by Scott Hale
“God’s in everything!” she heard the Skeleton say, as darkness closed over. “It holds it all together.”
There was a moment. It happened in that split-second before the shadows could tear her to pieces. In that moment, Vrana saw a blue light within her mind’s eye. There were figures in the light, but they were too difficult to make out. She had a feeling in her gut who they might be though, and so she labeled them accordingly. For the big brute with the mullet, Bjørn. For the scrawny kid who kept messing with him, R’lyeh. There was a thinner figure with long hair, and she felt good just looking at it, so that must’ve been Mom. And there he was, in the back, not hiding, but not taking centerstage, either. The figure that could’ve been anyone, but to Vrana was just one. The one. The only one. She called him Aeson; and Aeson he became.
Lying there, arm broken, head bleeding, shadowy nails and teeth sinking into her flesh as if she were made of sand, she finally understood God’s immune system. It wasn’t really an immune system. Gods don’t get sick, unless you consider humanity a virus. And why wouldn’t It? Whether It’d created humanity, which Vrana doubted, or simply lorded it over humanity, all the same, like all rulers, It feared those that fed It. What It was doing to her, simultaneously stripping her of positive emotions and flooding her with negative ones, wasn’t something It’d do with an animal, or a simple-minded monster like Itself. It was for humans, specifically, because it was human wants and needs that made them weak—that was the whole reason It’d created the Worms; to exploit those very things, should humans flirt with apostacy. The thing was, Vrana wasn’t human. She was a Night Terror. A flesh fiend. A Child of Lacuna with the genes of her lab-grown, Exuviae-infused forebearers. She was a monster, and she wasn’t afraid of Death.
She’d do what a human couldn’t, and turn off the lights on her way out.
Vrana smiled at the Skeleton and said, as the shadows covered her, “What better a balance than zero?”
CHAPTER LIV
“You did what?!” Clementine cried inside his head. “Atticus, why? Why?”
The Skeleton shrugged from inside the grave he’d been trapped in. “Might could be better this way.”
Will laughed, unbuttoned his pants, and lounged in his favorite chair at the grave’s edge. “That’s pretty gangster, Dad.”
“Gangster?” He looked up at his family. “Where’d you learn that at?”
“Gemma.”
“That girl isn’t right,” Clementine said. She went to her knees. Her red hair caught the sun and glowed like some rare material only the gods might have. “You going to stay down there forever?”
The Skeleton kicked some dirt around. “No.”
“Then come out.”
Will, stroking some freshly grown facial hair, said, “Herbert said if you don’t start sleeping in your own bed soon, he might cozy up to Mom.”
The Skeleton said, “I got something for him to cozy up to.”
Clementine shook her head and held out her hand. “Think he might like that better. Come on, now, enough is enough. Take my hand.”
The Skeleton grunted and stretched his arm out, but he couldn’t reach her. “I can’t, Clem. I just can’t.”
“Got to let go to get out.”
The Skeleton looked at his hand, the way it was wrapped around something invisible in it. “Alright.”
Vrana respected Death. While Her attendance wasn’t always the best, and She always seemed to show up later than you expected, but when She got to work, She didn’t waste any time. Sure, Vrana would’ve liked to have died before the shadows tore her wings off, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Now she sat on the edge of the Garden of Sleep, surrounded by Death’s beautiful and unassuming agents. Water hemlock, Black Chrism, Grave Soil; deadly nightshade, monkshood, Fey Blood; rosary pea and oleander, to name a few. Vrana had seen this place before, when going back and forth with the witches between the Membrane and the Void. There used to be hundreds of Death’s Dilemmas here, but as far as she could tell, they were all gone.
That wasn’t the only thing different about this place. Death’s garden was suspended in the Abyss; therefore, they should’ve been surrounded by Abyss. But when Vrana stared into the stars above, she found that wasn’t quite the case. Amongst that soul-pricked locker were hazy images playing out, much in the way her thought used to on the back of her eyelids before falling asleep. In them, she saw something being torn into, and massive claws coming through that hole. Flesh and blood sloughed off the wound, revealing gigantic eyes; eyes like a spider’s; embryonic, agonized. It was God’s eyes.
