by Ann Charles
Had something else beeped on his sixth sense radar? Something that could morph into the shape of an ex-lover? I wrinkled my nose. Oh dear Lord, if that lidérc thing turned into Tiffany Sugarbell right before my eyes, I was going to use my war hammer as a meat tenderizer and flatten the hell out of its perky boobs and round little bottom.
Wait, Aunt Zoe had said a dead relative or lover. Damn! And here I was sort of hoping to have a shot at a Tiffany look-alike.
“What did you say this building was used for?” Reid asked Aunt Zoe as he led us further back the narrow hallway, pausing to shine his flashlight into one empty room and then the other directly across, lighting up all corners before moving onward.
“I didn’t say, fearless leader.” I could hear the challenge in her tone.
Reid gave her a brief glare. “Quit messing with me, Zo, or I’m going to kiss you right here in front of Sparky and Doc.”
“Try it and I’ll knock you on your ass again, Martin, and this time I won’t need my glass block to get the job done.”
He stared at her, our breathing the only sound. Then the creases on his shadowed face deepened and he laughed. “You’re beautiful when you’re mad, have I ever told you that?”
“Shut your big trap,” Aunt Zoe mumbled and pushed past him, leading the way to the next room. “According to what I read about Ottó and this building, when he first had it built, he had a doctor’s office down here with several patient rooms, and his living quarters were upstairs. But then it changed hands after he died and became a small hardware store, then a boarding house for single miners, and most recently it was split into two apartments, one upstairs and one down—that’s when they added the outside stairway.”
“That explains those then,” Reid said, aiming his light at several boards nailed to the ceiling at the end of the hallway. He pointed at some heavy duty hardware still bolted to the wall. “There must have been a circular stairwell here that led to the upper floor, but they took it out when they made it into two apartments.”
“And this room over here was the kitchen,” I said, which was obvious by the ancient looking stove left behind to rot with everything else. When I stepped into the narrow room, I heard a scuffling sound in the rusted chimney pipe leading out through the wall. I could only imagine what critters I would find nesting inside the oven if I opened the door.
The last room in the far back corner, sharing an interior wet-wall with the kitchen, was a cramped bathroom with a dust and dead insect laden porcelain claw-footed tub and stained toilet. The sink was gone, leaving behind corroded galvanized iron pipes sticking out of the wall below a broken mirror that was hazy around the edges.
It reminded me of the mirror in Ms. Wolff’s apartment and the questions returned about what my breaking that mirror meant. Was that doorway now forever open or closed? Had I screwed up something major or were there other doors to be opened elsewhere? Surely there was more than one.
I leaned my war hammer against the wall and stared into the mirror, listening to the sounds of the other three moving around in the hallway and kitchen, whispering to each other. Okay Mr. Hungarian troublemaker, where are you? I waited, watching the wall behind my reflection for a ghostly face to appear over my shoulder like I’d seen so many times in horror movies.
But nothing appeared.
Nothing pounded on the mirror’s glass from “the other side” either, nor made it shudder or crack further.
I leaned closer, opening my mouth wide. Was anything lurking down my esophagus, waiting to show its fingers in the back of my throat as it crawled up and out? Or would my throat split open, showing a blinking, bulbous eyeball? Or something even worse that would freak the hell out of me?
Wait, what could be worse than an eyeball in my throat?
It didn’t matter. Nothing was hiding in my mouth. My “dud-ness” was showing its plain old anticlimactic self again.
“What are you doing?” Doc asked.
I glanced over, slowly closing my mouth. He was leaning against the door jamb, watching me with one raised eyebrow.
“Looking for trouble.”
“Can’t you see it, Killer? It’s staring back at you in the mirror, capital T and all.”
“Very funny, Mr. Tall Medium.” I used Cornelius’s name for Doc and walked over to him, pretending to pull a punch.
He caught my exaggerated swing and spun me around, pulling me back against him, resting his chin on the crown of my head. “So, do you talk to mirrors often, my evil queen, or is that a side effect of your new career?”
