by R. L. King
“Dad—wait!”
Stone stopped and turned back. Ian hadn’t moved. “What?”
“You—want to go back there? Tonight?”
“Of course I do.” He struggled to keep the impatience from his tone. “If something’s going on in my house, I want to know what it is.”
“Yeah. I get that. But—shouldn’t you sit down for a few minutes? Let me tell you what happened? Shouldn’t you be prepared before you go down there?”
Stone didn’t miss the fact that Ian had said ‘you’ instead of ‘we,’ but he let it go for now. “Fine. I need a drink anyway.” He changed direction, heading for the liquor cabinet. “Talk fast, though. I am going down there tonight, and you’re coming with me.”
Ian waited until Stone had gotten a drink, then joined his father in pacing the room. “This is—I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start at the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.”
Stone listened with growing tension as Ian described his trip down to the subterranean chamber, the cracked stone door, the spiders and blood and screaming, and his final desperate escape through the portal. By the time the boy finished, obviously trying to keep his voice from shaking and just as obviously still rattled by the evening’s events, Stone was willing to cut him a little more slack for leaving Aubrey behind. He had to keep reminding himself that despite his two years of training, Ian had very little experience with dangerous real-world magic beyond the limited bits Trin Blackburn had taught him to further her own vengeful plans.
“Okay,” he said, resisting the urge to pour another drink. He’d need to have his wits about him tonight. “So you’re saying whatever was there was throwing things at you? Are you sure they were real? The spiders and blood and whatnot sound like illusion to me.”
“I don’t know.” Ian flung himself down on the nearest sofa. “I don’t know if some of it was illusion, or all of it, or none. But it doesn’t make sense to have that much blood and that many spiders showing up. I mean, the whole floor in that circular room was a solid carpet of them.”
Stone thought back to his and Zack Beeler’s ill-fated trip to Thalassa Nera’s New York City apartment. “The spiders probably were illusions. I’ve seen similar ones. But I won’t know for sure until I’ve seen it for myself.” He slammed the glass down on a table. “You said you made out some words in the screams?”
“Yeah. I think so, anyway. It sounded like they were saying things like ‘Get out,’ and ‘You don’t belong here,’ and ‘Murderer.’ I didn’t get a good look at what they were writing in the blood, but I did see similar stuff.”
“So they were trying to drive you off.”
“Not just drive me off. They blew up the chandeliers in the main hall, and threw books and logs from the fireplace at me. If I hadn’t had my shield up, I’d probably be dead.” Ian clenched his fists and met Stone’s gaze. “Dad, is it possible the place is haunted? I was talking to Aubrey earlier and he said he’s never seen any ghosts, or—he called them something else.”
“Echoes. And no, it’s not. I’ve lived in that house since I was born, and I’ve never seen an echo there. Neither has Aubrey, and he’s been there a lot longer than I have.”
“Yeah, but…” Ian sounded troubled.
“But what?”
“Well—what if there are ghosts, or echoes, or whatever, and they were stuck behind that broken door? What if they got out when it broke, and now they’re pissed about something?”
Stone was about to dismiss the idea, but stopped before he spoke. Was it possible? After all, Thaddeus Benchley’s echo had lain dormant for years in his home back in Encantada, only showing himself when a magically talented resident moved in. Echoes could be imprisoned, with the proper magic. If some powerful entity had been entombed behind that elaborately carved door, breaking the door could have released it.
But who—or what—had broken the door?
“Ian…” he said carefully, moving to stand over his son.
“Yeah?”
“Are you sure you didn’t go down into those passageways tonight? Just to have a quick look around?”
“No, Dad. I already told you—I didn’t go until I heard the noise. I just wanted to figure out where it came from.”
“I promise, I won’t say anything if you did. But if you disturbed that door—”
Ian glared at him. “I told you,” he insisted, “I didn’t. Check my aura if you don’t believe me. That door was already broken when I went down. I think that was what I heard.”
