Dead Easy

by Mark William Simmons

  Surprisingly, the other club-goers had wandered off into other rooms: only one other dancer was out on the floor at the moment. And, rather than be intimidated by the cavernous room, he owned the dance floor. Spinning and stomping and gliding and shaking, he threw himself into the music with a passion and intensity that was positively breathtaking.

  And then I noticed the tentacle growing out of his misshapen face!

  Crap! One thing on top of another and now this: apparently Dead Can Dance!

  And now tentacle-puss was dancing my way!

  I looked around: vast black room, lit by hundreds of thousands of pinpricks of light. No obvious exits. I didn't have a clue as to which way to run. Maybe I could sucker-punch him while he was still doing the Monster Mash . . .

  But as he shimmied closer I got a better look at his serpentine schnoz. It wasn't a tentacle. It was a trunk! An elephant's trunk! Dancing boy looked human from the shoulders down but, from the neck up, he was sporting an elephant's head!

  I checked the ears: Indian, not African, elephant's head. And missing a tusk.

  Okay, not Gnarly-ho-tep or squidhead.

  But dangerous?

  It was hard to think evil of a creature who seemed to be having so much damned fun dancing! The only way I could feel threatened was if I'd brought my girlfriend along and was trying to impress her with my own moves.

  Elephant-head danced up and bowed to me without missing a step of the beat.

  "Bloodbender, I greet you and ask you to join me in the Celestial Dance."

  Okaaayyyyy. "And you are . . . ?"

  He—it—smiled and shrugged. "I forget that you are technically an infidel. I have many names. You may call me Ganesh."

  "I like it better when you go by Kankiten," said a new voice.

  An Asian gentleman strode into the nearest spotlight and stood, considering the two of us. Unlike dancing boy who favored saffron robes and what looked like platform-soled Guccis, the new arrival looked more of a sartorial match with the simian bouncer. The lighting made it hard to distinguish details so I was guessing the suit was most likely Louis Vuitton or Giorgio Armani. A short sword threw off the tailored lines of his suitcoat: the scabbard on his belt pushed back the left flap of his jacket to show a doubled-edged, straight-bladed Bronze Age short sword rather than the curved, katana backsword one might typically associate with his genetic antecedents.

  "Susanowo-no-mikoto!" the elephant man trilled. "How auspicious of you to join us! Come, dance, and we shall speak of that which must be done before the music ends."

  "Bah! Your one piece is in play on the board," Susanowo answered gruffly. "I still have hundreds more to bring into play! I have volcanoes to unplug!" He turned on his heel and strode off into the darkness.

  "Give my regards to your lovely sister," disco boy called after him. He turned to me. "Too bad we couldn't get Amaterasu-ōmikami more intimately involved."

  "Yeah," I said. "Too bad about that."

  "Oh, my dear boy," he chuckled, "you're attempting to have me on a bit." He shook his head. "Won't work, you know. I'm a god."

  "Yeah. Well. I hate to be rude and all, but not really into the gods thing. Never was a polytheist and starting to question the monotheist proposal these days."

  "Well, we won't quibble over semantics, dear boy. Just think of me as a higher power. One of a number who are invested in the good of the world."

  "Judging by the evening news, there can't be that many of you—or you're just not that powerful."

  He chuckled, still keeping the beat as he danced and conversed at the same time. "You and Dakkar—so much anger and cynicism. Yet the two of you may be our best hope. Yin and Yang. Again, like a dance. Come," he extended a hand to me. "In the dance are the greater truths revealed."

  Like I said, not much for clubbing these days. And I was never one for being dragged out on the dance floor by strange men. Not a homophobe, I have gay friends but, come on: a guy with the head of an elephant? I stood there with my arms folded across my chest and waited, figuring someone owed me some answers before I took another step.

  But, dammit, I was tapping my foot along with the rhythm and dancing boy's joie de vivre was so freaking infectious!

