by J. F. Lewis
“Don’t fuck with me, Percy.”
“Like you, I am an Emperor.” Percy stood, and as he did the room seemed to right itself, the walls changing to sandstone, like you’d see in an old mummy movie. “Like you, I am two different types of undead. And like my offspring, Lisette, and my would-be captor, Phillip, I arrived at my state by magical means.”
“Get to the part where I can get Greta back.”
“Lisette was an experiment in creating an Emperor purposefully. It worked, though perhaps making her a zombie and a vampire was a bit cruel, but I certainly couldn’t have her awaken to be as powerful as I am, now could I?”
Sirens blared in the distance.
“Look, I—”
“Without a brief explanation, you will not understand my offer.” He interrupted. “I—unlike Phillip, who fancied himself a worker of magic—am an extremely talented practitioner, which opened a unique pathway to me. I discovered two paths to immortality with which I became enamored. The first was vampirism; the second, the rituals of ancient Egypt.”
“What, you’re a fucking mummy?”
Percy removed his glasses and cleaned them.
This isn’t a good idea, Scrythax said in my brain.
“I am a mummy and a vampire and like yourself. I am indeed fully functional, though my interests tend toward voyeurism rather than actual participatory bliss.”
“So . . . you’re a mummy. So what?”
He handed me his glasses. “An Emperor forged of the unique combination of mummy and vampire. You now hold my memento mori. Use your memento mori to destroy it, and you will halve my power.”
“What?” I looked at the glasses. They seemed normal, but . . . “Why?”
“I want to make amends. I feel responsible, and I have no desire to go to war with you. I’d prefer to watch you from afar or via my thralls.” He rolled up his sleeves and aimed his ankh at the wall, where cuneiform images manifested in eerie silver hues. “With that in mind, I’m willing to open a gateway to the Paths of the Dead. As a revenant, an angry ghost, you can set foot on them and go after your daughter.” Greta’s body lifted up into the air, surrounded by matching silver light.
“Find her spirit before it reaches a final destination and bring her back. While her body exists, it’s still possible she could be reunited with it.”
“Would she be human or vampire?” I asked.
“Does it matter?” Percy asked, his expression curious.
“It should.” I eyed the gateway.
“But does it?”
“No.” I hung my head.
“Either is possible.” He clucked his tongue. “The choice will ultimately be made by chance, but may be influenced by her wishes.”
He said words in a language I guessed was Egyptian, and a dark doorway opened in the wall, sending sand to swirl about my feet.
“What’s the catch?”
“It’s never been done before,” Percy quipped. “Not by one such as you. In theory, it should work, but in practice either one of you could be changed substantially, particularly now that you have undone Lisette, effectively ending the Courtney curse.”
“That’s all I had to do to end the curse?”
“You act like it was easy, and I suppose it was, given that Greta did all the heavy lifting for you, but you struck the final blow and destroyed her. Now, the Courtneys are free and—”
“So why am I still a vampire?”
“Because you haven’t cured yourself, but if you were to find such a cure, the curse would no longer undo it.”
I stared at the doorway. Hard.
Eric, Scrythax said to me, don’t risk it. She’s not—
I poked my right hand through the doorway and offered Percy’s glasses back to him with my left.
“Take them with you,” Percy said. “I want to see what happens if you go. Will you?”
Greta was probably better off dead. She was a monster, in so many ways worse than I was. She killed recklessly, and her appetite for slaughter could be endless. Going could destroy me. Coming back could make her worse. What if she came back human and wanted me to turn her again? What if she was stuck in the body of a fortysomething woman, forever unhappy at the youthful appearance she’d lost?
Would I go? Good damn question.
51
ERIC:
POWERSLAVE
I went. What else was there to do? She was my little girl. Greta had headed to a place where only spirits (and the beings, be they demons or angels, that herd them) can travel—along the paths of the truly dead. The light from Percy’s ankh showed the way and a path, hard to see and even harder to fathom, came into crystal clarity. The wall vanished completely, widening the gate, leaving a yawning gulf of mist and light in its wake.
