by Jeff Lindsay
“What about Wilkins?” I demanded.
She waved a hand. “They’re watching him,” she said.
“Like last time?”
“Please,” Rita interrupted, with a rough edge of hysteria creeping into her voice, “what are you talking about? Isn’t there some way to just—I mean, anything . . . ?” Her voice trailed off into a new round of sobs, and Deborah looked from her to me. “Please,” Rita wailed.
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As her voice rose it echoed into me and seemed to drop one final piece of pain into the empty dizziness inside me that blended in with the faraway music.
I stood up.
I felt myself sway slightly and heard Deborah say my name, and then the music was there, soft but insistent, as if it had always been there, just waiting for a moment when I could hear it without distraction, and as I turned my focus on the thrum of the drums it called me, called as I knew it had been calling all along, but more urgently now, rising closer to the ultimate ecstasy and telling me to come, follow, go this way, come to the music.
And I remember being very glad about that, that the time was here at last, and even though I could hear Deborah and Rita speaking to me it didn’t seem that anything they had to say could be terribly important, not when the music was calling and the promise of perfect happiness was here at last. So I smiled at them and I think I even said, “Excuse me,” and I walked out of the room, not caring about their puzzled faces. I went out of the building, and to the far side of the parking lot where the music was coming from.
A car was waiting for me there, which made me even happier, and I hurried over to it, moving my feet to the beautiful flow of the music, and when I got there the back door of the car swung open and then I don’t remember anything at all.
T H I R T Y - E I G H T
Ihad never been so happy.
The joy came at me like a comet, blazing huge and ponderous through a dark sky and whirling toward me at inconceiv-able speed, swirling in to consume me and carry me away into a boundless universe of rapture and all-knowing unity, love, and understanding—bliss without end, in me and of me and all around me forever.
And it whirled me across the trackless night sky in a warm, blinding blanket of jubilant love and rocked me in a cradle of endless joy, joy, joy. As I spun higher and faster and even more replete with every possible happiness, a great slamming sound rolled across me and I opened my eyes in a small dark room with no windows and a very hard concrete floor and walls and no idea of where it was or how I got there. A single small light burned above the door, and I was lying on the floor in the dim glow it cast.
The happiness was gone, all of it, and nothing welled up to replace it other than a sense that wherever I might be, nobody had in mind restoring either my joy or my freedom. And although there were no bulls’ heads anywhere in the room, ceramic or otherwise, DEXTER IN THE DARK
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and there were no old Aramaic magazines stacked on the floor, it was not hard to add it all up. I had followed the music, felt ecstasy, and lost conscious control. And that meant that the odds were very good that Moloch had me, whether he was real or mythical.
Still, better not to take things for granted. Perhaps I had sleepwalked my way into a storage room somewhere, and getting out was simply a matter of turning the knob on the door. I got to my feet with a little difficulty—I felt groggy and a bit wobbly, and I guessed that whatever had brought me here, some kind of drug had been part of the process. I stood for a moment and concentrated on getting the room to hold still, and after a few deep breaths I succeeded. I took one step to the side and touched a wall: very solid concrete blocks. The door felt almost as thick and was solidly locked; it didn’t even rattle when I punched my shoulder against it. I walked one time around the small room—really, it was no more than a large closet. There was a drain in the center of the room, and that was the only feature or furnishing that I could see.
This did not seem particularly encouraging, since it meant that either I was supposed to use the drain for personal tasks or else I was not expected to be here long enough to need a toilet. If that was the case, I had trouble believing that an early exit would be a good thing for me.
Not that there was anything I could do about it, whatever plans were being made for me. I had read The Count of Monte Cristo and The Prisoner of Zenda, and I knew that if I could get hold of something like a spoon or a belt buckle it would be easy enough to dig my way out in the next fifteen years or so. But they had thoughtlessly failed to provide me with a spoon, whoever they were, and my belt buckle had apparently been appropriated, too.
This told me a great deal about them, at least. They were very careful, which probably meant experienced, and they lacked even the most basic sense of modesty, since they were clearly not concerned in the least that my pants might fall down without a belt. However, I still had no idea who they might be or what they might want with me.
None of this was good news.
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And none of it offered any clue at all as to what I could do about it, except sit on the cold concrete floor and wait.
So I did.
Reflection is supposed to be good for the soul. Throughout history, people have tried to find peace and quiet, time all to themselves with no distractions, just so they can reflect. And here I was with exactly that—peace and quiet with no distractions, but I nevertheless found it very difficult to lean back in my comfy cement room and let the reflections come and do good for my soul.
To begin with, I wasn’t sure I had a soul. If I did, what was it thinking to allow me to do such terrible things for so many years?
Did the Dark Passenger take the place of the hypothetical soul that humans were supposed to have? And now that I was without it, would a real one grow and make me human after all?
I realized that I was reflecting anyway, but somehow that failed to create any real sense of fulfillment. I could reflect until my teeth fell out and it was not going to explain where my Passenger had gone—or where Cody and Astor were. It was also not going to get me out of this little room.
