House Infernal by Edward Lee

by Edward Lee

  "Remove her brain without delay and deliver it to the Psychical Sciences Center for analysis," the Grand Duke ordered.

  "Brilliant suggestion, Grand Duke," the Chevalier added. "The mediums there will be able to read her treacherous brain like a book, and extract all of its heretical secrets."

  The full force of the predicament finally socked home. Holy shit! These assholes are going to take my brain out of my head! In the background somewhere, she thought she heard a strange steady tone, almost like a bell, and as the Conscripts reached for her, Ruth began to scream-

  "So, when are we gonna get to this funky restaurant?" Ruth complained. She and Alexander walked leisurely down a glowing redbrick sidewalk.

  The priest smiled at her. "Believe it or not, Ruth, we just left the funky restaurant."

  Ruth stopped and leaned against a wall below a poster of that weird design she'd been seeing-the spiral in the rectangle. "What?" she said. "I'm supposed to get a job at this joint so I can read some secret message passed on to this Aldezhor guy."

  "You already did." The priest waved her into a scarlet alley. "Come on. You have to change clothes. You'll attract attention on the street, and after what just happened, we don't need attention."

  What the fuck is he talking about? But before she could object, Alexander slipped his tentacle around her waist and urged her into the alley. More shock slapped her when she looked down at herself. She was wearing the TongueSkirt and Hand-Bra. She winced when the Werewolf hands gave her breasts a squeeze. "This is fucked-up, man! I don't remember changing into this!"

  "You don't remember a lot, Ruth." The priest sat down in the corner, his Usher legs runneled with muscles. "In fact, nobody in the restaurant does. Because of this." He held up a metal implement that looked like a fork with only two tines. "Remember my goody bag?" He gestured toward the puckered pouch around his neck. "This was in it."

  Ruth rubbed her eyes. "It looks kind of like a tuning fork that guitarists use."

  "Good guess. It's a Regression Fork. It regresses the memory of anyone who hears it. We almost got nailed in the restaurant but once I struck this fork"-he winked at her and put it away-"it worked like a charm and we got out scot-free."

  "I don't remember shit," Ruth asserted.

  "Neither does anyone else who was there when I rang the fork."

  Something clicked in her head. "Then how come you remember?"

  He opened his wide, three-fingered hand, displaying two pebbles. "Earplugs."

  Ruth's breasts heaved with a great sigh. "So you're telling me I've already read this note, this superimportant secret message?"

  "Yes, Ruth. You simply don't remember reading it. Pull your skirt up over your left thigh."

  "Why?" she challenged. "I knew you were a perv."

  "Ruth, just do it."

  With obvious distaste, Ruth pulled up the TongueSkirt's quivering hem.

  "There. See?"

  Written on her thigh was VII. VII.

  "That's perfect!" he enthused. "Now we know exactly when the Involution will be initiated."

  "Huh?"

  Alexander rose. "I'll explain as we go. But for now, you need to change-"

  "Fine with me!" she rejoiced and yanked the hairy bra off. "I've been dying to drop this stuff in the garbage."

  Alexander put the bra in 'a bag. "Not so fast. You'll need to wear the outfit one more time. It's very important."

  Fuck, she thought. She reached to slip off the grotesque skirt but-"Hey!" She found the thousand-dollar Hellnote in the waistband. "How'd I get this?"

  "You don't want to know." He handed her the cutoff shorts and pink yuci Poo T-shirt. "Put this stuff back on and let's go."

  Ruth stepped out of the skirt and as she stood naked before the monster-limbed priest, she caught him looking at her very intently.

  "You don't have to stare, you know."

  "Trust me, Ruth. I'm not lusting after your body."

  Yeah, right. "Then what are you doing?"

  "It's just amazing," he said, "how closely your body resembles someone else's...."

  (II)

  Where ... am I? Venetia thought when she awoke in a room that clearly wasn't hers. And when she leaned up"Oh my God..."

  The back of her head throbbed with pain.

  "Relax, dear. You're in Father Driscoj's room."

  She recognized the soothing voice at once: Mrs. Newlwyn's. Then the matronly woman's face focused above her, along with two more-John and Betta.

