by Alexie Aaron
“It could only transport one human. I can’t risk a child in the war that I started. He has paid enough of a price for his gift. I’m sorry that I brought you into this.”
“You’re in this because I couldn’t stop Renee from controlling me.”
“We need to find the way out or find a place to hole up until help arrives. I pray that Ted has found a way to lock this place down.”
“I think we should head back to where we came in,” Murphy said. “Start at the beginning…”
Mia turned around and walked back to Dr. Rose. “We have talked it over, and aside from giving you time to think over what you’re going to start here, we are standing firm that you and your babies stay in Thornrose forever.”
“You’re giving me time,” Dr. Rose confirmed.
“Yes.”
“As if you have the upper hand?”
Mia spun around and stabbed the servant who was creeping up behind her. He fell into ash. She turned back and asked, “What were we talking about again… Oh yes, the upper hand.”
Doctor Rose reached out with his mind and tried to control the man with the axe. Murphy looked over at him and shook his head.
“Very well, give me some time. I feel like playing a game, and it seems the two of you will be a challenge. Run and hide, Mia. I assure you there is no way out for you.”
Dr. Rose backed away from Mia and her sword. He entered the house. Mia and Murphy took off running back up the street. They needed to get distance from the things that were in the pit. Regardless of whether the houses were real or not, they would be better than standing out in the open unprotected. Mia followed Murphy to the spot through which they had come in.
~
Ted typed furiously on the keyboard. He entered all the data he had taken in. He printed out the information and handed a set to each of the PEEPs. “I need you guys to read this and blurt out any ideas, concerns, anything that may jump into your mind. Jake is scanning it too.”
Audrey looked at the pages and was surprised by Ted’s side notes. “The way the house was rebuilt is how Thorn kept the monsters in. Maybe something was changed.”
“Excellent. I have Cid searching for a copy of the blueprints from the last renovation the house went through.”
“Those lead-lined steps bother me,” Burt said. “Murphy said that they continue down into the subbasement. I’m thinking that something happened for Thorn to change his design.”
“The steps are from the original house,” Orion said. “Lead lined?”
“Lead is a conductor of electricity, although a poor one,” Cid said. “We did experiments in school using a lead pencil.”
“Electricity is the key,” Ted said, popping up. “Mike, where is the breaker box located?”
“There’s a new one inside the butler’s pantry.”
“No, where is the one prior to the renovation?” Ted asked. “It would have been fuses before the renovation.”
“I don’t know. Wouldn’t it be nearby?” Mike asked.
“There’s nothing in there but the new box,” Ted assured him.
“Below,” Cid said. “That way, they wouldn’t have too far to run the wires.”
Ted picked up a flashlight and started for the stairs. “Warn Curly, I don’t want to be shocked because I startled him.” He walked down the steps and turned on all the lights in the open area. He walked over to where he thought the butler’s pantry was, but there wasn’t a pipe or wire on the wall. He reached up and knocked on the ceiling with his flashlight.
“Cid, am I under the pantry?”
“Negative, you’re tapping on the mudroom floor.”
Ted moved his hands along the wall tapping every now and again on the ceiling.
Cid responded with, “You’re in the kitchen, you’re in the hall.” Ted backtracked and began pushing on the cement blocks, shining light on the grout. Finally, he began to see the door. He jumped up and down and found where the floor wouldn’t give. He ran his hands up and found the pressure point. The wall moved outward. Before he went in, he called, “Cid, I’ve found a secret room. I need something to block the wall from sealing me in.”
“Mike’s on his way down,” Cid said.
Ted studied the mechanism while he waited. Mike showed up with a crowbar. Ted pointed to the hinges, and Mike levered them off. The men stood back as the concrete blocks first settled on the ground and then fell backwards. They crashed through the floor. Chunks of mortar and cement slid down the exterior of the arched ceiling Murphy had spoken of.
“Ted!” Cid yelled into his ear.
“What?” Ted asked, extracting the com.
“What happened? Burt’s ready to call 911.”
“Just some DIY courtesy of Dupree, dude.”
“You said you didn’t want the door closing on you. I took care of that,” Mike said sheepishly.
Ted brushed off the bricks underneath and found them secure. “We didn’t compromise the subbasement ceiling.”
“Well that’s good, I hope,” Cid said.
Burt walked down the stairs and stood there a moment watching Ted and Mike. They were looking into a giant hole in the floor. “Ted, I believe you were concerned with finding the original fuse box,” he reminded the tech.
Ted nodded and got to his feet. “Burt, I think we’re in an elaborate machine that just looks like a house. All the irregularities were constructed on purpose. The place where Mia ended up in the wall fits in somehow. I bet we find another one,” he said, walking into the room behind the opening. “Found the box but…”
Burt carefully walked around the hole and joined Mike at the entrance. They watched as Ted set several light disks on the floor. The room, aside from the box, was empty.
“Why go through all this trouble to hide a fuse box?”
“What about the pipe leading away from the box?” Mike said, pointing.
