In the Blood (30 page)

"Christ, I never realized how big this house was before! I mean, I knew it was large,
but I never truly comprehended its scale... " Fell whispered in awe, tilting his head
to ogle one of the ninety-nine lightning rods decorating the spires and turrets of
Ghost Trap.

"Look, once we're in there I want you to stick with me, understand? The inside of
this place is designed to confuse and trap the dead. It also does a good job
scrambling the synapses of anything more complicated than a worm. If regular
humans have a hard time dealing with it, you can imagine what it'll do to
Pretenders! I still have the protective charm I used from the first time I entered the
house, but I can't guarantee it'll extend itself to include you. Have I made myself
clear?"

Fell swallowed hard and nodded. Sonja surprised herself by giving the boy a brief
hug. Shit, the kid was brave. Fell's cheeks reddened.

"Uh, Sonja..."

"Later, kid. We'll talk about it later." With that she turned and put her fist through
one of the downstairs windows, reaching inside to open the lock.

"No wonder Morgan wouldn't let us wander loose around here." Ever since they'd
entered Ghost Trap's rambling confines, Fell had spoken in a low, reverential
whisper, as if in church. "You could get lost and never find your way out again!"

"That's not all you have to worry about. There are things that walk these halls.

Most people would call them ghosts. Spirits of the dead."

"But ghosts can't hurt you, can they?"

"Normally, no. But Ghost Trap is hardly what I'd call normal. Just keep an eye out
for anything that looks like a little girl or a woman dressed in old-timey clothes."

"Are they ghosts?"

"No, they're fuckin' tour hostesses! Of course they're ghosts! What did you expect?

I think I can find my way back to the fire room-"

"The what?"

"Never mind. Just keep your mouth shut and your eyes open, okay? I-" She halted
and tilted her head at an angle. She shot Fell a look from the corner of her eye.

"You hear that?"

"What? I don't-" He stopped, his jaw dropping open. It was faint, but he could just
make out the sound of someone whimpering. "Is-is it a ghost?"

"It doesn't sound like one. The dead tend to be mute." She motioned for him to
follow her, moving stealthily through the shadows and dust of the empty rooms.

They found the source of the whimpering in a nearby room. The wallpaper sparkled
faintly in the illumination provided by a flashlight on the floor. Fell touched the wall
nearest him and felt the gold and crushed crystal wallpaper underneath his
fingertips. It had the texture of sandpaper. Sonja picked up the flashlight and
turned the feeble beam on its owner.

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A middle-aged man dressed in a rumpled dark suit sat huddled in the far corner of
the room, his face pressed tightly against the wall. His suit and hair were smeared
with dust and cobwebs. One side of his face was bloody from where he'd been
rubbing it against the wallpaper. He'd recently wet himself and an ammonia smell
clung to him. He twitched and whimpered like a kicked puppy.

"I recognize him," Fell whispered. "He's one of Morgan's renfields. But what's he
doing here?"

"Whatever his reasons for entering this place might have been, I doubt he was
looking for us," Sonja muttered. She took another step toward the man crouched in
the corner. He stopped shivering and bared his teeth, foam flecking the corners of
his mouth.

"Renfields aren't terribly stable to begin with. And being somewhere like this, I'm
not surprised the bastard lost it totally," Sonja muttered as she moved closer. "Still,
he might be of some use."

The renfield shrieked and launched himself at her, his fingers clawing at her glasses.

Sonja cursed and smashed the butt of the flashlight against her attacker's skull. The
renfield collapsed to the floor, his head caved in. Sonja tossed the broken flashlight
over her shoulder and bent down, lifting the dead renfield by his suit lapels.

"Waste not, want not," she growled, sinking her canines into his still-warm throat.

After a minute or two, she withdrew, handing the corpse to Fell. "Here. Drink."

Fell's eyes widened and he took a step back. "No. I can't."

"You're no virgin! You said so yourself! Now, drink! You're gonna need it!"

"I..." Fell meant to protest further, but he'd already caught the scent of blood on
her breath. His mouth began to water. He quickly battened onto the dead man. The
blood was already below body temperature, but it was enough. He let the drained
corpse drop.

"Feel better?"

"Yeah. I know this sounds horrible, but I feel like I've got my second wind now."

"Good boy!" She grinned, clapping him on the shoulder. "Now, all we have to do is-

"

A loud scream broke the silence, bouncing through the rooms like a rubber ball
before being cut off in midnote. Sonja and Fell exchanged looks and headed in the
direction of the noise.

They found the second renfield in the hall Sonja had called the "fire room." The gas
jets were still blazing as they entered. The renfield lay sprawled in the middle of the
room, his skull smashed like an overripe pumpkin dropped from the top of a ladder.

Fell glanced about nervously while Sonja tried to find the secret panel the late Mrs.

Seward had shown her. "This little girl and lady you mentioned-are they, uh, good
ghosts or bad ghosts?"

"They're-ambivalent. Like most dead. But if you mean are they friend or foe-I think
they're friendly. No, they're not responsible for this." "Then who-?" "Found it!"

Sonja stood back, allowing the secret door to pivot open.

"C'mon!"

Fell gave the mutilated remains a final glance over his shoulder before following
Sonja into the secret passage.

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The rental car was parked on the south side of the house, its hood still warm.

They're here, all right. Now all I have to do is catch up with them,
Palmer mused
sourly, nervously eyeing Ghost Trap's sprawl.

