Everything had taken longer than Christabel had planned. The ancient candles in the wall sconces had to be lit, as well as the brazier that now glowed red not far from a massive wooden chair that sported heavy metal manacles. In the brazier was what remained of the doll of Peter Castle. With sorrow, she had removed the power from his spirit and then sent it away.
It had also taken longer than expected to get the girl downstairs. She had come to before Theo could make it back up to the dormer room and Christabel had to knock Amber senseless again to stop her flailing and screaming--the girl was a fighter. It had also taken twice as long as she expected for Theo to carry Amber downstairs into the dungeon since Christabel didn't want to waste her energy giving Theo a boost, and the woman was not as strong as she appeared to be. Then, when she'd finally laid her on the table, its built-in leather straps came apart in her hands and they'd spent more precious time finding enough good rope with which to tie her down.
"Done," Theo said as she finished the last knot.
Go to the cabinets on the short wall. Open them for me.
Theo crossed the huge room quickly, apparently unaffected by the sight of the corpses manacled to the torture devices scattered about the room. In fact, Christabel realized with amusement, Theo was in a mild state of sexual excitement, especially now, after tying up the girl.
Three of the walls were of natural, unpainted stone, but the last was fitted with wooden cabinets. The steamer trunk containing Christabel's corpse was hidden in one of the huge lower cabinets, while the upper ones contained the ensouled dolls and the Erzuli figure. She needed Theo's hands to retrieve all these things, but after that, the woman would be useless. Well, perhaps not totally useless. Once Christabel was in her own body again, she thought it might be pleasant to play with the woman a little. Perhaps she would stretch her on the rack until her beautiful skin tore and her shoulders and hips left their sockets. To make this woman scream would be as great a pleasure as it would be to watch her flesh as it grew taut, stretched, and finally, tore. Then, after she'd had her fun, she would suspend her from the ceiling over a brass tub and cut her throat, just as she would do with the others. But not yet.
"It's locked," Theo said.
Christabel directed her to the place where the keys should be, but Mama must have taken them long ago. Break the lock!
"How?"
Use the branding iron from the brazier and break it! Quickly!
Chapter Fifty-nine
Body House: 2:28A.M.
"What was that?" Melanie whispered.
"Sounds like somebody's trying to break down a door," Craig Swenson replied softly. His hand rested on the butt of his .38 and, as they neared the dungeon, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and saluted. He wondered if the others felt as apprehensive as he did.
The spiral stairs seemed to go on forever and the blackness had quickly become claustrophobic. Give me a hit-and-run, Craig thought, Give me a shoplifter or a drunk. Give me anything but this.
Masters, in the lead, halted and turned off his flashlight. Immediately, Craig did the same. The cold, foul darkness threatened to consume them.
"Do you see it?" Masters whispered. "The light down there?"
After a moment he discerned the tiny moving shadows in the flickering light far below. "Candles," Craig whispered.
"Yeah." Masters turned his light back on and adjusted the hood to mute it. He shined it directly at the stairs. "Let's try to sneak up on them."
Craig didn't think that was too much of a possibility, since the stairs creaked and groaned almost constantly, but he didn't say so. If this Christabel was like every other supernatural creature he'd ever read about, she'd know exactly what they were up to anyway. "Okay, everybody," he hissed. "Go slow. If we're attacked from below, drop so that I've got a clear shot."
"Uncle Craig," Eric said gently, "You can't shoot a ghost."
"I can try."
"I don't know how it works," David murmured, "but if she's got her old body up and running, that gun just might save our butts."
"Amen," Melanie said softly.
Chapter Sixty·
Body House: 2:34A.M.
"It won't open!" Theo cried frantically. She hit the heavy lock again. "It won't open!"
They're coming. Christabel could sense the warmth of their bodies, could perceive their fear and anger. Ordinarily, she would have savored this moment, but she had no time now. Theo! she ordered. Do as I say! She directed her to open one of the lower cabinet doors, an unlocked one, and there, just as she remembered, were several red velvet bedspreads. Take two of them and cover Romero and Amber! Do it now! Hurry!
