Turning his head to look up and down the corridor, the vampire struggled to review his options. As nearly as he could figure out, they were to hole up somewhere between 6X and 7X, listening to the trapped trio’s noise and alternately worrying about what to do when they got out and how to live with himself if they didn’t; or to open negotiations right away. “Dammit!” he whispered. “Aurea, I’m going to have to try talking sense to them. Maybe you should get out while the getting’s good.”
She looked up at him, shook her head, and turned her stare back toward the elevator door, squatting like a fighter ready to lunge.
After laying Skipper’s body down again, sheltering it this time in the closed doorway of 7D, October returned to stand at the elevator doors and call down through the crack, “Ready to admit that I’ve got a soul, Grand Inquisitor?”
For maybe a second, there was silence. Then Succuba laughed and Rodney shouted up, “What fiend has restored thee to unnatural life?”
“That’s neither here nor there. The question is, do you want me to use my ‘unnatural life’ to try getting you out of there, or would you rather stay trapped?”
Jason said something, obviously to Rodney, that October couldn’t make out, except that it began, “For God’s sake, Paynter ...” and sounded a lot more like a command than a plea.
Rodney shot back something that had a lot of cold anger and the worthlessness of their lives except as God’s servants in it. Then he called back to October: “Wouldst change thy pledged allegiance to the side of righteousness?”
“I never pledged allegiance to the other side in the first place. That was the side you put me on, without even asking how I felt about it.”
“Repeat after me: ‘I vow to God—’”
“You know I can’t say that name! I can think it, but I can’t say it—not that I don’t want to ... Look, how’s this?” October shut his eyes and repeated the Twenty-third Psalm, wondering why he could still say “Lord.” Maybe because, like ‘heaven,’ it had another common meaning, one that had nothing to do with religion.
“Thou hast used the heretical King James translation,” Rodney observed. “And the Devil can quote Scripture for hellish purposes. Recite the Paternoster.”
“The what?”
“He means the Lord’s Prayer, sweet thing!” Succuba sang up.
“Oh.” That prayer, too, October found he could still say easily enough, even wondering, as he always had, why it didn’t include those two keywords of good manners, “Please” and “Thank you.”
“Again the heretical version,” Rodney judged when he had finished. “Yet in this case we may, perhaps, overlook the differences. Very well. Provisionally, we accept even thy help.”
“That’s good of you, considering the choices you’ve got. Have you asked yourself how willing I may really be to help you? For the Lord’s sake, you people tortured me, slammed a stake through my heart, and left me for dead!”
“The torment,” Rodney informed him, “was for the welfare of thy soul, and has clearly borne its good fruit. As for the stake, that was an impulsive act executed without my authorization.”
“That was an act of mercy, you hypocrite!” Jason shouted.
“I hope you’re talking to Rodney,” October shouted back. “Next time you do that to somebody as an ‘act of mercy,’ think about this—I stayed conscious the whole damn time!”
“You’re kidding!” Jason sounded genuinely shocked.
“Oh, how marvelous!” Succuba exclaimed with another laugh.
October pressed the button, holding it just until the sounds told him that the top of the elevator car was about level with his feet. Then he brought it to another stop by lifting his thumb again. “All right!” he shouted above their shouts. “I’m going to get you out, but first you’ve got to do your part, make your promises—precautions, not bargains. Rodney. We’re going to have to do something about your cross.”
“As well order me sacrifice to Moloch, as deny the badge of my Holy Faith.”
“I’m not asking you to deny it or destroy it or anything like that! I just can’t function with it pointing at me. If you don’t want me collapsing on you, you’re going to have to do something to neutralize it.”
“Tuck it inside your costume, sweetie,” Succuba suggested.
“Yes,” October agreed, “that might work. Cover it up. If it works, that’s all I ask.”
“It is like unto denying—”
“It’s plain, simple practicality! If you want me to be able to help you, you can’t risk exposing me to your cross. Think of it as an allergy—”
“A Satanic ‘allergy’!”
