Unless he willed it.
Which, as was the case tonight, he sometimes did.
He wasn’t certain yet, but he thought this place in the mountains of Tennessee might be the last of his kingdoms. That sense of restlessness was beginning to fade. The notion of starting fresh somewhere else possessed none of its former invigorating power.
Time.
That relentless tick-tock ogre.
He was getting old, and some of his passions were deserting him.
There was a life beyond this realm. He knew that. A place where he might finally live among others of his kind. This place wasn’t the afterworld of primitive human belief, but it was similar in some respects. His physical body would die and decay, but his life would not end. He would ascend to this other realm, this elevated place of light and wonder, and would inhabit a new shell. Solid flesh and blood. But this was the extent of his knowledge. He knew little of the form and substance of this other place. The few texts that talked about it were too vague in their descriptions.
The texts he had were handwritten tomes handed down from others of his kind through the millennia. The ancient pages survived only through a concentration of his will. When he ascended to that other place, there would be no one left to continue this act of magical maintenance; the pages would crumble, the binding would dissolve, and the remaining pile of dust would be swept away by the next gust of wind that happened along.
The Master sipped his drink.
A thoughtful frown creased his brow as he considered these things. It wasn’t a given he would automatically ascend to the other place. He certainly shouldn’t assume it would just happen. The gods required a constant level of appeasement and sacrifice. The ancient texts were quite clear on that matter.
Tick-tock.
The disquieting thing was the lack of a measuring stick. He had nothing to judge his efforts against. Had he done enough? Why were the gods silent? A melancholy loneliness settled over him. He ached for the company of others of his kind.
He became angry at himself.
How had he contracted so many human weaknesses? He fed off them in a vaguely vampiric way, derived life-sustaining energy from their terror, and he wondered now if he’d absorbed some of their essence.
Yet another in a long series of troubling possibilities.
He carried his drink to his chambers.
His “guests” would arrive soon. The sense that there was something unique about the one called Dream was undiminished.
She was special.
The thought he’d been trying to suppress-because it was so obviously not possible-floated fully formed into his consciousness.
She was the reason for this uncharacteristic bout with melancholy and self-doubt.
And this uncomfortable contemplation of the eventual end of his natural life.
He sighed deeply, stretched out in a chair, and closed his eyes. The flesh of his face began to ripple and contort. Some of the gray-but not all-faded from his hair. New hair filled in other places and removed the illusion of a receding hairline. The creature in the chair no longer looked like the benign older gentleman it usually pretended to be when greeting new arrivals.
The man in the chair looked forty instead of sixty.
Old enough to command respect.
Yet young enough-and handsome enough-to instill desire.
He was instituting a new approach tonight, a one-time deviation from the usual program of subjugation and torture. Dream was the reason for this change of plans. She would come to him of her own free will. He wasn’t sure why, but he sensed this was important.
The Master smiled.
The change was complete.
The Accord pulled to a stop alongside the long front porch. The imposing house loomed over the car’s passengers like a steely-eyed beast. Gabled windows extended from either side of the columned porch. The house would not have looked out of place in an upscale modern neighborhood, but there was a hint of something old world about it. There was an implied menace in the way it seemed to crouch against the side of the mountain, as if readying to strike.
Karen leaned through the gap between the front seats and said, “Creepy”
Alicia whistled. “No shit.”
Dream was entranced by the house. She was aware of the menace it exuded, but it evoked something else in her, some nameless longing that made her heart race. She opened the door on her side and extended a long leg through the opening.
Alicia seized her wrist. “Whoa, hold up!”
A thunderclap of unexpected fury rumbled inside Dream’s head. She twisted free of Alicia’s grip and barked at her, “Don’t fucking touch me!”
Alicia blinked. “Jesus, Dream.”
Dream winced.
What the hell brought that on? she wondered.
She clasped hands with Alicia. “I’m sorry”
Alicia frowned. “Whatever. We’re all on edge. I know that.” She glanced at the house again before shifting her gaze back to Dream.
She shuddered.
And opened the door on her side. “Oh, hell. Let’s go if we’re goin’.”
Dream smiled. “Thank you.”
“Place is creepy as all get-out, but we don’t have a lot of other options.”
Karen sighed in the backseat. “Other than just killing ourselves.”
Dream tried not to show her shock.
Karen’s comment was offhand, flippant.
She couldn’t know one of her friends meant to do that very thing.
“Nobody’s killing themselves.” Alicia sounded weary and out of patience. “Let’s get up in this fucker and see if we can get some help for that little asshole.”
Meaning Chad.
They all got out of the car and stretched their legs. Dream stared up at one of the gabled windows. A flickering light emanated from the darkness there. A candle. She walked up to the porch, climbed the steps, and soon stood before a large door. Karen and Alicia, still wary, trailed after her, and stood to either side of her.
The door was ornate and carved from old oak. There was a small window at about eye level, and there was a heavy brass knocker below the window.
Dream grasped the knocker. She rapped it hard against the door four times and stepped back.
There was no initial acknowledgment of their presence from the other side of the door. Dream was ready to reach for the knocker again when they heard a muffled click of footsteps from somewhere inside. A woman in heels, from the sound of it. Then yellow light was blazing through the small window. A moment later, the door creaked open.
A tall, slim woman of about forty stood in the opening. Her expression was severe, made more so by the way her black hair was pulled tightly away from her face. She wore a simple black dress, a dress an urban woman might wear to an elegant club. Something in her posture and the set of her features hinted at cruelty.
A smile devoid of warmth twisted the woman’s thin lips. “Are you ladies lost?”
Dream gulped. “Um …” She cleared her throat and somehow found her voice. “Yes. We’re lost and we need help. A friend of ours is… dead. And another one is missing.”
Dream’s voice quavered with unexpected emotion, the veil of detachment slipping momentarily away. “Please, we need to call the police. Please help us.”
“Oh, my,” the woman gasped, an exaggerated, nearly theatrical sound. “How dreadful.” She made a tsk-tsk
