Inferno

by Ellen Datlow

  “Please leave, Mark. It’s serving no purpose you being here now.”

  “You want the truth, Zoe—I’ve got a natural antipathy to people like you. All this counterculture self-righteousness, it’s just a front, isn’t it. Deep down, you’re all out for what you can get, just like everyone else.” The woman shook her head, but Mark ranted on: “I still have vivid memories of you wheedling your way into our lives, first appearing as a fan of my mum’s, then as a friend, then as a companion, until finally you were going everywhere with us. Every event and function, you were there. The only thing that stops me kicking myself for not realizing what you were sooner is the fact that my dad, who’s no dimwit, didn’t realize either. Not until it was too late … you bitch.”

  “Please, Mark …”

  “As I say, though, you’re only one of a type … a deluded little nobody trying to invent her own reality because there isn’t a place for her in the real reality.”

  “This is our reality now.”

  “This is nothing! It’s a hiding place for aggrieved, self-pitying failures like you … with your crappy artworks and your paint-covered overalls and your stupid fucking men’s haircuts. Jesus, no wonder you fucked up in real life.”

  “And did your mother fuck up?” she retorted. “Did she fail?”

  Mark didn’t answer that. Or rather couldn’t. Because his mother clearly hadn’t failed—either at tasks society had set for her, or tasks she’d set for herself. Scowling, he set off around the room again, picking things up, disgustedly tossing them aside.

  “Anyway,” the woman added, “I don’t know why you’re pretending to be such a misogynist. You’re not. We know that, we’ve read your books.”

  That stopped him midtrack. He turned slowly round. “You’ve read my books?”

  “Yes. And we like them. You’re not an insensitive person, Mark. Why are you behaving as though you are?”

  “My books are crime stories,” he finally said. “They’re full of grime and foulness.”

  “They center around a female cop, who’s clever and sassy and streetwise.”

  “Who’s also a male fantasy figure,” he replied.

  Zoe shook her head. “She’s blazed her way through a male-dominated world.”

  “That’s because she’s blond and pretty and got big tits.”

  “She’s made a success of her life.”

  “Because she can flirt as well as fight.”

  “She’s still in control, she does what she wants …”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Mark bellowed. “She’s fucking fiction! Just like all this. I mean, just what the hell is that supposed to be exactly?” He pointed through the window, to where another of the automated dummies was slowly processing across the drive toward the door in the west wing.

  And then, for an amazing moment, possibly because he was staring so intently at it, he thought he recognized it.

  It was ludicrous surely? The dummy, which again was skeletal-framed but in this case swathed with alternate strips of bandage and silver foil, and heavily padded out so as to look like a rugby player, resembled nothing that might exist outside the pretentious world of modern art. And yet, bizarrely—possibly because of its head, which was an upturned bucket with a big moustache and an obscenely grinning mouth drawn on it, and wore a trilby—it reminded him of his second-cousin Fred, who was prone to Jack-the-laddishness and ran two nightclubs in west London.

  “No way,” Mark said, shaking his head. “No way.”

  “It’s a supplicant,” Zoe replied, answering his previous question. “It’s on its way into the temple.”

  “The temple?”

  “You were in there earlier. That’s the only way you can have got into the house.”

  “Oh yeah, the temple.” He jeered at the very notion.

  “Don’t you realize that that’s what this is all about?” she asked him. “You’ve been through the wood. Surely you’ve seen what’s happening there. It’s the ritual dance. The journey of the circles, the eternal labyrinth.”

  “For Christ’s sake …”

  “The journey through life,” she added, “the only true way to find the Goddess.”

  “It’s a pile of fucking horseshit!”

  “You think so? Well you’ve done pretty well out of it.” She glared at him defiantly. “Your father has too. And your sister.”

  Mark looked at her again. For a second he thought he’d misheard. “What?”

  “Hasn’t your father recently been appointed Bishop of Woking?”

  For a few seconds crazy ideas spun in Mark’s head, but he quickly dismissed them. “Okay … so you and Mum read the papers. Big deal.”

