Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

  She looked back toward the horsemen. They had turned the corner in the road, and were now coming directly toward the spot where Todd and she stood. It was the oddest visual spectacle she'd ever witnessed, to see them growing larger as they approached, like illustrations emerging from a book. The landscape around them seemed to both recede and advance at the same moment as they approached, its motion throwing them forward as the ground beneath their horses drew back like a retreating wave. It was an utterly bewildering spectacle, but its paradoxical beauty enthralled her. All thought of Zeffer's summons, or indeed his safety, were forgotten: it was as though she were watching a piece of film for the first time, not knowing how the mechanism worked upon her.

  She felt Todd throw her a sideways glance.

  "Time to go," he said.

  The earth beneath their feet reverberated as the horsemen approached. They'd be at the door in thirty or forty seconds.

  "Come on," he said.

  "Yes . . ." she murmured. "I'm coming."

  She didn't move. It wasn't until Todd caught hold of her arm and pulled her back toward the door that she eventually obeyed the instruction and went. Even then she kept looking back over her shoulder, astonished.

  "I don't believe what I'm seeing," she said.

  "It's all real. Trust me on that," he said. "They can do you harm."

  They had reached the threshold now, and she reluctantly allowed herself to be coaxed back over it and into the passageway. She was amazed at the speed with which the room had caught her attention; made itself the center of her thoughts.

  Even now, it was still difficult to focus her attention on anything but the scene beyond the door, but finally she dragged her eyes away from the approaching horsemen and sought out Zeffer.

  He had fallen to his knees three or four yards from the door, putting up no defense against Katya's assault.

  "I told you, didn't I?" she said, slapping his head. "I never wanted to see you in this house ever again. You understand me? Ever again."

  "I'm sorry," he said, his head bowed. "I just brought—"

  "I don't care who you brought. This house is forbidden to you."

  "Yes ... I know."

  His acquiescence did nothing to placate her. The reverse, in fact: it seemed to inflame her. She kicked him.

  "You revolt me," she said.

  He bent over, as though to present a smaller target to her. She pushed him, hard, and he fell. She moved in to kick him again, aiming for his face, but at that moment Tammy saw what she was about to do, and let out a cry of protest.

  "Leave him alone!" she said.

  Katya turned. "What?"

  "You heard me. Leave him alone!"

  Katya's beauty was disfigured by the naked contempt on her face. She was breathing heavily, and her face was flushed.

  "I'll do what it suits me to do in my own house," she said, her lip curling. "And no fat, ugly bitch like you is going to tell me otherwise."

  Tammy knew plenty about Katya Lupi by now, of course; her intimidating reputation went before her. But at that moment, seeing Zeffer lying on the floor, and hearing what the woman had just said, any trace of intimidation was burned away by a blaze of anger. Even the glories of the Devil's Country were forgotten at that moment.

  She walked straight toward Katya and pushed her hard, laying her hands against the bitch's little breasts to do so. Katya was clearly not used to being manhandled. She came back at Tammy in an instant.

  "Don't you dare touch me!" she shrieked. Then she back-handed Tammy; a clean, wide strike.

  Tammy fell back, the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. There were three sickening heartbeats when she feared the force of Katya's blow was going to knock her unconscious. Darkness pulsed at the corners of her vision. But she was determined not to be floored by one blow, even if it did have something more than ordinary human force behind it, as she suspected it did.

  She reached out for something to steady her, and her hand found the doorjamb. As she caught hold of it, she glanced back over her shoulder, remembering her proximity to the strange beauty of the Devil's Country. But the power of the room's illusion had been momentarily knocked from her head. The walls were simply covered in tiles now. There were trees and rocks and a painted river on those tiles, but none of it was so finely rendered that it could have been mistaken for reality. The only part of the scene before her that was real was Todd, who was still lingering at the threshold. Apparently he could see what Tammy could not because at that moment he threw himself over the threshold like a man in fear of something coming close on his heels. He caught hold of the doorhandle, and started to pull the door closed, but as he did so Katya came back into view and blocked the door with her foot.

