Coven

by David Barnett

  “Jervis, Jervis,” Professor Besser’s voice came from behind. He’d pulled the sander’s cord out. “If you kill her, we may never find Wade.”

  “She lied to me!” Jervis spat. “She affronted my Existenz!”

  “Forgive her, my boy. Didn’t Sartre also say that one must forgive his universal counterparts for the sake of the ultimate existential ideal?”

  Jervis’ flat eyes thinned in rumination. “No!” he shouted. “Sartre never said anything even close to that!”

  “Bring her to the labyrinth,” Besser commanded. “We’ll put her in one of the holds.”

  Seething, Jervis let her down and gave her a smack on the back of the head. The blow laid her out—she nearly lost consciousness. “You’re fucked, bitch,” Jervis promised her in a fierce whisper. “I’m gonna do a job on you that would make Charles Manson puke. Just you wait.”

  He began dragging her along by the collar, but not toward the shop door, she dizzily realized.

  He was dragging her toward the wall—

  —then into the wall—

  —then through it.

  —

  CHAPTER 26

  Nina McCulloch prayed for forgiveness for her sins. She could hear the others in Elizabeth’s room, but her prayers blocked their voices out. Nina believed that Jesus had died on the cross for her, expurgating any sin she might ever commit. To pay Jesus back, she followed the Commandments, offered thanks and praise, and fully accepted him as her savior.

  “Amen,” she whispered.

  Now she lay in bed, restless. She could hear them in the next bedroom: Elizabeth, and Kara and Stacy, two girls from down the hall.

  Nina knew what they were doing.

  “What a rush!” Elizabeth could be heard through the wall.

  “Class A shit, Liz,” Kara observed.

  “Cut me another rail,” Stacy requested.

  Nina, of course, never joined them. They always offered, claiming: “You only get addicted if you do it every day”; “It’s harmless in moderation”; and “Nina, all that antidrug stuff on TV is just propaganda. Come on, try some.”

  But Nina’s reply was always the same: “No. It’s a sin.”

  The body was a temple of the Lord; it said so in the Bible. If you put bad things into your body, you were defacing that temple. A tract she’d read once said that if you used drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or even ate junk food, that was the same as throwing garbage in a church. Nina believed this fervently. She also believed that even responsible drug users were actively participating in the denigration of society. The money that Liz and her friends so harmlessly spent on a little cocaine went to the same people who supplied crack to elementary school kids. Every penny helped fuel the giant drug machine which ruined people’s lives. It helped make the weak weaker, and the helpless more lost. Drugs were the soldiers of Satan’s army.

  Nina got up and sneaked to the bathroom. She hoped they didn’t hear her. They might laugh at her and persecute her for her beliefs. Nina, of course, would forgive them, but that was beside the point.

  Tinkling, she heard their uproar. They were talking about sex now, and how much better drugs made it. “His cock was hard all night!” Stacy exclaimed. “Shit, I musta come ten times!”

  Babylon, Nina thought, perched upon the toilet. But she mustn’t judge them; only God could judge. She couldn’t escape the thought, however, as their reverie rose: The wages for sin are death.

  ««—»»

  Jervis fumed as Besser handed him the parcel.

  “Drop this off, then meet the sister at the sciences center.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jervis tensely replied. “Anything you say.”

  Besser stood at the servicepoint of the detentionwarren. “And there’s one other thing the Supremate would like you to do.”

  “What?”

  “Kill Dean Saltenstall.”

  Jervis’ brow knit. The dean was harmless. “Why?” he asked.

  “He runs the college. He’s an authority figure,” Besser explained, “and authority figures offend the Supremate’s superiority; they blemish his grace. To the Supremate, the dean is a graven image. So kill him.”

  Graven image? What an ego. “Right. Kill the dean.”

  Besser seemed to sense Jervis’ upset. He peered at Lydia beyond the repulsion screen. “Ah, you’re angry about her. You feel I’ve injured your existential self by denying you her death.”

  “Something like that,” Jervis restrained himself.

  “For now we need her intact, as a lure for Wade. But afterward, Jervis, I promise you’ll have her.”

