“Your methods are more emotional,” Hayes said, “and clearly you won’t listen to reason.” He began to pace in a circle. “So perhaps you’ll listen to proof.”
“Excuse me?”
“What if I could contact your daughter’s spirit?” Hayes looked up. Brendan followed his eyes to the portraits that hung over the room, featuring the old Bohemian Club members. “What if I used the help of our brothers to summon her soul, and communicate with it? Then would you believe she was well and truly gone?”
Kristoff stammered . . . as Hayes started lighting candles.
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I don’t want you to do a séance, please,” Eleanor begged. She was getting very frightened as the crouched, makeup-caked Aldrich Hayes placed a wooden board on the long table in the Bohemian Club’s great hall. The table was lit up with candles like a birthday cake. Eleanor was holding still, her shoulder in the grip of Denver Kristoff’s big hand, but now she was getting way too scared to be here. If Hayes were really going to do a séance, that meant ghosts and spirits, and Eleanor wasn’t sticking around for that. Luckily, by not moving for so long, she had made Denver Kristoff relax his grip, and with Hayes tending to the table, she broke free!
Eleanor ran toward the door that Angel had just walked out of. Kristoff called angrily after her, but she didn’t turn around—and then she heard Hayes’s voice, calm: “Wait, little one. You’ll be needing some money.”
Eleanor stopped, turned back. Did I hear that right?
Apparently she did. Because Hayes was holding out a hundred-dollar bill.
“I want you to get a taxi, go back to your parents, and never tell anyone about being here. And keep the change. Understand?”
“You’re letting me go?”
“Mr. Kristoff was wrong to bring you here.”
Eleanor glanced at Kristoff, who stood behind Hayes. He was clearly angry but also powerless. The old man really was his boss. Eleanor hesitantly took the hundred-dollar bill and strode toward the door. Behind her, she heard Kristoff whisper to Hayes: “You’re making a mistake. We should get rid of her. Permanently. I know a place under the Bay Bridge where we can dispose of the body—”
“Enough. Make yourself useful and bring me more candles—”
“I’m not your servant—”
“You are in my home and you will follow my rules.”
Eleanor paused as she approached the door, catching sight of something above. She turned slowly, so Hayes and Kristoff wouldn’t notice—
And saw Brendan staring down at her.
He was upstairs, on the balcony, next to Will!
Have they been up there the whole time?
Eleanor had to get to them.
Two sets of doors stood in front of her: one that led out of the great hall and one that led to the street. She went through the first set and opened the second, so it would sound like she was leaving . . . but then she dashed left, climbing the stairs to the balcony. She squeezed her eyes shut as she passed a pedestal holding a glass-encased stuffed falcon with huge sharp claws. She had to get past all the scary stuff in this place. She had to get to Brendan and Will. And there they were! So close . . .
Control yourself, stay steady, no sudden movements, she thought, but it was all she could do not to cry out as she fell into them.
Their three-way hug was as strong as it was silent. It had only been a few hours since Eleanor had finished her riding lesson with Crow, but she thought she was never going to see her family again, and knowing that Bren and Will had come reminded her: Sometimes your siblings annoy you, but sometimes they save your life.
Then, all of a sudden, the lights in the Bohemian Club went out.
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Eleanor, Brendan, and Will turned to the great room below, where there was a faint glow.
The white candles on the long table were arranged in a figure eight stretching from one end to the other. Hayes and Kristoff stood at the center of the table. Beside them was an ancient record player, equipped with a rusted windup crank and a large metal horn. Next to it was the wooden board that Hayes had brought to the table before. Brendan and Eleanor didn’t recognize it, but Will knew it was a planchette, a board used for “automatic writing.” A pencil was stuck through its middle, and the idea was that if a spirit contacted you during a séance, you placed your hand on the board and allowed the spirit to guide you, spelling out the words it wanted to say automatically on paper below. Planchettes were forerunners to the Ouija board, which Will knew since the whole idea of speaking with spirits was very popular in his time.
