Angel Manor (Lucifer Falls Book 1) (37 page)

“The master demands his sacrifice.” She spoke to him not with the ethereal voice those of the afterlife possess, but with that of a living woman. Everything about her was strong, and Ruben’s knees buckled. Behind him, Darren whimpered, a dark stain spreading across the front of his trousers.

“You mean to take our lives?” Ruben turned his gaze to the woman.

“That wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice. One must suffer when blood is spilled.” She held up a hand, a rusty pair of clippers sitting between her fat fingers. He wondered if they were real, but in his heart of hearts, he knew the answer.

The two women stepped into the room. They were the identical image of each other. Both were tall and slender with soft round breasts, and each had long honey-blonde hair falling over their pale shoulders – one wore it to the right and the other to the left. They would have been pleasant to look at if it hadn’t been for the dead eyes, the blue veins and the black mouths. They turned their heads in unison towards Darren, who let out a high-pitched scream. Each sister held a long, thick spike, and took slow, jerky steps towards him.

“Ruben?” Darren’s voice was tight, but Ruben didn’t dare break eye contact with the woman holding the clippers to look at him.

“I don’t know who you are, lady, but we’re here to help you. If you haven’t found your rest, then we can guide you towards the light. My companion…”

“The only help you can give me is by spilling your blood on my skin.” She snipped the clippers and laughed at him. “But first, you must watch.” The woman lunged towards him with inhuman speed, and her plump hand gripped his wrist like a vice. She pulled him towards her, pressing his back against her soft, doughy flesh and placing her face on his shoulder. Her chin dug into the muscle at the bottom of his neck, her waxy hair tickled against his face, and he could smell a hint of almond mixed with the bitter scent of rotting meat.

A pale arm wrapped itself around his chest, and fingers pinched his chin, forcing him to look at Darren, who was retreating towards the window.

The young man pleaded with the advancing females, holding a thin silver crucifix up in the air in an attempt to ward them off. Ruben knew that was the kind of superstitious nonsense that could only work for a true believer. Unfortunately, Ruben suspected that it didn’t really matter whether Darren was one or not. These ladies were nothing like the spirits he had ever encountered. These naked females seemed to be moulded from flesh and blood, the same as the living. The women closed in on Darren, who had run out of places to manoeuvre to, and they raised the metal spikes in their hands. Darren fought back, but they each grabbed one of his arms, and though Ruben could see him struggle, they held on to him as if it didn’t matter. He kicked and snapped his teeth at them, but the women remained unperturbed. They pushed him into the window, pinning him under their weight, and then brought the spikes down into his closed eyes. Darren screamed, and Ruben’s stomach burned with terror. He couldn’t look away. The hand had his face pinned, and when he closed his eyes, the sharp points of the clippers pierced his back. The rusted metal cut through his shirt and the top layer of his skin, drawing hot blood that stuck to his clothes. He opened his eyes again and felt the metal retreat from his back.

Darren still screamed, and the two women, working with the elegance of synchronised swimmers, pulled back their spikes. Darren’s eyeballs came out of their sockets, trailing spidery webs of bloody tissue along with them. Gravity became too much for the wounded man, and he sagged to the ground. The women inspected the eyeballs, each moving as the exact mirror image of the other. Thin fingers gripped the soft tissue as they pulled the eyes free. With satisfied smiles, they popped the eyeballs between their teeth and swallowed them before lifting their spikes in the air once more and clinking them together in a grotesque toast. Then they turned back to Darren, driving the spikes into his arms, torso, legs and face as they saw fit, while he desperately fought to defend himself. Thick, dark blood oozed up from deep cuts, but the spikes drove home time and again. His face was mutilated, his jaw hung slack against his neck, and his ear had been torn clean off. Ruben’s knees buckled once more. The woman behind him lost her grip for a brief second, and he struggled from her grasp and ran. Her fingers touched the cloth of his shirt, but sheer terror gave him a speed he didn’t know he possessed. He almost stumbled over his own feet, but he managed to regain his balance. Ruben was determined to find Marie-Claire if it was the last thing he’d ever do. His heart pounded in his throat as he made his way to the end of the corridor.

It’s not going to be a dead end this time,
he thought with a mixture of desperation and determination.
It’s not because I won’t allow it to be.
He barely noticed the horde of women walking through the corridor behind him, and he didn’t allow himself to look back. The door loomed out of the darkness, and Ruben threw himself towards it. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but there was hope.

Chapter 30

She had been lost for hours when the clock struck twelve, and Freya’s anxiety was building with each passing minute. Then the screams began, and the stress was too much for her body to bear. A wave of nausea hit her and the yellowish liquid she vomited splashed on the marble floor, oozing in different directions. The sight of it made her sick a second time, and the noxious pool on the floor grew. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and moved as far away from the mess as she could.

The house was like a maze, and it seemed alive somehow. The corridors refused to stay the same, and though she hadn’t seen a single set of stairs yet, she was sure she had run through several different floors. The impossibility of what was happening was no longer relevant. Freya just needed to stay alive. The screams from below gave her renewed energy, and she knew she had to find a way out. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to find more: the front door or Marie-Claire and her team. Her solitude was the most frightening of all, and she regretted running away from Oliver; he may have gone completely crazy, but at least he was another person.

Something stirred in the darkness beyond. A figure. Freya’s heart leapt, and she ran towards the movement.

“I’m here,” she cried. “I’m so lost. Please help me.”

The figure turned, and Freya stopped in her tracks. It was a woman, old and naked. The sight of her was so unexpected and ridiculous that Freya fought to stifle a laugh.

“Who are you?” The words escaped her mouth before she realised what she was doing. “Are… are you one of the spirits?”

