House of Darkness

by K. R. Alexander

  “Okay, I’ll try with earth. You turn up the dimmer switch.”

  “You can build in grips with magic?” Gideon asked.

  “Not sure, but does anyone have any better ideas?”

  “Hear that?” Gideon shouted. “We’re climbing out to tan your pelt!”

  Adam snarled upward.

  “There’s no fox, Gideon. I’m telling you—whatever.” Shaking my head. The smell of death had grown stronger with each breath. There was no way we were going through that passage. Which apparently meant I was the one who had to get us to fresh air. At least I wasn’t worried about these three being able to watch my back.

  I tossed my caterpillar light up into the tunnel for a look around. This light was so called because of the green hue and fuzzy texture that had delighted me when I’d first learned to manipulate energy as a child. Dad used to lie with me on the lawn after dark on hot summer nights, making it look as if we faced a sky ablaze with shooting stars. Even when I was little I’d been able to send out a puff of a caterpillar light.

  My greenish fuzz rippled softly up the passageway into the basement. This was not so high that Gideon wouldn’t be able to reach the next level and pull himself into the foyer with those muscles if only we could get as far as the basement. This part of the tunnel was the trouble. Not just a floor breaking into ceiling situation on this level, but several feet of earth before spitting its victims into this room.

  Rough and uneven as it was, if you tried to grab at the walls they simply crumbled away. The tunnel had been made for dropping people down, exactly like a laundry chute. Not for anyone to get out.

  Adam growled.

  Something hissed.

  Gideon snatched stakes from the floor.

  “Let them handle it,” I whispered, not looking around. “Unless there’s a bunch. Save your energy until we need it.”

  I pressed my hands into the earth wall, calling on forces of earth, stone, my own inner power, and willing the face of the tunnel to change.

  The battle behind me was loud and brief. I kept focus, letting my caterpillar light fade.

  A violent thud, a shriek from an undead throat.

  Building solid stone handholds. Two, three, four…

  I tested one, pulling myself up, heaving with both blood-smeared hands. It held. At least for my weight.

  “Wade? A boost?” I lifted one foot, unseen below me, as if seeking the rung of a ladder.

  I waited a second while he paid attention enough to figure out the request, then cupped his glowing hands for my shoe.

  I pulled as he hoisted. I reached, grabbed, and put all my strength into dragging with both arms and catching that elusive foothold. Wade caught my other flailing foot, gave an extra boost, and I scrambled up—with dirt and who knew what else smearing everything from hair to walking shoes, including my glasses.

  This smear was why, when I looked up, head level with the basement floor, it took me a second to realize I was seeing a man standing in the foyer above, silently looking down at me.

  9

  I screamed and jumped back, terrified as the immobile figure above just watched. Crash into the side of the tunnel, fall, still screaming, dirt in my mouth, caterpillar light vanishing in a puff.

  “Ripley?” Wade caught me, maybe saving me from bashing my skull open if I’d fallen all the way onto my back. Instead, we both crashed to the floor in a heap.

  “Is it that fox?” Gideon dashed for the tunnel.

  Breath knocked from Wade and me all over again.

  “Someone’s up there!”

  “Fox!”

  “No!”

  Light gone. Growl-bark. Hiss.

  “Shit!”

  “Adam!”

  Snarl. High-pitched shriek.

  I sent out my caterpillar into the room.

  Adam had another wizened old vampire by the throat.

  Stake in hand, Gideon dove for them. Slam. That was our last stake. He’d only tossed down two.

  “What was up there?” Wade managed to gasp, unable to draw breath as I climbed off him. When he said it, I realized “what” was the big question. Not “who.” That hadn’t been a man at all. Not a live one. Maybe not a solid one. Did this mean I had my curse back?

  I shook my head and coughed. “Someone…?”

  “I’ll go first,” Gideon said like a command, now more eager for a fox hunt than a vampire hunt. “Just throw a light up there.”

  Wade sent up a feeble but passable scrap of fire through the tunnel.

