Eternal Life Inc.

by James Burkard

  “What else is new?” Jericho said and leaned back in the driver’s seat. “Did you notice the river at the foot of that ridge where they found Roger’s car?”

  Harry nodded.

  “Diana was going to follow that river all the way back up into the High Sierras,” Jericho said. “It’s the quickest and easiest way to get where she was going. The problem is you can’t follow her that way without running into Seraphim gunboats and their trackers, so I’m trying to get you in the back way. The trouble is, I’ve never tried to go in the back way. I always followed that river up to where I wanted to be.

  “Unfortunately, all the old US Geological Survey maps got lost or destroyed in the Crash. Probably wouldn’t have helped anyway. Things got kind of changed around in the Crash, and New Hollywood hasn’t had the resources or inclination to re-map the High Sierras. Quarantine patrols have mapped some of the high passes,” he pointed to the map display on the monitor, “but the rest is terra-incognita. Hell, I doubt if anyone, except Jake and his girls, have been up there in the last four hundred years.”

  “People down here have had other concerns, like survival and getting civilization started again,” Harry pointed out.

  “Yeah, don’t I know it,” Jericho said wearily. “Anyway, after Jake found the nano tree,” he continued, “he built a cabin a few miles outside of the secret valley where it grew. I haven’t been up there for years, but I tried to give Marta a description of the area and altitude, especially the surrounding mountain peaks.

  “I did some exploring while I was up there, took a banshee and followed the river about twenty miles up to its source. There’s a big lake up there surrounded by mountains and fed by natural springs and melt runoff. The river drops out of that lake for about five hundred feet through some spectacular, stepped waterfalls. It’s especially impressive in the springtime when it’s swollen with melt water. Once you find that, it shouldn’t be too hard to follow the river back down. There are some side branches that might be tricky, though.”

  “The problem will be finding the lake in the first place,” Harry said.

  “It shouldn’t be too difficult,” Jericho said. “I took some pictures up there. I had my eidolon download them into Marta’s data bank. There’s one peak up there, a landmark. I called it Mount Fuck You. You’ll recognize it when you see it.

  “One more thing,” Jericho said. “Jake’s cabin and the entrance to the secret valley are both hidden back in the woods. You can’t see them from the river, but you’ll know you’re there when you come to a flat rock shelf that sticks halfway out into the river. You can’t miss it. It’s as white as alabaster and covered with ripple patterns of fused glass. That’s where your search begins. Diana and Roger will be somewhere downriver of that point.”

  “It shouldn’t be too difficult if they stick to the river,” Harry said.

  “Which they won’t,” Jericho said. “It’s rough country, cliffs, waterfalls, avalanches. Diana knows those mountains like the back of her hand. She’ll cut across country, take the fastest route whenever she can. It’ll make following her difficult for the Seraphim.”

  “Make finding her difficult for me too,” Harry said.

  “That’s why you got Mae and Marta with you. They really are the best scouts we’ve got. If anyone can find them, they can.”

  Harry grunted noncommittally and kept the drawer tightly closed.

  “You got trouble with that?” Jericho asked.

  Harry glanced at Mae and Marta sitting in the back of the convertible with their heads together whispering and giggling over the latest nineteen sixty-four issue of Vogue just like two normal young woman…practicing being human, he thought and shook his head. “No, I’ve got no problem with that,” he lied.

  “Good,” Jericho said, eying him skeptically. “Now, let’s get back to business. It’s close to seventy miles from where Roger’s car crashed to Jake’s cabin.”

  “Seventy miles?” Harry said. “They’ve had almost four days. They could be there by now.”

  Jericho shook his head doubtfully. “That’s seventy miles straight line distance. Up there, there are no straight lines. It’s all up and down and around cliffs, waterfalls, rock slides, and tributaries swollen by the monsoon rains. That seventy miles as the crow flies could easily turn into twice that or more. And remember one of them is probably wounded. We don’t know how seriously, but it’s bound to slow them down.”

  “And now they’ve got a couple of Seraphim battlewagons on their trail,” Harry said. “I think it’s about time we saddled up and lent a hand.”

  He turned to Marta. “What do you say, Captain? Do you think we can handle that?”

  “A piece of cake, sir,” Marta grinned, and snapped off a jaunty salute.

