Queen Of Blood Part 9

She smiled again.

She couldn't imagine a more appropriate place for the sacrifices to come.

PART II:.

THE CRIMSON HIGHWAY.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

One month later The strange little girl in the yellow rain slicker was looking at her again. Laughing at her again. The girl made her nervous. She had a weird glint in her eyes. And there was something about the set of her features and the angle at which she was holding her head that made her expression look like a grown-up leer. A hint of lasciviousness one shouldn't see in the eyes of one so young. Though Dream couldn't hear the sound of the girl's laughter over the wind and the rus.h.i.+ng water below, she was certain it possessed a mocking tone.

She wasn't positive the little girl was really there. Another apparition, maybe. She was glad of the dozen or so yards that separated them. If she moved any closer, Dream would bolt back across the bridge to the parking lot where they'd left Marcy's van. The girl put a cupped hand to her mouth to cover a giggle.

Dream s.h.i.+fted her attention back to the natural wonder in the distance. The stiff breeze stirred her hair and the fine mist of rain made her flesh glisten as she leaned over the railing of the Rainbow Bridge and watched the distant churning foam of the water at the bottom of American Falls, the U.S. half of the famed Niagara Falls. The sky was overcast and the temperature had dropped into the thirties, with the stiffening wind adding an extra bite to the chill. It was late afternoon drifting toward evening, and the already bruised sky was growing darker by the moment. The nasty conditions had thinned the usual tourist crowds to nearly nothing. Dream had an eerie sense of standing alone at the very edge of the world as all of existence teetered on the brink of some unfathomable apocalypse.

Dream s.h.i.+vered as the swirling wind abruptly redirected and gusted across her wet face. She tucked her hands under her arms and wished for better protection against the elements than the light jacket she was wearing. She leaned further over the railing and looked at the rus.h.i.+ng stream of water directly beneath the Rainbow Bridge. An image leapt unbidden to her mind then, one that stirred horror within her, but was not without a certain morbid appeal. She imagined herself climbing over the slick railing and leaping spread-eagled into the drink, her arms outstretched as she soared for one glorious moment before plunging into the cold, cold water and the darkness beyond.

"It's tempting, isn't it?"

Dream flinched at the sound of Marcy's voice. The fragile--but achingly vivid--illusion of perfect aloneness was wrecked again. On the other hand, there was a measure of comfort to be derived from the proximity of an undeniably flesh-and-blood human being. Dream considered asking Marcy whether she could see the girl in the yellow rain slicker, but decided against it when she realized she wasn't certain which would unsettle her more, a yes or no answer.

Marcy took up a position a few feet to her left and leaned over the railing. The wind blew her bottle-blonde hair wildly about her face, but she seemed oblivious to the conditions. She glanced down before looking at Dream again. "I kind of wish I had the guts to do it. Just climb over and...jump." Her tone turned wistful as her gaze was drawn back to the water. "It would solve a lot of problems."

Dream sighed and finally acknowledged her presence. "So do it. I won't stop you, I promise."

Marcy grunted. "If you hate me so much, why don't you just kill me? Make my brain explode like you did to my friend. Or have your freaky zombie friend rip my head off or something."

Anger stirred within Dream as she listened to Marcy rant. The girl had been nearly as silent as her meek little sister during their first days on the road, but in the last week she'd grown increasingly bold with her verbal jabs. Dream knew she was testing her, probing to see just how far she could push. She was treading a very thin line. The pressure building within Dream was immense. It wouldn't take much to trigger an explosion. And she had a feeling her next explosion might wipe out anyone within range.

Dream s.h.i.+vered again and looked at Marcy. "That thing isn't my friend. Not really."

Marcy smirked. "That's not what she says. She says--"

"I know what she says." Dream turned away from the railing and leaned close to Marcy. She caught a glimpse of Alicia over Marcy's shoulder. The black woman was standing at a spot some twenty yards to the left, her gaze trained on the waterfall. "And maybe she even believes it. But she's not Alicia. She's not even Alicia's ghost. There may be some little strand of Alicia's essence inside her, something some part of my subconscious always carries with me. If anything, she's some kind of f.u.c.ked-up clone or copy. There's a lot of what I remember about Alicia in that...thing, but it's all distorted." She frowned. "I don't know how to put it exactly."

