Dexter 3 - Dexter in the Dark (28 page)

My cell phone started to buzz, and since traffic was
crawling along anyway, I answered it.

“Dexter,” Rita said, but I barely recognized her voice. She
sounded small, lost, and completely defeated. “It's Cody and Astor,”
she said. “They're gone.”

image

Things were really
working out quite well. The new hosts were wonderfully cooperative. They began
to gather, and with a little bit of persuasion, they easily came to follow IT's
suggestions about behavior. And

they built great stone buildings to hold IT's
offspring, dreamed up elaborate ceremonies with music to put them in a trance
state, and they became so enthusiastically helpful that for a while there were
just too many of them to keep up with. If things went well for the hosts, they
killed a few of their number out of gratitude. If things went badly, they killed
in the hope that IT would make things better. And all IT had to do was let it
happen.

And with this new leisure, IT began to consider the
result of IT's reproductions. For the first time, when the swelling and
bursting came, IT reached out to the newborn, calming it down, easing its fear,
and sharing consciousness. And the newborn responded with gratifying eagerness,
quickly and happily learning all that IT had to teach and gladly joining in.
And then there were four of them, then eight, sixtyfour-and suddenly it was too
much. With that many, there was simply not enough to go around. Even the new
hosts began to balk at the number of victims they needed.

IT was practical, if nothing else. IT quickly realized
the problem, and solved it-by killing almost all of the others IT had spawned.
A few escaped, out into the world, in search of new hosts. IT kept just a few
with IT, and things were under control at last.

Sometime later, the ones who fled began to strike
back. They set up their rival temples and rituals and sent their armies at IT,
and there were so many. The upheaval was enormous and lasted a very long time.
But because IT was the oldest and most experienced, IT eventually vanquished
all the others, except for a few who went into hiding.

The others hid in scattered hosts, keeping a low profile, and many
survived. But IT had learned over the millennia that it was important to wait.
IT had all the time there was, and IT could afford to be patient, slowly hunt
out and kill the ones who fled, and then slowly, carefully, build back up the
grand and wonderful worship of ITself.

IT kept IT's worship alive; hidden, but alive.

And IT waited for the others.

AS I KNOW VERY WELL, THE WORLD IS NOT A NICE PLACE.
There are numberless awful things that can happen, especially to children: they
can be taken by a stranger or a family friend or a divorced dad; they can
wander away and vanish, fall in a sinkhole, drown in a neighbor's pool-and with
a hurricane coming there were even more possibilities. The list is limited only
by their imaginations, and Cody and Astor were quite well supplied with
imagination.

But when Rita told me they were gone, I did not even consider sinkholes
or traffic accidents or motorcycle gangs. I knew what had happened to Cody and
Astor, knew it with a cold, hard certainty that was more clear and positive
than anything the Passenger had ever whispered to me. One thought burst in my
head, and I never questioned it.

In the half a second it took to register Rita's words my brain flooded
with small pictures: the cars following me, the night visitors knocking on the
doors and windows, the scary guy leaving his calling card with the kids, and,
most convincingly, the searing statement uttered by Professor Keller:
“Moloch liked human sacrifice. Especially children.”

I did not know why Moloch wanted my children in
particular, but I knew without the slightest doubt that he, she, or it had
them. And I knew that this was not a good thing for Cody and Astor.

I lost no time getting home, swerving through the
traffic like the Miami native I am, and in just a few minutes I was out of the
car. Rita stood in the rain at the end of the driveway, looking like a small, desolate
mouse.

