Queen Of Blood

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The lighting in the dingy gas station bathroom left something to be desired. The single low-wattage bulb in the exposed ceiling socket flickered and buzzed. Marcy leaned over a sink covered with mildew and studied the dye job Ellen had helped her with in a fleabag motel outside of Newark the night before. The jet-black shade made her vaguely resemble Dream. She didn’t have the supermodel face and figure Dream possessed, but she didn’t look bad. She could almost pass for Dream’s slightly less-blessed younger sister. The important thing was she bore little resemblance to the high school era pictures of herself that had appeared on CNN and the front pages of newspapers across the country.

Now she touched up her eyeshadow and applied a dark red lipstick. She returned the lipstick and eye-shadow to her purse. Then she moved to the bathroom’s single toilet, dropped her jeans, and squatted on the cold seat. As she relieved herself, a fat cockroach moved across the blue-and-white floor tiles. The place was a pit, but she’d become inured to unsanitary conditions during her month and a half on the run. You couldn’t very well stay at the Hyatt when you were trying to fly under the radar.

Alicia was waiting outside when she exited the bathroom a moment later, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She glared at Marcy as she barged past her. “What were you doing in there? Counting the fucking tiles?”

Then she was gone, the gray metal door slamming shut behind her. Marcy sighed and shook her head as she moved across the parking lot toward the old van. Alicia’s progress from freakshow walking corpse to fully functioning living woman still wigged her out. The formerly dead woman hadn’t required drink or food for weeks. Then, as she began to “heal,” normal human appetites reasserted themselves. At first she’d only nibbled on fries and sipped at fast-food sodas. But now she consumed full, regular meals and guzzled jugs of Red Bull and vodka like a nightclub slut. Very little visible evidence of her original corpselike appearance remained. There was one faint little scar just above her collarbone, but Marcy suspected even that would be gone soon.

Marcy stepped through the van’s open side door and slid into the seat next to Dream, who sat slumped against the window on her side. She clutched a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine in her hands, holding it tightly against her chest. Her eyes were bloodshot and an odor of alcohol clung to her like a second skin. She smiled weakly as she glimpsed Marcy sitting next to her. “Hey, girl.” She offered the bottle. “Have a drink.”

Marcy accepted the bottle from Dream’s shaking hands and put it to her mouth. She tilted her head back and let the warm wine wash down her throat. Then she passed the bottle back to Dream and wiped her mouth. “Thanks.”

Dream sipped from the bottle and leaned her head against the window again. She looked through the window at the gray sky and the cars passing by on the wet street beyond the gas station parking lot. “Where are we now?”

“Back in New York. Near Rochester.”

Dream grunted. “We ought to go south.”

“That’s where you’re from, right?”

Dream nodded without shifting her gaze from the dreary view. “Yeah. Good ol’ Tennessee. But anywhere in the South would be good. It’s so cold and dark and nasty here all the fucking time.” Her tone was laced with melancholy. It was how she always sounded these days. “I wanna go where I can feel the warm sun on my skin. And smell flowers…”

Marcy watched Dream’s eyes flutter closed as her voice drifted. She gently pried the wine bottle from Dream’s numb fingers to keep it from falling to the floor. The van’s interior already smelled enough like an accident at a liquor store. She put the bottle to her lips again and drank as she watched Dream drowse. She was even more beautiful in repose. In sleep the demons haunting her weren’t so apparent, and in these moments Marcy fancied she was seeing Dream as she’d been years ago, back before her life had turned into a perpetual horror show. She looked at her closely now and tried to imagine her with the longer blonde hair she remembered from the old newspaper pictures. It was easy to picture and part of her ached for Dream, for what she’d lost. Yes, she was still pretty now, but she was harder inside than she’d been and that showed in the lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. The hard living was taking its toll.

“Has she passed out again?”

Marcy watched the gentle rise and fall of Dream’s chest. “Yeah.” She held the bottle toward the front seat. “You want a hit of this?”

Ellen was ensconced behind the wheel of the van. Early on in their quixotic quest she’d assumed the role of driver. It gave her something to do. And Ellen having a defined role in the scheme of things was good. This lit tle bit of structure helped keep her balanced in the midst of the insanity swirling around her. She’d also changed her hair, letting it grow out some and dropping the mix of blonde and black in favor of a dark shade of auburn. The new look brought out her features and made her more attractive, which had also served to boost her confidence. Marcy liked that. Little sister was a mousy doormat no more.

