The Afterlife Series Omnibus: Heaven, Hell, Earth, Wasteland, War, Stones

by Mur Lafferty

  “Yeah, about that, Kate, we should talk about who is going. Is it just you, me and the other gods, or …” Daniel trailed off as he realized she wasn’t paying attention to him. “Kate?”

  Kate got out of her chair and knelt on the floor. “What the hell is that?”

  A golden streak bisected the darkness, shining up through the faint cloud cover, heading toward the hills.

  Kate looked up at Meredith. “What is that?”

  The woman had gone white. “I — I don’t know. I have never seen it before.”

  “Sam!” Kate called over her shoulder. He was at her side in an instant. “What is that?” She pointed to the golden streak, which had been dodging in and out of the hills near Sam’s vineyard.

  “I have no idea,” Sam said, staring. “Someone had mentioned something they saw the other night, something like a golden man, but I thought he was drunk.”

  “We’re not drunk,” Kate said. She absently felt in her pocket for money and handed it to Meredith. “Is that enough for the wine?”

  The acolyte choked out an affirmative when she saw how much Kate had given her, but Kate was already at the door, Daniel close behind.

  The wind pulled at them as they stood on the stoop, the fog curling around their feet.

  “What are you planning on doing?” Daniel asked her.

  “Following it,” she said, and stepped out of the city.

  Kate hadn’t gotten used to flying like a superhero; she had found it more comfortable to grow wings to catch the air. They always ripped her shirt, but she could mend that with a thought. The black wings sprang from her back as she fell, catching the wind and steering her toward the hill. She realized belatedly that she had just tipped their hand to Sam, who was inevitably watching, but it was too late to worry about that now.

  Daniel joined her, having shape-changed into a one-eyed pterodactyl. The wind picked up and they struggled against it. Kate picked up speed, nearing the vineyards. The golden being still danced in and out of the hills, then shot toward them, skimming the ground, tearing up the ground in a fiery furrow behind it.

  Kate and Daniel angled down to meet the being, but it didn’t stop. Closer, it looked like an angel made of fire, flying incredibly fast, leaving a line of fire in its wake.

  “What is it doing?” Kate yelled to Daniel as they dove. The wind tore away her voice but she knew he heard her. He folded his wings and dropped, inspecting the angel’s work and leaving Kate alone to catch up.

  As much as Kate worked her will to speed up to the angel, he stayed ahead of her. Just as she had decided to teleport in front of him to see if she could stop him — or at least get a good look at him — when Daniel screeched at her. She understood immediately and brought herself up short.

  They hadn’t noticed the screaming wind around them, too intent on their prey. But there it was: an improbability storm tearing out of the Wasteland, with Meridian and Lathe in its path.

  “Shit,” she mumbled, watching the glowing, roiling clouds near.

  With a thought, she sent her hummingbird companions, Huginn and Muninn, out of her robe pocket and away from her: Huginn after the angel, Muninn toward the temple to warn Meridian of the storm.

  Daniel caught up with her and hovered beside her. He chirped once and flew toward the hills.

  “Sure, great time to explore,” she said. She cast one more eye at the swiftly departing angel and then followed Daniel.

  The flames rose up high in front of the hills, burning straight from the dirt with no apparent fuel. They formed a barrier to anyone on foot, and Kate and Daniel stood before the ten-foot-high flames, Daniel having taken his own form again.

  “What was he doing?” Daniel asked, reaching his hand out. He pulled it back quickly. “This shit is magical or something. It shouldn’t feel hot to me.”

  “Not magic,” Kate said. “That was a god.”

  “But who? I thought we knew everyone who was out?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “One of ours, maybe? Kagut-suchi?” She thought about the Japanese fire god that she and Daniel had freed back during their adventures in heaven, the one whose power had been so intense that his mother died of the burns she’d received in childbirth.

  “But how? And why would he build a wall of flames here?” Daniel asked.

  Kate brushed some wind-blown hair from her face. The storm was getting closer. “What’s on the other side of this wall?”

