Onyx Webb 9

by Diandra Archer

  Which was a lie, but a lie told with good intent.

  The truth was Stormy could not protect the Mulvaneys without knowing what was happening behind closed doors—especially with the number of spirit forces moving about the house. Like the dark entity that Declan told him about—the priest he said he’d murdered.

  The priest worried Stormy.

  Stormy was even more concerned once he’d seen the tape from one of the priest’s visits to Declan’s room—how the priest’s very presence drained the light from his surroundings.

  And the energy out of Declan himself.

  Stormy knew about Declan’s illness. And he was sure the illness was taking its toll on the man. But he also knew the priest’s continued presence in the house was escalating Declan’s rapidly deteriorating condition—literally sucking the last of Declan’s energy from him by simply being there.

  Stormy was also certain the priest was in the house at that moment, lurking in the darkness—a part of the darkness—which was the cause of the repeated flickering of lights. Stormy had yet to see the priest’s dark form on the video, but he didn’t need to see it.

  It was a good time to check with the security guards, Stormy thought. He needed to make sure the gate was still operating properly—

  Then the buzzer in his pocket vibrated.

  Stormy looked at the screen on the far left of the panel and saw a group of people huddled around a man lying on the floor.

  It was Declan.

  1:44 A.M. EST

  IN ONE OF THE MANSION HALLWAYS

  “YOU DID THIS!” Stan Lee said over his shoulder to Kara as he hurried down a hallway in a part of the mansion he’d never been before—lost like a rat in a maze.

  “Settle down,” Kara said from behind him.

  “Settle down? You stabbed Declan Mulvaney in the middle of the ballroom. In front of fifty witnesses!”

  “I stabbed him?” Kara snapped. “Color me stupid, Stan, but I’m not the one with blood on his hands.”

  Stan Lee looked down and saw his blood-soaked hand and realized she was right. He stabbed Declan. But he had no recollection of it.

  Suddenly, the door on Stan Lee’s right opened. The man in the bowler hat stepped into the hallway, and the two men collided into one another. Stan Lee could tell the security man looked distraught.

  “Do you know what happened in the ballroom? To Declan?” Stormy asked breathlessly.

  Oh, my God, he knows. “Uh, yes, he—someone stabbed him,” Stan Lee blurted.

  “Stabbed him?” Stormy repeated. “Who would—?”

  “I don’t know,” Stan Lee said, noticing that Kara was standing next to Stormy now. Kara motioned at Stan Lee’s blood-soaked hand, and he quickly moved it behind his back. “But it’s bad. You’d better get up there right away.”

  Stormy turned and bolted away down the hall.

  “Jesus, Stan,” Kara said. “That was close. We’ve got to get out of here. What about—?”

  Stan Lee suddenly had an idea.

  The tunnel.

  “Now you’re thinking,” Kara said. “Do you know how to get there?”

  Stan Lee wasn’t sure. He was disoriented. And the only time he’d used the secret door in the art room was from his end of the tunnel, never from inside the house. The big question was, had Declan sealed it off?

  “Of course, he didn’t, stupid,” Kara said. “They don’t even know the secret door is there. If they did, they’d have found the tunnel long ago, and you’d already be in prison.”

  Kara was right, of course, Stan Lee thought.

  How could he function without her?

  1:47 A.M. EST

  SECOND-FLOOR GUEST BEDROOM

  GRAEME WAS STANDING in front of the mirror, running a brush through his hair and admiring his good looks as he and Olympia prepared to return to the party after their little tryst.

  “It’s nice to see a man with a healthy sense of ego,” Olympia said from the edge of the bed as she pulled on her yellow spandex tights. “You know we’re supposed to keep the mirrors covered, right?”

  “What? You don’t think I can protect you from some scrawny-ass poltergeist?” Graeme asked over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Olympia said. “Right before a scrawny-ass poltergeist leveled my apartment building.”

  Graeme picked up the black tablecloth off the floor and threw it over the mirror. “Happy?”

