by C. L. Bevill
“I went looking for clues,” Tavie said, after a moment of concluding that she still had thirteen rounds. Even though she had already checked the number while in the church in the portal, she still wanted to make certain. “I talked to one of the gods of the dead. Barastyr is his name. He’s from the Caucasus region.”
Maximillian frowned. “He’s from where? He’s a what?”
“Apparently there are quite a few gods of the dead wandering around here,” Tavie said. “Didn’t you know?” She wasn’t sure if she should add the other information. And they’re having a very large squeeze play to see who’s going to end up on top. We’re collateral damage. Suck it up.
“We looked for you at the dark place,” Sternstein said. “Deadies said you went there. The place where the first guy was found. They didn’t say anything about anyone else.”
“Hmm,” Tavie said. “Someone clobbered me. I didn’t see him or her. They took me away from Deadsville. I think it was through a portal. Pudd found me.” As did a honking huge reaper who had a sad story like all the rest. He also had nice lips and the thought of the kiss made her insides churn in a way that she hadn’t churned for some time, even from before she died. It made her feel alive again.
“A portal?” Lillian asked. She was patting her jacket again, looking for the long-lost pack of cigarettes. “A portal to where?”
“There’s a church there. A Catholic church, I’d guess. It looked Catholic. I could be wrong. They duct taped me so tightly I could have entered a duct tape dress contest. All I needed to complete the ensemble was a duct tape boutonniere. Eventually I managed to get free. Then I had a chat with a few key individuals.” She skipped over a few parts, like having to go through a mini-hell to reach Thana.
“Key individuals?” Maximillian repeated. “Like who?”
“I discussed a few things with a reaper,” Tavie said. She inserted the magazine until it clicked and watched Maximillian, Sternstein, and Coco jerk in reaction. Lillian actually looked bored. Enoch crossed his arms over his chest and waited. Fritzi had gone back to writing something laboriously on her desk. Tavie seated a round in the Glock and replaced it in her holster.
“Be prepared, I always say,” Tavie said. “Also the Girl Scouts. My mother was also very fond of that saying but she was usually referring to underwear.” She considered. “Once she was referring to condoms, but I don’t like to think about condoms and my mother in the same context.”
“You actually spoke with a reaper,” Maximillian said incredulously.
“I actually spoke with a reaper.” Tavie adjusted her jacket. “It wasn’t as newsworthy as one might think. Then I talked to another god of the dead. Her name is Thana. That, for the uneducated is another name for a Greek god of the dead named Thanatos. She has a female incarnation now, or maybe she just likes being a woman.” She thumped her chest with a closed fist and held it out. “Woman power, yea. Plus, for the moment, she’s the boss.”
There were so many jaws hanging open in the Deadsville Jail that a dozen flies could have been caught without much ado.
“Now someone told me about people practicing various religious bents in Deadsville,” Tavie said. “There was something about John Lennon and the Oscar Wildeians have a certain something going on. What about other religions?”
Everyone remained silent for a moment.
“You mean, is there a church in Deadsville?” Fritzi asked.
“A church will do,” Tavie said.
“Okay, then,” Enoch said. “That really depends on who’s in charge, don’t it?”
* * *
“This here is the First Assembly of God’s Devotion,” Enoch said to Tavie. They looked at a shack which had been made out of car hoods. It made sense to Tavie because there was a lot of car hoods about and wood wasn’t readily available. People didn’t tend to get killed at home improvement stores but they did tend to die in automobiles.
“What kind of religion is that?” she asked.
Enoch scratched his head. “I don’t believe I know. There’s a cross there on the front door. And the fella in charge has daily services. I reckon they’re daily. Sometimes he has one that coincides with when he’s awake or not plastered.”
The door opened with a bang and a man in a flowered shit and Bermuda shorts wandered out. He caught sight of Enoch and Tavie and stopped in place. She could see that he died because someone had stabbed him in the eye, right through the bone, and going into the brainpan. In the dead world, he could have passed for a pudgy tourist on Miami Beach; all he needed was an umbrella and a tall, frosty Mai-Tai.
