From Black Rooms (37 page)

sustained him only until ten o'clock or so, and a hunger headache now pulsed in his temples. "You sure you don't want to come back later?" he asked Natalie, who lay draped on the passenger seat like a wrung-out rag.

"You could use some food and sleep, in that order."

"No. I have to let Arthur know what's going on." She grabbed the door handle and pul ed herself upright.

"It'l only take a minute."

"Your cal ." He got out and jogged around the car to join her at the shop's entrance. They found the front door unlocked, yet the entryway was stil dark when they stepped inside.

"Mr. McCord's late lighting the lanterns today." Dan switched on his penlight as the front door cut off the sunshine from the street. "Could he be out

somewhere?"

"Arthur doesn't go out." Natalie's weary voice was suddenly charged with dread. "Something's wrong." She pushed open the door to the seance room, the bel jangling with incongruous cheeriness in the pitch dark. Even before he lowered the penlight's beam to the floor, Dan felt the stickiness under his shoes, smel ed the odor that stank like rank sweat and rust. Natalie staggered back and braced herself against the door as the dim circle of light drifted over the shape in front of them.

Dan's empty stomach shriveled. "Good God...

The blood had spread over most of the rubber matting at the room's center. Arthur McCord lay in the middle of the congealed pool, his bare feet pointed toward the door. The front of his pajama shirt had been ripped open and red graffiti etched into the livid skin of his chest:

Below the writing, McCord's mountainous bel y had been slit from breastbone to navel and his hands placed on either side of the wound, as though he were holding the flaps apart to permit entry to his bowels. The kil er had careful y unraveled the corpse's smal intestine and pul ed it out through the wound to form a talismanic circle around the body. McCord's throat bore ligature and stab wounds, and his violet eyes had been gouged from their sockets.

"Natalie... Dan moved to guide her out of the room, but froze when the beam of his penlight fel on her face. Her eyes were nearly al white, the corneas rol ed up under her fluttering lids, and she leaned back against the door as if standing on the window ledge of a

skyscraper.

Her head jerked twice, and the irises rotated back into view. "Boo...thank God you're here."

Dan tensed at hearing the low, sonorous register of her voice. When she bolted for the exit, he blocked her way.

"Mr. McCord, I presume."

Natalie threw herself against him, snarling. "LET ME

OUT!"

"Not yet." He moved into the doorway, and she growled in frustration: McCord was clearly unused to having such a lightweight body. Dan grabbed Natalie's wrist. "Who was it?"

"I don't know!"

"What did you see?"

McCord stopped struggling. "I didn't see anything. He stabbed my eyes out."

"Why would someone want to kil you?"

"I said I don't know!"

"Who else knew you were hiding here besides Natalie?" For the first time, McCord paused to consider the question. "Lucy Kamei...and Simon."

"Is that it? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure! Everyone else is dead." McCord thrashed again, twisting the features of

Natalie's face. Dan became aware of how tightly his hand was clamped on Natalie's arm, how much he must be hurting her. He let go and stepped aside.

McCord drove Natalie forward, past Dan and through the front door. Dan fol owed them out to the sidewalk and saw McCord tilt her face toward the welcoming sun and raise her arms like a bird spreading its wings. Natalie balanced there for an instant, then crumpled. Dan caught her before she dropped, and eased her down onto the pavement beneath the shop's violet-eyed sign. As she rested her cheek against the wal , Dan punched Clark's number into his cel phone. No chance of lunch now, but that was okay--he'd lost his appetite anyway.
In the second book of the series, Natalie Lindstrom
takes on the Thresher--the ghost of an old killer,
and the man who once drove her own mother

insane!

WITH RED HANDS

IT WAS AROUND 1 A.M. WHEN THE CHEVY

BLAZER WITH the Arizona plates crept back to Cabin 7 at the Shady Pines Resort near Lucerne. A cleanshaven gray-haired man with thick glasses got out on the driver's side, the elevator soles of his boots sinking in the muck of mud and pine needles left by the recent storms. He pressed on the sides of his large hooked nose as if making sure it hadn't slipped to one side, and tramped over to unlock the cabin door.