  “And Harry, if you don’t find them or they don’t make it,” Jericho said. “Find the Nano Tree and use it yourself.”

  “For what?”

  “To do as much damage to the wolves as possible. Maybe to bring back Isis and Susan. Maybe do a little miracle or two.”

  “I don’t do that anymore.”

  “You may have to,” Jericho said and climbed out of the car. “Why don’t we take a little walk,” he said and took Harry’s arm.

  “I’ve got to get going,” Harry said and shook his arm free. “I’ve wasted enough time already,”

  Jericho pushed aside a heavy banana frond and started up the steep overgrown slope of stadium stairs. “It’s important Harry,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s something you want to know.”

  Harry watched him go and after a moment gave up and followed. The stubborn old goat could be infuriating sometimes.

  The air was heavy with the smell of orange blossom as they climbed towards the broken bleachers. About half way up, Jericho found a little clearing and sat down on a fallen tree trunk. “Not as young as I used to be,” he said with a heavy sigh.

  Harry remained standing, his patience wearing thin. “What’s so important that you had to drag me up here to tell me?”

  “Private stuff, just between you, me, and Jake Lloyd,” Jericho said. He paused, staring absently out over the overgrown stadium and across the lagoon. “Those twins of his are more special than you can imagine,” he said at last. “We can’t let the wolves get both of them.”

  “Then, why didn’t you stop Diana before she left?”

  Jericho snorted derisively. “I’ve already told you why,” he said. “I tried to talk her out of it or at least to wait a day or two but,” Jericho gave a resigned shrug. “Jake raised a couple of tough, stubborn, self-reliant women.” He paused. “Remember Diana told you how she and Isis got their names?” he asked.

  The sudden change of subject took Harry by surprise. “What’s that got to do with anything?” he asked.

  “Do you remember?” Jericho said.

  “Yeah, I remember,” Harry said. “It was something about the Goddess naming them in a dream.”

  “Diana is a careful lady,” Jericho said. “Plays her cards real close.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asked and sat down beside him.

  “I was there when the twins were born,” Jericho said. “I know all about that dream. Dreams are funny things. Science has been trying to explain them for centuries. Most prehistoric people believed, in one form or another, that dreams were messengers of the gods. Jake Lloyd believed it too. He’d seen enough strange shit in his life to give him a healthy respect for the gods, or let’s just say, the Goddess.

  “Shamans and mystics of all sorts always made a distinction between little dreams and big dreams. The little dreams are your common garden variety, everyday dreams that dredge up the day’s events and slap them together with wish-fulfillment, memories, fears, neuroses, and maybe a dose or two of mythology thrown in.

  “Your big dreams, on the other hand, are the ones where the gods talk straight at you, loud and clear. You know when you’ve had a big dream. There’s no doubt about it.

  “Jake�
��s dream was one of the big ones, a real whopper. What Diana told you is true, as far as it goes. It just didn’t go anywhere near far enough.” Jericho paused to gather his thoughts. Despite his impatience, Harry let the silence draw out. He knew better than to interrupt the old man’s train of thought.

  “Jake didn’t have that dream the night the girls were born. He had it before he even met their mother,” Jericho said.

  “Why didn’t Diana just say that instead of lying?”

  “She wasn’t lying,” Jericho said. “She doesn’t know. Jake never told her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Jake’s reasons.”

  “Like what?”

  Jericho shook his head. Harry wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t know or wouldn’t say.

  “So why are you telling me this now?” Harry asked.

  Jericho scratched his head thoughtfully. “Damned if I know,” he said. “Jake’s dream is important. I guess I figured you should know as much about it as possible since you were in it.”

  “What!” Harry spluttered in surprise.

  “The Goddess is a two-faced bitch,” Jericho continued at last. “She can be Gaea, the loving earth mother or Kali, the eater of the dead, the destroyer of worlds. When she comes to you in a dream or vision, she always takes on the appropriate guise.

  “When she came to Jake, she came first as the great earth mother, the White Goddess of antiquity, holding Jake’s girls one in each hand, Isis in the right, Diana in the left, the right hand of sunlit rationality and science, the left hand of moon-lit intuition and occult knowledge. She held them as if her hands were scales and weighed them, up and down, until the scales balanced.

