Scott Nicholson Library, Vol. 4 (Boxed Set)

by Scott Nicholson

  Some of the inner circle members were removing their robes, and it looked like the formal part of the ceremony was over. I cautiously went up on the platform, hoping to blend in with a couple of robed acolytes who attended to clean-up duties. Up close, the stone statue seemed even more ominous, with chiseled features and deep, hollowed-out eyes.

  I kept my hood pulled low just to be safe, although my fangs had retracted quite a bit. I even got close enough to Erasmus to smell an odd blend of patchouli, wax, and sulfur, as if someone had committed arson at a shop for eclectic hippies.

  Parker’s sister, Lilith, was all smiles, and I wondered if her drugging had been faked. I even considered the possibility that Parker and her sister were in on the whole Cloudland enterprise, raking in the dough and laughing all the way to the Cayman Islands.

  But Parker wanted me here for a reason, and now that mystery seemed way more pressing than rescuing her sister, who seemed as safe as a kitten and about as cute.

  Parker, on the other hand....

  Cute wouldn’t do her any good if she was trying to double-cross me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Back in the suite, I discovered that Parker was gone.

  I frowned at that. So how the hell was I supposed to keep her and her sister alive, if she wasn’t going to listen to me?

  Good question.

  I stretched out on the bed and mulled over what I had seen that night. It wasn’t pretty. My best guess was that this “cult” had a few layers to it. One being the recruiting of young girls and even some young men. Who these girls were was no mystery. I’ve seen my share of degenerates, drug addicts, and drop-outs. The deadly D’s. Add runaways to that group, and I would say that that about summed up the night’s attendees.

  Outside the bungalow, I heard laughing. A door slammed. Muffled giggling from behind closed doors. Yeah, my hearing is particularly good. It’s a curse and a blessing.

  Of course, the event hadn’t only been attended by vulnerable girls and a handful of young men, had it? Nope. There had been some very powerful people there, and many of them had gazed from the shadows upon the nubile masses, with the leering eyes of predators.

  So there was that, too. Catering to the rich and powerful and famous. This was more than a cult, perhaps. A filthy retreat for those with enough money to satisfy their hungers, whatever they might be. And young flesh was looking more and more like the top billing.

  My skin crawled. I had seen my share of filth and horror. Hell, I’d even contributed to it, to some extent. But nothing like this. I did not prey on the vulnerable. I did not abuse. If anything, I had simply fed, fueling my immortal body with the blood of my victims. An unfortunate necessity.

  Until I had seen the error of my ways.

  Now, I feed on donors mostly. Not a perfect system, for rarely is the blood fresh, but at least it saves lives, and at least I can look at myself in the mirror.

  That is, if I could ever see myself in the mirror.

  So we had a cult that provided young flesh to horny old bastards. And what did Erasmus get out of it? What the hell was the deal with the stone demon in the background? And what about the simulation of slaying his own daughter? And where the hell was Parker?

  I didn’t know, but I knew I needed answers. And I knew where I wanted to get them.

  Lilith.

  * * *

  It was coming on midnight when I slipped out of the bungalow, back in my regular clothes.

  The air was chilled, but I hardly noticed. After all, I lived with an eternal chill. It’s one of the reasons why I avoid contact with people. Most folk tend to recoil when shaking the hands of a living corpse.

  The compound was massive, but ultimately it seemed to be roughly square-shaped, with three or four floors in each building. I passed milling groups of women who watched me with interest. I ignored them. I also passed guards who watched me with interest, too. I kept my eye on them, however. Where the big players were, I hadn’t a clue. They probably had their own wing somewhere. Plush as hell, and filled with many—and perhaps even unwilling—participants.

  My stomach turned.

  I may not be a saint, but I know when something was wrong. Giving outcasts false hope and tempting them with faith, only to take advantage of them, was wrong on a whole other level.

  Don’t forget the girl in the trunk, I thought.

