“Watch where you’re going, you black idiot!”
I forced myself to breathe deeply. As Bankhead, still swearing, hobbled down the sidewalk I checked both directions, made sure the street was clear, then pulled onto our street and headed west. As I made my way onto the interstate, drivers in nearby cars took pains to drive up alongside Barbara’s car.
“Speed limit’s fifty-five, jackass!”
I made my way to the airport.
Maybe it was the expectant expression on my face that made the gate agent at the Transworld Charter terminal take pity on me. Maybe it was the roses. Or the sign I was holding:
Surabhi Moloke… Will U Marry Me?
I’d been standing at the gate, waiting for Surabhi and her family to emerge from the closed jetway for nearly an hour before the gate agent noticed me. I’d checked my Blackberry scheduler a dozen times, checked the charter airline’s website and learned that their flight from Heathrow had departed on schedule. But nearly twelve hours later, there was no sign of them. And the gate agent, a wispy woman with mousy hair and a pronounced overbite, was staring at me again.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Who are you waiting for?”
I told her. She typed into her computer and waited for a response. Her eyes widened, then she lifted one trembling hand to her lips. Her dismay only grew worse when she read my sign.
“Will you excuse me for a moment?” she whispered.
Before I could answer, the mousy woman turned and dashed into a little office behind the counter. She reemerged almost immediately with another person in tow, a tall, Asian woman wearing a black suit. The mousy agent was standing on tiptoe, whispering into the dark-suited woman’s ear. The dark-suited woman eyed me suspiciously, then nodded.
“My name is Naomi Penn,” she said. “I’m a customer service representative for Transworld Charter. May I please ask your name?”
I told her my name.
“Oooh, like the movie character. Billy Dee Williams? How wonderful for you.”
“Is there a problem?”
“May I inquire as to the nature of your relationship to the Moloke family, Mister Dee Williams?”
“What’s going on? Are you with the UN or…?”
But Naomi Penn was staring at my sign. It must have looked like I was using it to fend her off. I shrugged it behind my back, suddenly embarrassed without knowing why.
“You are engaged to Surabhi Moloke?”
“Yep,” I said. “Well, I hope to be in the next few minutes. Ahhh… where’s the plane?”
The mousy agent offered a throat-clearing cough behind the counter. Our eyes met, and she quickly looked down at her flashing screen.
“Mister Dee Williams… will you please follow me?”
Naomi Penn turned on one heel and walked toward the counter.
I repeated my name as we passed the nervous agent and went into the little office behind the counter.
“It’s Cooper, by the way. Was the flight delayed?”
Naomi Penn sat at a little desk and gestured me toward the small chair opposite it. “Please sit.”
“What’s going on?”
“Mister Cooper, the Molokes’ plane has been lost.”
“Lost? Lost where?”
Penn’s smile never wavered, but her fingers scooped up a silver letter opener from her desk and began to fumble with it.
“Mister Cooper, there’s been a terrible incident. The Molokes’ charter lost contact with Heathrow shortly after take-off. The plane went down somewhere over the Atlantic, we believe between…”
“Wait a minute… Went down… what do you mean ‘went down’?”
Penn’s hands kept bending the blade of the letter opener, as if she could twist it into a different shape.
“The Molokes’ plane went down off the coast of Ireland sometime this morning, sir. A Royal Naval vessel was in the area where the plane was lost. They are conducting search and rescue operations now.”
“You’re telling me that–”
“Apparently a good deal of wreckage has already been located. As of this moment, I’m terribly sorry to inform you… that there were no survivors.”
“No survivors…?”
“I am so sorry for your loss, Mister Cooper...”
Search and rescue.
“Because of the sensitive nature of Mrs Moloke’s work and the intervention of US, British and Irish authorities, no formal announcement has been released to the media until any criminal activities can be ruled out, but…”
There were no survivors.
“…all efforts are being made…”
No survivors.
“…a counselor provided by the airline to help you in this terrible time…”
No…
“Mister Cooper… is there anyone I can contact?”
Survivors.
“Mister Cooper?”
CHAPTER XIX
THE CHOICE
“Surabhi Moloke Will U Marry Me?”
I sat in the main concourse of Transworld Charter, staring at my hands. A few feet away, a six year-old girl was repeating the contents of my sign to her mother. The mother was busily texting on her iPhone and only half listening.
“Surabhi Moloke Will U Marry Me?”
“That’s nice, sweetheart.”
“Surabhi Moloke Will U Marry Me? That’s what the sign says, Mommy!”
“Good job, pumpkin. You’re decoding and interpreting.”
“Mommy, why is that brown man crying?”
The mother jerked as if she’d been given an electric shock. When she saw me sitting there, her eyes went wide and round as new saucers. “Amanda! Oh my God!”
The woman stood up and rushed over to where I sat.
“I am so sorry, sir. We normally don’t acknowledge people with different skin colors. I mean, we normally don’t notice… I mean… Amanda, apologize to the nice man.”
“But why is he crying, Mommy? Doesn’t he have a place to live?”
“Amanda! You apologize this very instant!”
