Queen Of Blood (10 page)

Giselle’s excitement level rose yet again. They were no more than a foot apart. Ms. Wickman placed a hand between her breasts
and shoved her backward. Giselle fell into the plush mattress and watched as Ms. Wickman pulled the dress off and tossed
it to the floor. Then she stepped out of her heels and climbed onto the bed, moving toward Giselle on her hands and knees,
stalking her like an alley cat about to pounce on its prey. Giselle squirmed backward, toward the headboard, then stopped
as her head met the pillows. Ms. Wickman reached Giselle and climbed atop her, one leg to either side of her waist, hands
braced on the pillows above Giselle’s shoulders. She lowered herself slightly and her erect nipples brushed Giselle’s soft
breasts. Giselle placed her hands on Ms. Wickman’s waist and urged her even closer. Their faces were only inches apart now.
An electric sensuality tingled within her as she looked into Ms. Wickman’s wide, hungry eyes.

Ms. Wickman let out a heavy breath that was almost a moan. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by this. You have always been
such a resourceful little whore.”

Giselle caressed Ms. Wickman’s back before allowing her hands to settle on the woman’s upraised ass. “And you have always
been a consummately evil cunt. We were made for each other.”

Ms. Wickman’s eyes flared again, and this time the carnal need was unmistakable. She abruptly lowered her mouth and kissed
Giselle with a hunger Giselle met with equal enthusiasm. They squirmed against each other, hands grasping and probing, wet
tongues thrusting between cries of pleasure. After several minutes of this, Ms. Wickman moved lower, her mouth drawing in
each of Giselle’s engorged nipples in turn. Giselle moaned and squirmed, running her hands through Ms. Wickman’s long, unfettered
hair. Then Ms. Wickman moved lower still, Giselle spreading her legs as the other woman’s tongue found her clit and began
flicking at it energetically. Giselle thrashed on the bed as waves of intense pleasure crashed through her. She grabbed the
iron bars of the headboard behind her, arched her back, and let out a piercing scream. And after Giselle had been made to
scream and pant several more times, Ms. Wickman eased away from her throbbing pussy and laid down next to her.

Giselle let out a feral grunt and rolled on top of the woman. “Your turn.”

Ms. Wickman made a growling sound and scooted toward the headboard, better positioning herself for Giselle’s attentions. Giselle
kissed Ms. Wickman lightly on the mouth before sliding down and taking a nipple into her mouth. And now it was Ms. Wickman’s
turn to moan, writhe, and pant. After a little of this, Giselle moved south, her tongue tracing a wet trail down Ms. Wickman’s
flat belly. She laid a hand flat on Ms. Wickman’s stomach.

“I made you want me, you know.”

Ms. Wickman moaned again and said, “Mmm?” Her eyes were closed and her mouth open, her lips curled back to bare her teeth.
She writhed slowly and clutched at the bedsheet with both hands. She arched her back and lifted her pelvis, her thighs and
stomach muscles quivering with the force of her need. For Giselle, that need was a lovely thing to behold. It was gratifying
to see the cold and merciless Ms. Wickman reduced to this helpless animal level. She was a prisoner of overpowering desire—just
as Giselle had planned.

Giselle moved her hand in a slow, circular motion over Ms. Wickman’s stomach, drifting to a stop at a spot just below her
prisoner’s sternum. She brought her fingers together, forming a wedge of flesh that pushed against Ms. Wickman’s soft abdomen.
“You’ve forgotten some things about me, cunt, beginning with how adept I was at sex magic when I served under the Master.
Haven’t you wondered why you were so quick to dismiss all your lackeys and leap into bed with me?”

Ms. Wickman’s eyes fluttered open and her gaze floated lazily toward Giselle’s intent face. She wasn’t quite alarmed yet—the
erotic charge sizzling through her body was still too powerful—but Giselle’s words stirred a part of her mind that had been
sleeping. “What is this?” She grunted and lifted her pelvis again. “Please…”

Giselle sneered. “Pathetic. You want me to penetrate you? Okay.”

