by Edward Lee
"Of course they wouldn't, and most guys aren't idiotic enough to want to be priests."
"I suppose the same can be said for women who want to be nuns," she said and then regretted it. It's none of his business what I decide to do.
But he went on, "Especially if the nuns are as attractive as you." He grinned at her in a side-glance. "And don't worry, that's not a come-on."
"I should hope not!" she laughed. "Not from a seminarist presently standing in a Catholic prior house!" The brazenness of his remarks didn't make her uncomfortable at all and she guessed that was because he struck her as very devout and genuine beneath the jokester veneer.
"Is your room okay?" he asked next, cooling the subject. "I'll have you know that I respackled and painted it myself."
"Well, you did a fine job. I'm quite happy with the room." But she was already feeling stifled again. "The only thing that's a bit much is the lack of air-conditioning. But we really shouldn't complain, though, right?"
Dan's casual expression hardened. "Why not? It's hot as hell, and Driscoll's never going to get fans unless he can find them at Salvation Army."
"Mother Teresa didn't have fans in Calcutta," Venetia said.
"No, she didn't. And she was hot all the time." He nodded cynically. "Trying to make me feel guilty again, huh?"
"Only a little,"she said and smiled. "Where's your room, by the way?"
He pointed across the atrium to the opposite corner. "Over there. Mrs. Newlwyn and her daughter share the room next to yours, and Driscoll sleeps downstairs."
"What about John?"
"Who?" Dan paused. "Oh, the gardener kid. He never spends the night. He lives with his adoptive parents in town. He's kind of ..."
"Mrs. Newlwyn told me. An anxiety problem."
"But he's a good kid and he works like a mule."
Venetia looked over the rail. "And you said Father Driscoll sleeps downstairs?"
"Yeah, in the old prior's quarters, next to the main office. Figures-he's the only one in the joint with his own bathroom."
"He is the boss."
"Yeah, and that sucks, doesn't it?"
"I heard that!" the voice boomed from downstairs.
"Shit," " Dan muttered under his breath. He and Venetia looked over the rail and saw Father Driscoll peering up from the atrium floor. He had a glass of milk in his hand and wore striped pajamas.
"Hi, Father. I was just joshin'. You know me."
Driscoll grinned, his short blond hair spiky from a recent shower himself. "Indeed I do, Dan. And you're right, it probably does suck that I'm the boss but it's good to know that at least Venetia recognizes the significance of an authority figure during a project like ours. Now if you want some advice from the boss, you might want to turn off your ratchet-jaws and get to bed. You'll need your sleep-you especially, Dan."
"Me especially?"
"Why, sure. Since you're the one who's going to be clearing out all the attic coves tomorrow. There are twelve of them, Dan, just for your information. Hope it's not too hot tomorrow."
Dan's frown seemed to radiate. "I'm looking forward to it, Father."
Driscoll smiled, mainly at Venetia. "Now, good night to both of you." He disappeared back to his room.
"Dig those groovy pajamas," Dan sputtered.
"He's right " Venetia said. "It's getting late-see you in the morning." She rushed toward her bedroom. She wanted to get away quickly because she was afraid she might laugh at Dan's embarrassment. "Too funny," she said to herself once back in her room. A breeze slightly cooler than before billowed the curtains. That's nice.... I'll sleep like a log tonight. She put her toiletries on the dresser, but
Thunk.
Then, clack!
The room was suddenly dark. She'd accidently bumped her suitcase with her calf; it tipped over and struck the ugly metal floor lamp, which then crashed into the corner. "Oh, what a pain in the ..." She tiptoed to the end of the dresser, careful of any broken glass, and switched on the smaller lamp there.
"That's just great."
Not only had the floor lamp's bulb smashed, its metal shade had gouged some of the freshly painted wall. She quickly swept up the broken bulb, then righted the cumbersome lamp, and then ...
She was squinting at the gouge.
What is ... She scratched the blemish with her fingernail. Is that writing?
