House of Skin

THE HOUSE OF SKIN

“It ends tonight,” Eddy said later that day. He said this to the rotting and ruined thing that had once been Spider. He said it with the confidence of a craftsman who knows a difficult task is near completion. “We’ll go and never look back, you and I.”

“And what about that bitch?” Spider asked with no little concern. “Do you really intend to bring her with us?”

Eddy smiled haughtily, his arrogance on display. “Definitely. Tonight we’ll do our last bit of work where my father did his—in the old house. I’ll have her meet us there.”

“It’s a trick,” Spider moaned. “I know it is. She’ll bring that cop and ruin everything.”

“He can come, too.”

“Leave her out of this,” Spider demanded.

“Why? The Sisters said they’d be more than happy to have her along. If she brings the cop, we’ll deal with him.”

Spider shook his flayed head. “You’re taking too many chances,” he said. “If that cop brings more, they could ruin everything. I have to go, can’t you see that? You can afford to play games, but I can’t. I won’t last another week in this damn place. I’m falling apart.”

“Trust me.”

“It’s not a matter of trust,” Spider told him. “It’s a matter of reality. If I don’t get through and soon, there might not be enough of me left to make the journey.”

“Don’t worry so.”

Spider attempted a laugh but it came out as a hiss. His face was hanging from the bone in flaking loops, his festering skin jumped with lice and vermin, a stink of dampness and decay oozing from him. “Easy for you to say.”

“Relax.”

“Yeah, right.” The Shadows crawled up and out of him, vacating his mouth, his nose, his innumerable wounds. Wherever they found an opening, they slipped free.

(we don’t want to take chances eddy we can’t afford to)

“I have everyone’s best interests in mind,” Eddy assured them.

(see that you do)

The voices died out and the Shadows filed back into their holes.

“Be careful,” was all Spider would say when they were quiet.

Eddy lit a cigarette and dropped him a wink. “The way will open tonight and there’s nothing the police can do to stop it.”

“I hope not. You have no idea what it’s like being this.” He rubbed his temples and strands of flesh rained down. “Or having them inside you all the time.”

“I know what that’s like very well. Soon everyone will be free.”

“I hope so.”

Eddy smiled. “Keep it together, old boy. You can’t be coming apart at the seams now.”

It was out of desperation that Lisa did what she did. She needed to take her mind off of the inevitable confrontation in which she would be forced to tell Fenn everything. So, it was with this in mind that she took out her calculator and a pad of paper and began to decipher the code of the Territories.

It had been years since she’d dabbled in any higher mathematics. Not since her trig and calculus classes in pre-med had she been confronted by anything like this and it all came back to her as she copied down the theorems from the crumbling book. It was good, she decided, doing this. It gave her something to focus on.

If nothing else now, she understood everything. She knew about William Zero. She knew about the Territories… or as much as she wanted to. She knew what happened to Fenn’s Jane Doe. She knew the dead could walk if it pleased them to do so. And most importantly, she knew that Eddy Zero was dead. That she’d been chasing a phantom for some time. Eddy was Cherry now and vise versa. Cassandra was right: the world was insane. Lisa was no stranger to guilt, but it was only now that she really understood what guilt was. And it had little to do with her personal life, this was totally professional. First off, after Cherry had escaped from prison, it was Lisa who hid her, studied her—all in direct violation to the professional principles and moral codes that went with being a physician. That was the first bad thing. Then she’d used HT on her, a more or less experimental drug. She’d gotten it from the prison infirmary where it was being used as part of a test group by the FDA. Countless other institutions were involved in the program. What it had done to Cherry wasn’t her fault… not totally. She blamed the FDA for that. But the fact still remained that she’d violated professional principles by helping and studying Cherry and by using the drug on her in the first place.

In her own way, Lisa had created this entire ugly scenario. HT was partly responsible, of course, but it was Lisa who administered it to Cherry. And after Cherry had fled from her house that night, she went on a murder spree with the real Eddy Zero that resulted in her taking his life in more ways than one. So, all things considered, Lisa knew what guilt was. If she hadn’t helped Cherry, if she hadn’t given her the drug to fulfill some twisted ambition of writing a book, a lot of people might now be alive. Everyone from those Cherry and Eddy had murdered on their little cross-state run, to Eddy himself, and all the other bodies that were piling up in the city now.

I’m responsible, Lisa thought, for nearly all of this mess and maybe for all of it. But I’m going to make amends. I’m going to take care of Eddy and Cherry and William Zero at the same time. If this goes right, they’re all going to be taking a trip somewhere they’ll never return from.

With the help of the book and Cassandra, she was determined to do just that.

When Fenn came, things would get ugly. He probably despised her by now and, although this pained her, she knew his hatred would multiply geometrically once the truth was out. But he would demand to be told. And she would tell him and leave nothing out. And for the first time in his life, she knew, he’d curse his policeman’s curiosity for all and everything. His image of her as an innocent dove would change dramatically. Oh, she was tarnished in his eyes right now, but it was nothing compared to what was coming. And when she told him, what then? Would he just walk out disgusted, or would he throw her in jail as an accessory? Or, was she misjudging the man completely? Would he want to help her after all?

It was no simple feat trying to make sense of the equations and symbols in the book. They were written in no particular order and she’d copied them down as such. First, it was a matter of forming them into some logical order, if that was even possible. She spent the better part of an hour trying one combination after another and all to no avail. Her background in math was too limited to make sense of these jumbled configurations. William Zero understood them and maybe you had to be insane like him to understand any of it. The idea of a mathematical system of logic only lunatics could solve was amusing. But it didn’t seem too far off the mark.

She kept at it out of lack of anything better to do. After a time, whether it was her jangled nerves or simply exhaustion, it all started to make sense. Once she’d linked two or three equations together, the rest seemed to fall into place. She likened herself to an ignorant savage who, although he can press the keys of a computer and make it work, has no true idea of what he’s doing. And she definitely had no idea. Zero had arranged the equations in random order on purpose, she supposed, so that even if someone found them, they’d never glean his secrets. Everything seemed to fit now, yet she was certain there was still an error somewhere. On a whim she began rearranging everything and finally reversing the very order of what she saw as the logic of the equation.

And that’s when she heard the sobbing from the other room.

She was alone; she knew that much. Yet, she heard a sustained, muted crying from the next room. She rose slightly on the bed and peered through the doorway. The room was dimming as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud. But it was more than that. If blankets had been thrust over the windows, it wouldn’t have explained what was coming down. The light was being chased away, the room becoming enveloped in murky gloom. She could see the shadows, black, swirling clouds of coal dust, swimming out of the corners and blackening the air like ink dropped in water. She knew then what was happening. She knew what was coming from the antique mirror in the living room.