  "Why am I in Father Driscoll's room?" Venetia finally managed, and leaned up. She was wrapped in her robe.

  "We found you this morning at the bottom of the stairs," a firmer voice cut in. Father Driscoll's face now appeared, along with Dan's.

  The memory-slammed back, and her eyes shot wide.

  "What happened?" Dan asked.

  That voice again.

  I'm talking to you from Hell, it said.

  But what else? Something about bones-six bones? Six coffins? And a strange word, she recalled. Electrocution? Plus the same names on the list I found. And-

  She remembered the cloaked figure on the landing coming for her.

  "You look like you've seen a ghost," Dan said trying to jest.

  Maybe I have, she thought.

  Then something worse jagged into her head: an image awash with sensations. It must've been something I dreamed.... Of course. She'd dreamed that the cloaked figure had proceeded to perform oral sex on her...

  Mrs. Newlwyn and Betta helped her sit up on the bed.

  "We brought you into my room," Father Driscoll told her, "because it's downstairs." He touched her shoulder. "Venetia, did you fall down the steps?"

  "I . . . ," she began. I guess I did. "I'm fine. I may have tripped at the bottom."

  "I think I should call a doctor."

  The idea alarmed her. "No, no, I'm all right, just a headache."

  Driscoll frowned toward Dan. "It looked like you were passed out at the bottom of the stairs. Dan admitted that you'd both been drinking last night."

  Dan cut in quickly, "But I also mentioned that Venetia only had one beer. It didn't seem like a big deal."

  "Of course not, Dan," the priest said sarcastically. "A girl barely twenty-one-who never drinks-chugging a beer on a hot night after working in the heat all day."

  "Look, if you want to blame me, go ahead. I'm sorry. I didn't think one beer would hurt. I told her to order it."

  Venetia shook her head. "It's nobody's fault but mine. The beer may have buzzed me a little but I'm certain I wasn't drunk. I think I may have fallen asleep in the atrium-"

  "Why in the atrium?"

  "I couldn't sleep so I went outside for a walk." She flicked a quick glance toward John and Betta. "I took a walk in the woods, then came in and found I was really tired." She rubbed her face. "Lord, I feel so stupid. I came in and sat down and I think I fell asleep. I had ... a nightmare. It's one I've had before-I dream I hear a voice."

  "A voice?" Mrs. Newlwyn asked.

  "A voice from Hell, telling me weird things."

  Dan tried-and failed-to buffer the comment with some levity. "At least it was a good Catholic nightmare."

  Driscoll frowned.

  "And then I dreamed I saw this ghost everyone's talking about-the cloaked figure."

  Mrs. Newlwyn's face blanched, and so did Betta's.

  "Venetia," " Driscoll said like a father to his little daughter, "there's no such thing as ghosts."

  Well ... he doesn't look happy, and I can't say I blame him. Venetia felt like an imbecile, shaking the whole house upside down with ghost stories. I hope he doesn't tell my parents.

  The priest seemed to be thinking. "All right. You got tipsy-thanks to Dan. You had a bad dream. And you may have fallen. I'm responsible here, so I have to make sure you're all right."

  "I am," Venetia implored.

  "You're certain you don't want a doctor?"

  "I'm positive."

  "All right, but there's one other thing."<
br />
  Everyone else was looking at her with a hushed concern. Eventually, Mrs. Newlwyn said, "We're worried ... about the position we found you in."

  Venetia sensed the tall woman was testing an uncomfortable detail. "My position? What do you mean?"

  "When Betta and I found you, you were unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, and your robe was off. Your..." Another moment of hesitation. "Your legs were parted."

  Driscoll stepped in. "We just want to make sure you weren't raped."

  Astonishment broke over her. "That's ridiculous." My robe must have come off when I fell. That's all I was wearing, she thought. "There was no way I was raped, Father."

  "Even with the new locks, this house would be easy for a professional thief to break into," Dan said.

  And Driscoll: "Are you sure you locked the door when you came in from your walk?"

  The key around her neck felt chilled. "I'm positive." Venetia couldn't believe all the concern she'd caused, but before she could answer, someone rang the doorbell.

  "John"-Driscoll looked to the yard boy-"go and see who that is, please."

