by Mon D Rea
In her elated state, she doesn’t notice three men peel themselves off a wall where they’ve been smoking, to then casually walk after her.
Even more imperceptible are the humongous black shapes in the night sky above. Together they make up the shape of a titanic, stern countenance covering half the heavens but, once broken apart, they reveal themselves to be restless, spiky-shaped crows. The sole thought that fills Lessa’s mind is the time on her Cartier: Ten to four.
Amid deafening wing beats, the crow-like creatures give off a ravenous insectile hum.
Chapter XXI: The Mutiny of the Crows
“Come on. Give us what we want, doll, and we’ll be outta your hair,” one of the muggers coos, so close to Lessa’s face her senses are invaded by the sight of rotten teeth and the smell of sour milk mixed with cigarette.
“Yeah, we’ll be outta here before you know it. You won’t even notice we were here,” chortles another with pupils dilated by drugs and sexual excitement.
“You have my bag, my watch, my mobile. Take all of them. Just please let me go,” Lessa begs through tears. She hates herself for being this afraid. She’s just so damn afraid.
“You know what else we want,” the nearest one coos again and a third leers. The one who has her, apparently the leader, starts groping her.
“No please don’t…”
They’re all perfectly oblivious to the swarm of weird, shape-shifting Crows overhead. So thick now that they blot out the night sky and the top of two buildings sandwiching that half-lit and desolate street. The birds of hell are making so much noise people shouldn’t be able to hear themselves above the roar; it’s like being under the belly of a plane taking off. But the gangsters can all hear themselves just fine.
“Come on. Just a BJ, ok, miss? How about that, huh?” The leader unzips his dirty jeans.
The second man’s suddenly yanked away. The one threatening Lessa whirls around to see Chester standing in the middle of the street.
CYHYRAETH, I NEED YOU NOW…
“What do you think you’re doing, kid? Stay away if you don’t want me to cut you a new one.” The leader warns, now brandishing a butterfly knife he has whipped out with a deft movement of his wrist.
“Oh now you’re in trouble.” The second says from where he has fallen slumped on the asphalt; his high spirits intact and his expression fiendishly lit.
“Lessa, come with me if you want to live,” Sephtimus says in a voice that he hopes is his calmest, which means for him Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Austrian accent despite Chester’s stickman figure and the fact that he knows nothing of self-defense, except for what he has practiced on one mobile game app that simulated kung fu.
“Shut up, retard! We’re not finished with the miss yet!” The leader spits out. “You really wanna be gutted like fish, don’t ya?”
“Please don’t. Just take everything. We swear we won’t tell the police. Please! Just let us go!” Lessa tries to reason with them. But the three are already much too high and gone. The Crows above are making sure of that.
“Heee heee heeee!” With a cackle, the third pounces and grabs Chester from behind. He places the barista in a full nelson. Chester barely puts up a fight and his calm expression mirrors Sephtimus’ resignation to his fate.
CYHYRAETH, IF YOU CAN HEAR THIS…
“I’ll teach you to get in the way,” the leader threatens. He flicks the blade away with another practiced movement but Sephtimus’ relief is fleeting. The man delivers a swift, incapacitating blow to Chester’s stomach.
“Ugh!” Sephtimus groans. Pain. The first he has ever experienced.
So this is what it feels like, a remote, overanalyzing segment of his brain thinks. His curiosity about the new sensation is quickly replaced by the discomfort. Thoroughly unpleasant.
“On the left corner, weighing one million thousand pounds, Miiiiiiiiiike Typhoooooooon!!!!!!!!!!!” the second gangster announces playfully. Another uninhibited blow lands this time on Chester’s brow, splitting it open. The glasses he’s wearing instantly get mangled.
“STOP IIIIIIIIT! Don’t hurt him!” Lessa screams and attempts to separate the attacker from Chester. Number Two wraps his arms around her waist and drags her back, not wasting time to feel her up.
“No, my dear. The hurt train ain’t left the station yet. I’m just gettin warmed up,” the leader says. “You just wait your turn like a good girl.”
