Smoke and Mirrors (23 page)

And four mouse traps.

And a box of rat poison.

Foreshadowing,
Tony sighed.
The sign of quality horror flicks.
Except this wasn't a movie, it was real life. He squinted at the packaging.

“Problem?”

“Nope.” It was a new box and if the doors opened at sunrise the house didn't have time for the warfarin to work. And how disturbing did life have to get for
that
to be reassuring?

Pretty damned disturbing.

“Tony? Lee?” Adam. Not close. The 1AD had probably moved only as far as the edge of the candlelight since his voice—a voice that could carry over half a dozen separate conversations, background construction noise, and a posse of hysterical Raymond Dark fans—was barely audible. “What the hell . . .” A few words got lost in the distance, making the whole thing eerily reminiscent of the problems with the walkie-talkies. “. . . so long?”

Lee half turned, pulled around by the reminder that they weren't alone. “We need to get back.”

“Yeah.”

They were halfway through the kitchen when Tony remembered what they'd originally come for. “Salt.”

“What?”

“Amy's protective circle.”

“Right. Do you think she knows what she's talking about?”

“I think it can't hurt.”

Lee's answering expression was so carefully neutral it was obvious he heard the subtext. And just as obvious, he wasn't going to mention it. Hope was a fragile thing at the best of times and locked up in a psychotic house, it took a beating.

Craft services had left a large box of small salt packets and other condiments on the counter by the door. Tony set the lantern down by the box—Lee was carrying the spare and the kerosene—and folded in the cardboard flaps. As he tucked it under his arm, three packets slid out and hit the floor. He bent to pick them up and froze. “Son of a bitch.”

“What?”

The cables running out of the generator hadn't been packed up before the doors slammed closed. He was so used to spending his working day stepping over and around a web of cable that it hadn't even occurred to him to question their continuing presence or how impossible it would be to close a door on them.
Under the circumstances, maybe impossible isn't the right word.
The cables ran up to the door and stopped. Tony grabbed one and pulled to no effect. They hadn't been severed. They just stopped. “They're still going through the space,” he muttered. “When is a door not a door . . . ?”

“When it's a jar?” Lee's tone had distinct hints of
let's humor the crazy man.

“When it's a metaphysical construct.”

“Say what?”

He sat back and glanced up at the actor. “This door was created by the house to lock us in. The actual door is still open.”

“Can we get out it?” Lee frowned down at the point where the cables met the wood.

Good question. Eyes closed to keep perception out of the equation, Tony ran his fist along the top of the cables and punched it out the space they had to be using. “Ow.” To give the house credit, that was one
solid
metaphysical construct.

“Tony! Lee!” Adam again. A little closer.

“We're on our way! We have to get back,” Lee added, dropping his volume and nodding toward the salt. “If we can't get out the door . . .”

“Yeah.” He rapped his knuckles against it again. Still felt solid. “I guess. Listen, why don't you light the other lantern, take the salt, and go back to the others. I'll catch up. There's something I want to try.”

“I'll stay . . .”

Lee wanted to stay with him and he was sending him away. Maybe he should just tell him about the whole wizard thing. Which would lead to telling him about the whole shadow thing. Which would not be a good thing. “No. We've been gone so long they've got to be getting a little freaked.”

“Uh-huh.”

What the hell did that mean?
Tony wondered as Lee set about lighting the other lantern.
If you want to know, dipshit—ask!

Yeah, like that was going to happen.

Lee tucked the box of salt under his arm, much as Tony had done. “Don't take too long.”

That was it?

Apparently.

As Lee left the kitchen, Tony turned his attention back to the cables and attempted to clear his mind of everything but his immediate surroundings.

And the longer they were stuck in this freak show of a house, the more evidence he'd have to support that theory.

The door was only a physical seeming of a door. It made sense that he couldn't put his hand through something physical. Visualizing the back porch and the bucket of sand that had been left there for the smokers, he raised his right palm toward the space he couldn't see and snapped out the seven words.

Sixteen cigarette butts later, he stopped.

“That's not normal.”

“Pot, kettle, black, dead people.” He sat back on his heels and tried to flick a butt back outside. It bounced off the door and hit him in the forehead. Okay. He'd proved something here. Wasn't sure what, but it might be useful later. Brushing his experimental data off his jeans, he stood and faced his own personal Greek chorus. “What?”

“I think that's our question,” Stephen snorted. “What
are
you?”

Why not. It wasn't like they could pass the information on.

“I'm a wizard.”

Tony braced himself for the inevitable Harry Potter references.

Cassie frowned. “Like Merlin?”

And let's hear it for those who died before J. K. Rowling was born.
“Yeah, sort of.”

Stephen nodded down at the mess on the floor. “Is that all you can do?” he asked, realigning his head.

“So far.” It wasn't all he'd attempted, but it was all he could do with any certainty of success.

“It doesn't look very useful.”

“Bite me.”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind.” There were two unopened boxes of bottled water on the floor by the table. He set the lantern on top and carefully lifted them into his arms. It wouldn't hurt to bring back a bribe. “How many more of those replays to go?”

“Three. The ballroom, the drawing room, and the back stairs . . .”

