Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee (33 page)

"Go there tomorrow around, say, two. I can pull some
strings and get you in."

"How?"

"The head of security at the clinic is my nephew. Trust
me.

Westmore sighed. "Yeah, it looks like I'm going to do
that.11

"And I'll see you tomorrow night. Midnight."

"You're gonna be there, right?"

Clements laughed. "With shovels and guns."

He's not kidding ...

Clements got into a big, beat-up Olds 98 with a landau
roof. The girl walked around to the other side, but before
she got in, she looked across the roof with a wide, emptyeyed stare. For a second, she shivered.

"Be careful in that house," she said very quietly.

"I will," Westmore said.

Clements rolled down his window. "We're gonna get
Debbie Rodenbaugh out of that psycho place. And after we
do, I'm gonna find Hildreth and blow his brains into the
next zip code. Him and anybody on his side." Clements
winked. "I'm gonna kill all of those evil, slimy, sick pieces
of shit, and I'm gonna love every minute of it." Westmore
watched them drive away.

The pendulum clock in the foyer struck one a.m. when
Westmore re-entered the mansion. He'd called ahead and
Mack had disabled the alarm to let him in.

Something, right off the bat, felt odd.

Mack reclosed the door and reset the alarm.

"Something wrong? The house feels ... weird."

"You could say something's wrong," Mack verified.
"Willis had another one of his spells. He and Nyvysk are in
the atrium."

Westmore followed him down the main hall. "Where are
Cathleen and Adrianne?"

"They're both doing their things."

Westmore guessed that meant Adrianne was OBE-ing
and Cathleen had put herself in a trance, trying to contact
something in the house.

The atrium stood dead quiet. Nyvysk and Willis sat at the
long conference table, Willis wearing his gloves and looking
shell-shocked.

"What happened?" Westmore asked.

"Willis had another target-vision," Nyvysk told him.

"When?"

"Right after you left the office upstairs," Willis said.

"Another one of Debbie Rodenbaugh?"

"No, it was the woman who tried to open the safe. Vanni.
It wasn't a passive vision-it was active. I believe it was her
revenant communicating with me, but it was ... different.
Either that or it was a temporal-lobe hallucination."

"Tell him what triggered the vision," Nyvysk said.

"The safe. I touched the knob on the safe and had multiple flashes."

Westmore's eyes shot wider. "Did you-"

"I didn't see what was in the safe," Willis said in a drone.
"I saw Vanni. At first the vision was passive; I saw her as she
was when she was trying to open the safe, but then it
changed. She was dead, she was a corpse talking to me. And
I had a transitive contact."

"What's that mean?"

Willis groaned, obviously wearied.

"It means the vision-or whatever it was-physically
touched Willis," Nyvysk explained.

"Which is essentially impossible," Willis finished.
"Which is why I'm thinking it must be hallucinotic."

"The psychological factor," Nyvysk speculated. "A serious consideration in a house like this, especially after being
here almost a week."

"A place like this can put a whack on anybody's head is
what you're saying?" Westmore inquired.

"I hope to God that's the case," Willis said.

Westmore leaned forward, attentive. "But Vanni talked to
you? What did she say?"

"A number of things. She showed me a vision herself.
She said Hildreth had told her to. Then I saw the Chirice
Flaesc, that Nyvysk has already explained-which is just
more reason for me to hope it was a hallucination inspired
by suggestion."

"What did it look like?"

"A temple of flesh."

"The domain of the Sexus Cyning-Belarius," Nyvysk
augmented.

Willis rubbed his face. "It was alive. It was flesh and
blood, and it was growing."

"Adrianne and Karen saw the same thing," Westmore recalled. "What else did you see?"

"Hildreth." Willis laxed back, exhausted. "Then the
target-vision changed. Vanni implied that the combination
to the safe was Gematric."

"What's that mean?" Westmore asked.

"Part of the system of the Kabalistic alphabet," Nyvysk
informed. "She said it was acrostic, but I'm not familiar with
the word."

"And neither am I," Willis said. "Let's find a dictionary-

"We don't need a fuckin' dictionary!" Westmore blurted
and had already sprung up, racing out of the room.

