Sarah seated herself in front of the mosaic and the sisters positioned themselves around the artfully crafted tiles. Jonas took his place between Hannah and Elle. Power swelled the moment the circle was complete and the floor continued to shift and move as if alive. The sisters locked hands and began to sway, chanting softly, the words more felt than heard, echoing through his mind. The sound was melodic and sweet, rising above the silence of the night in a whisper of dramatic notes until he thought he could see them gleaming in the darkness.
On the floor in front of him, the mosaic began to swirl with vapor, smoke rose, or rather fog, as if a breeze had come to clear out the gray mist and leave the mosaic tiles comprehensible to those looking. To his astonishment, he could see the grounds surrounding the house, as if the tiles were a camera screen, broken into pieces, but providing a picture of the outside world. He could see the fog hanging thick above and around the house, protecting it from prying eyes, but the grounds appeared crystal clear in the mosaic tiles.
Something moved stealthily through the shrubbery, working to gain access to the house itself. Shadows moved and the figures of several men crept forward. They were dressed in black and gray, blending into the night, their facial features distorted as if they wore masks beneath the hoods. Gloves and boots with tucked-in pants, along with the way they moved and carried their weapons, that told Jonas they were under attack by professionals.
His heart jumped and he tried to let loose of Elle's hand so he could reach for his gun again, but she held on to him tightly. He was sitting on his butt and it looked like at least five men were working their way through the brush to the house. What kind of lawman was he?
And then the bushes moved, roots erupting from the ground and lashing out like a whip with nine tails, sweeping fast toward one of the black-clad men. The lash struck him in the stomach hard, lifting him and sending him flying several feet to land sprawled out against the fence.
Jonas blinked and looked around at the circle of sober faces. Feminine. Soft. He thought of the Drakes as gentle and kind. Bringing harm to no one, yet none of them blinked or winced or looked away. The vibration beneath him continued and the wood creaked and groaned, alive and alert and waiting for the intruders to come too close.
The man who had been thrown climbed unsteadily to his feet, gripping the fence for leverage. He shouted and jerked his hand clear. Smoke rose from the wood where his glove had melted onto the fence. He hurried back up the slope, avoiding the brush where something had struck him, taking an alternate route that brought him into a grove of trees. He moved with much more confidence once in the mixture of redwoods, oaks, pines and spruce.
Jonas was afraid to take his eyes from the man in the mosaic as he gained footing through the labyrinth of trees. The tension built in the room. The chanting swelled, the words evoking protection against evil, and behind them, in the second circle, shadows lengthened and grew, forming insubstantial, transparent figures of women dressed in garb from centuries gone by. The floating figures positioned themselves in a tight circle around the Drakes and Jonas, as if anyone would have to get through them to get to the inner circle.
Jonas leaned forward to see the mosaic better when the intruder began to scale a tall, thick tree. Branches swept outward, long curving boughs providing a ladder for the man to climb. One branch reached toward the balcony on the second story. Joley's room. The man put his foot on the branch and began to ease across.
The tree shuddered, bark rippling. Needles shivered. The man stopped, looked around him apprehensively. There was a moment when Jonas counted his own heartbeats. One. Two. The branch dipped down hard and fast. The intruder's mouth opened wide with a scream as he clutched at several smaller branches to keep from falling. The thick limb rose fast, the smaller branches breaking, catapulting the intruder several feet into the air and over the bluff. He spun, arms and legs sprawled, like a windmill, before falling far below into the turbulent sea.
"Holy hell, Hannah."
"I know, it takes getting used to." She leaned her body close to his, offering shelter, protection, without ever breaking the link with her sisters.
Sarah leaned down to blow on one of the dark candles in front of her, just outside the double circle. The light flickered bloodred and then was gone, sputtering into the wax.
Jonas turned his attention to two men scaling the walls of the house. At the same time two others were heading for the lower story. One of the two men scaling the building was extraordinarily strong and immediately outdistanced his partner as he went up the north side of the building next to the tower. He was using the corner to help propel himself upward. The mosaic glowed red-orange. Smoke puffed out from under each hand and foot until the man climbed faster and faster, finally leaping to gain the balcony. He stepped onto the solid surface and paused, bending over, breathing hard.
