The Song of Glory and Ghost

by N. D. Wilson

  Which didn’t mean they all believed it.

  Sam was racing the motorcycle across the water, trailing a watery rooster tail of epic proportions. Glory was riding behind him. Samra was in the sidecar.

  Two massive sea monsters with gaping mouths and sparking nostrils plunged and leapt behind them and a wide sunlit arch sat open in the night air, half a dozen feet above the water. Steaming water from another sea was flooding in.

  And so were dozens of long red-bodied serpents.

  “Lord have mercy,” Levi said. “Leviathan.”

  Only Jude saw the shadowy trap and the motorcycle vanish under the surface just in time. A split second later, he heard the engine again and turned to see it launching from the sea much too far away. And then it was gone, lost in the blizzard, hidden by its speed.

  All other eyes were on the beasts that followed, with bodies as wide as the archway itself and nostrils spraying fire whiter than the falling snow.

  “Fetch every weapon!” Levi bellowed. “Load the boats and say your prayers! We cannot allow those beasts in our waters!”

  Excited boys and stunned men leapt into action.

  Only Jude and Levi remained.

  “They vanished again,” Jude said. “Your daughter is alive.”

  “I saw her,” Levi said. “Have no fear for your friends. My Samra’s smart as a shark. She’ll look after them.”

  “Maybe.” Jude looked up at him. “Sharks aren’t very smart.”

  Levi laughed and slapped Jude’s back. “But they’re winners! Ask anyone. Nothing beats sharks.”

  Jude watched the pair of train-size monsters twist and turn in circles. Clearly, they had lost the trail. “Those do,” Jude said.

  “And I’ll beat those,” Levi said, tugging his beard spikes. “I’ve seen them in books. Now don’t you try and tell me that you wrote those books but not yet. If you did, you’ll know to aim for the eyes and stand by for fireworks. Come on, then, before they realize they aren’t meant for cold seas, and they try to lay claim to this island.”

  In the harbor, boat engines were already firing and the Lost Boys were whooping.

  15

  Hunt’s End

  THE MOTORCYCLE WAS STOPPED HIGH ON A LAVA HILL OVERLOOKING the Puget Sound. Sam and Glory stood beside it. Samra was standing up in the sidecar.

  “I’m coming,” Samra said. “I’m staying with you, Sam. You can’t stop me.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “I can.”

  “You think I can’t keep up?” she sneered, lifting her chin. “You think I’m scared of the dark?”

  Glory shook her head. “But you’re a princess who thinks she’s tough because she has always had Daddy’s big old thugs standing behind her. You might have grown up in a hard world, but it was soft on you, Samra.”

  Samra flushed red. “You think my life was easy? You think you’re better than me?”

  Glory laughed. “What I think—”

  “Glory,” Sam interrupted. “Leave it.” He turned to Samra. “I need you to stay.”

  Samra sniffed.

  “Listen,” Glory said, calming. “We’re going into the darkness. All the way in. Not just diving through. If you come with us, you could die. Worse, you could get sick and terrified and be lost in there forever. I totally collapsed my first time in. I might again, and Sam can’t carry both of us.” She paused. “And I’m sorry I called you a princess. I’m sure your life is hard.”

  “A nightmare,” Samra said. She brushed back her curls. “I hate it.”

  “Samra,” Sam said. “Stay and guard the bike. We won’t be gone long.”

  “Or we’ll be dead and gone forever,” Glory said. “Give us a few hours and if we’re not back, take the bike. Keep it. Try to be a hero, not a punk like your dad. Make your world better.”

  Samra slumped down into the sidecar.

  Glory shut her eyes and inhaled, smelling the air. Then she crouched down and flattened her palm on the rough stone. Scraping up some dust, she licked it.

  “What are you doing?” Sam asked. “You look like you’re about to start chanting.”

  Glory laughed. “I’m marking my place. This spot in this moment is unlike any other. To come back from the darkness, I need to remember it to reach for it again.”

  Sam looked around the volcanic destruction. “It looks like a lot of spots.”

