by Mur Lafferty
The power, and the gods, and the humans, and the worshiping, and the sacrifices. She concentrated again and saw the solar system from a different point of view. The Sun, she was surprised to see, was a god himself. Not ruling anything, but content to radiate his light and heat to the universe. The dead body of the Moon, a goddess, was also floating among the debris, and Kate mourned her. But the Earth — the Earth was indeed a black spot against a starry sky. A hole where there should be none. It was just as Skuld had said.
With a gasp, she opened her eyes. Daniel was beside her in the cave, grasping her forearm. Beyond him stood an earnest-looking young man with slightly bulging eyes and brown hair.
“Dammit! You scared the shit out of me."
"Sorry, but I've been calling your name for the past ten minutes. Where did you go?"
Kate rubbed her face, trying to calm her racing heart.
"I'll tell you in a minute. We've got some stuff to talk about. But you first. What's going on? What are you doing here?"
"Well, we have a problem, Kate."
Kate sighed. "No, Daniel. We have two."
CHAPTER FOUR
"Why did you have to make an old picnic table? That's all I'm saying," Daniel said, shifting uncomfortably on the wooden planks of the bench and flicking an ant off of his napkin.
Kate didn't pay attention to him, caught up in stirring gravy into her mashed potatoes. Finally, she smiled and said, "I was feeling nostalgic." They sat in a meadow at the foot of the Wasteland Daniel was beginning to think of as "Kate's Mountain." The snow was gone, thank goodness, and a warm breeze stirred the grass around them. Kate had magicked up a picnic table and some fried chicken and they sat together as if metaphysical bogeys were not breathing down their necks.
Daniel's eyes kept flitting to the horizon, even though Kevin reassured him that demons would not follow them to the Wasteland. Daniel told him of the Big Rock Candy Mountain incident and Kevin had simply said that the hobo heaven was not a Wasteland and therefore a loophole. Daniel didn't waste time wondering how a monk from the Spanish Inquisition knew what the word "loophole" meant.
Kevin politely stripped the fried skin off of his chicken and nibbled at the meat underneath and did not raise his eyes from the ground.
"You know what's been bothering me?" Kate asked, wiping chicken grease from her hands. "We experienced, or caused, the end of the world. Everyone died. Religions had prophecies fulfilled. And yet, there were some key elements that I’m not sure of: if they happened and what became of them. Like, well, the world ended but we could see that there was no big war between God and the Devil. They both seemed fine. There was no winner, just a war that killed everyone.”
Daniel swallowed his mouthful of chicken. “And?”
"My point is, Ragnarök happened the way it was supposed to. But the biggest ‘end of the world’ story in present day...”
"Past day."
"Past day. Whatever. Fundamentalists rode their high horses talking about the Rapture and how they were going to be lifted in the air and the rest of us were going to be eaten alive. There was this cranky bitch in line at Morton’s grocery store once who was telling me how she was looking forward to flying. And then she looked at me all pity-filled saying I should give my life to Jesus before I got devoured by some big-ass demon.”
Daniel smacked the table. “Jesus!”
“What?”
“No, no, the actual guy, Jesus Christ. Where is He? He was supposed to come back and lead the armies and win the war and rule the new world of peace.”
Kate nodded slowly and pulled a book out of her backpack. “Yeah, He was supposed to come and raise all the dead who, strangely enough, were supposed to fight on the Devil’s side. So Jesus gives Satan an army just to destroy it?”
“Well, God gave us Jesus so we could kill Him.”
Kate frowned. “Well, it’s a little simplistic of an explanation.”
“Well, maybe the zombie army thing is a simple explanation, too.”
“But did it happen? The Earth isn’t back. Not yet, anyway. So where’s Jesus?”
Daniel wadded up his napkin. “Oh man! If we’re going to go on another hunt through miles of afterlife again to find someone, I’m going to be pissed. Wait,” he interrupted himself. “He did come back. I know that much. I met the Wandering Jew and that Roman guy who slapped Christ and they said that the Second Coming had released them from their eternal lives and let them go to heaven.”
