by Mur Lafferty
You must be humble. You must release all pride, all sense of self-importance, all envy, Horus whispered.
Pride? Did he have any left? Daniel wondered where pride had tripped him up. Pride that he could handle hell and the problems that went with it? He definitely had been envious of Kate's appointment in heaven. He had thought that was the easy job. And here he was wandering in the desert, unharmed, while she fought a siege of demons that he had inadvertently created. Include cowardice with that list, I guess, he thought. He thought of the things he had done due to cowardice and dipped his head in shame. He'd had pride and envy, lust and rage, but his biggest flaw was that fear paralyzed him.
The sand blew harder, catching the tears on his face and drying them to a hard crust. The sand scoured his skin, finding its way to every orifice, including into the hole where his missing eye used to be.
Storm coming, Horus said, seek shelter.
"Seek shelter? Where the hell am I going to find shelter?!" Daniel yelled at the wind, his sobs coming harder. He got a mouthful of sand for the effort and choked. Daniel fell to his knees, willing to let the sand cover him, preserving him. Daniel, God of Cowards, the dead God of the Wastelands. He felt his hands moving of their own accord — Izanami? — and found a silk scarf in his backpack. The hands wrapped the scarf around his head twice, and he fell as she relinquished control. Before the sand covered him completely, his last thought was, coward indeed.
Daniel opened his eyes and blinked at the strange perspective. It took him a moment to realize that he was looking at the world through both eyes again. He touched his face. It was whole, with no scars from Horace's talons. It was clean too, no trace of sand.
"Am I dead?" he wondered aloud. He expected sardonic comments from Odin. Of course he was dead! But the old god was silent. All of the gods were, but he had no access to their knowledge, or their wisdom, or their power. Panic rose briefly. Maybe he had died again. But he relaxed and looked around him. He was lying on his back in the rich earth, wheat growing all around him. Beyond the gold of the wheat, the sky shone a forgiving blue. Daniel sat up, rubbing his hand over his healed face. How had he gotten here? He stood, his head rising over the grain. It spread in every direction, up and down hills, obscuring everything around him. About two hundred feet away a man also stood in the field, running his hands over the wheat, inspecting it. Daniel approached him.
"Excuse me."
The man looked up and smiled. "Yes, my son?"
"I, uh, well, I'm not exactly sure why I'm here. I was looking for someone, and there was this sandstorm, and well, then I was here."
The man watched him. He had a strong frame, blond hair and dark skin. His face was unlined, but still carried the hint of maturity and age. His dark brown eyes reminded Daniel of his father from the days before his life changed.
"I do not know who you're looking for, but you found me," he said.
"And you are?"
"I am a god who died, was resurrected, and then returned to the afterlife. I am prophesied to come again, to bring peace to the world. I …"
"You're Jesus!” said Daniel, relieved.
The man smiled again. "I am Osiris."
The joy died in Daniel's throat. "Oh. But didn't Jesus ..." his voice trailed off.
"Indeed."
Daniel's face burned. What was he doing here if he was with the wrong guy? "So where do I go now?"
"I believe if you can't find what you're looking for, you keep looking. My body was cut up into many pieces and my wife found every one. Well, nearly." He frowned.
"But if you're supposed to bring back a world of peace what are you doing here?"
"Tending the wheat until it is time for harvest."
Daniel blinked at him and shook his head. "Whatever. Can you at least point me in the direction I need to go?"
Osiris pointed into the wheat — or was it out of the wheat? — and Daniel gave him a halfhearted wave, and started walking. Walking again. With wheat stretching out to the horizon, Daniel wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he was pretty sure the wheat had to end for him to find it. Although he was enjoying the sight of things with his new perspective, fatigue began to insinuate itself on him again and he took a break, sitting down and hiding in the stalks.
"Hi there!"
Daniel nearly screamed when he heard the voice of the woman sitting in the wheat right next to him. She hadn't been there before; Daniel would've seen the depression in the wheat. She had short, dirty blonde hair, a thin face and she grinned at him widely, her yellow eyes glinting in shadows.