Marcy's brow furrowed. "Like a garbled data transmission, then? Static or interference causing some information to be left out and other bits of it scrambled all to h.e.l.l."

Dream shrugged. "Something like that, I guess."

Marcy nodded. "Yeah. The supernatural gumbo inside you created a sh.e.l.l based on your last memories of Alicia, then downloaded a faulty blueprint of her psyche to her regenerated brain." She laughed and shook her head. "It's all very late night Z-movie. Not sure I believe it, but I guess it makes at least as much sense as the idea of a genuine walking corpse."

Dream didn't respond to that. She looked over Marcy's shoulder again at Alicia. The slinky c.o.c.ktail dress had been traded in for jeans, a long-sleeved thermal s.h.i.+rt, and a light jacket similar to the one worn by Dream. She looked almost normal now. And it wasn't just because of the clothes. The wounds and corpse bloat were still there, if you looked close enough, but these things were fading, the open, weeping razor incisions closing and becoming scars. Every day she looked a little better, and Dream suspected she would soon be fully restored. Her improvement was disconcerting, although it wasn't as unsettling as the realization that other people could see the dead woman now. It reduced the likelihood that she was hallucinating or losing her mind, a scenario that bothered her far less than the idea of having actually conjured Alicia into being through some unconscious use of raw magic. A vision of the girl in the yellow rain slicker formed in her mind then, and Dream was again made to consider the possibility that if she could perform the feat of creation once, then she could surely do it again.

She thought about that. She a.s.sumed the dead woman was feeding off the power lurking within Dream, drawing some of that energy out to make herself more real. That they were tethered together in some way was clear, but Dream had no way of knowing the depth of that connection. But she wondered just how much Alicia still needed her now that she had form and substance in the physical world. She had a feeling the creature would've ceased to exist had those idiot kids killed her outright that night instead of abducting her, either blinking out immediately or continuing in a fuzzy state of semi-existence for a brief time before fading away.

But now...

Now she was here to stay. Dream could take a swan dive off the Rainbow Bridge and Alicia would remain up here behind the railing. She would watch the water take Dream and sweep her away. Then she would leave this place, taking Marcy and Ellen with her as she resumed her meandering search for Ms. Wickman.

Which, of course, was crazy. The thing that resembled her dead friend might not actually be Alicia Jackson, but she certainly bore her grudges as tenaciously as the real thing. She meant to see Ms. Wickman dead, preferably at the business end of a straight razor. Dream was not bothered by the idea of being made to partic.i.p.ate in the murder of that woman. She deserved death and worse. What did bother her was the obvious impossiblity of making this happen. There was a whole wide world into which Ms. Wickman could have disappeared. They could never hope to find her.

Except that...

Well.

Except that Alicia believed Ms. Wickman had already established a new kingdom similar to the one formerly ruled over by the Master. She also believed Ms. Wickman had scores of operatives scouring the country for Dream even now. She wouldn't say why she believed this, but the strength of her conviction was clear. Alicia hoped to somehow draw the attention of these agents, induce them to capture them and transport them back to this supposed new kingdom. Which would eliminate the necessity for all this endless, aimless hunting. Dream figured it was the only remotely plausible way Alicia might get what she wanted. And even the remote possibility of again gazing into the awful Ms. Wickman's cold, dead eyes chilled her to the bone.

Marcy noted Dream's continued scrutiny of Alicia and smiled. "Hey, at least the maggots are gone."

Dream laughed. "Yeah. There's that."

"So it's not all bad."

"Right. Now it's only 99.98 percent bad."

Dream watched the dark form of a bird swoop through her field of vision before disappearing into the gathering darkness on the horizon. The rain grew harder, falling in silver-white sheets across the sky. The temperature seemed to have fallen another five degrees in just the last twenty minutes. Though it had been her idea to come to this place, she was beginning to regret it. It was one of a number of places she'd always wanted to visit, and when she'd realized they were wandering close to this area, she'd insisted on a slight course change to bring them here. Niagara Falls was as beautiful as she'd always imagined, and the sight of all that rus.h.i.+ng water inspired the expected sense of awe. And that overwhelming beauty was enhanced now with the advent of twilight. The spotlights behind the falls had been switched on, adding a lovely soft green tint to the pouring water. The problem was that it was too beautiful a thing to share with her current company. She should be seeing this in the company of a lover, here or on one of the closer observation platforms, holding hands and leaning against each other, enjoying a cla.s.sic romantic moment.

