Queen Of Blood (4 page)

Allyson’s eyes fluttered open. Two kids were playing with a glow-in-the-dark Frisbee two houses down. Somewhere a dog was
barking. Through a window of the house to her immediate right she could see the warm glow of a television. She imagined a
family gathered around the box, enjoying their evening’s familiar and comforting entertainment. Though part of her was loathe
to admit it, she had come to appreciate that a life in the suburbs could be a good, perhaps even blissful one.

She snapped the phone shut without another word and turned back toward home.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ms. Wickman smiled at the boy on the floor. His name was Terry. His dead sister’s name had been Sherry. Such unimaginative
parents. No wonder, then, that the siblings had crumbled so predictably through the course of the evening’s long and bloody
festivities. Refugees from the shallow end of the gene pool, these children. Not that it mattered. Ms. Wickman had a slight
preference for more intelligent victims, but in the end she was an equal opportunity sadist.

This Terry had a blandly handsome face, though its handsomeness was offset somewhat by a pudginess she found distasteful.
He stared up at her with wide, pleading eyes. Snot dribbled from his nostrils. A large red welt on his left cheek further
marred his bland good looks. His bleeding lower lip trembled uncontrollably.

“Please d-don’t hurt me…again.” A whimper issued through his sputtering lips. “I d-did it. Did what you t-told me.”

Ms. Wickman’s smile broadened. “Yes, you did.” She clapped her hands in a slow, mocking way. “And congratulations on the murder
of your sister.” She leaned over him, her long, brown hair falling over her shoulders. “I did so admire the gusto with which
you committed the act. Such savagery. Why, one would think there’d been more to it than the cowardly exchange of your life
for hers.”

She looked at the boy kneeling at Terry’s head, a broad, gleaming knife clutched in his three-fingered left hand. “Dean, did
it seem to you that Terry enjoyed killing his darling sister?”

Dean looked at her through hollow, sunken eyes. Long strands of greasy hair hung over those eyes. “Yes, m’am.” He laid the
edge of the knife against Terry’s trembling throat and drew forth a trickle of blood, making the doomed boy squeal.“Matter
of fact…I think he was getting off on it.”

Ms. Wickman nodded. “You know, I believe you may be right. You see, Terry, one of the things that most interests me is exposing
the barbarian that exists in all of us. Human beings are taught to live behind a mask of civility, to govern their lives
by an arbitrarily imposed set of concepts of right and wrong. You lived all eighteen years of your miserable life with that
mask wedged firmly in place, but tonight we stripped it away. Tonight we saw the ugly, craven beast that’s always lurked in
the depths of your now thoroughly tainted heart.”

Anger flashed in Terry’s eyes. “Fuck you. Fuck you and fuck all of your evil little helpers. Are you going to lecture me all
damn night, or are you going to fucking kill me?”

“Boys, hold Terry very still, please. Dean, make certain he is unable to move his head.”

Terry’s abrupt surge of anger died, terror again twisting his features. “No. I’ll do anything. I’ll kill anyone. Whatever
you want.”

“So sorry, dear. I’m afraid I find you too boring to join the ranks of my Apprentices.” Ms. Wickman’s voice conveyed boredom,
with an undertone of mock regret, a parody of an interviewer turning down a job applicant. “So now, yes, you die.”

Then she positioned herself so that she was standing directly over Terry’s head. “Now, no peeking up my dress, you naughty
boy.”

Terry sniffled. “You’re…crazy.”

“Perhaps. But I’m not the one about to die helpless and broken.”

Two Apprentices worked to keep Terry’s legs pinned to the floor. Two more of the black-clad boys kept his arms still. Dean
kept the big blade pressed to his throat, while his other hand was wound in the boy’s sweat-soaked hair.

Ms. Wickman lifted her right foot and placed the sole of the black stiletto against the boy’s forehead. The point of the long,
narrow heel hovered just above his dancing eyeball. Normally she wore a more modest heel, but she’d worn the stilettos tonight
with this very purpose in mind. She watched the jittery dance of his eyes a moment longer, savoring his terror, enjoying his
helplessness.

One of the apprentices snickered and said, “Oh, look, he’s pissing his pants.”

Ms. Wickman directed a last bit of mocking laughter at her victim. “Pathetic. You’re clearly too worthless to continue existing
in this world, Terry. Convey my regards when you meet your sister in hell.”

