House Of Blood Part 15

Alicia said, "Girl hasn't lived here in ten years. The G.o.dd.a.m.n radio station probably isn't on the air anymore."

Dream put the radio on scan. "Watch."

The digital display moved from one end of the spectrum to the other. Then again. And again. There was nothing to lock on. No static. No faintly heard signal. Dream turned it off. "What do you make of that, Alicia?"

Alicia shrugged. "It's obviously defective."

Dream groaned inwardly.

Pull your head out of the f.u.c.king sand, she thought.

She said, "It's not defective. And the radio was on before we left the interstate." She wasn't arguing anymore, was just stating irrefutable facts, and her voice had grown quiet. She was scaring herself. "And we should've seen Chad."

Alicia pursed her lips. Her brow furrowed. She sighed. "Look, I'm not conceding anything here. There're reasonable explanations for everything going on."

Karen laughed. "You bet, Scully."

"You didn't let me finish." Dream, who had been slightly annoyed with her friend's oblivious att.i.tude, detected a return of reason in her tone now. "Yes, I'm a skeptic. That said, I think enough is enough. We should turn around and head back to the interstate. We're not accomplis.h.i.+ng anything by staying out here and freaking each other out."

Dream glanced at the fuel gauge. "That's not an option anymore."

The needle was already at a dangerously low level, and it dipped a little lower as she looked at it. Another increment lower and they would be running on fumes.

Alicia leaned over to have a look. Concern-and 126.

maybe the beginnings of true panic-creased her brow. "Aw, s.h.i.+t."

Karen groaned. "We're about to be stranded, aren't we?"

Alicia settled back in her seat. "s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t."

"This can't be happening." Karen's voice edged closer to a whine. "Why isn't there anything at all out here?"

Dream put the Accord's brights on again and took the car around another curve. The smooth glide of tires on paved road came to an abrupt end, and they were jouncing up and down in their seats as the car rumbled over the ruts of a dirt road. The road still wound through dense stands of trees, but the darkness was no longer quite so impenetrable.

The car's interior resounded with gasps and shouts.

Dream detected a twinkle of light through the trees.

She cleared her throat. "Hey, guys-"

"Turn us around!" Karen yelled. "f.u.c.k getting us back to the interstate-just get us the h.e.l.l out of here."

But Dream took the car around another bend in the road, and the light through the trees grew brighter. The road rose around the mountain at a steep angle, and when they entered a straightaway, they saw a gleam in the middle of a large clearing, barely visible over a hill. Dream pushed the accelerator to the floor again, and the car held steady on the hardpacked dirt.

Alicia gripped her shoulder. "Dream? What the f.u.c.k is wrong with you? Turn us around, or so help me-"

The Accord crested the hill and the terrain leveled out.

Karen whistled. "Will you look at that?"

They looked.

The protest at the tip of Alicia's tongue went unspoken.

127.

The Master's house loomed before them. An array of klieg lights illuminated its exterior. As they neared the house, a big stone mansion, Dream's friends reiterated their desire to flee this place, but their pleas barely registered. Dream was looking at the Doric columns rising from the ends of a long porch and bracketing a big balcony that overlooked the front yard.

It was imposing.

A grim sentinel hunched against the mountain.

And yet...

Dream experienced a moment of vivid prescience.

A frisson of familiarity.

She had never seen this house before, had never glimpsed its gambrel roof and gabled windows, but this first peek elicited an odd-and undeniable-feeling.

She felt as if she belonged here.

As if she needed to be here.

She drove on.

128.

The man behind the desk possessed the aloof air of every coolly efficient bureaucrat Chad had ever encountered. He was tall and thin, gaunt-looking, with bony hands and the dark, predatory eyes of a wolf. He wore a black suit over a crisp white s.h.i.+rt and a narrow black tie, the sort of ensemble an undertaker might wear. His bored expression managed to convey impatience, disdain, and haughty superiority all at the same time.

"So," he said, addressing Cindy in an oily, insinuating voice that made Chad think of Peter Lorre. "I have before me a pet.i.tion for emanc.i.p.ation ." He nodded at Cindy. "And you, I understand, are the party pet.i.tioning for emanc.i.p.ation."

Cindy nodded. "Yes, sir."

The man, who Chad had gathered was a warden of sorts, chuckled without humor. "And what have you done to merit this privilege?"

129.

"I've served The Master well for three years."

