The Supernaturals (64 page)

“How about taking one of the doors off at the hinges?” one of the camera men asked as he zoomed in on the greenish figures standing at the doors.

Gabriel looked at John and tilted his head, then smiled. “I guess they didn’t cover everything at Harvard, did they?”

Lonetree looked at the camera man and nodded, as if to say, “one for you.”

One of the sound men reached into his bag and tossed Gabriel a large screwdriver.

In the front of the ballroom, Jackson stopped swinging the barstool at the ornate glass of the French doors, out of breath. Jennifer patted him on the back.

“Still think things around here are rigged, Lieutenant?”

“I’m not ready to admit to anything yet.” He tossed the stool away and reached into his coat. He pulled out a two way radio, winking as he brought it to his lips. “We’ll see how this place stands up to a ten ton battering ram on wheels.”

Jennifer gave him the faintest of smiles, as if she knew what was going to happen.

A flashlight illuminated Jackson. He and Jenny were joined by Wallace Lindemann and Lionel Peterson.

“Thank God someone’s thinking around here,” Peterson said. He pulled over the same sound man who had produced the screwdriver for the men working at the large doors and yanked the headphones from the man’s head. He placed them on and started to call Harris in the production van just as Jackson, after giving Peterson a distasteful look, initiated contact with the state police.

“State Police barracks seventeen, do you copy, over?”

“Harris, this is Peterson, get every technician and firemen you can and get those fucking front doors open. We’re coming out now!”

At the same moment, a voice came over both the technician’s headphones and the police radio—one that didn’t originate at either the production van or the state police barracks. The voice was deep and booming and brought everyone in the darkened ballroom to a complete and utter standstill. The sound was not only coming from the radio and the headset, but from the powerless stereo speakers and ornate jukebox in the far corner, which had illuminated to its full glory. Everyone in the ballroom smelled the odor at the same time, as if it had flooded into the large room and clung to everything and everyone. It was the smell of lilac.

“You cannot have them, they are mine!”

Jackson figured it was more interference and technical wizardry from Kelly Delaphoy, Kennedy or even Peterson himself. Both camera teams were now on the small group by the French doors. Jackson tried again. “State Police barracks, this is Lieutenant—”

“Get out!”

With that chilling, dark voice still echoing inside the ballroom, the lights came on and the tall doors clicked and then slowly opened. The smell of lilac immediately vanished as if it had never been there. Then they heard the cracking of the glass: the French doors, which Damian Jackson had struck time and time again, and also the plate glass windows in the living room. A few of the small panes of glass were weakened enough that they gave way and fell outward onto the large front porch.

Peterson slowly removed the headphones and let them fall from his hand. Jackson lowered the radio and shook his head.

“Amazing what happens when we threaten to bring my colleagues in, isn’t it, Professor?”

Gabriel looked at Jackson and the small smile told him it was a nice try at goading him into a statement. Instead of saying something to the state policeman, Gabriel quickly walked over to the small couch and leaned down to Father Dolan.

“Let’s get you out of here. I don’t think our host cares very much for your profession.”

“I would prefer to stay.”

“Not a chance. We may have enough legal problems on our hands,” Peterson said. His fearlessness was returning brighter than the lights now illuminating the ballroom. “It’s time we shut this thing down.”

“I don’t think you have that authority anymore, Lionel,” Julie Reilly said as she gathered up her microphone and headset. “As a matter of fact, I’m not sure you work at this network any longer.”

Peterson looked over at the camera and saw that it was still trained on him. “Get that off of me!” He shoved the lens away from his face.

Gabriel and John assisted Father Dolan to his feet. Then Gabriel looked at the camera team that was free at the moment and gestured that they should take Dolan outside for help.

“Gabe,” John leaned toward him just as Jenny and George walked up beside them. “Have you noticed the cold is still here?”

Gabriel nodded. He turned to face the others in the ballroom.

“Regardless who works at the network or not, we need to clear the house of everyone except my team, Ms. Reilly and one camera and sound man. Everyone else needs to leave—for your own protection.”

“What?” Kelly stepped forward.

“You heard me, Kelly. There is still activity in this room,” Kennedy said as he adjusted the small microphone to his mouth. “Harris, what have you got on the third floor?”

There was a burst of static and then Dalton came through loud and clear from the production van.

“The hallway lights played hell with the infrared and low light cameras, they’re just now clearing up. Wait, okay it looks like the master bedroom suite is—yes, its closed, but the sewing room door is still wide open. Now it’s the only light on that floor that’s out.”

Gabriel nodded and looked at Jackson.

“This is not a good place for a nonbeliever, Detective.”

Jackson shook his head and placed the radio back in his coat. “I think I’ll see it through, Professor.”

“You can’t say I didn’t warn you.” Kennedy looked around the room at the faces looking back at him. “Now, did everyone take note of the smell of perfume?”

“Why do you say perfume and not flowers?” Kelly Delaphoy asked.

“The odor was too powerful for flowers. No, that was perfume. When the voice finished what it had to say, the smell left, and the doors opened at the exact same moment. It went whenever the entity did when it left the ballroom.”

“Whatever we’re dealing with is slowly getting stronger,” George said. He stepped to the bar and eyed the bottle of whiskey. He grimaced and then turned away, much to Kennedy’s relief.

“Professor Gabe, you better look at this,” Leonard said from the large work table. He waved his three technicians up and out of their chairs, and then told them to vacate the house. “Go on, do what the professor says. Get while the getting’s good.” The technicians did as they were ordered.

Kennedy looked at the nearest monitor. The woman’s face was clearly made out, and then the picture changed to that of another, this one equally mysterious. Then another face appeared, this one a full length picture. She was dressed in turn of the century clothes, and the picture must have been over a hundred years old. Then another, and another—all dressed in the same period clothing. Some had husbands or other family members in the shots, others were alone.