  “Hills. Caves.”

  “And tinkers,” Kate said. The maddest of the mad were said to live in the caves outside Lathe, tunneling through the hills for more space to make their impossible machines.

  “Wait a second, Kate,” Daniel said, putting his hand out to the flames again. He winced but kept it there. “The fire’s not moving.”

  Kate turned to face the storm, strange lights coming from inside the glowing clouds, edging closer to the city, which had started to sway in its wake. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but is the fire protecting the caves from the storm?”

  “Looks like.”

  “And, uh, does it seem like a good idea to get behind the fire ourselves, as risking flying that close to the storm that likes to take gods’ power away seems stupid?”

  “I’m with you there.”

  They linked hands and flew high, over the flames, and landed at the opening of a cave. A dark brass door blocked the way. Kate and Daniel exchanged a look, and then knocked as the storm closed outside the flame wall.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The door didn’t budge. Kate frowned.

  “Well, there’s an improbability storm coming, a big scary thing just set fire to their front stoop, and now two gods want in. Can you blame them?” Daniel asked.

  Kate snorted. “So, trickster god, get us inside.”

  He gave a devilish grin. “Oooh, I like it when you tell me what to do. Say please.”

  Kate giggled, feeling her face grow warm. “Stop it. This is serious.”

  “Yeah,” he said, putting his hand on the door and closing his eyes. “But when it’s serious is just the right time to be laughing. We need it. I get that now. Ah!” He drew back as the door gave a small click and swung silently open.

  Kate walked past him, patting him on the butt. “Nicely done.”

  “So we’re just going to waltz on in? And say what?” Daniel said, following her.

  “We hear you have a harvest god kept captive, please free him,” Kate suggested. She glowed faintly, illuminating the dark hallway.

  “Sure. That’ll work. I’m sure Prosper didn’t think to just ask for his freedom.”

  “Do you have a better plan?” Kate asked.

  “Well, as we don’t even know if he is imprisoned here, I think it might be good to do some recon. Learn a little about this place. Like we did with Hermes and Hades.”

  Kate nodded, remembering how Hermes had spoken softly in her ear about how to properly trick Hades into giving back the souls he had stolen. “What do you have in mind?”

  * * * * *

  Kate hadn’t tried shape-changing before. That seemed to be Daniel’s skill, and she didn’t think it was something she needed to do. Still, it was relatively easy to disguise herself as a hummingbird and perch in the folds of Daniel’s robe.

  What if I can’t communicate with you? she thought.

  Silly girl, we are always linked, came his warm reply in her head. She relaxed, her tiny heartbeat slowing to a mere 250 beats per minute.

  Daniel walked with confidence through the dark hallways. Kate’s divine eyes could easily make out mosaics of different symbols, from birds to gears to whales to city landscapes covering the walls and floors. When Daniel reached a fork in the hallways, he chose the right — always the right.

  He passed doors of wood, stone, metal, and one that looked as if it were made of cascading water. He paused outside the last one, and decided to go on.

  What are you looking for?

  I won’t know till I find it.

  Want
me to fly ahead and see?

  Do you really want to be separated in the home of a mad scientist?

  Well, we are gods.

  …who are weakened when confronted with chaos energy.

  Kate snapped her tiny beak in frustration. She was usually the voice of reason having to hold Daniel back. Now that she was stealthy and swift, she thought she would be ideal to scout ahead and report back.

  Screw him, I don’t need his permission, she thought, but before she could let go, Daniel stopped in front of a door.

  “Here,” he whispered out loud.

  The door was made of one long sheet of paper. A crumpled up ball stuck out of the middle, and Daniel grasped the ball and turned it.

  The paper fluttered as it swung inward, and they entered a study.

  Kate had to admit it looked a lot cozier than she would have expected a home inside a cave to look. A fire in a massive fireplace (where did the chimney go?) burned merrily in the far left corner of the room, with an easy chair vacant in front of it. It looked angled in the perfect “contemplate the fire” position, and Kate darted over to hover above the red leather chair and then settle atop the back.

