‘It’s going to pull this stunt again, isn’t it?’ Not so much a question from Marko but a statement.
Josanne rubbed a hand along her forearm. ‘So what happened to Adam?’
Cantley returned to the house. Once more he climbed the central staircase into the tower. In his hands he carried a steel rod that was as thick as his thumb and almost as tall as he was. He’d filed the rod to a point that was as thin as a needle at its tip. And … oh! … he knew the trespassers were back in The Tower. He knew also The Tower had pulled them back from wherever they’d fled to. Cantley had seen this happen before. He’d seen them when he’d peeked in through the windows into the ballroom. One of their number lay dead on the sofa. And the tall one had vanished into the swamp, his descent aided by Cantley’s boot pushing down on his beautiful hair. So how many did that leave alive? Four plus the dog? Although he’d only seen three living people with the corpse. So … one of their number’s unaccounted for. Not that it mattered. They were doomed to die. As simple as that. The only question now was: Did the house plan to kill them all by itself? Or would it permit its faithful servant, Cantley, to have some bloody fun, too?
Fabian roared up the driveway in the van. So dense was the mist that he didn’t even see the house until he’d nearly smashed into it. He braked hard, the tyres skidded through the gravel. Even before the vehicle had stopped he’d leapt from it then raced through the twin doors of the house.
Hell, you smell the same. You even stink of evil.
CHAPTER 37
If Jak hadn’t wagged his tail when the footfalls sounded in the corridor, Fisher would have hurled the heavy iron pan into the face of whoever walked through the door. Jittery? Ye Gods, he was convinced it would be the murderer Cantley.
‘Josanne!’ Fabian crashed through the door then embraced the woman so fiercely Fisher thought her ribs would crack.
Fisher and Marko slapped him on the back.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ Fisher demanded. ‘Where did it put you?’
‘The house? It didn’t put me anywhere. I drove back from the motel.’
They were all talking at once. Josanne told him about finding Sterling dead in the ballroom. Marko pulled knives from the drawer while calling out they had to arm themselves in case they ran into Cantley. Fisher stated, ‘Fabian, you must be immune to the house. It can’t get its hooks into you.’
‘You might be right,’ Fabian agreed, as he unpeeled his arms from a trembling Josanne. ‘But I’d wager good money it’s still going to try its hardest to hit me in some way. Any sign of Adam?’
Marko shook his head. ‘We were hoping he’d just show up, like you.’
Fabian was wired. His eyes darted round the kitchen. ‘We all know that running away isn’t an option. It won’t let you.’
‘There’s nothing to stop you,’ Fisher pointed out.
‘There’s no way I’m leaving without you all.’
Josanne took a deep breath to steady her nerves. ‘It may come to that, Fabian.’
‘No way. I’m staying until we’ve beaten this crock of shit.’ He clenched his fists. ‘Listen. I’ve been figuring this out. We’ve got to fight back.’
Marko frowned. ‘How?’
‘Yeah,’ Josanne said nervously. ‘This place can do what it likes to us.’
‘No, it can’t.’ He picked up the heavy iron pan that Fisher had contemplated hurling at him, until Jak signalled the visitor was friendly. ‘The house did its best to drown you, Josanne, but it failed. This place isn’t all powerful: it’s got limitations.’ He crossed the kitchen to the window where he swung the iron pan at a pane. It bounced back with a clang. He tried again. Same result. The pan struck the glass. Bounced off.
Fisher pointed out drily, ‘If it has limitations we haven’t found them yet.’ Marko grabbed a chair. ‘Here! Let me try.’ He hurled the chair at the window. It bounced back, forcing him to dodge it.
Josanne’s voice came as a frightened gulp. ‘It won’t let you damage it.’
‘There’s a way!’ Fisher shouted. ‘We’ll find a way to hurt it so badly that it’ll be glad to be rid of us.’
Marko rubbed his jaw. ‘But if we can’t even break one of its damn windows …’
‘How are we going to trash the place?’ Josanne added. ‘Besides, it hears what we say. It knows what we’re trying to do.’
Fabian clenched his fists. ‘Remember what Fisher told us about evil? About the nature of evil? That evil is opportunistic. It drifts along in an aimless way until it gets the chance to cause hurt. Evil needs a victim. If there aren’t any victims then it can’t inflict damage.’
