House Of Blood Part 19

Chad nodded. "Right."

Cindy clasped hands with him, and they began to make their way through the tunnel again, this time at a slower, more deliberate pace. Chad was so preoccupied by the abrupt change in the tenor of his relationship with Cindy that he failed to immediately notice the widening of the tunnel. He was so immersed in contemplation of the development that the hum of nearby machinery didn't register until Cindy said, "Slow down."

Chad looked at her. "What?"

So she said it again. "Slow down. Listen."

Chad did. He frowned. "What's that?"

Cindy looked troubled. "Checkpoint. We have to pa.s.s through it to return Below." A shudder rippled through her. "We'll be encountering some nasty people in a bit, and, well, no offense, please keep your big mouth shut. I've been through this before and I can get us through this now, but you need to leave the talking to me."

Chad shrugged. "Fine."

The tunnel continued to widen as they trudged forward. The steep downward slope began to level out, only a little at first, then dramatically, and soon they were walking on flat ground. The tunnel's ceiling became higher, as well, and they began to perceive a glow of artificially produced light. The hum of machinery grew louder. Chad was pretty sure they were hearing a generator. This suspicion was confirmed as they came around what turned out to be the 167.

end of this branch of the tunnel. They stepped out of the tunnel and into a much larger area.

"This is the checkpoint," Cindy breathed.

Chad glimpsed a dark opening beyond the checkpoint and realized his earlier perception hadn't been quite true. The tunnel didn't really end. Not exactly. Its dimensions changed here and there, particularly in places where more room had been carved out of the earth for places such as this. There was a shack to his left that looked a bit like a construction site office. A row of military-style transport trucks were lined against the opposite wall. A holding pen occupied the s.p.a.ce between the shack and the trucks. Chad counted thirteen people in the pen. Slaves, he a.s.sumed. The area was lit by klieg lights, a brightness that approximated midsummer daylight.

Rifle-toting guards patrolled the perimeter of the pen. They wore body armor and black helmets with inscrutable black visors. They were lean and muscular and lithe, and they moved like hungry panthers stalking prey.

Satan's shock troops.

Chad whispered, "Holy s.h.i.t. Pardon me while I pa.s.s out." He looked at Cindy. "Please tell me you're sure they don't know about..."

His eyes flicked back toward the tunnel. "You know ..."

Crimson-tinted images of the holding facility ma.s.sacre shook him.

Cindy arched an eyebrow. "Of course they know. Don't be naive."

A jolt of terror slashed through Chad's heart and caused his eyes to open so wide he thought they might fall out of 168.

their sockets. "What!?" He was still whispering-a guard was approaching them-but he was agitated now. "What the living h.e.l.l, Cindy? You said you could get us through this."

"I can. I think." There was an edge to her tone now, an implied warning. "You just have to shut up and trust me. Now hold tight."

The guard reached them. He held his rifle in front of him, and Chad noticed his forefinger was curled around the trigger.

The guard's voice was brusque. "Identification."

Cindy reached into the pouch at her waist, pulled out a card, and handed it over to the guard, who gave it a long inspection. "I am formerly the property of Overlord Gonzo."

Chad thought, Overlord Gonzo?

He heard a feigned pride in her voice when she said, "I am an emanc.i.p.ated slave."

The guard studied the card a moment later, glanced at Chad, and handed it back to her. "And who is this?"

"This is my new slave."

The guard studied Chad. The scrutiny made his skin crawl. It was like being sized up by The Terminator. The inscrutable visor increased his anxiety level by several degrees. An urge to turn and flee back through the tunnel gripped him, but he remained where he was, counseling himself against acts of impulsive-as well as suicidal-stupidity.

At last, the guards gaze went back to Cindy. "You'll have to meet with the Stationmaster." He nodded at Chad. "Your slave will have to stay in the holding pen."

The holding pen!

169 Chad looked at the hungry eyes of the slaves in the pen. "Are you kidding? I won't last ten minutes in there."

Cindy backhanded him, a blow that rocked his head and sent him staggering backward. She stalked after him, glaring at him with real malevolence, and drove a fist into his solar plexus. He dropped to his knees and gasped for breath. Cindy grabbed a handful of hair, yanked his head back, leaned in close, and hissed, "Mouth off again and I'll have this man shoot you."

