by Mur Lafferty
Dark, billowy clouds had obscured the sun, easing the oppressive heat. A line of lightning flickered in the sky, and Daniel blinked. Did it rain in the Wastelands?
He felt his face, seeking a whole eye, wondering if he was on another vision quest, but his bandage was still there, his socket still aching, his perception still off. Thunder rumbled and the rain fell harder now, matting his hair to his head. He pulled off his bandage and let the rain wash the sand and Kate’s blood off his body in pink rivulets. The sand and tears and blood all washed away, and for one perfect moment, he gloried in the cool storm.
He stood, feeling new strength. He wished for advice, guidance, anything. Even hallucinations of the gods that had previously annoyed him – he just didn’t want to be alone.
But what the hell. He didn’t want to be exiled here. He didn’t want to have lost his eye three freaking times. And he didn’t want Kate to be dead. There were lots of things he didn’t want.
Was I really a god? He wondered. Did I really have power that I never used for anything useful? I must have been the god of bad luck.
A whisper of the knowledge he’d gained from Odin brought the memory of Baldur to him. The beloved god had been protected from everything but mistletoe, and Loki had tricked his brother Hod into throwing a mistletoe spear at him, killing him. Retribution for the slain god had been swift: Odin and a giantess had a son specifically to slay the poor patsy, who went down in history as the guy who killed Baldur.
Daniel looked around, wondering if anyone had been breeding with the express desire to kill him. Had he been responsible for Kate’s death? He had no idea why the gods needed to ride around in a head for a while before rebirth. Maybe he and Kate shouldn’t have made love. Maybe he shouldn’t have been such a dumbass when he was in charge of hell. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
The sand was getting sludgy under his feet. He picked a random direction and began to walk.
The thoughts pulled at him and ached, but did not carry the fresh, painful grief this time. He walked through his memories with her, from their childhood, into adulthood, into the afterlife. One conversation lodged in his brain like popcorn in his teeth, refusing to leave until he actually gave it some attention.
They had been heading to see the movie Edward Scissorhands together; he had been driving. He’d just had a breakup, and had turned to Kate – again, he realized with shame – for someone to hang with. All he’d wanted to do was complain and feel sorry for himself, but she was trying to cheer him up.
“Look, dude, you’ll find someone else. She didn’t appreciate you, that much is clear,” she’d said.
Daniel didn’t say anything, he merely drove. Kate continued.
“You don’t see it, do you? You don’t see how fun and awesome and giving you are. And let’s face it – you’re not that bad on the eyes.”
Now, with the current knowledge of the feelings she'd had for him, his memory put a slight blush to her face, but he wasn’t sure if it had happened or not.
“If I’m so wonderful, why did she dump me?”
“Maybe she wasn’t right for you,” Kate had said softly.
“I don’t know who is,” he’d grumbled.
She’d looked at him then, pointedly. “Someone is. You’ll find her.”
His insides squirmed with shame at this, but the memory was bright and clear. He’d turned to her and said, “I know, Kate. Can we drop it?” The hurt had been clear on her face, but he’d brushed it aside, feeling that he had more of a right to be hurt than she did.
She’d done that. Every time he’d had his heart broken, she’d been there to let him know that he was, indeed, worthy of love. He just hadn’t realized she’d meant her love.
He had been giving, he could admit that. His father had put him in an after school youth group that had helped out at the homeless shelter, and he’d found actual pleasure in helping others. Still, he kept himself at arm’s length from people, letting only Kate close because she was so damn persistent.
But every single positive thing he could determine about himself was eclipsed by five negatives. He was a coward. He couldn’t let himself love anyone. He was lazy and went the easy way out.
Oh, and he’d destroyed heaven. And hell. And Earth.
What had she seen in him?
The rain continued and he shivered, realizing he’d left his t-shirt back with Kate. His bare chest prickled with the chill. He ran his hands through his sopping hair and remembered he had also left his bandage behind. There was no reason to feel self-conscious of his ruined face; there was no one around to see him.