She leaned forward and thrust her hand forward with all her considerable strength, the wedge of fingers splitting Ms. Wickman’s
flesh as easily as if she’d shoved them into jelly. Ms. Wickman’s eyes opened wide and her mouth stretched to issue a scream,
but Giselle slapped a hand over the opening and muffled the sound. Her other hand delved further into Ms. Wickman’s body,
pushing aside organs and digging through layers of muscle to reach for her heart. Ms. Wickman thrashed in agony. She scratched
and flailed at Giselle’s face. But Giselle held on with ease. She was stronger than Ms. Wickman now. She pressed her face
against Ms. Wickman’s, staring into her bugged-out eyes as her questing fingers found the throbbing mass of muscle. She held
that gaze a moment longer, savoring the mass murderer’s agony and terror. Then her hand closed around the heart, gave it a
savage twist, and yanked it from her body, her dripping red hand emerging from the hole beneath the woman’s sternum with a
moist plop.

Ms. Wickman went still at once. She was dead.

Ding-dong
, Giselle thought, and giggled.

And without her heart, this particular wicked witch would never rise again. Again, Giselle felt satisfaction, but there was
no righteousness attached to the feeling. She had not done this thing to avenge the thousands of deaths Ms. Wickman had been
responsible for over the decades. Her role now was that of usurper. The dead woman’s kingdom would belong to her now.

She brought Ms. Wickman’s dripping heart to her mouth and tore a chunk out of it. She chewed it slowly, enjoying the tough,
raw taste of meat and muscle. A groan of satisfaction escaped her lips as the morsel slid down her gullet. Then she tore another
chunk out and devoured it more quickly. Followed by another chunk, and then another, until it was gone, until she’d symbolically
eaten the woman’s essence and her magic. This Giselle did to preserve the work Ms. Wickman had done with this place. Otherwise
this magically constructed edifice and the fiery realm beyond would turn hazy and wink out of existence. Giselle licked her
lips and sighed with the satisfaction one derives from a fine meal.

Now that the deed was done, she allowed herself to marvel over how easily it had been accomplished. If anything, Azaroth had
understated how amplified her abilities would become with the sacrifice of Eddie King. The power coursing through her was
such that she felt like something so much more than a mere sorceress. In the past, even the simplest magic had required some
rudimentary form of spellcasting. Now, however, she was able to wield magic merely by focusing her will, thinking about what
she wanted to happen, and directing the core of magical energy within her to make it happen. That Ms. Wickman had succumbed
to sex magic spoke volumes about the staggering intensity of that energy. Giselle had long been able to manipulate normal
people by amplifying the automatic sexual response to certain scents given off by her body, but other practitioners such as
the Master and Ms. Wickman had been immune to this brand of magic. No longer. She felt capable of absolutely anything—and
of everything all at once.

What she felt like, actually, was a goddess.

She decided to experiment. She flexed her will and heard the large doors at the far end of the quarters creak open. She thought
of the people who had accompanied Ms. Wickman into the room earlier and focused on one of them. A few moments later, one of
the black-clad guards came staggering into the room, his legs propelling him forward jerkily as if he were a puppet on a string.
He pawed at his holstered sidearm, but his hand twisted painfully away from the weapon with a sound of grinding bones. His
eyes popped and jittered with the helpless terror of one not in control of his own body. Then he saw the limp form of his
dead Mistress and let out a squeal of fear.

The man Ms. Wickman had referred to as “Captain” came to a swaying halt at the foot of the bed as Giselle relinquished much
of her physical control over him (though she kept his hand twisted away from the pistol).

Giselle licked blood from her fingers and smiled at the terrifed man. “Tell me your name.”

In a trembling voice the man said, “I-I am…C-Captain Girard of the B-Black Brigade. The military wing of the M-Mistress’s
…organization.”

“I see.” Giselle tongued the last of Ms. Wickman’s blood from her fingers, then wiped them clean on the bedsheet. She climbed
off the bed and approached the trembling captain. “As you can see, you no longer serve Ms. Wickman. I am Mistress of this
place now, and you will answer only to me from now on. Is this clear?”

