House of Skin Read Online Free

holes, the mouth thick-lipped and smeared with red lipstick. It danced around the room before it covered him with its weight as he was doing to Cassandra now. The clown’s breath stank of whiskey. Its fingers were cold. It smelled of sweat and filth and pig semen.
    No, no, no, no, not that—
    He shook it from his head. It seemed real, yet it was not his memory. And if it wasn’t his that meant it belonged to—
    Don’t think it. Don’t ever think it.
    He sighed. The memory was gone.
    The shadows. They would help him find his father, they would lead him there, they would take him home like a lost child by the hand. Together they would travel those same dark and enlightening roads as his father had and ultimately, they would be with him, in soul, spirit, and flesh.
    “So tell me,” he urged them later when Cassandra’s corpse was cool, drying, and sticky. “Tell me what I need to know.”
    The shadows encircled him sluggishly, ready to tell tales and point the way. They began to speak and Eddy Zero, the boy who’d sprang from the loins of a deranged and delusive man, listened and learned. They told stories in voices like the wind, the stars.
    When they were finished, the stink of old blood permeating the air, they fell back and began to dream.
    And out on the street before that desolate and disturbed house, a wicked and depraved laughter fell like rain on the walks.
    “AHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA—”
    And whether it came from Eddy or the crumbling pipes of that sullen house, it was anyone’s guess.
    * * *
    It had to start somewhere, so it started here. Like winter starts with a few flakes of snow or spring with a few drops of rain, it began. Eddy knew the way, he knew the dark byways he would travel, through what gutters and boneyards and theaters of suffering his search would take him.
    And he went willingly.

MEMOIRS OF THE TEMPLAR SOCIETY (1)
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    In the days of his youth, James Stadtler sought out the underbelly of society. He kept the company of criminals, perverts, fetishists, and prostitutes. All those who had sampled life’s darker pleasures and lived to tell the tale. It was in this way he met Zero and Grimes. They were both older than he—professional men, it turned out—and equally as jaded by the experiences life and ready cash had brought them. There had to be a better way.
    And together, they would find it.
    * * *
    He met them quite by accident in a Chinatown brothel. They had just finished with their evening’s amusement and were hanging about the bar, drinking and talking in low tones. Stadtler paid them little mind. He was waiting for his oriental flower and wouldn’t leave until he sampled her wares.
    They sidled up next to him and sat quietly for a time.
    “Haven’t seen you here before,” one said. “Name’s Grimes. This is my associate Dr. Zero.”
    “What of it?” Stadtler said.
    “And you’re …”
    “Stadtler. Jim Stadtler. Again, what of it?”
    The two men looked to each other and laughed. Grimes was short and stout, balding with twinkling blue eyes. Zero was tall and thin, dark-eyed, with an immaculately trimmed beard. They both wore business suits and overcoats.
    “Is there something funny about that?” Stadtler asked.
    “We find your manner … refreshing,” Zero told him.
    “Do you?”
    “Oh yes.”
    Grimes ordered more drinks for them all. Stadtler didn’t mind; he barely had enough money to cover his whore, let alone all the booze he was sucking down. If these two queers wanted to pay, so be it. He’d gladly talk with them if they covered expenses.
    “Do you have any favorites here?” Grimes asked.
    “The Asian women,” he told them. “Particularly Lee Chang. I’ve been through the rest. Whites, blacks, Indians. I’m tired of them all. Even Lee is getting boring. But what else is there?”
    “Yes, what else?” Grimes said.
    He and Zero exchanged another of their secretive looks.
    Stadtler was waiting for the inevitable proposition he was