Bone Orchard Read online

  Secondly, the acoustics of the parlor acted as a natural resonator, which explained why any music that came from the Krell tended to sound similarly as if it were being performed at Madison Square Garden.

  When Kitty picked up the shark-bladed lamb splitter in the basement room directly beneath the parlor exactly one minute before nine o’clock, she had put her mind to something all right. She was going to cleave deep into Lazarus Walker’s bicep with it, severing just above the elbow joint where she had scored the bleeding “L” to mark her target with the skewer. She was going to section him like a spring lamb.

  And fifty-nine seconds had passed.

  CHAPTER 9

  When the spade of the clock’s minute hand advanced and tripped the star gear on its dial face, the over-torqued chime hammer pulled back and struck with the force of a flintlock.

  The ensuing bong was so startlingly loud in the room below that it made Kitty’s teeth vibrate. She felt her heart flitter up in her chest like spider legs and lodge in her throat, spurring an impulse to run the door and peek around the corner while Lazarus frantically slipped free of the ropes behind her.

  She laughed in discomfited shock.

  “Shit! That thing almost gave me a heart attack again.”

  By the time she turned back, Lazarus was already on his feet, two strides into a full-court press. She spun, drawing the stun gun with the fluid dexterity of a gunfighter. The flash of a blue warning spark sent him into a cringing back-pedal, crashing into the table and sending a tumult of clattering cutlery to the floor. The thought of another excruciating jolt alarmed him, but shrinking away in fear from this little bitch infuriated him.

  He grabbed the table and hoisted it over his head as he charged again. She brandished the stun gun, but this time he held his resolve. The table came crashing down and exploded into brittle kindling. Her reflexes had been quick enough to throw up a defensive forearm, but the blow sent her reeling.

  Lazarus bolted from the room, snatching up one of the chairs on his way out. He slammed the door and jammed the scooped top rail of the chair beneath the knob as a brace.

  “I’m gonna kill you!” Kitty raged from the other side. She scrambled to get up, clutching her arm across her body in pain.

  He glanced toward the narrow stairs that led up to the entrance hall, but ducked into an adjacent room instead and quietly slipped the door closed behind him.

  It was a bedroom, but not the same one that Kitty had explored earlier. This was larger, perhaps a butler or housekeeper’s quarters. A single large bed was pushed against the wall, its ticking mattress stripped bare and a stack of folded sheets laying on top, both splotched with the same tie-dyed, calico patchwork of mold.

  Lazarus dropped to the floor and slid silently under the bed.

  Kitty twisted the doorknob and the chair fell inward as the door swung open into the room. It startled her, but she stumbled over it into the hallway with the chef’s knife in hand.

  “Hey, baby! That’s not cool!”

  She looked up and down the hallway at the staggered flock of doors. It was like being inside a giant flute. With a growl, she started toward the first door.

  It was the room with the twin beds. Nowhere to hide. She gave it a cursory glance and slammed the door back shut.

  Lazarus couldn’t shake the flinch reflex. He jumped at the slam as he lay beneath the molding mattress. Perhaps it was the result of nerve damage, he thought. Ten million volts and counting. Or maybe he really was just a pussy. The thought instantly fired the burner of his blood and he felt his fingers contract into the same claw-like gnarls the stun gun had left him with earlier. His fingertips scraped across the thick layer of decades-undisturbed dust that blanketed the floor beneath the bed, and with mounting horror, he realized that the dust extended to all four corners of the room. He had left a perfect trail of crisp footprints directly from the door to where he now lay.

  Kitty tried the storage room once again. This time, she tiptoed in among the bins and crates and saw that not everything was the time capsule she’d first assumed it to be.

  A large, elongated cardboard box lay tipped on its side behind the bins.

  Lazarus crawled out from under the bed and carefully back-stepped across the room, carefully planting his feet in the same prints he’d made crossing it the first time. If it worked for little Danny Torrance, it could work for him.

