And now that it was dark she was startled to see that the arch of the ceiling was dotted with thousands of glowing stars, or lights masquerading as stars, and arranged in perfect perspective. She could pick out constellations, Orion, Cassiopeia, the Pleiades, just like in a real night sky.
But she didn’t move into the African Room; it felt like too public a place, too much of a display, for real business to be conducted there. Wherever DJ and the others were, she was sure it wasn’t here.
In the enormous entry hall there was a huge spiraling staircase leading upward. But she knew there had to be a downstairs, as well; vampires liked the underground, craved it. She was willing to bet there was an extensive lower level to the house. And instinctively she felt that this would be where DJ’s private rooms were, the ones he kept for himself and his intimates.
A central column beside the stairway housed an elevator, which no doubt would get her where she needed to go, but using it was out of the question; she couldn’t risk the noise of the machinery.
But through an arched doorway she found a tiled hall leading to a stairway leading downward.
She stopped at the top of the steps, staring into the ominous opening, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the slight draft coming from the stairwell. She had to struggle to hold on to her glamour as she looked down the steep descent.
There were candles flickering in candelabra mounted on the stone walls, an eerie and live trail of light straight out of a Gothic horror movie.
Naturally the whole house is production designed, Barrie told herself. This is no different from the African Room.
But an African jungle by day had an entirely different feeling than a vampire’s cellar at night.
She forced down a wave of fear, took a breath and started down the stairs, stepping carefully to keep her descent as soundless as possible.
The stairway spiraled downward, and every ten or twelve steps there was some alcove in the wall housing a disturbing tableau: a bleached white skeleton dressed in a priest’s vestments, a suit of armor with glowing, inhuman eyes behind the visor, what looked like a genuine Francis Bacon painting of a grotesque pope on a throne, a mirror with a moving shadow inside it, eerily insubstantial.
It’s the Haunted Mansion, okay? she told herself. Illusion. Nothing to get excited about.
The real danger was coming.
Her unease mounted as she continued downward; the stairs seemed to go on forever, and she felt her pulse rising with each step.
This is unreal. How far underground does it go?
At last she hit the bottom of the stairs, which opened into a dim vestibule with an arched door on the far side. Barrie took another breath and moved silently across the small, round room to the doorway.
And stepped into a dream.
She had to fight to get her bearings as she looked around in astonishment.
She was standing inside the climax of Otherworld. It was the huge circular ballroom from the film, with mirrors set in the velvet-draped walls and archways leading off into what in the movie had been balconies overlooking the ocean, but here, underground, she had no idea what could be beyond those pillars and arches.
The ballroom before her was not merely a vast empty space. In the film the location had been being used by the three young Others as a sort of living space and throne room; it was divided into multiple galleries where there were canopied beds, an area with a long plank table for feasting, statues and suits of armor, and arches and mirrors, installations of mannequins in sexually compromising positions, cages with collections of elaborate costumes, and toys from all eras of civilization, even a full-size carnival carousel. In the exact center of the room was an open space that looked like a throne room, only circular, with three ornate thrones facing each other. There were standing wrought-iron candelabra and candles in wall holders, creating a live wash of flickering light.
As she gazed around in wonder and dismay, it occurred to her that perhaps this actually was the set, disassembled and reassembled right here.
Her heart was racing so fast she could hardly focus on her own thoughts. This is craziness. DJ must be completely obsessed with the film. And if he’s this obsessed, he could very well be the killer.
She was beginning to see the very big flaw in her plan. The house was enormous; there were a million places where Mick could be, where Brodie or DJ could be—and where the killer could be. There had been no sign of anyone yet, and she couldn’t call out for fear of drawing the attention of the wrong person.
The underground hall that she was now in was as huge as the African Room, perhaps bigger, as there seemed to be passageways leading off in all different directions.
But as she looked around her, she realized that was the least of her problems.
Just as in the movie, the curved walls of the ballroom were lined with mirrors.