  And just as the thought occurred to me, another thought followed just behind it: what if the “body” was made up? What if there had been no body? What if Parker just said that to get me out here?

  And why would she do that?

  I didn’t know, but the chill that swept over me was real, and I had learned long ago not to ignore such chills. They were premonitions that something was about to go very, very bad.

  I soon found myself in a common room. There was a fire going in the rock fireplace, which was surrounded with couches and oversized chairs, all filled with excited young people.

  Go home, I thought at them. Or to Hollywood. Hell, go anywhere but here.

  I paused briefly and closed my eyes, getting a feel for the place. I sensed Cloudland’s main facility was bigger than I realized. I sensed it went down many floors as well. Hidden rooms. Filthy rooms. Rooms full of unspeakable horror. Obviously, some of the powerful guests were into far more than just raunchy sex. They were into pain. I sensed that the cult—and Mr. Cole—provided them the means to satisfy their sick urges.

  I knew that the indulgence was perhaps days away. For the moment, the energy was generally upbeat and positive. I suspected it wouldn’t stay that way. A lot of these young people were going to seriously regret ever taking their first drug, or skipping school or telling their parents to F-off.

  As I projected my conscious out, over the grounds—something I’d mastered decades ago—I found who I was looking for. She was upstairs and locked away. And she wasn’t very far.

  Aware that I had attracted the attention of two more goons, I smiled at them and slipped through the common room and out a side door and into the courtyard.

  Quickly, I located the window behind which I knew they were keeping Lilith.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Her room was four floors up.

  I had only seconds before the guards would be following me out into the courtyard. And for the time being, the big grassy commons was empty. When you’ve been alive for as long as I have been, you learn some things. One of the things I’ve learned is how far I can push this immortal body. Jumping up to the fourth floor was well within my limits. So I gathered myself and pushed off the concrete sidewalk. I shot up far higher than anyone had a right to jump. But I wasn’t just anyone, was I?

  I landed lightly on a narrow ledge, just as the courtyard door into the common room opened and light spilled out. I pushed the glass window open and stepped into a spacious suite.

  I don’t need much light. Or any light for that matter. I knew instantly I was alone with the girl in the room. She was sitting up in bed, hugging her legs, and staring at me.

  Could she see me? I didn’t know, but if she screamed, I was going to be in trouble.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said.

  She said nothing, which was a good sign, and I headed over to the bedside lamp and turned it on. She blinked hard but never took her eyes off me.

  “How did you get up here?” she asked.

  “I’ve got friends in high places,” I said.

  Her cute face scrunched in confusion. “You were on stage with me. I think. It’s hard to know for sure since my dad keeps me drugged.”

  “Are you drugged now?”

  “It’s wearing off, but I suspect he’ll be up here soon. He’ll kill you if he sees you up here. If not him, then one of his men. They kill people here, you know.”

  I heard voices outside the room. Was someone coming or going? Or was it just more guards talking among themselves?

  “You’re taking it pretty well for someone who just found out that people are getting k
illed.”

  She giggled. “Oh, I’m totally freaked. Trust me. I’m just bombed out of my skull right now. Too high up to care.”

  “Where’s your sister?” I asked.

  Her head, which had begun to loll to one side, snapped erect. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, where’s your sister? Parker.”

  She giggled again. “I don’t have a sister, silly.”

  That stopped me. “Parker isn’t your sister?”

  Her head was lolling to the side again. She closed her eyes. “Of course not, silly. Just me and my pops. My demented fucking pops who I think is going to kill me.”

  I sat on the corner of the bed and took her face in my hands. She shivered violently. “You’re cold.”

  “Never mind that,” I said. “Lilith, what’s going on here?”

  “It’s no la-la, walk-into-the-light halleluiah chorus,” she said, and started to close her eyes again.

  I shook her lightly. “I know that. But what are they doing to you? Why are they drugging you? Who’s Parker?”