  He listened at the door, but heard nothing. Not a sound.

  Kitty stepped gingerly to the box, no simple task in Doc Martens. She silently raised the kitchen knife and let out a banshee shriek as she plunged it to the hilt through the cardboard nine times in four seconds. Yanking the blade free, she looked curiously at the bloodless blade.

  She kicked the box and a wave of foam packing peanuts poured out onto the floor.

  “Crap.”

  Lazarus darted across the hallway and slipped through another door a split second before Kitty emerged from the storage room.

  Bedroom number three. It contained another asylum-grade bed frame and lumpy, bare mattress, but also a large, waxed pine armoire. Unlike the other rooms, the floor was not stone but wood plank. It was not the same lake-surface-at-dawn plane of undisturbed dust. He’d been in this room before. Many times, in fact.

  A tarnished key stuck out of the lock on the armoire door. He went to it, opened the door and crawled inside with the key in his hand.

  He locked the door again from the inside and rested against the back of the cabinet. A sliver of light bled in through a long crack in one of the side panels, and dust swirled around him in the shaft of illumination.

  “You can’t hide from me! I’m the hand of vengeance!”

  She certainly has a flair for the dramatic, he thought. Then again, if there was a Black Ryder fan that didn’t, Lazarus hadn’t met them.

  Another door slammed open. He could tell it wasn’t slamming shut because it rattled. When these heavy old doors closed, they did so with a solid thump.

  Kitty looked at the footprints in the dust and her eyes followed them to the bed. She made no attempt at quiet this time. Her boots clomped across the floor and she dropped at the edge, thrusting her knife under the bed and slashing wildly.

  “Aha!”

  She pulled the knife out and looked at the clean blade. Her manic smile returned to a surly frown, but she bent down to double-check anyway.

  The dust inside the armoire proved a formidable obstacle. Lazarus could feel it dancing around his face, tickling inside his nose. As soon as he heard the bedroom door open, his eyes began to water. Each breath he took drew more dust.

  Don’t sneeze. Don’t sneeze. Don’t you fucking sneeze!

  Kitty circled the room. She looked under the bed and around the armoire. Lazarus cringed with each heavy stomp of her boots. He held his breath as her shadow passed.

  Hurry up, for chrissake!

  He knew it was coming, and the more he tried to ignore it the worse it got. If she would just get the hell out, he might be able to bury his face in his chest and mute the sneeze well enough to go unheard.

  A memory jumped the queue of his waiting thoughts, an editorial he’d read about some bloody fool who’d bitten off his own tongue trying to hold back a sneeze.

  Kitty pulled on the wardrobe’s doors but the lock prevented them from opening. Inside, the key rattled and Lazarus cupped his hand beneath it in case it fell. He held his breath again. Particles of dust floated in the streak of light. Just looking at them nearly made him cough. He clenched his eyes shut.

  She lingered, searching for the key. She looked beneath the armoire, ran her hand along the top and pulled away a clinging tangle of dust bunnies and cobwebs.

  “Dammit!”

  Lazarus had to breathe, and as soon as he did, his face screwed up reflexively. It was coming. The sneeze was coming.

  Kitty turned and walked toward the door.

  Lazarus clamped his hand over his mouth and pinched his nose shut to stifle the urge, but the sn
eeze had already begun to form, its grip on his body no more controllable than the muscle spasm he’d experienced earlier.

  You’ll bite off your tongue!

  Then, miraculously, the urge passed. Kitty’s footsteps faded into the hallway and Lazarus relaxed. He exhaled.

  Then he sneezed.

  It was a violent nasal cannonade that racked his entire body and left him lightheaded and seeing stars. He slapped his hand over his mouth and pressed his ear to the armoire door.

  For a few seconds, there was dead silence.

  Then a mad scuffle of Doc Martens and clomp, clomp as Kitty ran down the hallway.

  He fumbled with the key, frantically trying to remove it with his trembling hands. There was a muffled clang from another room and he dropped it, but didn’t care. He put his eye to the keyhole and squinted.