“It’s alright.”
I swiped at my eyes with the back of my sleeve. Then I went back to staring at my hands.
No survivors.
My mobile beeped. I grabbed it, hoping…
Sorry for this terrible loss. If there is anything Transworld Charters can do to assist you please contact me at…
I set my phone on the seat next to me and went back to staring at my hands.
Surabhi Moloke Will U Marry Me?
“Sir, are you alright? Can I help you?”
The look on the concerned mother’s face unfolded something sharp in my chest.
“You took the risk.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your daughter embarrassed you, but you still tried to help.”
“Oh. Well. Everyone has to do their part. Right? I mean, if we don’t lend a helping hand every once in a while, the world would slide into chaos.”
Something heavy fell over with a loud crash.
“Amanda, come down from there!”
The woman ran off to attend to her daughter.
I needed to move. I needed to think.
My connection to the power was too unreliable. I could already feel the pain lurking in my head, daring me to try it. And there had been no godfight, no divine breaching to release the power my plan required. There was only one place where I could find the hope I needed: home. At the bottom of my college footlocker lay power enough for a second chance.
“Mommy… who’s Surabhi Moloke?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
It’s what is.
“But I’ve changed things before. I can fix this.”
You redressed the damages caused by divine breeches in the Eshuum. That’s different.
“I’ve saved millions, billions of lives.”
You’ve operated according to the dictates of your function. To move them forward, protect them from obsolete gods. Now you’re one of them. Sur
abhi’s death has nothing to do with that.
“But I can fix this. It doesn’t have to happen.”
But it did happen. In the normal course of events.
“But it’s wrong!”
That’s life. Welcome to the world.
“Who would blame me? After everything I’ve done? The sacrifices I’ve made? Who would begrudge me just this once?”
You would blame yourself. It’s a violation of the Covenant you initiated. You know it’s wrong.
“No! I could go on. Fix this one problem and then move on. The Plan would go on.”
You would fail. The knowledge of the violation would undermine the legitimacy of every decision. It’s the essence of corruption.
“You’re wrong. I could bring them back and walk away. I could restore her and never see her again. Wouldn’t that be enough?”
It’s corrupt.
“What would it take to make this right, Connie?”
You can’t make it right.
“I can make it right. We can make it right, Connie. Together.”
You can’t bargain with me. Changing Woman is gone.
“Then… who are you?”
What you’re about to do will wreak havoc with the structure of reality.
“I have no reality without her. I love her.”
You are corrupt. Fallible. Human.
“I can fix this.”
You’ll destroy everything you’ve worked to achieve.
“No,” I said to myself. “I can handle it.”
I looked at my reflection in the polished surface of my Northwestern footlocker. The man who looked back at me was a stranger, his face a grieving mask.
I can fix that too. I can fix everything.
I unlocked the padlock and lifted the lid. Silver radiance filled my eyes, my mind. It nourished a part of me that had gone hungry. It had been nearly a decade since I’d last touched the Shell. Looking into the Eshuum was like diving into the past while dreaming of the future. It was hope and dread in equal measure; every dream humankind has ever dreamed or will dream, and every nightmare that haunts the collective consciousness. The potential for endless invention exists there; every masterpiece, every murderous innovation shimmers within its argent chambers. It is the most powerful phenomenon on Earth and, at one time, it was my home.
“I’m coming, babe.”
Starlight elevated me, empowered my perceptions to levels far beyond those of which my dwindling personal reserves were capable. Without the Shell’s protection my mortal body would have been reduced to screaming ash. But Surabhi was depending on me. I wasn’t about to let her tumble down the well of death and circumstance when I could set things straight with a simple wish. My newly awakened conscience was wrong.
“Lando! What the hell are you doing up there?”
I flicked a luminous tendril at the door, slammed it so hard that it cracked down the center. Herb might have a fit, but nothing this side of an Archangel could open it until I allowed it to open.
I summoned the Aspect best suited to realigning circumstantial inconsistencies. Father Flies rose up around me, all cold brilliance and jealousy. It was the mathematician’s God, the cartographer’s Deity, the whitebearded God of Christopher Columbus and Thomas Aquinas, its eyes bright as supernovae.
“You have no place here. Only the all-seeing may wade in the waters of feasibility.”
White light exploded in my skull, gouged the backs of my eyes. I was blind, deafened and battered. Somewhere, something was burning. I could smell frying meat in the air of my parents’ attic and realized it was me: my mind was on fire. I bore down harder, buoyed up by the power of the Eshuum even as it was killing me.
One. Last. Time.
“Depart,” Father Flies said. “You’re too late.”
I answered with a shout of silver force. “Be quiet.”
Windows shattered. My parents’ house shuddered as if struck a blow from an invisible giant. Burning brightly, I brushed aside Father Flies, commandeered his extrusions, gripped the reins of will and circumstance and wrapped them around my fists.
“Reset.”
Silence, deeper than the void at the beginning of Time. For one weightless moment, I hung, suspended in the moment between… Then something grabbed me, wrapped around my chest, and a guttural voice rasped in my right ear.
“You are mine, dog.”
