Frieda poured. “She does.”
“She reminds me so much of my sister, Carrie. She was fearless, too. Carrie was my hero.” Delilah pulled the shawl closer around her.
As soon as the lights came back up, Arthur Meeks left his room to prowl the fourth floor. There were only a handful of guests tonight in the entire hotel and the lights were off in almost all their rooms, but he paused at several, giving the door knobs a quick turn - guests would think it was the ghost rattling their doors. It amused him.
Not like that goddamned ghost cat. That didn’t amuse him at all; it terrified him. Little Miss Fancy Pants probably made that up. Arthur shivered. He hated all cats, including made-up ones. His mother’s voice razored through his memory. “The lion will come and eat you if you don’t be quiet and go to sleep, Arthur!” In the dark, her black cat sounded as big as a lion as it stalked up and down the hall outside his bedroom. You ugly old bitch and your ugly old cat!
He shook off the memory as he saw the light glowing beneath the little girl’s door. Her mama’s room was dark, but that was just dandy; the daughter interested him more. He let himself into the room adjacent to 429 and examined the new peephole he’d drilled, but Little Miss Fancypants had shoved something inside it; he couldn’t see a damned thing. Anger blossomed; his eye still hurt. Little slut. He didn’t dare try to unblock it now; the girl might hear him and he sure as hell didn’t need her tattling to the Queen Douchebag.
Annoyed, Arthur Meeks turned to leave the room and saw a piece of paper on the floor. She’d left it for him; it was a threat to tell on him. He sniffed the paper, folded and pocketed it, and smiled as he let himself out of the room. You’ll get yours, little miss, oh yes, you will. Without a glance back he took the stairs down to the second floor where a young couple slept. He had a peephole into their room, too, and if they were still up, he might see something good. The woman was a real looker.
24
The Dragon
When sleep finally took Holly it was fitful at best. She dreamed of the old hospital again and this time it was shaking loose from its foundation and rising higher and higher into the night sky, pushed by some gigantic angry thing beneath it.
Then suddenly she’s in her room, standing on the balcony’s threshold, watching thin clouds skitter across the moon as if they’re being chased. She stares down at the lights of Brimstone, far, far below - so far, it’s almost like seeing the town from an airplane. She is terrified.
Then a whoosh! Something flies past her, something huge. Wind whips as the creature turns and comes around again. It’s a dragon, its body blotting out the stars behind it. Black scales rimmed in cobalt fire gleam in the moonlight as it spits coppery red fire into the sky.
With a roar, it flies at her. She stands paralyzed as it halts at the balcony railing and turns its head to study her. Its great black-blue wings are alive with tiny licks of red flame. Holly stares into one great eye - copper edged with sapphire, with a pupil sparking crimson from a fire deep within. She feels an itch in her brain.
“Holly. Come ride the Beast.”
The voice echoes through her mind, deep, rumbling. Friendly.
Charming.
Slowly, the dragon’s huge eye blinks.
Holly steps across the threshold onto the balcony.
“That’s right. Come closer. We’ll fly.”
The voice vibrates through her body, scratching at her mind. Apprehensive, curious, intrigued, she takes another step.
“Come, child. We’ll fly. We’ll fly forever on the wings of the Beast, you and I.”
A thousand thoughts collide in her head. The voice seems friendly and the dragon, nice, and for a moment she wants to climb on its back and soar through the sky. But it reminds her of something. Something fearful. What, she can’t recall, but it prickles in the back of her mind and won’t go away.
“Come, girl. It’s time to fly.”
Suddenly, she hears the robot’s voice from Lost in Space, loud and clear: “Danger, Will Robinson!”
Holly takes a step back.
And runs into an icy wall. Freezing hands clamp onto her shoulders. Holly twists, sees the ghost from the elevator, Pearl Abbott, sees the grim face, the chill hate in those charcoal eyes. The nurse pushes her toward the rail easily despite Holly’s resistance. One, step.
Two.
Three.
