XVII. Captors
It was laundry day.
Ingrid always waited until after dark to wash her own clothes--a task that gave her the creeps, for the machines were located in the basement next to an empty apartment Nancy and her husband had been neglecting for years. Ignoring the tingles in her spine, she dropped her basket on the floor and began loading the washer. The furnace ticked. The light flickered. Ingrid told herself not to pay attention to the apartment’s doorway, which at night was black as coal.
Breathing the musty scent of hundred year-old masonry, she turned the washer's knob to COLD, pulled , waited. The tank began to fill.
And something in the apartment moved.
Ingrid whirled. There was the doorway, ten feet from where she stood. Yet she could see nothing but the dark of the hour.
"Quit being stupid," she told herself, bending to pick up the basket.
"Stupid," a voice echoed.
Ingrid screamed. The voice laughed. "Gotcha!" it said.
Jo-Jo appeared, with a grin so tight-lipped it might have been cut with a razor.
"Bitch," she spat, the grin twitching, "what are you doing down here?"
Ingrid watched herself—her angry, incompetent self, the part of her she hated but knew how to live with, the part of her Randy had taken to bullying long after the novelty had gone.
"Washing my clothes," she told the doppelganger.
"Got it all under control, do you?"
"What?"
"Let the region die, Ingrid. You can't save it. You don't know what to feel."
Suddenly the stairway door burst open. "INGRID!" Randy's voice boomed, and everything shook as he started to come down.
"Watch out!" Jo-Jo cackled.
A huge body covered in black hair--an ogre--appeared on the steps. Ingrid turned to run but tripped over something and fell. In seconds the ogre was picking her up, shaking her, howling at her. A clawed hand reached to take hold of her neck. And Ingrid had just enough time, before her head was twisted off, to see that Jo-Jo was laughing so hard she could barely stand up.
***
"STAND UP!" Randy yelled.
Someone yanked her into a sitting position. The remains of the dream were still spattered everywhere, sticky globs of grease, but Ingrid knew she was awake now--and in trouble. Her arm was pulled so taut behind her back it wanted to snap at the shoulder. Darren was trussed on his knees in front of the hearth. Scott too. What the hell had happened?
"How ya feelin?" Randy's fat face asked.
She blinked. Cambridge appeared from down the hall and told him to shut up. Randy did, but when the vampire began to berate him (something about moving in too soon, jumping the gun), he started shouting again. Before long both men were bickering like schoolyard bullies, which made them easy, at least for the time being, to ignore. Ingrid looked at Scott, who was looking at a candle. Surely nothing helpful would come of that.
Or would it? She saw Darren whisper something to him; Scott whispered back. Well, she thought, if you boys are planning something, you'd better make it good.
"I told you!" Cambridge barked, "there's no more time for poetry! The procedure now needs to be chemical in nature!"
"Fine!" Randy said. "Shoot her up! I don't care!"
"I don't think you care about anything! You realize your mother's dead, correct?"
Randy's voice lowered. "Yes. And I also realize your promise to her is not. Something about governing the West?"
"Not a chance. I'm not handing over half the region to a fat fool."
"Then I withdraw my help."
"Fuck off," Cambridge replied, which stunned Ingrid more than anything he'd said so far. "I don't need you." He nodded, and the barrel of a kickshellac rose.
Knowing he was beaten, Randy showed his empty palms to the soldiers. The expression of disbelief on his face gave Ingrid a picture of how she herself felt. She was certain they were going to kill Randy--that she was about to see his brains get splattered all over the hearth.
Instead, Cambridge told him to leave. "Out of respect for your mother I'm letting you go," he explained. "But don't let me see you again. Ever."
Randy hesitated. Then, his heavy feet were pounding across the room. He reached the door, opened it, and disappeared into a ray of sunlight.
"A joyous occasion," Cambridge smiled, turning to his captive audience, "to have that...brainless bovid off of our playing field forever, yes?"
