by Edward Lee
As she followed the wall to the next office, she noticed a book on the shelves that wasn't flush with the others. Instinct made her pull it out. The Catholic Recipe Book! was the title. Meals for Godly Living!
What could be more boring? she wondered. Mrs. Newlwyn's probably been looking at it.... Then her heart leapt when she withdrew a slip of paper from inside.
This is definitely no recipe.
Another note in Tessorio's hand. A word list?
The heretical priest had written:
Sacrifant: a hellbound Human whose blood is let for specific-often transpositional-rites.
Myrmidon: an earthbound Believer who follows infernal instructions, often via automatic writing or channeling.
Chastitant: an "unspoiled" crossbreed whose purity overrides infernal instinct. Typically one of six. May befemale or male.
Morte-Cisterna: a font, carafe, or other closed container in which Sacrifant blood is stored for precursory decomposition.
Venetia put the yellowed sheet back, knowing by whom it had been touched so long ago. It repulsed her like a wrapper of something rotten. More of Tessorio's madness, she thought, which eventually touched poles with the same madness forty years later.
Were Freddie, Sue, and Dougie really new members of an occult sect that Tessorio was once a part of?
The odds seemed astronomical but then she couldn't deny the Eosphorus link.
And Driscoll hadn't been exaggerating when he'd told her of Tessorio's fondness for hiding arcane notes amid the atrium's thousands of books. Two shelves down she found another one, entitled Catholic Conspiracy & the Vietnam War. The title was nonsensical but inside was an older, more yellowed sheet of paper. It read: The blood must be voided through the throat.
Venetia dropped the sheet, mortified. There's another link if ever there was one.... The two women murdered last March had had their throats cut. By Freddie, Dougie, and Sue, she reminded herself. More than four decades after Tessorio wrote this.
The atrium windows darkened. She thought again of her last spell or nightmare, or whatever. You must find the Pith! You must find the bones! the manic voice had shrieked. Bones? she wondered. And what on earth was a Pith? Hadn't Whitewood's note also mentioned a Pith?
Yes. Take heed not to be sacrificed by mistake, the priest turned-bum had scrawled. Only you can rightly enter the Pith.
Venetia shook her head. The entire event had been so bizarre. These spells; these voices that could only be the product of nightmare ...
Nevertheless ...
She stuck her head in Father Driscoll's office again but there was no sign of him. The portable AC unit hummed. She walked straight to a bookshelf and found a big dictionary and flipped to the Ps.
pith n. 1. Botany. The soft, spongelike substance at the center of plant stems.
"That can't be it. Plants?" she muttered. But there was a second definition.
2. The central point or core of a crucial thing or event.
A pith, she reflected. A center point. The definition left her more confused. The central point of what?
The prior house itself?
The notion made her stomach hitch, but then she noticed another door she'd previously presumed was a closet.
It stood open now, yet didn't lead to a closet.
Another room, an office behind the office. How curious. A smaller, book-lined office with a desk and computer. The latter observation infuriated her. He told me I couldn't go online with my laptop because the phone lines weren't working! She could easily see not only a phone on the desk but another phone cable going into the back of the computer.
Her thoughts ticked. She was nervous, yet excited at the same time. What would he do if he caught me in here?
No answer came as she began to go through the desk drawers.
I have a right to. There's too many fishy things going on.
The top drawer contained a framed picture of Father Whitewood, whose wise, healthful likeness bore little resemblance to the man now.
Uh-oh, she thought. Beneath the picture was a cross and chain, and a pistol.
Don't overreact. If I were in charge here I might want a gun around, too. After two murders?
She blinked fatigue out of her eyes. The bottom drawer contained nothing but a single manila folder. I really shouldn't do this, she thought, but opened the folder anyway. The top sheet was a newspaper clipping from L'Osservatore, which she knew was the Vatican's daily newspaper, but-just my luck-it wasn't the English version, it was Italian, a language she wasn't well-versed in. It was dated October 25, 1985.
Just shy of my birthday, Venetia noted.