Thanks to the dry air, the cloth was intact and Theo swiftly covered the still-unconscious Amber, but Romero started to yell when she approached him. "Shall I knock him out?"
"Yes, quickly."
"Please, no. No!"
After she delivered a rabbit punch to Romero's temple, the man groaned, then slumped. Theo studied him a moment, pinching his cheek hard to make sure he was really out, then threw the cloth over him.
We haven't much time. Until we’re rid of them, you’re going to have to do everything I tell you, exactly as I tell you, Theo. Can you do that?
"Of course."
Can you kill for me if you have to?
"I'll do anything for you."
That was what Christabel wanted to hear. She didn't want to use up more energy than she had to, and Theo's cooperation made all things possible. After sensing the pleasure the woman took in restraining Romero and Amber, she knew that Theo's promise wasn't empty: this woman, at least while she was under her influence, was perfectly capable of killing, and enjoying it.
They're almost here. We 'II have to open the cabinets later. Here's what I want you to do now...
Chapter Sixty-one
Body House: 2:35A.M.
The dungeon looked like it belonged in a horror novel.
David stepped off the staircase and into the shadows of the arched stone doorway that led into the huge room beyond. The room appeared to be deserted now, but candles, perhaps fifty of them, flickered in high wall sconces, casting golden light that shifted maniacally throughout the closer portions of the huge room and chasing shadows into the darkness at the far end. Throughout the dungeon loomed the darkly ominous silhouettes of tables, stocks, pillories, and man-sized crosses, all instruments of torture, some with metal manacles hanging from them. He squinted, thinking that the lines weren't clean enough. He realized that there were bodies on some of them. They were thin, still corpses of the missing victims from the 1915 massacre, and though David had been virtually certain they were down here, the sight, even at this distance, shocked him.
He stared hard, aware that Melanie and the Swensons had joined him and were doing the same. Toward the far end of the room, he could see coals glowing red in a waist-high brazier of some sort, and beyond that were several more torture devices, two of which were shrouded.
He turned, 'startled, when someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was Craig Swenson, his gun drawn and pointed into the air.
Silently, he gestured at David to let him pass. He did so, nodding as Swenson made it clear that he wanted him to remain where he was and wanted Eric and Melanie to stay farther back in the shadows. Heart racing, David nodded.
Swenson edged into the archway, his back against the cold stones, gun straight up. He paused then turned, peering along the inside wall, first toward David, then behind himself. David sent him a questioning look; he answered with a shrug. Swenson moved into the center of the arch, paused, then took two solid steps into the dungeon. He stopped, his legs braced apart.
"Come out with your hands up!"
His words echoed hollowly in the silent room.
They waited one beat, two.
"Chief Swenson?" answered Theo Pelinore in a trembling voice.
"Theo?" Swenson called. "Are you alone?"
"Yes."
David thought her voice was coming from so
mewhere in the darkness back beyond the glowing brazier. He stepped forward, ignoring Swenson's dirty look. "Where's my daughter?"
"I--I don't know."
Swenson cleared his throat. "I want you to come out slowly, Theo. We'll take you out of here."
"I can't." She was almost sobbing, and David thought the sound was utterly unnatural. "My ankle... I think it's broken."
Swenson glanced back at David and murmured, "Stay here."
"It's a trick--" David began.
But Swenson ignored him, turning and walking farther into the room. "Where are you?"
"I--I don't know. You sound closer, though."
"Okay, keep talking." Craig moved into the center of the room, listening for Theo's voice.
"It's a trap," Melanie hissed in David's ear.
Swenson passed the brazier, moving forward into the darkness.
"I think you're very close," Theo said.
Another sound, a small moan, followed her words. It didn't sound like Theo, it sounded like…
"Amber!" he yelled.
Swenson's head swiveled toward David, then Theo Pelinore leapt out of the darkness, brandishing a thin club of some sort, and threw herself on him. They fell, scuftling, to the floor.
"Daddy?"
