by E. A. Copen
I bumped into a solid wall of Nergal who had come to a sudden stop.
He glared at me over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised, then moved on to give Josiah an even more sour look. “It’s one thing to slight me, but disrespect my queen and—”
“You’ll hang us up to dry by our intestines. We get it already. You’re a scary badass god with a chip on his shoulder.” Josiah rolled his hand. “Can we just get on with it?”
A door on the other end of the room slammed open. “Nergal!” shouted a high-pitched feminine voice.
Nergal immediately went to one knee, head bowed. “My queen.”
When I was fifteen, and in high school, I cared about two things: music and girls. Back then, life was simple. If you listened to the right music, you could get the right girls. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t fit in with most crowds, but if I could’ve, I’d have gone for the goth girls. They were the girls most moms warned their boys to stay away from. Bad girls. Adventurous. Willing to try anything once, or so I’d heard. Not that they’d have given me the time of day. I was the wrong kind of nerd to attract that kind of attention.
But even the scariest goth girl had nothing on Ereshkigal. She came out of the back room in a deep purple satin corset and a ruffled black skirt. Her bangs matched the corset while the rest of her hair was jet black. She wore it in messy layers that trailed down just past her shoulders. And man, did she have a figure. She stopped after a few steps when she saw us.
“Kneel,” Nergal commanded.
Didn’t have to tell me twice, especially not in that tone. I went down to my knees followed closely by Josiah.
“These are our visitors?” Ereshkigal’s smile dripped into her tone. “Which one is which? Well? What’s the matter? Demon got your tongue?” She moved in a blur to reappear in front of me. Her gloved hand shot out and gripped my chin firmly, forcing my head up so that I could see her face.
“The Pale Horseman, my love,” Nergal announced.
“Not bad,” she said, jerking my head to the side. She pushed my face away hard enough I almost fell over. “I’ve seen better. And who’s this?” Ereshkigal reached to take Josiah’s face in her hand.
Josiah flinched away. “No offense, but I don’t like to be touched.”
Something gold sparked in Ereshkigal’s eyes. She extended a shaky hand over his head. “I don’t need to touch you to feel your power. So intoxicatingly tormenting. You and I could have a lot of fun. Just what are you?”
“He’s an asshole,” I answered. “And a really shitty wingman.”
Ereshkigal withdrew her hand and turned to face me, a cruel smirk on her ruby lips. “I watched you in Naraka, Horseman. I have to say your performance was unsatisfying.”
“I’m not here to impress anyone. I’m here for the key to the next gate. What do you want for it?”
“Oh, straight to the point. I like a man who knows what he wants.” She circled Nergal, brushing a hand against his shoulder. “I have the key, and I’m willing to grant both of you safe passage through my lands.”
“In exchange for?”
“Nothing much.” She shrugged.
Generally, when a deal sounds too good to be true, it is. I doubted she’d give up something so valuable for free. There had to be a price.
“In fact, I’ll walk you to the gate myself just as soon as I’ve freshened up.”
Nergal rose as the door opened a second time and two dustmen entered carrying a large tub. Several more followed after them carrying buckets of steaming water hooked on yokes. The first dustmen set down the tub, and the parade of bucket bearers filled it, sending plumes of steam to cloud the nearby stained-glass window.
I knew we were in trouble when she started taking things off. The heels went first, tossed off to the side of the room. She shimmied out of the skirt like a woman fully aware of her captive audience and loving every second of it. I glued my eyes to the floor.
“What’s the matter, Horseman?” Nergal asked. “You’ve averted your eyes. You don’t think my wife is worth looking at?”
“Where I come from, girls don’t like it when guys like me watch them undress. Not unless they’re doing it for money, usually.”
“Don’t stop on his account,” Josiah offered.
Nergal grabbed Josiah’s head with both hands. With a quick twist from that position, he could snap Josiah’s neck. He didn’t even need his god-like strength to do it. “My wife is not some whore on stage for your entertainment.”
