The Afterlife Omnibus

By Mur Lafferty

HEAVEN

HELL

EARTH

WASTELAND

WAR

STONES

The Afterlife Series Omnibus

Heaven, Hell, Earth, Wasteland, War, Stones

Version 2

Published by Restless Brain Media on Smashwords

Copyright © 2015 Mur Lafferty

“Heaven Must Be Boring” Copyright © George Hrab. Used with permission.

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

This is a work of fiction. Resemblances to persons living or dead is coincidental.

CONTENTS

HEAVEN

HELL

EARTH

WASTELAND

WAR

STONES

HEAVEN

By Mur Lafferty

* * *

The Afterlife Series I

This book is dedicated to the listeners, who encouraged me to take the step from one story to a series.

Thank you.

Heaven must be really boring

If you think about it logically

All the angels must be snoring

Who could stand perfection for eternity?

Not me.

“Heaven Must Be Boring” ~George Hrab

BOOK ONE: KATE

CHAPTER ONE

My best friend Daniel and I died when we were twenty-four. It didn't occur to me that we could die. How many times have you heard that? We were young, healthy, in our prime, blah, blah. Death was never on our minds. I’d believed that your youth is the time of greatest potential, but when you’re a dead piece of meat in a crushed Toyota, your potential for greatness drops to zero.

Truth be told, my potential for greatness had never been that high. In high school, I fit in comfortably enough with the “smart kids,” but I never won any awards or tried out for any scholarships. I just got by. In college, I focused mostly on hanging with friends and pining after my best friend. I dropped out midway through my junior year.

When I visited home for the holidays, my parents ignored the white elephant of my college failure in order to craft the illusion of a happy family, but my grandmother wasn’t buying it. She was one of the few people I trusted, simply because she didn’t feed me bullshit.

Christmas afternoon, she pulled me aside. “Kate, we need to talk about this college thing.”

I rolled my eyes. “Grandma, I told you-”

She waved me silent. “When I was a young woman, President Kennedy said that we were going to go to the moon, not because it was easy, but because it was hard.” She pointed outside her window at the night sky. “Most people take the easy route. Can’t blame them. It’s easy.” Her eyes flitted toward the living room where my father was working on keeping the couch firmly planted on the floor. She’d never said a bad word against her son. Then again, she didn’t have to.

Obviously, this time she was talking about me, too. I had taken the easy route since high school; going to Sarah Enigma University instead of University of Tennessee or Duke, then dropping out with no major declared, no stellar grades in one specific area that would set me on my path.

That night, I was still ashamed, defiant and angry. I patiently nodded while Grandma Melissa made me feel worse and worse, then went out to have a beer with Daniel, my best friend, roommate, and long unrequited love.

Daniel and I had a place in Boone, NC, close to the SEU campus. I was working for a florist and Daniel had become a clerk at Belk in the Boone Mall. We were both fully entrenched in our single twenty-something lifestyle. Other than actual success, death was the next-furthest thing from our minds.

Unfortunately, the car crash that took my life also killed Daniel. When we died, our obituaries didn’t say, “he never got caught cheating his way to his BS degree, which he used to sell men’s clothing at Belk,” or, “she chose her college based not on building a bright future, but because she was in love with a guy who treated her like a sister.” They trumpeted how everyone liked us: how close I was to my grandma and how Daniel came from a tragic background, only to end his life tragically. They also went into great detail about our work with the local homeless shelter.

The funny thing is, Daniel only worked at the homeless shelter because his girlfriend Kayra Nhoj worked there and he wanted to impress her, and the night of our death was the first time I had gone with him. The papers didn't say that, either, nor did they say how reluctant I had been to go.

What can I say? Desperation has always scared the shit out of me. When I was a Girl Scout (which the papers mentioned) I cried when we took Halloween candy to a nursing home to brighten the residents' day (unmentioned). Uncomfortable with the stale smell and the toothless grins, the dingy nightgowns and the hopeless vacant looks, I trailed behind the girls in my troop. I peeked into an open door and saw an ancient man struggling to get out of bed. His hospital gown hung open at the back, and I could see his spindly legs, his sexless, nonexistent butt, and his knobby spine. I was sure he would shatter if he fell. Before I could look away, he slipped and scrabbled at the bed's supports, but went down.

I screamed and ran to get a nurse, who took care of it with such calm command I wondered if she were a robot. How could anyone human not run and hide from the vision of people decaying before they’d even died? I never told anyone this. Not my grandmother, not even Daniel. He always invited me to go to the shelter and help out with him and Kayra, but I always refused. The night of our deaths, he finally snapped.

"What is your problem?" he yelled at me. He was driving me to the library so I could read while he slopped soup into the trays of the hopeless or whatever it was he did. Rain poured down. I had nothing but a light sweater, and I cursed my lack of planning.

"I just don't like it, okay? I can't handle it!"

"Don't you even care? These people need our help. You can give it to them."

I was silent.

"You can't catch it, you know. You won't leave and find out the super has locked us out of the apartment, your teeth are loose and you have scabies."

"Oh, come on. You're only there because of Kayra. If you broke up tomorrow, you wouldn't go back."

"That's bullshit. And quit blaming me for your issues. You’re just afraid."

"I never denied that, I just-"

"You just don't have any empathy, that's all. Christ, Kate, sometimes I wonder if you care about anyone but yourself."

We pulled up to the curb in front of the library and stopped with a jolt.

"I'll pick you up in two hours. Be ready," he said, not looking at me.

I stared at him for a moment but he never looked my way. I sighed and got out into the rain. I didn't watch him peel out, and refused to react when he splashed a large puddle onto my back.

Inside, I dripped on the carpet while a librarian watched me uneasily. I didn't blame her; I was soaked. You don't want a wet sponge - nor a woman resembling one - near books.

Daniel was wrong. It wasn't a lack of empathy, it was too much. I cared so much for these people that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to help them at all, that my work would be emptying the ocean with a bucket. I'd rather feel bad about my inability to empty the ocean while I was on dry land than while drowning in the depths, so I stayed away. How can you combat poverty and old age? I wasn't a politician. I wasn't a philanthropist.

Daniel had once told me that if he could give someone a meal and a smile, then that was worth it. These people didn't have much. Therefore they didn't need much to make it better. I would bet my life that Kayra told him that. Perfect Kayra.

But that didn't mean it wasn't true.

I squelched over to the pay phone and called a cab.

CHAPTER TWO

I had expected the homeless to have colorful names like Soupbone Ike and Deacon Walthers. I expected them to have stories about boxcars and pie. I expected them to be like the homeless on TV, brave and cheerful.

I was wrong. They had names like Helen and Mike and Mrs. Amigone. There was a “Dareth Kasar” but he didn’t speak English. None of them told many stories. They were quiet and grateful and greeted Kayra with a quick hello, barely acknowledging Daniel. After the initial meeting, the other workers helped me set up tables and greet some early arrivers. Melissa, the woman in charge of the shelter, put me on kitchen duty, using my minimal cooking skills to make soup and cornbread. The evening passed quickly, my fear devoured by frantic cooking, a burn on my forearm from a cast iron skillet, and sweat.

Daniel broke my trance with a gentle hand on the back. “Kate. Take a break. Come sit down; you’ve been going for three hours.”

I blinked and looked at him, my neck creaking. “Let me get this cornbread out of the oven and I’ll meet you outside.”

He grinned at me and left the kitchen. I put on hot pads and removed the cornbread, turned it out of the pan onto the serving platter, sliced it with the dull chef’s knife, and passed it off to Horace, the runner between the kitchen and the food line. I left the kitchen, wiping my hands on my dirty apron.

Most of our customers, as Kayra called them, had left. Daniel and Kayra sat at a table with two old men, laughing.

One of them had a long white beard spotted with troubling stains; the other was craggy, but clean-shaven. Both spoke with accents I couldn’t identify.

“You don’t understand,” the clean-shaven man was saying. “Myths are created from journeys. Someone comes to town. Someone leaves town. There is always movement.”

Kayra shook her head. “But I watched nine hours of war, hairy feet, and crying hobbits to see them do something that would have taken those ginormous eagles fifteen!”

“No one would have changed,” he said. “Yes, the threat would have been gone, but more happened in the story than just the ring getting thrown into the volcano. Characters grew. The rightful king came back. Those wars removed corruption. If you go the easy way, nothing changes and nothing grows. Sauron would have been gone, but what about his armies? What about Saurumon?”

Daniel waved at me when I sat down. “Kate, this is Isaac and Mr. Big,” he said. I shook their hands, trying not to think of how dirty their hands were. “We’re just having a Lord of the Rings argument.”

“Ah,” I said, sitting down. “So you’re saying that the journey is key, not the destination.”

Isaac nodded fervently. “You know, some things are sweeter when you work harder for them.”

“I don’t know,” Kayra said, frowning.

“Eh, you’re young,” Mr. Big said. “You will learn.”

“Kate, Daniel, it was a pleasure meeting you,” Isaac said, standing up. “But my companion and I must now continue on our journey.”

Kayra flushed at the obvious slight and I wondered why the man had left her out.

Daniel didn’t seem to notice. “Are you leaving town?” he asked, standing and shaking the men’s hands.

“Yes, but I’m fairly certain we’ll see you again,” Mr. Big said. “Life is a journey, after all. Miss Kayra, it was a pleasure to meet you as well, and pardon my companion’s rudeness.” Isaac fumbled with his coat, pulling a ragged hood over his head, ignoring Mr. Big’s comment.

Kayra shrugged and smiled at him. Her smile was luminous, and I could see how she had enchanted Daniel. “Please come back if you ever need a hot meal. You know we’re here.”

He nodded. “You are indeed, Miss Kayra. Until next time, Daniel, Kate.”

We waved and watched them go out into the storm.

“’Mr. Big?’” I asked, laughing at last.

“It’s not his real name, but he said that’s what it translates to,” Daniel said.

“What language?” I asked.

“He didn’t say,” he said. He turned to Kristen, frowning. “I’m sorry they were rude to you. I don’t know what their deal was.”

She pouted a bit, but Daniel’s hug seemed to cheer her. I tried not to watch the exchange, choosing instead to clear the remaining tables.

“Kate, don’t worry about it. We’ve worked an hour past our volunteer time; other people will be in to clean up,” Kristen said.

“Do you want a ride home? I’m staying at Kayra’s tonight,” Daniel said.

“Thanks,” I said, depositing the dishes into the bus tray.

As the three of us prepared to head out into the storm, I took a deep breath and looked around the dining room, marveling.

I had survived.

#

Kayra’s apartment was close to the homeless shelter, and she said she had to “get something ready” before Daniel came over. She giggled as she said it, and my insides clenched. We dropped her off, Daniel kissing her messily before she got out. I watched the rain fall.

“Are you going to get in the front seat, or am I going to drive Miss Daisy?” he asked, glancing at me in the rear-view mirror.

I grinned. “It’s raining like hell, and I kinda like this. Home, James!”

Daniel laughed. “You know, you were great tonight.”

“Thanks. I’m glad I did it. And it was good to spend some quality time with Kayra,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t notice that the latter was a blatant lie.

“Yeah, she’s great, but I don’t know. I’m not sure if it’ll last,” he said, stopping at a red light.

“How come? I thought you guys had so much in common; that it was meant to be; that she was so great in bed?” Daniel had never held back the gory details when he talked about his dates; I usually returned the favor by talking about my period.

“Yeah…” he trailed off.

I laughed. “You got bored with her.”

“I guess. It’s just not exciting anymore.”

“Well, real love isn’t supposed to be exciting for all eternity; otherwise our parents would always be groping each other like it was prom night. Did your parents act like they were in love?”

Daniel’s shoulders stiffened, and I cursed myself. He didn’t like to talk about his parents, but I thought perhaps I could get an inroad here. I didn’t know much about his mom, who had died the year before he and his dad had moved to my town, back when he was still a little kid.

I stumbled and regained my footing. “Look, you’re going to have to realize that love changes, just like people do.” I tried to catch his eyes in the mirror, but he didn’t look up, so I stared out the window at the deluge. It hadn’t let up all night.

“Well, I don’t have to accept it yet,” he finally said. “I’m not ready to find ‘the one.’ I still have years and years to date.”

I laughed. “Whatever, dude.”

“So what really made you decide to come to the shelter tonight?”

“I don’t know. You were right, I guess. I was afraid. My grandma always says I need to be braver,” I said, looking at him. He grinned at me in the rear-view mirror.

I smiled back at him, relieved. I loved his smile. For a moment I forgot that I was going home alone, that he was going to drop me off and then return to the dirty surprise waiting for him at his girlfriend’s. I forgot he wasn’t mine.

He glanced at the road and then looked back at me. He laughed nervously. “What? Why are you staring at me?”

And I think I would have told him. I think I was finally ready. I’d faced one fear that night, why not another? I took a deep breath.

But then Daniel swore and pulled the wheel hard to the left. Neither of us had seen the red light until it was too late. Headlights filled the interior of the car, screeches, horns, and then horrible crunching sounds. It was all very slow, and during the split second between the barrage of sound and the white-hot flare of pain, I reached out to Daniel, but never touched him.

Then, nothing.

CHAPTER THREE

I think everyone, on some level, is honestly confused and curious about what happens after death. Should I have expected to grow wings? Travel toward a bright light? Hear the call of beckoning relatives? Fall into a fiery pit?

The crash played over and over again. Only in retrospect did I realize this, since my awareness and emotions were the same every time: shock, fear, and then nothing. Each time it was loud, bright, and painful. I don’t know how long we went through it, again and again. Days? Years?

Then, finally, it stopped.

I awoke in a hospital. I felt fine, whole. Whatever had impaled my side was gone. I felt nothing but smooth skin underneath the hospital gown.

The room had pale yellow walls and a glazed window that let only weak light into the room and granted no view. I was not hooked to an IV stand or any monitors and had no idea why I was still in the hospital. Did my parents know about the crash? Would they tell Grandma Melissa? Was Daniel okay?

I couldn’t find the nurse’s call button, so I just got out of bed. My gown hung open at the back and I blushed, though no one was there to see.

I hadn’t been in a hospital since I was a girl; I remembered it being busier. I opened the door and peeked into the hall.

Unlike the room, which had been drab but clean, the hallway showed signs of considerable neglect. A gurney with a broken wheel leaned against the wall, the dingy sheet was rumpled on the floor next to it. Pale red and gray blotches stained it; I swallowed and looked away.

Dirt and dust lay on the floor half an inch deep, devoid of footprints to mark anyone’s passage. I stepped back on the clean floor in my room and closed the door. My heart thundered in my chest and I leaned against the door to quell the rush of panic. Where was everybody? I wanted to cry out, but I feared the unanswered sound echoing through the halls more than I feared being alone.

I tried to peek out the window, but the glass was so thickly glazed that I couldn’t see anything past the pale light fighting its way inside. I tried to open the window; it wouldn’t budge.

The room didn’t reveal any clues as to where I was. The bedside table, the small wardrobe, and the bathroom were all empty. I had no idea where my clothes or any other belongings were. I breathed deeply to quiet my screaming insides, but that just encouraged the panic.

I looked into the hall again, this time noticing small footprints that had made a path down the hall and around the corner. I followed at a jog, my gown flapping around me, kicking up puffs of dust.

When I turned the corner, the hospital showed more signs of life, and sanitary life at that. The well-lit hallway was nearly cheerful and a radio played pleasant 80’s soft rock in low tones – I think it was Air Supply. The hospital staff was still missing, but I wasn’t alone. A small girl stood in front of a patient’s door, peering inside.

She was maybe eight, with short curly brown hair and brown eyes. I didn’t recognize her, but I did recognize what she clutched; lollipops covered in white tissues with faces drawn on them: little Halloween ghost treats. Her eyes widened as she stared into the room at something I couldn’t see. I heard a crash and a thump. The girl shrieked, dropped the little ghosts, and tore down the hall away from me and around the corner.

A feeble voice called out, barely audible. I looked around, reconfirming that I was alone. I took a tentative step, but my head swam suddenly. What was I doing out of bed? This wasn’t my problem. Still, I continued to walk until I reached the room where an old man, impossibly old, lay on the floor. Crinkled folds of skin disguised his face from any semblance of youth. His arms and legs were skeletal. He floundered and thrashed on the floor, his foot flopping on the end of his right leg in a worrisome way.

The hospital gown fell open and exposed him. It was not salacious or sexual; his shriveled sex was pathetic. I backed away slowly as his cries got louder and more desperate. He didn’t see me in his struggles to right himself.

I knew I should get help. Somehow I had to find someone who could help. But then I thought, I’ll bet that’s what that little girl was going to do. It wasn’t my business. I shouldn’t exert myself; I was a patient here as well.

Where the hell was Daniel? I could imagine him and Perfect Kayra taking action, demanding my help, Kayra judging me because I stood there paralyzed, unsure of what to do.

But he wasn’t there. And the little girl wasn’t coming back. I took a tentative step forward, and Daniel’s exasperated voice came to my ears again, “You can’t catch old age, you idiot.”

I took another step into the room. My hip twinged, and the next time I took a step it started to give out. I scratched an itch on my arm and saw it dotted with liver spots. What was wrong with me now? I took another step-limp, and the man finally saw me through runny, cloudy eyes.

“Help me,” he said.

I held my hands in front of my face. Arthritis swelled the knuckles and my nails were yellow. My heart no longer hammered; it struggled. Another step and I’d either be at his side… or dead.

The man began to sob. I took the last step and knelt with difficulty at his side, my knees screaming. “Shh, it’s all right,” I said, fear welling in my heart, my voice coming out as a croak.

I reached up and grabbed a blanket and pillow off the bed and as they slipped off I smelled the stale old man scent that came with them - nothing like my grandma’s lovely lavender scent. I put his head on the pillow and covered him with the blanket. He reached out his hand and I took it.

“My foot,” he said.

“I know.” I had exhausted my medical knowledge with “make the patient comfortable.” I knew splints were involved, but the old man’s room was as bare as mine had been.

A minute passed and the little girl still did not return with help. I swore and struggled to my feet. Something popped in my hip and I gasped. I limped towards the door and finally collapsed, breathing hard. Pains shot through my chest and hip again and I called out, “Someone help, a man is hurt here!”

A strong female voice drifted down the hall. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right there!”

Someone would take over. Someone would help. I smiled and lay down on the floor, which soothed the pains in my chest. The clean floor was cool against my face and I closed my old, thin eyelids for just a second. Help was on the way. He was saved.

And so was I.

#

Next thing I knew, a breeze woke me up. I stood outside the hospital on a dusty road. I was young again, dressed in the t-shirt and jeans that I had worn when I died. I was no longer alone; a woman stood beside me, clucking at a clipboard. Wings stuck out of the back of her yellow cardigan. She reminded me instantly of the women who would volunteer as treasurer or secretary at my grandmother’s church. They were thin with sharp faces and always ran around wearing grim looks that clucked, “I guess I’ll have to do this myself.” She clutched at the clipboard as if it were her badge of office; even her wings looked tense.

“Very lucky you died on a night you were charitable, Katherine. Very lucky indeed,” she said, sighing.

“It’s Kate,” I said, my confused mind attaching with irritation to the familiar pet peeve. Once my brain recovered, I added, “Wait - I’m dead?”

“Most assuredly,” the angel said, flipping through her clipboard.

We stood with the hospital at our backs on a dirt road that stretched into nothingness. The sky, a uniform white, reminded me of cloudy afternoons that promised rain. It was a big sky, bigger than I’d seen in Texas or any of the other plains states. The horizon seemed to be thousands of miles away.

“Congratulations, Katherine. With your scores the way they are, you qualify for entrance to heaven. You show as agnostic but secular Christian, so you’ll take residence in that heaven.” She pinched her mouth closed and lifted a sheet of paper on the clipboard, clearly not agreeing with the statistics there. She squinted as if trying to find a loophole to damn me.

“So I’m dead,” I said. The words didn’t feel alien to me. I didn’t feel frightened or upset, just calm. The only anxiety that touched me concerned Daniel - where was he? Had he survived? A brief thought flashed by, wishing he’d died too so I wouldn’t be alone, but I squashed it, ashamed. I tasted the words again, getting used to them.

“I’m dead.”

The angel’s eyes were very big as she gave me the full force of her stare. I blushed and took a step back. “Yes, Katherine. You were hit broadside by a truck going forty-seven miles per hour. You were killed instantly. And now, you’re going to heaven.”

I cleared my throat and looked down to avoid meeting her stare that clearly told me I was an idiot.

“What about my family?” I asked

“They’re all very much alive. You can check in on them as soon as you’re settled.”

“Okay.” I gulped, fearful of the thought of my grandmother crazy with grief. I pushed the thought away and resolved to check in on her as soon as I was able. I looked up and down the road. “So…which way?”

“Bless your heart, you must have been quite traumatized by your final test.” Her voice dripped with the Southern hypocrisy I associated with some members of my family. My grandma used that tone of voice when she spoke to my Aunt Vicky, whom she hated. Again, I pushed her memory away. “Heaven is in any direction,” the angel continued. “The important thing is the journey.”

“I’ve heard that somewhere before,” I muttered.

“Then it must be true,” she said. Without saying anything else, she unfurled her wings to at least ten feet in length and flapped them, stirring up dust. I coughed and shielded my eyes.

“Wait!” I yelled. “What about Daniel? Where is he?”

She climbed higher, forcing dust into my nose and mocking me with her brown sensible shoes - why did angels wear cardigans and shoes? Still not answering, she flew into the desert, perpendicular to the road. I had a feeling that following her would be instant death. Almost instantly, I remembered that I was already dead, but it still seemed like a bad idea.

“And it’s Kate!” I yelled after her, a small part of me happy to get in the last word.

With no clue as to which direction I should go, I decided to simply start walking.

The important thing was the journey. Where had I heard that before? This journey was a bore, though. No wildlife, insects, cattle, or even other wayward souls wandered along with me. Was this what I could expect from the afterlife? I hated being alone. I was always the kind of person who couldn’t stand to eat or go to the movies alone, and now here I was, alone in Heaven, unable to assist or interact with those on Earth ever again. I cursed my luck, wondering if I’d done something to deserve this. After one or two hours of increasing anxiety, I began to feel my sanity unravel.

“And here is where I start talking to myself,” I said. “I don’t know if this is the right way, or if that angel was even an angel. She seemed pretty bitchy to be all holy. Or maybe that’s what holier-than-thou is supposed to mean.”

I didn’t get tired or hungry as I walked, but the dust coated the insides of my nostrils and throat, and the thirst started to bother me. I began to cough.

How could I cough? I was dead; I didn’t need oxygen or food to survive. At least, I didn’t think so. I wasn’t too keen on finding out. Dying once – twice if you count the hospital - was well enough for me for the day.

The never-changing horizon annoyed me. Was I even moving at all? When would I get some answers? I recalled stories from my childhood about the devil appearing as an angel and misleading you. Remembering the sharp words of church women from my youth, I could easily believe that the devil might take that angel’s form. In a panic, I picked up the pace, starting at a jog and then a flat out run.

I ran as hard and as fast as I could past the unchanging landscape until my legs nearly gave out. Finally, I pulled up, panting. What about prayer? Would that work?

“Uh, God?” I felt like an idiot, but no one was around to laugh. “Where the hell is heaven?”

The familiar voice startled me. “Baby, you’ve been here the whole time.”

I looked up – gates stood where there was nothing before. They weren’t pearly, but they were glorious, made of towering wrought iron entwined with ivy. The stone wall bookended by the gate was at least twenty feet high and stretched out toward both horizons. I could see no end.

Daniel stood at the gate, grinning at me. I smiled back, happier than ever to see him. He caught me in one of his bear hugs, and I no longer felt sweaty and dusty, but perfect. I clung to him, only letting go when he pulled away.

Out of instinct I took the customary step back; standing too close to him had always been agonizing.

“You’re okay?” I asked.

He laughed. “Well, not exactly. I’m dead too.”

I punched him in the shoulder. “You know what I mean. How did you get here before me? Did you have to go through a test? Did you die instantly? What’s heaven like?”

“Shhh,” he said, placing a finger on my lips. My face flushed. He’d never touched me like that before.

“This is a place for honesty, Kate. No more hiding things.” And to my surprise and utter delight, he kissed me.

And if the story could end there, I’d have been the happiest woman in heaven.

CHAPTER FOUR

When I was a child, I would often lie in bed and wonder what heaven was really like. Exactly how could it be paradise - the ultimate reward - forever? Doesn’t everything get boring after a while, no matter how wonderful? I would try to wrap my brain around the idea of “eternity,” and in those rare instances that my brain actually began to grasp it, I would feel a moment of vertigo. It scared the shit out of me.

Now I was dead, at the gates of heaven, and had already been handed my greatest desire. I had denied my unrequited love for Daniel since eighth grade, when I’d realized he clearly preferred, well, any other girl to me. This had made life as his best friend a little like flexing a sore muscle – deliciously painful. I never thought he knew, and I was damn sure he didn’t feel the same way.

But they say heaven was paradise, right? He was all I’d ever wanted.

Things got blurry after that first kiss. We married soon after - I think it took a week or so. The wedding was attended by Grandpa Earl, Grandma Melissa’s husband who’d died before I was born, and a handful of other relatives and old friends. When I saw a strange face in the crowd I was startled to find it was Kurt Vonnegut, our mutually favorite author. When I saw Daniel at the end of the aisle, I thought I’d died and – well, you know.

We moved into a large house on a country road. The neighbors, Judy Garland on one side and all of the dead Kennedys on the other, were comfortably close without being on top of us. Jackie O. threw fabulous dinner parties. Our house held a library of all of the books I’d wanted to read and was frequently updated with new books being written in the living world. The house also boasted a computer room with Internet access, a fully stocked kitchen that rivaled the beautiful setups on the food channels, a swimming pool that never got dirty, a greenhouse full of plants, and a gorgeous garden in the back. It was my dream house, the kind of house Daniel and I used to joke about buying when we got rich. They were always “if you and I haven’t found spouses in thirty years, then we’ll get old together” conversations, ultimately bittersweet.

But now I had it all.

Life, or existence, rather, was often surreal. I was incredibly happy, but still had questions. My head would swim when these questions came up, but Daniel was always telling me to just enjoy things, distracting me with games, food, movies, or sex. Sometimes, though, after shutting down the computer, or after eating the third cheesecake of the week, or right before dozing off in his arms, I would have a moment of clarity. The questions I’d always had about heaven still weren’t really answered. Sure, it was paradise, and I was happy. I had everything I’d ever wanted. But still.

When I had been alive, I’d wondered what happened in heaven to people with more than one spouse in their lifetime. My Grandpa Earl had died before I was born, so Grandma Melissa had remarried Daddy John when I was six. He’d died unexpectedly when I was ten; I’d always wondered which husband she’d spend the afterlife with.

The Internet in heaven came with a set of bookmarks on our families and how close they were to death. The first time I checked it, I was shocked that Grandma Melissa wasn’t on there. Apparently, she had died a couple of weeks after my death. Why hadn’t I seen her? Why didn’t anyone tell me? How much time had passed since my death, anyway? Everything seemed fuzzy, seen through a lace curtain.

There is shopping in heaven, although there isn’t any money. In heaven, shopping’s more of a social experience, where everyone gathers outside a grand market full of anything you could possibly want. I was shopping with Daniel, looking for some fish paste to make Thai food that evening (Kurt Vonnegut had become a dear friend, and was coming over to tell us about the novels he never wrote), when I saw Grandma Melissa and Daddy John approaching. I ran so fast I had to keep myself from knocking her over. We embraced for a long time and finally caught up – it turned out that Grandma Melissa had died of a stroke, and that my inattentive parents had been watching TV with the sound too loud to hear her calling for them.

She reminded me that Dad had been pretty torn up about my death and was dealing with it with more booze than usual. I felt sorry for him for a moment, but that was no excuse to let Grandma Melissa die.

The heavenly euphoria dampened my anger toward my father, though, and soon I felt only concern. He missed me. We parted after setting a dinner date for the next evening. My head swam, memories flowing away like spilled water on a smooth tabletop.

On our way out of the market, we passed Grandma Melissa again, wearing a different dress and looking considerably younger, walking with Grandpa Earl.

“Wait – what’s going on?” I asked Daniel. “We just saw Grandma Melissa with Daddy John!”

He smiled. “Does it matter? They’re happy.”

“Yeah, but who is ‘they’? Is there cheating in heaven?”

“Of course not. Does anyone look remotely guilty here?” he asked.

No one did.

That afternoon I asked Daniel to make dinner while I puttered around the garden. I wanted some time to think without him being wonderful and confusing me. I wandered through the greenhouse and looked at the nine bonsai trees I’d been cultivating. I’d always had dreadful luck with bonsai, but there was no way I could kill one in heaven. I had miniaturized an oak tree, an azalea, and a species of elm that had gone extinct on earth. I touched each of them in turn, checking their moisture levels and health. When I touched the oak, one of the tiny branches snapped off in my hand, dry and brittle. I looked at it for a moment and blinked.

God. Where was God? Daniel had told me He would be available now that we were in heaven, but I hadn’t seen Him. I realized with surprise that I had forgotten about Him. I’d always wanted to go to heaven and ask God all the questions everyone had as a kid. Now I was here, but it hadn’t come up.

I exited the greenhouse, excited to run it past Daniel, but stopped when I noticed a man standing in my garden.

There was no questioning who it was. He looked like a Renaissance painting: white flowing robes, white beard. His head even glowed a little bit. He looked at me with infinite kindness and sadness in His eyes. He didn’t open His mouth, but I heard His words inside my head.

“Hello, Kate.”

I immediately squashed my first instinct, which was to ask Him where the hell He had been. “Uh, hi.” It was God. Really God. I tried to control my breathing. What did one say to Him?

“You have questions,” He said.

I nodded. He walked slowly to a garden bench that hadn’t been there before, and when He sat all the flowers around Him perked up. After some hesitation and general marveling, I joined Him. He watched me patiently.

“God, I really appreciate … everything. I do, but, things aren’t making sense,” I began, trying to sound as reverent as possible.

“Are you unhappy?” He asked. “Is this not everything you wanted?”

I nodded again. “It is, but, well, I need to understand how it works. Why did I see my grandma with two different husbands? What made Daniel just turn around and say he loved me once we were dead? How did we manage get the house next to the celebrities?”

He smiled and the words appeared in my head. “This is paradise. You can have whatever you want.”

“But what if it’s not what someone else wants? What if I had been in love with Craig Thomas, my main crush from high school, who hated me?”

“You may have had Craig Thomas in your paradise. Craig would not necessarily have had you in his,” He explained patiently.

For the first time since I’d arrived, my euphoria drained away. A pit opened in my stomach and I shivered. “So that’s not Daniel.”

“It is Daniel; it is the part of Daniel that loves you. We could not have replicated the emotion if it did not exist already. It is not Daniel’s soul, however. Daniel has his own paradise elsewhere.”

“Oh, God,” I buried my head in my hands.

“Yes?”

“Is it this way for everyone? You build this illusion around them for their paradise? Heaven is just made of…lies?”

God considered this. “Not lies, but pieces of truths. Life is too complicated to snap together perfectly in the afterlife. Everyone wants something different. Most people aren’t bothered by it, though. The ones who figure it out, anyway.”

I shook my head. Daniel stood at the kitchen window and waved at me, smiling broadly. How had I not seen it before? Daniel was not someone who had ever given affection openly. It had always been hidden by jokes and sardonic comments, peppered with rare instances of the compassion he usually reserved for his girlfriends, and shown to me only if I’d had a very bad day. I had chalked the “new” Daniel up to heaven’s safe environment; since he knew heaven was wish-fulfillment, he no longer had anything to fear. But no, the sardonic part of his personality was gone entirely.

God spoke. Of course He could read my thoughts. “We could have duplicated that part of his personality, but that is not the part that loves you. And you didn’t really want that, anyway.”

“But it’s a part of him. I want all of him!”

“Done, then,” He said, and looked at Daniel, whose smile shifted to become more cynical, but still friendly.

“No, it doesn’t matter. He’s an illusion. I don’t want him now. Not at all.” Tears streamed down my face and my cheeks burned. How was this paradise? “Wait, is this really hell? Is the illusion designed to make me miserable?”

His green eyes were kind. “Are you miserable?”

I looked down at the perfect grass with no weeds. “I wasn’t, till now.” The illusion shattered, it felt like a punch in the gut. I thought Daniel had chosen me. It didn’t matter anymore. I just wanted to be alone.

I breathed deeply, rubbing my eyes, and pressed them hard to make the tears stop. When I finally opened them, the house was gone; all I saw was a small wooden bungalow surrounded by ferns. It featured a green dome with a couple of windows, a wrap-around porch. God was gone. Daniel was gone. The only thing that remained was my garden and greenhouse. I got off the bench and went inside.

The bungalow had three rooms and a small bathroom. It was beautifully simple, the kind of house I’d dreamed of running away to when life – even Daniel – got to be too much. No TV, no computer; just books, a fireplace, a kitchen, and a bed. It was missing only one thing…that’s when I turned around and found her: Jet, my black Labrador from my childhood. She trotted up and put her nose into my hand. I went to the kitchen to put a kettle on for tea and stepped back outside to inspect the greenhouse.

It was empty of all plants except for the oak bonsai. Its perfection was no longer apparent – some of the wiring work I had done hadn’t taken and it stuck out in odd angles. Roots strained out of the water holes in the bottom, begging for pruning and repotting. I finally smiled at this imperfection and resolved to take care of it. After the tea. And after fetch with Jet.

My euphoria had lifted, but I was thankful for this. I felt a little like myself again. I was sad about losing Daniel, but not as if we’d broken up. It was kind of like putting down a bag of potato chips when you knew they were empty calories, no matter how good they tasted. My new resolve was to succeed alone. I smiled when I realized I’d taken the hard way. I decided to tell Grandma Melissa if I ever saw her again. The real her, of course.

Certainly, a small part of me still pined for Daniel, but that feeling had been ever-present since eighth grade, and was something I could ignore when I had to. I was good at it.

A solitary existence, complete with imperfections, might be hard at first, but at least it was honest.

CHAPTER FIVE

I grew to learn time means nothing in heaven. I still received newspapers on occasion, any time I ever wondered about earth or people I had loved. I did remember to check up on my parents, and actually mourned the relationship we’d never had. I’d never been the perfect girl they had wanted; I suppose their perfection seemed so false that I took it as hypocrisy, and ran fast and hard the other way.

It was clear from my checkups that they were spiraling downhill, the dual stress of losing me and Grandma Melissa driving them apart. You’d hope that such shock would have made them treasure each other more, but Mom had taken up scrapbooking on all her free time, and Dad seemed on a fast track to a heart attack. He’d put on at least thirty pounds and generally lived in filth, beer cans piling up around him in the den. Neither of them cleaned. I realized with sadness that I might be seeing him in heaven sooner rather than later.

I missed the handful of friends from the flower shop and the college friends who’d stayed in the area, but I knew I’d eventually see them all at one point or another. I honestly wished them long lives; I had eternity to wait, after all.

I didn’t receive reports that any other relatives had died, but I didn’t trust to ever see the real people if they died anyway; most of us weren’t that close. Solitude had never been something I had enjoyed while living, but I realized that back then I had been afraid of it. Being alone wasn’t so bad. Besides, it was better to make the active choice to be alone than to spend your whole afterlife afraid of it. I was never bored: I tended my garden, I played with Jet, and I read countless books and newspapers. My afterlife took on an air of silent contentment.

I didn’t know if Jet was real or not, but I figured she was. Dogs loved unconditionally, so it would make sense that she would want to be with me. Then again, I remembered that my Sunday school teacher from my youth said that dogs didn’t have souls. Who knew? I didn’t care, honestly, and didn’t want more horrible truths handed to me by the almighty God.

My repotted oak tree survived, although it never was the spitting image of perfection. I loved it for that reason alone - I often felt like it and Jet were the only genuine things around me. I kept it in the greenhouse, but pulled it out on occasion to get some fresh air and light – or, to be honest, to give me a dose of reality.

Loneliness wasn’t an issue. At least, I thought it wasn’t until one day there came a knock at the door.

I raced to get it, Jet barking up a storm behind me. Suddenly thrilled at the prospect of seeing another face, any face, I opened the door.

Daniel stood on my front porch, smiling ruefully. “Kate? Is it really you?”

#

I made him tea. He turned it down. This comforted me; the Daniel I knew had always hated tea.

“So, tell me about your heaven,” I said when we’d settled.

“When I first got to heaven there were, well, a lot of women waiting for me. I spent most of my time with them…at least at first.”

I snorted to hide my disappointment. “I didn’t know you were a Muslim.”

He glared at me. “It didn’t last the whole time. I fell for one of them, Miranda, and we were married. We opened up a soup kitchen downtown.”

“There’s a downtown in heaven? There are homeless in heaven?”

He nodded. “That’s when I realized there was something wrong. In paradise, there’s no one to help. Then heaven created some happy homeless people for me to help. It was hollow.

“Once I figured this out, I talked to Miranda to find out about her life on earth. She spun some story that didn’t really work out. It was pretty confusing; here was my dream girl, smart, funny, and sexy as hell, but I couldn’t get a handle on where she came from, you know? Who she really was. Then God showed up and we talked.”

I rubbed my arms. “Yeah, pretty much the same thing on my end.”

“Really? What was your heaven before this?”

I tried to form a lie and then felt self-conscious about committing a flagrant sin (but then again, he said he had been able to have lots of premarital sex in Heaven, so what did that mean?).

“Eh, it’s not something I’m ready to talk about yet,” I managed to say. “But I figured it out like you did, and then ended up here. Before you, the last person I saw was God.”

“Living alone is the last place I’d expect you to be,” he said.

I shrugged and didn’t meet his eyes. “It was better than the alternative. And it’s been fun. Or at least real.”

“Pretty fucked up, huh?” he said, frowning at his hands. Apparently swearing was cool in heaven, too.

“So what happened after you talked to God?”

“For one thing, I felt like my head was clear for the first time since getting here. And I wondered where you were. So I started walking, going mostly on instinct, till I finally landed here.”

I smiled. Tears threatened to overtake my resolve, so I got up to stoke the fire and hastily wipe my eyes.

“So now that you’re here, what now? Wanna be roommates? I’ve got a small house, but I’m sure adding a room won’t be a problem. This place is pretty easy to manipulate when you want something.”

He didn’t answer. When I looked up from the fireplace he was looking out my window at the road.

“Remember when we said we’d take a trip out west if we had enough money, during Spring Break?”

“Sure,” I said, feeling a blush rise to my cheeks. I had hoped and fantasized that it would be a trip full of epic, movie-worthy romance, all the while knowing, of course, that it would be like every moment with Daniel: fun, spontaneous, and devoid of anything deeper.

“Well, why don’t we do something like that now? I think we should explore.”

I cupped my mug and sat down on my sofa. “If everything here is fabricated, to make us happy, what’s the fun in exploring? Besides that, where would we go?”

He met my eyes. “I don’t mean in this heaven. When I talked to God, I asked Him why He was a bearded English-speaking white guy. Turns out, he’s black to the blacks and Italian to the Italians. When I asked him about whether the Christians were right and everyone else was in hell, he said that everyone had their own heaven. Or hell. I think we can get to those places. What do you think? Want to try?”

I blinked at him, feeling stupid for not having asked myself the same thing. “Uh, well, even if we could explore them, how would we get in? We might have been good enough to get into Christian heaven, but I’m pretty sure we don’t qualify as Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists, just to name a few.”

He opened his backpack and pulled something out a velvet ring box. My face flushed, but he looked more pleased with himself than he did a man in love, so I willed my hands not to shake as I took it. Inside was not a ring after all, but a necklace; a gold chain holding a diamond cross. It was heavy and gaudy, the diamonds sparkling brightly whenever they caught the light. I looked up at Daniel, trying to smile.

He snorted. “Don’t look at me that way. I know it’s awful, but look.” He pulled one out of his own shirt and held it to the light. “Jewish,” he said. The diamonds moved to form a Star of David. “Wiccan,” he said, and it became a five-pointed star. He went through a couple more religions, and the diamonds always formed their signature symbols.

“That’s great, Daniel, but what does it mean? I doubt it takes a necklace to get into heaven these days. I know I wasn’t wearing a cross.”

“It’s a passport, Kate! It marks us as travelers through the afterlife.”

I finally took mine out and peered at it. “How did you get this? Cracker Jack box? Happy Meal? God doesn’t just give them out, does He?”

Daniel stashed his necklace under his shirt. “He said He gives them only to travelers. Some people arrive here and are happy with paradise. They feel this is their reward for a life well lived. But some people aren’t done with their journey. They have more traveling to do. So He sends them on a kind of walkabout to wander the afterlives. Sometimes He has jobs for them to do, He said, but I don’t think that’s us.”

I stared at the pendant for a moment. I was happy here in heaven, in my solitary bungalow with my dog and my real plant. Daniel didn’t love me; that was obvious by the description of his heaven. But eventually he had sought me out. That meant something. It meant more than most of the things that had happened since my death.

I slipped the necklace over my head and inside my shirt. “So, how does one pack for a trip through the afterlife?” I asked.

In the end, we packed some books on world religions and history, the special fuzzy socks that I liked to wear at night, a notebook, and my teapot. When we were done, I looked around my little house. It was time to go. Jet wagged her tail by the door. “Jet wants to go, too.”

“I don’t see why not, unless she’s not real,” Daniel said.

“I think she is,” I said. “I guess we’ll find out.”

CHAPTER SIX

To my surprise, once we left the pearly (wrought iron) gates, the road was unlike the one I had walked on my way to heaven – or I suppose I should start calling it Christian heaven. The sky was a clear blue, not the grayish white blandness I remembered, and the road was a white asphalt with golden arrows pointing back toward heaven. We ignored them.

After walking that road for some time, we approached a massive roundabout with dozens of roads branching out from it like spokes, each stretching to the horizon. Each road was composed of a different material; one was made of packed dirt, another of small stones, and another of red clay. Wooden boards made up yet another, and another seemed to be made from woven reeds.

“Where do you want to go first?” I asked, turning in a circle. I tried to count the roads, but lost count after twenty or so.

“Dunno. Where do you want to go?” he asked, kicking a stone. It bounced across the road and into the center of the roundabout: a flawless bed of white sand. It rolled a couple of feet and came to rest at the edge of the circle.

I snorted. “This isn’t dateless Saturday night, Daniel. You honestly have no idea where you want to go?”

I stepped into the sand bed, which was surprisingly firm, and crossed to the stone. It lay in front of a road lined with cobblestones. “How about this one?”

He shrugged. “Works for me.”

I wondered how smart it was to wander blindly into an unknown heaven, but this was an adventure after all, so we headed forward with purpose. The white sky never changed, but after a while I began to wonder how long we had traveled. My feet felt fine, but mentally I began to drag. I nearly wept with relief when Daniel suggested we stop.

“Look, clearly there’s no night here, but I’m getting sick of this scenery,” he said, stamping down a circle in the tall grass beside the road. The road had become hilly; the drab landscape had gained grass, but not much else.

“Or lack thereof,” I said.

He pulled some granola bars from his backpack and passed me one. I tore into mine, but he held onto his. “So where do you think this one goes?”

“Dunno,” I said, my mouth full. I was suddenly ravenous, eyeing his unopened bar.

“Don’t you think we should be prepared?”

“Well, we’ve got this lovely white-guy bling that’s supposed to keep us safe, right?”

He shook his head. “First, don’t say ‘bling.’ You sound like a moron. Secondly, that’s the thing. I don’t think they’re supposed to keep us safe; they’re just our passport into the heaven. What happens after that is up to us.”

I swallowed. “So we’re just wandering around without map or any means of protecting ourselves?”

“Pretty much. But it’s not as if we could have gone down to the heaven Walmart and purchased guns before we left. I’m pretty sure there aren’t guns in heaven. Or Walmart, now that I think about it. And if there are Walmart guns, the waiting list has got to be a bitch.”

“We can’t be killed, can we? I mean, we already did that.”

“I don’t think so, but…” he reached out and pinched me. I slapped his hand away. “People can hurt us. Or lock us up.”

“You’re just a bucket of sunshine, aren’t you?” I tried to keep my tone light.

“Just thinking out loud. Wondering if we should stock up on, I dunno, afterlife mace or something.”

I laughed. “I’ll let you know if I find any, and then I’ll pick up two.”

He grinned at me. “So, do you think we can go to hell?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but would you really want to? I think hell is a lot like pirates.”

He stared at me with so much confusion that I laughed. “I mean that they’re both shown in movies and stuff as funny things. Pirates versus ninjas, pirates versus zombies. It’s all fun. But pirates were terrible people - murderers, rapists, thieves - and they probably smelled really bad. Hell is always a place with fire, but no one gets burned, and it’s full of tax collectors and demons that are easy to outwit. I don’t think hell is really a place we would want to visit. Especially if you’re right about this necklace not being able to keep us safe. Imprisoned in, say, the pagan heaven would be different than being imprisoned in hell. Just my guess.”

“I guess you’re right.”

We took some water from a canteen and passed it between us, pouring about half into a bowl for Jet. She lapped it up, spraying more water around than actually getting any in her mouth.

“So I never found out,” Daniel said. “What really made you go to the homeless shelter that night? Why does your grandma of all people think you’re a coward? I thought she was pretty cool.”

I wiped water from my lips. “Why do you ask?”

He looked down at the flattened grass and pulled at a stalk. It stood up, looking alone and out of place. “I’ve been feeling sort of guilty. If I hadn’t bullied you into going, you wouldn’t be dead.”

I lay back on my elbows and looked at the sky. “I just figured it was time to actually do something. I took the easy way out too often. That’s why Grandma called me a coward.”

He stared at me. “I’m sorry.”

“Why? I’m not.”

He looked at the lonely stalk of grass. “Are you ready to go?”

I nodded.

We stood up and started walking up the next hill. As soon as we crested it, the scenery finally changed. The tall grass remained, but a forest of dark trees dotted the horizon to our left, while fruit trees had appeared at the tops of the hills. Springs bubbled into stone fountains; some fresh water, some a bloody-looking liquid. A shallow clear stream cut through one of the hills and stretched to our right towards a glittering expanse that looked to be a sea.

But the best part was the people. Finally, we got a glimpse of someone else who wasn’t fabricated to populate our heaven. I looked at Daniel and grinned, convinced that this journey had been a good idea.

People milled around, dressed in togas and robes, sitting under trees, reading books, or napping. Ahead, the road bisected a grand market and ended at what looked like a coliseum.

“Where are we?” Daniel whispered.

Before I could answer, a voice spoke up from behind me, “Elysium.”

We hadn’t heard her approach us, but I gasped audibly when I saw the speaker. I am petite and thus always envied women with height and strength. The woman behind us stood six feet tall at least, with a slender but well-muscled frame. She grinned at us, a lock of red-gold hair falling into her face. She wore a short toga and a belt from which hung three golden apples.

When I was a little kid, I had loved reading about the Greek myths. One of my favorites had been a kid-friendly book that used the word “married” instead of “raped,” taking a lot of the horrific parts out of the stories and just making them about a lot of powerful gods running around and having fun. When I was a senior, I felt rather naive when I read the myths the way they were meant to be told, but I still loved the ones that were less personally violating and more heroic.

“Elysium, that’s Greek, right?” Daniel said, watching three laughing women dip goblets into a fountain of red wine.

“Elysium is where the heroes go after death,” the woman said. She gave our twenty-first-century clothes an appraising look. “Are you Travelers?”

We nodded and brought out our necklaces, which were now in the shape of lightning bolts.

“You’ll want to see the games, then. But first, try the market; it’s glorious. Enjoy, friends. I hope to see you again.” She shifted a bow strung across her back and dashed down the road.

“Wow,” Daniel said, swallowing hard. I suppressed my annoyance. What was I supposed to feel? Shit, if it were a choice between that warrior woman and myself, I know whom I would choose.

“Yeah. That was Atalanta, I think.”

“Who?”

“Hero. Abandoned because she wasn’t a boy, brought up by wolves, grew up to be a mighty huntress. Helped kill the Calydonian Boar and won nearly every footrace she ran in. The only one she lost was the one where her opponent kept throwing golden apples off the course so she’d run after them.”

“Huh. She must have wanted to lose,” he said.

“That’s one theory,” I answered. Atalanta’s red-gold braid bounced as she neared the market and she soon disappeared into the crowd.

“Sounds like you know a lot about this place,” Daniel said, handing me a white robe from his backpack.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked.

Daniel pulled out a second robe. “The backpack. I felt it get heavier when we got to the top of the hill.”

I slipped the robe over my head. “Nice! So, the Cliff Notes version of Elysium: most of the regular dead people go to the Underworld, ruled by Hades and Persephone, but the heroes come here. It’s their paradise.”

“So, like, we could run into Hercules?”

“Heracles,” I corrected. “Hercules was his Roman name.”

“Heracles. Sure. Any other faux pas I should watch out for?”

I snorted. “Yeah. Be very alarmed if someone wants to ‘marry’ you.”

#

The market roared with activity; well-dressed people buying live geese, squid, olive oil, jars of spices, butchered lamb, bottles of wine, and escorts of both sexes, to name a few. Merchants called out their wares, birds flapped their wings in a panic when men on horses rode by, and everyone wore a smile.

Daniel and I had pulled our necklaces to the outside of our robes to show everyone the symbol of Zeus. Merchants greeted us with loud voices, showing us jewelry, food, rugs and pets. I purchased a length of silk to tie around Jet’s neck just in case she ran off; I think I horrified the merchant, but he knew better than to speak up. In his eyes I was a wealthy dead hero – who was he to tell me what I should do with his fine silk?

The mysterious backpacks we carried seemed to have everything we needed, including money pouches.

“God told me that there is little use for money in any heaven, but people enjoy exchanges, so it’s limitless,” Daniel said.

The merchants seemed grateful for the gold and silver coins, and Daniel and I had fun shopping. I put some bottles of wine in the backpack and Jet cheerfully carried the large lamb bone I purchased for her. Daniel munched on a spiced sausage speared on a skewer. I had always wanted to travel, and this was better than any place I could have dreamed of visiting.

Although the merchants’ stalls still buzzed with activity, traffic moved always down the street toward the coliseum. Daniel stopped a young boy with impossibly golden curls and blue eyes.

“Excuse me, when do the games start?”

The boy stared at him for a moment, then his eyes dropped to the necklace. He nodded once and said, “One hour, but you should go get a seat now. They only happen once every seven years.”

“Wow, we’re in luck,” Daniel said to me.

The boy scampered off before Daniel could ask anything else. The crowd had begun to drift toward the coliseum, so we followed the other merrymakers, many of them drunk, into the gargantuan stone building. I shivered as we entered the marble staircase and thought of my grandfather’s tomb in a marble mausoleum, complete with dank air and UV bug zapper. People seemed to be sitting where they liked, so we scouted a spot on some velvet-covered stone benches at the front.

I tried to see where people would be entering the sandy field to compete, but just as I was looking around, a lightning bolt cracked down and hit the center of the field, blinding me. Daniel and I were the only ones to flinch and cover our ears as a response to the flash and thunder; everyone else applauded. When my eyes had re-adjusted to the light of the day, I grabbed Daniel’s arm and pointed.

The massive gods – they could have been no one else – sat upon thrones of gold across the coliseum from us, looking down at the field and around at the audience.

“Jesus, even I know who those people are,” Daniel whispered. We applauded along with the rest. Zeus and Hera occupied the center two thrones, Zeus openly grinning through his beard and Hera’s cold eyes searching the stands. Dragging my eyes from the king and queen of the gods, I searched for my favorite heroes of my childhood.

Athena was not dressed in her warrior’s garb, but I knew immediately it was her; she whispered to an owl that sat on her shoulders, and her face was serene and intelligent.

Artemis, Hermes, and Hephaestus were all there, Hermes grinning wryly at something the bulky, heavy lidded Ares was saying, and Hephaestus glaring at the same. Artemis sat beside her twin, Apollo, both of them wearing bows strung across their backs. All of the others were there as well: Poseidon with his trident, Demeter, Dionysus, and Aphrodite, whose beauty tended to drag my eyes to her, even though she was not my favorite by a long shot.

I pointed out who was who to Daniel, who seemed to only want to know about Aphrodite. I tried to tell him that anyone who tried to sleep with her would piss off not only her husband, Hephaestus, but her lover, Ares, the god of war. He shrugged off my concern and said there was no crime against looking. I thought of the myth about the poor bastard who accidentally stumbled across Artemis bathing in the woods and was turned into a stag for his transgression, which really was only that of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. He had been torn apart by his own hounds. I gulped.

Not that the gods weren’t distracting me from my concern (all right, it was jealousy) over Daniel’s divinely-inspired crush. Throughout my childhood I’d always loved Hermes, the runt, the manipulator, who had tricked Apollo out of an entire herd of cattle when he was only a day old. The god’s dark curls fell into his eyes as he looked my way and I felt my insides clench and my face get hot. Oh, great.

No one announced anything, but a trumpet sounded and doors opened at either end of the coliseum. From one end, two tigers ran onto the sand, snarling with their ears back. They bled from wounds on their backs; someone had wanted them quite angry upon entering the arena.

From the other entrance came a man and woman, confident and proud. He carried a sword; she, a bow and spear.

“Hey, it’s Atlanta!” yelled Daniel amidst the cheers.

“Atalanta,” I corrected. I looked at the grand cats and then at the warriors and bile clogged my throat. I don’t like blood. I cursed myself; what the hell had I been expecting, a chess game? But still, this was amazing.

A goddess, Artemis, stood up from the dais. She raised her hand and the crowd fell silent. I could not believe I was sitting here watching Greek gods and heroes. The afterlife was so cool.

“Welcome, friends. Our traditional seven-year games begin with a traditional hunt. Our heroes are Heracles…” The crowd screamed its approval. “…and Atalanta.” More cheers as the woman waved to her supporters.

I tore my eyes from the glorious woman to the man. Impossibly muscled, Heracles wore nothing but his lion skin cape. Dark streaks covered his body, and I realized it was centaur blood. Heracles had smeared the blood of his wife’s kidnapper on himself, thinking it would make him stronger, but instead it caused him such pain that it nearly killed him. Zeus had brought him bodily to Elysium to end his suffering.

Daniel whistled at Heracles’s nakedness. “Dude, one of the first things I would do if I were facing tigers is protect my junk.” I laughed. “Hey, you know how cats like to play with dangly things!”

Atalanta hadn’t been as bold (or as stupid). Fully clothed in a leather breastplate which covered her toga, she hefted her spear, testing its weight and firming her grip. She bowed to her goddess, Artemis, who remained unsmiling. Heracles also bowed.

“The first to bring a tiger down is the winner. If one manages to bring them both down, then he or she will be crowned champion.” The crowd roared again and the heroes moved forward. The hunt was on.

“Isn’t this like shooting fish in a barrel?” Daniel asked. “I mean, two legendary heroes and two cats in an enclosed space without trees? Oh. Wait.”

Heracles had had the same thought as Daniel and was taking the direct route. He charged the tigers, roaring louder than his prey. As he raised his sword, the tiger suddenly winked out of sight and reappeared, looking slightly alarmed, in the middle of the arena.

Heracles was no fool. He looked up at the gods balefully. Athena hid a smile in her owl’s feathers. Ares scowled at her.

Atalanta watched all of this carefully. As she lifted her spear and heaved it across the sand, I gasped at her strength. Before the spear reached her target, however, this tiger also disappeared and reappeared in the middle. She nodded slowly and unstrung her bow. She didn’t look up at the gods, but I did, and caught Ares grinning triumphantly at Athena, who rolled her eyes.

Heracles dashed to the other end of the arena, swiping at one disappearing tiger and then the other. “Not too bright, is he?” I said. Daniel laughed. The tigers ended up at the original end of the area again, where Atalanta had been aiming. She immediately let fly her arrows-two from the bow at once!-and skewered both before Ares could interfere. Both tigers fell, arrows through their right eyes, and Atalanta grinned in triumph.

The crowd screamed their approval and the gods clapped politely, for the most part. Ares snarled and Hermes looked bored, his blue eyes skimming the crowd, seeming to rest on Daniel and me, and then moving on.

Atalanta waved at the crowd, blowing kisses and walking the perimeter of the arena. As she passed us, I cheered and clapped till my hands hurt.

She was focusing on the crowd and therefore didn’t see Heracles’s rage as he simmered, red-faced, in the center of the arena. I thought he must be screaming, but the noise of the crowd drowned everything out. The failed hero set off toward Atalanta with his sword raised. She didn’t turn; she was busy still waving at her admirers.

“Atalanta!” I screamed, but I could barely hear myself - there was no way she was going to hear me. The crowd’s tone had changed, but they still screamed and Atalanta didn’t notice the change. The gods watched with detached interest.

I looked around. Wasn’t anyone going to do something?

There are times in your life where shock paralyzes you. When you look up and see the softball coming toward your face and you know you can either put out your glove and catch it or move out of the way and let it whoosh past; but you don’t. You just let it smack you in the face.

There are other times in your life where shock moves you as if you were controlled by an outside remote; you move, act, and speak without thinking. When it’s all over with, you wonder how the hell you did it.

Shock is the easy way out. Waiting for someone else to act was the easy way out. Daniel and I stood together; he had a determined look on his face that I’ll never forget. Then we vaulted over the railing to drop the eight-or-so feet into the arena’s sand and took off for Atalanta ourselves, shouting her name, with one of the greatest heroes of legend bearing down on us.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The funny thing is that as we ran, Heracles covering about three yards for every one of ours, I found myself praying. I wasn’t sure to whom, as we were already surrounded by gods. Would they listen?

Please, I thought. Nothing else; just, please.. I forgot that I was here because of direct intercession from God, or that deities surrounded me. I just hoped, because I sure as hell didn’t have a plan. It looked as if Daniel and I would soon find out whether we could die in heaven or not.

Heracles, luckily, had much more ground to cover than we did. Only seconds had passed since Daniel and I had decided to turn into heroes. The crowd continued to scream, and the gods watched us impassively. I saw Hermes reach out to Athena, but had to return my focus to the issue at hand. Atalanta took notice of us at last, frowning, and I pointed behind her.

She turned; Daniel reached her right before I did and stepped in front of her. Heracles was only ten feet away, now pounding down upon them. Atalanta’s spear was still stuck in the sand at the other end of the arena and she had just strung her bow across her shoulder. We had nothing to attack or defend ourselves with.

So my thoughts went for the next best thing: dirty tricks.

I dove in front of Daniel and rolled, my momentum taking me toward Heracles’s feet, straight on. His foot caught my belly and he tripped, and the air left my lungs in a great whoosh. A rib cracked and I curled up on my side, not focused on anything except the attempt to coax air back in. Heracles’s fall caused a great wave of sand to spray over me, blinding me. Deafened as well by the crowd, I had no idea what was going on.

My diaphragm finally stopped spasming and I breathed deeply, wiped my eyes, and sat up. Expecting to see Atalanta’s and Daniel’s bodies soaking the sand with their blood, I braced myself, but what was before me made me gasp. Heracles was still prone on the sand with the goddess Athena standing with one sandaled foot on his sword wrist. Atalanta held Athena’s mighty shield - acquired how and when I didn’t know – in front of her and Daniel. Hermes stood beside his sister and bound Heracles’s feet with a wave of his hand. The crowd finally stopped cheering, and a confused silence surrounded us.

Ares appeared next to his kin. “You had no right to interfere!” he barked at Athena. His voice surprised me; it was small and high and reminded me of Mike Tyson.

“He had lost, Ares,” Athena said. “And he was unsportsmanlike. That is not the spirit of the games.”

“The rules are no interference!” he said.

“More rules than that were broken,” she snapped.

Artemis appeared and everyone appealed to her. Obviously the sponsor of these games, she turned and made a gesture to her father, Zeus. He raised his arm and my world filled with light. I must have passed out before the thunderclap came.

#

Cold seeped through my clothes, and as Daniel shook me gently awake, I realized we were on a marble floor somewhere damp. Loud voices argued from the next room. I shivered.

“What happened?”

“It sounds like the gods are arguing about the winner. They’re trying to figure out if Athena and Hermes interfered and made the match forfeit.”

“Kinda like when the marching band goes on the field before the football game is over?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“Something like that, yeah.”

“So have they figured out why the gods interfered? I figured Athena helped us out because she’s all about fair play, but why was Hermes there? He’s the opposite, you’d think he’d like dirty tricks. That’s his thing.”

“You’re the expert. I just know suddenly they were there handing over that shield and Atalanta used to it to keep that linebacker-gone-mad from hamstringing us. Quick thinking, though, in tripping him. I didn’t have a plan.”

I sat up straighter and gasped as my rib let me know it wasn’t very happy. I pressed on it with my hand. “I didn’t have much of one either. Man, they’re really yelling. I guess it’s a big deal. So they don’t care that he was trying to kill her?”

Daniel helped me to my feet. “They’re more concerned with whether it was unsportsmanlike instead of deadly. I’m still not sure if you can die here. Hey, are you okay?”

I panted shallowly, not wanting to expand my chest. “I think Heracles cracked my rib. Maybe broke it. I’m not sure.”

“Oh man. I guess we can be hurt, then.”

“No shit,” I said. I brushed the sand off me. Clouds floated by the open windows of the sparse marble hallway, and I looked out. “Shit, Daniel. Where’s the ground?”

“I think we’re in Olympus. Isn’t that at the top of a mountain or something?”

I nodded, remembering. The shouting gods got louder. “Let’s see what all the fuss is. But remember, they’re gods. Do that, ‘don’t speak till spoken to’ thing, because they’re good at tricking humans. Especially Aphrodite.”

“Is that the hot one?”

I groaned. “Just come on.”

We peeked around the open door. Most of the gods sat on their grand thrones made of gold and silver, Zeus and Hera in the center. Athena and Hermes stood before the thrones by Atalanta on the left, with Ares and Aphrodite on the right with Heracles. Both heroes stood proudly, although disarmed.

Artemis stood. “The match was over. I rule his actions were reprehensible and illegal, and therefore my siblings did not interfere.”

Aphrodite pouted, her breasts straining at the thin material barely containing them. Long strands of blonde hair curled gently over her chest, one lock delicately circling the distinct rosy impression of a nipple. I poked Daniel to keep him from staring. “Father, how can you let Artemis take the responsibility of the games if she is going to rule poorly?”

A god with a great beard tangled with seaweed stood from his seat on Zeus’s left. I guessed it was Poseidon, god of the sea. “Your father determined she was the games sponsor. Do you doubt his judgment?” He walked slowly, with purpose, to stand by Atalanta.

Zeus watched him. His voice, unlike Ares’s, was exactly as I expected it to be: deep, powerful, and commanding. “Is that how it will be, my sisters and brothers? Sons and daughters? Shall we choose sides?”

Dionysus stood. I guessed it was the god of wine because he wavered and blinked drunkenly like my uncle Casey at Christmas. “The party is never over when you think it will be,” he said, and joined Heracles.

“What does that even mean?” Daniel whispered to me. I shushed him.

Apollo joined Atalanta, siding with Artemis, his twin. Hephaestus limped, frowning bitterly, to stand by Aphrodite, despite the fact that his wife had eyes only for Ares. Demeter, eyes downcast and mumbling something about what was fair, joined Heracles. Artemis, having already stated her case, joined Atalanta.

Zeus and Hera remained. When the king of the gods focused on me, I felt it: something electrical. “What of the two humans? What is their role?”

We walked forward, unbidden but utterly sure that we were expected to. Daniel spoke first.

“We saw Heracles attack Atalanta after the match was over. She couldn’t hear it when we yelled to look out, so we went to, uh, help.”

“And you thought you could do what?” Hera asked, her cold eyes on me.

“I – I’m not sure. Warn her, I guess.”

“But you didn’t. You interfered well before any god did.”

“There’s nothing in the rules about that,” Artemis said. “We just never expected someone to jump into an arena with tigers and heroes.” She looked at us as if we were annoying bugs she’d found in her pillow.

“They are the true criminals here!” Ares shouted. “Only with their sacrifice will I be satisfied.”

Hermes reached out and took my arm, pulling me close. He reached at my neck and pulled at the chain, his fingers stroking my collarbone. My breath quickened at the look in his merry eyes. He was a god.

Hermes held up the symbol on my necklace to Zeus. “They are Travelers, Father, and under my protection.”

I wanted to smack my forehead. Hermes was the god of travel; of course he would have an interest in us.

“I demand their sacrifice!” Ares shouted again. Sure, he was the god of war, but I still wondered what Aphrodite saw in him.

“No,” Hermes said, his arm still on mine. I was dizzy with his scent. Daniel shot me a curious look.

Ares put his hand on the great sword at his side. “Are you going to stop me, little brother?”

Hermes just grinned.

“He can’t, but I can,” Athena interrupted, her hand on her own sword. Poseidon stepped up, gripping his great trident, and the tension in the room rose dramatically. Hephaestus, with a furtive glance at his wife, stepped forward holding his blacksmith’s hammer. Not much of a weapon, really, but I didn’t want to feel it embedded in my skull.

“Now, wait a minute,” Daniel said, but Zeus interrupted him.

“I do not want my children fighting,” he said, the sorrow in his voice not very convincing. His voice had an edge to it, and although my proximity to Hermes was distracting me, I still felt adrenaline rush to my limbs when he spoke, my body telling me to run far, far away.

The gods began arguing loudly, and even Heracles and Atalanta, the legends, shrank back at the heat that rose in the throne room. Hermes pulled me back and I grabbed Daniel to go with us, out of the tense crowd of gods, now hurling insults with Athena and her sword between Ares and us. Once we were free of the other divine eyes, we…weren’t there anymore.

The antechamber in Olympus went back, and then the whole of Elysium appeared, seen from the crest of the hill. I felt dizzy with the sudden change and leaned briefly against Hermes.

“Whoa,” Daniel said, staggering.

Hermes let go of me and stepped back, appraising me. He then looked up into the sky where Olympus hung in the clouds over Elysium. Lightning cracked, and the clouds gathered, getting blacker.

“It looks like you Travelers have actually succeeded in splitting Olympus,” he said, sounding more impressed than angry.

“Wait, what?” I asked, rubbing my eyes and trying to will away the dizziness. “The gods have fought in the past, haven’t they?”

“Yes, but never have we split equally. If Zeus chooses one side and Hera the other, then that will start a war.”

“But that’s stupid!” Daniel said. “It was just one dirty trick during a game! Worse things have happened in history! Shit, athletes back home broke the rules all the time!”

“And were the games sacred there?” Hermes said, glaring at us.

I paused. Important, yes. Lots of attention, sure. Sacred?

“Not much is truly sacred where you come from, is it?” Hermes reached out and rubbed my shoulder. My throat closed and all I could do is shake my head.

“Um, Kate?” Daniel’s eyes were fastened on the clouds. The sky was black, and as we watched, a lightning bolt snaked down and split Olympus in two. The great marble hall floated apart above us. “Oh man. That can’t be good.”

Hermes followed his gaze. “Zeus and Hera have disagreed, making the sides even. I was right. You two are the heralds for the end times.”

“No way! We’re just Travelers,” I protested.

“And it is prophesied that Travelers would enter Elysium to be the catalyst to the final battle.”

The rain cut off any argument we could have made – the deluge came sudden and cold. Elysium’s denizens ran, screaming, looking for shelter. Of course, there was none. It was Heaven – what need did they have for shelter from bad weather?

Daniel frowned. “Is there anything we can do?”

Hermes shook his head, his blue eyes still on me.

Daniel put his hand on my arm. “Kate, we need to head out of here before things get really bad. Come on.” I could barely hear him over the thunder.

Hermes held my other arm. “Please wait. Allow me an hour of your time,” he whispered into my ear. “After one hour, I will return you unharmed to your friend. I swear on the River Styx.”

I blinked, and my knees nearly buckled.

Normally, I wouldn’t go off with a strange guy. That’s what I told myself, anyway. But swearing on that river was sacred, and it was the most holy oath a god could make.

“Go on. I’ll catch up,” I told Daniel. His jaw dropped and I managed a smile. “I promise. I’ll be okay; Hermes will make sure I find you.”

I didn’t see the look on his face as we left, but I imagined he was pissed. The world blurred for a moment and the next thing I knew, Hermes held me in a cave, safe from the storm.

“Where—”I managed to say, my head reeling.

“This is the cave where I was born. We are safe here. I still come here for privacy on occasion.”

“But there’s a war out there. Aren’t you supposed to be—”

“It can wait. You are a Traveler, you are one of mine.” He smiled at me and stroked my unruly hair out of my face. I was suddenly aware that I had to have been filthy: covered in sand and wide-eyed from all the adrenaline rushes the day had served me.

He bent his head toward mine but before he could touch my lips, I jerked back out of instinct. Part of my mind was screaming that I was crazy, flinching back from an unbelievably sexy guy, but I had had an intense day and I wasn’t sure I could take much more.

The sudden pain in my injured rib silenced my inner argument. I gasped, my hands moving automatically to the spot.

Hermes frowned. “You’re hurt?”

“Heracles gives quite a kick,” I mumbled, holding my side and grimacing.

His hands went to mine and gently pried them away. He lifted my robe, unperturbed at the very non-Greek jeans-and-T-shirt combo underneath, and told me to hold it up for him. I did so, hands shaking a bit. Then he carefully lifted my shirt to just below my breast.

“Is this the injured rib?” he asked, his finger delicately running along my side. A deep, healing warmth flowed through me, and I couldn’t tell if he’d healed me or just removed the pain. I nodded, testing the rib with a deep breath. The bruising had radiated from the rib, however, and other ribs complained as my chest expanded. I winced.

“Ah, not all better yet,” he said, and began tracing my ribs from the bottom up, leaving hot trails in his wake. He stopped right below my breast and hesitated.

“Do you know why I brought you here?”

“No,” I said honestly. My voice shook.

“There is a light inside you. A power. You are a Traveler, but not like I have seen before. You shine like a pyre.”

“Me? Why?” My conversation had to be utterly enthralling. But I did have the distraction of his fingertips moving beyond a healing capacity and into a realm I’d experienced before-I was no virgin-but never, ever on the level this god offered….

“I can’t tell you why. I can only tell you that it is.” He leaned in and touched his lips gently to my ribs, and I jumped; this time from being startled.

He held me to him firmly as his mouth explored my ribs and stomach, with me holding my robe up stupidly, quivering.

He finally stood up and looked at me. “Now do you know why I brought you here?”

“I think so,” I whispered.

“Are you injured anywhere else?”

I shook my head.

“Good,” he said, and kissed me gently. He held me up when my knees finally gave way, threading his hands through my tangled hair and kissing me harder.

My robe was gone. I wasn’t sure where. My shirt and jeans followed it. His hands were insistent; they roamed over my back, lingering at my breasts, my face, my thighs. A part of me wondered what would happen if I protested. The rest of me laughed at that part; no one would protest this intoxicating pleasure.

He lay me down on a blanket and removed his own tunic. He knelt beside me, his fingertips lazily teasing my nipples. I reached out and traced the contours of his sleek body, his tight muscles.

My fingers stroked along one area that made him moan, and he grew hard under my hand.

He slid a finger inside me and I arched my back. “Not a virgin, then,” he said.

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

He moved between my legs. “On the contrary. I like a woman who knows pleasure. It also gives me a challenge.” He lowered his head to lick once, quickly, like a cat. I gasped. He smiled once more at me, and dove in to feast.

The next hour was a blur. I know I came quickly, first from his mouth, and then he slowed and began a more leisurely exploration of my body. We tried several positions, each one better than the last, each time blowing my mind, making me drunk on pleasure.

At some point I think he changed his shape. Or maybe mine. Or both. I wasn’t sure.

When he came, from behind me, he bit deeply into my shoulder, breaking my skin and marking me, the sudden sharp pain driving me over the edge again, leaving me sobbing and breathless.

#

I figured the cave would be chilly, after. But the proximity to Hermes made me warm. I lay on my stomach beside him, suddenly shy as he stroked his fingertips down my back.

“Why me?” I asked again.

“You honestly don’t know?” His blue eyes twinkled under his black curls.

“Obviously not.”

“Then I suppose it’s something you should find out on your own, Kate. You have a long journey ahead of you. The answer will come to you.”

I made a face, and he ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “I wish we had more time, my little Traveler. But it was a true pleasure to taste you on the cusp of everything.”

I was about to ask, “The cusp?” but he kissed me again, and suddenly it didn’t seem so important.

He deposited me at approximately the same area we had left, but Daniel was nowhere to be seen.

“You will find your friend down the road. He is walking slowly.” Hermes pointed. “I would take you to him myself, but he has left Elysium and it would take me too long to get there. And, well…” he shrugged and pointed toward the sky where the storm continued to rage.

Armies of heroes, gods, and strange monsters gathered in the sky. The gods were split: six on one side and five on the other, with hundreds of backup deities. “What’s going to happen?” I asked. “Is this really our fault?”

“Consider yourself a catalyst to something that was… inevitable,” he whispered, and bit my earlobe. I shivered.

“I must go. But you are marked as a Traveler, and I will be watching you. Your friend, too-though he’s not as much fun to watch, truth be told.”

I laughed. He bent and kissed me and I savored his taste. Then he was gone in a flash of light.

My mind finally cleared and I swore silently to myself. I hit the road at a jog through the rain to catch Daniel and escape the battle that brewed. I didn’t look back.

#

Daniel waited for me at the roundabout, sitting in the sand, glaring at me.

“What?” I said, trying to sound innocent.

“‘What?’ What do you think?” His voice became a bad high-pitched imitation of mine. “‘Watch out for Aphrodite, Daniel, she’ll seduce you and piss the other gods off; quit looking at Atalanta, Daniel...’ I turn my back for one second and you’re going off with the first god that makes eyes at you! How mad would you have been if I’d gone off to sleep with one of the goddesses?”

I thought about it. I would have been utterly crushed, of course, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “I would have been pissed, true. But tell me this. If a goddess had presented herself to you, what would you have done? Honestly?”

He glared at me more, and I saw a smile twitch on his face. Finally he broke the tension by laughing. “All right. I would have gone for it. You got me.”

“You’re just mad because I got some divine tail and you didn’t.”

He shook his head at the ground and smiled, then stood and brushed the sand off his jeans. “So, it seems we’ve started a divine war in one heaven. Where to next?”

“Probably somewhere where we don’t get into as much trouble,” I said.

“Would you have done anything different, Kate? I mean, you got lucky with a god. When was the last time you had any, anyway?”

I looked at him and remembered having sex with his doppelganger in Heaven, but couldn’t really remember what it was like. “I don’t remember,” I answered semi-truthfully.

“Then look at it this way,” he said, slinging a companionable arm around my shoulders. “You’re like that Helen chick – you got some and then a war started. And the best part? You got to leave without anyone laying claim to you.”

I had nothing else to do but laugh. Without much consideration, we picked a road and set off toward another heaven.

#

“I can’t believe we really caused all that.” Daniel said after we’d wandered for some time.

I was still thinking of Hermes and worrying if I could get pregnant even though I was dead. I hadn’t had my period since dying, and the time spent with the faux-Daniel seemed to indicate not, so I didn’t think so, but the fear of pregnancy was a companion worry with sex. “Caused what?”

“That big war. Hermes called it the end days, the final battle. I just thought we were helping out someone who was about to be unfairly filleted.”

I shrugged. “Hermes told me we were a catalyst to the inevitable. If we hadn’t done it, someone else would have.”

“That’s not too heartening,” Daniel said.

I thought about it. “I guess the thought of a bunch of gods that no one cares about anymore and a bunch of dead heroes having a final battle wouldn’t have much impact anywhere else.”

“And yet you were quite eager to help out one of those dead heroes.”

“Well, if you’re worried, what can we do about it?”

“I don’t know. What do you say when you start an avalanche? ‘Sorry!’”

I snickered. “Good point. Well, let’s try not to do it again; will that make you feel better?”

He shrugged and squinted ahead. “I’m beat. Let’s take a rest. You might want to call Jet back.”

Jet, who’d apparently pranced around Elysium while Daniel and I had had our adventures, had been leading the way into this heaven, sometimes running far ahead, then bounding back and barking at us, then running ahead again.

“Well, we could rest for the night. If there were a night here,” I said, looking at the gray sky.

“We got sleeping bags in these backpacks?” Daniel asked, pulling his off his back. I followed suit; mine held a poufy sleeping bag with Hello Kitty on it – Daniel snorted when he saw it – and a soft doggy bed. Jet ran back to us and immediately climbed onto her bed, turned round three times and lay down, staring at me. I scratched her behind her ears, and then she put her head on her paws and continued to watch me.

Although the sky was still a uniform gray, I was exhausted. I shook off Daniel’s offer of food and crawled inside my sleeping bag and drifted off.

What does one dream about in heaven? I honestly didn’t remember a lot of my dreams; when I was in the Christian heaven I usually woke up feeling blissful, but now that I was out on the road, I would awaken feeling disoriented, with an odd sense of foreboding. I’d woken up like this a lot when I was in high school, and after about sixteen I’d finally convinced myself that I was not psychic, just a weird dreamer.

This time, I’d dreamed of Hermes, naturally; only it wasn’t a sexual dream. He stood in the roundabout at the center of all the Heavens, frowning at me. His hair obscured his eyes and blood ran from a cut on his left cheek. He opened his mouth to speak, but I only heard the boom of thunder.

I woke up with a start, the damnable sky refusing to tell me how much time had passed. I rubbed my face and sighed, feeling worse than when I’d gone to sleep.

Lovely dream. I pulled a canteen out of my backpack and drank deeply. Jet and Daniel still slept, Jet’s paws twitching and her lips occasionally pulling back. She yipped quietly and I smiled, remembering the chasing dreams she’d had when we were alive. I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, that was for sure, so I got out of my sleeping bag and put on my shoes.

It took only twenty paces further into this Heaven before I noticed that the fields had a distinct grassy smell, as if the grass had just been cut. I inhaled deeply, catching a scent of something small, something twitchy, something delicious.

I nearly dropped to my knees to find the source of the scent before I realized what was going on. I opened my eyes, unaware that I’d closed them.

The whole world was gray; not just the sky. Gray and drab, almost not worth keeping my eyes open. I laughed out loud, and caught sight of something on a hill in front of me. The sight told me very little, but the smell on the air told me everything.

I ran back to camp and shook Daniel awake. Jet raised her head from her bed and stared at me, thumping her tail on the ground.

“What the hell did you wake me up for? Claudia was just about to—” he protested, and I forced myself not to look at his sleeping bag for any tale-tell signs of, well, Claudia’s influence.

“I know where we are. I know what heaven we’re in!” I said. I went to my things and started stuffing them into my backpack.

“Well, is it dangerous?” he asked, dropped his head back onto his sleeping bag.

“Nope.”

“Then it can wait.” He rolled over.

I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back toward me. “No, it can’t. It’s too cool.”

“Tell me, then, and I’ll decide whether to kick your ass.”

“Dog Heaven.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

It didn’t take much more to get Daniel out of his sleeping bag. Jet was already trotting ahead of us, completely at ease in an alien world.

“This is so not right,” Daniel mumbled.

“Why? It’s cool!” I said, trying to identify the dozen scents on the air. Each had a different signature, like a different color.

“Oh, it’s cool, all right. But I have this incredible desire to sniff your ass.”

I blushed, glad for the black and white world. I stuck out my hand and grabbed his, shaking it. “You already know me. You don’t need to confirm it with my scent. I’m Kate, and have no desire to have your nose in my butt.”

He laughed, but after I let him go he sidled a couple of steps away from me.

My blush intensified when I realized that I very likely smelled as if I’d just had sex, which I had. Where does one find a shower in Heaven?

The field stretched before us, much like Elysium had, but without the fountains and fruit trees. It looked like an unchanging landscape, but my nose told me otherwise. Dogs of all shapes-mutts, Great Danes, shi tzus, poodles and, of course, Labrador retrievers-bounded in the fields, barking loudly, sniffing and rolling. Jet dashed forward, pulling the silk from my hands. I let her go, watching the handmade leash wave back at me.

After a thought, I bounded after her. She was investigating everything, and I wanted to be with her since I could finally see out of her eyes. Or nose.

One area of the field was covered in foul scents-rotten meat, old fish, dog feces-that somehow, now, seemed oddly appealing. I followed Jet to this area and found carcasses in the grass. I managed to pull myself up, remembering my Homo sapiens status, and watched wistfully as she grabbed a decaying possum in her jaws, shook it hard, and tossed it into the air. She watched it land, and then dropped and rolled on it.

The desire to join her was overwhelming, so I decided to investigate the other areas instead. Dogs were everywhere, some pulling at a fresh cow carcass, which looked less disgusting and more delectable every minute. Others ran after balls that flew from unseen hands. Some simply dozed in the sun. I spied my first human sitting on the side of a sloping hill, rubbing a sheepdog’s belly, and ran to greet her.

“I didn’t think there would be other humans here,” I said as a greeting, fighting the urge to sniff her nether regions.

She grinned up at me, flipping her dark braid off her shoulder and shaking my hand. “Of course. Who else would give the belly rubs?” More humans waved to me at that point, each with one hand in the air and one on a dog’s belly.

“How do you get on here with just dogs?”

“It’s wonderful,” she said, her eyes misty. “All the dogs I ever had are here, and I’m able to make up the times that I didn’t walk, feed, or play with them. I have their senses now. I can finally see the world as they did.”

I wondered if this woman was serving out some kind of penance. I leaned forward to sniff the air around her and found nothing but sincerity. She was happy here.

“What brings you here? Your dog?” she asked.

I waved my hand in the direction of the area I’d begun to think of as Carcass Central. “She’s over there. She came to us in the Christian heaven and we’ve been wandering around as Travelers since.” I pulled the chain out of my shirt to reveal a running dog.

“’We’?” she asked.

“My friend Daniel. He’s, well, I don’t know where he is, but he’s here somewhere.”

She wrinkled her nose. “If he’s not all over you, then he’s doing his best to stay far away. You smell as if you’re in heat.”

I straightened from the belly I was rubbing, and another human ran in to take my place. “That’s really rude. Do you always address people you meet like that?”

Some sort of hormone began flowing in the woman, wafting off her: adrenaline. “Society’s rules are different here. You’ll have to get used to it. Your secrets come out of your pores; you can’t hide much.

“And if you think it was a good idea to leave an intact male alone in a dog Heaven, you’re stupider than you look,” she added.

If I backed down at this point, I’d give this woman Alpha status over me. But then, I had Daniel to consider.

“‘Intact male?’” I asked.

“Not fixed. Still in complete ownership of his testicles. Able to reproduce. Very attractive to bitches.” Her lip curled as she said it, the implied insult obvious.

I gasped, no longer caring about the alpha dominance games. “Where are the bitches in heat?” I asked.

Smiling in her superiority, the woman pointed to the top of the hill, where I saw a lone figure standing.

“Daniel!” I yelled, breaking into a run. The figure dropped to his knees, and I pushed myself to run faster. A small, sarcastic voice in the back of my head said that if I saw him doing what I feared he would be doing, I would pretty much lose my unrequited love for him forever.

When I reached him, he was clothed, on his knees, his hands covering his face. Bitches surrounded him, sniffing at his underarms, crotch, and neck. They licked whatever skin they could find. He sobbed into his hands, too weak to remove himself from the situation, but strong enough to resist the next step.

I shooed them away (gently, it was Dog Heaven after all) as best I could and pulled him to his feet. He peered at me through his fingers and said, “Get me out of here. Please.”

I dragged him away from the bitches, who whined and barked. But they were soon distracted by males, of which there seemed to be an unending number. One male came sniffing towards me and I bared my teeth and growled at him; he turned to find another female.

“I have to get out of here. I can’t stand it.” Daniel practically sobbed, leaning on my shoulder. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

“I can guess,” I said, pulling him faster. The scents were overwhelming now, mostly of Daniel: fear and desire and despair.

I dragged him past the sunny fields of dead carcasses and self-throwing balls to what looked like the edge of heaven, with color gently bleeding back into the gray, then deposited him into the grass. “Is this far enough away?”

He nodded, watching me with red-rimmed eyes. “Are you going back?” I’d never heard such petulance in his voice, such need.

“Only to get Jet, and I’ll be right back.”

Jet wasn’t in the Carcass Central, nor was she in the Belly Rub Bordello. I knew she wouldn’t be on the Hill of Love, since I’d had her fixed. A particularly gruesome section of the field crawled with squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks which the dogs raced after, always catching their prey and destroying it with a neat shake of the head… but Jet wasn’t there either.

I finally found her in the sunny area, lying in a patch of sunlight perfectly round, like a spotlight. I put my hand gently on her head and said, “Girl, it’s time to go.”

She raised her head and thumped her tail once. She whined low in her throat, and I caught her emotions on the air. Sadness. Desire to stay. And love. Overwhelming love. We think we know how much our dogs love us, but it’s nothing, nothing like reality. I sat down next to her and rubbed her belly, and the love and contentment came off her in waves. She was happy here. She belonged.

“I have to go, Jet. I might be able to be happy here, but I have to get Daniel out. He can’t stay.”

Jet rolled over and licked my hand once. I scratched her on the head behind her ears the way she liked. “Can I come visit?”

She wagged her tail again, and stretched out in the sun.

“Good dog,” I whispered.

When I saw Daniel waiting on me, I wiped my eyes hastily, but he just smiled his half-smile. “Where’s Jet?”

“Staying. I’m wondering if we were just supposed to bring her here and that was our mission.”

“Could be, who knows why we’re doing this,” he agreed, giving me a quick hug. “Thanks for getting me out of there.”

I pulled back. I’d been too distracted when carting him away from his lady friends to notice, but this close it was clear. Loud and clear. The smell coming from him was sour and underhanded.

“You’re… lying,” I said.

“What?”

“Lying. About this traveling. Why we’re doing it. We’re not doing it to help people or deliver Jet to her Heaven or whatever. There’s another reason.”

Daniel’s jaw dropped open and his face flushed. We were far enough out of dog Heaven for me to catch the color in his cheeks, but still close enough for me to smell the strong scent of panic rising from him.

“Why did you lie, Daniel? Why are we really here?”

He just stared at me.

My fists clenched. “Fine. Don’t fucking tell me. But I’m not following you around anymore. I thought I could trust you.

“When I got to heaven, you want to know what happened? God sent me a fake you to hang around with, a perfect you who—” I still couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say, “Loved me.”

“When I found out he was fake, I decided to live alone. I can do it again, Daniel. If you’re lying to me, you’re not the friend I had in life. You’ve been sarcastic and aloof, but I always knew I could trust you. Now I don’t know.”

He still looked dumbfounded as I passed him and trudged up the road. I held the tears back by force of will, but I stopped when he finally spoke.

“I was your Heaven?” was all he said.

I turned around and faced him, the tears breaking my voice. “You really are an idiot, Daniel. You’ve had my hormones and emotions as an open book for the past few hours and you didn’t even see it. Smell it. Whatever. Why did I have to fall in love with a moron?”

I left him then, his face slack with shock, on the road leading from dog Heaven. I left the thing that loved me more than anything else in the world lying blissfully in a patch of sunshine, and I left the person I loved more than anything else in the world standing slack-jawed and stupid on the road.

#

The look on Daniel’s face was nearly gratifying in its relief as he approached me at the roundabout. I sat cross-legged on the sand and waited for him, stony-faced.

He didn’t say anything, just came and sat beside me.

I pointed down a narrow dirt path. “I’m pretty sure that’s a path to reincarnation. Tell me everything, or I’m heading down there. I might be a bug or a dog or something, but it’ll be better than following you around like a lovesick puppy when you don’t even tell me what’s going on.”

I knew I was right about the path, just like I knew Daniel was lying. The certainty lay cold and unemotional in my chest, keeping me calm.

Daniel’s voice was flat. He didn’t look at me. “I don’t think I ever told you this, but my sister Megan died when I was ten. She was four. When people find out, I usually tell them it was an accident or something. But it wasn’t. My mother went insane and killed her. I walked in right when she lost it, and tried to stop her. That’s how I got these.” He pushed up his sleeves to show me the long scars on his forearms. He’d always told me they were from a boy scouting accident.

“When I got to Heaven, the first thing I did was look for Megan. I couldn’t find her. I couldn’t imagine a girl that young going to Hell, so I tracked down God and asked Him what was going on. He said that some souls had gone missing, and He needed someone to investigate why. I asked Him when I could leave.”

He stopped. Although this was all new information for me, I waited. There was more; his face told me that much.

He sighed. “One of the reasons souls are going missing, He said, was that it’s time for the end of the world.”

My mouth went dry. “So Hermes was right.”

Daniel nodded.

“And it’s even bigger than he said. It’s not just Greek.” It wasn’t a question.

He nodded again.

I rubbed my face, trying to disbelieve. “So we’re supposed to find lost souls and… what?”

I’d never seen him so miserable. “Bring about the apocalypse,” he said. He frowned deeply and I realized he was trying not to cry. “The way I understand it, the end is coming whether we do this or not. But we need to be there. To witness or… help… or something. There are reasons He didn’t make clear to me. He just told me we had to find the souls.”

“What if we refuse?”

“I can’t. You can. I’m sorry I didn’t give you that option from the beginning, but I can’t. I have to find Megan. I’d always imagined her in Heaven, in some kind of little kid paradise, and the fact that she’s not there is killing me. If it takes witnessing the final battle to bring her back, I’ll do it.”

I tried to be understanding, but logical. “Daniel, we’re talking about the world here. The end of the world. Billions of people.”

“It’s going to happen anyway. And I have to look for her. Don’t you understand?”

My mouth was dry. “So it’s an inevitability? Destiny?”

“Yeah, that’s what He said.”

“So the world ends. Then what?”

“I don’t know. We’re already dead. It gets more populated up here? I don’t know. But every religion has an end of the world myth, doesn’t it?”

I nodded reluctantly.

“We’re just the ones who get to be around when it happens,” he said.

“Lucky us.” I sighed and rubbed my face again, trying to rub away the tears and frustration from the past hour. “So, where to next?”

He ventured a look at me. “You’re still coming with me?”

I nodded. “Daniel, I’ve always got your back. You just need to tell me what we’re up against. Besides, I don’t think we have much choice in the matter. Where to next?”

He pulled out a book in his backpack and flipped through it. “Well, what end of the world myths are there? Didn’t the Norse have a big one?”

I blinked. “Ragnarök? You’re not messing around.”

“Would you prefer a more sedate end of the world myth? Everyone lying down and going to sleep, maybe?” he asked. “I can’t think of any that predict that.”

“Fair enough,” I said, and got up.

“Hey, Kate,” he said, grabbing my arm. “I’m sorry.”

I looked down, embarrassed. “I know you are, Daniel. Just give me a little time, okay?”

He nodded.

One of the roads exiting the roundabout was made of choppy water, and a Viking skiff bobbed at the edge. We stepped aboard and let the current take us away.

BOOK TWO: DANIEL

CHAPTER NINE

I moved to Tennessee when I was twelve. My father had transferred there, taking me with him after the incident with my mother. He felt that leaving the shadow of Boston and its prying newspapers would be the best thing for us. My dad kept me out of school for as long as he could, but as soon as I did return, the reporters followed, snapping pictures of me outside the school, shouting questions at my father, asking if my wounds had healed. They tried to depict me as a hero, but when my father wouldn’t allow them any interviews, they didn’t have a juicy enough story to continue the sensationalism. So they made stuff up.

Of course, they got all the details when I had my time on the stand, and the newspapers went wild again. After the trial, we moved, and they didn’t follow. We settled in Tennessee, laid low, and Dad found me a good child psychologist. I entered middle school and was seated beside a girl named Kate.

She hated me at first sight.

#

One thing He told me was that I would go where I was meant to go. And He was right. It was easier, now that she knew. I felt like things were clearer. I tried not to think about her, how angry she was, and what she had revealed to me, but that was like not thinking of a white elephant. Standing on a huge lime gelatin mold. That was full of cats. Hairless cats.

I hated cats.

We stopped for a break. She sat a little away from me; the distance was noticeably wider than when we usually sat together. I didn’t push for conversation. I don’t know if she was still mad at me or just absorbing the truth of what we had to do. I looked in my backpack; it was always emptier than Kate’s. Her backpack always had things in it that meant something to her, like her teapot and that foul tea she liked. Whenever I looked in my backpack, I had what He had given me. A water bottle. Clothing to fit my surroundings. Sleeping bag when I needed it. And a large lacquered container resembling an elaborate jewelry box. I had not delved into the box yet, although the things that happened in Elysium had showed me that I didn’t necessarily need to.

I did have one thing that was mine, something He had given to me. You know how when you were greedy on earth, people would say you can’t take it with you? That’s a lie-you can, as long as your specific deity thinks it’s a good idea. At the bottom of my backpack was a small glass bottle with a wax seal. This bottle had sat in a drawer beside my bed ever since I moved to Tennessee. Kate found it once and asked me what it was-I’d lied and told her that I had picked up some sand from the last vacation my family had taken together.

I shivered – the air had turned thick and chilly, and the road was enshrouded in mist. “Great,” I mumbled, disliking the sound of my voice here; I felt alone even though she was with me.

“Kinda feels far from Heaven, doesn’t it?” she asked, and I was glad for her voice.

“I know. Colder, too. We should probably get going.”

She finished her sandwich and stood up. I squashed a momentary fear of undertaking this mission and momentary guilt about lying to Kate. All right, these were not momentary. But I finally got to my feet and started walking, pulling the chain of the sign of the Traveler out of my shirt. I didn’t recognize the symbol.

“Kate, you know all the mythology; what’s this supposed to be?” I asked.

She pulled out her own necklace. “That’s Yggdrasil, the World Tree. A Norse symbol.”

“So we’re headed in the right direction. Good.”

She chuckled. “You don’t sound very happy about it.”

“No, you’re wrong, I’m thrilled to be walking straight into Ragnarök, the end of the world. Why would you think otherwise?”

She actually laughed, and my insides unclenched a little.

Voices in the mist caught our attention, but I couldn’t tell how far away they were. They seemed disembodied and yet right next to me, and then thirty feet away, barely audible.

“What are you doing here, Old One?” A young woman.

“I came to learn, Urd. That is all.” An older man.

A shout of laughter from an older woman. “You want to learn? I thought you knew all!”

The man again, amused. “I do not know how to purl.”

“Sit, then. There is a little yarn left,” said a third woman.

“Not much, though. Better hurry.” The older woman again.

Then, we were upon them. They sat underneath a large respectable elm tree-a young woman about our age, a woman about my father’s age, and a woman about my grandmother’s age sat on a yellow blanket that seemed cheery in the dismal fog. A cloaked old man sat beside the young woman. He wore a floppy hat with a wide brim, perched oddly on his head to cover one eye. All four of them fiddled with yarn and knitting needles. The women were deft and efficient, but the man knitted with no dexterity at all, as if his needles wriggled of their own accord.

“Holy shit,” Kate whispered in my ear. “I think that’s Odin and the three Fates.”

“Odin was what, the king?” I whispered back.

“Yeah, he’s to the Norse what Zeus was to the Greeks.”

“Oh. I guess you’d better say hi or something.” She looked at me pointedly.

“Thanks a lot,” I muttered.

“You said this was something you had to do. So do it.”

Kate was more assertive now. I didn’t know what to do about it. There was a hardness in her words, not cold, but I got a sense that I’d used up any slack I’d built up in our friendship and she wasn’t letting me slide anymore.

I took a deep breath and raised my hand in greeting. “Hello, we’re-“

“Sit down, Daniel, Kate,” the youngest said abruptly, and then smiled at me. She had red hair and brown eyes and had a serious, sexy librarian vibe going on. We joined them on edge of the blanket.

“I am Verdandi,” the middle woman said. “My sisters are Urd and Skuld.” She pointed to the younger woman and the older, respectively. “Would you like some cookies?”

“No, thank you,” I said. Kate shook her head.

“Of course people had to show up to watch,” the man grumbled. “The one time I lower myself to learn a woman’s craft.”

“Balls,” Skuld said. “You knew they were coming, Odin. And you go and tell those fishermen who worship you that their knitted nets are women’s work. See if you’ll get another sacrifice.”

“I haven’t had a sacrifice in twelve hundred years, hag,” he said. “And I have to keep face.”

“You and your face. I have no idea why you’d want to keep that old thing anyway,” she replied.

Kate snickered, and Urd smiled at us. She pulled and unknotted black yarn from a burlap bag that sat between her and Odin. It went from her to Verdandi, who began knitting it to add onto a large afghan. She wouldn’t get very far, though, because Skuld pulled out the stitches from the bottom as Urd knitted at the top, rolling up the kinked yarn into a fat ball. Other balls sat in a large shallow bowl behind her.

“I thought we would be entering a Norse afterlife, but it seems we’re in Old Knitters’ Heaven,” Kate said, smiling.

“You, the herald of my doom, arrive here with jokes?” the man replied. “I guess he has the last laugh, as always, doesn’t he?”

“You knew he would,” Verdandi said.

“Who?” I asked, but they ignored me.

“He’ll be here soon, Odin, and you can ask him then,” said Urd, looking closely at a knot in the thread before disentangling it. She raised her eyes to the sky.

I peered at Odin, who leered back at me and bared his yellow teeth. The skin around one of his eyes was puckered and shiny, and I remembered that he was one-eyed. Norse gods. What was the deal with them? I wracked my brain. I knew the myths were far more depressing than most other folklore. Except for maybe the Japanese. I wished Kate and I could talk in private, but there wasn’t much we could say at the moment, in front of the gods.

All I could remember was that Thor had a big hammer and there was that trickster god, a real bastard. Locki? Something. Managed to be both a mother and a father to some pretty scary stuff. I glanced at Kate and she shrugged.

I opened my mouth to ask something – damned if I can remember what – when the ground began to shake. I was glad we’d sat with the foursome, as we certainly would have fallen otherwise. A horn sounded in the distance once the quake had ceased. It lasted a long time, cutting through the fog. Odin tensed, but the three women continued untangling, knitting, and unraveling.

“What the hell was that?” Kate asked.

“The sun’ll go out next,” Skuld said.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Odin glared at me. He opened his mouth and Urd elbowed him. “Daniel, dear, would you mind cutting this thread for me? I left my scissors behind.”

I looked in my backpack and couldn’t find scissors. My stomach sank when I realized what she asked. I pulled out the box I hadn’t opened yet, the one God had given me before we left the Christian heaven, and lifted the lid.

Yup. Scissors. I’d expected them to be glorious somehow: made of gold with runes etched along the blades. But this wasn’t Lord of the Rings-the scissors were simply silver with heavy black handles, like the kind my grandmother used to cut frozen mints. I handed them to Urd. She cut the thread and the sky darkened immediately. Kate gasped.

“What—” I blurted.

“The sun. I told you that, boy,” Skuld said sharply. “Pay attention. None of this is worth anything if you do not keep your two eyes open.”

Kate’s face was white. “Wait. I remember. The sun goes out. Then the moon. Then-”

“The wolves are on the move,” interrupted Skuld.

“Whoa. Uh, Daniel,” Kate said, staring past me. “Your backpack is moving.”

It was. I scooted away from it as it jumped once, twice. I reached my hand out tentatively and pulled it open. A fat crow flew out to the tree above us, where it pecked at a chattering squirrel and cawed loudly. Then it dropped to the ground.

I’d seen a lot of weird shit since coming to Heaven, but nothing like this: a hand burst out of the crow’s breast, and then an arm. The bird split fully in two in a flurry of feathers as a grown man climbed from its interior. The bird skin, forgotten, lay at his feet, and he stretched naked before us. His scarred face grinned, and bile rose in my throat.

“Thanks for the ride,” he said, hitching his head at me in greeting.

Kate’s hand was tight on my arm as she whispered in my ear. “Oh shit. That’s Loki - trickster, shape-changer. A real bastard. He’s been imprisoned for hundreds of years with venom dripping in his eyes.”

Loki blinked, his wide snake-like eyes puffy and red-rimmed.

Skuld stood and fixed him with a glare. “You’re not welcome here, trickster.”

Loki slithered – he actually slithered; I didn’t see his feet leave the ground – up to the woman and stuck his face in hers. She didn’t flinch.

“I could gut you so you’d spill out like a pregnant mare’s bag of waters, hag,” he said. “This day is not marked by welcoming ceremonies. It is marked by war.”

The horn sounded again and a deep, primal howl answered it, setting my teeth on edge and giving me goose-bumps.

“Fenrir, my son comes,” whispered Loki. “Are you ready for your rest, All-Father?”

Odin ignored him and stood, his old body moving smoothly. He bowed to the women. “Ladies. It’s been an honor. Perhaps some other time you can show me how to perfect this craft. I suddenly see merit in it.” He bowed, and his knitting fell to the ground: a sloppy red square.

“All-Father, it’s not always been good, but it’s always been interesting,” Verdandi said. Urd had tears in her eyes, but Skuld harrumphed.

“Get on with you, old fool. We all have our destinies.”

He held out his hand. The youngest handed him the scissors I’d taken from my backpack. When the handles reached his gnarled hand, the blades melted together and elongated to become a spear with a black shaft. He hefted it briefly and tested its weight.

He nodded once. “It is good enough.” He fixed his one eye on Kate and said, “Kate, It was a pleasure. And if I can give some advice, go with your first instincts.” He turned his back to Loki and walked into the fog.

I felt breath on my neck and turned to see Loki so close he could have kissed me. I took a hesitant step backward. He held my wax-sealed vial in his hands, the only possession I’ve ever cared about, and my fists clenched when I saw it.

“Megan trusted you to protect her. You failed her,” he said.

“What?”

He didn’t have a chance to reply. The horn sounded again, and more sounds came out of the fog: a snarl, the clink of armor, deep voices. The fog behind Loki darkened, a gargantuan shadow looming over him. It broke through the fog: a wolf whose size defied nightmares. Its fur was matted and its eyes ran with foul yellow stuff like a stray dog’s. But this wasn’t a dog. Not by a long shot.

Kate swore and I stumbled backward against her. We went sprawling, all the strength draining out of my limbs. The women stood under their tree behind us, silent.

“Father,” the wolf said, his voice like a sword scraping across rock. “It is our time.”