The Territories.

She thought: I’ve done it. Jesus Christ, I’ve opened the chasm.

And she had.

Beyond the doorway, the living room was a fathomless, dark abyss. Fingers of ebony shadow were creeping into the bedroom. A pungent, hot wind with a texture like ash blew the sheets up around her. The sobbing was louder now and she could hear screams and whispers. A singular bleak desolation settled in her heart.

William Zero came walking through the mist, looking every bit Dr. Blood-and-Bones. He was stitched and scarred and wasted, his clothing hanging in fluttering rags… or was it his flesh? It was hard to say where one ended and the other began. He was a walking hide, a sutured human pelt, a stuffed and stitched monstrosity barely holding his shape.

“I’m very much impressed,” he told her with envy in his voice. “It isn’t just anyone who can solve the mystery of the equation.”

Behind him, there seemed to be other maimed and skullish faces flitting in the mists, anxious to cross over, but not daring.

“It was an accident,” she found herself saying.

“Nonetheless, through accident comes revelation. You called me and I am here.” His sutured face attempted a smile. It was horrible, a cadaver’s grin. “Now, the book. Give it to me along with your calculations. You have no idea how dangerous they can be in the hands of the ignorant.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Your cooperation isn’t necessary,” he promised her. “I’ll have it one way or another. There’s nowhere to run this time.”

She stuffed her pages of work into the book and threw it to him. It was an awkward toss, yet it landed in his seamed palm, driven there by the stinking wind. He slid it into his pocket.

“Very good of you,” he said, taking a step forward. “And now how should I reward the trouble you’ve caused me?”

“Just leave,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

He laughed. “Tell anyone you like. But first, we started something the other day. It’s high time we finished it.”

Her lips trembled, trying to speak, but words of supplication were beyond her. His appetite made her bowels turn to ice. “Don’t touch me,” she finally said. “Please don’t touch me.”

“Now, now, quit your squirming,” he said. “We have places to go, things to see.” He held out his hand to her. “Come with me. You’ll find the journey painful, but the rewards are beyond words.”

She crawled away until her back was against the headboard. “Why me? Why do you have to take me? What we had was a lifetime ago.”

He came alongside the bed with a straight razor in his hand, its blade stained brown. His stink made bile squirt into her mouth. He was grinning… if you could call it that… the abundant scar tissue and stitched seams of his face pulling up the corner of his lips into a toothy cadaveric grimace.

“Why don’t you take your son?” she gasped, barely able to breathe.

This stopped him. “My son?”

“Yes, Eddy. Your boy.”

“Is he near?”

“No, but I can bring him to you,” she bartered. “It won’t take long. Tonight maybe.”

“I had almost forgotten the boy.”

“He never forgot you. He’s recreating your crimes in detail.”

“Really?”

“Yes! He and another are trying to get into the Territories to see you. The Sisters have told them it will be soon.”

“I had no idea. Communication is lacking in the chasm.”

“Just take him instead of me. He’d be better company.”

Dr. Blood-and-Bones was grinding his yellowed, pitted teeth in indecision. “But it’s you I’ve dreamed of, my love. It’s you I wanted to spend eternity with.”

“You wouldn’t enjoy me. I’d scream and cry. I’d hate it.”

He grinned. “You’re teasing me.” He rolled his eyes in ecstasy. “How I’ve longed to see you in blissful torment.”

“But Eddy… he’s your flesh and blood…”

“The Sisters will be bringing him over anyway. I’ll see him soon enough.”

Her mind was racing, trying to think of something. “The Sisters brought you through, didn’t they? Wouldn’t you rather bring your son through personally?”

He cackled dryly. “It would be delicious, cheating them of him…”

“I can arrange it. He wants me to go with him. I can get him to the old house and you can take him there.”

“No tricks?”

“None. I promise. He’s just like you. You’ll be proud.” She opened her robe, exposing her bruises and cuts. “He raped me.”

Zero practically beamed with pride. “My, my, what a mischievous thing he is.”

“I’ll get him for you.”

“Very well. Bring Eddy to me and make it soon.”

“It will be.”

“If I’m pleased, I’ll let you stay in this depressing place,” he promised her. “If not, your picked bones will warm our marriage bed on the other side.”

He stepped back through the door, humming something under his breath. The darkness and mist followed in his wake and disappeared completely. There was something like a sigh as the chasm closed back up and a great wind raced through the suite, pulling pictures from their hooks and scattering newspapers.

Then she was alone again.

Fenn let himself in around six. He fixed himself a drink and waited for the woman he loved to begin. And as he did, he wondered silently what he’d get from her. Would it be the truth or just more lies? Or even a clever mix of both? Love could be a blinding thing and maybe he’d been deceiving himself for too long. She never said she’d loved him; she never even pretended such. Yet, he’d been certain that she had in her own way. But maybe it was all just a dream and nothing more. The possibility was ominous. All the nights he’d whiled away dreaming of their lives. The times he’d watched her sleeping beside him and thought it would never end. Had it all been just a delusion? He’d never been an emotional man nor a compassionate one. Love didn’t come easy to him as it did to some. But when it came, it took him completely and there was no going back. And if this all turned out to be nothing more than a delusive dream, he knew it would destroy him.

Watching her now, sitting across from him like a stranger, it was hard to remember not having doubts. Everything she did—flicking a strand of hair from her eyes or meeting his gaze and then looking away—seemed to be a confession from her that they’d shared nothing but a few amusing sexual interludes.

The possibility was frightening.

There was nothing about her that suggested there was anything more between them. There was no electricity in her eyes, no magic in her face when her eyes found his, only something that might have been guilt or indifference.

“I’m waiting,” he said. But was it for the truth? He almost hoped she’d lie and save his heart agony. “Or do you want me to begin?”

She shrugged.

“I’ve been doing a little research today. Let me tell you about it.”

He did. About Soames pimping for William Zero and the Templar Society, about him being Cherry Hill’s father. His abuse of her, forcing her into pornographic films. The murder of her family. He stopped there. He assumed Lisa knew the rest.

“Incredible,” she said. “It explains a lot. When I hired Soames, I never imagined how involved he really was in this.”

“Yeah, the puzzle is fitting together. I think you know the rest. Enlighten me.”

“I don’t have a choice now.”

“No, you don’t.”

She hugged herself. “There’s no easy way to begin this.”

“Just do it.” His heart was sinking in a pit of despair.

She looked away. “The truth. About me. About all of this. Are you sure it’s what you want?”

“Tell me,” he managed, wanting to tell her to forget it right then and there, not wanting his sand castles to be washed out into the cold sea of reality.