  “Yes, on multiple levels,” Olympia said.

  Suddenly, Graeme felt the emergency buzzer in his pocket begin to vibrate. “Oh, crikey.”

  “What is it?” Olympia asked.

  “Something’s happened to Declan.”

  “In matters of karma, the universe is excruciatingly fair. What goes around does indeed come around. But you must understand: the universe is under no obligation to ensure it comes around to you.”

  The 31 Immutable Matters

  of Life & Death

  Episode 27

  Blood Moon

  THE FOLLOWING EVENTS TAKE PLACE BETWEEN 1:48 and 3:17 A.M. (EST),

  DECEMBER 21, 2010.

  THE HEIGHT OF THE SOLSTICE ECLIPSE.

  1:48 A.M. EST

  IN THE BALLROOM

  GRAEME KINGSLEY PUSHED his way through the crowd of people and found Koda kneeling on the floor, his hand pressed against Declan’s stomach. Bruce and Alec Yost were kneeling next to Koda.

  “Is he conscious?” Graeme asked.

  Koda shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  A moment later, Stormy arrived. “What happened?” Stormy asked.

  “Someone stabbed him,” Bunny Whitlock said. “I was standing right there when it happened.”

  “Stabbed him?” Stormy repeated in disbelief. “Who stabbed him?”

  “It was the Southern Gentleman,” Warren Whitlock said.

  “Son of a bitch,” Stormy said. “I ran into him in the hallway, but I had no idea he—”

  “Go find him,” Bruce barked. “Do not let that bastard get out of this house.”

  Stormy nodded and raced off.

  “Where’s the damn ambulance?” Bruce snapped.

  “It should be here soon,” Koda said. “Uncle Tommy is waiting out front for them.”

  Bruce shot Koda a confused look.

  “Later,” Koda said.

  Olympia saw the gathering and worked her way through the circle of onlookers and stopped next to Graeme. She looked down and saw Declan on the floor—and the blood. “Holy crap, what happened?”

  “Pants,” Graeme said under his breath.

  “What?”

  “Pants,” Graeme said, slightly louder and pointed his finger.

  Olympia looked to where he was pointing and felt the blood rush to her face. In her hurry, Olympia had managed to put her yellow spandex tights on backward, which in and of itself wasn’t a disaster. The problem was they were also inside out—with the tag hanging out a few inches below her belly button like a white rectangular tongue.

  “Oh, God,” Olympia said. “I’ll be right back.”

  1:48 A.M. EST

  BASEMENT OF THE MULVANEY MANSION

  THERE HAS TO BE a stairway to the basement,” Stan Lee said aloud, even though Kara was nowhere in sight. That didn’t mean she wasn’t there. She was there somewhere—ever present, visible or not—camping out in his head like a deranged girl scout hanging near the doors of the supermarket, determined to get a badge for selling cookies to otherwise innocent shoppers.

  Except when he needed her. When Stan Lee needed Kara, she disappeared faster than David Copperfield.

  Stan Lee turned yet another corner and still saw nothing resembling a stairway. But there was a door at the end of the hall.

  Stan Lee felt like he’d been traveling in circles, opening so many doors he could no longer remember which he’d tried and which he hadn’t.

  “Only one way to find out,” Kara said from behind him.

  A minute earlier Stan Lee was desperate
for Kara’s help.

  “Screw you and your Thin Mints,” Stan Lee snapped.

  “Why are you ranting about cookies?” Kara asked.

  Stan Lee ignored her and walked straight to the door without acknowledging her further.

  Stan Lee turned the knob and pulled the door toward him and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Stairs.

  Stan Lee flipped a switch on the wall and a bulb at the bottom of the staircase illuminated. Standing directly beneath the light—at the bottom of the stairs—was Kara.

  “Well, are you coming or not?”

  1:49 A.M. EST

  MANSION SECURITY ROOM

  STORMY ENTERED THE security room and slid into the chair behind the closed-circuit TV console. With any luck the bastard hadn’t—

  Son of a bitch, there he was!