A golden path, the same shade as the light from the ankh, wound its way through the mist and, far off in the distance, I saw Greta. She wasn’t alone. Other souls in various states of coherence traveled the same path she did, or paths of their own that I couldn’t quite make out. My daughter ran as if the devil himself was behind her.
I spared a last glance at Lord Phillip’s lair and supposed the analogy wasn’t far wrong. I steeled myself against the cold that being dead brings. It wasn’t hesitation, but Percy thought it was.
“You don’t have to go after her.” Percy’s voice came from the glasses I still carried in my hand. “You could try—”
“Mommy!” Greta’s cry cut through the low-level thrum of the other souls, and I didn’t spare Percy a word of explanation. She needed me. What else was there to know? I tucked Percy’s glasses into the neck of my shirt, the metal cold against the hollow of my throat, and I ran, watching the spot where the floor of Phillip’s suite faded away into the chaotic ramble of paths, mist, and souls beyond. A sound like ripping fabric broke the silence as my feet hit the semitranslucent path, and I was frozen.
“Where are you going?” It was Scrythax, his voice, in my ears now rather than my head. Ignoring him, I pushed forward, pain blossoming in my chest—my heart. I looked back and saw a red thread similar to the one I’d seen in Vincennes stretching back into Phillip’s suite at the Highland Towers and beyond. Percy was still visible in the room, ankh aloft. He stood out against the normal watercolor brushstrokes to which my world was normally reduced when I was in ghost mode.
I pulled, and it felt like there was a hook in my chest. The Stone of Aeternum. The Eye of Scrythax. One and the same.
“She’s not human, Eric.” The voice of Scrythax rang not in my ears but in my chest, reverberating as if I were a bell.
“Neither am I.”
“Yes, you are.” Pain increased. I pulled against the pain like a fish on a hook—straining, hoping that the line would snap, that something would give. “I’ll show you.”
“What happened to the Prime Directive?” My mouth didn’t move, but the sound echoed forth.
“What?”
“Non-interference,” I translated for the apparently Star Trek–deprived demon. “You said you wouldn’t get involved, wouldn’t dream of giving me orders.”
“That was before you decided to leave the material plane,” Scrythax said. Pressure in my chest increased, pain intensifying. “Turn back and I’ll be hands-off once more. You can’t go there, Eric. If you do, they’ll see.”
“See what?”
“You. Your purpose. Then, your destiny will change again. My daughter, Scrytha, will see to it.”
“I. Will.” My body began to re-form, became solid again, and slid back to the gate, but I fought the sensation. “Save. My.” I turned away from Percy, legs straining forward against the path, eyes locked on Greta. “Little girl!”
Anger has always been a part of me, a force so real, so tangible I could drown in it. I’ve learned to fight the anger. I’ve even had magical help, but in that moment, it burst the bonds, roaring free, washing over me. I heard a snap, a clink, and behind me, even though I knew I couldn’t see it, a chunk of the Eye of Scrythax hit t
he ground in Phillip’s room.
“It’s broken.” Percy’s words fell on deaf ears. Nothing more restrained me, and the sudden freedom sent me stumbling, but I did not fall on the path, I flew. A heartbeat thumped in my ears. The sounds of breaths drawn in hard and deep like a bellows surrounded me, but I flew on.
“You fool!” Scrythax shouted, his voice fading the further I flew.
Flight without wings made me sick inside, or maybe it was whatever Scrythax had tried to do. I was used to wingbeat cycles, not Superman-style antics. Bile filled my mouth, the sick acidic twang carrying into my nostrils as well. How long had it been since I’d last had that taste in my mouth?
Summoned by the taste, memories of a night with Roger at a bar, back when we were both alive, filled my head. Images of the bar, Roger, the drinks, appeared before me like phantoms obscuring my way. I tasted pretzels, too. The salt lingered on my tongue. Marilyn. Kissing her afterward as we laughed. Her smile. A distraction.
“Mommy!”
Greta was looking for Mommy because as far as she knew, when she’d screamed for Dad, for me, I hadn’t come. I hadn’t been there. She didn’t know I’d been on my way as soon as I felt her, had been seconds away when she died. If she had, she might have hung on a little longer.