I got up again and circled the room, slower this time, looking for any small weakness. There was an air-conditioning vent in one corner—a perfect way to escape, if only I had been the size of a fer-ret. There was an electric outlet on the wall beside the door. That was it.
I paused at the door and felt it. It was very heavy and thick, and offered me not the tiniest bit of hope that I could break it, pick the lock, or otherwise open it without the assistance of either explosives or a road grader. I looked around the room again, but didn’t see either one lying in a corner.
Trapped. Locked in, captured, sequestered, in durance vile—even synonyms didn’t make me feel any better. I leaned my cheek against the door. What was the point in hoping, really? Hoping for what? Release back into the world where I no longer had any purpose? Wasn’t it better for all concerned that Dexter Defeated simply vanish into oblivion?
Through the thickness of the door I heard something, some DEXTER IN THE DARK
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high-pitched noise approaching outside. And as the sound got closer I recognized it: a man’s voice, arguing with another, higher, insistent voice that was very familiar.
Astor.
“Stupid!” she said, as they came even with my door. “I don’t have to . . .” And then they were gone.
“Astor!” I shouted as loud as I could, even though I knew she would never hear me. And just to prove that stupidity is ubiquitous and consistent, I slammed on the door with both hands and yelled it again. “Astor!”
There was no response at all, of course, except for a faint stinging sensation on the palms of my hands. Since I could not think of anything else to do, I slid down to the floor, leaned against the door, and waited to die.
I don’t know how long I sat there with my back against the door. I admit that sitting slumped against the door was not terri
bly heroic. I know I should have jumped to my feet, pulled out my secret decoder ring, and chewed through the wall with my secret ra-dioactive powers. But I was drained. To hear Astor’s defiant small voice on the other side of the door had hammered in what felt like the last nail. There was no more Dark Knight. There was nothing left of me but the envelope, and it was coming unglued.
So I sat, slumped, sagged against the door, and nothing happened. I was in the middle of planning how to hang myself from the light switch on the wall when I felt a kind of scuffling on the other side of the door. Then someone pushed on it.
Of course I was in the way and so naturally enough it hurt, a severe pinch right in the very back end of my human dignity. I was slow to react, and they pushed again. It hurt again. And blossoming up from the pain, shooting out of the emptiness like the first flower of spring, came something truly wonderful.
I got mad.
Not merely irritated, narked by someone’s thoughtless use of my backside as a doorstop. I got truly angry, enraged, furious at the lack of any consideration for me, the assumption that I was a negli-gible commodity, a thing to be locked in a room and shoved around 288
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by anyone with an arm and a short temper. Never mind that only moments ago I had held the same low opinion of me. That didn’t matter at all—I was mad, in the classic sense of being half crazed, and without thinking anything other than that, I shoved back against the door as hard as I could.
There was a little bit of resistance, and then the latch clicked shut. I stood up, thinking, There! —without really knowing what that meant. And as I glared at the door it began to open again, and once more I heaved against it, forcing it closed. It was wonderfully fulfilling, and I felt better than I had in quite some time, but as some of the pure blind anger leached out of me it occurred to me that as relaxing as door thumping was, it was slightly pointless, after all, and sooner or later it would have to end in my defeat, since I had no weapons or tools of any kind, and whoever it was on the other side of the door was theoretically unlimited in what they could bring to the task.
As I thought this, the door banged partially open again, stopping when it hit my foot, and as I banged back automatically I had an idea. It was stupid, pure James Bond escapism, but it just might possibly work, and I had absolutely nothing to lose. With me, to think is to explode into furious action, and so even as I thumped the door shut with my shoulder, I stepped to the side of the doorframe and waited.
Sure enough, only a moment later the door thumped open, this time with no resistance from me, and as it swung wide to slam against the wall an off-balance man in some kind of uniform stumbled in after it. I grabbed at his arm and managed to get a shoulder instead, but it was enough, and with all my strength I pivoted and shoved him headfirst into the wall. There was a gratifying thump, as if I had dropped a large melon off the kitchen table, and he bounced off the wall and fell face-first onto the concrete floor.
And lo, there was Dexter reborn and triumphant, standing proudly on both feet, with the body of his enemy stretched supine at his feet, and an open door leading to freedom, redemption, and then perhaps a light supper.
I searched the guard quickly, removing a ring of keys, a large DEXTER IN THE DARK
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pocketknife, and an automatic pistol that he would probably not need anytime soon, and then I stepped cautiously into the hall, closing the door behind me. Somewhere out here, Cody and Astor waited, and I would find them. What I would do then I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. I would find them.
T H I R T Y - N I N E
The building was about the size of a large Miami Beach house. I prowled cautiously through a long hallway that ended at a door similar to the one I had just played bull-in-the-ring with. I tiptoed up and put my ear against it. I didn’t hear anything at all, but the door was so thick that this meant almost nothing.
I put my hand on the knob and turned it very slowly. It wasn’t locked, and I pushed the door open.