“Nearly,” agreed Loki. “Daniel, we have work to do. I know what you carry in here.” He tapped the bottle. “Pathetic. Why do you think you haven’t seen her since you died? She doesn’t want to see you.”

He tossed my bottle above his head and it disappeared into the wolf’s mouth with a crunch. I gaped as the wolf licked its chops. “Fear,” it said. “It is good.”

Loki reached up to an overhanging bough of the tree and snapped off a branch. In his hands it became a sword. “Now it is time. Let us go,” he said.

He strode into the fog in the direction Odin had gone. The wolf leapt over us and bounded toward the sounds beyond that indicated an army’s gathering.

I crawled forward, still weak from shock, until I found the neck of the bottle lying on the road, the part the wolf hadn’t eaten. I closed my hand around it until it cut into my palm.

#

I don’t know when my mother officially snapped. My father said later it was postpartum depression that just never went away. She had seemed normal, a little moody, maybe, but nothing to make me fear her. Then one day I came home from school to find her in the kitchen, crying about a broken computer and scrabbling in a drawer for a knife. She shouted at me to go outside, but I heard my sister Megan crying and I ran down the hall to check on her.

Megan hid in the corner of her room, clutching her blanket. I hugged her and told her it would be okay, that Mommy was just mad and she’d get over it, and that I would always protect her, but my mother was already in the doorway.

I don’t remember the rest. Or, at least, I told myself, my father, the reporters, and the shrinks that I didn’t. But the next thing I allow myself to remember I was in the hospital with cuts all over my arms. My father, red-faced and exhausted, was sitting by my bedside, grasping my knee because my hands were so bandaged. He said I was so brave for trying to stop her from hurting Megan. My mother was confined to an institution, later found not guilty of second-degree murder by reason of insanity. My father divorced her and moved us to Tennessee to restart our lives. Megan went with us, her ashes in a jar embossed with angels, with a small portion of her in a glass vial that I kept by my bed.

The cuts healed, eventually. I was in therapy throughout high school. I never saw my mother again; my last memory was of her staring blankly at me during my testimony. I told Kate she died before we left home, but she was only dead to me. She died for real four years ago. I did not go to her funeral.

I was only ten when it happened, but I carried the guilt of Megan’s death for the rest of my short life.

Loki’s words did their job. Ragnarök began, beasts and gods and monsters clashed on a field beyond us, and I knelt in front of the World Tree and cried.

CHAPTER TEN

I expected Kate to snap me out of my grief. I think I wanted her to. She’d always been there to hold me, even when I didn’t want her to. But instead of her arms around me, a sharp kick brought me back. Kate stood over me, her hands on her hips.

“This is Ragnarök, Daniel,” she said. “We have to be here for this. You can cry later.”

Rage filled my throat so that I nearly choked on it. She was one of the most cowardly people I knew. Who was she to tell me to man up?

Then she extended her hand to me and I took it, her quick act of kindness taking the sting from her words.

A dirty rag hit me in the face. “Clean yourself up, boy,” Skuld said. “You don’t want to be remembered as the one who cried during Ragnarök.”

I wiped my eyes with a lighter gray corner of the rag and wiped my nose. Kate watched me, unsmiling.

“Leave him alone, Skuld,” Verdandi said. “There won’t be anyone left to remember who cried here anyway.”

Urd looked through the fog, frowning sadly. “They will all kill each other. It will be over soon.” She began putting away the knitting needles.

Kate turned to Urd. “So there’s nothing we can do?”

Skuld snorted. “Child, this has been prophesied for millennia. Fenrir will devour Odin. Loki and Heimdal will kill each other. Hel will arrive with all of the denizens of her realm. Ragnarök has come. Nothing will change that.”

Urd made a sound, a strangled gulp. “No. Something has changed.” She studied Odin’s sloppy red potholder closely.

Verdandi took it from her and peered at the pathetic knitted square as if it were tea leaves. “Well. I never would have guessed. I didn’t think the old man could surprise us anymore.”

“Who? What has changed? What do you mean?” I asked.

Verdandi smiled at me. “If you had perhaps another millennium, you could learn how to read the threads. But Odin is a crafty god, and he wove himself a little destiny loophole.”

I looked out on the field of battle, feeling helpless and hating myself for being weak, for failing my sister. And as with her death I was now destined to be a pathetic, useless witness once again.

I rubbed my face once again with the foul rag and took a deep breath. “I’m going out there. If there’s nothing we can do, then I can’t do any harm by trying to help.”

“It isn’t wise.” Verdandi held Odin’s red square to me. I took it without thinking.

Kate frowned and crossed her arms. “What are you trying to do? Remember what you told me? This isn’t our battle. We’re witnesses. Travelers. Nothing more.” Despite her words, she looked thoughtful.

I took the square and ran it through my fingers. It was poorly made, with lumps and dropped stitches. “Ragnarök is all about the prophecy, right, Kate? Everyone here is meant to be here, everything that happens is predestined. Except,” I continued, handing the square to her, “for whatever Odin wove out of the Fates’ yarn. He made a change at the end. I don’t know what it was. But I’m pretty sure we were not destined to be here, which means we can be part of that change.”

I rooted around in my backpack for a weapon, a helmet, something. “I’m not going to be helpless forever, Kate. I couldn’t help Megan when my mom killed her. But I can help here.” I found nothing in my bag beyond my bedroll and the empty lacquer box. “Or I could help if my fucking backpack had something useful in it!”

“What, you think you can save him?” Kate asked me, still thoughtful.

“I have to try,” I said.

“That big dog is Fenrir, you know. He eats worlds. He will eat gods. He may eat you.”

I frowned for a second. “Look. God said I’d know what I needed to do, and I need to do this.”

Kate chewed on her lip and then took Odin’s knitting from me. She looked at one side, then the other. She glanced at Urd. The woman smiled.

“You see it, don’t you?” she asked.

Kate’s face gave away nothing. “I am not sure what I’m looking at.”

“You are sure, girl. You just don’t believe it.”

Kate handed the potholder back to me. She walked over to the large metal bowl that held the balls of yarn. She looked at Skuld. “He’ll need protection,” she said. “May I?”

The old woman cackled. “You’re smarter than I took you for, girly! Take it with my blessing.”

Kate dumped out the yarn and that’s when I saw the handles. It wasn’t a bowl; it was a massive shield. She handed it to me.

“I’d go with you, but there’s only one shield,” she said, and smiled slightly.

“Hah!” Skuld cackled again. “You’re not going anywhere, girl. You’re staying here with us. We have things to discuss. The world will end just fine with the saner folk sitting on the sidelines.”

I hefted the shield, wincing as I gripped it tighter and the cut on my palm stung.

Skuld shambled to me, age bending her. Her eyes twinkled. “Listen, boy. You don’t need to fight. Just reach the All-Father. He’ll be on the far side of the battlefield, incidentally. Look for the giant wolves.”

I ventured a look at Kate. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

“I know,” she said.

#

I’d never seen a real battle before. War movies seemed so choreographed; this was brutal and bloody and chaotic.

Odin was easy to spot. He stood well across the field, spear in hand, calling down lightning from the dark sky. In the flashes of light, Fenrir leaped and danced around Odin, impossibly tall, but kept at bay by the electricity. It was clear his hide was so tough that the lightning couldn’t penetrate him, and it was little more than an annoyance. He bore down on the All-Father.

I couldn’t watch so closely, though. To get to him, I had to get across the battlefield with my shield.

Giants, bigger than Fenrir, swung their great clubs, grunting and lumbering onto the battlefield, clearing the way of heroes and monsters alike. With a swing of their clubs, bodies went flying, spraying blood over the battlefield and creating a gruesome, coppery rain. They made their way slowly toward where I guessed Odin fought the wolves, and I groaned when I realized our paths would cross.

I took a deep breath and then ran, holding the shield in front of me, trying to reach Odin before the wolf got him. I couldn’t see very well, and with more blood splattering around me, I raised the shield above my head for an instant.

I’d like to say the gods were smiling on me, but they were too busy slaughtering each other to notice. Regardless, I was able to stop short of running onto the side of a thrashing, dying wolf. Its body was a small hill to me, forcing me to run around it.

The giants were directly between Odin and me. I dodged the blow of a monster with three arms and way too many teeth, and raced straight for the giants.

They didn’t notice me until I was right underneath them. Trying to remember what I’d learned from my one year as a failed junior varsity football running back, I dashed around the stomps and kicks aimed my way. I didn’t notice the club though, as I couldn’t see directly above me.

The club caught Skuld’s shield, which sent me flying as the giant knocked me away like a golf ball. I held tight to the shield and closed my eyes as I flew through the air away from Odin, my stomach twisting with vertigo. Just as quickly, I realized I wanted to see where I would land, so I fought instinct and cracked them open again. From my high, soaring vantage point above the battlefield, I gasped, distracted momentarily from my fear by the sight of the blood, the monsters, the heroes, the arrows streaking below me.

I still held Skuld’s shield. Miraculously, as the side of a hill drew closer, it slipped underneath me. I landed and the shield flashed brightly, absorbing most of my momentum. I rolled down a hill and came to rest, unhurt (though pretty sure I was going to puke), outside the battle.

“Damn. Handy shield,” I said, shaking. I flexed my bruised but otherwise unharmed limbs.

I struggled to my feet and looked again for Odin. The air hissed as the sky opened and fire rained down on the field of dying. The battle had slowed, with more dead than live combatants. I held the shield above my head again and spotted Fenrir, the massive wolf, surrounded by cheering giants.

I was too late. Blood rained from his jaws as he devoured heroes and gods, silencing their screams as he tore them apart. My stomach threatened to rebel but I clamped my jaw shut and ran on.

Odin lay behind Fenrir, beaten and discarded. The wolf and giants moved on, the fire causing bright red patches on the giants’ bald heads, and I was able to run past the groaning and dead, shield held aloft, to get to Odin’s side.

Fenrir hadn’t devoured him entirely; Odin looked as if he’d been chewed on, found too tough, and spat out. Gore coated him; the blood-soaked robes, the pointy bits of bone sticking out of his shattered arm, and the blood that streamed from a severed leg did me in, and I turned from him and puked.

Unbelievably, he was still alive. Pale from loss of blood, but conscious. He fixed me with his one-eyed stare when finally I knelt beside him, shame making my face burn.

“Traveler. Herald of my doom. You’re not the first to vomit on battlefield. May be the last, though,” he wheezed, bright blood on his lips.

All I could think to do was comfort him. “You’re going to be all right,” I said, cleaning the blood from his face with the red scrap he’d knitted. My cut hand stung, and I hoped illogically that he didn’t have hepatitis or HIV or something.

He coughed a laugh. “Don’t lie, boy; you have no skill at it yet. I have known my destiny for thousands of—” He broke off, coughing again. Blood spattered from his lips onto his face. I ran the rag over it again.

“My son will kill the wolf. Loki will meet his doom. The world will end and begin again. In truth, it’s good to be done with. You may be stupid, but you have done your job well.” He blinked then (or was it winked?) and closed his eye. One more wheeze, and then he was gone.

“What did I come out here for, then?” I asked him. The spear had reverted to scissors beside him, so I picked them up. Better a lame weapon than nothing, I guessed. I wiped the blood, Odin’s and mine, off my hands, and stood up.

Off in the distance, the huge Fenrir circled a glowing armored man – Odin’s son? Despite the man’s relatively puny size, the wolf looked less cocky and more careful. The fiery rain came down harder now; the scent of burning blood and flesh made my stomach turn.

I didn’t see Loki, and I didn’t recognize anyone else.

No, wait. I blinked, and the knowledge came to me like a tidal wave. I was glad I still knelt, else I would have fallen from the swoon that nearly took me over. I raised my head again, focusing.

Loki. Odin. The gods, the heroes, the Valkyries (one of them had supplied me with this shield), the monsters. I recognized them all.

Tyr, the one-handed, stood nearby at the bottom of a hill at the edge of a shimmering sea. I took Odin’s floppy hat and covered his craggy, still face with it before I stood. “Rest well, you clever bastard,” I said.

I walked down the hill and joined Tyr.

“She will arrive soon,” I said, wondering at first what the hell I was saying with such conviction, and the knowledge hit my conscious mind immediately. He waited for a ship that carried his death.

He nodded without looking at me. His left hand flexed around his sword as his right arm carried his shield and protected his stump. He had not gotten entirely used to using his left hand in battle, even in all the years since Fenrir had bitten it off, but he didn’t tell anyone that.

But I knew it. I knew it as well as I knew all the names of the gods in the field above me, the prophecies of how they all were to die, and what would happen after Ragnarök.

Tyr waited for Hel, goddess of the underworld, and her people to arrive by boat. He would battle with Garm, the guard dog of the underworld. They would kill each other; Tyr’s sword in the dog’s heart with the dog’s jaws latched onto his neck.

“Be strong, Tyr,” I said. I felt slightly ridiculous, but I patted him on the shoulder and he nodded to me again, grateful for the contact. A sail appeared on the horizon, and I left him there to his fate. I knew now I wasn’t supposed to go on the battlefield to save Odin. I went there so I could bring something back. I returned to Yggdrasil, the World Tree, where the three fates and Kate sat talking.

Kate looked up when I approached. She smiled, unsurprised to see me. “Did you do everything you needed to do?”

“I’m okay, none of this blood is mine, thanks for asking,” I said.

She laughed. “I knew you’d be fine, Daniel. I have been talking to the Fates while you were gone. But I’m glad you made it through.”

The irritation loosened in my chest. I wiped some of Odin’s blood from my face and hands, then handed Skuld her shield back. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry, Odin died.”

The old valkyrie laughed in my face. “You say it like we expected you to save him.”

“Didn’t you?”

“Of course not. If you turn a gear slightly in a clock, it doesn’t look like you’ve made much of a change, except that it moves another gear, and that moves another gear, and so on. Only one thing happened here than was not prophesied. And perhaps that is all we needed.”

I nodded slowly.

“I was with him when he died,” I said absently. “I did what I needed to do. I think.” I looked at my hands, the two-eyed perspective seeming slightly off to me. Something inside me expected only one eye.

I blinked, snapping out of my disorientation. “Did you see the battle?”

Skuld smiled. “No, boy, we had work to do. We were summoning the Valkyries. They should be here soon.”

I looked from her to Kate, who had a small smile on her face. “The Valkyries?” I was about to make a clever comment about “ride of the” but suddenly I knew.

Kate told me anyway. “Legendary Norse warrior women. They visited the battlefield to take the greatest heroes to Valhalla, sometimes slept with gods or heroes, or sometimes just served them mead out of horns.”

I nodded. “Did you summon them to clean up after the battle?”

Skuld harrumphed. “No, boy, the days of battle mopping up are over. The Valkyries, your friend reminds us, are unnamed in the final Ragnarök prophesy. There are many missing players in the prophecies regarding Ragnarök, stories that have not yet been told. They have a role to play in the aftermath.”

She stood and took her shield from me. She still looked old, but considerably less frail. “Do you have Odin’s spear?”

I handed her the scissors. “I am pretty sure I have more of him than that.”

She winked at me and pulled a horn from the folds of her robe. “I have no doubt, boy. I do know if I were to take on my old role of leading the dead gods from the battlefield, Odin’s body would be an empty husk. His essence remains with you.”

Kate nodded slowly. “Wow. I really did read that knitting piece correctly. So he’s there in your head?”

“His knowledge is; not quite his personality, though. Or he hasn’t grumbled at me yet. I’m not sure.”

“Amazing,” she said.

I grinned at her. “I think Skuld and the others can handle the rest of Ragnarök. I’m done here. Do you want to hang out any more?”

She looked over the battlefield, at the ghastly boat that neared Tyr’s shoreline, and shook her head. “No, if you’re good, I think I’m happy to leave.”

We shook hands with the three Dates and wished them luck. We turned our back on Ragnarök. Skuld still blew her warning to her sisters, the horn echoing over the hills as we approached our small skiff to sail back to the crossroads.

“She’ll be able to take the reins once it’s all over,” Kate said. “We talked about it. She’s an amazing woman.”

I leaned over the side of the boat to wash some blood off my arms and face. I looked up at her, dripping pink drops into the water. “So what did you guys talk about?”

Kate guided the skiff carefully. “We talked about the prophecies, the destinies, the Valkyries. They showed me some of their tricks with knitting, saying I had a knack. They’ve had amazing lives.”

I rubbed my head, trying to choose my words carefully. I tried to sound nonchalant. “So, uh, why didn’t you mind I ran off alone into battle?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Odin told me to trust my first instincts. I figured you’d be okay. The knitted bit told me that he would be going on an unforeseen trip with a young man. So I took it to mean you’d be bringing him back, one way or another. I have to admit I didn’t expect you to put him in your head.”

She looked at me, head cocked. “So how did you manage to get him in there?”

“I have no idea. I just tried to comfort him, wipe up some of his blood, you know…” I didn’t say all the things I didn’t do for Megan, but I think she knew.

“Wiped up his blood,” she said thoughtfully.

“Yeah.” I looked at my cut hand, the edges already drawing together. The scars on my hands and arms were gone as well. Odin was the god of healing after all.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I was finally able to break Kate’s calm exterior and impress her with the fact that I owned Odin’s knowledge.

“Can you name all of Loki’s children?” she asked, challenging me.

I counted them off rapidly on my fingers. “Hel, Fenrir, Jörmungandr, Nari, Narfi, and Vali. He is also the mother of Sleipnir. The fact that I know how he is the mother of an eight-legged horse disturbs the hell out of me, by the way.”

She laughed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’m just boggled. You always hated mythology.”

“It’s blowing my mind too,” I admitted. “I feel like I need to go somewhere and just sit and have a good think. There’s a lot of stuff in my head. But it’s not like I have him talking to me. I think I just have his knowledge.”

She laughed. “‘Just.’”

“Hey,” I said, trying to catch her eye. She looked at me calmly. “I’m sorry I had to run off into the chaos. I just… had to.”

“It’s okay. I understand what you had to do. It was another destined thing. I learned a lot about the Valkyries, Ragnarök prophecies, and even how to knit and read a little of the prophecies in the creations of the Fates. And hey- I knitted a bookmark.” She grinned sheepishly and showed me a small strip of yellow fabric, loose but better put-together than Odin’s first knitting attempt.

I fingered the soft yarn. Odin’s knowledge whispered at me as I looked over her stitches, each loop a tiny hint about Kate, her past, and her future. I swallowed and handed it back to her, smiling weakly.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing. You really don’t have a future in crafting,” I said, laughing.

She made a face at me. “You try to learn a new skill while the battle to end the world is going on in front of you, not to mention your best friend ran out into it!”

I held up my hands in defeat, giving up, and she laughed. The tension eased and she forgot, I hoped, the haunted look on my face when I had tried to hide what I’d read of her future on that strip of knitted cloth.

#

I was quite pleased I didn’t have Odin himself in my head. I didn’t think I’d want a crafty, cranky god trying to steer me to knit or go wolf hunting or something. But as we sailed, I flipped through the new knowledge like I had a large encyclopedia with me.

My thoughts about Megan came into sharp focus when I uncovered the information about Orpheus, the Greek bard who lost his beloved on their wedding day. The persistent bastard had gone to Hell – or Hades, as my grandmother and the Greeks called it – to persuade the god Hades and his wife Persephone for her return. They agreed to grant his request as long as he didn’t turn around on his way out of the underworld, but the idiot looked back right when he got to the mouth of Hades, and she was lost to him forever.

Izanagi was another god - Japanese - whose beloved wife had died and who couldn’t go on without her. Izanagi and his goddess wife, Izanami, had created the world, and then she died in childbirth. That seemed odd; she could create islands and gods, but a baby’s birth is deadly?

Oh. More knowledge came through; her baby had been a god of fire. Ow. That made more sense.

Like Orpheus, Izanagi went to the land of the dead to coax Izanami’s return. Like Orpheus, he fucked up - his dead wife was well along the way of decomposition and begged him not to look at her. He did. She got pissed and chased him out of the underworld.

Izanagi was so heartbroken because of his loss that he killed his newborn son in retribution. I wondered what happened to that baby and what afterlife it could be residing in. Odin didn’t know that part.

Lost in thought, I stumbled when the skiff finally hit the beginning of the “road” to Ragnarök. Kate and I jumped off and she headed for the sandy area of the roundabout.

“Lunch break?” she asked.

I nodded and accepted the sandwich she handed me. We ate in silence as I stared into the many paths ahead of me. I closed my eyes, trying not to think of gods, lost loves, and dead children.

“Daniel,” Kate said, rousing me. I opened my eyes and she pointed.

Two old men dressed in shabby clothing and carrying walking sticks wandered down the road, waving to us. They grinned, their eyes wide in either madness or excitement. They seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place them.

“Ho!” one shouted.

“Daniel! Kate! Liberators! So good to see you again!” One of them, the one with the long beard, grabbed my hand and shook it. The other tried to wring Kate’s hand off at the wrist, he was so excited to meet her.

Kate looked at me, bemused.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” she said hesitantly.

“Might you have something to drink? We’re terribly thirsty,” the one holding Kate’s hand said, eyeing her backpack. She pulled out a canteen and handed it to him.

“You don’t remember us!” the bearded one said.

“Of course they don’t,” said the other. “No one remembers us. It was in the rules.”

“Oh. But I thought they would… Ah well. Never mind. I am Isaac. That is my companion, Gigantus, also known as Mr. Big. We hoped we would find you before the end.”

Isaac slurped at my canteen, water dribbling down his beard. “Heavenly. So wonderful.”

It sounded familiar, but still I couldn’t grasp the names. “Were you looking for us?” I asked as Isaac passed the canteen to Mr. Big.

“We have a message for you,” Isaac said, wiping his mouth with his dirty sleeve. “We knew of your coming; it was foretold. Only a handful of prophets knew about you, but we have known of you since your birth.”

“You’re prophets?” I asked.

Mr. Big drank deeply without spilling anything. When he was done, he said, “You don’t live as long as we did without learning a thing or two about the way the world works. We are prophets now, yes, but only became so after some years of wandering.”

Isaac laughed. “Oh, but we had fun! And now we get to rest too. Just one more thing to do; one more message to deliver.”

He lowered his voice, then, and leaned forward. “The big guy? He’s using you, you know.” He waved his fingers and hummed and then I realized he was acting like he had a puppet hanging from his fingers. “You dance for Him like little puppets.”

“That’s the secret?” I asked, laughing. “I knew that. He sent us on the mission.”

“But do you know why? Do you know what’s happening now, at the time all the worlds end?”

“He’s losing souls,” Kate said.

Isaac scoffed. “And?”

Kate and I looked at each other and I shrugged. “Uh, and He’s mad about it? Too busy to look for them Himself? Got too many meetings?”

“He’s throwing down the gauntlet,” Mr. Big said. “Armageddon, Ragnarök; all of the end battles force Him to sort things out. But He can’t do everything.”

I blinked at them. “I thought gods were all-powerful.”

They both laughed. “There are still rules by which they must abide,” Mr. Big said. “The worst part about YHWH is that He encompasses all gods. The Greeks have their harvest goddess and their trickster god and their goddess of the moon and the god of war and so on. YHWH must be all of these. So He’s invoked during war and when people want peace, rain, sun, whatever, but He is also the trickster, the storm god, the fire god, the god of anger, and the god of death. He strikes a careful balance. He must have others help Him do His work. Others such as you, the heralds for the end times. Others such as us: well-punished yes, these two thousand or so years, but we chronicled human life past the birth of his son.”

I smacked my forehead. “Of course, you’re the wandering Jew and the Roman who struck Christ!”

They both bowed.

“But if you’re here, then that means…” Kate trailed off.

“That the end times have come to Earth, yes,” Isaac said, his eyes still sparkling. “Our penance is over. We have been forgiven.”

“Excellent—that means we’re done!” I cried, springing to my feet.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Kate said, sighing.

Mr. Big grabbed my sleeve with a tight grip, his face stone serious. “Don’t be a fool. Your job is more important now than ever.”

“Think, boy,” Isaac said. “Why do you think He chose you? He is missing souls here.”

Missing souls. In particular, one missing soul.

Shit.

“If you are here, then the world is coming to an end, right?” Kate asked.

They nodded.

“So traffic is going to start getting pretty busy around here,” she said.

“It’s going to take some sorting out. He’s going to lose more before it’s over with,” Isaac said, snagging my canteen from where I had dropped it.

“How is He losing them?” I asked.

“YHWH is a god of order. A god of careful balance. Agents of Chaos are the ones disrupting things,” Isaac said.

“Chaos? Like the devil?” Kate asked.

Mr. Big snorted. “Lucifer desires order as much as YHWH does. He has to process and punish according to the cosmic rules too. No, Chaos is a rogue force, it leaks into the world when there is a weakness or void. As we got closer to the final war, the foundations weakened. Chaos woke up. It started seeping through.”

“It’s your job to fix things,” Mr. Big said.

I swore then, blasphemed, and caused even those who had beaten up Jesus to raise their eyebrows.

“Where do we go now, then?” Kate asked me.

I thought for a moment. Izanagi’s story still gnawed at me, and I didn’t know why. “Shinto Heaven,” I said finally.

“It is as good a place as any. You’ll go where you’re meant to,” Isaac said, shrugging.

“Then let’s go,” Kate said, then, to the men who had wandered for millennia, “I hope you get some real sleep soon.”

Mr. Big saluted us. “We plan to. Good luck with your mission.”

Isaac slurped from the canteen. How thirsty was he, anyway? He waved at us, soaking the front of his robe.

Now that we had some idea of where we wanted to go, Kate and I had no problem locating the dirt road to the Japanese afterlife.

“Isn’t it weird that Isaac said He was using us? Do you feel like you’re being used?” Kate asked.

“Not really,” I said. “I feel like He needed a job done and He asked me to do it. I don’t think He’s got Megan locked up somewhere as a hostage or anything. Just that He knew I’d be… very motivated.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, at least we’re not alone, right?”

I thought of the yellow strip of cloth she’d knitted, and what the Fates would say if they could have read those stitches.

I smiled back at her and said, “No, we’re not alone.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Something has been bothering me,” Kate said as we walked through the bamboo forest.

“Just one thing?”

“Well, every religion has its ‘how the world got here’ stories. We’re discovering that all the gods seem to be real - but how can all those myths be true? You’ve got all that god knowledge now; do you know?”

I laughed. “Yeah, when you were a kid in church, you’d ask your minister all those question: about God and floods, or why your neighbor died of cancer, or why people who were mean got to be so rich while your dad, who was nice most of the time, couldn’t pay all the bills every month, and they’d answer some shit about ‘mysterious ways.’”

She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.”

“Well, now I’m just realizing, as I go through Odin’s knowledge, they were right. How could all of these gods create the world, each bleeding or shitting or birthing out land and sea? Well. They just did.”

She stared at me.

Her look was so incredulous that I laughed. “Man, I’d make a lousy dad. Okay, look. Here’s how I am seeing it: you and me, we’re walking and talking and meeting gods and witnessing battles and the end of the world and all this crazy shit, and we’re dead. Since that’s sunk in to me, I’m pretty much accepting anything.”

“You’re right,” she said, shrugging. “I am still trying to deal with it all, I guess. Daniel, we saw Ragnarök.”

“Of course, that does mean the world is ending,” I said, shivering. I wondered how it was going down back on Earth. My backpack shifted a bit. I hadn’t been as comfortable opening it lately since Loki had jumped out of it, but I peeked inside anyway.

A newspaper. Thanks, God.

THE END OF THE WORLD? screamed the headline. Photographs of mushroom clouds dominated the front page. It seems that North Korea, India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, the US, and China had all launched missiles at each other. There were no notes on the rapture, of people being lifted bodily into the air by the Almighty – He was too busy supplying me with scissors and newspapers, I guessed – and no notes on who the Antichrist had ended up being. Or who Christ had returned as.

I wondered if He had returned as a Jew or if he had converted to His own religion. The thought made my head spin. I decided I’d ask Him if I ever met Him.

With nuclear war reducing the world to rubble, the newspaper hadn’t bothered to include a Lifestyle or comics section, so I stuffed the newspaper back where I’d found it.

“I seem to remember something about the Shinto afterlife,” Kate said, flipping through a book she’d pulled from her backpack. Mist hung within the trees and an acrid smell entered my nose. I blinked and coughed; it was more than acrid, it overwhelmed me.

“Oh fuck, that’s right. This isn’t mist, it’s wayward souls,” she said, pulling her robe over her mouth and nose. “Don’t breathe in.”

I was about to make a sarcastic retort of how she could have told me that before I’d sniffed the stale air, but I was too busy coughing. I dropped to my knees, scrabbling for my backpack. I pulled out a scarf and wrapped it around my mouth and nose a number of times. Kate followed suit, holding her robe firmly to her face as she searched.

“Uh, what kind of souls?” I became aware of a presence in my mind. This wasn’t Odin, because I hadn’t absorbed his personality, just his knowledge. This was a definite other person; a quiet, pure mind.

Free her.

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Kate said, then she turned white. “Oh, shit.”

The end cannot come without her. She must be freed.

I wanted to ask, “Who?” but I knew already.

“We gotta free her,” I said quietly. “Do you hear him?”

“Wait, what?” Kate asked. “Hear who?”

I looked around. Through the mist I could make out a sheer cliff face stretching up to an indefinite height. A young man sat perched serenely on top of a boulder at the foot of the cliff. He, too, had his nose and mouth covered, and he lifted his hand and waved when he saw us.

“Susanoo,” I said, recognizing him with Odin’s knowledge. “After Izanagi lost his wife, he just started making children out of his bodily fluids. Susanoo was birthed from his nose.”

Kate made a disgusted noise. “He doesn’t look like a god of snot.” She was right; Susanoo was thin and strong, with shrewd eyes and a black beard and ponytail.

He leapt lightly off the boulder as we approached. He was taller than he’d appeared, and now I could see the katana that hung at his side. My heart rate quickened, but instead of fear, I just felt annoyed.

“Harbingers,” he said. “Your coming was-“

“Foretold. Yeah. We get that a lot,” I interrupted. He pursed his lips and slid his katana silently from its sheath.

Runes danced up and down its blade, which glinted silver or black, depending on the angle. Unlike Odin’s shape-shifting scissors, this was truly a sword for a god.

“Then you won’t mind if I dispense with the pleasantries,” he said, and assumed a stance I recognized from countless video games.

“Hell,” Kate said. “People don’t seem to like seeing us anymore, do they?”

“If he says this is pleasant, I’d hate to see him rude,” I said. “I guess it was foretold that you are going to gut us wide open?” I asked him.

He grinned with black teeth. “Most likely. We are to fight. The prophecies are unclear beyond that. I cannot let you move the boulder to free her.”

Kate let out a breath. “Ohhh… Izanami. You’re guarding the door to the underworld. I guess we’re here to open it?”

The voice in my head, soft and high, spoke again. Free her.

“That’s what the voice in my head is telling me,” I said.

“How many people do you have up there?” Kate asked.

“So not the time to start talking about that,” I said.

“This was the sword of the woman you seek to free,” Susanoo said. “It can cut through anything. Wood. Metal. Water. The earth itself. Your very soul.”

“Seriously, water isn’t very hard to cut,” I said lightly, dropping my backpack onto the forest floor. Kate did the same. “You should find another way to describe it that’s more impressive.”

He snorted and spat. “Arm yourself.”

Through the wisdom of Odin I knew how to handle many weapons, in theory. I knew that there was more to fighting than swordplay; there was muscle memory and strength. I did not have muscle memory or strength. I peeked into the backpack; I also had no sword.

I looked at Kate, who sifted through her own backpack. She pulled out a small shield and made a face. “Not too helpful either.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do Your work if You won’t do Your part?” I hissed at the god who wasn’t there.

Free her.

“Give it a rest,” I said, then, to Susanoo, “Our sponsor doesn’t seem to think we need weapons. Either that or He’s playing a little joke on us. Are you going to cut down unarmed enemies?”

He answered me by raising his weapon above his head and shuffling forward, his weight centered low.

“Oh, shit.” I backpedaled. Kate split left and I went right; Susanoo came after me. The first swing came for my neck, but I tripped backward over a bamboo shoot and went sprawling, the blade passing inches from my nose. It sliced through the bamboo like they were imaginary, and the thick trunks fell on top of me.

“Get up, or die with no dignity,” he said, assuming his stance again.

“When did I say dignity was my goal here?” I asked. I lay there for a moment panting, as he was clearly patient enough to wait. The forested area got thicker behind me, where I’d be much safer. In front of me, past the mad god with the sword, was the clearing at the foot of the cliff, and the boulder that held back death, the goddess Izanami.

“Up!” Susanoo repeated.

I wrapped my hand around a slice of bamboo as I got up. I’d just seen him cut through multiple trees without effort, but it was more of a security blanket; I just felt better with something in my hands. The moment I regained my feet, Susanoo shuffled for me again. If I’d had a moment to think, I probably would have laughed. As powerful as he was, the shuffle step was hardly dignified.

Much like my actions in Elysium, I moved without thinking. I ran to meet him. Muscle memory wasn’t there to fight him, but I knew enough about the katana to know where he would strike, and therefore how and when to react. His attack came low, this time, going for my legs. I leaped over the blade and couldn’t resist whapping the god on the back of the head with my makeshift club.

It barely fazed him. I ran toward the foot of the cliff without looking back. Susanoo laughed, an ugly sound, and followed me. Kate also ran - I had no idea what she had planned, but I could use all the help I could get. He was faster than I was, and I nearly lost my head but I heard the sword whisper through the air and ducked in time. The blade nicked me, however, scraping across the top of my head. Hair fell into my face, followed closely by a thin stream of blood.

I was almost there. I reached the base of the cliff with the massive boulder that blocked the entrance to the Underworld. I put my back against it and faced Susanoo for the last time.

“First blood,” he said, barely panting. “The next time I will not miss.”

I panted much harder, the scarf around my mouth moist and hot from my breath. “I doubt you will,” I agreed.

Kate stood in my peripheral vision, behind Susanoo. She held her small shield like a discus and winged it at the god.

I saw the sword come for me then, judged its arc and its power. It came at an angle, looking to shear both my head and arm from my body. The shield hit the god in the back just as he would have separated my head from my shoulders and as he stumbled forward, the blade buried itself in the boulder behind me, cleaving it in two. Gravel and dust rained down on me as it exploded and terror rushed out.

Susanoo stumbled backward, flailing. I tried to get out of his way, but the katana passed over my left cheek, nearly painless as it cut me. I heard Kate call my name.

I tried to blink the blood out of my eyes so I could follow what was happening, but everything was through a red lens.

The door to the underworld was open now, and the mountain vomited forth its inhabitants. Something spewed out: a cloud of flies that screamed one name with ten thousand enraged voices. “Izanagi.”

Susanoo fell back, screaming. The sword fell from his hands as the cloud engulfed him. The cloud devoured him before the katana hit the ground.

I blinked again and then the pain came. The blood that obscured my vision did not come from my scalp, but from the left eye itself - what was left of the eye, which wasn’t much. I curled up into a fetal position, moaning, my ruined eye a confusion of pain in my skull.

The socket burned, a searing sensation that left me screaming. I forced my good eye open and actually saw fire dripping from my face, making the blood sizzle. I gasped, knowing I should be terrified of the great buzzing death that hovered nearby, but not caring. The voice whispered one thing, Mother, and then I knew the goddess was before me. Perhaps she could end the pain. I reached out my hands out to her.

The fire stopped and Izanami devoured me. Or I passed out in Kate’s lap. I wasn’t sure.

#

I awoke in the woods, lying on my back. The wound on my face was bound and the burns had a cooling cream on them. My skull throbbed distantly, as if I’d taken some powerful narcotics to forget the pain that was still obviously there.

“He wakes,” said the voice. It was both soft and masculine, like a singer or a scholar.

“Tend to him,” said Izanami. I didn’t see her, but no one else could have the voice that sounded like a million flies screaming at once.

A young woman came into my field of vision, but she wasn’t Kate. She was Japanese, traditionally dressed in a green and silver kimono, with her black hair bound tightly in a bun. She smiled at me and said, “Can you sit?”

I tried to nod, but the pain peeked its head in and threatened to return. With her help, I slowly sat up and looked around.

The woods had considerably less fog; a foul breeze came from the ragged hole in the cliff. Two beings, the cloud of flies that was the goddess Izanami, and a man made entirely of fire, talked to Kate some ways from me.

“Who?” I managed to croak.

“Kagut-suchi,” my doctor replied. “The infant whose birth killed Izanami. Izanagi, his father, murdered him in retribution, and the child’s soul has waited here for thousands of years, waiting for his mother to come for him. He held the pain of your lost eye until you had completed your mission.”

“The voice in my head,” I said, understanding at last. “And you are?”

She smiled at me softly. “Kazuko. Izanami is pleased with your service to her and her family. She has appointed me as your physician and guard.”

I squinted again at the horrific death goddess. The flies had come together tightly to insinuate a woman’s form, but she was still dreadful to look at. Kate talked to her as easily as if she were talking to a manager at a grocery store.

Kagut-suchi walked toward me and kept a respectful – and healthy – distance. He left ashy, smoking footprints on the forest floor. “Thank you for freeing my mother.” He bowed low.

“Just, uh, doing my job,” I said, feeling how lame it sounded right away. “Susanoo, what was he doing here, anyway?”

He gestured a fiery hand at the door to the Underworld. “The end of the world is nigh. My mother was the beginning; she gave birth to us all. She will be the end: the goddess of death. She yearns to take revenge on my father. Susanoo-no-Mikoto is his son, the storm god, exiled from heaven for dishonoring his sister in their longstanding rivalry. He attempted to regain his father’s favor by keeping Izanami imprisoned. This slowed the end of the world. You stopped him. She is free. She can do her job now, allow the wayward souls to go home, and get her revenge on Izanagi when she ascends to heaven.”

He bowed again. “We are indebted to you and hope that Kazuko is a gift worthy of the sacrifice you have given.”

The woman bowed her head. I reached up and touched my bandages gingerly. If given a choice, would I have traded my eye for a traveling doctor? Probably not. But I didn’t have a choice. Still, I knew the Japanese held honor highly, and the gods even more so than the people.

I bowed as best I could from my seated position. “I am unworthy of the gift; thank you, Kagut-suchi-san.”

He bowed one last time and returned to his mother and Kate. “So she’s going to do her part to end the world, then go kill her husband?” I asked Kazuko.

“She is death,” the woman said. “Her path is clear.”

I cleared my throat and thought of the dying Earth. “Of course.”

“The small piece of a god you carry within you should have begun healing you by now,” she said. “Do you feel any better?”

My head had begun to clear. Hope reared its ugly head, and I said, “Does this mean I will grow the eye back?”

She looked at me, her eyes kind. “Did Odin?”

I sighed. “Well, shit. Sometimes this job really sucks, you know that?”

“I am sure. Most do.”

“Yeah, but most don’t slice out your eye with a katana,” I retorted.

“Hey, dude,” Kate said as she made her way over, her forced nonchalance not fooling me in the least. “You feeling better?”

I glared at her as best I could. “Better than before, when there was a sword in my eye, yes. Better than five minutes before that? No.”

She grinned at me. “You’ve reached the wounded tiger stage already? Excellent.”

I looked away from her. “I’m not up for jokes right now.”

She looked down. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. I owe you my life, or afterlife, or something. If you hadn’t thrown that shield he would have cut me in half.”

She shrugged. “It was all I had. I wish I had done more.”

I took her hand and squeezed it. “Help me up?”

She pulled me to my feet and I leaned on her, the pain in my head blooming anew from the altitude change. “I talked to Izanami and her son. Freeing her was our big goal here, and opening up the underworld. The mist around here was all the souls who haven’t been able to go to the underworld since Izanagi blocked it at the beginning of time. Now they have somewhere to go, and Izanami is free. And you’ve met our bodyguard?”

“You mean my doctor?” Kazuko had been silently sitting up to then; she stood and straightened her kimono. Her sword, a straight Chinese blade, came into view, and I thought about how useful she would have been about half an hour before.

I put a hand to my head. The pain had receded and I knew I’d be healed, as much as I could, in a couple of hours. Kazuko looked into the now-open tunnel to Yomi, the underworld.

“I hope I don’t have to warn you that going there in search of your sister would be a tragic journey,” she said.

“Is she there?” I asked.

Her calm gaze met my eye. “No.”

“Well, then. Let’s go.”

We stopped to bow to the goddess of death and the god of fire before leaving the Shinto afterlife. They bowed back, thanking me once more.

We walked in silence. Kate broke it finally by saying, “That was… intense.”

I snorted. “Understatement of the afterlife, Kate. Nice place. We’ve lost our dog, what I had left of my sister, and now my fucking eye,” I said as the world reverted back to the standard, bland, landscape. “I nearly lost my best friend; what’s next, my balls?”

Kate looked at me directly. “You won’t lose me, Daniel. I’ve got your back, remember?”

Her frank words made me flush, and I looked down.

Kazuko spoke up from behind us. “Izanami died of burns when she birthed Kagut-suchi. She retreated to Yomi where her body and soul were devoured by beetles, maggots, and kaku. Eventually all that was left were the flies that came from the maggots, strengthened by the essence of the goddess within. She waited there for thousands of years, vengeance the only thing on her mind. Vengeance to him who dishonored her and looked upon her after her death when she had bid him not to, and on him who killed her son.”

Okay, I guess that was worse than losing an eye. “Yeah, but—” I said.

“Izanagi sliced the newborn baby Kagut-suchi into eight pieces, each creating new gods and demons. The newborn’s soul has been here ever since, waiting for its mother.”

I tried to interrupt again. “I know, and I—”

She continued. “Millions of people on earth died in the first nuclear attack. Their skin melted and their organs disintegrated. When they enter Yomi, there will be nothing for the maggots and kaku to devour. Those who will die of radiation poisoning or survivor violence will get to rot in Yomi. They will scream as the beetles dig holes in their genitals and maggots devour their—”—

“Okay, okay, I get it! People have it worse off than me. Sheesh.”

Kate glanced at the stern woman. “You must be a ball at a party.”

She rewarded us with a tight smile and continued down the road. I was so tired. I wondered if Kazuko would just leave us if we sat down to rest, but Kate wedged herself under my arm and I leaned on her gratefully.

“I’m not really thinking clearly,” I said. “Where do we go from here?”

She held me tightly around the waist and I marveled at her strength. “Let’s get to the roundabout and decide then.”

“There’s not much left keeping me from dropping right here,” I said, resting my head on hers.

“There’s me.”

“I feel like I could sleep until the end of the world.” I whispered into her hair.

“Apparently, that’s not too far off now,” she said.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Daniel, wake up,” Kate said. I groaned and rolled over. She nudged me. “No, seriously. Get up.”

I opened my eye and glared at her. She pointed down a road. “You wanted to sleep till the end of the world. Time to wake up.”

I carefully rubbed my good eye and noticed the pain had pretty much left my head. The scars on my face had faded at least by touch, but eye was gone. Forever, I figured. Shit.

The road Kate pointed down was not one we’d traveled before. I’d never considered that one of the roads would lead back to Earth, but clearly that’s where this simple dirt road led, as souls began trudging toward us. Only a few led, but a darker mass on the horizon indicated they were not alone by far. I stood up to see if I could see farther.

“Why haven’t we seen souls on the road before?” Kate asked, joining me.

Odin’s knowledge bubbled up in my head. “There are more than one road to heaven. It’s meant to be a solitary journey. But apparently even metaphysical roads aren’t infinite. They’re overwhelmed with souls. I mean, we had, what, six billion people?”

“More than that,” Kate said.

The mass of people neared us, hollow-eyed souls who barely looked right or left as they passed the roundabout and went unerringly toward their own heaven.

“I wonder if they see the roundabout,” Kate said. “I didn’t see it when I died. Did you?”

“No,” I said. “I think their road goes where it’s supposed to. I’m not sure they even see us.”

So of course I had to be proven wrong when three souls wandered past and turned, focused on us, and then charged.

We had camped in the soft sand in the center of the roundabout, about ten feet from the road. The souls looked like regular humans, but regular humans who were undergoing some horrific torture. One man with knives through his eyes lunged for us with a third knife, apparently not needing the sight he’d been robbed of. My face twitched, more disturbed by the gruesome reminder of my loss than the actual attack.

A woman, her long hair ablaze, tried to use herself as a weapon, launching herself at Kate, her screams nothing but tortured grunts as her vocal cords melted.

The third looked as if it were a garden-variety zombie, rotting flesh dripping and maggots writhing. It moaned and belched a noxious cloud.

All of this I processed after the fact. What really happened was that while Kate and I stood and watched our doom approach, too stupefied to react, Kazuko jumped in front of us. Kate shoved me down and sand flew into the air, and then Kazuko went to work.

Her sword was out instantly. She assessed the threat and cleaved the burning woman in half just as the demon reached Kate. Then the knife-man lost his extending arm in a spray of blood. A nasty sound came from the zombie and Kazuko bent her legs, wrapped her arms in tight, and hit Kate like a small, dense battering ram. She fell over me just as the cloud passed over our heads. Kazuko dropped, rolled, and was up in an instant. She went immediately from a small, compact ball to a wide-stretching, graceful crane, and the zombie’s head landed ten feet away on the edge of the roundabout and bounced into the road.

Just for good measure she beheaded the flailing knife guy, and then calmly wiped her blade with a handkerchief.

I panted in the sand, looking up at her, then at the remains of my assailants, then to Kate, who was as startled as I was, and then back her.

“I believe the borders are fracturing,” she said, scrubbing some soot off her blade. “The rogue beings that exult in chaos have discovered your quest to stop them.”

Something within me snapped. I scrabbled to my knees, rooting through my backpack and yelling. “Give me something. Anything. If You will not protect me, give me something to protect myself. Damn You, give me something!”

“Daniel-” Kate began, but I snarled at her as I found a tiny pocketknife at the bottom of my backpack.

I stared at it and hurled it down an empty afterlife road. “What? Don’t like the fact that I swore at You? That’s one of the Ten Commandments, right? No killing, no coveting, no swearing, and not holding other gods before You? But all I’ve been doing is finding other gods, several of whom have helped me out a ton more than You have. You have me run from gods with swords without giving me one. You have me lose my fucking eye. I’m like Your fucking leashed lapdog, and I don’t even know if I’ll get what I want at the end, because You don’t know where Megan is!”

I gripped my head and howled. The socket where my eye had been throbbed; it had taken longer to heal than I had expected, but then again the stress of the attack and my rage might have inhibited the healing process.

I grabbed the backpack and threw it after the knife. “I’ve had enough of this!”

Abruptly I realized I was being watched. Kate stared at me as if she didn’t know me. Kazuko stood quietly beside the three assassins. She had replaced the straight blade in its sheath, but held a familiar object in her hands.

“Where did you get that?” I asked, willing my voice not to shake.

She held Izanami’s katana, taken, I assume, from the no-longer-with-us Susanoo. “She wants you to have it. If your god will not give you the tools in which to protect yourself, then she will aid you.”

“I don’t want it.” I touched my bandage involuntarily.

“The tool is not to blame for what its wielder does,” she said.

I had been complaining about not having a weapon. Now that I had one offered I didn’t want to touch it. I stared at the hated sword. Kazuko unsheathed it and the runes glinted on the blade. In her hands, it looked like pure silver, with no shadows of malevolence. In my mind, Odin’s knowledge played through all of the proper ways to use the katana, what was forbidden according to bushido, the warrior’s code, and the history of the blade. For a craggy old man, he sure did know a lot about the weapons of a different culture.

“Do you know how to use it, Daniel?” asked Kate. “Anything in Odin’s database?”

I nodded, not taking my eyes from the hated sword. “I know how. In theory.”

“Then take it. Two people with swords will suit us better than one, and I’d probably cut my own foot off if I tried to use it.”

I shook my head. “Not now. I can’t do it now. I can’t even get used to having a blind side yet.”

“You will never get used to that,” Kazuko said, sheathing the blade. “You will learn to adapt, but you will miss it your whole life.”

I laughed suddenly, the idiocy of my existence hitting me. “Yeah, but I’m dead.”

She stared at me for a moment, and a smile crossed her lips. “You are correct.”

Kazuko put the katana on her right side, opposite her Chinese sword. Kate offered me a hand up. I accepted it and brushed the sand off my jeans.

Kate gently adjusted the bandage on my face, a move of such unexpected intimacy I was stunned for a moment. And in that stunned moment when all I saw was her and her ministrations, I realized what we needed to do.

“We need to go back to heaven. Our first heaven,” I said, and she smiled at me. Kazuko bowed her head slightly. I was tired of this. We needed answers.

#

I’d forgotten about that whole end of the world thing. It’s easy to do so when it’s not so immediate, when you have your own problems, like ancient gods fighting around you and with you, or throwing scary-ass demons at you. But the bombs kept dropping on Earth, which meant that people were dying by the millions.

Heading back to heaven, however, was easier said than done. Kate consulted a book from her backpack and said that nearly two billion souls would be wandering past us (and then amended that she didn’t know how many were going to end up in Hell). But we did not have the luxury of time, we needed answers, and it was clear the afterlife was not handling the influx of souls well.

The road became clogged with the souls of the innocents lost in the wars happening down on Earth. Children, mostly, toddlers to teens, all plodding along. They stared ahead, purposeful, without fear. They were all Japanese, many of them heading back toward the Shinto afterlife we had just vacated.

“Where are the babies?” Kate asked. Kazuko pointed above us where angels filled the sky, each bearing a child.

“The innocent are processed first in times of great death,” she whispered. “They are the easiest.”

The silence unnerved me. Children were not supposed to be that silent. “Is something wrong? Why are they so quiet?”

“A child’s soul is not prepared for quick and violent death. They are so full of life that it takes them time to adapt. They are in shock.”

My skin crawled as the roads became even more crowded, the children shuffling patiently down their proper roads. Some paths were more occupied than others. Unlike when Kate and I started, suddenly it was simple to discover which road led where, simply by following the children of different races and cultures.

Angels appeared in the sky, first as little dots then as larger, winged adults to land softly by the roadsides, glancing at clipboards and directing the children. Despite the crowd of thousands, maybe millions, counting the babies above us, the process rapidly improved. It was weird to see mine and Kate’s private place, as I realized I’d come to view the roundabout suddenly too crowded.

I touched Kazuko’s robe briefly and she stiffened. I withdrew my hand quickly and pointed instead to something shiny. “What’s that?”

It hovered at the side of the road, uncertainly, until a small brown girl with glowing white hair picked it up and put it into a basket. She searched the road until she caught sight of another and snatched that one as well.

“That is an unborn soul of the Hindu people. That girl is an Angiris – an angel that watches over sacrifices,” she said.

“I guess there’s not much sacrifice to watch over right now, huh?” I said. She nodded.

“God, did we cause that?”

Kate stared at the souls of the dead, thousands of them, possibly millions. It was hard to comprehend. She held her hand to her mouth and pressed, the knuckles growing white.

“Kate, remember, it was going to happen with or without us,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. “We had to be there to save Atalanta, and preserve Odin, and release Izanami. We didn’t make this happen, we didn’t kill them.”

She walked to the edge of the roundabout and stood, slightly elevated, her head bowed. I made a move to go after her, but Kazuko stopped me.

“Wait.”

“What?” I kept my eye on my friend, scanning the crowd of children, white-faced.

“She needs to process this information. She feels responsible.”

“And I’m responsible for her. This is one reason I didn’t tell her in the beginning.”

“Still, we can’t lose her in this crowd. She is tall and white. And besides, she is your best friend and will glow like a beacon in the dark for you.” I didn’t have a chance to ask what the hell that meant; she pointed to the children. “Look at the souls. Learn what you can.”

I acquiesced and watched in growing fascination as angels from every religion gathered the unborn souls. Some females opened skirts and placed the souls beneath them. Others put the souls into bags. One African man carefully placed each soul into a different carved box and placed it into a cart. He did not have many boxes.

It was clear we wouldn’t get anywhere through the mass of children. I shifted from foot to foot, watching them. “How long do you think this will take?” I asked Kazuko.

She stared at me. “Billions of people will take a considerably long time to process.”

Another angel had landed at the roundabout, carrying a clipboard. She had drab curly hair and a long nose. Clearly a Christian angel, she wore a yellow cardigan over her holy robe and wings. She fussed around the roads, picking children out and putting them on the right roads, muttering to herself all the while. She checked her clipboard constantly. Other Christian angels looked to be in charge of the unborn souls; she just directed everyone else.

I tried to remember if I’d seen her before, but I couldn’t place her. Perhaps I’d seen her on my own trip to Heaven. The first time, I mean.

Kate had noticed her, too, and was headed straight for her, gently pushing uncomplaining children aside as she made her way.

Kazuko watched, her back straight and her face serene. “Something is wrong here.” She spoke as if commenting on something funny her mother had told her that morning.

“What do you mean?”

She gave me a withering look. “Do you ever use that wisdom inside of you or are you just saving it for a rainy day?”

“If you know so much, then why aren’t you doing God’s work?” I said.

“I am doing the goddess’s work. Isn’t that enough?”

I glared at her and looked back toward the road, sighing. Children still came from the one road into Heaven and were sorted and directed down their proper road. Unborn souls drifted along until someone rescued them. My eye kept drifting back toward the officious angel and her cardigan. Ridiculous earrings swung from her ears, little blue globes on small chains. Every time she turned her head they banged against her neck and jaw - they did so even as Kate put her hand on her arm, getting her attention.

Something about the angel pulled at me. Something yearning and terrible wafted from her like the stink of a stable clinging to a farm hand. I gasped. Kate knew it before I did, but unfortunately Kazuko and I were armed and she was not.

I had known Kate would be leaving me; the fate she’d knitted in the yellow scrap had told me that much. Only I hadn’t known how, or when. If I had known, perhaps I could have stopped it. But prophecies don’t work like that.

I approached the road, not caring if Kazuko was behind me or not. The children were nearly impossible to get through; they didn’t part for me like they had for Kate. While Kazuko and I struggled, Kate yelled something at the woman, grabbing the front of her cardigan and pulling it open.

Dozens of small spikes covered the angel’s naked, sexless torso, upon which several golden souls were impaled. They made no noise and did not move, but I knew that each felt unbearable pain. I could feel them, and then realized Kate had felt them too. I stopped in revulsion and Kazuko made a choking sound as she pushed past me.

Kate looked at the angel in horror, frozen in place. The angel grinned and stepped forward, her outstretched arms winding around Kate. I choked out something and renewed my efforts to run forward. The angel’s wings flexed as her horrific body pushed against Kate, the glistening spines pressing through her clothes into her body.

Kate fought. My friend struggled and grunted, gasping as the spikes drove deeper with each flex of her attacker’s wings. With a cry, she closed her eyes and then the Kate that was Kate, her physical being, dissolved and drifted away on the wind.

Nothing remained but one more shining soul, impaled on a spike. Kate was gone.

I roared something unintelligible and shot forward, the children scattering suddenly. Where I had before assumed they were dazed and not aware of their surroundings, the children now moved away from the roundabout as a crowd, creating a space around us. Many pushed the unborn souls away as well, protecting them. I was only dimly aware of this.

The angel actually bared her teeth as she saw us coming. Kazuko had pressed the katana into my hand, and it felt natural to me; unnervingly so.

We had nearly reached her, swords drawn, but the angel smiled and moved her hand toward her right ear. Kazuko and I both struck as the angel grabbed her earring and squeezed it.

The blinding light seemed to flare a long time before the roar of the explosion, but I’m pretty sure, in hindsight, that they were simultaneous.

As consciousness left me, I wasn’t sure if our swords had reached her or not.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

After all we’d been through, I’d planned on confronting Him with more panache. I’d gained the wisdom of a god, lost an eye, outwitted other gods, and now carried the sword of a goddess.

In the imagined confrontation, I hadn’t planned on going the way of Lucifer or anything, or even simply arguing that God perhaps was doing a bad job. I just wanted to know what was up. I wanted all the information. I finally understood why Kate was so freaked out when she saw the souls. We had lost enough, felt responsible for enough, and for what?

But no, I was not permitted to confront Him with righteous anger and fury. I instead appeared naked inside His study, feeling ethereal, as if I’d been formed of mist only seconds before.

I opened my eyes and saw Kazuko tying the sash of a white kimono. Before I could react and cover myself, angels slipped a robe over my shoulders and a white band across my ruined eye.

God stepped back and smiled at me. “There. Back together again.”

“What happened?” I asked. “Where’s Kate?”

“You found an agent for the adversary, as I’d hoped you would do. She had a discarnate explosive that she used when you figured her out. The three of you disintegrated. I have put you back together.” He looked pleased with Himself.

“So where is Kate?”

“When I said, ‘the three of you’ I meant the agent for the adversary, you, and your guardian. Kate had already been discarnate, and the attack on her did a great deal of damage to her soul.”

“I don’t understand - can’t You put her back together like You did us?”

“The end of the world is a busy time for Me,” He said, still serene. “Souls are still slipping through the cracks. I need you more than ever now, to discover where the new souls have gone and retrieve them.”

“Wait, we found the rogue. We started the end of the world in every afterlife we reached, except for maybe Dog Heaven. We have done what You asked. And You can’t bring her back?”

“Your damage was to your bodies. Kate’s damage is to her soul. I could give her a body again, but her soul is still damaged. To repair that damage takes more power than I can to expend right now.”

“This is bullshit!” I said, rubbing my face. My fingers caught on the white band over my eye and dislodged it. “We did everything for You! And You can’t even-”

I gasped and pulled the band down. My healed eye blinked ferociously in the light, acclimating to it. “Wait, why is my eye back? I thought that couldn’t be healed?”

He looked down. “When you became discarnate, you lost that which was within you. I was able to restore you whole, however. You are as good as new.”

“Wait a minute, I lost Odin too?” Nausea stirred in my belly, although I couldn’t remember when last I ate. “And Megan is still gone?”

The anger that gathered in my chest dissipated at the sorrowful look on His face. “Yes. I am sorry, Daniel.”

“I thought You were all-powerful! So what’s with You not giving me any help out there? I had more help from the Norse and the Japanese than you. Did I fail some test, or give into temptation or something?” I was horrified at the realization that my hard-won anger had given way to threatening tears. So not the first way I wanted to use my new eye.

God shook His head. “Not in the least. My children have free will. I wanted to see how you would go about the adventure. You were taken care of, don’t you think?”

“Kate hasn’t been.”

He went to the mantle and pulled down a bottle I hadn’t noticed. Glowing yellow liquid swirled within. I swallowed. “Is that her?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“Kate’s substance is less ethereal and more chaotic, damaged as she was by an agent of chaos. This damage is different from what I am used to; her dis-incarnation was quite traumatic. At this moment, as is perhaps obvious by the missing souls, I am not fully omnipotent. The fracturing of My power has taxed Me greatly. If I were to give her a corporeal body, I am afraid her soul would leak out and dissipate.”

I stared at the bottle in anguish. “But, You’re God aren’t You? You fixed us, so fix her!”

God placed the bottle on the dais and looked at me. “The afterlife is too chaotic now for Me to use the power I have to assist her.”

He frowned at me, His face so sad I could barely look at it. “The truly tragic thing here is that I am not the only god who has the wisdom to repair damaged souls.”

Oh shit.

“Odin,” I confirmed.

He nodded. “I am sorry, Daniel.”

He left the study. I sat there with the silent Kazuko and the ruined soul of my best friend. And my two eyes.

And my little, mortal, stupid brain.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The shattered soul of the being who was once named Kate watched the man crumple and weep. The woman watched him, too. The soul wondered why the woman didn’t comfort the man; she just sat there. That wasn’t nice. A winged woman entered the room and handed the woman two swords. She stood and took them, bowing to the servant. She strapped one sword around her waist and one across her back.

She approached the man at last and pulled him up to a standing position. She picked a white band off the floor and efficiently wiped his face. He took it from her and stuffed it into the pocket of his robe.

He picked up the soul’s bottle, then, giving the soul a thrilling ride as it swirled within its confines. He looked at it, tears brimming again, and then gently put it back down on the mantle.

They left, then. The soul was disappointed; but it somehow knew the man and woman had saved it from the searing pain from before. It remembered nothing before the searing pain. It would have liked to push its way out of the bottle, but one needed a body for that.

It dozed for a bit, having nothing to occupy its interest. A couple of angels entered the room, frantically switching reality around. The walls fell away, the roof dissolved and the wooden floor of the study became the deck of a ship. The soul enjoyed the pitching of the deck, and eagerly watched more people appear on the deck.

The Great Being was there again, the kindly man who had gathered the soul and put it in this jar before it had melted away.

The Great Being stood on the ship, dressed in light clothing and a hat to keep the sun off his face, and faced two others. The two men were both in business suits without a thread out of place, well-fitting, and with looks on their faces of complete discomfort. Very Important Men, then. Leaders, perhaps. The Great Being spoke to them, turning the wheel of the ship, and they struggled to maintain their footing. In front of them, the sea writhed and churned. One of the men frowned and tried to speak, but the Great Being cut him off. The boat rocked and the men grabbed onto rigging.

The soul stayed strangely rooted to the deck of the ship, unaffected by the turbulence. The cause of the choppy waters became apparent soon enough, and the men screamed when they saw it.

A great whirlpool swirled ahead, sucking in all around it. The Great Being didn’t fight the pull, instead he steered the boat so it would be caught in the current. The men both dropped to their knees and spoke to the Great Being, tears streaming. They traveled faster as they began swirling around the whirlpool. The Great Being paid them no attention, instead bending to pick up the soul and its jar.

As the ship descended, the men holding to the rigging desperately, the Great Being stepped off the deck and fell, landing nimbly in the study.

He put the soul back on the mantle, and it waited there for the next exciting thing to happen.

The Great Being met with angels who gestured and waved their arms about; once a stray and desperate wing nearly knocked the soul from its perch, but the Great Being steadied it. The angels spoke of things like fracturing and chaos and the hand over.

The soul wished it had hands. They looked like fun.

The Great Being frowned and stared at the floor. He then pulled a letter from his robe and handed it to an angel. They left the room together.

More time passed. The soul tried again to achieve some sort of corporeal body, but it couldn’t manage so much as a finger.

More angels. More meetings. The soul began to grow bored. There was no concept of passing time here in this little room, and there were no more exciting boat trips.

It was during a meeting with some small glowing children that another exciting thing finally happened.

The man returned, the woman behind him, her face still unmoving. The man carried one of the swords now, unsheathed. He wore the same white robe, only now it was tattered, sandy and bloody. The soul wondered what adventures they’d seen. The man turned to look at the soul, and the injury to his face was suddenly apparent: he had lost his left eye, the socket and three deep scratches covered by the white rag he’d used to wipe his tears earlier.

He spoke quickly to the Great Being, his hand white with the effort of gripping his sword tightly, the muscles in his jaw clenching.

The Great Being accepted this interruption in stride, dismissing the children and standing to meet the man. He touched the man on the shoulder and smiled, and the man relaxed his grip. The woman knelt by the door.

The Great Being sat the man down and they talked for a long time. The man’s remaining eye widened as the Great Being talked, and he nodded slowly. The Great Being smiled one last time at the soul in its jar, and then left the room.

Choose a life to return to. Choose a body. The soul was astonished to actually hear the voice. Images flashed by then: a baby boy, an old woman, a dirty male farmer, and a young woman. Animals, then, a mouse, a giraffe, a hyena, a fox. When it landed at last on a hawk, the soul swelled in excitement.

Please, Kate, the voice pleaded. The image of the young woman appeared again, with emotions to go with it. Love, longing, frustration, courage, compassion, independence. The young woman had had a good life. Her body was strong. While the animals presented fascinating possibilities, the soul realized that the limitations were too great.

I am Kate.

Daniel stepped back, his breath catching in his throat, as Kate materialized in front of him. He averted his eye quickly at her nakedness, and angels silently entered the room to robe her.

“Kate? Are you all right?”

“I – I think so.” The soul that was now Kate again rubbed its new face. “I saw… so many things.”

Daniel rushed forward and grabbed her in a hug, burying his head in her shoulder. “I’m so sorry I let you go ahead without protection. I wasn’t thinking, and you were so upset. I thought I’d lost you. I’m just so sorry.”

Kate stood still, staring at the opposite wall. “I’m not sure I remember what you’re talking about.”

Daniel raised his head to look at her. “You don’t remember?”

She shook her head as he stepped back. “I remember that am Kate. You are Daniel. I remember that we are friends. And- and we died together,” She rubbed her face again. “I’m sorry. It may take me some time.”

The Japanese woman came up behind Daniel and stood by his side. She bowed low and said, “I am Kazuko. It is an honor to meet again the woman who drives my companion to such passionate acts.”

Kate stared at her. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you either.”

“That’s okay, you’ll remember,” Daniel said. He turned to Kazuko. “I’m right, right? She’ll remember?”

The woman shrugged delicately.

Kate made to stick her hand out, but then pulled it back and bowed clumsily.

“What happened to your eye, Daniel?”

He grimaced, touching the edges of the bandages that were spotted with blood. “That is a very, very, long story. How about some other time?”

#

The three sat in silence, content to recover from Kate’s disorientation and Daniel’s discomfort from his injury. They all looked up gratefully when the study door opened and a small boy came in.

Daniel’s eye widened. “Ganymede. Why aren’t you in Olympus?”

The boy, whose golden curls hung into his blue eyes, frowned at the floor.

“I am no longer needed,” he said. “There were too many deaths at the battle of Elysium.”

Kate raised her head sharply. “Who?”

Ganymede’s eyes filled with tears. “My master, Zeus. The goddess Aphrodite. The god Hermes.”

Kate gasped and sat back into her chair.

Daniel put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m very sorry, Ganymede.”

The boy shook his head. “I am instructed to bring this to you.” He handed Daniel a pair of backpacks and left the room.

Daniel put the backpacks on the ground. “Where do dead gods go when they die?” he asked Kazuko. “All the gods of Ragnarök, Susanoo, now the Greeks. Where are they all?”

The woman smiled slightly. “The gods can never go away. There are merely reinvented.”

Daniel put his hand on Kate’s knee. “He’s not gone, Kate, any more than you or I were when we died.”

She covered her face with her hands. “Him, I remember.”

Daniel removed his hand awkwardly and looked at her for a moment. Then he fiddled with the backpacks. He groaned.

“What is it?” asked Kazuko.

Daniel pulled out a tacky necklace from one of the backpacks. “Looks like we’re going traveling again.”

“This is not surprising,” she said. “He requires you still to travel heaven.”

Daniel opened an envelope he found under the gaudy necklace. He opened it and the color drained from his face.

“Not this time. We have to look other places for more missing souls.

“We’re going to hell.”

HELL

By Mur Lafferty

* * *

The Afterlife Series II

Hell, The Afterlife Series II

Version 1.2

Published by Restless Brain Media on Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 Mur Lafferty

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

This is a work of fiction. Resemblances to persons living or dead is coincidental.

This book is dedicated to the listeners, who encouraged me to take the step from one story to a series.

Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

I’d had no concept of time or self when I was a soul. I remember casting about, watching the Divine punish world leaders (which is what Daniel and Kazuko had told me He’d done). When I lost form but was touched by the Divine, I was stitched back together enough to comprehend my surroundings, if not my own identity.

We sat, the three of us, in the study of the Divine. I could no longer give It a name as I fully remembered Its touch. It was beyond Man, beyond Woman. The face It wore was a mask so most souls could comprehend what they wanted to see. But there was no comprehending the truth. Such power It had, such wisdom. It embodied the qualities of every god and goddess I had encountered and It got me wondering: was It a mixture of all gods, or was It the spring from which all the other gods were born?

Theological arguments aside, we had a mission. Why the font of such power required us to undertake this quest was beyond me, but trying to understand Its will was like trying to drink from a waterfall. I could only drink in a little at a time.

Daniel handed me a backpack. I took it wordlessly and strapped it on. Kazuko rose from her solemn kneeling position. She pointed behind us.

“That is the way out,” she said.

A door stood where there hadn’t been one before, in the middle of the wall. A Greek symbol was etched on the door, and it took me a moment to recognize Omega.

Daniel led the way, with Kazuko following and myself bringing up the rear. The door opened to a dark corridor. “Great,” mumbled Daniel.

I closed the door behind us and left us in the pitch blackness.

“What did you do that for?” Daniel snapped. He’d been distant since his initial outburst. I think my inability to remember much upset him, as if he took it personally.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Habit, I guess. Don’t leave doors open. Grandma Nancy would always say flies would get in. Dogs would get out. Air conditioning would get wasted.” I rummaged around in my backpack until I felt something flashlight-shaped.

I turned it on and slipped past the two of them in the corridor. “Let’s go.”

We walked for some time. My head still buzzed with my experiences, and for a brief moment I regretted not taking the hawk’s form. The hawk would unlikely be worrying about the cold silence behind me.

“So when are you going to tell me what happened to your eye?” I asked.

Daniel made a small noise.

“Never mind,” I said.

“No. It’s okay.” His voice had lost the edge it had gained. “After you… had your… encounter with that angel demon thing… some stuff happened.”

“That’s not telling me much.” I didn’t look around but kept walking down the corridor, which had shifted from a hallway to a stone tunnel.

Kazuko’s soft, matter-of-fact voice floated up from the back. “After the altercation with the entity who attacked you, we were blown apart, God put Daniel back together: complete with his eye, but missing the wisdom of Odin. It turns out that God would need the All-Father’s wisdom to restore you. Daniel then found a way to regain what he needed. He got the wisdom back, gave an eye in exchange, and you know the rest.”

I stopped and shone the light in her face. She didn’t wince at the sudden glare. “I’m sorry. Can you go over that again?”

#

The cave emptied onto a barren plain. Distant screams sounded from afar. We stood at the mouth of the cave and stared at the gray waste and the gnarled, blackened trees before us.

“So which hell is this?” I asked.

“It isn’t hell,” Kazuko said. “This is purgatory.”

Daniel scowled at her. “And how the hell do you know that?”

“I am your guide.”

He turned to me, sighing. “See? She is still doing that.”

I didn’t return his exasperated grin. I pointed as figures came into view. In the gray afternoon (what time was it, anyway?) they lit up the dullness around them. Embers danced between the flaming figures, and they writhed as they walked.

“Good Lord,” Daniel said. “If this is purgatory, what is hell going to be like?” He swallowed. He apparently already knew the answer to his question; he had a god in him to tell him as much.

I was just me.

What was I doing there?

Kazuko spoke up. “Those are the lustful. The fire is burned from them as they prepare for entrance into Heaven. As soon as they are purified, they are permitted to wash in the river of Lethe and enter paradise.”

Daniel snorted. “Paradise. Right. It was a blast, huh, Kate?”

I remembered the touch of the Divine. “It is all they could ever hope for. They will receive their reward.”

Daniel’s jaw dropped slightly. “Please tell me you’re kidding. Don’t you remember getting to heaven, how it was all smoke and mirrors? We weren’t even together, but I found you and we left to explore?”

“Except we were sent to watch the end of the worlds,” I said absently.

He snapped his jaw shut. “You remember that?”

I nodded. “It’s coming back to me, in bits.”

“But that wasn’t my point. We agreed that heaven wasn’t all that, and we left. And now you’re buying into it?”

“You haven’t seen it,” I whispered.

“Seen what?”

“You haven’t felt the true touch of the Divine. Your view of it is colored by your anger.”

“What, are you a fundamentalist now? What the hell, Kate?”

I tilted my head, trying to understand. “You carry a part of the Divine within you, Daniel. When you realize that, you’ll understand.”

“Gah!” he shouted, throwing his hands up. He stomped out of the cave, heading toward the flaming walkers. Our guide, the stoic Kazuko, followed. I paused, and then walked in their footsteps.

The person in the lead, a tall woman in a flowing skirt, halted and bowed to us. Flames dripped from her hair, and her face twisted in agony, but she made no anguished sound. “Visitors to our hopeful land,” she said. “What news do you bring?”

“Uh, we’re actually on our way down. Can you point us the way out of purgatory?” Daniel asked.

“Way down? Do you come from the holy light of heaven?” the woman nearly wept in hope.

“Yeah,” Daniel replied. “God sent us on a mission.”

“Did He release us from our penance?”

“Uh, well, not so much,” he said, shifting from foot to foot, looking at Kazuko. “What are you in for? I’ll see if I can put in a good word.”

“I am Gloria Francis Smoot,” she said, bowing. “A prominent madam from New Orleans. My house of ill repute was notorious during the War of Northern Aggression.”

“Dude. You’ve been here since the Civil War?” Daniel stared at her.

“Well, yes; that much time is needed to remove the taint of sin, or until the Judgment Day comes. And our day will come.”

“What the fuck is going on!” Daniel yelled. He stomped around, flailing his arms. “Has the world gone insane? My best friend is a fundie, you’re sitting here, on fire, spouting some shit about how it’s okay that you’re on fire because you’ll be forgiven on Judgment Day, and you don’t even know.”

He stopped and grabbed her shoulders, gripping her burning flesh tightly. I winced in sympathy as his hands grew red.

“Listen to me,” he said. “It’s a ruse. Judgment Day was last Wednesday. It’s over. Heaven is busier than Macy’s on the day after Thanksgiving. He’s forgotten about you.”

She shook him off and took a step backward. Her compatriots shifted and glanced at each other through the flames. “Are you sent from Satan? Is this my final test?”

“You’re not paying attention,” Daniel said through gritted teeth. “We’re not from there, we’re going to there.”

“You lie,” she said. Her voice was barely audible above the crackle of the flames around her body.

“Really?” he asked. He pointed to the right, about one hundred yards away where an angel stood in front of an iron gate, staring at us. “Ask him. He probably can’t lie, can he?”

A woman put her hand on Gloria’s arm. “Do not despair, Gloria. You must keep the faith.” Her friends crowded around her, making the individual fires grow to one great bonfire, and we stepped back, squinting.

“This is ridiculous. Let’s get out of here,” Daniel said.

We left them crouched and weeping. Daniel stalked far ahead of us, his spine straight and his fists balled.

“That was a pretty shitty thing to do,” I told Kazuko. “He took away what remaining hope they had.”

“Daniel is dedicated to uncovering the truth,” she replied.

“How very X-Files,” I muttered. I ran to catch up to Daniel and put my hand on his shoulder.

“We need to camp, dude,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” he grumbled.

I pointed to the troubled sky. “It’s getting dark. We’re not in heaven anymore; apparently the other places have night.”

We tried to build a fire, but couldn’t find any wood. I thought about suggesting we convince a lustful soul to join us so we could see by their tormented light, but figured Daniel wouldn’t find it amusing.

Kazuko stretched out on a light blanket, her hand on her sword. Daniel hugged his knees to his chest and stared in the direction from which we’d come, facing the fires of the weeping souls.

Memories sat in my mind like stories I’d once read but not experienced myself. I hesitated a moment, then went to him and sat down, my back to his, and leaned back. He relaxed against me.

“I am sorry I lied to you, Kate, and I’m sorry I let you go ahead to that angel thing without me,” he said. His voice was tired, defeated.

“I never would have claimed my independence if it hadn’t been for you, Daniel,” I said.

“Still. I lost you for what felt like a long time. I really missed you.”

I was silent for some time.

“Do you want to tell me about what happened?” I finally said.

“Can we talk about that later? It’s still a little fresh,” he said, and he shifted as his arm touched the bandage across the wound on his face.

“Sure.”

“So why didn’t you ever tell me you were in love with me?” he asked.

I should have felt nervous and flushed, but I wasn’t. “Several reasons, I guess. I knew it would make things weird if you didn’t feel the same way. And if you did feel the same way, we might someday break up and I’d lose all of you. And then there was the fact that I did tell you about a year and a half ago and you didn’t return the feelings.”

He turned his head, trying to see me in peripheral vision. “What? When was this?”

“It was Christmas, we were hanging out at your house watching TV, the lights twinkling. It seemed like the perfect time. I gave you a love note with your present the next day, and you never said anything about it.”

“Oh… Right. Hell, I was in love with ten different people a week back then. I didn’t realize you were serious.”

I snorted. “How much clearer could I have been?”

He didn’t answer. I stared into the darkness, and I suppose he stared at the flickering, burning souls.

“What are we going to do about them?” I asked.

“Do?”

“Yeah. The tormented souls? Weeping and burning and all that?”

“Nothing. It’s not our jobs to release them, we’re just looking for the lost ones.”

“I guess with all that god stuff you got, you skipped out on compassion.”

He was noticeably still. I yawned, tired from returning to my corporeal body, and stretched out behind Daniel. I leaned against him, keeping contact, and fell asleep, with a nagging sense of something in my brain.

#

When I woke, Daniel was still seated, but his head was on his arms, and he dozed. Kazuko was seated cross-legged, making tea. I watched her pour water from a canteen into her teapot and the idea that had been nagging at me finally solidified.

I grinned and gently shook Daniel’s shoulder. He raised his head and then winced and put his hand to his neck. He glared at me. “You are never, ever going to let me sleep, are you?”

“Not when I keep having brilliant ideas. You need to stay awake to keep up.”

He groaned and looked at Kazuko. “Aren’t you supposed to protect me?”

She didn’t answer, but sipped her tea.

“Fine. Tell me, what glorious idea has sprung, fully grown, from your head?”

“Come on,” I said, and pulled him to his feet.

All at once, it felt wonderful to have a body again, and I grabbed both our backpacks and ran toward the hill that the tortured souls surrounded. My feet pounded the ground and I outdistanced Daniel, who fell behind, complaining that his eye hurt.

I stopped short when I heard them, singing and wailing, calling out to God to remember them. I dropped the backpacks onto the ground and reached inside one until I found what I needed. I grasped the handle and lugged out a bucket of water.

Daniel caught up with me. “What the hell are you doing?”

“The Divine did not restore my soul, did It?”

He passed a hand over his face. “No, He made me do it.”

“And how did you have the power do to something that amazing?”

“I got some Odin in a cut. What are you getting at?”

I thrust the bucket into his hands. Some of the water slopped over the side and got on his jeans. He swore.

“Free them. Forgive them. Release them.”

He stared at me, his one eye wide. The souls staggered closer, recognizing Daniel. Their desperate faces turned angry and ugly. They pointed at Daniel and began running toward us.

The ssssshhk of steel coming out of a scabbard sounded behind me, but I held my arm out to block Kazuko. “Wait,” I said.

She stepped around my arm and stood at my side, ready.

The flaming mob neared, and Daniel cast a look over his shoulder at me. “Are you serious?”

“Definitely.”

He shrugged. “Worked for Dorothy.” And with that he tossed the bucket of water at the mob.

With a hiss, the flames were gone. Seven wet souls stood in front of us, too shocked to go on with their planned evisceration of my friend.

The woman we’d spoken with the night before, Gloria, held her hand out and stared at it.

“There,” Daniel said. I could tell he was much more nervous than he sounded. “Your torment has ended. You are free to move on to your paradise.”

Gloria looked at the angel guarding the gate. He bowed his head and stepped aside, freeing the entrance to Heaven.

She flung herself, her very wet self, around Daniel’s neck, weeping and thanking him. He dropped the bucket and staggered, clumsily returning the hug. They left him, after each hugging or kissing him.

Trying not to smile, I handed him a towel. He wiped his face and jacket. “You want to explain to me what happened?”

“I’m not entirely sure yet. I’m working on it,” I said, putting the towel and bucket back in my backpack. “Till I figure it out, we have more lustful souls to free.”

He frowned for a moment. “We’re out of water. I’m sure there are more souls around here than that small group.”

I stared at him. “Dude.” I pointed to the bucket where he’d dropped it. It was upright and full of water again.

“How?” he asked, his eye wide.

“For God’s sake, Daniel. We’re in the afterlife. I created a house, garden, a fake you, and a relationship out of nothing but core desire. You think I can’t dream up a little water? Give it a try.”

“Wow, you think of everything,” he said, sighing. “But you look like you need something.”

I cocked my head. “What?”

“A shower.” He flung the bucket at me. It drenched me immediately and I gasped as the cold water soaked me. By the time I’d wiped the water and my stringy hair from my eyes, he was running off, laughing.

“You utter and complete ass!” I yelled, picking up the bucket and running after him.

The bucket got heavier as I ran, and I looked down to see it filling with water again. Some fiery souls burned ahead of us, where Daniel was running. As much as I wanted to get him back, I remembered what was important.

There were a lot of souls in purgatory to get to.

CHAPTER TWO

The wind in purgatory is ranker than the wind in heaven. Heaven had seemed bland and uninteresting at times, but it was a lot better than the stale scent of sweat and fear. Sometimes it’s hard to notice the absence of bad things until the bad things are introduced. Or reintroduced.

Daniel had been an absolution machine once he’d discovered his power to free the burning lustful souls into Heaven. I think he had a spiteful glory in his realization that he not only had the god-like ability to grant the souls freedom, but also to throw more souls into the utter chaos that was heaven.

Kazuko and I had finally stopped following him, although it had taken some convincing to get her to slow down. Daniel ran around with his bucket, dousing anyone he saw. He outdistanced us, and I put my hand on Kazuko’s arm. She gave me a look that sent chills through my spine, and I wondered briefly what would happen to me if she sliced me open here in purgatory.

“Just wait,” I said. “Let him do what he needs to do. I don’t think anyone is a threat to him right now, and we’re not keeping up with him anyway.”

She looked pointedly at the angel standing at the gate to Heaven, letting the doused souls by, but watching Daniel closely.

I snorted. “You’re really thinking of taking on an angel?”

“I am bound to protect and guide you both,” she said.

“Well, wait till we need you. Let’s just sit and hang out for a bit. He clearly doesn’t need us right now.”

She acquiesced and we sat on the barren ground. I put my backpack behind my head and lay down, stretching out my tired muscles.

“He is upset.” It wasn’t a question.

“Clearly,” I agreed. “You guys seem to have been through a lot of shit without me.”

“He’s lost his eye. Twice. The same eye.”

I squirmed a bit. “Well yeah, that tends to piss people off. If it were possible on Earth. Which it really isn’t.”

“The second time he lost it for you.”

I didn’t answer her. I didn’t know how. When someone voluntarily loses an organ for you through violent measures, “thanks” doesn’t seem to be sufficient enough. I said as much to Kazuko.

“Then perhaps you should say, ‘thanks a lot,’” she said.

I rolled over to look at her. She stared at me with an impassive look, but I suddenly laughed. It seemed very loud in this land that had heard no laughter for eons. “You have a sense of humor!”

She rewarded me with a very small smile. “Do not tell Daniel. It does him good to trust me as a stoic guardian. It’s your emotions he worries about.”

“Me? Why should he worry about me?”

“You awoke in him great confusion and distress when your feelings were revealed. He has been concerned for you since. He still is.”

I leaned back on my pack again. “I’m fine. Really. You guys have been through a lot, but so have I, just not quite in the same way.”

“Do you feel the way you did before?”

“No.”

“Ah.”

I didn’t know what she meant by ‘ah.’ Perhaps it made things easier. Perhaps it made things more complicated. I didn’t get a chance to ask, because then Daniel came up to us, panting and grinning.

“I think we’re done here. You guys ready to move on?”

#

We did the same to the others. We told the wrathful, envious, prideful, slothful, gluttonous, and greedy that their time was done. Some argued and said they needed to go through the purgatories of the other sins for their full penance, but one smoldering look from Daniel’s eye and a glance at his katana convinced them their penance was over.

Kazuko and I just watched. We passed the time discussing exactly how Daniel had gotten the know-how to use the ancient sword.

“Of course, he couldn’t make his body follow his brain’s commands at first,” she continued. “But in time the muscles did what the mind told them.”

“’Over time’?” I asked. “I thought you haven’t had a lot of time since I left.”

“The trip to regain Odin’s wisdom took longer for us than it did for you,” she said.

I watched Daniel remove a heavy rock from a prideful woman’s back and help her stand to look him in the eye.

“I don’t really see why he needs me at this point,” I whispered.

Kazuko was not a fidgety woman, but her sudden stillness caught my attention. “What do you mean?”

I got the feeling I was walking on a very tender subject and wasn’t sure how to get out of it. “I mean he has you as a guide and protection, and he seems like he can take pretty good care of himself anyway. He’s got the wisdom of a god; about the only thing he lacks is the common sense to use it. But he really doesn’t need me.”

She didn’t draw her sword, but she didn’t need to. Her look terrified me. “I would respectfully ask that you never say that in his presence. You do not know what he went through to get you back. If you question your worth to him, you will show yourself to be blinder than he.”

I blushed and backpedaled. “Look, I know he got me back and paid a huge price. He did it because we’re best friends. We’re like brother and sister. But I’m just saying I don’t know why I’m on this mission to hell. You two have brains and brawn. I have nothing.”

“You just answered your own question. You are the person closest to him. Whether you acknowledge it or not, he needs you.”

I nodded slowly. “That’s fair. Do you think he’ll ever tell me what you two went through?”

She watched Daniel with her eyes narrowed as if trying to read him. “I do not know.”

“Will you?”

“No.”

“Yeah. That’s what I figured.” I lapsed into silence. Daniel had done his final scout to clear purgatory and once he reached us, we were off.

He hadn’t been very chatty since taking on his new responsibility. He traveled from purgatory punishment to punishment, staring straight ahead and saying little. When we camped, sometimes he would talk about the souls he had freed, but otherwise he remained silent. I held back from him now, unsure of how to start a conversation. I tried to wrack my brains for the conversations we’d had, the times he’d been upset and I’d been able to make him smile, the times I reminded him what was important. But laughter felt cheap here, and how could I remind him of something more important than what he was doing?

The gates leading out of purgatory – or, as most souls saw them, into purgatory – were nothing special. To us they resembled a picket fence leading from the purgatory of the proud into a flower-filled field.

I had a momentary thought of Jet and missed her terribly. When all is dire, what could be better than a Labrador licking your face?

Daniel frowned. “Where the hell is this?”

“Um, not sure. Still not hell, obviously,” I said. “Shouldn’t you know?”

“Odin wasn’t omniscient,” he said. “I can tell you the genealogy of Loki, both parents and children, including those recently living in Norway, and strange factoids from Japanese and Russian mythology, but this Christian literary stuff is your bag.”

The field was reminiscent of Elysium, with the marble buildings, glorious fields, and perfect weather. No one seemed to be tortured here, even a little bit. The men-all men, no women-lounged about in the fields, lying on blankets, eating, reading, or dozing.

The man nearest the gate sprawled on a blanket, playing a lyre. He lay on his back and frowned at the sky.

When we approached him, he brightened and sat up.

“Someone new! Someone new! Oh this is glorious!” He put down his lyre and clapped.

“Er, new?” I asked.

“Oh yes, we haven’t had anyone new in so long, and the company is getting quite dull. This must mean Rome has returned; tell me it approaches its glory once again!”

Daniel and I exchanged looks. “I am Daniel, and these are Kate and Kazuko.” He stuck out his hand.

The man stood up and struck a pose, ignoring Daniel’s hand. “In life I was known as Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, but you can call me Nero. Rome’s greatest Emperor.”

Another man came up to us, adorned in a toga and leather sandals. “Hold, there, Nero. Second greatest, at best.”

Nero’s lip curled. “Octavius,” he said, tipping his head toward the newcomer.

Octavius bowed. “It is a pleasure to meet such colorful people. Please, come and tell us about Rome.”

I realized I had to stop the assumptions. “Sorry, we’re not from Rome, we’re just traveling through on our way… somewhere.” The words “to hell” died in my throat.

Octavius paused. “You are not emperors who come from Rome?”

“No, we are just wandering through,” Daniel said. “Where are we, anyway?”

Octavius’s voice became hard and annoyed. “This is the flowering valley, the place where the kings and Emperors of the Rome come to rest.”

I snapped my fingers. “Oh yeah! You’re pagan so you can’t go to Heaven, but being divinely chosen,” I fought the urge to make air quotes, “you get to hang here for eternity.”

“Until we are purified,” Nero said. “But it has been an awfully long time.”

“Nero. Aren’t you the guy who danced and sang while your city and people burned?” Daniel asked.

“Ah, yes.” Nero sighed and got a distant look in his eye. “It was so beautiful.”

Octavius snorted. “Fool. You shame the empire. It’s a wonder you got here.”

Nero returned to us and focused on his forebear. “Oh? And I’m sure the gods look favorably on those who sleep their way into office.”

Octavius drew himself up. “I was divinely chosen – the gods smile on their children’s movements.”

“Especially when their children murder other peoples’ children to get what they want,” Nero said.

Octavius colored. “You impudent fool. I did what was best for Rome. And no children burned while you laughed at your city’s flames?”

I looked around at the beautiful field of flowers. This was certainly better than those in purgatory proper had it. I tugged at Daniel’s elbow.

“Please excuse us, emperors. I must speak with my friend,” I said.

They barely looked at us as they continued to bicker. I pulled Daniel and Kazuko away from them.

“You’re not seriously thinking of letting them into Heaven, are you?” I asked.

“It seems to be my purpose,” Daniel said, but he frowned at his feet.

“They’re horrific people! I’m sure even Caligula is here!”

“That guy from the Morrisey song?”

“Do you wonder why a gloomy ‘80s British pop star wrote a song about him? He was cruel, insane, and probably the worst emperor Rome ever saw! But because he was ‘divinely chosen,’ he gets to sit around here and do God knows what!”

“So what do I do?”

I grinned. “You and Odin are like chocolate and peanut butter. You seem to be working well together. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

#

It took some convincing, but we got all of the emperors assembled at the gate of Purgatory. I tried not to let the lineup intimidate me. Among the Roman emperors were Caligula, who chewed on a finger bone, and Caesar himself.

I stared at them all. “These people would never make it past the pride part of purgatory,” I whispered to Kazuko.

“If they even made it that far,” she said. I nodded.

Daniel’s voice took on the quality of a carnie. “Step right up, come one, come all, come and see the greatest thing man has ever offered his fellow man! The road to ultimate salvation is open to you, all you must do is pass one small test. One wee little test. God knows you were divinely chosen, however, you know how bureaucracy works. This is merely a formality.”

Everyone nodded. They had all been heads of state at some time or another.

Nero stood at the head of the line; claiming friendship with us gave him that right. Octavius stood close behind him.

“Now, if my lovely assistant will come join me at the front of the line, we’ll get to the festivities!” he said, motioning me to join him.

“Listen closely: there once was a god by the name of Odin,” Daniel began. “He had many children, but one, Baldur, was beloved of all. He was so beloved that his mother called to all things in the world for a vow not to harm him. It helped that prophecies said his death would start a cascade of destruction that would end in Ragnarök, the end of the world. She neglected to get a promise from the weed mistletoe, however, and the god was slain by a spear made of the weed.

“This death did indeed cause many other deaths, starting with the poor fool who was tricked into throwing the spear, the blind god Hod. At Baldur’s funeral pyre, Thor kicked the dwarf Lit into the fire - no one knows why. Baldur’s wife followed the dwarf, throwing herself onto the burning ship. Lastly, Baldur’s horse was led onto the ship to die with him. The end times did eventually come, fulfilling the prophecy.”

Daniel took a deep breath. I bit my lip and waited. “At the funeral, Odin took on a disguise and whispered something into his dead son’s ear as the funeral ship was being prepared. No one knows what the All-Father said, and for the rest of eternity, he tricked people with the riddle of what he said.”

The emperors were fidgeting now and I poked Daniel to make him get on with it. “That’s somewhat unfair, I think. That’s a riddle as lame as, “what do I have in my pocket?” I’m going to make this easy on you. In order to leave this eternity for your just rewards, all you need to do is riddle me this: What three-letter word turns a boy into a man?”

I thought for a moment. “Bar Mitzvah” was made of too many letters, as were “first fake ID” and “selective service.” I was glad for a moment that I wasn’t being tested here. But how was he planning on judging them based on one word?

Nero swaggered forward and leaned in. “Nex,” he whispered.

I glanced at Daniel, who nodded slowly. Obviously he understood Latin now. “Clever to answer in Latin, Nero. Go stand over there, please.”

Octavius had his turn next. He walked forward, rubbing his chin. “Interesting question. Everyone has his own answer of what made him a man, but does that apply to all?”

Daniel shrugged, smiling. “That’s your call.”

Octavius thought for a moment. “The thing that applies to all men would be age.”

Daniel motioned him to form a new group away from Nero.

I caught on quickly to his plans and helped him sort the men. It wasn’t always easy; they gave us answers that weren’t three letters (in any language,) confusing answers (such as Claudius’s “sun” - or maybe he meant “son,”) creepy answers (“sex” and “boy” came up more than once,) and, of course, many answered simply “war” or, like Nero, “nex.”

Daniel had whispered to me that “nex” was Latin for death, specifically of the violent variety.

Caligula was an odd one. He spat out the bone he was chewing on and smiled and raised his hands. “When I lay ill, my family prayed to the gods that I recover. They pledged their lives in place of mine, offering to give what was most precious in order that I might live to benefit Rome. I recovered, miraculously, and became divine in my own way. I kept their promise and had them slain, making sure they paid their debt to the gods. I had the right, because I was a god myself. The day I became a man, I became a god. So that is my answer. ‘God.’”

“Wow. Okay. You go hang with Nero, dude. We’ll make sure you get a good seat,” Daniel said.

Gaius Julius Caesar, the one we all studied in school, walked forward somberly and merely whispered, “God.” Daniel and I looked at each other and motioned him to stand with Octavius.

Few others answered “age” or “god,” most preferring to answer what was the most personal to them. When we were done, we had six groups. Octavius, Claudius, Caesar, and Vitellus stood in a small group of four men, while Nero and Caligula stood together.

Daniel had no facial expression as he walked to the picket fence to purgatory and opened it.

“Wow,” I said, unable to stop myself. When we had traveled through purgatory, it had looked like concentric circles ending in Heaven, but now it looked like seven fields lined up before us, with gates between them all, and the final glowing gate-the one to heaven-at the very end of the field for the lustful. The same angel with the flaming sword guarded it.

Each purgatory had its own sword-wielding angel that patrolled it, and as Daniel opened the gate, each angel flew forward.

Some of the emperors, previously looking pleased and cocky, began to exchange glances. An angel with a brightly flaming sword stepped in front of the group that had answered some form “sex” to the question. He swung his sword and it sliced through the group, not cutting them, but setting each aflame.

They screamed in pain and confusion and I turned my head. I couldn’t block out their screams, though, and realized I was meant to witness this, like I’d witnessed everything before.

I turned back and winced as the men continued to scream and run about. The other men had begun to weep or look outraged. Only Claudius’s and Nero’s groups looked calm.

“Now you will be purged of the lustful flame,” the angel said. He opened his arms and grew, causing me and Daniel to step backward. He embraced all of the flaming men and flew off to deposit them in the furthest-most field.

“Now listen, girl,” one emperor said. “We are divinely chosen. What we did, we did for Rome. You’ve no right to judge us thusly.”

I shrugged. “Then why are the angels listening to us?”

A gray-robed angel, this time a female, stepped up to his group, smiling serenely.

“No. I won’t go. I will stay here. It is my right!” he cried, stepping backward. But she opened her robe and out flowed an acrid gray mist. As the men cried out in blind terror, it surrounded them, clouding them as their wrath had clouded their vision in life. She closed her robes around the mist, leaving nothing behind. Taking wing, she flew off to the hazy field of the wrathful.

An angel to represent pride buried his group in an avalanche, forcing each to carry huge stones to the nearest field, staring at the ground to learn humility.

The green-robed angel who represented avarice tossed out tight ropes to bind the fourth group, and dragged them, bumping and screaming, to their new home where they were to be tied face down.

The final group had begun to look uneasy, although still much less panicked than the others.

“So,” Daniel said, as if asking about their favorite sports team. “How have you four spent the last two thousand years or so?”

Caesar stepped forward. “Reflecting on our reign, mostly. Watching the world unfold, watching what we created grow. We saw the strides forward we took the human race, and rejoiced. We saw, too late, the mistakes we made, and we mourned.”

Octavius nodded. “I have committed the same as my fellows. Pride, wrath, lust, and more, besides. Why are we not with the others? Do we belong in one of the three remaining fields? I know I felt sloth and gluttony, although…” Here, he smiled, “I have to admit that the emperor of Rome had few people to be envious of.”

Daniel smiled. “Odin was fond of riddles, but I thought the original riddle he told regarding Baldur’s funeral was somewhat unfair. Mine was designed to test your morals, to test what you have learned. You’ve had thousands of years of relaxation while your betters have suffered in hopes of someday getting half the reward you enjoyed because of your assumed divinity. I have to admit I’m surprised that four of you were smart enough to pass the test.”

The angel guarding the final gate stepped forward, then.

“Now, I don’t know if I’m right here. This guy is the only one qualified to let you in. But I think you’re ready. Kate, what do you think?”

I looked them over. I’d quibbled over only one man: Emperor Vitellius, a pudgy man who had answered “age” in a bored way immediately upon addressing us.

I stepped back and gestured toward the angel. He stepped forward and took the arms of Caesar, Claudius, and Octavius and flew off, leaving Vitellius sputtering behind.

We waved at the departing angel. “You think they really deserve heaven?” Daniel asked.

I shrugged. “More than anyone else here. And that’s what we were judging, right?”

“What is the meaning-” Vitellius asked, his red jowls shaking.

One of the last angels stepped forward, a thin, androgynous one. Its bony hand wrapped tightly around Vitellius’s wrist and carried him away.

“Huh. I guess I was wrong,” Daniel said as they flew off, Vitellius howling in rage. “He’s going to be spending some time pondering his gluttony, I guess.”

I tugged on Daniel’s shirt. “Two left, don’t forget.”

He groaned slightly. “I was hoping they’d run away while our backs were turned.”

“Wow,” I whispered. “I’d heard incompetent people can’t comprehend that they’re incompetent, but damn, these guys are completely unaware that they’re douches. Look at them.”

Nero and Caligula watched us, proudly waiting, no doubt, for their reward.

Daniel sighed. He unsheathed Izanami’s katana, and Nero stepped back. “This was a gift given to me by a death goddess. I didn’t want to accept it at first. But now I know what I have to do with it.”

“Now, wait a moment,” Nero began, but Daniel raised the katana and sliced the space in front of him.

The air itself separated and bled, and a powerful vacuum tore the slice wider. The men screamed and tried to run, but Kazuko was there with her blade at their throats. Caligula, incredibly, tried to fight her, and with blinding speed she lopped off his hands. With no means of fighting her, he tumbled head over heels past Nero into the rip. Nero soon followed, howling. When they were gone, Daniel passed his hand over the rip and it disappeared.

It wasn’t until the violence was over did I realize I had my hands clapped over my mouth, pressing my lips into my teeth, stuffing the screams back into my mouth. A roaring filled my ears and I actually looked for a river there, in the middle of the afterlife. I looked away from the bloody ground before my best friend and his bodyguard, and tried to will away the blackness crowding out my sight.

“I will not faint,” I said through gritted teeth, and breathed in deeply.

I jumped and nearly screamed at a light touch on my back. “Remember, judging those in purgatory was your idea,” Kazuko whispered. “Do not blame him for this.”

I swallowed bile. “I know. But actually seeing it happening is something else.”

“The first time I drew blood with my blade I vomited,” Kazuko said. “It is something you, regrettably, get used to.”

I still couldn’t look at her. I sat down and put my head between my legs to steady myself.

“All right, it’s done,” came Daniel’s voice. I raised my head and he stood there, looking immensely tired. “They’re all on their way to their final resting place. That’ll teach them.”

“That was pretty intense,” I said. “I didn’t know you could do that with your sword.”

He smiled. “Neither did I. But at least it can get us where we’re going faster.”

My jaw dropped. “You’re not serious.”

“I think I can control it, and the sooner we get there and stop messing with this afterlife paperwork, the sooner we can get back home,” he said.

He helped me to my feet and brushed some hair out of my eyes. “You okay?”

I glanced once at Kazuko and nodded. “I’m just glad you didn’t have that sword when I was dating Kirk sophomore year.”

He laughed then, and the knot in my chest loosened a bit. “Me too. I really did hate that guy.”

He brought the sword up again and sliced the air open. This time, the wind blew out, hot and burning.

“We’re really going in there?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s going to suck, but at least we have swords,” Daniel said.

“I don’t.”

“We’ll work on that.”

CHAPTER THREE

I don’t know what I expected, really. Cartoon hell, with flames and a grinning fat devil with horns and no sexual organs, perhaps with Bugs Bunny in the background, taking it all in stride? No, wait, Daffy Duck. Bugs would never go to Hell. He was too clever for that.

Yes, clever people don’t go to Hell. Right. And yet here we were, voluntarily walking there.

Some people say that they love someone so much that they’d go to hell and back for them. As far as I know, Daniel and I are the only ones who actually went through with it. Daniel for his sister, and me, for Daniel. Of course. Hadn’t it always been that way?

Well, that was unfair. He’d given his eye for me. The least I could do was follow him to hell.

Well, Kazuko was with us too. At first I watched her surreptitiously, when I didn’t think she would notice, but she always met my eyes. After that, I didn’t conceal my studying of her. I couldn’t figure her out. She spoke more to me than she did to Daniel, but was always at his side, ready to skewer something or someone who threatened him. What drove her? Was it truly just honoring the death goddess who had given her the order to protect him?

Currently there was little to protect him from but boredom. Hell looked to be a lot like heaven, so far. The road was a little harder, the scenery more wilted, and the wind hotter, but honestly, it was a road like any other.

“So,” I said, trying to break the monotony, “do you think we’re going to hit another roundabout like Heaven?”

“Well, if this whole thing was built by Satan after being cast down, then maybe. It’s possible that he didn’t have much in the way of architectural creativity.”

My breath caught in my throat. “Or maybe he did.”

Dark walls came into view, looming in the distance, as high as the gates of heaven. As we got closer we saw that the walls were made of obsidian, with great jagged spires jutting out from the surface. The road led to a tiny doorway.

Each of the pointed spikes had a person skewered there, many still alive. They screamed, writhed, or simply hunched over and wept quietly. We approached one, a large, beefy man with a crew cut. A spike jutted from his middle and he breathed in quick, shallow breaths. A thin stream of blood ran from his mouth and he stared straight ahead.

