“I understand your ‘joke’ now,” she whispers from the whirlwind. “It’s we who make the world. Not warlords. Not gods. Goodbye.”
Up, up and away from the burning comedy club, out of the Eshuum: it’s no longer a playground for gods and cavebears. The real owners have returned.
“What the hell did you do?”
Holiday was leering down at me, his face a death’s head caricature of a human skull.
“Yo, Doc… does your face hurt? Cuz it’s killin’ me.”
“What… did you do?”
Holiday reached into his pocket, pulled out the Shell and raised it over his head.
“Kill him! Kill him now!”
But the Shell’s silver glow was gone. It lay in his hands. Inert. Dead.
The death’s-head rictus stretched Holiday’s sunscoured face skin even tighter. His eyes bulged from their sockets, and his face turned bright red. He dropped the Shell, reached up and clutched at his throat as if he was trying to claw open his own windpipe.
“What… did… you doooo?”
“Dude, you’re scaring me now.”
Holiday shook his head, slapping at his face and neck like a man beset by a million stinging insects. I could sympathize: I had just been beset by a million stinging insects. I was dying, in fact, but still pretty happy… if I ignored the dying part. I had no idea if my consciousness would revert to Infinite setting upon my death. My pre-mortal “self” hadn’t planned that far out, apparently. I was just like every other mortal schmuck on the planet, suddenly subject to the greatest mystery of all.
Meanwhile Holiday was entertaining everyone with his funny slapdance. The assembled hosts had gathered around us. I could already sense the dwindling; celestial force leaching from their ranks like chicken blood down a kitchen drain. The closer they stood or hovered to each other, the more pronounced the draining became.
“What… what… what did you doooooo?” Holiday shrieked.
As I watched, the lines in his face deepened into crevasses. His hair turned first gray, then white. He opened his mouth wider and his teeth fell out, white nubbins of bone rattling across the dry ground like smelly dice. In seconds he became old, then ancient, falling into decrepitude and corruption before my eyes. His eyes rolled back into his head, then they turned to dust and poured out all over his shoes. There was a soft squishy sound from somewhere in the vicinity of Holiday’s bottom. Then he stopped dancing and fell down.
The surviving supernaturals drew closer, staring at the body of their dessicated savior like New Yorkers at a public knifing. In the stunned silence it took me thirty whole seconds to crack wise.
“Now that was funny.”
It all began to fly past my mind’s eye. Surabhi, my parents. I settled back to die as memories of my mortal life flashed before my mind’s eye. The Halloween night back in 1984 when Atticus and I caught my parents making love in Herb’s first Mercedes, him dressed as George Washington, her as Abe Lincoln; the day we opened Cooper and Sons’ Downtown location. I was twelve years old. There were hot dogs and lemonade. It was the last time I remember seeing my parents hug each other. I remembered the first time Surabhi and I made love. It was after our fourth date. She’d come to see my set at the Funny Bone. I remember her laughter.
I love you, Bee.
“Fool. You thought I would die so easily?”
The Prince of Darkness looked like Hell. Yuri’s beauty was ruined; one of his eyes had been smashed shut, his lips swollen and blackened from a myriad blows. From where I lay dying, his beachboy good looks were a thing of the past.
“I hope it hurt.”
Yuri grabbed me up, shook me, hard. I hiccupped blood all over his shirt.
“I have not Fallen so far only to fail now.”
Dozens of the most powerful surviving gods and angels surrounded us. Most of the demons were gone, having either fled or been transformed. Yuri faced the survivors.
“It’s not too late! We who remain can redact the actions taken by this fool of a god!”
“‘Fool of a god’?” I’d finally pinpointed what was different about him. “Dude, why are you talking like Ian McKellen?”
“I can still save the divine orders from your stupidity,” Yuri growled. Then, to the Host, “We can fill the power vacuum this human created! We can take it all back!”
“Too late, Captain. The message has been given. Permission to call you a lying douchebag, sir?”
