Completely.
She closed her eyes in the darkness and thought of a time when she’d done heroic things. Memories that were bittersweet now, but no less true than the memories of horror. When the tears came again, they were the soft, noiseless tears of a black-clad mourner at the grave site of a long-estranged former lover or friend.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The room was enormous, a large, open space big enough to encompass some of the smaller rural homes Allyson had seen on the way to this place. A portion of it functioned as a library and den. At the far end was a living space, with a canopied four-poster bed, wardrobe, and vanity.
A man in a black uniform stood in the center of the room, hands upraised, lean body in a stiff pose of surrender. Allyson tightened her grip on the M-16 as they moved deeper into the room. Something about the atmosphere here didn’t seem right. It was warm. And yet she felt a bone-deep chill. She shivered slightly as they advanced on the man who looked to be all that was left of the pathetic security force they had just vanquished.
The man was smiling as they neared. There was something unsettling in the man’s steady gaze. His dark eyes were the cold, unblinking eyes of a lizard. Allyson, seized by the absurd notion that he would have a forked tongue, suddenly didn’t want him to open his mouth. She imagined that tongue flicking out between teeth too sharp and too white, the only sound emerging from his mouth a low, sibilant hiss.
The image was so vivid she drew in a startled intake of breath when he opened his mouth to say, “Welcome, honored representatives of the Order of the Dragon.”
He bowed slightly at the waist as he said this.
Bai bowed in return and said, “I am Bai, designated by the Order to retrieve Giselle Burkhardt from your custody. And are you Schreck?”
The man in black straightened and nodded. “I am.”
Bai sheathed her sword. “At ease, then.”
The man called Schreck lowered his hands with deliberate slowness, as if he did not yet trust that he was safe in their presence. He looked at Allyson, then, a glance so quick she almost missed it, and her sense of unease deepened. It wasn’t just that oily, insincere smile that bothered her. She thought she’d detected something in that glance, something inscrutable directed at her. But that was crazy. And paranoid. She’d never met this man before, had no knowledge of him prior to walking into this room.
Then he spoke again, a comment directed at Bai.
“Shall we finish our business now?”
Allyson frowned.
There was something familiar in the timbre of his voice, a faintly insinuating and mocking quality. She had heard this voice before, she was sure of it, but the connection eluded her as, for some unfathomable reason, Schreck and Bai approached a drab and blank expanse of wall opposite the big bed. Schreck leaned close to Bai and said something she couldn’ t make out, a mumbled whisper. Then Bai nodded and extended a hand to the wall. Her forefinger described a vague shape on the wall. It might have been a door. She spoke in a whisper and Allyson moved a step closer, straining to hear. The words became slightly more distinct, but Bai was speaking an Asiatic language, so the meaning remained elusive.
She turned and looked at Chad, who was staring past her at the far end of the room. She followed his gaze to an open set of French doors. Beyond the doors was a balcony. And on the balcony, their backs turned to the people in the room as they leaned against the railing, were two people, a man and a woman. The man wore only black slacks. He had long, sandy brown hair and a sculpted physique. The woman wore a small robe that barely reached the middle of her shapely thighs. She had long, slender legs and a tapered waist. She had short, jet-black hair.
No…wait.
She blinked hard and rubbed at her eyes. Then she looked at the couple on the balcony again. The woman’s jet-black hair was gone. She now had long, flowing blonde locks. Allyson decided her eyes were playing tricks on her. It had been a long day. A combination of fatigue and a trick of the light had conspired to make her initially think the woman’s hair was shorter and black.
A nice theory. Except it was pure bullshit and she knew it. The woman’s hair had grown and changed color in the blink of an eye. She was seized by a sudden conviction-she didn’t want the people on the balcony to turn around. Didn’t want to see their faces. That nagging sense of familiarity she’d felt while listening to Schreck had returned. She thought she knew who that woman was. It made no sense that she was here. Or maybe it made as much sense as anything.
She looked at Chad again and the look on his face pierced his heart. It was a combination of disbelief and longing.
He took an unconscious step toward the balcony.
Allyson hated herself for the tears that came then. She had no right to feel this sense of betrayal, not after the things she’d done. Maybe this was what she deserved in return for all those months she’d deceived Chad. Maybe this was karma.
Then Jim clamped a hand on Chad’s shoulder, stopped him in his tracks. He turned Chad toward him and locked eyes with him, spoke a single w ord:“No.”
Chad blinked rapidly. “But…I think that’s-”
Jim shook his head, his expression stern. “Doesn’t matter. You have to leave the past behind.” He looked at Allyson now. “You both do.”
