She looked at Malcolm and his companions like they were stray pieces of furniture she didn't know what to do with. “Should we have Trig and the others deal with our guests too?”
Maurice nodded. His eyes settled somewhere up in the chandelier above them. He clapped his hands together. “Wait. I have a better idea.” He leaned over to Rebecca and whispered something in her ear.
Her eyes widened while she listened, and she pecked him on the cheek before he could pull away. “You're always so clever.”
“I want to thank you all for joining my little game. Really, it was my pleasure. The game's ended—the chips are accounted for—but I still have to collect what I'm owed.”
“Make it quick,” said Paul, lowering his head.
He laughed. “Quick? Like how you destroyed our chamber with your silly little quest to find Nora? That's the last thing you deserve. No. Death would be a gift, and it's one I won't give you. Eternal service, on the other hand..”
“Honey,” Rebecca said. “Let's worry about this later. We have to let our children go.”
“She's right,” Maurice said. “We have to say goodbye. It's been fun, but it's time we carry on. Maybe have some children of our own.” He spat into his empty whiskey glass and frowned. “I've lost my taste for blood this evening. And we'll need you early in the morning. Good, strong backs—normal-looking folks who can go in public without stopping traffic. Yes. I have something special for you.”
He got up from the table, grabbed his lover by the hand. Then, when he turned back: “Trig. Take Mr. Atlas's body down to The Strand. Make sure to give him the proper burial he deserves. I don't want some nosy fisherman or dockworker finding him.”
Trig, the one who'd dealt their Texas Hold'em game, stepped forward. “Yes, master. I won't let you down.”
“Good. And get a soul net on Mr. Morris here. We can't have his special guest making another appearance.”
“Don't bother, honey,” said Rebecca. “The demon in him was balanced. She won't be bothering us for a long time.”
Maurice shrugged, looked around the room at his prisoners and servants. “I can't argue with her. She's too cute.”
Rebecca smiled. “Stop it.” Her smile fell away as quickly as it had come. “I think we better go downstairs. It's time to say goodbye.”
“You're right.” Maurice led her to the edge of the dining room, and the servants followed. They shoved Malcolm along when he stopped to take one last look at Atlas. He watched the man's face. He wasn't dead. Couldn't be dead. In a minute his eyes would fly open, he'd take care of the demon lovers and their servants, and then they'd laugh about it over a glass of that golden vintage.
Except Atlas's eyes were still shut when Trig jerked Malcolm out of the dining room. They descended the flight of wooden stairs, and each step down dampened his hopes. Everyone else was waiting for them. The hospital beds were empty now, needles unhooked and fluids stashed away. All the children who remained—fifteen or twenty of them—stood in a confused mass around Rebecca and Maurice.
“I love you all,” Rebecca said, her eyes filling with tears. “We both do. But it's time for our babies to fly in this big old world.”
Maurice put a hand around her shoulders as she stood there wilting. He murmured to the children and tousled their hair, but it didn't do a thing to ease the confusion on their faces. They were either too dumb to realize what was happening…
Or too smart to talk themselves out of a good thing.
Malcolm and Trig joined the gauntlet the servants had formed on either side of the door. Maurice and Rebecca said their tearful goodbyes at the head of it, and one by one the children were herded through like livestock. Dead eyes. They didn't even register when the servants wished them well or scooped down to steal a kiss.
One by one, children of all shapes and sizes.
Thrust into a world that would chew them up and spit them out.
Malcolm watched them pass. They were strangers to him, but they all looked the same. The group thinned. His leg throbbed as he remembered the twins he had tangled with in the street. He wondered if they'd been sent off like this. Then, a familiar face interrupted him:
Nora stepped forward.
She wore a brave expression, but there were tears just beneath the surface. Her eyes went to her shoes as she shuffled along. She collected more kisses than the others. Everyone loved Nora. They watched her with a special kind of reverence as she pulled the other lost girl, Carol, along like some kind of prophet. She was a piece of the past they'd never be able to replace. No matter how bright the future became.
