House Infernal by Edward Lee

by Edward Lee

  "Who's Grace? Some chick you had the hots for?"

  "Never mind..."

  He's giving me shit about cussing. I'm in fucking Hell ... It was ridiculous. She squinted hard, shielding her eyes from the scarlet glare.

  More quiet words came. "I have a lot to tell you. Might as well start now. I'll try not to overwhelm you."

  "I'm already fuckin' overwhelmed."

  The boat swayed on another swell of blood. The torso turned his head to her. "Something's in the works, Ruththat's the best way to look at it. And we need your help."

  "We?"

  "I told you earlier, I have an intelligence source that's very powerful. And don't worry, you're not expected to work for free. There's something in this for both of us."

  "What's in it for you?" she said sarcastically. "New arms and legs, I hope."

  "Not quite. But if we succeed, my sentence to Purgatory gets revoked, and I'll be transferred to Heaven."

  "Oh yeah? And what's in it for me?"

  "You own Condemnation to Hell gets commuted to a Condemnation to Purgatory."

  Her eyes snapped to him. "Purgatory's, like, not Heaven but-"

  "But a lot better than this, trust me."

  Her trashy yet pretty face beamed. "That fuckin' rocks, man! I'm in!"

  "I mean, well," he stumbled on something. "There's a little bit of a catch."

  Ruth's happy smile turned to a knife-sharp frown. "There always fuckin' is."

  "Yes, you get to go to Purgatory but-"

  "But what!" she yelled.

  "But you have to wait a thousand years first...

  Ruth wanted to dump the human torso overboard. "A thousand fuckin' years!"

  "It's not that bad, Ruth, considering the alternative," he added hastily.

  "And how long do you have to wait to get transferred to Heaven?"

  "Well, what I mean is, if you and I succeed with this mission, I get commuted to Heaven ... instantly."

  "Oh, that's real fair!" Ruth started to get up. "I'm pushing your ass overboard, you fucker! Fuck this shit! Spent my whole life on earth getting shit on by men, and now I'm still getting shit on! By you!"

  "Ruth!- to what you're saying! Don't blow your only chance to ever get out of here. You've been offered something that no one else ever gets down here: hope."

  That prospect simmered her down. "A square deal-no bullshit, no snow jobs?"

  "A square deal, Ruth. And these folks never BS."

  Ruth thought on that one. Maybe the reason she'd never been a good person was because she'd never gotten a square deal. I guess it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, she thought.

  "We've quite a journey ahead of us. First and foremost, we'll have to be very careful," he said. "I wasn't and ... well, you can see what happened to me."

  Again, she looked at his chopped stumps. "What did happen to you?"

  Something like a toad with leathery wings flapped overhead. "My source did foresee your arrival at the Sea of Cagliostro, but unfortunately she didn't foresee me being dismembered."

  Ruth caught that. "She?"

  The priest ignored the query. "It's not foolproof, not even with the most powerful Celestial Magic. There are pockets of Hex-Fluxes all over the Mephistopolis. It's like an electromagnetic field in the Living World that interferes with radio waves. These Hex-Flexes interfere with telepathic wavelengths. We have to take what we can get."

  "You still didn't tell me what happened to your arms and legs!" she yelled.

  "Sorry, I ramble sometimes. I'd been staking out an area on the mainland for several months-a place called Pogrom Park, as well as some other places. I was preparing for your arrival. But as my lousy luck would have it, I walked right into the middle of a Municipal Mutilation Zone and a Scyther Detachment got me. Remember, here everything is opposite. In the Living World, they have street cleaners to clear dirt and garbage from the roads, right? Well, here they have Mutilation Zones. Government agencies clean people from the streets. They butcher anything that moves, and it's legal."

  Ruth stared at him.

  "Ordinarily they shovel the corpses and body parts into wheeled hoppers when the exercise is over, then take it all to a District Pulping Station, but they made an exception for me."

  "Why?" she asked, wide-eyed and in a very low voice.

  "Because they saw my Roman collar. They knew I was a priest, and seeing that I'm one of the Human Damnedor so they thought-they knew that my Spirit Body couldn't be killed by mere dismemberment. So they threw me into the Sea of Cagliostro to further my torments."

