“Yes,” she hissed. “I know this looks weird, but this is the building and the entrance to the bar.”
He stepped off the last step to stand next to her. “Well, if it’s a nightclub, then they’re probably closed.”
“Someone has to be in there to clean, right?”
“Possibly.” He reached past her. “Why not just try the door?”
The instant his hand hit the grip-style handle, the door swung open with a loud, rusty screech.
“What the hell?” he said.
Thomas grimaced. This wasn’t good, not good at all. Trying to find The Threshold was the same as searching for the location of a faerie mound. They were doorways to magic and the paranormal.
And they were often doorways to doom.
Sable had no idea what she was walking into. On the one hand, the place might just seem like any other empty or abandoned building, but then again, it could prove to be dangerous, full of things she wasn’t prepared to encounter.
He fished in the right pocket of his jeans, withdrew a smooth, shiny black pebble, and popped it into his mouth. Slipping his sword strap and sheath over his head so it hung down his back, Thomas removed the weapon from the backseat of the rental car and swept it over his head, sliding it into its cover.
He prayed nothing happened.
With the pebble firmly under his tongue, he used its magic to race across the street so fast the human eye couldn’t follow him. He paused at the top of the steps and leaped upon the brick wall where he hung like an insect, undetected in the shadows.
Below him, Sable peeked inside the door of The Threshold, using the feeble light of Hal’s Zippo to see by.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, and the strange, black stone in his mouth inspired the gag reflex with its foul taste. Watching Hal act as if he owned Sable pushed Thomas’s hate button. Like the jerk could protect her if something happened! Not only could Thomas not let something untoward nab Sable, but he also suddenly realized he couldn’t handle it if he lost her. He’d grown too close to her over the years. Until recently, he sure as hell hadn’t been aware of the changes between them. Perhaps the Old World had noticed how he and Sable interacted with each other.
There was another reason a marshal should never fall for his case subject. It prevented him or her from thinking clearly and put both the marshal and the ward in greater danger.
Dumbass! Without even realizing it, I’ve tossed every rule into the crapper.
As Sable stepped through the door below him, Thomas’s sense of danger jumped off his fear meter.
He crept closer. Something isn’t right.
Sable poked her head through the gap in the door. Inside, darkness prevailed. Holding the Zippo out in front of her, Sable hoped the little flame would cast enough feeble light down the stairs that led into the basement bar. She pushed inside and stood peering down into The Threshold.
“This is the place,” she said, “but something’s not right.”
“Yeah,” Hal quipped, “it’s closed.”
“No, I mean it doesn’t look the same.”
“How the hell can you see anything down there to know? It’s blacker than the ace of spades in here!” Shuffling followed his comment. “I’m going back up to the street.”
Her heart hammered with fear, but Sable had to see, had to know…know what? She wasn’t sure, but she sensed part of the puzzling occurrences over the past two and a half days was about to unfold. Her pulse beat bass in her ears and thrummed painfully in the side of her neck. An image of the violet-eyed beasts flowed into her mind on gales of fright and uncertainty. Memories of being a little girl in her parents’ suburban home and worrying about basement monsters and things with fangs under the bed filled her mind. Dormant childhood fears awakened. Each one stirred within Sable, and she stared around to see what new horrors lay at the bottom of the stairs for her.
Her conversation with her cousin the night she’d partied with fans and fellow artists rose unbidden in her mind. If she’d been home instead of on tour, maybe her presence could have helped save her mother. Maybe her support would have been all that her mom would’ve needed, just a bit of comfort from her only daughter to soothe her fears and heal her ailing body…
Their footsteps rang out in the massive, sprawling basement. With her pulse beating even harder, Sable paused at the bottom of the steps. The building served as a landscaping storage warehouse. The aromas of aging wood and mechanical grease assaulted her nostrils. Pallets stacked with rows of mulch and cedar chips, large cardboard boxes, discarded lawnmower parts, and plastic bags of lawn and garden fertilizers lay helter-skelter along the floor.
