House Infernal by Edward Lee (46 page)

"It's still alive, isn't it?" Venetia asked, shuddering.

"Yes." The response echoed. "They all are."

"Even in spite of what they are, how could you entomb
them alive? How could ministers of the Church be that
barbaric?"

Whitewood's shadow shifted on the wall. "We were terrified, Venetia. We didn't know what to do, so we followed the Vatican's orders. We had to become as ghastly
as their creator. They can never escape as long as the
Power Relics hold down the lids."

Venetia looked into the next three, one after the other.
Whitewood was correct; they each displayed a variety of
hybridized features, the hideous compacted into the
beautiful. One seemed near-perfect, but for gelled-over
eyes and bruise-blue wings sectioned by black veins. Another had perfect human eyes and nose but a mouth like a jackal, and the third-had it not been malformed by
growing within the unyielding box-was flawlessly Human on one side and flawlessly monstrous on the other.
One was male, one female, and the third both.

Did Whitewood step back when Venetia stooped over
the sixth coffin? She had to see the last one, just to see
them all before time was jerked backward and their
tainted mothers rearrived in the Living World.

The lid grated till it was half off.

Venetia stared down.

It was empty.

"That one's yours," Whitewood intoned.

The luminous red mist was slowly intensifying. Mine.
The word thumped in Venetia's brain. She could hear her
own heart beating.

A heart only half Human.

"I'm one of them...."

"Yes. You were the only one born perfect."

Now Venetia's mind overloaded.

"That's what makes you so valuable to the wards of
Hell. Your Christian faith and willing chastity conquered
your genetic heritage."

A heritage of evil, she thought. "And my true mother ...
is hanging over there ... ?"

"No," Whitewood said.

Venetia's eyes bloomed.

Whitewood's voice sounded battered, and it was with
the most secret whisper that he pleaded, "This was all
foreseen, dear girl. Remember to do as you were bidden."

It was now impossible for Venetia to fathom anything ...
as another voice-a woman's-began to flirt through the
underground chamber.

"Sextus rhytzum despiritae devorare-"

Whitewood collapsed with a groan, gnashed his teeth
as if resisting an urge, then wailed....

God in Heaven, Venetia thought.

Whitewood began to eat the flesh off his own arms.
Blood smeared his face as grisly sounds smacked about
the vault.

Before the crimson light stood the cloaked figure Venetia had already seen prowling the prior house.

Not the ghost of Tessorio, she realized now.

The cloak dropped to reveal Venetia's mother.

She stood nude, arms spread as if in jubilation. Sweat
glazed her robust breasts, and branded just above her pubis was the Involution. "My dear sweet child," her voice
resounded. On her face was a smile of rapture.

"But ... the angels all killed each other," Venetia stammered.

"Yes, all but me-I was the last. They thought they
could redeem themselves to God, but I chose to redeem
myself to Eosphorus."

Venetia's eyes darted to the mass of hanged corpses.
Only then did she notice the numerical fact: there were
only five, not six.

"But ... my father ..

"Your father was a Demon called a Coitasaurian," Maxine Barlow said. "The man you thought was your fatherRichard-was just a dupe whom I machinated with
Obsession Spells. I asked Lucifer to make him rich from
his silly computer chips, and the money enabled us to
raise you with ease. He did whatever I told him, never
saw what I didn't want him to see. I cultured him for
money and sex-that's all." Maxine seemed aroused just
talking about it. "I burned him alive last night, by the way.
And as for my wings?" Her mother turned to show her
bare back ... and the two clipped stubs at the shoulder
blades. "I cut them off."

"So it was you haunting the house all this time," Venetia concluded.

"Helping make you ready for this unholiest of nights."

Venetia fell to her knees. "Why me?"

"Because you were the only perfect child, just as was
prophesied."

Tears glittered in Venetia's eyes. "But why would Hell
want me? I'm a Christian."

"By your own free will, yes, dear," her mother sighed in
bliss. "And once you are plucked back into the abyss, that same Godliness will revert to the opposite. You will be the
first true wife of Lucifer."

Venetia gagged.

