Crucifax (21 page)

"But what was that room in the—"

"Sh!"

In the silence, water dripped and pattered and sewage gushed. And somewhere in the darkness, music played.

"What?" Lily asked.

"Hear that?"

She listened a moment. "Where's it coming from?"

Jeff faced the opposite wall and listened intently. Mingled with the music were distant, garbled voices, laughter, they were coming from his right, from the direction in which they'd been walking.

"C'mon," he said, taking her hand and leading her along the walkway, the flashlight shining before him. Up ahead, he saw a couple rats that quickly skittered out of sight before Lily saw them.

As they pressed on the music grew louder, the voices and laughter more distinct, although they were still faint, ghostly.

"Sounds like a party," Jeff whispered.

The closer they got, the clearer and louder the voices became; the music was replaced by a loud, fast-talking voice that Jeff recognized as a radio disc jockey. Someone was listening to the radio.

"—c'mere before you—"

"—ha-haaaah—"

"—me another one of those—"

The music began again: Robert Palmer.

The louder they became, the more difficult it was to tell exactly where the voices and music were coming from.

Until they found the hole.

He could tell the hole had been knocked in the wall fairly recently because there were still bits of rubble and a few bricks scattered around on the walkway beneath it.

"In here," Jeff breathed, shining the light through the rough-edged hole.

"What is it?"

The light fell on dark, wet walls, stacks of boxes, twisting pipes connected by fluttering cobwebs, and a steep metal staircase. There was a soft, shimmering glow coming from the top of the stairs.

Jeff leaned close to Lily's ear and whispered, "Be very quiet."

He carefully pulled himself through the hole, then angled the light so Lily could see her way through. With Jeff a step ahead, they made their way slowly and silently to the staircase, where Jeff turned off the flashlight; the glow from above gave them enough light to see. As they carefully climbed the stairs, trying to keep silent on the metal steps, the voices crystallized, becoming clear and distinct.

A male voice: "Did you hear that?"

A female voice: "Yeah, it came from up there."

Another male voice: "The door? Is Mace here?"

They hunkered down as they reached the top of the stairs, and something clattered loudly on the next floor: footsteps on metal stairs.

"I'm back!" The voice was loud, deep, booming; it was Mace.

A chorus of greetings replied, and Jeff was surprised by the number of people he heard. He climbed the remaining steps on his hands and knees, peering over the top of the staircase. There had once been a door there, but only hinges remained. The room was large and appeared to have once been two rooms; the remaining portion of a wall jutted three quarters of the way across the middle of the room, then ended in a jagged, broken edge where it had been torn away. Bricks and chunks of broken plaster littered the floor. There were three holes in the torn-away wall; bars of soft light shone through from the other side, cutting the dusty, smoky darkness.

Beyond the wall, Jeff could make out some movement in the hazy light. He saw a couple kerosene lanterns on wooden crates. Murmuring voices were occasionally punctuated by a burst of laughter or a passionate cry.

Reverend Bainbridge was coming down a spiral staircase; Mace was one step behind him, holding a lantern.

"And I have a visitor," Mace said.

Once they were off the stairs, Mace stood beside the reverend and lifted his lantern, illuminating the little man's face.

"This is Reverend James Bainbridge," Mace said. "Some of you may already know him. C'mon in, Reverend."

Bainbridge looked terrified and moved like a bird as he followed Mace deeper into the room, disappearing behind the wall.

A scuttling noise came from the spiral staircase, and Jeff's mouth closed over the terrified groan that rose from his chest when his eyes followed the sound.

The creatures that had chased him from the abandoned health club were milling around the bottom of the staircase, sniffing the floor, their eyes glinting in the lantern light.

Jeff's throat seemed filled with cotton, and he reflexively put his hand over Lily's, needing to touch someone, to reassure himself that he was not alone.

"Take your coat off, Reverend," Mace said congenially. "Get comfortable. We're very informal here."

They were out of sight, hidden by the wall, but Jeff could hear their movements above the music and soft voices.

"Nikki!" Bainbridge wailed as if in pain. "My God, Nikki…" Then, angrily: "What have you done to her?"

Lily squeezed Jeff's hand.

