Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
PART I
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
PART II
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
EPILOGUE
DOMINION
Bentley Little
PROLOGUE
New York City, 1920
Girls!
They were all girls, every last damn one of them. He stood at the top of the stairs, staring down into the dimly lit basement below. The infants crawled through the blood and mud and filthy, rancid water, mewling, crying, screaming. The mothers, chained to the wall, lay limply against the stone, heads lolling, half dead, their nude bodies still smeared with blood and afterbirth, gnawed umbilical cords angling stiffly from between their spread legs.
His eyes darted from one newborn to another, searching hopefully for a penis, but he saw none, only small, hairless cracks.
Mother had been right. He was not a man.
He began to cry. He could not help it. Hot tears of shame forced their way out from under his eyelids, streaming down his cheeks, only adding to his humiliation. An unintentional sob escaped from his mouth, and one of the women looked dazedly up at him. He saw her through the blurred curtain of his tears. He did not know whether she knew what was happening, but he didn’t care.
“It’s your fault!” he screamed at her, at the others.
One of the women moaned incoherently.
Still crying, he retreated into the kitchen, where he opened the cupboard doors underneath the sink and unwound the hose. He turned on the water full force and carried the hose back across the floor through the basement doorway, dropping the streaming snake end down the stairs.
He would fill up the basement and drown them all.
The water poured from the hose in a steady flow, coursing down the steps before merging with the low, dirty puddle which already existed at the bottom. Three of the women heard the splash-babble of the water and groggily raised their battered heads, expecting their daily hosing off, but when it didn’t come, their heads slumped again with a muted rattling of neck and arm irons.
He watched as the water level in the basement slowly rose, his tears stopping, drying, disappearing. He wiped his eyes. It would be two hours, maybe three, before the basement filled up above their heads and drowned them. He would come back later, after it was done, and drain the basement and dispose of the bodies.
He stepped into the kitchen and closed the door, standing uncertainly for a moment before walking down the dark, narrow hallway toward the front of the house. Outside, he could hear the loud rumble of motorcars on the street, the excited screams of children at play. He stood for a few minutes at the front window, staring at the lawn outside, before realizing that the spot in which he was standing was the precise spot in which Mother used to stand while spying on the neighbors.
Blackness rushed over him, and he stepped away from the window, taking slow, deep breaths until he again felt all right. He looked down at his hands. Mother had always said that his hands were too big for his arms, were out of proportion compared to the rest of his body, and he had always tried to keep them hidden in pockets or behind his back. Now, though, they didn’t seem that large, and he found himself wondering if they had shrunk. He wished Mother was here so he could show her his hands, ask her.
He wandered disconsolately through the empty house, past the drawing room, down the hallway, up the stairs, and found himself, as always, going to Mother’s bedroom.
Mother’s bedroom.
He sat on the red silk bedspread and picked up the leg chains attached to the tall wooden posters at the foot of the bed. He had not opened the windows since Mother died, and the room still smelled strongly of the mingled odors of wine and perfume and old sex. He breathed deeply, inhaling the delicious fragrance, at once sweet and sour, tangy and musky. He glanced around the room. The Oriental carpet was still stained with blood from the last time, dark red now faded to a dusty brown which blended in with the multihued rococo pattern. On the dresser in front of the oversize mirror were empty flagons. The soiled undergarments of various ladies and gentlemen were strewn about the room, many of them torn and tattered, ripped off willing bodies in the heat of passion.
His eyes were drawn to the door next to the closet, the door to the room where the unwilling participants had been brought.
He stood up and took the long brass key from its hook above the bed, using the key to unlock the door. This was the room in which she had worshiped, in which she had given herself over to her rituals. Precisely what these rituals were he did not know; she had always refused to tell him. He knew only that they demanded many sacrifices, that he had been forced to find for her two, three, sometimes four victims each time.
Mostly men. Women if necessary. And he knew that the rituals were loud.
He’d been able to hear the cries echoing through the halls of the house, feel the bodies being flung to the floor, slammed against the wall. It was good that they lived in such a large city. Otherwise the sacrifices Mother had required would have been missed, the noises heard by all. As it was, the victims’ absences had seldom been noticed (he’d always chosen them well), and the sounds had merely blended in with the noises of the street.
Mother, however, always said that having to perform the rituals in this room, instead of in their proper place, was what had perverted their purpose, was what had led to his mistaken birth.
He stood in the doorway and slowly scanned the silent room. Broken bones were still scattered about the floor in no particular order, as if thrown there in a frenzy. The bones were clean, all flesh stripped. The walls of the room were painted with pictures of trees, painstakingly detailed renderings of forestation for which Mother had