He ran down the main hall, then vaulted up the stairs to
the third floor. By the time he got to the office he was
winded yet shaking with excitement. He looked at the safe,
then looked at the engraving across from it. Couldn't be, he
thought.

A moment later, Willis and Nyvysk jogged into the
room. "What is it, for God's sake?" Nyvysk said.

"Do you know the combination?" Willis asked.

"Acrostic," Westmore said. "I majored in English in college-acrostic is a term sometimes used in symbolic poetry.
In the old days, people would write poetry with hidden
meanings-ciphers-"

"Vanni said this was the oldest cipher in the world,"
Willis remembered.

"She's probably right," Westmore said. "In old poetry,
sometimes a letter would be used to indicate its numerical
equivalent." He looked back anxiously at the safe. "I heard
her say it was a nine-number combination ..." Then he
held his hand up, a bid for silence, and calculated on his fingers, counting to himself. Then he grabbed a pen and scribbled something on the desk blotter.

"What is it?" Nyvysk raised his voice.

"It's that," Westmore pointed to the engraving of St.
John writing the Revelation.

"What? 666?" Nyvysk questioned. "We already tried that."

"Not acrostically," Westmore said and rushed to the safe.
"S equals 19, 1 equals 9, X equals 24," he said and starting
dialing the combination.

"The same three numbers three times in a row?" Nyvysk
said. "Nine numbers in all?"

Westmore dialed the three numbers three times, then-

click

-he opened the safe.

The room hushed. W e s t m o r e put his hand in the s a f e -
t h e n f e l t ripped off . "Jesus! There's nothing in it ..."

A pause.

"Wait."

He slid his hand along the bottom, felt something tiny. A
piece of paler ... He pulled it out.

"What is it?" Nyvysk asked.

Westmore felt let down. "It looks like another cipher."
The slip of paper, the size of an index card, read:

INPUT REQUEST: FEED

STRAT APOGEE

RESPONSE: 06000430

ASSIGNMENT POINT: 00000403

What is this pile of aap? Westmore thought. He couldn't
have been more disappointed. But what did I expel? Hildreth's
Journal? A pad with the devil, signed in Wood for shit's sake?

Nyvysk seemed more hopeful. "Even random numbers are
something to go on. And I do know what apogee means-"

"Geometry," Willis said. "The highest point, the highest
angle of a geometric configuration."

"And from astronomy," Nyvysk tacked on. "As in a lunar
apogee-the moon's farthest orbital point."

He's right. It is something to go on. "I think I'll fool around
online for a while, see what I can find out," Westmore said.
Then, under his breath, he repeated, "The moon's farthest
point."

They turned to leave-

"Not just the moon," a voice slipped through the air.

"Cathleen," Nyvysk said, eyes narrowed at her.

Willis stepped forward. "Are you all right? You look-"

"I'm fine..." She sauntered into the room, looking
around, and the eyes of the three men followed her, concerned. Cathleen was obviously not fine. She wore a black
nightgown, nothing more, and she seemed diffuse, distracted, in spite of a catty grin. Oh, wow, Westmore thought.
She's ALL fucked uP

The front of her throat, her bosom, and her face glittered
faintly, from shining red and blue dust.

Nyvysk spoke up first. "Cathleen, what's that on your
face?"

"Pontica dust," she said, still straying about the room. "It
summons eager spirits. It shines through the planes of the
dead, and they see it. Like a beacon."

When she passed Willis, her finger coyly slid across his
chest, then to Westmore's.

"You been drinkin'?" Westmore asked.

A glare cracked through the sultry smile. "I don't contaminate my body with such things. I never have. The body
is the conductant of the soul. I will not taint myself."

Willis spoke up louder, as if to an old person. "Cathleen,
are you in a trance?"

Now she'd stopped, to look at the open safe. Her eyes
flicked down to the painting of Deborah Rodenbaugh.

She sighed.

"There, people. There is the ultimate untainted body and
spirit."

"Debbie Rodenbaugh? What do you know about her?"
Westmore shot the startled question. "Why is she untainted?"

"Think about it." Cathleen faced Westmore directly. She
put a hand to her thigh and slid it upward, hiking the already very short hem of her nightgown. The gown's neckline plunged to reveal the top edges of her nipples. "She's
stainless, bereft of the world's tarnish. Unlike you. A busted,
alcoholic hypocrite."