She flipped the page and found another newspaper clipping, this one in English, from The Catholic Standard. The article began:
VATICAN CITY-Today, with the Holy Father's blessing, the Vatican's Office of Permits and Licenses authorized a small-scale excavation of the Basilica's Holy Sepulcher. Several plots of Christendom's earliest Popes and Saints may have to be temporarily moved while engineers check for water seepage that could damage grave liners. Among the exhumed is an ossuary thought to contain the remains of St. Ignatius of Antioch. As to how long these holy remains would be out of their original resting places, the Office remarked, "They will be reentombed with every possible promptitude."
Venetia stood in total befuddlement. Why would Father Driscoll keep an article like this? It made no sense.
But then the thought kindled: Holy remains ... She gulped at the coincidence.
Bones.
Only one sheet remained in the folder. Venetia picked it up-
Her head spun. Her eyes went dry from not blinking. What she stared down at in Driscoll's desk was something else penned by Tessorio, but not notes this time. It was an old drawing:
The Involution.
The discovery nearly caused her to faint. f don't believe it.... Driscoll must have known about the diagram all along, yet acted like he didn't. And if that were the case, it could only mean ...
Driscoll's part of the cult, too? Carrying on in Tessorio's footsteps along with Freddie and these others?
The revelations only made her more light-headed. She sat down at the desk, nearly in tears. What is going on in this place? But wouldn't complicity explain Driscoll's peculiar absence? Venetia rubbed more fatigue out of her eyes, thinking, I should go get Dan.
Then her teeth clacked together, as the familiar spike of pain pierced her ears, along with the half shriek of a voice, distorted like someone screaming through a blown speaker. "Venetia! Venetia! For the love of God, can you hear me?"
The manic voice filled her belly with prickly sensations. She put hands to ears but could still hear the voice:
"You must find the Pith! You must bring the bones! Can you hear me!"
"Yes!" she screamed. "Stop it! You're killing me!"
It was no exaggeration. This was the loudest she'd heard the voice so far, and with trebled volume came trebled pain.
"1 can see everything you're seeing, Venetia! You're in Driscoll's office, aren't you?"
"Yes!"
"And you just found a copy of the Involution in his desk-"
"Yes! My god, leave me alone!" Was the flayed voice expanding the pressure in her brain? Would it split her skull open?
"It's not just a drawing of the Involution! It's the original guide Tessorio used while in contact with automatic-writers in Hell!"
Venetia began to convulse.
"Turn it over! Venetia! Turn the drawing over!"
If she appeased the voice, would the pain abate? Her hands blindly fumbled for the folder, found the last sheet, and flipped it over.
Through the agony-driven vertigo, she could see a different version of the Involution, this one much crisper, all straight lines and perfect angles, in blue ink. She noticed dimensions jotted down along each of the rectangle's four lines, and in the middle, where the spiral was, Tessorio had written the words Atrium Floor.
"It's not a drawing, Venetia! It's a blueprint!
Tessorio built the prior house to the same specifications as Boniface's courtyard, and Boniface's courtyard is a Pourer Dolmen!"
Venetia fell out of the chair. I've got to wake myself up, otherwise the voice'!l kill me.... She crawled for another door in the corner which stood half-open; she could see a light, a mirror, and a sink. A bathroom.
She could feel separate blood vessels in her brain beat with the voice's exclamation: "It's going to be very soon, so be ready, and don't be afraid!"
At the sink, she splashed water in her face; that and the final lance of pain jolted her to full wakefulness. I'm going to have to go to a shrink or a hospital or something!
She should probably call her mother, who'd insist on the same thing. The awful vibrations in her belly faded away in the next moments. For now, at least, she'd have to find Dan....
She stopped when she turned around. On the floor near the bathroom, she noticed the most unlikely of objects: a wide-mouthed funnel.
"What on earth is that doing here?" she mumbled.
She leaned over, picked it up, then-
Her stomach nearly heaved. The funnel clattered to the floor.
My God, is that-
The funnel's mouth was glazed with something wet ... and red.
She refused to let herself believe it was blood. That would be crazy...
