She'd decided not to mention this to John; he was so protective of the house, he might not like the idea of her breaking down a wall. She'd tried asking John about the room. He was a ghost, after all, and could walk through the wall and see for himself, but when she'd mentioned the insidious aura that lingered upstairs, he'd just looked at her in confusion. Maybe ghosts felt such things differently, or not at all, but he hadn't understood so she'd dropped it.
Hesitating on the landing outside the servants' side of the attic, she debated on calling him, but she'd bought the tools already and, well, part of her stubbornly wanted to find a way in there on her own. She could always summon him later, if she wasn't able to get inside, she decided.
She stopped just at the edge of the miasma; she could feel the darkness reaching out tendrils towards her and she shuddered. Reluctantly, she set the tools down and stepped forward into the swirling mess, swallowing hard to control her nausea as she moved through it to touch the wall, where she'd been guided to press before. She knew she'd felt something give slightly the other day and she looked for that exact spot again.
Fingers slid over the paneling, feeling for some crack that would indicate a door; she growled with frustration. The negative aura that swirled around her quickly stripped her patience from her, making her tired and angry.
"Damn it, I know this is how you open it," she snarled as she gave the spot a good thump with her closed fist.
"Funny thing about these secret doors. They tend to jam if they're not oiled and used frequently." It was a voice from just behind her, and for a second, she thought it was John, but then she got a whiff of cologne and knew.
She spun, eyes wide, back pressed hard against the wall. "M-Mr. Bruebeker! What are you doing here?" she demanded. She tried to sound authoritative but her voice was too shaky for that and he just smirked and looked her over without answering.
He'd crept up directly behind her, so he had to have come from the room across the hall, anywhere else, and she'd have seen him coming, which meant that he'd been in the house before she came upstairs. "How did you get inside?" she whispered. He had to have done it while she was running errands.
"I have my own set of keys, April. Or did you think I'd given them all to you?" He shook his head at her foolishness. "All the cameras are gone. No punk bitch to interrupt us. Just you and me now, April," he said in a low menacing voice as he approached her.
Trapped right in the middle of the swirling negativity, it was hard to think, hard to breathe. She could barely control her emotions enough to think. After a long hesitation brought on by indecision, her fight or flight reflexes kicked in. There was no place for her to go so she pressed back against the wall and tried to slide to the left around him and towards the way out.
He moved faster than she had anticipated, trapping her against the wall with one arm. She stared at him, pulse jumping with fear as he pressed far too close to her. Her eyes fixed on his face, wide with barely suppressed panic.
She wasn't sure how old he was; he was one of those people who made it impossible to tell. He looked older, maybe older than the professor, but it was more the posture and attitude than lines and gray hair. But his eyes were definitely blue, like she'd thought, and not the brown that Carson had remembered. He was dressed, as always, in an expensive, carefully tailored suit that fit his form well. It slimmed the lines of his body, but up close, she could see the softness setting in.
"Let me go, Charles. If something happens to me, they'll guess it was you. I told Carson about you, and she'll know. Th-this will ruin your career. You're a lawyer; you can't just…" She trailed off. His expression made it clear that he was unconcerned. "I won't tell; just leave now and I won't even call the police," she whispered. It was a lie, of course, and they both knew it.
"Kind of you to be worried about my career, but I'm not really enjoying law, anyway. I always preferred dealing with money; legalities are so dull," he said. He leaned closer, lips almost grazing her ear, and he inhaled a deep breath like he was smelling her fear and enjoying it. "Besides, you're right. You won't be telling anyone about this." She felt his tongue, slimy and wet as he dragged it over her skin.
She flinched. She'd reveled in the sexual adventures with John that she'd thought of as being primal, animalistic, but this was a whole different thing. Charles was like some kind of rabid, feral creature who was barely in control of himself and needed to be put down. She brought her knee up sharply, aiming for his crotch but catching the inside of his thigh, instead. He grunted with pain and let her go for a second.
Her only thought was to make it to the landing and she made a desperate dash for it, but before she'd taken two steps, his hand had wrapped in her long black hair and yanked her cruelly back, slamming her against the wall. He kept her pinned, using her hair as a leash, as he glared down at her, though oddly he seemed almost pleased at the attempt. Aroused. He wanted her to fight, she realized.
Her eyes filled with tears and, for a moment, his face seemed to be superimposed over another with entirely different features and brown eyes. Shuddering, her stomach twisted and she turned her head away, blinking away the tears and with them the flash of dizzying vertigo that had made her insides clench.
"Don't try it again or you'll be sorry," he growled against her neck, and then he straightened. "As I was saying, these hidden panels are tricky. They jam easily," he said. His voice was suddenly completely light and conversational as he reached up above her head and slammed his palm against a spot on the wall. It shifted suddenly behind her and she would have fallen backwards if he hadn't held her by a handful of hair.
"How did you know? The room? How to get it open?" she asked, having to clear her throat to get the words out past the lump of cold fear that she kept swallowing down.
