she listened to his tale of woe.
After babbling for what seemed like a day or so, Eddie concluded with, “So, if you could get me to the nearest hotel, I would be forever in your debt.” He fumbled for his wallet. “I could pay you a generous-“
The woman’s expression didn’t change as she said, “Get in.”
Eddie thought there was something strange about her, but he’d been in no position to hesitate or question why she was so willing to pick up a total stranger. She told him only that she would take him to her employer’s house, where he could use a phone.
“A hotel would be better,” he’d said.
To which she hadn’t replied.
He was happy to no longer be stranded, so he didn’t press the matter.
And so it was that he’d arrived at the house he was once again in. An unassuming two-story abode that sat hunched against an East Tennessee mountain. He was too tired to be disturbed by its utter isolation. He wouldn’t know it for a few more hours yet, but his life as a free man had come to an end the moment the front door swung shut. There had been times since when he’d thought this season in hell would never end, but maybe there was hope after all.
So get moving, he thought.
He padded slowly through the kitchen on his bare feet. He stopped at the island to extract a long carving knife from a wooden block. The knife would provide precious little defense against The Master himself, but just being armed at all made him feel a little better.
A few more quiet, shuffling steps and he was out of the kitchen. He peered around a corner into a hallway. To his left, at the far end of the hallway, was the closed front door of the house. He willed himself to resist the impulse to immediately dash in that direction. He had to be patient, had to make sure no one was watching. To his immediate right was a staircase that led to a series of bedrooms and The Master’s chambers.
The devil’s playground.
The memory of his one night ensconced in one of the second-floor rooms made him shiver-a return trip to that place would be nearly as bad as a return Below.
He shuffled past the staircase and peered around another corner. He saw a plushly decorated living room with opposing sofas, a coffee table, bookshelves, and a bar. Eddie remembered this room, too-it was where The Master entertained “guests.” He heard a low murmur of voices issuing from the far end of the room.
Two male voices.
Eddie sucked in a breath.
One of them—
The Master.
The timbre of that hated voice was unmistakable.
Eddie edged away from the corner and stood staring at the closed front door, wondering if he should make a run for it now or spend more precious time looking for an alternate way out. He was smart enough to know the latter choice was the only sensible one, but something primal in him rebelled against the notion of spending even one extra moment in this house of horrors.
Gotta get out, he thought.
Eddie trembled and took a shaky step toward the door. His heart racing, he took another step. And another. He kept expecting The Master to suddenly appear before him, all imposing six-feet-plus of him, leering at Eddie like a raincoat-wearing pervert as he closed in for a quick kill. Or perhaps he would toy with Eddie the way a cat does with a trapped mouse. The latter seemed far more likely.
He took another careful step.
Then froze.
Shit!
He heard a muffled jangle of keys from the other side of the door. His breath caught in his throat as he watched the knob begin to turn. It was the bitch, returning with yet another new fly caught in The Master’s web. The sadistic “housekeeper.” Ms. Wickman, she was called, but Eddie had come to think of her as “lisa of the Manor.” She wasn’t quite as voluptuous and strangely alluring as Dyanne Thome, that cinematic icon of bondage and discipline, but this woman was the real thing, the personal overseer of the methodical torture administered to The Master’s newly arrived guests.
There wasn’t anyone he feared as much as The Master.
But one person came close.
lisa of the motherfucking Manor.
Without thinking about what he was doing-there wasn’t time for thought-Eddie turned and raced up the stairs. When he remembered where he was going and the horrors that awaited him, he had to suppress a scream. An impulse to turn around and go back flashed through him, but he dismissed it as the closed option it had obviously become. He reached the second-floor landing, looked down the long, empty hallway he’d entered, and trembled. There were rooms here that resembled normal bedrooms, but they were all equipped with cleverly concealed implements of the sort favored by sophisticated sadists everywhere. Other rooms, usually locked to prevent premature entrance by new arrivals, were full-scale torture chambers.
Eddie performed a speedy analysis of his current situation and decided death at his own hands might be the best option all around. He looked at the carving knife and tried to imagine piercing his own flesh with it. But not his wrists, of course. Too slow a way to get the job done. He’d have to slash his own throat.
He grimaced at the image.
Aw, fuck it.
The door downstairs opened, and he heard his suspicions confirmed. Ms. Wickman had an accent that was vaguely British, like the way an expatriate Brit might sound after decades of living in the United States. Then there was another voice, a refined southern gentleman’s voice.
Some unfortunate old duffer who had no idea how dire his circumstances really were.
Eddie, unfortunately, was in no position to warn him.
He made himself focus on the content of their conversation. There was something about The Master being busy at the moment. In the meantime, the bitch said, she could show him to his room. There came a creak of old wood as the two began ascending the staircase.
The knife almost slipped from Eddie’s hand. He was shaking again. He clenched his hand tighter around the handle and willed the tremors still as he backed down the hallway. He was scared shitless. There was no way out, no obvious escape route available, but perhaps he could find a place to hide. He tried the knobs of the doors as he passed them, finding each one locked until his hand closed around one that yielded about midway down the hallway. He rushed into the room, then pushed the door quickly but gently shut. He turned the lock and backed into the room.
He turned away from the door and gasped at the sight of a girl emerging from the bathroom. She saw him a second later and opened her mouth wide. Eddie braced for the scream that would bring death running, but a low, susurring sound emanated from that open cavity. Eddie stared at her for a moment, his face a study in perplexity. Then it dawned on him-she was mute. She was also young, maybe fifteen or sixteen, with long black hair and porcelain skin. She was wearing a long dress made of velvet that exposed small, ghostly shoulders, and there was a scarlet choker around her thin throat. A tiny black kitten purred in her embrace even as it glared at Eddie.
She was the most beautiful thing Eddie had ever seen.
But he wasn’t so startled by her beauty that his self-preservation instincts were swept away. She was clearly one of The Master’s kept women. A Mistress (in the dispenser-of-pain-and-discipline sense of the word). She was beginning to edge back toward the open bathroom door. Eddie closed the gap between them before she could slip away, clamped a fistful of glistening black hair with one hand, and used the other to lay the blade of the knife against her throat. The kitten dropped to the floor.
His mouth pressed against her ear. “Listen to me, girl,” he whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you. I know I probably look like a maniac, but that’s only because I’ve had a really bad day.” More like a really bad six months, but who was counting? “Help me hide and we won’t have any problems.”
She struggled in his grip, and he wound his hand tighter in her hair, eliciting a small cry of pain. He felt bad about it, but he didn’t really have a choice. “Christ, what’s wrong with you?” His voice was a more insistent whisper. “I’m the one with the knife, little missy, so knock it off.”
