The Blackstone Chronicles (42 page)

The dark figure, the same one she’d seen the night of the Hartwicks’ party, moving silently down their driveway, then disappearing into the whirling snow so completely that it was almost as if he’d never been there at all.

But he was here tonight, chasing her. There was no way to escape him.

She was in the street, and there were houses on both sides, all of them brightly lit, all of them filled with people. But when Rebecca tried to scream, tried to call out for help, her throat constricted, and no sound emerged.

Her legs and feet seemed to work no better than her voice. Though she was running as hard as she could, she was barely moving at all, for her feet felt as if they were mired in mud, and every muscle in her legs ached from exhaustion. And every second the dark figure was looming closer to her.

Suddenly, the houses around her disappeared, leaving her in utter darkness. Terror clutching at her throat, she sensed the threatening figure lurch ever closer, and she redoubled her efforts, plunging through the darkness, unheeding of where she might be running to, so long as she was escaping her pursuer.

Now she felt hands reaching out, grasping at her, and
she tried to pull away, but the hands closed on her, and then she fell, a muffled scream escaping her lips, and—

Rebecca listened to the rapid beating of her heart, a thudding in the silence of the house.

She had no idea what time it was, no idea how long she’d slept. After taking the tea things back to the kitchen and retreating to her room, she’d stretched out on her bed, intending only to close her eyes for a minute or two—to try to relax—but when she’d jerked awake from the nightmare a few minutes ago, her mind was as foggy as if she’d been sleeping for hours. She wasn’t even certain whether the muffled cry that ended her sleep had come from somewhere downstairs or only been the end of the terrible dream in which—

But the dream had vanished from her mind, every detail of it erased so completely that had she not still been in the last, weakening clutches of its terror, she might have wondered if she’d had the dream at all. Yet she was sure it was the nightmare that had awakened her, and as the mist in her mind slowly cleared away, other sounds filtered in. A few minutes ago she’d heard a crash coming from the second floor.

She’d almost gone downstairs to investigate. Then she remembered the beautiful handkerchief that Oliver had given her, and that Germaine had promptly snatched away to give to her mother.
It doesn’t matter
, she told herself.
Germaine has been very kind to you, and if she wanted the handkerchief for Miss Clara, you shouldn’t begrudge it
. But when Miss Clara hadn’t wanted it after all, why had Germaine insisted on keeping it for herself?

Even so
, she reminded herself,
if something is wrong downstairs, you should go see if you can help
.

Still she hesitated, the strange scene she’d witnessed in the parlor fresh in her memory. What had come over
Germaine? From the moment she’d opened the box of chocolates, it had been as if …

Even in the privacy of her own mind, Rebecca hesitated to use the word that had popped into her head. Yet there was no other way to describe it.

It was as if Germaine suddenly had gone crazy.

Although it had been no more than a minute or two before Germaine fled the room, the scene had terrified Rebecca. When she’d taken the tea tray back to the kitchen, her hands were trembling so badly that she was afraid she might drop it. And she still had no idea at all what had happened to Germaine.

She recalled, then, hearing glass breaking, followed by a sound that was part scream and part moan. Had she not been so badly frightened by the terrible scene in the parlor, Rebecca knew she would have hurried to see what had happened.

But what if Germaine really had gone crazy? What if she would have attacked her?

The house had fallen silent for a few minutes, but then the noise started up again. She heard Miss Clara shouting, and decided that Germaine was no longer in her room and that she and her mother must be having a fight. Better not to interfere, she’d thought.

For the first time since she’d awakened, Rebecca felt the tension in her body ease a little. When she heard the grinding of the gears that operated the elevator, Rebecca concluded that the argument must be over.

A sudden scream—a scream so terrifying it made Rebecca’s blood run cold—erupted through the house. At almost exactly the same instant, the elevator’s machinery fell silent.

Finally, the terrible quiet.

It held Rebecca in a strange thrall. She stood motionless at her bedside, one hand on the iron footboard, straining to hear anything that might reveal whatever
terrible tragedy had brought forth that final, awful, ear-splitting scream.

The silence seemed to turn into a living thing, taking on a terrifying, suffocating quality, and slowly it came to Rebecca that only she could end it. Unconsciously holding her breath, she finally gathered her courage to leave her room and walk to the top of the steep and narrow flight of stairs leading down to the second floor.

Her steps echoing hollowly, she descended the bare wood stairs and gazed down into the hall below. Though she saw nothing, she sensed that it was not empty.

It was as she started toward the head of the great sweeping staircase at the far end of the mezzanine that the silence was finally broken.

A sound—nothing more than a gurgling whimper—drifted up from below.

As she came to the elevator shaft, Rebecca paused and peered down. A glistening pool of blood was spreading across the floor in front of the elevator door.

Her heart pounding now, Rebecca ran to the head of the stairs. For one terrible moment she hesitated, instinctively knowing that whatever awaited her below was going to be far worse than anything she might be able to imagine, and wanting desperately to turn away from it, to go back to her room, to hide herself from whatever horror had transpired below.

But she knew she couldn’t. Whatever it was had to be faced.

Gathering her strength, Rebecca walked down the stairs and gazed upon the elevator.

Clara Wagner was slumped in her wheelchair inside the cage. Her eyes were open and seemed to be staring at Rebecca, but her jaw hung slack, and spittle dripped from the corner of her mouth.

