Triumph ran through me. I wanted to shout and pump my fists in the air. Instead I ran back up the steps with Ajax bounding at my heels. I opened the doors into the house. Instantly I heard my name being shouted by several voices.
“Here! I found it! Bring the key!”
I ran back toward the garden room and bumped into Ben coming into the kitchen, followed closely by Jen and Lorraine.
“Where have you been? We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
The girls grabbed hold of me, and Lorraine hugged me hard.
I was too excited to pay attention to their concern. “Where’s Mason?”
Just then he and Damon came bursting in. Damon looked a little wild. Make that wildly angry.
“I found it,” I declared triumphantly. The Wicked Bitch hadn’t been able to hide it from me. I’d beaten her at her own damned game.
“Jesus, we thought something happened to you,” Jen said.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You disappeared. Nobody could find you,” Lorraine said.
“I was here,” I said. “I was just down—”
That’s when I realized that they were all about to find out the worst Aunty Mommy had done to me. How could I prepare them?
I glanced at Damon. He’d lost the wild look. In fact, he’d transformed into an inscrutable ice statue. Not the first time I’d seen that—just before he erupted like Mount Vesuvius. I should apologize. I would apologize when we were alone. I’d been thoughtless. No—it was more like I’d forgotten I didn’t have to do things alone anymore. It’s not like they weren’t all going to find out what was down in the basement once I found the keyhole. Pride was a shitty reason to make people worry about me. I’d already put Damon through a lot.
That thought caught me up short. Did I care? That was stupid. Of course I did. I liked him. A lot. He pissed me off to no end sometimes, but I still liked him. Was it love? Could it be? I had no idea. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I’d just gained independence for the first time in my life. Falling love would mean a relationship. It would mean answering to someone else again. Someone a lot less agreeable than a dog.
“I found the keyhole,” I said. I looked at Mason. “Do you have the key?”
He held it up. “Right here.”
“Come on, then.”
I turned to guide the way. Every step twisted my stomach tighter. I berated myself for feeling nervous. What was I worried about? Pity. I hated pity and I didn’t want it. Ajax nosed my hand. I looked down at him. He licked my fingers.
He’d suffered. He’d been through hell. I’d felt sorry for him. So had Lorraine and Jen and Damon too. Did Ajax hate that? No, he was smart enough to be grateful that people cared enough to be angry on his behalf and to be sorry for what had happened. What made me any better than he?
Stupidity. Pride. More stupidity.
I resolved that I had no reason to be embarrassed. That I would not reject the sympathy and sorrow of my friends. I would have a little grace.
Easier said than done.
I opened the first door to the basement, and my chest thickened. With the second, I had to clamp my teeth hard against a weird tremble. With the third, I wanted to throw up. I opened it, blocking the passage. I took a breath and turned around.
“There’s a little narrow hallway under the stairs. That’s where the lock is.”
I stepped back and gestured them all inside. My heart hammered in my chest. I drew a couple of deep breaths as they each went in. Damon went last. He paused on the threshold.
“You going to be okay?” he asked.
For a second, all I could do was marvel. Despite being wall-to-wall pissed, he was thinking of me. He was reaching out to take care of me.
I didn’t need anybody taking care of me. I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and I liked being independent. But damn, it felt nice all the same. I blinked back tears that had no business falling.
I considered his question. My go-to response was always “I’m fine.” I didn’t want to be weak in front of anybody. This time I wanted to offer him something real, something more than being flippant.
“Honestly? I’m not entirely sure. I think I’m holding my own.”
His brows rose at my candor. He reached out and squeezed my hand and then started through the door. I held on a second, wanting to warn him. But what could I say that would prepare him? There wasn’t any way to soften the truth. I let go of his hand and listened to his footsteps on the stairs. They stopped partway down. I could picture him surveying the space and fixing on the shackles hanging on the opposite wall. He wouldn’t be able to see the cage yet, but the others would have.
I straightened my shoulders. Well, then. No more looking back at the shadows. I was going to keep my face to the sun, and Aunty Mommy didn’t get to have a hold on me.
I stepped through the doorway.
Chapter 31
Everybody froze as I entered. I almost laughed but they wouldn’t have understood that reaction. Somehow that moment with Damon had broken Aunty Mommy’s mental grasp on me. I finally realized down in my DNA that she was really out of my life forever.
“All right,” I said. “Now you all know the worst of it. I’m not saying that what happened down here was no big deal, but I survived and the Wicked Bitch didn’t. I’m ready to move on. More importantly, I want to find the gargoyles’ mates and start dismantling Aunty Mommy’s evil legacy.”
Ben was positively white. “This is barbaric,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “How could she...?”
Jen started pacing around. Stomping really. She angrily brushed away tears. Lorraine’s rolled down her cheeks, and she didn’t try to wipe them away. She looked at me and shook her head, unable to find words.
Mason stood grim faced, more so than when he’d confronted the big gargoyle leader. His eyes had narrowed to glittering slits, and he looked dangerous. In that moment, I could see the resemblance to Aunty Mommy. In that moment, he seemed capable of anything.
