Waiting outside the bathroom door, Tony flicked open his pocketknife. His left hand had only just regained enough strength to grip it while he poked the point of the blade into the tip of his right index finger.

Here's irony for you . . .

Caulfield seemed to think the answers Tony needed in order to understand the metaphysics of the situation were in the journal. The journal told them that Caulfield had used his own blood to trap the acc.u.mulated power against the bas.e.m.e.nt wall. After folding the knife and slipping it back into his pocket, Tony pressed his thumb against the ball of his finger, just under the cut, and squeezed out a steady supply of blood as he painted over the symbol on his left palm.

He'd only just finished, cut finger in his mouth, when Karl stopped crying.

Quiet on the set.

Action . . .

Chapter Sixteen.

MR. MILLS STAGGERED back as the ax came free and screamed, "You can't hide from me!"

Tony didn't watch as Ca.s.sie and Stephen came out into the hall and then ran, hand in hand, for the bathroom. He knew he wasn't seeing them alive, that their reality was a nearly severed neck and three-quarters of a head, but to see them appear alive, to see their last few moments and to know they'd be trapped replaying those moments over and over- well, it was f.u.c.king tragic, that's what it was.

It was supposed to stop with death. Maybe there was a judgment, maybe there wasn't-Tony had seen enough weird s.h.i.t he was unwilling to commit-but the point was: end of something, start of something else. Ca.s.sie and Stephen didn't end, didn't start, didn't do anything but sort of exist. And maybe that sort of was better than risking the alternative, but Tony didn't think so.

Maybe he should just stop thinking about it. He'd had his chance to convince them.

He winced. Twice. Ax into flesh. Ax into bone. Funny that the impact of the ax-an impact that wasn't particularly loud-made more of an impression than the screaming. Actually, Karl had pretty much desensitized him to screaming. Karl, and before Karl, Aerosmith.

Splattered with the blood of his children, Mr. Mills turned and walked out of the bathroom. Once in the hall, he looked down at the b.l.o.o.d.y ax as though he'd never seen it before, as though he had no idea whose brains and hair were stuck along its length, then he adjusted his grip and slammed the blade down between his own eyes.

Tony took a step forward as the body fell, held out his left hand, his own blood glistening on his palm, and he reached. Energy never went away and bottom line, the ghosts were captured energy.

Line below the bottom line, this was really going to hurt.

But he couldn't think of another way.

It was all a matter of manipulating energy. Any and all types of energy if Arra's notes could be trusted. It was, in the end, what separated the wizards from the boys. Or maybe, more accurately, those who were willing to risk losing the use of an arm from those who'd come up with a less debilitating solution. And, man, he'd sure like to talk to that other guy . .

The ax slapped against his hand as the lights dimmed. His fingers didn't so much close as spasm around the handle.

Well, whatever works. When the replay ended, he couldn't see the ax, but he sure as h.e.l.l could feel it.

The pain was . . .

Definitively pain.

The kind of pain that, should he actually survive this, he'd compare to every other pain for the rest of his life.

You think that hurts? I once pulled a ghost ax out of its time and walked through a haunted house with it.

Except he wasn't exactly walking. Or doing anything but trying to suck enough air into his lungs to stay conscious.

Come on, feet, move!

A deeper breath. And then another.

A guy can get used to anything in time.

Yeah, but he didn't have time. Or not much of it anyway. He had to be in place in the bas.e.m.e.nt before the next replay started.

Okay, don't think about the bas.e.m.e.nt. Think about one step. Just one.

One step didn't hurt any more than standing still. Neither did two or three.

Now just get to the back stairs. Straight hall. Easy trip.

He could do that. h.e.l.l, he'd once walked to Wellesley Hospital in February with two broken ribs, a fat lip, and only one shoe. To this day, he had no idea where his other shoe'd gone.

Now down the stairs. This should be easy, gravity's on your side.

Wait.

He needed a test. Some way of making sure that the energy he held continued to act like an ax. It'd be p.i.s.s useless if it didn't.

Instead of down, he went up. And gravity was a b.i.t.c.h.

Lucy's rope had crossed the lower edge of the third floor just slightly off center. The stairs were so steep he could reach the lower edge of the third floor from four steps up. If he could reach it from four, he wasn't going for five. No point being stupid about this. Sucking in a lungful of air, he willed his arm to work and swung the ax.

He felt the blade cut into the wood.

Felt the burn of a severed rope whistle past his cheek.

Felt dead weight just for an instant roll against his legs.

Staggered back down the four steps, panting; small quick breaths that didn't hurt quite so much.

Heard a voice destroyed by a noose murmur, "Thank you."

And felt a lot better.