Where was the long, mirrored bar with its white, pale-blue and lavender lights? Where were the beds, the mattresses, the booths, and tables? What had happened to the large dance floor and the DJ’s booth? Although it was after normal business hours, Sable had still expected to see fog rolling along the floor and the pretty orb-like phosphorescent lights dangling high in the rafters. But all of it was gone. Had it all been a dream? A hallucination?
I was just here last night, wasn’t I? This has to be the same place. Confusion set up housekeeping in Sable’s head.
“Hmm, why am I not surprised?” Hal’s voice shattered the quiet. “It was just a story wasn’t it, Sable? Just another one of your ploys to get me down here to Naples and back into your arms. It takes a really miserable person to use our daughter as a sympathy tool.”
She didn’t turn around. “Drop dead, Hal,” she snapped. Her wicked retort was lost on him anyway. He believed he was right and she was wrong. He was of good and pure intentions while she was a liar, a manipulator. It didn’t matter that she was telling the truth or that he’d tried to get in her pants just minutes ago, using Cheyenne as a pretense to fly to Naples. Hal would always twist things around to suit himself so he would come out smelling like roses and she’d reek of shit and shame.
A blast of warm air blew past them. It stirred the loose hair around Sable’s face and ruffled the hem of her culottes.
“What the hell was that?” Hal asked.
Sable looked around, straining her eyes to see beyond the Zippo’s flame. “There might be a door or window somewhere and a gust of wind found its way in.”
Hal snorted. “I don’t believe this. This is just like you, Sable. Always calling, always touching base to see if I’ve heard anything, but this last time there was something in your voice that was different, and what’s worse is that I believed you. I really did—”
“Got a few bucks to spare?” a scratchy voice said.
“Shit!” Hal started and grabbed Sable’s arm.
Sable gasped, her heart feeling as though it had leaped up into her esophagus. The Zippo trembled in her outstretched hand, its flame wavering.
“I don’t mean no harm,” the voice added. “Just thought I’d ask for some spare change. Might have enough to get me somethin’ to eat when I go out later.”
Sable turned toward the voice. At the bottom of the stairs against the wall sat an old woman wrapped in a tattered, crocheted shawl of indeterminable color. Mismatched clothes too large for her hung on her withered, petite form. A dark ball cap perched on her gray head with the words I SURVIVED HUGO embroidered in silver lettering across its front. Scuffed cowboy boots shod her feet, the heel missing from the left one.
Hal let out a breath laden with disgust. “This is unbelievable. Not only do you take me to a landscaping storage facility, it houses squatters. You’re a nutcase, Sable, plain and simple.”
“Sir?” The old woman said, holding out her hand. “Can you spare some change?”
“Get a job, you lousy, no-good bum,” he snarled and stomped up the stairs. The door banged shut, the sound thunderous in the basement.
“I’m sorry,” Sable said. “He’s not the nicest person in the world.”
“I’ve dealt with worse,” the bag lady replied. She grinned, revealing missing teeth. The few remaining in her mouth glimmered i
n the lighter’s illumination like discarded Dominoes.
“I have to go now,” Sable said. She squatted on the stairs and set her purse next to her feet as she held the lighter high. With a couple of furtive looks down at the old woman, Sable rummaged with her free hand for a wad of ones she’d jammed down in a side pocket of her clutch. Wary of getting too close to the woman, Sable tossed the money onto the last step. “I don’t know how much is there, ma’am, but it should be enough to get you something to eat.”
The homeless woman smiled wider. Her gnarled, dirty hand snapped out and swept the roll of ones off the step. “Thank you kindly, missus. Good deeds are always rewarded.”
Sable grabbed her purse, straightened, and pounded up the steps.
“Remember,” the old woman called after her, “you’re always among friends.”
The big door slammed shut behind Sable. She stopped and leaned against the door. Remnants of a breeze soughed down into the stairway, blowing bits of paper and dust down on top of her. She squinted against the sand and dirt and looked up at Hal standing at the top of the stairs.