  The boat rocked. Ruth looked down in the blood ... and could swear she saw things swimming in the red murk.

  "It's best not to look, Ruth," Alexander advised. "There's stuff down there that you don't want to see. Fifty-foot lampreys, Phleboto-Fish, marine Gigapedes ... Just ... don't look."

  Ruth shuddered and shot her gaze away.

  "There's what I want you to look at instead." He mistakenly raised his stump as if to point off the port side. "We're closer now. Put on the Abyss-Eye and look toward the shore till you see the port."

  Ruth brought the hideous thing to her eye again and looked.

  She stared in breathless silence as she beheld a strange cityscape rimming the edge of the sea. Before it, there were myriad docks full of boats in slips, and larger ships moored there. In the background, things like condo buildings rose, but they looked ...

  'What is that place?"

  "It's called the Port of the Vulgaressa, the priciest sector of the Rot-Port District. See all those condos? If you thought there was a real estate boom in Florida, that's nothing compared to this place. Rot-Port is the most expensive bloodfront property in all of Hell."

  Ruth zoomed the Eye. The high balconied condos seemed ... fuzzy in some way. No clean edges or lines like normal buildings.

  "The place looks really fucked-up," she articulated as best she could. "Like the whole town is made of something ... spongy."

  "The town is made of rot, Ruth," the priest clarified. "That's why they call it Rot-Port. Every primary district has something unique about it, to distinguish it from the others. You know. Maryland's the Crab State, New Jersey's the Garden State. Same thing here. Rot-Port's made of all manner of rot, every square inch of it. Mold, fungus, putrefaction, slime, muck, etcetera. It's all cultured onto every beam, block, and plank in the District."

  Ruth slowly lowered the visual aid. "I'd rather drown in this-this ... sea of fuckin' blood than go to that town!"

  Alexander gave a patient nod. "But, see, you can't drown, Ruth. You can't die. You need to remember everything I tell you. Your soul will continue to live in Hell-it can never die. And as for your Spirit Body, it can cease to function but only if it's damaged to the point of total destruction. Then your soul moves on to something else."

  Ruth's face fell into her hands again. "Fuck that shit, man!"

  "It's our mission, Ruth. And it all starts by getting ourselves to Rot-Port."

  Ruth rocked back and forth in silence.

  "Your clothes are the first matter," the priest said next.

  Teary-eyed, Ruth looked down at herself. What the fuck is he talking about now? My clothes? Her physique remained garbed in the last apparel she remembered putting on: the tight pink YUcx Poo T-shirt, thread-rimmed cutoff jeans that weren't much bigger than bikini bottoms, and pink flip-flops. "There's nothing wrong with my clothes. I look good, don't I?"

  "You actually look great, Ruth ... in a trashy kind of way."

  "Thanks a fuck of a lot, you fuck."

  Alexander smiled at the profanity. "What I mean is your body will work to our advantage. And as for your clothes, when you come here you only arrive with what you're wearing, along with any adornments, such as jewelry, tattoos ... breast implants ..." Alexander winked.

  Ruth's hands defiantly rose to her 38D mammarian carriage. "Fuck you! These are real."

  Alexander tsked. "Ruth, it's pointless to he to me. Why bother? Abandon yo
ur vanity-look what it did for Lucifer. I know everything pertinent about you, via my intelligence source."

  "Fuck your intelligence source," she muttered, disgusted.

  "For instance, I happen to know that you received those implants absolutely free: gratis from a plastic surgeon you were shacking up with in Miami. Ultimately my point is, your trashy good looks are something we can exploit, because the Mephistopolis is quite a trashy city. But your current wardrobe-at the right time and place-will have to go."

  "I don't know what the fuck-"

  "Just listen." The priest staved a burst of impatience. "We have to get busy. We'll be at the port soon. What you have to do right now is search those two bodies at the front of the boat. Check them for implements of value."

  Ruth's weepy stare moved forward, to the two corpses that shared the skiff. "What the hell are they? They don't even look Human."

  "They're not. They're Demon Conscripts from the Satanic Naval Infantry. Sort of like the Marine corps but in Hell. By the looks of them, they're probably the Pudendae Grosse species, and they're tough customers. The name on this life boat says S.S. Nefarious, and that makes sense because I heard on the news recently that the Nefarious sank in an accident. It was one of the biggest prison frigates in the navy."