She rapped her knuckles against the wall. That's not Sheetrock, she realized. Then she tapped the gouge. I guess they just put plaster over bricks. She scratched a bit more of the gouge and could even see several layers of plaster or some equivalent sealant beneath, indicating a number of re-coverings over the years. But-
There was something else, too.
Some black lines at the deepest part of the gouge. That is writing, she deduced when she scratched some more.
It appeared to be three-inch-high black letters, either painted or perhaps inscribed with Magic Marker: Rus
Venetia couldn't imagine what it could be, and by now she was too tired to care. Deal with it in the morning ... and repair the damage. She turned off the other lamp, heading for the bed. As warm as it was she elected to sleep nude, which she knew would be comfortable with the breeze coming in. However-
Oh my God! Not again!
Before she could even take off her robe, that nowfamiliar vibration bloomed in her stomach and began to crawl to her head ...
And the awful voice returned:
"Don't be alarmed! This isn't a dream!" A fuzzed-over shriek, like a distant voice on an old radio. "Don't go to sleep or the transmission will be severed! Venetia! I have very important things to tell you!"
The last line drove that spike back into her brain like the worst headache of her life. She squealed, biting her lips; then her knees thunked hard against the bare floor.
"You're just a hallucination!" her throat finally ground out. Her hands vised her ears but there was no relief from the pain. "Go away! It hurts so much!"
The voice crackled back. "Listen! Listen! Lie down and breathe deeply. Do not be afraid! Try to relax and the pain will subside. You have to trust me, there isn't much time. But don't go to sleep."
- Venetia flopped on her back and followed the instructions of the impossible voice.
"Breathe. Relax. Calm down."
The head pain as well as that throbbing nausea began to soften.
"Can you hear me?" the voice asked next in a lower tenor.
This is a hallucination or a nightmare, her thoughts warned her. I'm not going to have a conversation with either.
But then the discomfort slipped further away.
The voice wasn't lying.
"Can you hear me, Venetia?"
"Yuh-yes."
"We can only communicate when you're in a state of fatigue because your subconscious blocks are down and your brain waves are optimum. We lose contact if you fall asleep or come fully awake. Try to maintain your fatigue, try to stay semiconscious."
Her brow furrowed in the dark. "That doesn't make sense."
"1 know it doesn't ... because everything is opposite here. What makes sense to you makes no sense here. Your moon is white, Venetia. Ours is black. Your science is our sorcery; our logic is your madness. You have enchantments, we have disenchantments, and where your world strives for order, our world strives for chaos. Please understand, you must understand."
The pain was barely there anymore; her fatigue began to reach up....
"Please don't go to sleep! Damn! How can I convince you?" Was there a sound like hooves on pavement? The voice seemed to speak to someone else. "Don't worry, Ruth, it's just a Halberdier Squad looking for Broodren to chop."
Ruth? "Huh?"
The voice sharpened. "Your name is Venetia Barlow. You're a theology student from Catholic University and right now you're working for the New Hampshire Diocese at a place called St. John's Prior House. Am I right?"
"Yes," Venetia said.
"How could I know that?"
"Because you're just my sub
conscious mind!" she almost yelled in reply. "My subconscious mind would know that, you moron!"
"All right... let me think. Turn on the light and look in the mirror. Look directly at the reflection of your own eyes."
She felt more of the haze embracing her. "Why?"
"Because then you could see me. If you saw me, you'd be convinced."
Now she yawned but the prospect also made her tremble a little. It's just a stupid dream.... "I don't want to see you, whoever you are." Then she giggled. "Oh, yeah, my subconscious."
"Venetia, my name is Thomas Alexander. I'm a Catholic priest from Richmond. I was working at an old abbey in Russell County-"
"So what?"
"-when I died. I died about ten years ago."
I really have to hand it to my subconscious, she thought loopily. This is one bizarre dream. "Oh, so you're dead, huh?"
"Yes, and you might be too if you don't believe me-" Another crackling pause as though something were distracting the voice. "Ruth, can't you see I'm trying to talk here! Don't touch that! It'll bite!"
"Who's Ruth?" Venetia slurred.
