by Bryan Smith
Giselle pressed the backs of her forearms to her face and cried some more, her chest heaving with the force of emotions artifically held in check for too long.
She thought of Eddie, her blood sacrifice to “Azaroth.”
Sweet, trusting Eddie.
And that look of confused betrayal on his face in his last moments.
The crying only began to dry up as she felt the subtle vibrations in her bones. She sat very still for a moment and waited. And felt the vibrations again. Then she drew in a series of deep breaths and felt herself grow calm.
She then situated herself in a corner of the swinging cage and awaited the arrival of the ones who had come for her. She thought about them and wondered what they would do with her. She supposed they would torture her. And then kill her, of course. There would be much pain. But contemplating this failed to disturb the new, sudden sense of peace that had settled over her. She supposed she deserved whatever they had planned for her. She thought about the dragon tattoo. If she could see herself in a mirror, would she still see the dragon? She thought not.
She was as she’d once been.
Completely.
She closed her eyes in the darkness and thought of a time when she’d done heroic things. Memories that were bittersweet now, but no less true than the memories of horror. When the tears came again, they were the soft, noiseless tears of a black-clad mourner at the grave site of a long-estranged former lover or friend.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The room was enormous, a large, open space big enough to encompass some of the smaller rural homes Allyson had seen on the way to this place. A portion of it functioned as a library and den. At the far end was a living space, with a canopied four-poster bed, wardrobe, and vanity.
A man in a black uniform stood in the center of the room, hands upraised, lean body in a stiff pose of surrender. Allyson tightened her grip on the M-16 as they moved deeper into the room. Something about the atmosphere here didn’t seem right. It was warm. And yet she felt a bone-deep chill. She shivered slightly as they advanced on the man who looked to be all that was left of the pathetic security force they had just vanquished.
The man was smiling as they neared. There was something unsettling in the man’s steady gaze. His dark eyes were the cold, unblinking eyes of a lizard. Allyson, seized by the absurd notion that he would have a forked tongue, suddenly didn’t want him to open his mouth. She imagined that tongue flicking out between teeth too sharp and too white, the only sound emerging from his mouth a low, sibilant hiss.
The image was so vivid she drew in a startled intake of breath when he opened his mouth to say, “Welcome, honored representatives of the Order of the Dragon.”
He bowed slightly at the waist as he said this.
Bai bowed in return and said, “I am Bai, designated by the Order to retrieve Giselle Burkhardt from your custody. And are you Schreck?”
The man in black straightened and nodded. “I am.”
Bai sheathed her sword. “At ease, then.”
The man called Schreck lowered his hands with deliberate slowness, as if he did not yet trust that he was safe in their presence. He looked at Allyson, then, a glance so quick she almost missed it, and her sense of unease deepened. It wasn’t just that oily, insincere smile that bothered her. She thought she’d detected something in that glance, something inscrutable directed at her. But that was crazy. And paranoid. She’d never met this man before, had no knowledge of him prior to walking into this room.
Then he spoke again, a comment directed at Bai.
“Shall we finish our business now?”
Allyson frowned.
There was something familiar in the timbre of his voice, a faintly insinuating and mocking quality. She had heard this voice before, she was sure of it, but the connection eluded her as, for some unfathomable reason, Schreck and Bai approached a drab and blank expanse of wall opposite the big bed. Schreck leaned close to Bai and said something she couldn’ t make out, a mumbled whisper. Then Bai nodded and extended a hand to the wall. Her forefinger described a vague shape on the wall. It might have been a door. She spoke in a whisper and Allyson moved a step closer, straining to hear. The words became slightly more distinct, but Bai was speaking an Asiatic language, so the meaning remained elusive.
She turned and looked at Chad, who was staring past her at the far end of the room. She followed his gaze to an open set of French doors. Beyond the doors was a balcony. And on the balcony, their backs turned to the people in the room as they leaned against the railing, were two people, a man and a woman. The man wore only black slacks. He had long, sandy brown hair and a sculpted physique. The woman wore a small robe that barely reached the middle of her shapely thighs. She had long, slender legs and a tapered waist. She had short, jet-black hair.
