Keeper of the Shadows

chapter 21



Walking into the house was like walking into a jungle. She could hear the night cries of the birds in the African Room, and the rush of the artificial river. As she walked silently, carefully past the archway, her pulse spiked as she caught the gleam of eyes in the darkness. Steve, she thought to herself, remembering the massive stuffed tiger. It’s just Steve.

And now that it was dark she was startled to see that the arch of the ceiling was dotted with thousands of glowing stars, or lights masquerading as stars, and arranged in perfect perspective. She could pick out constellations, Orion, Cassiopeia, the Pleiades, just like in a real night sky.

But she didn’t move into the African Room; it felt like too public a place, too much of a display, for real business to be conducted there. Wherever DJ and the others were, she was sure it wasn’t here.

In the enormous entry hall there was a huge spiraling staircase leading upward. But she knew there had to be a downstairs, as well; vampires liked the underground, craved it. She was willing to bet there was an extensive lower level to the house. And instinctively she felt that this would be where DJ’s private rooms were, the ones he kept for himself and his intimates.

A central column beside the stairway housed an elevator, which no doubt would get her where she needed to go, but using it was out of the question; she couldn’t risk the noise of the machinery.

But through an arched doorway she found a tiled hall leading to a stairway leading downward.

She stopped at the top of the steps, staring into the ominous opening, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the slight draft coming from the stairwell. She had to struggle to hold on to her glamour as she looked down the steep descent.

There were candles flickering in candelabra mounted on the stone walls, an eerie and live trail of light straight out of a Gothic horror movie.

Naturally the whole house is production designed, Barrie told herself. This is no different from the African Room.

But an African jungle by day had an entirely different feeling than a vampire’s cellar at night.

She forced down a wave of fear, took a breath and started down the stairs, stepping carefully to keep her descent as soundless as possible.

The stairway spiraled downward, and every ten or twelve steps there was some alcove in the wall housing a disturbing tableau: a bleached white skeleton dressed in a priest’s vestments, a suit of armor with glowing, inhuman eyes behind the visor, what looked like a genuine Francis Bacon painting of a grotesque pope on a throne, a mirror with a moving shadow inside it, eerily insubstantial.

It’s the Haunted Mansion, okay? she told herself. Illusion. Nothing to get excited about.

The real danger was coming.

Her unease mounted as she continued downward; the stairs seemed to go on forever, and she felt her pulse rising with each step.

This is unreal. How far underground does it go?

At last she hit the bottom of the stairs, which opened into a dim vestibule with an arched door on the far side. Barrie took another breath and moved silently across the small, round room to the doorway.

And stepped into a dream.

She had to fight to get her bearings as she looked around in astonishment.

She was standing inside the climax of Otherworld. It was the huge circular ballroom from the film, with mirrors set in the velvet-draped walls and archways leading off into what in the movie had been balconies overlooking the ocean, but here, underground, she had no idea what could be beyond those pillars and arches.

The ballroom before her was not merely a vast empty space. In the film the location had been being used by the three young Others as a sort of living space and throne room; it was divided into multiple galleries where there were canopied beds, an area with a long plank table for feasting, statues and suits of armor, and arches and mirrors, installations of mannequins in sexually compromising positions, cages with collections of elaborate costumes, and toys from all eras of civilization, even a full-size carnival carousel. In the exact center of the room was an open space that looked like a throne room, only circular, with three ornate thrones facing each other. There were standing wrought-iron candelabra and candles in wall holders, creating a live wash of flickering light.

As she gazed around in wonder and dismay, it occurred to her that perhaps this actually was the set, disassembled and reassembled right here.

Her heart was racing so fast she could hardly focus on her own thoughts. This is craziness. DJ must be completely obsessed with the film. And if he’s this obsessed, he could very well be the killer.

She was beginning to see the very big flaw in her plan. The house was enormous; there were a million places where Mick could be, where Brodie or DJ could be—and where the killer could be. There had been no sign of anyone yet, and she couldn’t call out for fear of drawing the attention of the wrong person.

The underground hall that she was now in was as huge as the African Room, perhaps bigger, as there seemed to be passageways leading off in all different directions.

But as she looked around her, she realized that was the least of her problems.

Just as in the movie, the curved walls of the ballroom were lined with mirrors.

And the trouble with a glamour is that it tricks the eye but not a mirror or camera.

So, anytime she was in the line of sight of a mirror, she was in sight. In the relatively uncluttered place where she was standing now, she was surrounded by hundreds of her own reflections.

She stared at herself across the room and instantly dropped to her knees beside a statue to get out of the mirrors’ range.

Now what? she asked herself with a touch of hysteria as she hugged the floor. Crawl across the floor to the staircase? Find the elevator and take a chance on that? Turn into a spider and hide until this is over?

And then suddenly her heart leaped with terror...as she felt hands on her shoulders, pulling her up.