Highways to Hell (29 page)

John grimaced. “Whoa.”

Angela giggled. “You like? She did threaten you, after all.”

John looked at her. “Yeah. She did.” He frowned. “Is this the surprise you were talking about?”

“No, John. She’s merely an appetizer. And I’ll not spoil the surprise. You’ll just have to wait until we’ve arrived at your new home.”

“Which is where again?”

She beamed at him. “With me, John! In the court of Grand Duke Dracul. You’ll be my manservant and trusted aide.” Yet another of those girlish giggles that made her sound like a demented teenybopper. “As well as my indefatigable fuck toy.”

John gritted his teeth. He wasn’t sure how he felt about a life in shackles. It’d been a long, long time since he’d been subservient to anyone, with the glaring exception of the miserable week as Linda’s whipped puppy. But he clearly wasn’t in a position to argue or rebel. Besides, the life she described sounded as if it would be a dream come true for most residents of the Mephistopolis. He supposed many here would resent his easy ascension to so coveted a position. Which posed another matter of some personal significance. Though he had worked hard to redeem himself through the bulk of his adult life, there was no doubt the likes of John Marlowe deserved to spend eternity in Hell. But he would apparently spend that eternity living in luxury and circulating amongst Hell’s power elite. He was no expert on matters spiritual, but he was pretty sure this was not the sort of fate envisioned by the fire and brimstone preachers back on earth for especially egregious sinners. Surely one so vile as The Little Rock Madman should boil forever in a lake of fire.

Angela slid open a cabinet to reveal a fully stocked bar. “Drink, John?”

“If you’ve got something like bourbon in there, I’ll have a double.” He eyed the gleaming bottles and reconsidered. “No, make that a triple. And while you’re at it, could you please tell me how in the name of blue fucking hell David Hasselhoff could be your chauffeur. The man’s not dead yet.”

Angela filled two glasses with amber liquid from a smoky black bottle and passed one to John. “Cheers.”

They clinked glasses.

“Cheers.”

John shivered. The booze had a bite, but was also smooth going down, like liquid nirvana.

Angela closed the bar and settled back into the seat. “Oh, David’s been dead since the 80’s, John. Before me, even. That thing on earth is a magickal construct, a thing fashioned by skilled Bio-Wizards in Lucifer’s most secret laboratories. It bides its time. A moment will come. All the world will be watching. And then...”

John let the implied question hang. Whatever diabolical design Hell had in mind for the Hoff’s ringer on earth was something he could live without knowing. Things were weird enough already. Something else had occurred to him while watching Angela shift around in the seat and noted the exquisitely supple way the fabric of the dress adhered to her flesh. Ripples and eddies of white radiance swirled across the dress whenever light hit it in just the right way.

“Your dress. It looks...”

She sipped more of the smoky booze and scooted closer to him, placed a hand on his knee. “You like? It’s a one of a kind design. Skin, of course. Human skin. Specially treated and enchanted. An anniversary gift from the Grand Duke.”

“Okay.”

They finished their drinks and had one more. By then the limo had reached its destination. The door to John’s right opened. He stepped past the Hoff and gaped at the huge mansion. It stood like a hulking black beast against the scarlet sky, and it looked like the kind of place Donald Trump would want to call home after his own inevitable arrival in Hell.

John looked at Angela. “Is this...” He gulped. “It couldn’t be...”

She took him by the arm again. “It’s your new home, darling.”

John tried to say something else, but only a wheeze emerged.

Angela laughed. “Come. I’ll give you the tour.”

The tour was a blur of endless hallways and rooms. Dracul’s mansion consisted of seemingly a thousand different wings. The place was awash in decadence. He saw things having frenzied sex with other things. Some of it may even have been consensual. They passed through a kitchen, where a bloated human body was roasting slowly over an open pit. At one point he peered through the open doorway of a bedroom and saw a bound man having his nuts chewed off by a woman in a Nun’s habit. After a time that felt like two, maybe three years, they arrived at a spacious set of living quarters, impeccably appointed adjoining rooms. One of the rooms was technically John’s, but Angela insisted this was a formality. He would spend nearly all his time with her. When she wasn’t attending to the Grand Duke’s needs and passions, anyway.

John sat on the edge of a plush bed the size of a houseboat and watched the Hoff dump the still-bound hooker on the floor. Angela dismissed the dead B-lister and the man quietly departed, closing the door behind him.

Angela grinned. “Alone at last.” Her gaze flicked briefly to the hooker. “Except for our toy here. Oh...” She put a finger to her red lips. “I almost forgot. Your surprise.”

She took him by the hand and pulled him to his feet, then into the other bedroom and on through to a small anteroom.

John gasped.

He didn’t say anything for a long time, but Angela was beaming at him again.

Then he began to smile, too.

He walked toward her, bent at the waist to look into her eyes. “Hello, Linda. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you again.”

Angela came forward, wound a length of Linda’s sweat-stained hair in her hand, and lifted her head up. “John, did Linda ever tell you about the thing she did as a teenager? The thing that Damned her?”

“Probably not.”

“She and some friends came across a young black child in their neighborhood. He was lost, wasn’t supposed to be there. They took him to an empty house and did nasty things to him, things she confessed to me last night after some hours on the rack. She laughed at his cries when she put a cigarette out in his eye.”

John arched an eyebrow. “Huh. No. That’s news to me.”

Linda tried to tell him something, but he couldn’t make it out. Her mouth had been sewn shut. She was locked in a pillory. Nude. Her pendulous breasts and sleek, lithe body shiny with fear-sweat. He unzipped his pants and stepped behind her, did the thing she’d told him he would never do with her again. And while he did it, he noted with pleasure the vast array of torture implements hanging from hooks on the walls. When he was done, he tried out a few of them on her.

But he didn’t let himself go too far. Not this time. Not yet.

He had plenty of time to creatively hurt her.

Eternity, in fact.

When he was done playing, he let Angela guide him back to the main room. There he swept Angela into his arms and kissed her with a romantic abandon he hadn’t felt since the early days of his courtship of Linda.

She eased out of the embrace after a time and said, “You’ll be happy here.”

John experienced one last pang of something like conscience, a final dying echo of remorse. Then he thought of Linda in the pillory. Licked his lips and savored the sweet taste of Angela’s lips. Looked at the bound hooker and thought of some things that might be fun.

He looked into Angela’s sparkling eyes again. “Had a beer at that place. Something called Gein’s Mean Imperial Stout.”

“You can have it perpetually on tap in your room, if you like.”

“That singer. Bon Scott. Could he come over some time, maybe entertain us?”

“He’ll have a standing invitation.”

John’s smile was bemused. “I’ve been thinking I deserve to be here. You know what I mean.”

She angled her body against his, slid against his crotch. “Yes. And you do deserve to be here. Right here. With me. With anything you want as yours for the asking.”

He pulled her close, kissed her again, breathing the words into her mouth. “I think you’re right. I really do.”

They kissed some more.

Made love.

Did some interesting things to the hooker.

Did other, even more interesting things to Linda.

And at some point in the festivities, John came to a conclusion. He was right where some secret part of his heart had always known was his destiny.

His true home, the one that had waited for him with such patience.

And possibly he was even falling in love.

Hell, things couldn’t be better.