My heart slammed in my chest.
The Root of All Evil had won.
At the very moment of my despair, though, a flickering yellow light made me pause with a glimmer of hope. But when I came around the corner into The Field of Pitchforks, I saw that the light was just part of the haunted house.
I was just headed into the next room, the Meat Cleaver Kitchen, when the feeble lights went out entirely.
Plunged back into darkness and all alone in the haunted house, I heard footsteps coming at me from behind.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It suddenly occurred to me that this might not have been the best idea. My chest started to ache and I realized that I was holding my breath. Fear permeated every bone in my body.
A stranger was in the haunted house with me. And that stranger meant me harm.
A step alerted me to something behind me, and I spun around. To my shock, there was nothing there.
I took a deep, steadying breath and told myself to go on. Standing around wasn’t going to catch me the Skeleton Trio’s murderer. Staying in one place just made me a target.
Another scraping noise sounded behind me, and this time I didn’t bother to look. I just ran.
In the next room I halted again. I glanced over my shoulder, but once again there was nothing there. Hopefully Cookie was all right. Hopefully Lark and Pep had made some progress.
“You think you’re so smart,” came a familiar voice out of the darkness, a voice I had always known as lilting and friendly.
I froze.
I wasn’t alone after all.
Slowly I turned around to face Mirrorz. He stood there, impeccably dressed as usual. But something about him had changed.
“Is everything okay?” I asked him.
He raised his manicured eyebrows. “Everything is splendid. My plan is working out perfectly.”
“Your plan?” I asked.
“Yes, of course my plan,” he snapped. “You think the rest of these fools could come up with something so brilliant?”
“At the moment I don’t know what you came up with,” I told him honestly.
“You’ll see soon enough. Good of you to stick around. I wondered if that old kook of a grandmother of yours was lying. I thought she might suspect me. Now I can say: she was right.”
My mind was rushing at a hundred miles an hour. Cookie had suspected Mirrorz? I had thought she merely told him we were all leaving so he’d spread the word to the real villains, but now I wondered if she had known all along. I certainly hoped so, but I also had to face the fact that Mirrorz was giving her more credit than I was.
“Yes, the rest of you were so busy chasing your tails and going Down Below and all that other nonsense that you didn’t see what was right in front of you.” Mirrorz sounded delighted.
“You mean the grandfather clock?” I said.
“Yes, we didn’t have time to clean it. We’d tried to steal it before, but those ridiculous skeletons would never leave us alone long enough,” Mirrorz said, shaking his head in fake sadness.
“They liked the vampires,” I said.
“They didn’t respect us!” Mirrorz cried.
“Given that you want to tear the mansion down, I can’t imagine why,” I murmured.
“Dear girl, I don’t want to tear the mansion down. This is a place of great innovation, and I would never ruin it. No, I want it all to myself.”
“Sure, like that’s ever going to happen,” I muttered. I had always liked Mirrorz. It was a shock to know how badly I’d misjudged him, and how sadly delusional he was. But I put that thought aside for later; right now I had to figure out how to get out of this mess.
“What significance does the grandfather clock have in all of this?” I asked. “You didn’t just use it as a hammer, right?” I thought of the great old clock coming down on the heads of the Skeleton Trio and cringed.
“You know it’s important, but you still haven’t discovered why? I guess your witch’s education wasn’t as good as I thought,” sniffed Mirrorz.
“I really hate it when people talk in riddles and don’t answer questions,” I shot back.
The green glow from the haunted house was getting dimmer. Pretty soon I’d be in darkness again.
“We always liked you,” I whispered, suddenly feeling sad. “You were always like an older, disapproving brother to me.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but the elimination of all witches is the only way,” said Mirrorz. He sounded unconcerned, not to mention impervious to flattery.
“Okay, so I guess we’re not on the same side,” I said.
As we talked, Mirrorz was becoming paler, and to my horror, larger. His hands started to lengthen and his nails looked like claws. I swallowed hard.
When he smiled, I knew I had to run.
“You’re the last thing that stands in the way of my total magical domination,” he cooed. “You’ll regret ever crossing me.”
“This is my home. You crossed me and you’ll regret it,” I said.
We’d used up all the tricks that Cookie had had us place around the mansion, but no matter. I could come up with something without my grandmother’s help.
Couldn’t I?
Once again I ran, and once again I dashed behind the first door I came to, which turned out to be a tiny le-haunt cubbyhole. Panting madly in the gloom, I felt claw-like hands grab my arm and I nearly screamed. But a familiar voice in my ear put me at ease. Kind of.
“It’s the time of year that’s important,” said the urgent voice of Uncle Taft. “With the rain, all the ghosts will be at full strength, and with the full moon they’ll be unstoppable. You have to smash the clock face.”
“Mom won’t be pleased,” I whispered.
“Leave that to me,” said Uncle Taft.
“Jane, where are you?” Mirrorz's voice floated over us and I pressed further back into the cubbyhole.
“I’ll distract him. You run,” whispered Uncle Taft.
“Sounds good,” I lied.
Wait a second.
