by Ramy Vance
He wiped away the tear that had caught on his cheek. “Look, I got to go. You tell Miral good luck with her medical exams and tell your mom that I hope she’s keeping well. Oh, and make sure when you deliver the message to your mom that your tone conveys the sincerity I feel in my heart.”
There was another pause before he nodded and whispered, “In this world and the next.” And with that he hung up.
The obvious pain on his face, the clear love he felt for his wife … it was all too much, and I did something I hadn’t done since I lost my soul. I cried.
Jean looked up at me and mouthed, “Lip reader.”
I nodded, wiping away a tear.
“I should have known,” he said with a shrug, before turning to face the horizon we were speeding toward.
WE MAKE PLANS AND THE GODS LAUGH
O ur speedboat met up with the larger vessel that held Keiko. Waving at the noro priestess, I noted that the water around us got very dark, but before I could see what was beneath us, Jean yelled out, “Meres!”
My body tensed as I prepared for another battle with the murderous and nothing-like-Daryl-Hannah-in-Splash creatures. Jean chuckled and added, “Griffin.”
Walking to the front of the boat where a soldier extended a hand to help him onto the bigger vessel, he slapped me on the shoulder. “Lighten up, kid. If today we die, then let’s do it with a smile.”
“You remind me of Egya,” I said, taking his hand as support to climb up onto the boat. “He’s a pain in the ass, too.”
↔
THE SOLDIERS MANNING the boat hopped onto the smaller speedboat and returned to the fleet. I guess suicide missions weren’t in their job description. Fair enough, I thought. Then looking over at Jean, I wondered why they were in his.
I mean, I knew why they were in mine. I had enough bodies in my past to fill the entire cast of extras on The Walking Dead. And they followed me everywhere, demanding retribution. Dying while trying to save the world wouldn’t change my debt to them, but it would go a fair distance toward unburdening my soul … if I ever got that back.
I also understood Keiko’s reasons for being there that day. She was a noro priestess—the spiritual equivalent of a guardian. Taking up that mantle wasn’t something you did lightly, and I knew that when she wore the white sash, she did so fully willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good.
But whatever Jean’s reasons were for joining us so willingly, they weren’t something I was going to ask him about. Not now, at least. I needed his help getting to the museum. If—and that was a very improbable, unlikely, never going to happen if—we survived, I’d ask him then.
I had to admit, my curiosity for his answer burned strong enough that I wanted us to survive.
But as we followed the makara toward their impromptu base of gathering Others and I saw just how many had shown up to fight against the resurrection of the Three Who Are One, I wondered why any of them were here.
↔
IT WAS TEN O’CLOCK—AS in, only a handful of hours until the bombs dropped—when Meres Griffin led us as close to shore as her massive body allowed.
A leshy riding a winged horse flew to greet us. “Welcome, Lady Noro.” He wore a wooden club at his hip and looked like an ordinary—albeit quite tall—man, and I might have mistaken the leshy for one if it wasn’t for his beard. The thick bush that ordained his face was made of living grass and vines twisting in the wind. “I am Lazlo, the undeserving leader of this ragtag gathering of noble heroes. We understand that you have come to lend your aid.”
As he spoke he looked only at Keiko, like she was the only one on the boat.
The noro priestess met his gaze before answering, “Hai, that we are.”
As soon as the word “we” came out of her mouth, the leshy acknowledged Jean and me. Not that I cared—I was too busy fan-girling super hard over Pegasus. I just couldn’t believe I was not only staring at the legendary winged horse, but also basking in the fanning of her wings. “Holy shit,” I murmured. “As I live and breathe … Pegasus. Incredible.”
“It is indeed, milady,” said the leshy. He patted her on the neck. “This divine creature was instrumental to the slaying of a Titan. Her experience will be invaluable now that our sights are trained on a god.” As he spoke, I noted that he might have been responding to my comment, but he only spoke to Keiko.