No…wait.
She blinked hard and rubbed at her eyes. Then she looked at the couple on the balcony again. The woman’s jet-black hair was gone. She now had long, flowing blonde locks. Allyson decided her eyes were playing tricks on her. It had been a long day. A combination of fatigue and a trick of the light had conspired to make her initially think the woman’s hair was shorter and black.
A nice theory. Except it was pure bullshit and she knew it. The woman’s hair had grown and changed color in the blink of an eye. She was seized by a sudden conviction—she didn’t want the people on the balcony to turn around. Didn’t want to see their faces. That nagging sense of familiarity she’d felt while listening to Schreck had returned. She thought she knew who that woman was. It made no sense that she was here. Or maybe it made as much sense as anything.
She looked at Chad again and the look on his face pierced his heart. It was a combination of disbelief and longing.
He took an unconscious step toward the balcony.
Allyson hated herself for the tears that came then. She had no right to feel this sense of betrayal, not after the things she’d done. Maybe this was what she deserved in return for all those months she’d deceived Chad. Maybe this was karma.
Then Jim clamped a hand on Chad’s shoulder, stopped him in his tracks. He turned Chad toward him and locked eyes with him, spoke a single w ord:“No.”
Chad blinked rapidly. “But…I think that’s—”
Jim shook his head, his expression stern. “Doesn’t matter. You have to leave the past behind.” He looked at Allyson now. “You both do.”
Allyson shuddered, feeling again that bone-deep chill that belied the room’s temperature. She opened her mouth to reply, but whatever it was she’d been about to say went unspoken as her attention was drawn to the wall where Schreck and Bai had been standing moments ago.
She frowned again. “What the fuck?”
The men followed her gaze and saw the vertical, black rectangle in the wall, a door to some dark place. It hadn’t been there before. And Bai and Schreck had vanished, presumbably into that darkness. Looking at the darkness beyond the opening triggered a sensation of creeping dread. Allyson felt it crawling through her intestines like a tapeworm. She didn’t know what that dark place was, but she did know she would sooner die than set even one foot inside it.
Then there was movement within the darkness and a moment later Bai and Schreck reemerged into the room. Between them was a young woman, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Allyson’s heart leaped at the sight of her charred wrist stumps. Some monster had mutilated her. She was nude, except for a very small pair of black panties. She was pale and her long black hair was tangled. The girl was pretty, but there was obvious madness in her jittering eyes. She shivered and leaned close to Bai.
“What the hell? This is the person you came for?” Spittle flew from Allyson’s lips, each word a jab, imbued with an implied sneer. “Look what’s been done to her. She’s pathetic. I don’t care what she’s done. Now you’re going to torture her? You fucking animals.”
Bai’s smile was thin and strained. “It is no concern of yours.” She placed a hand on the hilt of her sword. “Unless you would
like me to r escind the Order’s deal with your lover. Then I suppose we could—” Her smile broadened. “—discuss it.”
Allyson watched the woman’s hands curl around the sword’s hilt. There was something almost sensual about the gesture. A vaguely sexual eagerness. Allyson recognized the futility of her indignation on the girl’s behalf and bit back any further expressions of rage. She sighed. “That won’t be necessary. Could we please just get out of here now? No offense, but I’d like to never see any of you fuckers ever again.”
Schreck laughed softly.
Allyson glared at him. “Something to say, asshole?”
Chad reached for her, brushed a hand across her arm. “Allyson, stop this. There’s no need—”
Allyson shrugged his hand away and approached Schreck, halving the distance between them. “Do I know you?”
Schreck’s dark eyes glittered. “Certainly, Ms. Vanover.”
Then she had it. The wheels in her mind stopped spinning as the connection clicked. Hearing him say her name did the trick. It was him. The voice on the phone. Her contact during the months she’d spent spying on Chad. How that voice had haunted her during her months at Camp Whiskey. She heard it in her dreams and like a whispered promise of pain in idle waking moments.
