by E. A. Copen
The Nightlands. Josiah did say they’d be the best people to ask about my next destination. “What’s in the Nightlands?”
Nergal smirked. “Darkness and destruction, the absence of order. You’ll find it a most inhospitable place. I wish you luck there. Few escape once they go in.”
I swallowed. That didn’t sound like the sort of place I wanted to go. But then, I’d made it through Naraka. Naraka would give me nightmares for the rest of my life. What could be worse than that?
We strolled alongside the riverbank headed toward the sea. If I leaned over the silvery, flowing liquid and concentrated, I could see things moving deep in the water. Inhuman things. Something from deep in the river reached for me. I looked away and shuddered.
Ereshkigal and Nergal walked us to the bridge, and we passed the dustmen fishing for souls who worked in silence. They bowed when their monarchs passed by but didn’t stop what they were doing.
“Three hundred thousand souls are processed here each day,” Ereshkigal announced, gesturing to the sea. “About twice as many as we receive. Sea levels have been dropping drastically over the last hundred years. Humankind breeds much faster than it dies.”
I looked out over the surface of the lake, watching shapes squirm in the silver darkness. “What happens if you run out of souls to send back up?”
Nergal followed my gaze and frowned. “Then we send nothing back.”
Ereshkigal paused at the halfway point on the bridge, turning to look out over the lake of souls. “Unlike most gods, we don’t hold our position by keeping a bank of souls at our disposal. They hold onto too many souls. We do what we can, but in times where there are shortages, it means sometimes the souls that go back aren’t quite up to snuff. Quality drops.”
Josiah leaned against the railing, crossing his arms. “You saying what I think you’re saying?”
Nergal turned to face Josiah. “Unless the other gods in all the other hells agree to release the extra souls they are holding onto, then we will be forced to take more drastic measures to meet the demand of Creation.”
“Drastic measures, as in?” I asked.
Ereshkigal placed her hands on the railing, closed her eyes and lifted her chin. “The last time, we had a flood.”
“Yes, but we did promise never to do that again.” Nergal sighed. “Perhaps we should try fire this time?”
Josiah pushed off the railing. “You’re talking about the Apocalypse. A little extreme, yeah?”
“An apocalypse is better than an eradication,” Ereshkigal said with a shrug. “In an apocalypse, only a large portion of the population dies. Our reserves are refilled for thousands of years. There will always be survivors.” She stepped away from the railing and started walking over the bridge again. “I’m telling you this, Horseman, so you’ll better understand our position.”
“We have no personal stake in Loki’s war,” Nergal continued, “but we do have a responsibility to keep things moving here. If we should fail, if the river of souls dries up, Humanity is done for.”
Loki’s war. So, he was about to start something with the gods. Setting Poseidon on Hades was only an opening gambit. He was feeling for weaknesses, searching for an opening, and I’d given him a weapon by releasing Fenrir. Shit, this was bad. End-of-the-world bad. Loki and his war against the gods would destroy the world if I didn’t stop him. Yet if I did, it could be the end of humanity. As Irkalla ran out of souls to redistribute, the population would drop until no more children were born. It would be a kinder, gentler genocide, but the end of us nonetheless.
The only way to stop it was to convince a bunch of greedy, power-hungry gods who were prepping for said war to give up the one advantage they had: all the stockpiled souls. No one was going to give up the only thing that would give them a chance of surviving Loki’s wrath. Your average god didn’t care about humans enough to surrender their power to save them. I didn’t know how I was supposed to convince anyone to do that, especially on my own.
Maybe I could stop Loki, but only if I could get close to him. Surrounded by Valkyries as he was, and with Emma’s body as insurance, I couldn’t make a move against him. Plus, he had the right to name a Horseman anytime. To take him on, I’d have to get through whoever he named as Famine, no easy task as my last fight against a Horseman had proved.
“I don’t envy the decisions you’re making right now,” Nergal said, watching me over his shoulder.