Her tough face fell apart when she saw Malcolm at the end of the gauntlet. “I... I don't want to...”
“Shh.” Malcolm went to his knees and wrapped his arms around her tight, but not tight enough to hold in the sobs wracking her body. Her tears were warm against his cheek, and streaming rapidly now. And she wasn't the only one crying. Malcolm bit his quivering lip.
He'd been weak.
But now he had to be strong. For her. For Atlas. For everyone.
“I'm sorry,” he told her. “I didn't want it to be this way.”
Nora tried to speak, but her words turned into blubbering mush.
He held her close. “Be strong. Carol needs you.”
“Malcolm.” She pulled back to look at him. She'd stopped crying. Now her face was deadly serious. “I'm scared. Where do we go? Where do we live?”
A shadow moved across the room and covered her. Malcolm looked up and found Trig tugging at his collar. “Come on. Time for them to go.”
Malcolm dove in to kiss the girl on her cheek, whispering to her before Trig pulled him away. He tousled Carol's hair and kissed her cheek too. Then, turning to them both:
“I love you. Remember what I said.”
The words tasted like a foreign phrase on his tongue. He couldn't remember the last time he'd said them.
Nora nodded. Carol just stared. Then they went out into the city together hand in hand. A few more children passed, though Malcolm hardly saw them. He couldn't bear to look at any more tragedy. Finally, just when he expected Talia the demon woman to come rip his empty heart from his chest, Trig closed the door and locked it.
Paul and Charlotte stood across the room near Rebecca and Maurice. They stared at him across that void—that empty space where once stood life and a reason to go on.
Maurice ushered his lover upstairs. He spoke to her in a low voice. Something about starting a new life and having children of their own. Then the demon servants grabbed Malcolm's arms and led him to a hospital bed. They pulled Paul over there too, and one of the waif women escorted Charlotte with her net. Someone turned off the lights.
That was for the best.
Malcolm lay in that hospital bed while time slowed to a halt. Time was an illusion down here. But agony and regret were real. Solid. He hadn't believed in Hell before, but now it burned in his heart. Whatever goodness—whatever possibility of redemption left in his life—had just walked out that door holding her friend's hand.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A million nightmares later, the lights came on.
Malcolm squinted and tried to block them with his hands. He saw the others stirring in their beds. The slender woman still stood next to Charlotte, holding the net loosely around her in the exact same place as the night before. There was a man too. He sat on the hospital bed at the end of the row, playing with his mustache and dangling his feet in the air. Trig. His muscles were relaxed. He seemed perfectly content to watch the captives until the end of time.
And what other choice did he have?
“Get up,” he said. “Today's moving day. Hope your backs are rested.”
Malcolm, Paul, and Charlotte looked at each other and shrugged.
Then Trig jumped off the hospital bed and walked over to the front door. He pulled out a set of keys and unlocked multiple padlocks, moved a chair from behind the metal surface and gave the door a hard kick with his boot.
> It swung open, creaking, and in streamed the light and smells of Lemhaven. “Hicks is gonna pull the truck up right there.” He pointed into the alley. “Back it in so we can load everything up. Ain't nobody gonna bother us either. We've already sent plenty of 'messages.' If you know what I mean.”
They didn't say anything, but to Malcolm the answer was obvious. The only type of message men like Trig and Hicks could send would be delivered first class by loaded guns.
“Can we get something to eat?” said Paul. “I'm starving.”
Malcolm held his stomach. It grumbled at the suggestion.
“That's funny,” Trig said. He didn't laugh. “Now get your asses up and help me open this door.”
The tiny woman next to Charlotte pressed a button on her pole, and the faint green filaments around her disappeared. Charlotte sighed and stretched her arms. The net was deactivated for now so she could help move. But the waif never strayed more than a few feet away, ready to turn it back on at the first sign of trouble.
