Still, our duties as servants demanded our time, so we still emerged from our rooms and performed our tasks, and items were thus traded between the rooms from time to time, and as a result life was not intolerable.

Then came a sudden Beast to the mansion after many years of peace and quiet. No one saw the Beast enter the house, and the house had many entrances so it would have been impossible to defend against the Beast even if its approach had been seen. Once inside, the Beast began to tear apart walls. It did not directly attack the servants, often ignoring them completely even as it screeched and battered its huge arms against the walls, tearing stone and wood apart like paper. But some servants were killed as walls fell, victims of the general violence. As rooms were exposed, the residents fled to other rooms and attempted to barricade the walls and doors against the Beast, but nothing could stop it. The Beast growled and the joists and rafters of the mansion rattled and quivered, and walls dissolved and doors bowed inward.

As the Beast penetrated the mansion, an army of vicious animals followed.[24] The animals gathered up the servants and organized them, assigning each new tasks and making sure they did not try to group together, especially the servants who had claimed rooms for themselves. Whenever someone would try to escape, or to resist, they were menaced by the animals, their sharp tusks and screeching voices, and some were even killed. Every death would excite the Beasts, their elastic tails twitching in triumph. Sometimes the servants would band together and manage to kill one of the animals, which caused the rest of the creatures great alarm. They retaliated with great violence, and no attempt was made by their cohorts to stop them from taking terrible vengeance on the servants, who quickly learned to respect the Beasts and not provoke them.

In short time the mansion was completely open inside, one large room, filled with cowering servants who wailed and suffered. The Beasts were quickly followed by others of their kind, until the mansion was filled with them, and the servants were made to serve the Beasts.

And a voice cried to me, “Look and see!” and I was shown the way out of the mansion, a secret path. Most of the servants were afraid, fearful of the Beasts, but those of us who saw listened carefully, seeking the voice, took up tools and sought the scraps of the ruined house and began building a new room within, hidden in the shadows, and came to live there, apart from the other servants. And from time to time people sought us out and joined us in the room, and we began to bring people to it, in order to make them safe. And the Beasts did not know of the room at first, and when they did learn of it, they did not immediately attack, for they could not see how we posed a threat, because we continued to perform our duties and serve them. But with only half a heart. And slowly our ranks swelled, until it began to seem that soon all the servants would be safely within the room, and none left to serve the Beasts.

And then the Beasts, realizing they had let this go on too long, and that we would not easily be turned out of the room, plucked a man from the servants remaining and made him into a crow, their slave, and sent him into the room with the purpose of destroying it, with promises of great riches and safety. The crow was able to fly over the walls of the room and find me, and pecked my eyes out, leaving me blind and bleeding, and the other servants in the room, to escape the crow, fled in horror and flooded the house with chaos that even the Beasts could not control. And the crow, satisfied with bloody beak, flew up to the rafters and perched, safe from the chaos, and watched the events with flat, black eyes, cackling that I was dead.

But I was not dead, and I could hear the Voice. I was blind, and the Voice guided me into the shadows and told me I would have no need of new eyes. Around me I could hear the screams of Beasts and men as they battled, and the excited screeching of the crow as it circled above us, triumphant. I was blind,25 but the Voice entered me, and I had command of it, and I found that I could command the Beasts and they would do as I said. And upon seeing this, the crow was dismayed, and fled the mansion. And the Voice said to me, “The way has been thrown open!” and the Beasts bowed before me, for they were merely servants as well, and served the Voice, as we all do.

JEFF SOMERS was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. After graduating college, Jeff drove cross-country and wandered aimlessly for a while, but the peculiar siren call of New Jersey (a delicious mixture of chromium, cut grass, and indolence) brought him back to his homeland. He worked as an editorial assistant at a medical/science publisher in New York City. In 1995 Jeff began publishing his own magazine, The Inner Swine (www.innerswine.com). He’s created a Web site specifically for this book: http://www.the-electric-church.com.

Look out for Jeff Somers’ The Digital Plague.

When I handed my gorgeous wife, Danette, this manuscript, seeking her usual wisdom and necessary support, she wrinkled her nose and said, “I don’t usually read this stuff, do I have to?” But when she brought it back to me she slammed it down on my desk and said, “This is the one that’ll make you famous!” and, as always, my beloved and cherished wife was right. I couldn’t do anything without her.

When I was a kid and I segued from wanting to be a brain surgeon (too much math) to wanting to be a rock star (too little musical ability) to wanting to be a writer (a terrible, terrible mistake), my parents not only allowed it but encouraged it, and that has made all the difference. Although I suspect my sainted mother has had some regrets.

When I was but a lad with few, if any, impressive credits on my CV and I had the temerity to submit a novel to amazing agent Janet Reid, she not only refused to believe the Internet rumors about me but signed me up despite a typo-riddled manuscript and a noted tendency toward drink. She’s offered nothing but brilliant guidance and affectionate verbal abuse since, both much appreciated.

When fate put me in touch with the ultra-talented Lili Saintcrow and she began editing the original manuscript of this book, she did not flee in horror, trailing lame excuses, as she would have been justified in doing, but instead improved the book immensely. She took such a liking to it that she said, “Hey, let me show this to my editor,” and I’ll always be indebted to her for that act of generosity.

When that editor, the megacool Devi Pillai, received the manuscript she not only bought it, thus making me incrementally richer and more famous than I had been, she also overlooked the many flaws in my personality and worked diligently to raise the book from a mere work of genius to a work of immense genius. Her brilliancies often flabbergast me-I’m supposed to be the smart one.

When my first novel was published some years ago, the editor of my local newspaper (and celebrated novelist in her own right) Caren Lissner cheerfully dispatched a reporter to interview me, and has shown me support ever since, for which I am grateful.

Back in my school days, spent watching TV in a windowless apartment and scientifically testing the limits of human endurance, my friends Ken West and Jeof Vita never made fun of me when I told people I was a writer, though of course they made fun of me for plenty of other things, beginning with the unfortunate mullet I sported back then, and their friendship is still valued today.

At the same time, when few people took me seriously as a writer, I went over to my old friend RA’s house and found the first cover of my magazine The Inner Swine on her fridge, which touched me greatly. And she still acknowledges my friendship, which is even more unbelievable.