Ravenous

Chapter 3

The broad oak steps to the upper floor were still covered by a runner tacked down with tiny brass rails, a touch of elegance left over from better times. Holly shone her flashlight up the stairway. There were some boxes and painting equipment left on the steps, but otherwise the coast looked clear.

The voices were all but silent, whispering among themselves. Holly ignored them, concentrating on stepping over a roll of builder's plastic. The beam of her flashlight caught something. A loaded backpack was lying on the small landing where the stairs turned at a right angle. Odd that the police hadn't taken it. Had they been so rattled by the house that they'd missed it?

"At least one of the students came this way," she said, mounting the stairs and kneeling to have a better look. The pack was a common enough style, navy with the Fairview U crest on the pocket. A stainless steel coffee mug was clipped to the strap. She had a similar pack herself, and so did Ben. He had bought them for the first day of classes, one of his sweet gestures. He was so proud of Holly for going back to school. The fact that she had been accepted to the School of Business, his own department, was the cherry on top.

"The pack looks like it was dropped in a hurry," Alessandro observed, scooping something off the landing. "Look. A cell phone fell out."

He flipped it open, but there was no signal. Not unusual in haunted houses. Something in the spooky vibes interfered with reception.

The top of the backpack was unzipped. Holly lifted the flap for a cursory glance. She didn't mean to spend time on a thorough examination. Who the owner was didn't matter, just the fact that they were lost in the terrible, whispering house. Then she saw what was inside, and recognized the sticker on the laptop: Economists supply it on demand.

Holly bowed her head, devastation sapping her strength. "Omigod, this is Ben's."

"Merda." Alessandro knelt beside her. "He must have been one of the professors Raglan said came looking for the students."

"He never said anything about sponsoring a frat. Damn it, where is he?" Holly rose and ran up the rest of the stairs. Had Ben said something about coming here this morning, and she'd just tuned out his breakfast monologue? Fear and guilt drove her heart, slamming it against her ribs.

"Holly!" Alessandro surged after, taking the steps two at a time.

The upstairs landing opened onto a large area flanked by two more hallways. A large drop cloth made a ghostly heap beside the banister. Holly looked from one side to the other, searching for some sign of the dark river she had seen in the dining room. Her mind felt suddenly sharp and clear, her thoughts ticking over with digital precision.

Alessandro stopped, lifting his head. He took a short, sharp breath and made a face. "There is death here."

"Where?" Holly said, her voice flat and cold. Oh, Ben!

Alessandro pointed straight ahead.

The house's rustling deepened into a throaty female laugh, fading away into a soft chuckle. The house is a woman. The fact that it had a gender made things worse. It was more personal. Specific. And the house had Ben, who brought Holly coffee and bagels. Ben, who liked Thai food and classic cartoons and gave great foot massages. Holly's stomach curdled.

Give him back, house. She stalked down the hall, clutching the flashlight like a truncheon. Ten seconds, or you're plaster dust and kindling.

The last of the chuckle slipped away, leaving behind empty silence. Holly strode along, her heels loud on the hardwood. She flung open one door, then the next, pausing only long enough to sweep the empty spaces with her flashlight. All she saw were small, plain rooms with slanted ceilings in the far corners. Bedrooms, perhaps.

She thumped the wall in frustration. The center of the house's consciousness was nearby—she could feel it, but the exact location eluded her. "Give it up, Scrap Heap," Holly called out. "Where'd you put your playmates?"

Alessandro glided past her. He opened the last door in the hallway, pushing it open and then recoiling, poised and ready to fight. Holly marched toward him, barely slowing until he raised one hand, palm out. "Wait. This is the source of the black river," he said. "I can see it now, too. There was a look-away spell. That explains why the police didn't see any of this."

Holly stopped next to him in the doorway. He was right. It was there in plain, horrific view, none of the corner-of-the-eye stuff anymore. She swallowed hard, doing her best not to gag. There was the faint trace of heat she had felt before, now joined by a pungent smell, like hamburger left too long out of the fridge.