His chuckle was a menacing sound, full of amusement. He turned her around and pushed her over the threshold and into the secret room. "Maybe I'll tell you, but, first—" He strode across the floor, dragging her with him, to yank open the shutters on the tall windows so that light streamed in. She could see now, see everything that had been hidden away for a century, and it did nothing to calm her nerves.
The room could be described as nothing other than a torture chamber. It was a dungeon, complete with restraints and a wall filled with cruel implements. Not a place for two people to enjoy consensual playtime, no, it was something out of a medieval jail and her legs shook as her blood turned to icy sludge in her veins.
There should have been a thick layer of dust and cobwebs covering everything, but there wasn't. It looked like it had been cleaned not long ago, in fact. He allowed her enough freedom to turn, and she did so, taking everything in until she stopped short. A scream burst from her lips and she backed up rapidly when she saw a body crumpled on the floor; one arm was stretched out, the other curled in a claw against its chest.
"What did you do?" she demanded in a horrified whisper, but after the initial shock, she was able to see that the corpse had been there a very long time. The skin was sunken, giving it a mummified effect, and she couldn't look away, even when Charles's arms encircled her from behind and held her.
He laughed but there was a bitter tinge to it. "Such a shame, really. Heart attack. It ran in the family line, you know. My father died at just the same age, and you can't say I wasn't under a lot of stress at the time," he said. The tone was calm, as though he were telling a story that had nothing to do with him, but things were beginning to click into place. "What is it about this house that traps the spirit here, I wonder? I certainly hadn't planned to spend my eternity here."
Slowly. Too slowly, she was finally putting together the clues that had been there the whole time. "You're insane," she said, still denying the truth.
"Am I? Well, all those years trapped here in this room, hiding out in secret, can do that to a man, I suppose." He laughed. He spun her around, forced a kiss on her slack lips and then dragged her across the floor. He kicked the corpse, moving it out of his way, and she wa
s sickened at the sound of brittle old bones cracking.
"Truthfully, I had lost my mind towards the end. Your lover," he sneered. "Had a lot to do with that. I felt so guilty for killing him and I knew, knew he was still there, haunting me. The maids always whispering about ghosts. Of course, I knew it was him. From the moment I killed him, my life was cursed. But I won in the end, didn't I? I'm alive, and he's not. Always too honorable to take what he wanted." Charles's lip curled in disdain as the words filtered through her shocked mind.
"You're not Harold Tiding. You're confused. You're Charles Bruebeker, a lawyer!" she blurted desperately. She no longer believed that, though. She was putting it together with what her grandmother had told her. A spirit could live again, if they took a mortal body. John would never take what wasn't his, but Harold had always been a thief. She let him pull her across the floor, mind working overtime to process this, until she understood what he was about to do.
His goal was a wooden beam with manacles hanging down from heavy chains, and the second she saw it, she knew that if he locked those old metal cuffs around her wrists, she'd be completely helpless. She began to fight, hard, thrashing in his arms as she tried to twist free. She reached up, clawing his face desperately. Her fingers raked down over his cheek, leaving bloody gouges, and he hissed and backhanded her to the floor.
"Bad girl. I'll have to punish you for that. But then, you like being punished, don't you?" he asked. His eyes glittered malevolently and she had a feeling she'd turned him on, but his threat broke through the shock. "We're going to have a lot of fun together. I'll show you what you've been missing. John could never touch the parts of you I can. He would never let himself indulge in the darkest desires." He grabbed her breast, gripping it cruelly in his hand and squeezing until she gasped.
As the pain penetrated her numb brain, it broke through her paralysis and she remembered that she didn't have to fight him alone. She threw her head back and screamed, "John! Help me!" at the top of her lungs.
Charles, or rather, Harold laughed. "It's daytime, remember? He can't save you now and, by sunset, you—"
His words were cut off abruptly as his body flew across the room and slammed into the wall. He slid to the floor, looking dazed, but then his eyes narrowed, focusing on John, who'd appeared immediately when she'd called. "You! How are you here during the day?" he demanded.
April looked from Harold to John, still feeling confused. She pushed herself to her knees and then to her feet. "John, he's Harold!" she said. It was unnecessary; John could see the true face of the man who wore that body as a costume.
"I know," he replied grimly. Without taking his attention from his former partner, he held out a hand to her and then pulled her behind him for protection. "How can you be here, Harold?" he asked.
"Same as you, John. Died here, cursed. I just did something about it, when I had the chance," Harold spat. "You always were weak and noble, but what I want to know is how you can appear during the day. I was so careful to make sure I was out of the house before dark because I knew you'd recognize me for what I was, if you saw me."
"I never needed to hide from the light of day, Harold. Only evil hides from the light," John replied simply.
April remembered him mentioning something like that to her once, but apparently, Harold had never been aware that it wasn't being dead that kept him from coming out before sunset; it was the evil that had corrupted his soul. It occurred to her, suddenly, that if she'd obeyed John and called him when the lawyer had shown up unexpectedly, all of this could have been resolved then. It was her own stubbornness that had caused things to be delayed until she'd lost the safety of the cameras.
