The Impaler (46 page)

Then she heard what sounded like a door slamming somewhere inside, and Cindy waited a moment longer.

“Edmund?” she called out, knocking. “It’s Cindy.”

Nothing. She took a deep breath, opened the screen door, and entered.

“Edmund?” she called again, her voice coming back to
her in echoes as she closed the inside door behind her. The house was dark—the top of the stairs ahead of her, the rooms to her right and left, pitch black. But Cindy could see a dim light emanating from a room farther down the hall—at the rear of the house, just beyond the large staircase.
Must be the kitchen
, she thought.

“Edmund?” she said, heading toward the light. She got about halfway down the hall when suddenly a figure stepped out of the lighted doorway and into the shadows.

Cindy gasped, startled. “Edmund, is that you?”

A heavy silence—the figure just standing there, head jutting forward, shoulders hunched. Cindy could barely see him, but could tell it was a man. He stood looking at her sideways, his face completely obscured beneath the silhouette of his massive frame.

“Edmund isn’t here,” the man said finally, his voice deep and guttural. “And neither is the General.”

“I’m sorry,” Cindy said, confused. “I’m a friend of his—Edmund’s, I mean—from school. Do you know when he’ll be back?’

A burst of laughter—harsh and terrifying in its sudden-ness—and instinctively Cindy began to back away, her hand feeling along the wall.

“C’est mieux d’oublier,”
the man said, and Cindy’s fingers found the light switch. Impulsively she flicked it, and the hallway sprang to life.

She took in everything in less than a second: the yellowed wallpaper, peeling in spots; the handful of bright cream squares along the stairs where pictures once hung; the thick trail of what looked like red paint stretching out from the man’s feet and running up the staircase. And then there was the man himself. He looked like Edmund Lambert—his build, his jeans, his blue button-down shirt—but at the same time he looked like a completely different person.
Edmund’s brother?
Cindy thought for a split second. His hair was wet,
matted and messy; and his face was twisted in a maniacal expression that had to be—

A joke
. Yes, a voice in the back of Cindy’s head told her this had to be some kind of joke. Of course it was Edmund she was looking at, and in one moment she felt relief, in the next, terror when she saw the pistol in his right hand.

“What have you done?” she whispered absently—but her legs were moving again, backing her away toward the door.

“Ereshkigal,” Edmund said, stepping forward and baring his teeth.

Cindy’s eyes darted from the pistol to the trail of blood on the stairway then back to Edmund’s face.
His eyes,
she thought—those eyes that had once licked her own—
No,
she realized with horror,
those eyes aren’t the same!

Edmund laughed again—a laugh that sounded to Cindy more like a growl.

“Ereshkigal will help us,” he said, tucking the pistol into the small of his back. He was coming toward her now, and Cindy could feel her heart pounding in her chest; could feel the fear there welling up from her stomach.

“But where is the boy’s mama now?” he asked, taking off his shirt to reveal a bloody white bandage on his chest. “Where
is
she?”

Edmund tore off the bandage and tossed it on the floor. Cindy froze when she saw the tattoo and the fresh blood running from his wounds to his stomach.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

“That’s right,” Edmund said. “Your god has returned.”

And then he flew at her.

Cindy screamed and made a dash for the door—her legs weak, heavy like cement as her fingers closed around the knob. She got the inside door open a crack, but Edmund was close behind and slammed the door shut. Then he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her down—backwards across
the floor, sliding, until she came to a stop in the sticky trail of blood.

Cindy screamed again and scrambled to her feet—tried to run toward the back of the house—but Edmund Lambert caught her by the collar of her denim jacket.

“Please don’t!” Cindy cried, the tears beginning to flow as she struggled against his grip. But Edmund Lambert only roared and gnashed his teeth—wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug, and dragged her kicking and screaming up the stairs.

Markham staggered out of the workroom and into the darkened hallway—hit the opposite wall and almost fell over. Stumbling backwards, he leaned on the doorjamb for support, his wrists and ankles throbbing painfully.

