House Of Blood Part 33

Thus steeled, she ventured into the hallway.

She tried the first door she came to, her free hand closing around the doork.n.o.b. But it was unyielding when she tried to turn it. The same was true of the next door. And the next. And the next. Door after door after door until she'd tried dozens of them, all with the same frustrating result. She was near the end of the hallway now, could see the landing around the corner that led to the spiral staircase.

Well.

Again with this s.h.i.+t, she thought.

It hadn't been a spiral staircase last night. Of course it hadn't. It had been a regular old staircase. Straight up to the G.o.dd.a.m.n landing. And now it, too, had altered its shape and dimensions in accordance with the overall creepy-manor motif.

You can't let it bother you, she reminded herself.

There were only a few doors left.

305.

The pattern of failure remained unchanging until she was three doors from the end of the hallway. She reached for a doork.n.o.b that wasn't there. The door stood open, and she heard sounds of human activity in the room. Panting. Groans. A woman's voice. Two people. She was sure the other person was a man. She was also sure they were having s.e.x. Hence the groans. She was hesitant to spur an act of coitus interruptus, but she didn't see that she had a choice.

Somebody had to help her.

So she stepped into the room.

And saw right away that the room's occupants weren't having s.e.x.

A nude man was locked in a pillory. Dream had never seen one outside of movies, but she recognized it for what it was instantly. The man's head and hands were visible through holes, and his scarlet rear end quivered on the other side. A lithe young woman with hair so blond it was nearly white c.o.c.ked her head to one side and stared at Dream with open curiosity. She had on black garters, stiletto heels, and a black leather bustier. A corner of her mouth turned up.

She spoke to Dream. "h.e.l.l-o, pretty?

She twirled a cat-o'-nine-tails.

"Will you join us?"

Dream numbly backed out of the room, the Glock forgotten at her side. She stood in the hallway and watched the blond approach her. The girl's blue eyes were chilling. There was nothing like a soul behind them. Just a dark center of evil. Dream intuited this the way she'd read Zarah's malevolent thoughts. She knew it. It was fact. The 306.

lovely girl was a monster. And her smile was insidious. An invitation to debas.e.m.e.nt.

The girl's fingers curled around the edge of the door.

"Good-bye, pretty."

And she threw the door shut.

Dream shook with relief.

Relief so profound she wasn't aware of the door opening behind her until it was too late. She whirled around in time to feel Ms. Wickman's hand closing around her wrist to peel the Glock from her hand.

King's cruel-eyed housekeeper brandished the weapon in her face.

"My, my."

Dream tried to speak, but she was shaking too hard.

"Shush, dear." Ms. Wickman placed the Glock's muzzle against Dream's left temple, pus.h.i.+ng her head to the side. "I wonder what The Master would think of this, eh? Skulking about his home, the home he so generously opened to you, with a firearm."

Dream again tried to say something, but the austere woman clamped her free hand about Dream's jaw and slammed her against the wall. The woman leaned against Dream, her face so close she could feel her breath.

"I'm not a stupid woman." The muzzle pressed so hard now it sc.r.a.ped her temple. "I know something is amiss."

Dream whimpered.

"The Master is in trouble." She laughed without humor. "I suppose it had to happen eventually. I further suppose there's nothing to be gained by killing you, though I would derive great pleasure from doing so. There may even be something to gain by allowing you to live."

307.

She detected something in Dream's gaze then, some subtle flicker of knowledge.

"Oh, I keep my ears to the ground, young lady. You see, I serve The Master and I am loyal to him, but my loyalty has its limits." Her lips grazed Dream's mouth, making the captive girl quiver. "I will weather this storm."

She relinquished Dream. "So go, wh.o.r.e. Enjoy h.e.l.l."

Ms. Wickman turned away from Dream and disappeared around the corner to the landing. High heels clicked down the winding staircase, echoing like pebbles dropped down a well. Her mocking laughter was the deranged laughter of h.e.l.l's warden.

Dream, demoralized and scared s.h.i.+tless, slumped to the floor.