“Any way I look at it, humans are screwed, or I’m screwed.” I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “I’d have to pull of something impossible to fix this. The end of the world is too big for just one guy to handle.”
Ereshkigal lifted her skirt and stepped off the end of the bridge to the other side of the lake. “Then I suggest you make some friends, Lazarus. Choose a side. Eventually, that’s what it will all come down to. Will you support Loki and his right to vengeance? Or stand with those who wronged him?”
Both choices sucked. How was it I always got pulled into these things? I looked over at Josiah who was concentrating hard on some thought. “What do you think of all this?”
He rubbed his chin. “Well, we’re off to kill the Devil. I’ll assume that means he doesn’t like you. Killing the Devil will likely lead to some infighting among his generals as to who’s going to take over. If I were you, I’d install an ally there. Put someone you trust in charge of She’ol. Then go back through wherever you can and do the same. Stack the Apocalypse in your favor, and make sure every god you help knows you helped them.”
Blackmailing gods into being on my side didn’t seem wise in the long term. It might get me the help I needed to oppose Loki, but what about after? Besides, to install new gods in positions of power, I’d have to kill the old ones. Josiah was talking about large-scale murder. Killing dozens, maybe hundreds, to save billions. I couldn’t do that, not unless I had no other choice. There had to be another way.
Ereshkigal and Nergal walked us away from the lake through a small garden full of igneous rock, and then through a narrow valley. High cliffs made of black stone loomed over us. Golden stairs zig-zagged overhead, their glow creating the only light. At the end of the valley loomed a huge black gate that had been barred shut using a slab of rock.
A giant bull rose from where it was seated next to the gate. It snorted once and pawed its golden hooves at the ground. Chains rattled when it took a step forward and shook its horns at us. Ereshkigal held up a hand, and the rest of us stopped. Only Nergal went forward to approach the animal.
“The Bull of Heaven,” Ereshkigal said. “The guardian of the Night Gate.”
Nergal drew something from his pocket with one hand and offered it to the bull. The creature wandered closer, nostrils flaring. Steel flashed, reflecting the light of the golden stairs for just a moment. The bull made an awful, desperate moan and staggered to the side a step before collapsing.
A moment later, Nergal returned covered in dark blood, offering a handful of candies to me. “A gift for the Loa you will meet on the other side,” he said, dumping them in my hand.
I fought sudden queasiness. “Blood-covered candy. My favorite.”
Ereshkigal linked her arm in his, and the couple paused facing me. “Good luck in the Nightlands, Horseman. Remember what I said. I don’t often have the opportunity to give warnings to humans anymore. I hope you’ll take it to heart.” She nodded, and they walked off, linked arm in arm.
I pocketed the bloody candy and brought out the necklace, looking to Josiah. “Well, should we go then?”
His face paled, and he shifted his weight, uneasy. “Afraid this is where we part ways for a spell, mate.”
“What? You’re leaving again? You can’t be serious. What if I need you in there?”
Josiah shook his head. “You’ll have to survive this leg on your own. The Nightlands are the one place I won’t go under any circumstances. I can’t. But I can give you something to help.”
He held his hands out in front of him, closed his eyes and beg
an to chant. Wisps of silver light flowed from around his body, coalescing into a tight, glowing ball. Once it was the size of a baseball, blue flame sprang up around it. It lit the dark valley up like a small, fiery moon. “Hold out your palm.”
I did as he said.
With a word, he sent the ball of light careening toward me. Cool fire brushed against my skin, chilling it like snow.
I stared into the spinning fire. “What is it?”
“A bit of angel fire. Anything dark and nasty will flee from the light, but it’ll also make you visible to the other side. It should be safe where you’re going. Angels don’t go to the Nightlands. Wouldn’t use it outside of there for long, though.” He glanced upward. “The folk likely to take notice aren’t the sort you want noticing you.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“No worries, mate,” Josiah said, patting my back. “See you on the other side.”