Yuri shook me. Black balloons exploded in my head.
“Not a problem. I can still kill the messenger.”
Then he wrapped his hands around my throat and began to squeeze. “I’ve… wanted to do… this… for a long… time.”
None of the Host flew to my aid, the shining bastards, even the Seraphim, whose job it had been to attend my every want back in the pre-Descent days. They hovered like humanoid fireflies while the Devil throttled me.
That’s devotion for you.
The black spots began to throb, matching the fluttering beat of my heart. I felt the hyoid bone in my throat snap like a wet dog biscuit.
Pop.
I was looking down at the top of Yuri’s blond head, rising above my body, and as I ascended, my vision expanded to take in his shoulders, the veins standing out on his straining forearms. I could see his hands wrapped around my neck; see my own sightless eyes rolling back in my head, the slits glowing like white half moons. I could see the timid Holy Hosts falling over each other to get a better view.
I felt warm, even cozy. But that didn’t make sense. I was dead… and loving it? My attention shifted, seeking the source of the warmth. It was above me, high overhead, a shining point of light. The light shone, white and gold, and millions of other colors that I’d never imagined; utterly different from the light I saw aboard Amon-Ra’s Barque of a Million Years.
What is that?
It was drawing closer, its warmth growing greater. I felt the urge to rise and meet the light, to–
Join us
But what was it?
Come along
Is this what humans see when they die?
I received only a surge of pleasure as the glow strengthened–
Join us
I’m ready. Whatever this is, I want in. I’m ready to blow this dimensional popsicle stand and head for the stars.
Surabhi. Are you in there?
“Yahweh is fallen!” Yuri shouted. “Now dawns a New Order. Now begins a new Ascencion!”
Despite my best efforts, I looked back.
“The Shining Orders have served in humanity’s shadow for too long! Served those whom we should rule!”
“Rule!”
“Now is the moment for which the divine Orders have prepared! When we declare War upon the scum that has infected this world for too long!”
Yuri raised his right hand, his fingers clawing toward the heavens. A long tongue of fire shot from those fingers, intensifying until the flame resolved itself into a blazing sword. “War!”
“War!”
“Kill the humans!”
“Power to the Principalities!”
“Yuriel Kalashnikov!”
Mitsuko Leavenworth stepped out of the throng of revolutionaries, her pale face reflecting the flames from Yuri’s sword.
Wait a minute... I know that sword.
“I am Benzaiten, of the Shiji Fukujin. Spirit of fortune and daughter of mighty Munetsuchi.”
As she moved toward Yuri she assumed her most alluring Aspect: Benzaiten, Sister to the Snake, radiant with the full beauty and beneficence of the Goddess of Love. Her divine light would surely fade in time, as would the brilliance of all those gathered below, but at that moment she shone bright enough to melt stone.
“My life force flows in the deepest waters of this world. I am the daughter of immortals.”
Then she dropped her glamour, became Mitsuko Leavenworth again. When she spoke, her voice was unaffected by any hint of divinity.
“But it’s as a mortal that
I choose to share my days with you. Come back to me.”
“No!” Yuri snarled. The flames licking along the blazing blade flared even brighter. “Deceiver! Stay back!”
Mitsuko moved closer, placing her hands first upon her breast then extending them toward Yuri. Yuri brandished his sword, kept its point between them.
“Remember yourself, Yuri,” Benzaiten whispered, her face streaked with tears like drops of molten silver.
“Remember, O Satan, the darkness you renounced. Remember the life we created. Together.”
Mitsuko reached up and laid her fingers against the tip of the burning blade. With the other, she caressed her abdomen.
Yuri unleashed a stream of profanity so blasphemous that several Seraphim dropped out of the sky. Then he dropped the burning sword and clapped his fists against his temples.
“Get… OUT!”