She looked sad beyond words. And he knew then, if he hadn’t before, that it was going to be bad, worse than he could imagine. Her beauty was marred by the dark circles under her eyes and the worry lines around her mouth. He wanted to take her in his arms, but he couldn’t. Not just yet. Maybe not again.

“Just tell me,” he said, his voice distressed.

“It starts when I was a teenager and my parents got divorced. My mother moved us to Sausalito…”

None of it was any better or worse than he’d suspected. During the telling, his mind ran the gamut of emotions from sympathy to dread to disgust. He squirmed and wriggled at times, like a worm in the sun; at other times, he sat completely still, drained of emotion. He wasn’t sure what was the worse part of it all, William Zero taking advantage of her vulnerability or Eddy raping her or the bit about Zero returning from the Territories. When she was done and silent, he felt compassionate… mainly because he thought her mind had become unhinged.

“Lisa,” he said, “you could’ve told me about this before. I would’ve understood.”

“Would you?” she asked. “I’ve never told anyone what’s inside my head. It’s ugly and twisted.”

“Don’t say that. None of it is your fault.” And it wasn’t, he’d decided. Zero had messed up her head and she wasn’t to blame for that, for any of the confusion that had dogged her since.

“You’re wrong,” she said briskly. “It is my fault. Eddy came here knowing he could take me if he wanted and that I was too screwed up to stop him.”

“You’re alive, that’s what counts. If you had fought, he would’ve killed you. I think we both know that.”

“Don’t lower yourself into feeling pity for something like me,” she said evenly. “I’m not worth it. I got exactly what I deserved. I’ve been deluded and dangerous for years. I formed him into his father in my mind. A man I despise but love at the same time. He saw this in his own way. Saw how easy it would be to toy with me.”

“He’s a monster,” Fenn said, going to her.

She pushed away. “You know the truth of it all now. You know what sort of person you pretend to love. Why don’t you just admit I disgust you? That you hate everything that I am?”

“I love you.”

“Don’t say that!” she screamed. “Don’t you ever say that! Can’t you see what kind of thing I am? What kind of freak I am?”

He wanted to hold her, but she’d have none of it. He wanted nothing more than to help her, ease her mind. “You’re no freak. You have problems, even I can see that, but we can work them out.”

“Don’t be too sure. What I’m going to tell you now is going to change your mind. I’m going to tell you about Cherry’s part in all this.”

He looked pale, but he listened. He listened to her tell him about Cherry’s escape from prison. The study she made of her. The Hypothalamine. What it had done to her. About Eddy being dead. And lastly, about Cassandra, their Jane Doe. When she was finished, he said nothing. The bit about William Zero returning from the Territories was hard enough to swallow, but this… this was madness.

“This is a little hard to take, Lisa. Cherry shapeshifting into Eddy? The walking dead?”

“I know it all sounds ridiculous. But it’s the truth. Do you think I’m deranged enough to make up a tale like that?”

“No, of course not, but…” But this was too much. He wanted very much to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it wasn’t easy.

“You’ll have to trust me, Mr. F—Jim. I’m afraid it’s all you can do, unless you want to throw me in jail.”

Fenn lit a cigarette. Of course, that’s what it came down to. Either trust her and give her the chance to prove what she was saying or throw her in jail for aiding and abetting. The police were no closer to stopping Eddy Zero than they were a week ago. Trusting Lisa was the only possible choice if he called himself a cop.

“I’m not sure if I believe any of this or not,” he grumbled, “but I’m going to give you a chance to prove it all. I guess I owe you that much.”

“That’s all I ask for.” She brought him a stack of letters. “Read these. They’ll confirm a few things.”

“Cherry’s?”

She nodded.

When he was finished, he said, “I’ll help you. I’ll do everything I can.”

“Will you?”

“Yes. And I’ll do it for you, not for the sake of the law.”

“Everything is coming full circle now, Jim. It started with William Zero and that’s where it will end. Eddy’s going to call and I’m going to lead him to his father and if I die in the process, then it serves me right, doesn’t it? I belong that way.” She started to cry and he held her now.

Poor deluded thing, he thought. “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right.”

She pulled away. “All right? My God, you’re humoring me, aren’t you?”

He couldn’t deny it. “Lisa, Eddy is very real. But the Territories… they don’t exist. It’s all nonsense. You have to see that. And the rest of this… it just can’t be.”

The phone rang.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and answered it.

“Do you still want to come along?” Eddy asked.

The emotion left her. “Yes, you know I do.”

“Tonight’s the night, my dear. Listen very carefully.”

“Yes?”

“Do you know the house my father did his work in?”

“I know it.”

“Go there tonight if you want to come along. Midnight.”

It was too good to be true. Eddy was working right into her hands. “I’ll be there.”

The line went dead.

“Looks like you’ll get your chance to see if I’m crazy or not,” she said to Fenn.

“Eddy?” He looked pale.

“Yeah. Tonight we cross over.”

Before he could comment on this, the phone rang again.

Lisa answered it. Fenn was on the extension.

“Did you pay a visit to Cherry?” Cassandra inquired.

“I did.”

“Good. Then you know her secret.”

Lisa said, “Yes. Eddy just called. He said tonight at midnight.”

“Good. The sooner the better. I’m getting a little stiff.” She laughed quietly. “Go there and make sure your Mr. Fenn is with you. We may need someone with official connections to explain it all away when it’s done.”

“Will you be there?”

“Yes. I’ll be there. The witching hour. How fitting.”

The line went dead.

It was raining when Fenn and Lisa reached the old house. Neither said much on the journey over. Lisa had no idea what Fenn was thinking, but she could pretty much imagine what he thought of her and this whole mess. Right now, however, none of that mattered. Within a few hours, she hoped, Zero, Cherry, Eddy and possibly herself would be no more. She wasn’t afraid of this. The memories of Eddy and Dr. Blood-and-Bones had to be exorcised and if this meant her death, then it wasn’t too great a price to pay to be free of what had haunted her for years now.

She started all this and only she could end it.

She knew Fenn wasn’t taking anything about William Zero or the Territories too seriously. They were delusions, he’d decided with his cop’s pragmatism, dementias shared by Eddy and Spider and now by her. He didn’t give a damn what Gulliver had professed to see, there were no Sisters or alternate worlds of experience. Regardless, he took Eddy very seriously. In his thinking, Eddy was luring her there to rape and possibly kill her, under the guise of making an impossible journey. But what Eddy didn’t know was that Fenn was coming along to break up his little party. And as far as Cherry and Cassandra went… well, they’d just see, wouldn’t they?