Ted ran his hand down and found the pipe that most probably contained wires. He saw where it hooked into the grid. There wasn’t a label on the fuse. He followed the pipe to another wall. This one was made up of wood slats. Ted sent a well-placed kick and the wall fell down. When the dust had cleared, Ted moved his flashlight into the interior. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed. “Cid, you have to see this. It’s right out of Jules Vern.”
Mike and Burt walked over. Mike had his shirt over his nose. He stopped and waited for Ted to put out more light disks before continuing in the space. With every disk placed, there was a new discovery. The hidden room was filled with brass and steel machinery. Some pieces were far advanced for the time period in which Thorn had existed. There were coils and massive gears attached to long steel arms that shot upwards into the house.
“Before you let the kid loose, remember your wife is stuck in this house somewhere,” Mike cautioned him.
“Cid wouldn’t do anything… Oh, you mean me. Cute, Dupree. This room bears some study. From what I read, there is a house within a house. Nowhere does it mention the portal into the dimensional pocket. I was hoping to find some kind of information here.”
“Where are the machines Thorn made for Dr. Rose?” Mike asked.
“I assume, since the results were failures, that Thorn let them burn,” Ted said.
Cid walked down the stairs and handed Burt the large camera. “Audrey and Jake are on com. Jake sent me a feed from Curly fromwhen the cement wall crumbled. The seal around the hatch cracked. I’m going to place a Rem-Pod on it to alert us to anything trying to open it.” Cid walked into the secret room, and his mouth dropped open. “Do you understand all of this, dude?”
“I can see that it manipulates the inner walls and staircase, but I’m going to need to study it before we try to get it to work.”
Cid turned to Mike, “Your mother bought a marvel. This place is worth millions.”
“Cid, the property it’s on is worth millions,” Mike said dryly. “Hand me the Rem-Pod. I hate to tear you away from…”
Cid glared at him. “I’ll do it.” C
id stomped off.
“Whoa, a bit of sass from Saint Cid,” Mike said, impressed.
“Wait,” Burt said, lowering the camera. “Let me get this straight. You, as a founding partner of PEEPs, are only impressed when you can push a valuable, compliant employee to the point of mutiny?”
Mike smiled. “Well, when you put it that way…”
“Heads up, PEEPs. Dieter has arrived on the back porch with a gentleman. Over,” Audrey announced.
Ted took off running and made the top steps by the time Cid caught up to him. Mike and Burt followed.
Dieter stood there wearing a coat three sizes too big. He walked up to Ted and reported, “Mia sent me on with this soul.” He patted his pack. “She asked me to have Baxter, who is Quentin’s man, bring me back here. I think she thinks he can help.”
Baxter took off his overcoat and laid it over the back of a chair. He looked around at the kitchen, and then he looked at the men before him. “Hello, which one of you is Mr. Martin?”
“I am, sir,” Ted said, reaching out his hand. “My wife spoke highly of you.”
“I have to admit to being pleased by this. Not often in my field of work am I regarded with anything but suspicion.”
“What is your line of work?” Mike asked.
“Paranormal Psychiatry.”
“Welcome to the club. Mike Dupree,” he said, giving Baxter a hearty handshake. “We have a bit of a problem here.”
“Mia mentioned she was on a ghost hunting investigation, but this young man says that she’s currently stuck in an alternate world with the notorious Dr. Rose.”
“It’s actually an interdimensional pocket.” Ted explained their situation thus far. Baxter walked over and served himself a cup of coffee. He took a long drink and then asked, “Do you mind if I have a look downstairs?”
“Please. Whatever help you can give us would be appreciated,” Ted said. They started walking towards the stairs. “I studied as much as I could of Thorn’s papers. You can’t bring anything back with you, so I had to rely on my memory. The vault can be very intimidating.”
“Tell me, when you were at the Dark Vault, was there a creature there that kept examining your nose?”
“Yes. I just thought it was because mine is rather large.”
“Same with mine. Evidently, he doesn’t understand Roman noses.”
“I bet he was around when the Romans were.”
Baxter laughed.
Dieter smiled at Burt. “I’d like to put this with the other one,” he said, holding up a jar with a very active light bouncing around inside.
“I put him in here,” Burt said, opening the door to the command center in the pantry.
Dieter squeezed by Audrey and set Katherine down next to the shadow man’s soul. “Miss Audrey, this is Katherine. She is four years old, and she is a very special soul.”
“Why?” Audrey asked, interested.
“Because she is young enough to reincarnate. Not everyone gets a second chance.”
“What about this one?” Audrey asked. “He’s rather surly.”
“I don’t know who he is, only what he is,” Dieter admitted. “They’ll sort it out up there.”
Audrey liked this young person. Odds were that he wasn’t a typical teenager, but she had come to understand that the world was full of interesting beings. Because of her acceptance of the paranormal, her relationship with Orion had bloomed. Orion had found her to be a good listener and an interested scholar. He regaled her with what she had to keep telling herself weren’t tall tales. He talked about how magical beings had to learn to go unnoticed now that the human population had overtaken the world. Humans were now everywhere. The magic population has learned that in large numbers, even the gentlest of beings were dangerous when frightened.
“Tell us what happened,” Burt encouraged the young man.
