by Bryan Smith
“It’s what passes for a social club Below. Entrance is restricted to emancipated slaves and Overlords, but the latter rarely venture inside.”
Chad groaned. “Am I about to be hitched to a rail again?”
“No. I’ll get you in. It won’t be a problem.”
He couldn’t account for her confidence, but there was so much here he didn’t understand-like almost everything-so he let it go.
He stepped over another unconscious wino. Like the slave hitched to the rail outside the SCD, he stank of infection. “Ugh. Jesus. Hey, Cindy, why are we going to the Outpost, anyway?”
“You’re a smart boy, Chad.” He could almost hear her smirk. “You should be able to figure it out.”
Chad started to refute her statement, but he realized she was right. “That’s where Lazarus is.”
“Uh-huh. I’m proud of you, Chad.”
Chad ignored the sarcasm. “So what’s the deal with this guy, Cindy? Is he some sort of guru? Why are you taking me to see him?”
Cindy’s sigh was rife with exasperation. “Stop interrogating me, Chad. Save your questions for the man with the answers.”
That being Lazarus, Chad assumed.
They emerged from the alley and crossed another street, this one less congested than the marketplace. There were pedestrians about, but they were outnumbered by guards and hulking shapeshifters. The strange creatures watched him with hungry fascination; he could feel their eyes tracking him down the street, a sensation that made the back of his neck tingle.
The buildings here, though fewer in number, were marginally more impressive than what he’d seen of the buildings lining the marketplace. Those had been little more than shacks and lean-tos. The level of craftsmanship here, however, was several notches higher, as were the building materials-he saw actual brick and mortar, concrete foundations, and glass windows. One building they passed had an open door through which instrumental techno music emanated. Two attractive women, each notably more attractive than any of the other women he’d seen Below (with the exception of Cindy, who was otherworldly), framed the doorway. They wore thigh-high black leather boots with stiletto heels, black thong panties, and black bras with pointed cones. Each of them wielded bullwhips, which they would snap at the occasional passerby. A closer look revealed the telltale emblems of emancipation about their throats. Cindy’s gaze locked on the building as they passed it.
Chad had to ask. “What sort of place is that?”
Cindy glanced sideways at him. “A bad one. It’s where the Overlords go to indulge their basest desires. Slaves are the entertainment.” She looked at him directly now. “Females slaves, mostly.”
His eyes narrowed. “Have you-“
“Yes. Now shut up. We’re here.”
“Huh? Where?”
Despite the horror he felt at the injustices heaped upon Cindy and the other women of Below, the women in their bondage gear were shamefully compelling. He had to force his gaze away from them to see what Cindy meant.
“The Outpost, Chad.” She smirked. “Which you would’ve known if you weren’t like every other man on the planet.”
A sign less than twenty feet from where he was standing read:
THE OUTPOST
OVERLORDS AND EMANCIPATEDS WELCOME. SLAVES AND OTHER SCUM STAY OUT!
The message troubled Chad.”! thought you said-“
“I remember what I fucking said, maggot.” She twisted a handful of his hair, eliciting a high-pitched yelp. “And you better remember to keep your slave mouth shut.”
She leaned in close and spoke in a whisper. “Now we’re back to keeping up appearances. This is important, Chad. Life-and-death-level important. Don’t talk again until invited to do so.” She spun around, relinquishing her grip on his hair. “Follow me.”
Chad followed her through a pair of bat-wing doors.
Smoky jazz music emanated from a hidden sound system. The mellow tones meshed perfectly with an atmosphere of languor. The dozen or so patrons present sat slumped over beer steins and whiskey glasses at booths and tables. The dining area was small, but the bar was surprisingly wellstocked for an establishment that redefined the phrase “out of the way.” Tendrils of sweet-smelling smoke plumed in the air. The aroma was vaguely reminiscent of marijuana, but Chad was sure that wasn’t it, though the handrolled cigarettes pinched between the fingers of at least half the customers did resemble joints.
