The Master of Sinanju frowned. Joining his pupil at the door, Chiun tapped the knob with a single slender finger while placing the flat of his palm on the door's veneer. His leathery face grew amazed.
"This is no longer a door," the Master of Sinanju said as the solid vibrations returned to his bony hand. It was as if upon closing, the entire door had merged with the frame around it, becoming one with the wall itself. They formed a single, solid unit.
"It's altogether ookey," Remo suggested. "Wanna take the whole wall down?"
Chiun shook his head. A look of strange puzzlement had taken root on his face. His ears were trained on the rooms around them as they walked out into the big foyer.
Though only an anteroom, the foyer was larger than an average living room. A warped wooden rail stretched to the second-floor landing, balusters missing at irregular points. A big vase filled with dead flowers sat on an old oak stand thick with dust. The lace doily that hung in tatters from beneath the vase was yellow with age. A ratty Oriental runner stretched across the floor from the sealed front door to the hallway that lay adjacent to the main foyer.
They had barely reached the staircase when they felt the surge of displaced air above their heads. Their senses tripping alert, instinct took over. Remo jumped left, Chiun leaped right.
They had barely bounded to safety before the big crystal chandelier that had been hanging from the foyer's vaulted ceiling crashed to the floor.
The heavy weight tore through the lower section of the bannister, ripping wood to pulp and screaming into the bottom steps. Glass cracked and scattered into dank corners.
A cloud of dust rose into the musty air.
As the sound was swallowed up by the darkest reaches of the big old house, Remo turned a level eye on the Master of Sinanju. "Now, that was not right," he said evenly.
By the look on Chiun's face, the old man agreed. Ordinarily, Remo and Chum would have detected the faint grinding of mechanical parts that would have warned them a trigger or release had been activated. But in this case there was no such sign. It was as if the chandelier itself had made a decision entirely on its own to drop on their heads.
"Do not become distracted," Chiun cautioned. "All is not as it appears here."
"If you're saying it's not looking and acting like a creepy haunted house, then I've gotta disagree," Remo said. He looked down at the twisted chandelier. It blocked the route to the staircase. "Looks like someone doesn't want us going upstairs."
"Or else that is precisely where they wish us to go," the old Korean pointed out.
Remo considered his words. Given what they'd seen so far, it was possible that the house was using reverse psychology on them.
"I don't know about you," Remo grumbled, annoyed, "but I'm not about to start trying to figure out what some wrecking ball reject wants me to do."
And curling his toes he launched himself up over the broken chandelier.
Chiun followed suit. The two men landed lightly, side by side on the fifth broad step.
Ever cautious, they began climbing the stairs.
To their right as they ascended, portraits lined the broad, curving staircase. Though not antiques, they had been carefully treated to look as old as the house itself. Each was of a single man made out to look like a famous character from horror fiction. There was the Wolfman, the Mummy, Frankenstein's monster and a dozen more that Remo didn't recognize. He noted that the face on each of the paintings looked the same. When they reached the Dracula painting at the first landing, it finally struck him.
"That's the guy, Little Father," he said, snapping his fingers. "Stewart McQueen. I'd know those teeth anywhere."
Pausing, Chiun glanced at the Dracula painting with thin disgust. "I do not know why you in the West revere this Walachian so," he said unhappily. "He was a stingy tyrant and not even a true vampire. It was a happy day when Sultan Mehmed hired Master Foo to remove his miserly head."
"You talking McQueen or Dracula?"
"He was known as Vlad the Impaler," Chiun said dryly. "And before you ask, I am not a walking history lesson. If you are interested, look it up in the scrolls yourself."
He spun on his heel.
As Remo was turning from the painting, something suddenly caught his attention. A flash of movement. When he snapped his head back around, he saw that the black eyes of the Walachian ruler had twitched to one side.
Remo took a startled step back. The movement came as a shock to his highly trained senses, for he had not perceived any living thing behind the wall.
He wheeled to the Master of Sinanju, stabbing a finger at the portrait. "Chiun, did you see what I-" He didn't get a chance to finish his question. The old man's face was a mirror of his own shock. As he jumped forward, the Master of Sinanju's long nails unfurled like deadly knives of vengeance. Slashing left then right, he reduced Dracula's face to a mass of canvas tatters.
Behind was nothing more than an oak-paneled wall.
No. More than that. As Remo listened, he heard the distinct creaking of floorboards. The sound seemed to be coming from a hollow behind the wall.
A secret passage.
"Okay, Remo's had enough fun at the wacky shack," Remo muttered angrily.
Grabbing the portrait, he flung it to the stairs. Pulverizing fists shot into hard wood. It cracked and splintered. Grabbing at the edges of the new formed hole, Remo yanked. An entire panel tore away.
Beyond was a narrow hallway, just wide enough for a man to walk along. Without a glance at his teacher, Remo slipped through the two-foot-wide opening. The Master of Sinanju came in behind.
The passage was illuminated by a few bare bulbs. It appeared to loop around the second story of the house. The far ends disappeared around sharp corners in both directions.
"You get a sense of which way he went?" Remo asked.
"He who?" the Master of Sinanju said thinly. "I sensed no life signs from this chamber."
"Yeah, but you heard the floor creak," Remo pointed out. He glanced around. The electrical hum was stronger in here. He felt the short hairs rise on the back of his neck. "Maybe all this electric junk is some sort of force field or something. Could have kept us from getting a bead on him."
"Or it," Chiun cautioned.
"No bogeyman living here, Little Father," Remo said firmly. "Just some nutcase writer. Let's try this way."
He struck off to the right.
Unlike whoever had preceded them through here, neither man made a sound on the warped boards as they slid stealthily down the long corridor.
They had traveled only a few yards along the passage when the strange electrical charge that filled the dank air around them abruptly grew in pitch.
Remo stopped dead.
"Maybe this wasn't such a hot idea after all," he said, his voice thick with foreboding. "What say we amscray?"
His answer was a shocked intake of air, then nothing.
And in the moment of that single gasping breath, the distinctive beat of the Master of Sinanju's heart vanished.
Remo wheeled around. Chiun was gone.
He was vaguely aware of a panel closing in the floor. But even his supersensitive eyes had difficulty adjusting to the speed with which it snapped shut.