Lisa only hoped he was right, that they did indeed take Eddy by surprise. But she had her doubts. She’d have felt better if a dozen cops were waiting in the wings for back-up, but Fenn didn’t want it that way. He could take care of Eddy, he insisted. And she wondered if a usually careful man like him was motivated into this thinking by sheer confidence or the macho need to punish Eddy Zero for molesting her. She’d have felt worlds better if he believed her implicitly and went into this nightmare scenario armed with the knowledge that a garden variety psychotic was the least of their worries.

They parked up the street and he said, “Just give me a minute to get around back and then you start slowly walking to the house. Take your time. I want to be in position when he shows himself.”

She nodded. “Are you sure we shouldn’t call Gaines and have him bring more men?”

“No,” Fenn growled. “This is my party.”

She didn’t like this at all. “You’re making a mistake,” she told him.

“We’ll see. Besides, Cassandra doesn’t want a mob of cops, now does she?”

“We’re playing with fire.”

He ignored her. “Don’t take any chances. Once he shows himself, get him talking. Do just as we said: Tell him you have a confession to make and spill it about his old man. That’ll keep him busy. I’ll do the rest.”

“You just won’t believe any of what I told you?” Lisa asked one last time.

“Be careful,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her and slipped off into the storm.

Despite the rain, she did as Fenn asked and walked slowly up to the house. He was going to ruin everything, she knew. He would come busting in with his gun blazing and Dr. Blood-and-Bones would be robbed of what she’d promised him: his son. And what would be the penalty for this? For surely there would be one. Would he be content in dragging her off to his marriage bed or would he want more, like maybe Fenn as well? Another soul to amuse him as the wheels of hellish eternity ground on? She knew only to expect the unexpected and clawed to a dangling thread of hope that told her Zero and Eddy would go their way and Fenn and she theirs.

And that just might happen, she told herself, if you’re really lucky and if Cherry wears Eddy’s face and not her own.

As she worried over this, she wondered what Cassandra was up to and what her part would be in all this.

Christ, what a mess. What an ugly, awful, horrible mess.

By the time she reached the top of the frost-heaved steps and stood before the threshold, she was soaking wet and taking an almost childish delight in being so. She savored it, for delight was something she feared she’d never know again. Once upon a time, she’d been frightened of storms. Now they gave her a sense of security, of reality.

She went in, intersecting her nightmares.

Gray, uneven light spilled in through broken windows and worm-eaten shutters. There was plaster dust heaped along the baseboards and a stink far worse than mere wood rot or animal droppings. It was like being in some monolithic sarcophagus, it occurred to her, trapped in a crypt as night approached. A miasmic stench of death and blackness crept from the dehydrated walls.

“Eddy?” she sang out. The darkness was silent like a vacuum. Her voice echoed and went stillborn with the dust.

She stepped in further. “Eddy, it’s Dr. Lochmere… Lisa…” The sound of her voice in this awful catacomb was the most frightening thing she could imagine. “Eddy? Are you here?”

“Yes.”

Her heart galloped in her chest. The reply came from off to her right. She followed it into a filthy, deserted parlor. Wallpaper was peeling from the walls in arid strips, cobwebs were tangled in the chandelier overhead. “Where are you?” she asked in a wispy voice. Meager illumination flitted in through dusty, stained windows. The smell of death was worse in here and she pictured dry, pitted bones wrapped in a wormy shroud.

“Where?” she tried again.

He stepped from a low alcove. “Here.” A light was switched on. A single bulb in the chandelier provided dim light.

“I’ve come as I said I would,” she told him, wondering when the power had been turned back on and deciding it didn’t matter. She had light to die by. It was enough.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He took her left hand in his. His fingers were cold, the skin parched. His touch induced neither lust nor hatred now, only indifference. He ran his thumb in circles over her palm. “You won’t regret this,” he told her.

“No…”

A suggestion of chill brushed against her, an icy ambience. But it wasn’t coming from Eddy, but the alcove.

“No tricks,” he said. “And no head games like today.”

“No.”

“There’ll be no going back.”

“I know,” she lied.

“You don’t look well. Are you ill?”

“No, I’m fine. Just out of sorts, I guess. The last few days have been strange ones.”

“But pleasurable?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“The Sisters will be here soon, then we’ll get started.” He looked upward. “They’ll arrive up there.”

There was a subtle creak of a board and Fenn stepped into the parlor with his gun out.

“Eddy Zero at last,” he said.

Eddy didn’t look too surprised. “I should’ve known. Lieutenant Fenn, I presume?”

“In the flesh,” Fenn said, his finger tickling the trigger. “Step away from him, Lisa.”

She looked from Fenn to Eddy.

Eddy shrugged. “Do as he says. It won’t matter now.”

“You’re done, Eddy,” Fenn said, almost casually, as if the game was at an end. “I should kill you, but life behind bars for you will suit me.”

Eddy backed away.

Fenn followed him. “It’s too late for that.”

“Much later than you can imagine,” Eddy tittered.

Lisa realized too late what Eddy was doing. He had maneuvered Fenn so that his back was to the alcove. She heard a dry rustling in there and she opened her mouth to shout a warning, but before words could flee her lips, a black impossible shape swam up and took Fenn from behind, throwing him against the wall where his head resounded with a dull crack. He slid senseless to the floor.

“Well done, old boy,” Eddy cried.

Even more than the horrid, cadaverous appearance of the thing from the alcove, Lisa was aware of its hideous stink, a reek that made her knees go to rubber and her stomach want to heave. It was Spider. She knew that from the filthy braids that swung like whips from his rotting head.

“My God…” she said, not really all that surprised at such things since Cassandra.

“Let’s get down to business,” Eddy said in a relaxed, almost bored tone. “Spider, truss him up for later. Use the handcuffs I’m sure he’s carrying. That’s a good wretch.”

Spider bared his yellowed teeth, but did as he was told. “And his gun?”

“Put it back in his holster. He may want it later.”

Spider did as he was told.

“Don’t look so concerned,” Eddy said to her. “He’s harmless.”

She could only say: “He’s alive.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“How?”

“It’s terribly complex. The method exists, that’s all you have to know.”

That’s what she wanted to hear, what she was fishing for. Her scientist’s mind had to know that there was a method, a system of rules by which the dead could walk. Cassandra had inferred the dead could live through sheer willpower and Lisa’s brain had raged against the idea. But, Eddy now said there was a method. It was something. It soothed her logic to hear it.

A month ago, the knowledge of such a blasphemy against natural laws would have unhinged her completely. It went in direct defiance of everything she knew of physiology and medical science. Yet, she now accepted it with a cool indifference. There was nothing else she could do. Her faith in science and physical statutes had been nearly destroyed in the past few weeks and now her years of training were likewise falling to dust at her feet.