  "Dance, Bloodbender!" Ganesh or Kankiten or John Merrick cried, "Dance and live! Life is dancing! Dancing is life. Even the very atoms dance so that worlds might be. The soul must dance or the soul dies. The universe must dance or creation dies. Entropy. Heat death. The final, empty cold blackness of nothing—that is the end of the dance. For you or for a thousand billion souls. So dance and hold back the cold and the darkness!"

  "What? Are we talking sympathetic magic, here?" I growled. But I was already twitching along to the beat as I spoke.

  Ganesh grabbed my hand and jerked me toward him. I had to side-step to avoid a collision and he turned my hand at the wrist, pulling my arm up, and I found myself executing a pirouette as he released on the follow-through. I had to step very deliberately to keep from stumbling and, the next thing I knew, we were dancing side-by-side. That's when I noticed he had four arms instead of just two.

  "I don't have time for this," I muttered.

  "Look," elephant guy gestured. Across the stars spangled dance floor "stood" the double-starfish-barrel-stacked rutabaga. "They don't dance. That is why they could not ultimately prevail."

  "Oh. Well, then," I puffed. "I think we're screwed, then. You need John Travolta or Patrick Swayze or Michael Jackson, even."

  "It is not you, alone, but the gestalt. The unification of those lives and talents that you and only you can unite in this moment in time. They are drawn to you in ways that higher powers such as ourselves could not hope to emulate. Only to harness. And lend what poor assistance that we can. You must overcome your own entropy in the face of doubt. Act intuitively! Trust your impulses!"

  Oh yeah. Sure. Now there's a good idea: acting on all of my impulses. Let's see where that would lead. One, probably ripping out a fair number of throats on a weekly basis. Two, more than likely fathering the student enrollment for half the Montessori schools in the city. Three, expressing my political sentiments by affixing a hangman's noose to every streetlamp within a three-block radius of the Washington Capitol building . . .

  Impulse control is, by and large, an underappreciated virtue.

  "No, Sweet Infidel, you must trust in something greater than Fear, greater than Anger or Despair. Trust in Joy! Come and dance!"

  "I have things to do," I growled. "Family to rescue . . ."

  "Oh, far more than that, dear mouse. You have a world to save!"

  "I don't care about the world. I care about my family. In spite of the changes to my preternatural biology I still feel something for them, at least. For awhile longer. And, as long as it matters to me, I'll be investing in that, thank you. Not a bunch of strangers who don't know me. And would probably pick up a stake or a torch if they did."

  "Nevertheless," Ganesh/Kankiten countered, "Fate has anointed you our Champion. If you would save your family, you must save the world.

  "Find somebody else," I growled.

  "It has been tried. My colleagues have reactivated history's greatest souls, hoping one or more might echo the Mahabharata's promise of a Deliverer. One of them travels with you even now."

  "Who? Cuchulainn? Whoa, if you're profiling badass brawlers you've got to know I'm not it!"

  Four-armed elephant guy shook his oversized head. "Not my choice. But significant that he found his way to your side."

  "Oh yeah, the Army could take recruiting lessons from me."

  "And then there is your affiliation with the Peri."

  "What? The elves?"

  "And the legions of dead who follow you from below."

  "Sorry, totally not getting the fish folk tie-in."

  "Which is why I am sending you the one who was once Dakkar. He will be Kevat to your Rama and ferry you to your destiny."

  "Rama?" I arched an eyebrow.

  "It is a metaphor," he sa
id mildly. "I doubt he will want to wash your feet."

  "Rama-dama-ding-dong," I muttered.

  "You mock what you do not understand."

  I nodded. "That's right. I'd keep the hero job search open awhile longer if I were you." I kept nodding along to the beat. Damn. "Now if it's all the same to you, I've got a boat to catch."

  "Yes. Yes, you do. Just remember, most heroes don't seek the quest, the quest seeks them. And sometimes it is the single word rather than the grand gesture that tips the balance of the world. Even now, Dakkar tries too hard. He is still a man of Science, even is his latest incarnation. What is needed is a man of Faith."

  "Yeah, well," I said, "good luck with that."