Amber's muffled voice broke David's paralysis and he ran into the room, Eric and Melanie right behind him.
"Amber? Where are you?" David called as Eric raced to help his uncle.
"I don't know. I'm under something."
David caught movement under the shroud on the table at the rear.
They ran to the table and yanked the cover off.
"Daddy!" Her eyes were wild with relief.
"Are you okay?" Melanie whispered as she pushed tangles of blond hair from the girl's face.
Amber nodded as David began working on the ropes.
Someone cried out in pain and David glanced toward the Swensons. One of them was down, but the other was locked in combat with Theo Pelinore, who seemed to possess preternatural strength. He needed to get over there and help.
"She's not just Pelinore," Amber said, as if she had read his mind. "Christabel's in her."
David nodded, digging in his pocket for his jackknife as Melanie started working on one of the heavy knots securing Amber's legs. "Here!" He gave Mel the knife and ran across the room. .
Eric lay on the floor, holding his head and groaning. David paused, seeing the blood in his hair. Suddenly, a gunshot blasted in his ears. Deafened, he looked up and was appalled to see Craig Swenson backing slowly away from Theo. She had the gun, but at least no one appeared to have been hurt.
"Shit," Swenson said.
She laughed Christabel 's laugh, and motioned toward David and Eric with the gun. "Okay, Chief, go stand over there with your friends." Slowly, Swenson backed toward them.
Theo kept the. gun trained on them as she moved through the room toward Amber. David turned slowly, and saw that the heavy velvet was again covering Amber. There was no sign of Melanie and he prayed Theo hadn't noticed her.
Before reaching Amber, Theo paused at the shape under the other velvet spread. She didn't bother to look beneath it; instead she poked it, hard, with the muzzle of the gun. There was no response, and that seemed to satisfy her. She must have Jerry Romero under there.
Giving David a knowing smile, she proceeded to Amber's table and pulled the cloth down to reveal his daughter's face. She appeared to be unconscious. "Here's your little girl, David," she purred as she lifted Amber's head by the hair to let him see better. "You were looking for her, weren't you?" She let go of the hair and Amber's head dropped back to the table. David cringed, but Amber showed no reaction and, thank God, Theo moved away without checking her bonds.
"Where's your slut, David?" she asked as she moved toward them.
He said nothing.
"Answer me!"
"Melanie's gone. I sent her away."
Theo smirked. "Too bad I would have liked to have known her better." She laughed obscenely as she came to a halt by a tall pillory. A skeleton stood trapped by its head and hands, its mummified skin stretched tightly over its emaciated body and its long brown hair in tangles around its eyeless, screaming face. It wore only a faded purple corset and a gold heart shaped locket around its neck.
Theo tapped its collar bone. "This is Colette," she said.
"She was very pretty in her day." She pushed the skeleton out of the device and it fell, skin cracking, into a pile of bones on the floor. "Come here, David."
He didn't move.
"Don't be obstinate. We have to keep you out of trouble."
"No. Theo, listen to me. You're possessed. You can fight her, you can force her out of your body."
She stared coldly at him. "What makes you think I want to fight her, David?"
"She's tricking you, Theo. She's using you." David paused. "She doesn't have the Erzuli doll yet, does she?"
Theo glared at him. "Get over here now!"
"Once she has it, she won't need you anymore. She'll put you in one of these too. Then she'll kill you, just like she did Colette."
Keeping the revolver ready, Theo stepped up to a portion of stone wall where ancient whips and blades were hung. She took a knife, a nasty one with a slightly curved eight-inch blade, from its holder, then moved back to stand over Amber. "If you don't get in the pillory now, David, I'll remove your lovely daughter's little finger. If you still refuse, I'll remove another. Ten fingers, ten toes, then a hand, a foot ... " She smiled, pure evil, as she flicked the knife through the air. "Don't worry, David. The brazier's all ready, so I'll be able to cauterize her wounds. I promise you, David, I won't kill her." She paused. "So, what's it going to be?"
