Queen Of Blood

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The collar was too tight and chafed at his skin. Chad fought an urge to stick a finger under the strip of leather to relieve the pressure against his throat. For one thing, it wouldn’t really help. But mostly he just didn’t want to feel the back of Bai’s hand again. She had a quick temper and would not abide even the mildest affront to her will.

The physical discomfort was only part of the problem. More aggravating was the humiliation he’d been living with every day for weeks. A masochist with a taste for bondage and discipline and a weakness for hot Asian chicks would be in heaven, but Chad didn’t roll that way. He burned with the need to be free of this despicable woman, to be his own man again, able to do as he pleased whenever he wished.

He didn’t know how to make that happen. Bai was too strong. Too smart and too fast by far. She was like some kind of superwoman. She anticipated his every move, seemed to know his thoughts. He looked at the long black leash hooked to his collar. It was looped around the minivan’s driver’s-side door handle. He imagined ripping the thing free and wrapping it around Bai’s neck. The fantasy took shape in his mind, and he saw how the leash would dig into her slender throat as he drew it tight, Bai’s eyes bulging out as she clawed helplessly at him and gasped for air.

Of course, the minivan would go hurtling off the road, perhaps to crash into one of the big trees beyond the ditch. The impact would send him through the windshield in a hail of safety glass. He might even die. He thought maybe it would be worth it.

He felt the heat of her gaze on him and turned timidly in her direction, tensing for the blow he imagined was imminent.

But she only smiled at him in that soft, enigmatic way. “We are almost there, Dogshit. If you wish to kill me, your best chance will come in the confusion of battle.”

Chad grunted. “We both know it’ll never happen.”

Her dark eyes gleamed in the morning sun. “Of course. You are too weak, Dogshit. Too much the coward. Too much the sniveling little faggot. You are worthless.”

This was another thing that incensed him. She hadn’t addressed him by his given name since the night of the coup. To her, he was primarily known as Dogshit. A prime example of what passed for her sense of humor. One day he’d stepped in a pile of fresh shit dropped by one of the stray pooches that hung around Camp Whiskey scrounging for scraps. Bai had immediately bestowed the hated nickname. The collar and leash was her idea of a fun way to embellish the joke. It was embarrassing as hell, but there was nothing he could do about it. He’d learned not to object the hard way.

But there was a change on the horizon. The battle they’d prepared for would commence soon, perhaps within the hour. Bai wasn’t saying much, but he knew they were very close to their destination. He had a feeling the end of his servitude to Bai was coming one way or another. Either he would die during the conflict, or she would finish him off once the Order had killed or apprehended Giselle Burkhardt.

Or he would find within him the courage to try to kill her during the battle. He would be outfitted with a combat-appropriate level of weaponry prior to the storming of the remote farmhouse. It should be an easy thing to turn that weaponry on his true oppressor. But Bai and the two Order men moved with a speed and deadly grace that was eerie, almost supernatural. Should he attempt to use a gun on Bai, she would be behind him within the space of a heartbeat, well before he could squeeze the trigger, her sword at his throat, ready to take his head off before he could even think to turn around.

There was just no percentage in it. Any such attempt would be tantamount to suicide. Chad figured this was part of the reason the surviving members of Jack Paradise’s paramilitary unit had surrendered and accepted the Order people as their new leaders. He also suspected these men had been promised a large reward upon successful completion of this mission. Hell, you could never underestimate greed as a motivating factor for anything.

Bai’s gaze went back to the road ahead. The minivan was following a large vehicle that had once been a package delivery truck. It had been repainted, the old logos covered over. The truck disappeared around a sweeping curve for a moment, then reappeared as Bai guided the minivan around the same curve.

Bai glanced at Chad. “We are almost there, Dogshit. Are you ready?”

Chad grunted. “No. Not really.”

Bai’s smile became a smirk. “Typical American weakness. No wonder your country isn’t what it once was.”

