The Prey of Gods

by Nicky Drayden

  “We must stay vigilant,” Felicity Lyons says, still in her bedazzling concert ensemble, and in a voice commanding attention and respect. She speaks to the crowd gathered along the bridge of the Boardwalk, a vid bot slowly circling overhead, catching her speech from all angles. “These terrorists want us to be afraid. They want us to doubt our own eyes, our own minds. They want us to cower from these visions, from these hallucinations, but we will not. If we cannot believe with our minds, and if we cannot believe with our eyes, then we will have to believe with our hearts! We have not worked this hard toward unity to have it stripped from us by this cowardly menace. Together, we will stand strong! And we will fight back!” Felicity pumps her fist into the air. The crowd roars. Bioterrorism is such a tidy culprit, but in truth, she’s not sure what’s real and what’s not anymore. Her head is spinning from the implausibility of it all. Felicity blinks. Tries not to look directly at that woman in the crowd who’s starting to look a lot like a dolphin, or that guy who’s got a spray of iridescent peacock feathers rising out of his chinos.

  The crowd’s allegiance goes quickly to panic, their eyes all darting up to the sky. Felicity turns and sees her—that demon and her devil spawn flapping their wings. Coming this way. Felicity steadies her stance, her resolve.

  “Stay calm,” she says to the crowd and to the millions watching at home on television. “Stay vigilant. The only way they can hurt us is if we let them.”

  It’s just a hallucination, right? But since when did hallucinations get wardrobe changes? As the demon nears, Felicity sees she’s dressed in a Brie Montblanc original now. How about that? And her minions appear to be Zed hybrid crosses—lion, rhinoceros . . . hawk, maybe? If Felicity wasn’t so scared for her life right now, she would have let her mind get tangled up in the violation of Parliament’s tight restrictions on the gene manipulation of big game animals. But ZenGen Industries has deep pockets and has funded its share of political campaigns. So when rumors start spreading about their tampering with protected species and even the human genome, people tend to look the other way. Though now, Felicity can only look forward, into the seven pairs of predatory eyes glaring down at her.

  Closer.

  All Felicity can see is talons and glitter, and then she’s scooped up along with her vid bot as the rest of the crowd scatters. Her stomach slips all the way to her feet as the demon rises with Felicity in her clutches. But she refuses to give in to terror.

  “Nice dress,” Felicity says instead, though her words are ripped away by the wind.

  “It’s quite lovely, isn’t it?” the demon says in return. “Backless. Perfect for the demigoddess on the go.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Felicity says, keeping the fear out of her voice as she turns to watch those wings flap, like hundreds of shimmering whips snapping at the cool air in unison. So either this is the most incredible hallucination she’s ever had, or this demon is for real. Felicity’s mind settles on the former, only because it’ll be easier for her to keep from passing out. “So you want something from me, I take it,” she says carefully. “Seeing that I’m still alive.”

  “The people listen to you. I want you to be my voice so they can know the real me.”

  “I think you’ve done a good job of communicating that yourself. Because of you, hundreds are dead.”

  “A small price to pay for unleashing the truth.”

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t have agreed,” Felicity says, gritting her teeth. “Were you responsible for the attack on the township, too? Was that just another ‘small price’?”

  The demon laughs, deep and throaty, and it grates against Felicity’s spine. “If I had that type of power, I wouldn’t need you to convince the people that I’m their savior.”

  “Oh, so that’s all you want me to do? I imagined you had something difficult in mind.” Felicity feels the grip on her loosen. She starts slipping. “Okay, okay!” she shouts, clutching onto a manicured talon.

  “If you only knew your true potential, you’d understand why I’m doing this.” The demon swoops down through a crowded street. Screams ring out in chorus. “The flock needs to be culled, the weak disposed of and the strong taught how to tap into the gifts they’ve been denied. Mediocrity can no longer be tolerated.” And with that, she lets out a whistle, and the Zed hybrid beasts break formation and plunge directly into the crowd. Felicity closes her eyes, but the screams penetrate her brain, bidding her to watch the carnage.

