Giselle frowned. “Please do.”
Schreck moved closer to Giselle, kneeling slightly at the waist as he again spoke in a whisper: “I believe they’ve come here seeking refuge. They’re weary of dodging the law and need a place to hunker down, perhaps indefinitely.” A malignant smile darkened the corners of his thin lips. “Desperation brought them to our door, Mistress. They are broken. Beaten. They are at our mercy.”
“My mercy, you mean.”
Schreck blinked. “Of course.”
Giselle frowned again. “If they are, as you say, ‘beaten,’ then why are you so afraid?”
Schreck straightened at once, indignation flaring in his eyes. “I am not afraid.”
Giselle uncrossed her legs and rose from the chair. She approached Schreck, enjoying the way his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly as she neared him. “You are so very afraid,” she said, still smiling as she put a hand on his shoulder. Her nose twitched. “I smell the stink of it on you.”
Schreck swallowed. “Madam, I-”
“Shush.” Giselle squeezed his shoulder, her fingers digging into muscle, finding a tender spot. She held his gaze a moment and allowed him to feel how easily she could tear him apart. “Your fear is a good thing, Schreck. You’ve always been so unflappable, even in the moments after I slaughtered your original Mistress. So this tells me something. Our guests are not to be underestimated. You believe they present a genuine threat.”
Schreck drew in a sharp breath as Giselle relaxed the pressure on his shoulder. He wiped moisture from his forehead with a uniform sleeve. “Madam…it’s true. My time in their presence left me feeling…unnerved. It was a subtle thing, a sense of something being…not right.”
Giselle nodded. “Take me to them. Now.”
“Are you sure, Mistress? Perhaps you should grant us time to arrange a more secure-”
Impatience flared in Giselle’s eyes. “Now.”
Shreck returned his hat to his head and snapped his heels together. “As you wish.”
Giselle considered taking a moment to change out of the flimsy robe into something more formal, but she was too anxious to see her guests to waste time selecting something appropriate. She glanced toward the bed, where Ursula was still positioned behind the whimpering prostitute. The girl evinced no sign of having heard her conversation with Schreck. She was too lost in her own world. A part of her wanted to order Ursula to finish with the prostitute and accompany her downstairs, but the prospect of yet another spat with the girl made her weary.
So she looked at Schreck and said, “Lead the way.”
The commander spun on his heels and strode away at a brisk rate, which Giselle hurried to match. They passed through the open double doors and moved rapidly down the long, candlelit corridor. Muffled but nonetheless distinct sounds emerged from behind the closed doors that lined either side of the hallway. Moans of ecstasy and the strangled sobs and whimpers of those in agony, laced with incongruous bursts of mad laughter. Similar sounds drifted from the hallways of each floor as they descended the spiral staircase to ground level. Schreck’s boot heels struck a loud, discordant accompaniment on the marble stairs. Giselle was struck by the impression that this was how the echoing chambers of hell must sound. She was not displeased by the notion.
They reached the bottom and passed through the foyer into a large living room filled with lots of expensive oak furniture. Giselle followed Schreck through the living room as he continued toward an archway that led to the main dining hall. As they neared the dining hall, Giselle began to hear voices. Female voices. The timbre of one was instantly familiar. Dream Weaver. Though she’d never met the woman in person, she’d heard her voice on television numerous times. A little shiver rippled down the length of her spine. The instinctive fear made her angry. This was her domain. Her castle. She had all the power here. And yet the feeling persisted.
She detected no fear in the woman’s voice. Not the slightest iota. Which was just insane. Regardless of whatever mischief she’d gotten up to in the normal world, she was now on dangerous and very hostile territory. Her every word should pulse with anxiety.
But it just wasn’t there.
Giselle tensed as they passed through the archway into the dining hall. More than a dozen heavily armed Black Brigade soldiers lined each side of the room. These were hard, brutal men. Sadists guilty of countless atrocities. The collective scent of fear was almost overpowering. Some of the men fidgeted. Others were sweating and trying not to shake in their boots. Giselle was overcome with disgust and disdain. This was her elite force. Her professional killers. The ones she entrusted with the security of her realm. But right now they looked about as fearsome as a troop of Cub Scouts wielding Wiffle Ball bats. She decided then that none of these men would survive to see another sunrise.
Schreck included.
But these pitiless thoughts were forgotten as she looked at the four women seated in relaxed poses at the far end of the table. There were two women who looked to be in their midthirties. One black and one white. The other two were younger, in their very early twenties at the most. The younger women possessed a certain similarity of features. One, slightly older and sporting choppy, jet-black hair was markedly prettier than the other. Yet they had the same thin lips, wide eyes, and slightly upturned nose. They were sisters or close cousins. There was something not quite right about the younger one. Her mouth was hanging open. Droplets of drool depended from the corners of her lips and her dark eyes possessed a flat, dead look.
A half-empty bottle sat on the table between the women-and three glasses filled with varying levels of dark liquid. The thirtysomething white woman also had choppy, jet-black hair. It looked better on her than it did on the younger girl. She was extraordinarily attractive, the kind of woman who could adopt any look and instantly make it her own. She wore a pink baby-doll T-shirt, which was emblazoned with the word SLUT in large glittering letters. On any other woman her age the shirt would look ridiculous, but…
Then it clicked.
Giselle forced a smile. “Hello, Dream.”
Dream’s smile was surprisingly feral, nothing at all like what Giselle remembered from television coverage after the fall of the House of Blood. “Hello, cunt.”
Giselle blinked rapidly for several moments. “How dare you-”
“Oh, shut up.” Dream eyed her up and down, a mocking glint in her eyes. “I’d tell you not to get your panties in a knot, but you’re not wearing any, are you?”
The younger black-haired girl cackled. “Yeah, that’s some robe, baby. Shit, it’s like she’s the female Hugh Hefner and this is the house of horrors version of the Playboy Mansion.”
The comment enraged Giselle even as it evoked a round of laughter from the girl’s companions. Even the drooling, slack-jawed girl made a chuffing sound that might have been mirth. She continued making the sound for several moments after the laughter of her friends faded. Giselle put her rage on hold as she stared in helpless fascination at the pathetic creature. She looked outwardly normal, but it was apparent her mind was functioning only at the most basic level.
Giselle scowled. “What’s wrong with that one? The ugly, drooling idiot, I mean.” She lifted an arm to point at the girl with the slack jaw and glassy eyes, who turned her head slowly to stare blankly in Giselle’s direction. “That one, I mean.”
Dream’s smile remained in place, but her eyes turned cold. “Oh, that’s Ellen. She’s a work in progress.”
Giselle frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dream drained her wine glass and filled it again. “Oh, nothing much. She died recently. Was murdered, actually. By one of your men, the late Harlan Dempsey.”