Wildest Dreams Part 14

"Then we want the same thing." Whistler glanced at the stone trapdoor. "We both want Circe-only you want the girl she was, and I want the woman she has become."

That was the way of it. Two Circes, and I'd met them both. I remembered the little girl's blue eyes, so trusting, and the blue eyes of the woman who hired me to kill her father, so cold. I remembered the little girl who'd longed for skin that gleamed like a brave knight's armor, and the woman who covered her body with tattooed scales. And I remembered the girl's chill hand, a breath of nothing, and the soft warmth of Circe's skin, the steady pounding of her heart against mine as we lay together in her father's bed.

"I don't understand," I said. "How can your daughter walk in two worlds? How can she be both alive and dead at the same time?"

"Circe's mother and I were never close," Whistler began. "She was a disciple, a tool. Many women bore my children, but Circe stood out. She was smart, and pure, and strong. I sent for her when she was ten years old. At the time she knew nothing about me that I did not want her to know. She knew nothing of my church, or the world in which I walked, or the prophecy I was born to fulfill. But she learned soon enough. When she came to this place, her lessons began. And like all others who came to me, she gave me her soul-her immortal spirit.

"You have seen that soul with your unbeliever's eyes, but you don't recognize it for what it is. I do. I put my trust in Satan. He blessed me with a vision of a sanctuary made of gla.s.s and concrete. He guided my hands and the hands of my disciples as we built this place. Souls were taken here, souls I meant to keep until the glorious day of Satan's resurrection. Each disciple bled for me on the altar below, and to each wound I touched a cork blessed by the powers of darkness, and with each cork I stoppered up a bottle, sealing a soul pledged to me."

I remembered something the little girl had said. Something her mother had told her-that there were always people in the bottle house, even when it was empty.

"When Circe came to me," Whistler continued, "I wanted her to know everything. Of all my children, I chose her to reign at my side. I took her soul, as I did with all the rest. I meant to protect it until the day of Satan's arrival. But my own child betrayed me, just as she betrayed this place."

Whistler motioned to the bottles, and for the first time I noticed that a handful of them were still corked.

He said, "When I moved to Mexico, the problems began. I left Circe in charge of the church, but she ignored my teachings. She turned mercenary, criticizing me for each dollar spent, as if destiny can be a.s.signed a bottom line. For my part, I knew it was only a matter of time. I was getting older. Soon I would fulfill the prophecy that had brought so many to my pulpit. I knew my time was short, and my only concern was to prepare myself."

"For your date with the devil."

"You know of the prophecy?"

"And the ruin of Whistler's corpse shall be Satan's cradle, and Satan will be reborn in flesh and blood to walk the earth once more," I quoted. "I read a pamphlet at the San Francisco Airport. That doesn't mean I believe it."

"Then you and my daughter are well-matched. She believes in nothing but herself. She sold my beliefs like a corner dope peddler, and she let this sacred shrine go to ruin. She abandoned it to vandals."

"And with it, her soul."

"Yes. That is the way of my daughter. That is what she has become."

"I don't care what she's become. All I care about is what she was on the day she first came to you."

"I will give you what she was. My daughter's soul will be your reward when you have done my bidding."

"And if I don't?"

"Perhaps I should have a talk with the child myself. It might be amusing, discussing metaphysics with such a bright little girl." He laughed. "Unless, of course, we can come to some agreement."

I sighed, because I was one step ahead of Whistler now. "I think I know what you're after."

"It's very simple-I want my head, and I want my body."

I stared at Whistler's neck, at the spiked black wreath that had mended a ghost. And then I stared at the broken necks of a dozen empty bottles, every one of them past mending.

The only thing that would fill those bottles again was the wind.

"Remember Mr. Saunders," Whistler said, "I have a prophecy to fulfill. I can't do that unless my head and body are rejoined."

"It's quite a concept. h.e.l.l on earth, with you the man in charge."

"Not quite me, Mr. Saunders. I will be but a vessel for one much greater."

"That's pretty n.o.ble. But be honest with me-you're hoping you'll get to go along for the ride."

"You're a very bright man, Mr. Saunders."

I smiled.

I couldn't say the same of Diabolos Whistler.

