What a Ghoul Wants (31 page)

I sat in front of the largest monitor and Gil tapped at his keyboard. He then turned
the volume up and we listened to the sound of snow again, but it was somewhat muted;
then a garbled voice said, “Tell the twins I love them.”

I sat back and stared in stunned disbelief at Gilley. “Did he just say what I thought
he said?”

“Yeah, it’s weird, right? I mean, that’s the only EVP that came through, and I even
ran it through the voice spectrum. It’s definitely Clarence’s voice.”

I jumped to my feet. “Gil, I know you’ve been up since last night, but I need some
additional research from you and it’s super important. Can you give me another couple
of hours?”

Gil nodded, for once not fighting me over the request.

“I need you to find out if anyone named Clarence Lumley was ever connected to this
castle.”

Gil squinted at me. “Clarence Lumley? You mean, like, someone related to Inspector
Lumley?”

“Possibly. Just do some digging and see what you come up with, okay?”

“Okay, but I’ll need to go into the city and search through the library.”

“If that’s what it takes, please go do it. I need whatever information you can find,
fast.”

Michel stood and stretched. “Come on, Gilley, we’ll go together.”

I wanted to hug the man! Instead, I turned to Heath and said, “We have a call to make.”

An hour later Heath and I were helping Inspector Lumley push his rowboat into the
moat. All three of us wore magnetic vests, and I’d taken the liberty of adding Meg’s
and Kim’s vests to the bottom of the boat just to ensure we didn’t get tipped over
from below.

The inspector had fought me on the need to wear the garment, but I’d insisted that
I had something very important to show him, and I wasn’t taking him along without
it.

Heath pushed us off from the shore and he took up the oars while I studied the water
for any signs of the Widow.

I was very nervous about embarking on this hunch, but my gut told me that I absolutely
had to investigate my suspicions, and as Gilley wasn’t back yet from town, I had no
choice but to act while the sun was high and the Widow would be at her weakest.

Heath rowed steadily across the length of the moat, keeping to the middle, and no
one spoke while we glided over the smooth waters. The inspector tapped his finger
on the side of the boat, a sign that he was a bit impatient about this venture, and
I could only hope that my hunch panned out. Otherwise, he’d be pretty ticked off.

At last we rounded the curve of the moat to the south end of the castle, which appeared
as foreboding as ever. I signaled to Heath at the point where I thought Clarence had
stood next to me, and he pulled hard on the left oar, turning us right and directly
toward the castle.

I then got up and moved to the very front of the boat, holding on tightly to the bow
and shifting my eyes from the water to the wall of the castle, then back again.

At first as we came closer to the wall, I thought my hunch was completely wrong, but
then, about ten yards away I felt my breath catch. “There!” I said, pointing to a
crevice in the wall of the castle.

Heath stopped rowing and twisted in his seat. “Whoa,” he said. “Would you look at
that?”

“It’s a false facade,” I said as the boat continued to glide forward and I was getting
a better look. “The left side of the wall curves out and stops, creating a blind corner
for another section set farther back to continue. If you didn’t know it was here,
you’d never guess it existed.”

“I’ve heard of these,” the inspector said, also eyeing the gap in the wall that was
visible only when you were up close to it. “It would allow the castle’s lord and his
family to escape should an invader breach the main gate. He could slip out in a small
boat and make his way to the lake or to land if need be.”

Heath took up rowing again and navigated around the curve of the false wall, bringing
us into a large dark circular space at the opposite end of which was a set of stairs.
“No way!” I heard Heath say softly.

“Can you get us to the stairs?” I asked him.

“No sweat.” Heath rowed us right to the center of the steps and I hopped out. Grabbing
hold of the lead line, I searched for a place to tie it off. “Em!” Heath barked, and
I looked up to see an angry look on his face. “Get back in the boat and let me go
first!”

I leveled a look at him; who did he think he was, ordering me around?

Heath took a deep breath and tried again. “Please, Em?” he said, reaching out his
hand to me.

I hesitated. I’m the independent stubborn sort. Meanwhile Inspector Lumley also jumped
out of the boat, took the lead line from me, and wound it around a rock jutting up
out of the water. “Crisis averted,” he said smartly.