She eased the point of her heel down and it touched his eyeball. Terry squealed and jerked against the grip of his captors.
But it was no use. The Apprentices managed to keep the boy still as she continued to press down. She watched in almost breathless
fascination as the point of the heel dimpled the surface of the eyeball, causing the tissue to well up around it. Then she
increased the pressue still more and there was an audible, liquidy pop as the point of the heel pierced the eyeball. Terry
screamed yet again and jerked harder against his captors, almost dislodging the boy pinning down his left arm.

But it was too late to matter now.

Ms. Wickman bit her lower lip and thrust the heel downward, angling it so that it pushed through the eye and into his brain.
Blood jetted from the socket and the boy convulsed violently for a moment before going still. The curved back end of her shoe
conformed against the curvature of the dead boy’s eye socket in a way she found aesthetically pleasing. She wished someone
had a camera to take a picture of it. Ah, well. She admired the darkly delicious juxtaposition of shoe and eye socket a moment
longer before extracting her heel, which emerged slick with blood and tissue.

A breath of shuddery, sensual satisfaction issued through her lips. She straightened her dress and brushed back her hair.
“Dispose of this trash, children. I’ll be retiring to my quarters for the evening.”

She exited the living room without another word and continued through the gleaming foyer to the ornate staircase that led
to the many floors above. She had learned many useful things from the Master, among them the ability to manipulate aspects
of the physical world. The necessary magical energy was derived from appeasement of the death gods, entities that derived
power from suffering and death, which she happily supplied in generous portions on a daily basis.

This house was outwardly decrepit. When glimpsed from the bottom of the long, dusty driveway, the abandoned farmhouse looked
as it always had to generations of locals—like an uninhabited, decaying thing, a rotting collection of ancient timber and
drywall that through some miracle managed to remain upright.

But any wanderer unlucky enough to step through the front door would instantly know they had entered a strange place far removed
from the natural world. On the other side of that creaking front door was the interior of a huge mansion, a place far too
large to be con tained by the ancient farmhouse. And yet, once inside, there was no denying the apparent reality of it.

And once inside, Ms. Wickman reflected with a stiff smile, no could ever hope to escape.

She had learned from the Master’s mistakes. Her new kingdom was formidable in its own right, but it was not so large and out
of control that she was unable to maintain a firm ruling hand. The slaves she had were not allowed to talk to each other,
lest they have their tongues removed and fed to them. The silence rule drastically reduced the possibility of a revolt.

Everything was so very close to perfect now. The lone remaining large task was the ongoing effort to hunt down the surviving
House of Blood revolutionaries. But the hunt was going well and she knew she’d have them all soon, kneeling before her and
begging for mercy.

She entered a long corridor lit by candles flickering in wall sconces. Each side of the corridor was lined with doors that
opened to bedrooms that doubled as torture chambers. Ms. Wickman glanced through one open doorway and saw a thin blonde girl
in skintight black leather.

“Hello, Gwendolyn. Enjoying your work tonight?”

The girl flashed a smile as she flicked a bullwhip at a middle-aged man strapped to a four-poster bed.“Loving it. As always,
Mistress.”

Ms. Wickman watched the whip slice away a strip of blubbery flesh and flashed a smile of her own. She then left Gwendolyn
to her work and continued to the end of the corridor where a set of double doors marked the entrance to her chambers. The
doors opened at her approach, sweeping backward as if triggered by an electronic sensor. They closed again as she moved into
the room. The room was huge and well-appointed, a living area fit for a queen. A massive four-poster bed with a velvet canopy
was set against one wall at the far end of the room. A library and bar dominated another corner of the room.

She paused at what appeared to merely be a smooth expanse of unadorned wall. Her fingers brushed the wall’s surface and the
outline of a doorway formed. A tap of her forefinger caused the door to open. The door, a huge stone slab, made a gritty sound
as its bottom end slid over the stone floor of the hidden chamber. Through this door was a deep, sticky darkness, a blackness
so impenetrable and compelling that many who glimpsed it feared it would swallow them forever. A fear not far from the truth.

Ms. Wickman stepped without hesitation into that clingy darkness. The stone door slowly closed behind her and the blackness
enveloped her. She felt for a moment like a wandering soul suspended in some void between worlds. But the feeling was fleeting,
because this was her realm. Her darkness. She commanded the spirits and the elements in this place. She was the only thing
to be afraid of here, and knowing that aroused her, caused her nipples to stiffen against the fabric of her elegant dress.

The sound of a muffled whimper penetrated the silence.

Ms. Wickman snapped her fingers and the wicks of several candles sparked and grew thin columns of flame.

Another, louder whimper, just this side of a moan.

Ms. Wickman’s nostrils flared. She ached to touch herself. Instead she placed her hands on her hips and approached the cage
that hung suspended from the ceiling by a stout chain. The dark-haired girl whined and scooted to the back of the cage. The
motion caused the cage to spin slightly, and the twisting chain links made a grinding sound.

