Queen Of Blood (24 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Down in the depths of a fevered sleep, Giselle’s body shook as she dreamed of blood. Blood everywhere. Spouting from freshly
opened wounds. Jetting from the stumps of severed limbs like semen ejaculated from a throbbing cock. A great, crimson ocean
drained from the bodies of hundreds of victims, a deep red tide filling the hallways of a very old mansion that only vaguely
resembled the one she’d ruled over so mercilessly for a handful of months. Then a flashback, a jump backward in time, and
the blood she sees is weeping from the wounds in her little brother’s body. Wounds she inflicted at the Master’s behest in
order to save herself. He’d rewarded her for that blood betrayal, using his magic to arrest the aging process in her body,
freezing her in an image of perfect late adolescent beauty. She had lived for more than fifty years, but she would never look
any older than seventeen or eighteen. But the psychic price for this dubious gift was high indeed. The look of agony on her
dying brother’s face was always lurking at the back of her mind, perpetually threatening to rise to the surface with its screaming
accusations.

And so of course he returned to haunt and taunt her now.

Giselle awoke gasping, her psyche still reeling from the long-suppresed images of her decades-dead brother. Wakefulness failed
to banish the memories. Her body shook and her heart raced like an athlete’s at the end of a series of sprints, a manic
thump-thump-thump
that made the blood sing in her ears. Or was that just the memory of her brother’s wailing pleas for mercy? Hot tears filled
her eyes and spilled down her cold cheeks. She remembered it all now. How he’d called out for his mommy and daddy over and
over, even though they were already dead. Even though he’d watched them die. As if some part of him really believed their
mutilated bodies could reanimate and come to his rescue. Because that’s what mommies and daddies did. They came to your rescue.
They kept the boogeyman away and held you and rocked you when you were feeling bad. He was just a little kid and he’d been
unable to accept that there was no one to play that role for him anymore. Not even his beloved older sister, who had turned
against him so cravenly, just to save her own hide.

Giselle’s scream echoed in the dark chamber.

She shook her head hard, her sweat-soaked, stringy hair flailing in the darkness. She cried and jibbered like a madwoman locked
in the padded room of some asylum.

NO!NO!NO!

NO!NO!NO!NOOOOOooooooo…

But the images refused to recede. It was as if, having thought of them, having allowed them room to breathe in the haunted
cavern of her mind, she couldn’t
not
dwell on the awful memories.

She let out another keening cry of grief, raised her hands to her face—and felt the stumps prod her cheeks.

A moment of perfect stillness elapsed. In this moment, she held her breath, not daring to breathe. Not daring to acknowledge
existence itself. Her mind was blank. Then she released that breath and gently touched the stumps to her cheeks again.. There
was a faint phantom limb sensation, but it diminished as her mind accepted the simple physical evidence of her mutilated flesh.

Her hands were gone again. She experienced a moment of desperate, yawning disorientation, as if she were standing at the edge
of a great abyss. One more step and she would plummet into forever darkness. She struggled to comprehend what had happened.
There was no pain. No throbbing ache of infection. These were not fresh wounds. Rather, these were wounds that had healed
over time. Months, maybe. Her “restoration” had been a kind of illusion all along, an elaborate trick played on her by the
Master while he masqueraded as Azaroth and awaited her inevitable downfall. She’d even half-suspected it near the end of her
reign here.

She was as she’d once been.

Completely.

Her body was real again. Not whole, but real. Unenhanced by magic. In fact, she felt not the faintest trace of magical energy
lurking anywhere within her. Whatever abilities she’d possessed were gone, beyond any hope of recapture. The damping energy
Dream had wrapped her in was gone, too, no longer needed.

She was as she’d once been.

Completely.

With a broken body.

And a fully functioning conscience.

This realization at last banished the memories of her brother, but there was no relief in this. Because now her mind was flooded
with a ceaseless series of images of the horrible things she’d done over the last few months. A nonstop film loop of atrocity
with her in the starring role. And Ursula in a second-billed role, always by her side, inflicting pain and death because they
enjoyed it, because they reveled in the screams and cries of their victims. Had she really thought she loved Ursula? Because
she felt no connection to that emotion now. It, too, had been an illusion.

Giselle pressed the backs of her forearms to her face and cried some more, her chest heaving with the force of emotions artifically
held in check for too long.

She thought of Eddie, her blood sacrifice to “Azaroth.”

Sweet, trusting Eddie.

And that look of confused betrayal on his face in his last moments.

The crying only began to dry up as she felt the subtle vibrations in her bones. She sat very still for a moment and waited.
And felt the vibrations again. Then she drew in a series of deep breaths and felt herself grow calm.

She then situated herself in a corner of the swinging cage and awaited the arrival of the ones who had come for her. She thought
about them and wondered what they would do with her. She supposed they would torture her. And then kill her, of course. There
would be much pain. But contemplating this failed to disturb the new, sudden sense of peace that had settled over her. She
supposed she deserved whatever they had planned for her. She thought about the dragon tattoo. If she could see herself in
a mirror, would she still see the dragon? She thought not.