  “Thank you…sir.”

  “Good. Go now. Serve well for our master.”

  Jervis extromitted back to his room. They’d barriered Lydia Prentiss into one of the tempholds. He’d just have to have his revenge later, and it would be sweet. He would put some holotypes in there with her and see how she liked that. Some of those holotypes had been locked up in the deep holds for years, going mad with lust in the psilight. Some had knobbed tentacles for cocks, or things that looked like big plungers wide as coffee cans. There were even a few that had multiple penises…

  He walked down the hall into Wade’s room. Be creative, he thought. Creativity is the key to existential awareness. It was only a matter of time before Wade returned to his room. Jervis left the parcel where Wade was sure to see it.

  Minutes later he was driving down Randolph Carter Street, past the Circle. The sister’s grinning white face beamed in the headlights. He picked her up in front of the sciences center, as instructed. —Hi, Jervis! she greeted.

  Jervis nodded, gulping. The sisters gave him the willies—their monstrous kiddie grins, perpetually shaded eyes, and the unearthly giggling. How could you trust someone who giggled like that?

  —Ready?

  “Yeah. Where to?”

  She gave him Besser’s Qwik Note, which read: “Elizabeth Whitechapel, Duke of Clarence Hall, Room 688.”

  —She’s the last one. Then all we need is the holotype and we can leave.

  “Leave to where, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  —New kingdoms, Jervis. New pigs.

  “And I get to go with you, right? Immortal?”

  —Of course! We’re all immortal in the glory of the Supremate!

  Jervis drove on. Something was fishy about this whole business. Why hadn’t he seen any other productionvassals around, from past procurements? There was only him. Jervis knew shit when he smelled it. Just because he was dead didn’t mean he was stupid.

  —The Erblings have just given birth to two beautiful baby mutants. And Inez Packer’s insemination couldn’t have gone better.

  “Glad to hear it,” Jervis muttered. If they could make their own vassals, what would they need him for in an eternal future? Am I getting screwed? “We have to stop at the dean’s first. Besser told me to kill him.”

  —Oh, Good! the sister rejoiced. —I’m so hungry!

  “There’s plenty of eats in back.”

  The sister looked at Inez Packer’s roommate and the dead security guard. She made a face. —But I want a FRESH pig, Jervis. I want a FRESH man thing.

  Wonderful. I’m stuck with the pecker eater again. Except for their size, the sisters had no distinguishing features. They were clones. He wondered how many years it had taken to hybridize them. How many crossed genes from how many planets.

  A long drive lined with hundred year old oaks led to the dean’s mansion. Acres of mown, open land gave the estate a rich Dixie plantation appearance. Jervis parked next to the dean’s Rolls. The moon hung low behind wisps of clouds.

  They walked casually up the pillared front steps. Jervis hocked a lunger into the topiary. An old brass door knocker stared at them, an oval bereft of features save for two wide, empty eyes. Jervis raised his hand to knock, then paused. What am I doing? Murderers don’t knock.

  He bumped the heavy door face with both palms. The door jumped out of its frame and thudded to the floor. They w
ere halfway up the winding stairs when the hall light came on.

  “Winnie? Is that you?”

  Jervis chuckled. “Not quite.”

  The dean froze two steps out of his bedroom. He wore a maroon robe and pink pajamas. Doubt of reality drew slits into the lined, tanned face. “What the—” he stammered. “Who the—”

  —Hi, Dean! the sister announced. —I’m going to eat your man thing!

  Jervis smiled.

  The dean fled screaming back into the bedroom. Jervis promptly knocked down the door. The clean white room lay in total contradiction to what was taking place. The bed, the furniture, and the lambent white walls coalesced into a pattern of normalcy that Jervis and the sister violated merely by entering.

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” Jervis complimented. “Elegant.”

  The sister began her wet, clicking giggles.

  Whimpering, the dean backed into the walk in closet. Thousand dollar Italian suits surrounded him like a conspiracy of accusers. The jury was in. “Please,” Dean Saltenstall shivered and begged. “I’ve done nothing to deserve this.”