“Where do I run to?” I asked. Cookie did not seem like a safe place. To be fair, she’d probably be insulted if I thought she was.
“The Root of All Evil is heading for the roof,” said Uncle Taft. He looked taller and stronger than I had seen him look in years. He was alert and vital. He was ready to fight. “You have to get there first or in the middle. I’ve already told Lark and Pep to head that way.”
“That sounds totally doable,” I said.
Not.
“On three,” said Uncle Taft. Then he let go of my arm and ran forward yelling. Clearly he’d forgotten the numbers between one and four.
Sighing, I raced away from the sound of his voice and hoped that if Mirrorz caught up with him he wouldn’t hurt him.
There wasn’t much working in my favor in that wild escape, but at least I knew the haunted house well, while Mirrorz never came in here. He ran the house staff and thought the haunted part was beneath him.
This’ll show him, I thought.
Hopefully.
I dodged around the space where I knew an old, half-burned chest stood open. When customers came through, a vampire would pop out of it and say something terrifying. I half expected that to happen now, but it didn’t.
There was an emergency exit behind the statue of the scarecrow and I made for that. The door wasn’t locked, thank goodness. I wrenched it open and slammed into the rickety back stairwell. For a few seconds I stood there with my hands on my knees and tried to catch my breath.
No sounds came from the haunted house. Hopefully Uncle Taft really was all right.
The staircase led all the way to the roof, and I took the old wooden steps two at a time.
I was worried, because it seemed like Lark and Pep should have shown up by now. Without them I really was all alone.
The wind rattled through the stairwell and I fought my fear as I climbed higher. Thunder still boomed as the storm raged on outside. The wind had started to
lash the side of the mansion and the rain was coming down as hard as ever.
A perfect night for a haunted house to come to life.
Not that I was happy about it.
If I didn’t stop what the Root of All Evil had planned now, tonight—they would never be stopped.
“Who’s there?” Cookie called down. I had one more flight to go.
“It’s me, Jane,” I called back.
“Where have you been!” Cookie hollered.
I got close, but so much for the element of surprise.
“How many members do you think the Root of All Evil has?” I whispered to my grandmother.
“What do you think I am? An encyclopedia? Who cares? Five or fifty, they all want us dead,” she raged.
“Remind me not to ask you questions anymore. I figured that given your vast array of knowledge, you might have some idea,” I said.
“Don’t let the act fool you. I just like watching you three run around making fools of yourselves,” she replied.
“Thanks so much,” I shot back.
“Don’t mention it,” she whispered. Fishing in her cape, she pulled out a tissue. Sparks went flying and I flinched a bit. “Thing’s dusty. I really should perform spells more often.”
“Please don’t,” I begged.
Suddenly, something brushed against my leg and I screamed for real.
Rose looked up at me with her strange green eyes. “Get it together,” she scolded.
“Sorry.” I was embarrassed.
“Now we really have lost the element of surprise,” said Cookie. “Let’s go before they do something with that clock face that we’ll regret.”
She adjusted her witch’s hat, straightened the hem of her dress, and pulled the collar of her cape straight.
Then, without saying a word, she pushed open the door to the roof and stepped through.
Rose and I were right behind her.
Nothing could have prepared me for the rain. We were instantly soaked. A crack of lightning flashed and illuminated the roof. Even the ability to see our surroundings wasn’t comforting when there were at least fifty vampires scattered around with their faces turned upward.
“You should have used a rainproof spell,” said Cookie, standing there perfectly dry.
“Like I know how to do that,” I said.
“Oh, bother,” Cookie said, and waved her hand. Her magic sputtered and died.
The roof of the mansion suddenly seemed very high up. Gulping, I tried not to look down.
“What do you think you’re doing?” snapped one of the vampires. He had stopped looking up and was now looking at us. “Always meddling. I should have known you’d come up here,” he continued.
“We’re going to have to jump for it,” said Cookie.
“No way,” I said.
“Just wanted to see if you’d believe me,” she said. “We aren’t going to jump. We’re going to fight!”
My grandmother rolled up her tattered sleeves and turned to face the vampires, her face determined, magical chimes ringing all around her.
As her words sang out, more of the vampires took notice of our presence and turned to stare. Meanwhile, I realized that there was even more movement down on the ground. When I looked all the way down the walls of the mansion to the grass, I saw ghosts. Not one or two but hundreds of ghosts. They had all turned solid.
Now we were in real trouble. Even if jumping had been feasible, it sure wasn’t going to do us any good with all those ghosts milling around down there.
Without warning, one of the vampires swung, swooshing though the air at breakneck speed. He was so fast I could barely follow him as he went straight for Cookie.
I dove forward. My magic felt slow and it sputtered as I tried to use it, but I did manage to get a basic protection spell up in front of her. There was a tinkle and a pop as the spell appeared.
The vampire was expecting a spell from Cookie and was surprised when one came from me.
We both stumbled, and the chiming sound grew. Little fireworks went off on the shield where the vampire collided with it. Cookie’s eyes went wide, then narrowed.
