House Infernal by Edward Lee (26 page)

"You're not a devil worshiper!" Berns said more loudly.
"You're a redneck chick in a low-rent dock town!"

"Oh, man, you're such a riot!" She giggled hoarsely.
"You don't get it and I don't expect you to. Freddie knew
we were all at the end of the line-he could see it. They
told him-"

They. The word seemed to echo in Berns' head.

"So that's why I stayed. That's why I took the rap and
let Dougie beat the heat."

Berns immediately wrote Dougie in his notebook
"What's Dougie's last name?"

Finally it hit her. "Oh, fuck, man! Fuck you!"

"You've got nothing to lose, Sue!" he yelled back. "And
you can believe this: the only party waiting for you is life
with no parole in the state lezzie-block!"

She waved another dismissive hand. "Aw, but you
know what? So what? Dougie's long gone anyway."

Bullshit. Berns remained convinced.

"And that ain't his real name anyway, just like Susan
Maitland ain't mine. You want to know what I'm going to
do the minute they put me in prison?"

"What's that, Sue?"

Her stained grin beamed almost like a light. "Find a
way to kill myself."

Suicide pact, Berns wrote down next. Freddie said the
same thing, he remembered.

Her mood shifted like a light switch being flicked.
"Look, man, I don't feel like talking no more. I'm tired.
Can I go back to my cell and sleep?"

"Yes, Sue. Do yourself a favor and change your mind.
Don't protect this other asshole. Talk to the state prosecutor and he'll probably deal."

"Naw. Fuck it. I'm just tired. I want to go to sleep ...
and dream."

"About the other side?"

"Man, you wish you had dreams like me-like all of us."

"I probably don't wish that, Sue." The thoughts kept
rolling over and over. A suicide pact in a Satanic cult? These
rednecks?

"I'll be a baroness," she was murmuring now, her eyes
closed. "And Freddie will be an arch duke...."

"Good luck tomorrow, Sue," he said as he began to get
up.

"Hey, man. Do me a favor?"

Now Berns saw her breasts in the loose shirt sitting on
the table like two baggies full of water. "Maybe. What?"

"Tell Freddie I love him and can't wait to see him
again."

Berns had to laugh at that one. "Sue, there is no way
you're ever gonna see him again. Even if we get him
transferred to a prison down here, it won't be anywhere near where you're going. Visitation between two convicts
is simply not allowed."

She rolled her eyes as if his reply had been naive. "Yeah,
yeah, sure. But tell him, will you?"

Berns turned at the door. "I'll tell him if you tell me
what the stuff was in the ashtray."

She winced, her wrinkles growing intense. "Shit, man,
I can't! Ask me something else!"

"All right." He stared her down. "What did you do
with the blood?"

Her grin turned lewd. "We drank it."

"You're full of shit, Sue. Have a good time doing life.
He opened the door.

"Wait! You're right. We didn't drink it. I was just
pulling your leg." She raised two fingers to her mouth to
denote fangs.

Then her voice got hoarse again, and this time her
smile sent a chill up his spine.

"We saved the blood-"

"Saved it?" he questioned, incredulous.

"We saved every last drop."

Berns left the room quickly, while Susan Maitland
yelled behind him, "You tell Freddie I still love him like
you promised, you cop fuck!"

Even without the salt-mask, Boniface wasn't capable of
showing fear in his expressions, not with most of the flesh
gnawed off of his face. Maskless now, he looked upon his
courtyard from the oculus window of his quarters ... and
shivered.

His own diviners were beginning to verify the same
now: there was a blemish in his aura; there was an irregularity in the Flux.

The Exalted Duke was trying to distract himself with
his favorite organic plaything, the court's Chief Soubrette,
Voluptua.

"Like this, my most revolting lord?" she inquired, looking up from his broad lap.

Boniface felt nothing now, his eternal lust ruined by
these new worries. Could it be her look that was growing
insufficient? Voluptua was his favorite doxie, whom he
reveled for most because she was nearly all Human,
which was rare in this arena of enhanced Hybrids. Her
large, over-full breasts, and skin unflawed as her last day
alive in the Living World reminded him so much of all the worldly women-including nuns-that he'd ravaged on
altars over a thousand years ago.

