House Infernal by Edward Lee (41 page)

"Tell me about it." Berns leaned against the booking
desk as the six dead officers were taken out on stretchers.
"I figured Jones wrong. Thought he was just a dumb fanatic punk."

"This was organized. He must've had an accomplice
waiting around the station, which is damn near impossible."

"Not damn near. It is impossible," Berns insisted.
"There's no way Jones could've contacted an accessory to
let them know he'd been busted."

Moxey snorted. "Captain, somebody shot six veteran
cops in the head. There's no way Jones could've pulled
that off himself, even if he'd had a piece hidden on him."
A glare. "You frisked him, didn't you?"

I ought to punch this asshole in the face, then quit. Fuck it.
"He was frisked five or six times. He wasn't hiding a
piece." Berns struggled not to shout.

"Got the playback loaded up, sir," " a tech guy said from
the security office. They walked back to the small room
full of TV screens.

"Here comes the moment of truth, Captain," Moxey
sniped to Berns then, to the technician, "Roll'em."

He was playing back the surveillance tapes. "Screen
One's the booking room, two is the hall, three's the jail
anteroom," the tech said, and pushed a button. Berns
watched the grainy screens and saw two cops taking a
handcuffed Dougie past the front desk, where the booking sergeant sat. The sergeant smirked. They passed the
property room, where another cop looked up from his
desk, moved down the hall on the second screen past a
third cop, then passed three more police waiting in the
jailway on the third screen.

"Nun killer, huh?" one cop remarked. The cell door
swung open. "Takes a tough man to kill a nun."

"You pigs can kiss my ass," Dougie said, smirking.
"Come on, uncuff me." Then another cop shoved him.

"Shut up, punk. Big bad Satanist. What's the matter,
your mommy lock you in a closet when you were little?" a
cop said, then shoved Dougie again.

"Hey, that's assault! I got my rights!" Jones complained.
All five cops chuckled.

Now the biggest cop unlocked Dougie's cuffs and prepared to put him in the cell. "You got anything to say,
shithead?"

Dougie turned, grinning, before the cell door could be
closed. "The only thing I've got to say to you ... is this:
Stekk ceffaen mzeluum eoziforus ... "

Berns felt a knot in his gut. The screen jiggled a little;
the camera was looking down from a high corner, and he
could see the backs of all three police in the hall. They all
just stood there, as if looking at Dougie.

One at a time, each cop calmly withdrew his service revolver, put it to his own head, and-

Berns flinched, gritting his teeth. Moxey rubbed his
eyes. The three shots sounded unreal over the reproduction, and the muzzle flashes momentarily whited-out the
screen. Two more shots were heard from the hall and
property room.

Berns' eyes darted to the first screen. The booking sergeant looked drugged. Then he put his gun to his head
and squeezed the trigger.

Dougie walked out to the booking room. He seemed to
fiddle with something on the desk, then took the
sergeant's gun. Was he whistling a tune? Lastly, he
winked up at the camera and left the building.

"Holy mother of God," Moxey muttered. That accusatory edge to his voice was gone.

"There's our accomplice," Berns said, still in disbelief.
"No accomplice. Multiple suicide."

Moxey's lower lip trembled. "Captain Berns. How do
you account for what we just saw?"

"Well, if I didn't know better, I'd say that Dougie
Jones, a self-proclaimed Satanist, just initiated some kind of occult spell that made six of my cops blow their own
heads off."

"That's ridiculous, Captain-"

"I know, sir. So how do you account for it?"

Moxey stared. "I-I-I ... I can't."

Don't think about it, don't think about it, Berns reinforced
over and over. It's impossible, so don't try to figure it out. He
didn't believe in the occult; he only believed that other
people did. Delusional people. Crazy people.

Instead, he stuck to objective tasks. He put out an immediate APB for Douglas B. Jones, and also sent his picture to every newspaper and television station in the
region. Now he sat in his makeshift office at the substation, which had been restaffed by more county cops from
Manchester. The bodies were all gone now, and the evidence section was finishing up.

Still, the atmosphere of death clung to the air. "I'm going out for coffee-be right back," he said, and walked out.

Four girls in bikinis traipsed down the boardwalk, but
Berns didn't notice. An old man in a stained raincoat and
rotten sneakers shuffled by, searching garbage cans. A
dirty hand stuck out.