Next, she found herself in dead silence, staring at the closed shower curtain. What am I thinking? she thought. Her mind wanted to leave but instead she was seized by a modem yet very primal human instinct.
There's nothing behind there....
When Venetia pulled back the curtain, she screamed, reeling backward, as-
Thwack!
An unseen blow struck her in the head from behind. The last thing her eyes registered before she blacked out was this: a very pale Father Driscoll lying crumpled in the tub, one side of his throat cut so deep he was half-decapitated.
Chapter Eighteen
(I)
"Good God, I hope she heard me that time," Alexander said, having just removed the Vox Untervelt from his lips. Scarlet buildings shimmered around them; in the distance, the blood brick foundries fumed smoke that somehow sparkled. Ruth and Alexander walked down a busy Demon-clogged street within the Hand of Glory's umbra, unseen by all.
"The virgin chick. She answered, didn't she?" Ruth asked. She was watching Maggot-Moths fly circles about some flowers with eyeballs for stamens.
"Yes, but does she believe what she's hearing?" The priest seemed to fret.
Ruth considered, If I heard a voice that said it was from Hell, would I believe it? Not a fuckin' chance. I'd just lay off the dope for a while. "And if she doesn't believe what you're telling her ... what then?"
'Then we're-
"Fucked hard and never kissed?"
Alexander nodded, frowning. "Try not to cuss, Ruth. Please?"
Fuck it. But Ruth did like the idea of walking undetected; no one could see her now, not dressed in the expensive Hand-Bra and Tongue-Skirt, and wearing the Putridox face that once belonged to Voluptua. The priest stopped at a busy corner. "Well, here's Carnivorous Boulevard and Apraxia Street, and there"-his Annelok arm pointed-"is the adoption agency."
EVIL BABY ADOPTION SERVICES, read the sign.
"Can't say I dig the name," Ruth remarked, "but I think it's pretty cool that childless couples in Hell can adopt a baby to care for and love."
"Ruth, Ruth, Ruth. You don't understand anything yet, do you?" Alexander complained. "People here don't adopt babies to raise like they do in the Living World."
"Then what do they adopt them for?"
"To sacrifice to Satan. What did you think?" He passed her the Hand of Glory. "Hold this, I'll be right back."
Ruth took the appalling hand with flame-tipped fingers. "So what do we need a baby for?" she asked, distressed.
Alexander didn't answer; he simply stepped out of the umbra and entered the agency.
As if shit couldn't be weird enough, Ruth thought. She stood tapping her bone-sandaled foot, and a few minutes later Alexander returned. Reentering the umbra, he held in his arms a pudgy little baby with a big smile and big wide eyes. He also had little horns, fangs like a woodchuck, and green and black-spotted skin, but that hardly mattered.
"He's so cute," Ruth rejoiced, then paused. "I'm mean ... even though he's a Demon baby."
"Goo-goo, gaa-gaa," the baby blathered and burped. Little pudgy hands reached up for Alexander.
"It's not as cute as you think," the priest said.
Next, the infant reached for one of Ruth's sizable breasts. "I guess it's a boy baby, too, huh? And what do we need a baby for anyway?" Ruth chuckled. "It's not like we're gonna sacrifice it, right?" _
Alexander gave her a grim look ... as he pulled out his knife.
"Bullshit, man!" she yelled. "I don't care if it is a Demon-it's still a baby, for fuck's sake!"
"Ruth, you don't understand, and we don't have time to bicker."
Ruth tried to yank the baby away. "No way, man! I don't care if I have to stay here for fucking-ever! Killing babies is where I draw the line."
Alexander's Annelok arm encircled Ruth's throat. "Give it back. Our mission will fail unless you let me do what I have to do," he said very slowly, and then the Annelok arm squeezed.
"Fuck you!" Ruth choked. Her eyes bugged. "You're as evil as everything else here!" Now she grabbed for the priest's knife, but as the pressure at her throat doubled, she collapsed to half consciousness.
She could only see through the dimmest vision as Alexander put the Demonic infant on the ground and-
"You evil motherfucker!" Ruth hacked.