‘That’s like saying if there wasn’t gravity then we couldn’t fall down,’ Marko said. ‘It’s a fact: there is gravity, and there are victims. They don’t choose to be victims. People don’t invite murderers to kill them.’
‘The point is,’ Fabian said, ‘we’ve got to act like we aren’t victims. We’ve got to be brave, so overwhelmingly brave that we beat this thing through sheer will power.’ His voice rose. ‘Tell yourself that the house can’t hurt you. Convince yourself that if we chose to do so, we can rip down the walls with our bare hands.’ He still held the heavy-duty pan. Without any warning he slammed it back against the wall with so much force it became mangled out of shape. ‘There!’ He pointed. ‘There’s your proof!’
Fisher looked at where Fabian pointed at the wall. ‘There’s a dent. A small one, but he’s marked the paint.’
Fabian’s eyes blazed. He was ready for a fight. ‘OK. Let’s throw a party.’
‘A party?’ Josanne’s expression suggested that she thought her lover had gone crazy.
‘A party,’ he repeated. ‘It’s to celebrate the impending destruction of the house!’
A metallic shimmer sounded on the air. A cold steel sound. Fisher didn’t think Fabian heard it. The rest did. They looked about anxiously. The house knew what Fabian said. Its reaction was something like the warning growl in a tiger’s throat.
‘Come on, we’re going to the ballroom. We’re going to play music.’
‘Music. Hell man, you’re crazy.’ Marko’s face flushed red. ‘Didn’t you hear what we told you about Sterling?’
‘I know. That’s why we’re doing this. We’re going to find out where the house is weak. When we’ve found its Achilles’ heel that’s when we’ll strike.’ Fabian swept toward the door. ‘Come on. Music! That’s what we’re magnificent at!’
They ran along the corridor to the ballroom. Jak raced alongside them. He barked as he picked up on their mood that had become nothing less than electric.
Or have we gone mad? Fisher thought. Has the house won? Has it sent us crazy? Because I don’t feel terrified anymore. I feel as if my nerve endings are on fire. I feel so up! that I’m never going to come down.
Sterling still lay on the sofa. That made them all pause with the exception of Fabian who raced across to the keyboard. He shouted back, ‘We’re doing this for Sterling as well. And for Belle and for Kym! This is payback!’ He thumped the power button on the keyboard then ran to the amps to switch on each one in turn. ‘All the way up to ten, guys!’ He cranked the volume. Speakers buzzed like a swarm of angry bees. ‘Marko! Fisher! You can do it!’ Fabian played a run on the electric keyboard. As if in defiance of the clock chimes he set the electronic voice to mimic bells. The notes rang in the air at such volume that the dog flinched.
‘Are we really doing this?’ Marko asked. ‘Or are we sitting in a padded room hallucinating like crazy?’
Fisher felt a wild grin reach his mouth. ‘Either way. We’ll go with the flow.’ He picked up his bass guitar from the stand and plugged in. Instantly, it came to life in his hands. He sensed the power running through its circuits. Fisher loosened the handkerchief from his injured left hand. The little finger still jutted out at an odd angle. Strangely, however, it didn’t hurt anymore. Neither could he feel pain in the swollen fingers. If he didn’t try and force the little finger to pe
rform he could still use the other digits to depress the strings against the fret board while the fingers of his good hand did the plucking.
Marko sat on the drum stool. Looking up at the ceiling, he cried out, ‘Keith Moon! If you can hear me, guide my hands! And give me strength to raise bloody hell!’ He gave a savage laugh. It wasn’t because he was amused by his spontaneous prayer to the patron saint of rock drummers, this wild rush of energy crackled through him, too. Seizing his sticks, he flailed at the drums in a mighty roll that sounded as if thunder crashed inside the ballroom. Fisher played a vicious rhythm on the bass. At the same moment Fabian struck keys on a laptop connected to the keyboard. His prerecorded synthesizer lines swirled through the air. He stepped back from the keyboards as it obeyed the presets to play a stabbing salvo of notes.
‘Keep playing,’ he shouted over the wall of noise. ‘This might not kill the house but it might give it a headache … enough to distract it.’
