Thanatos

by Carmen Kern

  Between sessions, the patients mingled in the entertainment area, playing games, listening to music, or just staring at one thing or another until it was time for bed. Cozy sitting areas with couches and soft chairs and plenty of lamps for reading occupied the four corners of the room.

  In the middle of the space, many of the patients sat at tables, making crafts and playing cards. At the far end of the room, in front of a large picture window overlooking the muddy waters of the sewer, a cage hung from an ornate iron stand. A ferret crouched in the bottom of his new home. His button eyes followed the vague shapes in the room and often settled on a black-cloaked man who hunched over a book in a nearby chair.

  The man, the Bounty Hunter, didn’t look so good. His greasy hair hung over his face. On the rare occasion when he looked up, his eyes were wild, flitting back and forth across the room. The book on his lap lay open to page 139, like it had since he got there. Sometimes, he’d talk to the ferret like he used to talk to the Beast. But those moments were rare.

  An orderly dressed in light-gray scrubs seemed to glide across the room, stopping between the caged animal and the Bounty Hunter. “You have a visitor,” announced the faceless bot. He moved away, checking on those who were using dull scissors at a nearby table.

  Phobetor looked like the other orderlies—featureless face, white silicone skin, and mechanical limbs. These characters had been featured in one of their sci-fi horror series a few years back. Instead of erasing them, they were used here, in the asylum of Necromourn.

  Instead of speaking in the synth voice used by the other orderlies, Phobetor used his own. “And here I thought you were but a lowly sewer rat.” He peered at Ferret through the iron bars. “You have some friends in high places. Friends that I sense are watching us right now. In fact, I’m counting on it.” As the god reached for the door of the cage, a strong scarred hand gripped his forearm, jerking it around behind his back.

  “Leave ’im be,” the Bounty Hunter grunted in Phobetor’s ear.

  The god smiled beneath his mask. Pulling his arm from the Hunter’s grip, he reversed his arm joint and spun around, mechanical arms forcing the Hunter into a headlock.

  The commotion triggered the other patients in the room. Voices rose, chairs scraped across the floor, chess pieces flew. Hidden doors slid open all around the room, dispensing more orderlies like white pills at bedtime.

  “Take the others to their rooms,” Phobetor commanded them. “I’ll take care of this one.”

  The machines did as their master commanded, rounding up the other patients, herding them like cattle. They injected a sleep serum into those who didn’t go easily. It worked as a conductor, an amplifier used for nightmare treatments. The halls would echo with their screams in a matter of minutes.

  The Hunter scratched at the god’s silicone skin, his long fingernails sinking into the material but unable to damage it. The once-invincible Bounty Hunter swung his elbows into Phobetor’s body, kicking and moaning, struggling the way a sick child might if forced to drink horrible-tasting medicine. The fury that had burned in him for decades had been reduced to a dying ember by drugs and sorrow. He finally hung limply in the hands of the god.

  In some ways, Phobetor felt sorry for him, for the loss of a complex and varied character. But right now, he just needed him out of the way. “This has nothing to do with you.” He tossed the large man into his chair.

  The Hunter slumped down, sliding off the chair and onto the floor. His book lay beside him.

  Ferret watched, his whiskers twitching.

  Phobetor opened the cage, swinging the small door wide. “You’re free.” The god leaned in close to Ferret. “I did my part. Now you do yours. It’s up to you to finish this.” He turned to leave, almost tripping over the Hunter’s leg.

  “Have you doomed us all?” the Bounty Hunter asked the god. His legs were sprawled out, and his head hung low over his chest. He brushed his lank hair from his face. He raised his head. “Have you?”

  Phobetor looked down at him and said, “You doomed yourself.”

  The Hunter said nothing more, and Phobetor strode across the room, exiting through the security door, leaving it ajar.

  Ferret climbed out of the cage and bounded to the floor, moving cautiously to the Bounty Hunter, stopping just out of his reach.

