by Edward Lee
Berns whispered, "White trash."
"Just like you, brother."
Cute. "So it might behoove you to be forthcoming with information with me before they get their hands on you. I have a lot of power in this department. I might be able to cut you a deal. Like I did for Freddie."
"Who?"
"Freddie Johnson. He spun on you like a top."
"Bullshit. There's no way he could've known I was busting into his old place last night, so don't act like he blew the whistle on me. I know for a fact that he didn't."
"Well, thanks at least for admitting that you know him."
A thought seemed to trouble her; then she gave Berns the finger, too.
"So let's go over last night again. The police caught you burglarizing Room Three of the Wharfside Boarding House on Fifth-Freddie Johnson's pad before he blew town."
"You talk so hip, man," she mocked.
"You betcha. But they talk hipper in general pop." Berns admired something about her redneck edge. "You're a gutsy gal, I'll tell you. Too bad you're not as smart as you are gutsy."
"What are you blabbering about?" she frowned.
"When you jimmied the window on Freddie's pad, you did it with the same knife you used to cut the throats of the two women at the prior house last spring. It still had some dried blood on it."
"Bullshit!" she exclaimed, leaning up. "I cleaned that fucker good!"
Berns' grin was wide. "Even heard of gas-chromatography, Sue? Or how about mass photo-spectrometry?"
She slumped back to her slouch, arms propping up the braless breasts that were probably quite full and appealing once but now just sagged.
"It's lock-solid evidence, Sue. Freddie's already confessed and implicated you."
She shook her head. "You're lyin'."
She's fried. He could tell. Sometimes when he pushed hard enough, they gave in, but Berns doubted that would happen here. Drug burnout. But ... a member of a Satanic cult?
He wasn't getting any vibes. "So when you busted into his joint, you were looking for the forty grand"-he decided to play with her a little-"but Freddie screwed you out of it. He told me. Isn't that why he paid his rent three months in advance, so the landlord wouldn't know he was gone? You knew he was gone, though. He said he'd take his cut when he left town but would leave your end for you and the other guy. What was his name?"
She laughed sharply. "Man, you are so up the wrong fuckin' tree it's a riot." Then she leveled her gaze. "And you know what? Fuck it. Freddie was right. When the party's over, it's over."
"He said the same thing to me two nights ago in Lubec, Maine," Berns told her, getting his hopes up.
"I'm not gonna give up my friends, so you can forget about that. They're not even here anymore."
"Now you're the one bullshitting."
She gave him the finger again and grinned. "And as for the money-shit. Freddie always had money 'cos he was lucky. Pool, scratch-offs, craps. The fucker always had extra cash."
"The fucker? I thought you were all friends. Sounds like you don't like him much."
"I don't like him-he's a prick. But I do love him."
Redneck love, Berns thought. "Oh, one of those deals. He was your boyfriend."
"Yeah, or so he said. Cheated on me all the time."
"Back to the money-"
She shook her head as if Berns was stupid. "It wasn't about the money. After he blew town, we figured we'd wait a while for things to cool off before we broke into his old place. But it wasn't the money we were after. We didn't give a shit about it."
"Wei"
"Yeah, fucker. We."
Berns intensified his expression. "And you didn't care about forty grand?"
"No, no. Something else, and you can't do shit 'cos someone else has it now."
Berns' mental gears began to excitedly spin.
"So it wasn't you who broke into the apartment. It was you and the other guy."
"Yeah. It was me and the guy.
"I see. And he got away but you didn't."
A long, huffy, "Yeah."
"Tell me who he is, and I can have your sentence reduced. Accomplice to a double homicide might get you life with no parole, especially when one victim was a nun. I might be able to rig it so you're out after seven years, if you're a good girl."
She jerked forward, animated. "You don't get it, do you? We couldn't remember it all, all the instructions, I mean-"
Instructions?
"Freddie wrote them down but he made a copy. Took the original with him and left the copy here for us."
Berns appraised her. I don't think she's making this up just to throw me off. "The cops found an ashtray that had something in it-"
"Not an ashtray, a thurible."
