Hostage (21 page)

Almost too good.

“Picture frames,” Hollis said. “Old picture frames and broken furniture, and trunks filled with God knows what. Why do people save stuff like that? I mean, donate it if it’s usable and scrap it if it isn’t. Why do people hang on to stuff?”

“Beats me. But never mind the stuff. Bishop said you should be able to see this doorway clearest of all. Let’s try to find the center of this space.”

“We’re running out of time, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” DeMarco replied.

Hollis looked at the cluttered space with a feeling of helplessness she didn’t like. At all. “You’ve got a better sense of direction than I do,” she told her partner. “Given the compass points, where we found the doorways, where would the center of the compass fall?”

He hesitated for only a few seconds, then began leading Hollis through the maze of Alexander family stuff. “This way. I think.”

There was a lot of stuff. And the path they had to take toward the center of the enormous space was a winding one.

In the end, they nearly fell through the doorway.

“Whoa!” Hollis held on to DeMarco’s hand with both of hers, halting him abruptly. “One more step and you’d be in the thing. It’s right there.”

They both looked down at the concrete floor. DeMarco saw a large, odd sort of dimple in the concrete. Hollis saw their fifth and final doorway.

DeMarco said, “I’m betting there’s some sort of hollow underneath that. Didn’t Bishop say there was likely a cave connecting this side of the vortex with the other side?”

“Yeah. And he was nicely evasive about just where the other side of the vortex is. Bet he knows, and probably to the inch.”

“We’ll deal with Bishop later,” DeMarco said, something in his voice indicating that he had plans along those lines. “For now, this thing has to be sealed. He said it would be the hardest one by far. The one doorway that wants to stay open.”

“How are we on time?”

“If you can get it opened and then closed again in the next five minutes, we should be good. After that point, Bishop said the other side of the vortex would probably be opened, and then it can never be closed.”

“But no pressure,” Hollis muttered.

Instead of standing beside her this time, DeMarco stepped behind her, shifting their hands without losing contact so that his left and right hands held hers. Their fingers laced together.

“Go for it,” DeMarco said.

* * *

THE VOICE IN
his head was still talking to him, but Luther wasn’t paying enough attention to even know what it was saying. He was too busy circling the cabin slowly, gun drawn, frowning at the other sounds he heard.

It took him several minutes to find a doorway to the cellar, open, and he went down the rough, packed-dirt steps without hesitation.

What he saw was surreal, a scene out of some nightmarish movie or book. Candles of all shapes and sizes were placed all around the periphery of the storage space, on old, raw wooden shelves that still held an occasional dust-coated canning jar or rotting basket or mildewed box that had once held the necessities of life on the side of a mountain.

Candles flickering, lighting the space with odd, jerky move-ments.

Or maybe that was just him.

He was digging.

The hole was in the center of the space, only about two feet deep and twice that across, with dirt mounded around half of it. He stood in the hole, pounding a pickaxe three times, four—and then laying it aside and picking up a shovel. Prodding and scooping the loosened dirt, tossing it on the mound already accumulated.

He didn’t even seem to realize that Luther was there.

At the foot of the steps, his gun trained on what had been Cole Jacoby, Luther just watched for a few minutes.

Kill him. Go ahead. Do it. You know you want to. He shot Callie, didn’t he? And doesn’t he deserve to die for that? You’re a soldier, you know it’s the truth.

Ah. So that sly, sneaky voice was back. Luther wondered how on earth it had ever managed to control his mind. But he knew. It had been able to do that because he hadn’t known what he was fighting.

Now he did.

“Should I call you Jacoby?” he asked over the sounds of digging. “Or did you stop being him a long time ago?”

He hadn’t really expected an answer. Then the man in the hole turned, and Luther found himself gazing at his own face.

FOURTEEN

Hollis wasn’t at all sure the rushing sound wasn’t in her own head until DeMarco practically yelled in her ear.

“Is it my imagination, or is something trying to pull you in this time?”

“Hang on,” she yelled back, without taking her eyes off the darkly shimmering doorway. “Whatever’s on the other side is desperate to stop me doing this. It’s pushing energy too fast.”