A barrage of punches hit Chester’s bowed head, chest, and stomach. Violence has reared its ugly head, has revealed itself in all its animal ferocity. In the eyes of the Crow-manipulated dopehead, the man he’s pummeling is indeed a demon masquerading as a man.
All the while, Sephtimus is calmly evaluating his position from a mostly detached space because he’s close to blacking out. He’s familiar with the human instinct for self-preservation and has seen many ruthless homicides and gruesome ways to go but, truth be told, he has never directly attacked any human being except to cut umballicus off a dying body. He never needed to. The fact that he has had no experience of real pain till that moment says it all.
When the addict finally pauses the beating, he’s out of breath and his knuckles are bleeding. What’s left of Chester’s face is barely recognizable. Gangster Three has trouble holding him up and Lessa keeps making these high-pitched, almost soundless cries.
“I think you’ve done kilt him, Bert,” Number Two wrapped around Lessa whispers in amazement.
“No, he ain’t dead yet.”
Indeed Chester still has enough strength to lift his head. He does so slowly. His normally unruly hair now stuck to his forehead. Miraculously, he smiles with his bloody, twisted braces and incomplete teeth.
“That is?” Sephtimus asks weakly. To his one true love he says, “Sorry, Lessa, today… very bad hair day.”
Then back to the gangsters in a perfectly good imitation of Dirty Harry: “Go ahead. Make my—”
“The fuck you’re saying!” Another merciless blow connects to Chester’s face and his nose breaks with a crisp sound. Lessa starts sobbing hysterically.
At this point, I finally get either close enough to the scene or far enough outside Spinstra’s control. I manage to reestablish two-way psychic contact with Sephtimus.
Fight back, I tell him. Use your powers and defend yourself. You’re dying out there!
Cyhyraeth, you came back for me... Sephtimus’ voice is pure, genuine relief as though loyalty and friendship are such luxuries to him. And I’m ashamed to think his suspicions haven’t been entirely misplaced. The thought of abandoning him has entered my mind.
There is nothing we can do, Sephtimus sends back. Even mentally he sounds fainter as though he’s already gone over an edge. The moment we crossed over to the mortal realm, we passed a point of no return. In a slaughterhouse, everyone is bound to get eaten, even wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Fight them! You’re Atropos the Inflexible for heaven’s sake. Show them who you are!
It is over. I have already lingered too long on this side, he whispers. Listen, Cyhyraeth, there is something I need to tell you before it is too late.
The leader’s on Chester again and the barista’s ducking the blows with the reflexes of a punching bag.
I’m almost there! I scream to him, gritting my teeth and running full pelt.
Do not concern yourself with this, Cyhyraeth. Listen. Are you listening?
Thump, goes the dull and meaty blow. Whump.
Let me tell you a secret: all umballici can camouflage themselves from human eyes. Yours is special. Yours can hide even from Reaper eyes.
Whump. Thump. Whump.
I discovered another loophole in the Book that applies especially to your case. Your death isn’t valid because we harvested you by mistake.
Do you understand what I am telling you, Cyhyraeth? You can go back to living your life. You can have a second chance. Go back to your body. Open your eyes and get up from the hospital bed.
I hereby pass you the Death-r
ing that binds Cyhyraeth to me. You are free now, Nathaniel. Go and live a long and fulfilled life with Samantha.
As soon as he says the words, I feel the corresponding item bulge in the pocket of my jeans. I can’t describe all the emotions that rush through me. Foremost is heavenly relief at the now real possibility of coming back to life, back to Sam. For the first time in my life, I know what it means to cry tears of joy.
But there’s still the matter of the imbalanced Fates. There’s a good chance my reawakening by Spinstra didn’t go the way she had planned it.
It is not your place to act, sleeper, she had screeched inside my head. Your part here is done. Atropos is wounded and will be brought down.
Why are you doing this?
Why? You dare question the motives of the Fate Weaver? Typical of you, Lachesis the First Betrayer. You dared choose their kind over ours.