And she stayed right there until she had the shaking under control.

Her friends were dead.

No way they'd survived the night in this place. Anger began to displace Dream's terror of the strange housekeeper. Whatever shred of illusion she'd been clinging to was irreparably tattered. She didn't want to join King in some redeeming eternal afterlife.

What she felt for him wasn't natural.

That was so clear now.

He'd done something to her.

Some kind of... s.e.x magic.

Yes, he would be capable of that.

Dream tried to get a grip on her warring emotions.

It was tempting to let anger guide her actions now, but she saw immediately how counterproductive that would be. She had to remain focused on the goal. Had to 308.

maintain the illusion of conspiracy with King. He needed to keep right on believing she wanted to be with him.

Until he was dead.

Until they were both dead.

Defeated and devoid of hope, Dream got to her feet and returned to King's room.

309.

In its true form, the house on the mountain existed in a state of stasis. The dilapidated structure consisted of matter suspended. For more than forty years, the old beams that made up the house's sagging skeletal infrastructure did not decay. The rot that had already begun could not progress. The water stains that made the kitchen ceiling droop did not spread. In the living room, the property's old caretaker sat on a plastic-covered sofa, his throat slit and his head c.o.c.ked to the right. The perfectly preserved body had been there since January of 1960. The plastic cover and the man's overalls were stained with blood that had never coagulated.

This house, the true house, was a kind of purgatory.

Cold, unchanging, and invisible.

It provided the framework for the illusions created by the creature that had invaded and forever changed this 310.

forgotten slice of land back in those final pre-Camelot days. The dimensions and appearance of the illusory house changed daily, sometimes in a subtle way, occasionally in a very drastic way. The power that created the illusions and kept the true house out of view was immense, stronger than the forces of the natural world.

The illusion was una.s.sailable.

The true house impregnable.

Untouched by time.

Until today.

When something stirred.

Somewhere, perhaps in one of the empty upper rooms, a board faintly creaked.

A sigh was almost audible.

The sound of something very old and very tired awakening one more time.

311.

The gunshot knocked Cindy off her feet, lifting her momentarily off the ground. Chad knew next to nothing about guns, but this one was powerful. Cindy flopped face first on the ground and didn't move. Didn't even twitch. The bullet had taken out most of her brain. Chad watched with slackjawed horror and disbelief as the guards retrieved their wounded colleague and departed.

They didn't spare him so much as a backward glance.

Grief beyond his ability to contain welled out with a force that shook him, and he turned his head heavenward and wailed. Hot tears spilled down his cheeks and trickled into his mouth. Later, he wasn't sure how long he remained there like that. It might have been only a few minutes or as long as a half hour. Cindy's shack was one among a row of dozens. This was where the slaves lived. Their quarters. Some of them emerged cautiously from 312.

these decrepit dwellings to see what the fuss was about. Chad only began to recover when he became aware of their presence.

And he saw what they were seeing.

The obscenity of Cindy's nude, unspeakably defiled body.

A sh.e.l.l that had until moments ago housed a vibrant, galvanizing life force. The soul of a woman who had gone to great lengths and placed herself in jeopardy to bring him safely to this place. A woman he'd known for so brief a period of time but had been well on the way to caring a great deal about. And now she just didn't exist. The ruined home of that precious soul leaked blood and tissue on the ground. The magnitude of the loss triggered another spasm of grief, and he lurched to his feet, staggered back into the shack, and returned with a tattered blanket.

He covered her body with the blanket.

And slumped next to her on the ground. He was only half-conscious of his own nudity, but modesty was an absurd concept in the face of something so horrific. He supposed the impulse to cover a dead woman's body was also something of an absurdity, but she deserved some slight measure of dignity, at least, so he made this little gesture. And he continued to sit there with her, feeling impotent, powerless, unsure of how to proceed. He experienced the expected thirst for revenge, but he had no idea how to go about exacting these theoretical acts of reprisal.

He later supposed he might have stayed there next to the body indefinitely had it not been for the intercession of Jack Paradise.