They went to the back of the store and slid the loading dock door open just in time to see a moving truck scream through the alley. Hicks gave Trig a thumbs up when he passed, brakes squealing, almost crashing into the concrete ramp before he got the truck to stop. Then the truck was beeping as he backed it up, and Trig was yelling at them again.
* * * *
They spent the rest of the morning pushing boxes and furniture up a ramp into the moving truck. Besides Trig and the small group that had patrolled the alley the day before, Malcolm and his companions were the only ones allowed outside the compound. The other servants—the misshapen ones—got everything packed up and moved into the loading area. Malcolm's arms ached and sweat dripped off his forehead onto the pavement. But he didn't mind the distraction. Lemhaven was all around him, tempting him.
A few businessmen passed by. Kids and gang members from both sides too. Even a few cops. Their faces were tense, preparing for grueling workdays or turf battles or plain old survival. But they had something Malcolm didn't have. They could move freely, and die like men instead of slaves.
Malcolm ached to run out there and disappear with them. Yet every time his eyes strayed too long Trig was on him. “Hurry up, Morris. Master and mistress have been waiting for this day longer than you've been alive.”
Malcolm forced himself up the ramp with an end table and lamp in hand. For everything that disappeared into that moving truck, it seemed the pile in the loading area doubled. Servants stacked boxes in a frenzy. None of them spoke as they ran from task to task except to yell at each other for getting in the way.
“Stop screwing around,” someone said. “It's moving day.”
Then Maurice and Rebecca strolled down the stairs. They wore matching white bathrobes and carried coffee cups. Malcolm turned back to the unloaded furniture. There was probably golden liquid in those coffee cups. Liquid he wanted and hated himself for wanting. Liquid he couldn't bear to look at.
“Mornin', everybody,” Maurice said. They stood at the bottom of the stairs now, yawning. “Big day.”
“Good morning, master and mistress,” said a dozen different voices. Mechanical voices with all the personality sucked out.
Malcolm kept his mouth shut until Trig punched him right on his spinal cord. “You answer when master and mistress are speaking to you. Got it?”
He winced and rubbed his back. “Good morning, master and mistress.”
“We about ready, Trig?” said Rebecca.
“Yes, ma'am. Just a few more minutes.”
“Good. I can't wait to go home.”
* * * *
A few hours later—it was hard to tell, judging by the sun alone—all the servants stood in the back of the moving truck.
Trig shut the door and told them not to act up. Darkness swallowed them as they stood packed together there, sweating all over each other. One woman began to sing. The language was foreign to Malcolm, but he didn't need to understand the words to know that song meant only one thing: melancholy.
The engine rumbled to life, and the truck started bumping through the little alley.
“Paul?” said Malcolm. “Charlotte?”
“We're here,” Paul said.
“We have to get out of this.”
All the servants started talking at once, drowning out any reply. They chattered in rushed, breathless voices. Malcolm tried to find Paul and Charlotte and pull them aside, but it was impossible in that mass of bodies and darkness.
The moving truck churned beneath them. It weaved left and right, charging over potholes that sent Malcolm's forehead into other foreheads he couldn't see. Faster and faster that trunk went. Out into the business district now. Surrounded by buses and car horns and chaos.
Then the servants began to sing:
“Eternally bound, eternally forgotten. Humble helpers, linked by soul.”
There was no melody to that song—not an ounce of joy. They repeated the words over and over like a funeral dirge. Faint lights appeared inside the truck as they sang. Malcolm swiveled his head to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. But the lights were real enough, pulsing on the servants' bodies. Spade marks glowed together while they joined their voices and Malcolm and the others watched in silence.
He spotted Paul and opened his mouth to whisper to him. But vigilant eyes were watching. They'd tell Trig, and Trig would tell the master and mistress. Then they'd discard them just like they discarded Atlas.
No.
He'd have to watch and wait for an opportunity alone with them so they could make plans. If they were still willing to talk to him. If they didn't already have a plan of their own. Malcolm leaned against a stack of boxes, closed his eyes, and listened to the servants sing.
