House of Skin (42 page)

Eddy backed away.

Fenn followed him. “It’s too late for that.”

“Much later than you can imagine,” Eddy tittered.

Lisa realized too late what Eddy was doing. He had maneuvered Fenn so that his back was to the alcove. She heard a dry rustling in there and she opened her mouth to shout a warning, but before words could flee her lips, a black impossible shape swam up and took Fenn from behind, throwing him against the wall where his head resounded with a dull crack. He slid senseless to the floor.

“Well done, old boy,” Eddy cried.

Even more than the horrid, cadaverous appearance of the thing from the alcove, Lisa was aware of its hideous stink, a reek that made her knees go to rubber and her stomach want to heave. It was Spider. She knew that from the filthy braids that swung like whips from his rotting head.

“My God …” she said, not really all that surprised at such things since Cassandra.

“Let’s get down to business,” Eddy said in a relaxed, almost bored tone. “Spider, truss him up for later. Use the handcuffs I’m sure he’s carrying. That’s a good wretch.”

Spider bared his yellowed teeth, but did as he was told. “And his gun?”

“Put it back in his holster. He may want it later.”

Spider did as he was told.

“Don’t look so concerned,” Eddy said to her. “He’s harmless.”

She could only say: “He’s alive.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“How?”

“It’s terribly complex. The method exists, that’s all you have to know.”

That’s what she wanted to hear, what she was fishing for. Her scientist’s mind had to know that there was a method, a system of rules by which the dead could walk. Cassandra had inferred the dead could live through sheer willpower and Lisa’s brain had raged against the idea. But, Eddy now said there was a method. It was something. It soothed her logic to hear it.

A month ago, the knowledge of such a blasphemy against natural laws would have unhinged her completely. It went in direct defiance of everything she knew of physiology and medical science. Yet, she now accepted it with a cool indifference. There was nothing else she
could
do. Her faith in science and physical statutes had been nearly destroyed in the past few weeks and now her years of training were likewise falling to dust at her feet.

“I’m proof of that,” Spider said, a certain species of remorse in his voice, almost as if he wished it weren’t true.

“Incredible.” And it was.

Spider looked up at her as he fastened Fenn with the cuffs and then looked away quickly, as if he didn’t like being looked at. And who could blame him? He was little more than a decomposing human scarecrow now, his face gone to leather, his tangled hair alive with crawling things. There was no hope or happiness left in his foul, withered hide, only a bleak desperation.

She motioned to Fenn. “What are you going to do to him?”

“We’ll let the Sisters decide,” Eddy explained in a whisper. “If they want him, they can have him. If not, we’ll leave him be. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” she said. She stooped over and ran a hand through Fenn’s hair. There was blood on his scalp, but not much. She made a cursory exam and decided he’d wake with an awful headache, but he’d be no worse for wear. She kissed his forehead and, a tear in her eye, wished she’d never involved him in this.

Eddy was watching her. “How touching.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Ha, ha,” Eddy laughed. “That’s all you ever think of.”

* * *

Cassandra was running a bit behind schedule.

She was out at a cemetery just beyond the city limits. It was here the dead of all denominations and races were buried side by side. It was also here that the city fathers planted their charity cases, like the prostitutes Eddy had murdered. Their graves were lined up one next to the other. None of these nameless women had families or friends. They only had each other and the streets. And now they had this bleak burial yard. It was a terrible place for the dead to dream away eternity. The grounds were ill-tended. Weeds and blighted grasses were left unchecked, save by family members. Dead flowers were tangled in the dirt. Youths frequented the place and left graffiti and beer bottles in their passing. Tombstones had been tumbled over and defaced.

The chapel was scrawled with obscene writings.

Cassandra was alone here this night.

Beneath a pale moon and a mist of rain, she stood on the muddy ground, a pain in her heart at the sight of this place. There were no teenaged, tattooed toughs lurking amongst sepulchers and overgrown vaults, singing vulgar songs and drinking and drugging themselves stupid. It was a good thing. What she had to do, must be done in secret. Death is a mystery; resurrection only for the eyes of the dead or insane. When Cassandra began to call them up from their beds of mold and memory, she wanted no witnesses. She wanted no prying eyes to observe their rebirth but her own. The dead deserved that much. They deserved the dignity of not becoming a tourist attraction.

