House Of Blood Part 34

The woman's expression was grim, her mouth a tight line.

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"Wanda and Cindy were close, Chad. Confidantes, you could say."

He then introduced the brawny men Chad thought of as Jack Clones, and they were indeed ex-military Their names were Shaft (as in Richard Roundtree) and Joe (as in G.I.)- Shaft was an imposing black man with a gleaming bald dome of a skull, and Joe looked like a strapping farm boy from the heartland.

"This geezer here is Jake Barnes."

Barnes chuckled. "Geezer, my eye." His gaze swung in Chad's direction. "Don't let my posture fool you, boy. I'm still a.s.s-kicking capable."

The kid was the last to be introduced. "And this is Todd Haynes, still wet behind the ears and barely out of his diapers." Paradise tapped his skull. "But he's got more going on up here than the rest of us combined."

The kid's serious expression never wavered. "I'm a genius. That's just a fact of IQ testing. I'm counting on you to return me to the land of higher education and government grants." He started to smile. "And I'm as tough as any of these a.s.sholes."

Chad believed him.

Paradise clapped his hands, a signal that the formalities were at an end. "Okay, down to business." A grim tone entered his voice. "I know you've all heard what happened to Cindy, and I have the sad task of confirming it. She's dead. Early indications are it's a retaliation for the death yesterday of a certain vendor we all know."

Chad groaned.

He heard a murmur of other voices.

"Elvis Kennedy had friends you don't trifle with. He was 317.

a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, an evil pervert, but he should've been left alone." He smiled, a fragile expression that wavered on the fine edge of a sad exhalation. "Cindy's sense of moral outrage finally outweighed her good sense. Perhaps she was emboldened by her emanc.i.p.ation, or maybe it was the nearness of our time of reckoning that prompted her action. But we can't know what was in her mind, so conjecture is useless."

He sighed.

Somebody sniffled.

Chad looked at Lazarus.

Paradise continued, "We don't need to say a lot of words about Cindy. We know what kind of person she was. Brave and honorable. Invaluable to the cause. Everybody in this room loved her, including yours truly, but we must resist the temptation to succ.u.mb to grief."

He moved to the center of the room, where he slowly surveyed the faces of everyone present. Chad could tell he was looking for c.h.i.n.ks in the armor, subtle hints of weakness or antic.i.p.atory jitters. When he appeared satisfied with the resolve of his compatriots, he picked up his train of thought.

"Everybody here, with the obvious exception of Chad, knows what he or she has to do tonight. We've prepared for this day for years." He glanced at Lazarus and Jake Barnes. "Some of us have waited decades for this day. We've worked too hard and come too far to be derailed by this tragedy. Failure is not an option, friends."

His voice dropped a few notches and his eyes narrowed. "Destiny doesn't take time off for grief, and neither will we. Not yet."

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Chad looked around the room and saw heads nodding. Paradise again a.s.sumed the manner of a motivator and master strategist. "The Gathering begins in a few hours. Slaves and guards from the outer perimeter will begin arriving sooner than that. Let's be ready? His gaze fixed on Lazarus. "Ready for resurrection?" The old singer looked at the floor and sighed. He scratched the thick beard that was so much whiter than the grizzled images Chad recalled from old magazines. He drew in a big breath and exhaled it. His shoulders straightened, and he looked at Paradise. His eyes glimmered. "Yes, I'm ready." Paradise smiled. "Let's go over it all one last time." And Chad began to see The Outpost's back room for what it really was. A war room.

The time of the Gathering was drawing close. The banks of stadium lights began to dim, an approximation of the onset of night. Chad followed Wanda and Todd Haynes as they pushed their way through the milling slaves en route to the "square," a place he was made to understand was what pa.s.sed for a downtown in the hobbled-together community.

The square was a big open area between buildings. There was a platform for speakers at one end and a big tent behind it. Chad imagined Lazarus waiting in that tent, perhaps remembering what it was like to wait backstage before a concert. Since he knew the singer wasn't in the tent, the image failed to coalesce. The old man was in a private room in one of the buildings that bordered the 319.

square, and he would be escorted to the stage directly from there when the time arrived for his moment in the spotlight.

There was a pit in the middle of the square. It was filled with the charred remains of previous Gathering bonfires. Chad saw slaves wheeling carts of fresh wood toward the pit, and he wondered how many of them, if any, were conspirators. That got him started examining the faces of everyone he saw, trying to decide who was a comrade in arms and who wasn't. He'd been told that the weekly festivals were doses of uninhibited debauchery. He saw people drinking, but what he saw didn't look like the initial stages of drunken carousing. A lot of people had bottles, but they were sipping from them. Nursing them. They looked like people who knew they had to be careful how much booze they consumed, like a bunch of designated drivers at the periphery of a ma.s.sive pub crawl.