“Look!” shouted Jason. “Either you tuck it underneath your clothes, or I ram it down your goddamn throat! How’s that?”
“Upon thine own head be it, blasphemer,” Rodney grumbled.
After a moment of silence, Jason went on, “All right, Bradley, he’s got it covered. Anything else?”
“What about you? It seems I can’t stand any kind of crosses or ‘X’s’ If you’ve got any skull-and-crossbones on you, better get rid of them or cover them somehow.”
“Just a minute. Yeah, thanks, pussy, I see it. ... Look, Bradley, if you’re that sensitive, what’s the limit? I mean, clothing is just a lot of crossed threads, for pete’s sake!”
“Now you mention it ... I guess if the crosses are tiny enough, or so crowded together that you can’t see them as individual crosses anymore, that must neutralize them.”
“I find it highly suspicious,” Rodney protested, “that this sensitivity to crosses of any kind should have developed in thee to such an incredible pitch only following thy purgation on the rack.”
“How do we know? You had me so tight beneath that crucifix of yours, that we wouldn’t even have noticed whatever effect any other crossed things might’ve been having on me.”
“Okay,” said Jason, “I think we’ve got ’em all. Anything else?”
Stretching out her right foreleg, the dragon urgently tapped her antique silver ring against the wall.
“Thanks, Aurea,” October told her softly before calling down to the elevator, “Yes. Silver!”
Jason shouted back, “The color or the metal?”
“Uh…the metal!” Would the color do it, too? No—he’d handled that chrome tray with no bad effects except lacking a reflection in it. “And it doesn’t seem to affect me at a distance, only if I touch it. So if you’ve got any silver on you, just keep it away from me. Oh, yes! Garlic, too.”
Succuba crooned, “We may still have some of that on our breaths, sweet stuff.”
“Then don’t breathe on me. And I want your promise that you’ll keep the truce all the time we’re together. No going back on the deal and trying to hurt me or my ... uh…friend.”
“Friend?” Jason and Rodney both demanded at once.
“You’ll see. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt you as long as you don’t try to hurt us.”
“If you’ve got a watchdog,” said Jason, “what do you need our promise for?”
“Insurance. Well?”
Rodney grumbled, “By what wouldst thou have us swear?”
“Just your own word of honor.” If they’d break that, they’d break any kind of elaborate oath.
“Thou leavest us no choice,” Rodney said a little too easily. “We give our word.”
Aurea growled, and October said, “I never heard the other two agree to let you speak for them.”
“I didn’t hear it, either,” Jason agreed. “You’ve got my own promise, and I’ll even see that he keeps his.”
“Sweet stuffings,” laughed Succuba, “I don’t have any more reason to hurt you than I’ve got to hurt these two goons. In fact, if you can get me away from them, I’ll be your slave forever.”
“Jason,” said October, “watch her, too.
One more thing. We should all be able to get out of here by keeping on up the corridor, but you’re going to have to cover the ‘X’s’ every time we come to one, so I can get past.”
“Our way lies downward,” Rodney argued, “so as to strike at the very root and core of all evil.”
“If you’re still talking about the Devil as portrayed by The Great Cassandra Pascal, fine! You can go downward, Jason can take us up, and Succuba can stick with whoever she wants.”
“Great by me,” said Jason.
“All right, I’m bringing you up.” October pressed the button again.
The elevator ground the rest of the way to his level and stopped, obedient to the button. He could tell by the way the noise stopped. Only, now the doors stuck. A new kind of noise began, the chugging whirr of machinery trying to open elevator doors ... with no effect except, maybe, that the doors seemed to clamp themselves more tightly shut, like living things being stubborn. They were the style that met in the middle, and their rubber strips actually bulged as the doors pressed tighter.
“What new trick of the Devil is this?” Rodney demanded.
“Oh, dry up,” said Jason. “I’ve been telling you the last hour, elevators break down all the time. Can you find some kind of lever to wedge in between the doors, Bradley?”
