House Infernal by Edward Lee (42 page)

Her thoughts ticked. She was nervous, yet excited at the
same time. What would he do if he caught me in here?

No answer came as she began to go through the desk
drawers.

I have a right to. There's too many fishy things going on.

The top drawer contained a framed picture of Father Whitewood, whose wise, healthful likeness bore little resemblance to the man now.

Uh-oh, she thought. Beneath the picture was a cross and
chain, and a pistol.

Don't overreact. If I were in charge here I might want a gun
around, too. After two murders?

She blinked fatigue out of her eyes. The bottom drawer
contained nothing but a single manila folder. I really
shouldn't do this, she thought, but opened the folder anyway. The top sheet was a newspaper clipping from
L'Osservatore, which she knew was the Vatican's daily
newspaper, but-just my luck-it wasn't the English version, it was Italian, a language she wasn't well-versed in.
It was dated October 25, 1985.

Just shy of my birthday, Venetia noted.

She flipped the page and found another newspaper
clipping, this one in English, from The Catholic Standard.
The article began:

VATICAN CITY-Today, with the Holy Father's blessing, the Vatican's Office of Permits and Licenses authorized a small-scale excavation of the Basilica's Holy
Sepulcher. Several plots of Christendom's earliest Popes
and Saints may have to be temporarily moved while engineers check for water seepage that could damage grave
liners. Among the exhumed is an ossuary thought to contain the remains of St. Ignatius of Antioch. As to how
long these holy remains would be out of their original
resting places, the Office remarked, "They will be reentombed with every possible promptitude."

Venetia stood in total befuddlement. Why would Father
Driscoll keep an article like this? It made no sense.

But then the thought kindled: Holy remains ... She
gulped at the coincidence.

Bones.

Only one sheet remained in the folder. Venetia picked
it up-

Her head spun. Her eyes went dry from not blinking.
What she stared down at in Driscoll's desk was something else penned by Tessorio, but not notes this time. It
was an old drawing:

The Involution.

The discovery nearly caused her to faint. f don't believe
it.... Driscoll must have known about the diagram all
along, yet acted like he didn't. And if that were the case, it
could only mean ...

Driscoll's part of the cult, too? Carrying on in Tessorio's
footsteps along with Freddie and these others?

The revelations only made her more light-headed. She
sat down at the desk, nearly in tears. What is going on in
this place? But wouldn't complicity explain Driscoll's peculiar absence? Venetia rubbed more fatigue out of her
eyes, thinking, I should go get Dan.

Then her teeth clacked together, as the familiar spike
of pain pierced her ears, along with the half shriek of a
voice, distorted like someone screaming through a
blown speaker. "Venetia! Venetia! For the love of God, can
you hear me?"

The manic voice filled her belly with prickly sensations.
She put hands to ears but could still hear the voice:

"You must find the Pith! You must bring the bones! Can you
hear me!"

"Yes!" she screamed. "Stop it! You're killing me!"

It was no exaggeration. This was the loudest she'd heard
the voice so far, and with trebled volume came trebled pain.

"1 can see everything you're seeing, Venetia! You're in
Driscoll's office, aren't you?"

"Yes!"

"And you just found a copy of the Involution in his desk-"

"Yes! My god, leave me alone!" Was the flayed voice
expanding the pressure in her brain? Would it split her
skull open?

"It's not just a drawing of the Involution! It's the original
guide Tessorio used while in contact with automatic-writers in
Hell!"

Venetia began to convulse.

"Turn it over! Venetia! Turn the drawing over!"

If she appeased the voice, would the pain abate? Her
hands blindly fumbled for the folder, found the last sheet,
and flipped it over.

Through the agony-driven vertigo, she could see a different version of the Involution, this one much crisper, all
straight lines and perfect angles, in blue ink. She noticed
dimensions jotted down along each of the rectangle's four
lines, and in the middle, where the spiral was, Tessorio
had written the words Atrium Floor.

