by Edward Lee
Dicky whispered, eyes wide. "He opened that there door to some place full'a demons... "
"A place, yes. A realm, obviously one that's associated with the damned demonness known as Pasiphae. In defying Poseidon and falling in love with her own hellish offspring—the Minotaur—she was eternally condemned."
"So that's how the shiny black chick got here—through that door," Dicky figured.
"Well, Crafter believes that, yes. But I don't, and you shouldn't either. It's all part of his delusion—nonsense, ultimately. It is funny, though. We were astounded by how Crafter could leave a house full of treasures virtually unprotected. Perhaps he thought that summoning Pasiphae would serve as his alarm system... "
"All's right," Dicky insisted. "But let's just say that it is true, and that this Pasiphae gal come out that door when Crafter kilt the girl... What about these other doors? It say what they are in them papers?"
"Not in these papers, but in this," and then the Writer held up a very old book with metal hinges and faded gold gilding. "The Incarnologie Daemorium, translated into English in 1839 by Rev. Montague Thomas Alexander in Wales. The author is quite a sinister chap who went by the name of Comte Michel Lemoine Willirmoz, who had been burned at the stake in St. Claude, France, in 1680 for black magic and molestation. He was reportedly a lithomancer, that is he practiced magic through stones. If you look carefully, the keystone of each door, just above each brass plate, has been set with various stones."
Dicky peered and indeed noticed the tiny stone chips of myriad colors, affixed to each center block. "They diamonds'n rubies'n shit?"
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Dicky. They're only semi-precious stones, such as amethyst, onyx, galena, quartz—no monetary value but to a lithomancer, they're the source of his magic." Next the writer pointed to an odd smock-like garment hanging inside an opened armoire. It looked made of black sack cloth, yet the garment dazzled, for into its fabric had been stitched hundreds more semi-precious stones. "No doubt Crafter wore that tunic there during the rite... his sorcerer's surplice. All magicians and warlocks wore such cloaks when practicing their art."
"Dang. A magic jacket?"
"Precisely." The Writer turned back to the Incarnologie Daemorium. "Willirmoz was black magic's most notorious sorcerer, and in this priceless grimoire, he specifically identifies each of the six supernatural domains he was able to supposedly access. Door One we already know: the domain of Pasiphae. Door Two accesses a creature from pre-Islamic folklore known as a ghala but what is better known as a ghoul. Door Three? The Lycanthrope, otherwise known as a werewolf. Door Four opens to the realm of the Nosferatu, or vampire. Door Five: the Khmoc, which is an Asian version of a zombie that predates voodoo by thousands of years. And Door Six reveals a creature I'm not familiar with, something called a Spermatogoyle, which, according to this book, hails from a region in Hell called the Flesh District." The Writer raised his brows over the thing's official name. "I have no idea what that could be, but I can hazard a guess that it's got something to do with semen."
Dicky jerked his gaze. "Ya mean, like, man-batter? Petersnot? Dick loogie?"
The Writer slumped. "Uh, yes. Dick loogie... "
Dicky scratched his overhanging beer belly, then cast the Writer a more suspicious expression. "How you know so much 'bout all this devil shit?"
"Only from a few history of metaphysics courses I took in college to accommodate my double major in Philosophy. It's really no different from any manner of folklore; we don't study it because we believe in it, we study it to analyze an aspect of our intellectual evolvement. Before mankind was smart enough to think rationally, we made up stories and superstitions to explain the things about our existence we didn't understand. It's all quite silly when you get right down to it. It makes the human race look like a bunch of buffoons."
"A bunch'a balloons?" Dicky questioned.
"Never mind... "
A groan resounded from the corner. Cora was rousing. She blinked, shaking her head, and managed to hitch herself up to sit against the wall. "The hail? That mean fucker knock me out again?"
"Shore did, Cora," Dicky told her. "Balls don't like it when chicks talk too much."
