The Prey of Gods

by Nicky Drayden

  So I blessed the crab and gulped him down with one bite, all except for one of his claws. With my new burst of energy, I carved a hole in the first tree’s chest and placed the claw at the heart, and immediately she sprang to life, laughing and dancing and singing.

  “I am so happy to be alive!” my crab-tree wife told me, and that night I lay with her, and she blessed me with the first of many children.

  We were happy, my wife and children and I, and for a thousand years, I forgot about my other tree wives I’d left on the riverbank. But one night, I had a dream about the five of them, all lined in a row and looking sad and pitiful. Not quite trees, not quite women. Each night, after I’d satisfied my crab-tree wife, I’d sneak off to the river. For months I’d work on a single detail, the curve of my second wife’s lips, until finally I forgot all about my crab-tree wife and spent the entire day there without eating.

  Months passed, and when I was weak and about to die, a peacock waddled up to me and said, “Mr. Tau, I’ve been watching you for months, and I am in awe of your creation. Her beauty is unmatched on this earth, and I could not bear for her to go unfinished. Please, Mr. Tau, you are weak. Eat of my flesh. I would be grateful.”

  So I blessed the peacock and swallowed him whole, all except a single feather. With my new burst of energy, I carved a hole in the second tree’s chest and placed the feather at the heart, and immediately she sprang to life.

  We were happy, my peacock-tree wife and children and I, and I forgot about my other tree wives I’d left on the riverbank, and my crab-tree wife I’d left alone with our children. Until I had another dream.

  Each time I nearly died but was saved in the nick of time by a dolphin, then a rat, then a serpent, then an eagle. After six thousand years, I had six thousand children, each and every one with the power of gods. Those descended from the eagle could fly, and those from the peacock had beauty that made the others weep. The serpents could charm, and the rats could manipulate without being seen. The dolphins ruled with their intelligence. The poor crabs came up empty though, and with competitive siblings, they often found themselves at the receiving end of pranks and practical jokes. I took pity on my crab children. They became my favorites, and I granted them each the power to bend the others’ will.

  With this shift of power, it wasn’t long before sibling rivalry turned deadly. Brothers and sisters fought and killed each other, and my heart broke every time one of my children fell at another’s hand. I tried to control them, but together, they were too powerful. Only when there were six left did I have the ability to put them to sleep. And in their dreams, I wiped their memories, made them forget. But I could not deny them completely of what made them my children, nor could I erase the birthright of the animal spirits they’d inherited from their mothers. So I let them keep their powers, but I hid them so deeply that they’d never find them, and so it has been ever since.

  In her vision, Sydney had seen crabs and dolphins and peacocks and rats and serpents and eagles, not physical manifestations, but hallucinations caused by a drug. They were memories, Sydney knew. Memories hidden for countless generations within these humans’ DNA. And those two inconsequential gene sequences affected by the dik-dik virus, those are like the safety switches holding back humanity’s true potential. Chaos will rule once again, 8.7 billion descendants of demigods warring together on this planet.

  And that means there will be fear.

  There will be lots of it.

  Chapter 14

  Muzi

  Well, it happened, and now his corneas might be permanently fused. He should have knocked, but when the tip of your penis feels like someone lit it on fire, and your bladder’s about to burst from trying to avoid anything that involves making use of that general area, and your great-grandmother decides she wants to take a cold bath in the middle of the afternoon . . . well, put that all together and it’s just screaming for trouble, isn’t it?

  So he saw her. All of her. In the flesh. Including some little bits and pieces that he’d only thought grew on the undersides of old battleships. But even walking in on his naked grandmother isn’t more frightening than the thought of talking to Elkin. Really talking, not like the past half-dozen conversations they’d had, the calls lasting an average of five seconds, and consisting of Muzi apologizing and Elkin getting exponentially more creative with cuss words.

  He’s got to go over there, though the thought of walking that far sends a chill up his spine. Ice packs can do only so much. Then he remembers that little vial Elkin had given him.

