by Mur Lafferty
“Wait a minute,” Daniel said. “If you’re Osiris, Jesus, and Baldur, how are you going to stay here and rule, and go back to Valhalla with them? You’re not backing down, are you?”
“It’s all metaphysical, Daniel. This guy is the essence of the Reborn God. He can be any of them, all of them. And we’ll likely need all of them.”
They walked outside to stand on the new ramparts that surrounded heaven. The land surrounding the new home of heaven had begun to take on a more whole look,, and Kate thought she saw some grass poking through the ground.
In the dreary sky, four figures flew toward them. “That can't be good,” Daniel said.
“No,” Kate replied. “That means the Army is on its way.”
“Hey, Kate, where’s Earth?” Daniel asked.
“It’s safe. Away from here. Jane the Boxcar Beekeeper has it. Now, we need to make sure that we still have hell,” Kate said. “Daniel, can you create a hell for the demons defeated in battle?”
“You gave the Earth to a hobo?”
Kate slowly faced him. “Again, I ask, what should I have done otherwise?”
“But can you trust her?”
“I had to. If Mephistopheles even touches the metaphysical shadow of the earth, he gains control. The whole world goes to hell.”
Bela Boost appeared beside Daniel, grinning. “That is right, Dinner-Loving One Eye, no one suspects a hobo. But Kate, The Brackleberry Pie Provider, there is something you should know.”
Kate tore her eyes away from the angels that sped toward her. The southern horizon darkened as the army from hell neared, clued into her whereabouts. The northern horizon was dusty with the army from Valhalla. Kate’s head began to pound. Bela pointed to the east, where one lone figure trudged carrying a bindle over her shoulder. Jane the Boxcar Beekeeper was returning her package to Kate.
Kate rubbed her head. “Oh, that’s not good.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“What is going on, Ganymede?” Daniel asked through clenched teeth. “There’s something she's not telling me.” They stood outside a small bathroom where Kate was currently vomiting. She hadn't eaten anything during dinner, but she vomited as if she had been drinking an entire frat party. Ganymede wouldn’t meet his eyes; he stared at the door with his lips pursed.
“I do not know what is wrong with the Goddess, but it is a very bad time for it to be wrong.” As the armies and the hobo approached, Kate had reminded Daniel that they needed a hell, so he had left heaven by the southern exit and concentrated, making seven hells: three towers of torture, one field of black grain, and three pits containing fire, ice, and spiders.
“Spiders?” Baldur had asked.
“Can’t stand the things!” Daniel said, shuddering.
When he had returned to heaven, Kate’s four angel warriors had gone to escort Jane safely to the fortress, and Kate had locked herself in the bathroom to vomit in private. She now opened the door, pale and shaking, staring at the floor.
“I’m okay,” she mumbled.
“No you’re not! What's going on?” Daniel shouted, grabbing her shoulders. Kate winced at his volume and held her hand to her head.
“Migraine,” she said. “Sometimes they get bad.”
“Then heal yourself! That’s one of the benefits of being dead, right? You don’t get sick anymore!” Hysteria was coloring Daniel's voice now. Kate’s head raised and looked at him calmly.
“Daniel, I am fine. Please go help the angels with their preparation.” Daniel’s eye narrowed. He hadn't heard the gods in his head since the vision quest, but he recognized that tone.
“Izanami, don't do that. I want to talk to Kate.” The goddess did not deny her control over Kate's body, but only smiled at him tightly. She sagged then, and Daniel caught her. He held her close and she looked up at him.
“Hey,” he said softly, stroking her hair. “What's going on?” Her eyes were glassy as she looked up at him.
“I’m sorry, Daniel. I'm so sorry.”
“For what, being sick?”
“You know, right? You know I love you?” His throat closed and his heart pounded. This was not a real claim of love. This was a goodbye.
“Kate …” She pulled him down to her and kissed him, a sweet, sad kiss, and then pushed away from him as her angel Ruth came down the hall, weeping.
“Dammit,” Kate whispered.
