House Of Blood Part 35

to him. The old man was saying something about the inevitability of change, that no order lasts forever. Chad wondered how long what remained of Below's power structure would allow the now openly treasonous diatribe to continue. The crowd grew quiet as Barnes talked of the sacrifice made by Lazarus. The memory of the revered figure still possessed the power to instill a measure of solemnity. But new murmurs arose as the old man alluded to the Christian tale of their messiah's resurrection.

The murmurs grew in volume, became a babble of agitated voices.

The old man couldn't be saying what they thought he was saying.

Could he?

Chad was only dimly aware that Shaft had gone to work with the machete again, severing the few remaining strands of tissue that still connected a blood-flecked head to a mangled body. The head came loose with a stomach-clenching snap. The black man similarly liberated another head. He grasped both of them in one hand by strands of long hair, and he moved toward the stage entrance.

"If you can believe in revolution ..." Barnes bellowed. "... you can believe in resurrection!"

A dramatic pause followed. His voice dipped in pitch! when he resumed: "People of Below, I give you revolution!"

And Shaft dashed up the stairs to the stage.

Chad imagined him holding the severed heads aloft for all to see.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

And then pandemonium.

Wanda closed a hand around Chad's, forcing him to!

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tightly grip the machete's handle. "Whatever happens, hold on to this."

Then she moved with Todd to the stage entrance. The others huddled around them, listening while war erupted outside. There was a cacophony of gunfire. Huge, jarring sounds. The percussive thud of shotguns and the amplified firecracker beat of automatic weapons. Chad sensed that the flash point of the conflict was at the perimeter of the square, where so many of the guards were. Guards shooting guards. It seemed an insane way to start a war. Wouldn't the anonymity of the visorhelmets make it impossible to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys? He heard women screaming, men yelling, and children crying. Their obvious terror shook him. Being in this tent made him feel like a general at some safe encampment well behind the lines. But he realized he'd been escorted to this place so he'd be out of the line of fire. He was their savior, the one promised in a vision, and they would protect him.

Until he was face-to-face with this thing they called The Master, that is.

At which point he would be on his own.

Chad looked at the machete in his hand and gripped it a little tighter. The hand holding it tingled strangely, as if being charged with a mild electric current. He tried to still the trembling in his arm, but it was difficult. He didn't feel like a demon killer. These people were looking to him to be a hero, but he didn't feel the slightest bit heroic. He just felt afraid and anxious, like a heart patient about to go under the knife.

The shooting stopped. Chad released a breath he hadn't 328.

known he was holding, and some of the tension drained from his body. Then he realized the battle wasn't really over. He could still hear gunfire, but it was intermittent and far away, and he imagined a building-to-building fight deeper into the community.

Footsteps pounded down the steps and Shaft reemerged into the tent. His eyes gleamed and his muscles twitched. Chad was sure he'd never seen a more highly adrenalized countenance in his life. "It's on! We took some hits, lost some of our guards, but our side's element of surprise was too much for the f.u.c.kers. They're in full retreat now, and our people are hunting them through the village."

Wanda's eyes shone with tears. "We're really doing it. I can't believe it. Oh my G.o.d ..."

Todd threw an arm around her and drew her close. "Yes, we're really doing it." His voice was charged with excitement. "But we're not done yet."

Chad swallowed another lump in his throat. "So ... what now?"

Shaft said, "We get up on stage."

He disappeared through the stage entrance again and the others followed him. Chad girded himself with another deep breath, then followed them into the semidarkness. Ten steps took him up through a sliver of light to the stage. He hadn't been on a stage of any sort since junior high, a memorably unnerving performance of a cla.s.s play. He'd known then he wasn't cut out to be an actor or any other kind of performer. He didn't like all that attention focused on him. He didn't like crowds of people. h.e.l.l, to be honest, he didn't like people in general. But that was an 329.

impersonal dislike. He'd always been able to hate the bulk of people around him because he didn't know them. He didn't know these people, either, but he experienced a profound empathy for them that surprised him. The stricken looks on their horrified faces touched a long-dormant part of him, a part he realized Cindy had reawakened.

