Dead of Night (Hunters of the Dark #4) by Dave Ferraro
Chapter Four
Krystal waited on the front lawn of the haunted mansion and watched as Natalia slipped inside. She glanced over at Hunter, who smiled back at her reassuringly. “She’s just going to check it out quickly,” he reassured her. “To make sure it’s safe.”
Nodding, Krystal glanced around them at the large Oak trees, draped with Spanish moss. She’d missed the sight. It gave the landscape a sort of romantic quality that you didn’t quite get in New York, especially Lime Bay, where the college town was manicured immaculately. Nothing was wild there like it was here. She looked beyond the trees to the willows that hung low over the beginnings of swampland, and shuddered as she wondered about crocodiles in the area. She hadn’t missed those. In fact, if drugs were involved in this scenario, she wouldn’t doubt if crocs were taking advantage of passed out teenagers. Of course, this close to a school, they were probably monitoring the activity of gators, but swamps were wild and untamed. It was hard to find an animal hiding there that didn’t want to be found.
It was a few minutes before Natalia exited the building, looking calm and collected, even after walking through a mansion known to be haunted, without a flashlight, as the sun was setting.
Krystal shook her head as she looked to the east to see the oranges of the sun being extinguished by cold blue shadows. She didn’t particularly like the idea of staying in this mansion at night, but she had wanted to be part of this experience, hadn’t she? And what did a necromancer have to fear? The dead? Ghosts? She could control them! Well, maybe not control ghosts…yet. But she could talk to them.
Quinn, Hunter and Jade began to haul in equipment, Amelia levitating the heavy generators to make it easier for them to stage around the mansion. It seemed that miles of extension cords were being carried indoors, to hook cameras up to the generators and other surveillance equipment, but it was a big house and they would want to record things all over the place to be thorough.
Shanna and Serene were lighting gas lanterns on the porch, which squeaked loudly in protest every time either of them shifted. Krystal imagined a hand crashing through the weak boards, grabbing hold of their legs. It would be a rotting, bandaged hand, with the moans of the undead carrying on the wind for all to hear.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Krystal took a few calming breaths. She had to keep it together here and not let her imagination run wild. She had to prove that she could do this. Not just to Hunter and the others, but to herself. If she couldn’t handle a dark old mansion, how did she expect to deal with undead things? She’d seen Star Wars and she knew that fear led to anger, anger led to hate, and hate led to The Dark Side. And she did not want to cross over to The Dark Side. She didn’t want to lose herself. So she had to be in control of her emotions. She had to work through her fear and master it, if she was going to live with necromancy unscathed.
“You okay?” Rachel asked, laying a hand on her back softly.
Krystal looked up at the pretty hunter and nodded.
“You know, I’m from Mississippi,” Rachel said. “So, this terrain is really familiar.” She took a deep breath. “Reminds me of home a bit. I feel very nostalgic.”
“I know the feeling,” Krystal agreed, thinking of Fern Dell. She wondered if she would be able to visit her hometown while she was here.
“Come on,” Rachel said, nudging her and gesturing to Shanna and Serene, who were carrying the lights inside. “I think they’re about finished setting things up. Let’s go see this spooky old mansion.”
Krystal nodded and hefted her purple backpack off of the ground and threaded her arms through the bright pink straps. When she’d first met Rachel, Krystal had seen her as a self-absorbed, cold person, but she had warmed to her considerably over the past months. She supposed that it just took some people awhile to get used to being around others.
She followed Rachel up the steps of the mansion in desperate need of a good sweep, leaves clustering in the corners. She looked up at the columns as they passed them, paint peeling and filthy from the elements. The porch was sagging and groaned with every step that passed over the boards. It was in an utter state of disrepair.
“This place is disgusting,” she murmured.
Rachel chuckled. “Just wait until we get inside, where we’ll be sleeping.”
Krystal wrinkled her nose at the thought, but ventured indoors without protest, surprised by how bright the dark rooms had become with the lanterns. The shadows had been chased to the far recesses of the corners, making it almost seem cheerful.
The entryway was dirty, with leaves making their way in through broken windows, and Krystal was almost positive that she’d seen a mouse skitter across the floor already. Of course this place was probably infested with them.
A large hole in the middle of the floor released an odor of mold and damp into the room, the remaining floorboards edged black and slimy. She looked up to see the ceiling directly overhead brown and sagging with water damage, a hole offering a glimpse of the dark space between floors.
“Charming,” Quinn joked as he passed by the hole on the way outside to retrieve more supplies. He offered Krystal a wide grin, and she blushed, turning to watch him leave the room with interest.
“This seems to be the worst of the damage,” Amelia said, striding into the entryway and gesturing to the hole. “On this floor, at least. Everything else is pretty much intact.”
“That’s surprising, considering the amount of neglect,” Rachel said, sniffing as she sidestepped the hole. She gestured for Krystal to be careful. “I know that it’s a big house to take care of, but my god, this could be a beautiful home if they took a little interest.”
“Now it’s just home to ghosts,” Amelia shrugged. “And they’re not too picky, apparently.”