Visibility was very low here; he squinted across the dune and saw what looked like a great tree growing out of the desolate land. He picked up his pace, sliding a bit on the wet sand, and approached it.
It was, indeed, a tree. It stood against the cloudy sky, leafless and daunting. A flicker caught his eye, two hummingbirds zoomed off a branch, circled his head, and then went to perch back on their branch. His eye followed them and he gasped.
A body hung from the branch, trussed up in ropes, swinging gently. Ruby-colored raindrops dripped from the toes of the hanging shoes. The hummingbirds kept vigil on the body.
“Kate,” he whispered. He ran at the tree and began to climb, slipping on the bark and scraping his already raw hands. He missed his footing on a branch once and fell against the trunk, cutting a shallow gash in his side, but kept moving, scrabbling up the tree, eye fixed on the unmoving body of his friend.
When he finally reached the body, he gulped. They were up terribly high. The hummingbirds regarded him with their beady eyes, but made no attempt to help or hinder him. He hugged the branch and inched out across it, trying not to look down at the ground while, at the same time, focusing on the ropes to try to loosen them.
He’d left the katana with Kate’s body (or so he thought, because it wasn’t anywhere nearby that he could see). He had no other blade, and his tired, raw hands picked at the wet ropes ineffectually. With Kate’s dead weight pulling the ropes taut, there was no way he could get her down. He couldn’t give up, though.
“Come on,” he said, and drew in breath fast when he heard the branch crack. “Oh, no…” He picked at the ropes again, not even sure what he would do if he could untie her, except to let the body fall, but he had to get her down.
The branch cracked again and he lurched downward. The hummingbirds took flight and hovered near his head, watching him. He glared at them, rain dripping into his eye. “A little help here?”
The branch broke, and they fell.
******
He landed hard, knocking the wind from his lungs. Kate and the broken branch were gone; he was at the top of a hill with three crosses in front of him. Two were made from beams, one crudely made from two hefty tree branches. Kate hung, motionless, from the crude cross.
Daniel looked up at her, tears and rain blurring his vision. Weeping women surrounded him.
“What were their crimes?” he asked.
“Two were thieves. One saved us all from the demons of hell,” one woman said, motioning the mourners to begin removing the dead woman from the cross.
“That she did,” Daniel whispered. He moved to help them take Kate down, but a thundering sound caught his attention.
His eye widened as he saw the Roman soldiers on horseback, galloping toward them. The women screamed and hurried to get Kate’s body down. One of them – he recognized her with a start as Mary from his vision quest – looked at him and said, “You must protect us while we take her body.”
He barked a startled laugh. “You’re kidding me, right?” He stood unarmed and half-naked in the rain as three soldiers neared, bloodlust in their eyes and their weapons drawn.
Mary instructed the women to take Kate’s body away. “She gave her life for all mankind. What have you given?”
Daniel shut his mouth with a snap and allowed himself one look at Kate’s body, her wet face peaceful as she was borne away by the women who surrounded he
r. He turned, set his stance, and waited.
Time slowed; the haze in his eye caused by the rain seemed to lift; the scene presented itself to him with startling clarity. One soldier closed in on him, with two more behind. The soldier in front was smaller, lithe, and aimed his horse at Daniel. If the sword didn’t get him, he’d be trampled underfoot. The others behind him by several lengths were burly fellows; each raised a crude short sword.
His muscles twitched as if remembering something. The horses neared, necks stretched out in full gallop. He waited, his arms relaxed at his side. The soldier leaned over and-
Daniel danced to his left, close enough for his right hand’s fingertips to graze the chest of the thin man’s horse. Once he’d made contact with the horse, he knew everything about it; it was slightly lame in the off fore, which was why it carried the lighter soldier. As the horse thundered by, Daniel’s hand trailed down its side until he made contact with the soldier’s shin.