She was as she’d once been.

Completely.

She closed her eyes in the darkness and thought of a time when she’d done heroic things. Memories that were bittersweet now,
but no less true than the memories of horror. When the tears came again, they were the soft, noiseless tears of a black-clad
mourner at the grave site of a long-estranged former lover or friend.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The room was enormous, a large, open space big enough to encompass some of the smaller rural homes Allyson had seen on the
way to this place. A portion of it functioned as a library and den. At the far end was a living space, with a canopied four-poster
bed, wardrobe, and vanity.

A man in a black uniform stood in the center of the room, hands upraised, lean body in a stiff pose of surrender. Allyson
tightened her grip on the M-16 as they moved deeper into the room. Something about the atmosphere here didn’t seem right.
It was warm. And yet she felt a bone-deep chill. She shivered slightly as they advanced on the man who looked to be all that
was left of the pathetic security force they had just vanquished.

The man was smiling as they neared. There was something unsettling in the man’s steady gaze. His dark eyes were the cold,
unblinking eyes of a lizard. Allyson, seized by the absurd notion that he would have a forked tongue, suddenly didn’t want
him to open his mouth. She imagined that tongue flicking out between teeth too sharp and too white, the only sound emerging
from his mouth a low, sibilant hiss.

The image was so vivid she drew in a startled intake of breath when he opened his mouth to say, “Welcome, honored representatives
of the Order of the Dragon.”

He bowed slightly at the waist as he said this.

Bai bowed in return and said, “I am Bai, designated by the Order to retrieve Giselle Burkhardt from your custody. And are
you Schreck?”

The man in black straightened and nodded. “I am.”

Bai sheathed her sword. “At ease, then.”

The man called Schreck lowered his hands with deliberate slowness, as if he did not yet trust that he was safe in their presence.
He looked at Allyson, then, a glance so quick she almost missed it, and her sense of unease deepened. It wasn’t just that
oily, insincere smile that bothered her. She thought she’d detected something in that glance, something inscrutable directed
at her. But that was crazy. And paranoid. She’d never met this man before, had no knowledge of him prior to walking into this
room.

Then he spoke again, a comment directed at Bai.

“Shall we finish our business now?”

Allyson frowned.

There was something familiar in the timbre of his voice, a faintly insinuating and mocking quality. She had heard this voice
before, she was sure of it, but the connection eluded her as, for some unfathomable reason, Schreck and Bai approached a drab
and blank expanse of wall opposite the big bed. Schreck leaned close to Bai and said something she couldn’ t make out, a mumbled
whisper. Then Bai nodded and extended a hand to the wall. Her forefinger described a vague shape on the wall. It might have
been a door. She spoke in a whisper and Allyson moved a step closer, straining to hear. The words became slightly more distinct,
but Bai was speaking an Asiatic language, so the meaning remained elusive.

She turned and looked at Chad, who was staring past her at the far end of the room. She followed his gaze to an open set of
French doors. Beyond the doors was a balcony. And on the balcony, their backs turned to the people in the room as they leaned
against the railing, were two people, a man and a woman. The man wore only black slacks. He had long, sandy brown hair and
a sculpted physique. The woman wore a small robe that barely reached the middle of her shapely thighs. She had long, slender
legs and a tapered waist. She had short, jet-black hair.

No…wait.

She blinked hard and rubbed at her eyes. Then she looked at the couple on the balcony again. The woman’s jet-black hair was
gone. She now had long, flowing blonde locks. Allyson decided her eyes were playing tricks on her. It had been a long day.
A combination of fatigue and a trick of the light had conspired to make her initially think the woman’s hair was shorter and
black.

A nice theory. Except it was pure bullshit and she knew it. The woman’s hair had grown and changed color in the blink of an
eye. She was seized by a sudden conviction—she didn’t want the people on the balcony to turn around. Didn’t want to see their
faces. That nagging sense of familiarity she’d felt while listening to Schreck had returned. She thought she knew who that
woman was. It made no sense that she was here. Or maybe it made as much sense as anything.

She looked at Chad again and the look on his face pierced his heart. It was a combination of disbelief and longing.

He took an unconscious step toward the balcony.

Allyson hated herself for the tears that came then. She had no right to feel this sense of betrayal, not after the things
she’d done. Maybe this was what she deserved in return for all those months she’d deceived Chad. Maybe this was karma.

Then Jim clamped a hand on Chad’s shoulder, stopped him in his tracks. He turned Chad toward him and locked eyes with him,
spoke a single w ord:“No.”

Chad blinked rapidly. “But…I think that’s—”

Jim shook his head, his expression stern. “Doesn’t matter. You have to leave the past behind.” He looked at Allyson now. “You
both do.”