The train of thought plunged her into a sudden depression. For the first time in a while she thought of Chad and the life she'd left behind. Scenes and aural snippets from their screaming arguments came back to her then. Arguments that nearly always centered around the same thing--her deepening booze and pill dependence. Chad railed endlessly against this "self-medication," insisting that she needed professional help to deal with her guilt over the deaths of her friends. This was followed by Dream's usual litany of bitter recriminations, unfairly blaming him for everything that was wrong with her. Even then she'd known how unfair she was being, but she hadn't cared. She would not be denied her only real solace, the numbing effects of her chosen poisons. Things came to a head the time Dream whizzed an empty bottle past Chad's head, barely missing him before it exploded on the living room wall. And then she'd hit him. And that'd been the end of it. She moved out the next day and never returned.

Tears stung Dream's eyes and she was glad for the obscuring effects of the rain. A flicker of movement to her right drew her out of the painful reverie. She glanced in that direction and saw the girl in the yellow rain slicker again. Only now she was closer than before, the distance between them nearly halved. The rain slicker flapped in the wind and the hood blew back a bit, revealing long wet strands of blonde hair. The girl's eyes were a brilliant shade of blue that sparkled even in the gloom. She was a pretty young thing, one might even say adorable but for that insidious grin and that strange, mocking laughter Dream realized she could actually hear now.

Dream cast her gaze about for any sign of the child's parents, but there was no one nearby who obviously fit the bill. A few other people were present, but they were mostly dark, indistinct forms in the distance. And surely no parent of any worth would allow a child so young to wander from sight on a place like Rainbow Bridge. She didn't want to believe the girl was another apparition or magical construct, but the sense that she was wouldn't go away. The idea that the power she possessed was so far beyond her control terrified Dream.

But there was another thing to consider. From which submerged corner of Dream's psyche had she emerged? There was nothing instantly familiar about the girl. Except for the blonde hair, she didn't much resemble Dream as a young girl. Nor did she much look like any of the childhood friends she could recall. Then something occurred to Dream, a flash of insight so stark and compelling she couldn't help but believe it. Perhaps, on a subconscious level, the girl was Dream's idea of how her own daughter might look. She was a woman, and perhaps on some primal level lurked a need unfulfilled, a biological imperative that combined with what Marcy called the "supernatural gumbo" inside her to produce this leering manifestation.

Her eyes still locked on Dream, the girl laughed harder, her little body rocking with the force of her mirth.

Dream s.h.i.+vered and moved back a step.

The girl was closer by half again, maybe ten feet away now, and Dream had not seen her move. It was almost as if the physical distance between them was shrinking of its own accord, the fabric of existence retracting or disappearing to draw them closer. Which was an insane, impossible thing, but Dream had seen and experienced enough not to discount a thing merely because it shouldn't be possible.

She moved back another step and said, "Stay away." She b.u.mped against Marcy and her voice rose in pitch as tears flowed freely down her face. "Stay the f.u.c.k away! Leave me alone!"

Marcy shuffled away with a startled grunt and said, "Who are you talking to, Dream?"

The little girl was five feet away and looking straight at her now. She raised a hand and pointed a slender forefinger at her. The pale digit looked ghostly in the gloom. Like something only half-formed or incomplete. This impression, combined with Marcy's question, formed the impetus for what happened next.

Dream ceased her retreat. The terror was still rising inside her, an inferno that threatened to scorch what precious little remained of her sanity. But there was another emotion now, as well. Anger. Raw, burning hatred. Hatred for a part of herself she couldn't control. A thing she feared might consume her.

