House Infernal by Edward Lee (6 page)

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!"

"Oh, man," Alexander muttered to himself. "This ain't
gonna be easy." His gaze snapped back to her. "What's
the last thing you remember before you found yourself
here?"

"I-I-I ..." Her teeth chattered in spite of stifling heat.
"I'm ... from Florida. I was ... helping two guys pick up
some pot, but then-uh, shit, I can't remember!"

"You will. It takes awhile." The boat pitched slowly back
and forth. The stumps of the priest's arms kept moving like
he was one of those people who talked with their hands but
he'd forgotten he didn't have any. "Here's the scoop. For
your worldly sins and your rejection of God, you've been
condemned to Hell. My story's a little bit different, though.
I'm not like you, I'm not one of the Human Damned, but I
didn't go to Heaven when I died either. I went to a place
called Purgatory-it's a city in one of the Netherplanes. It's
not as bad as Hell, but ... it ain't that great. And I have to be
there for five thousand years before my sins are purified
and my Spirit can transcend to Heaven."

"Five thousand years!" Ruth wailed. "How long do I
have to wait before my sins are purified?"

Alexander didn't answer.

Ruth's face fell to her hands; she began to blubber like a
baby.

"There is hope, and I'll tell you about it in time,"
Alexander added.

Ruth wasn't even listening now. She was-quite
understandably-inconsolable.

"Ruth, listen. There's more-a lot more. I need you to
get yourself together-"

v "How can I fucking get myself together? I'm sitting in a
boat in a sea of blood listening to a priest who's a torso
tell me I'm dead and in Hell!"

"One thing at a time!" the priest yelled. He was getting
irate. "You and I have a job to do. But I need your help and
you need mine."

Ruth paused at the words ... then her eyes bugged. "I
need your help? How can you help me? You're a fucking
torso!"

"Tell me about it," the priest lamented. "It only happened yesterday. Like I said, I knew you'd be arriving. I
have an intelligence source, you might say. This current is
going to take us to a port town-"

"A town?" Her lower lip quivered. "But you said we're
in Hell. Hell doesn't have towns. It's like ... fire and brimstone and shit, right? It's caves and rocks and lava and flames and holes in the ground that devils come out of,
right?"

"Not anymore, Ruth. Think about it. Ten thousand
years ago, what did America look like?"

Ruth's not-terribly-powerful mind churned. "I don't
know! Just woods, I guess!"

"Right. Just one great expanse of wilderness. Hell was
the same way, just with different natural attributes. But
ten thousand years later? America's the most industrialized nation on earth, and most of its population lives in
big cities, and the same for lots of other countries on
earth. It's because during that time the human race
evolved, Ruth. Human beings learned things, then passed
that knowledge on to the next generation. Over the ages
people got smarter and smarter, and became more and
more resourceful. They turned the wilderness into a
mechanized, sophisticated society. Get it?"

Ruth stared at him. "I don't know what the fuck you're
talking about!"

Alexander tried to rub his temples, then sighed when
he remembered the reason he couldn't. "Ruth, the same
thing happened in Hell. Just as the human race evolved
on earth, the demonic race evolved in Hell. It's not a
smoking sulphur pit anymore. It's a great big industrialized city. And that city is called the Mephistopolis."

Ruth sat and let the words sink in.

"Here, look for yourself. Take my Roman collar off and
reach into my shirt."

Ruth raised a brow. "You putting moves on me?"

"Just do it!" Alexander yelled, his patience draining.

Ruth fumblingly did as she was told. "What are these?"

"They're several pendants around my neck. Pull them
out.,,

Ruth yanked upward, and out came one pendant that
was attached to some sort of horn, another with a little
bag on it, and another with a small wooden box on it.

"Open the box and take out the Abyss-Eye."

"The what?" Ruth asked, her knees in some indescribable muck.

"You ever heard of a monocle, Ruth? You know, like
Colonel Klink wears?"

"Hey, I remember him on TV!"

Alexander nodded, smirking. "Well this is the same
thing, only it's-well, you can think of it as magic. You
put it over your eye, just like Colonel Klink, then ... you
look."