Heath didn’t look pleased, but I ducked my chin to hide a smile. Soon enough the three
of us were all safely on the stairs and staring up at the enormous crevice that seemed
to go all the way up to the top of the castle. “Shall we go in?” the inspector asked,
already beginning up the rest of the stairs.

I reached out and grabbed hold of his arm. “Hang on,” I said. Then I reached into
my messenger bag and pulled out several magnetic spikes, handing them off to the inspector
and Heath while keeping a few for myself. I then motioned for the inspector to get
behind us. He leveled a look at me similar to the one I’d given Heath, but complied,
and we all moved up the steps slowly and carefully.

As we inched our way to the top of the stairs—which totaled roughly twelve to fifteen—I
could feel my heartbeat quicken. I was super nervous because I suspected this was
the hidden section of the castle that the Widow used when she was alive to access
the moat and kill her husband’s friends. I also believed this was the general location
of the Widow’s portal, but where specifically it was I didn’t know, and that’s what
made me incredibly wary about proceeding up those steps.

None of us spoke as we climbed. Heath had his infrared camera out and recording, and
I kept glancing his way, waiting for him to announce the appearance of something spectral
on the viewfinder, but he didn’t and so we moved steadily on.

At last we crested the top of the stairs and found ourselves in a very large cavernous
space with what appeared to be a metal door at the far end. Heath motioned to it,
but my eyes were moving all around and they settled on what my own intuition had suggested
I’d find here. “There!” I whispered, pointing to what at first appeared to be a pile
of old clothes.

Heath pointed the viewfinder to it, his eyes squinting at the screen. “Is that. . . ?”

“Is that what?” the inspector asked close to our ears. “What the devil is it?”

I pulled a flashlight out of my pocket and clicked it on. Pointing it at the pile,
I noticed something out of place; something that was a sort of creamy brown color
was illuminated within the glow of my flashlight, and for a moment my brain struggled
to make sense of what I was seeing.

I heard the inspector’s breath catch. “It’s human remains!” he said, and started for
them, but again I caught his arm.

“We all go together, sir,” I said. “And we move slowly and quietly in here, understood?”

The inspector nodded, albeit a bit stiffly, and I turned to Heath. “Keep the camera
on that door, and if you see anything start coming out of it, let us know.”

“Got it,” he said.

I guided the men to the skeleton propped ghoulishly against the stone wall. Even given
the damp environment, it and the clothes it was wearing were in remarkably good shape.

The inspector bent down and lifted a bit of the dead man’s lapel. Clear as day there
were three perfectly circular holes in the material. “Appears to have been shot,”
the inspector said.

That answered one question, but it also opened up several more. I had a theory going
but still needed a few more clues to be able to resolve it. “No signs of identification,”
the inspector continued as he probed the skeleton with his pen. “But the clothing
appears to be quite old. At least a few decades.”

I thought it was probably closer to thirty-five years by my guess. “I wonder who this
poor chap was,” Lumley said, getting to his feet to wipe his hands.

“His name was Clarence,” I said, watching the inspector closely. As expected, his
head snapped up and he eyed me keenly.

“Clarence?” he said, and I saw the light of recognition in his eyes, and also how
he was quick to cover it. “How do you know what his name was?”

“I met his ghost last night out on the moors. I watched him get into a rowboat much
like the one we brought and come this way. I suspected there was something like a
secret passageway leading into the castle here, and I also suspected that Clarence
had been murdered near the spot where he disappeared from my view.”

Lumley turned back to the skeleton and he stared at it for a long time without comment.
I could only imagine what he was thinking.

Just then Heath’s chin lifted and he turned to the large metal door at the far end
of the castle. “Uh. . . oh,” he said softly.

I felt it too. A bit of a ripple in the ether that gathered into a wave of negative
energy, and it was coming right for us. “Guys!” I hissed. “We’ve gotta go!” The inspector
was still focused intently on the skeleton, and I reached out to grab him by the shoulder
and pull him backward. “Now!” I commanded. Heath had the viewfinder trained on the
metal door and I could see the screen over his shoulder.