A weird logic began to emerge from this. Fisher realized that The Tower frightened people by its repeated use of the clock chimes. If it knew that sound had the power to frighten, then might it be susceptible to sound, too? Fisher imagined the vibrations of the deafening music running through the fabric of the building to assault the foundations.
Marko must have been thinking along similar lines because he yelled, ‘Walls of Jericho! Walls of Jericho!’
Then trumpets brought the walls tumbling down. Fabian gestured to Josanne to bring a newspaper that lay on the floor by the sofa that still held the body of Sterling Pound. She didn’t hesitate. With a determined expression she ran to pick it up as Fabian went to the windows. He pulled the curtains from the wall with one hand as he delved into his pocket for his lighter with the other. He thumbed the button to produce a narrow blue flame. Josanne realized what he intended. She held the newspaper over the flame. It caught in a second. Fabian held the curtain out to the orange flame that consumed the paper. He stayed like that for all of thirty seconds until the flames threatened to scorch Josanne’s fingers. Then he shook his head and gestured to her to drop the burning newspaper.
Fisher realized that his and Marko’s music faltered.
Fabian ran across the ballroom floor. Both his hands were outstretched as he made a lifting gesture. He was urging them to keep playing.
‘I couldn’t get the material to burn,’ he shouted. ‘It’s stopping the flame touching it somehow. But don’t stop playing. Keep the tempo up. Play faster! We’re not beaten yet!’ As he crossed the floor again the chimes sounded for eight o’clock. Immediately Fabian dashed to the keyboard and began hitting buttons. Then he straightened a microphone stalk so it pointed into the air. That done he tapped more keys. As the chimes of eight o’clock died away he pressed another key. The chimes returned through the speakers. Only this time it wasn’t The Tower’s doing. Fabian had digitally recorded the sound. Now he replayed the chimes. He teased the sound using the synthesizer’s modulators. He tortured the notes into new shapes, adding overlays, altering the pitch, and the tempo – as far as the house was concerned, an unholy racket.
‘Fight fire with fire!’ he shouted, over the wash of electronic harmonics. ‘It might only piss the house off … but we can try to hurt the bastard.’ He made adjustments to the keyboard controls then stepped away from the instrument as the repeat function kicked in. Now it recycled the same sequence of sampled chimes over and over. Fisher and Marko fell in line to play their instruments as a backing to Fabian’s cloned chimes.
Fabian beckoned Josanne. As he headed for the door, he turned round to shout through cupped hands. ‘If it works … it’s going to distract this thing … whatever’s been trying to hurt us … Josanne and I are going to attack the underbelly … while it’s not looking.’ He gave Fisher and Marko the thumbs up. ‘OK, guys. Play your hearts out!’
Fisher watched the pair of them leave the ballroom. This is it, he told himself, we’re fighting back.
CHAPTER 38
Josanne followed Fabian out of the ballroom into the corridor. Jak came, too. The volume of the music was immense. It didn’t sound any less volcanic away from the ballroom either. Fisher played an elemental bass pattern while Marko flailed the skins like the demon drummer. The electronic keyboard maintained a cycle of repeated notes. They were a mixture of horn sounds and the sampled clock chimes that pulsed through the air in great beats of sound that made Josanne picture enormous temple bells of shining gold.
With the decibel level being so high they couldn’t communicate by speech. Fabian pointed to the kitchen door and mouthed, In there. She nodded. When they were inside the kitchen with the door closed behind them they could at last talk.
‘Some racket we’re making, eh?’ Fabian gave a grim smile. ‘If you ask me, our old friend The Tower doesn’t like this. We’re playing on a nerve.’
‘Then watch your back,’ she told him. ‘It’s bound to try something.’
He picked up the claw hammer from the counter. ‘We best arm ourselves.’
‘Human attackers might not be the problem.’
‘The house is weakening. Can’t you feel it? OK, it’s pulled off some spectacular stunts in the last few days but my guess is, it’s only got a limited reservoir of energy. Once that’s depleted it could take years to rebuild to the levels we’ve encountered.’
‘Dear God, I hope you’re right, Fabian.’
‘Another thing?’ He lightly tapped the steel head of the hammer into his palm. ‘Cantley. He and the house are in this together. If we can take him out of the picture the house is going to lose an ally. OK, it might not be a body blow, but it might knock some fight out of it.’
‘Then we’ve got to find Cantley. How are we going to do that?’