“I’ve always talked to mirrors. The girl on the other side is the only one who understands all of my highs and woes.”
“Clever, oh fairest of them all.”
“We’re heading back out front, you two,” Aunt Zoe said from behind Doc. “Bring that hammer, Violet.”
I grabbed the war hammer and followed Aunt Zoe out into the hallway. “I’m feeling a bit silly carrying this thing around. There’s nothing to swing at in here but spiders and the dead morsels caught in their webs.”
“We’re not done here.” She stopped and pointed her light at the ceiling.
“Wouldn’t that thing roam both upstairs and down? Surely it doesn’t need a stairwell to go back and forth between floors.”
“Reid, you were upstairs investigating when you saw the shadow, right?”
“Yes, in one of the back rooms.”
“And weren’t the flames and weird lights that were reported said to be coming from the upper windows?”
“I believe so.”
She looked back at me. “Like I said, we’re not done.”
“Yeah, but shouldn’t I be sensing or hearing something from down here?”
“I don’t know, Executioner. Should you?” She reached out and pulled the necklace she’d made me from my neckline, palming the glass charm. “Maybe you’re not focusing.”
She was right. I wasn’t. “Do you want me to try to focus on it from down here or wait until we’re upstairs?”
“I think you would be smarter to start down here. If for some unknown reason it only resides on the upper floor, then you might be able to hear it and give us a head start on what we’re going to face.”
“Okay.” I led the way back out to the front room, feeling the need for more space around me. I used my boot to clear a spot in the center of the floor and sat down with my legs crossed, as if I were preparing to meditate.
“That’s different,” Doc said as he looked down at me.
I laid my war hammer across my lap, the handle within easy reach of my right hand. “My legs are shaky from playing Twister too long.”
Pathetic but true.
He grinned and then backed up to give me more room.
“Here goes nothing,” I told Aunt Zoe and closed my eyes.
I did the ol’ flickering flame trick, focusing on that little fire as it danced and weaved in the blackness. When I opened my eyes, Doc, Aunt Zoe, and Reid stood by, watching and waiting.
I closed my eyes again and thought of Cornelius’s humming as he did during our séances. His one horned Viking helmet. His cornflower blue eyes.
Focus, Scharfrichter, focus.
I opened my eyes again. Doc, Aunt Zoe, and Reid were still there, all staring down at me. Still waiting.
Damn it!
It was usually easier than this. Something was throwing me off.
I closed my eyes and this time thought about the bone-cruncher, its foul breath, its milky gaze, its long spikey teeth gnashing at me. I squeezed my eyes even tighter, thinking about Wilda’s damned clown doll.
When I opened my eyes, Aunt Zoe was digging in her bag, Doc had moved over next to one of the plastic covered windows, and Reid was inspecting some wiring sticking out of the old fashioned, push button light switch in the wall near the doors.
I sighed. “Aunt Zoe, this isn’t working. I can’t seem to—”
Heavy footfalls clomped overhead, interrupting my whine.
My mouth went dry. My stomach churned, sudden nausea making me gulp until it passed.
I slowly looked up at the ceiling, following the loud clomping sounds from the front of the building toward the back until they stopped suddenly. I waited for the ceiling to fall in on our heads, but it held firm, not shedding even a flake of plaster.
“Uh oh,” I whispered, locking onto the handle of the war hammer. I scrambled very ungracefully to my feet, my thighs wobbly, stumbling over my own boots until Doc caught me by the arm and held me steady.
“What do you hear?” Aunt Zoe asked, pulling a lighter from her bag along with another foot-long bundle of twigs.
Twigs? A lighter? These were her chosen weapons of defense? Was she going to offer the lidérc a marshmallow, some chocolate, and a graham cracker and then Kumbayah it to death?
“Violet Lynn,” she grabbed my arm in a solid grip. “Answer me. What do you hear?”
I pointed up at the ceiling. “Nothing now, but I heard footfalls going across the floor up there, only they sounded like high heeled shoes. Or maybe hooves.” I glanced at Doc. Seriously, if it took the form of Doc’s former lover, dead or not, I could not be held accountable for my actions.