Allyson shuddered, feeling again that bone-deep chill that belied the room’s temperature. She opened her mouth to reply, but whatever it was she’d been about to say went unspoken as her attention was drawn to the wall where Schreck and Bai had been standing moments ago.
She frowned again. “What the fuck?”
The men followed her gaze and saw the vertical, black rectangle in the wall, a door to some dark place. It hadn’t been there before. And Bai and Schreck had vanished, presumbably into that darkness. Looking at the darkness beyond the opening triggered a sensation of creeping dread. Allyson felt it crawling through her intestines like a tapeworm. She didn’t know what that dark place was, but she did know she would sooner die than set even one foot inside it.
Then there was movement within the darkness and a moment later Bai and Schreck reemerged into the room. Between them was a young woman, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Allyson’s heart leaped at the sight of her charred wrist stumps. Some monster had mutilated her. She was nude, except for a very small pair of black panties. She was pale and her long black hair was tangled. The girl was pretty, but there was obvious madness in her jittering eyes. She shivered and leaned close to Bai.
“What the hell?
Bai’s smile was thin and strained. “It is no concern of yours.” She placed a hand on the hilt of her sword. “Unless you would like me to r escind the Order’s deal with your lover. Then I suppose we could-” Her smile broadened. “-discuss it.”
Allyson watched the woman’s hands curl around the sword’s hilt. There was something almost sensual about the gesture. A vaguely sexual eagerness. Allyson recognized the futility of her indignation on the girl’s behalf and bit back any further expressions of rage. She sighed. “That won’t be necessary. Could we please just get out of here now? No offense, but I’d like to never see any of you fuckers ever again.”
Schreck laughed softly.
Allyson glared at him. “Something to say, asshole?”
Chad reached for her, brushed a hand across her arm. “Allyson, stop this. There’s no need-”
Allyson shrugged his hand away and approached Schreck, halving the distance between them. “Do I know you?”
Schreck’s dark eyes glittered. “Certainly, Ms. Vanover.”
Then she had it. The wheels in her mind stopped spinning as the connection clicked. Hearing him say her name did the trick. It was
She managed one word, pushed through gritted teeth:
Schreck grinned, baring rows of horrible, too-white teeth. He looked like a shark. “Have you told your boyfriend about-”
Allyson looked at Bai as she jabbed a finger in Schreck’s direction. “What about this son of a bitch? Has the Order made any deals with him?”
Bai kept her expression neutral as she said, “None that have not already been fulfilled.”
And now it was Allyson’s turn to grin like a crazy person. The sight of it must have unnerved Schreck. He frowned and glanced at Bai. “What’s the-”
Allyson moved with explosive speed, reversing her grip on the M-16 and raising it above her shoulders. Schreck cringed and shuffled backward. But the black door was gone, the blank wall restored. His back met the wall and he could move no further. He raised his hands to cover his face, but he was too late-the stock of the M-16 crashed into his mouth, pulping his lips and shattering teeth.
Allyson moved out of his way as he tumbled to the floor and rolled onto his back. She tossed the M-16 aside and pulled the 9mm from her waistband. She set the safety and moved to where Schreck was sprawled. She avoided Chad’s gaze, not wanting to look too long at his expression of horrified astonishment. Jim remained stoic, his hand on Chad’s shoulder again.
Schreck opened his bleary eyes and saw her standing over him. He let out a wail and tried to scoot away. Allyson seized a handful of his black shirt and lifted him a few inches off the floor. Then she adjusted her grip on the pistol, raised her hand, and brought it around, smashing the nickel-plated butt against the side of his head. Shreck shrieked and bucked on the floor, but Allyson held on to him with ease, galvanized now by the most righteous sense of rage that had ever possessed her. She raised her hand again and whipped the pistol across Schreck’s face another time. Then another and another. Again and again. Mashing flesh and pulverizing bone. The man barely looked human by the time she stopped swinging the pistol back and forth. He sagged in her grip, unable to resist, barely alive.
She let him go and stood up straight. Schreck’s blood-filled eyes looked up at her. Whether he could see her or not she didn’t know. She hoped so. She hoped he saw an avenging angel about to hand down judgment.
She hoped he was afraid. Of her and his impending rendezvous with the denizens of hell. She switched the 9mm’s safety off and aimed the barrel at the center of Schreck’s ruined face. His lips twitched, seemed to curl upward. A last, mocking smile of the damned.
Allyson pulled the trigger and Schreck died.