"You scared me!"
She made a face of mock innocence. "What? Little ol’ me? Impossible. Well, that's not true. It's very possible. Very likely. Something I'm very good at."
"Who are you, anyway?"
"Oh, Daniel, I am your dream girl, your nightmare, your savior, and your biggest regret. I am also your guide." She grinned again, her body shifting to fill out a little. Her face became rounder, and her hair grew long and black. "Some once called me Scheherazade." She shifted again, her face elongating and hair sprouting. "Others called me Coyote," she said in a growling voice. "Raven. Anansi. Ishu. Eris. Hermes. Susanoo. Malice. Merlin. Loki." She changed shape faster, flipping through the faces, the animals of the trickster.
"Loki?" Daniel blurted, "You're dead! So is Hermes! And Susanoo! How can you be all of them?"
"I am the Trickster. I can help or betray, seduce, or spurn. I am freer than any other god to do what I will." She returned to her original form, looking like a girl Daniel had dated in college, albeit with yellow eyes. "I am also the messenger and the guide." She reached out and took Daniel's wrist, her grip much strong than her small hands indicated. "Close your eyes." Daniel did so, realizing it would probably be pointless to argue.
The whisper of the wind through the wheat ceased, and he opened his eyes. They were in a small hut now, with no windows or doors — only a smoke hole in the roof. A fire pit lit the darkness from the center of the room, casting odd shadows on Scheherazade's face as she sat opposite him.
"You seek Daniel. You seek a god. You seek answers. I'm here to guide you. Some call it meditation. Some call it a vision quest. Me, I just call it getting high." She tossed some herbs into the fire and the smoke thickened. Daniel coughed and slipped off his robe.
"I kind of thought this was already a vision quest. Aren't I really in a Wasteland still missing my eye?"
Her yellow eyes glinted. "You are on a vision quest. You are in a Wasteland. You are here with me. But you have a long way to go."
Daniel knelt by the fire pit. "Turtles all the way down, huh? All right." He quietened his mind and inhaled deeply. Kate, heaven, his parents, his sister, and even the quest fell away as the drug entered his mind and he was gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kate would have liked to have the smugly superior feeling that she had never liked Kevin, never trusted him. Because something within her had known he was a deceiver; that he was evil and would betray Daniel. But no, she had to be honest with herself and just knew that she plain didn't like the little toady. There was no sense of malice in him — well, there was now. But at the time he just seemed nervous, sycophantic. Even now with his larger size, leathery skin, horns, and smug superiority, his bulbous eyes shone wetly and he blinked furiously.
Kate received him in a quickly fabricated sunroom, although the ravaged sky of heaven still showed nothing but black and red roiling clouds, and served him tea. Her four angels flanked him, flaming swords drawn. He paid them no mind, but fixed upon Kate with his watery gaze. She sipped her tea as he ignored his.
"Mephistopheles, to what do I owe the honor of your visit?"
He grinned, black sharp teeth making his mouth look more like a maw. When he spoke his voice had lost its nervousness and gained a cruel confidence. "You know what we are here for."
"But really, why do you want it? Daniel vacated hell. He never really wanted it in the first place. You certainly have enough met
aphysical real estate as it is.” She thought for a moment. “But taking an empty throne is not the same as conquest, is it? Usurpation. Glory. Better to violently take over in heaven than rule in hell because no one wanted the job?"
"As you say."
Kate watched the demon's skin grow more leathery even as they sat and wondered what his final form would be, if he would even settle on one.
You're wasting your time, Odin grumbled at her.
Saber rattling, Horus whispered.
"Your forces can't get in," she said. From behind Kevin, Ruth shifted nervously.
"And your souls can't get to you. We outnumber you. You can't hope to beat us. Your allies are gone. Daniel fled hell and left it to my army. And now he has abandoned heaven."
Kate gritted her teeth and Michael's hand flexed on his sword.
He’s trying to rattle you. Don't rise to it, Izanami said.