  On the wall directly in front of the doorway sat a large, brass box. It pinged thoughtfully to itself as if casually thinking about something. Largely square in shape, it was about four feet high with two pipes sticking out of the bottom left hand side and snaking around to the front topside. A small window held a blinking cursor.

  Kate cocked her head and blinked at Daniel.

  “Yeah, it is surprising to have such nice stuff in a place where boy scouts should be exploring,” he replied. “But what is this toy?”

  He reached a finger out to stroke the bronze, but paused when a muffled voice from behind the machine said, “I wouldn’t.”

  Daniel took a step back. “Hello?”

  The owner of the voice popped up from behind the machine. He held a lit blowtorch and was wearing a welder’s helmet. He kept rising and Kate realized he must have been a good seven feet tall, and very thin.

  He flipped up the mask with a hand encased in a heavy rubber glove. His face was boyish, and a black curl stuck to his sweaty forehead. He squinted at Daniel and flung his left hand around until his black glove went flying into the corner. He rooted around in his shirt pocket and pulled out a pair of glasses and struggled to put them on, all the while the blowtorch continuing to burn in his right hand.

  Daniel raised both hands in a nonthreatening gesture. “I’m sorry, I was outside of Lathe when the improbability storm came and this was the closest shelter. Then this weird thing cut off any exit from the caves with a wall of fire —”

  The man turned off the blowtorch and put it on the ceramic tile floor. He stepped out from behind the bronze box with long, slow steps.

  “Wait, did you say a weird being?”

  “Uh, yes,” said Daniel.

  “Ahhh,” said the man. He bent over and tapped a fingernail on the window with the blinking cursor. “The paerhapsotron told me with 85% certainty that I would be visited by a god tonight. I guess that was it. You say he’s sealed us off?”

  “A wall of fire ten feet high that seems to burn from the dirt,” Daniel said.

  “Fascinating! So my paerhapsotron was right after all. And I’ve been fiddling with it all night.”

  Daniel grinned. “Did it predict that you’d be doing that?”

  The man blinked at him, not laughing. Daniel grimaced a little at his joke falling flat, and he coughed once. “I am Daniel.”

  The scientist glanced at Daniel’s patch and grinned. His mouth was very wide, and Kate found it friendly and overly enthusiastic, like a dog’s. “I figured that, with the missing eye. Were you a victim of the barbaric practices of Dauphine?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” Daniel said smoothly. “I’ve lost my faith in the gods; you can probably guess why.” He held out his right hand.

  The scientist stuck out his left hand and shook Daniel’s awkwardly, as his right was still in the heavy glove. “I am Scott Von Rothelsgeschitemeirson. You are welcome in my home. I certainly would have broken in to someone else’s home if I were being chased by a fiery being.” He squinted. “Wait — did you say it was one being?”

  Daniel nodded. “That’s all I saw.”

  Scott leaned forward and tapped the machine again. “Damned device. I don’t know why I created it. It never works.”

  “Why? What did it say?” Daniel asked.

  “It told me two gods were coming tonight.”

  Daniel swallowed and glanced over at Kate, still perched on the back of the leather chair. She hoped she was small enough to escape notice.

  “No matter!” Scott said. “Failure is just another step on the way to success, right?” He straightened and took his helmet off, dropping it beside the blowtorch. Keeping his right glove on, he strode from the room, beckoning Daniel to follow.

  Kate took to wing and zoomed over to sit in the crook of Daniel’s elbow.

  Uh, where are we going?

  I have no idea. He wants us to follow.

  So you’re an atheist now?

  Well, I had hoped it would bring up the subject of gods.

  Kate was about to mention the obvious fact that it didn’t seem to work, but Scott surprised her.

  “Curious,” he said over his shoulder. “If you saw a fiery being raise a ten-foot wall of fire from the very dirt, how can you say you don’t have faith in the gods? Wasn’t that the work of a god?”

  Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that any god who requires boys to lose eyes isn’t one I’d want to follow. As for the other gods, I’ve never met one. I have no idea. Do you think it was a god? And if so, which one?”