His own transport, a BMW he'd "borrowed" back in San Francisco, was in no
shape for a return journey. Steam seeped from under its hood, while something dark
and viscous dripped from the undercarriage. Probably ripped the oil pan off a mile
or so back. Obviously, the car had not been designed to navigate Sonoma County
back roads at high speeds.

Spying an open ground-floor window, Palmer checked to make sure his Luger was
securely holstered before climbing over the sill in pursuit of his partner.

Three steps into the Ghost Trap, he realized he'd made a big mistake. If he'd found
the exterior of Ghost Trap disorienting, it was nothing compared to the interior.

He remembered how, as a child, he'd pestered his parents into allowing him to enter
the House of Horrors at the state fair. He'd promised them that it wouldn't give him
nightmares-he was too old to be scared. Finally, they'd weakened and allowed him
to go in. His self-assurance in his proclaimed maturity vanished the minute the
wooden double doors swung shut behind him, cutting off all contact with the world
where light, parents, and rational thought ruled.

Surrounded by dry-ice mist, black lights and prerecorded screams and rattling
chains, he'd shrieked at the sight of a department store mannequin dressed to look
like Frankenstein. He'd been so scared he wet himself and was escorted outside by
one of the employees, a pimply-faced teenager dressed in a hunchback costume. His
father had called him a sissy, and they'd been forced to leave the fair early because
of his "accident."

Now, thirty years later, the same paralyzing terror he'd experienced in the House of
Horrors was close to claiming him again. His scalp prickled and his bladder ached
as if full of ground glass.

He trudged through the oddly designed rooms, barely noticing such oddities as
doorways set three feet off the ground, windows that opened onto blank walls and
fireplaces that served as staircases.

With every room, he found it harder and harder to think straight. Why was he
here? Why had he entered this horrible place? He knew he must have had a good
reason. Or at least some kind of reason. Right? Now if he could only remember what
it was...

Palmer staggered as the floor dropped out from under him. The walls bowed inward
as if made from rubber. He retched while leaning against a sharply canted doorway,
the acid burning his throat. His dad was really going to yell at him now. He
shouldn't have eaten all those corndogs before riding the Tilt-A-Whirl. Now they
were going to have to leave the fair. But that didn't sound like such a bad idea. He'd
already been too long at the fair. Now if he could only remember where the car
was... parked.

Palmer collapsed onto his hands and knees as dry heaves shook his body. His
forebrain throbbed fiercely, keeping time like a jazz drummer.

I'm gonna die in here. I'm gonna wander around lost inside this hellhole until it kills

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me. Just like Seward. Sonja...

He lifted his head and found himself staring at a small boy.

The child looked to be no more than three years old, dressed in a sailor's suit. The
boy held a teddy bear close to his chest with his left arm because he was missing his
right one. A knob of bone and bloodless flesh protruded from his mangled shoulder.

Although the child's face was still round with baby fat, his eyes were solemn. Palmer
dimly noticed that the child was transparent.

"Little boy..."

The child did not waver or disappear.

"Little boy... I need... help..."

A young girl clutching a china doll joined the boy, both of them watching Palmer
with interest. The girl leaned toward her brother and muttered something that
Palmer could not make out. Moving together, the children grasped Palmer by his
shoulders and pulled him back onto his feet. He gasped and felt a strong chill run
through his body at the touch of their tiny fingers on his flesh.

The children were in front of him now, motioning for him to follow. Shaken and
weak, Palmer lurched after them. He had no way of knowing if these creatures were
friend or foe, but anything was better than crawling around in circles in his own
vomit.

The children froze like fawns scenting the approach of a hunter. The boy and his
sister disembodied, transforming themselves into fist-sized globs of light. The change
was so abrupt it looked to Palmer as if the children had rolled up like window
shades.

Palmer pressed his hands to his eyes, even more disoriented than before. What had
happened to his tiny spirit guides? Or had he imagined the whole thing? And if not,
what was it that had frightened them away?

The scream ripped through him like a bullet. As he listened, it ended abruptly, cut
off in midshriek. The echo was so distorted it was impossible to tell if it had been a
male or female voice.

"Sonja!"

Palmer weaved in the general direction the scream had come from. His brain
churned and stretched inside his head, pressing against the plates of his skull. Sonja.

He had to find Sonja. That's why he'd come into the House of Horrors. Now he
remembered. Once he found Sonja she'd make the pounding in his head go away.

Palmer stared at the thing with the ax for several seconds before realizing he'd
discovered the source of the scream.

The creature was shaped like a man, only taller. It carried a large, cruel-looking ax,
which it was using to dismember what was left of a man in a dark suit. The ax-murderer made weird tittering noises while it hacked away at its prey. The victim's
head had been cracked open from the top of his skull to his upper palate.

The thing halted in midswing and turned to look at the new intruder. Palmer's
bladder let go, just as it had in the House of Horrors back in 1961. Only this time he
knew there was no way he would be escorted to safety by a sympathetic teenager
tricked out in monster drag.

The ax-murderer had two heads. The head on the left was the larger of the pair,

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boasting a batlike snout, a mouthful of jagged teeth, and pupil-less eyes the color of
fresh blood. The head on the right was that of a man in his mid-thirties, the eyes
brimming with a grief that extended beyond anything Palmer had ever known. With
a start, he recognized the face of Creighton Seward, Ghost Trap's architect.