  "Don't close it!" she told Todd.

  Todd obeyed her. He let go of the handle. The door struck Katya's leg and bounced open again.

  Now the machinations of the room began to work on Tammy afresh. The gloomy air seethed, and the shapes of four horsemen appeared out of the murk, still riding toward the door.

  The leader—the Duke, Tammy thought, this is the Duke—pulled hard on the reins to slow his mount. The animal made a din, as though its primitive gaze was failing to make sense of what was ahead of it. Rather than advance any further it came to a panicked halt, throwing up clods of dirt as it did so. Goga jumped from the saddle, shouting a number of incomprehensible orders back at his men, who had also brought their animals to a stop. They proceeded to dismount. There were whispers of superstitious doubt between the men: plainly whatever they were witnessing (the door, the passageway), they could make little or no sense of it. That fact didn't slow their advance, however. They dutifully followed their leader toward the door, swords drawn.

  By now Tammy had recovered sufficiently to grab hold of Todd's arm and pull him back from the threshold.

  "Come away," she urged him.

  He looked round at her. She was probably more familiar with his face, and with his limited palette of expressions, than she was with her own.

  But she'd never seen the look of stupefaction he wore right now. The veins at his temples were throbbing, his mouth was slack; his blood-shot eyes seemed to have difficulty focusing on her.

  She tugged harder on his arm, in the hope of shaking him out of his stupor. Behind him she could see the horsemen approaching the door, their step more cautious now that they were almost at the threshold. Having stopped the door from being closed, Katya had stepped away from it, leaving Todd the closest of them all to the horsemen. So close, in fact, that had the Duke so chosen, he could have lunged from where he stood, and killed Todd with a single stroke.

  He did not do so, however. He hung back from the door, eyeing it with suspicion and awe. Though none of the light from the hallway seemed to illuminate the world on the other side of the doorway, Tammy could see the man's face quite clearly: his severely angular features, his long, braided beard, black shot through with streaks of gray; his dark, heavy-lidded eyes. He was by no means as beautiful as Todd had once been, but there was a gravitas in his physiognomy which Todd's corn-fed charm could never have approached. No doubt he was responsible for all manner of crimes—in such a landscape as he'd ridden, who would not lay claim to their share of felonies?—but in that moment, in the midst of a dark journey of her own, Tammy would have instinctively preferred the eloquence of this face for company to Todd's easy beauty.

  Indeed, if she had ever been in love with Todd Pickett—which by many definitions she had—she fell out of love with him at that moment, comparing his face with that of Duke Goga, and finding it wanting.

  That was not to say that she didn't want Todd safe from this place; from the house and all its inhabitants, especially Katya. So she hauled on his arm again, yelling for him to get away from the door, and this time her message got through to him.

  Todd retreated, and as he did so Katya caught hold of Zeffer by the hair and lifted him up. Tammy was too concerned with reclaiming Todd from the threshold to do anything t
o save Zeffer. And Zeffer in turn did nothing to save himself. He simply let the woman he had adored pick him up, and with the same nearly-supernatural strength Tammy herself had felt just moments before, Katya pitched Zeffer through the open door.

  The horsemen were waiting on the other side, swords at the ready.

  Only now, as he stumbled across the ground before them, did Zeffer raise his arms to protect himself against the swordsmen. Whether the Duke took this harmless motion as some attempt at aggression, and reacted to protect himself, or whether he simply wanted to do harm, Tammy would never know. The Duke lifted his sword and brought it down in a great swooping arc that cut through the meat of Zeffer's right hand, taking off all four of his fingers, and the top half of his thumb. Blood spurted out from the wounds, and Zeffer let out a cry that was one part disbelief to two of agony. He stared at his maimed hand for a moment, then he turned from his mutilator and stumbled back toward the door.

  For an instant, he lifted his gaze, and his eyes met Tammy's. They had a moment only to look at each other. Then Duke Goga came at Zeffer again and drove his sword through the middle of his back.