And the trouble with a glamour is that it tricks the eye but not a mirror or camera.
So, anytime she was in the line of sight of a mirror, she was in sight. In the relatively uncluttered place where she was standing now, she was surrounded by hundreds of her own reflections.
She stared at herself across the room and instantly dropped to her knees beside a statue to get out of the mirrors’ range.
Now what? she asked herself with a touch of hysteria as she hugged the floor. Crawl across the floor to the staircase? Find the elevator and take a chance on that? Turn into a spider and hide until this is over?
And then suddenly her heart leaped with terror...as she felt hands on her shoulders, pulling her up.
Chapter 22
Barrie felt a scream rising in her throat, and then a hand was clamped tightly around her mouth and she stared into the black and fathomless gaze...of DJ.
He put a finger to his lips and stared into her eyes to see if she was going to cooperate. She nodded, shaking, and he released her.
He must have seen me in the mirrors, she realized.
“What’s happening?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”
“We’re not alone,” he mouthed.
“Who?” she choked out.
He raised his hands to silently indicate I don’t know.
“Have you seen Brodie? Or Mick?”
He frowned, even as his eyes were darting around them in the dark, searching for anyone hidden in the shadows. “Who are they?”
She didn’t have time to explain who. She was too busy wondering where they were.
“You haven’t seen anyone?” she whispered.
“I feel someone,” DJ answered ominously.
You’re a vampire, she thought. Turn into mist or something.
But that wasn’t fair. He was also a troubled soul, psychologically fixated at the age of sixteen in a haunted past.
I need to get him out of here, she thought. We can look for Brodie and Mick just as well on the way out, and it’s better than staying here.
“Come on,” she whispered. “We’re getting out of here.”
The actor shook his head wildly. “I can’t leave. I’ve tried. Someone’s put up a wall. There are hexed crosses up at every exit. I’m locked in.”
Barrie’s heart dropped in dismay. This is a planned attack, then, an ambush. And by someone who knows the rules of the Otherworld.
The clink and rattling of chains echoed from somewhere in the vast, silent room, and she and DJ both froze. They weren’t alone.
Then DJ put a finger to his lips and held up a hand, indicating she should stay hidden.
He stepped forward toward the sound, into the circular space that held the three thrones. “Who’s there?” he called out in an impressively menacing voice.
He is an actor, Barrie thought from her position crouched below him. But then, as she looked up, she saw a look flicker across DJ’s face: confusion, recognition, wariness, disbelief.
“Who are you?” he said to someone Barrie couldn’t see.
Another voice came from the darkness. “Come on, Deej, we don
’t have time for this. You know who I am.”
From her hiding place, Barrie felt a profound shock. It was Mick’s voice, but he sounded like a different person, a younger person.
She crawled closer to a standing screen so she could peer out through the cutouts to see what was going on. She nearly gave herself away; she had to bite back a gasp. She was looking out not at Mick Townsend but at Robbie Anderson. Golden-haired, golden-eyed, those incredible cheekbones, that lithe body. Not a teenager anymore, but he didn’t look much older, either.
“Rob?” DJ said hoarsely. He sounded dazed, all posturing gone. He sounded like a child. “It can’t be.”
“It is,” Mick said. “For tonight, anyway. Just like old times,” he added, looking across the throne circle at DJ. He glanced around at the room, the thrones, the whole setup from Otherworld. “Just exactly like old times.” To Barrie his voice sounded dangerous, uninterpretable.
“All the ghosts are walking tonight,” DJ muttered. “Where have you been? All this time... Damn, Robbie—”
“It doesn’t matter now. Time is what we don’t have. People are dying, and we have to stop it.”
“Oh, I’m going to stop it. I’m going to stop you.”
Suddenly DJ lunged and grabbed Barrie, hauling her up off the floor. His arm was hooked around her neck, and she could feel that incredible vampire strength; she was completely immobilized and knew he could crush her throat in an instant.
