Queen Of Blood Page 16

  “Right.” Ellen’s tone dripped sarcasm.

  “Yes, a family, goddammit.” Marcy hadn’t heard Dream speak with such conviction in weeks, if ever. Okay, we were forced together by circumstance. It’s a fate thing, you see. And so we’re like any other clan—we don’t get to choose family. And you don’t run out on family. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

  Marcy blinked tears from her eyes. “I do.”

  “I know you do, Marcy. I’m proud of you. We’re sisters, all of us. I love you like I would a birth sibling.” Dream moved further into the gap between seats. “So I want to feel the same commitment from you, Ellen, and know you’re in it to the end, too.”

  Ellen didn’t respond at first. Marcy leaned forward and saw that her hands were locked in a death grip on the steering wheel. Then her sister’s head dipped forward and touched the hard molded plastic. She sniffled once, her shoulders heaving. Then the floodgates opened and her body quaked with a series of sobs. Dream stroked her back and made sounds of reassurance. Marcy wiped hot moisture from her cheeks. Nothing had ever moved her as strongly as Dream’s speech. Never had anyone so plainly expressed love for her. She swiped at her eyes again, then a flicker of something in her peripheral vision made her head snap to the right.

  Alicia was there, standing just outside the open side door. Her mouth was twisted in a smirk. “Sheesh, I go away for ten minutes and you fuckers start writin’ your own motherfuckin’ Lifetime movie.”

  Marcy turned up a middle finger and extended it.

  Alicia’s smirk deepened. “Crying fits and obscene gestures.” She opened the front passenger door and began to pull herself inside. “Time for the Estrogen Express to hit the road before one of you bitches starts quoting lines from Thelma and Louise or some dumb thing.”

  She paused at the sight of the glass shards sprayed across the front seat area. “I missed some kind of drama, I guess.” She looked hard at Dream, her dark eyes flat and unreadable. “Anything I need to be worried about, Dream?”

  Dream did not wilt beneath that unforgiving gaze. Her lips curved upward. “Of course not. Just having an old-fashioned heart-to-heart with Ellen. I think we’ve come to an understanding.” Her eyes flicked toward the still-sniffling girl. “Haven’t we, Ellen?”

  Ellen at last managed to compose herself. She lifted her head off the steering wheel and wiped her face dry with a sleeve. Then she did something that astonished Marcy—she looked Alicia in the eye as steadily as Dream had a moment ago and said, “That’s right. I had a weak moment.”

  Alicia’s trademark smirk returned. “Latest in a long, long series, I’d say.”

  “That’s right.” Ellen reached for Dream and clasped hands with her. “And Dream called me on it. Think what you want, but I see things differently now. Wherever this road takes us, I want to be there. I want to see what’s at the end of it.”

  Alicia picked glass shards off the passenger seat and tossed them on the parkling lot asphalt. “Whatever, Dorothy.” A small piece of glass nicked the ball of her thumb and drew blood. She popped it in her mouth and sucked on it. “Mmm.” She withdrew the glistening digit and stared at it. “I don’t know exactly what’s at the end of our yellow brick road, but I know it’s a bad place, a place like the one where I died.”

  Marcy said, “The House of Blood.”

  Alicia wiped her thumb on her jeans and climbed into the van. She pulled the door shut and turned in her seat to look at Marcy. “That’s right, girl. And I know one more thing. There’ll definitely be a wicked witch waiting for us when we get there.”

  Marcy shoved her hands into the pockets of her brown hoodie and slumped further down in her seat. “Ms. Wickman.”

  “Damn straight.”

  Marcy’s brow furrowed. “And you’re sure you can kill her.”

  “Ain’t sure about shit. But I’ll either kill the bitch or die trying.”

  Marcy’s mouth twisted in a humorless smile. “That’d have to be a real kick in the ass. Dying twice at the hands of the same person.”

  Alicia scowled. “I don’t—”

  “Any a you ladies spare some change?”