Berns cocked a brow. "Well, this was an ashtray but there was no trace of cigarette tar or any drugs in it. They said it was something like resin. Burned resin. What's the deal there?"
"You'll have to find that out yourself."
"Sue, the ashtray's going to the big lab in Manchester. Whatever the stuff is, believe me, those guys will have it nailed. So why not just tell me?"
She waved a hand. "Naw. No point. You wouldn't get it."
Don't spin all your wheels at once, Berns reminded himself. "All right, back to the bust. It's very interesting what you're telling me. You got caught but the guy didn't. The guy got away."
"Right. When we heard the sirens last night, I deliberately stayed in the apartment."
Another bombshell. "You mean to distract the police while your accomplice got away with these ... instructions?"
"Yeah. It's a photocopy of something Freddie got. He called it a transcription."
A long pause seemed to dim the lights.
"They came from the other side," " she whispered.
"The other side? You mean George Steinbrenner's office?"
Her lips pursed. "Huh?"
"Nothing. It's a baseball joke. So you sacrificed yourself so this other person could escape with these transcriptions? That's crazy. You've still got plenty of life left, but because you did that you could spend the rest of it in prison. Why sacrifice yourself?"
"Because some things are more important than life here." The words leaked from her throat very slowly. She seemed to be looking through him instead of at him.
"Life here as opposed to ... life on 'the other side?' Hell? Is that what you mean?"
Now she was leaning on her elbows, the saggy breasts swaying in the baggy shirt. "You know Freddie. You know how he's always smiling. I'll bet he was smiling when you talked to him in jail."
"Actually, he was."
"And he was right. See, he knew, and that's why he kept saying it to us so much. When the party's over, it's over. Wanna know why?"
"Sure."
"Because there's a better party waiting somewhere else."
"In Hell? Is that what we're talking about, Sue?"
She said nothing.
"Sue, this is ridiculous," he finally said. "A devil cult? Come on. You look like the kind of girl who works her ass off all day in some manual labor job, sits in redneck bars every night getting drunk on draft beer, messing around with grizzly tough guys, and driving an old pickup truck with bald tires and dents in it."
She howled laughter. "You're right about everything except the truck. I don't have any wheels 'cos I can't get insurance."
"You're not a devil worshiper!" Berns said more loudly. "You're a redneck chick in a low-rent dock town!"
"Oh, man, you're such a riot!" She giggled hoarsely. "You don't get it and I don't expect you to. Freddie knew we were all at the end of the line-he could see it. They told him-"
They. The word seemed to echo in Berns' head.
"So that's why I stayed. That's why I took the rap and let Dougie beat the heat."
Berns immediately wrote Dougie in his notebook "What's Dougie's last name?"
Finally it hit her. "Oh, fuck, man! Fuck you!"
"You've got nothing to lose, Sue!" he yelled back.
"And you can believe this: the only party waiting for you is life with no parole in the state lezzie-block!"
She waved another dismissive hand. "Aw, but you know what? So what? Dougie's long gone anyway."
Bullshit. Berns remained convinced.
"And that ain't his real name anyway, just like Susan Maitland ain't mine. You want to know what I'm going to do the minute they put me in prison?"
"What's that, Sue?"
Her stained grin beamed almost like a light. "Find a way to kill myself."
Suicide pact, Berns wrote down next. Freddie said the same thing, he remembered.
Her mood shifted like a light switch being flicked. "Look, man, I don't feel like talking no more. I'm tired. Can I go back to my cell and sleep?"
"Yes, Sue. Do yourself a favor and change your mind. Don't protect this other asshole. Talk to the state prosecutor and he'll probably deal."
"Naw. Fuck it. I'm just tired. I want to go to sleep ... and dream."
"About the other side?"
"Man, you wish you had dreams like me-like all of us."
"I probably don't wish that, Sue." The thoughts kept rolling over and over. A suicide pact in a Satanic cult? These rednecks?
"I'll be a baroness," she was murmuring now, her eyes closed. "And Freddie will be an arch duke...."
"Good luck tomorrow, Sue," he said as he began to get up.
"Hey, man. Do me a favor?"
Now Berns saw her breasts in the loose shirt sitting on the table like two baggies full of water. "Maybe. What?"