  "You are that man."

  "Help me, Obi-Wan; you're our only hope."

  Elephant guy blinked. "I do not understand."

  "At last, something we agree on! Look, Horton, I'm sure you meant what you said and you said what you meant, but I'm totally interested like zero percent. You and the elves and the big barrel of monster parts are all babbling about sacrifices and transformations and saving the world like it's some kind of special privilege to go toe to toe with some giant Nightmare from the Phantom Zone. Well, I've got my own problems. If I was totally invested in the monster-killing business, I'd have to start with me. Then there's the fact that most of my closest friends are now nightmares in their own right. I don't know if I can even get to and rescue the people who mean the most to me in time. Every time I turn around, my own body seems to be booby-trapped and turning me into Inspector Gadget. So, from a practical perspective, I really don't see what I can do for you or for the rest of the world, right now."

  "You can dance," he said.

  "What good will that do me?"

  "Close your eyes and see where the celestial music takes you."

  Well, like I said, dream-states have their own internal sets of rules and compulsions: I closed my eyes and abandoned myself to the beat. It beat talking nonsense to Ali Babar. The music swept me up and disoriented me. I felt as though I were tipping over, yet never falling. Dancing sideways and on my back. Twisting, hips thrusting to the beat. Sinuous and swaying, stepping on air and surrendering to a tidal wave of pleasure, rolling me over and over in my head . . .

  * * *

  * * *

  . . . in my bed.

  I sat up feeling the top of my head. The silver antennae were gone. I looked down: so was my clothing. The sheets were rumpled and half off the bed. The pillow was halfway across the cabin on the floor.

  The shower was running on the other side of the door to the head.

  I looked down and touched myself where the swelling had started to subside. I was sticky.

  "Oh crap," I whispered. "I think I've been had!"

  Chapter Fifteen

  I finally got out of bed and started toward the sound of the shower, trying to formulate the exact wording of the questions I needed to ask. If I had been . . . well . . . violated . . . by a beautiful faerie queen and elven sea goddess while unconscious, I had to articulate the issues without sounding either pathetic or stupid. And given their known mythology on the issues of child abduction, I doubted the Sidhe had any cultural concept of "date rape."

  Before I could reach the head a pounding on my cabin door diverted me. "Better get out here," Setanta's muffled voice announced, "it's bad!"

  If the Hound of Ulster, the warrior prince who defied elves and gods and fought whole armies single-handedly says something is bad, you don't play Twenty Questions on the other side of a closed door. I freshened up with what was at hand and dressed quickly. The shower was still running as I left my cabin and came out into the scorched ruin of the salon.

  The TV was on some local station as we were running down the river and couldn't keep the satellite dish oriented. A newscaster was standing in a tropical downpour, shouting something unintelligible into his microphone. The term "downpour" was somewhat of a misnomer as the thick, heavy raindrops were zipping across the screen diagonally, upper right to lower left corners. The trees in the background were bowed by the force of the wind and debris flashed by in intermittent peek-a-boo bursts of leaves and scraps and paper bags and cups.

  The abrupt transition back to the newsroom was all the more jarring by the contrast of the quiet, well-lit room and perfectly coiffed anchor seated behind the desk. "Again, the National Weather Center has no explanation for these phenomena. It was announced just thirty minutes ago that Hurricane Eibon has jumped from a Category Two to a Category Four Hurricane, its wind speeds increasing from over ninety miles an hour to nearly one hundred and forty. Furthermore, the latest satellite imagery shows that the storm has continued to grow and pick up speed and we are anticipating landfall within the hour. All evacuees are being advised to abandon their vehicles and seek shelter in a basement or reinforced structure if they are within fifty miles of New Orleans.

  "While the wind damage from a Category Four storm is of great concern, it is New Orleans' position between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain that has most disaster experts worried. Following Hurricane Betsy in 1963, the levees and floodwalls surrounding the city and outlying parishes were raised to heights of 14 to 23 feet. Unfortunately, the construction design is only guaranteed to withstand a Category Three storm. Congress failed to fully fund an upgrade requested during the 1990s by the Army Corps of Engineers. Funding was cut in 2003 and 2004 despite a 2001 study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency warning that a hurricane striking New Orleans was among the three most likely catastrophes to befall the country in the future . . ."