She loosed a cry of rage and dashed forward. The girl's hand fell to her side and her evil little grin gave way to a look of shocked surprise. Dream seized her by the shoulders and began to lift her up. A scream of terror ripped from the girl's lungs, but Dream ignored it, knowing only she could hear the sound. She would not be swayed from doing what had to be done, would not allow this awful thing to feed from her and grow stronger, become a part of the real world. The girl's body was quaking as Dream lifted her higher and moved toward the railing. She sobbed and pleaded, but Dream blanked it out and focused only on the task at hand, moving the light little body out over the railing.

Marcy was yelling at her: "Dream, what the h.e.l.l are you doing? Have you lost your f.u.c.king mind!?"

Other people were yelling, too. Shouts and exhortations, desperate words that failed to penetrate the roaring in her ears. She also failed to hear the sound of several pairs of feet pounding across concrete toward her, but she did feel the grappling hands of the wouldbe rescuers a moment later, felt them pulling at her arms, tugging at her hair and clothes, desperately digging for any hold at all to pull her back from the brink. But Dream was resolute and would not be moved. The dormant core of power within her switched on and filled her entire body with a strength several times greater than that of all the people a.s.sailing her combined. Though she didn't think it consciously, there was an underlying sense that these people were attempting to pull her back from an apparent suicide leap.

She leaned even further over the railing, effortlessly shrugging loose all those grasping hands as she lowered the girl and prepared to drop her. The girl abruptly stopped thras.h.i.+ng and looked up at Dream with wide, pleading eyes. Then her mouth was moving. Dream couldn't hear what the apparition was saying, as the roaring in her ears continued to obliterate all external sounds.

This was it. All Dream had to do was relax her hold on the girl and let her slip away, and this one little phase of the ongoing nightmare that was her life would be over. But Dream hesitated. She stared at those thin, chapped lips as they moved. Saw the girl's crooked white teeth and the pink wedge of tongue behind them.

The roaring in her ears ceased.

The rush of the water below returned. Then she heard the screams and the words of the people grabbing at her, words too frantic and intercut to make any sense. Dream focused on the motion of the girl's lips and was at last able to hear her voice, its soft timbre somehow rising above the cacophony of sound from the bridge. The girl's actual words were channeled in another direction as something alien pushed these words through her vocal cords: "The Master awaits you in h.e.l.l, s.l.u.t."

She let go of the girl and jerked backward. The bodies of all the people behind her prevented a full retreat and she watched the little body drop and tumble, the rain slicker flapping up and briefly lifting her arms like a tiny sail. Then she hit the water and sliced through its surface like a scalpel cutting flesh. In the next moment she disappeared from view and the people behind her went running toward the other side of the bridge. Staggering, Dream turned around and watched their retreating backs as a frown began to work its way across her stunned features.

Someone grabbed her by the arm and she shrieked. Something inside her reflexively lashed out and she was aware of a sensation like fire blazing through her body, its sizzle banis.h.i.+ng the cold as a wave of heat pulsed outward from her center.

Marcy screamed and jerked her hand away, shaking it like a person who has touched a scalding surface. "Dream, that was f.u.c.ked up. We have to get out of here before the mob comes back for you."

Too late for that.

Several people were still leaning over the railing on the opposite side of the bridge. One woman was slumped against the concrete barrier and wailing like a grief-stricken mourner at a funeral. The impression formed like a cold fist around her heart and the heat pulse abruptly fizzled out.

Dream swallowed a lump in her throat and thought, Oh, no...

Three men were striding rapidly back across the bridge toward her. The man in the lead was thirtyish, tall and muscular with a thick mop of curly brown hair and a beard. His eyes were dark with a bottomless rage. Every aspect of his bearing unmistakably conveyed murderous intent. The rigid set of his features. The huge, curled fists that looked capable of slamming holes through layers of steel.

Dream shook her head.

Oh no. Ohnoohnoohno...

The girl had been real.

And this man was her father.

Dream's eyes filled with tears as she took an unconscious step backward. Her back met the railing. She briefly considered letting herself fall backward into the water. It was what she deserved. Christ, how could she have been so wrong? She'd known her long-tenuous hold on reality had been slipping for some time, but she'd never imagined such tragic consequences. She'd murdered a child, sacrificed her on the altar of her crumbling sanity.

Yes, she deserved to die. She even felt ready to meet that fate at last.