“I’m proof of that,” Spider said, a certain species of remorse in his voice, almost as if he wished it weren’t true.

“Incredible.” And it was.

Spider looked up at her as he fastened Fenn with the cuffs and then looked away quickly, as if he didn’t like being looked at. And who could blame him? He was little more than a decomposing human scarecrow now, his face gone to leather, his tangled hair alive with crawling things. There was no hope or happiness left in his foul, withered hide, only a bleak desperation.

She motioned to Fenn. “What are you going to do to him?”

“We’ll let the Sisters decide,” Eddy explained in a whisper. “If they want him, they can have him. If not, we’ll leave him be. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” she said. She stooped over and ran a hand through Fenn’s hair. There was blood on his scalp, but not much. She made a cursory exam and decided he’d wake with an awful headache, but he’d be no worse for wear. She kissed his forehead and, a tear in her eye, wished she’d never involved him in this.

Eddy was watching her. “How touching.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Ha, ha,” Eddy laughed. “That’s all you ever think of.”

Cassandra was running a bit behind schedule.

She was out at a cemetery just beyond the city limits. It was here the dead of all denominations and races were buried side by side. It was also here that the city fathers planted their charity cases, like the prostitutes Eddy had murdered. Their graves were lined up one next to the other. None of these nameless women had families or friends. They only had each other and the streets. And now they had this bleak burial yard. It was a terrible place for the dead to dream away eternity. The grounds were ill-tended. Weeds and blighted grasses were left unchecked, save by family members. Dead flowers were tangled in the dirt. Youths frequented the place and left graffiti and beer bottles in their passing. Tombstones had been tumbled over and defaced.

The chapel was scrawled with obscene writings.

Cassandra was alone here this night.

Beneath a pale moon and a mist of rain, she stood on the muddy ground, a pain in her heart at the sight of this place. There were no teenaged, tattooed toughs lurking amongst sepulchers and overgrown vaults, singing vulgar songs and drinking and drugging themselves stupid. It was a good thing. What she had to do, must be done in secret. Death is a mystery; resurrection only for the eyes of the dead or insane. When Cassandra began to call them up from their beds of mold and memory, she wanted no witnesses. She wanted no prying eyes to observe their rebirth but her own. The dead deserved that much. They deserved the dignity of not becoming a tourist attraction.

When she started to sing the song of resurrection, the earth heaved and gave up its buried secrets. The victims of Eddy Zero, not sleeping too well in their lace and silk, swam up from their pits. Fingers broke the dank, dripping soil, followed by hands and flyblown faces. Yellowed and ruined eyes studied the night. Lungs filled with dust and insects gulped in the cool wind. The victims rose and chatted in arid voices, helping the weaker from their beds of dirt. When the gossip and commotion was at an end, they looked upon Cassandra and knew.

Whispering of decay and disillusionment, they followed her into the world of men. Faces robbed of beauty, life, and flesh made their way to the House of Mirrors where a special party was being held in their honor. And who were they, that courted worms and time, to refuse such an invitation?

Eddy came up behind Lisa as she gazed down at Fenn who was handcuffed to a furnace grating. He kissed her neck and she shuddered. “I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am in you bringing a cop here. Not that I didn’t suspect your sudden turn of mind, but I had hoped…”

“Hoped what?” she asked. “That I’d want to spend eternity with a man as deranged as his father?”

“You know nothing of my father,” Eddy said. “Keep a civil tongue in your head or I’ll have Spider bite it out.”

Spider looked disinterested.

“I knew William Zero better than you ever will,” she said.

“Oh really? Do tell.”

“Let’s get up to the attic,” Spider said. “They’ll be coming soon.”

“No, I have to hear this.”

It had the expected result on him. So she told him, leaving out nothing, save his father’s reappearance.

Eddy was amused by it. “So, dad and I have shared more than genes and common interests, have we?” He laughed. “The family whore.”

She said nothing.

“Did you think any of that would matter?” he asked. “Did you think that I’d let you walk off as a friend of the family? I could care less. He used you, I used you. You like being used. It’s your way. You were born to please men of peculiar tastes. It’s your calling in life.”

She felt raw hatred in her stomach. Was Dr. Blood-and-Bones near? Was he listening right now to this exchange and smiling with fatherly pride at the monster he had created? She was tempted to play head games with Eddy and force Cherry out of hiding. But no. Not just yet. Not unless she had to.

Eddy took her by the hand. “The Sisters were excited by the prospect of you coming along. They’ll have endless amusements lined up to keep you busy. You’ll never be bored.” He squeezed her fingers. “It’s time to go.”

She allowed herself to be led up the stairs. She was running out of time and knew it with a heavy heart. Would Zero be waiting up there to take custody of his charges? Or would it be the Sisters, anxious not only at having Eddy and Spider, but her as well?

Where the hell was Cassandra?

“It’s too bad you’ll never write that book about dad and I,” Eddy said. “What a read that would make. I wonder if it would’ve sold.”

“Of course. People like reading about monsters, didn’t you know that?”

He gave her hand a painful squeeze. “Monsters. You have no idea.”

It was all funny somehow, she found herself thinking. It was like the fates were behind Eddy one-hundred percent. Dozens of men looking for him and they couldn’t catch him. Yet, he wasn’t in hiding, he was merely roaming about town, picking up whores to kill and murdering anyone who got in his way. God must love the damned and deranged. There was no other explanation. Even the fact that he was hiding in Cherry some of the time was no excuse.

“Are you ready?” Eddy asked at the door to the attic.

“Why not?”

Spider opened the door and they followed slowly in his putrescent wake. The end was drawing near and if Zero and Cassandra didn’t show soon, she’d spend eternity damning the day she’d ever decided to hunt Eddy Zero down.

The attic looked much like the blurry crime photos taken twenty years before. The walls were quilted in human skins. Each had been fastidiously and carefully removed in whole, then tacked to the wall. Her stomach jumped as she looked upon them… the dangling arms and eyeless death masks staring out at her.

The air was warm and reeked of death and hot blood. Two butchered women hung by the feet from hooks set in the roof beams. They were raw and bleeding, slit, plucked, and eviscerated. Their skins and entrails were deposited in the corner along with a black raincoat and a collection of knives.

Lisa turned away, wanting to vomit.

“The final offering,” Eddy said, pleased with himself.

Lisa couldn’t bear to be in the same room with such butchery, this human slaughterhouse. Her sanity seemed to flutter, wanting to take flight. She held it down. Just for a bit longer.

“You should consider yourself lucky,” Eddy told her. “If Spider had had his way, it would’ve been you hanging there.”