Out of options, he put his wrists and neck in the contraption she'd indicated and waited while she dropped the top and flipped the latch. "Good choice, David. Now, you, Chief, I want you to pick up your nephew and put him on that table near the brazier."
Glowering and grunting, Swenson finally managed to put Eric over his shoulder, fireman style. David watched out of the corner of his eye as the chief pushed an old set of bones onto the floor, then laid the nearly comatose boy carefully down on the table. Finished, he remained where he was, his hand resting gently on his nephew's shoulder.
Chapter Sixty-two
Body House: 2:51 A.M.
He stood by Eric, knowing the boy had a concussion, at least; knowing he had to get him to a hospital, and wondering if he--or the others--would be alive long enough to do so. Swenson's mind had been reeling from the moment he'd first looked into this chamber of horrors, and when Theo Pelinore came at him with that poker or branding iron or whatever the hell it was, she'd knocked him off balance easily, then fought him with the strength of a woman possessed. Which he supposed she was.
He'd thought they had her when Eric jumped in, but an instant later, she'd grabbed her iron rod and bashed the side of his head. The boy went down, but Craig kept fighting. And then, the most unforgivable thing of all had happened: Theo Pelinore had wrested his revolver from him.
He glanced left and right. Now, here they all were: in bondage, hurt or held at gunpoint. The way things looked right now, he thought as he stared down the barrel of his own gun, Melanie was their only chance--and she was going to have to have God's own luck just to stay alive herself.
"Chief, come here." Theo beckoned him toward her. Slowly he moved forward, stopping a few feet from her, wondering what she was going to do now.
"You see the cabinets behind me?"
"Yes?"
"Two of them are locked--the tall one behind me and the very large one below." Keeping the gun trained on him, she used her other hand to extract a long bobby pin from her hair. She tossed it to him and he caught it by reflex.
"Pick the locks."
"I don't know how to--"
"Don't play stupid, Chief. Remember, you've picked locks for Theo--for me--several times. The last time was just over a year ago, when the seller forgot to leave me
a key for that split-level on Gull Street."
She had him there. "Which one first?"
She pointed at the bottom door. "That one."
Obediently, he took the pin and squatted in front of the lock. The wood and hinges were heavy, but the lock was old and simple, the sort that required nothing more than a special skeleton key. He had it open in fifteen seconds.
"Now, Chief, do you see a blue steamer trunk in there?"
"Yes."
"Pull it out for me, very, very carefully."
The trunk moved more easily than he expected and he had it out in a moment, surprised to see two lengths of chain wrapped around it and secured with a padlock.
"Jimmy it," Theo ordered.
The padlock took longer, and when it finally opened, he was sweating profusely despite the chill in the room. He looked up and came face-to-face with his gun.
"Now," Theo said, "I want you to listen very carefully. You are going to open the trunk and you are going to treat what lies inside it as if it were a king's treasure. If you don't, I'll start paring your nephew's toes and fingers. Go ahead, open it."
He flipped the brass latches and slowly pushed the arched lid open. The stench of jasmine and bodily decay rose in a putrid, choking cloud, and when he saw the body, it took every ounce of control in his possession to stop the dizzyingly black swirl that spiraled through his brain.
His head spun and he pushed himself away. "My God," he whispered. "My God."
She lay curled in a fetal position, her raven hair swirling down over her white shoulders and black gown. Despite the odor, which reminded him of a two-weeks dead body he'd had the misfortune to discover in the trunk of a car abandoned by the beach several summers ago, there were no visible signs of decay. Long black lashes edging the closed eyelids emphasized the unnatural pallor of her skin. There was a fragility about her that made her look more like one of her porcelain dolls than a woman of flesh-and-blood.
"Lift her out of the trunk," Theo ordered softly. "Go ahead, she won't break."
He took a deep breath and held it as he scooped the body into his arms. It lay cold and limp in his grasp and was not desiccated, as he'd expected, but heavy with muscle and, judging by the blue traceries in the forearms, blood. The head had tilted back and he searched for a pulse in the neck, but saw none.
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