  There’s blood. Lots of it, but none of it appears to be from human victims. The beasts target dik-diks meandering through the streets, striking out and clamping their fangs into their brown fuzzy necks, like programmed killers. Two crunches, and the dik-diks are swallowed whole, before the beasts move on. In the span of a few minutes, the streets are clear, not a dik-dik in sight—just a handful of petrified people.

  The beast woman lands among them, and keeps Felicity drawn close, though Felicity is so wobbly on her legs right now, it’s probably a good thing. Thoughts are forced directly into Felicity’s mind, at first like a nudge, and then when she doesn’t comply, like a kick to the pulp of her brain.

  Tell them of me, the beast woman says. Tell them of how I provided for them when their government could not.

  Felicity winces as something pops inside her brain. She bites her lip. If her words really are as powerful as this demon woman thinks, as Mother thinks, then she’s sure as hell not going to use them for evil.

  Fine. If you insist on doing this the hard way . . .

  Extreme agony strikes, like Felicity’s got a dozen molten iron hooks clamping around her brain as the demon woman shoves her aside to the dark recesses of her mind, then takes Felicity’s body for a test drive.

  The demon takes a wide, comfortable stance, tosses the hair out of Felicity’s face, then clears her throat.

  “My people . . .” The words surge forth, rippling across Felicity’s tongue, but she has no control of them. “What you have witnessed is an act of benevolence. In a matter of weeks, all dik-diks will have been eradicated from the city at no cost except for your patience. And if you are thankful for this action, if you are grateful not to have to step carefully down the pavement, to not worry about being accosted by dik-diks while you sit on a park bench during your lunch break, or seeing your car insurance premiums skyrocket from hitting one of the buggers on the expressway . . . then please let your friendly neighborhood demigoddess know.”

  Felicity’s hand reaches out in introduction. The demon steps forward and folds her wings behind her so that they loom impressively. She draws her talons in so that they’re only half as threatening.

  A couple of people clap timidly, but she smiles as if she’s received a standing ovation. She primps a moment for the vid bot, then angles it to capture the picturesque view of the scenery behind: Victorian-style storefronts and cobbled streets, with wrought-iron streetlamps filtering their light through the canopy of mature oak trees lining the sidewalk. It’s upscale, but not unapproachable. Welcoming, in fact.

  “No doubt you have questions,” the demon says, her words buoyant and practiced. Felicity knows a political speech when she hears one. “But these are not new questions brought on by my presence. These are the questions you’ve been struggling with for the entirety of your lives. You want to know if there’s more to life than trudging through the day to day. You want to know the purpose of your existence, if there’s anyone out there who appreciates the sacrifices you make for the good of others, who applauds your moral victories that often go unnoticed and unappreciated. Well, know this: I appreciate you.” She steps forward into the small group of people and reaches out with her hand. A man falters, backpedals, but the demon calms him as she presses her hand against his forehead. “You,” she says. “You work hard to support your four children. You stay with your wife, though you know she’s been unfaithful, so your family can remain intact. It eats you up inside. It’s killing you slowly, and yet the love you receive in your children’s laughs, the
ir smiles, it fuels you. Especially from your youngest, Beka.”

  The man looks startled, shakes his head, but then he loses it and turns to a blubbering mess. The demon pulls him in, allows him to weep on her shoulder.

  “You must forgive her. She is a good woman who made a mistake. If you allow this to consume you, your children will lose you just the same. Do you understand?”

  The man nods slowly, wiping away his tears.

  She’s good, Felicity thinks. But she’s seen what this demon is truly capable of, what’s in her true heart. She knows what the demon could do if she had real power, and Felicity has to do everything possible to stop her from getting it. Felicity knows the people will listen, but she can’t move, can’t talk, which presents a bit of a dilemma. The only thing she has to fight with is what’s left of her mind. She puts aside the anger, the judgment, and absorbs the depths of the demon woman’s being. She feels her desire, her longing. This day has been brewing in her heart for decades, centuries even. This scares Felicity, but she doesn’t look away. She imagines the hardships the demon woman has endured, the continuous hiding of who she really is. The connections she’s had to make with people over and over again, only to repeatedly watch those she’d loved pass away until death lost its meaning.