The blackness flowed along the slope of the old oak floor toward the outer wall, where it ran down into the dining room below. Six bodies lay covered in the sparkling ooze. One victim had tried to make it out the window on the far wall, but now lay slumped beneath it. Holly looked frantically from one to the next, trying to figure out which one was Ben.

He has to be all right. I can't be too late.

The house sighed, low and intimate, as a tingling sensation swarmed up Holly's neck.

"I can't tell if they're alive," Alessandro said softly. "It all smells putrid. What were they doing up here?"

"They probably tried to save one another and got caught like flies in flypaper." Holly's voice was high and choked. She stepped forward carefully, making sure the toes of her shoes did not touch the black ooze. It would have worked, except the ooze edged toward her with a wet, sticky slurp.

"Can you use your power on it?" asked Alessandro.

Holly extended her fingers, giving off a blast of energy. She was gratified to see the blackness retreat from the thin stream of sparks. With hot, tingling bursts of power she chased it back a few feet, approaching the body closest to the door. She flicked off her flashlight, sparing the batteries, and worked by the faint light of her own power.

With a rustle of wind and fabric, Alessandro levitated to the other side of the room, his coat flaring around him. Holly ducked, startled, but was relieved to hear his boots hit dry floor. The ooze hadn't reached the far wall.

She felt the attention of the dark liquid shift to where Alessandro now stood. Black and slick as a seal's head, a pseudopod rose out of the muck, probing the air in the vampire's direction. Alessandro poked it with the end of his flashlight. The slime head lashed out, and Alessandro dodged with the air of a matador.

"Watch out!" Holly exclaimed. "What do you think you're doing?"

Alessandro danced away from the thing, his eyes flaring yellow. "It wants to fight. I'll keep it busy. You look for survivors."

He crouched, his smile giving a flash of fang. Normally that look made her shudder, but Holly was fresh out of fear. Let the vampire play with the slime monster. She had civilians to save.

The dead-meat smell clotted in Holly's throat, as choking as the worry that her strength would fizzle and leave her stranded in the sea of black. Worry became panic when she chased the ooze from the first body and saw what it had left behind.

The figure wore a team jacket, so she knew it wasn't Ben.

The man had been big-boned and dark-haired, but now those bones held up a drapery of flesh sucked dry of life and substance. The face had collapsed like melted wax, flowing and pooling against the oak floor.

Holly made a noise in a voice she didn't recognize as her own and backed away. She stood a moment, panting, trying to pull herself together before she began working toward a second collapsed form that sprawled a few yards away. Was that one Ben? Fear made her thoughts scatter. What if he wasn't here? What then?

A wrench sailed through the air, smacking her on the shoulder. Her arm went numb, the stream of power flowing out her fingers sputtering like water from a pinched hose.

"Ow!" Holly looked around.

"Over there," Alessandro said, pointing.

There was a toolbox in the corner, and now the contents were floating above it, missiles in the house's arsenal. She had seen this before—tawdry poltergeist nonsense, but it could hurt.

A hammer sailed through the air at Alessandro. In a blur of motion he snatched it mid-flight and used it to smack one of the pseudopods wriggling toward him. He was clearly enjoying himself in a Conan the Barbarian sort of way.

Holly batted an airborne caulking gun with the side of her flashlight and shuffled as fast as she could toward the next body, staying low to avoid the rain of tools. The second body wasn't Ben either. The young man looked pale and blue-lipped, the skin shriveled as if he had been in the bath too long, but he was alive. Holly felt a surge of joy.

"Hey. Hey!" She shook him by the shoulders, but he stayed limp, his mouth half-open.

The young man's breath came in short, shallow rasps. He was fighting for oxygen. She touched his throat and felt a faint pulse. The temperature of his flesh was far too low. He was alive now, but wouldn't survive for long without medical help.

