Diabolical (33 page)

She raised a cigarette, wedged between the V of two fingers, and lit it. “Hello, Hatcher,” she said, flicking the lighter closed and exhaling a stream of smoke toward the ceiling after the words. She hugged herself with one arm beneath her breasts, cupped the elbow of her other as she kept the cigarette near her mouth. “Nice to see you.”

Again with the smoking. He supposed being immune to disease ensures you a spot on Big Tobacco's Christmas list. Hatcher dipped his head in a slight nod, but said nothing. He let go of the door, heard it shut behind him. He tried to stop his eyes from gliding down and back, drinking in everything from her hair to her feet, but couldn't.

She was wearing a black silk bra and matching thong. The bra barely covered the bottom half of her breasts, leaving the top half of each nipple exposed. Her thong was hardly wider than the narrow strip of well-manicured hair that terminated just above her groin, and sheer enough to let him count the strands beneath it. She was leaned back, shoulders propped against the pillows, with one leg stretched straight out, toes pointed, the other pulled up, knee cresting toward the ceiling.

“You might as well look,” she said, blowing out another cloud of smoke, this time more to the side with a stretch of her lower lip. She removed the arm from across her ribs and held both hands out. Her stomach was lean and firm. “You're a man. I won't think less of you. Besides, it's not like I don't know you want to.”

Her skin was alabaster. Smooth, flawless. He felt like a kid with his face stuck against the window of a candy store. He forced himself to lock onto her eyes.

She titled her head, the hint of a smirk playing across her lips, and shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Hatcher watched her for a long moment, saying nothing. She'd obviously been expecting him, which should have surprised him, but didn't.

“Go ahead and ask,” she said.

“Did you kill Vivian? Or arrange for that freak I met the other day to do it?”

Her gaze cut through the ribbon of smoke drifting over from her cigarette. Her eyes were the color of an evening rain cloud.

“No,” she said.

Completely inscrutable, Hatcher thought. No reaction, no tells, not even an unnatural quieting of the body. The question may as well have been about the weather. Carnates were impossible to read.

“Where's the boy?” he asked.

“He's safe.”

“Let him go. It's me you want.”

She arched an eyebrow, held it that way as she watched him. “Is it, now?”

“You know it is.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“You wouldn't have gone to such lengths to involve me. I don't know what you're up to, but I know that much.”

“So, you're offering a trade. Yourself for the boy. How very . . . cinematic.”

Hatcher took a step toward the bed. He let his eye travel down her leg, settled on the perfect shape of her foot, on the bloodred toenails. It took some effort to look away.

“If you didn't need me, I can't imagine I'd still be alive.”

“What if I said I'd let him go if you came over here and made love to me?” She ran a palm down over her breast, fingers splayed, kept sliding it down her stomach. “Hard, lustful love. Pornographic, desperate love. Tomorrow-doesn't-matter kind of love.”

“I'd say you were lying.”

The hand changed direction and went back to cupping her elbow. “Why are you here, Hatcher?”

“You know why. For the boy.”

Deborah let out a short laugh through her nose. “You can say that all you want, but it won't make it true. Not completely, at least.”

“Are you actually saying I don't know why I'm here?”

“I'm saying the real reason is because you're afraid. And I know what scares you.”

“You mean, other than you?”

Deborah smiled, pointed a finger with her cigarette hand and poked the air with it. “Always the charmer. Yes, other than me.”

“In that case, enlighten me, and we'll both know.”

She took another long drag, closed her eyes, and slid down a bit, stretching her arms out to the sides.

“Tell me, when you walked up to this door, were you thinking of the boy? Or of her?”

The question made the skin behind his ears tingle. There was something about the way she said it, some suggestion in her tone, that indicated she was referring to Vivian, to Amy, to Susan, to all of them, and to none of them. The whiff of intimations in the subtext, the casual emphasis on the word “her.” Almost like a challenge. Almost like a warning.

