Edward Lee - House Infernal

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"The living legend of literary mayhem. Read him if you dare!"

-Richard Laymon, Author of The Midnight Tour

"Edward Lee's writing is fast and mean as a chain saw revved to full-tilt boogie."

-Jack Ketchum, Author of Offspring

"Lee pulls no punches."

-Fangoria

"The hardest of the hardcore horror writers."

-Cemetery Dance

"Lee excels with his creativity and almost trademark depictions of violence and gruesomeness."

Horror World

When Ruth awoke, she was drowning in blood. She gagged, mindless, her arms and legs churning in the hot, coppery brew. But could it really be blood? All of this?

She couldn't think. She didn't even know who she was yet. Only instinct fired her nerves: the will to survive.

It didn't occur to her just yet that she was already dead.

Her thoughts screamed: Where am I? What is this? Somebody help me!

She desperately breast-stroked, but more madness shrieked through her psyche when glimpses upward showed her a sky that was as red as the blood she was swimming in, and smudged clouds idling across a black moon shaped like a -sickle.

I'm having a nightmare! She managed to think. I'm seeing things. The sky isn't RED, and the moon isn't BLACK, and it's IMPOSSIBLE for me to be swimming in a LAKE of blood!

Just keep moving. Eventually the nightmare will end...

Other Leisure books by Edward Lee:

SLITHER

THE BACKWOODS

FLESH GOTHIC

MESSENGER

INFERNAL ANGEL

CITY INFERNAL

EDWARD LEE

LEISURE BOOKS

NEW YORK CITY

A LEISURE BOOK October 2007 Published by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book." Copyright 2007 by Edward Lee All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. ISBN-10: 0-8439-5806-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-8439-5806-5

The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. Printed in the United States of America. Visit us on the web at www.dorchesteroub.com.

Blood bricks were used to construct the district's most prominent edifices and roadways. For thousands of years, the City of Abandoned Hope churned as a diabolical microcosm that could be likened to an endless jigsaw puzzle, and one of the puzzle's biggest pieces was this districtthe Boniface District-and the reason it could be seen from a hundred miles in any direction was because it had essentially been built with blood.

A thousand cauldrons boiled ceaselessly, each filled to the brim with the blood of abducted citizens, fugitives, Demons, mongrels, Hybrids, etc., and even occultengineered blood, a more recent technological breakthrough. As the cauldrons boiled, their levels reduced. Water was distilled from the steam, of course, but eventually, when the blood had boiled down to paste, it was blended with lime and milled bone, then pressed into foundry molds. When the bricks dried, they were later disenchanted by specially trained Warlocks from the district's Collegium of Sorcerial Sciences. These spells would not only bolster the bricks' resistence to stress and deterioration but also strengthen any wall against the occasional malcontents and anti-Luciferic terrorists trained in the black arts.

A hundred yards long and fifty wide, Fortress Boniface was the first structure to be built with blood bricks. When humidity was high, the bricks would "bleed" slightly, and district residents would touch their fingers to the fortress's walls for good luck.

Boniface gazed south over the parapet. Hot winds carried smoke and a thousand screams as the sky churned bloodred behind a black sickle moon. Beyond, the city extended into its wondrous, demented infinity. Griffins and Caco- Bats swept down out of bruise-colored clouds to tear limbs off unsuspecting inhabitants, including children and infants. Gargoyles lurked about the crestwork of the higher buildings, hunting for vermin, weak windows, and ledge jumpers. Lower, in the nooks and crannies of the city's guts, Boniface could see the everyday life: Broodren-the demonic young-cooking horned newts on sticks over flaming sewer grates; taloned Ushers with faces of slag disemboweling the helpless in a regional Mutilation Zone; nine-foot-tall Golems standing watch on every corner; rows of chained mongrel slaves hauling great two-wheeled limbers full of body parts to the district De-Boning Line and Pulping Station ...

Perfect order, Boniface thought.

He moved farther down the parapet of this macabre, dark scarlet edifice that comprised the Exhalted Duke's Fortress. A glance over the edge showed him the Boniface District itself, his first gift from the Lord of Lies. Oh, Lucifer, my great god, I give thee thanks, Boniface sang in his head. Damnation and status had changed his features to something stolid and blocklike, while his face, long ago consumed by Bapho-Rats, remained covered by a mask fashioned from the salt of the Valley of Siddim. This was the same salt that Lot's wife, Edith, had been changed to when she ignored Gabriel's warning and dared look behind her as the two most vile cities on the earth were razed in flame.

The scarlet sky cast a long shadow at the Exhalted Duke's feet, which gave him satisfaction. Boniface had been a short man on earth, and he remained short in Hell. Dressed in his gilded white cassock, the shadow seemed like a huge chess piece made even longer by the antipontiff's miter hat emblazoned by a gold inverted crucifix. His squat fingers were embellished by pyrite rings which bore the unglimpsable faces of Lucifer and the premier Fallen Angels, and in his left hand he bore a pastoral staff made from the arteries of past concubines. The blood vessels had been twisted, hexed, and then desiccated in a sulphur kiln. Boniface would add to its girth on occasion, when he wearied of a doxy.

"My lord," Willirmoz announced as he approached. "recently, I divined what I am about to tell you."

Boniface's nearly fleshless skull beneath the salt-mask grinned. "The Usher Squads have found the fourth Oblation? Tell me it is so...."

Willirmoz' face was nearly fleshless as well, but from another symptom. The Exalted Duke's personal adjutant and fortune-teller had lost his countenance-and a great deal of the rest of his flesh-to fire. In the Living World, Willininoz had been burned at the stake in St. Claude, France, in 1680 for black magic and molestation. Since the time of his Damnation, he'd risen to the rank of High Priest in the Guild of Lithomancy. The totems of his trade were in constant evidence, as they had been stitched into every square inch of his gown: the most mystical of crystals, namely ophite, bloodquartz, and deadly Lapis Bae- tullum stones, just to name a few. His most recent imperial training had taken place at the Oppenheimer Monastery, and one condition of induction was for all Lithomancers to mimic the conditions of their deaths in the Living World.

Yet the High Priest's skills were incontestable. "Indeed, my lord. The fourth Oblation has been procured." A charred finger pointed over the parapet. "Bear witness ... and rejoice."

Now Boniface gazed down into the courtyard, whose cabalistic geometry provided its power. The courtyard was a great rectangle; limestone blocks the size of coffins sat at each of the yard's four corners, and on top of each stood a stone font-called a Morte-Cisterna-full of moldering blood. The blood in each basin had come from the slit throats of three Human sacrifants.