Then the man was closing in on her, eyes blazing and teeth bared as he raised one of those big fists high in the air. Then something inside Dream flexed and the man froze. A surge of energy so strong it was nearly visible pushed outward and slammed into the man's chest like a freight train, lifting him off his feet and blasting him back across the bridge. Dream saw his eyes go wide with shock before the surge carried him away. And then he was gone, flying over the railing on the opposite side and hanging suspended in midair for a moment before dropping to the water below.

Marcy let out a breath and said, "Holy s.h.i.+t. Holyholy-holy f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t!"

The men who'd followed the father across the bridge were lying flat on their backs, blown off their feet by the energy surge. They looked up at Dream with twin expressions of horror and began to scoot backward, scrambling to put as much distance between themselves and the monster as possible. That's what they saw when they looked at her. A monster. Not a woman. Not a human being. But an incomprehensible abomination. A thing. And they were right.

The people on the other side of the bridge were looking at her and cringing, crouching down against the concrete barrier as they huddled together and awaited the monster's wrath. A few of them were armed men of some authority in uniforms. But they were as helpless and terrified as the wailing woman Dream a.s.sumed was the dead girl's mother. Dream stared at them for a long moment and felt the awakened energy burning inside her, aching to be utilized again. And it would be so easy. She could flatten them all and walk away from this place unscathed.

A weak, frightened voice next to her:"Dream...seriously...we have to leave."

A peculiar smile contorted the corners of her mouth as Dream turned to look at Marcy. "I'm a monster, Marcy."

Marcy put a hand to her mouth as her eyes filled with tears. "Dream. I--"

"Shhh." Dream touched the girl's shoulder and felt her body go still. She was every bit as terrifed of her as the strangers huddled on the other side of the bridge. And who could blame her? "Don't say anything. It's funny. A minute ago I felt so much guilt, but this thing inside me burns that away when it's working." She lowered her voice a bit and leaned closer to Marcy. "I could kill all those people over there just by thinking about it. Part of me really wants to. I shouldn't do that, should I?"

Marcy's face twisted with a mixture of sudden grief and black humor. She laughed once, a small, empty sound. "Look who you're asking. I'm a monster, too."

Dream smiled. She released Marcy's arm and touched her face. "Yes. Yes, I suppose you are. And I'll tell you something, Marcy. I don't think I hate you anymore." She looked past Marcy at Alicia, who remained in the same spot she'd been throughout the episode. The dead woman watched them in a remotely curious way, a small smile playing at the edges of her mouth. Dream met and held Alicia's gaze for a moment, then looked Marcy in the eye again. "I'm going to leave you now, but I'll see you again."

Marcy frowned. "Where are you going?"

"Into the water."

Marcy's expression abruptly sobered. "But--"

"Don't worry about me. I'll be okay." She gently stroked Marcy's face and the gir l covered the hand with one of her own. "You've seen how strong I am. The river will take me away, but it won't kill me. It's the only way out of this for you. Too many eyes will be on me. You and Alicia go back to the van and your sister. Get away from here. I'll find you again. I promise."

She moved away from Marcy and threw one leg over the rail. She looked at the black water below and tried to decide whether she believed everything she'd just said. Then the energy swelled within her again and a shroud of warmth enveloped her.

She smiled again and said, "Go, Marcy. Now."

Marcy stared numbly at her before nodding and beginning a retreat. "Okay...and, Dream?"

"Yeah?"

Marcy's expression was somber as she said, "I don't think I hate you anymore, either."

Then she turned away and began a hurried retreat back down the bridge toward the parking lot. A moment later Alicia turned to follow without so much as a backward glance. Dream watched their backs until they dwindled to barely perceptible specks in the darkness.

Until they were gone.

Dream shot one more look at the people huddled at the other side of the bridge. One of the armed men was fumbling for his sidearm. Dream reached out with her power and made his hand freeze. She was getting better at controlling this thing by the moment. The knowledge was at once terrifying and exhilarating.

Dream swung her other leg over the railing.

Then she stood up and leaped, her arms spread before her as she'd envisioned earlier. She hung suspended in the air, flying for a single, incandescently glorious moment.

Next came the slap of the water against her body, harder than she expected.

Then the world was blackness and a cold deeper than anything she'd ever imagined as the water carried her away.