“Just a minute.” October took a breath and jammed his right-hand fingers at the thin line between the doors. He felt a little surprised when the fingertips went in; but with his right hand for a wedge, he managed to wiggle his left in just below it and get a purchase. Planting his feet apart, he gave his vampire strength its biggest test so far.
The doors shook, protested, jerked a few centimeters apart. He dug his hands deep enough for a better hold and strained again. With a last grating rattle, the doors slid open as wide as his reach.
He found himself looking Rodney straight in the startling blue eye. A wave of queasiness came over him ... nothing he couldn’t handle…the inquisitorial crucifix was somewhere safe beneath the black robes, as per instructions.
“Now,” Rodney said coldly, “stand aside and let me pass.”
“Play ‘London Bridge’—squeeze out beneath my arm. If I let go, these doors may spring back.”
With a snort of pure disdain, the inquisitor bent to sidle out beneath the vampire’s extended right arm.
Jason was picking Succuba up off the elevator floor. Her hands were behind her, and her ankles joined by leg irons with a very short chain.
“What the heck have you done to her?” October exclaimed.
“Ask rather,” Rodney shot back, “what beast is this at thy back?”
“A dragon. She can breathe fire. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt you so long as you don’t try anything funny.”
“The Goldsmith woman?” Rodney exclaimed incredulously. “Oh, fie!”
“‘Fie’?” October repeated. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard anyone ever say that before. Look,” he went on, though wondering why he felt shocked at Succuba’s predicament after all the stunts he’d seen—and felt—her play, “was it really necessary to do that to her?”
“Yes,” Jason replied, hoisting her carefully. “In fact, we were lucky we found the things when we did—in the elevator’s ‘Emergency’ box, would you believe it?”
Rodney had squeezed out by now; his voice came from behind October. “The irons are red hot already with the lambent flame at the creature’s own wrists and ankles. No human hand could bear the unshackling. If she would be free again, she must guide us to her foul overlord.”
“Swellhead,” Succuba said with a laugh, “you’ve still got a lot to learn!”
Jason set her down in the elevator doorway and, with a foot to her back, shoved her out into the corridor. “Don’t look so worried,” he told October. “She won’t break easily. Maybe not at all.”
“I’ve seen enough rough stuff for tonight. I don’t want to see any more.”
“Ha!” cried Rodney. “And dared call me ‘hypocrite’? Thou man of little faith!”
“Dry up,” Jason repeated. “It happens I feel more in the mood to believe him than you. All right, Bradley, clear outta my way.”
Dropping his arm, October stepped back. Jason sprang out, his rear heel just clearing the doors as they swished shut behind him.
In the same moment, Aurea barked and Rodney caught his breath. October spun half round and froze. Rodney had the cross out from beneath his robes, and Aurea had her jaws clamped on his leg.
“You dirty sonuvawhore!” Jason shouted.
Succuba sat between them, laughing and showing her teeth. “What’s up, boys? Something new to fight about?”
Rodney screamed with pain, but lunged forward anyway, dragging Aurea with him, her claws wrenching through the carpet. The cross struck October’s forehead—he crumpled. Head on the floor, he heard—all the reverberations magnified—a couple of fleshy thuds, Succuba’s laughter breaking off in a gasp, Rodney shouting, Aurea snarling and growling, more thuds.
The paralysis loosened enough for him to lift his head and see what was going on. Jason knelt on top of Rodney, punching him over and over, while Aurea growled on and on through her mouthful of leg. Shielding his head with one arm, the inquisitor kept trying to shake his cross at the vampire—its intensity rose and fell on October in waves. Succuba had rolled over on one side and was stretching her feet toward Rodney’s barrel chest.
With a great effort, October shouted, “Stop it!” They didn’t. Before he could think what else to say, Succuba’s fiery toes dug into Rodney’s ribs. He shrieked, his arms jerked out, and Jason smashed in with a hard right. Rodney’s hand spasmed, dropping the cross. Aurea snapped her jaws shut on it, letting go of Rodney’s leg and scrabbling over Succuba to do so.
