Southern Gothic (24 page)

Water spotted the stone, and near the doorway leading to the next level, Max saw puddles of blood with trails running off to a darker section of the room. Turning his flashlight into the shadows, he saw a third corpse — a large German Shepard.

Max tried to picture what kind of elaborate set-up Cal Baxter had envisioned for this floor, but all he could see was that Rolson faced off with a dog, won, and opened the next door — saving Max the struggle. Figuring the room might change and lock him in, Max rushed across the floor and onto the next set of stairs.

As he climbed down, he tried to recall how many floors there were. Cal had to have been insane to create this. Considering all the magic involved, every subsequent floor furthered Max’s fears. If its purpose went beyond what he thought, then the true villainy below might kill him.

When he reached the next doorway, all doubt left him. Cal had been a bona-fide nutcase. The floor had been cut away, leaving behind a narrow, winding path across like a stone hedge maze in reverse. The gaps formed the magic circle, and Max thought if he fell down, he would find the bottom covered in painted symbols. But the truly insane part came a moment later. Flames shot up from below. They came in little bursts at seemingly random locations. Each time, the flames heated Max’s skin no matter how far across the room.

If Cal really had been part of this Magi group, then they were probably crazy as well. He would have to be extra cautious dealing with them.

“You’ve got to survive this first.” His voice bounced back at him, louder and more powerful — and he could hear his nerves.

Chapter 26

Max started along the pathway
and fast found that it narrowed after only a few feet. With his arms spread out like a high-wire act, he tried to keep his eyes looking ahead. That was what people said to do — find a spot in the distance and use that to keep balanced. The biggest thing, the most important thing, he knew well — everyone knew it.
Don’t look down.

Little explosions of fire popped behind him and another off to the right. He kept his eyes on the doorway and thought of the next step, the next step. He pushed out all other thoughts — and there were many — so that only his balance, only his next step, mattered.

It worked. He had gone about halfway, and by focusing ahead, he had stayed upright. Even his nerves had lessened because he had kept his mind clear on the present task. He grinned.

And that tiny lapse in thought sent him reeling.

He flapped his arms, tilted to the left, shifted his body hard the right but overcompensated, and once he went over, he couldn’t stop gravity. He looked in the direction of his fall. Two other narrow paths crossed like the parallel grating on an outdoor grill. Turning his body over, he thrust his arms and legs out forming a wide X in hopes of catching as much of the paths as possible.

When he hit the ground, his hand found one bit of stone to cling too — as did his foot and torso. A laugh erupted from his gut unbidden. He had survived. But as he pulled up onto the nearest pathway, a burst of flames rose beneath him.

For such a short duration, the ball of fire ate the air around him and forced his nervous sweat to evaporate. He stood and looked around. The heat continued to increase as did the strong smell of burning.

No pain. Just heat.
My jacket!

Trying not to lose his balance again, he wriggled out of his burning jacket. A dark hole had formed on the back, its edges glowing as it smoldered a larger hole. Max tossed it aside.

“Damn you, Cal, I liked that jacket.”

He remained on that path without moving for a full two minutes. Only when he felt calm enough to attempt the rest of the walk did he put out his arms, focus on the doorway, and begin again. When he reached the safety of yet another stairwell, Max leaned over and threw up.

At least going down the dark, stone stairways brought him one floor closer to being done. If not for that simple thought, his brain would have tried to talk him out of continuing. But surely he had gone more than halfway. To stop now meant returning — a longer trip than pushing onward. Besides, he and Sandra had made it through all their troubles by pushing onward.

When he entered the next floor, he questioned such an approach. Where the other floors had paint marking out the circle and symbols surrounding it, this floor had deep grooves. That would have been fine, but these grooves had been filled with a dark, crimson liquid. The smell of death hung in the air. Worse than a rotting rabbit at a birthday party, this death smelled stale, old, and full of pain.

Blood. The liquid had to be blood.

More disturbing — Max saw nothing else in the room but burning torches to light the way. No danger of any kind. And the doorway on the opposite side stood open and inviting.

Motionless, he observed the room. Nothing changed. He heard no threatening sounds, saw no threatening movement.

Cautiously, he put one foot into the room. Careful not to make any loud noises, he stepped ahead. Little by little he moved across the floor, avoiding the blood-filled grooves of the magic circle. When he reached the other side, he continued down the stairs at the same pace. Only when he could no longer see the light of the floor above did he resume a normal pace — and even then, he kept an ear open for any sudden change.

He should have kept an eye open. After having climbed down so many stairs, he took the rest of the stairwell for granted — but a sudden drop revealed three missing steps. Max tumbled downward, hit the next stair with his shoulder, flipped over, and rolled into the room.

He saw nothing. At first, he thought he had gotten turned around so hard that he couldn’t focus but soon understood that the room lacked any light source. Reaching around for his flashlight, his fingers slipped into a slick wetness.

“Crap,” he muttered.

Clenching his jaw, he tried to swallow back the urge to throw up again. He continued to feel around. There! His hand found a metal tube — the flashlight. Pulling it close like a parent protecting a baby, he whispered
Thank you
before flicking it on. Then he decided such thanks might have been premature. Sitting in the beam of light, he discovered the source of the slick wetness. His fingers had found a corpse wearing a torn hunter’s cap — Alan Peck.

Whatever horror Cal Baxter had constructed for this room, Max decided not to find out. He shined his flashlight on the exit and discovered a clear path ahead. Crawling on the floor — partially due to the pain from his latest fall, partially to avoid any possible Cal-created surprises higher up — Max made his way across.

At the next set of stairs, he sighed relief. He knew right away this led to the final floor. Bright light cut through from below, and he heard Rolson grunting hard in time with rhythmic strikes of something heavy against the floor.

