They electrocuted the man onstage. His eyes exploded from their sockets, one sailing out to land in some woman’s lap in the front row. His hair caught fire. A stagehand brought out an extinguisher and sprayed him down.
Pete hung his head. “This is it.”
“What?” Nika asked, very subdued.
“What I always regretted being born too late to see.”
“What would that be?”
“The Grand Guignol. Only this is real.”
She sighed. “Maybe tonight’s when we both find out everything’s real.”
««—»»
It was midnight and time for The Great Auction. They still hadn’t found Clay. They could only pray he was all right.
“I take back what I said about expecting more,” Nika admitted as they headed down the stairs. “The first floor’s simply where they get warmed up.”
Dunkel Friedhof stood at the entrance of The Grand Ballroom as the last few Videre filed in. Peter and Nika recognized famous faces. One ruled an oil-rich Middle-Eastern county whose citizens were frequently suspected of terrorism. There were several national-scale politicians. Another was a well-known evangelist in a pale yellow silk suit. There were famous actors, including a billionaire pop star known for a personal collection of ‘wonders’.
Dunk spotted the doctor on Peter’s arm and snickered. “Nika Nika, Swastika!”
Peter felt Nika cringe even as she detected his tension. She didn’t acknowledge either man’s stare.
“Id’s been zeveral years, Dr. Noll. You are lovely as ever. Shtill vorkink vit duh shpeshul cazes vrom duh courts?”
Peter grit his teeth. “He was your patient?”
“Yes, he was,” she replied. Then she said to Dunkel, “And cut the crap, Mr. Friedhof. You and I both know the accent’s an act.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Pete pressed.
“Confidentiality,” she answered matter-of-factly.
Peter pointed out, “You turned him over to the cops.”
She put both her hands against his cheeks. “That was hard for me, Pete. The bottom line was he’d committed a serious crime. And it was against you. I chose at that point. May sound corny, but love won out.”
Peter’s eyes twinkled. “Love?”
She smirked. “Even co-dependent stygmatophiliacs like me are capable of deeper affection than the thrill, baby.”
Dunk interrupted the tender moment, reaching out to touch Peter’s bare arm. His accent, by the way, was conspicuously missing. A monster and a poseur. “How is it you have skin? And such nice skin, too. Is this another miracle? Like the shroud?”
Peter shook him off. “I have connections.”
“I’d love to hear about it,” Dunkel said. “Perhaps for old time’s sake you’ll tell me—after the auction?”
Pete snapped, “Or perhaps for old time’s sake—after the auction—I’ll kill you.”
The German chuckled. “It would contribute substantially to your reputation among the Videre. And they’d probably make certain you were protected from prosecution. But, seriously, I think I deserve some consideration. After all, I could have killed you. It would’ve made the skinning process easier. Yet I chose to let you live.”
“Remind me to thank you for your generosity if I can think of a reason.” Peter glowered over the tops of his dark glasses.
Nika pointed through the doorway. “Clay’s inside, on the front row at the end. See him?”
“Thank God he’s okay,” Peter said with relief.
Now Dunkel really laughed. “You know him?”
Nika arched an eyebrow. “We came together. Why?”
Someone approached from inside the room. He looked official. “We’re about to begin, Mr. Friedhof. If you two have tickets for the auction, you’d better take your seats. I have to close the door.”
Inside, the world’s most expensive perfumes were underlaid with sour sweat, blood and shit from the various revels. What Rome itself must have smelled like in the worst of summer, the Cloaca Maxima overflowing, rotting garbage everywhere. Plus whatever the current plague was, swelling the corpses of humans and animals alike, but not yet collected for burial or burning.
Nika and Peter took the only two seats left, at the back, near the door.
“He didn’t lock it,” Peter whispered. “That’s good. I want to be able to hoof it if we have to.”
Dunkel went down to stand beside a highy polished and intricately carved mahogany table in front of a curtain.
The man who’d asked the couple to sit walked up to a podium and addressed the gathering. “Welcome, fellow Videre, to the first Great Auction of this millennium. Some believe 2000 began it, but those of us with more education know 2001 inaugurated the next thousand years. We’re very excited this time, many of us being acquainted by way of the Internet with the wonder that is the Beta shroud.”
Nika took Peter’s hand and squeezed it.
“Our special guest is Dunkel Friedhof, the man responsible for bringing the Beta shroud to the fore. He will be serving tonight as our auctioneer.” The man gestured for the German to take his place at the podium.
Peter wished he’d brought a gun. He wished he’d had the stones to steal one of those at the casino.
“Happy Saturnalia,” Friedhof told the assembly.
The Videre repeated it, grinning with bloody teeth, shit-stained teeth.
Peter nodded and kissed Nika on the cheek. “Oh yeah. Merry Christmas, by the way.”
Nika smiled. “A few days past the solstice, but I hope for you a blessed Yule.”
Dunkel read from the first of a number of cards. “Our first item up is a small crematory oven, circa 1920 Southern United States. It is portable and of a size convenient for stowing in a basement or a back yard shed. But be aware that adequate ventilation is a must when in use. What do I hear bid? Do I hear five hundred?”