She really thought it would overwhelm her for what seemed like an endless moment of time, but DeMarco held on to her, an anchor and lifeline, and she didn’t hesitate to pour every bit of her own physical strength into the strangely instinctive process of filtering and redirecting dark energy.

Every black fragment or filament of energy that was flung at her was grabbed, cleaned of its darkness somehow by her own positive energy filter, and then channeled back through the doorway.

The rushing sound was so loud because at this doorway alone energy was going both ways simultaneously.

Hollis could hear, around the edges of her mind, the panicked whispers that grew louder and eventually began to keen in misery, but the rushing of energy simply overwhelmed them—not Hollis.

It seemed to last forever, and then there was an abrupt instant of utter stillness and quiet, a quiet so loud it hurt the ears. Hollis wanted to yawn widely to clear her ears, but before she could even begin that automatic action, the stillness was shattered by what sounded to her like a gunshot.

As she watched, the sparkling doorway below her shrank until it was the size of a pumpkin, and then the size of a grapefruit, and then only a spark the size of a cherry.

Obviously, I’m hungry. When did I last eat?

The cherry-sized spark made a soft but sharp
pop
, and then it vanished.

Completely.

The vortex was closed and sealed. Hollis wasn’t at all sure how she knew that, but she did.

“Did I hear a gunshot?” DeMarco wanted to know.

She unlaced the fingers of one set of hands so she could turn to face him, pleased when he made no attempt to release her other hand. “I thought I heard one. Interesting. Did you hear the quiet little pop there at the end?”

DeMarco shook his head. “No, I just felt you relax.”

Almost idly, she said, “I wonder if that shot was real.”

“Do you care?”

“Just curious. Mostly because I have no idea how all this worked.” She stared at him for a moment, then said, “Will it sound really anticlimactic if I say I’m hungry?”

“Not to me. Are you really okay otherwise? No weakness or dizziness or anything?”

She considered, then shrugged. “No, I feel fine. Better than fine, really.”

“Ready-to-run-a-marathon fine?”

Not without a certain pang of regret, she said, “No, most of that extra energy and strength seems to be gone. I just feel oddly like I’ve had a relaxing vacation—and at the same time would really like a nap. After I eat a big plateful of something good.”

“So you’re back to normal.”

“I guess. How about the eyes?”

He smiled slightly as he gazed into the eyes. “Blue. But not the same blue they were before.”

She really wanted a mirror right then. “Oh. Well, then, I guess we’re done here. At least with this part of the trip. The part I expect Bishop was most concerned with.”

“Leaving—?”

“Hopefully passing on a message from Daniel to Anna. Assuming I can contact him now.”

“Because when the vortex was closed—”

“—other doors seem to have closed along with it. At least, I’m not feeling all the spiritual energy I was before. Let’s get out of here. I want to find out if all those spirits really were able to leave this place.”

* * *

LUTHER WAS FROZEN
for an instant, but then he recognized a final, desperate attempt to trick him, and as easily as that he was looking at the haggard face of Cole Jacoby rather than his own.

For at least a minute, he felt sorry for Jacoby.

Until he remembered that was only the shell that used to be a man. A bank robber who, somewhere along the way, opened by accident a door he should never have found, and lost more than his soul in the process.

A heartbeat later, everything happened fast.

Jacoby dropped the shovel and reached for the pickaxe, swinging it above his head, his face transformed from haggard to almost indescribably evil as he lunged toward Luther.

It was a small space.

Luther fired and hit Jacoby squarely in the chest.

Even as close as they were, the bullet didn’t slam him backward as so dramatically depicted in the movies and on TV. The evil face turned to one of infinite surprise, and then Jacoby simply dropped in a boneless heap to the musty earth of the cellar.

Luther waited a cautious moment during which he could have sworn he could hear, somewhere distant, a river rushing. Then he eased forward and checked for a pulse.

Jacoby’s skin was cold and clammy, and there was no pulse.

Is there even a law against shooting a dead man?