“Goddess, you must see what has happened. What they have brought, it is nothing I have ever seen before.” Kate bent suddenly and retched, her body convulsing with nothing else to vomit up. Daniel held onto her until she calmed, then supported her as they hurried to the castle walls. Daniel gasped as Kate struggled to raise her head to the new threat.
“Kate,” he whispered. “Are the souls safe?”
“They’re in a bunker deep down.” He lifted her chin so she could see, to comprehend, and was startled to see her face not register shock at all, but just stoic acceptance. Daniel could not comprehend what he saw, the size of it, the magnitude. The dark shape flashed with rainbow colors like an oil slick, and towered above the demon army, hovering like the sick child of a vulture and a skyscraper. Daniel could actually feel his brain attempting to force this … thing … into a shape or something he could understand, could place into a neat box of animal, vegetable, demon, or angel. All his mind could tell him was “BIG” and “BAD.”
“What IS that?” Kate’s head hung again.
“Remember that hole we saw? That metaphysical hole where the Earth was supposed to be?”
“That came out of there?”
“Yeah, I think Mephistopheles was trying to slow you down so this could get out. It's going to make him unstoppable unless we do something.”
“What can we do? You can’t even stand upright! The Norse are just sitting there! Your angels can’t hold that off and … OH SHIT!” The shadow had descended on them, and Daniel saw a flashing image of teeth, so many teeth. He screamed, and the shadow bounced off a dome made of thick crystal, making a bright ringing sound that both hurt his ears and was the sweetest sound in the world. Kate hadn’t moved, but he had no doubt that she created it to protect them. Still, the shadow enveloped them, plunging heaven into complete darkness. Torches flared to life around them and Daniel held tightly to Kate, his complete faith in her unshaking even as another bound of retching shook her.
“Now what?” he whispered to Bela … but the hobo wasn't there. He was sprinting to where Jane was guarded by Ruth and Gabriel. He snatched the bindle from her shoulder and pushed it into Ruth’s surprised hands. The air split around him and he pulled her through, escaping. Kate hadn't turned to watch him, but she held out her hand, where Ruth put the bindle.
“She never got her pie …” Kate’s voice was thick, but still held a bit of amusement.
“You can pay her back when we done here.” whispered Daniel, having no idea how they’d get out of this.
“We need to get the Norse involved. We need more gods.” Kate looked at Jesus, who had been silent, and he nodded. She reached into her robe, and with trembling fingers, handed him the deed to heaven. Then she handed the Earth to Daniel. She straightened and smiled at him sadly. She began to stumble down the steps of the ramparts; Daniel went to help her, and in a blink Baldur was on the other side of her, supporting her shoulder. Jesus remained on the ramparts, looking up at the blackness and the winking eyes and the gnashing teeth. Kate led them weakly to a door in the walls.
“Is this a good idea, Kate?” Daniel asked.
“Trust me,” she whispered. She opened the door to a curtain of black, inky fog. She held out her hand and a hole appeared. The creature screamed then, its pain reverberating through the crystal.
She shoved the bindle into his hands. “Stay here. Protect Earth, please,” she said, and kissed him long and hard. He held her, crushing her to his chest, not understanding.
She broke off, and she and Baldur walked through the hole in the blackness. Daniel remained inside, holding the package wi
th the metaphysical footprint of the Earth within. Baldur supported Kate as she lifted her head to the sky. Her face contorted in a mask of agony, then ecstasy; a passion of sorts. Her forehead split open then, streaming hot light onto the dark battlefield.
“Sol,” whispered Daniel, terrified. “The sun …” She screamed then, a sound of a thousand voices, all of them gods. The light intensified, and Baldur stepped away from her. Daniel shielded his eyes, and when the light subsided Kate had crumpled, and was surrounded by gods. These were not the gods Daniel had met. These were Gods. Izanami stood in her Kazuko form: taller, glowing, and armed. Hermes, Kagutsuchi, Anubis, Horus, and Odin also stood with her in glorious power. With one gesture of his arm, Odin had the entire Norse army screaming his name, and with another flick he commanded them to descend on the demon army that had been advancing onto heaven. The other gods ran alongside Baldur and Odin to join the fray, but Hermes stopped for a moment, looking down at Kate, and bent to kiss her hand. Then in a flash he was gone, running into battle.
