Queen Of Blood (3 page)

The barmaid looked up from the glass she’d been polishing. “Whatever. Go talk to yourself somewhere else. But you owe me three
bucks for that beer.”

Dream fumbled with her purse, digging for bills. “Okay. Sorry.”

Alicia continued to stroke her thigh. “I’ll tell you a secret, Dream, something I never seriously considered telling you when
I was alive. I always wanted to get it on with you. You were the only chick I ever felt that way about. I was always too scared
to tell you, of course. Didn’t want to risk ruining our friendship.”

Dream’s hands were shaking as she at last managed to extract her wallet from the purse and undo its snap. She withdrew three
dollar bills, considered withdrawing a fourth for a tip, but decided against it when she got a look at the barmaid’s face,
which was a mask of pity and disdain.

“Remember what I said. You made me. I’m not a ghost.” Alicia’s fingers ceased their stroking motion and squeezed. Hard. “I’m
also not exactly the woman you remember. But I’m close, Dream, I’m real fucking close. And I am always with you.” She squeezed
even harder, really bearing down. “And I was with you in the bathroom when you put the hurt on that geek. That was some fucked-up
shit, baby. Nothing like the sweetheart I remember. Shit, you should change your name to Nightmare, would suit you better
these days.” She ran the coarse end of her gray tongue over her bloated lips. “Personally, I think it’s an improvement. You
don’t get anywhere in this world without kicking some ass.”

Dream threw the three single bills on the bar and slid off the stool. Some instinct caused her gaze to flick toward the young
dart players, and she felt something stab her heart as she saw the way they were looking at her. Frat Boy’s finger made a
circle in the air around his ear, the international loony symbol.

She hurried out of the bar and stood outside on the sidewalk, watching the traffic on the two-lane street whiz by. She heard
music wafting from another bar on the same side of the street, “People Are Strange,” that old Doors chestnut. Hearing it now,
in these circumstances, raised gooseflesh on her arms and the back of her neck. A creeping sense of paranoia threatened to
overcome her. She sensed that something important—something on the order of a seismic shift in her life—was on the cusp of
occurring. The feeling scared the shit out of her.

She glanced to her right and saw Alicia standing there. The dead woman’s eyes were stained a milky white, but they remained
oddly expressive, conveying a hint of amusement.

“Look, Dream, here comes a bus. I think if I were you, I’d consider stepping in front of it.”

Dream looked to her left, where a block away a traffic light was turning yellow. In another few moments, the traffic would
slow to a halt and she would be able to cross to the parking lot on the opposite side. She knew she should just focus on getting
out of here and ignore Alicia.

But curiosity forced her to ask the question:“Why?”

Alicia smiled. She wiped another trickle of maggots from her lips and flicked them away. “Nasty things. There’s trouble coming,
baby. You’re strong. Powerful, even. But this may more trouble than you can handle.”

Dream squeezed her eyes shut. Enough. This was clearly just some especially malevolent corner of her shattered psyche fucking
with her. Alicia was a hallucination, and the things she was saying were issuing from somewhere inside her, not from the mouth
of some maggot-spewing ghoul. She hoped the realization would make the dead woman’s voice halt in mid-sentence…

…but Alicia kept talking. “You thought it was all over when you left that evil place up in the mountains. But it ain’t,
girl, not by a long fucking shot. The evil is still out there. It’s been dormant for a while, but it’s just been restoring
itself, getting strong again. That woman, the one who killed me, she’s gonna come looking for you soon.”

Those last words sent a deep, resonant chill through Dream. “No…”

Alicia didn’t respond this time. Dream opened her eyes and looked to her right. The apparition was gone. She breathed a sigh
of relief, but the chill invoked by the dead woman’s words remained.

She shivered and began to thread her way through the stalled traffic. She unslung her purse and looked for her keys as she
enter ed the parking lot. She cursed, not finding them at first, but then her forefinger snagged the key ring. Before she
could get the keys out, though, she heard a vaguely familiar voice say, “That’s her.”

Dream tensed. She’d reached the far end of the lot. It was darker here, removed as it was from the main thoroughfare and the
lights of the bars. She heard movement to her right and her head snapped in that direction. She gasped. The girl from the
bathroom was standing there, an ugly smirk on her face. Two boys were with her. Dream’s heart pounded. They stood between
her and the Accord. Which meant she only had one option available—to turn and make a desperate dash back toward the street.
But just as she started to turn, she sensed more movement behind her.

