by Ramy Vance
She might have kept staring at me had Jean not interrupted our awkward soul (well, soul-less in my case) gaze. “That’s the best deal you’re going to get,” he said.
With the spell broken, I gestured for Jean to help us out. “Good, I’m glad that’s settled. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of sitting around in this hole.”
↔
JEAN THREW us down a rope that I used to shimmy up the supernaturally created hole.
Whereas before I had thought that the slick incline was a trap set up by the gods, now that my feet were sliding against the same slippery material on the side of this hole, I realized it wasn’t a trap at all.
Well, a trap set by the gods, that is. The lining was marble, but not the kind made through stone masonry. This was naturally forming, caused by unexpected, extreme heat that cooled just as suddenly as it heated up.
I guess that’s what happens when an alternate dimension tries to overlay itself onto another plane of existence without the gods or magic to help it along. The laws of nature take over, and when nature wants to get something done, it usually does it hot and furious.
Keiko and I got to the incline that we had originally slid down and I saw that Jean was using hiking spikes to keep his balance. He handed us two climbing axes. “There’s a hole a few feet up from here. It leads … well, I have no idea where it leads, but I figure anywhere is better than here.”
Using some kind of high-tech spike gun that was basically a super-sized nail gun—think the Super Soaker version of a water pistol—he led us to a hole wide enough for us to crawl through. Unlike the rest of the veins, this particular hole wasn’t made of the same smooth, marble-like rock.
Once we were safely perched, I looked at my tattoo. It pointed down the hole, indicating a sharp left turn at the end. This led us to other pathways that branched into yet more pathways. All the while, my tattoo guided us through a maze worthy of Daedalus’s Labyrinth. But unlike Theseus, we didn’t have a ball of thread to guide us—we had a celestial GPS.
And I could see why everyone wanted my map; no one would be able to find this place without it.
After hours of crawling, we made our way down to a path that—according to my arm—ended in a clearing or cavern or whatever you called a big open space underground. A red dot hovered at the far end of the space.
“If I’m reading my tattoo correctly, we aren’t too far off from our destination,” I said. “But before we get to wherever there is, what do we know and what’s the plan?”
Jean touched his backpack. “I can plant these so no one will be able to knock on that front door again.”
Keiko shook her head. “Not good enough. You will only slow the Others or humans down—you will not stop them.” She pulled out something that looked like a piece of thin thread rolled into a ball. “Use this.”
“This?” I said, taking it from her. “I could snap this with a … a …” I pulled at the string, but it was tight as iron. I had encountered this unbreakable iron with Jack the Giant; he wore an impossibly heavy pendant that was held by one of these chains around his neck for penance. “Humph,” I said. “A gleipnir chain?”
Keiko nodded. “But not just any gleipnir chain. This was the very thread used to leash Fenrir. Once a knot is tied, it cannot be broken.”
“I don’t know—my knots are pretty lousy. I was never a Girl Scout.”
“I was,” Jean said with a wee bit too much enthusiasm. His cheeks turned bright red before he muttered, “I mean, Boy Scout. I was a Boy Scout.”
Keiko glided past his faux pas way too fast for me, getting right back to business. “Place that thread at the entrance of the museum to lock its doors. No one and nothing will be able to break that bond until the rotation is complete and this domain leaves our world. Even then, I suspect we will be locking that door forever.”
With my soul inside, I thought (uncharacteristically, in my head).
“OK, so here we go,” I said, crawling the last few feet into the large, cavernous room.
The tunnel let us out onto a path that wound down to a landing where a long rope bridge hung over another impossibly deep cavern. At the far end of the rope bridge was a door with three kanji: Sun, Heaven and Fields. The same three kanji I’d seen on Harry’s necklace.
The entrance to the museum.
That was the good news. The bad news was that, guarding the other side of the rope bridge was what looked like a man in a samurai demon mask. And although he looked fairly normal (mask aside) he wore a plethora of weapons on his body.
“Kuso,” Keiko said. “Benkei desu.”
↔
STARING at the seriously scary dude guarding the bridge, I muttered, “Of course there has to be a samurai warrior. I mean, we’re in Japan. My trip wouldn’t be complete unless I fought a samurai, right?”
And not just an ordinary samurai, either, I thought. He was something else. For one thing, he wore a pair of wooden shoes with two horizontal stilts under each sole, giving the already tall figure an extra four inches. Talk about uncomfortable. I’d worn stilettos that were practically comfy slippers by comparison.
Poor fashion choices aside, this guy had a whole bunch of terrifying weapons on his back. From the rock ledge on which we stood, I couldn’t see them all, but I did catch a glimpse of a naginata, a nokogiri, a kumade, and a masakari.
“Not a samurai,” Keiko said. “Warrior monk.”
“How can you tell? He’s wearing one of those masks,” Jean said.
“Urasai,” Keiko growled at us in Japanese. “Honto ni, atadatchi ga mukatsuku.”
Jean looked at Keiko uncomprehendingly.
“Keiko thinks you’re annoying. Really, really annoying.” I didn’t add that she thought we were both annoying.
