Lucifer's Lottery

If the intel was correct.

Krilid identified a landmark after adjusting the sextant’s gauges to accommodate the coordinates: “Sixty-six cubits out from the Reservoir’s southernmost corner, where you’ll see the Main Sub-Inlet,” Ezoriel had told him.

The landmark—hard as it was to see against the Wandermast Reservoir’s unrelenting black—was a particular pile of bodies from an Emaciation Squad. They’d died on their feet digging out this immense quarry and, via protocol, their twitching, unnourished bodies would be left to shudder there until the Reservoir was filled. When this happened, the landmark would be submerged, he knew, but at least he now had a general idea where to look for the “target” to be “extracted.”

I’m not liking this, Krilid thought.

Was he being set up? The thought occurred to him, but any logical reason didn’t. Ezoriel is said to have never told a lie.

But bad information isn’t a lie, is it?

Perhaps Ezoriel didn’t know for sure. “Unimpeachable authority,” the Fallen Angel had said of his information source. “It cannot be doubted.”

Yeah? Krilid questioned.

Then why had he been sent on this mission totally alone, and in an expensive Nectoport? To attempt an “extraction” in what was certainly one of Hell’s most guarded secret projects?

It almost sounded to Krilid that he’d been sent on a suicide mission but no one had seen fit to tell him that.

(III)

The echoes of the deaconess’s words trailed behind her like a banner as they mounted the dark stairs. “The attic is the best place, for the power of its ambience. The cliche—do you understand? The sheer weight of the idea?”

“No, I don’t understand,” Hudson said, the whore just behind him.

“The same as the house itself, and what happened in the house. The house has become what’s known as a Bleed-Point, while certain things from the history of the house serve as functional Totems. They’re Power Relics.”

Certain things, Hudson wondered. She means the head . . . “What did you mean when you called yourself a failure but I’m a success?”

He could see the woman nod ahead of him. “You’re on one end of the Fulcrum, I’m on the other—the bad end, I’m afraid.”

“The Fulcrum, huh?” Hudson said.

“I was solicited because I was solicitable. My ebbing faith made me ripe for the Machinators. But you? You’re actually the opposite. It’s the desire of the powers I now serve that you make the choice. My rewards are minuscule compared to the rewards you will receive should you accept this incalculable prize.”

Great, Hudson thought.

The stairs raised them into a long, dusty attic. Even after dusk, it was stiflingly hot. The prostitute began lighting candles from a bag she’d carried up, and in the growing light, Hudson saw that the attic was essentially empty, save for a couple of lawn chairs and a couple of boxes. The deaconess went to the back wall, then paced off six steps toward the room’s center. There, she placed one of the chairs.

“This is where you will sit.”

From a darker corner, then, she pulled out—

Whoa! Hudson thought.

—a brand-new pickax.

“And this is how we will access the Trustee.”

“What are you talking about?” Hudson whined.

The deaconess smiled. She removed her Roman collar and started to unbutton her surplice. “Remove your clothes, dear,” she said to the prostitute. “We must show our God-given bodies unclothed, to curry favor from our lord.”

The prostitute smirked. “I want my fuckin’ money first. You said you’d give me another six hundred.”

The bills were produced like a finger-snap, and handed over.

“Curry favor from your lord?” Hudson questioned. “Somehow I don’t think you mean the Lord God.”

“Our Lord Lucifer,” the deaconess said. “Certainly, you’ve already guessed that.”

“Yeah, sure. But the thing I want to know is how did those skinny demons manage to get a hold of your Lord Lucifer’s poop to write sixes on your body?”

The deaconess popped out more buttons. “It’s a process known as Object Transposition, a very new occult science. It’s subdimensional. The Demons—and the excrement itself, by the way—were only corporeal for the duration of the rite. Six minutes. But six minutes were enough.” Then she dropped the surplice to the floor, to stand splendidly nude in the candlelight.

Hudson tried not to gawp at the robust physique. “You seem different today. Yesterday you were all fidgety.”

She went behind the prostitute to untie her faded bikini top. When the garment dropped, buoyant breasts came unloosed, with large, irregular nipples that looked like plops of chewed beef.

“That’s because I’ve acclimated to the entails of the Machination Link. And I’m not resisting it anymore. I’ve accepted it, the beginning of my glorious demise. I’m being machinated, you see—by a trained Channeler and a high-echelon Archlock who operate out of a Telethesy Unit at the De Rais Academy.” She smiled. “Think of it as puppeteering—from Hell. Only now my own soul has amalgamated with the process.”

Hudson stared.

“Oh, and Mr. Hudson? You’ll need to remove your clothes as well.”

Hudson winced. “I’m not taking off my clothes, for God’s sake.”

“For Lucifer’s, not God’s. It’s all part of the protocol, I’m afraid. You must be as naked as Adam when he stalked out of the garden.”

What am I doing? came the thought as he began to strip. At least being nude would make the heat more tolerable. The deaconess and the whore were already shining with sweat.

Now the deaconess was inspecting the prostitute’s heavy breasts, twilling the meaty nipples with her fingers. “Let’s see here now,” she murmured. Milk sprayed out at once. “Yes, good, so full” Then the deaconess tasted a wet fingertip. “Ah. Soiled. Perfect.” Next her hand stroked up and down the recently deflated belly, whose stretch marks now looked like the gouges of a garden claw. An abundant sprawl of black pubic hair jutted nestlike from between the prostitute’s pasty legs. The deaconess ran her fingers through it, fascinated. “So how many babies have come out of here, hmm?”

“Six, seven—fuck, I don’t know,” the prostitute said, disconcerted.

“And you left them all to die?”

“Yeah. Fuck it. The world’s a bunch’a shit anyway. Who wants to bring kids up with all this shit goin’ on? Besides, I make more money when I’m pregnant.”

“Really? How interesting.”

“Sure. Kink tricks, you know? Lotta guys out there go nuts for knocked-up streetwalkers. They pay more. So I pocket the cash, and when it’s time, I pop the kid out in an alley somewhere and walk away.”

“Perfect,” whispered the deaconess.

Hudson felt sick.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

Hudson and the prostitute jumped at the start. The sound of impact shook the house. When Hudson cleared his confusion, he noticed the deaconess–

WHAM!

—driving the pickax point with gusto into the wall. After a dozenish strikes, she’d managed to tear out a hole about the diameter of a dinner plate, roughly four feet from the floor.

Hudson peered out the hole, which showed the moonlit backyard. Then he refaced the deaconess.