9
Mercury was summoned to the tunnels the next morning by the Cream Canary.
She didn’t seem to be doing so out of concern or fear, which made him more curious than anxious.
He followed her down the main tunnel, all the way to the one where the Vanns were being held.
This must have had something to do with them.
Testy Tolver, Gary the Green, and Weeping William stood where that tunnel branched off, looking exceptionally proud of themselves.
They motioned to the tunnel opening. The reason for their excitement became clear.
They had erected a heavy door with a very significant metal bar locking it closed.
And just as the door to the Vanns’ cell did, it had a slot that, when slid open, could be seen and spoken through.
“It will be easier to guide people down the tunnels we want them in if they can’t access the others,” Gary the Green said. “And preventing any new arrivals from reaching the rooms already holding prisoners would make it less likely they’d open the doors and let them out.”
“A good idea,” Mercury acknowledged. “People wandering the tunnels could lift the heavy metal bar and open this door if they wanted. But that would take time and effort.”
“The windows in the rooms can’t be opened,” Testy Tolver said. “So no one kept down here could escape their cells that way.”
“Rum Nicky will be bringing the Vanns their breakfast shortly,” Gary the Green said. “He’s said he can manage this door and the food at the same time.”
“If it proves too much for him” —Mercury looked at Testy Tolver— “you can assist.”
Testy Tolver nodded.
“Have the Vanns said anything to any of you?” Mercury asked.
“Only complaints about the unfairness of their imprisonment,” Testy Tolver said.
“I am so weary of their complaining.” Weeping William sniffed. “They imprisoned Tacey, and she didn’t do anything wrong. They are horrid kidnappers who told the Violet Giant they were willing to hurt her. They deserve to be in there.”
“Yes, they do.” Mercury’s eyes darted toward the door closing off the tunnel the Vanns were imprisoned in. “And others are coming who are just as dangerous. We need to be ready for them.”
“We will be,” Gary the Green declared confidently.
As Mercury made his way back out of the tunnels and into the dungeon, he thought quickly through the safeguards they had in place and which of Aventine’s secrets could be used as weapons.
The hidden tunnels: they were already in use.
His ghosts erecting more fortifications: they’d taken the initiative with the tunnel doors.
The secret safe: it held items for Tacey.
There were hidden rooms inside Aventine as well.
The Scholar’s tower, for example, was unknown to the other ghosts.
Any person wandering the corridors of Aventine Manor wouldn’t realize they’d passed the entrance to it.
There were other equally hidden corners of the house.
And they, like the tunnels below ground, were connected through passageways and stairwells that were tucked away and unnoticed.
He had reached the ground floor, lost in his own thoughts, when Zizzy floated up to him, looking anxious.
“The Winged Monk spotted a carriage coming up the drive,” she said. “It may be someone else who wants to hurt you.”
That was a distinct possibility.
The Violet Giant entered the corridor through an adjacent wall. “I know the man about to step out of that carriage. He is on the payroll of the Forever Flame. Best set in motion whatever plan you have for bounty hunters who brazenly come right to your front door.”
“The Quiet Queen is in charge of our group,” Zizzy said. “She’s given us all assignments.”
“And do I have an assignment?” Mercury asked.
“You wait down in the dungeon and participate the same way you did before.”
“Do you and Baby Blue have to take part up here? I know you haven’t particularly liked the way things have changed at Aventine.”
Zizzy’s nod was small and apprehensive but also firm. “We want to help. We need to help.”
Mercury didn’t know what their strategy was inside the house, but it proved successful.
Not a quarter of an hour later, two men moved with furtive steps into the tunnels.
Whispering low to each other, they spoke of needing to find “the criminal” quickly so they could get out of the “blasted maze” they’d found themselves in.
Everything played out as it had with the Vanns, except these new arrivals were locked into a room down the first tunnel.
And they proved as unhelpful and uncooperative as the Vanns.
Neither would give him the slightest information about the Forever Flame, what the ghost looked like or why he was pursuing Mercury.
Nothing.
“Then I suppose you’ll simply have to stay down here,” Mercury said as he made to close the slot in the door.
“We can’t fail in this,” one of the men said. “He’ll come after us. He’ll punish us.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me they’re afraid of him,” Mercury said.
“Anyone with sense is afraid of the Forever Flame.”
Mercury held the man’s gaze. “Then help me defeat him.”
In a whisper of dread, the man said, “He cannot be defeated.”
Over the next five days, four more strangers came to Aventine.
One proved to be a would-be client, who left disappointed but without argument.
The other three were intruders who sneaked onto the grounds of Aventine Manor.
All three were herded into the tunnels, some more swiftly and easily than others, and locked into rooms. None of them had ghosts, so the entrapment room remained empty.
Testy Tolver and Weeping William installed doors on two more offshoot tunnels.