Cindy strode closer to the warden's desk. The armed guards flanking the desk watched her with suspicion. This, after all, was a woman who'd just physically subdued and murdered a man in her cell. She made them uncomfortable, anxious and edgy, but Cindy seemed oblivious to the danger.

She indicated Chad with a nod. "I have an endors.e.m.e.nt from Overlord Gonzo, and this one can take my spot in his herd."

The warden lifted a single sheet of smudged paper off his desk, glanced at it, and flashed those predatory eyes at Cindy. "Do you mean this endors.e.m.e.nt? Signed, I see, by your owner and several witnesses."

Cindy's eyes narrowed. "Yes. Everything should be in order."

Chad could not believe what he was hearing. They were speaking in very rational, measured tones-civilized tones-about things medieval and barbaric. The warden's office added to this perception. It was a large, dimly lit room with an absurdly high ceiling. The desk was the only piece of furniture in the room. The walls were painted a dark green. Chad thought of hospital walls. Prison walls. Inst.i.tutional walls. Images from movies. The world of make-believe was the only apt frame of reference, he decided. This place was just too surreal. He noticed a coiled hose attached to a spigot in one corner of the room and a rust-flecked drain set in the floor below it. His gaze s.h.i.+fted from the drain to a set of shackles and chains affixed to wall mounts. Then he saw the coiled whip that hung from a peg behind the desk.

130.

He began to tremble.

The warden's thin lips formed a wet slit of a smile, and he held the piece of paper so Cindy could see it clearly, gripping the upper corners with the thumbs and forefingers of his hands. The multiple signatures were legible from where Chad stood.

The warden tore the piece of paper down the middle, then folded the separate pieces together and tore them again.

And again.

Cindy shook with silent rage.

The man pursed his lips and stared hard at her over steepled fingers. "Oops, I seem to have misplaced it."

Chad's mouth opened in an astonished expression of righteous disbelief. He couldn't believe the audacity of this man. He wanted to say something, to protest, but could think of nothing that wouldn't sound foolish or naive. He was clearly in a place where the normal rules of decorum didn't apply. h.e.l.l, rules at all didn't seem to apply. Apparently, if you occupied a position of power in this place, you could just make them up as you went along. Chad's tolerance level for brazen abuses of authority had always been low, but there seemed no means of recourse here.

They were at this man's mercy.

Whose distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic seemed to be a lack thereof.

Cindy began to move toward the desk. The tall man's eyes widened slightly, but he was never in any real danger. A guard interceded, clamping ma.s.sive hands around her 131.

upper arms. She struggled in his grip, realized instantly it was useless, and gave up.

"This is wrong," she whispered. "Wrong, wrong, wrong."

Chad despaired at the defeated tone in her voice. It was disheartening to see someone so strong and so spirited beaten so easily. He didn't much care for what it seemed to portend for him, either, which was total subjugation. He was no coward, but he was self-aware enough to know he was likely no match for anyone down here.

The tall man made a tsk-tsk noise and shook his head. "Such a stupid c.u.n.t." He smirked. "You should know better than to threaten your betters."

He pushed away from the desk and stood up. Chad was unable to suppress a gasp. The man was even taller than he'd guessed. NBA tall. He removed his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair, then he unb.u.t.toned the cuffs of his sleeves and rolled the sleeves up.

The smirk deepened, becoming a sneer. "I shall administer your punishment myself." He licked his lips, again causing Chad to think of a wolf. A wolf about to descend upon a gaggle of undefended chickens. "Twenty lashes." He chuckled. "No, thirty!"

He removed the whip from the peg, uncoiled it, and snapped it against the floor with a crisp flick of the wrist. He nodded at the guard holding Cindy. "Prepare her."

The guard pushed her toward the corner Chad now realized functioned as a sort of bare-bones torture chamber. He looked at the drain and the coiled hose again. A s.h.i.+ver went through him. The curiously equipped corner likely served a dual purpose. Torture was just the first phase of 132.

punishment. Perhaps, if you were lucky, the only phase. The second phase was certainly execution. The hose was a heavy-gauge one. It could be turned on the prisoner as an additional element of torture, but Chad believed its primary purpose was to drive blood and tissue down the sc.u.mmy drain.

Chad's stomach rumbled.

"Please don't do this," he mumbled.

Another guard clubbed him in the ear. "Shut up."

The guard a.s.signed to Cindy slammed her against the wall, causing her to cry out. Chad winced at the brutality. He had to remind himself this was far from the worst of what he would see before this nightmare was over.