He could tell he was in a narrow passageway, but could see only the brick wall in front of him. The light from the workroom was messing with his vision; his eyes needed time to adjust to the dark—

Suddenly he heard a scream—
a woman’s scream!
—and heavy footsteps thundering above his head. He spun around, disoriented—could not feel the hammer in his left hand; could hardly maintain his grip as he tried to shake the blood back into the fingers of his other hand.

Another scream, and Markham steadied himself against the brick wall. Stepping forward into the darkness, he spied a dim light coming from another doorway farther down the passageway. He started toward it, groping along the wall. He could feel the texture of the bricks now. That was good; the blood was flowing back. His courage was flowing back, too,
and he could feel his mind clearing, his senses sharpening—until he reached the lighted doorway.

Markham gasped and instinctively raised the hammer. A figure across the room, seated in a pool of light—a man with a lion’s head!

The article Schaap sent me,
he thought, and as if on cue he spied the thick platinum wedding band on the figure’s right hand—could see his partner bouncing it on the conference table back at the Resident Agency.

“Schaap!” Markham cried, rushing across the room. He grabbed the lion’s head by its mane, yanked it upwards, expecting to see his partner’s face—but there was nothing underneath but the golden shelf on which it rested; a shelf with a carved panel identical to the tattoo he’d seen on the Im-paler’s chest.

His body is the doorway,
he heard the Impaler say, and Markham stepped back in numb horror—the lion’s head falling to the floor, his eyes glued to the temple doors at Kutha. His partner was sitting beneath them with his head cut off.

That’s what the chains were for,
he said to himself, his mind reeling.
The son of a bitch gutted and beheaded him—beheaded others, too. Their bodies are the doorway through which he speaks to the lion god in Hell!

Markham’s chest grew heavy with sorrow and with rage, but he continued to back away—out of the room and into the hallway, where he hit his shoulder against another doorjamb. Turning, impulsively he reached inside—pins and needles shooting through his fingers as he found the light switch.

The scene in this room made the one across the hall look like a Disney movie—the dentist’s chair, the newspaper articles on the walls, the blood
everywhere
—dear God, it was worse than he could have ever imagined!

This is where they are sacrificed!
Markham thought, and
the sight of the leg brackets at the bottom of the chair sent a wave of nausea through his stomach. He could hear them screaming: the Impaler’s victims—Donovan, Canning—but Andy Schaap was with them, too. Yes, the blood on the chair was still fresh; appeared wet and glistening in the light from the single overhead bulb. Had the Impaler murdered his partner while Markham was unconscious?

For the briefest of moments the thought of it threatened to drive him insane, when suddenly he heard more screaming and thumping above his head—farther away now, from another part of the house. Markham spun around—registered the large 9:3 and 3:1 taped to either side of the doorway—and quickly made his way to the opposite end of the passageway. He found the cellar stairs; found the light switch there, too, and flicked it—his stomach sinking when he saw the heavy steel door staring down at him.

Then he saw the trail of blood leading up to it.

But Sam Markham did not pause. And without thinking he rushed up the stairs, his hammer poised to strike even as he assured himself that he would have to go back to the workroom for something bigger to break down the door.

Cindy cried for help again and again as Edmund carried her down the hallway—her screams echoing in the emptiness as he kicked open a door and threw her down on the bed. The room was dark, but a shaft of light cut across the bed from somewhere to her right—the outline of a doorway and the wall of another hallway beyond.

Without thinking she scrambled toward it—then
thwack!
—a hard backhand across her cheekbone sent her flying onto the bed, the room at once turning from black to bright orange pain.

“Edmund, please,” Cindy cried, holding her face. “Don’t do this!”

Edmund passed through the shaft of light and disappeared back into the shadows—a belt unbuckling and the sound of it hitting the floor. Cindy screamed, but in a flash Edmund was on top of her, his breath hot and foul on her mouth as she struggled against his nakedness. He was incredibly strong, and with one hand he pinned her wrists above her head while the other tore at the zipper of her jeans. She could hardly breathe.

“No,” she managed to squeak out, and Edmund stopped.

“Not here,” he whispered. “Not on Mama’s bed.”