I peeked carefully around the edge of the door and saw nothing that ought to cause alarm other than some furniture that looked like real leather—I made a mental note to report it to PETA. It was quite an elegant room, and as I opened the door farther I saw a very nice mahogany bar in the far corner.
But much more interesting was the trophy case beside the bar.
It stretched along the wall for twenty feet, and behind the glass, just visible, I could see row after row of what seemed to be assorted ceramic bulls’ heads. Each piece shone under its own mini-spotlight.
I did not count, but there had to be more than a hundred of them.
And before I could move into the room I heard a voice, as cold and dry as it could be and still be human.
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“Trophies,” and I jumped, turning the gun toward the sound.
“A memorial wall dedicated to the god. Each represents a soul we have sent to him.” An old man sat there, simply looking at me, but seeing him was almost a physical blow. “We create a new one for each sacrifice,” he said. “Come in, Dexter.”
The old man didn’t seem very menacing. In fact, he was nearly invisible, sitting back as he was in one of the large leather chairs. He got up slowly, with an old man’s care, and turned a face on me that was as cold and smooth as river rock.
“We have been waiting for you,” he said, although as far as I could tell he was alone in the room, except for the furniture.
“Come in.”
I really don’t know if it was what he said, or the way he said it—or something else entirely. In any case, when he looked directly at me I suddenly felt like there was not enough air in the room. All the mad dash of my escape seemed to bleed out of me and puddle around my ankles, and a great clattering emptiness tore through me, as though there was nothing in the world but pointless pain, and he was its master.
“You’ve caused us a great deal of trouble,” he said quietly.
“That’s some consolation,” I said. It was very hard to say, and sounded feeble even to me, but at least it made the old man look a little bit annoyed. He took a step toward me, and I found myself trying to shrink away. “By the way,” I said, hoping to appear nonchalant about the fact that I felt like I was melting, “who are us?”
He cocked his head to one side. “I think you know,” he said.
“You’ve certainly been looking at us long enough.” He took another step forward and my knees wobbled slightly. “But for the sake of a pleasant conversation,” he said, “we are the followers of Moloch.
The heirs of King Solomon. For three thousand years, we have kept the god’s worship alive and guarded his traditions, and his power.”
“You keep saying ‘we,’ ” I said.
He nodded, and the movement hurt me. “There are others here,” he said. “But the we is, as I am sure you are aware, Moloch.
He exists inside me.”
“So you killed those girls? And followed me around?” I said, and I admit I was surprised to think of this elderly man doing all that.
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He actually smiled, but it was humorless and didn’t make me feel any better. “I did not go in person, no. It was the Watchers.”
“So—you mean, it can leave you?”
“Of course,” he said. “Moloch can move between us as he wishes. He’s not one person, and he’s not in one person. He’s a god.
He goes out of me and into some of the others for special errands.
To watch.”
“Well, it’s wonderful to have a hobby,” I said. I wasn’t really sure where our conversation was going, or if my precious life was about to skid to a halt, so I asked the first question that sprung to mind. “Then why did you leave the bodies at the university?”
“We wanted to find you, naturally.” The old man’s words froze me to the spot.
“You had come to our attention, Dexter,” he continued, “but we had
to be sure. We needed to observe you to see if you would recognize our ritual or respond to our Watcher. And, of course, it was convenient to lead the police to concentrate on Halpern,” he said.
I didn’t know where to begin. “He’s not one of you?” I said.
“Oh, no,” the old man said pleasantly. “As soon as he’s released from police custody he’ll be over there, with the others.” He nodded toward the trophy case, filled with ceramic bulls’ heads.
“Then he really didn’t kill the girls.”
“Yes, he did,” he said. “While he was being persuaded from the inside by one of the Children of Moloch.” He cocked his head to one side. “I’m sure you of all people can understand that, can’t you?”
I could, of course. But it didn’t answer any of the main questions. “Can we please go back to where you said I had ‘come to your attention’?” I asked politely, thinking of all the hard work I put into keeping a low profile.
The man looked at me as though I had an exceptionally thick head. “You killed Alexander Macauley,” he said.
Now the tumblers fell into the weakened steel lock that was Dexter’s brain. “Zander was one of you?”
He shook his head slightly. “A minor helper. He supplied mate-rial for our rites.”
“He brought you the winos, and you killed them,” I said.
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He shrugged. “We practice sacrifice, Dexter, not killing. In any case, when you took Zander, we followed you and discovered what you are.”
“What am I?” I blurted, finding it slightly exhilarating to think that I stood face-to-face with someone who could answer the question I had pondered for most of my slash-happy life. But then my mouth went dry, and as I awaited his answer a sensation bloomed inside me that felt an awful lot like real fear.
The old man’s glare turned sharp. “You’re an aberration,” he said. “Something that shouldn’t exist.”
I will admit that there have been times when I would agree with that thought, but right now was not one of them. “I don’t want to seem rude,” I said, “but I like existing.”