My speed increased and the souls I passed began to shrink away from me, moaning loudly. I reached out to one of them, intending to use it for fuel, but nothing happened. They weren’t afraid I was going to eat them, they must have feared my emotions. They parted for Greta, too.
“Greta!” I called her name over and over again, but as fast as I flew I couldn’t seem to overtake her. After a while it felt like we’d begun to descend rather than proceed along a horizontal plane and the path turned and twisted, a knot of pathways like a rubber band ball, the interior parts packed so tight together for so long that they were indistinguishable from one another. I lost sight of Greta, was forced to listen for her cries.
Then I was no longer flying. My body crashed down onto the path and tumbled to a stop. Watercolor images faded, darkened, then sprang back to life, no longer in watercolor hues, but vivid high definition, crisp and clear, but tinged with blue like retouched force ghosts in the Star Wars Special Edition movies with a techno dash of Tron’s digitally rendered world. My heart beat. My lungs drew in air, and the spiritual energy around me . . . I could sense it, touch it.
“I wish the universe would make up its mind.”
I was in a long dark hall, made of the same sandstone walls I’d seen before. Decorative columns held up the ceiling, but it was all dark, the only light, a faint one, seeming to come from the illuminated lines of each object. A line of dead people, each holding a heart in his or her hands, extended before me, and I went past them. Jogging by on the left, I saw a dais upon which there were a set of scales and dudes in Egyptian apparel. A feather was on one scale and on the other, a man with a jackal head took the heart and weighed it. Sitting hungrily nearby, a being with the head of a crocodile and the body of a lion sat waiting.
“Halt!” Bare-chested guards with too much eyeliner and deadly-looking spears appeared from nowhere, thrusting their spears in my face. “You came through one of our gates, your heart must be weighed.”
“You’re not ripping my heart out, pal.” I shoved one of them, but the vampire strength wasn’t there. My heart appeared in my hands, and more guards appeared.
“I’m trying to catch my daughter, asshole. I’m not even properly dead . . . I . . .”
“Come,” Dog Face said from the pillar. “Compliance will be faster than resistance.” Dog face. Shit! I flashed back to memories of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the statues of Anubis that guarded the Ark.
“So . . . you’re supposed to be Anubis?” I asked.
“I prefer Inpu, but Anubis will do.”
I stepped to the front of the line and handed him my heart. He took it gingerly, surprised by some aspect, either its weight or its color. Smell? Hell if I knew.
“Don’t fuck that up, Inpu,” I said. “I need that back.”
The crocodile thing snapped at me, but Inpu shushed it. “Ammut, I suspect this one is not for you.” He looked at me. “Do you know the affirmations?”
“The what?”
“It’s customary to declare your nobility, your . . .” He searched for a word. “. . . sinlessness.”
“Screw that. I’ve done all kinds of bad things, killed people—you name it and I’ve done a lot of it. Of course, most of that was to survive, but still . . . I did it, and most of it I’m not sorry about.”
The souls behind me gasped.
“Is that bad?”
“It isn’t good,” Anubis said, his tall canine ears twitching. “Have you done nothing good?”
“I don’t hurt kids. I take care of my family . . . and one time . . . well, I don’t remember all of it, but people tell me I saved the world.” The crocodile thing, Ammut, tossed its head to one side and I realized it was wearing a headdress. “Do I fight that thing now?”
Anubis set my heart on the empty scale opposite me, nostrils flaring in surprise when the scale with the fluffy white feather on it dropped to the floor.
“No,” Anubis said, his voice unsure, “now you move on to Osiris, where you may leave Duat and enter Aaru.”
“Aaru?”
“Paradise.”
“Screw paradise. I told you, I’m looking for my daughter.”
“I’ll take him,” a voice, soft and feminine, spoke from ankle level. A housecat with fur the color of blood, wearing a golden collar with an ankh hanging from it, sat next to my foot.
“Sekhmet?” Anubis was confused.
“He’s friends with my son.” The cat rubbed against my legs, darting in and out of them as she spoke. “And he doesn’t belong here.”