The woman looked too real to be a spirit. She looked alive. No… not quite alive; her skin was too pale, and the black veins that shone through it were too dark. There was something about her eyes too, and Freya wondered if the woman was blind like Florifera.

“You are the child of the blood.” Her black mouth was lined with deep gashes, and the teeth inside were dull grey stumps covered in dark mucus. They reminded Freya of the substance they’d found on the walls on the first day.

“Pardon?” Freya blinked and took an involuntary step back.

“I can smell it. You are a guardian.” The old woman raised her head and sniffed the air. Her grey hair hung in wet strands across her wrinkled cheeks, the ashen skin of her scalp showing between the thin roots.

“Eh… where exactly did you come from?” Her mind struggled desperately to catch up with the situation.

“Come here, child. You have a role to fulfil.”

“What role would that be?”

“The master who sleeps demands sacrifices. We don’t want him to wake now, do we?”

“Uhm, no?”

“He demands your blood, child. And your suffering.”

Freya took another step back, and the stooped figure stepped forward, beckoning her with a gnarled hand. “Come, child. Let me bathe in your blood.” The woman’s hand opened and closed, but the hungry expression on her old face was enough to snap Freya out of her trance, and the girl turned and ran.

The rubber soles of her Doc Martin’s made a screeching sound on the marble as she skidded across the corridor. She heard the bare footsteps of the old woman behind her, too close for comfort, and her heart leapt when she came to the end and saw a set of stairs leading upwards. She grasped the wood railing and hoisted herself forward as fast as she could, taking two steps at a time. Something grabbed her ankle, and Freya screamed.

***

The spirits in the attic were hysterical, and Logan struggled to have a clear thought. The ghostly children ran and screamed, which was bad enough by itself, but their fear affected the house somehow. Walls built up out of nowhere, and the ground beneath them cracked open in dark gaping chasms that led to the floor below yet wouldn’t stay open long enough for anyone to actually jump through.

He needed to keep a level head and get his guys away from danger, but Logan couldn’t think of a way how. The screaming, the chaos, and the constant changes grated on his last nerve, and he had to do his best not to break down. John and Jim were as useless as he himself felt as they each tried to guide the guys away from the shape-changing elements in the room. He felt as if he was lost in the funhouse of a freaky fucking carnival.

The deafening sound of wood cracking overtook the screams, and suddenly everything stopped. The children stood to the north wall, huddled together with fearful eyes as they stared at the centre of the floor. Something was breaking through the wood. Hands clutched the boards from below, and Logan watched as pale figures pulled themselves up from the hole. Seven women crawled from the opening like twisted spiders. The children’s screaming was replaced with whimpers. The women’s movements were jerky, as if they were string puppets, their limbs waving in awkward angles as they rose to their feet. When the nearest one, a tall and very skinny woman with long black hair, looked up at him, Logan urged the boys to move. She took a step in their direction, her thick bush of pubic hair looking like a cluster of spiders between her long, bony legs.

“Fuck man, that’s the creepiest fucking bitch I’ve ever seen.”

Logan could feel Terrence tremble in his grip, and he looked like he was about to burst into tears.

“Don’t look at her. Just move.”

He tried to follow Jim, but the attic creaked again and a wall sprung from the ground, forcing Logan and Terrence to jump back.

They’re separating us
, Logan thought in horror as he tried to find a way around the wall. There wasn’t one.

***

John Norris couldn’t believe his eyes. This went from being a nice day out with the lads to being stuck in an attic with ghosts and crazy naked women. The ever-changing surroundings were incomprehensible, and all he could think about was getting himself and the two young men he’d firmly gripped around the arms to safety. Mason and Angus were crying, but John had no time to deal with their emotions. They ran across the floor, away from the women, away from the walls that sprang out of nowhere… just away. If he had to jump out of a window to get out of this madhouse, he knew he would risk it. He didn’t even notice that he was getting further separated from Logan and Jim, and even if he had noticed, he wouldn’t have cared.

He scanned the attic, looking for where the light was coming from. It was difficult to make out because he wasn’t seeing things for what they really were. He blinked with the vain hope that his vision would clear, but there was more in his eyes than just dust or tears. It was like being on drugs. John pulled Mason away from a wall just as it folded in on itself, morphing into a new shape, and pushed Angus to safety from a large broken plank spearing up from the ground. He failed to see the hole beneath him, and his right foot stepped on empty air. John’s automatic reaction was to cling on to the two guys as he fell backwards. Angus was the first to lose his balance, and he plummeted down the dark chasm in the wooden floorboards. Mason still stood on the edge trying to catch his balance when John turned, but the falling Angus grabbed at him, and he fell too. John moved as fast as he could and managed to wrap his hand around the guy’s wrist. Down below, he saw Angus connect with the marble floor. He lay still, his eyes wide open, looking directly at John. He couldn’t tell if the boy was dead or just stunned, but Mason demanded his immediate attention. The boy was slipping in his grip, and John reached out with his other arm and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him up as best he could. An ominous crackling noise filled the air, and he realized that the floor was in the midst of closing itself again. Panic struck his heart as he frantically tried to pull the struggling Mason up.

“Damn it, boy. Help me out here,” he groaned, his forehead slick with sweat. There was terror in Mason’s eyes, and John felt sick. For such a skinny guy, Mason weighed a ton in his arms.

“Stop panicking, Mason. I got you, son.” He tried to keep his voice calm, but the floor was starting to crumple in on itself, and he was hanging half down the hole. “Come on boy, I need you to pull yourself up.”

“There isn’t time. You need to let me go.” Mason’s eyes shot to the narrowing hole. “Let me go, Mr. Philips. I’ll be okay. You need to pull back.”