  “I know,” said Glory. “Which is why I’m doing this. I don’t want to miss by years. Or miles.”

  “Why not just leave the door open behind us?” Sam asked.

  Glory dropped her voice to a whisper. “Because your soul mate over there will definitely follow us through. And other things might wander out.”

  Samra sat up, listening closely.

  “Soul mate?” Sam whispered. “Don’t even joke like that. She’ll take it seriously.”

  “Sorry.” Glory smiled. “And if I throw up on you in there, I’m sorry again. In advance.”

  Black sand poured out of Glory’s glassy palm and spun into a short rod and the long hooked blade of a scythe. Sam stepped backward and watched as Glory raised the blade and swung. The tip vanished into the air with a sound like a knife in watermelon. Glory pulled on the blade, the air peeling open like cut skin. The dark entrance gaped at Sam and Glory and a smell many miles beyond rot oozed out around them.

  “Gosh. You’re going in there?” Samra threw her arm over her face. Cindy and Speck both rattled.

  Glory bit her lip and stretched out her left hand to Sam. He took it with his right. For a moment, Glory simply gripped and regripped his fingers. He could feel her nerves, her fear. And he could feel her determination.

  “We can do this,” Sam said. “Peter needs us to. We need us to.”

  Glory nodded, but she didn’t speak. And then she ducked through into the darkness. Sam followed, and a moment later, while only Samra watched, the wound in the world’s skin healed.

  Sam kept his eyes shut, holding Glory’s hand with Speck and relying on Cindy to see in the darkness . . . if there was ever anything to see. When Glory threw up, it didn’t even make the smell of the place worse.

  “You okay?” Sam asked. “What can I do?”

  “Nothing,” Glory said. “I just . . . keep your head clear. Listen to your hands.” Gagging, she dropped to her knees. “Ghost gave me his memory, marking the moment. And we’ve been to the place.” She threw up again, and Sam listened to her spit and then try to talk. She rolled onto her side, pulling her knees up as she spoke. Her voice was fading. “I just need . . . to focus.”

  Sam crouched, scooped Glory up, and tried to help her walk. But he only succeeded in staggering sideways and tripping over her feet. Finally, sliding Cindy under Glory’s legs and Speck under her arms, he picked her up. Still with his eyes shut, hoping Cindy and Speck would steer him clear of any pits or snares, he began to move forward.

  “We don’t need to move,” Glory said slowly. “Anywhere . . .”

  “Yeah, we need to move. Some places are worse than others,” Sam said. “Just focus, and tell me when you’re ready.”

  Glory’s breathing slowed as Sam walked. He followed a low incline until he seemed to be rising out of the worst of the smell. Or maybe he was just growing used to it.

  He understood Glory’s reaction. He had felt it before himself, and without the snakes, he knew that he’d be dizzy and lost in the darkness forever.

  “Okay, Glory,” Sam said. “It won’t get better than this.”

  Cindy rattled. Speck tried to coil away, almost dropping Glory.

  The heat image of a heavy bear rose up Sam’s arms from the snakes. The big animal rocked slowly toward Sam, growling and snorting. As Sam backed away, the bear rose onto his hind legs and bent and warped into the hunching shape of a man.

  “Yee naaldlooshii,” the bear-man slavered. “Leave your prey. The Vulture calls us to join his army and feast.”

  “Um.” Sam took a step backward. “I will. Soon. I’m on my way.”

 
“The doors to the living are open to us,” the man said. “Tzitzimime desire our strength.”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “I’m going to see them now.”

  After a long moment, apparently satisfied, the man dropped back into his beastly form and heaved himself slowly away.

  Cindy’s rattle stopped, but her tension didn’t.

  “What was that?” Glory whispered.

  “A dead werebear,” Sam said. “Off to join the Vulture’s herd. I don’t even want to know how many of those things he has by now, but I’m sure we’re going to find out. Can you stand?” He dropped Glory’s feet to the ground and held her arm while she tried to balance.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m sorry, Sam.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Sam said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll carry you wherever you need to go.”

  “Here,” Glory said. “I’ll try to open a way to the memory Ghost showed me right here. I just need to . . . focus.”