“Let me guess.” He could still hear a faint creaking sound over Karl's crying. “Someone got pushed and the someone who did the pushing hung themselves.”

“Isn't it hanged?”

“Does it matter?” The lantern's flame flickered as he passed the basement door. Had his hands not been full, he didn't think he could have resisted trying to lift the latch. “Just as dead hanged or hung.”

“You're getting just a little blasé about this, aren't you?” Cassie sounded almost insulted.

He shrugged and cut the motion short as the lantern rocked. “They're just recordings of past events. They can't hurt me.”

“Maybe not you.”

“Maybe not yet,” Stephen added.

“ALL RIGHT,
let me just make sure I understand this. Tony, your daughters, and sixteen people from your show, including both your lead actors, are trapped inside a haunted house. This man . . .” Henry nodded toward Graham Brummel who lifted his beer in salute. “. . . says the house contains a malevolence that feeds on the trapped dead and is looking to add our people to its buffet table. We can't get in, they can't get out, the windows have been blanked, and all phones are nonfunctional. All they have to do is survive until dawn, but the house will spend the night working on their fears, attempting to drive at least one of them insane enough to kill the rest. Is that it?”

CB's attention remained directed out the window at the roof of the house. “Yes.”

Henry sighed and ran both hands back up through his hair. “This isn't good.”

“But you believe it?”

He turned to face the caretaker, one red-gold brow raised. “Of course.”

“Oh, for cryin' out loud!” Graham jumped to his feet and began to pace back and forth over the minimal floor space in front of his recliner. “What is with you people? I mean, first the big guy, now you. How can you possibly buy into this kind of a cock-and-bull story?”

“Isn't it true?”

“Yeah, of course it's true, but what difference does that make? Haunted houses. Malevolent things. You should be in deep denial.” He kicked at a yellowing stack of tabloids as he paced. “You should be making up something about how the doors all swelled in the rain and some weird air pressure thing is holding them closed and the rain is affecting the cell phone reception and you don't just calmly
believe
this kind of shit! I mean, if I tell you I'm a medium, you're supposed to tell me I'm a fake!”

“Are you?”

“No! But that's not the point. You two are really freaking me out!” The mouth of the beer bottle jabbed toward CB. “He was bad enough on his own.” And back to point at Henry. “You are seriously upping the weird stakes here, and given my life just generally, that's saying something.”

Henry stared at him for a long moment, contemplated dropping all masks just to see what would happen, and finally allowed his better nature to prevail. “I'm grateful you called me,” he said at last, joining CB at the window, dismissing the other man entirely. “But I'm not sure what you expect me to do.”

“Offer an experienced interpretation. Take advantage of any opening that lends itself to your . . . particular strengths. It also struck me that you're a little possessive and unlikely to allow the destruction of someone you consider to be yours.”

“And if I find a way to get Tony out . . .”

“My daughters, and my employees, will be freed as well.”

“You guys have done this kind of thing before!” Vampire and producer turned together.

“You have!” Bloodshot eyes narrowed speculatively.

“You guys are like what? Some kind of otherworldly Starsky and Hutch?”

“How many of those has he had?” Henry asked nodding toward the bottle.

Graham snorted before CB could respond. “Oh, no, you can't blame the beer. I know how it is! Your show, the whole leading his people through the darkest night toward the dawn, it's based on real life.”

CB blinked. Once. “The show is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.” When Henry glanced up at him, he shrugged and added, “Usually.”

Before Graham could continue—which he looked ready to do—a pair of feet in work boots pounded up the stairs and a heavy fist banged out a three-beat rhythm on the door.

“CB? Boss? You better get out here; something's happening!”

“The cat tipped us off. It was sitting on the porch rail there and then it had a little freak-out.”

“Cat?” Henry glanced down at the black cat being soothed in Graham's arms. There'd been a black cat up in the apartment, stretched out along the back of the sofa. He hadn't seen it leave . . .

“I got two.” Graham's tone suggested he was bored with the explanation. “Same litter, eh.” He shrugged, the cat riding the motion. “I named them both Shadow since they don't come when I call.”

“
What
was the cat reacting to?” CB snarled as attention shifted to the cat.

“Sorry, Boss.” And attention shifted around again within the crowded shelter of the back porch. “That.” Ujjal pointed at the empty butt bucket. “There was a good pack and a half in there before, but one by one they just up and whooshed through the door.”

“Whooshed?”

“Well, they didn't make the whoosh noise or anything, but yeah.” The genny op shrugged, fully aware of how the story sounded. “It was like something on the other side of the door was pulling them in.”

When CB raised an eyebrow in Henry's direction, Henry nodded. Tony could call the butts from the bucket to his hand. Therefore, until another explanation presented itself, he was going to believe this had been Tony. But this was the first Henry'd ever heard of him moving them through a closed . . . “The cables.” When all eyes turned to stare blankly at him, he pointed. “Look at the cables. The whole bundle is still running into the house.”

A couple of heads nodded, but they were clearly continuing to miss the point. Cables were like background noise for this lot.

“The door is closed . . .” He frowned, thinking out loud. “The cables are running through a closed door, except that's impossible, so the space they were running through must remain regardless of how it appears.”