  The Hunter shrugged. “You leaving me too? That’s okay, I guess, seeing I was aiming to kill ya.” His eyes closed as his words drifted off. With a loud snort and a bob of his chin, the Bounty Hunter jerked to consciousness. “Off with ya. This is my home now.” He slurred and flicked his limp hand at Ferret, tossing something shiny at the critter. A necklace skittered across the floor, coming to a stop by Ferret’s feet. “It don’t belong to me.” His body slumped lower, until at last, he lay still.

  Ferret snatched up Persephone’s necklace with his tiny hand and scampered across the room, under tables and over fallen chairs, the weight of the cuffs slightly throwing its balance. It turned back for a final look at the prison and the Hunter’s pathetic form before scurrying out the open door.

  The monitors in Thanatos’s office showed live feeds from the new cameras Kintos installed. Each one flickered to another camera angle every few minutes.

  Kintos hadn’t wasted any time setting everything up. In fact, Thanatos had only just arrived at his first watering hole of the evening when his security officer messaged him that he had finished.

  Thanatos had contemplated turning around and heading home to monitor his brother when he caught a glimpse of Sadina’s familiar red leather vest near the bar. All thoughts of Phobetor left him. She hadn’t been as happy to see him as he would’ve liked, but in the end, he got what he wanted from her. Not without a little pain for his pleasure.

  Even now, he pictured Sadina naked and licking his blood from her fingers while he dressed and left her room.

  The god of death dabbed at the fang marks on his neck, not bothering to heal himself. He kept the wound as a trophy. The lack of sleep, too much alcohol, and the drain on his blood supply caught up to him while he sat in front of the screens, scanning recordings of the past few hours on the main monitor.

  Absentmindedly, he took out Hades’s cigarette from a hidden compartment in his drawer and rolled it back and forth between his palms until he grew tired of the game. It might have been a mistake to put his feet up on his desk, but damn it felt good. It didn’t take long for the hum of the monitors and the flicker of images changing from one view of an empty alley to another to lull the god.

  His foot slipped off the table, jerking him awake. “Flames!” Thanatos rubbed his eyes and rose from his chair. He checked the monitors again and stretched. Still no sign of Phobetor. “I could’ve missed something,” he said, grabbing his wireless keyboard to punch in the command to rewind the camera in Phobetor’s living room. The angle had a perfect view of his brother’s front door. Thanatos took the tape back an hour and then two, scrolling through the frames at high speed.

  A high-pitched buzz invaded his ears, along with an intense burning pain through his spinal cord. His body spasmed, and his legs buckled, but only for a moment. He slumped into his chair, his power gutted from him by an unseen hand.

  Outside, there was a crack and a boom, close enough to raise the feathers from his wings. Thunder rolled and rumbled and then quieted. The pain and the buzzing vanished, leaving Thanatos intensely cold and with diminished powers.

  “Could this be you, Hades?” Thanatos growled. “You dare to take power from my people, from my world?” Raising his head slowly, he straightened up.

  Beings, human or otherwise, had always been a fickle bunch, trading loyalties from one god to another like cheap stocks. Thanatos wanted to believe his own words, but with the rising unrest within his world, with the rebellions of his characters, he had felt his powers diminishing long before Hades entered his domain.

  The last fingers of cold left his body. Strength returned to his limbs. He flexed his
wings, stretching them wide and opening his arms to the sky beyond his window. “I am god in this place,” he whispered to his reflection on the glass.

  The monitor in front of him seemed to flicker, catching his eyes. A blurred shape flashed through the scene of Phobetor’s living room. Thanatos lunged at the video controls, stopped the tape, and played it back at half-speed, watching his brother get down on one knee to dig around under his coffee table and pull out a book…a journal. “Is that all you got?” Thanatos mumbled but kept watching.

  Phobetor placed the journal inside a travel bag, along with some other books from his bookshelf. Almost as an afterthought, the god of nightmares reached inside his long trench coat and pulled out the story panels he had finished earlier that night.

  Thanatos tapped the pause key. Zooming in, he could read the text and see the fine details of Hades’s hair. “Cronus’s arse,” he whispered as he hit play.

