She sneered, “Thank you, Marco Polo.”
“It’s not Marco Polo, it’s Marco Paulo.”
“Like who cares?” She looked at Ed. “So? What do you want me to call you? Mister?”
He reached out. Took her hand in his. He felt her fingers squeeze his fingers. It seemed like a gesture of affection. An electric thrill ran through him.
Hell, what a way to shake hands. What a situation!
But she was beautiful to look at.
Beautiful to touch.
Before he could stop himself, he pictured himself embracing her, burying his face in that thick, copper hair. Geez, what’s wrong with me?
Those thoughts zipped through his head in a flash. He found himself saying, “I’m Ed Lake.” She still held his hand, so he found himself adding lamely, “I go to school at Riverside High.”
“You don’t say.” She smiled. “I went there too. A few years before you, though.”
“Great,” Marco said. “The perfect place for a high school reunion. In a cage.”
At last she withdrew her hand.
Don’t do that, he thought. Don’t. I like touching your skin.
But she lay back down on the mattress on her side with the blanket pulled up over her breasts. Her shoulders were bare, though. The skin was smooth, flawless. And despite her injury, and the strain she must be under, she looked good. Sort of glowed. An erotic power shone in her eyes.
“I’d lay off chumming up together across there, Eddie boy.”
“I’m not chumming up.” Ed was annoyed by Marco’s tone. The guy sounded jealous.
“Looks pretty chummy from the deluxe suite over here.”
“Knock it off, Marco,” Virginia told him. “He’s just being nice.”
“Just being stupid.”
“Hey!”
“Like I said, Eddie.”
“Don’t call me Eddie.”
“Like I said, Eddie, you’ve gotta save your strength.”
“There you go again. Why do I have to save my strength?”
He gloated now. “You’ll find out. So save your strength. Save every drop.”
A kind of sullen silence settled over the room. No one spoke. Virginia and Marco retreated under their blankets. Ed didn’t know if they were sleeping or not. He glared at the humped mound where Marco lay. Why did he keep talking about “saving your strength”? What was all this? The guy wouldn’t elaborate. Neither would Virginia, come to think of it. So, Jesus H. Christ, why? What kind of test would he face? The thoughts were still running hot through his skull when the lights went out.
Oh, God. Here we go again. This time it’s my turn. His belly shriveled. The strength bled out of him.
He turned his head left and right.
Too dark.
Saw nothing.
Heard nothing.
Just like last time.
Then he realized someone had entered the room. Then came cries from Virginia as the sadist ran a box-cutter along her tit.
Bastards. If he could get his hands on them.
Wait… it’s happening. He sensed movement. Heard a rustle. Felt a whisper of a draft across his bare arms. The hairs stood upright on the back of his neck. Shivers spiked his back. He clenched his fists.
Coming for you, Eddie boy.
Gonna get you good and hard. Maybe do a little blade work on your face in the dark.
No, they won’t. I’m going to punch out.
Fists clenched, he waited.
Waited.
He pictured the sadist in the night-vision goggles.
He can see you. You can’t see him. He has power over you. You see nothing in the dark.
But, yeah, Eddie boy, he sees all right. He sees victims.
Maybe they’re going to work on Virginia. Maybe cut her again. She’d start crying out. Start panting.
You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Eddie?
Don’t call me Eddie.
Wanna hear her squeal? Wanna hear her say “Please” again in that way that makes you throb between your legs.
Christ, why did the mind chatter always run away with him? He couldn’t stop those tormenting thoughts. Devil thoughts. He pictured Virginia nearly naked beneath the blanket. Maybe stuff was happening to her again… maybe she felt the cold—
Uh.
He blinked as the lights flickered on. He looked around. This time he expected to see their captor. But the room was empty again. Empty apart from the three cages with their three occupants.
Virginia sat up blinking. She held the blanket high up her chest.
Marco made a hoot. “All right! Breakfast time!”
Ed’s eyes swiveled. A tray had been left outside the bars of his cage. It was one of those molded ones they give you on airlines. In one hollow was an English muffin, in another scrambled egg. In the third strips of bacon. Beside the tray, a cup of black coffee.
“Ed. Eat everything,” she told him.
“My appetite isn’t what it was.” He gave a grim smile.
“Eat everything. Force yourself. Keep your strength, Ed. For Godsakes, keep your strength.”
Why?
What is going to happen to me?
He nearly asked the questions, but something reined them back in.
Anyway, he had a suspicion that he’d find out real soon.
Over in his cage Marco had slid the tray through the gap in the bars and began to eat. “Not hot, but good,” he sang. “Hmm, smoked bacon.”
Now Ed saw the reason for the airline-style trays. They were narrow enough to pass through the bars. The English muffin was surprisingly good. Someone had been generous with a splash of melted butter. The scrambled eggs were mixed with ground black pepper the way he liked them. Spicy. Gave a little heat too to the otherwise lukewarm egg. The bacon had cooled during the journey from the kitchen to the cages. But it was okay. The coffee was tepid but strong.
