Queen Of Blood

CHAPTER TWENTY

The caravan departed Camp Whiskey at the break of dawn, six vans and two Jeeps packed with weaponry and ammunition, carrying some two dozen passengers down a winding, snow-encrusted mountain path. They traveled all through the day and the whole of the night that followed, arriving somewhere in the approximate center of Wyoming at dawn of the next day.

Allyson blinked and emerged from the drowse she’d fallen into some fifteen minutes earlier. She sat up straight and stared through a window at the gray sky and the passing countryside. The Jeep’s engine rattled and chugged, its big tires bouncing in and out of potholes as it followed the snaking stretch of rural highway. There were no houses to be seen anywhere. Just trees and more trees, their branches denuded by the season, pale and angling toward the sky like the outstretched arms of worshippers.

The Jeep was at the rear of the modest column of vehicles. Allyson shifted in her seat and peered between the front seats for a glimpse of the road ahead. The other vehicles were staying close, none of them separated by more than a car length. The van directly in front of them was old and painted olive green.

Just like a for-real army truck, Allyson thought, smirking.

But as far as she was concerned, the van’s color marked the end of any similarity between this insane glorified Boy Scout mission and any real military operation. They lacked strength of numbers, for one thing. In the wake of Jack Paradise’s murder and the imprisonment of Jim, the tenuous connections that had held together the always fragile Camp Whiskey community frayed and came apart. An attempt to repel the usurpers from the Order of the Dragon lacked cohesion and direction and was put down in spectacularly brutal fashion. The camp’s mysteriously cowed faux-military wing stood by and let it happen. The bulk of the people saw that the Order could not be overcome and a mass exodus ensued. Allyson had felt a strong urge to run with them, but could not bring herself to do so without Chad, who was riding now in one of the forward vehicles.

Only a small, hardcore group chose not to flee. These were mostly men, and mostly members of the paramilitary unit assembled by Jack Paradise. Most of Jack’s men died alongside him that night. The ones who remained took orders from the Order people, and did so without question. Chad was being held against his will by the Asian woman, but Allyson had a feeling he would have stayed regardless, at least as long as Jim remained alive.

Thinking of that stirred Allyson’s anger anew. The bitch treated him like a piece of property, or a pet, dragging him along wherever she went, striking him whenever he dared to open his mouth. Allyson felt embarrassment on Chad’s behalf any time she witnessed this behavior, and a part of her withered inside every time it happened, as she thought of how humiliating the ordeal must be for him. Doubly frustrating was her utter inability to do anything about it.

The Asian woman forbade any contact between them. Allyson initially wondered why Chad’s new keeper allowed her to stay at Camp Whiskey. She eventually realized the woman was deriving a sadistic enjoyment from Allyson’s predicament, taunting her by flaunting her ownership of Chad. It was a petty, cruel thing. But it was also a good thing. Proximity meant there would one day be an opportunity to exploit. She kept her eyes open. The chance to get away with Chad in tow would present itself. And she damn well intended to make the most of that opportunity.

But now things had changed. Again.

The order to saddle up and head out to the final battle of good versus evil (although Allyson had decided evil versus evil was a more accurate description at this point) had been handed down. Many hundreds of miles later, Allyson was still looking for that perfect moment. The circumstances complicated things. She no longer had an indefinite period of time to work with. She was separated from her man and surrounded by well-armed hostiles.

Still, she wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

She kicked the back of the seat ahead of her and said, “How much farther?”

The man in the seat turned to look at her. He was clad in camos and sported black shades despite the overcast sky. “Not sure. Maybe fifty more miles.” He grinned and licked parched lips. “And hey…k ick my seat again and I’ll come back there to teach you a lesson.”

The man in the driver’s seat—a black man also clad in camos—glanced at the rearview mirror and grinned broadly. “I’d like to tear me off a piece of that, my ownself.”

Allyson snorted. “Either of you pukebags touch me, I’ll tear your fucking eyes out. And anyway, you don’t have time for pussy. You’ve got a big battle to be dying in soon, remember?”

The driver laughed. “Listen to the mouth on her.”

The man in the shotgun seat leered at her. “Don’t worry, baby. I can always make time for pussy, one way or another.”

Allyson slid a hand into a pocket of the heavy winter jacket she was wearing. Her fingers curled around the handle of the big switchblade she’d stashed there earlier. She eased her hand out of the poc ket and clicked the little button on the side. The blade popped out and she lunged forward, slamming the blade into the man’s exposed throat. The man’s shades popped off his face as blood jetted from the hole in his throat. He gaped at Allyson in disbelief even as she yanked the blade out and slammed it into one of his eyes. Allyson did all of this without thinking, instinct driving her, a moment of pure awareness in which she understood on a primal level that the “perfect” moment she hoped for would never arrive. It was much like those fevered moments in the dark kitchen of Chad’s house as she’d slaughtered those men in black, her mind and body operating with surprising efficiency in stripped-down reptile-brain mode.

And brutal murder was like anything—it got easier with practice.

Blood spurted over her hands and soaked the front of her jacket. The man tried to twist away from her, but she grabbed the front of his shirt and held him close, yanking the blade from his eye and whipping it around again, punching it through his temple, somehow keeping her aim true as the driver screamed and swerved on the winding back road.

Allyson turned her snarling face toward the driver and said,“Slow down and let the others get around that bend.”

She pulled the bloody blade out of the dead man’s head and brandished it.

“Do it or die.”

The man was shaking and crying, robbed utterly of any remaining shred of bravado or machismo. “Y-y-y-yeah…o-kay . . . please…”

And he did it. The van ahead of them disappeared around the bend. The Jeep slowed and Allyson ordered the driver to park at the shoulder. Again, he did as instructed, tears streaming down his face as he mewled like a snot-nosed kid on a playground standing in the shadow of a bully. Allyson pushed the shotgun seat forward, threw the door open, and got out. She hauled the dead man’s body out of the Jeep and deposited it in the ditch beyond the shoulder. The whole time the Jeep was in gear and running, its engine chugging, exhaust kicking out steam in the winter’s air.

Allyson climbed back inside, assuming the position formerly occupied by the dead, would-be rapist. She pulled the pistol from the driver’s holster and jammed the barrel against his side.

“Drive. Now.”

The driver looked at the pistol she’d so easily taken from him. Then he looked at her, simple, numb disbelief in his eyes. “I could’ve killed you. Or left you. Or—”

Allyson jabbed the pistol harder against him. “But you didn’t. You fucked up. Because you’re not as hardcore as you thought. But I am, motherfucker. So now you’re gonna drive. Catch up to the rest of those assholes before they know anything’s wrong. Make me say it again, I’ll shoot your ass and do it my damn self.”

The Jeep lurched forward.

The engine rattled and ate up highway.

They caught up and kept rolling.