"Fucker," she muttered, blinking out the rest of the stars. "And where is he anyway?"
"Upstairs, checkin' things out."
Only now did the malnourished prostitute notice the foul stench. "Aw, shit. Smells like—" and then she shrieked when she saw the dead woman hanging on the door.
Dicky and the Writer both ground their teeth and clapped their hands over their ears.
"What the hail is this? A horror dungeon're somethin'?"
"A modern equivalent, you could say," the Writer replied.
"What's goin' on down here?" she pleaded. "I can't stand this! Dicky, please! Cut my wrists loose!"
Dicky hemmed and hawed. "Aw, shee-it, Cora. I cain't do that."
"Why!"
"Aw, ya know... Balls'd get a right pissed."
"Fuck him!" she spat. "Let me go! Ain't right fer you ta keep me tied up like this! And that stink is killin' me! Let's all get out'a here! Lemme go!"
"Just be patient, Cora. Balls'll let'cha go soon."
The girl squirmed where she sat, trying but failing to snap her bonds. Then she began to sob.
"She's harmless, Mr. Dicky," the Writer suggested. "It can't hurt to untie her."
"Naw. Balls'd pitch a fit, he would."
Now she was panting, "Dicky! Dicky! Lemme go and I'll'se let'cha fuck me... "
Dicky shuffled his feet. Aw, naw... "
"Look, look," and then Cora was cumbersomely pulling her shorts down from behind. "Just you take a look at my beautiful pussy and then you'll'se be dyin' ta fuck it!" and with that promise, she squirmed some more and managed to get the shorts down to mid-thigh. "Take a look at that! Ain't that just a scrumptious-lookin' cunt?"
Dicky and the Writer both nearly howled at the sight.
"Dang, Cora, that's the blammed ugliest snatch I ever saw!" Dicky complained. "Looks like two dead rats pushed together. Don't be flashin' that shit."
"Well then... how's 'bout my ass?" she tried next. "You's kin fuck it ta high heaven! Take a look!" and then she rolled over and stuck her bare rump in the air.
This time Dicky and the Writer did howl. Cora's buttocks strained open, revealing an anus that looked more like a clot of steel wool... with a hole in it. Hair grew rampant in the rank cleft, tracing all the way up past her tail bone.
Dicky yelled, "Fuck, girl! Pull them shorts back up or I'll kill ya! Ya done fucked up my sex drive fer a year!"
Cora collapsed to more sobs. The Writer sighed in relief, now that he didn't have to look at the ghastly cleft. I'll bet she doesn't make very much as a prostitute... .
Cora bawled for several more minutes, hitching the shorts back up but eventually her eyes roved back to the pallid corpse on the door. She stared, her mouth falling open. "My fuckin' gosh—I know that bitch... "
"Ya do?" Dicky said.
"Aw, yeah, I used ta see her a lot back when I were turnin' tricks up the truck stop. She kicked my ass one night 'cos I was low-ballin' truckers fer blowjobs... the bitch."
Dicky laughed. "So's she's a whore, too?"
The Writer looked closer this time. "Given the obvious heroin needlemarks and the LOVE DEPOSIT tattoo, it's probably safe to say that she's not a church organist."
"But what the fuck happened to the dirty skank?" Cora queried.
Dicky was all too proud to explain. "A sorcerer sacker-ficed her to the Devil, so's he could open a doorway to places where demons hang out. That's where that black chick upstairs come from."
The Writer winced yet again. "Actually, Mr. Dicky, it's just superstitious nonsense of Crafter's. No demons really came through that door, no woman painted black. Like I postulated previously, we think we all saw something supernatural but in truth it was just an example of shared hallucinations."
Then, from upstairs:
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!
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Cora shrieked.
The Writer ground his teeth again.
Dicky pissed his pants and yelled, "Balls is plum shootin' someone!"
They could hear the mad footsteps thundering downward, then the fist banging on the door.
"Dickyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Open the fuckin' door!"
Dicky froze in place, but the Writer raced up the basement steps and opened the door to let a petrified Balls burst in and fall all the way down the stairs. In the second or two before the Writer reclosed the door, his eyes reached out unto the candle-lit sitting-room where he thought he saw a sleek shadow diced by snatches of white bare skin. He caught a half-glimpse of pre-eminent breasts, a half-glimpse of a flat female abdomen, and even a quarter-glimpse of a bald, plump, beauteous pubis with a seraphic pink twist of flesh peeking through the bifurcation.
And a one-eighth-glimpse of a Black Angus bull's head complete with horns.
The Writer slammed and barred the door just as the shadow would be at the threshold, and with the slam, he heard an animal-like howl...
The Writer trembled back down the steps and at once lit a cigarette.
Dicky was helping Balls up, the latter appearing just as shaken as the Writer.
"Balls!" Dicky exclaimed. "Who's were ya shootin' at?"
"I hit it, I know I hit it!" Balls yelled. "Couldn't'a missed in a million years, but then I seed the bullet-holes in the back wall... "
The Writer sat down and took a deep breath. "Mr. Balls. What exactly did you see upstairs?"
"Bet it was that weirdo chick painted black," Dicky said. "She come back, ain't she?"
Balls looked at his cohort with befuddlement. "Naw, Dicky. It was a white chick with a body that'd make the Pope kick out a stained-glass winder, and-and-and—"
"A bull's head?" the Writer asked.
"You saw it too?"
"Yes." The Writer spewed smoke. I'd sell my soul right now for just one drink. "A Minotaur, the offspring of Pasiphae."
"And you see the tits on that brick shit-house?"
Tits, the Writer thought obscurely. "I did, Mr. Balls. I actually saw a bull's head on a female body, so I guess that could only be a Minotauress." He shook his head, however, convinced of his resolve. "But just as before, I insist, it was not real—"
The inhuman howl resounded again from upstairs, shaking the house.
"Not real, huh? Then what the fuck was that? One'a yer fuckin' ‘lucina-shun-uns?"
"I contend it was exactly that. The duress we're all under, along with the macabre circumstances—" He gestured the sacrificed corpse. "It's all simply reinforcing the power of suggestion and creating a mode of multiple hallucinations."
"Aw fuck you'n yer bullshit, man!" Balls dismissed. "You're the asshole who says there ain't no Devil or demons and God's a bunch'a ‘rithmatic! Well, I'll tell you one thing, Writer. That thing upstairs shore as shit's a demon."
"If it were a demon, Mr. Balls, then why didn't it break the door down and come down here?"
"'Cos of the cross on the door, ya dick-head!" Balls answered without missing a beat.
The Writer could think of no argument. My existential actualization has now met its greatest challenge, he deemed. He thought of Sartre's protagonist in "The Wall," who faced a similar challenge by submitting to the firing squad...
"I'll prove Emmanuel Kant's theory that God is the only supernatural entity that can exist," and then the Writer got up and headed for the steps.
"Take the gun!" Balls implored. "Er—well, strike that. I shot the bitch point blank and the slugs went right through it."
"I won't need a gun, Mr. Balls, nor will I have any utility for any means of defense because I am certain that there is nothing upstairs I need to defend myself against. All that is upstairs is a figment of mind that can't hurt any of us."
Balls smirked a grin. "That big-tit bitch is gonna nail your college ass to the fuckin' wall with them horns. Don't be a moe-ron."
"Don't go! Don't go!" Cora shrieked.
The Writer winced, then mounted the steps.
Only faith can save me now, he thought and smiled.
He took the bar off the door and swung it boldly open. He stepped out, turned, then without hesitation strode into the sitting-room and its cloak of flickering candlelight.
The Minotauress stood in the opposite corner. Ropes of bull-snot flew when it jerked its great head toward him.