When she started to sing the song of resurrection, the earth heaved and gave up its buried secrets. The victims of Eddy Zero, not sleeping too well in their lace and silk, swam up from their pits. Fingers broke the dank, dripping soil, followed by hands and flyblown faces. Yellowed and ruined eyes studied the night. Lungs filled with dust and insects gulped in the cool wind. The victims rose and chatted in arid voices, helping the weaker from their beds of dirt. When the gossip and commotion was at an end, they looked upon Cassandra and knew.

Whispering of decay and disillusionment, they followed her into the world of men. Faces robbed of beauty, life, and flesh made their way to the House of Mirrors where a special party was being held in their honor. And who were they, that courted worms and time, to refuse such an invitation?

* * *

Eddy came up behind Lisa as she gazed down at Fenn who was handcuffed to a furnace grating. He kissed her neck and she shuddered. “I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am in you bringing a cop here. Not that I didn’t suspect your sudden turn of mind, but I had hoped …”

“Hoped what?” she asked. “That I’d want to spend eternity with a man as deranged as his father?”

“You know nothing of my father,” Eddy said. “Keep a civil tongue in your head or I’ll have Spider bite it out.”

Spider looked disinterested.

“I knew William Zero better than you ever will,” she said.

“Oh really? Do tell.”

“Let’s get up to the attic,” Spider said. “They’ll be coming soon.”

“No, I have to hear this.”

It had the expected result on him. So she told him, leaving out nothing, save his father’s reappearance.

Eddy was amused by it. “So, dad and I have shared more than genes and common interests, have we?” He laughed. “The family whore.”

She said nothing.

“Did you think any of that would matter?” he asked. “Did you think that I’d let you walk off as a friend of the family? I could care less. He used you, I used you. You like being used. It’s your way. You were born to please men of peculiar tastes. It’s your calling in life.”

She felt raw hatred in her stomach. Was Dr. Blood-and-Bones near? Was he listening right now to this exchange and smiling with fatherly pride at the monster he had created? She was tempted to play head games with Eddy and force Cherry out of hiding. But no. Not just yet. Not unless she had to.

Eddy took her by the hand. “The Sisters were excited by the prospect of you coming along. They’ll have endless amusements lined up to keep you busy. You’ll never be bored.” He squeezed her fingers. “It’s time to go.”

She allowed herself to be led up the stairs. She was running out of time and knew it with a heavy heart. Would Zero be waiting up there to take custody of his charges? Or would it be the Sisters, anxious not only at having Eddy and Spider, but her as well?

Where the hell was Cassandra?

“It’s too bad you’ll never write that book about dad and I,” Eddy said. “What a read that would make. I wonder if it would’ve sold.”

“Of course. People like reading about monsters, didn’t you know that?”

He gave her hand a painful squeeze. “Monsters. You have no idea.”

It was all funny somehow, she found herself thinking. It was like the fates were behind Eddy one-hundred percent. Dozens of men looking for him and they couldn’t catch him. Yet, he wasn’t in hiding, he was merely roaming about town, picking up whores to kill and murdering anyone who got in his way. God must love the damned and deranged. There was no other explanation. Even the fact that he was hiding in Cherry some of the time was no excuse.

“Are you ready?” Eddy asked at the door to the attic.

“Why not?”

Spider opened the door and they followed slowly in his putrescent wake. The end was drawing near and if Zero and Cassandra didn’t show soon, she’d spend eternity damning the day she’d ever decided to hunt Eddy Zero down.

The attic looked much like the blurry crime photos taken twenty years before. The walls were quilted in human skins. Each had been fastidiously and carefully removed in whole, then tacked to the wall. Her stomach jumped as she looked upon them … the dangling arms and eyeless death masks staring out at her.

The air was warm and reeked of death and hot blood. Two butchered women hung by the feet from hooks set in the roof beams. They were raw and bleeding, slit, plucked, and eviscerated. Their skins and entrails were deposited in the corner along with a black raincoat and a collection of knives.

Lisa turned away, wanting to vomit.