Heads turned with slow indifference as Cindy led the way to the bar. A balding bartender with rolled-up sleeves over beefy arms planted meaty hands on the bar and glowered. “His kind’s not welcome here. There’s a big damn sign outside that makes that pretty clear. You blind?”
Cindy leaned over the bar. “I’m here to see Lazarus.”
The bartender’s expression changed subtly, a flicker of suspicion in his eyes. “He ain’t here.”
Cindy ignored the denial. “Tell him ‘the girl has returned.’”
The bartender’s demeanor did an about-face. “I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared through a door next to the rows of liquor bottles.
Chad’s brow furrowed.
He again experienced the frustration of not being privy to crucial information. He ached to ask Cindy what was going on, went so far as to open his mouth, but she silenced him with an angry glare. Chad fidgeted, barely able to contain his curiosity-luckily, the bartender returned less than a minute later to usher them through the rear door.
They entered a room smaller even than the dining area outside. A pair of booths lined the rear wall. A single table occupied the center of the room. A lone man sat at the table with his back to them. A black kitten with yellow eyes leapt off the table and ran out of the room-Chad felt the animal pass between his legs. The bartender left them without another word, closing the door behind them. Cindy circled the table, pulled out a chair opposite the man Chad assumed was “Lazarus,” and beckoned Chad to sit at the only other chair.
Chad sat.
Cindy started talking. “It’s almost time. Everything’s in place.”
The man inhaled from a handrolled cigarette, smiled thinly, and released a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke. “Excellent. May I say that your bravery is inspiring.”
Cindy blushed.
Chad couldn’t believe it. Cindy blushing?
“I only did what had to be done.”
“Nonsense.” The man toked again. “Your valor is truly humbling.”
The man’s unwashed hair hung to his shoulders. It was brown but heavily flecked with gray. His eyes were bloodshot, but they nonetheless sparkled with a keen intelligence. His body evinced the telltale signs of decades of hard living-a pale complexion, a red nose mapped with traceries of broken veins, and a gut. A whiskey glass and a nearly empty bottle of gin sat next to his ashtray. There was an aura of sadness about him, something awful in his past-something that predated his time Below.
“And it is an honor to meet you.”
Chad was studying the man’s face so intently he didn’t initially realize this latest statement was directed at him-but the man was looking right at him.
He blinked. “Say again?”
The man laughed. There was something familiar about the sound. Hauntingly familiar. “We’ve waited a long time for you.”
Something in the set of the man’s features triggered a nagging association, a mental puzzle he couldn’t set aside. The man reminded him of someone. A deepening frown creased his face as he minutely examined every facet of the other man’s visage. The mouth. The nose. The eyes. The cheekbones. He’d never looked so closely at another man’s face before. It was so familiar, like the face of an old friend you haven’t seen in too many years. And there was that voice, so distinctive, a rich whiskey-soaked baritone. Chad’s mouth opened in a gape as suspicion quickly morphed into absolute certainty.
“Oh my God.”
Now the man whose name wasn’t really “Lazarus” was frowning.
A helpless, humorless laugh sputtered out of Chad�
��s mouth. “This can’t be. You’re supposed to be dead.”
He knew the man’s name. His real name.
The man knew that he knew. Chad could see it in his eyes. Those riveting eyes he’d seen in so many film clips from VH1 specials and documentaries. Penetrating, playful, and mournful.
Eyes set in a frown.
The man sighed. “The person I was is dead, Chad. In a figurative sense.” Another pensive drag from the cigarette followed this grudging admission. “The body lives on, yes, but that person, the personality, the myth …” He flashed that same sad, thin smile again. “That… persona … has rightfully been consigned to the ash heap of history”
Chad was astounded. “So you say. But you have no idea, man. No idea. You haven’t been forgotten.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know how I feel about that. What I do know is what I am now is much more important than what I was…” He indicated some nebulous place above them with a forefinger. “… up there. …”
“Why do you say that?”
