No matter what he was, even though he looked like death in his black robe, something inside her yearned for him. Every time he was close, her blood pressure rose. It wasn’t his appearance, certainly. Some power in him held her. Connected to her. The power of The Black? She hated the thought of losing him, but she also yearned to take the next step. She held out her arms. “Come be with me then,” she asked. “I don’t want to think about not having you again.”
Kharon shook his head. “You must be an empty vessel for the danake later.”
He leaned down to kiss her, and Rae felt her sex grow instantly wet as his cool tongue snaked in her mouth.
Kharon took one of her nipples in his fingers and twisted it until she gave an unconscious moan. Then he pulled away and pointed to the ceiling. “They need you now,” he said. “Give them what they need. When you are ready, we’ll be waiting for you at the end of The Red.”
He turned and walked out of the room then, leaving Rae turned on beneath the leering faces.
She felt her face flush with heat from Kharon’s touch, and she mimicked his abuse of her breast.
Presently, she showed the ghostly voyeurs what they wanted to see.
Chapter Forty-Nine
NightWhere
“Turn here,” Selena said softly. She pointed at an old farmhouse surrounded by a stand of maples and pines. They’d been driving for almost forty-five minutes to get clear of the suburbs. The highway had gone from four lanes to two after they’d passed Wheaton, and traffic went from scarce to nonexistent when they’d pulled down a potholed farm lane. The landscape now consisted of long rolling hills bordered by scrub trees and fences to keep the livestock in.
Mark pulled the Sonata into a gravel driveway. At least three dozen cars and SUVs were parked in the grass near an old barn behind the house. “Just follow the crowd,” Selena said.
Mark pulled around a row of vehicles and parked near the driveway. Easy exit, he thought.
When he turned off the key, Selena grabbed his arm. “Please don’t do this,” she said. “I’m begging you not to go. I can give you what you need.” One bloodred tear trailed down her cheek.
Mark took a deep breath and, with his finger, wiped the trail away. “I have to do this,” he said. “You know I do.”
“I can’t help you anymore once you go inside.”
“I know,” he said. “Stay here? And stay out of sight.”
He kissed her once again, tasting the despair on her lips. Earlier, after they’d left the pawnshop and found a secluded forest preserve to park in, she’d tasted urgent, wanting, demanding. Now her lips tasted bitter, defeated.
The door on the front of the barn opened, letting light escape briefly into the night. A half-dozen people came walking out together, and the door shut behind them. But Mark could see the shadows bobbing across the gravel. They were headed towards Mark’s car.
Jesus, could they be onto him already?
Mark’s stomach froze. He slipped lower in his seat, and he motioned for Selena to do the same.
And then just as quickly, he relaxed. The group dispersed as soon as they reached the rows of cars.
“The night is winding down,” Selena said. “They’ll all begin filing away soon. First the newbies, then the regulars. And then the inner circle will finish their rituals and the last of the visitors will leave for the night. Just as we should.”
Mark nodded. “I need to hurry.”
He eased the car door open and stepped out. The early morning air was cool and moist-heavy with fog and dew-pregnant with the coming day. He drew it into his lungs in a long, deep breath as he patted the knife in his back pocket and the pistol in his front.
It might be the last time he tasted the predawn air.
Selena sat like a statue in the front seat of the car. She would not look at him as he closed the door. Mark shrugged and turned towards the barn. He got it. Selena thought she’d had him “hooked” and here he was risking his life for another woman. A woman Selena probably thought of as a worthless, evil slut.
But Mark had allowed Rae to be caught up in the allure of NightWhere. It seemed like a cult to him, in the end. And the only way to save someone from the brainwashing of a cult was to sever all connection to it. You had to force them away from the people who were playing with their heads.
If Kharon and the Watchers were all demons…then Mark had to believe they were using some kind of spell over Rae. The woman he loved and had lived with for years would never have considered using him as a sacrifice before.
He bent low and crept softly through the rows of cars. He didn’t want to be noticed by any hidden sentries before he was at the door. He’d have to move really fast then; he didn’t need them to be tipped off any sooner.
Mark stepped past the impromptu parking lot and began to follow the barn wall to the main door the crowd had just exited.
A cool hand grabbed him by the wrist.
“Mark, wait.” Selena whispered. She pulled on his arm until he backtracked around the corner of the barn. “I know a better way,” she said. “You can’t just walk in the front door waving a gun around. They’ll take you down before you ever leave the Blue Room.”
“I’ve never seen another entrance,” he whispered.
“There is. There’s a door to the Field of Flesh,” she said. “If you walk through there, you’ll come out in the hallway that leads down through the center of The Red. Once you pass the whipping rooms and the rooms of mutilation, atrocity and desecration, you’ll arrive at the final room before The Black. You can’t go anywhere but through, or back. That room is where you were last night, and it’s where Rae will be tonight. It’s used for the rite-of-passage room to The Black.”
Mark nodded. “Sounds much better than forcing through the front door.”
“Just remember,” she warned. “Do not listen to anything you hear in the field. Like everything in NightWhere, it’s a poisonous place. It will play on all of your fears. It will twist whatever love you have into hate and try to turn what you hate into love.”
“Ears closed,” he said.
She led him to a small side door in the barn. “I can’t go inside,” she said. “They’d be on me in a heartbeat.”
Mark nodded. “Thanks for getting me this far.”
She leaned in to kiss him. “Please don’t let them catch you,” she said. “I gave up too much for you to die now.”
“I won’t,” he promised.
He eased the door open, but still it squealed in the quiet of night. Just as he slipped inside, Selena said one more thing.
“Mark, I love you. I always have.”
Chapter Fifty
Gordon
Kharon had promised him a new chance. Gordon had been furious when his rabbit had lost the race. He knew that there was some kind of status won there, and certainly Rae’s star had risen quickly in NightWhere after that night. Meanwhile, the Watchers’ interest in Gordon and Amelia, who had vied for the position of top degrader/degradee, seemed to have waned.
Amelia had since disappeared altogether. But Gordon had asked Kharon for another chance to prove himself. He’d been assigned the role of guard to Mark, ushering the man through the room of fire.
Kharon had seemed pleased and afterwards had shown Gordon to a private bedroom. “You may stay here for as long as you are able,” the lead Watcher had said.
Gordon had nodded and tossed his overnight bag on the bed. He had hoped for this. It was the first time he’d been invited to stay over in NightWhere, but he’d come tonight with the hope (and preparation) that he would finally join the inner circle. He knew it was either join or die trying, because the body in his basement wasn’t going to stay secret forever. Even if he transported it out of there, he was no dummy. Every genius murderer in the world hid the body someplace smart, and they always seemed to rise to the surface and get themselves found, fingering the killer with some kind of evidence in the process.