Angel Manor (Lucifer Falls Book 1) (36 page)

“Come on, sunshine. Let’s put you to bed until the worst is over.”

To her relief, Oliver let her guide him with a lamb-like docility as she steered him into the hallway. Something struck her as odd, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Only when she opened the door to Oliver’s bedroom and peered inside did she understand what was bothering her.

“What the hell? How did we get here?” She looked into the dining room. It looked brand new now, its floors polished and the rug unblemished and bright. Light from the candelabra filled the room. The table was set with silver dishes, and the whole room smelled of salty roast meats. Freya’s blood ran cold.

“It’s starting.” Oliver giggled and sat at the table, tucking in to the banquet as if he’d been starved. His hand wrapped around the leg of a large turkey, and he pulled with all his might until the meat came loose. To Freya’s horror, the turkey started to bleed thick, dark red blood.

“Oliver, don’t touch that.” Her hand went up to warn him. Oliver turned around, the leg between his teeth, the corners of his mouth curled up behind the meat. He ripped a piece of the flesh off while the red liquid dripped down his chin, and when he smiled at her, maggots wiggled on his tongue.

“You should try some of this.” A swarm of black flies flew out of his mouth, and Freya screamed.

She turned and ran, trying to find her way back to the safety of the kitchen. Somewhere in the house the old grandfather clock chimed eleven times.

***

The house was gaining strength fast, and Marie-Claire was sure the oncoming equinox was only partially to blame. There was something about this place that worried her, but she couldn’t quite divine what it was. The darkness woke the house, and she could feel it fight back against her efforts to understand it. Whatever made this building had given it a twisted form of consciousness; the whole thing had a mind of its own. There was something special about this area, and it wasn’t just the house. The magic ran deeper and wider than that, all the way to Lucifer Falls.

Perhaps you have bitten off more than you can chew on this one,
she chided herself inwardly, though her pride refused to admit it. She heard the crew muttering over their loss of feed, but the old woman knew this wasn’t about proving things to the world anymore; this was now simply about survival. She promised the girl she would help, but she hoped the sacrifice wouldn’t be as great as she feared it might be. The image of the nun came to mind. “Ruben.” The word came out like a command, and Ruben rushed to her side. The smell of his cologne was familiar and comforting.

“What’s the matter,
Cherie
?”

She rested her head on his chest. “Do you remember that time in Taiwan? In the Bagua building?”

“The mass exorcism? How can I forget?” He patted her hair.

Marie-Claire looked up at him, frowning. “I want you to start setting it up. We’re going to go ahead with it tonight.”

“Just like that?” She felt his hand on her arm. “Marie-Claire, I thought you wanted to get some data first. To get some proof this time? Why the change of heart?”

“This house is more dangerous than I initially thought it was. I didn’t see it before, but I do now. Let’s not take risks.” She patted his hand with her own. “I would like to have everything ready before midnight, so I need you to rush. There isn’t much time. Set everything up in that large area just off the entrance hall. That’s a nice central place in the house, and it should draw everything towards it. I would like to have things contained before these ‘Angels’ get loose. I don’t trust them.”

“This will ruin all that you have worked for. You know that, right?”

“There will be other times. Please, I don’t want to take the risk. That boy is already possessed, and we don’t know what else will happen.”

“We’ve dealt with possessed people before.”

“Ruben, please. Just stop arguing with me.”

“Fine, but I’m taking Darren with me.”

“Do so, but please be careful.” She heard the sound of the clock striking eleven.
Only one hour until the equinox.

***

“Why do we need to get stuff for a ritual? I thought Marie-Claire could show the spirits the light.” Darren adjusted the lens of his camera and aimed it at Ruben, who gave him a grouchy look. The corridor was dark, and he wondered whether the lights simply hadn’t been turned on, or if they didn’t work. The house was in some disrepair.

“She can. We’re just going to get a few little things to help her against any spiritual influences. Rock salt, sage, cedar… the usual stuff. And chalk to make a ritual circle. You’d be amazed how easy these things are. It’s not even about saying the right words, though that can give the caster a bit of a benefit. Mind you, there needs to be magic behind it; these are merely tools to enhance it.”

“It feels a bit hoaxy.” Darren pointed his camera at the hall, his eyes fixed on the screen.

“It’s effective.” There was a terseness to Ruben’s voice, and Darren knew he had to watch what he said next. The old man’s feathers were easily ruffled. Darren didn’t want to be on Ruben’s bad side. He had seen the treatment Ruben gave Pierre, and he wasn’t about to invite the same behaviour.

“Sure,” he said, pointing the infrared camera the other way. “Wait…” Darren came to a halt. “We took a wrong turn.”

“It seems so. We should have gone the other way.” Darren watched Ruben turn around through the eye of his camera. The white-on-green images were more comforting than facing the darkness. Darren still felt the fresh tingle of nerves each time they visited a new haunted area, but this house was a little too intense for his liking. The others had sensed it too, Darren was sure of it. Everyone was more serious than normal.

Something moved across the screen on his camera, startling him into a soft yelp.

“What?” Ruben turned to him with an irritated glance.

“I think I saw something move.”

“What?”

“I don’t know… it was really fast. I can’t see it now. Maybe it was just a shadow or something. I’m not sure.”

“
Merde
, where are we? I can’t find the kitchen anymore.” Ruben cursed under his breath and turned around. “This whole corridor looks different from how it did before. I don’t understand.”

“Maybe we got turned around again?”

“Put that stupid camera down and help me look.” Ruben put his hand on the camera and pulled it away from Darren’s face. Darren sighed. He knew that the older man was irritable, and it was best to help him find his way. He looked around and realised he hadn’t been through here before. Ruben spun back around and took tall strides towards the end of the corridor.

