by Bryan Smith
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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
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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
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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.”
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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.
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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
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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.
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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 f
renzied 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.
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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.
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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 never 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.
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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
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side of that wall? Did she, like Giselle, possess the ability to detect the psychic traces people left wherever they went?
Giselle hoped not.
It would mean the woman could follow her to this place.
And everything would be ruined.
She dropped to her knees, closed her eyes, and clasped her hands before her. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she strove to make contact with the gods. She focused her will, tried visualizations to transport her back to that wondrous realm they inhabited, but there was nothing. Just silence. A heartbreaking void. Giselle felt a ripple of panic. Had they abandoned her?
She tried to calm down.
The problem, of course, was this stew of emotions percolating in her head. It was ruining her concentration, making communication with that other realm impossible. So she drew in a deep breath and imagined the construction of a wall. Brick by brick. Layers of mortar hardening between rows of bricks. She didn’t rush the process. The wall slowly took shape, and as it did, the nervous tremors in her body stilled. Her breathing became regular. And she felt the physical world become insubstantial. When she opened her eyes, that world was gone.
She was in the land of the gods now.
She spoke with her mind: Azaroth, I beseech you.
A swirl of black smoke parted, and a creature resembling an old man in a flowing robe appeared. She understood this wasn’t his true appearance. These creatures were composed of a different kind of matter-deity dust, you could call it-and the human eye wasn’t equipped to
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interpret the reality of the gods. So an illusion was created. They appeared to humans in a form they could understand. To Giselle, the god Azaroth looked exactly like a man who’d played Moses in a movie she’d seen long ago.
Azaroth smiled.
You called me?
She returned the smile.
She loved Azaroth.
Yes.
Why?
Giselle’s physical body shuddered at the memory of Ms. Wickman’s eyes.
I’m afraid I jeopardized everything. I was traveling. Through portals. I saw something in a room. That woman, Ms. Wickman. I’m afraid she saw me. I’m worried she knows what’s coming.
The god’s mouth opened.
And a sound as resonant as any oratorio filled her with delight. It was her favorite sound from any world, from any layer of existence.
It was the sound of a god laughing.
She knows nothing.
“But-” More laughter.
Dear Giselle, you overestimate this harridan. You should be careful of her, yes, but you need not be afraid of her. She possesses some psychic sensitivity, but it is feeble, not worthy of comparison to your extraordinary abilities. And she
is loyal to The Master, but not at the expense of her own safety. She will not expend energy saving a sinking ship.
Giselle felt some of that bright edge of fear fade.
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Azaroth sounded so sure of himself.
Well, he always did.
And he was usually right.
Almost always.
Still. But Azaroth sensed her lingering doubts: Giselle, all will be well. The other man from your vision is in place now. You will see him tonight. Be ready.
Yes!
Giselle felt a thrill of exultation.
Eddie in her room.
Chad Below.
Just as she’d seen it so long ago.
She addressed Azaroth: It’s really happening, isn’t it? We will win.
The god’s answer was encouraging but evasive.
You have an opportunity. The creature you call The Master is weaker than he has ever been. His gods have turned their backs on him.
So you’ve told me.
Azaroth continued: He is vulnerable, and the silence of the gods disturbs him. But you must not underestimate him. He is weakened, but he remains the most powerful living creature on earth. Be careful, Giselle. Be strong. Resolute.
I will!
Azaroth’s human guise began to break apart.
Yes, I think you will. And now you must go.
And then the image was gone.
Giselle experienced the usual jolt that accompanied the transition from one plane to the next. She opened her eyes and was back in the antechamber behind her room. She
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got to her feet and stepped off the altar. She crossed the room, touched the knob that swiveled the wall, and returned to her bedroom.
Eddie, of course, was waiting for her.
He took her into his arms.
Kissed her.
And led her to the bed.