  “It’s because of your mum that he’s been appointed,” Zoe said. “It’s because of her that you’re a successful author at so young an age, that your sister’s already a barrister.”

  Mark shook his head, unwilling to listen let alone believe.

  “What do you think your mother’s built all this for?” Zoe asked him. “She might not live with you anymore, but you’re still her family. She loves you all deeply.”

  Still Mark shook his head. But the more he considered it, the more he began to wonder. “That supplicant,” he said, his voice tremulous, “the one that’s just passed. It looked like a cousin of mine.”

  Zoe nodded. “You’re all here. All her kith and kin. You’re as much a part of the ritual dance as she is, probably more so. And all the while the paths are trod, you advance, you prosper … .”

  “This is a crock!”

  “I don’t explain it very well, I realize that. I’m merely an acolyte.”

  “And what’s Mum supposed to be, the high-fucking-priestess!” he exploded.

  “Of a sort,” the woman said, remaining calm, clearly understanding that his new anger stemmed from a dawning realization that she might actually be telling the truth. “She’s the one the goodness comes from. The goodness that you know is real, because you used to bask in it yourself.”

  Mark tried not to remember those luxurious evenings by the fireside, seated on his mother’s lap. Tried not to recall her kind, encouraging voice as he read his early lessons to her, or her soft hands helping him put his pajamas on. But probably because of the stress of the day, and the shock that the person he’d loved and worshiped throughout his most tender years was still alive, tears started to blur his vision.

  “W-where is she?” he stuttered.

  “She’s walking in the wood,” Zoe said. “She always walks in the evening. At moonrise the Goddess is most vibrant … .”

  “Cut that crap!”

  “She’ll be back soon. She can explain it, herself. She’s far more articulate than I am.”

  “She’s going to need to be,” Mark snapped. “Ten minutes after I get home, you’ll have the world’s press at your door.”

  “That would be your choice, of course.”

  “You mean I’m allowed one? In this domain of women.”

  “I know all this has come as a big shock to you, Mark,” Zoe said, touching his arm, only for him to flinch away. “That’s why we hid from you all. Ariadne was desperate not to hurt …”

  “Diane! Her name is Diane!”

  “Diane then—or perhaps Diana. The Roman mother-goddess, kindness embodied, the mistress of healing …”

  “Jesus, Zoe! Grow the fuck up!”

  “Who shares many attributes with the Virgin Mary, if you’d rather hear it that way.”

  “I’m not fucking interested!”

  Mark used the heel of his palm to wipe the tears from his eyes, determined to regain his composure and, at the same time, his manly pride. It probably wouldn’t count for much in a place like this, but Hell, by the sounds of things it was all he had left that was truly his.

  “If you want to wait here, she’ll not be long,” Zoe said, moving toward the double doors. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Yeah. Make it a stiff one.”

  “There’s no alcohol in
this house. Will tea do?”

  “So long as it’s none of that herbal shit.”

  She nodded, and left the room.

  Mark felt cold and alone, and not a little embarrassed. He wondered what his mother would say when she finally arrived. He also began to wonder what she’d look like. She’d been beautiful as a young woman, tall and shapely, with long fair hair and dazzling violet eyes. He’d only come to realize it recently, but he’d unconsciously modeled Laura Prince, his sexy policewoman heroine, on early photographs of his mother. She’d been stunning, which only added all the more to her mystique, and, now that he admitted it, increased his desire to see her again. Rather selfishly, he realized, he found himself hoping that time hadn’t taken its toll on her; that she wouldn’t have put on weight or grown haggard.

  Then he heard a noise from the hall—the click of a latch.

  He went straight out there, expecting someone to be coming in through the front door. But beyond the stained-glass fresco in its central panel there was no one. It was the wind, he realized. The rain had started again; gusts of it blew against the walls and windows. Mark relaxed, but decided he would wait here. He would be the very first thing his mother saw when she came in. Though he now ached to see her again (there was no denying that!), there was still some part of him that wanted to punish her.

  And that was when he noticed the door on the other side of the hallway.