Spider gave him a caustic look.

It was quick, but she caught it. Was there some animosity between the two of them? Something she could exploit? She remembered interviewing Spider before his death and thinking that he wasn’t particularly dangerous, just driven by personal mania.

“They’re coming,” Spider said.

And they were.

The mirror flanked by drying hides was darkening, bulging as if some force was pushing from the other side. It rippled like water and lost its physical density.

Lisa gasped.

The air was growing thick with sinister import. The molecules surrounding her seemed to sense a certain profanity of physical laws and were racing about wildly, trying to seal the wound that was already beginning to open. A rush of scorching, stinking air filled the attic and oily shadows crept from the corners. There was a weeping in the distance.

Though she’d never be able to account for it later, a surprising cool confidence settled into her. She saw exactly what had to be done and she did it without hesitation. Eddy was no longer holding her hand. She turned to him as if for a kiss and planted her knee in his groin. He went down with a hissing cry and she was already galloping down the stairs.

“Get the bitch!” Eddy cried, his features fluttering.

She stumbled down the stairs and landed in a heap at the bottom, quickly pulling herself to her feet. The door to the Territories was swinging wide now and she could feel it eating at her back with a baleful anxiety. It was pulling at her, reaching out to claim what it had been promised, unimaginable debaucheries at the ready. She could feel it in her head, too, like needles piercing her thoughts, visions of atrocities swimming in her mind, muddling her jumbled reasoning.

She could feel Dr. Blood-and-Bones, too, knowing he was close, somewhere. It was this knowledge as much as Spider’s dragging feet on the stairs that got her going again.

“Wait,” he called out.

She stopped, not knowing why.

“It’s no good,” he explained. “They want you, Lisa. You can’t get away. If they don’t get you here, it will be somewhere else.”

She ran regardless. Something was happening to the house now, it was swallowed in a pale luminosity. The walls were breathing, groaning, the floor trembling, the ceiling shuddering. The rolling contortion of the foundation spilled her to her feet. Spider wasn’t in pursuit just yet; he, too, was mesmerized by what was happening. She knew without a doubt that the Sisters were taking the house, ingesting it into the Territories. If she didn’t escape and soon, she’d emerge from the house not into freedom, but into hell itself.

Spider was behind her, shambling in her direction. He had a knife in one blighted, stringy paw. He was doing what he thought best for her and himself, she realized. Apparently, she’d been promised to the Sisters and they intended to have her. And Spider was taking no chances: if she wouldn’t come of her own accord, he would drag her bleeding body to them. He had worked too long for this moment and he wouldn’t be denied passage into the other world because of her fear.

She started down the steps, grasping the bannister for dear life. The house was swaying and teetering madly beneath her. The floors were moving like water, flowing and undulating, making escape no mean feat. She ascended with desperate slowness, the stairs compressing and rippling even as her feet sought solid footing. Zero was close, yet he didn’t show himself. What was he waiting for? Only he could end this nightmare for her and she was longing to see his mutilated face. She had no other hope. She had already decided that Cassandra wasn’t coming.

She tumbled onto the landing and crawled feverishly towards Fenn. He was floating in midair, carried aloft by unseen forces. The far wall of the parlor was flaking away and beyond an absolute blackness was inserting itself. Fingers of misty teleplasm were drifting into the room, snaking through the roiling air like strands of ghostly flesh.

“Fenn!” she shouted.

He either didn’t or couldn’t hear her in the thundering commotion of two worlds meeting on a common, blasted ground.

Not that it mattered. All was lost and Spider was at her back.

“You see?” he said. “It’s too late.”

His ghoulish face was running like wax from the bone beneath. His flesh was hanging in shredded strips of decay, one eye sunk deep into its housing. He was degenerating even as she watched. His pursuit of her had apparently been costly in terms of his strength.

“Come with me now,” he managed.

She looked from him to the hole in reality that was rapidly expanding.

She was the cause of all of this. In her own way, she had been. Her insistence on finding Eddy and conquering him and her own confused psychology had started this all into motion in the first place. Eddy Zero was dead, but a much more degenerate and vicious version of him lived on in Cherry and this, too, was her doing. Everything begins somewhere, with some random act, and she had set this terrible wheel of fate into motion. She tried to convince herself it wasn’t true, but there was no getting around the cold and cruel facts. Her lust, her desires, her memories of something too horrible to remember, too wonderful to forget, had been her undoing and that of countless innocents. She had unearthed this nightmare, freed it from its noxious grave of aspiration and now she was about to be swallowed alive and screaming by it.

Spider was getting close now.

She opened her mouth to protest, to scream perhaps, and then she saw Eddy bearing down on his dead compatriot. When Spider was a few feet from her, the blade of Eddy’s knife exploded from his throat and sawed his bobbing head nearly free. Spider went down in a heap of dust and fragmented flesh. Eddy began hacking at him, stealing the life he had given, slicing him apart like a moth-eaten rag doll. It was all done quite effortlessly. There was little holding Spider together by that point, save spit and determination. When Eddy was done, all that remained was a filthy pile of something that looked more like parched, slashed rags than a thing that had once boasted flesh and blood.

“I should’ve done that a long time ago,” Eddy told her.

There was a sudden hissing, howling eruption of black steam from Spider’s remains. The Shadows that had hidden in his putrid folds were oozing forth now, looking for a new home. She could see their faces as they departed the shredded cadaver in undulating, twisting balloons of murk. And such faces. They were men, women, and children, these faces, victims all of gruesome deaths and ghastly survival. There were tales to be told in their rolling black eyes, atrocities to be recorded. Bits of pain and madness and sheer horror; fragments of laughter, love, and loneliness. They were a livid, vaporous catalog of humanity and inhumanity, a parade of mankind and its multitude of sufferings.

She watched them light into the air like flies and they watched her.

There was nothing even remotely human left in them now. Those things had long ago been dispersed like ash in the wind and only a reflection of it remained in their hollow, searching eyes. These were beast of hate and lust and depravity, killers and victims all, bound by psychotic aspiration into one loathsome volume of excessive wants.

And what did they want? Why, a place to hide.

But none was offered.

They pressed in around Lisa in a polluted mass, sniffing and tasting and teasing her flesh and thoughts. They quickly abandoned her and sought Eddy like a train seeking a tunnel, punching right into him.

He wasn’t alarmed, only irritated.

“And now for you,” he said.

He seemed to glide in her direction, the knife describing elaborate arcs in the screaming, tattered wind. She had no weapon, no hope of salvation. He was going to cut her wide so the Shadows would have a new home to brood and scheme in and he would have a lover to carry into the chasm.

