by Dixie Lyle
“Uh-huh,” I said faintly. “Sounds nice.”
“Okay, then. I think I’ll do that.”
EPIC NAPPING! A NAP THAT WILL BE IMMORTALIZED FOR ALL TIME! A NAP FIT FOR THE KINGS OF ALL BEASTS!
“Glad I could help,” I said. I concentrated on Ben’s voice, and Apedemek’s faded. “Feeling any better?”
“Yeah, actually. Guess I just needed to clear my head and focus on the here and now, instead of the … there and then.”
“Well, hang in there. It’s not all talking crows and ghosts. Once you get used to a few things, it’s almost mundane,” I said as I watched a giant flaming lion talk about the splendor of blood-soaked naps in the afterlife. “You’ll see.”
“Thanks, Foxtrot. I’ll let you get back to it. Got a meal to prep.”
“Sure. Bye.”
I slipped the phone back into my pocket. As I did so, I heard Tango’s voice in my head.
And then I saw Augustus give his head a definite shake no.
“What?” I said. “I didn’t catch that. What did he say to him?”
ROOOOAAAAAAR!
Not again … this time, I did try to cover my ears. It didn’t do any good, of course—I was hearing that roar inside my head, not via my eardrums.
No. Apedemek might get the wrong idea, and we don’t want to be on his bad side. Let’s wait and see what he does.
What the lion god did was glare at Eli. I WILL NOT BE DISRESPECTED IN SUCH A MANNER!
“Take it easy,” said Eli. “You made your case. Just give him a little time to think it over.”
THERE IS NOTHING TO THINK ABOUT. I AM HIS GOD, AND HE WILL OBEY ME.
Eli cocked his head to one side. “Yes, well. About that…”
Which is when I heard the deep, rumbling growl of a jungle cat—and it wasn’t Augustus or Apedemek. It was coming from the other side of the far hill, and it was getting steadily louder …
CHAPTER TEN
The tigress stalked over the crest of the hill.
She was as large as Apedemek, but as silent as falling snow. The black of her stripes seemed to sparkle with distant stars, as if they were slashes in the fabric of space. The deep gold of her fur seemed more like burnished metal than anything organic, and her eyes were as green as emeralds.
<<
Apedemek snorted. NO, WAGHAI DEVI. I COME ONLY TO CLAIM MY OWN.
The tiger goddess—because, hey, what else could she be?—settled herself on her haunches and began to industriously clean one paw. <<>>
[Oh, dear,] said Whiskey. [I was afraid this would happen.]
“Yeah?” I muttered. “Thanks for letting me know. I wouldn’t want to get blindsided by a conflict between two gods or anything.”
[It wasn’t up to me, Foxtrot. You know I’m not allowed—]
Sshh. I get it. You cannot officially confirm or deny the existence of animal deities. But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with this.
Eli flapped his way up to a higher perch on top of a nearby mausoleum, so he could see eye-to-eye with both felines. “Greetings, Waghai Devi. I welcome you to the Great Crossroads.”
<<
Not to worry. There are so many things on my current list of things-that-have-recently-blown-my-mind that I won’t be able to get to that particular tidbit until early next year. I’ll schedule a freakout for around the third week in January—how’s that for you?
“My apologies,” said Eli. “But it’s comfortable, and everything else is in the wash. Now—are you here to make a formal claim, or simply to chat?”
SHE HAS NO CLAIM—
“I wasn’t talking to you, Apedemek.”
I worked for a foreign diplomat for a while. I got to overhear some pretty high-powered negotiations between some pretty high-powered people, and what was always fascinating about the conversations wasn’t so much what was said as how it was said. There’s a subtle dance of protocol and attitude, as both parties try to show how tough they are without giving anything away. It’s like watching poker being played with razor-edged cards; there’s always this feeling that the slightest slip might cause blood to spill.
Watching Eli talk to Waghai Devi and Apedemek was like that. One tiny bird between two huge predators—but if I closed my eyes and just listened to the conversation, it was clear who was in charge. Despite their posturing, the two cats were foreign dignitaries in someone else’s country, and they knew it.
<<
There was a pause. PRETTY, Apedemek said. DID YOU BRING HIM FLOWERS, TOO?
<<>> Waghai Devi said to Eli. <<
The crow cocked his head at the tigress. “There are two claims to Augustus, as you well know. I will give you the same answer I gave Apedemek: Augustus must make his own choice. You may speak with him; Apedemek already has—”
Which was when Waghai Devi roared.
It was different from Apedemek’s, but just as intense. Whereas the lion’s roar was the full-throated bellow of a charging killer, Waghai Devi’s was the terrifying scream of the monster in the night, the hungry beast just beyond the light of the campfire. It was a promise of death to come.
And this time, Whiskey growled.
