Edward Lee - Succubi

The wifmunuc pointed to the rear wall of the church. “Look into the nihtmir, Ann. Look into the face of our queen.”

The great slab of stone seemed charged now with some spiriferous energy. Its flat pocked surface changed before her eyes, to a perfect silver plane.

Ann gazed into the reflection of her own face.

Crimson spheres gazed back at her. The mouth opened in horrid astonishment, a colossal black orifice full of shardlike cuspids and incisors. Shining silken hair hung adrift in the night-mirror’s radiant static energy.

She raised a hand to touch her cheek, but it was not a finger that appeared in the mirror’s veins. It was a long, sleek talon, sharp as an awl.

High atop her forehead, two diminutive nubs protruded.

She turned to reface the coven. All members then fell at once to their knees, voicing prayers of praise and homage to their deliverer in the flesh.

The Ardat-Lil smiled down upon its new flock.

—

Epilogue

The night had indeed thwarted him, the night in all its loss of reason, its queer moonlight, and its inexplicability. He’d taken three wrong turns, and twice he’d found himself driving unlit back roads in circles. Then the driver’s-side front tire had blown. Half an hour later, the spare had blown. He’d driven on the rim awhile, and next the oil pump had seized up. It had only taken a few minutes before most moving parts of the engine had fused.

He’d had no choice then but to walk the rest of the way. Not one vehicle had passed him, not one potential ride. By the time he’d actually made it to the small secluded municipality of Lockwood, dawn was less than an hour away.

Dr. Harold felt lost even when he’d found it. The town lay in total darkness. The police station and fire hall were empty. He walked several residential streets, and found doors wide open, no persons within. More walking and he realized that he had yet to see a single car anywhere in the township’s perimeter.

Piqued, he made his way back to the main drag. He stood in the middle of the desolate street and looked up. Just above the high steeple of the church, the moon shone down. It looked bloated to hugeness, gravid. Its weird pink light seemed hideous now. It tinted his face, blurred in his eyes.

Moon of the devil, he thought. Moon of the succubus.

The pink light made him feel enslimed in some portent, or some chasmal acknowledgment.

What? he asked himself on the dark street. An acknowledgment of what, for God’s sake?

It was in the church that he found it, or actually the basement of the church. Another church of sorts, a chancel of evils which refused to allow description. The air was warm in these cramped confines. Behind a small room which looked like living quarters, he discovered the lair of their black reverence. Much blood was seen soaked into the dirt floor. The stench of cooked flesh wafted before his face like ghosts. Perhaps they were ghosts, the remnants of spirits freed through heinous acts. Blood had dried to shellacked blackness atop a great stone altar; charred bones and skulls lay scattered about, amid indescribable scraps of fleshy sinew.

This church was as empty as the entire town. Its population had fled, but to where, and for what? Where did they all go? he wondered.

Dr. Harold then walked to the back of the unholy nave.

Twin metal hooks stuck out from the rearmost wall, mounting hooks as if to hang something from. Nothing hung there now—there was just an outline of dust and age against the old wood. Whatever had been there had been quickly removed, taken away.

Dr. Harold’s eyes remained fixed upon the spot.

The outline was clearly visible, that of a great squashed double circle.

THE END

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Edward Lee (seen here with his new electronic cigarette) has had more than 40 books published in the horror and suspense field, including CITY INFERNAL, THE GOLEM, and BLACK TRAIN. His movie, HEADER was released on DVD by Synapse Films, in June, 2009. Recent releases include the stories, “You Are My Everything” and “The Cyesologniac,” the Lovecraftian novella “Trolley No. 1852,” and the hardcore novel HAUNTER OF THE THRESHOLD. Currently, Lee is working on HEADER 3. Lee lives on Florida’s St. Pete Beach. Visit him online at:

http://www.edwardleeonline.com