Smoke and Mirrors (36 page)

“Oh, Stephen.” She stroked his hair, could almost feel the silky strands under her fingers, could almost feel the heat of his cheek through the thin fabric of her skirt, could almost feel the desire that had gotten them into this mess in the first place. Almost. She thought of telling him that they weren't really
being,
but since she couldn't have told him what they were, she didn't bother.

Dead, yes. But also together. She didn't want to lose that either.

They'd done everything they could for Tony and his friends. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to stay in the bathroom for a while.

It was their turn to be murdered again anyway.

“All right . . .” As the lights dimmed, and Karl started crying, Tony shook the sound of the ax impacting out of his head. “I have to get this done before we cycle around to her replay.”

“Whose replay?”

“Lucy Lewis. The servant. The one who might know about the journal,” he expanded when Amy continued to stare at him uncomprehendingly.

She leaned a little closer. “You know, it's totally weird when you do that.”

Okay, not uncomprehending, lost in her own headspace. “Do what?”

“Walk in the ghost world.” Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she leaned away again. “I mean, you're here, but you're so not. It's freaky. And not in a good way. It was like following a sleepwalker to the kitchen.”

They were standing at the bottom of the back stairs.

“Sorry.”

“Why? It's not like you're doing it on purpose.” Artificially ebony brows dipped in. “You're not doing it on purpose, right?”

He opened his mouth.

“Good, I didn't think so, but you know. So why do you have to get this done before we hit Lucy's replay? And why her? Why not the dude she pushed down the stairs?”

“Since Lucy did the pushing, she was probably more corrupted by the thing in the basement.”

Amy glanced over her shoulder toward the basement door.

“Come on. She's on the second floor. Be careful on the stairs.”

“Can you do a wizard light?” Amy asked as they began to climb.

“It's called a Wizard's Lamp. And no.”

Her snort held several layers of derision. “Why the hell not?”

“Okay, Arra said that the energy to control . . . things . . .”

“Things? Is that a technical wizard-type term?”

“Bite me. The energy comes from the wizard. Why would I suck power out of myself to do something a flashlight or a lantern could do just as well?”

“Batteries are dead in the flashlight and what if the lamp blew out?” She waved it just enough to make the shadows dance. “You just suck at being prepared, don't you?”

Yes. No. And second-guessing would get him nowhere. “I should have anticipated this?”

“Hey, you're the wizard. You're the one on speaking terms with the great unknown. Besides, a Wizard's Lamp would be enormously . . .”

Wasted. The lights came up—although they weren't as bright on the back stairs as they were in more public areas of the house.
I guess there's no point in wasting power on the servants.

“Amy, this is ‘old lady chops up the gardener' time. It takes her a while, so we'll just climb to the second floor and wait.” He slowed down; hoping Amy would keep pace with him and not go charging on ahead. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he could hear the damp thunk crunch of the ax going through bone in time to the music from the ballroom.

Dah dah dah da-dah, da-dah, thunk crunch.

And then again, since he'd never imagined dismemberment in waltz time before, who knew?

The second floor landing consisted of a wall of linen cupboards and an even steeper set of stairs leading up to the third floor and the servants' rooms. The narrow window was as dark and unreflective as every other window in the house and the hanging bulb with the iron shade threw shadows very similar to the lantern.

Dah dah dah da-dah, da-dah, thunk crunch.

No, he wasn't imagining it.

“You know, Amy, I just had a thought.” He gave her enough time to make a derogatory comment before continuing. “It's possible that the extra who went all hysterical this morning did feel fingers. I'm pretty sure I remember the old lady burying the gardener's right arm in that spot. Yeah, I know it's not still physically there—but maybe it was kind of a ghost grope. So it's also possible no one actually rabbited the claw. The gardener just reclaimed it.”

Just.

As applied to not only dead but dismembered gardeners.

When did he start living such a weird, freakin' life? Oh, right, when Vicki “I know best” Nelson pulled him in off the street to donate blood to a wounded vampire.

He wasn't sure whether or not he should be deeply disturbed that CB had called Henry for help. Bright side, Henry wasn't alone at the theater plotting revenge for being stood up
and
he'd delivered the laptop
and
if they happened to finally need a member of the aristocratic bloodsucking undead to storm the barricades from the outside, they had one on hand. Not-so-bright side . . . well, it was hard to nail down anything resembling a decent reason, but Tony wasn't entirely happy with the thought of CB and Henry doing that buddy thing.

“Tony?”

The light levels hadn't changed significantly. Amy's sudden appearance right in his face was one of the more startling things he'd seen tonight.

“Why the frowny face?” she asked, clearly pleased with his reaction. “You worried someone hoofed it out of here with the gardener's actual hand?”

“No,” he told her, opening a narrow drawer and balancing the laptop across it, while trying to reclaim a little dignity. “If they had, we'd be playing ‘ghost rampages across city for missing body part' instead of the standard ‘haunted house tries to eat the souls of trapped and eccentric group.' ”

“Ghosts don't rampage.”

“This one would.”

“And if this plot is so standard, shouldn't we be doing a better job of getting the hell out?”

“Maybe we're not eccentric enough.”

“Please, you're eccentric enough all on your own.”

“Me?”

