She said, "We do what we have to do down here." She extended an open hand and a guard slapped a baton into it. She held out her other hand and the handle of a knife was pressed into the palm. She began to advance on Chad, who was dismayed by the gladiatorial gleam in her eyes. She smiled. "It's going to feel good to kill."

136.

Chad drew in a deep, antic.i.p.atory breath.

This is it, he thought.

Ready or not, this is it.

Holy s.h.i.t, say a prayer or something.

He barely perceived the rest of the warden's monologue, but he could see Cindy was waiting for him to be done speaking. "Two more examples. Two mysteries someone else might give a d.a.m.n about solving. Two people who wound up sharing a cell with you, young lady. Two people who were never signed in."

He chuckled. "Typical administrative sloppiness. Accurate record-keeping isn't one of our priorities. It bothered me in the beginning, when I first took this position, but now I appreciate the freedom it gives me.

"No record, no official notation of their presence, means they were never here."

Another chuckle.

"You can think of it as a license to kill." A pause. "Again."

Cindy's voice was a breathy whisper. "Thank you, dead man."

Chad winced, bracing himself for the killing blows.

He wasn't prepared, however, for the roar of gunfire that suddenly filled the room. He flinched and hunched his shoulders, but he didn't seek cover-because Cindy's stolid green eyes never wavered.

She smiled at him. "You're okay, Chad."

Her voice released him, and his gaze darted about the room, taking in the carnage. Three guards were dead on the floor. A fourth guard stood to his right, a 9mm pistol aimed at the still-standing warden, who was now a quivering 137.

ma.s.s of terror. His lanky, angular frame seemed to collapse in on itself as he fell back against the desk, his shaking hands held out before him.

"P-please ... ," he sputtered, his suddenly red eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. "I can-"

Cindy was still facing Chad. "I don't give a s.h.i.t what he can do."

Her hand, the one holding the knife, reared back.

Then, with a grace and precision worthy of a prima ballerina, she wheeled around, c.o.c.ked her arm all the way back, and whipped it forward. This all occurred in the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat. The knife sliced through the air and flew straight and true. The tall man had time to gasp before the blade punched through one of his eyes and penetrated his brain. His hands clutched instinctively for the knife's handle, but he was already dead. His body toppled backward, slid sideways along the desktop, and rolled to the floor.

Chad's psyche, overloaded with violent sensory input, finally kicked his mouth back into gear. "Oh my G.o.d, I thought you were going to kill me. I thought you were going to torture me and then kill me. Oh, s.h.i.t. Oh my G.o.d. Oh s.h.i.t. Holy f.u.c.king s.h.i.t."

But Cindy's smile was implacable. She exuded the calm that had left her following the tall man's denial of her pet.i.tion. "That was never going to happen, Chad. You're too important."

Chad cackled, a sound close to lunacy unleashed. "Yeah, you bet. Never going to happen. That's what I thought all along."

138.

He looked at the guard with the pistol.

The unlikely savior.

He was a stocky guy in his thirties. He had a thin wisp of a mustache and a receding hairline. His gaze was st.u.r.dy, and he projected the air of a man you don't mess with, not unless you want to lose a lot of teeth. Of course, maybe some of that had something to do with the big gun his hands were wrapped around. The black pistol looked huge and malevolent. But, hey, at least it wasn't pointed at them.

"So you're in on it, too."

Chad's gaze shifted back to Cindy. "You really ought to tell me more about this whole revolution, conspiracy thing. You've been implying I'm some kind of central figure in whatever's going on, which makes no G.o.dd.a.m.n sense, since I don't know you people and have never set foot in this G.o.dforsaken place even once in my whole life." He laughed again. "Call me crazy, I think I'm owed a little more of an explanation."

Cindy clasped hands with him. "Soon, Chad, I promise."

And then she was pulling him out of the room.

"But now we have to go."

He staggered after her.

The guard followed them.

"Hey-"

They were proceeding down a drab hallway at a pace Chad had difficulty maintaining, and he tried to plant his feet, an attempt to bring their exodus from this place to a temporary halt. He was p.i.s.sed off about being kept in the dark. He wanted answers. But Cindy's strength again 139.

eclipsed his own, and he was dragged along a bit before managing to regain his footing.

