by Edward Lee
Adrianne couldn't respond. The vision of Lucifer's first servant seemed to vibrate; she was grateful she couldn't focus on details. The face was like a nightmare not quite remembered upon waking up in a sticky sweat. All she could detect was a face that seemed bezeled like a chisel-end, and large eyes that were empty holes in space.
"I welcome you to serve me," this lord of lust said to her. "Few are offered that honor, even those who've ventured as far as you have."
I won't serve you, Adrianne told the thing outright. I'm not lurefor that. I'm here for answers, that's all. Can you resent me for that?
"No. All of life, and death, is a sojourn-for answers to what is not understood."
Thank you, she tried to ingratiate him. I want to know what's going to happen at the Hildreth Mansion.
"And your question will be answered, one way or another. Choose to serve me-that would please me much."
I told you, I can't do that. You'll only answer me if I sore you, then?
The etch-like voice reiterated "You'll be answered one way or another. I've delighted in your physical body alreadythrough my acolytes ..." The finger of the lord of lust pointed outward, to the Adiposians. "It's a delectable body. Serve me, and I promise I'll show you ecstasies when you die."
No.
"Then you'll come here when you die anyway. And I'll rape you every day until the stars lose their light."
No, Adrianne said. But you said you'd answer my question.
The incalculable face looked more pointedly at her. "Ask my servant Hildreth yourself. He'll be happy to reply."
Adrianne's vision darted off. Next to an altar-like plinth made of flesh stood a tall, lean figure in cloak and hood. The darkest smile glimmered up at her, and the face in the hood's oval was Reginald Hildreth's.
He whispered to her in an etching, barely audible voice, like Belarius'.
My God, Adrianne thought of the words he told her.
"There, you have your answer," Belarius said. "Do with it what you will. You believe you're safe as you are? Your physical body is elsewhere--you're just a spirit now, you can't be hurt here?"
I don't just beliew that, Adrian= replied. I know it.
"Then go, traveler. Fly away, back to your body."
Adrianne willed herself to do exactly that, but-
What?
When she tried to turn and whisk herself out of the temple, nothing happened.
Belarius was grinning at her. "Jaemmysin," he ordered. "Bring in our next entertainment."
Adrianne felt locked in the air above them, when Jaemmysin entered the temple, followed by two Adiposians who were dragging something curvaceous but of considerable bulk. It was some manner of She-Demon, horned and husky, with sweating skin the color of shale. The breasts, several times larger than a human woman's, rose and fell. The pubic hair between the well-muscled legs looked like black seaweed. The Adiposians spread the creature's legs apart, then walked out of the temple, leaving it unconscious where it lay.
What is this? Adrianne asked in alarm.
"A little more sight-seeing for you," she was answered. "To give you the best taste of this place."
Adrianne tried not to show her fear but knew she was failing. She couldn't move; Belarius had somehow paralyzed the psychic vessel that she existed as. What's he going to do now? she thought in the lowest dread.
It was Belarius' infernal grin that began to pull on her now. The harder she tried to pull away from him the more quickly she was drawn down. She wasn't the sparrow safe in the high tree anymore. In a moment, the thing's will had her locked right before the unglimpsable face, and then-
A sound like the wind.
-and Adrianne was inhaled.
It was as though she were gaseous, she was an air-pocket being divided into three streams: two were sucked into Belarius' pit-like nostrils, the third into his fanged mouth. Terror kept her from even thinking. Now she was inside Belarius, being processed through his lungs, dispersed into his blood. The monstrous heart pumped her throughout the eons-old body, and somehow she knew she was accumulating at his groin. The sudden frenetic movement told her what he was doing now: raping the husky She-Demon that had been brought in.
The movement seemed to never cease. Adrianne's spirit was blending with Belarius' lust. Then-
A guttural chuckle that rocked the temple's walls of flesh.
Adrianne was ejaculated out with the semen of the Sexus Cyning. She shot through the mammoth penis right up into the She-Demon's cervix ...