  She stared at me long and hard, her pupils as big as dimes. “Daddy wants me to be part of the cult. Tonight was just for show. I think he really wants to cut me.”

  “Kill you?”

  “Of course. I’ve sensed it all my life, but I didn’t understand it until I got older.”

  “I don’t understand now.”

  She reached out and took my hand. Her own wasn’t much warmer, and it trembled a little. “The cult was his life. Controlling others was his life. But there was always something else.”

  “What?”

  “He always wanted more power. He wanted total control. And he believed The Answer was here at Mount Shasta, an ancient power that he could summon.”

  Now I understood. “The statue of the demoness,” I said.

  She looked at me, and now her head dropped back against the headboard. “Yes, the demoness. I believe you’ve met her. He calls her Parker.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Great.

  I wouldn’t say it was the first time I’d ever been played for a fool by a woman. Like I said, I’ve been around a while.

  But Parker had preyed on my hero trip, almost like she knew more about me than she’d let on. All her little hints made me wonder if she knew I was a vampire, and if she somehow expected me to use those powers here at Cloudland. She didn’t want me merely as a cold-blooded killer who would take Erasmus Cole out of the picture; she had some sort of sinister connection with Cole.

  And if Lilith was to be believed—not an automatic, given her drugged stupor—then that connection could very well be supernatural evil.

  Of course, in the real world, vampires and demons are the kinds of things you don’t talk about in polite company. They are creatures in movies and comic books. But I know vampires exist, and I accept there are probably a lot of other types of mythical entities that exist that I don’t even know about.

  So the whole vibe of the place, the set-up for a blood sacrifice, made the notion of a demoness believable.

  But Lilith could also be lying. She didn’t seem to have enough wits about her to spin a major fabrication, and I no longer trusted my inner sense that had, not that long ago, told me that Parker was telling the truth.

  What’s happening to me? My gut instinct has never been wrong before.

  And the possibility was right there before me: Parker really was a demoness and had brought me under her dark influence. That disturbed me. I always wanted to be the dark, brooding one in my relationships.

  I ran a hand over my face. “Do you know where she is?” I asked Lilith.

  “Yes, but you don’t want to go there.”

  “It’s the only place I want to go,” I said.

  “You’ll never return. Nobody ever returns.”

  No matter how this turned out, the kid was going to have major psychological baggage for the rest of her life. But dying here would be even worse. At least away from Cloudland, she’d have a chance. “I’m going to get you out of here,” I said.

  “A knight in shining armor, huh? Well, Daddy is a dragon. A big, fire-breathing dragon who’ll cook your ass and eat you for dinner.”

  I hoped she meant that figuratively instead of literally. “So, how well do you know Parker?”

  She rolled her stoned eyes. “How well does any girl know her father’s mistress?”

  I didn’t want to go there, and I had no way of knowing whether Erasmus was truly engaged in sexual relations with Parker, or whether she was merely a sidekick to help build up the cult. One thing was for sure, though: Parker was flesh and blood, not a demon. Because I’d smelled her blood, and it had been very, very tempting.

  “Do you trust me?” I said, realizing I’d asked Parker a similar question not that long ago.

  “I don’t trust anybody,” she said.

  I opened my mouth to explain why I was different, that I was one of the good guys, but I didn’t really have any hard evidence of that. Instead, I just said, “Good answer.”

  I slipped out the door, leaving the lights off and hopefully allowing Lilith to catch up on her beauty sleep. I locked the latch before I pulled the door closed behind me. Maybe if she was too stoned to wander, she’d be safe for a little while, but I knew creepy old Erasmus probably had a master key to the place.

  Now that my senses weren’t clouded by Lilith, I expanded my perceptions outward. Then downward.

