a mindless rage she flew at him, beating her fists on everything she could reach. "You son-of-a-bitch!" she shouted.

Rose leaped into the fray, wrapping her arms around Dana from behind, pinning her. "Shh. It's all right, you're all right." She glared hatefully at Jack. "Just like a man. Doesn't know what to do, so he hits something."

Dana, her brief fury spent, sobbed brokenly. "Get it off, get it off." Mark, the last person to enter the room, did what amazingly no one else had thought to do in the past two nights. He turned on the overhead light.

For the first time they could see the fibers clinging in tatters across Dana's face, shoulders, arms and chest. As Rose was still holding her from behind, Noah embraced her from the front. "Dee-Dee
,”
he cried, nearly in tears himself, "Dee-Dee stop crying, for God's sake stop!"

Prompted by Jack's habit of calling Dana D, as a small child Noah had called his sister Dee-Dee. She had allowed this for a few years until she reached the excruciatingly self-conscious age of fifteen and had put a stop to it. Jack was still the only one allowed to shorten her name. More than anything else had, the almost forgotten childhood nickname began to pierce through her fear and she began to gradually calm down. "Jack, what is it?" Noah asked considerably distraught.

"It looks like angel hair
,”
referring to the sticky stuff used in Christmas decorations. "Jeez, no wonder. D, it's angel hair. It's not a spider web, it's angel hair." He began gently tearing it away from her. "Shh, it's just angel hair." Freeing her from it, as well as from both Rose and Noah, Jack scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the room and down the stairs. Feeling helpless, the rest of the group followed.

Jack carried Dana, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, through the dining room and into the kitchen, depositing her in a chair at the small kitchen table. A pot of coffee already sat perking, filling the room with its rich aroma. "Sweet heaven
,”
whispered Henry, looking at it in awe. "The woman is psychic."

Mrs. Babineaux was in the kitchen as well, looking even tinier in her girlishly ruffled castle coat. Her eyes were wide and frightened as she watched Jack come into the room with Dana in his arms. "Ah, Cher, did monsters get her?"

"No monsters, just meanness." Jack whispered some instructions to Mrs. Babineaux, who nodded and began heating a skillet. He poured a cup of coffee. "Dana, try to drink this. Careful, it's hot."

Dana had pulled herself more or less under control although she hadn't yet stopped shaking. "I hate black coffee."

"I know, but try to drink it anyway." Dana obeyed and took a small sip, making a face. "That's my girl."

Oscar walked forward with a bottle. "Perhaps some brandy?"

Noah put a hand on his arm. "No, man, that'll make her sick. Someone tried to give her some of that stuff when our parents died and she threw up all over the place."

Jack took a plate from Mrs. Babineaux and slid it in front of Dana. "Here, I want you to eat this."

Looking back at her was the most perfectly grilled cheese sandwich Dana had ever seen. Golden, crispy and thick with gooey cheese, it was a thing of beauty. "Wow
,”
she said, turning it this way and that.

"Dana?" She broke off her study of the sandwich and looked at Jack. "Can you tell us now what happened?"

Although she felt as if she was defacing a piece of artwork, Dana bit into her sandwich. Tasting every bit as wonderful as it had looked, it nonetheless fell like a rock to the bottom of her stomach. She quickly took another sip of coffee. Shuddering once in memory, she took a deep breath. "I heard music. I thought it was just another goofy trick like the chicken. But I walked into that web and there was something behind me."

"Something?"

"Maybe a someone, but it felt like a something. I felt its hot breath. It hissed like something inhuman. And it whispered something. Then it-it licked me. I-I felt its teeth."

Noah stepped behind her and began to gently massage her shoulders. "Easy now, it's okay."

"What did it say?" asked Grace, sliding into the chair next to her as Jack continued to urge her to eat.

"What?"

Noah prompted her. "You said it whispered something, Dana. What did it say?"

"It said, 'Get out, get out before you go to hell, and rot inside a corpse's shell'."

"D, that's from 'Thriller'." Everyone looked at Jack.

Grace was puzzled. "What kind of ghost is going to be quoting Michael Jackson?"

"The human kind, Grace
,”
Rose replied with disgust.

Dana felt a dark humiliation burn in her belly. "Do you mean I've been screaming down the castle over angel hair and 'I Love the 80s'?"

"You didn't know, D," Jack said. Satisfied that she had eaten enough, he removed the plate and sat at her other side opposite Grace. He clutched her cold hands in his own. "Somehow, whoever is behind this managed to tap into your one true phobia."

"Wait a minute; you make it sound like this was directed specifically at me."

Jack looked around the room. "Anyone else freak out at spider webs?" He was greeted with a chorus of headshakes.

"But how could anyone happen to know that?" Noah wanted to know, his hands still on Dana's back.

"You told us this morning at breakfast, Dana
.”
Mark spoke up for the first time.

Jack looked at the boy sharply. "I don't think I like the way that sounded."

Mark looked confused. "What?" Then his eyes widened as Jack's meaning struck him. "Uh-uh, no way, I would never, Dana I didn't mean-"

But Dana was already shaking her head vehemently. "No, I refuse to believe that anyone in this room had anything to do with this."

"Then we come right back to someone else being in the castle
,”
insisted Rose.

"I tell you, it's not possible
,”
Oscar exclaimed. "We would have seen some kind of sign."

"Why isn't it possible?" Jack expelled air in frustration. "Mrs. Babineaux has been here all weekend and until today, none of us had seen her either."

"I kip to myself, I don' mix wit' the guest folk."

"So it is possible. Are there any unused rooms, cellars, hidden passages?" Jack asked.

Oscar continued to deny each suggestion. "Every room is open to view at all times except the bedrooms, and the only one not being used at the moment is the one left vacant by Brett and Austin. There is no cellar. The ground water is just too high. And I've never found or even heard of a secret passage."

"Forget it, it doesn't matter because I've had enough. Noah and I are taking Dana out of here," Jack said.

"No." Everyone looked at Dana, surprised by the cold finality of the single word. She shook her head slowly, but emphatically. "No
,”
she said again.