"It's not a drawing, Venetia! It's a blueprint! Tessorio built
the prior house to the same specifications as Boniface's courtyard, and Boniface's courtyard is a Pourer Dolmen!"

Venetia fell out of the chair. I've got to wake myself up,
otherwise the voice'!l kill me.... She crawled for another
door in the corner which stood half-open; she could see a
light, a mirror, and a sink. A bathroom.

She could feel separate blood vessels in her brain beat
with the voice's exclamation: "It's going to be very soon, so
be ready, and don't be afraid!"

At the sink, she splashed water in her face; that and the
final lance of pain jolted her to full wakefulness. I'm going
to have to go to a shrink or a hospital or something!

She should probably call her mother, who'd insist on
the same thing. The awful vibrations in her belly faded
away in the next moments. For now, at least, she'd have to
find Dan....

She stopped when she turned around. On the floor near
the bathroom, she noticed the most unlikely of objects: a
wide-mouthed funnel.

"What on earth is that doing here?" she mumbled.

She leaned over, picked it up, then-

Her stomach nearly heaved. The funnel clattered to the
floor.

My God, is that-

The funnel's mouth was glazed with something wet ...
and red.

She refused to let herself believe it was blood. That
would be crazy...

Next, she found herself in dead silence, staring at the
closed shower curtain. What am I thinking? she thought.
Her mind wanted to leave but instead she was seized by a
modem yet very primal human instinct.

There's nothing behind there....

When Venetia pulled back the curtain, she screamed,
reeling backward, as-

Thwack!

An unseen blow struck her in the head from behind. The
last thing her eyes registered before she blacked out was
this: a very pale Father Driscoll lying crumpled in the tub,
one side of his throat cut so deep he was half-decapitated.

"Good God, I hope she heard me that time," Alexander
said, having just removed the Vox Untervelt from his lips.
Scarlet buildings shimmered around them; in the distance, the blood brick foundries fumed smoke that somehow sparkled. Ruth and Alexander walked down a busy
Demon-clogged street within the Hand of Glory's umbra,
unseen by all.

"The virgin chick. She answered, didn't she?" Ruth
asked. She was watching Maggot-Moths fly circles about
some flowers with eyeballs for stamens.

"Yes, but does she believe what she's hearing?" The
priest seemed to fret.

Ruth considered, If I heard a voice that said it was from
Hell, would I believe it? Not a fuckin' chance. I'd just lay off the
dope for a while. "And if she doesn't believe what you're
telling her ... what then?"

'Then we're-

"Fucked hard and never kissed?"

Alexander nodded, frowning. "Try not to cuss, Ruth.
Please?"

Fuck it. But Ruth did like the idea of walking undetected; no one could see her now, not dressed in the expensive Hand-Bra and Tongue-Skirt, and wearing the
Putridox face that once belonged to Voluptua. The priest
stopped at a busy corner. "Well, here's Carnivorous
Boulevard and Apraxia Street, and there"-his Annelok
arm pointed-"is the adoption agency."

EVIL BABY ADOPTION SERVICES, read the sign.

"Can't say I dig the name," Ruth remarked, "but I think
it's pretty cool that childless couples in Hell can adopt a
baby to care for and love."

"Ruth, Ruth, Ruth. You don't understand anything yet,
do you?" Alexander complained. "People here don't
adopt babies to raise like they do in the Living World."

"Then what do they adopt them for?"

"To sacrifice to Satan. What did you think?" He passed
her the Hand of Glory. "Hold this, I'll be right back."

Ruth took the appalling hand with flame-tipped fingers.
"So what do we need a baby for?" she asked, distressed.

Alexander didn't answer; he simply stepped out of the
umbra and entered the agency.

As if shit couldn't be weird enough, Ruth thought. She
stood tapping her bone-sandaled foot, and a few minutes
later Alexander returned. Reentering the umbra, he held
in his arms a pudgy little baby with a big smile and big
wide eyes. He also had little horns, fangs like a woodchuck, and green and black-spotted skin, but that hardly
mattered.