“Do you wish to go with her?”
“Can you take me to Greta?” I asked.
“I can put you back on the right path to her. She came through a different gate, thus her path does not lead to Aaru.”
“Just get me as close to her as you can.”
She didn’t move.
“Please,” I added.
With a nod I was gone from Egypt Land and deposited on a country road. A split-rail fence ran along one side of the road, and on my right, scrubland stretched into infinity. “This is like a damn Twilight Zone episode.”
Sekhmet sat atop a fence post, preening.
“If I see Rod Serling, I may—”
“Mommy!” Greta’s voice came from farther along the path, and I took off running, barely pausing long enough to shout a thanks to Sekhmet.
Though more infrequent, her shouts sounded less strained and more expectant. Greta thought she was getting close. Running as fast as I could, plagued by a stitch in my side and the beginning twinges of a charley horse, boots and jeans (where had those come from?) covered in a patina of red dirt, I came to the top of a rise and looked down upon what I can only describe as Hell. Greta stood in front of it.
“Greta!” I bellowed, stumbling down the hill. “Stop! Don’t you fucking take another step! Goddamn it, Greta! Do you hear me? Don’t you fucking move!”
Wreathed in flames, soot, and smoke, the boundary of Hell carved an even delineation between the road and the pit. The rising heat waves made it hard to focus on exactly what was happening within the inferno, but from the sound of it, folks weren’t having a good time.
“Stay right there,” I shouted. “Right. There.”
Greta stopped, but didn’t turn. Limping, I made my way toward her, admonishing her to stay put with every step. Up close, the flames faded. Hell’s gates were golden and inviting and the shouts of despair and pain twisted in the ear, sounding more like cries of joy and laughter. Next to the wall, Greta stood still. Watching.
“Greta.”
“Dad.” She reached back and touched my shoulder.
“Come away from there,” I said. “I came to get you. I’m sorry I was late, but there’s still t
ime. Come on.” I pulled at her arm, but couldn’t budge her.
“But, Dad,” she said, pointing past the gate. “Look. It’s Mom.”
“I don’t want to s—” And then I saw Marilyn.
She wore the same clothes and the same form in which I’d last seen her: fiery red hair, leather jacket, ready to ride Roger’s Duo-Glide. And in that instant, I wished I hadn’t come after Greta at all.
Movie moments work like this: Two lost lovers stand on either side of a crowded room at a party filled with people in fancy clothes dancing and having fun. The lost lovers might as well be rendered in black and white or shades of blue, but music swells. Their eyes meet. Cue close-up as their eyes light up with tearful joy at the sight of one another. They run for one another. The crowd vanishes or maybe they have to fight their way to one another, but when they meet, they grasp each other tightly, clinging to one another as if only their love can hold them up. Without each other, without their love, they might literally fall apart.
It worked exactly like that for Marilyn and me, except that she was in Hell and I wasn’t, and when we reached for each other there was a gate between us and beyond the gate a clear barrier, like the surface of a snow globe surrounding Hell. We couldn’t even touch. Love left impotent by reality. My hand hovered over hers and I felt like Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, watching Spock die, with nothing left to do but say good-bye.
“Ship out of danger?” she quoted, proving she was my Marilyn and demonstrating with four simple words how well she knew me.
“Have they? I mean . . .”
“They haven’t done anything to me yet.” She looked away. “She’s been saving me for something.”
I punched the barrier and it bloodied my knuckles. I hit it again and again, and something gave in my fingers, one of the small bones. I winced, then cursed when the bones popped back into place and healed in less than a second.
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“How touching.” A demon with asymmetrical ram’s horns and long white robes stood at Marilyn’s side. Though her face was more human than her father’s, more pleasing to human eyes, her teeth were in multiple rows, not keeping time with each other as she spoke. Jewels encrusted her horns and painted colors on her skin, making it impossible to tell what color the skin actually was. Unlike her father’s, the demon’s eyes were intact, blazing like flame-lit diamonds, obscured on the left by bangs of white hair curling slightly, as did the long strands of hair cascading down to her mid-back.