“That makes sense,” Aunt Zoe said, aiming her light up at the ceiling.
“What makes sense?” Reid asked.
“A lidérc’s footprints are said to be that of a horse.”
“I didn’t hear a thing, did you?” Reid’s question was directed to Doc.
“No,” Doc said, “but Violet can often hear things I can’t.”
“I thought you were the medium.”
“I am, but so is she, and her toolbox is bigger than mine.”
“That’s not true,” I told Doc, hefting the war hammer as I stepped toward the hallway leading to the back rooms. “You just have a smaller tool.”
Complete silence followed my statement.
Ah hell. I winced as I continued down the hallway. That didn’t come out right. Maybe nobody would notice my faux pas.
“Nyce?” I heard Reid ask. “Do you think your girlfriend meant that metaphorically?”
The low vibrations of Doc’s laughter reached me as I tiptoed back to the end of the hall where the old stairwell had been boarded up.
I heard Aunt Zoe tell Reid to shut up and then a thwap, which was probably her hand smacking his coat.
Doc caught up with me at the end of the hall. We stared up at the boards separating us from whatever was upstairs. My heart throbbed fast and hard clear to my toes. Did Prudence know when the end had been near in her reign as the local executioner? Had she been drowning in doubt about her abilities to take out her next kill like I was at the moment? Would I be able to fill her shoes with as much finesse as she so often crowed about?
“Doc,” I whispered for his ears only, wanting to clear the air before I went up to face this horse-hooved devil.
“What?” he matched my voice level.
“I have a confession to make.”
He waited for me to continue, both of us looking upward.
“Tiffany said something to me recently that sort of has me worried.”
I felt his gaze move to my face. “And what was that?”
“Something along the lines that any feelings you may have expressed for me might be disingenuous.”
I kept staring upward, afraid to meet his stare.
“Violet, do you really think now is the time to talk about this? Here of all places?”
“Probably not, but if whatever is up there wins tonight, I sort of want to clear this up in my head before we climb those stairs.”
“It’s not going to win.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Your Aunt Zoe is here to make sure you walk away when it’s over.”
“She’s scared. I can see it in her eyes. There is no guarantee with each kill. You know that as well as I do. Besides, it’s not me I’m worried about as much as you.” I blew out a breath, brushing some loose bangs out of my face. “Well, and Aunt Zoe and Reid, too, of course.”
“Are we going to compare tool sizes again?”
I shined my light at the dirt covered floor. “Sorry about that. Would it help if I wrote you a sonnet about my appreciation for your tool?”
In the dim light, I could see the corners of his eyes crinkle. “I think a limerick is a more appropriate style of verse for that particular object.”
I cleared my throat and started with, “There once was a medium named Doc, who had an obscenely large …”
Doc covered his eyes, shaking his head.
“Would you like me to continue?” I asked, giggling.
Laughter acted as a magic elixir, calming my fluttering stomach, easing my fears about what I needed to face upstairs.
“Please don’t, not here.” He glanced around. “You can remedy the wound your ‘small tool’ remark inflicted on my ego the next time we’re in bed.”
“Deal.”
“Now, about Tiffany’s comment.”
I held up my hand. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to go there right now.”
“You sure?”
I was rarely sure of anything when it came to him and me, but he was right—now was not the time for that conversation. “I’m sure.”
He shined his light back up at the boards. “Heavy footfalls, huh?”
“Extremely. I expected the ceiling to give way.”
“Christ, Killer. You sure keep life exciting. Come on.” He grabbed my arm and led me back out to the front room. “What now, Zoe?”
“We go up.”
The clomp-clomp-clomp of footfalls boomed again on the ceiling, heading back to the front of the building, making me flinch and duck as they thundered overhead. My fear came back in a tidal wave of goosebumps.
“That’s a bad idea.” I took a step away from Aunt Zoe.
“Violet, we are going up there.”
“You’re not hearing how big that thing up there sounds. Maybe I should go alone.”