  Gideon didn’t need a boost. He found the stone handholds and pulled himself up like a tiger.

  Adam planted himself before the three bodies, facing the tunnel.

  “You next.” Wade managed to get to his feet.

  My heart was still hammering, dazed from the second fall and new fear and uncertainty. What had I really seen? In all the stories they used to tell of house-cleaning, no one had ever mentioned the first step landing in the dungeon; battered, shaken, and draining magic before getting started. Was there even a working flashlight left between us? I still had the little daypack on, phone in there, but hadn’t thought to stock it with other backup light sources. Or wooden stakes. Now that it came down to it … I hadn’t thought this out at all. Finding help and being able to start the work had seemed to be all that mattered.

  Wade tried to give me a boost as Gideon scrambled to the basement floor above us.

  “What about him?” Wade asked.

  “What?”

  “Adam?”

  Adam looked around.

  I called up. “Gideon? What about Adam? He can’t climb this.”

  “Oh, crap… He’ll have to change.”

  “We need him—” I stopped. We didn’t really need him to be fanged. We were getting out of here. We’d had our test. It could have gone better. Maybe I was getting my curse back? That was something. We’d just … try later. “Okay. Adam, are you ready? You two hurry after me.”

  Again, I pulled. Wade pushed. This time Gideon was waiting at the top to take my hand. Angels and demons, if you need help climbing out of a deep pit in the dark when you’re beat up and scared, just have a werewolf there. Strong as a tow-truck, you’d have thought he was lifting a kitten from a ditch.

  Breath of fresh air to be with a man who made me feel downright petite. Not that we were together or anything. But … well … I could think of worse alternatives.

  There was a scramble below. Wade swore under his breath at the horrible sound, and maybe sight, of Adam changing back into an upright form. At first I thought the hissing and muttering was part of the change or talk between them, noise blending together in the gloom below.

  I crouched on my hands and knees at the top of the tunnel. “Wade!”

  Something exploded like a thunderclap, rattling the ground beneath me. In the next second, Wade, newly splattered with more vampire bits, was struggling up on the handholds. I sat back to give him room as Gideon leaned in. He hoisted Wade up as he had me. Adam was right behind him, quick climb, pulling himself up and over, naked skin streaked in dirt.

  Below, something was hissing, rasping and muttering as more undead shuffled into the room. Even with another head exploded, they’d narrowly avoided being bitten.

  “Fireball,” Adam ordered, punching Wade on the shoulder and knocking him flat. He’d already been gasping on his knees, but still… “What I wouldn’t give for a gas can and a match. Hear that? Can’t you do a fireball?”

  “This is not a movie or D&D!” I told him. “We don’t ‘cast fireballs’ and wouldn’t in there even if we could. It would wash right back into us.”

  “Torching is the best thing for those Moon-cursed sewer-scrapers. Did you see me get that one, Gid?”

  “Wish you’d nabbed that pointy-nosed bastard instead. He probably hightailed it out of the county with our stakes.”

  “There was no fox!” I said. “How many times do I have to tell you? Wade?”

  He couldn’t stop coughing,
fighting to his knees and away from the shifters, bent over and suffocating on the dust and energy drain and being clobbered.

  I found my water bottle in the daypack to share for the two of us while the wolf dudes bemoaned not having a bucket of gasoline and a match. The pit seethed with hisses and wet sounds of snapping rotten gums together.

  I rinsed my mouth and spit dirt. Wade gulped. Gideon turned from the cellar and reached, easily able to touch the ceiling, seeking purchase to climb into the foyer. My fuzzy green light was little help, but no one loomed up there now. It was higher than it had looked.

  This was a basement, right? So wasn’t there a way in and out that didn’t involve climbing through holes in the floor?

  Wade was already looking around, bottle in his hand, while I watched Gideon, focused on not looking at the totally unselfconscious Adam who paced hostilely around the hole in the floor, muttering and growling.

  “Burning’s the only way. Stinking hive out in country like this? It’s a black Moon, isn’t it?”