Ms. Wickman stopped a few feet from the cage. She threw her head back and laughed with sudden, shocking heartiness. Just as
abruptly, the laughter died. She stepped closer and pressed her face between two cage bars.

“Hello, dear.” Her voice was a breathy whisper, barely audible. “How are you settling into your new home, hmm?”

The girl said nothing.

Ms. Wickman turned the cage. The chain links groaned and the girl attempted to scoot away again, but Ms. Wickman caught one
of her slender arms just above the charred stump of her left wrist. A loud moan emerged from the cage. Ms. Wickman gave the
girl a savage yank and she crashed against the cage bars. The girl’s other stump flailed uselessly. Her hands were both gone,
of course, removed to make the rendering of dark magics next to impossible.

Ms. Wickman pulled the girl closer and said, “I’d tell you struggling is useless, which is true enough, but I do so enjoy
reveling in your terror, Giselle.”

The girl abruptly stopped struggling.

She sagged against the cage bars and shuddered as the room grew colder.

CHAPTER FIVE

Something shifted in the darkness. Dream was dimly aware of a subtle rolling motion. The sensation reminded her of early morning
fishing trips with her father when she was a little girl, the way those slowly rippling lake waves would make the boat gently
sway in the murky green water. The memory was fleeting, the vivid colors bleaching from the vision before it blew apart like
a puff of fog. There was a pang of loss, but then that too was gone, lost in the shifting black tides of unconsciousness.

Shifting…

Dream felt it again, the slow, almost imperceptible roll of her body, only this time the sensation was clearer, more of the
real world than the comfortably numb land of sleep. She wasn’t awake yet, but some part of her knew consciousness was approaching
and wasn’t happy about it. This dark place was better than what awaited her on the other side of the wall of sleep.

Then she became aware of another sensation, even sweeter, a hand moving slowly over her naked body. Her breath quickened and
she moved closer to consciousness. The hand slid up her inner thigh, moved very lightly over her tingling pussy, then roamed
over her flat stomach and up between her breasts. When the hand cupped a breast, Dream moaned and arched her back, offering
a swollen nipple to her still invisible lover.

She was almost awake now. Her eyes fluttered once before closing again, allowing her a glimpse of a formless shadow. Her lover’s
mouth closed over the proffered nipple, making her moan again as the person’s tongue swirled around the stiffened flesh. It
felt good. So good. An animalistic grunt came from the region of her breasts as the mouth shifted to her other breast and
showed it the same hungry, aching attention.

Dream was awake now, but she kept her eyes closed, reveling in the delicious sensations rippling through her body. The mattress
below her rolled again. A waterbed, she finally realized. Which meant she was likely in some cheap hotel. Which further meant
the person suckling at her breasts was some sleazy guy she’d picked up somewhere. Not that his identity mattered. In the end
he’d be just another faceless mark, the latest in a succession of men she wouldn’t have to care about the next day.

Dream decided to keep her eyes closed while the mytery man did these delightful things to her body. She was enjoying too much
the notion that he could be anyone. He could even be…

The image that came to her then arrived with such sudden and shocking vividness that it made her gasp. A part of her mind
rebelled.
No.
The man she was remembering was a monster. He’d done awful, horrific things. And he’d been responsible for the deaths of her
friends. But the Dream who’d cared about such things was the part of her psyche she’d worked so hard to suppress. That Dream
was dead. The person she’d become accepted darkness, welcomed corruption.

So instead of pushing the vision away, she allowed it to further crystallize in her mind. She imagined the Master on top of
her, his naked body gleaming in the flickering candlelight the way it had the one night she’d spent with him. The sex she’d
shared with him that evening had been astonishing, better by far than anything she’d experienced before or since. Her body
twisted on the bed, delighting at the feel of his rough, masculine hands kneading her soft, yielding flesh. The fingers teasing
her sex abruptly pushed inside her, curled and flexed, triggering a first jolt of orgasm and eliciting a shuddering cry of
ecstacy. She lifted her ass off the bed and thrust her pelvis at the still-flexing fingers.

She ached to be penetrated by something else and said so. “Take me…” A gasp. Another flex inside her. “Do it. Please
…”

Then the mouth came away from her breast and a voice said, “Afraid I can’t do that, baby.”

