by Bryan Smith
“Hey!” Absurd indignation momentarily colored his voice. Then he remembered the fucked-up nature of his situation and met the woman’s stony gaze. “Wallet’s gone.”
She seized his left wrist. “Of course it is.” She stripped the fake Rolex he’d purchased from a street vendor in Key West, making it disappear inside a pouch strapped to her loincloth. “That’s mine now. Everything you have is mine.”
Never at any point in his life-not when facing the stern punishments doled out by his father; not when enduring the taunts of jocks and other bullies; never-had he ever felt so intimidated by another human being.
He strove to keep the tremor out of his voice. “O-okay!”
“Now your shoes.”
She drove the heel of a palm into his chest and he was thrust backward, landing painfully on the cot. The back of his head struck the wall, eliciting a yelp of pain. Then her
103
hands were on him again. Strong, probing hands. Hands that would not be denied. Chad was incapable of mounting a physical resistance against this degree of brute strength. He was a slight 5 foot 6 and weighed maybe 150 pounds. He was, he had to admit, a bit of a loud pipsqueak. Knowing all this, however, did little to alleviate the bruising his ego was receiving. What kind of self-respecting guy got pushed around by a woman! An impulse to rebel flared to life within him. But how? He considered falling back on his most reliable weapon, the cutting remark.
But even that skill failed him.
“Hey …”he managed. “Not so rough, okay?”
But she wasn’t listening to him. She had his shoes now and was sitting on the cement floor. She kicked her sandals off and replaced them with the almost-new Reeboks Chad had worn less than a week. She got to her feet again and resumed pacing the cell, testing the shoes out.
She showed Chad a feral grin. “Fuck, yeah.”
A while later-Chad wasn’t sure how long, since he no longer had his watch-they heard footsteps padding down the corridor outside the holding cell. Chad was sitting on the cot again, the pendulum of his emotions ticking wildly, alternating between boredom and apprehension bordering on terror.
He’d figured he wouldn’t speak to Sheena, as he thought of her, again unless prompted, but a question sprung to mind that he just had to ask. “Is this hell?”
She turned a cold gaze on him. “Shut up. We have company!”
The footsteps grew louder and in a moment two burly guards appeared at the cell door, a cuffed prisoner
104
between them. Sheena didn’t acknowledge their arrival. She lit a handrolled cigarette from her pouch. Chad, however, got off the cot and walked over to the door. “Is this a real jail?” he asked no one in particular.
A collapsible nightstick appeared out of nowhere and whickered through two of the bars. Chad gasped at the sudden sensation of pressure against his abdomen. It was like being jabbed in the stomach-hard-with the end of a broom handle. Then the door clanked open, the prisoner was uncuffed and pushed inside, and the door was reclosed with an emphatic clang.
One of the guards said, “Now, y’all be good.”
Guard number two laughed. “Try not to have too much fun in here.”
General snickering ensued from the non-incarcerated side of the door. Then the two behemoths were lumbering away, their idiot laughter reverberating in the hallway. Chad rolled onto his back and saw Sheena lunge forward to clamp a hand around the newcomer’s throat.
Great, Chad thought.
I’m in jail with a homicidal maniac.
The new arrival was also slightly built, maybe just a touch pudgier around the middle than Chad, but he was older-Chad had him pegged at around fifty. He had salt-and-pepper hair and a small bald spot at the crown of his skull. Sheena dragged him like a rag doll to the opposite end of the cell, where she commenced banging his head off the wall. Chad gaped in astonished horror at the smear of red that suddenly brightened the drab beige wall. Then there was a sound so grisly in tone his stomach revolted. A splintering sound, the stranger’s skull collapsing. Chad
105
rolled over again and deposited the contents of his belly on the floor.
The body tumbled to the floor. Chad cleared his throat, hocked a mouthful of spit onto the floor, and tried to breathe. He looked at the body, a darting glance, and his stomach knotted up again. He braced his palms on the floor, got slowly to his feet, and turned his gaze to Sheena, whose expression of nonchalance was chilling. A thin sheen of sweat was visible at her forehead, but it was the only evidence of the violent episode she exhibited. She looked-satisfied. Content. As if she’d just returned from a jog around the park, flushed with good health and vigor.
Chad couldn’t believe it.
A human being had been murdered right in front of him.
His eyes widened behind his glasses. “Why? Why did you do that?”
Sheena strolled over to him. She put her face right up against his-their noses touched. “Did that scare you?”
Chad started in disbelief. A peal of humorless laughter wrenched free of his throat. “I’ve never been so goddamn scared. What’s wrong with you? You killed that guy for no reason.”
“That was my stepfather.” Her face was expressionless, but Chad detected a deep well of anger and resentment, unknowable angst. “Last time I saw him, he was slitting my little girl’s throat. Three years ago, man.”
Chad thought about that a moment.
