What the hell is going on?
Then in a rush his vision cleared—his heart pounding instantly at his ribs as everything came back to him. The call from Schaap, the voice on the other end, the blow on the back of his head when he foolishly rushed out to his car.
He remembered it all.
Schaap, Markham thought. Where the hell is Schaap?
More body parts from the shadows. Yes, there, in the far corner of the room about fifteen feet away, Markham could make out a man’s muscular back; could see the water reflected on his flesh in the dim yellowy light.
The Impaler, Markham said to himself. The Impaler tricked me—
Suddenly, the man in the corner threw his head back and turned. Markham’s heart leaped into his throat as his eyes blinked shut. Surely he’d been caught, he thought—but the water continued to run and the sounds remained the same. He cracked open his left eye. In the shadows, he could see only a small portion of the man’s profile, the rest of his face obscured by his arm. He held a garden hose above his head, the water washing over him and down his chest. There was a large tattoo on that chest. Markham could see it clearly—what appeared to be two elongated rectangles, standing upright and side by side, one decorated with the number 9, the other with the number 3.
“His body is the doorway,” the Impaler had said on the phone.
The tattoo—a pair of doors! Nine stars in Leo, three in Leo Minor—
“I am the three, but you are the nine.”
His body is the doorway!
“Will you know him when he comes for you?”
Schaap! Markham cried out in his mind—but then the doorway on the man’s chest seemed to ooze something black—a thick line of goo between the 9 and the 3 that dis- appeared under the water, only to return again when the man hosed off his head. Markham could see a smaller gash through the top of the 9, too.
He’s wounded, he thought. Bleeding badly.
The Impaler turned his back again.
Daring to move only his eyes, Markham scanned what little he could. Yes, he had to be in the Impaler’s workshop. The tools, the unfinished two-by-fours propped against the wall. And he was elevated—Tied down on some kind of workbench—but still dressed. That was good. That meant the Im-paler hadn’t started on him yet. That meant—
Then Markham saw the chains. He followed them from the pulley that dangled above the Impaler’s head, up through the ceiling beams to a winch on the wall next to the slop sink. The sound of the water traveling down the drain seemed suddenly amplified, and Markham understood all at once what the chains were for—felt his stomach flip when he imagined Andy Schaap dangling upside down, his blood draining into the floor. He’d seen it before—the Morales case, pictures of what the drug cartels did to their enemies—but that might not have happened. Schaap might still be alive. There was nothing in the autopsy reports about the Im-paler bleeding out his victims—
I’ve got to find Schaap!
Markham told himself to stay calm; if the Impaler knew he was awake he was a dead man. And as if reading his mind, the Impaler shut off the water and began to turn toward him. Markham closed his eyes—could hear movement, the Impaler toweling himself off, he assumed—then silence, followed by what sounded like masking tape being peeled and snipped from a roll.
His wound, Markham said to himself. He must be bandaging his wound.
More movement now—the Impaler dressing—and despite his terror Markham had to fight the urge to steal a look at the man’s face. Oh yes, he wanted to get a good look at that face so, so badly!
Markham felt a cool breeze rush past, and after a moment heard a clanging sound coming from another part of the cellar. He cracked open his eyes and quickly scanned his body. He was tied up, but not down to anything; he could roll over onto his back if he wished. Yes, he had to be in the Impaler’s cellar—the cement walls, the trickling sound of the blood and water running down the floor drain.
But what to do, what to do?!!
Footsteps approached again and Markham shut his eyes—another cool breeze and the sense of movement behind him. His mind spun furiously; he was starting to panic, felt as if at any second he would open his eyes and try to bolt—when all of a sudden he felt the Impaler’s arms slipping underneath his torso.
Markham’s muscles tensed. He thought surely the Im-paler had to have felt them tense, too—but a moment later he was being lifted off the workbench.
I’m to be next, he thought. Whatever the Impaler did to the others before he skewered them he intends to do to me. I’ve got to make a break for it!
No! cried the voice in his head. Stay calm! The Impaler kept the others alive for days. He will undress you to write on you—will most likely untie you, too. The window will be short, but you can surprise him if you—
Out of nowhere came a loud buzzing noise, like an old alarm clock, echoing throughout the cellar. Markham flinched, but at the exact same time the Impaler flinched, too. That’s what saved him, he realized, and the two of them froze together.
Nothing—only the Impaler listening, breathing—and then Markham felt himself being lowered back down onto the workbench.
Movement again, behind him, and after a brief silence Markham thought he heard talking coming from another part of the cellar. He cracked open his eyes and cocked his ear, straining to hear.
Another loud buzz, this one longer, and Markham flinched again.
“No!” a voice cried. “The nine is not complete!” A brief pause, then, “No, please, the doorway is not healed! You must not come through!”
Something else, inaudible, and Markham’s mind began to race with what to do next. He’s hearing voices, he said to himself. Paranoid delusions, borderline schizophrenic—the god Nergal behind the doorway on his chest! The temple at Kutha, the doorway to Hell!
Then came the sound of an animal growling, passing close, and quickly trailing off into footsteps—distant, hollow, bounding up a flight of stairs. The slam of a heavy door, then silence.
Markham didn’t waste any time. He sat up, wincing at the pain in the back of his head, and glanced around the room. As he suspected, he’d been lying on a large workbench; saw racks upon racks of more tools on the wall behind him—saws, chisels, all kinds of cutting instruments—but using them would be slow work with his hands tied together. Across the room, he spied another workbench covered with bottles and jugs and twisted tubes—distillery equipment, it looked like—as well as piles of books and an old phonograph with a stack of old records on top of it.
Then Markham spotted something on the other end of the workbench: a large mechanical grinding wheel caked with blood. Impulsively, he made toward it—didn’t pause to ponder where the blood came from—and jumped off the workbench. His feet were all pins and needles—he felt as if his ankles would buckle at any moment—but he steadied himself and reached the front of machine. He found the switch, but couldn’t feel it with his fingers—numb and unrespon- sive, wouldn’t have been able to grasp any of the smaller tools even if he had time. Markham had a fleeting premonition that the grinder was not going to work, followed by another that it would make too much noise if it did.