Something hard and metallic struck the base of her skull and she crumpled to the asphalt. Her vision wavered for a moment,
went black, and when things came back into focus another girl, this one taller and somewhat prettier, was standing directly
over her. There were others, now, a total of five arrayed around her. One held a tire iron that was wet with her blood.

The girl standing over her smiled.

Then she spit in Dream’s face, the gob of saliva hitting her between the eyes.

Dream tried to stand, but a booted foot smashed into her side, causing her to curl into a fetal ball. Then she felt rough
hands on her, dragging her upright.

And the girl said, “Get her in the van.”

Dream struggled as they dragged her toward the open back of an old van. She opened her mouth to scream, but someone hit her
again.

The world went black.

CHAPTER THREE

The smell of cooking meat wafted in from the kitchen. A faint undertone of Indian spices accompanied the aroma. The muffled
sound of a television also emanated from that direction, as did the occasional clank of pots and pans being moved around.

Chad Robbins closed out his e-mail and browser screens and flipped the laptop shut. Allyson poked her head around a corner
of the hallway arch and smiled broadly at him. “Dinner’s almost ready, baby. Put the silly Internet away and come help me
get the table ready.”

Chad looked at her and smiled. Her long blonde hair was in pigtails, but wild strands of it hung over her sparkling eyes and
over her ears. She was a pretty girl, with a sweet, almost angelic face. The pigtails and her relative youth—she was twenty-four—endowed
her with an almost Lolita-like quality. She could pass for a girl in her late teens. But she was slighter than Dream, smaller
and less curvaceous.

And this was a problem, that way he was always comparing the two of them. It wasn’t fair to Allyson. Especially given his
still-vivid memories of the emotional abuse he’d suffered during his time with Dream. Allyson was special in so many of her
own ways, and her presence in his life had done much to prevent a slide into the kind of despair and guilt that had crippled
his ex-wife.

Chad rose from the recliner and followed her into the kitchen. The table was already covered with a crisp white tablecloth.
Set upon it were two lit candles in silver holders and a tasteful arrangement of fresh flowers. Chad opened a cupboard above
the counter and withdrew two plates, which he set at opposite ends of the table. From a drawer he selected the appropriate
silverware and set these next to the plates. Allyson selected glasses from another cupboard while Chad set about opening a
bottle of wine.

The cork came out with the usual mild pop, the rich wine aroma immediately mingling with the scent of the spices in a pleasant
way. Chad poured a modest measure of the red wine into each of their glasses. He then pulled his seat out and sat down, taking
a sip of the wine as he watched Allyson transfer the food from the little island in the middle of the kitchen to the table.
He experienced a mildly salacious tingle as he observed her moving through her domestic-goddess-in-training paces. He especially
liked it when she would turn and flash him a look at her exquisitely toned calves. The dress she wore had a somewhat prim
aspect to it, with no plunging neckline to reveal cleavage. However, the conservative effect was offset by a high hemline
that fell just inches shy of miniskirt territory. The big pink apron she wore over the dress inexplicably heightened the erotic
charge Chad derived from watching her, so much so that he was almost disappointed when she removed it and hung it from a peg
on the pantry door.

She flashed him a dazzling smile as she settled into her own seat at the table. “Let’s eat, shall we?”

Chad needed no further prompting. He dug into the spiced lamb with enthusiasm, letting out a moan of almost sexual satisfaction
as the tender meat penetrated his taste buds. Similar moans accompanied each of the next several bites.

He paused long enough to take a deep breath and say, “Allyson, dear, you have outdone yourself.”

Allyson received the compliment in what had become her usual way, by smiling sweetly and saying, “Thank you, sweetie. When
we’re done eating, you can thank me again by fucking the daylights out of me.”

The eye contact between them in that moment was electric. Chad sucked in a hissing breath through clenched teeth. Talking
dirty at the dinner table was one of Allyson’s kinks. No dinner ever elapsed without some amount of what she called“naughty
talk.”

Chad returned her smile and said, “I’d like that.”

Allyson licked her lips after another delicate sip from her wine glass.“Of course you would. But I think I’ll sit on your
face for a while first.” She laughed softly as she dipped a spoon in her curry. “After all, you’ll want to show your appreciation
for all my hard work, won’t you?”