  “I know,” Jervis acknowledged. “That’s why we’re doing it.”

  Be creative, he reminded himself. He spun the dean’s head off in one graceful motion, a sharp twist and a jerk. The dean’s lips sputtered a nifty, musical sound, like a kazoo. “Thar she blows!” Jervis celebrated as the stump gushed rich red blood onto the walls, the suits, the ceiling. For a moment the dean seemed to dance headless. It was magnificent.

  The spouting figure collapsed. “All yours,” Jervis said. The invitation made the sister giggle. At once she knelt betwixt the dead legs, tearing open the pajama bottoms.

  —

  CHAPTER 27

  It all fit well with the course of the day: a dream that made no sense. Was it premonitory? Wade dreamed he was paralyzed, his jaw locked open by pegs. The women in black were stuffing slabs of putrid meat into his mouth. The meat was black and full of parasites. —This is what we eat at home, Wade. Isn’t it good? It was not good. Each helping crawled down his throat, warmly alive, and every time he thought the dream was over, another dainty white hand appeared to push still more of the squirming meat into his forced open mouth…

  When he awoke, he felt empty headed. He sat up in bed and felt for Lydia, but she wasn’t there.

  Wade,

  I borrowed your car, hope you don’t mind. I got this idea about the sunlight stuff, and I have to check it out on my own.

  Stay here till I get back.

  Lydia

  Wade crumpled up the note. He had two choices. He could sit here naked and do nothing, or he could act. He couldn’t imagine what her “idea about the sunlight stuff” could be, but where else could it lead but back to the groves?

  He dressed, checked out, and left. It was just past 3 A.M. If he walked fast and cut across campus, he might make it to the groves in an hour.

  The warm night seemed to welcome him in his solitude; the moon gave him light. Damn it, Lydia, he thought, and stepped up his pace. Where the hell are you?

  ««—»»

  “You’re in the labyrinth,” Winnie said. “Our master’s palace.”

  “The Supremate,” Lydia muttered.

  “That’s correct.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s…God, I think.

  Great. I knew I never should’ve stopped going to church. Lydia could see very little within the temphold, which seemed vaguely lit by some bizarre blackish light. This is a jail, she realized. A black rod in the ceiling gave the impression that she was being watched. She’d already tried, and given up on, simply walking out. The hold’s barrier, though invisible, couldn’t be passed. Beyond it she could see nothing.

  Except Winnifred, who stood on the other side. She was nude, her flesh like mist in the labyrinth’s static blackness. “You can’t feel it in there,” the woman said, “but out here, the Supremate’s breath is on me. It’s the psilight, it’s his influence. The Supremate is a god of great passion, and he breathes his passion on all of us.” Her hand then ran over her pubis.

  Lydia recalled the events that brought her here—the student shop, Jervis, and the solid cinder block wall. Instead of killing her, they’d…

  “Why am I here? What do you want me for?”

  “We don’t want you,” Winnifred said, stroking herself. “Wade’s the one we want. And when he finds out we have you, he’ll come.”

  Would he? “What do you want Wade for?”

  “It’s all part of the master plan.” Winnie lapsed back into her muse, touching deeper. She masturbated unabashed.

  “What’s that thing around your neck?” Lydia asked.

  Winnifred fingered the amulet between her breasts. “An extromission key. You just put it in and walk through. There are extromitters all over the labyrinth. We even installed some at the college and in the woods. Jervis brought you in through one.”

  Doorways, Lydia realized. “You think Wade’s going to come here? He doesn’t even know where I am.”

  “Jervis left a message for him,” Winnifred said, stroking, stroking, eyes slitted. “He’ll come. Love always follows its heart.”

  Lydia wondered.

  “And afterward, we have a surprise for you.”

  “What?” Lydia asked.

  “That.” Winnifred pointed, her face aglow, grinning.

  It had been there the whole time in the next temphold, just not close enough to see. Lydia felt very sick very quickly.

