The Impaler

I still have a chance.

But Cox hadn’t seen Edmund Lambert for hours, and sensed that he was gone now not just from the cellar, but from the house above it, too. About twenty versions of the song ago, he heard an alarm go off briefly upstairs. Shortly afterwards, he saw a figure standing in the darkened hallway. He wasn’t exactly sure when the figure disappeared, but in the transition between the eighties version and the Clone Six cover he heard the alarm again and a door slamming. Everything upstairs had been quiet in the transitions since then. And thank God there were no more sounds of hammering and power tools coming from the other room; no more flashes of yellow light and little breezes coming from the darkened hallway, either.

Bradley Cox had read all about Vlad and his victims on the Internet, and knew damn well what Edmund Lambert had in store from him when he returned. And there was no doubt that Edmund Lambert would return—the blood, the stinging pain in his chest where the Impaler had carved him up made that abundantly clear.

That had been another lifetime ago, it seemed, and the pain in his chest was nothing compared to the pain in his left wrist where the leather strap bore into it. But Bradley Cox had himself to blame for that. He’d been twisting and pulling on it for hours now; and as he gave his wrist another strong tug, the young man felt his thumb pop out of its socket.

He howled in agony, but paused only briefly to catch his breath before he began pulling again, twisting and squirming as the wounds on his chest cracked open. He could feel the blood trickling down to his naked groin, but rather than cry out, Bradley Cox began to laugh.

“How could you think? How could you think?

Tell me how could think I ’d let you get away?”

Perhaps he was going insane; perhaps his senses weren’t as sharp as he’d thought they were. But through all the pain, he could swear the strap around his wrist suddenly felt looser.

Chapter 77

It was almost eight o’clock when the black SUV pulled into a spot in front of Sam Markham’s apartment building. The General recognized it as the same make and model as Andrew J. Schaap’s, but only when it came to a complete stop and the driver emerged was he sure it belonged to Sam Markham.

The General recognized him immediately—thought he looked shorter in person than in his picture, and felt a surge of excitement at the thought of what he and the Prince had in store for him.

In this Sam Markham they had found the ultimate soldier. Someone who feared the Prince as much as those who had worshipped him in the old days. Someone who understood the inevitability of the Prince’s return almost as much as the General himself. And surely this Markham was a gift of destiny; surely his delivery to the Prince via the randomness of the FBI agent’s lists was no accident. It was almost too good to be true; and the thought of the power the Prince would draw from this man’s service made his doorway tingle beneath the bandages.

Yes, the wound between the 9 and the 3 was already healing up nicely.

The General followed Markham with his binoculars until he disappeared into the apartment building. It had grown darker, but the General would wait a while longer. He lowered the binoculars and gazed down at Andrew J. Schaap’s BlackBerry. At that moment, his own cell phone began ringing on the seat beside him. He picked it up and read the name on the screen: Cindy Smith.

The General answered as Edmund Lambert. “Hi, Cindy.”

“Hi, Edmund. How’s your aunt doing?”

“Fine. Still a bit shaken up, but she’s sleeping now. My uncle is here, too, so I’ll be taking off shortly.”

“That’s good news.”

“Yes, it is. Any word on Bradley?”

“No,” Cindy said. “No one’s heard from him all day. Looks like he just bolted after last night’s show—car is gone and everything. I hope he’s okay.”

“I hope so, too,” Edmund said. “Did the show and the photo call go well?”

“Yes, but it was weird playing opposite George Kiernan. The show ended up being pretty good, actually. We even got a standing ovation, but the whole thing seems like a dream. Everything, I mean—the show, me and you, what happened the other night. You think we can talk about it?”

“Of course. How about I give you call when I get settled back at the house?”

“That’d be awesome, yeah.”

“But it might be late, okay? I still have some things I need to do.”

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

“Yes, you will. Good-bye, Cindy.”

Edmund picked up the BlackBerry and held it up next to his cell phone—stroked each of them with his thumbs and smiled. He was the General again.

“Sam Markham has no idea his partner is even missing,” he said. “If he did, Ereshkigal would have told us.”

Chapter 78

Markham sat at his kitchen table with the lists spread out before him like a big flower. He’d grown frustrated with the sheer number of suspects—knew that Schaap had to be working from a more specific list—and had just picked up his BlackBerry to call him when the theme from Rocky sounded off in his hand. He looked at his watch—9:12 p.m.—and felt a wave of relief when he saw the name on the BlackBerry’s screen.

Schaap.

“Finally,” Markham answered. “Where the hell are you?”

“Watching you from the sky, Agent Markham,” said the voice on the other end.

Markham froze, his stomach dropping into his shoes.

“Schaap?” he said weakly, but the man on the other end only laughed and said:

“His body is the doorway.”

The voice was deep and thick with a Southern drawl, and even as Markham’s mind began to spin with “Dark in the Day” and the thousand reasons as to why this couldn’t be happening, all at once he knew that Andy Schaap had stumbled onto the Impaler.

“Who is this?” Markham asked, wincing at the futility of his question.

“I am the three,” said the man on the other end, “but you are the nine. Will you know him when he comes for you, Agent Markham?”

Markham felt his words stick in his throat—managed to squeak out, “What have you done with Schaap?”—but the man on the other end only laughed.

“His body is the doorway,” he said, his inflection like a child’s. Markham felt suddenly as if he would vomit. He swallowed hard, was about to speak, when the voice in his ear said: “But there’s still time, Agent Markham. If you hurry, if you truly understand the equation, you’ll be allowed to touch the doorway, too.”

“What have you done to Schaap?!” Markham screamed, but got only the blinking call timer for an answer.

And then he was moving.

He ran into the bedroom and grabbed his gun—punched a number on his BlackBerry and put on his Windbreaker.

“This is Markham,” he shouted. He was back in the kitchen now, gathering up the lists. “Andy Schaap is in trouble. Get the tech unit to put a trace on his vehicle. Get them on his cell signal, too, and get the plate number into the local systems ASAP. I’m on my way back to the RA now.”

Markham hung up and slipped the paperwork into his briefcase.

He was out the door in a streak; dashed down the front steps and reached his TrailBlazer in a matter of seconds—when out of nowhere he felt a searing pain shoot across the back of his skull.