Josiah grimaced as Nergal’s fingernails dug into his neck to draw blood. “You’re sending some mixed signals. D’ya want me to look or no? Because if I’m supposed to be watching, you’ll need to take a step to the left.”
The god snarled at him but let him go. “Look at her. Look how perfect she is. Better than anything you’ll ever have. Yet she was hidden away, cast out to hide in a land of dust and clay. Forgotten by gods and men alike. No one lives to sing her hymns. No one but me, and that is how I like it. I am a greedy god.”
“You’re a lucky god.” Josiah sighed and watched a naked Ereshkigal sink into her tub.
I cleared my throat. “Look, I hate to interrupt your bath, but I’m kind of on a time crunch. If I don’t get to Emma’s soul in time, she’ll be gone forever.”
“Her name is Emma?” Ereshkigal gripped either side of the tub and relaxed into a satin pillow Nergal adjusted for her. Black, of course. “That’s a pretty name. Tell me about her. Why is she worth all this?”
“Everyone keeps asking me that. What’s so special about Emma Knight?” I shook my head. “I could give you the standard laundry list. Her smile. Her laugh. Her ass. But none of that is right. She’s not any of those things. Take all that away, and I’d still be where I am, doing what I’m doing. I’d do more if I had to. I…” I hesitated. “I love her.”
“You would die for this woman?” Ereshkigal tilted her head.
I almost laughed. “This is at least the fifth time I have.”
“Would you kill for her?” Nergal asked, taking Ereshkigal’s hand. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Would you lay waste to her enemies and turn all who would speak against her into bone and ash?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d be that dramatic about it, but yeah. I have and would defend her with my life, but I’d do it with her at my side. She wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re a team.”
“You complete one another.” Ereshkigal smiled up at Nergal and pulled him down for a messy kiss.
Nergal broke off the kiss and stepped back to collect a towel which he held up for her.
“I have decided on a price,” Ereshkigal announced as she wrapped herself in the towel. She spun around to face us. With all the makeup washed off, she looked just like a normal girl. No less beautiful, but like a totally different person. “My sister once came to my kingdom seeking forbidden knowledge, just as you do. For her crime, she was murdered and left to rot. But her cause was not just. She sought only to expand her own power. Prove to me your heart is pure, and the key is yours.”
“How can I do that?”
She gestured to the bath. “Gaze into the water and tell me what you see.”
I stood and crossed the room to lean over the tub. At first, all I saw was slightly milky water in a wooden tub. Ripples spread over the surface and the image changed. The new vision was of a little girl blowing out three birthday candles. She sat on the lap of a slightly more aged and haggard version of Pony. Remy.
The water rippled again, creating a new scene set in the heart of a beautiful garden. White and red roses lined a path between two dozen lawn chairs. In the distance, a blurry speck of white walked toward where I stood in front of everyone. Pony was in the front row wearing his best suit and leaning on a cane.
These were things that couldn’t be. He wouldn’t live to see Remy’s third birthday, and if I ever got married, he wouldn’t be there to see it. That was a certainty.
The realization of what I was seeing stabbed at my
heart and I took a step back. “That’s enough. You’re showing me the impossible.”
Ereshkigal spread her arms wide. “I am a goddess. My power makes the impossible possible. It is well within my power to save your friend, and I will gladly do so. All it will cost you is a soul of equal weight. Another loved one. This Emma Knight, give me her soul and I will give your mentor another five good years.”
I stared at my reflection rippling in the dirty water. God help me, I considered it. My heart screamed at me not to do it, but what did it know? Love didn’t last. It couldn’t last with Emma either. We were from different worlds, she and I. If I brought her back, it would be for Loki’s gain somehow. She’d just be in danger again because of me. Maybe it would be better if I just let her go, let her be reborn. We could try again in the next life.
You don’t know what it cost me, Pony had said. I can’t do that again. I won’t. This is better.
Ice ran through my veins. Was this the price he had paid? The soul of a loved one? Who? My mind recoiled at the thought. No wonder he didn’t want to do it again, and I wouldn’t do it on his behalf.