-slit the baby's belly open. Astonishingly, the infant didn't shriek but instead just kept making cutesy baby noises.
The priest pulled something the size and shape of a soda can out of the baby's stomach. Then he helped Ruth up.
"Sorry I had to-do that, Ruth, but you didn't let me explain."
"You just gutted a kid, you piece of shit!"
"It's not a kid. It only looks like a kid," he affirmed, and actually held her head and made her look.
"Goo-goo ... gah!" the infant giggled and simultaneously deflated.
"What the fuck is happening?" Ruth asked.
No blood came out of the incised child, and instead of internal organs leaking from the knife slash, all Ruth saw was a mass of pulp that looked like uncooked ground pork.
"It's not a real baby, Ruth. It's a manufactured thing called a Hex-Clone, a product of occult genetic engineering. It's just a bag of cursed meat covered with Hexegenically engineered skin."
"A dummy baby?"
"Exactly. It's Hexed to sound and act like a baby, and it was planted in the adoption agency by more confederates of my intelligence source. And they hid this inside the Clone's belly." He wiped off the cylindrical object.
"Looks like some kind of lantern," she noted as she examined the implement's wire frame surrounding a glass jar. "Is that smoke inside?"
"Yes, but it's inert," Alexander explained. Beneath him, the Hex-Clone had deflated to a near-empty sack of skin, but the skull-less face still smiled. "Daa-daa!" it gurgled.
The priest frowned. "It's called a Smoke-Light," he continued, and looked up through the Moon-Sextant again.
"Smoke-Light? What's it for?"
"I'll tell you along the way-the gauge reads sevenpoint-six."
Ruth swallowed.
"We have to go now, Ruth," Alexander said, and led her down the shimmering block toward the entry road to the Fortress Boniface.
(II)
Venetia regained consciousness in moon-spattered darkness. When she recalled her discovery in Father Driscoll's bathtub, her muscles seized up ... and then she realized that she'd been gagged and hog-tied. I'm in the woods, she eventually realized. The blow to her skull left her head throbbing so intensely that each throb threatened to push her back into unconsciousness.
Whoever murdered Father Driscoll ... did this to me.
B
ut who did it, and why?
Venetia's stomach tightened. Oh, my God-not Dan. It couldn't be Dan.
But confusion and terror made it too hard to calculate. Have to get myself untied. The woods she lay in seemed familiar, and when her eyes acclimated, she knew exactly where she was; she could see moonlight reflecting off the pond. This is where Betta meets John every night. She squinted further, then, and could see them....
Just like the other times. They made frenetic love in the leaves beside the pond. John was on top of Betta, thrusting.
Then the name clacked in her head-
John.
Who else could've dragged her out here but him? Another accomplice in Freddie's cult, she thought, and a clever cover. Pretending to be someone nearly retarded, a churchgoing "yard boy," always happy to do volunteer work ...
But did that mean Betta was in on it, too?
She seemed to be enjoying John's ministrations very much.
Most of Venetia's sentience remained in chaos. The cricket trills made it even harder to think through the pain, and it occurred to her now that she felt dehydrated. She struggled to remember. She thought it had been about eight PM when she was knocked out.
How many hours had she been lying out here in the woods?
She tried to sort facts: John killed Driscoll-obviously in league with the current members of the cult Tessorio formed forty years ago, and he's obviously the one who knocked me out and dragged me here. But-
Something shriveled inside of her.
What's he going to do next? Who's he going to sacrifice next?
It was a concept as old as human civilization itself. The blood of the "pure" spilled as an offering to the gods, and more specifically-Satanists sacrificed virgins.
The two women murdered last spring had been chaste and, more than likely, Father Driscoll was too....
The four comers of the Involution gave Venetia the grim suspicion that a fourth murder was almost certainly on John's to-do-list.
Me, Venetia thought.
"Aw, baby, I love you so much," John whispered in a hot gasp. His hips bucked at the peak of his climax, after which he collapsed on Betta. Betta, in turn, embraced him.