"Tell Freddie I love him and can't wait to see him again."
Berns had to laugh at that one. "Sue, there is no way you're ever gonna see him again. Even if we get him transferred to a prison down here, it won't be anywhere near where you're going. Visitation between two convicts is simply not allowed."
She rolled her eyes as if his reply had been naive. "Yeah, yeah, sure. But tell him, will you?"
Berns turned at the door. "I'll tell him if you tell me what the stuff was in the ashtray."
She winced, her wrinkles growing intense. "Shit, man, I can't! Ask me something else!"
"All right." He stared her down. "What did you do with the blood?"
Her grin turned lewd. "We drank it."
"You're full of shit, Sue. Have a good time doing life. He opened the door.
"Wait! You're right. We didn't drink it. I was just pulling your leg." She raised two fingers to her mouth to denote fangs.
Then her voice got hoarse again, and this time her smile sent a chill up his spine.
"We saved the blood-"
"Saved it?" he questioned, incredulous.
"We saved every last drop."
Berns left the room quickly, while Susan Maitland yelled behind him, "You tell Freddie I still love him like you promised, you cop fuck!"
Chapter Ten
(I)
Even without the salt-mask, Boniface wasn't capable of showing fear in his expressions, not with most of the flesh gnawed off of his face. Maskless now, he looked upon his courtyard from the oculus window of his quarters ... and shivered.
His own diviners were beginning to verify the same now: there was a blemish in his aura; there was an irregularity in the Flux.
The Exalted Duke was trying to distract himself with his favorite organic plaything, the court's Chief Soubrette, Voluptua.
"Like this, my most revolting lord?" she inquired, looking up from his broad lap.
Boniface felt nothing now, his eternal lust ruined by these new worries. Could it be her look that was growing insufficient? Voluptua was his favorite doxie, whom he reveled for most because she was nearly all Human, which was rare in this arena of enhanced Hybrids. Her large, over-full breasts, and skin unflawed as her last day alive in the Living World reminded him so much of all the worldly women-including nuns-that he'd ravaged on altars over a thousand years ago.
The Bi-Facial procedure amounted to Voluptua's only Luciferic improvement. Perhaps it was his love of dichotomies that dictated this singular preference. The erotic tinged by the nauseating; the beautiful flecked by the hideous.
Hence Voluptua's only surgical enhancement: she had two faces. The top face-which she almost always wore for her master's pleasure-was the face of a Putridox, a noseless thing from the Outer Sectors that had vertical eyelids, a vertical mouth set in a visage like curdled porridge, and lumpen cheeks freckled by abscesses. Each pock housed a Blood Maggot. It was perhaps the only face in Hell more revolting than Boniface's.
Boniface didn't want to admit that his loins were betraying him. He needed inspiration. "Entertain me, harlot." His corroded hand gestured toward the blackly shining Pasiphae, who stepped forth with a grin.
"Give succor to the Night-Mother, Queen of the Labyrinth," Boniface ordered. "I know full well that you love her."
Voluptua shuddered. "I love only you, my appalling master."
Boniface didn't care. "Yes, yes, but ... give succor. It amuses me to watch."
She got up from his lap, her face so foul that even the Usher guarding the door turned away. On hands and knees, Voluptua crawled to Pasiphae, who stood with black hands on black hips, her gleaming black legs parted.
The Night-Mother sighed in bliss when Voluptua's repugnant mouth found the midnight black furrow of her sex.
"Yes," Boniface approved.
Pasiphae churned in place, her arousal swelling her breasts. Her ink black hands caressed her own curves as Voluptua's efforts grew more fervent. It wasn't long before the Night-Mother's release was imminent, and when black fingertips self-stimulated the gorged black nipples, it was milk as dark as crude oil that eddied out.
Then Pasiphae let out a silent shriek of bliss.
Boniface had grown partially aroused by the sight. But I need more, he thought. "Void yourself now, into the face of my whore," he ordered; then, to Voluptua, "Wouldn't you enjoy that, my love? Wouldn't you?"
"Oh, yes, my detestable lord," Voluptua answered with the greatest zeal.
