by Harvey Click
She summoned Brother Francis, and when he arrived he stared at her naked breast as if he’d never seen one before.
“Bring our guest down from the pentagon room and prepare him for surgery,” she said.
“Yes, Goddess.”
Brother Francis genuflected but kept staring at her breast. Letha glanced down and saw what he was looking at.
Garrick wasn’t sucking, he was chewing. His jagged teeth had already eaten through the inhabited disciple’s breast and were busy gnawing the ribs above his heart.
Chapter Thirty-One
Dexter found a loose stone in the floor of his pentagonal cell and managed to pry it out with his fingertips. It was the size of a brick and heavy enough to cause some pain. No one had entered his room in the several hours he’d been awake, but he figured it would be good to have some weapons handy when somebody finally did.
He hid the stone beneath the blanket on his cot beside the three-foot piece of lead pipe that he had broken off the wall above the toilet. The pipe hadn’t been of much use anyway because there was no running water, but that hadn’t stopped the previous guest from using the lidless latrine. It sat in one of the five corners of the small cell, and he wished there were a window to let out the smell. The only other features of the room were a locked door and a bare light bulb hanging from the low ceiling.
He was looking for another weapon when he heard a key scraping in the lock. He sat down on the cot and touched the two hidden behind him as the door opened.
Hooded figures in long black robes poured into the little room, four, five, six of them, and though they moved swiftly fathom-two noesis watched them in slow time. All of them had daggers, but only two were drawn. The figure in front had a hypodermic needle.
“Take your medicine like a good boy and you won’t get hurt,” he said.
“I don’t need any medicine,” Dexter said. “I’m not sick.”
A long ugly face smirked behind its dark cowl. “You’re going to be if you don’t take this,” the face said. “Most people don’t enjoy brain surgery without a little sedative. Hold him, brothers.”
Dexter grinned and rose from the cot, fathom-two watching slow and cool deep in his brain while his right hand slung the rock at the hooded face in front, left hand swung the lead pipe, right hand pulled a dagger from a scabbard and sunk it in a belly, left hand smashed another face with lead, right hand slashed a throat, left hand cracked a skull, and then all six were down.
The fight had lasted only a few seconds, but he was panting and covered with sweat. He peered out into the hallway, but the darkness was impenetrable. He shut the door and pulled black hoods away from six faces and found two still alive. The long ugly face had curly blond hair and the other one had red hair getting redder. He grabbed a handful of cloak beneath the redhead’s throat and shook it.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Where’s who?”
“Mary Ash, Bitter Ember, whatever you call her in this madhouse.”
“Never heard of her,” the redhead said.
Dexter touched his throat with a dagger tip. “I’m asking you one last time,” he said, “then I’m going to lose my manners.”
“I don’t know anything, but Brother Francis does. He’s been downstairs.”
“Shut up,” the blond hissed. “The goddess will kill you.”
“I’ll do the killing around here,” Dexter said. He turned to the blond boy and kicked him in the ribs. Then he kicked him again.
“She’s with the goddess,” the blond said.
“Where’s this so-called goddess?” Dexter asked.
“She’s everywhere.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t see her here in this room, so I want you to show me a better place to look.”
The blond smirked and pointed at the door. “See, I told you,” he said. “She’s everywhere.”
Dexter turned and saw the door hanging open. A hooded figure stood there with a dagger, and some others stood behind him, but fathom-two seemed to be strangely unconcerned about the situation.
Grimes pulled back his cowl and smiled.
“Careful with that dagger, Dr. Radcliff,” he said. “If Blondie really knows the way downstairs, he’s more valuable than all of Solomon’s books. Come here, Brother John, and hold this young man down so he won’t hurt himself. You too, Freemason.”
Two disciples waited in the hallway while two others came in. The short one named Freemason shambled slowly with blood trickling from his nose, but the tall one named John looked bright and alert. He grabbed the blond roughly by the shoulders and smiled at Grimes.
“You want me to slap him around a little?” he asked.
