The Unseen

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Laurel jolted and her eyes flew open as she gasped, tried to gasp… and couldn’t. Her chest was on fire… she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get a breath… but then she felt the duct tape binding her mouth and remembered, and she drew a shuddering breath of air through her nose. She lay in the small bed with her heart pounding like the waves of knocking from her—

—Dream?

She was on the bed, in that small, cold, white room, and it was dark—not black, though, not full dark, more gray dark, and she realized it was raining, black, roiling clouds outside the window.

She was still bound to the bed, the rope through the rings. There was a smell of burning around her, although she could see no flame.

She breathed shallowly against the smell, fighting the rising tide of panic…

She heard a RAP that reverberated through the entire house—through the foundation of the house, through the floor, through the bed, through her body….

Oh God, they’ve started…

She felt panic, terror—she writhed and fought against the ropes.

Helpless. Helpless.

She felt a rush of blistering anger and did not know if it was her own or Paul Folger’s.

And then she realized there was something in her hand.

Laurel curled her fingers around it and felt a sharp pain. She lifted her head from the bed and looked down the length of her body toward her hand.

She was clutching a long, sharp shard of mirror.

What? What?

She thought of the mirrors in her dream, shattering outward, of young Morgan lunging across the table and grabbing her hand…

A wave of confusion hit.

He gave it to me?

Don’t think. Just use it. Hurry.

She clutched the spike of mirror, curled her fingers toward the rope that bound her arms, and found she could just reach the rope with the edge of the mirror. It was a camp rope and sliced easily with the razor-sharp shard. In a few slices she had cut through and pulled her arm free. She sat up and ripped the duct tape off her mouth, not caring about the pain, and then used the mirror to slice through the rope on her other arm, Adrenaline gave her a push… she tore off the remaining rope and jumped off the bed.

She flung herself at the door—locked, of course. She looked wildly around the room and grabbed the coat stand, hefted it in both hands, aimed the heavy base at the door underneath the doorknob, and ran at it with all her weight.

The door cracked open just as another RAP shook the house.

Laurel whirled back to the bed and seized the mirror shard, slid it gingerly into her skirt pocket as a weapon. Then she stumbled out into the hall, amazed at her freedom. No time to think of that. Two ways, two choices. Main stairs or back?

Main stairs led to front door. They were all downstairs, she was sure.

Have to get them out.

She pulled the mirror shard from her pocket, wincing as the sharp glass cut her again. She held it carefully and ran as silently as she could down the hall, halting to ease around the corner into the entry at the top of the stairwell, to listen. She heard no voices… no rapping…

Where is Anton? Would he be in there with them? Can’t can’t can’t get caught again…

She moved onto the stairs and crept downward toward the landing. Rain pelted the gardens outside the huge arched windows beside her, and the sky was black.

Still no sound from downstairs.

She poked her head around the corner of the landing. She could see downstairs to the front entry hall. A dark man hovered beside the archway of the great room, watching whatever was inside.

Laurel’s pulse skyrocketed and she pulled her head back and stood pressed against the wall, trembling, clutching the mirror shard in her fingers.

Dr. Anton.

He was standing just outside the great room with that damned clipboard.

So they all must be inside.

He was right next to the front door, too close for her to get by him, even if he didn’t see her until she was right on top of him. And I can’t leave Tyler and Katrina in this house.

Do I go back? All the way up and around, down the servants’ stairs? Do I have time?

She eased her head back out and looked down at Anton, assessing the bulk of his body. She studied the mirror shard in her hand. Can I sneak up on him, go for the jugular? If I run at him, with downward momentum, can I possibly shove him against the wall, knock him out? She glanced around her for some other weapon, but all she saw within reach were a few small paintings hung on the walls. Useless.

But there was a recessed alcove in the wall next to the lower landing where she could stand and be hidden from Anton’s line of sight.

Laurel stuck her head out again. Anton still hovered below. She took a breath, then moved swiftly and silently around the wall, and slipped down the remaining stairs to the lower landing.

She ducked into the shallow alcove, pressed her back into the recessed wall, felt her heart pounding through her ribs against the plaster. From her new, closer hiding place she could make out the murmur of voices from the great room. She held very still, forcing her breath to slow, straining to hear.

“I still think we should wait for Dr. MacDonald.” Tyler’s voice sounded agitated.

“She’s not coming back, Tyler,” Brendan’s voice answered patiently. “It was her choice to leave. Please don’t interrupt. Katrina?”

“We’re here. We’re waiting. Are you there?” Katrina called out, her voice clear and energized.

A RAP shook the house. Laurel felt the wall she was leaning against shake to the foundation.

There was an excited murmur of voices, words indistinguishable, then Brendan’s voice called out from the great room: “Is there an imprint in this house?”

The air was suddenly suffused with a rotten smell, the stink of goat. A sound like harsh breathing began, coming from everywhere and nowhere… in and out.

Laurel saw Anton stiffen below her, electric with excitement. He started for the archway.

Then Laurel’s eyes widened as a small dark splotch began to grow on the wall in front of her. She watched it, riveted… and it burst into flame. She pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp. The spot burned for a moment, then flickered out, leaving an oval scorch mark on the wall.

All around her she could hear whispering—many voices, from the walls, from the ceiling… from nowhere and everywhere, whispering and mocking, with no words…

Brendan’s voice suddenly called out from the room below, “I want whatever is in this house to show itself. I want to see.”

No! Laurel thought, her pulse spiking. No!

The house began to shake. Laurel had grown up with earthquakes and the feeling was the same—like an immense, invisible animal lashing in the foundation, convulsing the entire house. Something ripped through the entire building, like a wind that was not a wind. The mirror shard fell from Laurel’s grasp as she flung out her arms and pressed her hands against the sides of the recessed space in which she stood, bracing herself against the sickening roll of the house. It was coming from the great room, the convulsion, and she heard Katrina screaming, Tyler and Brendan shrieking…

There was a great rushing roar that was like a vacuum, a thundering absence of sound, a vortex of wind that was not wind.

Laurel heard herself screaming now, screaming her voice raw—but the sound was swallowed in the vacuum.

It went on forever, a rush of nothingness. She shut her eyes against the pressure, the violation of it. She felt her breath being sucked from her, her mind sliding toward madness, her whole being screaming, screaming—the house was screaming…

And then it stopped.