  There was a terrible cracking sound, as the blade shattered Zeffer's breast-bone and then the point emerged from the middle of his chest.

  Zeffer threw back his head, and caught hold of the edge of the door with his unmaimed hand. He had his eyes fixed on Tammy as he did so, as though he were drawing the power to do whatever he was planning to do from her. There was a long moment when in fact he did nothing; only teetered on the threshold, his eyelids growing lazy. Then—summoning one last Herculean effort of will—he gave Tammy a tiny smile and closed the door in her face.

  It was like being woken from a dream. One moment Tammy had been staring into Zeffer's stricken face, while the men closed in on him from behind, and the sky seethed overhead. The next the door had shut this terrible vision out, and she was back in the little hallway with Todd at her side.

  The sight of Zeffer's execution had momentarily distracted Katya from any further mischief. She was simply staring at the door as though she could see through it to the horror on the other side.

  Tammy didn't give her a chance to snap out of the trance. She started up the stairs, pulling Todd after her.

  "Christ . . ." Todd muttered to himself. "Christ oh Christ oh Christ . . ."

  Five stairs up, Tammy chanced a backward glance, but Katya was still standing in front of the door.

  What was she thinking? Tammy wondered. What have I done? Did a woman like that ever think what have I done? With Zeffer gone, she would be alone in Coldheart Canyon. Alone with the dead. Not a pretty prospect.

  Perhaps she was regretting. Just a little.

  And while she regretted (if regretting was what she was doing), Tammy continued to haul Todd after her up the stairs.

  Six steps now; seven, eight, nine.

  Now the escapees were on the half-landing. Through the window off to their left Tammy could see the sight that had held Zeffer's attention just minutes before: the occupants of Coldheart Canyon pressing against the glass.

  Why didn't they simply break in? she wondered. They weren't, after all, insubstantial. They had weight, they had force. If they wanted to get in so badly, why didn't they simply break the glass or splinter the doors?

  The question went from her head the next instant, driven out by a wail of demand from below.

  "Todd?"

  It was Katya, of course. She had finally stirred from her fugue state and was coming up the stairs after them. Speaking in her sweetest voice. Her come-hither voice.

  "Todd, where are you going?"

  Tammy felt nauseated. Katya could still do them harm. She still had power over Todd and she knew it. That was why she put on that little-girl questioning voice.

  "Todd?" Katya said again. "Wait, darling."

  If she let go of him, Tammy guessed, he would obey Katya's request. And then they'd be lost. Katya would never let him go. She'd kill him rather than let him escape her a second time.

  There wasn't much advice Tammy could give to Todd except: "Don't look back."

  He glanced at her, his expression plaintive. It made her feel as though she were leading a child rather than a grown man.

  "We can't just leave her here," he said.

  "After what she just did!"

  "Don't listen to her," Katya said, her voice suddenly a siren-song, the little-girl lightness erased in favor of something more velvety. "She just wants you for herself."

  Todd frowned.

  "You can't leave me, Todd."

  And then more softly still: "I won't let you leave me."

  "Just remember what she did down there," Tammy said to Todd.

  "Zeffer was a nuisance," Katya said. She was getting closer, Tammy knew; her voice had dropped to a sultry murmur. "I never loved him, Todd. You know that. He hung around causing trouble. Listen to me. You don't want to go with this woman. Look at her, then look at me. See what a choice you're making."

  Tammy half-expected Todd to obey Katya's instruction. But Todd simply studied the stairs as they climbed, which under the circumstances was a minor triumph. Perhaps he still had the will-power in him to resist Katya, Tammy thought. He wasn't her object yet.

  Even so, the murdering bitch wasn't ready to give up.

  "Todd?" Katya said, now casual, as though none of this were of any great significance. "Will you turn round for a moment? Just for a moment? Please. I want to see your face before you go. That's not asking much, now is it? Just one more time. I can't bear it. Please. Todd ... I. . . can't. .. bear it."

  Oh Lord, Tammy thought, she's turning on the tears. She knew how potent a well-timed flood of tears could be. Her sister had always been very quick to turn on the waterworks when she wanted something; and it had usually done the trick.