"My assistant. She's here with me too; her name's Ruth Bridges, from Collier County, Florida. Remember that."
"What on earth for?"
The voice seemed to pitch in and out again, like a radio station getting too far away. "Look it up on the Internet, and look up my name, too. Then you'll believe me, and we can make some progress. "
"This is stupid, this is a dream...."
"For God's sake, don't fall asleep!"
The trebled volume gave her heart a lurch.
The voice spoke again to this imaginary Ruth person. "She doesn't believe me. She thinks I'm just a voice in a dream. "
Did a woman's voice reply? "Then I guess you're fucked, huh?"
"1 know." Louder. "Venetia, listen! You just knocked a piece of plaster out of the wall, right?"
"Uh-huh."
"And there's a word underneath the plaster."
"Some letters," she groggily replied.
"Not just some letters, it'; -a word."
Venetia smiled in the dark. "Tell me the word because I haven't seen it yet. If you tell me the whole word then you can't be my subconscious. But you can't do that, can you?"
"The word is Losphorus. "
Now her mind ticked through the crushing fatigue. "That's not Latin, is it?"
"It's Greek. It means torchbearer."
"Huh?" She was drifting again.
"1 knew it, we're losing her." The voice was getting tiny behind the crackling. "She'll wake up in the morning and think it was all a dream. We're getting nowhere with this."
"Fuckin' sucks, man," the woman's voice seemed to say. "You ever gonna tell me what the fuck this shit's all about?"
Venetia-was confused. "Where are you talking to me from?"
"I told you yesterday." The man's voice returned with some clarity. "I'm in a city called the Mephistopolis."
Meph- She struggled through the drowse. "Where's that?"
Wind seemed to sweep through the crackling pause. "It's in Hell."
The voice was gone, leaving a swollen silence in the room and Venetia's eyes wide open. The dream's final words left her unpleasantly awake, like after watching a gruesome horror movie late at night. This is so crazy. But at least she felt much better than after her last bout with this. Voices from Hell. Where's my mind getting this stuff?
Just go to bed. Don't worry about it.
She couldn't recall the conscious impulse that triggered her next action. When her full awareness returned, the dresser lamp was back on and there was a pile of chipped plaster by the baseboard.
She'd used her nail file to chip, scratch, and gouge away a nine-inch-long area of plaster.
The word stared back in her face.
EOSPHORUS.
Chapter Eight
(1)
Ruth lowered the Vox Untervelt from Father Alexander's lips.
"So much for that," he said, discouraged.
"You think she didn't believe you?"
"We'll see. If she checks those details out, she might."
"Yeah, or maybe the only thing she'll check is herself ... into a fuckin' psych ward.
"You have such a way with words, Ruth."
"And why is it so important that you talk to this chick?"
"In time," Alexander said, using his favorite reply. He still sat propped up on the Rot-Port public bench.
In time, my ass.... When Ruth looked down at some weeds growing up through the spongy sidewalk cracksa rot-walk, really-she noticed sneering faces within the persimmon-colored flowers. She scuffed some of the rot growing there with her flip-flop, to reveal the pavement itself. There were chunks of bone, finger- and toenails, and teeth mixed with the concrete. This place sucks. A tree out in the rot-lawned park looked like a willow, but the tip of every leaf seemed to excrete some milky fluid. Clumps of what she thought were Spanish moss dangled from the thin branches, but looking closer she realized they were simply clumps of organic rot.
The priest caught her gazing at it. "A Seeping Willow. Stay away from the stuff dripping from the leaves. It'll get you pregnant with something that's ..
Ruth could imagine. She pointed to the Vox Unteraelt around Alexander's neck. "So, what? We gotta wait another day for this chick to get tired before you can talk to her again?"
"Correct."
Ruth tried to remain focused on whatever arcane task was in the priest's head but the surroundings just unnerved her too much. "Man, can we just get the fuck out of this rotten place?"
"Come on, Ruth. At least try to tone down the language. It's ungodly."
v "Fuck that shit, man." She indecorously spat, trying to to evacuate the taste of the District's meaty air. "Look. Even the grass is rot. Let's split."
