House Infernal by Edward Lee

by Edward Lee

  "The face," Venetia almost gagged.

  "A mask, I suppose," Mrs. Newlwyn expressed.

  Yes, now, the anti-Pope's face seemed more like a mask of white crust, with only crude eye holes and a gouge for a mouth.

  "Read the inscription," Father Driscoll advised. "I'll bet anything it's Tessorio's handwriting, too."

  At the bottom, Venetia read the fine cursive words:

  In a Blood & Sumac Dream, my vision: E.D. Boniface.

  "E.D.?" Venetia questioned. "What could that mean?"

  "Who knows?" Driscoll said. "And it looks like a castle in the background, doesn't it?"

  Venetia noted the intricate brickwork behind the appalling figure, topped by ramparts and a turret.

  "A medieval fortress," Dan commented. "And check out the black sickle moon. That's got to symbolize something. The religious schism of those times, or the moral decay."

  "A black moon for a black age," Driscoll added.

  Venetia couldn't help but remain on her knees to inspect the strange artwork. It was true; she could see the tiny detail herself: a black sickle moon edging over the fortress wall.

  Black, she thought. Sickle moon ...

  And the voice last night, her own dream ...

  Your moon is white, Venetia. Ours is black....

  Mrs. Newlwyn again: "What are those adornments, in the comers?"

  I wish there was more light.... Venetia looked closer and detected cursive loops wrapped around each corner of the sketch.

  Then-

  "Wait a minute. Those aren't adomments," she noted. "It's more writing."

  Driscoll leaned on his knees. "Can you make it out?"

  Now Venetia had her face only a few inches from the drawing paper. "It looks like ... ash-shaytan."

  "What the hell is that?" Dan wondered.

  "Hell is right," Driscoll said. He had a smirk for Dan's borderline profanity. "It's one of the Islamic names for Satan. Read the next corner."

  "Lux," she began, and after more squinting: "Ferre?"

  Father Driscoll looked down, hands-on hips. "Come on, you both took Latin, didn't you?"

  She and Dan traded glances, then almost simultaneously they both said, "Lucifer."

  "Good. The third comer?"

  "Iblis," Venetia and Dan said together. Dan looked up. "Isn't that another name for the Devil?"

  "Uh-huh. Pre-Islamic. And the fourth comer?

  Venetia read it, pushed back a sick feeling in her gut, then said, "Eosphorus."

  Chapter Nine

  (I)

  WELCOME TO SEWAGETON, THE BEAUTIFUL WASTE DISTRICT, the sign greeted them.

  "Oh my ... god!" Ruth howled when she looked around.

  I never said we were going to Disney World, Ruth."

  "We're not going here!" she yelled over her shoulder. "We just left a town made of rot, but now we're coming into a town made of-of-" In utter disbelief, she looked around again, at the brown brick buildings, the brown brick streets, the dizzyingly high brown brick skyscrapers. "Oh my god!"

  "Ruth, you're just making this harder and harder by complaining," Alexander said from her back. "I've already told you, each district exists in its own uniqueness. Rot-Port's made of rot. Osiris Heights is made of bricks of obsidian stone, to honor the Egyptian god of the Underworld, a place called the Chthonic Region. The Boniface District-which you'll be seeing later-was built with bricks made of baked blood."

  "And this place is made with bricks of shit! It's disgusting, and it doesn't make sense!"

  "I've told you over and over, everything is opposite here. That's part of Lucifer's design. This is just ... the way it is."

  "Well then fuck the way it is!" she bellowed. Several Polter-Rats scattered at Ruth's outburst.

  "Just hold the line," the priest ordered.

  Ruth thought of looking down as she walked along, to avert her eyes from the appalling look of the place, but even then she quailed when she noticed a detail within the sidewalk bricks. "Aw, man, the sidewalk's got corn in it...."

  "Be strong."

  The next brown building took up the equivalent of a city block. Slim bronze pipes on the roof, like stovepipes, issued wisps of smoke that seemed pink. There were no windows.

  THE GOETHE HALL OF AUTDMATIC-WRITERS, read the sign.

  "What's that?" Ruth asked.

