“Crudely put, yes. Two select individuals — not married, who have not had previous congress with each other — take their first, fresh sexual pleasure with one another on the altar, anointed with the blood of Morax. I can assure you it will be a sexual experience like none you’ve ever had in your entire life.”
“Like nothing I’ve ever had?” asked Constance.
“It would be my honor to initiate you into the faith.”
“Right now?”
“I hadn’t planned it that way. Normally it’s done in front of the group. But we’re in an emergency situation, and the forces have arranged for you and me to meet, here, tonight. So... yes. For anyone who wishes to join with us, the act is obligatory.”
“And if I wish not?”
Gavin was surprised by this reply. She had followed his words this far, she was clearly sympathetic to what he was saying... “Look, why speculate? You’re going to join us, I just know it.”
“I am?”
He felt a flicker of concern, even panic. He wondered what to say, how to seal the inevitable.
“Why wouldn’t you join us? You’re perfect. You’re everything we look for. I’ve no doubt you’ll be a great leader.”
“And if I do not?”
“Please, Constance, consider my proposal carefully, because this is your first, last, and only chance. I know you have the wild yearning for freedom in your blood. We’ll unleash that freedom together, and it’ll be beautiful.”
“Beautiful.”
The word, heavy with sarcasm, hung in the air. Gavin began to feel a crushing sense of disappointment, mingling with anger; maybe, after everything he’d shared with her, after the many signs he’d seen of their compatibility, she was going to say no, dashing all his hopes. He put his hand on the grip of his sidearm. She couldn’t be allowed to walk out of there. That would be the end of everything.
“Constance, think very carefully.”
But now he could see that her apparent interest was not acceptance; her calmness was not a sign of acquiescence; and her questions had only drawn out from him information that could be used against him.
“Oh, Constance, Constance, please don’t do this.”
More silence. So be it. Gavin knew that this woman would be an unshakable friend, but also a most dangerous opponent. He felt he’d been tricked. One of the things he’d learned as a kid was always to throw the first punch — and do it early, before your opponent realized a fight was coming.
So he punched first. He lunged forward, knocking the stiletto from her grasp, wrapping one arm around her neck and jamming the gun into her ear. Shoving her back against the nearest wall and pinning her there, he slapped his set of handcuffs around her wrists.
It was over before it had begun. He had completely caught her by surprise. He released her and stepped back, gun pointed. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said.
She stared at him and he was truly taken aback by the look in those eyes.
“I’m sorry I had to do that, but I need your decision now.”
Silence. She drilled him with that baleful stare.
He wagged the gun. “This is the moment of truth.”
In response, she knelt, and — with her cuffed hands — picked up the stiletto he had knocked to the ground. There was a snick as she exposed its blade.
Surprised, he took a few cautious steps back, wondering if she knew how to throw it. But then he remembered that her wrists were still cuffed and her handling of the knife looked inept.
“What exactly are you going to do with that?” he asked.
She reached up and touched the tip of the knife to her own throat, just above the jugular vein. “I’m going to deprive you of the satisfaction of raping and killing me.”
As she spoke, she pressed the point into her skin. After a dimple of resistance it cut into the flesh, a rivulet of blood running down.
Gavin felt an electric shock; despite himself, he was overcome with admiration. This was an amazing woman. My God, she would have made a magnificent partner. He felt a stirring in his loins. But he also realized she’d never join with them. His excitement mingled with a terrible feeling of failure.
Fuck it. She’d been offered the chance of a lifetime and refused it.
He stared as she pressed the knife a shade deeper. He could tell this was no bluff — she was willing to kill herself rather than submit to him. She was going to kill herself. His dismay at not joining with her gave way to an excitement of a very different sort.
“Go ahead,” he said, breathless with anticipation.
He watched as she steeled herself. The knife bit deeper. He was transfixed; he had never seen anything so erotic in his life. Watching her ease the knife into that delicate white throat, seeing the ruby blood running down her pale skin, he felt a powerful shudder ripple through his body.
And then the look in her eyes changed ever so slightly. She paused.
“Don’t stop,” he said hoarsely, the blood pounding eagerly in his ears. “Do it. Do it now.”
Now the knife blade slipped back out. Blood was running freely, but it was only a superficial cut.
Disappointment and anger surged within him, and he raised the gun. “I was sure you had the guts,” he said. “I was wrong.”
Constance’s eyes had been fixed steadily on his own, but now they flickered to one side; with a sudden, terrifying realization, he whirled around just in time to see that she’d fatally distracted him; a grimacing, dog-faced creature took a final hop toward him and he felt a hand with blunt nails seize his arm in a grip of iron.
51
This was Juan Rivera’s second time in Exmouth, and as he looked down what had once been a quaint village street, he saw it was now more reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno. The SWAT team he was leading had dismounted from their vehicles to approach on foot, their first job to secure the area so paramedics could retrieve the dead and injured. A temporary command station was being set up behind them, radios blaring, sirens going, searchlights blazing. Two MRAPs idled, each with.50-caliber machine guns, ready to move into action if the killer or killers reappeared.
But it looked like the killers were gone. The town was silent — deathly silent. From where he was standing, he could see two bodies in the middle of the street. But even as he squinted into the darkness, he thought he could see at least one other, more distant but equally disquieting shape in the distance. The storm, a swift-moving nor’easter, was starting to pass; the rain squalls were coming less frequently and the wind was dropping. The streetlights were out and the houses dark from a power failure. The scene was lit, instead, by a single house halfway down the street, which was in the last stages of burning, casting a garish glow across the nightmarish scene.
The horror his forward recon team had discovered on Dune Road — the police chief savaged inside his own squad car — had deeply unnerved him. The reports they’d received as they were on their way had been fragmentary: crazy stories of monsters, demons, anarchy, and mass killing. The sergeant — Gavin was his name — was nowhere to be found and hadn’t responded on any police hailing frequencies. Rivera wondered if he, too, was dead.
What the hell had happened here? Rivera swallowed uneasily, collected himself. There would be plenty of time to figure it out; what they had to do now, and do fast, was secure the area, deliver first aid, and evacuate the victims.
He raised his radio and gave the orders, and the SWAT team began moving down the main street in formation, at a trot. As they proceeded, the carnage became more evident. One of the SWAT team started praying under his breath over the frequency, until Rivera shut him up. He could hear other comments, whispered speculation, muttered maledictions. What the hell? he wondered. Terrorists? Meth heads? Gang rampage?