I stepped away from the tub. “No. I’ll find another way.”
“There is no other way.” Ereshkigal shook her head. “I am the last salvation for your dying friend. You cannot save them both. Accept my offer or watch him die. Slowly. Painfully.”
I closed my eyes and squashed the urge to reconsider. Pony didn’t deserve to die in so much pain, but I couldn’t do this. Not for him. Not for anyone. This was a line I could not cross and come back from. “I won’t.”
She turned her head to the side and nodded once to Nergal, who bowed and left the room.
“What about you?” Ereshkigal turned her attention to Josiah. “You also have someone you would like to save, don’t you?” She waved a hand through the air. “I can see her in my mind. She’s beautiful, too pretty for those bruises. He’s going to kill her eventually, you know. If not him, then the next loser. She’s always drawn to the wrong sort of men, isn’t she? She must be twenty? Twenty-one now? Such a hard life since she’s left that farm in Nebraska.”
Josiah’s eyes widened. He shot forward to wrap his hands around Ereshkigal’s throat. “If you touch a hair on her head, I will eradicate your name from history!”
She lifted a single finger. A nauseating wave of oily power rose and pushed Josiah back. “It’s unwise to threaten someone offering you salvation. If you want to save her, all you must do is accept. Just as I can take the cancer from his mentor, I can remove the monster from your daughter’s bed. For the right price, I can even keep another from replacing the last. The darling girl will no longer crave violence. Isn’t that what you want?”
The wheels turned behind his eyes. Dammit, he was actually considering it, trading his soul for hers.
“You know that’s not a good trade, Josiah.”
He looked at me with pleading eyes. “You have a daughter, mate. What would you do to save her?”
“Not this. There’s always another way, and if there isn’t, you make one, but not like this. You don’t sell your soul to some underworld goddess to save someone else. That’s what got Emma where she is. That’s why I’m here. Those choices have consequences. They hurt people, people that care about you.”
Josiah pushed himself up on wobbly legs. “I’m not so sure there’s anybody that cares about me, mate.” He dug around in his pockets, searching for a cigarette. “Honestly, I’m tempted, but I think I’ll have to pass.”
“Why? What’s your excuse?” Ereshkigal crossed her arms.
Josiah lit his cigarette and blew out a cloud of dusty smoke before answering. “If I’m going to sell my soul, it won’t be to a paltry forgotten goddess such as yourself. I’d go see my friends upstairs. They’d give me a better price.”
Ereshkigal’s eye twitched. She was practically steaming, but something on her face told me she was calculating, working out whether it would be worth it to kill him. If Josiah meant what I thought he did by “friends upstairs,” she did not want the kind of attention killing him would bring. Good thing Nergal had left the room. He wouldn’t care.
I went to stand with Josiah. Best if we presented a unified front, even if he was being a dick. “You trying to get yourself killed?” I muttered to him under my breath.
“Just playing it straight.”
He might’ve looked calm, but I’d seen the cracks in his armor. A daughter, huh? I’d have to remember that in case I ever needed any dirt on him. Although if he was smart, he kept her far away from him.
The door opened, and Nergal came back holding a small black box that he offered to Ereshkigal on bended knee.
Ereshkigal cupped his cheek and smiled down at him. As she spoke, she opened the box, peering over the lid at me. “A long time ago, my Nergal defied the laws of Heaven and came to me only to be pulled away again by tradition and rules. The sun must never shine on the dead. Though I won him back, it is only a temporary thing, for he’ll be called back to the sky in a few months’ time. And so it will be with you and your love, Horseman. Though you may restore her body and soul, it will only be to watch her slowly die in front of you. Her bones made brittle with age. Her mind fading. Mortal death. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“I don’t know where we’ll be in two days, let alone twenty years,” I said. “But everybody gets old. If I’m lucky enough to live that long, the best thing I can hope for is to have Emma there threatening to kick my ass when I say something stupid at eighty.”