  It was a single door, once handsome, carved with foliage and woodland faces, but now chipped and dull, and in fact vandalized because someone had chalked something on it. Mark idled over there and tried to read the graffiti. It was faded, only semilegible, but it appeared to read: Disintegration.

  Curious, he pushed the handle down. The door swung open. He was confronted by what might have once been a small reception room but which now seemed to be used as a trash heap. Not that it contained trash of the common garden variety.

  Stacks of portraits were propped against the walls. They were largely done in oils and portrayed typically regal subjects: redcoats, cavaliers, ladies of court. Old masters to be sure, yet all were grubby and torn, while some had been deliberately slashed. There were piles of broken crockery as well, and heaps of tarnished silverware. In the very center though, and this was the really surprising thing, lay a vast clutter of ancient weapons, apparently dumped there and allowed to gather dust.

  Mark strode forward.

  It was a perplexing sight. More so when he considered that, if these items were the real thing, they’d surely be priceless. Even if they were replicas, they looked so old that they had to be valuable. Long swords were present, alongside shields, battle-axes, maces. From later centuries, there were halberds, breastplates, sabers, flintlock pistols. All were aged in the extreme, many broken and rusty-edged, and just lying here in a heap.

  Slowly, he understood. These weapons had probably once adorned the interior of the house, perhaps around the time his mother had first bought it. They’d doubtless filled the halls and passageways, hung in places of honor. They’d have added a touch of grandeur, there was no doubt. But in the light of what he’d learned today, it didn’t surprise him too much to find them discarded like this. Nevertheless, it saddened him.

  It wasn’t right for all men to be lumped together under the same bloodstained banner. True, these weapons represented a solution to life’s problems that was characteristically male. More to the point, perhaps, many of these arms visibly dated from the Cromwellian age, when religious warfare finally came to England, so the Church of Christ was also being denied by this irreverent action … but that was where the real irony lay. Because the horrors these weapons once wreaked had never been the responsibility of Christ himself. Jesus told people to love their enemies and forgive them, not kill them. Likewise, not all men were persecutors of women: Mark’s father, for example. Anthony Hagen, the newly anointed Bishop of Woking, had always been a thundering voice in the pulpit, and a stern figure even in his own home. And yes, he preached that the old ways were best, he denounced the ordination of female priests, he believed that men should work and women stay in the home and raise families. And okay, in the eyes of some, maybe that was a form of female servitude, but was it really so bad? Was it genuinely fair to bracket men like Mark’s father with the rapists and the witch-hunters?

  There was another rattle from the front door. Mark turned, but nobody came through it. He glanced back across the room and the weapons, and saw a tall cupboard. It looked as forgotten and beaten-up as everything else in there, and he wouldn’t have given it a second thought had he not spotted a black, tarry substance that seemed to be leaking from the bottom of it. He thought again about the word scrawled on the door: Disintegration.

  When something disintegrated, it was over, finished, there was no way back for it.

  Before he knew what he was doing, he was walking across the room. He rounded the pile of weapons and approached the cupboard. The liquid formed a viscous puddle in which three cockroaches wriggled helplessly. Mark watched them for a moment, chilled. Then he reached out, lifted the catch and opened the cupboard door.

  And the smell hit him before the vision did: of burn, of char, of rancid flesh, of melted human fat.

  The man in there, whoever he was, was naked except for a belt, which had been looped around his neck and used to suspend him from a coat hook. His flesh was streaked a variety of colors, mainly greens, purples, and yellows, and was crisped all over as though he’d been fried in batter. His hair, both on his head and his body, only remained in singed patches, and his eye-sockets were empty cavities.

  Mark gagged, found himself swaying. He was about to topple forward, but at the last second he jerked away, tottering backwards and falling into the heaped weapons, sending them clattering across the room.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” a voice screamed from the doorway.

  Mark looked dazedly around, and saw Zoe. She held two steaming mugs, but her face was written with outrage. And then she spotted the opened cupboard, and the thing inside it, and her cheeks, which had briefly flushed pink, blanched white.

