House Infernal by Edward Lee (21 page)

"Something he found while cleaning out the attic
coves."

"Hmm," the tall woman contemplated. "But I wonder
what they need brass polish for?"

"Brass polish?"

Mrs. Newlwyn pulled a can from the cupboard and
grabbed a rag. "That's what they asked me to bring
them."

"Let's go see."

They took the stairs up side by side. "You must be exhausted mowing all that grass."

"I don't know why everyone thinks I'm so fragile,"
Venetia joked. "I enjoyed it." She looked back down
across the atrium. "Where's Betta?"

"She's out front, helping John."

Helping John? I'll bet she is.

The older woman glanced around with a satisfied
gleam in her eye. "Slow but sure, we're getting this old
place back to rights."

"I'll bet it doesn't take as long as Father Driscoll
thinks."

"Down here," Driscoll's voice alerted them. He stood
next to Dan beside the ladder. The ceiling panel up above
had been taken down. The two men were inspecting
something propped against the wall.

"What's that?" Venetia inquired.

"It's a very old painting," Driscoll said.

"It looks like..-. a painting of a Pope," Mrs. Newlwyn
offered.

Dan got down on one knee to look closer. "Yeah, but which one? The raiments this guy's wearing look almost
medieval."

Venetia knelt right next to him, then felt the oddest reaction when looking. Something like a chill?

A great miter adorned the Pope's rather bulbous face,
and the eyes seemed disinterested within hooded lids. A
gold cross emblazoned the hat, while another hung
around the nameless Pope's neck. He wore a white cope
over a black cassock, both of which were flamboyantly
piped. Dan's right. It looks like the Middle Ages, Venetia
thought.

"He doesn't look very happy," Mrs. Newlwyn pointed
out.

"The history of the Papacy includes some very unhappy times," Driscoll said.

"And this was in the attic?" Venetia questioned.

"Yeah," Dan said. "Much to Father Driscoll's disappointment, the attic coves were all pretty much emptynot much for me to do. But I found this in the last one-"

"The oil paint's cracked," Venetia observed.

"Uh-huh. This is just how I found it. No box, no covering. So many years of hot summers and arctic winters ruined it. It might've been worth money. They should've
stored it better."

But Venetia wondered who they might be. "I wonder
why they didn't hang it downstairs. There are at least a
dozen papal portraits in the atrium."

"That's why we need the brass polish," Driscoll said.
"See the name plate?"

Venetia saw it, at the bottom of the ornate but dustcaked frame. "Here, Mrs. Newlwyn, let me see that." She
took the can of polish and rag.

She practically had her face to the floor. The small plate
was black with tarnish. When Dan hunkered down right
beside her, she received the impression that he'd stolen a
glimpse down her cleavage, and when she glanced over to
him, he quickly looked away.

"Be careful," he said. "Who knows how old the metal
is. Too much polish might obliterate the name."

Venetia dabbed some polish on, let it sit a minute, then
began to gently wipe.

"Can you read it?"

A name began to appear from left to right.

"It's ..." She squinted hard. "Boniface."

"There were a bunch of Bonifaces," Dan said. "Isn't
there a number?"

"Don't rush me!" Venetia gently buffed off the rest of
the plaque. Then, in a voice so low as to be grim, she said,
"Boniface the Seventh."

Dan chuckled. "Isn't that the one who died from gout?"

Venetia turned around but remained seated on the
floor. "No," was her only reply.

Driscoll talked deliberately loud, and with that ever-soslight smile of his. "Obviously Venetia got higher marks
in her Papal history classes than you did, Dan. Venetia,
enlighten our cocky seminarist as to the nature of Pope
Boniface the Seventh."

Dan smirked.

"He was one of the worst anti-Popes," she said. "The
worst, according to most historians. He murdered Pope
Benedict the Sixth in order to be installed as Pope himself,
but after only a month he was banished by the Holy Roman emperor, Otto the Second. When Otto died,
Boniface-who was backed by corrupt, unscrupulous,
and very anti-Christian Roman aristocrats-murdered the
next Pope as well, John the Fourteenth-and was reinstalled. If ever a Pope was pure evil, it was Boniface. A
glutton, a rapist, a slave trader, and a robber baron-he
was all those things. This guy was as corrupt as Nero, yet
he sat on the Papal throne twice. He was even reported to
be part of a secret Satanic sect."

