slow his breathing, but he couldn't. His pounding heart was going to give him away. The heavy wooden feet shuffled in his direction.
If he's blind, he's deaf, too. Unless part of him is still in the bust. Then maybe he can SMELL you.
Mason shuddered at the image of a rat leaning back on its haunches, whiskers quivering and nose wrinkling as it sniffed the air in search of sustenance. Korban was a rat, a rodent king, coming to get him. The thick tail slid across the cold concrete floor. Mason pressed against his eyelids until the pain drove the image away in a burst of bright green.
'Come here, sculptor,' Korban said, and the voice was clearer now, more strident. Had Korban moved from the statue back into the bust?
The clumsy wooden feet shuffled closer, then moved away.
Where are the stairs?
'Don't betray me,' Korban said. The voice filled the room, but the echoes were swallowed by the dead air.
The statue must have found the bust and lifted it off the floor. Which one did Korban inhabit? Or was he in both at the same time? If he could fill an entire house, then surely bouncing around between a couple of pieces of dead wood was no trick at all.
Two heavy steps forward. The rasping was either Korban's labored, unnatural breathing or warm air drifting through the ductwork overhead.
'We need each other,' Korban whispered.
Fame, fortune, and the girl. And all Mason had to do was what he already lived and longed to do, what was in his blood, what he was born for and would risk death for.
To create.
To dream into life.
He was made to make.
He could make Korban, and Korban could make him. What was it Anna had said? It was not what you believed, it was how much. He believed in his art.
Mason was tempted to reach out and touch it, caress the sleek muscle and wooden skin.
This would be his lasting work. It would be simple, really. Just transpose the features he had carved on the bust onto the statue. Bring Korban to full and final life.
He heard a clicking, a soft sound that might have been a chuckle. Or a rat's sigh.,
'Finish me,' Korban whispered.
Surrender would be so easy. Surrender to the dream. Why bothering running from the deepest desires of his heart, the calling of the fire in his soul?
Anna's voice came from the darkness, from the corner where the painting stood. 'He'll eat your dreams, Mason.'
Mason scrambled for the stairs, stumbled upward, the basement alive with the angry creak of wood and the slither of things unseen, the cold tunnel of darkness licking at his heels and threatening to swallow him forever.
CHAPTER 25
Sylva stood before the front door. She hadn't been in the house for many years. Not since the night of Rachel's death. A shiver swept over her, brought on by more than just the October chill. This was like entering a church, holy ground, a place where souls walked free.
She pressed the charm that was secreted inside her blouse, held it against the warmth of her heart. She was scared, but she had faith. The moon was rising, throwing cold light over the mountain as if a new sort of day was breaking. Maybe it was. A day of endless night, when things got reborn, when dark promises were kept and broken. When spells carried the weight of prayers.
Sylva pushed open the door without knocking. Ephram knew she was here, all right. No need to sneak around. And the others, they moved about in the walls, stirred in the basement, shifted among the cracks in the hearthstones.
Ephram's portrait nearly took the last of her breath away. She'd seen that face in a thousand dreams, half of them nightmares, the other half the kind that made you ashamed when you woke up.
'Look at me,' she whispered.
Ephram stared at her with dark, painted eyes.
'I'm old,' she said. 'I spelled myself alive all these years. Sticking around, waiting for this blue moon of yours. Well, I'm here now, and I ain't sure what you plan to do about it.'
The portrait fell from the wall, the heavy frame splintering, the canvas folding. When a picture fell, it was a sure sign that the subject was meant to die. But when a picture of a dead person fell…
The flames rushed out of the chimney, fingers of fire reaching toward Sylva, reminding her of that night on Korban's bedroom floor, the night he planted the seed of Rachel deep inside her. A night of cold burning.
And this was another night of forbidden heat, a night of frost and fire. She headed for the stairs, leaving Ephram's face lying on the wooden floor by the warmth of the house's heart. They were waiting up there on the widow's walk, under the rising moon. Anna and Miss Mamie and Lilith. Ephram would join them soon enough, and Sylva wouldn't miss this for the world. For more than the world, or any world beyond this one.
She squeezed the charm until her fingers ached, her heart pumping faith as she climbed the stairs.
Mason fell into the lamplight of the hallway as if it were a healing water. He slammed the basement door shut behind him, slid the metal bolt into its seat. Why was there a lock on the outside? What had been kept in the basement that required locks?
Now that he was out of the suffocating basement, his head cleared a little. And the thoughts that came were almost as frightening as the creative trance that had been consuming him from the inside out. He leaned against the door, heart pounding.
Smooth move, Mase. In case you forgot, this guy's been dead for eighty years and you think a DOOR'S going to stop him?
But Korban had been clumsy and stiff when shifting into the statue. That's why the ghost or spirit or whatever moved into man-made objects. Because Korban needed that energy, that made-ness, before he could claim something as a vessel.
Then maybe he'll slip into the DOOR, sawdust-for-brains. It's not like he has to follow the rules or anything.
Maybe so. Mason slammed his fist against the door in frustration. The door thundered in response as wooden hands chopped from the other side. Mason looked down the hall.
'Help,' he shouted. Surely someone would hear the hammering on the door and come see what was wrong. There was movement down the hall. The pantry door swung open.
'Thank God,' Mason said, stepping away from the basement door. One of its wooden panels splintered and cracked from the pounding. 'There's a-um-'
Mason was still searching for words when he realized they would be unnecessary. The cook came out of the kitchen, a cleaver in her chubby hand. He could see the utensil's raised wooden handle. All the way up to its gleaming tip. He was looking through the woman's hand.
She was made of the same milky substance as Ransom and George.
Which meant Mason looked to his right. The hall ended in a small closet door. He'd have to go past-or through-the cook to get to either the front or rear doors of the house. And he had a feeling that he needed to get out fast, because the walls were buzzing with that same strange static he'd felt in the basement.
The basement door splintered, gave way, and the golden red oak of Korban's hands stabbed through. The cook, suddenly solid, blocked the hall with her ethereal girth. Her lip was curled as if she'd just taken a whiff of rancid buttermilk. The cleaver danced in the air before her, its metal blade reflecting the flames from the lamps. Mason backed away from her, though there was nowhere to run. Korban reached through the gash in the door, clubbing Mason with one crude stub of fist. A spark-filled darkness flooded his skull, and he fell to the floor. When
