by Lee Roland
Sometimes an idea, a bit of knowledge, a realization comes to you, but you shove it aside when faced with major distractions. In the back of my mind, I knew something was wrong. The monsters weren’t attacking us. They thrashed around, slashing and screaming, they threw themselves at the war machines, but they didn’t attack the humans moving among them. They only used their solid bodies to hinder us. Control. What could possibly be controlling them?
We made it to the Dog by climbing over the hideous carcasses we and Dacardi’s men had killed. The doors popped open and Michael loaded the kids. Dacardi, Flynn, and I fired into the press of beasts. The troops on top of the vehicle could fire over our heads now. They beat them back until the living had to crawl over the dead. And crawl over they did.
Dacardi climbed in the Dog, then Flynn and Michael. The beasts froze. I wasn’t sure anyone noticed but me, since the troops on top of the vehicle continued to fire. The change came in a chill whisper that echoed in my head, not my ears. As one, the monsters surged, throwing their bodies, shoving me backward, separating me from the others. One of them barreled into me from behind.
Stunned, I staggered forward. Another of the apelike beasts caught me in its arms. The thing was three times my size. With five-inch claws—claws that never touched me—it scooped me up like a child and carried me away. Up and over the dead, down the street. No one would shoot for fear of hitting me—if they even saw what happened.
Gunfire ratcheted up behind me as the attack on the Dog resumed. I bounced in painful slaps against the beast’s rough hide as it made heavy, galloping leaps across the pavement. It grunted with each step and blew foul carrion breath over me. I finally got over my shock and realized I still had my gun. I shoved the barrel under the beast’s chin and pulled the trigger. It died instantly as the bronze blasted out the top of its head, but forward momentum carried it on—and if it fell on me, I’d be lucky to get off with broken bones. Another creature grabbed me as the first collapsed.
Animals! Who controlled animals—monsters—the way I controlled Nirah and Nefertiti? I was in deep shit. I shot the second beast, same as the first. As it fell, I twisted away, but I landed hard on the pavement. I kept my head up, but my hip and one elbow flared like someone drove a nail in them.
Stunned, I couldn’t tell how far I’d gone. Not too far, because light glowed from fairly close by. I heard gunfire, though, and I could go in that direction. Or even back into the storm sewer, which had to be free of monsters because they were all up on the street.
I rolled and tried to push myself up. Liquid splashed in my face. I gasped as Robert had when I’d hit him with the truth potion, and, of course, I sucked it into my lungs. My body instantly went limp. Fingers, not claws, tore the gun from my hand. My eyes burned like an acid bath and a corrosive taste filled my mouth.
Someone bent over me. I couldn’t see, but I knew the voice.
“I’m sorry, Huntress.” Reverend Victor, benevolent director of the Lost Lamb, a man I trusted. I had seen not a single hint of betrayal.
“No! Victor!” Michael shouted from a distance. He had come for me, but I knew he was too far away.
Vic laughed with a high, hysterical cackle. “You’re too late, little brother! You had your chance. Now I get mine.”
“Victor, stop! Madness is her province, not yours.” Michael was closer now. Much closer.
I fought a useless battle to regain control of my limp body. Whatever he used had turned my muscles to mush.
Victor shouted, “Kill him!”
Some of the sewer monsters milled around. I couldn’t tell how many, but they all suddenly marched in the same direction. Consciousness slipped away.
chapter 30
I woke lying on something soft. Disoriented, I kept my eyes closed, trying to get things together.
“You’re breathing faster now, Cassandra. I know you’re awake.” Vic swabbed a wet cloth on my mouth and I sucked a little moisture and worked up some saliva in my parched mouth.
I opened my eyes and focused on his face above me. Damn, I wanted to smash it, to break bones. My hands clenched into fists, but he’d tied my arms to what felt like a camping cot. Tied so tight my fingers throbbed, desperate for life-giving blood.
I spat at him.
Vic jumped a little but, other than that, didn’t react. He had a ridiculous smile and tears ran from his eyes. For whom was he crying?
