by E G Bateman
He shrugged. “What’s the point? Nila seems to have gone. I’m sorry if we kept you awake last night.”
She laughed. “You mean after I went to bed two hours ago at five am? You didn’t keep me awake. I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Really? Marcel howled in his sleep at one point. I would have thought someone on the other side of the wall would have heard him. The poor little thing.”
With a frown, she looked at the wall. “I think the stairway’s on the other side.”
Dick raised an eyebrow. “No, that sweeps down the other way.”
Mentally, she traced her steps through the house. “The hallway?”
He shook his head, bewildered. “It must be. This place is a labyrinth.”
She rubbed her face. “I wonder where Limpet is.”
The vampire looked a little sheepish. “I’m sorry I was horrible to him. If he hadn’t attacked Nila, Marcel would be dead now.”
Without meeting her gaze, he continued to stroke Marcel absently and focused on the wall. Suddenly, he stood.
Lexi narrowed her eyes at him. “What?”
“I only…” He walked out of the room.
She leaned over to stroke the puppy. Dick returned a few minutes later and jerked his head toward the hallway. “Come see.”
Curious, she followed him out. They walked along the hallway.
“Where would you say the kitchen ends?”
Frowning in thought, she looked toward the door they’d just walked through. “Around here.”
They looked in closets along the wall but none were particularly deep. Then, the hallway turned to the right. They passed a stairway, walked around a few corners and back in the direction they’d come, and passed the little hallway to hers and Scott’s rooms in the turret.
When they reached the kitchen again, Scott was there trying to tempt Marcel with a chicken drumstick. He looked up. “I wondered where you’d gone.”
Dick stared at him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to cheer Marcel up. He looks sad.”
The vampire looked at Marcel. “Scott. Come with us and bring Marcel. I don’t want to leave him alone if he’s awake. He might get frightened.”
He followed them around the upper hallways. This time, they opened every single door and searched along every wall and in every cupboard.
Back in the kitchen, the sorcerer turned to the others. “So there’s been a secret room on this floor, right under our noses all this time and we didn’t realize it.”
Dick looked ready to kick himself. “Because of the ridiculous design of the building.”
“This explains why there are no windows in the rooms on this side of the hallway.” Scott paused. “Just a minute.” He left the room and Lexi followed him. He entered his bedroom, leaned out of the window, and sent one of his little mirror balls into the sky. Seconds later, it returned. Scott muttered a few words and the ball flattened to a wide disk. The two of them watched the journey the little sphere had taken over the roofs. A square section in stone blocks had been created in the middle of the tiled expanse, completely out of character with everything else.
“Let’s go and take a look.” He took her hand.
They appeared on the stone roof. It was roughly thirty feet in diameter.
Lexi looked for some way to enter the hidden room. “There’s no roof access.”
“I wonder what’s in there.” He apparated a little ball and dropped it, and it hovered for a few moments before it descended. It stopped on the roof and remained there.
She frowned at it. “What’s it doing?”
“Nothing apparently.” She looked irritated. “A magical field is keeping it out.”
“Okay, let’s get back to Dick.” He took her hand again and they appeared in the kitchen.
The vampire looked up. “So what do you think the strange stone section is? It looks fairly old.”
Scott narrowed his eyes. “How did you—”
Dick held his cell phone up. “Google Maps.”
Lexi rolled her eyes. She was learning quickly how easy it was to rely on magic when other methods would suffice.
The sorcerer tried to direct his little ball through the wall. Initially, it sank through the stucco kitchen wall with no problem, but his frustrated face told her it hadn’t breached the full wall.
He turned to Dick and put his hand out. “Can I look?”
The vampire held the phone out to him.
Scott looked for a few seconds, then handed it back. “Well, what your app couldn’t tell you is that there doesn’t seem to be any way to get into that room. We’ve been all the way around it and found nothing. It must be magically sealed.”
Dick gazed at the wall. “How thick would you say the walls are?”
He shrugged. “One and a half to two feet all the way around.”
“And you believe that thickness of stone and the stone roof is simply sitting on a regular floor?”
They stared at him.
“It has to be a tower,” he continued, “so it goes all the way down and the entrance must be on a lower level. This whole place has been built and designed to hide the existence of the tower in the middle.”
Dick picked Marcel up and they headed down the stairs.
Once they understood that the convoluted design of the hallways was to draw attention away from the giant section in the middle of the building, it made much more sense.
Lexi stood outside a resident’s room on the men’s floor of the building. She chewed her lip in thought. “We can’t simply start searching people’s rooms while they’re in them.”
The vampire hesitated before he nodded. “Surely they’ll go down for breakfast shortly anyway.”
“They don’t all go downstairs for breakfast. We need to get all the residents in one place so we can keep them safe and keep looking for a way into that tower.”
They heard the elevator and as one, turned as the doors opened and Anne Lown shuffled out.
Scott hurried to her and offered his arm. “Anne. What are you doing up here?”
