The Haunted Sultan (Skeleton Key) by Gillian Zane, Skeleton Key

his system. The only way he could describe the place was evil. It was so dark and black he could taste it. Acidic and cloying. The house was a black stain on the area. He stared up at it and realized it was darker than the houses around it, a black hole, sucking away the light, sucking away the good around it. Even the houses next to the Gardette Le Pretre house were gray and worn down compared to the other houses on the block. This area was a mess. The house was evil and the man trapped inside needed help. And the chick he was with wanted to go in there and help him.
    Damn. Owen was pretty sure he was screwed.

Chapter 7
    S ierra stopped in her tracks . The front door of the building was only a few paces ahead of her. Was she really going to do this? Was she really going to go into this haunted house? Help some Sultan guy that was the victim of a mass murderer?
    She didn’t want to, but she knew she had to do this. Something in her gut told her that she was the only one who could do this.
    She crossed the remaining few steps, pulling Owen along by his hand. The security door remained open, revealing an intricate wooden door that looked out of place in the drab building. The exterior door was made up of two large wooden panels that each had beautiful carvings from floor to ceiling. The carvings were of a fantastical landscape with an Ottoman landscape on the horizon, minarets and domed buildings dotted the skyline, while intricate lace patterns framed the borders. It was truly beautiful.
    In the center of the door was a single key hole. There was no handle. Only the keyhole.
    Sierra gripped the glass skeleton key in her hand and calmly inserted it into the hole. With a turn of her wrist, her ears popped, as if she had suddenly gone too deep underwater. The door swung open.
    The smell of jasmine and lavender washed over her and she breathed in the scent, greedy for the feeling that it brought with it. Pleasure. It was a purely pleasurable smell. It was clean and fresh and couldn’t be a sign of evil. There had to be good here.
    Owen, who had been scowling and acting protective a moment earlier, was now smiling and eager to enter the house. It welcomed them. It called to them. They wanted to be here. It wanted them here.
    They crossed the threshold. Again the popping sensation in Sierra’s ears. Colors faded in and out until the sharpness around them felt unreal. Yellows popped, and red fed the eye like a feast. The room around them shimmered in light and sound. They were standing in a brightly lit atrium. It was carefully styled and arranged; murals of a lush harem were depicted on two of the walls. Men and women were wrapped around each other, while voyeurs looked upon their nude bodies with smiles. Beautiful men played the Saz while women danced seductively in front of them. It was magnificent, but it was unreal. Sierra and Owen realized they had been transported somewhere else. They weren’t in their own time and place. The whole world had changed around them. Colors popped in their eyes as time and place shifted. Sunlight filtered in through stained-glass windows high above. Sunlight. It had been dark when they crossed the threshold.
    What was once plaster walls, dingy from grime, were now sumptuous wood paneling with intricately carved relief patterns along the base. Rugs were piled upon the floor, thick underneath Sierra’s thin sandals. Red and gold drapes hung from the ceiling, and the tinkling sound of music beckoned from down the hall.
    The two moved deeper into the house. Following the draw of the music and the smell of mouth-watering aromas. The front hall opened into a large room, windows that went from floor to ceiling broadcast sunlight into the room, revealing decadence and over abundance. They had entered the harem.
    Sierra glanced out the window and noticed the street had changed. The day was bright and she noticed lavishly dressed women in dresses, big hats and parasols strolling down the street arm in