"There you have it, Dan," " Father Driscoll said, amused
by yet another opportunity to rib his assistant. "And I'd
say that you've answered your own question, too, Venetia."

She let out a grim chuckle. "Yeah. Now we know why
this portrait wasn't displayed downstairs with the real
Popes."

"But ... why?" Mrs. Newlwyn asked now. "Why
would there even be a portrait of this horrible man here?"

"Consider what Venetia said a moment ago," Driscoll
commented. "Boniface was thought to be in a secret Satanic sect. Anyone?"

Venetia's eyes widened. "Amano Tessorio," she spoke
up. "The architect for the prior house."

Dan nodded now. "Of course. For years while he was
the Vatican's architect he lived a blasphemous double
life

"As a member in a secret Satanic sect," Mrs. Newlwyn
finished.

"So it's pretty easy to ascertain," Driscoll added, "that
this portrait was something that Tessorio privately owned
but never dared show anyone. I'll bet he came up to this
attic to gloat over it every now and then while still on the
Vatican payroll. Tessorio was a blasphemer hidden within
the inner circles of the Vatican hierarchy itself-the ultimate offense to God."

A heavy silence hung in the stair-hall after Driscoll's
bleak dissertation. Eventually, Mrs. Newlwyn uttered,
"How ... awful."

"Great grist for detractors of Catholic thesis," Dan offered. "It's hard to support the infallibility of the Church
after so many anti-Popes."

"It doesn't mean the Church is fallible, Dan," Driscoll
asserted. "Just humankind." He pointed down. "Now
show Venetia and Mrs. Newlwyn the other one."

"There's another painting?"

"Not a painting.'.. " Dan carefully slid the Boniface
canvas aside to reveal a smaller frame of quality drawing
paper.

"A sketch?" Mrs. Newlwyn guessed.

Driscoll nodded. "Probably drawn by Tessorio himself. Most architects are also excellent sketch artists, by
.,
necessity.

Venetia hunched forward again, then flinched. "It's ...
hideous. And I'm not sure why? It almost looks like-"

"A different rendition of the Boniface portrait," " Dan said.

It was a fine-fine sketch, detailed as the most intricate
engraving-and indeed seemed to mimic the painting: a
similar portraiture and outline, complete with the great
miter, only now the cross was upside down. But the
"hideous" part?

"The face," Venetia almost gagged.

"A mask, I suppose," Mrs. Newlwyn expressed.

Yes, now, the anti-Pope's face seemed more like a mask
of white crust, with only crude eye holes and a gouge for
a mouth.

"Read the inscription," Father Driscoll advised. "I'll bet
anything it's Tessorio's handwriting, too."

At the bottom, Venetia read the fine cursive words:

In a Blood & Sumac Dream, my vision: E.D. Boniface.

"E.D.?" Venetia questioned. "What could that mean?"

"Who knows?" Driscoll said. "And it looks like a castle
in the background, doesn't it?"

Venetia noted the intricate brickwork behind the appalling figure, topped by ramparts and a turret.

"A medieval fortress," Dan commented. "And check
out the black sickle moon. That's got to symbolize something. The religious schism of those times, or the moral
decay."

"A black moon for a black age," Driscoll added.

Venetia couldn't help but remain on her knees to inspect the strange artwork. It was true; she could see the
tiny detail herself: a black sickle moon edging over the
fortress wall.

Black, she thought. Sickle moon ...

And the voice last night, her own dream ...

Your moon is white, Venetia. Ours is black....

Mrs. Newlwyn again: "What are those adornments, in
the comers?"

I wish there was more light.... Venetia looked closer and
detected cursive loops wrapped around each corner of
the sketch.

Then-

"Wait a minute. Those aren't adomments," she noted.
"It's more writing."

Driscoll leaned on his knees. "Can you make it out?"

Now Venetia had her face only a few inches from the
drawing paper. "It looks like ... ash-shaytan."

"What the hell is that?" Dan wondered.

"Hell is right," Driscoll said. He had a smirk for Dan's
borderline profanity. "It's one of the Islamic names for Satan. Read the next corner."

"Lux," she began, and after more squinting: "Ferre?"

Father Driscoll looked down, hands-on hips. "Come on,
you both took Latin, didn't you?"