She’d only relinquished her position as driver once in recent weeks. That being when Alicia had briefly taken over in the aftermath of the Rainbow Bridge incident. Alicia remained behind the wheel as they followed the course of the river, tracking Dream’s downstream progress via some internal means Marcy couldn’t comprehend. Marcy remembered how she’d fretted over the course of that grim hour, worrying that Dream’s confidence in her ability to negotiate the rapids had been unfounded, that she’d drowned out there in those cold depths. But Alicia kept going, staying as close to the water as possible. And then they’d seen her, sopping wet and sitting cross-legged in the grass by the side of the road. Shivering and smiling in a vacant way as she waited for them.

Ellen turned from the steering wheel and stared through the gap between the front seats. “We should get out of here.”

Marcy frowned as Ellen took the bottle. “What?”

Ellen sipped some wine. “You heard me. We should toss Dream out while she’s unconscious and that freaky bitch is away.”

Marcy shot a nervous glance back toward the gas station. No sign of Alicia. And the bathroom door was still shut. She frowned and looked at Ellen again. “Why would we do that?”

Ellen rolled her eyes. “Because something bad will happen if we don’t. Duh. We might even get ourselves killed trying to find these people Alicia is after.”

Marcy’s frown deepened. “So…you want to ditch our friends and step out of the line of fire? That’s kind of a shitty thing to do. Cowardly, even.”

“They’re not our friends.” Ellen’s tone was thick with exasperation. “You seem to have forgotten that somewhere along the way. We had some real friends, but you fucking killed them all. Remember?”

Marcy’s expression hardened. “They would have gone to the police. They would have ruined everything.” Her hands curled into tight fists. She didn’t like talking about this, and Ellen fucking well knew it. “And anyway, I’m really only talking about Dream. I don’t care what you think about her. She’s my friend. I won’t abandon her. I sure as shit won’t leave her alone with Alicia.”

Ellen scowled. “I can’t believe you. How anyone can go from wanting to kill a person to being their best pal is beyond me.”

“I’m not asking you to understand it. Just accept it.”

“Unfuckingbelievable.” Ellen passed the nearly empty wine bottle back to Marcy. “Take this shit. It’s awful.”

Marcy took the bottle and drank from it again. She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but she knew her sister had a point. They were well out of their league. Yes, the impulsive murders she’d committed at the farmhouse constituted a spectacular lapse of sanity. But anyone could snap and go off like that. It happened several times every year. Regular, everyday people who suddenly lose it and shoot up a schoolroom or workplace, with images of the aftermath beamed into your living room courtesy of CNN and Fox News. But these were tragedies rooted in the real world. They were almost mundane, despite the immense horror and grief suffered by the survivors and loved ones. There was nothing the least mundane about Dream Weaver and Alicia Jackson.

She looked at Dream and thought about that night on Rainbow Bridge. That was when it had all changed for Marcy. In many ways it had been an awful and tragic evening, but for Marcy it had also possessed a kind of strange and dark beauty. She recalled with a shiver the frisson of that moment just before Dream had taken her dive into the river, a sudden shock of recognition that had passed between them, an awareness that beneath the hate and their differences they were kindred souls. Marcy couldn’t explain it to Ellen in any way that didn’t make it sound like she had some kind of dippy girlcrush on Dream. That wasn’t the case. Rather, she understood Dream and her compulsions. She’d come to feel more closely bonded to Dream than she ever had to her own flesh-and-blood sister. So, no, she would not abandon Dream. If necessary, she would follow her to the ends of the earth. With or without Ellen.

Dream stirred and lifted her head off the frosty window. She looked at Marcy through bleary eyes and smiled. “Have I told you how good your hair looks like that?”

Marcy blushed. “Yeah. A few times. But thanks again.”

Dream took the bottle from her and knocked back a belt. She looked at the bottle and shook it. “We’re gonna need more booze soon.”

“I saw a liquor store back down that way.” Marcy nodded at the road. “We could stock up before heading out to the highway again.”

Dream yawned and stretched. “Sounds good.”

Ellen sighed. “Wonderful.”

Marcy felt her anger come back in a rush. She leaned forward in her seat and thumped the back of the driver’s seat. “Something you want to say, Ellen?”

Ellen met her sister’s gaze in the tilted rearview mirror. “Yes. You’re all drinking too much. It’s not a moral fucking judgment or anything. I’m just worried someone will get sloppy and somehow make a cop look at us a little too hard.”

Dream drained the rest of the Boone’s Farm and flung the empty bottle through the gap between seats. It exploded on the dash, making Ellen shriek and jump in her seat.

Then Dream was laughing. “Sloppy like that, you mean?”

Ellen sat very still for a moment. Marcy’s heart pounded as she waited to see how her sister would react to the sudden violence. Then Ellen undid her seat belt and reached for the door handle. “Fuck this, I’m out of here.”

The humor drained from Dream’s face at once. “Stay.”