She managed one word, pushed through gritted teeth: “You.”
Schreck grinned, baring rows of horrible, too-white teeth. He looked like a shark. “Have you told your boyfriend about—”
Allyson looked at Bai as she jabbed a finger in Schreck’s direction. “What about this son of a bitch? Has the Order made any deals with him?”
Bai kept her expression neutral as she said, “None that have not already been fulfilled.”
And now it was Allyson’s turn to grin like a crazy person. The sight of it must have unnerved Schreck. He frowned and glanced at Bai. “What’s the—”
Allyson moved with explosive speed, reversing her grip on the M-16 and raising it above her shoulders. Schreck cringed and shuffled backward. But the black door was gone, the blank wall restored. His back met the wall and he could move no further. He raised his hands to cover his face, but he was too late—the stock of the M-16 crashed into his mouth, pulping his lips and shattering teeth.
Allyson moved out of his way as he tumbled to the floor and rolled onto his back. She tossed the M-16 aside and pulled the 9mm from her waistband. She set the safety and moved to where Schreck was sprawled. She avoided Chad’s gaze, not wanting to look too long at his expression of horrified astonishment. Jim remained stoic, his hand on Chad’s shoulder again.
Schreck opened his bleary eyes and saw her standing over him. He let out a wail and tried to scoot away. Allyson seized a handful of his black shirt and lifted him a few inches off the floor. Then she adjusted her grip on the pistol, raised her hand, and brought it around, smashing the nickel-plated butt against the side of his head. Shreck shrieked and bucked on the floor, but Allyson held on to him with ease, galvanized now by the most righteous sense of rage that had ever possessed her. She raised her hand again and whipped the pistol across Schreck’s face another time. Then another and another. Again and again. Mashing flesh and pulverizing bone. The man barely looked human by the time she stopped swinging the pistol back and forth. He sagged in her grip, unable to resist, barely alive.
She let him go and stood up straight. Schreck’s blood-filled eyes looked up at her. Whether he could see her or not she didn’t know. She hoped so. She hoped he saw an avenging angel about to hand down judgment.
She hoped he was afraid. Of her and his impending rendezvous with the denizens of hell. She switched the 9mm’s safety off and aimed the barrel at the center of Schreck’s ruined face. His lips twitched, seemed to curl upward. A last, mocking smile of the damned.
Allyson pulled the trigger and Schreck died.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Back outside, now.
It wasn’t yet noon, which didn’t seem possible. Allyson felt as if a lifetime had passed since they’d gone charging into the strange house. So much had happened. So many people had died. It didn’t seem right that a space of little more than an hour could encompass the extinguishing of all those lives. But it had. The sun was obscured by clouds and the air was tinged with winter’s chill. But Allyson didn’t mind that. It was a clean chill. Natural. She remembered her glimpse of that black room and shuddered.
The girl called Giselle had been loaded into the minivan parked behind the package truck. She was in the rear, her wrist stumps bound with a thick layering of silver duct tape. The girl looked numb, her eyes staring at something beyond this place. The young Asian man was sitting beside her. He sensed Allyson’s scrutiny and his head swiveled slowly in her direction. A very small smile darkened the edges of his cruel mouth. Allyson turned away and moved to the Jeep.
Chad and Jim were there, arguing in low voices. Chad was doing most of the arguing, though. Jim kept his head down and stared at the ground as he listened to his friend rant.
“Jim, you just can’t do this. You can’t go with them. It’s insane.”
Jim sighed—an immensely tired sound—and at last lifted his head to look Chad in the eye. “Perhaps. Regardless, I am going.” He looked at Allyson and managed a tired smile. “Hello, Allyson. I want you to know how proud I am of you.”
Allyson flushed with embarrassment. She smiled and abruptly threw her arms around the old singer. He laughed and after a moment returned the embrace. Then she broke the embrace and stepped back, saw that he was smiling, too. It transformed his haggard features, making him look decades younger. For a flickering moment, she glimpsed the rock god of old, the impossibly good-looking and intelligent young lion who had taken the world by storm.