He brought the knife up to strike, but a voice stayed it.

“She is lovely. So very pretty.”

The voice of a woman, but scratching and dry and inhuman. Lisa smelled a sharp, almost violent odor of skinned minks and rancid pelts.

Dear God, she thought, The Sisters.

At least, one of them. It was something from a freak show, a grotesque sculpture of rolling meat scarified by a surgeon’s knife, a grisly anatomy display sewn together from a dozen separate corpses. A woman, yes, but obscenely bloated, discolored oil oozing from her pores with a sweet, revolting stink of musk. Her breasts were immense, perfectly round and hard-nippled, absolutely succulent with life. As Lisa stared at her with barely concealed horror, she saw her body was really a mass of writhing, porcine flesh horribly intersected by dozens of converging sutures that were almost artistically patterned in her skin like intricate tattooing. There was a dark beauty to it and her, from the blood-oiled hair to the flawless bubble gum pink of her rounded hips.

Haggis Sardonicus, a voice like a tolling funeral bell said in the back of Lisa’s brain. Yes, that was her name. And all who looked upon her knew it.

“You didn’t lie, Eddy. She is exquisite,” the Sister said, grinning like a scythe. She studied her prey with glossy purple-red eyes like a dog appraising a shank of bloody meat. They seemed to bulge from their flayed sockets.

Lisa tried crawl away until her back ran into the wall. Oh no, she would not escape this. There was no way this horror would let her slip through its ensanguined fingers. Just no way.

As Sister Sardonicus approached her, Lisa saw that her body was roiling with fleshy pulsations as if there was boiling lava beneath it. It moved and shuddered and shivered and she saw faces, dozens of tiny plum-sized embryonic faces pushing from the mass against the veneer of skin like the faces of dolls pressed against a sheet of Saran Wrap.

Lisa screamed.

And as she did, Haggis Sardonicus seemed to deflate until she was skeletal and machined-looking, her face like some carven fetish mask with ruby eyes set in gouged, upturned slits. The skull beneath had the appearance of something whittled and pared from bone, the skin covering it looking braided and beaded and ritualistically slit with tribal cicatrisation. Her lipless mouth revealed gums like raw meat and yellow tusklike teeth.

“I told you you would like her,” Eddy said. “She likes to squirm, she likes to squeal, and she likes to scream.”

The Sister smiled like death, her sutured face moving uneasily over muscle and sinew, a fluid jigsaw puzzle. “Don’t quiver with fear,” she said to Lisa. “I can smell the heat between your legs. I can taste your need. You’re our kind. You’re hungry.”

She turned to Eddy. “Come here, Eddy,” she said.

He dropped the knife and did as he was told, stumbling into her enclosing arms as she bloated to impossible dimensions. His fingers, long denied the mysteries of her flesh, explored freely now, teasing and twisting her pendulant breasts which expunged droplets of milk like shimmering pearls, his fingers disappearing beneath the skin and locating treats that hid below. He was drawn into her, his flesh bisecting her own, drawn in, erection and body alike. For a moment they seemed to be nothing but a tangle of limbs and blubber and then Eddy was cast away, seed running from his cock.

Lisa was whimpering now and not because of what she had seen, but what was seeing her: Haggis Umbilicus. She came out of the darkness, the birth cord connecting her to her sister like a flaccid fireman’s hose. Lisa could barely take in what she was seeing: an immense bag of leathery flyblown skins and stretched hides that flapped like sails caught in a high wind. A semi-human monster composed of living witch skirts stitched together with thongs of gut that burst their seams randomly to reveal ropes of creeping entrails within. Its head was a mop of writhing scarlet ribbon worms that crawled free of a puckered corpse face, the mouth suckering like that of a leech. It had one bleached, yolky eye darting in a shriveled socket.

Haggis Umbilicus, Lisa heard in the back of her mind.

This was the end. It had to be. Zero had lied to her. He had set her up for this great fall into insanity. Cassandra had betrayed her. There was nothing left now. Nothing at all.

She screamed again as Sister Sardonicus plied her hair with distended, oily fingers, orgasmic moans making her swollen lips tremble.

Lisa pulled away. Sardonicus looked unhappy, as if Lisa really were her only child.

“Where are you, you bastard?” she screeched into the void as her mind began to come apart. “We had a deal! You wanted your son and he’s here! Take him for God’s sake! Stop this!”

Sardonicus snatched Lisa’s ankle as she tried to crawl away, pulling her back. Her eyes were huge and red like arterial blood, her tongue shuddering in the air in a perverse simulation of cunnilingus.

“Zero!” Lisa cried out, her sanity sinking fast. “If you ever cared for me, if you ever pretended to, stop this! For the love of Christ, stop this!”

The Sister’s swollen tongue was tasting her calf now, drawing upwards, upwards in a burning wake.

“Edward,” a voice said, almost playfully.

The Sister’s stopped, as did Eddy.

Dr. Blood-and-Bones stepped into this arena of lunacy and his blanched eyes swept the room. His disfigured face literally cracked into a lewd mockery of a smile and his maimed anatomy pulsed through rents in his clothing and the threadbare stitching that held him together.

“Are we playing?” he inquired.

Haggis Sardonicus looked guilty as if she’d been caught at a naughty game.

“Father?” Eddy said, his features unstable.

Lisa could see bits of Cherry trying to insinuate themselves. Not now, she thought in desperation, for the love of God.

“Yes, my boy,” the good doctor said. “I’ve come to take you home.”

“He’s ours,” Sardonicus purred. “You can’t have him. We’ve worked very hard for this one.”

“There’ll be others,” Zero assured them.

“No…”

He held up his book. They fell silent at the sight of it, knowing what he could do with it. “But you can help,” he promised.

Lisa remembered Fenn and went to him. He was drifting in the air like a man in a hammock. She pulled him to her and they stumbled to the floor. His eyes flickered open.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, looking around.

“And who is this?” Zero asked, stepping in their direction and stroking his withered chin. “Who is this, exactly?” He stepped even closer. “What’s your name, friend. Tell me.”

Fenn’s eyes were staring, confused. Everything Lisa said was true, he now knew, and the revelation of this was staggering. He couldn’t seem to find his voice.

Zero started to laugh. “Your name is Fenn.”

“Yes.”

“And how are the headaches, dear sir? Do they plague you often?”

“How did you…”

“You’re haunted by memories you do not understand, a déjà vu that torments you continually… am I correct?”

Fenn looked shocked. The headache was back and he grimaced in pain. This was the big one he’d been waiting for. The final attack that would destroy him.

Zero was grinning now. “The seeds one plants,” he mused. “You never know what sort of fruit they’ll blossom.”

