The Mystery Woman (Ladies of Lantern Str - By Amanda Quick
One
The heel of one of her high-button boots skidded across the stream of blood that seeped out from under the door. Beatrice Lockwood nearly lost her balance. She caught her breath and managed to grab the doorknob in time to steady herself.
She did not need her psychical senses to know that what she would find on the other side of the door would haunt her forever. Nevertheless, the gathering storm of horror ignited her other vision. She looked down and saw the violent energy in the footprints on the floor. There were more darkly iridescent prints on the glass doorknob. The paranormal currents seethed with an unwholesome light that iced her blood.
She wanted to run, screaming, into the night, but she could not turn her back on the man who had befriended her and provided her with a lucrative and respectable career.
Shivering with dread, she opened the door of Dr. Roland Fleming’s office. The gas lamp inside had been turned down quite low but there was enough light to reveal the man who lay bleeding on the floor.
Roland had always prided himself on cutting a fashionable figure with his hand-tailored suits and elegantly knotted neckwear. His curly gray hair was trimmed in the latest style, the sideburns and mustache artfully designed. He had given himself the title of doctor but as he had explained to Beatrice, he was, in reality, a showman. His charismatic personality and imposing presence ensured that his lectures on the paranormal were always well attended.
But tonight his finely pleated white linen shirt and dark blue wool coat were drenched in blood. His gold-framed eyeglasses had fallen to the floor at his side. Beatrice rushed to him and opened his shirt with trembling hands, searching for the source of the blood.
It did not take long to find the deep wound in his chest. Blood gushed from it. The color told her it was a mortal injury. Nevertheless, she pressed her palms firmly over the torn flesh.
“Roland,” she whispered. “Dear God, what happened here?”
Roland moaned and opened gray eyes that were dull and unfocused with shock. But when he recognized her, something that might have been panic briefly overrode the tide of death that was sweeping down upon him. He clamped one bloody hand around her wrist.
“Beatrice.” His voice was hoarse with the effort it took for him to speak. There was a terrible rattle in his chest. “He came for you. I told him that you were not here. He didn’t believe me.”
“Who came for me?”
“I don’t know his name. Some madman who has fixated on you for some reason. He is still in the building, searching for something that will lead him to you. For God’s sake, run.”
“I cannot leave you,” she whispered.
“You must. It is too late for me. He wants you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, but whatever the reason, there is no doubt but that it will be terrible. Do not let me die with that on my conscience. I have enough to repent. Go. Now. I beg you.”
There was nothing she could do for him and they both knew it. Still, she hesitated.
“You know that I can take care of myself,” she said. She used one hand to hoist her skirts high enough to allow her to reach the stocking gun she wore in the holster strapped to her thigh. “You were the one who taught me how to use this, after all.”
“Bah, I fear it will be of little use against the man who did this to me. He moves with great speed and he is utterly ruthless. Run.”
She knew that he was right about her little stocking gun. When he had instructed her in its use, he had emphasized that such small weapons were not accurate over distance. They were designed for close quarters. Across the width of a card table or in the confines of a carriage they could be deadly. But beyond that, they were little more than toys.
“Roland—”
He tightened his grip on her wrist. “You have been like a daughter to me, Beatrice. My dying wish is to try to save your life. Honor me by fulfilling it. Leave this place now. Use the bolt-hole. Take your pack and your lantern. When you are away from here you must never return. He will search for you. To survive after this night, you must remember everything I taught you about going on the stage. Rule Number One is the most important.”
“Become someone else. Yes, I understand.”
“Do not forget it,” Roland gasped. “It is your only hope. Leave now, for my sake. Lose yourself and, whatever you do, stay lost. This monster will not give up easily.”
“I will miss you, Roland. I love you.”
“You brought light into my lonely, misspent life, my dear. I love you, too. Now, go.”
Roland coughed again. This time blood filled his mouth. Beatrice became aware of the utter stillness of his chest. Fleming’s heart was no longer beating. The dreadful red flood from the wound slowed to a trickle.
And in the terrible silence she heard footsteps on the stairs at the end of the hall.
Pistol in hand, she rose and hurried to the wardrobe on the far side of the room.
In all the time she had worked for him, regardless of where they set up the Academy, Roland had always had a bolt-hole. He had explained that there were two reasons for taking precautions. The first was that when business was brisk, they took in a fair amount of money that might attract villains intent on robbing them.
But the other, more important reason, he claimed, was that, by the very nature of their careers, they sometimes learned secrets that put them in personal danger. People tended to confide in paranormal practitioners, especially in the lucrative private counseling sessions where clients sought advice. Secrets were always dangerous.
She braced herself for the squeak of metal when she opened the wardrobe door and breathed a tiny sigh of relief when there was no sound. Roland had kept the hinges oiled.
She hiked up her bloodstained skirts and stepped into the wardrobe. Once inside, she pulled the door shut and groped in the darkness for the lever that operated the concealed panel.
The inner door slid aside with only the faintest of muffled sounds. Damp, dank night air wafted from the ancient stone passageway. There was just enough light slanting through the crack in the outer doors to reveal the small, shielded lantern, the package of lights and the two canvas packs on the floor. She returned the pistol to her stocking holster and scooped up the lantern and the lights.
She slung her pack over her shoulder and glanced at the dark mound of Roland’s pack. It was too heavy to carry in addition to her own burden, but there was money stashed inside. She would need it to survive until she found a way to reinvent herself.
Hurriedly she unfastened the second pack and rummaged around. In the shadows she had to go by feel. Her fingers brushed against some spare clothing and the hard shape of a notebook before she found an envelope. Assuming the emergency money was inside, she opened the envelope. But it proved to be filled with photographs. She stuffed the pictures back into the pack and tried again. This time she came up with a stack of letters bound together with string.
Frantic now, she reached back into the pack. She found a soft leather bag filled with money. She seized it and thrust it into her own pack.
She was about to light the lantern and move into the deep darkness of the tunnel when she heard the killer return to Roland’s office. Unable to resist, she took a quick peek through the crack in the wardrobe doors.
She could see very little of the man who stood over Fleming’s body, just a slice of heavy leather boots and the sweeping edge of a long black coat.
“You lied to me.” The voice was freighted with a thick Russian accent. “But you will not defeat me by dying on me, you miserable old fool. I found the wigs. I found the costumes she wears onstage. I will find her. There will be something here that will tell me where she is. The Bone Man never fails.”
The figure in the black coat crossed the room and moved out of Beatrice’s line of sight. She heard drawers being yanked open and knew that it was only a matter of seconds before the killer tried the wardrobe door.
“Ah, yes, now I see,” the intruder hissed. “You are here, aren’t you, little whore? You stepped in his blood, you stupid woman. I see your footprints. Come out of that wardrobe now and I will not hurt you. Defy me and you will pay.”
Her footprints. Of course. She had not been thinking.
She could scarcely breathe. She was shaking so terribly that it was all she could do to close and lock the heavy wooden panel that formed the back of the wardrobe. When Roland had installed it he had assured her that both the lock and the panel were quite stout. Sooner or later the Bone Man would get through the inner door but with luck she would have the time she needed to escape.
A fist pounded on the rear panel of the wardrobe.
“You cannot hide from me. I never fail.”
She lit the lantern. The glary light illuminated the stone passage in hellish shadows.
She hitched the pack higher on her shoulder and fled into the darkness.
She was certain of one thing—she would never forget the terrible energy that seethed in the footprints of the Bone Man.