A Lower Deep

Chapter Nine

My mother came to me in the night, knowing I was weak. She sang to me the way she sang before the crucifixes cracked in my father's fists, back when the priests still came over for lemonade. I could feel the texture of her presence like the downy blankets of my childhood, when the apples fell in the corner of our backyard. I lay there and couldn't keep from panting like a sick dog. Self ran around the hemp mattress on all fours, yawping and sharpening his claws against one another.

At the foot of the bed, a nun smiled timidly at me. She held up the hem of her robes, showing off the luscious angle of her legs. The great whore burned in her gaze, the harlot gilded her lips. She pulled off her headpiece and let it drop behind her. She winked and winked again, eyelid fluttering while the tic moved across each muscle of her face contorting her features. Tears hung off her chin. She swept forward, trying to throw her hips into it, giving it some Mae West, but she'd been in the nunnery for so long that she couldn't quite remember how to even try to seduce.

Her hair had been shorn to a Joan of Arc pageboy bob, which somehow only accentuated her feminine qualities. She giggled to herself, the glow of moonlight catching her knees. Trails of blood dripped down her inner thighs and speckled the floor. She began to sway and the spatters widened into ugly omens. Those earthy sniggers became even more revolting, and finally they deepened until she didn't sound like a woman anymore. She glanced down to read the warnings in her own blood, and the struggle inside her became more clearly defined.

Self had finally managed to win some money off Lowly Grillot Holt, and he held up a dollar bill. Take it off, baby!

She drew her habit over her head and threw it swirling behind her. I saw that she had the marks of Jezebel on her, the dog bites and the painted face.

Ooh la la!

Self sauntered forward, quivering and clapping. His arousal drove a white-hot spike into my forehead, so that all my barricaded cravings and desires released at once into my veins. The blood lust had always fueled and intoxicated him, but never like this. My pulse ripped at my neck like pincers. I snorted loud as a horse.

Nun ninnies! Mas garbanzos!

Stop it!

I held on to the back of my second self's head with one hand, and clasped the other over his mouth so he wouldn't lick away the portents. I tried to read them but the slate gulped down the blood. The nun crooked her finger at him and offered up her small, pointed breasts. I tightened my grip.

If you're not going to take advantage of this situation, then I am!

What's happening to you? I asked.

I ain't no damn priest!

Other figures flailed on the floor, wagging and heaving like a carpet of snakes as they fondled and masturbated. More hermits, sisters, and penitents drawn into the dream. Elijah's living hatred bulged in the room. The glamour had been cut loose. It latched on to them in their passive state of apatheia even while they sought gnosis, the knowledge of God. Anything could be corrupted.

I spelled out fiery exorcistic rites in the air, but they did nothing except light the room further. Hands and faces were darkly bruised and red with welts, their backs and asses running from the cat-o'-nine-tails. Self broke free and dove away. I arched on the bed with every muscle inflamed. They giggled wildly, and so did he.

And so did I.

Orgy time!

Thoughts of Caligula and the senators' wives packed my head, and the stench from the vomitoriums made me gag. I flung myself forward and tackled Self hard, pinned him down, and bit deeply into his shoulder.

I took some of my blood back and his enraged screams brought me awake a little more. The women coiled around my ankles and knees, but they didn't want me or anything like me.

You bit me, you sick bastard!

Stop your crying.

What're you, crazy?

I had less control over him and he had much less control over himself. I held his eyelids wide open and looked inside him. What's gotten into you?

Me? He mewled. What's gotten into you?

What the hell are you doing?

Hey, they're begging for it, you friggin' prude! Shit, I need stitches!

Quit it!

I dressed quickly, grabbed him by the arm, and tugged him from the room while he screeched. I fought not to scream when he sank his fangs into my wrist. My blood splashed against the black hallway walls as I marched outside into the gusting snow. I made it to the outer wall and yanked back the huge wooden plank of the main gate doors, and stared at the bronze bas-relief friezes while they roiled and surged like molten metal.

It showed two new faces among the frothing others.

Both of them blinked and calmly watched me sweat in the blizzard.

"Gawain is coming," I said. "And he's with my father."