House of Blood hob-1

by Bryan Smith

  “No escape?” Eddie threw up his hands. “So we’re just fucked, right?”

  “No.”

  “No?” he repeated.

  Well, at least she said it with conviction.

  “Let me tell you some things, lover.” She patted the seat next to her. “Have a seat.”

  Eddie opened his mouth, but no words came out. Getting next to her was dangerous. Proximity would weaken his ability to argue. But he had no choice. It was a command, not a request. He sat down, gulped as he watched her legs uncross, and shivered when she propped an ankle on his knee. His strong hands went immediately to her foot, and his thumbs began to gently massage the soft pad of her sole.

  Eddie sighed.

  That’s it, he thought, it’s over, I’m screwed.

  She made a sound of pleasure. “Mmm, that’s nice. When I’m done telling you what I need to tell you, we’ll make love again. Won’t that be nice?”

  Eddie gulped.

  It was another statement of fact. No need to comment.

  She exhaled a final stream of smoke, stubbed out her cigarette, and stared at him with an expression of serene confidence. “Some things I can show you, Eddie. You can see with your own eyes some of the things I know, some of the things I can do. The power of ritual. The power of magic.”

  Eddie recalled his vision of the bloody sliver of excised flesh disappearing down her throat, and he shuddered.

  Giselle smiled. Her gaze drifted to the ceiling. She appeared to be looking beyond the speckled white surface, at something, or some place, far away. She looked stoned. There was a good reason for that-she was stoned. Eddie realized he was a little buzzed himself. Shit, it had to be that stuff they’d been smoking. He felt light-headed, not quite himself, but it wasn’t like a ganja high. He didn’t feel… fucked up. This was the opposite of that. It was a real high, in the purest sense, an elevation, an expansion of the senses. This was what proponents of lysergic acid were always claiming as the drug’s great miracle, but Eddie had done acid a time or two when he was younger, and he knew that was a bunch of shit.

  Acid wigged him out, made him doubt his sanity.

  This stuff…

  Jesus, this shit made him … see.

  He reached for the unlit cigarette in the ashtray, but Giselle deflected his hand. “No more. Any more will be too much. It’s still working its way into your system.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s not important.” Her foot slipped out of Eddie’s grasp, insinuated itself along an inner thigh. “Just close your eyes and listen to me.”

  Eddie did as she bade, leaning back in the chair and shuddering at the enhanced physical sensation of her foot on his bare flesh. Something surprising occurred to him. He wasn’t aroused. He should be. His cock should be straining toward her even now, but it was not. Then he realized she was regulating his physical response. She wanted him attentive. Focused on her words instead of her body.

  So he listened to her.

  And she said, “There are many things you will have to take my word for, things I can’t show you in the physical world. There are other planes, Eddie, and I’m not talking about the kind that fly. I’m talking about other levels of existence. Places inhabited by beings beyond man’s comprehension. Gods, Eddie. Immortals. Yes, they do exist. Notice my emphasis on the plural form. When you understand, Eddie, when you see, the idea of one great, omniscient God will make you laugh. These gods do wield some influence on events in our world, the one beyond this tainted place, but mostly they stay out of human affairs. These beings are powerful, more powerful by far than The Master, who is not a god, and who is not immortal.

  “You need to know this about The Master-he is flesh and blood. As such, he is vulnerable. He has always been vulnerable, Eddie, but because he is powerful, and because he is careful, no one has ever been able to exploit that vulnerability. We will be the first. And the last. We will kill him.”

  The conviction in her voice riveted Eddie.

  The drug, this odd elixir that invigorated the mind and senses, made him believe it.

  She said, “I have communed with the gods, Eddie. Even some of his gods. Not in the metaphorical way humans ‘talk’ to God. I have had exchanges with them. They have told me things, shown me things, all the sweetest wonders of existence, as well as its darkest terrors. They have shown me the truth about The Master. They’ve shown me how to kill him.”

  Eddie’s heart rejoiced.

  Yes!

  He can be killed!