  Phobetor rolled up the drawings, tucked them inside his bag, and zipped it up.

  Thanatos watched his brother carry the bag across the room and behind his small bar. Another camera perched inside a gargoyle’s mouth looked down on Phobetor as he stashed the bag inside the cupboard and then walked to the front door. He stopped, turned around, and after a moment, he left.

  “Almost looks like you’re saying goodbye, brother.” Thanatos followed the other cameras from that time frame and pieced together a sequence that showed Phobetor leaving through the side exit and into the alley. The video feed flickered as Phobetor walked from one camera location to the next. Thanatos checked the time stamps to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.

  Phobetor rounded the corner of the next-door building and continued down the alley and out of camera range.

  “I’d like to say this is nothing.” But deep in his marrow, Thanatos knew it was something.

  A knock at his door startled him. “Come.” Still holding his keyboard, he turned around, his wings at half-mast.

  Kintos padded in. “Sir, they found Hades. Jethro tried to message you but didn’t get a response.”

  Thanatos checked his body and then his desk for his phone. “Where’s my damn phone?”

  The wolf man shrugged.

  “Help me look,” Thanatos said. He set his keyboard down and searched in his pockets, under papers, in between the cushions of his couch.

  “Sir.” Kintos pointed to the light table by the window.

  “There you are.” Thanatos crossed the room and picked up his phone—five messages showed on the home screen. He scanned them all and said, “They’re at the abandoned mall. Why the hell didn’t I erase that place after we were done with it?” He dropped his hands to his side. “I’ve said that too many times lately,” he mumbled before making a holo call to Jethro.

  The sergeant picked up. “Sir, we got them.”

  “How many are there? And who are they?”

  “Most of them are holed up inside the mall. There’re at least two dozen vehicles, most of them armored up with metal scraps, and they’ve got patrols around the perimeter. At least twenty are outside watching us. We can’t get eyes inside. There could be twenty or two hundred. It’s a big-ass building.”

  Thanatos looked at Kintos. “What do you think?”

  “It would take a few hours to get another squad mobilized. Either we go with what we got and storm in or wait for Jethro’s incoming officers who are already on their way. Even then, we won’t know if we have enough manpower. How many characters can there be?”

  “More than I thought there could be. And more than I remember drawing.” Thanatos smoothed his goatee and closed his eyes. “Jethro, hold up and wait for your backup teams. Make sure no one leaves the building. Do what you can to surround it.”

  “Sir, we’ll hold the place as long as we can, but—”

  “Stay where you are,” Thanatos commanded. “But if the rebels make a move, don’t let them through your line. I’ll send a distraction, a cover for the other team that’s already on its way.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jethro said. The screen faded to dark.

  Thanatos turned to Kintos. “Jethro’s men will be there in twenty minutes, give or take, right?”

  Kintos nodded.

  “Gather anyone you can find on the streets and the nearby temples. I need prayers. Promise them whatever they want. I need them grateful.” Thanatos paused. “And then…I need you to do something for me. Break into Phobetor’s apartment and look in the cabinet under his bar. That one there.” Thanatos pointed to the monitor he’d been watching.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s a bag. And who knows what else. Poke around and let me know what’s in it. Take this.” He held out a small round button.

  “What’s that for?” Kintos took it from Thanatos and studied it.

  “A beacon. Electronic bait for a select group of monsters. Take this device and bury it in the bag.” Thanatos rubbed his stubbly face absentmindedly. “And not a word of this to anyone.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kintos continued to stand at attention.

  Thanatos stared at the monitor and sunk back into his seat. He swiveled the chair around and started as if he were surprised he wasn’t alone. “What are you still doing here?” he asked Kintos without his usual conviction.

  “Nothing, sir. I’m gone.” Kintos turned and loped from the room.

  Thanatos spun his sickle ring on his finger. “This is it. We’re coming for you, Hades. And then…” His voice dropped off. He smiled like a snake and hurried to his drawing table. He didn’t bother making panels or text balloons, he just sketched. The earth opening up, clouds, and stampeding horses rolling across barren land. This was how he’d show himself to the outliers sheltering the god of the Underworld.