Dinner continued in that manner for a time. Moments of relative silence during which they enjoyed the food, followed by increasingly
ribald verbal exchanges. Chad’s body was vibrating with need by the time he finished his meal. His fork clattered on the plate
and their eyes locked across the table again.

Allyson smiled. “We’re going to the bedroom. Fuck cleaning up. It can wait.”

Chad nodded his enthusiastic agreement. “Yes.”

He hurried around the table and pulled Allyson into his arms, her body slamming against his as she hooked her arms and a leg
around him. Their mouths met. Their tongues danced. They gasped and moaned. Chad’s erection thrust against the fabric of his
trousers. Allyson squealed as she felt it and writhed against the hardness, making Chad shudder and reach for the hem of her
dress, snatching it up over her ass.

“Hell with the bedroom,” Chad managed between gasps. “I want you now. Right here.”

A sound like a growl emerged from Allyson’s throat and a corner of her mouth curled in a carnal snarl. “Yes. Yes. Do it.”

Chad spun her around, grabbing a handful of her dress and pushing the flimsy bit of fabric up over her ass as she braced herself
against the table.

She looked back at him over her shoulder, biting her lip as she said, “Hurry. Hurry.”

Chad was reaching for his zipper when they heard the heavy double knock.

THUMP-THUMP.

Someone was at the front door, pounding the wood with the base of a fist rather than using the brass knocker.

“God-DAMMIT!” Allyson slapped an open palm against the table top and stood up straight. “Who the fuck could that be?” She
glanced over her shoulder at Chad again. “Please tell me you’re not expecting anyone. You would’ve told me, right?”

Chad frowned. “Who would I be expecting?”

The question was rhetorical. Allyson was the only person he’d allowed to get close to him since moving to the Atlanta suburb
of Buckhead. He had no friends. The friends he’d had in his former life in Tennessee were either dead, estranged, or missing.
And he’d made no new friends here. He was a financial analyst for Aerodyne in Atlanta, where he met a lot of people, but
he’d intentionally maintained an air of aloofness with his fellow employees. And he met all gestures of potential friendship
with a wall of coldness. With Allyson as the one welcome exception, of course.

THUMP-THUMP came the double-knock again.

Chad groaned. “Christ. You know it can’t be anyone I know.”

Allyson sniffed. “Well, I don’t have any friends here either, remember?”

It was true. Allyson had moved to Atlanta only a week prior to Chad’s relocation there. They had met by chance at a coffeehouse,
the chemistry between them instant and undeniable. And since then they’d been too involved with each other to bother meeting
new people or getting entangled in the local social strata in any way.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

“Fuck!” Chad moved past her, anger boiling inside him again as the knocking intensified. “Okay, time to get rid of this asshole.”

“Be careful.” Allyson hurried after him, the slap of her bare feet on the kitchen tile becoming a whisper as tile gave way
to living room carpet. “For God’s sake, Chad, don’t just open the door. It could be anyone. Remember that home invasion last
week.”

Chad’s hand paused on the doorknob. She was right. He’d read the newspaper stories. A wife and daughter had been raped. The
wife’s husband was tortured until he’d given up the combination to the safe in his office. No one was killed and everyone
had said how lucky that was for the victims. Except that Chad knew that was bullshit. Those poor people would carry the mental
scars of that night with them the rest of their days.

It had happened in this neighborhood. And the perpetrators had not been caught. They were still out there.

Somewhere.

THUMP-THUMP.

And this stupid fucking door didn’t have a peephole.
Fuck.
His hand still on the doorknob, Chad looked at Allyson. “Maybe you should get a phone, be ready to speed-dial 911.”

Allyson nodded and hurried out of the room. She came running back a moment later, a slim, silver cell phone clutched in one
slightly trembling hand. Chad flashed her a reassuring smile and shifted his attention back to the door as the most insistent
knock yet rattled the thick slab of wood in its frame.

Chad cleared his throat and made his voice loud, projecting it the way a stage actor would:“You can stop knocking, asshole!
Who are you and what the hell do you want?”

The knocking stopped. Chad held his breath and sensed Allyson doing the same. Then he heard a very dim, muffled sigh. A tired
sound. A weary sound.

Chad frowned. There was something faintly familiar about it.

Something—Chad’s hand closed around the doorknob and yanked the door open. Allyson let out a gasp of surprise, but Chad barely
heard it.

He gaped at the figure standing on the darkened front porch for nearly a full minute before managing to say, “Oh…shit
…” Then he broke into a broad grin. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.” He stepped back and waved a hand toward the interior
of the house. “Come on in, man.”

