“He is the last of his race, Eddie, and I know some things about his kind even he does not. They did not originate on this world. His ancient ancestors came here in a ship. A disabled vessel. It crashed on our planet. Only a few of them survived. The Master was born here, birthed by an alien mother. She died when he was young, and the others dispersed about the planet, using their unique abilities to blend in with the primitive peoples that inhabited our world then.
“They lived as Gods, became kings and idols, and some of them became dictators, the worst despots the world has ever known. Our Master could have followed in their footsteps, but he chose a different path. He was exceptionally gifted even for his kind, and he chose to use his rare abilities to create a different kind of kingdom, to exist beyond the prying eyes of the modern world. I’ll tell you something astonishing, Eddie. This place, this corrupted terrain, is but the latest in a series of kingdoms. He builds them, fills them with wayward souls, then, eventually, he crushes them and moves on. That will not happen here, Eddie.”
Eddie shivered. His eyes remained closed. “The gods told you that?”
“They showed me how to stop him. He is weak, Eddie.” She laughed, a wicked, conspiratorial sound that thrilled him. “He, too, communes with the gods, but do you want to know a secret? The gods don’t like him.” Laughter pealed out of her now, melodic, intoxicating. “His gods are the death spirits. Parasites that feed off suffering. Powerful spirits. They know he is weakening. They laugh at his offerings, his pitiful attempts to appease them, these laughable sacrifices.”
Eddie laughed.
To think that he’d never seen it that way-that sacrifice was laughable!
It was amazing!
He laughed at the idea of killing people to make gods happy.
What an absurd concept!
Giselle said, “He doesn’t understand the true power of ritual, of symbol. The tongue I ate was a symbol, Eddie. The gods appreciate that. I honor them in ways that appeal to their sense of humor. Have you ever heard a god laugh, Eddie? It’s the most wondrous sound. …”
Eddie tried to imagine it.
He was almost there, could almost hear it-with the aid of this amazing drug-but the sound remained just beyond the range of perception. …
“The Master knows he is a mortal being. He has lived a long time, and he knows his time on this plane grows short. I’ll tell you something else, something to make your heart palpitate, Eddie. His power, while still great, has greatly diminished.”
Eddie swallowed hard. “It has?”
Her foot slid away from him and she stood up. “It has.” She took his hand. “Open your eyes, Eddie.”
His eyes fluttered open. He stared up at her, slackjawed, his heart thrumming in his chest like a high-tension wire. God, this drug, it was amazing, it did the impossible-it made Giselle seem even more beautiful, even more desirable. She guided him toward the bed, and he numbly followed, sliding beneath the rumpled covers with her.
She curled her body around him. “We’re going to kill him, Eddie.”
Eddie felt a tingle of the old fear, but it was an echo, a remembrance of something that no longer existed. He would do Giselle’s bidding. That had been clear all along, but now he was truly at peace with it. “I know,” he rasped.
She kissed his neck. “It’s why you’re here, Eddie.”
He breathed heavily. “I know,” he repeated.
“Remember, Eddie,” she said, and briefly took the lobe of an ear between her teeth. “Symbol. Ritual. I can’t tell you everything now.” Her tongue traced the edge of his jaw, dipped briefly into his mouth, and retreated. “But know this, Eddie, it will all become clear to you soon. When the moment comes, it will all be perfect, and you will see. You will understand.”
I hope so, he thought.
“You will,” she said.
Eddie looked at her and shivered.
It was a reminder, he realized.
She owned him, mind, body, and soul, and she could see his thoughts as clearly as if they were printed on his forehead.
She smiled.
“Relax, Eddie, let it all go for a while.”
Eddie stared at her beautiful face and tried to do what she said.
Her smile turned salacious. “Would you like me to tie you to the bed again, Eddie?”
Eddie gulped.
Shivered.
And said, “Yes.”
Karen turned out the lamp on the nightstand next to the bed, snuggled up under the plush comforter, and tried not to think about Shane. It was impossible. There in the darkness, with the shadowy outlines of unfamiliar furniture lurking like dream phantoms, she found herself unable to think of anything else. The darkness was suffocating, a dark cloak drawn taut over her head. Helpless to stop it, her mind went back several hours, brought back the claustrophobic feeling of stumbling blindly through invisible trees. Dark and forbidding, these woods were full of hidden rocks and branches that snapped at your face an instant before you saw them. She staggered and fell, got up, and kept going, moving with relentless, heedless drive in the general direction of the scream they’d heard from the road. The terror, the most undiluted, all-encompassing burst of emotion she’d ever experienced, was more than she should have been able to bear. But she was undaunted, motivated by guilt, by the need to rescue the lover she’d betrayed.
The echo of Chad’s voice taunted her: “I fucked your girlfriend, Shane.”
Asshole.
What a rotten son of a bitch.
Chad’s revelation, so cruelly delivered, was an unforgivable offense. Boorish in the extreme. But he’d only been the messenger. She had only herself to blame for her transgressions. The worst of it was that the regular trysts with Chad hadn’t constituted an isolated phenomenon. There had been many other lovers. It shamed her. She wanted to know the serene joy of pure love, an ideal relationship, the one so fulfilling in every way it would erase at last her inability to be monogamous. She’d had such hopes for Shane, had even fleetingly believed he was The One. The one who would match her carnal intensity, finally freeing her to mature into a responsible, faithful lover.
But now she would never know.
Her eyes filled with fresh tears. Guilt welled within her like a balloon ready to pop, and her heart ached with loss. She thought of Dream, then, and remembered that awful night Alicia’s shaky voice on the phone had summoned her to the emergency room. The sight of her friend’s wan, drugged countenance in that ER room haunted her for months. Life was so fucking unfair. Dream was a sweet, funny, beautiful girl, and the depression that crippled her was so cruel. A lot of people cared about Dream, even loved her, but she didn’t give much of a damn about herself.
It had mystified Karen.
Even angered and scared her.
Now, however, she thought she knew what it was like to be Dream, to dwell in a place where fear and unmitigated anguish held sway. A dark, echoing, empty chamber of the heart, a lonely place where no one else could ever venture. Her friend inhabited this lonely realm full time. It felt at once alien and welcoming.
She couldn’t sleep. Not at first. She tossed in the bed, curling into a ball first on her left side, then her right side. She turned onto her stomach, clutching the pillows like a lover. That was no good. Too many heartrending connotations. So she turned onto her back again and stared at the velvet expanse of the four-poster bed’s canopy. She thought her mind would never rest enough to grant her the temporary peace of unconsciousness. But sleep came the way it always did, stealing in slowly, stealthily, displacing consciousness before she knew it was gone.
And then the dreams came.
Shane was alive in the dreams. And then he wasn’t. He was an ambulatory corpse, a wounded, shambling
