Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set (23 page)

Sunlight had vanished long ago, and Zach let the flame be
his guide. Outside its small circle the darkness was so complete it seemed he
might plunge into a vacuum by taking another step. The walls curved again,
getting narrower and lower. Zach hunkered farther down, creeping slowly, wary
of losing his footing on the patches of slimy moss that proved life could exist
without light.

Water continued to fall, streaking down his face, and he
wiped away a drop that caught on his eyebrow. As he rounded the curve, he heard
flapping. A cluster of bats, disturbed by the flame, flew inside the ring of
illumination guiding him, then swarmed around his head like gnats.

Zach recoiled, flailing his hands above his head to fight
off the onslaught, testing his fragile purchase on the slick cave floor. In
seconds, they were gone, repelled by the light, and he stopped for a minute to
get a handle on his nerves. Vodka would help.

He was just slipping the flask back into his pocket when he
felt it on his skin. Legs, crawling legs, straight out of his nightmares. He
turned, his eyes wide with horror, and on the arm supporting the candle, he saw
the spider. Big, nearly two inches in diameter, and, by God, he swore he heard
it hiss.

"Ugh!" He jerked so violently the candle flew from
his hand to land near a puddle on the floor. Reflexively, he divided his
attention between cuffing the spider and recovering the candle. The spider flew
from his arm at the precise instant the candle rolled into the puddle, sizzled,
then went out.

Black, pure undiluted black, surrounded Zach, heavy with the
echoes of his rasping breath. He felt legs crawling all over his body, knew
they were imaginary, but that didn't keep him from frantically brushing them
away. He lost track of time. Eons, it seemed, passed before he got hold of
himself enough to yank the backup candle from his pants pocket and reach for
his cigarette lighter.

Tilting the candle, he flicked the lighter on, preparing to
ignite it.

There they were again, dozens of them. Big, spiny
orb-weavers dangling from swinging strands of web. He instinctively recoiled
and the lighter slipped from his fingers. With jumps and starts and gasps that
disgusted him, he let go of the second candle. It landed with an explosive thud
as he grabbed for the falling lighter.

He missed, and the lighter joined the candle with a
reverberating thud of its own. Dropping to his knees and stifling his shudders
of revulsion with little success, Zach searched the floor of the cave. Above
him were the spiders, looking for dinner. Below him were piles of bones and rotting
carcasses that he might join sooner than he thought. And he could see neither.

Not poisonous, he told himself. Orb-weavers were not
poisonous. Just spiders. Just the stuff of nightmares, the stuff that had him
waking in a sweat nearly every morning. Just spiders, just spiders.

The lighter had to be here somewhere. He'd heard it strike.
Or had it hit the wall, to bounce off and land almost anywhere?

He hit an object about the right shape, closed his hand
around it, then let go in repulsion. A fucking bone. He had the shakes bad.
Real bad. And he struggled to overcome them.

But how the hell would he find these things in total
darkness? He wouldn't, he couldn't. He might as well be hunting for a lost
toddler at a Katie Perry concert. At least there was help to be found at
concerts. But none here.

His hand connected with something slimy, and he jerked it
back.

No help. None at all.

Yes, there was.

"Frank!" he shouted. "Frank!"
Frank-ank-ank-ank-ank
,
echoed the walls.

"Frank!"

Another echo, but he kept on calling until he felt a tickle
on his neck. Then another tickle. And another. He couldn't move, not an arm,
not a hand, not a finger. And he wouldn't scream, wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't
 
. . .

Wouldn't.

The echoes of his wordless cry came back to him, again and
again, and he joined it, renewed it, and he knew he was slipping into panic,
and it would kill him more certainly, more surely, than the spiders crawling on
his neck, across his shirt, creeping down his arms. He hated cowardice almost
more than spiders, hated it, never gave into it, never, ever. . . .

This was Ankouer's power after all, to turn a man's mind
into a mush of terror, to take away his courage and thus his soul.

Suddenly a refrain ran through Zach's mind. A stanza from
the prayer Liz had read from the journal. Immediately, he felt his panic let
go. Only slightly, way too slightly, but his thoughts weren't quite so jumbled.
Not quite.

