Lucifer's Lottery - Edward Lee [42]
“Just be patient.”
“So . . . what? When all that crap in the baby skull starts to boil, the hole in the wall becomes a window to Hell? I’m supposed to believe that?”
Her fingers glided hard over his sweat-slick shoulders, then slid forward to rub his pectorals. “That’s as good a way of putting it as any. Upon boiling, the steam that rises off the Elixir will trigger the Conduction. You’ll have exactly six minutes to listen to the Trustee, ask any questions you have, and then accept or reject the offer. And even if you accept, which I pray you’ll do, you’re under no obligation. Nothing becomes binding unless you say yes upon completion of the tour.”
The tour . . . Those words bothered him more, perhaps, than anything else tonight. There was something potent about them. Even when he thought the words, they seemed to echo as if they were called down from a mountain precipice.
But then more thoughts dripped. “This is a pact with the Devil, you mean.”
“Not a pact. A gift. One thing to keep in mind. The Devil doesn’t need to offer contracts for souls very often these days. Think about that . . .”
Hudson’s eyes narrowed. “But I’m a Christian. I’m a theologian and student of Christ. I’m about to go to the seminary. To be a priest!”
Her voice drifted in delight. “Perhaps what you see will dissuade you. Your reward will be beyond imagination.”
Hudson gave her remark some thought, even in the “afterglow” of his sin. So THAT’S it! They want to tempt me, they want to make me break. Suddenly the madness and sheer impossibly of everything made wild sense.
What greater way could there be to prove his faith? To take this tour and realize these rewards, only to say no in the end? Christ had been tempted, hadn’t he? Only to likewise say no.
Hudson resolved to do the same.
The prospect made him gleeful, but then he heard the faintest bubbling. The contents of the skullcap—the Elixir—was boiling.
“It’s time,” she whispered and stepped away. “Look at the hole in the wall . . . and prepare to meet the Trustee.”
Hudson tensed in his seat, squinting. The teeming night was all that continued to look back at him from the hole. The steam wafting off the skullcap was nearly nonexistent. How on earth can—but after a single blink . . .
The hole changed.
In that blink the hole’s ragged boundary of Sheetrock and shingles had metamorphosed into something like ragged flaps of what he would only think of as organ meat. Hudson leaned forward, focused.
My God . . .
What he looked at now was a room, or at least a room of sorts. Is that . . . No, it couldn’t be, he thought, because the room’s walls appeared to be composed of sheets of what looked like butcher’s waste (intestines, sinew, bone chips, and fat), which had all somehow been frozen into configuration. Amid all this sat a splintery wooden table on which had been placed . . .
That’s a typewriter!. Hudson realized, and he could even read the manufacturer: Remington. Atop a shelf in the rear, more odd objects could be seen: a package of Williams shaving soap, a square tin of Mavis talcum powder, and an empty can of Heinz beans. Hudson meant to glance behind him, to question the deaconess, but her hands firmly pressed his temples.
“Don’t take your eyes off the Egress,” she said.
When Hudson refocused on the hole . . . a man stepped into view.
The Trustee . . .
It was a very gaunt, stoop-shouldered man who looked back at Hudson. “There you are, at last,” he said in a squeaky accent that sounded like New England. He had close-cropped hair shiny with tonic and a vaguely receding hairline to show a vast forehead, which gave the man an instant air of learnedness. He wore a well-fitting but threadbare and very faded blue suit, a white dress shirt, and narrow tie with light and dark gray stripes. Small, round spectacles. His jaw seemed prominent as though he suffered from a malocclusion. The only thing about him that wasn’t normal was the pallor of his face. It was as white and shiny as snow just beginning to melt but marbled ever so faintly with a bruised blue.
The man sat down at the rickety