Ruth opened the box and howled. "You fucker! It's an
eyeball! What kind of a sick fucker are you?"

The priest groaned. "It's a magic eyeball, Ruth. Okay?
Things here are magic. In the Living World it's science.
Here it's magic."

The object was indeed a raw eyeball, but smaller than
human and with a vertical iris. It had been set in a brass
ring the size of a silver dollar.

"Abyss-Eye," she said very slowly and turned it in her
fingers. "So that's ... a demon's eyeball in it?"

"Not quite. It's the eye of an Dentata-Vulture. It's a
Hellborn bird that's sort of Hell's equivalent to a bald eagle. They have extremely good vision."

She kept looking at it. At one point, the eye blinked and
Ruth yelped, bobbling the Abyss-Eye in her hands.

"Be careful! That thing was very hard to get! It's irreplaceable!"

Ruth put a hand to the Yucx Foo T-shirt-plastered to her
chest, letting her heart slow down. "Fuck ... So I'm supposed to-"

"Just put it to your eye, Ruth."

Her fingers faltered as she raised the bizarre device to
her eye, and-

"Holy ever-loving si ..."

She was looking out past the bow, then-

She went rigid in a silence that lasted quite a while.

In the distance, there was a craggy line between where
the scarlet sea and the bloodred sky came together. When
she strained her own eye, the Abyss-Eye zoomed. That's
when she saw the city...

Crooked skyscrapers shot up into the soot-tinged horizon, interspersed by lower, squat buildings whose chim neys gushed smoke of all colors. From some buildings she
saw heads on spikes, and between others, from things
like clotheslines, squirming bodies hung from nooses
around their necks. Several of the lines were probably a
mile long. One Gothic spire had a clock just below its
oddly angled and skull-ornamented roof.

But the clock had no hands.

Lower, she saw churches, or things like churches, that
seemed to shudder as if alive, with black steeples marked
by inverted crosses and cryptic symbols. Things like bats
plunged down from the soiled sky to pluck screaming
figures from rooftops, and along the sides of the tallest
skyscrapers, hairless gray-skinned creatures crawled up
and down, fast as field mice defying gravity. A group of
black-winged flying beasts were harnessed together to
pull a carriage of some sort. Ruth almost threw up when
she saw the faces of the things within the carriage. From
high ledges, figures jumped, most to be captured in the
claws or beaks of Griffins before they hit the ground, and
from windows she thought she saw smaller figuresbabies? children?-being cast out to take a similar plunge.

And when she zoomed closer to a street

"My God ...

She saw the masses of the Damned.

Ruth collapsed against the boat's edge.

"See what I mean?" Alexander said. "Hell is a city now,
Ruth. That's what it's evolved into since Lucifer was
tossed out of Heaven. But it's a city that's as big as a continent. It's a city that never ends."

Ruth sat in glum shock. She looked over the bow and
momentarily dipped her hand into the sea.

"This really is blood, isn't it?" her voice cracked.

Alexander nodded.

"And I really have been condemned to Hell, haven't I?"

"Yes."

She began to cry.

"You need to prepare yourself, Ruth," the priest said in
a fragile tone. The wind sifted through his hair as the red
sky continued to bristle. "Forget about logic, common sense, and every basic speck of knowledge you ever
learned on earth. In Hell, two plus two doesn't equal
four, it equals six. In the Living World, there's science.
Here there's sorcery and black magic. A blessing is now a
curse, love is now hate, and white is black."

Ruth listened, eyes wide, mouth open.

"Knowledge is disinformation. Democracy is Demonocracy, and death is life." He blinked. "Everything's opposite here."

"You passed out, honey." A hand was patting her face,
then a cool damp rag covered her brow.

Venetia's eyes opened and eventually the two blurred
forms sharpened into the faces of her mother and father.

"There she is," Richard Barlow said, smiling.

A third face came into view, back a few feet. It was the
scroungy kid at the register. "Everything all right? Want
me to call an ambulance?"

The question jerked Venetia out of her drowse. "No, no,
I'm all right... .

"Are you positive?" her mother asked.

Her father: "And what happened?"

"Like I was saying before, I didn't get much sleep last
night." She leaned up in the big SLN's backseat. "I probably haven't been eating enough either. Been studying
a lot."