  "Automatic-writers are one of Hell's favorite means of contacting people in the Living World," the priest explained. "And this, the Goethe Hall, is the most important one in the city. That pink smoke is the exhalations of the writers themselves. Specially trained Warlocks called Telethesists use intricate manipulations of telepathy. They go into a trance after inhaling the fumes of burning tree resin-a tree from which someone was hanged-while a human in the Living World is in an identical trance. Whatever the Telethesist writes is simultaneously written down by their earthly contact. It helps spread the influence of Hell on earth. The big deal these days is they contact novelists and songwriters. But they also use their craft to recruit myrmidons...."

  "I dropped out of school in junior high, man," Ruth griped, still wincing at the district's all-pervading stink. "Do I look like I know what that means?"

  "A myrmidon is like a helper, Ruth. Only these helpers on earth exist to help Satan. Hitler was a myrmidon, by the way, and so were Genghis Khan and Napoleon."

  "Napoleon-oh, the guy who invented the dessert?"

  "They're famous figures of evil in world history, Ruth."

  "World history didn't do shit for me so I don't give a shit about it."

  Alexander tsked. "You should, Ruth, because some of what I'm saying involves you. For instance, a long time ago, there was a Pope named Boniface the Seventh. He was one of these myrmidons I'm telling you about."

  "What, a Pope was in contact with some wizard in Hell?"

  "Through a contract with the Devil, yes. Boniface is now a very high-ranking figure here in the Mephistopolis, and for quite some time he's been utilizing some of Hell's very best automatic-writers to contact some other myrmidons on earth, and it all has something to so with our mission."

  Ruth winced when she spotted two construction Imps stirring what she first thought was a trough of cement. But it was a trough of something else. "And this chick you were talking to on that horn?"

  "The Vox Untervelt, yes. That girl-Venetia Barlow-is the very keystone of our mission. If we can't convince her that we're genuine, then-"

  "We're up Shit's Creek, right? And I'll bet this burg's really got one."

  Father Alexander shook his head behind her. "Just try to listen more, Ruth. We've both got a lot riding on this."

  "Yeah?" Ruth was getting fed up. "The only thing I've got riding right now is you-on my fuckin' back-while I'm walking through a town made of shit."

  "Ruth, please remember. Try to have some Grace." He tried to sound hopeful. "And don't forget-with any luck, I'll have some new limbs in a little while, and you won't have to carry me anymore."

  "Yeah, that I really have to see ..

  Her flip-flops pounded on.

  To passersby, the priest appeared as a second head on Ruth's shoulder. "Wait, wait," he said, as if alarmed. "Cross the street and cut through the next block."

  "Why?"

  "See those Broodren up there at the corner?"

  Her eyes peered ahead. Several guffawing Demonic kids had congregated around a fire hydrant, and one of them had a big wrench. "Yeah, I see 'em. What about 'em?"

  "Well, you know how kids in the inner city open fire hydrants during the summer to stay cool? Same thing here."

  "Not quite the same thing," she snapped over her shoulder. "Kids in the inner city don't have horns and fangs."

  "But it's all relative, Ruth. Just cross the street. We don't want to be anywhere near that hydrant."

  Ruth slowed, thinking. "What's wrong with you? I'm burning up it's so hot here. Let's go cool off under that hydrant."

  "Ruth. Think," the priest sternly suggested. "This town is called Sewage
ton. No water will be coming out of that hydrant, just diarrhea."

  Ruth sprinted across the street.

  "So where are we going now?" she half-sobbed.

  "We're looking for Excreta Avenue. There's an urban event that's going to take place there soon, and we can't miss it."

  "I don't even want to know."

  "Good, because it's easier to see than to explain." He paused, looking off in the distance. "Oh, and here's something pretty disgusting."

  "Then I don't want to know!"

  "It's just more things that you need to know." The priest was losing his patience. "Knowledge is your best weapon, Ruth. You need to know the terrain of your enemy. Then you can operate more effectively. Like that, for instance...."

  Ruth stopped at the corner of a street called Ordure Lane, then spotted the sign on another multilevel brown brick warehouse that took up more space than just about any structure she'd ever seen. DISTRICT TANNING DEPOT #1.