“The final offering,” Eddy said, pleased with himself.

Lisa couldn’t bear to be in the same room with such butchery, this human slaughterhouse. Her sanity seemed to flutter, wanting to take flight. She held it down. Just for a bit longer.

“You should consider yourself lucky,” Eddy told her. “If Spider had had his way, it would’ve been you hanging there.”

Spider gave him a caustic look.

It was quick, but she caught it. Was there some animosity between the two of them? Something she could exploit? She remembered interviewing Spider before his death and thinking that he wasn’t particularly dangerous, just driven by personal mania.

“They’re coming,” Spider said.

And they were.

The mirror flanked by drying hides was darkening, bulging as if some force was pushing from the other side. It rippled like water and lost its physical density.

Lisa gasped.

The air was growing thick with sinister import. The molecules surrounding her seemed to sense a certain profanity of physical laws and were racing about wildly, trying to seal the wound that was already beginning to open. A rush of scorching, stinking air filled the attic and oily shadows crept from the corners. There was a weeping in the distance.

Though she’d never be able to account for it later, a surprising cool confidence settled into her. She saw exactly what had to be done and she did it without hesitation. Eddy was no longer holding her hand. She turned to him as if for a kiss and planted her knee in his groin. He went down with a hissing cry and she was already galloping down the stairs.

“Get the bitch!” Eddy cried, his features fluttering.

She stumbled down the stairs and landed in a heap at the bottom, quickly pulling herself to her feet. The door to the Territories was swinging wide now and she could feel it eating at her back with a baleful anxiety. It was pulling at her, reaching out to claim what it had been promised, unimaginable debaucheries at the ready. She could feel it in her head, too, like needles piercing her thoughts, visions of atrocities swimming in her mind, muddling her jumbled reasoning.

She could feel Dr. Blood-and-Bones, too, knowing he was close, somewhere. It was this knowledge as much as Spider’s dragging feet on the stairs that got her going again.

“Wait,” he called out.

She stopped, not knowing why.

“It’s no good,” he explained. “They want you, Lisa. You can’t get away. If they don’t get you here, it will be somewhere else.”

She ran regardless. Something was happening to the house now, it was swallowed in a pale luminosity. The walls were breathing, groaning, the floor trembling, the ceiling shuddering. The rolling contortion of the foundation spilled her to her feet. Spider wasn’t in pursuit just yet; he, too, was mesmerized by what was happening. She knew without a doubt that the Sisters were taking the house, ingesting it into the Territories. If she didn’t escape and soon, she’d emerge from the house not into freedom, but into hell itself.

Spider was behind her, shambling in her direction. He had a knife in one blighted, stringy paw. He was doing what he thought best for her and himself, she realized. Apparently, she’d been promised to the Sisters and they intended to have her. And Spider was taking no chances: if she wouldn’t come of her own accord, he would drag her bleeding body to them. He had worked too long for this moment and he wouldn’t be denied passage into the other world because of her fear.

She started down the steps, grasping the bannister for dear life. The house was swaying and teetering madly beneath her. The floors were moving like water, flowing and undulating, making escape no mean feat. She ascended with desperate slowness, the stairs compressing and rippling even as her feet sought solid footing. Zero was close, yet he didn’t show himself. What was he waiting for? Only he could end this nightmare for her and she was longing to see his mutilated face. She had no other hope. She had already decided that Cassandra wasn’t coming.

She tumbled onto the landing and crawled feverishly towards Fenn. He was floating in midair, carried aloft by unseen forces. The far wall of the parlor was flaking away and beyond an absolute blackness was inserting itself. Fingers of misty teleplasm were drifting into the room, snaking through the roiling air like strands of ghostly flesh.

“Fenn!” she shouted.

He either didn’t or couldn’t hear her in the thundering commotion of two worlds meeting on a common, blasted ground.

Not that it mattered. All was lost and Spider was at her back.

“You see?” he said. “It’s too late.”

His ghoulish face was running like wax from the bone beneath. His flesh was hanging in shredded strips of decay, one eye sunk deep into its housing. He was degenerating even as she watched. His pursuit of her had apparently been costly in terms of his strength.