House Infernal by Edward Lee (23 page)

Fuck this shit, man....

A fat clown approached her next. White makeup had
been poorly applied in an attempt to cover up nests of
some kind of parasite living in his cheeks. Frizzed orange
hair sprouted from either side of his head, and he had a
red rubber nose like Bozo.

"Awesome rack, baby," the clown said in a high,
squeaky voice. "How much for a quicky?"

Ruth was appalled. "What do I look like, a whore?"

The clown chuckled. "Well ... yeah. And I got money.
Come on. A Brutusnote, all right?"

"Cram it, clown."

The clown shrugged in disappointment. "Oh well.
Wanna squeak my nose?"

Ruth pulled the big sulphur pistol. "No. I wanna blow
your ridiculous clown-ass back to McDonald's, and that's
exactly what I'm gonna do if you don't move you're
polka-dotted shit on down the road right fuckin' now!

The clown hustled away.

"You're a tough gal, Ruth," the priest said.

Ruth was still fuming. "Can you believe that guy? He
thought I was a whore just by looking at me."

Alexander reserved any comment that may have come
to mind.

Ruth kept looking around, over the tops of the brown
buildings. The red sky churned, threaded by countless
black plumes of smoke rising from every direction. Just
past a leaning skyscraper, the windows of which were all
upside-down crosses, Ruth saw a big patchwork balloon
with a basket beneath lifting off. "Hey, look!"

The priest seemed disheartened. "Every now and then
some poor soul manages to build a noble-gas balloon,
thinking it'll take them to another Netherplane. Never
does, though."

"At least they've got the balls to try," Ruth said, watching excitedly.

"And the stupidity. Something always gets them:
Griffins, Caco-Bats, gunners in a Cloud Station, or-"

"Shit, what's that?"

In an instant, several squatty things sort of like apes
seemed to climb down from black clouds via ropes. They
swung toward the balloon basket, leapt inside, and attacked the balloon's pilot. Body parts were soon cast over
the side as the things reveled on the balloon's rope.

"Or Gremlins," Alexander said.

Eventually one of the creatures got a claw up, and the
balloon began to deflate. The Gremlins leapt back to their
ropes and disappeared upward.

"You can forget about air travel here, Ruth. Unless
you've got a Nectoport, you'll never get out of the
Mephistopolis." Alexander tensed up, then jerked a
glance at Ruth.

"Feel that?"

"Feel wh-" But then she did feel something. "Yeah,
it's like-"

"It's a barometric pressure change," the priest informed. "Get ready. It means some Nectoports are about
to open. Keep your eye on those four bums."

Ruth tried to but something kept dragging her gaze to the street. There were a hundred residents in the Zone, at
least, and most stopped, looking around in dismay because they felt something, too.

A shriek: "Oh my God, it's a Mutil-" but at the same
time a louder sound began to resonate:

Sssssssssssssssss-ONK!

Then a terrifying CLAP! cracked in the air along with
several blindingly bright flashes like a camera flash, only
the light was gooey green. As more screams rose, Ruth
noticed a light sort of hovering at either end of the Mutilation Zone.

"See those blobs? Watch. And don't step across the line
until I tell you."

Blobs? Yes, now she saw what he meant. There were two
green blobs of light that were shifting like something
molten.

Ruth shrieked. "Holy fuckin' shit!"

A louder CLAP! resounded and suddenly the blobs had
expanded into shuddering rims of the same gooey green
light.

Rims, or, more appropriately, openings.

And through those two openings rushed a throng of
armed Demons.

"Right and left flanks!" a Conscript shouted. "Cordon
the Zone, then draw in. Strike first to disable. Cause maximum pain!"

The borders of the Mutilation Zone were quickly encircled by the first wave of slavering Ushers and a second
wave of Anneloks. The later grabbed residents two at a
time around the waist, then constricted their snakelike
arms to sever spinal columns, while the Ushers used their
claws-sharp as grappling hooks-to tear chunks out of
the crowd. These flanks were followed by Conscripts and
various armed Demons. Ruth could hear the eerie whir,
like a threshing sound, as their swords, hewers, and great
double-bladed axes blurred in the air to butcher anything
before them.

More screams exploded. Limbs, heads, and blood of
different colors began to fly.

"Ruth!" Alexander urged. "Watch those bums now."

