Coven

Truth? she thought. I must accede. Even if she told where Wade was, Jervis would kill her anyway. So what could she say?

“Blow yourself,” she said.

Her feet were off the floor in an instant. Jervis had her throat in his right hand and something else in his left. Gagging, her gaze flicked down to see what it was.

What he held was a Craftsman auto body sander. You used them to sand down putty on fenders, though Lydia seriously suspected that Jervis planned a slight variation of this utility. The disc was loaded with fifteen grit synthetic sandpaper.

An inch from her nose, he turned it on. Its motor shrieked. The grinding disc spun before her eyes at 4,000 rpm’s.

“Tell me where Wade is,” Jervis said, “or I’ll sand your face off.”

In the chokehold, Lydia barely managed to gasp, “Eat my poop.”

“So much for Mr. Nice Guy.” He would do her real slow, would stretch her death out like pizza cheese. The motor’s screams played foreshadow to her own. Just as the grinding disc would strike pay dirt—her face—the motor died.

“Jervis, Jervis,” Professor Besser’s voice came from behind. He’d pulled the sander’s cord out. “If you kill her, we may never find Wade.”

“She lied to me!” Jervis spat. “She affronted my Existenz!”

“Forgive her, my boy. Didn’t Sartre also say that one must forgive his universal counterparts for the sake of the ultimate existential ideal?”

Jervis’ flat eyes thinned in rumination. “No!” he shouted. “Sartre never said anything even close to that!”

“Bring her to the labyrinth,” Besser commanded. “We’ll put her in one of the holds.”

Seething, Jervis let her down and gave her a smack on the back of the head. The blow laid her out—she nearly lost consciousness. “You’re fucked, bitch,” Jervis promised her in a fierce whisper. “I’m gonna do a job on you that would make Charles Manson puke. Just you wait.”

He began dragging her along by the collar, but not toward the shop door, she dizzily realized.

He was dragging her toward the wall—

—then into the wall—

—then through it.

—

CHAPTER 26

Nina McCulloch prayed for forgiveness for her sins. She could hear the others in Elizabeth’s room, but her prayers blocked their voices out. Nina believed that Jesus had died on the cross for her, expurgating any sin she might ever commit. To pay Jesus back, she followed the Commandments, offered thanks and praise, and fully accepted him as her savior.

“Amen,” she whispered.

Now she lay in bed, restless. She could hear them in the next bedroom: Elizabeth, and Kara and Stacy, two girls from down the hall.

Nina knew what they were doing.

“What a rush!” Elizabeth could be heard through the wall.

“Class A shit, Liz,” Kara observed.

“Cut me another rail,” Stacy requested.

Nina, of course, never joined them. They always offered, claiming: “You only get addicted if you do it every day”; “It’s harmless in moderation”; and “Nina, all that antidrug stuff on TV is just propaganda. Come on, try some.”

But Nina’s reply was always the same: “No. It’s a sin.”

The body was a temple of the Lord; it said so in the Bible. If you put bad things into your body, you were defacing that temple. A tract she’d read once said that if you used drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or even ate junk food, that was the same as throwing garbage in a church. Nina believed this fervently. She also believed that even responsible drug users were actively participating in the denigration of society. The money that Liz and her friends so harmlessly spent on a little cocaine went to the same people who supplied crack to elementary school kids. Every penny helped fuel the giant drug machine which ruined people’s lives. It helped make the weak weaker, and the helpless more lost. Drugs were the soldiers of Satan’s army.

Nina got up and sneaked to the bathroom. She hoped they didn’t hear her. They might laugh at her and persecute her for her beliefs. Nina, of course, would forgive them, but that was beside the point.

Tinkling, she heard their uproar. They were talking about sex now, and how much better drugs made it. “His cock was hard all night!” Stacy exclaimed. “Shit, I musta come ten times!”

Babylon, Nina thought, perched upon the toilet. But she mustn’t judge them; only God could judge. She couldn’t escape the thought, however, as their reverie rose: The wages for sin are death.

««—»»

Jervis fumed as Besser handed him the parcel.

“Drop this off, then meet the sister at the sciences center.”

“Yes, sir,” Jervis tensely replied. “Anything you say.”

Besser stood at the servicepoint of the detentionwarren. “And there’s one other thing the Supremate would like you to do.”

“What?”

“Kill Dean Saltenstall.”

Jervis’ brow knit. The dean was harmless. “Why?” he asked.

“He runs the college. He’s an authority figure,” Besser explained, “and authority figures offend the Supremate’s superiority; they blemish his grace. To the Supremate, the dean is a graven image. So kill him.”

Graven image? What an ego. “Right. Kill the dean.”

Besser seemed to sense Jervis’ upset. He peered at Lydia beyond the repulsion screen. “Ah, you’re angry about her. You feel I’ve injured your existential self by denying you her death.”

“Something like that,” Jervis restrained himself.

“For now we need her intact, as a lure for Wade. But afterward, Jervis, I promise you’ll have her.”

“Thank you…sir.”

“Good. Go now. Serve well for our master.”

Jervis extromitted back to his room. They’d barriered Lydia Prentiss into one of the tempholds. He’d just have to have his revenge later, and it would be sweet. He would put some holotypes in there with her and see how she liked that. Some of those holotypes had been locked up in the deep holds for years, going mad with lust in the psilight. Some had knobbed tentacles for cocks, or things that looked like big plungers wide as coffee cans. There were even a few that had multiple penises…

He walked down the hall into Wade’s room. Be creative, he thought. Creativity is the key to existential awareness. It was only a matter of time before Wade returned to his room. Jervis left the parcel where Wade was sure to see it.

Minutes later he was driving down Randolph Carter Street, past the Circle. The sister’s grinning white face beamed in the headlights. He picked her up in front of the sciences center, as instructed. —Hi, Jervis! she greeted.

Jervis nodded, gulping. The sisters gave him the willies—their monstrous kiddie grins, perpetually shaded eyes, and the unearthly giggling. How could you trust someone who giggled like that?

—Ready?

“Yeah. Where to?”