Captain Girard appeared to be too stunned by the inexplicable coup d’etat to immediately supply the only acceptable answer.
He kept glancing at Ms. Wickman’s body, perhaps expecting her to rise from the dead and reassert her authority. Which, given
the condition of her body, was just stupid. Impatient, Giselle snatched the 9mm pistol from his holster and shot him in the
face. By the time his corpse struck the floor more black-clad armed men had stormed into the room. Giselle usurped control
of their minds in a millisecond. They stood there, terror shining in their eyes, mouths hanging open in shock, their fingers
frozen over the trigger guards of their useless weapons.

Giselle stepped over the fallen Captain and advanced to within six feet of the nearest trembling man. “Ms. Wickman is dead.
I rule this place now. Captain Girard is dead because he could not accept that. He was a stupid man.” She eyed each of the
men in turn before saying, “Are the rest of you as stupid?”

A chorus of muttered denials brought a very slight smile to her face.

“Good. Then know this. I do not wish to kill any more of you. Nor do I wish to upset the essential order of things around
here.” She clasped her hands be hind her back and strode slowly back and forth in front of them like a marine drill sergeant
addressing a rank of fresh boot camp inductees. “This is a change of command, nothing more. Your Black Brigade will remain
intact. If anything, you will have more power than before.”

Giselle allowed a moment for that to sink in. A new, hungry gleam stole into the eyes of several of the men. Giselle supposed
the message was getting through. These men had been something of an elite force before, but now they would be backed by power
far greater than that wielded by their deceased Mistress.

Giselle said, “I need to speak with your top officer privately. The rest of you go about your business at once.”

All but one of the men hurried out of the room. The big door slammed shut yet again. The Black Brigade officer who remained
with her was a tall, thin man with cold blue eyes and close-cropped steel-gray hair. He glanced briefly at the bodies of Ms.
Wickman and Captain Girard. Giselle watched him closely, but his eyes registered nothing at all. He was over any shock he’d
felt at this turn of events.

Giselle moved closer to him, almost to within touching distance. “And what is your name?”

The man’s face remained expressionless as he said, “Lieutenant Schreck, Mistress.”

Giselle suppressed the smile that wanted to come.

Mistress.

“The Black Brigade is yours to command now, Schreck. Anyone above you will be demoted or eliminated.” Giselle smiled. “Whichever
you deem necessary.”

A corner of his mouth twitched, the first indication of any emotion lurking behind the man’s mask of cool indifference. “I
understand.”

Giselle moved away from him and sat at the foot of the bed. She crossed her legs and set the pistol next to one of Ms. Wickman’s
unmoving feet. “Please bring me up to speed, Schreck. Brief me on the things I most need to know about this place.”

Lieutenant Schreck cleared his throat and began a concise recitation of a number of basic facts. Some of what she learned
then increased her contempt for Ms. Wickman. Her handling of the slaves, for instance, bespoke a pathetic lack of confidence
in her ability to forestall an uprising like the one that had brought down the Master. This would not continue under the new
regime. More pleasing was what she learned about the ongoing efforts to rein in the survivors of the Master’s former domain.
She wanted to see those people again.

The briefing finished, Giselle allowed herself a silent moment of contemplation. She looked at Ms. Wickman’s corpse and felt
a tingle, a ghost of the powerful erotic charge that had flowed through her own body during their brief but electric coupling.
That tingle intensified and Giselle became keenly aware of an awakened taste that had not yet been sated.

“Tell me, Lieutenant. You are no doubt familiar with all the Apprentices in service here. Of the females, whom would you say
is the most beautiful?”

Schreck’s answer was immediate. “That would be Ursula, Mistress.”

“Have someone fetch her for me. But first…” Giselle turned her head to look at the open French door and the red sky beyond.
“Have this cunt’s body taken to that barren place and burned. I would like to watch this happen from my balcony.”

“As you wish, Mistress.”

She dismissed him then and he departed the room at once. Giselle again arose from the bed and ventured back out to the balcony.
She observed the diminutive forms of the hooded, toiling slaves and thought of what Schreck had told her about the edifice
they were constructing.