“Deputy!” he said loudly to Enoch. He glanced at Tavie. “Is this the infamous sheriff? Madam! And there’s the dog! Glory be to God for these small inspirations to keep up the faith!”
Pudd yipped and hid behind Tavie’s legs.
“Tavie, this is Ira Sarnack,” Enoch said. “Ira, this is the new sheriff.”
“Mr. Sarnack,” Tavie said. “I need a few minutes of your time.”
And a few minutes of her time was all Tavie needed.
* * *
There was also the Mormon Faith Devotional Church of Last Day Saints, the Last Communion of the Lord, and the Angelina Jolie Church of Christ. They visited all three and Tavie got an earful of nothing from each parson.
“Are there any normal churches?” Tavie asked after talking to a minister who believed that Angelina Jolie was the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Enoch chuckled. “Define normal. There was this one fella who came through Deadsville about, oh, I don’t know, way back when. He had a beard and wore an old style suit. He liked cigars and liked to talk about what normal really meant. I think he was from Austria. He could go on and on, just like a fancy-pants politician, but he was right. Normal is only normal ifin a fella says it’s normal.”
“‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,’” Tavie said dryly. She was thinking of timelines. Time wasn’t time in Deadsville and she couldn’t very well look at a watch to see how much she had left before the world, both living and dead, went belly up.
“That’s what that fella said.” Enoch sighed. “He had some plumb strange idears. Anyway, most of these people are prolly a waste of time,” he added. “They pronounced themselves saved after they died and started preaching their gospel, whatever they thought the gospel was, and then set up a shop. Some of them even have a few followers. That fella back there—” he jerked his thumb at the Angelina Jolie Church of Christ “— says that everyone who goes along with him will end up in heaven, hanging out with Angelina and Brad and all their children. You do understand I dint have no idea who the lady was before that guy started spouting his nonsense. I saw a photograph of her and she’s purty and all, but I cain’t rightly see why anyone would think she’s the resurrection of the son of God.”
“Maybe I should start a church with Pudd as the minister. He could bark the sermons.”
“Ain’t no call to be blasphemous, Tavie,” Enoch admonished her.
“Sorry, Enoch,” Tavie said. “It’s just that—” She wasn’t sure how to tell someone that the end was coming. The real end. Not just the end of being dead, but the complete, utter, finale end where they would all dissolve into nothingness. It made a girl a little frustrated. She needed to talk to someone who knew a little about Catholicism.
Tavie thought of the professor in the jail and shook her head. Harry Radford might be knowledgeable on Latin and ecclesiastical, heraldic silver maces from the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, but he was spinning crop circles in his head.
“Just what?” Enoch asked.
“Everyone in Deadsville seems to think there’s time for everything,” Tavie said carefully. “I’m not sure there is.”
Enoch considered her with a look suggesting that he thought she was spinning crop circles in her head, too. “There’s time until a reaper comes,” he said.
“Maybe there isn’t.” Tavie glanced around the street. The Angelina Jolie Church o
f Christ had been constructed with logs and chinking. There was an axe that had been used for the door’s handle and the door was made from battered two by fours. Someone had painted the name over the top of the door and the door was sheltered by a section of metal. “I need a Catholic.”
“There’s a few around,” Enoch admitted. “Cain’t think of no one obvious. Some folks don’t discuss religion, as it’s likely a nasty word. Ain’t no one wants to admit that a little tribe in New Guinea who were cannibals and headhunters and thought bugs were sacred, might have been the ones who done got it right in the end.”
“They don’t talk about it because maybe they got it wrong,” Tavie said. “If a person did the best he or she could, then maybe it wouldn’t matter which religion was correct.”
“Mebe.”
Tavie stood straight up. “Wait. I talked to someone who said something about catechism. No, wait, catechism school, if I remember correctly. Drat. This is what I get when I talk to too many people. I can’t remember who said what to whom.”
“Must be hellish when you have to stand up in court,” Enoch said.
“That’s when I use my notes, and I haven’t been doing that here, because notebooks don’t fall from the skies.”
