The notion was at once thrilling and frightening. She was in what she had to assume was the rare position of being courted by this creature. The thing wanted her to join him here, to become a willing part of his insane world, which likely was the only reason something dreadful hadn’t happened to her yet.
The line of thought again made her think of Karen and Alicia. She suspected she couldn’t help them if they were in trouble, but she nonetheless felt compelled to ask after them. “Ed, I want to ask you a question, and I hope you respect me enough to give an honest answer.”
She saw his gaze retreat from the middle distance and flicker with curiosity. “Like is the mildest of words for what I feel for you, Dream.” He smiled. “I think it might be something much more.”
She arched her eyebrow again. “You think you love me, Ed?” King’s claim was startling, and it derailed the other line of inquiry. “You can’t be serious. You only met me last night. And I’m not… like you.”
He sighed deeply.
Dream couldn’t imagine a more weary sound.
And he really did look tired. She examined him closer. His eyes. The set of his features. His posture. She was sure what she was seeing wasn’t as simple as physical exhaustion. His eyes reflected a weariness of the soul. The perception supported her suspicion about his state of mind. She experienced a frisson of recognition, the opening of a previously closed door in her mind.
It felt like precognition.
King looked away from her. “No, Dream, you’re not like me. You won’t live for a thousand years. You won’t see empires rise and fall. Imagine it, Dream. A life so long you’ve experienced everything there is to experience many times over. Except, of course, love.” The haunted quality in his voice made her shudder. “You want honesty, Dream? Here’s honesty. I kill. It’s what I do. It’s my purpose. I can’t change that, nor do I wish to. As long as I inhabit this world, I will continue to do what I do.” He sighed again. “I may have killed you last night had our time together not been so transcendent. Now I know what a waste that would be. What a travesty:”
Dream shivered. “So my fate’s not still up in the air, Ed?”
King’s gaze came back to her. “I will not kill you.”
Dream held his gaze. “I’m not afraid to die, Ed. Do you know that?”
He studied her for a moment, holding his head at an angle. “I sense it, yes. I suppose it may be one of the reasons I find you so … compelling.”
He pushed away from the railing, came to the wicker chair, and knelt before her. He took her left hand in his, turned it so the wrist was facing out, and traced the little white scars with the tip of a forefinger. Dream shuddered at his touch, which possessed the maddening ability to turn the scars into a new erogenous zone. “Your willing flirtation with your own demise touches me. I don’t believe suicide is the act of cowardice so many of your kind proclaim it to be. It bespeaks a rare bravery, an unflinching zeal to know the bliss that lies beyond this decaying world.”
It bespeaks a bunch of self-justifying mumbo jumbo, Dream thought.
As she should well know, since she’d expressed similar thoughts to a long succession of therapists, albeit not quite as poetically. She was smart enough to know when a man was preying upon her weaknesses. It was the creepy, devious, underhanded tactic of a raving asshole, but damned if it wasn’t effective.
It was exactly what she’d always wanted to hear.
Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Her shoulders shook.
His arms encircled her and she sobbed on his shoulder for several minutes. The embrace felt good, natural, comforting-the safest place in the world to be. The insanity of the notion-safe in the arms of a monster?-was irrelevant. For the time being, there was nowhere else she wanted to be.
When the sobs finally began to ebb, she reluctantly broke the embrace. “I’m sorry!” Her voice was subdued. “That happens to me a lot. It’s like I have no fucking self-control.” She sniffled. “It’s embarrassing.”
King’s expression was solemn. “You’re beautiful, Dream. Everything about you is beautiful. Even your anguish, which is only the product of your wounded heart.”
That was laying it on a little thick, but she let it pass. “You said something about the ‘bliss beyond this world.’ Were you talking about…” She hesitated. The notion sounded silly even in her mind, but she weighed that against everything else she’d experienced and plunged ahead.”… an afterlife?”
He nodded. “I was.”
She swallowed hard. “What’s it like? Do you know?”
That faraway look stole back into his eyes for a moment. Something about the question troubled him. But his expression sharpened and the perception went away. “I have some sense of it, Dream. I know this. When you get there, assuming you get to the right place, you will be at peace. You won’t hurt anymore. You will actually feel exalted, removed forever from the troubles you once knew.” A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “It’s certainly something to look forward to.”
She frowned. “But what about hell? Don’t the bad people go to someplace bad?”
He showed her his solemn expression again. “Depends. Humans, for instance, can wind up dwelling within any number of the infinite planes when their physical bodies die. Some of these are pleasant places. Some of them are akin to what you think of as ‘hell.’”
Dream’s lips were pursed. “So … what about… things like you? Do you have more control over where you wind up than humans? Or are you even mortal?”
That troubled look flashed and disappeared again. Something was definitely bothering him. “I do, Dream. And I am mortal. My gods have protected me for centuries, and I have served them well. They are the death spirits, the most powerful of all gods. When I die, my ascendance to paradise will be assured.”
Paradise, Dream thought.
What a lovely word.
At once corny and rich with the promise of a better place.
She put a hand around King’s neck, stroked the edge of his jaw with a thumb. “I can never be your queen here, Ed. I can’t condone murder. Or sadism. You say you won’t kill me, but you’ll have to if we stay here.”
King frowned. “We?”
The idea coming together in Dream’s head disturbed her on many levels, but it seemed fitting in a way that was final and unquestionable. “Yes, Ed. We. I won’t help you hurt people, nor will I be content to stand by while you do it.” She drew in a deep breath, steeling herself for the leap she was about to make. “But I would love to be with you forever in that other place.”
His face expressed a wide range of emotions in a few seconds. Surprise, anger, stupefaction, perhaps even fear. “Dream-“
She cut him off. “That’s the only way we can be together, Ed. You implied you were in love with me.” She wasn’t sure she believed him, not knowing what she knew about him, but she had to go with it. “If you were telling the truth, you’ll do this with me.”
He didn’t say anything, just stared at her.
She pressed him. “You need to do this, Ed. We both do. You know it.”
He relented. “Yes.” But there was doubt in his eyes. “I…”
“Ed? What is it?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
Her hand went to the sash of her robe again. “Do you love me, Ed?”
He watched her part the flaps of the robe, exposing her sun-bronzed body. Something in him seemed to break. Suddenly he wasn’t resisting anymore. He just nodded. She stood up and slipped out of the robe.
She took King by the hand and led him to the railing.
She leaned against it.
Turned her head to the sky and saw an eagle soar over her.
King came to her without hesitation.
Chad awoke with a throbbing headache. No surprise there, given that he’d consumed copious amounts of cheap bourbon and sundry other forms of alcoholic potions. He’d also smoked a bit of the old singer’s faux-ganja. The stuff had a weird kick that was different from anything in his limited drug experience. Lazarus claimed the herb was called Trance and that it grew naturally in the area affected by The Master’s influence. Slaves supervised by
