Coven

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CHAPTER 23

Jervis awoke in graven dark. He struggled to his feet, head tingling. In slabs of sound and image, he remembered:

Besser. Winnifred. And the hammer.

Jervis stood up straight. It all came back to him like a rushing tide. He’d been changed—for the Supremate.

—JERVIS. MY NEW SON. WELCOME.

At once, Jervis knew…everything. He knew what he was now, and what he was to do.

—WHAT YOU WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING YOU SHALL HAVE VERY SOON.

“Revenge!” He glanced frantically to the window, where he’d seen his love rubbed in his face like shit. Yes! Revenge!

He could sense his new master’s smile, the trust of the promise, and the truth. That’s all he’d ever wanted anyway. The truth.

And now he had it. The Supremate had made him a veritable reaper of truth. And, oh, how I will reap, he thought.

He rushed to the bathroom, flicked on the light. Despite the new gift of knowledge and power, there were still a few things he wasn’t clear on. His mirror image looked…well, pale. Dark bruises showed under his eyes. Around his neck hung his amulet, and his transceptionrod could be seen just past his hairline. What? he slowly thought. What am…

He touched his throat. It felt cold. He pressed a finger under his jaw. Nothing. Then his wrist…

Nothing, he thought. No heat. No pulse.

Jervis stared. What faced him in the mirror was a corpse.

“Holy shit,” he muttered. “I’m dead.”

««—»»

—But we’re not going to eat you, Wade. You’re special!

“Who are you?” Wade half gasped.

—I’m your new sister, and…look! She pointed into the perverted grove. A bare hillock rose from the fog, and upon it sat a black oblong box, like a coffin on end.

—Your new home, Wade! the girl in black said.

“My home’s Connecticut, kid, and that’s where I’m heading right now.”

Concern toned down the brightness of the girl’s face. —Oh, but you can’t leave. The Supremate needs you. We have to take you to him.

Now Wade saw what the little freak meant by we. Three more figures surrounded him. They all looked the same, in the same black capes and hoods, grinning identical grins from identical bright white faces. Their only difference was size. The young one stood less than five feet, the second five five, the third perhaps five eleven. The fourth one stood well over six feet tall.

From one of the snotlike webs, the little girl plucked an unruly, moist spider about the size of a golf ball.

“Aw, Jesus, kid,” Wade implored. “Don’t do that—”

The girl popped the spider into her mouth and ate it. It crunched like pretzels. Another was biting into a twitching gourd, sucking black mush and seeds from its case. The tallest woman fished one of the gilled snakes from the fog and swallowed it whole.

Wade threw up. Then he bolted.

The sisters bolted after him. They giggled like demented whores. Things whinnied and crunched as Wade dashed through the lake of fog. He sprinted into the perverted woods, slimy webs spreading across his face. Small monstrosities tittered at him from clustered nests amid the leaves. The giggling of the four cloaked women rose and fell, and followed him through the woods. What would happen when they caught him?

Wade tripped and fell. His hand landed in a big, swollen mushroom with a face, which spat at him. Moist beetles crawled up his shirt, leaving syrupy trails.

“Liiiiiiiideeeeaahhhhhhhhhh!” he screamed.

The six footer had outrun the others. Her grinning face loomed over him, big and bright as a headlamp. Her cloak had come apart, showing perfectly formed yet nippleless breasts. Blue chalklike veins traced faintly beneath her white abdomen.

—I caught you! she celebrated.

Wade fired Lydia’s O.P. six times at the freak woman’s face. She flinched, waving her hand. Nothing happened.

—I wish we could make love, she told him.

“I sure as shit don’t!” he answered, crawling back against a stout, sweating tree. The white pillars of her legs strode over him, and the hooded face leaned closer.

—I’m going to kiss you now, Wade.

Wade jerked aside. Something blurred past his ear, and a wailing whistled up. What had happened? He dragged himself away through forest muck and shined his flashlight back.

A long, pink positor stretched from the woman’s mouth. The needled bulb at its end was stuck in the bark of the flexing tree. She pulled, trying to disengage it, as the whistling wail continued. But it wasn’t the girl who wailed. It was the tree.

Out of here, Wade thought. He ran deeper into the woods.

—He’s getting away! a tiny voice protested behind him.

—There he is! shrieked another.

Wade realized they saw his light. He dropped it and continued through the smothering darkness. Only remnants of instinct propelled him back to the first clearing.

He ran straight into Lydia, toppling them both.

“We gotta get out of here!” he bellowed. He picked her up and dragged her toward the Vette. “They’re right behind me!”

“Who?” Lydia yelled.

He shoved her in the car, gunned the engine, and snapped on the headlights. “That’s who!” he bellowed, pointing.

The four figures stared at them from the edge of the woods. They were all grinning, their mouths full of crystalline fangs.

—Don’t leave, Wade! We can give you everything!

Wade floored the Vette and didn’t look back.

—

CHAPTER 24

The Erblings had drained well. Jervis tapped them as they hung from the lividityharnesses, punching an eductionlance into each of their feet. The bone sludge oozed out thickly as frozen custard. He milked each soft foot like a big teat.

This had been his first assignment in the labyrinth. He lit a Carlton and looked up at the now deboned fissionizationvessels. The Erblings had been two of the prettiest girls on campus. Now they were just quivering flesh sacks. Too bad, Jervis thought.

Transfection was positive; new life was already swelling in their radiophaseshifttriionized wombs. Jervis appraised Stella’s shiny bloated belly. Logarithmic-dissolvedoxygencarbonsourceoptimization effected full gestation in less than twenty four hours. That’s some serious baby making, Jervis considered,