Or we could just go home and I could call in sick for the filming tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, until Jerry either gave up on me or fired me. Either was preferable to risking our welfare on some silly, Hungarian pest.
“I don’t need to hear it.” Her hand snaked out and locked onto my wrist. “My purpose tonight is not to hear but rather to help you destroy.”
“It could be a good devil. Have you ever thought of that? Maybe we should just leave it be for another hundred years.” I tried to tug free, but she was in badger mode. “I mean who are we to condemn it to death?”
“You’re an executioner. You’re going upstairs, Violet Lynn, and I’m going with you.” She started towing me toward the front doors.
“Reid,” I said, dragging anchor. “It’s probably not safe to go up those stairs is it?”
He followed us out into the cold night. “Actually, the stairs are still in pretty good shape. It’s the foundation that didn’t pass inspection.”
Thank you for not helping, Mr. Fireman.
“Okay, okay!” I tugged free of Aunt Zoe’s grip. “I’ll go, but I’m leading the way.”
“No, I am.”
“No, you’re not,” Reid said. “You know the rule. I lead.”
Aunt Zoe glared at him. “Reid, you don’t understand the first thing about what we’re dealing with up there or how vulnerable you are now that it already knows your scent.”
He held up his watch. The glass charm band sparkled in the bright headlights. “But I have your protection charm.”
She sighed, lowering her bag to the ground. “All right. Come here.” Reid moved closer. She grabbed him by the shoulders and settled him in front of her. “Doc, would you step over here for a second, please?”
Doc moved closer while I stayed off to the side, shooting fret-filled glances up the dark stairwell.
I could hear a clacking sound from somewhere at the top of the steps, reminding me of something from my childhood. What was waiting
for us? Were those teeth gnashing? Was it another bone cruncher?
“Get in line behind Reid, would you?” Doc did as asked. “A little closer.”
“What the hell, Zo. Why are you lining us up like school children heading out for recess?”
“I’ll explain in a minute.” She turned slightly to her right and took a deep breath.
“This better not be a game you’re—” Reid started.
“Look!” Aunt Zoe pointed up at the sky. “A shooting star.”
Reid looked up, so did Doc. I would have too, except I was preoccupied by that clacking sound, trying to place it in my memory. My distraction kept me staring straight ahead, so I had a clear view in the glow of Reid’s headlights of the uppercut that Aunt Zoe delivered to Reid’s jaw.
I gasped, watching wide mouthed as Reid fell backward into Doc, who managed to catch the fire captain as his knees gave out and he slid toward the ground.
“What happened to him?” Doc asked, hitching Reid up as best he could. Doc was strong, but Reid was no lightweight.
With a scoff, I rushed over to help Doc. “Aunt Zoe sucker punched him again.”
“Again?” Doc gaped at Aunt Zoe, who was grimacing as she rubbed her right hand.
“Reid has a glass jaw,” she explained, making a fist with a wince. “One solid blow in the right spot,” she snapped her left fingers, “and he goes down every time.” She leaned forward and lifted Reid’s eyelids one at a time, shining her light in each. “He’ll be fine in a few minutes.”
“How many times have you done this to him?”
“A couple of times. But only for his own good. Mostly, anyway.” She reached down and wiggled her left hand into Reid’s front jean pocket. “Why don’t you carry him to the pickup and lock him inside.” She pulled her hand out and held up two sets of keys. She handed Doc the small ring that held the pickup keys on it. “You hold onto these in case something happens to Violet or me.”
“You mean you’re not going to knock out Doc, too?” I said, helping Doc lift Reid enough to get a better grip on the fire captain’s limp body.
“Don’t get smart, Violet Lynn,” she chastised.
After Doc and I had returned from lugging Reid to his pickup and locking him inside, she explained, “Reid was the most vulnerable of all of us. The lidérc had already seen him. It would have gone for him first.” She shined her flashlight up the dark, covered stairway. “Now we have the element of surprise on our side.” As she started up the stairs, I heard her add, “I hope.”
