"What?"
Quentin's coming. He'll be your lifeline.
"I've never needed a lifeline."
This time you will. And you can trust him. He won't let you go, you know that, don't you, Diana?
"Because you mattered so much to him," Diana said.
No. I'm his past. You're his future. That's why he won't let you go.
Diana wasn't sure she believed that, but she didn't question because she'd finally reached the end of the long hallway, and saw the odd turn at the end. The short hallway that ended in a green door.
Tha-thum.
Tha-thum.
She pushed herself those last few feet and grasped the old-fashioned door handle. "If I open this—"
You open two doors. In both worlds. Don't let go of the handle, Diana. Not until it's over.
"But—"
Reach for Quentin. And open the door.
Diana turned the handle and at the same moment reached back with her free hand. And reached out with more than flesh, more than will.
Almost immediately, there was a bright flash, and for an instant the gray time was gone. The door was a brighter green, and the embossed wallpaper of the short hallway showed its rich Victorian colors.
Then another flash, and this time she felt the warmth and strength of his hand gripping hers. Another flash, and she turned her head, saw him there.
And—
She was back. One hand holding the handle of a slightly open green door. The other hand holding Quentin's.
"Diana—"
Tha-thum!
Tha-thum!
She caught a whiff of the unnervingly familiar stench, and before she could warn Quentin they both felt the heavy tread of surprisingly quick footsteps bearing down on them.
Don't touch the vessel, Diana.
To Quentin, she whispered, "Don't—"
"I know," he breathed in return. His fingers tightened around hers, and like her he pressed his back to the wall, leaving the hallway as open as possible in front of them as they both watched the corner.
She was already speaking as she came around it.
"There you are. I've been looking everywhere for you. This late, you should be in your bed. That's where I expected to find you."
It didn't take the strange light in her eyes or the weirdly pleasant smile to show that the creature who looked like Mrs. Kincaid was something other than sane.
The bloody butcher knife she carried was more than enough.
"I told Cullen," she went on as she stood in the short hallway with them. "I told him I wouldn't let him stop me. Wouldn't let any of you stop me. He tried, of course, just like he'd tried to warn Ellie. He really shouldn't have done that. Made me angry."
"You killed Ellie," Quentin said.
"Oh, that was just a favor for Mrs. Kincaid." It laughed. "She was pissed because she was pretty sure the girl had gotten herself knocked up by one of the guests. Can't have that, now, can we? Bound to cause trouble. So I took care of it."
Diana said, "Like you just tried to take care of Cullen?"
"I told him he should have stayed away. That he had no business coming back here. He's lucky I didn't take care of him years ago, when he figured out what was going on. But who was going to believe him? The cops? Of course not. Made 'em wonder about him, though. So he left."
"Why did he come back?" Quentin asked.
"Said a voice in his head told him to. Told him there'd be somebody here now who could stop me. That he could help. Funny as hell, isn't it? He's helping by bleeding all over himself."
Quentin said, "You're — Mrs. Kincaid is a medium. That's why you've been able to use her more than once."
Still holding the knife in a loose grip that wasn't at all casual, she — it — looked at him and smiled. "Why, yes. Always has been. But untaught, and not very powerful. It was easy to get in, though. Easy to use her. I could never stay very long, of course. But long enough. Always long enough.
"And you never picked up on it, did you? All your visits over the years. Even way back, when you were just a kid. You didn't want to see the future, so you couldn't even see what was right in front of you, most of the time. Blind, in a way."
"I'm better now," Quentin said.
"Are you? Because of her, I suppose." She used the knife to indicate Diana. "I knew somebody was opening doors, but I wasn't sure who. Not until she started visiting the gray time."
"You were a killer once," Diana said. "A long, long time ago. You killed a lot of people."
"Why, yes, so I did. Still do, of course. Thanks to the bastards who killed me. I'd never felt rage until then. Never been so sure I wanted to go on living. So I did."
Quentin said, "In a manner of speaking. You existed, possessed weak minds and vulnerable bodies. That was why so many children died because of you."
"You don't get it. The fun wasn't in killing the kids. The fun was in possessing their parents and forcing them to kill."
"Then Missy—"
"The one calling herself Laura Turner killed Missy. With a little help from me." The human face behind which a monster lurked twisted in a grimace. "Drove her mad. It does that sometimes, to the weak-minded. I had to get out of her fast. Couldn't control her after that."
"You — Mrs. Kincaid gave Laura an alibi."
"Well, of course. I didn't want anyone here at The Lodge under suspicion. This is my... home base, you might say. Besides, I wanted to use her again. But then she called the child's father, babbling out of her head about what she'd done and how she ought to be punished. I didn't wait for him to come do it, though. Took care of things myself."
"She hadn't left, had she?"
"No, but I made it look like she had." The thing inside the housekeeper shrugged.
Diana said, "And when he — when the child's father got here, he wanted it all to... go away."
"Guess he did. Because that's what happened. Which was fine with me."
Diana felt Quentin's fingers tighten on hers, and she knew he was aware of how much of her concentration was focused on that partially open door she was holding. It was taking all her strength and some of his as well; she could feel the pull on the other side, the natural force of something intended to be closed except in brief intervals.
The longer she held it partially open, the more force was being exerted in the effort to slam it shut.
It would require all that force, Diana knew. The only way to destroy the evil confronting them was to hurl its energy back through the gray time, through the limbo between worlds, and to what lay beyond. To carry it far beyond the physical world so that no doorway could ever allow it access again.
Diana was afraid she wouldn't be able to hold the door open long enough, even with Quentin's help, but then she saw Missy appear behind the creature, and the frail-looking child pushed its physical shell violently from behind, toward the doorway.
Using every ounce of strength she and Quentin could muster, Diana pulled the green door open all the way.
For just long enough.
In a moment out of time, Diana saw the ghosts of The Lodge, all of them, rushing past, helping to carry the creature and its shell through the doorway. The woman in Victorian dress, the nurse, the man in rough worker's clothing, the little boys — and then a blur of energy, of spirits, dozens of them, merging, melding, flowing through the doorway, all the doorways, raw power with absolute purpose reaching, grasping, drawing the black essence that was all that was left of Samuel Barton out of the human vessel containing it —
It seemed for that eternal instant that the energy pouring through the doorway would carry Diana in as well, but Quentin didn't let go. Until finally the last wisp rushed past and jerked the door from her hand, slamming it closed.