The emotional pendulum now seemed permanently anchored in the red zone of terror. “What the hell kind of place is this?”
“He deserved to die.”
106
She ignored his question. Or maybe she hadn’t heard it. She seemed intensely focused on making him believe what she said.
Fine.
“I believe you.” He swallowed a lump in his throat. “He deserved to die.”
It wasn’t a lie.
What else could you say about a child killer?
The woman’s expression softened some, and she backed away from him, resumed her perpetual pacing of the cell.
Chad could make no sense of this place. That thing, that shapeshifter, had brought him here, but why? There had to be some reason he was here instead of dead. The mystery of his circumstances bothered him, made him crave more information, something-anything-that might point to a way out of this insane dilemma.
“Look-” he started.
She slapped him. “Stop.”
He stopped.
Despite the burst of violence, there was something new in her expression, a hint of feeling he wouldn’t have expected. It took him a moment to recognize what it was, and when the realization came, he was surprised.
It was compassion.
“A few minutes ago, you asked if this was hell.” She gripped one of his hands, but not in an unfriendly way this time. “Well, Below’s not the hell of the Bible, but it is a hellish place. A suburb of hell, I guess you could say.” Her grip on his hand tightened, but, again, not in an aggressive way. “Forget all the rules of civilized society, they don’t apply here. Don’t trust anyone. Be prepared to kill. Sleep with
107
one eye open, because someone is always out to get you.” Her eyes riveted on him. “Most of all, and I hope like hell you believe me, I’m the best friend you’ve got.”
Chad sputtered, “But… but that’s absurd. You just kicked my ass and took my shit. If you’re my best friend, my worst enemy’s gotta be one charming son of a bitch.”
Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “I can’t tell you everything yet, but this much you can know-what I did to you was a case of keeping up appearances.”
Chad showed her a baffled frown. “Say what?”
Her voice dropped yet another notch, to the point where she was nearly inaudible. “An act. That’s all it was. I treated you the way banished people are expected to treat newcomers-mercilessly.”
Chad’s voice was choked with incredulity. “Banished people? Banished fro
m where?”
“From Above.”
Chad grunted. “Oh, thanks. That clears it up.”
She ignored the sarcasm. “We’re getting out of here. You and I. See that dead fucker on the floor?”
Said “dead fucker” twitched intermittently and oozed brain matter on the floor.
“How could I miss him, Sheena?”
She smiled, and there was a wicked gleam in her green eyes. “You don’t think his presence here, after all these years, was coincidence, do you?”
Chad gave his head a weary shake. “I suppose not.”
“Damn straight it wasn’t.” She glanced at the steaming corpse, and her smile faded. “That was a favor to me.” Her gaze returned to him, and there was something so haunted in the look she showed him that Chad had to
108
fight an urge to avert his eyes. “A show of gratitude for agreeing to be here. Arranged by our benefactor Above.”
Chad chewed his lower lip. Something about the circumstances was bothering him. “You keep hinting at an arrangement. A conspiracy. But I don’t get it. What are you trying to accomplish?” He glanced at the dead man. “Other than revenge, I mean.”
“Accomplish?” But the interrogatory tone was rhetorical. “Revolution. The overthrow of The Master.”
Chad’s brow furrowed. “The Master?” He shook his head in puzzlement. “Above, Below, The Master… all this means shit to me. What-“
She shushed him again. “Shut up and listen. I’m about to tell you everything you need to know.”
Chad considered this. There was something disquieting about the way she was suddenly opening up to him. Something he couldn’t quite pinpoint. “Why?”
She began to smile again, just a small smile that barely turned up the corners of her mouth. “Can’t you guess?”
An icy finger of dread scuttled along Chad’s spine. “Um…”
“You’re coming Below with me.”
Chad felt suddenly queasy.
“I think it’s time we were properly introduced. My name’s Cindy.?
She extended a hand.
Chad took her hand, shook it numbly. “Chad.”
She squeezed his hand. “Welcome to the revolution, Chad.” Her eyes and voice radiated intensity, a suppressed excitement. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Chad felt faint.
109
The Master stirred from a state of repose that wasn’t quite sleep but wasn’t full consciousness, either. The condition was more akin to a deep turning inward, a period of intensely focused introspection that sharpened his already keen senses and replenished his appetites. In these ways it approximated the sleeping state of humans and the lower animals; however, he remained aware of his surroundings at all times-albeit in the dim way one perceives background details in paintings or films-and possessed the ability to instantly return to full consciousness should circumstances compel it.
This was one of those times.
There had been an unusually high level of activity in his home tonight. There was the matter of the escapee from Below, a foolish man who likely believed he’d succeeded in evading his pursuers. This was not the case. The Master
110
knew the man was in one of the rooms on the second floor. He even knew which room. He smiled, thinking of the wicked little girl with no voice.
His most facile and talented apprentice.
He was content to allow her to have her fun with him.
The man was a gnat.