One quick look showed me purple ooze starting to drip out of the seams around the
doorframe and from the crack underneath the door. The rest happened a bit in slow
motion. I let go of the inspector’s arm and put spikes in both my hands while I ran
toward the stairs leading to the boat. Behind me I could feel a rush of cold air come
into the cavern and surround us. My breath fogged in front of me as I panted and tried
to run faster.

I could tell just from the feel of the awful energy behind us that it wasn’t the Widow’s
energy oozing into the area—it was the demon.
“Get to the boat!”
Heath shouted, and the three of us ran for our lives. The inspector was a bit slower
than us, and as Heath and I reached the stairs and began to leap down them, I could
hear Lumley’s footfalls several feet behind me.

I was too focused on getting down the stairs to stop and see how far back he was,
and inwardly I simply had to hope that he made it, because I didn’t think I’d survive
a head-on encounter with that demon, not even with all the magnets I was packing.

Heath reached the boat first and grabbed for the lead line. He was so shaken that
the rope slipped out of his fingers and into the water, and he simply left it and
turned to grab my arm and practically hurl me into the boat before leaping aboard.
Dashing to the oars, he took them up and I cried out to stop him, “The inspector!”

Heath hesitated a few seconds, and only long enough for the inspector to also leap
from the stairs toward the boat, which was starting to drift out away from the steps.
I heard a terrible thud when the inspector’s leg hit the bow. I lunged for him, grabbing
on to his shoulders to prevent him from going over the side. With effort I managed
to drag him into the boat and then I shouted for Heath to row hard. The inspector
and I were jostled a bit when Heath set the oars in the water and gave a tremendous
pull.

Lumley and I were half lying on our sides in the bottom of the boat and I couldn’t
see above the rim of the boat to the stairs, and honestly I didn’t really want to.
Heath’s face pretty much said it all as he pulled and pulled for all he was worth.
I felt around next to me for one of the spare vests and shoved it closer to Heath,
hoping that’d be enough to protect him. Just when I thought we were home free, the
boat came to an abrupt stop so jolting that Heath lost his balance and fell forward
nearly on top of me.

Somehow he managed to clamber back into position and he dug his oars into the water
and pulled hard, but the boat wouldn’t budge. In fact, it seemed to be moving backward.
“What the. . . ?” I said, crawling my way to the seat and looking around. The bow
felt like it was dipping lower into the water than the stern, and when I looked, I
could see why. Our lead line was pulled taut by something holding on to it from underwater.
I jumped to the front of the boat and tried to pull up on the line, but whatever had
hold of it felt heavy enough to sink us and it wasn’t letting go. “I need a knife!”
I said, looking desperately back at Heath, who was straining so hard against the oars
the veins in his neck were bulging.

“Back. . . pocket!” he grunted through gritted teeth.

I pushed past the dazed and frightened inspector and ducked low so as not to interfere
with Heath’s attempt to row. I then reached around to his back pocket and wormed my
hand inside. Immediately I found his pocketknife, but it caught on the inside seam
and for a moment, I couldn’t pull it free.

“We’re moving back to the stairs!” the inspector shouted, as if he was only just now
realizing what was happening.

I clenched my jaw and turned my shoulder a bit to get a better angle, and finally
freed Heath’s knife. As I was moving toward the bow with it, however, a tremendous
thump banged against the underside of the boat. “Damn you!” I shouted at whatever
was currently wreaking havoc upon the boat.

I grabbed the other vest from the bottom of the boat and shoved past Lumley to the
bow, where I laid the vest over the top section of the rope and began slicing away
at it.

Heath’s knife didn’t have a serrated edge, so cutting through the thick rope wasn’t
easy or fast. While I worked, I heard Heath call out for Lumley to help him, and the
shuffling behind me told me he was moving to do that. “I’m cutting as fast as I can!”
I shouted to let them know that it was hard going. Slowly the rope fibers were giving
way, and my arm hurt with the effort to slice through it as fast as I could. Underneath
the boat came another very hard pounding and I was knocked slightly sideways, hitting
my head against the side so hard I saw stars.