There was no time to linger and wonder. Luther turned and hurried up the earthen steps, then shouted Cesar’s name, heard a deep-throated bark in response, and ran toward it.

The truck was there, parked at the end of what might have been a kind of dirt road, its rear end toward the cabin to aid in unloading supplies. And beside it stood Cesar and the litter, with Jacoby’s three dogs sitting nearby. The only one who was clearly tense and anxious was Cesar, who whined loudly.

Luther holstered his weapon and bent to check Callie. To his immense relief, he found a pulse, but it was faint, and the pallor of her skin told him she was still losing blood.

Without wasting another moment, he checked the door of the truck, finding it unlocked and the keys under the mat as Callie had expected them to be, because that was usual on the mountain. An oddly trusting thing, but a rugged vehicle up here really could make the difference between survival and death.

Luther was as careful as he could be and still moved quickly to get Callie out of the litter and onto the backseat of the Jeep and secured as well as possible against what was sure to be a bumpy ride to town.

Assuming he could find town.

He unfastened Cesar from the litter’s harness, then went to open the hatchback of the truck and whistle Jacoby’s dogs in, an implicit command they obeyed with every sign of joy.

When he shut the hatchback and returned to the driver’s-side door, which was still open, he was surprised not to find Cesar inside the vehicle. Instead, the Rottweiler was standing a couple of yards in front of the Jeep, on the sad excuse for a road.

“Cesar, c’mon, boy. We have to go.”

The dog barked, then turned and moved another yard or two down the road, pausing to look back at the man.

The message was clear. Night was approaching. Cesar knew the way to town. Left to his own navigation, Luther didn’t doubt he could wander around in these mountains for days.

Callie didn’t have days.

He got in the truck and started the engine, muttering under his breath, “Christ, I hope I’m not wrong about this.”

Then he put it in gear and began following the Rottweiler.

* * *

HOLLIS STOOD OUTSIDE
the conservatory and gazed down over the gardens and pool. And smiled.

“No spirits?” DeMarco guessed.

“No spirits. Though I sort of wish I’d been able to see them go. Can’t help wondering if they just popped out of existence like the energy cherry in the basement.”

DeMarco took her hand and began leading her back toward the house. “You need food,” he said.

Hollis didn’t argue, and only a few minutes later they were enjoying what a cheerful maid referred to as “a little something before dinner.”

“They do know how to spoil you here,” Hollis observed.

“Oh, yeah.”

“I wonder where Anna and Owen are.”

“I asked while you were off washing your hands. Thomas said with great dignity that they would see us at our convenience in the Grand Parlor. I can almost see Owen tapping his foot.”

Hollis winced, took a drink of very sweet iced tea, and said, “I suppose an objective observer could say we’ve sort of taken advantage of their hospitality. I mean, bent on fixing Bishop’s vortex rather than spending more time trying to contact Daniel.”

DeMarco looked thoughtful, but when he spoke, it was to say, “I say we keep on calling it Bishop’s vortex. No—Bishop’s Vortex. In caps. And talk about it a lot when he’s around.”

“You really are pissed at him.”

“You could say.”

“Come on, it all ended okay.”

“On this side of the vortex. We don’t yet know what happened on the other side.”

Hollis frowned. “Yeah. I’d forgotten. I hope nobody got hurt over there. Wherever there
is
. I mean, there was something that sounded a lot like a gunshot.”

“I’d suggest we call Bishop and ask, but part of me doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.”

“You two boys need to learn to play nice.”

He eyed her. “You’re just as annoyed as I am.”

“Yes, but I plan to be adult about it. I’m going to look Bishop square in the eye—and then kick him in the shin.”

DeMarco smiled, but then sighed. “We both know he’s never going to change. Still, I plan to have a few words with him about this little trip.”

“Oh, so do I. But in the meantime, we probably should go and talk to Anna and Owen. Since we’ve been racing all around their property all afternoon and yelling at each other in their basement. They might be curious.”

“You think?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you,” she told him severely.

He followed her away from the table and out of the dining room, saying merely, “If you think you cornered the market on sarcasm, think again. By the way, what do you think of your new eyes?”