"Of course, dear." Maxine's voice offered motherly comfort. She turned to her husband. "Richard, where's that
piece of paper with the map? I think Father Driscoll's cell phone number is on it. We'll have to call and tell him Venetia can't make it today."

More alarm. Venetia straightened herself. "I'm perfectly fine, Mom. I can't miss this opportunity at the prior
house. It's a lot of extra credits."

Her mother looked hesitant. "Well, if you're sure."

"Oh, she's okay." Her father seemed convinced now.
"Our daughter's got a lot of spunk. But let me ask you
something, honey. I thought I heard talking in that bathroom. There wasn't someone else in there with you, was
there?"

She didn't allow herself to reflect. "No, Dad, just me. I
may have muttered something to myself when I started to
feel dizzy...." A stab of guilt then, but only a tiny one. She
didn't like to he to her parents, but what could she say?

"All right, then. It's off to the prior house. Buckle up!"

A minute later they were back on the road. Maxine
handed Venetia a cup of sweet coffee, which perked her
up after only a few sips. The rushing scenery of another
winding road through forest-backed grasslands invited
her to reflect.

What did happen in there?

The voice, of course. Grating, tinny, like someone talking over a very old radio. And she remembered what it
had said: Everything's opposite here. But she had to wonder
where. And: In the name of God on High, be careful at the-

Be careful at the what?

Why did she have the dreadful impression that the
voice meant to say, Be careful at the prior house?

"It's just so wonderful that Father Driscoll is back,"
Maxine remarked. "He's so-"

"Handsome," Richard repeated. "And kind of dashing.
You already told us, dear."

"I only meant that he's barely changed at all in the fifteen years that he's been away."

"Neither have your boobs. That's what's worrying me.
Once he gets a load of your milk wagons, he'll probably
leave the priesthood and run off with you. Then I'd have
to eat Chef Boyardee every night."

"Where has Father Driscoll been all these years?" Venetia broke in, desperately trying to change subjects.

"I'm not sure," Maxine replied. "He said that he took
some classes at the Vatican for a year or two, but he never
mentioned if he got his own parish after that."

"He's probably into clerical education," Venetia said.
"Some priests never become parishional. This job at the
prior house is a good clue."

"Sounds more like janitorial duty in the name of the
church," her father said. "You'll probably be taking out
more garbage cans than studying"

Maxine had to contribute: "And you could perform a
welcome duty for the church yourself, Richard. By getting
into one of those garbage cans."

"Do you two always have to cut each other down?"
Venetia complained.

Her father looked back and winked. "It's just your
mother's way of letting me know she's hot to trot."

"Oh, is that what it is?" Maxine said, but she unconsciously pulled at the V of her blouse. Her bosom jiggled
as a result.

"Careful with those, dear. I'm driving, remember? If
you keep distracting me like that, I might have to pull over,
and poor Venetia'll have to sit in the Caddy by herself
while you and I disappear into the woods for a half hour."

"Really, Richard. A half hour? I'll give your virility a
break and refrain from further comment."

This was driving Venetia nuts. "Dad, are we going to be
there soon? Please say yes."

"Yes." Richard pointed to the right.

An ornamented wooden sign with gothic letters read:
ST. JOHN'S PRIOR HOUSE-EST. 1965. No TRESPASSING - AP-
POIN7MEPTI' ONLY.

Thank God! Venetia thought.

"And getting back to what your mother was saying,"
Richard continued with a sly grin, "she wasn't complaining about my virility a couple Fridays ago. I forgot to close
the bedroom window, and the next day the neighbors
asked me what all that noise was about-"

Maxine put a hand over his mouth, then looked back at
Venetia. "Your father gets this way every now and then,
honey. You know. Like a cow that needs to be milked?"

"Mom, please, I can't handle that image...

Then her mother lowered her voice to a quick whisper.
"But I'll ball his brains out tonight. That'll keep him simmered down for a while."

"Mom! Please!" Then Venetia looked out the windshield and saw the prior house loom into view.

Richard pulled around a circular drive surrounded by
grievously untrimmed hedges. They all stared at the
building.