Darkest Night - Smoke And Mirrors Part 34

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 h.e.l.l 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 a.s.s back out of the spell and . . . What's that noise?"

"The err err 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 att.i.tude, 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 err err 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 h.e.l.l do you walk in those?"

"None of your d.a.m.ned 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 gothpunk 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-s.h.i.+rt.

"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 s.h.i.+rtless 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 . . ."

"c.r.a.p."

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 d.a.m.n! 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."

"Not much gets by you, does it."

"CB is going to have your a.s.s."

"If he can get it out of this house, he's welcome to it." As Amy made a series of totally grossed-out faces, he capped the marker and stood. "I need you to count slowly to a hundred and sixty, that's three minutes."

"Thanks for the math lesson, Einstein. A hundred and eighty is three minutes."

"Fine, count to a hundred and eighty. When you get there, grab the back of my jeans-don't touch skin-and haul me out of the circle."

"Me, I'm not the wizard, but that sounds a little dangerous."

"It is. A little." Arra's notes weren't specific on just how much. "But just to me, you'll be fine. It's the emergency exit procedure."

"Great. I'll be fine. What's the nonemergency exit procedure?"

"That'd be the second half of the spell."

"Then why not . . ."

"Because the laptop won't be coming with me, and I don't have time to memorize it."

"Tony . . ."

"Three people are dead, Amy."

"Yeah." She sighed and cuffed him on the back of the head. "Go on."

He stepped into the circle, bent, and set the laptop on the third step where he could see the screen. The first part of the spell was a string of seventeen polysyllabic words s.p.a.ced to indicate the rhythm with room left to add the elemental's name if known. Arra had helpfully added a phonetic translation. The second part was also a string of seventeen polysyllabic words-not the same seventeen, not that it mattered since he was unlikely to remember the first seventeen. It was, essentially, hopefully, a more complex version of the Come to Me spell aiming for a totally different result. Trying not to think of exploding beer bottles, Tony began to read.

When he inserted "Lucy Lewis" between the dozen or so clas.h.i.+ng consonants that made up most of the words, his lips twitched. It sounded like Jabba the Hut's dialogue.

Garble, garble, garble, Han Solo. Garble.

Concentrate, dips.h.i.+t!

Lesson one: The spell guides the wizard. It is the wizard who manipulates the energies. With time and practice, the wizard will find such guides unnecessary.

Someday, he'd have to go back and read lesson two.

Garble. Garble. Garble.

Jesus, it's cold . . .

All except for the pattern drawn on his chest. That was almost uncomfortably warm.

Contact.

She'd have been cute when she was alive. Not very tall, brown hair, hazel eyes behind small round gla.s.ses-he thought there might have been a scattering of freckles but with all the swelling and discoloration, it was hard to tell. The err err sound was the creaking of the rope Lucy had hanged herself with.

Had PBS ever done a series on hanging? He didn't think so, but he knew he'd seen something about the way most suicides changed their minds when the rope started to tighten, that no matter how determined they started out, faced with slow strangulation they clawed trenches into their own skin trying to get free. Lucy hadn't.

Worst part, there was someone home behind the eyes.

Trapped.

"Can you hear me?"

"Yes." Barely a word. The rope had destroyed her voice.