Coven

arousal.

They backed her into a dead end. The holotype fondled itself to full erection, chuckling deep from its slatted throat.

Now or never, Lydia thought. She raised the ultraviolet spotter, aimed its purple bulb at the sister’s face, and flicked the switch.

The sister giggled.

Nothing happened.

—

CHAPTER 36

The sisters hustled Wade out of the Supremate’s nave. Besser seemed amused by Wade’s colossal disappointment.

“In a sense, Wade, the Supremate is God. He’s omnipotent, omnipresent, and forethoughtful to a higher goal.”

“God, my ass,” Wade complained. “If that fucker’s God, my favorite beer is Bud. God is not a black box.”

Besser stopped a moment. His voice hung in the air like an incantation. “My god is here, Wade. Where’s yours?”

Good question, Wade concluded. He could not contemplate an answer. In a fraction of a second, Wade thought about his whole life, and how he’d blown every chance at being a decent person. God, whoever or whatever He was, had abandoned him. Even Wade could admit that it was fitting.

“Here we are,” Besser said. “Your last stop as a human being.”

Wade nearly wailed. The sign read IMPLANTATIONSURGERY.

The sisters dragged him into a small hold and slammed him down on a levslat, beside which hung a tray of instruments: pincers, retractors, and a good old Planet Earth type scalpel.

“Before you can join the Supremate’s family, you must first undergo a few changes.” Besser picked up a tiny black needle with wires coming out of it. “This is a ganglionicstaticreflexpulsemodificationdischargenode. It will integrate you with the labyrinth’s sensor systems, and it will teach you obedience very quickly. Any thought contrary to the Supremate will trigger an instantaneous release of static electrical current into your central nervous system and, of course, your gonads.”

“How charming,” Wade remarked.

“Additional acclimations will embellish your immune system so that, barring any physical accident, you’ll be impervious to all disease, and you won’t age.”

Wade indicated the black needle. “What exactly are you going to do with that?”

“Exactly? We’re going to implant it into your brain.”

Wade struggled against the two sisters, who giggled at his horror. “My health plan doesn’t cover this kind of procedure. You better find yourself another guy.”

One sister approached the instrument tray. The other held Wade down on the table. He jerked, and punched her in the eye with all his might, then howled. It felt like he’d just punched a steel ball.

“Be brave, Wade,” Besser consoled. “The sisters know exactly what to do. They’re trained brain surgeons.”

“Oh, that makes me feel a whole lot better!” Wade yelled.

The first sister vised his neck down with her hand like an iron brace. The second sister picked up the scalpel.

“The pain will be excruciating,” Besser added, grinning. “But don’t worry. It will go away in a couple of months.”

Wade wasn’t listening anymore. He was screaming.

««—»»

Nothing happened when Lydia turned on the ultraviolet spotter. Either the battery was dead or the bulb was burned out. If the battery was dead, so was she. If it was the bulb, she could replace it with the spare stored in the receptacle, if she had time—

—which, of course, she didn’t. The holotype was all over her at once, jamming her into the corner, while the orb eyed sister stood as spectator. One moist padded hand pawed Lydia’s breasts; the other hand squeezed her buttocks. Lydia knew the .357 wouldn’t work against the sisters, but what about the holotype?

Her gun hand, however, was pinned behind her back.

The beast’s sweat soaked into her clothes; its breath blasted, foul as gas from a corpse pile. Its left hand popped open her pants and dragged them halfway down. The sister giggled softly as the hot mitten of meat plied Lydia’s sex.

Next she was slammed to her knees. Oh, no, she had time to think. Men all wanted the same thing apparently—even men from other planets. The holotype’s hand positioned the huge glans before her lips. There could be no misinterpretation: Lydia had two choices—she could suck, or she could die.

—Stick it in! the sister urged, a cheerleader from space. —Stick it all the way down her throat!

Lydia’s entire face felt squeezed shut. The snoutlike foreskin was retracted; the glans nudged her sealed lips…

—Lydia! Open wide!

I am not going to give head to an alien, she informed herself. No way in hell, uh uh, forget it.

But wasn’t this her only chance?

Lydia Prentiss steeled herself then, as no woman in history had. The crotch stench alone stupefied her. Between the holotype’s backward jointed legs hung a creviced scrotum which encased two testicles the size of coconuts. With her left hand, Lydia took hold of the thing’s penis. She gave it a tender stroke. Then she opened her mouth, began to lean forward—

With her right hand she drew her Colt Trooper and fired one round into the holotype’s scrotum.

The tight, hot bang! concussed in her ears. One of the testes exploded. The howl of agony which burst from the holotype’s throat sounded like demolition in a deep canyon. It teetered back and fell over, pad hands agrope at the encased mash that was once half its malehood. Pale yellow blood spurtled out, like paint.

During its throes, Lydia changed the UV bulb in the portable spotter. The sister remained where she’d stood, her bright white face having lost some its perverted gleam.

—You shouldn’t have done that, she said.

“Your mom wears boxer shorts,” Lydia replied. How she knew beforehand that it would work was a mystery. The sister bared her teeth. —I’m going to eat you now, she promised.

“Eat this instead.” When Lydia turned on the spotter, the sister went rigid and shrieked. It was an annoying sound, like a coronet played by a drunk. A sizzling could be heard, like meat frying—the sister’s face turned black, then her arms, breasts, and abdomen. The spotter’s invisible light was literally cooking the sister’s flesh, drawing rents to expose bone. The spheric eyes ruptured; she staggered in a circle while Lydia followed, cooking her back and buttocks. Then the sister flopped to the floor, vomited up some milky organs, and died.

The smoking pile sizzled. That was the end of her, but there was still the holotype. It lay cringing, the once proudly erect penis now shriveled. Fingerless hands clutched vainly at the loss between its sinuous legs.

“Hey, buster,” Lydia said.

The face, like a plop of raw meat, glanced up. Blood-red eyes fixed wide on her, this arrogant woman victor.

She put four shots from the Trooper into its convoluted head. The skull cracked, blowing hanks of brains and pale yellow blood in a fan across the black carbonized wall.