She wasn’t dead yet, but she wasn’t quite alive. She was fading, transitioning between the two states. God, she figured, was doing the same. It was taking huge pieces out of Itself to stop them. In came Its hand, plowing miles through flesh and bone and muscle. It reached for Its heart, took it in Its reptilian grip, and squeezed. Maybe It had more hearts to spare. Or maybe It wanted to go out on Its own terms. Vrana couldn’t say. When the heart exploded, blood got in her eyes, and the hazy images in the Abyss disappeared; and finally, she was dead.
Vrana came to her feet. It was then she realized her body was back to normal. No feathers, no wings. No goddamn beak. She admired her hands, the backs of her arms. She felt herself up worse than she had that one hormone-fueled night six years back, and let out a stupid laugh. Running her fingers through her long black hair, she shivered and started to cry. She was dead. None of this real. But she appreciated it all the same.
Her time was up, though. The Abyss had an undertow. Now, it was tugging on her, pulling her in. Stroking her hair, she didn’t fight it. She let it take her, guide her, through the Garden. All the killing plants parted as she came through. The edge was nearing. Beyond, blackness, and stars; celestial belts of souls forever preserved. It was strange to think there was nothing left for her; but even in this nothing, there would always be Aeson.
Isla sprinted out of Ghostgrave’s throne room, laughing and crying at the same time. She found the nearest balcony and leaned out over it. In the south, God was growing exponentially, taking on Its true form. It was as tall as Kistvaen, and then, twice, triple, quadruple the volcano’s height. Billions of vermillion veins hung off Its back, feeding into the ground. God stretched out Its eight arms, flexed. It took the billions of veins, held them like reins, and pulled.
She’d never seen anything like this before. She’d never see anything like this again. The earth split apart. Great sheets of rock were thrown into the air. Vermillion veins lashed like whips across the continent, cutting so deeply, they scarred the planet’s core. An earthquake trumpeted, heralding the end times. The ocean answered, not from the coast, but from the sky.
The tile split beneath Isla’s feet. A line was drawn down beneath her, down the middle of her. First, she went Left. After that, she went Right. Then, she stopped and went back to where she’d begun. She leaned forward, gripping the balcony. The smell of salt and sulfur was on the air. It smelled of judgment.
Isla glanced down upon Eldrus. At all the people in the streets, good and bad alike, being swallowed by the land as it buckled and broke. She didn’t think about her Uncle Augustus or the other Exemplars who’d raped her. Instead, she watched God go to work, starry-eyed in every way, and waited for the ground to give.
Felix didn’t know where to go, but the last place where he wanted to be was in that throne room. Heart beating a mile a minute, and about to throw up, he booked it out of there. He passed Isla by the balconies and tried to get her attention, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t hear him. He took one last look at God—entire landmasses floated around It in a hurricane the size of the heartland—and ran to his quarters.
Once he got there, he threw himself into his room, locked the door (not that it mattered), and hid under the covers of his bed. Pulling his knees to his chest, shaking so badly it was bordering on paralysis, he listened to the world come apart around him.
Somehow, he heard something o
ver the explosions and the crashing waves, and the great exhalations that preceded every vermillion lashing.
A scratching at his window.
Covered in sweat, Felix poked his head out from under the covers. There was someone at his window, grinding their nails against it.
Legs like rubber, he dropped out of bed and crawled-then-stumbled to the window. “Who…?” He held the latch before opening it. “Who is it?”
“Open the window, Felix. It’s okay. I’m your friend.”
Air catching in his throat, he croaked, “Gemma?”
“Yeah, man.”
Felix threw back the latches and pulled it open.
Outside it, Gemma was floating, framed by the world spilling over itself—an avalanche of bedrock and ocean. “Get it?” She pretended to scratch the window. “Ever see that movie?”
“Movie?”
“Never mind.” She glided backwards.