Chad chose not to reply. She was just baiting him again. Should he open his mouth and say the wrong thing, he could get his nose broken for his trouble. Or lose another tooth. He looked out the window on his side and watched the flashing, denuded trees. Several moments passed and Bai seemed content to let the exercise in verbal humiliation lapse. Chad felt a bitter gratitude.

Then the line of trees began to thin and soon after that the minivan began to slow. Chad could now make out the twisting line of a narrow dirt side road and, beyond that, the small, dark shape of an old house sitting atop a gentle rise. The house was dilapidated and surrounded by acres of forest on all sides. Its seclusion triggered memories of another house, one high in the mountains of east Tennessee. This added to the already strong sense of déjà vu he was feeling. He’d done this before. But this time was very different. He felt no righteous sense of purpose. This time he was nothing more than a helpless puppet along for the ride.

He looked at Bai and said, “I have to ask something before we do this. I realize you probably won’t tell me, but the hell with it. What’s the deal with you fucking Order people?”

Her brow creased slightly. “I don’t understand.”

Chad just managed not to roll his eyes. “What is your purpose? What function does your organization serve? Why go to such lengths to exact revenge?”

Bai smirked. “You could never understand. These are not things for men of low nature to comprehend. All you need to know is we are an ancient Order. Our lives are sustained through centuries through the ritualized sacrifice of innocent lives. And foremost among the codes that govern us is an unswerving loyalty to the Order. When one of us is cut down, it is an attack against us all. To not exact revenge, as you put it, is not an option.”

“Wait a minute…low nature?”

“Unpure. Unclean.” Bai smiled. “And stupid. Low.”

Chad thought about that a minute. He was too used to Bai’s insults to be overly offended by the “low” comments, but something else she’d said triggered a faint association. He puzzled over it a moment. Then he had it and his eyes went wide. “The Master did the same thing. Was he of the Order?”

Bai shook her head as she twisted the minivan’s steering wheel and followed the package truck onto the dirt road. “No. But he had a close association with us, as he practiced many of the same rituals. It is how Evelyn Wickman came to be in his employ.”

“Huh.” Chad settled back in his seat and felt a strange sense of completion steal over him. Learning this small piece of the puzzle after all these years meant very little in the larger scheme of things. Ms. Wickman was dead and gone. But that small sense of satisfaction was there regardless.

It didn’t last long. The package truck reached the top of the driveway and rolled to a stop. Its brake lights came on, then turned off. Bai guided the minivan to a stop several feet behind it and switched the engine off.

Chad felt a lump rise into his throat as his pulse quickened.

This is it, he thought. The end.

But no, that wasn’t quite right. The true end of his journey lay beyond the frail-looking wooden door on the other side of the house’s rickety porch. Chad tensed and the fear began to steal over him. It was about to begin. The noise. The explosions and gunfire. The screaming and the death. He wasn’t ready for it. Could never really be ready for it. But it was happening anyway.

He sucked in a startled breath as Bai reached behind his neck. Then the pressure around his throat was gone. She tossed the collar and leash to the floorboard and said, “This is your chance. Fight and emerge victorious. Then freedom will be yours. It is up to you.”

She held his gaze for an intense moment and he felt that familiar tingling behind his eyes, as if she could see into his brain and know his every thought. Then the moment was over and she was turning away from him. She opened the door and stepped out of the minivan.

Chad allowed himself another moment to compose himself, then did the same.

The back of the package truck was open and the store of weaponry inside was being rapidly unpacked. A man clad in camos thrust an M-16 and ammunition into his hands. Chad numbly began to load the weapon as he watched other men haul out two cylinders that vaguely resembled the bazookas he’d seen in old war movies. But he recognized them as AT7’s, shoulder-launched antitank weapons. Jack Paradise had schooled him on the subject.

The men with the AT7’s were setting up to begin the first thrust of the assault even as the remaining caravan vehicles rolled up behind the minivan. A Jeep at the end of the column swerved around the van ahead of it and skirted the edge of the dirt driveway as it rattled toward them. Chad felt a knot form in his stomach as he glimpsed Allyson at the wheel. He frowned. He was sure there’d been two paramilitary men with her in the Jeep, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Allyson stomped on the brake and emerged from the Jeep a moment later. There was a handgun tucked in the waistband of her jeans. She wasn’t wearing the heavy jacket she’d had on earlier. She looked Chad in the eye and strode purposefully toward him.

