EPILOGUE
The Master’s death brought about the return of the true house, stripping away the layers of illusion to reveal an old, modestly-sized dwelling in an advanced stage of disrepair. The dimensions of the house appeared to contract, but the impression of shrinkage was yet another illusion-the structure’s drastically reduced size was just the restoration of reality. Evidence of the vanquished power was manifested in other ways, some subtle, some obvious, like the shapeshifters, who’d only been humans artificially endowed with the trappings of lycanthropy-they reverted to human form now, including the few that hadn’t perished in the tunnel massacre.
The banished people of Below returned to the surface world in a steady stream throughout the night. News of The Master’s demise elicited smiles and cheers, and some of the refugees from that netherworld sought a degree of vengeance by taking their anger out on the handful of apprentices who’d managed to avoid being machine-gunned in the second-floor hallway. By dawn of the next day, the remaining apprentices were all dead, victims of rough justice. Most of them were lynched-their bodies dangled from tree limbs, twisting in the sturdy morning breeze.
Chad didn’t participate in the reprisals.
But he made no effort to halt them.
The apprentices were sociopathic monsters masquerading as real humans-the continued functioning of their lungs was only a waste of perfectly good oxygen.
Let ‘em twist.
He supposed he might even have helped string a few of them up had he not been so completely focused on Dream. He allowed her to cry in his arms for a long time following The Master’s death. She felt so fragile in his arms, like a bird with a broken wing, and all he cared about anymore was taking care of her. He vowed to become the kind of friend she’d always needed. Perhaps, eventually, he could be more than that to her, but, for now, that was all that mattered.
Being a friend.
And seeing her through this season in hell.
Dream didn’t want to ever leave his embrace. She clung to him the way a drowning woman would cling to a piece of driftwood. Desperately. Gripping him by the shoulders so tight that her fingers felt welded to his flesh. As if she were trying to merge with his flesh, become one with him, to seek some ultimate solace in his new strength. Because he was a changed man.
That so complete a transformation could have occurred over a twenty-four-hour period was nothing short of astonishing.
A miracle.
It was like the old Chad, the one she remembered from high school, had been magically restored to her. But this transformation was nothing as simple as that. He was different now. More compassionate. More empathetic. She didn’t need him to tell her these things, to claim that he’d changed, and she didn’t even need the current demonstration of concern.
She could feel the change in him.
She could reach into him and touch it.
The realization was only a momentary surprise. The strange, unknowable creature that had ruled this place had been a master weaver of illusions, but the power that created those illusions had been very real. And he’d told her the truth about her own abilities; they were vibrant within her even now, stirring to life, becoming stronger, striving to become something … new.
Dream meant to develop these abilities.
And use them in a positive way.
She owed that much to Alicia-and to the memory of her other dead friends. A morning search of the second- floor rooms had a revealed a number of shocking, repulsive things, so many it was almost possible to become inured to depravity. But just a glance inside the room where her friends had died had been enough to repudiate that notion. The image of Karen’s decapitated head on a tray was awful enough, but the thing she found most disturbing was the way Alicia had died.
At her own hand.
With Shane’s Glock.
The way she herself had intended to die so recently. The stark, irrevocable fact of Alicia’s suicide repulsed Dream, offended something primal within her. A vital, compassionate woman-a force for good-had been removed from the world, and she would never return. Could never return. It wasn’t right. It should never have happened, and there was no way to change it. It made Dream feel useless. Powerless. And perhaps even a little angry at a friend who now would never have a chance to fulfill her life’s rich promise. The frustration Dream felt was so intense, she sensed she was experiencing what she would later see as a watershed psychological event in her life.
She would be a long time overcoming her grief-perhaps would never overcome so deep a reservoir of loss and regret-but she doubted she would ever entertain suicidal thoughts again.
She had survived.
She had Chad.
And a new sense of purpose-to do good, to make the world a better place.
Those things had to count for something.
As the morning deepened and the sun rose higher in the sky, the people of Below, the former banished people, began the long trek down the mountain. An exultant Lazarus led the way, and he sang to the heavens in his rich baritone, a glorious, soulful sound, a bluesy cry to the angels.
A victory cry.
Hearing it made Chad shiver.
It was the sound of freedom.
Of limitless possibilities.
Arm in arm with Dream, he followed the old singer down the mountain.
He caught the eye of a bandaged and groggy Jack Paradise, who was being supported by the able Wanda Lewis, aka “Wicked Wanda.”
“What do you think happened to that girl, the mute?”
The ex-soldier shrugged, winced. “Fucked if I know. I would like to have gotten my hands on her, though- bitch did a number on me when I first came here.”
A number of the formerly banished people had less-than-fond memories of the mute Mistress, who’d disappeared with the man whose appearance The Master had mimicked during the last day of his life. But a thorough search of the house and environs revealed nary a trace of her. It was as if she’d vanished into thin air.
Just like that other woman …
Somewhere in the Midwest, a black Bentley rolled through the chilly night. A woman in dark sunglasses was at the wheel. A nervous hitchhiker, a teenage girl, sat in the front passenger seat, fidgeting, growing more concerned. The creepy old chick at the wheel had barely acknowledged her presence since picking her up, and now they’d passed the place where she’d asked to be dropped off.
But she was afraid to say anything about it.
There was something … not right… about the woman.
She was smartly dressed in a black business suit. A subtle string of white pearls glittered at her neck, and her dark hair was pulled back in a bun. She looked as if she should be the headmistress at an exclusive, ivy-covered prep school for girls. The hitchhiker imagined being summoned to the woman’s office for, oh, talking in class.
She could see the woman striking her hands with a ruler.
Or worse.
The hitchhiker shuddered.
And prayed the woman would let her out soon.
But the Bentley rolled on.
And the night grew colder.
BRYAN SMITH’S mind became warped at an early age by afternoon Creature Feature shows. Later on, the