An actual pyramid
, she thought, wonderment again filling her as she imagined it.

She smiled again.

She couldn’t imagine a more appropriate place for the sacrifices to come.

PART II:

THE CRIMSON HIGHWAY

CHAPTER ELEVEN

One month later

The strange little girl in the yellow rain slicker was looking at her again. Laughing at her again. The girl made her nervous.
She had a weird glint in her eyes. And there was something about the set of her features and the angle at which she was holding
her head that made her expression look like a grown-up leer. A hint of lasciviousness one shouldn’t see in the eyes of one
so young. Though Dream couldn’t hear the sound of the girl’s laughter over the wind and the rushing water below, she was certain
it possessed a mocking tone.

She wasn’t positive the little girl was really there. Another apparition, maybe. She was glad of the dozen or so yards that
separated them. If she moved any closer, Dream would bolt back across the bridge to the parking lot where they’d left Marcy’s
van. The girl put a cupped hand to her mouth to cover a giggle.

Dream shifted her attention back to the natural wonder in the distance. The stiff breeze stirred her hair and the fine mist
of rain made her flesh glisten as she leaned over the railing of the Rainbow Bridge and watched the distant churning foam
of the water at the bottom of American Falls, the U.S. half of the famed Niagara Falls. The sky was overcast and the temperature
had dropped into the thirties, with the stiffening wind adding an extra bite to the chill. It was late afternoon drifting
toward evening, and the already bruised sky was growing darker by the moment. The nasty conditions had thinned the usual tourist
crowds to nearly nothing. Dream had an eerie sense of standing alone at the very edge of the world as all of existence teetered
on the brink of some unfathomable apocalypse.

Dream shivered as the swirling wind abruptly redirected and gusted across her wet face. She tucked her hands under her arms
and wished for better protection against the elements than the light jacket she was wearing. She leaned further over the railing
and looked at the rushing stream of water directly beneath the Rainbow Bridge. An image leapt unbidden to her mind then, one
that stirred horror within her, but was not without a certain morbid appeal. She imagined herself climbing over the slick
railing and leaping spread-eagled into the drink, her arms outstretched as she soared for one glorious moment before plunging
into the cold, cold water and the darkness beyond.

“It’s tempting, isn’t it?”

Dream flinched at the sound of Marcy’s voice. The fragile—but achingly vivid—illusion of perfect aloneness was wrecked again.
On the other hand, there was a measure of comfort to be derived from the proximity of an undeniably flesh-and-blood human
being. Dream considered asking Marcy whether she could see the girl in the yellow rain slicker, but decided against it when
she realized she wasn’t certain which would unsettle her more, a yes or no answer.

Marcy took up a position a few feet to her left and leaned over the railing. The wind blew her bottle-blonde hair wildly about
her face, but she seemed oblivious to the conditions. She glanced down before looking at Dream again. “I kind of wish I had
the guts to do it. Just climb over and…jump.” Her tone turned wistful as her gaze was drawn back to the water. “It would
solve a lot of problems.”

Dream sighed and finally acknowledged her presence. “So do it. I won’t stop you, I promise.”

Marcy grunted. “If you hate me so much, why don’t you just kill me? Make my brain explode like you did to my friend. Or have
your freaky zombie friend rip my head off or something.”

Anger stirred within Dream as she listened to Marcy rant. The girl had been nearly as silent as her meek little sister during
their first days on the road, but in the last week she’d grown increasingly bold with her verbal jabs. Dream knew she was
testing her, probing to see just how far she could push. She was treading a very thin line. The pressure building within Dream
was immense. It wouldn’t take much to trigger an explosion. And she had a feeling her next explosion might wipe out anyone
within range.

Dream shivered again and looked at Marcy. “That thing isn’t my friend. Not really.”

Marcy smirked. “That’s not what she says. She says—”

“I know what she says.” Dream turned away from the railing and leaned close to Marcy. She caught a glimpse of Alicia over
Marcy’s shoulder. The black woman was standing at a spot some twenty yards to the left, her gaze trained on the waterfall.
“And maybe she even believes it. But she’s not Alicia. She’s not even Alicia’s ghost. There may be some little strand of Alicia’s
essence inside her, something some part of my subconscious always carries with me. If anything, she’s some kind of fucked-up
clone or copy. There’s a lot of what I remember about Alicia in that…thing, but it’s all distorted.” She frowned. “I
don’t know how to put it exactly.”