The perimeter of the square was littered with bullet-riddled bodies. Most of them were fallen guards, but a few were those of unlucky citizens who happened to be caught in the cross fire. Guards without helmets lined the front of the stage and patrolled the perimeter. Chad saw discarded visorhelmets here and there around the square, and he realized now how the movement's guards distinguished themselves from those still loyal to The Master-by ripping their helmets off and casting them aside.

Chad studied the faces of the guards close to the stage. Their features were grim, intent, the faces of n.o.ble men charged with a sacred duty they were determined to see through. It no longer mattered that these same men had done some awful things during their time Below. Somewhere in each of them lurked the remains of a true human heart, a soul capable of empathy and compa.s.sion, and somehow Jack Paradise had sought them out, tempting them with the promise of redemption.

Looking at them boosted Chad's morale considerably.

The square itself was still congested with milling slaves and emanc.i.p.ateds. Chad sensed the volatile energy of the crowd. They looked like they were waiting for something else to happen, for the proverbial next shoe to drop, and they remained wary of the helmetless guards. But the 330.

prevailing mood of agitation seemed dangerous. Chad feared what might happen if that agitation wasn't properly channeled.

Shaft gripped him by the shoulder and pointed to a nearby building. "You think these people are worked up now, keep your eye on that door."

Chad squinted and saw an open doorway flanked by guards. The door was a dark rectangle, but he thought he detected a hint of movement somewhere in the darkness. Then he saw Paradise, G.I. Joe, and Lazarus emerge into the artificial twilight. The guards fell in behind them and escorted them to the stage. The crowd was slow to notice the approach of the old singer's entourage, but when they did spot him they seemed to turn as one to observe their arrival.

A hush fell over the crowd.

Chad noted looks of confusion, incredulity, astonishment, and joy. Some of these people simply couldn't believe what they were seeing. A few of these had witnessed the old man's a.s.sa.s.sination. The word "miracle" spread through the crowd like an aural ripple on a human sea.

The singer's escort arrived at the side of the platform, where the old man ascended a few steps to the stage. He strolled to the podium with his head held high, his face the triumphant mask of a returning conqueror. He shook hands with Jake Barnes, who leaned over the microphone to utter a parting remark: "People of Below... I give you resurrection."

Then Lazarus stood alone at the podium, gripping its sides and studying them with the mute confidence of a G.o.d. Some of the long-suffering slaves dropped to their 331.

knees. The crowd grew quiet, awaiting the old man's first public words in years.

There was utter stillness.

No more murmurs.

Barely a breath.

Lazarus smiled. "Friends ..."

A susurration of reverent joy rippled through the crowd.

It really was him.

There could be no mistaking that voice.

A look of humility crossed the old singer's face. "I can't tell you how happy I am to stand before you here today. It is a miracle." He paused to clear his throat. "I have returned to lead you home."

The outburst of joy the remark triggered sent a tingle down Chad's spine.

Then he heard an approaching rumble and turned his head to the left. A transport truck emerged from a side street and rolled up to the front of the stage. The diesel blast of its engine pierced the square's atmosphere like a giant's belch. Jake Barnes clapped a hand on Chad's shoulder. "That's your ride out of here, boy"

Lazarus resumed speaking. "I do not promise an easy exodus. The tunnels will be an ordeal. The shapeshifters rule that realm, and the danger they present is considerable. Some of us will die on the path to freedom."

He sighed.

His face was a study in solemnity.

"Friends, I ask you-are you willing to pay the ultimate price for the chance to be free again?"

The cheer this time was a roar of affirmation.

Lazarus, whose big voice critics had once ascribed 332.

G.o.d-like qualities to, bellowed loud enough to be heard above the crowd: "THEN FREE YOU SHALL BE!"

This time the crowd's response was like a battle cry.

Fierce and determined, a voice of collective yearning.

Chad realized he was shaking again.

