She looked at Chad again and the look on his face pierced his heart. It was a combination of disbelief and longing.
He took an unconscious step toward the balcony.
Allyson hated herself for the tears that came then. She had no right to feel this sense of betrayal, not after the things she’d done. Maybe this was what she deserved in return for all those months she’d deceived Chad. Maybe this was karma.
Then Jim clamped a hand on Chad’s shoulder, stopped him in his tracks. He turned Chad toward him and locked eyes with him, spoke a single w ord:“No.”
Chad blinked rapidly. “But…I think that’s—”
Jim shook his head, his expression stern. “Doesn’t matter. You have to leave the past behind.” He looked at Allyson now. “You both do.”
Allyson shuddered, feeling again that bone-deep chill that belied the room’s temperature. She opened her mouth to reply, but whatever it was she’d been about to say went unspoken as her attention was drawn to the wall where Schreck and Bai had been standing moments ago.
She frowned again. “What the fuck?”
The men followed her gaze and saw the vertical, black rectangle in the wall, a door to some dark place. It hadn’t been there before. And Bai and Schreck had vanished, presumbably into that darkness. Looking at the darkness beyond the opening triggered a sensation of creeping dread. Allyson felt it crawling through her intestines like a tapeworm. She didn’t know what that dark place was, but she did know she would sooner die than set even one foot inside it.
Then there was movement within the darkness and a moment later Bai and Schreck reemerged into the room. Between them was a young woman, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Allyson’s heart leaped at the sight of her charred wrist stumps. Some monster had mutilated her. She was nude, except for a very small pair of black panties. She was pale and her long black hair was tangled. The girl was pretty, but there was obvious madness in her jittering eyes. She shivered and leaned close to Bai.
“What the hell? This is the person you came for?” Spittle flew from Allyson’s lips, each word a jab, imbued with an implied sneer. “Look what’s been done to her. She’s pathetic. I don’t care what she’s done. Now you’re going to torture her? You fucking animals.”
Bai’s smile was thin and strained. “It is no concern of yours.” She placed a hand on the hilt of her sword. “Unless you would like me to r escind the Order’s deal with your lover. Then I suppose we could—” Her smile broadened. “—discuss it.”
Allyson watched the woman’s hands curl around the sword’s hilt. There was something almost sensual about the gesture. A vaguely sexual eagerness. Allyson recognized the futility of her indignation on the girl’s behalf and bit back any further expressions of rage. She sighed. “That won’t be necessary. Could we please just get out of here now? No offense, but I’d like to never see any of you fuckers ever again.”
Schreck laughed softly.
Allyson glared at him. “Something to say, asshole?”
Chad reached for her, brushed a hand across her arm. “Allyson, stop this. There’s no need—”
Allyson shrugged his hand away and approached Schreck, halving the distance between them. “Do I know you?”
Schreck’s dark eyes glittered. “Certainly, Ms. Vanover.”
Then she had it. The wheels in her mind stopped spinning as the connection clicked. Hearing him say her name did the trick. It was him. The voice on the phone. Her contact during the months she’d spent spying on Chad. How that voice had haunted her during her months at Camp Whiskey. She heard it in her dreams and like a whispered promise of pain in idle waking moments.
She managed one word, pushed through gritted teeth: “You.”
Schreck grinned, baring rows of horrible, too-white teeth. He looked like a shark. “Have you told your boyfriend about—”
Allyson looked at Bai as she jabbed a finger in Schreck’s direction. “What about this son of a bitch? Has the Order made any deals with him?”
Bai kept her expression neutral as she said, “None that have not already been fulfilled.”
And now it was Allyson’s turn to grin like a crazy person. The sight of it must have unnerved Schreck. He frowned and glanced at Bai. “What’s the—”
Allyson moved with explosive speed, reversing her grip on the M-16 and raising it above her shoulders. Schreck cringed and shuffled backward. But the black door was gone, the blank wall restored. His back met the wall and he could move no further. He raised his hands to cover his face, but he was too late—the stock of the M-16 crashed into his mouth, pulping his lips and shattering teeth.
Allyson moved out of his way as he tumbled to the floor and rolled onto his back. She tossed the M-16 aside and pulled the 9mm from her waistband. She set the safety and moved to where Schreck was sprawled. She avoided Chad’s gaze, not wanting to look too long at his expression of horrified astonishment. Jim remained stoic, his hand on Chad’s shoulder again.
Schreck opened his bleary eyes and saw her standing over him. He let out a wail and tried to scoot away. Allyson seized a handful of his black shirt and lifted him a few inches off the floor. Then she adjusted her grip on the pistol, raised her hand, and brought it around, smashing the nickel-plated butt against the side of his head. Shreck shrieked and bucked on the floor, but Allyson held on to him with ease, galvanized now by the most righteous sense of rage that had ever possessed her. She raised her hand again and whipped the pistol across Schreck’s face another time. Then another and another. Again and again. Mashing flesh and pulverizing bone. The man barely looked human by the time she stopped swinging the pistol back and forth. He sagged in her grip, unable to resist, barely alive.
She let him go and stood up straight. Schreck’s blood-filled eyes looked up at her. Whether he could see her or not she didn’t know. She hoped so. She hoped he saw an avenging angel about to hand down judgment.
She hoped he was afraid. Of her and his impending rendezvous with the denizens of hell. She switched the 9mm’s safety off and aimed the barrel at the center of Schreck’s ruined face. His lips twitched, seemed to curl upward. A last, mocking smile of the damned.
Allyson pulled the trigger and Schreck died.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Back outside, now.
It wasn’t yet noon, which didn’t seem possible. Allyson felt as if a lifetime had passed since they’d gone charging into the strange house. So much had happened. So many people had died. It didn’t seem right that a space of little more than an hour could encompass the extinguishing of all those lives. But it had. The sun was obscured by clouds and the air was tinged with winter’s chill. But Allyson didn’t mind that. It was a clean chill. Natural. She remembered her glimpse of that black room and shuddered.
The girl called Giselle had been loaded into the minivan parked behind the package truck. She was in the rear, her wrist stumps bound with a thick layering of silver duct tape. The girl looked numb, her eyes staring at something beyond this place. The young Asian man was sitting beside her. He sensed Allyson’s scrutiny and his head swiveled slowly in her direction. A very small smile darkened the edges of his cruel mouth. Allyson turned away and moved to the Jeep.
Chad and Jim were there, arguing in low voices. Chad was doing most of the arguing, though. Jim kept his head down and stared at the ground as he listened to his friend rant.
“Jim, you just can’t do this. You can’t go with them. It’s insane.”
Jim sighed—an immensely tired sound—and at last lifted his head to look Chad in the eye. “Perhaps. Regardless, I am going.” He looked at Allyson and managed a tired smile. “Hello, Allyson. I want you to know how proud I am of you.”