Hayes put a black vinyl record on the record player, dropped the needle, and turned the crank. A squeaky, wince-inducing sound filled the room. Brendan, Eleanor, and Will held their breath.
The record player let out a loud crack, and then staccato pops, signaling that music could start at any moment.
But the sound that followed wasn’t music.
It was a heartbeat—but very, very slow, as if a human heart had been slowed by a factor of fifty. It sounded like a cross between interstellar static and a giant’s footsteps. Fat Jagger’s footsteps! Eleanor thought, suddenly missing the brave and simpleminded colossus the Walkers had met in their last adventure. If only Fat Jagger were here, he would get us out of this. He was my friend.
As the slowed-down heartbeat played, a mist came out of nowhere—like the water on our car in the morning, thought Eleanor. It filled the room, from the air around Eleanor’s fingers to the space between the portraits of the old Bohemian Club members. And as it drifted around the room, the heartbeat began to get faster, just a tiny bit. Hayes and Kristoff started chanting.
“Diablo tan-tun-ka.” “Diablo tan-tun-ka.”
They reached for each other across the table. Their fingertips were just able to touch. They moved their arms back and forth in a fluid ellipse, almost as if they were dancing.
“Diablo tan-tun-ka.” “Diablog tan-tun-ka.”
The heartbeat got faster, like the heart of someone who had just run a marathon. And it wasn’t stopping. It galloped ahead, quicker and quicker, as the light from the candles began to change.
“Diablo tan-TUN-ka!” “Diablo tan-TUN-ka!”
The candles were blood-red. The mist became red too, looking as if it had soaked up the spray of a battlefield. Eleanor heard a scratching sound and turned—that stuffed falcon she had noticed? It was alive! Scraping its talons against the glass that trapped it, twitching its lizard eyes—
Eleanor screamed, but Brendan covered her mouth. Will elbowed Brendan and Eleanor, pointing to the wall behind them. Two swords mounted there were twisting back and forth, like scissors. Drops of blood beaded up on the metal to plop fatly on the floor.
“Spirits of our brothers!” called Hayes. “We summon you!”
“Diablo tan-TUN-ka!” Kristoff said. “Diablo tan-TUN-ka!”
“We wish to speak to one departed! We seek . . . Dahlia Kristoff!”
A great groan came from the ceiling, and when Brendan, Eleanor, and Will looked up, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
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The Bohemian Club portraits were coming alive. Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and several other stern-looking men were moving, moaning and rolling their jaws, as if to test that their mouths still worked.
“Brothers, help us!” Hayes implored from the table below. The red candles flickered around him. The cloud of mist above obscured the portraits—until Richard Nixon leaned out of his frame, puffed out his cheeks, and blew down a gust of air.
The mist drifted to
the sides of the room. Hayes and Kristoff looked up at portraits that now twitched and harrumphed in their frames. Along with Roosevelt and Nixon, with their names engraved in gold in each frame, were nineteenth-century satirist Ambrose Bierce; National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr.; President Dwight D. Eisenhower; Joseph Coors of the Coors Brewing Company; Mark Twain; Call of the Wild author Jack London; “most trusted man in America” Walter Cronkite; and President Herbert Hoover.
“How da-aaare you dist-urrrb us?” Richard Nixon asked, his jowls shaking as he drew out the question. He climbed out of his portrait and sat on the edge of the frame, his legs dangling, revealing bright yellow socks. He glared down at Hayes. “We’re all perfectly happy being dead! It’s relaxing! Why would you wake us? It had better be important!”
“I know you seek peace, brothers, and I truly do hate disturbing you,” Hayes said. “But perhaps you can answer a question?”
“What question?”
“Where is Dahlia Kristoff?”
“Who?” President Eisenhower asked. “Who is he talking about?”
“Dahlia Kristoff,” Hayes repeated. “Of San Francisco. Daughter of our esteemed club member Denver Kristoff. It is vital that we find out if her spirit is among the dead.”