Krystal was surprised as they entered the next room, which was completely furnished. Shanna pulled white sheets from the end tables, revealing lamps and ash trays, books and candy dishes. Some of them had to be antiques by now.
With the warm glow of the lamps bathing the room, the brown, admittedly dated furniture, looked rather homey. A fireplace large enough for someone to walk through, should they be stooped over, faced them from the north wall, stairwells winding up to the second story along either side.
The wallpaper was a faded yellow and peeling in places, but was still white and pristine where it had been covered, along with paintings, by sheets. Sheets that Rachel was pulling off without ceremony to examine the art in the heavy golden frames.
There was a lot of ornate carved decoration, particularly the trim of dark wood that ran along the tops of the walls, against the ceiling. Faces of gargoyles and fish tails from mermaids could be seen in the details that also ran along the banisters of the stairs and the heavy doors and their frames.
Jade was setting up monitors on the far side of a large table. Krystal walked up to them and watched the screens, which were fuzzy with snow. Suddenly, one of them lit up in black and white, and Hunter waved at them from the screen, in what was most likely a sitting room. He held something up to his mouth and a walky talky crackled from Jade’s belt.
Jade reached for it as Hunter’s voice cleared the static momentarily, asking “Is camera one up and running?”
“That it is,” Jade confirmed, setting the walky back down as it went silent once more.
“So, you’re just going to be watching the rooms?” Krystal asked, curious, as she spied Hunter leave the sitting room.
Jade shrugged. “That’s part of it. She reached over and flipped a switch below the screen, and the room was suddenly bathed in yellow, Hunter’s retreating form a bright red until he was out of sight. “We can see in infrared, ultraviolet and night vision.” She pointed to a green line below the switches that Krystal had noticed vibrating as Hunter was speaking. “And this will pick up and record any sound.”
“Looks like you have your bases covered.”
Jade nodded. “The best equi
“A ghost…” Krystal snorted as she realized that she was talking about her. “I guess.”
“So there’s no way we’re going to fail. If something’s here, we’re going to find it.”
“Can you feel anything now?” a voice asked from directly behind Krystal, causing her to jump.
Krystal put a hand over her chest as she looked back at Natalia, who had an expectant look on her face. Jade was trying unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh. “Jesus, make a little noise, will you?”
“If you insist,” Natalia shrugged.
Krystal shook her head, then closed her eyes as she concentrated. She heard the walky talky come to life again as Hunter set up another camera, and she tried to ignore the sound as she let her sixth sense reach out. She felt its tendrils spread out from her, like fingers fumbling in the dark, trying to brush up against the familiar feeling of something dead. Nothing on the first floor, at least. She pushed further, to the second floor, then the attic beyond that. Nothing. But she wasn’t very experienced at feeling for apparitions so much as dead flesh. And she wouldn’t be able to feel spirits if they weren’t there at the moment.
The closest Krystal could get to explaining ghosts was that, like back in Greece a few months ago, they were on a different plane of existence. When they were able to show themselves here, there was still a layer of reality shrouding them that most people couldn’t see through. People more sensitive to their presence could see them, or feel them in the room, depending on how in tune they were to that “frequency.” It was when ghosts gathered enough strength that anyone could tell they were there: pounding on walls, creating visions, appearing to people. But it took a strong ghost, or enough energy siphoned off of the living, to be able to do that. How they gathered that energy was a mystery to Krystal and most experts, but if Krystal had to bet, she would say that they gathered it from emotions. Like fear.
Krystal pushed the range of her powers below them, into the basement, and felt something. Not a ghost, but something old and decomposing. Several somethings. She frowned and opened her eyes. “No ghosts, but there are definitely things decomposing in the basement. Lots of animals, mice, maybe some possums, maybe something bigger. I can’t really tell you specifics with so many dead things around, and not really knowing what I’m looking for.”
“At least it’s somewhere to focus our efforts,” Natalia said with a slow nod. “After we set up, we should take a look down there.”
“What about sleep?”
Natalia offered her a small smile. “I don’t need much sleep.”
Krystal blinked, then turned to meet Jade’s gaze, who shrugged, as if she’d expected no less.
“We’ll watch the monitors in shifts beginning at midnight,” Natalia said. “The rest of you can sleep then. We can explore the basement until then.”
“Where are we going to sleep?” Shanna asked, coming up behind them.
“There are bedrooms,” Jade suggested. “They might be a little stale and stuffy, but they still have beds and they’ll be more comfortable than sleeping on the floor. We could take rooms in pairs.”
“Perfect,” Natalia said. “Then a pair of people can watch the monitors at a time in case one of them falls asleep.”
“Has anyone seen any signs of disturbance?” Quinn asked, approaching them. “Because aside from the mouse droppings, I’m not seeing much. You’d think kids would have stolen some of the furnishings or something, but everything seems pretty much untouched.”
Natalia nodded as she looked around. “It’s difficult to judge from the dust, but it seems that the students were at least scared enough of the house not to have ventured in far. There is one room at the back of the house with beer bottles where they must have broken in at some point, but that seems to have been years ago. I find it highly unlikely that they met their fate here.”
“But if they have, we’ll find out soon enough,” Jade said, gesturing to the screens.
“That we will,” Shanna murmured.