Showdown (20 page)

See? He's so gentle, really. Just like in my dreams.

He looked at her without moving for a long time, until she thought she could feel the heat coming to her from those blue eyes.

“You know the story about the woman caught in adultery?” he asked.

Her heart skipped a beat. “Yes.”

He took a step toward her.“You know, now there's a story of grace, Paula. I mean real grace. Don't you think?”

Wanna trip, baby, huh? Wanna, wanna?

“I guess.” She took a step backward.

“Do you want to know what the truth of it was, Paula? I'll tell you. The truth of it was that the woman was no worse than the rest of them. They were all the same. All covered by grace. That's the truth of it, Paula. You have any bad thoughts toward anybody lately? Like Steve maybe? Because if you have, you are no better than that woman there in the story.”

What was he saying? Of course she knew what he was saying. He was saying that if you think it, you might as well do it. The consequences are the same.

“The consequences are the same, Paula,” Marsuvees said. “Either way, you don't get stoned.”

She was feeling that tingle in her belly again.

Wanna trip with me? Wanna, baby?

“Yes,” she said.

She wasn't sure whom she had said yes to then. Maybe to herself. She had stayed faithful to Steve for fifteen years without so much as looking at another man. Not that there was much to look at around here, but she'd never even had the desire. Now a man sent from God was hitting on her, telling her there was plenty of grace to go around, and Steve was sitting in the backyard losing his mind. Maybe she was losing hers as well.

He'd said that he was here to prepare them to withstand something bad. Something evil that would kill them if they didn't see things his way. He'd come to bring them the sword of truth.

Marsuvees walked toward her.

A wave of heat broke over her crown and cascaded down her shoulders. She could feel tiny beads of sweat popping from the pores on her forehead. It occurred to her that she wasn't wearing any makeup.
If he gets too close,
he'll see the pimple on my jaw.
Thank goodness she'd taken a shower.

Wanna trip with me?

“Yes,” she said again, and this time she knew she was answering that voice in her head.
Yes, yes, yes!

No, Paula. No, no, no. This isn't grace and hope.

It's love. Love, love, love.

Love?

Do you want to trip? Do you want love?

Yes.

Marsuvees came within a foot of her and reached a hand to her face. She stood there trembling, wanting his touch unlike she had wanted anything in her memory.

She looked into his eyes, deep, where they became sapphire pools of safety. His hand rose to her cheek and then ever so lightly he touched her, at the corner of her parted lips.

She closed her eyes and let her mind fall.

“Meet me here,” he whispered into her ear. She caught a faint whiff of his breath. It smelled sanitized. Like rubbing alcohol.

“After the meeting,” he whispered. And then she felt his warm wet tongue on her neck. It ran up her cheek, past her ear, and right up into her hair. She shivered with pleasure and edged forward, wanting to feel his body more than she imagined possible.

“Tomorrow night, precious. Then everything will make sense.”He pulled back.

“Yes,” she said. His saliva began to dry cool on her cheek.

Tomorrow
night?

She opened her eyes.

He was gone.

Gone! Her heart crashed to the ground, as if it had been held in a glass that someone dropped. She hurried to the door and scanned the outer room.

Empty.

Paula walked shakily to her desk and sat down heavily. What was she thinking? Bile rose to her throat and she felt she might throw up, right here on the desk.

Paula set her head in her hands and began to sob. But they really weren't sobs of horror or remorse anymore. They were sobs of self-pity.

She wanted to trip. She really, really did.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE MONASTERY

Friday morning

“YOU'RE PUTTING words in my mouth,” Paul cried. “Did I say I
want
to go down?”

“Sure you did,” Darcy replied. “Want is part of curiosity. We all know you want. Now it's only a matter of your rights.”

He looked confused, Billy thought. But he was caving already. It had been Darcy's idea to pursue the other students so soon. “If
I
went for it, then Paul will go for it. And if Paul goes for it, there's no telling how many we can get.”

