The Wildcard

by Fallacious Rose

  "Get in."

  He looked at the boat warily.

  "Who are you?" he asked again.

  "A friend of a friend."

  That could mean anything. In this context, it probably meant she was in cahoots with his kidnappers. Oh well, he thought - at least he'd be out of the mud. He got into the boat, settling his long legs with the appearance of cool.

  "Where are we going?"

  "To your death."

  At least he was out of the mud. Orpheus hugged his knees and watched his rescuer as she paddled over the stagnant waters, raising barely a ripple. In turn, she stared back at him with pale eyes, taking in his nakedness. The way she looked at him made him wish he had something on.

  At last they reached the edge of the marsh, and out of the flat, dead ground, a city rose. It was like no city he’d ever seen. It reminded him of a huge industrial complex. Grey glass walled buildings, shaped like wheat silos, stretched up towards the leaden sky, so far up that he couldn’t see where they ended and the sky began. There were no windows or doors in the buildings, and they didn’t reflect the light - but as he stared, he could see movement within - a kind of smoky turmoil, like a huge transparent bucket of eels. It turned his stomach.

  "What is this?"

  The woman shipped her paddle and grinned. Her teeth were white as a neon sign.

  "This is my home," she said cheerfully, "and it is also where I store the souls. It is my responsibility to allocate them when their time is done, to one immortal or another. "

  Orpheus climbed out of the boat, trying to cover his groin with one frozen hand.

  "Souls?" This had to be a dream.

  "For instance, there," she pointed out with a bony, red-tipped finger, "are the souls who belong to Ishtar. Adulterers, of course, but also lovers. You would find Guinevere and Lancelot among them, Tristan and Isolde.."

  "Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love?" he offered, stamping his feet. He was freezing - even more now he’d been sitting still for half an hour in that tiny wooden boat. "I’m cold - can I at least have something to wear?"

  The woman ignored him, like a tour guide who doesn’t speak the language. "And there, those who belong to Artemis. Wild, ignorant, dirty beasts for the most part - those who live like pigs and dogs and horses and apes, in the moment, choosing nature over mind."

  He stared into the smoke glass walls of the tower she indicated with her hand. They all looked the same to him. Wraiths trapped in glass like insects in amber.

  "You mean, those glass things..."

  "Jars," she corrected didactically.

  "Jars...are full of dead people."

  "Exactly."

  He didn’t believe a word of it. And yet...

  "So what am I doing here? I’m alive - you’re not going to stick me in one of those, are you?"

  "Eventually." She put a reassuring hand on his arm, cold as ice. "But not now. As you correctly point out, you are not dead. Yet."

  "Then why am I here?"

  ""You are privileged." she said impassively. God save him from privileges like these, thought Orpheus. She must be out of her tiny mind. "This gift is not given to many - but you can choose the manner of your own death. The gods must love you - or goddesses." She winked with her long, tight-stretched cat eye. "I will show you a range of options, and you must choose."

  "What if I don’t?" He was the most idolised rock star on the planet, damn it - what right had this over-botoxed cow to tell him how to die!

  "Then I will choose for you, and you will die regardless," the woman said, baring those unnaturally white teeth over her black-painted lips. "Sit, and watch."

  Orpheus sat down on the hard plastic seat that had materialised behind him, crossed his arms over his naked, shivering chest, and followed her pointing finger.

  From the flat grey waters of the marsh danced a jaunty figure with a needle in his arm, and he knew it was his dealer, Jay. But Jay’s face had fallen in, the flesh hanging in rags, his eyeballs decayed and discoloured. Still, he held in his hand a box, and somehow Orpheus knew that in the box there were all the drugs he could ever want, uppers and downers, hallucinogens and stimulants. Jay held out the box with an encouraging grin. Orpheus shook his head like a small child refusing to eat his dinner. He would have killed for something like this an hour ago - but not now. He didn’t want to die here, naked, filthy, freezing. He could buy as much shit as he wanted, when he got back to New York - and that’s what he’d do, as soon as this...