  I could feel the anxiety, pain, and misery rising up from below. I wasn’t much for religion, but there was a lot of symbolism in the idea that hell was a hot place and it was always below. I came to the end of the hall, where apparently a maid was inside cleaning a room. There was a laundry hamper there, and I fished out a robe that wasn’t too rumpled, slipped it on, and hurried away. My boots and the legs of my blue jeans were visible, but I didn’t waste the time to stop and undress.

  I found the stairs and clattered down four stories, but the stairs kept going. I hadn’t encountered anyone, so I guess the cultists were all in their rooms reading Cloudland pamphlets. The lucky ones, anyway.

  The others...

  I heard a couple of moans and groans, and I half-floated, half scrambled down the remaining two flights, living up to my name. At the concrete landing was a metal door, which I tried. Locked.

  I pressed my ear to it, because even my acute hearing has its limits. At the same time, I penetrated the room with my senses, discerning the veiled outlines of a few of the older gentlemen, the big wigs. I also picked up the plaintive whining of several teen girls. From what I could tell, the real debauchery hadn’t begun, but things were getting hot and heavy...and sickening.

  Rage fueled me as I grabbed the door handle and twisted hard, snapping the hasp.

  Chapter Twenty

  The door swung open with a rusty creak, and dim light from the stairwell joined with the few candles to reveal that the teens were nude, huddled in the center of the room on a large mat. Behind them was a miniature, Styrofoam-looking version of the big, bitching demon statue outside.

  The big wigs were gathered around them in various states of undress, and I couldn’t help but notice that the Democratic senator who looked sharp in a suit should never, ever allow himself to be photographed in a Speedo if he ever wanted to carry another election. The movie star, too, was half-naked, and he held a mean-looking leather whip.

  “No boys allowed,” the actor said, apparently spying my boots.

  I flipped my hood back and grinned, showing my fangs. “I ain’t no boy,” I said.

  His eyes grew wide as one of the girls shrieked, and the actor’s whip undulated, then snapped toward me. I ducked back and let it wrap around my arm, surprising him when I tugged it toward me. He fell forward before he had enough sense to let go, and I grabbed him and raked my fangs across his throat. Not enough to pierce and turn him, but enough to put the fear of God in him.

  “Play with people your own age,” I w
hispered in his ear.

  I pushed him away and swept the whip around the senator’s ankles as he tried to run, yanking so that he sprawled face first, his fat belly making a slapping sound as it hit the concrete.

  “Look out!” one of the girls yelled, but she could have saved herself the trouble. Because I sensed the third person, a tall black guy sporting kinky sports attire emerging from the shadows, a baseball bat raised over his head. Hell of a prop.

  I dodged his swing, but he was fast and clipped my knee with the wooden tip. “I hate vampires,” he said, swinging and smashing the bat on the floor so hard that it shattered.

  He held up the splintered end, dancing around in just his jock strap and those funny leggings ballplayers wear. He poked it at me a couple of times, but I skipped away, saving my best moves and letting him gain confidence.

  The girls were whispering and squealing a little, but they were not seriously freaking out yet. They were probably drugged like Lilith, flying on Erasmus Cole’s Cloudland Kool-Aid.

  “Run,” I yelled at them, waving toward the door.

  “But....” one of them said, and I glanced at her. She was cute and blonde, the Cloudland prototype, barely sixteen if that.

  “But what?” I said, turning my full attention back to the menacing wooden stake.

  “You’re a vampire,” she finished, and I realized my fangs were still protruding, aroused by the scant taste of blood.

  And I realized what I was really afraid of: that I wasn’t that much different from these perverse human predators, and if the girls were around when my hunger kicked in, I’d have no problem ripping open their pretty, tender throats and draining them dry.

  When you got right down to it, I was no better than Erasmus Cole. And that realization pissed me off even more.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” I said, turning an awkward backflip as the ballplayer jabbed at me. I landed on my feet, curled my fingers as if they were claws, and gave the girls my best Bela Lugosi. “And if you don’t get out right this second, I’m draining you all right after this joker strikes out.”