"I know you hate it here, Ruth, but we're not done in RotPort yet," the priest informed. "Roll up my left sleeve."
Ruth gaped at him. "Roll it up over what?"
"Just roll it up."
She rolled the black sleeve up over a scabbed and grisly stump. Whoever'd chopped off his arms had only left about six inches of stump. "Why am I doing this?"
"What's it say? The calligraphy?"
The fuck's he ... But then she saw it. A scarlet scar like the most deftly inked tattoo read: 1500 Block, Cadaverine & Pestiferous St. South.
"It's right down the road. Strap me up and head that way," he said with encouragement, pointing his stump.
Ruth harnessed him up, still unbelieving of her plight. "You got directions written on your skin?"
"Yes. It was written by a twelfth-century friar who worked in a scriptorium in Spain. He had a problem with lust so that's why he wound up in Purgatory. Writes beautifully, though."
This is the dumbest-ass bunch of shit.... Ruth hauled him down the hot street on her back, sputtering. "So where are we going now?"
"Women like to shop, right?"
"Yeah," she replied, stretching the word.
"We're going shopping now, Ruth. To get you some new clothes."
LILITH'S WOMENS& DEMONSWEAR ANNEX #5315, the rotframed sign read.
"What's this? A fuckin' Victoria's Secret in Hell?"
"Exactly," the priest said behind her ear. "It's a state store. They're everywhere."
"So it's, like, communism here? Everything owned by the state?"
"Oh, no, that's far too uniform for Hell. It's everything. Communism, socialism, anarchism, oligarchy, tyranny, and good old free-enterprise. When you throw them all together, none of them work. That's the way Lucifer wants it. And it makes the economy ripe for corruption and deptocracy."
Ask a s i l l y question ... , Ruth thought. She pushed in through the fungus-stained glass door and was at once greeted by a smiling, lavender-skinned Succubus who wasn't wearing a stitch. Yellow nipples and lips contrasted the odd hue, and what should have been the whites of her eyes were maroon. She was bald and had a pair of tiny black horns on her pate. Canine teeth showed
through the smile. "May I help you?"
"We're looking for a nice bra and miniskirt," Alexander told the pretty Demonness. "Provocative yet refined. I'm particularly interested in something from the exclusive Bloody Mary line."
The attendant paused. "That's the most expensive line in Hell, Father, and they only make one style of bra and one style of skirt."
"I'm aware of that. Are a thousand Hellnotes per garment enough?"
The smile sharpened. "Oh, yes." Her words seemed to come from everywhere but her mouth. "Follow me."
Ruth trudged behind, noticing the clerk's sleek physique and impeccable curves. "She's got a pretty good body for a ... whatever the fuck she is."
"A Succubus, Ruth. A female Sex-Demon. You can tell by the eyes that she's First Caliph. That means she's a direct descendant of the Lilitu herself."
"Who?"
"Lilitu, otherwise known as Lilith. Various rabbinic texts define her as either Adam's first wife or the Demonic imposture he left Eve for in the Garden of Eden. She's a favorite of Lucifer, the Whore Mother of Hell."
"Shit, I think a guy I was in love with called me that once."
The priest chuckled. "What was your reaction?"
Ruth recalled the satisfaction. "I-busted a fuckin' toilet tank cover over his head, then took his cash and sold his Corvette to a chop shop. The fucker."
The Succubus took them into a dressing booth, the curtain of which was comprised of what appeared to be linked ceramic triangles. When Ruth looked closer, however, she saw that the triangles were teeth.
"Teeth from Excre-Leeches," Alexander said. "That means this is a posh place."
"If you'll just give me a second," the Succubus said, and then-
"Hey! Hands off the goods, honey!" Ruth exclaimed. "Unless you want some black-and-blue to go along with your purple skin!"
The Succubus had opened her long-fingered hands directly over Ruth's melon-sized breasts. "I need to size you, miss!" she snapped back.
"Then get a fuckin' tape measure!"
"Ruth, relax," Alexander said wearily. "That's how they do things here."