In the act she saw a vision of Hell that had never even been seen.
"A lovely union," the voice etched above her. Inside, Adrianne felt the She-Demon's heart stop. The cells of Belarius' sperm swam around her spirit, mixing with it.
Then Adrianne oozed out of the She-Demon's sex and pooled on the floor-a psychic wet-spot.
"Piss that blaspheme off my floor," Belarius said.
Adrianne was only partly cognizant, the ether of her soul trying to re-accumulate. She couldn't really see, she could only sense. Jaemmysin approached the spread legs of the now very dead She-Demon, pointed his ten penile fingers down and washed the smear that was Adrianne out of the Chirice Flaesc, each stream of his urine hard as a blast from a fire-hose. Adrianne was dispersed.
Reforming herself, as she was, could only be described as the mental equivalent to hauling a load of bricks up a steep incline. Her exhaustion threatened to defeat her, but just as she would give up, she gradually became buoyant, began to rise.
"Fly away, traveler," the etchings from within bid to her. The temple doors began to grind closed. "Take your useless secrets back to your world. We'll see you again very soon ... "
As if fleeing murderers, Adrianne soared off, back to the safety of her physical body.
As always, God had protected her this time ... but barely. Maybe He's teaching me a lesson, she supposed.
But she was intact, and when she woke up later in her physical body, she could tell the others exactly what she'd learned.
She was coming back now to her world, through a crystal night and over gorgeous moon-lit landscapes. The mansion soared into sight ...
OH MY GOD NO! she screamed to herself when she got back to the roof where her body should be.
Adrianne's body wasn't there any more.
Part Three
The Temple
of Flesh
Chapter Fifteen
I
Westmore stopped to take a break on the fifth floor, stepping out onto the stone veranda of one of the master suites. He lit a cigarette and watched smoke sail away. The sun had already gone down, leaving the land before the mansion painted in ghostly moonlight.
He'd searched every room in the house, every closet, every auxiliary passage, plus every attic room he could find. There was no sign of Reginald Hildreth, no evidence of anyone residing in the house in secret.
A glance to his watch showed him 11:59 p.m. At two I'm supposed to open the side door for Clements. Westmore wasn't sure what to think now, his moods and his convictions tipping this way and that. Maybe I should just call Clements, tell him I've searched the house and found no sign of Hildreth. He'd also want to know about Tom's verification: that Debbie Rodenbaugh was definitely present at the University of Oxford.
He won't believe it but it's still a good idea. And another reminder. I should also call Vivica back. She hadn't returned his not-so-pleasant call earlier, and Westmore found that interesting.
He sputtered at himself when he reached into his pocket and found it empty. Idiot! She probably DID call back. I must've left the damned phone in Hildreth's office ...
He lumbered back down to the third floor, to the office. He picked up his cell phone, which still lay on the desk, but before he could check his messages-
"Everybody!" Nyvysk's voice barked over the intercom. "Come up to the roof!"
Huh? Nyvysk had sounded urgent. Westmore ducked back out, almost collided with Cathleen, who'd been trotting toward the stairs.
"I don't know," she said.
"How do we get to the roof?"
"I don't know!"
Back up on the fifth floor, the stairs ended. Nyvysk's exclamations could be heard again on the intercom. "Where the hell's the stairs to the roof!" Westmore shouted back into the intercom.
Mack and Karen appeared at the other end of the hall. "This " wry!.
They rushed after them, up yet another set of stairs. Then the four of them emerged onto a plush overhanging panpet, complete with lounge chairs, umbrellas, planters.
"Adrianne left a note for me in the commo room," Nyvysk told them, leaning against the high, stone wall. He looked defeated. "She said she'd be OBE-ing from up here."
"What's wrong?" Karen asked.
"Look.
Nyvysk pointed down, over the parapet's edge. They all peered over.
"Aw, Jesus," Westmore muttered, a hand to his head.
Cathleen and Karen cried out. Mack and Nyvysk just stared.