  Sam heard Glory drop to her knees, and warm images floated up to him from both snakes. The glass in Glory’s right palm burned white-hot when she held it up. Her whole arm grew white. And then a long, curved, sandy scythe blade grew from her hand. Sam stopped paying any attention to the snakes and used his own eyes. The outer darkness now had a light even his eyes could see. From her knees, Glory swung her blade straight down, glowing orange and trailing sparks.

  The darkness parted, and the blade slammed into the ground, parting it, as well.

  Heat, the smell of fires and food, and the sound of laughter all entered the darkness.

  “Is this right?” Sam asked. “Is there where we’re supposed to be?”

  Glory placed her hands on her knees and remained still, a silhouette in front of the opening she’d made.

  “Yes,” she said. “Almost. We have to wait for the scream.”

  Sam crawled up beside her and peered into the opening. She had torn it at two angles. The vertical cut peered across a rooftop and into the deep bowls of a cave lit with scattered torches. There were stairs back there leading up a wide crack. Sam recognized this place. Speck and Cindy did, too, and both snakes slid forward, jerking their heads in Sam’s hands.

  “This is Manuelito’s cave,” Sam said. “Where I woke up with the snakes.”

  “I know,” Glory said. “I was there. Or . . . our younger selves will both be here when that eventually happens.”

  Sam leaned down over the horizontal opening that was carved in the floor. He was looking into a small native house. A pot sat on a cooking fire. A boy ran in and out of sight. His mother was singing. Sam shifted to the side, trying to see more of the space below him. His eyes locked with a baby—fat, staring straight up at him, gurgling and kicking with curiosity. He was lying on a rug, beside an empty half barrel.

  Sam watched while a woman with long white hair entered the house, and then Glory pulled Sam back up.

  “Don’t watch this part,” she whispered. “Just listen.”

  “Was Peter born here?” Sam whispered back.

  Glory shook her head. “Another tribe built this place. Some Navajo hid here when they were being hunted. Peter’s people. My people. He’s my extra-great-uncle. Ghost says my mother came from Tisto and Manuelito.”

  Sam looked at Glory, her face lit only from below, from the splits she had cut into the world. Her eyes were dark, but far from dim. Her jaw was strong and her will was stronger. Peter was Glory’s uncle? Of course he was. They were the two most fearless people Sam had ever met.

  The old woman’s voice floated up into the air and Sam tried to spy again, but Glory pulled him upright once more.

  “Not yet,” she said. “Please don’t watch.” They both sat still, listening, but the words were too faint for Sam to understand.

  “Ghost says my mother was taken by the Tzitzimime,” Glory said. “Those flying shadows the Vulture sends. She wanted to be strong like they are. She wanted to be one of them—but they made her a lifeless slave.”

  Sam didn’t know what to say. He felt like a fist was pressing into his stomach. And if he felt like that for Glory, then how did she feel?

  “Glory . . .”

  “No,” Glory said. “I’m glad. I would rather her be double-crossed and destroyed by those things. I can’t stand the thought of her being one.”

  “Ghost told you all of this?” Sam asked.

  Glory nodded. “My brother left me in a bus station. On my birthday. When some cop carried me away twelve hours later, I almost scratched his eye out. I wish I could find him and apologize.” Glory exhaled the faint beginning of a laugh. “I guess I can now. I loved my brother more than anything, because he was the only anything I had. And then I hated my brother for a long time after that. Remember how mad I was at the thought of you leaving Millie?” This time Glory did laugh. “Yeah, I have a thing about brothers ditching sisters.”

  Sam studied Glory’s face and said nothing. He watched the hard shadows on her features and the way she twitched her nose to the side when she sniffed. When she bit her lip and looked away, he noticed the whiteness of her teeth for the first time, and when she sighed and turned her head back, meeting him eye to eye, he didn’t see anything else at all.

  “Ghost tried to get my brother to do what I do,” Glory said. “He wanted Alex to become your friend and live on SADDYR and help Father Tiempo help you. But Alex left me in that bus station and went after our mom instead. Ghost said he’s dead. But he also said what’s left of him is working for the Vulture’s new allies. So you’re stuck with the leftover sidekick girl.”