With no forks he followed his two roomies, eating with his fingers and using the English muffin to mop the tray. He noticed the other two ate hungrily, enjoying the simple meal. He glanced at Virginia. She ate, sitting with her back to him.
Her back was bare. With a free hand she flicked back the long copper hair so it wouldn’t trail into the food. That bare back. It was beautiful. When she reached for her coffee, he saw the pale orb of her breast jiggle a bit.
Just a little bit. But it was sexy enough to warm his loins.
Marco sang out again. “Eat up, eat up, Eddie, old buddy. Food equals energy, you know. You’re gonna need it soon.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The rear door of the museum opened.
Amara stepped out into the warm night. She stood motionless, head tilted back as if taking in the beauty of the pale moon.
Then she started across the asphalt of the parking lot.
From the edge of the field, George watched. His ears heard the dry skin of the creature’s feet whisper against the blacktop. His sensitive nose picked up odors too. Sweet spicy odors that didn’t quite mask the smell of ancient bone and flesh. The scent of the tomb still clung to the mass of hair that seemed to possess a life of its own. One moment it hung in heavy swathes down the hard glossy skin of the back, the next a warm up-current of air caught it, lifted it, bore it upward so individual hairs separated and floated around the skull-like head.
A red mist.
A mist like airborne droplets of blood.
The dog watched.
Never seen anything like this before.
Never encountered such a figure.
Yet deep down sensed its nature. A dead thing walking. He sensed its dark and terrible power.
Amara paused. Turned her dark, rounded head; hair floating around it. Each strand swimming in the night air.
The dog sensed life in the strands of hair that reached down beyond the crust of the corpse’s buttocks, down to the back of its legs. He watched the hairs writhe and dance in the moonlight. Although the dog could not put into words what he witnessed, the image
that came to his canine brain was of snakes.
As if each red hair was a bloodred snake, only as thin as a fiber. Each one malevolent. Each one possessing eyes. Each one of the thousands of hairs seeing the brown dog shivering at the edge of the parking lot.
Amara saw too.
She walked in the direction of the frightened dog.
So frightened he stood still as one of the statues in the museum. So frightened he could hardly breathe.
The creature moved toward him. Its naked body gleamed like hard black resin in the moonlight. Black tarry lips parted. White teeth glinted.
The dog wanted to run. Wanted to turn tail. Wanted to kick up dust with his paws. Gone. History. Back across town where this dreadful thing could never find him.
But he couldn’t move. He could only stand, panting hard until his lungs hurt inside his ribs.
He watched the creature quicken its pace toward him. Although it had no eyes, he knew it saw him perfectly. A brown dog shivering with fear. Vulnerable. Unable to save itself. A small life soon snuffed out. Dog bones broken. Brown fur scattered to the winds.
A whimper reached the dog’s throat. Nothing more.
It could do nothing. Move nowhere.
His eyes rolled upward to see the figure loom over him. With the moon behind, it stood in silhouette. A hard outline revealing bone-thin limbs; a hard rounded head covered with hard skin. And, surrounding the head, a vast halo of floating hair through which the moonlight burned in a bloody flame.
It extended its arms, hands hooking, fingers turning to claws.
The bat flew into Amara’s hair. Leathery wings beat the curls, bat claws became entangled in red tresses as it struggled to free itself. As Amara’s hands went to tear the tiny struggling creature from her hair, the spell was broken.
George barked once at the strange creature, then dashed away.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Imad wrapped the bodies in plastic garbage bags and maneuvered them downstairs. Hydra was easy to carry. Blaze, however, weighed far too much and had to be dragged.
He left them on the rear sundeck. In the toolshed he found a shovel. He walked across the moonlit lawn to the flower garden. Began to dig. Dig deep.
Perhaps he was digging near the very spot where Callahan buried the other intruders so many weeks go?
The thought unsettled him.
Callahan had killed with the same shotgun. He’d no doubt used the same shovel, dug in the same vicinity, the metal blade chopping in the soil with the same awful crunching sound like an ax through firm flesh.
Callahan had died that night.
Perhaps…
He shivered, wiped the sweat from his face, kept on digging.
He kept on digging until a hand swung up from the soil to slap the shovel. With a scream he leapt back. The hand dropped out of sight into the darkened pit.
He stepped cautiously to the edge of the hole, and peered in. An arm was exposed from the shoulder to the fingertips. The edge of his shovel, he realized, had probably caught it in the elbow joint, making it jump like that. And slap the shovel like that!
Nevertheless, he couldn’t bring himself to dig anymore.
He filled the hole.
Hiding the rotting corpse once more.
The smell…
Imad retched.
With great effort, he dragged the bodies through the house and out the front door. One by one, he swung them into the trunk of his Mercedes.
Then he drove for miles.
In the darkness of a wooded road, he unloaded them. He returned the plastic bags to his trunk, fearing that they had his fingerprints. Then he climbed into his car. As he backed away, his headlights shined on the green of Hydra’s dress.
Someone might remember the dress. Expensive. Exclusive. Not many of them about. They might remember the couple who bought it: the dark little man with the girl young enough to be his daughter, but obviously not his daughter because she was light-skinned. No. They had a different relationship; even the dumbest could guess what that relationship was.