"And yet, even without my friends here, you still can't get it, except under a flag of truce," Kate said, not even hearing herself talk. Her mind whirled and she nearly laughed aloud with the possibility of her idea. Mephistopheles leapt up and brought a cloven hoof down his teacup, shattering it.
Kate willed her hand not shake as she carefully removed a sliver of china from her hair.
"I could kill you now," he said.
She stood to face him. "You would not last a second after raising a hand to me. You are protected under a truce, but the moment you break that truce, you are fair game and you're on my territory."
"Yours for only a short while longer. What happens to heaven after you die?"
"That's an interesting question," Kate said "I have no idea. Want to find out?" She stood and lightly stepped onto the coffee table between them and looked Mephistopheles in the eye. The four angels closed in on him, raising their swords. The Demon Lord clenched his fist and stood his ground, but she didn’t flinch. He finally snarled and left the room. Ruth and Michael flanked him while the other angels stayed with Kate.
She collapsed back into her chair sighing raggedly. "What do you know? All those after-school specials were right. Bulimia doesn't pay and standing up to bullies works."
"What now, Goddess?"
"Oh, Gabriel. He will never see this coming. It's going to be awesome. And I mean that in the purest sense of the word."
Bela and Jane the Boxcar Beekeeper, entered the room, the bundle secured on Jane’s back, her heavy gloves and big helmet. Kate could barely see her eyes through the mesh. "Key lime?" the hobo asked, her voice muffled.
"Two if you like," Kate answered.
Jane nodded again and Bela split reality and led her through it.
Kate watched them go, wondering if she were doing the right thing in deciding to send Jane on her own. While they were gone, she took two hummingbirds from her backpack and whispered a message to each one. They zoomed off and Kate prayed they would both find their destinations. Lastly, she returned the four colored cords, still taut, still connecting the four corners of heaven.
"Which one of you will help me here?" she asked. To her surprise, each of the gods in her head leant his or her strength, and as she pulled the cord, heaven began to shrink and fold in on itself, pulling together like a folded pastry. She pulled and tweaked until her entire realm lay folded before her, with only castle walls and emptiness stretching out in front of her and Ganymede.
The angels still fought off the siege at the walls, with the demons on the outside, hopefully with no knowledge of what she was doing. She picked up heaven, wrapped it in a polka-dotted cloth, and tied it to the end of a stick.
Reality split again and Bela returned, alone. "I like what you've done with the place. Your name may be bland but you're getting more and more interesting."
Kate handed him the stick and he slung it over his shoulder.
"You'll protect it?"
Bela bowed to her, "For brackleberry pie I will do much more than this, lady. Come, you golden-haired child whose name I have already forgotten, let us journey together and get into trouble.” Kate kicked some dust aside and revealed the trapdoor. She pulled it up and pointed to the ladder inside. "That should take you where you need to go. Be careful. Protect each other."
Bela descended the ladder, a weeping Ganymede going second. He looked at Kate and she touched his cheek tenderly. "Don't cry, kid. You'll be yelling at me for swearing again soon."
He nodded and followed the hobo.
"Goddess!" Came a shout from the ramparts, "The flying demons!"
Kate closed her eyes and concentrated. God, it was so easy! And an illusion formed around her: an image of heaven. A smaller, stronger keep within the walls that she apparently been changing and fortifying this whole time. At that moment, a group of flying demons crested the walls, screeching. Angels with frozen arrows shot at them, taking down several. Other angels took to the air, engaging the remaining demons.
Kate turned from the carnage. "Now what?"
You trust in those you gave tasks to. The hobos. The Valkyrie. And Daniel, Izanami said.
Kate frowned. Daniel. He had messed up badly. Was he out trying to make things right? Or was he screwing up even worse? Could she count on him again? She felt slight shame at this thought, but then realized it was completely justified. What would he say when he found out what she had done to protect everything?
"Can you contact the other aspects of yourselves in Daniel's head?" she asked suddenly.