"You will be corrupted and despoiled, tortured and degraded, your willing virginity and faith in God cast aside
for sport. The free will of your beliefs will be turned inside out, after which you'll choose just as willingly to disavow God and serve the Lord of Wretchedness."

Venetia was trembling on her knees.

The remains of Father Whitewood convulsed on the
floor. By now he'd devoured all the flesh off his arms and
legs, and was now digging a skeletal hand into his gut
for more.

"What did you do?" Venetia gasped.

"A simple Anthropophagy Hex." Her mother looked
down with glee; Father Whitewood was attempting to admit his entire liver into his mouth. "But in Hell, my beloved
daughter, you will have such powers a millionfold."

Why?" Venetia cried.

"Because after your debauchment and willing abandonment of God, you will be sent back here through the Pithto bear Lucifer's son for the end of times. It's perfect."

Venetia wished she could shrink to nothingness.

Her mother stepped forward, the crimson light aglow
on her glazed skin. "There, there, dear. For this you will
sit in a far higher place in Hell than me. No beingHuman or Demon-has ever been so privileged." The
room's scarlet luminosity grew brighter, the static edge
sharpening. "And consider the privilege, too, to behold
the miracle of Lucifer's genius, to witness him molding
time with his bare hands." Her mother's eyes beamed as
a black aura formed around her head. "You're about to
watch yourself be bom.....

Venetia's face was thrust forward when her mother
grabbed her by the hair.

"Watch!"

The static maximized. Was it Venetia's imagination, or
were the cinder blocks all around her bleeding?

"The Involution is charged!" her mother shouted in triumph. "The Pith is coming alive!"

Venetia felt something like a variation in gravity as the
slab of stone seemed to become superimposed with a
similar slab....

"Glory be to he who was first cast out," " her mother
whispered.

An impulse dragged Venetia's eyes to her watch, whose
hands jerked forward and back at random. The days and
the dates, too, changed with each half second, and when
she looked again to the Pith ...

The hanging corpses were gone, as were the cement
coffins. Instead, each blink of her eyes showed her another glimpse of what had happened over twenty years
hence:

Six debased angels shuddering on the slab, all pregnant
as if about to burst; each gravid belly shuddering, then
collapsing, as the tiny monsters were disgorged; six angels moaning as they hanged themselves with no reluctance, and tore each other's hearts from their chest ... all
but one-Venetia's mother-who took herself down from
her own noose, plucked up the one infant who was perfect, and ran off.

And the last blink:

Solemn priests placing the five squalling newborns into
their coffins and sealing each lid with one of the bones of
St. Ignatius.

The Pith throbbed in its light, standing empty now.
When Venetia stared, she thought she could see through it,
into a similar chancel of rock, while onlookers peered
back-Demons beyond description-but one figure more
hideous than the rest

A man wearing a pope's miter, with a face of salt.

"It's time, my love," her mother beckoned.

Venetia rose to meet her destiny, yet the old priest's
words haunted her: Remember to do as you were bidden....

Venetia froze.

What had she been bidden?

And now, Venetia thought, I have to go there....

When Maxine donned her cloak, Venetia grabbed the
bone off the sixth coffin lid and stuck it in her pocket.

Then she and her mother stepped onto the slab and
melted away.

Keeping her cool wasn't easy as the anciently beautiful
Pasiphae took her down through the labyrinth. The Putridox face felt even clammier in these humid warrens,
and the tongues of her ghastly skirt seemed to slather
with more voracity the deeper they went. Ruth's only relief was knowing that Alexander was close behind-and
undetectable.

Finally she saw scarlet light flicker beyond a great stone
archway. This must be it-the Lower Chancel....

But Pasiphae didn't take her in; instead the abyssal
woman stopped, her bottomless eyes reaching into
Ruth's.

Oh, shit-that's right, Ruth recalled with no enthusiasm.
She's got a thing for me.

She knew she had to make this good.

The shining, obsidian face drew close; at once
Pasiphae's indescribable arms slipped around Ruth to
embrace her. I've made out with chicks before, she reminded
herself. But not ... monster chicks.

Ruth did the best she could.

Cold lips were on hers, a cold tongue eager to probe.
Ruth kissed the obscene woman back for all she was
worth....