Thanks a lot, Westmore thought. "What the hell's your
problem, Cathleen?"

"Westmore," Nyvysk stated. "At this precise moment, it's
not Cathleen we're speaking to."

Westmore looked back at him, dismayed.

"Cathleen, wake up!" Willis raised his voice louder.
"Come back!"

She turned back to Willis, walked right up to him. "The
toucher. Who can't touch anybody without seeing horrors."

Willis grabbed her arms with his gloved hands. "What
did you mean when you said `not just the moon'? Did you
mean some other kind of apogee?"

"You're a pervert but you can't touch other people,"
Cathleen said. "You can't touch the women you lust for
more than anything. That's glorious. That's perfect. What do
you see, then, when you touch yourself?"

Willis shook her some more. "Wake up!"

In a snap of her arm, she slammed him back against the
wall. "What do you see when you jerk yourself of feasting
your eyes on smut? Hmm?" She slammed him again.

"Nothing," Willis said, gritting his teeth. "That's the way
l like it."

"You'll like this better-" and then she grabbed his hand,
pulled the glove off, and forced his hand up under her
gown.

"Stop it!" Nyvysk shouted.

Willis tried to fight her off but the instant his hand was
pressed between her legs, his eyes rolled up in his head and
he collapsed.

Jesus! Westmore rushed over, grabbed her from behind,
but she snapped around and rammed the heel of her palm
up against his chin. His teeth clacked shut, nearly cracking.
The force of the blow bolted him across the room where he
toppled over the desk.

Now Nyvysk, a much larger man, was trying to pin her
to the wall. Westmore got to his knees, looking through
stars in his eyes across the desk.

Wlwt is going on here! Nyvysk's getting his ass kicked!

"Give me that phony celibacy, you pious queer," Cathleen croaked. In spite of Nyvysk's size and strength, Cathleen had twirled him to the floor and had pinned him down
by his shoulders. She straddled him overtly, sexually. "You
can get it up for me, can't you? Just close your eyes and
think about all those trusting priests and young men you've
spent your whole life wanting but never having. For what?
For God? Would He do that for you?"

Nyvysk struggled against her but it was as though he'd
been shackled down. "Westmore!" he yelled out. "Get
Mack, get the others! Get help!"

Westmore jumped to the intercom and yelled for everybody. Now Cathleen was trying to drag Nyvysk's slacks
down. She breathed her promises right into his face. "Come
with me and I'll take you to a place where you can have
them all, forever. And you can have your boy, Saeed. He
misses you so much, since you got him killed ... "

"I didn't get him killed!" Nyvysk choked out.

Westmore jumped on her, tried to pry her off of the
older man. "You're the damned exorcist! Exorcize her!"

"It's not a possession! It's just a simple transposition,"
Nyvysk garbled back.

But none of this seemed simple to Westmore. He was
wrestling with her and losing. When Mack and Karen
rushed into the room, it got easier but not by much.

"Is she crazy?" Karen exclaimed.

"What the hell's going on?" Mack yelled.

Cathleen kicked and flailed as the four of them finally
got her to her feet. They had her wedged against the wall;
finally her struggles grew feeble.

Thank God, Westmore thought. She's wearing out ...

Cathleen's eyes turned mad. Her smile seemed inhuman. She looked at the four of them and said, "None of you are
going to live much longer. Then I will see you again, in the
domain of my king. We'll grind you up every night ... until the end of time."

Objects began to slam around the room, paintings falling
from the wall, books sliding off shelves. The blotter on the
desk flew upward, and then a statue in the corner thudded
over.

Cathleen went limp, folding up in Westmore's arms. Exhausted himself now, he picked her up and trudged to the
couch. "You've gotta be shitting me!" he nearly shouted at
Nyvysk as though it were his fault. "What was that?"

"She looked insane," Karen said.

Mack seemed as bafed. "What, did she just go nuts?"

Nyvysk was leaning over Willis, who remained unconscious. "It was a transposition. Cathleen's a very accessible
medium. Things like that will happen to her when she puts
herself in a trance."

Westmore checked Willis out too. "Is he all right?"

"Yes. He just passed out."

"And how come all that stuff flew around the room?"
Karen asked in delayed shock.