He then went around to open the SUV's side door and hefted a large canvas laundry sack from inside, which he slung over his shoulder with a grunt and lugged into the cabin. His chest thudding, he set down the limp bundle and shut the door. "What'd I tel you, buddy?" he panted, slapping his potbel y. "You gotta keep in shape for this stuff."

A muffled groan rose from the laundry bag.

With the curtains drawn on the windows, the only light source was a dying artificial log in the fireplace grate, which flickered orange like a blacksmith's forge. In the murky glow, the bag looked too solid and angular to contain clothing. The canvas stirred, a cocoon ready to break open.

Seeing the bag's movement seemed to restore the man's energy, and he pul ed off his gray toupee and latex nose. He spat out the dentures that gave him his

overbite and took off his thick glasses, revealing the face of Lyman Pearsal , minus its bushy mustache. The clean shave wasn't the only difference in the visage. Its usual doughy impotence had given way to a new vigor, its features sharp with cunning and hunger.

Dropping the elements of his disguise into a suitcase that lay open on the modular sofa by the fireplace, he stripped nude and grabbed a woman's florid robe from the suitcase, wrapped himself in it and tied the sash, then plopped onto the couch. He shut the case and set up a makeup mirror on its lid, flicking a switch that il uminated the mirror's circumference. His face leered back at him in the glass, its age makeup running and smearing with sweat.

A couple scoops of cold cream and a dirty hand towel cleared the old cosmetics from his skin. A new layer of foundation turned his ruddy complexion pale and

delicate, and he painted his lips with red lipstick, his cheeks with rouge, his eyes with mascara and blue eye shadow that matched his contact lenses. His bald head he covered with a long curly wig the color of crow's feathers.

See what a pretty girl you are!

He smiled at the feminine visage in the mirror. Lyman's face was too lumpy to be beautiful, but he'd done a passable job of dol ing it up. Mama would be proud of how pretty he could make himself. She'd taught him everything he needed to know to imitate the enemy. He stood and modeled for the man propped up in the easy chair next to the couch. "What do you think, honey?"

The man in the easy chair faced the twenty-inch

television in the corner of the room as if engrossed in a program on the dark screen, but his eyes had rol ed up to gaze at the ceiling without blinking. He was James Alton Henderson, the former owner of the Chevy

Blazer with the Arizona plates, and the birth date on his driver's license put him at just past forty. A gummy sheen of drying blood ran from the curling gash at his throat down to his genitals, pasting the black hair between his nipples flat against his chest. Rigor mortis had caused his fingers to tighten on the remote control that had been placed in his right hand. The smoke from the fireplace couldn't quite hide the odor of ripening meat.

The man in the robe and makeup put his hands on his hips and shook his head at the silent corpse. "Men!" Another soft moan drew his attention back to the canvas bag. With unhurried efficiency, he set aside his

cosmetics and dug a fresh hypodermic out of his

suitcase. He wasn't sure if she needed another dose yet or not; too much phenobarbital might kil her, and that would never do. Best to be prepared, regardless. He'd use it sooner or later.

Sliding the syringe behind his ear like a Lucky Strike cigarette, he half carried, half dragged the wriggling sack through a connecting door into the cabin's

bedroom. The room's sole occupant awoke when he

entered, wheezing like a reedless wind instrument and rattling the headboard as he took the unconscious blond girl from the sack and lashed her to the other side of the queen-size bed with nylon rope.

The new girl was about nineteen, with a long, plain face and stringy hair. The emaciation of crack addiction made her look older, however, her cheeks sunken, her skin parched. She hadn't been picky about the johns she chose to entertain--even a portly, gray-haired man with thick glasses and a goofy overbite.

Lifting the lid of each eye, he checked the dilation of her pupils and decided another injection wasn't

necessary at this point. Instead, he plugged in the soldering iron that lay on the nightstand and waited for it to warm up. When its metal tip glowed orange, he pul ed a chair up beside the bed and took the open jackknife from the nightstand.

The woman on the other side of the bed squirmed and hissed again, tugging at her bonds and pantomiming panic. He smiled at her and tilted the chin of the unconscious girl until the tube of her trachea bulged upward, its ridges straining against the skin.