Bai’s lips pursed as she observed Allyson’s approach. “Where are the men who were with you?”

Allyson pulled the handgun from her waistband and thumbed the safety off. “One of them bailed. Kept talking about how he didn’t want to die for something he didn’t give a shit about. He ordered the other guy to pull over at gunpoint. Far as I know he’s making his way back to that podunk little town on foot. The other guy, he lost his nerve a little later. Maybe his buddy taking off got to him, I don’t know. He blew his brains out with this thing.” She waved the gun around and Chad flinched, expecting to see the flash of Bai’s sword at any moment. “I could’ve run after that, but you already know I’m not going anywhere without Chad.”

She said all this fast, as if she’d been frantically rehearsing it in her head for the last leg of the journey. He was sure there was only a small thread of truth in it. She had the determined air of one on the cusp of a brave and dangerous act. He couldn’t fathom why she would’ve killed the men rather than allowing them to bring her here as planned.

Bai’s expression was openly skeptical. But then she smiled and said, “No matter. The time has come. You will fight with us.”

Allyson didn’t bat an eye. “You bet your ass I will.”

Bai spun about on her heels. She unsheathed her sword and waved it at the sky. “Begin.”

Suddenly free of Bai, Chad hurried to Allyson and leaned close, whispering frantically, “What the hell’s going on?”

Allyson touched his face. “I love you. I’ll do anything for you.”

Chad frowned. “But—”

Allyson leaned closer, her lips grazing his ear. “It’s simple. We’ll follow them in. We’ll fight and stay alive, hanging back at the rear, staying close to each other. Then as the others press on we’ll get the hell out.” She inclined her head very slightly toward the Jeep. “Then we’ll take that thing and r un for our lives.”

Chad didn’t know how to reply to that. Her plan was dangerous, but maybe it could work. Hell, they didn’t have a lot of other options. Then Bai was shouting again and he looked her way, half-expecting her to have somehow heard their muted conversation with her super ninja hearing. But she was facing the house and waving her sword around.

The rear lights of the package truck came on again and an instant later a blast of hugely amplified music boomed like an explosion. Chad recognized it as something early by Metallica, but he didn’t know their stuff well enough to identify the particular song. He gulped as the front door of the house began to creak open. He saw dark shapes come into view, hands clasping weapons.

Then there was a loud WHOOSH of sound, followed immediately by another identical sound. The AT7’s. Heavy shells passed through the front door and the bone-bruising sounds of explosions followed.

The AT7’s weren’t reloadable. The men dropped the spent weaponry and cleared the zone for two more men wielding AT7’s. There was that WHOOSH again. And again. Followed by still more explosions. They were softening up the enemy, paving the way for the initial push into the house, which would begin within seconds. Chad kept expecting the fragile old house to collapse beneath the brunt of the heavy ordnance, but somehow, almost miraculously, that didn’t happen.

Then Allyson was in front of him, moving to the rear of the package truck. An M-16 was thrust into her hands by a man in camos. Like all of them, she’d been trained on the weapon in preparation for this moment. She took it and hurried back to Chad’s side. Then Jim emerged from the back of the truck, hair ruffled as if he hadn’t slept in days, eyes bleary and haunted. Chad had barely seen the deposed Camp Whiskey leader since the night of the coup. But like the rest of them, he was armed to the teeth. He looked Chad’s way and acknowledged him with a nod. Then he turned and hurried to a forward position.

Chad wanted to call after him, but it was too late.

He dimly heard Bai’s screamed exhortations over the buzzing in his ears.

And then they were moving forward, all of them.

Gunfire erupted from both sides.

Chad lifted his weapon, aimed quickly, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon chugged and the scent of blood was heavy in the air as Chad and the woman he loved rushed into the thick of battle.