Chapter Twelve
Sonja took a deep breath and paused to orient herself. The moment she entered the confines of the mansion she'd been hit with a surge of nausea. The empty coal cellar tilted under her feet, as if the ground were made of Indian rubber. Something in her jacket twitched.
She removed the Hand of Glory Li Lijing had given her. The six-fingered hand was now clenched into a fist. Hoping that was a good sign, she returned it to her pocket. She took a cautious step toward the stairs leading to the rest of the house, then another. The nausea was gone, although she was unable to shake the feeling of disorientation.
The first floor was dark, the bare wooden boards furry with dust. As she walked through the series of oddly shaped interconnected rooms, it became obvious that they had never been furnished. Some had never even been plastered and painted, the wooden slats giving the smaller rooms an austere, almost monkish flavor.
Sonja was impressed by the demented genius of Ghost Trap's creator. Even to her mutated senses, the building was disturbing. She found her eyes drawn to lines that both originated and intersected beyond the field of normal vision. She doubted an unprepared human could withstand more than an hour's sustained exposure to Ghost Trap's peculiar brand of architectural design without losing consciousness or going mad. The weirdly angled doorways and out-of-kilter rooms reminded her of the starkly rendered expressionist scenery from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
The second floor was much like the first, as was the third. The house was indeed as huge and mazelike as she'd feared. She could feel Morgan's presence, hidden somewhere within the massive sprawl of zigzagging walls and staggered staircases; whether the vampire lord was hiding in the attic, the basement or the room next door was impossible for her to divine. All she could hope for was that if Morgan was conscious of her intrusion, he was equally helpless in pinpointing her exact location.
Judging from the thickness of the dust coating the floorboards and banisters, she doubted that the section of Ghost Trap she found herself in had seen any visitors - human or Pretender - since the day Creighton Seward's body was recovered, sixty years ago.
As she left a sitting room with faded, green patterned wallpaper and an upside-down fireplace made from Italian marble, she glimpsed something pale out of the corner of her eye. Turning to confront the apparition, she stared at a little girl no more than five or six.
Sonja knew the child to be dead because she could see through her. The ghost-child wore old-fashioned clothes and held a porcelain doll in her chubby arms. Both the girl and the doll had golden hair that fell to their shoulders in ringlets. The face of the china doll was marred by a hairline fracture that ran from its brow to the bridge of its nose.
"Hello, little girl."
The phantom child smiled and lifted a hand still chubby with baby fat and waved hello in return.
"Little girl, do you know how I can get to the middle of the house?"
The ghost shook her head. Sonja wished the tiny specter would speak but knew that the dead often lost the ability to communicate coherently with the living after a few years. The dumb show might be aggravating, but at least it was reliable.
"Is there anyone around who does know?"
The little girl smiled again, this time nodding. She turned and signaled for Sonja to follow her. Sonja tried not to look at the brains spilling from the back of the child's smashed skull.
The ghostly child flickered from room to room like a pale but playful moth while Sonja followed. Finally the phantom entered a long, narrow room paneled in darkly stained walnut with bronze satyr faces studding the walls. On closer inspection, Sonja saw old-fashioned gas jets protruding from the grotesquely leering mouths. Suddenly there was an icy draft, as if someone had thrown open the door of a massive freezer, and the thirteen gas jets burst into flame, filling the room with the odor of blood, perfume and butane.
The tiny ghost child hurried over to where her mother stood revealed, dressed in a high-collared morning glory skirt. Her hair - the same golden hue as her daughter - was puffed at the sides and pulled into a knot atop her head. Even with the left side of her face reduced to pulp, the eye hanging from its stalk onto the ruined cheek, it was obvious she had once been a stunningly beautiful woman.
The ghost-child tugged at her mother's skirts and pointed at Sonja. Her lips moved but all Sonja heard was a skewed, half-speed garble.
"Mrs. Seward...