Panic filled Chad's soul, wrapped a cold fist around his heart. He had f.u.c.ked up. He knew that. Cindy's anger was genuine, albeit for reasons other than what the guard would a.s.sume. He'd broken his vow of silence. He had to consciously remind himself she was role-playing-and that she alone best understood what it would take to get them through this place.

"I'm ... sorry!" There was a quaver in his voice, and he realized he was close to blubbering. But that was okay. A little role-playing of his own couldn't hurt. "It won't happen again, I swear. Please don't hurt me anymore."

Cindy relinquished him.

The guard said, "I like the way you discipline."

There was something new in the timbre of the guard's voice, a deeper, raspier tone, and he was speaking at a level just above a whisper. Chad had a disturbing notion, an idea that he was beginning to know how Cindy meant to get them through this checkpoint.

He ached for her again.

"And what about my body?" Her tone was matter-of-fact, the voice of a person negotiating a business transaction. "Do you like that?"

170.

The guard chuckled. "Very much."

Cindy nodded. "You're Stephens, right?"

The guard licked his dry lips and smiled. "Yes. I've been waiting for you. I'm the new Stationmaster."

Cindy pursed her lips. "And the old Stationmaster?"

The guard's smile widened. "Hawthorne." He shrugged. "A real by-the-book, rules-and-regulations guy!" A tone of mock solemnity entered his voice. "Tragically, he just met an untimely end."

Cindy nodded.

As if the information wasn't news.

Stephens said, "I'll just need to discuss some loose ends with you. In private."

Chad's stomach roiled.

She wouldn't really let this happen, he was sure of it.

Stephens slung the rifle back over his shoulder, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called out, "Coleman!"

Another patrolling guard stepped away from the holding pen and strolled over to where they were standing. "Yeah?"

Stephens nodded at Chad. "Keep an eye on this guy while the lady and I conduct some business."

Coleman grinned. "Sure."

The guard and Cindy entered the tunnel, and Chad watched them disappear around the bend through eyes blurry with tears. Several long moments elapsed during which nothing seemed to be happening.

And then he heard them.

Dimly at first. Then louder. High-pitched cries of s.e.xual enthusiasm. Cindy. And a lower-pitched series of testosterone-charged grunts.

171.

Stephens.

This went on for a time.

Chad felt a welling of tears. He doubted he could quantify how infinitely sad what was transpiring made him. It was wrong. An unforgivable offense against the universe. Which was a melodramatic thing to think, he realized, but he believed it nonetheless. He was seized by a desire to bring this place down. He wouldn't be satisfied with just his own escape. Not anymore. He would settle for nothing less than complete destruction. An inferno. The oppressed rising up to mete out a justice every bit as ruthless as the vile transgressions against humanity this underworld's powers-that-be seemed to engage in as a matter of routine.

But that was ridiculous.

He was a systems a.n.a.lyst, not a revolutionary.

How could he hope to change anything down here?

When Cindy and the guard emerged from the tunnel, she seemed reluctant to look at Chad. He met her gaze once, tried to transmit a message of concern and empathy, but her eyes flicked instantly away.

The guard who took Cindy into the tunnel sent Coleman away. "You'll be boarding the next transport run when it leaves, which should be within an hour. You and your slave will be taken Below. You will be carrying doc.u.mentation verifying your status as an emanc.i.p.ated slave."

Then he was gone, leaving Cindy and Chad standing there unguarded.

She said, "See? I know what I'm doing."

Chad nodded. "Sure."

172.

But there was a distance in his tone, a faraway look in his eyes.

He was thinking about liberation. About throwing off the shackles of oppression. He was also thinking quite a bit about retribution.

173.

Eddie was dreaming again. Yet again. But the images weren't as vivid this time. They were fleeting and halfformed. That sense of lucidity and pseudoreality was gone. In its place was an odd mixture of physical l.u.s.t and a swirling sense of impending disaster. He saw bodies burning in a pile, heard screams so loud and so anguished they pierced his eardrums like serrated knives. The stink of death was everywhere. And, in the middle of it all, appearing and disappearing-then reappearing again-was the woman from his earlier dream.

