House Infernal by Edward Lee (18 page)

"Yuh-yes."

"We can only communicate when you're in a state of fatigue because your subconscious blocks are down and your
brain waves are optimum. We lose contact if you fall asleep or
come fully awake. Try to maintain your fatigue, try to stay
semiconscious."

Her brow furrowed in the dark. "That doesn't make
sense."

"1 know it doesn't ... because everything is opposite here.
What makes sense to you makes no sense here. Your moon is
white, Venetia. Ours is black. Your science is our sorcery; our
logic is your madness. You have enchantments, we have disenchantments, and where your world strives for order, our world
strives for chaos. Please understand, you must understand."

The pain was barely there anymore; her fatigue began
to reach up....

"Please don't go to sleep! Damn! How can I convince you?"
Was there a sound like hooves on pavement? The voice
seemed to speak to someone else. "Don't worry, Ruth, it's
just a Halberdier Squad looking for Broodren to chop."

Ruth? "Huh?"

The voice sharpened. "Your name is Venetia Barlow.
You're a theology student from Catholic University and right
now you're working for the New Hampshire Diocese at a place
called St. John's Prior House. Am I right?"

"Yes," Venetia said.

"How could I know that?"

"Because you're just my subconscious mind!" she almost yelled in reply. "My subconscious mind would
know that, you moron!"

"All right... let me think. Turn on the light and look in the
mirror. Look directly at the reflection of your own eyes."

She felt more of the haze embracing her. "Why?"

"Because then you could see me. If you saw me, you'd be
convinced."

Now she yawned but the prospect also made her tremble a little. It's just a stupid dream.... "I don't want to see you, whoever you are." Then she giggled. "Oh, yeah, my
subconscious."

"Venetia, my name is Thomas Alexander. I'm a Catholic
priest from Richmond. I was working at an old abbey in Russell
County-"

"So what?"

"-when I died. I died about ten years ago."

I really have to hand it to my subconscious, she thought
loopily. This is one bizarre dream. "Oh, so you're dead, huh?"

"Yes, and you might be too if you don't believe me-" Another crackling pause as though something were distracting the voice. "Ruth, can't you see I'm trying to talk here!
Don't touch that! It'll bite!"

"Who's Ruth?" Venetia slurred.

"My assistant. She's here with me too; her name's Ruth
Bridges, from Collier County, Florida. Remember that."

"What on earth for?"

The voice seemed to pitch in and out again, like a radio
station getting too far away. "Look it up on the Internet, and
look up my name, too. Then you'll believe me, and we can make
some progress. "

"This is stupid, this is a dream...."

"For God's sake, don't fall asleep!"

The trebled volume gave her heart a lurch.

The voice spoke again to this imaginary Ruth person.
"She doesn't believe me. She thinks I'm just a voice in a dream. "

Did a woman's voice reply? "Then I guess you're fucked,
huh?"

"1 know." Louder. "Venetia, listen! You just knocked a piece
of plaster out of the wall, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"And there's a word underneath the plaster."

"Some letters," she groggily replied.

"Not just some letters, it'; -a word."

Venetia smiled in the dark. "Tell me the word because I
haven't seen it yet. If you tell me the whole word then you
can't be my subconscious. But you can't do that, can you?"

"The word is Losphorus. "

Now her mind ticked through the crushing fatigue.
"That's not Latin, is it?"

"It's Greek. It means torchbearer."

"Huh?" She was drifting again.

"1 knew it, we're losing her." The voice was getting tiny
behind the crackling. "She'll wake up in the morning and
think it was all a dream. We're getting nowhere with this."

"Fuckin' sucks, man," the woman's voice seemed to say.
"You ever gonna tell me what the fuck this shit's all about?"

Venetia-was confused. "Where are you talking to me
from?"

"I told you yesterday." The man's voice returned with
some clarity. "I'm in a city called the Mephistopolis."

Meph- She struggled through the drowse. "Where's
that?"

Wind seemed to sweep through the crackling pause.
"It's in Hell."

The voice was gone, leaving a swollen silence in the
room and Venetia's eyes wide open. The dream's final
words left her unpleasantly awake, like after watching a
gruesome horror movie late at night. This is so crazy. But at
least she felt much better than after her last bout with this.
Voices from Hell. Where's my mind getting this stuff?