  Kitty rounded the corner through the doorway and raised something over her head as she strode across the room toward the armoire. It was a shingling hatchet. Christ, it looked like a damned tomahawk.

  Lazarus threw himself against the back of the cabinet and curled into a fetal ball as the broad blade exploded through the door, showering him with pine splinters and flooding the space with light. Kitty rained down blow after blow, the hatchet punching through the growing hole and squeaking out with frightening speed.

  He looked up and instinctively punched the shelf board above him. It knocked loose and collapsed on his head.

  Kitty reached for the shattered doors but Lazarus kicked against them with all his might. They crashed open, stunning her off balance. It knocked her to the floor and the hatchet went skidding off into the corner with a clang.

  Lazarus leaped out with the shelf over his head and swung instantly. Kitty rolled to her side and the brittle shelf cracked against the floor splitting down the middle.

  They spotted the hatchet simultaneously and locked eyes. Neither moved.

  Then Kitty launched herself in a mad scramble for it. Lazarus dumped the shelf. He grabbed her ankle and reeled her back. Her hands clutched air as she came up short and he clambered on top of her. She shrieked and clawed, raking fingernails over his skin everywhere she could find it.

  He rolled off, bracing against her attack and she wriggled over to grab the hatchet. God, she was fast. He snatched the shelf board back up and swung with brutish imprecision as Kitty lashed out with the axe. The blade struck wood, barely missing the tip of his thumb and sending the shelf spiraling out of his hands.

  She swung again, missing Lazarus by a hair as he rolled aside. She screamed in frustration. The blade had pinned his shirt and was now buried in the wood floor. She pulled at the handle. It budged but wouldn’t release. Lazarus ripped his shirt free, staggered to his feet and bolted out the door.

  After one final yank, Kitty abandoned the hatchet and took off after him.

  Lazarus ran for the servants’ stairwell but her speed was extraordinary. He leaped up the steps and she came sliding in behind him, throwing herself at his legs. He fell flat across the treads with a bony crunch, somehow managing to spin and kick. It narrowly missed her face, connecting instead with her petite shoulder and sending her tumbling down hard.

  Lazarus staggered out of the stairwell into the entrance hall and tripped, flopping to the floor with a solid slap.

  “Come back here!” Kitty yelled from the bottom of the stairs.

  He heard her bounding up the steps and scrambled to his feet just in time to see her lunge at him with the frenzied eyes of a berserker. He dodged and she tumbled again, sliding across the limestone as he raced for the front door.

  She was back on her feet in a heartbeat, screeching and dashing after him. She lashed out at his back with the stun gun but missed. She pressed the trigger and the electrodes burst to life.

  The evil sound was now tattooed onto his subconscious. His hands clenched into the reflexive claws of electric dread and his stride faltered. The hesitation gave her the chance to grab and she snagged a fistful of shirt. She wheeled with a stun gun roundhouse for the knockout, but Lazarus stopped short and spun, slingshotting her past and slamming face first into the door.

  He smiled at his minor victory, but it only made her madder.

  She snarled and turned to face him. Lazarus had no choice but to flee upstairs. He bolted, taking them two at a time. Her laughter echoed in the grand entrance hall as she casually made her way up the staircase.

  “Olly olly oxen free!”

  Lazarus huffed for breath as he staggered toward the study, spilling through the door and locking it behind him. He threw open the roll-top desk and slid the laptop out. It was powered off.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  He punched the power button and nearly jumped out of his skin when Kitty banged on the door.

  “Little pig, little pig, let me in!”

  Lazarus waited an agonizing minute for the laptop to boot up.

  Damn you, Norton. Damn you straight to hell.

  “I’m gonna stick you little piggie! I’m gonna make you bleed!”

  Wham!

  The door rattled on its hinges. Kitty was kicking it now. Her clodhopper boot slammed into the door stile that braced the knob. It trembled in its frame with each blow.