On the other hand, maybe he was seeing things that weren't there. Maybe he'd seen one too many political thrillers in his time. In any case, he figured even a little paranoia was a dangerous thing.

Don't a.s.sume anything, he thought.

Stick with what you know.

The rest of it's out of your hands.

They circ.u.mvented the pit area on the way to the platform, where they joined a growing throng of people awaiting some imminent event. Chad stood off to the side of the platform with Todd and Wanda.

"What's happening here?" he asked them.

Wanda stood there with her arms folded under b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her gaze turned away from him. "What usually happens is 320.

Below's version of a vaudeville act. That's first. You get actors, if you can call them that-they're bad-who mock the power structure in skits so puerile you'll swear they were written by five-year-olds. Controlled rebellion. Safe pseudoanarchy. Meshes with the whole concept of the Gatherings as an anesthetic of the spirit. Then, at some point, some of Below's weakest, most pitiful people are brought onstage for public humiliation. It's a crowd partic.i.p.ation affair, with a panel of judges weighing suggestions from the crowd on the best ways to abuse the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. It's the ultimate irony. The slaves, who have long been subject to acts of casual sadism, are encouraged to find a kind of catharsis in being s.a.d.i.s.tic to other slaves."

Chad understood now why the woman had been Cindy's friend.

She was sharp.

He said to Todd, ?I thought you were the genius."

The kid smirked. "I am." He slipped an arm around the woman's waist. "I've just been rubbing off on her."

Chad gawked.

He couldn't help it.

Below was an awful, barbaric place, was probably earth's closest approximation of an actual h.e.l.l, but where else would a kid like Todd have a chance of getting laid by the likes of foxy Wicked Wanda?

Wanda was looking at him now. Perhaps she sensed what he was thinking. "I'm sorry if I've been abrupt with you, Chad. I loved Cindy, and ..."

She didn't have to say it. "I was with her when she died."

She dropped her gaze. "Yes."

"I couldn't have saved her, Wanda." He felt a dangerous 321.

edge of emotion rise within him. Compartmentalize, he thought. Compartmentalize. Oh, bulls.h.i.+t. "It just happened too f.u.c.king fast. I've never felt so useless. I would've given my life for her."

Wanda looked at him again. "I believe you. I know there's nothing you could have done. But I can't stow my grief away like Paradise. I just can't."

Chad nodded. "I know."

Chad's own grief resurfaced. He was so consumed with angst he didn't immediately perceive the flutter of excitement that rippled through the crowd. Then he looked up and noticed how many more people had gathered around the platform. The bonfire was already lit and crackling to life. He saw a few more obviously drunk people now. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter of the square, and Chad again thought he was able to discern who was with them and who wasn't. Some of the guards, maybe most of them, projected an air of casual indifference. But a few of them seemed anxious, alternately studying the crowd, their fellow guards, and the nearby buildings.

They were waiting for something.

The uprising, Chad thought.

And Lazarus.

It was almost time.

The crowd was stirring. There was an excited babble of voices. Chad had a vague sense of something approaching. Then he saw the crowd part, and Jake Barnes emerged to climb the stairs to the platform.

Wanda leaned over to whisper in Chad's ear. "Jake is a sort of emcee. He's a popular fixture at Gatherings. The 322.

Overlords consider him one of their own." She chuckled. "They're about to experience the mother of all paradigm s.h.i.+fts."

Jake waved to the cheering crowd, then held his hands out palms down in the universal shus.h.i.+ng gesture, and stepped to the podium. A silence punctuated by expectant murmurs ensued, and Jake surveyed the crowd in the smiling, almost arrogant manner of a benevolent king.

He cleared his throat and leaned toward the microphone. "Good evening, and welcome to this week's Gathering."

A surge of enthusiastic applause necessitated another shus.h.i.+ng gesture on Jake's part. "Good to see all of you so fired up." He cleared his throat again, adopted a more overtly serious tone. "Now, I know you all have certain expectations of these things. You come to have a good time and forget your troubles. Given the sad circ.u.mstances of your lives, that's understandable."

More murmurs.