“No, just hold him tight,” Grimes said. He held the balls of his thumbs against Blondie’s temples for a few seconds, and something happened to the long ugly face: the smirk went out of it. He shut his eyes and snored.
“Ah, good,” Grimes said. “Just right. Don’t worry about my disciples, Dr. Radcliff. I’ve ensorcelled them, all except for John here. This clever young lad has stripped away my disguise and divined my true face.”
“You don’t have a true face,” Dexter said. “You’re a damned lying bastard. Why did you bring us here?”
“Let’s save the chit-chat for later, Letha may be listening,” Grimes said. He removed a small bundle from his scabbard belt and took from it two folded pieces of wire netting. “Tie this small one securely around your head with this shoestring,” he said.
“Why?”
“Invisibility. It will block your brain waves so she can’t hear them. Then put on the large piece like a sort of apron, and she shouldn’t be able to see anything more than a blur.”
“That’s about how much I’m seeing,” Dexter said. “Where’s Mary?”
“Downstairs, and that’s where we’re going. Let’s see, are any of your other casualties still breathing?”
“That one is.”
Grimes touched the redhead’s temples while Dexter put on the wire mesh.
“I want you to know one thing,” Dexter said. “I’m going to wipe that damn smile off your face if we get ever out of here alive.”
“There’s little chance of that, so I’m not very worried,” Grimes said. “Okay, Blondie, wake up and obey. Do you know the way downstairs?”
The sleeping boy groaned and stirred and said, “Yes.”
“Is there more than one way to get there?” Grimes asked.
“Yes. There’s the slow way, and then there’s the air shaft.”
“How do you get down the air shaft?”
“Athena lowers me with a hoist.”
“Can you get down the shaft without the hoist?”
“Yes,” Blondie said. “There’s a rope ladder in the supply room. I feel sick.” He groaned and rolled over and snored again.
The disciple named John coughed politely and knelt at Grimes’ feet.
“Graceful Goddess, I pray for your guidance,” he said. “I want nothing more than to be your slave, but you test me in such thorny ways. You come in disguise and pretend to rebel against your own throne. Do I show my loyalty by joining the rebellion or by trying to stop it?”
Grimes smiled. “You’ve found the nut of the problem, my beloved. Here, let me reward you with a small blessing.”
He pressed his thumbs against John’s temples. The clever face turned scarlet, veins burst beneath the skin, and blood trickled from ears and nose. John slumped to the floor and vomited.
“Stand up,” Grimes said. “I’ve given you your heart’s desire. You’ve always wanted to be a zombie slave—no?”
John made a noise something like, “Yes, Goddess.”
“I’m not your goddess,” Grimes said. “Repeat after me: The goddess is a stinking whore.”
“Godezastingyor.”
“Say it again. Say it clearly.”
John wiped tears of blood. “The goddesssstinking whore.”
Grimes’ silver tooth glinted in a sadistic grin, an
d he slapped the boy’s scarlet face hard enough that one cheek turned a deeper scarlet.
“Don’t talk about Letha that way,” he said. “She’s worth a million of your kind and then some. In fact, don’t ever talk again. Take off your robe and go to sleep. You, there, Redhead, get up. You too, Blondie.”
John took off his robe, lay down on the cot, and began to snore. Grimes handed the robe to Dexter and told him to put it on. It was damp with sweat and blood, but Dexter slipped it over his clothes and wire tunic. He buckled on the scabbard and dagger.
“Your shoes are showing,” Grimes said. “Take them off and put on these sandals.”
Grimes tucked the blanket over John’s shoulders and said, “Sleep till doomsday, fool, and dream that the goddess will never forgive you. Okay, Blondie, let’s get moving. Take us to the supply room.”
The two ensorcelled disciples in the hallway had kerosene lanterns. Grimes took one for himself and gave one to Blondie. They walked past dark corners and shut doors. The lanterns seemed to cast more shadows than light.
“You knew what you were getting us into,” Dexter said.