He sat in a chair beside me. His shoulders slumped and he twisted the rag in his hands.
My head and body ached, but not in the raging pain of broken bones or other serious injuries. I studied the room around me. A couple of battery lanterns cast dim light on what had once been an office. It had a dusty aura of disuse, a battered desk, and old file cabinets with missing drawers. Two bottles of water sat on the desk, but the cot I was lying on was the only actual sign of habitation.
Vic didn’t look happy. No Ha ha, I won gloating.
“Come on, Vic. Let me loose and give me my gun. I’ll save you.”
A peal of shrill, penetrating laughter filled the room. Elise Ramekin came into view. She’d aged twenty years since I’d met her at the asylum. A decrepit old woman walked toward me. Her eyes were sunken deep into her face. She wore a long black robe with a bunch of peculiar designs woven into the fabric. It was far too long; she had to hold it up to walk. Even so, it trailed behind her like a giant dust rag, gathering all manner of filth. She’d pushed the sleeves back to reveal heavily bandaged arms.
I sneered at her. “What happened, bitch—get too close to the fire?”
Elise strutted up to us. Vic’s head bowed, but his face was a mask of pure, blind hatred. Mother had indeed loved one of her sons more, and it wasn’t him.
Elise raised her nose in arrogance and smiled. “Minor burns. I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye to dear Anita. My relentless guard for so many years. Victor held her while I gave her my parting gift, so I suppose he is good for something.”
A parting gift—a broken neck. Vic kept his face averted so Elise couldn’t see his expression. “My older son is not beautiful like my Michael,” she said. “But he’s useful at times.”
“Useful?” Victor hissed the words between clenched teeth. He still wouldn’t look at her. “Who came to visit you every week, Mother? Who remembered holidays and birthdays?”
Elise sneered. She held up her bandaged arms. “Who was so incompetent he had to burn the whole asylum down to get me out?”
“Why did you try to kill Michael when he was born?” I asked Elise.
Elise laughed again. This time the sound filled the room, a strident crowing, dried to the bone and completely mad. Drool ran from her mouth and she swiped at it with a bandaged arm.
I suddenly knew the answer to my questions. Abby’s words came to mind and I said them aloud before I realized I was speaking. “The power of sacrifice.”
“Yes,” Elise agreed. “I would have sacrificed him. That whore, that so-called nurse, she stopped me and took my beautiful baby away. Kathy, they called her.” She sneered. “She had me locked up.”
“And then they let you loose. You killed more kids, right?”
She frowned. Her eyes clouded. Did she not remember? As suddenly as she drifted away, she returned, but I doubt she remembered what she’d heard.
“He is my beautiful son,” she crooned in an ecstatic voice. “My Michael. His father is a god. Can’t you tell?”
Elise suddenly stepped forward and slapped Vic across the head. It sounded vicious, like a rock smashing a melon. “Not like this one.”
Vic kept his face down, but he snarled in rage. She hit him again. His body rocked and he almost fell off his chair.
I didn’t want to watch anymore. “A god?” I shouted the words. “What god? Elise, I know you’re seriously cracked, but even you—”
“No!” she screamed. The sound expanded to fill the room. “You stupid cow.” Elise bent over me raging, her feverish face twisted into something altogether inhuman. �
�I went to his world, my master’s world, and I lay with him, the wonderful creature you misname the Darkness, and conceived a child.” More drool slid from her mouth. She didn’t bother to wipe it. “When this dark moon is over, it will be different. I will stand by Michael and his father will give us power to rule this world.”
Vic growled like a dangerous mongrel backed into a corner.
Elise ignored him. She whirled and marched out of the room, dragging yards of filthy fabric behind her.
I jerked at my bonds and twisted my body, but all I received for my effort was burning pain at my wrists that compounded my other aches. I was limp as a pair of dirty jeans in the laundry basket.
Victor stared at the door where Elise exited. He licked his lips. “I’ll reward my mother for her kindness very soon. She’s needed—for now.”
“So Mom doesn’t know you sent the monsters to kill Michael.”