“I’m beginning to understand the extent of my sister’s derangement,” he said. “She should not have been allowed to live free.”
“This isn’t sick,” Jen said, whirling on him and getting up in his face. She needed to vent her anger, and he had given her a target. “This is psychopathic. Evil. She shouldn’t have been allowed to live at all!”
Mason’s gaze rested on her. She didn’t look away, didn’t back down. Her pale cheeks held spots of bright red. She held her hands clenched at her sides, her body tensed as if she were about to throw down. If Mason didn’t use magic, I’d put my money on her to win.
Finally he gave a short little nod. “I can’t disagree.”
Jen made a hmphing sound and began pacing again, casting angry glances at the cage and the manacles.
Leave it to Ben to stir the flames. “What’s in the cabinet?”
“I’d suggest you all not look in there right now,” I said. “It’s only bound to piss you off more.”
I don’t know who reached it first—Jen or Damon. They wrenched open doors. Inside, there were three shelves on the top and then a large, open area with pegs along the cabinet sides and the inside of the doors.
Damon slammed his hand down on the top of the cabinet, cracking it and probably shattering his knuckles. Idiot. If I didn’t know he could heal himself, I’d have been worried.
Jen started swearing, calling Aunty Mommy every filthy name she could think of and more she made up. Lorraine stopped crying. The professional mask came out, the one she used when dealing with abused animals. Good. I hated seeing her cry.
Mason came to look. Shock and horror flickered over his expression and then he masked up too. Ben looked ready to faint. I ran down the steps and put an arm around him.
“Hey now, breathe. Come on. Sit down.” I guided him over to the stairs and sat him down. I pushed his head between his knees. “Deep breaths. Focus on happy thoughts. You’re going to be fine.”
I turned around and the others stood in a semicircle, watching me. Damon looked agonized and I didn’t think it was his rapidly swelling hand.
“That was stupid,” I told him. “But at least you didn’t pick the wall to argue with.”
I was hoping to relieve the tension a little, but it didn’t work. I decided that I’d keep talking until they got a grip. Better than this grim silence.
“She started on me before I really remember. As I got older, she wanted more privacy and a more specialized space. She’d had the mansion built and I guess was already planning this particular fun zone. I started getting mouthier and more rebellious, and I ended up down here fairly often. Luckily I had school, so I had a regular escape during the year. When I hit my high school years, she started in with the climbing, running, and swimming, and I was in here less and less often. In the past few years, it’s been only once or twice a month for the most part.”
Nothing I said seemed to be helping. Maybe if I reminded them why were down here.
“Did you try the key?”
Mason jaw muscles flexed. “No.”
“It’s just around there behind my—” Oops. “Behind the cage.” I edged past them. “I found a toggle switch in the drain. It triggered the keyhole somehow.” I pointed down the little stub of a hall. “There. See?”
Mason went past and inserted the key. He twisted it and the wall dissolved. A wave rippled outward from the lock and the wall morphed into silver dust that faded away like sparks from a fire.
I couldn’t see what lay beyond. I followed as Mason stepped inside Aunty Mommy’s hidden lair. Within was a bigger room than I had imagined. Elegantly appointed, it contained modern furniture with squared-off lines in blacks, whites, and grays, making the brilliant colors of the abstract paintings pop. I felt a distinct letdown. I couldn’t see any signs of storage. It was just a sitting room.
I turned in a circle. Damon stood in the doorway, the girls and Ben behind him.
“There’s nothing here,” I said, my earlier triumph mutating into disappointment. It was a punch to the stomach. I grabbed hold of myself. No. I wasn’t falling down that rabbit hole. The gargoyles’ mates needed to be found. If there were no clues here, then we had to start looking elsewhere.
“The heart of the home,” Mason murmured, tossing the key in his fingers. “Adriane was paranoid. More than most of us, which is saying something. One lock wouldn’t have been good enough for her.”
“So we need another keyhole?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe you’re the key,” Damon said. “She could have tied another lock to you so that only you could open it.”
Mason nodded and I couldn’t tell if he agreed or was just accepting the suggestion. He walked around the walls, studying the paintings and the furniture. A medallion rug sat in the center of a group of chairs and a love seat. He paused in the middle. My heart jumped but steadied when he returned to the center of the room. He looked up.
A chandelier cast a soft glow over the room. Ornate and crusted with hundreds of crystals, it looked seventeenth-century French.
“That’s odd,” I said.
“What?” Mason and Damon asked at the same time.
“The room is modern. The chandelier is anything but. It belongs in a room full of Louis XIV furniture. This sort of mismatching is a decorating faux pas of epic proportions for someone as finicky as Aunty Mommy.”
Mason nodded. “I agree.”
“Does that help us?”
He gave an absent sort of smile. “Possibly.”
He walked around the hanging fixture, studying it from every angle. I backed out of his way. I wanted to check Damon’s hand, but I didn’t think he’d be happy about it. He’d gone back to robo-mode. All business. Yet under that steel exterior burned passion. What would it be like to unleash it?