  "Ruth. You're looking at the largest tanning facility in the Mephistopolis. It makes sense that they'd have it in Sewageton."

  "Tanning like in tanning hide?"

  "That's right."

  But the smell coming out of the building's vents was abominable.

  "I used to live with a guy in Florida who poached gator, and he'd tan the hide and sell it to dealers. But fuck! The chemicals smelled bad but not that bad. Jesus, that place smells like-"

  "Take a look in the window."

  Ruth hesitated, but then thought that maybe he was right. The more I know about this fucked-up place, the better I'll be able to get along here. She took one look through a stained window and saw vats so big they reminded her of water reservoirs.

  "Every urinal in the district empties here, by the way. And as you can see, they also have an immediate source. Along the upper rims..."

  Each huge reservoir was open-topped, and when she scanned the upper rim of each one, she saw-

  Are those people?

  "They're convicts," the priest continued. "In the Waste District, Human Damned who commit crimes don't go to the penitentiary, they come here."

  "For what?"

  "Take the Abyss-Eye and see for yourself."

  Ruth reached around and grabbed the pendant, then held it to her eye.

  "Oh, man! That's fucked-up!"

  "That's how Humans serve their sentences here-by contributing to the supply."

  She'd zoomed the Abyss-Eye on to one of several hundred Humans trapped in Iron Maidens that hung just past the reservoir's rim. Conscripts and Golems patrolled the rim in supervision. The Maiden that Ruth focused on contained a naked man whose hair and beard hung to his knees. A fat black tube led from the ceiling into his mouth. When Ruth took a longer view, she noted that thousands of such tubes fed thousands more of the Iron Maiden prisoners.

  "Since the convicts are all Human, they can't die," Alexander explaned. "No matter what you feed them. Polluted water is pumped through the tubes into their bodies so that they're constantly urinating, feeding the supply. Understand?"

  "That's outrageous!"

  "Um-hmm. So definitely don't commit any crimes in Sewageton, because that's where you'd spend your entire sentence. Ten years, fifty years, a hundred. Whatever. In Hell, convicted criminals are forced to contribute to the economy."

  They're using people for piss generators! "Wait a minute! Wait a fuckin' minute! What's this got to do with tanning hide?"

  "Watch. See those claws?"

  Ruth looked again and noticed that every so often, a giant metal claw would dip from the ceiling and release scraps of freshly flensed skin. The scraps would fall into the vat.

  "Human skin, Demon, Hybrid, fish skin, Gargoyle hide, Octo-Vulture-you name it. Flensing is big business in this District."

  After the claw released its load, it shimmied to the other end of the vat, lowered, and a few moments later clattered back upward, its tines bearing scraps of still more skin.

  "They alternate ends," Alexander said. "A fresh load sits in the vats for about a week, and then its removed for processing and tailoring. You see, Ruth, there's no tannic acid in Hell, but there's plenty of uric acid, an effective substitute. What you're looking at is essentially the most productive skin processor in Hell. The District's entire economy runs on it. Skin makes up ninety percent of all apparel in Hell. Only the very very rich own clothes made of fabric."

  "That's the most fucked-up thing I've ever seen!" Ruth yelled, and jerked away from the obscene window. "You bring me into a town made of shit just to show me a piss factory!"

  "Calm down, Ruth. You better get used to it. What you're seeing here is nothing compared to some of the things that go on in the Mephistopolis."

  "Well I don't want to see any more!" Ruth was striding so fast that Alexander almost jounced out of the harness. "I want out of here. This is worse than that other fuckedup place-ten times worse!"

  "Not much farther," he tried to console her. "Take a left at that Manburger stand."

  Ruth glimpsed what looked like a hot dog cart on the corner like you'd see in any city. The only difference was that the vendor himself had a face that looked collapsed by a baseball bat and some kind of weird vegetation growing out of his ear. "You said hamburger, right?"

  "No. Just ... forget it."

  They turned at the brown brick corner, under the EXCRETA AVE. sign. "All right. What now?"

  "Go to that alley. But watch for rats and Caco-Ticks."

  Fuckin' great, she thought.

  The stench that wafted out of the alley was positively worse than anything she'd ever smelled in her life.

  "Just try to hack it, Ruth," the priest sensed her revulsion. "Set me down and pay attention.