“I had to do it. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t let him stop me now. Why couldn’t he understand?”
I glanced at the bottles of water. Vic saw my look, retrieved one, and held my head while I drank. I didn’t spit at him this time. The water revived me some, but did nothing to stimulate my body, nothing to make me stronger. The ache in my fingers ceased to trouble me as they went numb.
Michael? The Darkness has a body? And a son? Nothing about this was good.
I had one other angle to work on. “So Mom loves pretty Michael best.”
“She’s obsessed with him.” Vic returned to his chair. He laid a hand on my arm. To comfort me? Or himself?
“Uh, is he really . . . ?”
“Yes. The Darkness has a physical shape and, apparently, that shape is male. She did go to his world and conceive Michael—and it drove her insane. She was so beautiful before. I was only a child, but I remember the night she returned. Her hair had gone completely white. Lying with a god? She smelled like she’d fucked a rotting corpse.” He sobbed and his face twisted in agony.
“Does Michael know?”
“About his father? Yes. What’s happening here and my part in it? No, he didn’t know. He bought the Reverend Victor, Lost Lamb thing like you did, though I think he was suspicious at times. I stole money from him. But when he was little, I protected him. Michael is dead now, and I loved him.”
Michael? Dead? A deep ache welled up inside me, but I pushed it aside to deal with the immediate problem—survival. “How? You control the monsters? The Bastinados?”
Vic shrugged slightly. “My master, your Darkness, talks to me and gives me great power—his power. The Barrows creatures respond to me. I bring the Bastinados here and show them his power. Then they obey me. I am what Michael could have been. The Bastinados are human. Humans will sell their souls for the simplest of things. Pericles Theron was a partner of sorts, but he seems to have disappeared.”
In all my life, I had never made such a gross misjudgment of a person as I had with Vic. “Michael’s daddy won’t be upset that you killed him?”
“Why should he be? Michael has lived his life torn between two worlds. He’s never committed himself to anything. I’ve given everything.”
I could agree with that. Michael was a neutral in many ways, both good and, if rumor was to be believed, evil. Someone who watched and waited. Waited for what? The dark moon?
“Vic, I may not be the best judge of character but, you . . .”
Vic sighed and lowered his head. “I enjoyed the Lost Lamb, helping people, and I’ll do it again when this is over. What’s lost here is a small sacrifice.”
“Fuck!” I screamed. “That’s because you’re the one holding the knife.”
“No, you don’t understand. A few lives here are nothing compared to those I can save, when I have the power. I have you to thank for that.”
“What did I do?”
“Only Michael could have stopped me. Michael fell in love with the Huntress. If he hadn’t, he’d have made a choice. You’ve seen him. The young god and his adoring followers. If he’d accepted his proper place as his father’s heir, he could rule the world. Now it will be me. I will be a kind master, Cassandra. I promise.”
Michael owned the Goblin Den, supported Pericles Theron, and was probably guilty of the criminal acts Flynn said he’d committed. But some innate humanity existed in him. At least I liked to think so. I doubt it was love for me that kept him from overwhelming evil. Michael remained a mystery, even in death. “It’s all about sacrifice, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You are one of the Earth Mother’s Huntresses. The powerful enemy. There are many, but none so attuned to this place they call the Barrows. By your own power and will, you belong. I knew it the minute I met you.” He sounded so joyful. Of course, no one was going to kill him. He twisted his hands together, as if trying to wring something from them. “This dark moon, along with the astral conjunction, weakens the barriers between worlds. We had to have you here at this particular time. Your life is going to open a door, a permanent door to his world, and allow my master inconceivable power. He will not come here. Mother wants him, too, but he would be weaker here. He will give me strength to destroy your Earth Mother and rule this world—through me.”
“Bullshit! Absolute bullshit!” I could see everything quite clearly in the face of imminent doom. “There’s only one sacrifice: yourself. Oh, you can kill me. You can kill children. But you won’t gain anything—certainly not power.
“And the kids?” I continued. “How do they fit in?”