"If you think he won't be back you're a fool."
Darren said it. Cambridge didn't rise to the remark, but Ingrid saw his smile falter as he told one of the guards to go outside and send for, of all things, a handmaiden. Bewildered, she watched the guard leave. Once more the ray of sunlight appeared on the step, and this time Cambridge cringed.
"Handmaiden?" Ingrid asked him. "Why?"
"Because," the vampire said, relaxing a little as the door closed, "you must be cleaned and properly dressed for the ritual."
"As I understand it, I'm going to be drugged. So what’s the point?"
"The basic conventions must still be observed. You will open the interstice so the ogres may return to their own region. Then you will close the interstice. The error I made will be erased, and I can build afresh."
"And if I refuse you're going to kill Darren and Scott."
"Oh I'm going to kill them anyway," Cambridge said matter-of-factly.
The words were an icicle through Ingrid's heart, but she did her best not to let it show. "So...why should I help you at all?"
Looking more relaxed than ever, the vampire smiled. "Because if you don't, dear girl, I'm going to tell this soldier to kill both of them right here, right now, right in front of you."
Her mouth fell open. This was an irony, for she could think of nothing at all to say. Cambridge had everyone right where he wanted them. The game was his.
"Of course," he smiled on, "you can postpone their deaths by doing my bidding. Grant them a little more time. But even if you're feeling too merciful for that, you wouldn't want to watch them die, would you? Your lover especially. No, not him, not now."
At the mention of Scott, Ingrid glanced to check on his well-being. This was the part where he was supposed to tell her not to be intimidated by Cambridge's threats, to go ahead and deny him anyway and let everyone die with honor. He did not seem ready for martyrdom yet, however; he gave Ingrid a tiny shake of his head, then turned his eyes to Darren. The two of them did indeed have some plan or other in mind, then. Or so she hoped.
Minutes later there came a knock at the door, and in stepped the other soldier with a withered old woman on one arm and a large, rectangular box on the other.
"Is that the dress?" Cambridge asked, eyeing the box.
"Yes, sir," the soldier replied, "along with the serum."
"Marvelous. Please conduct Miss Felton and Ms..." he smiled at the handmaiden, who then told him in a rather raspy voice that her name was Echo Gardener. "And Ms. Gardener upstairs. Find a suitable room for them to work in. We leave at dusk for the field."
"Yes, sir."
"Never you worry, Ingrid," Cambridge said, seeing the desperate look on her face as she was led away, "no one dies until your usefulness has expired. And you needn't be present for the executions. When this is over you may return to your habit of hiding away from the things that pain you. That is, after all, your greatest skill."
***
They had to wait until all but one of the captors were gone before moving. This, for Scott, was a far worse kind of torture than being bound and held at gunpoint. The temptation to act sooner, to prevent Cambridge from leaving with Ingrid, was powerful. He wanted to move now. But the risk of failure loomed. Besides Cambridge, there were soldiers in the house. One of those soldiers, he hoped though he had no actual way of knowing, planned to accompany the vampire tonight. That would leave one man on guard for him and Darren to subdue. It was tactics. It made sense. Thus, in an agony of self-mastery, they waited.
"What if the fucking guard decides to blow the candle out?" Darren whispered at one point. "Do we ask him nicely to please light it again?"
"Fuck the variables," Scott whispered back, keeping his eye on the soldier, who'd been eating what looked like a cinnamon roll at the time.
"We can't do that. If something fucks up we need to be prepared."
"Impossible."
"Why?"
"Because there are so many things that can and probably will fuck up once we make our move it'd take us a week to list them all."
"You don't sound very confident about our chances."
"I can't think of any other way out."
"Me either. You're right, then. Let's just do this thing and give them all the hell we can."