"
I
haven't done anything," Mace said.

Jeff felt Lily stiffen beside him, looked to see her staring intently at the wall a few yards away.

Mace said, "You're here because you want to be, aren't you, Nikki?"

Faintly: "Yes."

"She's been drugged!" the reverend barked.

"Oh, she may be high, but I can assure you she hasn't been drugged, Reverend. No one here has been drugged, and no one is here against their will. Nikki… why don't you come out of the pool?"

Pool?
Jeff thought.

"I'm taking her out of here," the reverend said, his voice trembling.

"I don't think she wants to go."

"I'll call the police."

"Reverend, I'd like you to meet three very good friends of mine. Officers Peter Wyatt, Jake Margolin, and Harvey Towne." Deep male voices, groggy and garbled, greeted the reverend. One of them laughed. "They're off duty right now, but if you feel you need a policeman, I'm sure one of them would be more than happy to help you."

Jesus,
Jeff thought, chilled by the fact that Mace was friendly with the police. Jeff didn't know what he was up to, but he knew it had to be bad; somehow, police involvement made it seem worse.

After a long pause, the reverend whispered, "I was right." Something seemed to have left his voice—reason, hope, maybe both—leaving behind a hollow, helpless sound. "You… you
are…
evil."

Mace laughed and said, "C'mon, Nikki."

The reverend pleaded, "Nikki, Nikki, what are you doing here?"

"Tell him, Nikki. Why did you come?"

"Because Mace is… is gonna help me with my… my problem."

"Tell him what problem."

"My… my baby."

"Oh, God, dear God, don't do this, Nikki." Bainbridge sounded near tears.

Lily put a hand over her mouth and squeezed close to Jeff.

"Nikki," the reverend went on, his voice a desperate hiss now, "think about it, about what you're doing."

"I can't keep it. I… I
can't.
I… I haven't finished school. My… my mother would… my mother…"

"But it's… Nikki, it's a-a-a"—he gulped back a sob— "sin, a horrible sin, a moral crime!"

"Nikki," Mace said, "did the reverend ever mention that what he did to you was a sin?"

"Mm-hm. He said God would"—she giggled— "understand, And forgive."

"Okay, Reverend. God will understand Nikki's reasons, and He'll forgive her."

"But this is murder!"

"Yeah. And what are the words for what you did, Reverend?" Footsteps; rustling movement. "Adultery?" Mace's voice grew softer. "Fornication?" Softer still. "Maybe… rape?"

Jeff and Lily turned to one another. He saw the same realization in her eyes that he felt: Reverend Bainbridge was the father of Nikki's baby. Lily put her face in her hands and slowly shook her head.

"Is
this
what you did, Reverend?" Mace whispered. "Did you touch her like this… like this?"

Nikki moaned, sighed.

"Did you touch her—no, no, lie down, Nikki—did you touch her here, Reverend?"

Lily's eyes burned with fear for her friend; she looked ready to make a dash across the room and around the wall.

"No!" Bainbridge cried. "Stop! Stop this
now!
"

Mace laughed.

Nikki gasped ecstatically.

The reverend sobbed.

The voices seemed more attentive to whatever was happening on the other side of the wall.

"Is this what you did?" Mace hissed, voice wet, lips smacking. "Is this what it was like?"

"I'm leaving!" Bainbridge shouted, his feet scraping on the cement. "Nikki, if you would only—" Something made a wretched, throaty hiss, and Bainbridge swallowed his words with a gasp.

Jeff recognized that sound….

Lily started to sit up, but Jeff put a hand on her shoulder and firmly held her down.

There were no lanterns at their end of the room; at the other end, with the exception of a few figures shifting in the hazy darkness, everyone had gone behind the wall. If he was quiet, Jeff thought, the lack of light at their end might sufficiently hide him until he got to the wall and could look through one of those holes.

Jeff turned to Lily, laid a finger over his lips, and breathed into her ear, "Stay here."

She frowned at him and cocked her head.

Jeff started across the room, moving in a crouch, his feet crunching softly over the floor, too softly to be heard above the music and the quiet buzz of voices.

