Coven

She gave him Besser’s Qwik Note, which read: “Elizabeth Whitechapel, Duke of Clarence Hall, Room 688.”

—She’s the last one. Then all we need is the holotype and we can leave.

“Leave to where, if you don’t mind my asking?”

—New kingdoms, Jervis. New pigs.

“And I get to go with you, right? Immortal?”

—Of course! We’re all immortal in the glory of the Supremate!

Jervis drove on. Something was fishy about this whole business. Why hadn’t he seen any other productionvassals around, from past procurements? There was only him. Jervis knew shit when he smelled it. Just because he was dead didn’t mean he was stupid.

—The Erblings have just given birth to two beautiful baby mutants. And Inez Packer’s insemination couldn’t have gone better.

“Glad to hear it,” Jervis muttered. If they could make their own vassals, what would they need him for in an eternal future? Am I getting screwed? “We have to stop at the dean’s first. Besser told me to kill him.”

—Oh, Good! the sister rejoiced. —I’m so hungry!

“There’s plenty of eats in back.”

The sister looked at Inez Packer’s roommate and the dead security guard. She made a face. — But I want a FRESH pig, Jervis. I want a FRESH man thing.

Wonderful. I’m stuck with the pecker eater again. Except for their size, the sisters had no distinguishing features. They were clones. He wondered how many years it had taken to hybridize them. How many crossed genes from how many planets.

A long drive lined with hundred year old oaks led to the dean’s mansion. Acres of mown, open land gave the estate a rich Dixie plantation appearance. Jervis parked next to the dean’s Rolls. The moon hung low behind wisps of clouds.

They walked casually up the pillared front steps. Jervis hocked a lunger into the topiary. An old brass door knocker stared at them, an oval bereft of features save for two wide, empty eyes. Jervis raised his hand to knock, then paused. What am I doing? Murderers don’t knock.

He bumped the heavy door face with both palms. The door jumped out of its frame and thudded to the floor. They were halfway up the winding stairs when the hall light came on.

“Winnie? Is that you?”

Jervis chuckled. “Not quite.”

The dean froze two steps out of his bedroom. He wore a maroon robe and pink pajamas. Doubt of reality drew slits into the lined, tanned face. “What the—” he stammered. “Who the—”

—Hi, Dean! the sister announced. —I’m going to eat your man thing!

Jervis smiled.

The dean fled screaming back into the bedroom. Jervis promptly knocked down the door. The clean white room lay in total contradiction to what was taking place. The bed, the furniture, and the lambent white walls coalesced into a pattern of normalcy that Jervis and the sister violated merely by entering.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Jervis complimented. “Elegant.”

The sister began her wet, clicking giggles.

Whimpering, the dean backed into the walk in closet. Thousand dollar Italian suits surrounded him like a conspiracy of accusers. The jury was in. “Please,” Dean Saltenstall shivered and begged. “I’ve done nothing to deserve this.”

“I know,” Jervis acknowledged. “That’s why we’re doing it.”

Be creative, he reminded himself. He spun the dean’s head off in one graceful motion, a sharp twist and a jerk. The dean’s lips sputtered a nifty, musical sound, like a kazoo. “Thar she blows!” Jervis celebrated as the stump gushed rich red blood onto the walls, the suits, the ceiling. For a moment the dean seemed to dance headless. It was magnificent.

The spouting figure collapsed. “All yours,” Jervis said. The invitation made the sister giggle. At once she knelt betwixt the dead legs, tearing open the pajama bottoms.

—

CHAPTER 27

It all fit well with the course of the day: a dream that made no sense. Was it premonitory? Wade dreamed he was paralyzed, his jaw locked open by pegs. The women in black were stuffing slabs of putrid meat into his mouth. The meat was black and full of parasites. —This is what we eat at home, Wade. Isn’t it good? It was not good. Each helping crawled down his throat, warmly alive, and every time he thought the dream was over, another dainty white hand appeared to push still more of the squirming meat into his forced open mouth…

When he awoke, he felt empty headed. He sat up in bed and felt for Lydia, but she wasn’t there.

Wade,

I borrowed your car, hope you don’t mind. I got this idea about the sunlight stuff, and I have to check it out on my own.

Stay here till I get back.

Lydia

Wade crumpled up the note. He had two choices. He could sit here naked and do nothing, or he could act. He couldn’t imagine what her “idea about the sunlight stuff” could be, but where else could it lead but back to the groves?

He dressed, checked out, and left. It was just past 3 A.M. If he walked fast and cut across campus, he might make it to the groves in an hour.

The warm night seemed to welcome him in his solitude; the moon gave him light. Damn it, Lydia, he thought, and stepped up his pace. Where the hell are you?

««—»»

“You’re in the labyrinth,” Winnie said. “Our master’s palace.”

“The Supremate,” Lydia muttered.

“That’s correct.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s…God, I think.

Great. I knew I never should’ve stopped going to church. Lydia could see very little within the temphold, which seemed vaguely lit by some bizarre blackish light. This is a jail, she realized. A black rod in the ceiling gave the impression that she was being watched. She’d already tried, and given up on, simply walking out. The hold’s barrier, though invisible, couldn’t be passed. Beyond it she could see nothing.

Except Winnifred, who stood on the other side. She was nude, her flesh like mist in the labyrinth’s static blackness. “You can’t feel it in there,” the woman said, “but out here, the Supremate’s breath is on me. It’s the psilight, it’s his influence. The Supremate is a god of great passion, and he breathes his passion on all of us.” Her hand then ran over her pubis.

Lydia recalled the events that brought her here—the student shop, Jervis, and the solid cinder block wall.