Soulstorm. Part 9

c.u.mmings considered and nodded. "I need a bite first," he said.

"No rush." McNeely smiled. "We'll be playing in the den."

He walked out, leaving c.u.mmings alone with Gabrielle, who had nearly finished her apple. c.u.mmings sat next to her at the table. "I enjoyed that," he said softly.

She looked at him, not saying anything, a question in her eyes.

"You left abruptly," he went on. "I didn't know you'd gone until I woke up."

"What are you talking about?"

He chuckled. "Like games, don't you?"

She stared at him coldly. "Pinochle," she said. "I like pinochle a lot more than this game, Mr. c.u.mmings."

"Seth," he said. "I think we could at least be on a first name basis again, huh?"

"If you think trying to seduce me makes us intimates . . ."

"Trying? Hold on, lady, I just set the stage, you made the entrance." He grinned. "And I'm ready for an encore whenever you are."

She stood up and hurled the apple core into the sink. "They'll be waiting for us," she said, and stormed from the room.

"Jesus," he whispered under his breath, wondering what dumba.s.s two-faced broad he'd found this time. He'd met her type before, the ones who f.u.c.ked only in bed, who'd cold-shoulder you at a c.o.c.ktail party even though you'd just humped their brains out the day before. But meet them at the motel that night and they'd be all over you.

Hypocrites. f.u.c.king hypocritical c.u.n.ts. He sighed and took the milk from the refrigerator. He'd just have to put up with it if he didn't want to go p.u.s.s.yless for a month. She'd come to him when she was hot again, and that couldn't be too long.

And then he'd show her. Then he'd make her pay.

The pinochle session went longer than c.u.mmings liked. He and Wickstrom were partners, and McNeely and Gabrielle beat them at a steady three to one pace, due mostly to Wickstrom's inability to recall the cards played. There was little conversation, as everyone was concentrating on the play, though c.u.mmings noticed McNeely glancing sideways at him on occasion, almost as if he could read c.u.mmings's cards from his expression.

It was after McNeely and Gabrielle won their ninth game that Wickstrom pushed back his chair and sighed heavily. "Wish I had my watch. I feel like we've been going for twenty-four hours."

"Yeah," agreed McNeely, "believe I've had it myself. All the suits are starting to look alike."

"Think I'll hit the sack for a bit," said Wickstrom.

"This has been fun," Gabrielle said. "Let's do it again sometime."

McNeely laughed. "Sometime is right. How about Thursday evening promptly at eight o'clock?"

"I'll set my watch," Wickstrom said. "G'bye all." He was gone.

"I'm on a slightly different schedule," said c.u.mmings, directing the remark ever so slightly to Gabrielle. "I think I'll have a workout first, then a bit of a catnap. It's been a pleasure getting whipped by you two. Perhaps next time I can get a different partner."

"I'm sure," purred Gabrielle, "that George would be delighted to play with you."

c.u.mmings pushed the anger back. "I was thinking of your husband."

If he had hit home, she didn't show it. "David dislikes cards," she said with a soft smile.

"And company, it appears. Well, I'm off."

He tackled the equipment in the gym as though he meant to destroy it. After what could have been no more than ten minutes, his muscles ached miserably, and he fell exhausted to the exercise mat, thinking what a thoroughly exasperating b.i.t.c.h Gabrielle Neville was.

And how he couldn't wait to see her again.

She woke him with her mouth. It ran over his body like a hot wet animal searching for food, while he jerked awake, not remembering coming back to his bed, not remembering anything after flopping down on the mat and falling asleep.

But he was in bed now, and the woman was with him, warm and naked on top of him. He laughed. "Welcome back. Welcome back, you little b.i.t.c.h."

She gave a grunt of amus.e.m.e.nt and straddled him, slipping him into her and moving up and down until she was filled with his hardness. He grabbed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and twisted them roughly. "How's that, huh? Little toughie, G.o.d, but you love to play, don't you? b.i.t.c.h ..."

Half of him wanted to draw her down tenderly, the other half wanted to cuff her across the room. She moaned as he pinched her nipples.

"You like this, huh? You really love it. Does David do it like this?" And he threw her onto her back and entered her again. "I want to see you, Gabrielle, I want to remember you loving this so next time I see you, you can't give me your bulls.h.i.+t!"

His hand shot out and turned on the lamp by the bed, and he saw that the woman writhing beneath him was not Gabrielle Neville.