“I do have that effect on women,” Jean said, not missing a beat. “So, do you think he’s alive?”
Looking down at the warrior monk, I knew exactly why he was asking. The figure didn’t move. At all. I would have thought him a statue if his robes weren’t loosely draped over his chest, revealing finely toned flesh. But given that his chest didn’t rise and fall with breath, I considered whether he might be some weird Japanese taxidermy project.
“Benkei. He is the warrior monk who once served Minamoto no Yoshitsune. It was legend that when he died, the gods took his soul so that he could continue his guardianship. I guess this is where his service continues. It is also legend that in his lifetime only Minamoto no Yoshitsune was able to defeat him in battle.”
“Yay,” I said, taking out my telescopic baton.
↔
I HAD BARELY MANAGED to get to the landing when Benkei animated, raising his naginata to meet my baton. I expected him to charge me, but he didn’t, standing right at the bridge’s edge.
What he did do was let out a thunderous growl that ended in flat, monotone “um.” How very zen of him.
I thought it was his warrior’s roar. By the GoneGods I wished it was, but he wasn’t centering himself as he prepared for battle.
He was calling for help.
Help that made itself known when dozens of nio and shisa started pouring out of the walls and pathways.
Apparently the Heralds weren’t the only ones who could summon supernatural body guards.
Double yay.
↔
“OF COURSE THERE’S A SAMURAI,” I said as the beast of a man swung his giant naginata at me. This was going to be one hell of a fight … and I knew the longer the battle raged on, the more chances I had of being split in two.
That’s why I focused on getting behind Benkei and onto the rope bridge. Evading his naginata and nokogiri, I managed to end up exactly where he didn’t want me to be.
Between him and the museum.
I was making my way down the rope when I heard Keiko call out, “Watch out for his hizuchi.” As if I hadn’t see the six-inch flat bit of the hammer slamming toward me. A hizuchi—so much for no fancy Japanese name for a warhammer.
&nbs
p; I figured he was going to chase after me and nail me through the wooden bridge’s planks and down to the cave floor hundreds of feet below. Well, screw that. If anyone was going to end me Wile E. Coyote style, they’d have to do it to my face.
I stopped running and turned to face him, placing a hand on the rope railing of the bridge. He was heavy and the second he started on the bridge, the thing would shake. A lot. Possibly enough to knock me off and save him the trouble of knocking me off.
Maybe he was counting on that, too. Much more efficient than sledgehammering me.
But the monk didn’t charge toward me. Instead he removed his demon mask, revealing a pleasant, youthful face. He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips as if conflicted.
What could he possibly be conflicted about? I thought. He wanted to stop me from getting to the other side and the only way to do so would be to engage me here on the bridge. Right?
I barely had time to consider what else was running through the ancient warrior’s mind when he swung his hizuchi like a golf club, knocking out the pegs that secured the ropes to his side of the bridge.
He’d figured out an even more efficient method of killing me.
The bridge dipped away and just like that, I was airborne. I didn’t have a chance.
As I fell, I wondered what dying without a soul does to a person.
↔
HERE I WAS AGAIN, weightless and about to die. What a way to ring in the new year.
And once again, the thought came to me: Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
I’d spent so long not feeling, and the quest to retrieve my soul seemed so impossible in that moment, that I wondered why I didn’t choose the easier route. The simpler route.
It was like being a vampire again, choosing what felt right in that moment. That was how I’d spent three hundred years until—
Blue.
Until a little girl reminded me of who I’d been. That no matter what, I still had humanity.
Even if I didn’t have a soul.
I wasn’t ready to die. I wanted to live—needed to live. I reached out for the bridge’s old, wooden boards, my hand ripping through three of them before I finally latched onto a plank that didn’t crumble under my weight.
Climbing the rope bridge like a ladder, I made it up to the platform. I turned to see Keiko and Jean fighting side by side to fend off the nio and shisa. They were about to be overrun and there was no way for me to get back to them.
What was worse: Benkei had turned to help finish a job that his nio and shisa were having no trouble finishing. I pulled out the gleipnir thread, ready to lock the museum away. My friends were going to die, and the least I could do was finish the mission.
As my hand reached out to the two large metal rings that served as door handles, I pulled. I had meant to thread the loops, but I pulled. I didn’t know why. Was I compelled by some force to look inside, or perhaps the curiosity of looking inside a place created by the gods was too much?
Or maybe I was just selfish and wanted to see if opening the door was enough to summon my soul back into me.
I hated myself, but the truth was it was me being selfish. Definitely that.
I pulled and as soon as the door opened, the nio and shisa stopped fighting. So too did Benkei. It was like the museum’s door was some kind of switch that turned them all off.
The nio and shisa froze mid-attack. One minute they were moving and the next they weren’t. Only Benkei moved, turning to face me and watch as I walked inside.
Entering, the last thing I heard was Keiko shout, “No, you must lock the—” before the museum door closed under its own power.
And inside was unlike any museum I’d ever seen before.
↔
THE FIRST INDICATION that this wasn’t your typical museum: there were long, winding corridors that wove around in every direction, and the walls were lined with magic items. Yes, impossible items of massive power.