He climbed from the car. He removed her dress, being careful not to look at the awful gap where part of her face had been.
He backed away. In the harsh beams of the headlights, her skin looked like raw dough.
Imad remembered the pleasure he had taken from her body. How she had moaned and writhed beneath him. Her pointed nipples. How they’d hardened beneath his probing tongue.
Such a waste.
But she had been greedy and stupid… and careless about her friends. She had done this to herself. If it had not ended now, it could only have ended at the side of a different deserted road, on a different midnight, with a different set of wounds.
He backed the car away.
The headlights retreated, leaving her in darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tag woke up in a sunny bedroom, a sheet keeping him warm against the fresh morning breeze. He lay on his side, his back to Susan. Her hand was on his upthrust hip.
“Morning,” he said.
“Hi.”
She moved, fitting herself against him, breasts pushing his back, lap warm against his rump, thighs against the backs of his legs. He felt her lips on the nape of his neck.
“Sleep well?” she asked.
“Mmmm.”
He rolled, and held her. She was incredibly smooth and warm. He kissed the curve of her neck, the hollow of her throat. He lingered over her nipples, taking each in his mouth, rolling them with his tongue. His hand slipped between her legs. The telephone rang.
“Damn,” she muttered. She turned away, picked up. “Hello?”
She listened.
“Oh, my God! I see… Sure… Yes, okay… I’ll be right over.” She hung up.
“What happened?”
“The guards. They were killed last night. Two of them.” Her face looked as if she smelled something bad. “Their throats were ripped out.”
“Their throats? That’s how Callahan died. These guards, did they have dogs with them.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Let’s get over there and see what’s up.”
“That’s why they called. They want me to inventory the Callahan collection again to see if anything’s missing but the mummy.”
“It’s gone again?”
She nodded. “They’ve already searched the museum.”
“Did they check the men’s john?”
“First, probably.”
She sat up. Tag watched, warmed by the sight of Susan’s body as she swung her legs off the bed and stood up. She disappeared into the bathroom.
Tag dressed, thinking. This was Saturday, the only time this week in which his day off coincided with hers. He’d planned, vaguely, on taking Susan and Geoffrey to the beach. Since she had to go to the museum, though, he would go along. The inventory shouldn’t take long. Besides, this would give him a chance to check out the killings. He picked up his Colt Python, clipped its holster to his belt.
As he was tying his shoelaces, Susan came out of the bathroom, still naked.
“All finished,” she said.
Tag knew he should wash his face, shave, brush his teeth, comb his hair. Instead, he took pleasure watching Susan step into her brief, black panties. He moved in behind her. Reaching around, he cupped her breasts in his hands.
“Aren’t you going to shave or something?” she asked.
“Can’t tear myself away.”
She turned to him. They kissed. He slid his hands down the smoothness of her back, pushed them under the slick sheath of her panties, caressed her buttocks. Skin silky, oh so smooth… hell, oh so desirable. He wanted to ease them down, then—
“We have to go,” she whispered against his mouth.
“I know, I know.”
Reluctantly, he took his hands away. He went to the bathroom. By the time he’d chased the heat of sheer lust away, he found Susan dressed in slacks and a loose-fitting white blouse.
On the way out,
she looked into Geoffrey’s room.
“He’s sleeping,” she said.
They told Maria good-bye, explaining they had to go out in a hurry and, no, they’d have to skip breakfast. Tag eyed the fresh pancakes and syrup regretfully. All his appetites were keen this morning.
Susan stepped back as Tag opened the front door. Stains still showed on the hall carpet, though Tag had scrubbed it late last night after men from the Department of Animal Regulation had taken away the cat’s body. The door was stained too, but the words were no longer legible.
“Hallway’s clear,” he said.
He took her hand; they walked to the elevator.
“You’ll be coming in?” Susan asked.
Tag nodded.
“Might as well park out back then. We can use my regular space.” She directed him to turn left near the museum entrance where three police cars were parked. At the corner, the road curved to the right. “Follow it to the rear,” she said.
In the back of the museum, they came to a sign that read Employee Parking Only. She pointed out her reserved space. At its head, S. Connors was painted on a low concrete curb.
“They’ll have to change that to S. Parker,” she said.
“Soon, I hope.”
“Can’t till the divorce is final. That’d be bigamy.”
“Also bad form,” Tag added.
He parked and they got out. The sun was a heavy, pleasant pressure on Tag’s face. He took a deep breath of air rich with the scent of flowers. At the sound of yelling, whooping kids, he turned his eyes to the field beyond the parking lot.
A boy in the weeds took a combat stance, aimed his pistol at a running suspect, and yelled, “Blam!”
“The kid’s good,” Tag commented.
“Maybe you should go over and recruit him.”
“I’d rather play along.”
“No fair. You’d use real bullets.”
“Sure, but I’d only shoot to wound.”
Susan took hold of his arm laughing. It was a tense laugh. Tag looked into her eyes; saw fear. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
She smiled, shrugged, and shook her head sharply. “Nothing.”
“You’re really upset.”
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