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Rivulets of water are assailing my earcanals.
Dimitri stopped beside me in front of the broken door of the carriage house. “I don’t see adoorbell.”
“I think this thing predateselectricity.”
Now that we were closer, I could tell the vampire was down below somewhere. But I assumed he could come up quickly if hewished.
I left the noisy Fezzik in its holster and drew Chopper. When I stepped inside, an ancient floorboard creaked underfoot. So much forsilence.
Piles of junk rose everywhere, enough to bring every garage-sale shopper and picker in droves, and the scents of dampness and moldy straw filled the air. A loft overhead sagged under the weight of more junk, and built-in shelves along the walls held even more. I had a feeling it had all been here long before the people selling the house had moved in. And long before most of the houses on this street had beenbuilt.
A breeze swept in through a boarded-up window, shattered glass on the floor underneath it. Creepy creaks emanated from several directions. I stopped moving. The creakscontinued.
“Did the real-estate listing mention a haunted barn?” Dimitri wasn’t moving either. The creaks and groans came from all aroundus.
“I don’t think such features go in the MLS. Not everybody would see it as a sellingpoint.”
Something broke free from the loft and clattered onto a pile of rustymetal.
“I’m surprised nobody ever tore this place down,” Iadded.
“I bet some of this stuff is cool. I’m tempted to turn on my flashlight app and look for materials for my newprojects.”
“If you want to stay up here and do that, you can. I didn’t mention it earlier, but your fancy neckwear isn’t going to save you if the vampire ishungry.”
My senses told me the vampire was still lower than we were, but he wasn’t directly under us. He was farther back, behind the carriage house. Was there a root cellar or something backthere?
I wandered toward the rear wall, looking for atrapdoor.
“You’re making me consider it…” Dimitri tapped on the flashlight app and pointed the beam toward the piles. “But in all the horror movies, doesn’t the guy who gets separated from the person with the gun and the sword usually end upeaten?”
“You’re thinking of the dumb blonde girl who hears a sound in the basement and goes to explore byherself.”
He looked at myhair.
“Don’t sayit.”
“Who, me?” His roving flashlight beam paused on some shelves full of boxes. “Oh, man, is that an old Lionel train set? It’s the box, at least. I gotta see if there’s anything inthere.”
Using my own flashlight app, I kept looking for the trapdoor while he clambered over tarp-covered piles to get to those shelves. There had to be an entrance to a lower level somewhere. The vampire had to go out to find blood now andthen.
The creaks and groans continued, the whole structure sounding like it could collapse at any moment. As I rounded a pile of junk in the back, my light played over the seams of a trapdoor. It was made from the same old wood boards as the rest of the floor, but the seam was clear, as was a pull-out handle tucked into agroove.
Expecting a tight space, I traded Chopper for Fezzik, put my phone away, and activated my night-vision charm. Dimitri’s nearby flashlight beam made me wince with its brightness, but I kept my back tohim.
When I opened it, the trapdoor creaked even louder than the rest of the carriage house. I might as well have rung a doorbell. There was no way the vampire didn’t know I wascoming.
Nothing so grandiose as stairs awaited me. The dusty rungs of a ladder led down to a tiny bricked-in room. I didn’t see a door, but I assumed there had to be one. All the dust made me frown with doubt. Maybe this wasn’t the way the vampire came and went. Even the undead disturbeddust.
I dragged a rusty ship’s anchor over and used it to prop open the trapdoor, then climbed down the ladder with one hand. With the other, I pointed Fezzik downward, in case someone popped out or I triggered atrap.
The carriage house groaned and creaked again, followed by a noise that sounded like branches scraping against a back window. When we’d walked up, I hadn’t seen any trees around thebuilding.
A puff of dust rose when my boots hit the bottom. This definitely wasn’t the way anyone went. I almost headed straight back up, thinking to check for root cellar doors around the back of the carriage house, but ran my fingers along the walls for a quicksearch.
A thunderous scrape came from above, and I looked up in time to see the anchor shift aside and the trapdoor thump down. I almost yelled to Dimitri that his joke wasn’t funny, but magic plucked at my senses. And it wasn’t dwarf-yard-art-enchantmentmagic.
Wrought-iron bars slid out of holes I hadn’t noticed and clanged into place inches under the trapdoor. I sighed, debating if Chopper could cut through them or the brick walls surrounding me. With enough time, I was sure I could do it, but I sensed the vampire heading in this direction. Somehow, I doubted he would stand patiently by while I hacked at his securitysystem.
I glanced at the time on my phone. I still had fifteen minutes left of the twenty I’d asked Sindari for. He wouldn’t be coming to rescue me any timesoon.