Adrianne's naked body lay sprawled on the fieldstone walkway below The five-story drop left her broken, canted at nearly a ninety-degree angle via a fractured spine. A halo of blood lay around her head.
"Somebody must've thrown her off," Karen sobbed.
"Yes," Nyvysk said, "and no doubt while she was OBEing. Her most defenseless state."
Cathleen wiped her eyes. "Well, maybe not. She has been suicidal in the past."
Westmore extended a bewildered hand. "Come on, suicide? She's nude. She was probably raped and thrown off. Why would she take her clothes off to commit suicide?"
"Sometimes experients take off their clothes before they begin an OBE," Cathleen pointed out. "I often do the same thing when I divine or put myself in a trance."
Westmore shook his head. "I can't buy that. It's obvious somebody threw her over the side." An involuntary impulse caused him to glance at Mack. Several others did too.
"Hey, fuck you, man!" Mack objected. "Anybody could've done it. You just want to point to me 'cos I'm not part of this psychic-mumbo jumbo. And where the fuck were you?"
"He was coming out of the office, I saw him," Cathleen confirmed.
Mack frowned. "He could've done it any time!"
"Yeah?" Westmore egged. "And what happened to the lock-girl, Mack? You were the last one to see her. You even had sex with her, and then what happens? She disappears."
"You're talking shit, buddy!" Mack lunged, grabbed Westmore by the collar. "I think you killed her!"
Nyvysk's height and bulk easily pushed the two men apart. "Nobody's accusing anybody. Let's keep our heads together."
"And where's that crackpot perv, Willis? Huh?" Mack added.
"I think somebody raped her and threw her off," Westmore repeated.
"She was already raped once," Karen reminded. "And not by somebody. By the same things that raped me and Cathleen."
"It's a consideration," Nyvysk voiced. "Discorporate murders are rare but they are documented.
But suddenly Westmore considered something else. SomeBODY, or some THING? Or maybe Hildreth himself ...
11
Willis hadn't heard Nyvysk's intercom call ... because he was passed out in one of the parlors. Again, his last targetvision seemed to show him the future instead of the past.
A room of flesh. A temple of flesh.
A wall. No, a door--a door, too, composed of quivering, hot flesh.
The door was parted to a gap.
Willis' vision suddenly made his brain feel as though it were boiling, pressure rising, his skull fit to burst-
He glimpsed into the gap and saw something hideous behind the door. Then the vision snapped and he saw himself being slowly strangled to death as Hildreth and several unnameable things looked on.
That's when he collapsed, unconscious.
He thought he might've had a minor stroke when he woke up. Pain pounded in his head. I've had enough of this place, he decided, on his knees. I should just leave ...
He staggered to his feet.
Yeah. I'm going to kave.
What good was more of Vivica's money if he was dead? He wandered out and down, straggled down some hallways. He supposed he was looking for the others, to tell them he couldn't hack it here anymore. Would they think him a coward for leaving? I doubt it. Deep down they all want to leave too ...
He walked into the office, hoping to find Westmore, but the room stood empty. Aside, something flickered.
He had no choice but to walk over when he realized what it was ...
Westmore had left one of the DVD's playing on the computer, the sound turned off. It was more porn, more of Willis' curse.
His weakness forced him to watch.
It new ends with me ... His shame enshrouded him, yet he looked on: scene after scene, one beautiful naked woman after the next.
When the disc ended, he picked another randomly off the desk, popped it in.
And frowned.
Nothing. He fast forwarded through several minutes of black screen. When light finally bloomed, he slowed down to normal speed and watched, expecting more enticing seximages but instead ...
Gross, he thought of what he saw. I am NOT into this S&M stuff.
A naked woman lay spread-legged on a table. He couldn't see her face but she didn't appear to be one of Hildreth's typical porn models. No implants, no stunning tan. She appeared young.
Somebody else was performing a genital piercing of the most extreme sort. A half-inch at a time, the folds of her vagina were being closed by chrome rings. Each ring being crimped caused the woman to flinch. When the procedure was complete, it looked as if her sex had been closed by silver stitches.