Voices raised in confusion. Barnes had already deviated from the standard opening statement in a startling way. The old man's opening words sounded like a prologue to a deeply philosophical, ruminative speech, which would be the ant.i.thesis of anything the bulk of his audience was expecting. They were geared up to hear the sarcastic comments and jokes that peppered his usual patter. Chad saw more than confusion out there. There was concern. Some slaves appeared worried their weekly dose of "fun" was in jeopardy. A guard at the square's perimeter directed a comment to one of his colleagues and the colleague shrugged, a the h.e.l.l if I know gesture.

Barnes slowly surveyed the sea of faces before him, appearing to take the measure of everyone in attendance.

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Some fidgeted beneath his gaze. Others looked angry. Someone called out, "Spit it out, for Christ's sake!"

A smattering of boos ensued, but there was a sense that the heckler spoke for them all.

Barnes smiled. "Patience." The old man took a deep breath and expelled it in a slow, deliberate manner. "Tonight is a momentous night."

Wanda hooked a hand around Chad's elbow. "Come."

Chad, perplexed, frowned at her. "What? He's just getting started."

But he allowed Wanda to pull him along. "So are we," she said.

Chad looked at Todd, who was strolling along ahead of them. He realized then where they were going-the big tent he thought of as "backstage." Two guards were stationed outside the hanging flaps of the entrance. They were stolid behind their visors, shotguns positioned across their chests. They projected an aura of steely efficiency and ruthlessness, and Chad cursed his mind for selecting that moment to replay the image of Cindy's brains splas.h.i.+ng the guard's vest.

Todd stopped to say something to the guard on the right, who barely seemed to acknowledge his presence. Wanda's hand closed on Chad's elbow, and they drew to a stop several feet outside the tent. "Calm down."

"I'm calm." But he'd said it too fast.

Wanda smiled. "Okay, Chad. But keep this in mind. We're already in a restricted area. The people of Below know not to come back here."

Chad frowned at the guards. "Yeah?"

"Yes." She nodded at the guards. "Ours, Chad. Don't 324.

worry about them. I have a more pressing concern. I need you to tell me something."

Chad sighed. "Sure."

The crowd's rumblings were growing louder. Chad heard the old man say something about the Russian revolution and tsars. He was setting the stage for something extraordinary, and some in his audience were beginning to sense it.

Wanda's smile was gone, replaced by an expression that was all business. "I need to know if you have a weak stomach, Chad."

He didn't really have to think about that one. "Not anymore."

She nodded. "Good."

Chad saw Todd disappear through the hanging flaps. Wanda pulled him forward again, and they stepped between the guards. He saw her hands curl around one of the flaps, and he experienced a sudden, vivid jolt of precognition. Something he really wasn't prepared for awaited him inside the tent. What, he didn't know, but it was going to be really, really bad.

He swallowed hard. "Wanda-"

"Easy, Chad."

Then they were inside the tent and the back of his throat felt a tickle of bile. Chad put a hand to his forehead, squinted, and tried to take it all in. "My G.o.d ..."

The inside of the tent was a charnel house. He saw bodies. No way to tell how many, because they were in pieces. Blood pooled and ran in rivers on the ground. The victims all appeared to be middle-aged Caucasian men. The men who'd done the killing stood in a loose circle around the 325.

mutilated bodies, all of them wielding still-dripping machetes. Their clothes and faces were spattered with blood. Chad recognized just one of them-Shaft, the only black man in the room.

Chad wavered, his head going fuzzy, but Wanda's grip around his elbow tightened, keeping him upright until he steadied himself. "What happened here?"

Todd came toward him with a machete. "The beginning, Chad. The uprising's first victory"

Wanda said, "These men were the Overlords, Chad. All of them."

Shaft sneered. "a.s.sholes never knew what hit *em. Was over in minutes."

Chad flinched at the motion of Todd's arm, but then he realized the kid meant to give him the machete. Chad took it with great reluctance, holding it lightly by the end of the handle. He wanted to tell them he wasn't up to hacking people to pieces, but he knew there was no room for queasiness in this equation.

Todd nodded at another gap in the tent's canvas wall. Chad looked and saw a shadowy set of steps he a.s.sumed led to the platform's stage. "Our men hid in there, waiting for Jake's verbal signal."

Shaft chuckled. "Tsars, it was."

Chad shuddered. "Jesus... how could you kill that many people so fast?"

Another man said, "You do what you have to do."

Chad could only nod.

He'd heard that before, of course.

He realized then how clearly he could hear Barnes in the tent, almost as if the old man were standing right next 326.