Grey hooked a finger over his shoulder. “From back there to somewhere else.”
His answer seemed to kindle a light in the redhead’s eyes. She nodded, as if appreciating his caution. Then she swiveled her gaze toward Thomas Looks Away.
“Sioux,” she said, again not making it a question.
“Ugh,” he said. “Me heap big red savage.”
The redhead rolled her eyes. “That’s adorable. But I heard you talking a second ago. You sound like someone who’s traveled a bit.”
Looks Away paused, shrugged, nodded. “A bit.”
“Then you’ll feel right at home. All of us girls here have been around the block a time or two.”
It was so saucy a comment that the two men laughed. The woman laughed, but her laugh was a beat slower and, Grey thought, entirely false. Or, maybe it was that she was laughing at a different joke than the one he thought she’d made. The laugh had that kind of flavor to it.
She said, “My name is Mircalla and this place belongs to me and my sisters.” Her voice was soft and she had a faint German accent. “Would you like to come in?”
“If there’s cold beer, a hot bath, and a rare steak,” said Grey, “then we surely would.”
“A bath, a beer, and a bite?” laughed Mircalla. “And maybe a bed?”
“I haven’t slept in a bed in so long I forget what a pillow’s for.”
“Slept? Lordy-lord, gentlemen, surely you didn’t come here to sleep.”
Everyone laughed again. Same flavor as before. Once again Grey was sure there was some bottom layer to her joke that he wasn’t quite grasping.
“I think we can accommodate whatever pleases you,” said Mircalla. “If it’s your wish to enter, then come on in — we can provide everything a man could ever hope to want.”
Before he could comment on it, Mircalla turned, shimmied her way between them, hooked an arm in each of theirs, and began guiding them toward the batwing door.
As they stepped across the threshold Grey flinched. It was a strange feeling, but he did not know what he was reacting to. The brothel was well-lighted and cool, there were aromas of perfume and cooking meat, of beer and firewood. The women inside were all beautiful and they all smiled at the two men.
So, why, he wondered, did he suddenly feel that he wanted to run?
To go back outside.
Into the sunlight.
Mircalla’s arm was locked around his and he felt that he was not so much walking into the place as being pulled.
Behind him the batwing doors slapped shut with a loud, hollow crack.
Chapter Fifteen
Grey soon forgot his unease. Mircalla ushered them into an alcove furnished with gorgeous chairs decorated with red pillows. Chinese tapestries hung from the walls, their delicate floral patterns edged with gold fringe. Candles burned in silver sconces and there was a Turkish brass table laden with bowls of fresh fruits and tall glasses of amber beer.
Mircalla detached herself from the two men and pushed them down into chairs. She snapped her fingers and two women entered the alcove, both of them carrying ornately patterned plates heavy with steaks and vegetables from which steam rose like pale snakes.
Grey wanted to ask how the food could have been prepared so quickly, but before he could a crystal beer glass was pressed into his hand by a brunette with burning blue eyes.
“This will wash away that desert dust,” she said. “Drink… go on, drink deep.”
He did.
The beer was ice cold and it felt like liquid paradise as it slid down his parched throat. The woman touched the bottom of the glass and guided it so that he leaned back and drained it. She took it and refilled it. Suddenly he had a knife and fork in his hands — both heavy and ornate — and he was cutting into the tenderest piece of three-inch thick steak he’d ever seen. Blood oozed hot and red from the meat, and when he took his first bite he thought he would cry. It was perfect. Beyond perfect. So hot, so well cooked, so bloody and delicious.
“Oh, God…,” he moaned.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Looks Away with a blonde on his lap. She was cutting his steak for him and feeding him pieces she held between thumb and forefinger. Her nails were long and painted a dark and gleaming red.
He cut another piece of his own steak.
And drank more of the delicious beer.
He was so dehydrated that the alcohol went straight to his head. The alcove seemed to swirl around him as he ate and drank, ate and drank. Drunkenness came over him in waves, distorting everything. With each new glass of beer the colors around him changed. Became brighter, more garish. There was music somewhere and at first it was soft and subtle, but soon it became grating and harsh.
Off to his right, somewhere else, somewhere down a hole or on the other side of the world, he heard a voice. Looks Away. Laughing. Speaking nonsense words.
Then crying out.
In anger first.
Then in surprise.
And in…
Pain?
He felt pain, too, but Grey didn’t care. Probably a mosquito or a fly biting him on the neck.
Nothing to worry about.
Nothing to care about.
He bent forward to reach for his glass of beer, but something jerked him backward.
Hands?
That was silly. There was no one here but a couple of girls and they weren’t strong enough.
He laughed at the thought of whorehouse girls manhandling someone as big as he was.
The pain in his neck became sharper.
Harder.
Worse.
Wrong.
He could feel heat on his throat. Wet and moving.
Running in lines from where those flies were biting. If they were flies.
He tried to speak, to protest, to ask what was happening. The room spun around him. All of the colors swirled and blended together.
“I don’t understand…,” he heard himself say.
And then he felt himself falling.
Not forward.
Down.
Down down down.
The colors melted into red and then into black.
And then everything was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
Grey Torrance sat in a chair in the middle of the desert.
The sun was high in the sky but the world was draped in shadows. The wind was cold and blew out of the east in long gusts, like the exhalations of some sleeping giant. In the darkness off to the north was a blighted tree and there were hundreds of crows standing silent vigil on the twisted limbs.
Grey stared at the birds and they stared back.
“Pick a card,” said a voice, and Grey jumped, startled. He whipped his head around and saw that he was now seated at a table. It was covered with a heavy brocade in red and gold, and the surface was covered with embroidered dragons locked in death struggles with saints and angels. A woman sat across from him. Mircalla. Or at least he thought it was. She wore a veil over her pretty face, so all he could see was the faint outline of her features.
Before her, on the top of the table, was a slender taper in a silver holder, the flame burning with no heat. And beside that was a deck of cards. They were larger than standard playing cards, and the design on the back showed the death mask of some ancient and beautiful queen. Her eyes were closed and blood ran from the corners of her mouth.
Mircalla wore black lace gloves that had patterns of flitting bats on them. As he watched she drew her hand across the deck and fanned it out in a graceful arc.
“Pick a card,” she repeated.
One of the crows in the tree cawed softly. It didn’t sound like a bird. It sounded like the plaintive call of a lost child.
Grey licked his lips. They were as dry as if he had been lying all day in the hot sun. And yet he remembered drinking. A lot. And very good, cold, crisp beer it had been, too. So how could his lips be dry and cracked? Why would his throat be filled with dust?