“I don’t need my granddaughter protecting me,” she yelled.
I was now sprawled on the wet stones. At least the rain had lightened up just slightly.
Scrambling to my feet, I realized that more vampires were closing in, all their attention now entirely focused on us. Uncle Taft had said to smash the clock, but where was it?
None of the vampires looked like they were holding anything. Mirrorz hadn’t arrived yet, but it was only a matter of time.
I thought I saw movement on one of the nearby roofs, but just as I tried to focus on that new danger, more vampires came racing at us.
“Get back to back,” Cookie cried, still waving her hand crazily.
I scrambled over to my grandmother and turned my back to her and she to me. Her head only reached my shoulder, so I didn’t really feel like it offered equal protection, but since I was now facing at least twenty vampires I had bigger problems than arithmetic.
“I thought all the witches left,” sighed one of the vampires. His face split into a grin and a shiver ran down my spine.
“Clearly not. Two are right in front of us,” said another vampire. His voice was silky and delighted. They had wanted a fight.
“Yes, it’s confusing,” said the first vampire. “That was my point.”
“I bet you’re easily confused,” Cookie yelled over my shoulder.
“Cookie, be quiet,” I growled.
“Can’t help myself,” she said.
“I believe that,” I muttered.
Just then the roof door burst open and Lark and Pep stumbled through. Pep’s perfect ponytail looked mussed and Lark’s shoes had been singed.
Their shock at seeing the waiting vampires was written all over their faces.
When they caught sight of us they raced toward us, but a skeleton and a ghost stepped in front of them.
Just as the vampires geared up to attack again I saw Mirrorz shoot onto the roof from over the wall. He made for a corner, where another vampire handed him the clock face.
His whole expression changed once he had it in his hands. In the darkness of the night his face lit up and the pale moonlight was reflected in his cheeks. His eyes burned with delight. “Finally,” he breathed.
Without a moment’s thought I raced toward him. A skeleton tried to grab me, but I shot an itching enchantment at him. Both the enchantment and the skeleton giggled.
“You won’t get away with this,” I yelled, barreling into Mirrorz just as he was taking the clock into his own hands.
He tried to sidestep my attack, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. With a thud we both landed on the ground and the old clock was tossed into the air.
Lark had followed me over and made the same diving catch for the clock that the vampire made, but neither of them was as agile as Rose. The white cat leaped through the air in a blur and landed on the spinning object as if she was surfing.
Rose perfectly changed the trajectory of the clock to send it flying away from the tumbled heap of witches and evil.
I grabbed Mirrorz by the arm when he tried to scramble away, but I couldn’t keep him still long enough to perform a stunning spell. Lark was having the same trouble with her vampire.
For the split second that I was paying attention to Lark, Mirrorz took advantage and elbowed me in the rips. Pain shot through my side and I was forced to let go of him.
He scrambled to his feet and went searching for the cat and the clock.
Rose had skittered over the wet cobblestones and landed at the feet of a tall man dressed in black.
At the moment he was shimmering, and chimes like water droplets bursting were going off.
Grant stood there, but he looked different. His clothes were more splendid than before and his hat more rakish. He looked taller, too.
“IT’S HIS MAJESTY OF MAGIC! RUN!” a frantic vampire yelled out when h
e saw Grant.
From my prone position on the roof I tried to grasp what was happening, but I couldn’t manage to take it in.
Fanning out behind Grant were several other warlocks.
Grant was His Majesty of Magic?
No way. No, no, NO way.
The man who had been staying at the mansion raised his hand and pointed at Mirrorz. The longtime butler made one more frantic dive for the clock, but he knew it was useless even as he did it.
For a split second Grant’s eyes flicked to me, then they returned to Mirrorz.
“Wait, I can explain!” cried Mirrorz. Without waiting to see if Grant believed him, he then yelled, “Attack!”
All the Root of All Evil bad guys sprang into action. Overwhelmed, the warlocks and witches fought for our lives.
Suddenly, ghosts, vampires, skeletons and even the moody le-haunts came rushing through every door and window.
Mirrorz paused for a split second. “Vampires to me!” he cried. All the vampires wearing black and red gathered around him at the edge of the mansion rooftop. I told myself there was no way they were about to do what I thought they were about to do. Mirrorz's eyes swept all of us. For a split second they landed on me. Behind me was the clock. Out of his reach now.
Without a word, Mirrorz turned around and jumped over the side of the mansion. The other vampires quickly followed suit. Grant raced forward, but there was nothing he could do. When I reached the edge a split second later I saw the vampires soaring away into the blustering night.
We had saved the day, or rather the night.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
We gathered in the kitchen.
The warlocks had gone after the vampires. They had no hope of catching them, but they had to make sure they were gone. When Grant and the others left, my family and I started the slow process of assessing the damage and reclaiming our home. The mansion was in tatters after the vampires had swept through it with mayhem in mind.
No one said much at first. Debriefing would come once Grant returned. A slight knot in my stomach told me I was worried about his safety.
Spooky Business (Jane Garbo Mysteries Book 1) Page 21