But it wasn't fear causing the trembling.

It was battle fever.

The machete's handle thrummed in his hand.

And then hands were on his back, urging him to the side of the stage-toward the stairs.

Toward the transport truck.

Toward, yes, destiny.

333.

The Master emerged from the meditative trance he entered when he wanted to commune with the G.o.ds. For centuries this had been an effortless process, a thing he did with the unthinking ease of an opera maestro going through vocal warm-ups.

That had changed.

Oh, he could still enter the meditative state instantly, but what was different now was his relationship with the death spirits. Often they seemed reluctant to commune with him. There had been times in recent weeks when he'd feared they didn't wish to communicate with him at all. He was afraid they were abandoning him, a possibility with ominous implications.

The G.o.ds were enamored of power. They fed on people, places, and things that were suffused with energy. The death spirits, his G.o.ds, loved dictators, the military-industrial 334.

complex, politicians, corporations bent on circ.u.mventing EPA rules, and the more prolific serial killers. They derived energy from the dark deeds of their hosts. He'd fed them well for most of a millennium. The swath of terror he'd cut through this world was impressive by any standard. His numbers didn't quite match those produced by human genocides, but those were intensely concentrated outbursts of brutality that burned out after a few years. His strength was implacability, a steady slaughter maintained throughout the ages.

He was the death spirits' most loyal servant.

And what was his reward?

Silence.

Hateful, maddening, terrifying silence. He alternately raged and despaired into the void as he beseeched the beings he'd once almost considered equals. Now they seemed unreachable. Uncaring. He knew the reason for their retreat, an awful truth he could no longer avoid. He'd been weakening for years. Perhaps even for decades. He had more than a hundred years remaining in his natural life cycle, but he suspected they would not be good years. The time left to him might well be a grim slide into senility and dementia. The illusions created by his power might morph beyond his ability to control, perhaps even become dangerous to him. The prospect of a descent into the indignity of advanced age and madness was more than he could bear.

These were the reasons the human woman's dark invitation tempted him so. A premature ascendancy to paradise seemed infinitely preferable to a steady, sure decline on 335.

this wretched plane. It was the notion of time's relentless progress-and the ravages it might wreak upon him-that decided him.

He wanted to die with Dream.

She was evolved so far beyond the rest of her race that he wondered whether she was really human at all. He theorized a s.e.xual coupling between one of Dream's long-ago ancestors and another of his own kind, a union resulting in a kind of human/Master hybrid. The important genes, the ones encoded with his kind's power, remained dormant for reasons he couldn't fathom. But there they lurked, awaiting discovery. No other possibility seemed feasible. He'd a.s.sumed genetic differences rendered conception between the species an impossibility, but he'd never put this to the test.

He tended to kill the women with whom he copulated.

He regretted that now.

He wished he'd met Dream-or at least a woman very much like Dream-hundreds of years earlier. A life spent in the company of such a creature would have been fascinating. He envisioned lost generations of babies. Human/Master babies. A family. A kingdom ruled by others of his own kind.

He grimaced at the cloak of melancholy that enveloped him.

He would have no family on this plane.

But he would have eternity with Dream.

He knew this because, after a silence of days, he'd finally established contact with one of the death spirits. Loth, one of the lesser death G.o.ds. It scarcely mattered 336.

that he was still being ignored by the supreme spirits of that realm. Any contact at all by this point was cause for rejoicing.

You wish to die? Loth asked him.

Yes.

And you expect pa.s.sage to the plane of your choice?

Yes.

There was a pause as the G.o.d considered it.

You have served us well through time. We can do this for you. However, we desire a final sacrifice in exchange. Might you have something suitable in mind?

The Master didn't hesitate.

The people of Below.

Loth, who resembled a bloated gargoyle in The Master's mind, seemed almost to smile.

Why, yes, that is acceptable.

However, should you fail to deliver the banished people unto us, you will find yourself transported to a realm bearing no resemblance at all to the paradise you seek.

I will not fail.

And then Loth was gone.