“So where is He?” Kate wondered aloud.
Simultaneously, they looked at Kevin, who spoke as if he were from the twentieth century but ate as if he’d never experienced fried chicken before. He looked up and saw the two staring at him and then colored.
”’Fess up, Kevin,” Daniel said. “There's more that you're not telling us.” The gods in both his and Kate’s head, since they shared aspects of the same gods, had told them to look to the assistant for answers.
Kevin cleared his throat and glanced at Daniel, still refusing to look at Kate. “Right now, the metaphysical world is in a great deal of flux. Gods died and, um, some have been absorbed by the two of you. Some still exist. Anubis still judges souls. Izanami still controls her Underworld. And other gods are reborn.”
Daniel cringed inwardly. “Heaven and hell are feeling much less like kingdoms and more like timeshares.”
Kate crushed her napkin, opening her palm to reveal nothing. She waved her hand and the remains of their lunch went away. Daniel blinked and they were back in her office again. “God, would you please warn me before you do that again?”
“Hmm?” Kate asked, and then shook her head as if to clear it. “Oh, sorry.”
“What's going on, Kate?” Daniel asked, suddenly feeling very out of the loop.
“Nothing. Sorry. Headache. I was just thinking it was time we stop worrying about the other gods. Let them deal with their own issues. We’ve got the Earth to rebuild.”
Kate took Daniel into space and showed him the hole in the universe. It took longer than Daniel expected it to for him to calm his mind to expand his awareness to match hers, but he was finally able to. Kate’s patience with him was supposed to help, he knew, but it just annoyed him. The aspect of Hermes he had taken on when he and Kate had made love pointed out to him that when Daniel had accepted his divinity, he was the calm one, while Kate was the angry, impatient one. But Daniel ignored him. He was still mad at Hermes.
Although he had no physical body, he could've sworn he gasped when he saw the solar system before him, the slowly growing black hole in their existence. He was also sure he could feel Kate’s hand squeeze his own as she spoke inside his head. “It’s bigger since the last time I was here.”
“Where you think it goes?” he asked her.
“I don't know.”
“Wanna find out?” He tried to make his tone playful, but she answered in quick seriousness.
“No.”
And they were back in the Wasteland with Kevin watching over their bodies. Daniel gasped in shock. Kate stretched, wincing. “Yeah, it’s not fun coming back, is it?” she said. Daniel shook his head, eyes wide.
“How are we going to deal with this, Kate? This is bigger than we are. I can’t even deal with a monster in a world where I'm in charge.”
“We’ll deal. We have to.” Kate frowned. “Hey, do you know what that monster thing is?”
“I meant to look it up, but then you dropped a little ‘we have to fix Earth now’ problem on me.”
“I wish you would stop whining,” Kate said, making room on her table for Kevin to spread out maps of hell.
“Hey, check it out! Is that where we were?” Daniel blurted, pointing to a charred spot on the map that was still warm.
“Oh yes, sir,” Kevin said. He pointed to other smoldering parts of the map. “These are fire hells.”
It later turned out that slick, cool parts of the map were ice hells. Daniel was reminded of the coolest Dungeons & Dragons map around, needing only little mon
sters to represent the demons that wanted to eviscerate him.
Maybe he didn't need those little monsters.
Seeming more relaxed than he had been since meeting Kate, Kevin pointed to the map. “From what you told me, this was your path through hell. You jumped from area to area, using Izanami’s sword, avoiding the maze of roads through hell. That was a smart move. Her Underworld, incidentally, is over here, near Dis.”
“Huh. Maybe we should go visit her and see how she’s doing,” said Daniel. He looked up briefly to see Kate staring at Kevin, her eyes intense. The assistant looked at the floor again. “Dude, don’t intimidate him,” Daniel said.
“Did you see the hole in the universe? Can we get to work, please?”
“Oh sure. You're not followed by a demon that wants to devour you.”
