When Lily Kline takes possession of a Gothic estate with Ian Hawke, her co-heir and a stranger, she soon realizes there is more than meets the eye within the many corridors of the sequestered mansion.
Ian is aloof and even hostile at times, and thou...
"What do I do?" Mike hissed, glancing over his shoulder at the cloaked man who was standing twenty feet back at the mortuary table.
"Exactly what it says."
"But it won't recognize my hand. This is the body of the handyman, remember? I've examined his brain and he's never seen this before."
"You're trying my patience, slaveling, but you do have a point." He opened a cabinet full of medical tools, and pulled out a pair of forceps. He tossed them to Mike and went back to the table to wait. "Stick those in the box and see what happens."
Mike put the forceps halfway into the opening. "This is Auguste Kline," he heard himself say.
The green light scanned up and down the forceps and the computer woman spoke again. "Voice . . . not recognized. Fingerprints . . . not recognized. Palm prints . . . not recognized. Pulse . . . not detected. Access denied."
Before Mike could withdraw the tool, a laser sliced the forceps in half. He jumped backward and dropped the detached handle.
The cloaked man chuckled; a low, gritty rumble. "Guess the system was designed to keep out intruders," he said. "I wonder if this was dear old Zever's idea."
Mike's face twisted in a scowl. He sensed the puppeteer was irritated or frazzled. "What do we do now?" it said.
"We go get Zever. He's the only one left who knows anything about this."
"But what if you're wrong?"
"Then Zever gets his hand cut off."
Mike wanted to shrink back farther into the recesses of his mind. "What makes you think he'll cooperate?"
"Lily, of course." The cloaked man went to the entry ladder and began to ascend.
Mike jogged across the room to catch up. "The tree house is surrounded by gargoyles," he protested.
Gargoyles?
The gargoyles lining the trail? What kind of a threat was that?
"Do you ever stop whining?" The cloaked man stopped his ascent and glared down at Mike through the shadows of his hood. "Your head would be in that scanner right now if I still didn't need you." He let out a ragged exhale. "Let me spell it out for you, since you're obviously too thick to grasp it. Lily probably trusts you—she thinks you're the handyman. As does Zever. Get it?"
Mike was horrified. He wanted to cry out in protest but he was powerless to do anything but watch and listen. He cared for Lily and would never do anything to hurt her—or any woman, for that matter.
"But she's just as dangerous to Zever as she is to us," the puppeteer said. "He'd be insane to try and rescue her."
A cackle of delight. "Yes, but he's in love with her, you see. The fool has fallen in love with his Archenemy." A snort. "I couldn't have planned it better myself."
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