  Setanta shook his head. "What fools these mortals be!"

  I cleared my throat. "Yeah, well, estimates to reinforce the levees to resist Category Five forces put the total cost at twenty-five billion dollars and maybe twenty-five years to complete the job. Which puts the twenty-five billion dollar estimate into low-ball territory. Factor in the Big Easy's long history of graft, corruption, malfeasance, and downright incompetence, well, no one's keen on throwing good money after bad."

  "New Orleans flood control measures," the news guy continued, "include more than 520 miles of levees, 270 floodgates, 92 pumping stations, and thousands of miles of drainage canals. It is the price of living in a city on the edge of the ocean that sits below sea-level. And since its pumping stations are below sea-level, as well, a catastrophic breech would pretty much be the end."

  "What does that mean?" Setanta puzzled.

  "It means," I explained with a sinking sensation, "that the city sits inside a bowl. And the bottom of that bowl is lower than the water outside of the bowl. If water finds a way to start coming into the bowl really fast, the pumps at the bottom of the bowl will end up underwater faster than they can pump it back out. Which means the pumps stop working—like maybe forever. And the bowl fills all the way up until the water inside the bowl is at the same level as the water outside of the bowl."

  " . . . estimates place property damages could potentially reach twenty-five billion dollars . . ."

  "Hence the gamble," I said, "of spending the twenty-five really-large for sure or crossing everyone's collective fingers that the damages will be less in the long run."

  " . . . and 25,000 to 100,000 deaths by drowning," concluded the news anchor.

  Cuchulainn shook his head. "Madness!"

  I nodded. "You bet. At least it ain't Tokyo."

  "Tokyo?" He looked bewildered.

  "Giant radioactive monsters."

  "Really?"

  I nodded again. "And Raymond Burr."

  * * *

  It was an act of madness.

  Crazy enough to try to take a houseboat down the Mississippi. Oh, it could be done but we were neither rigged nor rated for the trip. But, more importantly, we'd run out of time. Unfortunately, the solution to that problem was an even greater act of madness.

  Liban was going to open a path to the sea. To a point just offshore to the Port of New Orleans.

  Right smack dab in the m
iddle of a Category Four soon-to-be Category Five hurricane.

  "Maybe not," she said, not quite meeting my eyes. She hadn't quite met my eyes since I'd discovered her topside, discussing the coming logistics with Camazotz at the New Moon's helm.

  On the one hand I wanted to confront her, grab her and shake her, demand to know if I'd been taken advantage of while unconscious (and dancing up a storm). On the other hand, it seemed a bit unseemly to make accusations without more concrete evidence of some kind of "crime". And if there was a culprit, might it not be pheromone-enhanced moi who may have driven her (albeit unintentionally) to act so precipitously? It was a very precarious blame game if one were to start rolling the dice.

  And, seeing as how we might all be dead very soon, such lesser issues seemed rather non-starters. Survive the next forty-eight hours and then have a little movie review of While You Were Sleeping.

  "What do you mean: 'maybe not'?" I asked her.

  "Opening a path through the sea moves us through time as well as space. The greater the distance, the more time will pass. I do not know what will happen when I try to open a path from a tributary to the sea. The circumlocutions of land may bend such elements in unforeseeable ways." Now she looked up at me and there was fear in her sea-green eyes.

  They said Captain Ahab was an obsessed madman when he risked his ship and his crew in pursuit of Moby Dick. Well, I wasn't chasing a great white whale, I was racing the storm of the century to rescue my family from the flood, the monsters, and, just maybe, the end of the world.

  "I'm going to New Orleans and I mean to get there as quickly and by any means possible," I said.

  "This will be very dangerous," she said. "If the path, itself, brings us through safely, we may perish upon arrival."