The old singer smiled. “Here I can really help people be free. It is my calling. My true role in life. What I was born for, Chad.”
“Wait.”
Chad’s eyes widened in shock. “How do you know my name?” He darted a glance at Cindy, who wasn’t looking at him, but he was sure she knew far more about this man than she’d let on. “Jesus Christ. It just hit me. We were never introduced. You can’t know my fucking name.”
The man’s posture changed. Chad saw his eyes charge with excitement. “But I do, Chad.” He leaned over the table. “There are things you need to know, friend. You have no idea how important you are.”
Chad shivered at the singer’s words. He reached for the whiskey bottle. He said, “I need this more than you right now.” He drank straight from the bottle. And a long morning of revelations and whiskey-fueled lamentations began in earnest.
Giselle’s progress through the passageways behind the walls of The Master’s estate was slow and deliberate. The time for the uprising Below was nearly at hand, and she wanted to get a sense of the structure’s temporal stability. The house was more than an assemblage of stone and mortar. It existed simultaneously on the physical plane and beyond it, like the tainted swath of land encircling it. This was what allowed for the vast, impossible expanse of rooms on the upper level, enough rooms to fill the most extravagant mansion. Several dozen, at least. From the outside, however, the structure’s top floor looked big enough for only a fraction as many.
This flagrant defiance of the laws of physics also allowed for alternate means of movement through the fluid structure. The dark passages between the walls were accessible by more than the conventional means of ingress and egress. Here and there were places where the fabric of existence was altered in an enhanced way, portals through which those sensitive to their presence could move from room to room within the beat of a demon’s heart.
Giselle passed through portal after portal, pausing at each stretch of passageway just long enough to gauge its stability. She would lay a hand on the cold walls, close her eyes, and allow her uniquely sensitive mind to search for signs of volatility. Anything out of the ordinary would be cause for alarm. A disturbance in the energy field could indicate The Master’s awareness of the impending revolt, a development that would doom the effort before it could even begin. She was looking for anything, any subtle hint of something amiss, but there was nothing.
Only the usual cold emptiness.
She allowed herself a smile.
Just a small one.
Because she knew the danger was still immense. The uprising’s chances of success depended on keeping The Master off guard until it was too late. Until the moment of his death was at hand. For that to occur, every aspect of her long-ago-conceived plan would have to come together with utter precision. Which entailed a perfect confluence of events and players. At least she could be sure Eddie would be where he needed to be when he needed to be. The sex magic had, of course, eliminated any ability he had to resist her. The rest of it was maddeningly out of her control.
She did, however, trust her fellow revolutionaries Below.
Especially Lazarus.
The only man she’d ever loved.
And the only one she could never have.
The man was a mythical figure to the banished people, believed dead for years but not forgotten. The amazing man was haunted by demons from his distant past, and he had a pronounced penchant for whiskey. However, he possessed a remarkable ability to remain lucid no matter how much he imbibed. He was a man of clear vision and unwavering conviction, and he’d inspired the people of Below. People flocked to him, clamored to hear him speak, and they derived hope from his words.
Of course, the power structure Below soon moved in to silence him.
A slave was bribed to assassinate him.
It happened at a Gathering.
Gatherings were the weekly festivals of music and dancing the slaves were allowed to participate in. They were spectacles of debauchery. The slaves fought and fucked in a frenzied burst of revelry the likes of which even New Orleans had never seen. People died. Buildings collapsed. Babies were conceived. It all served a larger purpose, of course-to further pacify the herds. The distractions of inebriation and internal conflict effectively stifled any possibility of revolt.
But Lazarus changed the tenor of the Gatherings.
They became opportunities to hear the charismatic man discourse at length on varied topics. He talked about the world they’d known. The world beyond this place. Its wars and history of petty conflict. He talked about men and women of rare courage. People who had been willing to take a stand during difficult times.
