Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee (39 page)

"I welcome you to serve me," this lord of lust said to her.
"Few are offered that honor, even those who've ventured as
far as you have."

I won't serve you, Adrianne told the thing outright. I'm not
lurefor that. I'm here for answers, that's all. Can you resent me for
that?

"No. All of life, and death, is a sojourn-for answers to
what is not understood."

Thank you, she tried to ingratiate him. I want to know
what's going to happen at the Hildreth Mansion.

"And your question will be answered, one way or another. Choose to serve me-that would please me much."

I told you, I can't do that. You'll only answer me if I sore you,
then?

The etch-like voice reiterated "You'll be answered one way or another. I've delighted in your physical body alreadythrough my acolytes ..." The finger of the lord of lust
pointed outward, to the Adiposians. "It's a delectable body.
Serve me, and I promise I'll show you ecstasies when you die."

No.

"Then you'll come here when you die anyway. And I'll
rape you every day until the stars lose their light."

No, Adrianne said. But you said you'd answer my question.

The incalculable face looked more pointedly at her. "Ask
my servant Hildreth yourself. He'll be happy to reply."

Adrianne's vision darted off. Next to an altar-like plinth
made of flesh stood a tall, lean figure in cloak and hood.
The darkest smile glimmered up at her, and the face in the
hood's oval was Reginald Hildreth's.

He whispered to her in an etching, barely audible voice,
like Belarius'.

My God, Adrianne thought of the words he told her.

"There, you have your answer," Belarius said. "Do with
it what you will. You believe you're safe as you are? Your
physical body is elsewhere--you're just a spirit now, you
can't be hurt here?"

I don't just beliew that, Adrian= replied. I know it.

"Then go, traveler. Fly away, back to your body."

Adrianne willed herself to do exactly that, but-

What?

When she tried to turn and whisk herself out of the temple, nothing happened.

Belarius was grinning at her. "Jaemmysin," he ordered.
"Bring in our next entertainment."

Adrianne felt locked in the air above them, when Jaemmysin entered the temple, followed by two Adiposians who
were dragging something curvaceous but of considerable
bulk. It was some manner of She-Demon, horned and husky, with sweating skin the color of shale. The breasts,
several times larger than a human woman's, rose and fell.
The pubic hair between the well-muscled legs looked like
black seaweed. The Adiposians spread the creature's legs
apart, then walked out of the temple, leaving it unconscious
where it lay.

What is this? Adrianne asked in alarm.

"A little more sight-seeing for you," she was answered.
"To give you the best taste of this place."

Adrianne tried not to show her fear but knew she was
failing. She couldn't move; Belarius had somehow paralyzed
the psychic vessel that she existed as. What's he going to do
now? she thought in the lowest dread.

It was Belarius' infernal grin that began to pull on her
now. The harder she tried to pull away from him the more
quickly she was drawn down. She wasn't the sparrow safe in
the high tree anymore. In a moment, the thing's will had
her locked right before the unglimpsable face, and then-

A sound like the wind.

-and Adrianne was inhaled.

It was as though she were gaseous, she was an air-pocket
being divided into three streams: two were sucked into Belarius' pit-like nostrils, the third into his fanged mouth. Terror kept her from even thinking. Now she was inside
Belarius, being processed through his lungs, dispersed into
his blood. The monstrous heart pumped her throughout the
eons-old body, and somehow she knew she was accumulating at his groin. The sudden frenetic movement told her
what he was doing now: raping the husky She-Demon that
had been brought in.

The movement seemed to never cease. Adrianne's spirit
was blending with Belarius' lust. Then-

A guttural chuckle that rocked the temple's walls of flesh.

Adrianne was ejaculated out with the semen of the Sexus
Cyning. She shot through the mammoth penis right up
into the She-Demon's cervix ...

In the act she saw a vision of Hell that had never even
been seen.

"A lovely union," the voice etched above her. Inside,
Adrianne felt the She-Demon's heart stop. The cells of Belarius' sperm swam around her spirit, mixing with it.

Then Adrianne oozed out of the She-Demon's sex and
pooled on the floor-a psychic wet-spot.

"Piss that blaspheme off my floor," Belarius said.

Adrianne was only partly cognizant, the ether of her soul
trying to re-accumulate. She couldn't really see, she could
only sense. Jaemmysin approached the spread legs of the
now very dead She-Demon, pointed his ten penile fingers
down and washed the smear that was Adrianne out of the
Chirice Flaesc, each stream of his urine hard as a blast from
a fire-hose. Adrianne was dispersed.

Reforming herself, as she was, could only be described as
the mental equivalent to hauling a load of bricks up a steep
incline. Her exhaustion threatened to defeat her, but just as
she would give up, she gradually became buoyant, began to
rise.

"Fly away, traveler," the etchings from within bid to her.
The temple doors began to grind closed. "Take your useless
secrets back to your world. We'll see you again very
soon ... "

As if fleeing murderers, Adrianne soared off, back to the
safety of her physical body.

As always, God had protected her this time ... but barely.
Maybe He's teaching me a lesson, she supposed.

But she was intact, and when she woke up later in her physical body, she could tell the others exactly what she'd learned.

She was coming back now to her world, through a crystal night and over gorgeous moon-lit landscapes. The mansion soared into sight ...

OH MY GOD NO! she screamed to herself when she
got back to the roof where her body should be.

Adrianne's body wasn't there any more.

Westmore stopped to take a break on the fifth floor, stepping out onto the stone veranda of one of the master suites.
He lit a cigarette and watched smoke sail away. The sun had
already gone down, leaving the land before the mansion
painted in ghostly moonlight.

He'd searched every room in the house, every closet,
every auxiliary passage, plus every attic room he could find.
There was no sign of Reginald Hildreth, no evidence of
anyone residing in the house in secret.