She swiped tears from her eyes with the base of a palm. “Chad’s right, you know. You should go with us. There’s nothing you can do for that girl.”
Jim’s smile slipped some, but didn’t fade entirely. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” He glanced at the minivan and the last of his smile evaporated as he looked at the frail form of the girl huddled against the door. “Giselle has made mistakes. She’s done bad things. Unforgivable things. But there was a time when she did amazing things. A time when we worked toward a common goal. She was incredibly brave then, and her actions ultimately saved the lives of thousands. Including—” He indicated Chad with a tilt of his chin. “—your man here. For that alone, I owe her my company for what’s left of her journey. I owe her whatever comfort I can give her, meager though that may be.”
Chad made an exasperated sound and shook his head. “Look, I get what you’re saying, okay? I understand it. But you’re putting your life on the line here.”
Jim’s smile this time was smaller, sadder. “It won’t be the first time.”
Chad opened his mouth to respond to this, but hesitated at the sound of the minivan’s front passenger door slamming shut. The old Asian man was ensconced in the shotgun seat now. Bai was standing outside the open side door, watching them expectantly.
“Leaving now!” she called to them.
Jim shuffled a few steps in that direction. Then he turned toward Chad and Allyson, addressing them one last time as he walked backward. “I wish you both the best of luck with whatever the future holds. You can be happy, but you should stay underground.”
He reached the minivan and turned away from them.
He slipped into the rear compartment and settled into the space between the younger Asian man and Giselle. Bai threw the door shut and moved to the other side of the van. She slipped behind the wheel and pulled the driver’s-side door shut. She didn’t so much as glance Chad’s way. There was something dismissive about this. He was already a part of the past for her. A toy she’d amused herself with for a time and was now discarding. The lack of even token acknowledgment made Allyson hate the bitch more than ever.
The minivan’s brake lights came on and the engine purred to life. It was a well-maintained car, easily the best-running vehicle in their meag
er fleet, so of course Bai had commandeered it for the drive up here. But Allyson’s resentment on that count faded as she watched Bai quickly execute a three-point turn and start down the hill. The sooner the Order people were gone from her sight the better.
Chad sighed and slumped against the side of the Jeep, watching with numb resignation as the minivan quickly made its way down the winding dirt path. “I can’t believe he’s going with them. How could—”
The explosion made Allyson stagger backward. Chad dropped to his knees and screamed. The minivan’s interior was on fire. The roof had been blown out, its mangled remains a soot-gray mess. A column of black smoke rose into the air. Allyson’s mind reeled. She couldn’t begin to process what had happened. And then the fire ignited the gas tank and a second explosion demolished much of what was left of the minivan. Allyson’s knees went weak and she clutched the Jeep’s side mirror to remain upright.
Chad got to his feet and rushed down the hill. He was screaming something. Useless words of denial. Allyson watched him stumble and fall, banging his knees on the hard ground. And then he was on his feet again, charging full-out toward the smoldering wreck of the minivan. Allyson regained her composure and shoved herself away from the Jeep, hurrying down the hill after him.
Chad stopped a dozen yards from the burning van. The heat was too intense to get any closer. He was on his knees again and sobbing by the time Allyson reached him. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, forcing his head away from the awful sight. He buried his face against her breasts and wailed. Allyson stroked his back and cooed to him. Nonsensical things. The things a mother might whisper in a baby’s ear. She felt useless and stupid. She looked over his shoulder and was able to make out smoking remains in the minivan’s seats. A scent of burning meat permeated the air. Allyson’s stomach did a slow roll.
She gripped Chad by the hand and stood up, pulling him upright against his will. He looked at the minivan again, a stricken look contorting his features. Allyson turned him away from it and they began a grim march back up the hill. They reached the Jeep and Allyson helped Chad into the passenger seat. He was pliant, now, acquiescing to her every instruction without resisting.