  Marcy jumped at the sound of the gravelly voice and turned to look at the homeless guy standing outside the van. He smelled like a sewer and Marcy was surprised he’d gotten this close undetected. He had limp brown hair tucked under a ratty New Jersey Devils cap. His face was seamed and his nose sat like a swollen red ball in the center of his face. He wore a heavily stained yellow windbreaker over raggedy clothes.

  He leaned in through the open door and sniffed. “Smells like wine in here. Good stuff. ’Spose I could get a taste?”

  Ellen piped up from the driver’s seat. “Fuck off.”

  “We don’t have anything for you, bum.” Alicia directed her eerily intense gaze at the old drunk. “I’d advise you to leave before you stir up trouble you can’t handle.”

  The man sneered at her, displaying a mouth missing most of its teeth. “Whaaaaat?” He drew out the syllable and laughed. “You ladies don’ wanna tussle wit’ the likes a me. Tell ya that much.” He leaned further into the van and his rheumy eyes roamed over its interior. “Aw shit, just gimme a bit of pocket change and I’ll be on my way.”

  Marcy shifted in her seat and turned slightly to the right. The bum’s aggressiveness stirred an old memory. That night in Overton Park. The homeless guy. The bottle. The first time she’d taken a life. Her fists clenched at the edges of the seat.

  “Say, you bitches look kinda familiar.” The bum scratched at a cheek with long nails turned brown with infection. “Yeah.” He waved in the general direction of the convenience store. “Over there at the paper boxes, last week I think it was.” He looked at Marcy and squinted. “I seen you staring out at me. You the one killed all those kids. Maybe I oughta go to the cops, huh?”

  The atmosphere in the van turned frigid. Marcy’s heart raced as a paralyzing sense of panic began to set in. This was it, then. The end of the road. But it wasn’t right. Their journey wasn’t over. Not even close. Anger rose inside her.

  The old guy sneered again and said, “Or maybe I’ll keep my mouth shut if that one—” He nodded at Dream. “She gives my pecker a good suck and I’ll keep quiet. Come on, bitch. Whatcha say?”

  Dream surged past Marcy, seized the bum by the front of his black sweatshirt, lifted him off his feet, and pulled him inside the van. He yelped and flailed a little until Dream slammed the top of his head against the closed door on her side. The man went limp and Dream cradled him in her arms like a child. Her eyes pulsed with cold energy as she looked at Marcy. “Close the door.”

  Marcy swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded, then shut the door.

  And then she watched in horrified fascination as Dream closed her hands around the unconscious man’s neck and began to twist.

  A man in a powder blue 1970s Plymouth set his paper coffee mug in the plastic cup holder he’d purchased at a truck stop the previous night. The cup holder was clipped inside the ash tray and dipped precariously as it accepted the mug’s weight. He hated the old jalopy, but the people in charge said it was better for tailing people than something new and flashy. The man disagreed. He thought the old piece of shit stuck out like a sore, infected thumb, but what did he know, he was just a goon with a gun.

  A creepy three-fingered kid named Dean sat in the passenger seat. He kept playing with his favorite knife, running the edge of the blade over the fabric of his jeans, up and down his inner thigh, over and over. The kid was a world-class geek, but he was stone psycho and a merciless killer.

  “What do you reckon the odds are we just got ol’ Ducky killed?”

  The corners of the kid’s mouth lifted slightly. It had been his idea to send the old bum over to check things out. Ostensibly, the plan had been for “Ducky,” as he called himself, to report back to them with his findings, but that looked to be out the window. “He’s dead. I can feel it.”

  The man nodded and remove
d a pack of smokes from his shirt pocket. He tapped a Winston out and wedged it in a corner of his mouth. “I reckon you’re right, boy. So what do you think? Seems pretty certain these are the ones the Mistress wants.”

  The boy licked his dry lips. “Yeah.”

  The van’s tail lights came on and the van began to glide out toward the street just as the man was applying a lighter flame to his cigarette. “Oh, shit.”

  He flipped the lighter shut and tossed it onto the dashboard. Then he twisted the key in the ignition and listened to the engine groan. He twisted it again and got a rattle. He looked up and saw the van cross the intersection and pick up speed.

  “Fuck!”