Ellen’s hand froze on the handle. “Please. I can’t do this anymore.”

“You can and you will.” Dream’s voice was cold. Devoid of compassion. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ellen. So put your seat belt back on. Please.”

Marcy let out a relieved breath as Ellen relinquished her hold on the door handle and did as instructed. Though her loyalties had shifted somewhat, she didn’t want to see her sister suffer. And Ellen would damn well suffer if she resisted Dream’s will.

“That’s better.” Dream pushed up out of her seat and moved into the gap between the front seats. Marcy couldn’t see Ellen now, but she heard the other girl gasp. Then Dream went to her knees between the seats and laid a hand on Ellen’s arm. “Listen up. I know you don’t like me and I guess I can’t blame you for that. But you’re gonna have to work at putting all that shit behind you, because we’re a family now.”

“Right.” Ellen’s tone dripped sarcasm.

“Yes, a family, goddammit.” Marcy hadn’t heard Dream speak with such conviction in weeks, if ever. Okay, we were forced together by circumstance. It’s a fate thing, you see. And so we’re like any other clan—we don’t get to choose family. And you don’t run out on family. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Marcy blinked tears from her eyes. “I do.”

“I know you do, Marcy. I’m proud of you. We’re sisters, all of us. I love you like I would a birth sibling.” Dream moved further into the gap between seats. “So I want to feel the same commitment from you, Ellen, and know you’re in it to the end, too.”

Ellen didn’t respond at first. Marcy leaned forward and saw that her hands were locked in a death grip on the steering wheel. Then her sister’s head dipped forward and touched the hard molded plastic. She sniffled once, her shoulders heaving. Then the floodgates opened and her body quaked with a series of sobs. Dream stroked her back and made sounds of reassurance. Marcy wiped hot moisture from her cheeks. Nothing had ever moved her as strongly as Dream’s speech. Never had anyone so plainly expressed love for her. She swiped at her eyes again, then a flicker of something in her peripheral vision made her head snap to the right.

Alicia was there, standing just outside the open side door. Her mouth was twisted in a smirk. “Sheesh, I go away for ten minutes and you fuckers start writin’ your own motherfuckin’ Lifetime movie.”

Marcy turned up a middle finger and extended it.

Alicia’s smirk deepened. “Crying fits and obscene gestures.” She opened the front passenger door and began to pull herself inside. “Time for the Estrogen Express to hit the road before one of you bitches starts quoting lines from Thelma and Louise or some dumb thing.”

She paused at the sight of the glass shards sprayed across the front seat area. “I missed some kind of drama, I guess.” She looked hard at Dream, her dark eyes flat and unreadable. “Anything I need to be worried about, Dream?”

Dream did not wilt beneath that unforgiving gaze. Her lips curved upward. “Of course not. Just having an old-fashioned heart-to-heart with Ellen. I think we’ve come to an understanding.” Her eyes flicked toward the still-sniffling girl. “Haven’t we, Ellen?”

Ellen at last managed to compose herself. She lifted her head off the steering wheel and wiped her face dry with a sleeve. Then she did something that astonished Marcy—she looked Alicia in the eye as steadily as Dream had a moment ago and said, “That’s right. I had a weak moment.”

Alicia’s trademark smirk returned. “Latest in a long, long series, I’d say.”

“That’s right.” Ellen reached for Dream and clasped hands with her. “And Dream called me on it. Think what you want, but I see things differently now. Wherever this road takes us, I want to be there. I want to see what’s at the end of it.”

Alicia picked glass shards off the passenger seat and tossed them on the parkling lot asphalt. “Whatever, Dorothy.” A small piece of glass nicked the ball of her thumb and drew blood. She popped it in her mouth and sucked on it. “Mmm.” She withdrew the glistening digit and stared at it. “I don’t know exactly what’s at the end of our yellow brick road, but I know it’s a bad place, a place like the one where I died.”

Marcy said, “The House of Blood.”

Alicia wiped her thumb on her jeans and climbed into the van. She pulled the door shut and turned in her seat to look at Marcy. “That’s right, girl. And I know one more thing. There’ll definitely be a wicked witch waiting for us when we get there.”

Marcy shoved her hands into the pockets of her brown hoodie and slumped further down in her seat. “Ms. Wickman.”

“Damn straight.”

Marcy’s brow furrowed. “And you’re sure you can kill her.”

“Ain’t sure about shit. But I’ll either kill the bitch or die trying.”

Marcy’s mouth twisted in a humorless smile. “That’d have to be a real kick in the ass. Dying twice at the hands of the same person.”

Alicia scowled. “I don’t—”

“Any a you ladies spare some change?”

