Zack heard a muffled boom somewhere right above his head.
He figured it must be a summer thunderstorm.
He and Meghan and Zipper continued creeping around the base of the giant brass statue.
They reached the back.
The girl hidden in the darkness continued to sob and moan and weep.
Meghan flicked on her illuminated wand.
A young Native American girl, maybe twelve, stood in the shadows, tears streaming down her face. She wore a fringed buckskin dress decorated with beadwork, and cradled a dozen ears of dried corn tight against her chest.
“Are you a demon?” she asked Zack in a quavering voice.
Zack shook his head.
The girl turned toward Meghan. Shook and sobbed. “Are you a demon?”
“No. I’m Meghan. Meghan McKenna. Who are you?”
The girl couldn’t answer. She convulsed into another spasm of sobs.
“What’s wrong?” asked Zack. “Does something hurt? Are you in pain?”
The weeping girl nodded. As she did, her head seemed sort of loose and rubbery on her neck.
Zack glanced down at the floor. The girl was standing in the center of an area squared off by the stumps of four rough beams. Maybe sawed-off support posts from an old foundation. Wormy six-by-sixes.
Now he heard footsteps.
“Hey … who are you guys talking to back here?” It was Derek.
“My father curses this ground!” the girl cried out. It was hard to understand what she was saying, because she kept sobbing the whole time she talked. “I did not steal this corn! We gave you demons the seed; how could we steal that which we gave you?”
Zack wished he knew the answer, but he didn’t, so he gave the ghost a pleading shrug. Meghan did the same thing.
Zipper sank to the floor and whimpered.
The girl wailed the most mournful cry Zack had ever heard in his life, worse than a million funerals all mixed together.
Then she and her corn crumbled into powdery dust and disappeared.
“Wow,” said Meghan.
“Yeah,” said Zack.
“We have to find out who she was.”
“Who who was?” asked Derek. He was staring at Zack, Meghan, and even Zipper as if all three were deranged.
“The girl,” said Zack.
“What girl?”
“In the buckskin dress?” said Meghan.
“She was just here,” said Zack.
“When?”
“Two seconds ago,” said Meghan.
“Ha-ha. Very funny. Can we go back upstairs now?”
Zack and Meghan looked at each other and realized Derek Stone couldn’t see ghosts!
41
Reginald Grimes sat onstage, slumped in a cushioned chair with snarling skulls carved into its armrests.
He was exhausted. Drained. Necromancy was tough work. It seemed the ritual sapped some of his life force and transferred it to the souls he summoned up from the dead.
“Where did Mr. Murphy go?” Grimes mumbled weakly.
Hakeem indicated the general vicinity of the air. “His spirit is now free to roam the theater, to haunt its dark and dismal places until such time as you command him to return to the nether regions below.”
“He comes and goes at my bidding?”
“Yes, Exalted One.”
“I see. And this makes me rich and powerful beyond my wildest dreams how?”
Hakeem smiled. “All in good time.”
“Bah!” snapped Grimes. “So you keep saying. How ever, I grow weary of your tedious retorts, these tiresome rituals. Not to mention the foul-tasting dog jerky! I want to know what’s locked in the final drawer of that show trunk, and I want to know now!”
Hakeem bowed obsequiously. “Patience is a virtue, Exalted One.”
“Well, I’m tired of being virtuous. I demand to know what you are keeping hidden from me!”
“Soon. First, you must also master the art of necyomancy.”
Grimes squinted. “Nec-yo-mancy?”
“Indeed,” said Hakeem. “It is very similar to nec-romancy but much more difficult. In necyomancy, you can call forth demons more wretchedly powerful than Mr. Mad Dog Murphy.”
“Demons?”
“The devil in human disguise. Souls of the purest evil.”
“I see.”
“However,” said Hakeem, holding up a hand in warning, “if necyomancy is done incorrectly, those summoned can quickly turn against the summoner.”
“And tell me: Did my grandfather also provide a list of evil entities to be beckoned forth from the deepest recesses of the underworld?”
“He did.”
Grimes rolled his good hand, gesturing for more information. “Go on. Give me a name.”
“Diamond Mike Butler. The Butcher Thief of Bleecker Street.”
“Is he a true demon?”
“It is why they called him the Butcher. Mr. Butler was a jewel thief who liked to burglarize the homes of the wealthy late at night so he could slay any children he found asleep in their beds. He used a meat cleaver. Chopped off their small heads. When spirits this vile are called back …” Hakeem hesitated.
“What?” Grimes demanded.
“They return more monstrous than when they were alive!”
“Did my grandfather ever dare to summon forth this monstrous soul?”
“Yes. Several times. However, he always sent him back to the underworld very quickly.”
Grimes stood from the chair. “Really? Well, gentlemen, let’s rejoin hands. We don’t want to keep Mr. Butler waiting. I’m sure he’s quite eager to make his triumphant return to the stage!”
42
Judy returned to the fifth floor.
She couldn’t find Reginald Grimes. The company manager said he was tied up in meetings with the producers for the rest of the day.
Fine. It was almost one-thirty and she was getting a hunger headache. If Zack was done playing with Zipper and his new friends, maybe they could go grab a sandwich at the diner across the street.
She entered her room and went to the door connecting her half of the suite with Zack’s.
“Zack? Are you in there? Zack, honey?”
She heard a crash. It sounded like glass shattering.
“Zack? Are you okay?”
No answer.
“Did something break, honey?”
Nothing.
She fumbled with the doorknob and realized it was locked on the other side.
“Hang on, honey.”
Judy went out into the hallway, where she saw a tall, slender woman with curly hair walking away from Zack’s bedroom door.
“Excuse me,” Judy said. The woman kept walking. She said it more loudly: “Excuse me?”
The woman drifted down the hall toward the stairwell.
“Were you just in my son’s room?”
No answer.
Judy hurried to Zack’s door. Jiggled the knob. It was locked.
“Zack? Are you in there? Zack?”
“Hey, Mom.”
Judy whirled around to see Zack and Zipper stepping off the elevator.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Judy turned to see if the woman with the curly hair was still walking down the hall.
She wasn’t.
She had vanished.
43
Wilbur Kimble hurried back to the basement.
The audience would start arriving for the Sunday matinee soon. Time to put things away downstairs.
Earlier, from his hiding place, he had watched the blond boy run away while the other two children discovered his movie projector. The imitation ghosts didn’t seem to frighten those two in the slightest. In fact, the encounter only seemed to make them more curious.
Just like that blasted cat in the new musical.
No, these two children would not be easy to run off. He would need to speak directly with Clara.
He went into a cramped, windowless closet, closed and locked the door. He struck a match and lit a small fluttering candle so the room wouldn’t be completely dark. He placed the candle next to his antique Ouija board on an upturned apple crate.