I looked down in shock. He looked back at me, apologetically. I felt like I’d just passed gas in the presence of the entire court of England.
Waghai Devi, thankfully, ignored us. Her furious eyes were locked on Eli. <<
Eli stared back at the tiger, unblinking. “He arrived first. That is all.”
Now the tiger goddess was on her feet, stalking back and forth. Apedemek remained on his haunches, but his ears went back and his body posture changed.
Cat-fu?
So they’re sizing each other up for an actual battle?
Apedemek tracked Waghai Devi’s motion with his eyes, but otherwise was as still as a statue. Eli looked from one to the other, and said, “Stop this. Neither of you is doing your cause any good.”
Waghai Devi snarled, a softer but even more threatening sound. Apedemek snarled back. I wondered if there would be anything left of the Great Crossroads after a fight between two gods.
“I said enough,” Eli intoned, and there was something in his voice that was just as frightening as either roar had been. More, maybe; there was an undercurrent of steel to it, steel harder and sharper than any tooth or claw.
The two big cats stopped. They continued to glare at each other, but they relaxed ever so slightly. It felt like someone had just reset the timer on a bomb from ten seconds to a minute.
“Both of you are out of line,” Eli said coldly. “Apedemek, you should have waited before making your claim. Waghai Devi, you should have shown more restraint in your resp
onse. Neither of you will claim Augustus at this time; Waghai Devi may address the liger, but after that you must both return to your respective realms. We will allow Augustus some time to think on this matter, and then he will make his decision. Is that clear?”
Apedemek answered first. HE HAS ONLY ONE CHOICE.
<<
A blaze of light flared upward from a grave, slashing a hole in space into the air itself; on the other side, I could see a dusty yellow veldt stretching into the distance. Apedemek leapt through the rend and it closed behind him.
I expected some sort of last word from Devi, but she just turned and stalked away in the same direction Augustus had fled. Guess she didn’t have anything else to say, or maybe it was a deliberate snub.
Or it could be she was just being a cat. A giant, supernatural, pissed-off cat.
“Yeah, what was that all about?” I asked.
[I apologize for my lack of decorum, but it wasn’t a conscious choice. Dogs have been tasked with defending humans from—or warning them about—predators such as that since the age of the saber-tooth. It’s simply in my nature.]
Suddenly I had a much clearer idea of why cats and dogs didn’t get along. On some level, dogs were all convinced that cats were out to eat their owners.
Of course, by the same logic, cats were probably convinced all dogs were really wolves about to do the same thing. They just didn’t care.
Eli took to the air and flapped his way over to me, landing on the arm of a large stone cross. “Foxtrot. I hope you’re up for this.”
“What, a holy war between actual holies? Pfft. How bad can it get?” I did my best to sound upbeat; freaking out wasn’t going to help anything.
“Let’s not think about that,” Eli said.
Uh-oh. Anytime your boss tells you not to consider the worst-case scenario, it’s because the worst-case scenario is the period at the end of a sentence that’s two words long: The End. Or in this case, more likely an exclamation mark that’s on fire.
“It’s going to require some delicate negotiation to keep this from escalating,” Eli said. “Diplomacy, tact, patience, and courage. Not really the sort of mission I would normally assign to someone inexperienced in such matters.”
“Hey,” I said. “Have a little faith, will you? I may not have negotiated with gods before, but I have hammered out contract riders for rock stars. You want tough, try justifying a demand for roast suckling pig marinated in twelve-year-old brandy served promptly at one AM.” True story.
Eli shook his head. “You don’t understand. It’s not you I’m worried about, it’s Ben.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s the traditional role of Thunderbirds, Foxtrot. They’re the messengers of the gods.”
[I was trying to explain that to her when we were interrupted,] Whiskey said helpfully.
“That’s why I brought him here,” said Eli. “I can’t go to the lion god’s domain, or to the tigress’s. Waghai Devi won’t stay away from her realm long; she’ll do her best to convince Augustus to leave with her, but I doubt she’ll be successful.”
“And then,” said Eli, “we’re going to have a volatile situation. Both gods are going to be convinced the other one is plotting to do something devious. Both are going to view any action by the other with extreme suspicion.”
“And this is the situation Ben is supposed to deal with? He’s a chef, not a diplomat!”
Eli sighed. “I know. But it’s in his blood; his kind have been doing this for eons. He just needs to … adjust. Which is where you come in.”
“You want me to adjust him?”
[Indeed.]
Shut up, both of you. “Look, he’s still trying to get his head wrapped around the whole graveyard-full-of-dead-animals thing. Now you want to put him in charge of preventing an intermetaphysical incident? That’s going to take more than adjustment—more like a complete realignment. How am I supposed to accomplish that?”
“By considering the alternative,” Eli said. “If things get out of hand, both gods may attempt to take Augustus by force.”