  Scott opened a plain wooden door that led to a kitchen with various devices, a long table, and a fire pit in the floor. A small chimney hole opened in the ceiling. On the far wall, a large smudge of soot surrounded a small concave impression.

  “Well, that’s something we can discuss. Are you hungry?” Scott asked, poking a small device consisting mostly of small steel pipes and one gauge. It shuddered and coughed, then started to hum; the gauge rose slowly to hover around the middle range.

  “Um, no, thank you. What is that thing?” Daniel asked.

  “That’s the power source for this room. As long as it’s on and stable, everything else works.”

  Kate looked down and realized the steel tubes ran down the table and across the floor, lying in little trails in the floor so they wouldn’t be tripped over. Each steel tube went to a different advice — one looking like a refrigerator, one to an oven, and a third simply looked like a sink without any pipe indicating water going in or out.

  “That’s amazing,” Daniel said.

  “Thank you. It was difficult to build, as you can see.” Scott pointed to the hole in the wall. “But worth it in the long run. Now, about that being. Did it fly?”

  “Yes,” Daniel said, accepting a chair to the table. He accepted the glass of water Scott handed him. “Very fast.”

  “And was it on fire, or was it just making the fire?”

  “Um, I couldn’t really tell,” Daniel said.

  Scott nodded and pulled up a chair beside Daniel. “Well, for the past several nights I’ve seen a bright flying being coming from Meridian. It flies around then heads toward the sea. I can’t identify it. I know Dr. Larkin is planning on trapping it, but I doubt she can.”

  “Does she think she can trap a god?” Daniel asked.

  “Well, as you said, we don’t know it’s a god. But if you think my inventions are something special, you haven’t seen Drs. Larkin, Mayer or Lasica. They do some things that make me think what I’m doing is kids’ stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  For the first time Scott’s friendly face narrowed and he looked Daniel up and down. “What is it you do, friend? You don’t seem to be too likely to be a tinker, but I can’t give my colleagues’ secrets to a spy.”

 
“Dr. Von Rothelsgesh — er, Scott, I promise, I’m not here to steal anything,” Daniel began, but his host stopped him.

  “It’s mister, and, it’s Von Rothelsgeschitemeirson,” Scott said bleakly. “I got kicked out of Meridian University during an improbability storm. I never got my doctorate.”

  “They literally kicked you out? But improbability storms are deadly!” Daniel said.

  Scott glared at Daniel. “Thanks. I found that out.”

  Daniel blushed. “I just mean how could they do that? What was worth a death sentence in a university?”

  Scott glared at the table. “I was caught cheating. I was kicked out, forced to ride the zip line to Lathe, where I have been exiled. I’ll never get a doctorate, never be called Professor Von Rothelsgeschitemeirson. Happy now?”

  “I’m sorry, dude. Look, I didn’t do much with my life either. But things have gotten better since then.”

  Find out something about Prosper, Kate suggested. Change the subject!

  “So has Dr. Larkin ever captured a god before?” Daniel asked.

  Scott shrugged. “She says she has. Said she stole a god from a farmer and kept him trapped for twenty years. Then she lost him in a card game.”

  Daniel perked up. “Which god was this? And who won him?”

  Scott grinned again. “Suddenly a believer, are you? She claimed he was Prosper, god of the harvest, but never let anyone in to see him. And some winemaker won it. I don’t know him, but he doesn’t live in the caves with us. He grows his grapes…”

  Daniel stared at the wall, unfocused. “He grows them in a vineyard north of Lathe on a grassy hill.”

  Scott perked up. “Yes! How did you know? You’re starting to sound like my paerhapsotron.”

  Daniel rubbed his forehead above his missing eye. “I know because we were just talking to him. Aw, hell. I need to go.”

  Daniel stood up. “Thanks for your hospitality and your information. In return I’ll give you a truth. Your paerhapsotron doesn’t need adjusting. It works just fine.” Without another word, he turned and ran out into the hall, Kate buzzing ahead of him.