  A rope flicked his ear. Someone had waded out of the marsh and was swatting him with a noose, almost playfully. Orpheus recognised his high school drama teacher. He’d had a massive crush on her, with her big white shirts and black stockings - but he’d heard she died of cancer. He could see it now, the cancer blooming in her transparent body, black stains feeding, growing. She hit him harder, with spite, and held out the rope. "It’s an easy death - relatively speaking."

  He grimaced. No way was he going to hang himself. If the old white cow wanted to kill him, she could choose a method herself.

  "As you wish."

  The woman beckoned, and across the marsh strode a man in a black hood, wellingtons up past his knees, carrying an axe. His shirt sleeves, cut off at the shoulder, revealed arms thick with muscle.

  "He also provides drawing and quartering, if you prefer. I enjoy an old fashioned execution," she remarked. "It is one of the few entertainments I am allowed, since I came here."

  "Since you came here?"

  "I was sent here," she said bitterly. "to provide accounting services - to store the dead, and to measure them, and to assign. Somebody had to do it. I have never liked it here but," she added more cheerfully. "I have come to enjoy the killing. It compensates for much."

  "But isn’t - aren’t the people who come here," Orpheus glanced at the grey glass towers - jars, "already dead?"

  "That is an advantage. I can kill a man - or a woman, or a child - as many times as I like, and again, and again. I never run out of victims. Because you are already- as you pointed out - dead."

  Orpheus shuddered. She was completely mad - that much was obvious. Maybe he could play for time.

  "Ok, I’ll choose. I don’t want to be drawn and quartered. Shit, I didn’t know anybody even did that shit any more. Ah...is there anything else available? Like...dying in my sleep, maybe?"

  "We are not in a showroom. You have seen what is available. Choose quickly," said the woman, "or I will become impatient." She began to tap her foot, encased in a wicked looking stiletto.

  "Ok," said Orpheus, giving up. "I’ll take an overdose, then."

  She laughed delightedly.

  "So you have given up, and accepted your fate. They told me to frighten you - but I see your thoughts, and they tell me that when you are returned, you will be back here willingly within the month. This is no entertainment...I think I will keep you for a more interesting fate."

  He shrank back in the plastic chair, his balls retracting further into his body than he ever thought they’d go.

  "Not the drawing and quartering."

  She laughed again, a girlish giggle.

  "Maybe, eventually. Or maybe I will amuse myself with you. Ishtar has her lovers - I, too, am a woman, and beautiful."

  She stood behind him, cold fingers caressing his jaw. He was cold, nauseated and shit scared- but despite himself found that he had an erection. Fuck. The last creature he wanted to screw was this skeletal woman. He wished Ruby was here - she’d rip her hair out by the roots, but he’d be fucking glad to see her.

  "You had better be glad she is not, if you love her."

  The woman clipped a pair of handcuffs neatly around his wrists, and slipped an iron collar around his neck before he had time to move.

  "Since we’re about to become intimate, perhaps I had better introduce myself," she said, running one hand appreciatively over his thigh. "I am Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld."

  Orpheus looked into her face, searching for the slightest tinge o
f compassion or incipient sympathy. There was none. Ereshkigal yanked him to his feet.

  "I see you are ready for me," she said, looking down at his groin. He tried to put his hand over the area - and couldn’t. That’s right - handcuffs. So now he was some hideous madwoman’s sex slave, in an underworld of marshes and lost souls, with vicious execution the only alternative. Still, maybe this was slightly preferable to being hung, drawn and quartered.

  "Only slightly?" Ereshkigal looked offended. "I hope you will learn to enjoy the pain. Many do...more than you would think. Come, my handsome boy...I have many treats in store for you."

  Orpheus made a mental adjustment. A hideous madwoman who was clearly into S&M.

  Chapter 30

  Isis-Athena paces from end to end of her library in disgust. Usually, the books are her solace, reminding her that there is still something worth living for in this eternal tedium. Right now, her frustrations have overcome her judgement.

  "She plays with him."