“Man, you’re selfish. Daniel, you're safe here. We’re surrounded by thousands of flame sword-wielding angels. We have a huge problem and we have to start working on it.” They stared at each other for a moment, tension making the air nearly crackle between them. Daniel was about to break the tension by cracking a joke, but Kate broke eye contact and walked through the door that should have led to the hall. Daniel followed, grumbling.
Daniel looked around the room and whistled. Instead of echoing, his little sound seemed to dissolve sadly nearby, as if it were too tired to even attempt to travel. Kate craned her head back. “When I was a kid, we visited NASA in Florida. And I remember them telling me that the room to build the shuttles was so big that it created its own atmosphere and had its own weather. Seemed like a good place to build things, so ...”
The white walls stretched away from them and up, like another dimension unto themselves. If Daniel stared too hard at them, he began to get queasy. He cleared his throat. “So, uh, where do we start?”
Kate reached into her pocket and pulled out a small gray kitten. “I created her with a thought in the mountains a while ago. Of course, she didn't appreciate that, since she's not really a snow-loving species, but I at least learned a lesson.”
“Kate, we’re not going to remake Earth piece by piece, are we? I don’t know every species on Earth. We don't know all the geologic stuff or even anything about weather.”
Kate sighed as the gods began to speak up in Daniel’s head. “How did the world get created in the myths, Daniel? It wasn’t God sitting around planning things, deciding on this religion or where noses should go on grasshoppers. The land, the people, the animals were all sneezed or spit or bled or shat out. It’s all metaphysical. It doesn’t need to be cataloged; we just need to do it.”
Daniel made a face. “I am not shitting out the Earth. That’s one of the nice things about divinity that I've managed to stop doing.”
Kate grimaced. “Thanks for the ‘too much information’ moment. I'm just saying that our power is bigger than we are and we need to remember that and make use of it.” She rubbed her head above her right eye. “I just wish I could think of the next step.”
Daniel turned to ask Kevin for advice but he wasn't there. “Where’s Kevin?”
“I didn’t let him in. This for us to do and I'm not sure I trust you bringing a damned soul here.”
“Oh, come on, Kate! What the hell do you expect me to do? I’m alone down there. You certainly aren't helping me. I had to turn to someone. Why are you busting my balls? What the hell did I do to you?”
Kate’s voice was tense as she closed her eyes. “I really would love for you to tackle one of these problems without whining about it. Just one. Why don't you ask all those gods in your head? Mine sure as hell won't shut up. I can’t be your mom. I can't hold your hand. I’m trying to deal with my own shit.”
“I thought we were a team. We always supported each other. Why am I here if we’re …”
She finally met his eye, tears brimming. “If you don't know why, then I certainly can’t tell you. Just get out of here. I’ll deal with the world.”
To hell with her. Or with him. Daniel opened the door to head back into the office and get Kevin when a noise made him stop. His senses had gotten better with divinity, but this was much bigger than simply keen hearing. Kate’s tears had slipped from her eyes and fallen toward the concrete floor where they landed, not with a plop but with a gush. It sounded as if something had been set free. The roar that followed immediately thereafter had him scrambling back to grab Kate and pull her out of the way. But there was no point.
She stared transfixed as tears continued to roll down her face and land on the floor, where water swirled in a whirlpool, much more water than had come from her eyes. It grew exponentially with each tear that fell. Kate squinted and gasped in pain and she brought both hands to press her forehead. Daniel’s stomach rolled over as blood dripped from her nose and mixed with the water, solidifying within the pool.
“Holy shit,” Daniel said and ran forward in awe to support Kate as the blood flowed faster. He reached inside himself for Odin’s healing skill, but the gods in his head stopped him.
Not yet, muttered the All-Father.
She’s tougher than you think, advised Hermes.
Daniel remained by her side, holding her. She wept and bled and the world formed below her. Later, he would realize that it took very little time but it seemed an eternity as he watched his friend create this glorious thing in sorrow and pain.
Finally, she was done. The tears dried and the nosebleed stopped and Kate was finally able to remove her hands from her head. Panting, she stared at the hovering, churning sphere about twelve feet in diameter. Continents and islands passed by slowly as the sphere, the Earth, rotated.
