Queen Of Blood (11 page)

Dream ceased her retreat. The terror was still rising inside her, an inferno that threatened to scorch what precious little
remained of her sanity. But there was another emotion now, as well. Anger. Raw, burning hatred. Hatred for a part of herself
she couldn’t control. A thing she feared might consume her.

She loosed a cry of rage and dashed forward. The girl’s hand fell to her side and her evil little grin gave way to a look
of shocked surprise. Dream seized her by the shoulders and began to lift her up. A scream of terror ripped from the girl’s
lungs, but Dream ignored it, knowing only she could hear the sound. She would not be swayed from doing what had to be done,
would not allow this awful thing to feed from her and grow stronger, become a part of the real world. The girl’s body was
quaking as Dream lifted her higher and moved toward the railing. She sobbed and pleaded, but Dream blanked it out and focused
only on the task at hand, moving the light little body out over the railing.

Marcy was yelling at her: “Dream, what the hell are you doing? Have you lost your fucking mind!?”

Other people were yelling, too. Shouts and exhortations, desperate words that failed to penetrate the roaring in her ears.
She also failed to hear the sound of several pairs of feet pounding across concrete toward her, but she did feel the grappling
hands of the wouldbe rescuers a moment later, felt them pulling at her arms, tugging at her hair and clothes, desperately
digging for any hold at all to pull her back from the brink. But Dream was resolute and would not be moved. The dormant core
of power within her switched on and filled her entire body with a strength several times greater than that of all the people
assailing her combined. Though she didn’t think it consciously, there was an underlying sense that these people were attempting
to pull her back from an apparent suicide leap.

She leaned even further over the railing, effortlessly shrugging loose all those grasping hands as she lowered the girl and
prepared to drop her. The girl abruptly stopped thrashing and looked up at Dream with wide, pleading eyes. Then her mouth
was moving. Dream couldn’t hear what the apparition was saying, as the roaring in her ears continued to obliterate all external
sounds.

This was it. All Dream had to do was relax her hold on the girl and let her slip away, and this one little phase of the ongoing
nightmare that was her life would be over. But Dream hesitated. She stared at those thin, chapped lips as they moved. Saw
the girl’s crooked white teeth and the pink wedge of tongue behind them.

The roaring in her ears ceased.

The rush of the water below returned. Then she heard the screams and the words of the people grabbing at her, words too frantic
and intercut to make any sense. Dream focused on the motion of the girl’s lips and was at last able to hear her voice, its
soft timbre somehow rising above the cacophony of sound from the bridge. The girl’s actual words were channeled in another
direction as something alien pushed these words through her vocal cords:
“The Master awaits you
in hell, slut.”

She let go of the girl and jerked backward. The bodies of all the people behind her prevented a full retreat and she watched
the little body drop and tumble, the rain slicker flapping up and briefly lifting her arms like a tiny sail. Then she hit
the water and sliced through its surface like a scalpel cutting flesh. In the next moment she disappeared from view and the
people behind her went running toward the other side of the bridge. Staggering, Dream turned around and watched their retreating
backs as a frown began to work its way across her stunned features.

Someone grabbed her by the arm and she shrieked. Something inside her reflexively lashed out and she was aware of a sensation
like fire blazing through her body, its sizzle banishing the cold as a wave of heat pulsed outward from her center.

Marcy screamed and jerked her hand away, shaking it like a person who has touched a scalding surface. “Dream, that was fucked
up. We have to get out of here before the mob comes back for you.”

Too late for that.

Several people were still leaning over the railing on the opposite side of the bridge. One woman was slumped against the concrete
barrier and wailing like a grief-stricken mourner at a funeral. The impression formed like a cold fist around her heart and
the heat pulse abruptly fizzled out.

Dream swallowed a lump in her throat and thought,
Oh, no…

Three men were striding rapidly back across the bridge toward her. The man in the lead was thirtyish, tall and muscular with
a thick mop of curly brown hair and a beard. His eyes were dark with a bottomless rage. Every aspect of his bearing unmistakably
conveyed murderous intent. The rigid set of his features. The huge, curled fists that looked capable of slamming holes through
layers of steel.

Dream shook her head.

Oh no. Ohnoohnoohno…

The girl had been real.

And this man was her father.