Dream’s eyes flew open and she gaped at the sight of Alicia Jackson’s smiling face. “I don’t have the necessary equipment,
so sorry.” Alicia’s tongue darted out and flicked at Dream’s still engorged nipple. “But this I can do all night long if y
ou like…”

Dream’s face twisted in disgust as a maggot tumbled out of Alicia’s mouth onto her breast. “Get away from me!” Her body jerked
away from Alicia’s touch, sinking deeper into the yielding mattress. The tiny maggot clung to her skin and Dream instinctively
tried to brush it away, but her arms wouldn’t move. They were stretched at sharp angles behind her. She glanced back and saw
that she was tied to the bed. She jerked her hands against the restraints, but the lengths of new-looking rope abraded her
flesh and refused to yield.

Fully awake now, she began to take in more details of her surroundings. She saw a ceiling fan above her. Tufts of dust along
the edges of the unmoving blades. A bookcase filled with haphazardly stacked old paperbacks. An old television with a rabbit
ears antenna atop an old dresser. Piles of dirty laundry on the floor. Chintzy cheap curtains drawn across the room’s two
windows. A creased and much-folded poster of Robert Smith on the closed bedroom door. And a faint piss smell she associated
with cats. Then she felt the sticky wetness beneath her and realized she’d pissed the bed while she was unconscious.

Gross.

“Where am I?”

Alicia’s hand slipped out of Dream’s vagina. The dead woman smiled and licked moisture off her bloated fingers. “Mmm…
you’re not in Kansas anymore, baby.”

Dream’s mouth curled in disgust. “You’re not Alicia.”

The dead woman rolled her milky eyes. “How tiresome. We’ve been over this. I—”

“I know you’re real,” Dream cut her off. There was fire in her voice now. “But you’re not my dead friend. She’d never do anything
so vile to me.”

“You didn’t think it was so vile a minute ago.”

Dream’s face reddened. “A minute ago I thought you were—” She faltered, her mouth hanging open a moment before she lamely
finished, “—someone else.”

“Oh, I know what you thought, baby.” The dead woman shifted position on the bed, stretching a leg across Dream’s midsection.
Then she sat up, straddling her. She was still wearing the slinky little black dress; it rode up high on her thighs now, exposing
mottled flesh that had once been smooth and toned. “You figured I was some dude you picked up at a bar, but what you were
really thinking about was—”

“Shut up!” Dream vainly tugged at her bindings again. “And get off me, you fucking disgusting…thing.”

“I will not.” She cupped Dream’s breasts in her swollen hands and tweaked the nipples with her thumbs. Her nails were abnormally
long and yellowed; seeing them graze her flesh made Dream’s stomach twist. “You’re in no position to demand anything. And
let me be clear about this one more time. I am Alicia Katherine Jackson. And though you didn’t mean to, you brought me back,
restored me to this undead state of existence. And let me tell you, I’m not feeling all that charitable toward my old best
gal pal these days. It’s not a lot of fun being a half-decayed walking corpse.”

Dream still couldn’t accept it. Buying into what the grotesque apparition was trying to sell her would mean she was some kind
of monster. “No. You’re not her. You’re lying. You’re some thing masquerading as her to cause me misery.”

“Nonsense. You think I’m some random ghoul playing head games with you? What kind of sense does that make? No, I’m what I
say I am and you’re just going to have to deal with that.” Alicia picked at a weeping razor wound with a yellowed nail. “These
hurt, by the way. Thanks so much for making me corporeal, Dream. Thanks for making me feel things. Everything hurts, Dream.
Everything feels like it wants to come apart, but the magic you filled me up with won’t let that happen. So, from the bottom
of my dead-but-beating heart, thank you so very fucking much. Cunt.”

Dream’s vision blurred. She sniffled and b linked back the tears. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was small, soft, the sound of a beaten,
broken thing. “I never meant to hur t you.”

Alicia’s smile faded. “I wonder how many times you’ve said that in your life. You know, I never thought I’d say it, but I’m
beginning to think Chad-boy was right about you all those years ago. You love drama. You wallow in self-pity. And at the end
of the day, all you’ve ever really done is hurt people.”

“Stop it.” Dream’s eyes misted over again. “Please…”

There was a sudden sound of voices from the other side of the closed door. Alicia sighed and climbed off the bed, moving to
a spot near the bookcase. “The fuckers who nabbed you earlier are back. Guess I’ll just sit back and watch the show. Hopefully
they’ll at least leave me some sloppy seconds.”