Her eyes found them. The rag-draped Trolls had
jumped up and seemed to be wiping something off with
rags, in long up and down strokes, but the harder she
squinted-

"There's nothing there! What are they wiping?"

"They're cleaning Sleath Tincture off their weapons."

In moments, like erasure in reverse, wooden hafts and
long gleaming blades began to form beneath the strokes
or their rags, eventually revealing machetes and axes.

"Wow! That's some fuckin' trick!" Ruth exclaimed.

And then the Trolls attacked from behind. They cleaved
into the rear guard of Conscripts, their own weapons
whirring as well. Now it was Conscripts' heads and demonic body parts that began to drop.

"Awesome," Alexander said.

"Reform!" a Conscript yelled. "Terrorists have infiltrated th-" and then his head shot across the crowd as a
Troll pulled his machete across the shoulders.

"Get ready," the priest warned.

The sneak attack had caused the Mutilation Squad to
fall into chaos. When Ushers tried to turn, their talons
mistakenly gouged into the row of Anneloks, some of
whom began to fight back.

"This is great!" Ruth celebrated. "They're fighting each
other!"

"Retreat!" someone yelled.

"There they go," Alexander said. "The perfect hit and
run."

The four Trolls who'd caused all this havoc in just seconds cut their way back to the sidewalk, where a whiteskinned Gargoyle waited. The Trolls each grabbed a
leather handle harnessed to the macabre beast, then-
Swoosh!-the Gargoyle whisked up the side of the building and disappeared.

"Retreat and recover! Return to Egression Points!"

Conscripts were now hacking through their own
troops to get back to the Nectoports. The green light began to intensify, and now a whistle was blowing. When the flanks had collapsed, dozens of citizens had been able
to slip out of the Zone. Ruth guessed that more than half
had escaped.

Nevertheless, the other half hadn't, most of whom now
lay in pieces on the street.

"Go now, Ruth!" the priest ordered.

Fuck this shit, man! Ruth thought, sprinting over the
line. She spotted a pair of Usher legs just inside the yellow border, but when she tried to get them both under
her arm-

"Fuck!" she yelled. They were too heavy, and what
made it worse was that they were still moving. So she
grabbed each ankle and dragged them back to the alley.

"I need two arms, too, Ruth!" the priest's voice cracked.

"I can't carry all that shit at once!" she yelled back.
"These fuckin' things weigh a hundred pounds each!"

"Go! Go get me two arms now!"

Ruth rushed back, swearing under her breath. There
were severed arms all over the place, lots of them from
Ushers. She jumped at a final clap! and saw that the Nectoports had vanished, leaving many Ushers and Anneloks to fight amongst themselves.

They looked like they were having a good time.

Ruth reached forward and snatched up a severed Usher
arm, but-Fwap!-she immediately fell on her face when
her flip-flop slipped in a puddle of brown blood. Shit!

"Ruth! Behind you!"

It was Alexander. When she turned, sitting on her butt-

Oh my God! What is-

A glistening pink Annelok stood over her. It began to
reach down with arms like giant earthworms.

Ruth's instincts kicked in. She didn't even think when
she lunged forward. The flap of ragged pink meat that
hung between its legs in no way resembled genitals, but
she figured that's what it must be anyway.

So she bit the thing. Hard.

The Annelok shuddered, making a noise more like a
teapot boiling over. Ruth ground her teeth until the meat between them detached; then the Annelok ran away,
mewling.

Ruth spat the stuff out fast.

"Help me! Help me!" came a high-pitched voice she
somehow recognized.

A gloved hand pawed her face.

It was the clown.

His legs had been cut off at the knees.

"Get me out of here!" the clown implored.

Ruth shoved his face away. I hate fuckin' cloums. She
hopped back to her feet, grabbed another Usher arm, but-

"Hey! Stop that!"

Another Usher was trying to take a Demonic toddler
away from its rotten mother. The toddler squalled.

Ruth threw the arm at the Usher and hit it right in the
head. "Pick on someone your own size, ass-face!"

The mother retrieved her homed child and ran away.

Then the Usher turned toward Ruth. In the slits of its
eyes, she saw a glint like lust. Its jaw fell open, revealing
bloody, stalactitelike teeth, and then its huge, meaty
hands opened, talons sparkling.

The thing lunged forward-

Barn!

Ruth hit the thing in the face with the sulphur pistol.
The top of its head flew off like a Frisbee.