“Not exactly,” Grimes said. “That’s why we had to come and see.”
“Maybe you had to come here, but Mary didn’t, and I didn’t either.”
“You’re wrong, Dr. Radcliff. You’ve been preparing for this nearly as long as I have. Why did you learn karate and fencing and fathom-two noesis? Why did you spend your life studying the occult? Why did you publish your paper? I warned you not to—no? You’d be safe and cozy right now if you’d taken my advice.”
There were a dozen arguments on the tip of Dexter’s tongue, but he swallowed them because he knew they were lies. Grimes was right. He had waited for this nightmare his whole life.
“Maybe so,” he said. “But you didn’t have to drag Mary along.”
“I didn’t drag her, you did,” Grimes said. “Now if you’ll quit this idiotic quibbling, we may be able to save her life and our own as well.”
Blondie stopped at an iron door and played with some rivets until it opened. Grimes handed his lantern to Dexter and said, “Wait here and keep your eyes open.”
He and Blondie disappeared into the supply room. Redhead, Freemason, and the other two disciples looked edgy with their master gone. They eyed Dexter like drooling Rottweilers sniffing a stranger in the house, and pretty soon they started to make growling noises deep in their throats.
Dexter drew his dagger, and they growled louder and drew their own. He was too busy watching them to pay attention to the lantern shadows playing across the crooked walls; then he heard a sound down the hall and realized they weren’t just shadows. Robed men were gathering in the dark nooks. He turned and saw some more sneaking up behind him.
He sliced the air as a warning and yelled, “Hey, Grimes, I need some help out here!”
The figures behind him waited while the ones in front edged forward in a phalanx of five, and there was no place to run except the supply room guarded by four Rottweilers. The one called Freemason announced whose side they were on by trying to stab Dexter, and then the other three dogs started flashing their knives like fangs.
Fathom-two noesis made a noise in his throat deeper and more primitive than their growls. He leaped and spun and slashed flesh soft as butter. All four dogs fell, and their blood smelled sweet in the stale air.
Dexter’s lantern swung like a bell in his hand tossing wild shadows. He saw the ones behind him retreating around a corner, and he turned to the phalanx of five. Their leader was having a good time, dancing around like a college-trained fencer. He suddenly lunged, and the growl in Dexter’s throat was low and harsh as his blade sank past bone.
The dancing boy danced his last dance flat on the floor, and his jerking body was a barrier that his four friends didn’t look eager to cross.
Dexter jumped over the pile of bleeding Rottweilers into the supply room and turned just in time to see a dagger streaking through the air. It hit his lantern, and the flame shattered along with the glass. Darkness was total except for a faint yellow glow from the hallway.
“Where are you, Grimes?” he yelled.
The echo told him that the supply room was a long catacomb. He backed into it, feeling his way behind him with his left hand while he swept the darkness in front with steel. The tunnel turned, and then even the faint yellow glow was gone.
He stopped and listened and heard soft whispers that maybe were the echoes of his own breath. Then he heard a sharp sneeze that wasn’t his own a few feet in front of him. He grabbed a handful of cloth and pulled someone’s gut into the tip of his dagger.
He laid the body across the tunnel as a stumbling block for the others and felt his way deeper into the hollow darkness. He saw a hint of light up ahead, then heard echoing footsteps approaching from both directions.
“Hit the floor, Dr. Radcliff!”
He did, and sizzling bolts of blue light illuminated the tunnel like a thunderstorm. Robed figures jerked and fell.
Grimes switched on a flashlight and aimed it at four bodies. “Are there any more coming?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Dexter got up and felt a burn on the back of his head. “Your trained dogs turned rabid,” he said. “They won’t be much use anymore.”
“Apparently the queen has alerted her drones,” Grimes said. He handed Dexter the flashlight and touched the fallen men on their temples. “Get up,” he told them. “Walk the halls and kill every disciple you see.”
The zombies got up and shuffled away.
“Is that necessary?” Dexter asked. “All this carnage, having them kill everyone?”