Allyson shuddered, feeling again that bone-deep chill that belied the room’s temperature. She opened her mouth to reply, but
whatever it was she’d been about to say went unspoken as her attention was drawn to the wall where Schreck and Bai had been
standing moments ago.

She frowned again. “What the fuck?”

The men followed her gaze and saw the vertical, black rectangle in the wall, a door to some dark place. It hadn’t been there
before. And Bai and Schreck had vanished, presumbably into that darkness. Looking at the darkness beyond the opening triggered
a sensation of creeping dread. Allyson felt it crawling through her intestines like a tapeworm. She didn’t know what that
dark place was, but she did know she would sooner die than set even one foot inside it.

Then there was movement within the darkness and a moment later Bai and Schreck reemerged into the room. Between them was a
young woman, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Allyson’s heart leaped at the sight of her charred wrist stumps. Some monster had
mutilated her. She was nude, except for a very small pair of black panties. She was pale and her long black hair was tangled.
The girl was pretty, but there was obvious madness in her jittering eyes. She shivered and leaned close to Bai.

“What the hell?
This
is the person you came for?” Spittle flew from Allyson’s lips, each word a jab, imbued with an implied sneer. “Look what’s
been done to her. She’s pathetic. I don’t care what she’s done. Now you’re going to torture her? You fucking animals.”

Bai’s smile was thin and strained. “It is no concern of yours.” She placed a hand on the hilt of her sword. “Unless you would
like me to r escind the Order’s deal with your lover. Then I suppose we could—” Her smile broadened. “—discuss it.”

Allyson watched the woman’s hands curl around the sword’s hilt. There was something almost sensual about the gesture. A vaguely
sexual eagerness. Allyson recognized the futility of her indignation on the girl’s behalf and bit back any further expressions
of rage. She sighed. “That won’t be necessary. Could we please just get out of here now? No offense, but I’d like to never
see any of you fuckers ever again.”

Schreck laughed softly.

Allyson glared at him. “Something to say, asshole?”

Chad reached for her, brushed a hand across her arm. “Allyson, stop this. There’s no need—”

Allyson shrugged his hand away and approached Schreck, halving the distance between them. “Do I know you?”

Schreck’s dark eyes glittered. “Certainly, Ms. Vanover.”

Then she had it. The wheels in her mind stopped spinning as the connection clicked. Hearing him say her name did the trick.
It was
him
. The voice on the phone. Her contact during the months she’d spent spying on Chad. How that voice had haunted her during
her months at Camp Whiskey. She heard it in her dreams and like a whispered promise of pain in idle waking moments.

She managed one word, pushed through gritted teeth:
“You
.”

Schreck grinned, baring rows of horrible, too-white teeth. He looked like a shark. “Have you told your boyfriend about—”

Allyson looked at Bai as she jabbed a finger in Schreck’s direction. “What about this son of a bitch? Has the Order made any
deals with him?”

Bai kept her expression neutral as she said, “None that have not already been fulfilled.”

And now it was Allyson’s turn to grin like a crazy person. The sight of it must have unnerved Schreck. He frowned and glanced
at Bai. “What’s the—”

Allyson moved with explosive speed, reversing her grip on the M-16 and raising it above her shoulders. Schreck cringed and
shuffled backward. But the black door was gone, the blank wall restored. His back met the wall and he could move no further.
He raised his hands to cover his face, but he was too late—the stock of the M-16 crashed into his mouth, pulping his lips
and shattering teeth.

Allyson moved out of his way as he tumbled to the floor and rolled onto his back. She tossed the M-16 aside and pulled the
9mm from her waistband. She set the safety and moved to where Schreck was sprawled. She avoided Chad’s gaze, not wanting
to look too long at his expression of horrified astonishment. Jim remained stoic, his hand on Chad’s shoulder again.

Schreck opened his bleary eyes and saw her standing over him. He let out a wail and tried to scoot away. Allyson seized a
handful of his black shirt and lifted him a few inches off the floor. Then she adjusted her grip on the pistol, raised her
hand, and brought it around, smashing the nickel-plated butt against the side of his head. Shreck shrieked and bucked on the
floor, but Allyson held on to him with ease, galvanized now by the most righteous sense of rage that had ever possessed her.
She raised her hand again and whipped the pistol across Schreck’s face another time. Then another and another. Again and again.
Mashing flesh and pulverizing bone. The man barely looked human by the time she stopped swinging the pistol back and forth.
He sagged in her grip, unable to resist, barely alive.

She let him go and stood up straight. Schreck’s blood-filled eyes looked up at her. Whether he could see her or not she didn’t
know. She hoped so. She hoped he saw an avenging angel about to hand down judgment.

She hoped he was afraid. Of her and his impending rendezvous with the denizens of hell. She switched the 9mm’s safety off
and aimed the barrel at the center of Schreck’s ruined face. His lips twitched, seemed to curl upward. A last, mocking smile
of the damned.

Allyson pulled the trigger and Schreck died.