Harold looked disgruntled by the revelation that he'd been wrong all this time. "I may be evil, but I'm alive again and free to leave this crypt while you're still trapped. Do you think your little half-breed bitch will remain faithful to a ghost forever?" He jerked his chin at April. "She'll get tired of a paramour who can give her nothing but the grave, eventually, and she'll leave you. Maybe she'll come to me willingly in time."
"That's not true!" April exclaimed. She fixed her hazel eyes on Harold; they glittered dangerously. "People like you don't understand love. I don't care if he's dead. I don't care if he can never leave this house. I would still choose him over you, every single time, because you're dead inside and you were never half the man John is," she informed him emphatically.
He lunged for her, and again, John sent him sprawling. "You lied, you stole, you tortured and you murdered until your soul withered to a black husk, and that is why you couldn't come out during daylight. But what I don't understand is how you are here now," John said. His eyes swept over the desiccated corpse on the floor and paused. He could recognize his former friend in the decayed remains. "You came back." He frowned and shook his head. "You returned to the house after they took it from you and you hid here?"
He kept his eye on Harold as he looked over the room, taking in the alcove fitted with a bed and the lined shelves of old dry goods in various stages of decomposition. Bugs and small mammals had clearly been at the boxes, and the cans had rusted from a leak in the roof right over them. The living area was clearly at odds with the rest of the room, as if it had been a last-minute addition.
Silently, he put the pieces together and regarded the man he'd once called friend. "You knew you were going to lose the house so you prepared. It was easy because you already had this room hidden away for your hobbies." John's face twisted as he thought about the missing servants, the ones he knew Harold was responsible for. They had died here, and not quickly or mercifully, judging by the wall of torture tools.
"Of course, I was prepared! I lost the house on purpose, you fool. I admit, I made mistakes. I wasn't as careful as I should have been and I gave myself away. The constables had already been around, poking their noses in where they didn't belong. Too many disappearances; too many rumors." He shrugged as though it was nothing before continuing, "I had no intention of actually leaving the house, but I needed to wipe the slate clean so I began complaining of money problems, debt. I took out a large mortgage on the house, from our own bank, though I'd sold it by then." He seemed so amused.
"You took out a loan you had no intention of paying," John said. His tone was as calm as it was accusing.
"Of course," Harold agreed.
"And when you didn't pay, they claimed the house and sold it off," John continued, drawing Harold out to fill in the details.
"Yes, but I still had the keys. No one knew about this room so it was easy enough to move back in after. It wasn't the luxurious life I was used to but I had everything I needed. After the servants went to bed each night, I could take fresh food from the kitchens, wash, empty the chamber pot. It was beneath me—servant's work—and no doubt, it added to the rumors that the house was haunted, but that worked in my favor. Made them afraid to leave their beds at night," Harold said, an evil smirk plastered on his face. He let his head slump back against the wall, staring not at John, but at April peering out from behind him.
John looked thoughtful. "Until you died. That wasn't part of your plan, was it? You intended to scare the new owners away so the house would be empty and then, after everyone thought you were long gone, you'd buy it back, maybe under a new name, but before you could do that—"
"I died, yes. My damnable heart gave out. One second, I was fine, the next, my chest felt like it was being crushed. I woke up trapped here." Harold shrugged as he levered himself to his feet, using the wall for support.
April had never thought it realistic for a villain to spill all the details of their plans when confronted. Apparently, it was, at least in Harold's case. He seemed so proud of what he'd done that he needed to brag about it, but there were things he was leaving out, and she desperately wanted the whole story.
"But what did you do with the money from the bank?" she asked.
Now Harold looked cagey, a greedy look made his face look piggish. "That's for me to know, girl," he snappe
d.
She attempted to step out from behind John, but he firmly pushed her right back behind him. "I was only curious; I guess you probably spent it." She needed to make him talk. among her psychic gifts was the ability to relive someone's memory as if she'd experienced herself. It didn't work with John, she'd tried, but Harold was mortal now, so there was a chance.
She coaxed him into talking by pretending to underestimate him; he couldn't resist correcting her and spilling all his cleverness and, when he did, she was able to slip inside and see it all. It was easier than it had been with Elizabeth, so much easier, because he was proud of most of it.
He could no longer get any decent servants in the house. The rumors had gotten out and he was forced to make do with those who'd been fired from previous posts. Slovenly, dishonest, or else mongrels of an inferior race, they weren't missed if they disappeared, but no matter how many times he beat them, the quality of work just wasn't up to his standards.
Eventually, the tales reached the wrong ears and an investigation was started. He was outraged; it wasn't as if they were people who mattered. But as the trouble came closer, he began to realize that he might actually be arrested for what he'd done. That was when he began to plan.
His wife was dead by then, following most of their children to the grave by her own choice, and he despised her for it. He had only one remaining child, a son, and that one he sent away to school. It seemed best; he had no patience for whining and finding a governess had become nearly impossible. And now, with no family to beg his attention, he could concentrate on his hobbies.
He had to be careful with the servants. Their quarters were so close to his secret place that it was necessary to be discrete. Ironically, he'd originally intended to have his room built in the basement, but when it became necessary to dispose of his partner, plans had changed. He avoided the basement now and pretended it wasn't out of fear, but always there was that creeping chill when he went near.
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