Late that afternoon Ingrid was brought downstairs. By then Scott's ankles and wrists had gone numb, and his spine was throbbing. Lack of a proper meal for the whole day (the guard offered nothing but bread, water, and hoarse curses for both prisoners to digest, two of which were served on a plate as if to a pair of dogs) had his belly in an acidic ruckus. But when Ingrid glided into the room, wearing a purple Victorian dress with black gloves and flowered hat, all creature discomforts fell by the wayside. Indeed, he almost didn't recognize her. Her hair had been lifted into a bun, framing a face pale with make-up, the cheeks rouged, the lips tinctured. The dress, flounced with ruffles, had been pulled to accentuate its lady's every curve, whilst beneath the hem a pair of black boots lent a full inch to her height. The sight of her clicking into the room with her hands clasped at her middle silenced even the loquacious, cinnamon-eating guard; and when Cambridge returned from the basement minutes later, he froze for several moments before gushing his approval.
"Delectable and delightful," he uttered, eyes twinkling. "Ms. Cardener, I am so very pleased."
"Gardener," the old woman rasped back. "You destroyed my town with the zoo you let escape and now you can't even remember my name." She stood in front of hearth, wrinkled and frail. "Very touching."
"Rudgard's glory days are still in its future, Ms--"
"I'm not from Rudgard, I'm from Thorncut!"
"Well wherever!" Cambridge barked, growing tired of the rigmarole. "Everything about this entire region will be as gold! Perfection! Or choose whatever word pertaining to greatness that suits you!"
The other guard had gone outside after Ingrid's reappearance; now he came back, nipping off whatever retort the seamstress would have cast. "Sir? The wagon's arrived. Preparations are complete."
"Very well. Miss Felton?" Her head turned. "We leave in one hour. Until then you wait in the kitchen."
It turned out to be closer to ninety minutes--this because Cambridge wanted absolute surety the setting sun's rays would not touch his skin whilst on the hill of the breach. The hill in question apparently had no name, or if it did, Scott failed to overhear it mentioned. Nor did he pick up any clues to its location. His hope, however, that Cambridge would take one of the guards with him proved sensible. This time the quieter, more obedient guard remained behind after Ingrid was taken off, with the sounds of hooves and wagon wheels as her single farewell. Thus, he and Darren were stuck to cope with the smarter of the two, if not necessarily the stronger. And once they were alone the very first thing he did was put out the candle.
"Asshole," Darren said, watching the man as he wetted his fingers. Then, to Scott: "Fuck the variables huh? You would have made a shitty mathematician, you know that?"
The guard took a seat on the couch. "Don't be angry. You would have set yourselves on fire, trying to burn through the ropes."
"Where is the breach going to take place?" Scott asked, feeling curdled.
"Even if I knew I wouldn't tell you."
"Why not? We're going to die anyway."
"Because your friend's right. Never say fuck the variables."
On those words an explosion rang out, sending the guard flailing with blood spurting from his thigh. Darren wasted no time with the rest. Leaning back, he kicked with his tied feet and knocked the wounded man cold.
"Well, shit!" Echo Gardener snarled. A smoking kickshellac rested in her bony arms. "I'm sorry about that! I was aiming for his head!"
"Then I'm glad you missed," Darren told her. "There's been enough death in my life." He flashed her a smile. "Now as a seamstress you may not be much for shooting a gun, but I bet you're a wizard at loosening rope."
***
The streets of Rudgard were hot and humid. Summer took part of the blame, but Ingrid also knew that the dress, which weighed near one hundred pounds, could not be entirely absolved. Its designer at least possessed enough humanity to include a fan, which she used now, as the wagon trundled through a town learning how to live again. Gas lamps flickered over sidewalks where more makeshift kiosks like the butcher’s were set. Between these walked dozens of women dressed much like Ingrid herself, some with men, others with children, others still—though these by far were the scarcest—alone. Ingrid looked from one to the next, wondering what was in the bags they carried, what they were shopping for. To judge by their dour expressions (and by the simple, no-nonsense wares hanging in the kiosks) it was nothing pertaining to pleasure or leisure. Survival was the order of the times, and it was grim business for all.