Her hair was dark brown, her eyebrows carefully plucked, and her makeup was heavy with rouge and bright lipstick that smeared across her full mouth like a wound. Her half-opened eyes were brown-irised, and her pink tongue reached upward as if to lick his face like a dog.

"Dream lover," she panted, and her voice was identical to Gabrielle Neville's. She grasped his back, and with long-nailed fingers pulled him down against her.

Horror took him then, and he could only whimper as she slapped her hips against his faster and faster, and he thought that if he came now, he would die. So he struggled to pull himself back, pull out, before the heat mounting in his groin could pour out in a searing flood. But he could not. Her muscles had contracted around him, locking him inside her with a grip of iron.

Panicked, he pushed against the sheets, against her. "Let me go," he whispered, "please let me go." His voice was high, like a child's, but still she clung to him, the kneading pressure of her v.a.g.i.n.a keeping him hard against his will.

"Let me go!" he cried, striking at her and knowing that what he hit was not, could not be, truly flesh and blood.

The woman only laughed, spitting blood from the cut his heavy ring had made. "Dream lover," she crooned, and moaned again, scratching his b.u.t.tocks so that he gasped in pain.

Then his hands were on her throat.

He didn't know what he intended to do; there was no thought of murder in his mind, only survival. And as he pressed, striving to bring his hands together, to make the neck nothing but a strand to slide between his palms, a blinding pall of whiteness fell over his consciousness and exploded within him. And he felt release.

And again, impossibly, release.

Then the white fire dimmed, and the room became visible once more.

He was kneeling over the woman. Her face was a nightmare of bulging eyes, purple skin, and lolling tongue. Blood trickled from her mouth and nose. Her neck had been crushed as thoroughly as if in a vise, and her stomach and b.r.e.a.s.t.s were splashed with s.e.m.e.n.

He realized then who he had seen on the bed that first day.

He threw himself off the woman and scuttled into the bathroom, feeling his stomach start to churn frenziedly. He made it to the toilet just in time, and vomited until there was nothing left. As he stood and turned to reenter the bedroom, he did so with the hope that the bed would be empty, as it had been before.

It wasn't. The woman lay there stiffly, her strangled body a mute accusation. He staggered past her toward the living room, and s.h.i.+vered as her eyes, forced from their sockets like eggs in an egg cup, seemed to follow him. The light was on in the living room, and once inside, he slammed the bedroom door shut so that she would not follow.

Her clothes were draped over the couch. There was a thin purple voile dress with yellow flowers on it, a chemise, short-legged panties they called "step-ins," a bra.s.siere, a garter belt, and a pair of long silk stockings hung over the arm. Her shoes were on the floor, and a straw basket-purse was on the coffee table.

Who was she?

The sight of the empty clothes held more reality for him than the corpse in the bed. These homely souvenirs of a life were no ghosts to vanish in a second. They were real, and he touched them one by one, letting the cotton and silk slip through his stiff fingers.

Who was she?

And then he knew how he could find out. The purse was open.

He picked it up and went through its contents. It was huge, and it seemed as though what was inside had been swept into it from a tabletop in one of the Long Island flea markets that his wife had used to drag him to. There was a Coty lipstick and a bottle of Shalimar, old-fas.h.i.+oned bobby pins and a deco pocket mirror, a real tortoise sh.e.l.l comb and brush, a pair of gla.s.ses speckled with small jewels, and a speeding ticket dated July 7, 1925, as crisp and white as on the day it had been written.

When was that? Yesterday?

The coins and bills were all dated before 1926, but the cards and photos were what made Seth c.u.mmings so sure about what had happened. The 1925 New York State driver's license listed a Viola Elizabeth Taggart, born April 30, 1902, brown hair, brown eyes, 5'6", 127 pounds. c.u.mmings found a small black and white photograph beneath the license. It had been taken in front of the main door of The Pines, and showed a fat balding man in his fifties in a brown suit.

The businessman standing next to the girl in the bedroom, The mistress his arm around her and an uncomfortable smile on his face. On his right was a tall stocky man who resembled David Neville, The grandfather and on the other side of the girl was a thin ascetic-looking young man holding a book. Unlike the others, who were looking at the camera, his eyes were fixed on the girl's face, a wistful expression on his own.