Whistler had no further need of me. Like a true religious zealot, he'd preached a little sermon for my benefit and a.s.signed penance for my transgressions against him and his church. Then, leaving me in the glow of his own particular brand of spiritual illumination as if I were some new convert, he'd gone wherever dead cult leaders go to ponder immortality.

For my part, I wished that Whistler's spiritual illumination gave off a little heat. Meaning a dead thing that crawled out of a grave was warmer than me. I was wet and cold...and more than a little tired.

A stack of dry tinder was heaped by the stone fireplace-wood gathered in daylight and abandoned in darkness. I said a private thank you to the skittish trespa.s.sers as I heaped twigs and branches on the old steel andirons.

I took the torch from the wall and jammed it under the nest of dry wood. The tinder crackled alive. I sat on the hearth, as near the growing flames as I dared. There was no sense going anywhere. Not yet. I needed some time to dry out, and to warm myself, and to think.

And that was what I did. My thoughts rambled. Places they didn't usually go. Places I wouldn't allow them to linger.

In the end, it all came down to a question of belief.

Diabolos Whistler's faith ran deep. There was no question about that. He saw himself as a collector of souls, a dark shepherd destined to be the devil incarnate.

His chosen successor couldn't have been more different. Circe didn't believe at all. Or so she claimed. But her claim rang true. For if she truly believed her father's gospel, would she have left the bottle house unprotected?

I didn't think so. If Circe Whistler's soul were contained in a bottle, it was my bet that she would have guarded it as zealously as her father guarded his beliefs.

I ran it around and around in my head. Circe's words. Her father's words. And all of it led me nowhere. I didn't know what or whom to believe, and I didn't like thinking about it. Cynicism had always been my s.h.i.+eld, but now that s.h.i.+eld was bent and battered.

I rose from the hearth. Maybe it was time to test my cynicism...and the tenets of Diabolos Whistler's faith.

A single test had occurred to me in light of Whistler's sermon, and it was a test that I was peculiarly suited to perform.

Because I was alive, and I could hold a knife, and I could see the dead.

I carried the torch to the far wall. At least a hundred open bottles waited there, along with three still stoppered with corks.

I sliced the neck off one of the corked bottles-sliced it clean, the same way a saber-wielding cavalier beheads a full magnum of champagne.

I waited, but nothing poured from that severed gla.s.s neck.

Not so much as a whisper of shadow.

Not so much as a trickle of ectoplasm.

Certainly no champagne.

I tried a second bottle, and a third, with the same result.

A soft wind filled the empty throats and gave them voice. Voices that did not speak, but told a truth that Diabolos Whistler would never believe.

I smiled.

I was no longer wary of empty bottles. I had no reason to be.

PART THREE:.

FUNERAL IN THE RAIN.

And we are here on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

-Matthew Arnold.

Dover Beach.

1.

I slept by the fire.

Long enough for my clothes to dry. Two hours, maybe three. Not good sleep. Sleep haunted by too many dreams. Apart from a few vague and troubling images, I couldn't remember most of them. But I remembered the last one all too well, the one that had brought me sharply awake.

In that dream Circe Whistler strode the grounds of her father's estate, dragging the little girl she'd once been behind her-one hand fisted in the little girl's hair, the other clutching a wrought-iron hammer with a bristling claw that looked like a monster's fang.

The little girl screamed in pain and in horror of the woman she'd become. But dark-haired Circe did not slow her pace. She did not spare her younger self a glance as they crossed a wide lawn, empty and still, like a cemetery without headstones.

No headstones, but a freshly dug grave waited there. Open and deep, with Spider Ripley at the bottom shoveling dark earth at the very blue sky above.

Circe grabbed Ripley's shovel and left his big hands empty and useless. She laughed at the crucifix hanging around his neck, and Spider shrank away to nothing. His neck narrowed, his muscled shoulders drooped. The crucifix slipped down the length of his body, knifing the turned soil like a miniature grave marker, and all that remained of Ripley was a white carrion grub snared in a tangled rawhide necklace, writhing to be free.

Circe brought the girl to her knees at the foot of an open coffin that waited at the lip of that grave. "We're all alone," Circe said. "Just like Hansel and Gretel." The child screamed and struggled, but Circe was too strong for her. She forced the little girl into the coffin, slammed the lid, and drove spiked nails deep into the wood with the claw hammer. Then she slid the coffin into the grave and took up the shovel. Earth rained down, smothering boxed screams that didn't end until I opened my eyes.