A glance to his watch showed him 11:59 p.m. At two I'm
supposed to open the side door for Clements. Westmore wasn't
sure what to think now, his moods and his convictions tipping this way and that. Maybe I should just call Clements, tell
him I've searched the house and found no sign of Hildreth. He'd
also want to know about Tom's verification: that Debbie Rodenbaugh was definitely present at the University of
Oxford.

He won't believe it but it's still a good idea. And another reminder. I should also call Vivica back. She hadn't returned his
not-so-pleasant call earlier, and Westmore found that interesting.

He sputtered at himself when he reached into his pocket
and found it empty. Idiot! She probably DID call back. I
must've left the damned phone in Hildreth's office ...

He lumbered back down to the third floor, to the office.
He picked up his cell phone, which still lay on the desk, but
before he could check his messages-

"Everybody!" Nyvysk's voice barked over the intercom.
"Come up to the roof!"

Huh? Nyvysk had sounded urgent. Westmore ducked
back out, almost collided with Cathleen, who'd been trotting toward the stairs.

"What happened?"

"I don't know," she said.

"How do we get to the roof?"

"I don't know!"

Back up on the fifth floor, the stairs ended. Nyvysk's exclamations could be heard again on the intercom. "Where
the hell's the stairs to the roof!" Westmore shouted back
into the intercom.

Mack and Karen appeared at the other end of the hall.
"This "
wry!.

They rushed after them, up yet another set of stairs. Then
the four of them emerged onto a plush overhanging panpet, complete with lounge chairs, umbrellas, planters.

"Adrianne left a note for me in the commo room,"
Nyvysk told them, leaning against the high, stone wall. He
looked defeated. "She said she'd be OBE-ing from up here."

"What's wrong?" Karen asked.

"Look.

Nyvysk pointed down, over the parapet's edge. They all
peered over.

"Aw, Jesus," Westmore muttered, a hand to his head.

Cathleen and Karen cried out. Mack and Nyvysk just
stared.

Adrianne's naked body lay sprawled on the fieldstone
walkway below The five-story drop left her broken, canted
at nearly a ninety-degree angle via a fractured spine. A halo
of blood lay around her head.

"Somebody must've thrown her off," Karen sobbed.

"Yes," Nyvysk said, "and no doubt while she was OBEing. Her most defenseless state."

Cathleen wiped her eyes. "Well, maybe not. She has been
suicidal in the past."

Westmore extended a bewildered hand. "Come on, suicide? She's nude. She was probably raped and thrown off.
Why would she take her clothes off to commit suicide?"

"Sometimes experients take off their clothes before they
begin an OBE," Cathleen pointed out. "I often do the same
thing when I divine or put myself in a trance."

Westmore shook his head. "I can't buy that. It's obvious
somebody threw her over the side." An involuntary impulse
caused him to glance at Mack. Several others did too.

"Hey, fuck you, man!" Mack objected. "Anybody could've
done it. You just want to point to me 'cos I'm not part of this
psychic-mumbo jumbo. And where the fuck were you?"

"He was coming out of the office, I saw him," Cathleen
confirmed.

Mack frowned. "He could've done it any time!"

"Yeah?" Westmore egged. "And what happened to the
lock-girl, Mack? You were the last one to see her. You even
had sex with her, and then what happens? She disappears."

"You're talking shit, buddy!" Mack lunged, grabbed
Westmore by the collar. "I think you killed her!"

Nyvysk's height and bulk easily pushed the two men apart.
"Nobody's accusing anybody. Let's keep our heads together."

"And where's that crackpot perv, Willis? Huh?" Mack
added.

"I think somebody raped her and threw her off," Westmore repeated.

"She was already raped once," Karen reminded. "And not
by somebody. By the same things that raped me and Cathleen."

"It's a consideration," Nyvysk voiced. "Discorporate
murders are rare but they are documented.

But suddenly Westmore considered something else.
SomeBODY, or some THING? Or maybe Hildreth himself ...

Willis hadn't heard Nyvysk's intercom call ... because he
was passed out in one of the parlors. Again, his last targetvision seemed to show him the future instead of the past.

A room of flesh. A temple of flesh.

A wall. No, a door--a door, too, composed of quivering,
hot flesh.

The door was parted to a gap.

Willis' vision suddenly made his brain feel as though it
were boiling, pressure rising, his skull fit to burst-

He glimpsed into the gap and saw something hideous behind the door. Then the vision snapped and he saw himself
being slowly strangled to death as Hildreth and several unnameable things looked on.

That's when he collapsed, unconscious.

He thought he might've had a minor stroke when he
woke up. Pain pounded in his head. I've had enough of this
place, he decided, on his knees. I should just leave ...

He staggered to his feet.

Yeah. I'm going to kave.

What good was more of Vivica's money if he was dead?
He wandered out and down, straggled down some hallways.
He supposed he was looking for the others, to tell them he
couldn't hack it here anymore. Would they think him a
coward for leaving? I doubt it. Deep down they all want to leave
too ...

He walked into the office, hoping to find Westmore, but
the room stood empty. Aside, something flickered.

He had no choice but to walk over when he realized
what it was ...

Westmore had left one of the DVD's playing on the
computer, the sound turned off. It was more porn, more of
Willis' curse.

His weakness forced him to watch.

It new ends with me ... His shame enshrouded him, yet
he looked on: scene after scene, one beautiful naked woman
after the next.

When the disc ended, he picked another randomly off
the desk, popped it in.

And frowned.

Nothing. He fast forwarded through several minutes of
black screen. When light finally bloomed, he slowed down
to normal speed and watched, expecting more enticing seximages but instead ...