Around him, the wrought iron began to bend and reshape, the railing forming into what appeared to Jonas as an animal with a spiked tail and a spiraled horn. The man backed up, pulling out a gun, his gloves burned and still smoking from touching the side of the house. The animal reared up on hooves, rising above the intruder and then lowering its head. The man fired several rounds in rapid succession, but the animal pawed the ground and hurtled itself relentlessly forward. The intruder was fast, whipping to one side, grabbing the horn to give himself leverage in a desperate attempt to save his life. The tail struck, lashing around, piercing the man's stomach and lifting him into the air before dropping him onto the balcony floor.
Beside him, Hannah let out a small sound of distress. Instinctively, Jonas started to let go of hands in order to comfort her, but Elle and Hannah held on tightly, shaking their heads. He frowned as he watched, in the mosaic, the balcony floor slide open and the body drop to the ground below.
At least he'd have a body to work with. Someone he could identify. The big man had moved in a way he was certain he'd seen before.
As he watched, the brush and trees swayed, leaves rustling, and across the ground, vines shot out, wrapped the body up tightly as if in a carpet, and then rolled it toward the edge of the bluff.
"Stop!" Jonas called out. "Make it stop. I need that body. What if I can't recover it from the sea?"
The intruder slipped off the edge of the cliff and dropped into the churning water below. Sarah leaned over and blew on the second candle. It sputtered, glowed red, and drips of wax beaded on the floor like bright blood spots before it flickered out.
The second climber had reached the balcony on the second floor over by the west-facing room--Elle's. The same trail of smoking palm and foot prints led up the side of the house. He swung over the wrought iron railing and landed in a crouch. Almost at once the floor jiggled under his feet. He looked down and the solid flooring had turned to a gel-like substance. He began to sink into it. As he did, the gel thickened and lengthened, slowly but surely encasing his body. He fired his automatic, round after round, into the gel, but it kept forming around him. He tried to thrash his way free, but the house ate him, inch by inch, absorbing him into the gel until he was completely inside, surrounded by the balcony itself.
Jonas felt his stomach lurch. "This is an illusion, right? Tell me it's an illusion, Hannah, because this is crazy." He clutched her hand tighter, suddenly afraid for all of them. If the house was alive, no one was safe. He wanted to grab all the women and get them out of there.
"Part illusion, part real. They believe it, so it's so," Elle said. "They came to kill us, Jonas. The house is made up of the spirits of our ancestors. Did you think they would lie idly by while we were under attack?"
'Cuz, yeah, didn't everybody's ancestors rise up and destroy enemies? "Fine then. Tell them to save me a body."
The balcony lurched and spit the intruder out into the tops of the tree branches. The branches swayed and sent the body to the sea below. Jonas swore as Sarah blew out the next candle.
The two men entering through the ground floor were at the windows now. One was at the kitc
hen window and one on the other side of the living room. Every instinct Jonas had insisted he draw his gun, but Elle and Hannah held his hands tight, keeping him locked within the circle. The hairs on his arms stood up, and the room crackled with energy and power. The floor continued shifting and the walls seemed to undulate. Behind them, the transparent, filmy figures swayed and danced, their arms extended, their hands linked.
Jonas could barely make himself stay sitting in the circle when he knew any moment the two men would break through the windows. He heard a scream, abruptly closed off, and the sound of gunfire. He peered at the mosaic just in time to see cracks forming in the ground and earth opening up along the kitchen where the intruder tried to get to the bank of windows. Every step he took produced an ever-widening crack. There was nothing to shoot at, only the yawning abyss staring at him. He finally ceased trying to gain the house and began to backpedal carefully, placing his feet lightly on the ground as he retreated.