Rum Nicky grew quickly adept at navigating with food for the growing list of prisoners.
By the time one week had passed since the Vanns had ushered in the flood of bounty hunters, Mercury was well and truly tired of intruders.
The general feeling among his ghosts matched his.
How many people would the Forever Flame convince to come hunt Mercury?
And how long would they have to keep prisoners in the tunnels?
Holly Hock had been on the grounds all day despite the near-constant drizzle.
Rain didn’t bother ghosts. Mercury wandered out during a break in the weather.
He crossed paths with her in the field to the east of the eastern lawn.
It was left to grow as it chose, wild and uncultivated, with clumps of wildflowers peeking out among the long grass swaying in the breeze.
“Anything I can do out here?” he asked. “I realize you don’t actually need the help of your pretend assistant groundskeeper, but I find myself wishing to be useful.”
Her gaze was intent on the spot of ground directly in front of her.
“I passed through a window in one of the tunnel rooms and emerged above ground here. But the window isn’t where I just was.
” She motioned to where she was looking.
“And it isn’t just ‘not there’ visually.
I tried passing back through the same spot, but it is solid ground. No window. No tunnel.”
“Aventine guards its secrets,” Mercury said. “And those secrets seem to defy explanation. The rules about what is and what can be are broken with ease.”
Your life is broken in many ways. And you have been brought to this place that further shatters things. There must be a reason. That mystery, I suspect, lies at the heart of all the others.
The Scholar’s unnerving pronouncement had returned to Mercury’s thoughts often, and each time proved as disconcerting as the last. His entire life had been an unending mystery, a jumble of dangerous secrets. Aventine had been a safe haven from it all. Now even his refuge was fracturing around him.
“Mercury.” Holly Hock’s whisper was tense and worried. He followed her wide-eyed gaze.
A man was moving furtively toward the house.
“Another one,” Mercury muttered to himself.
His annoyance shifted to worry when the dim sunlight glinted off something in the intruder’s hand.
Mercury watched a moment longer, wanting to be sure of what he was seeing.
The light illuminated it once more, and Mercury knew without a doubt: this bounty hunter had arrived with a gun.
The man could be nudged into the tunnels just as all the others had been.
But should the confusion of that dark maze, with all its noises and shadows, spook him, the intruder might fire his weapon.
None of the ghosts could be hurt by it, of course, but Tacey could.
Mercury could be as well, of course. But it was Tacey he worried about most.
She hadn’t asked for the danger she was now facing. She wasn’t a criminal with a secretive past. She didn’t deserve any of this.
“Do you think you can distract him?” Mercury asked Holly Hock. “Perhaps pretend you think he is here to swap a ghost and talk to him about that for a while?”
“I think so,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
“If I can manage it, surprise and disarm him.”
“Before he shoots you, I hope,” she said.
“That is my hope as well.”
Holly Hock approached her assignment wisely. She made her way over to the intruder from a different direction, making it far less likely that Mercury’s approach would be noted.
“He has traded ever so many ghosts,” Holly Hock was saying as Mercury inched close enough to begin overhearing. “I don’t think he has had a holiday since I arrived. Don’t you think it is a fine thing that he should get one now?”
“A man’s gotta have a rest now and then.” The man’s lower-class London accent was evident.
Mercury deftly untied the handkerchief around his neck, leaving it hanging loose.
“I think so too, at least I think I think so.” Holly Hock gave the impression of not being overly clever. Very good acting on her part; she was actually quite intelligent. “Will you come back when he is swapping again?”
Mercury was only a few steps from the man. He hunched a little low, tensed.
“I think you would like to meet Mr. Raine,” Holly Hock continued. “He is very interesting. And you could meet his ghosts. There are ever so many of us.”
Mercury lunged. The bounty hunter stumbled, then fell, sprawled on the ground, arms outstretched. His grip on the pistol was slack, and Mercury wasted not a moment snatching it away.
He used his handkerchief to bind the man’s hands behind his back. Only then did he let himself feel momentarily relieved.
“You’ve come to shoot Mercury Raine, have you?” Mercury asked as he pulled the man to his feet. “I’d assume the Forever Flame wants him alive.”
“I wasn’t going to kill him.”
Mercury forced the man to walk toward the house. “Hoping to injure him enough to keep him from fighting back?”
“The Forever Flame is growing impatient.” The man sounded almost panicked.
“He increased the bounty?”
They’d nearly reached the door leading down to the dungeon.
“Ain’t a matter of the bounty. The Forever Flame will destroy us. He don’t make idle threats.”
“Why does he want Mercury Raine so badly?”
“I don’t know, but he does. He’ll not stop until he has him.”
This felt like more than a money-hungry ghost chasing a reward. It had to be something more personal. And more personal, he felt certain, also meant more dangerous.