He left her, and Cindy gasped for air—had little time to move before she felt the cold barrel of his gun under her jaw. She was being lifted off the mattress, was being pushed toward the light.

“Carry that rope for me,” Edmund growled. Then the light, the hallway—not a hallway, Cindy realized, but a long and narrow closet with stairs at the end—rushed past her in a blur. In her terror, she seemed to arrive at the top of the stairs in a single bound. But what she saw there sent her spinning, made her legs feel like electric spaghetti.

It was Bradley Cox.

I HAVE RETURNED!
George Kiernan cried out from the theater in her mind, and Cindy felt as if she would vomit. But there was no time to vomit—not even time to scream—for Edmund scooped her up and hurled her across the room.

She landed on the floor in a crack of crushing pain. Her elbow, her left arm had to be broken—but she could not cry out, her mouth twitching like a fish out of water as her lungs went into spasm.

Edmund came for her again, set down his gun on the floor, and stood over her roaring loudly. It was the sheer terror of that roar that finally brought her wind back; but before Cindy could scream, Edmund Lambert was upon her, tearing off her blouse.

“Edmund,
please
,” she whimpered, trying to rake her nails across his cheek. She felt no pain now, could even move both her arms, but Edmund Lambert was too quick and too strong for her—only snarled and grabbed her by the wrists and pinned her hands behind her head as he buried his face between her breasts.

Then she felt his teeth sink into her flesh.

Cindy thought for the briefest of moments that she had been teleported outside her body—watched the scene below
as if from the attic ceiling, and thought it strange when she heard the girl on the floor howl like a coyote. But then came the pain, and in a lightning strike of unimaginable agony she was back inside her body and staring up at the twisted visage of her attacker.

He was chewing.

Dear God!
she cried out in her mind, the blood running warm across her chest.
He’s going to eat me alive!

“My body is the doorway,” Edmund said. And then he swallowed.

Cindy’s muscles went rigid and the room began to spin. And amid a swirling kaleidoscope of pain, she could hear a young woman begging God to make him stop.

But as Edmund Lambert sank his teeth again and again into her flesh, a voice that sounded a lot like her father’s told her that God was busy elsewhere.

The taste of the goddess’s flesh was indescribably delectable—sent shock waves throughout his entire body—and brought with it the chorus of the god’s return.

C’est mieux d’oublier! C’est mieux d’oublier!

The General saw it all so clearly now. There was no need for the lion’s head. The Prince had made that clear when he came through the doorway—a flash of revelation that was for the General both momentary and endless.

And now the Prince had transported them both back in time. No, the General understood—
outside
time. They were still in the attic, yes, but also in the Underworld palace of Ereshkigal, their surroundings both familiar and strange—the stone pillars, the high vaulted ceilings, the lush fabrics that adorned the goddess’s bed chamber. And there on the other side of the room was the bathtub in which the goddess had let the Prince glimpse her nakedness for the first time.

The General could feel the eyes of the dead, the eyes of the other gods on his back. But his mother was there, too—hanging by her neck from the rafters, watching him. And there was the little boy looking up at her, smiling with under-
standing as the lines of the impaled stretched out along the road as far as he could see. There was no fear now. Only the end of the road; only the temple at Kutha and the hordes of worshippers calling his name; the battlefields and the souls of the impaled rising in the smoke to join with him in the stars.

C’est mieux d’oublier! C’est mieux d’oublier!

The twinkling stars—so many of them now that the sky looked silver—swirled around them and penetrated their flesh. The General could feel them inside and out; and suddenly he understood that the stars were not twinkling—they were
trembling
with fear!

I have returned!
the entire universe seemed to cry, and all at once it was laid out before him; everything one in the same now amid the unimaginable bliss of total understanding—time, place, even his body did not exist for him anymore. Everything had been given up for the Prince; the scales had fallen from his eyes and the Prince had rewarded him with the vision of the gods. Soon his flesh would fall away, too. Soon, the doorway would be open for him, and he would join with his mother in spirit—a sense of joining that he did not understand until now.