The moving truck stopped a long time later. Huddled in silence, the servants waited. Finally the rear door lifted, revealed Trig grinning at them in the sunlight. “How was the ride?”
No one answered. The sweaty servants just shuffled towards the ramp, a few still whispering the song from before. Malcolm got in line and followed them out into a different world. The dingy alleyways and garbage smells from the city were gone. Swaths of green and floral scents had replaced them. Stately manors unrolled yards that looked more like small parks, surrounded by gates and hedgerows. Paul pinched his elbow on the ramp.
Malcolm just nodded. He knew exactly what he was trying to say.
They were back in the Cloisters.
Not just back in the same neighborhood…
But the same house.
It leered down at him when he studied it from the front drive, familiar but somehow different, like a relative coping with an illness. Malcolm blinked. The ivy. Those one-in-a million window shutters. Everything was still there, just how they'd left it...
Except for Maurice standing on the front porch with a smile on his face. He opened the door and pulled his lover into their new playground while Trig started barking orders:
“Don't just stand there, you idiots! Everything off the truck.”
In and out of the mansion they went, hauling boxes and furniture and art. Inside, other servants started to unpack Maurice and Rebecca's things and shape them into something livable. Malcolm passed Paul and Charlotte dozens of times as they worked, though they never had the chance to exchange anything more than a quick look. The afternoon sun melted away any thoughts of rebellion or escape. It even silenced the voices in Malcolm's head, and for that he was thankful.
After Malcolm put down a bookshelf, Trig slapped him on the shoulder. “That's enough furniture for you, Morris. You look like hell.” He pointed at a pile of boxes. “Take those upstairs and start unpacking them. Those go in master and mistress's bedroom. They'll want to sleep there tonight, so hurry your ass up.”
Malcolm nodded. Part of him wanted to give Trig a hug and thank him for his mercy.
“Get moving,” he said.
Malcolm did. He whiled away the afternoon going up and down stairs. Every time he made a dent in
the boxes, more came in from the moving truck. Upstairs, he went through the hallway he'd spent the past few weeks wandering, restless. Except he was a stranger now. Less than a guest. The hired help. He passed the first room—his old bedroom—and almost entered it by reflex before he saw a pair of servants tidying up.
Then it was on to Paul and Charlotte's bedroom. Except now it was Maurice and Rebecca's, full of shoes and dresses and artwork yet to be hanged.
Malcolm sighed and set down the giant box he'd been carrying. This one was heavy. Probably full of books. He ripped the packing tape open with his fingernails—servants didn't get knives—and gasped.
There weren't books inside, but something moving. Something alive.
It wriggled in the light.
A girl. A living, breathing girl.
His girl.
He pulled her out of the box and into his arms. She hugged him, half crying and half laughing. Making too much noise. Malcolm put a hand over her mouth, went over to the door, and shut it behind him. He pressed a finger to his lips, not letting her go until they were tucked away in the master bathroom. He held her out in front of him to look at her, like an antique dealer inspecting a collectible for authenticity.
“Nora?”
She nodded, a wicked smile creeping across her face. “Hi, Malcolm.” She hugged him again. “I'm glad you found me.”
“How in the world did you...”
She looked around the room before she shared her secret. “We were hiding in the street. It was so scary I didn't sleep all night. In the morning I saw the truck and all the boxes. I got a box from the street and crawled in it and someone put me in the truck.”
“Where's Carol?”
Tears filled Nora's eyes. “I lost her. I tried to make her get in a box, but she ran away. Stupid Carol.”
Malcolm swallowed hard. “She was probably just scared. I'm glad you're safe, Nora.”
“Wait.” The girl's eyes spun around the room. “Why are we back in the house?”
“I don't know. But we can't have them finding you. They can't know you're back, understand?”
Heretic (Demon Marked Book 2) (Demon Marked Saga) Page 11