  I should walk around with the fuzzy light to find stairs up. Or at least tell Gideon to forget about the foyer and search.

  Wade gagged and sprayed water as if someone had kicked him in the back.

  I twisted to follow Wade’s gaze—and gasped.

  10

  The fox sat in darkness with his fluffy tail wrapped around his front paws like a cat, motionless, simply watching us.

  A jolt of fear shot down my spine, making me jump and fall back, shouting out. I’m not afraid of foxes anymore than dogs or cats. But I am afraid of absolutely anything that appears out of nowhere, in the near-pitch-dark to behave in a totally abnormal manner—be that a man, a fox, or a cricket.

  Even at Wade’s sputtering and my yell and motion, the fox remained immobile, eyes reflecting as bright green disks, only staring.

  Adam and Gideon whipped around. My light vanished in my own terror. Not a fox. Some sort of trick, telepathy, illusion. But why? Mom and Dad had talked about devilish traps and shrieking voices. They hadn’t talked about this.

  I threw my hands out in front of my face, drawing a fresh light to my fingers, ready to … something. Fight?

  Wade sent out another glowing orange orb, flickering and dim after the drain he’d already suffered. The two shifters dashed past us to face … nothing. The fox was gone. The basement was so much musty, dark space reeking of death, punishingly hot.

  “It was only a…” I trailed off, voice shaking, as they hurried around a corner. The basement seemed to form an L shape. Maybe stairs up to a kitchen or hallway beyond?

  Had it gone down there? Was it a real fox?

  I forced myself to follow, pulse speeding, covered in dirt, sweat, and streaks of blood and vampire head.

  “It was that same fox!” Gideon yelled.

  I don’t know if they were fearless or simply ignorant as to the sorts of trouble one could have in demon-inhabited dwellings. I wouldn’t have charged around that black corner before the light reached it for all the jewels on board the Titanic.

  “Wait!” I dashed after them, stopped at the corner.

  The light soared past. Gideon and Adam paused, looking around as the flame-like glow flickered to each corner.

  Old junk, broken bed-frame, a couple of kegs, knocked over shelf, and the like were scattered along the walls. At the far end of the room a dusty, cobweb-thick stairway led to a shut door.

  “It’s got to be here,” Adam said as both started looking around.

  There wasn’t much to look behind. There was no fox.

  “He’s not real,” I started again, sucking down a deep breath as I willed my knees not to give way. “Let’s get back upstairs and—”

  Something touched my back.

  I screamed, spun, and threw force into both hands with a blaze of energy pent-up and bursting out like a magical baseball bat.

  Wade yelled as the blow sent him crashing across the floor.

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were behind me. Just say something next time!” Inexplicably furious with him, as if he’d meant to sneak up on me.

  Wade coughed, unable to defend himself while he couldn’t draw breath.

  His orange light had vanished again. Only a white haze around my hands illuminated the curving basement.

  “Stairs,” I panted. “Quick. Sorry, Wade…”

  Gideon rested a protective hand on my shoulder, alarmed by my scream but finding no enemy to tackle. Adam was sniffing in the dark behind us, inching around the room, trying to detect the odor of a hidden fox despite his nose no longer being suited to the task. Wade managed to stagger to his feet. I held my hand out to him.

  “I’m all right,” Wade mumbled, wiping his mouth with his wrist. “Fine. Didn’t mean to startle you, Ripley. Can we just … get out of here? Fresh air?”

  We made our way to the stairs with no sign of any fox, having to insist that Gideon and Adam give up their search to join us.

  At last, we managed to climb to the door. It was locked. Gideon threw his shoulder into it, then sprang back, looking down. I’d been trying to push past him to use magic on the door but also stopped as something glinted.

  A slow trickle of fresh blood seeped below the crack in the door to drip on the step above Gideon’s feet.

  I shook my head. This, finally, was exactly the kind of imagery I’d expected. Just what they used to repel unwanted cleansers.