“Of course it is. Our roaming butchers will distract Letha. She’ll assume we’re somewhere among them, but we’ll be sneaking down the air shaft.” Grimes rubbed his thumbs together. “No more light shows today, all the juice is gone from my hands,” he said. “Now we’ll have to depend on steel more than sorcery. Where are you, Blondie?”
“I’m coming.”
Blondie emerged from the shadows with a coil of rope ladder slung over his shoulder. He had another flashlight, and Grimes took it. They followed the tunnel back to the pile of Rottweilers at the doorway. At least two of them were still alive.
“We can’t just leave them like that,” Dexter whispered. “They’re badly wounded.”
Grimes reached down and sliced their jugulars. “There,” he said. “They’ll be all right now.”
The hallway was empty as far as they could see, but that wasn’t far. They hurried to the first bend and peered around it with their flashlights. Clear and silent, but there were blind alcoves where cutthroats could hide. They darted past twists and forks until Blondie said, “Here it is.”
He toyed with the words on a steel plaque until it swung open. The opening was barely large enough to squeeze through.
“You first,” Grimes told him.
Blondie crawled in and shut the tiny door after they all were in. He led the way with his lantern, sidling crouched and crab-like. It was a dusty reeking tunnel about three feet wide with a steel rail fastened to the ceiling.
“Apparently her supply hoist hangs from this rail,” Grimes said, his voice echoing deep. “This place must have cost a fortune to build, and I daresay Cypher provided her with every penny. He must have shown her where many priceless treasures were hidden. When I met her in Damascus she was looking for a priceless book, and even then—”
“Shut up,” Dexter said.
The tunnel wound downward like a corkscrew. Dry dust turned damp as they descended, and they had to grasp the walls to keep from sliding on the slippery floor. The walls were warm and slimy. Dexter stumbled over something and aimed his flashlight at a corpse decaying inside its robe. Most of the flesh had been gnawed off the bone, but there was enough left to stink. A rat glared up at him, too protective of its feast to budge.
“Is it always so wet in here?” Grimes asked.
“No, usually dry,” Blondie said. “
Watch out, this sewer well is deep. You have to jump.”
They took turns leaping across a wide cesspool, and it wasn’t easy on the slippery, sloping floor. Soon the walls were so tight they had to turn sideways to squeeze through, and Dexter felt the damp slime sweating through his clothes. At last the corridor widened into a small cavern with a narrow pit in the middle of the floor.
“We go down the chimney,” Blondie said. He planted the hooks of his rope ladder between moist stones and dropped it into the hole. Dexter watched him descend into the glistening darkness.
“Have you noticed the stones, Dr. Radcliff?” Grimes asked. “Scratch them with your poniard and see what you find.”
Dexter scraped the ceiling with his dagger. “Strange,” he said. “The slime is glowing.”
“Look closer,” Grimes said as he started down the chimney.
Dexter looked. The glowing slime was a squirming mass of tiny white worms.
***
Garrick tilted his head and whimpered when his mother’s image disappeared from the disciple’s face. He stopped chewing the bloody ribs where her breast had been and looked up at Mary, maybe trying to decide if she’d be any tastier than the scrawny young man. A long red vein hung from his jagged teeth like a strand of spaghetti. He sucked it in and began eating the disciple’s face. He bit off the nose and watched Mary while he chewed. He dug an eyeball from its socket, popped it into his mouth, and savored it slowly and thoughtfully like an exquisite truffle.
Then he puked all over himself. He scooped the bloody vomit off his hospital gown and lapped it up from his hand.
“Goo!” he said.
He lurched to his feet, toddled over to her gurney, and puked on her dress. Gurgling and drooling, he collected a handful of vomit and held it above her mouth like a bowl of soup.
“Goo?” he asked.
He started rubbing it on her face, and Mary was suddenly shouting, “Get away from me, get the hell outta here, you retarded sack of shit!”
Garrick backed away and started bawling.
So maybe he responds to commands, she thought. Maybe he has a few working brain cells left.