It had been her idea, but Billy made it his task. They would approach students strategically, beginning with Paul.
Well, swallow this, Paul.

Darcy pressed. “As you said, Paul—and you're quite correct in saying—you possess full control over what is yours. Such as your will. And your rights. See, and you were prepared for a long drawn out argument. But it's
very simple, really. You
do
have the right to do whatever you wish.”

“But it's wrong.”

“Says who?”

“Says them.”

“But it's your right to decide what's right. Right?”

“My right?”

“Yes,” Billy said. “And we know what you want. You want to go to the lower levels and have a peek. Like Darcy did. Because you look at Darcy here, and you think she looks quite well for one who's done the forbidden. And now you want to know what it feels like.”

Paul's hesitation told Billy that he had his third convert. It took another twenty minutes of discussion, slowly whittling down Paul's increasingly meager objections, to get to the final point.

“So there you have it,” Darcy said, grinning.

“So there I have it? Just like that?”

“Just like that. Let's go.”

Paul balked. “Go? What do you mean go? Just go?”

“Yes. You exercise your will and you just go. Anything less would be denial of what your heart and your mind are telling you.” Darcy stood. “Come on.”

Paul stood shakily. “I don't know.”

“Of course you don't. How can you know what you haven't tried? Look at me, do I look worse off?”

She scratched her neck, and Billy wondered if Paul noticed her light rash.

“Just a peek?”

“Just a peek.”

“Okay, but just a peek.”

Billy chuckled and slapped Paul on the back. “Just a peek. Don't worry, this will all be moot tomorrow anyway.”

“How's that?”

Billy glanced at Darcy and winked. “I've challenged the monastery rules. No one knows yet, but tomorrow I'll defeat Christine in a debate and open the lower tunnels for all the students.”

Paul was back to his bug eyes. “You're serious? Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Well, what if you don't win?”

“I will.” Billy stood to his feet and brushed off his pants. “You ready?”

“Now?”

“Why not? Just a peek, Paul. That's all you owe yourself. One small peek.”

THEY STOOD in the vestibule, facing the huge black doors, three wide-eyed children.

“It's so dark down here,” Paul said.

Billy pushed the black doors open.

“Don't be a wuss, Paul. You'll love it. The fear you're feeling is part of the fun. You'll see, I promise.”

Billy and Darcy stepped past the door and waved Paul in. “Come on.”

He walked toward them as if each step might set off a land mine. Funny how terrified he was. Billy's longing for the study was already mushrooming.
Hurry up, you spineless brat!

Then Paul's head was in, craning for a view.

“Don't just stand there gawking. Come in!”

Paul stepped all the way in. But his heart remained outside, bouncing around the vestibule like a Super Ball. The thought made Billy chuckle.

He pushed the door closed behind Paul.
Clunk
.

They were in. Paul's words to Darcy rang in Billy's ears.
You went in
there?
As if he thought she had tasted death itself.

Open your mouth, Paul boy. How does it taste?

Three thick pink worms writhed slowly under the torch's light on their right. Glistening bands of mucus trailed behind them. Billy could feel Paul trembling beside him.

“Wow . . .”

Darcy giggled. “Yeah, wow. I told you you'd like it.”A faint rash had flowered on Darcy's lily-white Dutch neck—the same rash he'd developed. The tunnels had this effect. It was probably some kind of atmospheric thing.

“Wow.”

The worms' pungent odor filled Billy's nostrils and made him impatient. He didn't have time for this nonsense.

“Come on.” He turned and walked into the far right tunnel, leading the way with the torch. And then he was running toward the study, with Darcy at his side and Paul stumbling behind them, saucer-eyed.

They spent twenty minutes with Paul in the study, putting up with his foolishness. The dark passage sent him around a bend. He literally bounced off the walls of the small study, touching the books and examining the furniture—enough to make Billy wonder if they'd made a mistake in bringing him. Billy wanted to spend their time here exploring or writing, not bouncing around like a lunatic. The distraction was annoying. Infuriating.