Stone waved him off, and didn’t check his aura. “No, I believe you. Come on. Let’s go have a look.” When Ian hesitated, he waved him up from the sofa. “Come on—it will be fine. I know this all looks fairly terrifying, but I can handle echoes.”
“If that’s what they are.”
“True. But even if they’re not, I need to figure out what they are so we can get rid of them. I’m not handing my house over to a pack of magical bullies.”
“What about Aubrey? Should you call him?”
“Let him sleep. As far as he knows, nothing’s wrong and I’ve gone mad for waking him up and sending him away in the middle of the night.”
“Why do you suppose that is?” Ian mused as he followed Stone back to the portal room.
“What?”
“Why do you think they didn’t attack Aubrey?”
“No idea. He didn’t enter the house, or the underground chamber. Maybe that’s what triggered it.”
They reached the portal, and once again Ian hesitated.
Stone paused in front of the shifting pastel doorway and turned back to his son. With reluctance, he said, “Look—you can stay here if you like. I’m expecting a lot of you when you’ve got no experience with this kind of thing. It’s up to you.”
For just a second, it appeared Ian would take him up on the offer. But then he pulled himself up straight and his expression hardened. “No. I’m coming. This is the kind of thing I have to learn to deal with. And I’m still pissed at myself that I freaked out and didn’t even think about Aubrey. Let’s go.”
Stone clapped him on the shoulder. “Brilliant. Keep your shield up and stay close to me.”
The Overworld didn’t look any different as they stepped through the portal. Stone half expected something to jump them the instant they exited a few seconds later into the room below the mausoleum, but nothing did. He took point, shield at full strength as he mounted the ladder upward, noting that the cover was off the crypt in the room’s center. “Did you leave this open?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Like I said, I was a little freaked out.”
Stone scrambled out and stood aside for Ian to do likewise, then moved the cover back into place. “I don’t see anything yet. Do you?”
“No.” He looked around. “You don’t think it was…all in my head, do you? Could that be why Aubrey didn’t hear anything?”
“That’s part of what I want to find out.”
Outside in the chilly, pre-dawn air, the small cemetery looked peaceful and undisturbed. Stone buttoned his jacket; he wished he’d paused to change out of his evening clothes before heading down here, but it couldn’t be helped now. “Do you see anything? Hear anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Right, then. Stay close.”
Stone set off at a fast stride toward the house, his shield glowing around him, and Ian followed. As they drew up closer to the structure, he switched to magical sight.
And stopped, so quickly that Ian nearly slammed into him from behind.
“Bloody hell…” he breathed.
All around the massive bulk of the mansion, an eerie, sickly pale-green glow flickered and danced, picking out the outlines of the roof, the chimneys, and the walls. A brighter version of the same glow issued from the windows. As he continued to watch, bits of red seeped around the edges and crawled outward.
“That’s…not my imagination, is it?” Ian asked softly from behind him.
�
��No. No, that is not.”
Stone sharpened his arcane vision, trying to make sense of the glow. It had been a while since he’d studied his house with magical sight, but he was certain whatever this was hadn’t been there before. Even being near it made him uncomfortable, his skin prickling and the little hairs on the back of his neck standing at full attention.
“What are you going to do?”
“Stay here. I’m going inside to have a look around.”
“No way am I staying here,” Ian protested. “I’m not letting you go in there by yourself. Besides, I don’t really want to stand out in the yard like an idiot either.”
Pleased at his son’s newfound courage, Stone nodded. “All right. We’ll go in together. Quick magic lesson: shield is priority one. Do not let it slip, no matter what you see. If it’s real, the shield will block it. If it’s illusion and you believe it, the shield will still block it. And if it’s illusion and you don’t believe it, it won’t matter anyway.”
“Got it. Let’s go before I lose my nerve.”
