Lucifer's Lottery - Edward Lee [41]
Hudson thought, Why do I think we’re NOT going to be cooking a Chinese pupu platter?
“Set the stand immediately below the hole in the wall, please.”
The prostitute’s pallid breasts depended as she leaned to do so. She glared at the deaconess, half in derision and half in nausea. “Look, I know that I’m one of the most fucked-up people to ever be born but, shit, lady. This shit here? It’s even more fucked up than me.”
“Go with the blessing of the Morning Star,” the deaconess said with a great pumpkin grin. “Take your money and your drugs and your hatred and despair, and give thanks as you revel in your curse. Spread your degradation in the glory of his name, sell your body to the lustful, and indulge yourself in reverence to him. Have more babies to leave to die in gutters, and spread more disease, and continue to let yourself be used as a reservoir of filth and an altar for every offense against God . . .”
The prostitute stared.
“One day, you will receive a wondrous reward . . .”
The prostitute raked up her clothes, then barged out of the room, and thunked down the stairs. A moment later, Hudson heard the front door slam.
The deaconess looked at Hudson. “Do you wish to continue?”
He wanted to say no with all his heart, yet something . . .
Something made him say, “Yes.”
“Good.” She smiled over the skullcap. “Let’s begin . . .”
Hudson sat mute in the chair as he watched her. It didn’t surprise him when she placed the skullcap atop the Sterno stand, though he couldn’t imagine why. From the box she also withdrew the strangest of objects: a foot-long cutting of ordinary garden hose.
A match flared as she bent to light the Sterno.
“Bubble-bubble, toil and trouble?” he misquoted Macbeth.
“These are powerful cabalistic components, Mr. Hudson.” The bleeding between her legs had ceased, leaving her pubic hair matted crimson and the insides of her toned thighs streaked. “What you need to know is that in Hell, ideas are objects, notions are material, symbols are tangible things wielded as tools or burned as fuel, and the waste of lust is the Devil’s favorite tool. Symbols of fecundity and creation when turned to waste become occult energy.”
“Milk, sperm? Come on,” Hudson challenged.
“Yes! What a great spoiler of God’s intent. Mother’s milk but from the teat of a mother who murders her babies. And sperm, sacred by God’s gift of procreation, but sullied when spilled deliberately outside of the womb—a harrowing offense. And now . . . blood . . . The blood of the chaste, virginity upheld to honor the chastity of Christ, and then spoiled for this atrocious ministration to bid the glorious and unholy power of Lucifer.”
Hudson looked perplexed at the skullcap sitting above the flame, and then he looked into the hole in the wall.
Just nighttime outside.
“Don’t get it.”
“You will, once you really see.” Her naked body gleamed, not merely from the profuse sweating but from excitement. The candlelight crawled. “It’s all science, or I should say sorcery, which serves as science in Lucifer’s domain. What we’re doing here is called an Ethereal Viewing. I told you, this house is a Bleed-Point; the horrors that occurred here have bruised the skin between the Living World and Hell. This rite will eventually nick that bruise enough that you’ll actually be able to see the Trustee, and converse with him, too.”
“The Trustee,” Hudson muttered. “A demon?”
“Possibly. I’m not sure. But I won’t be able to see him. Only you.”
“Why?”
Two perfect drops of sweat dripped off the tips of her nipples. “Because you’re the person who’s won the Senary. There’s not much more I need to say to prepare you.” She stood behind him and errantly rubbed his shoulders. “Just sit and wait . . . and reflect on the fact that very few people ever receive an opportunity such as this.”
Hudson jerked his head back. “But why? Why me? And don’t say it’s because I won the Senary!”