  "He is very attractive," says Ishtar, a glint in her chocolate-brown eyes as she pictures his naked body. "I do not blame her. If things were otherwise then I myself..."

  "Oh for gods sake" bursts out Artemis, "raise your thoughts above your navel for once. This is not what we arranged for. He was to be taught a lesson - not to be bedded and toyed with until Ereshkigal has had her fill."

  "If I were condemned to measure souls into jars in the underworld, I too would seek distractions." Ishtar smiles her rich, sleepy smile.

  "We must remind her of our arrangement - there is not time to spare. We have only two months." Isis pauses in her pacing, next to the section dedicated to Assyrian poets. Artemis shrugs her great shoulders.

  "Cursed Ereshkigal, I never liked the woman. But we cannot enter the underworld without her permission, and I think she will not give it - not for a while. Not until she’s had her fun. Only humans are free to enter there - and the trip is usually one way."

  "We should send a human, then, to retrieve him," says Ishtar, taking a volume off the shelf. She flips the pages, and wonders if she knew the poet - the lines seem familiar. "One who has meaning to him. The girl, Ruby." Ah yes, how could she forget. ‘Your wine dark hair’. Those amber eyes.

  "She won’t come back," Artemis points out bluntly. "Ereshkigal will keep her."

  "I know," Isis agrees. "But she will give us Orpheus in return - to keep both of them would tempt our vengeance, and I think she is not so reckless. Will she go, do you think?"

  Ishtar nods smugly.

  "Of course, if we put it to her in the right manner. She’s in love. A woman in love will do all manner of stupid things."

  Chapter 31

  Ruby sat alone in a diner a short walk away from the apartment, and cradled her fifth refill of coffee in her hands. Between sips, she nibbled at the edge of an iced donut. Americans made donuts three times the size they ought to be, and way too sweet. She wished she was back in Melbourne, Australia right now, in a little cafe off Guildford Lane, with freshly baked cinnamon donuts and proper coffee.

  Bloody Orpheus. Arsehole. He thought he was some kind of god, now - all the adulation, all the fawning from people who’d trample over his dead body to get to the next big thing, all the screaming girls with their crop tops and their offers to do anything, anywhere. He was so far up his own arse he could practically suck his own tonsils. She was an idiot to have stayed this long.

  It’s not like he was any fun to be around anymore. Before, he’d been funny, and kind, and amazingly creative - and they’d had fantastic sex in that big king size bed with the black satin sheets, and room service, and champagne and chocolates and whatever they both decided they felt like that day. And flying off in his private plane to see the Grand Canyon, or Niagara, or that weekend they’d spent in Norway, all luxuries catered for, checking out the northern lights. Being his girlfriend had been great - being the girlfriend of a rock star. She’d been the envy of the whole world.

  But now - he was always on something, or off something, or just waiting for his next hit to be delivered to him by that bloodsucker Jay, who didn’t care if he lived or died. They never made love, they never even went out. It was too easy to stay in the darkened house, getting takeaway and drugs delivered, half the time by the same guys. He still went out and played - but anyone could see the soul had gone out of it. Pretty soon there’d be bad reviews, and a slump in record sales, and the band would find other, more saleable stars to attach themselves to - and Orpheus would be a has-been, swallowed up and spat out in the gutters of fame.

  Supposedly, there were goddesses who gave him the power to mesmerise audiences, even when he could barely stand up on stage - but she didn’t believe that. Why would goddesses bother with Orpheus? He still ignored the groupies - she had to give him that - but he spent his days between shows on another planet.

  She shut her mouth in a thin line and stared down into the rapidly cooling coffee. She wasn’t going to cry in this public place. Actually, she was relieved. Now she could go back to her own life. She could finally start nurturing her own talent for once. She hadn’t done any painting for months, on the road touring with Mr Big Rock Star. Now she’d have time. She could be her own woman, instead of a kind of super groupie - Courtney Love to his Kurt Cobain, and she couldn’t even sing. She hated Kurt Cobain, anyway, the egocentric little turd.

  "Another coffee?"

