Microsoft Word - FortunesFool.rtf (25 page)

undress—just sprawled on her bed and let the chemical relief stifle the

voices and pictures in her head.

Eight hours later, she'd awakened to the sound of leather striking

blood-dampened skin. Familiar, horribly so, along with the rancid scent

of Chanel No. 5 mixed with fear and fresh sweat. It lasted ten minutes.

She counted the strokes of the lash. Forty, then a woman's voice she

didn't recognize saying something about a cat o' nine tails. And then

howling, like an animal caught in a trap. The kind of sound she dreamt

about even when she wasn't having visions. The kind she remembered.

From before.

To dream like this two nights in a row—so not good for her mental

health.

She waited for it to be over, knowing it wouldn't take long. The cat

o' nine was never used in excess on a supplicant. The damage it inflicted was too great, and there was loss of blood and therefore loss of

consciousness to consider.

"No fun to be had in beating a dead or dozing body," she whispered into the dark of her bedroom.

She heard the woman speak again. Another female voice answered

her, hitching and quivering in pain, the words too muffled to make out.

Then more silence. Leah let herself relax, believing it over.

Then the walls of her bedroom exploded with blood.

With this came the Madre's voice, laughing and murmuring.

Repeating herself—something about how she would soon return, and

then "you will feel...everything."

Twenty minutes on the clock. That's how long she'd been listening

to the Madre's promise to return, and how long her walls had dripped

crimson. She knew it wasn't real. Everything, all of it, just pictures and sounds in her head. Not much help in knowing it while the scent of the

blood clogged the back of her throat, and the Madre's voice made her

eyes water.

When it was over, she reached for the pill bottle on her bedside

table, selecting two of the little yellow angels this time. The clock said quarter to four, but she had no classes on Saturdays. She could stand to 165

D'ARC, GALE, KENT, MARCH

sleep 'til noon, which is what two pills would do for her. She popped

them into her mouth and swallowed them dry. Getting far too good at

that. Leaving her skirt, blouse and underwear in a pile at the foot of her bed, she padded into the bathroom and splashed warm water on her face.

A bath? No, she might end up drowning herself when the pills kicked in.

Something to eat? She closed her eyes and saw the dripping walls and

nearly gagged.

All right then. Straight to bed it was.

She pulled on a white cotton nightshirt and slid between the sheets.

The streetlight outside her window glowed against the ceiling. The red

numbers on the clock marked the passing minutes. Good druggie dreams,

that was what she was aiming for. Dark...soft...floating...

When she opened her eyes, she was standing barefooted on a

cement floor in the corner of a room surrounded by brick walls. There

was a low, heavy bench directly in front of her, and various pieces of

furniture scattered about the room. The fireplace on the far wall was

ablaze, and candles lit every corner of the space. Next to the fireplace, directly across from where she was standing, was a section of wall

covered with a long, black curtain. A mirror...the Madre's playrooms

always had at least one big mirror…

She looked down and saw that she was wearing the same cotton

nightshirt under which she was entirely naked.

Okay, another dream. Maybe even a good one—three times

supposedly being the charm. Except...oh, God. What was that smell? She

stepped forward and looked over the bench.

No...oh no...oh fuck.

The body of a redheaded woman lay curled on the floor in a pool of

drying fluids. Her head was turned at an angle, so that her contorted face and the slash that ran from one ear to the other were fully exposed. Leah pressed a hand to her mouth to keep back the scream building fast in her throat. It wasn't going to be enough, though. She was going to make

some sort of sound, and it would be loud, and whoever had killed the

redhead would coming running and—

Except this was a dream, right? It wasn't really happening, so

nobody could hurt her. The thought made the urge to scream go away,

but it didn't make her feel any better about the dead woman.

Something grunted, and the sound echoed. She jumped back,

stumbling over her own feet, and looked wildly around the room.

166

FORTUNE'S FOOL

He was chained on his knees with his back against the bricks and his

hands stretched to either side, a stack of neatly folded clothes—jeans and a leather jacket, from what she could see—lying just off to his left. His chest was marked with lash-stripes—she'd know the look of those welts

anywhere. His head hung down, making his face indistinct from her

vantage point. But she could see the blood. All of it. Gallons, it looked like, though she knew that was impossible.

Had he been there all along? How had she missed him?

Dream, remember? Didn't have to make sense.

Right. Okay.

Voices outside the door. Women, two of them. Panic shot through

her chest. Yeah, maybe none of this was real, but that didn't mean she

wanted to meet the folks who'd butchered the girl. She whirled, searching for a hiding place. There, across the room, on the other side of that tall cabinet. Its doors were made of glass, but it protruded far enough from

the wall that it might provide cover if she could get to the other side of it in time.

She dashed, skirting the body in the center of the room and...
oh,

God
. The redhead's back was just flayed. Looked like the work of a cat o'

nine. All at once, as Leah slipped past the cabinet and pressed herself

against the wall, things began to fall into place. Yeah, maybe not a

dream. Maybe another vision. And this time she had a starring role.

The door opened.

"Shit. Look at this mess," said the first woman, a slender brunette with long hair and thin features, dressed all in black Latex. "Shannon said it wasn't that bad."

"Shannon's idea of 'not that bad' is a little fucked," said the second woman, also a brunette, also attired in the customary ensemble of the

Madre's acolytes, but wearing her hair in a pixie cut. They both laughed, standing on either side of the girl's body and looking down at her like she was a pile of trash left for them to clean up.

"Let me inject him first, and then we'll take care of this," said Skinny Brunette.

Pixie Cut nodded. "Whatever."

Dear God, please don't let the syringe be in the cabinet
.