  “He is the last of his race, Eddie, and I know some things about his kind even he does not. They did not originate on this world. His ancient ancestors came here in a ship. A disabled vessel. It crashed on our planet. Only a few of them survived. The Master was born here, birthed by an alien mother. She died when he was young, and the others dispersed about the planet, using their unique abilities to blend in with the primitive peoples that inhabited our world then.

  “They lived as Gods, became kings and idols, and some of them became dictators, the worst despots the world has ever known. Our Master could have followed in their footsteps, but he chose a different path. He was exceptionally gifted even for his kind, and he chose to use his rare abilities to create a different kind of kingdom, to exist beyond the prying eyes of the modern world. I’ll tell you something astonishing, Eddie. This place, this corrupted terrain, is but the latest in a series of kingdoms. He builds them, fills them with wayward souls, then, eventually, he crushes them and moves on. That will not happen here, Eddie.”

  Eddie shivered. His eyes remained closed. “The gods told you that?”

  “They showed me how to stop him. He is weak, Eddie.” She laughed, a wicked, conspiratorial sound that thrilled him. “He, too, communes with the gods, but do you want to know a secret? The gods don’t like him.” Laughter pealed out of her now, melodic, intoxicating. “His gods are the death spirits. Parasites that feed off suffering. Powerful spirits. They know he is weakening. They laugh at his offerings, his pitiful attempts to appease them, these laughable sacrifices.”

  Eddie laughed.

  To think that he’d never seen it that way-that sacrifice was laughable!

  It was amazing!

  He laughed at the idea of killing people to make gods happy.

  What an absurd concept!

  Giselle said, “He doesn’t understand the true power of ritual, of symbol. The tongue I ate was a symbol, Eddie. The gods appreciate that. I honor them in ways that appeal to their sense of humor. Have you ever heard a god laugh, Eddie? It’s the most wondrous sound. …”

  Eddie tried to imagine it.

  He was almost there, could almost hear it-with the aid of this amazing drug-but the sound remained just beyond the range of perception. …

  “The Master knows he is a mortal being. He has lived a long time, and he knows his time on this plane grows short. I’ll tell you something else, something to make your heart palpitate, Eddie. His power, while still great, has greatly diminished.”

  Eddie swallowed hard. “It has?”

  Her foot slid away from him and she stood up. “It has.” She took his hand. “Open your eyes, Eddie.”

  His eyes fluttered open. He stared up at her, slackjawed, his heart thrumming in his chest like a high-tension wire. God, this drug, it was amazing, it did the impossible-it made Giselle seem even more beautiful, even more desirable. She guided him toward the bed, and he numbly followed, sliding beneath the rumpled covers with her.

  She curled her body around him. “We’re going to kill him, Eddie.”

  Eddie felt a tingle of the old fear, but it was an echo, a remembrance of something that no longer existed. He would do Giselle’s bidding. That had been clear all along, but now he was truly at peace with it. “I know,” he rasped.

  She kissed his neck. “It’s why you’re here, Eddie.”

  He breathed heavily. “I know,” he repeated.

  “Remember, Eddie,” she said, and briefly took the lobe of an ea
r between her teeth. “Symbol. Ritual. I can’t tell you everything now.” Her tongue traced the edge of his jaw, dipped briefly into his mouth, and retreated. “But know this, Eddie, it will all become clear to you soon. When the moment comes, it will all be perfect, and you will see. You will understand.”

  I hope so, he thought.

  “You will,” she said.

  Eddie looked at her and shivered.

  It was a reminder, he realized.

  She owned him, mind, body, and soul, and she could see his thoughts as clearly as if they were printed on his forehead.

  She smiled.

  “Relax, Eddie, let it all go for a while.”

  Eddie stared at her beautiful face and tried to do what she said.

  Her smile turned salacious. “Would you like me to tie you to the bed again, Eddie?”

  Eddie gulped.

  Shivered.

  And said, “Yes.”