For just a moment, he had the strong feeling it was 1906 and he was a chambermaid, but since that was a huge improvement on what he had been feeling-pain, pain, and, well, pain-he could cope. He still felt as though his left arm had been dipped in acid and then rolled in hot sand, but whatever Lucy was doing-Lucy being the only chambermaid he knew from 1906-it gave him a little distance from the feeling. It got him down the stairs and across the kitchen to where Mouse and Adam and Zev waited with the second lantern.

When he joined them, the double circle of light expanded to include Amy sitting cross-legged just outside the butler's pantry by an open can of white paint. She shook her head at his silent question.

It took them a while to recover from their own murder.

There was still time.

"Come on, Zev."

As the music director came forward, Tony grinned. "Is that a bottle of cleaner in your pants or are you just happy to see me?"

Adam rolled his eyes and handed Mouse five bucks as Zev reached back and touched the bottle crammed into the top of his jeans. "What about us?" the 1AD asked. "When do we charge to the rescue?"

"You'll know," Tony told him.

"You sure?"

"It'll be obvious."

"Obvious how?"

"I'm thinking, screaming."

"Yeah." Adam forced a hand back through thick hair, standing it up in sweaty spikes. "Listen, if this thing's been around for so long, what makes you think we can beat it?"

Time for the big, last minute motivational speech.

"Duh. We're the good guys. Zev, can you get the door. My hands are full."

Lantern in one hand. Ax in the other. Of course, no one could see the ax. Zev made a clear decision not to ask and opened the bas.e.m.e.nt door. He frowned as Tony stepped over the threshold. "What's that on your cheek?"

"Rope burn."

"Do I want to know?"

"I doubt it." He shifted over as Zev joined him on the top step. "Stay to my right, by the lantern. And remember," he added as they began to descend, "anything Lee can hear, it can . . . f.u.c.k!"

Lee's face appeared in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs looking for an instant like it was on its own, floating unattached. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming back to us."

Tony shrugged and tried to pretend he wasn't carrying an invisible ghost ax. Lucky break that Lee-Caulfield- couldn't see it either. He hadn't been one hundred percent certain about that, but given the total lack of reaction, it seemed no one could see it. "I told you it would take a while to convince them."

"But convince them of what; that's the question. h.e.l.lo, Zev."

"Lee."

"Not Lee," Tony growled.

"Close enough." The green eyes narrowed, pupils dark pinp.r.i.c.ks in the direct glare of the lantern. "Why are you here, Zev?"

"The odds are good that you . . . your body . . . will need a little help leaving after Tony does his thing." He waved a hand, the gesture managing to encompa.s.s all the possibilities inherent in the word thing. "And besides . . ." His eyes narrowed in turn. "I had no intention of allowing Tony to go through this alone."

"So you're here to hold his hand?"

"I'm here to hold anything that might make it easier for him."

Lee fastidiously brushed a bit of muck off his dress pants. "The depth to which moral rot has penetrated this age astounds me. Perversions accepted as normal behavior."

Tony turned just enough to grin at Zev. "You never said anything about perversions."

"I didn't want to get your hopes up." He shrugged philosophically. "There may not be time."

"Fair enough."

"Stay with him, then, if you must," Lee snarled. And be the first to fall!

That had to be some of the loudest subtext Tony'd ever heard and, given the volume of the subtext over the course of the night, that was saying something. "You go first." He motioned with the lantern. "I want you out where I can see you so that I know you're not mucking about with Lee's body."

"I do not muck about!"

"Muck about, torture. Potato, potahto. Move."

Lee pointedly turned and began wading across the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Since when do you quote Gershwin?" Zev murmured as they descended into the water.

"Sometimes I like to embrace the stereotype." The water felt warmer than it had. Tony really hoped that was because his legs were already wet.

"Gilbert and Sullivan?"

"Not in a million years."

"That's a pretty halfhearted embrace, then."

"I gotta be me."

The thing seemed closer to the stairs than it had been, but, as it was a part of the foundation, Tony was fairly certain it hadn't moved. As Lee took up his old place by the wall, Tony realized that with both hands full, the mirror in his pocket was about as useful as last week's TV Guide.

"Hand the lantern to your friend . . ." The final word dripped with distaste. ". . . then come forward and merge with us."

"Dude, you make it sound so dirty." He motioned for Zev to step back, splashed closer to the pillar and hung the lantern on the nail. "Less likely to take damage if I leave it here."

"Dude?" Lee's lip curled. "Your speech patterns are strange."

"You'll have time to get used to them." He never thought he'd miss the sound of Karl's crying. Or rather the sound of Karl not crying to mark the beginning of the next replay. They had to fill the time and they had to fill it in such a way that they didn't seem to be stalling. He stepped in front of Zev and leaned in. "So, I guess this is good-bye."

A faint smile within the bracket of the dark beard as Zev silently agreed to take one for the team.

Give one?