Marcy’s brow furrowed. “Like a garbled data transmission, then? Static or interference causing some information to be left
out and other bits of it scrambled all to hell.”

Dream shrugged. “Something like that, I guess.”

Marcy nodded. “Yeah. The supernatural gumbo inside you created a shell based on your last memories of Alicia, then downloaded
a faulty blueprint of her psyche to her regenerated brain.” She laughed and shook her head. “It’s all very late night Z-movie.
Not sure I believe it, but I guess it makes at least as much sense as the idea of a genuine walking corpse.”

Dream didn’t respond to that. She looked over Marcy’s shoulder again at Alicia. The slinky cocktail dress had been traded
in for jeans, a long-sleeved thermal shirt, and a light jacket similar to the one worn by Dream. She looked almost normal
now. And it wasn’t just because of the clothes. The wounds and corpse bloat were still there, if you looked close enough,
but these things were fading, the open, weeping razor incisions closing and becoming scars. Every day she looked a little
better, and Dream suspected she would soon be fully restored. Her improvement was disconcerting, although it wasn’t as unsettling
as the realization that other people could see the dead woman now. It reduced the likelihood that she was hallucinating or
losing her mind, a scenario that bothered her far less than the idea of having actually conjured Alicia into being through
some unconscious use of raw magic. A vision of the girl in the yellow rain slicker formed in her mind then, and Dream was
again made to consider the possibility that if she could perform the feat of creation once, then she could surely do it again.

She thought about that. She assumed the dead woman was feeding off the power lurking within Dream, drawing some of that energy
out to make herself more real. That they were tethered together in some way was clear, but Dream had no way of knowing the
depth of that connection. But she wondered just how much Alicia still needed her now that she had form and substance in the
physical world. She had a feeling the creature would’ve ceased to exist had those idiot kids killed her outright that night
instead of abducting her, either blinking out immediately or continuing in a fuzzy state of semi-existence for a brief time
before fading away.

But now…

Now she was here to stay. Dream could take a swan dive off the Rainbow Bridge and Alicia would remain up here behind the railing.
She would watch the water take Dream and sweep her away. Then she would leave this place, taking Marcy and Ellen with her
as she resumed her meandering search for Ms. Wickman.

Which, of course, was crazy. The thing that resembled her dead friend might not actually be Alicia Jackson, but she certainly
bore her grudges as tenaciously as the real thing. She meant to see Ms. Wickman dead, preferably at the business end of a
straight razor. Dream was not bothered by the idea of being made to participate in the murder of that woman. She deserved
death and worse. What did bother her was the obvious impossiblity of making this happen. There was a whole wide world into
which Ms. Wickman could have disappeared. They could never hope to find her.

Except that…

Well.

Except that Alicia believed Ms. Wickman had already established a new kingdom similar to the one formerly ruled over by the
Master. She also believed Ms. Wickman had scores of operatives scouring the country for Dream even now. She wouldn’t say why
she believed this, but the strength of her conviction was clear. Alicia hoped to somehow draw the attention of these agents,
induce them to capture them and transport them back to this supposed new kingdom. Which would eliminate the necessity for
all this endless, aimless hunting. Dream figured it was the only remotely plausible way Alicia might get what she wanted.
And even the remote possibility of again gazing into the awful Ms. Wickman’s cold, dead eyes chilled her to the bone.

Marcy noted Dream’s continued scrutiny of Alicia and smiled. “Hey, at least the maggots are gone.”

Dream laughed. “Yeah. There’s that.”

“So it’s not all bad.”

“Right. Now it’s only 99.98 percent bad.”