  He finished quickly, dropping his pencil in haste. He folded the paper and took it with him. Snatching his coat of fur and feathers, Thanatos went out onto the streets, waiting for the surge of power from his followers. It didn’t take long.

  Somewhere in the city, the people began to chant his name, men and women and hundreds of children dressed in a plethora of clothes, limbs and tentacles and clawed fingers raised to the heavens while they cried out his name, swaying with the rhythm of a chant that rose up all through the streets. Voices clamored with prayers of thanksgiving to their maker.

  Thanatos rolled his shoulders forward and lowered his head, splitting his shoulder blades apart as his wings burst from his back, the golden tips reaching for the sky. His back arched from the power surging through his chest. The ground erupted beneath him. A geyser of dirt and rock formed into a wave, and two stallions burst from the storm of dust. Their massive chests strained against the weight of the stone chariot they pulled behind them—a chariot fashioned from pencil lead and ink.

  The city burned bright, lit up by the prayers of believers, or at least, those who got paid to believe. And while Thanatos sent forth his show of power, his brother walked through darker streets where nightmares and hate and revenge bared their ugly teeth, waiting for another god to lead them to freedom.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Outside the open doors of the mall, a few kilometers away, a cloud of dust erupted from the tundra. The rolling wall of dirt was framed perfectly in the center of the mall entrance, cinematically stunning. A chariot grew from the dust, pulled by beastly horses with red eyes and blood-soaked legs, as if they had stampeded the world to death beneath their hooves.

  Hades walked toward the opened doors. “Thanatos,” he whispered. “Cronus’s arse, he copied my horses.” Hades turned to Arle and Don.

  “The god of death is coming, and you’re worried about copyrights?” Arle asked.

  “It’s all about branding now, isn’t it?” Hades reached down to the hem of his jacket.

  “How about we talk marketing after this business is done?” Don unsheathed a knife twice the length of his arm, holding it out in front of his chest.

  “Point taken.” Hades glanced bac
k at Arle, who had retreated behind boxes of artillery to speak to an Egyptian Anubis, its long snout curled back in a snarl.

  Hades tightened his grip on his bident and strode toward the open doors. “You might be death, but today you’ll fear my reaping,” he said softly, a mere breath. He felt strangely calm, controlled. It wasn’t just the surging power ticking through him like tiny jolts of energy. He was destined for this. He had felt like this before going to war with the Titans. As if everything had been arranged, set up by a higher force, and all he had to do was play his divine part. Times like this, he felt a kinship with the Fates, although he would never tell them that.

  Someone grabbed Hades roughly by his arm. “Where do you think you’re going?” Arle said.

  Hades shook his arm from Arle’s grip. “You gave me a damn good jolt of power. Now I’m going to use it, finish this thing off.”

  “That isn’t the plan.”

  “I just made a new plan.” Hades stepped forward.

  “You go out there, you kill us all.”

  Hades hesitated and turned around to face Arle. “Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

  Don stood behind the wooden man, concern etched on his face. He raised his knife and pointed out to the dark tundra. “We might want to discuss this behind closed doors.”

  They all turned sharply to look.

  All-terrain vehicles crawled out from the darkness, headlights snapping on and picking up speed.

  A deep voice boomed through an amplifier. “There’s no need for anyone to die here tonight. By the command of Thanatos, if you hand Hades over to us, the rest of you can go back to your preordained life.”

  “You want to tell me again how me going out there gets you killed? Because it sounds like it just might save you,” Hades said, eyes wild and fists itching for a fight.

  “If you go out there, you’ll take Thanatos. And we can’t let you do that.” Arle’s voice was hollowed out, pained. “We need our stories first. All his drawings, every episode of his comics. We need his DNA to open the vaults where he keeps everything.” His marble eyes pleaded for the god’s understanding. “We want to write our own endings. Some of us want to end everything, to sleep in peace. If you go out there and take him from us, we won’t have that chance. We won’t be free.”