They just left her lying there.
Daniel cried out her name and she didn't respond. He ran, his feet pounding on the new grass to fall next to her, kneeling. Her forehead was still split open, and blood poured free over her pale unmoving face. Her body was difficult to move as he pulled her into his lap, sobbing.
“Kate, Kate, baby, that was amazing. Kate — can you hear me, Kate …” he sobbed. She didn't move. Bereft of healing powers — possibly any powers — he could only hold her and cry. The package holding Earth lay beside them, forgotten. Movement caught his eye as the Earth rolled away. He lunged for it — it had been her last wish to him — but the shadow was faster. It struck out with the pseudopod and grabbed the Earth; their fledgling planet was swallowed, disappearing into the darkness.
“No …” he whispered in grief and horror, and didn't even think to flinch as the pseudopod struck out again, hitting him with such force. He held onto Kate, and together they flew through the air. He closed his eye and wished to die on impact, just finish this bullshit, this god stuff, this responsibility stuff, just follow Kate wherever dead gods went and be done. To rest.
He didn’t die, though. He landed in soft sand and slid, still holding her body, down a tall dune. He came to rest and finally opened his eye. It was a Wasteland. The desert stretched around them, hot and gritty. Kate lay next to him, her limbs thrown away that must've been uncomfortable … if she had been alive. But as the sand caked in the gash on her forehead, and she failed to breathe, he had to accept it: she was not. Kate was dead. He had no idea what was going on with the battle for Heaven, Earth was lost, and he was exiled.
Daniel bent over his best friend's body and cried.
WASTELAND
By Mur Lafferty
* * *
The Afterlife Series IV
Wasteland, The Afterlife Series IV
Version 1.2
Published by Restless Brain Media on Smashwords
Copyright © 2011 Mur Lafferty
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
This is a work of fiction. Resemblances to persons living or dead is coincidental.
To Laura Burns, the last moon ranger, and Dr. John Cmaaarrr.
CHAPTER ONE
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
“Oh, come on, Daniel, we can’t do this every Saturday!”
“Sure, we can. And we do.”
“Do you have any money?”
“No.”
“Wanna go hiking?”
“Sure!”
Daniel still didn’t know what to do. And this time, he didn’t have Kate’s irritation and wit to drive him.
He still held her, blood making his t-shirt tacky and stiff. He couldn’t put her down. He couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t accept the inevitable.
She would have laughed at his scattered thought process. What would Kate do in his position? What would Jesus do? Jesus was still in heaven, which was in hell, and he fought the creature that had slipped through the hole in the universe. The armies of Heaven, alongside an army of gods and Norse heroes, had been making short work of the armies of hell. And that great beastie that had devoured Earth still enveloped heaven.
He used to be a god. For that matter, so did Kate. The greatest gods in history had been in his head, advising him. He’d had Kate advising him. Now he had nothing.
Her dead weight made his legs cramp, and he shifted in the sand. He leaned over and took her head in his hands. Her head looked exactly as if something ancient and powerful had been stored inside her and she had been the unfortunate arachnid to the spider-hunting wasp. The gods had not been advisors; they’d been eggs waiting to be hatched out. Had they fed on her? Fed on her godly power until there was nothing left but Kate?
Her skin was split and caked with blood and sand. Smoothing the hair away from the wound, Daniel could see the hole in her skull where the gods had exited. He began to cry again, his fingers tightening on her shoulders and bruising her skin. He didn’t know why it had happened, but she was too big of a sacrifice to make.
How much had she known about her fate? She must have known, she wouldn’t have apologized to him, would not have kissed him like that if she hadn’t known. Is that was Jesus had talked to her about?
He needed answers. If only to quiet his mind. If only to get peace. Then maybe he could die too.