The Bi-Facial procedure amounted to Voluptua's only
Luciferic improvement. Perhaps it was his love of dichotomies that dictated this singular preference. The
erotic tinged by the nauseating; the beautiful flecked by
the hideous.

Hence Voluptua's only surgical enhancement: she had
two faces. The top face-which she almost always wore
for her master's pleasure-was the face of a Putridox, a
noseless thing from the Outer Sectors that had vertical
eyelids, a vertical mouth set in a visage like curdled porridge, and lumpen cheeks freckled by abscesses. Each
pock housed a Blood Maggot. It was perhaps the only
face in Hell more revolting than Boniface's.

Boniface didn't want to admit that his loins were betraying him. He needed inspiration. "Entertain me, harlot." His corroded hand gestured toward the blackly
shining Pasiphae, who stepped forth with a grin.

"Give succor to the Night-Mother, Queen of the
Labyrinth," Boniface ordered. "I know full well that you
love her."

Voluptua shuddered. "I love only you, my appalling
master."

Boniface didn't care. "Yes, yes, but ... give succor. It
amuses me to watch."

She got up from his lap, her face so foul that even the
Usher guarding the door turned away. On hands and
knees, Voluptua crawled to Pasiphae, who stood with
black hands on black hips, her gleaming black legs parted.

The Night-Mother sighed in bliss when Voluptua's repugnant mouth found the midnight black furrow of her sex.

"Yes," Boniface approved.

Pasiphae churned in place, her arousal swelling her
breasts. Her ink black hands caressed her own curves as
Voluptua's efforts grew more fervent. It wasn't long before the Night-Mother's release was imminent, and when
black fingertips self-stimulated the gorged black nipples,
it was milk as dark as crude oil that eddied out.

Then Pasiphae let out a silent shriek of bliss.

Boniface had grown partially aroused by the sight. But I
need more, he thought. "Void yourself now, into the face of
my whore," he ordered; then, to Voluptua, "Wouldn't you
enjoy that, my love? Wouldn't you?"

"Oh, yes, my detestable lord," Voluptua answered with
the greatest zeal.

Pasiphae parted her legs farther ... then emptied her
abyssal bladder into Voluptua's face. The stream of urine
was black as pitch.

When the debasement concluded, Boniface, bothered
by the stress of his worries, was still not ready to perform.
Rather than admit it, he pretended not to care, instead
grabbing Voluptua about the neck and thrusting her face
out the window. Several shrieks were heard from below.

"Look, my love, out into my courtyard. Let your demented vision drink in the sight of my Involution as it
nears completion."

The wench did so, her Human contours and hourglass
figure more inspiring than any he'd ever seen, andeven better-the physical perfection spoiled by the Putri-
doxic face.

"Do you see?"

Vertical eyelids blinked over eyes like dark phlegm. In
the courtyard the Unholy Carpenters had finished boiling
the long lengths of Druid Oak, carved them into troughs,
and bent them into exact geometric curvatures. From the
yard's southeast corner, they began to join each length.

"It's lovely, my most unblessed lord," came her low
but sugar-sweet voice from her vile mouth. "But I don't
understand...."

Boniface ran his foul hands down her sleek back and
thighs. "Of course you don't, my dear, because you're an
ignorant whore who has no capability of comprehension.
Right?-

"Oh, yes, my great Exalted Duke. You're quite right. Always right."

;'When the carpentry is finished, the trough will inscribe the most Unholy Spiral." A corrupt finger traced over the downy pubic mound in a corresponding spiral.
"Tell me how beautiful it will be."

The Soubrette turned, her large-nippled breasts standing out in ardor. The vertical mouth replied, "It will be as
beautiful as your own face, my great one," and with no
hesitation the bosom lowered and her face came to his,
and she kissed the lipless gouge that used to be his mouth.

Boniface's pallid flesh lay Iike something indescribable
on the lead-trimmed bed. Only a Soubrette as wellconditioned as Voluptua could even stand to look at him
without hemorrhaging. The Exalted Duke was that ugly.
His genitals lolled, just as indescribable.

"And now, my most worthless trollop," " he wheezed,
"kiss me again, but with your Human face."

As a Bi-Facer, Voluptua's Human face was kept hidden
beneath the scarf, the only garment she wore on these occasions. Her stomach flattened and her breasts rose as she
straightened her stance, grabbed her long blond hair ...
and pulled.

