Chapter Forty-Eight
Forty-Eight
Shock caused Sophy’s senses to flare. She slammed into her talent but there was no clear note from her chimes to guide her and help her focus.
The result was a disorienting trance. It was as if she had been tossed into a nightmare. Currents of madness, panic, and violence emanated from the walls, the floor, and the sculpture. They flooded the small space, swirling around her, threatening to overwhelm her.
Just an uncontrolled trance, she thought. You’ve been here before. You know how to escape. Breathe.
“Sophy?”
Luke’s voice came from outside the dream. She was suddenly aware of Bruce leaning heavily against her leg. She seized on the lifelines and collected her senses. The trance energy steadied. She got control.
The first ghostly figure appeared. She knew it was Vincent. He stood in front of Succubus, glorying in his creation. The second ghost arrived, madness shivering in the energy around him. There was a surge of panic from Vincent. A dazzling blast of light. Vincent collapsed.
She heard herself speaking in her trance voice. “Vincent was killed by the smoking ghost.”
“That explains the cigarette butt that Bruce just found,” Luke said.
She took a couple more breaths and came out of the trance. Back in control. She realized Luke was holding her hand. She remembered that she was wearing her regular glasses, not her mirrored shades. But once again Luke was unfazed. Focused.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” And she was. The familiar shot of adrenaline was pulsing through her but not in the hot, wild way that led to the ice fever.
This rush she could handle. For the first time she wondered if maybe some of the disturbing aftermath of her trances was caused by the fear of how onlookers would react. She’d been burned so many times.
But Luke was different.
He released her hand and started back toward the intersection, Bruce at his heels. “We need to keep moving.”
She adjusted her pack and followed him.
“You really were born to take charge,” she grumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing. You were right. Poor Vincent became a problem for someone.”
“Poor Vincent?”
She ignored the sarcasm. “If I read the vision correctly, he was murdered with one of those Kaleidoscope weapons. That means Orston, the guy I called Smoking Ghost, has fired the light gun at least twice that we know of and probably more often.”
“Count on it.” Luke stopped in front of a darkened hallway that was closed with a velvet rope. “Here we go. This is the corridor that leads to the wall.”
“How can you tell? It looks like all the other hallways.” She paused, raising her talent a little so that she could see the dark passageway. A stream of footsteps, old and new, glowed faintly on the floor. “Oh, right.”
Bruce followed Luke unhesitatingly into the hall. Once again she found herself bringing up the rear. It was getting old.
“This path has been in use for decades,” Luke said. “Probably since the house was built.”
“Yes, I can see that.” She stopped and managed, barely, to swallow a small screech. “Damn. Another one.”
Luke halted and looked back. “Another body?”
“Not a body but, yes, another murder scene.” Warily, she heightened her senses and caught a glimpse of a figure standing over a dead man on the floor.
“Not Smoking Ghost this time. And not Vincent. I don’t see any signs that the killer used one of the Kaleidoscope weapons.
It’s hard to estimate times but I think this murder took place about two years ago. ”
“That would put it at approximately the time the last owner of the house was said to have gone mad and died in here. He was probably murdered because the Alchemist wanted control of the property. Even if he had been willing to sell, he had to be taken out.”
She slipped out of the light trance. “Because he knew the secrets of the house.”
“Yes. Are you okay?”
“What?” Then she realized he was worried she might be on the edge of an ice fever attack. “Yes, I’m fine.”
And she was, she thought. Or at least as fine as a person could be while discovering murder scenes in a maze.
“Let’s keep moving,” Luke said.
It was a command, not a suggestion. She resisted the temptation to fire back with a snappy, I’m on it, Boss.
She stopped a moment later because Luke and Bruce had halted in front of what looked like a steel wall.
“This is it,” he said.
She watched Bruce trot forward and lower his nose to the nearly invisible line that marked the lower edge of the wall. The dog sniffed and then scratched at the metal.
“There’s something on the other side.” Sophy said. “But I don’t see a lock or a security code panel.”
“That’s because someone went to a lot of trouble to hide it.”
Luke took a small device out of one of the pockets of his jacket and moved it methodically around the edge of the steel plate. He paused when a tiny green light blinked.
“Here we go,” he said.
He did something to the gadget and a small, concealed plate opened, revealing an illuminated control panel.
“I can probably unlock that for you,” she offered.
“Thanks, but believe it or not, some of us can still get by the old-fashioned way—with good tech.”
“I was just trying to be helpful.”
Luke flashed one of his rare, fleeting smiles. “Nobody likes a show-off. Stand back. Bruce doesn’t seem to be alarmed, but we don’t know what’s on the other side.”
She obediently retreated a couple of steps and glanced at Bruce, who was intent on whatever was on the other side. Luke was right; he did not look as if he was sending a warning. But maybe that was because, like Luke, he didn’t scare easily.
She flinched when a low, grinding rumble sent tremors through the wooden floorboards. The steel panel slid slowly aside, disappearing into the wall.
“Impressive,” Sophy said. “Even though you were showing off.”
“Just demonstrating the bleeding-edge technology that defines the Wells brand.”
“Bleeding edge?”
“One step beyond cutting-edge.”
“You may not want to use that line in your advertising. It’s a little off-putting.”
Luke didn’t respond. His full attention was on the staircase in front of them. It was lined with subway tiles that glowed with a faint blue radiance. Bruce looked interested but showed no signs of alarm.
“Great,” Sophy muttered. “A basement. What could go wrong? Where is the light coming from?”
“It’s paranormal energy,” Luke said. “Can’t you sense it in the atmosphere? The tiles on the walls have been absorbing it for decades.”
“Like the house itself,” she said. “But what is the source of the energy? It doesn’t feel like vortex power.”
“We just walked into one of the old Bluestone labs.”