Comes a Horseman (38 page)

“He's in a trance,” Brady whispered, bewilderment straining his voice.

“Our bodies are yours. Our minds are yours. Our children are yours. We are naked for you, Master! We bare all. Take all!”

They were losing him.

Alicia came off the bed to crouch beside the chair. She gripped Malik's straining forearm, searched his face for answers.

“Malik,” she said, pleading, “where is Father Randall's home? Who does he work for? Who is your master?”

“Scary . . .” He worked his mouth, snapping and stretching. “Movie.” A cackle pealed from his gaping mouth.

Brady scowled and stepped back, repelled by the sound.

Apollo hunkered lower behind the chair. The puppet master wanted nothing to do with the behavior of his puppet. Only obligation kept him wiggling the strings, as his hands fluttered from one IV bag to another.

Malik froze, as if listening to words only he could hear. Suddenly, he cried, “I do! I eat their flesh. See? See?” His head shot out, and his teeth clicked. He chewed, flashed his tongue, chewed. “I eat their flesh!” The cackle, more wicked than ever.

His feet kicked out. Bound at the ankles, the movement was nevertheless enough to tip the chair back. It would have crashed to the floor had it not hit Apollo first. Apollo heaved it back with his shoulder.

Too late, Alicia saw Malik catch the IV bag with his teeth. His jaw twisted and his neck strained as he jerked the bag from its hook and shook it furiously, the way a shark rips at its food. Liquid sprayed everywhere.

It splashed into Alicia's face. Droplets scalded her eyes. She tasted something bitter. A citrus-alcohol tang assaulted her nostrils, her sinuses. She shot up, staggered back, and fell to her knees beside the bed.

50

T
he chemical in the IV bag Malik had torn open stung her eyes and burned her tongue.

Blinking in pain, she forced herself to orient on Malik—if more danger was coming, it would come from him. He was staring at the ceiling, slack-jawed. Then she saw it: a black coil of smoke rising from his mouth. It formed a swirling cloud above him, enlarging as she watched. Tendrils of the oily smoke lashed out from it like striking snakes, then pulled back into the churning mass. Heat vapors radiated from it, rippling the ambient light, toasting her skin. It sucked in her breath, leaving her heaving for air.

This isn't real,
she told herself, but her heart leaped at the thought that it was.

She rubbed her eyes, feeling a sandy grittiness move under her lids.

“Slice the children!” Malik called. “Eat them up!”

Alicia gasped.

She saw children! Their faces were pushing out of the swirling cloud as though from inside a balloon. Small heads; frightened, innocent faces.

She clamped her eyes closed, but the children followed her. They formed from the shadows in her mind—boys and girls, toddlers to prepubescents. They took perfect shape and perfect color. They turned and floated across her mental landscape like a movie montage. Their expressions were twisted in distress, as if caught in the grip of unseen hands. In unison, all the young faces started to scream.

Alicia snapped her eyes open. Brady rushed toward her, calling to her, asking if she was all right.

She looked past him, saw no faces trying to escape the gathering storm hovering over Malik.

Brady reached for her. She reared back. His hands were blackish-purple with reptilian scales and claws. Light fingers touched her face. Not reptilian. She realized that the scaly hands she saw must be from something behind Brady, something reaching around him for her.

Brady blew away, as if by a heavy wind, and she was gazing at Malik in the chair. Although the room lamps cast light on his surroundings, he was in shadow; the edges of his silhouette were indistinct, hazy, as though he were becoming the substance of the smoky cloud. She saw that this, in fact, was true. His face was elongating, blending into the funnel that rose from his mouth to the gathering storm above him.

Yet somehow he found his voice.

“See! See!” he said. “He is here!”

Bile rose in Alicia's throat. “Make him stop!” she yelled, thinking someone . . . someone was here with her, someone who could help. Who? Who was she calling to?

“Open yourself to him!” Malik ordered.

His shadow-form was stretching into something else. He was slipping his bonds because they had bound human limbs and he was no longer human.