“Hurry, girl. Onto the Beast.” The male voice rumbles through her body, tingling in her brain, electrifying every nerve ending.
Pearl Abbott pushes.
Holly trips, falls to her knees. “NO!” She rolls away from Pearl Abbott and scrambles to her feet, trying to dodge her, but the woman’s claw-like hands dig into her shoulders and yank her off the ground, Holly twists and kicks and flails but the ghost pushes her toward the dragon.
Yellow smoke that smells of matches puffs from its nostrils. A long forked tongue slithers across reptilian lips.
“NO!” Holly kicks and thrashes, but Pearl Abbott’s icy fingers only dig more deeply into her arms. They feel like knives.
“Time to ride the Beast.” The rumbling voice sounds angry now and the dragon’s copper eye pulses and the veins of blue throb. “Get on!”
Pearl Abbott lifts Holly as if she were a feather and holds her out over the balcony railing, pressing her to the dragon’s shining black scales.
“NO!”
But the nurse pays no heed; Holly fights, clinging to the railing, to Pearl Abbott herself. “NO!”
Holly sees her own tears run over the dragon’s scales as the voice comes again, tearing into her brain. “Holly, we will ride the Beast together, you and I.”
“NO! NO! NO!”
Suddenly something thumped her chest, hard, and she came awake in darkness. The thing on her chest came closer, purring, and a rough tongue licked the tip of her nose. Trembling, she opened her eyes and just made out pale green ones staring back at her. Another lick. A purr.
And then the cat was gone. Vanished.
Sitting up, Holly turned on the lamp. “Annie Patches?”
A distant, faint, meow.
“Thank you, Annie! Thank you!”
Rising, Holly closed and locked the windows then stared out the glass door. The black railing was there, the twinkling stars, too. But no dragon, no voice, no Pearl Abbott - yet the room was icy cold, too cold for a summer night. And she could still smell matches.
After checking all the locks, Holly made sure the painting was still blocking the peephole, then made herself a cup of tea with milk and sugar. She took it to the little round table and warmed her hands on the mug as she sipped. She didn’t know if she could sleep any more tonight. The dream had been too real.
So real that her arms hurt where Pearl Abbott had grabbed her. She reached up and touched her bicep, surprised at the increased pain since it had only been a dream. Her skin felt icy cold. That’s weird. She stood up and went into the bathroom, unbuttoned her pajama top and slipped it off.
Holly gasped. Both upper arms were marked with fresh bruises - deep red fingerprints already purpling, and there were tiny crescent-shaped scratches, spotted with blood, where the phantom fingernails had dug into her arms.
“It wasn’t a dream,” she told her reflection. “It wasn’t a dream.”
And she knew the shape of the Brimstone Beast now; it was a dragon.
Trembling, she left the bathroom and dressed in jeans, a tank top, and a long-sleeved cotton shirt over it to hide the bruises.
Holly had had nightmares before, plenty of them, and she was usually pretty good at realizing she was having a bad dream and making herself wake up. It was a trick she’d taught herself. But it hadn’t worked tonight; she hadn’t even realized she was in a dream. Only it wasn’t a dream.
Dreams didn’t leave bruises.
Sitting at the dinette table, she sipped her tea and thought about going back downstairs to talk to Steve, but knew even he wouldn’t understand that she’d had more than a nightmare. Sighing, she loo
ked at the books scattered on the table. The ones Adeline had given her about the town and the Brimstone Beast were the ones that she knew she should read, but she couldn’t, not now. Too much had happened; she’d seen Pearl Abbott’s ghost in the elevator - and it had seen her. And then the dream that wasn’t a dream, the dream that left bruises and bored into her brain. She couldn’t concentrate. Crossing to the bureau where the TV rested, she opened the top drawer and pulled out a spiral bound notepad and a pencil. Back at the table, she began to write down everything that had happened. Writing always made her feel better.
Steve Cross spent the last hours before dawn pouring through the old scrapbooks and photo albums stored behind the registration desk. He was trying to find out more about the ghost Holly had seen in the elevator, but he found nothing new about Pearl Abbott. He wasn’t surprised; he’d poured over these albums many times before.