  "Okay, Father," he said and went off.

  All eyes returned to Venetia. "I wasn't raped," she said.

  "We could take you to the hospital for an examination," Dan said.

  "That's ridiculous. I would know," she asserted without stating outright that her hymen was intact.

  Driscoll nodded, adding, "We could at least ask the police if there have been any sexual assaults in the area lately."

  "That would be crazy," she scoffed. "We don't need to mention this to the police."

  John came right back in.

  "Who's at the door?" Driscoll asked him.

  "The police," John said.

  (III)

  The scrawny kid who answered the door came back a minute later and said, as if insecure about something, "Urn, uh, Father Driscoll says you can come in."

  "Thanks," Berns said and stepped inside to an atrium that was walled with books and full of sheet-covered furniture.

  "They're all in his office." The kid's hair was sticking up and his T-shirt was flecked with grass. Yard boy, Berns thought, but when he looked up to the second-story stairhall he thought he saw a woman in a white robe rush into one of the rooms. Was that Venetia? He caught a glimpse of bright blond hair but that was it.

  "You can wait here, sir," the kid practically stammered. "Father Driscoll will be with you in a minute."

  "Okay, thanks."

  Berns sat in an old armchair by a high window with newly painted trim. He thought, What a way to start the day.

  He'd been driving up to the prior house when the radio call had come in: "Two-zero-zero, do you copy?"

  "Roger."

  "We just got a message from central commo at state HQ."

  What the hell do theywant? Berns wondered, taking the wooded road up the hill. Sue Maitland's in their custody now. "What is it?"

  "Susan Maitland committed suicide in her cell about an hour ago," the dispatcher informed him.

  Berns almost drove off the road. First Freddie Johnson, and now her! My only suspects are all killing themselves!

  "According to the state security director, she died by self-inflicted blunt trauma to the head."

  "How the fuck is that possible?" Berns complained, violating radio protocol with the profanity.

  "See banged her head against the cell wall until she died. But at least it was after the state did their own interview. They said they'll send you the transcript by five."

  "Great," Berns sputtered. "Two-zero-zero over and out."

  And now here he sat, in this dreary prior house. Pissing in the wind again. He figured anything was worth a try.

  At least Maitland proves I was right about Freddie's accomplices not leaving town. He was the heavy so it makes sense for him to have left. But the others didn't.

  Why?

  Because they still need to be here? But if so ... for what?

  Another ritual. Maybe the two in March were just the beginning of something.... He mulled over the idea.

  Eventually Dan appeared and took him to a downstairs office where he met a tall man in an identical black shirt and Roman collar. "I'm Father Christopher Driscoll," the man said.

  Berns shook his hand. It struck him that Driscoll had a firm, "priestly" voice, but his face-and blond Marine Corp crew cut-made him look like anything but a priest. "Captain Ray Berns, Father."

  "I'm sorry I missed you yesterday. Dan told me about the interview with the murder suspect." Driscoll's height made him seem cramped in the small white office. "How is the case coming?"

  Berns could've laughed. Yesterday, great. Today, not so good. He elected to not mention that both of his material suspects were now dead. "We're making some headway," he said. "And the reason I'm here-" He hefted his briefcase. "I'd like to show you some things because, to be honest, I don't have a clue. I'm hoping that religious guys like you might shed some light."

  Driscoll smiled. "The 'religious guys' are at your service, Captain."

  Berns opened the case and without thinking asked, "Where's Venetia?"

  "She may be down later," Driscoll said in an almost guarded tone.

  "She's not feeling well," Dan added.

  Keep on track! Berns scolded at himself. "The reason I need your consultation, Father, is because we believe the March murders were perpetrated by a-for lack of a better term-a suicide cult that practices Satanism." At once Berns winced at his own choice of words. "I know that sounds hokey but-"

  "Why hokey, Captain?" Driscoll countered. "For the two thousand years that Christianity's been around, there have been sects that exist in total rebellion to it. God is love, God is life; hence, an antithetical cult who adheres to the opposite. Their god-Lucifer-is not love but hatred, and not life but death." Driscoll seemed content with the prospect. "In other words, Satanism is nothing new. It's always been here; its just harder to see in these modem times."