  Stormy looked at the number on the screen. Number seventeen.

  Camera #17 was in the hallway toward the rear of the original plantation house. The TVs had no sound but Stormy could tell the man was talking to someone. Who could he be talking to? Beatrice Shaw? One of her workers?

  Stormy glanced at one of the other TV monitors and saw that Beatrice and the few workers that remained were all in the main kitchen in the newer part of the mansion.

  Then Stormy watched as the Southern Gentleman walked to the door at the end of the hall and opened it. He headed down the staircase and disappeared from the TV screen.

  Stormy not only knew where the Southern Gentleman had gone, he knew he was trapped.

  The only thing at the bottom of the stairs was an underground root cellar—an area Declan Mulvaney had once used for his stolen art collection before being arrested by the federal government. It was now used for storage of various odds and ends.

  But Stormy could no longer see the Southern Gentleman. When Stormy arranged for the closed-circuit cameras to be installed, he hadn’t bothered placing one down there. Why would he? The room was rarely used. More importantly, it didn’t lead anywhere.

  It was a dead end.

  Which meant that if he could get there in time, he had the bastard trapped.

  1:50 A.M. EST

  SECOND-FLOOR GUEST BEDROOM

  OLYMPIA WAS MORTIFIED. It was one thing to sneak upstairs with Graeme, take off her clothes, and have a romp beneath the sheets. They were adults, and it was no one’s business but their own. It was entirely something else to go back down with her pants inside out so everyone at the party would know about it.

  It could have been worse, of course.

  The thought made her shudder.

  Olympia pulled the yellow tights off, turned them right-side out, and then bent over to work her way back into them. Then Olympia walked over and pulled the black cloth from the mirror to triple-check that the rest of her was put together properly, and—

  “Holy shit!” Olympia screamed.

  There was a man inside the mirror, starring back at her. Standing behind the man were other people, all of them peering through the mirror at her.

  Just then the man stuck his face through the glass into the room, and Olympia staggered back and fell on the bed. Then she watched in horror as the man stepped through the mirror entirely—followed immediately by several others.

  “Who are you? What—what do you want?” Olympia stammered.

  The ghosts did not answer.

  Olympia glanced around for something to defend herself with and spotted the sawed-off shotgun. It wasn’t loaded, but the ghosts didn’t know that. She quickly rolled off the bed and grabbed it.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Olympia said, pointing the gun at the ghost. “You do, and I’ll shoot your ass!”

  The man lunged forward, and Olympia instinctively pulled the trigger and BAM! The gun fired, sending the ghost flying back. Jesus, Olympia thought. The gun had been loaded the entire time.

  The ghost looked down at the hole in its chest, and then back up at Olympia. Well, so much for that plan, Olympia thought.

  A second ghost stepped forward, and Olympia pulled the trigger for the opposite barrel. The shotgun issued another blast that sent the second ghost staggering back.

  The two ghosts exchanged a glance and then lunged forward.

  Olympia bolted for the door, shotgun still in hand—and ran smack-dab into the chest of yet another ghost, and Olympia started screaming.

  “Calm down,” someone said from the doorway.

  Olympia turned and saw a man standing there. “Nathaniel?” Olympia said.

  “Hello, darling,” Nathaniel said as a ghost rushed at the two of them. Nathaniel redirected it with a shove, using the ghost’s own momentum to his advantage and sent it crashing head first into the door jam. “You tried to kill a ghost with a shotgun? Didn’t I teach you anything?”

  “I’m sorry, Nat, I just—”

  “We’ll talk later,” Nathaniel said, punching another ghost in the face and sending it reeling back. “Get downstairs and warn everyone. I’ll hold them off for as long as I can.”

  1:51 A.M. EST

  IN THE BALLROOM

  CLEAR A PATH!” Bruce shouted when he saw two emergency medical technicians enter the ballroom. The first EMT was a large, beefy female pushing a rolling gurney. The second was a slightly built male who didn’t look big enough to lift a sack of potatoes let alone pick up a grown man.