Just go to bed. Don't worry about it.

She couldn't recall the conscious impulse that triggered
her next action. When her full awareness returned, the
dresser lamp was back on and there was a pile of chipped
plaster by the baseboard.

She'd used her nail file to chip, scratch, and gouge away
a nine-inch-long area of plaster.

The word stared back in her face.

EOSPHORUS.

Ruth lowered the Vox Untervelt from Father Alexander's
lips.

"So much for that," he said, discouraged.

"You think she didn't believe you?"

"We'll see. If she checks those details out, she might."

"Yeah, or maybe the only thing she'll check is herself ... into a fuckin' psych ward.

"You have such a way with words, Ruth."

"And why is it so important that you talk to this
chick?"

"In time," Alexander said, using his favorite reply. He
still sat propped up on the Rot-Port public bench.

In time, my ass.... When Ruth looked down at some
weeds growing up through the spongy sidewalk cracksa rot-walk, really-she noticed sneering faces within the
persimmon-colored flowers. She scuffed some of the rot
growing there with her flip-flop, to reveal the pavement
itself. There were chunks of bone, finger- and toenails,
and teeth mixed with the concrete. This place sucks. A tree out in the rot-lawned park looked like a willow, but
the tip of every leaf seemed to excrete some milky fluid.
Clumps of what she thought were Spanish moss dangled
from the thin branches, but looking closer she realized
they were simply clumps of organic rot.

The priest caught her gazing at it. "A Seeping Willow.
Stay away from the stuff dripping from the leaves. It'll get
you pregnant with something that's ..

Ruth could imagine. She pointed to the Vox Unteraelt
around Alexander's neck. "So, what? We gotta wait another day for this chick to get tired before you can talk to
her again?"

"Correct."

Ruth tried to remain focused on whatever arcane task
was in the priest's head but the surroundings just unnerved her too much. "Man, can we just get the fuck out
of this rotten place?"

"Come on, Ruth. At least try to tone down the language. It's ungodly."

v "Fuck that shit, man." She indecorously spat, trying to
to evacuate the taste of the District's meaty air. "Look.
Even the grass is rot. Let's split."

"I know you hate it here, Ruth, but we're not done in RotPort yet," the priest informed. "Roll up my left sleeve."

Ruth gaped at him. "Roll it up over what?"

"Just roll it up."

She rolled the black sleeve up over a scabbed and grisly
stump. Whoever'd chopped off his arms had only left
about six inches of stump. "Why am I doing this?"

"What's it say? The calligraphy?"

The fuck's he ... But then she saw it. A scarlet scar like
the most deftly inked tattoo read: 1500 Block, Cadaverine &
Pestiferous St. South.

"It's right down the road. Strap me up and head that
way," he said with encouragement, pointing his stump.

Ruth harnessed him up, still unbelieving of her plight.
"You got directions written on your skin?"

"Yes. It was written by a twelfth-century friar who worked in a scriptorium in Spain. He had a problem with
lust so that's why he wound up in Purgatory. Writes beautifully, though."

This is the dumbest-ass bunch of shit.... Ruth hauled him
down the hot street on her back, sputtering. "So where are
we going now?"

"Women like to shop, right?"

"Yeah," she replied, stretching the word.

"We're going shopping now, Ruth. To get you some
new clothes."

LILITH'S WOMENS& DEMONSWEAR ANNEX #5315, the rotframed sign read.

"What's this? A fuckin' Victoria's Secret in Hell?"

"Exactly," the priest said behind her ear. "It's a state
store. They're everywhere."

"So it's, like, communism here? Everything owned by
the state?"

"Oh, no, that's far too uniform for Hell. It's everything.
Communism, socialism, anarchism, oligarchy, tyranny,
and good old free-enterprise. When you throw them all
together, none of them work. That's the way Lucifer wants
it. And it makes the economy ripe for corruption and
deptocracy."

Ask a s i l l y question ... , Ruth thought. She pushed in
through the fungus-stained glass door and was at once
greeted by a smiling, lavender-skinned Succubus who
wasn't wearing a stitch. Yellow nipples and lips contrasted the odd hue, and what should have been the
whites of her eyes were maroon. She was bald and had a
pair of tiny black horns on her pate. Canine teeth showed
through the smile. "May I help you?"

