by Brom
“We don’t have enough,” Mary said, the panic growing in her voice.
Chet’s hand went to his jacket pocket, pulled out the silver spike of god-blood.
Mary’s eyes fixed on the spike. “How?” Without waiting for an answer, she snatched it, started to give it to the Red Lady, when Veles let out a garbled wail, his eyes also fixed on the spike.
Mary hesitated, clearly weighing what to do; finally she snapped the spike in half, giving one piece to the Red Lady, handing the other to Chet. Chet fed it to Veles.
“It’s helping,” Mary said, her voice full of relief. “By the Wyrd, it is.”
Indeed, the Red Lady’s wounds began to heal, the blood slowing to a trickle.
“Now let’s pray it’s enough to stop the bleeding.” Mary looked at Chet, the gem in her forehead slowly losing its glow. “It’s Chet? Right?”
Chet nodded.
“Sorry I was cross,” Mary said. “The Red Lady’s not like them, not like the gods. She’s divine, but still mortal. Her heart pumps live blood.”
Chet noticed then, that despite Veles’s great wounds, there was very little blood. And it was different, with a silver glint to it.
Mary looked at the empty satchel in Chet’s hands. “We’ll repay you as soon as we can. You have my word.”
Chet shook his head. “I’d be swimming in the river right now if it wasn’t for you.”
Mary gave him a small smile, then looked at the blood on her hands. “She’s never been injured like this. Never been injured at all that I can recall.”
“More,” came a sputtering voice. It was Veles. His mouth had healed somewhat, at least enough for him to speak. The ghostly apparitions of his hands and hooves slowly appeared. “Bring me more,” he spat, his eyes full of fire. “Bring me—”
“We’ve given you all we have,” Mary interrupted. “Now calm yourself. Focus on healing.”
Veles’s face showed he didn’t care to be spoken to this way.
Two more women came running up the slope. Chet recognized one of them as Isabel, the young woman with the fiery temper. Their faces grew grim upon sight of the Red Lady and they rushed to her.
“What’s happened?” Isabel asked. “Oh, Lord, is she dying?”
“No,” Mary said, her voice resolute. “She is not dying. Now, do either of you have any ka?”
Isabel shook her head, but the other woman fished four coins from her pack. Mary fed them to the Red Lady, then began to examine the large wound on the sphinx’s chest. “It looks like a bullet wound.”
“The demon shot her,” Ana said.
“But she’s been shot before,” Isabel said. “Never made a scratch. I don’t understand.”
“Here, help me,” Mary said tersely. “Hold up her wing.”
Isabel held the wing while Mary examined it. She let out a relieved sigh. “These only hit feathers, not flesh. We need worry only about the bullet in her chest.” She dug into her satchel and retrieved a small knife. “Okay, Sekhmet. You will feel this.” Mary gently probed the wound. “Ah, there it is. It’s not too deep.” She pried out the bullet and wiped away the blood. “I’ve never seen one like this before.” She held it up for the Red Lady to see. “Have you?”
The Red Lady shook her head.
“Here,” Veles sputtered, sounding like a man without teeth. “Let me.” He held out his hand. It was solid now, but thin and frail. Mary sat the bullet in his palm and he examined it, not appearing pleased by what he saw. “This is new sorcery.” He tasted the tip. “Heaven gold.”
“From one of the Fallen?” Isabel asked.
“Yes. When the angels were cast down, their weapons fell with them. But great sorcery has been at play to melt this down and forge it so.” Veles grunted. “And even then, it should not have injured her. She is the Red Lady, the Eye of Ra, guardian of gods. There was a time when all on earth feared her tread. Man, angel, and demon alike.” He shook his head. “I fear there might be some truth to Yevabog’s words. That we are not what we once were and these demons . . . they sense it.”
“And you?” Mary asked. “How did you end up here? Like this?”
“Raiders and Green Coats,” he snarled. “Armed with muskets and a spear, a demon blade. They ambushed my caravan during celebration . . . slaughtering everyone they could.”
