Smoke and Mirrors (18 page)

“So the house
has
killed after the Kranbys.”

“In technical post mortem talk, he wasn't killed, he died—I got the feeling that was the ballroom acting on its own.” He frowned. “Mind you, the malevolence was still awake then, so who knows. Not something I'd want to risk anyway. The dead, one at a time, not so big a problem, but you get them in groups and they're like teenagers. Could get up to anything.”

“We were going to use the ballroom.”

“Yeah, I heard. Good thing you changed your mind.” A quick glance at the window and the dark shadow of the house against the night sky. “Or a moot point. Hard to say.”

“And, I note, you didn't say. Anything.”

“Well, you didn't use the ballroom, did you? I figured as long as the malevolence was asleep, no problem. You got anyone that's too sensitive on staff, and I've seen your show so I'm thinking that's not likely, and they might be getting the whole cold chills and bad feeling about things, but that's all. There's only one thing that can wake the house.”

CB waited out the caretaker's pause for effect with barely concealed impatience. It was, as a result, a short pause.

“Blood. One of your people got blood on the house. I warned them not to, so it's nothing to do with me. The house woke up. The malevolence is starving—the energy from the trapped dead is enough to keep it from fading, but that's all—and it doesn't have time to be subtle, so when the sun set, it locked everything down. It'll use what energy it has stored to score big, to get it enough juice to keep it going for years and years. Your guy outside says there's nineteen people in there. It'll use what's in the house already to drive the weak ones mad and they'll do the rest.”

“The weak will murder the strong and then commit suicide?”

A long swallow finished the beer. “Yeah.”

“How do we stop this?”

“Just like that? How do we stop this?” Brows drawn in, Graham stared across the empty bottle at his audience. “This is the part where you tell me that I'm crazy and that's the most preposterous story you've ever heard.”

“I'm in television, syndicated television at that. Your story is derivative but hardly preposterous.” Although belief came more from the gate to another world that opened into his soundstage. “Also, my own people have informed me that they cannot get into the house. Now then . . .” His hands closed slowly into fists. “. . . how do we stop this?”

Pale cheeks paled further as Graham Brummel suddenly realized he was also in a certain amount of danger. “We can't. We can only wait until morning and see who survives.”

“That's not good enough.”

“Look . . .” All flippancy had left his voice. “. . . I understand. It's your people in there, your kids, but you can't even touch the house right now, so it's a fair assumption we can't get inside.”

“Is there a way for the people inside to get out?”

Graham shrugged. “You got me. I'm not inside.”

“Theorize.”

“Okay. Well, I guess that if someone took on the malevolence and won, then the house'd open up.”

Given the plot thus far, that seemed to follow. “Good.”

“But that's not going to happen. Your people are sitting ducks. They won't have a clue what's going on and the house is going to work them like the barker works the rubes at a carny. It'll twist them and terrify them and they'll stop thinking for themselves.”

“Don't count on it.”

“What, because they're television people and they're used to weird?”

“That, too.” CB heaved himself up out of the chair and reached into his pocket for his cell phone.

“You can't call in. I thought your people told you that. It's sucking all the power out of . . .” He stopped as CB raised a massive hand, shrugged, and wove his way around the stacks of old newspapers and books to the kitchen for another beer.

His people
had
told him that, which was why he hadn't spent the last twenty minutes on the phone. What he needed now was a second opinion. “Mr. Fitzroy? It's Chester Bane. Mr. Foster seems to have gotten himself into a situation and we could use your insight. No, we're on location . . . Yes, that's right. I'll be waiting for you in the driveway. Thank you.”

“If that's a cop you called,” Graham muttered, twisting the lid off another bottle as he came out of the kitchen. “They can't help. And
The X-Files
left Vancouver years ago.”

“He's not a cop. Now, you . . .”

“Me?”

“What are you? A wizard?” CB stared down at the beer sprayed nearly to the tips of his highly polished Italian loafers. “Not a wizard. What then?”

“I thought I told you. It's all about dead people for me—I'm a medium.”

“Ah.”

“You believe that, too?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus.” Dropping back into his chair, Graham took a long drink. “You're either the most open-minded guy I've ever met or the most gullible.”

“Do I
look
gullible?”

“Uh, no. Sorry.” He rubbed the shadow of stubble on his chin with one hand and under the weight of CB's gaze, began to talk again. “I used to work the carnival circuit till that kind of thing pretty much shut down. Then I did a bit of freelance, but I just don't got John Edward's touch, you know? Say, you're a producer. When this is over, do you think you could . . . ?”

“No.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever. I guess you got a right to be cranky; after all, the house has got your kids.”

CB walked over to the window and stared at the roofline barely visible through the rain. “The house may have bitten off more than it can chew.”

“So . . .” Brianna glared up at Tony through narrowed eyes. “. . . you lied about the baby.”

“Yes.”

“Was it, like, way gross?”

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

“All right, just hold on for a minute. You lot . . .” Peter's gesture took in Lee, Hartley, Mouse, and Kate. “. . . can hear Brianna's baby crying. You . . .” A considerably more truncated gesture at Tony. “. . . can actually see it. Saw it. The ghost of it?”

“Yes.”

“And other ghosts?”

“Yes.”

“And a reenactment of them dying?”

“Yes.”

Peter ran both hands back through his hair and sighed. “And we're locked in here because the house is trying to collect us. As ghosts?”