Enoch looked up. “I reckon not. There’s some in the back of the jail. I’ll show you where. It’s not hard getting pencils and whatnot, but paper’s a little trickier.”
Tavie and Enoch began to walk back to Deadsville Jail. Pudd followed them but not before ecto-peeing on one of the small black trees. They passed the wall where notes were left. “Was that here before?” she asked.
“The wailing wall?” Enoch looked around. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think it was here. I think it was two blocks over. I hate when things move by themselves.”
It didn’t matter that it had moved. Deadies were reading notices and a few were writing theirs. Thérèse wasn’t present this time. Tavie took a moment to find the notice she had written and found that someone had written something on it.
“Huh,” she said.
Enoch peered over her shoulder. “Look at that.”
Written in red crayon, it said “Back off or you die next!”
“I guess the person didn’t know how I died before,” Tavie commented mildly.
“I reckon you should be careful of dark places and don’t turn your back to no one.”
Tavie let the sheet flutter back into place. She looked up and down the long wall. After a moment she picked up one a foot away from hers. It was a simple page of a bus schedule. Someone had written, “Cody Kalb – Socorro, NM – I think my mother bashed my head in? Does anyone know?” Someone had responded on the back, “She was convicted. Life in prison. Died there.”
Tavie made a noise. “Does anyone ever clean these up, Enoch?”
“Not that I know about,” he said. “Takes some folks a long time before they get back to it. Takes longer for some of these to get answered.”
“Okay. I’ve got a job for you and Coco. Coco would be good at this, and you can make sure no one lusts after her diamond tennis bracelet. If she’s going to hang out with us, then she can work for the privilege.”
“What job?”
“Find every one of these announcements that says New Mexico on it. Also if it says only Albuquerque, Deming, Lordsburg, oh, Santa Fe. What other larger cities are in New Mexico?”
“Roswell, Clovis, Farmington, and Las Cruces.” Enoch smiled. “I get you. Could be someone who is connected to Darren or Minh or both. Let’s see. There’s Silver City and Alamogordo, too. I know someone with a map and we can double check some of the names. You kin see that some of them folks only left a city and no state.”
“We’ll put them back when we’re done,” Tavie said, “in case someone asks.”
“Ain’t no one goin’ to ask the Deadsville sheriff anything no how.”
“Except maybe a GOTD,” Tavie muttered.
“A what?”
“Never mind.”
* * *
Enoch went off to get Coco and get started. Tavie looked at the wall for a few minutes. If someone said something about how they died, and what better reason to want revenge over, then maybe she could get a clue. One or more of these notices might say something about Darren or Minh. It was a long shot, but it was one of the few that Tavie had. She could wait for the next deadie to be murdered, and the world to end, or she could do something proactive. She could go and use Peony’s smart phone again, but the information on the phone tended to be from only the most famous cases. Some mediocre case that had occurred in the 1970s or the 1980s wouldn’t even be a blip on the Internet’s radar.
Tavie grimaced. She could look at her own case. She would have the answer she wanted. She should have done it when the phone was in her hot little hands, but there was something about not knowing and then knowing. If a person didn’t really want to hear the answer, then a person shouldn’t ask the question.
“Perhaps a person shouldn’t even think of asking the question,” a voice said from behind her.
Pudd barked sharply, although belatedly.
Tavie turned slowly. It was the god of the dead, Barastyr. “Not too close,” she warned. “The last time I talked to you I got brained by someone and I didn’t see who.”
Barastyr had definitely changed since the last time she had seen him. The things that were the same was his height, his hair, and his eyes. He was only about five feet six inches tall and had the long unearthly silver hair with the deep wells of blackness for eyes. However, he had a whole Hopalong Cassidy thing going on from the distinctive high crowned hat with the crease in the middle to the western style shirt with the scarf held together with a bull’s skull bolo to the chrome double pistols at his waist in extensively decorated leather. He even had the cowboy boots with the white trim at the top.