The gods did not answer at first. Kate had an odd feeling of watching a group of kids all shifting their weight and glancing at each other, none of them wanting to deliver the bad news about the broken window.
Hermes finally broke the silence. We ... are not with Daniel.
"Come again?"
When you and Daniel merged, all of the power that came with the gods he was hosting went to you. Daniel has nothing now. Izanami said.
"How is that even possible? I know he's talked to you guys and Ganymede told me he even took on Horus's shape to get out of the battlefield."
It takes a while to get a god out of your head, fully, unless he springs forth, fully formed, that is, Odin said. Whispers and footprints will remain for a while but we are diminishing in his head and soon he will lose all remnants of us, if he hasn't already.
"But what will he do then? He'll be all alone. He'll be powerless."
He is still a god. Anubis reminded her. He has tools ready. He just needs to use them.
“If he realizes you're not with them anymore and he knows I'm mad at him, then he'll be completely alone,” she said.
Maybe that's what he needs, Hermes said.
"Maybe," Kate echoed.
Another blast shook the walls of heaven, the walls that surrounded nothing but an illusion of heaven, and Kate made her decision. She tossed her backpack onto her back, waved once to Ruth and opened a small wooden door that appeared in the walls. Tapping into Hermes’s speed, she ran, passing the battlefield in a blink. She ran so fast, in fact, that the lumbering shape on the horizon that seemed to block out half the sky was barely noted and quickly forgotten.
CHAPTER NINE
“There. Over there. See it?”
“Where?”
“Open your eyes.”
“Oh. Eyes.” It was still a novelty, having both working eyes. Not that there was much to see. A heavy fog hung around him, and he couldn't tell much except that he was standing on sandy, hard ground.
Daniel took a step forward and stumbled. He looked down past a long snout to see sandy colored fur and small paws. He twisted his neck around to see the small canine body, lithe and strong. He opened his mouth to ask a question but all that came out were a series of yips.
Another figure came out of the fog. Another coyote, this time a bitch. She opened her mouth and laughed at him, a series of hiccupping sounds. Her voice appeared in his mind. “What did you expect from a vision quest?”
“Now what?” Daniel asked, putting his nose to the ground and snuffling, seeking— well, he didn'
t know what. What did a divine savior smell like?
“We could seek Grandmother Earth, or maybe Tarantula. Beaver might talk to us.”
“So the guy I’m actually looking for isn't here?”
“They are no straight lines, Little God. There are no clear answers. You seek, and then you take what you find and do what you can with it.”
Daniel shrugged his small shoulders and sniffed at the ground again. Considering that he couldn't see past the fog, he trusted his nose, although he didn't know what to look for. “Seek something,” she had said. All right.
Everything smelled moldy, musty, old. He could smell himself, all canine and testosterone and new. Coyote smelled, too. Much like him, but her bitch hormones were nearly overwhelming. He shook himself. He remembered dog heaven all too well to make the same mistake twice, even if they were both in dog form now.
He turned from her and sniffed again and caught something. Something fresh and hopeful. He barked once and ran into the fog, Coyote behind him.
“So, isn’t Coyote supposed to be male?” Daniel asked.
“Coyote is anything she wishes to be,” she answered. “What are you following?”
“Something. I don't know what.” As he ran, the fog slowly dissipated and he was in a forest. He lifted his head to make sure he wasn't in cat hell again, but he didn't see any frightened, hissing felines in the trees. And these trees were lush and green, not dry and spindly.
He caught a whiff of something else and once he found it, he wondered how he could have missed it. It was strong, hot, and delicious. He followed the new scent with Coyote on his heels, until he nearly ran into a rabbit as big as a horse. He barked in surprise as the rabbit turned a gleaming onyx eye on him.
“Coyote,” he said, his voice slow and velvety. “Who have you brought to me?”
“He calls himself Daniel. We’re on a quest. Could you kindly take you and your somewhat overwhelming scent elsewhere?”
The giant rabbit twitched its ears. “You trust her as a guide?” it asked him.