There were some power dynamics going on, which weren’t lost on Keiko. Placing one hand on my shoulder and the other on Jean’s, she said, “Indeed. As will the experiences and abilities of my two companions.”
This seemed to placate Lazlo, who looked at me for the first time with a wicked smile that would have fit the lips of a fox. “Come. Follow us and let’s deliberate, scheme and organize.”
I nodded in approval, then stole another glance at the legendary winged horse. Seeing him filled me with hope that we might actually win the day. But instead of saying anything to that effect, I just muttered (more to myself), “I’ve really got to write Medusa a letter and let her know who I just met.”
“Medusa, huh?” Jean said, lifting an eyebrow. “Not to name-drop or anything, but I’ve met the gorgon.”
“You and me too, buddy,” I said with all the bravado of a drunk in a pissing contest. “You and me too.”
↔
THE SUN HAD long set when Lazlo led us to a marquee tent in the middle of a camp filled with just about every Other I could think of. Skeletal ahkiyyini, bright rainbow crows and thunderbirds, floating peris and weird, haglike kikimoras. Two hieracosphinxes flew above our heads, an aqrabuamelu sharpened the dart at the end of his scorpion’s tail, a tu-te-wehiwehi croaked ballads about war and love, loss and victory. Hell, I had thought the party at the Celestial Hotel was filled with a who’s who of Others, but it paled in comparison to this.
I guess nothing brings out the masses like war. The idea was so depressing to me that even though that particular thought was voiced only in my head, my brain made such an audible sigh that everyone looked at me.
“Sorry,” I muttered as we walked through the war camp.
One of the oddest things about that short walk wasn’t just the variety of Others present—it was that they all stared at us. At first, I figured that an army primarily comprised of mythical creatures didn’t take kindly to us human folk (thought in a Southern accent garnered from the six months I spent biting rednecks in Alabama). But following the Others’ eyes, I quickly realized that they weren’t staring at us.
They were staring at Keiko. And not only staring, but awe-ing—as in eye-widening, jaw-dropping awe-ing. Noro had crazy street cred amongst the Others.
I’d had no idea.
But from the way Keiko held herself—the slight nods, the gentle gestures of acknowledgement—she knew full well what her status meant.
And from the determination in her walk, she knew exactly how she was going to use that influence. All I knew was that we wouldn’t have been let onto the island without her and the only reason our entrails weren’t decorating some ugallu’s armor was because of her.
Well, because of me, and what I did several decades ago when I saved Blue, I thought. And even though I knew I had very little do with what was happening here, I did wonder if destiny had played a role in all this.
Think about it: over seventy years ago, I’d saved a little girl who, because of me, was adopted by noro priestesses. And now, seventy years later, her granddaughter was fighting by my side because of what had happened all that time ago.
The gods may be gone, but the mystical roads of destiny and fate still lingered on.
Then again, it could have been coincidence. But what was destiny other than prescribing meaning to the random events littering our universe?
We were escorted to the marquee—obviously somehow stolen from the hotel—where a storm giant stood guard at the threshold. The giant’s eyes bristled with ice-blue electric currents. When a storm giant hit you, you didn’t just feel the brunt of a powerful fist … you were als
o struck with several thousand jolts of electricity. It was like getting hit by a defibrillator attached to a nuclear power plant.
Seeing all these powerful creatures in one place, I began to wonder if we had a chance after all, but then I remembered the satellite pictures. The other Other army was twice as large as this one, equally equipped with powerful Others and they had a flight of dragons hovering over the hotel.
Still, giants vs. dragons … that would be one hell of a fight.
“Welcome,” Lazlo said, pointing to the battle table in the center of the tent. It was quite literally a Warhammer tabletop, complete with figurines from the toy company’s collection. “This layout is courtesy of our fairy scouts.”
Jean pulled out satellite imagery from his backpack and compared the maps. While the military photographs showed the hotel encampment, the flight of dragons and the platoon of various Greek and Japanese creatures to the north, they did not show the three legions of Others hidden in various parts of the forest that stood between this camp and the hotel.