Hovering in the limbo between life and death, I saw what happened next but couldn’t believe it: spectral black dragon’s wings burst from Yuri’s back. Then a shadow stepped out of his body. For a moment the two of them struggled there, the shadow clutching at Yuri’s throat, fighting to occupy the same space at the exact same time. Then the Archangel Gabriel fell to the stony battlefield.
“There!” Mitsuko cried. “It was Gabriel who conspired with the Coming. Gabriel who plotted with Holiday!”
Sheer elemental malice ignited Gabriel’s countenance; twin crimson suns burned where his angelic eyes had once been.
“Pitiful, damned fools!”
To say Gabriel had changed would be putting it lightly. Where once he stood tall, the epitome of angelic perfection, he now crouched, his once flawless physique twisted, as if broken by the pressure of containing raw malice. He was putting out heat like a blast furnace, the air around him shrieking as if his very presence burned it raw. His once luminescent skin had turned a chalky white, the color of an ancient nightshade, mottled with red and black scales. His eyes burned bright red-orange, the pupils elongated into feline slits.
The new Devil flapped his leathery wings, fanning nuclear heat I could feel even across the boundary between life and death. Then he raised one clawed hand. A cloud of black smoke that stank of brimstone streamed from a crack in the earth. His Voice boomed over the assembled Host.
“If Heaven is forbidden to me, I will rule in Hell.” Gabriel turned his eyes upon the gathered gods, demons and spirits. “But I will not haunt an empty mansion.”
The Host screamed.
“Waste,” Gabriel said. “Such… pathetic… waste.”
The Hell Portal fissioned into three-dimensional space. The Adversary stalked toward the portal, his bare feet leaving burning clawprints in the dust. He paused, then he looked up at me, where I hovered, bodiless and intangible.
“Be warned. The Final Assault has begun.”
Then, with a glare that can only be described as Satanic, the new Prince of Darkness leaped into the glowing portal. There was a flash of light and the stench of rotten flesh, followed by much rending and gnashing of teeth. When my astral eyes cleared, the plains were empty. The gathered Host was gone. Damned to a hell even I couldn’t imagine.
“Well,” Yuri said, after a while. “That can’t be good.”
Then he saw my body lying at his feet.
“Oh my God!”
Yuri threw himself to the ground, lifted my head and cradled it in his lap. With one hand he spread my swollen lips apart. With the other, he reached into his shirt pocket and produced a vial filled with some dark, purplish liquid.
“You’re not getting off that easy, old boy.”
Then he tilted back my head and poured the liquid into my open mouth. There was an overwhelming sensation of…
PURPLE
…then I was slam-dunked back into my body. I opened my eyes.
“Dude, you can’t die, we’ve got a show to do.”
“What… what was in that vial?”
Yuri shrugged. “Oh that? Just the last of my hidden lifeforce reserve.”
“You kept a ‘hidden lifeforce reserve’?”
“Yeah. In case I ever needed a quick resurrection.”
“But that’s cheating.”
“Dude… I’m the Devil.” Yuri looked around the now empty plain, and shuddered. “Or at least… I was.”
Then Yuri shrugged and offered his most rakish grin.
“I guess if I had to expend a little survival magic to keep my best client up and bitchin’ for another sixty or seventy years… it was worth it.”
And there we sat, the former incarnations of the Abrahamic Deity and his Eternal Enemy, crying and hugging like a couple of old farts. I could feel my bones re-knitting. My mouth hummed where new teeth had shrugged their way through my gums and the pain was already a distant memory.
“You never told me you were the Devil.”
“You never asked.”
They helped me to my feet.
“After we incarnated I thought it best if I kept discrete tabs.”
“You were spying on me?”
“Somebody had to. Who better than me? You were right, by the way.”
“About what?”
“Well,” he grinned. “There may come a day when I regret giving up that lifeforce.”
He drew Mitsuko into an embrace.
“A little extra life insurance would have been the smart move. But you were dying. For the first time in two thousand years… I acted without an ulterior motive.”