“Dexter,” Rita
said, with a world of emptiness in her voice. “Please, oh God, Dexter,
find them.” “Lock the house,” I said, “and come with
me.” She looked at me for a moment as if I had said to leave the kids and
go bowling. “Now,” I said. "I know

where they are, but we need
help.“ Rita turned and ran to the house and I pulled out my cell phone and
dialed. ”What,“ Deborah answered. ”I need your help,“ I
said. There was a short silence and then a hard bark of not-amused laughter.
”Jesus Christ,“ she said. ”There's a

hurricane coming in, the bad guys are lined up five deep all over town
waiting for the power to go out, and you need my help.“ ”Cody and
Astor are gone,“ I said. ”Moloch has them.“ ”Dexter,“
she said. ”I have to find them fast, and I need your help."

“Get over here,” she said. As I put my phone
away Rita came splattering down the sidewalk through the puddles that were
already forming. “I locked up,” she said. “But Dexter, what if
they come back and we're gone?”

“They won't come back,” I said. “Not
unless we bring them back.” Apparently that was not the reassuring remark
she was hoping for. She stuffed a fist into her mouth and looked like she was
trying very hard not to scream. “Get in the car, Rita,” I said. I
opened the door for her and she looked at me over her half-digested knuckles.
“Come on,” I said, and she finally climbed in. I got behind the
wheel, started up, and nosed the car out of the driveway.

“You said,” Rita stammered, and I was
relieved to notice that she had removed the fist from her mouth, “you said
you know where they are.” “That's right,” I said, turning onto
U.S. 1 without looking and accelerating through the thinning traffic.
“Where are they?” she asked.

“I know who has them,” I said. “Deborah
will help us find out where they went.” “Oh God, Dexter,” Rita
said, and she began to weep silently. Even if I wasn't driving I wouldn't know
what to do or say about that, so I simply concentrated on getting us to
headquarters alive.

image

A telephone rang in a very comfortable room. It did not give out an
undignified chirping, or a salsa tune, or even a fragment of Beethoven, as
modern cell phones do. Instead, it purred with a simple old-fashioned sound,
the way telephones are supposed to ring.

And this conservative sound went well with the room, which was elegant
in a very reassuring way. It contained a leather couch and two matching chairs,
all worn just enough to give the feeling of a favorite pair of shoes. The
telephone sat on a dark mahogany end table on the far side of the room, next to
a bar made of matching wood.

Altogether the room had the relaxed and timeless feel
of a very old and well-established gentlemen's club, except for one detail: the
wall space between the bar and the couch was taken up by a large wooden case
with a glass front, looking something like a cross between a trophy case and a
shelf for rare books. But instead of flat shelves, the case was fitted with
hundreds of felt-lined niches. Just over half of them cradled a skull-sized
ceramic of a bull's head.

An old man entered the room, without haste, but also
without the careful hesitance of frail old age. There was a confidence in his
walk that is usually found only in much younger men. His hair was white and
full and his face was smooth, as if it had been polished by the desert wind. He
walked to the telephone like he was quite sure that whoever was calling would
not hang up until he answered, and apparently he was right, since it was still
ringing when he lifted the receiver.

“Yes,” he said, and his voice, too, was much younger and
stronger than it should have been. As he listened he picked up a knife that lay
on the table beside the telephone. It was of ancient bronze. The pommel was
curved into a bull's head, the eyes set with two large rubies, and the blade
was traced with gold letters that looked very much like MLK. Like the old man,
the knife was much older than it looked, and far stronger. He idly ran a thumb
along the blade as he listened, and a line of blood rose up on his thumb. It
didn't seem to affect him. He put the knife down.

“Good,” he said. “Bring them here.” He listened
again for a moment, idly licking the blood from his thumb. “No,” he
said, running his tongue along his lower lip. “The others are already gathering.
The storm won't affect Moloch, or his people. In three thousand years, we've
seen far worse, and we're still here.”

He listened again for a moment before interrupting with just a trace of
impatience. “No,” he said. “No delays. Have the Watcher bring
him to me. It's time.”

The old man hung up the telephone and stood for a moment. Then he
picked up the knife again, and an expression grew on his smooth old face.