“So much for military intelligence,” I said, pointing to the groups.
Jean grunted.
“What are those?” Keiko asked.
“Ahh, these here are Mongolian death worms buried under the earth.” He pointed to the cluster closest to the camp. “And as for the two other groups, they’re both composed mostly of aboveground Others of various woodland occupations. Very adept at hiding, very deadly.”
“And your fairy scouts found them.”
“While a whowie is adept at camouflage and hiding, a fairy is good at finding,” he said.
It was true: almost nothing could hide from a fairy and it was a common motif in myth to request a fairy’s help in finding a lost artifact or person. But the trouble with fairies was that, while they were competent scouts, they had goldfish-like memories and were extremely easy to distract. The mere fact that fairies had created such a comprehensive map showed their commitment to the cause.
“Incredible,” I said.
“No kidding,” Jean agreed. “No kidding.”
I pointed at the passageway by which Jean and I had originally entered the subterranean tunnels leading to the museum. Then, rolling up my sleeve, I looked at my map tattoo. It still showed about three inches of blank flesh between us and the red dot near my wrist that represented my soul. The only coloring was a single orange line that extended from the hotel down into the tunnels.
To get in, we’d need access to the hotel and that was the most heavily guarded part of their whole damn operation.
“Anything?” Keiko asked.
I shook my head. “We either need to get down the hole in the foyer of the Celestial Solace Hotel or find a creature that can tunnel its way through here and into the hotel. Don’t suppose you have any ramidreju in your ranks?”
Lazlo shook his grass-covered head. “Terrible creatures—very greedy. No sense of nobility amongst the lot them.”
“I don’t know about that,” Jean said absentmindedly as he walked around the table. “You just need to give them what they want. I mean, isn’t that how we all work? Give us what we want and we’ll do anything, right?” Jean looked up from the table and smiled. “And what do these guys want right now more than anything?”
Lazlo spat a moss-covered spitball onto the earth. “To be enslaved by an unworthy divinity.”
“Exactly,” Jean said. “Tell me, did your scouts confirm that they are actually at the Kami Subete Hakubutsukan entrance?”
Lazlo nodded.
“Are they entering?”
“Some have tried, but none have a legitimate claim and therefore are not allowed in.”
This is interesting, I thought. I was able to enter because my soul was inside, but so was Jean. Why? It didn’t make sense. His soul wasn’t trapped inside. Hell, the only claim he had was to save my ass, and given that he’d just met me, that wasn’t much of a claim. Cosmically speaking, that is.
The way Jean’s eyebrows furled, I could tell he was thinking the same thing.
“So, riddle me this,” Jean said. “They want the gods inside to rise. They are so desperate to make that happen that they’ve literally gathered an army to protect the entrance. And they still don’t have a legitimate claim? And that’s just to enter once. What the hell do you have to do to get a season pass?”
“I can answer that,” Keiko said, stepping toward the map. “The noro have protected this place for centuries, using our influence to closely guard the secrets within. I know what is inside and my heart trembles with fear at the thought of it. When the gods created this place, they did so in such a way that power may come in and out.”
“We know that already—”
Keiko raised a silencing hand. “But such power had to be trapped within its halls. Imagine what would happen if it were removed easily. The power in those halls could rival gods, so they designed a safety mechanism to keep the power within. But it is more than that.”
“More than what?” Jean asked.
“Kami Subete Hakubutsukan is referred to as a gallery, but that is a quaint term for what it actually is. Make no mistake as to what it is: a prison. A prison for items of power and for creatures too evil to be allowed to exist and too powerful to kill. The Three Who Are One are but three creatures housed in those halls.”
Keiko hadn’t called Kami Subete Hakubutsukan a museum, but a “gallery.” I thought about that word, and I remembered that gallery didn’t always have the artsy, benevolent meaning it does now. Back in the day—my day and before—they used to call a zoo a gallery. And before then, prisons.
