Page 20

CHAPTER NINETEEN

B ack in the car, the tension almost twangs. Too nervous to stay quiet, I keep up a stream of babbling chatter. Most likely I sound like a total idiot but I could not care less.

Maybe this old house will unlock my memory, but I feel like I’m being driven to my execution. “There’s no chance we could stop a while and let me get out for a run?”

From close beside me, the Warrior says, “Even if one of us came with you, there’s too much risk of you being seen.”

“Seen by who? What are you all keeping me hidden from?” and then, “Or what are you keeping me locked away for?” Nobody speaks.

“I mean, if this is all part of some twisted sex game, I’d have to point out there’s not very much sex going on.”

The warrior shifts in his seat. From the front, the Emperor fixes my eye in the mirror. I don’t care. Frustration of every kind is driving me frantic. I want to shake the whole world like a snow-globe.

After a while the Warrior tells me,

“Relax. You’re going to be fine. Everything will be okay.”

I’m remembering the taste and the heat of his cock.

Trapped in closer quarters than ever between him and the Mastermind, my head keeps throwing up images, fantasies of what I could do with the two of them. Even with all three of the smoking hunks.

I know that, as much as anything else, this is just my mind searching for distraction. Yet it seems like such a real possibility.

The Emperor calls back to the Warrior. “Did you talk with our friends on the dockside earlier?”

“I did,” his mouth twists. “No sign of either consignment. They’re convinced it’s all been intercepted and purloined.”

“Me, too.” The Emperor nods slowly. “And no good news from our trusted allies in the precinct?”

The Mastermind’s head shakes. “They all plead total ignorance.” He takes out his phone.

With an eye in the mirror, the Emperor says, “That would usually be the gospel truth.”

All three men share a hollow laugh.

“This one time,” the Warrior says, “They’re lying fuck-pigs. I know it.”

“We all know it.” the Mastermind speaks through his teeth. Studying his phone, he looks up and says,

“One of our chickens came home to roost.”

“Which one?” Now the Emperor’s voice is quiet and serious.

“You remember how we set up the road sign for Turtle Rise?”

“ That one?”

“The spy cam at the foot of Turtle Rise just recorded Hummers speeding up the hill there.”

“Fuck.” The Warrior bunches a fist.

“Seriously.” The Mastermind nods

I ask him, “That was one of the canary traps?”

He nods.

“Which one?”

He says, “The doc.”

“Shit.”

The Warrior reaches for his own phone. “I’m calling somebody right now.”

I tell him, “Wait?—”

Over his shoulder, the Emperor says, “We can’t let this go unanswered. Anyway, he’s no more use.”

I tell him, “You’re wrong. Wait.”

“What?”

I ask the Mastermind, “You sent them up the wrong path, right? Thinking they were going to find us?”

His lips are tight as he nods. “Yup.”

“How long before they know for certain it’s a wild goose chase?”

“Oh,” The Warrior says, “could be a very long time. Maybe forever. Turtle Rise leads up into a wilderness. All the way to Canada.”

I look around the car, “Excellent strategy. Whoever picked it, great job.”

The Warrior goes on, “You could search up there with infrared, even with choppers. You’d be looking for days. Weeks. You’d never know if you missed your target or if you got sent up the wrong track.”

“So.” I say, “The doc is a mole, and he’s been a threat.” I pause. “But now we can turn him into an asset. If we do it soon.”

The drive is long. We’re all getting hungry and the Warrior says, “Why don’t we spring for a bag of Dicks?”

I must be staring wide eyed. The Emperor says, “You’ve eaten Dicks, before.”

The Mastermind nods and says, “You must have swallowed a huge amount of Dicks. You like Dick’s, right?”

They go on like this and I’m just sitting here getting redder and redder in the face, squeezed in between these two men, while they’re having a whale of a time.

Rolling into view up ahead is a high red and orange sign with script that says, ‘Dick’s’

“Recognize it now?” I don’t.

The Emperor steers in and stops by a window to order deluxe burgers, sauce, fries and shakes for four.

