American Quest (41 page)

The lady frowned and bent her head, and the truck once more began its lizard mating dance.

“. . . rip you from limb to limb, you festering c—”

The words pinched away as the truck and the lady bounced atop him. Bruce could see the lady’s furrowed brow as she concentrated, somehow maintaining an air of poise as she bucked, her back straight and jaw set.

The rocking subsided and Hedon’s mouth hung expletive-free, the reserve breath having been milked from his lungs.

Bruce sprang into action and scaled the truck. A spool of cable sat bolted to the bed and he released the arms, pulling the braided steel free.

“Let me give you a hand,” the lady said, climbing through the window and into the bed with the deft grace of a gymnast. She wore a blue jumpsuit and high-heeled shoes, though they didn’t seem to slow her down.

Bruce donned the harness. “Are you the Auxilium who came to visit Jamie?”

“Just get moving,” she said as she clipped the harness in.

He didn’t need to be told twice. He made his way out of the truck and down into the fissure.

“Jamie? Guys? Can you hear me?”

“Bruce! It’s Bruce! Hello?”

Jamie’s voice, strong but muffled. He went down, sliding and spelunking to the mound of dirt atop the rear of the van.

“Is everyone okay in there?”

“We’re all right, just get us out!”

“I’m coming. Nobody move.”

He used his hands like a bulldozer, scooping dirt away from the back of the van until he found the tow hook and attached the clevis.

He turned back and called to the Auxilium. “It’s on.”

While she ratcheted the cable taut, Bruce let his vision swim into the void below the van where he saw a few more feet of torn earth. And beyond that, nothing but black. A surge of vertigo made him fold into a crouch. There came a swirl from below, an ominously cool wind that smelled of minerals and wet stone. It chilled the sweat at his temples and slid into his shirtsleeves.

He had a sudden bizarre urge to pee into that void. He resisted it.

“Everyone buckled up?” he called.

Emily’s voice in reply: “Check!”

It was too risky to carry them out one by one now that the van was angled straight down. The safest thing to do would be to pull the van out with them inside.

“Everybody hang on real tight!” He worked his way back out of the crevasse with as much speed as he could muster, hands filthy and bleeding as he gripped the steel cable for support.

The Auxilium was back in the driver’s seat, sprinkling sand out the window and over Hedon where he lay beneath the wheel. Incredibly, he seemed to have dozed off. In fact, he was snoring with deep, lusty oinks.

The Auxilium winked at Bruce. “Stand back, sonny.”

The monster truck roared to life and, with an anticipant hiccup, lurched forward. The added weight of the van didn’t seem to bother it much. The front wheel rolled forward over Hedon, then the back wheel followed suit. All the while the fat man slept.

The van lumbered into view. At first, only its hindquarters were visible at the end of the tow cable, like a mouse being carried off by the tail. It gave some resistance as it broke the plane to the surface, at which point the Auxilium put the truck in reverse and then forward again, once more treating Hedon like a speed bump as she did so.

And then the van was out.

Hedon groaned and pulled himself up to a sitting position, rubbing his eyes.

“Sandman trick, I should’ve known. Naughty, naughty!” He blinked, eyeing the van. “Oh, bloody hell.”

The lady scaled out of the truck and down to the ground. Hedon rolled, but could not get away from her fast enough.

She grabbed him by the scruff of his collar. “You leave these people alone. And I’ve had just about enough of your foul language.”

Bruce raced to the van. Jamie and Emily tumbled out first, followed by Bea, Forte, and Shannon. Hands went to shoulders and faces, inspecting, hugging. They shook and cooed to each other.

Jamie looked around. “I didn’t think we were going to make it. How did you get us out?”

Bruce turned and pointed to the monster truck, and then stopped,
puzzled. It was gone. And the Auxilium was gone. That horrible Hedon guy was gone.

“Where’s the hole?” Emily said.

Bruce looked. The fissure was gone, too. And although no other cars had passed during the entire time the van had been a chicken bone stuck in Mother Nature’s throat, the freeway was now flowing with steady traffic in both directions.

The van itself rested, intact, on the side of the road. Just in front of it gaped a relatively innocent-looking pothole.