The noro eyed me as she spoke and I saw guilt painted on her face. She wasn’t aiding me because once upon a time I had saved her grandmother, Blue. Nor was she helping me because I had a legitimate claim to my soul. She was playing another game altogether.
I thought about the lock she’d given me and how she had instructed me not to enter, but rather get to the threshold and lock the museum’s doors forever. Her gamble was about preventing creatures with legitimate claims from entering. As in, ever.
“The gleipnir chain,” I said. “It wasn’t meant just to keep things out of the museum … it was also meant to keep everything in.”
She nodded.
So the noro had foreseen the danger of creatures like myself—creatures with legitimate claims—entering the museum and exiting with … I don’t know, how about immortality granted by the Golden Apple or Dionysus’s thyrsus, an item so powerful it was said that a scratch from it would drive one insane? Or how about Jack’s Lantern? As in, the actual lantern used by the first soul condemned to wander Earth. It was legend that its light could destroy shadows.
And I’d screwed it up by going all rogue and entering for my soul.
“Who else is inside?” Jean asked.
“The Erlking, Azazel and the Kraken, to name a few.”
“Holy guacamole,” I muttered. Of all the bad in the world, those were probably the top three on the Other Watch List.
Lazlo shook his head in disbelief. “All this time I thought it was but a place of magic only …”
“That was by design,” Keiko said. “Imagine if the elements of the UnSeelie Court who worshipped the Erlking knew their master lived. And what’s more, that he was in the halls of Kami Subete Hakubutsukan? The place would be under constant bombardment from wayward Others looking to free their masters.”
“OK, but if that’s the case, how did all these Others know about the rising of the gods?”
“The same way any god rising to power delivers their message: Heralds.”
“Heralds?” Jean spat the word like it was sour milk. “You mean those blind dorks who always seem to show up with the nio guardians?”
Keiko nodded. “Heralds … would-be prophets driven mad by the words that gods whisper into their ears. To most, they seem like raving lunatics, but to those who know—to Others who know—they are revered as what they truly are: prophets.”
“And
what was Gabriel’s legitimate claim?” I asked. “He’s inside, right? Why does he have the right to enter when no one else does?”
Keiko shook her head. “I do not know.”
“OK, history lesson aside, we’re still no closer to a plan.”
“I think we are,” Jean said. “I think we do the Queen Bee strategy.”
We all looked at him blankly.
“What? Not Animal Planet fans? The Queen Bee strategy: when a colony is destroyed and they need to set up camp somewhere else, the bees swarm around the queen bee, protecting her at all cost, while moving her to a new location. In this analogy, you’re the queen bee and this army, well … you get the point.”
“You realize that you just called me an insect whose sole purpose is reproduction.”
“I called you a queen,” he said. “But regardless, we launch an offensive here and cut through the center.” He pointed to the section of the map with the Mongolian death worms. “I saw that there were several ijiraq in camp—they should be able to neutralize the worms. Once we’re past this threat, we break off with two units playing linebacker defense and cut through here. There will be a lot of resistance, but once we make it to this point, we can use the confusion to break away. Just the two of us.”
“How endearing,” I said. “Will you hold my hand, too?”
“Cute, but pay attention.” He set his finger to two points near the hotel. “If we can get to here undetected, I can get you in.”
“How do you figure?”
He pulled out his tricorder. “Remember the tracker you left in the hole? It also has a sonar blip to it, for exactly this kind of infiltration.” He showed me the screen where several caverns twisted beneath the earth, leading to the tracker. “This location should be close enough that your magical arm map will actually show something. This is our back door in, and once you’re in, you do your soul magic stuff and bada bing, bada boom, we’re done.”
“In other words: get me back to where I was to finish the job,” I said, jibbing at Jean’s very chivalrous and completely unnecessary saving of moi.