  “No,” Sam said. “I’m not. I could ditch you any time.”

  Glory smiled. “Yeah, well, I could shake you pretty easy, too.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” Sam asked. “I mean, why right now?” He pointed at the open crack beside them.

  “Because I want you to know who I really am,” Glory said. “I’m a girl who could become a demon. I could become a total monster. My mother tried. My brother probably is.”

  Sam smiled. “No. You couldn’t.”

  “Yes,” Glory said. “I could. And so could you. Look at us. I’m carrying a scythe the Angel of Death gave me, and you have viper hands. It’s all cool, yeah. But it’s seriously dangerous. I know I could turn awful, Sam. I know it. And so could you and that’s the worst thing that could ever happen to either of us.”

  “You’d never let me,” Sam said. “Even if I tried. And there’s no way I would ever let you.”

  Glory halfway smiled. “You think you could stop me?”

  “I know I could,” Sam said. “Because you’re slow and stupid and have a terrible memory. You daydream, you lose track of things. Speck could beat you by himself.”

  Glory all the way smiled.

  Below them, a woman screamed. Sam lunged forward to see what was happening, but Glory practically tackled him this time.

  “Not yet,” she said. “You have to make me a promise first. No matter what happens down there, you do exactly what I say, and you only protect this me. Don’t try to save the older version, because she’s already dead.”

  “What?” Sam looked down at the opening. The old woman with the white hair. “Glory, that’s you? Glory! We can’t just let you die!”

  “Promise me, Sam!” Glory yelled. “This cave, in this time, this is where I end. We can’t change that.”

  Children were wailing, dogs were barking, and the sounds of total chaos were growing.

  Sam nodded.

  “Great!” Glory shoved him toward the crack. “Now tell me what you see.”

  Sam was on his hands and knees above the opening, craning his neck to watch. Cindy and Speck were both trying to writhe forward into the hole, but Sam kept them locked beneath him.

  “You’re dead,” Sam whispered. “But another you came in the door right after. And then another. The Tzitzis are awful. Glory, I have to go in! You’re copying Father Tiempo! You’re not just dying, you’re losing years. Six of you now, Glory
, please. You’re a bloody pile in front of the doorway.”

  Shrieking laughter rose up through the crack, and then everything went quiet.

  “They’re standing above the baby now,” Sam whispered. “But they’re watching the door in case you come again. Peter is screaming.”

  And he was. Loudly.

  “I can hear,” Glory said.

  Sam glanced back and saw Glory wiping her wet cheeks.

  “Now,” Glory said, and she lifted her swirling hourglass. “Aim for the eyes. All four eyes. And then stay out of the way.”

  Sam nodded, climbed to his feet, checked his bow, placed Cindy in charge of the weapon, took two quick breaths, and he jumped.

  He wasn’t even all the way through the ceiling when both demons whirled around from the baby’s barrel. The feathers around their mouths were caked with blood, their shadowy robes were open, revealing two rib cages packed with human trophies. All eight taloned arms flew at Sam.

  Cindy was firing.

  Two blue arrows ripped through two black eyes and flew out the back of the skull. Two silver arrows made a messier job of the white eyes, ricocheting in the sockets. None of the arrows slowed the demons down.

  Cold, gory forms slammed into Sam before he reached the floor and drove him back against the wall. Shadows wrapped around him, but not fast enough. One final Glory entered the room, falling from above, and her blade was falling faster. Sam had not even had time to yell when Glory split the first Tzitzimitl in two, from skull to hips, and then again from side to side. Razpocoatl the black-eyed fell sightless to the floor in quarters, four portions flapping like dying stingrays. Magyamitl dropped Sam and spun around, sightless and gaping, bent shafts and bloody feathers where her white eyes had just been.

  “We cannot die!” she hissed. “How many more years do you have left to give us, old woman?”

  “Down!” Glory said. “On your face or I will carve you like your sister. Swear peace to me and I will give you peace.”