Smoke and Mirrors (24 page)

“But you can't move them.” Ujjal yanked at the bundle. “It's tight, no play at all. There's no hole—it's like it goes to the door and stops.” He blinked. “You're right. That's not possible.”

“So we just think the door's closed?” Karen asked, twirling a piece of red licorice as she squinted down at the porch.

“It doesn't matter.” Chris cautiously poked a finger toward where the space should be. Ten centimeters out, a small red flare slapped his hand back. “We can't get to it.”

“We can't,” Henry agreed. “But power can go obviously go through it.”

Ujjal snorted. “I'm shut down. There's no power in these cables.” A pause just long enough to connect the dots. “Should I start the generator, Boss?”

“That kind of depends,” Graham said before CB could answer. “How big a mess will it make if it overloads and blows up?”

“My generator is not going to overload.”

“I'm betting it will if you try and send power into that house while it's locked down. You can bet against me if you want to, though—that's why I asked about the mess.”

“The generator won't deliver the kind of power I meant. You . . .” Henry whirled toward Graham, knew he was moving at more than mortal speed by the way the man's eyes opened, but he didn't care. They were stalking a solution here. “When you talk to the ghosts . . .”

“He talks to ghosts?” Chris repeated incredulously.

“. . . you're using a type of metaphysical power . . .”

“Of what?”

“. . . and that power can obviously go through the door.”

“Obviously?”

“. . . because a metaphysical power moved the cigarette butts through the door.”

“That's not exactly obvious.”

“You call your cousins to the door and you tell them to tell Tony . . .”

“Tony talks to ghosts?”

“. . . what he has to do to defeat this thing.”

“
What
thing?”

Henry turned just far enough to glare at Chris.

Who paled and took a step back. “Never mind.”

“Look, I might be able to do that,” Graham admitted slowly. “But even if they can make some kind of contact with this Tony person, I don't know what to tell them. I don't
know
how to destroy this thing.”

The cat in his arms yawned.

“I don't like that Tony was left on his own in the kitchen.” Kate ripped open another packet of salt and glared across the circle at him as she passed it to Amy. “How do we know he was working on a way to get the back door open?” Her lip curled. “We only have his word for it.”

“Why would he lie?” Amy asked as she added the salt to the circle.

“Same reason anyone lies. He wants to control the situation.”

“Yeah, and he's sitting right here.” Tony handed Amy another half dozen packets. The group had insisted she be the only one to draw the protective circle, but given that they actually wanted it finished before morning, there were no proscriptions on who could open the hundreds of tiny paper containers. “You want to know something, just ask me.”

“Because you've been so open and forthcoming about stuff,” Kate snorted.

“Hey, I told you about the ghosts.” Who weren't back from their latest trip to the bathroom. When the lights came up and his coworkers disappeared, and someone sounded as though they were choking on glass in the drawing room—he'd stayed sitting right where he was until the lights went out again. The house, or more specifically the thing in the basement, could just do that whole not-at-all-instant replay without him from now on.

“He did tell us about the ghosts,” Peter acknowledged, glancing up from his own pile of packets. “And at some risk to his reputation.”

“What reputation?” Brenda demanded. “He's as strange as she is! Uh, no offense,” she added hastily, lowering the arm pointing toward Amy.

“And yet, I'm offended.”

“But I just . . .”

Lee tightened his arm around Brenda's shoulders. “Let it go,” he told her quietly.

“Because you can't win,” Amy added.

“Amy.”

She rolled her eyes but allowed Peter to have the last word.

“So,” Kate shuffled around on the floor until she was staring directly into Tony's face, “I'm asking. If you were just trying to get the back door open, why did you send Lee away?”

“I figured you could use the salt and the lantern.”

“You didn't want him to see what you were doing.”

Yeah, that, too. “I didn't think he needed to wait since you guys were waiting for the salt.”

She waved a packet at him. “And this is
so
useful.”

“Kosher salt.” They were the first words Hartley had said since before Tom died. He paled as everyone turned toward him. “The salt on
The X-Files
ep . . . p . . . p . . . pisode,” he stammered. “It was kosher.”

And everyone turned to Zev. Who sighed. “How the hell should I know? I never watched
The X-Files.
”

“You swore,” Brianna pointed out.

“Yes, I did. Don't eat the salt.”

“I'm hungry!”

“You just ate . . .” Habit drew his gaze down to his watch. He sighed again. “. . . not that long ago. You're not hungry, you're bored.”

“She's not the only one,” Mason muttered.

Tony tuned out the overlapping litany of complaints and concentrated on opening salt packets. A circle large enough to enclose seventeen people required significant seasoning.

“. . . there, see, everything's okay.” The light of the second lantern lapped out of the library. The low murmur of sound became Adam's voice and broke up into words. “Just keep moving out into the hall and we'll be back with the others in no time.”