  "Please, my love . . ."

  It was almost believable; the words catching in her throat, the soft sob.

  ". . . don't go. I won't be able to live without you."

  They were still a few strides from the front door. Then, once they were out, they had to get along the pathway and onto the street. Somehow she doubted Katya's power extended far beyond the limits of the house. The Canyon might have been hers once upon a time, but she'd lost control of it in the decades since her heyday. Now it belonged to the ghosts and the animals, and the bestial offspring of both.

  Still coaxing Todd after her, Tammy made her way across the hallway to the front door.

  Behind them, Katya kept up her tearful appeals: declarations of love, interspersed with sobs. Then more appeals for him to turn around and look at her.

  "You don't want to go," she called to Todd, "you know you don't. Especially with her. Lord, Todd, look at her. You really want that?"

  Finally, Tammy snapped. "How the hell do you know what he wants, bitch?" she said, turning to look round at the woman on their heels.

  "Because we're soul-mates," Katya said.

  Her eyes were swollen and red, Tammy noted with some satisfaction, and there were tears pouring down her face. Her mascara was running down her pale cheeks in two black rivulets. "He knows it's true," Katya went on. "We've suffered the same way. Haven't we, Todd? Remember how you said it was like I was reading your mind? And I said it was because we were the same, deep down? Remember that?"

  "Ignore her," Tammy said. They were no more than three strides from the front door.

  But Katya—realizing she was close to losing—had one last trick up her sleeve. One final power-play. "If you step out of this house," she said to Todd, "then it's over between us. Do you understand me? If you stay—oh, if you stay, my darling—then I'm yours. I'm yours body and soul—I mean it: body and soul. But if you go it'll be as though you never existed."

  Finally, something she said carried enough weight to stop Todd in his tracks.

  "Ignore her," Tammy said. "Please."

  "You know I can do that," Katya went on.

  Todd turned, and looked back at her, which
was exactly what Tammy was praying he wouldn't do. Katya was standing in the darkness close to the top of the stairs but the shadows did not conceal the fierce brilliance of her stare. Her eyes seemed to flicker in the murk, as though there were flames behind them.

  Now she had succeeded in making him look at her again, she softened her tone. She certainly had quite a repertoire, Tammy thought. First demands; then pleas and siren-songs; then tears and threats. Now what?

  "I know what you're thinking . . ." she said.

  Ah, mind reading.

  ". . . you're thinking that you've got a life out there. And it's calling you back."

  Tammy was puzzled. This sounded like a self-defeating argument.

  "You're thinking you want to be back in the spotlight, where you belong . . ."

  While Katya talked, Tammy made a momentous decision. She let go of Todd's hand. She'd done all that she could. If after all this Todd decided that he wanted to turn back and give himself to the wretched woman, then there was nothing more Tammy could do about it. He was a lost cause.

  She crossed swiftly to the front door, and opened it. The first tug was a little difficult. Then the door swung open easily, majestically. There were no ghosts on the threshold, only the refreshing night air, sweetened by the scent of night-blooming jasmine.

  Behind her, in the house, Katya was finishing her argument. "The fact is," she said, "there's nothing out there for you now. Do you understand me, Todd? There's nothing."

  Tammy stepped out onto the front steps. She looked back at Todd, in time to catch a look of pitiful confusion on his face. He literally didn't know which way to turn.

  "Don't look at me," Tammy said to him. "It's your choice."

  His expression became still more pained. That wasn't what he wanted to hear.

  "Look, you're a grown man," Tammy said. "If you want to stay with her, knowing what she's capable of, then you stay. I hope you'll be very happy together."

  "Todd . . ." Katya murmured.

  She stepped out of the shadows now, choosing her moment, as ever, beautifully. The demonic Katya, the woman who'd thrashed Zeffer, then thrown him to Goga, had vanished completely. In her place was a sad, gentle woman—or the appearance of such—who opened her arms to Todd like a loving mother.