“Greetings, Travelers,” he whispered as we reached him.

It felt hypocritical to make small talk here. I swallowed and then finally spoke. “So, uh, what did you do?”

His eyes never left the point on the horizon, much like a military man. “My wife died in childbirth and I was forced to raise our newborn son myself. He cried all the time. I beat him to make him stop crying. I killed him.”

My lip curled, but I had to remind myself I would likely meet much worse during my travels. “Can you tell me what this hell is?”

He lost his composure, coughed out a laugh, and then groaned. “This is not hell. This is the entrance to hell. This is where the cowards are, the people who can’t bear the thought of what goes on inside. We have the choice to impale ourselves here or face our proper punishment within the walls.”

“You did this to yourself?” Daniel asked.

The man nodded. His breaths came faster and he coughed again, spewing flecks of blood. “I am impaled here, then I die, then I return and see if I can face the terrors of hell.”

Daniel frowned. “Why would anyone choose Hell, if this looks like an easy way out?”

The soldier guy coughed once more and then slumped over, his eyes closed. His body slid slowly off the spike and fell to the ground to crumble into dust.

Another soul slid off her spike and crumbled beside him.

Daniel turned and watched the road behind us. “Why aren’t they coming back down the road?”

“Hell is a solitary place,” Kazuko answered. “You do not meet anyone on the road.”

“Huh. I thought hell was other people,” I said.

Daniel gripped his katana, flexing his fingers on the grip. “I’m sure it is, somewhere inside.”

He looked into the dark tunnel. “Let’s get it over with.”

#

Little things changed inside the tunnel. Instead of flashlights, we found greasy torches in our backpacks, torches that smoked and flared and made us cough. Our traveling robes were a dark gray, and the traveler necklaces were dark garnets instead of white diamonds.

When the tunnel ended at a T intersection, Daniel swore. “We’re in a maze. Heaven is a roundabout; hell is a maze. Any idea where we should go?”

I thought for a moment and pointed to the right bend. “How about that way?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Can you think of a reason to go left? Is Odin helping you out here at all?”

“Well. No. I don’t think his information will help out much unless we visit Hel.”

“Daniel, we are in hell.”

“No, Hel. H-E-L. The underworld of the Norse. Named for its ruler. Who, by the way, isn’t there anymore.”

“Where did Hel go?”

“We saw her briefly at Ragnarök. She was in a ship made of the nail clippings of the damned.”

I snorted. “Nail clippings.”

“Hey, I didn’t make it up. I’m sure when she started making the ship, it was terribly scary.”

“Right. Because now it’s just gross.”

He sighed. We’d reached another intersection. He looked at me, and I shrugged and motioned to go straight. “She was arriving when we were leaving Ragnarök. Tyr was waiting for her boat. I’ve got a freaking god in my head and I still don’t understand waiting for your prophetic death. I don’t know why you wouldn’t do whatever you could to avoid it, try to stop it. Anything.”

Kazuko made a small sound. “Prophecies are smarter than most people. Stronger, too.”

“I guess so. Still seems silly to just stand there and wait for it.”

“If he had tried to avoid it, he still would have ended up there, waiting for her. It’s a difficult thing, avoiding your destiny.”

Daniel stayed silent. I kept leading our way through the labyrinth, not sure where we were going, just following my intuition. Finally, the corridor opened up into a huge room with miles of velvet ropes forming people into queues. Everyone there was Asian, waiting patiently in their lines.

Some had little more than the clothes they wore, others carried bags of food, and still others counted money. The brightly colored bills flashed in their hands and I caught sight of people such as John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe on the face.

Daniel and I looked as one to Kazuko.

She rewarded us with a tight smile. “I am Japanese, not Chinese.”

Daniel waved her off. “But you carry a Chinese sword. And you know kung fu. You’re not fooling me.”

She sighed. “This is a Buddhist hell. Not exactly the same place of torment that the Christians and other religions think of, but more of a filing place. They call it hell because Christian missionaries told them that hell was where they went when they died, meaning if they died without becoming a Christian. So the Chinese just adopted the word.

“Huh. When are we going to reach the hellfire and damnation parts?” Daniel asked.

I punched his arm.

“Well I’m just saying it’s getting a little anticlimactic to keep seeing these places that are almost hell but not quite.”

I shook my head. “Do we see any souls here? Lost souls, I mean.”

The room stretched into the distance; we had no idea how large it was. It was filled with countless souls, all standing patiently in lines.

I scratched my head. “So what are they waiting on?”

“They wait for an audience with Yama.”

“Yama?”

“The king of the dead. He was a hermit who was seconds away from enlightenment when some thieves interrupted his meditation and slew him. He became a wrathful spirit, taking on the head of the bull and first killing the thieves, then hunting nearly all of Tibet, but was stopped by a Bodhisattva. Yama relented, but is still quite wrathful. He now judges all Buddhists.” Kazuko looked at me. “People are judged worthy of reincarnation or a suffering eternity in one of the Narakas now.”

“Do I want to know what they are?”

“Eight levels of suffering in the cold and eight levels of suffering in the heat.”

I shivered.

Daniel descended the steps in front of us and we followed. More and more people filed into the room, and I remembered the wars on Earth and how billions were dying. This room could be a hell in itself as the overload of people waited for Yama to assign them to their next life. But where would that life be if the world was a hulking ball of radiation?

Daniel accidentally tripped over a small couple fussing over a spilled box on the ground.

“Oh, man, I’m sorry. Can I help you clean up?” He reached for one of the stray pieces of paper, but the woman slapped his hand. He withdrew it quickly, and Kazuko stiffened at my side.

The woman scrabbled around, snatching the lost pieces of paper. “Hands off! Hands off our notes!”

“He wasn’t going to steal them,” I said. “Is everything all right?”

They got all of the paper stuffed back into the box and glared up at us. “Our notes. Not yours.”

“We don’t want your notes!” Daniel said, his voice rising in frustration.

“What are notes?” I asked.

The woman got on all fours and gathered her legs under her and stood up, looking like a frog. She sighed when she finally got righted and looked at me with pity. “No notes. Poor girl. No notes, no goodies. No bribing the great and terrible Yama for a better life.”

The old man shook his head. “Did your children not burn Hell notes for you?”

I blushed. “We, uh, don’t have any kids.”

He looked at us with pity. “It will be a long wait for you, then. Only the Hell notes will get you through the line.”

They passed us then, heading to the end of the line where a robed man took a handful of bills from them, and opened one of the velvet ropes to let them through. The longer lines looked to be made of poorer people while people in the shorter lines looked much wealthier. It was like an airport boarding line; first class to the right, everyone else to the left.

Daniel sighed. “Do either of you see any lost souls in here?”

I looked around. “We need some of those notes. I think we need to see Yama.”

Daniel stared at me. “You’re kidding. How are you going to whip up some children – Buddhist children, at that – to get us some Hell notes?”

I looked at Kazuko. “Do you have any?”

She shook her head.

“Well, it’s unlikely God would have sent us on a trip without some spending money.” I rummaged around in my backpack until my hand closed around a neatly bound stack of bills.

I pulled them out with a flourish. “Ah ha!”

Daniel sulked. “Why does your backpack give you everything and mine is always empty?”

I counted the brightly colored money. “No idea. Maybe because I say please?”

Daniel got the Marilyn Monroe Hell notes, 1,000 denominations, I got John F. Kennedy 500s, and Kazuko got stuck with the Lyndon B. Johnson 100s.

“You’re kidding me,” Daniel said, staring at his fake money. I shrugged; people around us were clutching similar bills with famous Americans and-we assumed-famous Chinese pictured on them. We approached the officious-looking man in the robe, who glared at us.

Daniel smiled at him and flashed his blue Marilyns. He smiled immediately and took two thousand Hell notes for all of us. I grinned at Kazuko and followed Daniel into the VIP queue.

Beyond Kazuko, I caught the eye of two little girls holding hands. Clearly orphaned and poor, they stood at the very end of the line, which looked as if it would be a couple of miles long, snaking through much of the room.

I dashed back and slipped them a handful of bills and patted each on their heads. They looked at me in disbelief and I grinned and ran back to my friends.

I was convinced I saw every Chinese person who’d been alive at the end of the world as we walked past the lines. The room was bigger than it appeared, almost adding another dimension, giving us the illusion that bodies were pressed in every cranny. I wondered what would happen if we had a stampede and then swallowed the panic back into my stomach. What could cause the dead to panic? Where would they run? Everyone docilely waited their turn.

Kazuko caught me staring. “They have nothing else to do. It is merely waiting. If Buddhists are willing to wait lifetimes for enlightenment, then waiting in a line in the afterlife is nothing.”

I nodded to her. I ran a couple of steps to catch up to Daniel. “Any idea what you’re going to say to the Yama guy?”

He didn’t look at me. “Ask him what he knows about my sister, I guess. Why don’t you talk to him? You always seem to know what to do.”

“Oh, don’t be mad. You’re part god, after all. I just help out how I can.”

He deflated a bit. “I know. I’m just feeling so out of my element.”

I laughed. “Dude, we’ve been out of our element since we died. And we’ve managed to do okay. I mean, apart from the whole losing your eye stuff.”

He snickered. “Twice.”

“Oh yeah. Forgot about that.” I grinned at him, relieved he could finally joke about it. “Does it hurt?”

He reflexively touched his face above the missing eye. “Not really. Odin’s a god of healing, after all. I don’t stay hurt very long.”

“That’s good.”

He pointed ahead of us. “Look up there.”

Ahead of us rose a great temple built of black stones. The line continued its way up the great steps. Our straight line led us through the doors.

The interior walls glowed brightly, causing us to shade our eyes. Fountains sprung from the floor, giving a sense of serenity to the room that I hadn’t expected. My fatigue from walking so long dissipated and I straightened; first impressions always count, after all.

Our line finally began as we caught up with the fussbudget couple. They squabbled over how much they’d bribed the official and then squabbled about someone named Chen who the wife had said had made eyes at the husband.

She looked up when we filed in behind her. “What are you doing here? Did you steal from us? I told you they stole from us!” She smacked her husband on the top of his shiny head.

“No, I was just mistaken at the number of notes we had,” I said.

“Liars,” the woman sniffed, then turned away from us. “Yama will deal with you. He deals with liars. May you rot in the plain of Arbuda where the cold will raise blisters on your skin.”

Daniel opened his mouth to retort, but Kazuko, amazingly, put her hand on his arm. “She is right. Yama deals with all.”

Daniel nodded then, and we waited.

A young woman with bright eyes and shoulder-length glossy hair smiled at us as took the couple away. They went around the great fountain and then up a spiral staircase.

“Now what?”

“They will not take long to judge,” Kazuko said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

She didn’t get a chance to answer because, indeed, the woman descended the stairs again and smiled at us.

“Welcome to Di Yu, the place of renewal,” she said. “The Great Yama is looking forward to meeting you.”

We followed her up the stairs where we waited by a black metal door. She slipped inside and spoke briefly, then motioned us through.

When we were led in, the Great Yama sat on a velvet couch, looking much more like a playboy than a wrathful god who nearly obliterated Tibet.

Well, except for the bull’s head sitting on his shoulders. The soft brown eyes assessed us, and then he motioned for us to sit with him.

He opened his mouth and spoke, and the words that came through were pure poetry; I nearly swooned. His voice was light and joyous as he spoke, his words washing over us as we sat, stupefied. It was lyrical and glorious and sad, and Daniel groped for my hand. I squeezed it and closed my eyes, losing myself in the anguished words. Finally, he stopped, and I blinked the tears away.

And every word he had said slipped from my memory like sand. All that was left were my wet cheeks and my fingers still interlaced with Daniel’s.

I let go of his hand quickly, pretending I needed both hands to wipe my face.

“I received word you would be joining me,” Yama said when he was done, his low voice rumbling. I swear I felt earthquakes across Di Yu when he spoke.

“People of your stature are always welcome in my home,” he said.

I looked behind him. Eighteen black metal doors sat in the white walls, each with a different Chinese character on it. I wondered what lay beyond them. I wondered if I wanted to know.

Daniel cleared his throat and stepped forward. I started to recognize the aspect of Odin on his face as he spoke; his mouth became lopsided and knowing, and he spoke to the god as a peer, not as a lowly mortal “We are on a mission from YHWH to recover lost souls. Would you know anything about that?”

The god stretched on the couch, reminding me of a very bull-like cat. “I know the soul of every person in Di Yu. Right now I am processing them, judging them. I touch thousands an hour.”

Daniel looked at me.

“Then why are the lines so long?” I asked.

“The waiting is part of the process.”

“What about the hell note bribes?”

The bull’s lips pulled back, and I realized he was grinning. “That’s bureaucracy. My officials get no payment from me. They are the souls in perfect balance – not good enough for human reincarnation, not bad enough for reincarnation in one of the eighteen Hells or the sixteen Narakas. I see how they do their jobs and then make a decision on them after a certain number of years.”

“So what about the lost souls?” Daniel asked.

“I know nothing of lost souls,” he said.

Daniel rounded on me. “Then why are we here? You said this was the way we were supposed to go.”

“I was only acting on instinct!” I said. I pursed my lips and thought. Then, to Yama, I said, “You mentioned we had high stature. Do many Travelers come through here?”

He laughed then, a deep, resonating sound that made me fight against putting my hands over my ears. “You still just see yourselves as Travelers? A human carrying a god within him, a human whose soul still remembers its purity, and a-“

Kazuko interrupted him, then, saying, “Nothing more than a guardian, Lord.”

Yama smiled at her. “As you will.”

“So what do we do now?” Daniel asked.

Yama sat up. “You give me my offering, and then go on with your travels.”

“Um, offering?” I asked.

“Certainly. You do not request an audience with a god without giving him something for his time. What do you have for me?”

We looked at each other. I pulled out my Hell notes. Yama shook his head.

“Well, I can’t give an eye, I only have one left,” Daniel said.

“And your guardian refuses to give me her secret,” the god said, looking at Kazuko. She looked back at him impassively.

He wanted secrets? Fine. I stepped forward. “Would you accept my secret?”

He sat forward eagerly. “A secret from a pure soul? That is indeed a special offering.”

I took a deep breath and stared ahead at Yama, not looking at Daniel. “Kazuko asked me if I still loved Daniel. I lied and said no.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kazuko look at Daniel, but I didn’t see his response. I focused on the shiny brown eyes of the god.

“You lied. You love. Two secrets for the price of one. Very nice. I will help you further, then.” He pointed toward a door that I hadn’t seen before, a green door to his left. “The way you want to go is through there.”

Kazuko bowed to him and led the way, and I followed. Daniel brought up the rear. I wasn’t sure what we would say to each other when we got a chance, but I didn’t have to worry about it; Kazuko opened the door and the wind sucked us in, tumbling and twisting. The door slammed behind us, leaving us to swirl within the vortex.

CHAPTER FOUR

I didn’t have the sensation of falling until I hit the ground rather hard, knocking the wind out of me. I lay there, panting, assessing the damage. Possible sprained ankle. Wetness on my face indicated a cut. And as the pain in my chest wasn’t ebbing: maybe a broken rib.

I sat up. Daniel and Kazuko weren’t within my sight. Dead trees reached up into the dark gray sky and, near as I could tell, I lay on ashes. The hairs on my arms raised as I heard a wail, high and keening, rise through the forest. I realized it came from above my head and I craned my neck back.

Cats. They sat in the trees and clung to branches, each one beginning a low, angry wail. Some hissed, some cried, and each one watched me, amber eyes slit and angry.

Not wanting to be caught in a rain of fur and claws, I painfully got to my feet and limped toward a light that came from the edge of the forest.

Another sound, deeper, came from the clearing, and I paused. I’d only heard this sound in movies, as I’ve never been hunting with dogs. The baying of a hound washed over me, making me shiver, and the cats wailed louder. More deep baying howls followed the first, closer this time.

The cats above me scrabbled higher in their dead trees, and the sound of cracking branches popped around me. The dogs came then, running through from the clearing into the forest. Branches began to break around me, and screaming cats fell from the trees like fat snowflakes, landing heavily and dashing to the next tree available, only to have it topple.

I was standing between the dogs and the forest full of fleeing cats, and I winced, not knowing what to expect, but the dogs just dashed past me, baying and barking and whining their glee. One dog got lucky and grabbed a cat’s tail, and I averted my eyes when it started to shake its head. Some cats tried to fight back, but their claws found no purchase in the dogs’ skin, and their brief stand of bravery proved to be their doom.

I looked up at the ruined trees and tried to think about something other than the horrific sounds around me, when something licked my hand. I forgot my pain and the horrors around me and crouched to my knees, tears filling my eyes.

“Jet?”

#

Understanding flooded through me as I petted her, the bond we’d had in dog heaven returning. It seemed dog heaven was connected through some metaphysical bridge to cat hell; it was just beyond the tree line. Which made a sort of sick, karmic sense.

“What kind of cats go to hell?” I wondered aloud. Animals acted on instinct, I’d always thought, and so assumed there was just an afterlife, no judgment. But then I remembered that breeders often talk about temperament, and how some dogs just naturally are excitable and jumpy and others sleep all the time and still others are trainable. I guess cats are the same way. Except for the trainable part.

“Do you want to go hunting?” I asked.

Jet wagged her tail, her happiness infecting me. I grinned. “Okay. Since we’re so close to dog heaven, can I take a break there? I need a rest.”

She led me out of the woods, leaving the sounds of feline carnage behind us. Once out of the woods, the world changed abruptly to the sunny fields of dog heaven, where canines that didn’t take part in the hunt lounged around in the sun.

I sat down and let the heat relax me. “Man, I hope Daniel isn’t on the hill of bitches in heat. Not sure if we can deal with that again.”

Contentment radiated off Jet, and she lay down on my good side and put her head on my lap. I lay back in the sun.

“I’m really not sure what I’m doing, Jet. We’re searching for lost souls, and all we’ve done is muck about in purgatory, cut in line in Di Yu, and then lose each other in cat hell. Maybe Daniel and Kazuko are still in there. Who knows?”

Jet snapped her head up, alert. I remembered that look, that “let’s play” look. But I didn’t have anything to throw.

“What is it? Timmy stuck in a well?” I joked. She just stared at me, ears perky and alert. I thought for a moment. She had popped her head up when I had said, “lost souls.”

“Wait. Maybe Timmy is stuck in a well. Do you know something about the lost souls, Jet?”

She got to her feet and barked twice.

I sat up painfully. “Girl, I can’t run after you. Can you fetch?”

With that word, she was gone, tearing back into the dark woods behind me. I sighed, still in pain, but excited. Where were Daniel and Kazuko?

I rummaged through my pack for a mirror to assess the wound on my head. It wasn’t bad, more of a shallow rip than a deep cut. Still, I cleaned it and bandaged it as best I could with first aid supplies I found in my backpack while holding the mirror between my knees. I wrapped my ankle tightly and lay back again.

Jet returned, still running full tilt, and skidded to a stop next to me. She lowered her head and dropped a shining golden ball into my hand. It radiated heat and swirled within its confines, and I had a sudden flash of what it had been like to be made of nothing but pure soul stuff, no sins, no cares. A tear slipped down my face and I fought to compose myself. My body felt broken and pointless, a heavy cage that weighed down the glory of what I carried inside.

Jet nosed me in the neck and brought me out of my despair. I sniffled. “Good girl. Where did you find this? Are there more?” She barked again. “Okay, then. Fetch.” And she was off again.

I found a small wooden chest in my pack and carefully placed the soul within it. Jet returned with more souls, one at a time, carefully dropping them into my hands. As I handled these perfect little vessels, I began to be able to tell them apart. Little nuances were different; this one was more male, this one more female. This one was brand new, this one had been reincarnated a couple of times. The sheer potential of each life nearly overwhelmed me every time Jet dropped a new one into my hand, and I had to keep from crying every time I touched a new soul.

Jet finally returned to me with her final soul, followed closely by Daniel and Kazuko. Daniel waved to me, relief scrawled on his face.

“Man, I thought we had lost you!”

I laughed. “You did. How did you find me?”

They sat down next to me. “We pretty much fell on the stash of souls in the cat hell. We were trying to—” Kazuko put her hand on Daniel, stopping him.

“The dog arrived as we were liberating the souls, so we asked her to help us,” she said.

I raised my eyebrow at Daniel, who was staring at my head.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Oh, I got banged up when I fell,” I said. “Ankle, rib and head. I am afraid I’m going to be a bit of a slow traveler for a while. Sorry.”

Daniel reached out and took my hand. Heat rushed to my face but he got a faraway look in his eye and the pain started to fade. I remembered too late that he had a god’s powers as my bones knit and body healed.

He focused on me again. “Better?”

I nodded, suddenly quite uncomfortable. He smiled. “Kate-” he said.

“I keep forgetting you are able to do stuff like that,” I said, interrupting him.

He paused, then dropped my hand and sat back. “Yeah, it’s pretty weird. But comes in handy.”

“No kidding,” I said, removing the now-unnecessary bandages.

He got up and extended a hand to me. “Are you good enough for a walk?”

I took his hand and tested my weight. My ankle had healed entirely. Kazuko stayed seated by Jet, staring at us.

“We’ll be back soon. Guard the souls,” Daniel said, and started walking. I followed, confused.

“That was subtle. And you wanted to ditch her why?” I asked once we were out of earshot.

“She didn’t want to tell you what happened in the woods, and I think that’s pretty dumb.” Daniel looked at the dogs rolling in the field of interesting smells. “We didn’t fall like you did; we just stepped out into the woods in front of a chest full of souls. I could open it, but neither of us could touch them.”

“You couldn’t touch them,” I repeated blankly.

“Not one. It was like there was a force field around them. Then when we had decided to search for you, Jet found us, grabbed a soul, and ran off. I wanted to chase her, but Kazuko wanted us to stay and guard the souls. Since it was Jet, I figured you might be involved, and sure enough, she came back. So after she got them all, we followed her to you.”

“Weird. I was able to touch them.”

“I know.”

I stopped, putting my hand on his arm. “Wait a second. How come you’re not freaking out like the last time we were here?”

“Huh... I don’t know. I could understand Jet’s emotions, like the last time, but there’s no incredible need to go over to that hill and do something that would make me want to kill myself later.” He looked around and spotted the place that had almost been his undoing last time.

I sighed. “If we’re supposed to be learning shit that will help us later, I feel pretty damn clueless. Any idea who put the souls in cat hell, of all places?”

He shook his head. “It’s pretty clear Yama helped us out, though.”

My heart rate quickened as I remembered what I had given in exchange for his help. “Yeah. That was good of him. Do you think we have to take Jet with us to get the other souls?”

He looked at me, and I fought to keep from squirming under his gaze. “I don’t think so. I’m guessing you would have been able to get the souls yourself, but you couldn’t walk that far. It was pretty far in.”

I looked away, back toward Kazuko and Jet. “I’ll ask her and see what she says.”

Daniel still stared at me. “Kate,” he began, but I interrupted him again.

“Look, I said it because I had to. It’s not a big deal; nothing has to change between us. Don’t feel obligated to me, and for the love of all the gods we’ve met, please don’t act any different around me.”

He didn’t reply, so I forced a smile. “Let’s head back. We can’t bask in this rest area forever.”

Kazuko stood up as we approached her. I said my goodbyes to Jet, who clearly was staying in the sun, and hefted my pack. The addition of numerous souls had increased the weight, but I felt lighter somehow. We didn’t talk as we passed the veil between heaven and hell and entered the forest where the terrified cats hunched in their trees, awaiting the inevitable hunt yet again.

CHAPTER FIVE

Daniel had decided that the best way to move about was to just cut a slice in reality and step through. That seemed like a stupid idea, much like closing our eyes and stepping off a cliff, but he asked me rather pointedly to find the road in the dark woods of cat hell, and I honestly couldn’t do it. So I reluctantly followed them through the rip.

To my massive relief, we ended up on a road all the same, with a great black city rising before us. Daniel squinted at it. “It’s like an evil Disneyland.”

He was right. I almost expected a Goth Rapunzel to be weeping in the tower because she had just decided to shave her head. No, Goth was too sexy for Hell. My mind went quickly to Lori, a girl from my class who was not so much unpopular as just ignored. She had a hangdog appearance, drab blonde hair and a wide nose, as if only sixteen years on the Earth had already made her too tired for life; she’d had enough. Putting her in Rapunzel’s black tower fit closer to my idea of Hell.

“So, do you know where this place is?” Daniel asked Kazuko.

She stared ahead at the jagged walls and spires. “Dis. The city of the Sixth Circle of Hell. Christian mythology. Dante.”

Daniel and I stared at her. She looked back at us impassively. “I am better with hell than heaven.”

“Why’s that?” I asked. She didn’t answer.

In life I’d always wanted to be mysterious and Mona Lisa-like. I never pulled it off. Kazuko was a Japanese Mona Lisa. Maybe it was a cultural thing.

“Why are we suddenly in the Sixth Circle?” Daniel asked. “Why didn’t we start at the top, at the first circle?”

“I guess that sword of yours is a shortcut. Sorry I doubted you,” I said, still not terribly confident that it was a good way to travel.

Daniel grinned at me, and I realized I hadn’t been convincing. “Don’t worry, I won’t use it all the time. So,” he said to Kazuko. “What are we doing here?”

“We will see when we get inside.”

“Great,” he muttered.

We approached the gates, our feet kicking up ashy dust on the road. The gates stood cracked open with a guy sitting out front on a stool, scratching patterns in the dust with his sword.

I saw almost at once that this was no “guy,” but rather an angel with dirty gray wings. His dingy hair hung in his face. In fact, everything about him said dingy. He didn’t come off as a tortured fallen angel as much as a really bored angel gone to pot. I glanced at Daniel, who frowned as well.

He stepped forward. “We are Daniel, Kazuko, and Kate. We are Travelers to the city of Dis.”

The angel waved us in without looking at us, bored. Kazuko stared at him with open contempt, but kept her mouth closed.

“Not much security,” I said. “It’s a wonder we didn’t see the damned wandering around the outside gates…” I trailed off. The damned weren’t, in fact, wandering around outside the gates.

They were wandering around inside the gates, though.

They had all been branded, men and women - and my stomach turned at seeing the children, their eyes hollow and searching – with their crimes. “Pride,” “Lust,” “Suicide,” and more were burned across foreheads. The children mostly were identified as suicides, but there were plenty of men and women who had killed themselves as well. They were the most pathetic, looking to escape a terrible life only to receive an even worse afterlife.

In theory, of course. There didn’t look to be much torture going on here, unless you counted boredom, or that French guy who said, “Hell is other people.” People slumped against walls and milled around. Angels wandered with them, in and out of buildings, sometimes jabbing people half-heartedly with swords, but otherwise ignoring them.

“This is all wrong,” Kazuko said.

“You think?” Daniel answered her. He approached one shed-like structure that leaned to the left. Inside was a descending stone staircase. We went down, squinting at the sudden dark. We heard chains clinking and – goodness, was that laughter?

The stairs led to a dungeon, with the requisite chains bolted to dripping stone walls, stone tables with old bloodstains marring their surface, and whips stacked neatly in the corner alongside cases of unidentifiable tools. The only thing missing were the tortured souls.

Three girls had taken a spiked chain and were swinging it like a jump rope, the girl in the middle trying to avoid it. It was heavy and sometimes came crashing down on her, cutting her skin. She just laughed and took her place at the turning while another girl took the center, and the game continued until someone else got hurt. Although they clearly were having innocent, if masochistic, fun, the word “suicide” branded each girl’s forehead.

I smiled slightly at the cute and grisly scene, but Daniel lost it. “What the hell is going on here?”

The girls stopped their game and stared at him impassively.

“Where are the tortured souls? What is everyone doing just hanging around? This is like the outside of a 7-11 on a Saturday night!”

The girls glanced at each other. One, a little African girl, stepped forward. “No one has been tortured here in weeks. We thought we were finally allowed to go to heaven, but we can’t leave, either. So we play.”

“This is bullshit,” Daniel said, and stormed past me on his way up the stairs. Kazuko followed.

I went down to the girls. “So why are you girls here?”

They didn’t glance at each other nervously or giggle or shrink back the way I had experienced with girls that age, but instead faced me head-on with hollow eyes. I realized with a small pang in my chest that they had been tortured for years; what did they have to fear from a single unarmed woman?

The one who had been wounded when we came in dabbed at the cut on her cheek. “My daddy touched me. No one believed me, so I took some of mommy’s sleeping pills and killed myself.” She spoke plainly, with no sense of shame or regret.

The other two nodded. “Granny beat me and locked me in the basement,” one said. The other had an incestuous childhood like the first.

I gritted my teeth. The unbelievable injustice of these girls’ existence in hell was overwhelming to me, and I knelt in front of them, looking at each of their faces, tears brimming.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’d like to help you, but I don’t know what I can do.”

One of them, the one with the cut cheek, patted my shoulder. “It’s okay, really. The angels stopped torturing us a while ago, and it’s been almost fun since.”

I searched around in my backpack for a tissue. I pulled two out and handed her one for her cut, which she accepted. As I dabbed at my eyes, I noticed my backpack shifting. Something stuck out of the top, and I grasped it.

I pulled out a sword with a white hilt. It was not like Daniels scary-ass katana, but rather a straight Chinese sword like Kazuko’s. The blade glowed white and the heat that radiated off it stung my hand.

The girls gasped and drew closer, eyes wide. “Careful!” I said.

They didn’t listen. They each reached forward and grabbed the blade. I winced, imagining their little hands burning, but couldn’t pull back for fear of cutting them.

I didn’t have to worry. The girls each began to glow and burn: bright, pure light with no sound or odor. They looked at me and smiled, the hollowness leaving their eyes. Then the white fire consumed them and they were gone. I choked back another sob and stared at the white blade. It ceased glowing and became just a regular sword. I stared at it a moment longer and then tried to put it back into the bizarre portal that was my backpack, but it wouldn’t fit. I did find a scabbard, though, so I sheathed it and strapped it across my back the way I’d seen Kazuko do.

I left the empty dungeon and went back up the stairs.

Upstairs was pandemonium. Souls and the fallen angels alike screamed and ran in terror from the force that was Kazuko. She had forced a fallen angel to his knees and held her sword to his wings.

Daniel watched her, his arms crossed.

“What the fuck?” I asked Daniel, watching her hiss in the angel’s ear.

“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “She mentioned something about how underworlds were not run this way, it offended the principles of Izanami, and then she started punishing the angels.”

Kazuko kicked the angel between his wings and he went sprawling at our feet. She put his sword to his throat. “Tell him. Tell him why you aren’t doing your job.”

Daniel and I looked at each other, realizing she wanted the angel to answer to him.

The angel winced as Kazuko’s blade nicked him. Black ichor dribbled into the dust. “We no longer feel the Morningstar’s influence. We tried to keep up our jobs, but it was His will more than anything that ran this place. It slowly began to unravel. We don’t know why it’s happening and we can’t find help; we’re as trapped here as the souls are.”

“Why would Satan leave?” Daniel asked.

“I don’t know,” the angel said. “I have been here since the Fall and served him faithfully. His influence has always been strong.”

“It could be whatever is making God lose souls is making Satan lose influence over hell. Think that’s possible?” I asked in a low voice.

Daniel shrugged. “No idea. Sounds reasonable, though.”

He nudged the angel with his shoe. “Uh, do you think you can get back to work?”

The angel looked up at Kazuko, frowning. “I think we have new inspiration.”

I looked around at the terrified souls. The angels had begun to perk up and started herding the souls into the buildings. I looked back at Kazuko, standing glorious and terrible above the angel. The first anguished scream came out of an open window and I made up my mind.

“They’re back at it, Daniel. Tell her to let him go.”

Daniel paused and stepped back. Kazuko dropped her hold on the angel, who sprawled in the dust. “Back to your post,” she hissed, and he ran.

Daniel looked at me, frustrated. “I have no idea what’s going on. Are there any lost souls here? Can you sense them?”

I paused and shook my head. “I don’t think so, at least not in the sense that you mean. But I want you to do something for me. Get them to gather the children.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. Just gather the children who killed themselves. There’s something I want to test.”

He shrugged and nodded to Kazuko, who approached the angel at the front gate. The angel looked at her with undisguised loathing, but at her command, he left and began patrolling the castle, bringing children to us. They didn’t look at Daniel at all, but all of them stared at me. When the angel was done, I pulled the sword from my scabbard and held it in front of them, blade down. It glowed again, the heat making me wince.

“Where did you get—” Daniel began, but stopped when the kids ran forward to grab the blade.

Like the girls in the dungeon, they each burst into a white hot flame, all the while smiling peacefully. Nearly every child came forward and immediately disappeared – the ones left over didn’t make a move to the blade. Instead, they eyed it warily.

“Why are you here?” I asked one.

“I killed my best friend’s mother and then him, and then myself,” he said. Other tales of violence, and the use of suicide as an escape hatch, followed his. In other words, these were kids who fully deserved their torment. I shook my head in disgust and the angel returned them to their respective chambers.

I sheathed my sword and caught Kazuko’s eye. She nodded slowly to me as if I had confirmed her hunch. Daniel’s face, however, showed complete confusion.

“What the hell was that about?” he asked.

“They didn’t deserve to be here,” I said simply.

“And you just…”

“Well, you just sent the emperors to purgatory.”

“I guess I did.”

The tortured screams of the prideful and murderous filled our ears, and Daniel looked around him. “I think we’re done here.”

We left, and the two angels at the gate slammed it shut behind us.

“So how did you release the souls?” Daniel asked me.

“How did you get the whole city running again?” I countered.

“And why is everyone so afraid of you?” I asked Kazuko.

She looked at me in her calm, inscrutable way. “So many questions. And no answers.”

Daniel sighed and raised his hands in the air. “Whatever. We need to find the lost souls. Figure out what’s going on. And, I guess, add finding the devil to our list of things to do.”

“This wasn’t in our job description,” I said.

CHAPTER SIX

That night we slept on the road, blankets over us to protect us from the bitter wind. I huddled under mine, unable to sleep. I wasn’t afraid, not with Kazuko and Daniel near me.

Kazuko sat up, keeping watch. She kept her back to me, ramrod straight, but she knew I watched her.

Daniel slept hard, breathing deeply once he had covered himself. Troubling thoughts muscled out the tender ones when I looked at him. He was changing, looking at the world around him with more studious intensity. He looked at me differently, too. I didn’t know what he had gone through for me. Maybe if I did know, I’d understand him better, but he seemed alien to me.

And yet I still worried about him. Stupid love.

But if I pointed fingers at Daniel for changing, I suppose I had better point them at myself or be called a hypocrite. I had looked into the face of the Divine and come out changed. It was something that I couldn’t remember experiencing with my senses, but I remembered the incident as an emotion: complete and total serenity. Bliss. Love.

I still felt like myself, full of cynicism and fear, but I also felt centered and grounded. Every step I took was purposeful; even if I wasn’t sure where I was going, I knew I needed to go there. Memories of our adventures trickled back in - my dog Jet, Hermes, Ragnarök, Susanoo and Izanami…

I wasn’t sure when my thoughts turned to dreams, but it was a seamless transition, and I woke up rested.

Daniel was eating a hot dog. I grimaced at him. “Don’t you know what’s in that?”

“That’s what makes it so good!” he said.

“Grandma Nancy said they were made of lips and assholes,” I said.

“Your grandma was a woman of refined beauty.”

“Yeah, well, your grandma…” my words died away when Daniel stiffened. I’d forgotten that the topic of his family was not a good thing to venture upon.

I hadn’t thought much about his sister, even though that was one of our main goals. When you’re wandering around hell, goals kind of go by the wayside as you struggle to comprehend and survive. But his sister was still at the center of this whole thing.

And his mother, the wretched woman. I’ve heard that you’re not supposed to judge people with mental illnesses any more than you judge someone with cancer, but you don’t see a lot of cancer patients killing little girls.

Daniel packed up his blanket and got to his feet. “Any idea where we’re going today? Anyone? Anyone?”

I busied myself with my own blanket, and Kazuko rose smoothly to her feet. No one answered him.

When I finally stood, I said, “I guess keep going down the road.”

The wind became hotter as we walked, and we pulled our robe hoods over our heads to protect ourselves. Daniel and I huddled together as we went against the wind.

#

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I honestly was relieved to next see a hell I could understand, a hell I knew. This was the hell of Looney Tunes, the Far Side, all sorts of comical views, only without the fire.

A pit the size of a football field was rimmed by listless souls. The pit’s inside was black as if once holding a great fire. Near the center, a small pile of embers still glowed.

“I thought we just left the Christian hell?” I asked Kazuko.

She shook her head. “Some faiths have many hells.”

“But where’s the fire?”

Daniel grimaced. “I think I know what’s going on. Things are kinda wonky here, too, huh? Satan dropping the ball, or losing power, or something?”

“How could Satan care for two separate hells?” I asked.

“When you were alive, were there not heads of corporations or even states that managed many smaller, separate places?” Kazuko asked. “England ruled India for years.”

I shrugged. Like the city of Dis, souls wandered around listlessly here, clearly content that they weren’t being tortured, but without enough energy to do anything creative or productive with their free time.

A woman sat in a crude wooden chair close to the edge of the pit, cradling her knees, crooning softly. Daniel made a small noise in his throat.

“He planned this. The fucker planned this.”

“Who planned what?” I asked.

His voice was high and frightened, like a startled bird. “God. Satan. I don’t know. Someone is screwing with me.”

“Daniel, what—”

I didn’t finish. He drew his sword, walked up to the woman. She never looked up from her crooning as Daniel cried out in rage and cut off her head.

#

I won’t lie and say that I was getting used to the violence that surrounded me in hell. It was losing its shock value, though. I tried to develop a sense of detachment, like a theological sociologist, to figure out what happens exactly when someone “dies” in hell. Where do they go?

Previously, of course, we just sent people to different places. From purgatory to hell. Hell to heaven. And now I tried to watch what was going to happen to this woman now that her head was lying several feet from her body.

Discovering the secret behind this was better than dealing with the raving mess that was Daniel. Kazuko actually stopped him – with her sword – from going and slicing up the remaining souls around the edge of the huge pit.

Daniel had gotten rather good with the katana – Odin’s knowledge, I supposed – but he was still no match for his bodyguard. She blocked his strike toward his next victim with her thin blade and directed it downward. Daniel cried out in anger, and she kicked him once in the belly. He folded and dropped to the ground, gasping.

She picked up the katana and wiped it off, then snatched the sheath from Daniel’s side and put the sword away, but not before I saw that it had begun to shimmer in her hands. It didn’t do that when Daniel held it.

Daniel finally got in enough air to sob, and he curled into a fetal position and wept.

I walked to him and leaned over.

“Was that your mom?”

He nodded.

I knelt by his side and placed my hand on his head, lightly stroking his hair.

As he sobbed, I scanned the souls around me. Down into the pit, more figures moved: hulking figures that lumbered and trudged in a most un-humanlike way- a most non-comforting way. Sure, the angels could have kicked our asses, but at least they were human-looking. These demons were something else.

Thankfully, they didn’t seem to be showing any sign of aggressive tendencies. Much like the fallen angels of Dis.

I looked at Kazuko who stood above us impassively. “We need to figure out what’s up with this hell. I mean, it’s broken like the last one. Can you make it work again?”

“Not until Daniel can function. Not until he heals. I can’t do it without him.”

That was more information than I’d had before. I tore my eyes from Daniel to focus on the small woman. “What do you mean?”

She smiled at me. “You should figure it out soon.”

Another figure caught my eye in the pit. It was far away, so I couldn’t be sure, but it looked as though it rose from the embers of the dying pit fire itself and began walking across the ashes toward us. I kept my eye on it. The demons around it paid it no mind, and when I was close enough to be sure, I nudged Daniel.

“I think you need to see this, Daniel.”

His voice was still thick with tears as he saw where I pointed. “What? Where did she come from? Why isn’t she dead?”

“Daniel, we’re in hell. There’s nowhere else to go. I guess if you kill her, she comes back to be punished again.” I glanced at Kazuko for affirmation and she nodded.

Daniel got to his feet and picked up the sword again. “Then I’ll do it again.”

I wasn’t sure how to handle this grief-stricken and violent part of him, but I figured the truth would be better than sugar-coating. “And again? And again? Until what? Are you going to stay here forever, her hell being your revenge and your hell being the fact that she’ll keep coming back?”

Tough love didn’t work. He rounded on me, sword drawn, and I leapt back. Without thinking, I drew my own and held it out, the way I had seen Kazuko do, to defend myself.

With flowing grace she stepped between us, carefully. “Stop. Put your weapons away. The pit of flames is nearly dead but still it has an effect on you two. If you die here, you can never leave.”

Daniel’s eyes were still raging as he sheathed his sword. I fumbled mine back onto my back. Kazuko sighed and stepped away, but not before I saw that my blade had nicked her hand.

Daniel turned his back to me and asked Kazuko, “Why are we here, then?”

“I do not know. That information is not mine. But you seem to have found something to benefit you in each of the hells you have visited.”

I thought that it looked pretty obvious as to why we were here, but didn’t say so.

Kazuko waited with her hand on Daniel’s sword arm as the figure approached, crooning to itself again. Her hair was greasy and wild, the same dark brown as Daniel’s. I could also see where he got his almost-black eyes.

There the similarities stopped. Her face was bloated and droopy, her back slumped, her dingy sweatpants stretched over her fat body. She looked like a poster girl for depression that we would have studied in health class.

Her eyes widened when she saw Daniel.

“Danny. My baby. Have you come for me? Did you come to take Mommy home?”

Daniel’s voice was rough as he choked out a laugh. “And why would I do that?”

Her face showed genuine shock. “Because. Because I’ve been in this terrible place for so long. I’ve been so lost. I missed you.” Her chin trembled.

“Did you miss her?”

“Who? Who could I miss more than you?”

“Megan, Mom. Do you miss Megan? Your daughter…?”

She smiled then, an innocent and lucid smile. “I always wanted a little girl. You were my joy, my son, but I wanted a daughter, too.”

Daniel took a deep, shaky sigh. “You had a daughter. A girl named Megan. She was four. You killed her, and when I tried to stop you, you cut me.”

I gasped as he held up his forearms. While Odin’s power had healed his scars, now they were fresh cuts again, weeping blood that sizzled when it hit the sooty ground.

“You were committed and died in the institution,” he continued. “That’s why you’re here in hell.”

“I had… a girl?”

“Yes, you had a girl; a little girl who did not understand why you hurt her.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know, Mom. She’s lost. I’m looking for her.”

“I’m coming, too.”

Daniel laughed, a hurt sound. “Mom, you can’t leave here. You’re in hell. You’re being punished for what you did.”

Her face lost the last of the confused, dreamy quality and I realized I finally saw who it was who had raised Daniel. Without whatever madness she had that had taken her daughter’s life, she looked like a normal person, someone who didn’t expect a cavalry to save her. Someone sane.

Then her eyes widened and she brought her hands to her mouth. “I remember.”

A small amount of tension left Daniel’s shoulders. “Dad always told me that you were sick. I tried to forgive you. I really did. But…”

She shook her head. “Unforgivable.” She groped around and found the wooden chair we had found her in, toppled when Daniel had attacked her.

Daniel stared at her, fatigue and misery bowing his shoulders.

I went to his side. His eyes were closed, tears streaming from underneath. I touched his arm, and he closed his hand around mine. “I just wanted her to acknowledge what she had done, who she had hurt. That’s all.”

He squeezed my hand again and the air got much hotter. The embers stirred below, and fire snaked around the pit, filling it. I stepped back from the sudden glare and heat, but Daniel held my hand tighter, so I stayed.

Daniel’s mother looked up from her despair and looked at the fire pit. The demons crawled out, newly invigorated, and began pursuing the errant souls, striking them with weapons and driving them into the pit. She looked at Daniel once, with sad eyes, and walked to the edge of the pit. Flames licked up to her feet and the rubber on her dingy sneakers caught fire.

It wasn’t a graceful swan dive, but it was clearly surrendering to her fate, to her responsibility. She waved once to Daniel and was gone.

He leaned on me, and I half-carried him away from the searing heat. He seemed very light.

CHAPTER SEVEN

We walked until the glow of the pit was no longer on the dismal horizon, and that was a very long time. When Daniel was finally satisfied we were far enough away, he collapsed in exhaustion. I spread out our blankets, urged him onto one, and lay down beside him. He curled into a ball. I tentatively reached out to him and he shuddered under my touch.

I scooted closer and wrapped my arms around him, holding him tightly until he stopped shuddering.

I was dimly aware of Kazuko’s careful tending to her cut hand, and wondered why a shallow cut concerned her so much. I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it, as I was pretty emotionally spent myself.

I dozed on and off through the night, watching him sleep, nodding off, then watching him sleep some more. When the baleful sun illuminated the never-lifting haze, he finally opened his eyes. When he saw me watching him, he smiled. I relaxed a little at the calm in his face.

“You been watching all night?” he asked.

I nodded. “Mostly.”

“Why don’t you get some sleep now?”

I answered by closing my eyes and dropping off immediately. I dreamed that he stroked my hair as I slept.

#

I don’t think I slept long, but I woke up feeling refreshed. I lay alone on the blanket, the space beside me cold. Daniel sat and talked quietly with Kazuko away from where I’d slept. Disappointment was sharp on my tongue as I began packing up my blanket.

Daniel wrinkled his nose as we began walking. “Gah, what the hell is that smell?”

Kazuko’s thin nostrils constricted as she inhaled. “That is the river Styx.”

My stomach felt as if I had just eaten a bunch of ferrets whole. Ferrets on speed. Styx was the river to cross before you entered the Underworld, Hades’s realm. Greek hell.

The line to get to the ferry began before we could see the river. But when a girl in a flower-printed dress, wearing a thin, gem-lined circlet around her brow spied us, she ran over and shook my hand first, then Daniel’s, and lastly Kazuko’s. She then took my hand again and, without a word, dragged us to the front of the line. I stumbled after her, the indignant hollow eyes of the dead boring into my back.

No one, alive or dead, liked line-jumpers.

We went to the front of the line where the brackish water of Styx lapped lazily at the bank. Charon, the ferry master, had upgraded his boat since the picture I’d seen of him in my Greek mythology book – instead of a Venice-like gondola, his motorized ferry chugged idly as it waited for passengers, who came aboard slowly. A little ebony-haired boy onboard ran around and offered people water from a jug.

“The water of Lethe,” said Kazuko. “It makes them forget.”

“But I thought this was Styx,” Daniel said.

“All of the waters of Heaven and Hell run together eventually.”

The girl tapped her neck lightly, and we brought out our necklaces. They now resembled coins. She led us up the ramp to the boat and directly to Charon.

He squinted at our necklaces and grunted, turning back to his wheel. I thought he’d dismissed us, but the girl grinned broadly and scampered off the boat.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“We are welcome aboard,” Kazuko said.

“I’m surprised that hell honors Travelers too,” Daniel said.

“You are no regular Travelers,” Kazuko said.

“Yeah, so everyone keeps saying.”

I squinted across the water at the shore, barely in sight. “I had always assumed Styx was a narrow river and the ferry more symbolic than anything else.”

“It was, but as the number of souls passing through became more, the size of Underworld grew. Including the size of the river.”

Daniel stared across the way with me. He didn’t look at me when he spoke. “I’m sorry I attacked you at the fire pit.”

I shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s forgotten.”

He chuckled. “That’s unlikely. I just, well, I never intended to hurt you.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say.

The ferry chugged along, and when we reached the halfway point on the river, Daniel spoke again. “I’ve been meaning to ask: what’s with the sword? Where did you get it?”

“The backpack. Where do I get anything?” I told him about the basement in Dis, explaining the child suicides and how I freed them.

He groaned. “Now, I don’t get it. Every time I go into my bag, I barely get anything at all to help me. I needed a weapon, I got a pocket knife. Ragnarök itself was happening around me, and I got scissors. You are playing jump rope and you just run across a white sword in your bag while looking for a tissue.”

I laughed. “Maybe I just have more faith in my bag than you do.”

His eye widened. “Maybe you’re right.”

Charon’s ferry chugged along and I looked at all the souls surrounding me. In Greek folklore, most everyone went to the Underworld; only the heroic went to Elysium.

Elysium. Where I had met Hermes.

“You thinking about him?”

I looked down into the murky depths. “How can you tell?”

“He’s dead. We’re going to his underworld. Makes sense you’d think about him.”

“Where do the dead gods go, anyway?” I asked.

“Baldur went to Hel,” he said quietly, and this time I could tell the difference between the two words “Hel” and “hell.” “Izanami was also imprisoned in an underworld. I think they are subject to the same rules we are.”

I glanced at Kazuko, but she had nothing to add. She showed interest instead at the blade on my back.

“Will you show me your blade?” she asked.

I glanced around at the silent souls around us, none of whom paid us any attention. “Let’s wait till we’re off the boat. I don’t want to attract attention.”

She nodded. We approached the other side and the souls began shuffling forward. We stood aside as they left the boat.

Charon came up behind us. He spoke, his voice sounding as if it hadn’t been used in years. “They are not expecting you. This is to your benefit.”

My mouth dropped open in surprise, but Daniel took it in stride. “How did you know we were coming?”

“It is my job to know.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Can we, uh, do anything for you before we go? We didn’t really pay for our passage.”

He had already turned to shuffle back to his controls. “Come and see me again. When it’s all over.”

“I have no idea what that was all about,” I said as we disembarked.

Daniel shook his head. “I don’t get it either. What are we supposed to do? And who’s going to find out we’re here?”

“Hades is not a god who welcomes visitors,” Kazuko said. “We will have to be careful.”

The ferry deposited us at a pier on a riverbank made of black and red sand. We trudged through the hot sand and down a hill toward a rocky outcropping and the mouth of a large cave.

I stood still and closed my eyes, trying to reach out to sense the same pull that I consistently felt from the already-retrieved souls in my bag.

I inhaled sharply. They were here. Yes. There were a lot of them. Eyes still closed, I pointed.

“Great. That’s not foreboding at all,” Daniel said.

I opened my eyes and saw I pointed straight into the cave. The souls from the ferry were already making their dream-like trek that way as well. Nothing illuminated the cave, and as they entered, darkness swallowed them quickly.

“Daniel, this is hell. Stop being surprised when we get bad news.”

#

Before we went inside, I unsheathed my sword and held it out to Kazuko, but she held her hands up, refusing to touch it. She instead put her face close to the blade and moved her head parallel to it, inspecting every inch. She came to the white pommel and pointed.

“I didn’t think it existed. This is Metal Tiger; I heard legends about it when I studied t’ai chi. It presents itself to a powerful being in need.”

“Me? I’m not a powerful being,” I protested.

“Maybe you got it because everyone else already had a sword,” Daniel said. “How did you get it again?”

I glared at him briefly. “I told you. It was just there.”

“The Metal Tiger is strong - if it chooses to support you, it will serve you unfailingly. It can also decide you’re unworthy and just as easily slip from your grasp.” Kazuko glanced from the sword to me. “I would recommend not holding on too tightly.”

“I have no idea if you’re being metaphorical or not,” I muttered. I looked at the sword more closely. I could now see an etching of a leaping, shining tiger on the blade close to the hilt.

She shook her head. “Heroes always find the Metal Tiger, but they never own it. You cannot give it away; it chooses its own master.” She straightened. “That is what the legends say.”

I swallowed. “Wow.” Sometimes I could be so eloquent.

We went into the cave where I found that the White Tiger glowed, making our way fairly easy.

Souls had surrounded us, having ignored us since drinking the water of Lethe, but when Metal Tiger illuminated the dark cave, the souls appeared translucent, and as we went deeper, they faded away completely until we were alone.

“That was weird. Where did they go?” I asked.

“Let me guess, ‘blah blah, each soul has his own path to the underworld, blah blah,’ right, Kazuko?” Daniel said, grinning at her. My stomach twisted as I saw her smile back at him, and I told myself not to get so worked up. She’d saved our lives more than once. Jealousy was not proper thanks.

The walls glittered as we descended deeper into the ground. “Daniel, check it out. Gemstones,” I said. “Hades was considered the richest of the Greek gods because his domain was underground, where all the gems and precious metals were. He liked to flaunt his stuff.”

Daniel paused to examine a chunk of emerald sticking out of the wall. He whistled. “Nice. I suppose he’d be here in a moment if I even got my fingerprints on it.”

“Remembering to use that god’s wisdom in your head now, are you?”

He made a face at me. “Why don’t you just find the souls and get us out of here?”

Tunnels appeared in the wall ahead, and we had a choice of three ways to go. Daniel and Kazuko looked at me.

“Fine, fine. I’m starting to feel like a metal detector.” I inhaled slowly and closed my eyes again.

The lost souls were clearly down the first corridor; they pulled at me like a vacuum. But there was something… something in the second. Something that demanded our attention. It wasn’t as important as the souls, but it needed us.

Or maybe just me.

The third corridor held something huge. Something godlike.

But behind us…

Something growled. Daniel swore. “There’s a dog guarding the Underworld, isn’t there?”

I heard Kazuko drew her sword as I opened my eyes. She had turned to face behind us.

Daniel and I turned after her. Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld, stood behind us, his great shoulders brushing against the gem stalactites. His coat was wiry, like a terrier, but his heads were thick like pit bulls. I don’t know how we’d missed him, except that his black coat blended well with the shadows, and if he wasn’t growling, I assume he’d be quite stealthy.

One head sniffed the air, another one sniffed toward us, and the third growled at us, baring its teeth.

I swallowed and fumbled with Metal Tiger, the sword that suddenly felt like an ineffective twig in my hands.

Daniel’s voice shook. “Three heads. Three of us. We can take him.”

“No, you can’t. Go.” Kazuko’s eyes never left the dog.

“What? We’re not leaving you!”

“Go.”

I took a step backward down the first corridor.

Daniel pulled on Kazuko’s arm. “Come on, run!”

Kazuko dropped her sword. I thought she was going to hit Daniel, but she elbowed him away and tore the bandage off the hand that I’d wounded.

“GO NOW,” she said, and her voice echoed through my mind, demanding my obedience. Her compulsion tore through me and I turned and ran down the dark tunnel. I thought I heard Daniel’s footsteps close behind mine, but beyond that, nothing but a great buzzing sound and the yelps of a very large dog.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I could have sworn Daniel was behind me. I really thought he was. When you’re running through a dark cave and the only light is coming from you, echoes and shadows can wreak havoc on your perception.

Kazuko had told us to run, and everything in my body had told me to obey her. I figured Daniel had obeyed her, too.

And so I ran down that first corridor, heading through twists and turns, too dark to figure out where I was headed. When I finally slowed to a stop, I was quite frightened to find I was alone-in hell. The dog’s anguished sounds had ceased, but the buzzing noise continued.

“Daniel?”

My voice died in the cave. The air had become wet and dank; water leaked from the walls in little droplets. I took a tentative step and slipped, sliding for several feet. Once I’d gained my footing again, I realized that my sword was not the only thing glowing. Ahead, the rocks themselves glowed.

I peered into the gems and saw to my great shock that each hunk of emerald, sapphire, or diamond ensconced in the wall imprisoned a living, glowing soul. “What the hell?” I muttered.

I reached my hand out to touch a gem and heard Daniel call out to me.

“Kate, stop!”

Relief washed over me as he ran up, coming from the hall in front of me.

“Where did you come from?” I asked him, giving him a brief hug.

He stiffened in surprise, but carefully hugged me back. “I went down the middle corridor.”

“And that loops back around this way?”

“Not exactly. There’s really no time to explain, Kazuko is buying us all the time she can, but we need more help if we’re going to do this.”

I held up my hand. “Wait. I have no idea what’s going on. Where is she, and what did she do back there?”

He clamped his hand on my shoulder. “Kazuko and I talked about this while you were asleep. The other souls we got in cat hell were just abandoned; it’s likely some god would have run across them and taken them. The lost souls here aren’t unclaimed; we’re on Hades’s turf. He doesn’t like outsiders, and he certainly doesn’t like outsiders taking his shit. We are about to steal from a god, Kate. A stern, easily angered god. And we’ve lost our bodyguard.”

I sighed, forcing the tension and annoyance out of my shoulders. “What do you suggest we do?”

Daniel held out his right hand, which glowed with a bluish light. A single blue orb floated gently above his palm.

“That’s… not a soul.”

“Not a human soul, no. He followed me in the other corridor, showed me the shortcut here. But he needs you, Kate. Don’t ask me why, I’m not sure.”

I held out my hand and the orb floated to me. I carried it closer to my face and knew immediately, even as it spoke to me in a weakened voice in my head.

Hello, lover.

“Hermes,” I said, forcing my voice steady.

You need help, but first you have to help me. Can you do that, Kate? Have you figured it out?

“Figured what out?” I asked. Daniel was shifting from foot to foot as if he were about to dash off. Time was, apparently, short.

Kiss me.

I hesitated. For one thing, where were his lips? For another thing, there was Daniel right there in front of me. And what would kissing this orb really accomplish?

Kate, once I gave you my life force. All I ask is now you give some back. Please. I can help you after you help me.

“You said you found this in the middle hall?” I asked Daniel, remembering the feeling I’d felt when I’d focused that way.

“Yeah. There were others there, but this is the only one that noticed me. I had a hunch what he was; I can apparently touch god souls while I still can’t touch human souls.”

“And Odin tells you what?”

“Kate, we don’t have time. That’s Hermes. Whatever he needs from you, do it.”

With one more glance at Daniel, I leaned forward and kissed the shining orb.

It dissolved immediately, tendrils of light and god stuff entering my nostrils, mouth and eyes. I threw my head back and gasped as Hermes slid into me, leaving behind fingerprints and picking over my soul as if it were a buffet.

Strong hands picked me off the ground where I hadn’t realized I’d fallen. I settled back, blind, against a firm, broad chest.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and his lips touched mine.

I lost myself in the kiss, in the taste of him, all other concerns minimal. I think I stopped breathing there for a moment, but he pulled away and whispered, “We have work to do.”

I opened my eyes. Daniel looked at me, his face inscrutable. Hermes took my hand and pulled-

And we ran.

God, how we ran. Hermes, the fleet-footed messenger of the gods, pulled me along with him and the caves became blurs to our eyes. I lagged only a moment as we exited the cave and I saw Kazuko rewrapping her hand, the unmistakable skeleton of a three-headed dog behind her, but Hermes tugged, and we left her.

The wind made me blink, which was a mistake, as I missed most of the trip. We came to a halt outside a great hallway, not even out of breath. I looked around, but Hermes was gone.

Kate, came the voice in my head. Hades knows all of my tricks. We have to distract Hades with something new so you can get what you need.

“Distracting Hades? You’re the trickster god, not me,” I said, fear flooding my mouth with bile.

Not necessarily, he said. I will guide you. I need something new, something Hades won’t see coming. Then there was that feeling again, that he was moving around in my head, gently touching my memories. A memory appeared in my mind like a movie, of me sitting in my second grade classroom as one of the last true Appalachian storytellers regaled us with tales of Jack. Jack and the King. Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack and the Bull.

The bull. Jack’s bull’s horns gave milk and bread and saved him when he was starving. After the bull died in a battle, Jack cut a strap from the bull’s hide. Whenever Jack was threatened, he would command the strap to whip and the horns to beat his attackers. “Tie strop tie! Beat horns beat!”

This we can use.

“Where’s Daniel? Is he okay?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder. I had no idea how far we had run.

Your guide will find him, now that she’s done with Cerberus. He’ll be safe with her.

I nodded and took a deep breath.

And so with Hermes whispering to me and making me feel utterly confused and confident at the same time, I walked into the grand hall of Hades and Persephone.

#

Bury your lies deep within the truth, Hermes said.

“My Lord Hades,” I said, bowing to him and pulling the Traveler necklace from around my neck.

The god and his prisoner wife Persephone sat on thrones at the end of a dismal throne room, flanked by the dead. Cold stone walls stretched high to form an arched ceiling, and gems winked at me, reflecting firelight. The dead souls milled about, making the throne room look more like a room full of bored teenagers than a grand court.

Hades and Persephone stared at me impassively. They were tall: as larger than life as the gods at Olympus were, even Zeus. Being gods, I supposed they could be any size they liked. Hades had gold and silver rings adorning each finger and a long black beard. His hair was shaggy, giving him a wild mountain-man look. Persephone wore no jewelry whatsoever, a silent protest against her husband, I guessed. Hermes quietly affirmed my suspicion.

I approached them confidently, with Hermes calming my hammering heart.

Look in the bag. Show him the gifts you have for him.

“I bring gifts to the lord and his queen,” I said, pulling off my backpack. I pulled out a gaudy emerald necklace and a circlet encrusted with diamonds and handed both to a bored-looking attendant soul to give to Persephone and Hades. Persephone ignored my gift, choosing instead to stare at me, frowning. Hades smiled as he greedily inspected the circlet and his wife’s necklace.

“The god of Abraham, El, Adonai, Jehovah, sends you these gifts,” I said.

“Elohim? I thought He was on His way to joining us,” Hades said with a chuckle. “I certainly see that His followers have made things rather busy down here.” He waved his hand to indicate the crowded hall.

Joining them? I thought. Hermes caught my hesitation and urged me to focus. His presence sharpened my wit, letting the words come more quickly. “Why do you think He wants to bring you gifts, my Lord?”

I looking down and saw the corner of the corner of the ornate chest sticking out of my backpack. “I also know you have interest in gems, some more than others,” I said quickly. I opened the chest and saw a soul sphere there, a relatively new soul, with only one life to its credit. It quivered slightly as I touched it, and I picked it up and stretched out my hand to show Hades – close enough for him to see, far enough so he couldn’t snatch it.

He gasped. “Where did you get such riches?”

“I am on a mission from Elohim to find the lost souls. He wishes to give them to their proper afterlife. I think some of these belong to you.”

“That is excellent news,” he said, stretching out his hand.

I pulled back the soul. “I need to see your collection, first, sire.” I dropped my eyes deferentially. “Elohim wants me to see if you have souls that do not belong here. We are missing someone special.” I put the soul back in the chest and then back in my bag.

I chanced a glance up. Hades had narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Uh oh.

Persephone, whose eyes hadn’t left my face, placed her hand on her husband’s arm. “Follow them, beloved,” she said, her voice old and sad for all her youthful beauty. “It is only fair to do an exchange.”

Hades looked as if a one-for-one exchange was not fair at all, and with all of the wealth in the world belonging to him, one could hardly expect him to be altruistic. He got off of his throne and beckoned me to follow him through a door behind Persephone. As I passed her, she rewarded me with a small, knowing smile.

“What was that about?” I whispered.

Hermes’s tone was light. She recognized me. She’s helping us. More memories of myths came back to me, including one in which Hermes and Persephone had been lovers.

My heart pounded and I bit my lip as Hades reached inside his red silken robe and brought out a key ring with hundreds of keys. He led me down a hall with many doors, stopping at one.

I was very aware of his closeness, and the divine power wafting from him. I had to play this just right.

“Your bag,” he said, and reached his hand out to me. I handed it over with no hesitation and he opened the door. I stepped inside, trying to keep my gasp to myself. Hades had captured thousands of souls and trapped them within gemstones; many more than I had seen in the previous cave. The gems glittered unnaturally, and I could feel them reaching out to me.

The ones outside were the overspill, Hermes explained. I shook my head.

I took another step into the room and was completely unsurprised when Hades, still holding my backpack, slammed and locked the door behind me.

#

Although the room still glittered brightly, I closed my eyes and put my hands on the wall. I felt a sharp gem that pulsed slightly. The soul inside was as clear to me as if it had spoken out loud. The soul identified as male, had existed in Australia and France and in some caves in an area that had no definitive boundaries. An old soul.

“Come on, then,” I whispered, and I drew it into my hand. It pulled easily from the wall, my palm flaring in a brief heat as I drew it into my hand. I had no idea where to store it, as my backpack was with Hades. As I wondered, it dissolved, sinking into my skin, leaving behind a glowing circle on my palm. I gasped as it sank in, heat sinking in and spreading up my arm and warming my entire body.

Excellent. Now you know what to do, Hermes whispered in my head.

Next I scooped up a soul that identified only as a writer, then a soul that thought of itself only as a mother, and I gasped when I caught her memories of all of the children she had birthed, loved, and lost. A woman from Russia. A man from Ireland. I pulled them all from the prison of Hades and kept them safe.

I turned on occasion, following the call of other souls, forcing myself to relax and stop trying to see and understand their lives. I kept my eyes closed. My mind drifted to Daniel and his lost eye, and I wondered what it had been like to choose to lose it a second time. I wondered when he would tell me. I wondered if I’d be worthy of the sacrifice he made for me.

After gathering all the souls around me (I’d lost count after eighty) I explored them.

First, of course, I looked for Megan. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I’m sure memories of a loving brother and a crazy mom would stand out pretty baldly. I didn’t see anything like that.

Scanning the souls was like reading a great epic with numerous plotlines that never seemed to tie together. This war story, this romance, this violent death, this boring, safe life. The stories lulled me, but Hermes’s impatience stirred. Although it had felt like a long time, I hadn’t been in there but ten minutes or so. I smiled to myself.

“Tie, strop, tie. Beat, horns, beat.”

The bellow of the lord of the underworld shocked me out of my meditation, and I tried to protect my face as the door exploded inward. A sliver of wood cut my cheek, but I was otherwise unharmed. I ran out of the room and found Hades lying on the floor of the hallway, soundly restrained with a leather strap that still wound itself around him, snakelike. I picked up my backpack from where Hades had flung it when he had only found a leather strap and bull’s horns inside. The horns lay beside the door from where they had burst it open, and I tossed them inside the pack.

“Keep the strap,” I said, and Hermes and I were off.

#

Daniel and Kazuko stood by Cerberus’s skeleton, arguing as we dashed by. We gathered the souls in the far corridor in an instant and joined them.

Daniel’s eyes were wide as they stared into mine. “Is it you? Really?”

“Of course it’s me, dumbass. Who does it look like?”

He pulled me to him and crushed me, then. I hugged him back awkwardly and tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. “God, I was so scared,” he said. “After I gave you Hermes’s soul, you got all glassy-eyed and then you disappeared.”

“He just helped me take care of some unfinished business with Hades,” I said, smiling. “We got the lost souls, we’re good to go.”

“Hades will be free soon, we should leave,” came the calm voice from behind me. Daniel finally let me go and I turned to see Kazuko. But it wasn’t Kazuko. She looked the same, and yet her presence had increased. It was like she teased me at my peripheral vision. There was something else there.

Oh, God. She was divine.

She smiled at me, seeing my recognition. Daniel gaped at me, paying no attention to her.

“What the fuck is going on? Kazuko dissolves a three headed dog, and then you disappear and say you got the souls back from Hades?”

“She will tell you everything in a moment,” Kazuko said, taking both our arms. “We need to leave.”

We ran down the hall. I purposefully had to slow myself to allow them to keep up.

Charon, inexplicably, was waiting for us.

He started the ferry the moment we stepped aboard. We chugged across Styx much faster this time. Once we were going, he handed the controls of the ferry to the little girl in the flowered dress and walked up to us.

He took my hand. “Do you have Hermes? Did you save them?”

I grinned at him, ignoring Daniel’s sharp look. “He’s with me. And I got the souls. But Hades won’t be tied up for long.”

Charon nodded and smiled. “Once we reach the other side, you’ll be safe.”

I heard Hades roar deep within the caves and got the distinct impression that we should never return.

#

On the far side, I asked Charon what stake he had in the orphaned souls.

“I catalogue them. It is part of what I do. And I knew there were some there that didn’t belong, some I didn’t ferry across; this upsets the balance.”

We shook his hand and got off the boat.

We passed the waiting souls, Kazuko and I definitely more relieved.

“So you have your own little friend in your head?” Daniel asked, not looking at me.

Hermes chuckled inside my head. I felt a small stab of guilt, but I lifted my chin. “We couldn’t have gotten through that without him. And you still have Odin.”

He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“What’s wrong, Daniel?”

“I didn’t fuck the guy inside my head.”

“Ugh, you’re so crude,” I said. “Like I planned any of this? And what the hell do you care?”

Daniel ignored me and looked at Kazuko, “And what happened to you and that dog?”

I could feel her even though I didn’t look at her. She blazed like a fire; something had changed during her battle with Cerberus. I was surprised Daniel couldn’t feel it too.

“I stopped the dog and then came to find you. You will get answers in time.”

Daniel snorted. “Yeah. But will they be the ones I need?”

He stomped ahead of us and walked alone. I looked at the powerful woman at my side and she smiled. I shrugged. Daniel would get over it. He’d have to. It was pretty clear he needed us both.

CHAPTER NINE

The sky had darkened considerably, even though my body clock said it was midday. I squinted at the gloom and wished, briefly, for the fake beautiful days I used to have in Heaven. In particular, those days when I lived with Daniel: the Daniel who loved me. The fake Daniel.

Man, sometimes fantasy seemed much better than reality. Daniel hadn’t spoken much to me since we’d gotten away from Hades. And I still felt slightly dizzy from Hermes’s presence.

I wanted to reassure Daniel, but I didn’t want to lie. For one thing, Hermes was still there – granted, he sat quietly in the back of my mind, but I could still sense him. Perhaps it was with his help that I could sense Kazuko so well now, too.

How did Daniel not see it? She walked ahead of us, back straight, step brisk. If pressed, I wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint exactly what was different, but I knew she had changed somehow.

Daniel broke my concentration with a startled, “Who the hell...?”

Ahead of us on the road stood four Asian girls, each with long black hair. They looked as though each was two years older than next youngest; the youngest looking about ten years old and the eldest sixteen. At first glance they looked like sisters, but as they got closer, I got an uncomfortable feeling.

“I thought the road to hell was walked alone?” I asked Kazuko.

She frowned for the first time. “It is. We should not meet anyone here.”

As we approached, the girls became audible to us, and it was clear they were in a heated argument.

“I’m tired of searching,” the youngest said. “I want to sit down!”

The oldest shook her head. “We haven’t explored all the underworlds. There are many to go; we’ve only explored seven.”

The next youngest sighed. “No, we’ve been kicked out of eight. How many more are there?”

The next youngest just stood there, sniffling, as if she had just finished up a good cry.

A chill ran through me as I studied the girls. Although they were obviously different ages, it was clear they were all identical. How was that possible?

The tired one, the youngest, pulled at the oldest girl’s shirt. “Dae, look. People.” She pointed to us.

The weeping one looked hopeful. “Maybe they can help.”

Kazuko looked them all up and down. “You have no souls.” She was matter-of-fact in her bluntness, but the statement elicited a sob from the twelve-year-old.

“Wait, how can they be souls without souls?” Daniel asked.

“Excellent question, sir,” snapped the fourteen-year-old.

The oldest put her hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Hush, Min.” To us, she said, “I’m Dae. These are my, ah, sisters. Min,” the angry fourteen-year-old, “Sun,” the weeping twelve-year-old, “and Bo-Bae” the wide-eyed ten-year-old.

“Oh, just tell them, Dae,” Min said. “We’re clones. We can’t find an afterlife that will accept four girls cloned from one.”

“Wait, you’re what?” I asked.

“Clones. We are from South Korea. Some people wanted to see if they could clone the same scientist four times, once every two years, then raise us differently,” Dae said. “Something went wrong and we found out about each other and managed to run away. We died together, looking for the woman we consider our mother. Now we are just trying to find a place to rest.”

Daniel began his standard introduction of us, but I wasn’t listening. I stepped forward and held up my hand focusing on Dae, who seemed the most receptive of the bunch, and placed my hand below her neck. She looked surprised, but didn’t protest.

“What are you doing?” Min said, and raised her hand to knock mine away. Without looking at her, I reached out with my other hand and caught her wrist. She blurted her surprise but I didn’t lose my focus on Dae.

The soul was there, inside Dae. It was small and feeble, but still it flickered there. I let Min go and stepped back from Dae. “You do have a soul. It’s small and fractured, but it’s there.”

“Are you a god?” Sun asked with awe in her voice, and her eyes nearly hurt me with their need.

“No, sorry. It’s just that I, uh, sense souls. I guess. We’re trying to find some imprisoned souls down here, and I’m the bloodhound.”

The brief hope in her eyes died. “Oh.”

“Where are you going?” Bo-bae asked.

“The next hell, I guess,” Daniel said. “We go where the road takes us. You?”

Dae pointed at Min. “Min says Anubis will help us, so we’re trying to find him.”

Min nodded eagerly, her face losing some of its bad-tempered, pinched look. “According to stories, Anubis has a male and female aspect, two parts of the same whole. I thought he might at least listen to us, as four parts.”

“But we’re not parts!” Sun wailed.

Min glared at her. “That is true. We’re seven different girls. Very different girls.” She cast a withering eye at Sun, who had started to cry again.

Still thinking of the soul that flickered inside Dae, I shook my head. “No, you’re not parts. But you’re not wholes, either. I don’t understand it.”

I looked at Kazuko. She shrugged. “Of the gods, Anubis is as good as anyone now. I was hoping to avoid him, but we can go there, if you like. He could help the two of you get to your answers as well.”

“You mean you’ll help us?” Bo-bae said.

“Wait a sec,” Daniel said. “You’re not damned souls or anything, are you? Murderers, thieves, uh…” he paused, thinking, probably, of what horrible things pre-teen and teen girls could have done to deserve hell. He finally finished with, “…drivers who take up two parking spaces?”

Min pointed to Dae. “She’s lost her virginity already.”

Dae looked at her clone coolly and crossed her arms. “And you think that would damn me?”

Daniel snorted. “Last I checked, Min, being a tattletale doesn’t damn you to hell, so you’re safe so far.”

Min bristled as the other clones, save Sun, laughed. Since the girls were going our way, we walked on together, our little group suddenly grown to seven.

#

I wonder if we would have found the realm of Anubis if Kazuko hadn’t been purposefully leading us to it. Instead of a grand building, castle, or a mountain cave, we encountered merely a hole in the ground, covered by a dirty blanket.

“You serious?” Daniel said as Kazuko pulled aside the blanket to reveal roughly hewn steps.

I led the way in, Min and Bo-bae at my heels, eager to find out what Anubis had to say.

“So have you met a lot of gods?” I asked.

“I don’t know the ones we haven’t met,” said Bo-bae. “The ones in hell, anyway.”

We had been walking down a tunnel, dimly lit by torches in the walls. I was too busy realizing how much I had missed talking with people other than Daniel and Kazuko that I didn’t notice the change in the tone of the echoes.

Min may have been overbearing and rude, but at least she had excellent reflexes. She threw her arm in front of me and Bo-bae, who gave a short shriek as she realized the end of the tunnel was a gargantuan pit.

Daniel and the other clones stepped aside as Kazuko came forward.

“Anubis,” she whispered.

I squinted and stepped backward into Daniel. Down below, a sharp-featured black dog sat on its haunches in the pit, its head level with the top, staring right at us. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see that steep steps wound around the pit to the bottom, ending at the feet of the great dog.

Also at the feet of the dog was a man with a bird’s head.

“And Thoth,” Kazuko continued, pointing at the man with the bird head. “He weighs the souls; Anubis passes judgment.”

Anubis opened his jaws and his obsidian teeth gleamed in the dim light. His voice was deep and gravely as if he had further depths of the earth within him. “Five to be judged.”

I looked around. “Five? I thought there were four of you.”

Anubis blinked slowly. “The woman Kate has yet to be properly judged. The four half-girls named Dae Min and the man named Daniel Joseph Hudson.”

“Daniel?” I asked.

“What the hell?” asked Daniel.

“Half-girls?” demanded Min.

Anubis ignored them. “Who speaks for the half-girls?”

Daniel still stood in shock. Kazuko didn’t speak. Dae cleared her throat behind me.

“Please,” whispered Sun.

“Uh, me, I guess,” I said, stepping forward, careful of the edge of the pit.

“And who speaks for Daniel?”

I opened my mouth again, but Kazuko stepped forward and drew her sword. She placed it in front of her and faced the god. “The goddess Izanami speaks for Daniel Hudson.”

CHAPTER TEN

We didn’t really have a lot of time for a “holy shit” moment just then. Right after Kazuko had made her pronouncement, Anubis ordered me and the clones down into the pit. I bit back all questions and left them, Daniel staring at Kazuko/Izanami in disbelief.

“I can’t believe this,” I whispered, focusing on my shock at Kazuko’s revelation rather than freaking out about the handrail-free steps carved into the wall. “Did you know about this?” I whispered to Hermes, hoping he would respond.

Of course I did.

“And you didn’t tell me why?”

She clearly had a good reason for her disguise.

“Why are you shocked?” Dae asked, assuming I was talking to myself. “I thought at least one of you was a god.”

“We didn’t know she was a god,” I said. “Well, at least not at first. All I knew was Izanami appointed Kazuko as our guard and then left us. I didn’t know she stayed in disguise, or whatever. I don’t even know if there was ever a Kazuko, or if she was a host of the god, or what.”

“So how are you going to represent us? You don’t know anything about us,” asked Min.

I glanced down at the feet of Anubis, where he and Thoth waited patiently. “I don’t know,” I said. “Anything I should know about you, or your, uh, mom?”

“She was a brilliant scientist who died five months ago, right after we found her,” Dae said from in front of me. “She led the field in genetics and cloning research. We were her finest achievement.”

I wracked my brain to figure out how to represent – defend? – these seven girls I didn’t know. What if they did belong in Hell just by virtue of being humanly manufactured?

Although I wasn’t relishing the thought of facing the huge dog, the end of the stairs came too soon as I still had no idea of what I was to do.

As we stepped onto the rock at the bottom of the pit, Thoth approached.

Bow to the judge of the dead, Hermes whispered. I did so, awkwardly, and the girls followed my head, much more gracefully.

The bird head lowered to acknowledge us and then indicated a large scale at Anubis’s feet.

The dog spoke again. “I weigh your soul against a feather. Thoth determines the result. If you are too heavy of sin, Ammut devours you. Ammut is not here currently, alas, so I will do the devouring. If you are light enough, you ascend.”

“Ascend?” Sun said hopefully.

The bird head nodded once. He gestured again.

“What do we do?” Bo-bae said, her voice shaky.

“Weigh the souls,” said Anubis.

The clones looked at me expectantly. I looked at Thoth, Anubis, the clones, and then up the stairs to where I knew Daniel and Kazuko – Izanami? – waited. I tried to remember that we were on a metaphysical plane, not physical.

I remembered the flicker of recognition in Dae’s chest when I touched her. I beckoned to her and she came willingly. “Are you ready?” I asked.

She smiled sadly. “I’ve been ready since the day we died.”

I put my hand on her chest and felt that discordant flicker again. I concentrated like I had in Hades’s realm, trying to coax the souls from solid gemstone.

Finally it came to me, the warm sphere nestling into my hand. The light left Dae’s eyes and she crumpled, her body evaporating like smoke.

“What did you do to her?” Min said.

The soul was smaller than others I’d taken, and striations interrupted the smooth flow of soul-stuff inside, so I concentrated on it, learning about Dae, her life and loves, her remarkable story. As I held it, the striations disappeared and it rounded out to look unmistakably like a soul.

I took Dae’s soul over to the scale and carefully lowered it to the waiting tray. The feather didn’t budge from its low position.

Sun smiled at me, tears rolling. “It’s true. You healed her.”

“Is that it?” I asked Anubis.

“It is merely part of a whole,” he grumbled. “Weigh them all together.”

The clones gasped. “Together we have to weigh less than one whole person?” asked Bo-bae.

Sun stepped forward confidently. “I’m next. And thank you.”

I smiled at her, embarrassed by her complete trust. Her soul nearly leaped into my hand, and her body dissipated like Dae’s.

The other clones came to me, one confidently, one reluctantly. I removed each soul, watched it reform and heal, and added it to the stack of shining spheres. Each was identical, which I hadn’t expected, as they had been such different girls. They were all incredibly light, although with the addition of Min, the feather rose just a little. With all four souls, the scales tipped one way, and then the other, and then balanced perfectly.

I blew out, only then realizing that I’d been holding my breath.

Anubis nodded his huge head slowly and said, “They are yours.”

I nodded and took the souls back, handling each one carefully as I stored them in my pack.

“Now for Daniel.”

I stepped back and watched Daniel. While Anubis had judged the girls, he and Kazuko – I still couldn’t think of her as Izanami – had descended the steps behind us. They walked forward calmly. I tried to catch Daniel’s eye, but he didn’t look at me.

“Why is he being judged?” I asked, but Kazuko waved me back.

She turned to Daniel and asked, “Are you ready?”

He nodded once, and then his good eye went to me, anguish and fear creasing his face. “Kate, I’m sorry.”

“Wait, why?” I asked. Then I realized what was going to happen. “No, wait, don’t you dare!”

He smiled then, and Kazuko placed her hand on his chest. Just like the clones, Daniel’s face relaxed and he fell. I tried not to worry about his corporeal body as he dissipated, but I had to fight back tears as he became nothing more than a shining globe.

I couldn’t stop myself from stepping forward, past Kazuko to stare at it. “What is that?”

Daniel’s soul did not glow with the soft golden light that other souls did. It was laced with ribbons of red, green, silver and blue, with touches of black here and there.

Kazuko silenced me with a stern look and approached the scale. I could tell immediately that this was not going to end well. The soul dropped the scales down, pushing the feather high.

“No, wait! He’s a good guy; he went to heaven when he died! He’s already been judged!” I said, pleading to Anubis.

“Unlike the half-girls, this one holds too much soul within him.” He reached out a paw and Thoth placed the soul, so tiny compared to the god’s paw, into it. Anubis held the soul close and sniffed it. “Ahhh… Odin,” he said, and the green ribbons left the soul to hover above like a streamer. “An aspect of Izanami, and her son Kagut-Suchi” he said, and the silver and red-colored ribbons left the soul. “And,” he sniffed again, sounding honestly surprised. “Goodness. Horus, what are you doing in there?” The blue color left Daniel’s soul.

“What is he talking about?” I asked Izanami. “How is he carrying part of you? And who’s Horus?”

She didn’t answer me, but she stared hard at the giant dog in front of us. “Weigh him again.”

Anubis sniffed one last time. “No, I don’t think so. This soul has a story to tell. I think we should let it speak.”

And with that, he opened his great gaping jaws and swallowed Daniel’s soul.

#

Suddenly Daniel’s afterlife played out like a hologram before us - Daniel arriving, being met in the afterlife by many, many women. Clothes were shed, bodies came together-

I turned my head, embarrassment and jealousy distracting me from the real reason we were here. “Tell me when this part is over,” I mumbled to Kazuko.

She glanced at me and said, “The true story is sometime after this, Lord Anubis.”

Anubis nodded once and I glanced up to see Daniel meeting with God, receiving the Traveler’s necklaces, and then walking to find me.

I gasped when I saw myself, sped up, from Daniel’s memory. I was shorter than reality, and mousier. I’d never been voluptuous, but in Daniel’s memory I had little more body than a boy’s.

Time sped up, we interfered in Elysium, I went away with Hermes, we went to dog heaven.

It became fascinating, how Daniel viewed me. After my encounter with Hermes, I had matured in Daniel’s eyes, growing a little taller, gaining a tiny bit of a figure.

I became enraged, then, stalking off, then demanding answers from him. I realized that’s when he started seeing me as me, as someone who wasn’t his sexless little sister. My confidence had grown with my anger.

I approached the angel, looking like a hero; much more confident and strong than I remembered feeling. Then she embraced me and I-

I turned my head, uncomfortable with the memory of the attack.

In God’s office, rage washed over Daniel as he realized how God couldn’t help him.

Then we got to the part of the story I wasn’t familiar with…

#

With his eye finally restored to him, and the cold hard fact that he had lost any chance of restoring Kate to a corporeal body, Daniel strode with powerful steps away from the glory that was the Christian heaven. Kazuko followed him as fast as her dignity allowed her.

“He tricked me. The son of a bitch tricked me.” His eyes were wide with rage.

“He has no mother,” Kazuko began, and Daniel rounded on her.

“I don’t need your logical bullshit now. Not now. I had one of the smartest beings in the universe in my head, I lost him and immediately become a goddamned fool. My best friend in the world is in a fucking jar and I don’t need your excuses!”

“Where are we going?” Kazuko asked.

“I don’t know. Away. Somewhere. Wherever I can get what I need to get her back.”

Kazuko placed her hand on Daniel’s arm. “Allies fall in battle all the time. Sometimes we can’t help them.”

“Bullshit.” He wrenched away from her and started again, but stopped immediately. “What’s off the road?”

“Wasteland,” she said.

“People wander through wastelands to get answers, right? Isn’t that in all the holy books?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He stepped off the road onto the grass and walked perpendicular from the road.

Kazuko spat something in Japanese and followed him. “This is dangerous, Daniel.”

He didn’t look at her. “Then it’s good I have a bodyguard, isn’t it?”

They didn’t stop for rest. Eventually the road disappeared into the distance and the grass gave way to sand. The sun became a baleful eye that caused Daniel to squint and shield his eyes.

“Which way?”

Kazuko sniffed. “What are you looking for?”

Daniel crumpled briefly. “I don’t know. Odin? Wisdom? Another god? Can I just cut out my eye and get him back? I’ll do it.”

Kazuko stopped his searching hand from scrabbling for the great black katana at his side. “Stop. Daniel. Stop.”

Tears threatened. “I have to get her back. You don’t understand. I can’t do it without her.”

“You survived Ragnarök without her,” she began.

“She was there. I knew she’d be there when I got back. Now I may never have her back.” The tears came now, evaporating in the desert wind and leaving stinging, salty trails in their wake.

Kazuko sighed. She lifted Daniel by the shoulders easily, as if he were a rag doll. “We’ll save her,” she said, and leaned in. He was so startled by the kiss that he didn’t return it, just allowed her soft lips to press briefly against his.

Calm and patience infused his mind; the kind of patience that came from sitting in an underground prison for millennia. When she set him down, he cleared his throat and straightened, blushing. “Right. Okay. Let’s go.”

He looked around the desert, relishing briefly the view on his recovered left side. He saw something move behind a dune, a large shadow. Sand rose from the dune as if the shadow was struggling.

Daniel pointed, and Kazuko nodded.

“Horus and Set,” she said.

“Who?”

“Egyptian gods. Horus epitomizes good. Set epitomizes evil. They are destined to fight till the end of time.”

Daniel looked at his watch and started out over the sand. “Yeah, well, that was about a day or so ago. Time for them to stop.”

Kazuko followed, sword drawn. Daniel also drew his, Izanami’s terrible katana, but held it awkwardly.

The point drooped. Daniel stared at it. “I lost everything. I can’t even remember how to hold this. What the hell good am I going to be in a battle?”

Kazuko placed her small hand on his shoulder, stopping him. “Close your eyes.” He obeyed. “Feel the sword. It will speak to you.”

“How will—”

Kazuko cut him off, saying, “Shhhh.” She allowed the silence to permeate the air. “You may not have Odin’s wisdom anymore, but you are not alone. You have more inside you than you know. Feel the sword. It will tell you how to use it. It will help you become a godslayer.”

Daniel’s face relaxed and the katana’s tip dipped into the sand. In his mind danced a great and terrible goddess, mother of all, and after a betrayal, destroyer of all. Izanami knew how to wield this sword.

“Have I been carrying her this whole time, like Odin?” he asked, his voice soft with awe.

Kazuko smiled. “She has been with you, yes.”

Daniel’s hand tightened on the katana as the knowledge reminded his muscles what to do. He opened his eyes. “Do we have a plan?”

“We rarely do,” Kazuko replied.

Daniel snorted a bitter laugh and they struggled through the sand further to meet the battling gods.

Horus was a golden eagle, the size of a grown man. He rose into the air and dove, again and again, at his opponent. Daniel blinked when he saw that Horus had been blinded in one eye.

Set had chosen an ever-changing variety of outlets for his shape. He twisted constantly, becoming a giant hippopotamus, a snake, an armored beetle. He bled from several gashes delivered from Horus’s talons. Currently, as a beetle dripping black goo, he burrowed into the sand.

Horus dove again, screaming his fury, and grasped Set’s wiggling little legs. He carried his uncle into the air, shrieking triumph, but Set changed to a snake again and, tail still clasped in Horus’s talons, slid up to tangle himself in Horus’s wings. He squeezed, and the great bird faltered in the air.

Daniel and Kazuko watched as Horus attempted to wrestle control from his uncle and keep aloft at the same time. That became impossible as Set constricted, pulling Horus’s wings back, and they plummeted.

Daniel swore and ran down the dune as best he could, sliding in the sand. When the gods hit the ground, sand sprayed in all directions, including into Daniel’s face.

Blinded, he stumbled forward. He coughed and spat and rubbed at his stinging eyes. Had the fall broken Horus’s delicate bird bones? Were divine bird bones stronger than normal bird bones?

Once the sand had settled, everything was quiet. Daniel rubbed again at his eyes, but the sand still blurred everything. “Kazuko! Where are you?”

She didn’t answer. Daniel swore again and stumbled forward again, startled when his hands fell on warm feathers. They did not move.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Daniel said, dropping the katana to feel for any sign of life on the god’s body. Izanami’s sword slid a bit on the sand, the impossibly sharp blade slicing through his boot and into his ankle.

Daniel grunted and pulled away from the blade, still trying to clear his vision. Horus twitched under his fingers, and the feathers melted away until Daniel touched only a muscular back. A human hand reached out and touched his ankle.

I gotta stop getting cut around gods, he had a moment to think, before the tidal wave of power flowed into his body. He cried out and fell backward. He retched onto the sand with the dizziness of it, and then slowly got to his feet.

He rubbed his hands over his still-watering eyes and spat the bile out of his mouth. He leaned over and picked up the katana, hands shaking, and realized he could see out of only one eye.

Frantically he rubbed the left eye, but his hand fell away when he heard the voice in his head.

Sorry about that. It’s a side effect, a voice inside his head said. He looked down at the body of the bronze, dying god that lay on the sand, a large black snake coiled around his neck, constricting.

“Horus,” Daniel said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”

Oh, you can still help. I am not Odin; this is not my destiny.

Set had not noticed Horus’s immigration to the new body, and still tightened. A bone snapped in Horus’s neck.

“Yikes, that’s gotta sting,” Daniel said.

The serpent noticed him at that moment and stared at him, the slitted eyes appraising.

Stop staring and kill him! Horus said.

“Oh, right,” Daniel said, and raised the katana. Izanami had killed few snakes, although she had encountered many in the underworld after her death. She hated them. The snake danced to the side as Daniel struck, and he sliced Horus’s cheek instead.

He felt a disappointed groan inside him. “Sorry about that,” he said through gritted teeth. He backed up, goading the snake into following him.

Set changed then, flattening out into beetle form. A beetle the size of an Irish wolf hound.

“Shit,” Daniel said, skidding backward down the dune. His heel dug into the sand and he lost his balance entirely, toppling over and rolling down the dune.

Not keen on rolling over the katana, he instinctively dropped it, trying to stop his roll before Set was on him.

It was too late. Dizzy from the fall, sand in his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, he sat dazed when he felt the hard shell of the beetle on his back, the mandibles clamping around his left wrist.

He howled as the beetle cut into his wrist and the blood poured into Set’s mouth.

The beetle paused to drink, and Daniel’s stomach turned over, the disgust momentarily replacing the pain and fear.

“Fucking bug,” he said, trying to roll away and kick at it.

“Kazuko!” he called again, hoping for help.

You could shape-change, suggested the voice in his head.

“Oh sure, that’s totally easy,” Daniel grumbled. “Why don’t I just shape-change?” he kicked at Set with each syllable.

You can, now. Daniel had a feeling of dizziness and loss of control, and then Horus clearly took over, morphing his body into that of a great golden eagle. His wing tip easily slipped from Set’s mandibles, and the beetle chittered his annoyance.

Holy shit! This is amazing! Why didn’t you say that before? Daniel asked as Horus took flight.

I thought you knew. The voice was warm and amused.

They circled around and poised for a dive at the beetle, which blurred and started to assume another shape.

Hey. Wait. You’ve been doing this for centuries, right? Daniel asked.

Horus paused and circled Set again. Yes. Why?

Why don’t we try a new way to fight him?

Daniel felt the mental shrug at his plan. Horus aimed another dive, this time away from Set, and they plummeted, talons outstretched, and they closed on the hilt of Izanami’s katana in a great explosion as they landed.

With a great leap, they were off into the air again, the unbalanced sword hanging from their straining talons.

Now what? Horus asked. Set had become a hippo again, readying himself for a charge once they landed.

Let me drive, Daniel said.

They dove again, the hippo judging the angle of their attack and trying to get out of the way. Set changed to a beetle again and began burrowing into the sand.

Now, Daniel said, and Horus gave him his own body back.

Daniel gripped the katana and aimed it straight down as he fell. He landed on Set’s back, the goddess’s blade sinking deep, through the beetle’s armor and into the soft interior, and then out the other side.

Set let out a great screech and began switching shapes, but the katana speared him the same no matter what animal he chose.

Daniel held on tight, the bucking god under him trying to throw him off. In the violence, he brushed up against the katana several times, the blade slicing effortlessly through his clothing and skin.

Set stilled, then, and Daniel pulled the blade out. Exhausted, he stepped on the beetle’s back and went to the fairest approximation of its neck, then sank the katana into the bug again, hopefully killing off any remaining brain activity.

He stumbled off Set and knelt in the sand, trying to see all the places he was cut. There were several, some deep.

“Will that do it? Is it over?” Daniel asked out loud.

I have never before been able to kill him. He has beaten me, and I have beaten him, but there has been no death. I’m in your debt.

“Yeah, but what about your body?” Daniel asked, pointing at the god.

I still live. With your intervention, you have helped me win the battle I have fought since the beginning of time. I cannot ask you for more.

“Oh, go on. You know you want to,” Daniel said, sensing Horus wasn’t telling him something. “Do you really want to go back into that body?”

There was a long pause. You do have the power to restore me, he finally said. What would you ask in return?

Daniel smiled.

#

Horus, back in his own body, gazed up at Daniel with his one eye. The agony of his broken neck and other wounds was apparent on his face. Daniel didn’t feel so hot himself. “Are you sure? Is she worth all that?”

“She’s worth more than I have the ability to communicate.”

“I have to take your eye to restore myself. Are you ready?” Daniel nodded. With a grimace, Horus’s form shimmered and he became an eagle again, his broken neck looking even worse in bird form. He held up a talon and hesitated.

Daniel gritted his teeth. “Do it.”

The last thing his left eye saw was the shining claw of Horus descending.

It was worse than the first time, maybe because the anticipation made it worse. Daniel’s body was already injured and singing the songs of pain and blood, and adding a bass drum to the symphony wasn’t making it happier. He tried to bite back the screams as he bled onto the sand, but he couldn’t. He was dimly aware that Kazuko was there, finally, drawing his shuddering body into her lap. She held a clean cloth to his face.

“He is restored.” Kazuko said Daniel. “Your sacrifice has healed him.”

Daniel barely heard her as he retched from the pain, retreating far into himself, wishing never to come out. Dimly aware of Horus taking wing, spraying hot sand on them. Dimly aware of Kazuko assuring him that Horus would return. Dimly aware of her stroking his hair.

Then he was unaware of anything.

He woke when Kazuko tied a bandage across his ruined eye. His felt much better, although the socket still throbbed.

“What?” was all he managed to say.

“He has been and gone. He did his part of the bargain, and gave you something in addition. I’m not sure if bargaining with Horus will benefit you, but what’s done is done.”

Daniel flexed his arms and legs; his cuts seemed to be healed, although he was still coated in tacky blood. Odin was back. His head ached, but it was nothing like it had been. He sagged with relief.

“Where were you?” he asked. “I thought you were my bodyguard.”

She frowned. “I am not permitted to interfere in battles between gods. I couldn’t help.”

Daniel’s jaw dropped. “Then why did you encourage me to go in alone?”

“I knew you could handle it,” she said.

He shook his head. “Why did you say helping Horus is bad?” he asked.

“You now share a lost eye,” she said. “Together you slayed Set. You may share other things. Horus is also known for beheading his mother, among other things.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Daniel replied. Then, louder, “We need to go back.”

“You should rest.”

“I can’t wait anymore. She can’t wait anymore.” With her help, he struggled to his feet.

They walked in silence, Kazuko on his blind side to protect him. Her voice was very soft. “Are you going to tell her that you love her?”

He shook his head. “My mother went insane. My sister died. My father’s emotions shut down permanently. Every woman since then has been a band-aid. I lose everyone I love. And I can’t lose Kate. So I can’t love her. I don’t love her.”

Kazuko watched him with sympathetic eyes. “Those are possibly the most words to ever proclaim that someone does not love.”

“Shut up, Kazuko.”

Above them, Horus circled.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

With Daniel’s story of his adventure, and the story of how he had taken on Izanami and Horus, now over, Anubis lowered his head and spat the soul back out, now with traces of gray around it. Aspects of Anubis? The other hovering ribbons of godstuff settled down within the orb again, and Daniel’s body coalesced around it.

Kazuko bowed to the gods and picked up Daniel’s body. Thoth led us to a door in the pit that opened, unexpectedly, to a beach, where a boat waited.

I squinted my eyes against the sun. I wanted to stay where it was dark.

Neither of us spoke. Kazuko lay Daniel on a bier and covered him with a white sheet up to his chin. Whatever force drove the boat pushed it away from shore.

The boat cut silently through the water as I stared over the side, looking for any sign of land. Kazuko - Izanami, I mean - sat behind me, sitting vigil beside the prone body of Daniel. I couldn’t look at him, so I watched our progress, wondering where we were going, and quite uncomfortable in the fact that we had no control over the boat.

I spent the next several hours in stunned silence. I didn’t know the two beings behind me. I felt very alone.

After a while longer, she came up behind me. Now that she had revealed herself, I wondered how I didn’t see it before. The edges of my consciousness tingled when she came near. She was as divine as any other god we’d encountered.

“I have spent the last several days wondering what happened when he lost his eye the second time. Now that I know, I think I’m even more confused,” I said.

“I will answer what I can,” she said.

“Okay, start with you. Who is Kazuko? Is there a Kazuko? Why did Izanami need to go with Daniel? And why were you disguised?”

“There is no Kazuko. This is the shape I had before I went to the underworld. My natural form now being insectoid, I am able to split myself. Part of me resides with my son, part of me is before you, and part of me rests within Daniel.” She pulled back the bandage on her hand from where I had accidentally cut her, and a fly wriggled out.

“And Cerberus…”

“I devoured him,” she said.

I swallowed, imagining the huge dog covered in flies. No wonder she had been obviously divine after all that. She’d eaten a dog that was eons old.

“I owed Daniel and decided to join you two. Joining you as myself would cause you two to lean too much on me and my knowledge. So I was disguised, helping where I could, but making you choose your own way.”

“Okay, why can’t you and Daniel touch the souls?”

“I was once goddess of all creation,” she said, her voice far away and sad. “I am now a goddess of death, of the underworld. Those souls destined for heaven are not mine to touch.”

“But the souls are already dead. You should be able to touch them more than anyone. And what about Daniel?”

“You are asking the wrong questions.”

I slammed my hands down on the ship’s railing and gripped it hard. “Dammit, stop being so mysterious. I didn’t know what we were doing when we were supposed to be traveling Heaven - oh, and apparently ending the world - and now I don’t know what we’re doing here in hell, either. Are these souls real, or are they just trinkets leading us on a wild goose chase?”

Izanami remained so damnably calm. “You touched the souls of the clones. You saw better than I did that they were salvageable. Did they feel like trinkets to you?”

My rage subsided.

“You and Daniel have a destiny. Destinies are not awarded to those who sit around and do nothing.”

“We are dead! How can we have destinies? There is nothing left to us!”

“Kate. Did you ever wonder why all of this was happening? Why it was important for you to feel the touch of both the divine and Daniel before you were corporeal? Why was it important for you to come to hell with us? Why you found the Metal Tiger sword? Why were you not judged by Anubis?”

“I. Don’t. Know!” I wailed.

She didn’t let up, her voice getting harder and harder. “And why did the most powerful god of all creation start losing souls? Why is it you who has to clean up after Him? Why are both you and Daniel catalysts for the end of the world, and why do you both easily take on aspects of every god you meet?”

I cradled my head in my hands. “I thought I was supposed to be asking the questions.”

Hermes moved in my mind, gently, pushing memories to the surface. Hades’s mention of Elohim’s loss of power. The excited or honored way many of the gods and servants had greeted us in hell.

Daniel’s voice came from behind us both, rough, but strong. “I know.”

Izanami smiled. “I expected Kate to get it first, but then again, the story of what happened with Horus has shocked her.” She turned to face him. I kept my back to him, stiff and angry.

“Anubis told me. Is telling me. We brought it all to an end. Now we have to rebuild.”

Izanami nodded. “Go on.”

“Out of Ragnarök came the hope for a new world. Once Set was killed, Osiris will return and bring hope for a new world. After Armageddon’s battle will come one thousand years of peace. We broke it. Now we fix it.”

I turned, finally, too angry to keep my silence. “That answers nothing. How the hell are we supposed to do that, Daniel? We haven’t even finished our other job; remember those souls? Remember your sister? If we can’t even do that, how do you think we’re supposed to rebuild the world?”

“Look, we’re almost done with the souls. Megan is the only one left. If you would stop ranting and think for a moment, you’ll see I’m right.”

The look on his face was serene and serious, no longer the joking, cynical Daniel I knew. Was this Anubis talking? I looked away from his clear eye and stared over the water again, searching for the familiar pull.

Suddenly it blinked at me, fiercely, dead ahead. There was only one, and it was strong. One left. Megan. And we were heading straight for her. As I sensed her, I saw the shore ahead, finally visible.

I sighed angrily. I hated it when he was right. “Fine, so we’re almost done. But you didn’t answer the rest. How are you and I going to rebuild the world? It’s not like we’re gods.”

Daniel got up and approached me. I glared up at him, my anger the only defense against this stranger in front of me. He took my hand and placed it on his chest. Inside, his soul blazed; pure Daniel. Divine Daniel.

“Aren’t we?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Izanami left us at the shore. She embraced Daniel, holding on tight for a moment. I frankly stared at her as she wiped a tear from her eye as she looked at him in the eye for a moment. He whispered something to her, and she smiled.