He began his chant to open a portal just as he’d done in Naraka. I watched him disappear through it before shifting the lapis necklace in my hand.
There was a slot in the gate about eye level, sort of like a coin slot. It was just large enough for the necklace to fit through. I didn’t see anywhere else to put it, so I hoped that was the right spot and slipped it in. The necklace tumbled down through some mechanism inside the gate with a bang. I winced. Nothing happened at first. Then slowly, the gate groaned open.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The room on the other side was straight out of a walk through a haunted house. Displays on the walls held graphic crime scene photos, some in color while others were in black and white. An electric chair sat under a yellow light in a little alcove. Large jars sat on a shelf next to that. Inside, fleshy deformities and small organs floated, suspended in some cloudy liquid.
Children’s toys were scattered all over the floor in pieces. Dolls with their heads and arms ripped off, a Jack-in-the-box with twisted springs, foam balls with chunks missing. A music box I couldn’t see cranked out a melancholy tune.
It was the creepiest damn room I’d ever been in.
“You shouldn’t play with dead things,” two child-like voices said in unison from behind me.
I spun around to find three kids standing there. They were all similar in age, dressed in clothes so they’d resemble one another. The two girls were in little black dresses with white collars. One had her hair in twin black braids while the other wore hers down. Between them, the boy wore a black suit. All three had on faded white face paint and looked at me with dead eyes.
The boy leaned forward and whispered, “The dead should stay dead.”
“Don’t you agree?” asked the girl on the right with the loose hair, tilting her head to the side. They spoke with the same voice.
I suppressed a shudder. “You guys are killer ventriloquists.”
“We are Marassa,” said all three children at once.
The girl with the braids curtsied. “Truth.”
“Love.” The other girl hugged herself tight.
The boy squinted at me. “Justice.”
All three stuck their hands out expectantly.
Right, the candy. I dug the bloodstained candies out of my pocket and counted them out evenly, five for each creepy kid. In unison, they put the candies in their mouth and crunched. It sounded like they were eating bones and not candy. My stomach did a flip-flop.
The Marassa stared at me, waiting.
I cleared my throat. “Okay, what am I supposed to do now?”
Justice pointed at a clock on the wall. The hands were moving backward. “It’s our bedtime.”
Cold fingers wrapped around my wrist and I looked down into Love’s cloudy eyes. “Tell us a bedtime story.”
I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat. Creepy kids were right up there with dead bodies for me. Creepy voodoo Loa kids were the stuff nightmares were made of. “Um, okay.”
“No!” barked Justice. “You’re not supposed to just do whatever we say. You have to tell us what to do. We can’t go to bed until we’ve cleaned our room. Tell us to clean up. Like you would any other child.”
I sucked in a shaky breath and looked at all the discarded and broken toys. “Okay, clean up your room, and I’ll tell you a story.”
Truth and Love skipped away, jumping right into action, scooping up their toys and depositing them into a coffin pushed against the wall. Justice grabbed a bone saw off the floor and climbed onto the electric chair to hang the saw on a meat hook.
As they cleaned, they began singing a haunting rendition of Ring Around the Rosie, except they didn’t sing together. It was done like the old call and answer songs I’d grown up with in the Baptist church, with Truth leading the call.
“Ring around the roses,” she called.
Love patted her doll and placed it in the coffin. “Pockets full of posies.”
“One for Jack,” sang Justice, “one for Jill, and one for little Moses.”
Then, all together at the end as they completed their task, “Ashes! Ashes! They all fall down!”
I shivered again and hugged myself. Their creepy little voices were like spiders in my brain. More than anything, I wanted out of that room, but I couldn’t leave until they opened the portal for me. That meant I had to keep them happy, so bedtime story it was.
The kids unrolled sleeping bags and climbed in.
“I want a story about a princess,” Love demanded.
Justice made a fist. “A story about revenge!”