“They possess a demon blade?” Mary asked.
“I rode here with a sack upon my head,” Veles said. “My ears clogged with blood. Still I overheard enough to understand that they are in league with these demons. The muskets, the demon blade, they all came from Hell.”
Mary scanned the dead demons. “I see no markings, no insignia.”
“I heard the name Lord Kashaol spoken,” Veles said. “Have you heard of him?”
Mary and the Red Lady both shook their heads.
“Could be some low lord,” Mary said. “There are so many.”
“But is he acting alone?” Veles asked. “It is hard to imagine Lucifer would have a hand in this. He would not be so clumsy.”
“I thought there was some sort of pact in place,” Isabel said. “Between the ancients and Lucifer.”
Veles snorted. “Such things mean little now. When the angels first fell and were weak, the ancient gods, the true underworld gods like Hel, they drew lines in the dirt. Killed any demons who dared cross them. Now the gods rarely leave their temples. The Red Lady is the only one truly keeping the demons at bay.”
“Demons and souls fighting together against the gods.” Mary shook her head. “Can these souls not see they’re being played? If they think themselves miserable now, how do they think they will fare with demons for overlords?”
“No,” Isabel said, horrified. “Demons can’t rule over the river realms. The One Gods will never stand for that.”
“That is true,” Veles said. “The One Gods would stop them from ruling, but they would not stop them from killing every last one of us. We are nothing more than a nuisance to them. One they would just as soon disappear.”
“Let us go and find these godless men,” the Red Lady said, her words full of venom. “Hunt them down, every one, and send their ba to Mother Eye.”
“Neither of you will be doing much of anything,” Mary said. “Not until you heal. You need god-blood.”
“Lethe,” Veles said. “We go to Lethe. Lord Horkos will have god-blood. It is time for the gods to set aside our petty squabbles and purge the realm of this rabble.”
CHAPTER 64
Mary halted, waiting for the others. Ana stopped next to her, glanced back, watching Chet and the two sisters assist Veles up the slope. The Red Lady hobbled along behind them, her wing wrapped in a sling made from Mary’s cape; she refused to allow anyone to help her.
“Her blood is up,” Mary said. “She’s determined to make Lethe as soon as possible. But all will come to nothing if she kills herself trying.”
They topped the rise and there, far below, were nine carts being pulled along by forty or so women armed with swords and spears, their black robes fluttering in the strong wind. Several of the women ran up to meet Mary as she made her way down the slope. They were full of questions and concern upon seeing the Red Lady. Mary told them what had happened.
Infants and toddlers sat or stood in the carts. Ana guessed there to be at least a hundred all told, many of them crying. Mary walked around, lifting them out of the carts, cradling them. The gem in her forehead glowed a soft green as she spoke to them in a soothing voice, quieting them one by one.
Once Veles and the Red Lady caught up, they began to move out, the procession making its way along the valley, the wheels rattling over the black stones and dirt.
Mary lifted a crying infant out and handed it to Ana.
Ana cradled the child.
“Do you not recognize her?”
Ana looked again, realized she did. “Is it—?”
Mary nodded. It was one of the children Ana had brought across the ferry—the little girl. Ana began singing a soft h
ymn, one her mother used to sing to her. The child looked into Ana’s eyes and stopped crying, as did several of the other children nearby.
“You have a gift,” Mary said.
Ana tried not to think about how close this sweet-faced child came to drowning in that dark, awful river. And a horrible thought struck her. Is my baby, my little boy, is he here . . . somewhere? “Mary, why are these children here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean how did they end up in purgatory? They’re innocents. They couldn’t have done anything wrong. Why would God turn his back on them?”
“If by God, you mean the Christ god, then they aren’t his to do anything with.”
“I don’t get it.”
“What I’ve come to understand is that a god cannot just take a soul, nor can a demon for that matter. A soul must give itself over . . . to Jesus, to Buddha, Muhammad, Odin, and so on, to Satan even. A soul’s will is what makes it a soul. That is why the gods battle so fiercely for a soul’s devotion. Once a soul gives itself over, only then does that god have power over it. Does that make sense?”