She then came to me and hugged me like a sister, telling me I would grow into my role. I hugged her stiffly, silently begging her to stay. I didn’t know how to talk to Daniel anymore; I needed her between us.

She didn’t get my telepathic message, which made me cynical again about the whole god thing. Either that, or she ignored my request; which, knowing her, would be just as likely.

She removed the bandage from her hand and a swarm of flies buzzed out, turning the human form inside out until nothing was left. Izanami in her true form hovered over us for a moment, then sped back across the water.

“That’s still weird,” Daniel said, watching her go. I didn’t answer.

He sighed. “Which way?”

I pointed down the one path that led away from the beach. “You could have figured that one out, I think.”

“Why are you so mad?”

I laughed bitterly. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know my best friend anymore. I can’t trust why we’re doing anything. You’re apparently brave enough to tell a god to blind you, but you’re too cowardly to tell me why you did it. Now you tell me that we’re turning into gods and have to remake the world, when all I feel like doing is running to my room and crying my eyes out. And I don’t even have a room anymore! How’s that for why I’m angry?” My voice cracked with the tears I fought back, and I turned away from him to get control again.

He laughed then, and I looked back at him. He suddenly looked so much like Daniel that I nearly broke. “Those are all good reasons. Listen, Kate—”

I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. “Look,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to do this now. Let’s just get done what we have to. Let me run ahead and see what I can find out. I’ve got this god in my head, so I might as well use him.”

I ran off without looking at him. It felt good to run, and the speed at which I could maintain at a comfortable level made me feel as if I were leaving all my problems behind. The scrub beyond the beach blurred and I found myself in the middle of a dusty Midwestern US town. I stopped in confusion and looked around me. A general store stood in the center of the dead town, with two men on the porch playing chess. Well, the town was dead except for the sound of two kids playing inside the store.

“I can do that too, you know,” Daniel said behind me, making me jump. “Kagut-suchi can move like a wildfire.”

I forced myself to look in to the alien face. “Do you know where we are?”

He pursed his lips, and I felt a small triumph that I had finally irritated him. His eye flicked around and he shrugged. “No idea. Is she here?”

She was. It was clear. She was inside. But the two men on the porch of the store had spotted us and waved us over.

They were craggy men, somewhere between eighty and a billion. One was bald and clean-shaven, liver spots staining his head. The other had a shock of white hair on top of his head and sat next to a glass with a pair of dentures in it. He grinned at us with bright pink gums, and I was caught between disgust and nostalgia, remembering my grandfather.

He nudged the bald one. “They’re finally here. Looky there.”

The bald one motioned us up the stairs. “Let me look at you. Very nice, very good. Kate doesn’t accept the truth. Daniel has embraced it. Completely unexpected, but that’s why we like you. You are unexpected.”

It all became clear to me then: Satan was the bald man. The Adversary, playing checkers with God. Their casual attitude simply made me angrier. “Is Megan here?” I asked bluntly.

They glanced at each other. The bald one shrugged and the other one motioned us inside. “She’s playing in the nails again, silly girl. Always makes a mess of my inventory.”

“And you knew that all the time? You dangled her here for us to wander all over eternity to find?”

“The journey is as important as the destination,” God said mildly.

I grabbed the door and yanked it open, motioning for Daniel to precede me. He did so, finally showing some of the tension I felt. I felt tiny and mean. It felt good.

In fact, I was so busy being tiny and mean that I didn’t think to wonder Megan played with. Daniel walked down an aisle to the back of the store, following the sound of laughter. I bumped into him as he stopped abruptly, gasping.

A smiling, dark haired four-year-old girl stood beside a pole where drawers sat on disk. Each drawer held a different size of nail, and she spun the disk, laughing as the nails whizzed by her.

Behind her stood a boy, several years older, with bandages on both forearms and one over his left eye. He smiled and watched her protectively, a gentle, patient smile on his face.

He glanced up at us then, his dark brown eye widening. “Megan, they made it.”

The little girl shrieked, making me jump, and ran to Daniel. She grabbed him hard around the middle and he disengaged her arms so he could pick her up and hug her tightly.

The anger in my chest loosened as I watched him hold her, laughing.

The boy came to me, his face still holding onto youth but his deep brown eye (not to mention the tell-tale wounds) showing me unmistakably that this was Daniel.

He took my hand and smiled at me. “I’m sorry, Kate. I’m so sorry.”

I was tired of being utterly flummoxed. “Why?”

The girl Megan raised her head from the adult Daniel’s shoulder and pointed to the boy. “Because that Daniel died with me. You never got to meet him.”

“You split yourself, like all these gods have been doing?”

Daniel, still holding his sister, looked down at his younger self with shock. “I had no idea. If I did it, it wasn’t conscious, that’s for sure.”

“What are you, then?” I asked the boy.

“I’m surprised you don’t know.”

Daniel put his sister down. “Are you all right?”

She shook her head, ponytails bobbing. “I’m good! I am just here because I’m your last stop. You found me. You win!” She clapped her hands.

He nodded and stood up. He looked at his younger self, thoughtfully. “And you have to wait a little longer.”

The boy nodded.

Daniel sighed. “Well, Kate, I guess it’s time.”

“For what?”

“Remember how Anubis said you had yet to be judged?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“It’s my job to do that.”

Confusion and anger woke in me again. “Fuck, Daniel. Why? When will I know what is going on? And what if I say no? What if I just sit here and spin nails for the rest of eternity?”

Daniel looked down. “It’s not my decision. If you refuse to be judged, then I guess you can stay here. We’re not in hell anymore. This is a middle place, a wasteland place, like where I met Horus and Set. You will be safe here. But I promise you, after you are judged, I can tell you everything.”

Tears of anger and confusion ran down my face. Daniel left me, then, holding Megan’s hand and leaving the store.

The boy looked at me with concern, but did not move to comfort me.

“So who are you again?” I asked, trying to bite back the tears.

“You met me once,” he said quietly, maturity aging his face. “In heaven. I’m the part of Daniel that has the capacity to show love. I died with Megan, but I was always connected to Daniel, absorbing the feelings that he refused.”

The air left my chest, making it cold with shock. “You were the Daniel I was with in Heaven.”

The boy nodded.

“But I thought you were fake. You were too perfect.”

He smiled sadly. “I was built solely on the love that Daniel refused. Love for his parents, love for any woman, and mainly love for you. I don’t have much depth beyond that.”

I honestly thought the shock was going to shut me down. I’d had enough. I turned, my head in my hands, and followed Daniel.

He stood on the porch, watching Megan get a horsey ride on Satan’s knee. I stormed out, holding onto the anger as strength. “Fine. Judge me. If only so I can get some answers. I can’t take this anymore. You used to be the only thing I could count on, and now I don’t even have that.”

He put his hand out and took my shoulder. “You can always count on me, Kate. That’s not what this is about.”

“What is it about then?”

“It’s about the store, of course,” God said.

“The store?” I asked.

“Sure. We can’t run the store forever. We’re old. It was falling apart before the end of the world, but now it’s clear someone new has to take the reins. We just want to play chess,” Satan said.

“Checkers, sometimes,” God said, cackling.

“And this was all a game to you?” I asked.

God blinked. “All of it is a game. It always has been. Every war, every conflict, is a game.”

I looked from them to Daniel. “Answers?”

He nodded. “Everything.”

“Fine. What do we do?”

#

In the back supply closet, the bald one helped me out of my robe and took off my Traveler’s necklace. He turned his back as I removed my t-shirt and jeans and replaced them with a black linen shirt and pants. “You will move around better in those,” he said, beaming at me. He tied my hair back and told me to remove my socks.

Barefoot and clad in well-fitting clothing, I exited the storage room. The boy Daniel watched me silently, his eye wide with worry.

Daniel stood outside in the street, similarly dressed. He held his katana out. I reached back and took the Metal Tiger sword out. For perhaps the first time, it felt totally comfortable in my hands.

“This doesn’t feel like a judgment,” I said. “It feels like an execution.”

“We have to battle, Kate. Only through this will you find your answers. If you are unworthy of the knowledge, I will win, and Hermes will escort you to your afterlife. If you win, you win everything you want to know.”

Hermes. Shit, he wasn’t only the messenger of the gods, but he led souls to their afterlives. Was that why he was with me? To escort me to – wherever?

The presence in my head was still there, but silent.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.

He laughed. “You’ve always been a bad liar, Kate. You were ready to hurt me several times today. You have found strength in only your anger as this situation has gotten away from you. Now is your chance. I lied to you about traveling through Heaven. I ended the world and caused your death a second time. I was angry and elusive, and I frightened you in hell more than once. I drew my sword on you. I resented your holding a god in your head while I carried several. You have a ton of reasons to want to hurt me.”

I thought of how he had withheld his feelings from me, and gritted my teeth. I drew my white sword and attacked.

Never attack when taunted, came an admonishment in my mind as Daniel easily parried my strike.

“Oh, don’t you fucking start,” I hissed. “I don’t need two people attacking me.”

Daniel grinned – he knew my argument made me weaker. He swung wide, going for my sword arm, and I stepped back and to the side, avoiding it.

My heart pounded with adrenaline and the outlying abandoned buildings and general store dropped from my awareness. All that I knew was the man in front of me, whom I had loved for years, and who had driven me to insane rage to attack him. His eye narrowed a bit as he saw the change in my focus.

He kept turning his head to the left to keep me in his sight, and Hermes urged me to use his weakness against him. I feinted left, causing him to over commit, and my sword sliced into his right shoulder. He hissed loudly and jumped back.

I looked at the blood on my sword, as surprised by my successful hit as I was by my lack of remorse. He assessed me, panting.

“Are we done?” I asked. He shook his head and came at me, sword held high. Time seemed to slow as my mind cleared and I saw it all. I finally knew how to end this. I dropped my own sword. I reached up and caught the katana between my palms. The blade dug at my hands, but now I controlled it and didn’t let it go. With a twist, I caused it to dig deeper into my left hand but the hilt popped out of Daniel’s hands. I grabbed his right hand with my right and slapped my deeply cut left hand to his bleeding shoulder. Our blood mixed and-

He cried out, but I could barely hear him through the rushing in my ears. The world around us blurred and we collapsed on a wooden floor, back in the closet where I’d gotten dressed. Had I brought us here?

I held my eyes wide, but could only see through the right. Daniel lay on his back next to me, panting.

He closed his eye. “Do you know, now?”

Yes, finally, I knew it, all of it. The old gods, everyone from Hades to Elohim, were weakening. Not all of them wanted to accept the fact, of course, but new gods had to be found. Years before our births, Daniel and I were chosen. The store - the afterlife - had to be managed. Daniel was the darker, the angrier of us. He was to control hell, manage and punish the dark souls.

It became clear: our journeys, our actions, all had been to teach us of our powers, to make us learn about the metaphysical afterlife. We couldn’t have just been handed the powers of a god; the journey mattered as much as the destination.

And me. I had thought I was nothing, but I was the one who had created anything I needed from the backpack. I was the one who found the Metal Tiger sword. I was the one who had, as a pure soul, been touched by two gods. Heaven was to be mine.

We were not alone. Osiris and the valkyries were to help rebuild the world into a place of peace.

And yet, with our paths separating in front of us, one to Heaven, the other to Hell, we were destined to be alone.

I nodded, although he knew I knew. I was inside him as clearly as he was inside me. I knew the aching depth of his feelings just as he knew mine.

“My God,” I said.

“Yes. You’re God,” he said, laughing.

“I can’t leave you. I won’t. Not now.” I sounded childish to my ears, my mind telling myself that I certainly could, and I certainly had to.

He rolled over. “No. Not now. But soon.” He took my left hand and kissed the palm, healing it instantly. He took the right and did the same. He moved his lips slowly to my wrist then, kissing it softly. My breath became shallow as he moved up the tender skin of my forearm, causing electric shocks to shoot up my arm.

He moved closer to me and touched my face gently. I hadn’t been this close to him, face to face, since we’d come to Hell, and I could see the pink scars from Horus’s attack above and below his bandaged eye. I traced them gently with my finger.

“I would lose the other for you if I had to,” he said. “I’m sorry I could never show you.”

“Show me now,” I said. He leaned in and kissed me. It was everything and nothing like what I remembered from my first days in heaven. In heaven he kissed me exactly how I wanted to be kissed, which was nice, but there were no surprises. Daniel – the whole Daniel - surprised me several times there in the closet.

I moved my head forward as he carefully moved my hair aside and kissed my neck, gasping when he hit the spot that shot waves of pleasure straight down to my knees. He heard me and opened his mouth, biting down right where my neck met my shoulder. My hands scrabbled weakly at his clothes as he deftly removed mine. His hands traced slow designs on my back until I grabbed them and put them where I wanted them.

We weren’t gentle. He hissed when I bit him on the inner thigh. I moaned when he bruised me, digging his fingers into my hips.

His slick salty skin tasted of inevitability. And I tasted, I’m sure, of celebration.

After we had explored feverishly with hands and tongues, I pushed his shoulders back to the floor and moved on top of him, merging our divine natures for the second time. The only coherent thought in my mind was the brief consideration of letting humanity die off or fend for itself, to stay here joined with Daniel forever. The world didn’t need us. We needed us. Tears ran down my face and I cried out as I came, once, twice, then a third time as Daniel clutched me tightly and groaned. Worlds shuddered in our wake.

I collapsed next to him, tears still running. He wiped them gently with his finger. “Don’t. Gods don’t cry.”

I chuckled despite my tears. “I think the divine community is going to learn some new tricks with the likes of us in charge. I’ve never been one to act like the cool kids just for the hell of it.”

He smiled. “That’s what I love about you. Among other things.”

I kissed his searching finger. “Are we enemies now?”

He laughed out loud. “You’ve slain me. Does that count?”

I slapped his chest. “I’m serious!”

“The way I understand it, I’ll a judge, a manager. No, more like security at a carnival. I am not evil, but I punish those who are. You get to give out the carnival prizes and I get to kick out the cheaters. Neither of those people is evil, are they?”

I thought back to the previous fall when, utterly bored and dateless, we had gone to the county fair. The October evening had been hot as we sat in the Ferris wheel, and for one shining moment, when it stopped at the peak, I thought he was going to kiss me. I smiled at the memory.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Get dressed, I suppose. Go back out there and get the keys to the store. Go to work. We’ve got a world to rebuild. I don’t think it’s going to be easy.”

I nodded and reached out my hand. My backpack was there, holding clothing for both of us. We embraced and kissed once more before opening the door. I tried to make it last forever, but apparently my divine will didn’t reach that far.

“Whip those angels into shape,” I said. “Don’t be a stranger, either.”

He grinned. “Take good care of my sister. And Kate?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

The hurt in my chest managed to lessen a bit and intensify at the same time. “I love you, too.”

We exited the storage room, but we didn’t walk into the general store. Instead we stepped outside into a grand carnival. Carnies shouted at us and children ran past, giggling. Couples held each other as they went round the Ferris wheel, and delicious fried food scents hung in the air.

Daniel looked at me, his eye wide.

I shrugged. “I thought I’d try out that divine power thing.”

Ahead of us waited the two men, now dressed as circus ringmasters. They each held a deed, one printed with white ink on black paper, the other one black on white. Megan ran to Daniel and he picked her up and kissed her.

I knelt in the sawdust and peanut shells and opened my backpack. Souls poured out: the ones from cat Hell, and the Underworld, and lastly the clones, dancing their golden ways out of the pack to coalesce in corporeal form and look around in amazement.

The ringleaders handed us the deeds to the carnival and wandered off, arguing about whether next to play checkers or chess. I smiled at their backs, and turned to say something to Daniel, but he was gone.

My breath caught in my throat, but I refused to cry anymore. I would see him again.

We had work to do, after all.

EARTH

By Mur Lafferty

* * *

The Afterlife Series III

Earth, The Afterlife Series III

Version 1.2

Published by Restless Brain Media on Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 Mur Lafferty

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

This is a work of fiction. Resemblances to persons living or dead is coincidental.

To Jason "Colin" Adams.

Keeper of the Silver Bullet and multiple in-jokes.

CHAPTER ONE

There’s a point when you're so cold that you're not cold anymore. That’s usually the point where hypothermia is so bad that you just lie down in the warm snow and die. Unless you’re like those Buddhist monks who can meditate in the mountains and stay warm in nothing but thin white robes.

Or you’re a god and then it means that you've mastered some sort of mind over matter test. This is what Kate hoped anyway.

Kate sat meditating in a cave, out of the worst of the wind and snow. Since taking over, Kate had found heaven both efficiently organized and a nightmare of details. Although the power had been coming to her more easily as the time went on, she still felt as if she were the captain of a grand fleet but didn't know how to swim. She’d done some research on the Wastelands, and told Ganymede — to whom she’d given a job since he didn't know what to do after Zeus's death — to keep things in order for her, just for a little bit.

Mortals never realize their full potential. People stay locked into dead-end jobs, in loveless marriages, in cities they hate, and they never explore their passions or what they're capable of if they just change one little thing. This is why they say unemployment is a great thing to happen to some people, because it forces them to act and do something they wouldn't normally do.

Mortals actually have a great deal of power to touch the world around them, to drive their own lives; they just never do it. Kate was no different: she lived with her unrequited love for years and only really told him that she loved him when she was sure she could never be with him.

That would be Daniel, the current guardian of hell. At that moment, he was climbing the mountain Kate meditated on, coming to her with a problem. He shone like a beacon in her awareness.

But back to potential. Kate pondered the issue of potential as she'd been trying to get her brain wrapped around the concept of all this power. She no longer felt the cold. She could teleport. And this afternoon she created life — which she immediately regretted, since the kitten reacted immediately to the cold, shivering in her hands. Details like this she would have to remember: if she's going to make life, she should do it where it might actually have a chance of survival.

She sighed as she heard Daniel's feet at the mouth of the cave. Her heart quickened and she grumbled at it to slow down. Not opening her eyes from her meditation, she said, “You know, it would be a lot easier to get over you if you didn't visit me.”

With her eyes closed, Kate still knew everything about him, especially his exasperated scowl, which he wore as he surveyed her cave. “What the hell are you doing? All this godlike power and you’re freezing your ass off on a mountain?”

Kate opened her eyes. “Do I look cold?”

He shook the snow out of his hair and came inside the cave. “Whatever. I need to talk to you.”

Kate abandoned the petty attempts to keep him at arm's length and invited him to sit next to her, his goose down jacket poufing around him.

“We’re supposed to be rebuilding the world, or at least putting our own afterlives back in order. What are you doing up here?”

If she told him, he would demand a demonstration, so she just showed him. She concentrated briefly, and the cave shimmered and disappeared, its craggy walls becoming the dark green walls of the apartment they’d shared when they’d been alive. It was completed with the broken television in the corner and the Dresden Dolls poster with the torn corner hung over the couch. Kate had always begged Daniel to frame it, but he’d never got around to it. She settled back in the cushy green secondhand couch they bought that always smelled a little bit like Doritos. “I’ve been practicing. There’s not a lot I can do until I get the hang of this whole power thing.”

Daniel looked around and whistled. “I stand corrected.”

“So, what have you been working on?”

Daniel got very busy loosening his coat. “Look. My world is a little bit more chaotic, thanks very much. I haven’t had the luxury to study.”

“You’re whining.”

He finally met her eyes, glaring. “Why are you riding me, Kate?”

Kate sighed and looked at the floor. “Because it's easier than jumping into your arms and begging you not to leave me again. Now, what you need?”

He was silent. Kate couldn’t tell if the flush in his face was left over from the cold, or something else. After a moment he cleared his throat. “It’s this weather — well, the weather you had before you brought us here.”

“Snow?”

“In hell.”

“It froze over?”

He laughed, bitterness tingeing the sound. “I guess so. I hadn’t thought of that whole ‘hell freezing over’ thing, but I suppose that's what’s going on. Every place I've been to has been icy. Once I figured out you were on this mountain, I thought it was your doing.”

“Why would you think that? Daniel, I don't have control over hell, and this mountain is in the Wasteland. I just came out here to meditate. I can't control the Wasteland either.”

He snorted. “Well, shit. Kate, if you're not controlling the weather here, and I can't control the weather in hell, what good is all this power we’re supposed to have?”

She stood, and the apartment disappeared. They were back in the cave. Kate wore a knitted cap, a pink goose down jacket, and her backpack. She rooted around inside, handed Daniel a Traveler’s necklace, and took one out for herself. “I guess we should go find out.”

He finally smiled at her and slipped the chain around his neck. They walked outside and looked around. The mountains surrounding them were uniformly snowy and stormy, except for one. A peak stood apart from the others: an odd Technicolor mountain both could have sworn hadn’t been there before. Its pink peaks rose above the gray trees, yellow rivers, and bright green and blue grass.

“Did you see that place on your way up?” she asked.

Daniel shook his head. “You?”

“No, I teleported here. I haven’t looked outside much.”

Daniel just looked at her.

“What? I told you I’ve been practicing! Stop glaring at me and let's get going.”

The going was easy despite the weather and snowdrifts. Kate and Daniel half -walked, half-slid down the mountain. At the bottom, the snow still fell, but the wind had died considerably, making it easier to talk.

Daniel inspected two metal rails that ran along the low hills. “Are these train tracks? I thought the Wasteland had no roads.”

“I thought the Wasteland had no rules,” Kate said. “I guess if a train comes by, we should catch it.”

Daniel rubbed his forehead over his missing eye. “You know, I have to admit I hate modern-day adventures. Odin’s knowledge is no use to me at all in this case.”

Kate touched the god who resided in her own mind and found that Hermes had little help here either. “I guess we have to rely on our own talents here.”

“Great. I’m King of the Underworld and I'm catching a train like a hobo because I don't know anything better to do?”

Kate laughed. “King. Right. And weren’t you that great homeless advocate back in life?”

“Yeah, what’s your point?”

“Well, isn’t ‘hobo’ kind of rude?”

“That’s what they were! Hobo was the name for a vagrant who traveled from job to job. He doesn’t want to be tied down. He’s not lazy; he’s just fiercely independent. It’s not a mean term for homeless person. It had more weight during the day when you could get on a train, go to a new town, and get a job in a farm or a factory. Today — well, I mean, when we were alive — that was more difficult. I don’t think there were many hobos in our time.”

She caught sight of a lone figure walking through the snow toward them. “Well, speaking of hobos, we could ask that guy walking the tracks.”

Daniel squinted his good eye. “Dude, he's not just walking the tracks; they’re disappearing behind him.”

As the man neared, each wooden slat, and a couple of feet of rail it was attached to, vanished after his feet touched it. He raised his hand as he neared Kate and Daniel, smiling through the stubble on his face and chewing on a cigar butt. His clothes were patched with brightly colored ragged pieces of cloth, and one of his shoes was missing part of the toe, revealing a filthy sock. His ragged brown fedora was pushed back on his head so Kate and Daniel could recognize a brand on his dark skin: the Greek letter Omega. The hobo removed his hat with a flourish and bowed. “Well H. bless my soul; I didn't think I'd see anyone on this trip. Not many people make the trek these days.”

Kate extended her hand and the hobo took it. “I’m Kate, he’s Daniel, and we’re Travelers headed for that mountain over there.”

“Professor Omega, the final hobo, at your service.”

“The final hobo?” Daniel asked.

Professor Omega’s smile died. “You don't know your hobo lore, do you? I was destined to walk the earth from job to job until all of the hobos went home to the Big Rock Candy Mountain. Once all the hobos are home, I roll up the tracks and we live in paradise.”

Daniel smacked his hands together, his gloves making a whap sound. “Of course, the Big Rock Candy Mountain! Hobo Heaven!”

“But why is it out here? Why isn’t it linked up to the other heavens?” Kate asked.

“Since when have hobos been linked to regular society?” said Professor Omega.

“Are you a god or something? The God of the Hobos?” Daniel asked.

“I’m just the last. The Hobo God rules the Big Rock Candy Mountain.”

“Do you think you could take us to talk to him?” Kate asked.

“Not many people want to see the Hobo God, but he is wise above all hobos.”

Daniel laughed. “We could use some wisdom right about now.”

Professor Omega extended his hand in front of him. “Then walk in front of me. Once I pull up the tracks, you won't be able to get to the mountain.” They began walking, paying more attention to following the tracks than heading straight for the mountain.

“Kate, if you're supposed to be in charge of heaven, shouldn't you be the Hobo God?” Daniel whispered.

Kate snorted, but Daniel looked completely serious. “I’m not going to go around from heaven to heaven staging coups to oust the remaining gods. If they have enough power to keep their heavens working well, then I’m not going to bother them. Besides, we need this guy’s help, remember?”

“So speaking of god, how’s the whole “god” thing working out for you?” Daniel asked.

Kate watched her feet and wondered how much she should tell him. “I'm getting the hang of a couple of things.”

“Like?”

“I really don't think now is—” she began, but Professor Omega interrupted them.

“Here ’tis!”

Things seemed both closer and farther away in the Wasteland, and they had arrived at the Big Rock Candy Mountain without noticing. They stood at a plain train platform as Professor Omega finished cleaning up the tracks that allow the trains to turn around. He joined them on the platform and grinned, his stained teeth glinting in the sunlight. Here, it didn't snow at all. The sun shone merrily down on the trees, which resembled weeping willows with cigarettes as leaves. A brown stream ran down the mountain, and by the looks of some of the hobos reclining on the banks, it was safe to assume the stream held whiskey. In higher elevations, great outcroppings of milky quartz — or, as Kate realized, rock candy — jutted from the side of the mountain.

A fat bulldog ran up to them, barking with a muffled braf. Kate knelt to pet her, but quickly pulled her hand back. “What’s wrong with that dog?”

“Dogs have rubber teeth here,” Professor Omega said.

Daniel nodded. “And I guess that's why that cop over there has wooden legs?”

“Of course!”

Kate shook her head. “This is a very weird place.”

Daniel removed his cold weather gear. “No weirder than some of the other places we’ve been to.”

Kate shrugged and removed her own winter clothes. “Professor, it never snows here?”

“Not a flake.”

“So can you take us to the Hobo God now?”

Professor Omega’s deep voice resonated as he laughed. “Honey-pie, the last hobo has come home. Can you give me just a second to enjoy it?”

Kate blushed. “Crap, I’m sorry; sure, go ahead.”

Professor Omega stepped from the platform to the Technicolor-green grass and inhaled deeply. Kate wrinkled her nose; stale cigarette smoke and the scent of apple pie wafted through the air. Professor Omega bent down and put his long, withered fingers, the lighter side tinged yellow with nicotine, into the grass. Reality seemed to shift slightly around them, disorienting Kate, and she got the feeling that a door was closing somewhere. Immediately, all of the hobos in the vicinity looked their way and broke into scattered muted applause with their fingerless gloves. Then they went back to their business.

Professor Omega smiled and said, “Ah, feels good to be home. Now I can take you to our God.”

Daniel looked around incredulously. “That was it?”

“Sure! Hobos don't stand on much ceremony. Now, the way to the holy shrine is a bit of climb, but we may be able to catch a train along the way. There’s a station up ahead.” They followed him up a winding path made of soft black rocks that Kate assumed were licorice. She expected a hobo Willy Wonka, complete with a brightly colored, patched suit, chewing on a cigar and singing “The Candy Man” in a strangled Tom Waits voice.

Daniel spoke from behind her. “Finally; something other than walking. You’d think we could magic up some scooters or something.”

Kate stopped to pet another rubber-toothed dog (who was really quite friendly). “I think there’s something traditional about walking. Vision quests, tests of the soul, that kind of thing. Do you think the exodus of Moses would have had as much power if they’d all just hopped into vans and headed out?”

A train station appeared at the end of the trail, its tin roof silver and gleaming in the sunlight. Professor Omega climbed the stairs to the platform, waving at the hobos waiting for the train.

“Here we are at station Alpha. Him who you seek here you seek is off the Omega station. The train will be here soon.” He turned to the other men and women on the platform. “Hobos! What’s the good word?”

A man in tattered clothes argued with a woman who looked as if she were wearing a beekeeper’s suit and gloves, carrying a mesh helmet. A second man watched them, looking bored.

The first man looked as if he had small nubs coming out of his forehead. “Jane, you’re full of rancid pie. I never seen no sign of anything of the sort.”

The woman snorted. “Carl, that's because you don't leave the mountain. I have bees to tend, and bee heaven is just a hop, skip, and a jump down the tracks. And I tell you what I seen: there were some right unhappy folk in the first class car. Folk with bigger horn than you got.”

“And how the hell did you get to the first class car?”

Professor Omega put up his hands. “Hobos, what is the problem?”

The men recognized Professor Omega and bowed. “Professor Omega, it is an honor. Jane here says she saw some unlikely folk in the first class car outside, that’s all.”

“Well, she may have, Carl. She did travel the rail more than you did. But keep your manners, ‘bos; we have some guests.”

He turned to them. “Kate, Daniel, these are Jane the Boxcar Beekeeper and Antlered Carl. That quiet one over there is known as Unnervingly Candid Nicky Thane.”

Kate shook hands all around. “Hi. Nice antlers, Carl.”When she shook hands with Unnervingly Candid Nicky Thane, he looked at her with uncomfortably light green eyes. “You know, you remind me of my niece. Pretty girl. Bad with money. Got evicted, tried the hobo life, ended up homeless. Incredible disappointment to me. And you,” he said, pointing at Daniel, “Your fly is open, boy.”

Kate cleared her throat. “Uh, charmed to meet you, sir.” Daniel turned around and fiddled with his pants. Yeah. Real charming.

Jane put her hand on Professor Omega's arm. “I’m tellin’ you, Professor, what I seen was true. There were some right unhappy people meeting in the first class car. Not people I seen there before.”

Professor Omega nodded. “I’m on my way to see H. I'll mention it to him.” Jane opened her mouth and started pointing at Antlered Carl, but a ripping sound interrupted her. She, Carl, and Professor Omega stepped back, and Kate and Daniel followed suit as they saw the tear appear in the air in front of them.

It was similar to the time Daniel would split reality between hells when they traveled together, slicing his katana through dimensions to step between realms. A ragged, black hair appeared about six feet off the ground and slid downward, bleeding electric blue sparks. When it touched the train platform, a blue, fingerless-gloved hand appeared, followed by an arm, shoulder, and skull-capped head with olive skin and electric black eyes shining bug-like through his round goggles. He grinned at everyone and stepped through the tear. When he was fully on the platform, he passed his hand over the rip and it was gone. The man’s suit, which looked high-tech and expensive, still had the dirty, ragged stamp of the hobo on it, looking well-worn and old.

“Hello ‘bos! Did I miss it?”

Nicky slapped the hobo on the back. “You missed it, Bela. The fire, the destruction, and the fact that I stole your best pair of gloves before I died.”

Professor Omega frowned at the new arrival. “Bela. You arrived after The Last. I don’t appreciate that.”

Bela never lost his grin. “Professor! I died years ago! I arrived here before any of these hobos; jumping through dimension just means I can leave at any time! Ask H; he’ll tell you. It’s a technicality. I've been counted. You’re still the last hobo; I just went wandering. I did get to see a pretty amazing end of the world where I was, though!” He looked at Kate and Daniel, who, Kate assumed, stood out like middle-class Americans at the Ritz. “Hello! You aren’t hobos! Who’s this?”

Jane waved her heavy beekeeper glove at them. “Visitors. Forgot their names.”

Nicky snorted. “Yes, their terrible, plain names. John and Mary, or something.”

Bela bowed again. “Hello, plain people! I am Alternate Dimension Bela Boost! I just came from the end of the world in Dimension Blue! Fascinating people. Pity they’re all dead now. But their afterlife will likely be fascinating too, now that I think about it!”

Kate shook her head, trying to clear it and focus on the important things. “Jane, what were you saying about the angry people in first—” she began, but a loud train whistle interrupted her.

A sleek golden train slid up to the platform, belching smoke that smelled like pie. Kate and Daniel were apparently forgotten as the hobos scrambled onboard to jostle for the first-class car. Daniel started to follow, but Professor Omega took his arm and led him and Kate to a waiting boxcar down the line. He sang “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” for them as they rode along, looking at the landscape that matched the song perfectly. Daniel laughed at the parallels, but Kate kept her mind on Jane and her first-class companions. It didn't take the train long to climb the mountain and arrive at Omega station. Apparently no hobos were waiting in any of the other stations.

Still humming, Professor Omega led them up a short mountain path to a leaning, abandoned-looking shack. In front of it sat a large, merrily bubbling fountain. In the center, a cement statue of a hobo leaned slightly over and vomited forth a brown frothy liquid. Tin cups had been hung on little hooks all around the fountain, so Daniel took one and sampled the mixture.

“Dr. Pepper?”

Professor Omega nodded. “Diet Dr. Pepper. H don't like the extra calories.”

“‘H?’” Kate asked.

“That is his name. H.” Professor Omega knocked twice on the door, and it opened immediately to reveal a small man who looked not at all like a hobo. His carefully combed hair was neatly cut and framed his clean-shaven face. His round glasses showed no indication that they had ever been shoddily repaired. He wore an immaculate blue suit and a look of polite inquisitiveness on his face. On his forehead was a tattooed “H” with a sunburst around it. Upon seeing him, Professor Omega knelt.

“Yes?” H asked.

Eyes on the ground, Professor Omega said, “It is done, Father. The world has ended. All the hobos are home.”

“That is wonderful news. Today shall not be wasted.”

“Today shall — hey!” Professor Omega hissed at Kate and Daniel. “Follow him!”

Together, with Kate and Daniel stumbling along, they repeated the god’s words. “Today shall not be wasted.”

H noticed them at last. “And you have brought me guests? These don’t look like hobos, Professor.”

“They’ve come for your counsel. They’re deities from other realms.”

H assessed them, and then motioned them inside the house. The one-room shack had a neatly swept dirt floor and a sagging bed sitting against one wall. Opposite the bed sat a wood stove with tin pots sitting atop it. No other furniture adorned the room. H sat on the bed and then graciously offered the floor to his guests. Kate and Daniel sat as Professor Omega waited by the door.

Kate cleared her throat. She felt out of practice with addressing deities, which he bitterly recognized as ironic since she was now one of them. “Thank you for seeing us. We’re … relatively new at this and still getting the hang of everything.”

“Clearly,” H said. “You could've called. I have a cell phone.”

Daniel’s eye grew wide. “You have a cell phone? No one gave us cell phones!”

Kate rolled her eyes, reached into her backpack, and then handed Daniel a cell phone. He scowled at her and said, “Well … no one gave us a phonebook.”

“Pity,” the hobo god said.

“Anyway,” Daniel continued. “The problem is that hell and most of the Wasteland have literally frozen over. The only place that’s not frozen is here. So we came to talk to you.”

“That’s simple; I don't allow this area to receive snow.”

“Yeah, but how?”

The pleasant man’s voice gained an edge. “Have you come here for deity lessons? Did you receive no training? Did you not hear my prayer: ‘Today shall not be wasted’?”

From the door, Professor Omega repeated, “Today shall not be wasted.”

“What does that even mean?” Daniel asked, his voice getting higher.

“It means that the day shall not be wasted,” H said, throwing his arms to the side as if to embrace them. Kate winced, expecting a godly show of power, but nothing came except for more admonishment from the god.

“It means that whether you're riding the rails, or begging for a pie from a housewife, or getting temporary work as a farm hand, or sleeping under the stars, you are doing exactly what you should be doing at any one time. It means that only true hobos can be hobos, because they know not to waste, and you, sir, are no hobo, because you are wasting my time. It means that even if you do not know how to do something, like make it stop snowing, you will figure out how to do it without bothering another hobo who has his own day to not waste!” He sighed and regained composure within a second, smiling at them again. “Now, I bid you good luck. I have my own day to not waste, and I suggest you do not waste yours.”

A creak sounded behind them as Professor Omega opened the door. Light spilled into the room, and Kate nudged the stunned Daniel to get him up. They left H and Professor Omega to their days, which presumably would not be wasted, and made their long walk down the mountain in silence.

Stepping off the Big Rock Candy Mountain landed them immediately back into the snowy Wasteland, and Daniel swore, realizing his coat had been left on the train platform. With no train tracks connecting it to the rest of the afterlives, the Big Rock Candy Mountain shimmered and faded from view. They began walking, and Daniel shivered.

“What now?”

Kate shrugged, not affected by the weather. “Don’t waste the day, I guess.”

He grimaced. “Thanks. Big help.” Then he brightened. “Hey, you turned the Wasteland into a carnival a while ago; can you make it stop snowing?”

Kate sighed. “Probably, but I have my own shit to deal with, Daniel. I can't bail you out. You have powers; you’ve had them since the beginning, you just never believed it. When you got mad and had to bust shit up, you did great! Where did that wonderful clarity go? You seemed fine when I last saw you.”

“Yeah, I had clarity, but that was before all the responsibility got piled on my shoulders. It got real. It got scary. And I didn't have you around to help me keep my head.”

Kate stretched her fingers out to take his hands, but from behind them, a great roar echoed through the mountains. They jumped. Daniel grabbed Kate’s hand and began pulling her along.

“Hey, have you wondered — because I have — what happened to the gods who perhaps didn't want to give up their roles as heads of hell?” The roar came again, closer this time. It sounded as if something was determined, angry, and very fast.

Kate picked up speed. “You mean some demons who might want revenge? Yeah. Hadn’t crossed my mind till now… I wonder if these were the first-class passengers that the bee hobo was talking about. Are you up for fighting?” She reached behind her for her sword.

Daniel made a choking sound. “Kate, I can’t control the weather. What makes you think I'd be any use with a goddess’s katana? I’d cut my own foot off.”

“Fair enough; I can probably take whatever it is … maybe. Let’s try the easy way out first. Run.”

They ran, then, their feet pounding the snow on the path that wound through the foothills. The mountains soon faded into the distance. Sometimes it did pay to be God. Kate and Daniel never saw their monstrous pursuer, and when its roars ceased, they slowed down.

Kate put her hand on Daniel's shoulder. Neither of them panted from their run. “Hey, check it out.”

“What?”

“It stopped snowing.”

Daniel looked around, surprised. The sandy Wasteland was pleasantly warm. “Huh. I guess I started angsting over something that was actually important.”

“Looks like you just needed some direction.”

“So the day wasn’t wasted.”

“Guess not. Are you okay to get back to work?”

“Yeah. I should probably start doing some research on who would be pissed at me for taking this job. What are you gonna do?”

Kate looked back toward the direction of the mountains. “Back to meditation, I guess. Although I need to get back to work soon, too.”

“I don’t think you should go back to the mountains …”

“You may be right. Work, then. I'm probably ready.”

Daniel smiled at her, making her heart twist painfully. “Thanks, Kate. And hey—”He took her hand.

“Yeah?”

“I still-"

She didn’t let him finish. “Yeah. Me too. I’ll see you around.” She squeezed his hand and let it go.

Before she did anything she’d regret, or worse, that embarrassed her, Kate concentrated briefly, and then appeared in her study, which had been untouched since Yahweh left it. She smiled to herself, knowing she’d see Daniel again soon. They had the Earth to rebuild, and there was the matter of those demons. Regardless, the day would not be wasted.

CHAPTER TWO

Daniel looked around his office, his lip curling. Red-skinned demons, with curling horns and tails ending in perfect arrowhead points, worked tirelessly in cubicles, shuffling paperwork. A huge humanoid male, wearing caveman skins (Daniel had dubbed him “Fred Flintstone” in his head) walked the cube aisles threatening the workers with a whip.

"Why does this have to be my hell?"

No one answered him. They didn't acknowledge his arrival. But Fred did nod to him, making some sort of salute with his whip hand, causing the flaming tip to ignite a nearby stack of papers. Daniel rolled his eyes as the demons frantically tried to swat the flames out, Fred whipping them the entire time.

Shaking his head, Daniel returned to his office. This was a more acceptable sanctuary; he’d decorated it with old Clash posters and his own personal coffeemaker. Coffee was served in his office, but it was always the last inch of coffee in the pot, scorched and sludgy. The demons couldn't get enough of it.

Daniel collapsed on the cushioned couch in the corner.

When he stopped the snow in the Wasteland, he’d felt as if it were a natural function of his being, like when he’d torn through space with Izanami’s katana, or when he’d been reborn from Anubis's mouth. All of those had felt as though that were what were supposed to happen, a natural progression. Why couldn’t he do anything now?

Well, for one thing, he allowed, Kate has Ganymede; she isn't alone. Not to mention angels — intelligent advisers who were good to the core, sworn to help her every need. She had her own shit to deal with, he was certain, and maybe he wasn't looking hard enough.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. He needed helpers, advisers, someone the least bit competent. Two pops sounded from either side of his head and he opened his eyes. An angel version of himself hovered over his left shoulder, a devil version on the right. They looked exactly like him, down to the rag covering his eye, only they were dressed in cheap Halloween costumes.

“You called, boss?” the devil asked.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Daniel said rubbing his eye. “I want a real advisor!”

The little versions of him disappeared and someone knocked at the door. Fully expecting Bugs Bunny, Daniel opened it, wincing. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw who stood there.

A small man watched him through nervous watery eyes; they bulged slightly from their sockets and thin hair hung into them. There were no devil horns, no fire leaking from his nose, and he didn't look as if he had a sliver of Daniel’s conscience. In fact ... it looked as if he were utterly terrified.

“Well?” Daniel asked finally, when the little man didn't say anything.

The man jumped. “I — ah … I’m Kevin. I’m your new assistant.”

“Oh, thank G — uh. — I mean it’s great that you’re here. Come in.”

Daniel let him in and flung himself onto the couch. Kevin perched like a frightened bird in an easy chair that had appeared nearby.

Then Daniel grinned at him. “You don’t know how good it is to see you. I’m up to my eyes in clichés. What the hell is going on around here? It’s like this place is stuck in the mid-twentieth century view of hell and we can't get out of it.”

Kevin's eyes darted nervously around as if he were looking for an exit. “Um … well, the information I have is that previous management greatly enjoyed the whimsical depictions of him that appeared during that time. It was better than the screaming souls and entrails that had been drawn and written about before then.”

“I guess makes some sense. But I didn't really expect to see a cartoon out of my office door.”

“You could change it to anything you like,” ventured Kevin.

Daniel waved his hand, dismissing the thought. “I don't want to mess with the system until I understand it. But that's why you're here. So what’s your story? Are you a damned soul?”

Kevin looked at the ground. Daniel wondered if he'd said something rude. “I was declared a heretic in 1480 and tortured to death by the Spanish Inquisition and sent to hell.”

Daniel made a disgusted sound. “Did you ever kill anyone? Rape? Steal?”

Kevin shook his head at all of these. Daniel briefly wondered if he would be able to tell if his assistant were lying. The knowledge he gained from Odin stirred briefly and said that he would.

Where the hell have all of you been? Daniel thought crossly.

He returned his focus to Kevin. “You suffered in hell for the past six hundred years because the Inquisition thought you were a witch?”

Still looking at the ground, Kevin nodded.

Daniel sighed, “All right, well, welcome to the job. I don’t think that you have a lot to fear here in terms of the whole torture thing. Unless administrative duties make you cringe.”

“I was a scribe for the monastery, before the Inquisition.” Kevin said. “I’m not a stranger to work.”

“How did you get branded a witch if you were already in a monastery?”

Kevin shrugged. “I believe some monks from the nearby city suggested that some people at monastery loved Christ the Lord more than others. I was deemed one of the ones who did not love enough.”

Daniel shook his head as the stories of the subsequent religious rivalries filled his head.. With his backup system apparently in place again, he relaxed. Why had they been silent?

“You must eventually learn to do this on your own,” whispered the voice of Izanami.

“Because I did so well on my own when I didn't have you guys. Good idea!”

Kevin showed no sign of surprise that Daniel would be talking to himself aloud. Daniel shook his head, hoping he was giving the gods within a good tumble, and sighed. “All right, first I want coffee. Not the kind of coffee you get in hell either. I want the kind of coffee Kate can get in heaven. Secondly, I guess I need to see a map of all the hells, and who has ruled them or rules them now.”

Kevin paused and Daniel raised an eyebrow. “I am unable to leave hell until I am absolved or given a passport.”

“If I absolve you, then you go to heaven, and I can't have an assistant,” Daniel said, thinking aloud. “I’ll need your help for a while.” He reached inside his shirt and removed his Traveler's pendant, now in the shape of goat’s head, and handed it to Kevin. “Take good care of it.”

Kevin nodded and left the room.

Daniel stretched back on the couch. No wonder hell was in such bad shape if all the help he could count on were the damned souls and demons. Who came up with this system?

Maybe I can work something out with Kate for a work exchange program. Daniel put his arm over his eyes, sighing. I’m becoming middle management, a corporate drone, something I railed against all my life. Now he was stuck, for eternity, in a corporate atmosphere. His stomach rolled over again and he thought again about why ruling hell was his own personal hell. What was Kate up to? Was administration in heaven any easier? It probably had to do with bonbons and a seamlessly efficient system.

Daniel got up and paced about the office. In addition to his own Clash posters, there were framed “art” from those Successories people. Tacky posters of eagles and desert vistas hung from the walls, proclaiming that Daniel had only to apply himself to succeed, to soar, to rule. His mahogany desk was sparsely decorated with a blotter and a mug that said, “Number One Boss.”

What the hell was a blotter anyway? And what did people use it for? Where is my computer? His mood growing increasingly foul, he finally glared at the eagle on the wall, incinerating it at a glance. This was ridiculous.

The room, including the Clash posters, was in flames by the time Kevin walked back into it, a to-go container of Starbucks in his hand. He didn't seem startled by Daniel's outburst; he just held the coffee away from the flames while Daniel pouted on the couch. Daniel eventually looked up and said, “Crappy first day, huh?”

“Seems to be that way, sir.”

The office building itself remained untouched by Daniel’s flames, and demons and angels with black wings still hunkered over uncomfortable-looking desks.

“What are they doing?” Daniel asked, pausing at a demon’s desk to pour sugar into his coffee.

“Processing damned souls. With the end of the world it's been a lot harder to keep up.”

“Why do we need to keep up, exactly? Can’t they just come down here and be flung into the pit of fire?”

Kevin shook his head, “Not if they’re Chinese and destined for the Plains of Ice. Each god of hell demands his or her rightful souls.”

Daniel became very still. “But I thought I was the god of hell. Hel left her realm; Hades is still imprisoned. The Adversary left me the deed.”

Kevin paused, looking as if he were thinking of a diplomatic way to answer. “That ... is ... not entirely true. Not all the gods gave up their posts, and ones who did are not gone, but merely not ruling. Others are … I believe you could call them ‘middle management.’”

“So I rule them and they keep things moving?”

Kevin nodded.

Daniel plucked a file off the demon’s desk. It contained a dossier of a woman's life: her bio; her pictures; her list of sins, including theft; her religions — she belonged to three during her life. The details of her death: vaporized in the final war. A destination: Dis.

“So this demon deals with the Christian hell?”

“Oh no, sir, Christian hell is processed by every demon on this floor as well as the two below it. Muslims get the next two floors. Below that are the three to cover the Buddhists and every floor below that are the thousands of other smaller religions.”

Fascinating, isn't it? Odin asked wryly.

“When did you get a voice, old man?” Daniel asked.

When you finally got some power worth addressing.

Daniel shrugged. “So what exactly am I needed for, aside from burning down a shitty office?”

“The lords of hell are not docile creatures.” Kevin said. “They frequently push for dominance and ...”

A familiar roar that had never really left Daniel’s thoughts sounded, shattering the windows by the cubes to Daniel’s left.

Undaunted, Kevin nodded, “And there is the matter of the demons who resent your ascension.”

Daniel sighed. This was not the best first day on the job; he hadn’t even been able to make a speech to his new employees.

“Did you get the map I asked for?”

Kevin nodded.

“And does fire hurt these guys?”

Kevin shook his head.

“Well, hell. The world’s already in chaos, it might as well be my chaos. I hate this building anyway.”

The demon roared again, shaking the building.

“Will fire hurt whatever that is?” Daniel asked hopefully.

Kevin shook his head again.

“Blast. Ah, well.” Daniel reached his back where Izanami’s katana appeared. He drew the black blade, concentrated briefly, and the room around him burst into flame. The files on the desks burned and the demon sat back from the flames, unperturbed. The building shook again and Daniel swung his blade, ripping through the air and opening a bleeding wound.

“After you,” he said, pushing Kevin through and following after. Whatever it was didn't follow. Daniel sighed with relief. “We’re really gonna have to figure out what that thing is and how to deal with it at some point.”

Not to mention the relative chaos you just plunged hell into, said the quiet voice of Anubis.

“Yeah. Yeah.”

CHAPTER THREE

Kate hunkered over the desk in her office, the one she still considered God's office even though he had left it to her, and looked at her own map. The map of the metaphysical made no sense. When she had wandered the roads as a Traveler, heaven had seemed laid out in an easily navigable geography, but apparently that had been her own perception. Instead of being on a two-dimensional XY grid, heaven had what seemed to be four dimensions, with a Z axis going up and down, and a W axis bisecting — and in some cases —actually surrounding some locations with others as if it were a hungry amoeba.

A knock sounded at the door and her head snapped up. "Goddammit! Can I never get a moment to concentrate here?"

The door opened and in came the young boy, Ganymede, who frowned at her. "You swore again, Goddess."

Kate ran her fingers through her tangled hair. "Look. He knew what he was getting into when He gave me the keys to this place. Just think of it as taking my own name in vain. I'm keeping myself humble. Now, what's up?"

"Another visitor has requested an audience."

"I am never going to get things back in order if I keep getting interrupted, Ganymede."

"This is a matter of some urgency, Goddess."

Kate groaned and rubbed her forehead where a headache threatened, but nodded.

Ganymede had spent eons serving Zeus, and had made it clear to Kate that he knew something about matters of state. Plus, he made excellent tea.

He bowed as an elderly woman entered the room, but she was no frail grandmother. She held a golden-winged helmet respectfully by her side, and her iron gray hair was braided and pinned to her head. Her golden armor, dented but clean, gleamed in the torchlight. A wicked long sword hung at her side, and a round iron shield at her back, and she nodded to Ganymede as he respectfully backed out of the room.

Kate accessed the divine knowledge in her mind, which included much that she had gotten from Daniel, and smiled when she realized whom she faced. She stood and walked across the room with wide strides. She grasped the women's gauntleted forearm firmly.

"Skuld, it is an honor. I'm so glad to see that you survive Ragnarök."

The Valkyrie smiled, strength and energy making her seem younger than her years. "They're already talking about you, girl. The bards — those who are left — are already telling tales of your greatness. Your battles. Your loves."

Kate smiled weakly, a flush beginning in her cheeks, as usually happened when someone spoke to her about Daniel. Hermes snickered in her mind, reminding her that Daniel had not been her only lover in the afterlife. Daniel had warned her that Skuld didn't mince words, and Kate sighed inwardly with relief as Ganymede appeared unbidden with flagons of mead, and a tray of rich meats and bread. Kate offered a seat and a mug to Skuld.

After taking a long drink of the brew, Skuld drew a knife and began sawing away at a roast.

"I would like nothing better than for this to be a social call, girl. It is a goal of mine to teach you to knit. You can learn so much about a person by what they knit, you know. But there are other things to discuss. Odin would leap from Daniel's head and throttle me if I wasted any more time.

"You know about Ragnarök; of course you do. You're the Goddess. It was tasked to the Valkyries and the remaining Goddesses, those who had no prophecies, to clean up the men’s messes and rebuild the world. My sisters are planting a new world tree. My sisters in arms are hunting the last of Loki's and hell's supporters, but there is the matter of the world to rebuild."

Kate swallowed her own mouthful of mead, feeling guilty. She'd known she and Daniel were supposed to rebuild the Earth, but the fact of their godhoods had been a little overwhelming.

"I wasn't aware that there was a time limit."

Skuld cast a sideways eye at Kate. Kate shrugged, irritated.

"I'm learning as I go, okay?"

Skuld drained her mug and stood. Kate followed suit, wondering if she had offended her. The Valkyrie picked up her helmet and headed for the door. She paused, looked back at Kate, and said, "Are you coming?"

"Oh." Kate grabbed her backpack from its hook ad scrambled after her.

* * * * *

Now this was the way to travel. Screw that walking stuff. Skuld was mounted on a heavy white war steed, and Kate on a thinner gray horse. They galloped over hills and sandy dunes and rocky terrain. They didn't stop, and Kate didn't ask where they were going. She'd never ridden a horse before, and was delighted with the sensation.

They pulled up on the edge of a sandy expanse, a Wasteland near a shadowy heaven of fans for a popular science fiction movie, who had adapted the film’s religion for their own. Kate fought the urge to explore this sparsely populated — but seriously tempting — heaven of adventure, and focused on what Skuld was saying.

"I can't take you to see the actual solar system," Skuld said. "Only you have the power to do that, but I'm not sure you have wisdom right now, so I will show you here."

She reached out and plunged her hand into the sand, raising a golden orb.

"This is Sol, our Sun."

Planets followed her hand movements. Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the asteroid belt all moved through the sand in their orbits. An indentation formed between Venus and Mars, a small hole that didn't follow the other planets’ movements.

"There is our Earth," Skuld said, pointing to the hole. "Destroyed in the physical sense, but also in the metaphysical sense. No gods are there, no people, no worshippers of any kind. It has left a void; it has left a hole."

Sand began slipping in to the hole faster and faster, increasing in diameter. Kate's stomach rolled over as the hole grew larger, encompassing Venus and Mars, and finally Mercury. As the edges of the hole began to eat away at the asteroid belt and the Sun, Kate threw up her hand and wiped the demonstration from the sand.

Skuld watched her.

"But if there's no life on those planets, why do we care if they die off? We can make a new Earth and it won't matter if there are other planets around it or not. What's the rush?"

Skuld spat into the sand. "Think, girl. There is the matter of balance. The physical must be balanced with the metaphysical. The world was begun and ended, and begun again over and over during an expanse of time that is so long that it has no name. If it is not renewed then, well, we don't know what will happen, but I for one do not want to find out.”

Kate squatted on the sand, and Skuld's example rose again, the hole sucking sand into it.

"What's on the other side of that hole?"

* * * * *

Kate sat again on top of her mountain, meditating. She slowed her breathing, and after many hours her consciousness drifted up and out over the land, higher and higher through the atmosphere. She didn't know what she hovered above, since the Earth was gone, but with a thought she pushed herself to view the solar system from far away, from the vantage point of a god: just planets, seven of them, and a little orbiting hunk of debris about ninety-three million miles away from the Sun. But the physical was not what Skuld had been talking about. It was the metaphysical.

The power, and the gods, and the humans, and the worshiping, and the sacrifices. She concentrated again and saw the solar system from a different point of view. The Sun, she was surprised to see, was a god himself. Not ruling anything, but content to radiate his light and heat to the universe. The dead body of the Moon, a goddess, was also floating among the debris, and Kate mourned her. But the Earth — the Earth was indeed a black spot against a starry sky. A hole where there should be none. It was just as Skuld had said.

With a gasp, she opened her eyes. Daniel was beside her in the cave, grasping her forearm. Beyond him stood an earnest-looking young man with slightly bulging eyes and brown hair.

“Dammit! You scared the shit out of me."

"Sorry, but I've been calling your name for the past ten minutes. Where did you go?"

Kate rubbed her face, trying to calm her racing heart.

"I'll tell you in a minute. We've got some stuff to talk about. But you first. What's going on? What are you doing here?"

"Well, we have a problem, Kate."

Kate sighed. "No, Daniel. We have two."

CHAPTER FOUR

"Why did you have to make an old picnic table? That's all I'm saying," Daniel said, shifting uncomfortably on the wooden planks of the bench and flicking an ant off of his napkin.

Kate didn't pay attention to him, caught up in stirring gravy into her mashed potatoes. Finally, she smiled and said, "I was feeling nostalgic." They sat in a meadow at the foot of the Wasteland Daniel was beginning to think of as "Kate's Mountain." The snow was gone, thank goodness, and a warm breeze stirred the grass around them. Kate had magicked up a picnic table and some fried chicken and they sat together as if metaphysical bogeys were not breathing down their necks.

Daniel's eyes kept flitting to the horizon, even though Kevin reassured him that demons would not follow them to the Wasteland. Daniel told him of the Big Rock Candy Mountain incident and Kevin had simply said that the hobo heaven was not a Wasteland and therefore a loophole. Daniel didn't waste time wondering how a monk from the Spanish Inquisition knew what the word "loophole" meant.

Kevin politely stripped the fried skin off of his chicken and nibbled at the meat underneath and did not raise his eyes from the ground.

"You know what's been bothering me?" Kate asked, wiping chicken grease from her hands. "We experienced, or caused, the end of the world. Everyone died. Religions had prophecies fulfilled. And yet, there were some key elements that I’m not sure of: if they happened and what became of them. Like, well, the world ended but we could see that there was no big war between God and the Devil. They both seemed fine. There was no winner, just a war that killed everyone.”

Daniel swallowed his mouthful of chicken. “And?”

"My point is, Ragnarök happened the way it was supposed to. But the biggest ‘end of the world’ story in present day...”

"Past day."

"Past day. Whatever. Fundamentalists rode their high horses talking about the Rapture and how they were going to be lifted in the air and the rest of us were going to be eaten alive. There was this cranky bitch in line at Morton’s grocery store once who was telling me how she was looking forward to flying. And then she looked at me all pity-filled saying I should give my life to Jesus before I got devoured by some big-ass demon.”

Daniel smacked the table. “Jesus!”

“What?”

“No, no, the actual guy, Jesus Christ. Where is He? He was supposed to come back and lead the armies and win the war and rule the new world of peace.”

Kate nodded slowly and pulled a book out of her backpack. “Yeah, He was supposed to come and raise all the dead who, strangely enough, were supposed to fight on the Devil’s side. So Jesus gives Satan an army just to destroy it?”

“Well, God gave us Jesus so we could kill Him.”

Kate frowned. “Well, it’s a little simplistic of an explanation.”

“Well, maybe the zombie army thing is a simple explanation, too.”

“But did it happen? The Earth isn’t back. Not yet, anyway. So where’s Jesus?”

Daniel wadded up his napkin. “Oh man! If we’re going to go on another hunt through miles of afterlife again to find someone, I’m going to be pissed. Wait,” he interrupted himself. “He did come back. I know that much. I met the Wandering Jew and that Roman guy who slapped Christ and they said that the Second Coming had released them from their eternal lives and let them go to heaven.”

“So where is He?” Kate wondered aloud.

Simultaneously, they looked at Kevin, who spoke as if he were from the twentieth century but ate as if he’d never experienced fried chicken before. He looked up and saw the two staring at him and then colored.

”’Fess up, Kevin,” Daniel said. “There's more that you're not telling us.” The gods in both his and Kate’s head, since they shared aspects of the same gods, had told them to look to the assistant for answers.

Kevin cleared his throat and glanced at Daniel, still refusing to look at Kate. “Right now, the metaphysical world is in a great deal of flux. Gods died and, um, some have been absorbed by the two of you. Some still exist. Anubis still judges souls. Izanami still controls her Underworld. And other gods are reborn.”

Daniel cringed inwardly. “Heaven and hell are feeling much less like kingdoms and more like timeshares.”

Kate crushed her napkin, opening her palm to reveal nothing. She waved her hand and the remains of their lunch went away. Daniel blinked and they were back in her office again. “God, would you please warn me before you do that again?”

“Hmm?” Kate asked, and then shook her head as if to clear it. “Oh, sorry.”

“What's going on, Kate?” Daniel asked, suddenly feeling very out of the loop.

“Nothing. Sorry. Headache. I was just thinking it was time we stop worrying about the other gods. Let them deal with their own issues. We’ve got the Earth to rebuild.”

Kate took Daniel into space and showed him the hole in the universe. It took longer than Daniel expected it to for him to calm his mind to expand his awareness to match hers, but he was finally able to. Kate’s patience with him was supposed to help, he knew, but it just annoyed him. The aspect of Hermes he had taken on when he and Kate had made love pointed out to him that when Daniel had accepted his divinity, he was the calm one, while Kate was the angry, impatient one. But Daniel ignored him. He was still mad at Hermes.

Although he had no physical body, he could've sworn he gasped when he saw the solar system before him, the slowly growing black hole in their existence. He was also sure he could feel Kate’s hand squeeze his own as she spoke inside his head. “It’s bigger since the last time I was here.”

“Where you think it goes?” he asked her.

“I don't know.”

“Wanna find out?” He tried to make his tone playful, but she answered in quick seriousness.

“No.”

And they were back in the Wasteland with Kevin watching over their bodies. Daniel gasped in shock. Kate stretched, wincing. “Yeah, it’s not fun coming back, is it?” she said. Daniel shook his head, eyes wide.

“How are we going to deal with this, Kate? This is bigger than we are. I can’t even deal with a monster in a world where I'm in charge.”

“We’ll deal. We have to.” Kate frowned. “Hey, do you know what that monster thing is?”

“I meant to look it up, but then you dropped a little ‘we have to fix Earth now’ problem on me.”

“I wish you would stop whining,” Kate said, making room on her table for Kevin to spread out maps of hell.

“Hey, check it out! Is that where we were?” Daniel blurted, pointing to a charred spot on the map that was still warm.

“Oh yes, sir,” Kevin said. He pointed to other smoldering parts of the map. “These are fire hells.”

It later turned out that slick, cool parts of the map were ice hells. Daniel was reminded of the coolest Dungeons & Dragons map around, needing only little monsters to represent the demons that wanted to eviscerate him.

Maybe he didn't need those little monsters.

Seeming more relaxed than he had been since meeting Kate, Kevin pointed to the map. “From what you told me, this was your path through hell. You jumped from area to area, using Izanami’s sword, avoiding the maze of roads through hell. That was a smart move. Her Underworld, incidentally, is over here, near Dis.”

“Huh. Maybe we should go visit her and see how she’s doing,” said Daniel. He looked up briefly to see Kate staring at Kevin, her eyes intense. The assistant looked at the floor again. “Dude, don’t intimidate him,” Daniel said.

“Did you see the hole in the universe? Can we get to work, please?”

“Oh sure. You're not followed by a demon that wants to devour you.”

“Man, you’re selfish. Daniel, you're safe here. We’re surrounded by thousands of flame sword-wielding angels. We have a huge problem and we have to start working on it.” They stared at each other for a moment, tension making the air nearly crackle between them. Daniel was about to break the tension by cracking a joke, but Kate broke eye contact and walked through the door that should have led to the hall. Daniel followed, grumbling.

Daniel looked around the room and whistled. Instead of echoing, his little sound seemed to dissolve sadly nearby, as if it were too tired to even attempt to travel. Kate craned her head back. “When I was a kid, we visited NASA in Florida. And I remember them telling me that the room to build the shuttles was so big that it created its own atmosphere and had its own weather. Seemed like a good place to build things, so ...”

The white walls stretched away from them and up, like another dimension unto themselves. If Daniel stared too hard at them, he began to get queasy. He cleared his throat. “So, uh, where do we start?”

Kate reached into her pocket and pulled out a small gray kitten. “I created her with a thought in the mountains a while ago. Of course, she didn't appreciate that, since she's not really a snow-loving species, but I at least learned a lesson.”

“Kate, we’re not going to remake Earth piece by piece, are we? I don’t know every species on Earth. We don't know all the geologic stuff or even anything about weather.”

Kate sighed as the gods began to speak up in Daniel’s head. “How did the world get created in the myths, Daniel? It wasn’t God sitting around planning things, deciding on this religion or where noses should go on grasshoppers. The land, the people, the animals were all sneezed or spit or bled or shat out. It’s all metaphysical. It doesn’t need to be cataloged; we just need to do it.”

Daniel made a face. “I am not shitting out the Earth. That’s one of the nice things about divinity that I've managed to stop doing.”

Kate grimaced. “Thanks for the ‘too much information’ moment. I'm just saying that our power is bigger than we are and we need to remember that and make use of it.” She rubbed her head above her right eye. “I just wish I could think of the next step.”

Daniel turned to ask Kevin for advice but he wasn't there. “Where’s Kevin?”

“I didn’t let him in. This for us to do and I'm not sure I trust you bringing a damned soul here.”

“Oh, come on, Kate! What the hell do you expect me to do? I’m alone down there. You certainly aren't helping me. I had to turn to someone. Why are you busting my balls? What the hell did I do to you?”

Kate’s voice was tense as she closed her eyes. “I really would love for you to tackle one of these problems without whining about it. Just one. Why don't you ask all those gods in your head? Mine sure as hell won't shut up. I can’t be your mom. I can't hold your hand. I’m trying to deal with my own shit.”

“I thought we were a team. We always supported each other. Why am I here if we’re …”

She finally met his eye, tears brimming. “If you don't know why, then I certainly can’t tell you. Just get out of here. I’ll deal with the world.”

To hell with her. Or with him. Daniel opened the door to head back into the office and get Kevin when a noise made him stop. His senses had gotten better with divinity, but this was much bigger than simply keen hearing. Kate’s tears had slipped from her eyes and fallen toward the concrete floor where they landed, not with a plop but with a gush. It sounded as if something had been set free. The roar that followed immediately thereafter had him scrambling back to grab Kate and pull her out of the way. But there was no point.

She stared transfixed as tears continued to roll down her face and land on the floor, where water swirled in a whirlpool, much more water than had come from her eyes. It grew exponentially with each tear that fell. Kate squinted and gasped in pain and she brought both hands to press her forehead. Daniel’s stomach rolled over as blood dripped from her nose and mixed with the water, solidifying within the pool.

“Holy shit,” Daniel said and ran forward in awe to support Kate as the blood flowed faster. He reached inside himself for Odin’s healing skill, but the gods in his head stopped him.

Not yet, muttered the All-Father.

She’s tougher than you think, advised Hermes.

Daniel remained by her side, holding her. She wept and bled and the world formed below her. Later, he would realize that it took very little time but it seemed an eternity as he watched his friend create this glorious thing in sorrow and pain.

Finally, she was done. The tears dried and the nosebleed stopped and Kate was finally able to remove her hands from her head. Panting, she stared at the hovering, churning sphere about twelve feet in diameter. Continents and islands passed by slowly as the sphere, the Earth, rotated.

Daniel took her in his arms and just held her gently. “That was amazing.” She rested her head on his shoulder so she could still see what she created.

“It’s a little small, isn’t it?”

CHAPTER FIVE

Daniel had healed the nosebleed and the headache had ebbed. Kate figured she could have healed the damn thing herself (she had Odin within her too, after all) but her shell-shocked and numb mind would not focus. She was dimly aware of Daniel and Ganymede trying to rouse her, but she didn't care. The gods in her head were, for once, mercifully silent. She slept for a bit, woke, and then slept some more. After making sure she was all right, Daniel left, taking his sycophantic assistant with him. Kate was both sad for his departure and relieved to be left alone.

She found that she preferred to sit in the vast room and watch the Earth grow. It did not stop when she and Daniel left. Now, she guessed, it was the size of a small country, the room growing around it, and still growing. The landmasses were strangely different from the Earth that Kate remembered but still felt familiar, as she supposed any mother regarded her child as familiar. One huge landmass spanned both Northern and Southern hemispheres in a roughly circular shape. Small islands dotted the rest of the world. Kate was watching the world spin and grow when the door behind her slammed open. Heavy footsteps came up behind her.

“Hello, Skuld,” Kate said.

Daniel's bitter voice came from behind Skuld. “Oh, sure, she’ll talk to a Valkyrie.”

A heavy gloved hand came down on her shoulder. “You done good, girl. Better than I expected. I figured you two would have done it together, but this is fine indeed.”

“We did do it together,” Kate said, not taking her eyes from the globe.

“Come. The world can do without you for a bit. We’re going on a trip.”

Kate followed Skuld docilely to the horses outside the gates of heaven and didn't complain as the Valkyrie lifted her into a saddle behind Daniel. She wrapped her arms around his chest and rested her head on his back. The horses cantered away from heaven and the rocking motion lulled her to sleep again. She awoke as the light faded. They were back in hell, or at the entrance. This was a bad thing, but Kate couldn’t remember why. They paused at the mouth of the cave and Daniel lifted Kate off the back of the horse.

“Take her to Izanami,” Skuld ordered. “I will wait out here.” Daniel nodded and took Kate's hand, and together they walked in Izanami’s underworld. The cave held dry corpses lying propped against the walls and stuffed into alcoves.

“I love what she's done with the place,” said Daniel. The cave got much wider and more heavily populated by rotting bodies as they traveled the downward-sloping floor. Eventually it opened into a huge throne room where Kazuko, Izanami’s human form, waited for them, smiling. She went first to Daniel and hugged him, then turned to Kate.

“I heard what you've accomplished. I'm impressed, but I'm not surprised to see you are here. Come talk to me.”

“But …” Daniel said.

“This is for women to discuss, Daniel,” Kazuko said, and led Kate to a doorway in the cave wall. The room on the other side gleamed with candlelight and the tapestried walls give a sense of warmth in this dank underground world. Kate sat on the tatami floor and accepted the tea Kazuko handed her.

“You cannot focus. You get too much of yourself, yes?” Kazuko said.

Kate sipped the tea, feeling some sense of comprehension return. “I didn't mean to do it that way. I didn't want to give birth over and over again, or do something gross with bile like Susanoo did.” Kazuko frowned at the mention of her stepson, but Kate continued. “Daniel made me so mad that I just started crying. Then it happened.”

Kazuko nodded. “Even as gods, we cannot control everything. Take me: I died in childbirth. My husband could not stop that. He killed my son. My son could not stop that. And Susanoo could not stop Daniel from freeing me, and my husband could not stop me from killing him once I found him. We are not all-powerful, despite the power we do have. Before I died I created the world, but after I was freed from my prison of death I was more powerful than ever.”

Kate squinted at her. “Why?”

“I am no longer one woman. I am created of millions of tiny minds. I can split myself and learn two things, four things, a million things at once. I can send a spy with my full knowledge off to gather information. I can be aware of so much more but not be overwhelmed. I am here. I am with you, and I am with Daniel.”

Kate stared at the prim woman sitting in front of her, knowing she was made up of millions of flies in reality. “No offense, Kazuko, but I'm not too keen on dying, being devoured by maggots and being reborn as a fly god.”

Kazuko laughed, something Kate still wasn't used to hearing. “That is not your story, Kate. That was mine. You will have your own reawakening. Although many of our myths are parallel, we all have our own unique details.” She put her hand on Kate’s, still wrapped around the mug. “You will find your focus. You will find your perspective. Creation, birth, is one of the largest things that will ever happen to you. One does not simply wake up the next day and go on about her business. Ask any mother. Earth changes everything. The bards are already writing myths about you, Kate, but you need to wake up so that they can write more.”

“Hey, not that I'm not glad to see you, but why did we have to come here? Why didn't the part of you in my head say something?”

Kazuko smiled and stood, indicating the audience was over. “Perspective. You had to go on a quest, even if just a small one.”

Kate also got to her feet, still moving slowly. “I slept through most of that quest. Didn't seem to make much difference.”

Kazuko’s smile turned sad. “I did not say your quest was over.”

At that moment, Kate remembered why they didn't want to come to hell. The roar shook the candles from their holders and Kazuko waved her hand, putting out the fire. In the pitch black, Kate froze, her numb mind refusing to react.

“One last bit of help, then,” Kazuko whispered, and the sound of buzzing filled Kate’s ears. She fainted.

Kate blinked. Kazuko had carried her to the outside of the cave in the whirlwind of her flies. The millions of little legs set her down carefully and with a loud buzz she was gone. Daniel and Skuld stood with their backs to her, swords raised. Skuld looked like a woman who had casually survived Ragnarök, but Daniel’s eye was wide and his katana trembled a bit. Although he too had survived Ragnarök, Kate couldn’t blame him. The thing that had been chasing them, the thing that they’d been safe from unless they ventured back into hell, had finally caught up with them. It loomed on four twisted hooves above them, at least thirty feet tall, looking like a cross between a lion and a dog, with matted and patchy black fur and four yellow eyes peering from its face. Teeth stuck out of its mouth at all angles, and several of them had hapless bodies stuckbetween them as if the creature had just eaten and hadn't flossed.

Kate walked up to Skuld and Daniel, wincing as the creature roared again and whipped its three tails back and forth. Blood dripped from its teeth. “Is this your bogey?” Kate asked. Her brain felt as if it were clouded by fog.

Daniel didn’t look at her, but focused his eye on the monster. “It’s a demon sent by Mephistopheles, one of the big lords in hell.”

Kate cocked her head and looked up at the demon. “What you want?” she called. The demon raised its head to the sky and roared again.

“Don't bother talking to it, girl. We need to either stay and fight, or run, and we have to decide now,” Skuld said.

“And it’s pretty obvious what Mephistopheles wants,” Daniel said. “He wants hell.”

“Give it to him.”

Daniel and Skuld stared at her. “I’m glad this visit has cleared your mind,” he snapped.

“No, seriously. You've done nothing but complain since you got this job. You don't want it. He does. He clearly scares you. You don’t want to fight him. You’ve been running since the beginning. Leave hell, give him the key, and I can find something for you to do in heaven. You'll be safe, you won't have to worry about responsibility, and you can stop running.”

Daniel’s jaw dropped, and Kate wondered if he were actually considering it. “Kate, I — I’m a god.”

Kate reached behind her and pulled out her white sword. “Then act like it.”

Daniel stared at her, his eye unblinking for a moment, and then he nodded.

“Ware!” shouted Skuld, and Daniel and Kate jumped aside as a great hoof came crashing down where they were. They scattered as the demon’s head darted down to bite at them. Its jaws closed on Skuld’s shield and it was thrown back, stumbling.

“Still got all those godlike powers? Kate asked, as the demon shook its head and roared again, broken teeth splitting with the power of its rage.

“I think so,” Daniel said. “What do you have in mind?”

"Kagutsuchi. We’re in Japan. It's only fitting that we invoke the fire god.” She concentrated briefly and burst into flame, becoming a pillar of fire. She held out her left hand and a shield of flames formed around it. Her white sword remained untouched, its power not affected by her will. Daniel paused for a moment, giving Kate enough time to run at the creature before he called out. She willed a blast of heat to flare from her shield, straight for the creature’s abdomen, when Daniel finally yelled at her.

“Dammit Kate, that won’t work. He’s from hell!” Daniel’s timing was good as the fire bounced off the demon’s thick fur and it swiped a hoof at Kate. She tapped into Hermes’s speed and easily ran out of the way, angling toward one of the standing legs and slicing her sword through the hamstring. Blood spurted and the demon howled again. Kate dashed out of the way and in an instant had hamstrung the other three feet. Its legs buckled and it toppled, making ground shake.

Kate came to a stop beside Daniel, who still held his katana uncertainly. The demon had fallen, thrashing in pain, with its head near Skuld. The Valkyrie took advantage of its proximity. She was on it in an instant, sticking her sword in its eye. It howled and shuddered, but the warrior pushed her sword deeper until it ceased its movement and died.

Daniel panted and looked at the massive corpse. “How are we going to get the hang of this god stuff?”

“I think we have to. This doesn't stop here. This was just a test,” Kate said. “We have to figure out how to get control, and stop running, and stop getting sidetracked.”

Skuld pulled her sword from the demon’s eye and wiped off the gore. She jumped down from its head and looked grim. “I want to know how it found us,” she said. “Izanami’s protection should've kept us hidden. My protection should've kept us hidden.”

Daniel shrugged. “He’s been pretty much tuned to us any time we’ve been out of heaven.”

Skuld frowned. “That was fast thinking, girl. Are you back with us now?”

Kate thought for a moment what Izanami had said about perspective, and slowly nodded. “I think so.”

Kate cleaned her sword — the towel smoked when smeared with demon blood — and put it away. The three of them mounted up and walked slowly away from the demon, and didn't look around as the swarm that was Izanami came out to feed.

“Why didn’t she help us? Daniel asked. “During the battle, I mean.”

Kate shrugged and rested her head on his back again. “I guess it was for us to do alone. And she did help, honestly.”

“What did you two talk about, anyway?”

Kate thought about their conversation and finally smiled, closing her eyes. “Girl talk.”

Daniel snorted but he didn't ask anything else. Kate was eager to get back to heaven and see how the Earth was faring, and that eagerness sparked the first flame of clear thought again. The demons wanted the Earth. Sure, they would like Daniel’s control of hell, but mostly they wanted Earth. She lifted her head from Daniel's back and turned to look behind them. They’d exited Izanami’s realm and were back on the main road to heaven. The horizon behind them, normally perpetually blue and sunny, had darkened with a red hue.

Kate reached out with her perception and felt the massing of thousands of bodies: gnarled, angry, burning bodies that had no right being in heaven. Kate made a choked noise, and Daniel and Skuld turned as well. They were silent and Kate realized they were looking at her. Heaven was her realm. She was in charge of its well-being, its administration, and its defense. The horizon darkened further. Kate reached into her backpack and took out a white dove, frowned at it, and then took out a hummingbird. She whispered to the small bird in her palm and sent it straight ahead toward heaven.

“We need to get back, prepare defenses. We've got to protect the Earth.”

Skuld and Daniel spurred their horses into gallops and Kate hung on. “Why can’t we just teleport?” she murmured to herself.

“The quest,” came Izanami’s voice in her mind. “The quest is as important as the battle.”

“Rules. Right.”

With the demons of hell behind them, the three sped for the gates of heaven, where forces already began to assemble and prepare for a siege.

CHAPTER SIX

It was supposed to be easier than this, Daniel thought as he paced Kate's study. He tried to ignore Odin as the god whispered to him. He and Kate shared the same advisors, they had the same goals, and still they argued. Skuld stood impassively by the fireplace and Kate sat cross-legged in a leather chair. They were discussing strategies.

"Can you get the Valkyries and get back here in time?" Kate asked.

Skuld frowned. "I don't know, honestly. The army was moving quickly. If we don't get back in time, we'll still have an advantage as we'll be flanking them."

Kate nodded once. "All right. Thank you. I'll be grateful for any aid."

Daniel stopped pacing. "I still say I should try to talk to them. Shouldn't they listen to me?"

"We need forces. Can you bring us more soldiers? Check the other heavens?" Kate asked.

"I might get better response from hell," he said.

Kate snorted. "I think your forces from hell are already on their way, Daniel. And I don't think you should give demons and damned souls free passage through heaven. Who knows what would happen in that case."

Daniel became very still, and embarrassed. "What would happen if a damned soul had free passage?"

Kate rubbed her forehead. "I don't know, Daniel. Is that really important? I'm just thinking it might be a bad idea to give the keys to the jail to the prisoners."

Daniel's insides were very cold. There was no way to get out of this.

"Kate."

She looked up, her face white. "Oh, Daniel, what did you do?"

He forced himself to meet her eyes. It had been easier to decapitate his mother. "Kevin, my assistant, has a Traveler's necklace."

"How did he get that?"

The admission was hard enough. There was no way Daniel was going to say "coffee."

"I ... I needed him to run an errand for me as I remained in hell."

"And you didn't get it back from him."

"We were being chased, and ..." Daniel stopped, knowing he had no defense. Kate rose from her chair and left the room, not slamming the door, but leaving it open. Daniel took the invitation and followed her, ending up in the room where the Earth still turned.

The impossibility of that room still made Daniel's mind reel. He now had no idea if the Earth was big enough yet, because its size was incomprehensible. He assumed that it wasn't done growing, as Kate still kept it in the room.

She stood in front of it, watching as the main landmass came around into the light. Kate's light. She glowed in the presence of the Earth, illuminating it — their sun goddess. She did not look at Daniel. When she spoke, her voice was calm.

"You're not evil. You're not an asshole. You made a mistake." As she spoke the seas on the Earth began to swirl faster, ocean currents and clouds forming. Tiny flickers of lightning appeared in the clouds. "But it was a big one. Huge. I am not even sure we have a word for how big this is. I'm not angry, Daniel." The mountain range in the eastern half of the continent shifted slightly. "But it's a big enough mistake that I don't know what to do to fix it."

Daniel watched the Earth uneasily. Some of the mountains exploded then, spewing lava.

"Uh … well, we do what we planned. Skuld's getting reinforcements, your angels are watching the gates, souls are safe in their houses.”

Kate clenched her fist once, and Daniel gasped, as a fault line appeared in the western half, streaking diagonally southeast.

"No. I meant what to do about you. I don't know if I can have you around if you're going to fuck up like this again. Too much is at stake."

Daniel expected to feel hurt. To feel angry. But he was too much in awe of watching Kate calmly channel her rage at the Earth, splitting the continents. The fault line lengthened in both directions until, with a crack, it split in two.

It should have taken tens, or hundreds, of thousands of years for the Earth to go through the changes it suffered in a span of minutes. The sea boiled with the heat that the moving landmasses created, and the steam and releasing gases began obscuring the landmasses. Daniel slowly backed up as Kate still watched the turmoil on the Earth. Kate hung her head.

"Just go."

Daniel turned, and ran.

Kate's headquarters had morphed gradually during her stay in heaven into an old castle, complete with towers and ramparts. The wrought-iron walls that surrounded heaven were even now replacing themselves with heavy stone. Kate's divine will, Daniel realized. He ran to the top of the outer rampart even as she completed it from the inside of the castle. He had no plan, but needed to assess the situation before acting. Because he clearly hadn't done anything like that up to now.

He sagged against the wall as angels flew to join him, staring grimly out toward the horizon. How did he become such a fuckup?

"Why are you not helping me?" he asked aloud.

You are not asking the right questions, Odin said.

"No, no, old man, I don't trust you. Anyone else? Hermes, how could you let me do that to Kate?"

Would you have listened if I'd warned you against it? came the wry answer.

"Anubis? Horus?"

The dry death god's voice was soft. Are you accusing us, or asking for help?

"I need help. I want help. Why can't you stop me from doing something stupid?"

That is not our job, Izanami said. We are not your parents.

"Okay, so what do I do now?"

Odin's voice was stronger in his head, providing him with battle plans, strategies and routes for escape. But, it concluded, if you want to avoid all of that you can leave now.

"Abandon Kate?

No. Do as Skuld is doing. Get reinforcements.

"Who should I get? Who can help? Who would help me at this point?"

Odin spoke again, softer this time, as if he were growing tired. You had three questions recently: how to bring back the Earth, what was chasing you and why, and the third question.

Third question. Daniel closed his eye and tried to remember. Calm infused his mind as the realization washed over him. "Oh ... right."

A small tug came on his robe. He opened his eye and looked around. Ganymede stood beside him, blonde curls looking drab now that heaven’s sky was darkened.

"The Goddess has a message for you."

Daniel didn't dare hope, and realizing that he didn't dare hope, also realized that hope was all he had in the terms of Kate.

"Yes?"

"Leave now before the army gets here. She neither wants you injured, nor wants you here during the siege. She said to give you this, but not to read it until you have cleared the battlefield."

He handed Daniel a cream-colored envelope. Daniel nodded once, and peered out over the field one last time as he tucked the note into his robe.

The horizon was nearly pitch-black, and Daniel wondered if the demons brought the borders of hell with them as they trespassed. He remembered the metaphor of him not being evil, just being the bouncer at the club. He was a pretty shitty bouncer at this point. Neither was he evil, just damned near inept. The dark shapes of the demons had appeared to the naked eye now. Daniel reached into his own backpack and willed for binoculars, and was honestly surprised when they appeared in his hand. He peered at the edge, and gritted his teeth at what he saw.

Kevin, his nervous assistant — the poor-watery eyed guy whom Daniel had pitied — led the hordes of demons that ran, slithered, and flew. He didn't look like Kevin, however. His skin had turned considerably darker and his hands and feet were cloven. Horns jutted from his forehead, and he grinned with sharp teeth, riding a huge beetle with a horned carapace.

In fact, Daniel may not have recognized him at all except for his eyes, which remained slightly bulbous, and the fact that Daniel's Traveler's necklace hung shining around his neck. Daniel's insides twisted in shame again. He handed the binoculars to the angel beside him and asked, "Do you recognize the guy in the lead?"

The angel looked once through the binoculars, and then put them down.

"That is the Demon Lord, Mephistopheles."

Daniel nodded numbly. "Why couldn't I see that? You said I could tell if he were lying."

If he was nervous or upset at being wrong, Odin showed no sign of shame. You would be able to tell if a damned soul were lying. Demon Lords have much stronger tricks at their disposal. Not only did he trick you, but he tricked all the angels in heaven. Although, he added dryly, giving him that necklace certainly helped.

Daniel watched, stunned, as the hell that he had created edged closer to Kate's heaven.

"Sir, there isn't much time if you plan on getting away without fighting," Ganymede said nervously, which made Daniel feel somewhat better. Kate must not hate him entirely if she were still concerned with his well-being.

They were closing fast. It seemed that the demons moved faster now that they could be seen. Daniel began to panic. Skuld had taken the horses. Mephistopheles had cut off the road. How was he to get free?

I can help, whispered the usually silent Horus. You are a god, after all. Act like one.

Daniel gasped as power surged through his arms and legs. He went rigid as the marrow leaked from his bones, making them hollow, and pinpricks inflamed his skin as feathers sprouted. His skull elongated to form a beak, and his center of gravity moved forward. His clothes and boots and backpack folded into his body and he hopped up on the edge of the ramparts: a huge golden eagle. He spread his wings, trying to forget his fear of heights, and took off, allowing Horus's instincts to take over.

He soared high over the road, forgetting for a moment the army that headed toward heaven, toward Kate, and toward the new Earth. Flying was exquisite — freedom incarnate. Then the first arrow whizzed past him and he snapped out of his reverie and picked up speed, climbing in the sky to get out of the reach of their weaponry. More arrows and stones followed, and Daniel became aware of presences behind him.

Ah, crap. I forgot they had flying demons with them, he thought. At least seven demons of varying size were flying to catch up to him. Little, fast demons closed the gap quickly, presumably to entangle him until the bigger demons could catch up. With Horus advising him, Daniel abruptly folded his wings and pointed his head downward. The army below him dragged complicated weaponry with them; a large wooden construct that Daniel recognized as a trebuchet. The ropes and handles created a netlike mess, and Daniel angled himself toward it.

More arrows slipped past him in the air and in a stroke of luck one of his pursuers screamed and fell from the sky, skewered by friendly fire. They were closing in on his tail feathers and Daniel hesitated for a moment, then headed straight into the mess of wood and ropes that made the trebuchet. There was a small hole that looked too small for a pigeon, but Horus directed him there.

A clawed hand closed around his tail just as he folded his wings to his chest, winced, and slipped through the hole in the ropes. They scraped against his feathers, but his momentum carried him clear. He jerked back briefly, but was able to continue as his tail feathers stayed with the demon and momentum carried him past the end of the ranks of the demons.

He faltered in flight, unable to fly solidly without the stabilizing tail feathers, and landed painfully, human again, on his knees. He scrambled to his feet and ran, not looking behind him.

Daniel lay on his back in the middle of the familiar roundabout of heaven. The road had cracked and was weeping a black ooze. The sand in the center of the roundabout had gone black. He wondered where he would go. He wondered how she was doing. He reached into his robe where he'd stashed the note from her. He broke the seal and stared at it.

Come back to me. When this is over, no matter what happens, come back to me.

He read it three times, then held it in his hand tightly until it burst into flames. The fire didn't hurt. It more felt as if he were absorbing her words, imprinting them into his hand so he wouldn't forget her request. When the paper was gone, he slipped his hands under his head and stared at the sky, where the storm clouds gathered. Finally a plan began to form, and he sat up, picked a road, and then began walking.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In the beginning was the Room and it was Empty. No winds blew and no rains poured. The Goddess came through the door and shed a tear at the lack of joy, and behold: The oceans were formed. A drop of blood brought the land and she watched over us as the young Earth turned.

While the Goddess had many lovers, we were her only children. When she was angry with one lover, the world split and changed. The Northern Continent was formed, and with it went the animals. The Southern Continent was formed and with it went the people. And the Western Islands were formed and with it went the monks, for monks were not people at all, but actually created from the drops of the goddess's blood. In the East formed the whirlpool that led to the Underworld.

The Goddess was troubled. She wanted her children to live together in peace and she wanted her monks to spread her word. So, she came to the world in the body of a woman, in disguise. First she visited the island of the monks. “Who here will take the word of the Goddess to the people?” she asked. The monks, who had built lovely temples and cities to her, laughed at her. “The uneducated do not deserve the word of the Goddess!”

She left the city, weeping. From her tears came warrior monks who knew their goals were not simply to worship her, but to spread her word of peace. They followed her. From a dream she once had, she constructed a ship and crossed the ocean with her monks, commanding that the island of monks never be visited again by any living being.

Without the aid of the Western monks to remind them, the people in the South had forgotten her and lived in squalor, destroying her land with poor farming and mining, treating their rich like kings and their poor like slaves. She wept again, and from her tears formed a hill, and on the hill a shining golden temple. The poor gathered around her as she sat in the muddy courtyard of the temple and formed ten people from mud: peasant monks who could teach the people about how to properly treat the Earth, respect the weather, and raise animals of aid and food.

“Who will carry the word of the Goddess through the land?” she called to the waiting throngs of poor. Seventeen men and women raised their hands while the rest avoided her eyes. She marked the seventeen as her disciples, and then left the temple populated by warrior monks and the peasant monks and took her disciples with her. They boarded her holy ship and went north to the land of the animals.

“This is my sanctuary,” she whispered, and the people flung themselves to the deck of the ship upon seeing the great birds and magical creatures. They were convinced they would be devoured, but the creatures left them alone, many of the more intelligent beasts recognizing the Goddess and bowing to her in deference. They ended up in a desert oasis where the goddess meditated and preached her message.

“Do not fear the darkness,” she said. “Do not fear the unknown. Trust in yourself and trust in your friends. The most enduring thing in the world is love, and if you can trust in that, then nothing will be lost.”

“But, Goddess,” they said, “we fear the Underworld and we fear death!”

She smiled softly. “Do you fear going to sleep at night? Do you fear waking up? Do not fear the change that death brings; if you have lived a life worth living you also needn’t fear the Underworld. What you need to fear is anyone who tries to tell you that I do not love you or that I have forsaken you. I do not know how long my time here will last, and when I leave, you must know in your heart that I love you and that I always will. Let that knowledge carry you and you will remain strong in times of adversity.”

The disciples nodded. On the thirty-fourth day, the skies darkened and the Goddess looked up into the Heavens. She summoned a great bird to carry her disciples back to the South and ascended into the Heavens, reminding them to be strong. The disciples returned home and began preaching the word of the Goddess. And in the times that followed — the dark times — it was her love that kept them alive, praying for her return.

* * * * *

Kate hovered in space near the Earth, making sure the hole she had plugged was well and truly filled. Her people were troubled, but she hoped she planted the seeds to make things better. She needed to do something about those haughty monks in the West, but she couldn't bring herself to go all Old Testament on them. She returned to her office where mere seconds had passed since her leaving to set things up on the earth. Ganymede wrung his hands as he waited for her.

“Did he get out of here safely?” she asked. Ganymede nodded, “They nearly caught him, but he escaped. He’s free.”

“Good. Hopefully he'll be able to help us out.”

“Can we trust him, Goddess?”

Kate walked to the window in the hallway. It was little more than an arrow-slit. “I can trust his heart. I can't trust him not to make bad decisions, but he doesn't mean us harm. I know that.” She rubbed her head where it throbbed and Izanami retold the story of how she trusted her husband as well. Kate shushed the goddess. “What's going on outside?”

“They’ve surrounded us with siege engines. We expect an attack at any time.”

As if answering him, the castle shuddered and cries came up from the ramparts. Kate focused her will and repaired the wall that had crumbled against the attack, only to have her attention diverted by yet another attack. “And the residents?”

“Sequestered in the room you provided.”

“Okay. Have the ranking angels meet me in my office.”

The boy ran off. Kate trudged down the hall to her office, fortifying the walls of the fort, building them higher. The demons attacked with flaming pitch, coating her walls with stinking foulness, but still the walls held. The angels were there when she opened the door: Gabriel, Michael, Ruth, and Esther. They sat at her table and looked expectantly at her. She sighed, gathering her strength. “Has something like this ever happened in heaven?”

Michael shook his head. “Not since my creation, Goddess.”

“Great …” mumbled Kate. “So, what are our options? They outnumber us, but it doesn't look like they can come in easily. And this isn't even like a real siege, is it?”

Ruth shifted uncomfortably. “No, there are no supply lines to cut off. Our sustenance comes from you, Goddess, not the roads they are blocking.”

Kate took the maps of heaven from the bookshelves and rolled them out onto the table. “But the new souls I just created can’t come in, can they?”

Gabriel looked stricken. “No.”

“Where are they going?”

“There is no way we can find out.”

“So much for omniscience,” Kate said. The angels stared at her. She frowned at them. “I thought that you were my advisors. Why can’t you give me any better info here?”

Esther spoke, her voice soft. “We are but extensions of you. When you are hesitant, we cannot act. When you are decisive, we are your fists.”

Kate’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me. You mean I don't actually have any real angels with free will?”

Michael nodded. “Angels have never had free will, not since the rebellion. We are but extensions of the Divine.”

“Great. I’m having an argument with myself. Get out. Go guard the walls. Slice up some demons with your swords. Can you manage that?”

The angels scrambled out of the room. Kate collapsed into a chair, rubbing her head. Another impact shook the castle and she repaired the damage, fortifying the walls as she did so. “How about you guys?” she asked. Hermes was at the forefront of her mind warm and glowing.

You are learning.

“Yeah, I’m learning that all this power is doing little good. I’m learning I'm really alone here. What about you guys? Are you all just bits of me, too?”

Odin’s voice was wry. Oh no, dear, we are very much real. More than you know.

“Then help me!”

Get the maps, Izanami advised, and remember that none of these places are honestly physical. Kate went back to her maps. She traced her finger over the strange, four-dimensional map again, wondering about the W-axis that touched each heaven, bisecting, penetrating, and sometimes just touching. Although the roundabout and all the heavenly roads, now black and burning on the maps, indicated that heaven was a clean wheel, the map indicated that heaven was a jumble, with some realms literally on top of each other. Kate frowned. She peered at the realm that lay below heaven. It was the heaven of the delusional: the true believers who are good, loving people, but whose beliefs didn’t fit anywhere else.

“The island of misfit toys …” murmured Kate, running her finger through the map. Reality shuddered briefly and then righted itself. She thought of the metaphysical and grinned. She routed around in her backpack and pulled out a silver cell phone, opened it, and then dialed one number. Four.

Perhaps you are getting the knack of this, Anubis whispered.

* * * * *

Ganymede, the only advisor she was sure wasn't an extension of herself, stood expectantly at her side as she rolled up the maps and gave him some instructions. “Make sure you have some bourbon ready before you go; I’ll want to welcome our guests.”

The boy was off in an instant. Kate paused a moment to allow herself a fond feeling for him. She’d miss him. She put the maps into a map case and swung it over her shoulder to rest by her sword. She looked around the office. There was nothing else here she’d need. A knock sounded at the door. She opened it. Her angels stood there, steadfast and confident. “I guess you are extensions of me,” she said. They nodded. She handed them each a shining rope that streamed from her backpack. The pink rope went to Ruth, the black to Esther, the brown to Michael, and the green to Gabriel.

“Fly to the four directions of heaven. Right by the walls you’ll find an anchoring bolt. Tie the string around the bolts and give the rope a tug. Then go back to the ramparts and keep up the defense.”

The angels took flight in the hall and each flew to their directions, flying straight through the walls and taking the ropes with them. Soon, Kate’s backpack had four ropes forming an “X “out of the top. Ganymede came back down the hall carrying a bottle of bourbon and two glasses with ice. As if waiting for that libation, the air beside Kate cracked and split, bleeding blue fire, and out stepped the grinning hobo: Alternate Dimension Bela Boost. Before his rift closed, however, he dragged through with him Jane the Boxcar Beekeeper.

Bela’s futuristic uniform had gotten shabbier since Kate had last seen him, and was tinged with blue spots.

“Ahhhh, the Uninteresting Goddess! Hello!”

She smiled at them. “Bela, Jane, I'm glad you could make it. Would you like some bourbon?”

“There is nothing more I would like. Why have you asked my god to send me here?”

“I need help Bela, and I think only a hobo can do it.”

“Hobos are jacks of all trades, Goddess. But few put their trust in us. Why have you?”

Kate grinned ruefully. “I really don't have anywhere else to go.”

Bela clapped his hands. “Perfect! And what will you give us?”

Kate handed them glasses of bourbon as an answer. “And at the end there will be freshly baked pie.”

Bela stopped, his glass halfway to his lips. “Brackleberry pie from Dimension Blue?

Kate hesitated. Promise it to him. When this is over, you can make it happen, Izanami hissed. Kate smiled. “Definitely.”

“Then I am your man. Whatever can I do for you?”

The black rope twitched and Kate went to inspect it. Then the other three ropes all twitched. “I’m going to give each of you a package. I want you to toss it on your back and protect it for me. Bela, Ganymede will stay with you and advise you. This package is quite precious, so I’m putting a lot of faith in you.”

Bela’s grin got wider; something Kate didn't know was possible. “No one notices a hobo! You are a wise woman.”

“The thing is, I need you to stay in this heaven. If you have a problem, just let me know.”

Jane had been silent up to now, sipping her bourbon. “And my job?”

Kate turned to the small woman. “You may go where you like and do what you like, just care for your package. That's all I ask. I'll be with you for the first part of the journey anyway.”

“I don't like brackleberry pie. I want key lime.”

“You've got it.”

She nodded and went back to her drink. Kate thanked them and went back to the ropes that were taut through the walls of her castle. She took two in each hand and took a deep breath. Right as she began to tense, Ganymede’s voice stopped her:

“Goddess, the leader of the enemy forces wishes to meet with you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Daniel had read "Lord of the Rings" as a teenager, trying to escape into the fantasy world of Frodo and Sam and away from his own hell of a mother devolving in a nut house. His friends complained that yeah, they loved the book but, man, those hobbits sure did walk a lot. They walked and walked. They were hot; they walked. They were thirsty; they walked. The ring got heavy; they walked. Sam dumped his cooking pans into a crevice; they walked.

These are the things that Daniel relished about the books. The walking said as much to him as the fighting did, maybe more. Just like life, it wasn't the short bursts of excitement that really brought you up or down, except for the last burst of excitement. It was the daily grind. Happiness and misery were mountains that had days upon days of little instances building them. Not one big car, or wedding, or death, or fire. Yes, when his mother murdered his sister it was a hot flare of agony that changed his life, but it was every day after that, dealing with life under that shadow, his father's depression, and forcing himself to get out of bed in the morning that had been the true difficulty.

In "The Lord of the Rings," walking illustrated that, even though the wars raged elsewhere, those heroes could stick a sword in an orc and be done, while Sam and Frodo still had to walk. This comforted Daniel. Sam and Frodo walked straight into hell and ended up changed, but overall okay. This made Daniel enjoy walking in life, not as a means of transport but just as a way to clear his head. Focus on either the good parts, or the bad parts.

Daniel walked. He didn't know where he was going but he trusted he'd go to the right spot. Either his companions would guide him, or those he sought would. It hadn't taken him long before he decided to leave the road and head off into a Wasteland. He didn't know how long he'd been walking. He had run at first, hoping to get this over with quickly, but Kagutsuchi and Hermes admonished him for using their god-given speed and told him he needed to walk this one. Time was fluid in heaven and hell, and hurrying wouldn't get him what he needed any faster.

The terrain didn't change much while they walked. Sand blew softly around his feet, created rippling dunes to his left and right. It caked at the edges of his mouth and eye, and he didn't wipe it away. Fatigue gnawed at his bones and he blinked, surprised. He wasn't supposed to get tired.

Rules are different here, boy, Odin said, You're not so strong here. There may be bigger things than you.

"Yeah, well everything's bigger than me lately, old man," Daniel said, licking his lips with a dry tongue.

You must be humble. You must release all pride, all sense of self-importance, all envy, Horus whispered.

Pride? Did he have any left? Daniel wondered where pride had tripped him up. Pride that he could handle hell and the problems that went with it? He definitely had been envious of Kate's appointment in heaven. He had thought that was the easy job. And here he was wandering in the desert, unharmed, while she fought a siege of demons that he had inadvertently created. Include cowardice with that list, I guess, he thought. He thought of the things he had done due to cowardice and dipped his head in shame. He'd had pride and envy, lust and rage, but his biggest flaw was that fear paralyzed him.

The sand blew harder, catching the tears on his face and drying them to a hard crust. The sand scoured his skin, finding its way to every orifice, including into the hole where his missing eye used to be.

Storm coming, Horus said, seek shelter.

"Seek shelter? Where the hell am I going to find shelter?!" Daniel yelled at the wind, his sobs coming harder. He got a mouthful of sand for the effort and choked. Daniel fell to his knees, willing to let the sand cover him, preserving him. Daniel, God of Cowards, the dead God of the Wastelands. He felt his hands moving of their own accord — Izanami? — and found a silk scarf in his backpack. The hands wrapped the scarf around his head twice, and he fell as she relinquished control. Before the sand covered him completely, his last thought was, coward indeed.

Daniel opened his eyes and blinked at the strange perspective. It took him a moment to realize that he was looking at the world through both eyes again. He touched his face. It was whole, with no scars from Horace's talons. It was clean too, no trace of sand.

"Am I dead?" he wondered aloud. He expected sardonic comments from Odin. Of course he was dead! But the old god was silent. All of the gods were, but he had no access to their knowledge, or their wisdom, or their power. Panic rose briefly. Maybe he had died again. But he relaxed and looked around him. He was lying on his back in the rich earth, wheat growing all around him. Beyond the gold of the wheat, the sky shone a forgiving blue. Daniel sat up, rubbing his hand over his healed face. How had he gotten here? He stood, his head rising over the grain. It spread in every direction, up and down hills, obscuring everything around him. About two hundred feet away a man also stood in the field, running his hands over the wheat, inspecting it. Daniel approached him.

"Excuse me."

The man looked up and smiled. "Yes, my son?"

"I, uh, well, I'm not exactly sure why I'm here. I was looking for someone, and there was this sandstorm, and well, then I was here."