Fenn looked at Lisa. “What the fuck is he talking about?”

But Lisa didn’t know. The Sister’s didn’t know. And Eddy didn’t know. But they were all waiting to find out.

“The Templar Society,” Zero said. “Do you remember any of it?”

Fenn just stared.

“When things were coming to a close, when our Mr. Soames was beginning to ask too many questions, things had to be done. Grimes committed suicide, weak and soft thing that he was,” Zero told them. “That left only Stadtler and myself. Something had to be done with him. He couldn’t be trusted.”

“You have Eddy,” Lisa said. “Let us go.”

Zero continued undaunted. “Something had to be done. I had mastered a technique of personality transference. After a period of deprivation and harassment and the use of psychotropic drugs and hallucinogenic reinforcement, it was possible to destroy a person’s psyche… wipe it clean. I didn’t want to kill Stadtler, so I decided to give him a new personality. I had already selected individuals of the exact physical make-up as Grimes and Stadtler, in case I wanted to toy with their minds. The rest was simple.”

Fenn was quiet; he had no words to say.

Lisa wasn’t sure what this was about, but the possibility of what he was saying was professionally fascinating.

“It took some months to break down Stadtler, but I did it. After which, I had him listen to recordings of the life of the man he was to become. He listened and listened and listened. Soon, he knew nothing else. With the use of hypnosis and drug therapy, I completed the transference.”

“What’re you talking about?” Eddy asked.

“I’m talking about my friend Stadtler and who he became.”

But Lisa was way ahead of him. She knew. She knew everything now.

Fenn just stared.

“Stadtler became Mr. Fenn. And he’s been hiding in that guise for some years.”

Fenn was on his feet, one hand clutched to his exploding head, the other waving his gun about. “You… lie,” he said between clenched teeth. “You… lying sonofabitch… I know who I am…”

“Jim! Jim, just wait,” Lisa said. “What kind of game is this, Zero? If he’s not Fenn, then where—”

“You’ll find the real James Fenn in a shallow grave at the rear of the house.” He almost seemed pained that it had to come out. “Fenn was selected because of his uncanny resemblance to Stadtler and the fact that he had no family, no friends. He was clay waiting to be formed. A body waiting for a life.”

Fenn screamed something, struggling with the handcuffs that held him. He jerked and twisted, his face contorted with hatred. Zero stepped over to him, then his coat fluttered open and his disfigured anatomy was revealed. As Lisa watched, it opened, it unzipped, and a terrible wind began. Fenn screamed once before the flesh left his bones in a noisome vapor and was sucked into Zero’s body cavity. All that was left were bones.

Lisa started to scream and she might never have stopped, if it weren’t for a voice.

“What a display.” Cassandra’s voice.

They all turned to see her troop in with a collection of women fresh from their graves.

“A party,” one said.

“Such a party,” said another.

They began to clap and shout at Zero’s handiwork, jumping and screeching, losing bits of themselves in the process.

Cassandra went to Lisa and pulled her to her feet. “It’s all right now, dear,” she said. “Eddy wanted some friends to come along and I’ve brought just the ones.”

Eddy began to tremble, his features contorting and running. He became Cherry, then himself, then Cherry, then himself once again.

This brought fresh applause from his admirers and they danced about him in a circle as his flesh played its mutinous tricks. The Shadows got in on the act, invading the dead women and finding new homes.

“What a spectacle,” Zero tittered. “What an absolute delight.”

He didn’t seem to mind that his son was a shapeshifter. He didn’t seem to mind at all. “Don’t fret, my dear,” he told Cherry, “there’s always room for a lovely creature like you.”

Cherry gave way to Eddy and took a doddering step back. His/her circle of friends let Zero through.

“Time to go, boy. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Yes…”

Zero grinned. “Excellent, blood of my blood. But you can’t go like this, now can you?” he cackled. “You’ll have to go into the chasm as I did—in pieces.”

Haggis Sardonicus grinned with mirth. “Now comes the time of the rending and the remaking,” she said.

Her sister made a slithering sound of acquiescence.

They set to work on Eddy immediately, peeling his skin free with their fingernails which were like surgical blades. As he screamed, his hide was separated from muscle and connective tissues, organs and bones removed. He was dissected, dismembered, taken carefully apart, what was inside him neatly stacked in orderly piles. But the real horror, the real agony came when his nervous system was plucked free. The Sisters enjoyed this part the most, plucking his nerve endings like the strings of a lyre and picking at his ganglia until they reverberated with a white-hot humming agony as if they’d been scraped with a cello bow.

Though he couldn’t possibly be alive, he shrieked and begged for mercy… even though his lungs and mouth were on opposite side of the room from one another.

“You can go now,” Dr. Blood-and-Bones told Lisa. “There’s nothing more for you here.”

She stood her ground, unable to move or even think of doing so. Like a child with her eye to a keyhole, she could do nothing but watch the carnage taking place before her. The whores Eddy had strung up as offerings were beginning to dance and shudder on their ropes, their fleshless faces attempting grins that were mere muscular contractions. The first fell, then the second. They crawled in Lisa’s direction and she ran, Cassandra coming behind her but most casually.

She made it down to the second floor landing before darkness welled up in her brain and she lost consciousness. She might’ve been out for a minute or a day when she woke and she came to slowly, like a dreamer awakening. Cassandra was stroking her hair.

“It’s over now, Lisa. But you’d better run and fast,” she said.

Lisa scrambled to her feet and made it downstairs.

The house was beginning to come apart completely. Great rents and slits were gashed in its floors and walls, darkness pooling up from them like blood. She made a frantic run into the parlor, but most of it was gone.

Fenn was dead, she kept reminding herself. He’s dead and he wasn’t even himself this whole time no more than Eddy is himself or I’m myself and—

“I told you to leave.”

She turned and Zero was blocking her escape route. He snatched her by the wrist and forced a wormy kiss on her lips. He shoved his book into her hand.

“Take this,” he said. “I don’t need it now. Call me anytime. You know I’ll be home. I’m always home.”

Cassandra looked at him and said, “You’re terribly dramatic, aren’t you?”

He laughed. “Would you like to come along, my pet?”

“Not likely.”

He shrugged. “Pity.”

Lisa fought from his grip and they fled through the door and into the night.

“We better get clear,” Cassandra said.

A sudden, horrendous explosion threw them down the steps and onto the sidewalk. The house seemed to fold in on itself, becoming insubstantial and finally vaporizing into a black mist that faded in the wind. Nothing remained but a smoking, blackened area to mark its passing into another world. Lisa thought she heard a peel of laughter from somewhere distant.

But maybe not.