  With them was a large man who struck Bruce as a doppelganger for Dan Blocker, the actor who used to play Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza—which, of course, he wasn’t. Dan Blocker had been dead for nearly four decades, tragically dying of a pulmonary embolism in his early forties.

  This man also looked extremely familiar.

  Everyone stopped for a moment as what sounded like gunshots rang out from the second floor. “What was that?” Quinn asked.

  “Back away, please,” the male EMT said as he took a knee next to Declan and began checking his vitals, while the female EMT set a portable medical kit on the floor and popped it open.

  “You’re Bruce, right?” the man asked. “How’s Declan? Has he come to? Did he say anything yet?”

  Bruce shook his head. “Who are you?”

  “I’m an old friend from way back—Uncle Tommy.”

  Bruce wasn’t sure how old of friends his father and “Uncle Tommy” could possibly be since he didn’t look a day over forty.

  “Okay, let’s get him out of here,” the female EMT barked. “Is he able—?”

  The EMT stopped mid-question when hysterical screams erupted from the staircase in the back corner of the ballroom. A black woman with an afro came down the stairs in her bare feet, holding a shotgun and flailing her arms.

  “Ghosts! Ghosts!” Olympia screamed. “Everyone needs to get out!”

  “Jesus, Koda,” Bruce snapped. “You picked one hell of a time for theatrics.”

  Olympia glanced over her shoulder up the staircase. “Oh, God, they’re coming! Run for your lives!”

  “This isn’t a show, Dad,” Koda said. “This might be what Gerylyn warned us about.”

  “But we covered the mirrors,” Quinn said. “How—?”

  Everyone watched as Olympia reached the bottom of the stairs and sprinted across the room toward them. A mass of transparent figures slowly came down the stairs behind her.

  Olympia reached the group of people surrounding Declan. Everyone stood transfixed—too confused to understand what was taking place. Then the reality of the situation set in—followed by a wave of panic as the gray figures reached the bottom of the stairs and began moving in their direction like an army of gray, lifeless soldiers.

  “Run, Bunny!” Warren Whitlock screamed. “Run!”

  The last flicker of hope that what was happening was part of an elaborate show was quickly extinguished when Warren Whitlock bravely stepped forward and encountered the first ghost to arrive at the circle of guests.

  The ghost grabbed Warren by the tie, pulled him toward it, and placed its mouth over his. Several seconds later, the people standing close by r
eleased a collective gasp as the ghost—now filled with color—dropped the millionaire’s gray, lifeless body to the floor and walked off.

  Another ghost grabbed the male EMT, who tried to push it away but was unable to escape. The ghost placed its mouth over the EMT’s mouth and—

  Everyone scattered, running in every direction, screaming.

  One of the gray figures came directly at Bruce, but before it could get to him, Tommy stepped forward and hit it squarely in the face—his hand penetrating the ghost and disappearing a few inches, as if punching a marshmallow—and the spirit staggered backward, momentarily stunned.

  “Is there a place you can hide?” Tommy asked.

  “We’ve got a panic room,” Koda said.

  “Good. How many people does it hold?”

  “I don’t know,” Koda said. “Dad?”

  Bruce didn’t answer, his eyes darting back and forth on the utter chaos that was enveloping the ballroom.

  Tommy grabbed Bruce by the shoulders and shook him. “Bruce, are you listening? How many people can you fit in the panic room?”

  “It’s designed for six,” Bruce said finally. “But it can fit eight if necessary.”

  “Okay, good,” Tommy said. “The two of you grab another six people and get them in there as fast as you can.”

  “But, what about—”

  “Your old man? Don’t worry,” Tommy asked. “I’ll get him to the ambulance. You take care of the others.”

  Bruce nodded.

  “And, hey,” Tommy said. They come at you, punch them a good one in the kisser, okay? It stuns them.”

  “How do you know all this?” Bruce asked.

  “Later,” Tommy said.

  “I’ve got to go find Robyn,” Koda said.