He leaned out the window. A massive firestorm swept across the sky. The other side of the world, that long forgotten, abandon continent, was drifting into the atmosphere. Vermillion veins hung from the bottom of it by the billions. It looked like a jellyfish, swimming out to the dark sea of space.
Felix glanced down. Below Gemma, Camazotz.
“Ride or die,” she said.
Felix, almost hyperventilating, asked, “Where’s J-James and W-Warren?”
“Dead weight, if you know what I mean. Had to ditch them.” Gemma held out her hand, the mouth in her palm flexing its glistening jaws. “Coming?”
About to pass out, Felix threw a glance at the Vermillion God.
It pulled back on the vermillion veins in Its hands. The Heartland was upheaved, like blankets being torn from a bed.
“Where…?!” he cried. “How can…?”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him through the window. Holding onto him, so as to not drop him, she lowered the both of them onto Camazotz and sat with him on the bat’s back.
“I told you—” she threw her arm around him, “—adults suck big ones.”
Felix stopped shaking. His hand felt wet. When he looked down at it, he saw there was a slit in his palm, like Gemma’s; and like Gemma’s, there were teeth inside it.
She pressed her hand to Camazotz’s fur. When it came back, it came back covered in fresh blood. She wrapped her hand around Felix’s. Immediately, his gash went to work, greedily drinking the blood off her. When it was finished, Felix, dizzy and numb, didn’t have a care in the whole fucking world.
“Sit back.” Gemma kissed him on the forehead. “I have such sights to show you.”
The throne room split in half and sank into the churning ruins that’d once been Eldrus. Audra, mumbling incoherently, sidestepped the breach and stared outwards, to the South.
God threw down Its arms. It tipped Its head back. Its scaled chest rapidly turned black and began to decay.
Audra dropped to her knees. God had stopped talking to her, but she didn’t need to hear It to know what It would’ve said.
“No,” she said, punching the ground. “No, no, no! No, goddamn it! No!”
Edgar came up behind her. He took her by the waist to help her up, but she shook him off.
“It’s not my fault,” she said, slinging tears as she swung around to face him. “It’s not my fault, you mother fucker!”
Edgar pressed hands to his mouth. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. “I have to go kill myself now,” he said, and walked away.
Audra spat where he’d once stood. She crawled across the floor, to where Lillian’s corpse lay. She took the old biddy in her arms and held her tightly. It was bullshit. It wasn’t fair. This wasn’t her fault. She did everything she could have.
Or did she? How could she have known? She could have listened sooner. Fuck, she could’ve listened sooner.
“I thought…” She bashed her head into Lillian’s. “What was I thinking?”
Now, they would know. Now, they would all know how much she’d failed. How much she’d fucked up. How much of a fuck-up she’d always been.
“Auster!” she wailed.
But her twin didn’t answer.
She reached inside herself, to try and contact the Deep and Umbra, but there was nothing there.
She reared back, tears in her eyes, still cradling Lillian. She looked around the throne room, but there was no one here. Not even Edgar. He’d get away with it, but not her. She’d be dead with this forever.
Audra stood, letting Lillian’s sticky body slide off her. She went to where the keep had split. God, missing several limbs and now on Its side, gave the last of the thousands of veins in Its hand a jerk. The vein rippled across the world, headed straight for Ghostgrave.
She’d wait it out. As the vein traveled at a blinding speed towards her, she cast her eyes to the sky. In it, there was a trail of smoke and farther on, some kind of craft, like a ship.
Look upon my works, ye mighyt, she thought. Please. Just look.
The spacecraft shook violently as it shot out of Earth’s atmosphere. If there was anything left of it but this pod, it’d be a miracle. But why not? There’d already been one miracle today. A second wouldn’t be all that surprising.
Mr. Haemo pressed his countless eyes to the small portside window. Earth had broken apart, and it was bleeding out into the cold and indifferent arms of the cosmos. God’s corpse, ravaged and mostly bones, drifted amongst the stars, a relic to be discovered by the scavengers to come. More importantly, the Black Hour was gone. The parasitic timeline had been purged.