“Probably.”

“So it wants us dead, and is planning on driving some of us mad . . .”

“Short drive for some of you,” Mason muttered.

“. . . and having them kill the rest?”

“That's what it's done in the past,” Tony told him, suddenly needing to break the string of one-word answers.

“This is so unfair,” Amy muttered, arms folded and chin tucked in tight against her chest. “I should be seeing ghosts. Why do you get to see ghosts? You don't give a crap about other realms. If anyone's going to be a medium, it should be me, not you.”

“So you're what?” his mouth asked before his brain could kick in. “A large?”

“Bite me, ghost boy. And,” she continued indignation levels rising, “why do they . . .” Her gesture verged on rude. “. . . get to hear ghosts and I don't!”

It was a rhetorical question, but Tony thought he actually knew the answer. Back in the spring, Lee, Mouse, and Kate had all been shadow-held—not once, but twice. First they'd been ridden by individual shadows sent out to seek information, and then, as the shit really started to hit the fan, they'd been controlled by shadows along with the rest of the crew. Hartley and Mason had also been individually controlled, but Hartley hadn't been at work the day the Shadowlord had come calling and Mason had still been under the influence of his original shadow. Because Hartley was an alcoholic of long standing, his synapses were probably already a little fried before the whole shadow incident so no surprise it had only taken a single to open him up. Mason . . . Tony shot a speculative look at the actor and received a clear, nonverbal
Fuck you
in return. Although Mason
said
he couldn't hear the baby, he had been shadow-held for longer than anyone else.

None of which he was going to mention to Amy.

As for Brianna . . .

He had no idea.

“I mean, Brianna makes sense,” Amy went on. “She's a kid and certain energies are attracted to kids.”

Oh.

“It's like the baby. The younger the energy the more power it has, that's why you can hear it.”

Heads nodded. Tony wondered if it was the purple hair.
You got purple hair and suddenly you're an expert on the weird.

“So what do we do now?” Zev asked over the sound of Karl crying.

Finally, an easy question. “We get out of this house.”

“And how do we do that?” Mason drawled. “Given that we can't get the door open.”

“Uh . . .” They all actually seemed to be waiting for an answer. From a production assistant. Which was weird. Granted, a production assistant who could see dead people, so maybe they thought the two weirds canceled each other out. Tony had no idea. “Why don't we try tossing a chair through one of those tall windows in the drawing room?”

“Oh, no, wait just one minute, Tony.” Peter's hands rose into “soothing egos” position. “We should see if
all
the doors and windows are locked before we start breaking things. Windows cost money, and CB'll have my hide if this shoot goes over budget.”

“I never think I'd say this,” Sorge murmured, placing his hand on Peter's shoulder, “but if Tony is right and we are locked in with a crazy bad house, CB is the least of our worries.”

“If Tony is right,” Mason repeated. “Big ‘if.' He's a production assistant, for Christ's sake.”

“I'm not.” Lee stepped forward until he stood by Tony's side. “Neither is Mouse. Neither is Kate. Neither is Hartley.” They stirred as Lee named them, but they didn't step forward. “And you know what? It doesn't matter. Getting the hell out of here as soon as possible sounds like a good idea, and since it seems obvious that the guys outside can't get in—or they would have by now,” he added pointedly, “—it's up to us.” Pivoting on a heel, he headed out of the hall, throwing, “CB can bill me for the window,” back over his shoulder. He paused at the edge of the candlelight. “Tina?”

Tina snapped on her flashlight and followed.

“No fair! I want to throw something through the window!” Brianna raced after the script supervisor, Ashley ran after her sister, and the moment after that, the hall began to empty.

“Baaa! Bunch of sheep,” Amy muttered. “One person moves and the rest follow.” But Tony noticed she picked up a candle and came into the drawing room with the rest.

With the curtains open, the glass in the windows looked like black velvet. Completely opaque and completely nonreflective. When Tina swept the flashlight beam across them, they seemed to absorb the light.

Mouse took the captain's chair from Lee's hand. “I throw harder.”

A heavy glass candy dish flew past him and shattered against the window, the pieces skittering across the hardwood floor.

“Brianna!” Brenda's voice sounded a lot like the candy dish looked.

“It wasn't me!”

“I play baseball,” Ashley explained as all eyes turned to her. “Third base. It didn't go through the window.”

“I throw harder than you,” Mouse pointed out. He tested the weight of the chair, then took two long steps away from the window. “Give me room.”

“All right, listen up; if you're holding a candle, step back to the far wall, we don't want them blowing out.” Moving up next to the cameraman and waving Lee off to one side, Peter indicated where he wanted the candleholders. “Ashley, Brianna—Brianna, don't play with the lamp, it's an antique—you two stay with Brenda.”

She jumped at the sound of her name. “I thought Tony was in charge of them.”

“Well, right now, you're standing next to them. When that window breaks, I want them to be the first ones out.”

Tony couldn't help but notice that final bit of information made Brenda a lot happier about babysitting.

“Everyone else,” Peter continued, “make sure Mouse has room to swing. Are we ready?”

“Let's settle down people. Action in . . .” Adam's voice trailed off as he realized what he was doing. “Peter started it.”

“I'm the . . .” Peter twisted around to see Mouse frowning down at him from about four inches away. “Right.” During half a dozen quick steps to one side, he regained his composure. “What are you waiting for, then?”