"We're looking for a nice bra and miniskirt," Alexander
told the pretty Demonness. "Provocative yet refined. I'm
particularly interested in something from the exclusive
Bloody Mary line."

The attendant paused. "That's the most expensive line
in Hell, Father, and they only make one style of bra and
one style of skirt."

"I'm aware of that. Are a thousand Hellnotes per garment enough?"

The smile sharpened. "Oh, yes." Her words seemed to
come from everywhere but her mouth. "Follow me."

Ruth trudged behind, noticing the clerk's sleek physique
and impeccable curves. "She's got a pretty good body for
a ... whatever the fuck she is."

"A Succubus, Ruth. A female Sex-Demon. You can tell
by the eyes that she's First Caliph. That means she's a direct descendant of the Lilitu herself."

"Who?"

"Lilitu, otherwise known as Lilith. Various rabbinic
texts define her as either Adam's first wife or the Demonic imposture he left Eve for in the Garden of Eden.
She's a favorite of Lucifer, the Whore Mother of Hell."

"Shit, I think a guy I was in love with called me that
once."

The priest chuckled. "What was your reaction?"

Ruth recalled the satisfaction. "I-busted a fuckin' toilet
tank cover over his head, then took his cash and sold his
Corvette to a chop shop. The fucker."

The Succubus took them into a dressing booth, the curtain of which was comprised of what appeared to be
linked ceramic triangles. When Ruth looked closer, however, she saw that the triangles were teeth.

"Teeth from Excre-Leeches," Alexander said. "That
means this is a posh place."

"If you'll just give me a second," the Succubus said,
and then-

"Hey! Hands off the goods, honey!" Ruth exclaimed.
"Unless you want some black-and-blue to go along with
your purple skin!"

The Succubus had opened her long-fingered hands directly over Ruth's melon-sized breasts. "I need to size
you, miss!" she snapped back.

"Then get a fuckin' tape measure!"

"Ruth, relax," Alexander said wearily. "That's how they
do things here."

"Jesus!"

"And I'd get a more accurate measurement," the Demonness added, "if you'd take off those ratty Living
World clothes."

"Ratty?" Ruth wanted to hit her. "I got these clothes at
Beach Access, where all the Florida celebrities buy their
beach clothes!"

"Ruth ..." The priest sighed. "Just do what she says."

Oh, for shit's sake! Ruth unharnessed Alexander and
placed his torso on the seat, then-frowning mightilytook off her T-shirt and cutoffs.

The Succubus' grin turned salacious; then she glided
her sleek hands over all of Ruth's physical contours.

I can't believe I'm letting myself be felt up by this ... this
horned thing!

Maroon eyes paused over Ruth's very full breasts. Then
the Succubus hissed and left the stall.

Ruth laughed. "I love it! That purple bitch is pissed off
'cos I got better boobs than her!"

"Remember that pride is a deadly sin," the priest told
her from his nook. "Instead you might want to try being
grateful for your God-given beauty."

v Ruth didn't want to hear it. She turned around and at
once felt uneasy. Her nude body felt as though it were
blazing. "I guess ... I'm a little uncomfortable being in a
dressing room with a guy watching."

He smiled. "Especially when they guy's a priest, huh?"

"Yeah, a priest torso."

"But I must extend my compliments, Ruth. You look
quite good for thirty-nine."

"I'm only-" The objection collapsed. "Fuck. No point
lying to you."

"That's right. You fared very well for an adulthood of
reckless abandon. All that booze and dope, for over two
decades, with no discipline whatsoever."

"Make me feel like a million fuckin' bucks, why
don'tya?"

"I'm just making a point. Life blessed you with great
genes, and those same great genes will serve us well in
Death."

Was the priest staring at her?

"Hey, I appreciate the compliment and all, and I'm glad
you like my body, but don't you get yourself worked up
because there ain't no zany I'm gonna do anything about it.
Not with a talking torso."

"Don't worry, it's nothing like that. I'm a priest, which
means I don't have sex."

"You've never been with a woman, ever in your life?"

"I've been with lots of women. Two hundred and sixteen, to be exact."