“You know, if you were to believe all that nonsense in the Bible, the Devil was an angel once. His most perfect one. The chosen of God. He had everything. Everything but the one thing he truly wanted. So God gave that to him, too.”

“And what was that?”

Deborah didn't answer. She snubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray and swung one leg over the other in slow motion, pulling herself into a sitting position on the side of the bed. She stared up at him with that same smile on her lips, sliding one foot at a time into a pair of heels. Then she stood and turned toward the lamp. Her weight shifted from leg to leg as she pulled her dress off the shade, causing the bare curves of her ass to flex.

She pulled the dress over head and wiggled her body until she'd slithered completely into it.

“C'mon,” she said, picking up a purse.

“Where are we going?”

She stopped directly in front of him, parts of her grazing him with each breath.

“You can't get the image of her body out of your head,” she said, peering up into his eyes. “You want to confront the man who did it, you want to face him, so you can be who you are. So you can indulge your true nature. You want to stare into the abyss.”

Her scent sent his head swimming. It was like inhaling a drug. He could feel his heart pounding against his breastbone, felt the erection he already had swell to an impossible bulge.

She pressed up onto her toes and kissed him gently on the lips. He didn't kiss back. But he didn't pull away, either.

“I'm going to give you what you want,” she said.

 

 

“EXPLAIN TO ME WHY I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO THINK THIS IS A trap, again?”

Deborah gave her eyebrows a pump, cocking her head and dimpling a cheek. She was leaning against the side of her car. A twin turbo. At least, Hatcher assumed it was hers. Carnates had flexible ethics.

He shut the door to the Cruiser, leaned an arm over the roof of it as he studied the building.

“This is a church,” he said. “Last time I was in a church with you, I can't exactly say a good time was had by all.”

She pushed off the car and rolled her eyes. “You said yourself, Hatcher—if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. Do you really think you're a hard man to kill? I could have put a bullet in your head back at the motel the moment you stepped into the room. Even before that, I could have had you fatally wounded while resisting arrest by a man you've become well acquainted with.”

Leveling her eyes at him, she added, “I could have even slipped off my underwear, broken down that willpower of yours, and snapped your neck while we made love.”

Hatcher said nothing. It was easy to be lulled by their unearthly looks and forget how dangerous Carnates were. He had fought two of them before, armed with extension batons. They were incredibly fast and surprisingly strong and harder to hurt than a rhino. It was a beating he felt for days. And those two had probably taken it easy on him, since the fight had been all part of their charade at the time. They had wanted him alive.

Just like they did now.

The air in the church smelled vaguely of incense and wood polish. Hatcher followed her as she strode the aisle, the dim glow of candles lighting their way. The clack of her heels reverberated off the wood and marble.

She veered left at the altar and headed for a large door.

Hatcher descended the stairs behind her, thinking,
I must be insane.

“Is this another toga party?”

Deborah didn't respond. The landing captured some light from an adjacent hallway. Deborah didn't pause at the bottom but headed straight for another door, this one to a storage room. Just enough light leaked in for Hatcher to make out supplies and shelving. A few boxes, a pair of mops, and two buckets atop a dusty floor. Deborah moved swiftly past all of it toward another door on the opposite end, this one much more imposing, an ancient looking piece of heavy wood bound by iron bands.

The door moved with a groan as she tugged on it. Hatcher heard the whisper of escaping air, felt a gust of it reach his face, damp and stale. He wasn't sure what he'd had in mind when he'd agreed to go with her, but it wasn't this.

“I think this is where I stop,” he said.

“We both know you don't mean that.”

Hatcher raised his hands a bit with a shrug. “Contrary to what you may have observed, there are limits to my stupidity.”

“What if I told you your nephew was down there?”

“Then I would bet you a large sum of money you're lying and probably die moments later. A theoretically wealthy man.”