A thought struck her then. "Cambridge?" Ingrid asked, peering overtop her fan at a little girl selling flowers. "If I open the interstice, and the dambuhala come charging back, won't that put Rudgard in harm's way again?"
"Yes, I should think so."
"And you don't care?"
His hand gave a tiny wave. "The region as it is today interests me very little. All that matters is what I intend to do with it. The kingdom it will become."
"Is that what you have in mind? Royalty?"
"Yes," Cambridge purred, relishing the idea. "A new passion for this region, one stronger than all the rest. For that to happen, of course, will require conversion. Soon romantic love will no longer be the required currency for passage. Soon...it will be loyalty."
Ingrid fell silent. Here was a new twist in the vampire's impossible scheme. Could a region's passion be changed? Her eye wandered again to the women walking to and fro. None, she had to admit, looked like they were in love. They looked more ready to cry, or lash out at the nearest possible catalyst for their misery.
Take your eyes off your shoes for one second, she thought, and you'll see that catalyst riding by, the only person in town with a smile on his face.
"They all hate you," she told the vampire.
"They won't once they see I'm the last hope for setting things straight again. And they will see it."
The wagon had reached the outskirts of town. A large hole in the road jostled everyone in their seats, causing Ingrid to drop her fan. Like a perfect gentleman, Cambridge bent and retrieved it for her.
"When will they see?" she asked.
"When they're so desperate they can’t see anything else."
***
"Let's move," Scott said. He had already stretched and wriggled the feeling back into his limbs, but the pain from being tied up--as well as the humiliation that went with it--was far from his main concern. "I need to get back to Ingrid. I don't know what Cambridge has planned for her, but--"
"You know exactly what he has planned for her," Darren said. He stood with Echo's kickshellac in one hand and a satchel in the other. "He's going to use her to breach the interstice."
"Yes but I don't know what that means."
"It means total chaos," a rusty gate—the voice of Echo Gardener—put in, "at least for a little while. The exact opposite of what Cambridge is striving for."
Darren nodded. "The dambuhala will be everywhere, running from all different directions to get home."
The picture these words conjured for Scott was far from happy. "So Rudgard's going to get hit again?" he asked.
"Very likely."
"Chaos," Echo repeated. "Cambridge must be clinging to that old Goldenbough axiom. 'In a realm of chaos, there is no striving--'"
"'but towards order,'" Darren finished. "Maybe he is. But even if he isn't, we have to let it all happen. Ingrid needs to open the interstice."
"Yes," Scott said, though it pained him to agree. "We also need to make sure we don't lose her. What's in the bag?"
Darren looked at the satchel almost as if he'd forgotten it. "Oh...provisions. Ingrid's old clothes. Some food. Ammunition for the gun."
"I'll carry it. How long do you think this..." he floundered for the right word "...homing for the dambuhala is going to take?"
"That depends on how far away the monsters are. And how well Ingrid can hold things together."
Scott took the satchel. "Let's go. We'll follow the wagon on foot. Less chance of being spotted that way."
"Right you are. Echo? Will you be all right here?"
"Oh I can tie rope as well as loosen it," the old woman answered, eyeing the unconscious guard. "In fact I don't need all of it. Take some for yourself."
"Thank you," Scott told her, "for everything. I don't know how else to say it. Thank you."
Echo smiled at him, and when she next spoke the harsh rasp had gone. "Young man," she said, "in this region, everyone knows how to say just the right thing."
***
"What's the name of that mountain?" Ingrid wanted to know.
They had left the wagon behind. This because no road climbed hill of tall grass on which they now strode. Out here in the open air, with Rudgard over a mile off, Ingrid anticipated some respite from the heat. But no. If anything, it was worse. Her breath was coming up short and her legs were beginning to wobble. Her heart skipped in her chest. Thus, as a way to distract herself, she asked about the mountain that loomed on their right.
"Mount Chariness," Cambridge said, "the region's onl