This is no porn tape. What is this skit?
On screen, for just a moment, the woman leaned up and showed her face. Shaken, red around the eyes.
It was that young woman Westmore was so concerned with, the girl in the period-piece painting. What was her name?
Oh, yrnh. Debbie Rodenbargh.
Had Westmore seen this? Maybe not. Maybe I better go tell him. It could be his last act in the mansion before he walked out of it forever.
"It's a chastity belt," a voice rose up behind him. "They're symbolizing her virginity. Belarius likes symbols of homage."
Willis spun at the voice.
Stared.
It was Vanni, the locksmith woman.
She looked worse now than the first time he'd seen her revenant. Thinner, grayer, her gut sucked in, like a corpse in a death camp.
"I wasn't afraid of you last time, and I'm not afraid of you this time. You're a vision. You're a dead image."
By now her once-full breasts sat deflated in their emaciation, nipples so gray they were almost black.
"A revenant? A discorporation?"
"Yes."
She stepped forward. bony-hipped, legs like gray sticks. "Are you sure?"
"Positive," Willis said.
"But you only see revenants through the things you touch, right?"
`Yes."
A black smile. "Your gloves are still on."
Willis' eyes went wide. He looked at his hands.
She was right.
Fingers like hooks snapped up and grabbed his throat. Willis tried to shout but couldn't--the pressure choked off his voice. He was dragged to the floor in a blur of frenetic, dead-gray motion. Fingertips dug deeper, as if to twist his Adam's apple out of his throat like a cork.
"The house is releasing some of its stored energy," the thing that used to be Vanni said. "It's almost time. Hildreth is going to open the Rive again."
Willis flailed helplessly, gagging. The rippled flaps of breasts swayed before his dimming eyes. Drool fell into his mouth.
"There'll be so much for you to touch in Hell ..."
His belt was whisked out of the loops on his pants and expertly wrapped around his neck. It was tightened inch by inch until his face turned beet-red and he died, convulsing on the floor.
III
; "Isn't now the time to call the police?" Cathleen asked She sat despondent on the same lounge chair that had occupied Adrianne's body before she'd jumped--or been thrownoff the roof.
"I don't know, I don't know," Westmore fairly babbled. "It's the legal thing to do, but I think by now we all know that something else is going to happen soon."
"It's a mistake to call the police just yet," Nyvysk asserted. Moonlight paled his face. "And I don't think we should tell Vivica yet, either. It's not logical, I know. But Westmore's right. We can't bring Adrianne back. And something is going to happen here; our job is to find out what it is. The police will seal the house if we call them now"
Mack was looking over the side. "We can't just leave her body there."
"No, we can't. We'll bring it in. We'll put it in one of the walk-in refrigerators in the kitchen. I don't know."
They're more concerned about what Hildreth has planned than they are about legal protocol. But then he stopped and thought. And... so am I.
"I knew Adrianne well," Nyvysk went on. "She's a fairly dedicated Christian; she's not concerned about proper burial and such things. She, like myself, believes that her spirit will live forever. I'm content that she's in heaven. She would want us to keep investigating the state of the mansion."
"Yeah, and what if you're wrong?" Karen sniped. "How do you know what she'd want? She's dead."
"She's only dead physically. If it were me, I'd want the rest of the group to go on with our mission," Nyvysk finished.
"I don't know why I agree but I do," Westmore offered. "But we should bring the body in. Mack and I can do that." He glanced at Nyvysk, Karen, and Cathleen. "Why don't you three go look for Willis?"
"Good idea," Nyvysk agreed.
"Yeah, and what if Willis is the one who killed Adrianne?" Mack suggested with an edge to his voice.
"I'm optimistic that he's not," Nyvysk said. "We'll find him, then I'll spend the rest of the evening graphing the gauss readings. They've been steadily increasing in certain areas throughout the day."
Cathleen appeared concerned. "Why didn't you tell us that earlier?"