“Don’t worry. I’m heading down again.” She stepped past him and drew her arm back to punch the fire alarm on the wall. The glass broke and she yanked the handle down. The siren began to wail.
“Ouch.” Anne shook her hand out, turned to Dick, and put her arms out for Marcel. He paused for a moment, then passed the puppy to her. She shuffled into the elevator.
“You’re not supposed to use the elevator during a fire emergency,” he called.
She flipped the bird as the doors closed.
“I like her,” Scott yelled over the alarm.
The vampire nodded. “And that will do nicely.” He walked along the hallway shouting, “Proceed slowly and carefully to the Fire Test Assembly Point which is the entertainment lounge. If you need help, press your call light and someone will come to you.”
A man wandered out in his pajamas. “What’s going on?”
“Fire alarm test,” Lexi explained glibly.
“At this hour? I was napping.”
“You’re always napping.” Raj wandered along the hallway with Josh and Stuart behind him.
“What’s happening now?” the clerk asked.
“We’re getting everyone into one place so they’re easier to protect,” Dick told them.
Stuart’s eyes widened when he saw the vampire. “Dude. What are you doing out of the basement?” He halted in total shock when he realized the vampire was bathed in the morning light coming through a window.
He smirked and smoothed an eyebrow. “I’ve had a relapse.”
People filed out of the rooms and they continued to direct them down.
“I can’t get down those stairs,” someone shouted.
“It’s a test,” Stuart called in response. “We’re allowed to use the elevators. Those of you who can use the stairs follow Raj to—” He looked at Lexi.
“The entertainment lounge.”
“Did you he
ar that? The entertainment lounge. If you need to use the elevator, line up here.”
Albert stepped out of his room. “Why is this happening?”
Dick sighed. “I’m sorry. Kindred told us to do it. You know what total bastards they are.”
“Oh, don’t talk to me about those shit-heads.” A man in a dressing gown wandered past with a walking stick.
Lexi chuckled. Blame Kindred, why not?
Stuart tapped her on the shoulder. “Has anyone seen Nila?”
She shook her head and turned to Scott. “You help Stuart get people out of their rooms. How will I know if there’s an entrance?”
He fumbled in the bag on his back and pulled her pendant out, held it for a moment and muttered, then passed it to her. “If you come across anything hidden by magic, this will glow.”
“You come with me,” she told Josh.
The two of them went to the women’s level where Anne and Phyllis were helping ladies out of their rooms.
“If you can manage the stairs,” Josh shouted, “follow me to the entertainment lounge.”
Scott’s voice blared throughout the building as though he had a megaphone. “Please make your way to the entertainment lounge in your most expedient manner.”
Lexi began to go through the rooms. She waved the pendant along the walls of every room but couldn’t find anything that seemed suspicious.
She returned into the hallway, where Anne sat in her wheelchair with Marcel in her hands. “Do you want help to get downstairs, Anne?”
“Yes, please.” She went with her in the elevator.
Only ten minutes had passed but all residents were gathered in the entertainment lounge.
Stuart approached her. “There are no kitchen staff.”
Lexi frowned. “What time do they usually arrive?”
“An hour ago. And none of the day staff have arrived.”
“Is that unusual?”
“It’s unheard of.”
She stepped out and found Dick about to enter the room. “It looks like all the staff have been canceled for today. Why would that be?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I think whatever they have planned will happen today. You keep searching. I’ll distract the residents.”
The vampire entered the room where most were still agreeing that Kindred were bastards. Some who hadn’t seen him were wide-eyed. “Yes, I walk in the daylight. It’s a thing. Since we’re all here, let’s have a sing-song.” He walked to the piano, cracked his knuckles, and began to play “I get no kick from champagne.”
Lexi stopped at the door and listened for a moment before she chuckled and shook her head and returned to the ladies’ floor to check rooms and closets. She opened a door to find a lady fast asleep—Delia, according to the name on the door.
Quietly, she stepped in and checked the back wall of the room and the closet for any sign of an entrance to the tower.
“What are you doing?”
When she turned, the woman was seated in the bed. “I’m so sorry to disturb you. This is a shake-down.”
Delia put her glasses on. “A what?”
“Kindred have insisted we check for drugs and associated paraphernalia.”
“But I keep my medications in this drawer.” The woman patted the bedside cupboard.
Lexi shook her head. “I’m looking for illegal drugs. You know, bennies, coke, smack, crack, meth, mollies, oxies, purple…drank.”
The woman shook her fist at her. “They’re not taking my oxies. Kindred are bastards”
“That does seem to be the consensus. If you have a prescription for them, you’re fine. Well, you’re clean. There’s a fire test going on. Everyone’s in the lounge.”
“Good.” She lay down, muttering under her breath.
Relieved that it hadn’t proved too much of a problem, she stepped into the hallway but wasn’t sure what to do about the woman.
Scott leaned against the wall and grinned. “Purple drank? Where did you get all that?”
“Isaac used to listen to a ton of rap music. Have you finished upstairs already?”
He nodded. “Stuart and Raj helped with the residents.”