“Dead end.”

“Then we should go the other way?” He posed the idea as a question, afraid to tick Ruben off even more.

“There is no other way to go, is there?” Ruben walked towards the other side, Darren in tow. But when they reached the end of the corridor, all they found was another dead end.

“This isn’t right.” Ruben stood still, scratching his head. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. How can this be another dead end? We didn’t take any turns anywhere, did we?”

“I don’t think so.”

Behind them, they heard a loud metallic bang.

“Eh…” Darren froze to the spot and looked at Ruben.

“It came from there.” Ruben pointed at a large metal door.

“What does it mean?”

“How should I know?”

“You’re the ghost hunting expert. I only joined two years ago. I’ve never heard any sound like that before.”

“I rather not find out what it means, thank you. Let’s just find a way out of here. I would feel better if we could get back to Marie-Claire.”

“What about the salt and stuff?”

“Fuck the salt. I think it’s better that we just stick together now.”

***

“There has to be an exit somewhere. I know the attic runs across the whole of the top floor. We’ll go through a window if we have to.” Logan eyed his young crew, who were uncharacteristically quiet. Even Terrence, who didn’t easily lose his bravado, was subdued. Mason looked positively terrified. He had no idea how long they’d been in the attic, but it had to have been at least an hour. As far as he knew, they’d searched every corner, every nook and cranny, but they had yet to find a way out. The house kept changing around on them. Logan decided he had a passionate hatred for Angel Manor. If he ever got the chance to burn the house down, he would. First the bastard had to let him go, though. He didn’t want to end up like that little pink-haired girl.

The ghosts were still with them, and Logan was grateful that the young men seemed less frightened of them now. After all, the spirits seemed harmless, but the frustration of being locked up in this huge, dark attic was getting to all of them. Even John and Jim, who were mostly down-to-earth fellows, were pale and silent. Somewhere in the depths of the house, Logan heard the loud chimes of a clock. With each ring, the sound seemed to grow louder. Mason Applebaum fiddled with his thick glasses and counted along with the chimes.

“Nine, ten…”

“Come on guys… we’ll try this way again,” Logan urged, feeling a growing unease with each chime.

“Eleven.”

“Maybe we can pry open that window we saw earlier.”

“Twelve.”

The house trembled with a loud roar. Logan felt his ears pop, and he swallowed hard to negate the uncomfortable feeling. The attic was cloaked in silence. Not a creak or a sigh of wind… and for a moment, Logan wondered if he had gone deaf. Then… the screaming began.

Chapter 29

They all felt it. Every living person in the house felt the arrival of the equinox. The darkness spread from the very core of the ground beneath the house, stretching up like tiny black veins, painting everything in shadow. The inside of the house expanded, keeping its living victims in the centre, away from any potential escape routes. The energy of the sun and the moon breathed even more life into the house’s soul, and Angel Manor woke with a hungry shudder. It knew it was time for the sacrifice, but this time would be different. This time, there would be fresh meat.

***

This was her chance. Bam felt the power of the equinox wash over her. Her ghostly form seemed to become more substantial, and power coursed through her. The house tugged at her, demanding obedience more than ever before, but she had more natural strength too. All she needed to do was to find Freya, and she could help. Angel Manor would allow her to help Freya, she just knew. It was more difficult to sense the living now that the magic was alive. Finding Freya could prove a challenge. The only benefit was that it would be more difficult for the others as well.

Where are you, Freya?

***

After the tremor, the corridor went deadly quiet. Ruben cursed himself for not knowing where they were. They had been walking up and down, opening all the doors and looking for ways out, but nothing had proved successful. In a desperate attempt to escape, he’d tried to throw one of the chairs he found through a window, but the chair just smashed and bounced off the glass. Nothing had worked, and Ruben realised that the house was more potent than anything either he or Marie-Claire had ever experienced before. There had been a few moments during his life with Marie-Claire when he had been afraid, but he had never truly feared for his life before. Not up until now. Ruben was balancing on the verge of panic, and he didn’t even know why. Perhaps it was because he was lost, or because Marie-Claire wasn’t with him. Perhaps it was the strange earthquake which had unsettled him, he just didn’t know. All he knew was that he would rather be anywhere else than stuck in this dark wing of the house with an asshole like Darren.

Could have been worse,
he told himself.
Could have been Pierre.

Then the whole house shook. Ruben didn’t need Marie-Claire’s second sight to feel the supernatural phenomena building up around him. Seconds after the tremors, he heard a screeching that went straight through his very soul. Loud, high-pitched voices, more wicked than anything he had ever heard, laughed and screamed. The voices startled Darren so badly that the imbecile dropped his camera, and he took a few steps back into the room, putting his back against a wall. Ruben was about to make a snide remark when a noise in the corridor outside made the words die on his lips. It was a wet sound, like naked feet walking clumsily on marble, not one pair of feet, but many. Soft sniggering accompanied the sound, as if a dozen schoolgirls were sneaking through the house. But Ruben knew these weren’t schoolgirls. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he felt cold chills run down his spine.

He had seen spirits before, in pure form and those which had possessed humans, and there was always something unsettling about seeing them. But when the door to the room opened all by itself, Ruben knew a fear he’d never before experienced. Three women stood in the opening, and all of them were stark naked. Their skin was so pale the light of the moon coloured it a grey hue. Cobwebs of blue-black veins lay close under the skin, and they looked at the world through milky eyes, fixing their sights on Ruben. A rotund woman with a stomach that hung over her skinny legs in three fat folds stepped into the room. She had long, waxen brown hair, hanging in frizzy curls over her shoulders. Her thin lips were covered in mucus, making them look little more than a dark gash in her face. There was hunger in her expression, and with a black tongue, she licked her lips to confirm his fears.