  “Should I ask you the same question?” Mark wondered, rising unsteadily to his feet, and only now realizing how lucky he’d been to stumble on this find before he’d had a chance to sample the drink she’d prepared for him. Almost unconsciously, he reached down for a weapon, his hand finding the hilt of a chain-mace. “Tell me,” he said, indicating the corpse, “is this another of your superior female values?”

  Zoe watched dumbly as he picked the weapon up. It might have been old, but it still looked serviceable. Its chain was a foot long, and on the end of that swung a ball of spiked iron that was at least the size of a man’s clenched fist.

  “This is not what you think.” she said, backing into the hall.

  “Not what I think?” he replied, following her. “Was it a piece of this poor bastard that I saw you feeding into that fucking obscenity’s fire-filled belly early on? A chunk of his buttock maybe, his inner thigh?”

  “He was already dead … .”

  “You maniac sow! What the hell kind of Satanist bullshit is this?”

  They were now in the hall, and Mark lunged toward her. He tried to grab her rather than hit her, but the ball-and-chain was still in his hand. The woman screamed and dropped her two mugs, smashing them. She just managed to evade his reach. “Mark, you don’t understand! He tried to interfere with the supplicants.”

  “What, those fucking walking piles of junk outside! He dared put his hands on one, so you killed him for it?”

  “It’s not that,” she insisted, still backing away. “We didn’t kill him. It was an accident. I’m just making use of the aftermath. And it wasn’t us. You mother doesn’t know anything about it.”

  “She doesn’t know what’s going on in her own house?”

  “She lives in her head now, Mark.” The woman continued to retreat. “All she cares about is her writing. I take care of everything else.”

  “Yo
u lying dyke harridan!”

  “Listen to me,” the woman pleaded. “He was a tramp, a vagrant. I don’t even know how he got into the grounds, but he tried to interfere with one of the supplicants. And the power of the Goddess ran through him.”

  “Liar!” Mark shouted. “You killed him, didn’t you! You pagan bitches, you fucking burned him!”

  “No!” Zoe cried. Tears of fright appeared on her cheeks. “It was the Goddess who burned him. But it was unintentional. He tried to pull a supplicant down, and the power erupted inside him.”

  Mark now had her cornered, but suddenly her words struck a cord with him. Power—she’d used the word power. An image filtered into his mind—the coaxial cable that he’d seen snaking out from the mechanism that drove the dummies and connecting with the mains.

  “Jesus Christ on a bike! Are you telling me those things out there are electrified? That a live current runs through them?” He thought of the mobile figures, and the many parts of them that were exposed metal. “Good God, are you evil or just plain loopy!”

  “This is a holy place,” she protested, “no one’s supposed to come here!”

  “You stupid whore!” he roared, and he slapped her across the face hard, before dashing back down the passage toward the temple. Terri was still out there … .

  He entered the sacred chamber just as another of the effigies passed through. He didn’t even look at it, but went straight across to where the flagstone lay. It was heavy, solid; but it wouldn’t stop him. He put everything he had into the first blow, swinging the chain-mace down in a massive arc. There was a deafening crunch, and cracks shot across the slab’s surface. Mark struck it again, and again, his efforts aided by the brutal design of the weapon, which had once crushed in steel helmets and shattered the skulls of men and horses alike. Only seconds later, the flagstone was in fragments.

  Zoe now stumbled into the room behind him. She begged him to stop what he was doing. He ignored her.

  Below the flagstone, as he’d suspected, there was a horizontal wheel. It turned against the links of the chain, keeping the entire ghoulish pantomime in motion. But a nest of live wires fed down onto it, dancing back and forth across its glinting steel surface, blue sparks flashing. Dear God, it had been set up like this deliberately; the whole thing was a deathtrap. For a minute he was too shocked to think clearly. But at last, he glanced up and saw the cable, and the spot where it entered the wall. Not willing to risk touching the wheel, he opted to make this his point of attack. He swung the mace sideways, hitting the wall in the exact place where the cable connected. A thin coat of plaster shattered, and underneath that there was a normal power point, put in place professionally and with full insulation. Mark struck at this as well, over and over, smashing it apart. Then he grabbed the cable and yanked it. Its roots now severed, it came out easily.