Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

"Then you'd have shed blood too."

"Better that, and be trapped, than he go on living. He'd killed fifteen great men and women. Pure, good souls. Just had them slaughtered. Tortured some of them, for the pleasure of it. Not personally of course. He'd had agents. But he'd masterminded the whole thing. Arranged that we be separated from each other, so that he could dispatch us one by one. Then had our bodies taken back in time to Trinity, where he knew no trace would remain."

"Where are they?"

"In the town. What's left of them."

"My God," Tesla remembered the House of the Stench, and shuddered, "I almost got to see them for myself."

"Kissoon prevented you of course."

"Not forcibly. It was more a matter of persuasion. He's very convincing."

"Certainly. He had us all fooled for years. The Shoal is—I mean was—the most difficult society to join in the world. There are means, incredibly elaborate, to test and purify possible members before they even realize the society exists. Somehow Kissoon faked his way through those procedures. Or else the Iad somehow tainted him once he was a member, which is possible."

"Is as little known about the Iad as he said?"

"Scarcely any information emerges from the Metacosm. It's a sealed condition of being. What we know about the Iad can be summed up in a few words. They are many; their definition of life is not that of you humans—indeed may be its antithesis; and they want the Cosm."

"What do you mean, you humans?" Tesla said. "You're as human as I am."

"Yes and no," Mary replied. "I certainly was once as you are. But the processes of purification change your nature. If I'd been human I couldn't have survived in Trinity for twenty odd years, with scorpions to eat and mud to drink. I'd be dead, the way Kissoon intended."

"How come you survived the murder attempt and the others didn't?"

"Luck. Instinct. Sheer refusal to let that bastard win. It isn't just Quiddity that's at stake, though that's valuable enough. It's the Cosm. If the Iad break through nothing on this plane of being will survive intact. I believe—" She stopped talking suddenly, and sat up in bed.

"What is it?" Tesla said.

"I heard something. Next door."

"Grand opera," Tesla said. Lucia di Lammermoor still trailed through.

"No," Mary said. "Something else."

Raul was already off in search of the sound's source before Tesla asked him. She turned her attention back to Mary.

"There's still some stuff I haven't got straight," she said. "A lot of stuff. Like, why Kissoon went to the trouble of taking the bodies into the Loop. Why didn't he destroy them out here in the normal world? And why did you let him take you?"

"I was wounded; almost dead. Near enough for him and his assassins to think I was dead. It was only when they were tossing me on a pile of bodies I came to my senses."

"So what happened to his assassins?"

"Knowing Kissoon he probably let them die in the Loop, trying to find their way out. That sort of thing would amuse him."

"So for twenty odd years the only human beings in the Loop—or near human—were you and Kissoon."

"Me half mad. And him all the way."

"And those fucking Lix, whatever they are."

"His shit and semen is what they are," Mary said. "His turds, got fat and frisky."

"Jesus."

"They're trapped there the way he is," Mary said, with some satisfaction. "At Zero, if Zero can be—"

Raul's yell from the next room stopped her in mid-thought. Tesla was up and through into the kitchen in seconds, to find him wrestling with one of Kissoon's shit-creatures. Her assumption, that they'd been dying when they were brought through from the Loop, could not have been farther off the mark. If anything the beast in his hands looked stronger than those she and Mary had fought, despite being only the head-end. Its mouth was wide and closing on Raul's face. It had already struck there twice at least. There was blood pouring from a wound in the center of his forehead. She crossed to him and took hold of it with both hands, more disgusted by its feel and smell than ever now she knew its origins. Even with four hands to keep it from doing further damage it was not about to be subdued. It had the strength of three of its earlier incarnations. She knew it was only a matter of time before it wore them both down, and got to Raul's face again. This time it wouldn't be just his frown it bit off.

"I'm going to let go," Tesla said, "and get a knife. OK?"

"Be quick about it."

"You betcha. On a count of three, right? Get ready to take the whole thing."

"I'm ready."

"One...two...three!"

She let go on three, and ran through to the sink. There were piles of unwashed dishes beside it. She rummaged amongst the chaos looking for a suitable weapon, the dishes sliding in every direction, several of them smashing as they fell to the floor. But the avalanche uncovered steel; one of a set of kitchen knives her mother had given her two Christmases ago. She picked it up. Its handle was sticky with last week's lasagna and the mold it had sprouted since, but it felt good in her hand.

As she turned back to go to Raul's aid it struck her that there had been more than one of the Lix pieces brought through from the Loop—five or six at least, she thought—and that only one was visible. The others had gone from the floor. She had not time to concern herself any further. Raul cried out. She rushed to his aid, stabbing at the body of the Lix with the knife. The beast responded instantly to the attack, snapping its head around, black needle-teeth bared. She aimed a stab at its face, opening a wound in its jaw, from which the dirty yellow muck that she'd taken for blood 'til minutes ago spat in fat spurts. Its gyrations became a frenzy, which Raul was only barely able to control.

"Count of three—" she said to him.

"What this time?"

"Throw it!"

"It can move quickly."

"I'll stop it," she said. "Just do as I say! On three! One...two...three!"

He did as instructed. The Lix flew across the room and hit the floor. As it struggled to get itself ready to attack again Tesla raised the knife and brought it down in one two-handed stab that transfixed the creature. Mother had good taste in knives. The blade sliced into the creature and buried itself in the floor, effectively nailing it down, while its life-fluids continued to leak from the wounds.

"Got you, you fucker!" she said, then turned to Raul. The attack had left him shaking, and the blood was still flowing copiously from his face.

"Better wash those wounds," Tesla told him. "You don't know what kind of poison's in those things."

He nodded, and headed through to the bathroom, while she returned her gaze to the death-throes of the Lix. Just as she recaptured the thought she'd had as she'd emerged with the knife (where were the rest of them?) she heard Raul say:

"...Tesla."

and she knew where they'd gone.

He was standing at the door of her bedroom. It was clear from the expression of horror on his face what he was looking at. But it still brought a sob of revulsion from her to see what Kissoon's beasts had done to the woman she'd left lying on her bed. They were still busy with their murder. Six of them in all, like the one that had attacked Raul, stronger than those they'd encountered in the Loop. Mary's resistance had profited her not at all. While Tesla had been busy digging for a blade to protect Raul—an attack mounted as a distraction— they'd crawled on her and wound themselves around her neck and head. She'd struggled fiercely, her fight throwing her half off the bed, where her body, a racked bag of bones, still lay. One of the Lix unravelled itself from around her face. It had crushed her features beyond recognition.

She was suddenly aware of Raul, still shuddering at her shoulder.