He thought about going down into the basement; he’d actually been down there twice on nights when boredom and solitude had overwhelmed him. He hadn’t lied to Holly about the dangers. There were no lights, just cobwebs, broken stair railings, and a cold that seemed preternatural. He’d only remained there long enough to see tables and shelves lining one wall - there were books, stacks of them, murky bottles and jars, antique medical equipment - he’d recognized a microscope and a Bunsen burner. Those things were all against the wall about twenty feet from the staircase. He’d seen a desk and chairs, and a lectern, all draped in dust and cobwebs. Left of the stairs, his flashlight barely picked up shadowed crates and sheeted furniture. The darkness was all but impenetrable. Preternatural.
He knew from studying blueprints that the basement extended a long way into the darkness, perhaps forty feet, but he had never explored further. For one thing, it was forbidden to go down there and he didn’t want to lose his job. For another, it had bad vibes. Very bad.
But right now, he was tempted to return just long enough to haul up a box of books and papers in the hopes of finding more information about Pearl Abbott and Henry Hank, and his cult, Infurnam Aeris.
It has to have something to do with the Brimstone Beast. Barrow, although an administrator, not a medical man, had been something of a mad scientist by all accounts, and was rumored to have kept a lab in the basement. He was involved in the occult arts and considered himself a magician or sorcerer of some stripe; he admitted to being the high priest of Infurnam Aeris. Pearl was his priestess. Accounts varied, but it all came down to a couple of basic facts: H. H. Barrow was a control freak, a freak-freak, and almost assuredly a little bit mad. Or a lot. It all depended on which stories you believed.
Dawn wasn’t far off as Steve studied the copper-clad door. The most intriguing story about Henry Hank concerned the Beast. By all accounts, Barrow had been known as the Brimstone Beast, a name he chose for himself and encouraged. Steve had found a passage in an old book that said Barrow actually tried to bring the creature of folklore to life to do his bidding. And that made perfect sense since Barrow was into sorcery.
Steve stretched and yawned. Holly’s interest in Brimstone history had piqued his own. His gaze returned to the copper door; he would not visit the basement tonight. But soon, he promised himself. Very soon.
Adeline Chance stood on her front porch watching the first rays of sun breach the red rock mountains to the northeast. The sky had lightened, but the stars were still out. Everything looked the same as it had the day, the week, the month, even the year before.
But something was different.
It wasn’t a sight or a sound. It was a feeling, a sensation that set her teeth on edge and made her skin prickle. Her nose wrinkled at the faint odor of sulfur, there and gone in a fraction of a second.
But she knew it wasn’t her imagination. “Lord, but I wish it was,” she told the salmon sky.
Turning her gaze up to Brimstone Peak, she could just see the bulk of the hotel jutting from the mountainside. Lights burned on the top floor, and she thought of Delilah hiding from the darkness, and of Carrie, her cousin and best friend, dead these many years.
But most of all, she thought of Delilah’s little granddaughter, Holly, up there in that building full of terrible secrets. Stay safe, Holly. Stay safe.
The screen door squeaked; Ike came out and handed her a cup of steaming, fragrant coffee. She took it gratefully, let it warm her hands. “Thank you, dear.”
“Mighty fine sunrise.”
“Mm-hmm.” She couldn’t get her mind off Holly.
“What’s the matter, Addie? Those quakes got you all riled up?”
“No. That little girl has the Beast riled up.” She looked into Ike’s dear, seamed face. “Holly needs to leave before things get worse.”
“Honey, all that happened so long ago. Don’t you think it’s possible we’re just having a few quakes? That it’s coincidence? After all, we’re overdue.”
She took his hand and squeezed it. “You know better, Ike. There are no coincidences.”
He squeezed back. “Well, hardly any. I guess I just don’t want to believe that it’s waking up. We’re too old for this.”
“We are.”