As he crept to the wall Jeff heard Nikki's soft murmurs of pleasure grow louder. He heard Mace whispering, chuckling. Amid the voices were smacking, slurping noises.

Speaking with malevolent deliberation, Mace whispered, "Is this… what you did… before you planted… your
seed
in her… Reverend?"

Nearing the wall, Jeff felt as if a steel band was slowly tightening around his chest, making each breath more difficult, squeezing his heart within his rib cage. The back of his neck was damp with sweat.

When he reached the wall, Jeff cautiously peered over the edge of the hole on the right end.

To the right, two guitars were propped against the wall, and drums and a keyboard were set up between amplifiers; four of the dark creatures were crawling over the instruments, sniffing curiously. Beyond the instruments in a murky corner, Jeff saw what looked like a generator. About six feet in front of the instruments was the swimming pool. Shapes moved within its darkness. To Jeff's left, Mace stood in the shallow end of the pool, his tall, lean frame rising above the darkness below. Lying before him on two fluffy-looking cushions, her legs spread, naked but for a blue shirt open in front, was Nikki. A lantern shone on each side of her, making her skin look pale. Her nipples were dark and erect, and a dark, oddly-shaped cross rested between her breasts, attached to a cord that went around her neck. Trails of saliva glistened around her breasts and over her belly.

The reverend stood at her head, several of the creatures huddled between him and Nikki; two of them were standing on their hind legs like guards, teeth bared, eyes threatening.

Mace smiled up at Bainbridge, his lips and chin wet; he passed his hands over Nikki's body, caressing and gently squeezing her full breasts, slipping his fingers between her legs.

"Did you do this, Reverend?" Mace whispered, wrapping his lips around a wet finger and licking off the juices. "Or were you too eager to fuck her?"

Mace leaned forward and slowly, luxuriously slipped his tongue between the flowery lips of Nikki's vagina and moved his head up and down, up and down, licking his way up to her belly, her breasts, sucking loudly. Nikki's breaths were thick with moans of pleasure.

Something crunched behind Jeff, and he spun around to see Lily hurrying toward him. Jeff waved for her to go back, not wanting her to see what was happening beyond the wall. She ignored his warnings and kept coming, her eyes and mouth wide with fear as she sidled up to him and peered over his shoulder, her hands gripping his sides just above his waist.

"No!" the reverend snapped, but his voice was weak. "Stop this,
please
… stop… this…."

Mace stood to his full height and smiled, purring, "Look familiar, Reverend?" Chuckles rolled like ice cubes up from his chest as he ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip. Mace opened his mouth, sticking out his tongue as a child might at a playground rival. But it kept coming, like a snake easing its way out of a hole.

Jeff heard a strange dry clicking and realized it was the sound of shock in his own throat.

Lily tightened her grip on his sides and whimpered softly as the tongue slid out farther and farther.

Bainbridge frantically muttered prayers under his breath.

The tip of Mace's tongue touched Nikki's left nipple, rolling around it around and around.

The reverend raised his voice: "… though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death—"

The tongue, extended a good three feet from Mace's mouth now, moved to the right nipple, lantern light glistening in diamondlike reflections along its moist length.

"—I will fear no evil, for thou art with me—"

It rose to her mouth, and she wrapped her lips around it, sucking it as if it was a rigid penis.

"—thy rod and thy staff they comfort me—"

Lily's nails dug into Jeff's flanks like small knives, but he hardly felt them because he was numb with horror as he watched Mace's tongue return to Nikki's breasts; they swayed as she wriggled with groggy delight.

"Feels… so… good…" she breathed.

"—thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies—"

The tongue slid down over her belly, leaving a sparkling trail like an oversized slug.

"—thou anointest my head with oil—"

It eased lower still, over her navel, toward the triangle of hair between her legs….

"—my cup runneth over, surely g-goodness and m-mercy—"

Jeff's guts chilled as Mace's tongue continued its descent….

"Holy Jesus," he whispered, turning to Lily and pulling her away from the hole, somehow certain of what was about to happen. Open-mouthed and breathless, Lily resisted at first, but he jerked her hard into his trembling arms and pressed her face to his shoulder, whispering into her ear, "Don't watch, Lily, d-don't look at this…."