"Jesus Christ, Cindy" He panted. "It's not like I'm being unreasonable. I really did think I was about to die in there. You could've f.u.c.king told me about our friend here. Do you not have an ounce of compa.s.sion in you? Not one single f.u.c.king ounce? And what was up with the wait? Why wait so long to bring in the cavalry?"

The guard cleared his throat. "Had to find out how much the boss knew."

Cindy added, "Which turned out to be not much."

The guard grunted. "Thank G.o.d."

They exited the building through a rear door and stood in a tunnel that vaguely resembled an underground mine shaft. Earthen walls supported by joists and beams. Chad peered down the length of tunnel he could make out, which wasn't much-it curved and formed a blind spot. He saw something flickering-a gas lamp flame.

Chad sighed. "I've died and gone to the land that time forgot."

The guard pulled a folded piece of paper from a vest pocket and pa.s.sed it to Cindy. "A duplicate of your emanc.i.p.ation endors.e.m.e.nt. You'll need it to get past the next checkpoint. The man you'll need to see there is Stephens."

Cindy nodded. "Stephens."

Something flickered in the guard's eyes, a hint of some private shame. "There'll..." He cleared his throat again. "There'll be a price to pay?

Cindy met his gaze. "It won't be one I haven't paid a hundred times before."

140.

The guard sighed. "I know."

Cindy started walking.

Chad, ever reluctant, had no choice.

He followed her. "I would really like to go home now."

Cindy ignored him.

"Good luck," the guard called after them.

She ignored that, too.

The guard waited there until he saw them disappear around the bend in the tunnel. Then he went back into the holding facility and returned to the warden's office. He examined the bodies of his former colleagues, checking to be sure they were dead. He detected a faint pulse from one of them, Nitkowski, a problem he took care of with another bullet to the back of the head.

Then he moved to the warden's desk and took a seat.

He surveyed his b.l.o.o.d.y handiwork and judged it a job well done.

But not quite finished.

He racked the 9mm's slide, ratcheting another bullet into the chamber. Then he put the gun in his mouth and thought about all the terrible things he'd done since coming Below. The slaves he'd killed. The innocent children he'd consigned to a life of slavery. Unspeakable, unforgivable acts of brutality. He wasn't an evil man. Not really. These things had been an almost unbearable burden on his conscience, which was alive and well despite his repeated efforts to suppress it, even kill it. He'd allowed circ.u.mstance and his own fears to override his morality.

To turn him into a henchman of the devil.

141.

But fate had turned and granted him an opportunity to atone for his deeds.

An opportunity he'd taken with grat.i.tude. There was just one more thing left to do. Seal one more dead man's lips forever. He pulled the trigger.

142.

This is a dream. A dream but not a dream. A warped reflection or inversion of reality, like the dreamer's odd visions of the beautiful woman called Dream. He experiences the same awareness that he's dreaming. The lucid quality of the scene in his head distresses him. His sleeping body writhes on the bed, and he covers his face with his hands. Only then does he realize he is no longer tethered to bedposts. In fact, he senses he is alone in the bedroom. So this is it, the miraculous opportunity he's been praying for, another chance to get out of this place. All he has to do is wake up.

WAKE UP!.

an internal voice commands.

But he cannot.

How strange it is, how frustrating, to experience this dual awareness. Knowing that what he's seeing in his head 143.

is something more than the usual juxtaposition of weird images conjured by a brain at rest. That random quality isn't there. Nor is there any overt symbolism. He watches the drama unfold like scenes in a movie. A movie he can't look away from. He is reminded of that guy in A Clockwork Orange, the singing s.a.d.i.s.t, who is immobilized and forced to watch a series of grotesque images, his eyelids held open with metal clamps. This is like that. Something restrains him. Monofilaments of psychic thread knotted in strategic areas, effectively preventing a return to the conscious world. The knowledge of his unbound body in the bed is like that proverbial carrot at the end of the string-always just out of reach. Maddeningly close.

Not for the first time, he experiences despair.

He is in a room lit only by candles. He sees this. He knows it's an image in his head. But he's there. Really there. He can feel the ground beneath his feet. Can feel the warmth generated by the flickering flames. There is an altar of sorts against the back wall. Upon it is the nude body of a middle-aged man. His chest is sunken and his ribs are visible through yellow, papery skin, the way plastic wrap might look stretched over a skeleton. His ankles and wrists are bound with lengths of rope, a measure that seems unnecessary-nothing about this obviously doomed man suggests "flight risk."