Together, they walked forward toward the front door. Stone wasn’t striding fast now, but maintaining a steady pace. He continued to watch with magical sight as they approached, and immediately noticed that the closer they got to the door, the more the creeping red continued to replace the eerie green. By the time they reached the top of the steps, the green had faded entirely.
“You see that, right?” Ian asked. “The way it’s changing color?”
“I do.” Stone made no move to open the door yet.
“What do you think it means?”
“Nothing good, most likely. Keep your eyes open.”
He used magic to open the front-door lock, once again half expecting something to resist him. Once again, nothing did. The door swung open on the dark entryway. Stone scanned the area beyond first with mundane sight and saw nothing but darkness. When he shifted back to magical sight, though, the red glow sprang up all around inside.
“Hmm. Stops at the threshold. Another data point. Let me go in first.”
Ian didn’t seem inclined to argue with that, so he took a careful step across the threshold and moved into the entry hall.
Immediately, the house erupted with shrieks and screams, seeming to come from everywhere at once. A pair of vases rocketed from tables on either side of the room and slammed into Stone’s shield, then hit the floor and exploded into shards.
“Shit!” Ian snapped, backpedaling. “It’s not just my imagination!”
Stone didn’t back up. His shield seemed to be holding against the physical attacks, though the screaming voices grew louder with each step he took. He couldn’t tell if they were in his head or coming from inside the house, but either way they threatened to split his brain.
He paused, trying to fight past the cacophony in his mind to make sense of the screams. It was difficult, but after a few seconds the caterwauling wails resolved themselves into coherent speech:
Get out!
You don’t belong here!
Murderer!
Betrayer!
A curse on your line!
Evil!
GO!
Both entryway windows shattered in an explosion of glass, and then the entire room was drenched in blood. It poured from the ceiling, crawled down the walls, and coated Stone’s shield. From the floor, the rug rose up and snaked around him, pressing against the shield.
“Dad! Get out of there!”
Get out!
Murrrrdererrrrrr!
Oouuuuutttt!
Stone lashed out with magical energy, projecting pure waves of Calanarian power outward from the shield. The blood-soaked rug shredded into pieces, flying out and slapping with wet thwacks into the walls, mingling with the shards of glass from the blown windows and the shattered vases.
“Dad, look out!”
Stone ducked just in time to avoid a heavy end table streaking toward him. It crashed into the far wall and it too fell to pieces. Another small table shot out the door and smacked into Ian’s shield, staggering him backward and sending him tumbling down the steps.
“Ian!” Stone spun, dashing to where his son had fallen. More objects, smaller now, flew through the open door and crashed around them.
Ian was already scrambling back up. “What the hell is going on in there?” he demanded, throwing himself sideways to dodge a heavy flying lamp. Off to their right, another window exploded outward.
“Come on.” Stone grabbed Ian’s arm and set off at a fast walk back toward the cemetery. The screaming voices still pounded in his head, but no more objects pelted them as they moved further from the house.
“Are we leaving? I thought you said you wanted to—”
“I do. But we’re not going to get anywhere without more preparation. We’ll head back to London tonight, and ring Eddie and Ward in the morning.” Stone kept moving; when it was obvious Ian was following, he let go of his arm.
Ian eyed the cemetery nervously, but nothing rose from any of the graves and attacked them. It wasn’t until they’d descended the steps in the mausoleum and stepped out of the portal at the London house that he spoke again. “Do you have any idea what caused that? I mean, aside from the obvious—it’s got to have something to do with opening that space under the house, right?”
“Almost certainly.” Stone paused, trying to think now that the voices weren’t shrieking in his head anymore. “But what I’m more interested in is what caused that heavy door to crack. It was clearly holding something prisoner, but what? And why would it get out after all these years it’s been buried? Just because we broke through the floor into the chamber doesn’t mean we broke the seal on that chamber. Unless there was some magic holding the whole thing together, and we disturbed it.”