  He snorts a lot, probably more than he should, but it works, and he’s a crab again. Muzi scuttles down the hall, trying to look nonchalant in case anyone sees him, then he’s out the door. Two of his girl cousins, Molly and Daphne, are playing in the front yard, both in pigtails and matching dresses though they’re two years apart. They squeal as he passes. At first Muzi thinks that maybe his hallucination isn’t a hallucination after all, but then he remembers that his cousins squeal at just about anything.

  “Penis! Penis! Penis!” says Molly, the younger of the two. “My mum said you had a penis!”

  Muzi glowers, then shakes his crab head. That’s Auntie Lindi for you, explaining circumcisions to a six-year-old. But when you’ve got three kids, sometimes it’s just best to answer their questions candidly and deal with the fallout later. Especially with Molly. She’s never met a question she was too shy to ask. All talk and no filter.

  “Molly,” Daphne scolds, arms crossed over her chest. Eight going on thirty-eight. “You shouldn’t say that word to boys.”

  “Muzi’s not a boy, he’s my cousin.”

  “I’m a man,” Muzi muses, and he’ll be damned if anyone tries to tell him otherwise.

  “Did it hurt when they chopped your penis off?” Molly says in all seriousness, now. And then her eyes grow wider. “What did that man cut it with? A scissors? We got a scissors we use at school, but it’s not like Mum’s scissors, because you know why? They’re too sharp for little kids, but you know what?” And wider. “You want me to bring my scissors next time I come? In case your penis grows back? Will it grow back? Just like hair grows back? Or will it stay cut off like Mr. Jacob’s arm?”

  “You know what Mum said about talking to Mr. Jacob about his arm,” Daphne says, giving Molly a stern look. “Well, you shouldn’t talk to Muzi about his penis getting cut off because it’s not nice to remind people that they’re handicapped.”

  “What?” Muzi says, their nonsense cutting through his buzz. The pressure in his loins rears its head.

  Molly shrugs her sister off. “Well, Muzi, can I see it at least? Mum wouldn’t let us in the tent because she said we was girls, but you know what she always says, too? That girls can do anything boys can do, so don’t you think I should be able to see it?”

  “No!” Muzi throws his claws up. “Why don’t you go play by yourself, Molly, and stop asking me questions!”

  And with that, Molly turns, goes down the stone walkway, and starts drawing hopscotch lines on the pavement with a piece of white rock. Daphne and Muzi exchange flabbergasted looks. Never since he’d first met Molly had he ever seen her do anything that involved being quiet. A colicky infant crying nonstop, a two-year-old whose vocabulary consisted only of the words no and mine, a four-year-old who loved to make up fairy tales about pink horses on the spot and tell them to you whether you were listening or not, and now with the questions, questions, questions.

  “How did you do that?” Daphne whispers as if she’s afraid she’ll ruin the silence. Poor Daphne. Muzi only has to spend major holidays and birthdays with Molly, and that’s bad enough, but Daphne’s the one who has to share a room with the girl.

  Muzi shrugs. “Lucky, I guess. Maybe she ran out of questions.”

  “She never runs out of questions.”

  “That’s true. Maybe we should enjoy the moment while it lasts.”

  “It’s so nice to hear my own thoughts,” Daphne says, then sits down cross-legged in
the grass.

  “I’ll leave you to them then.” Muzi clicks his claws together. “Hey, do I look any different to you?”

  “Shhhh . . .” Daphne tilts her head up, enjoying the breeze, the sunshine, the quiet.

  Fair enough. Muzi skitters across the pavement, and when he’s gone a few houses down, white light flashes from behind his eyes, the kind you get from looking at the sun. There’s a small something in his mind that hadn’t been there before, the tiniest bit of grief for a hamster he’d never seen, accidentally squished in a game of bed hopping.

  “I shouldn’t have let him out of his cage,” Muzi says, phlegm catching in the back of his throat. The feeling subsides, but the memory of it is still there. Two sisters, bouncing from bed to bed, and a beloved pet caught in the cross fire.

  Muzi shakes the thought, hops Elkin’s wood fence, and knocks on Elkin’s window, careful so his claws don’t shatter the glass.

  “Go away,” Elkin says, voice muted by the pane.

  “Please, let me in. We need to talk.”

  “I don’t have a word to say to kak-lipped skunk fuckers.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Eat a dick.”

  “Elkin . . .”

