Page 18 of Broken Empire
Bile rose in my throat. “I guess you need a back door to take out all the dead bodies, huh?” I said.
Robert chuckled and pushed on my lower back, forcing me into the elevator. We rode it down to the lowest level and stepped out into an underground parking lot. Most of it was surrounded by brick pillars which separated it from the regular parking lot, so there was no point in me trying to scream or run. No one would notice.
A sleek black car awaited us on the far side of the lot. Robert put me in the back seat before slipping into the front so he could drive. “Child locks are on, so you can’t open the door and try to jump out,” he said, glancing at me in the rear-view mirror.
“Yeah, I figured,” I muttered.
We drove in silence for the next few hours. The windows on either side of me were all blacked out so I couldn’t see where we were going, but I was able to get a general idea from occasionally leaning forward and glancing through the windshield. We were heading south.
I dozed off for a while, and when I awoke again, a familiar skyline lay in the distance. I leaned forward and peered through the windshield. “Are we going to DC?” I asked.
“Yes,” Robert replied, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. “Somewhere close by, anyway.”
I sat back, pressing my lips in a thin line. I should’ve known Robert was taking me down to DC. It was his home city, after all, where he worked and played. He’d only relocated to New York temporarily after Cori’s car accident.
“Is there another building with a secret floor there?” I asked. “For the DC Schöneberg chapter.”
Robert nodded. “Yes. There’s one in every major city in the States. There’s also one in London and another in Stuttgart for our international brethren,” he said. “I actually wanted to keep you down here in the DC building instead of New York, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible.”
“Why not?”
“It’s currently full of occupants,” he replied. “It won’t be after tonight, though.”
A chill shot through me as his ominous words sank in. I didn’t bother asking him to clarify, though. I didn’t want to hear it.
Once we reached the city, I assumed we’d stop at the Schöneberg building, but we kept heading south instead. I frowned and leaned forward. “I thought you said we were going to DC.”
“I said it’s somewhere close,” Robert said. “Be patient. You’ll see.”
I couldn’t doze off again now that I knew we were getting close to our destination. I was so anxious that my legs kept twitching and trembling, and I couldn’t keep my hands still either.
Robert turned off the main road a while later, onto a narrow dirt road. The sun was setting now, and all I could see on either side of us were dark woods.
Half an hour later, the car finally pulled to a stop. Night had fallen, and I couldn’t make out any details around us beyond trees, shrubs, and several other parked cars.
“Follow me,” Robert said as he opened the passenger door. “We’re nearly there.”
He switched on a flashlight and guided me onto a path that led into the woods. The smell of dead leaves and loamy earth filled my nostrils, along with the faint scent of woodsmoke.
About a hundred yards down the path, the smoky smell grew stronger, and every time the trees rustled in front of us, I caught a glimpse of light. Warm, flickering light.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were taking me to a bonfire,” I said, heart skipping a beat as I narrowly avoided tripping on an exposed tree root on the edge of the path.
Robert chuckled. “You’d be partially right. There’s a fire there,” he replied. He didn’t elaborate any further.
We kept trudging down the path. Voices began to drift out of the darkness ahead, and my hands turned cold and clammy with nervous sweat. We were close.
The path veered to the right and went down a slight incline. At the end lay a large circular clearing lined with burning torches atop thick bronze rods. In the center of the circle was a flat altar made of polished granite. A large bronze statue of a bull stood behind it, head and horns lowered like it was about to charge. The flickering flames of the burning torches around it made its eyes glow in a sinister way.
People were milling around the rest of the clearing with camera equipment and props. Some were chattering and others were barking orders.
“What is this?” I asked, turning to Robert with wide eyes. “It looks like a film set.”
“Itisa film set, in a manner of speaking.”
“One of your snuff films, you mean?” I said in a low voice, skin crawling.
He smiled. “Yes. Do you remember the movie Eyes Wide Shut?”