“Hey there, Mr. Wizard, you're the one with the magic lessons on a laptop that seems to show nothing but spider solitaire . . .” Reaching out, she tried, unsuccessfully, to move the cursor. “And eww . . . Why is your touch pad so sticky? Never mind.” A raised hand cut him off cold. “I don't want to know. Just tell me how to haul your ass back out of the spell and . . . What's that noise?”

“The
er er
creak?” He glanced away from the screen just long enough to catch her nod. “When I heard it this afternoon, I thought it was the door to the stairs moving back and forth.”

“The door isn't moving, Tony.”

“I know.”

“Is it . . .” Her voice dropped dramatically. “. . . one of the ghosts? And I can hear it? Why can I hear it? I mean, it's great, but why?”

“Maybe the house has finally worn down your natural cynicism.”

“As if.”

Contradictions wrapped in attitude, that was Amy. “Okay, maybe proximity. Take your boots off.”

Amy set the lantern on the floor and took a handful of black parachute cloth in both hands, lifting the wide legs of her cargo pants to expose gleaming black ankle boots laced in glittering pink. “Off?”

“Off. According to this, I have to write runes on your bare feet to anchor you.”

“Cool.” She sat on the bottom step and began undoing the laces.

“It's July. Don't your feet get hot in there?”

“No. Besides, do I look like the little strappy sandal type?”

She really didn't. Her socks matched the laces. Her toenails matched her fingernails—magenta and black.

“That's a lot of work for something no one's ever going to see,” he mentioned, dropping to one knee and taking her left foot in his hand. Her toes curled in anticipation as he pulled the top off the magic marker with his teeth.

“No one's asking you to do it,” she told him. Squinted. “Tony, is that supposed to be an anchor?”

He leaned back and studied the black lines on her pale skin. “What's wrong with it?”

“I'm the anchor, so I have anchors? That's not magic.”

“It's symbolism.” He bent over her other foot.

“Big word. Do you have any idea of what you're doing?”

“Honestly?”

She leaned back on her elbows and tipped her head up toward the
er er
sound. Dark brows dipped in, and Tony could see her remembering Tom and Brenda and Hartley. After a long moment she sighed and met his eyes. “No. Lie to me.”

He squeezed her foot gently before he released it. “I have complete confidence in my metaphysical ability to pull this off.”

“Liar.”

“Ow!” Blinking away the pain, he stood. “Why the hitting?”

“You lied to me.”

“You told me to!” Tony was amazed to discover that when Amy stood up, she was considerably shorter than he was. And he wasn't exactly tall. A quick glance over at her boots explained the discrepancy. “How the hell do you walk in those?”

“None of your damned business. Now let's do this before you go ghost walking again.”

The hand rubbing gave her away. Right over left, left over right—she looked like a goth punk Lady Macbeth. Since she didn't have anything to feel guilty about, it had to be fear. Since he didn't have anything to say she might find even remotely comforting, he kept his mouth shut and pulled off his T-shirt.

“It's a cheat note,” he told her as he copied the symbol on the computer screen onto his chest. “Because I've never done this before.”

“The line under your right nipple needs to curve up more.” She stepped toward him, bare feet slapping against the linoleum. “Let me.”

“No, I have to do it.” Good thing he didn't have much chest hair. “Better?”

“Yeah.” Half a step back. “You ever think of getting your nipple pierced? You could go shirtless and wear a chain between it and your eyebrow.”

It was a good thing he'd already moved the marker away from his skin. “Not exactly my style.”

“You don't
have
a style.”

He was about to disagree when he noticed Karl had stopped crying. “Amy, the ballroom's about to start. We'll just sit down . . .” He dragged her down beside him onto the step. “. . . and not go anywhere . . .” The fingers of his left hand linked with her right. “. . . and we'll be . . .

“Crap.”

Eyes open, sight fought with sensation so he kept his eyes closed and concentrated on the feel of Amy's hand. Or more specifically on the pain of Amy's grip.

In spite of the greater distance from the ballroom, the dance music maintained the same volume it had in the front hall. Something humming along was new. It wasn't Amy. And it wasn't him. Certain Amy had no intention of releasing him, he risked a glance up the stairs. Nothing.

Probably Lucy.

Which meant the captured dead were beginning to overlap.

Which meant . . . actually, he didn't have a freakin' clue what that meant. Probably nothing good.

He swore as a sudden drop in temperature racheted Amy's grip tighter, the pain snapping his eyes open. In ballroom time, he was alone on the landing. “Whatever it is, breaking my fingers will not help!”

Amy apparently disagreed.

The music paused. Downstairs, the dead died again. The music restarted.

“It's almost over. I'll be back in a minute.”

It felt like about five minutes.
Yeah, and if you think time is subjective trapped in a car with a vampire who likes boomer music, try being trapped in a haunted house without a working watch.

Watching for him to focus, Amy started talking pretty much the instant he could see her. “Tony, it was so cool! She was hanging right above us!”

“Who?”

“Well, I'm guessing it was Lucy Lewis . . . okay, her spirit—not actually her because of the whole translucent thing—but damn! I felt like Hayley Joel Osmond!”

“Osment.”

“Whatever. Point is, I saw a ghost!”

“Trust me—after a while, less thrilling.” He worked the feeling back into his fingers as he dropped off the step, back onto one knee, and pulled the top off the marker. “Let's do this.”

“I wish I could talk to her.”

“Well, you can't.”

“Hang on. You just drew a circle on the floor in Magic Marker.”