He closed his hand tightly on the man’s ankle, and yanked.
For a moment, he thought he was going to lose his grip, or that his arm would be wrenched from its shoulder. His muscles screamed as he grasped the wet leather of the man’s boot, and for an instant, the man on the ground and the man on the horse had perfect equilibrium. Time resumed, then, and the man toppled from the horse, hard. There was a crunch, and he did not get up.
Daniel didn’t pause to see if he had killed the man; he grabbed the man’s sword from his scabbard and faced the two men on horseback. The sword was a clumsy piece of metal, an ugly tool, and it certainly was no katana, but it would do.
He took a practice swing, and winced at the feeling of weakness in his damaged muscles. This wouldn’t do. Fight with a weakened arm or fight with his left arm? He couldn’t take the burly men in a fair fight, not unarmored with an injured sword arm. But he’d taken skinny in a rather unfair fight.
And what was fair about crucifixion? It was brutal.
He could be brutal.
His skin prickled as the other men approached. He had to do something else about this. The rain came harder now, lowering visibility. The soldiers approached at a gallop, then slowed.
“Good work sir!” the one on the right called, as he neared.
“Went down like a whore, did he?” asked the other, laughing.
Daniel looked at the man lying on the road. He was shirtless, wearing blue jeans. Daniel felt a momentary sense of vertigo, then realized he was wearing the soldier’s garb.
“Should we go after them?” one asked, indicating the fleeing women.
“No,” Daniel said. “She’s dead. Let them cry over the body, it will do them no good.”
He smiled. “Now, dismount for further orders.”
******
He should have felt guiltier as he cleaned the blood off the sword. It was much easier to kill the Romans when they had assumed he was their superior than when they were bent on killing him. He looked at the departing women – they were barely visible through the rain, cresting a hill, carrying Kate’s body, and then they were gone.
He finished cleaning the blade on a piece of one of the guard’s jackets and then looked at it. Why did he care? He tossed the sword onto the pile of dead bodies at his feet, and as the blade went through the air, he caught an image of himself, actually himself: Daniel, reflected in the metal. When the sword clattered off the metal fastenings on the soldier’s shirt and onto the road, Daniel blinked.
And he was somewhere else.
******
Daniel stumbled backward and fell on his ass in the pebbly sand. This was not the fine stand of the wasteland, it was the hard desert floor of the American west. Rocks, scrub and cacti surrounded him, seeming to loom with the long shadows of the setting sun.
Coyotes also surrounded him. Not the one coyote, the bitch, who had taunted him; these were real animals, thin, ribs protruding, lips curled back. There had to be twenty or so, all growling, all hunched down. Coiled springs, ready to let go.
He looked around desperately to see if she were among them, the one coyote he could talk to, but he couldn’t tell them apart. He scrambled to his feet. “Is this it?” he asked them. “Is this how it ends? After all that?”
One coyote threw back his head and howled, and the others followed suit. Daniel trembled as a wave of gooseflesh passed over him. He set his jaw. “If this is how it is, then come on. I’m ready.”
He didn’t run, and he didn’t go down easily. They leapt as one, and he fought them, kicking and punching. But twenty coyotes against one man had a decided advantage, and Daniel’s right arm was still sore from the battle with the Romans. Teeth closed on his right arm, his left. A snout drove into his belly, knocking him down, and he was lost. As they tore into him, his fleeting thought was relief. It was okay that he had lost; at least this time he had fought.
Then teeth that matched a pair of yellow eyes he thought he recognized closed on his throat and he knew no more.
******
Utter bliss. Complete and total bliss. He rested his head on her lap as she dozed in her easy chair in front of the fire. She had fallen asleep with her hand on his head, and he gazed up at her with total devotion.
His eyes began to droop with the heat of the fire and the feeling her nearby. But he was sitting up, and as his body tried to sleep he stumbled, his movements jolting him awake and rousing her.
