Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(13)

I’d expected to crash hard, to sleep off the wearying hours of flight and disappointment. My brain apparently had a different agenda, however, and I only managed a few fitful hours of sleep. As I flipped and flopped in the ridiculously lavish bed, my thoughts drifted to the boy from the river. Bran Cameron. I’d kept my promise. Hadn’t told a soul about his trespassing. He wasn’t hurting anyone, after all.

And he wants to see you again. I twisted over and buried my face in the down pillow. Let’s just hope he forgets the way you stared like a moron when you saw his eyes.

What the hell was that about, anyway?

The antique bedframe creaked as I flopped back over. Staring up at the deep blue canopy, I wondered how long it had been since someone inspected the aging wood that supported all those yards of heavy velvet.

I scrambled out of the high bed as if it were on fire and wrenched on my ratty flannel bathrobe. I needed a good old, dry history book. That’s just the ticket to take my mind off things.

As I crept downstairs in the quiet of predawn, a step groaned beneath my weight. When no one emerged to order me back to my room, I went on, keeping to the edge of the steps. Generations of grumpy-looking Carlyles and MacPhersons glared at me from their gilded frames as I descended.

“Problem?” I challenged a snooty matron with a poofy bun and squinty eyes. When she didn’t answer, I flicked her painted nose. “That’s what I thought.”

Only two lamps now illuminated the once-cheery library. Shutting the doors behind me, I reached for the nearest bookshelf, then froze.

Is that . . . music?

I skirted back and forth across the room, pausing occasionally to listen. Still barely audible, the music seemed to grow a bit louder as I weaved my way toward the rear wall. Next to a faded tapestry, I leaned in and placed my palm against a bare spot on the wall. Through the heavy wood paneling, I felt the definite thump of bass notes.

A puff of air that smelled like dirt and wet stone whiffed across my bare legs, ruffling the hanging’s embroidered sheep in their woven pasture.

I grinned, and peeled the weighty fabric aside, revealing the hidden door behind it. It stood slightly ajar, held open by a bronze spaniel someone had placed in the crack as a doorstop. An enormous padlock splayed open and dangled from its hasp.

Please. I prayed as I grasped the crystal doorknob. Please don’t let this be the room where they hide the deformed cannibal cousin. ’Cause it’s just too damn early for that.

I jerked the door open to find . . . brooms. Nothing inside the deep closet but exactly what you’d expect. Brooms and mops and, oh—how thrilling—a shelf of dusting supplies. I let my head roll back to stare at the ceiling. Nothing but a stupid, ordinary broom closet.

Disgusted, I started to ease the door shut, then hesitated, certain my senses were playing tricks. Nope. The music was definitely louder here. And, at the very back corner, a thin strip of yellow marred the perfect darkness.

Using my new buddy “Brassy the Wonderdog,” I propped the door open, then reached in and tentatively poked at a slick, wooden broom handle. It didn’t move. Didn’t budge, in fact. I began to tug on one after the other, until I realized they were—each and every one—fastened to the back wall. Bolted, as if they were only a display.

Then I saw it. The stray cotton strand of an upside-down mop that was pinned, snagged in the seam of light. When I yanked hard on the knotted thread, the entire thing—brooms and all—opened noiselessly toward me. Music poured over me, washing up a set of wooden steps that led downward into the shadows.

I grinned. “Gotcha.”

One seemingly endless flight down, I emerged into what appeared to be the manor’s cellar. The space was enormous. A low, barrel-vaulted ceiling was supported by a row of stone pillars that curved away into a shadowy darkness.

I shivered in the chill. My slippered feet whispered on the paving stones as I wove through the detritus left behind by two centuries of Carlyles and MacPhersons. Modern light fixtures mounted at intervals to the rough brick wall cast shadows on the swept-clean path. Muscles tense, I breathed in musty air and the rich, mineral smell of earth.

All right, I’m under the ground. Under. The. Ground. Those pillars probably hold the weight of the entire house on their shoulders. What if they collapse? What if it—

I shut that thought down before it could fully form. Forcing myself not to turn and flee back up the stairs, I moved along the wall, following the music. At a modern doorway, an odd, alien light filtered out from beneath, glowing green on the stones. It was quickly muted when I opened the unlocked door and a series of fluorescent bulbs buzzed to life overhead.

If the library was all dusty rugs, antique lamps, and the solace of old books and leather, this room was its polar opposite. The gleaming, white-tiled floor showed not a speck of dirt. Towering ultramodern glass-doored cabinets ran along the entire length of the left wall, directly across from three large, curtained booths.

Here, the music—that I now recognized as heavy metal—battered at my eardrums. Bracing my hands over my ears, I approached a department-store-quality mirror. Three pale, wild-haired reflections glared back at me.

Yeesh.

Snatching the tartan stretchie I found in the bathroom off my wrist, I raked my medusa curls back into a high pony-tail and searched for the source of the punishing sound.

The eerie glow had come from the far side of the room, where the biggest monitor I’d ever seen was mounted to the wall, connected to a series of massive computers. I quickly reached out and flipped down the volume on a set of huge desk speakers.