"He's so cute," Ruth rejoiced, then paused. "I'm mean ...
even though he's a Demon baby."

"Goo-goo, gaa-gaa," the baby blathered and burped.
Little pudgy hands reached up for Alexander.

"It's not as cute as you think," the priest said.

Next, the infant reached for one of Ruth's sizable
breasts. "I guess it's a boy baby, too, huh? And what do we
need a baby for anyway?" Ruth chuckled. "It's not like
we're gonna sacrifice it, right?" _

Alexander gave her a grim look ... as he pulled out his
knife.

"Bullshit, man!" she yelled. "I don't care if it is a
Demon-it's still a baby, for fuck's sake!"

"Ruth, you don't understand, and we don't have time
to bicker."

Ruth tried to yank the baby away. "No way, man! I
don't care if I have to stay here for fucking-ever! Killing
babies is where I draw the line."

Alexander's Annelok arm encircled Ruth's throat.
"Give it back. Our mission will fail unless you let me do
what I have to do," he said very slowly, and then the Annelok arm squeezed.

"Fuck you!" Ruth choked. Her eyes bugged. "You're as
evil as everything else here!" Now she grabbed for the
priest's knife, but as the pressure at her throat doubled,
she collapsed to half consciousness.

She could only see through the dimmest vision as
Alexander put the Demonic infant on the ground and-

"You evil motherfucker!" Ruth hacked.

-slit the baby's belly open. Astonishingly, the infant
didn't shriek but instead just kept making cutesy baby
noises.

The priest pulled something the size and shape of a soda
can out of the baby's stomach. Then he helped Ruth up.

"Sorry I had to-do that, Ruth, but you didn't let me explain."

"You just gutted a kid, you piece of shit!"

"It's not a kid. It only looks like a kid," he affirmed, and
actually held her head and made her look.

"Goo-goo ... gah!" the infant giggled and simultaneously deflated.

"What the fuck is happening?" Ruth asked.

No blood came out of the incised child, and instead of
internal organs leaking from the knife slash, all Ruth
saw was a mass of pulp that looked like uncooked
ground pork.

"It's not a real baby, Ruth. It's a manufactured thing
called a Hex-Clone, a product of occult genetic engineering. It's just a bag of cursed meat covered with Hexegenically engineered skin."

"A dummy baby?"

"Exactly. It's Hexed to sound and act like a baby, and it
was planted in the adoption agency by more confederates
of my intelligence source. And they hid this inside the
Clone's belly." He wiped off the cylindrical object.

"Looks like some kind of lantern," she noted as she examined the implement's wire frame surrounding a glass
jar. "Is that smoke inside?"

"Yes, but it's inert," Alexander explained. Beneath
him, the Hex-Clone had deflated to a near-empty sack of
skin, but the skull-less face still smiled. "Daa-daa!" it
gurgled.

The priest frowned. "It's called a Smoke-Light," he continued, and looked up through the Moon-Sextant again.

"Smoke-Light? What's it for?"

"I'll tell you along the way-the gauge reads sevenpoint-six."

Ruth swallowed.

"We have to go now, Ruth," Alexander said, and led her
down the shimmering block toward the entry road to the
Fortress Boniface.

Venetia regained consciousness in moon-spattered darkness. When she recalled her discovery in Father Driscoll's
bathtub, her muscles seized up ... and then she realized
that she'd been gagged and hog-tied. I'm in the woods, she
eventually realized. The blow to her skull left her head
throbbing so intensely that each throb threatened to push
her back into unconsciousness.

Whoever murdered Father Driscoll ... did this to me.

But who did it, and why?

Venetia's stomach tightened. Oh, my God-not Dan. It
couldn't be Dan.

But confusion and terror made it too hard to calculate.
Have to get myself untied. The woods she lay in seemed familiar, and when her eyes acclimated, she knew exactly
where she was; she could see moonlight reflecting off the pond. This is where Betta meets John every night. She
squinted further, then, and could see them....