“And you can do what Thana can do,” Tavie said. “So why bother talking at all?” She deliberately made her mind think of something innocuous, like knitting. It was the most mind-numbingly boring activity she could think about and the last time she’d attempted it she nearly lost her mind and stabbed the last person who’d asked why the bootie she was knitting looked like a hot pad instead. (Knitting needles were sharp enough to do whatever she wanted with them. Having a set at the present would not be unbeneficial.)
“Booties, really?” Barastyr asked. He crossed his arms over his barrel like chest and grinned slyly at her. “I would think a female warrior would be more interested in knives or swords.”
“I prefer tiddlywinks. What’s with the silver screen cowboy thing?”
“Tiddlywinks,” Barastyr repeated with a hint of confusion. He grinned again. “You’re teasing me. This is how great female warriors flirt.”
Tavie frowned. The last thing she needed was one of the GOTDs to think she was hot to haul his ashes. “Did you have anything to do with someone braining me?”
“Of course not,” Barastyr said. “The deadies are in charge of their own destiny here. If one chooses to ‘brain’ you, then it’s on them.”
“Free will and all that.”
“Exactly. One has the ability to choose. It is an extraordinary gift for humans. They have the capacity to forge their own destiny, even if it’s to a hell of their own making.”
“I suppose that makes it easier to judge us,” Tavie said.
Barastyr stared at her. “Humans usually tremble when they realize what I am. I wonder why you don’t.”
Booties. Knitting needles. Pattern. Knit five. Purl five. Drop two stitches. Hopalong frickin’ Cassidy? “It’s because you can’t do anything worse to me than what has already been done,” Tavie said.
“I can answer all your questions,” Barastyr said. “Incidentally, I did say I have a preference for old western movies. I would have thought a lawman, excuse me, a law woman, from Arizona, of all places, would appreciate that.”
“You answer my questions in exchange for what? And I came from the 21st century. No one wears
hats like that anymore.” She considered. “At least people who aren’t considered a few fries short of a happy meal don’t. Possibly some six-year-olds do.”
“Perhaps I want a deadie on the inside,” he mused. “Perhaps I want a little exclusive information.”
Why?
Barastyr shrugged and spread his hands out wide, palms toward the skies. “I want to see where this goes. I’m naturally curious.”
“Just like the deadies.”
“You’re curious.”
“I am curious, but there’s a bigger game afoot. Did you have a priest killed?”
“A priest,” he repeated. “Why would I do something like that?”
Knit five rows. Purl ten rows. Add three stitches. Draw, podnah!
“Oh, for the love of Zoroaster, would you stop that? I don’t want to know all about knitting. I swear I will not read your mind for the remainder of this conversation and in return you will cease thinking about booties and whatnot.”
“Okay.” Booties. Knit ten. Purl six. Drop stitch. Drop stitch. Drop stitch. I like big booties and I cannot lie.
Barastyr’s face wrinkled in apparent distaste.
“What happens if the world ceases to be?” Tavie asked him abruptly.
Barastyr’s face immediately lost the distaste. It smoothed into neutrality. “Is that what Thana told you would happen?”
Booties. Booties. Booties.
“Think about which side you want to be on,” Barastyr suddenly growled. He pointed over her shoulder and glowered when she didn’t look. Then he vanished.
Tavie looked around her. She caught sight of the giant dog he’d had with him the last time. It gave her an unearthly black eyed look and disappeared. However, she did see was that some of the deadies had noticed and were staring at her. She shrugged. “GOTDs,” she said contritely. “Can’t live with them, can’t shoot them.”
Chapter 19
He that fears death lives not.– English Proverb
~
“I never really liked knitting.” – Octavia Stone
~
Abruptly Tavie thought of something. It simply popped into her skull and pounded on the inside of it like an insane monkey with a mallet. Coco had told Enoch that she might have met Minh in the living world. Tavie had forgotten to ask the teenager about it. But if Coco had met Minh in the living world, then that also meant that Coco had been in New Mexico at some point. Rather, she had probably been in New Mexico at some point because there was no certainty that Minh had been in New Mexico when he’d encountered Coco.