“I AIN’T SEEN NOTHING LIKE IT BEFORE, master. They’ve got protection like madness!”

“Am I to understand there has been not one single casualty?”

Hedon’s arms spread wide. “It’s rather precise surgery, isn’t it? First, I’ve got to separate the bloke from the others, and only then can I get down to business. I wouldn’t’ve minded a little help on that one, hey!”

Hedon angled a nasty curl of the lip toward Isolde, who answered with a barely stifled huff. If Hedon was attempting to exhibit any reserve of temper, his efforts proved shoddy.

Enervata felt acid seep into his blood. These lapses of deference among his lieutenants seemed increasingly overt.

He stood in human form because he would be joining Gloria soon, but that wouldn’t stop him from exacting discipline first.

Hedon must have sensed Enervata’s mood, for he returned to a more humble—if not whining—tact.

“And then there’s the matter of that lady showing up. I can’t be expected to hold me own against one of those.”

Isolde gave a snide grin. “A wave of the hand, a sprinkle of sand. Our Hedon slips off to slumberland!”

Enervata shot out his arm and slapped her. “Amusing to you, is it? You find this funny!”

Her face registered no shock, no mortification. Her head merely
swung under the force of his hand and then returned as if nothing had happened. She seemed utterly impervious and it made him want to flay her.

But he didn’t. He wheeled instead upon Hedon and threw a punch to his jaw, and then another, and another until Hedon was on the floor, coughing and spitting blood and flesh. Enervata kicked him in the stomach then and Hedon heaved a fetid expulsion of breath and began to gag.

Enervata turned his back. He didn’t care to watch Hedon disgorge. He turned instead to Isolde, craving to sink his black, violent hunger into her. But to his surprise, she was not gawking at Hedon. No smirk rested upon her face. She was looking away, as though her gaze dwelt within another time and place altogether.

But most curiously, most fascinating, Enervata was certain that within those yellow eyes he saw evidence of tears. Actual tears.

Could they be from fear? After all these centuries, to see fear again in Isolde’s eyes! Not just anxiety or foreboding, but enough true fear as to cause her to weep. The thought registered with such an immediate endorphin rush that he felt a surge of blood to his groin.

Was it really fear? Her expression seemed so strange. Wild. Almost foreign. But it had to be fear, because he could imagine nothing else.

And then she seemed to return to the present and her gaze dropped dully to the floor.

He left her alone and strode to the silver charger that lay atop the demi-lune commode, pouring himself a glass of Taylor port. “When you’ve finished regurgitating your supper, Hedon, perhaps you’ll see fit to report on our philanthropist, Jonathon Raster.”

Hedon coughed wetly and then snuffled. “I didn’t—that is, Isolde was just there . . .”

“I am not asking Isolde. I am asking you!”

“Of course, master. Everything is as you asked. I was the one who set it up, really. Isolde just ran reconnaissance.”

“Hedon . . .”

“He’s resigned! Jonathan Raster’s resigned.” Hedon coughed again, finishing with a long, hoarse grind of air that left him smacking his lips. “Announced his resignation just this morning, he did. Claims his innocence but wants to remove himself so the foundation isn’t tainted by all the scandal.”

Enervata nodded. “Excellent news.”

“Course Kolt’s all up in a lather. Didn’t take kindly to the way we publicly yanked his knickers up his bum.”

Hedon rolled to a sitting position and looked around—no doubt hunting for his honey wine—then thought better of it and folded his hands. “Kolt’s put out the word to all the others that he’ll make just about any deal he has to just to get back at us.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Enervata said. “It’s much too late for that. Tomorrow Gloria will be mine.”

Enervata saw the excitement in Hedon and Isolde’s eyes. And the doubt. He knew they wondered where they would stand in the new world.

Yes, let them wonder.

He waved his hand as if brushing dog hair from a velvet cushion. “Out. Get out, both of you. And when you next report back, you’d better each come with your fingers tangled in the blood-soaked hair of the travelers. One head in each hand for my Hall of Amusements.”

Hedon and Isolde said nothing and took their leave.

Enervata revealed Gloria’s door. She could now open or close it if she chose to wander through the penthouse.