313.

Jack Paradise, not the name bestowed upon him at birth (surprise, surprise), had lived Below for fifteen years, the last nine as an emanc.i.p.ated slave. As an ex-marine, he should have been a prime candidate for members.h.i.+p in The Master's underground police force, but Paradise made it clear he would be no one's thug. The act of resistance should have earned him a ticket on the express train to heaven, but the great drill sergeant in the sky must have been smiling on him that day, because, hey, he was still here, in the flesh and bigger than life. Big being the key word in that phrase, since he was impressively built and well over six feet tall.

The leaders of the conspiracy had him in their sights from the beginning, and he'd a.s.sumed a leaders.h.i.+p role soon after being recruited. He was good at things the others didn't have a clue about, practical things like strategy and identifying which guards might be sympathetic to their cause. Jack had an outsized personality, but he was shrewd and honorable. Lazarus may have been the movement's inspirational figure, its messiah, but Jack was its Patton. The conspiracy had eyes almost everywhere in those closing moments before the uprising began, and Jack was summoned to the scene of Cindy's death almost immediately.

His first look at the brave woman's ruined head made his expression grow hard.

Cords of muscle in his big arms tensed with a need to lash out at something.

But he remained steadfast.

And got to work.

314.

Chad, of course, had no idea who the big guy was, but he sensed he was there to help. Something in his general demeanor told him that-the stance of his body, the way his face became a slab of granite at the sight of Cindy's body.

Chad detected compa.s.sion in the man's eyes when he turned his piercing gaze on him. "I promise you one thing, the motherf.u.c.kers who did this will die tonight." He extended a hand to Chad. "Here, let's get to work."

Chad took the proffered hand and was promptly hauled to his feet. The man then knelt over Cindy and arranged the blanket over her head and the upper portion of her body. Then he lifted her off the ground, beckoned to Chad with a tilt of his head, and carried the corpse into the shack. Chad, still numb but nonetheless intrigued by the appearance of this superhero, followed him through the door.

The man placed Cindy gently on the mat, found a crumpled bedsheet with holes in it, and covered the lower half of her body with it. Then he took one of her lifeless hands in his, kissed the back of it, and muttered something Chad couldn't decipher. He closed his eyes, squinted hard, and breathed deeply.

Then that steely gaze was back on Chad, focused and intent. "Get dressed, Chad. We've got a revolution to start"

Chad searched for his clothes.

He wasn't surprised that the man knew his name.

That was hours ago. Chad had since learned who Jack Paradise was, and the man instilled more confidence in him than Lazarus ever could. He radiated spirit and ability. He was a compelling figure with a lot to say. Paradise advised 315.

him to compartmentalize his grief and anger. Not forever. Later he would see that his anger, if properly channeled, could be a useful tool. It might provide him the courage to stride brazenly into the belly of the beast.

Paradise took him back to The Outpost, where Lazarus awaited in the back room. The old singer was visibly shaken by the news of Cindy's death. His face was puffy and his eyes were red. His breath smelled of alcohol, but the odor wasn't as strong as Chad was afraid it would be. He embraced Chad and patted him on the back. Chad held the old man in his arms and tried to heed Jack's counsel.

Compartmentalize.

Compartmentalize, G.o.dd.a.m.n it.

Easier said than done.

There were others in the room. More coconspirators. Two of them looked cut from the same mold as Jack. Another was a stoop-shouldered man at least a decade older than Lazarus. One was a woman Chad recognized, one of the whip-wielding emanc.i.p.ateds outside the s.e.x club. And there was a young boy who looked to be about the age Chad had been when Dream intervened on his behalf so long ago. Chad felt a flash of incredulity that a kid was a member of this inner circle, but a closer look revealed eyes that reflected intelligence and st.u.r.dy conviction. The look was enough to tell him the kid was grittier than he could have dreamed of being at that age.

Jack made the introductions. "You all know who Chad is, but he's at a disadvantage, so I'll do the honors."

He nodded at the woman. "This is Wicked Wanda."