“Hal, you left me! How could you just abandon me like that?”
“Why’d it take you so long to follow me?” he countered.
“You couldn’t have stayed to protect me if I’d needed it?” She shut the lid on Hal’s lighter.
He turned away from her. “You should have left with me.”
Furious, and with fear still sluicing through her veins, Sable closed her eyes and willed her heart rate to slow.
The bag lady’s words plopped into the forefront of her brain, sending a ripple of recollection through her mind. “Remember, you’re always amongst friends.” Where had she heard that before? She riffled through her memories. Rick and Goldie had said almost the exact same words to her last night. Somehow, Sable sensed it was important, but she wasn’t sure how or why. She released a frazzled, irritated sigh and ascended the stairs.
Hal puffed on his pipe. Smiling, he said, “Ready to call it quits and go back to your hotel?”
She gaped at him and handed him the Zippo. “Call what quits? Looking for our daughter?”
He shrugged.
“If you’re not really interested in finding Cheyenne, why did you come down here?”
He groaned and flipped open the lighter; its schlink sound awakened hundreds of mundane memories in Sable’s mind, memories of Hal’s habit of smoking while he read Sports Illustrated in their library, memories of how she and the maid were constantly sweeping or wiping up pipe ashes from the floors and surfaces.
He toked on the pipe’s stem, white smoke blooming around his head and dissipating in the air above them. “I know now that this latest story about Cheyenne was just another one of your ruses to get me down here—whatever your twisted reasons—but the game’s over, okay? I’ll admit, you had me fooled for a while, but this is ridiculous. You even went to the extent to come up with a story about an accident to back it up, and you dragged innocent people into your scheme. That is if this Goldie and Officer Delmont even exist.”
Deep in her gut, a hot ember flared to life. Her indignation raged upward to her tongue and exited her mouth in a tirade of fury. “A ruse? You think this is all a story?” Her hand twitched, the urge to hit him again overwhelming. “My phone calls, emails, or other correspondence were never lies, Hal!”
He laughed, the sound so arrogant that Sable had to restrain herself from shoving his pipe down his throat. “Will you give it up already?” he said.
She dropped her handbag to the sidewalk between her feet and unwrapped her hair from her forearm.
Glancing at the purse, he asked, “What are you doing?”
Hurriedly, she tore at the hook on the waistband of her culottes and yanked the side zipper down. She peeled the garment aside, revealing her lacey underwear and pale skin. Black, blue, and purple bruises mottled her hip.
“Does this look like a story to you, Hal? Does it?” The anger in her words almost shimmered in the air.
“Shit, Sable, is that from—?”
“Yesterday’s accident? Yes!” She quickly fastened her culottes and pulled up the bell-like pant legs. “See? More bruises.”
His expression bordered apologetic, but skepticism still tinged his eyes.
Exasperated, she retrieved her handbag. What did it matter if Hal believed her or not? Whether they argued over Cheyenne or what they were going to have for supper, Hal always believed he was right even when she proved him wrong. She had to find their daughter, and if he didn’t want to help her, then he could just fly back to Ohio. Besides, hadn’t she been searching for Cheyenne alone the past few months anyway? Hal had given up a long time ago.
She looked around the neighborhood. Although it had been dark when Goldie had brought her here, she knew she had the right building regardless of the missing infinity-and-lily symbol.
The voices of Rick, Goldie, and the bag lady echoed in her skull. “You’re among friends.”
Her gaze touched the stairwell.
None of this makes sense. I know I’m at the right place, and I’m going to get some answers.
She snatched the Zippo out of her ex-husband’s hand and started down the steps.
“You’re not going back down there, are you?” Hal asked.
“No,” she replied. “I thought I’d take the scenic route back to the hotel.”
“Sable, it’s just a storage warehouse. Wherever that woman took you last night, this isn’t the place.”