“This woman doesn’t want to budge. I don’t want to leave her alone with a wendigo on the loose.”
“A what?” Delia stepped out. “Did you say a wendigo?”
“Well—”
The woman scuttled down the hallway like she might once have been an Olympic sprinter.
Scott watched her with a grin. “That’s solved that problem.”
They finished searching the rest of the rooms on that level and continued while they listened to Dick belting out “My Kind of Town.”
They found Delia in the lobby, trying to take her bracelet off with a pair of toenail clippers.
The sorcerer leaned over the front desk as they walked past and snaffled the tuning fork. “I’ll sort that out for you.”
Dick noticed them as they entered the room. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s have a little chat, shall we?”
The residents booed.
Patrick stepped onto the stage. “Hold up now. Something’s been going on here that everyone needs to know. We’ve all been concerned about our friends going missing. Well, now I have answers.” He drew a deep breath. “Nila is a wendigo.”
Phyllis stood beside him. “I can confirm it. I saw her myself last night.”
Someone shouted, “No one disbelieves you, Patrick.”
“That explains her breath,” another resident muttered.
Scott moved to the front. “I know some of you might be nervous about the idea of removing your bracelets—”
“Get these damn things off and let us protect ourselves,” a man shouted.
Patrick leaned closer and added quietly. “Except Albert. He’s crazy.”
The sorcerer took the old man’s arm and prepared to strike the bracelet with the tuning fork. The satyrs arranged themselves around Albert.
The moment he struck the band, it fell. Scott muttered and the note lingered and grew louder. The sound of bracelets falling jangled around the room.
Stuart caught Albert’s bracelet in mid-air and snapped it onto him again. The crazy old man looked sadly at it.
“What now?” Patrick asked Lexi.
She frowned. “No day staff have arrived. You should get everyone into the kitchen and dining room and see if you can feed them.”
He looked at all the people with their abilities returned. Some were shifting but others weren’t. “They’d only not plan to feed us if they thought we wouldn’t be here to need feeding.”
“That was our thought. Barricade yourselves in.” She turned to the satyrs. “Can you go in with them? Look after them?”
Stuart nodded.
When the residents had been herded into the dining room, Lexi, Scott, and Dick continued with their search.
They worked their way around the tower’s walls but found nothing.
She wasn’t to be deterred. “Okay. Basement.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
They trudged down the stairs to the basement, checked all the rooms, and met at the bottom of the stairs again.
“Nothing. What’s the point of leaving that tower in the middle of the building?” Lexi turned to the painting. “I don’t suppose you’d care to give up your secrets, would you, Mr. Maybury?”
She froze as she remembered something. Her gaze slid to the closet she’d hidden in. “Oh, for God’s sake.” She went to the door, yanked it open, and found the wooden stick she’d picked up when she had hidden from Nila. Looking around, she found a small slot on the floor beside the wall. She put the stick into the hole, pulled, and looked around inside the closet. “Dammit. It must be something else.”
“Er…Lexi.” Dick called.
Hastily, she stepped out. The inset wall with the picture had swung upward to reveal a staircase leading down.
The sorcerer shook his head. “I’ve been all over this place feeling for some kind of
magical spell. I can’t believe it was a common hidden door.”
Lexi moved toward the entrance.
“Wait,” Scott whispered.
When she turned, he held her katana out. She took it and nodded.
They entered the old stone tower. The steps opened into a wide empty room, with a curved staircase leading up along the wall. They spread out. Although the space was dark, a flicker of light indicated that the room above was lit with torches. The only other light was from the doorway they had entered through.
Strange markings covered the walls but were most clearly visible where the light from the doorway bounced off the opposite wall. Lexi moved slowly toward it to see if she could work out what the symbols were. As she gazed at the markings, a shadow appeared across them in the shape of a head with antlers.
She spun and swung her katana into Nila’s impossibly strong antlers. Vibrations reverberated along the blade to the handle but left not even a dent in her target.
“Good Lord, what a smell.” Dick stood to the side and waved his hand in front of his face.
The wendigo turned to him and snarled. Drool dripped from her mouth and her claws dragged loudly along the stone.
“I’m sorry dearest,” he continued. “It really would never have worked between us. And the fact that you’re a stinking, drooling monster isn’t even the number one reason.”
Nila howled and stepped toward him. Lexi glanced at the stairs to the next floor but she didn’t dare to take her focus off their adversary.
Dick noticed her indecision. “Off you go, you two. I’ll keep her busy.”
Her screech reverberated in the wide chamber as she attacked with her head lowered. Dick evaded easily at vamp speed and she was infuriated.
A sound from the doorway drew her attention. A pack of wolves, foxes, dogs, and bears crowded into the room. They snapped and snarled at Nila, led by a brown and white Pitbull who jerked her head at Lexi to tell her to move along.
She and Scott headed to the next level as the pack encircled the wendigo.
Ever cautious, she kept her back to the outer wall of the tower as they climbed the stairs into the next room. It was empty except for two shapes on the floor which were clearly bodies. She ran to one. It was Bryan.