The poet His hand shaking, c.u.mmings let the picture drop back into the purse. He felt an uncontrollable urge to run out of the room and keep on running until he found someone alive, alive and real. But he remembered his nakedness, and remembered, too, that all his clothes were in the bedroom. He hesitated, wondering if Viola Elizabeth Taggart would be sitting up, smiling at him with her dead face.

And then he thought, It doesn't matter. They can do what they want with me-make me see what they want. It doesn't matter.

He opened the door and went in. The bed was empty. Of all that had happened, the only sign left was the mark of his s.e.m.e.n upon the sheet.

He turned and looked back into the living room. The clothes were gone. The coffee table was bare.

A voice grander than any he had ever heard before spoke within his head.

You have done well.

A peace that he had never known came over him.

My true and faithful servant.

He closed his eyes, letting the voice engulf him.

To you shall be the power and the glory.

To you shall be the power.

The power.

Power.

Chapter Six.

David Neville's eyes were hollow, as if he hadn't slept for a long time. Gabrielle sprang to her feet as he entered the living room, watching in concern while he shuffled to the sofa and let himself fall onto it with a low moan. "David?"

His appearance worried her. Could the cancer be progressing into the terminal stages, cutting into him here, where there was no hope of medical help? She touched his forehead. "David, are you all right?"

"It's not working. . . ." There was a haunted look about him.

"Darling, what do you-"

"It's not right!" He looked up at her, and for the first time she noticed how pale he'd grown, how his cheekbones jutted out like they'd never done before. "I haven't seen anything," he went on in an impa.s.sioned whisper. "Not a thing. I hear them though. It's like they're laughing at me, like they could talk to me anytime but won't.

"What's wrong with me, Gabrielle? Why won't they touch me? Why?" She put her arms around him and let him cry, although tears were beyond her now. Though David had told her why they'd come, though she knew what he was looking for, she did not understand him. He had become a stranger to her, made alien by the hand of death.

"I don't know, David. Maybe because . . ." She'd been about to say because you want them too much, but instead, far different words came out. "Because you're dying."

His mouth fell open as if he'd been struck.

"They only want the strong," she went on. "What good would you be to them? You've got only a few months. What could you do for them?"

She could not believe it herself, could not believe that she was being so cruel, was purposely baiting him with what was ... the truth.

The truth.

And then she knew that someone or something was speaking through her, was taunting David with the horrible fact that he was not wanted by the companions he sought in the house that he owned.

She thought at first that he was going to go into hysterics. He began to breathe more quickly and blood suffused his pale cheeks. But suddenly his eyes lost their desperate glare, and he smiled. It was a strange smile, one that she could not remember having seen on his face in all the years she'd known him. "So." He pulled away from her and stood up. "So that's it then, that's what you think. You think they don't want me because I'm not strong enough. You're wrong. They want me. They do. They know the power I have, the strength. Strength that you've never seen, never known about because I never had the chance to show it before. But you'll see it now, Gabrielle. I'll show you."

He grasped her hair and pulled her to him, crus.h.i.+ng her mouth against his. Her fear was greater than any pa.s.sion he'd aroused, and she pushed away, falling back onto the sofa. He was on her in a flash, his hands moving roughly, his breathing stifled and heavy.

"Stop," she said, "David, please don't. . . don't ..." But he ignored her protests, forcing her sweater up over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, fumbling at the zipper of her slacks.

She surrendered then. She could have fought him off, but if he could, she thought, if he could make love to her, then things might be all right, and then she might have her David back again for the short time that remained to them. If he needed to prove himself a man, if this was the only way, she would not stop him. So she continued to struggle only feebly, accepting the near-rape scenario he'd dictated, while he undressed her, and finally mounted her.

It was no use. He was flaccid, and the dramatic struggle only made the result more absurd. He hovered over her, looking down at her tears of hurt and shame, and laughed brokenly. Then the slightly crazy smile vanished, and he stood up, pulling on his pants quickly, as if to hide his weakness. "I'm sorry," he said softly, and there was truth in the words. "I am so sorry, Gabrielle."

He walked out the door into the hall. She rose to follow, then sighed and fell back on the sofa, thinking, Why? What could I say that would matter? And even if she could think of the right things to say, she did not think that those words would come out of her mouth.

"So. Any more bad dreams? Fifty-seven . . ."

"Not really."

"What's 'not really' mean? Fifty-nine . . . sixty. That's it."