  It stood up as if on command, pressed the fingerless pads of its hand against the barrier. A stout, flexing holotype with spotted gray skin like a slug’s. It stood on four bent legs, between which hung testicles the size of grapefruits. It grinned from its prognathous face, drooling for her. The thing’s erection, with pulsing blue veins like hoses, was as long and thick as a leg of lamb. The bulbed glans, too, drooled with enthusiasm.

  Oh, shit, Lydia thought.

  ««—»»

  Nina McCulloch was just about to leave the bathroom when her world exploded. She heard the front door being broken down. She heard screams like sirens, and dark satanic laughs. When she gapped the bathroom door and peeked out, she saw…hell.

  She saw a hooded girl in black and a dead man with an ax.

  Elizabeth and her drug friends cowered, still screaming. Kara tried to run, but not fast enough for the huge luciferian ax. It blurred effortlessly like a great sail and sliced her into two pieces, from right shoulder to left hip. Her top slid off her bottom, and innards unfurled. Then Stacy tried to bolt, but she slipped and fell—screaming—on those same innards. The dead man placed his foot on Stacy’s head and crushed it.

  Poor Elizabeth was next. Her corkscrew screams blazed away as the dead man dragged her out from behind the couch. He lifted her off her feet, by her ear. Nina was surprised that the ear did not come off. Then the girl in the black cloak approached, and from her mouth shot a long pink cord with a needle at the end. Elizabeth fell silent when the needle punched into her throat.

  I’m sorry for my sins, Nina thought.

  Now the dead man was yanking up the carpet—he was rolling them up in it! But then he paused, as if perturbed. “I’m gonna take a look around,” he remarked to his hooded companion. “Make sure no one else is here.”

  —Hurry, Jervis! the evil abbess replied. She knelt down and began to lick blood off Kara’s legs, giggling.

  Jervis, Nina pondered. She recognized him now. The dead man was Jervis Phillips, a boy who’d been in some of her classes. Her eye froze in the gap. Jervis searched Elizabeth’s room, then Nina’s. He stopped to light a cigarette, still perturbed. He was staring straight at the bathroom door.

  Nina backed against the wall.

  The door pushed open. Jervis stuck his head in, looked around.

  Jesus save me, Nina prayed.

  He would cut her up like Kara. He would crush her head like Stacy. He would let the abbess lick blood off her legs. Then he would ta
ke her body to Satan.

  She bowed her head in the dark. Jesus…please…

  “All clear.” Jervis was walking away. “I just had this funny feeling that someone else was here.”

  The abbess rose, chin smeared red and grinning. She followed Jervis out, who impossibly had rolled the three girls up in the carpet and was carrying them away on his shoulder.

  “Thank you, Jesus,” Nina whispered when they were long gone.

  ««—»»

  Wade cut across campus quickly, weaving between unlit buildings and hulking trees. It was embarrassing having to walk when you owned one of the most expensive cars in America. He could call a Yellow, but what on earth would he say? Cabbie, drop me off at the clearing behind the agro site, you know, the mutated one?

  But when he rounded Tillinghast Hall, he saw headlights.

  A car had turned off Arkham to the Hill. Lydia! he thought at once, but then he noted the headlight configuration. It wasn’t the Vette. It was a Dodge Colt.

  Wade dove behind trimmed hedges. The Colt passed under the streetlamp. Jervis’ face was plainly visible. He was smoking a Carlton. One of those girls sat beside him, grinning. The back of the car seemed weighed down.

  Wade waited for the tailgate to disappear. They’d come off Arkham, away from Duke of Clarence Hall and the dean’s house. He trotted north, up the drive, to the dean’s estate.

  The mansion faced him, quiet, normal. But when Wade rapped on the old brass knocker, the door fell in. It had been broken off its hinges and propped back up, to feign security.

  Don’t go in, Wade warned himself, and went in. The hall lights were on; he took the stairs up, watching for shadows, listening. A door down the hall appeared to be open, but when he moved closer he saw that it, too, had been knocked down.

  Wade was shit scared. He expected—something. So it almost shocked him when he turned on the lights and found himself standing in a perfectly normal bedroom.