She yawned and smiled at him.
“You did it.”
Awareness flooded his head, and he fell back, in human form again, and gaped at her.
“Kate?”
She curled in the easy chair, looking relaxed and luxurious, and smiled at him. He sat in his own chair and stared at her.
He opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
She laughed at him. “Too many questions?”
He nodded. “Are you real? What happened?”
“You brought me back. You brought back the reborn god.”
“But how? I lost all that god stuff.”
“Yeah, but you were still you. You got me down off Yggdrasil. You kept me safe from the Romans. And you didn’t run from your own destiny.”
“My own…” Daniel looked down at his hands that had previously been paws. Coyote had been with him frequently. She had guided him, taunted him, and then, at the end, devoured him. He had killed the Romans through dexterity and trickery. He had shape-changed from coyote to man.
Kate laughed. “You’ll figure it out. You’re cleverer than you realize, as soon as you start to believe in yourself.”
“So- where are we?”
Kate looked around at the tiny cabin that held only a fireplace and two chairs. “We are in the Wasteland.”
As if disagreeing with her, thunder boomed in the distance.
“I didn't think it could storm in the Wasteland, but I don’t think we could be anywhere else,” Daniel said. “When we got here, you were dead and I am pretty sure I was exiled. I had trouble leaving the Wasteland, anyway.”
It hit him, finally, what had happened, and he was on his feet, holding her tightly.
“This can’t be, I can’t be this lucky,” he said, stroking her hair.
She buried her face in his neck, her breath hot on him.
She smelled like wildness and musk as he kissed her. He blinked – Kate didn’t smell like wildness and musk. She smiled at him, her eyes shifting to yellow.
He pushed her away from with a horrified cry, and the cabin – and the warmth – dissolved around him, leaving him in the storm, which had remained. He fell on the sand.
“Bitch. Trickster. I get it now. I get it. And I get that I spend entirely too much fucking time in the Wasteland on my hands and knees!”
He lurched to his feet, sobbing. This wasn’t heaven, where his heart’s desire was handed to him. This wasn’t hell where he would be tortured forever – and there was some relief in that. This was the Wasteland, where a god would have to make things happen for himself.
His tears mix
ed with the rain as he walked with new determination. He knew the direction; he knew what he had to do. He knew who he was and what he was capable of doing.
Daniel, the newest trickster god, headed across the Wasteland to the body of his best friend.
******
His sense of direction was now flawless. Kate’s body, her real body that lay at the place where they had landed painfully in the Wasteland, flared like a beacon in his senses. The storm raged around him, but he ignored it.
He crested a soggy dune and blinked the rain out of his eye. The Wasteland was nearly pitch-black with the night storm, but in a flash of lightning, the world came into instant, strobe-light-like view. Beyond his dune lay a lush oasis, green-black in the storm; heavy grasses and flowers covered the ground while a huge tree in the center of the oasis shaded a small pond.
It hadn’t been like that when he’d left, but this was the place. There was no question. In darkness again, he slid down the grassy hill and ran toward the tree.
The tree shielded him from the storm a bit. He placed his hand on the trunk and leaned his forehead against it.
“I’ve lost you three times. Once to reincarnation, once to bureaucracy, and now to death. No more. Not again. We’re in the afterlife, Kate. When you die, the issue is not that you’re gone, it’s just where you’ve gone. I’ll find you.”
A thump sounded behind him and an instant later a hand fell on his shoulder. He turned and chanced a look at her. He raised his hand and stroked it carefully down the side of her head. Her hair was clean and perfect, her skull lacked the massive exit wound and she grinned up at him as his hands went to her face.
“You found me.”
Daniel grabbed her shoulders tightly. “Are you real? This time are you real?”
She held her hands in front of her face and then touched her head where the gods had broken free. “I think so. What else would I be?”
“Something to trick me, something to hurt me. I don’t know. I just—”