  "I appreciate your open mind, Father." Berns could've laughed. "That's not quite the response I've gotten from the diocese."

  Driscoll waved a hand. "Don't worry about those sticks in the mud."

  Dan chuckled.

  Suddenly the door clicked open and Venetia slipped in. "Hello, Captain. Hope I'm not intruding."

  "Not at all." But when he looked at her, with all that blond hair down, and the thrusting bosom, he could've keeled over.

  "I think it's a case of the more the merrier," " Dan interjected.

  Berns was instantly distracted from withdrawing his materials from the briefcase. He wanted to look right at her but could only steal glimpses. Holy Moses, she's beautiful. Her apparel made her appear half-trashy and halfchaste: flip-flops and bare legs, her white blouse knotted to expose her midriff, yet the frumpy black skirt and cross glittering in her cleavage. He finally focused. "What I've got here are copies of some papers that were found in Freddie Johnson's domicile in Maine. That's where he fled to after the murders." He removed the printouts that the Lubec PD had scanned for him. "This isn't Latin, is it?"

  Venetia and Dan stood on either side when he placed the sheet on Driscoll's desk.

  They all peered down at the rushed scribble whose first line read:

  1) Zvaetlot srrpoyssuzc foedf du puzvmwuv an wiffew treeg untl!

  "No," Driscoll, Dan, and Venetia said all at once; then Venetia added, "And it's not Old English, Frisian, or Norse."

  Driscoll was squinting. "I have no idea what that is. It looks like gobbledygook."

  "Maybe v that's exactly what it is," Dan suggested. "Maybe it's just a bunch of bunk scribbled by a crazy drug addict-this Freddie guy, perhaps. Or Sue Maitland."

  Driscoll mulled it over. "Delusional people often pursue their delusions with great detail."

  "These people think they're really worshiping Satan," Venetia suggested, still scanning the pages. "Maybe they created their own language to accommodate the fantasy."

  "Crazy people do crazy thin
gs," Driscoll said.

  "But Freddie Johnson wasn't crazy," Berns corrected. "We gave him every psych test in the book."

  Venetia's cross dangled when she leaned over farther. "Forget about what language it is. Each paragraph is numbered. Like a list of some kind."

  "A list of instructions," Berns told her. "That's what Maitland implied."

  Dan said halfheartedly, "Instructions for a devilish ritual designed to appease Satan." Then he chuckled.

  No one else laughed, and Berns thought, Buddy, you just might be right.

  Venetia looked to Berns. "Captain, Freddie Johnson was the ringleader, right?"

  "Yeah, that much we know for sure. The boss of the cult, or whatever you want to call it."

  "Did anyone ever ask him outright?"

  "Ask him what?"

  "If he was a Satanist."

  Good question. "Yes. And you know what he said?" Berns whipped out his pad of notes. "He said he was an 'Eosphorian."'

  Venetia, Driscoll, and Dan all looked at each other without a word.

  "Why do I have this feeling everybody knows something I don't?" Berns asked.

  "Follow us, Captain," Venetia said. "We'll show you."

  What the hell? They took him upstairs and showed him each corner room, and the weird words written beneath the broken plaster: Ash-shaytan, in one room, Lux Ferre, in another, then Iblis, and finally, Eosphorus.

  "Four different names for Satan," Driscoll told him.

  Berns was confused now. "Freddie wrote these names?"

  "That's the interesting part," Driscoll said. "No. They were under plaster forty years old."

  "And Johnson was only in his thirties," Berns said. "So this cult..."

  Venetia leaned against a dresser. "Maybe this cult has existed for all those decades, and Freddie and Sue were just the most recent recruits."

  Sounds nutty, but she's got to be right, Berns thought. "This is so weird. It's almost like this building has some specific significance to the cult."

  "And that's not all," Driscoll said, and then explained the history of Amano Tessorio.

  "A Vatican architect who practiced devil worship in the closet." Berns felt waylaid.

  "He secretly adorned the building with homages to Lucifer," Venetia added. "Built-in desecration."

  It was difficult to process the information. Berns held up a finger. "Ah, but there's one more thing I need to show you." He led them back downstairs to Driscoll's office.