Succuba dug her toes in again. Rodney was trying to wiggle out of her reach, but Jason pinioned him, and Aurea started strangling him with tugs on the cross, which was still hanging from his neckchain.
I ought to be enjoying this, October thought with dull wonder. After all he put me through…they all pitched in…everyone except Aurea…but Rodney was the big boss. What’s wrong with me?
Now that the crucifix was more than half hidden in Aurea’s mouth, he found he could get up. Leaning against the wall in order to stay on his feet while his strength more or less returned, he said, “All right, everybody, freeze!”
Succuba lay quiet, her toes pointed a centimeter away from contact. Aurea kept the cross in her mouth, but stopped tugging it and turned her eyes mournfully up at October. Jason gripped Rodney’s arm with one hand and held the other fisted above his head, but didn’t bring it down.
Rodney lay breathing in gasps and pants. His left eye was already swelling shut, the cheek below it darkening in a terrific bruise, but to October that mattered much less than the blood trickling from his nostrils and the corner of his mouth. To the vampire’s own horrified disgust, it was all he could do to keep himself from diving down and licking…even sucking ...
“You promised,” he told the inquisitor, sounding in his own ears like a little boy, not really surprised but disappointed anyway. “You gave me your word.”
“Under duress. Neither evil oaths nor those sworn under duress are ever binding.”
“Your call, Bradley,” said Jason. “What do you want us to do with the…the scumbag?”
October said wearily, “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Jason gave Rodney’s arm a fierce shake.
“Nothing. Look. Can’t you people get it through your heads that we’ve got to stick together? If we want to get out of here ... if we ever want to be ourselves again—”
“You mean go back to being an ordinary working-class drone?” Succuba laughed. “Honey, I like me just fine the way I am! Minus this iron jewelry, I mean.”
“Shut up, bitch!” Jason told her. Then, to October, “How much
hope is there? Getting out’s one thing, but if it turns out I’m stuck with being a lousy biker the rest of my life—”
“Bikers reform,” October pointed out. “You should have the best chance of any of us. Even if the rest of our costumes stick outside in the daylight—in which case I’ll probably sizzle away or something—all you’ll need to do is go straight.”
“Oh, yeah? Suppose we find some Satan’s gang just waiting out there to suck me in? These damn gangs don’t always let their members ‘just reform.’ Didn’t think of that, did you, Count Smartass Dracula?”
Rodney spoke up. “There is a thing more important than getting out and laying down these mortal husks. We have been given a holy mission: the task of hunting down the very source of evil and destroying—”
“Fine!” Jason shouted. “Go hunt her down by yourself!” He released Rodney with a shove as hard as another blow, driving him against Aurea’s snout. She yowled, dropping the cross. Rodney scrambled up, took several steps backward down the corridor, and stood at bay, holding the cross out on his neckchain.
“Get ye behind me, all ye Devil’s spawn!” he thundered like some oldtime preacher. “Ye with the festering secrets locked in your breasts yet writ large upon your countenances! Gluttony! Anger! Foul, unnatural lust! And thy sin—” He pointed his free hand at the dragon—”thy sin, by the bauble still clinging to one paw, and by its fellow vanities that lay thick about the woman that once thou wert—thy sin is greedy, clutching avarice! Go! Flee upward, if ye can rise at all for the weight of your guilt! I will speed better without ye.”
Rodney turned and strode fiercely down the corridor. The dragon buried her head in her front legs and began making something between a whine and a moan, rocking back and forth.
Chapter IV
As soon as the inquisitor was out of sight around the curve, October stepped away from the wall, where that last brandish of the crucifix had paralyzed him again, and sat on the floor beside Aurea, rubbing her scaly head between the horns. “I don’t care,” he told her softly. “I don’t even care whether or not he’s right. Looks like none of us is exactly in a position to cast stones, anyway.”
The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK Page 110