  And then there’s quiet and an awful lot of it, though in the distance, he can hear Molly starting up again with her ceaseless chatter. That’s life for you, right? He can get a girl to zip her lips, but he can’t get the one person he really wants to talk to to say a peep. Just doesn’t seem fair. Hell. Well, he’s all the way over here, now. Might as well make the most of it. He goes to the edge of the pool and dips one of his crab legs in. Oh, it’s frigid, but a numb body might be just what he needs right now.

  When the godsend wears off, he’s going to regret this, but he hops in anyway and does a couple laps. Water passes across his carapace, as cool and slick as silk sheets. Muzi imagines himself in the ocean, admiring coral reefs, scavenging for a snack, making underwater music with the click of his claws. Really, he’s hoping to piss Elkin off enough that he’ll come outside, and then maybe after he’s done cussing, they could talk about things.

  “Elkin, come out here, dof. I know you’re watching.” Muzi kicks down into the depths of the pool, then settles on his imaginary ocean floor and pretends to dig holes into the sand, looking for worms. He’s actually got a craving for them. His little crab heart quivers at the thought of living flesh passing his lips, but his crab stomach quickly overrides his vegetarian tendencies. And it feels so . . . right. Maybe he’s always been a crab, caught between land and sea, between cultures, between this world and the next. It seems like he’s been underwater forever, but his crab lungs don’t seem to mind. Still, it might be the drugs screwing with him, and he could be drowning for all he knows. So he swims back up to the surface, delighted to see Elkin standing there at the edge of the pool in faded jeans and a Duffy Live concert T-shirt. The real Elkin, not the porpoise.

  “Hey,” Muzi mumbles in the kind of way that says I’m sorry for being such a giant asswad in not so many words. Elkin stands there, eyes distant. Mind distant. But at least he hasn’t walked away. Muzi props his claws up on the pool’s ledge. His body and legs float buoyantly along the water’s surface. Yesterday was such an intense mix of emotions and experiences, he doesn’t even know where to start. Might as well just say what’s in his heart, and if Elkin decides he wants to kick his teeth in, so be it. “You’re my best friend, Elkin, going on ten years. You know me better than anyone else on this planet, and I’m sorry if I sound like a cake, but that means a whole hell of a lot to me. If you want to go and forget that yesterday ever happened, I’m fine with that. But if you want to push through, and deal with it and shit, I’m open to that, too.”

  Elkin stands there, motionless. Emotionless.

  Muzi slaps his claw against the water, soaking Elkin’s jeans from the knees down.

  “Damn it, Elkin. Say something!”

  “Something,” Elkin says flatly.

  “Very funny. I spill my guts and you go and make a joke about it. Let’s just forget it then, okay? That’s what’s easier.” Muzi holds a claw to each temple and makes buzzing sounds like he’s got mind control. “Okay, Elkin, yesterday never happened. Now go ahead and get in the pool, bru. No use in me freezing my ass off all by myself.”

  Elkin lifts his right foot and steps into the water, almost as if he were expecting a solid surface, but then sinks straight down to the bottom. Muzi laughs at first, but panic sobers him up when he sees Elkin isn’t moving at all. Muzi swims down, grabs him in his arms, then kicks back up to the surface, struggling under Elkin’s heft. They break the surface long enough for Muzi to catch a mouthful of air, and then down they go again.

  “Swim, damn it!” Muzi says, his voice a spray of air bubbles underwater. Elkin starts to kick, weakly but enough, and together they make their way to the pool’s edge. Elkin isn’t breathing. With everything he’s got left, Muzi hoists his best friend out of the water.

  Hard, ragged shivers run through Muzi’s body as he looks down at Elkin, wishing he hadn’t bunked school the week his health class covered CPR. He presses his lips against Elkin’s cold, blue ones and breathes three strong breaths, even though Muzi barely has breath to call his own. He then pounds Elkin’s chest with a doubled fist. “I swear, I’ll kill you if you bladdy die on me!”

  Elkin’s head lolls to the side and he coughs out an unseemly amount of water. He blinks his eyes a few times, as if risen from a dream, then he begins to shiver.

  “Let’s get inside before we both catch pneumonia.” Muzi helps Elkin to his feet.