Lachesis! I thought to myself. It was my true identity after all. What the computers in Death’s office had replaced. I was once one of the Triumvirate of Fates, tasked with the cold calculation of human lives so Spinstra could spin out and interweave all the possibilities, then Atropos would make the fatal cut. I was part of the Wyrd Ones!
Ah yes. Yours is not the most reliable of memories after drinking from the River Lethe. Let me help you remember then: how you stared down into the Pool of Mirrors human day after human day, sighing and pining for a transitory and meaningless existence. You were still in your Amazonian shape then. Do you not recall what you told me? ‘I’d give up all this power and immortality to spend an eye’s blink with them.’
You were the first of us to succumb to the disease, regardless of your divine origin. You asked for my help and I obliged. It became our little secret. I assisted you in your death and gave you a new form, a new life, with all the filthy mortals you’ve taken under your wing.
They reek of insolence. They have it all. They have it easy. They are given all the chances in the world to prove themselves and yet how do they repay Destiny?
Door-burners! They destroy everything they touch. How many chances have they wasted in their ignorance and incompetence? How much blood of my precious umballici flows from their hands? And how many more will die and wash back down to my womb, for this deathless mother to grieve?
No more. The time of this half-hearted peace is at its end. From the ashes, a new dawn shall rise. A perfectly logical new world; infinitely smaller, more primal, and more desperate. Abaddon shall be released from bondage and lay waste to human cities. The cleansing fire of pestilence shall ravage the mortals to near extinction. Soon, possibilities will at last only be granted to those who truly deserve them.
If the Fate Weaver has her way there’ll be no world left to go back to, so everything else takes a back seat.
At this precise moment, I’m sprinting by the diner towards the back street. Just a little bit more…
Get up, Nathaniel, Sephtimus tells me. Continue your life and reclaim your destiny.
Still oblivious to Spinstra’s master plot, Sephtimus is prepared to leave all his crowherding duties to the Infernal Affairs Division. But even now the hell-birds are launching a two-pronged act of insubordination. Half of the great swarm has swooped low and is streaking parallel to the street like a passenger plane headed straight for Lessa and the other mortals; the second half wheels ominously overhead.
“Bert? That’s enough! Bert!”
Thump. Thump. Thump. Heavy breathing from the addict.
I reach the street with one last burst of speed.
It’s Spinstra! I scream to Sephtimus. She’s behind all this! She’s unleashing the Crows!
I let out an inhuman scream of frustration that becomes the deafening shriek of the fershee. It has a quick effect on the crows closest to Lessa, pushing them back. What’s more, I’ve started a chain reaction that travels all the way to Necro City and within earshot of the reaper squad. What I’ve unconsciously sent out was a call to arms so Kera, Ankou and Yama Ranger rush to Hell’s Helm to then materialize around our wounded leader.
Chapter XXII: Unholy Alliance
The projections of the Infernal Affairs Division charge and scatter the Crows close to the ground. Kera either slashes them apart with her overgrown talons or bites them in half with her fangs. Ankou throws a barrage of acidic blood-balls in the manner of a nonstop pitching machine. And Yama Ranger on his fearsome mount Nightmare blasts away with two six-shooters and one lever-action carbine; still not missing a beat with his portal-opening lasso in his fourth hand.
To top it off, a second group of rescuers arrives at the fateful spot. The chef from the diner and a couple of waitresses (still on their rollerblades) round the corner because it turns out that Sephtimus left a note on the table napkin before following Lessa.
The mortals approach with caution not because of the otherworldly battle taking place right on top of them but at the sight of both Chester and Lessa lying on the ground, the first bathed in his own blood and the second having fainted in terror. The gang leader responsible for everything stands transfixed above the bodies. The act of killing a man with his bare hands has finally registered and he flounders like a stage volunteer cut off from a hypnotist’s spell. One of his sidekicks attempts to shake him back to the crisis at hand.
Inside the leader’s pocket, Lessa’s watch ticks to exactly 4: 25.
The gangster crouched over Lessa is more vigilant and the oncoming mob impels him to action. In desperation and against all logic, he reaches for the folded knife jutting out of his catatonic boss’ back pocket.