The man watched him. He had a strong frame, blond hair and dark skin. His face was unlined, but still carried the hint of maturity and age. His dark brown eyes reminded Daniel of his father from the days before his life changed.

"I do not know who you're looking for, but you found me," he said.

"And you are?"

"I am a god who died, was resurrected, and then returned to the afterlife. I am prophesied to come again, to bring peace to the world. I …"

"You're Jesus!” said Daniel, relieved.

The man smiled again. "I am Osiris."

The joy died in Daniel's throat. "Oh. But didn't Jesus ..." his voice trailed off.

"Indeed."

Daniel's face burned. What was he doing here if he was with the wrong guy? "So where do I go now?"

"I believe if you can't find what you're looking for, you keep looking. My body was cut up into many pieces and my wife found every one. Well, nearly." He frowned.

"But if you're supposed to bring back a world of peace what are you doing here?"

"Tending the wheat until it is time for harvest."

Daniel blinked at him and shook his head. "Whatever. Can you at least point me in the direction I need to go?"

Osiris pointed into the wheat — or was it out of the wheat? — and Daniel gave him a halfhearted wave, and started walking. Walking again. With wheat stretching out to the horizon, Daniel wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he was pretty sure the wheat had to end for him to find it. Although he was enjoying the sight of things with his new perspective, fatigue began to insinuate itself on him again and he took a break, sitting down and hiding in the stalks.

"Hi there!"

Daniel nearly screamed when he heard the voice of the woman sitting in the wheat right next to him. She hadn't been there before; Daniel would've seen the depression in the wheat. She had short, dirty blonde hair, a thin face and she grinned at him widely, her yellow eyes glinting in shadows.

"You scared me!"

She made a face of mock innocence. "What? Little ol’ me? Impossible. Well, that's not true. It's very possible. Very likely. Something I'm very good at."

"Who are you, anyway?"

"Oh, Daniel, I am your dream girl, your nightmare, your savior, and your biggest regret. I am also your guide." She grinned again, her body shifting to fill out a little. Her face became rounder, and her hair grew long and black. "Some once called me Scheherazade." She shifted again, her face elongating and hair sprouting. "Others called me Coyote," she said in a growling voice. "Raven. Anansi. Ishu. Eris. Hermes. Susanoo. Malice. Merlin. Loki." She changed shape faster, flipping through the faces, the animals of the trickster.

"Loki?" Daniel blurted, "You're dead! So is Hermes! And Susanoo! How can you be all of them?"

"I am the Trickster. I can help or betray, seduce, or spurn. I am freer than any other god to do what I will." She returned to her original form, looking like a girl Daniel had dated in college, albeit with yellow eyes. "I am also the messenger and the guide." She reached out and took Daniel's wrist, her grip much strong than her small hands indicated. "Close your eyes." Daniel did so, realizing it would probably be pointless to argue.

The whisper of the wind through the wheat ceased, and he opened his eyes. They were in a small hut now, with no windows or doors — only a smoke hole in the roof. A fire pit lit the darkness from the center of the room, casting odd shadows on Scheherazade's face as she sat opposite him.

"You seek Daniel. You seek a god. You seek answers. I'm here to guide you. Some call it meditation. Some call it a vision quest. Me, I just call it getting high." She tossed some herbs into the fire and the smoke thickened. Daniel coughed and slipped off his robe.

"I kind of thought this was already a vision quest. Aren't I really in a Wasteland still missing my eye?"

Her yellow eyes glinted. "You are on a vision quest. You are in a Wasteland. You are here with me. But you have a long way to go."

Daniel knelt by the fire pit. "Turtles all the way down, huh? All right." He quietened his mind and inhaled deeply. Kate, heaven, his parents, his sister, and even the quest fell away as the drug entered his mind and he was gone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kate would have liked to have the smugly superior feeling that she had never liked Kevin, never trusted him. Because something within her had known he was a deceiver; that he was evil and would betray Daniel. But no, she had to be honest with herself and just knew that she plain didn't like the little toady. There was no sense of malice in him — well, there was now. But at the time he just seemed nervous, sycophantic. Even now with his larger size, leathery skin, horns, and smug superiority, his bulbous eyes shone wetly and he blinked furiously.

Kate received him in a quickly fabricated sunroom, although the ravaged sky of heaven still showed nothing but black and red roiling clouds, and served him tea. Her four angels flanked him, flaming swords drawn. He paid them no mind, but fixed upon Kate with his watery gaze. She sipped her tea as he ignored his.

"Mephistopheles, to what do I owe the honor of your visit?"

He grinned, black sharp teeth making his mouth look more like a maw. When he spoke his voice had lost its nervousness and gained a cruel confidence. "You know what we are here for."

"But really, why do you want it? Daniel vacated hell. He never really wanted it in the first place. You certainly have enough metaphysical real estate as it is.” She thought for a moment. “But taking an empty throne is not the same as conquest, is it? Usurpation. Glory. Better to violently take over in heaven than rule in hell because no one wanted the job?"

"As you say."

Kate watched the demon's skin grow more leathery even as they sat and wondered what his final form would be, if he would even settle on one.

You're wasting your time, Odin grumbled at her.

Saber rattling, Horus whispered.

"Your forces can't get in," she said. From behind Kevin, Ruth shifted nervously.

"And your souls can't get to you. We outnumber you. You can't hope to beat us. Your allies are gone. Daniel fled hell and left it to my army. And now he has abandoned heaven."

Kate gritted her teeth and Michael's hand flexed on his sword.

He’s trying to rattle you. Don't rise to it, Izanami said.

"And yet, even without my friends here, you still can't get it, except under a flag of truce," Kate said, not even hearing herself talk. Her mind whirled and she nearly laughed aloud with the possibility of her idea. Mephistopheles leapt up and brought a cloven hoof down his teacup, shattering it.

Kate willed her hand not shake as she carefully removed a sliver of china from her hair.

"I could kill you now," he said.

She stood to face him. "You would not last a second after raising a hand to me. You are protected under a truce, but the moment you break that truce, you are fair game and you're on my territory."

"Yours for only a short while longer. What happens to heaven after you die?"

"That's an interesting question," Kate said "I have no idea. Want to find out?" She stood and lightly stepped onto the coffee table between them and looked Mephistopheles in the eye. The four angels closed in on him, raising their swords. The Demon Lord clenched his fist and stood his ground, but she didn’t flinch. He finally snarled and left the room. Ruth and Michael flanked him while the other angels stayed with Kate.

She collapsed back into her chair sighing raggedly. "What do you know? All those after-school specials were right. Bulimia doesn't pay and standing up to bullies works."

"What now, Goddess?"

"Oh, Gabriel. He will never see this coming. It's going to be awesome. And I mean that in the purest sense of the word."

Bela and Jane the Boxcar Beekeeper, entered the room, the bundle secured on Jane’s back, her heavy gloves and big helmet. Kate could barely see her eyes through the mesh. "Key lime?" the hobo asked, her voice muffled.

"Two if you like," Kate answered.

Jane nodded again and Bela split reality and led her through it.

Kate watched them go, wondering if she were doing the right thing in deciding to send Jane on her own. While they were gone, she took two hummingbirds from her backpack and whispered a message to each one. They zoomed off and Kate prayed they would both find their destinations. Lastly, she returned the four colored cords, still taut, still connecting the four corners of heaven.

"Which one of you will help me here?" she asked. To her surprise, each of the gods in her head leant his or her strength, and as she pulled the cord, heaven began to shrink and fold in on itself, pulling together like a folded pastry. She pulled and tweaked until her entire realm lay folded before her, with only castle walls and emptiness stretching out in front of her and Ganymede.

The angels still fought off the siege at the walls, with the demons on the outside, hopefully with no knowledge of what she was doing. She picked up heaven, wrapped it in a polka-dotted cloth, and tied it to the end of a stick.

Reality split again and Bela returned, alone. "I like what you've done with the place. Your name may be bland but you're getting more and more interesting."

Kate handed him the stick and he slung it over his shoulder.

"You'll protect it?"

Bela bowed to her, "For brackleberry pie I will do much more than this, lady. Come, you golden-haired child whose name I have already forgotten, let us journey together and get into trouble.” Kate kicked some dust aside and revealed the trapdoor. She pulled it up and pointed to the ladder inside. "That should take you where you need to go. Be careful. Protect each other."

Bela descended the ladder, a weeping Ganymede going second. He looked at Kate and she touched his cheek tenderly. "Don't cry, kid. You'll be yelling at me for swearing again soon."

He nodded and followed the hobo.

"Goddess!" Came a shout from the ramparts, "The flying demons!"

Kate closed her eyes and concentrated. God, it was so easy! And an illusion formed around her: an image of heaven. A smaller, stronger keep within the walls that she apparently been changing and fortifying this whole time. At that moment, a group of flying demons crested the walls, screeching. Angels with frozen arrows shot at them, taking down several. Other angels took to the air, engaging the remaining demons.

Kate turned from the carnage. "Now what?"

You trust in those you gave tasks to. The hobos. The Valkyrie. And Daniel, Izanami said.

Kate frowned. Daniel. He had messed up badly. Was he out trying to make things right? Or was he screwing up even worse? Could she count on him again? She felt slight shame at this thought, but then realized it was completely justified. What would he say when he found out what she had done to protect everything?

"Can you contact the other aspects of yourselves in Daniel's head?" she asked suddenly.

The gods did not answer at first. Kate had an odd feeling of watching a group of kids all shifting their weight and glancing at each other, none of them wanting to deliver the bad news about the broken window.

Hermes finally broke the silence. We ... are not with Daniel.

"Come again?"

When you and Daniel merged, all of the power that came with the gods he was hosting went to you. Daniel has nothing now. Izanami said.

"How is that even possible? I know he's talked to you guys and Ganymede told me he even took on Horus's shape to get out of the battlefield."

It takes a while to get a god out of your head, fully, unless he springs forth, fully formed, that is, Odin said. Whispers and footprints will remain for a while but we are diminishing in his head and soon he will lose all remnants of us, if he hasn't already.

"But what will he do then? He'll be all alone. He'll be powerless."

He is still a god. Anubis reminded her. He has tools ready. He just needs to use them.

“If he realizes you're not with them anymore and he knows I'm mad at him, then he'll be completely alone,” she said.

Maybe that's what he needs, Hermes said.

"Maybe," Kate echoed.

Another blast shook the walls of heaven, the walls that surrounded nothing but an illusion of heaven, and Kate made her decision. She tossed her backpack onto her back, waved once to Ruth and opened a small wooden door that appeared in the walls. Tapping into Hermes’s speed, she ran, passing the battlefield in a blink. She ran so fast, in fact, that the lumbering shape on the horizon that seemed to block out half the sky was barely noted and quickly forgotten.

CHAPTER NINE

“There. Over there. See it?”

“Where?”

“Open your eyes.”

“Oh. Eyes.” It was still a novelty, having both working eyes. Not that there was much to see. A heavy fog hung around him, and he couldn't tell much except that he was standing on sandy, hard ground.

Daniel took a step forward and stumbled. He looked down past a long snout to see sandy colored fur and small paws. He twisted his neck around to see the small canine body, lithe and strong. He opened his mouth to ask a question but all that came out were a series of yips.

Another figure came out of the fog. Another coyote, this time a bitch. She opened her mouth and laughed at him, a series of hiccupping sounds. Her voice appeared in his mind. “What did you expect from a vision quest?”

“Now what?” Daniel asked, putting his nose to the ground and snuffling, seeking— well, he didn't know what. What did a divine savior smell like?

“We could seek Grandmother Earth, or maybe Tarantula. Beaver might talk to us.”

“So the guy I’m actually looking for isn't here?”

“They are no straight lines, Little God. There are no clear answers. You seek, and then you take what you find and do what you can with it.”

Daniel shrugged his small shoulders and sniffed at the ground again. Considering that he couldn't see past the fog, he trusted his nose, although he didn't know what to look for. “Seek something,” she had said. All right.

Everything smelled moldy, musty, old. He could smell himself, all canine and testosterone and new. Coyote smelled, too. Much like him, but her bitch hormones were nearly overwhelming. He shook himself. He remembered dog heaven all too well to make the same mistake twice, even if they were both in dog form now.

He turned from her and sniffed again and caught something. Something fresh and hopeful. He barked once and ran into the fog, Coyote behind him.

“So, isn’t Coyote supposed to be male?” Daniel asked.

“Coyote is anything she wishes to be,” she answered. “What are you following?”

“Something. I don't know what.” As he ran, the fog slowly dissipated and he was in a forest. He lifted his head to make sure he wasn't in cat hell again, but he didn't see any frightened, hissing felines in the trees. And these trees were lush and green, not dry and spindly.

He caught a whiff of something else and once he found it, he wondered how he could have missed it. It was strong, hot, and delicious. He followed the new scent with Coyote on his heels, until he nearly ran into a rabbit as big as a horse. He barked in surprise as the rabbit turned a gleaming onyx eye on him.

“Coyote,” he said, his voice slow and velvety. “Who have you brought to me?”

“He calls himself Daniel. We’re on a quest. Could you kindly take you and your somewhat overwhelming scent elsewhere?”

The giant rabbit twitched its ears. “You trust her as a guide?” it asked him.

“I don't really have a choice,” he said, casting a quick look at Coyote, whose grinning mouth was open, panting. Which is worse? A guide you can't trust or no guide at all?

“Since you’re running in front of her, it doesn’t look like you need a guide.” The rabbit scratched at the ground, pulling moss and dirt into a rough ball and rolling it around.

“Who should I trust, then?” Daniel asked, watching the rabbit play with the dirt. “The only one I can trust in this weird-ass afterlife has been Kate. And, well, she's not here. So I'm up for suggestions.”

The rabbit continued to mess with the dirt, forming it into the rough shape of a human. “There is one other you can trust.”

Daniel snorted. “Great. More riddles.”

Driving past the overwhelming urge to taste this massive meal in front of him, Daniel left the bunny to his dirt and ran on, catching that scent again. He dashed ahead of coyote and broke free of the forest. A woman dressed in black stood in the road, wearing a fine dress and hat.

“Kate!” Daniel barked, running up to her, nearly delirious in his excitement. Delirious in his desire to lick her, to jump on her, to let her know just how much he missed her.

She smiled at him as he ran up to her, but when he jumped up and put his paws on her, trying to lick her face, he stuck fast. His feet sank deep into her abdomen and his jaws into her chest.

“You’re kidding me,” he thought desperately as Kate’s body and face twisted. The more Daniel struggled, the more caught he was.

“Help me,” he begged Coyote.

But she laughed that hiccupping laugh again. She ran for him, her shoulder hitting his, driving him into the pitch. He sank in deeper with each attack until the pitch covered him entirely. His lungs burned, but his nose and mouth were plugged. He struggled once more and blacked out.

“Another turtle,” was his first thought as his consciousness returned. He still wasn't breathing, but he remembered he didn't necessarily need to. He floated in space, huge and powerful as planets circled around him. He could see Kate's new Earth and swelled with warm love for it. The debris that had been created with the destruction of his home was gone now, and two moons now orbited the Earth. Nothing of the horror that he had seen before remained. Whatever was going on with him and Kate and their problems, the Earth was okay.

He turned his awareness to the rest of the universe, the millions of stars around him, and the warm blanket of black. The hugeness of it all dwarfed him, even as big as he was, and he wondered how many other gods were out there. How many suns and moons and heavens and hells? Was this something he and Kate should explore?

He chuckled to himself, sending sunspots glowing through him. Exploring was done. They had wars to fight, jobs to do. Wars. That's right, there was a war going on. He wondered how Kate was doing.

A movement to the right caught his awareness. The stars were going out. Not in a winking, one at a time sort of way, but more like they were being covered by an oozing oil slick. The universe itself was being put out. Or devoured.

Faster than it should have happened, half the sky was turned to pitch black. And as the blackness neared him, his only thought was that he should protect the Earth. But what would Earth be without his heat and light? The last thought he had before the shadow devoured him with its many, many teeth was, “What was on the other side of the Earth when it was destroyed?”

He stood outside a cave with a round stone blocking the entrance. Women sat outside, candles lighting up their somber faces, tears shining in the soft light.

“Is someone, uhh, in there?” he asked.

“My son,” said a woman of about forty-five.

“A boy?”

“A man grown,” she said, glaring at him.

“Does he need help? Is he trapped?” Daniel eyed the stone, unsure if he could move it.

“He is dead. He died five days ago by a traitor’s hand.”

Daniel bent his head. “I'm sorry to intrude on your grief. What was his name?”

“It would do you well to know it,” said a younger woman, setting her chin defiantly. “His name was Jesus.”

Daniel sat down heavily on boulder by the cave, numb and tired. Of course it was.

He sat with the women for a while, trying to figure out what to do. Someone passed him a hunk of bread and some water, but he refused, encouraging them to eat instead. Something bothered his mind and he tried to grasp it.

“Wait a second,” he said, interrupting their vigil a second time. The older woman — the Virgin Mary? — glared at him. He pressed on. “How long did you say you've been out here?”

Another woman spoke up, fatigue coloring her voice. “He was crucified five days ago.”

“Jesus was supposed to rise after the third day.” Daniel said. “This is all wrong.” He reached to his side and found Izanami’s blade. He may not remember how fight with it, but he didn't need a great skill to split the rock in front of him.

The women fell back screaming as the rock burst outward after Daniel’s first strike. A piece of debris hit him in the face, knocking him down. The pain blossomed in his head on the right side. Bright and red and familiar. In a moment of hysteria, he laughed, wondering about the myths they would tell about the god who could not keep his eye. He fell to his knees and screamed, but did not drown out the joyful cries of the women around him.

A hand fell on his shoulder and he looked up, blood turning the vision in his left eye, his only eye, red. He saw a figure standing above him in a white robe. Nearly retching with the pain, he moaned and said, “Kate?”

The figure smiled at him and he saw a man. Despair and pain overcame him and he passed out.

Daniel opened his eye and found himself in a cave, much like the cave where he had found Kate meditating before their trip to Hoboland. Someone was tying a strip of cloth around his head to cover bandages over his ruined eye. The pain had retreated, but he felt hot and disoriented.

“Where’s Kate? Who are you?” he mumbled.

“I am a God of Life. I was killed. I was resurrected and went into heaven,” his caregiver said. “I am Jesus Christ.”

Daniel squinted his eye. Osiris bent over him, securing the bandages.

“You’re Osiris.”

“I am. I am every Reborn God. Did you not meet the Trickster as one person?

“Coyote. Yeah, she shoved me into a pitch mannequin. Didn't like her much.”

“She tested you. You passed.” The words sounded fuzzy in Daniel's ear.

His head began to throb deeply and he groaned. “Tested?”

“She tested your desire to mate with her. She tested your ability to stop from hunting Great Rabbit. She tested your ability to adapt.”

“Where's Kate?”

Osiris — Jesus — paused briefly, sat back, and sighed. “She has fled heaven. She has gotten away, and now she's …” the room filled with a kinetic buzzing sound that stopped as abruptly as it started.

“I’m here.” Kate’s voice was calm, soothing.

Daniel smiled, relieved. He closed his eye. She put her hand on his shoulders. “God, what happened to you?”

“I had to find Jesus for you. He was trapped in a cave or something. I don't really remember.”

“And your face?”

“When I started the vision quest, I had my eye back, and then I lost it again.”

“Damn it, Daniel, you just can’t hold on to that, can you?” she said, her voice amused but not hiding the worry.

“I’d lose my own head if it wasn't attached,” he said grinning.

He felt her cool hand on his face and he smiled and relaxed. His Kate was here. He'd be okay. The fever began to die down and he slowly dozed off. As he drifted, he heard Osiris say, “Goddess, we have to talk.”

CHAPTER TEN

Yasha, the war hero, thrashed and groaned on her bed as the priest leaned over her. He spread soothing salve on her face that helped with the surface pain, but the chaos inside her head did not cease. The large cats the other side had trained for their evil purposes had taken her eye and she couldn't concentrate past the pain.

“You lost the left eye, like Daniel, Beloved of Kate,”the priest soothed. “You are favored by him now.”

Yasha bit back a retort. It would not do during a holy war to blaspheme against your own pantheon. They had been fighting for years, though, and there was no end in sight. They had the numbers and the discipline, but they fought on the northern continent, where the opposition had been training animals to fight alongside them.

Each soldier had at least one animal trained to fight, which made them more than doubly dangerous. The worst battles were when their priestesses, the beekeepers, got involved. They worshiped the goddess Jane, Keeper of Bees. And when their priestesses released full hives on the battlefield, the losses on Yasha's side were always devastating. The only saving grace was that bees were sacred to worshipers of Jane and it was rare that the bees entered battle.

Yasha had lost her lover, Penelope, to a bee sting. An archer who should have been safe from an enemy soldier, she was discovered to have an allergy to bees with one rogue sting causing her to asphyxiate on the field. Yasha had sworn to see the beekeeper priestesses die for this, but now she had lost an eye and a weaponless, armor-less priest was trying to tell her that it was okay because some god once lost his eye.

“Three times,” the priest corrected her, mixing something in a bowl.

“Wha — ?”

“You said Daniel lost his eye once. He lost it thrice: once to free a trapped goddess and pay for his wisdom; once to get that wisdom back and heal another god; and lastly as a payment to find a god during a vision quest.”

“Can you read my thoughts?” she asked.

“No,” the priest sounded amused. “I can hear your fevered ranting. Now take this and get some rest.” He held a piece of bread smeared with bitter paste to her mouth and she swallowed it with difficulty. He helped her take a sip of water and then settled back in his chair to watch her. Beside him, in a cage, a ruby-throated hummingbird sat on its perch and cocked its head at her.

* * * * *

“A hummingbird?” Daniel asked.

“Sure, I sent it to find you and then followed it. There’s another one looking for Skuld right now.”

Daniel laughed and shook his head.

Kate felt a stirring resentment. “I didn't have a lot of time to think,” she said.

He grinned at her. “I just think it’s awesome, that's all.”

She relaxed. He’d gone through an awful lot to get Jesus, or Osiris, or whatever his name was. The three of them rode on horses over a barren landscape. Kate wondered if Daniel had figured out where they were going, but he was still groggy from his injury.

Jesus certainly didn’t know where they were going. Her conversation with him had been sobering, but he seemed to be convinced that together they could turn everything around. They would need reinforcements, but he had no doubt they could find them.

In the dim dusk, a light flared in the distance, and Kate smiled. They’d arrived.

Daniel swayed on his horse, and Kate grabbed his shoulder and held him steady. Jesus pulled up beside them as they approached the campfire.

“Why are we here?” he asked.

“We’re meeting some friends with a package for me.”

“No, why are we meeting them in hell? Are they demons?”

“Do you see any demons? The place is empty.”

Jesus glanced around, his hands tightening on his reins.

Kate grinned, “Don't worry, Jesus. Heaven is wherever you are, right?”

They had reached the campfire. Ganymede, his golden curls drab in the dying light, tended it while Bela Boost cooked a sausage over the fire.

“Ah, all of the gods are together again,” he said. “But who is the new one?”

“Alternate Dimension Bela Boost, this is Jesus. Or Osiris. I’m not sure what he prefers to be called,” Kate said as they dismounted.

Jesus shook Bela’s hand, still looking around as if he'd rather be anywhere else.

“Do you have it?” Kate asked.

Bela handed over the bindle and she carefully unwrapped it. She looked up at the dazed Daniel and said to Jesus, “Hold him.”

Jesus took hold of Daniel’s shoulders as Kate pulled the colored cords on the package and Heaven unfolded around them.

Daniel staggered. “Holy shit!”

Jesus watched the buildings grow around him, his eyes narrowing. “You’re thinking of putting heaven in hell?”

“No, Jesus. I'm definitely going to put heaven in hell. There’s a difference. It's empty, I was able to get it here safely, I have you and more reinforcements are coming. Daniel is here, as a ruler of hell, to help me. It's the perfect scenario. If you have a better idea, I’d love to hear it.”

The Son of God stared at her, but didn't say anything more.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

To put Jesus more at rest, Kate held a dinner in the stone room deep within the castle with Bela, Jesus, her, and Daniel. Ganymede served them, grinning, happy to be back with Kate.

Bela smiled through blue smears on his face, with one empty pie plate in front of him. Ganymede quickly brought another one, a brackleberry pie, and he dug in. Jesus sipped at some clear broth while Daniel chowed down on a diner-type breakfast. Kate ate nothing.

“So who imprisoned you?” she asked Jesus.

“I was not imprisoned exactly. After the destruction of the Earth, I was weakened greatly by the loss of so many believers. Unlike other deities, I still thrived on the food and drink of worship. I decided to hide myself until someone believed in me enough to find me, which would give me the power to move on. So I sequestered myself deep, where only someone meditating could find me.”

“And Daniel’s eye?” Kate said, glancing at her friend. She tried to heal him, but it seemed to go more slowly than the last two times.

“I had nothing to do with that. That seems to be his fate.”

“Like Prometheus with the eagle eating his liver every day?” Kate asked.

“The same.”

“Well, let’s just hope he doesn’t get the eye back again, then.”

Daniel remained oblivious, tearing into his food as if he actually needed it. It was the most animated she had seen him in a while. He put down his knife and fork, dragged his napkin across his face, and smiled at them.

“So, I’ve got this great idea. Jesus is here, in heaven and hell at the same time. Kate and I haven’t been doing such an awesome job with the ruling of these places. Okay, okay, Kate’s been doing better than I have, but still. Now that you're here and we’re obviously fucking everything up, why can’t we just leave the keys of both places to you? You'll get your birthright, we’ll be free, everyone will be happy.”

Jesus opened his mouth once and closed it.

Kate hastened to speak before he did. “That’s an excellent idea. I'd be all for that, but let’s get the little matter of the war taken care of.”

Daniel’s jaw dropped. “But, but ... I thought you brought heaven here to protect it, so they couldn’t find it.”

“I did, but Mephistopheles is determined to get it, and he'll figure it out eventually. It may be days or weeks, but we can't assume he won't find us. All he has to do is go to the roundabout in heaven and follow a new soul headed this way.”

Daniel jumped up, “Then what are we doing here? Let’s prepare for the fight! Where are the angels and the reinforcements? Where’s Skuld?”

Something tickled at the edge of Kate’s consciousness. Where was Skuld?

“Hang on, I’ll find out.” She closed her eyes and concentrated until she located the second hummingbird she had sent out.

She popped out of her banquet hall and teleported next to Skuld. She stood in a barn full of warhorses and Skuld saddled her own mount. She looked down at Kate. “Goddess, how goes the fight?”

“Not so good. Looks like we’re going to need you. Can you bring the Valkyries?”

Skuld tightened the gird on the saddle and frowned. She gestured to Kate to follow her through the grand barn and Kate realized with a sinking stomach that only Skuld’s horse was saddled. Skuld led her though the gilded barn doors and pointed to a grand fortress atop the hill. Torches flared and shone through the night, showing off the glory of Valhalla.

The Valkyrie pointed to the fortress, “There is your army. They feast and wait.”

“For?”

“For Odin to return to them.”

Kate clamped her jaw shut. She took a deep breath and said, “Odin is dead. His return is not prophesied.”

“But Baldur isn't back, and his return is prophesied. So they are convinced Odin will return in his place.”

Odin chuckled dryly in Kate’s head. She thought for a moment and then spoke carefully. “Skuld, do you trust me?”

The Valkyrie turned and looked at her, really looked at her. Kate fixed her with a calm stare.

The old woman smiled. “That I do, Goddess. For all your youth, your heart and your mind are in the right place.”

Kate nearly laughed nervously, but she kept her poise. “Tell them Baldur has returned. Tell them Odin will return, but only on the Battlefield of Sol.”

Skuld’s brow furrowed, “I don’t know where that is.”

Kate smiled and touched Skuld’s forehead, where a bright icon of the sun flared once and then died.

“It is wherever I am, Skuld. Tell them. Get them to come. If they don't, Ragnarök might as well have ended us all.”

Skuld put her fingers on her forehead where Kate had touched her, “I will do it.”

* * * * *

Kate returned to the hall where Jesus and Daniel were finishing their meals.

“The Norse are coming, but…” she said, looking at Jesus, “they want Baldur.”

He nodded once and his features changed. He became taller, more broad-shouldered and blonde. “I have been waiting for them.”

“Wait a minute,” Daniel said. “If you’re Osiris, Jesus, and Baldur, how are you going to stay here and rule, and go back to Valhalla with them? You’re not backing down, are you?”

“It’s all metaphysical, Daniel. This guy is the essence of the Reborn God. He can be any of them, all of them. And we’ll likely need all of them.”

They walked outside to stand on the new ramparts that surrounded heaven. The land surrounding the new home of heaven had begun to take on a more whole look,, and Kate thought she saw some grass poking through the ground.

In the dreary sky, four figures flew toward them. “That can't be good,” Daniel said.

“No,” Kate replied. “That means the Army is on its way.”

“Hey, Kate, where’s Earth?” Daniel asked.

“It’s safe. Away from here. Jane the Boxcar Beekeeper has it. Now, we need to make sure that we still have hell,” Kate said. “Daniel, can you create a hell for the demons defeated in battle?”

“You gave the Earth to a hobo?”

Kate slowly faced him. “Again, I ask, what should I have done otherwise?”

“But can you trust her?”

“I had to. If Mephistopheles even touches the metaphysical shadow of the earth, he gains control. The whole world goes to hell.”

Bela Boost appeared beside Daniel, grinning. “That is right, Dinner-Loving One Eye, no one suspects a hobo. But Kate, The Brackleberry Pie Provider, there is something you should know.”

Kate tore her eyes away from the angels that sped toward her. The southern horizon darkened as the army from hell neared, clued into her whereabouts. The northern horizon was dusty with the army from Valhalla. Kate’s head began to pound. Bela pointed to the east, where one lone figure trudged carrying a bindle over her shoulder. Jane the Boxcar Beekeeper was returning her package to Kate.

Kate rubbed her head. “Oh, that’s not good.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“What is going on, Ganymede?” Daniel asked through clenched teeth. “There’s something she's not telling me.” They stood outside a small bathroom where Kate was currently vomiting. She hadn't eaten anything during dinner, but she vomited as if she had been drinking an entire frat party. Ganymede wouldn’t meet his eyes; he stared at the door with his lips pursed.

“I do not know what is wrong with the Goddess, but it is a very bad time for it to be wrong.” As the armies and the hobo approached, Kate had reminded Daniel that they needed a hell, so he had left heaven by the southern exit and concentrated, making seven hells: three towers of torture, one field of black grain, and three pits containing fire, ice, and spiders.

“Spiders?” Baldur had asked.

“Can’t stand the things!” Daniel said, shuddering.

When he had returned to heaven, Kate’s four angel warriors had gone to escort Jane safely to the fortress, and Kate had locked herself in the bathroom to vomit in private. She now opened the door, pale and shaking, staring at the floor.

“I’m okay,” she mumbled.

“No you’re not! What's going on?” Daniel shouted, grabbing her shoulders. Kate winced at his volume and held her hand to her head.

“Migraine,” she said. “Sometimes they get bad.”

“Then heal yourself! That’s one of the benefits of being dead, right? You don’t get sick anymore!” Hysteria was coloring Daniel's voice now. Kate’s head raised and looked at him calmly.

“Daniel, I am fine. Please go help the angels with their preparation.” Daniel’s eye narrowed. He hadn't heard the gods in his head since the vision quest, but he recognized that tone.

“Izanami, don't do that. I want to talk to Kate.” The goddess did not deny her control over Kate's body, but only smiled at him tightly. She sagged then, and Daniel caught her. He held her close and she looked up at him.

“Hey,” he said softly, stroking her hair. “What's going on?” Her eyes were glassy as she looked up at him.

“I’m sorry, Daniel. I'm so sorry.”

“For what, being sick?”

“You know, right? You know I love you?” His throat closed and his heart pounded. This was not a real claim of love. This was a goodbye.

“Kate …” She pulled him down to her and kissed him, a sweet, sad kiss, and then pushed away from him as her angel Ruth came down the hall, weeping.

“Dammit,” Kate whispered.

“Goddess, you must see what has happened. What they have brought, it is nothing I have ever seen before.” Kate bent suddenly and retched, her body convulsing with nothing else to vomit up. Daniel held onto her until she calmed, then supported her as they hurried to the castle walls. Daniel gasped as Kate struggled to raise her head to the new threat.

“Kate,” he whispered. “Are the souls safe?”

“They’re in a bunker deep down.” He lifted her chin so she could see, to comprehend, and was startled to see her face not register shock at all, but just stoic acceptance. Daniel could not comprehend what he saw, the size of it, the magnitude. The dark shape flashed with rainbow colors like an oil slick, and towered above the demon army, hovering like the sick child of a vulture and a skyscraper. Daniel could actually feel his brain attempting to force this … thing … into a shape or something he could understand, could place into a neat box of animal, vegetable, demon, or angel. All his mind could tell him was “BIG” and “BAD.”

“What IS that?” Kate’s head hung again.

“Remember that hole we saw? That metaphysical hole where the Earth was supposed to be?”

“That came out of there?”

“Yeah, I think Mephistopheles was trying to slow you down so this could get out. It's going to make him unstoppable unless we do something.”

“What can we do? You can’t even stand upright! The Norse are just sitting there! Your angels can’t hold that off and … OH SHIT!” The shadow had descended on them, and Daniel saw a flashing image of teeth, so many teeth. He screamed, and the shadow bounced off a dome made of thick crystal, making a bright ringing sound that both hurt his ears and was the sweetest sound in the world. Kate hadn’t moved, but he had no doubt that she created it to protect them. Still, the shadow enveloped them, plunging heaven into complete darkness. Torches flared to life around them and Daniel held tightly to Kate, his complete faith in her unshaking even as another bound of retching shook her.

“Now what?” he whispered to Bela … but the hobo wasn't there. He was sprinting to where Jane was guarded by Ruth and Gabriel. He snatched the bindle from her shoulder and pushed it into Ruth’s surprised hands. The air split around him and he pulled her through, escaping. Kate hadn't turned to watch him, but she held out her hand, where Ruth put the bindle.

“She never got her pie …” Kate’s voice was thick, but still held a bit of amusement.

“You can pay her back when we done here.” whispered Daniel, having no idea how they’d get out of this.

“We need to get the Norse involved. We need more gods.” Kate looked at Jesus, who had been silent, and he nodded. She reached into her robe, and with trembling fingers, handed him the deed to heaven. Then she handed the Earth to Daniel. She straightened and smiled at him sadly. She began to stumble down the steps of the ramparts; Daniel went to help her, and in a blink Baldur was on the other side of her, supporting her shoulder. Jesus remained on the ramparts, looking up at the blackness and the winking eyes and the gnashing teeth. Kate led them weakly to a door in the walls.

“Is this a good idea, Kate?” Daniel asked.

“Trust me,” she whispered. She opened the door to a curtain of black, inky fog. She held out her hand and a hole appeared. The creature screamed then, its pain reverberating through the crystal.

She shoved the bindle into his hands. “Stay here. Protect Earth, please,” she said, and kissed him long and hard. He held her, crushing her to his chest, not understanding.

She broke off, and she and Baldur walked through the hole in the blackness. Daniel remained inside, holding the package with the metaphysical footprint of the Earth within. Baldur supported Kate as she lifted her head to the sky. Her face contorted in a mask of agony, then ecstasy; a passion of sorts. Her forehead split open then, streaming hot light onto the dark battlefield.

“Sol,” whispered Daniel, terrified. “The sun …” She screamed then, a sound of a thousand voices, all of them gods. The light intensified, and Baldur stepped away from her. Daniel shielded his eyes, and when the light subsided Kate had crumpled, and was surrounded by gods. These were not the gods Daniel had met. These were Gods. Izanami stood in her Kazuko form: taller, glowing, and armed. Hermes, Kagutsuchi, Anubis, Horus, and Odin also stood with her in glorious power. With one gesture of his arm, Odin had the entire Norse army screaming his name, and with another flick he commanded them to descend on the demon army that had been advancing onto heaven. The other gods ran alongside Baldur and Odin to join the fray, but Hermes stopped for a moment, looking down at Kate, and bent to kiss her hand. Then in a flash he was gone, running into battle.

They just left her lying there.

Daniel cried out her name and she didn't respond. He ran, his feet pounding on the new grass to fall next to her, kneeling. Her forehead was still split open, and blood poured free over her pale unmoving face. Her body was difficult to move as he pulled her into his lap, sobbing.

“Kate, Kate, baby, that was amazing. Kate — can you hear me, Kate …” he sobbed. She didn't move. Bereft of healing powers — possibly any powers — he could only hold her and cry. The package holding Earth lay beside them, forgotten. Movement caught his eye as the Earth rolled away. He lunged for it — it had been her last wish to him — but the shadow was faster. It struck out with the pseudopod and grabbed the Earth; their fledgling planet was swallowed, disappearing into the darkness.

“No …” he whispered in grief and horror, and didn't even think to flinch as the pseudopod struck out again, hitting him with such force. He held onto Kate, and together they flew through the air. He closed his eye and wished to die on impact, just finish this bullshit, this god stuff, this responsibility stuff, just follow Kate wherever dead gods went and be done. To rest.

He didn’t die, though. He landed in soft sand and slid, still holding her body, down a tall dune. He came to rest and finally opened his eye. It was a Wasteland. The desert stretched around them, hot and gritty. Kate lay next to him, her limbs thrown away that must've been uncomfortable … if she had been alive. But as the sand caked in the gash on her forehead, and she failed to breathe, he had to accept it: she was not. Kate was dead. He had no idea what was going on with the battle for Heaven, Earth was lost, and he was exiled.

Daniel bent over his best friend's body and cried.

WASTELAND

By Mur Lafferty

* * *

The Afterlife Series IV

Wasteland, The Afterlife Series IV

Version 1.2

Published by Restless Brain Media on Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 Mur Lafferty

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

This is a work of fiction. Resemblances to persons living or dead is coincidental.

To Laura Burns, the last moon ranger, and Dr. John Cmaaarrr.

CHAPTER ONE

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“Oh, come on, Daniel, we can’t do this every Saturday!”

“Sure, we can. And we do.”

“Do you have any money?”

“No.”

“Wanna go hiking?”

“Sure!”

Daniel still didn’t know what to do. And this time, he didn’t have Kate’s irritation and wit to drive him.

He still held her, blood making his t-shirt tacky and stiff. He couldn’t put her down. He couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t accept the inevitable.

She would have laughed at his scattered thought process. What would Kate do in his position? What would Jesus do? Jesus was still in heaven, which was in hell, and he fought the creature that had slipped through the hole in the universe. The armies of Heaven, alongside an army of gods and Norse heroes, had been making short work of the armies of hell. And that great beastie that had devoured Earth still enveloped heaven.

He used to be a god. For that matter, so did Kate. The greatest gods in history had been in his head, advising him. He’d had Kate advising him. Now he had nothing.

Her dead weight made his legs cramp, and he shifted in the sand. He leaned over and took her head in his hands. Her head looked exactly as if something ancient and powerful had been stored inside her and she had been the unfortunate arachnid to the spider-hunting wasp. The gods had not been advisors; they’d been eggs waiting to be hatched out. Had they fed on her? Fed on her godly power until there was nothing left but Kate?

Her skin was split and caked with blood and sand. Smoothing the hair away from the wound, Daniel could see the hole in her skull where the gods had exited. He began to cry again, his fingers tightening on her shoulders and bruising her skin. He didn’t know why it had happened, but she was too big of a sacrifice to make.

How much had she known about her fate? She must have known, she wouldn’t have apologized to him, would not have kissed him like that if she hadn’t known. Is that was Jesus had talked to her about?

He needed answers. If only to quiet his mind. If only to get peace. Then maybe he could die too.

He lifted her, struggling in the sand, his feet slipping. He teetered to the left and then fell to one knee. He had nothing of the strength he once had. He was a tired, grief-stricken man, unable to do the simple thing of keeping his best friend with him.

He began to dig, then, his hands scraping sand aside furiously. At first, the sand slid back into the hole as fast as he removed it, but eventually he got ahead of it and made progress. The sand wore away at his hands, wedging underneath his fingernails and leaving his skin raw.

His shoulders ached and his eye stung, but he eventually made a hole deep enough to receive her. He stood for a minute, looking down at the swirling sand that had already begun to cover her. He leaned down close and kissed her dry lips. “I’ll see you soon, one way or another.”

Covering her prone body was not an issue. He pushed sand into the hole and then removed Izanami’s katana from its sheath at his hip. He stuck it deeply into the sand by her grave, marking it. Removing his bloody t-shirt, he tied it to the sword, a red marker to remind any passerby what she had given.

If there was any left to remind.

******

He had forgotten what it was like to feel mortal. Even before he had begun taking on godlike powers – and he couldn’t pinpoint when that was, exactly – the knowledge of being a dead soul had made it unnecessary to eat or drink. He breathed out of habit, and every once in a while his body decided it wanted to experience waste elimination, but pretty much he was a metaphysical being.

Even when he had lost his eye, he somehow knew it was a symbolic thing, and the blood and humor that had gushed down his face were not actually real.

Now he was aware of his body: the large bag of organs and blood he had to carry with him. The thirst tore at his throat and his eye socket ached at best and screamed at the invasion of sand particles at worst. His lips cracked and bled, making his body lose precious moisture even faster.

He didn’t care. Dying of thirst was not ideal, but what did it matter? He would either get his answers or die trying. It pleased him that he had only two choices here, and either one would be fine. He couldn’t mess this one up. He tightened the bandage around his eye and trudged on.

“She made the ultimate sacrifice,” Izanami said, her voice in a light tone as if she were discussing the latest stock prices. “You should be proud of her.”

Daniel turned his head. She stood there, shimmering, in her human form. “Are you real?”

“By now you should know to ask, ‘What is real?’” came a voice behind him. Kagut-suchi, the fire god, blazing brighter than the sun overhead.

Daniel shielded his eye and winced. “I have no clue, honestly. I want to believe this is just a vision quest and I’ll wake up at some point and be able to get a drink.”

“It’s not about you anymore, boy.” Odin’s gruff voice made him turn around yet again. The man glared at him from under his wide hat, his one eye boring into Daniel’s. “It’s not about Kate, either.”

“The Earth has been enshrouded in darkness,” Anubis said. The huge dog nearly gave shade in the lethal heat, except he too shimmered as a mirage. “It needs help.”

“Let the gods deal with it. Isn’t that what you are for?”

“Battle still rages in heaven.” This was Horus. “The Christ keeps the city safe, and the armies of heaven and hell battle outside. No one knows how to destroy the creature, however. Kate was the only one who wounded it.”

“Kate is dead,” Daniel said, his voice breaking in the new grief that felt as if it turned his bones to sludge.

“And you are alive. Kate depended on you. She loved you. She believed in you.” This was Hermes now, his hand a very real pressure on Daniel’s arm, his blue eyes not unkind as he forced Daniel to look at him.

“I don’t have anything left!” Daniel wailed.

“Is that entirely true?” Hermes had gone; whoever had said this was hidden. The voice was sharp and female, and he finally looked down to see Coyote laughing at him. Before he could answer, she lunged for him, jaws open wide, and hit his chest, knocking him into the sand.

He lay there for a minute, listening to the sand shift around him like rain. He felt tired, so very tired. And he was clearly losing his mind. He rolled onto his side, curled into a ball, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

******

One drop. One drop of rain was enough to wake him, his skin sucking in the moisture almost immediately. More rain fell, dotting the congealed blood on his bare chest, wetting his cracked lips. He licked them, his swollen tongue greedily seeking water. Struggling to sit up, he looked around.

Dark, billowy clouds had obscured the sun, easing the oppressive heat. A line of lightning flickered in the sky, and Daniel blinked. Did it rain in the Wastelands?

He felt his face, seeking a whole eye, wondering if he was on another vision quest, but his bandage was still there, his socket still aching, his perception still off. Thunder rumbled and the rain fell harder now, matting his hair to his head. He pulled off his bandage and let the rain wash the sand and Kate’s blood off his body in pink rivulets. The sand and tears and blood all washed away, and for one perfect moment, he gloried in the cool storm.

He stood, feeling new strength. He wished for advice, guidance, anything. Even hallucinations of the gods that had previously annoyed him – he just didn’t want to be alone.

But what the hell. He didn’t want to be exiled here. He didn’t want to have lost his eye three freaking times. And he didn’t want Kate to be dead. There were lots of things he didn’t want.

Was I really a god? He wondered. Did I really have power that I never used for anything useful? I must have been the god of bad luck.

A whisper of the knowledge he’d gained from Odin brought the memory of Baldur to him. The beloved god had been protected from everything but mistletoe, and Loki had tricked his brother Hod into throwing a mistletoe spear at him, killing him. Retribution for the slain god had been swift: Odin and a giantess had a son specifically to slay the poor patsy, who went down in history as the guy who killed Baldur.

Daniel looked around, wondering if anyone had been breeding with the express desire to kill him. Had he been responsible for Kate’s death? He had no idea why the gods needed to ride around in a head for a while before rebirth. Maybe he and Kate shouldn’t have made love. Maybe he shouldn’t have been such a dumbass when he was in charge of hell. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

The sand was getting sludgy under his feet. He picked a random direction and began to walk.

The thoughts pulled at him and ached, but did not carry the fresh, painful grief this time. He walked through his memories with her, from their childhood, into adulthood, into the afterlife. One conversation lodged in his brain like popcorn in his teeth, refusing to leave until he actually gave it some attention.

They had been heading to see the movie Edward Scissorhands together; he had been driving. He’d just had a breakup, and had turned to Kate – again, he realized with shame – for someone to hang with. All he’d wanted to do was complain and feel sorry for himself, but she was trying to cheer him up.

“Look, dude, you’ll find someone else. She didn’t appreciate you, that much is clear,” she’d said.

Daniel didn’t say anything, he merely drove. Kate continued.

“You don’t see it, do you? You don’t see how fun and awesome and giving you are. And let’s face it – you’re not that bad on the eyes.”

Now, with the current knowledge of the feelings she'd had for him, his memory put a slight blush to her face, but he wasn’t sure if it had happened or not.

“If I’m so wonderful, why did she dump me?”

“Maybe she wasn’t right for you,” Kate had said softly.

“I don’t know who is,” he’d grumbled.

She’d looked at him then, pointedly. “Someone is. You’ll find her.”

His insides squirmed with shame at this, but the memory was bright and clear. He’d turned to her and said, “I know, Kate. Can we drop it?” The hurt had been clear on her face, but he’d brushed it aside, feeling that he had more of a right to be hurt than she did.

She’d done that. Every time he’d had his heart broken, she’d been there to let him know that he was, indeed, worthy of love. He just hadn’t realized she’d meant her love.

He had been giving, he could admit that. His father had put him in an after school youth group that had helped out at the homeless shelter, and he’d found actual pleasure in helping others. Still, he kept himself at arm’s length from people, letting only Kate close because she was so damn persistent.

But every single positive thing he could determine about himself was eclipsed by five negatives. He was a coward. He couldn’t let himself love anyone. He was lazy and went the easy way out.

Oh, and he’d destroyed heaven. And hell. And Earth.

What had she seen in him?

The rain continued and he shivered, realizing he’d left his t-shirt back with Kate. His bare chest prickled with the chill. He ran his hands through his sopping hair and remembered he had also left his bandage behind. There was no reason to feel self-conscious of his ruined face; there was no one around to see him.

Visibility was very low here; he squinted across the dune and saw what looked like a great tree growing out of the desolate land. He picked up his pace, sliding a bit on the wet sand, and approached it.

It was, indeed, a tree. It stood against the cloudy sky, leafless and daunting. A flicker caught his eye, two hummingbirds zoomed off a branch, circled his head, and then went to perch back on their branch. His eye followed them and he gasped.

A body hung from the branch, trussed up in ropes, swinging gently. Ruby-colored raindrops dripped from the toes of the hanging shoes. The hummingbirds kept vigil on the body.

“Kate,” he whispered. He ran at the tree and began to climb, slipping on the bark and scraping his already raw hands. He missed his footing on a branch once and fell against the trunk, cutting a shallow gash in his side, but kept moving, scrabbling up the tree, eye fixed on the unmoving body of his friend.

When he finally reached the body, he gulped. They were up terribly high. The hummingbirds regarded him with their beady eyes, but made no attempt to help or hinder him. He hugged the branch and inched out across it, trying not to look down at the ground while, at the same time, focusing on the ropes to try to loosen them.

He’d left the katana with Kate’s body (or so he thought, because it wasn’t anywhere nearby that he could see). He had no other blade, and his tired, raw hands picked at the wet ropes ineffectually. With Kate’s dead weight pulling the ropes taut, there was no way he could get her down. He couldn’t give up, though.

“Come on,” he said, and drew in breath fast when he heard the branch crack. “Oh, no…” He picked at the ropes again, not even sure what he would do if he could untie her, except to let the body fall, but he had to get her down.

The branch cracked again and he lurched downward. The hummingbirds took flight and hovered near his head, watching him. He glared at them, rain dripping into his eye. “A little help here?”

The branch broke, and they fell.

******

He landed hard, knocking the wind from his lungs. Kate and the broken branch were gone; he was at the top of a hill with three crosses in front of him. Two were made from beams, one crudely made from two hefty tree branches. Kate hung, motionless, from the crude cross.

Daniel looked up at her, tears and rain blurring his vision. Weeping women surrounded him.

“What were their crimes?” he asked.

“Two were thieves. One saved us all from the demons of hell,” one woman said, motioning the mourners to begin removing the dead woman from the cross.

“That she did,” Daniel whispered. He moved to help them take Kate down, but a thundering sound caught his attention.

His eye widened as he saw the Roman soldiers on horseback, galloping toward them. The women screamed and hurried to get Kate’s body down. One of them – he recognized her with a start as Mary from his vision quest – looked at him and said, “You must protect us while we take her body.”

He barked a startled laugh. “You’re kidding me, right?” He stood unarmed and half-naked in the rain as three soldiers neared, bloodlust in their eyes and their weapons drawn.

Mary instructed the women to take Kate’s body away. “She gave her life for all mankind. What have you given?”

Daniel shut his mouth with a snap and allowed himself one look at Kate’s body, her wet face peaceful as she was borne away by the women who surrounded her. He turned, set his stance, and waited.

Time slowed; the haze in his eye caused by the rain seemed to lift; the scene presented itself to him with startling clarity. One soldier closed in on him, with two more behind. The soldier in front was smaller, lithe, and aimed his horse at Daniel. If the sword didn’t get him, he’d be trampled underfoot. The others behind him by several lengths were burly fellows; each raised a crude short sword.

His muscles twitched as if remembering something. The horses neared, necks stretched out in full gallop. He waited, his arms relaxed at his side. The soldier leaned over and-

Daniel danced to his left, close enough for his right hand’s fingertips to graze the chest of the thin man’s horse. Once he’d made contact with the horse, he knew everything about it; it was slightly lame in the off fore, which was why it carried the lighter soldier. As the horse thundered by, Daniel’s hand trailed down its side until he made contact with the soldier’s shin.

He closed his hand tightly on the man’s ankle, and yanked.

For a moment, he thought he was going to lose his grip, or that his arm would be wrenched from its shoulder. His muscles screamed as he grasped the wet leather of the man’s boot, and for an instant, the man on the ground and the man on the horse had perfect equilibrium. Time resumed, then, and the man toppled from the horse, hard. There was a crunch, and he did not get up.

Daniel didn’t pause to see if he had killed the man; he grabbed the man’s sword from his scabbard and faced the two men on horseback. The sword was a clumsy piece of metal, an ugly tool, and it certainly was no katana, but it would do.

He took a practice swing, and winced at the feeling of weakness in his damaged muscles. This wouldn’t do. Fight with a weakened arm or fight with his left arm? He couldn’t take the burly men in a fair fight, not unarmored with an injured sword arm. But he’d taken skinny in a rather unfair fight.

And what was fair about crucifixion? It was brutal.

He could be brutal.

His skin prickled as the other men approached. He had to do something else about this. The rain came harder now, lowering visibility. The soldiers approached at a gallop, then slowed.

“Good work sir!” the one on the right called, as he neared.

“Went down like a whore, did he?” asked the other, laughing.

Daniel looked at the man lying on the road. He was shirtless, wearing blue jeans. Daniel felt a momentary sense of vertigo, then realized he was wearing the soldier’s garb.

“Should we go after them?” one asked, indicating the fleeing women.

“No,” Daniel said. “She’s dead. Let them cry over the body, it will do them no good.”

He smiled. “Now, dismount for further orders.”

******

He should have felt guiltier as he cleaned the blood off the sword. It was much easier to kill the Romans when they had assumed he was their superior than when they were bent on killing him. He looked at the departing women – they were barely visible through the rain, cresting a hill, carrying Kate’s body, and then they were gone.

He finished cleaning the blade on a piece of one of the guard’s jackets and then looked at it. Why did he care? He tossed the sword onto the pile of dead bodies at his feet, and as the blade went through the air, he caught an image of himself, actually himself: Daniel, reflected in the metal. When the sword clattered off the metal fastenings on the soldier’s shirt and onto the road, Daniel blinked.

And he was somewhere else.

******

Daniel stumbled backward and fell on his ass in the pebbly sand. This was not the fine stand of the wasteland, it was the hard desert floor of the American west. Rocks, scrub and cacti surrounded him, seeming to loom with the long shadows of the setting sun.

Coyotes also surrounded him. Not the one coyote, the bitch, who had taunted him; these were real animals, thin, ribs protruding, lips curled back. There had to be twenty or so, all growling, all hunched down. Coiled springs, ready to let go.

He looked around desperately to see if she were among them, the one coyote he could talk to, but he couldn’t tell them apart. He scrambled to his feet. “Is this it?” he asked them. “Is this how it ends? After all that?”

One coyote threw back his head and howled, and the others followed suit. Daniel trembled as a wave of gooseflesh passed over him. He set his jaw. “If this is how it is, then come on. I’m ready.”

He didn’t run, and he didn’t go down easily. They leapt as one, and he fought them, kicking and punching. But twenty coyotes against one man had a decided advantage, and Daniel’s right arm was still sore from the battle with the Romans. Teeth closed on his right arm, his left. A snout drove into his belly, knocking him down, and he was lost. As they tore into him, his fleeting thought was relief. It was okay that he had lost; at least this time he had fought.

Then teeth that matched a pair of yellow eyes he thought he recognized closed on his throat and he knew no more.

******

Utter bliss. Complete and total bliss. He rested his head on her lap as she dozed in her easy chair in front of the fire. She had fallen asleep with her hand on his head, and he gazed up at her with total devotion.

His eyes began to droop with the heat of the fire and the feeling her nearby. But he was sitting up, and as his body tried to sleep he stumbled, his movements jolting him awake and rousing her.

She yawned and smiled at him.

“You did it.”

Awareness flooded his head, and he fell back, in human form again, and gaped at her.

“Kate?”

She curled in the easy chair, looking relaxed and luxurious, and smiled at him. He sat in his own chair and stared at her.

He opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

She laughed at him. “Too many questions?”

He nodded. “Are you real? What happened?”

“You brought me back. You brought back the reborn god.”

“But how? I lost all that god stuff.”

“Yeah, but you were still you. You got me down off Yggdrasil. You kept me safe from the Romans. And you didn’t run from your own destiny.”

“My own…” Daniel looked down at his hands that had previously been paws. Coyote had been with him frequently. She had guided him, taunted him, and then, at the end, devoured him. He had killed the Romans through dexterity and trickery. He had shape-changed from coyote to man.

Kate laughed. “You’ll figure it out. You’re cleverer than you realize, as soon as you start to believe in yourself.”

“So- where are we?”

Kate looked around at the tiny cabin that held only a fireplace and two chairs. “We are in the Wasteland.”

As if disagreeing with her, thunder boomed in the distance.

“I didn't think it could storm in the Wasteland, but I don’t think we could be anywhere else,” Daniel said. “When we got here, you were dead and I am pretty sure I was exiled. I had trouble leaving the Wasteland, anyway.”

It hit him, finally, what had happened, and he was on his feet, holding her tightly.

“This can’t be, I can’t be this lucky,” he said, stroking her hair.

She buried her face in his neck, her breath hot on him.

She smelled like wildness and musk as he kissed her. He blinked – Kate didn’t smell like wildness and musk. She smiled at him, her eyes shifting to yellow.

He pushed her away from with a horrified cry, and the cabin – and the warmth – dissolved around him, leaving him in the storm, which had remained. He fell on the sand.

“Bitch. Trickster. I get it now. I get it. And I get that I spend entirely too much fucking time in the Wasteland on my hands and knees!”

He lurched to his feet, sobbing. This wasn’t heaven, where his heart’s desire was handed to him. This wasn’t hell where he would be tortured forever – and there was some relief in that. This was the Wasteland, where a god would have to make things happen for himself.

His tears mixed with the rain as he walked with new determination. He knew the direction; he knew what he had to do. He knew who he was and what he was capable of doing.

Daniel, the newest trickster god, headed across the Wasteland to the body of his best friend.

******

His sense of direction was now flawless. Kate’s body, her real body that lay at the place where they had landed painfully in the Wasteland, flared like a beacon in his senses. The storm raged around him, but he ignored it.

He crested a soggy dune and blinked the rain out of his eye. The Wasteland was nearly pitch-black with the night storm, but in a flash of lightning, the world came into instant, strobe-light-like view. Beyond his dune lay a lush oasis, green-black in the storm; heavy grasses and flowers covered the ground while a huge tree in the center of the oasis shaded a small pond.

It hadn’t been like that when he’d left, but this was the place. There was no question. In darkness again, he slid down the grassy hill and ran toward the tree.

The tree shielded him from the storm a bit. He placed his hand on the trunk and leaned his forehead against it.

“I’ve lost you three times. Once to reincarnation, once to bureaucracy, and now to death. No more. Not again. We’re in the afterlife, Kate. When you die, the issue is not that you’re gone, it’s just where you’ve gone. I’ll find you.”

A thump sounded behind him and an instant later a hand fell on his shoulder. He turned and chanced a look at her. He raised his hand and stroked it carefully down the side of her head. Her hair was clean and perfect, her skull lacked the massive exit wound and she grinned up at him as his hands went to her face.

“You found me.”

Daniel grabbed her shoulders tightly. “Are you real? This time are you real?”

She held her hands in front of her face and then touched her head where the gods had broken free. “I think so. What else would I be?”

“Something to trick me, something to hurt me. I don’t know. I just—”

She grinned at him again, and the lightning flashed and lit her brown eyes. It was dark again when she kissed him, but he finally knew it was her.

The reborn god and the trickster god held each other in exile, in the rain.

CHAPTER TWO

With the rising of the sun, Kate marveled at the transformation of the Wasteland. She lay between Daniel’s legs, leaning back on him as he reclined against the world tree.

“This is amazing,” she said.

Daniel laughed. “I guess if you stab a god’s corpse with death god’s sword, it makes, uh, life?”

Kate shrugged. “Who knows? But like you said, no one dies here. Kinda hard to die in the afterlife. But what’s going on here?”

The greening of the Wasteland hadn’t stopped with the return of Kate. The grass and flowers had crept over the dunes and continued in all directions. The sun had risen in a blue, not gray, sky, and puffy clouds lazed by. The night’s storm had left everything with a clean, sparkly look.

Of course it looked clean, she realized. It was brand new.

Daniel nestled his head into her shoulder. “Thank you.”

She rubbed his cheek. “For what?”

“Being real. Existing. Making this easier. And, apparently, making the Wasteland a better place.”

“I think you did that. I was just dead weight.” She laughed, but he frowned.

“As usual, I don’t know what’s going on. But I’m glad you’re here.”

She leaned forward, turned, and kissed him long and slow. He was delicious. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

His arms tightened around her, but she pulled back. “Hey. Let’s explore.”

He groaned and tried to pull her back in, but she grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, we need to figure out what’s going on around here!”

“Yes, Goddess,” he said.

They walked in silence, marveling at the landscape. At the top of a hill they discovered mountains to the west and a dense forest directly south. Kate squinted to the east and thought she detected a glimmer from an ocean.

Daniel followed her gaze. “Clearly, it started from where I buried you. But, really, what is “it”? Why is the Wasteland growing?”

Kate shrugged. “Let’s pick a direction and go. Mountains, woods or sea?”

“What about north?”

Kate didn’t turn around, but she shuddered involuntarily. “No. Not north yet. Just… not yet.”

Daniel watched her for a moment, then nodded. “You wanna tell me?”

“I would, but I don’t know. Let’s just save that for last. I’m a god, right? I’m supposed to listen to these feelings.”

Daniel laughed. “Yeah, that’s what it means. I think it has other benefits, though.”

Well, her eyes were certainly better than a regular human’s. She pointed. “Look.” A thin line of smoke rose out of the woods a couple of miles to the south.

“A campfire?” Daniel asked.

“Or something. Let’s check it out.”

They headed down the hill and into the woods. The trees were unremarkable, they didn’t loom, they didn’t lurk, and they didn’t hide tormented felines like cat hell had. It was the most normal forest Kate had seen since they had died. Every other place in the afterlife had had some sort of purpose, some sort of meaning. This felt, well, normal.

They covered the miles faster than they should have been able to, what with Kate just returning from the dead and Daniel having gone through a grueling night of facilitating that return. And while the walk did make Kate somewhat tired, she definitely didn’t feel as though she had hiked miles through the woods.

Still, she was more relieved than startled to come across a small cabin in a clearing, the source of the smoke, which still drifted from its chimney.

An old woman sat in a rocking chair on the front porch, knitting something from blue yarn. She smiled at them and waved. They approached her.

"I always knew my Lords were comin' but I didn't realize they would come in person," she said, laughing.

"We're not here to, ah, collect or anything," Daniel said. "We're just exploring the land."

"This land is new. Brand new. Well, in the terms of land, anyway. I lived in this house since I was a girl. Had a coupla husbands, a whole mess of children. They're all gone now, or dead, and now I sit, knit, and wait."

"For?" asked Kate.

"For my Lords," she said patiently. "I knew they would come for me. I served them well."

Kate looked at Daniel. He looked as confused as she felt. "You have us at a disadvantage. This is all pretty new to us too. Where are we? And who are you?"

She laughed, a deep, rich laugh that reminded Kate of her own grandmother, and the bittersweet emotion surprised her. "You two were the Alpha and the Beta. I am The Gamma, the first woman. I was born from a drop of blood that came from the god-wound of the goddess Kate. My first husband was The Delta, he was formed from a discarded bandage that once covered the eye of the god Daniel."

She settle back in her chair, getting comfortable with the story. "And my second husband was The Epsilon, the man who was hatched from a hummingbird egg after Daniel cut Kate down from the world tree. And my third husband was The Zeta, the only man born of woman, as he was created from the tears of the weeping mother of the goddess."

Daniel's mouth hung open. "Wait, how old are you?"

"I am as old as the land, which to me is ninety-three years, and to you is about nine hours. I have birthed enough children to begin the population, from enough husbands to ensure the lot of them don't end up simpletons. I have done my duty to you, although it wasn't easy."

"Doing the work of the gods is never easy," muttered Kate. "But I still don't understand where we are."

"Honey, You're on Imari. The Earth Mark Three. You built it and created me to populate it."

"I don't remember any of this," said Daniel, rubbing his forehead above his eye.

"Here, honey," the old woman - the Gamma - said, and her needles flashed in the sunlight as she finished what she was knitting. She bit through the thread and tied a quick knot, then handed the narrow cloth to Daniel. He wrapped it around his eye.

"You don't remember because you had other things on your mind. My last task to serve you is to tell you what you've done and let you continue your work."

"This isn't the Earth, though," said Kate. "It's the Wasteland. We're exiled here."

"What's the Wasteland but unmolded clay? You molded it, made it yours. Now it is the Earth. Imari."

"We made another Earth?" Daniel asked, sitting heavily on the woman's front steps. "But we didn't take good care of the LAST one!"

But Kate nodded. "Yes. That's what happened. I remember now. We're not exiled, we're just where we should be. And we have work to do here, Daniel. A lot of work."

She grinned. "Mother Gamma, can I press upon you one last task?"

******

"You have no idea what heaven she's going to," Daniel said, looking around the little cabin.

"Doesn't matter. She'll do it. She'll take the message back." Kate held up a crocheted afghan and smiled. "I never could get the hang of this stuff. I only ever knitted lopsided scarves."

"But Kate, how do you know that?"

Kate put down the afghan and looked him in the eye. "Daniel. Come on. She spent her whole life bearing children to populate the world. What I've asked her to do is nowhere near as hard as that. And she's dead now, meaning she's comfortable, her joints don't hurt, she doesn't have incontinence, and her elbows aren't itchy. She'll go to heaven and deliver our message."

"Yeah, if she lives to get there."

Kate walked up to him and put her arms around him. "When did you get so damn cranky?"

He touched her face softly. "Since I completely messed up everything we did in heaven and hell. The second Earth was eaten by that creature. Now I have to be god of a third?"

"Things are different this time. You have proved yourself, you have faith in yourself, and you have me." She kissed him gently. "We were always stronger together than apart."

He clung to her, then and kissed her harder. She wondered if she would ever lose the thrill his touch gave her as his hands roamed her body, pushing clothing aside, desperate to touch skin to skin.

Although it started quickly, this time it did not have the air of desperation and fierce love that the first time did. They took their time and languished in each other, and the world shook with them.

They spent hours together, learning things about each other they’d only ever suspected, and when the sun rose again, they lay tangled in each other’s limbs, too drunk on each other to move.

"You're sure that old woman is dead and gone to heaven?" Daniel asked as Kate lay her head on his chest. His voice was deep to her.

"Yeah, why?" She ran her hand over his belly and he laughed, batting hers away.

"Because it would be awkward for her to return and find out what we've done on her bed."

"And the kitchen table."

"Don't forget the chair."

"Ohhh. Yes, the chair. Sorry about that. Is your back okay?"

"It was worth it."

"Good." She kissed his chest and he groaned.

"You're going to kill me, you know that?" he said, responding to her yet again.

"Can't die in the afterlife. You wanna?"

"Sure," he said. But they both dozed off then, and slept the rest of the day.

******

Daniel woke up to a queerly empty feeling, realizing that he'd immediately gotten used to the feeling of her beside him, the feeling of her body curled up with him. When her body was gone, that was the wrong feeling, the unfamiliar.

The new cloth The Gamma had given him was gone, as were the rest of his clothes. Kate sat at the rickety table by the wood stove, running the blue cloth through her fingers. The homemade quilt lay casually draped around her shoulders and he looked with interest at the various bits of skin she revealed.

"Have you already studied the rest of my clothes, or have you just started?" he asked.

She smiled at him, not looking up. "I was just thinking. We're not in the afterlife anymore. We're somewhere else."

He sat up in bed, feeling stronger than he had since arriving in the wasteland. "The Earth Mark Three. The Imari, she called it."

"Yeah, what does that mean?"

"It sounds Japanese, but I'm not sure. It could mean something completely new. But you haven't said why my new eye patch is so interesting."

"It's made from synthetic yarn." She finally looked up at him, her messy bedhead making her look slightly mad and very adorable.

"So? When did you become a yarn snob?"

She blinked at him, then said patiently, "Daniel, this is a new world. I seriously doubt there's a Wal-Mart or Michael's or AC Moore where you can find synthetic yarn. If she's knitting, she should be using wool or silk or something."

"Ohhh," he said. "Yeah, I don't imagine the hillsides are crawling with acrylic sheep."

She returned to her pondering. "It got me thinking. Not only how the hell she got it, but just about synthetics in general. We made the Earth Mark Two. It was created instinctively, totally organically, subconsciously. But Three, Three was made in a different way. Dead goddess, a sword, a quest. Not quite synthetically, but definitely not as organic as before."

"I'm not sure where you're going with this, Kate."

"I’m not sure either. But we made one world and it's not in good shape. It was all organic. Now we get another chance. And maybe we should focus on the synthetic. Synthetic isn't always bad. Organic holds within it the seeds of chaos, it is formed however it likes. Synthetic, however, has a hand behind it. Someone to guide it. Likely someone to love it.

"We can make this world, Daniel. Honestly form it to be what we need it to be."

"But what's that?"

"A tool to take back heaven, hell, and Earth Mark Two."

CHAPTER THREE

"This feels weird. Like having a second kid just to harvest stem cells to save the first," said Daniel, sitting outside on the porch.

Kate paced behind him. He couldn't see her, but he was aware of her with every cell. "Yeah, that's a strange ethical question. But we didn't make this world so we could save the other. It came to be by as much accident as the other one did. But if we can build the population of this one to focus on saving the other one, then we'll have two worlds full of people poised to help save the afterlife."

Daniel rocked in The Gamma's chair, determined to stay calm to counter Kate's agitation. "How-"

"Daniel, those gods came into power from civilizations believing in them. Just a nation full of people. We're offering worlds."

"But they were pantheons and we're just two."

"Are we? We're only as limited as we think we are." She came up to sit on the porch beside him.

"You sound like a motivational poster."

"All right Daniel. What do you think we should do? What are you bright ideas here? You're the trickster, you are finally learning how to use your power, you can do anything."

He looked down, abashed. "I'm not used to this. I'm sorry. I don't know what to do. I'm still tweaked about being exiled. I have godlike power-"

"You are a god," she interrupted.

"Okay, I AM a god, but I can't get out of here. What am I supposed to do with all of this power?"

"Make the Earth."

"Imari."

"Yes. Imari."

"How?"

She grinned at him, and he felt lightheaded and confident for the first time in a very long time. With Kate with him, he could maybe believe that he could do something.

"We'll figure it out," she said.

They hadn't attempted any great miracles since sending The Gamma to heaven, and frankly Daniel was pretty pissed that it was so easy for her to die and ascend, while he and Kate were stuck here.

Still, they simply walked to learn more about the world. To Daniel's eye, it looked just like the first Earth. And like Kate had told him the second Earth had looked. They walked through a heavily wooded area, a thick forest that looked as if it had been there for hundreds of years, not a day.

"How much time do you think has passed?" he asked.

"Well," Kate said. "Two nights ago the Earth Mark Three was created. About nine hours later, ninety years had passed, but the humans had already evolved to the point of building seventeenth-century cabins."

"So did we make dinosaurs on this planet? Cause I always wanted to see them and I'm going to be bummed if I missed them. I help make TWO planets and I don't get to see any dinosaurs?"

They came to a clearing and stepped into a carefully turned field. Daniel swore at the sight in front of him, and rubbed his eye just to make sure he wasn't imagining things.

Kate laughed. "So did you do that just now? Or is this a happy coincidence?"

Daniel just stared. Across the field two humans worked the land, hitching plows to beasts of burden that looked much less like oxen and much more like triceratops. A young boy rode on the lead lizard, patting its bony collar.

Beyond the field was the house, a small nondescript white farm house, but beyond that was a massive wooden tower that looked like a silo, but was open at the top with large perches extending from the opening. Pterodactyls sunned themselves on these perches, occasionally flying away to return with a hapless deer clutched in sharp talons, screeching loud enough to reach Kate and Daniel's ears half a mile away.

"Shit. They're domesticated," Daniel whispered.

Kate laughed again. "This is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Let's check it out."

The approached the farmer, a tall, muscular woman with brown skin and green eyes, waving at her. "Is she going to recognize us?" Daniel asked. Kate shrugged and continued to wave and smile till the woman saw them.

The woman was laughing at her son's glee on riding the lizard that had to be twice the size of an ox, but her smile faltered when she saw Kate and Daniel. She let go of the plow and fell to her knees in the dusty field.

Daniel glanced at Kate, unsure of what to do, but she walked forward and took the woman's hands and lifted her from the field. The woman kept her eyes down. "My Lords, I had prayed for Persi to bless the pterodactyls, I never meant to summon the two of you. Please forgive this humble servant."

To Daniel's ears she might have been describing how a nuclear reactor worked. Kate frowned. "Persi? I'm sorry, I don't know who you're talking about."

"The goddess of dinosaurs," the woman whispered. "Please forgive me."

Kate gasped and then grinned widely at Daniel. "Of course! New populations will give birth to new gods!"

Daniel realized with shock that she was right. They were idiots to think they'd be the only gods there. But at least the woman knew who they were, so they were still worshiped.

Daniel looked closely at the woman, whose lip trembled. She shook all over. He put his finger under her chin and forced her head up. Tears spilled from her eyes and she still wouldn't look at him.

"Hey. What's going on? Why are you so scared? We just wanted to see your farm and these awesome dinosaurs. Nothing's wrong."

"Yeah, calm down," said Kate, frowning. "Everything is fine. We're just wandering around, saw your farm. You didn't summon us. We're not angry."

The woman continued to weep silently. Kate sighed. Daniel removed his hand from her face and thought for a moment. What had she said? Something about the pterodactyls...

"Hey, what did you need Persi for, anyway? Something wrong with the pterodactyls?" he asked.

The woman sniffled and shook her head. "I can't bother you with my problems."

"Sure you can," Kate said. "We're here, Persi isn't; we don't have anything better to do."

"Come on," Daniel said, grinning at her.

She finally nodded. "Come with me. Daniel, get off the triceratops and go inside and get some lemonade."

Daniel opened his mouth to tell her that no matter how much he'd wanted to, he hadn't gotten on the triceratops, but then he realized the boy's name was Daniel. He slithered off the beast and grinned at Kate and Daniel before running inside.

He was missing an eye.

Daniel froze. Kate's hand wrapped around his wrist tightly and she shook her head slightly. Don't make a scene. Don't make a scene? What was he supposed to say? The boy was named for him, presumably, which was nice and all, but the fact that he was missing an eye gave Daniel a cold feeling, making him uncomfortably sure that it hadn't been an accident to remove it. He balled his fists and walked next to Kate, who kept her arm closed around his.

It was only his boyish desire to see a nesting pterodactyl that kept him walking with her and not razing the farm to the ground with fire. He knew he could do it; he could feel the power bubbling within him, looking for an outlet.

The woman, who said her name was Lania, inexplicably called their roost the "henhouse" - with the lizards nesting on outcroppings along the wall all the way up to the perch scores of feet above them. The farm kept seven nesting females and two intact males. Immature castrated males were kept for meat, she explained, and Daniel forgot his rage at seeing the beasts up close. One of the hens looked placidly at him as he reached out a hand to touch the warm leathery skin.

"And what's the problem with them?" Kate asked.

"Two of our best hens stopped producing. I was hoping Persi would bless them to get them laying again," Lania said. "Not that I really expected her to come. She's much too important to appear to a humble farmer and dino rancher."

With a furtive glance at Daniel, who shrugged, Kate lay her hand on the lizard. She looked quickly at Lania and then murmured something under her breath. She did the same for the second hen, and the woman burst into tears again, thanking them loudly. She begged them to come into the house for lemonade, and Kate accepted, but Daniel shook his head. He couldn't stand it anymore.

"You go ahead. I want to check out the triceratops barn," he said, and Kate nodded and followed the weeping, gibbering woman back to the farmhouse.

Daniel didn't want to see the boy. He couldn't handle it. He knew the boy was probably dying to see him, but Daniel couldn't face him. What kind of society rose out of someone blinding a boy to honor a god?

No. He did want to see him. He peered out of the henhouse and waited until Kate and Lania had gone into the house. He frowned. Trickster gods. Illusion, fooling, shape-change, those were the tools of the trade. Along with quick thinking.

Well. He could work on the quick thinking part. For now...

He blinked his eye as half the henhouse disappeared. His eye was on the side of his head, not the front, and his blind side was more pronounced than ever. He spread his wings and saw they were long and leathery. The hens looked at him with interest, but none tried to usher the pterodactyl chick back to a nest. He laughed, a high, clucking sound, and beat his small wings fiercely to climb the air up to the perch eighty feet above the ground.

The landscape spread around him and he could see the triceratops barn behind the house, the freshly turned fields, the neighboring farms, and several henhouses just like the one he was in. Further to the west was what looked like a larger city, and he made a point to tell Kate.

A warm wind came under his wings and he dropped off the perch and soared over the farmhouse. Delicious and intoxicating, flight made him forget for a moment his goal, and he circled the land lazily a moment before spotting the boy back out in the field, dejectedly leaning against the placid triceratops, which had wandered a bit and had dug a trench through the yard to get to a particularly tasty flowering bush.

Daniel came to perch atop the triceratops's neck ridge and watched the boy stare at the ground, the blue cloth around his head dusty and drab. He looked around when Daniel arrived.

"Hey there, chick," the boy said. "Glad someone wants to be around me. I'm supposed to be blessed by Daniel, and he didn't even want to meet me. I guess Daddy was right - I don't have the sight."

That's because they took your fucking eye, Daniel thought. He almost jumped down and turned back into human form, but he wanted to see what the boy would say when he didn't know his god was listening.

"I just wanted him to be proud of me. All the other seers are cool. They see things. I don't see anything. I wonder if I should pretend."

Daniel would have smacked his head if he'd not had wings. The kid was actually talking about prophesy. That made sense - they thought the kid was touched by god, and therefore they took his eye and made him special. Or maybe they took his eye to give him the sight.

We're out of touch for a couple of days and look what they've done. This may be harder than we thought, he thought.

He hopped down from the triceratops's neck and became himself again. The boy cried out and fell back against the lizard, who didn't even budge, her great bulk more than enough to take his weight.

Daniel put his hands out in a placating manner. "Hey, calm down. It's cool. I just want you to listen, okay?"

The boy tried to fall to his knees, but Daniel caught his shoulders. "You have one job here. Listen to me. Can you do that?"

The boy looked up at him with an eye the color of his mother's and nodded, clearly terrified.

"I don't know why the churches around here think it's cool to half-blind kids and say they have sight given by me, but this is the first I've heard about it. I didn't tell them to blind you and I'm so damn sorry they did."

He stopped and swallowed, the anger choking him again. "Does it still hurt?"

The boy nodded. "Mama says it's the sight coming on me."

Daniel gritted his teeth. "No, that's the pain from your eye being removed." He put his hand on the boy's face, and his scars disappeared. His remaining eye grew wide, and he tried to fall to his knees again.

"Thank you, Lord. The pain is gone. Oh, thank you."

Daniel pulled him up again. "I don't think I can give you the eye back, though. I can't fix my own, after all. Kate might be able to-" he stopped at the boy's vigorous head shaking.

"No, Lord, I don't want the eye back. I'd rather have the sight like the other boys do."

Daniel sighed. "Look, I told you, I didn't touch anyone and give them sight. You were wondering if you should start pretending you have it. I guarantee that they're doing that exact thing. They may convince themselves that they are seeing something, but I promise I'm not sending them anything."

He paused and stared, unfocused, into sky. Then he smiled at the boy.

"Daniel. Do you really want to have the sight? Be my prophet? Spread my word? The real Word of Daniel?"

The boy's jaw dropped. He nodded slowly, his eye wide.

Daniel grinned. "Okay then. You know you'll be the only kid with the real sight. And since I have no idea what bullshit they're spouting in my name if they're blinding kids for Christ's sake, it's likely you won't be saying the same as the other seers. They'll call you the liar. Are you cool with that?"

He nodded again. "To spread Your word, I'd lose the other eye, Lord."

The utter devotion on his face made Daniel's soul ache, but he smiled anyway. He had no idea how to do it, but he figured putting his hand on the kid's head and throwing some divine will or something in there would work. He put his hand over the boy's head and closed his eye.

Her eyes, Coyote's yellow eyes, hovered in his vision, and he thought he heard her laughing. And then something passed from him to the boy; it felt like a searing heat went from his hand and out into the boy's head. The boy fell down, convulsing, and Daniel dropped to his knees, horrified.

"Are you okay? I'm sorry, I didn't know," he babbled, but stopped when the boy's eye flew open.

"He is the trickster who protects his own," the boy hissed, his green eye staring blindly at nothing. "Blind not your sons or else feel his wrath. The pterodactyl is his animal, the desert his home."

"Huh. That's about right," Daniel said, sitting back on his heels as the boy slowly got to his hands and knees.

"I will serve you, Lord. Until my end days," he said humbly, bowing his head.

"Thank you," was all Daniel managed to say.

He helped the boy to his feet and supported him as he staggered. "Do you think your Mama has any more of that lemonade left?" he asked.

The boy nodded. "Lord, may I ask a question?"

"Anything."

"Who is Christ?"

Daniel laughed. "He was a guy I knew once. He was pretty cool. I'll tell you about him later. Let's head inside, imbuing a kid with the touch of God takes it out of you."

CHAPTER FOUR

"I don't get it, Kate. How can they be so misguided as to blind their own kids?"

Kate walked with her head down, wondering why the road was so disorienting. It was wrong somehow.

"I don't know. Think about how many terrible things people did back home in the name of the God of Abraham. So many people interpreting the Word differently. As Douglas Adams once said, Christ's message was essentially "wouldn't it be great if everyone were nice to each other for a change?" and people STILL misinterpreted that."

"But I don't feel like I've given any messages, good or bad. I've been kinda busy with you. I haven't had time to say, "Be nice to each other" or "Blind your kids" or "Eat your veggies.""

"It would be nice if we could get some guidance. That's been the worst part of this whole thing," Kate said. "We could have asked Christ why he did miracles sometimes and not others. So many people have begged for proof of a god and nothing happens, but now we know they did - we do - exist." She frowned at the road. "I'd like to head into the city in disguise. Can we do that?"

"Sure. Hard for me to hide this, though," Daniel pointed to his blind side. "It seems to be a rather prominent feature around here."

Kate stopped walking and appraised him. "Shape-changing isn't a problem with you, is it?"

"Well, I did the pterodactyl thing pretty easily, yeah."

"Then you just turn into an animal. If you prefer, make it something shaggy, like a dog or horse. Something with hair that can cover your eye."

He grinned at her. "If you're going to ride me, I'd prefer it not to be my back."

She laughed. "Dog, then?"

He sighed. "The coyote part of me objects loudly, but you're probably right." He concentrated briefly, and then there was a shaggy white dog where Daniel used to be.

Kate knelt in the road and arranged the hair on the dog's head to cover the blind eye. The dog licked her hand. She grinned.

"That'll do."

She stood up and watched the dog romp through the woods. She realized she had no idea what the clothing looked like here, and then just guessed, creating with her divine will a pair of brown boots, green pants, and a white blouse. Nice, rugged, generic, she assumed. Her brown hair she willed blonde - then red, because she'd always wanted to be a redhead.

She peered at the road again and then laughed. She realized what was wrong. It was the wrong width. She'd been fascinated with the fact that Earth roads were the size they were because of the wagon wheel width from the times of ancient Rome. One of those situations where traditions held on for quite a long time. This road was wider - not a lot, but it was noticeable.

A clattering came from behind her, and she stepped out of the road to see exactly why the road was so wide. The wide wagon was pulled not by four horses, but four dinosaurs. Kate didn't know the names of them, but they each walked upright and had powerful, quick hind legs. She wondered if she were smart in not pushing Daniel to become a horse. She wondered if any familiar beasts of burden were used here.

The wagon clattered by, the man sitting in the driver's seat ignoring her. In the back he had raw bars of metal stacked, gleaming dully in the midday sun.

Daniel came up beside her and sat down. "Maybe I should have told you to become a dinosaur," she said.

He barked once and shook his head, his hair flying around.

"Okay, I get it," she said, arranging his hair to cover his eye again. "Dinos aren't shaggy. Let's head into town and see what's up."

Daniel barked once more and they started walking again.

The city was much more technologically advanced than Kate had expected. As they crested the hill that led to the city, she gasped as she saw towers rising over the smaller buildings, shiny and brass, with different insignias over the roofs like beacons.

She stared for a moment. "This is really going to wreak havoc on any evolution versus creationism debates, isn't it? Dammit. I was on the evolution side."

Daniel barked once, and Kate was pretty sure he was laughing at her.

"Did I ever tell you about the watch my mom gave me? This was before you moved to town, when we were kids." Daniel whined, and she continued. "Mom gave me a real watch, one that wound. I loved it. But I was a dumb, curious kid. I wanted to see how it worked. I took the thing apart and laid out all the gears and springs to look at them. Mom walked in on me and yelled at me. Scared me to death. I whacked the desk and the innards of my watch went flying, then they all clattered and bounced around my room and were gone."

She paused and stared at the city as another dino-pulled cart passed them. "I was finding bits of watch in my bed, clothes, and carpet for years after. I kept each piece in a bag, promising myself I'd put it back together some day. I never did."

Daniel barked, and she grinned. "I guess so.”

"I am getting a little freaked, honestly," she said as they headed toward the city. "I mean, this world is evolving too fast. How can we hope to influence people if they go from amoeba to industrial age in forty-eight hours?"

Kate got the feeling of being completely out of her element as she neared the city. Buildings like this hadn't existed on Earth, none that she had ever seen, anyway. Most had some sort of wooden or stone foundation, but they seemed to effortlessly flow into brass or iron or steel towers and spires. One tower had a wooden lift attached with an intricate system of pulleys climbing the outside of a shining brass tower with a great cog rising from the roof. Another huge building had pipes and ducts running in and out of the exterior walls, and an intricate spider web of ducts ran both into the ground and high above the city, connecting the tower to other towers. Habitrails? Steam ducts? Kate had no idea.

And the people! Well, Kate realized quickly she was dressed as a country rube, as many of the people clearly looked at her as if she were an unwanted visitor. Nobility walked with a certain Victorian air, with waistcoats and corsets and skirts and hats, and more blue-collar types scurried around in coveralls and boots, grime and scars covering their hands. One woman stumbled in front of Kate, dumping her box of cogs and springs into the dirt. She swore, and Kate bent to help her.

Her forearms were covered in tattoos making her look like the interior of a clock. She muttered swear words to herself as she looked around the dirt for the dropped clock parts, and when Kate reached out her hand to help, the woman batted her away.

The moment her hand touched Kate's however, her eyes went wide and she stared at Kate.

Kate smiled and said, "I'm sorry. Can I help?"

The woman nodded mutely and sat down in the dirt, mindless of the annoyed people skirting around her.

Kate thought of all the clock pieces lost in her room, and that forgotten bag with some - but never all - of the parts inside. She ran her hand lightly over the dirty street and felt each spring, cog and gear jump into her hand. She dropped them into the box. "That should be everything."

The woman licked her lips and asked in an awed voice, "Are you..."

"My name's Kate. What's yours?" Kate ignored the low growl at her side.

"Gabrielle," she whispered. "I'm a tinkerer here."

Kate got to her feet and helped Gabrielle up. "Can you tell me where "here" is? I'm afraid I'm new. Quite literally."

Gabrielle nodded. "You're in Dauphine, Lady."

"Oh, I'm no lady, but thank you. Can you tell me if there are any, ah, places of worship in the city?"

Gabrielle pointed down the main road. "The heart of the city beats with two chambers, the organic chamber of Daniel the One-Eyed, and the synthetic chamber of Kate the Reborn."

"Organic and synthetic. Interesting. Kinda scary, too," Kate said, more to herself than Gabrielle.

"Would you like me to take you there?" Gabrielle asked.

"Oh, that's not necessary. You were clearly in a rush to get somewhere. I wouldn't want to make you late," Kate protested.

"It's no trouble, really," she said eagerly.

Kate put her hand on Gabrielle's arm once more. "Listen. You have an idea of who I am, and you may or may not be right, but I would appreciate it if you didn't let anyone else know your assumptions. Can I count on you?"

Gabrielle nodded once, her eyes wide at Kate's touch. "Yes, my Lady."

Kate looked around at the finely-dressed nobility or the practically-dressed workers. "I think you'd better stop calling me that, too, as no one would believe I'm worthy of the title. Kate is fine."

"Ah, no one names their children after the goddess," Gabrielle said.

"They don't? But they name their sons Daniel," Kate said, frowning.

"With all due respect, Daniel is a god who speaks to our sons, we have a closer relationship with him. Kate is distant, removed, to be worshiped and revered." Her face burned and she looked at the ground, clearly reluctant to tell these things.

Kate sighed and Daniel whined at her feet. "This is more complicated than I thought it would be. Yes, please take me to these chamber things. And call me Jennifer or something. A normal name. Sheesh."

Gabrielle nodded.

Distant? She was distant? She had been busy being dead, thanks very much. Kate tried not to let her agitation show, as people began giving them a wide berth and dogs whined and barked as she walked past.

Daniel kept close to her leg, pressing against her. He butted his head against her and she was comforted by his presence.

Despite her annoyance, Kate continued to gape at the city's wonders. People moved from one high tower to another by gondolas and zip lines, and she started to realize that several main cables led from towers to the tallest tower in the center of the city. As they reached the center, Kate saw zeppelins through the towers on the far side of the city and wondered if there was an airship station on the other side.

Beyond the grand central tower lay an oddly placid little park. Within the park stood two tall buildings.

"Okay...," Kate said. "Seems influence isn't our problem..."

While every other building in the city had been a combination of organic and synthetic, wood and stone and brass and steel, these two buildings were starkly different. The one on Kate's left was made of a white metal that shone in the sun, rising nearly as high as the main towers of the city; rosy glass dotted the brass front doors and in front of this cold majesty sat a massive bronze statue of a dead tree.

The other building was more organic, made of wood and stone, only five or six stories compared to the vast tower on the left. Behind it, however, was what Kate recognized as a henhouse- a tall wooden silo that housed pterodactyls. In front of the church was a beautiful wooden carving of a wooden katana buried halfway into a block. Vines twinned around the arch of the door and roses climbed the base of the sword statue.

Kate looked from one to the other, and Daniel snorted beside her.

"No kidding," she muttered.

Gabrielle stopped between the two and pointed to the wooden one. "That is the church of Daniel One-Eye. And that," she indicated the metal tower, "is the church of Kate the Reborn."

Daniel barked once and Kate looked at the direction he was facing.

Kate quickly saw what his superior canine ears had picked up - a mob of boys approached them. Kate gasped and knelt quickly, putting her hands on Daniel. "Do nothing, not yet. Please wait," she whispered as he started to shake with agitation. He whined low in his throat.

Each boy had a rag across his face - the proclaimed seers of the Church of Daniel One-Eye. They bore before them a limp figure with a bloody face.

They paid no attention to Kate or Gabrielle as they stormed past, screaming in outrage, to pound on the door of the wooden church.

A priest in a blue robe, also missing an eye, opened the door and smiled at them. "Boys, what brings you here? Worship isn't until the Day of the Weeping Heart."

Gabrielle gasped as they threw the unconscious boy to the feet of the priest. He frowned, but didn't look shocked. "What did Daniel do, boys?"

The tallest of the boys spat as he spoke. "He doesn't deserve the name Daniel. He came to us claiming to have been touched by the god, and said He didn't want us to have our eyes removed to receive His divine will! He said he knew Daniel's will and would tell us, and that we were all wrong!"

The priest's face was stony. "That is blasphemy, boys. But I think you took good care of it. I'll draw up the notice to have him and his family excommunicated. As for him," he said, looking at the boy, "continue disciplining him."

The boys grabbed Daniel's body and carried it to the statue and began hoisting him to be tied to the sword. Some sort of public humiliation, Kate thought, but her stomach turned bitter and cold when she saw his face.

They had taken his other eye.

Daniel broke into a flurry of barking and charged forward, and Kate followed. She could feel her disguise melt away, could feel anger - gods, the power in that anger - coursing through her, making her nearly faint with its heat. Daniel jumped, his body morphing as he did so, landing atop the statue as a human.

The boys screamed and tried to scatter, but Daniel gestured, and they all fell as if something heavy had fallen on them. He took gently the boy's body from the terrified mob leader and then punched the leader in the face, watching him fall from the statue.

The priest came to the door of the church and fell to his knees in horror.

"You monsters," Daniel hissed, tears streaming from his eye. "You think this was a good idea, to blind these boys, thinking I'd bless them? I have touched one person on this world, and that's this kid here. He tried to carry my Word to you and this is how you treated him. Nothing you have done has been in my name. Consider yourself cursed. Consider yourself damned for all I care. May you burn in whatever hell you've created for yourself, in our names."

He stroked the boy's face and Kate saw the flesh knit back together, but the eye did not return. Daniel swore again, tossed the boy atop his back, and changed into a pterodactyl. He flew away, carrying the boy, back toward the farmhouse.

Kate did not weep. The boys still lay trapped on the ground, and the priest sobbed in the doorway.

"Gabrielle," she said. The woman was beside her in an instant. "Go inside My church and get My priestess."

Everyone stared at her. A crowd began to grow as people in the city had spotted the huge pterodactyl soaring, screaming above them, and had come to find out the fuss.

When the brass doors opened behind her and two people exited the church, she began to speak. "We had hoped to create in you a sense of love, of purpose. We need quite a lot from you people in the coming years. But we can't ask anything from you if you're going to be complete assholes from the get-go."

She laughed bitterly. "You know, when I was a girl, I used to hear stories of gods being vengeful, and I thought it was a terrible thing. Now I see the other side. You think you know Us, but you have no freaking clue. Daniel's not really happy about having only one eye, he doesn't want that to be how he's worshiped. Me, well, in my worldview, this world didn't exist until about two days ago. And before that, I haven't been untouchable; I was dead.

"Maybe it's Our fault. Maybe We should have considered how to build religions from the start. So We failed you there. But honestly. This," she indicated the mob of boys still lying in the dirt, "is what you thought was a good idea?"

She looked at her priestess, standing beside Gabrielle. She was dressed like Gabrielle, her tinker's coveralls clearly ornamental as they were made of soft silk and unblemished. Kate pointed to her. "You. Tell me. Do you do any of this in My name? Mutilate children? Encourage My followers to fall on each other like a pack of dogs?"

The woman shook her head, her freckled skin pale. Kate looked at Gabrielle. "Is she lying?"

"The followers of Daniel have been more emotional and primal," Gabrielle said. "The followers of Kate are peaceful."

"Yeah. That will likely change," Kate said, the anger a hot rush in her head. "Priestess. Gabrielle. And..." she looked at the boys. She pointed to the smallest boy and to the mob leader, nursing a bloody nose. "You two. Come here."

The four stood in front of her. Kate leaned forward and kissed Gabrielle and the Priestess on their foreheads. "Gather your families and get to safety. My mark will keep you and yours safe. Go. Quickly. You'll hear from me again."

The women's eyes opened in horror, and they dashed away—Gabrielle dragging the priestess who had tried to return to the church.

Kate looked at the boys. She wanted to be cruel, violent, bloody. She settled for cruel. Neither would look her in the face. She touched the mob leader's chin and forced him to look at her, fearful and still defiant. She gritted her teeth and said, "Remember what has happened here today. Remember what Daniel said. You want to be His representatives? His seers? You'll have it."

She passed her hand in front of the mob leader's face, taking his sight but not his eye. He cried out. The smaller boy cringed when she came near him, but she only kissed him on the forehead. "He will never see again. It is your job to lead him around as you preach the word of Daniel. It starts with "Don't be an ass." Get him out of here."

The smaller boy grabbed the larger and they ran, the older one wailing.

Kate looked at the churches, the beautiful city that had been built on complete misinterpretations of hers and Daniel’s Word, and tears finally sprang to her eyes. She turned from the crowd and walked away.

Once, her tears had created a world. Now, they caught fire where they hit the ground, growing at an alarming rate with nothing to fuel them other than her great anger. The citizens screamed and ran past her as the fires engulfed the churches, and all organic touches, all that said Daniel in the city, caught fire. She didn't care who got free and who didn't as the fire spread as if sentient. She knew those who needed to carry Her message would get free.

She didn't pay attention to where she walked, she just plodded through the burning streets, still weeping, until she bumped into a rope ladder hanging in the middle of the street. No. It bumped into her. The airships and zeppelins were fleeing the inferno, tossed around by the rising heat. Not thinking, she grabbed hold of the ladder as it threatened to get out of her reach, and rose with the airship as it soared above the city. She looked down on the city as the metal towers began to topple, their organic foundations failing and the metal melting in the extreme temperatures. Cables snapped, whipping around and causing even more damage to the ruined city, flaming whips wrapping themselves around structures and pulling them down.

Kate could feel the souls as they let go of their bodies, the blaspheming priest, the mob of boys, but the others in the city were secure in their worship and their place in life. She mourned them, feeling not guilt but pity. And strong reservation that she would not let it happen again.

As the zeppelin left the destroyed city of Dauphine, Kate climbed the ladder to meet her pilot and to give instructions on where to take her.

CHAPTER FIVE

The zeppelin’s captain was an older woman, short, stocky, with a steel gray bun contrasting with her dark skin - and she nearly had a heart attack when Kate scaled the ladder and arrived, in full goddess glory, in the cockpit of the zeppelin.

“Jesus, woman, don’t get all worshiping and crash the airship!” Kate cried as the woman let go of the controls and bumped them with her arm as she knelt on the floor. The zeppelin began to do a lazy roll in the rising hot air, and Kate made a leap to steady them.

“Worship me when we’re on the ground, for now, just please fly this thing,” she said.

The woman nodded and took the controls from Kate and steadied the airship.

“Are you the only one aboard?” Kate asked.

She shook her head. “Managed to get my family out and on board. They’re strapped in the bunks. Didn’t have time to get the crew.”

“Can I do anything?” Kate asked, half to herself and half to the woman. She honestly didn’t know if she had the skill to do much of anything, but she figured she’d offer since she was a stowaway.

The woman shook her head. “Now that we’re out of the city, flying should be pretty easy. It was dicey there for a bit, what with the inferno. Does my Lady know what happened?”

Kate grew very quiet and watched the zeppelin carry them north. “What is your name?”

"Alicia, my lady.”

“And tell me, Alicia, do you have sons you think are seers of the god Daniel?”

She shook her head. “No, ma’am, I never wished to have my boys tested for the sight. I wanted them whole. You can’t pilot an airship with one eye.”

Kate put her hand on Alicia's shoulder. “We never wanted the boys mutilated, Alicia. I’m proud that you thought of your boys’ welfare above a decree of the church.

“As for what happened to the city,” she added softly, “it was a reminder to people not to misinterpret or think they know the will of the gods, especially when it pertains to hurting their own children. The world is young and already worship and religion have gotten out of control. We have much work to do.”

Alicia made sure the ship was on a steady course and then knelt again. What was with all the kneeling? What was the point?

“My home is destroyed, this ship is all I have now. May I and my family use it to serve you?”

Kate blanched. She had destroyed this woman’s home, and god- er, well, someone - knew how many other airships, and she was offering herself to Kate’s service?

She nodded slowly. “That would be very helpful, thank you. Can you go a little more north? We’re looking to catch up with Daniel.”

The woman nodded, and readjusted her direction. Soon, Lania’s farmhouse came into view and Kate instructed her to anchor the zeppelin in the field. Alicia instructed Kate to hold the airship steady as she threw out lines from the center open hatch. She pulled a pair of goggles over her eyes, secured a hammer and four spikes to her belt, slipped on some heavy - looked like dinosaur leather - gloves. She grinned at Kate once, then grabbed one of the lines and, with surprising nimbleness, jumped out of the hatch. Kate couldn’t see her once she’d jumped, and merely waited until the lines grew taut and the airship was steadied.

The door at the rear of the cockpit slid open and a small boy peeked his head out. “Mama? Ursula was on my bunk again, and …” he trailed off as he saw Kate.

“Hey, there,” she said. “Your mama just anchored the ship. She’ll be back up in a minute, I bet.”

He ducked back into his room and slammed the door. Kate grinned, her mood lightened for the first time in a while. She didn’t realize how much she enjoyed seeing a boy with his face completely whole.

Man. Poor Daniel, she thought. She walked to the open hatch and nearly bonked heads with Alicia, who had climbed the ladder.

“Your son peeked out. He was complaining something about Ursula,” Kate said, grinning.

Alicia sighed. “I know, those two are always going at it.”

“How many kids?”

“Five,” she said. “My husband died three years ago shortly after the birth of my baby, and we’ve been on our own for a while.”

“Wow. And I thought I had it bad with a bunch of gods in my head,” Kate said. At Alicia's confused look, she added, “Never mind. Can you wait here for me? I shouldn’t be long.”

Alicia nodded. “Of course, my lady.”

“Oh,” Kate said, poised at the ladder. “You can call me Kate. Promise.”

Kate had hoped she could rappel and be awesome like Alicia, but she didn’t trust herself. She was a goddess, but that didn’t mean she had to be stupid.

Alicia's airship had gathered attention, and Lania and her husband, Norbert had come out of the farmhouse to watch Kate’s descent.

She waved at them.

Lania looked up at the great airship and then back at Kate. Tears still leaked from her wide eyes.

“Did Daniel make it back here with your son?” Kate asked.

Lania nodded.

“And is he…okay?”

“My Lord took his pain away,” she said, looking down at the ground.

Kate nodded.

“The people who did this to your son - the church itself - are gone. Daniel and I are going to speak with you and your son. We’re going to depend on you to begin spreading our word. Are you willing?”

They both fell to their knees, Lania still weeping, and for the first time Kate understood why they knelt.

******

“A zeppelin.”

Daniel stood at the edge of the field beside Kate, staring in disbelief. “Where the hell did you find a zeppelin?”

Kate laughed. “Well, it kinda ran into me. I was busy burning the city down when the ladder whacked me in the head. Driven by a single mom and her kids. No crew.”

“And that’s how we’re getting around?”

Kate nodded.

“That is so awesome,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, flying around as a dinosaur is pretty damn cool, but shit. A zeppelin.”

They approached the hanging ladder and began to climb, Kate first.

“Do you think I upset them?” Kate asked.

Daniel looked up and tried not to be distracted by the view. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Well, he’s not the tragic martyr now. He has one eye back.”

“Kate, he doesn’t need to be blind for effect. That’s definitely not worth it. He survived the destruction of Dauphine by riding on the back of a god. He doesn’t need to be fully blind to get his message across.”

She was silent a bit as she climbed.

“You know,” he said. “Jesus did make blind men see too. And I don’t think he felt weird about it.”

“I don’t think I feel weird about healing the kid. I feel weird about not being able to heal you.”

This was news to Daniel. “Have you tried?”

“Several times. When I first came back. When we made love. When you were a dog. I can’t do it.”

“It’s okay, babe. I think this is how I’m supposed to be. I’m getting used to it. And hey, I’m glad you were able to help him. I wasn’t. Something about me and eyes and healing. Just doesn’t happen.”