  Yeah, yeah. She did so, breathing through her mouth. "Man, do we have to be in the alley? It smells like a corpse's ass crack."

  "We need a protected vantage point. For instance, if some Broodren or drug addicts saw a living torso sitting right on the street unattended, then they'd snatch me and sell my guts and blood to a fortune-teller, and the rest to a Pulping Station."

  Ruth's brow popped up. "But you're not unattended. You're with me, and I've got this." She patted the clunky pistol on her belt.

  The dismembered priest seemed reluctant to say something. "Look, Ruth. For this to work, you're going to be on your own for a few minutes. Into the fray, so to speak."

  She glared down at him. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

  "Sit down for a minute. Let me explain-"

  "The sidewalk is made of shit bricks. I'm not going to sit on it. Now what kind of jive are you trying to pull?"

  Alexander aimed his stump. "See that yellow line in the road?"

  Ruth saw it beneath the feet of droves of Infernal citizens walking to and fro. The crowd parted every so often to let a steam-car chug by, or a Ghor-Hound driven carriage. "Yeah, a crosswalk. So fuckin' what?"

  "It's not a crosswalk." Now his stump elevated. "Look at that sign."

  The yellow sign with black block letters spelled crr MUTILATION ZONE.

  Ruth thought back. "Didn't you tell me about that before?"

  "Yes. I lost my arms and legs in an MZ at Pogrom Park. There's another yellow line at the end of the streeteverything in between is fair game. The Constabularysort of like a federal police department-always waits till rush hour to do this. More grist for the mill, you know?"

  "No, I don't know." Ruth cocked her hip, continuing to glare. "Why are we here?"

  "If my intelligence source is correct, in a little while a Nectoport will open at each end of the street, and-"

  "A Necto-what?"

  "Nectoport, Ruth. It's a sorcery-driven transportation device that folds space. The system was invented at the De Rais Labs. They run on pain."

  "Pain?" This was getting harder and harder to comprehend.

  "Pain, Ruth, derived from torture. Every district's got a Torture Factory. Let me put it this way-in the Living World they've got nuclear reactors and oil-burning power stati
ons that generate electricity. In Hell, they've got Torture Factories. I can show you one later."

  "I'll pass," Ruth said. "And how the fuck does pain-"

  "Sorcerers invented a way of converting the energy that fires between nerve cells into an equivalent of electricity. But here it's called Agonicity and Electrocity. Humans are the best fuel rods because they can't die. Anyway, that's how the Nectoports work. Like the transporter on Star Trek, only-"

  "Only fucked-up?"

  Alexander nodded. "It's a way for the Satanic police, the military, and Lucifer's security forces to move around quickly and without giving notice. You never see it coming until it's too late. National Mutilation Laws call for these occasional slaughterfests. When it happens, you'll see what I mean."

  "What, you mean the cops can kill anyone between the yellow lines?"

  "Exactly. It's a way to keep the Pulping Stations full, and more important than that, it helps maintain an overall air of terror, something that Lucifer insists on."

  Ruth frowned back at the droves of Demons, Imps, Trolls, and Human Damned filling the street. "Well if they know they can be killed by walking between the fuckin' lines, then why don't they just not walk between the fuckin' lines?" she yelled.

  "Because there hasn't been a Mutilation Action here in decades. Same as the Living World, Ruth. People aren't cautious. They're lazy."

  Nectoports, she thought. Agonicity. She wondered where it could possibly all end but then reminded herself that, for her, it had only just started. Then another thought jumped forward. "What's this got to do with you getting new limbs?"

  "That's how we're going to get the limbs, during the Mutilation Action," the priest told her, then raised his brow. "Or I should say, that's how you're going to get them. When the Squads arrive, the first thing they'll do is start hacking the crowd apart. That's when you slip into the Zone, grab me two arms and two legs, and bring them back."

  Ruth looked down and laughed. "Bull-fucking-shit, man!"

  "Come on, Ruth. I can't do it myself for obvious reasons. And once I'm ambulatory again, you won't have to carry me. It'll only take you a minute." His gaze darkened. "Of course, you don't have to. You can walk away right now if that's what you want."