But the woman moved to the other side of the room, past the bench,

where a small, round table stood. On it sat a wooden box. From there she removed what she needed and crossed to where the man kneeled against

the wall.

167

D'ARC, GALE, KENT, MARCH

Leah watched while she searched for a vein and injected his arm.

The man never moved or made a sound. After, the woman grabbed a

handful of his hair and lifted his head.

The man from her vision—the earlier one, back in the classroom. Of

course it was. Who else would it be? And now he was in some serious

trouble—as if being chained to a wall in the Madre's playroom weren't

serious enough—because that injection… Leah had seen the results of

that kind of thing before. Not pretty. Not after the Madre was finished

with her fun and games, at least.

"You're gonna like this new drug, lover," Skinny Brunette said, leaning down and speaking directly into his face. "It's gonna make you feel gooooooood...until it makes you feel baaaaaaaaad." She laughed and let his head drop.

Pixie Cut joined her, and they stood looking at the man. "This one's hot. Do you know if the Madre plans on keeping him long?"

Skinny Brunette shrugged. "Hope so. We could use the distraction."

Then she returned the syringe to the box on the table, and she and Pixie Cut turned their attention to the girl's body. In twenty minutes' time,

they'd wrapped it in plastic and managed to scrub away all traces of the blood, except for those still congealing on the skin of the man chained to the wall. Those they left alone, ignoring him completely. For his part, he never moved or gave any indication he saw or heard them.

"All right, let's get her the hell out of here. We've gotta get rid of this bundle and be back here in two hours," said Skinny Brunette and groaned as they lifted the body to their shoulders in preparation to

remove it. "Clarice put on a little weight in the last few months. I'm surprised the Madre let her get away with it."

Pixie Cut shrugged. "She'll be bony again soon enough."

Again they laughed, and kept laughing all the way out the door.

Leah waited silently in her hiding place, counting the seconds,

listening to their footsteps fade down the hallway. She held her breath, waiting...waiting...afraid to slip out into the open, because what would she do then? Where would she go? Not like she could follow those two

ghouls—she'd be caught, dressed as she was. Hard to blend well in a

white nightshirt. They'd take her to see the Madre, and... No. Not

happening. She'd grab something lethal and off herself first.

This was bad. Maybe the worst possible situation she could

imagine. She had to end this vision now. Wake herself up. Except...what

about the guy chained to the wall? Didn't she have some responsibility to 168

FORTUNE'S FOOL

him? That's why this was happening to her in the first place, right? She was supposed to do something. To help in some way. Because shit like

this was never random.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and held it, working up her

courage.

"You can come out now. They're gone."

The voice made her jump and knock her elbow against the corner of

the cabinet. Sharp pain, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was here. Real. A tangible, physical presence in this room and on this plane of existence. Truly a first for her. Her visions had never worked like this before—never moved her body from one space to another. The novelty

of it almost made her wish she could enjoy the experience.

She stepped out from her hiding place and faced the man who

kneeled against the bricks on the other side of the room. He lifted his

head to look at her. When he spoke again, his voice sounded husky and

raw, as if he were forcing over a truckload of gravel in this throat.

"You the cavalry? Because if you are, I think I'm screwed."

169

D'ARC, GALE, KENT, MARCH

The girl...woman...whatever...walked toward him with a funny look

on her face.

"So, you can see me? Then this is really...real." She ran her hand through her shoulder-length, light brown hair and frowned. "I guess I knew that."

He surprised himself by laughing. "Real as real can be, sweetheart.

How did you get in here, anyway? Is there a trap door over there?" He gestured toward the far corner from where the woman had first seemed to

materialize nearly thirty minutes before. He'd watched her, playing

possum as she made her way across the room and hid herself in the

corner between the wall and the glass-fronted cabinet. "Or maybe you're a magician, huh?"

She stopped directly in front of him and shook her head. "Definitely not, or I'd abracadabra myself right out again." She crossed her arms under her breasts. "We're both in serious trouble."

He couldn't hold back his snort of contempt. "What gave you your

first clue? The dead body or the fact that I'm chained to the

motherfucking wall?"

She winced. "Don't yell, unless you want those two harpies in here

again."

"Right. Sorry." He cleared his throat. "What's your name? Where did you come from? And how're you getting us out of here?"

She opened her mouth as if to answer, then shook her head. "Where

I came from is a long story, and you wouldn't believe me anyway. As for

an escape plan—do you have a cell phone?"

Now why the hell hadn't he thought of that? The mickey that the

blonde barmaid had slipped him must've really fucked with his head. "In my jacket pocket." He gestured with his hand, making the steel links clank against the bricks.

The woman dove for the pile of clothes, giving him a nice glimpse

of her ass as she bent to retrieve the phone. He watched her turn it on, 170

FORTUNE'S FOOL

holding his breath.

She frowned. "No reception. Can't say I'm surprised. They've

probably done something to block the signal down here." She tossed the phone onto his jacket.

He shrugged and tried not to feel sick. "It was worth a try. So what did you say your name was?"

"Leah."

He nodded and shifted his knees, looking for a more comfortable

position.

The woman—Leah—looked him over. "I suppose the Madre didn't

leave the keys to those shackles lying around handy, huh?"

He growled in the negative. The spot where the dark-haired bitch

had injected him had begun to itch and tingle, and the sensation was

spreading up his arm. "That Madre lady needs to die. Like, yesterday."

Leah smiled, crooked and sour. "Better men than you have tried to

kill her, believe me. I'll settle for getting out of here alive."

The tingly sensation had begun to move over his shoulder, down his

back, and across his chest and belly. The feeling wasn't entirely

unpleasant, but it made him want to move—to pull against the chains and