Marcy jumped at the sound of the gravelly voice and turned to look at the homeless guy standing outside the van. He smelled like a sewer and Marcy was surprised he’d gotten this close undetected. He had limp brown hair tucked under a ratty New Jersey Devils cap. His face was seamed and his nose sat like a swollen red ball in the center of his face. He wore a heavily stained yellow windbreaker over raggedy clothes.

He leaned in through the open door and sniffed. “Smells like wine in here. Good stuff. ’Spose I could get a taste?”

Ellen piped up from the driver’s seat. “Fuck off.”

“We don’t have anything for you, bum.” Alicia directed her eerily intense gaze at the old drunk. “I’d advise you to leave before you stir up trouble you can’t handle.”

The man sneered at her, displaying a mouth missing most of its teeth. “Whaaaaat?” He drew out the syllable and laughed. “You ladies don’ wanna tussle wit’ the likes a me. Tell ya that much.” He leaned further into the van and his rheumy eyes roamed over its interior. “Aw shit, just gimme a bit of pocket change and I’ll be on my way.”

Marcy shifted in her seat and turned slightly to the right. The bum’s aggressiveness stirred an old memory. That night in Overton Park. The homeless guy. The bottle. The first time she’d taken a life. Her fists clenched at the edges of the seat.

“Say, you bitches look kinda familiar.” The bum scratched at a cheek with long nails turned brown with infection. “Yeah.” He waved in the general direction of the convenience store. “Over there at the paper boxes, last week I think it was.” He looked at Marcy and squinted. “I seen you staring out at me. You the one killed all those kids. Maybe I oughta go to the cops, huh?”

The atmosphere in the van turned frigid. Marcy’s heart raced as a paralyzing sense of panic began to set in. This was it, then. The end of the road. But it wasn’t right. Their journey wasn’t over. Not even close. Anger rose inside her.

The old guy sneered again and said, “Or maybe I’ll keep my mouth shut if that one—” He nodded at Dream. “She gives my pecker a good suck and I’ll keep quiet. Come on, bitch. Whatcha say?”

Dream surged past Marcy, seized the bum by the front of his black sweatshirt, lifted him off his feet, and pulled him inside the van. He yelped and flailed a little until Dream slammed the top of his head against the closed door on her side. The man went limp and Dream cradled him in her arms like a child. Her eyes pulsed with cold energy as she looked at Marcy. “Close the door.”

Marcy swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded, then shut the door.

And then she watched in horrified fascination as Dream closed her hands around the unconscious man’s neck and began to twist.

A man in a powder blue 1970s Plymouth set his paper coffee mug in the plastic cup holder he’d purchased at a truck stop the previous night. The cup holder was clipped inside the ash tray and dipped precariously as it accepted the mug’s weight. He hated the old jalopy, but the people in charge said it was better for tailing people than something new and flashy. The man disagreed. He thought the old piece of shit stuck out like a sore, infected thumb, but what did he know, he was just a goon with a gun.

A creepy three-fingered kid named Dean sat in the passenger seat. He kept playing with his favorite knife, running the edge of the blade over the fabric of his jeans, up and down his inner thigh, over and over. The kid was a world-class geek, but he was stone psycho and a merciless killer.

“What do you reckon the odds are we just got ol’ Ducky killed?”

The corners of the kid’s mouth lifted slightly. It had been his idea to send the old bum over to check things out. Ostensibly, the plan had been for “Ducky,” as he called himself, to report back to them with his findings, but that looked to be out the window. “He’s dead. I can feel it.”

The man nodded and removed a pack of smokes from his shirt pocket. He tapped a Winston out and wedged it in a corner of his mouth. “I reckon you’re right, boy. So what do you think? Seems pretty certain these are the ones the Mistress wants.”

The boy licked his dry lips. “Yeah.”

The van’s tail lights came on and the van began to glide out toward the street just as the man was applying a lighter flame to his cigarette. “Oh, shit.”

He flipped the lighter shut and tossed it onto the dashboard. Then he twisted the key in the ignition and listened to the engine groan. He twisted it again and got a rattle. He looked up and saw the van cross the intersection and pick up speed.

“Fuck!”

The kid was looking at him now. The big knife was pointed vaguely in his direction. “It better start.”

The man spoke around the cigarette:“No shit.”

He was trying hard not to sound afraid, but inside he was coming apart. He couldn’t afford to blow this. Not when they were so close. He knew the kid was just looking for an excuse to gut him and resume the chase on his own. So he sent out a silent prayer and twisted the key again.

The engine sputtered, caught, and roared to life.

He let out a big breath and grinned at the kid. “Have faith, kid. They ain’t gettin’ away.”

He gunned the engine and the car lurched forward.