The dead woman looked up, surprised at being recognized. The undamaged side of her face frowned.
"Mrs. Seward, I need your help in finding my way to the center . . " Sonja stepped forward, one hand outstretched.
Mrs. Seward looked down at her daughter, then at Sonja. As she opened her mouth, the flames issuing from the gas jets intensified. The ghost-woman, now looking more terrified than terrible, motioned for her child to leave. The little girl obeyed, rolling herself into a ball of witch fire and bouncing from the room.
There was a distant whistling sound, as that of air being sliced by an axe, followed by a hollow booming. Whatever was creating the noise was making its way toward the room Sonja occupied with the late Mrs. Seward.
The ghost gestured for Sonja to follow and moved to one of the walnut panels set into the wall. Her long, bell-like skirt left the thick dust on the floor undisturbed. Mrs. Seward pointed to the molding where the plaster met the paneling, and she passed through the wall. It took Sonja a few seconds to locate the hidden catch that opened the secret door. The booming sound had grown considerably closer as she closed the panel behind her.
Mrs. Seward was waiting for her, glowing in the gloom of the secret passage like a night-light. Sonja followed her spirit guide through the narrow passageway to a cramped circular staircase that pierced Ghost Trap's various levels. Mrs. Seward motioned for her to go downstairs.
"How many levels? One? Two?"
The dead woman held up two transparent fingers and mimicked opening a door. Sonja nodded to show that she understood and began her downward climb. After a couple of steps she paused and looked back at the ghost-woman.
"You're trapped in this place, aren't you? You and the children!"
The ghost nodded, nearly dislodging her dangling eye.
"How can you be freed?"
The ghost hastily traced letters in midair. The ectoplasm hung suspended for a few seconds before wavering and losing shape, like a message left by a haphazard skywriter:
Diztroe Tarappe The dead were notoriously bad spellers.
Before Sonja could ask anything else, Mrs. Seward disappeared. Sonja shrugged and resumed her descent into the bowels of Ghost Trap.
On the second level she found a narrow oak doorway at the base of the stairs. She could tell the door opened inward, but other than that had no idea where it might lead or what might be on the other side.
Taking a deep breath and hoping it didn't open onto a room full of hungry ogres, Sonja grasped the handle and yanked the portal open.
She found herself faced not by tigers, but with a lady.
The woman was seated in a tastefully upholstered easy chair, reading a thick paperback romance novel, her slippered feet resting on an ottoman. The room seemed very cozy, in a Victorian kind of way. Somewhere nearby a grandfather clock measured out the afternoon. A small, cheery fire crackled away in the fireplace. The woman had yet to notice the intruder in her sitting room.
Sonja frowned and moved further into the room, allowing the secret door to silently close behind her. She was wondering if the petite black woman was another ghost, albeit a bit more opaque than the last, when the woman looked up from her book and smiled at her. Her eyes were the color of claret. Sonja's right hand closed on the switchblade in her pocket.
"Hello," said the woman, putting aside her romance novel. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in. Are you one of our Father's servants?"
Sonja adjusted her vision, scanning the woman to see her true appearance and strength. To her surprise, the black woman did not reveal herself to be a wizened crone or rotting corpse. She remained exactly what she looked like: a young African-American woman in her early twenties. Sonja hesitated pressing the ruby eye on her switchblade.
Why are you hesitating? She's just another vamp. Just another filthy bloodsucker. What's your problem, woman?
"Is there something wrong?"
Sonja shook her head, the back of her hand pressed against trembling lips. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be. But she could clearly see the aura, crackling around the woman's neatly cornrowed head like a halo of fire. The only time she'd previously seen such an aura was in the mirror.
He is plotting on revolutionizing Pretender society... Something about creating an army of silver-immune vampires.
The woman struggled to her feet with a deep grunt and Sonja noticed for the first time just how huge the other woman's belly was.
It was worse than even Pangloss could have imagined. A lot worse.