Berry raised the cigarette to her lips and sucked hard, burning down a half-inch of spiced weed. “Jupiter said to find you. Dinnertime.” She spotted a potted fern within reach and tapped ash on its leaves. “His room.”
The head and hand disappeared behind the door, but Lydia could still hear that raspy voice: “This place. Have to leave a trail of bread-crumbs just to get back from the john.” And then that laugh – “Heh!” – a strangled syllable choked out of a smoke-scorched throat.
Lyda took a pull from her mug and crossed to her brother’s side. “And we thought Mavis was bad.”
“Mavis? Mavis.…” Booth narrowed his eyes in thought. “Oh, yes. The stewardess. And that perfume of hers! What did you call it…? Evening on the Wharf, I believe! What website does he visit to find these women? Nasty-sluts-dot-com?” He took his sister’s mug and placed it with his own on the mantle. “Are they on DVD yet?”
“What ‘they’? Daddy’s whores?”
Booth smiled. “Noooo…. Captain Virtue and Power Boy. Lots of old shows are on DVD now. We should look online.”
Lydia shrugged and ran a hand through through her long mouse-brown hair. “They weren’t popular enough. They were only on TV for a couple seasons. We’re probably the only ones who even remember them.” She looked toward the mantle and considered the faded, scratched image of the Captain on her mug: jaw like a brick, tousled black hair, steel-blue eyes peering through a purple mask. She softly sang her hero’s theme song. “Strong as an ant, swift as a bee, Captain Virtue is the one for me….”
Why couldn’t she have found her own Captain Virtue? Not that her looks could have kept him. She put a hand to her face, half-concealing, half-consoling her small, weak chin.
Lydia and Booth threaded the long, velvet-draped corridors until they came to Daddy’s bedroom. One wall was covered by an oak bookcase. Several shelves held mystery novels written by Daddy years earlier. On the nightstand was a copy of his most popular bestseller, Honey-Coated Lies by Jupiter Mondrago.
Daddy, emaciated but still distinguished, sat in bed propped up by a several oversized pillows. Oona, the nurse, loomed over Daddy, aiming a spoonful of mashed veal at his puckered mouth. “For me? Pleeeease?” cooed the enormous, white-clad woman. “Be a good boy and open up!”
Ordinarily, Lydia hated such condescending drivel from anyone providing care, but somehow, the words seemed completely sincere coming from the cheery, pink-cheeked behemoth. She noticed that Oona’s wrist was almost as thick as Daddy’s neck.
At last, Oona unloaded the spoonful between the old man’s dry lips. She then motioned for Lydia and Booth to take their places in side-by-side chairs at the foot of the bed. Berry sat on the bed by Daddy’s side.
Oona set a plate in each of their laps and handed them spoons. The evening’s menu was the same as Daddy’s: puréed veal, mashed green beans, and a gritty blob of apple sauce.
For the next few minutes, they ate in silence. Daddy was already finished with his meal, so he simply watched his loved ones as they ate. Berry continued to smoke between bites, depositing her ashes on the side of her plate.
“Could you please not smoke so close to him?” Oona said, cheerily.
Berry shrugged. “He’ll be okay. He’s not flammable.”
Daddy cleared his throat and everyone in the room looked up. Booth’s spoon froze in mid-scoop in his apple sauce.
“So,” Daddy said. His voice was so faint that everyone leaned his way to hear him. “How are my two babies getting along–” He paused to clear this throat again before continuing. “–with their new mommy?”
The siblings exchanged a look. “Just fine, thank you,” Booth said.
“She’s part of the family,” Lydia said. Just like the anus is part of any shit-flinging monkey, she thought.
Daddy nodded toward his children. “Have you given her a tour of the house?”
Booth raised an eyebrow. “Nooooo … but we can, if you like.”
The old man placed a thin-skinned, thick-veined hand upon his young wife’s leg. “I’d like my sweet little Berry to see all of our.…” He paused, and everyone waited for him to clear his throat. But he only smiled. “Our assets. Our pretties.”
The red-haired woman returned his smile through an aromatic cloud of smoke.