Dream’s eyes filled with tears as she took an unconscious step backward. Her back met the railing. She briefly considered
letting herself fall backward into the water. It was what she deserved. Christ, how could she have been so wrong? She’d known
her long-tenuous hold on reality had been slipping for some time, but she’d never imagined such tragic consequences. She’d
murdered a child, sacrificed her on the altar of her crumbling sanity.

Yes, she deserved to die. She even felt ready to meet that fate at last.

Then the man was closing in on her, eyes blazing and teeth bared as he raised one of those big fists high in the air. Then
something inside Dream flexed and the man froze. A surge of energy so strong it was nearly visible pushed outward and slammed
into the man’s chest like a freight train, lifting him off his feet and blasting him back across the bridge. Dream saw his
eyes go wide with shock before the surge carried him away. And then he was gone, flying over the railing on the opposite side
and hanging suspended in midair for a moment before dropping to the water below.

Marcy let out a breath and said, “Holy shit. Holyholy-holy fucking shit!”

The men who’d followed the father across the bridge were lying flat on their backs, blown off their feet by the energy surge.
They looked up at Dream with twin expressions of horror and began to scoot backward, scrambling to put as much distance between
themselves and the monster as possible. That’s what they saw when they looked at her. A monster. Not a woman. Not a human
being. But an incomprehensible abomination. A
thing
. And they were right.

The people on the other side of the bridge were looking at her and cringing, crouching down against the concrete barrier as
they huddled together and awaited the monster’s wrath. A few of them were armed men of some authority in uniforms. But they
were as helpless and terrified as the wailing woman Dream assumed was the dead girl’s mother. Dream stared at them for a long
moment and felt the awakened energy burning inside her, aching to be utilized again. And it would be so easy. She could flatten
them all and walk away from this place unscathed.

A weak, frightened voice next to her:“Dream…seriously…we have to leave.”

A peculiar smile contorted the corners of her mouth as Dream turned to look at Marcy. “I’m a monster, Marcy.”

Marcy put a hand to her mouth as her eyes filled with tears. “Dream. I—”

“Shhh.” Dream touched the girl’s shoulder and felt her body go still. She was every bit as terrifed of her as the strangers
huddled on the other side of the bridge. And who could blame her? “Don’t say anything. It’s funny. A minute ago I felt so
much guilt, but this thing inside me burns that away when it’s working.” She lowered her voice a bit and leaned closer to
Marcy. “I could kill all those people over there just by thinking about it. Part of me really wants to. I shouldn’t do that,
should I?”

Marcy’s face twisted with a mixture of sudden grief and black humor. She laughed once, a small, empty sound. “Look who you’re
asking. I’m a monster, too.”

Dream smiled. She released Marcy’s arm and touched her face. “Yes. Yes, I suppose you are. And I’ll tell you something, Marcy.
I don’t think I hate you anymore.” She looked past Marcy at Alicia, who remained in the same spot she’d been throughout the
episode. The dead woman watched them in a remotely curious way, a small smile playing at the edges of her mouth. Dream met
and held Alicia’s gaze for a moment, then looked Marcy in the eye again. “I’m going to leave you now, but I’ll see you again.”

Marcy frowned. “Where are you going?”

“Into the water.”

Marcy’s expression abruptly sobered. “But—”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay.” She gently stroked Marcy’s face and the gir l covered the hand with one of her own.
“You’ve seen how strong I am. The river will take me away, but it won’t kill me. It’s the only way out of this for you. Too
many eyes will be on me. You and Alicia go back to the van and your sister. Get away from here. I’ll find you again. I promise.”

She moved away from Marcy and threw one leg over the rail. She looked at the black water below and tried to decide whether
she believed everything she’d just said. Then the energy swelled within her again and a shroud of warmth enveloped her.

She smiled again and said, “Go, Marcy. Now.”

Marcy stared numbly at her before nodding and beginning a retreat. “Okay…and, Dream?”

“Yeah?”

Marcy’s expression was somber as she said, “I don’t think I hate you anymore, either.”

Then she turned away and began a hurried retreat back down the bridge toward the parking lot. A moment later Alicia turned
to follow without so much as a backward glance. Dream watched their backs until they dwindled to barely perceptible specks
in the darkness.

Until they were gone.