Mick/Robbie stood completely still, but in the wavering light of the candles she could read terror on his strange, beautiful face. “Let her go,” he said slowly and carefully. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”
DJ’s grip tightened on Barrie’s throat. “But you’re the one who brought her into it. What were you looking for, a cover story?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mick said. He looked at Barrie’s face, and she could feel him willing her to stay still.
“I know you killed Johnny,” the actor lashed out. “Was Mayo going to spill it after all this time? Maybe some publicity scheme he was cooking up for the remake?”
Barrie felt the rage in him, vibrating through the arms that held her captive, and she felt light-headed. It can’t be.
Mick shook his head. “Now you’re saying I killed Johnny, Mayo—and Branson? Come on, Deej, why? Saul—anyone would want him dead, and you know I’m not grieving for Travis. But Johnny? You think I could kill Johnny?”
DJ stared across the circle at him, and the actor’s face looked like a Greek sculpture of Dionysus, and no older than when the two boys had been in the movie. “I know you did, pal.”
Barrie’s heart dropped to her shoes. He absolutely meant it; she could feel it in his body against hers.
DJ looked around them at the set, the scene of the movie. “You think I didn’t know? I was fucked up to the moon, but you think I couldn’t tell you from Johnny?”
His black eyes bored into Mick’s golden ones. “Oh, I knew. I even understood. Hell, we all wanted to kill Johnny at some point. You just got to it first.” He laughed, a hollow sound. “Those last scenes, they kept talking about camera angles and reflections, and yeah, I could barely stand, but I knew. You were shifting your little heart out those last two days. Playing yourself and Johnny. I don’t know how you kept it straight.”
Mick closed his eyes briefly. “I was playing him. I didn’t kill him.”
Barrie swallowed through the choke hold and looked at Mick, and she saw a teenager. A heartbreakingly open, gorgeous, vulnerable teenager.
“They told me if I didn’t the movie was dead,” Mick went on.
“So, you did it for all of us,” DJ said, in a voice so mocking it cut Barrie to the core.
“I did what I was told,” Mick—or Robbie—said softly. “Didn’t we all?”
For a moment DJ was silent, with Mick’s words hanging in the air between them. And Barrie, tight in his grip, could feel him thinking, weighing what Mick had said.
“No,” DJ said savagely. “You lie. If you hadn’t killed him, you wouldn’t have left.” His voice hitched. “You left me alone. You, Johnny...you left me alone with all of them.”
Mick took a careful step forward, and DJ’s grip instantly tightened on Barrie’s throat. Mick stopped in his tracks. “I’m so sorry for that, Deej. I had to get out. I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting out, getting away.” He spread his hands. “What chance did we have? Three kids against the whole machine?”
There was silence in the cold and candlelit throne room, and then Barrie felt DJ shaking his head.
“You’re good. You’re very good. But you’re lying.”
“I think so, too,” another voice said, cutting through the darkness, young, clear, male. DJ’s grip loosened on Barrie, and she turned toward the sound. And out of the shadows appeared Johnny Love, as pale skinned and golden as when he had manifested at the séance. Only this time he had a gun. Again Barrie had to fight to keep from gasping aloud.
Mick and DJ stared at Johnny, and for the moment reality rippled; they were impossibly but unmistakably in the movie now, the three actors reunited.
“Johnny?” DJ whispered.
“No,” Mick said. “Not Johnny.” He stepped forward carefully. “You’re Tiger’s friend, aren’t you?” he asked the specter. “Phoenix.” Barrie was shocked to realize that he was right. When she focused on the image of Johnny, she could see the telltale shimmer around the edges. Phoenix was a better shifter than she’d thought. Or perhaps anger and grief and determination had made him stronger.
“Right in one,” Phoenix said. The gun never wavered.
“I’m so sorry about Tiger,” Mick said.
“We’re all sorry,” Phoenix said. His eyes were fixed on the two older men. “But sorry isn’t going to bring Tiger back. It isn’t going to bring Johnny back. Somebody needs to pay.” He leveled the gun at Mick.