“After we determined there were only two souls in, what I believe Mr. Martin is calling, the pocket dimension, I called this one to us, and I’m sorry to say I encouraged Mia to face Dr. Rose. My thoughts were that he still had a soul, so maybe he would like to move on to another existence. He didn’t. He threatened to bring his creatures to this world to prey upon the innocents here. I could tell that Mia and Murphy were preparing for a fight, so I let her send me back into this world.”
“So the last you saw of Mia and Murphy was…”
“Mia was facing off with Dr. Rose.”
“Did they find the way out?” Burt asked.
“No, sir. There wasn’t any time. I think they are going to hold up somewhere until they or Mr. Martin can figure things out. Oh, Mia said to return these to you.” Dieter handed Burt a handful of coins. “We found them on the ground on the other side of the portal.”
Burt looked at them a moment. His face lit up. He asked, “Do you still have the charm?”
“Yes, Baxter said to return it to Mia.”
“So it still works?”
“This kind of magic doesn’t wear out,” Dieter said. “Just as my jars may look silly to some, but they can hold hundreds of souls. Science has limits because it’s math based. Magic is only limited by the power of the conjurer.”
Burt took the charm from Dieter. He excused himself and went in search of Ted.
Chapter Twenty-two
Murphy and Mia moved up the street cautiously. They had their backs to the other and took turns walking backwards.
“I noticed the people are still in the square. I hope it’s a good sign, telling us that we have time,” Mia said.
“I imagine time is different here than at home,” Murphy said.
“I miss home.”
“Me too.”
“How long have we been investigating this place?” Mia asked.
“Too long,” Murphy said.
“I wanted to tell you that I admire you for putting yourself through that horror of unearthing your grave and confronting your death.”
“It was necessary. Thank you for being my only mourner.”
“I hope it’s the last time for both of us.”
“I fear you’re next, Mia.”
“Gee, thanks, farm boy.”
Murphy laughed. “What I meant to say was, I’m already dead.”
“I’ve been dead, sorta dead, and yet-to-be-determined,” Mia said. “Each death brought me something nice,” she mused. “You, Ted, and my mother.”
“The last one you’re going to have to explain to me.”
“She saw that I was falling into myself, and she all but smacked me out of it. Later, she confessed something to me that explains so much. I think, by opening up, she’s been able to drag herself free of the prison she put herself in.”
“Too bad you had to die to get her there.”
Mia grimaced. “Some people require a little more prodding.”
“My mother was a tough woman. I think my father being a drinker and dying young took the sunshine out of her smile.”
“That would do it. You know, we ended up okay for being from screwed up mothers,” Mia said.
“Nope, we’re pretty screwed up too,” Murphy admitted. “You talk to ghosts, and I walk around with an axe in my hand.”
“Makes it difficult to itch your nose.”
“My nose never itches.”
They had made it to the last set of houses. Mia walked around in circles, looking for something on the ground. “Damn, not here yet.”
“What?”
“The charm. I expected Burt to toss it into the portal.”
Murphy pushed his hat back on his head. “Pretty smooth, if it had worked.”
“It still can happen. Let’s go into one of those houses and watch the street from inside.”
They chose a two-story home with a wide, covered entranceway. Mia walked up to the porch and stopped.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing here. What would you do?” she asked her friend.
“Me? I would try to move back
through the portal.”
“Can you see it?”
“Yes.”
“Um… K. Why don’t you guide me to it?” Mia wasn’t going to waste time on questioning Murphy about why he didn’t just say so. She figured that he was used to letting her lead and cleaning up the messes she got into. He was kind like that, but later, she would stress that they needed to communicate better.
“It’s up in the air thirty feet or so,” Murphy said, looking up.
Mia pulled the shield off her back and unfurled her wings. She rose off the ground and extended her hand. “Take me there.” Mia felt her energy quickly leaving her as she fought to stay in her winged form. Without sunlight, she couldn’t maintain her wings for too long. Here, where the very air fed on energy, the time would be considerably shorter.
Murphy rose and directed them to where he could see the swirling blackness. “I’m going to try to push through. Follow me,” he said.
Murphy entered the vortex and was pushed backwards with such power that he rebounded into Mia who was slammed into the ground by the force. Mia was injured, but she managed to withdraw her wings and find her shield. She, however, could not find Murphy.
She found his axe twenty feet from her. Mia attached it to her shield for safekeeping.
“Murph,” she hissed, not wanting to call attention to herself.
“Here,” he said faintly.
Mia moved quickly in that direction and found a depleted ghost lying in the street. She knelt down beside him and automatically started to examine him for broken bones.
“I have no bones. I’m a spirit,” he growled at her.
“Here, you’re a man,” she said stubbornly, finishing her evaluation. “How do you feel?”
“Ghosts don’t feel.”
“Here you do. Now stop being stubborn and answer me!”
“I’m very weak, my back hurts, and I’ve lost my axe.”
Mia reached behind her and drew out the axe. She gently laid it down next to him, placing his hand on the handle.
Murphy’s fingers curled around the wood, and as he touched his beloved axe, energy flowed into his body.
Mia exhaled a breath she had unconsciously had been holding.