But the walls were also littered with the bodies of mummified creatures that lined them. And by mummified, I don’t mean embalmed creatures wrapped in bandages. I mean they were frozen like Han Solo.
But unlike Han Solo’s carbonite tomb, these guys were in full color, as if some Warhammer geek had painted them to look exactly like they did when they were alive. That, or whatever magic had frozen them also kept their brilliant coloring.
I recognized a few of the creatures: Typhon with his hundred dragon heads, the furies with their coal-black bodies, the dragon Hydra, the Erlking—the original games hunter who liked to trap worthy opponents and hunt them down (I’m pretty sure the Predator was modeled after this guy).
The only guys this place was missing were the Devil, Sauron and Cthulhu.
But those were the creatures I recognized. There were plenty of bashees and skin walkers and wendigos and goblins and even a few angels frozen here. They were probably the evil that never made it into the history books.
This wasn’t a museum. This was the place the gods disposed of their more troublesome creations. And my soul was trapped somewhere in here.
Shaking off the evilness of this place, I looked at my map. It had narrowed, only displaying one corridor now with a red dot near my wrist. Walking along this hall that held items of unimaginable power displayed on both walls, I saw that the corridor ended with a single, unassuming door at the end. From the position of the dot, I knew that my soul resided just beyond that door. All I needed to do was open it and walk through.
I took several steps forward, my heart thumping with the anticipation of finally getting my soul back.
But the excitement slowly dissipated as I approached the door, turning into doubt and fear. The thought that I was doing something horribly wrong swam through my head as a flood of memories overwhelmed me.
I thought about the mermaid fight, fighting with the nio and shisa. All that destruction because of me. Sure, these guys would be heralding away, but their hopes would be fulfilled in the same way all fanatics are when waiting for a comet or an eclipse or whatever other naturally occurring event that they give meaning to results in … nothing.
Except these guys weren’t going to get nothing if they got a hold of my arm. They were going to awake a god—or gods—who had been killed for a reason. They were the worst of the worst, and I possessed the only road map to their hiding place.
If they were resurrected, then it would be all-out war.
If this celestial turning were to come and go without some asshole god coming to life … well, there’d still be a fight coming. Nothing would stop that, but there would be no rallying point for the Others to gather around and the will to fight would fizzle.
Thousands of lives would be saved.
That wasn’t all. Gods or no gods, I held the map to a magical stockpile of weapons that would be used for evil. Again, I was the map.
And all because I wanted my soul back. I wanted to feel something other than this emptiness inside me. I wanted to be human again.
You can end this all now, I thought. Just step to the right or left and pull off any one of the weapons hanging on these walls. One step to the left and cut your throat with the spearhead that stabbed Jesus. One step to the right and turn the sword that Goliath used when facing David on yourself.
It’s hard to explain what goes through your mind when you’re considering ending it all. Not much. Everything. All I know is that at that moment, I saw a world being ripped in two because of me.
This could all end with one step. One step and the world would be a better place. One step and my pain would be over.
One easy step.
“Well, fuck easy,” I growled. “I deserve a second chance, just like you.”
Shaking off the overwhelming feeling of despair, I pulled at the unassuming door and walked into a room that wasn’t there. I mean, it was because I was in it, but there were no walls, no ceiling and no floor to speak of. It was like I was walking into the void, with the only object that offered perspective bein
g the door I had entered through hovering in the blackness behind me.
What else was missing? Any shelves that could have possibly held a jar with my friggin’ soul in it.
What the f—? I started to think, fully aware it was in my out loud voice, when I heard an ominous boom. “Welcome, Katrina Darling. We have waited so long to meet you.”
“Meet me?” I repeated, my head woozy as the words spoken not only seemed to come from both outside and inside my head, but also lingered like a song you can’t stop humming.
“Yes, my dear,” spoke another, softer—distinctly female—voice. It also carried the hint of a Japanese accent. The voice purred, “So nice to finally meet you.”
“Meet you … again,” spoke a third voice. This one sounded like my father’s voice. No, my mother’s. Egya’s? Deirdre’s? Justin’s? All those people’s voices and a hundred more came to mind as I tried to place this one, and that’s when it hit me that this third voice sounded like everyone I’d ever known all speaking to me at once.
“For on this day …” thundered the first voice.
“We will rise …” purred the second voice.
“And it is all because of you …” chorused the legion of voices.
I gulped and in my own meek and unsure voice, croaked, “Me?”
AN ENDING OF SORTS
I waited for the dawn to come with Blue in my arms, and as the first ray of sunlight peaked over the horizon, I placed her body a few feet in front of me.
I was about to catch fire and I wasn’t sure how much she could feel in her comatose state. The last thing I wanted to do was cause her more pain.
I had failed this little girl, this Blue, the only being I had loved since I had turned into the monster I was today.
Maybe it was the exhaustion or the thought that I would live on when she would not. Maybe it was because Blue reminded me of what it meant to be human again and those memories carried with them a horrible guilt for all the lives I had taken as a monster, a vampire.
Maybe it was because Blue was a witch and had cast a spell on me, forcing me to do the right thing by finally killing the monster I had become.