With tools in hand, he meticulously carved a smal circle in her windpipe, cauterizing every point of incision with the hot soldering iron so she wouldn't choke on her own blood. Each drop of crimson

vanished with a sizzle and a wisp of iron-scented smoke. Soon he'd created a burn-blackened porthole through which he could see the glistening, mucouslined trachea's rear wal . Air leaked in and out of her lungs without ever passing through the larynx.

Ah, blessed silence! he thought, listening to the dog-
whistle duet of the two women in the bed. The only day in his mother's life that she actual y shut up was the day he opened her throat.

Stepping into the adjoining bathroom for a moment, he washed his hands and checked his wig and makeup. The confusion of gender, he knew, would make it harder for his artworks to identify him if the police summoned them later. But this face--older than the one he used to have, with deep furrows and a smal , cross mouth...
Aren't you precious? he could almost hear Aunt Pearl
dote. You look just like your mama!

Of its own wil , his hand grabbed the half-ful water glass on the basin and hurled it at his reflection. It exploded with a splash, and the mirror fractured, blurred with spattered liquid.

Kil ing his mother hadn't been enough. Some perverse magnetic attraction--between parent and child,

between kil er and victim--had drawn him to her even in death; she welcomed him into the void with

outstretched claws, her contempt squeezing his spirit like the jaws of a nutcracker. No matter how many times he wrested himself free of her, she'd sucked him back into the crushing maw of her black-hole soul. But now Lyman had provided him with a refuge in the world of the living--a wil ing vessel who, unlike his prior receptacle, wouldn't resist his inhabitation. He was on this side, his mother was on that, and he was never going back. He'd make sure of that.

Smearing the lipstick on his mouth to dispel the family resemblance, he stalked out of the bathroom to the side of the bed where Marilyn Emmaline Henderson, widow of James Alton, writhed in desperation, the tapestry on her stomach bil owing with each heaving breath.

Grabbing the syringe from behind his ear, he flicked it with his index finger to dislodge any stray air bubbles. Since her hands were bound together above her head, the circulation in her arms tended to stal in her shoulders, which had turned a blotchy magenta color, and he had to wait almost a minute after tying off her left forearm before a vein bulged enough to inject the sedative. He then had difficulty holding his hand steady so as not to let the needle slip.

Discipline and patience, Vanessa, his mother always
admonished him. With discipline and patience you can
do anything you put your mind to.

As Marilyn Henderson lost consciousness, he threaded his embroidery needle and surveyed the areas of his canvas that stil needed to be fil ed in. The palette of colors available to him was inevitably limited, for only red and black threads preserved their hue when he dipped them below the skin. Nevertheless, his latest sampler was a breathtaking creation. Marilyn's midriff bore a pyre of scarlet flames from which rose a winged ebony figure, phoenixlike, arms raised in triumph. The fire licked up onto the undersides of her breasts, with one tear-shaped outline left to fil ...

In the third book of the series, Natalie Lindstrom
undertakes a deadly journey to the Andes, where a
treasure-hunting madman tricks her into channeling
the spirit of the bloody conquistador, Pizarro.
IN GOLDEN BLOOD

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, RAIN SPATTERED

THE tent's canvas roof like the impatient drumming of a thousand fingers. Natalie became conscious of the sound but felt no urge to move or even to open her eyes. She lay there for a long time, vainly hoping that she might wake up and find herself back with Cal ie at the Atwaters' house in Lakeport.

"You must eat quickly," Honorato's voice said, rousting her out of her half-doze. "The big gringo wants you now."

Moaning, Natalie rol ed onto her side, feeling stale in the dirty clothes from the day before. "He doesn't waste any time, does he?"

Standing next to the worktable, Honorato struck a match and lit the lantern. "That is the problem. He thinks he has wasted too much time already." As he turned the valve on the propane tank, yel ow light revealed that he had already replaced last night's dinner tray with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. Pushing aside the flap to exit the tent, he gestured to the downpour outside. "If you hurry, you can take a nice shower now, yes?"

He abandoned Natalie to sulk over her breakfast. She scratched her arms and found them speckled with flea bites. So much for Abe's attempt to protect her from Peruvian parasites. Ghosts or not, she already found herself missing the hot tubs of the Banos del Inca. Though Natalie didn't shower al fresco as Honorato suggested, she did change her clothes and brush her teeth, which made her feel somewhat better. She