“Take me, Master!”

Every word he issued increased the thickness of the rising funnel, added to the breadth of the cloud. Their utterance sliced at her mind, crimped her heart. She did not believe they were mere words anymore. They had become tangible tools of chaos, and she understood: he was speaking destruction into existence, creating evil from breath and sound. Something—not children—was in the cloud after all, taking shape. What might have been an elbow protruded, moved, and pulled in again. Then something larger—a knee, a head—appeared and was gone. She was witnessing a hideous imitation of fetal movement beneath the taut belly of a pregnant woman.

She tried to rise, but moist pressure held her down, pushing on her face. Brady . . . back with a cloth, wiping at her. She pushed him away.

“No!” she screamed. “Can't you hear him? Can't you see it?”

“Yes, Master! I have the blood! I saved it for you!”

A chorus of voices spoke the words. Blackness continued to pour from between Malik's lips and rise to the cloud. The room was getting darker, the lamps powerless against the vortex of evil. A stench hit her, and she snapped her head away. For an instant she remembered the putrid odor that had billowed out of a black trash bag when investigators had cut it open to reveal the decomposing corpse of a woman who had been kidnapped three weeks earlier. And in that instant she was sure, absolutely sure, the corpse from that bag was in this room, stashed under the bed or behind the love seat, stirring with malevolent animation. She wanted to bolt from the room, to run and run and run.

But she couldn't. The movement of her muscles was sluggish, constrained by air as thick as water.

What . . . ?
she thought.
What . . . ?
Nothing more of her question came to mind. The word was enough, however, to convey her confusion and horror. She wanted to scream it—and did.

“WHAT?”

A bead of sweat trickled off her forehead, snaked over her cheek. She wiped at it. Her face was soaked in perspiration—or
something
; she had a vague recollection of being splashed, by what she had no clue.

Blood,
she thought.
The blood of children.

She held her hand up and saw it drenched in dripping crimson. Then the color faded, leaving only clear fluid on her open hand.

What is happening?

Her heart raced as possibilities—none of them good—flashed against her psyche: Malik was a warlock or a demon . . . she was already dead . . . she was stuck in the most vivid nightmare of her life . . .

But all of this was
real
—she knew it!

A change in the room drew her attention. Reluctantly, she turned to the roiling cloud. A taloned hand was pushing out from it, straining to tear through a veined membrane. She trembled at the conviction that when it did, everyone in the room would perish . . . then everyone in the hotel . . . in the city . . .

She had to do something . . . had to . . . She turned and saw it resting on the nightstand: her pistol. She had retrieved it from Malik's waistband after she subdued him in room 522.

Was that today? Was that me or someone else?

Without another thought, she dived for it, landing flat on the bed and scurrying up to lunge again. She vaguely realized her sluggishness was gone now that she had decided to fight and not flee. In one swift motion, she gripped the gun, slid off the bed, and rose with the weapon extended out from her face in two hands. She took aim at the shadowy Malik form, transmogrifying in the chair.

A creature rose from behind him. Like the thing in the cloud, it was all black and humanoid. It challenged her.

“Alicia,” came its voice. It was familiar. She shifted her aim to center on this new creature's head.

“Where's Apollo?” she asked. “What have you done to him?”

“I'm right here,” the creature said slowly. “The scopolamine . . . you . . .”

“No!” She shook the gun at the creature, emphasizing its presence. The cloud was growing; soon it would be above her and most of the room. The taloned hand was still pressing out, joined now by another, both reaching toward her.

Sudden exhaustion fell on her like a blanket. She felt dizzy and took a step to steady herself. The edges of her vision dimmed. She shook her head. She could not pass out with these creatures . . . these
demons
in the room with her. But she knew she could not hold on to consciousness much longer. Only thing to do: be the last one standing before she collapsed. Bracing for the recoil, she tightened her finger over the trigger.

A flash of movement—coming at her from the side, from over the bed. An impact on her arms sent the gun flying.