Dream shot one more look at the people huddled at the other side of the bridge. One of the armed men was fumbling for his
sidearm. Dream reached out with her power and made his hand freeze. She was getting better at controlling this thing by the
moment. The knowledge was at once terrifying and exhilarating.

Dream swung her other leg over the railing.

Then she stood up and leaped, her arms spread before her as she’d envisioned earlier. She hung suspended in the air, flying
for a single, incandescently glorious moment.

Next came the slap of the water against her body, harder than she expected.

Then the world was blackness and a cold deeper than anything she’d ever imagined as the water carried her away.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The axe handle felt good in his hands. The muscles in his arms ached from the strain of his physical exertions, but it was
a good ache. Chad was a man used to cool, air-conditioned offices and the soft comforts of a home in the suburbs. Physical
labor in the so-called great outdoors had occurred only on rare occasions over the course of his thirty-four years on the
planet. His thrice-weekly workouts had been confined to hip gyms filled with other trendy and pretty young professionals.
Trim and toned bluebloods clad in fashionable workout outfits, iPods affixed to their bronzed biceps as they power-walked
on treadmills that hummed with quiet efficiency. And always there had been the relaxing sauna afterward, not strictly necessary
but an enjoyable reward for forty-five minutes worth of light maintenance working out.

Chad swung the axe and watched with satisfaction as the blade chopped the log cleanly in half down the middle. He added the
halves to the steadily growing cord of firewood before propping another log atop the big stump he was using for a chopping
block. The screen door screeched open and flapped shut behind him. He turned and saw Allyson emerge from the rear of the building
Jack Paradise referred to as the “mess hall.” She came bearing two brown bottles of beer, one of which Chad accepted with
a grateful nod. They were enjoying an unseasonably warm patch of fall weather here in the mountain country of east Tennessee,
and the dripping bottle of beer looked like the nectar of the gods as the glass reflected the shining afternoon sun.

He gulped Budweiser and looked at Allyson. Clad in cutoff denim shorts and a dirty white blouse tied off at her sleek midriff,
she bore little resemblance to the trendy suburbanite she’d been a month ago. Chad felt a stir of lust as he looked at her
long and slender legs. Then, as was nearly always the case lately, he thought of the sheer number of people—men
and
women—who had been between those legs during Allyson’s time in the adult film industry and his ardor waned. They’d had sex
exactly once during their month at the compound, a brief and awkward coupling that easily ranked among the most unsatisfying
encounters of Chad’s life. They hadn’t talked about it much, but it was obvious Chad had developed a mental block in the aftermath
of Allyson’s tawdry revelations.

She noticed his scrutiny of her body and smiled. “Got something on your mind, Chad?”

Chad frowned and looked away. A huge red ant crawled across the dry ground at his feet. “Not really.”

Allyson moved closer, sidling up against him to whisper in his ear: “Is there anything you ever wanted to do to a woman but
didn’t have the guts to ask?” Her breath was hot against his ear. Her soft lips brushed the lobe and sent a pleasant tingle
through his body. “Anything you want, you can have.
Anything
.”

The tip of her tongue flicked lightly against his ear, and Chad’s cock twitched as she moved a soft palm over his bare, sweat-covered
torso. These physical ministrations were exquisitely pleasurable. The heat of her body and the feel of her silken flesh against
his made his heart pound. Allyson was so very skilled at making a man feel good. Too good, maybe.

Chad pushed away from her and said, “Maybe later,” the words emerging as a halfhearted mumble. “Got work to do.”

He set the bottle down and raised the axe again. Allyson watched him in silence as he split several more logs. Then she departed
without a word. Chad kept working as he listened to the sound of her retreating footsteps, not stopping until he heard the
screen door flap shut again. When he was sure she was gone, Chad slammed the axe blade into the old stump and pic ked up the
beer bottle. He retrieved his flannel shirt, pulled it on, and left it hanging unbuttoned. Then he walked away from the mess
hall and moved across the sloping, green grounds of the compound toward the little cluster of cabins where most of the inhabitants
of “Camp Whiskey” had their quarters.

Men attired in green camos patrolled the wooded perimeter of the compound, some out in the open, others lurking behind the
line of tall trees. They carried machine guns and had walkie-talkies clipped to their belts. These were serious, stern-faced
men. Many of them were former U.S. military. Recruited and commanded by Jack Paradise, they were the compound’s main line
of defense against the enemy Jim seemed so certain would come for them one day.