He was a learned, erudite man.
And a dangerous one.
Enter a slave who called himself Kansas.
The assassin.
His target didn’t suspect anything until he was crumpled on the ground with a knife in his chest. The guards moved in and whisked him away. A guard then shot Kansas in the face, and the dead Judas was carried off to the tunnels by a shapeshifter.
The slaves were too stunned by the events to riot, their grief was too enormous. A long period of mourning ensued, and Gatherings were never quite the same.
Sometimes, however, there’s more to the picture than what’s seen on the surface.
One of Giselle’s confederates was a high-ranking guard. He assumed responsibility for the disposal of the old singer’s body, a detail no one else wanted. A cursory check of the body revealed a faint pulse. The guard summoned a slave who’d been a nurse Above. She tended to Lazarus as best she could, using the meager supplies available to perform miracles. The wound, though deep and ragged, had managed to miss anything vital.
Lazarus survived.
The nurse’s name was Cindy.
Rumors of the old man’s survival circulated Below. There were occasional “sightings.” Most of these were bogus, but on occasion a slave would glimpse a man who looked very much like a disguised Lazarus being escorted place to place by a grim-faced cadre of protectors. So began the myth of Lazarus. It was at this point that his more devout followers began to ascribe Christ-like attributes to the man.
He was a savior, these people said.
And one day he would arise again.
The Overlords scoffed.
Giselle was unable to suppress another smile.
It would happen.
She blinked through another portal, laid a hand on the coarse stone—
But this was not stone.
It was drywall. Plaster covered with dry paint. Which meant the room on the other side of this wall was in use for discipline purposes. Giselle closed her eyes, leaned her head against the wall, and let her mind see what was happening on the other side.
She flinched.
Ms. Wickman.
The ruthless, despicable woman was The Master’s most exalted-and most trusted-servant. She was cruel in ways the other apprentices could nev
er equal. Giselle was capable of cruelty herself. It was a job requirement for the apprentices. She had killed people. Tortured them. Made them do awful things to themselves and people they cared about. But it all served a higher purpose. She did what she did to keep working behind the scenes, to see to it that she and her allies accomplished the momentous thing they’d worked toward for years.
Ms. Wickman, however, enjoyed hurting people.
Just as she was hurting the women in this room. Giselle saw a nude, teary-faced black woman tied to the bed. A drooling shapeshifter hovered over her. Another girl, also nude, was on her hands and knees on the floor. She was Asian. Her body was laced with lash marks. A smiling Ms. Wickman watched her from a bedside perch. She sat next to the black woman, a straight razor at her throat. Another apprentice, a black-clad man with wavy dark hair, stood over the Asian girl, a broadax propped over his shoulder.
Giselle felt a surge of compassion for the black woman.
Ms. Wickman was asking her questions no one should ever have to answer.
Life-and-death questions.
Giselle knew the women were beyond her help, but the knowledge did nothing to lessen the anguish she felt. Her eyes brimmed with tears. Over the years, she’d built a wall against emotions. Survival required a distance, an inner coldness, and she’d cultivated that detachment so well she’d stopped feeling anything. However, now that her plan was finally coming to fruition, that wall was crumbling.
In her mind, she saw Ms. Wickman frown.
And look toward the wall.
Giselle quickly blinked back through the portal, but she could still see Ms. Wickman’s penetrating eyes. She blinked rapidly through a succession of portals until she was in the small antechamber behind her own room. She stood on the pedestal where she’d performed the tongue ritual. She rubbed her eyes hard, and the menacing countenance of The Master’s top servant was gone.
Which was good.
But Giselle was troubled.
The woman had sensed something. A presence. Giselle believed the woman wasn’t as adept as she in the magical arts-only The Master could make that claim-but she clearly had some ability. More than the average apprentice, anyway. Might she have seen who was on the other side of that wall? Did she, like Giselle, possess the ability to detect the psychic traces people left wherever they went?