He lifted her, struggling in the sand, his feet slipping. He teetered to the left and then fell to one knee. He had nothing of the strength he once had. He was a tired, grief-stricken man, unable to do the simple thing of keeping his best friend with him.
He began to dig, then, his hands scraping sand aside furiously. At first, the sand slid back into the hole as fast as he removed it, but eventually he got ahead of it and made progress. The sand wore away at his hands, wedging underneath his fingernails and leaving his skin raw.
His shoulders ached and his eye stung, but he eventually made a hole deep enough to receive her. He stood for a minute, looking down at the swirling sand that had already begun to cover her. He leaned down close and kissed her dry lips. “I’ll see you soon, one way or another.”
Covering her prone body was not an issue. He pushed sand into the hole and then removed Izanami’s katana from its sheath at his hip. He stuck it deeply into the sand by her grave, marking it. Removing his bloody t-shirt, he tied it to the sword, a red marker to remind any passerby what she had given.
If there was any left to remind.
******
He had forgotten what it was like to feel mortal. Even before he had begun taking on godlike powers – and he couldn’t pinpoint when that was, exactly – the knowledge of being a dead soul had made it unnecessary to eat or drink. He breathed out of habit, and every once in a while his body decided it wanted to experience waste elimination, but pretty much he was a metaphysical being.
Even when he had lost his eye, he somehow knew it was a symbolic thing, and the blood and humor that had gushed down his face were not actually real.
Now he was aware of his body: the large bag of organs and blood he had to carry with him. The thirst tore at his throat and his eye socket ached at best and screamed at the invasion of sand particles at worst. His lips cracked and bled, making his body lose precious moisture even faster.
He didn’t care. Dying of thirst was not ideal, but what did it matter? He would either get his answers or die trying. It pleased him that he had only two choices here, and either one would be fine. He couldn’t mess this one up. He tightened the bandage around his eye and trudged on.
“She made the ultimate sacrifice,” Izanami said, her voice in a light tone as if she were discussing the latest stock prices. “You should be proud of her.”
Daniel turned his head. She stood there, shimmering, in her human form. “Are you real?”
“By now you should know to ask, ‘What is real?’” came a voice behind him. Kagut-suchi, the fire god, blazing b
righter than the sun overhead.
Daniel shielded his eye and winced. “I have no clue, honestly. I want to believe this is just a vision quest and I’ll wake up at some point and be able to get a drink.”
“It’s not about you anymore, boy.” Odin’s gruff voice made him turn around yet again. The man glared at him from under his wide hat, his one eye boring into Daniel’s. “It’s not about Kate, either.”
“The Earth has been enshrouded in darkness,” Anubis said. The huge dog nearly gave shade in the lethal heat, except he too shimmered as a mirage. “It needs help.”
“Let the gods deal with it. Isn’t that what you are for?”
“Battle still rages in heaven.” This was Horus. “The Christ keeps the city safe, and the armies of heaven and hell battle outside. No one knows how to destroy the creature, however. Kate was the only one who wounded it.”
“Kate is dead,” Daniel said, his voice breaking in the new grief that felt as if it turned his bones to sludge.
“And you are alive. Kate depended on you. She loved you. She believed in you.” This was Hermes now, his hand a very real pressure on Daniel’s arm, his blue eyes not unkind as he forced Daniel to look at him.
“I don’t have anything left!” Daniel wailed.
“Is that entirely true?” Hermes had gone; whoever had said this was hidden. The voice was sharp and female, and he finally looked down to see Coyote laughing at him. Before he could answer, she lunged for him, jaws open wide, and hit his chest, knocking him into the sand.
He lay there for a minute, listening to the sand shift around him like rain. He felt tired, so very tired. And he was clearly losing his mind. He rolled onto his side, curled into a ball, and fell into an exhausted sleep.
******
One drop. One drop of rain was enough to wake him, his skin sucking in the moisture almost immediately. More rain fell, dotting the congealed blood on his bare chest, wetting his cracked lips. He licked them, his swollen tongue greedily seeking water. Struggling to sit up, he looked around.