"God spake that charity will be rewarded in Heaven,"
the wizened voice begged.

Berns, oblivious, shrugged and gave him five bucks.

"May the Lord keep you and bless you," " the old man
creaked, and shuffled away.

He sure as shit didn't bless me today.

His cell phone ringing in his pocket gave him a jolt. uN-
xNowN NUMBER, the screen read. Berns answered it anyway. "Berns here."

"Hey, Captain..." The voice sounded as wiry as the
description of the caller. "How'd you like my work back
at your rinky-dink station?"

Berns suddenly felt melted to the bench he occupied.
"Where are you, Dougie?"

"You'll find out but by then I'll be long gone." Then a
laugh.

Berns' throat turned as dry as the sidewalk. "How'd
you do it? I saw the security tapes." In the background he
heard motor noise. Bus station? Airport? he wondered.

"You know how I did it, Captain." Dougie sounded as
cocky as Freddie Johnson.

Berns stood and snapped, "What? The Involution,
Eosphorus? Some Satanic shit like that!" He yelled,
"Level with me!"

"You did a pretty good job." Dougie cracked a laugh.
"But not good enough. That's why I'm moving on, taking
our business somewhere else."

Passersby gaped as Berns stood red-faced, blaring into
the phone: "How'd you do it? What? Don't say it was some
Satanic spell, Dougie! Don't say it was some voodoo fucking bullshit!"

A reserved titter. "It was a Self-Annihilation Hex, Captain-"

"Bullshit!"

"But don't worry. I can only do one. I'm just an Underling. Freddie was the Myrmidon. When he martyred himself for Iblis and the Exalted Duke Boniface, some of his
wisdom came over to me. It's a piece of work, Captain ...
when you're a believer. But the Hex was nothing. Know
what else I inherited? The Power of Unholy Decryption.
Now I can read the Intercessions myself."

"Don't give me that fucking occult bullshit, Dougie!"
Berns screamed.

"And I have the copy, since that night we burgled Freddie's room at the Wharfside on Fifth-"

Berns' eyes shot wide. "Yeah, Dougie, and I have the
original! Sue Maitland said they were instructions! Instructions for what? More nun murders? More sacrifices?"

"We call them Involutionary Oblations, Captain."

"And what language is it written in? Some gobbledygook Satan language you made up with your little devil
club?"

Another titter. "Oh, you want to know so you can have
it translated, huh? Well, you know what, Captain? Today's
your lucky day. The Intercessions are written in Zraetic."

u 11h at?"

Dougie roared laughter. "And don't hold your breath
trying to find someone who knows it. I gotta split, Captain. I just jacked me a car off a pretty hot babe, had some
fun with her, too-after I blew her head off with the gun I
pinched from one of your guys-"

"Don't you hang up, Dougie!"

"You wanna know why you'll never catch me, Captain?
'Cos you don't believe in anything-"

"Don't hang up!"

"Hail Boniface-"

"Dougie!" Berns screamed.

"Praise be to Lucifer-"

Then Dougie hung up.

"Praise be to God," Dan said with a great grin after Venetia told him what had happened at the convenience store.

"Amen," Mrs. Newlwyn agreed. "The Lord, indeed,
watches over His flock."

The three of them said a short prayer of thanks in the
atrium. But Venetia was still shaking.

"I just can't believe it," she said. "And Captain Berns
thinks the case is over now." Through the high, narrow
windows, the sunset approached. I just came very close to
never seeing one again ... "I can't wait to tell Father
Driscoll."

"Where is he?"

"I haven't seen him all day," Dan said. "But I know he
said he had to go to the diocese."

"Well, he must be back-his car's out front."

Dan nodded. "He's around someplace. This morning
he told me to set up the buffer to make sure it's working.
For some reason it's my duty alone to buff the entire
atrium floor tomorrow. But Driscoll never told me where
the buffer was."

"I'll-I'll show you," John offered, crossing the atrium
with some paint buckets. "It's upstairs in storage."

"Thanks." Then Dan caught Venetia's eye. "I'm going
into town later tonight, if you want to come along."

That's his way of inviting me to that awful bar again, she
realized. He just doesn't want to say it in front of Mrs. Newlwyn. "I'll pass tonight, Dan."

