“Thank you, Dean, I’m touched by your concern. You forgot to mention that I smell like something from the sewage treatment plant.” She paused, took a deep breath, and ducked under the counter, swaying a little when she straightened on the other side.
Dean took a step toward her. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look exhausted.”
“I’m a bit tired, yes. I’ve been working.”
“On the pit?”
“By the pit.”
“Is that safe?”
“It is now.”
“I don’t understand.” He frowned. “Did you figure out how to seal it?”
“Wouldn’t that be good news?” Austin asked before Claire could respond.
“Well, sure…”
“Then shouldn’t you sound happier about it?”
“Stop being annoying just because you can,” Claire suggested. Turning back to Dean, she shook her head. “No, I haven’t figured out how to seal the pit, but I have solved a smaller problem. What did you mean when you said, good timing?”
It took him a moment to follow the path of the conversation. “The mail’s finally here. You got a postcard.”
Claire took the cardboard rectangle between thumb and forefinger, glanced at the photograph of a tropical paradise, then flipped the card over.
“Who’s it from?” Dean asked, leaning forward.
“My sister, Diana. Apparently, she’s in the Philippines.”
Austin’s ears went back. “Didn’t they just have a huge volcanic eruption in the Philippines?”
“We don’t know that was her fault.” A tooth mark on the edge of the postcard had the distinct, punched hole appearance of Baby’s games with the mailman. “Speaking of natural disasters, we haven’t heard from Mrs. Abrams for a while.”
“Maybe the blinds discouraged her?” Dean offered.
“Maybe we should put the wagon train in a circle,” Austin muttered. “You should start to worry when the drums stop.”
After a long hot shower, Claire spent the rest of the day sprawled in an armchair, watching a National Geographic video about killer whales. It was one of only eleven tapes she’d salvaged from Augustus Smythe’s extensive collection. The pornography hadn’t been the worst of it; his video library had also included every episode of “Gunsmoke” plus a nearly complete collection of “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
Hell was not only murky, it filled out subscription forms.
“You coming, Austin?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Tail lashing from side to side he backed up a step just in case Claire decided to force the issue. “You actually want me to get into that cross between a cage and a coffin, allow myself to be lifted three stories off the ground by an antique mechanism reinstalled by a cook under the direction of a dead sailor? I think not.”
“It’s perfectly safe.”
“That’s what you said about that cruise.”
“Cruise?” Jacques asked by her ear.
“Bermuda Triangle. Long story,” Claire told him.
“I wouldn’t get into that thing,” Austin continued, ears flat, “if I still had all nine lives. Not even if I’d rescued Princess Toadstool and picked up another life. If anything goes wrong, somebody has to be around to say I told you so.”
“Suit yourself.” Unfortunately for any second thoughts she might have been having, Claire couldn’t back out now, not with the cat so vehemently opposed. He was quite smug enough without her giving him more ammunition. She closed the door, dropped the inner gate, and turned to the more corporeal of her two companions. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“It’s simple.” Dean flashed her a confident grin. “All you do is turn this level from the off position to either the right or the left. Right takes us up, and left takes us down.”
Claire sighed. “That’s probably why they labeled it that way. I was asking on a more esoteric level, but never mind. Let’s get this ride over with, shall we?”
“Anything you say, Boss.” Feet braced, Dean wrapped both hands around the gleaming brass lever and swung it to the right.
Up in the attic, ancient machinery gave a startled jerk and wheezed into life, sending wave after wave of vibration through the stored furniture. The small, multicolored creature removing the last of the most recent marshmallows from the imp traps whirled around and fell to what served it for knees. In all of its short existence, it had never heard such a sound. Extrapolating from limited experience, it created a wild and metaphysical explanation that changed its life forever.
But that’s another story.
Claire pressed one hand flat against the wall as the elevator lurched upward. “It works.”
“I never doubted it.” Looking like the captain at the wheel of a very small ship, Dean kept his eyes locked on the edge of the floor joists moving down on the other side of the iron gate. When the top edge of the first floor was almost even with the floor of the elevator, he lifted the switch back up into the off position. In the few seconds it took for the machinery to stop, the floors came level.
“Good eye, Anglais,” Jacques muttered. “Such a pity you were born too late to make this a career.”
“Yeah?” Stepping left, Dean hooked up the gate and reached for the latch on the outer door. “Well, it’s a pity you died too early for me to…”
“To what, Angla…”
Careful not to step over the threshold, Claire leaned out of the elevator and peered up and down the beach, eyes squinted against the ruddy light of the setting sun. “This doesn’t look like the lobby.” The touch of the breeze on her cheek, the sound of the waves curling and slapping into pieces against the fine, white sand, the smell of the rotting fish they appeared to have cut in half worked together to convince her it wasn’t illusion either. “I’m beginning to see why Augustus Smythe closed this thing up.”
“Because he does not like to take the vacation? Perhaps because he did not have a beautiful woman to walk with by the sea.” Wafting past her, Jacques turned and held out his hand.
Claire stared at him, horrified. “What are you doing out there? In fact, how can you