The Writer forced himself to stare, forced his gaze to slowly draw upward along the creature's provocative physique and then stop at the beastly, horned head.
"You are not the incarnation of demonic offspring," the Writer spoke right up to it. "You are nothing but the product of hallucination. I'm going to blink now, and when the blink is completed, you will be gone, because for that to not be the case is to reject all that I believe to be true. There is no power greater than the power of truth."
The Writer closed his eyes.
Sheer consternation followed: the hellish snorting, the ungodly mewls, and the blur of impossible mass rushing forward, perfect human breasts riding up and down as the animal-head lowered to advance its deadly horns. The Writer opened his eyes again, just as the thing slammed into him, causing the house to tremor. The horns just missed goring him, instead pinning him from either side under his arms. Plaster fell from the walls amid the impact, paintings popped off, and marble busts toppled. The Writer liberally urinated in his pants, and he couldn't be sure but it seemed the impossible bull-face was smiling at him.
Shouting, he shot his arms up, slipped out of the brace of horns, and ran blubbering back to the basement door. In the background he heard the Minotauress yank its horns from the wall, snort again, and tear after him, screaming.
The Writer leapt into the black stairwell and slammed the door behind him. All the hairs on the back of his neck stood up at the creature's bellow of objection.
Dejected even more than he was terrified, he came back down the steps.
Balls, Dicky, and Cora all looked at him.
"I guess... Emmanuel Kant was wrong," the Writer admitted. He slumped down in a chair. "And... I seem to have wet my pants."
"Don't feel bad," Balls laughed. "So did I."
"Me, too," Dicky admitted.
"What're we gonna do?" Cora squealed. "That thing ain't gonna let us get out'a here!"
"We-we can wait till Crafter gets back," Dicky stammered.
"You got pig turds fer brains," Balls remarked. "He ain't comin' back fer a week, and all he'd probably do is use us fer sacker-ficin'."
"But won't the thing upstairs kill him when he comes in the house?" Cora asked.
"More than likely not," the Writer said. "In demonic incarnation—which I suppose I believe in now—that which is summoned can not harm the summoner. The Minotauress born to such an incarnation: Pasiphae."
"Pasiphae," Balls muttered, searching for a chronology. "Crafter brought her here from Hell by killin' that fat chick on the door?"
"I have no choice at this point but to say yes," the Writer said.
"Then she fucked Dicky, dropped all that spooge'n slop on the floor, and that's what turned inta that bitch with the bull's head?"
"Yes."
"And it were a good nut, too," Dicky offered. "Dang good, it was."
"Shut up," Balls said. Now he was staring at the unfortunate dead woman. "And all this shit's hittin' the fan 'cos ‘fore Crafter left, he sacker-ficed that butt-ugly ‘ho on the door."
The Writer nodded, opening a hand to the implements on the table. "By using the ritual instructions found in these books and undertaking a particularized ritual invocation known as tephramancy."
"The fuck is that exactly?"
"He impaled her on the chosen door—the Traversion Bridle—removed her heart by means of those branch-cutters and surgical retractors, put the heart in that crucible, it would seem, and then reduced it to ash in the crematory. After that, he applied the ashes to the transom stones over the door and then... the Bridle was lowered an
d Pasiphae's domain in Hell was opened to this room long enough for her to emerge."
Dicky picked his nose. Cora sniffled. The Writer lit another cigarette and wished he could down a couple of pitchers real fast. But Balls set his chin atop the tips of his fingers, thinking...
"And the Writer here says that what a warlock brings through them doors his own self cain't hurt him... " Balls' eyes caught the Writer's.
"You're thinking that if we initiated our own invocation, we could use what we summoned to kill the Minotauress—"
"Yeah! And thens we can high-tail it out's this fuckin' place!" Balls rallied. "Why not! Crafter done it so's why cain't we?"
The Writer chuckled smoke. "Mr. Balls—the process would require one of us to be sacrificed."
