Michael Belmont and the Heir of Van Helsing (The Adventures of Michael Belmont) (44 page)

Liam, leaning over with his hands upon his knees, simply shook his head.
 
“Let’s keep going, I think I’ve had enough of this dungeon.”
 
He put his hand up to his head as if he had a headache and added, “Not that what we find up there will be any better than what’s down here.”

They plodded up the stairs, which looked just like the ones they’d come down a few minutes before.
 
At least they were headed up again, thought Michael.
 
Although the going was slow and their legs were tired, they eventually emerged in a rather unexpected place.

They found themselves in a small, oddly decorated room with a wooden table in the center.
 
Strange objects surrounded them on all sides.
 
Michael’s heart skipped a beat when he noticed a large creature looming above them, but he was relieved to see it was only a taxidermic bear.
 
Two stuffed wolves stood near its feet, lips snarled in anger and tongues hanging out.
 
There were other hunting trophies scattered across the room, and some of the creatures were strange and unfamiliar, but all were covered with dust and cobwebs.

Liam examined a nearby shelf, which held some books and trinkets.
 
There was a crystal ball, some tarot cards, and a moldy, dark book with the words
Necronomicon
and
Abdul Alhazred
etched upon its cover.
 
Another old book, entitled
Book of Coming Forth by Da
y was laying beside a skeletal hand, which rested upon a dirty crimson pillow.
 
For a moment, he thought he’d seen it twitch.

“This is an evil place,” Liam said, turning to Michael.
 
“We need to get out of this room, I don’t like being in here.”

Michael could see that his friend suddenly looked pale.
 
“This whole castle is an evil place,” he agreed.
 
“The Dragon said it used to be good and welcoming.
 
It’s amazing that one wicked man could do so much to corrupt it.”
 
He walked to the door and tried to turn the handle.
 
It was locked.

“Oh come ON,” Michael yelled in frustration.
 
“The first thing I’m going to do after I get out of here is learn to pick a lock.”

“Hey, look at this.”
 
Liam was standing over the table in the center of the room.
 
He plunked down in one of the dusty chairs, which caused it to creak painfully.
 
Michael stood behind him, waving the dust away, and looking over his shoulder.

“What is
that
thing?” Michael asked him apprehensively.

“I’ve seen something like this before, though I was warned not to play with it.
 
It’s called a spirit board.
 
You use it to speak to the dead.”

Michael definitely didn’t like the sound of that.
 
He watched as Liam enthusiastically brushed the dust and cobwebs away.
 
The board was beautiful and intricate, crafted from some kind of heavy wood, with pieces of bone or ivory inlaid as designs.
 
Rows of letters and numbers were stretched across in an arch.
 
In the center at the top was an image of an angel wrestling with a demon- their arms interlocked in struggle.
 
To the left and right at the top were images of the sun and moon, but they each had the face of an angry human skeleton.
 
In the center of the board was the thin outline of a pentagram with flames rising from the top.

The board gave Michael a very uneasy feeling.
 
He wasn’t sure if he believed one could talk to the dead through some dusty old piece of wood.
 
It didn’t make any sense.
 
The more he looked at the thing however, the greater he felt his stomach tighten.
 
He glanced back at Liam, who seemed to be fixated on it.

“Come on,” said Michael, placing a hand on his shoulder.
 
“We need to keep moving.
 
We have to find a way out of here.”

Liam didn’t budge.

Michael sighed in frustration and turned to resume his search for a way out.

“What if…” Liam began, turning his eyes to Michael with a hopeful smile.
 
“What if we could speak to my mum?
 
Maybe she could help us.
 
Maybe she could tell us how to get out of here and up to the throne room?”

“I thought you said you’d been warned
not
to use these things.
 
What about this place having an ‘evil’ feel, remember all that?”

“Sure I do, but how else are we going to get out of here?
 
That door is locked.”

“We can go back down to the dungeon, try to find another way up from there.”

Liam sat up straight in his chair.
 
“And then what?
 
This whole castle is an absolute nightmare.
 
It’s full of traps and dead ends.
 
What if this is our best chance?”

Michael wasn’t convinced.
 
He didn’t like the looks of that board, and he didn’t like the looks of the books, the animals, or the other freaky things scattered around the room.
 
Liam was right, this place
did
feel evil, even more so than other parts of the castle.

“Spirit boards like this have been used for bad things, but what if we use it for good.
 
What if we use it to talk to my mum?
 
Ask her for help?
 
What could be wrong about doing that?”

Michael didn’t have an answer for him.
 
Maybe he was right; maybe they could use the board for good, even if it had been used for dark purposes in the past.

“Alright,” he said.
 
“If you’re sure you know what you’re doing.”

Liam looked a bit scared.
 
“Actually, I
don’t
know all that well what I’m doing.
 
I’ve never used one of these before, but I have seen someone do it.
 
He put his hands on the heart-shaped wooden indicator on top of the board.
 
Michael sat down beside him and placed his hands upon it too.

“So, what do we do now?” Michael asked him.

“Just let it guide your hands.
 
It moves itself.”

They waited for something to happen, but the piece didn’t move.

“Is anyone there?” asked Liam softly.
 
“We want to speak to my mum.
 
Mum, can you hear us?”

Still nothing happened.

“I don’t think it’s going to work,” Michael told him.

“Just wait and see.”

A few moments later the indicator began to move slowly around, assuming a figure eight pattern across the board.

Michael was stunned; it actually seemed to be working.
 