"Hurry!" Alexander yelled. "The Disposal Squads are
coming!"

Ruth heard hooves pounding brick, then saw wagons
approaching. She definitely didn't like the looks of the
things driving the wagons. She grabbed two arms and
ran back to the priest.

"Quick! Drag me and the limbs to the end of the alley!
We can't be seen!"

Ruth did so, huffing.

Safely hidden in the alley now, Alexander said, "You
did it, Ruth. You're quite a girl."

She sat down with a thump, no longer caring that the
pavement was made of hardened excrement. "Did you see that crazy shit? I can't believe I ever got out of that meat
grinder." She spat again, wincing. "Shit, I think I bit off a
worm-man's dick!"

"You're a brave, brave woman, Ruth, and my intelligence source will be very happy about this."

v Ruth sighed, suddenly exhausted. Had she wet her
shorts in sheer terror? Fuck... "I need a drink."

"We'll be able to get one later. But for now, get the little
foil tube out of my pouch."

Ruth kneed over and in the pocked pouch around his
neck found something that looked like a crude tube of
travel-size toothpaste.

"What the fuck's this?"

"Ruth, do you have to use the F-word every time you
open your mouth?"

"Fuck yes!" she shouted at him. "And don't give me
shit! I was neck-deep in monster guts out there!" She
wagged the tube in his face. "Now what the fuck is this?"

Alexander smiled. "It's regeneration balm. There's only
enough to reconnect four limbs, so use it sparingly."

"Reconnect? So that's it. I should've know it would be
something fucked-up like that." She unscrewed the top,
sniffed, then gagged. "So what do I do with it?"

"Squeeze a little onto your fingertip and rub it around
the severed-end of each limb you got. Then just ... hook
me up. Do the legs first, 'cos they take more."

Ruth dragged both heavy legs over and applied the
balm. While doing so, she noticed the end of the alley and
saw the hopper-backed wagons rolling by.

"And try to keep your voice down. We don't want the
Leperotics to see us."

I don't want to know ...

Ruth dragged each leg to Alexander's stumps. "Wow,
that's pretty cool."

The priest nodded, biting his lip as if in pain.

The connections were healed as Ruth watched. "So this
shit is some kind of funky glue?"

"More like metaphysical solder. Hurts a little but it's
working. Now the arms."

She applied a daub to the first arm, then paused and
drew a long face.

"What's the matter, Ruth?"

"I_,,

"What!"

Finally she admitted it: "I fucked-up. I thought I
grabbed two Usher arms but ... I only grabbed one."

"But I saw you bring back two arms after you got the
legs. What was the second arm?"

Ruth held it up.

It was a severed Annelok arm, like a yard-long earthworm four inches thick.

The priest slumped. "Well. I guess it'll have to do...."

"Nemesis, or more specifically God's enemy, is the best
translation of the word ash-shaytan," Driscoll told them.
They were walking down the stair-hall now, at Venetia's
request.

"Does Eosphorus mean torchbearer?" she asked.

"Yes, torchbearer, light bearer, in Greek, and essentially
the same thing in Latin, for Lux Ferre. Two more names
for Satan, which I'm sure you can both comprehend as the
diligent Christian theology students that you both are,
right?"

"Oh, that's right," Dan offered. "Lucifer is still sometimes referred to as the Morning Star, or the Light of the
Morning."

"Do you know why?" Driscoll asked.

"Because he was thrown out of Heaven in the morning," Venetia recalled. "In Hell, he's the Prince of Darkness, but before the Fall, he was the Angel of Light. That's
why so many references to Lucifer involve a parallel reference to light."

"Very good. And according to some of the earliest
Christian writers in the First Century, Lucifer fell in a
westerly direction. The great light that was witnessed that
morning may have been his wings burning." Driscoll smiled at them. "And I can guess whet you both are
thinking....,,

Venetia wasn't sure how much Biblical imagery was literal, but Dan spoke right up, with a hint of sarcasm: "Do I
lack faith if I actually don't believe that part about the
burning wings?"

"Not at all," Driscoll chuckled. "What our finite minds
can't comprehend, we chalk up to the mysteries of faith.
You'll be a priest someday, Dan, and Venetia may become
a nun. The quality of your vocation doesn't depend on
what you personally believe might be figurative or an abstraction. We'll find that out when we die. Until then, it's
best to just live by the word of God."