  Karen turned out the lamp on the nightstand next to the bed, snuggled up under the plush comforter, and tried not to think about Shane. It was impossible. There in the darkness, with the shadowy outlines of unfamiliar furniture lurking like dream phantoms, she found herself unable to think of anything else. The darkness was suffocating, a dark cloak drawn taut over her head. Helpless to stop it, her mind went back several hours, brought back the claustrophobic feeling of stumbling blindly through invisible trees. Dark and forbidding, these woods were full of hidden rocks and branches that snapped at your face an instant before you saw them. She staggered and fell, got up, and kept going, moving with relentless, heedless drive in the general direction of the scream they’d heard from the road. The terror, the most undiluted, all-encompassing burst of emotion she’d ever experienced, was more than she should have been able to bear. But she was undaunted, motivated by guilt, by the need to rescue the lover she’d betrayed.

  The echo of Chad’s voice taunted her: “I fucked your girlfriend, Shane.”

  Asshole.

  What a rotten son of a bitch.

  Chad’s revelation, so cruelly delivered, was an unforgivable offense. Boorish in the extreme. But he’d only been the messenger. She had only herself to blame for her transgressions. The worst of it was that the regular trysts with Chad hadn’t constituted an isolated phenomenon. There had been many other lovers. It shamed her. She wanted to know the serene joy of pure love, an ideal relationship, the one so fulfilling in every way it would erase at last her inability to be monogamous. She’d had such hopes for Shane, had even fleetingly believed he was The One. The one who would match her carnal intensity, finally freeing her to mature into a responsible, faithful lover.

  But now she would never know.

  Her eyes filled with fresh tears. Guilt welled within her like a balloon ready to pop, and her heart ached with loss. She thought of Dream, then, and remembered that awful night Alicia’s shaky voice on the phone had summoned her to the emergency room. The sight of her friend’s wan, drugged countenance in that ER room haunted her for months. Life was so fucking unfair. Dream was a sweet, funny, beautiful girl, and the depression that crippled her was so cruel. A lot of people cared about Dream, even loved her, but she didn’t give much of a damn about herself.

  It had mystified Karen.

  Even angered and scared her.

  Now, however, she thought she knew what it was like to be Dream, to dwell in a place where fear and unmitigated anguish held sway. A dark, echoing, empty chamber of the heart, a lonely place where no one else could ever venture. Her friend inhabited this lonely realm full time. It felt at once alien and welcoming.

  She couldn’t sleep. Not at first. She tossed in the bed, curling into a ball first on her left side, then her right side. She turned onto her stomach, clutching the pillows like a lover. That was no good. Too many heartrending connotations. So she turned onto her back again and stared at the velvet expanse of the four-poster bed’s canopy. She thought her mind would never rest enough to grant her the temporary peace of unconsciousness. But sleep came the way it always did, stealing in slowly, stealthily, displacing consciousness before she knew it was gone.

  And then the dreams came.

  Shane was alive in the dreams. And then he wasn’t. He was an ambulatory corpse, a wounded, shambling thing, a movie zombie. His mouth hung open and a steady, raspy hiss emanated from his throat. His flaccid cock dangled from the open fly of his jeans, and one of his dead hands stroked it to no effect. He came after her with it, and she ran. She ran and ran, tripping and stumbling her way through a phantasmagoric wilderness filled with screaming vampire bats and wolves with luminescent yellow eyes.

  Then the scene shifted.

  She was in a bed. The bed was her own, but in the dream it was in Shane’s apartment. His bedroom. She was naked. A faceless man loomed over, fucking her, grunting and cursing her. And she loved it. It was so great. She clawed the phantom lover’s back and cried out. Shane was in the room, too, standing clothed next to the bed, watching the primal rut with an empty expression.

  He was holding a gun.

  His Glock.

  The gun hung limp in his hand, aimed at the floor. But now his arm moved, raising the gun, pressing the muzzle against his temple.

  She laughed at him. “Do it. I’ll come so hard if you do it, Shane.”

  Shane’s empty expression never changed. His finger squeezed the trigger, there was a momentous explosion, and her boyfriend’s brains splashed the window blinds behind him. Karen awoke with a gasp, her eyes blinking against the wall of darkness, the final grisly image from the dream imprinted indelibly on her brainpan.

