Balls' eyes seemed mistrustful. "So God ain't nothin' but a bunch'a numbers?"
"In a sense, yes. He exists by means of a never-ending equation that created everything, and God is the beginning of the equation. Understand?"
"No," Balls and Dicky answered in unison.
The Writer sighed smoke. "Listen, just trust me. Crafter didn't bring any demons here—he merely thinks he did."
"Then what's that writin' on that little plate over the door, above the dead chick's head?" Balls pointed.
The Writer squinted. "Oh, I didn't see that." He shined his light right up.
And stared.
A tiny brass plate had been mounted in the keystone, and engraved upon it was were several Greek letters.
The Writer made a rare departure from his avoidance of profanity. "Holy shit... "
"What is it?" Balls urged, impatient.
"It's Greek... "
"You speak Greek?"
The Writer rolled his eyes. "Of course."
"Then what the fuck's it say?"
After a difficult pause, the Writer told him.
"It says ‘Pasiphae.'"
««—»»
The Writer tried to assess every conceivable angle of the situation. Dicky had said this "woman" had called herself Pasiphae. How could he make that up? These two guys are white trash, not scholars of myth. Still, the Writer had to ask.
"Gentlemen, if I may. Are either of you familiar with the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur?"
Balls and Dicky looked at him cockeyed.
"That's what I thought." The Writer sat down at the table full of books and instruments. "I'm trying to reckon a conclusion: how Dicky could have heard the name Pasiphae upstairs earlier, and then we come down here to find the name written in its original Greek on the transom of that door. So when you gentlemen were children, in school, you never learned any Greek mythology?"
"Writer," Balls began an honest answer, "when we was kids, we was cuttin' class, stealin' hubcaps, and peepin' inta chicks winders so's we could gander some hair pie'n beat off. We didn't learn no Greek shit."
"You talkin' 'bout stuff like Herck-a-lees?" Dicky ventured.
Eureka! The Writer cracked his hands together. "Yes! This is a story along similar lines. Greek mythology comprises the first stories of sophistication in the history of mankind. The first genuine allegories. Thousands of years ago, it is said, the great god Poseidon gave Minos, the king of Crete, a splendid white bull to be sacrificed, but before that could take place, Minos' wife... became, uh, attracted to the bull and, well, she decided to have sex with it."
Dicky stared, mouth open. Balls frowned. "The chick fucked the bull, you mean?"
"Actually, yes, Mr. Balls. The chick... fucked the bull, a bull that was intended to be sacrificed to the gods. By circumventing Poseidon's will, big trouble would ensue. Minos' wife later gave birth to the product of her aberrant union: a terrifying creature stronger than Hercules himself, a creature called the Minotaur. This beast was, for all intents and purposes, a demon. It possessed the body of a man and the head of a bull." Then the Writer glanced at Balls and Dicky for effect.
Balls slammed his fist down on the table. "What kind of a a-hole are you? We'se got some serious whacked out shit goin' on here and you're blabberin' 'bout some king's squeeze who got the blocks put to her by a fuckin' bull! What the fuck are we'se supposed to do with that?"
The Writer half-smiled. "The king's ‘squeeze' was a woman of untold beauty, and her name was Pasiphae."
Balls' anger dissipated, giving over to puzzlement.
"That's what the splittail upstairs tolt me her name was," Dicky re-clarified, "‘Fore I'se fucked her and then she started squirtin'—"
"Yes, yes," the Writer severed the viscid retelling. "I'm simply trying to find a way to justify the coincidence."
Balls gave a mirthful laugh. "So's this time, instead'a fuckin' a bull, she fucked Dicky?"
Dicky laughed back. "Well, I'm damn near hung like one!"
"Yeah, well your mamma tolt me she'd seen bigger cigarettes."
"Yeah? Well your Daddy tolt me when you's were a baby you spent more time suckin' his dick than suckin' your momma's tittie!"
What am I going to do with these guys? "Gentlemen, gentlemen, please. We're in a conundrum here, and we need to take some action." The Writer gestured the floppy breasted corpse hanging on the door. "Crafter's occult delusions are obviously of a very extreme nature, and whether you believe in the occult or not, a murder has been committed. Our most logical course of action is to leave without delay. If we get caught in this house, or are seen by passersby anywhere in its proximity, we could be accused of this murder."
Dicky responded to the Writer's logic by posing the most illogical question. "So's what was all that spunky lookin' goo that this Pasiphae gal spat out her pussy all over the rug upstairs?"
The Writer rubbed his temples. "You're missing my point, Mr. Dicky. I don't believe that Pasiphae ever was upstairs—"
"But Dicky seed her with his own two eyes," Balls interjected, "and so did Cora."
"—nor do I believe there was ever any ‘goo' on the carpet upstairs."
Balls' face screwed up. "But you done said ya saw it yer own self!"
"No, I said I believe that everything any of us think we saw was an hallucination," the Writer reasserted. "A stressful situation, a sinister house, an unknown set of circumstances, plus the fumes of human decomposition. I believe that all these elements have aggregated and caused us to have a manner of shared hallucinations—a mirage, so to speak." He pinched his chin. "The only thing I can't figure out is how Dicky believed this imaginary woman referred to herself as Pasiphae when he was previously unfamiliar with the mythology... "
"Then maybe you're fuckin' wrong," Balls suggested. "Maybe it ain't a hallucination. Maybe it's all real, somethin' from Crafter's devil-worship'n shit." Now Balls struck the most contemplative look of his life. "So's far, all of us've seen somethin' in this house ‘cept me... "
"Ah, you've harnessed your powers of deductive reasoning," the Writer enthused. "Therefore?"
Balls rubbed his hands together. "Guess it's time fer me go upstairs'n check it out myself... "
Balls mounted with steps up with confidence. What I got to be afraid of? Some crazy black chick? Bunch'a shit on a floor? Gun in belt, hickory pick handle in one hand and flashlight in the other, Balls reflected his current state of actualization: I ain't afraid'a nothin'.
He yelped when he turned on the landing and saw a figure facing him, which turned out to be a decorative suit of armor. Shee-it... He closed the basement door behind him, ill at ease, for some reason, by the look of the cross hanging on it. Candlelight shifted over the walls, and for a moment he thought he could see faces forming... but he knew that couldn't be. When he looked up the stairwell to the second floor, a depthless black void looked back at him. Don't be a pussy! he yelled at himself, and then he patted his pistol for good measure and began to climb the steps.