All the Colors of Night (Fogg Lake #2)(10)
“They say the place is haunted. You know how it is here in Vegas. Everyone loves a good celebrity legend. According to the story I heard, Chastain’s body was never found. They say he probably died in that house while trying to perfect one of his dangerous tricks and that he still haunts the place.”
“I’ve been living here for nearly a year,” North said. “I haven’t seen a ghost.”
He had uncovered some fascinating secrets inside the Abyss but, to date, no specters.
“Surprised the place is still standing,” the driver said. “It’s been sitting out here in the desert since the middle of the last century. Abandoned. They say even the squatters and the transients didn’t try to go inside.”
“The house can take care of itself.” North opened the door and got out. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Sure. Anytime.”
The driver made a U-turn and sped off toward the lights of Las Vegas in the distance.
The security box looked vintage mid-twentieth century but the electronics inside were anything but standard issue for the era. Behind the panel there was a green crystal.
He opened the panel, touched the crystal and sent a little energy through the stone. At least he could still summon enough heat to open his own front gate. He remembered his advice to Jake. Look on the bright side.
The heavy steel gates swung inward.
He walked into the big desert garden and used the crystal on the inside wall to relock the gates.
He pushed a whisper of energy through another crystal to bring up the low lighting that illuminated the winding walk through the cactus garden. Until recently he hadn’t needed the small lamps to make his way through the maze of cacti planted around the house. But with the glasses on he had no choice.
It was an interesting collection of exotic cacti, but the garden had not been designed for decorative purposes or to conserve water. The sharp thorns of the plants served as a defensive perimeter. An intruder who managed to get over the high walls at night would be faced with a dangerous obstacle course. Only someone who was a direct descendant of Griffin Chastain could activate the footpath lights.
The cactus garden would be the least of an intruder’s problems. There were far more dangerous barriers waiting in the shadows, security devices only a master magician with a psychic talent could have engineered.
When North reached the grand entrance he touched another crystal lock. The big red lacquered doors swung open. Once inside he touched the crystal switch that turned on the massive chandelier that hung from the ceiling above the two-story circular foyer.
Arched doorways off the rotunda opened onto the ground-floor rooms. A grand staircase provided access to the upper floor. The house had been decorated in what his mother described as mid-century-Vegas-over-the-top. Okay, so Griffin Chastain had liked mirrors. Most magicians did.
Lily Chastain had shaken her head when he had announced that he planned to move into his grandfather’s mansion. “It’s too much house for anyone, especially a single man, and trust me, no woman will want to live there. It may not be haunted but it gives me the creeps.”
His father, Chandler, had understood. The house was, after all, a large, ongoing crystal light engineering experiment.
People assumed the mansion had been built for the customary reasons—to show off the owner’s success and to entertain on a lavish scale. But they were wrong. Griffin Chastain had been a brilliant magician whose stage tricks had become legendary but he had also been an engineering talent with a gift for manipulating light from the dark end of the paranormal spectrum. In the tradition of all great magicians, he had taken care to guard his secrets.
He had designed every room in the house as if it were a stage set. If you simply walked through the various spaces you would think they were normal, if wildly glamorous and theatrical. North knew his mother was right. The decorator had gone overboard with red velvet, gold satin and mirrored ceilings and walls, but he didn’t care. What intrigued him about the mansion was the part that was hidden.
Griffin Chastain had been inspired by the designs of ancient Egyptian pyramids and the great castles of Europe. There were hidden corridors and secret rooms everywhere. It was in those spaces, behind the scenes, that the magician had set up his private research laboratory.
During the construction phase Griffin had hired a number of different contractors. Each had been assigned to build a small section of the sprawling mansion. No one contractor and none of the people who had worked on the house had been allowed to view all the floor plans. No electricians were involved, because the house was powered by crystals, each of which had been personally installed by Griffin. The result was that by the time the mansion was complete, the only person who knew the overall layout was Griffin Chastain. And he had never told anyone about the secrets he had concealed inside.
The result was a house of mysteries. The Abyss would have made a great roadside attraction except for the fact that the mansion was designed to terrify anyone who was bold enough to enter without permission.
The only downside was that Lily Chastain was probably right when she claimed that no woman would ever want to live in the house. North knew he was going to have to face that reality sooner or later unless he wanted to live alone for the rest of his life. But at the moment he had a bigger problem on his hands. He was fully occupied with the task of trying not to fall into a state of panic or utter despair.