Kate had reached the top of the ladder and pulled herself to sit at the edge of the hatch. “Well, if we were omnipotent, this wouldn’t be much of a story, would it? Just wave your hand and say, “Everything’s peachy!””

Daniel made a face at her. “Then we’d be back in the original heaven, wouldn’t we?” He climbed through the hatch and looked around. “And no one wants that. I do, however, want this.”

Kate hadn’t told him much about the zeppelin, and he’d only seen it from the bottom. The massive blimp, about fifty yards across, was made of tough golden fabric, and the words “THE SHERIDAN" were painted on the underside in brown. Strong brass railings surrounded the deck entirely, and the controls at the helm looked to be a cross between a sailboat and a train. The underside of the deck rumbled as Alicia readied the steam engines to drive the great propeller at the stern, and a teenage girl watched the gauges that looked to correspond with the gas pressure in the balloon that held them aloft.

“She’s been busy,” Kate said, rubbing her fingerprints off the shiny brass. “It was pretty dirty when I was on earlier.”

“She’s the chariot of the gods now, she wants to make a good impression,” Daniel said.

The woman stopped priming the engines and knelt on the deck as she noticed they were there. The girl followed her mother’s example and dropped to her knees. Kate glanced at Daniel. “Can you help me do something about this?”

He shrugged. After the issue with his ‘church’ he didn’t see it so bad that people were reverential toward him and Kate. They might start to listen, now.

Kate stuck her tongue out at him and walked up to the woman. “You’ve gotta stop doing this, Alicia, else we might crash. We understand you respect us. And thank you for it. But let me know how the ship’s doing, okay?”

“She’s almost ready to go, my Lady,” Alicia said, getting to her feet.

“Great,” Kate said. “Can you introduce me to your crew?”

“This is my oldest, Sarah,” Kate said. “She was keeping the young ones safe when we left the city. She’s the only one qualified to be my crew. Sarah, go get your brothers and sisters.” The girl, whose long hair was braided in cornrows, bobbed her head and ran to the door that led to the bunks.

“We’ve got the twins Ursula and Sam, they’re eight. James is ten, and the baby, Kelly, is three,” Alicia said as the children filed out of the bunks. James was sullen and pudgy, built like his mother. The fraternal twins Ursula and Sam were rail thin, and looked down at the deck shyly. The girl Kelly held her big sister’s hand and stared unabashedly at the gods. Daniel grinned at her.

“Are you guys ready to be our crew?” Daniel asked.

“Yes, Lord,” the kids mumbled.

Daniel sighed. “This is going to be tougher than I thought, isn’t it?” he asked Kate. She smiled ruefully.

Kelly squirmed out of her sister’s grasp and ran on her stumpy legs toward Daniel. She wrapped her arms around his leg and giggled. “Danny!”

Kate snorted. “Well, you’ve won one of them over.”

Daniel bent down and picked up the girl, who chortled as he settled her on his hip. “Yes,” came her mother’s dry voice from behind him. “She’s the shy one. We’re worried about her.”

Daniel laughed. “I can see why. Is she afraid of heights?”

Alicia looked affronted. “Of course not. They all grew up on airships.”

Daniel walked to the railing and showed Kelly the henhouse with the pterodactyls sunning themselves. “Birdy!” she shouted.

“I guess so,” he agreed.

Kate was speaking with Alicia about their next stop, but Daniel was just happy to look at the view and think - hope - that they had made an impact on the people.

The people who had survived, anyway.

Alicia headed to the helm and the propeller increased speed. The kids headed back to their bunks, shepherded by their sister, and Kate joined Daniel at the railing.

“So we have the oldest and the youngest on our sides,” Kate said, watching the girl clutch at Daniel’s bandage. “The middle ones, well…”

“Kate, we destroyed their home, their city, their business. Can you blame them?”

“No. We didn’t. I did.” Kate looked down at the farm and waved to Daniel, Lania, and Norbert who had come out to wave good-bye at them as Sarah rappelled down to release the airship from her anchors. She rose with the ship, clinging to the ladder, and was soon back on the deck with them.

“You saved a boy. I tore down the city,” she said, biting her lip.

“You had to, Kate. If you hadn’t, they would have kept doing it. Or misinterpreted. We have a job to do here. And we need to do it right. We weren’t. We can now.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes. Oh shit, she’s gonna make another world or burn something else down, Daniel thought, but they were just regular tears she wiped away hastily.

“Here,” Daniel said, and passed her the grinning toddler. “We’re going to try again. I think they get us now. We’ve got Daniel and Lania and Norbert. They said they would rebuild the city. We’ve got the people you saved in the city. We’ve got Alicia. And soon we’ll have her kids.”

Kate took the girl and held her close, and the girl pulled at Kate’s hair and laughed again. Daniel, his arms now free, spread them out to encompass the ship. “And we’ve got this awesome zeppelin!”

Kate smiled through her tears at him, and he put his arm around her. “And you’ve got me. We’ll be okay. I promise.”

She nodded, her tears falling on the baby’s forehead as the zeppelin rose above the woods. Alicia called from the helm, “Next stop, the northern city of Meridian. We should be there in about nine hours. First thing in the morning if we fly through the night.”

The airship turned and Kate and Daniel watched the ruins of the city burn behind them as they headed into the night.

CHAPTER SIX

Kate peered at Daniel though the holes in her hammock. After the events of the day, she really wanted to curl up beside him, but clearly the thin hammocks offered nothing but uncomfortable mushing of bodies if more than one person was involved.

Besides, Kelly was sacked out on Daniel’s chest. When her sister had tried to take her out of his arms, she screeched and refused, and Daniel said she could sleep with him if she wanted. Alicia had no objection, so the girl was now drooling on Daniel’s shirt and dreaming, no doubt, of the fantastic life she was destined to have considering she now slept on a god.

Or maybe she just dreamed of a new doll. Kate had no idea. Daniel snored quietly and shifted in his hammock. Alicia had given them the captain’s quarters, as she had to fly the airship, and the children were bunked in the adjacent room. Across the room was Alicia's large captain’s desk, with rolls of maps neatly stacked on a shelf behind. Behind that was the wide stern window, showing nothing but black.

Kate sighed, not tired in the least, and struggled out of her hammock. She climbed the narrow staircase and exited onto the quarterdeck. Lanterns hung from the cables and cast an eerie light on the brass pipes moving from the engine under the deck to the gauges near the helm. The fat bag of the blimp bulged above her and felt much closer than it had during the day.

She walked with a purposeful step, hoping not to scare Alicia, but the woman didn’t look around as she stared ahead into the darkness. “Good evening, my Lady,” she said, as Kate came up behind her.

“How is it going?”

“Honestly, I am a little nervous. I mean, me and mine will take you to hell itself if that is what you want, but Meridian is something else.”

Kate had felt a particular feeling against the North since she had come back to life. It was as if she and North were repelling magnets. . It was stronger on the ground, though; from the air, it was easier to resist. Still, she had no idea why she felt this way. “What’s north besides Meridian?”

“All sorts of nasties. Sky pirate attacks increase the further north you get. Some people on foot have gone mad by going too far north. The priestesses tell us that is where the gods are born, and it’s not meant for mortals.”

“The Wasteland,” Kate murmured.

“What is the wasteland?”

“It’s the places between the afterlives. Sort of unclaimed god country. Gods fight to the death out there. You can get lost. And, apparently, you can create whole worlds from there. But it sounds as if it has even more qualities. I’m not sure if mortals can survive there. Tell me about the sky pirates.”

“What do you want to know?” Alicia's voice was flat. “They have fast, nimble ships, they disable, board, execute the crew, and take whatever cargo you have. If you have no useful cargo, they take hostages. If there are no useful hostages, well, at least they have a new ship now.”

Kate had the feeling she was treading on very tenuous ground here, and backed away slowly. “Well, I’m pretty sure Daniel and I can defend the ship if it comes down to that.”

Alicia continued to stare straight ahead into the night, her jaw clenching.

"Alicia,” Kate said, putting her hand on her arm. The woman finally looked at her, rage and terror in her wide eyes. “We will protect your family.”

The woman must have finally remembered who she was talking to, because she relaxed instantly. She frowned and looked at the floor. “My husband was carrying some cargo to Meridian when they attacked. They took the ship and executed the crew.” She wiped her eyes. “Or at least, that’s what the remaining witness tells me. They usually leave one alive. They like to sow the fear, you see. I just wish I had his body to give it proper rites.”

Kate embraced the woman, calming her sobs. When she had finally relaxed and gone back to the helm, she sighed and said, “It's good we're headed for Meridian, though. It's the closest port and the ship isn’t equipped for a long travel. My kids barely made it out with a change of clothes. We’re left with what you see, after the fall of Dauphine.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Kate said. “It had to be done, but I am sorry for your loss.”

Alicia nodded once. “I don’t pretend to understand or judge, my Lady. Only serve.”

“I’ll do what I can to help stock the ship,” Kate said. “I think I can manage that.” She winked at Alicia, whose eyes widened in surprise, then the woman laughed.

Kate found it an odd sensation to speak and laugh with another woman, and kept her company as they sailed through the night, the steam-powered propeller whirring behind them. When the sun rose, it nearly blinded Kate with the glare off the towers straight ahead of them.

“Meridian,” Alicia said.

Kate squinted and gasped. “Uh, Alicia, is it my imagination or are the buildings not touching the ground there?”

Alicia grimaced. “It’s Meridian’s proximity to the north. Things aren’t always… right… here. Things are calmer toward the ocean," she gestured east where Kate could see the glint of water on the horizon. "But settling there proved to be dangerous with local animals."

A door opened behind them, and Sarah’s frightened voice cut through the hazy dawn. “Mama, what are you doing? It’s feeding time!”

Alicia swore - interestingly enough, an oath that involved Kate’s erect nipples, but she didn’t have time react to it - grabbed the controls and dipped the zeppelin sharply down toward the ground. At that point, from the clouds above them, a great moaning sound reverberated through the sky and a huge translucent shape dove down and gracefully soared through the air in front of them. It was five times as large as a house. Much larger than the airship. Kate grasped the railing and stared.

“Sarah, get the gun!” cried Alicia as she continued to direct the air ship in a sharp dive. Sarah ran back down the stairs below deck.

“What the fuck is that?” screamed Kate.

“It’s an air whale,” said Alicia, monitoring the gauges and flipping some switches. “They don’t eat humans, but a collision with them will knock you out of the sky. And when they’re feeding, they’re not paying attention.”

Kate stared at the diaphanous form moving lazily in the clouds, and couldn’t imagine it hurting anything. Then it zeroed in on a V of flying birds and devoured a good seventy-five percent of them. Now that she was aware of them, she could see them all awakening, moving in and out of the clouds, devouring birds when they could.

“They’re not dangerous when translucent, but-" Alicia said, and at that point one of the whales dove straight down and hit a lake below with a massive splash. Alicia continued. “Right after they’ve surfaced they’re slower, but much more solid. And much more dangerous.”

The whale came back up from the lake, a deep blue color, and Alicia pulled the controls to the right—hard—and narrowly dodged the whale as it soared past them and higher up into the clouds.

“What the hell is going on?” came a voice from behind them. Daniel stormed onto the deck, his hair a haphazard mess and clutching a chortling Kelly to his chest. He had a wet spot on his shirt where she had drooled all night, and if Kate hadn’t been holding desperately to the railing, she would have laughed.

“Air whales,” she called. "Swim in air. Breathe water. Dangerous."

“Air whales. Right. Makes perfect sense.”

“Mama, go inland!” called Sarah, hefting what looked like a rocket launcher on her shoulder. She tethered herself to a railing and used both hands to steady her gun. She aimed and fired, and with a FOOM the gun went off and she winced as she controlled the kickback.

“What is that?” Kate called as Alicia turned the zeppelin away from bodies of water.

“Chicken carcasses,” Alicia said grimly, still struggling with the controls. “They’ll converge on that area instead of here. My Lord, I trust you have Kelly? And my kids are safe in the bunk?”

“Yeah, as safe as they can be with this crazy navigation!” Daniel said. Kelly waved her hands around, gleeful in the chaos as Daniel held her tightly. “Kate, what the hell is wrong with you?” Daniel threw up his hand and the air around the zeppelin shimmered.

Kate shook her head, astonished at her own stupidity. "Alicia, steady the ship. We’ll be fine.”

“We will?”

“Daniel’s thrown a force field around the ship,” she said.

“Nope,” Daniel said, approaching them. “I just made the ship look like another whale. I assume they don’t collide in midair?”

Alicia shook her head mutely, and the ship leveled.

Daniel came up beside her. “What happened to you?”

“I—forgot, I guess.” Kate’s face was hot with her blush. She wouldn’t meet Daniel’s eye.

“Dude. You’re a god. You have created two worlds. You could have turned the whales to pigeons.”

“Come on, Daniel, it was AIR WHALES. How do you think on your feet when you’re in the air, surrounded by animals that should weigh thirty tons and be in the sea? Cut me some slack, I can’t think powerful goddess all the time.”

“Well you’re gonna have to,” he said. “Cause it’s just going to get dicier from here on out.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

He lost his obvious irritation and put his arm around her, grinning. “Well, when you forgot what power you had, you just got us a little in danger with the freaky air mammals. When I forgot, I brought down heaven and hell.”

Kate looked at him and saw the amusement in his face. “Yeah. We’ve got some weird shit ahead.”

He handed Kelly to her sister, who had untethered herself from the railing and had put down the huge chicken gun. He put his hand on Kate’s shoulder and said, “Tell me.”

They left Alicia and Sarah to finish the trek into the strange floating city and went below deck to talk.

CHAPTER SEVEN

According to Alicia, Meridian was a city that floated due to its proximity to the Wasteland, what she called the Dark. It consisted solely of several tall buildings with no solid roads linking them. The city officials had decided it was safer to tether the city to a rocky plain at the foot of a cliff instead of risk it wafting into the Wasteland, especially with the improbability storms that raged through in the wintertime. Hundreds of cables stretched from anchors in the city to the rocks below to keep the buildings stationary, but it still tossed about in storms.

It was a port of call for all sorts, everyone from adventurers to merchant ships. Although travel further north to the Wasteland was incredibly dangerous for mortals, it was a lucrative trip to make. Scientists had discovered that they could transmute sand from the Wasteland into a bizarre kind of chaos energy that was vital in propelling some airships and also fueled some of the more eccentric weaponry, and the suppliers in Meridian did a roaring trade in the bottled energy. Extremely dangerous to collect, and even more dangerous to transmute, the stuff was mind bogglingly expensive and no price was too high for eager air ship pilots or wealthy tinkers. Some desperate inventors would sell everything they owned except their tools in order to get enough money to buy chaos energy because they knew that the things they could build that used the energy would very likely make them wealthy in a matter of weeks.

Not all inventors made it big, though, and those who failed were abandoned in Meridian with no money to make it out of the city. Kate and Daniel hadn’t seen the terrain because they had traveled at night, but Meridian was surrounded on three sides by steep mountains and cliffs; nearly impossible to reach by foot. And with air ships, no one bothered to try. Stuck with no money, the inventors would rappel down the cables to the ground below and live there, where the maddening energy was much stronger. Some would steal away into the Wasteland to farm what raw stuff they could, and then, if they survived, would build and sell their wares topside on the black market. Everyone knew that the items sold on the black market came from the mad inventors below the city and were as likely to blow up as they were to work. However, if the items did work, it was more likely that they would be more powerful than anything purchased in legit markets. Black market movement on weapons and airship fuel was a lucrative trade.

Several of the underside inventors did make it rich eventually, but some were too mad to leave, or too comfortable in their little kingdoms.

And, Alicia added, almost as an aside, the city was a port for most of the sky pirates in the area, too.

******

Kate bent over and peered at the gauges. “So, does this ship run on the chaos energy stuff?”

“No, Lady. We had some ships in our fleet that did. The faster ones and the warship did. This one is our family’s personal airship, and the closest one we could escape to when the city fell. It’s a simple steam-and-helium driven zeppelin.”

“But you have used chaos energy before. What are these weapons you mentioned?”

“They’re terrible devices. Ray guns and energy staffs and whatever else the tinkers can think of. Some of them are useful - we were in the process of getting an energy shield fitted to our biggest cargo vessel. But overall, I think they’re more danger than they’re worth.”

Kate’s eyes lost focus and Daniel smiled at Alicia and thanked her for all the information. He dragged Kate to the poop deck, well away from the others, and said, “What’s going on, babe?”

“The world is finally going the way we need it to. I don’t know how the belief will get built back up after the last city we went to, but this one seems to be just the thing we need.”

“Sounds a little chaotic to me,” Daniel said. “What are you planning on?”

“Well, we need to find out if there’s a basis for belief in us there. I’m wondering where the pirates and the mad scientists fall in the belief scenario. If we’re on the border of the Wasteland, I’m really curious what’s beyond it.”

“Kate we can’t go back to heaven through there. We already determined that.”

“But still. If the mortals are going there for this energy stuff, it might be something we can use. They still need us in heaven. If they didn’t, there would be no need to keep us in exile here. That big beast would devour everything and then come after our new Earth. It’s not doing that yet. So there’s still hope.”

Daniel nodded slowly. “Why do you think Meridian is the answer to whatever the question is?”

Kate shrugged. “Divine inspiration? But I think when we get there, we need to do some recon. I’ll find out about the belief structures in the city. And you,” she grinned broadly at him, “you’re the trickster. You get to go to the underbelly and talk to the mad scientists.”

“Lathe.”

They turned and found the second oldest child, James, looking at them and frowning. “The tinkers call the underside of the city Lathe. It’s supposed to be very exciting, but Mama won’t let me go.”

“Have you been to Meridian often, James?” Kate asked.

He shook his head. “Just two or three times. Daddy bought me a toy wooden horse that actually moved on chaos energy, but it didn’t last long. After Daddy died, Momma said none of us were ever coming back here.”

Daniel glanced at Kate then back at the boy. “Well, we’re here now. Do you want to go with me down to Lathe? Even though you’ve never been, you still know more about it than I do.”

The boy’s eyes grew wide. “You mean it?”

Kate touched Daniel’s arm. “Are you serious? You want to take a kid to the underbelly of a city with mad scientists?”

“I need someone who is more familiar with it than me. Call it divine inspiration. He’ll be fine. We’re gods, remember?”

“Yeah. Gods who can’t even leave this world. We don’t know our limitations, Daniel.”

He thought of what he had done to bring Kate back, and felt, for the first time a very long time, confident. “We’ll be fine. I promise.”

Kate held her hand out to him and opened her palm. A gray hummingbird with a bright red chest sat there, looking around with its beady eyes. “Here. Take Huginn with you. Send her to me if you need me.”

Daniel took the tiny, fragile bird and put it on his shoulder. It didn’t even register as weight to him. “Huginn? And Muninn is the other?”

Kate grinned. “They’ve been hanging around for a bit. One’s thought, the other’s memory.”

Daniel craned his neck around. “Which one do I have?”

“Thought. She’ll take care of you.”

“As much as a hummingbird can.”

“Have you asked his mother yet?”

Daniel groaned. He knew he’d forgotten something.

******

Alicia was too concerned with docking the zeppelin to be concerned about her son going off with one of the gods who created the world she lived in. Kate watched her nod curtly at Daniel as she maneuvered the zeppelin closer to the floating city.

At this point Daniel could feel the proximity to the Wasteland, could feel the power coming up from below him. He hadn’t noticed it gone since the subtle change from Wasteland to Imari. But now he could tell it was closer. The sheer power, the potential, of the area was almost palpable.

The city itself up close was a paradox. Buildings rose hundreds of stories into the air, tethered together by zip lines and flexible steel rods. As the buildings floated and swayed in the wind, the rods kept them from crashing into each other, the flexibility allowing the rods to do their jobs without snapping. Looking down caused Daniel to swoon a bit as the impossibility of the floating buildings with no street assaulted his senses. A fine mist surrounded the bottom of the buildings as if the city were floating on a cloud, and he couldn’t see the ground beyond.

“They say the earth refuses to hold any structure, so it just throws it into the air,” said James, who had come to stand beside Daniel.

“So are there buildings in Lathe?” he asked, squinting through the fog.

“Yes, but they’re tethered lower to the ground. I think maybe three feet at most. Also, I think there are caves in the cliff. Some of the tinkers create in there."

“That doesn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t their experiments cause cave-ins?”

“Sarah says it’s worse when the improbability storms come. You want to keep the chaos energy safe during those times.”

“Improbability plus chaos is worse than a cave-in?” Daniel asked.

“You can build something to get yourself out of a cave-in,” James said simply.

Daniel nodded, conceding the fact.

The zeppelin port was tall and thin, clearly just a place to park your balloon. Daniel could see another port for more nimble airships about half a mile away, also on the edge of the city. Alicia had a berth rented on deck 45. She edged the zeppelin in, instructing Sarah to control the helium to drop altitude, and then she released a lever that shot out grappling hooks from the starboard side to anchor the ship.

“Clean anchor, crew,” Alicia said, and she paused for a moment, looking down, as if she just remembered her crew was gone and she traveled with only her family and two gods who really didn’t know what was going on.

Kate helped Sarah slide a rope bridge along one of the anchors, a series of planks captured inside a net, making it look like a long hammock with a stabilizing floor. “I don’t know what makes me more nauseated, looking up at all the ships and berths, or looking down.”

Sarah smiled shyly. “The zip lines are pretty safe, but if you’re really afraid, you can take the lift to a gondola level. From there you can get a ride to the Sidewalk and from there you can get anywhere.”

“I thought there weren’t any roads in Meridian?” Kate asked.

“Sidewalk is the central location. It’s at the center of the city and it connects to every building, at least by zip line. Not every building gets a gondola, but it’s not really an issue. The only weather this area gets is improbability storms, and you don’t want to be out in that in a gondola or a zip line when that happens.”

Kate narrowed her eyes as she looked into the spider web of the city. “Where are the places of worship?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Daniel wondered if David Copperfield preferred stuff like making the Statue of Liberty disappear over doing things like making a child’s eyes grow wide with surprise when he pulled a quarter from their ear. Daniel could shape-change and heal, but the look on James’s face when he modified his appearance to look like a boy of twelve, thin and wiry, made all that power worth it.

Alicia watched with trepidation and Kate with genuine amusement as they ran across the bridge haphazardly and clattered down the stairs. They passed people in pseudo-Victorian garb - corsets and waistcoats and watch fobs and hats, boots and coveralls, but the material was different, and the leather had a tough, alligator-look to it. Dinosaur skin, Daniel realized, as he and James pushed past fancy people and grease-covered people alike on the stairs as they headed toward zip lines and gondolas. Most of the floors in the tower were dedicated to zeppelin berths, but a few floors were zip line exits, and several at the top serviced people who had the money for gondolas. Six elevators, ornately decorated in curlicues of brass and iron, stopped at every floor, but it seemed most people were content to take the stairs.

“Where are we going?” Daniel asked, surprised to hear his voice so high.

“There’s a zip line to the ground on the bottom floor,” James said, bowing a quick apology to a gentleman whose hat he had dislodged when he pushed past him. “No one monitors it for safety, they don’t like talking about it, but they know they need it. You can also slide down the cables holding down the city, but it’s a lot more dangerous. There’s nothing to stop you when you get there.”

The ground floor was dirty with cobwebs clogging the corners, trash piling up, and even broken vials that looked as if they had previously held some shiny blue liquid.

James led Daniel to a doorway that opened up to a patio. It was disconcerting to see the mist swirling around them. It felt like the end of the world. A cable extended from the wall above the doorway, a zip line handle attached to it. The people moving on the zip lines through the city were attached by safety harness to the handle. The zip line to the ground had no harness, but Daniel did notice it had a breaking mechanism that slowed the wheels that ran along the cable.

James went to grab the handle, but Daniel stopped him. “Let me go first, then I can be there if you get into trouble. We don’t know what’s down there, not really.” A small stool was under the zip line, presumably for the shorter travelers, and Daniel grabbed the handle and flipped the switch to release the brake.

A god could easily forget his divinity when riding a zip line through an impenetrable fog into an area he knows only as the home of mad, destitute tinkers. The mist swirled around him and the wind pulled at his shirt, and he gasped as he emerged from the mist to see clearly the city below.

He had pictured a shanty town, a group of shacks or tents, maybe a hobo village. He didn’t expect a group of two-and three-story buildings, in the strangest shapes possible, forming a shadow of Meridian almost as large as the city itself. Some buildings seemed to be formed from superheated metals and glass that had since cooled and hardened into flowing designs, sharp points, towers and terraces. And the colors! Meridian had been glorious in its shiny brass and silver buildings, but Lathe held buildings of green glass, red metals, and even a small, square shack that looked to be made of solid gold. Each building was also tethered to the ground, but much closer.

The zip line went from gray to bright red then, signaling Daniel to engage the brake. He squeezed the handles and swayed on the line as his downward momentum fought with him. He stepped lightly to the ground—a relatively flat stone outside the city— and let go, surprised to see the handle whizz back up the cable to return to the top. James slid down a moment later, and they stared around them.

“Is it like you thought?” Daniel asked.

James just shook his head.

“All right. Stay close, we need to explore,” Daniel said, and took off at a trot.

“What are we looking for, Lord?”

“First, call me Daniel. Secondly, I’m not really sure. Like we said, this world is pretty new to us, and we need to learn more. Kate thinks this city is important. So I guess we’re just looking to see what we can find. See what’s going on with the mad scientists down here.”

“Why?”

Daniel pursed his lips. “Kate and I are trying to accomplish something. And we need the help of people around here. We have your mom, and you, I hope…” The boy nodded fervently. “But we are going to need a lot more people before the day is done. Or, you know, maybe we’ll get a week. I don’t even know how time passes here.”

The buildings on the outskirts of town were small, single-story buildings that looked to either be houses or warehouses. Most were shabby and the kind of buildings Daniel assumed would have made up the entire city. Perhaps these were the homes of the true destitute, the ones who couldn't afford to live above and couldn’t afford to leave. They hovered one to three feet off the ground, some with stairs that reached almost to the ground, some just looking to require a big step.

Daniel stumbled and looked down. The ground was covered in rocks from pebbles to boulders, making the terrain dangerous to travel across. How come no one had ever cleared a thoroughfare through here? He kicked a rock out of his way and jumped when it rolled back to where it had been.

“The land decides how it wants to be,” James said.

“I guess so,” Daniel said. They were getting further into the city - with more treacherous going - when they started to see people.

The first was a woman in a large billowy white cape, close-cropped red hair and goggles obscuring her eyes. She stared at them from behind a floating building that looked to be made of glass and metal plates, and then when they saw her, she scrabbled onto the stoop and rushed inside.

James looked as if he wanted to follow her, but Daniel put his hand on his arm and pointed.

Dead ahead was a black building that looked as if it had been created by a child - there was no rhyme or reason to its construction - blown glass streaked with black formed towers and sideways rooms from a simple one-story building, and flashes of light came from within.

“There. That’s where we’re going,” Daniel said.

Deeper into the city, foot traffic was more common. Distracted people, many of them looking distressed, climbed over the rocks as if born to it, heading from one building to the next. Signs over some of the doors showed the buildings to be businesses. “Professor TickTock’s Timepieces.” “Eric’s Weaponry.” And a handful of people worked on ladders to repair the foundation of “Splodey Al’s Explosives,” which had somehow developed a large black hole in the corner. A white building in the shape of a huge bottle was apparently the local doctor’s clinic - “Dr. Ophelia’s Ministrations” - while a squat warehouse made of wood just proclaimed “GROCERIE.”

Some people stood on a side street and called out their wares - clearly a more organic marketplace. Watches, potions, toys, clothing, fruits and vegetables (that looked oddly shaped and consisted of colors that didn’t really want to be grabbed by Daniel’s eye), and even small empty boxes containing, supposedly, ‘ideas’ were hawked. James wanted to look for something to buy Kelly, but Daniel dragged him forward to the black building.

The only problem was, they couldn’t find a door. A man in a black coat with tails, a top hat, and dirty coveralls stopped them and said, in very precise English, “Go on, boys, you know you can’t get into the House of Mysteries. Don’t bother honest people now.”

“The House of Mysteries?” Daniel said.

The man stopped. “You are new to Lathe?”

“Our parents had business here,” James said, surprising Daniel.

The man nodded, satisfied. “You shouldn’t be wandering the streets. This is not a safe city. But yes. When Lathe was established, the House of Mysteries already stood here, and no one has been able to get inside since. People believe the oldest tinker still works inside, but no one knows anything about him or her.” He winked at them. “Tell your parents to visit my store, Professor Burns’s Idea Emporium, for much higher quality ideas than they can buy on the street.” He handed James a black card with white stamping on it and left them.

“So, what now?” James asked.

Daniel grinned. “Now is when you remember that you’re traveling with a god.”

******

Alicia sent Sarah off with the twins and Kelly and told them to stay out of trouble as she took Kate to the Temple. While the Sidewalk was the center of the city, the Temple was apparently the heart, the largest building in the city in terms of width, built like a pagoda with different metallic shades for each level. The bottom was a greenish brass, the one above that a shiny silver, then a reddish copper, then a white gold, a steel almost black, a soft gray tin, a bright orangey brass and at the top, the smallest floor had a roof of pure, shiny gold.

Kate modified her appearance a bit and then they were on the lift to get to the gondola.

“The gondola will take us to yo- Kate’s temple as it’s the most popular. From there we can get to almost any other temple.”

“So all the temples are in one building. That’s convenient. Who else is worshiped there?”

Alicia screwed up her face. “Let’s see. The bottom temple worships Daniel, trickster god of the one-eyed, the forgotten, and hell. Then there’s the temple to Cotton, the Moon, then Persi, the goddess of dinosaurs, Kate’s level is the one with the white gold roof; then there’s Prosper, god of the Harvest; Ishmael, god of the sea; Gamma, the warrior messenger goddess; and Barris, god of the sun is on top. All of the temples are accessible except for the top two.”

Kate leapt nimbly onto to gondola as Alicia paid two coins to an attendant in a green robe. “Why can’t you visit the top two?”

Alicia shrugged and looked out over the city. “I don’t know. I just know entrance is forbidden.”

Kate nodded and relaxed into the seat, letting the swaying of the gondola soothe her tight nerves. She hadn’t seen any boys missing eyes yet, which was good. She wondered if news of Dauphine’s demise had reached Meridian yet, then wondered how much time had passed since leaving. It could be possible that much more time had passed. She watched citizens of Meridian soar along the zip lines or lazily traverse the city in their gondolas, and hoped she wouldn’t have to teach the same lesson to this beautiful city. Regardless of the time that had passed in the real world, she had taken down a whole city only yesterday, and didn’t feel up to doing another one just yet.

She closed her eyes and didn’t open them until they reached the temples. For the first time she paid attention to those on the gondola with her. Several young women wore coveralls, and she realized with a start these were young acolytes to the faith based on her. She wanted to follow them, but she knew where she had to go. A burly man with several scars on his face and hands was going to pray to Persi, and a dreamy woman Kate was pretty sure was stoned was headed to the moon goddess level. Only Kate and Alicia were headed upward to Ishmael’s level.

The stairwell stopped at the sixth level and the door at the top opened to a wide room with a pool inset into the floor. The walls were covered in blue, sparkly paint that reminded Kate absurdly of her junior prom. A young priest stood naked in the pool and opened his arms, welcoming them.

“Let me guess. Ishmael is also the god of sex?” Kate whispered to Alicia, who nodded, her dark cheeks flushing slightly.

“Welcome, pilgrims,” the man said. He strode toward them. “Feel free to remove your clothing and join me. The next service begins in an hour, but I’m sure we can pass the time in a reverent and holy way.”

Kate grinned at him. “No thank you, Father. I’m just here on my way somewhere.”

“There is nowhere to go from here except for down, or into the holy pool of the god,” he said, and he stepped out of the water. He was thin, well-built and hairless, his erection incredibly large for his slight frame.

Kate fought the urge to laugh. “No, really, there are two floors above here, and that’s where we’re headed. If you could just point us toward the door.”

The priest frowned. “No one goes to the forbidden temples. The Messenger and the Sun have no priests, no pilgrims. Their worshipers are many but those who observe are few. The temples in Meridian are for show; that is all. But why worship those when you can revel in the glory that is Ishmael with me?”

Kate glanced at him, losing her amusement quickly. “Divine inspiration, call it. Now listen, if you don’t show us the door to the upstairs, we’ll make one.” She let her godhood seep out in her voice a bit with the last sentence, and the priest stepped back.

“There is no door, I- I was told by the Head Priest of Ishmael that the floors above are just for show. I don’t know anything!”

Kate snorted. “Useless.” She walked around the perimeter of the room, touching the wall as she went. Something resonated in the corner opposite the doorway.

"Alicia, we’re going,” she said. She concentrated briefly and then the wall dissolved, opening up a dark corridor. She smiled at the dumbstruck priest, whose impressive erection had wilted. “Excuse us, please.”

Alicia joined her and they walked into the dark stairwell.

“What are you looking for, Lady?” Alicia asked.

“I don’t know exactly. But I’ve got to go with my gut. And my gut says we need to go to the sun temple.”

The top of the stairwell had no door, but Kate simply made another hole in the wall, dissolving the concrete and metal in front of them.

Kate barely had time to register the large empty room made completely of gold except for one small, open window, and the small thin man inside, before he ran at her, screaming, his fists balled and his eyes wild.

Kate raised her hand and he fell down face first, sobbing and screaming. Kate ran to him and put her hands on his shoulders. “Barris. Barris. What is wrong?”

The god of the sun curled up into a fetal position and she pulled his slight form so his head was in her lap and stroked his golden hair as he cried.

CHAPTER NINE

“It’s been so long. There was the world, and then there was this room, and then there was me,” he said, once he composed himself.

“You are a god, and yet you’ve been imprisoned here since the beginning of time?” Kate asked incredulously.

He nodded, sniffling. “I was aware of only a few things. Who I was. What my responsibility was. And who you were. I knew you were responsible for keeping me here.”

Kate gritted her teeth. “Why do people keep blaming us for shit? Barris, to me, the world has been alive for exactly two days and three nights. I’ve barely had time to find my footing before a sun god attacks me in a city that doesn’t even sit on the ground. I have no idea what’s going on or why it’s my fault.”

“You made this. You made us.”

Kate shook her head again. “It wasn’t conscious. We are not that cruel. I promise. But if you’re a sun god, why are you imprisoned? I figured you’d be super powerful.”

He glared at her, his golden eyes glinting through his tears. “I am. But all my power goes into keeping the sun burning. Why I have a physical form, I’ll never know.”

Kate felt her stomach turn over. “I can guess… but later. I can get you out of here, if you want.” It went against her better judgement, but she couldn’t keep this being imprisoned. “But first I need to know some things. Why are you imprisoned and no one else is?”

“The others are imprisoned as well. Just not here. Except for Gamma. Sometimes she knocks on my floor and I knock back. She’s as trapped as I am.”

“Do you know where the others are?”

“Persi is in the South, I think. Among the wild dinosaur herds. Ishmael is below the sea. Cotton is in Dauphine. Prosper is in Lathe. And Fabrique is in Lathe as well.”

“Fabrique?”

“Goddess of clockwork.”

“And they’re all imprisoned.”

“Yes.”

Kate sat back and ran her fingers through her hair. It made sense - this world without gods. But who had imprisoned them? Who had influence here? And she had a sick feeling in her stomach of the fate of Cotton the Moon Goddess.

“Come on. Let’s get free the Messenger and then -” she paused just as Huginn whizzed through the window. No sooner had the tiny bird given its report that she groaned. “Oh crap. Daniel.”

Alicia gasped. “James?”

Barris nodded. “Fabrique.”

******

They clattered down the stairs, Barris lighting up the dark stairwell. They stopped at the next level down to free the Messenger, but Kate balked and looked at Alicia.

“Was there a hole here when we came up?”

“No, Lady,”

“Someone must have followed us and freed her,” Kate said.

“Or captured her,” said Barris.

“Shit,” Kate said. She peeked inside the Messenger’s prison. It was much like Barris’s - consisting of a bright, empty room.

“We have to rescue her,” Barris said.

“Yeah, we have to rescue them all,” Kate said. “But I think we need to make sure Daniel and Fabrique don’t kill each other. What’s the fastest way to Lathe?”

Alicia thought. “I don’t think there are many zip cords down in the middle of the city, so we’d have to take the gondola or zip back to the zeppelin dock and then take the zip from there.”

Kate looked at the window, which was merely an ornate hole in the wall. She wondered what power existed to keep the Messenger inside, and if it was still there. She could sense nothing.

“The fastest way to go is down,” she said, and grabbed them both. Neither Barris nor Alicia had time to protest as Kate lifted them and took a running jump toward the window.

******

The explosion that Daniel set off when he forced open a hole in the House of Mysteries took him a bit by surprise, but he was pleased at his instinct to protect James, who didn’t have any sort of divine protection. They were blown backward off the building, and Daniel had a moment to think that he was pretty lucky to have done this in Lathe, where he was two feet above the ground, instead of Meridian, where he was a couple hundred feet up. Still, the ground was hard and he was putting most of his divine will into keeping James safe.

Daniel was bleeding from where his head had hit the ground, not to mention where the black glass had cut his face and hands, but James got to his feet unharmed. He stared at the hole with wide eyes, and Daniel thought fast on how to calm him down. He looked around - no one had paid them any attention. “I guess people here are used to explosions, huh? Think we took out a workshop?”

James grinned hesitantly and they approached the smoking hole in the black building. Daniel hopped onto the base of the building and peered into the gaping wound. He squinted through the smoke and thought he saw a glint of copper and heard the click of clockwork when something grabbed him and pulled him in. He didn’t even manage to get out a cleverly phrased epithet before he was dunked into a vat of bluish liquid. A few whirring sounds and a lid was secured.

Daniel panicked. He thrashed around in the liquid before he realized that as a god, he didn’t really need to breathe. He calmed down a little and peered out through the glass. A blue haze colored the room, but he could see a workshop crowded with gears and cogs and springs and tools and machines and a very small, very angry woman with very curly hair who stood right in front of the vat, apparently yelling at him.

He blinked at her. Lady, you’ve locked me in a jar of I-don’t-know-what and then yell at me? You think you might be going about this all wrong?

Beyond her was the thing that had grabbed him - a massive mech-suit that looked like it comfortably seated a small woman. She was pointing at it now, and then back at Daniel. He tried to nod encouragingly. Yes, you did catch me with the big scary suit. You are clearly the dominant god here. It’s clear I’m not a threat and I’m sorry I blew a hole in your wall. Can you let me go now?

She continued to yell at him, and he sighed - internally, anyway - and started to feel around for a way out. The top was bolted pretty tightly to the jar. He pushed his divine will against it, like he had done to open a hole in the wall, and nothing budged. He tried a shape-change, no dice.

Fuck.

He peered back out of the glass to get a better look at the furious woman, and his heart nearly stopped as she turned from him to focus on the young face of James, who had stuck his head through the hole.

******

Kate wondered as she and the god and the zeppelin pilot did a free-fall past the temples, how many people committed suicide in Meridian. Or just accidentally fell to their deaths. Barris screamed all the way down, which annoyed the hell out of Kate. He was a god. Immortal. Alicia, the mortal, clung to Kate tightly but did not scream.

They passed through the misty cloud that separated the two cities and began to slow. Kate couldn’t sense Daniel at all but she followed Huginn’s path to where she had last seen Daniel. The three of them touched down on the rocky street, and Kate told the others to wait for her. She left them, Alicia's face creased with worry and Barris looking around in wonder, and leapt lightly through the gaping hole in the black glass building.

Daniel, James, and a short woman sat at a workbench with tools and half-built inventions pushed aside to give them room for cookies and milk. Daniel was soaking wet, but otherwise unharmed. He waved at her.

“Hey, babe. Come meet Fabrique. She’s a god too. Did you know this world’s gods are all imprisoned?”

“What the hell happened? Huginn said you were in trouble!”

“I was,” Daniel said, pointing to a tall blue tank in the corner of the workshop. “I would have drowned, but luckily I remembered I was a god.” He took a bite of cookie.

Kate sighed. “And?”

“She thought we had locked her up. She was understandably pissed. But James came in and told her what was going on. I was lucky to have him around.”

Fabrique stood. Her curly hair was held back by the brass goggles that were perched on her head. “I stored him in my collection of chaos energy. He was put in stasis and had no power. I was going to keep him trapped there for as long as I was trapped, but that child came in. He’s a smart one.”

Alicia crawled through the hole, saw her son, and ran to him and grabbed him, hugging him tight. James struggled against her, clearly embarrassed.

“Mama, I’m okay, please!”

“Your child is blessed,” Fabrique said. “The god Daniel saved me, but James saved him.”

“What are you doing in here?” Kate asked Alicia. “Where’s Barris?”

With James still crushed to her chest, she looked at Kate. “Barris is insufferable. I’d rather face unknown danger with you than sit safely with him.”

Kate swore. “What did he do?”

“He’s just whining. He whines more than the twins do.”

Kate looked out of the still-smoking hole as Fabrique got more glasses and plates to serve the newcomers. Barris was sitting in the middle of the road, tears streaming down his face. He glowed brighter than ever in the dim city.

“What’s going on?” Kate asked.

“I’m free. I can finally be free. And now I can see in person everything I only saw as the sun. Which, of course, was nearly everything, but I couldn’t experience it.”

“Oh, that’s why you knew where all the other gods were,” Kate said. “So tell me. Where is the Messenger god? Who took her?”

Barris stared at her blankly, then laughed. “I am very stupid.” Kate silently agreed with him. “In my excitement I forgot to look. She was taken by the priest of Ishmael, he’s sold her to the pirate ship Fera.”

Kate stared at him with wide eyes. “And you’re telling me this now.”

“Oh, an Idea Emporium, can we go there?”

CHAPTER TEN

Daniel flew Alicia back up to her zeppelin so she could pick up the rest of her family and take the ship down to pick up the others. Barris demanded to visit the Idea Emporium, and Fabrique agreed to come with them to rescue the Messenger, but wanted to pack a number of her inventions. “You don’t know what you’re going to need in rescuing the other gods. Especially from pirates.”

“Pirates are bad, I’m sure, but with four gods, how is this going to be an issue?” Kate asked. “I hate to be full of myself here, but we are kinda powerful.”

“Pirates aren’t gods, but they aren’t mortals, either. They live in the Dark,” Barris said, bouncing impatiently. “They are influenced by chaos energy and the Dark Beast. Can we go now?”

Something unpleasant ran down Kate’s spine. “The Dark Beast?”

“Yes. The Dark Beast. It’s bad. It gives them skills that they likely shouldn’t have. It makes them formidable. I haven’t seen everything they’ve done - the Dark tends to hide them from me - but they do things that even chaos energy shouldn’t allow them. Can we please go to the Idea Emporium now?”

Fabrique grinned at Kate, and she sighed. “May I leave James here to help you pack?” The clockwork goddess nodded and kept sticking devices into a carpetbag that really shouldn’t have held them all.

Kate took Barris by the arm and said, “Okay, sun god, let’s go.”

After the House of Mysteries had been blown open, the gods found no need to hide themselves. The citizens of Lathe stood in the center of the city, staring open-mouthed at the House of Mysteries. Kate looked around, grinned at them, and said, “Where’s the Idea Emporium your sun god is so eager to see?”

Professor Burns was delighted to see them, and seemed not at all intimidated that gods were in his store. Kate found the realization of a store where one purchased ideas perplexing, and said so.

“Ah, my Lady, in Lathe there is nothing more valuable than ideas.”

“And what coin do you deal in?” Kate said. She was pretty sure she could produce money, but Lathe might work differently.

“Oh, Lathe works on a barter system. Money works here, for those of us who do business topside, but anything from a vial of chaos energy to a kilo of titanium will work nicely.”

“So ideas are expensive.”

“Mine, yes. But they deliver.”

She bent and peered at the little boxes. Some were woven of reeds, some decorated with beautiful red and black lacquer, and others, wooden boxes from little coffins to intricate puzzle boxes. “How do you, uh, use them?”

“When you need an idea, you simply take the top off and hold it to your ear. It whispers itself to you. The ideas come in flavors of domestic to battle to business to creative invention. As you might expect,” he gestured to a large display case of empty-looking corked vials, “those are our biggest sellers.”

“Wow. How are these made, anyway?”

He puffed himself up. “Trade secret, I’m afraid.”

Kate groaned. Barris had filled his arms with tiny boxes and approached the counter, beaming.

“I’ll take a military idea, please. And whatever Barris wants. How much?”

Professor Burns looked at them each. He frowned for a moment. “Is… could there be any doubt of your divinity? Could you be cleverly disguised spies from Doctor Yamato?”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “Barris, make the sun go out.”

Barris looked up at her over his treasure. “What?”

“Make the sun go out.”

“You’ll want me to turn it back on again, right?”

“If people keep doubting our divinity, maybe not.”

“If you say so,” he said, and screwed up his face.

“No no,” Professor Burns said hurriedly. “That won’t be necessary. I apologize, my Lady. The cost for these ideas would be, ah, a blessing from each of you. Good fortune on my house from the Lady Kate, good fortune on my life from the Lord Barris.”

“Huh. Not on the shop?”

Professor Burns grinned. “The shop needs no blessing. I am quite successful. My wife is ill and my son blames me. Two blessings can’t hurt those situations.”

Kate nodded. She placed her hand on his head and felt the shattered pieces of his life knit slowly back together. Barris just grinned broadly and the room became lighter for an instant.

“Thank you, Professor. Oh, and for your lack of faith, I’ll be sending an apprentice to you in eleven or so years. Take her in and teach her everything you know. She’ll be your heir.”

“But… my son,” he said, and trailed off.

“Your relationship with your son will improve after this, but he’s not an idea man. He’ll find lucrative business in mining - he’ll discover a vein of an ore as-yet undiscovered and it will revolutionize tinkering. But he’s no idea crafter. No, look for a girl named Kelly to continue your legacy. And don’t forget.”

Professor Burns smiled slowly and bowed. “Thank you, My Lady. I’ll remember this day forever. And I will be ready for Kelly when she comes of age.”

Fabrique and James were waiting outside the shop. They stared with the crowd at the building. “It was my prison. And I am loathe to leave it,” she said, as Kate and Barris approached.

“If your prison is all you know, the outside can be scary,” Kate said. “Are you worried about leaving your workshop open?”

Fabrique stared at her. “These are my people. They know this house is a part of me. They know it is a holy place. They may visit, but I will know if they’ve stolen or harmed anything. They know my leaving is temporary.”

“Then let’s go.”

They headed out of town, people bowing whenever they saw them. Kate liked Fabrique at once, despite the fact she’d tried to imprison her man. The small, no-nonsense woman with the impossible brown hair and goggles was definitely someone she wanted on her side.

Daniel, Alicia, and the rest of the kids picked them up outside of town. Fabrique spent some time talking with Alicia about the airship while Kate and Barris and James set up bunks for the newcomers. Kate didn’t mind sharing the captain’s bunk with the two other gods; it wasn’t as if she and Daniel could have sex on the hammocks anyway.

Before they were on their way, they met in the captain’s quarters to discuss their plans.

“They’ve got her in the Dark now,” Barris said, peering at a pretty, closed wooden box stained blue. “But they haven’t landed yet.”

“Did you even check to see what kind of idea that was before you bought it?” Kate asked.

“No. But it’s so pretty.”

Daniel stared at him for a moment. “Well. At least you can find people. And it’s good the Messenger is still in the air, right? We can catch up?”

Alicia shrugged. “This is a family ship. Not a lot of power or speed.”

Fabrique rummaged around in her bag. “No, no, won’t need that for another couple of days; oh, THAT would come in handy, but not now—ahhhh.” She thumped a small device on the desk. Alicia put her face up close to it to see the tiny brass workmanship.

She gasped. “The detail is incredible. It’s like an accelerator, only one fifth the size of a weak one. How strong is it?”

Fabrique shrugged. “Not sure if you can measure it. I had a finite space in which to work for many years. I had to perfect the small machines. Hook that to your propeller engine and make sure everyone is strapped in. We’ll get there in no time.”

“Can you do this with a skeleton crew, Alicia?” Kate asked.

“Well, I don’t really have much of a skeleton crew anymore, do I?” she replied. “Sarah and Fabrique both know the ship. I have Barris, such as he is, as navigation, Daniel to give cloaking, and you, well, you’re the admiral.” She grinned at Kate, who felt her cheeks grow hot.

“We’re at your service, Alicia. You don’t know what it means to have you help us out,” Daniel said.

“Well, so far two of my five kids have their futures set,” Alicia said. "I think I'm making out just fine."

After his meeting with Fabrique, James had shown considerable interest in tinkering, and the goddess said he could study in the House of Mysteries when he came of age. And Alicia nearly wept when Kate had told her about the deal with Professor Burns.

“Oh, we’ll take care of the other three, just give us time,” Kate said. “Is there anything else, or should we set about hooking that little device up?”

******

The terrain changed as they headed north, from rocky tundra to sandy tundra to just sand. But this wasn’t the sand Kate remembered from the Wasteland; this sand was black and the world around them seemed less like a blank slate and more like a slate that had been rolled in grit and painted black. Not really the pristine canvas she was familiar with. A fetid mist began to obscure the ground from their sight, and Kate wrinkled her nose.

As promised, they reached the ship they were pursuing in very little time, with all of the kids but Sarah strapped into their bunks and everyone at their stations. Barris - and the five ideas he’d insisted on bringing with him - stood at the helm with Alicia. Kate stood behind them both, waiting to be needed. Daniel had positioned himself at the stern to get a clear look at the entire battle. Sarah was at the gauges looking for fluctuations, and Fabrique had gone below decks to acquaint herself with the engine.

Still, it was an unpleasant surprise when they were attacked unexpectedly from above.

The airship - thin, fast and lethal - came at them from an angle high above them, and Daniel screamed out a warning. Kate managed to throw up a shield before the ship’s bow - a sharpened rod of metal— tore through the zeppelin’s balloon. The ship - the Fera, from the name they could see as it passed too closely - bounced off and dove under them.

“Goddammit, Barris, I thought you were supposed to see them coming!” Kate yelled, picking herself off the deck.

“I told you I can’t see everything, especially when it’s affected by the Dark!” he cried petulantly. He pulled the cover off his blue idea box and held the open box to his ear. He smiled.

“What did it say?” Kate asked.

“It gave excellent investment advice if I want to open a business in Meridian,” he said.

Kate actually felt like hitting him, but Daniel had approached her and pulled her back. “Kate, did you see the crew of that ship?”

“No, I was too busy shielding us,” she replied tersely.

“They had some crazy tattoos. Like most of their skin. Black, heavy black ink.”

“So, they’re pirates, they’re supposed to be scary.”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure I saw these tattoos move.”

“Oh, that’s the Dark influence,” Barris said, “That’s what makes them stronger than anyone else.”

Kate felt her insides grow very cold. She looked at Daniel. He was pale.

“It’s that thing, isn’t it?” he whispered.

“It’s wrapped itself around the other Earth, and it’s trying to get at this one through the Wasteland.”

“So…”

“So what do you think is at the other end of this Wasteland? I think it’s a connection between the two. And the pirates-”

“‘Ware starboard!” Alicia cried, and Kate swore when she saw the ship barreling down on them.

The Fera had circled back around and came at them again, perpendicular to them, dead on target to impale their balloon.

Kate plunged her hand into her pocket and pulled out her idea, tightly closed in a gray box made of paper. She opened it and heard the soft voice of Professor Burns whispering to her. “Have faith in yourself, have faith in your crew, and use all tools at hand.”

She swore and threw the box overboard. “I paid a blessing for THAT? It’s a fortune cookie without the cookie!” She focused on Sarah. “Release pressure on the balloon! Fast!”

The girl didn’t question her, but twisted a knob hard to the left, and the escaping gas whooshed and the ship dropped faster than it should have, letting the Fera pass over them.

Sarah tightened the knob again, her eyes wide. “How did we do that?” she asked.

“I have a couple of tricks still left,” kate said grimly. “How long till we can fill the bag again?”

“Two minutes.”

“You know, I don’t think the Gamma is on that ship,” Barris said thoughtfully.

Kate nodded. Alicia screamed then, and Kate whirled her head around to look behind them.

A second airship, the Ferus, moved with an inevitability that terrified her. Gargantuan, with two full balloons, it gave the impression of taking a damn long time to get up to speed, but when it did, all of the gods help whatever was in its way. But what if what was in the way was all the gods?

“Oh!” Barris said. “There she is!”

Alicia screamed for Fabrique to finish filling the balloon because she needed altitude.

“I think I can avoid this one, don’t worry,” called Daniel from the stern.

“It’s not the ship I’m worried about. Look beyond it,” Alicia said, sweat beading her brow.

Kate squinted at the swirling mass that pursued both airships. “What is that?”

“An improbability storm. Once you can see it, you’re in it, even if it looks far away. It’s unpredictable.”

The Ferus was gaining on them, and Daniel swore as the Fera angled for another attack. He dashed below deck and came back with the chicken gun. The pirates aboard jeered and screamed at them, and Daniel staggered back as the gun went off.

His aim was true, with the high velocity chicken parts ripping into the Fera’s balloon. The ship faltered and the pirates screamed at them as they lost altitude.

“That was the last of the chicken,” Sarah said, as Daniel looked at her for more ammo. He swore. Kate wanted to laugh - why hadn’t they stocked up on chicken parts?

The Sheridan turned faster than the Ferus and Kate shuddered as it passed over them.

Barris uncapped another box and listened. “Skim the ground, they’re weaker there!”

Alicia looked to Kate for confirmation and she shrugged. He was a sun god, if a feeble one. “Do it.”

They broke the cloud cover and dove straight into the improbability storm.

******

Unlike in Meridian, people could build directly on the sand here, and they had. Black bunkers rose from the ground like malevolent mushrooms, and they were decorated with spikes, weapons, and skeletons. Gun turrets swiveled to follow them, and Kate swore again and closed her eyes, willing the zeppelin to teleport higher. It didn’t budge. She pounded on the deck.

“Fabrique, we need speed again!”

“It’s malfunctioning!” came the muffled reply.

“Improbability,” muttered Alicia.

“So we’re on our own. Just our normal boring selves,” said Daniel.

“If you’re so dim to think you haven’t changed in the past months, then get out of my way and let me do my job,” Kate snarled at him, and he actually took a step back. It killed her to say it, but she knew he’d either step up or crumble. She didn’t have time for him to dither.

He grinned, then, and said, “Man. I love you.”

She kissed him, quick and powerful, and said, “Go see what you can do. Anything you can summon is useful. Power is volatile here. I’m hoping that we haven't lost everything.”

He nodded and ran to the back of the ship again. Kate rounded on Barris as the first shot - a blue laser beam that sheared off a corner of the deck railing - came from below as Alicia forced the zeppelin to climb. They had almost reached the cloud cover.

“What the hell was that idea? Was that in the “help the enemy” idea case?” Kate yelled.

“It was on sale in a basket on the floor!” Barris cried. “Two for one!”

Kate smacked herself on the forehead to avoid strangling him. She’d seen that basket. “You absolute fool! Didn’t you see that was the Bad Idea Basket? Why do you think they were on sale?”

“Why would he sell bad ideas?”

“I don’t know, maybe they’re jokes, or…” Kate stumbled as the Sheridan lurched in its upward climb right under the cloud cover.

“Lady, the big one is above us,” Alicia said, and Kate was impressed with her level voice. “It’s latched onto the balloon.”

“Has it cut it?”

“No, I believe they want to board.”

“Right.” Kate nodded. She grabbed another blue lacquer box from Barris. “Daniel. Can you shape-change at all? Anything that can fly. Anything.”

Daniel concentrated and became a pterodactyl chick. She handed the box to him and told him what to do with it. He left with a flapping of wings.

“Now, Alicia, do you have weapons aboard?”

She shook her head. “Just the chicken gun for the whales. We had bigger, tougher ships for trips like this. This is a leisure ship.”

“When we’re done, we have got to rebuild your fleet,” Kate said absently.

She reached behind her back and willed her sword into being - the YIN sword, the volatile, untrustworthy sword. If there was a time for it not to come, now would be it, but her hand closed around a hilt, and she drew it. But gods, it was heavy. It was supposed to be a tai chi sword, light and perfect for a woman’s hand. It felt like a longsword. Or a claymore. When she brought it over her head, the blade clunked to the deck and Kate found it impossible to lift.

“Lady, they’ll be here soon,” Alicia said, still struggling with the controls.

“I can’t lift my sword, it, oh my god…” Kate dropped the hilt and backed up as the sword began to change even as Daniel returned, landing lightly on the deck.

“Package delivered. Who’s that?” he asked.

“It’s Gamma, can we go now?” asked Barris.

At that moment, The Sheridan shot forward, and Alicia cried, “We’re free!”

“Outrun them, get into the clouds and haul ass,” Kate said.

At that moment, they heard a groan, and Fabrique came up from the trapdoor on the deck. She carried a shoulder-mounted weapon and was scowling.

“I couldn’t make the ship move, but I could damn well build a weapon.” She focused on the pursuing ship, The Ferus. There was a sound much lower than Kate expected to hear, a low FOOM, and the Ferus’s left balloon disintegrated. The ship listed to the right and began to sink.

“Where to?” Alicia asked.

“Climb and keep going north,” Kate said.

******

Gamma, the Warrior Messenger to the Gods, looked very familiar to Daniel. Dark brown skin, high cheekbones, wiry build. She opened her eyes and smiled at them.

“My Lord, I knew I’d see you again. I have a message for you.”

“Oh! You’re THE Gamma! The first woman!” he said. “You got made a god? Uh, congratulations.”

She laughed. “I learned my skills heading through the battlefield to get to heaven,” she said. “Once I got through and let them know you were here, I had enough skill to be a goddess. They gave me one message to give you and then sent me back, but the Dark locked us all away. After you freed Barris, you broke the lock on the entire building, and the Dark got its pirates to manipulate the priest of Ishmael to kidnap me.”

“And how did you get in Kate’s sword?” he asked.

“I’m connected to all weapons. Kate’s is special, though, and here in the Wasteland, my connection was very strong. The pirates were distracted by the idea you dropped off, and I took my chance.” She paused. “The captain was dumber than my fifth husband to fall for whatever that box told him.”

“Improbable,” Fabrique said, and grinned.

Daniel sat back on his heels, adrenaline making his limbs feel sour. They had made it.

“Daniel,” Kate said.

He got up and joined her at the bow.

“Look. Can you see it?”

He squinted. The Wasteland had gotten darker as they’d gotten further in, and ahead they could see a writhing mass obscenely covering a globe. “The Earth. You were right. Fuck, Kate.”

“Turn around,” Kate told Alicia. “Take us back to Meridian.”

“What about the storm?” she asked.

“I don’t think it’s there anymore. It nearly got us, if not for Barris’s bad idea. I don’t think it was a natural storm.”

Alicia snorted. “Improbability never is.”

Gamma joined them, stretching her limbs. “Don’t you want to know what your message is?”

“Oh, shit, I forgot,” Daniel said. “Yes, please.”

“Just one word. ‘Help.’”

Daniel and Kate exchanged glances. She sought his hand, and he squeezed it.

“We’re going to need those other gods,” said Daniel.

She nodded. “We’re going to need more than that, Daniel. We’re going to war.”

WAR

By Mur Lafferty

***

The Afterlife Series V

War, The Afterlife Series V

Version 1.2

Published by Restless Brain Media on Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 Mur Lafferty

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

This is a work of fiction. Resemblances to persons living or dead is coincidental.

To Fiona- The best mad scientist I know.

CONTENTS

WAR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

SNEAK PEEK AT STONES

THE AFTERLIFE SERIES VI

CHAPTER ONE

Barris lay on the temple’s roof, watching the sun go down with half-lidded eyes. His shirtless, bony chest rose and fell slowly as he contemplated the center of the sun. Such light would burn out a mortal’s eyes, but Barris didn’t fear the sun; it was the pure manifestation of his energy.

He turned his head and held a small ornate box to his ear. Thin fingers pried the lid off and he sucked in breath as pleasure overtook him. A small voice whispered in his ear. Overtaking the rudimentary government of Lathe would be a simple coup. What a fantastic idea. Lathe was the city of the mad, the city of the cast-offs, the city that lay literally under the floating city of Meridian. When you failed in Meridian, you ended up in Lathe. The scientists, the mad, and the ambitious — they still created in the shantytown.

The idea wasn’t one of his favorites that he’d experienced, but it was a good one. He loved good ideas.

“You are pathetic,” came a voice from behind him.

He grimaced. The voice belonged to Gamma. They’d both been imprisoned for thousands of years with his floor between them. He had discovered in the past few weeks that he preferred greatly the primitive communications of knocking on the floor to actually speaking with her.

“The battle with the pirates took a lot out of me,” he said, hating the peevish sound of his own voice.

Her footsteps came closer until her leather boots ended up by his head. He kept staring at the sun.

“You didn’t do anything during the battle but give Kate a bad idea, Barris. You —”

“I kept the sun in the sky! Imagine what would happen if I failed to do that for even one minute!” he said. He shifted his focus to her, the warrior messenger. She towered over him, strong and dark and imposing next to his pale, weak body. Revulsion for himself replaced his dislike of her and he sat up with difficulty, sighing. “What do you want, anyway?”

“Kate wants to see us in the morning. There are plans to make about rescuing the other gods.”

He rubbed his hands over his face and through his limp blond hair. “Then I’ll see you in the morning. Leave me alone for now.”

She blew air out her nose and pursed her lips. “As you wish, sun god.” It sounded like an insult coming from her. She disappeared then, traveling, he assumed, by being attuned to weapons around the city and manifesting through them.

The gods had many ways to travel by magic. Barris had no powers. He walked and ate and shat. He may as well have been a human. Nearly all his energy was spent keeping the sun in the sky.

The only thing that gave him pleasure was to open ideas from the Idea Emporium in Lathe. He had an agreement with the proprietor, Professor Burns, who allowed him as many ideas as he liked as long as Barris blessed the business every now and then.

He never did anything with the ideas. But it felt so glorious to have them in his mind, whispering their potential to him. He had ideas now on how to become a scientist in the foothills outside Lathe, the hills of the forgotten and mad. He knew several key battle plans that would work against sky pirates who resided in the corrupt Dark north of Meridian. He now knew several ways to farm the chaos-riddled land under Meridian and Lathe. He was even pretty sure he knew how to move the floating city of Meridian if they ever needed to.

He closed his eyes and lay back on the roof to enjoy the slight remaining high from the idea. His self-revulsion was quickly replaced by a feeling of superiority. No one else had such brilliant ideas, and if he ever did anything with them, they would all — even the other gods — know he was a force to reckon with.

He was the sun, after all.

Barris the sun god slipped into sleep just as the sun slipped below the horizon west of the shining, floating city of Meridian.

* * * * *

Fifteen minutes later, he woke up. His eyes had changed from watery blue to a gold that illuminated the rooftop. His muscles rippled as he sat up easily and stretched.

Barris’s head was finally clear. Little paper and metal boxes lay strewn around the roof where he’d fallen asleep. He shook his head in disgust, remembering the intoxicating ideas and the high he’d felt. A sun god should have more self-pride. He vowed to lay off the ideas, to apply himself and become a needed member of Kate and Daniel’s team. There were other gods who had been imprisoned like he had been. They needed freeing.

He stood and relished the feeling of strength coursing through him. The same thought as always went through his mind: if he felt so good with the sun down, why didn’t he just take more of the sun’s energy for himself?

Barris was many things, but ignorant about his own role in the world was not one of them. He smiled to himself, deciding to stay content with feeling god-like only fifty percent of the time, and stepped to the edge of the roof. He had only known the other gods in person for a couple of days, but he wasn’t yet ready to reveal this part of himself to them. They might not understand.

His bare toes curled around the edge of the roof as wide fiery wings unfolded from his back. He inhaled deeply and stepped off.

Barris knew deep down that tomorrow he would not remember anything of this feeling, this power. The power, as well as the memory, would be channeled back into the rising sun. But he swore, this time, that he’d stop the idea usage.

The wind whipped through his hair and he grinned against the force of it, relishing the flight. He flew past an apartment building, tethered to the ground far below, catching the eye of a young boy who stared at him. His eyes flashed and he blessed the boy with power that Professor Burns would have given his entire business to receive. The boy would grow up to be a great leader of Meridian, he decided.

He swooped down below Meridian and surveyed Lathe, allowing them to receive some of his power: a treat that that they never experienced during the day. He glided west then, over the ocean. He loved the waves, the water, so unlike himself. Dark and heavy, they were another world, but it also was a prison to another god. He’d told Kate and Daniel about the sea god, Ishmael, trapped beneath the waves; he assumed they would be trying to free him soon. As beautiful as the ocean was, he feared venturing below it. It was not his element.

He surveyed the world as far as he could. He skirted the Dark place, the Wasteland north of Meridian and Lathe with its uncertainty storms and chaos energy seeping into the world, and flew over the mountains, blessing some of the madder scientists living — and experimenting — deeply inside. He remained tireless for hours but in the early morning, as his energy began to wane, he positioned himself over the water again, eagerly awaiting the Moon.

He knew her phases as he knew his own times to rise and set. It was time for her to peek out again, a sliver of silver glimmering on the horizon. He wanted to greet her, promise her that she would be rescued from her prison as he and the other gods, Gamma and Fabrique, the goddess of clockwork, had been. He would rescue the Moon and tell her everything he had thought about her since he first saw her glory outside his prison window.

The Moon rose, but she was smaller. He could feel her mass as smaller, her hold over the ocean not as strong. He hovered in place above the ocean and made another vow, to tell Kate and Daniel. He headed back to his perch atop his temple in Meridian and landed just as the sun’s edge broke over the horizon.

Barris’s head swam and he fell to his knees. He must have stood up in his sleep. He smacked his lips and grimaced at the taste. He struggled to his feet and squinted at the sun. Time for breakfast. And if he ate fast, he might have time to travel to Lathe to get another idea before the meeting with Kate and Daniel.

* * * * *

The temple had nine floors: one each for Daniel, Cotton the moon goddess, Prosper the harvest god, Kate, Fabrique, the goddess of clockwork, Persi the goddess of dinosaurs, Ishmael the god of the sea, Gamma the warrior messenger, and Barris, the sun god. Kate had been busy modifying her floor of the temple to be a sort of home base of operations. The priestesses of the Reborn Goddess had balked at first, and then when they realized whom they were dealing with, fell to the floor in supplication. After the tears were dried and Kate had reassured them all was well, they set about making the temple in the way their god wanted it.

Which essentially meant removing all the pews, bringing in a large round table, and setting up a coffee bar.

The head priestess, Ophelia, was clearly still agitated at removing the populace’s ability to pray to Kate. She was not pacified by Kate’s offer to meet with people directly to discuss things instead of just praying into the ether, because honestly she hadn’t heard any prayers since waking up.

“I mean, I’m pretty powerful, but I am not getting a constant stream of prayers and requests beamed to my brain. I think meeting people might be the best way of going about things.”

“But, my Lady, if the populace knows you are here, or knows any of them,” she waved her hand at Daniel and the other gods milling about the coffee bar, “I fear we’ll have a riot on our hands.”

Kate looked out the window at the city of Meridian. “I see your point. But they won’t be able to congregate, though. There’s nowhere to stand.”

“The Sidewalk will be jammed with people,” the priestess said, indicating the central hub of the city that had gondola lines and zip lines to every building in the city. “The chaos and possible violence won’t be here, but it’ll be somewhere.”

Kate raised her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. Let us have this meeting and then we’ll move somewhere else so people can pretend to pray and I won’t hear it.”

She hated it when logic got in the way of a good idea.

“I don't think gods are good at micromanaging, Kate,” Daniel said, handing her a cup of coffee. “If you spend your time dealing with each prayer then you won’t have any time for anything else, like this whole rescue thing we’ve got going on. I mean, look at Barris.” He pointed to the milquetoast sun god who had slunk into the room, looking wide-eyed and a bit stoned. “He can see everything the sun sees. You’d think he’d constantly be up in arms about the injustices of the world, but he’s not.”

“Yes, but you’re talking about Barris here, Daniel. He’s not really what I would think of as a god to mold myself after.”

Daniel shrugged. “Point taken. Still. We have some pretty big jobs to do. And if we can return these people’s gods to them, then maybe more prayers will be answered.”

She nodded absently and sipped her coffee.

The temples of the city were all in one building, stacked on top of one another in descending size. So the bottom level, Daniel’s, was the biggest, and Barris’s, the top, was the size of a small room. No one went to pray to Barris or Gamma, as the gods were actually there, imprisoned in the temples.

Kate’s was the fourth one from the bottom. The roof was made of white gold and its interior was decorated sparsely with images of herself (a small part of her was gratified that the images made her look better than she did), statues, painting of her feeding the poor (which she had done once in her mortal life), and one of her gazing so longingly at a disinterested Daniel it made her blush. These people made up a lot of their religion, but they also knew things about her that were uncanny.

The other gods, the washed-out Barris, the crazy-haired Fabrique, and the tall, strong Gamma, sat at the round table. Daniel had insisted on the round table idea, liking the concept of King Arthur. Daniel and Kate were very aware, however, that the others viewed them as the king and queen of the gods, and looked to them. As they had created the world, and therefore the other gods, Kate could see their point, but still it felt like a level of responsibility that she and Daniel had screwed up in the past.

She dragged the heavy chair from the table and sat down. “Okay, Barris, you said that Persi is in the south, Ishmael is under the sea, Prosper is in Lathe and Cotton was in Dauphine.” Her insides squirmed at this last one. Kate had razed Dauphine to the ground, not knowing a goddess was imprisoned there. She wondered what had happened to her.

Barris fiddled with a cardboard box lid. “Uh huh. Only Cotton isn’t there anymore. Dauphine isn’t there anymore.”

“Yeah, we had to send a message,” Daniel said. “We didn’t know she was there at the time.”

Fabrique nodded. “Maybe you set her free.”

Kate stared at the table. “If that were the case, then Barris could find her, couldn’t he?”

Barris nodded absently.

“Well, let’s work on the gods we know about,” Daniel said, slapping his hands on the table and waking Kate from her introspection. “Where are the maps of Meridian and Lathe?”

Fabrique pulled a map tube out of her tiny bag and pulled out two sheets — one was a clear plastic and one was paper. She unrolled the paper in the middle of the table. “This is Lathe,” she said, bending over it so her copper curls brushed the map. She then unrolled the plastic over the map of Lathe. A map was drawn in black ink and it took Kate only a moment to realize what it was. “And this is Meridian. So you can see where we are in relation to Lathe.”

“Very cool,” said Daniel. “So here’s your workshop, and here’s the Idea Emporium. So where’s this harvest god?”

“He’s not in Lathe proper,” Barris said, finally breaking out of his trance and addressing them. “He’s in the hills.”

Kate squirmed. “Isn’t that where the more crazy scientists go to try out their inventions?”

Fabrique nodded. “Smaller population there. I’ve been wanting to visit since I got free.”

“Speaking of which, we need to talk about something,” Kate said. “You were all under the impression that Daniel and I imprisoned you. I can only assume that the other gods will feel the same way. We need to be prepared.”

Gamma smiled grimly. “We’ll be fine, any attack they launch will be met with —”

“No, Gamma, what I mean is that we need to make sure we don’t hurt them,” Kate said.

“Oh.”

“So, what did imprison us?” asked Fabrique.

Kate sighed. “I am guessing it’s that black thing that threw us here in the first place. It’s imprisoning us, too; it’s just that our prison is much bigger than yours. We can’t leave this world.”

“Unless we go through the Dark,” Daniel added, pointing at the black areas north of Meridian and Lathe.

“Which I assume we’ll have to do at some point,” Kate said. She shuddered. She didn’t like the Dark. It was still Wasteland, full of potential, but tainted, chaotic potential that seemed to ignore divinity. She knew it was the taint of the dark beast that enveloped heaven, and it — like many other things — needed to be cleansed.

“Why would the Dark want to imprison us?” Gamma asked.

“You can’t directly help the people in this world, so its influence gets to spread,” Daniel said. “You harbor resentment and anger toward us, which makes things difficult for us. Is that enough?”

“It worked,” Fabrique said, color dotting her freckled face. “I would have done some pretty terrible things to Daniel if the kid hadn’t been there.”

Daniel grimaced. Fabrique had imprisoned him easily when he had tried to free her. It was only the boy, James, who could persuade Fabrique to let Daniel plead his case.

“So the other gods will be pretty unhappy to see us. And clearly,” Gamma said, with a sense of disdain in her voice that Kate had never remembered in her as an old human woman, “we must use diplomacy instead of force.”

“That’s what James did with Fabrique; seemed to work then,” said Daniel, glaring at his empty cup of coffee. It refilled with his divine will and he looked pleased with himself.

Kate stared into her own coffee cup, which was, “as black as night and sweet as sin,” as the old folks liked to say.

But she was not omniscient. There was an awful lot she didn’t know. She was also not omnipotent; she could make worlds, but couldn’t heal the eye that her best friend had traded for godlike power. They could be exiled, banished, and imprisoned. Which left her feeling oddly vulnerable, even though she knew she could tap into considerable power.

She had to face it: she was afraid. The corrupt worship of Dauphine had been over the top and needed to be cleansed, Gomorrah-style. But she didn’t know what had happened to the goddess, or how to find her. She was afraid of what she would discover if they did.

“So what are we thinking? Hit the caves in the morning?” she asked.

“Why not now?” asked Daniel.

Kate shrugged. “There are some things I’d like to do in Meridian and Lathe first. Prepare. You know.”

Daniel cocked his head and looked at her, knowing there was more to it, but he let it go. She knew he’d ask her in private. “Whatever you say. I’ll never turn down a visit to Lathe.”

Fabrique nodded. “I’ll be happy to get some supplies at the House of Mysteries.”

Gamma frowned. “I’ll be on the roof, then. If you need me, just draw your sword.”

Kate stood. Barris sat in the chair beside her, fiddling with the little idea box lid again. “Barris, where will you be in the meantime?”

“Lathe,” he muttered, not looking at her.

Kate nodded. “Well, uh, cool. Meet here at eight am, then. Daniel, can I talk to you before you head down to Lathe?”

Daniel nodded and they both headed to the head priestesses’ office. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Obviously,” he said, frowning.

“That moon goddess, Cotton. She was held in the city of Dauphine.” Kate let the weight of her words hang in the air.

Daniel got it. “Crap. Do you think …?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said. “I don’t know if she’s dead or she survived or what. But Barris can’t find her. So we have to figure out what to do. If she survived, she’s probably very, very angry with us.”

“Rightly so,” Daniel allowed. “So what do we do?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted to remind you that we probably have a problem on our hands.”

He wrapped his arm around her waist and nuzzled her neck. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll handle it. How about we see Meridian and Lathe tonight, see the nightlife, hang out like old times?”

She let him hold her; she kissed him back, but inside she still felt cold.

CHAPTER TWO

She stole a piece of the moon from the sky. Because she could.

Yes, it was spiteful, and yes, it was mean. But she took it because she could, because it was hers, and because the world would miss it.

Where once she had cared for the world, watching it through her prison window that waxed and waned, now she didn’t give a shit about it. It held no joy for her. She didn’t want to see the world, peeking as she could during the day or ruling over it during the night. She didn’t want to flirt with the sun and wonder if he was as lonely as she was. She didn’t want to have children wish on her or see patterns in her face.

Her face no longer held a gentle, soft glow. It had been burned when the city of Dauphine fell. The Goddess Kate had walked through the streets, sending fire to cleanse the city, killing innocent and evil alike. Some of the tethered airships had floated away in the night as their tethers burned, but her prison, the silver ship Luna, had caught fire when the tower port burned.

When night fell and the horror had ceased and the flames and cries of the victims had all died, she rose from the rubble. Her fingers touched the ruined mass that was her face and she cried. She cast about until she found a house where children had died, trapped inside. She used her will to meld their charred bones together to form one smooth mask to hide behind. She stumbled to a graveyard where the dead had been the only ones protected from the fire. There she knit a cloak from their hair to wrap around her charred nakedness.

Finally, clothed and properly hidden, she shook herself all over and transformed into a white crow smudged with blood and soot. She took to the sky and surveyed the world around her, the dead city of Dauphine and the surrounding countryside. In the air she could hear the whisperings of all of the lost souls with nowhere to go.

The moon hung like a scythe. To finalize her transformation, she would need a weapon. She reached up with her beak and plucked part of it from the sky. She landed lightly on the earth at the heart of Dauphine. She transformed back to human form and fixed the sharp crescent atop a leg bone where its ends glittered wickedly.

She turned her faceless mask to the charred remains of a temple that had been dedicated to the moon goddess, Cotton, someone she no longer was. She waved her scythe in a diagonal slashing motion, then walked through the threshold that used to hold a pearl door. She vanished from the earth, and behind her the lost and lonely souls streamed through behind her, joyously following her to her new realm.

The name “Morrigan” floated into her mind, and she grasped it and felt it was hers. She cradled it as her own, and sought to explore her underground home as the souls swirled around her.

Above Dauphine, where the moon hung, smaller and duller, a small void circled the orb. Even a small void can create a vacuum, and it began to attract interest from far away.

Morrigan didn’t know about this void; if she had known, she wouldn’t have cared. She had a new name, a new weapon, a new home, and most importantly, she had her freedom. The crows belonged to her, and she could learn more of what was going on above ground than she ever had as the moon.

Her ghosts fashioned her a throne of bones and she sat there, reveled in their adoration, and watched through the eyes of her animals above.

Her time would come. Morrigan would make those responsible answer for their crimes.

* * * * *

Kate looked out of the temple window at the sunset peeking through the floating buildings, then at the mist gathered around the base of the buildings.

“What does Meridian do with their dead?” she asked suddenly. “Do you have vermin? Pets? Garbage collection?” The concept of living away from the ground felt completely alien to her.

A young acolyte, assigned to her for the afternoon, appeared at her elbow. With eyes fixed politely on the floor, she said, “We cremate our dead, My Lady. Different vermin breed in the buildings; one will have mice, others insects and still others rats. They usually come from pets. The bank has an infestation of hamsters, and the air market has geckos. Usually after vermin breeds to the point of trouble, either exterminators are brought in, or humane trappers who then sell the vermin as pets, and the whole thing starts all over again.”

“You sound like you don’t approve,” Kate said, laughing.

The young woman grimaced. “I grew up in an apartment building with a guinea pig problem. Seeing one of those little beady eyes chomping on my cereal one morning made sure I never saw them as cute again.”

“Okay, so cute vermin. Or not so cute. What about garbage? Surely you don’t drop it on Lathe?”

The acolyte’s eyes grew wide and she forgot herself, looking Kate in the face. “Oh goodness no, that’s prohibited. It doesn’t mean some don’t do it, but they’re punished severely. We’re not sky pirates who dump flotsam and jetsam over the side. We have a handful of buildings that transform the garbage using some power harnessed from the probability storms.”

“And then what?” Kate asked.

Her face went slack and she dropped her eyes again. “Um, actually I don’t know.”

Kate grinned. “Once you throw it away, it isn’t your problem anymore? Yeah, we had that where I’m from. Don’t be ashamed. I’ll find out from someone. You’ll have to excuse me; this is all so new to me, living off the ground.”

“I have to excuse you?” the acolyte asked.

“Sure, I’m the new person here, I’m at risk of insulting your way of life.”

“But, Lady, you created us.”

Kate shrugged, careful not to destroy the woman’s faith. “That’s true, Daniel and I made the world happen, but you all made it what it is. Which is why we have little idea what’s going on.” She took the woman’s chin and forced it up, making her look her in the eyes. “Look, you won’t offend me if you look at me, or talk to me like anyone else. In fact, I’d prefer it. Can you try to do that? Please?”

The acolyte’s lip trembled and Kate realized she was scaring her. She let her go, and the woman said, “Yes, Lady.”

“What’s your name?”

“Meredith, Lady.”

“Well, then, Meredith, how do you feel about showing me around the city tonight? You can take me and Daniel out, and show us what folks do for fun around here. How does that sound?”

Meredith’s eyes grew round and she stammered something about being needed at the temple.

“My temple, right? The temple built to honor me? Do you think that sweeping the floor here will honor me than helping me understand Meridian better?” Kate hated to pull rank, but it was honestly ridiculous how the priestesses seemed to balk at any changes she wished to make at the temple.

“No, Lady. I mean, yes, Lady. I mean, when would you like to go?”

“Thank goodness,” Kate said. “We can go at sunset. Daniel’s checking out his temple; he should be back up soon. Please get me an acolyte's robe so I can look like I’m from the temple too.”

She sighed and looked back out of the window. “God, I could use a drink. You guys have wine here, right?”

Meredith grinned over her shoulder at Kate, relaxing at last. “I know just the place.”

* * * * *

Kate held the glass of wine up to her face, frowning at the thin, slightly bubbly green liquid inside.

“‘I don’t know what it is, but it’s green,’” Daniel quoted in a bad Scottish accent, and Kate snorted at him.

She glanced over her glass at Meredith, who encouraged her with a grin. “Things grow differently in Lathe. That’s the finest wine that this area can grow. It’s called Cmar. Trust me.”

Kate put the glass to her lips, reminded herself that she was immortal, and then took a sip.

It didn’t taste green. Kate had always wondered why you didn’t see sparkling red wine. Maybe because it sucked? But this tasted like a fruity red wine with the heavy tannins replaced with … she couldn’t place it. Something light and airy, something besides the bubbles, which left a tingle in her mouth long after she had swallowed.

“That’s amazing,” she said.

Meredith nodded happily. They sat at a table in the back of a bar that was on the bottom floor of a squat building near the outer edge of Meridian. The bar was called “Bottomless,” and its walls and floor were made of glass so you could look down and see the swirling clouds and, every once in a while, a glimmer from Lathe, hundreds of feet below.

Kate had heard of restaurants on top of skyscrapers with amazing views, but this was a new experience. She bet it would be amazing during the day, but they only opened at sunset.

“There’s plenty to see at night,” said the bar owner, a tall man named Sam who was built like a refrigerator (and who was amused greatly at this). He was remarkably pale, more than most of the citizens of the world, nearly as pale as Kate and Daniel.

He didn’t blink at Kate and Daniel, even though their skin was much like his, and Daniel’s missing eye was hard to hide. He welcomed them with open arms and said that all priestesses of Kate were welcome there. Meredith greeted him by name and he hugged her, almost engulfing her with his bulk.

“I always love the priestesses of Kate,” he said. “I feel they bring a little of the goddess’s smile my way.”

Kate grinned at him, wondering how much he really had ascertained. “I’m sure they do,” she said.

He had seated them at a back table, where he said they could see the most of the wondrous things that went on during the evening below, and brought them a bottle of his best Cmar.

“So what are we looking for here? Or is it just the view?” Daniel asked, looking toward the mass of darkness that indicated the hills east of Lathe. Occasional bursts of light flickered from inside the caves.

“I’m not sure, exactly,” Meredith admitted. “When I come I usually sit near the bar and chat with Sam. I rarely sit at the tables. I go to Lathe often enough on temple business; I don’t need the view.”

“There are always things to see in Lathe at night,” Sam said, bringing another bottle of Cmar without being asked.

“Like?” Daniel asked.

As if that was the invitation he was waiting for, Sam pulled up a chair, its feet sliding smoothly and noiselessly over the glass floor, and settled his bulk into it.

“Well, the scientists work more at night. The one who’ve lost their minds tend to be more nocturnal. Not sure why, maybe they feel more like animals, maybe they don’t like the sun anymore.”

Daniel chuckled. “Maybe they’ve met Barris.”

Kate glared at him. Openly admitting that they knew and disliked the sun god was not a good way of keeping a low profile, but Sam didn’t miss a beat.

“You might be onto something there. I had one man in here who had left Meridian in disgrace, but discovered something in Lathe that helped him make his riches back, so he returned to the city. But he was a changed man, very flashy. He told me at length how he hid from the sun and only came out in the dark, when the moon ruled the sky. He worshipped her, he said, and said he was working on a way to communicate with her.”

Meredith looked over the horizon. “You might want to look him up, then. Shouldn’t we have a waxing moon by now? It’s been a new moon for days.”

“The moon is gone?” Kate asked, her voice catching.

Sam scratched his chin. “Now that you mention it, it’s been clear since that last improbability storm and I haven't seen a moon in the last few nights either.”

The chewing, horrific pain enveloped her as her prison aboard a stationary airship caught fire and plummeted. She had tried to keep the airship in the sky, but it was during the day, her weak time, and she was little more than mortal. It crashed into a temple dedicated to her — there was too much pain and chaos to note the irony — and she struggled toward a hole in the ship’s hull. The burning balloon then sank and covered the ship, and fire was everywhere.

Kate blinked her eyes, trying to clear the vision. Was it something she had imagined, or something that had actually happened? She knocked back the last of the green stuff in her glass with one gulp, the bubbling liquid reminding her not so much of nice tingles, but ...

“Careful, miss,” Sam said, pouring her another glass. “This stuff is strong. Best to be sipped.”

Kate blinked at him. It had been a long time since she had felt alcohol seep through her system. “And if you want to forget something?”

He laughed, a pleasing, friendly sound. “Then let me leave the cork out of the bottle for you.”

Daniel put his hand on her arm and squeezed. She didn’t meet his eye. If the moon was actually gone from the sky, they were going to have even bigger problems. As if they didn’t have enough.

Meredith glanced at Sam and shifted in her chair. “So, uh, what else did you want to know about Meridian?”

Kate appreciated the distraction and sipped at her wine, letting Daniel take this one.

“Anything, really. Where we come from, they didn’t have cities in the air, and the whole thing is just really strange to us.” He glanced down through the floor. “Really strange,” he repeated.

“I know what you mean,” Sam said. “I am from Leviathan City, the city under the waves. My people worshiped Ishmael, and the other gods were barely known, if at all. We worshiped the moon, as she moved the tides, and Persi, as she blessed the water creatures around us and kept the leviathan away. We didn’t believe in the other gods we had heard about from the rare above-ground visitors. Coming to Meridian was a shock to me to learn about the sun, and Kate and Daniel, and the others.”

They weren’t known in Leviathan City? This was news. “What brought you to Meridian, and what made you stay?” asked Kate.

“We were solitary for many years, but plague hit the city when I was a boy. My parents were a doctor and a scholar, so they were sent to Meridian to try to find a cure.”

Kate finished off her glass and looked at Sam unsteadily. “And did they?”

Sam looked down at Lathe, frowning. “They did. But the council of elders said that we had been tainted by the city in the air, and would not let us return home. We were allowed into the city long enough to deliver the information about the cure and remove our belongings, and then we were exiled.”

“Dude, that’s cold,” Daniel said.

Sam nodded and continued. “Minimal trade between the cities meant that my parents’ riches meant little outside, so we arrived in Lathe poor and homeless. The good thing about Lathe is they’ll take in anyone, so we found an abandoned house and my parents began their lives anew.”

“Leviathan City seems pretty intolerant of outsiders,” Kate said, glancing at Daniel. He nodded in silent agreement; rescuing the god Ishmael may not be as easy as they’d hoped.

“After the plague was, I assume, cured, my people shut off all connection with the outside world. My parents and I became the only citizens that we know of outside the city.”

“Why are they so intolerant?” Kate asked. “Surely they were grateful for the cure?”

Sam poured himself a glass of the green wine and knocked it back, much like Kate had. “People above ground were blasphemers,” he said flatly. “They did not worship Ishmael as we did; they had new gods to worship. When my parents gave their full reports about Lathe and Meridian, they saw only cities of sin and horror. Anyone who has touched the outside must be irrevocably tainted, and must not be allowed into Leviathan City.”

Sam snapped his head up, his eyes instantly regaining the sparkle they’d had when they’d entered his bar. “But! You are here to ask about Meridian, not Leviathan City, am I right?”

Kate poured more wine unsteadily into her glass. “We’re from, uh, the South, so we don’t know much about any city north of where we’re from, including Leviathan City. We want to know about everywhere, honestly. Thank you for your story, Sam, that can’t have been easy for you.”

He waved his hand in dismissal. “It happened so long ago it’s hardly forgotten,” he said, apparently forgetting the pain that had been scrawled on his face a minute before.

“Now, let me tell you of how I came from Lathe to Meridian. That is a much more interesting story.”

* * * * *

“I have to admit, it was a tough change moving to Lathe. Leviathan City is a strange place, but it’s not as strange as Lathe. Lathe is very dry.”

Daniel laughed. “That’s the big difference? The weather?”

Sam cleared his throat. “It is relevant. The diseases in a dry area are much different from the diseases in a wet one. Meridian had better physicians, but as my parents were poor, we ended up in Lathe, and my mother had to start from scratch. We looked different and talked different from everyone else.”

“I went to the strange establishment that stands for school in Lathe, where we were taught not so much reading and writing and math, but how to live in the world where the buildings will not stay on the ground, whales swim in the air instead of the ocean, and the entirety is built entirely of penniless castoffs from the city above. I learned basic tinkering and farming.”

He paused to wet his throat, and Kate said, “How can people farm in this soil?”

“The vegetables here are recalcitrant, odd things. They are fed not by water but by the improbability storms, so you may not get what you plant. But they do sustain people.”

“So how did you get to Meridian?” Kate asked.

“Remember when I said I learned some tinkering?” Sam asked. They nodded. “Well, I invented a new way of getting grapes to do more or less what you want them to, and then fermented them to make sparkling wine.”

“So the Cmar is yours?” Kate asked, pouring herself another glass.

“It is indeed. So I sold some crates of wine to Meridian, some to Dauphine, and other cities. I made enough to buy this bar and retool it to have a glass floor so I could keep an eye on my vineyard. It’s on the hill over there.” He pointed into the darkness, north of the cities. Kate squinted drunkenly and willed herself to see through the darkness. She spotted a vineyard and a little building nestled into the hill; the winery, she assumed.

“And the rest is history,” Daniel concluded, draining his glass. “This is damn tasty stuff, Sam. I gotta tell you.”

Sam bowed his head. “Thank you. I’m very proud of it.”

“So what do people do in Lathe?” Kate asked. “I mean, you know, for fun?”

Daniel looked at her with a little smile, and she realized she was sounding pretty plastered. But to hell with it; it had been forever since she’d been drunk.

“There are bars such as mine, but with lesser vintages, of course,” Sam said. “They have their own version of theater with clockwork actors and there are always the caves.”

“The caves? Are there tours or something?” Daniel asked.

“No, it’s more of a child-like dare that adults go through. The scientists who wish to be left alone go there, and often set traps.”

“Traps,” Daniel said, dumbstruck. “What, is this a D&D game?”

Sam looked at him blankly, and Daniel mumbled an apology. “The traps are often quite deadly, but you can often sell them to dealers in town if you can deactivate them safely. It’s adventure, it’s money, and there’s a thriving trade. It makes the scientists cranky, though.”

“I can imagine,” Kate said. Her eyelids were growing heavy.

Daniel poked her in the ribs. “Come on, Kate. The night just started. Don’t fall asleep on me.”

She closed her eyes and willed some of the alcohol out of her system. “Whew. That was some good stuff, Sam. Thank you.”

Sam stared at her, and she blushed, realizing that sobering up instantly was not something mortals did. He recovered quickly though, and thanked her for the compliment.

Sam returned to work and Meredith talked about the city, pointing out interesting buildings and describing the more entertaining parts of town. “Tomorrow, if you like, we can go to the market. There’s always merchants there from Lathe and Meridian and all sorts of places.”

“I'd love to, but we’re heading to Lathe tomorrow. We have business there,” Kate said, looking through the floor at the ground.

“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.

“Wait! The improbability storm is still going on!” Scott yelled after them. “You could die out there!”

True, but it’s not probable, Kate thought. She hovered near the door and let Daniel open it …Straight into the eye of the improbability storm.

CHAPTER FOUR

The storm’s eye seemed to be about half a mile wide, with the wind swirling around them. Even though it was still dark, they could see the wind: solid here, gaseous there, even liquid and blue as it devoured the air around them.

Kate bounced around on the wind until she materialized as a human again, acolyte robe blowing out behind her. “How do we move through that?” Kate yelled.

“We’re gods, right?” asked Daniel.

“No, dude, that won’t work!” she replied, squinting through the spluttering flames. “Did you forget that our powers are at best unpredictable in this shit?”

Daniel grimaced. What was the point of being gods of this world if he didn’t have any power when he needed it? He remembered a story Kate had told him one night after they’d made love; they’d discussed their godly limitations and Kate had said that in Greek myths, the Titans had stuffed the god Ares into an urn during a battle, where he stayed until the other gods let him out. She’d always wondered how a god didn’t have the power to get out.

Daniel thought it had made for good narrative, but really, what god had omnipotence? All of the gods he’d met had had powers, sure. He and Kate had created whole worlds. But neither of them could heal his eye, which had been taken by a god. If other gods could mess with their powers (as someone clearly had with this wall of fire), then they were not omnipotent.

And what were these improbability storms but tools of chaos that pushed gods’ powers to the edge of uselessness?

Something teased at Daniel’s mind then, a whisper from Odin, a name. Something like “Gagap.” He tried to chase the thought, find the information that the old god had left in his head, but it was gone as the scream of the storm drowned out all thought.

“Hang on!” Scott Von Rothelsgeschitemeirson came running down the hall, waving two black robes. They flapped behind him like wings.

Daniel took a step back from the hell outside the door and turned to meet the panting man.

“If you’re determined to go out in that, you’ll want these cloaks,” he panted. “I don’t know why you would want to, but if you do, you’ll have these.”

Kate glanced at the man, who calmly held out a robe to her. “How did you know to bring two?”

He grinned down at her. “The paerhapsotron told me.”

Kate snorted and accepted the robe. “What is it?” She glanced out at the roiling horror, which had started turning into billowy, black smoke that battered at the flames in front of them as if it were great fists.

“I call them Order Magnification Cloaks,” was Scott’s answer. Daniel looked at him blankly. “They’re designed to protect you from the improbability storms.”

Daniel ran his hands over the thick black wool. A power cell about the size of a D battery hung at the hem, spreading circuits through the cloak. “How do they do that?”

“I took some chaos energy and tamed it with my Order Magnifier. It resonates through the cloak, forcing any chaos surrounding it to actually charge the battery. As long as chaos forces are at work, the cloak gets stronger and stronger.” The scientist’s eyes were wide with delight.

“That doesn’t seem logical,” Daniel said, trying to remember the conservation of energy laws he’d learned in high school.

“Or probable,” Kate said, breaking her gaze from the storm. “We’ll take them.”

“Oh good!” Scott said. “Please, if you survive, let me know how they work, will you?”

Daniel paused with the robe poised over his head, ready to fall. “Wait — you haven’t tested them?”

Scott looked sheepish. “Well, no one will go into the storm to test it for me. And I certainly can’t go.”

Kate grimaced. “Of course you can’t.” She smoothed the black robe over her white acolyte robe and said, “How do we turn it on?”

Scott leaned over and switched both of their robes on, and they came to life, humming quietly around them. Daniel felt decidedly odd … a little heavier, a little less confident. Which was strange, he figured, since the cloak was supposed to help keep him safe.

“Good luck!” said the scientist, beaming at them, his eyes wide through his glasses.

Daniel smiled at him and took Kate’s hand. She frowned and opened her mouth, but then they stepped outside and any protest she had was lost in the screaming storm.

Whatever the flying creature had done to create the wall of fire had begun to weaken. The door slammed behind them, and Kate and Daniel stood and watched the storm batter at the fire in front of them.

“Now what?” Kate asked.

“Let’s head north as far as we can. Stay on this side of the fire,” Daniel said, squinting in the darkness.

The fire had begun to show holes, like a piece of paper licked by flames. They linked hands and ran, passing paths that led into the hills, presumably to more caves and more scientists. Their footing went from gravel to dirt to grass and back to gravel. Kate was pretty sure they passed a clockwork bird that stood on the top of a metal perch. She was further convinced that the bird swiveled its head to follow them, and it flapped its metal wings in alarm. But they were moving too fast to know for sure.

It dawned on her slowly that although they were running as hard as they could, they weren’t making very good time. They both stumbled more than once in the darkness; at times their dashing felt more like plodding.

The improbability storm. Of course. It dampened their divinity; they may as well be mortal. She shivered. Right now mortal and alive was terrifying — of course, since she had died as a god, it was proof divinity meant little to nothing when something godlike wanted you dead.

Then the improbability storm broke through the wall of fire and drove all other thoughts from her mind.

Kate had never considered what colors would feel, smell, or sound like. Her sight left her as the storm enveloped them and she had a sense of being accosted by colors instead of wind. She closed her eyes and felt pink tickle at her cheeks, and green wind around her ankles like insistent vines. She heard blue moan softly near her, and a small burning taste of yellow forced itself past her lips to linger on her tongue. She sensed thousands of other shades whirling around her, but they ceased suddenly when Daniel pulled her hood over her head.

He pulled her head in to touch his forehead and gripped her shoulders. “Your hood slipped off. Are you okay?”

Grateful for sight again, she nodded. “Are we close?

He sighed. “I am not sure. This storm is pretty damn big.”

“I can’t sense anything,” she said.

“I know. We just need to keep going. And keep that hood up.”

They linked hands again, with magenta burrs sticking to their exposed skin, and ran on.

The colors were only felt, not seen, but lighting flashed through the clouds, sometimes right in front of them, leaving behind a smell of sulfur and spots before their eyes. As bright spots blossomed in Kate’s eyes, images assaulted her.

She stumbled to a halt. Images of Daniel with his numerous ex-girlfriends. The image of her father, stony-faced, at her funeral, refusing to cry. The image of her grandmother in the hated nursing home, abused by an orderly because no one gave a damn about her anymore.

A duckling she had allowed to starve to death after Easter one year, forgotten in the wake of chocolate bunnies and jellybeans. The suicide of a boy whose depression began when she had laughed at his invitation to a dance.

All reminders that she was far from perfection; she was far from lovable. She felt Daniel pulling at her wrist, but the magenta burrs caused her to gasp and let go. He disappeared in a swirl of wind that tasted like regret.

Small gnomes, giggling and pudgy with tall red caps, fell out of a cloud and grabbed her hands and pulled. She resisted and watched her fingers stretch like putty. She blinked past the horror and realized this was the improbability storm attacking her from all sides. She didn’t have to stand for this. She was a god, and even if she didn’t have her power right now, she was still Kate, and that aspect of her being had gotten her out of more than one scrape.

She pulled her hands inside her cloak, and the extra tendrils of fingers broke off, causing her to gasp in pain. She didn’t look down at her hands; she’d be okay eventually. She needed to be inside the protection of the cloak. She took a deep breath and stepped forward into the mist.

The storm had abandoned the concept of colors as tangible things and had moved on to emotions. Her hood mostly protected her, but as she trudged forward, looking around for Daniel, she found herself lost in a haze of euphoria, despair, and guilt.

She stumbled over something dense and short and went sprawling. She lacerated her hand on a sharp stone and watched the blood well up.

Great. Nothing good ever happens when I get cut.

Her attention was distracted from the blood leaking from her hand to the stump she’d fallen over, which wasn’t a stump at all but Daniel, crouched with his arms wrapped around his knees. He sobbed quietly, and Kate felt a cloud of grief around him.

She reached forward and put her arms around him. He mumbled something incoherent about, “—’s all going away.”

Struggling with nothing more than her normal strength, she hauled him to his feet and murmured encouraging words to him as she forced him through the storm.

The storm had stopped accosting them directly, but Kate was still beset by strange visions. In one, a distraught man with only one arm and one leg yelled at an anthropomorphic penguin. In another, an air whale drifted through the storm, and then plummeted messily to the earth. A third had a high school crush of Kate’s getting up the nerve to call and ask her out, but it was when she was on the phone with her best friend, and the busy signal discouraged him.

“He only got the nerve to ask me out once? That coward,” muttered Kate.

Daniel continued to sob at her side, and she didn’t know if her irritation was a false emotion caused by the storm or if it was real. Still.

“Hey, Daniel, chin up, dude, we have a job to do. Whatever the storm showed you, it was false. Not real. Fabricated. Let’s move on, okay?” He wouldn’t look at her. She gave him a little shake. “Daniel. Sweetie. I just saw a guy yelling at a penguin. This shit isn’t real.”

He finally looked up at her. She recoiled from his wide, red-rimmed eye. “What I saw was real. I know it was. It was heaven. And it wasn’t good.”

“What was going on?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but just yelled, “Look out!”

They ducked together, watching the blue-tinged net fly over their heads.

“That was real,” Daniel said, sniffing.

“Agreed,” Kate said. “Why is someone throwing nets at us?”

“I think it’s safe to bet that while we figured out who Sam was, he probably figured out who we were.”

Kate fingered the rich grass she realized they’d fallen on. “Oh. We’re here.” She rolled and got to her feet, but the darkness and wind didn’t allow her to see anything around her.

“Listen, I’ll go see if I can find Prosper. Can you handle Sam?” she asked.

“Jesus, why me?”

Kate sighed. “You’re the trickster, dude. You can handle anyone. I’m not nearly as subversive as you are. You could trick him, reason with him, or just confuse him and lure him away. I don’t know! All I know is he has one god imprisoned, so I’m betting he can catch another one, so we need to free Prosper and get out of here.”

She kissed him briefly and ran in the direction she thought the caves might be. She had gotten pretty good at ignoring what the storm was throwing at her, be it gnomes or colors or grapevines wrapped around trellises at the perfect height to clothesline her …

Oh. That was real.

* * * * *

She came to with her head aching and her neck raw and sore. She sat up. How long had she been out? And — wait. Where was she?

She sat within a shallow cave about six feet deep and ten feet tall, clearly chipped out and man-made. She sprawled on the rocky floor amidst several tendrils of grape vines, some wrapped around her ankles. The vines seemed to originate from inside the cave and stretch out to the trellises. A lump of vines lay clumped in the corner. The storm still had hold of the outside, but had lessened to the point of odd gusts of wind. The horizon glowed slightly with light.