She ignored him. Even with Hal’s Zippo, she had to feel for the door as her eyes slowly adjusted to going from bright sunshine to gloom. She tugged on the handle, and the door squealed open.
“Sable, come back up here.”
She ignored Hal and stepped inside.
Chapter Fifteen
Repentance
“K new you’d come back,” a voice said from the bottom of the stairs.
“I want answers,” Sable replied. She kept the lighter out high in front of her, its flame pathetic in the cloying darkness. “You said, ‘Remember, you’re among friends.’”
“Yes.”
“That’s three times I’ve been told that same thing.” She reached the bottom of the stairs. The bag lady was gone. Had she moved to a different part of the storage facility? Sable peered into the darkness. Only the outlines of crates and machinery filled the gloom, and, closer to the flame’s illumination, the fat bags of mulch. “Hello? Are you still here?”
“Yes.”
Footsteps followed, and the aroma of a man’s cologne wafted over her. She breathed deeply. Why does that smell so familiar?
Footsteps reached her again, but this time they didn’t sound like those of an elderly woman. These were more like a dog or even a small child.
“But you know what they say,” the voice continued. Scrabbling reached the bottom of the stairs.
Sable swung the Zippo downward, its flame sputtering. Violet eyes glowed at the last step, and the gleam of fangs sent a spear of horror through Sable’s heart.
“Three’s a charm!” the creature shrieked and leaped up the stairs.
Thomas flew across the room so fast air whistled in his ears. He withdrew his sword, brandishing it high over his head. The creature behind Sable gave chase.
Sable screamed, whirled, and pounded up the stairs, her wedge sandals slapping on the concrete.
Intercepting the monster, Thomas slashed at it, but the thing disappeared in a cloud of dark smoke only to reappear higher up on the staircase.
“Sable, don’t go,” the monster shrieked gleefully. The thing briefly glanced at Thomas, a snide, fang-filled smile splitting its ugly maw.
Unable to speak lest he give himself away, Thomas realized his sword wouldn’t work against this particular monster. It had vanished just like the thing had in his hotel bathroom. Instead, Thomas reached for something in his pocket, a last reserve that every faerie feared: iron.
He tugged a small, yet heavy iron cross from
his pants pocket and tossed it between Sable and the nightmare closing in on her.
Thomas’s face filled Sable’s mind. He was safe, comforting, a secure boat in a turbulent sea. Terrified, she raced upward, trying to focus on that feeling of safety he always created within her.
Where was the door? Why did it seem like the harder she ran, the longer it took her to reach the exit? What if she didn’t make it, and she never saw Thomas’s face or felt his touch again? She found a tiny burst of energy and pushed her limits. Cramps assaulted her calf muscles.
A sharp pain flamed at the back of Sable’s head where her braid started.
The creature yanked on it again. “Stay a while and play with us!”
“Let go!” Whimpering, she grabbed her braid and pulled it free from the thing’s claws.
A loud, startling clang behind Sable forced her to whirl around. Panic stabbed her gut, and the burst of adrenaline that surged through her system left her reeling with dizziness.
She held the lighter out. Her gaze settled on an object resting halfway between her and the midnight horror crouched on the steps.
The thing’s violet eyes rolled from side to side, then up and down. A sinister, whispery laugh flowed out of it, the sound like light rain on a hot tin roof. “Who is here?” it asked. “Do you not know that iron does not work on us? How foolish,” it crowed. “How foolish indeed!”
At its words, Sable warily glanced around. In the dim light, she couldn’t see the object resting on the step, but it had certainly gotten the monster’s attention.
Another burst of warmth shot past Sable, the rush of air blowing stray wisps of hair back from her face and bearing the same aroma of men’s cologne. The nightmare crawled up the stairs. A thin, snake tongue flicked out and caressed the steps. With a cry of fear, Sable reached for the door and jerked on it, but it wouldn’t open.
Only a few short feet away, claws clicked and scrabbled on the concrete, each second bringing the monster closer.
The Darkness of Sable Page 14