- - -
Booth, Lydia and Berry ascended the stairway leading to the library of Mondrago house. At the top of the stairs, the full moon shone through a hexagonal stained-glass window. The design of the large window depicted an oak tree with wasp nests and beehives in its branches. An oval hole yawned in the tree’s trunk. In the center of the hole was painted the silhouette of a termite.
“Is this some place or what?” Berry lit yet another clove cigarette. “So I guess there’s big money in mystery novels.”
“Not these days,” Booth said. “At any rate, book royalties didn’t buy this place. The house has been in our family for ages. Old money and all that.”
“An explanation wasn’t necessary, Boo Boo,” Lydia said. “I’m sure our new mommy has done her homework.”
Berry’s response was a half-smile and a shrug. Lydia found her smug attitude infuriating.
Booth stopped in front of immense double doors with knobbed shaped like curled wasps. “Here we are: the library. Every generation of our family has been blessed with an author.” His wide puppy eyes opened even wider. “I’ve written several children’s books myself. Naughty Ariadne and the Terrible Termites … Naughty Ariadne and the Horrible Hive ... Naughty Ariadne and the Wicked Wasps….”
Lydia gazed with actual fondness at her brother. “He based Ariadne on me, though he’ll never admit it.”
They entered the library, which was filled with glass cases with golden scrollwork. “Here are Grandma Audrey’s books on her travels.” Booth’s voice took on a soft tone of awe. “She spent thirty-seven years in Africa, studying various types of jungle insects. And over here, we see Basil Mondrago’s eight-volume set on apiary maintenance.” He turned toward Berry. “Bees. Honey collecting.”
“Fascinating.” She blew a smoke ring his way. “Heh!”
Lydia ran a finger over the glass of a case holding a single book, bound in green cloth. “Wyck’d Secrets Of The Infernal Beaste Ghattambah by Azmael Mondrago. For a few years, he was the clerk of the Puritan witch-hunter Cotton Mather. Ironic, since he was a devil in his own right.” She pointed toward an oil painting on a far wall. From this distance, all that could be seen of its subject were high cheekbones and a curved beak of a nose.
Berry squinted at the book. “Is it worth anything?”
“Certainly. To the right collector.” Lydia placed a palm against the glass. “But it will never be sold. It will never leave this house. It was the masterwork of a truly great man.”
“You just said he was a clerk,” Berry said. “What was so great about him?”
“He was the American Rasputin,” Booth replied, placing his palm next to his sister’s. “Toward the end, Cotton Mather took orders from him. No one questioned Azmael Mondrago. Even when he took a second and third wife. Even when he built his house and called it his church. Even when the local children began to disappear.”
Hand in hand, Booth and Lydia left the library through a different set of doors.
Berry tip-tapped after them. “So this Azmael guy was some kind of witch-doctor?”
Booth bit his lower lip. “Witch-doctor. Sure, why not! Follow us, please. There’s more.”
At the end of a hall lined with potted plants, they came to yet another set of doors. The knobs here resembled knotted masses of ants. Booth grasped and turned both knobs. The doors opened into an enormous six-walled chamber draped in gold and black tapestries.
“Jesus Christ Almighty,” Berry’s rasp deepened to a growl of astonishment. “What is this place? Some sort of weird-ass chapel?”
The pattern of the tapestries was the same as that of the floor tiles: a honeycomb. Oak pews were arranged in a circle around a s
ort of altar. The squat, hexagonal pillar of dark wood was ornately carved with crawling wasps, termites and ants. On the top of the altar rested a round brown bottle and a cup of hammered gold.
The red-haired woman stepped up to the altar and puffed a cloud of spiced smoke at it. “What’s in the bottle? Wine? Holy water?”
Booth covered a smile with his hand. “A delicacy. Royal jelly liqueur.”
Berry reached toward the bottle but Lydia lightly grasped her wrist. “That, my dear, is what your sort refers to as ‘the good stuff.’ It’s only for special occasions.”
Berry pulled away from Lydia and picked up the bottle. “You’re pissing me off,” she rasped. Her idiot-eyes squinted into a harder yet far more intelligent expression. “Mind your mother.” She then turned her attention to the bottle. “Bugs! Bugs carved all over the glass. Everywhere I look around here: bugs, bugs, bugs!”