  She felt sick, disgusted at the imagery conjured by her traitorous mind. The dream’s meaning couldn’t have been more clear. She’d killed Shane with her betrayal. But it was just a dream, random brain blips, the unconscious mind’s bent way of processing the shame filling her conscience. The crude mental shorthand couldn’t be taken seriously.

  She knew that.

  So why was she suddenly crying again?

  Because it was all too much. The grief washed over her again, drowning her in sorrow. She was so preoccupied with her guilt, she didn’t initially realize something was very wrong. Then she felt it.

  The restraint.

  Something cold and metallic encircled her wrists.

  Handcuffs?

  And all at once there were no more feelings of guilt, no more bottomless depths of grief to plumb. Panic, hot and galvanizing, spread through her like a wildfire. Her hands yanked against the restraint, and she heard a faint metallic clank.

  Shit!

  Her hands were cuffed to the headboard rails. Before she could scream, she heard a faint creak-then she saw a sliver of yellow light. The bedroom door slowly opened, and a lithe figure stood framed in the light from the hallway.

  The figure chuckled.

  Fear seized her heart like a cold hand.

  The figure closed the door. There was a click, the sound of the door being locked. Then she heard heels clicking on the hardwood floor. The figures face wasn’t clear yet, but a sudden certainty gripped her-she knew who it was.

  The figure clicked on the lamp next to the bed.

  And Karen trembled.

  Her suspicion was validated.

  Ms. Wickman smiled at the cuffed girl, licked her thin lips, and said, “What a naughty little bitch you are. Killing your boyfriend that way.”

  She made a tsk-tsk sound and shook her head.

  Karen whimpered. “Don’t hurt me … please.”

  Ms. Wickman threw her head back and laughed heartily. She looked again at Karen and said, “Oh my, I haven’t laughed that hard in …” She pursed her lips, cocked an eyebrow, and appeared to think it over.”… oh, since the last time I punished a lying little whore like you.”

  She pulled the comforter down, cast an appraising glance at Karen’s exposed body-nude except for white cotton panties-and opened the nightstand’s drawer, from which she extracted a cat-o’-nine-tails. It was black with a braide
d handle, nine knotted cords with metal tips, and a wrist loop for better handling. Karen shuddered. She’d played with such things before-in controlled situations with partners she trusted.

  Ms. Wickman’s demeanor was not that of one who wanted to play.

  And there was the matter of the woman’s devastating accusation…

  … killing your boyfriend that way…

  Could she see into her mind?

  It wasn’t possible.

  Was it?

  Ms. Wickman smiled and flicked the whip at her.

  Another room, dark and quiet.

  The figure on the bed sleeps fitfully. Tortured dreams abound in this place tonight. They always do. The house is a vast repository for nightmares. The very air is heavy with the trace remains of agonies past. …

  Alicia’s eyes snapped open in the darkness. She sensed something in the room with her, an unnatural presence leering at her, and the perception caused her heart to do a pretty good imitation of a jackhammer. She sat up in bed, gasped, and cast her gaze quickly about the dark room.

  The terrain of the room was alien, disconcerting, its dark corners impenetrable in the gloom. A ripple of fear made her teeth chatter. She flipped the covers off her body, snapped on the bedside lamp, and saw …

  Nothing.

  She was alone in the room.

  She put a hand to her breast, breathed deeply, and tried to relax. The perception of a menacing presence faded. More deep breaths. She worked at regulating the out-of-control rhythm of her heart. Her nerves were on edge, a condition she attributed to the creepy surroundings.

  Goddamn you, Dream, she thought.

  But Alicia was angrier at herself. She should never have acquiesced to Dream’s strange desires to stay in this place. Her friends were distraught. Their judgment wasn’t to be trusted. That being the case, she should have been firmer in her resolve.

  Alicia breathed a sigh of frustration.

  The truth was, there was little she could have done. The Accord was so low on gas it might not have gotten them back to the paved road, much less all the way back to the interstate. And the prospect of sleeping in the Accord after all those cramped hours on the road was only marginally more enticing than an invitation to sleep on a bed of nails. Therefore, they were at King’s mercy.