By the time I awoke, the embers in the fireplace glowed a dim yellow. Blackened ribs of wood crackled and collapsed as the fire slowly died. I didn't want to think about the dream, or what it might mean. What was important was saving the little girl. To do that, I had to give Diabolos Whistler what he wanted. I already had his head, though he didn't know it. I had to find his body, and join the two.

That was the deal I'd made with a dead man. His mortal remains for a little girl's ghost, a ghost I still couldn't explain. But I'd keep my part of the bargain. It was my only chance to rescue the little girl. I could only hope that Whistler would do the same.

If answers were to come, they would have to come later. I knew that much, just as I knew that those answers would come from the lips of a woman who boxed and buried a little girl's screams in a nightmare I couldn't escape.

I clicked on Janice Ravenwood's flashlight and stepped outside. There wasn't a star in sight, but at least the rain had slacked off. I made my way along the beach and into the forest. I saw no one-living or dead-at the bridge, so I kept moving.

Janice's Ford Explorer was just where I'd left it. That wasn't a surprise. I had the keys. Even if Janice were still alive, I didn't think she was the type who'd know how to hotwire a truck.

I slipped behind the wheel and drove to the vacant lot and got Diabolos Whistler's head. Next stop, the Cliffside Motor Court.

The NO VACANCY sign shone like a beacon, and the office door was locked. I knocked and kept on knocking until I roused the night clerk.

He wasn't exactly fast on his feet. I said my name was Clifford Rakes, and that I'd lost my key.

He looked me up and down. My clothes were dry, but that was the only positive thing I could say about my appearance. Obviously I'd seen better days.

"It's a long story," I said.

"Ain't everything." He shrugged and gave me another key. I apologized for waking him and slipped him a twenty from Clifford's wallet, which improved his mood considerably.

A pot of complimentary coffee sat steaming on the counter. I poured myself a cup.

"You don't want to drink that stuff, Mr. Rakes," the clerk said. "Let me make a fresh pot for you."

I told him he didn't need to go to all that trouble.

"As long as it's black and hot," I said. "I'm sure it'll do the job."

I used the key and entered Room 21 without a sound. Clifford Rakes was fast asleep. He didn't look quite so pinched that way. I turned on the lights, but Rakes didn't open his eyes.

He rolled over on his back and the waterbed kicked up a rippling wave. Rakes rode it with a satisfied smile curdling on his face, clutching a pillow in his spindly arms. Obviously, he wasn't having a nightmare. I wondered who the lucky dream girl was tonight-Jackie Collins or Danielle Steel or Jacqueline Susann...or maybe Barbara Cartland.

Whoever she was, Clifford's dream date had planted a tent pole under his blanket. I was surprised the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d had the energy-I imagined he'd had one h.e.l.l of a day. Contract negotiations in the afternoon, no doubt accompanied by an instant advance from his publisher via Western Union to make up for his missing wallet. Larry King in the evening. Dinner and drinks for the whole d.a.m.n house after that, with his publisher eating the bill.

Yep. Clifford Rakes had definitely earned a good night's sleep. It was probably a good thing I'd thought to bring the coffee.

I slipped the plastic lid off the cup and chucked the steaming black contents in the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d's face. Clifford screamed and sat up too fast. A slos.h.i.+ng tsunami surged beneath him, and the ensuing wake that rebounded off the footboard threw him back. His head cracked hollowly against the waterbed headboard, but I'm sure he didn't even feel it. He was too busy pawing at his singed cheeks.

"Oh, no..." Clifford said, and, "Oh, G.o.d..." and, "My face! Oh, my face! Oh, Jesus! You've burned my face!"

"Calm down," I said.

"But my face! You burned-"

It was definitely time to cool the boy off. I pulled the K-Bar and eviscerated the waterbed. Water burbled up from the wound. I grabbed Clifford by the hair and gave him a good dunking.

He was spluttering stale water when I finally pulled him out. In a second he got his eyes open, and I knew right away that Clifford wished he'd kept them closed because he was trying to scream and hyperventilate at the same time.

I dangled the iron box before him. Diabolos Whistler smiled through the bars, his dead grin alive with ants.

"This should cut short the introductions," I said.