Pasiphae parted her legs farther ... then emptied her abyssal bladder into Voluptua's face. The stream of urine was black as pitch.
When the debasement concluded, Boniface, bothered by the stress of his worries, was still not ready to perform. Rather than admit it, he pretended not to care, instead grabbing Voluptua about the neck and thrusting her face out the window. Several shrieks were heard from below.
"Look, my love, out into my courtyard. Let your demented vision drink in the sight of my Involution as it nears completion."
The wench did so, her Human contours and hourglass figure more inspiring than any he'd ever seen, andeven better-the physical perfection spoiled by the Putri- doxic face.
"Do you see?"
Vertical eyelids blinked over eyes like dark phlegm. In the courtyard the Unholy Carpenters had finished boiling the long lengths of Druid Oak, carved them into troughs, and bent them into exact geometric curvatures. From the yard's southeast corner, they began to join each length.
"It's lovely, my most unblessed lord," came her low but sugar-sweet voice from her vile mouth. "But I don't understand...."
Boniface ran his foul hands down her sleek back and thighs. "Of course you don't, my dear, because you're an ignorant whore who has no capability of comprehension. Right?-
"Oh, yes, my great Exalted Duke. You're quite right. Always right."
;'When the carpentry is finished, the trough will inscribe the most Unholy Spiral." A corrupt finger traced over the downy pubic mound in a corresponding spiral. "Tell me how beautiful it will be."
The Soubrette turned, her large-nippled breasts standing out in ardor. The vertical mouth replied, "It will be as beautiful as your own face, my great one," and with no hesitation the bosom lowered and her face came to his, and she kissed the lipless gouge that used to be his mouth.
Boniface's pallid flesh lay Iike something indescribable on the lead-trimmed bed. Only a Soubrette as wellconditioned as Voluptua could even stand to look at him witho
ut hemorrhaging. The Exalted Duke was that ugly. His genitals lolled, just as indescribable.
"And now, my most worthless trollop," " he wheezed, "kiss me again, but with your Human face."
As a Bi-Facer, Voluptua's Human face was kept hidden beneath the scarf, the only garment she wore on these occasions. Her stomach flattened and her breasts rose as she straightened her stance, grabbed her long blond hair ... and pulled.
So horribly lovely, Boniface thought, eyes raving at the surgical wonder.
The detestable face of the Putridox slipped over Voluptua's skull, and when it was pulled up sufficiently, it could no longer be seen, tucked back as it was under the shiny blond mane and now replaced by the same beautiful Human face she'd worn in the Living World.
Now her Human lips joined the monstrous Duke's, tongue roving unabashedly in the pitted cavity.
"And now-_- he demanded, "a final kiss-for your dear father, whose Spirit I personally sent to occupying the body of a dander flea." Then he raised the stick to which the severed head of Voluptua's biological father had been spiked. Its brain had long been evacuated and burned, while the flesh of its face now hung in rotten tatters.
Voluptua kissed the dead lips with just as much passion.
"Now beout of my sight, you useless property," Boniface said, "and tell Willirmoz that his presence is demanded."
"Oh, yes, my lord!" she replied and moved off. Several lower-scale Soubrettes appeared at once to dress the Chief Odalisque back in her Tongue-Skirt and Hand-Bra, while still more re-dressed Boniface and replaced his mask. Voluptua and Pasiphae scurried off, hand in hand.
Waiting for the High Priest and Lithomancer, Boniface watched the Nicht-Mir-a mirror that was sacrificeconditioned and served as an infernal surveillance camera that offered views of the fortress's most critical areas, including the Lower Chancel.
My Angels, he mused, watching the silver veins. The invisible Warding bonds could be seen laying grooves in the Angels' skin. They howled in the most mindless agony as the Archlocks and Torturians wielded their psychic torments: Heart-Pricking Spells, Psychic Branding, and Aura Toxins, all to further drive the pregnant Angels utterly insane but to leave their physical bodies unscathed.
Boniface watched the most pregnant of the six convulse as a Marrow-Boiling Spell was inflicted. Silent screams bulged the celestial eyes into embers of hatred; the paralyzed wings quivered on the semitangible slab, while the belly shined with so much agonized sweat.