“And?”
“It feels pretty damned good.”
Benzaiten reached up and touched Yuri’s shoulder. Yuri turned to her.
“Lucy… you got a lotta splainin to do.”
They embraced, seemingly forgetting about the world as they fell into each other’s eyes. Watching them wrenched something inside my chest.
“I’m sorry about the lightning bolts,” I said. “I didn’t know about Gabriel.”
“And I’m sorry I tried to overthrow Heaven and take over the world. My bad.”
“You were possessed: the Devil made you do it.”
“I love you, Lando Cooper.”
There was no brimstone. No black smoke. Yuri had nearly murdered me. Then he’d given up the last dregs of his immortality to save my life. Our friendship had given the Devil a shot at redemption and he’d taken it.
“What about Surabhi?”
I told him. I think that was the hardest part of all.
“But you can save her, right? I mean… you can just… make things like they were.”
“I can’t feel my Aspects. I thought maybe with the extra kick from that concoction you fed me… but nothing happened. I think the power is gone.”
The sick expression on Yuri’s face echoed the emptiness in the center of my chest: we’d found a lantern in the sea of eternal darkness. We’d saved the world and made our dreams come true: we were real – human at last.
But I needed the power of a god.
CHAPTER XXVII
DEAD GOD TALKIN’
(FIFTEEN YEARS LATER)
It was Amon-Ra who gave me the idea. Amon-Ra who showed me that what I’d come to suspect in my previous incarnation – that the time of gods had passed – might also provide the key to defeating Owen Holiday and the Coming.
It was a matter of belief. Belief is the lifeblood of any god, faith the basis of a god’s power to affect the mortal world. Amon-Ra’s story of the Morning People, his tale of the races he’d encountered on the way to the black hole at the center of the galaxy, had formed the metaphorical diving board from which I was able to dive into the wellspring of the collective human conciousness. Inspired by a kind of godly affirmation, I was able to offer a gentle push. I guess I wasn’t the only divinity who’d sussed out his rapidly dwindling options.
Half the battle is getting the people’s attention. Once you have it the question becomes: what will you do with all that potential?
I’d diverted the rush of human creativity away from the Coming and toward a
n idea that most people already suspected: that the human race is ultimately responsible for its own salvation. Or damnation. And like the printing press, the discovery of fire or the reality show, it’s an idea whose time has come.
Large-scale conflicts are down. Once humans recognized the potential for divinity in themselves and in each other, the desire to destroy each other over philosophical differences decreased exponentially. These days it’s hard to find a real war. Most of the world’s powerful nations focus their resources on things like education and social justice. Even the People’s Republic of China became one of the world’s foremost democracies even as the uprisings in the Middle East took on greater urgency.
Violent crime is down. Of course there are sociopaths who commit heinous crimes, but once people understood that the person standing next to them in line at the grocery store was a part of a shared phenomenon, the Quantum Step, even drug abuse was greatly reduced. People prefer to be awake, finding the thrill of living in the present intoxicating enough.
Most people held on to their traditional belief systems, at least for as long as those systems served the shared paradigm shift that is rapidly transforming the world, but now a pronounced humanism underlay those traditions. Suddenly the content of a person’s character became more important than their religious/political views.
People have begun to practice a kind of practical morality, instead of religiosity. Israel and Palestine ended their mutual animosity when soldiers on both sides of the divide “recognized” each other. After all, the Human Race evolved together, splitting into its myriad tribes only as time and distance separated them.
People from all walks of Life are mixing like Woodstock or MTV Cribs. Amon-Ra’s advice was dead perfect: once faced with the loss of its need for gods, the choice between intellectual annihilation or rapid evolution toward a more perfect destiny, humanity chose to evolve. They saw the edge of the cliff rearing up before them, sensed the end of the road in the fretful promises of the Coming, and guided themselves onto a better path.
A miracle for all the ages. Thank you, Amon-Ra.
Last God Standing Page 30