“I’m very proud of my network of spies. They watch people for me. Flynn’s sister was taken to draw you in. Because his mother worshipped your precious Abby, we knew she’d send you for her. The others happened to be in the same place at the same time. We would have used them if we couldn’t get you.”
Whoa! Just happened to be? Nothing unintentional happens when you’re on the chessboard of two incredibly powerful supernatural entities. Something, someone put Dacardi’s son with Selene. Why? So I’d have access to his weapons?
“So you bought the guns and explosives? With money you’d embezzled.”
Vic nodded. Dirty light played across his face. He had more malfunctioning brain cells than Elise. It probably never occurred to him that he might have waited until yesterday, and hired goons to kidnap me like Dacardi did. No. Too simple and direct a plan for a sick, twisted mind. That’s the thing with prophets and, yes, fortunetellers. Everything is part of some mystical, but unarticulated, scheme. I suspected some reluctance on Vic’s part, too. Did he secretly hope it would fail? Somewhere, deep in his twisted soul, had he complicated things to the point it would all come crashing down?
“Give me a break here, Vic. A couple hundred scaly monsters who avoid sunlight and stupid, unreliable Bastinados against heavily armed soldiers? You’ve been watching too much television. If you unleashed them on the world, all you’d do is call attention to something best left alone.”
“It doesn’t matter. You destroyed too many of my weapons, at least for now. I had to burn my own guns down by the river and set detonators on the C-4.” He didn’t sound pissed, only matter-of-fact.
Vic continued to babble. “I held Anita down and Mother grabbed her head—twisted . . . the sound . . . a pencil snap . . . and she died.”
He smiled and squeezed my arm tighter. “I shot him. At the river wharf. His head came off. Did you see? The man was going to kill you on the dock. I told them not to shoot, but he didn’t listen.” He giggled and I could almost see pieces of his mind jittering and breaking apart. Reverend Victor was as cracked as his mother. “I had to save you for tonight.”
“Victor!” Elise screamed from another room. “Bring her.”
Vic’s face changed. In an instant he went from a babbling idiot to a calm, cold psychopath. He stood. “Come, Huntress. It’s time.”
chapter 31
I fought, but the drug I’d inhaled was coursing through my system. He released me, retied my hands behind my back with a strong nylon cord, and hauled me to my fee
t. The room swayed, then righted. Strength flowed back into my muscles. Not enough to break the binding on my wrists, but I stalled by pretending to be weaker, forcing him to drag me inexorably through a series of rooms out onto the main plaza, the center of the Zombie’s pentagram.
Flaming torches created a nice mystic touch and cast a hundred-foot circle of light in the plaza’s center—gas patio torches, made in China, just for ye olde ritual sacrifice. The taller building loomed over us, but open sky had appeared above. A few stars twinkled. A draft of cooler air drifted between the buildings after the droughtbreaking rain, sweeter and cleaner than I’d ever smelled in the Zombie.
We splashed through potholes in the pavement to an altar, a crude affair of stacked concrete blocks that stood in the middle of yet another pentagram drawn in—Great Mother—blood. Gallons of blood.
Elise stood grinning at me. She carried a plastic bucket that dripped red. Blood covered her hands and soaked the bandages on her arms. She flung the bucket away and it landed on the bound and stacked bodies of a woman and three men. I didn’t recognize the men, but the woman was the one who’d greeted me at the Lamb yesterday.
Vic’s breath hissed through his teeth as he struggled to propel me forward.
“You kill your own people, Vic?” I twisted hard and braced my feet. “Really sucks as an employee benefit. Makes recruiting tough, I’ll bet.”
“I had to!” Desperation and guilt filled his voice. “We needed blood. I had to bring them here last night and lock them up. They begged . . . You were supposed to come alone. You always work alone!”
The man was a bundle of raw, lashing emotion. I’d bet it ran around his mind like a wild animal in a cage. He heaved a great sigh. “I’m glad you freed the little ones, the children. I don’t know if I could have killed them. I do like children.”
“Fucking insane hypocrite.” I jerked and almost tore myself from his hands. “Worried about a few kids when you plan to turn monsters loose on the city?”