It was almost a smile.

image

The wind and the rain were
gusting fiercely but only occasionally, and most of Miami was already off the
roads and filling out insurance claim forms for the damage they planned to
have, so the traffic was not bad. One very intense blast of wind nearly pushed
us off the expressway, but other than that it was a quick trip.

Deborah was waiting for us
at the front desk. “Come to my office,” she said, "and tell me
what you

know.“ We followed her
to the elevator and went up. ”Office“ was a bit of an exaggeration
for the place where Deborah worked. It was a cubicle in a room with several
others just like it. Crammed into the space was a desk and chair and two
folding chairs for guests, and we settled in. ”All right,“ she said.
”What happened?"

“They…I sent them out
into the yard,” Rita said. “To get all their toys and things. For the
hurricane.” Deborah nodded. “And then?” she prompted. “I
went in to put away the hurricane supplies,” she said. "And when I
came out they were gone. I didn't-it

was only a couple of minutes, and they…" Rita put
her face in her hands and sobbed.

“Did you see anyone approach
them?” Deborah asked. “Any strange cars in the neighborhood? Anything
at all?” Rita shook her head. “No, nothing, they were just
gone.” Deborah looked at me. “What the hell, Dexter,” she said.
"That's it? The whole story? How do you know

they're not playing Nintendo next door?"

“Come on,
Deborah,” I said. “If you're too tired to work, tell us now.
Otherwise, stop the crap. You know as well as I do-” “I don't know
anything like it, and neither do you,” she snapped. “Then you haven't
been paying attention,” I said, and I found that my tone was sharpening to
match hers,

which was a bit of a surprise. Emotion? Me? “That
business card he left with Cody tells us everything we need to know.”

“Except where, why, and
who,” she snarled. “And I'm still waiting to hear some hints about
that.” Even though I was perfectly prepared to snarl right back at her,
there was really nothing to snarl. She was right. Just because Cody and Astor
were missing, that didn't mean we suddenly had new information that would lead
us to our killer. It only meant that the stakes were considerably higher, and
that we were out of time.

“What about
Wilkins?” I demanded. She waved a hand. “They're watching him,”
she said. “Like last time?” “Please,” Rita interrupted,
with a rough edge of hysteria creeping into her voice, "what are you
talking

about? Isn't there some way
to just-I mean, anything…?" Her voice trailed off into a new round of
sobs,

and Deborah looked from her
to me. “Please,” Rita wailed. As her voice rose it echoed into me and
seemed to drop one final piece of pain into the empty dizziness inside me that
blended in with the faraway music.

I stood up.

I felt myself sway slightly and heard Deborah say my name, and then the
music was there, soft but insistent, as if it had always been there, just
waiting for a moment when I could hear it without distraction, and as I turned
my focus on the thrum of the drums it called me, called as I knew it had been
calling all along, but more urgently now, rising closer to the ultimate ecstasy
and telling me to come, follow, go this way, come to the music.

And I remember being very glad about that, that the
time was here at last, and even though I could hear Deborah and Rita speaking
to me it didn't seem that anything they had to say could be terribly important,
not when the music was calling and the promise of perfect happiness was here at
last. So I smiled at them and I think I even said, “Excuse me,” and I
walked out of the room, not caring about their puzzled faces. I went out of the
building, and to the far side of the parking lot where the music was coming
from.

A car was waiting for me there, which made me even
happier, and I hurried over to it, moving my feet to the beautiful flow of the
music, and when I got there the back door of the car swung open and then I
don't remember anything at all.

I HAD NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY.

The joy came at me like a comet, blazing huge and
ponderous through a dark sky and whirling toward me at inconceivable speed,
swirling in to consume me and carry me away into a boundless universe of
rapture and all-knowing unity, love, and understanding-bliss without end, in me
and of me and all around me forever.