The shackles snapped shut around Cindy's wrists and ankles. The tall man approached her slowly, flicking the whip against the floor again and again. Chad sensed a terrible relish in the man's deliberate approach. He radiated malevolence. His dark eyes reflected no hint of mercy.

He stood before Cindy and smiled. "Who do you serve, b.i.t.c.h?"

Tears were streaming down Cindy's cheeks. "The M-Master."

"Yessss." The tall man sounded like a snake poised to strike. "As we all do. And you have offended the Master with your insolence. Now you pay."

Cindy's knees shook. "Please. Please don't." She was sobbing now. "I'll do anything." Chad wanted to look away, but he found himself unable to do so, as though some outside force compelled him to bear witness to Cindy's indignity. The heartbreaking part of it was the strength that still 133.

resonated in her voice. "Anything at all. You got anybody you want dead? I'll make them dead. Use my body in any perverted, f.u.c.ked-up way you want. I'll make it better than your sick mind ever imagined. Just please don't do this."

The tall man laughed. "Really? How tempting." Laughter from the guards this time. "Of course, I'm used to pleas of this nature from people in your position, but I find this interesting." He nodded at Chad. "Would you kill him?"

Something at the center of Chad's being went very cold. Cindy made eye contact with him and held his gaze for a period of seconds that seemed eons long. Then she looked at the tall man. "Would you approve my pet.i.tion?"

The tall man's eyes narrowed and he turned to appraise Chad more fully. He stroked his chin with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. In that moment the warden was the epitome of a Mephistophelean figure, diabolic and crafty. It was just one more unpleasant a.s.sociation on top of a whole heap of unpleasantness, and Chad suddenly felt very weary.

He was really and truly f.u.c.ked.

The tall man seemed amused by Cindy's gesture of ruthless self-interest. "I would consider it a second time, perhaps more favorably?

Cindy scowled. "f.u.c.k that. You have to promise."

Chad had to wonder what the point of that condition was-this was so clearly not a man who honored his word. His promises would be worth less than Confederate cash. And he didn't know what to make of Cindy's tentative acquiescence, either. He had a hard time believing she would kill him, not if he trusted the truth of the things she'd 134.

told him in the cell, but maybe none of that mattered anymore.

Maybe all she gave a d.a.m.n about at this point was self-preservation. He strongly suspected no one survived three years in this place without making that the number-one priority of every waking moment.

So, yeah, he could see her killing him.

All of a sudden, he felt a little less detached from the situation.

A little more in imminent danger of serious harm.

He didn't know how to deal with it. Should he protest? Beg for his life? Maybe whimper and cower like the cowardly cur he secretly feared he was. Maybe there was some other angle he was missing. Wasn't it possible Cindy was acting, playing the angles until she could work out a way to get them out of here? The helplessness he felt was humiliating. Debilitating. He'd handled some pretty stressful situations in this business world, scenarios that called for quick thinking and an ability to solve complex problems in creative ways, and he'd come to believe he was pretty d.a.m.n smooth.

Well, that self-image was all shot to h.e.l.l now.

He didn't have clue f.u.c.king one what to do.

The way the warden was eyeing him wasn't helping matters. He looked like a serial killer sizing up a lone prost.i.tute at two in the morning. "I'll tell you a secret. This is a personal insight I'm giving the two of you. The thing I treasure most about my position Below is the freedom to do as I wish with my inferiors."

He started to coil the whip. "Before I came here, I ran an office of twenty. I worked my people hard, and most of 135.

them did good work. Some of them, though, were slackers. Layabouts. I did my best to get rid of them, but that wasn't so easy a proposition with the ones who'd done enough to fake their way through the probationary period. The corporate bylaws made them almost untouchable. The n.i.g.g.e.rs were the worst. That affirmative-action s.h.i.+t made my life h.e.l.l, I'll tell you. All that red tape. All those government regulations. I can't tell you how much it all p.i.s.sed me off. I would've given anything to string any of those a.s.sholes up by the b.a.l.l.s."

He finished coiling the whip and handed it to a guard, who returned it to the peg behind the tall man's desk. "Here ..." He spread his hands wide and smiled. "I have none of those worries. Procedure?" He indicated the pile of shredded paper on his desk. "You've seen how much proper procedure means to me." He addressed one of the guards. "Release the woman." The guard took a ring of keys from his belt, unlocked the shackles around Cindy's wrists and ankles, and moved back as she stepped away from the wall. She rubbed her wrists as she walked slowly to the center of the room. She walked straight toward Chad, making fearless eye contact with him, and came to a stop several feet in front of him.