  You’re afraid to let anyone into your heart, Felicity thinks to her. You don’t have to be.

  “You think you know me?” the demon growls under her breath. The grip tightens so abruptly that Felicity convulses. “You don’t even know who you are. What you are!”

  Felicity cowers back into the shadowy depths of her mind. How was she supposed to know? Every time she starts to discover who she is, someone or another stirs up the contents of her brain. But the real her is still in here, somewhere. Covered up and buried, but not erased. She’ll find it, if it’s the last thing she does.

  She concentrates, focused on all the little nooks and crannies of her memories, searching for something. She’s not sure what, but she senses she’s getting closer. Closer.

  So close . . .

  A familiar hard slap against the inside of her thigh jerks Felicity back to the present. Of all the times for her tuck to come undone! After the last rush job and subsequent wardrobe malfunction at the audition, Felicity had gone through more than enough athletic tape and nylon to keep this from happening again—even after all the sweat and friction from three full dance sequences and being carried halfway across the city by a deranged flying demon.

  Perhaps not surprisingly, no one notices the bulge at the front of her dress. Some time ago, maybe even as recently as thirty minutes ago, this would have been headline news or at least garnered a hearty round of laughter at her expense. Felicity takes some comfort in that, for once, she’s free to just exist without outside pressures and expectations. Exactly how long this existence will last, well, that’s still to be determined.

  Just be, Felicity thinks, holding on to each second as if it were her last. Just be yourself . . .

  The swell between her legs lengthens, inching down her thigh, to her knees. Felicity tries to angle her head so she can see it, but her gaze is kept pointed toward the crowd. They’ve noticed it, too, now. But there’s no laughter. Not even a snicker. Just wide, terrified eyes.

  And hissing.

  Not hissing from the crowd, but from her crotch. Finally, she sees it—the meter-long cape cobra rising up to eye level, hood fully displayed, fangs glistening and ready to pierce flesh. Felicity doesn’t question why there’s a snake there; she just thinks about the possibilities of it. Over the course of her terms, Felicity has learned a thing or two about cape cobras. One bite has enough venom to kill six people. She wonders how much it would take to kill a demon.

  She wills the snake to strike. Right at the demon’s jugular.

  The demon panics, flexes her wings, unleashes her talons, and in that moment, the reins on Felicity loosen enough to get away. “Run for your lives!” she calls to the crowd, and like that, they snap from their trance, and flee in all directions.

  The demon is back upon her. Felicity retreats a step and watches as the demon woman’s mouth cleaves open, widening past human proportions. Her nose and upper lip fuse, becoming hard and sharp. A beak. She squawks, a shrill note that penetrates Felicity’s eardrums with pulsing pain, the snake hastily retreating to her nether regions. Felicity manages a smile, or perhaps a slightly less doomed wince as she continues to back up, step by step, no hope for rescue. She butts up against the trunk of a concrete-bound tree. She tries to turn and run, but Sydney’s talon clamps down around Felicity’s throat, pinning her in place.

  “Blood will be spilt for your foolishness,” she says, signaling her beasts with her free hand. They spring forward on their muscled haunches, hovering a meter above the pavement, snarling and drooling. “I’ll give them a taste for human flesh and then we’ll see how long it takes for you people to come begging for mercy.”

  Felicity wants so badly to turn around, but she’s stuck staring into the demon’s dark eyes. In them, she can make out something of a reflection: the canopy of the oaks lining the street rising higher and higher. Windows shatter out of nearby buildings. Whispers of rustling foliage prickle the hairs along her neck.

  Then Felicity remembers from childhood those times when she and her friends used to sneak out into the woods to smoke dagga or to fool around, or to simply take a break from the world. And no matter what, no matter how careful they were covering their tracks, Mother always found out. When confronted, Mother only said that her intuition was well rooted, which hadn’t drawn a second thought at the time. Now it makes a lot more (literal) sense. The trees have eyes. Or ears. Either way, now, Felicity needs help once again, but this time she’s humble enough to ask for it.