She glanced back over her shoulder at him out of eyes that were still blue, but definitely changed. “I could get used to them, I think,” she said. “Sort of waiting to find out whether I get to keep the clarity of vision. I definitely like that.”

DeMarco might have responded to that, but Thomas was before them suddenly, opening the doors to the Grand Parlor, expressionless and yet somehow conveying disapproval.

Feeling a bit sheepish, Hollis led the way into the room and to the seating group nearest the door, where Owen made a halfhearted effort to rise from his comfortable chair. There was a silver tray on the table at the center of the grouping holding the remains of coffee and pastries, and on the other side of the table, Anna sat with her customary almost-rigid posture.

Hollis took the third seat of the four, and as DeMarco took the last chair, she said to their host and hostess, “We’re really sorry about today. All the rushing around and . . . Well, we’re sorry. But I
can
tell you that it wasn’t exactly useless activity.”

“Did you see Daniel?” Anna asked eagerly.

“Well . . . no.” Hollis bit her bottom lip, then said, “We found a way to release the other spirits here.”

“All of them?” Owen asked dryly.

Hollis had expected more direct scorn, so her answer was less sharp than it might have been. “Look, I don’t expect you to believe me, but they were trapped here. A lot of souls, being prevented from going on to wherever they were supposed to go next. This was sort of a natural . . . The geography of this valley was—”

She decided to give it up.

“Never mind. Anna, I hope the reason I haven’t been able to contact Daniel before now was because it was like looking for a needle in a pile of needles. The others are gone now, as far as I can tell. So maybe I can contact Daniel. But I can’t promise success. Reese and I don’t want to trespass on your hospitality any longer, though, so we’ll drive back to town tomorrow. If you do want me to keep trying to contact Daniel, I’m willing. But we should stay in town.”

“Vending machines,” DeMarco murmured. “No wireless Internet. Oddly low, lumpy beds.”

Even Owen smiled. “Being the only motel in Devil’s Gap, the Horizon doesn’t have to try very hard.”

“It doesn’t try at all.” Hollis cleared her throat. “We’ve been extremely comfortable here. Extremely. But I haven’t been able to deliver what you asked of me, Anna, and the Horizon will be fine until I do. It’s only fair. That—”

She stared past Anna, watching a tall, distinguished-looking man walk around a giant potted palm and come to stand just behind Anna’s right shoulder. He was smiling.

He was Daniel Alexander.

“Or,” Hollis said, after a brief glance down at the gooseflesh on her arm, “maybe we’ll just go home tomorrow.”

Anna looked frozen. “He . . . he’s here?”

“Standing right behind you.” To the spirit, she said, “Where have you been? I think every spirit in the state was here, except for you.”

Calmly, he said, “Miss Templeton, if you had contacted me immediately, you and your partner wouldn’t have remained here long enough to do what you needed to do.”

“That’s why you stayed out of sight?”

“It seemed best.”

Anna looked over her shoulder, then desperately at Hollis. “He’s speaking to you?”

“Sorry, sorry. Yes, he’s speaking.” Hollis sometimes forgot she was the only one in the room hearing and seeing what she was hearing and seeing. But then she glanced at DeMarco—and saw that his slightly widened eyes were fixed on the spirit.

“You see him too,” she said slowly.

“A fun new toy,” DeMarco said slowly. “My turn, I guess.”

“About time.” Hollis looked back at Anna, shoving yet another thing aside to be dealt with later. “He said he stayed out of sight because he knew we were here to do something else. Freeing the other spirits.” There was really no reason to mention the vortex, she decided.

“My brother didn’t believe in ghosts,” Owen said rather harshly.

Still calm, Daniel offered a message, which Hollis relayed, trying not to laugh. “He said to tell you that when you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s a little difficult to remember that your main objective was to drain the swamp.”

Owen actually paled. “That—was on a poster in my bedroom when we were kids.”

“So he said. And no offense, Owen, but Anna’s been waiting a long time to talk to Daniel, so . . .”