Rebecca was certain she was dead.

The pool of blood was still spreading out from beneath
the elevator, and for one brief instant Rebecca failed to understand exactly what had happened.

Then she saw it.

From beneath the narrow space between the bottom of the elevator and the floor itself, an arm protruded.

Clutched in the fingers of the hand, Rebecca saw the handkerchief.

The handkerchief that Oliver had given her.

Her mind utterly numbed by the terrible vision spread before her, Rebecca moved across the broad sweep of the Oriental carpet, bent down and reached for the handkerchief.

Germaine Wagner’s fingers, even in death, seemed to tighten on the scrap of linen for a moment, but then relaxed.

Suddenly, a stream of strangled, unintelligible sounds gurgled out of Clara Wagner’s throat.

Jumping as if she’d received a jolt of electricity, Rebecca gasped, then whirled to face the old woman in the wheelchair.

Clara Wagner’s eyes were glowing malevolently now, and the fingers of her right hand were twitching spasmodically, as if she were still trying to make her wheelchair respond to her bidding.

Terrified by the specter of the old woman who seemed to have come back from the dead before her very eyes, Rebecca backed away a step or two, then fled out into the night.

Help!

She had to find help!

She ran down the sidewalk into the street, then hesitated, wondering where to go.

Oliver!

If she could just get to Oliver, he would be able to help her!

Racing to the corner, she started up Amherst Street.

And the memory of the dream—the memory that had
vanished so completely when she’d awakened only a little while ago—came flooding back.

A terrible, unreasoning panic rose in Rebecca, and suddenly she was caught up in the nightmare once more. The darkness of the night closed around her; even the houses on either side of the street seemed to shrink away, retreating beyond her reach.

Once more her feet seemed to be mired in sludge, and every muscle in her legs was aching.

Now she could feel a presence—a terrifying, evil presence—close behind her.

She opened her mouth to cry out, to scream for someone to help her, but just as in the dream, her throat was constricted and no sound emerged.

Her heart pounding, her lungs failing her, she forced her legs to move, lunging up the hill into the darkness.

An arm reached out of the darkness, sliding around her neck, and then, as she finally found her voice, a hand clamped over her mouth.

A hand made slick by a latex glove.

T
he dark figure prowled the cold stone building like a panther patrolling his domain, every nerve on edge, every muscle tense.

He could sense the trespassers everywhere; it was as if their very scent was in the air. Every room they had entered seemed somehow violated, as if that which was rightfully his had been taken away.

Yet nothing was gone.

Everything was exactly as it had been before, save for the dust that was disturbed as they tramped from one room to another.

Opening doors they had no right to open.

Touching things that were never meant for any fingers but his own.

Peering into every closet and drawer, trying to ferret out his secrets.

What right had they to invade his realm?

He tracked them as easily as a carnivore stalking its prey, knowing where they’d been with as much certainty as if they were still there, and he were slinking after them, watching them with a wary eye.

The third floor was where they’d spent the least of their time, barely stopping at some of the rooms, entering only a few. But why not? There was nothing much here—never had been.

What little it contained were castoffs, things of little interest and even smaller value.

They’d explored the rooms on the second floor more thoroughly, entering every one, running their fingers over every object—
his
objects.

He sensed at once what they were doing, of course.

Placing values on every object they found, trying to determine what each one might be worth. But what did it matter what the building’s contents were worth?

The things within the Asylum were not theirs to sell.

All of it—every bit of it!—was his.

It wasn’t so bad on the ground floor. The rooms on that floor, shielded from the world outside by the two great oaken doors, had always been filled with strangers, and the three who had been there that day made little difference. Indeed, as he moved quickly through the rooms, it was almost as if their presence had made no difference at all.

It was in the lowest rooms of all, the chambers that had been hidden away in the basement by purposeful design, that he most sharply felt the ravages of the invasion that had taken place that day.

Their voices seemed still to echo within the tiled walls of those wondrous chambers in which the work had been performed. As he moved from one to another, remembering perfectly the specific use for which each had been designed, the rage simmering within him began to boil, for he knew deep within his soul that the interlopers had not looked upon these rooms with the respect they deserved.

They had been repulsed by what they found here. Even now their condemnation hung like a poisonous vapor in the air. As he completed his inspection, his indignation swelled, for he knew that despite what they had felt, these petty, conniving fools had no real idea at all of what transpired in these rooms, to what uses these sacred spaces had actually been put.

How, he wondered, would they feel if they truly understood?

Well, soon they would, for he was going to show them.

With satisfaction, he tested the concealed entrance to the most important room of all, and found it undisturbed.

This room, still, was known to no one but himself.

This room, which contained his most cherished treasures.

From one of the shelves he took a large mahogany box, and set it on the table. Opening the box, he lifted an ancient stereoscope from the larger of the box’s two compartments, and a stack of curled and yellowed cards from the smaller. Gently placing one of the cards in the rack at one end of the stereoscope, he held the instrument to his eyes and peered through the lenses.

There was just enough light filtering through the window from the waning moon to illuminate the image.

Before him was an old-fashioned room, filled with overstuffed sofas and chairs, and ornate tables covered with bric-a-brac. The illusion of three dimensions was so perfect that he almost felt as if he might be able to reach into the room itself, pick up one of the objects, and handle it.

But of course he couldn’t.

After all, the stereoscope was only an amusement, and the images it offered no more than illusions of reality.