He approached the door of the nearest and largest cabin and the armed—and heavily armored—guard stationed there stepped aside
to allow him entry, acknowledging his exalted status at Camp Whiskey with a single, terse nod.

Chad remained a hero to the other survivors of Below. They all remembered well the instrumental role he’d played in the House
of Blood revolt. Which was fine. But the deference with which they treated him made him uncomfortable.

This
was the only place he ever felt truly at ease anymore.

So Chad knocked on the wooden door once and loudly announced himself. Then he opened the door and stepped inside. It was dark
inside, the windows covered with a heavy dark canvas material. The only illumination was courtesy of the glow from a red bulb
in a wrought iron floor lamp and a handful of flickering candles. Little wisps of smoke were visible around the heads of the
people seated at the table in the center of the room. Chad smelled cannabis, tobacco, and bourbon. Soft sitar music emanated
from the tinny speakers of a small boombox propped atop a crate containing rifles.

Jim acknowledged his arrival with a lazy wave. “Chad. Join us.”

Chad nodded and approached the table, pulling out a wicker chair opposite Jim. “I see you’re deep into the day’s meditations.”
He settled into the creaky chair and set his beer bottle on the dusty wooden table.“Uncovering any new universal truths today?”

Jim’s eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, but a lazy smile slowly formed at the corners of his mouth. “What we’re doing,
Chad, is engaging in the ancient ritual known as getting fucked up beyond all recognition.

You should join us.”

Jack Paradise lifted a glass containing two fingers of brown liquid and chuckled before taking a drink. “Jim’s getting fucked
up. Me, I always indulge at a slow maintenance level.” He stared at the glass cupped between his large hands. His eyes had
a haunted look. “After all, the shit could hit the fan at any time.”

Jack was seated next to Jim on the opposite side of the table. Directly opposite Jack was Wanda Lewis, formerly known as “Wicked
Wanda” during her time Below. Wanda’s dark hair was drawn back in a ponytail. She wore form-fitting dark clothes. A thin
brown cigarette smoldered between two fingers of her right hand. She looked at Chad with a soft, druggy smile and said, “And
I wouldn’t exactly say I’m fucked up, but I ain’t quite sober either.” She laughed and leaned back in her chair, bringing
her hand to her mouth to puff at the brown cigarette. “Could be me and ‘fucked up’ will be having a rendezvous sometime in
the near future.”

Chad noticed a simple plastic bong at the center of the table. It was the sort of thing a frat boy might buy for fifteen bucks
at a campus head shop. Next to it was a .45 automatic, a clip for the .45, and an open box of ammunition. As Chad watched,
Jim picked up the empty clip and fed bullets into it. He did this slowly and with much deliberation, clearly determined to
perform this task with precision despite his high level of inebriation. Then he flipped the safety on and set the gun back
on the table.

Jim removed his sunglasses and tucked them in his shirt’s front pocket. He leaned across the table and regarded Chad with
eyes that were bloodshot but somber. “So what’s on your mind, friend?”

Chad picked up the Budweiser bottle and twir led the long neck slowly between his fingers without taking a drink. “Things
are still weird between Allyson and me. I don’t know what to do about it. And I keep wondering whether bringing her to this
place was the right thing to do. Maybe I was wrong about that. A girl like Allyson was made for life in the city. I can sense
her getting restless already.”

Jim’s expression grew more intent even as he reached for the bong. “You need to have a serious talk with that girl, Chad,
regardless of whether things are ‘weird’ between you.”

Chad leaned back in his chair and let the Bud bottle hang by his side. “Yeah, I know, okay?” He watched Jim fire up the bong
and wondered whether a hit or two of the potent weed might improve his mood.

He was reaching for the bong when Wanda said, “Maybe I should have a talk with her.” She shrugged when Chad showed her a puzzled
look. “Hey, why not? She might feel more comfortable talking this shit out with a woman.”

Jim passed the bong to Chad and said, “I agree. Let Wanda talk to her. Open up some new channels of communication and see
what happens.”

Chad accepted the bong. He put the lighter to the bowl, covered the carb with a fingertip, and inhaled a lungful of smoke.
He held the smoke inside for a full twenty seconds before blowing a white stream at the ceiling. A few moments later he felt
some of the tension go out of his body. He did a few more hits and felt even better. At some fuzzy point the sitar music gave
way to the Velvet Underground. Chad was aware of laughter, but his sense of the ongoing conversation became garbled and disjointed.
He hardly noticed when Wanda stood up from the table and left the cabin.