Jonas switched his gaze to the last man in the mosaic, then realized the window the man was trying to gain entry through was just straight ahead of him. He watched in a kind of fascinated horror as the intruder used the butt of his gun to hit the glass and shatter it. Again he pulled at his hands, but Hannah and Elle hung on grimly.
All around him the chanting swelled, Harm no one, harm no one. What the hell did that mean? He was going to have to shoot the poor son of a bitch, but maybe that was a far better way to go than what the house of horrors had planned. This was a hell of a way for men to die, even if they deserved it. He still wasn't certain if it was real or an illusion.
The window shattered with a crash of glass, breaking into jagged shards that exploded inward into the house, paused in midair, reversed and stood poised in the darkness. Jonas found he was holding his breath. The intruder stuck his gun through the frame, finger beginning to tighten when the sharp spears hurtled forward. Blood sprayed, the man screamed wildly, yanking his arm back outside even as his finger squeezed and bullets bit into the side of the house.
Around them, the smoky figures writhed and moaned, as if absorbing the shock of the bullets. The intruder screamed again and the sound of footsteps faded as he retreated. Once again the ground shuddered and opened. The screams faded as the edges of the earth resealed. Jonas stared down into the mosaic and noted the other man had made it back to the fence, climbing over, leaving scorch marks behind.
"I'm not going to say I can at least collect DNA samples," he muttered, "because every time I open my mouth, the evidence disappears."
With a little sigh, he watched the droplets of blood absorb into the wood and the window reform. "I have to tell you, I've seen some freaky shit around you girls, but nothing like this. I have just one question. Have you told your fiances about this? Because quite frankly it scares the hell out of me."
"You never have to be afraid, Jonas," Hannah assured. "The house judges intent."
"Hannah. Honey. Half the time my intent is to strangle you. And I don't doubt whoever ends up with Joley or Elle will want to do worse than that."
"Hey!" Elle objected and Joley punched his arm hard.
He glanced around at the wispy gray figures as they began to settle down, one by one merging into the shadows or the smudge marks on the floor. The tension in the room slowly eased and the shifting beneath them lessened. He shoved both hands through his hair. "They don't just hang around all the time, do they? Because they'd definitely curb a man's... appetite."
Hannah's lips twitched, a ghost of a smile spreading across her face. "Most of it was illusion, Jonas."
"Then how did four men just die? They did die, didn't they, they weren't an illusion?"
"They're dead," Sarah said.
"So where are their bodies? I'm not going to find them in the ocean, am I? And even if I took the house apart, I'm not going to find DNA in the wood. You don't find this just a little bit creepy?"
"I find men who want to kill my sister creepy," Joley said firmly. "I had no idea you were such a baby, Jonas. I'll bet you don't go to scary movies."
"I don't. There's nothing wrong with that."
Hannah wrapped her arms around him. "No, there's nothing at all wrong with it. I don't like scary movies either."
He was grateful for her support when the rest of her sisters were looking at him with wicked intent. He brought Hannah's fingers to his mouth. "I'm heading outside, baby, so get the house to calm down. I don't want to get thrown into the ocean."
Joley smirked at him. "It wouldn't hurt for you to go swimming."
"Joley," Hannah warned, "stop teasing him. You're perfectly safe outside."
Sarah glanced at Hannah, eyes somber, shadows lurking. "But Hannah isn't, is she? It isn't over, is it, Jonas? They really are after her."
"They. Who the hell are they?" Jonas asked. "That's the burning question, and all of you are going to have to consider this is being done by someone with power. We mentioned it, but all of you said the same thing. No surges, nothing to follow, but what would make a perfectly normal couple attempt murder if not under some kind of compulsion?"
"It isn't Ilya Prakenskii," Hannah said. "And he's the only one we know with that kind of power. I didn't feel it. I know I didn't. I would have automatically made a move to counter it."
"Then if not compulsion, you tell me. What would make someone do this?"
"I don't think the men attacking tonight were under compulsion," Kate said. "They might have been following orders, but there were no countermeasures taken against illusion and that would be the first thing we would have done if we were manipulating someone and they ran into trouble. If someone is directing them, and he knows how to manipulate energy, he would have aided them."