Fabian’s eyes settled on Jak. ‘I’m sure he’s got some bloodhound in him. Let’s put it to the test.’
‘We’ll start with the buildings in the wood. That’s where I saw Cantley first.’
‘Grab a knife. He’s not going to give up without a fight.’
The words chilled her as she selected a carving knife from the drawer. Before heading to the kitchen door, she glanced back through the window. Outside a thick fog pressed through the hawthorn to encircle the house. It occurred to her that Cantley might have a gun after all. She was going to ask Fabian, what then? But what could they do? Their only option was to outmanoeuvre him. This is the bottom line, she told herself. It’s a fight to the death. The only question – whose?
The second they entered the corridor they were swamped by the torrent of music. In those hypnotic rhythms a power crackled through the notes. Music can energize you. It can make you tap your toe or make you want to dance. It makes you feel strong. That has to count for something, Josanne told herself. If music can make you believe you can triumph over the destructive forces that threaten you in your day-to-day life, then right now music can become a silver bullet that kills the monster.
They’d planned to exit through the main doors then race through the mist to the outbuildings in the wood. However, they were still a dozen paces from the entrance hall when Jak froze. His hackles rose as his ears pricked. The animal’s amber eyes locked on the staircase.
‘He’s here!’ Fabian hissed.
‘Jak,’ Josanne whispered. ‘Stay with us. Don’t go—’
But the dog sprinted at the stairs. His volley of furious barks cut through the music thundering from the ballroom.
‘Jak,’ she shouted. ‘Stay, Jak! Stay!’
Jak was beyond listening. He’d scented his prey. Now he locked every sense on to the task of finding the killer.
Fabian called out. ‘Fetch the others!’ Then he ran upstairs after the dog.
Josanne glanced back. Do as Fabian says? Or leave him to face the madman alone? Then Josanne made her fateful decision. She followed him up the staircase that wound itself into the shadows of the tower itself.
The dog came bounding up the stairs. Cantley gripped the steel rod. Although the sun had been buried
by fog enough grey light filtered through the windows to reveal more than last time he’d tried to conceal himself here. What’s more, he’d evened out the odds. Instead of the knife, he carried the sharpened steel pole. Cantley would simply harpoon the dog with it. For some reason the trespassers had decided to play thunderous music downstairs. Even so, he could still hear the mutt’s furious barks. Where Cantley stood on the upper landing at the top of the stairs he could see that the dog had reached the third floor. Below that one he could still follow the sweep of the banister. A male hand on that told him the dog had at least one human companion. The canine was much faster, of course; it ascended the risers in a blur of black. Quickly, Cantley retreated along this floor, the fifth, to the far end of the corridor where he stepped through the door. He left it part open, then waited.
The mutt’s barks grew louder. He could hear its drumming paws on the floor. Cantley knew it didn’t have to see him. It could smell his trail as if it had been a blazing flare path guiding in an aircraft. A second later it sped through the door. How tempting to see the mutt pierced on the pole – squirming, yelping, bleeding, dying. However, there was no time for such pleasures at the moment. The momentum of the dog carried it into the unfurnished room. When it tried to stop dead it slid across the bare linoleum floor. Cantley twisted round the door, then slammed it shut behind him. He heard the dog charge at the door to snarl at it. Furious scraping came through the woodwork as it tried to claw it open.
‘There you blasted devil,’ he hissed. ‘See if you can get out of that one!’
Its human companion wouldn’t be far behind now. Time for Cantley’s second part of the plan. He ran back to where the stairs opened on to the landing. He could hear the thump of drums. Good, the trespassers have gone mad. With their wits scattered it’d be easier for him to pick them off one by one. He stopped just short of the stairs; instead of descending them, he swung open another door to reveal a narrow staircase. This was made of bare wood; purely utilitarian, there were no adornments or carpet. He raced up it to a door as narrow as a coffin lid. The moment he pushed it open he was engulfed by cold, damp air. Cantley blinked. It seemed bright out here after the confines of the house. He glanced round at the flat roof with chimneys that protruded from the lead-work. He’d been outside here before. Normally he would have been able to see miles of countryside. Now, when he looked over the edge, he could barely see the ground. It was like peering down into a misty white ocean where clumps of hawthorn showed as little spiky islands.