Less than insignificant.
As had been the case with tonight’s first new arrival, Mark Cody, whom he’d dispatched from this world simply because he’d been a dullard. The Master preferred lively torture sessions with interesting, intelligent humans. There was nothing as stimulating as an evening spent listening to smart people plead their cases between moments of intense agony.
There were people of this sort en route even now. He could feel them out there, wandering, lost souls growing more desperate and afraid by the moment. Soon they would arrive at the false succor of his home. He could not read their minds, but he could sense things about them. There was one among them who radiated something special, an inner energy that hinted of gifts she likely didn’t know she possessed. A female. A charismatic figure adored by many. But he sensed a deep vein of vulnerability there, as well.
He wanted to know more about her.
He closed his eyes again, entered another meditative state, and focused the power in his mind, that living mass of energy that was almost like a separate organism existing within the shell of his physical body, an intimate symbiosis of unique beings. His mind thrummed with the power, and he felt the fine edge of electricity that always accompanied these moments sweep through him.
111
His mind sent out energy pulses like psychic tendrils.
A radar that detected usually imperceptible brainwaves.
And, sometimes, deciphered them.
Dream, he thought.
He had her name now, snagged like a firefly out of the air. He sensed more about her by the moment. She was getting closer and closer. Dream was a moral person. She was perceived by most people as a force for good. A truly decent human being. The strength of his perceptions about her was unusual, another indication of the rare gifts she didn’t comprehend.
The Master’s eyes snapped open.
He went to the bar and poured himself a drink. Old scotch over ice in a lightly frosted glass. Alcohol’s intoxicating effects were largely lost on him-his body processed the alcohol more efficiently than a human body-but it did have a soothing effect.
He was surprised to find himself in need of the liquid comfort.
Dream.
He repeated the name silently several times, savoring it like a fine wine.
He poured another drink.
Something was happening in his domain. Something unusual and troubling. Troubling because none of his efforts to pinpoint its nature had been successful. His powers of perception had waned of late, flickering in and out like radio transmissions from a remote location. This insight into the woman’s psyche was the clearest signal he’d received in months.
Even his gods, the death spirits, were silent.
112
He called to them again, now.
Beseeching them for guidance.
Shivar!
Mindragin!
Nothing.
Just the same aching celestial void.
He poured yet another drink.
Dream, he thought.
The new obsession grew in his soul like a malignancy.
Dream?
What are you?
How will I corrupt you?
The Master’s assumption about Eddie King’s circumstances was correct. He was a prisoner again. A slave again. He was spread-eagled on his back on the mute girl’s plush bed, staring up at the velvet canopy. His arms were lashed to headboard rails, and the leather straps of a ballgag were affixed firmly about his face. His ankles were tied to the posts at the foot of the bed. His bonds grew tighter and more uncomfortable each time he struggled against them, so much so he was worried the circulation in his extremities would be cut off.
He was fixated on the discomfort now. The circumstances that had brought him to this place had-at least temporarily-been rendered irrelevant, overwhelmed by the panic filling his mind, panic that cranked up another notch every time the knots about his wrists and ankles tightened a little more. And there was the lump of plastic in his mouth-the word “gag” was apt in more ways than one. He knew it was firmly attached to the device
113
encircling his head, but he couldn’t suppress the growing fear he would swallow it and choke on it.
Giselle was at the writing table, bent over the stationery pad. She’d been at it for nearly an hour now. The quill pen in her hand was a nonstop flurry of motion that ceased only when she paused to flip to a fresh page. Eddie had no idea what she could possibly be writing about. Sh
e couldn’t be going on and on about what she had done to him. There just wasn’t that much to tell. He’d misjudged her. Well, that was an understatement of epic proportions. She’d asserted her dominance over him with embarrassing ease. So perhaps she was writing about something else.
The long velvet dress was gone. She was naked now, with the exception of a pair of lacy black panties and high-heeled shoes. Her legs were crossed at the knees, and the dangling foot jiggled like a teenage girl’s would during a boring math class. Physically, of course, she still was a teenager, frozen in time at the age of seventeen. Eddie, who was pushing forty, knew she was actually older than him by more than a decade. Knowing this on an intellectual level was one thing. But yet her body was still ripe with the perfections of youth.
A perpetual Lolita.
She put the tip of the pen to her chin in a contemplative pose. Her brow furrowed and the jiggling of her foot slowed. Miracle of miracles. The runaway prose train was at an impasse. She stared into the middle distance for a time before redirecting her gaze toward Eddie. The pensive look vanished and was replaced by an expression that was equal parts smirk and lascivious grin.
He shuddered.
114
And thought, Oh, no …
A sound that was almost like a hideous laugh issued from Giselle’s mouth. She had seen the terror in Eddie’s eyes and been amused by it. She set the pen down, tore a page from the pad, then stood up and came to the bed.
A dark, undeniable thought came to him.