Allyson’s fingers were starting to cramp from all the hours she’d spent chopping vegetables for Camp Whiskey’s cooking crew.
A big feast was in the works for the evening and all day long the mess hall’s kitchen had been a bustle of activity. But now
it was late in the afternoon and the other women she’d been working with had knocked off for a final break before the last
big pre-dinner push. They hadn’t invited her to join them outside, which was typical of the way she’d been shunned from the
beginning. Though Chad denied it, she suspected the thinly disguised ill will toward her was a result of Jim’s lingering distrust
of her.

Allyson’s life prior to arriving at Camp Whiskey had not been an easy one, but she was pretty and personable and so had always
managed to find a way to fit in wherever she went. This ostracism was something new. Being surrounded by people who would
barely talk to her or look at her was worse by far than merely being alone. It hurt her in a fundamental way that she’d never
truly experienced before. And, of course, they all knew of her past in the porn industry. Someone—

Jim
, she thought, her blood boiling.

—had decided to share this bit of information with his inner circle. And the juicy tidbit had filtered down through the grapevine
until everyone knew about it. Chad’s apparent unwillingness to stand up for her made it worse. It was almost as frustrating
as her several failed attempts at seducing him. He didn’t seem at all interested in her physically anymore, and Allyson was
beginning to feel it was pointless to keep trying.

Thinking about it caused her to grit her teeth and start chopping the carrots faster. She wielded the gleaming blade in her
hand with a swift efficiency. Something about the task made her recall how easily the axe blade had punched through the flesh
of the men sent to retrieve Chad and Jim. She imagined the blade in her hand pressed to Jim’s throat. Saw his eyes go wide
as she eased the sharp wedge of steel into his flesh and drew blood, his pleas for mercy going unanswered as she made him
pay dearly for the humiliation she’d suffered. But the fantasy brought no real satisfaction. Her wounded pride aside, she
ached to fit in and be accepted. Ached to have Chad like and respect her again.

She didn’t realize her eyes had filled with tears until she heard the sound of boot heels on the kitchen floor. She wiped
her eyes with the back of a hand and looked up to see Wanda Lewis entering the kitchen from the mess hall. The woman was tall
and slender, and possessed of a striking prettiness that made Allyson want to touch her. Which was just odd. Allyson had performed
sexual acts with women before, but never outside the context of porn films. Hetero was her default orientation and she was
happy with it, so it was a strange thing to feel that little tingle of arousal every time she saw Wanda’s face.

There was a small, enigmatic smile teasing the corners of the woman’s mouth as she approached Allyson and placed a hand on
her arm. “Come for a walk with me, Allyson. I’d like to talk with you about some things.”

Allyson looked into the taller woman’s luminous green eyes and felt something melt inside her. Maybe Wanda had approached
her as a peacemaker. Perhaps she’d even been sent by Jim for that very purpose. The prospect of being accepted at last by
the inner circle made her heart skip a beat. She felt like crying again, but she managed to keep the tears at bay. She dared
not get her hopes up too soon.

She let go of the knife and wiped her hands on the dirty apron tied about her waist. “Okay.” She untied the apron and tossed
it over the back of a chair. “I’m about sick of this women’s work bullshit anyway.”

Wanda smiled again and moved toward the screen door at the rear of the kitchen. Allyson followed her outside and noted at
once the mixture of disdain and curiosity playing across the faces of her co-workers. Most of them puffed at cigarettes and
pretended not to notice her, but one man, a soldier who’d moved away from the nearby woods to talk to the gathered women,
looked her in the eye for a moment. A flicker of some unreadable emotion passed over his face and disappeared.

Allyson hurried to catch up to Wanda, whose long strides had nearly carried her to the edge of the woods in the time Allyson
had paused to study the soldier’s expression. She stepped through the line of trees and put an extra spring in her step as
she glimpsed Wanda’s back in intermittent flashes through the maze of trees. They were moving along a winding, ill-defined
path. She moved quickly along lengths of bare ground, then had to take her time negotiating areas covered with thick bramble
and blocked by low-hanging branches.