“I guess so,” Ana said, but it didn’t, not really, not to her.
“By believing in Christ, they give their souls to Christ, to his rules, his dogma. If in the end he judges them unfit, then he can damn them, or just deny them Heaven’s kingdom, let them drift into purgatory. The irony is, if all those souls burning in Hellfire had never believed in Christ in the first place, then they’d never have ended up in Hell.”
Ana walked in silence for a while, trying to wrap her head around all that. “So the children, how do they fit in? They’re too young to give their souls to anyone. Right? Too young to make such a choice?”
“That’s exactly it. Those not baptized or claimed through similar rituals, they belong to no god. With none to claim them, they are lost, left behind.”
“But they never had a chance.”
“No, they didn’t.”
Ana’s baby had been baptized. Juan had insisted, even against her protest, and now she found herself thanking God he did. Tears sprang to her eyes at the mere thought of her little boy lost down here, crying for her. She hugged the little girl tightly to her bosom.
Mary was watching her. “You have a child? Had a child?”
Ana nodded.
“Purgatory is full of children in need of a mother.”
Ana thought that to be a strange sentiment. “Do they grow? I mean grow up down here? Or do they stay like this?”
Mary looked at her sadly. “They never grow up. Never understand what has happened to them.”
Ana nodded.
“But, they do bond. They want what any child wants . . . to be held, to be talked to, to be loved.”
“What’s going to become of these children?”
“That will be up to the river.”
“The river?”
“You will soon see.”
CHAPTER 65
What’s going on?” Hugo asked. “What do you see?”
“Nothing,” Carlos replied, scanning the hills with his telescope. They could see for miles from their perch atop the plateau.
“Those were gunshots back there, and that shriek. Don’t know how you couldn’t have heard that.”
“I heard it.”
“Over there,” Hugo said.
Carlos lowered the glass, squinted in the direction Hugo was pointing. “Where?”
“There. See? Near that cluster of rocks. There’s a bunch of them.”
Carlos saw several dark specks far down the valley among a maze of large boulders. He put the spyglass back to his eye. “Oh . . . shit, it’s them, the sisters and their little brats. What the hell are they doing out—holy fuck, he’s with them.”
“Who, who’s with them?”
“The kid, the one with the red hair. I think that’s him anyway.” Carlos handed the telescope over. “Here, look.”
“Yeah, that’s him all right, and that’s her.”
“Her?”
“The Red Lady. She’s there. She’s right fucking there. Looks like there’s something wrong with her.”
Carlos snatched the glass back, catching only a brief look at the sphinx before she disappeared behind the rocks. She was limping, and her wing was wrapped in some sort of sling.
“Did you see her?”
Carlos nodded.
“She looks pretty bad, huh?” Hugo said.
“Yeah, like maybe someone shot her up with some gold-tipped bullets.”
“You think?”
“I do.”
“I wonder how Kashaol fared.”
“Well,” Carlos said, “judging by the fact that she’s still here, I’d say not too well.”
“Man, I bet he wished he’d had the cannon. Might’ve stood a chance then.”
“This sure wasn’t in the plan,” Carlos said, wondering what they’d do if Lord Kashaol wasn’t in the picture anymore. Then it struck him that now that they had the cannon, had all those rifles, maybe having one less lord to answer too might not be such a bad thing. Things just got a little more interesting.
“Hey, maybe we should go after them?” Hugo said. “I mean if she’s hurt, y’know. Might be our best chance.”
“We’ve got six men.”
“I know, but we’ve also got that cannon.”
“We do, don’t we?”
Hugo nodded.
“I’d feel better with a troop of rifles backing me up. How about you?”
Hugo thought for a minute. “Yes, I guess I would.”
“That road leads to one place.” Carlos put the scope away and grinned. “What d’you say we go round up the Colonel and set up a little welcoming party for our friends in Lethe?”