And it whirled me across the trackless night sky in a
warm, blinding blanket of jubilant love and rocked me in a cradle of endless
joy, joy, joy. As I spun higher and faster and even more replete with every
possible happiness, a great slamming sound rolled across me and I opened my
eyes in a small dark room with no windows and a very hard concrete floor and
walls and no idea of where it was or how I got there. A single small light
burned above the door, and I was lying on the floor in the dim glow it cast.

The happiness was gone, all of it, and nothing welled up to replace it
other than a sense that wherever I might be, nobody had in mind restoring
either my joy or my freedom. And although there were no bulls' heads anywhere
in the room, ceramic or otherwise, and there were no old Aramaic magazines
stacked on the floor, it was not hard to add it all up. I had followed the
music, felt ecstasy, and lost conscious control. And that meant that the odds
were very good that Moloch had me, whether he was real or mythical.

Still, better not to take
things for granted. Perhaps I had sleepwalked my way into a storage room
somewhere, and getting out was simply a matter of turning the knob on the door.
I got to my feet with a little difficulty-I felt groggy and a bit wobbly, and I
guessed that whatever had brought me here, some kind of drug had been part of
the process. I stood for a moment and concentrated on getting the room to hold
still, and after a few deep breaths I succeeded. I took one step to the side
and touched a wall: very solid concrete blocks. The door felt almost as thick
and was solidly locked; it didn't even rattle when I punched my shoulder
against it. I walked one time around the small room-really, it was no more than
a large closet. There was a drain in the center of the room, and that was the
only feature or furnishing that I could see. This did not seem particularly
encouraging, since it meant that either I was supposed to use the drain for
personal tasks or else I was not expected to be here long enough to need a
toilet. If that was the case, I had trouble believing that an early exit would
be a good thing for me.

Not that there was anything I could do about it,
whatever plans were being made for me. I had read The Count of Monte Cristo and
The Prisoner of Zenda, and I knew that if I could get hold of something like a
spoon or a belt buckle it would be easy enough to dig my way out in the next
fifteen years or so. But they had thoughtlessly failed to provide me with a
spoon, whoever they were, and my belt buckle had apparently been appropriated,
too. This told me a great deal about them, at least. They were very careful,
which probably meant experienced, and they lacked even the most basic sense of
modesty, since they were clearly not concerned in the least that my pants might
fall down without a belt. However, I still had no idea who they might be or
what they might want with me.

None of this was good news.

And none of it offered any clue at all as to what I could do about it,
except sit on the cold concrete floor and wait.

So I did.

Reflection is supposed to be good for the soul. Throughout history,
people have tried to find peace and quiet, time all to themselves with no
distractions, just so they can reflect. And here I was with exactly that-peace
and quiet with no distractions, but I nevertheless found it very difficult to
lean back in my comfy cement room and let the reflections come and do good for
my soul.

To begin with, I wasn't sure I had a soul. If I did, what was it
thinking to allow me to do such terrible things for so many years? Did the Dark
Passenger take the place of the hypothetical soul that humans were supposed to
have? And now that I was without it, would a real one grow and make me human
after all?

I realized that I was reflecting anyway, but somehow that failed to
create any real sense of fulfillment. I could reflect until my teeth fell out
and it was not going to explain where my Passenger had gone-or where Cody and
Astor were. It was also not going to get me out of this little room.

I got up again and circled the room, slower this time, looking for any
small weakness. There was an air-conditioning vent in one corner-a perfect way to
escape, if only I had been the size of a ferret. There was an electric outlet
on the wall beside the door. That was it.

I paused at the door and felt it. It was very heavy
and thick, and offered me not the tiniest bit of hope that I could break it,
pick the lock, or otherwise open it without the assistance of either explosives
or a road grader. I looked around the room again, but didn't see either one
lying in a corner.

Trapped. Locked in, captured, sequestered, in durance vile-even
synonyms didn't make me feel any better. I leaned my cheek against the door.
What was the point in hoping, really? Hoping for what? Release back into the
world where I no longer had any purpose? Wasn't it better for all concerned
that Dexter Defeated simply vanish into oblivion?