“God, how long was I out?” She asked, rubbing her head.

“Three hours,” came a hiss from the other side of the room.

Kate jumped and swore as the sudden movement made her head ache more. “Who’s there?”

The lump in the opposite corner stirred, and the vines wrapped around Kate’s legs tightened. She slid back until her back was against the wall, but the vines stayed firm around her ankles.

The lump in the corner continued to stir and almost unfolded, branching out and becoming man-shaped. The rough, round, barky base of one vine turned slowly, and two green eyes peered out. It smiled, then, showing roots and a mossy interior. Its tongue was a white root.

“Prosper, My Lady,” it said. “Your prisoner.”

* * * * *

Kate stared at him. She wanted to look away, but she knew she had to face this grotesque mockery of divinity that had been utterly used and corrupted.

“Prosper. Shit. Listen. I didn’t do this to you. Daniel didn’t either. We had nothing to do with it.”

A vine waved as if an airy hand, waving away her protests. “I know that. I have been owned and passed around between farmers for hundreds of years. But you, you were the first jailer.”

Kate stumbled to her knees and started to crawl forward, eyes darting around at the shifting vines. “Listen, I was not the first. In my view, I’ve only been alive again for a couple of days. We didn’t imprison you, but we’re trying to free you. What can I do to help?”

She looked around helplessly. The vines all originated from the god’s body, and she didn’t want to think about what he had gone through to have those seeds implanted. She thought of the fine wine, the Cmar, that she had drunk, and her stomach turned over. No wonder it had been so good.

She slowly approached him, and he simply watched her. But when she reached out a hand to gingerly touch one of the thick vines growing from his chest, a smaller vine snaked out and wrapped around her wrist, keeping her away.

“Prosper, I’m just trying to help you. Can we cut the vines and get you out of here?”

More vines wrapped around her ankles and lifted her into the air. She struggled, annoyed at how her cloak and acolyte robe threatened to fall over her head. He held her in front of his warped and wooden face.

“These are my children. I give them life. Through me they are able to bear fruit. What kind of god of the harvest would I be if I allowed them to die?”

Kate gathered the cloak at her waist and held it tight. “Well, you’d be a free god, for one thing, not used for some lucky mortal’s wine business.”

He shook her and lifted her high, taking her outside the cave and high into the air. Kate could hear him yelling, but she was lifted too high to hear what he was saying.

She was too preoccupied with hanging upside down from the tentacle-like vines growing out of the god she was trying to rescue that it took her a moment to realize the improbability storm had passed, leaving a lovely morning on the green hilltop.

It also took her a moment to realize Daniel was nowhere to be found.

But the lack of storm also meant she had access to her powers again. She tried to will herself wings, trying to grow them as the enraged god took her higher and higher into the air.

Nothing happened.

“Shit.” What had changed? The storm was gone, she was unharmed; she shouldn’t be having problems.

But when Prosper dropped her, gravity felt very real.

* * * * *

Luckily the wind in her face snapped her into quick thinking. She let go of the loaned cloak and let it slide over her head and off her arms.

Immediately wings burst from her back and she stopped her fall, swooping low over the ground and back up in the air, panting. No wonder the cloak had made her feel so sluggish. As it had repelled the worse of the improbability storm, it had been dampening her own divine power. That had some serious repercussions.

But the serious issue now had to do with Prosper and his inhuman screams.

Kate flew down and landed lightly on the ground, paling at what she saw.

The dropped cloak had landed directly to cover the main vines growing from Prosper’s cave to the vineyard’s trellises. Blocked from the divine influence of the god, the vines were wilting and shriveling, and one by one they snapped, causing Prosper to howl louder with each one.

Finally having her awareness returned to her, Kate caught the sound of a door opening. She turned and saw Sam, looking a lot less friendly and a lot more menacing, step out. He had a large wooden harpoon gun that was armed with a net.

“From one to three in one night; not bad!” he said, and aimed.

The final vine snapped under the cloak and Prosper’s screams turned to sobbing. Kate moved as fast as she could, zipping into the cave as the net crashed into the rocks behind her. She grabbed Prosper, who battered her arms weakly with his vines, and lifted him in a fireman’s carry.

One step outside the cave to let her wings stretch out and she was in the air, leaving Sam cursing behind her.

“Oh, would you shut the fuck up, for your own sake?” she said. “I just saved you from slavery.”

“My babies,” he wept.

“That was an accident, and I’m sorry about it,” she said as she climbed higher. “You dropped me and I had to either lose that cloak or break my neck. I didn’t mean to drop it on you.”

He didn’t answer. Kate sighed and glanced back once at the vineyard, shriveling in the morning sun, and bit her lip.

“I’ll be back, Daniel. I promise. I just have to get this crybaby back to his temple.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Meridian shone in the early morning light, the buildings glinting and swaying in the light wind. It seemed to have survived the improbability storm much better than Daniel had. Daniel, who currently sat in a cage like an animal, trapped in his coyote form.

When Kate had left him, he went for Sam, heading in the direction from where the net had come. He had tried, briefly, to manipulate some matter around him, but the cloak had stifled him. Unlike Kate, he figured it out right away and dropped it, braving the storm’s dangers.

He slipped into coyote form, and immediately found himself somewhere else. He sat in a room full of coyotes, each representing a different trickster god. Hermes was a tail-wagging dark red coyote, Loki was closer to black, and watched him with no humor in his eyes. Daniel didn’t recognize all of the gods there, but he could taste their power as similar to his own. He sat on a dais in the middle of the room, and they surrounded him.

Am I on trial?

Daniel whipped his head around, looking for an exit to the room. Guys, I’d be glad to talk about this any other time than now, but it’s not really a good time. I’m kinda trying to stop a guy who’s hunting me. How’s next week? Guys?

The barks and howls that greeted him indicated that they were not on board with the next week plan.

Coyote, the original, paced in front of him, grinning. She opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment Daniel felt burning ropes surround him. The courtroom dissolved around him and he struggled under a blue net that surrounded him. He tried to shape-change but couldn’t; he tried to bite the ropes and was rewarded with a burnt tongue. Whatever blue substance the net was laced with had not only incapacitated him, it was also draining his strength. He struggled and fell on his side, growling. He snarled at the grinning man who approached him as the storm whirled around them.

It was only as he lost consciousness that he realized that the storm didn’t seem to be bugging Sam at all.

* * * * *

Trapped like a bad stray dog. I was even caught with a big net like on the cartoons. Sheesh.

Daniel paced his cage as well as he could, which consisted of two steps in either direction. It looked like simple wood, about twice as high and long as he was. Something he should easily be able to break out of, but thin blue wire glowed from where it had been pressed into the wood, and he eyed it warily. As he was unable to use his shape-change ability here, it was pretty clear that whatever current ran through that wire carried the same power as the net.

Why is it so easy to catch a god in this place? Either we’re still really ineffective in the whole god department, or there are some pretty fucking amazing power sources.

He’d thought only a god — Fabrique, goddess of clockwork, for instance — could create a device to trap a god. She had trapped him quite well when he had broken into her House of Mysteries. But apparently anyone good at tinkering could harness this stuff.

He sniffed at the wire and shook his head in disgust. It filled his canine nose with acrid, sharp, overwhelming smells. His mind filled with a sense of something very large distilled into something small and concentrated, a power with no rhyme or reason, a power like a storm, throwing tornadoes and lightning at one house and not another. But if you could harness and focus a storm’s power, you’d be pretty damn difficult to stop.

Daniel wondered offhand if there were weather gods here.

The room beyond his cage was rather large. He guessed, with the vats and barrels that surrounded him, that he was in the winery. Beyond the smell of the wire, which now dominated his senses, he could faintly sense an alcoholic odor. On the far wall, up high, was a tiny window. That, plus the cool, heavy, dank air made him think he was in a basement.

Of course, I could be in full sunlight on a roof and I couldn’t get out of this cage. He amended the thought with the realization that his friends could find him if he were in full sunlight; down here, no one could see him.

The urge to lie down and put his head on his paws and pout was a strong one. He couldn’t break out, contact his friends, or hell, even form human words to talk himself out of this situation. Some trickster god.

Oh, shut the fuck up. He thought angrily. You’ve done the feeling-sorry-for-yourself thing. Got you nowhere. You are a god, for Christ’s sake. Screw Christ, actually. You’re a god for YOUR sake!

He remembered with a start the trickster gods that had distracted him sufficiently enough for Sam to get the net around him. Why had they done that? Had it actually been a trial? And how had they done that, if they were all back in heaven?

Coyote had led him through the Wasteland to learn about his power, making it possible for him to bring Kate back to life after her sacrifice to defend heaven. The trickster god clearly wasn’t trapped, or if she was, she wasn’t without power.

Like me.

He thought of what he had at his disposal. He paced the perimeter of the cage, sniffing at the floor, the bars, the joints between them, looking for a weakness. The bars were narrowly spaced; he could only shove his snout through, not the rest of his head.

No weakness found, he flopped down and put his head on his paws. But despair wasn’t on his mind. He closed his eye and breathed deeply, attempting to hit a trance, some sort of state of being to get inspiration, bring Coyote back, even welcome back the trial.

The other tricksters remained absent and silent. But a plan began to form in his mind, a plan worthy of a trapped animal. The human part of Daniel winced and wondered at the logic of it, but the coyote part of him nodded in cold certainty.

He opened his eyes and regarded his left front paw. Daniel couldn’t bring himself to do it, so he consciously retreated and allowed the animal part of him to settle down and begin to gnaw.

* * * * *

I really am not looking forward to being human again.

Daniel lay on his right side, panting. His left paw lay beside him, gnawed clean off by his strong jaws. The bone had been the worst part, but he had broken it clearly, desire to be free stronger than the maelstrom of pain that engulfed his leg.

The animal had almost completely taken over, ignoring the pain to heave himself to three legs. He held the left leg high, blood still dripping. He took his paw in his jaws and flung it through the bars. It soared through them without touching and landed with a wet plot about six feet beyond the cage, slightly behind a wine vat. He lay down again, not minding the tacky blood on the floor of the cage that got in his thick coat. He could only hope now.

He was licking his wound when Sam finally came to visit him.

“One god is lost, one god is gained. I am not sure I made out good on that,” the big man said conversationally, not looking at Daniel. He checked on the vat closest to the door and adjusted a knob. “And I got the weak cripple. Do you know what we did with cripples in Leviathan City?”

Daniel didn’t pay attention to him, just kept licking. The wound had stopped bleeding, and it was more to comfort than clean.

“We tossed them out the airlock and watched them drown,” Sam continued, checking a figure on a clipboard. “You need strength to live under the sea, and the weak could have caused problems. It’s why my parents were exiled, see. I wanted three gods, and I’m stuck with the worst one. And you can’t even talk — by Ishmael’s lost foreskin; what happened here?”

He had finally looked in the cage and noticed Daniel lying in a pool of his own blood, licking his stump. Daniel regarded him calmly, then went back to licking.

“You idiot!” Sam raged, bringing both hands down on the cage in a mighty thump. “I really did get the worst god. You don’t even know enough to realize that chewing off a leg doesn’t get you anything in a cage like this! You’re thinking about a bear trap! Oh, you fool! Now my god is even more of a cripple! What am I going to do with you now?”

Daniel’s heart leapt. Weak? Worst? Stupid? Words that once would have hurt him now bolstered him. If Sam thought he was these things, he would underestimate Daniel. And that’s what Daniel wanted.

He opened his mouth and panted, giving a doggy smile with blood coating his muzzle.

Sam groaned and turned his back, holding his head in his hands. “I’ve lost Prosper, my vines are dead; what am I going to do?”

He stopped groaning and turned, his eyes narrowing as he regarded the cage. “You may be an idiot, but you’re still made of godstuff.”

Daniel forced himself to keep casually licking, but he didn’t like the new focus in Sam’s voice. “And there is godstuff all over the floor of that cage.”

Daniel looked down at the blood that still coated the wooden floor of the cage. He realized Sam was right. His paw, his blood, maybe even his piss, were all divine, and would have power outside this divine-stultifying cage.

Sam ran from the room and returned with a wooden board. Blue wires ran around the board and connected to what looked like a battery case on one end, and the whole thing glowed. Daniel bared his teeth and backed into the corner of the cage.

“At least you know enough to stay away from this,” Sam said, opening the door to the cage and inserting the board in first. Daniel would have to push against the board to get out, now, and he obediently held back.

With his left hand, he held Daniel at bay with the board, and with his right, he carefully mopped up Daniel’s blood with a rag. “Got a scientist, Melissa Hutchins, who will know what to do with this,” he said. “Powerful stuff, I’m sure.”

He pulled the rag and the board out of the cage, slamming the door quickly, and sat back on his heels. His eyes narrowed again.

“Wait a moment. If you gnawed your foot off, where did it end up? Did you swallow it?”

Crap, thought Daniel.

The big man dropped the board and stood, stashing the rag in his back pocket. He looked on the floor around the cage and then further into the room. Daniel held his breath as Sam went behind the barrel where he’d thrown the paw.

Sam got to his hands and knees and pulled out the rag. Daniel whined low in his throat. Sam did something with the rag and put it back in his pocket.

“Well, broken god, I will see what I can do with this. But I will find that paw before I’m done. At worst, it looks like I might be able to cut you up and sell the parts to a tinker. You’ve got to be as powerful as chaos energy.”

With that he slammed the door, and Daniel heard a key turn in the lock.

Now what?

“What” turned out to be a movement that caught his eye. A shadow danced on the wall beyond the wine vats, the dark sibling to a sunbeam peeking through the trees. It took a humanoid form and skipped around the wall, playing with light, hiding, teasing, and having a grand time leaping in and out of shadows. It twisted and contorted, actually making a series of shadow puppets that had Daniel amused even as he was annoyed.

Yeah. That’s definitely part of me.

Daniel barked once, relieved, and wagged his tail. Let Sam think he was an idiot. His plan was working.

As the shadow cavorted, Daniel realized he had no control over it. It hadn’t been his idea for a piece of him to turn into a playful shadow; he hadn’t known what would happen.

Odin knew there was power in the loss of a body part, he reflected. This has got to work.

The shadow danced around the room until it got to the heavy wooden door. There it paused, then collapsed into a circle. It quivered for a moment as if gathering energy, then it burst from the wall and landed on the floor, a three-dimensional shadow, a dark imp that stood about six inches high.

Daniel limped to the door of his cage and stood expectantly. But the imp paid him no attention and instead pranced forward, still leaping and dancing, until it stood in front of the wine vat in the back corner of the room.

It paused briefly, then leapt up and slid underneath a seam as if it were a wide doorway. The vat shuddered on its stand and then rocked back and forth once. The faucet then flew off with incredible force and the green, bubbly wine spewed into the room.

The wine gushed toward Daniel’s cage, but had turned into a slow trickle by the time it lapped at the edge.

What is it doing?

The shadow imp had ridden the torrent out gleefully like a kid at a water park. It hit the floor, stood carefully, then skipped to the next vat, and then the next, forcing each to belch out its contents onto the floor. The hundreds of gallons of wine were creating a green, bubbly lake on the floor that rose steadily, getting into Daniel’s cage at last and coating his paws in the wine.

The blood that still stained the wood floor mixed in with the wine, causing little black rivulets to swirl around Daniel’s paws. It spread out like a spider web; instead of dissipating in the wine, it seemed to get stronger. It stretched out to the bars of the cage where it wrapped around, sliding up and out of the wine. Like the shadow imp, it sank into the wood and Daniel heard the distinct “BZZT” of an electrical short.

The effect was instantaneous. Daniel could feel his divine power returning to him, the dampening power of the weird blue wires no longer holding him back. He walked through the bars as if they were made of smoke, and shook himself. With a thought, he reclaimed his human form and staggered back as the pain of his bloody stump hit him. He stumbled back and fell into the wine.

The shadow that had been his severed paw was finishing draining the last of the Cmar wine. It staggered toward him, and through his red pain haze Daniel thought, The thing is drunk!

He stared at it dumbly as it leaned against his knee. His ruined arm rested on his thigh. The imp waved feebly at him and then flowed into his arm.

The pain ended immediately, and Daniel stared in wonder as his hand reformed, fingers flexing. After a moment, he couldn’t even see the scar where he’d gnawed.

“Goddamn,” he murmured, as the waves of pain were replaced by waves of drunkenness. “How much did my hand drink?”

With a bit of effort, still treating his new hand gingerly, he managed to get to his feet just as the door flew open, shoving a wave of green wine toward Daniel, which rebounded quickly and rushed out to soak Sam’s boots.

The big man’s face had time to register shock and fury at the draining of his last supply of wine, and then the escaped god, before Daniel narrowed his eye and flexed his divine, drunken will once again.

CHAPTER SIX

It was not a triumphant entrance, but it certainly stopped everyone in their tracks.

Kate, Barris, Fabrique, and Gamma were talking intently to the head priestess, discussing the details of landscape below to determine a good way to search for Daniel. Barris didn’t see him, but with the system of caves and Sam’s winery, that wasn’t a surprise.

“Look, I say we just go straight into the house,” Gamma said. She stood while the others were seated, bouncing from foot to foot. She made Kate tired.

“If he had something to trap Daniel, who’s to say he can’t trap us?” Kate said. “The scientists down there create robes to squash our power; we might as well be mortal.”

Fabrique pulled at a copper curl. “But that wasn’t their goal, correct? The scientist created the robe to protect from the improbability storm. Did it do that?”

Kate shrugged. “For the most part.”

“This implies that the power that we have as gods, and the power of the improbability storms, are the same energy.”

Kate stared at her. “That’s … obvious. Why didn’t we see it before? Why didn’t you see it before? You are the one to work with the energy!”

The goddess stiffened. “When you’re imprisoned for years and years, your mind turns to how to use energy to release yourself, not from where it comes.”

“Well , if it’s the same divine energy that we have, what god generates it?”

They were silent.

Kate slammed her hands on the table. “Well, that’s just great.”

“Can we focus on the task at hand?” Gamma asked. “Trading one god for another wasn’t the deal. And why didn’t you take us?”

Kate sighed. “I told you. We were trying to figure out who in the hell that flying fire guy was. No one around here has seen him before. Got caught in the improbability storm, then got the lead on Prosper.” She ran a hand through her tangled hair. She really wanted a bath and a nap. “How is he, anyway?” she asked the priestess.

“His priests are looking after him. They were … nonplussed to receive him.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

The woman didn’t look at Kate. “He is unwell. He is weeping, asking to be returned to captivity, and apparently in great pain. The high priest, Deacon Walthers, is feeding him wine to placate him.”

“Great,” she muttered. “Now he’ll be drunk and whiny.”

“I could stand a drink, but make it beer,” came a voice from the doorway.

Daniel stood there, covered in blood and a sticky green substance. He leaned against the doorway of the temple, holding a large urn in his arms.

Kate threw herself at him immediately. He dropped the urn to receive her, and staggered backward. “Are you okay? We were just trying to figure out how to rescue you? What happened?” she said into his ear.

He hugged her back tightly and then gently pushed her back. The urn had fallen over and was making muffled complaining noises.

“I’ll tell you everything in a bit. For now, I need to sit down. It was kind of hard to get him here.”

Kate looked closer at the jug, about half her height. It was massive, with white clay vineyards twining around it. It was sealed tightly. She smiled. “He’s in there? Like Ares?”

Daniel gave a tired smile. “I learned from the best.”

* * * * *

Kate took his hand in hers, studying the wrist closely. “Are you serious? You chewed it off? There’s not even a scar!”

Daniel shrugged. “I know. I have no idea what happened. I didn’t even expect to get it back.”

She released his hand and looked at him. “But dude, why did you just wait on us? You had to know I was going to come back for you!”

They sat alone in the priestess’s office, Kate demanding to get the story from him first. Daniel’s eyes were hollow and he slumped in his chair, but he seemed fine physically. He stared at her.

“I — I don’t know. I guess it was pretty extreme, huh?”

“Daniel. You chewed your own fucking hand off.”

“I guess I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know if he had you, too. And I was stuck in coyote form. My thinking got a little wild there for a bit.” He paused and stared at the wall, unfocused. “Or maybe I was given a test.”

He told her about the disconnect during the storm, when he was on trial in front of the other trickster gods.

“You think they orchestrated this?” Kate asked.

He shook his head slowly. “I wouldn’t say exactly that. I just mean that they were watching. And what god sits around and waits for people to rescue him?”

“What god chews his own hand off to get out of a cage?” she replied.

“I do,” he said.

She stared at him, and then blinked once. “I guess you do.”

“What happened with Prosper? Did you find him?”

Kate smacked herself in the forehead. “Crap, I totally forgot. Yeah, I got him. He’s not really in good shape. The whole orchard was growing out of him. He tried to kill me, and he might have done so if I hadn’t taken off that coat. But I got him back here. He’s in his temple now, and drunk, as far as I know.”

“Yeah, we need to talk about those coats,” Daniel said. “The coats and the cage Sam had me in and the vat Fabrique put me in. What the hell is that?”

Kate sighed and twisted her robe her in her hands. “We determined it’s got to be another divine force. That’s the only way we could explain it.”

“But who?” Daniel asked. “I thought we knew all the gods here.”

“Clearly, we don’t,” Kate said. “There’s that flaming guy from last night, we have no idea about him. And then there’s whatever this chaos energy stuff is. People learned to harness it and now they can trap gods.”

Daniel stood up. “We need to bring the others in on this.”

“I gave them some time off. Barris wanted to visit Lathe and Fabrique went with him. I think we’ve earned some rest. Why don’t you get some rest?”

He smoothed the hair away from her face. “Just do me one favor?”

“Anything.”

He bit his lip momentarily. “Stay with me?”

She kissed him. “Of course.”

* * * * *

Improbability storms were once described in Meridian as cries of joy from lovemaking gods. In Lathe they were more crudely described as godfucking. Regardless, Kate and Daniel did not force an improbability storm as their innocent, exhausted cuddling led to stroking, fumbling, undressing, pinching, giggling, biting, sweaty, loud activities. They had wrestled, each wanting the on-top position, and Daniel won, trapping her roughly beneath him, losing himself in passion that bordered on animalistic.

Kate moaned beneath him, his rough handling driving her to match his passion. She stopped trying to get the upper hand and accepted the frantic pleasure he offered her.

After their first time, they lay together, whispering things to each other, dozing, and wrapped around each other. Kate roused Daniel from light sleep, insisting to him with little nips that she wasn’t quite done. The second time was slower, tenderer, and took much more time.

When they were done, the ground did not shake, but the temple swayed in the sky as if pushed by a very hard wind.

Kate pillowed her head on his shoulder. “I see what you mean,” she said, panting.

He stroked her hair. “What do you mean?”

“The animal. Coyote. That was different. And amazing.”

“I haven’t felt like that before. It was…primal. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Oh, hell no,” she said, wrapping her naked legs around his. “You can do that any time.”

“Good,” he said. Her eyes closed, but his remained open, staring at the ceiling and wondering.

* * * * *

“I don’t know why you wanted to come with me,” said Fabrique. “What does Lathe hold for you?”

“Oh, I don’t get to see it very often,” said Barris, looking around the main street of the city beneath Meridian. “It’s in Meridian’s shadow most of the day. I like to visit…” Something caught his eye and he trailed off.

Fabrique raised an eyebrow. “All right. I need to get some things from my house; do you want to come in?”

“I think I’ll do some shopping,” he said, starting forward without looking at her.

“There goes the source of all life,” the clockwork goddess said softly. “Help us all.”

She went back into her house, what was, until recently, her prison. She had only supplies to help during an airship battle with her, gathered swiftly upon their last exit from the house. Now she looked around and tried to figure out what she would need for air or water travel.

Air tanks, mechanical wings, jetpacks, swimming fins, laser weaponry that worked underwater…there was just too much. Even her modified bag could only hold so much.

She smiled slowly to herself. How had she not thought of this before? She gathered her tools, a disused chaos battery, and a sketchpad. She left everything else in her house and then went back outside, sat in the street, and began to sketch.

* * * * *

Professor Burns’s Idea Emporium was changed since Barris had last seen it, but that was not a new thing. Every time he went into the store to buy a little box that contained an idea, he paid the proprietor in blessings. So every time he came back, Burns was a little richer, a little healthier, a little younger, and his shop was a little nicer.

Now it occupied a swaying two-story building made out of dark green glass. The pegs that tethered it to the ground — as the ground rejected anything built upon it — looked recently hammered in, so the building was new.

Professor Burns’s weathered face lit up as Barris walked through the Idea Emporium’s front door. “Ah! Your Excellency! Welcome back! It’s always an honor to see you!”

Barris’s lip trembled and a sheen of sweat glazed his forehead. He stared at Professor Burns with wide eyes and said, “I may be going on a trip soon. I need to stock up.”

The Professor inclined his head, nearly bird-like. “Understood, sir. Should you be in need of a weapon or military idea? Or perhaps…” he trailed off as if he knew what Barris needed.

Barris took another step forward, putting his shaking hands on the counter. Burns frowned.

“I — I don’t care. Just give me some.”

“Your Excellency, I am but a mortal, and —”

“I’ll take five. Give me three regular and two bad, or four bad and one regular. I don’t care.”

Burns choked and sputtered. “Five? Surely you don’t mean —”

The sun god’s eyes went wide. He shook his head; an irritating buzzing sound had begun to distract him. “F-five. Yes. I need five. Is that a problem? I can pay for it.” His watery blue eyes began to glow.

Burns’s eyes flitted to the green windows, where the morning sunlight had dimmed even more so than usual, being underneath the shadow of Meridian.

“No, of course not, Excellency,” he said smoothly, unlocking the display case in front of him. The light outside brightened a bit.

Barris shifted from foot to foot, wringing his hands, as Burns pointed with long fingers. “I might suggest a political idea, perhaps two war, and two bad?”

“Perfect, sure, whatever,” Barris said, willing his hands not to shake.

As Burns’s establishment and person had gotten fancier with the repeated blessings by the sun god, so had his ideas. Before they were contained within boxes, but now they consisted of carefully folded paper, cloth, or even metal. Most of the ideas were folded into the shape of something-dinosaurs were common — but he did keep the old favorite idea boxes around. Burns handed the god a piece of blue silk folded into the shape of a judge’s tunic, two tiny pterodactyls folded from hammered-thin sheets gold and silver, and two small wooden puzzle boxes.

Barris accepted them with shaking hands. He stashed the origami in pockets inside his robe, slipped one box into his breast pocket and turned away from Burns, hunching over the last one.

His fingers flew as they manipulated the puzzle box, the hidden catches and pressure panels no match for his eagerness and familiarity. Once open, he held it to his ear.

Developing trade relations with Leviathan City would be a simple matter of visiting them and bearing gifts. They are eager to hear from the cities above the air.

As the idea wormed its way into Barris’s head, he let out a great gust of air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. As he pondered the implications around the idea, he straightened and smiled and Professor Burns, who watched him, frowning.

“Thank you so much, Professor Burns,” Barris said. “It’s always a pleasure.”

He turned and leapt lightly out of the front door, dropping the two feet down to the ground, and walked back toward Fabrique’s House of Mysteries, whistling.

* * * * *

Professor Burns pursed his lips and drummed his fingers on the now-locked glass case. He walked quickly across the room and closed the door behind the sun god, locking it and putting up a TEMPORARILY CLOSED: USE YOUR IMAGINATION FOR 5 MINUTES sign.

Barris’s blessings always came; Burns wasn’t concerned that the god wouldn’t pay. He had paid in odd ways — everything from the new building to the fact that he no longer woke up with his joints aching. But the most surprising result of the blessings was the upgrade to his Chaositron Idea Generator.

Burns previously would feed in small boxes, and the idea generator would place a vacuum-sealed trapped idea into the box, only to be released when the box was open. It was a brilliant piece of machinery, and Chaositron had given the professor a promotion and a hefty bonus. These are what he thought of as the glory days of Meridian.

Everything crashed when Chaositron had gone bankrupt soon after it started the idea business. Unfortunately, the idea generator created one very bad idea out of every ten good ones. They had no way of knowing which were good and which were bad, and after a particularly tragic airship crash connected directly to a bad idea that Chaositron sold the airship pilot, the company folded. Professor Burns’s boss took “The quick trip to Lathe” (how people in Meridian referred to suicidal jumpers), leaving Burns penniless with nothing but a corrupt idea generator.

Fortunately, people in Lathe are more open to machines that only sometimes work, and he was able to build a somewhat thriving idea business there. He became familiar enough with the machine to be able to identify the bad ideas, and sold them as novelties.

One thing he noticed as his business grew was that his customers seemed to be in two camps. Some of them came to honestly needed the ideas. They would purchase what they needed, use them, and only come back when they were stuck again in whatever they were working on.

Then there were the addicts.

Some people used ideas just for the thrill of the potential of it; the possibility was limitless and made them feel powerful. One addict likened it to being poised at the zip line in Meridian, about to let gravity sweep them down the line to Lathe. But they never actually took the step to fulfill the potential. They just went back for more ideas.

Burns had not seen anyone as addicted as the weak-willed sun god. Cutting him off had been a bad idea — the god’s wild eyes had begun to burn with a fierce light. If he could bless Burns so well, Burns was sure he could curse him just as easily.

Burns stood in front of his idea generator, upgraded by the divine blessing of the sun god to make more intricate ideas — even though it still produced bad ones. Burns rarely used the machine himself; he felt it was best to be the middleman. But this time he felt it was important.

The machine hummed to itself in the corner, small finger-like jointed rods whirred as they deftly folded another idea and dropped it into a basket.

Burns went and picked it up. Folded from a heavy linen cloth in the shape of a swan, the idea formed in his head as he shook it free of its shape.

Only the other gods can deal with one god’s problems.

Professor Burns sighed and dropped the idea linen into the used pile to be recycled later. He hadn’t been to Meridian since leaving it in disgrace years earlier. He guessed it was time to go home again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The kids in Meridian assumed that James was the luckiest kid around. He had lived a life of excitement, true. He had been placed as a hand on his mother’s airship when her crew had either died with his father in a pirate attack, or died when they had escaped the fiery fall of Dauphine.

The escape from Dauphine had been very exciting, true. Terrifying, as well. What the other kids didn’t know was that when they had fled in his mother’s signature airship, the Sheridan, that two gods had stowed away aboard, taking control of the ship and ordering his mother, Alicia, to take them to Meridian, where his father had died.

James had had further adventure when he was appointed guide to the god Daniel when he visited Lathe for the first time and had to save him from the enraged goddess Fabrique. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, he accompanied the gods into the Dark to fight air pirates.

And he was only ten.

James was lucky to call the god Daniel a friend. He was lucky to have the god’s blessing on him as a reward for saving him. And he was lucky to be an able crewman on his mother’s airship.

But the times when he missed his father, he didn’t feel so lucky. And the times when he missed his home in Dauphine, and his friends. And the times when his stupid big sister, Sarah, tried to pull rank on him.

Sarah had done so this night. He had wanted to go into Meridian; he’d been so bored staying on the Sheridan, waiting for the gods to need transport somewhere. But Sarah said that they needed an able crewmember to be alert at all times, and tonight was his night. She got to go into the city with their mother to check on, oh, he didn’t know. Or care. Supplies. Find out what the gods were up to. What did it matter?

The Sheridan docked at a tower in Meridian close to the central temple, but it still had to be on the outskirts of the floating city. If he looked over one side, he could look into the city. The city glittered in the twilight as people began turning their lights on. The gondolas and lifts ferried people home to their gleaming tower apartments, or took them to restaurants and theaters. They went about their lives, living in the sky, with no idea what was going on around them, without realizing the gods were among them.

James didn’t like looking over the city. He preferred to turn his back to it and stare over the barren land below, into the hills and the Dark. He hoped if he looked far enough into the dark, he would see where the moon had run off to and he could find her and convince her to come back.

Being able to watch the skies had been his favorite part about flying. He had spent his allowance on books about the heavens, learning about the constellations of Fenrir, the Diving Mother, the Big Rock Candy Mountain, and Kate’s Heart. He had been amazed to meet Barris, the sun god, and was disappointed, to say the least.

He still hoped that they would meet Cotton, the moon goddess, and wondered why the moon had been gone these many days. The ground had rumbled when it had left, something he’d heard instead of felt, as he’d been in the air when it happened. The hint of ocean he could see to the west did not gleam as it once did, as the tides had ceased. He wondered how the animals were faring.

The moon had been his favorite, and he missed her terribly. She had waxed and waned like him — crushing blows and huge excitements, being treated like a kid and being given airship crewman responsibilities, getting to meet the gods who created you and then learning they had as many flaws as you did. Maybe more.

James sighed, longing for the moon, and stared into the Dark as night fell. A large, soot-smudged bird landed on the railing a couple of feet from him. It looked like a crow, only it was white. He frowned at it.

“Hi,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

The crow opened its wicked beak and cawed once, loudly. James winced at the sound.

“You won’t find any food here. My sister would kill me if she found me feeding the chicken gun ammo to a crow. Go away.” He waved his hand half-heartedly at the bird.

The bird didn’t spook, but just hopped about six inches toward him on the railing and cawed again.

James squinted at it. The bird cocked its head and ruffled its feathers. It fixed its eye on him, and he was astonished to see it wasn’t beady and black, but white and luminous. Its eye actually glowed in the shadows.

“What …?” asked James, still staring at the eye and relaxing against the airship railing.

The bird took another hop closer.

* * * * *

The boy was gorgeous. Morrigan had not had much experience with men — she knew the sun was male, and had longed to meet him, as she was the sole person who could see his true form at night and reflect that beauty back onto the world. But she had never met him.

The lost souls in the underworld had flavors of male or female, but none had become a companion, a friend, or lover. The loneliness of captivity had been stifling to the goddess, but now that she had her freedom, the barriers raised by her disfigurement were maddening.

This boy, however, looked at her with curiosity. Interest. His eyes were a warm brown, bright and intelligent. His face was round, innocent, and complimented by a beautiful mouth. His skin was the dark brown commonly found in Dauphine, not Meridian, and she wondered where he had come from, why he lived on an airship, and why he seemed to hold himself with more confidence than other boys she’d seen.

This boy would understand her. This boy would listen. He would curl up in her lap during the day, and be her servant and right hand man at night. When he became a man, he would be her lover.

But first, to join her in her new home, he would have to die.

Morrigan let him watch her, captivated, for a moment more, and then she took flight, spiraling up and up, ignoring his pleas for her to return.

* * * * *

As the sun dipped low, the rare rays touching the glass and metal buildings of Lathe, a voice groaned from behind inside a rubbish bin tethered to the rear of a grocer.

Sewer and trash issues were not discussed in Meridian and Lathe. Meridian residents paid a great amount of taxes that went toward the creation of machines to transport or transform their trash, and a year of tax revenue had gone toward the huge water cleansing building, where all waste water from the city ran through for purification. The waste collected was also transformed by some of the better tinkers. The upper-class snobs of Meridian joked that the waste was transformed into bricks that Lathe residents used to build, but no one really knew.

Barris knew, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone. Secrets were all he had.

Well, secrets and a massive idea hangover.

He was planning on using one idea to take the edge off, and save the rest in case Daniel and Kate wanted to drag him off on another ridiculous rescue.

Unfortunately the second bad idea was, “To fully experience something it is best to consume all you can at once.” That one blew his mind to the extent that he stumbled for the nearest place to hide to consume the other three ideas, and was out for the day. Now, with the great fireball that was the focus of all his power ebbing, he stood shakily in the bin, rotten vegetables dropping off him. He clutched his head, too full of ideas to comprehend any of them, and wondered what day it was.

The sun slipped below the horizon at that moment, and Barris transformed.

The lethargy, the drug, the weakness, the self loathing, the gnawing addiction, they all sloughed off Barris as he launched himself into the sky, the power from the sun returning to him in a rush that felt as if he’d been punched with something glorious.

He reflected that his earlier vow to lay off the ideas had apparently amounted to nothing. Apparently, indeed—he was still covered in refuse from the rubbish bin. He grimaced and concentrated briefly, his skin heating to hundreds of degrees to burn off the foulness.

Ash floated from his skin as he climbed higher, aiming for the underside of Meridian, dancing between the massive cables that anchored it to the ground that refused to let it rest upon it. Clouds always coalesced on the underside of the city, the moisture drawn to the mass of the buildings. Tendrils of cloud whirled around as he broke through them, his heat evaporating the water droplets immediately.

Barris paused underneath a tower on the outskirts of the city. He was tuned to all of the divine powers of the city: the founts of power that were Kate and Daniel, Fabrique and Prosper, both formerly imprisoned in Lathe, and Gamma, who had been imprisoned in the tower right below him for eons. But now there was a new presence, and he tried to remember what he had seen when his power had been stored in the sun.

There. Right above him. The power radiated strongly female, intense hatred, and seemed to — unlike the other gods in the world — to represent two things instead of one. Very curious.

Barris left the underside of Meridian and climbed higher, eager to meet this new goddess, to see if she was like him, unknown to the others, recently freed, and in love with her own power.

The nighttime lights of Meridian caught a flash of white, and Barris pursued. She was in the shape of a bird, a large white crow. Persi was the only other goddess he knew of who could fly, and she always did so in dinosaur form. Kate didn’t shape-change. Gamma traveled via weapons, and Fabrique would sooner build a flying machine. Who was this woman?

She left the lights of Meridian and flew south, with Barris behind her. He quickly caught up with her, but she closed her wings and dropped, missile-like, and pulled up a hundred feet below him. He nearly pulled up in surprise, but grinned and followed.

She turned on a wing and headed west toward the ocean, climbing as she went. He put on a burst of speed and caught up with her.

He was faster than her, and she knew it, relying on quick changes of direction and altitude to evade him. He relished the game, his burning fingers nearly closing on sooty tail feathers more than once.

The crow glanced at him once, clearly irritated, and dove again, skimming the marshlands closer to the ocean. Barris had no problem following, and gouts of steam rose from the swamps as he neared the water.

At this point he didn’t want to catch her; the chase was too much fun. He let her gain a bit of a lead, climbing again and heading southwest. He stayed under her, admiring her strength and speed. He just wanted to talk to her; why did she run away?

The ocean glittered under the moon as they neared, and Barris put on some speed to end up right under her. He shot upward, then, with the intention to catch her by surprise and grab her, make her talk to him.

His fingers closed around feathers, but feathers nearly as big as his hand. He plowed into the soft feathery breast of the crow, and her now-massive wings closed around him suddenly, trapping him.

He struggled against the prison, but feathers were everywhere and he couldn’t move. He tried to increase his skin’s temperature, to burn the crow, but she grabbed his leg with her talons and sank in deep. The hotter he got, the tighter she held him.

In his panic, he didn’t realize if she held him in her wings and talons, she was no longer flying, and they hit the ocean with a massive splash and hissing steam. The crow flailed in the water, her talons dragging him under.

The dull, stifling feeling was nothing like he’d felt before, even during the day when his power had to go into the sun. His fire went out, the water clogged his pores, his eyes, his ears, his nose. He opened his mouth to scream and the water rushed in. Cold water seeped into his very bones, and he became only dimly aware that the crow had let him go, and was gone.

His waterlogged wings beat once under the waves, and then were stilled.

* * * * *

Morrigan did not know who he was, but her instinct had taken her to the ocean, one of the places where she felt her power most purely, as the water did her bidding. A creature of fire would not be happy in the water, she reasoned, and once she had shoved him under all of the fight had gone out of him.

But as she stood on the beach, water sloshing around her robe hem, she felt a great weakness strike her. She looked up at the moon for her validation, and the light began to fade.

That would be why she felt great strength even as the man had grown hotter and hotter in her grasp. She swore and tossed her mask aside, gripping the burned skin as she held her head, trying to will the dizziness away.

Why had the sun been so abysmally stupid as to fly over the water? Now with his power dying, he would doom not only himself, but also he would rob her of the power they shared, and the world itself would freeze.

Morrigan straightened, determined. She didn’t much care for the sun god, but for her to continue existing, he had to continue existing. She set her teeth and concentrated.

The moon in the sky regained some of its luster, showing a waxing moon close to full. The water began to churn violently as she forced the tides to conform to her will. She had to do more than get him to the surface; he needed attending.

Leviathan City was nearby, and their submersibles patrolled the waterways. She had seen them frequently when hanging above the ocean, or when seen through the eyes of albino, deep-swimming fish. The rip tide Morrigan created caught one of the submersibles and dragged it to the floating body of the drowning sun god. She could feel the engines fighting as they tried to correct their course in the water, but she was too strong for them. She lifted the heavy submersible despite its efforts to stay deep, and presented the god to them.

The hatch opened and two pale faces peeked out, shouting in alarm. One woman with glittering hair and a bald man leapt out of the hatch and ran down the length of the sub to catch Barris’s outstretched arms. They pulled the unmoving god into their sub, and Morrigan relaxed at last.

As for the goddess, she collapsed on the beach, utterly spent.

The sub did not dive yet, though. The two pale faces appeared again after dragging Barris to the ship’s medic. They looked at each other and then at the glowing body.

“She would want us to take that one too,” the man said.

“You reckon they’re two of the same kind?” the woman asked.

“He’s got wings. She’s glowing and has a mask and a weapon. I know the heretics in the open air have their odd ways, but I hadn’t heard they were like this. And one of them altered the tides, you can’t tell me that was normal, Kayra Nhoj.”

Kayra Nhoj nodded slowly. “One problem, though. She’s on land.”

The man blanched, as much as his pale skin let him. “She … doesn’t need to know. She’d want us to break the rules to get this one too.”

Kayra Nhoj laughed, a short barking sound. “Dareth! Are you insane? You’re willing to risk exile to test that?”

Dareth’s eyes narrowed. “You’d report?”

Kayra Nhoj held up her hands. “Of course not; not me. But you know I can’t stop anyone else from coming up and peeking out. And we’d have to lie about how we got her, keeping our stories straight.” She turned from him back to the white beach that shimmered in the moonlight. She shuddered. “I wouldn’t risk having to live here in the open for whatever that one will get us in glory.”

Dareth pursed his lips and stared at the inert form. “I’m going for it. You can lick Ishmael’s balls, I’m doing this.”

“No, wait, it’s too dangerous!” Kayra Nhoj said, grabbing for his arm. But they were both still damp from rescuing the winged man, and her hand slipped off and he scrambled out of the hatch and ran along the length of the sub before he dove in.

“The fool!” she whispered. She didn’t want to see Dareth commit heresy by putting his feet on dry land, so she climbed back down the hatch to check on the winged man.

The medic was a young man with skin so pale it was almost translucent; his dark hair and eyes contrasted strongly. His out-of-water beauty often made Kayra Nhoj’s breath catch in her throat. She composed herself by reminding herself of the rules against fraternizing with the crew.

The cot in the infirmary was soaked, water seemingly to pour out of the man as the doctor put pressure on his lungs and forced air into him to try to force the water out. But the water that came from him streamed from his pores, his ears, his nose, as well as his mouth.

“Ishmael’s foreskin, but this godfucker is a like a sponge,” Doctor Isaac muttered as he compressed the man’s chest. Water dripped off the cot and pooled on the floor. Kayra Nhoj smiled at the foul words coming from the doctor’s mouth — it was always a thrilling shock to hear such language coming from a beautiful man — and knocked on the doorjamb.

Doctor Isaac looked up. “I don’t know what you’ve got here, but it’s not human.”

Kayra Nhoj nodded. “Yeah, we got that much. Will he live?”

Doctor Isaac paused to pinch the man’s nose and blow into his mouth. More water streamed from his skin, nose and ears. The doctor resumed pumping on his chest. “I have no fucking clue. He’s like a sponge, which is not physiology I’m familiar with. But I do know if he doesn’t start breathing in a moment, he’s not going to plant his seed in any winged women.”

The man stiffened for a moment, then vomited a gout of water. Ignoring the mess, Isaac reached out and turned his head so he couldn’t choke further, but pulled his hands back quickly, shaking them.

“The water is hot!” He stood back from the man, who had now begun to steam as he coughed up more water. Sweat immediately started to pop out on Kayra Nhoj’s forehead as she backed out of the room, watching over the shorter doctor’s head. Isaac just stood there, staring at the man, who had rolled over to better express the water from him.

The man finally opened his glowing eyes and flexed his wings, finding that they filled the room when he tried to expand them. He looked at them both and then slipped into unconsciousness.

The heat subsided. Doctor Isaac glanced at Kayra Nhoj and then said, “I think we need to let the captain know. And I think we need to get back home rather quickly. The Queen needs to know about this.”

Kayra Nhoj grimaced. “The problem is, the captain is currently trying to secure another one of these creatures.”

* * * * *

Captain Dareth Kagar’s confidence was waning as he swam toward the shore. While touching the sand under the ocean was not forbidden, getting out into the open air fully was. The other creature lay with the tide lapping at her.

The open-air world was so large! He looked around, grateful for the darkness to hide how much open space was around him. The ocean was so much bigger up here, and the sky was a nightmare of exposure. The moon, while the source of the tides and a minor deity to his people, was still a naked glaring orb. And the stars were pinpricks of fear, millions of eyes staring at him.

For their own safety and sanity, his people — even the submarine captains — were not permitted to surface during the day. The Queen said they could not comprehend the vastness, but Dareth had always wondered. If they exiled people, did they throw them from their home and sentence them to madness? Or did the people learn to deal with all this space, this wind? Kayra Nhoj would say people could deal with it; they could deal with anything. He had chosen his first mate for her pragmatic common sense, which usually tethered his more radical ideas. She hadn’t stopped him this time, though. But he was sure he’d be all right.

He knew he was splitting hairs, but Dareth reasoned that if he stayed with his feet wet the whole time, he would be safe from The Queen’s wrath. Facing exile was one thing, but presenting Her with this creature could be worth the risk.

The tide was going out; Dareth’s time was limited. He felt a wave push against his knees and took his chance. He lumbered through the surf, the open air giving a sense of loss and agoraphobia. Gasping and trying to focus only on the figure in front of him, and not the itching feeling between his shoulder blades that anything could come up behind him, he stood ankle-deep in water beside the body.

The shape beneath the rough robe implied female, but he could tell nothing more. The mask was fashioned from soot-stained bone. Curiosity shackled him for a moment, and instead of taking the body and dragging it into the ocean, he reached for the mask.

His fingers had time only to brush the mask before a bony hand shot up and trapped his wrist. He gasped and stepped backward, but she kept him in her grip. She sat up, seemingly not noticing her prey. He heard a muffled voice from behind the mask.

“So he lives. And is returning to power. That’s something.” The mask then turned to face him. It lacked any facial adornments, not even eyeholes, but Dareth could feel her eyes on him.

“Leviathan City citizen on land?” she asked. “How brave. What other brave things did you have planned, little brave man?”

“I- I- I-” Dareth struggled as he stammered, but her grip remained unchanged.

She chuckled. “You wanted two prizes. But I think your people will have enough to deal with when Barris returns full strength.”

His own predicament forgotten momentarily, Dareth looked back toward his sub, floating silently off the shore. “B-Barris? That was Barris?”

“Yes. Your people just saved the life of the sun Himself. And if I am right, you’re going to be in a world of trouble.”

“Why?”

“Well. Your people will be. Not you. You’re coming with me.” She rose to her feet and picked up her weapon.

The strike was serpent-swift, and didn’t hurt at all. She must have missed. Dareth’s hand finally slipped from the deathly grip of the monster in front of him, and he tried to stumble back into the surf to return to his sub, and then home, but his feet no longer stood in the water. He had no feet.

Dareth’s spirit was quickly losing his corporeal form, and he flailed in panic, watching the wisp of his being dissolve.

The woman’s mask was cocked to the side, watching. Dareth’s last thought was to warn Leviathan City about the new monster in the open air, but his spirit blew away with a wisp of wind.

* * * * *

Morrigan looked with interest at her weapon. It was no longer as wicked as it had been, getting fatter as the moon waxed, but it had done its job of removing the man’s soul from his body. What she hadn’t expected was the shredding of the soul. The man had simply blown away with the night air, unlike her companions in the Underworld who managed to retain a bit of human form.

With one more glance at the submarine, and her enemy that she had to keep alive, she swung her weapon and split the air. The open, cracking wound beckoned her, and she returned home.

The boy, James, was back on her mind.

* * * * *

Kate opened her eyes, awake immediately at the sound of screaming.

Daniel grunted under her. “What is that?”

“Prosper,” she said, sliding out of the huge bed the priestesses had provided them in her temple and pulling on her robe.

“He sounds like a bear,” Daniel said, sitting up.

“More like a very angry tree,” she said, cinching her belt. She tossed him a fresh robe and filled him in on the more gruesome details of Prosper’s existence.

“Dude. That’s harsh,” he said, shuddering.

“I know. And I don’t know if he is naturally like that or just has been like that because of what these people have done to him over the years. He wasn’t really up for a discussion on the subject.”

“What are his people like? Pious like yours? Rebellious like mine?”

Kate thought about the people who ran Prosper’s temple. “They’re farmers. They didn’t say much, don’t get surprised by much. They just kinda took him in and nodded to me. They said they knew how to take care of him.”

“Well, it was farmers who caught him to begin with, right?”

Kate groaned. “Farmers and tinkers, yeah. Shit. Let’s go.”

The scream resonated through the temple again, causing the walls to shudder. Kate and Daniel burst from the room to find her priestesses gathered together, whispering, their eyes wide.

“Anyone know what Prosper’s going on about?” Kate asked. They shook their heads quickly. She sighed. Her backpack lay on a chair next to her bedroom; she rummaged through till she found a dagger with a white hilt. “Gamma, I need you.”

The thin, muscled warrior goddess appeared in front of her, bowing.

“Gamma, Daniel and I are going to go to see Prosper now. I need you to find Barris and Fabrique. Get one of the priestesses to make sure that the Sheridan, the airship we arrived in, is ready to go today. Alicia is the captain. And, uh,” she looked at the slightly rocking urn in the corner, then at Daniel. “Have I forgotten anything?”

He sighed. “Have that loaded on the ship. If the guy inside manages to break out, kill him.”

Gamma smiled, her teeth glittering. “My pleasure, Daniel.”

Kate and Daniel headed for the door and to the stairs that wound around the temple exterior. “You sure that’s the best plan?”

“I’d rather have him nearby than out of sight. And if we’re going to put all the gods on one airship, wouldn’t we want him near the people who can handle him or not?”

“Point,” Kate said, squinting at the sunrise. She’d been to LA once and saw the sun rise through smog, beautiful and smudged, and decided this morning was reminiscent of that. “Does the sunrise look weird to you today?”

“Huh. Do we have smog here now?”

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “I hope this doesn’t mean —” Kate’s thought was interrupted by a tall, top-hatted man on the stairs below them.

“My Lord, My Lady!” he bowed in front of them, mustache twitching. “I have a matter to discuss with you, of some great importance.”

“Well, it’s not the best time,” Kate began.

“Oh, but it is very important,” he repeated.

“Hey, you’re that Professor Burns guy, aren’t you?” Daniel asked. “The Idea Emporium.”

Professor Burns smiled and bowed again. “I am honored to be remembered, sir.”

“Oh, right!” Kate said. “What’s wrong, Professor?”

Burns grimaced. “It’s about the sun god, Barris. I fear he is in real trouble.”

* * * * *

Kate paced around the high priestess’s office, arms crossed. Daniel still stood behind the desk, his eye wide.

“Wait, wait. Barris is a junkie?”

Professor Burns sat in a chair facing the desk, his top hat in his lap. “Ideas can be addictive, especially if you don’t use them.”

“And Barris doesn’t do a goddamned thing,” Daniel said, rubbing his chin.

“I have only a few clients who have problems with this, and I do not usually interfere, but I realized this client’s addiction could harm others.”

“Yeah, like everyone else in the world. And the world,” Kate said. “Goddamn, Barris, can you fuck up any more? Really?”

Gamma stepped through the open door. “Apparently, he can,” she said through clenched teeth.

* * * * *

“I looked in all the usual places I see him: On the temple roof, in Lathe, on the airship deck. I couldn’t find him anywhere. I attuned myself to every weapon I could touch, then, and found a place I’ve never visited. Leviathan City.”

Kate stopped her pacing. “How in the hell did he get there?”

“I don’t know. I saw him imprisoned by seven guards. He looks, well, weaker than usual.”

Kate felt her grip on reality slipping. “So he’s a junkie and he’s imprisoned under the ocean by a race of people who pretty much hate any god who’s not Ishmael or the moon. Anything else? Did he knock up a nobleman’s daughter while he was at it?”

“Not that I know of,” Gamma replied.

“There’s one more thing,” Professor Burns said.

Kate groaned.

“At his level of addiction, there’s going to be a nasty withdrawal coming soon,” Professor Burns said.

Prosper howled again, and the walls shook. Kate held her head in her hands. Wasn’t there something else to worry about? Like all of heaven and hell under siege? A big scary entity that killed her?

But she needed these gods on her side.

“Gamma. Get Fabrique and get the Sheridan ready. Daniel, go with Professor Burns back to his Emporium and try to figure out how to deal with this addiction and withdrawal and stuff. See if they have a clean needle program or something. And everyone —” She included Burns with a look. “Meet on the Sheridan by noon.”

Daniel smiled slightly. “What will you be doing?”

She sighed and stood up, smoothing her robes. “I have to deal with Prosper. He’s coming too.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kate had briefly visited each of the temples during her stay there, but it always surprised her how different they all were, for being in the same building. Prosper’s temple was the largest. Unlike Kate’s, which was spacious, white and church-like (which frankly irritated her), Prosper’s was more like a greenhouse mixed with a children’s nature museum. The sun shone in through glass walls to create a greenhouse effect, and a wooden roof honored their god.

Within the temple, priests tended holy plants honoring their god. Vegetables, vines, flowers, grasses, trees (Kate was amused to see a grand bonsai collection), and even carnivorous plants grew from elaborately painted plots.

Kate choked as the humidity of the temple assailed her and took a moment to compose herself. One of the priests saw her standing in the doorway and approached her.

“Goddess, it is a sad day you grace us with your presence,” he said, leaning his hoe against the glass wall.”

“Is he really no better?” Kate asked, frowning.

The priest shrugged and wiped his hands on a dirty rag sticking from his back pocket. “We managed to get enough wine into him to calm him last night. But he has been in captivity too long; he doesn’t know what to do now that he’s free.”

“Is his physical form any better? What was he supposed to be like before he was caught?”

The priest winced. “I admit we do not know. He’s always been depicted as a god with bark-like skin and vines for hair. We do not know if that is his corrupted form or his natural.”

“Take me to him.”

Prosper’s temple had no rooms, just areas separated by trellises and vines. The priests slept in a back area with an honest wooden floor. Prosper had been placed directly onto the dirt of a somewhat private area near a breathtaking orchid display.

Kate looked at the orchid roots and swore she could see them visibly growing, inspired by the proximity of the divine. Smart of the priests to put him near plants with roots that got moisture and nutrients from the air, and not the soil. Or the body of a god.

The plants all faced the god, who sat cross-legged on the dirt floor and glared at Kate. He didn’t look much better. His skin still looked to be made of bark, and vines grew from his head where hair should be. His chest had healed where the vines had sprouted from him, at least, and Kate silently thanked the priests who had put a loincloth on him. She hadn’t even realized he’d been naked when she’d rescued him.

All in all, he was much less craggy and chaotic than he’d been when she’d found them. Sadly, he didn’t look much happier.

“Take me back.”

She blinked, and then knelt in front of him to look into his golden eyes. “You…want to go back.”

“Take me back. This is not my home; that was my home. You took me from my home.”

Kate glanced up at the priest. “Prosper, these are your priests. They worship you. They are your people — if you’re not home, then at least you’re as close as you can be in your current state. They’ll take care of you here.”

He opened his mouth again, showing her his yellowed, fibrous teeth, and screamed again. She winced, but waited patiently until he stopped.

“Are you done?” she asked. He glared at her. The orchids began to shudder and strain as they grew, then, bursting from their pots. Thick, white roots sought Kate and began to wrap around her again.

“No,” she said, willing her skin temperature to searing temperatures. The priest swore and fell backward as the orchid roots burst into flame. “Not this time, Prosper. I’m not as powerless here as I was there.”

She stood, still white-hot, and put her hands on her hips. “This isn’t going to be easy.” She turned to the priest, who hovered at a safe distance, gripping a shovel. “Give him a robe, a large pot full of soil, and some seeds. He can choose which ones. Have him ready in ten minutes, or we’re coming in to get him, ready or not?”

“Where are you taking me?” Prosper demanded.

Kate glanced back at him. “Does it matter? You seem to be happiest as a slave, so you’re going to do what we say.”

He pursed his lips, then blurted out, “And what if I don’t?”

Kate incinerated another orchid, this time with a glance. “I don’t want to hurt you, Prosper. But the things we’re trying to achieve are so much bigger than a petty god’s tantrums. You’ll help us. You have no choice.”

She strode out of the temple, not looking back. “Fucking gods,” she muttered.

* * * * *

Daniel whistled as he and Professor Burns entered the Idea Emporium. “I see you’ve made some changes.”

“The blessings of the sun god do much to help my business, I will admit,” he said, locking the door behind them.

He went over to a case and pulled out several small boxes and slipped them into the pockets of his purple waistcoat. “I take it where we’re going is dangerous?”

Daniel squatted in front of a display case, fascinated by the intricate origami. “Oh, did we not tell you? We’re going to Leviathan City to save Barris and Ishmael. We’ve not had the best of luck with people from there.” He straightened. “Well. We’ve only met one person from there, but it didn’t go very well.” He rubbed his wrist absently.

“Leviathan City?” Professor Burns turned white, but did not protest. “We’ll be needing diplomatic ideas, then.”

“Hey, I’ve wanted to ask you. Why do you sell the bad ideas? Why not just toss them?”

“You can’t destroy an idea,” Burns said, handing Daniel several small scrolls tied with red ribbon. “Someone will find it. This way I can tell people they’re bad, and sell them as novelties. If I throw them out, then they’re released into the world and you don’t know who’s going to get them and follow through.”

“Huh. I see your point. So what are we going to do about Barris? Are these for him?”

Burns looked surprised. “Goodness no, sir. These are for us. Battle ideas, diplomacy ideas, and culinary suggestions — in case the food in Leviathan City is unpalatable.”

Daniel laughed. “You think of everything.”

The tall man bowed. “It is my job. Now, for Barris, we need to get him to drink this.” He held up a crystal vial of blue liquid. It shone the same blue as the energy that had trapped Daniel, who involuntarily took a step backward.

“What is it?” Daniel asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

“It’s a distillation of the energy that comes from the Dark. Since the ideas are formed from a chaos battery, then so does the antidote come from the same stuff.”

Daniel managed to laugh, a short barking sound. “Like how snake bite serum is made from snake venom?”

Burns pocketed the vial and smiled. “Something like that, yes. It’s rather strong, though, and could…damage him.”

Daniel grabbed his arm. “Whoa, wait. What do you mean? This is the sun we’re talking about. If we lose him, we are pretty much screwed. And by ‘we,’ I mean the whole planet.”

Burns nodded. “I understand that, but the damage will come mentally. He won’t be able to ever hold another idea. He won’t get the high from the ideas, but he won’t think for himself very well.”

Daniel frowned. “Is there no other way? Weaning gradually?”

“Normally, yes. But we would have to hope he’s getting his fix in Leviathan City of ideas. And I don’t like to brag, but I invented the Chaositron Idea Generator. It’s one-of-a-kind. If they have one in Leviathan City, I’ll frankly be shocked.” Burns closed the blinds down, darkening the interior of the shop. He pulled out a “CLOSED TO SAVE THE WORLD” sign from beneath the counter and replaced the sign on the door.

Daniel read the sign. “Is, uh, that a sign you have to use often?”

They exited the store. “Only once before,” Burns said, as he locked the door. “I like to be prepared.”

“Good idea,” Daniel muttered, wondering how they were going to prepare themselves for the tasks ahead. Allies were good. Allies not hopped up on weird drugs would be better, but they’d take what they could get.

* * * * *

Kate felt absurdly like a CEO being addressed by her nervous vice presidents.

Fabrique was first. She put her carpet bag on the conference table and opened it. “What I wanted was access to my house. I could make tools out of just about anything, but really I am more efficient with my tools. However, even though I’ve expanded the interior of this bag, I still don’t have enough room for everything I want. So I created a doorway.”

She pulled a flimsy series of linked brass tubes that reminded Kate of a weapon she’d seen in martial arts movies. When Fabrique removed it, it looked like a chain with large links, but when she got it out she shook it once, like airing out a towel, and it snapped into place to form a brass rectangle about three feet wide and five feet high, with a small square battery on the top right hand corner.

Fabrique flipped a switch on the battery and the brass rectangle began to hum, and the interior of the rectangle shimmered. The space beyond faded, and Kate saw what was clearly a workshop, littered with tools and wires.

“It’s still untested, but I think it will be useful if I need something my tools. Just pop over to my workshop for whatever we need.”

“Wow,” Kate said. “But, uh, untested?”

The sword across her back trembled, interrupting her, and she drew it. The divine energy that was Gamma poured out of the tip, and the warrior goddess faced her. “The Sheridan is prepped and ready to go. I took the liberty of loading the traitor into a locked room as Daniel requested. Captain Alicia has procured a submersible for the trip to Leviathan City.”

Kate blanched. How could she have forgotten that? She would have to remember to thank Alicia, captain of the Sheridan, for realizing that they’d need a way into Leviathan City. Kate was pretty sure she and Daniel could divinely worm their way in, but she didn’t like to assume, especially here.

“Good,” she said. Now can we test that doorway thing before we—”

“No time,” Daniel said, appearing in the doorway. Professor Burns followed him, combing his mustache with his hand. “We need to get there as soon as possible. Barris needs us. When withdrawal sets in, that guy is going to be hurting. And the antidote isn’t pretty.”

Kate stood. She took a deep breath. “Okay, then I guess we’re going. Let’s go downstairs and get Prosper and then head out. Anyone need to pee or anything?”

* * * * *

The one true goddess spoke to Sam, deep within the urn in which the broken false god had trapped him.

His back had been on fire, giving him a constant agony. The urn was stuffy. He trembled with the thought of the loss of Prosper, his vineyards, his casks of wine, and the second god he’d captured. He had no idea what the god wanted him for.

But now, deep within the urn, unable to move, barely able to breathe, he felt her presence.

“Goddess? Cotton?” He blinked and thought he saw a glowing orb in the complete blackness within the urn.

An amused, muffled voice answered him. “Not anymore. But no one has visited me before. Either they come to stay or don’t come at all. Why are you on the border of life and death?”

“Am I dying? Or dreaming?”

“You would have to tell me, my child. Who are you?”

“My name is Sam, Goddess. I’ve been most horribly wronged by the false broken god Daniel.”

She was silent. He whimpered. “Goddess? Are you there? Please don’t leave me alone!”

“Daniel is not false. He’s quite powerful. But you must have a great grudge against you if you hate him with such force.”

“Yes, Goddess!” He began to weep. “He took everything from me, and then imprisoned me. I can’t escape.”

“Shh … if you can pledge yourself to me, become my first priest, I can free you come nightfall.”

His heart leaped. Was she serious? Would she give him such an honor? “Yes Goddess.”

“Good. When you get free, I will have a mission for you. Fulfill it and I will reward you. Fail or change your mind, and you will wish you’d stayed in the urn.”

“I would never turn from you, Goddess.”

“Wonderful. Now, my priest, listen …”

* * * * *

Kate and Daniel’s favor, along with Fabrique’s upgrades, had clearly benefited Alicia and the Sheridan just as Barris’s favor had benefited Professor Burns. Alicia and her children wore new clothing of tight-fitting brown leather, helmets, goggles, and warm jackets. On their backs, their jackets each held an intricate etched image of the Sheridan.

The ship itself glowed in the noonday sun, humming with its upgraded engine, touched by the goddess of clockwork and ingenuity herself. From the hull hung a small circular metal orb with portholes and propellers, tubes and mechanisms.

“What is this, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea?” Daniel whispered to Kate.

She shrugged. “It’s for everyone else. I think you, me and Gamma would be fine without.”

“How fast do you think she can get us there?”

Kate glanced at the emerging face of Fabrique, her copper curls tamed somewhat by her goggles, but still exploding from under her ears. She came up from down below and proudly reported to Alicia that the ship was ready to go.

“That’s her call,” Kate said, pointing. “I imagine we’ll probably be the fastest ship around. What’s the rush again?”

“We need to help Barris out. He’s in big trouble. Burns said he could wean him with ideas to get him off the junk, but if he goes into serious withdrawal, the only thing we can do is essentially wipe his mind of the ability to hold any thought in his head.”

Kate’s jaw hung open. “Are you serious? Won’t that kill him?”

Daniel shook his head. “No; he’ll still be a sun god, and supposedly still be able to keep the sun in the sky, but not much of a conversationalist. Ever.”

“Well, that’s just great. I guess we should get the hell out of here.”

They watched Alicia’s kids bustle about the ship, checking things. Her eldest child Sarah waved to the controller at the tower dock and he waved back, allowing them to cast off. The ship lurched once as the souped-up engines started, and then they were off.

The airship gradually gained speed, but Kate soon realized that was for safety. If it needed to, this zeppelin could turn faster than any ship of its kind, possibly defying the laws of physics. Good to know.

Alicia had the wheel and piloted according to Gamma’s coordinates, sending commands to her children, namely James, who manned the engine controls and Sarah, who held the chicken gun, a bazooka-like weapon that shot frozen chickens at air whales to distract them from damaging the ship. The younger kids were below deck.

Fabrique came to stand beside them. “I upgraded it as much as I dare. The pilot being mortal, and mortals aboard, I couldn’t make it any faster without putting them at risk.”

Kate pulled a windswept strand of hair out of her face and grinned. “I’m guessing your own airship is going to be something legendary.”

“Without a doubt,” the goddess said. Fabrique stuffed her hair into a helmet and put her goggles on again. She fixed her eyes on the horizon and the shimmering sea that approached quickly.

“I checked the submersible too,” she said. “It will easily take six. Seven if we have to.”

Kate counted on her fingers. “So that’s me, you two, and Gamma, and we need to leave room for Ishmael and Barris, and Burns. Alicia and crew will stay on the airship.”

“What about Prosper?” Daniel said, pointing at the miserable harvest god who sat against the back railing of the ship beside a heavy pot full of soil and a foul-smelling moss.

“Shit. I forgot about him. Well, we’ll need someone divine to protect the ship, I guess. We need Gamma with us.”

Daniel raised an eyebrow. “You really think he will do that?”

Kate frowned. “You’re right.” She gestured to Gamma, who stood with her arms clasped behind her back, facing the wind. “Gamma will need to think of something.”

She caught the warrior goddess’s attention and told her the problem. Gamma nodded somberly. “I will tune myself to Alicia’s boot knife. If they have any problems, she can tell me and I will know and be here immediately.”

“I guess that will work. Good idea,” Kate said.

“Anyone else feel like we’re walking into a snake pit?” Daniel asked.

“Asps. Very dangerous,” Kate said, and snickered. “Yeah, but what can we do?”

Daniel looked back at the pouting harvest god. “You know Kate, only we would make a world where all the gods were imprisoned. We have to save this world before we can save our original one.”

She nodded. “We don’t have a choice though. We need them.” She and Gamma then went to talk to Alicia to inform her of the plans as the Sheridan entered the airspace over the ocean, heading toward Leviathan City.

CHAPTER NINE

Barris was unsure of where he was. He just knew he was far, far away from where he should be. He last remembered the ideas and the rubbish bin. Now he was feeling nauseated and claustrophobic, sweat beading on his forehead, tossing from side to side in a small room with no furniture and no adornments except for a puddle of watery vomit in the corner, one he felt the need to add to every once in a while.

He thought he should get up and demand his freedom. Demand to know where he was. See if there was someone he could talk to. Either bargain his way out or flex his divine power and force his way out.

But he couldn’t even sit up. And the general “gotta get out” feeling was the only coherent thought in his head.

There had to be some sort of mistake. Perhaps he was in a hospital. But didn’t hospitals have beds? And people?

Barris lay on his back and stared at the green glass ceiling. The room was fairly large. Why did he feel so confined? Beyond the green glass seemed to be another ceiling, much higher up. Beyond that, so far away, a tiny disk that shimmered, nearly imperceptible. The sun.

Gods, beyond Kate and Daniel, who were older than time, had no oaths. No god would swear upon the genitals of other gods. And since they didn’t excrete, they didn’t have the same feelings of shame, disgust, and secret childhood delight regarding excrement, so they didn’t even consider saying, “Shit.” So when Barris realized he was trapped with millions of cubic feet of water between him and the open air, he blurted out, “turtle tits,” and passed out again.

He awoke in a puddle of spittle and bile. Something buzzed in his ears and he shook his head, strings of ropy mucous sticking to the side of his face. He was going do something. What was it? He struggled to sit up and scoot himself over to prop himself up against the wall. The effort was monumental; He panted hard by the time he got upright.

His limbs shook. He wondered if the sensation was pain. He remembered water, then, slicing into his body through his pores like needles. It invaded everywhere, and he still felt its presence, unwanted, in his body. Had he drowned? How in the hell had he gotten to the ocean?

But more importantly, how was he going to get out? He could barely sit up straight. Moving beyond the room, finding his way out of the city, passing through that deadly water, it was all too much to consider.

Barris slumped to the side until he was wedged into the corner of the room. They wouldn’t come looking for him. No one liked him. They just wanted him to keep the sun in the sky. They didn’t care about him, his likes or his dislikes.

An idea he once had, involving innovation and independence, tickled his memory, and was gone. Barris leaned his head against the wall on his left and let the hot tears stream down his cheeks.

The door creaked open and two guards armed with spears walked in first. They were followed by a tall man who grinned down at Barris.

He stood tall and well-muscled, his blue-green skin blemish-free. His black hair hung to his shoulders, and he was naked except for a small loincloth, orange coral armbands, and a necklace made of woven seaweed and blue stones.

He spread his arms wide, orange coral armbands contrasting with his skin. “Barris, I didn’t know you wanted to visit me so much that you’d kill yourself trying! Welcome to Leviathan City!”

Barris’s eyes narrowed and he swallowed back tears. “Hello, Ishmael.”

* * * * *

Professor Burns removed his top hat and mopped his forehead in cool afternoon air. Daniel cocked his eyebrow.

“You doing okay, professor?”

“Certainly,” the man stammered, not looking at him. “While where I’m going isn’t the safest place ever, the company that I keep is unparalleled, so my safety is nigh insured, correct?”

Daniel thought of the various ways he and Kate had been kept from their power; power that had once grown worlds from nothing but blood and emotion.

“Absolutely,” he said, clapping Professor Burns’s shoulder.

Kate, Daniel, Professor Burns, Gamma, and Fabrique waved at Alicia and the sulking Prosper to go below deck to a small doorway. It opened to the hanging sub, and Daniel reached out and unscrewed the hatch. He climbed from the door through the hatch, calling behind him, “Don’t look down!”

Kate snorted at him and followed, then helped Professor Burns in. They settled into small seats bolted to the floor, Fabrique taking the controls.

“Strap yourselves in,” she said, flipping switches and squinting at gauges.

“All of us?” Daniel asked.

“Even you, trickster god,” she said. “You should know by now that you don’t really know what is going to happen around here, even if you are a god. And seatbelts are just a wise idea. What if you smash into poor Professor Burns here?”

The professor’s dark face had paled to an unsettling gray color and he gripped the edge of his seat as the sub lurched. They started to descend toward the water.

They bumped gently as they hit the water, and Fabrique lifted a lever that disengaged the sub from the airship. “And we’re away. I figure maybe ten minutes till we reach Leviathan City.”

The interior of the hatch grew dark as the only lights came from the console and the reflection of the headlamps of the sub as they submerged.

“Fabrique, you know the most about this energy that people use to trap gods. What can you tell me about it?” Kate asked.

“It’s the only kind of energy I can’t actively manipulate,” the goddess said, staring out the porthole in front of her. “I have to treat it as if I were an ordinary tinker. I always thought it kept me honest, making me work harder to make things.”

“And you never thought about why you, the goddess of devices, couldn’t master it?”

Fabrique glared over her shoulder momentarily. “Of course I did. But as I said, being trapped inside a house didn’t give me much ability to go out and research. And since my freedom I’ve been a little busy with other people’s projects to work on my own.”

Kate flushed and looked away from the irritated goddess. “I’m sorry. You’re just the most likely person to understand it. It’s dangerous and I want to know what it is.”

Fabrique shrugged. “It’s chaos energy, its origination is The Dark, what you call the Wasteland. It’s what makes the area around Meridian and Lathe so volatile.”

Daniel frowned as something teased his memory, something so large it was hard to fathom. He couldn’t grasp it.

“But why does it counter divine power so well?” Kate asked, leaning forward.

“That much is easy,” Fabrique said. “Gods are creatures of order. Even Daniel here has to rely on others’ order so his own chaos will work. The thing that combats this order is chaos. Why do you think so many gods were imprisoned here? Here is where we are the least potent.”

“Wonderful,” Daniel said. “As much as I’d like to keep talking about how we’re not all-powerful as we’re heading into a hostile underwater city, shouldn’t we come up with a plan? They don’t like outsiders, and according to Sam, that includes outside gods. They have two of our own imprisoned there. What are we going to do?”

Gamma smiled, the green light shining off her teeth. Daniel shook his head. “No, we’re not going to turn to slaughtering them right away. You can protect us, but you’re not going to just blow the place up.”

Gamma lost her smile and glared at him. “I was not there when Dauphine fell. Now that I’m with you, you’re beyond city razing.”

“Good lord, Gamma,” Kate said. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of violence before we’re done. Do you remember that we need you all to help us fight a war when we’re done with all this rescuing?”

Gamma nodded stiffly. Daniel suppressed a grin. It was tempting to just set her free, but he knew they had to enter the city with their wits. A plan tickled his mind, and he looked around at his companions: the dark-faced Fabrique, Gamma, and Burns, and the lighter shades of his and Kate’s skin. He grinned.

“I think I have an idea,” he said. “Fabrique, can you make us some shackles from what you have in your bag? It would be best if they can look like they’re powered by chaos energy, but aren’t.”

Kate gasped, as a large glowing dome appeared several hundred meters in front of them.

“And preferably fast, too,” Daniel added.

Fabrique kept her eyes on the portal as she rummaged around in her bag and tossed three pair of handcuffs to Daniel. Glowing blue wire ran through the hinges and he admired the craftsmanship.

He scratched his chin. “Oh, I’ll need some goggles to hide my eye, too.”

“What are you planning, Daniel?” asked Kate.

“If the Leviathan City people want to hunt gods, that’s what we’ll bring them. You and I are pale enough to pass for Leviathan City citizens; this can work.”

“How in the world can we pass for citizens when we don’t know much about these people, even their sub design?”

“Leave it to me; I have a plan,” he said.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she muttered, but accepted the shackles and began sliding them around the wrists of their companions, leaving Fabrique one hand free so she could continue piloting the sub.

“How big is it?” Kate asked in a hushed voice, as the city loomed closer.

“No one knows exact size or population, but I can say with some confidence that there are seventeen thousand tinkers or craftsmen,” Fabrique said.

“And an army of thirty thousand,” Gamma said, her fists balled on her lap.

“Relax, Gamma,” Daniel said. “You can break out of those at any time.”

Her hands fell open on her lap and she took a deep breath.

Kate closed her eyes. “There are seventy thousand people there. Give or take.”

Professor Burns snapped out of his stupor. “That’s impossible! Meridian is the largest city in the world at fifty-five thousand!”

Kate shrugged. “That’s what I can sense. Sensing souls is kinda what I do.”

“Man. What are they going to do with all those people? Surely overcrowding is an issue. And they can’t exactly leave from what Sam said.”

“Doesn’t seem like we’re heading into a very happy city,” Kate said.

Daniel snorted. “And understatement of the year goes to…”

Gamma smiled at him again. “Have you reconsidered your previous comment about razing the city?”

“No, I haven’t,” Daniel said, watching the subs drift around the city like parasitic fish around a whale. “But I might.”

CHAPTER TEN

Ishmael laughed, the sound assaulting Barris’s ears. “A prisoner? What in the world gave you that idea?”

Barris managed to lift his eyes to the greenish god. Ishmael had ordered a table and chairs brought into them, along with tea and sandwiches. It was almost civilized, despite the vomit that still pooled on the floor.

“We were all imprisoned. Me, Gamma, Fabrique, Prosper. We assumed you were, too.”

“The god of the sea, living underneath the waves in a glorious city, surrounded by worshipers? And you thought I was eager to leave?” Ishmael laughed again, the sound bouncing off the wall like waves. “Where in the world would I go that is better than here?”

Barris shuddered, still feeling horrible. It must have been the effects of the water in his system. “I don’t know.”

“Exactly. Now, they treat gods right here. They will take good care of you.”

Barris stared at the table miserably. “But what do they want with me? How did they catch me? And why?”

Ishmael toyed with the blue stone on his necklace. “The report is a submersible surfaced by accident, they aren’t sure why. They found you floating in the sea, about to drown. They saved you.”

He leaned forward and looked appraisingly at Barris. “The crew is confused, though. We think it’s a case of madness due to exposure to the air, or perhaps your proximity caused them to hallucinate, but the crew claims you were a winged creature of heat and flame. Not what you truly are. When they came home this morning, they seemed terribly confused to see you in their infirmary. But they knew they had someone special, and sent me to check you out.”

“But what do they want with me?” Barris asked again.

Ishmael frowned briefly, looking far into the ocean. He returned shortly and smiled again. “You are a god, my friend! What city doesn’t want you as a figurehead?”

* * * * *

The sun, still quite warm and strong in the sky, slid closer to the horizon. Alicia was relaxing at the helm, keeping an eye on the wind, correcting from time to time. Sarah approached her mother, the chicken gun ready on her shoulder. Air whales were less of a threat at sundown than sunup, but she never took chances.

“Mother,” she asked, her eyes surveying the sea under them. “What happens if they don’t come back?”

Alicia frowned. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine they wouldn’t. They’re gods, after all.”

“Sometimes they seem nothing more than humans,” Sarah muttered.

“Hush your blasphemy, Sarah,” her mother said. “It is an honor to serve them. They’ve done so much for us.”

Sarah nodded. “Like burning down our home and stowing away on our airship and demanding we take them wherever they like?”

Alicia adjusted the helium valves. “That, and giving us notoriety, business prospects, and lodging in Meridian.”

“You said you’d never go back there, not since Daddy died.”

Alicia’s brown eyes fixed on the horizon. Sarah bit her lip, afraid she’d said too much. Alicia finally sighed and said, “It’s not a good idea to vow things you can’t control.”

“I just hope we get a chance to return to our lives at some point,” Sarah said.

“Honestly, I do too,” Alicia said. “But they’re gods, Sarah. What are we going to do? Deny them?”

Sarah shrugged. She glanced back at Prosper, still hunkered at the back of the ship beside his pot of moss. “I wish they hadn’t left him.”

“You and me both, honey. I wish James had some more caution.”

* * * * *

Fabrique, Gamma, and Professor Burns stood at the submersible hatch, waiting for Daniel to exit before they did. Kate would bring up the rear. Daniel blinked through his goggles. Whatever Fabrique had done to them was amazing. If focused correctly, he could see through walls. Another turn of a lens and he could easily view electrical currents. Best of all, a third flip of a lens gave him the illusion of having both eyes functioning. Fabrique said it was just fooling his good eye that he had his perspective back, but Daniel didn’t care. His brain reveled in the feeling of two visual inputs.

Currently, he had it so he could see through the walls, and noted that the Leviathan City guards had gathered inside the airlock to intercept the strange submersible. He cursed himself for not thinking to disguise the obviously non-Leviathan City created submersible. But it was too late to fret about that now.

“This is totally not going to work,” he muttered to himself as the airlock opened and eight muscular white warriors — five women and three men — stormed in with spears.

“Good idea,” Kate said.

“It’s all I could come up with,” he said, then, louder, “We have returned with heretics! I think these might be of use to us! Our leaders will be so proud!”

Fabrique, Burns, and Gamma walked forward dutifully, showing their shackled hands.

The woman in front, wearing a padded tunic and green pants, raised her spear. “Who are you? Entry into Leviathan City is forbidden for all heretics from above.”

“We’re not heretics!” Daniel said. He thought the obvious comparing of skin color wouldn’t outweigh clothing, accent, and submarine differences. “We just had some individuals we thought you would be interested in seeing. We are sure at least two of these are not human.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “The only one who can determine power is the Queen. She can decide.”

The warriors behind her shuddered, two of them exchanging sidelong glances.

This can’t be good, Daniel thought.

With a word from the woman, the warriors surrounded the gods, who allowed themselves to be herded into the underwater city.

* * * * *

“We see the coolest places in the weirdest situations,” Kate whispered, craning her head back.

“Tell me about it. How many heavens and hells would have been cool to explore if we hadn’t been running from gods or looking for souls or, uh, running from other gods?” Daniel said, following her gaze.

The green dome glistened dully over them, showing black water beyond. The streets within the dome ran in circles, with smaller houses on the perimeter and larger buildings in the smaller concentric bands. Straight roads went toward the center like spokes in a wheel. Near the center were tall skyscrapers, which nearly touched the top of the dome. Most were created from glass of various opacities; the more private areas were made from black glass, shining slightly from interior lights.

In the center of the city, the tallest building actually seemed to be made out of the same glass as the dome, melding into the ceiling seamlessly. As they took a direct route toward the center, Kate realized they were heading toward the biggest building.

“Is that a temple to Ishmael?” she asked, pointing. She received a grunt from the man at her side, and he said nothing more.

“You should know that, shouldn’t you, if you were a native?” asked the woman, sneering.

“Oh, come on, if you saw through our clever trick, then why keep acting like you just figured us out?” Daniel said. Kate hid a smile. The fact that the guards had no idea who they were was still their strongest weapon. She could see Gamma’s ropy dark arms flexing in the shackles, eager to get out. She could probably destroy each guard simply by turning their weapons on them.

As they passed houses, pale, frightened faces peeked from windows: lighter glass set into opaque walls. When they met Kate’s eyes, they slid behind curtains. She smiled and openly waved at them.

“Leviathan City citizens are not permitted contact with heretics,” the woman said.

“What makes us heretics?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah, that’s a good question,” Kate said. “We never said Ishmael wasn’t a god, or Cotton wasn’t a goddess. Why hate us?”

“You worship the other gods,” the woman said, looking straight ahead. “Kate the false. Daniel the weak.”

Kate couldn’t read Daniel’s eye behind the goggles, but she knew he was looking at her. He gave a small, suppressed smile.

Unfortunately, the woman kept talking. “The minor gods are recognized here, but not worshiped on a high level as they are wrongly done on the outside. My people honor Gamma the warrior as a demigod, but she is not revered by anyone else. The tinkers honor Fabrique on holidays, and the farmers honor Prosper. Barris gives his power to our goddess, Cotton, so we acknowledge him, but no one is higher than Ishmael the sea and Cotton the moon.”

Gamma and Fabrique stiffened at the insults, but said nothing. Daniel made a big deal of counting on his fingers. “Wait, you only named eight gods. What about Persi, the goddess of dinosaurs?”

The guards did not answer. The buildings got taller and taller, and they finally approached the one in the center, a round building with no windows. Two guards stood at the door, but opened them when they saw the group approach.

“Five to see the Queen,” their head guard said.

The door guards’ eyebrows shot up. “Five? But the King has already taken someone to visit,” one of them said.

“These are heretics; they cannot be trusted elsewhere,” she said. “It’s possible the eight of us could already be tainted.”

One of the other guards swore softly and a ripple of panic went through them.

“You have less courage than Daniel’s testicles!” the leader said. Daniel coughed, trying to hide an outburst of laughter.

The leader shoved them all through. They stumbled into the room, and she followed them, snarling, “I’ll take them through myself!”

The interior showed the building was like a doughnut, with a small circular wall in the center of the room and holy symbols depicting a naked man, an erect phallus, and waves decorating the exterior wall. One more guard stood in front of double doors that looked like an elevator hatch.

The leader marched up to the startled looking guard. “Five to see the Queen. Do you have objection?

The man was clearly a lower rank than the woman, as he trembled but did not look away from her angry eyes. “No, ma’am. Five to see the Queen!”

He pushed a button in the wall and clockwork snapped into motion, whirring and clicking. Fabrique cocked her head to the side and listened, then nodded. The elevator opened and the guard pushed five of them inside.

“Aren’t you coming with us?” asked Daniel.

The guard laughed. “One faces the Queen alone, heretic. Now’s the time you pray your meaningless gods are with you.”

Daniel shrugged as the doors closed. “Done.”

Kate stumbled as the elevator went into motion, but not up. It went down, into the rock.

Gamma flexed once more and her shackles fell from her wrists. “Great idea, Lord,” she said.

Daniel shrugged. “They don’t know who we are, and they’re intrigued enough to take us to the top. Or, uh, the bottom, as the case may be. I say we’re still doing okay.”

“This is an excellent elevator design,” Fabrique said. She listened briefly again and smiled. “Innovative use of springs. I approve.” The creaking outside the elevator ceased and their descent increased speed.

“Did you just bless them?” Daniel asked. “These people who don’t give a shit about us?”

Fabrique frowned at him. “They may not honor me with prayer, but they honor me with their inventions. I also wonder what keeps the dome’s air breathable.”

“Must be a kind of recycler,” Kate said.

They kept descending, Professor Burns looking more and more ill as they went below the ocean floor. “D-does anyone know how far under the city we are?” he asked in a papery voice.

Fabrique looked thoughtful. “At the rate we’re descending, and for how long we’ve been descending, I’d say about two hundred fifty feet so far.”

They lapsed into silence, Fabrique updating them from time to time with, “Three hundred… three fifty… four hundred…”

When she reached five hundred, Kate asked her to please stop. It turns out she didn’t need to, as the elevator stopped instead.

It opened into a cave dimly lit with torches. The air was surprisingly fresh, the cause of which became obvious when Fabrique zeroed in on a small generator that pumped fresh air into the cave and through vents in the cave wall and up the elevator shaft.

“It’s so small,” Fabrique said. “This is master-level work. There have to be others in the city, but this one can provide at least half of what they need.”

“Yeah, impressive, but why keep it in a cave below the sea floor?” Kate said.

“Dude, why keep their queen in a cave below the sea floor? Isn’t that who we’re here to see?”

“And the King,” Gamma said.

The cave looked simply like a cave, an odd pocket of air with a pool at the end opposite the elevator shaft. Kate figured it had to be like an S bend in a pipe, allowing one end to be dry and the other to hold water. In this case, the other end was the ocean and this end was a small pocket of fresh air.

The cave was dank and inhospitable, with no human luxuries.

Kate frowned. “I’m starting to think that ‘going to see the Queen’ means ‘tossing into a jail that’s impossible to escape from.’”

“I’m sure you could escape from it, My Lady. Myself, however …” Burns trailed off.

“We’re not leaving you here, Professor,” Daniel said.

A voice at the edge of the pool called to them, calling from a shadowy alcove they hadn’t noticed. “More visitors to my Queen! How wonderful! Come and meet her!”

Daniel and Kate exchanged glances and moved tentatively forward. “Think it’s a trick?” she asked.

“I’m supposed to know those things. And I’m not sure,” he said.

As they approached the pool, a green man stepped out in front of them, welcoming them with open arms. “My friends! Welcome to Leviathan City! I did not expect so many divine visitors today! I am Ishmael, king of the city, god of the sea. I welcome you, Fabrique, Gamma, Kate, Daniel, and …” he looked at Burns for a moment, frowning, “and human. We are awaiting the arrival of the Queen.”

Kate blinked stupidly. “We?” was the only thing she could think to say.

Ishmael gestured to the wall where Barris sat curled in a fetal position, back against the wall. Sweat dripped from him despite the dank air, and he shuddered. “Barris, the sun god. He is feeling poorly from almost drowning. He’ll feel better soon. Everyone feels better once they meet the Queen.”

Daniel took a step back, his lip curling, doglike. “What’s up?” Kate whispered.

“His necklace. It’s got that energy on it. I can smell it now. Barris has one too.”

“That’s not good,” Kate said.

“And that’s not drowning he’s experiencing,” said Professor Burns, brightening now that he had a role. “He’s suffering withdrawal.”

“Hold up,” Daniel said. “Let’s see if we can get him out of here without nuking him first. How long does he have before he gets the DTs bad?”

Burns watched the sun god shudder and moan. “Not long.”

Kate laced her fingers together, thinking. She ignored the eager sea god bouncing from foot to foot. “Well. We have everything we need. Gamma? Can you escort Ishmael and Barris out of here? We’ll figure out how to get everyone out of here safely.”

Gamma stepped forward and put her hand on Ishmael’s arm. “Are you going to resist?”

“We have to wait. She’s almost here,” Ishmael said, and focused on the pool.

Daniel put Professor Burns behind him. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said. “Why do I think the Queen isn’t human?”

A gray tentacle, dotted with pink suckers, rose lazily out of the water and probed the air. Ishmael took it in his hand and rubbed it on his cheek. It wrapped gently around his neck, and then again around his torso.

“Oh, she’s so much more than that,” Ishmael said, his eyes misty with adoration. “Why do you think we call this place Leviathan City?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kate backed up, bumping into Daniel, who bumped into Burns. “Oh, shit,” she said.

Burns, finally, was looking as together as he always did. He was rummaging in his waistcoat.

“Is it really time to look for a smoke right now?” Kate asked.

“Fuck, is she Cthulhu or something?” Daniel said.

“No, no; I finally have an idea.” Burns held up one of the ideas he’d gotten from his shop.

“Oh, really? What’s it say?” Daniel said. “Don’t go see the Tentacle Queen?”

“No.” Burns paused. “It says to respect and listen to royalty. Our leaders know more than we give them credit for.”

Daniel stopped. “You’re kidding. Professor, that’s not a queen. It’s a tentacle.”

“It could be the Queen is on the other end. You don’t know.”

“So you really think we should just stand here and wait for… the rest of her to arrive?” Kate asked, staring at the tentacle that caressed Ishmael in a most distressing way.

“You’re gods. You can escape any time if things get troublesome, can you not? I’m the one in true danger, and I can wait to see what she has to tell us. Can’t you?”

Daniel bristled at the challenge, but Kate nodded. “You have a point. Although I really don’t think that thing can talk. We can wait it out.”

Daniel continued to back up, thought, and Kate raised an eyebrow. “Tentacled things freak me out,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Oh!” Kate said. “I had no idea.”

Daniel nodded, his face green in the torch light.

“Okay. I’ll see what she has to say. Or, uh, squish.”

“That’s not funny,” Daniel said.

Kate hid a smile behind the guise of rubbing her cheeks to steel herself. The water in the pool was churning now, and more tentacles had emerged, probing and tasting the air.

“Here she comes,” Ishmael said, his voice quiet and reverent. Gamma stood at the edge of the pool, defiant, and Barris huddled, oblivious to them all.

Kate swallowed and took a step back involuntarily as the green mass filled the room. The Queen looked like a cross between an octopus and a seahorse, with long tentacles encircling her torso. Only part of her surfaced; she filled the cave, at least twenty feet tall with her longest two tentacles looking to be around forty feet. She grunted low in her throat and eyed them all with pearly, cloudy eyes.

Gamma looked back at Kate, her eyes wide, just as Kate realized it too. Fabrique had been crouched beside Barris, rummaging in her bag for something, but now she looked up at the leviathan. Even Barris raised his head, sensing it.

Daniel was the one who said it. “Holy shit, Kate. That’s a goddess.”

The greenish gray monster burned with a divine light that all of the gods recognized. She reached a tentacle out to each of them, touching them lightly, recognizing them, too. Even Daniel allowed it, making only a small disgusted noise as she touched his shoulder.

“It’s not only a goddess,” Kate said, nodding. “It’s Persi.”

Daniel looked at Barris. “I thought you said she was in the south, trapped in a dinosaur’s body.”

Barris looked at Daniel through lidded, tired eyes. “She was in the south at the time. She swam north.”

“But you said a dino’s body!” Daniel said, gesturing at the bulk that was Persi. “We were thinking a stegosaurus or something! Not a huge leviathan!”

“A leviathan is a dinosaur,” Barris said, dropping his head to his knees again. He shuddered again.

Kate was reminded that he didn’t have a lot of time left, but the new wrinkle of Persi made things more complicated. All of the gods they needed were right here; if she could figure out how to get them all out of there, their total quest would be over and she and Daniel could finally focus on the siege on heaven.

Of course, a detoxing sun god and a zealous sea god who was in love with a tentacled monster (who happened to be a trapped goddess) didn’t seem like easy sheep to herd.

“She’s so beautiful, no?” Ishmael said.

“Oh, yes,” Kate said, thinking fast. “Do you swim with her?”

Ishmael looked sad. “No, they don’t permit me to. I can’t get into the water this deep.”

“Hey, wait,” Daniel said. “You can’t swim this deep? Aren’t you the god of the sea?”

Ishmael stuck his chin out, defiant. “I am. You have no right to challenge me. We all have our limitations, even as gods.”

“Not really when it concerns our area of expertise. Is there clockwork too deep for Fabrique to swim in?” Daniel asked.

The goddess looked at him, her eyebrows raised. “I’d never considered swimming in clockwork. I expect it would be too pointy.”

Daniel waved his hand at her impatiently. “You know what I mean. When it comes to clockwork, you’re the master. I have a hard time believing that there’s water that a fish can conquer but the god of the sea can’t. What’s going on here?”

Ignoring Persi’s groans and growls momentarily, Daniel walked up to get a closer look at the green man, who glared at him. Daniel reached out with his left hand and nearly touched Ishmael’s necklace. He pulled his hand back quickly and growled deep in his throat. Kate took his arm and tugged on it.

“What’s up, Daniel?” she asked.

“He can’t swim because he’s wearing one of those necklaces. They’re controlling him.”

Ishmael snorted. “Preposterous. I have worn this my whole existence.”

“Uh huh,” Kate said. “And how many times have you gone swimming?”

Daniel hesitated to reach out again, and Kate realized he was remembering his time in the cage as a coyote. She reached past him and grabbed the necklace, whipping it over Ishmael’s head.

In the chaos that followed, Kate had trouble following the events. The first thing that happened was Ishmael seemed to explode in a torrent of water. Kate was blown backward into Daniel and they both hit the cave wall. She scrambled to her feet, wiping her sopping hair out of her face to see Ishmael disappear into the pool and dive deep.

Barris screamed as he frantically batted at his arms to sluice off the water that hit him. If he’d drowned, he’d automatically be afraid of the water, but the movements were crazed, his eyes wide.

Persi bellowed and lashed out a tentacle grabbing wildly. Kate ducked, not realizing that put Daniel in her reach. The tentacle wrapped around him and he shrieked, lifted high into the air.

“Gamma!” yelled Kate, running forward. Sadly, it turned out that the warrior goddess was gone. Kate blinked in confusion, realizing that something had to have called her. And the only thing that could have called her would have been Alicia needing her back on the Sheridan.

“Shit.” Kate said.

Burns was scrabbling with an idea, and as he opened it, Barris let out a howl. This one was not of panic or fear, but of insane longing. Oh, right; great idea to bring cocaine to a narcotics anonymous meeting, Kate thought as she watched Barris lunge for Burns.

“Chain the Queen; chain the Quee —” Burns managed to get out before the puny sun god tackled him, taking him down hard. Barris sat on the taller man, rifling through his clothes, grabbing at the ideas.

Fabrique ignored all of this and continued rummaging through her bag.

Kate figured the first thing to do would be to stop the rampaging leviathan. Burns seemed to have the right idea, but she had no chain. She looked around and then realized she still held the necklace she’d torn from Ishmael’s neck. She could feel it sapping her energy and would have liked to drop it, but instead she threw it at Persi, who was hammering Daniel against the roof of the cave as he swore loudly.

The necklace settled around one of Persi’s flailing tentacles, and the power-dampening effects were instantaneous. Instead of holding the shape-shifted form, she fell to the edge of the pool, a young girl swathed in seaweed, lying unconscious.

Daniel fell into an undignified heap and Kate rushed to his side. “I’m fine,” he mumbled, the blood streaming from a cut on his brow already slowing. “What the hell happened?”

“I think we’ll have to figure that out later. There’s still a lot of shit going on. You handle Persi; I’ll take care of Barris.”

Daniel looked at the unconscious girl, her wet dreadlocks covering her face. He sighed. “I think I can take her.”

Kate ran over to Barris and Burns. Barris had ripped Burns’s coat off and the discarded ideas lay around him like used crack vials. He was giggling as he took his final prize, the blue vial, and uncorked it.

“Don’t let him,” Burns croaked, doubled up in pain. Barris was smaller, but junkies could apparently pack quite a punch when jonesing. “We can still —”

He stopped when Barris upended the idea addiction antidote to his mouth. The sun god sucked greedily at the contents of the bottle and then his eyes went vacant. His pupils dilated and he toppled over, still staring at the cave ceiling.

“Kate’s wrinkled nipples,” Burns said, sitting up and holding his head. Kate cocked an eyebrow at him. He looked down. “Sorry. Habit.”

She shrugged. “No problem.” She helped the old man to his feet, her touch healing his injuries as he stood.

Daniel picked up Persi — she didn’t look older than fifteen — and placed her beside Barris. “I don’t think we should call this one a win, Kate,” he said. “Two gods lost, two out of commission.”

Kate shook her head. “I don’t understand what happened.”

“It’s obvious,” Fabrique said, assembling her brass doorway. “He had never experienced power before. He was a sea god feeling his true power for the first time. He became rather drunk on it.”

“And the kid?” Daniel asked, pointing at Persi.

“Her power was keeping her trapped in the leviathan form. The necklace stopped that.”

“Huh.”

“And Gamma was clearly called back to the Sheridan,” Fabrique added, snapping the final corner onto the doorway.

“Right, I figured that.” Kate went to the edge of the pool and looked in. She was splashed with water again as Ishmael leaped out, exultant.

“The power! The thrill!” he said, grinning broadly at them. “Have you felt such glory?”

“Yeah. Every day,” Daniel said flatly. “I’m guessing this is your first time?”

“I always knew what I was, but I never knew what it felt like! This is glorious! It’s amazing! It’s —”

“Divine?” Daniel asked.

“Exactly!” Ishmael finally looked around the cave. “What happened here?”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Fabrique, can that door thingy take us back to The Sheridan?”

The goddess fixed goggles over her eyes and grinned. “Anywhere.”

“Then we’d better see what’s going on up there.”

Daniel picked up Persi and Kate lifted Barris’s slight form over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Fabrique turned on the doorway and it shimmered. Kate saw the form of the Sheridan wavering in front of them, and Fabrique walked through confidently.

Kate gave a glance at Daniel, who shrugged. “Can’t be any weirder than anything else we’ve done today.”

She looked at the grinning sea god and Professor Burns, who was picking up his tattered coat and tutting at it.

“Come on, Ishmael. We’re going to take you somewhere where you can learn all about your divinity. You hold onto Daniel, and Burns, you hold onto me. We’re not sure how this thing works,” she said.

With that the six of them entered the portal. There was a worrisome twanging sound.

And then they emerged far from the deck of the Sheridan.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The moment the sun went down, Morrigan made her move. She flew, unnoticed, over Prosper’s bent head and landed lightly on the deck of the Sheridan. She opened the locked door to the captain’s quarters, delighted to realize that no door holds back death.

The great urn that held Sam was rocking slightly as he struggled within. She passed her hand over it and it shattered, dumping the big man onto the floor.

He spasmed once, twice, trying to stifle groans as his limbs cramped with their new freedom of movement. He smelled of urine and anxiety. The cramps passed and he looked up, finally, at the glowing, masked goddess who stood over him.

“I renounce Ishmael and all others,” he whispered. “You are my goddess, the only goddess. For all days.”

Morrigan smiled behind her mask, feeling her burn scars pull. “Very good. Let me tell you of your first task.”

He listened to her, his wide blue eyes reflecting her glow and his fanaticism. She gave him instructions and a long, wicked knife made of bone.

Morrigan decided that all of her priests would carry them.

Her instructions given, she turned back into the white crow and perched on Sam’s shoulder.

“Anything for my goddess,” he muttered, testing the edge of the blade with his thumb and sucking the blood from the fresh cut. “My life for her.”

Morrigan nodded to herself. That would come, too.

* * * * *

James paced below the deck, sick of taking care of his younger siblings who squabbled and shrieked as they played. He’d been chosen as the guide for a god, now he was a babysitter.

He kicked the door. His sister, Ursula, looked up at him. She was eight and saw the distance in their ages as a mere hurdle that separated otherwise equals. “What’s your problem, James?”

James cast a sullen eye at their siblings. Ursula’s twin, Samuel, and the toddler Kelly were swinging and laughing in a hammock. He thought about complaining but realized another argument might work better.

“I don’t know why I have to look after you guys when you’re just as good at watching Kelly as I am. And you definitely don’t need watching.”

He congratulated himself on being such a good negotiator, but he slumped in dismay as Ursula glared at him. “If I’m old enough to watch Kelly, I’m old enough to do whatever you’re doing. Let’s leave Samuel here to baby-sit; I’m coming with you.”

James muttered a curse he’d heard Sarah say once when their mother wasn’t listening. “If you go, Samuel will want to, as well.”

She snorted. “No, he just wants to play with Kelly. The more time he spends on deck, the more chances Mother has to find out he’s afraid of heights.”

James blinked. His brother hid this fear well. He sighed and nodded to Ursula; going out with her would be better than not going out at all. “OK, then; let’s go.”

“But where?” Ursula asked.

James shrugged. “Don’t know. Just anywhere that’s not here.”

They left Samuel and Kelly playing on the hammock and closed the door behind them. James held his finger to his lips, knowing his sister probably couldn’t see him in the dark hallway, but he crept up the ladder to the deck.

The kids weren’t usually allowed on the deck at night. If they were just docked, then sure, the family often spent time in the open air, but when on a mission the adults didn’t want to worry about the kids falling over the side in the dark.

Which was ridiculous, James reasoned. He’d grown up on the deck of an airship; why would someone think he’d be in danger at night?

