agitation. “You send me up against that thing, you’ll be writing my death warrant.”
Giselle finished rolling a fresh cigarette. She licked the end of the paper, pressed it shut, and struck a match. She puffed the cigarette to life, exhaled, and said, “It’s true, Eddie, you may die. There is risk involved. Great risk.” Another slow exhalation of sweetly aromatic smoke. “That I can’t deny. But I can assure you of this-if you attempt to flee this place, you will certainly die.”
Eddie groaned. “Jesus, Giselle.”
Her gaze sharpened. “It’s true, Eddie. Remember what I told you about The Master’s mind? This place we inhabit, this shadow realm, is more than a corruption of reality. It’s a prison, Eddie. Once you enter The Master’s domain, you cannot leave. There is no exit. No early parole.” She smiled a little. “No escape.”
She opened her mouth. More smoke plumed away, perfect O’s floating up toward the ceiling. The smell was strange. Sweeter, more pleasant than tobacco. But it wasn’t marijuana. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know what they were smoking. It would be something freaky, wouldn’t it? Something like powdered bone or magical herbs. Essence of speech-impaired old man, perhaps.
Why not?
Look, he told himself. She’s a great lay. Strike that. A mundane term like “great lay” didn’t do this lady justice. She was light-years above and beyond anything he’d ever experienced, and he was a fairly experienced guy. He wasn’t King Stud, but he’d had his share of very nice sexual experiences, a great many of them certainly falling in the “great lay” category. And none of those women, not one, was fit to carry Giselle’s garters. She was ecstasy incarnate. Transcendence. Bliss. She could give you those things. Her body could take you to places beyond sensation, beyond orgasm, a place within the body, to the root of the pleasure centers deep in the muck of brain matter. And she could manipulate them with a precision a neurosurgeon would kill for.
Yes, she could do this.
He knew.
She had done it to him.
He was effectively enslaved to her now. There was no more need for ropes and discipline. He could never leave her, would never think of it, not now that he knew what she could do to him. He accepted this as fact and chose not to expend any energy struggling against it.
She owned him.
End of story.
But knowing that did not erase some very grim facts.
Giselle was a killer. A vicious killer.
And she was a sadist.
Bad things. He didn’t approve of any of the fucked-up shit she had done, let there be no mistake about that. Still, he’d surrendered his immortal soul to her. His immortal fucking soul, ladies and gentlemen, and you know what?
He’d do it all over again.
Without blinking a goddamn eye.
Which was why this act of resistance was so momentous a mental struggle. There was only one thing so awe-inspiring in its power that it rivaled the hold Giselle had over him, and that was The Master, a creature he’d bet the house on in a no-holds-barred death match against Satan and all his hellspawn.
“No escape?” Eddie threw up his hands. “So we’re just fucked, right?”
“No.”
“No?” he repeated.
Well, at least she said it with conviction.
“Let me tell you some things, lover.” She patted the seat next to her. “Have a seat.”
Eddie opened his mouth, but no words came out. Getting next to her was dangerous. Proximity would weaken his ability to argue. But he had no choice. It was a command, not a request. He sat down, gulped as he watched her legs uncross, and shivered when she propped an ankle on his knee. His strong hands went immediately to her foot, and his thumbs began to gently massage the soft pad of her sole.
Eddie sighed.
That’s it, he thought, it’s over, I’m screwed.
She made a sound of pleasure. “Mmm, that’s nice. When I’m done telling you what I need to tell you, we’ll make love again. Won’t that be nice?”
Eddie gulped.
It was another statement of fact. No need to comment.
She exhaled a final stream of smoke, stubbed out her cigarette, and stared at him with an expression of serene confidence. “Some things I can show you, Eddie. You can see with your own eyes some of the things I know, some of the things I can do. The power of ritual. The power of magic.”
Eddie recalled his vision of the bloody sliver of excised flesh disappearing down her throat, and he shuddered.
Giselle smiled. Her gaze drifted to the ceiling. She appeared to be looking beyond the speckled white surface, at something, or some place, far away. She looked stoned. There was a good reason for that-she was stoned. Eddie realized he was a little buzzed himself. Shit, it had to be that stuff they’d been smoking. He felt light-headed, not quite himself, but it wasn’t like a ganja high. He didn’t feel… fucked up. This was the opposite of that. It was a real high, in the purest sense, an elevation, an expansion of the senses. This was what proponents of lysergic acid were always claiming as the drug’s great miracle, but Eddie had done acid a time or two when he was younger, and he knew that was a bunch of shit.
Acid wigged him out, made him doubt his sanity.
This stuff…
Jesus, this shit made him … see.
He reached for the unlit cigarette in the ashtray, but Giselle deflected his hand. “No more. Any more will be too much. It’s still working its way into your system.”
“What is it?”
“It’s not important.” Her foot slipped out of Eddie’s grasp, insinuated itself along an inner thigh. “Just close your eyes and listen to me.”
Eddie did as she bade, leaning back in the chair and shuddering at the enhanced physical sensation of her foot on his bare flesh. Something surprising occurred to him. He wasn’t aroused. He should be. His cock should be straining toward her even now, but it was not. Then he realized she was regulating his physical response. She wanted him attentive. Focused on her words instead of her body.
So he listened to her.
And she said, “There are many things you will have to take my word for, things I can’t show you in the physical world. There are other planes, Eddie, and I’m not talking about the kind that fly. I’m talking about other levels of existence. Places inhabited by beings beyond man’s comprehension. Gods, Eddie. Immortals. Yes, they do exist. Notice my emphasis on the plural form. When you understand, Eddie, when you see, the idea of one great, omniscient God will make you laugh. These gods do wield some influence on events in our world, the one beyond this tainted place, but mostly they stay out of human affairs. These beings are powerful, more powerful by far than The Master, who is not a god, and who is not immortal.
“You need to know this about The Master-he is flesh and blood. As such, he is vulnerable. He has always been vulnerable, Eddie, but because he is powerful, and because he is careful, no one has ever been able to exploit that vulnerability. We will be the first. And the last. We will kill him.”
The conviction in her voice riveted Eddie.
The drug, this odd elixir that invigorated the mind and senses, made him believe it.
She said, “I have communed with the gods, Eddie. Even some of his gods. Not in the metaphorical way humans ‘talk’ to God. I have had exchanges with them. They have told me things, shown me things, all the sweetest wonders of existence, as well as its darkest terrors. They have shown me the truth about The Master. They’ve shown me how to kill him.”
Eddie’s heart rejoiced.
Yes!
He can be killed!