The moisture the goo left behind dried almost instantly, leaving the man's russet hair caked and stiff. It looked like he'd been gelled by a herd of manic hairdressers.

"Don't worry; we'll get you out of here," Holly murmured in his ear. Grabbing his wrists, she dragged him toward the door, farther away from the slime, and then set off toward the figure slumped under the window. It looked like this one had tried to get out, but the window had jammed. The slime grew thicker over the body as Holly approached, ripples of sparkling black flowing toward it like an incoming tide. Apparently the house had figured out what Holly was doing and was rushing to stop her.

Something slammed into her back, hard, and fell with a clatter. The blow knocked Holly to her knees, her eyes filling with tears of pain. She twisted her head around to see the red tool box lying empty on the floor behind her. Damn it!

"Holly, are you all right?"

Glancing up at Alessandro, she understood why the house had thrown the box. It had run out of tools. Alessandro had caught them all, stuffing them in the capacious pockets of his coat.

"Yeah." At least it wasn't a power drill. She was going to be bruised in the morning.

Holly took a deep breath, forgetting everything but the body under the window. Now it was a shapeless mass, the outline of the limbs lost in ooze. She called her power one more time, digging deep she passed her hand over the blackness between her and the window, letting the energy flow. The goo retreated, allowing her to take two strides forward. She did it again, the heat of the releasing energy making the ends of her fingers burn.

With a rolling, rippling motion the thick mass peeled back from the slumped figure. His flesh was pallid as death but still untouched, still recognizable. It was Ben.

"Sweet Hecate!" Holly lunged forward, clasping his face in her hands. Her heart pounded so hard she could feel the beat in her lips. Please be okay. I'll do anything; just be okay. He was shivering and sticky, his brown hair matted against his skull. "Ben!"

His eyes drifted open. They were not the bright green of hers, but the green-brown of brushland in early spring. He couldn't quite seem to focus his gaze. Exhaustion made him look older than a man in his thirties. His jeans and denim jacket were soaked with foul moisture.

"Holly?" he asked, his voice just a rasp. Then he moved, clasping his arms to hold in what body heat he still had left.

She put her lips by his temple, smelling the soap-clean essence of him beneath the sullying muck of the house. She spoke softly, willing the words from her heart to his. "I'm here, Ben. I've come to take you home. I'd never leave you behind."

"Oh, God, thank you," Ben whispered.

"Holly!" Alessandro bellowed, leaping into the air toward her.

A moment of distraction had been all it took. The black river had crept around behind her, a gelatinous ripple drawing the ooze higher. As Holly turned to look, fingers of slime rose out of the mass, reaching for her leg. Freezing cold clamped her ankle. She cried out in shock, jerking away from the numbing clasp, but it held tight.

Alessandro landed behind her, lifting Ben with one hand and swinging him to a safe, dry corner of the floor. He grabbed Holly's arm, but she was caught in the slime. The house had what it wanted and was not about to let her go.

The chill invaded Holly in tendrils, in seeking fingers that delved into her flesh. It ran along her nerves, shooting up her leg and burrowing deep into her viscera.

The house had planned its strategy well. The struggle to save others from the black ooze had depleted her energy. She was a flickering bulb, a battery with only the dregs of life.

Terror blanked Holly's mind, a whiteout of fear. She had to… had to… Omigod. She was going to crack and shatter from sheer panic.

Okay. Okay. Think! The first wave of the cold was already inside her.

Shields! She invoked the image of brick walls. Hard, solid, strong. It was too little, too late. The house's energy wiggled through her defenses like the myriad arms of a squid, crumbling her shields to dust.

She was in trouble.

Weightlessness took over as her heart seemed to slow, her blood growing too sluggish to reach her head. She felt her knees buckle, but they felt like someone else's knees. Holly floated away, leaving her body to fall face-first into the killing blackness.