  “Then she spoke to each of them in turn, “To you I give the name, Isis. You will run with Anubis and open the way to the land of the dead, and there your heart will break on the stones. To you I give the name, Diana. You will hunt Anubis and drive him into the land of the dead and there your heart will break on the stones.”

  “Then she began to change. Two extra arms grew from her body, her stomach distended and fangs grew from her mouth. She wore a necklace of human skulls and her face took on the wrathful aspect of Kali, the destroyer. She still held the girls in two of her hands while the others held bloody knives and sickles.

  “When the transformation was complete, she stood upon the back of a great chimera of a beast like nothing Jake had ever seen before, like nothing in this world anyway. He said it had a pelt of soft scales the color of dead fingernails, a body as thin and graceful as a greyhound’s and as sinuous and half as long as a snake’s with a tail like a serrated knife. Its four powerful legs were like piston-driven pile drivers, made for speed and crushing impact. It had sabre claws that gleamed like stainless steel and a black carapace head like an insect, with multifaceted eyes that glowed like an atomic pile and ripping mandibles around a beak-like mouth.

  “Sounds like someone I know,” Harry said quietly.

  “Not a friend, I hope?”

  Harry shook his head. “Met him on the Resurrection Trail, only he was wearing the body of a wolf. Just before he disappeared in the spin-generator’s event horizon, he shape-changed into his real body. It was like Jake described it.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” Jericho said. “It’s the same, age-old enemy. In his dream, Jake said it lay with its claws dug into the globe. Then Kali began dancing on its back, while the two baby girls danced in the palms of her hands. The girls were covered with blood and mimicking Kali’s every move. The dance grew wilder and more violent, Kali spun, jumped and stomped on the back of the alien, who kept changing shape beneath her feet, trying to escape, but there was no escape from Kali.

  “Jake said the thing howled and snapped and growled the whole time in some kind of language. As bloody bone splinters broke through its flesh, the Anubis screamed out all the dark secrets of its life and death, and Jake understood them all. He said they filled him with such horror and disgust that they almost drove him mad.

  “Kali continued to dance, crushing the wolf underfoot, grinding its bones to splinters until the blood spurted from its ears and nostrils and flowed out of its mouth. She danced until the scales were crushed flat and the blood reached her ankles.

  “Then she stopped and reached out to hand the two girls to Jake. They were each covered in blood and wore the carapace head of the monster. “Take them,” she said. “And guard them well. They are the mothers of a dark destiny. They will sire gods and demons and bring forth a world of terrible beauty.”

  “Jesus!” Harry said.

  Jericho nodded. “The dream didn’t finish there,” he said. “After she gave the twins to Jake, two more figures appeared in her hands. On the one hand stood a pillar of smoke in the shape of a man and on the other a black mirror cut in the shape of an angel.

  “Kali held out the pillar of smoke to Jake and said, “This is the King of the Dead, my champion, my eater of universes. Where he walks, the Angel of Death is never far behind.” And she held the mirrored angel up beside the pillar of smoke and said, “I give them to your daughters. They will be allies to the end, and in the end their hearts will betray them.”

  “Who is this Angel of Death?” Harry asked.

  “Haven’t a clue,” Jericho said.

  Harry eyed him skeptically but let it pass. “The Goddess called the King of the Dead, her, eater of universes,” he said, “I guess that puts her divine stamp of approval on things, makes me her very own champion.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Screw this!” he said angrily and stood up and began pacing back and forth. “I never asked for this! I don’t want it. I’m no hero, no Goddess’s champion. I’m an actor! I’m not even that anymore. Look at me, Doc! I’m an alcoholic has-been. Nine months ago you were still picking me out of the gutter and cleaning off the puke. Now, I’m supposed to be some kind of hero, the Goddess’s champion, her very own, “eater of universes”! What kind of hero eats universes?”

  Jericho said nothing.

  Harry sat back down. He hung his head and dry washed his face with his hands. “Do you know what they say happens to heroes chosen by the gods?” he asked.

  Jericho shook his head.

  Harry looked up sideways and flashed his famous, blockbuster hero, lopsided grin. “Buggered every time,” he said.

  The End

  Of Book One of the King of the Dead Trilogy

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