The man is awake.

And resigned to his fate-no pleas of mercy issue from his mouth.

But the dreamer senses something more than mere resignation; the man on the altar seems almost... eager.

Yes, that's it.

144.

He's eager to die.

He eagerly awaits deliverance from a long period of suffering.

The dreamer-who maybe isn't really dreaming-is horrified by the revelation. Not for the sake of this man, who is obviously beyond help, but for himself. Because he knows how easily he might embrace a similar fate. It is all too easy to imagine that sense of serenity, of blissful acceptance, in that last moment before death.

There is a small crowd in the room. A dozen people. All there, the dreamer supposes, to bear witness to this man's death. Witnesses are an essential part of the ritual. He isn't sure how he knows this, but it is fact, as immutable as the tide. He can't make out their faces, and none of them speak. They are waiting for something. This is a reverent silence, a silence of solemn antic.i.p.ation.

They wait.

And wait.

The dreamer wills his sleeping body to open its eyes. His concentration is so focused the intensity of the scene in his head wavers just a bit, goes soft-focus. His eyelids flutter. Once. And then the scene snaps back into focus. There is a flashing moment of utter despair and frustration. Then the mute witnesses drop as one to their knees. The dreamer is on his knees in the same instant, not at all sure how he knew the precise moment to genuflect. But the same mysterious impulse causes him to bow his head in the next moment. His peers in worship do the same. That sense of antic.i.p.ation remains, but it is more intense now, and there is a collective holding of the breath.

Footsteps.

145.

Someone has entered the room. A presence of authority. The footsteps draw closer. The sound is the thump of boots on wood, and there is something ominous about it. The dreamer begins to shiver and experiences symptoms like the onset of a cold, a headache and chills, a dull throb at the back of the throat. The clip-clop of the boots is like a hammer in his head as the person wearing them pa.s.ses by him on the way to the altar. The person ascends the few steps to the altar, stops, and turns to face the small crowd. The worshipers, if that's what they are, look up now.

The dreamer shivers again.

It's her. Giselle. His tormentor. The awful mute woman who tied him up and tortured him. The candlelight seems to grow brighter. No, the dreamer realizes, it's not just a matter of perception. The light actually is brighter. Giselle has somehow willed it. She is capable of such things. Magical things. She is not as adept as the one who taught her, The Master, but he thinks her power should not be underestimated. This knowledge appears fully formed in his head, intact from nowhere, like a file added to a computer's hard drive via a floppy disk.

Giselle looks more beautiful than ever. She is wearing an ankle-length black skirt over black boots and a burgundy top that exposes her arms and b.r.e.a.s.t.s to stunning effect. Her long black hair is pulled back and gold hoop earrings dangle from her delicate lobes. The light from the candles seems to lick at her porcelain flesh. Her eyes are alive with the raw power of dark magic. She is the most striking female he has ever seen.

She smiles.

And extends a hand.

146.

A person near the front of the crowd stands, extracts something from the folds of a robe, something that glints in the light, and walks with her head knelt down to the altar. She proffers the shiny object. Giselle takes it from her and the robed woman returns to her kneeling position. Giselle's gaze takes in each person in the room, one by one, seeming to linger longer on the pale face of the dreamer.

The dreamer swallows hard.

Giselle's smile broadens. The object in her hand is a wedge of razor-sharp steel. A knife with an ornate handle. Ceremonial knife. She turns away from the crowd. The dreamer has a side view of her slender figure now. She walks over to the bound man and kneels beside him. She brings the blade to her lips and kisses it. All a part of the ritual. The dreamer knows this, but the purpose of the ritual eludes him-a missing floppy-disk file?

The next phase of the ritual becomes apparent when another member of the crowd-the dreamer himself, actually-stands up and approaches the altar. Dread fills him like a fast-acting poison. The last place he wants to be is anywhere closer to Giselle or that altar. But he continues his approach on d.a.m.nably steady feet. There is an object in his hand. A thick, leather-bound book. He wasn't aware of it before, but here it is.

An image flash. Giselle nude. Standing over him.