Brady! He's with them!

He was grabbing her, turning her, wrapping his arms around her from behind, squeezing her close.

“No!”

She thrashed, trying to free her arms . . . bite him . . . anything.

He had her in a tight bear hug. They fell backward onto the bed. She kicked and twisted and slammed her head back, each time making contact with only the bed.

The dark creature behind Malik rushed forward and seized her legs.

“Hold on to her,” it ordered, “until she comes down.”

51

I
t all seemed so real,” Alicia said, shaking her head. She was leaning back against the bathroom counter, touching a towel to her hair. Apollo had insisted she take a long, hot shower. It seemed to Brady that both the shower and the passage of time—thirty minutes since he released her from the full-body hug—had done her a world of good. Her eyes were bloodshot, but considering the mind trip she'd endured, she looked remarkably composed.

Then she raised a drinking glass, and he saw how rattled she was: her hand shook so violently, water sloshed out of the glass and she could not quite align it with her mouth. He took it from her and held it to her lips. She gulped. When he lowered the glass, she smiled, a weak smile that reflected embarrassment at needing help. He knew she would make a superhuman effort to regain her independence, her strength, to be the old Alicia.

She had changed her clothes and was wearing a pantsuit nearly identical to what she'd worn before, but the colors were switched. The mock turtleneck was beige, the blazer—waiting for her on a door hook—and pants were coffee, no cream or sugar.

She had rebandaged her arm; he saw that blood had already soaked through. He touched the gauze on his hand. It was sticky with blood, the wound beneath it tender.

“Apollo said you probably got the equivalent of several hits of acid.”

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Remind me never to do drugs.”

“I don't think I'll have to.”

Her jaw tightened.
Working it out,
he thought, amazed by her fortitude. When her eyes opened, they were focused and determined. She nudged her head toward the door.

“So what do we do with this guy?” she asked.

Brady tugged up on his pant leg and rested his foot on the edge of the tub. The air was still heavy with steam. It helped relieve a tightness that had developed in his chest. The door was shut, but they could hear Apollo packing up and warning Malik to stop his squirming and mumbling. He had stuffed gauze in the assailant's mouth and sealed it shut with duct tape.

“Leave him,” Brady said. “After we've put some distance between him and us, we'll phone the New York field office. Let 'em know where he is and that he's connected to Pelletier.”

She shook her head. “There's nothing to connect him. The symbol alone means nothing.”

“Can you burn a CD of the audio? That ought to give them something they can use.”

“Yeah. Me going out of my mind.” She looked at him hard. “We held him against his will, drugged him up. We're the ones who'll get indicted.”

“Any better ideas?”

She thought about it, then shook her head. “We can't hang around. There are still people who want us dead. For
whatever
reason.”

Her last remark jarred him hard. They were no closer to knowing
why
people were after them. They had a few clues for tracking down those responsible, primarily a name: Fr. Adalberto Randall. But the motive was still mysterious, which somehow made the unfairness of being targeted exponentially worse. They could not plead their innocence or bargain for a settlement or change anything to appease their pursuer. They simply did not know what he or she hoped to accomplish by killing them. “Frustration” did not come close to describing their feelings.

“All right,” he said, glad to wash his hands of the revolting creature in the other room. “What's our next move?”

She brightened, always ready to take the next step. “We find this Father Randall. Maybe see what we can do about finding the leak within the Bureau. We do our jobs. We follow leads and take one step at a time until we come to the end.”

The investigation's end or our end?

He didn't say it. He was being pessimistic, and he was getting as tired of it as he was sure she was. Something was stirring in him that he had never felt before. It paced and growled. It wanted to protect the people he cared for and to rend revenge from those responsible for putting them in danger, for hurting them and frightening them. He wasn't sure what the emotion was, exactly, but it felt powerful and wrathful and freeing. It was a tiger on a leash. He didn't want to tug it back into its cage, but he was equally afraid to untether it.