As we drive on, all three men go on making jokes about eating masses of Dick’s. Principally, about me eating Dick’s. And licking Dick’s. And hot, melted cheese. And dripping sauce. And shakes.

And they sing, My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.

While I try to eat. With my wrists bound.

Fooling around, the Warrior says, “You don’t remember ever eating Dick’s?” and waves his burger in front of me. A gob of melted cheese and sauce drops on my chest where the dress is open.

I tell him, “Now look what you’ve done.”

Mastermind says, “Make him lick it off.”

I ask him, “Do you want to lick it off?”

He asks the Warrior, “Do you mind if I lick off what your Dick’s dribbled on her tits?”

“It was my Dick’s. I should lick it off.”

I raise my eyebrows. “You want to lick off your own Dick’s?”

The Emperor calls back, “Don’t you wish you could lick your own Dick’s?”

“I can see the advantage,” the Mastermind says.

“So,” I say, “Who is going to lick the cheese from his Dick’s off me?”

The Emperor says, “Maybe we all should. I’ll pull the car over.”

This has really gotten out of control. Now I’m squirming.

“We’re nearly there,” the Warrior says. “Maybe we should wait until we get to the house.”

“Yeah,” the Emperor says, “Good idea. Then we can all lick her. Properly.”

“Thoroughly,” the Mastermind agrees. “We can all lick her clean, from tits to tail.”

“From toes to tush,” the Emperor agrees.

The panties that I changed into at the hunting lodge are not glamorous or beautiful, but they were clean. Now they’re dripping. The scent of my heat mingles with the aromas of melted cheese and burger.

The car turns upward, into a dark driveway.

“The old house,” the Mastermind says.

Inside the car becomes quiet as we roll between high, brooding pines and in among the darker, denser woods. On a sweeping turn, black spires and turrets rise into view and my breath freezes.

A cold sensation echoes deep inside me as we coast nearer to the house. It looks like the place that a Saturday night drive-in movie crowd sees the vulnerable heroine silhouetted in front of, and they all shout, ‘Don’t go THERE!’

But I’m feeling something more connected. More personal. It looks like the kind of house where the windows and doorways have been witness to dark and terrible deeds, but I feel in my gut that one of the horrible secrets shuttered behind those awful doors belongs to me.

As we all clamber out of the car, my heart is in my mouth while I look up at the black, gothic arches. My foot feels like a sack of lead as I force it onto the steps. I’m shaking so much, the Warrior hurries to put and arm around me and hold me steady.

Looking down from atop the huge stone steps, the Emperor’s face is in shadow, but his eyes seem hollow.

“Her face has drained white. Is she okay? Are you okay?” and he says a name. But I can’t catch it.

The big wood doors creak almost comically, but my gut is churning. My legs don’t want to go up these steps. My feet don’t want to step into that house. Images of the high staircase and the cold mosaic tiled floor blur and spin in my head, before I’ve even stepped inside.

I do know the house. I know the gloomy dining room, with the very long table.

As soon as my foot touches the tiles in the entrance, I blurt, “Where’s the bathroom?” but my treacherous feet know the way.

There’s one just off the vaulted hallway. I have to hold my hands over my mouth and dash for the door. Slumped over the big bowl, with my bound hands holding on like doggy paws, I only just manage to kick the door shut behind me.

Twisting, gut-wrenching convulsions go on, long after my stomach is empty, dragging up acid and bile and gobs of thin, stringy saliva. At the end, when my stomach has finally had enough retching, I sit back against the door with my legs under me.

It crosses my mind that I could finish it all now. The weight of the Sig in my pocket feels like a fleeting temptation.

As well as being packed with evil, this house must truly be evil. I never had a thought like that before in my life. It fades quickly, lasting only long enough to make me see that I’ve finally glimpsed something about myself.

Something older than the present.

I haul myself up to my feet and lean to drink from the faucet. The water doesn’t taste so much better than the inside of my mouth does right now, but I sloosh it around, gargle and rinse. When I face the mirror, I get a shock from the sight of my eyes looking back.

Now I have a sense of who I am. Not my name, still no details, but I recognize the face in the mirror. And I know what I am.

What I need now is to find out how the hell I got here.