  "How did it sink?" Ruth asked, hoping curiosity would cauterize some of the lingering horror.

  "A thing called a Gorge-Worm capsized it."

  "How can a worm sink a ship?"

  "These worms are a mile long. They'll wrap around a ship and turn it over, then suck all the Demons and Humans into their feeding gills."

  "Fuck!" Ruth's not-so-calculative brain whirred. "Then one of them might get us!"

  "No, this skiff's too small, they only pursue big prey." The priest's eyes gestured to the corpses in the boat. "But if you don't get those things off the skiff right now, the scent of their decay might attract a Griffin or Dentata- Vulture. We don't want to have to deal with that. Now get over to those Conscripts. Get their belts. We'll need them."

  "Why do I have to do it?" Ruth screamed.

  "Because I've got no arms or legs!" the priest snapped back. "Hurry! Time's wasting!"

  Ruth winced as she kneed her way to the bodies. Their ridged faces were running with slime; worms milled in empty eye sockets. She held her breath against the stench, then slipped off their belts. Two belts were ringed with supply cases and tools; a third had a holster housing a crude pistol.

  "Better than nothing. A sulphur flintlock. That guy must've been an officer. The other one's probably a deckhand. Now check their pockets for money."

  Ruth was revolted. "I'm not putting my hands in dead guys' pockets!"

  "Not dead guys, Ruth. Dead Demons."

  "That makes it better?"

  "They'll have money. Get it."

  Pus glimmered on the corpses' faces. "I-I ... can't!"

  Alexander shot her a chiding scowl. "You've picked pockets before, Ruth. You'd rip off johns all the time when you were turning tricks, and whenever those scumbag boyfriends of yours would mug some innocent guyor even kill him-you'd be the one to go through their pockets."

  "That sucks that you know shit about me! You're trying to make me feel bad."

  "You should feel bad, Ruth, 'cos you were a pretty bad person. But now you've been given the chance to redeem a little bit of yourself ... so do it!"

  At last, the former grifter, drughead, sexpot, and party animal from Collier County, Florida, emboldened herself. She slithered her fingers into the rot-damp sailors' pants. She pulled several bills and coins from each. "Shit. That's all they had on them."

  "Every little bit helps."

  After a moment's rest, she was able to contemplate. Three belts, an old gun, and a couple of dollars were all the reward she'd received for rooting through the clothes of dead monsters. "That gun looks like a piece of shit," she snapped.

  "It is, but it'll still kill a Demon or Usher."

  "And what do we need belts for? I just had to put my hands on Demons. For a couple of lousy belts?"

  "They're actually high-quality belts, Ruth. They're made from Lipo-Cow hide. And to answer your question, you'll wear the gun belt yourself. With the other two, you'll make a harness to carry me on your back."

  Ruth smirked. "Can't fuckin' wait to carry a torso priest on my back like a fuckin' knapsack while we're waltzing through Rot-City."

  "Rot-Port, Ruth. And it's coming up."

  Ruth's eyes held fast to the approaching coast: the noxious port-city with its angles and lines all rounded off by spongy softness.

  She could already smell it....

  "Now push those bodies overboard-"

  "Stop ordering me around!" she shrieked.

  The priest was getting fed up with her testiness. "Just do it! You're acting like a kid!"

  A square deal, she reminded herself, and chewed her collagen-implanted lower lip. Something in it for me ...

  She flipped the detestable Demon-bodies over the side with a splash!

  "Good girl!" Alexander rejoiced.

  Then she threw-up over the side as well.

  And the two of them sat in silence as the tiny boat rocked and bobbed toward Rot-Port....

  Chapter Four

  (I)

  "I'm very pleased to meet you, Ms. Barlow," the tall woman said, looking down. She spoke in a quiet yet firm tone.

  "It's nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Newlwyn," Venetia said, momentarily taken aback by the woman's height, which was close to six feet. "And please, call me Venetia."

  "Mrs. Newlwyn is the priory's new official housekeeper," Father Driscoll said.