“Vital to whom?” Nixon said. “I could care less about a missing girl. She’s probably gone off to some debauched hippie commune—”
“Shut your mouth!” Denver Kristoff interrupted, leaping onto the table. “Do you know whom you’re talking to? Aldrich Hayes built this place. None of you would have achieved wealth and fame if it weren’t for the Bohemian Club and the Lorekeepers.”
The faces in the portraits glanced at one another.
“That’s right! Nixon, how do you think an unattractive dolt like you with a lousy personality, foul breath, and yellow socks could ever be elected president? Because of the Lorekeepers!”
Nixon reached down and pulled at the bottom of his cuffed trousers, trying to hide his yellow socks.
“And Eisenhower?” shouted Kristoff. “Who do you think is really responsible for all of your military victories?”
“The Lorekeepers,” muttered an embarrassed Eisenhower.
“And Teddy Roosevelt?” barked Kristoff. “Do you think it’s just a coincidence that a mean-spirited lush like you won the Nobel Prize? Now, as a fellow Lorekeeper, I implore you . . . help me find my daughter. Help me find out if she’s alive or dead.”
“Never,” said Herbert Hoover. “Not after the way you spoke to us.”
“Usually, when we’re disturbed,” said Teddy Roosevelt, “it’s an extremely serious situation. An event that threatens the Bohemian Club itself.”
“And I don’t know about you fellas, but I don’t appreciate these insults,” said Nixon. “If I wanted to be treated like this, I’d move back into the White House. I’m going back to being dead.” Nixon began to return to his frame.
“No!” Kristoff grabbed Hayes’s hand and cranked up the record player. He began pulling Hayes in a circle, repeating their earlier movements, chanting “Diablo tan-TUN-ka!”
“Will you stop that?” Teddy Roosevelt said.
Kristoff ignored them all and bellowed, “Spirits of San Francisco! Come do what the Lorekeepers cannot! Show yourselves in our time of need!”
Up on the balcony, a plink hit Eleanor’s back. It was as if a thumbtack had fallen on her. She turned to look up—but Brendan held her still, trying to keep her quiet. She looked to her side and saw a human tooth on the ground! Eleanor couldn’t believe it, but before she could grab it—
Kerrrrrash!—the skylight above the portraits shattered into a million tiny pieces!
Hayes and Kristoff were dusted with falling glass. As they shook themselves off, there was an otherworldly whoosh . . .
And a horde of ghosts entered the Bohemian Club.
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Eleanor had never seen ghosts before, but she knew what she was looking at. Their bodies were long and made of mist. They had howling faces with mouths that stretched into distorted ovals. They flew around like a tornado, streaking past Kristoff and Hayes and swirling on the balcony. They seemed to fly through Eleanor, Brendan, and Will, who clutched one another in terror.
The room was overrun with spirits.
“I’m looking for Dahlia Kristoff!” Denver yelled to the ghosts. “Dahlia, if you are among the spirits . . . reveal yourself to me!”
Now Eleanor could see the ghosts more closely. Their colorless hair floated behind them as if they were underwater. Some wore bonnets and dresses from the nineteenth century; others had snazzy three-piece suits with wide lapels from the eighties.
What are they going to do to us?
The tooth was still sitting next to Eleanor, but as she watched, a hippie ghost in a flower-print dress kicked it away. I didn’t know ghosts could kick things. The spirits peered in nooks and crannies, making faint moans; the Bohemian Club almost sounded as if it were hosting a party. After a few minutes it became clear that the ghosts weren’t going to kill anyone.
“Did anyone see that tooth?” Eleanor whispered to Brendan and Will.
“What tooth?” Brendan responded. “I’m looking at that guy!”
Everyone turned to see the ghost of Jerry Garcia, in tan shorts, flip-flops, and a tie-dyed shirt, strumming an acoustic guitar. His spectral beard buzzed and snapped as if it were made of baby eels. His eyes were spinning green neon spirals.