  The kid was looking at him now. The big knife was pointed vaguely in his direction. “It better start.”

  The man spoke around the cigarette:“No shit.”

  He was trying hard not to sound afraid, but inside he was coming apart. He couldn’t afford to blow this. Not when they were so close. He knew the kid was just looking for an excuse to gut him and resume the chase on his own. So he sent out a silent prayer and twisted the key again.

  The engine sputtered, caught, and roared to life.

  He let out a big breath and grinned at the kid. “Have faith, kid. They ain’t gettin’ away.”

  He gunned the engine and the car lurched forward.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The night was cold, the chill cutting easily through her sweater and the shirt beneath. Allyson scooted closer to the crackling campfire and rubbed her hands together. The warmth from the fire helped, but all in all she’d rather be back inside, huddled beneath a blanket with Chad’s naked body spooned against her back. But Camp Whiskey’s inhabitants had warmed to her somewhat in the aftermath of her close call in the woods. This was the first time she’d been invited to hang out at one of these little gatherings of what she still thought of as the “inner circle,” and she was determined to make the best of the rare social outing. She wanted them to see that she was a good person, a friendly and warm person, and that none of them had anything to fear from her.

  Hell, she just wanted to fit in.

  Someone on the opposite side of the campfire strummed an acoustic guitar and the low babble of conversation abruptly ceased. The man with the guitar was sitting cross-legged and was wearing a heavy denim-and-wool coat. Jim was stretched out on the ground next to him, but now he sat up and withdrew a harmonica from a pocket of his brown shirt. Firelight glinted on the polished silver surface of the instrument as Jim brought it to his mouth and began to blow. The guitar player intensified his strumming and the two soon found a bluesy rhythm that made Allyson bob her head as she listened. The jam went on for a few minutes. Then Jim lowered the harmonica and began to sing.

  A shiver went up her spine at the sound of his voice. Chad returned from his trip to the outhouse and sat next to her, draping an arm around her shoulders. She snuggled closer and laid her head on his shoulder.

  Jim paused in his singing to blow a few more bluesy notes on the harmonica. Then the old singer surged to his feet and belted out the song’s chorus with a passion that was exhilarating to see:

  “Devil come a’ risin’

  Devil gonna come

  Devil on the highwaaaaaaaaay

  Devil on the way”

  Jim’s whole body was moving. Or at least that’s the way it looked to Allyson from the other side of the campfire. He was doing a kind of Ray Charles headroll while the rest of his body rocked to the beat the guitarist was now thumping out on the body of his guitar. Jim looked like a man possessed as that beat intensified, his facial features twisting and twitching, his hands held out before him in a kind of supplication. Allyson watched the performance with mounting awe. There was an undeniable electricity in the air. And no wonder. The man was a legend for good reason.

  The beat slowed but grew heavier, the other guy slapping the guitar’s body with the flat of his palms as Jim resumed singing:

  “Devil come a’ risin’

  Devil gonna come

  Devil at the crossroads

  Think I might explode”

  Jim abruptly raised a clenched fist high in the air and struck a rigid pose. The guitar player ceased his thumping, shifted the guitar in his lap, and began picking out a subdued, haunting melody, a series of wistful notes that felt like a cold breeze rolling across an open plain.

  Jim slowly lowered his fist and finished the song in an equally subdued manner:

  “Reckon time has come to pay that bill

  Devil comin’ up that hill

  Lord, I always knew this day would come

  Time to get…gone.”

  The last word was spoken rather than sung. Jim lowered his head and held his hands clasped before him as the guy with the guitar plucked a few final notes, the last of which seemed to hang suspended in the air for a long, achingly lovely moment. Then it was gone and there was just the sound of the campfire and the ambient noises of the wilderness at night.

  Allyson released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  A young woman to her left said, “That was incredible. What was that?”

  Chad craned his head to look past Allyson. “That was ‘Pay The Devil,’ an old blues standard.”

  Jim was still standing on the other side of the fire. He put the harmonica away and tapped a cigarette from a pack. “Man’s correct. Blind Cat Jones’s version from the 1930s is probably the best known.” He lit the cigarette and rolled it into a corner of his mouth. “Used to have it on an old 78.” He smiled around the cigarette and blew out a puff of smoke. “Long gone now, like most things from my past.”