  “Shit, man. You’ve gotta try this new stuff Rife gave me,” Elkin says through chattering teeth. “This stuff is prime. Seriously, they could cut your whole dick off tonight and you wouldn’t give a rat’s puckered ass.” He scratches his head and looks down at his sopping clothes, then cackles. “I can’t even remember how I got out here!”

  “Yeah, yeah. I think we’ve both had enough godsend for one weekend.”

  “So you’ve tried it?”

  Muzi rolls his eyes and props the screen door open with his elbow as he guides Elkin inside. Okay, so they’re definitely forgetting about yesterday. Completely. Yeah, it hurts a bit, but whatever. He’ll play along. “Ja, I’ve tried it. Hallucinations. No inhibitions. Makes you do stuff you’ll probably regret for the rest of your life.”

  “I was a fucking purpose, man! You should have seen me.”

  “Porpoise, idiot. Yesterday never happened. I get it. Now stop acting like an ass.”

  “Friday never happened? What’s so bad about Friday?”

  “Saturday. Saturday never happened.”

  “But it’s happening right now.”

  “Today’s Sunday, Elkin.”

  “No way! That means . . .” Elkin stares at Muzi’s crotch and pantomimes scissors with his fingers. “I missed it? Man, I was going to surprise you with balloons and everything. Sorry. It’s really Sunday?” He scratches his head again. “I’ve blacked out before, but I’ve never lost a whole day.”

  Muzi’s heart drops to his gut. What if Elkin isn’t playing? Maybe he’d hit his head on the side of the pool, or his brain had been starved too long of oxygen, or maybe his drug use had finally killed one too many brain cells, or . . .

  No.

  The flash behind his eyes comes again, this time more intense. There’s fear, fear so acute that Muzi nearly vomits. A fist comes at him so fast he doesn’t have time to see who’s behind it. It connects right below his eye, and all at once his brain rings out with pain. “You no good piece of shit,” says the man behind the fist, and though Muzi is too dazed to see straight, he recognizes it as Elkin’s father. The scene fades, but the fear sticks. Muzi grabs Elkin tight in his arms and doesn’t let go. He remembers the shiner Elkin had a few months ago. Said he’d got it at rugby practice, Ray Collin’s sharp elbow had caught him in the ruck as they scrambled for a loose ball.

  “What the hell are you doing,
Muzi?” Elkin squirms in his grip.

  Something’s wrong. Something’s terribly wrong. He’d somehow linked to his cousin’s memories, and now Elkin’s. He’d made Molly play quiet by herself and made his best friend forget what had been the most intimate moment of Muzi’s sixteen years of life. And if he can make a person forget about that, he can make them forget about anything.

  A smidge of guilt returns, but this time it’s all his own, because once Muzi figures out how to control his new gift, he knows he’ll never want to stop.

  Chapter 15

  Riya Natrajan

  Riya Natrajan lingers under her sheets, fighting and twisting and turning, avoiding the sunlight seeping through her eyelids. Her alarm clock goes off for the third time, and again she smacks it. She’s left in the quiet of her thoughts. Her body feels strange, light, cottony. But her mind is her own, not gaffed or buzzed or high.

  She sits bolt upright, covers slipping off, her negligee a whisper against her skin. The air is cool enough to stand the hairs on her neck on end. Riya Natrajan feels the gentle tremors of her heavy-footed neighbors up at the crack of dawn. The slight sway on the sixty-fifth floor of this luxury hotel sits softly in her gut. She feels a dozen things, but for the first time in almost two decades, pain isn’t one of them.

  And it makes her uncomfortable.

  Riya Natrajan dials her manager on the hotel’s phone—yes, she still actually uses one—then draws her covers up and over her chest. Nothing he hasn’t seen on a dozen occasions, but this time of morning, these things are best left to discretion. The line rings. Adam picks up, deep, rough circles under his eyes from their hectic night of last-minute concert changes.

  “Hey, love,” his voice scratches. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  She pauses. What’s she supposed to say? He doesn’t know about her multiple sclerosis—Adam, who she’s entrusted with her career, life, and even her heart a few times. But she can’t actually share this miracle, not with him. Not with anyone.