Dream watched the dark form of a bird swoop through her field of vision before disappearing into the gathering darkness on
the horizon. The rain grew harder, falling in silver-white sheets across the sky. The temperature seemed to have fallen another
five degrees in just the last twenty minutes. Though it had been her idea to come to this place, she was beginning to regret
it. It was one of a number of places she’d always wanted to visit, and when she’d realized they were wandering close to this
area, she’d insisted on a slight course change to bring them here. Niagara Falls was as beautiful as she’d always imagined,
and the sight of all that rushing water inspired the expected sense of awe. And that overwhelming beauty was enhanced now
with the advent of twilight. The spotlights behind the falls had been switched on, adding a lovely soft green tint to the
pouring water. The problem was that it was too beautiful a thing to share with her current company. She should be seeing this
in the company of a lover, here or on one of the closer observation platforms, holding hands and leaning against each other,
enjoying a classic romantic moment.

The train of thought plunged her into a sudden depression. For the first time in a while she thought of Chad and the life
she’d left behind. Scenes and aural snippets from their screaming arguments came back to her then. Arguments that nearly always
centered around the same thing—her deepening booze and pill dependence. Chad railed endlessly against this “self-medication,”
insisting that she needed professional help to deal with her guilt over the deaths of her friends. This was followed by Dream’s
usual litany of bitter recriminations, unfairly blaming him for everything that was wrong with her. Even then she’d known
how unfair she was being, but she hadn’t cared. She would not be denied her only real solace, the numbing effects of her chosen
poisons. Things came to a head the time Dream whizzed an empty bottle past Chad’s head, barely missing him before it exploded
on the living room wall. And then she’d hit him. And that’d been the end of it. She moved out the next day and never returned.

Tears stung Dream’s eyes and she was glad for the obscuring effects of the rain. A flicker of movement to her right drew her
out of the painful reverie. She glanced in that direction and saw the girl in the yellow rain slicker again. Only now she
was closer than before, the distance between them nearly halved. The rain slicker flapped in the wind and the hood blew back
a bit, revealing long wet strands of blonde hair. The girl’s eyes were a brilliant shade of blue that sparkled even in the
gloom. She was a pretty young thing, one might even say adorable but for that insidious grin and that strange, mocking laughter
Dream realized she could actually hear now.

Dream cast her gaze about for any sign of the child’s parents, but there was no one nearby who obviously fit the bill. A few
other people were present, but they were mostly dark, indistinct forms in the distance. And surely no parent of any worth
would allow a child so young to wander from sight on a place like Rainbow Bridge. She didn’t want to believe the girl was
another apparition or magical construct, but the sense that she was wouldn’t go away. The idea that the power she possessed
was so far beyond her control terrified Dream.

But there was another thing to consider. From which submerged corner of Dream’s psyche had she emerged? There was nothing
instantly familiar about the girl. Except for the blonde hair, she didn’t much resemble Dream as a young girl. Nor did she
much look like any of the childhood friends she could recall. Then something occurred to Dream, a flash of insight so stark
and compelling she couldn’t help but believe it. Perhaps, on a subconscious level, the girl was Dream’s idea of how her own
daughter might look. She was a woman, and perhaps on some primal level lurked a need unfulfilled, a biological imperative
that combined with what Marcy called the “supernatural gumbo” inside her to produce this leering manifestation.

Her eyes still locked on Dream, the girl laughed harder, her little body rocking with the force of her mirth.

Dream shivered and moved back a step.

The girl was closer by half again, maybe ten feet away now, and Dream had not seen her move. It was almost as if the physical
distance between them was shrinking of its own accord, the fabric of existence retracting or disappearing to draw them closer.
Which was an insane, impossible thing, but Dream had seen and experienced enough not to discount a thing merely because it
shouldn’t be possible.

She moved back another step and said, “Stay away.” She bumped against Marcy and her voice rose in pitch as tears flowed freely
down her face. “Stay the fuck away! Leave me alone!”

Marcy shuffled away with a startled grunt and said, “Who are you talking to, Dream?”

The little girl was five feet away and looking straight at her now. She raised a hand and pointed a slender forefinger at
her. The pale digit looked ghostly in the gloom. Like something only half-formed or incomplete. This impression, combined
with Marcy’s question, formed the impetus for what happened next.