  The waitress stood next to her in the regulation pink uniform, wiping a strand of hair from her forehead. She had bad skin - probably from eating the shit here, in a job like this they didn’t give you time off to go get your own food - and she looked fed up. Her smile was strained. She’d probably been on the job for hours. No career for her - she just had to earn enough money to keep her kids from starving, if she had any. America was like that - you were rich, and could afford the best - or you were poor, and ate dirt for a living. Winners, and losers. Sick.

  Ruby got up.

  "No thanks." She laid a fifty dollar note on the table. It was Orpheus’ money, as it happened - she’d picked it up with the pills, and kept it. Let the waitress have it.

  The waitress’ jaw dropped.

  "You sure?"

  Ruby smiled through her tears. "It’s safer with you. He’d only spend it on drugs."

  The waitress looked after her open mouthed, then tucked it into her pocketbook.

  She meant to go find a hotel. She had plenty of cash. From there, maybe she’d get a flight back to Australia and leave all this crap behind. Maybe she’d spend time with Green - she hadn’t spoken to her in weeks. But her feet took her back through the familiar streets, to the brownstone where Orpheus was probably sucking up his next high, his dealer in close attendance. She hadn’t finished with him yet.

  She got in the lift and pressed the button for the top floor. They’d bought it for the view over Central Park - ironically, they never saw the view, because Orpheus kept the curtains closed the whole time. She let in, and strode into the bedroom. Orpheus was still there - not high, but asleep, lying on the black silk sheets which didn’t show the dirt, legs and arms splayed out like someone who’d fallen from a great height.

  She bent down and shook him.

  "Wake up, you fucker. I’ve got something to say to you."

  He felt strangely cool to the touch. His face was peaceful and still - way too peaceful.

  Terror gripped her. She held her hand on his bare chest, over his heart. There was no rise and fall - no breath that she could hear escaping from the parted, full lips. Nothing. She put her head down, holding her breath, listening. There’s got to be something, she thought - he can’t just die like this.

  Thank god, there was a beat - faint and uneven. She breathed out. He must have overdosed. She’d kill that fucking Jay, next time she saw him. She picked up her phone and dialled - not the ambulance, Orpheus wouldn’t want that, but his private doctor, Dr Harvey Pellet.

  A rough-skinned brown hand, as large as a man’s - and a large man at that - l
ifted the phone from her grasp.

  "Leave it."

  She looked up at the shaggy woman towering over her, her head almost reaching the ceiling. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of unwashed sweat.

  "Who the fuck are you?"

  If this was a groupie, she was the ugliest groupie Ruby had ever seen. Hook nose, hair like a hemp doormat. How the fuck had she got in here!

  "Hasn’t he told you about me? That’s too bad."

  Ruby searched her memory. Big ugly woman, leather leggings? Nope.

  "How ungrateful - when I have given him all he has, I and my sisters."

  Ruby started. Big ugly woman, leggings...now she recognised her.

  "You’re the one he doesn’t want to, um..."

  She looked up, and noticed the other two, standing like pillars by the door. A tall, red haired woman, with lips like a playboy fantasy. A dark woman who could have been a professor at some elite university, except for the extraordinary height - and the light in her grey eyes. Goddesses.

  "You’re real?"

  Isis-Athena inclined her head graciously, stirring a pair of dirty boxers with her foot.

  "Without us, your Orpheus would still be a voice in the wilderness, struggling to be heard among all the rest."

  Orpheus. Ruby held up the mobile.

  "Well your precious Orpheus needs a doctor, fast. I think he's dying. So why don't you all just shut up and let me call someone."

  Isis Athena gave Orpheus a cursory, assessing glance.

  "He does not need a doctor. He is not dying - yet. But he will die, and soon, if he does not change his ways. I do not understand the need for drugs among you humans. You are given life, and senses, and a mind capable of greater understanding than any other living creature..."

  "And the green earth, full of beasts to hunt and to nurture," interrupted Artemis with an aggressive scowl, "though you destroy it."

  "And love, and the creation of new life in the pleasures of the flesh," said Ishtar, "do not forget that."