1852,” I recited. “All in the
interest in finding you.”
“You’re such a gallant man, Morgan. I can
only imagine your disgust with me.”
“Disgust?” I asked, irked. “You’re my only
sibling, and I love you with my whole heart. Please know that.”
“But to learn that your only sibling could
stoop so low as to submit to prostitution…”
“My dearest sister, what you must also know
is that I fully understand the travails that force women to resort
to such alternatives. In these times of economic cataclysm, women
even more than men suffer from the throes of subjugation.”
Groggily, I sat up. “This, believe me, I comprehend, and I love you
no less.”
Selina seemed relieved to
hear this, relieved enough even to sob. But what I simply
could not reckon
was the hideousness of her maligned complexion, the once-beauteous
countenance made appalling by the swirls of phlegmatic-green mixed
with fish-belly white. “I had no choice but to consign myself to
the life of a common street-whore but even then I was homeless and
barely able to eat…”
“I understand that,” I reiterated.
“But… what I don’t understand is…”
“The change,” she finished
for me, and touched her face with loath. “Eventually some girls
corralled me into the club, but as I briefly explained earlier, I
did not service johns for long after my arrival. It turned out,
Miss Aheb fell in love with me, so… she changed me…”
“Your skin,” I knew. “She effected a
metamorphosis, to make your skin like hers”—I gulped—“and like the
skin of Pyramidiles and the thoggs.”
“With this, yes,” she
explicated, fingering the pendant. “The change allows me to live
forever, but this is what I’ll have to do… forever. She wants me all to
herself; and when I’m not servicing her, I conduct the trolley and,
every week or so, see to the transport of our… collection across
the ingression threshold.”
Collection, I thought numbly. The
constant collection of human semen to be used for God knows what by
the Pyramidiles…
“The legend is true,” I droned. “The club’s
matron, Miss Aheb, and the witch-priestess Isimah el-Aheb of
thousands of years bygone are one in the same!”
Did the chandelier’s counter-light suddenly
climb in intensity? It was Miss Aheb herself who next strode into
the chamber, adorned in the diaphanous black gown which highlighted
her preeminent physique. Yet the sleek arms and legs, the plunging
decolletage, and her face remained abhorrent by her skin’s
similarity to that of the mountainous Pyramidiles. I knew now that
the leviathanic monsters had, through some occult mode, shared
their hideous skin with Miss Aheb and Selina. What other traits
beyond appearance might this dermal metamorphosis have
instigated?
“Why, immortality, Mr. Phillips,” the lithe
madam answered via some manner of psychic surveillance. Her coy
smile beamed down on me as her accent buoyed her words. “You know
much of what very few know at all.”
“The legend of the
Pyramidiles and their utmost servitor is obscure to be sure,” I asserted, “but some trace of their
history has remained. Cuneiform cylinders
analogous to the cylinder in your own possession, for instance. It
is a legend that pre-dates legendry…”
“And therefore?”
My words abraded like
stones grinding. “The oldest legend in human history.”
“Very good,” she
congratulated and sashayed about Selina. Her grotesque-colored hand
caressed my sister’s bosom as she did so; whereupon, she proceeded
to a great armchair nestled in the room’s corner: a throne for all intents,
composed of adhered jewel-like crystals of the same composition as
the pendants. It was here that she sat, elevated and grinning
cunningly, as some sluttish, monstrous version of Cleopatra, some
iniquitous queen of the Halls of Eblis. “And now? Whatever shall we do with
you?”
“Answer my questions,” I dared. “What harm
can there be in that, given that
interest in finding you.”
“You’re such a gallant man, Morgan. I can
only imagine your disgust with me.”
“Disgust?” I asked, irked. “You’re my only
sibling, and I love you with my whole heart. Please know that.”
“But to learn that your only sibling could
stoop so low as to submit to prostitution…”
“My dearest sister, what you must also know
is that I fully understand the travails that force women to resort
to such alternatives. In these times of economic cataclysm, women
even more than men suffer from the throes of subjugation.”
Groggily, I sat up. “This, believe me, I comprehend, and I love you
no less.”
Selina seemed relieved to
hear this, relieved enough even to sob. But what I simply
could not reckon
was the hideousness of her maligned complexion, the once-beauteous
countenance made appalling by the swirls of phlegmatic-green mixed
with fish-belly white. “I had no choice but to consign myself to
the life of a common street-whore but even then I was homeless and
barely able to eat…”
“I understand that,” I reiterated.
“But… what I don’t understand is…”
“The change,” she finished
for me, and touched her face with loath. “Eventually some girls
corralled me into the club, but as I briefly explained earlier, I
did not service johns for long after my arrival. It turned out,
Miss Aheb fell in love with me, so… she changed me…”
“Your skin,” I knew. “She effected a
metamorphosis, to make your skin like hers”—I gulped—“and like the
skin of Pyramidiles and the thoggs.”
“With this, yes,” she
explicated, fingering the pendant. “The change allows me to live
forever, but this is what I’ll have to do… forever. She wants me all to
herself; and when I’m not servicing her, I conduct the trolley and,
every week or so, see to the transport of our… collection across
the ingression threshold.”
Collection, I thought numbly. The
constant collection of human semen to be used for God knows what by
the Pyramidiles…
“The legend is true,” I droned. “The club’s
matron, Miss Aheb, and the witch-priestess Isimah el-Aheb of
thousands of years bygone are one in the same!”
Did the chandelier’s counter-light suddenly
climb in intensity? It was Miss Aheb herself who next strode into
the chamber, adorned in the diaphanous black gown which highlighted
her preeminent physique. Yet the sleek arms and legs, the plunging
decolletage, and her face remained abhorrent by her skin’s
similarity to that of the mountainous Pyramidiles. I knew now that
the leviathanic monsters had, through some occult mode, shared
their hideous skin with Miss Aheb and Selina. What other traits
beyond appearance might this dermal metamorphosis have
instigated?
“Why, immortality, Mr. Phillips,” the lithe
madam answered via some manner of psychic surveillance. Her coy
smile beamed down on me as her accent buoyed her words. “You know
much of what very few know at all.”
“The legend of the
Pyramidiles and their utmost servitor is obscure to be sure,” I asserted, “but some trace of their
history has remained. Cuneiform cylinders
analogous to the cylinder in your own possession, for instance. It
is a legend that pre-dates legendry…”
“And therefore?”
My words abraded like
stones grinding. “The oldest legend in human history.”
“Very good,” she
congratulated and sashayed about Selina. Her grotesque-colored hand
caressed my sister’s bosom as she did so; whereupon, she proceeded
to a great armchair nestled in the room’s corner: a throne for all intents,
composed of adhered jewel-like crystals of the same composition as
the pendants. It was here that she sat, elevated and grinning
cunningly, as some sluttish, monstrous version of Cleopatra, some
iniquitous queen of the Halls of Eblis. “And now? Whatever shall we do with
you?”
“Answer my questions,” I dared. “What harm
can there be in that, given that
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