Hugo grinned back.
CHAPTER 66
A sound, like a car door.
Trish opened her eyes, sat up clutching her head. She was dizzy, but at least she could move on her own accord again. She slid off the bed and over to the window, pulling the drape back, saw movement outside through the slats.
Voices.
That’s not Lamia.
She swayed, almost fainted, steadied herself, then grabbed the board, the one she’d loosened, tugged it free for a better look.
A heavyset woman in her early sixties, dressed in a mint green polyester dress suit, stood next to a white Chevy Impala. She was talking to someone in the passenger seat. The far door swung open and a young man—maybe in his late teens, a big kid, looked like a ballplayer—climbed out of the sedan holding a yellow Tupperware container.
The woman retrieved several pamphlets from the car as the boy came around. She gave him a smile, straightened his tie, and wiped dandruff off his navy blue suit jacket. Trish guessed by their nice clothes they were either on their way to, or maybe from, church. One thing she was sure of, if she ever intended to get out of here now was her chance.
Trish shoved the board beneath the second slat, tugged upward trying to pry it loose. The nails creaked and for a moment it looked as though it might pull free, then the slat, the one she was holding, snapped, causing her to crash into the wall.
She picked herself up, started to try again, when she saw Lamia walking down the path toward the lady and boy. The lady greeted Lamia with a large smile and began talking. Trish couldn’t make out the words, but could see by the way she waved her hands that she was very passionate about her message.
Lamia smiled back, but her body language was all nos and when the lady tried to hand her a pamphlet, Lamia refused.
Trish shoved the board beneath the slat again, tugged, but there wasn’t enough leverage. She put her full weight into it. The board slid out, throwing Trish into the wall again. A sharp pain shot down her arm and she let out a cry. She grabbed the board, tried to tug it free; it didn’t budge.
The lady, looking crestfallen, was heading back to her car now.
“No!” Trish cried. “No!” She banged the window. “Hey!” she screamed. “Hey, help me!”
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Lamia glanced her way, her face tense, but the lady appeared not to hear anything. The boy walked around and got back in the car, still holding the Tupperware container.
“No! Don’t you leave me!” Trish cried and slammed the slat into the window, shattering the glass.
They all looked her way.
“Help!” Trish screamed. “Help me!”
The woman stared at Trish, her face puzzled, and didn’t see the knife as Lamia pulled it from her sleeve. Lamia slashed the blade across the side of the lady’s neck. The pamphlets flew skyward, fluttering down as she fell atop the hood, clutching her neck, trying to stem the flow of blood gushing through her fingers.
Trish could see the boy’s face, how big his eyes were. He fumbled for the door handle and all but fell out. He made it to his feet, appearing unsure whether to help the lady or flee. Then he saw the two boys come out from behind the oak tree.
“Run!” Trish screamed. “Get out of here!”
The demons gave the boy their smile, the one with a hundred teeth, and leapt upon him. One sank its maw into the boy’s crotch. As the boy doubled over, the other tore into his neck, ripping his throat open.
Trish turned away, sliding down to the floor. She pressed her face into her hands and began to cry. A sudden sharp pain jabbed at her abdomen; she clutched her stomach. A few minutes later there came another jab, then another. It was the baby, she knew it, it was coming. “Oh, God,” she said. “Oh, dear God.”
CHAPTER 67
Gavin spotted the riders approaching the camp, coming on at a fast trot.
“They’re back,” the Colonel said, his voice ripe with relief.
Carlos rode in, hopped down from the saddle, his face alive with excitement. “We got it!” he called. “And she’s a beaut.”
Hugo followed in with the wagon, along with the rest of the Defenders looking dusty and trail-beaten.
A large group of Green Coats had arrived in camp from Styga while Carlos was away. Carlos’s face lit up when he saw them. “We got it!” he called, waving them over.
“Here, have a look, Colonel,” Carlos said, leading them all to the back of the wagon. He dropped the latch and unwrapped the long bundle sitting in the bed, revealing the weapon.