He looked at Liam, expecting him to speak, but he looked too surprised to talk.

“Is this Liam’s mother?” he asked.

The indicator seemed to slow down a bit, and then made another pass before coming to a rest on the
Yes
.

Liam beamed at Michael excitedly as the indicator resumed its pattern around the board.
 
He smiled back hopefully.

“Mum,” Liam said in a shaky voice, “I’m sorry I’ve never talked to you before.
 
I didn’t know I would ever be able to speak to you like this.”

The indicator slowed again as if it were thinking, but then continued its course around the board.
 
The scraping sound it made as it glided was calming and hypnotic.

“Is it peaceful where you are?” Liam asked.
 
“Are you happy there?”

Again, the indicator slowed down a bit before coming to a rest on the
No
.

Liam looked shocked.
 
In fact, he suddenly looked as if he were about to cry.

Michael frowned at him.
 
“Is there anything we can do to help you?”

Yes
the board answered.

“Well, what is it?”
 
Liam demanded.

The indicator began moving faster, slowing down and stopping over each letter before moving on to the next.
 
B-U-R-N-C-A-S-T-L-E-D-O-W-N
it spelled before resuming the figure eight pattern.

“Burn the castle down?”
 
Liam looked up at Michael in confusion.
 
“You want us to burn this castle down?”

The board took a moment to respond.
 
No
.

Liam looked lost.
 
“I don’t get it.”

Michael could think of only one other castle she might be talking about.

“Are you saying,” he asked slowly, “that you want us to burn McGinty Castle down?”

The indicator slowed.
 
Yes
.

The two boys looked at each other in silence.
 
Michael couldn’t imagine Liam’s mother telling them to burn McGinty Castle down.
 
It just didn’t make any sense.

“Can you tell us how to get out of here?” Michael asked.
 
“Do you know how we can get up to the throne room?”

The indicator stopped.
 
It lay still for a few long moments, and just as Michael opened his mouth to speak again it resumed its pattern.
 
Yes
.

They waited patiently as the board communicated its message.
 
T-U-R-N-H-A-N-D-L-E-T-E-N-S-E-C-O-N-D-C-L-I-C-K
.

It took them a few minutes of asking questions before they figured out this meant they were to turn the door handle and hold it for ten seconds before it would click open.

“And once we get out, where do we go from there?” Liam asked.

L-E-F-T-E-N-D-O-F-H-A-L-L-R-I-G-H-T-G-O-U-P-E-N-D-O-F-H-A-L-L-B-A-L-L-R-O-O-M
.

These directions required some clarification as well.
 
But in the end they determined that they needed to exit the room, take a left, go down to the end of the hall, take a right, go up the staircase, go to the end of the hall, and enter a ballroom.

“Alright, we’ve got the directions,” Michael told Liam encouragingly.
 
“We need to get going now.”

Liam nodded.
 
“Mum, I’ll talk to you again soon.
 
Thanks for your help.
 
I love you, and I miss you.”

M-E-2, the indicator spelled, and then it stopped.

Liam turned his face away from Michael and wiped his eyes with his sleeves.

“At least you know how to talk to her now,” Michael sympathized, moving toward the door.
 
Liam nodded.

Michael took hold of the door handle and turned.
 
He held it and began counting.
 
After twelve seconds, for he must have been counting a bit fast, the lock clicked and the handle finished turning.
 
Michael swung the door open and they shed some light out into the hallway.
 
It was dusty and unkempt, but compared to the little room, looked inviting.
 
Michael took a deep breath.
 
Only now did he realize how tight his stomach had been while they were trapped in that room.

Together they crept out, turned left and hurried to the end of the hall.
 
Just as the board had indicated, there was a staircase on their right.
 
The wooden steps creaked loudly as they went up, causing a shiver to run up Michael’s spine.
 
The less noise they made, the better.

The top of the stairway opened up into a hall much like the one they’d just come from.
 
They continued to move as silently as possible, passing closed doors and side-stepping the cobwebs, until they reached a large set of double doors at the end.

“Looks like we’re on the right track,” Liam whispered.

Michael nodded as they pushed the doors open.
 
The empty ballroom that spread out before them sucked up their light like a vast underground cave.

“This place is humungous!” Liam said loudly.

“Bring it down,” Michael reminded him, waving his hand up and down.
 
If there was anything alive in here he wanted to be able to hear it coming.

“Sorry,” Liam whispered back.
 
“Well, where do we go from here?
 
Straight through to the other end I suppose?”

Michael shrugged and then nodded.
 
Liam’s mother hadn’t told them what to do once they’d reached the ballroom.
 
The answer would probably be obvious once they found it.

Despite their efforts to remain silent, every little sound they made echoed off the walls around them.
 
There were no hanging tapestries or rugs to catch the noise in here, it looked like any such decorations had been removed long ago.
 
The place smelled stale and ashy.
 
Along the sides of the room were some old busts, many of them broken and laying in pieces upon the floor, but those remaining had dark discoloration.
 
Michael moved closer to the right wall and saw similar discolorations going up the tall stone wall.
 
They were scorch marks.
 
There had been a great fire in here at some point, long ago.

“Do you hear that?” Liam asked him.
 
They’d both come to a stop without realizing it.
 
Michael stood still and listened.

He shook his head.
 
“Hear what?”

Liam raised his eyebrows and smirked.
 
“I think I hear music.”

Michael wasn’t in the mood for jokes.
 
“Very funny.
 
Let’s just keep moving.”