Booth made a show of consulting his watch. “Perhaps we’d better be getting back to Daddy.”
“Jupiter ain’t going anywhere. Besides, Big Betty is with him.” Berry pulled the wooden stopper from the bottle and poured reddish-amber liqueur into the golden cup. “Your dad told me about your superhero mug, Lydia. Too bad you don’t have it on you, I’d give you a splash. What’s his name? Captain Happy?”
“Captain Virtue,” Lydia said. She watched the red-haired woman drink down the liqueur. Then she turned to her brother. “Strong as an ant, swift as a bee….”
“...Captain Virtue is the one for me.” As Booth finished the snippet of theme song, he opened a drawer in the altar’s side. He removed a fist-sized chunk of wood, greyish-green and worm-holed.
“I think your holy wafer has gone bad. Heh!” Berry took another drink, this time straight from the bottle. “You two were hogging this stuff for yourselves. I may have to send you spoiled brats to your rooms. Or better yet, make you move out.” She sucked at the cigarette, the bottle, then the cigarette again.
Booth shook the rotted piece of wood slightly, then set it on the altar. “Brats? Brats do the opposite of what they’re told. Do you know anyone like that, sister?” He tipped an ear toward the wood, then skipped back a few steps and took his seat in the pews.
“I think we do, Boo Boo.” Nodding, Lydia found her seat as well. “We certainly do.”
Berry stood at the altar, clutching the bottle. She looked from brother to sister. “I don’t get why you two are so gung-ho about some kiddie-show superhero.”
Lydia decided to satisfy her new mother’s curiosity. Sort of a last request. “He reminds us of someone very dear to us. Someone powerful and determined. Others wouldn’t see him as any sort of hero, but we do.”
The chunk of wood began to rock back and forth, slowly at first, then faster, faster. A stream of shimmering specks poured out of the wormholes. The stream grow into an impossibly huge insect cloud, which in turn coalesced into a roughly man-shaped shadow. A swirl of the cloud formed a face with high cheekbones and a curved beak of a nose.
“Mother, meet Azmael Mondrago, high-priest of Ghattambah, Lord of Insects,” Booth said. “Like the great god Nyarlathotep, Ghattambah dwells outside of time and space and so, is not bound by the petty limitations of this world. He can grant his followers glorious powers … including the ability to absorb the living essence of sinners, deserving of death. Fascinating, yes? Heh!”
Greenish-blue sparks and flames crackled within the seething shadow. Tongues of the living electric fire lashed out and wrapped around Berry. She clutched her chest, dropping the bottle. The clove cigarette fell from her lips. Her flesh turned ashen, and before long, ragged strips and sheets of desiccated skin began to slough off of her body. Her muscles, organs, even her bones withered and deteriorated. Berry’s skull caved in of its own accord, releasing shriveled chunks of what had been her living brain only moments before. Her intestines turned into a dry rain of malodorous granules before they hit the floor. Soon, all that was left of her was a pile of gritty, dark-gray powder.
- - -
At lunch the next day, Booth and Lydia took their places at the foot of Daddy’s bed. Neither minded that Daddy was not alone beneath the sheets.
Booth poured honey from a jar onto his puréed roast beef. “Such a pity. So young, so pretty.” He aimed a jutting lip in mock-pout at Lydia.
“And as rank as a stinkweed. We’ll never get that smell out of the place.” She pointed at her plate and her brother dribbled honey onto her mashed broccoli.
Daddy cleared his throat. “Make a note, queen bee. We need to buy a case of air-freshener for Lydia.”
Giggling, Oona dipped a playful finger in a clay honey pot snuggled in the fleshy crook of her elbow. She traced the memo in looping golden letters on Daddy’s bony chest.
This Pulsing Mass That Serves As My Heart
by Mark McLaughlin & Michael Sheehan, Jr.
LEAVEHERALONE
SHELIVESONWINEANDMEAT
BEWAREOFTHEMOLD
“Miss Road?”
She glanced up from her typing. Her dark-brown eyes were soft and inviting, her rose perfume intoxicating. Her face was framed by thick locks of shining black hair. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said your name: Miss Road. Angela … may I call you Angie?”