Barrie pushed away from DJ, freeing herself, and called out, “Phoenix, wait!”
All three spun around, and reality rippled again. She was facing all three of the actors from Otherworld, on the set from the movie. She had to shake her head to clear the dreamlike feeling of déjà vu, to focus on the desperate situation in front of her.
Phoenix stared at her, confused.
“Let her go,” Mick said, his voice taut. “She’s got nothing to do with any of this. Barrie, go, let us handle it. Please.”
She shook her head slightly and kept her focus on Phoenix, who was now holding the gun on all three of them. “I think there’s more to this, Phoenix. If we all talk it through, I think we can get to what really happened.”
Phoenix didn’t answer her, but he was silent, watching her. She could almost feel his ragged breathing from across the room.
“You killed Mayo, didn’t you?” she asked him softly. “You and Tiger.”
“Mayo killed Johnny Love!” Phoenix cried out. “He killed him!”
Mick, DJ and Barrie stood in the triangle of thrones and looked at each other, with the trembling teenager in the center of them.
“He deserved to die,” Phoenix finished with tears in his eyes. “For Johnny.”
“How do you know Mayo killed Johnny?” Barrie asked softly.
“It was Tiger who found out,” Phoenix said, swiping at his eyes with his left sleeve, never lowering the gun. “Mayo heard Tiger could do Johnny Love. He started coming around, buying dates. He wanted Tiger to do things. He’d have a script, you know, make Tiger say things.”
“What kinds of things?” Mick asked. Barrie thought he looked as pale as a ghost himself.
“Lame-ass things.” Phoenix’s voice changed, became mocking, mimicking. “‘I belong to you, I’ll always belong to you, you’re the only one.’ Me ’n’ Tiger would just about die laughing after.” His face hardened. “But one night Mayo was making Tiger do the whole bit as Johnny—‘I’m yours, you’re the only one’—and Tiger broke up. He laughed, you know? I mean, who wouldn’t?” Phoenix looked ar
ound at the three adults defiantly. “And Mayo flipped. Started choking Tiger, calling him things. ‘You little shit, I made you, you’re nothing without me.’ Like that. But Tiger was smart. He shifted. Suddenly old Mayo’s holdin’ Jim Morrison. Shocked him enough that he let go of Tiger and he got away.”
Barrie was mesmerized. She could see the whole scene playing out, the young prostitute mouthing off to the mogul who was used to having the entire world bow to him, the mogul’s fit of rage, the shock of Tiger’s shift.
Phoenix was nodding to himself. “But that’s how we knew he killed Johnny. It had to be, see it? Just exactly the same way. Johnny laughed at him and Mayo killed him.” The boy’s eyes were gleaming, determined. “So, we decided he had to die. For Johnny.”
“Oh, Phoenix,” Barrie said softly, her heart breaking.
“So, Tiger calls Mayo up again and says he misses him, wants to see him, he’ll be good this time, all that. They make a date, and Tiger takes the drugs with him. The same stuff that killed Johnny, right? That’s the way it had to be.”
Phoenix was shaking, his eyes far away as he remembered. “And there I am, waitin’, and waitin’...but Tiger doesn’t come back. Next thing I know I’m hearin’ they’re both dead.” He looked around in anguish.
“So, who killed them?” Mick asked tensely.
Phoenix swung toward Mick, leveling the gun at him. “You did.”
Barrie’s heart dropped all the way through her chest to the ground. “No...” she whispered.
“Or you did.” Phoenix swung toward DJ. “Silver bullets, in case you were wonderin’,” he added, lifting the gun slightly. And then his eyes went from Mick to DJ. “One of you, or both of you. But someone’s going to pay.”
“You’re wrong, Phoenix,” Mick said softly.
“It doesn’t make sense, Phoenix,” Barrie said just as softly. “Why would they kill Mayo and Tiger?”
Keeper of the Shadows (The Keepers: L.A.) Page 21