“What's this?” Paul asked. “You're writing a story together?”

Billy turned to the desk where Paul held his journal open, reading.

He and Darcy had stayed below deep into the night, exploring and reading and writing. In the end, mostly writing, a continuation of the story he'd begun on his own. Darcy insisted on writing the women in it. “It takes a woman to know a woman's true desires,” she said. He chuckled and she lost herself, bent over the book, intoxicated by her own creative power as much as anything else in the dungeon.

“Put the book down. Mind your own business.”

“Jiminy Cricket, Billy.” Paul dropped the book onto the desk where it landed with a slap. “I was thinking maybe I could write with you, but you've turned into a raging monster.”

“We're not saying you can't do things with us,” Darcy said. “But you have to take a deep breath and calm down. All your questions are getting a bit annoying.”

Paul seemed to shrug off her rebuke. He looked past the gate at the tunnel. “You want to go exploring.”

Billy and Darcy exchanged a glance. “We've already explored.”

“Well, maybe I'll find another bedroom or something. Or maybe I can try one of the other halls.”

Billy faced him, angered by the suggestion without knowing why. His privacy was being trampled, though it had been at his insistence that Paul had come.

“We have only one torch,” Darcy said.

“Then come with me.”

Billy did want to explore, but the thought of spending any more time with the walking mouth called Paul made him nauseated.

“No, and the torch stays here.”

Paul wasn't put off. “Then we'll make another.”Without waiting for their approval, he stripped off his shirt.

Billy watched as he tied it into a knot, thrust it onto the end of an old broom handle he'd found in the corner, and turned the old torch upside down over his contraption. Fuel leaked in flaming drips, igniting Paul's shirt. He laughed with delight and jumped aside to avoid a thin line of flame dripping to the floor.

“You won't have long,” Billy said. “Maybe half an hour before that thing burns out and leaves you in the dark. Trust me, you don't want to get caught in those tunnels without a light.”

Paul left the study without another word.

Billy glared after him and turned to find Darcy staring at him. “What?”

“You have a problem
with him suddenly?” she asked.

“He just irritates me suddenly,” he said.

“It's the tunnels.”

“Yeah, well I hope he runs out of fuel and a bunch of centipedes get to him or something.”

“Yeah, wouldn't that be something.”

The idea grew on Billy. Maybe, if they were so fortunate, one of the big worms or a big leech or something would suck the blood from his head.

“We should follow him and lock him into a tunnel,” Darcy said.“Let him starve.”

“What? You have a problem with him suddenly?”

She smiled. “He just irritates me suddenly.”

“Touché.What do we do?”

She looked at the desk. “Write?”

Billy sighed and walked to the book. He sat down, picked up his pen, and let his mind fall into the story. The world around him faded. Every word he wrote swallowed his senses entirely, leaving nothing left for distraction. He forgot about Paul; about the monastery; about the study; even about Darcy, until she plopped down beside him, knocking his arm.

He grunted and looked at her.
Oh, it's Darcy.
And then he went back to drawing his pen across the paper.

For a long time the only sounds he heard were sounds of heavy breathing and the scratching of pens. Those and the voices from his story in which he'd lost himself.

Billy filled a page and turned to the next, dabbing his pen in the inkwell as he did. He used red because red was the color of blood and blood brought life. And death.

A scream echoed faintly in his mind and he thought,
The people in my
story are screaming
. He pressed his pen more firmly into the paper. The screaming grew louder, and he absently wondered if it was from pleasure or pain, because he couldn't tell by the sound alone. He would have to see their faces. He smiled at that.

The scream ripped through his skull like a blaring siren and he jerked upright. He swung to Darcy and saw her wide eyes. She'd heard it too. As one they spun to the door.

Paul stumbled up to the gate and pulled up, panting. He'd lost his torch. Black streaks ran down his bared chest. He gawked at them with round eyes.