  After taking Venetia on the perfunctory look around, the blond priest had brought her to the spacious kitchen-which was like something one would find in a grade school-to begin the introductions.

  v Venetia could tell by Mrs. Newlwyn's narrowed eyes and curt, tight smile that she was one to take all church matters very seriously. Black hair dusted with gray was pulled back by a collar-length clip; she was likely in her early fifties, and due to her height and excellent physical condition, she reminded Venetia of some of the somber statues they'd just seen in the atrium. She wore jeans splotched with paint, and an equally splotched blouse hung loose around an ample bosom.

  She talked while mixing something in a bowl: "I admire the zeal of your youth very much," the woman said. "I understand you're going to become a nun? In my younger days I wanted that as well, but I never quite got there. I'm afraid that motherhood won out in the end."

  Venetia noticed there was no wedding ring on Mrs. Newlwyn's hand, just a cross about her neck, along with a key like Venetia's. "Actually I'm considering the vocation, but I'm not sure yet."

  "You might consider waiting a while on that decision," Driscoll said, but it was strange the way he'd slipped in the remark while looking at a clipboard he'd picked up from the counter.

  Before Venetia could comment further, though, Mrs. Newlwyn turned as a younger woman stepped through the entry. "And this is my daughter, Betta. Betta, this is Venetia Barlow. She's come all the way from Washington, DC, to assist us in the prior house."

  Betta seemed sheepish: dark, wan eyes, hair pulled back like her mother's, and dressed similarly in scruffy jeans and blouse. She even had a few dots of wall paint on her cheek. Venetia shook her hand and noticed a timid smile. Is she nervous meeting me? Venetia wondered. She guessed Betta to be about thirty; she was much more petitely built than her mother, small-breasted and reedy, and stood six inches shorter. "Nice to meet you, Betta. Are you all ready for this big cleanup operation? I'm sure not."

  Driscoll gave a dry chuckle.

  Venetia expected an inconsequential response but then Mrs. Newlwyn explained, "Betta doesn't have the power of speech, I'm afraid, but she can hear fine. And yes, we're both quite ready for the tasks ahead-we're looking forward to them. Aren't we, Betta?"

  The younger woman nodded, smiling.

  "We've already been working here for a while," Mrs. Newlwy
n continued. "Make no mistake, it's dirty work, but it is gratifying in its own way."

  Driscoll madeva joke. "We'll see how gratified Mrs. Newlwyn is in about a month, when we're all done spackling the downstairs. I think by then we'll all be really sick of this place."

  "Betta and I will never grow weary of the prior house, Father," Mrs. Newlwyn said with confidence. Her eyes seemed to gleam in their slits, a known assurance. "This is our home now."

  "In that case, what time will home be serving dinner?"

  "Seven sharp."

  The priest nudged Venetia. "I'm going to show Venetia to her room. Oh, and have you seen Dan?"

  Betta pointed upward, which Venetia presumed to mean upstairs.

  "Good. See you at dinner."

  She followed Driscoll back to the atrium, toward a stark stairwell. "These stairs look terrible, too, don't they?" he commented. "It's like an old hospital or something."

  "You're the one who said God doesn't care if His house is ugly."

  "It's a good thing..."

  "Who's Dan?"

  "He's the last member of our little cleaning detail. He's a seminarian-you'll like him. He might give you some ideas about cloistered life."

  Venetia frowned as she followed the priest up the dull carpeted stairs. "What did you mean earlier?"

  "What? About spackling?" He sighed. "Have you seen some of these walls?"

  He's deflecting on purpose, she thought. But why? "No, Father, not the spackle. Were you suggesting that I not become a nun?"

  "Not at all." His shoes snapped on the hard stairs. "We really will have to carpet these, don't you think?"

  Infuriating! "Father Driscoll, what did you mean when you said-"

  "All right. I only meant that the decision to become a nun is a very weighty one. Isn't it possible that you're maybe just a teensy bit too young to make a decision like that? You're only twenty."

  "I'm twenty-one, and I haven't made the decision yet. I want to get my master's first."

  "Good girl. Then maybe wait ten years before going to a convent."

  This was weird. "Is that clerical advice, Father?"

  "No. It's just a suggestion." On the landing Driscoll stopped, leaning again the stair-hall's bannister.