Cold hits me in the face. I can’t breathe… The air is screaming and my vision keeps shifting; black to red to blinding white. But it’s the cold, hard slap of winter somehow magnified to lethal intensity. Something is holding me, constricting my chest. Then something sharp pierces my side and a red hot agony fills up my world. Something’s pulled me out of the Eshuum, ambushed me. But only a Godlike power could have intercepted me.
“At last he begins to see the light.”
Through the frenzy of pain in my side, I can feel my blood trickling down the fronts of my thighs. Someone’s pressing something sharp against my adam’s apple. The pain in my side pushes me up onto the tips of my toes. Snow like flecks of wind blown ice scour my face, obscuring the dark shape that emerges from the storm.
“I’d say we have his attention, brother. I think you can let him go.”
The pressure on my back lessens as that hot shard slides out of my flesh. Hot blood is pulsing down my legs, between my buttocks. My unseen attacker relaxes his chokehold and I fall to my hands and knees. I can’t catch my breath. I need my inhaler.
“‘And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof.’ That’s from Revelations, Lando. A lot of folks think it’s too dark, but I find it comforting.”
“Let me kill the little traitor now.”
“No, Brother Ares. He’s to be tasked first.”
I look up into a face partially obscured by multicolored ribbons of light, the shifting bands illuminating a dark gray sky. The Northern Lights. Behind the man-shaped shadow, a fractious gray sea surges, whipped by howling winds. I’m in Alaska, maybe the North Pole? The Arctic Circle?
“You know me, son?”
Owen Holiday smiles his serial killer’s smile. He’s dressed in a denim shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, as if the cold has no effect on him.
“It has been given to me, the pleasure of educating you as to certain realities of which you may be unaware. The first and most obvious… You’ve been replaced.”
My lungs are filling up with blood. I reach inward, searching for an Aspect. Skydaddy could blow them both to China, or Father Flies… or Stormface…
“Still fighting, son? You should be thinking about the disposition of your immortal soul.”
Holiday kneels down and looks me in the eye.
“You think my God didn’t know what you were trying to do? That your successor didn’t have you pegged from the moment you decided to pull the plug on all that hard earned belief? Did you really believe He would let it all end?”
Holiday’s words sting, propelled by the force of his strange inner violence.
“What were you thinking, Yahweh? You could have had it all to yourself, maybe for another century. But you wanted more.”
“Just wait, you bastard… just… wait…”
Black flashes pulse before my eyes. Holiday… he’s holding the Shell. It twinkles like a nugget of hard starshine as he rolls it back and forth across his knuckles, like a magician flipping a coin.
“Such a simplistic incarnation. All your headaches, the drinking… the woman. So easy to take it all away.”
“You… you killed Surabhi.”
“Oh no, not me. My God killed your woman. While you were finding yourself, He moved into your empty mansion. A century or so ahead of schedule, yes, but my Lord is always on the lookout for other people’s missed opportunities.”
Stormface… Father Flies... help me…
Abandoner. Betrayer.
I’m weaponless, breathless and bleeding to death.
I can
fix this. I’m God.
Not anymore.
“Get him up.”
Ares grabs me under my arms and hugs me to his chest, squeezing me with enough force to make my spine creak. Up close he smells like blood and smoke and downmarket aftershave.
“Hey… it’s true. You really do look like Burt Reynolds.”
“I. DO. NOT!”
Holiday laughs as Ares fumed. I’m dying, but I can still bust balls.
“Besides bearing a disturbing resemblance to Mister Reynolds, Brother Ares here also lacks the power to kill whatever may be left of the You part of you. But never mind – reinforcements have arrived!”
Behind him, the frozen sea grows violent. The shattering of icebergs fills the air as the horizon begins to glow. The wind slices at my cheeks, my fingers. I can feel the blood freezing into a thin sheet on my thighs.
“‘And I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth that the wind should not blow on the earth, not on the sea, nor on any tree!’”
Two shining portals open in midair. Two burning figures step out onto the ice, sending up torrents of steam. Although I’ve forgotten more about my former life than could be contained by a hundred mortal lifetimes I recognize the gods Holiday has summoned to kill me: Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Time and Destruction, She who is called Destroyer and Mother Death. Around Her throat dangles a necklace of human skulls. Each of Her six hands grips a weapon capable of generating incalculable force, Her skin the color of clear summer skies, Her eyes twin pools of liquid midnight. Her song could unbind the fabric of reality. As far as I knew she went into retirement back in the early Nineties after a massive influx of Hindus into the West weakened the grip of her pantheon at home. Now here she stands, Her face beautiful and terrible, in full Aspect.
Next to her stands Thor, the Norwegian god of thunder. Wielding his magic hammer, he was strong enough to atomize a mountain range. He once held power over the world’s storms, until the coming of Christianity forced him into obsolescence. Now storms swirl around him once more, dancing to his call. He is huge, his hair and beard like a raging wildfire. The hammer he grips in his right fist crackles with lightning. It’s screaming, its cry melting the permafrost beneath his feet into hissing slush.
Last God Standing Page 21