The women all nodded. Jonas sighed and climbed to his feet, careful of the candles. "I'm going to take a look around outside."
"While we're here," Libby said, "and there's so much power to draw on, I'd like to do another healing session for Hannah."
Hannah shook her head. "You're already exhausted, Libby, all of you are."
"Look around you, honey," Libby suggested, "you can feel the energy. I'm feeling invigorated, not exhausted."
Jonas moved out of the circle, shaking his head. "Invigorated" wasn't the word he'd use. Creeped out. Skin crawling.
He didn't even know what he was dealing with anymore--and at this point he didn't want to know.
He stepped outside into the cool night air warily, hand on the butt of his gun, not that it would do any good if the house suddenly came alive and heaved him into the ocean. He'd always, always, thought of it as home. He had climbed the tree a dozen times, the one that had thrown one of the intruders into the ocean. He'd swung from the branches and leapt to the balcony. When his mother was in so much pain he couldn't shut out the moans and cries, when things were particularly bad, he'd crawled through that same kitchen window and had taken refuge inside, listening to the Drakes' laughter and silently praying he would be part of it someday.
He had wished for a family and now he had one--strange as they were. He had to find a way to keep them all safe. Originally, when he saw Hannah packing a bag, he'd thought it was a good thing, that he'd move her away from the others and narrow down the risk of someone else accidentally getting hurt, but after seeing what the house could do, he changed his mind. As long as she was inside, no one was going to get to her.
The fog was back, thick and gray and wet, surrounding the house and grounds and spreading across the highway, muffling sound and obscuring sight. Still, Jonas knew he wasn't alone. He whistled softly, a short, one-two note, that cut through the night. He wasn't in the least surprised when an answering whistle came back to him. He made his way down the slope until he saw Jackson.
"Hell of a show," Jackson greeted him.
"You saw that? I thought maybe I was hallucinating." Jonas wiped his brow again and shook his head. "Makes me wonder what I'm getting myself into."
Jackson's eyebrow went up slightly. "You got yourself into it a long
time ago."
"True. Nasty thing, watching a house swallow a man and spit him back out."
"I've got to agree with you there." Jackson peered through the wisps of fog at the walls, where foot-and handprints were burned into the wood. "Do you suppose we can take that in as evidence? We could cut out the sections."
Jonas snorted. "You can try taking a saw to that house, but personally, I'm not about to get anywhere near it with anything resembling a weapon."
"You have any enemies in the crime lab?"
Jonas grinned at him. "Jackson, you're such a mean son of a bitch."
"Yeah, well. I try." He glanced at Jonas. "Hannah all right?"
"She will be. She's scared and worried about her sisters. Jackson, you were there, in the hospital when the wife made her try at Hannah. Did you feel anything? Could you tell if she was under some kind of compulsion?"
"You're asking me if Prakenskii could have been directing the attack."
"I like him. I don't know why. He's a killer. I can see it in his eyes, but I like him and that doesn't make sense. I have problems when things don't make sense."
Jackson sent him another look, one Jonas preferred not to interpret.
Light was beginning to streak across the sky, turning the dark of night to a softer charcoal gray. Mist continued to creep in, long bony fingers of fog, stretching out over the ocean and land, moving inland. The men approached the side of the house cautiously, studying the surrounding ground before they took each step. There wasn't a single yawning crack anywhere near the house itself. The balconies appeared intact and completely stable. There was no blood spatter, in fact the entire area looked pristine, with the exception of the blackened hand and boot prints burned into the side of the house.
"Do you have a camera?" Jackson asked. "We could get some pictures and maybe take a print or two if we're lucky."
Jonas shook his head. "We'd probably get a bunch of ghosts and that would just freak me out."
Jackson sent him a faint grin. "You're safe. They're fading already."
The blackened marks grew fainter, beginning to diminish as the sky lightened, gradually losing color until finally they simply disappeared altogether.