So horribly lovely, Boniface thought, eyes raving at the
surgical wonder.

The detestable face of the Putridox slipped over Voluptua's skull, and when it was pulled up sufficiently, it could
no longer be seen, tucked back as it was under the shiny
blond mane and now replaced by the same beautiful Human face she'd worn in the Living World.

Now her Human lips joined the monstrous Duke's,
tongue roving unabashedly in the pitted cavity.

"And now-_- he demanded, "a final kiss-for your
dear father, whose Spirit I personally sent to occupying the
body of a dander flea." Then he raised the stick to which
the severed head of Voluptua's biological father had been
spiked. Its brain had long been evacuated and burned,
while the flesh of its face now hung in rotten tatters.

Voluptua kissed the dead lips with just as much passion.

"Now beout of my sight, you useless property," Boniface
said, "and tell Willirmoz that his presence is demanded."

"Oh, yes, my lord!" she replied and moved off. Several
lower-scale Soubrettes appeared at once to dress the Chief Odalisque back in her Tongue-Skirt and Hand-Bra, while
still more re-dressed Boniface and replaced his mask.
Voluptua and Pasiphae scurried off, hand in hand.

Waiting for the High Priest and Lithomancer, Boniface
watched the Nicht-Mir-a mirror that was sacrificeconditioned and served as an infernal surveillance camera that offered views of the fortress's most critical areas,
including the Lower Chancel.

My Angels, he mused, watching the silver veins. The invisible Warding bonds could be seen laying grooves in the
Angels' skin. They howled in the most mindless agony as
the Archlocks and Torturians wielded their psychic torments: Heart-Pricking Spells, Psychic Branding, and Aura
Toxins, all to further drive the pregnant Angels utterly insane but to leave their physical bodies unscathed.

Boniface watched the most pregnant of the six convulse
as a Marrow-Boiling Spell was inflicted. Silent screams
bulged the celestial eyes into embers of hatred; the paralyzed wings quivered on the semitangible slab, while the
belly shined with so much agonized sweat.

So plump now; so ready to give up the wares of their tainted
wombs to the Living World ...

"A most holy sight, my lord." Willirmoz appeared, also
looking at the mirror. "And so soon now, the fruit that is
most perfect will be in your hands, ready to deliver to our
ultimate Master."

Boniface's grub white finger pointed to the oculus.
"And as you can see..."

The High Priest gazed out from blackened eyes. "The
darkest miracle yet, my lord. The troughs designed to
mimic the most blessed and unholy configuration in existence ... is nearly complete."

The deplorable face of salt jerked up, "Yes, but none of
it will be any good if it's sabotaged by our adversaries."

"It won't be, oh most detestable one."

"And you, the most proficient diviner in the Mephistopolis, doesn't even know who these adversaries are
yet. So don't patronize me. I'm expecting the Divinations
from your own Guild. Do you have them?"

The charred hand raised a scrolled stemma. "Of course,
lord, as you so ordered."

"And?"

"The Rot-Port District is free of negative auric disturbances. The Vulgaressa reports that her forces have
slaughtered several hundred Contumacy insurgents as
well as dozens of suspicious stragglers."

The obscene meat of Boniface's heart went lax in relief.
Thank Satan....

But then the Wizard's tone changed, to something hesitant. "However I must also report, my most wretched
master, that the latest Extipicisms have hinted that the
threat may have moved through the Waste District, and is
now headed out, to parts south."

South, Boniface thought, his dread hidden beneath the
salt-mask. That's us....

"And the Bloodmancers from Tepesville are inclined to
divine that some counteroccult energy may be at work as
well. Not necessarily in league with them, but ... we
must be cautious."

"Your honesty serves you well, Willirmoz," the Duke's
voice fluttered. "Many he to me when they bear bad
news."

"But this isn't bad news, lord." The burned heretic
leaned closer, with something like elation in his ruined
voice. "My own private Divinations have divulged that
these adversaries you so fear are but two pitiable members
of the Human Damned-"

"What? Not Hybrids? Not Demonic?"

"No, Duke. And even more laughable, they are Newcomers."

Boniface wanted to cry with joy.

"Even with Contumacy support, it is statistically and
metaphysically impossible for a mere pair of Newcomers
to infiltrate your great endeavor."