The dark figure stepped forward into the light. The wryest of smiles touched the very edges of his mouth. He looked better
than the last time Chad had seen him, years ago. Leaner and less haggard. The bushy mane of gray-flecked brown hair had been
shorn to a longish shag. He looked especially great for a man in his early sixties.

Chad shut the door as the man stepped into the house. “Christ, Jim, I can’t believe how good you look. Last time I saw you—”

The man Chad had once known as Lazarus shrugged. “Being an unrepentant sinner is a well-documented course to a healthier life.”

Chad’s grin remained in place as he turned to introduce his friend to Allyson. “Hey, honey, this is the man I’ve told you
about—” His grin faltered as he registered her sullen expression. “Honey—?”

“I don’t care who the fuck this is.” Sullen, nothing. She was fuming. “We were in the middle of a nice, quiet dinner. I can’t
believe you’re inviting this person in, regardless of who the fuck he is.”

“Honey, I’m sorry, but—”

“Whatever.” Allyson brushed past him and yanked the door open again. Her face was a tight mask of controlled fury as she turned
toward him. “You boys catch up. Jerk each other off. Whatever, I don’t fucking care. I’m going for a walk.”

She stepped outside and slammed the door behind her.

Chad gaped in disbelief at the door for a long moment. He’d never seen Allyson so angry about anything. He understood her
frustration about the interruption. He still felt some of that, too, a rippling undercurrent of unspent sexual energy. But
storming off like this—well, it seemed a bit out of proportion.

Jim cleared his throat. “Sorry to cause you trouble, friend. But there are things we need to talk about.”

Chad turned and looked at his friend, a ghost of the faded grin returning to his face. “Okay, but I think I need a drink now.”

Chad led the way to the living room and the liquor cabinet.

Allyson waited until she was two blocks from the house before flipping open her cell phone and punching in the number she’d
memorized so many months ago. She held it to her ear and listened as it rang and rang.

She cursed as she counted a tenth ring and considered hanging up. But she couldn’t do that. The time had come and she couldn’t
afford to turn back now. She made herself wait some more and her patience paid off as the phone was at last answered on the
twentieth ring.

A tired male voice said, “Yes?”

Allyson snapped at the man: “What the fuck took so long?”

A pause. Then:“Who is this?”

“This is Allyson fucking Vanover. You recognize that name, don’t you?” Her voice was shrill, rendered almost brittle from
the combination of fear and anger coursing through her. There was another strong emotion at work, as well, one she couldn’t
afford to think about, not if she meant to see this through. “After all, you’re the reason I’m in fucking Atlanta, remember?”

The man sighed. “Of course. I do remember. I told you—”

“You told me to call this number only if I had news. This is the first time I’ve called, but trust me, the news is big.”

The man’s attitude changed immediately. His voice resonated with eagerness as he said, “Do you mean—”

“Yes.” Allyson paused. She allowed a final pang of regret to pierce her deeply. Then she made herself say, “The man you’ve
been looking for, the one you told me to keep an eye out for…he’s here.”

“Excellent. Are you still at the same location?”

Allyson hesitated only a moment, regret stilling her tongue a second longer than necessary. But she knew it was too late for
second thoughts. The wheels had been set in motion. Regardless of what she said from this moment forward, there was nothing
she could do stop it.

“Yes. It’s the fourth house on the left on Jacobsen Avenue. 505 Jacobsen Avenue.” Her hand was shaking. She forced it still.
“There’s a late-model silver Porsche parked on the road in front of the house. Your people won’t be able to miss it.”

“Good. You’ve done very well, Allyson.” Soft laughter issued from the other end, wherever that was. Allyson had Googled the
number, but there was no record for it, nor any other indication of its origin. Which was kind of spooky, but it figured.
“And as previously agreed, you’ll be handsomely rewarded.”

“I better be.” She forced a toughness into her voice she didn’t feel. “That money better hit my account by the end of business
tomorrow.”

More soft laughter. “Oh, it shall. All one hundred thousand. And remind me, that would be your secret account, correct? The
one Mr. Robbins doesn’t know about?”

Allyson closed her eyes. “Yes. That one.”

“The money will be there by the appointed deadline, rest assured. You’ll want to be well out of town by then.”

“You can count on that.”

“Good.” A sigh. “We can consider our business closed, then. You will never speak of this to anyone, of course.”