Through the thickness of the door I heard something, some high-pitched
noise approaching outside. And as the sound got closer I recognized it: a man's
voice, arguing with another, higher, insistent voice that was very familiar.

Astor.

“Stupid!” she
said, as they came even with my door. “I don't have to…” And then
they were gone.

“Astor!” I shouted as loud as I could, even though I knew she
would never hear me. And just to prove that stupidity is ubiquitous and
consistent, I slammed on the door with both hands and yelled it again.
“Astor!”

There was no response at all, of course, except for a
faint stinging sensation on the palms of my hands. Since I could not think of anything
else to do, I slid down to the floor, leaned against the door, and waited to
die.

I don't know how long I sat there with my back against the door. I
admit that sitting slumped against the door was not terribly heroic. I know I
should have jumped to my feet, pulled out my secret decoder ring, and chewed
through the wall with my secret radioactive powers. But I was drained. To hear
Astor's defiant small voice on the other side of the door had hammered in what
felt like the last nail. There was no more Dark Knight. There was nothing left
of me but the envelope, and it was coming unglued.

So I sat, slumped, sagged against the door, and
nothing happened. I was in the middle of planning how to hang myself from the
light switch on the wall when I felt a kind of scuffling on the other side of
the door. Then someone pushed on it.

Of course I was in the way and so naturally enough it
hurt, a severe pinch right in the very back end of my human dignity. I was slow
to react, and they pushed again. It hurt again. And blossoming up from the
pain, shooting out of the emptiness like the first flower of spring, came
something truly wonderful.

I got mad.

Not merely irritated, narked by someone's thoughtless
use of my backside as a doorstop. I got truly angry, enraged, furious at the
lack of any consideration for me, the assumption that I was a negligible
commodity, a thing to be locked in a room and shoved around by anyone with an
arm and a short temper. Never mind that only moments ago I had held the same
low opinion of me. That didn't matter at all-I was mad, in the classic sense of
being half crazed, and without thinking anything other than that, I shoved back
against the door as hard as I could.

There was a little bit of resistance, and then the
latch clicked shut. I stood up, thinking, There!-without really knowing what
that meant. And as I glared at the door it began to open again, and once more I
heaved against it, forcing it closed. It was wonderfully fulfilling, and I felt
better than I had in quite some time, but as some of the pure blind anger
leached out of me it occurred to me that as relaxing as door thumping was, it
was slightly pointless, after all, and sooner or later it would have to end in
my defeat, since I had no weapons or tools of any kind, and whoever it was on
the other side of the door was theoretically unlimited in what they could bring
to the task.

As I thought this, the door banged partially open again, stopping when
it hit my foot, and as I banged back automatically I had an idea. It was stupid,
pure James Bond escapism, but it just might possibly work, and I had absolutely
nothing to lose. With me, to think is to explode into furious action, and so
even as I thumped the door shut with my shoulder, I stepped to the side of the
doorframe and waited.

Sure enough, only a moment later the door thumped open, this time with
no resistance from me, and as it swung wide to slam against the wall an
off-balance man in some kind of uniform stumbled in after it. I grabbed at his
arm and managed to get a shoulder instead, but it was enough, and with all my
strength I pivoted and shoved him headfirst into the wall. There was a
gratifying thump, as if I had dropped a large melon off the kitchen table, and
he bounced off the wall and fell face-first onto the concrete floor.

And lo, there was Dexter
reborn and triumphant, standing proudly on both feet, with the body of his

enemy stretched supine at his feet, and an open door leading to
freedom, redemption, and then perhaps a light supper.

I searched the guard quickly, removing a ring of keys,
a large pocketknife, and an automatic pistol that he would probably not need
anytime soon, and then I stepped cautiously into the hall, closing the door
behind me. Somewhere out here, Cody and Astor waited, and I would find them.
What I would do then I didn't know, but it didn't matter. I would find them.