  Allyson surprised herself by speaking up. “I’ve heard that.” She met Jim’s gaze across the campfire and felt goose bumps form on her flesh as the corners of his mouth lifted in a small smile. “Years ago I saw a PBS documentary about delta blues. Blind Cat’s version was beautiful, but yours was just amazing.”

  Jim exhaled more smoke. “My humble thanks to you, Allyson. And now, if you good people don’t mind, I’ll be retiring for the evening.”

  He flipped the cigarette butt into the fire and began to move back in the direction of the cabins. A pair of machine-gun-toting men in camos fell in behind him and trailed him down the slope. Some of the others seated around the fire gathered their things and began to make their exits as well. Allyson stayed where she was, watching Jim and his guards move in and out of shadows as they moved downhill. He disappeared through a door when they reached their destination and the guards moved to flanking positions at each side of the little cabin. She wondered what his inner life must be like. Did he live wholly in the present, or did he spend a lot of time thinking about the lost glories of his past? Did he ever regret the strange path he’d embarked upon in the early part of the 1970s? She hoped to talk to him about these things at some point. She suspected there was much he could teach her about coping with regret.

  Allyson and Chad eventually joined the slow-motion exodus, rising to their feet and walking hand-in-hand toward their own cabin.

  The bottle of Beam was calling to him again. Jim dropped the cigarettes and harmonica on a table and picked the bottle up by the neck. He looked at the brown liquid inside the bottle. The stuff didn’t control him as completely as it had in his youth—he’d be dead for real otherwise—but booze remained a significant factor in his life. He’d reduced his daily intake to a small fraction of what it had once been, both to improve his health and prepare for the struggle he knew was on the horizon. But sweet lady alcohol was always there in the background. He drank at a measured pace throughout the day, careful to never get too intoxicated. At night he would indulge a little more deeply, but even then he remained cognizant of his responsibilities.

  He was a leader now. But more than that, a symbol of a past victory for the refugees from Below. They would naturally look to him for inspiration and guidance. It was a role in which he still felt some discomfort. Within him there yet lurked a faint
spark of the wild spirit that had driven him to such reckless extremes in the past. That part of him wanted to down the whole bottle of Beam, consequences be damned.

  He spun the cap off the bottle and brought the neck to his lips. The booze filled his mouth and he savored the sweet taste for a moment before swallowing. A little shiver of pleasure rippled through him. Then he took another little sip, screwed the cap back on, and returned the bottle to the table.

  A faint sound from the other side of the room made him turn around. There was no one there. But he’d heard it, of that he was certain. A woman’s voice. He sighed. He occasionally heard voices when he was alone. Sometimes he could even make out words. Once in a great while the voice was distinct enough to recognize. And always it was someone who could not actually be there, at least not in a physical form. These were people from his distant past he knew to be long dead, ghosts he supposed he would carry with him until his final days.

  But this was different. He wasn’t certain why, but he felt it on a level that resonated in his bones. A little tingle of fear started at the base of his spine and worked its way up. Instinct drove him to pick up the bottle again. This time when he screwed the cap off, he tossed it on the table and drank deeply from the bottle. The influx of booze settled him and drove back the chill. He carried the bottle by the neck as he paced the width and length of the small room, paranoia driving him to conduct a search, even though there was plainly no place for an intruder to hide.

  Except…

  He dropped to his knees, grunting as the old joints creaked. He lifted the edge of a b lanket and peered beneath the small bed. No one was there, of course, with the exception of a few crawly bugs and his personal effects. The tattered old backpack he’d carried on his travels through Europe and Africa in the 70s. Two boxes, a small one and a somewhat larger one filled with some of his favorite books. He sighed and stood again. He moved to the other side of the bed and sat down. He swigged from the bottle one more time before setting it on the floor. Then he reached beneath the bed and withdrew the smaller of the two boxes, an old cigar box with a length of twine tied around it. He untied the loose knot and flipped the lid open.