Influencing the story from high above, the rest of the Crows have finished their circle. They dive towards Lessa in the aggressive shape of a kamikaze fighter plane, all in flawless synchronicity.
Sephtimus himself rises to meet this second wave. His real trench-coated form emerges, spattered with Chester’s blood, out of the mess that’s lying on the street. The battered Grim Reaper trudges to stand in front of Lessa like he’s about to greet the Crows.
In a trick that makes my heart swell, what appears to be human feet peeks from under Sephtimus’ parting coat skirt. At first the calves are stuck to each other like very cheesy black pizza but they soon cleave in the middle and the contours of human legs clad in tripp pants become visible. This single addition at once settles Sephtimus’ affinity to mankind.
Finally, the most glorious vision takes place. From Sephtimus’ shoulder blades, a pair of majestic, metallic wings extend. These wings look like phalanxes of tiny shields flashing the dazzling face of the sun.
With rabid intensity, the third gangster makes a stab to bury the small butterfly knife into Lessa’s heart.
The hands of her watch slip to 4:26.
The Crows turn the nose of their jet formation to Sephtimus. The birds of hell slam against him as a wave and his outstretched wings take the brunt so they dent and billow. I can see where the solid black deluge hits the reaper and then arcs, but the immediate spot behind him where Lessa lies remains shielded.
At the same time, Lessa’s would-be murderer is freaked out to see the knife stopped by some magical vest he can’t see. He drops the weapon, jumps to his feet and flees as though poltergeists were at his heels.
The dark tsunami then breaks into billions of locusts that cover, tear, and lash at Sephtimus and me. The Grim Reaper’s leather coat rips apart in many places and, surprisingly enough, warm human blood flows from every scratch and laceration. He grits his teeth below his Dia de los Muertos mask, which is barely holding together. I try to protect my own flesh from the razor-sharp storm.
****
Through my telepathic link to both my immediate surroundings and Spinstra’s perspective, I sense all these things: The chef of the diner is the first to arrive and grabs the rigid gangster. A rollerbladed waitress catches the shirt tail of the sidekick who has wavered between saving the leader and his own hide.
The members of the Infernal Affairs Division aren’t as lucky. Spinstra has had the foresight to ste
al into Death’s office and, with her vile accomplice Charon, massacres all the clueless Helter-Skeletals along the way. Upon reaching Hell’s Helm, they also ambush the preoccupied reapers, stabbing one in the back, slicing another’s throat, and impaling the third with a sword shaped like a giant insect’s mandible.
The effect is instantaneous here in the mortal realm. The reapers lose against their indestructible, self-replenishing enemies. Yama Ranger’s faithful horse attempts to take flight and is snapped up by a stream of molten Crows. Its rider catches several more birds inside his extra-dimensional lasso, banishing them straight back to Necro City and keeping them out of the fight for a few precious minutes. Then Yama Ranger is paralyzed by pain from a dagger buried in his back thousands of kilometers away. He goes down shooting, as taciturn as only a true cowboy can be.
Kera’s covered in tar-black Crow blood from chin to breastplate, from talons to the edges of her wings. She starts spinning like a top to keep back the overwhelming hordes, hissing like a feral animal in between. But when she feels Charon’s hand grab her hair at Hell’s Helm, she accepts her fate and crams as many Crows as she can into her mouth, dislocating her jaws to make even more room. She’s stuffing herself like a bulimic woman in a cake-eating contest when her eyes bulge, her distended stomach grows pointy then gets pierced open by an invisible sword.
I can hear Spinstra and Charon laughing maniacally.
But then, just when all hope seems lost, what comes crashing through the advancing layers of Crows but Ankou’s wagon. It brakes right in front of Sephtimus and me, who are both spent and bloodied.
Special delivery, boss, Ankou announces in the doll-like voice that always sounds like it’s coming from an embedded phonograph record. The only difference this time is his head with the Cheshire-cat grin has been severed and is tucked under his arm.
Spank these foul creatures back to our hole sweet hell, Ankou requests before being reduced to gurgling, as though the doll was suddenly thrown into a fire.