“‘What’s all this ’bout a missing girl? Ain’t nobody missing in this world . . .’” Jerry sang.
“Who is that?” Aldrich Hayes asked.
“It’s Jerry Garcia, even I know that,” Kristoff told him.
“The guy from the Ben and Jerry’s flavor?” Eleanor whispered.
“‘I’m just lookin’ for peace, ya hear, for finding some girl who I know is near . . .’”
Jerry Garcia looked up. Eleanor looked with him, directly above her, and saw where the tooth had come from.
Clinging to the wooden beams of the Bohemian Club’s ceiling was someone who was not a ghost. It was a teenage girl, scared and shivering, who looked like the traumatized survivor of a war.
It was Cordelia Walker.
“There’s your girl,” Jerry Garcia said, pointing. “Dahlia Kristoff.”
“No!” Eleanor yelled.
Cordelia unhooked her limbs from the beam and jumped down.
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There!” yelled Denver Kristoff from below, grinning. “I knew if I captured one Walker, the others would appear. And look, they’ve brought a friend!” He pointed to Will.
“You idiot,” said Hayes, “you’ve compromised our club even further. And how is this going to get you your daughter?”
“Look closely,” said Kristoff. “That’s not Cordelia Walker up there, not by a long shot.”
It appeared that Kristoff was correct, because the skinny girl who had jumped down from the ceiling in front of Brendan, Eleanor, and Will hardly resembled Cordelia. She was crouched on her hindquarters, snarling like a wild animal who had just emerged from an underground cave.
“Deal?” asked Brendan. “What’s wrong with you?”
He reached out his hand to her. Cordelia swiped at it, scratching her brother’s wrist. Eyes wide and murderous, she madly glanced back and forth from her siblings to Will, growling.
“Brendan,” asked Eleanor, “why is she acting like this?”
“She’s certainly not herself,” said Will, trying to make a joke that no one found funny.
“You were right, Hayes,” said Kristoff below. “These ghosts have given me an answer, but not the one you expected. Dahlia’s spirit is here—in the body of Cordelia Walker.”
“What? How do you know?” asked Hayes.
“Because the little one claimed she banished my daughter into ‘the worst place ever.’ You tell me: Is there any place worse, any place more isolated and treacherous . . . than the heart of a teenager?”
Kristoff didn’t give Hayes a chance to answer. With a victorious laugh, he grabbed the vinyl off the record player and blew out one of the blood-red candles. “Ite, omnes!” he yelled to the spirits. “You are no longer needed!”
With one candle blown out, all the others extinguished in an elegant wave. The spell was broken. The ghosts rushed backward toward the skylight, caterwauling and reaching for the animated portraits, who were busy climbing back inside their picture frames. Then the portraits went still and lifeless as the ghosts spiraled out of the Bohemian Club in a wispy jet over San Francisco.
“Now join me in my moment of triumph!” Kristoff told Hayes, hoisting the older man onto his back.
Meanwhile, on the balcony, Brendan, Eleanor, and Will circled the thing that looked like Cordelia Walker. It was a broken thing, on all fours, darting its head back and forth, running forward on its hands and feet, then dashing back. It looked at Brendan, and for a moment he could see the sharp eyes of his real sister, and the thing said, “Brr . . . ?”
But then it shuddered and slapped at the ground.
“Cordelia, it’s us!” Will yelled, sounding desperate.
Cordelia lunged forward. Brendan pulled Will back. Cordelia snapped her teeth—even though most of them were gone, the canines were still intact, giving her the mouth of a bat.
“All of you stand back!” Denver Kristoff bellowed.
He was at the top of the stairs, holding Hayes on his back, with Hayes’s wig sticking up behind his head. Kristoff put Hayes down gently.
“Brendan, you horrid little brat,” he said. “You will pay dearly for sneaking in here. And you!” he told Eleanor. “You had the chance to leave safely. Unfortunately for you—”
House of Secrets: Battle of the Beasts Page 7