"Whatever. See you all later," Dan said to everyone, and
followed John.

Mrs. Newlwyn seemed puzzled. "It seems that Father
Driscoll isn't the only one who's made himself scarce."

"What's that, Mrs. Newlwyn?"

"I haven't seen Betta, either. She's been acting rather secretive lately."

Venetia held her tongue. She's probably taking a nap 'cos
she doesn't get much sleep at night. Ask John about that. "I'm
going to look for Father Driscoll. If I see Betta, I'll tell her
you want her."

"Thank you, dear." The tall woman made for the
kitchen, leaving Venetia in the darkening atrium. She
wandered, checking the downstairs offices. What do I tell
Mom about this Dougie Jones business? She dreaded the
question.

Fatigue caught up quickly. Part of her wanted to take a
nap; the terrifying ordeal at the store had sapped her. But
still she felt impelled to look around. Every office she
checked was musty and unoccupied. As she continued,
she contemplated her strange encounter with the priorturned-bum Father Whitewood. Wish I hadn't lost that note,
she thought. But he was just a nutty old man. The murders
last spring must've pushed him over the edge, poor man.

As she followed the wall to the next office, she noticed a
book on the shelves that wasn't flush with the others. Instinct made her pull it out. The Catholic Recipe Book! was
the title. Meals for Godly Living!

What could be more boring? she wondered. Mrs. Newlwyn's probably been looking at it.... Then her heart leapt
when she withdrew a slip of paper from inside.

This is definitely no recipe.

Another note in Tessorio's hand. A word list?

The heretical priest had written:

Sacrifant: a hellbound Human whose blood is let for
specific-often transpositional-rites.

Myrmidon: an earthbound Believer who follows infernal
instructions, often via automatic writing or channeling.

Chastitant: an "unspoiled" crossbreed whose purity
overrides infernal instinct. Typically one of six. May
befemale or male.

Morte-Cisterna: a font, carafe, or other closed container
in which Sacrifant blood is stored for precursory decomposition.

Venetia put the yellowed sheet back, knowing by whom
it had been touched so long ago. It repulsed her like a
wrapper of something rotten. More of Tessorio's madness,
she thought, which eventually touched poles with the same
madness forty years later.

Were Freddie, Sue, and Dougie really new members of
an occult sect that Tessorio was once a part of?

The odds seemed astronomical but then she couldn't
deny the Eosphorus link.

And Driscoll hadn't been exaggerating when he'd told
her of Tessorio's fondness for hiding arcane notes amid
the atrium's thousands of books. Two shelves down she
found another one, entitled Catholic Conspiracy & the Vietnam War. The title was nonsensical but inside was an
older, more yellowed sheet of paper. It read: The blood must
be voided through the throat.

Venetia dropped the sheet, mortified. There's another
link if ever there was one.... The two women murdered last
March had had their throats cut. By Freddie, Dougie, and
Sue, she reminded herself. More than four decades after Tessorio wrote this.

The atrium windows darkened. She thought again of
her last spell or nightmare, or whatever. You must find the
Pith! You must find the bones! the manic voice had
shrieked. Bones? she wondered. And what on earth was a
Pith? Hadn't Whitewood's note also mentioned a Pith?

Yes. Take heed not to be sacrificed by mistake, the priest turned-bum had scrawled. Only you can rightly enter the
Pith.

Venetia shook her head. The entire event had been so
bizarre. These spells; these voices that could only be the
product of nightmare ...

Nevertheless ...

She stuck her head in Father Driscoll's office again but
there was no sign of him. The portable AC unit hummed.
She walked straight to a bookshelf and found a big dictionary and flipped to the Ps.

pith n. 1. Botany. The soft, spongelike substance at
the center of plant stems.

"That can't be it. Plants?" she muttered. But there was a
second definition.

2. The central point or core of a crucial thing or event.

A pith, she reflected. A center point. The definition left
her more confused. The central point of what?

The prior house itself?

The notion made her stomach hitch, but then she noticed
another door she'd previously presumed was a closet.

It stood open now, yet didn't lead to a closet.

Another room, an office behind the office. How curious. A
smaller, book-lined office with a desk and computer. The
latter observation infuriated her. He told me I couldn't go
online with my laptop because the phone lines weren't working! She could easily see not only a phone on the desk
but another phone cable going into the back of the computer.