The door flew open and several young people swarmed into the room. Dream counted seven altogether, including the girl she’d
assaulted in the bathroom of the Villager Pub. There were two other girls and four boys. They all appeared to be in their
late teens or early twenties. One boy was carrying a huge Igloo cooler. He flipped the top open and pulled out a can of Pabst
Blue Ribbon. A few of the others grabbed beers, too. A girl wearing a black gypsy dress had hair bleached a platinum shade
of blonde with inch-long black roots. Black fishnets with several rips exposing pale flesh encased her slender legs. She fired
up a clove cigarette and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Hello, sleeping beauty.”

Dream didn’t say anything. Though the girl was smiling, the expression didn’t reach her eyes, which were hard and flat. A
barely contained rage pulsed just beneath that smiling surface. Dream’s eyes again filled with tears. She would probably die
in this room. And despite the hell her life had become, she didn’t want that to happen.

The girl blew rancid clove smoke in Dream’s face. “I hear you beat up my sister tonight.” She indicated the girl Dream remembered
from the Villager Pub with a nod. “She says you beat the living shit out of her for no good reason at all. Now, you’re not
getting out of here no matter what. I guess you know that, so you might as well be straight with me. Is my sister telling
the truth?”

Dream met the girl’s merciless gaze and swallowed hard. Though she was still terrified of what was about to happen, a part
of her was already resigned to it. So the girl was right, there was no point in telling anything but the truth.

“Yeah. I did it.”

The girl nodded. “Good.” She blew more foul smoke at Dream’s face. “It’s good that you admitted it, I mean. It’ll make this
easier for both of us. We’ll know what we’re doing is justified. And you’ll know you’re getting what you deserve.”

“What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to kill you.”

The bluntness of the statement elicited a helpless, sudden sob from Dream. For a long moment the only sound in the room was
her rising anguish. Then the girl put her cigarette out on Dream’s thigh, making her scream and jerk away from the source
of the pain.

The girl waited until Dream’s screams died away to a low, blubbering moan. “We’re going to kill you,” she said again, “and
we’re going to take our time doing it. You may wonder why we didn’t gag you. We’re kind of out in the country here, which
means you can scream your fucking lungs out and no one will ever hear you.”

One of the boys, a lanky, long-haired kid with acne, had been slouching in a corner, his arms wrapped over his knees, a can
of Pabst dangling from one hand. He abruptly came out of the crouch and moved into the center of the room, beer sloshing out
of the beer can. “Am I the only one who thinks this is kind of fucked?” There was agitation in his voice, real anger and incredulity,
but the words were slightly slurred. A little much liquid courage, Dream figured.

He turned in a slow circle, eyeing each of his friends in turn.“Come on, you assholes. You know this is wrong. You can’t kill
a person over something like this.”

No one said anything for a while. Several of the kids shifted uneasily. They studied the floor or briefly glanced at each
other before turning their gazes to the ceiling or an inexplicably interesting patch of blank wall.

Then the girl sitting next to Dream said, “Am I going to have to worry about you, Michael?”

Michael was staring at another boy in the room, one to whom he bore a strong resemblance. They were siblings or very close
cousins. Michael’s brother or cousin stared hard at the floor. His hands were shaking. Dream did a quick scan of the faces
arrayed around her and saw evidence of fear in all of them, including the girl she’d so stupidly vented some of her free-floating
rage on in the pub bathroom. The one exception was that girl’s sister, who was eerily calm.

The girl rose from the bed and approached Michael. “I asked you a question. I’d like an answer.
Now.
Am I going to have to worry about you?”

Michael gave up trying to engage his relative’s attention and faced the girl. “Or what, Marcy?”There was real venom in his
voice now, a harshness only slightly blunted by the boozy slur of his words. “Are you afraid I’ll turn narc?” He gulped Pabst.
“And what if I do, huh? What then? Are you going to kill me, too?”

Marcy said nothing at first. She pried the Pabst can from Michael’s shaking hand. She drank what was left and tossed the empty
can into the open cooler. Then she put a hand on Michael’s shoulder and said, “No more beer for you tonight. It’s making you
crazy and you need to calm down.”

The kid was trembling all over. Something about Marcy being so close terrified him. He wanted to flinch away from her touch
but didn’t quite dare. And he did seem perceptibly less bold without a beer in his hand.

His voice was very soft as he said, “We can’t do this. It’s wrong.”

Marcy slapped him, the sound shockingly loud in the otherwise silent room.

Alicia barked laughter and said, “Damn.”

No one reacted. The kids couldn’t see or hear the dead woman. Dream glanced at her. Alicia winked and blew a kiss. Dream forced
herself not to react and made a mental note not to respond to anything else Alicia might say. She sensed a delicate balance
in the room, her fate perhaps hinging on whether this kid had the fortitude to continue making his stand. Her case wouldn’t
be helped any should she start talking to invisible people.