Someone on the left side in the third row raised a hand.
“I have five hundred. Do I hear six?”
Next were three freak jars. Dunk explained, “Nowadays terotology can be manufactured through exposure in the womb to Thalidomide, mercury, radiation and other modern devices. Those with enough resources can have the DNA altered. But the toy factories of yesteryear used clay pots designed for directing the growth of very young limbs. These come with drains in the bottom for removal of bodily waste. They are circa the last century B.C., Rome. We do warn you that success with the jars takes years—at least a dozen. A major investment of not only money but time.”
He waggled a finger, “Pets are like family, yes?”
The audience laughed. Peter thought about the prisoners upstairs, partnered off by Dick-Man, the Master of Revels. And was their theater doing another grisly play, requiring a cast of indisposed, posable and disposable characters? The festivities were still in full swing up there, carried on by those who didn’t have passes to this auction.
Was Nika thinking about this also? By the look of pain on her face, he would guess so.
Couldn’t he call the police now? Couldn’t he simply sneak out of here and find a phone?
No, if he left the room, Dunkel would notice and the game would be up. There was no way he would permit Peter to steal his thunder. Not that Pete had really believed for a minute that he’d be getting out of here unscathed, even if he did manage to get out alive (which the odds were decidedly against.) But he had to think of Nika.
On it went. Through an original copy of DE MONSTRIS by Fortunio Liceti, 1655 Italian. Then troughs of shrunken heads from Borneo and Mayan talking crosses dressed in shrouds. (Peter thought, See? Shrouds—definitely the in-thing this year.)
“Now for more heads,” Dunk announced. “These ten are wax, circa late 18th century England. Carved depicting diseases such as leprosy, syphillis and pellagra, they were employed as teaching aids for physicians. Offered with them are sets of wax genitalia, showing the symptoms of the same afflictions. Do I hear five…?”
Most of the wax
heads were of children, even in cases of venereal diseases. The billionaire pop star’s hand shot up like a rocket as he wriggled in his seat. He blurted as if having an orgasm, “Fifty thousand dollars!”
No one else bid, unwilling to pay more than that.
“Sold then, for fifty thousand excited dollars,” the German said wryly.
These went for more money than anything had so far. The little faces were so real, their suffering captured in time. The artistry was amazing, even if deeply disturbing. They reminded Pete more of real severed heads in a row. He thought of Rosaluna’s baby. No, wait… Beatrice Oswald, who as an infant had been placed on the bathroom counter and beheaded with a straightrazor. He considered every child whose likeness had ended up in a loop of torment on his skin.
When would that skin be brought out?
A small box was taken from behind the curtain. The Videre official opened it and took out a slim, hardbound book.
“This next item is verse. THE PINK CRUCIBLE written by Devon Goode. It was published in 1947 by Lapsus Calami Press of Chicago. For those of you who might be unfamiliar, Devon Goode was a human torso and spent much of his life as a carnival performer. Married six times, he also had numerous torrid affairs. At least two other women are known to have committed suicide over him. I am going to read a single poem for you. It is titled STILL.”
Dunkel cleared his throat dramatically and then began,
“You goddess, poxed and lean,
slow hobbling dawns unclean.
You, silver leper queen.
Come sit here beside me.
Give your love all shiny,
wet as the dying sea.
I will screw hard, then ease
you far from this disease
where time and skin-falls freeze.
Bruised butterfly lips fail,
my killer’s cock so pale.
Worm-lace marks your soft trail.
I have hunted you where
you’ve haunted me, that stare
impossible of prayer.
Stroke my vestigial heart.
I’ll ride your boiling art,
then place you on the cart
that rumbles on the street,
collecting love’s cold meat,
scythed down like brittle wheat.
In darkness will I mourn,
confused by God’s great scorn
for strangeness broken born.
My pretty gypsy eyes
for whom the nights arise…
such lovely, bleeding eyes.
Shrugging off mercy’s chill,
your des’prate image will
at last be silent, still.”
The German had read it well. He might have been an actor.
(Well, yes, he’d always been that.)
“What do I hear bid?” he asked, closing the volume with its satin ribbon marker in careful place. “Do I hear five hundred?”
Peter had expected the kind of rapid-fire auctioning that had always reminded him of Fundamentalist tent revivals. Tongue-twisting machine gun cadence in monotone, dropping down to low sliding notes at the end of every spiel. Dunkel didn’t do it this way. There wasn’t even a hammer. But what did Pete know? The only auctions he’d ever attended were back in Texas for cars impounded by the police.
The bidding was surprisingly spirited. At least Peter thought so. For a book of verse? Who was it by, Shakespeare? No, somebody he’d never even heard of.
The German had called the poet a human torso. Behind him, Pete overheard a woman say something like de monstre par défaut.
He turned, sure he’d see the elegant black lady in the Victorian dress. Except no one was behind him. He and Nika were in the last row.
“Oh, look,” Nika chattered. “It’s Clay. He’s bidding for it. He’s just bid twenty grand. I didn’t know he had that kind of money.”