25
Morning Matters
There had been no more shaking, not so much as a tiny aftershock, and Holly had stayed at the table, writing about the elevator ghost, the dragon dream, and meeting her grandmother, when she’d finally gotten sleepy. At ten a.m., she awoke with a start and lifted her head from the table. She put the notebook in the bureau drawer, hiding it under a crossword puzzle magazine and a treasured copy of National Geographic that contained photos that her father had taken in Iceland.
She brushed her teeth and combed her hair into a ponytail, happy she’d suffered no more dreams. Everything seemed better by light of day, at least until she slid off her long-sleeved shirt to check the bruises on her arms; they were deep purple-red and tender, a grim reminder that some dreams were more real than others.
Holly put the shirt back on, resolving not to think about it. She turned her mind to safe things like watering the plants and the merits of hanging out with Becky versus going down to see Adeline by herself.
Ready for the day, she stepped into the empty hallway and knocked on Cherry’s door. There was no reply; if her mother had returned, she was still asleep.
Holly started toward the elevator then remembered Pearl Abbott, and turned back and took the stairs. In the lobby, Meredith was dealing with a guest, so she slipped by and stepped out into the hot sun, shading her eyes as she checked the parking lot for the red Falcon - it wasn’t there.
Neither relieved nor disappointed, Holly walked to the edge of the mostly-empty lot and peered out over the Brimstone Valley. Everything looked so bright and fresh and clear; she had never imagined air could smell so good; at home, you couldn’t even see the skyscrapers in downtown L.A. half the time because of the smog.
I never want to go back. She glanced at the hotel, and remembered last night. Or do I?
“Holly!” Becky Granger’s voice carried on the warm breeze as the girl waved and trotted to join her. “Did you feel the earthquake last night? Some of my horses fell down! What happened in your room?”
“Not much.”
“Want to go to the park?” She hooked a thumb toward the playground down the street.
“Sure.”
“Miss Delilah, there’s a call for you.”
Delilah glanced at the phone on the writing desk. “Who is it?”
“Miss Meredith said it’s your daughter.”
“Oh? Very well, thank you, Frieda. Would you fetch me a cup of tea? Darjeeling?”
“Of course.”
Delilah watched Frieda disappear toward the kitchen then stared at the phone, loathe to take the call; when Charlotte phoned, it was always because she wanted something. With a sigh, she lifted the receiver and heard Frieda hang up instantly. “Yes, Charlotte?”
“I got a job in Sedona! Modeling.”
“That was yesterday, Charlotte. Did it require
you to spend the night?” Her voice was calm and even, but inside, Delilah seethed. Her daughter had defied her and wouldn’t even acknowledge it.
“Yes, I had to spend the night. I have work for a whole week here. Isn’t that exciting? I’ll be able to pay you rent. If you want me to.”
“Are you telling me you’re staying in Sedona this week?”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m calling.”
“What else do you want, Charlotte?”
“Could you tell Holly I’ll be gone a few days?”
“Why can’t you tell her yourself?”
“I was going to, but that Meredith person said she isn’t there. Could you tell her for me?”
Delilah paused, but Charlotte said nothing else. “Don’t you want to know where your child is?”
“Sure. Is she having fun?”
“She’s gone on a rock-climbing campout with the Boy Scouts. They’re going to catch and kill rattlesnakes for dinner.”
“Holly sure is good at making friends, isn’t she?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Sure, she’s on a camp-out.”
Delilah stood, biting back rage. “You think of no one but yourself, Charlotte, not even your own child! You brought her here without any clothing that fits, dumped her, and then took off to go on a shopping spree for yourself with some disease-ridden actor. And you think it’s just fine for her to camp with Boy Scouts. I don’t understand you, Charlotte. Sometimes I think you were born without a soul.”
“Look, will you just tell her? ‘Cause I can ask that Meredith person to tell her if you won’t.” Charlotte paused, screwing her voice into the old whiny tone that made Delilah cringe. “I thought you’d be happy I got a real job so I can pay you your stupid rent without having to scrub a damned toilet!”
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