After some discussion, Peter had sent Adam, Sorge, Saleen, and Mouse to bring the company's canvas chairs out into the hall. Amy had agreed they'd be safe enough to use inside the circle since they didn't actually belong to the house.

Mouse emerged first carrying four of the chairs, then Sorge with two, Adam with the lantern, and Saleen with the last two.

“Don't worry,” Adam continued. “I'm right here and the light's not going anywhere. See, there's the other lantern right where we left it. Just go over to the edge of the circle and put the chairs down carefully.”

It was clearly meant to be comforting. Comforting who, that was the question.

Mouse dropped the chairs, jumped back at the noise, bumped into Sorge, and leaped ahead. “Don't!” he snarled.

And that seemed to be the answer.

“Mouse got a little spooked in the library,” Adam explained, splitting his attention between his audience and the cameraman. “Mouse, why don't you pass the chairs into the circle?”

“Pass the chairs?” His eyes were wild, his hands were visibly trembling, and damp circles spread out from the underarms of his faded
Once a Thief
crew shirt.

“Yeah, the chairs. Pass them to Hartley and . . . uh, Mason so they can set them up.”

“I don't set up chairs,” Mason muttered.

“I've got it.” Tony pushed his pile of salt packages over in front of Tina and stood.

Mouse shook his head, graying ponytail making a swoosh, swoosh sound against his back. “Tony avoids me.”

Tony didn't even bother to check and see if everyone was staring at him.
What's the point?
He just tugged the chair from Mouse's hand and opened it, fully conscious of people edging away.
Oh, yeah, the big guy's going crazy, but you'd rather displace onto the little guy.
Actually, he couldn't fault them for that. He'd faced Mouse under the influence of the metaphysical, and the evening had included a couple of cracked ribs, significant bruising, and some tongue he'd just as soon forget. Fortunately, the repetitive motion of passing over the chairs seemed to be calming the big guy down. Probably Adam's intent.

He shifted position slightly so he could overhear the 1AD's murmured conversation with Peter.

“. . . don't know what set him off. He said the library was full of dark and until I loaded him down with half the chairs, I was afraid he was going to bolt.”

“The lantern didn't go out?”

“Hell, no, he was just freaky.”

“High-strung is not a description I'd have ever applied to Mouse.” Peter shoved his hands in his pockets.

“It's the house. The situation.”

They turned to look at Tony who suddenly got very busy setting up the last chair. Mouse could hear the baby and Mouse had started to freak. Kate was not only talking a lot more than usual but was getting distinctly paranoid. Lee . . .

He glanced over at Lee as he shoved the chairs into a tighter pattern.

Lee had Brenda plastered up against his side.

Those who'd been double shadow-held were starting to fall apart. Even Hartley, only a single, had picked up a stutter. Mason, however, seemed fine. He seemed no more obnoxious than he ever was—although he
was
voluntarily spending time with Ashley.

Bottom line, both actors had picked up distractions. And both of them were, well, actors.

“I don't know about this . . .”

“I do.” Henry stayed hard on Graham's heels, herding him up the muddy lane toward the road. “You don't know how to defeat the evil in the basement.”

“Yeah, I mean no, but . . .”

“Neither do I. That doesn't change the fact that we need to defeat it.” A gust of wind blew a scud of water off the firs. Henry avoided most of it. “Your research suggests that Creighton Caulfield interacted with the manifestation—that this was the purpose of the séances and the psychic investigators he had to the house.”

Graham wiped water off his face, slicking thinning hair back over his skull. “Well, yeah, but . . .”

“So Caulfield could be the only person who ever put together the information we need. Information to defeat this thing and save the lives of those people trapped in the house.”

“I guess so, but . . .”

“We're going to get that information.” He gestured at his BMW. “Get in the car.”

“Whoa! Hang on! ” Graham stopped by the passenger door, both hands raised, brows drawn in. “I can't just call up Caulfield's ghost; it doesn't work that way. I mean, I could stand on his grave playing
Who Who
on a trumpet from now until doomsday, but if he's not hanging around, it won't do anybody any good. The dead have to want to talk to me.”

“Good.” Henry's eyes darkened as he stared across the roof at the caretaker. “Get in the car.”

Graham did as instructed. Buckled his seat belt. Asked, “What are you?” as Henry pulled out onto Deer Lake Drive.

“Someone who plans to get what's
his
out of that house.”

“Yeah. Okay. But what . . .”

Henry glanced over at his passenger.

“. . . never mind.” He sank down in his seat, head drawn into his shoulders, knees up, one thumb scraping mud off the side of his boots. “So, where are we going?”

“To talk to someone who knew Creighton Caulfield.”

 

“What's this supposed to do?” Stephen asked, drifting back and forth across the curved line of salt.

“Lend a little peace of mind to the people inside the circle,” Tony told him quietly. “Calm them, make it harder for the house to work on them.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “Good idea. How does it work?”

“Power of suggestion.”

“I don't understand.”