“No,” said Truth, “a story about true love.”
They started arguing with each other over which story I should tell.
I rubbed my temples. The only way out of this would be to find a story that had all of that, but what story did I know that had all those elements?
I held up my hands. “What if I tell you a story with all those things?” That got their attention.
Justice gave me the stink eye and crossed his arms. “It’d better not be boring. I want a story with sword fights.”
“Is there kissing?” Truth clapped her hands eagerly. “Not too much.”
“I hope there are castles,” said Love.
“This story has all of that.” I sank to the floor to sit cross-legged. “It has pirates, princesses, magic, giants, and, of course, true love. Settle in, kids. This is the greatest story ever told. I promise, if you stick with me to the end, you’ll be satisfied with how it turns out.”
Justice made a sour face. “And exactly what is the name of this great story?”
“Yes,” chimed in the girls, “all great stories must have names!”
“This one is called The Princess Bride.”
Truth, Love, and Justice lay still as corpses in their sleeping bags, eyes wide, while I worked my way through the story. I thought I’d lose Justice early on, until we got to the part about the shrieking eels. Then all three of them got excited until Buttercup got away. Truth argued with me about how Vizzini could’ve survived the poison cup incident. From her perspective, such a smart person couldn’t possibly have been so ill-prepared and easily defeated. Somehow, during the story, the kids took over and insisted that I kill Wesley and make Inigo Montoya the hero who got the girl. I wasn’t going to argue with them, especially when Justice made me get a creepy old doll in a sailor suit down for him to sleep with.
Under strict direction from Truth and Love, the end of the story resembled Hamlet more than anything else, with more than half the important characters dead or dying, and the ghost of a heartbroken Buttercup doomed to wander the Fire Swamp until the end of time. Kids are twisted. Or maybe it was just those kids.
Once the story was over, they were all three still awake but winding down.
Love yawned. “Mr. Pale Horseman? Why do you want to go into the Nightlands?”
I shifted and patted her leg. “I don’t want to, but I have to. The only way to get where I need to go is to pass through it.”
“We’re supposed to give you some advice that will help you.” T
ruth sat up and rubbed her eyes with a fist. “I don’t have anything that will help you through the Nightlands, but maybe I can help with your Faerie problem?”
I hesitated. What Faerie problem? As far as I knew, everything in Faerie was dealt with. Titania and I had an understanding, and I’d beaten back the Shadow Court enough times that they’d think twice about messing with me again. Maybe these triplets were clairvoyant. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Loa were powerful beings whose abilities ranged from terrifying to simple. “Which faerie problem would that be?”
“You’ll have to go back, you know,” Justice said.
Love nodded. “She’s not going to let her go.”
Titania. Could they mean Titania was coming for Remy, despite our agreement? I’d worried about that ever since bringing Remy home. Titania didn’t seem like the sort to take defeat lying down, but she couldn’t steal Remy away directly. It wouldn’t stop her from using a middleman.
“Faeries can’t abide the touch of iron.” Love closed her eyes and snuggled into the sleeping bag.
“Use it to protect her.” Truth flopped over onto her stomach and almost immediately started snoring.
When Justice spoke, it was in a whisper. “A little pain now, or a lot of pain later. Accept the offer when it’s made, Horseman, or you’ll regret it.” He cuddled his doll closer to him and closed his eyes. “The next portal will take you directly to the Nightlands. There’s no path back to Earth from here. You’ll have to get to the other side. Good luck.”
A door shimmered into being on the other side of the room.
I sat with them a little while longer, pondering the advice. Like most prophecies, I probably wouldn’t know what it meant until it was too late to do anything about it, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying. How was I supposed to use iron to protect Remy if she reacted to it too? And what offer was Justice talking about?
A guy could drive himself crazy worrying about signs and portents, I thought and stood as quietly as I could. The board under me creaked, but none of the children stirred. I breathed a sigh of relief and crept to the door.