I shivered and returned my attention to Mason. Now was not the time to think about getting hot and sweaty with Damon. I wasn’t sure when that time would come.
“Was there some sort of secret that you and Aunty Mommy shared?” I asked. “Something that she’d count on you to think of and nobody else?”
Mason gave me a startled look. “We were close as children, separated by only a few years. Adriane was younger. She and I....” He trailed away as he looked up again at the light. “Could it be?” he whispered to himself.
He gestured and scarlet magic whirled in his palm. He tossed it upward, and it broke into a cloud of fluttering butterflies. Each settled on one of the chandelier’s many crystals. As they touched down, a gold light flashed and the butterfly vanished. The crystals continued to shine. By the time they’d all lit up, the chandelier resembled a small sun. It began to spin. It went slowly at first and then faster, the crystals chiming softly.
All at once the chandelier burst apart. The crystals flew into the air and stopped, a sprinkling of gold stars against the high ceiling. They fell slowly, like feathers, trailing sparks that hung in the air behind them. When the last one fell, the sparks contracted into a shining oval. Mason stepped toward it and placed his hand flat against it. For a second, the world froze. Then everything around us whirled and melted. Instantly I felt seasick. I closed my eyes. My body swayed and I braced myself.
I smelled jasmine.
I blinked and opened my eyes. The room had changed. More than changed. It was half grotto, half sitting room. The modern furniture had disappeared, replaced by walls of stone with niches and hollows full of pillows. The floor rippled up, providing natural chaises mounded with plump cushions. Light came from cupped areas in the walls, dozens of them. A waterfall splashed from a rock wall. Verdant moss grew all around it, and where the moss gave way, white jasmine hung in perfumed curtains.
I turned. A wood-paneled room opened on the wall opposite the waterfall. The walls glowed honey gold. Shelves and cabinets crowded inside, with a desk fitted into the corner.
I started toward the room, but Mason stopped me with a hand on my arm.
“Now’s not the time to forget Adriane was paranoid.”
I itched to go inside and rifle through her secrets, but he was right. Just because we’d gotten through two locks didn’t mean there weren’t a dozen more.
I glanced toward Damon. He wasn’t there. Neither was the doorway into the torture room. Shit. I bet he was climbing walls with both me and Mason vanishing.
“Where are we?” I asked. “Are we still in the house even?”
“We didn’t travel anywhere, if that’s what you’re asking,” Mason said. “We’re in bubble that overlays and shares the same space as the room, but in a different dimension. Building that is a rare talent indeed and requires a great deal of power. Adriane didn’t have the former and not nearly enough of the latter. Someone must have helped her.” He frowned.
“Why do I feel as if I just landed in Oz?” I muttered.
He looked around. “It looks very much like a place we used to go in Ireland, though that spot was not underground.” He shook his head. “She spent her magic lavishly here. I suppose she was limited in the real world, afraid that she’d call attention to herself and someone would find her.”
He’d paused outside the entry to the secret room. Now he stepped inside. A film of magic wrapped him as though it had been waiting in the doorway like a giant web. It wound around him, turning him into a golden mummy. Thirty seconds later, it melted away into nothingness.
Mason smoothed his hands over his hair and then down his arms. “That was unpleasant,” he said.
“That was her hallmark. Do you see anything useful? A binder labeled Gargoyles or something?”
He started opening cabinets and examining the contents of the shelves. After ten minutes, he stepped back into the grotto room.
“I’m afraid this is going to take a while. I want to return you to Damon and the others. Speak to the gargoyles and let them know what we’ve discovered. I’ll continue to search here.”
Tired of feeling useless, I agreed.
“Where did you go?” Jen demanded, shoving past Damon, who reluctantly backed out of the way. Lorraine crowded in behind her.
“I have no idea. There’s another place there or something. Hidden behind magic.” I felt the space behind me firm into a solid wall again. “Mason is going to see what he can find.”
“So what do we do now?” Lorraine asked.
I shrugged helplessly. “The best thing to do is go home and get some sleep. You two need to go to work. Once Mason finds something, we can figure out the next step.”
“I hate to leave without being able to offer the gargoyles more than just crossed fingers,” Lorraine said.
“Me too,” I said. “But we’ve been up all night. We’re all exhausted and there’s nothing else we can do right now. I’ll talk to them and let them know we aren’t giving up until we find their mates.”
“Okay, but....” Lorraine chewed her lower lip.
“What?”
“We want to talk about what happened down here,” Jen said.
I nodded. “I know.”
“Soon.”
“Whenever you want.”
Chapter 32
We trouped back upstairs. Ben had got hold of himself but had lost that happy-go-lucky puppy thing he’d had going on. He appeared to have grown older.
“Do you have anyplace to go?” I asked him as we walked into the kitchen.
“I’ve got to grab my car and get into the City.”
“Are you okay to drive? Maybe you should get a hotel room. I’d put you up, but I’m already crashing with Damon,” I said, sliding a look at Mister Stoic.
He’d not said a word since I’d come out of Aunty Mommy’s secret lair. His face was shuttered, and he gazed out the window as if we weren’t there.
Putting the Fun in Funeral Page 27