He forced his lips to move. " 'Power above,' " he
mouthed. " 'Power divine, I call to thee. Shine your light upon my soul. .
. " His mind went momentarily blank, something that never happened to him.
He'd trained himself to remember the smallest detail, the smallest .. .

"'W-Wash.' " Yes, that was it. "'Wash over me
a love so pure.' "

Pure-ure-ure
, echoed the walls.

" 'A love so pure my heart is cleansed of fear.' "

At that instant, the snuffed candle reignited in a glorious
blaze. More sounds left Zach's mouth, sounds of relief and joy. Volition
returned to his body. He snatched
 
up the
candle, then prepared to swat away the spider menace.

They were gone, every one of them. Even the web strands had
vanished. He didn't know how this could be, but damned if he'd question it.
He'd just collect his lighter and the other candle, then turn back without
Frank. The man knew a heap more about caves than he did.

He found the lighter, gleaming brightly red amid a pile of
bleached bones. Pocketing it, he then plucked up the other candle, which lay in
the middle of the path. After stuffing the items in his pockets, he took a step
for the entrance.

He hesitated.

Liz. Liz was waiting out there, worried sick about her
father.

Backward or forward?

Liz's face arose in his mind's eye.

Backward or forward?

Grateful, trusting, believing he'd succeed.

"Oh, hell," he muttered.

Hell-ell-ell-ell
, echoed the walls. Damn straight, he
thought, then marched to meet the sound.

* * *

Liz shifted her weight on the uneven rock she'd sat down on,
and plucked her cotton top away from her skin. How could it be so hot with haze
covering the sun? Just another puzzle surrounding Quadray Island, or whatever
this place was. She glanced down at her watch for the hundredth time. It still
said three-twenty-six, the hour it stopped after being flooded with too much
water.

How long had it been? Half an hour? An hour? Two? Forever is
what it seemed, and she could have sworn Zach had called for help.

Maybe.

Then maybe it had only been the echo of her own voice
calling him. She got up and walked to the entrance. The sickly sunlight crept
into the cavern, illuminating a pebble-covered floor, then getting lost in a
dusky hole directly in front of her. A finger of alarm traced Liz's spine as
she realized Zach had entered that narrow space.

An inviting place for those that craved the dark—bats, rats,
spiders, snakes. . . . The finger suddenly grated on her nerves like a nail
across a blackboard.

Unless he had found her father, he was all alone in there.

Returning to the rock, she climbed up to spy down on the
clearing, but couldn't spot Maddie. Was she resting out of sight against the
butte wall or simply not there? She'd suspected the woman's motives from the
beginning, and had still let Zach go alone. What if her father wasn't even
inside? Caves were often a maze of tunnels. What if Zach got lost?

Liz blew out a breath of air that made her curls bounce on
her forehead. Brushing them back, she leaped off the boulder. Enough. Taking a
candle and match from a pocket, she set it afire, then headed for the entrance
to the cave. She was going in after him. He'd been gone too long. Way too long.

* * *

Zach moved slowly, cautiously, through the tunnel. The
ceiling had risen, providing relief for his cramped, stooped shoulders, but he
wanted to make certain he stepped on nothing slick . . . or rotting. One slip
could cost him the candle again. It took awhile before he noticed that the
darkness ahead wasn't so complete. Gray now, much like when he'd first entered.
Moving forward into ever-paler shades of gray, he realized there was another
source of light. Fortified, he picked up his step, curiosity overcoming caution
and nearly wiping away his earlier horror.

He heard an echo.
Oor-oar—oor-oar
.

From a voice? Frank's voice?

He snuffed the candle, stashed it with the other, and broke
into a lope. It was a voice. He was sure it was.

With the way now well lit, he traveled quickly, and soon
entered a cave about the size of the one at the entrance. It opened to his
right onto an enormous cavern.

Zach stopped a moment, listening.

"Give me the fire stone, phantom!" he heard Frank
shout.