  “It’s nothing. It’s not really there.” I pushed my way to the door, having to stand touching Gideon, the creaking stairs were so narrow.

  They looked from the blood to me—Wade just behind and Adam trailing.

  “You know,” I continued, feeling better all the time. “Vindictive spirits can get into your head, project images, try to scare people away from their homes. So can vampires. You might see dead bodies or blood or even something really stupid like a spider infestation or rattlesnake. Whatever might scare someone off. But it’s not really there. All you have to do is interact with it and it vanishes.”

  “Like to interact with that bushy-tailed maggot,” Adam muttered.

  “The fox wasn’t real either.” I felt more confident with each word, voice stronger, as well as the light in my hands. I reached for the blood to show them.

  “Then how do you explain this?” Gideon held up his bitten hands.

  “Something evil did that but it wasn’t a wild fox. The fox was just an image they sent to you.” I dragged three fingers along the trail of blood, noting the sticky, wet, cool sensation. I brought my hand up to see in the light, also noting how blood on the wood backing of the step had been spread by my touch, diverting the drip.

  Adam crowded in by Wade as everyone pressed close, gazing intently at my fingers in front of my own nose. They seemed to be waiting for the coating of blood that ran gently down my fingers to vanish. Maybe I was too.

  “How long’s it take before it quits sniffing as real?” Adam asked.

  Wade gulped in my ear. “What do we do if it is real?”

  “I don’t mean to foul the den or anything,” Gideon said, crossing his arms. “But do you actually know what you’re doing?”

  While I stared at my own hand, totally dumbstruck—or I’d have been screaming.

  11

  If at first you don’t succeed, just fake it. That’s what my dad always said. It had worked for him in courting my mom—who was disinterested for, like, three years. It had worked for his career after he’d earned an MA in history and went on to work in banking for the rest of his life. He’d even claimed it worked for him in parenting, and, of course, house-cleaning.

  I didn’t scream. I didn’t panic. I certainly didn’t admit I had not the faintest idea what was happening here and had never heard of anything like human laundry chutes to feed vampires, or fox phantoms, or stumbling upon actual real blood in an infested house.

  I squared my shoulders. I said, very calmly, “Well, it’s late. Let’s just … head on out and we’ll … think about our pla
n.”

  “Call it a night?” Adam demanded.

  “What about that fox?” Gideon also sounded angry. “We just got here.”

  “That’s the way it goes sometimes.” I wiped my hand on my jeans and popped the door lock with magic. “The house isn’t going anywhere.”

  Gideon, who flinched from the magic, none too keen on the lights we made either, took over and pushed the door open.

  “We’ll at least find the vermin,” Adam said. “I’ll change back again.”

  “You don’t want that,” Gideon told him, stepping into what turned out to be the kitchen. He avoided the puddle of blood on the floor that had splattered and seeped under the door, sniffing as he went. “You’ve Marybeth to look after.”

  “Well, shoot, we can’t just cut out. How are we going to find the varmint if I don’t change?”

  Adam and Wade crowded close as I followed Gideon to the small farm kitchen, disproportionate to the big house. Moonlight shone dimly through filthy windows. Besides that blood, which dripped away down the hall, as if someone had been stabbed here, then staggered off, there was nothing amiss at a glance. Decades worth of cobwebs and dust layered everything, lending a flat, ghostly quality to the image with moonlight and the white glow from my hands. This was at odds with the room being roughly 110ºF, so boiling from the day’s trapped heat that it seemed we’d stepped into a preheating oven.

  Wade peered along the black hall, where drops of blood trailed off toward the front door. The shifters were sniffing the air and checking left and right. I avoided looking at that blood the same way I avoided looking at Adam. Basically for the same reason—no distractions.

  “It’s probably from something the fox killed,” I said, glad to hit on this solution. “If there’s really a fox. Let’s go. You’ve all proved yourselves tonight.” I headed into the hall, Wade at my side while the others remained behind.

  “What’s this?” Gideon asked.

  Wade hesitated but I didn’t slow or look around. “Come on. Good work and all—”