There are all kinds of phrases I don’t like to see together, and this conversation was adding more: for instance, “by force” and “both gods” really needed a decent buffer zone between them. Like not being said by the same person, ever. “Okay. So what would that look like, to those of us on the sidelines?”
“Apocalyptic,” said Eli. It was a word didn’t need any others to sound scary; it was a whole badass gang all by itself. It probably beat up other words and stole their punctuation. “Armies of lion and tiger spirits pouring forth from graves to meet in battle. A war of unparalleled bloodlust and fury that could lead to the destruction of the Great Crossroads itself.”
“Wait—they’re going to fight here? But we’re neutral, aren’t we? Aren’t we like the Switzerland of the afterlife?”
Eli squinted at me with one crow eye. “Only in the sense that we won’t take sides. But strategically, we’re right in the middle of things.”
Which put me right in the middle of the middle of things. Along with Ben, whose current chief worry was how much garlic to put in tonight’s appetizer.
“Okay,” I said. “I can do this. If I can talk an A-list actor having an anxiety attack out of her trailer to do a nude scene, I can convince a cook he can negotiate a peace treaty between warring feline deities.” I stopped, then shook my head. “I can’t believe I said that out loud. Did you hear what just came out of my mouth?”
[It was rather heavy on the alliteration.]
“And who did I say it to?” I asked rhetorically. “A ghost dog, a reincarnated cat, and a talking crow. When did my life turn into a schizophrenic cartoon?”
“This is deadly serious,” said Eli. “As the first white liger in existence, Augustus is an important symbol. There is nothing the gods value more than how they’re perceived; it’s where their power comes from.”
“Yeah, I get that. What I don’t understand is why he was killed in the first place—a dead liger might be worth a lot in the afterlife market, but his value in the physical world would be way higher if he were still breathing.”
“You’re right. Which is why I want you to keep investigating—there might be some connection.”
I frowned. “What, you think Augustus was killed because he’s literally worth more dead than alive? But who would know that?”
“That’s what I want you to find out,” said Eli. “Crows, dogs, and cats aren’t the only animals that can communicate from beyond the grave.”
That was something I hadn’t considered. “But—you really think Apedemek or Waghai Devi hired an assassin to kill Augustus? Isn’t that … I don’t know, against the rules?”
“Yes,” said Eli. “But gods have an irritating tendency to think rules don’t apply to them…”
* * *
I had a lot to think about as Whiskey, Tango, and I left the graveyard. Eli had assured me he would keep an eye on Waghai Devi; he didn’t think she would attempt anything underhanded so early in the proceedings.
“What if she does?” I asked.
“Then there will be consequences,” Eli said grimly.
“What kind of consequences?”
“I can’t discuss that. But she is well aware of them, and unlikely to take the risk.”
I hoped he was right—but if he wasn’t, I doubted if there was anything I could do about it. If there was one skill you learned as a professional assistant, it was when to back off and let the one you were assisting do their thing. It was my job to make sure he, she, or they w
ere as well prepared as possible, but it was their job to make that preparation count. I loaded the guns, but they pulled the triggers. And I was okay with that.
I just hoped Eli wasn’t about to get a tiger fired in his face.
[Your metaphors need work,] Whiskey said. [Overall, I think I preferred the alliteration.]
At least they weren’t talking about me “adjusting” Ben.
I went straight to the kitchen when I got back to the house. Ben was busy chopping vegetables, but stopped when I walked in. “Hey, Trot. Glad you dropped by. Something I want you to try.” He went over to the stove, where he had some kind of sauce simmering away. He scooped a little up with a spoon and held it out. “Give this a taste.”
I blew on it, then tried a sip. “Mmm. Really good. What is it?”
“Mango pepper gravy. I’ve been trying to get the ratio of spicy to sweet just right. Thought of you.”
He paused, realizing what he’d just said, and our eyes met for a second. Then we both looked away. “Uh, I mean I wondered what you’d think of us—it. Of it.”
“It’s terrific. Listen, there’s something else we need to talk about. You might not be ready, but—”
“Wait. Is this more graveyard craziness? Because you’re right, I’m really not.” He tossed the spoon down on the counter, then went back to chopping vegetables. Loudly.
“Well, ready or not, here it comes…”
He stopped chopping and looked around nervously. “Where? Is that damn turtle back?”
I suppressed a grin. “No, just me. But you may feel like crawling into your shell after I finish talking.”
“The only shells I have time for are the ones wrapped around eggs. You were right.”
“I was? Not that I don’t love hearing that, but right about what?”
He waved a handful of asparagus in the air. “Everything. All the stuff you said I was better off not knowing that now I know. I should have just taken you at your word and backed off. I’m sorry.”
That wasn’t exactly how I’d put things, but he was frustrated and needed to vent, so I let him. “A you’re-right and an apology? Wow, is it my birthday?”