No one answered. Wanting to see what would happen next, he
slid to the edge of the opening and waited quietly.

"No more!" Frank shouted further. "No more
ones will die for you!" His voice softened almost to a
plea—"Catherine. My own Ellie. And the other two."—then regained
force. "You cannot have my Izzy, no!"

Zach stepped into the cavern, blinking from the bright
light, and hazily saw Frank looking over a pool of water that filled most of
the cavern.

"She will take the stone far away and trouble you with
it no more." The echoes of Frank's shouts blocked out all other sound, and
so far the man was clearly unaware of Zach's presence.

He took that opportunity to drink in the details around him.

Frank's line of sight was directed toward a high, shallow
ledge that curved down and widened until it joined the level in front of the
pool. Sunlight bathed the cavern through a round hole directly above and clearly
illuminated the opal that rested on the narrowest part of the ledge. At least
Zach thought it was the opal. Almost fist-sized—large for such a gem—and from
his vantage point it looked much like an uncut geode except for the spidery
striations and color splotches that marked it as the fire stone.

So it was here, and Frank had come for it. Or brought it.
But why? And who was responding to his words? The cavern's walls were smooth,
not a nook or cranny anywhere. Except for the opal, the ledge was empty.

There was only one way to get his questions answered. And
not for the first time, he wished he'd brought his weapon when he'd made that
trip to the Deverauxs in Richard's rented boat.

"Who are you talking to?" he asked, walking
forward. Frank swung away from the pool and met Zach's gaze with tortured eyes.

"Zacharie . . . Why are you here? Leave, leave this
unholy place."

"I need answers, partner."

"How long you been standing there?"

"Long enough. Answer me. Who are you talking to and
where is he?"

Frank darted his eyes wildly around the cavern. "
Le
fantome noir
," he said, the name coming out as a whisper. "Not
always can you see him. He some of the time have to be sensed. Now I sense him.
Do you not?"

Zach shook his head, partly in answer to the question, and
partly from his own dismay. Frank obviously believed he was speaking with
Ankouer, but just as obviously, no one else was in the cave. Delusional.
Homicidally so? Zach shook his head again. He'd never guessed that by coming to
Port Chatre he'd learn that Liz's father had killed his brother. Not Frank
Deveraux, not the same man who'd once strung his fishing line and pulled
stickers out of his feet. Yet the nonsense coming from the man's own mouth
couldn't be ignored. Sadly, Doc Allain appeared to be on to something.

"You know what happened to my brother, don't you?"
Zach asked.

Frank's broad shoulders slumped, the hands with strength
enough to break a grown man's neck fell to his sides. He was a mess—a mirror
image of himself, Zach supposed. His torn shirt hung from his shoulder.
Spiderwebs and scraps of leaves clung to his hair and clothing. And his deeply
shadowed, wild eyes added fuel to Zach's suspicions of insanity.

"
Oui
, I do. And the other
homme
, the one
who run."

"The prisoner?"

Frank nodded uncertainly. "I send him to Quadray
Island."

"What about Jed?"

"He came looking for the one that escape." Frank
looked away, staring into the clear pool. "I tell him where to look, is
all."

"And Ellie."

"
Le fantome
come for her. Nothing I could do.
Ankouer take their souls, all of them, and I can do nothing."

Sad, and the sadness of it weighed Zach down. A good man
finally cracking and taking the lives of other good people. It was the only
rational explanation.

"Did you kill them, partner?"

Frank shook his head fiercely. "
Non! Non!
Ankouer, he suck away their life.
Le fantome noir
, not me."

Zach stepped forward, one hand outstretched. "We're
going out now." He kept his voice low and soothing, and put his hand on
Frank's slack arm. "I'm sorry about this, sir, but I have to take you back
for questioning about the murders of Jedediah Allen Fortier, Phillip John Surette,
and possibly Eleanor Jean Deveraux. Even though I'm not a cop, it's only fair I
tell you that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of
law."

Surprisingly, Frank didn't protest, in fact he didn't say a
word, so Zach continued reading his rights. Nice, neat, legal, and he didn't
know if his heart could withstand the pain.