It wasn’t even his birthday, and already he had more gifts than he knew what to do with. For so very long, Mr. Haemo had dreamed of the day the heart of the Black Hour would be destroyed. Born in the depraved wastes of experience that the Black Hour had inadvertently fashioned into what’d become Exuviae, he spent countless years studying it, trying to glean secret truths of futures to come. One day, he’d seen its destruction, and just enough to know what’d bring it.
There would be a man. This man would be impervious to Death. He would find the heart. He would become its vessel. He would be the one to destroy it.
Mr. Haemo had studied the eldritch knowledge of Exuviae’s wastes, until discovering a formula that could fashion such a man. There were many ingredients, but they had to be processed properly. Not in a cauldron or a blood well, but in the body of a ghoul. Oh, how many ghouls had he gone through before he found Gary? How many men like Atticus had he watched die, only to never return, because the concoction hadn’t come out right?
Mr. Haemo clicked approvingly and pulled away from the window. He checked the nav computer to make sure they were still on course. He had to give it to the Virions. For barely having bodies of their own, the Green Worm’s acolytes were sure good with their hands.
He took a seat in one of the chairs opposite Arbo.
The Virion said, “The Putrid Prince is pleased.”
What a strange turn of events. Mr. Haemo had anticipated the Skeleton going to the Ossuary. He’d made sure the mumiya he’d assigned to the desert would escort him and those that’d come before him to the Deep. He’d figured the Black Hour’s heart would be annihilated by simply being that close to Heaven, but somehow, it’d survived; reinforced, in a way, by that shit-kicker’s bones and hillbilly will.
What he hadn’t anticipated was finding the Virions in the Dead City. He’d showed up there with the Marrow Cabal, to help arm them for the holy wars to come, because if nothing else, that’d buy him and the Skeleton more time to kill the heart. But there were the Virions. And there was their ship. Fixed up, fueled up; ready to go. They told Mr. Haemo they had missionary work to do amongst the stars. He told them he’d go with them, help them spread the Green Worm’s disease, if they’d wait only a little longer.
“How long until we reach Vigilance?” he asked.
Arbo said through his garbled voice modulator, “The derelict ship is a few years out.”
“Will your crew last that long?”
/> “Oh, yes,” he said. “Merna and the others absorbed the weaker Virions during lift-off.”
Mr. Haemo stared at his own reflection in the terminal, which was spitting out readings he couldn’t begin to understand. All he’d wanted was for the Black Hour to be destroyed. With it gone, Exuviae would be his. He’d always anticipated God as being an annoying but unavoidable part of that equation. But God was dead. Heaven, razed. He had a whole world of depravity and debauchery, and unfettered, unlimited grotesque potential at his disposal. If he got any harder, he’d have to call the doctor soon.
Star fields flew past them in a blur. Thick nebulas of color looped around them, ancient signatures from forgotten Old Ones.
“Take this time to prepare,” Mr. Haemo said. “Exuviae is ours. It will be hard work bringing it to the rest of the galaxy, but Buddy, it’ll be worth it.”
Arbo, in his old-timey space suit, nodded. His kelp-shaped head brushed against his helmet’s visor. Then, after a moment, he said, “How many times have you tried to destroy the heart of the Black Hour?”
Mr. Haemo rubbed his proboscis. “Oh, Arbo, I can’t rightly say. More than I can remember, and my memory is long, like my dick.”
Arbo didn’t laugh. Neither did Ichor, stowed away in the back.
Mr. Haemo rolled all his eyes. The Virions didn’t make for the best of company. He hoped there were still some chuckleheads alive amongst the rich on Vigilance. Surely, they must’ve evacuated Earth during the Trauma with some kind of cryostasis or something. That shit was all the rage back then.
“I’ve never been one to micromanage,” Mr. Haemo said, standing up, going back to the portside window. “I just like to put things in motion. All he had to do was leave it in the Deep or, hell, even the Membrane. I told him to. It would’ve broken down.
“That’s the thing about humans I’ll miss. You give them a gun, tell them it’s loaded, and still they manage to shoot themselves in their faces. I sure hope there’s more humans out here. They’ve been a lot of fun.”