“Fair enough. You're right, he's not down there. But what if I told you
he
was down there?”

The emphasis on
he
said it all. “Then it would seem rather obvious you're using me, that you want me to do something to him. And if it's something you want, I can't see how it could possibly be in my best interests. Or anyone's best interests, except maybe yours.”

“I'll make a deal with you, Hatcher. Follow me, see what I have to show you, and I promise you, then you can leave. All I need is a few minutes.”

“Oh, a promise. Well, in that case . . .”

“I'm serious, Hatcher. You'll want to see this. Like I said, if I wanted you dead, you'd already be dead.”

Hatcher said nothing. This was crazy. Whatever she was up to, doing what she wanted couldn't be a good idea. But viable alternatives seemed to be in short supply.

Deborah curled her shoulders around and leaned back against the door. “While you're thinking it over, let me ask you something—what do you imagine eternal damnation is like?”

“Toying with me isn't likely to get me down there.”

“No, it's a serious question. Do you imagine a lake of fire? Your soul burning ceaselessly? Never feeling anything but the most unimaginable pain and suffering for every moment that will ever be, forever and ever. Long past the point of forgetting you were ever alive?”

“Gee, when you put it that way, you make it sound so unappealing.”

“I'm just curious.”

“Why? What does it have to do with anything?”

“You'll find out if you follow me down these stairs.”

She delivered the words with a complete poker face, eyes capturing the dim light just enough to give him a clear view. There was no outward indication of anything unspoken, but Hatcher knew she didn't complete the thought. There was an implicit follow up, hanging in the air, waiting to be plucked.

Unless, of course, you're scared
.

Saying it would have been absurd, like a child's taunt. But not saying it, he had to admit, had the desired effect. It forced him to wonder.

“What about the boy?” he asked.

“We'll talk about that after.”

“Is that another promise?”

“If it makes you feel better.”

“If you don't keep your word, I am so not going to like you anymore.”

A smile as genuine as he figured she was capable of flashed across her face, even reaching her eyes for an instant, only to disappear in such a way it left Hatcher wondering whether the reaction was out of humor or because he'd just agreed to do something incredibly stupid.

Before he could think much about it, she gave the door another hard tug. The crack widened to reveal a guttering glow. Two more tugs and there was enough space for them to pass.

The torchlight was a sudden change from the semidarkness of the storage room, and it took a moment for Hatcher's eyes to adjust. Deborah pulled the torch from an iron wall mount that looked practically medieval and held it in front of her, moving down a set of stone stairs. Hatcher went after her. The way was steep. There was a palpable sensation of descent with each step, a sinking feeling that Hatcher had to force himself to ignore. The walls got rougher, the air grew earthier, and the darkness seemed to push in against the reach of the flame, as if the utter blackness increased in density, compressing the light, shrinking visibility the deeper they journeyed.

The stairs ended in a small chamber. Deborah opened another door, this one much more compact than the first, and led Hatcher through a narrow tunnel. It was several minutes before Hatcher noticed a pinprick of yellow light flickering in the distance.

They emerged into a vast, cavernous space. It reminded Hatcher of a domed stadium, reduced by half, maybe a bit more. Hockey-sized. Torches rimmed the perimeter. Between two of them were a pair of large cages. One held a huge goat, the biggest Hatcher had ever seen. The other, an enormous bird. Some kind of vulture.

A stone chair loomed in the center, elevated on a platform that could have been carved from the rocky substrate when the space was excavated. Not a chair, Hatcher realized. A throne.

A man occupied it. Even before he was close enough to see his face, Hatcher recognized the ridiculous orange jacket. The absurd orange hat.

Son of a bitch
. Hatcher broke into a sprint. He'd more than halved the distance, some fifteen yards or so, when he saw the first Sedim. It dropped almost directly in front of him, forcing him to stumble a few steps, finally planting his feet as he came within inches of it. It peeled back its batlike lips and hissed.