  “Mother!” she calls out.

  The ground rumbles.

  The beasts screech and scatter like a flock of pigeons, and the demon takes to the air as well, with Felicity in tow. As the demon rises above the canopy, vines whip out like lassos. After a couple of misses, one of them successfully coils around the demon’s leg, knotting upon itself as it reels her back down. In that moment, Felicity’s stomach slips out from beneath her, and she’s falling, seconds from hitting the ground, not even enough time to watch her life flash before her eyes. But oak branches gather together beneath her like an outstretched hand, and she lands among them. Even as she puts together what has happened, leaves broaden and affix themselves to her wounds.

  “Dear, are you all right?” comes Mother’s voice, a rustle of leaves.

  Felicity nods her head like an impetuous child, as if she could have figured out a way to land on her own without cracking her skull.

  Above in the canopy, the fight ensues. The beasts dive-bomb Mother, tearing chunks of bark from her trunk with their talons, trying to free the demon from the tightening cocoon of foliage. Mother pays them no mind, her focus clearly aimed upon the real threat. It seems like the demon woman doesn’t have much time left for this world, when strangely, static picks up in the air, and storm clouds rapidly converge above in dreary, gray swirls. As if distracted by the sudden change in air pressure, two of the beasts go down, impaled by sharp branches.

  Lightning cracks above, arching from cloud to cloud, and immediately afterward, thunder boasts of its power. There’s something odd about the lightning, like it’s accumulating, like it’s not random at all, but purposeful. Felicity dives out of the way, right as a streak of bluish-white light erupts from the cloud, snaps through the air, and for a blinding moment, the world stands still. It was a distraction, but one not meant for the beasts—they were merely collateral damage. As Felicity’s vision returns, and as the world congeals, she sees the burnt scar gouging through her mother’s trunk. The tangled knot of vines that held the demon captive is splayed open, and empty. Felicity runs toward the tree and gathers up an armful of singed bark as lightning continues to crackle overhead.

  “Mother!” she screams out.

  “It’s not safe fo
r you here,” Mother says. “She’s too strong. I can’t fight her much longer. Go while you still can.”

  “I can’t leave you! I need you.”

  “You’re your own person, now, dear. Destined for greatness.” Leaves reach down and stroke Felicity’s cheek. “You see that now, and I’ve done my job.” She pushes her daughter away. Thunder rolls from above. “I know I’ve never said it, but I’m proud of you. Go, dear. Hurry.”

  Felicity shakes her head, tries to run back to her mother, but a bolt of lightning strikes the ground between them, sending Felicity flying. She lands, rough concrete scraping the skin off her elbows and legs, head clacking against the curb. Dazed, she watches the battle: vines and branches versus wings and claws . . . and lightning.

  The demon calls forth the fury of the heavens. Bolts pound into Mother, one after another, until nothing but a petrified trunk remains jutting into the sky. The demon recalls her remaining beasts with a shrill whistle, and they jet off into the whirling clouds.

  The next breeze brings a tangle of vines across the pavement. They dance at Felicity’s feet, charred at the edges and caught in a miniature vortex. She’s worn and beaten, but above the ringing in her ears, above the pain still echoing in her brain, Felicity hears her mother’s voice whispering to her. I love you.

  Chapter 42

  Muzi and Nomvula

  The chill of the night air has stolen most of the warmth from Elkin’s body. Still, Muzi keeps him clutched close, as if Elkin is only sleeping and at any moment he’ll wake up, yawn, then go on being his usual asshole self.

  “He is in a better place,” Nomvula’s voice pierces through the darkness of the supply closet. There’s not a whole lot of room in here, and they’re all practically sitting on top of one another.

  “I want him here,” Muzi says, his words not tasting like his own. Something inside him has died, too. He trusts no one, especially not this little girl. Her clammy hand presses against his arm. Tears tug at the corners of Muzi’s eyes, trying to escape. He won’t let them.