The Mystery Woman (Ladies of Lantern Str - By Amanda Quick Page 0,51

a most uneasy feeling about this affair.”

“It will all be over soon,” Beatrice said.

She decided that she would not tell Hannah that she, too, was experiencing a sense of dread. Hannah was the client. Mrs. Flint and Mrs. Marsh maintained that it was important to keep those who paid the hefty Flint and Marsh fees as calm as possible as they were often the ones who created the most problems in the course of an investigation. Clients were forever being swayed by their emotional connections to the case.

She picked up the envelope that contained the money and an unlit candle and opened the door. The corridor was empty.

She raised a hand in a reassuring gesture to Hannah and slipped out into the hall.

The big house was almost silent now. There were no low voices behind bedroom doors, no muffled footsteps on the servants’ stairs. The secretive comings and goings had ceased until dawn.

The wall sconces still glowed dimly on the ground floor. When she reached the bottom of the staircase she started toward the passage that led to the great hall. She glanced around but saw no sign of Joshua. She knew that he was somewhere nearby, watching from the shadows.

The darkness deepened as she went closer to the big doors. She wondered what she would do if they were locked. That would mean that for some reason the blackmailer’s plans had gone awry, she thought. But there was another possibility. If the antiquities chamber was still secured it might indicate that the villain suspected the trap that Joshua had set.

That thought heightened her alarm and her senses. Her pulse was beating rapidly by the time she reached the massive doors. She glanced down and saw several decades’ worth of seething energy on the floor. Everyone who had entered the room that evening had left a bit of paranormal residue behind, but one set of prints in particular glowed with the heat of a man who was in a state of nervous excitement. The only thing she could be certain of was that she did not recognize the hot tracks.

She took a breath and wrapped one hand around a big brass handle. Cautiously she tried the door.

Nothing happened. Something had gone wrong. No wonder her nerves were so on edge.

She tugged harder, putting her full weight into the task. This time the heavy door opened slowly, ponderously, but with surprisingly little noise.

A heavy darkness freighted with the disturbing energy of the massed artifacts inside the room flowed out of the narrow opening. She should be experiencing a surge of relief, she thought. All signs indicated that Joshua’s plan was going forward. The blackmailer had taken the bait.

Yet she felt more rattled than ever. Her senses were crackling and sparking like an electricity machine. Her intuition was screaming at her.

It was the combined effects of the relics, she thought. The currents of power inside the space had been unpleasant earlier in the evening when the chamber had been illuminated. They were much stronger and far more ominous now that the room was steeped in darkness.

Steeling herself against the energy that whispered and howled silently in the chamber, she slipped across the threshold. The heavy door immediately started to close behind her. Hastily she lit the candle.

The small flame flared quickly but it did not reach far into the darkness. The artifacts and the gods and goddesses loomed around her, menacing and eerie. The atmosphere was oppressive.

Until now she had only viewed the relics from the hallway outside. That was as close as she had wanted to get. But now she was standing in the midst of the energy-infused artifacts. The intensity of the dark paranormal currents in the atmosphere was startling. The energy laid down in objects that had come from tombs and temples of any sort was always strong, but tonight the essence of death felt horribly fresh.

So fresh that she could have sworn she caught the scent of recently spilled blood.

Blood and smoky incense.

Impossible.

She steadied herself and lowered her talent before her feverish imagination started to conjure ghosts and demons.

The rational side of her nature assured her that there was nothing to fear from the antiquities. It was a very human blackmailer who was the threat tonight. Joshua was quite capable of dealing with him.

She went forward cautiously, mindful of the myriad pedestals, statues and vases arrayed inside the chamber. It would be all too easy to stumble over one of the smaller relics. An accident of that sort