As he neared the bottom, the temperature dropped. An unnatural drop that Max had felt many times before — the presence of a ghost.

He entered to find a room identical to the one on the first floor — a simple, elegant room lined with doors and bearing a painted circle on the floor. A candlestick with a black candle stood in the center. The only differences — the floor had been made of wood and a thin layer of ice covered everything.

Rolson had taken a position putting the circle between them. He held a sledgehammer and sweat soaked his pasty brow. He winked at Max, raised the sledgehammer, and yelled as he slammed it down on the wood slats within the circle. The sledgehammer bounced but the wood remained intact.

Rolson laughed. “All we put each other through and this damn thing is sealed with magic. The ghost of Cal Baxter won’t ever let go of his gold.”

Max opened his mouth but did not speak. He couldn’t. Behind Rolson, one of the doors had opened. A hard-looking man with close-cut hair, a pointed nose, and beady eyes entered. He wore a fine suit and appeared disgusted to stand in such a place. Max felt confident he knew the man, but all doubt went away when another man followed in close behind — Mr. Modesto.

“Mr. Porter. Detective Rolson. I believe you both know of Tucker Hull.” Modesto gave a slight bow and gestured to his employer.

Chapter 27

Rolson dropped to the floor,
prostrating like a zealot before his prophet. “Mr. Hull, I swear I’m trying with all the strength I have, but I can’t break open the floor.”

Modesto stood regal and snobby as usual. He stepped over Rolson as one might step over a rotting animal — careful and with disgust. Though his hair looked grayer than before and a few more lines marred his face, Modesto still carried the weight of his office in every over-pronounced syllable he spoke.

Max turned his attention to Tucker Hull. “Why the new body? Didn’t like the one you stole when you destroyed my office?”

Modesto tilted his head back so he could look down upon Max. “Of all people, Mr. Porter, I would have thought you would take the time to do a little research on Mr. Hull. Had you done so, you would not bother with such a foolish question.”

“Well, you know me — always the fool.”

“Indeed. The process of maintaining Mr. Hull in this world requires fresh bodies from time to time. Nothing the Hull family’s sizable resources cannot accommodate.”

“And by
process
you mean
spell
.”

“Of course.”

“And by
sizable resources
you mean all this gold you plan to steal.”

Tucker Hull’s eyes narrowed so sharp that Max felt a stab of pain in his chest. Those eyes traveled up and down Max, appraising him like an art dealer. Then Tucker walked forward — slow and strong. His voice matched. “I cannot steal what has always been mine. You are the thief here. But as the Lord would have it, perhaps one of His grand jests, I happen to require your unique thieving skills. Open the floor. Now.”

Max pointed at Rolson’s sledgehammer. “How can I possibly open this floor up when your own man can’t do it with that thing?”

“Give me another chance,” Rolson said. “I’m sure I can do it.”

With an impatient fluttering of his hands, Modesto said, “Mr. Hull demands this of you, Mr. Porter. Refuse and he will be forced to send people out to harm your wife.”

“I’m not refusing. Okay? Everybody just calm down. All I’m saying is that I don’t know what you expect me to do that Rolson hasn’t done.”

Tucker moved closer to Max, but he approached in a slight curving pattern.
Trying to avoid the circle,
Max thought. Tucker stared straight into Max — the power behind those beady eyes burning through in an instant.

All at once Max was a child gazing up at a disappointed father, a dog fearful of its master, a young girl afraid she had misunderstood the glance of a boy, and a woman afraid she had understood the glance of a man. His head spun. Every cell in his body wanted both to run in fear and stay within Tucker’s stare as long as possible. Intimidation and seduction — hand in hand — Max had never before experienced a person holding such power.

When Tucker spoke, however, the mesmerizing spell of his eyes broke. “Stop stalling. I do not expect you to use such a crude method as a sledgehammer. You are one of the few in the world that have seen, accepted, and appreciate the greater planes of existence around us — the places of magic and the supernatural.”

“Hard to deny when I’m staring at you.”

Tucker grinned. Max thought the man’s teeth had been sharpened into points but Tucker’s lips closed too fast to be sure.

“Clearly this is a problem of magic,” Tucker said, “I expect you to find a magic solution.”

Max turned to the circle, trying to control his shaking limbs. In all the possible outcomes they had planned for, he and Sandra and Drummond had always expected Rolson to have already dug up the gold by the time Max arrived. Looking at the flickering black candle, Max wondered if this miscalculation would cost his life. Or, if Modesto’s threats were to be believed — Sandra’s life.

Rubbing his hands, Max said, “Okay. Let me think this through.”

The floor couldn’t be forced open because of a magic seal of some type — or a magic something. Tucker expected Max to open it.
Why me, though?
Tucker had access to the best witches in all of North Carolina — probably in all of the country, if not the world. Why not bring one of them down to break the spell?

Only one reason made sense to Max — Tucker couldn’t. Not that Tucker couldn’t get hold of the best witches, but rather that he knew they couldn’t break the spell. Something unique about Max gave him, and only him, the ability. Otherwise, the Hulls would have opened the floor and taken the gold long ago.

But that posed a different problem. The Hulls had owned Baxter House for over a century. Even if they had not found the secret rooms until recently, they had to have been looking. They had to have been aware of the magical possibilities to protect the gold. All of which pre-dated Max’s birth by decades. So, whatever was unique about Max had to have been able to exist before him.

That meant that it had to be something Max had learned or acquired or — Max’s skin prickled as it clicked in his head. The magic circle. He had become connected to it. He would have figured it out sooner but, between threats from Hull and having faced the dangerous floors of Baxter House, his brain had suffered a bit of fatigue.