Dream.

A hauntingly beautiful image glimpsed here and there through a fog. Or it might have been smoke, the billowing black smoke of a conflagration. Although he couldn't tell exactly what was happening, he sensed the woman was in extreme danger. Something terrible was about to happen 174.

to her, something unspeakable, and, this was the creepiest part of it, she seemed to welcome it, to even embrace it.

He saw the woman again, more clearly than before. She was again wearing the flimsy, sheer blue dress she'd shed in his previous dream. She seemed less threatening in this dream, not quite as apt to turn into a yellow-eyed beastie. He wasn't sure why that was, but he would later decide he was getting glimpses of a fluid possible reality. The woman's fate wasn't decided yet. He sensed she was vulnerable, susceptible to ideas she wouldn't normally entertain. She stood now on the precipice of a great corruption. Soon she would either surrender her soul to darkness or give up her life trying to fight whatever was threatening her.

This dream, what little he would recall of it upon awakening, was suggestive of things that might happen should she pursue the latter course. A dark shadow, enormous and distended like a shadow puppet, emerged from the smoke to loom behind her.

Eddie opened his mouth to scream out a warning ... ... and awoke with a start.

Giselle looked up from her writing table when he sat bolt upright in the bed, gasping hard like a runner at the end of a marathon. The images from the dream became fuzzy and dispersed like bubbles blown into a breeze, but he retained a sense of what he had seen and of what the images meant. He looked at Giselle, who, with a tip of a quill dimpling a corner of her mouth, resembled a biology student studying a particularly interesting specimen through a microscope.

He heaved one more heavy sigh and said, "I am having some seriously f.u.c.ked-up dreams."

175.

He reconsidered the admission instantly. Broaching the subject with her was the kind of mistake that registered in the upper reaches of the stupidity Richter scale. Wasn't it possible she was the one who'd turned his head into some kind of psychic antenna? "That is, ah, I mean, it's probably nothing, and, uh ..."

Giselle set the quill down, folded her hands primly in front of her, and said, "In what way are these dreams ... *f.u.c.ked up'?"

Eddie said, "Well-"

And then it came back to him, the memory of the astonishing event that had sent him reeling back into unconsciousness. She had spoken. Upon emerging from the secret pa.s.sage, the mute girl had opened her mouth and sounds had emerged.

Words and sentences.

He stared at the sleek contours of her lovely face-and again experienced inappropriate erotic urges-and recalled images of a b.l.o.o.d.y flap of flesh sliding down her mouth, a tongue excised from the mouth of an emaciated old man.

The images, as well as the persistent desire to kiss her red lips, quashed his train of thought. "Um ..."

There was a glint of amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes, a glimmer of secret knowledge. "Your desire for me disturbs you."

Eddie swallowed hard. "Ah ... well..."

She laughed. "You can't understand why you are so drawn to a woman whose deeds you find abhorrent."

She'd nailed that part of it, Eddie had to admit. "That about sums it up."

He shrugged. "I suspect you of literally f.u.c.king with my 176.

head, altering my brain chemistry somehow. I don't understand it, but... there you go."

"Nor do you need to know the specifics of it." She got up and walked slowly toward the bed. The long skirt swirled about the ankles of her boots. "My powers are rooted in obscure rites and ancient magical practices, things you are too simple to comprehend."

She climbed onto the bed, hoisted the skirt to thigh level, and sat astride him. "You saw me do something horrific, saw it in a dream, but what you don't know about is the higher purpose behind the ceremony"

She wriggled her a.s.s against his crotch and grinned at the automatic physical reaction the stimulation caused. Eddie's heart fluttered. He was having difficulty focusing on anything other than pure sensation, but he managed to say, "Come on, a higher purpose behind murder. You're kidding ... right?"

She tilted her head back, pinched her nipples hard through the fabric of her dress, and said, "No ... you have a destiny to achieve, Eddie." Her face was flushed with l.u.s.t, her porcelain flesh tinged a deep red. Her breathing quickened as she moved more rhythmically against him. "The ceremony... is symbolic. Restores my speech for a short time. I did it to facilitate quicker... communication between us, to..."