“Sounded like a lot of somethings in there.” Ian pulled a comb from his back pocket and ran it through his hair. “You heard the voices, right? It didn’t sound like just one.”
“No, you’re right. It sounded like quite a lot of them.”
“So you think they were all imprisoned behind that door?”
Stone sighed. “I have no bloody idea. What I want is to get down there and have a look, without having the house fall down around my ears.”
“Don’t you have any kind of magical protection you can use to keep them from attacking us?”
“Possibly, but it will take some research. I’ve never encountered echoes this violent before, nor in these kinds of numbers.”
They headed upstairs, and Ian began to pace. “What do you think they want? I thought I heard them saying things like ‘Murderers,’ and ‘Get out.’ Do they think we’re murderers?” He froze. “I killed Bobby—so I guess I am a murderer. But how would they know about that?”
“Both of us are, by those standards,” Stone said grimly. “But you’re right—why would a load of echoes that have been buried possibly for centuries care about that sort of thing?” He paused, stiffening. “Wait a moment.”
“What?”
His knees went weak as another thought hit him. He staggered over to the liquor cabinet and poured a stiff shot, then let himself sink down to the nearest chair. “I don’t know if you heard it, but right before we got out of there, one of them said something different. Something like, ‘A curse on your line.’”
“I must have missed that one. It felt like my head was going to crack in two. But what do you think it means?”
Stone stared into the golden liquid, swirling it in the glass before tossing it back. “Remember I told you before that our ancestors weren’t very nice people?”
“Yeah. You said they were really dark mages. But—”
“I didn’t tell you everything.” This wasn’t the way Stone would have wanted to reveal this information to his son, but at this point he had little choice. Without meeting Ian’s gaze, he said, “Our ancestors—everyone from my grandfather back at least six generations, were very powerful, and very nasty. They did a lot of dark rituals to power their magic, and at
least some of them involved human sacrifices.”
Ian stared at him in shock. “You’re kidding.” But then he quickly added, “No, you’re not. So…you think these ghosts, or echoes, or whatever, are what’s left of the people they sacrificed?”
“It makes sense.” Unable to remain still, Stone got up and began pacing again. “They said ‘a curse on your line’…that makes sense if my family—our family—murdered them in black-magic rituals.”
Ian swallowed. “Are…you sure? How do you know this?”
“I found some papers a while back, hidden in one of the crypts in the mausoleum. They detailed a lot of what happened back around the time the house was built. Back then, not many people noticed or cared when foreign travelers or poor people or prostitutes went missing. Nobody looked for them, and even if they did, they rarely found them. Apparently, our ancestors took advantage of that to provide a steady stream of sacrificial victims for the rituals they used to gain more power.”
“Wow.” Ian ran both hands back through his spiky hair. “So…you’re thinking they must have killed them in these rituals and then buried their bodies in that hidden area under the house? Maybe in those little bricked-up alcoves?”
“Possibly. But that doesn’t make sense. Did you notice any of those broken when you went down there?”
“No. I only went down the hallway we checked today, though, and then checked the one with the carved door. That’s when things started happening and I got my ass out of there.”
Stone contemplated pouring another drink, but decided against it. It was already almost dawn—not exactly the time to be getting drunk. “If you’re right about that carved door being broken—”
“I saw it, Dad. I’m sure of it.”
“Yes, but illusions can be tricky. Anyway, let’s assume for the moment that you’re right—you really did see it broken. If so, then it makes sense whatever’s in the house came out of there, not from the alcoves.”
“Maybe it’s both. Maybe whatever was behind the door was part of what kept the stuff in the alcoves under wraps.”
Stone nodded in approval. “Good thought, and definitely worth investigating—if we can even get in there to have a look.” He sighed and glanced at his watch. “For now, though, it makes sense to try getting a bit of sleep. I don’t want to wake Eddie and Ward at the crack of dawn, and it seems the place is only causing trouble when someone’s around. I think it’s safe to wait until morning.”