She and Dan traded glances, then almost simultaneously they both said, "Lucifer."

"Good. The third comer?"

"Iblis," Venetia and Dan said together. Dan looked up.
"Isn't that another name for the Devil?"

"Uh-huh. Pre-Islamic. And the fourth comer?

Venetia read it, pushed back a sick feeling in her gut,
then said, "Eosphorus."

WELCOME TO SEWAGETON, THE BEAUTIFUL WASTE DISTRICT, the
sign greeted them.

"Oh my ... god!" Ruth howled when she looked
around.

I never said we were going to Disney World, Ruth."

"We're not going here!" she yelled over her shoulder.
"We just left a town made of rot, but now we're coming
into a town made of-of-" In utter disbelief, she looked
around again, at the brown brick buildings, the brown
brick streets, the dizzyingly high brown brick skyscrapers. "Oh my god!"

"Ruth, you're just making this harder and harder by
complaining," Alexander said from her back. "I've already told you, each district exists in its own uniqueness.
Rot-Port's made of rot. Osiris Heights is made of bricks of
obsidian stone, to honor the Egyptian god of the Underworld, a place called the Chthonic Region. The Boniface
District-which you'll be seeing later-was built with
bricks made of baked blood."

"And this place is made with bricks of shit! It's disgusting, and it doesn't make sense!"

"I've told you over and over, everything is opposite here.
That's part of Lucifer's design. This is just ... the way it is."

"Well then fuck the way it is!" she bellowed. Several
Polter-Rats scattered at Ruth's outburst.

"Just hold the line," the priest ordered.

Ruth thought of looking down as she walked along, to
avert her eyes from the appalling look of the place, but even
then she quailed when she noticed a detail within the sidewalk bricks. "Aw, man, the sidewalk's got corn in it...."

"Be strong."

The next brown building took up the equivalent of a city
block. Slim bronze pipes on the roof, like stovepipes, issued
wisps of smoke that seemed pink. There were no windows.

THE GOETHE HALL OF AUTDMATIC-WRITERS, read the sign.

"What's that?" Ruth asked.

"Automatic-writers are one of Hell's favorite means of
contacting people in the Living World," the priest explained. "And this, the Goethe Hall, is the most important one in the city. That pink smoke is the exhalations of
the writers themselves. Specially trained Warlocks called
Telethesists use intricate manipulations of telepathy. They
go into a trance after inhaling the fumes of burning tree
resin-a tree from which someone was hanged-while a
human in the Living World is in an identical trance.
Whatever the Telethesist writes is simultaneously written
down by their earthly contact. It helps spread the influence of Hell on earth. The big deal these days is they contact novelists and songwriters. But they also use their
craft to recruit myrmidons...."

"I dropped out of school in junior high, man," Ruth
griped, still wincing at the district's all-pervading stink.
"Do I look like I know what that means?"

"A myrmidon is like a helper, Ruth. Only these helpers
on earth exist to help Satan. Hitler was a myrmidon, by
the way, and so were Genghis Khan and Napoleon."

"Napoleon-oh, the guy who invented the dessert?"

"They're famous figures of evil in world history, Ruth."

"World history didn't do shit for me so I don't give a
shit about it."

Alexander tsked. "You should, Ruth, because some of
what I'm saying involves you. For instance, a long time
ago, there was a Pope named Boniface the Seventh. He
was one of these myrmidons I'm telling you about."

"What, a Pope was in contact with some wizard in
Hell?"

"Through a contract with the Devil, yes. Boniface is
now a very high-ranking figure here in the Mephistopolis, and for quite some time he's been utilizing some of
Hell's very best automatic-writers to contact some other
myrmidons on earth, and it all has something to so with
our mission."

Ruth winced when she spotted two construction Imps
stirring what she first thought was a trough of cement. But
it was a trough of something else. "And this chick you
were talking to on that horn?"

"The Vox Untervelt, yes. That girl-Venetia Barlow-is
the very keystone of our mission. If we can't convince her
that we're genuine, then-"

"We're up Shit's Creek, right? And I'll bet this burg's really got one."

Father Alexander shook his head behind her. "Just try
to listen more, Ruth. We've both got a lot riding on this."

"Yeah?" Ruth was getting fed up. "The only thing I've
got riding right now is you-on my fuckin' back-while
I'm walking through a town made of shit."