  The password screen finally popped up on the laptop. Lazarus henpecked with two fingers and hit “ENTER.”

  Out in the hallway, Kitty rested, hands on her knees and out of breath.

  “Whew! Guess I can skip cardio tomorrow, huh?”

  A laugh was followed by another savage kick.

  The first thing Lazarus tried to do was pull up his instant messenger. An error message popped up immediately. Network Disabled.

  “No!”

  The door burst open behind him and Kitty stood in its frame panting.

  “I did a little I.T. maintenance while you were in the shower.”

  Lazarus grabbed the laptop and hurled it at her. She flashed a maddening grin and ducked as it smashed against the doorjamb in a splatter of plastic shards and circuit boards.

  She advanced, the stun gun in her hand humming its electric-blue pizzicato. Lazarus retreated, squeezing himself into the crevice between the roll-top and the wall.

  (five)

  “Got you right where I want you.” The stun gun crackled in punctuation.

  (million)

  He felt his hands contract again, curling into the claws.

  (volts)

  Kitty lunged.

  With shocking agility, Lazarus parried with his forearm and used her forward momentum to drive her crashing into the desk. He rapped the roll-top down on her fingers and before she even had time to squeal in pain, he heaved the entire desk away from the wall and dumped it on top of her. She was pinned.

  Touché.

  Lazarus hurdled over the desk and one of the empty drawers slid out, cracking Kitty in the face. As he raced out the door, she called out after him.

  “You’re not getting away that easy!”

  He realized now that the more trouble the girl was in, the more trash she talked. There was the distinct impression she’d have said the same thing if her head was locked into the lunette of a guillotine.

  Kitty struggled to free herself from the desk, yanking out drawers and flinging them away to lighten it. She managed to squirm free and hopped to her feet, body and pride bruised but not beaten.

  Lazarus hobbled down the stairs.

  “I’m coming for you, Lazarus!”

  He looked wearily over his shoulder and saw her standing at the top landing.

  “Our fates are intertwined!”

  My God, where does she get this stuff?

  He turned away and stumbled toward the front door with the bark of her crazed laughter behind him echoing through the hall. She began to descend, the unhurried pace of a hunter in a closed arena.

  Lazarus approached the front vestibule, his eyes darting to a tall, Queen Anne cabinet beside the entry. His gaze returned to the doors, then to the cabinet once again.

&n
bsp; “Ready or not, here I come.”

  Her voice was low and calm. The Vesuvian eruption had passed. She was now the inexorable lava flow incarnate. Welcome to Pompeii.

  She dragged the stun gun along the wall, its electrodes plowing deep, parallel grooves in the plaster that drizzled a fine trail of powdered gypsum along the wainscoting.

  Lazarus reached out to grab the latch and three firm raps from the outside stopped him cold. Even Kitty froze in her tracks.

  It seemed an unexpected visitor had arrived.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Don’t you touch that fucking door,” Kitty hissed.

  Lazarus grasped the latch and flung it open with absolute rock star flair. For a long moment, he wasn’t at all sure what he was looking at.

  A couple. Twenty-somethings. The tart’s hair was bleached to straw and she was dressed in what could only have been termed her finest sluttery. The plonker was undoubtedly an imbecile. He simultaneously blinked and smiled in a dim way that was entirely familiar, but Lazarus was at a complete…

  Dylan.

  It was the kid from the nursery. Lazarus felt the blunt terminals of the stun gun jab against his lower back.

  (five million)

  The blonde squealed and stomped her feet.

  “Oh… my… God!”

  She punched Dylan in the upper arm. “I thought you were lying.”

  “It’s your man, innit?”

  Kitty slyly reached up on tiptoes and hid the stun gun on top of the tall cabinet. She slinked up behind Lazarus and peered around his shoulder at Dylan and his girlfriend, Sian.

  “I didn’t know you were expecting company. I thought this was going to be our alone time.”