He took his time, sipping his port, thinking of the tantric allure of Isolde’s fear. So many delights awaited him. He would never kill Isolde. Neither would he allow her to taste the power of reign over the wild-lands. But she would indeed taste fear again, that fear he’d glimpsed in her, along with the complementary flavors of despair and pain. Yes, he would indulge himself in her misery repeatedly through the drifts of eternity.

And perhaps when he’d tired of Gloria, he could rekindle his passion by defiling her in the same manner. Perhaps he would enjoy them both, side by side. This, the purest love.

The door to Gloria’s room opened and Sileny emerged. She avoided his eyes and skirted past him to the rear chambers. It was pitiful that Gloria had sought the company of this wretch, the mouthless one. Sileny exuded a kind of fear so acrid and constant that he took no pleasure from it at all. Only revulsion.

Sileny returned, this time bearing a mother-of-pearl box and, head bent, slipped back into Gloria’s room. She left the door open behind her.

Enervata stepped toward it. Tonight he would take Gloria to a performance of the Peking opera,
Forest of the Wild Boars,
portrayed in the acrobatic ballet style of
W
usheng. Sileny was no doubt helping Gloria to dress.

He would shower and ready himself. More important, he needed to revise his state of mind to assimilate more to Aaron Vance and less to Enervata. He still felt heady with the lust of releasing violence upon Hedon and still felt the sensual ache from Isolde’s misery.

But he wanted to see Gloria, perhaps catch a glimpse of her as she prepared herself for him. And he wanted to look upon her, unobserved, while he still bore this mantle; wearing the sweat of violence, Hedon’s blood at his knuckles, Isolde’s despair like an aphrodisiac. He wanted to gaze upon Gloria with the taste of the world to come still in his mouth.

But the risk was too great. If she saw him, she might see the black echoes within him. He turned for his room. But he paused and looked over his shoulder.

And then he saw her.

She stood reflected in the great mirror. A gown of rich, shimmering jade hues clung to her body in angled folds. It draped from one single shoulder down the length of her breasts and tapered waist, past her thighs, and then flared out at the knee to a bell shape, where the colors created a hologram of green, blue, and purple. Sileny had adorned her with a golden scalloped necklace, so delicate the shape only emerged when Gloria moved and the light chanced to glimpse it. One slender shoulder lay bare and, from the other, a sheer cascade of translucent chiffon feathered its way down her back.

Sileny was tending her hair now, which was pulled into shining folds that echoed those in the dress, a spray of tiny emerald, sapphire, and amethyst jewels winking as if suspended in a halo.

And beyond Gloria, perfectly, stretching the length of the wall, hung the peacock tapestry.

Gloria inclined her neck, graceful and long, and she was the human embodiment of that tapestry. A thing of pride, leisure, and astonishing beauty. A thing that should be his. Would be his.

She turned and saw him. Enervata knew he should move on, pretend he hadn’t seen her and continue to his room to get ready for the opera. But he couldn’t. Could not take his eyes from her. He expected
her face to register shock at his accidental voyeurism, or that she might look away in modesty.

But she did neither of these things. Instead, she gazed back at him, bold.

In that moment, Enervata realized that he’d been wrong. He’d told Isolde and Hedon that he would have her tomorrow.

Seeing the willingness in her eyes now, though, he knew he’d have her tonight.

BRUCE HUGGED THE CELL PHONE to his ear, brows knit, his gaze traveling through two panes of glass and an expanse of pavement to rest on Jamie.

Jamie held her phone to her ear, brows knit, her gaze traveling through two panes of glass and an expanse of pavement to rest on Bruce.

He stood inside the convenience store while she sat in the van by the gas pumps. On that expanse of pavement that lay between them was utter bedlam. But neither Bruce nor Jamie said much as they gawked at each other. What was there to say?

Bruce tried the glass door again. “I still can’t get out.”

Jamie’s hand made a helpless up-and-down chop. “Why would you want to get out? It’s, um, being handled.”

She looked like she was about to say something else, but she just sighed and turned to watch a snaking nozzle at the end of a hose arc through the air like a seahorse, rearing over a retired man in a Hawaiian shirt who duly cleaved it in half with a machete.