Daniel took her in his arms and just held her gently. “That was amazing.” She rested her head on his shoulder so she could still see what she created.
“It’s a little small, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Daniel had healed the nosebleed and the headache had ebbed. Kate figured she could have healed the damn thing herself (she had Odin within her too, after all) but her shell-shocked and numb mind would not focus. She was dimly aware of Daniel and Ganymede trying to rouse her, but she didn't care. The gods in her head were, for once, mercifully silent. She slept for a bit, woke, and then slept some more. After making sure she was all right, Daniel left, taking his sycophantic assistant with him. Kate was both sad for his departure and relieved to be left alone.
She found that she preferred to sit in the vast room and watch the Earth grow. It did not stop when she and Daniel left. Now, she guessed, it was the size of a small country, the room growing around it, and still growing. The landmasses were strangely different from the Earth that Kate remembered but still felt familiar, as she supposed any mother regarded her child as familiar. One huge landmass spanned both Northern and Southern hemispheres in a roughly circular shape. Small islands dotted the rest of the world. Kate was watching the world spin and grow when the door behind her slammed open. Heavy footsteps came up behind her.
“Hello, Skuld,” Kate said.
Daniel's bitter voice came from behind Skuld. “Oh, sure, she’ll talk to a Valkyrie.”
A heavy gloved hand came down on her shoulder. “You done good, girl. Better than I expected. I figured you two would have done it together, but this is fine indeed.”
“We did do it together,” Kate said, not taking her eyes from the globe.
“Come. The world can do without you for a bit. We’re going on a trip.”
Kate followed Skuld docilely to the horses outside the gates of heaven and didn't complain as the Valkyrie lifted her into a saddle behind Daniel. She wrapped her arms around his chest and rested her head on his back. The horses cantered away from heaven and the rocking motion lulled her to sleep again. She awoke as the light faded. They were back in hell, or at the entrance. This was a bad thing, but Kate couldn’t remember why. They paused at the mouth of the cave and Daniel lifted Kate off the back of the horse.
“Take her to Izanami,” Skuld ordered. “I will wait out here.” Daniel no
dded and took Kate's hand, and together they walked in Izanami’s underworld. The cave held dry corpses lying propped against the walls and stuffed into alcoves.
“I love what she's done with the place,” said Daniel. The cave got much wider and more heavily populated by rotting bodies as they traveled the downward-sloping floor. Eventually it opened into a huge throne room where Kazuko, Izanami’s human form, waited for them, smiling. She went first to Daniel and hugged him, then turned to Kate.
“I heard what you've accomplished. I'm impressed, but I'm not surprised to see you are here. Come talk to me.”
“But …” Daniel said.
“This is for women to discuss, Daniel,” Kazuko said, and led Kate to a doorway in the cave wall. The room on the other side gleamed with candlelight and the tapestried walls give a sense of warmth in this dank underground world. Kate sat on the tatami floor and accepted the tea Kazuko handed her.
“You cannot focus. You get too much of yourself, yes?” Kazuko said.
Kate sipped the tea, feeling some sense of comprehension return. “I didn't mean to do it that way. I didn't want to give birth over and over again, or do something gross with bile like Susanoo did.” Kazuko frowned at the mention of her stepson, but Kate continued. “Daniel made me so mad that I just started crying. Then it happened.”
Kazuko nodded. “Even as gods, we cannot control everything. Take me: I died in childbirth. My husband could not stop that. He killed my son. My son could not stop that. And Susanoo could not stop Daniel from freeing me, and my husband could not stop me from killing him once I found him. We are not all-powerful, despite the power we do have. Before I died I created the world, but after I was freed from my prison of death I was more powerful than ever.”
Kate squinted at her. “Why?”
“I am no longer one woman. I am created of millions of tiny minds. I can split myself and learn two things, four things, a million things at once. I can send a spy with my full knowledge off to gather information. I can be aware of so much more but not be overwhelmed. I am here. I am with you, and I am with Daniel.”