Devil Sent the Rain - D. J. Butler Page 0,18

feel the slightest bit sleepy.

Mouser shrugged. “I have played midwife to more than one of my father’s cows. This is much the same.”

“Deeper,” Eddie told her, and she shoved her arm in up to the shoulder. “And now?”

“No calf’s head,” she said. “All womb.”

Mike shuddered. “If that had looked like a womb, I’d have stuck my own arm inside.”

“Enough,” Eddie told the girl, and she pulled her arm out. “Who are you?”

Mouser looked at each of them in turn, her eyes skeptical. “I am Elaine Canning,” she said. “Which of the Princes of Hell do you serve?”

“We don’t serve any Princes of Hell,” Mike murmured. He looked astonished.

“We don’t serve anybody,” Adrian added.

Twitch was standing upright under her own power now, rubbing her eyes.

“You’re in Hell,” Eddie said. It wasn’t a question.

“I am a murderess. Ought I be elsewhere?” She pulled her arm out of the sphincter in the wall and shook off a thick film of yellowish goo.

“What year did you die?” Eddie furrowed his brow.

THUMP!

“Not sure we have time for this,” Adrian hissed.

“The Year of Our Lord sixteen hundred forty-five. I was taken by a Roundhead cannonball while walking the ramparts of my family home and watching for the man I loved.”

Eddie hesitated. “Did you love a man named James?” he asked.

Elaine Canning, or Mouser, or whoever she was, looked like she had been punched in the face.

“Come on!” Adrian lost patience and charged out into the basement, the others following.

Eddie came at his shoulder, silent and thoughtful-looking.

Adrian pointed. “Two rooms.”

Eddie kept his voice down—the sound of bodies moving about on the floor above was louder out here. “Mike, Twitch!” He pointed at the room in the corner, and dragged Mouser with him into the room at the foot of the stairs.

Adrian made to follow Eddie, but the guitarist stopped him with a glare and pointed at the icebox. Adrian nodded, his heart falling into his boots as his companions disappeared behind various doors, leaving him alone.

He faced the icebox, squatting ominously in the near-darkness. It hummed, but not with the low, crackling hum of electric devices. Looking at it now, Adrian saw that the icebox didn’t have a power cord, anyway. Instead it had what looked like a segmented, vaguely scaly tail, like you might see on the backside of an armadillo, lying in the cold water on the floor. Its hum was the hum of discontented appetite, the belly rumbling of a man about to sit down to a meal that he already knew would not be sufficient. It reminded him, all in all, of the wardrobe upstairs that had unexpectedly attacked him.

There was no good way to die, but being eaten by a fleshy refrigerator in the basement of your own mind seemed like a particularly humiliating one.

Adrian bit back curses, grabbed the handle and yanked open the door.

The icebox didn’t bite him, and opened. Warm, wet air washed over him, like the steam from a sink full of dishes billowing into an already dank and hot kitchen. The steam came rich with a rotting stink of meat, and Adrian sucked in air through closed teeth to try to control his gag reflex.

Inside the icebox, in a puddle of water, lay a tongue as long as his arm.

Adrian stared at it and felt like crying. This was no dream. Something terrible was happening, and it was happening to him. It felt like it was happening inside him.

The tongue twitched—

Adrian swung the door closed, and it stuck shut with a wet squelch.

“Mierda.” Mike stumbled out of the back room, Twitch behind him. The bassist held his hand over his face like he was trying not to throw up.

“The room is a latrine,” the fairy explained matter-of-factly. “Or at least, the bottom half of one.” A cloud of cloacal stink followed behind them.

Footfalls passed over Adrian’s head and he froze. They sounded like they were heading for the top of the stairs.

Eddie appeared in the doorway of the third room. “There’s a way out,” he hissed. “Hurry!”

Adrian shuffled across the floor, really wishing he had shoes on his feet. He was the last into the room, and entering it, he stepped down into deeper water, swirling with warm and cold currents. As he passed through the entrance he saw the door at the top of the stairs crack open. He didn’t wait to see who was coming, and shut the door behind him.

He expected this room to be lit by a naked 40-watt bulb, pulled on and