Peter’s jaw dropped. “Neither did I.”
“I have twenty. Do I hear twenty-one?” asked Dunkel.
From the middle somewhere a hand came up.
The German nodded. “I have twenty-one. Do I hear twenty-two?”
“Twenty-five dammit,” Clay announced, fairly steaming in the front row. “And I want it now, please.”
Dunk was flustered. “Uh, I hear twenty-five. Do we have a twenty-six?”
No reply.
“Twenty-five once…”
Nobody.
“Twenty-five twice…”
Not a filthy creature was stirring.
Dunkel shrugged. “Sold.”
Clay was already writing a check.
“We usually wait until after the auction,” the Videre official told Clay.
“I need it now. I’ll even make it thirty if you give it to me right away.”
The room buzzed. The pop star giggled like a loon.
The official and the German exchanged some whispers.
They took the check and handed Clay McFadden the slender book. Clay rolled the chair back to the last row and presented it to Nika.
“My dear,” he told her solemnly, “I know you will appreciate this. Please take care of it.”
Then he glanced at his watch and returned to his place on the first row.
“What do you suppose that was all about?” Pete asked.
She examined the book, fingering the graceful lettering. “I don’t know. But I do believe he just frightened me.”
Dunkel auctioned off a painting by Lam Qua of a mother holding her small son in her lap, gangrene widespread in his lower legs. Then he offered a leper’s tub, mid 18th century French, which had a box built above it where a child was placed and bled to cure the leper’s lesions. Next was the preserved corpse of an unmarried virgin, circa 1800, from the catacombs of the Capuchin Fathers of Palermo. She was dressed in white with a blue silk waistband and white gloves, a garland of dessicated flowers about her wizened head and an equally dry bouquet in her arms. This was followed by a full-sized cannon, British from the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857. There were leather straps at the cannon’s mouth which, Friedhof read from the accompanying index card, had been used to hold Indian men and boys in place to be blown to smithereens.
“And now to our final offering, what many of you have been earnestly awaiting,” the German said proudly, drawing it out for drama. “A true relic of power and proof of the beyond. Can there be any doubt about the role of darkness and the enduring power of its elite? Never has the world seen anything like this. Ladies and gentlemen, The Beta shroud.”
It was wheeled out from behind the curtain. It was draped over a plastic, headless manniken and set upon a revolving dais.
The images in constant play made it appear to writhe as if slowly burning. Peter felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He doubled over in his chair. And he heard something he was well familiar with.
Help…only you…
Everyone in the room jumped up, gawking, like the crowd at a race track where cars and drivers have just disassembled in massive collision. The babble rose to a roar, thrumming Pete’s skull.
“Please sit down,” the Videre official said. “We can’t begin the bidding until everyone is seated.”
They sat obediently but still muttered to each other, fidgeting.
Peter stood up. He called out, shouting in challenge, “I’d like to examine that.”
Naturally the audience stared at him.
“The shroud has already been examined and certified as genuine,” the official replied.
Dunk whispered in the Videre’s ear and the man’s eyebrows went up in surprise.
The German announced with flourish, “Please come. Everyone, put your hands together and give a warm Saturnalian welcome to Peter Beta.”
The audience gasped altogether. It sounded like a tornado.
Nika grabbed his sleeve. “You sure about this?”
“Yeah,” Pete replied.
She let go. He went down the aisle. Those in aisle seats reached out to touch him. They believed he was the m
an of the skin—the man of the cloth?—because Dunkel Friedhof said he was. The German had created a lot of influence for himself in the past couple of months. Did this make him a prophet of sorts?
One or two mumbled, “Lord.” Others called Pete Master. He tried to shut out most of the nonsense. He was relieved they didn’t rip off his clothes, either to see his body (which wasn’t supposed to have skin, was it?) or to keep the shreds of his threads as souvenirs of obscene revelation. Apparently they were too enthralled with just his presence.
W.W.B.D.?
In his ears, close to the brain, he heard, Only you, only you…
He approached his skin, turning on the dais, a pirouette of slaughter and pornography. A microcosm of human misery and cruelty. Everything these degenerates adored.
He reached out—
(That part of his former self he hadn’t willingly parted with. The victims and murderers alike stopped in their circles of outrage and grief, and looked out at him from the flesh. Those martyred cried out to him, “Help us, Peter. Only you can heal us!”)
—and touched his skin.
The killers vanished first, cursing, shrieking. The victims faded, replaced initially with blooming blood roses—even though it was just skin without a circulatory system to fuel it. Then, nothing.
Not black and white. Only a withered tan. It might have been any old leather.
In the audience many cried out in anger. Others went to their knees and proclaimed it a second miracle. A few fainted dead away, including the pop star who’d had his heart set on owning it.
Well, he still could. It just wouldn’t be as interesting.
Peter covered for himself, not letting anybody see how much this flustered him. Did this mean he’d finally healed them? Could someone like him have managed such a thing?
He had done it.
In his mind, briefly, he saw Zane McFadden’s face. Zane smiled.
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