Then Pasiphae recoiled, alarm on her night black face.

"She knows!" Alexander exclaimed. "Don't let her
scream!"

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK! Ruth thought. She
latched on to Pasphae's throat and squeezed harder than
she ever had in her life.

The effort choked off the shriek that would've betrayed
them. Then-

Schulp-schulp-schulp ...

Alexander's disembodied hand had shot out of the umbra to plunge a knife in and out of Pasiphae's belly. After
a few more plunges, oil black organs fell forward along
with a slew of tarlike blood.

Pasiphae, the Night-Mother, fell over dead.

"What the fuck happened?" Ruth asked, bewildered.

"I guess you don't kiss as well as Voluptua," the priest's
voice presumed.

Ruth frowned.

"I can tell by the light-the Involution is almost charged,
which means the Piths will merge-"

"When?"

"Any minute now. Get in there. Go to Boniface, and try
to distract any of them from watching the Smoke-Light."

Then an invisible hand shoved Ruth into the archway.

Rude prick!

Ruth resumed her role, and followed a short corridor of
blood bricks toward a wide, rock-hewn chamber in which
scarlet light seemed to float like fog.

A Minotauress stood watch at this last entry, the sleek
feminine physique rising to high breasts, which then converged into the head of a bull. Black beads for eyes looked
down below sharpened horns.

"Stand aside," Ruth ordered. "The Exalted Duke is expecting me." Then Ruth walked in, Bone-Sandals clicking
on the rock floor.

Holy fuckin' shit, she thought. Look at this place.

The mistlike light was rising. Helmed Conscripts stood
round the chamber's perimeter, holding wickedly sharp
weapons. She immediately saw the Smoke-Light. The
modest metal-framed cylinder sat on a stand of some kind.

Right next to it stood a hooded Bio-Wizard.

That's the dude I've got to distract.

Beyond the Smoke-Light, however, was the chamber's
most paramount feature: a warped stone slab that seemed
to be half-aglow from some throbbing inner illumination.
Ruth's stomach flipped when she saw what was taking
place atop the slab.

Angels, she thought.

Six of them lay naked and squirming on the slab, some
invisible force paralyzing them. Pain and horror distorted their faces as their swollen breasts and hugely
pregnant bellies shuddered. Ruth paled as a higher ranking Conscript stepped between each of them and-
Ssssssssssssss-put a branding iron low on their
abdomens. When the sizzling smoke cleared, Ruth saw
the configuration of the brands: The Involution.

This is some hard-core shit....

Several Golems and slavering Ushers stood on each
side of the slab.

"It's glorious!" a voice rattled.

And there he is, Ruth noted.

Boniface, short and squat in his white cloak and funny
hat, stood beside another Wizard, watching the spectacle
through the hideous mask of salt.

"The Involution is nearly charged, my lord," the Wizard boasted. "Soon the Pith will become subcorporeal."
When he glanced over his shoulder at Ruth, she saw that
his face looked like the bottom of a charcoal grill. "And
my horrendous Duke, your Harlot has arrived to be by
your side."

Ruth noticed a lustful joy through the mask's eye slits
when the Exalted Duke glanced at her. A fat corroded
hand waved her over. "Voluptua! My most rank and corruptible whore! Come to me and behold my greatness!"

Ruth groaned and went to him. When she took his
hand as a lover would, she could've been holding the
hand of a cadaver. Boniface at once turned to kiss her.

Ruth choked back bile and let her Putridox lips meet
the mouth-hole of his mask. This is a new low for me, she
told herself when a tongue like a strip of spoiled beef slid
slimily into her mouth. She embraced him, playing the
game, then felt something unspeakable harden against
her thigh.

Fuck this shit, man....

His hand plied her breast through the hairy bra-cup. "You're always so lovely in these infernal garments,"
came his wet voice. The foulest stench piped from his
mouth. "Only your despicability outweighs the beauty of
your disgraceful whoredom."

Ruth was slack-jawed. I guess that's a compliment.
"How ... sweet, my great Exalted Duke," she whispered,
but then she quailed when his dead hand began to slither
up her Tongue-Skirt.

Acting like she enjoyed it was the most difficult thing
she'd ever done.