She couldn't breathe. Or move. She was a block of ice, facedown on the floor. Someone pulled at the back of her jacket, trying to haul her up. Dimly she thought she heard Alessandro cursing in Italian. It was hard to tell; she couldn't quite make out the words. He grabbed her arms and tried to pull her free. His fingers brushed the inside of her wrist, flesh to flesh. The touch was a spark on tinder. Her senses sprang open, flooding with his predator's hunger. Fierce. Primitive. The urge to survive.

Holly managed to open her eyes, but could not make a sound. Strong though it was, the spark flickered, wavered. The house was eating her up faster than she could fend it off.

"Damn you, Holly! Fight back!" Alessandro's voice was sharp-edged, nearly frantic.

Like I'm not fighting already?

"Holly! Can you hear me? Fight!"

Vampires. Always needing the big commotion. Such drama queens.

Holly's fear blackened and curled, rage eating her terror in a hot burn. She had to use whatever strength she had in a concentrated burst. Not much could survive a full-on blast of enraged witch rammed right down its throat.

She lunged for her strongest power but smashed against the block of her old injury. It was scar tissue, opaque and impenetrable. There was no way to get past. Not without ripping it—and herself—to pieces.

Fine. The big-M magic was playing hard to get. She could summon it, but it would hurt like hell. Not fun, but her other option was death by goo, and that would just be embarrassing.

How about a little rock V roll, Demolition Sale? I rock and you roll your way to the salvage yard?

You have no power left, the house whispered. You're drained.

Cold fingered her vulnerable insides. Was that the house, or just plain fear?

Watch me. In the maelstrom of her mind she began the invocation to call up her big-M magic. The spell coalesced, built, bulged, a pressure cooker charged with psychic steam. Holly felt the power moving inside, a snake sliding against her bones.

Alessandro released her, the hard muscles of his arms slipping away. No doubt his vampire senses told him she had finally made her move.

The power came fast, fire rushing down a tunnel. It felt as if her guts were slowly turning themselves inside out, pain bright as new copper. Heat burrowed up her spine, flaming where the icy cold had frozen, turning her skin white-hot. Arcs of light spiraled along her arms like twin serpents. She was glowing, the delicate bone structure of her hand merely a shadow inside the pink shell of her flesh.

Holly let the energy rip the house's magic apart, burning her nerves in a searing flash of heat. Sudden light flared. A bang. The smell of summer storms.

The black ooze hissed and bubbled where it touched her. It jerked away, scuttling back even as it melted to nothing. Holly pressed her forehead against the hard floorboards, flattening her body to connect with the physical house as much as she could. She had to give the power somewhere to go. Energy rushed through her like a current, far, far too much for the house's magic to handle. She stole a glance, lifting her head just long enough to see that the black river had sizzled down to a fast-vanishing puddle.

The glow was in the walls now, a faint hum washing through the air. Holly could feel the place shudder as the impact of the power blast reached the foundations. It resonated with her body, the sensation oddly intimate. Holly searched with her senses. The voices in the house were dead silent. Still. Gone. Zapped.

Nevertheless, Holly let the energy flow longer, making sure. She'd seen horror flicks. This house wasn't getting any sequels.

A head rush made her glad to be lying down. Tears of relief leaked from her eyes, drying as they touched her hot cheeks. Raising one hand, she stared at the light under her skin, mesmerized. Great Goddess, I'm still glowing!

But it wasn't over yet. Drawing on her broken power came at a cost. Holly's flesh tightened, her heart stuttering like a drum tumbling down a hill. She pulled her knees under her, struggling to draw breath, but her lungs were like stone. No air.

Thoughts collapsed, puppets hacked away from their strings. No air, no air!

Sweat poured down her face. The glow faded. Now she was shaking. Her lungs grabbed a huge gasp, the instinct to live somehow cramming down the power, locking it away again.

And just when she thought the pain might be over, the aftermath hit—anguish so deep, it slashed each vertebra as it passed. Holly screamed a soundless word—she knew not what—and curled into a ball.

I won. I hurt.

Holly sobbed from sheer agony.

This was the reason she never took on more than snippy ghosts.