“Where are these coming from?” Gabriel asked Leonard.

“It’s from the same program my people were running just before the power was sucked out of here.” He typed more commands. “These are Ellis Island shots. We were running employee records for the Lindemann sewing machine company and the textile companies.”

“Why is it doing that?” Julie Reilly asked as she and the others started crowding around the table holding the computer monitors.

“It’s doing it on its own,” Leonard answered.

Julie and Kelly simultaneously shoved the first team camera man in front of the table.

“Harris, are you picking this up?” Julie asked into her headset.

“We’re getting it. I don’t know what we’re getting, but it’s going out clean to the rest of the country.”

On the monitors a picture flashed, then the revolving show stopped. The lights flickered but stayed on. All eyes were on the pretty young woman framed on the monitors. She was dressed in the same clothing style as the others and she looked to be about seventeen, eighteen at the most. She was sitting at a small table with an old fashioned sewing machine and she was looking at the camera and smiling shyly.

“The happy workers of the Lindemann Textile Company,” Leonard read the caption, “Taken from the New York Post, February 3
^rd
, 1925.”

“Gabriel, we’ve seen that face before,” Jenny said.

Gabriel sorted through a stack of folders until he found the one he was searching for. He opened it and studied something for a few moments. When he looked up, he wasn’t focusing on anyone in the room..

“Professor, we are live,” Julie reminded him.

Kennedy finally turned back to face the camera, and brought out an old eight by ten glossy photograph—a reproduction of a promotional still. The heading was in German, but everyone focused on the face alone. They all saw it at almost the same time.

“Gwyneth Gerhardt,” John Lonetree said.

“The opera singer who disappeared,” Julie said to the camera.

“No, but a relative. Maybe a sister. The resemblance is too close,” Gabriel said. He nodded for Leonard to do his thing.

Sickles leaned over and started typing his commands. While he did so, Kennedy waved George Cordero over to his side. On the computer monitors, the picture of the pretty girl was replaced by a very old-looking employment record.

“You hit it on the head. Magdalena Gerhardt, eighteen years old. She worked for the Lindemanns for eight months. Gerhardt was her maiden name. She married Paul Lester, a foreman at the mill, three months after arriving from Germany.”

“Her sister, I’ll bet anything on it,” Gabriel said. “Now, did she leave the company after she married?”

“She left, all right,” Leonard answered, “but it doesn’t say why. Her husband, too. Wait, here’s a note from the personnel office. It seems they both quit without notice.”

“George, I saw that look on your face. What are you feeling?” Gabriel asked.

Cordero cleared his throat and then looked away, as if he was reluctant to answer.

“George?” Kennedy asked again, this time with force. “Whatever it was, made you want a drink.”

Cordero shrugged the camera gently away with an annoyed look and raised hand. But then his eyes met Kennedy’s own.

“I’m not picking up much. It’s like looking at a scene through a bowl of milk. It’s the opera star’s sister, you’re right on with that. And I think, I
feel
, Leonard’s computers are being manipulated from…
from—”

“The sewing room,” Kelly said, not being able to hold back, much to Julie Reilly’s annoyance.

“The basement. Or more accurately, the subbasement,” he finally said, moving his eyes from Gabriel’s.

“George, is that all?” Gabriel asked.

“The presence earlier, the voice…it was male…I think.”

“We all heard it for Christ’s sake, of course it was male. I have to hand it to you, Professor, your people don’t miss a trick.” Peterson walked toward the bar and retrieved his raincoat, pushing Wallace Lindemann to the side.

“I don’t know if it was…male. It had, I don’t know, an acting quality to it. Hell, Gabe, I don’t know.”

“Maybe it was old man Lindemann, my great granddaddy. That would be my bet,” Wallace said. He sipped his drink.

“Okay, let me know if you pick up anything else. For right now, Wallace here may have something—it’s a start, anyway.”

George nodded, knowing that he didn’t convey his true thoughts the way he would have liked.

“Look Gabriel, we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can get the answers here. The house hides its secrets well,” John Lonetree said. He looked from Kennedy to Jenny. “I have to go under. You know it, and I know it.”

“I don’t think this is the environment for it, John. You’ve never Dream Walked in anything like Summer Place. I don’t trust it—or, more to the point, I don’t trust whatever lives here.”

“What if Summer Place clams up? What if it goes dormant again?” John asked. Jenny took his arm and shook her head no.

“Then it goes dormant,” Gabriel said, feeling the camera on him and knowing the CEO and others were cringing at his words. “I’m not losing anyone here tonight.”

“I’m not a student, and I’m going into this with my eyes—well, while not open, they will be aware. I’m doing it.”

The rumble of thunder ripped outside almost on cue. In the corner, Damian Jackson listened to the men. He didn’t understand anything that was being said, but he did see one thing: for the first time, Professor Gabriel Kennedy looked scared. Of what, Jackson didn’t know, but he saw the defiant professor vanish, replaced by a man with memories of a night long ago etched on his face.

“Jenny, do you still have the sleeping pills I gave you at the hotel?” Gabriel asked.

Jennifer was silent. While she thought about what was being proposed, Kennedy turned to Kelly Delaphoy.

“Call Dalton and tell him to get to that EMS truck. Get me thirty CC’s of adrenalin and two one-milligram doses of epinephrine or atropine, whichever he has. Bring in the defibrillator, also.” He looked up at the others. “We may have to bring John out of his deep sleep fast, and I don’t know if his heart will be able to take it,” he explained. His eyes locked on Jenny’s. She reached into her bag and angrily pulled the small bottle of pills out, and tossed them to Gabriel.