House Infernal by Edward Lee

$7.99 US
$9.99 CAN
£5.99 UK
$14.95 AUS

"The living legend of literary mayhem. Read him if
you dare!"

-Richard Laymon, Author of The Midnight Tour

"Edward Lee's writing is fast and mean as a
chain saw revved to full-tilt boogie."

-Jack Ketchum, Author of Offspring

"Lee pulls no punches."

-Fangoria

"The hardest of the hardcore horror writers."

-Cemetery Dance

"Lee excels with his creativity and almost trademark
depictions of violence and gruesomeness."

Horror World

When Ruth awoke, she was drowning in blood. She
gagged, mindless, her arms and legs churning in the hot,
coppery brew. But could it really be blood? All of this?

She couldn't think. She didn't even know who she was
yet. Only instinct fired her nerves: the will to survive.

It didn't occur to her just yet that she was already
dead.

Her thoughts screamed: Where am I? What is this?
Somebody help me!

She desperately breast-stroked, but more madness
shrieked through her psyche when glimpses upward
showed her a sky that was as red as the blood she was
swimming in, and smudged clouds idling across a black
moon shaped like a -sickle.

I'm having a nightmare! She managed to think. I'm
seeing things. The sky isn't RED, and the moon isn't
BLACK, and it's IMPOSSIBLE for me to be swimming
in a LAKE of blood!

Just keep moving. Eventually the nightmare will end...

Other Leisure books by Edward Lee:

SLITHER

THE BACKWOODS

FLESH GOTHIC

MESSENGER

INFERNAL ANGEL

CITY INFERNAL

EDWARD LEE

LEISURE BOOKS

NEW YORK CITY

A LEISURE BOOK® October 2007 Published by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book." Copyright © 2007 by Edward Lee All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. ISBN-10: 0-8439-5806-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-8439-5806-5

The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. Printed in the United States of America. Visit us on the web at www.dorchesteroub.com.

Blood bricks were used to construct the district's most
prominent edifices and roadways. For thousands of years,
the City of Abandoned Hope churned as a diabolical microcosm that could be likened to an endless jigsaw puzzle,
and one of the puzzle's biggest pieces was this districtthe Boniface District-and the reason it could be seen
from a hundred miles in any direction was because it had
essentially been built with blood.

A thousand cauldrons boiled ceaselessly, each filled to
the brim with the blood of abducted citizens, fugitives,
Demons, mongrels, Hybrids, etc., and even occultengineered blood, a more recent technological breakthrough. As the cauldrons boiled, their levels reduced.
Water was distilled from the steam, of course, but eventually, when the blood had boiled down to paste, it was
blended with lime and milled bone, then pressed into
foundry molds. When the bricks dried, they were later disenchanted by specially trained Warlocks from the district's
Collegium of Sorcerial Sciences. These spells would not
only bolster the bricks' resistence to stress and deterioration
but also strengthen any wall against the occasional malcontents and anti-Luciferic terrorists trained in the black arts.

A hundred yards long and fifty wide, Fortress Boniface
was the first structure to be built with blood bricks. When
humidity was high, the bricks would "bleed" slightly, and
district residents would touch their fingers to the fortress's
walls for good luck.

Boniface gazed south over the parapet. Hot winds carried
smoke and a thousand screams as the sky churned bloodred behind a black sickle moon. Beyond, the city extended
into its wondrous, demented infinity. Griffins and Caco-
Bats swept down out of bruise-colored clouds to tear
limbs off unsuspecting inhabitants, including children
and infants. Gargoyles lurked about the crestwork of the
higher buildings, hunting for vermin, weak windows,
and ledge jumpers. Lower, in the nooks and crannies of
the city's guts, Boniface could see the everyday life:
Broodren-the demonic young-cooking horned newts
on sticks over flaming sewer grates; taloned Ushers with
faces of slag disemboweling the helpless in a regional
Mutilation Zone; nine-foot-tall Golems standing watch on
every corner; rows of chained mongrel slaves hauling
great two-wheeled limbers full of body parts to the district De-Boning Line and Pulping Station ...

Perfect order, Boniface thought.

He moved farther down the parapet of this macabre,
dark scarlet edifice that comprised the Exhalted Duke's
Fortress. A glance over the edge showed him the Boniface
District itself, his first gift from the Lord of Lies. Oh, Lucifer, my great god, I give thee thanks, Boniface sang in his
head. Damnation and status had changed his features to
something stolid and blocklike, while his face, long ago
consumed by Bapho-Rats, remained covered by a mask
fashioned from the salt of the Valley of Siddim. This was
the same salt that Lot's wife, Edith, had been changed to
when she ignored Gabriel's warning and dared look behind her as the two most vile cities on the earth were
razed in flame.

The scarlet sky cast a long shadow at the Exhalted
Duke's feet, which gave him satisfaction. Boniface had been a short man on earth, and he remained short in Hell.
Dressed in his gilded white cassock, the shadow seemed
like a huge chess piece made even longer by the antipontiff's miter hat emblazoned by a gold inverted crucifix. His squat fingers were embellished by pyrite rings
which bore the unglimpsable faces of Lucifer and the premier Fallen Angels, and in his left hand he bore a pastoral
staff made from the arteries of past concubines. The blood
vessels had been twisted, hexed, and then desiccated in a
sulphur kiln. Boniface would add to its girth on occasion,
when he wearied of a doxy.

"My lord," Willirmoz announced as he approached.
"recently, I divined what I am about to tell you."

Boniface's nearly fleshless skull beneath the salt-mask
grinned. "The Usher Squads have found the fourth Oblation? Tell me it is so...."

Willirmoz' face was nearly fleshless as well, but from
another symptom. The Exalted Duke's personal adjutant
and fortune-teller had lost his countenance-and a great
deal of the rest of his flesh-to fire. In the Living World,
Willininoz had been burned at the stake in St. Claude,
France, in 1680 for black magic and molestation. Since the
time of his Damnation, he'd risen to the rank of High
Priest in the Guild of Lithomancy. The totems of his trade
were in constant evidence, as they had been stitched into
every square inch of his gown: the most mystical of crystals, namely ophite, bloodquartz, and deadly Lapis Bae-
tullum stones, just to name a few. His most recent
imperial training had taken place at the Oppenheimer
Monastery, and one condition of induction was for all
Lithomancers to mimic the conditions of their deaths in
the Living World.

Yet the High Priest's skills were incontestable. "Indeed,
my lord. The fourth Oblation has been procured." A
charred finger pointed over the parapet. "Bear witness ...
and rejoice."

Now Boniface gazed down into the courtyard, whose
cabalistic geometry provided its power. The courtyard
was a great rectangle; limestone blocks the size of coffins sat at each of the yard's four corners, and on top of each
stood a stone font-called a Morte-Cisterna-full of
moldering blood. The blood in each basin had come from
the slit throats of three Human sacrifants.

"Is the blood sufficiently corrupted?" Boniface asked.

"Yes, my most atrocious lord. It is rotten, spoiled,
brown from curdling-the perfect consistency. Come, to
the Watch-Turret."

Boniface followed the vile magician to the fortress's
fourth corner-the southeast corner-from which a turret
with ramparts bulged. Boniface stood behind the pulpit
and looked down into his courtyard between the stone
merlons. It was this point that would afford him an optimum view of the ritual....

"Be ready, my lord," Willirmoz whispered from within
his hood, "and watch."

Boniface's sickly eyes began to go teary behind the
mask. It's all coming together, my great Satan.... Below, the
platoon of hideous Ushers-with their eyes and mouths
like knife-cuts in meat-hauled the final sacrifant from
the jail-wagon.