Dexter in the Dark (41 page)

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.

THIRTY-NINE

T
HE BUILDING WAS ABOUT THE SIZE OF A LARGE
M
IAMI
Beach house. I prowled cautiously through a long hallway that ended at a door similar to the one I had just played bull-in-the-ring with. I tiptoed up and put my ear against it. I didn’t hear anything at all, but the door was so thick that this meant almost nothing.

I put my hand on the knob and turned it very slowly. It wasn’t locked, and I pushed the door open.

I peeked carefully around the edge of the door and saw nothing that ought to cause alarm other than some furniture that looked like real leather—I made a mental note to report it to PETA. It was quite an elegant room, and as I opened the door farther I saw a very nice mahogany bar in the far corner.

But much more interesting was the trophy case beside the bar. It stretched along the wall for twenty feet, and behind the glass, just visible, I could see row after row of what seemed to be assorted ceramic bulls’ heads. Each piece shone under its own mini-spotlight. I did not count, but there had to be more than a hundred of them. And before I could move into the room I heard a voice, as cold and dry as it could be and still be human.

“Trophies,” and I jumped, turning the gun toward the sound. “A memorial wall dedicated to the god. Each represents a soul we have sent to him.” An old man sat there, simply looking at me, but seeing him was almost a physical blow. “We create a new one for each sacrifice,” he said. “Come in, Dexter.”

The old man didn’t seem very menacing. In fact, he was nearly invisible, sitting back as he was in one of the large leather chairs. He got up slowly, with an old man’s care, and turned a face on me that was as cold and smooth as river rock.

“We have been waiting for you,” he said, although as far as I could tell he was alone in the room, except for the furniture. “Come in.”

I really don’t know if it was what he said, or the way he said it—or something else entirely. In any case, when he looked directly at me I suddenly felt like there was not enough air in the room. All the mad dash of my escape seemed to bleed out of me and puddle around my ankles, and a great clattering emptiness tore through me, as though there was nothing in the world but pointless pain, and he was its master.

“You’ve caused us a great deal of trouble,” he said quietly.

“That’s some consolation,” I said. It was very hard to say, and sounded feeble even to me, but at least it made the old man look a little bit annoyed. He took a step toward me, and I found myself trying to shrink away. “By the way,” I said, hoping to appear nonchalant about the fact that I felt like I was melting, “who are us?”

He cocked his head to one side. “I think you know,” he said. “You’ve certainly been looking at us long enough.” He took another step forward and my knees wobbled slightly. “But for the sake of a pleasant conversation,” he said, “we are the followers of Moloch. The heirs of King Solomon. For three thousand years, we have kept the god’s worship alive and guarded his traditions, and his power.”

“You keep saying ‘we,’” I said.

He nodded, and the movement hurt me. “There are others here,” he said. “But the we is, as I am sure you are aware, Moloch. He exists inside me.”

“So
you
killed those girls? And followed me around?” I said, and I admit I was surprised to think of this elderly man doing all that.

He actually smiled, but it was humorless and didn’t make me feel any better. “I did not go in person, no. It was the Watchers.”

“So—you mean, it can leave you?”

“Of course,” he said. “Moloch can move between us as he wishes. He’s not one person, and he’s not
in
one person. He’s a god. He goes out of me and into some of the others for special errands. To watch.”

“Well, it’s wonderful to have a hobby,” I said. I wasn’t really sure where our conversation was going, or if my precious life was about to skid to a halt, so I asked the first question that sprung to mind. “Then why did you leave the bodies at the university?”

“We wanted to find you, naturally.” The old man’s words froze me to the spot.

“You had come to our attention, Dexter,” he continued, “but we had to be sure. We needed to observe you to see if you would recognize our ritual or respond to our Watcher. And, of course, it was convenient to lead the police to concentrate on Halpern,” he said.

I didn’t know where to begin. “He’s not one of you?” I said.

“Oh, no,” the old man said pleasantly. “As soon as he’s released from police custody he’ll be over there, with the others.” He nodded toward the trophy case, filled with ceramic bulls’ heads.

“Then he really didn’t kill the girls.”

“Yes, he did,” he said. “While he was being persuaded from the inside by one of the Children of Moloch.” He cocked his head to one side. “I’m sure you of all people can understand that, can’t you?”

I could, of course. But it didn’t answer any of the main questions. “Can we please go back to where you said I had ‘come to your attention’?” I asked politely, thinking of all the hard work I put into keeping a low profile.

The man looked at me as though I had an exceptionally thick head. “You killed Alexander Macauley,” he said.

Now the tumblers fell into the weakened steel lock that was Dexter’s brain. “Zander was one of you?”

He shook his head slightly. “A minor helper. He supplied material for our rites.”

“He brought you the winos, and you killed them,” I said.

He shrugged. “We practice sacrifice, Dexter, not killing. In any case, when you took Zander, we followed you and discovered what you are.”

“What am I?” I blurted, finding it slightly exhilarating to think that I stood face-to-face with someone who could answer the question I had pondered for most of my slash-happy life. But then my mouth went dry, and as I awaited his answer a sensation bloomed inside me that felt an awful lot like real fear.

The old man’s glare turned sharp. “You’re an aberration,” he said. “Something that shouldn’t exist.”