Ereshkigal lifted a necklace with brilliant blue stones from the box. She carried it gingerly to me, smiling. “As much as I would like to have claimed your soul today, you have shown me respect. Far be it from me to separate a man from the woman he loves.”
I took the necklace and nodded my thanks.
She gave Josiah a look of disdain, eyeing him head to toe and back up. “We’ll meet again, Josiah Quinn. Next time, I expect you to show some respect.”
“Just don’t count on a welcome mat,” he said with a bow.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ereshkigal had some dustmen usher us from the throne room so she could get dressed. I guess one show of skin was enough. They took us back to the lobby where we sat on the edge of a fountain.
While we waited under guard for her to come out and escort us to the door, I examined the necklace. The blue stones were unlike any I’d ever seen before, more like obsidian than a gemstone. They drank in the light, pulling it into an endless ocean of deep, silent blue. Magic buzzed from the necklace, but I couldn’t get a fix on exactly what it did or the type of spell. Beneath the general spell that had been laid over every stone, I felt the telltale touch of a magical seal on the largest one. I probed it with my magic and immediately felt something reach back.
“Lapis lazuli,” Josiah said. “Stone of the gods. In ancient times, it represented truth. For Babylon, it was a magical stone used for truth-seeking.”
“You know a lot about magic. Ever think of writing it all down? Sharing it with the world?” I lowered the necklace.
Josiah shrugged. “I know a lot about a lot of things, mate, none of which should be passed down to younger people. It’s best to let some knowledge fade.”
I supposed he was right. I didn’t want Remy learning any more magic than she had to, and the only reason I thought she might have to would be to hide from the fae. Eventually, her fairy grandmother would come for her.
“So,” I said, leaning back on my hands, “you’re a dad too, huh?”
“No. Not like you. I’m not a part of my daughter’s life.” Josiah crushed his cigarette on the marble and flicked it into the fountain of wine. “As far as she knows, she was born in Omaha to an older, but loving couple of farmers. That’s her mum and dad. Me, I’m just the donor.”
I frowned. He acted like he didn’t care, but I heard it in his voice. He regretted whatever decision he’d made that separated him from her. “Is she in danger? Ereshkigal mention
ed bruises. Domestic violence? She’s got a boyfriend hitting her? I know people who can help. Discreetly. She doesn’t have to know you had any part.”
He sighed and slumped his shoulders. “You can’t help those who don’t want it, mate. Some people are just born damned.”
I didn’t agree, but arguing with Josiah wouldn’t help anything. He was too stubborn to change his mind about anything.
The doors opened, and Ereshkigal and Nergal stepped out, arm in arm, dressed like they were on their way to the Black Parade. Dressed all in black, with matching silver crowns and feathery black capes, the couple moved in time, passing by us without so much as an acknowledging nod.
“Think we’re supposed to follow?” I asked.
“No idea.” Josiah stood though, so I stood with him.
We followed them to another golden staircase just like the first, except this stairway had no gates. In silence, we descended, drawing closer to the river of processed souls with every step. I’d say the walk felt like it took forever, but it was definitely quicker than my stroll through Naraka.
Once we reached flat ground again, a large fortress appeared in the distance, spanning the river. A giant wheel turned, pulling the river of souls through some sort of grate. On the other side of the fortress, the river split in two with one branch heading on and the other flowing toward a huge, sparkling sea. Two bridges crossed the shore of the sea. Perched at regular intervals along the closest bridge were more dustmen, drawing up buckets full of the shining souls and carrying them off to be sorted, shaped, and formed on a conveyer belt that stretched to the horizon.
New souls being made from the old, I realized. Probably shipped off to wherever they’d be put into new people. But only some of the broken-down souls were being processed in Irkalla.
I pointed to the river of untouched soul goo, the one flowing straight ahead and away from the sea. “Where does that lead?”
“Not all souls can be reformed here,” Ereshkigal informed me. “My people only reform a small portion of souls. Everything else flows through the Nightlands and onto elsewhere. There are dozens of other kingdoms in Hell, Horseman. Places where souls will be reformed only to be broken down again.”