“I prefer Angela. May I help you?”
“My name is Pete Ramsey. I work in Purchasing and–”
“You must be wanting these.” She scooped up a pile of manila folders from a basket on her desk. Beside her computer keyboard, a ceramic Cheshire cat grinned up at him. “I was going to drop them off later. Thanks.” With a nervous little laugh, she returned to her typing.
“Excuse me, Angela.” He bent over to look at her face. God, but she was beautiful. Too beautiful to leave alone. “If you don’t mind, I have a question.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Yes?”
Pete noticed that several of the other typists were watching. He lowered his voice. “Do you live on wine and meat?”
“As a matter of fact, wine and meat are very good for you. Both are rich in iron and B-vitamins. Don’t you know that?” She drummed her fingers nervously. “You certainly are the curious one.”
“Well, I have a ouija board at home….” His face felt hot. He hoped he wasn’t blushing. “”I asked it to tell me about you last night. I ask it something every night, like: Will I get a raise? Things like that. I asked it about you since I see you around the office and I think you’re pretty. Anyway, it answered – not just a word or two, but complete sentences. The first real message I’ve ever received.”
“The occult is awfully interesting,” Angela said matter-of-factly. “What did it say?”
“The Other Side had some things to say about you. The main item I remember is that you like wine and meat.” Pete thought for a moment. There was something else…. “Everything was spelled right, except double letters – it didn’t repeat the second one. The whole thing broke off after ‘them old.’ I don’t know what that part was about.”
Angela leaned forward with a wonderfully bright smile. “So you think I’m pretty?”
- - -
That evening, they met at a seafood restaurant called The Pavilion. As the waiter brought them their entrees, Pete suggested that they take in a movie after dinner.
“There’s that new movie, Tut Tut! – it’s about some genius teens who clone King Tut,” he said. “Does that sound good?”
Angela shrugged. “It might be okay, but I usually never watch mummy movies or anything else about ancient Egypt. They’re never accurate! They make loads of mistakes. For example, why do they always give the characters British accents? That doesn’t make any sense. The language didn’t sound British at all.”
“Sounds like you know a lot about Egypt,” Pete said. “Have you been there?”
“Oh, I know what movie I want to see!” Angela cried. “That new romantic comedy about a football player who falls in love with his real estate agent. Touchdown Heaven! I hear it’s re
ally funny.”
Pete broke the tail off his lobster and began to work a chunk of meat out of it. “Speaking of real estate, I have an apartment about a mile from here. Where do you live?”
“I have a house. It’s kind of small, but I like it. Are you going to eat the guts?” She pointed with her fork at the midsection of his lobster, still on his plate. “I know there’s a better name for them, but I can’t think of it. Just break off the claws and I’ll take the rest.”
Pete handed over the bright-red carcass. “You haven’t touched your salad.”
“I can’t wait to see the movie,” she said, tearing up his lobster’s backplate. “I love comedies. My last boyfriend was always dragging me to these strange art films. And business dinners and receptions, like I was his wife! He was just too boring for me.” Pete watched with uneasy wonder as she dug into the lobster’s dark, greenish innards.
Angela was silent on the way to Foxworth Cinemas, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. As Pete steered his pickup into the theatre driveway, she put a hand on his knee. “I’m not really in the mood for a movie anymore,” she said. “Can we go somewhere for a drink?”
“Well, sure. I just figured.…” The sentence died on his lips. There was no tactful way of completing the thought. I just figured that five glasses of Chablis with dinner was plenty … that you’d sucked up enough booze for one night. Silly me.
They stopped at The Elbow Room, a college-crowd bar in Pete’s neighborhood, for another round of drinks. And another. And round and round.
“Don’t worry about me,” she called into the men’s room. “I’ll just call a cab.” He heaved his reply into the yawning bowl.
- - -
LEAVEHERALONE
YOUCANOTCHANGEHER
SHEKEPSTHEMOLD
A shadow moved over Pete’s desk. He sighed and hoped it would drift away.
The source of the shadow spoke. “Where are we going tonight?”
Shoggoth Apocalypse & More Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos Page 3
