His eyes narrowed. “Have you-“
“Yes. Now shut up. We’re here.”
“Huh? Where?”
Despite the horror he felt at the injustices heaped upon Cindy and the other women of Below, the women in their bondage gear were shamefully compelling. He had to force his gaze away from them to see what Cindy meant.
“The Outpost, Chad.” She smirked. “Which you would’ve known if you weren’t like every other man on the planet.”
A sign less than twenty feet from where he was standing read:
THE OUTPOST
OVERLORDS AND EMANCIPATEDS WELCOME. SLAVES AND OTHER SCUM STAY OUT!
The message troubled Chad.”! thought you said-“
“I remember what I fucking said, maggot.” She twisted a handful of his hair, eliciting a high-pitched yelp. “And you better remember to keep your slave mouth shut.”
She leaned in close and spoke in a whisper. “Now we’re back to keeping up appearances. This is important, Chad. Life-and-death-level important. Don’t talk again until invited to do so.” She spun around, relinquishing her grip on his hair. “Follow me.”
Chad followed her through a pair of bat-wing doors.
Smoky jazz music emanated from a hidden sound system. The mellow tones meshed perfectly with an atmosphere of languor. The dozen or so patrons present sat slumped over beer steins and whiskey glasses at booths and tables. The dining area was small, but the bar was surprisingly wellstocked for an establishment that redefined the phrase “out of the way.” Tendrils of sweet-smelling smoke plumed in the air. The aroma was vaguely reminiscent of marijuana, but Chad was sure that wasn’t it, though the handrolled cigarettes pinched between the fingers of at least half the customers did resemble joints.
Heads turned with slow indifference as Cindy led the way to the bar. A balding bartender with rolled-up sleeves over beefy arms planted meaty hands on the bar and glowered. “His kind’s not welcome here. There’s a big damn sign outside that makes that pretty clear. You blind?”
Cindy leaned over the bar. “I’m here to see Lazarus.”
The bartender’s expression changed subtly, a flicker of suspicion in his eyes. “He ain’t here.”
Cindy ignored the denial. “Tell him ‘the girl has returned.’”
The bartender’s demeanor did an about-face. “I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared through a door next to the rows of liquor bottles.
Chad’s brow furrowed.
He again experienced the frustration of not being privy to crucial information. He ached to ask Cindy what was going on, went so far as to open his mouth, but she silenced him with an angry glare. Chad fidgeted, barely able to contain his curiosity-luckily, the bartender returned less than a minute later to usher them through the rear door.
They entered a room smaller even than the dining area outside. A pair of booths lined the rear wall. A single table occupied the center of the room. A lone man sat at the table with his back to them. A black kitten with yellow eyes leapt off the table and ran out of the room-Chad felt the animal pass between his legs. The bartender left them without another word, closing the door behind them. Cindy circled the table, pulled out a chair opposite the man Chad assumed was “Lazarus,” and beckoned Chad to sit at the only other chair.
Chad sat.
Cindy started talking. “It’s almost time. Everything’s in place.”
The man inhaled from a handrolled cigarette, smiled thinly, and released a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke. “Excellent. May I say that your bravery is inspiring.”
Cindy blushed.
Chad couldn’t believe it. Cindy blushing?
“I only did what had to be done.”
“Nonsense.” The man toked again. “Your valor is truly humbling.”
The man’s unwashed hair hung to his shoulders. It was brown but heavily flecked with gray. His eyes were bloodshot, but they nonetheless sparkled with a keen intelligence. His body evinced the telltale signs of decades of hard living-a pale complexion, a red nose mapped with traceries of broken veins, and a gut. A whiskey glass and a nearly empty bottle of gin sat next to his ashtray. There was an aura of sadness about him, something awful in his past-something that predated his time Below.
“And it is an honor to meet you.”
Chad was studying the man’s face so intently he didn’t initially realize this latest statement was directed at him-but the man was looking right at him.
He blinked. “Say again?”
The man laughed. There was something familiar about the sound. Hauntingly familiar. “We’ve waited a long time for you.”
Something in the set of the man’s features triggered a nagging association, a mental puzzle he couldn’t set aside. The man reminded him of someone. A deepening frown creased his face as he minutely examined every facet of the other man’s visage. The mouth. The nose. The eyes. The cheekbones. He’d never looked so closely at another man’s face before. It was so familiar, like the face of an old friend you haven’t seen in too many years. And there was that voice, so distinctive, a rich whiskey-soaked baritone. Chad’s mouth opened in a gape as suspicion quickly morphed into absolute certainty.
“Oh my God.”
Now the man whose name wasn’t really “Lazarus” was frowning.
A helpless, humorless laugh sputtered out of Chad’s mouth. “This can’t be. You’re supposed to be dead.”
He knew the man’s name. His real name.
The man knew that he knew. Chad could see it in his eyes. Those riveting eyes he’d seen in so many film clips from VH1 specials and documentaries. Penetrating, playful, and mournful.
Eyes set in a frown.
The man sighed. “The person I was is dead, Chad. In a figurative sense.” Another pensive drag from the cigarette followed this grudging admission. “The body lives on, yes, but that person, the personality, the myth …” He flashed that same sad, thin smile again. “That… persona … has rightfully been consigned to the ash heap of history”
Chad was astounded. “So you say. But you have no idea, man. No idea. You haven’t been forgotten.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know how I feel about that. What I do know is what I am now is much more important than what I was…” He indicated some nebulous place above them with a forefinger. “… up there. …”
“Why do you say that?”
The old singer smiled. “Here I can really help people be free. It is my calling. My true role in life. What I was born for, Chad.”
“Wait.”
Chad’s eyes widened in shock. “How do you know my name?” He darted a glance at Cindy, who wasn’t looking at him, but he was sure she knew far more about this man than she’d let on. “Jesus Christ. It just hit me. We were never introduced. You can’t know my fucking name.”
The man’s posture changed. Chad saw his eyes charge with excitement. “But I do, Chad.” He leaned over the table. “There are things you need to know, friend. You have no idea how important you are.”
Chad shivered at the singer’s words. He reached for the whiskey bottle. He said, “I need this more than you right now.” He drank straight from the bottle. And a long morning of revelations and whiskey-fueled lamentations began in earnest.
Giselle’s progress through the passageways behind the walls of The Master’s estate was slow and deliberate. The time for the uprising Below was nearly at hand, and she wanted to get a sense of the structure’s temporal stability. The house was more than an assemblage of stone and mortar. It existed simultaneously on the physical