* * * * *

The Sheridan’s deck was dark, with one lantern lit at the helm where Sarah and Alicia watched the ghostly flickering lights coming from the deeply submerged Leviathan City. Their backs were to him as Sam slipped out of the Captain’s quarters and onto the deck.

The goddess left his shoulder and flew to perch on a cable. She watched him with glossy eyes.

He gratefully breathed in air that did not smell of his own stench and stretched his still-stiff muscles. The moon whispered to him, telling him what he needed to find, what he needed to do, and he adjusted his grip on the wicked knife.

The two women were not his target. Nor was the sullen, divine presence lurking at the rear deck. He frowned. Below deck, then?

The door behind him opened, and he jumped to the side, crouching, hoping the dark would mask him. Two small shapes crept out quietly.

“Gosh, it’s dark!” one said.

“Well, sure,” said the other, “It’s nighttime, and they don’t need to light the whole deck.” The crow’s talons tightened on his shoulder. He winced as one of them penetrated his flesh and blood dotted his filthy shirt.

Understood, goddess, he thought.

He gripped the knife tighter and stepped forward carefully. The children still had not seen him. They stood huddled, discussing their disobedience and what they realized were now limited options in their newly acquired freedom. The smooth back of the boy’s neck seemed specifically lit by the holy light of the moon, and Sam took that as a specific target. He raised his knife.

* * * * *

Prosper had filled his pot with foul-smelling moss mainly to annoy the other gods who conscripted him into this service, but also for its soporific qualities. Once it reached maturity — normally taking three or four years, but with his influence only minutes — the gas it emitted would serve as a drug to the humans. He could take the ship easily once they were asleep.

He knew he could easily win any fights with mere humans, but he’d seen that bitch Gamma, that lapdog, give the captain a knife with which to call her. He didn’t know how fast she could get to that before he took her down. He wouldn’t be able to fight the other gods.

Prosper watched the deck, listening in on Alicia and Sarah’s pointless conversation, vaguely aware of the children’s movement below deck. When the man Sam came out of the Captain’s quarters, he finally sat up, interested. This was new.

When the children came onto deck, and Sam raised his knife at them, that’s when Prosper decided it would get really interesting. Perhaps the death of the boy would convince Alicia to take him back to Meridian, where he could return to his temple and figure out what to do next; where he should sow himself to create more children.

Sadly, the takeover of the ship wouldn’t be that easy. The man made the mistake of shouting something unintelligible as he stepped forward, and the girl screamed, pulling her brother away. The knife whiffed through the air and Sam swore.

The children scrambled away, screaming for their mother, but in their panic moving instead toward Prosper. He concentrated on the pot of moss, and as the children neared, taking in great, panicked breaths, they slowed and looked around, confused. Prosper sent some tendrils of vines from his body — so difficult to do now, without the proper seeding — and wrapped them around the children’s waists to keep them in place. They struggled briefly, crying out again, but the gas from the moss continued to sap their energy, and they slumped at last.

The gas, unfortunately, affected the would-be assassin, who ran after the children and into the dangerous circle of Prosper’s power. Prosper thrust the children away from the gas and toward Sam, who recoiled as he realized what was happening.

“Do it,” Prosper said. “Kill them.”

Sam blinked and shook his head, but as he saw the unconscious boy hanging in front of him as an offering, he raised his knife again.

Before he could lower it to sever the boy’s spinal cord, though, a loud BOOM sounded behind him and he was driven forward into James. He tumbled over the boy and rolled until he slammed into Prosper.

A frozen chicken skidded across the deck and over the side. Sarah stood beyond Prosper’s gaseous cloud, her face set in concentration, now aiming the gun directly at Prosper’s chest.

A little behind her, Alicia was removing the knife from her boot.

I should have interfered earlier, Prosper thought, and slowly got to his feet, drawing the children closer to him.

* * * * *

Gamma didn’t like leaving the cave with the others; she knew she’d be needed soon. But she had been bound to Alicia’s knife, and so when called, she was forced to go.

At least it may be something interesting, better than this diplomacy ridiculousness, she thought. How she had itched to snap the necks of each of those bigoted guards, worshippers or not. They held gods captive, and therefore Gamma didn’t think much of them.

She poured from the knife and expected to see Sam there,: broken out, maybe harassing the captain. She’d slice him in half and be done with it, able to return to Leviathan City to help the others.

She was bemused to see a very different scene before her.

Sam writhed slowly at Prosper’s feet, clutching his lower back. He took a deep, shuddering breath and passed out. Sarah, the warrior, was aiming her chicken gun at Prosper, who held two unconscious children in his tendrils. Alicia looked on with panic, arming herself with the knife she’d used to call Gamma.

“Don’t be stupid,” Gamma said. “You can’t fight a god. I, however, can.”

She felt the tension from weeks of using diplomacy instead of force snap inside her, and she grinned wildly and launched herself at the harvest god, whose golden eyes widened at her assault.

* * * * *

Alicia sheathed the knife and ran forward, sliding it into Sarah’s boot. “Watch that man; stay out of the gods’ way,” she said. “I’m going in for the children.”

The gas surrounding Prosper looked like silver fog in the moonlight, and Sarah put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Wait. You can’t breathe that stuff. Can you smell it?”

Alicia took a breath and could taste the sickly sweetness on the air, a smell that enticed her to move forward and investigate its source. It tickled her brain and suggested that lying down for a quick nap really was the best idea of the evening.

She let Sarah pull her a few steps back, the gun still trained on Sam. But he wasn’t moving; either Sarah had done enough damage to his back, possibly broken it, or the gas had put him down. Regardless, it didn’t look as if he was a threat anymore.

But Prosper definitely was a threat. As Gamma charged forward for him, legs pumping like pistons, he lifted the children and held them over the side of the ship. Alicia screamed and ran forward, bumping into Sarah and causing her to discharge the chicken gun. Sarah’s frozen chicken hit Prosper in the chest, so he didn’t so much as drop the children as get pushed over the side with them just as Gamma reached him. Her momentum carried her over with him, and the four were gone, the children’s screams cutting through the night.

Alicia reached the railing and screamed incomprehensibly after them, sobbing and retching. After a moment, she had inhaled enough of the gas that she slumped over, asleep.

* * * * *

Gamma did not like having to change her focus. But she was in this battle to save the children. As they fell through the sky, she grabbed knives from her sleeve and sliced through Prosper’s vines. He bellowed and sent more vines at her, but she sliced through them as well and reached out to grab the children.

Her hand closed around Ursula’s arm, but something flew past her, something white and huge, wrapping around James and forcing him toward the water even faster.

Gamma had only a moment to decide, and with regret, she tightened her grip on Ursula and focused on Alicia’s knife, now, she realized, in Sarah’s possession.

She appeared on the deck of the Sheridan, holding the hysterical child, and handed her to her shocked sister.

She hugged her sister tightly and then said, “James?”

Gamma pursed her lips. “I couldn’t get him. I’m not sure what happened. Something interfered. I’m going back down.”

She ran to the railing and vaulted over it, diving this time to catch up to the others, who had just hit the water with a massive splash.

The boy could not have survived that, she thought with regret, but continued her descent with determination. Prosper would pay.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

There were rules one followed; everyone knew there were rules. For the death goddess to outright kill her intended, that was crass; that was crude; that had no grace. But for her to arrange his death? That was something.

That bitch Gamma had almost interfered, but Morrigan followed the falling group in the form of a diving crow, and she hit the boy as Gamma tried to grab him. He screamed and grabbed at her soft feathers, but she then flew off and waited for him to land in his watery grave.

So attuned to him she was, she could hear each bone as it snapped when the boy hit the water at terminal velocity. He died instantly, his body causing a great plume of water to splash to almost her height. Prosper and Gamma followed very shortly after. When the water stilled again, he was gone, floating down to the depths of the ocean. She didn’t see the other two gods.

She circled the water where they had fallen. As the sea started to churn under her, she caught sight of the small wisp exiting the water and floating vaguely south.

She dove again, wrapping her talons around it. Secure in her grasp, the soul fluttered passively as she flew south.

Mine.

* * * * *

Daniel looked around at the charred remains of the city. As he had been carrying a blinded boy out of the city of Dauphine when Kate had razed it, he hadn’t seen the extent of the destruction. He whistled long and low.

She was very still at his side. “Why are we here?”

Daniel shrugged, adjusting the slight weight of the unconscious goddess on his shoulder. “No idea. Is Fabrique here?”

Professor Burns came to Kate’s side. “Regardless of where we are, we seem to be safe, and I need to see the sun god. Please put him down.”

Kate gently lowered Barris to the ashy street. His eyes were wide and glazed, and a thin line of drool ran down his chin.

“Shit,” Kate said.

Burns nodded. “I’m afraid we’re too late. I didn’t think he would survive the antidote, but one can always hope.”

Daniel felt a cold finger slide down his spine. “Will the sun rise tomorrow?”

Kate shrugged from where she kneeled by Barris. “If the sun were to go out, we’d start to freeze in eight minutes. Not to mention what losing the gravitational pull would do to us. Has it been eight minutes since he drank that stuff?”

Daniel shrugged. “Fabrique would know. Why isn’t she here?”

Ishmael was in front of them, looking at the ruins with distaste. “Why did you bring me here? This is far from the sea!”

“We didn’t mean to; we thought we were headed somewhere else. Something went wrong,” Kate said through gritted teeth. Daniel looked at her sympathetically. The bubbly sea god was a lot to take when you were trying to think your way out of a problem.

Ishmael cocked his head, dog-like, and looked down at Barris, who wore the necklace he had recently been freed from.

“Well, if those necklaces stifle our power, then wouldn’t they mess with a gadget made by Fabrique?” he asked.

Kate’s mouth hung open and she stared at Ishmael, then Daniel. Daniel did the quick math — each of the six of them had been in contact with the blue necklaces, or with someone in contact with them, as they went through. Fabrique had gone through alone, and it had looked as if she had gone through to the Sheridan.

“Fuck a duck,” he muttered. “That shit messes us up every time we touch it.”

He reached down in disgust to grab Barris’s necklace, but a shout from Ishmael made him stop. They all stood as a glowing white bird spiraled down from a soot-encrusted steeple.

“That’s not an ordinary crow,” Kate said, her voice strained.

Daniel put Persi gently down next to Barris. “What do you think it is?”

“I … don’t know.”

He put his arm around Kate. “Then why are you so damn scared?”

She shoved him off. “I’m not scared.”

He stepped away, annoyed. “Could have fooled me.”

The crow landed atop a standing wall of a burned-out house. It cocked its head and looked at Kate and Daniel, hopping a little on its right foot to keep its balance as it clutched something diaphanous in its left.

“Oh no. No,” Kate said, taking a step back.

“What’s wrong?” Daniel asked, but the crow hopped from the roof then, its unnaturally large body morphing and twisting, stretching and darkening to form the shape of a diminutive person about five feet tall clad in a cloak of hair. A thin, wrinkled, blackened hand slipped the diaphanous thing inside her cloak.

The person clutched a scythe that glowed, its white blade winking, and wore a helmet or full mask. Daniel glanced back at Kate, who had gone white.

The person’s head cocked. Clearly, he or she could see Kate and Daniel.

She spoke — the voice proving quickly to be female — and all the hairs on Daniel’s neck stood up. “Kate and Daniel. My, my, how lucky for me.”

Ishmael frowned, counting on his hands. “I have known all my fellow gods upon sight. This one I don’t recognize. That’s odd, don’t you think?”

“There’s a lot about this that’s odd,” Daniel said. “You know us, madam, but we don’t know you, I’m sorry to say.”

She chuckled and took a step forward. Kate took another step backward. Daniel glanced at her, surprised to see such bald fear on her face.

“I was the face of the night, imprisoned by the first two gods, held on an airship. I waxed; I waned; I loved he whose power I reflected.” She jabbed the butt end of her weapon at Barris’s catatonic form.

“Cotton,” Daniel whispered, nodding.

She shook her head sharply. “Not anymore. I was imprisoned —”

“— in Dauphine,” Kate said, her hand covering her mouth.

The mask nodded. “Oh, yes, and when the holy fire came from the sky to cleanse the city, I was unable to escape my prison. I burned with the city. But I am a goddess and cannot die, so I transformed.”

“Did you ever wonder why we had no death god or goddess here? I wondered if it simply was that the underworld was waiting for me. I still control the moon, but Cotton is dead. I am Morrigan, goddess of death. I am Morrigan, goddess shaped by the Lady Kate’s wrath.”

She removed her mask and faced them, her blackened, wrinkled, burned skin stretched across her face, eyes sunken to black holes, nose gone. The lipless mouth grinned at them, and Professor Burns swore quietly behind them.

Ishmael gaped at her. “Put that back on, woman! You’ll scare the children!” he said. “Although I guess all the children are dead, and therefore have already seen you. Still, goodness, don’t you have any divine power to heal that?”

Daniel wanted to punch him for his inconsiderate innocence, but Morrigan, surprisingly, returned the mask to hide the hell that was her ruined face.

“My power holds the moon in the sky, it opens the underworld for people, and it haunts the dreams of those who carelessly destroy others without thinking of consequences.” The mask turned to face Kate again, who still stared at her.

The woman’s robe — was it made of hair? — twitched, and she pulled it aside. What emerged made Daniel want to vomit. A ghostly body stepped from under her robe, glowing slightly: a white, translucent version of James, his friend and Alicia’s son.

“My existence is not all pain and fear, though,” Morrigan said, stroking the boy’s head as he stared at her, unafraid. “Now that I have him, I am no longer alone.”

“No,” Daniel said, taking a step forward. “You bitch, you can’t have him. What did you do, kill him?”

“Of course not, there are rules, after all,” Morrigan said. “He died during a struggle between Prosper and Gamma. He fell overboard. He’s dead, and mine now.”

“No,” Daniel said again, but Morrigan raised her weapon between them.

“The one and only time I attacked someone with this, I shredded his soul. I don’t know what it will do to gods. Want to find out? I think I owe Kate a bit of chaos and pain.”

She stepped forward, and Daniel retreated to Kate’s side.

“Now’s the time you should grab that sword of yours,” he said to Kate, cursing himself for leaving his sword — the katana that had previously belonged to goddess Izanami — on the Sheridan.

He glanced at her. She was staring up at the moon, her mouth slightly open. He shook her shoulder. “Kate. Vengeful death god threatening us. Need to move here.”

She pointed upward at the moon, and Daniel finally followed her glance. Suddenly, for the first time ever, he could see the dark halo around it, indicating the size the moon had once been before Morrigan took some of its power for her own. The void that remained was leaking; darkness oozed from the moon, slowly blotting out the stars.

Kate’s eyes were wide as she stared at the sky. “Chaos,” she whispered. A tear spilled down her cheek.

The scream of the wind sounded north of Dauphine, and Professor Burns spoke up from beside the catatonic gods. “Improbability storm!”

Morrigan turned her mask toward the approaching storm. “He comes; it’s nearly time.”

“I hate it when I don’t know what’s going on,” Daniel said, pulling Kate away. “Ishmael, get Persi; I’ll get Barris, and then we need to get the fuck out of here.”

Morrigan lunged then, slicing the air between her and Kate, who still looked shell-shocked. Kate raised her hand automatically, without even focusing on Morrigan, and batted the blade down to bury itself into the swirling ashes at their feet.

The apparition that had once been James pulled at Morrigan’s robe, his eyes fearful. Daniel could see his mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear the talk of the dead. Morrigan looked at them once more, then split the air with her weapon and entered the underworld, the seam closing up behind her.

They were alone. Kate’s shoulders slumped, but Daniel wouldn’t let her fall.

“Do not fucking fall apart on me now. It’s not fair, Kate. Shit’s going down. I need you. We need to get these guys to safety. Think, Kate!”

“Persi and Barris need their necklaces removed,” she said, staring at her hand, where a thin cut bled freely.

“Right!” Daniel said. “Then we can give them to Burns, and he’ll be protected. Great thinking.” He remembered how the chaos energy had protected them from the improbability storm, but it did more harm by dampening their own power.

“Draining away,” she murmured.

“Ishmael, you are in charge of Persi. Carry her. Remove the necklace only if you have to, to keep her safe. You’re the only one who has a chance of controlling her if she goes all Cthulhu on us.”

“What is ‘Cthulhu’?” Ishmael said.

“Tentacles! Scary! Big! There’s no time for explanations; move!” Daniel said.

He knelt by Barris and felt a brief stab of pain as he realized the god really and truly was gone. He’d obliterated his own mind with Burns’s concentrated idea gunk. Poor bastard. He looked up briefly at the billowing clouds shining with a cold light: the improbability storm, seemingly targeting them. Wind pulled at his hair and he grimaced, knowing they couldn’t outrun the storm. He didn’t know how much he could do with two catatonic gods, an ineffective girlfriend, and one human.

“I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this one, Kate,” he whispered to himself, knowing she wouldn’t respond if he said it loud enough for her to hear.

Oh, beloved, we will find a way. We always do, came her voice in his head.

He looked up in surprise and saw that she had stood and was carefully ripping the fluttering hem of her robe to wrap around her bleeding hand. The cut had looked pretty deep, and dark blood stained the moonlit street.

“I think we should find shelter,” she said. “One of these buildings is better than nothing.”

Daniel’s relief was cool and refreshing, and with renewed strength he reached out and grabbed Barris’s necklace, pulling it off and tossing it to Professor Burns.

Barris disappeared and Daniel fell back, swearing at the burst of heat that engulfed him, but didn’t harm him. He blinked at looked up at the suddenly familiar fiery angel standing before them.

The man shook his head and looked around, taking in his surroundings and companions. He looked at the improbability storm, nearly upon them, and then raised his hands above his head. He grew, then, increasing mass and height till he was as tall as a house. He reached down, gathered them all in his burning arms, and lurched into the sky, flying straight up.

Below them, the ruined city of Dauphine crumbled under the weight of Chaos.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kate barely registered her surroundings as the angel grabbed her and the others and flew off. The only thing she could see was the chaos around her, and how stupid they’d been this whole time.

Daniel was yelling in alarm, Ishmael was shouting questions over the din of the storm, and Persi remained asleep. Professor Burns clutched the necklace, eyeing the flames that went out as they touched him.

As they flew over the clouds, northeast, Kate closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax. She refused to beat herself up by what she didn’t know. The issue of Morrigan was directly her fault and she didn’t know how to make that right. But she would come up with something. For now, she was just so tired.

The angel deposited them on a hilltop, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I would have gone farther but Professor Burns’s necklace is draining me too much.”

Burns stepped away quickly once he was put down. He stared at the angel with wide eyes. “I know you. I’ve seen you at night.”

“We all have,” Daniel said grimly, folding his arms.

“I haven’t!” said Ishmael. “But where did Barris go?”

“You’re Barris, aren’t you?” asked Kate.

The angel nodded.

“But —” Daniel started, but Barris interrupted him.

“I am where the sun’s power goes after it goes down. When the sun comes back up, I have to give the power back.”

“Why did you never tell us this?” Daniel asked.

“Part of what I give up at night is the memory of who I am,” Barris said, frowning. “I try to remember every time, maybe thinking I’ll live my life differently if I know what awaits me at night. But I don’t. As for why I never introduced myself to you as I am now, I wasn’t ready. I wanted my freedom.”

Kate waved her arms in frustration. “Why do people keep saying stuff like that? We didn’t imprison you in the first place, and we’re not imprisoning people now!”

“Prosper didn’t come with us of his free will,” Daniel said.

Kate whirled on him. “Et tu, Daniel?”

He put his hands up, palms out, placating her. “Hey, I believe in what we’re doing. But we are searching for the gods to help us fight a war, are we not?”

Kate hung her head. He was right. She’d been raising an army with no consideration on whether the gods would agree to fight. She glanced back up at Barris.

“So you know what you’re like during the day?” Kate asked.

Barris nodded. “I am fairly sure, yes. I am addicted to ideas and not worth much of anything.”

Daniel shared a stricken look with Kate. “Actually, you’re worse off than that. You kinda OD’d on ideas and ended up catatonic. We thought you were gone for good.”

Barris frowned and looked down, his blonde hair hanging into his face. “When I search within myself for the person I am during the day, he is gone.”

He shrugged briefly and smiled. “At least my nighttime form is still functioning.”

“As long as you don’t have one of those goddamned necklaces,” Daniel said, glaring at the hated jewelry in Burns’s hand. “I wish we knew what that was made of.”

Kate looked up at the moon again. The seeping blackness had slowed, probably because the improbability storm had eased up its attack on Dauphine.

“I know what it’s made of,” she said, looking south, watching the final colorful assault on Dauphine.

“What? How did you figure that out?” Daniel asked.

Kate closed her eyes and accessed the divine knowledge gifted from the gods she had met during their journeys. “You said it yourself. Chaos. Not the word, but the deity. Chaos was around before the universe, before the gods. It was first. Then the Universe came, and Order, and Chaos got chained. It stayed there just fine until the world ended. But when the metaphysical earth went away, it found an escape hatch. It wants power again, but it also wants to punish those who chained it.”

“So that’s the siege on heaven,” Daniel said.

Kate nodded. “It exiled us and keeps us here by infecting the Wasteland between us and heaven. It sends improbability storms at us. It somehow convinced the tinkers here to impose order on it to use its energy. When Morrigan stole part of the moon, it had more room to seep directly into the world.”

She shook her head, holding her forehead. “It’s like it was right there in front of us the whole fucking time. I have no idea how we missed it.”

Daniel sat on the dry grass, sighing loudly, looking as tired as she felt. “We’re not omnipotent or omniscient. Aren’t we supposed to be?”

Kate shrugged. “We never have been before.”

“God. Poor James,” Daniel whispered.

Kate nodded. “Poor James, poor Alicia, poor Morrigan. All those poor bastards who got screwed for being part of our little crew, or just being touched by us.”

“We’re not very good at this, are we?” Daniel asked.

Burns blurted out a shocked noise, reminding Kate they weren’t alone. “How can you say that? You created us all! The whole world!”

Kate smiled sadly. “That was an accident.”

The professor frowned, but didn’t continue.

“So what now?” Daniel asked.

Kate thought of all the loose ends flailing around her. Alicia’s son, as Kate wondered if they could get him back from the underworld. Gamma and Prosper, wherever they were. Barris’s new form. Persi, the dinosaur goddess who had no control of her powers.

And heaven, the problem that she never let go far from her mind.

Ishmael folded his beefy arms in front of him. “I have a question,” he said softly. “Is what Morrigan said true? Did you kill Cotton?”

Kate looked him in the eye. “Cotton died when I destroyed the city, yes. I didn’t know she was there.”

He nodded slowly, and said nothing else.

“So?” Daniel said, his question still unanswered.

Kate rubbed her face. “We need to figure out what’s going on with everyone else. So I guess we need to get back to the Sheridan. Check on Alicia. See what’s going on between Prosper and Gamma. When we get all the gods we can together, we’ll figure out our next step.”

Daniel nodded. He looked at Barris. “Can you give us a lift back to the Sheridan?”

Barris looked at Burns and frowned. “I don’t know if I can get all the way there with him. The necklace, you see.”

“Fuck, if we never see that chaos stuff again it’ll be too soon for me,” Daniel said.

“I can carry him,” Kate said. “He won’t need it with me.”

Barris stretched to the sky again and grew, gathering Ishmael, Persi, and Daniel in his arms. They took off, climbing into the sky toward the moon, which now felt as if it watched them with a baleful eye.

She shook her head. “Lady?” Burns asked.

She smiled at him and willed her wings to spring from her back. “It’s very complicated; that’s all.”

Burns put his arm around her shoulder and she picked him up. “If I may offer an observation?” he asked as they followed the huge beacon that was Barris.

“Please,” Kate said.

Burns took a deep breath as if to steel himself. “You never did ask what the other gods wanted. You didn’t even ask if they wanted freedom. Prosper clearly did not. Ishmael did not, but is benefiting from it. Instead of freedom, you’ve chained Persi. The only gods happy with your interference are Gamma and Fabrique.”

“And I’ve never even asked them if they’re happy,” Kate admitted. “You’re right.”

“Before you fight your war, you have to make sure your soldiers are on your side,” Burns said.

She didn’t answer, but flew after Barris to reach the Sheridan, to confirm to Alicia that her son was dead.

* * * * *

Daniel found Sarah sitting on the deck of the Sheridan, slumped and weeping. She cradled Ursula in her lap, who clung to her with white knuckles. Alicia and Samuel — Samuel? — lay unconscious in a thick cloud near the railing. She looked blearily up at the new arrivals and then back down at the deck. Fabrique, Gamma, and Prosper were nowhere to be seen.

His throat closed up when he thought about telling her the news, but he figured she already knew.

“What happened?” he finally managed to say.

Sarah sniffled and sighed. She told him, saying she only saw Prosper holding her siblings up for an unknown man to kill them with a knife. Her mother called Gamma, she readied the chicken gun, and the battle began.

“Is Alicia all right?” he asked.

Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know what that gas does to people. And I can’t go get her; I get sleepy if I get too close, even if I hold my breath.”

Barris walked into the cloud and picked up the unconscious woman. He pointed to Sam. “What about that one?”

Daniel felt bile rise in his mouth. “He caused all this. He’s a waste of humanity. If he’s not already dead, toss him overboard, he’s fucking trash.”

Barris touched him briefly. “He’s dead.”

Daniel laughed bitterly. “Then he really is trash. Toss him.”

Barris picked Sam up without ceremony and dropped him over the side. The resulting splash was not as satisfying as Daniel had hoped.

“Get rid of the pot while you’re at it,” Kate said from his side.

“When did you get here?” he asked.

“Shortly after you. I heard everything. Where is everyone else?”

“Prosper and Gamma are still in the sea. I don’t know if they live or not,” Sarah said, staring at the deck.

“Fabrique?”

“She arrived, looked around, and then went below deck. I don’t know why.”

Gods, Kate thought. “Sarah, we’re very sorry for what happened here. We’re going to make sure your mom is all right and then get the hell out of here. Can we count on you to fly us back to Meridian?”

Daniel wanted to back down from the anger in the young woman’s eyes. But she didn’t challenge them; she just nodded.

Kate looked at Daniel. “We need to find Gamma, if not Prosper as well.”

“We could just call Gamma back,” Daniel suggested.

Kate looked over the side where the sea still churned below them. “I don’t think she’d appreciate that. We could—” She stopped when the water gradually stilled below them.

“So, what happened?” Daniel whispered, but Sarah made a startled noise behind them. She tossed the knife away from her boot, and Gamma flowed through the blade and appeared. She was soaked and gasping, scratches and cuts all along her arms and legs. Her leather clothes were ripped to shreds and she bled freely from a cut on her forehead.

“Shit,” Daniel said, and ran to her side to heal her.

She pushed him away. “These are war wounds. They’re a matter of pride, Daniel. Leave them.”

“Are you all right? What happened?” Kate asked.

“I beat him. I think,” she said, standing straighter. She looked from Persi to Barris to Kate and said, “And clearly I missed something.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Gamma hadn’t been too worried about underwater combat. She was a warrior, and she fought where she was needed. But she had very little combat experience, only learning what she could from her worshipers.

However, divine power did a lot to bridge the gap, and despite the grief and guilt over the boy’s death, she still hit the water with a sense of gleeful anticipation as she swam after the flailing harvest god.

Prosper clearly was not at home in the water. He wasn’t Barris, though, with the water as his antithesis. He was the god of the harvest, but also the god of kelp, algae, and even coral reefs. He paddled a moment and looked around, his golden eyes glowing in the black water.

Gamma didn’t wait for him to get his bearings. She swam forward and grabbed him around the waist, squeezing him. He jolted in surprise. Thorny vines erupted from his skin, slicing into her as they wrapped around her arms, but she kept squeezing. Finally he pried her off and flung her from him. He swam further down toward the sea floor, a drop-off that formed a fifty-foot trench. The water below the drop-off was black and murky, not touched by the lights from Leviathan City or the full moon, and Prosper headed there.

Gamma’s eyes were quite good in low-light situations, but she wasn’t sure she could find him in complete darkness. She dashed after him, cutting through the water with all her strength.

Prosper was maybe ten feet into the trench, disappearing from view, when she hit him again. They slammed into the trench wall, Gamma forcing his head into the barnacle- and coral-encrusted rock.

He bellowed as the barnacles cut his face deeply, and deep green blood bloomed in the water. It was nearly black except for the tendrils that floated upward and waved gently in the water, not diluting itself in the sea, but gaining shape and mass.

Algae, she thought, amazed, which allowed Prosper to place his hand on the wall and push himself off, cutting his hands deeply and causing more algae to drift into the water.

She shook her head and realized the water was not the best place to have this battle. If algae could exist floating in the sea, rootless, then Prosper was much more powerful here than she was. She grabbed the vines that still sprouted from his shoulders and torso and hauled upward, fighting for the surface.

Prosper had just realized what the algae meant as well, apparently. He sent more vines out to tangle her feet and drag her back down. He swam up with renewed strength, seemingly becoming stronger with the more algae he bled, and wrapped her tightly in the thorny vines. They cut into her skin and she bled only blood, it washing away as quickly as she bled.

Prosper forced her downward to the barnacled trench, slamming her into it and forcing cuts all over her body. Her leather shirt protected her for the most part but her bare arms and face opened every time a sharp barnacle met her skin.

She allowed the pain to fuel her and twisted her body, causing Prosper to force his own vines between her and the barnacles; with two more slams into the wall Gamma swam away, free.

She swam a few feet away and surveyed Prosper. He seemed to be in a cloud of algae now as his body still leaked. She recalled what Kate had said his greatest wish was: to be newly imprisoned. She nodded to herself.

She swam downward with renewed energy, slamming into him again, and their bodies plummeted to the sea floor at the edge of the trench, a gentle plume of sand wafting from their landing. Prosper struggled, but Gamma’s bet paid off as his bare skin touched the ocean floor rich with bio matter and his emaciated and hungry body shot out tendrils from his back to root deep into the sand.

She expected him to continue to fight, to turn his efforts to freeing himself, but his eyes rolled back in his head in a perverse mask of sexual pleasure. He let go of her entirely then, and she swam back to survey the changes.

A rumble shook the water around her as Prosper dug himself deeper and began to change. His wounds opened as if something dreadful had pried each one open to force out more blood, and algae bloomed in the water, nearly obscuring his body. The algae expanded more, forming a cloud, and Gamma had a nasty feeling that Prosper had become something she could no longer fight. A questing vine moved toward her and she swam upward and away, biting her lip against the retreat, but knowing it wasn’t a real fight she was leaving. A warrior doesn’t leave a battle. She does leave a pointless fight against something that is no longer an opponent.

Gamma fixated on a weapon aboard the Sheridan and disappeared from the ocean.

* * * * *

Prosper had never felt such power, such life. First he had rooted deep in the ocean, but that was simply for stability, for a foundation — not for sustenance. The food came from the very water around him, and the more he bled, the stronger he became. He willed his wounds open, his blood to stream out, his interior to become his exterior, his bones …

By the three original gods, his bones. The calcium dissolved; there was no pain, only ecstasy as they turned from hard bones to delicate coral polyps, the algae streaming inside, outside, adding life to the already god-infused living sea wall. Prosper felt the earth itself in all its confused glory, the sea in its constant movement. So much stronger than air; so much less frightening than fire.

This was where he belonged. This was safe. This was home.

Prosper’s coral reef grew exponentially under the waves as the sea floor quaked.

* * * * *

“I’m going to check it out,” Daniel said.

“No, Daniel —” Kate said.

“We have to know,” Daniel said. “He killed James; he could be down there doing god knows what.”

Kate smiled. “True. We don’t know. Just promise me you won’t get into anything. Go down and look and come back. OK?”

Daniel nodded, kissed her briefly, and dove over the rail of the airship.

Daniel marveled at how his slight fear of heights still managed to hang on even though he was a deity. But he had to know — for James — so he dove off the zeppelin at the end of Gamma’s story, needing to see the facts for himself.

He hit the water with a tidy splash and swam deep into the dark. He spotted the trench Gamma had mentioned and the massive reef beyond it. His eyes widened; it was bigger than a two-story house and clearly still growing, the coral blooming and reaching higher, algae wafting off the polyps and the marine life swimming close to inspect the new reef as it expanded. Near the top, two golden eyes gleamed, crusted lightly with calcium.

He shook his head slowly and then returned to the ship, willing himself dry as he flew back.

The humans had gone. Daniel guessed they were below deck, dealing with their shocks of the day. Alicia’s weeping was audible.

“So, what happened?” Kate asked.

Daniel paused. “I think he’s gotten what he’s always wanted. He’s turned into a coral reef.”

Kate shook her head, and then pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead. “I can’t believe this.”

“I don’t think he’s going to bother us anymore,” Daniel said. “He’s turned into a huge immobile plant-animal thing. I’m not even sure I know what coral is.”

“Well, now it’s a huge harvest god, apparently,” said Kate. “Gamma, are you all right?”

The goddess nodded stoically.

The door to below deck opened and Fabrique emerged. “I had to check on the engine. Apparently there’s been excitement? Where did you go?”

Kate swallowed and told them about their unexpected detour, meeting Morrigan, and her realization that Chaos was behind the improbability storms.

“Wait,” Ishmael said. “You left something out.”

Kate looked at Fabrique and then Gamma. “I learned, to my great shame and horror that the goddess Morrigan came to be because I burned Dauphine to the ground, which killed Cotton the moon goddess and created Morrigan the death goddess. Many of you have blamed Daniel and me for your imprisonment, and I’ve denied it. Now I think Chaos had a hand in making the world with us, creating the Dark, the improbability storms, and imprisoning the world’s gods.”

She took a deep breath. “But Morrigan blames me for her death. And she’s right. And I’m probably to blame for James’s death, since I forced Prosper here against his will. I screwed up.”

The other gods didn’t speak. Barris frowned, his sympathetic eyes showing pity. Ishmael looked rapidly at the faces of the other gods as if for guidance. Gamma folded her arms over her chest and stared with stony features.

It was Fabrique that surprised them all by striding forward, her curls bouncing, and reaching up to smack Kate in the face.

“We followed you because we didn’t know anything else to do,” she said, her fierce actions in sharp contrast to her calm voice. “But you used us and acted with no thought to consequences.”

Daniel put his hand on Kate’s shoulder, squeezing her as she turned her head to look at Fabrique. “You’re right.”

Fabrique looked at the other gods. “I think we need some time alone to discuss things. We can talk until daybreak when Barris will leave us. Meet us in Lathe, in the House of Mysteries. Then we’ll decide our next step.”

Kate nodded, then glanced at Daniel. “We should go.”

The walked to the railing and looked at the descending moon as the zeppelin’s modified engines purred to life.

“What are we going to do now?” Daniel asked.

“You have to see if you can get James back,” Kate said, not looking at him.

“Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “There are very few stories that say that heading into the Underworld for a soul is a good idea.”

“We need to make things right. I don’t want to be the person who just goes around breaking worlds. I want to get the hang of this, Daniel.”

He felt a bit of his old resentment returning. “Then why don’t you go?”

Kate faced him, and he saw with shock that she was holding back tears. “Because she hates me. With good reason. You have to be the one to do this.”

He nodded, disliking the fact but admitting the logic was sound. “What will you do?”

“I have no idea,” Kate said.

Daniel grinned suddenly. “I know where you can get one.”

The stepped off the zeppelin together, Daniel flying south to Dauphine, Kate heading east to Lathe.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Didn’t work out for Orpheus, thought Daniel bitterly. Didn’t work out for Izanagi. You go to the Underworld uninvited, you’re in for a world of hurt.

But Orpheus had gone to beg for his wife’s life and screwed up when he turned around to make sure she was there, and Hades had told him not to. Izanagi had found his wife, the goddess Izanami who had died in childbirth, but she begged him not to look at her. He did, saw the rotting corpse with the maggots and beetles, and was horrified, and she chased him back to the world. These guys couldn’t follow directions.

He had retrieved his katana, a gift from Izanami herself, and flown to Dauphine. When they had had visited earlier, it was creepy and dead. Now, alone, he felt the utter gloom and foreboding. He looked around at the burned corpses of the buildings, of his and Kate’s own temples, and realized Kate might be right in that they were fucking up this whole god thing.

He went to the spot where he’d seen Morrigan disappear. When moving from purgatory to hell, he’d had the instinct to just split the air with his katana to move between realms; he tried that here. He swung the black blade in a diagonal slice and reality split, crackling at the seams. Keeping his sword out, he stepped through.

Daniel had visited several underworlds in his time as a dead soul and then as a god, and thought he’d be prepared for anything. And, as usual, he felt completely blindsided.

He entered a wooden room, much like a one-room cabin with no windows or furnishings, about two hundred feet square. The wall closed up behind him, and he realized the room had no door.

One candle sat on a stool in the center of the room, illuminating the transparent figure of a small boy. He looked at Daniel with baleful eyes.

“Huh. I didn’t think it would be that easy,” Daniel muttered to himself. “Hey, James,” he said, louder. “Are you bait or something?”

“She put her here as her proxy, her messenger,” James said, his voice like a dropped tissue. “That is my role now. No longer your guide.”

Guilt stabbed deep. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, James. I’m here to bring you back, I’ll do anything.”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do. I am dead. I’m under her power now.”

“Come on, isn’t there something I can do? I’m a god!” Daniel said, stepping forward.

James stepped back, putting his hand up. “Do not touch me, or she’ll call me back.”

Daniel drooped. “I’m so sorry, James. For everything. Is she …” He was loathe to say the words, but he had to know. “Torturing you? Hurting you?”

The ghost shook his head. “No, Daniel. She’s very kind to me. If I serve her faithfully she’ll give me a corporeal body and I can rule the Underworld with her.”

“Uh, are you serious? She wanted a servant and boyfriend?” Daniel’s stomach twisted at the thought, but then remembered all the weird liaisons gods were said to have had, most obviously the small golden boy who served Zeus, Ganymede.

James nodded. “It’s not so bad. I understand a lot more now.”

“Huh, I didn’t have much expanded awareness when I died. But then again, I wasn’t houseboy to the death goddess, so I guess that has its perks.”

“I remember your quests, Daniel,” James said.

“What?” Daniel asked, completely flummoxed. “Um, okay, but what is your point?”

“I can help you. You need Morrigan for your goals. You don’t understand now, but you will. Kate will figure it out soon, and you will know how much she needs you. She hates Kate with a passion rivaled only by her love of me. I can get her to help you.”

“Wait, how do you know what Kate will figure out? And how can you get her to change her mind? And dude, that’s illegal in several states. Not that we’re in the States. But, damn, dude, that’s sick.”

“When I died, I’d been touched by three gods. That kind of power can be potent. I can get her to change her mind because her love for me is rivaled only by her hatred of Kate. Lastly, we have not been intimate. I have not proven myself to her yet.”

“Oh? What will that take?” Daniel asked.

James stared at him. “I must build a trap for a god.”

He reached out his ghostly fingers and pinched the candle out. Daniel stood in the darkness and watched the faintly glowing soul slip through the wall and away from him.

“Fuck.”

* * * * *

The thing about being a god was that there was so much to understand. Daniel felt as if he were running to stay just a little bit behind everyone else. Now he had walked directly into a trap, and he was the trickster god, at that.

The whispery sounds of the souls slinked against the walls, and Daniel got a nasty feeling that they were surrounding him, like zombies, waiting to get through before they devoured him.

He tried his katana of course; it passed harmlessly through the walls as if made of smoke. He ground his teeth and paced. He did not like this whole capturing thing, and he didn’t like being rescued. He paced until he hit his head on the wall, turned, and paced again, this time with his hands out.

A sound mocked him, past the souls outside, a high laughing sound. He rolled his eyes. Coyote’s here again to laugh at me for being such a shitty trickster god. Well, he thought, I’d rather fail at being Coyote than succeed at being Loki.

But why was she judging him or laughing at him? He did his job as best he knew. His pacing continued at a greater rate. He began to judge the width of the cabin by step numbers and then by the sound of the echoes off the approaching wall.

He shook his head. Fuck Morrigan anyway. Fuck her, and Coyote, and James, and Sam, and everyone who wanted something from him. He was tired of it all. He paced and though, paced and bared his teeth, paced and growled. Eventually he could barely walk two steps before he had to turn around, and when his shoulders brushed the roof of the cabin, he finally understood.

In coyote form — gargantuan, monstrous coyote form — Daniel threw his head back and howled. His nose crashed through the roof and he grew larger, shedding the splintered beams of the cabin as if they were toothpicks. He wasn’t Loki. He wasn’t Coyote. He was Daniel: unique, powerful, and angry.

The world outside the cabin was a vast gray desert, the light gray sand and ash shifting under his paws. The sky was a slate gray and showed only a full moon at her zenith.

Daniel paused briefly to smell the acrid scent of the souls around him until he detected a brief scent of James. He leaped over the tiny souls pawing at him and ran in the direction James had gone.

As he ran, his powerful body stretching out for maximum speed, he wondered if this was what Fenrir felt as he prepared for Ragnarök and Odin’s demise. He didn’t know what he would do to James and Morrigan when he found them, but he knew animals didn’t plan much farther ahead than, “chase, catch, kill.” He thought briefly of Odin in Fenrir’ jaws, and flecks of drool the size of buckets of water flew from his jaws as he ran.

No. We need her, he thought, his human sensibilities trying to overcome base animal desires. A tall stone wall loomed in the distance, but Daniel’s bulk was so great he leapt the wall with no problem.

A mansion made of red stone loomed higher than even Daniel, its wicked pointed towers looking ready to pierce the gray sky, and he wondered how he would break inside in his current form — with his current level of rage, he wasn’t sure he could attain human form any time soon. But he spied Morrigan and James walking the perimeter of the wall, about thirty yards from him, their backs to him. With two bounds he was upon them.

Morrigan turned her faceless mask to him, and he couldn’t tell if she was afraid, gleeful, expecting, or surprised. He reached down with his jaws and grabbed her, taking care, damnable care, not to crush her in his teeth. Before the ghost James could protest, he was away, leaping the walls again and running.

She didn’t squirm, but lay quietly between his teeth. She carried the scent of burned flesh and hopeless souls, and the smell nearly overpowered him.

Every Underworld has a river, and every Underworld has a path, he thought, and began running again, searching for his path, taking the death goddess to Kate.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As Kate flew toward Meridian and Lathe, she pondered what she knew of Chaos.

She didn’t know much, but she carried the knowledge of several gods within her. Too bad much of their knowledge had been useless in this entirely new world. But as for Chaos, not much had been said about it, only that it was massive, scary, and older than time. It had been chained with the creation of the world, and the four keys to its chains had been the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water.

Of course, there was no information about how four elements chained an ancient being older than gods. She had a brief image of throwing dirt clods and water balloons at the black mass that leaked into their world, and came up empty.

Still. There had to be something they could do. They were the ones who freed the beast; they had to put it back. She just wasn’t sure how, though.

Kate was careful not to trail far behind the Sheridan, even though they headed for the same destination. She flew as fast as she could to outpace the airship, and arrived on the outskirts of Lathe far ahead of the other gods.

The gods had been shocked and horrified at her actions, and she couldn’t blame them. She would have liked nothing more than to find a hole in the hills and hide there, but she had a job to do, and she was going to do it even if she had to venture into the Dark and face Chaos herself.

After this was over, she would try to make things right. Or she’d find that hole.

She walked into Lathe, her wings disappearing under her robe. Nothing stirred in the middle of the night, except for the occasional flare from scientists’ homes in the hills. Kate headed toward the center of the town where the marketplace stood.

Professor Burns’s Idea Emporium held the only light in the dark town. Surprised, she peeked into the open door. The professor stood there, calmly dusting the cases of ideas. “Lady Kate. I thought you might drop by,” he said. “Come in.”

“I’m confused. How did you get here?” Kate asked, entering the store and closing the door behind her.

“The Lady Fabrique used another one of her doors. We all went to our destinations ahead of the Sheridan. All but Persi, who stayed aboard the airship for obvious reasons.”

Kate winced when she thought of the last time chaos energy messed with divine travel. “Right. So they’re up in Meridian?”

“Yes, meeting about you. I asked to come home, as I expected you might need some guidance. Was I wrong?”

Kate smiled ruefully. “No. But haven’t I asked enough of you, too?”

The old man pursed his lips and gave the spotless counter one more determined wipe. “I seem to recall approaching you when I discovered a problem. Part of this whole mess could be attributed to me, after all, as I encouraged the sun god’s addiction. Although none of us knew what he would be like during the evening, I still doubt he will be of any use during the day, which could be inconvenient. Besides…” A ghost of a smile passed his lips. “I enjoy the adventure.”

Kate laughed. “I’m not sure I do, honestly. But what can I give you for your trouble? I would like to think that I’m done demanding things from people.”

He looked at her directly, startling her with his intensity. “Protect my home. Protect Lathe.”

“Uh, okay,” Kate said. “Why, exactly? It’s not like it’s in danger.”

Burns laughed suddenly, a bitter sound in the dead silence of the night. “We are a city that floats, Kate. We lie in the shadow of a much larger floating city. We’re frequently struck by improbability storms. Half of our inhabitants are mad, the other half are disgraced, and the third half are homeless.” He caught her raised eyebrow at the math involved. “Yes, Lathe is an odd city. We have three halves.”

Kate closed her eyes. Yes, she could probably do that. She opened them. “Done. It’s protected as much as I can protect it, anyway.”

Burns smiled. “Then the store is yours.” He opened his arms wide.

“Whoa, wait, I didn’t ask for the store. I just wanted some guidance. One, maybe two ideas.”

Burns smiled. “Thank you, Lady, for not following the path of the sun god. Please, take your pick, then.”

Kate took three: one diplomatic, one logistical, and a battle idea. She slipped them into her robe. “Thank you, Professor.”

He bowed to her. “It has been my honor to serve you, Lady. Any time you need anything, you are welcome to call on me.”

She smiled and walked outside. As she wandered the labyrinthine streets of Lathe, she unwrapped the logistical idea — one of the old-fashioned cedar idea boxes — and held it to her ear.

Symbols are often stronger than the things they are based on. Kate frowned. That wasn’t an idea. It was a fortune cookie. She shook the box to see if it would then spit out her lucky numbers or how to say “cow” in Chinese, but there was nothing else. She sighed. Damned elusive ideas.

The light started to touch the horizon, and Kate sighed. Barris would be reverting to his catatonic state soon. She would be judged at the temple. Then, probably, she and Daniel would head into the Dark alone. She looked up at the shadow that was the floating Meridian. It loomed, and she wondered if they were up there, discussing her fate, or the fate of her world, somewhere they neither knew nor cared about.

Facing them felt like going to the principal’s office, or her boss’s office. The office of someone who had the power to do terrible things to her.

She steeled herself. She was a god. One of the first. She did the damage; she could take the heat for it.

* * * * *

She walked up to the House of Mysteries just as the sun appeared over the hills. Fabrique let her in without looking at her.

As she’d feared, Barris lay slumped in the corner, again in his small, comatose form. He really was half dead. The other gods were seated on stools around her workstation. Fabrique joined Gamma and Ishmael at the table.

The small goddess cleared her throat. “With Persi incapacitated and Prosper deciding to become a coral reef instead of a god, and you and Daniel not getting votes, and Morrigan not available, we were left with four to vote. It was difficult coming up with a proper decision on what to do with you.”

“Clearly, we can’t have a god slayer among us,” Fabrique continued. “But some leeway was given due to the fact that you did free us from our prisons that we do believe you had no hand in creating. We also understand that this ‘Chaos’ you mention causes us more threat than you do.”

She paused, and Ishmael spoke up. “We have decided to help you with your war. Barris and Ishmael will accompany you to the Dark. But when you are done, you are to go back home. We do not want the goddess Kate in this world any longer.”

“Exile,” Kate said, the word tasting like ash in her mouth. But returning to heaven had been her goal all along, hadn’t it? “What about Daniel?”

“Daniel wasn’t involved with the razing of Dauphine,” Fabrique said. “Therefore he is free to stay — or leave — as he chooses.”

“I’m going with her,” said Daniel from the doorway. He stood there, his hair wild as if blown by a strong wind.

Kate smiled, trying not to let the sheer volume of relief show on her face, but the smile faded when she saw the figure standing behind Daniel.

Daniel stepped into the room. “We have one more person helping us.” He moved aside and presented the cloaked, masked death goddess to the room.

She gripped her scythe tightly and said, “I understand we have an ancient god to kill?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Alicia and Sarah politely refused the gods’ request for an airship. Kate knew they could have demanded, but she didn’t feel right doing that. They’d asked enough of the grieving family, and Daniel had apparently failed in his quest to get James.

“She won’t give him back; he’s the only thing she won’t negotiate on. I figured I’d make her join us by force, but once she heard what we were trying to do, she was all for it,” he said. “But James, she picked him specially and won’t let him go. I don’t know what else to do.”

“I guess we worry about that afterward,” Kate said.

“Afterward, we’re exiled, Kate,” Daniel said, his hand on her arm. Neither said the words, “… if we survive it,” but it hung between them like a dangling sword. Kate didn’t much like the idea of hanging in the underworld with Morrigan.

The death goddess completely ignored her and took orders — or suggestions — only from Daniel. Kate shrugged. As long as she does what we need.

The group of gods talked for most of the day on strategy, with the gods asking Kate and Daniel for whatever details they could give about Chaos.

When Kate had mentioned the four elements, Fabrique perked up. “What did you say they were? Earth, Air, Fire, and Water?”

Kate nodded. “Yeah. Another group of people where we come from thought there were five elements. They didn’t include Air, but added Wood and Metal.”

Fabrique waved her off. “There are four major cities on this continent. Leviathan City is under the water. Dauphine was destroyed in a fire. Meridian is in the air. And Lathe, while not technically on the Earth, sure is close to it.”

Kate froze. She stared at Fabrique. What had the idea said? Symbols are often stronger than the things they are based on. She looked around the room. The gods were nodding thoughtfully.

Ishmael was the god of the sea. Water. Barris was the god of the sun. Fire. Morrigan was the goddess of death and the underworld. Earth. Who was air? She looked at each in turn, and then realized that she herself, as reborn goddess who flew, was probably closest to air. The others, they couldn’t be extraneous — what were they?

She nodded to herself. Prosper had been wood, of course. Either Fabrique or Gamma could be metal. As the Chinese had considered it, metal corresponded with weapons as well as tools, so she decided Gamma was metal.

That left Persi, Fabrique, and Daniel. They were out of elements. Daniel rubbed his wrist thoughtfully, the one he’d gnawed off. He’d told her how he’d unconsciously turned into a coyote again and taken off with Morrigan, and she wondered how much of his power he really controlled.

Fabrique tinkered with a device as the gods quietly conversed about what the elemental cities could mean. The tiny gears and springs fit together perfectly and the realization hit Kate like a fist. “Order. Chaos. And the poor bastard living things that are caught up in it all,” she whispered.

“What?” Daniel asked.

“We all have a role to play. The elements. Ishmael is water. Barris is fire. Prosper is wood. Morrigan is earth. I’m air. Gamma is metal. Fabrique corresponds with order, balancing chaos, which is reflected in our trickster god.”

Daniel thought briefly. “That makes a certain sense. But you left out Persi,” he pointed to the still-unconscious girl.

“I’m not sure. But it seems pretty logical that she represents the poor living things that get caught up in all of this divine warfare,” Kate suggested.

“All right. But what do we do with this information? We don’t have Prosper, and Persi can’t fight,” Gamma said, arms still crossed. This had been the first time she had spoken since hearing about Kate’s actions in Dauphine.

Kate frowned. “I don’t know. But I do know it’s important.”

“Has anyone figured out how we’re all getting into the Dark? Do we commandeer another zeppelin?” Daniel asked.

“Nope,” Fabrique said. She closed the back of the device she was working on. “This is another doorway. I’ve put in a stopgap to protect it from chaos energy. It can take us to the Dark. From there we can fly.”

“Not all of us can fly,” Gamma said, and Kate was relieved to find the warrior goddess’s stony glare fixated on someone else for a change.

Fabrique grinned and pulled a blanket off a lump in the corner.

“Oh, shit. A jetpack!” Daniel said. “I want one!”

“We can’t leave till Barris wakes up,” Fabrique said. “I can build two more of these today for you and Ishmael.”

“Then I guess we’re set,” Kate said. At sundown the seven of them would head into the Dark to confront Chaos. And at the end of the war: The lovely choice between death and exile.

However, she realized, it’s unlikely a choice will be involved there.

* * * * *

They left Persi with her confused priests. Daniel grinned as he realized how much of a mind-blowing situation all of these temple workers were in with their gods suddenly coming “home.” After a quick word with Prosper’s priests to let them know that their god was, ah, otherwise occupied, they were ready to go.

Gamma had clothed herself from neck to feet in supple, thin leather that, Daniel realized after touching her sleeve, was surprisingly strong. Two swords crossed on her back and five daggers were sheathed and strapped to each leg. More weapons nestled into her sleeve, cozy against her forearm. Daniel wondered how a knife would help against Chaos, but he really didn’t know how any of them would attack it. They were gods, though, and he had to remember that.

Fabrique went for a heavy red leather duster lined with several pockets. She refused to show Kate and Daniel what she had hidden in the pockets, and Daniel wondered if they were pockets at all. Her curls were squashed under a pair of brass goggles with glowing red lenses. Her dark skin contrasted well with the red jacket, and black boots completed her ensemble. The leather duster was weighted at the bottom so it wouldn’t flap when the jetpack strapped to her back — a device so amazing Daniel would have readily given up his ability to shape-change if that meant he would get one.

Ishmael remained nearly naked except for his loincloth and coral armbands, refusing to wear anything to protect himself.

Kate, Daniel, Barris, and Morrigan remained as they were. With the exception of Barris, each god carried their weapon of choice. From the interior of Fabrique’s House of Mysteries, they watched as the tinker goddess activated a recently-finished wrist gauntlet. A ray of purple light splashed against the obsidian wall, growing to the size of the circular doorway. It rippled, but remained purple and opaque. Daniel looked at Fabrique, his eyebrow raised.

“It’s perfectly safe,” she said. “I will go first if you like.”

Daniel heard the challenge in her voice and shook his head. He put an experimental finger against the purple ripples and his arm went right through. He stepped through, his whole body vibrating with the power of her gauntlet, and ended up in the foothills about ten miles north of Meridian. The city shone in the distance, a gorgeous impossibility, swaying gently.

The air shimmered and he stepped aside quickly as Kate came out.

“Think they’re gonna ditch us?” he asked, but Barris came through right after them, shaking his wings and glaring at the portal as if it offended him. Ishmael, Morrigan, and Fabrique soon followed. As Fabrique stepped through, the portal snapped shut with a sound that reminded Daniel of a television being forcibly turned off.

“Wait, how did you get through? And where’s Gamma?” Daniel demanded. “Did she ditch us?”

Fabrique looked at him coolly and pulled a small jeweled dagger from an inside pocket, and Gamma flowed out of it and appeared in front of them. She handed Fabrique the gauntlet and Daniel relaxed.

“Okay then,” he said. “Let’s do this thing.”

The last time they had gone into the Dark they had been aboard the Sheridan, under attack from two modified warships, the Ferus and the Fera. The ships had been piloted by air pirates, tattooed thieves who lived in — and were driven mad by — the Dark.

By Chaos, Daniel reminded himself.

Fabrique, Gamma, and Ishmael fired up their jetpacks, Gamma a little unsteady, Ishmael looking as if he’d steer into a hill any moment. The others took wing, Daniel as a pterodactyl and Morrigan as a white crow. There was a path (Who made that, anyway?) through the hills to the Dark, but it was easier just to fly over.

Barris made a small, surprised sound as Morrigan took flight, and he slowed and watched her climb ahead of him. Daniel flew next to him and cocked his head.

Barris caught the question. “That was the crow I followed when I got caught in the ocean. I knew she was divine but I didn’t make the connection.”

Oh. Damn, but Morrigan caused a lot of trouble. Daniel wondered uncomfortably if he should have brought her along. But she fit Kate’s elements theory, so she would probably be needed.

If she doesn’t try to kill us all.

* * * * *

Kate hung back and let the other gods fly ahead of her. She tried to keep a respectful distance when not giving orders; the others, save Daniel, clearly didn’t want to be around her. The shame twisted in her like a snake, but she had a job to do. And regardless of their fate, she’d never see them again anyway.

The hills on the Meridian side were deep green in the light of the waning moon, but as they moved into the Dark, Morrigan’s power was diminished and faded. The hills were black, the sand was black, and the sky starless. The others landed at the foot of the rocky hills and Kate followed suit, feeling the prickles along her awareness that something wasn’t quite right with her power.

Ahead of them, down the hill, lay the camp of the airship pirates. Bunkers lined the perimeter to shoot down any airship that pursued the pirates home, and past that —more darkness.

“I think some of us should scout ahead,” Daniel was saying as she landed. “Figure out how many are in that camp, if they’re armed, you know.”

“They’re armed,” Gamma said. “Well armed.”

“Well, if we fly over, we’re sitting ducks. Or some metaphor that works in this situation,” Daniel said. “But going on foot feels so … mortal.”

“We might as well be mortal here,” Fabrique said, adjusting her goggles. “Gamma, why don’t you and Daniel scout ahead?”

Daniel looked at the warrior goddess and shrugged. They headed off and became mere silhouettes approaching the camp.

Barris approached Kate. She glanced up at him apprehensively. None of the other gods had showed interest in communicating with her. “Lady Kate, a word, please?”

“Uh, sure,” she said, and they stepped back into the hills. Fabrique fiddled with a gadget while Ishmael fretted and watched Gamma and Daniel. Only Morrigan watched her and Barris retreat.

“I want to apologize for the decisions of my fellows,” he said. “I never wanted you exiled. It is unfair; gods make decisions daily that affect the mortal plane and lives are lost. None of us know if one of our fellows could be damaged because of it. Look at me; I caused great damage due to my addiction.”

Kate grimaced. “Thanks. It’s still hard to reconcile you as Barris. And it wasn’t really your decision, you know. You seem a totally different person at night.”

“I am the same person, only with the power of the sun returned to me. In the few weeks I’ve had since freed from my cage, I’ve only brushed the potential of my abilities.” He chuckled ruefully. “Although I have learned to keep away from water.”

“And ideas. You’re learning,” Kate said. “I do have a question. That Chaos necklace thing squashed all of our abilities nearly completely. But all it did was affect your change, not the sun itself. Why is that?”

Barris held out his hand, palm up. Flames dripped from his hand like water off an Olympic swimmer. Above his palm floated a tiny sun. It nearly hurt to look at, and Kate worried its brightness would alert the camp to their whereabouts. She dragged him behind a hill.

“Impressive, but let’s not get ourselves killed, okay?” she asked.

“Kate, I am the sun. I have the power to keep multiple spherical objects in orbit around me: planets, moons, and asteroids. I pull far away comets into me. My heat is such that it can warm you from millions of miles away. I am the center of the solar system. It is without ego that I remind you that even though you made the world, and likely me, and Ishmael controls the water, which is life, and Prosper controls the harvest, which is food, and Fabrique controls the industry, which is human intelligence, and Persi controls the animals, which balance humans, and Morrigan controls the shape of the earth and the tides — and now death — and Gamma controls the warrior nature, which provides the conflict that moves, creates, and destroys nations. And Daniel, who provides the foil for us all — none are as powerful as the sun, which holds all of this together. My power can be dampened, but not removed, or the solar system falls into disarray. We’re not talking just this world here, Kate; we’re talking about all worlds.”

Kate thought about the first world they created, the one completely enshrouded in Chaos, and wondered where it was in the solar system. “What about —”

“Your other world lies in perfect orbit opposite this one. The astronomers of this world haven’t yet determined its existence. The sun is always between the two planets.”

“Is there a sun god there?”

“No gods live on a planet ruled by Chaos.”

Kate bit her lip and tried not to dwell on how much she and Daniel had mucked things up. “I understand, I think.”

“I am young, Kate. Self-aware only since you freed me. I am frightened of this Chaos beast, amazed at the beauty of the world, and confused by the actions and attitude of she who shares my power.” He gazed at Morrigan with a look that was somewhere between sadness and longing. “But one thing I do understand is recognizing power within others. And you don’t tap into half the power you have. What are you afraid of?”

Kate gaped at him. She felt the power stir inside her, impatient, despite the dampening effect of the Dark. “Are you kidding me? Look what I’ve done. Destroyed cities; killed a goddess; I have created two worlds and lost one, almost both of them, to Chaos. I am completely inept at this job. The more power I use, the more I mess things up.”

Barris frowned at her sadly. His fiery wings drooped. “Is that all you’ve seen you’ve accomplished? Really?”

Kate shrugged. “Where I’m from, there was once a man, a leader, called Mussolini. He did some horrible, things. But people said he always made the trains run on time. Sometimes the things that you do that are bad can’t be eclipsed by the good that you do.”

She left him, frowning at her, behind the hill, and went back toward the others.

They were gone, running toward the camp, which had opened fire on Daniel and Gamma.

* * * * *

She was dour, no fun to be around, and clearly wanted them out of this world, but Daniel had to admit that Gamma was handy to have during a fight.

As they silently skirted the perimeter of the camp, keeping close to the rocky foothills nearby, she pointed to a turret whose guns had moved from aiming at any aerial trespassers to tracking them. Her calm voice floated over her shoulder. “They’ve seen us. They’re targeting with one of their guns.”

Almost immediately after she uttered the words, the rocks above Daniel’s head exploded as projectiles penetrated them. Daniel thought at first that they were regular bullets, but fire dripped down the rock onto them, and they ran for the safety of a boulder.

Daniel’s heart surged with panic. “Shit! What do we do?” he asked as Gamma pushed his head down behind the rock. More projectiles hit the rock in front of him, and fire dripped down, seemingly seeking him. He skirted back from it while still trying to stay covered.

She touched the molten drop with her index finger, and instead of flowing toward Daniel, it crept obediently into her palm like a pet mouse. “You stay calm and do what I tell you.” He nodded. “It is a very bad idea to attack a goddess of war,” she said, almost conversationally. “Imagine trying to drown Ishmael or leaving Barris out in the sun to dehydrate. Can’t happen.”

“Yes, but they can still shoot me,” Daniel reminded her, but she was no longer there.

“Dammit!”

He winced as the gun fired again, but no more molten buddies came looking for Daniel. He chanced a look over the boulder and found the turret had instead targeted another turret and had fired repeatedly at it, melting it. The screams of the pirates inside floated over to his ears, and then the gun went off again.

Gamma had traveled through the gun to the inside of the turret. She must be really pissed about that fight with Prosper, that fight that Daniel thought of as Gamma’s Vietnam.

He relaxed and only noticed at the last minute that as Gamma blasted the turrets, one by one, another one targeted her. “Gamma! Nine o’clock!” he yelled, hoping she understood.

The turret began to swing around, but the targeting gun went off, melting the turret and causing the gun to explode. Daniel ducked behind the rock as more molten bullets rained down on him. A couple landed on his back and he expected the searing pain to begin, but he was hit with a stream of water that knocked him over, putting out the smoldering fire.

“Damn, Aquaman, thanks a lot,” he sputtered, seeing Ishmael looking much less flighty and much more focused about twenty yards away, firing a stream of water into the burning turret. It hissed and went out, the misshapen metal warped and black.

Kate ran up to him. “Are you okay?”

He nodded and spat out some water. “I never thought Aquaman was much of a hero, but he’s about my favorite person right now,” he said.

Kate smiled. “What kind of ammo are they using to cause metal to melt like that?” Do you think Gamma has something to do with it,” she said, ducking behind the rock with him.

“Probably,” Daniel said. “Do you think she got out of there in time?”

The turret that shot up Gamma’s gun turned to the camp and began firing as sky pirates ran around, screaming and heading for their airships.

“Yeah, I think so,” she said. “She’s buying us time; let’s go.”

As the six of them dashed past the camp, Gamma continued firing the flaming bullets at the pirates, targeting the airships now, causing their giant balloons to melt and catch fire.

Daniel was so caught up in watching the pirate ships burn that he didn’t notice the large group of pirates running out of the camp on foot, screaming and brandishing weapons. They had the same living black tattoos that crawled across their skin, the taint of Chaos.

“Crap,” Kate said, but the other gods ran forward. Ishmael knocked two women back into the camp with his firehouse-like attack, and Fabrique shot one with a ray gun type-weapon. The ray entered the man’s left side and exited the back. He stopped and gaped at the smoldering hole in his shirt, then crumpled.

Twelve more pirates challenged them, drawing pistols and ray guns. Daniel and Kate readied their swords, but Barris gestured and a wall of fire encircled the pirates just as they fired. The bullets incinerated before reaching the gods. Morrigan walked forward with purpose, turned her emotionless mask toward Barris. While Daniel had no idea what was going behind that, Barris clearly did. He let the wall fall in one place, and Morrigan stripped off her mask and walked inside. The wall went back up.

The pirates’ screams broke through the flames. Two tried to jump through to escape the death goddess, but fell flat once they passed through the sun god’s fire, and did not get up.

After the screams subsided, Barris let the flames fall and Morrigan stood surrounded by ten men and women, all dead with no wounds.

“Damn, what did she do?” Daniel whispered.

Kate shrugged.

“Are you a little annoyed they’re getting all the glory?” Daniel asked as they ran past the bodies.

“Not really,” Kate said. “I think we’ll have plenty of chance to fight when we get to — the end.”

She had hesitated, and Daniel sensed she didn’t want to say his name. Its name. Whatever. Did Chaos have a gender?

Gamma continued to blast away at the buildings and airships at the pirate camp and the rest of the gods ran on. A black dune rose about half a mile past the camp. They crested it and took a moment to collect themselves.

“Thank you for the help,” Kate said, but they all either stared at her with stony faces or avoided her gaze. All except Barris, who nodded graciously.

Daniel felt his katana shake, so he drew it and Gamma materialized, glowing and grinning.

“I have never had so much fun,” Gamma said. She stretched and flexed, like a cat, and Daniel thought she was actually bigger, with tighter muscles. The extra battle energy had to be doing it.

“So, what’s next?” she asked eagerly, looking at Daniel. “Let’s face this beast.”

“I don’t remember,” he admitted. “All I remember is ‘deeper into the Dark.’”

Kate touched Daniel’s arm and drew him away from the gods, who were discussing the battle with relish. She pointed at the ground. “Daniel. Look.”

Black rivulets, darker than the black sand, slithered past them and away from the pirate camp.

“What is that?” Kate asked.

Daniel looked at the camp, and then back down at the moving, snake-like lines in the ground. “I’m not sure, but I think that might be their tattoos.”

“Seriously? How is that possible?”

“It’s possible if that wasn’t actually ink,” Daniel said. He watched them slide deeper into the Dark.

“Shit. You think that’s actually parts of Chaos?”

“Would it be any weirder than anything else that’s happened here?” he asked.

She shrugged. “You’re right. Let’s go.” She turned back toward the others.

He reached out and grabbed her arm on impulse. “Listen. We don’t know what’s going to happen there. We’re fighting this big blob that royally kicked our asses last time, in a place where we can’t trust our powers. Something could —”

She glared at him, setting her jaw. “Listen to me, Daniel. You’d better not be doing a, “We may die, so, I love you,” speech. I’m not saying goodbye to you. We’re linked; don’t get you that? You and me, puzzle pieces. We click. Once locked together, we’re not going to be apart. Nothing’s been able to separate us for long before, not even that.” She pointed into the Dark. “So if you say goodbye to me, I’m going to punch you.”

He grinned at her and smoothed her hair back from her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just wanted to tell you that you look lovely today. That’s all.”

She kissed him, not a peck, and not a long, drowning kiss. It was a firm kiss, a refusal to be the last kiss, a kiss of ownership.

He remembered a time back when they were mortal, so long ago, it seemed, when she had been angry with him for not emailing all summer when his dad took him on a trip.

He looked at her, his eyes wide in shock. “Kate, you’re my best friend. Always. If I went away to Saturn for ten years, I would be sure that when I came back, you’d still be my best friend. This kind of friendship doesn’t change. You’re my favorite person in the world.”

She’d pouted a bit more, but eventually warmed to him again, sure in his affection, if not romantic love, for her.

“So tell me about the guy you met over the summer and explain to me why he’s good enough to date my best friend,” he’d said then, digging into their standard Saturday night sundae at the local deli.

He realized that even back then, he knew he’d be spending the rest of his days with this woman.

She tugged on his hand. “Come on,” she said. “Apparently, we have some tattoos to follow home.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The words echoed in Kate’s head, the voice a whisper of her former lover, Hermes:

“Verily at the first Chaos came to be,” said Hesiod. Ovid had much more to say:

Before the seas and this terrestrial ball,

And Heaven’s high canopy, that covers all,

One was the face of Nature, if a face:

Rather a rude and indigested mass:

A lifeless lump, unfashioned, and unframed

Of jarring seeds: and justly Chaos nam’d.

All of their problems, since the beginning, were caused by Chaos getting free. The missing souls in heaven. Daniel losing control of hell. The siege on heaven. The corruption of their first world. And now, its power was leaking into the second world, imprisoning gods and dampening their divine power.

It had grown. No more did the armies and heaven and hell battle it. Chaos still covered heaven’s dome, unable to get in, but no one was able to get out, either. The vast plains of hell where Kate had hidden heaven were empty. Kate wondered what had happened to the armies. Were they dead? Devoured? Deserted?

It leaked its influence past the metaphysical plane and into the physical, and Kate could feel its power draining her. She shook her head. Barris was right. She’d been afraid of using her power, probably since razing Dauphine. They’d been torturing boys, blinding them in the name of Daniel, and she’d lost it. Then, terrified of her power, she’d dampened it.

“This is the moment where we’re supposed to say something dramatic and mighty, right?” whispered Daniel. “And all I can think of is, ‘Holy shit.’”

“Apt words,” she muttered. It was certainly holy. And certainly shit.

“That is our enemy? That is our god?” Gamma asked.

“Doesn’t look like much,” Ishmael said, looking very pleased with himself.

Daniel coughed. “You blew back some pirates, Aquaman. This is a bit different. Don’t get cocky. This thing knocked Kate and me into another dimension, and apparently had enough influence on creating this world to imprison the seven of you. You going to hit it with your firehouse?”

Ishmael stiffened. “You said you needed an elemental attack.”

Kate chewed her lip. “I don’t know how literal it is. Those Greek poets were all about metaphor. I guess the four of us should go in and attack, the others backing us up. Barris and Ishmael go in first — fire and water being opposites — then Morrigan and I will attack.”

The gods nodded, but Morrigan just stared at Chaos, her mask hiding any thoughts. Kate looked at her. “Are you up to this?”

The mask turned toward her and she tried not to shiver. “Are you?” Morrigan asked.

Kate gritted her teeth and wings burst forth from her back. She reached back for her sword, thinking, this should really be a bow, an air weapon. Her hand closed around a supple bow, and she smiled. That’s more like it.

Morrigan changed into a crow, flying toward the pulsing dome. Kate took wing herself, skirting around, notching an arrow into her bow. This felt ridiculous, but she had no other thoughts. Morrigan circled Chaos from the other side and landed short of the dome.

Up close, Chaos was a roiling mass of nothing, a horrific lump of oily sludge, a black that looked as if you could fall into it. Kate blinked to keep it from pulling her in, and continued flying around the perimeter. She caught sight of Morrigan and shouted, “Now!”

The death goddess’s scythe was out and she swiped at Chaos just as Kate let loose an arrow, pumping her divine energy into it as it left.

The arrow sank into Chaos and disappeared, and she saw no damage from Morrigan’s attack.

No damage, but Chaos clearly awakened. Pseudopods extended in all directions, making it look like an angry squid. One of them swiped at Kate, but she dodged it, picking up speed. She saw three try to encircle Morrigan, but she changed into a small crow, dexterously dodging the oily whips and rising high in the air to head back to the others. She and Kate landed at the same time.

“That went well,” Kate said dryly. “Anyone got a plan B?”

Barris nodded. “Ishmael and I can spread our attacks over a wide range. You two can attack specific places. Do we know of a weak spot: A head? A heart?”

Kate waved at it. “It’s a big blob! You find a weak point.”

“We should all go in together,” Barris suggested. “Ishmael and I will hit it together; you and Morrigan strike different spots.”

Kate nodded, and the four attacked again.

Chaos was awake now, its pseudopods waving wildly. Kate flew low, looking for any sort of weakness. How did you find a weakness in a big black blob of silly putty? She dodged another swipe and then she realized the attacks were different this time. Chaos seemed to be flailing about wildly, not attacking with knowledge or craft.

Of course, she thought wryly. It’s Chaos.

She flew higher than the other gods, Morrigan landing and slicing through pseudopods as Kate lobbed arrows at the mass. Then Barris and Ishmael, the latter lifted high by a geyser of water from the dry earth, both sent vast amounts of fire and water to wash over Chaos.

Great gouts of steam rose from it, and Kate increased her arrow volley.

Chaos screamed, the unholy screech echoing in her ears and mind. The pseudopods flailed again, wilder this time.

“I can’t believe it; it’s working,” Kate whispered. She laughed aloud. “Guys, it’s working! Keep it up!”

* * * * *

Daniel watched the battle, rubbing his hands together. Gamma growled beside him. Fabrique stood patiently.

“Can’t we go in and help?” Daniel said.

“He is right,” Gamma said.

Fabrique shook her head. “You know what they said. They will let us know when they need us. We wait here.”

“Come on, we can’t hurt! More people helping will be better, not worse!” His hands opened and closed. Kate whipped around like a hummingbird, sending streaks of silver at the squirming god, its horrible screeches shaking the ground.

“I said no, and I meant it,” Fabrique said. Her voice had an edge that Daniel had never heard, not even when she was enraged at Kate. He looked over at her and saw black lines appear over her dark skin. Her eyes lost their intelligent spark and she grinned at him. “I think we can take them ourselves. After you, that is.”

Gamma stood on his blind side. Daniel decided not to waste time looking to see if Chaos had his little tattoo snakes under her skin as well. In an instant, his katana was in his hand and behind him, blocking her attack.

Great. Warrior goddess. Trying to kill me. I told them I should be fighting Chaos. I might have a better chance with it.

He took a quick whirl to the left and stepped back, better to get the two goddesses in front of him. Fabrique was calmly looking through her pockets, the tattoos moving over her face. Gamma’s tattoos made lines on her face, coating it in deep black except for a wide horizontal line that left her eyes exposed. She looked at Daniel’s sword and grinned.

“A sword? Against me?” She held her own sword, a wicked long sword with a wavy blade, held at her side, not even trying to defend herself. Daniel stepped forward, katana high, hoping his connection to his sword, given from the death goddess Izanami, would give him some sort of edge.

Gamma’s hand shot out and closed over the blade. She threw her head back as the blade disappeared, absorbed into her. She looked at him and her eyes glowed silver. “Lovely sword. Thank you.”

“Hey! I liked that sword,” Daniel said, and threw the hilt at her. She dodged it easily and lunged for him, knives drawn.

Fighting her wouldn’t work, he realized, and he took the shape of a small pterodactyl, flying up and out of Gamma’s reach. Her blade nicked his left wing and he screeched in pain, a sound drowned out by another one of Chaos’s bellows.

Come on, Kate! Kill that thing before Gamma and Fabrique get into the fight, he thought, wheeling toward the battle.

Fuck! A pinkish ray whizzed past him, narrowly missing him. Fabrique had apparently found what she was looking for. This is no good; I gotta keep them away from Kate, he thought. He turned on his wingtip, his left wing dripping blood, and then came up with an idea.

* * * * *

Chaos was shrinking. Kate’s divine arrows were limitless, and the other three worked at their attacks tirelessly. Who knew it would be this easy?

Every once in a while, she would check on the other three, and see Morrigan’s mask tilted up toward her as her death scythe sliced squirming pseudopods from Chaos. She tried not to think anything of it as she loosed the arrows.

A glimmer appeared in the midst of Chaos’s bulk — the Dome of Heaven! It really was shrinking. Kate called more encouragement to the gods and focused on attacking the shrinking mass around the revealed part of the dome.

Laughing, she imagined getting free of this, and going home. Wherever that would be, they would get there. She and Daniel would be free of this war.

The laughter was driven from her throat as she was hit with a pseudopod and tumbled wildly through the air. Pain coursed through her body as her delicate wings shattered. If it had been a human’s attack, she could have healed instantly, but Chaos was about as far from human as you could get. She soared through the air and landed hard, breaking her left ankle and right wrist as she rolled. She could barely register the pain in her limbs as her entire world narrowed to the overwhelming agony in her back.

She skidded to a stop and lay stunned. Sight threatened to leave her as black blossoms appeared in her view. She blinked as a masked face appeared above her.

“Morrigan. Help me. Get Daniel.” Kate whispered.

“The one who made me. Unmade at my feet. And your lover brought me right to you. I didn’t have to do anything,” Morrigan said. She gripped her scythe, and Kate was pretty sure she was grinning.

* * * * *

Daniel hoped his idea would work. Fabrique kept firing her weird pink weapon at him, and he felt an odd tingling as she fired it, and faltered in mid-air. The bitch made a weapon with chaos energy, he realized in shock. And she thinks we can’t be trusted?

Daniel soared in low, the fight with Chaos behind him and the two corrupted gods in front of him. Maybe if Fabrique missed him, she’d at least hit Chaos. He wheeled and turned, concentrating hard to make up for the lost mobility in his left wing. He got close enough to see Gamma’s grin as she held two knives and waited for him.

This is really going to hurt, he thought, and forced himself to change from the pterodactyl to coyote, the massive canine that had stolen Morrigan from the Underworld. He rolled and skidded to a stop on three legs, holding the fourth high. With the shape-change, his cut wing turned into a nearly severed paw, gushing blood. He neatly clipped the last bit of skin from the paw and picked it up. He tossed it at the goddesses, and it transformed in midair into the shadow imp that had saved him.

My own little bit of Chaos. How do you like that?

The wounded coyote backed up and watched as Gamma tried to slice the imp open with her knives, confusion scrawled over her face as she slipped right through him.

Fabrique aimed for the imp with her gun, and again, it went through it, hitting Gamma on the other side. The warrior goddess went down, and didn’t move, looking paralyzed rather than dead.

Fabrique’s eyes grew wide behind her goggles and she backed up, dropping her weapon. Her hands went to her pockets as she looked for anything else to help her as the imp danced closer. She screamed once as it grew and leapt on her, engulfing her.

Daniel wondered through his pain-hazed mind what it would do to her, but turned his head at Kate’s scream.

Morrigan stood over Kate, her scythe raised. There was no way Daniel could make it there in time.

He began to run, hobbled on three paws, leaking blood from the fourth.

* * * * *

Kate didn’t know what the scythe would do to her. It had cut her at Dauphine, and the wound still leaked blood many hours later. That didn’t bode well.

She still faced her death with open eyes. She was completely guilty and didn’t blame Morrigan for her hatred. She took a deep breath as the scythe raised.

A blinding flash filled her vision and she blinked, only to find it, — and Morrigan — gone. She turned her head to face Chaos and saw Barris and Morrigan barreling toward it, too fast to stop, Morrigan squirming in Barris’s grasp.

Chaos reached out to embrace them, and then they were swallowed.

Chaos rippled as if it were a pond full of ink, then it began to shimmer. It bellowed once more, and if Kate had been able to cover her ears, she would have.

Then it exploded outward in a flurry of glittering shards, forged crystalline godstuff falling around them.

A coyote as big as a house ran up to her, whining. It stood over her, shielding her from the falling debris. “We did it,” she said, smiling at him.

* * * * *

Daniel’s canine self had fierce loyalty to the woman he shielded, but his sensitive ears still picked up a rumbling from behind them. From their world, Meridian.

Kate was smiling, her poor shattered body bent in many places. She was alive, still divine, but so broken he didn’t know what could heal the damage done by Chaos.

Another rumble. And then something occurred to Daniel.

Chaos had had a hand in making the world, in imprisoning the gods, in forging the xenophobia of Leviathan City, in fueling mad tinkers’ experiments, and in sowing the ground around Meridian and Lathe with enough energy to keep the buildings afloat.

Fuck, he thought. He reached down and picked Kate up in his jaws as gently as possible and ran back toward the physical plane.

Behind him, heaven glittered gloriously, and the gates began to slide open.

* * * * *

Daniel loped as fast as his three paws could carry him. He felt Kate try to touch his mind, inquisitive and pain-wracked, but she withdrew at his own pain-riddled animal mind.

He cleared the hills with three bounds and ran towards Meridian, where his fears were already realized.

He remembered astronomy from high school, how the moon not only moved the tides but also gave the Earth its slightly oblong shape. Without the moon, it would return to being round. Which would likely cause earthquakes.

But with Chaos gone…they hadn’t thought about what effect that would have on the world.

Meridian was falling.

Several of its supporting cables snapped as it listed north, as if seeking the energy it once had in abundance.

Kate finally understood. From Daniel’s jaws, she cried out in horror as the whole city fell the several hundred feet from where it had rested so comfortably. Buildings crashed into each other, debris and dust rising into the air, the lights going out.

Daniel tried to block out the screams of the people as they fell, realizing their fate. He was unable to help them.

The rumbles continued far longer, and cracks appeared in the ground around him; Daniel tried to dodge as well as he could. Finally, he realized Kate was screaming at him to put her down.

He gently deposited her onto the plain in an area that hadn’t been cracked. He became human again and swooned briefly as the pain returned. He dropped to his knees beside her as she stared at Meridian, tears running down her face.

“I didn’t know; I didn’t think,” she babbled.

“I know, I know,” he said, watching the gentle light from lathe illuminate the rubble and dust from Meridian. “I wonder if anyone survived.”

“Why are there earthquakes?” she asked.

“No moon. Morrigan is gone. No lunar tides, no oblong Earth.”

“So if Chaos is gone, and Morrigan is gone …”

Daniel stared at her, the horror making him forget his pain momentarily. “Oh, god.”

“Eight minutes. It takes eight minutes for the sun to reach us, for the heat and light and gravity and everything, right? Without it we just freeze,” she said.

He nodded. “And drift off into space.”

“What are we going to do?”

He shrugged. “What can we do?”

She thought for a moment, and then took his good hand with hers. “Daniel. We’ve always sucked at this god thing. Did you ever think of getting out?”

He smiled sadly at her. “Every goddamned day.”

“I think we should go for new jobs. Barris seemed to think we were wasted here anyway. Too much potential. I would really like to do some good for a change.” She coughed, and blood showed up on her lips. Daniel realized she had broken ribs and a punctured lung.

She smiled. “Besides, I’m not sure how much longer I’d live here like this anyway. Chaos fucked my shit up pretty good.”

He smiled and kissed her gently. “There’s my delicate flower. You think we can do this?”

“If we don’t, we spin off into space and freeze. If we try and fail, we spin off into space and freeze. If we try and succeed, we don’t.”

“I love your logic,” he said.

“I love you,” she answered.

They linked hands and closed their eyes, touching the parts within themselves that they had been so afraid of. Power surged forth at their calling. Internally, they united it all, his anger and trickery, her compassion and strength, and divvied it up between them.

I’m going to miss you, he thought.

She scoffed at him. We’ll never be apart now.

They focused on the metaphysical plane and found the holes left by Barris and Morrigan, gaping wide, already bleeding. Daniel and Kate took deep breaths, and their physical forms, their pain, their fears — all disappeared.

Daniel had never felt such bliss, such power, as he appeared in the sky over Meridian. The earth groaned again as gravity forced it back to its shape, and he shone down on the devastation. If he could have, he would have wept at the sight of Meridian’s ruins, and he noticed life subs from Leviathan City emerging from the sea.

Earthquakes must have torn open the dome, he thought sadly. I hope enough get out.

He cast his sight out, past the devastation, past all the things in the world he could see at once: The other cities, the other continents: places he and Kate had never been.

Oh, Kate. What a world we made.

Dawn’s light began to peek over the horizon. I can’t wait to see it, she said. You should see the other side of the world.

Right before he slid behind the hills, he caught sight of her, and she had never been more glorious. You’re beautiful, he thought.

So are you.

We made a big mess, but we did the job, he thought.

They’ll rebuild.

If anything, we’re a damned stubborn race.

He could hear her laughter and smiled to himself. God of hell, exile, trickster, now moon. He was done changing jobs.

A sliver of power remained unclaimed, and he sent a question to Kate. She answered with enthusiasm, and he sent it back to the world. It wasn’t much; it couldn’t make things right. But it was enough to make a difference. Eventually.

His link with her was stronger than ever. The connection was more than physical, more then mental, more even than the link they’d had as gods. It was all-encompassing.

You were right, he thought. This is about as forever as you can get.

You’re my moon, she replied.

And as Daniel set over the horizon, a new day dawned, with the new sun shining brightly.

CHAPTER TWENTY

1, The Month of Scampering, Year 15

I’m fifteen today, so say the priests anyway. They’ve made me start this journal; they want to chronicle everyone’s lives past fifteen now.

I was born on the day of The Great Cataclysm. The day that five gods died in a great battle and the sun and moon disappeared from the sky. So say the priests, anyway. Two babies were found outside the rubble of Meridian, the city that fell. We had nothing but diapers and blankets, and we each held a piece of smoky crystal in our fists. We were taken in by a surviving priestess, who named me Kate after one of the dead gods. Daniel was named for another.

No one knows what happened during the war that caused the cataclysm. Gods fought. Lots and lots of people died. Two cities fell — Meridian and Leviathan City. Tons of refugees overwhelmed Lathe, which apparently was fine. One man says it was because of Kate’s blessing, but whatever.

Rebuilding has been going on for years. Meridian is rising again, only on the ground this time. No one wants to rebuild Leviathan City, as it’s close to that coral reef where all those ships keep sinking.

I’m not much of a historian. The priestesses of the Rising Sun want me to follow in their footsteps, but I’ve been spending more time at the Idea Emporium. The owner is pretty young, just a couple years older than me, but she does a great job of getting you ideas, if you can afford them.

Her brother’s name is James. He is somewhat of an enigma; he won’t talk about the cataclysm at all, and gets very somber and quiet when you ask him. I’ve learned not to. He’s started an organization of sorts in Lathe, and the way I understand it they try to figure out what the rogue gods — the ones that didn’t die — have been up to since the cataclysm. Priestess Meredith calls them blasphemous, but I want to find out what they’re about. You don’t get found as a newborn on the day that tons of gods die and think it’s a coincidence. I want to know where I come from.

James says he’s still looking for people, and may have room for us in a couple of years. He’s shooting for thirty-three members. Some older friends of ours from Lathe, Hutch and Wallace, are thinking of joining up this year. I hope they’ll tell me what it’s all about.

Daniel? What should I say about him? He’s my best friend. We’ve been raised together. We used to go behind the temple when it was still being built and try to figure out if we were special. If we had powers. Daniel split his lip and I broke my arm during one of our divine tests. We kinda stopped after that. But we do almost everything together.

I can’t imagine life without him.

Wait. Daniel’s here, reminding me we need to go clean up the temple before the setting of the sun rituals. Tonight Daniel and I have our early birthday dinner with the temple. Tomorrow we go help with the building of a new temple in New Meridian.

It’s a strange life, but a good one. I can’t imagine anything else.

Kate

STONES

BY
MUR LAFFERTY

THE

AFTERLIFE SERIES

VI

Acknowledgements

I DID NOT THINK ANYONE WOULD WANT THIS BOOK,
but the Kickstarter than ran in 2011 shocked me, frankly. Scott Phillips was the patron for the creation of this book, and it wouldn’t have happened without him. I also want to recognize Katie Bryski, friend, classmate, and editor. And the keeper of the torpedoes. And of course, my husband, Jim Van Verth, whose constant support keeps me going.

This book is dedicated to Scott Phillips, my patron.
Keep writing, my friend.

Prologue

Adam-

Really, using the gargoyle to hide messages? I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel safe.

Still…I guess it’s all we have left.

Amadeus scares me. His big plan for the Games gave us something to focus on besides scavenging in Meridian, but I think they’re more like a diversion.

I overheard him talking last night. He wants to find the dead gods, Adam. That will restore Meridian to its glory or something. And he thinks the way to do that by sending the winners of the games into the wastelands. He’s going to kill the winners.

I asked around, and found out that Marissa and Kevin didn’t fall off that tower. It wasn’t an accident. Amadeus “sent” them. He says they went willingly.

But they’re not here to tell us if he’s lying, are they?

But if Marissa and Kevin are already in the wastelands looking for the dead gods, why does Amadeus need more of us to go? I’m so confused.

Amadeus said I have to run in the Games. And I can’t run away to Lathe. Did you know he’s started guarding the roads to the city?

This is so much bigger than I thought it would be. I hate to admit it, but I scared.

Is he making you participate?

I miss you.

Julie

J-

Amadeus says I have to be alone — spiritual preparation, you know. He’s still letting me go for my runs in the morning, but he has that kid Timothy trail me. He’s afraid of heights, so I’m still able to get up here where he won’t follow.

J, the Games are just a front. We’re not really competing. Amadeus already knows who he wants to go, the Games just make it seem like the gods picked us.

He wants to fix my race. That’s why I’m alone, studying the old texts of the gods. Barris, Kate, Daniel, and Morrigan, but mostly Prosper.

He considers himself a priest of Prosper. He’s started planting vines on the outskirts of town, studying holy farming books, and coming up with his own prayers. He only lets me out to run before dawn when he goes to “bless” the farms outside the city, and I have to be back by the time he’s done. His guards on the road, and you, are the only things keeping me from running south.

According to Amadeus, next weekend, after the Games, he’ll bless the winners — me included. Then we go on our journey. I don’t know how he plans to kill us.

I want to ask how he knows the gods are dead in the first place? Just because they used to live among us doesn’t mean they aren’t active in the afterlife. Does he really think they’re just waiting there for us to save them? How are we supposed to bring them back, since we’ll be dead too? Anyway, if the gods are having trouble coming back, what can a bunch of kids do to help them?

A-

Adam-

I can’t believe you’re going to die and you are so calm about it! Who else has he chosen to win? I’m supposed to run, but he hasn’t told me anything but “good luck.” I don’t even know what that means anymore. Is it good to win, or lose?

He’s dangerous. They follow him so blindly. Those older kids, I thought they had left for Lathe. He got them back, they’re going to be guarding him, and us, and the exits.

He has the food, so he has the power.

If you’re going, though, I’m coming with you. I can’t be here without you. No one else is scared of Amadeus yet, and I’d be utterly all alone.

Julie

J-

I’m not calm. I’m so scared I wake up from nightmares covered in sweat. I can barely eat. All I do is run, and read, otherwise I would obsess about it.

I’d never ask you to go over with me. I want you to live. But if I had to choose someone to go with, it would be you. Remember what the dead god Barris said- when we’re weakest is when we find our strength.

I try to remember that if I can find the dead gods, perhaps they can help us deal with Amadeus.

Sometimes I think that they’re the only ones who can.

A-

J-

Where are you? Amadeus won’t tell me where you went, but I don’t think he knows either. You had to leave two days before the Games? He’s so mad. Where are you? Did you leave without me?

A-

Adam-

I’m so sorry. By now, you’ve probably heard that I’m back, but I wanted to tell you where I went. The truth, I mean. Who knows what lies Amadeus is telling about me. I told him I went to Lathe through the fields so I could avoid his sentry. But I went north.

That sacred land to the north, I wanted to see it. I went to find the battlefield of the gods.

It’s amazing. The pirates’ abandoned bunkers are there, almost buried in sand. No pirates, no priestesses, no scavengers.

The sand is black. It’s a poisonous and scary place. The ground gets darker and darker as you go north, until the battlefield.

It’s obvious where the gods fought. In the middle of all the black sand, it’s white, like it’s been scoured clean. It’s amazing. It does feel like hallowed ground. A shining disk in the sea of black sand. But there was nothing there aside from sand. I’m sorry.

But I brought back two pouches of the sand. I’m putting yours on the gargoyle’s ear. I hope it hasn’t fallen, and hope we’re not wrong that we’re the only ones who climb up here. I’m wearing mine around my neck - if the ground is hallowed, then it can’t hurt to have a blessing with us, can it?

I will see you at the Games. And be there for you if I can. I’ll bring down Amadeus if I have to.

Julie

J-

There was no pouch, but there was sand everywhere, in the gargoyle’s lap, on the spire, and down in the ruins. I grabbed what I could, but it’s pretty much gone. I can’t believe you made it to the battlefield and back in a day! I’ll put mine in my pocket tomorrow, but if Amadeus finds out what this is, then we’re both sunk. Keep yours safe.

A-

Adam-

I can’t believe I lost. I was ahead in the final race through Meridian, and Penny tripped me behind the destroyed temple. I hurt my ankle, bad.

I crawled up to our spot, this spire next to the gargoyle. I can’t go to the finish line, can’t watch you leave me. I’m sorry I’m weak.

Gods, you won’t even get this. I can see you all down there, I can see you at the finish line, looking for me. You and Penny will stand there with Amadeus smearing that foul machine oil on your forehead. Will you remember me in the other world? Will you look hard for the gods? Will you be married to her there, when Amadeus marries you in life?

How can I fight Amadeus without you?

All I need to do is step off this spire and join you.

He’s taking Penny first. I can’t see your face, but you’re still, brave, waiting.

Run, Adam. You can outrun him, you can run, we can go north and hide in the pirates’ bunkers. We can fight him.

You’re gone.

I think you saw me.

Probably dreaming.

Gods.

I can’t let you go, not now. All I need is one step. One step is nothing. One step is barely a thought. One step is no gift for you, but I have nothing else to give right now.

I will see you soon.

Julie

I can’t.

I’m leaving this letter here, and not coming back.

I’m so sorry.

J-

She let me leave this much behind. I love you. Don’t come after me. Live. Find something, someone. Beat Amadeus. Keep that sand safe.

I love you.

A

AFTER THE GREAT RETURN
AND THE RAISING OF MERIDIAN
THESE LETTERS WERE FOUND.

THOSE WHO WITNESSED WHAT HAPPENED
AND REMEMBERED THESE TEENS
CONFIRMED THIS HOLY RELIC.

WE KEEP IT AT THE
MERIDIAN MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND RELIGION
SO THAT WE WILL NEVER
FORGET THEIR SACRIFICE.

PLEASE FIND THE OTHER EXHIBITS
AS TO WHAT HAPPENED
WHEN THE CHILDREN RACED
AND DIED
AND THE WORLD RETURNED.

KATE AND DANIEL’S BLESSINGS TO YOU
AND JULIE
AND ADAM
AND MARCUS*

*MARCUS IS REFERENCED IN OTHER RELICS. SEEK THE STONES.

PART ONE:

DREAMS

From the Holy Book of Three

The holy Kate said to Daniel, The very idea of Heaven is flawed because it contains no risk. With no risk, there is no true reward. And no reward is worthwhile unless it has another reward just out of reach.

And Daniel said to the holy Kate, If we must Reach to get past Heaven, then that is what we will name this place: the Reach.

And to that the holy Kate replied, how do we traverse Heaven in order to get there?

And Daniel, the trickster and the impatient, said, We open a door.

• • •

The Month of Opals, Day 14, Year 15

Humans. Every time, they mess it up.

I shouldn’t judge. We messed up, back on Earth, or, as Daniel calls it, Earth Prime. Killing in the name of peace, restricting in the name of freedom. Putting two confused humans in the roles of gods. What were we thinking?

Earth Secondary got messed up even worse. We made a planet and immediately released Chaos to devour it. Oops.

Earth Tertiary, well, we got it created all right. Felt like we were getting the hang of it. But then Daniel accidentally created a religion that blinded boys, and I accidentally killed a goddess, and one of our new friends
became a junkie. It was a whole thing. Then we literally lost the sun and the moon.

We lost the sun and moon. How stupid must you be to do that?

A lot of bad shit happens when you lose the sun and the moon. We broke cities. People died.

So Daniel and I figured we were doing a pretty terrible job as walking, talking gods. We gave in, letting the divine power go on autopilot. We honestly didn’t realize we could do that. My corporeal body was pretty much destroyed anyway, so I was cool with changing planes. I became the sun; Daniel became the moon. We stopped meddling. We hoped the humans would heal, would move on without our meddling.

They haven’t.

• • •

The Month of Opals, Day 15, Year 15

We communicate, still. He tells me what happens in Lathe and Meridian and Leviathan when I can’t see, and I tell him the same. Only one night a month, when the moon is new, do we not speak, because the planet cuts off all communication.

I watch the world with interest, the cities we touched while we were human - the ruins of Dauphin, Leviathan, and Meridian. The new capital city of Lathe, run by madmen and refugees. The cult of children in Meridian. The barren north that used to be Chaos’ domain, but now hosts nothing but wasteland, and mad gods hidden from our sight.

Yes, the other gods. That was a triumph, as Daniel would say sarcastically. We killed the moon goddess, kidnapped the harvest god and turned him into a coral reef (where he still lives, churning his anger and angst into the sea), and the sun god and death/moon goddess died destroying Chaos.

The rest? We’re not sure. They retain enough power to hide themselves from us.

I can’t blame them. I’d hide from me too. The hamsters hide when the well-meaning toddler blunders in to squeeze them, after all.

Daniel asked me last week if I thought we should make an Earth Quaternary, and I asked him how he knew that word. Dude has a dictionary with him. I don’t even know how that happened. Then I had him count up the number of dead or insane gods we’d left behind on Tertiary. Take a good hard look at how the worst slum has become the capital city. See the ruins of the floating city that fell. Tally the dead.

We broke it, we bought it.

• • •

The Month of Opals, Day 16, Year 15

We check in on Secondary from time to time. They’re doing just dandy without gods. We’re not sure what to think about that. Sure, there’s crime and the like, but there are no cults doing atrocities in our name, no elevation of people on arbitrary grounds based on what god they favor. I guess we didn’t meddle too much with that one.

Tertiary, though. It’s a mess. Three cities destroyed, thousands drowned, burned, or crushed to death. And yes, cults are rising. Cults of me, cults of Daniel, cults of children who are convinced that we are dead and that they must resurrect us.

Children want to resurrect gods. It would be cute if they were in the backyard with a black candle and a copy of Pet Semetery – God Semetery or something – but it’s not cute the way they’re going about it. How do you get to the afterlife? (Here is where Daniel would say “practice!” and I would hit him. Sometimes I miss arms.) These kids want to get to the afterlife via the quickest way, which is death.

Daniel says we should stop them. I don’t want to meddle. When we meddle, we fu-- what, you don’t like swearing? Really? My own prude of a prophet, censoring me. Fine.

We mess things up. How’s that?

• • •

JULIE WOKE UP, drool sticking her hair to her face, pencil clutched in her fist.

She wiped her face and yawned. Stretching her tired hand, she saw that it wasn’t yet morning.

She looked down at the page and groaned.

Child cults needed to be stopped? She grimaced. Amadeus would call that blasphemy, and he did not allow blasphemers, even if he did accept that she was the goddess’s prophet while she slept.

Julie rubbed her eyes, trying to wake up. Amadeus had been showing less and less patience with her; she was writing things that did not fit with how he believed the gods Kate and Daniel ruled the world. Two other planets like themselves? Notes on how the worshippers were getting it wrong?

“Every time, they mess it up.”

Her hand went to the small pouch around her neck. Amadeus let her keep it because she said it was dust from the ruin that had been her home, when
Meridian had floated, before the gods had warred. She never removed it.

Julie didn’t believe that her writings were channeling a goddess. At least, she hadn’t at first. She thought she was going as mad as the Mayor of Lathe, Lady Cynthia Fitzmilton the 31st, who had her dogs as her seconds and executed anyone wearing the color green.

(There was a rebellion stirring in the hills of green-wearing scientists. The inevitable war would be ugly.)

But after the Games, the dreams had started, and she had made the mistake of confiding in a friend, who had immediately told Amadeus. He “offered” her a room in the ruin he occupied, a tower that had once been a docking station for airships. For her protection, he said.

Her ankle was still injured from her race, and spent her days in her room, reading what she had written, wondering why Kate had chosen her. The day she forgot her pouch of sand after her bath, she realized the sand had connected her to the goddess.

She kept the pouch with her even though it cemented her role as Amadeus’ pet prophet. If the goddess was talking through her, surely she had Her favor, surely She would protect her.

She hadn’t finished last writing, though, she realized as she looked at her notes. Something had woken her.

• • •

The weak winter light had yet to break through the dirty window close to the ceiling. The ruins of Lathe didn’t see the holy face of Kate much this time of year, and it stayed dark for far longer than it did in the summer.

Julie heard nothing. No reason why she should have woken this early. She blinked and lay back down, shrugging to get more comfortable.

“Julie,” a voice said, and she shot up again, heart pounding.

“Who’s there?” she asked into the darkness. The voice wasn’t one she recognized.

There was a thump in the room, she smelled a whiff of sulfur, and the end of a walking cane blazed to light. Was that a relic?

When the gods had roamed the world, their divine energies had made the cities of Lathe and Meridian float, and the scientists in in both cities harnessed the power and made wonderful things. Few relics existed now, found by scavengers or held by priestesses in the temple in Lathe. No more could be made.

The light illuminated a pale face with blue eyes and high cheekbones. His light skin and hair color marked him as a refugee of Leviathan City, an underwater city where the sun never appeared - everyone else in the world had dark skin, blessed by the sun.

She rubbed her eyes to wake up. “Who are you? Are you from Leviathan City?” she asked, hoping the anger in her voice hid her fear.

“I am Marcus,” he said, and now she could hear his accent; he was definitely from Leviathan City. Even though the city’s dome had cracked, some had remained to rebuild and try to keep the city alive. Every once in a while someone surfaced for news, or trade, or escape.

But refugees went to the only surviving city, in the north: Lathe. They never came to the ruins of Meridian, where only children lived.

Marcus’ odd blue eyes flicked toward her notebook, and then back at her face. Julie shifted to shield the book, even though there was no way he could read her writing from his vantage point by the door.

He nodded slowly. “I came to find you. He kept sending me images of you.”

“Who?” Julie asked.

Marcus wore a long brown leather coat favored by the people in Lathe and he fished something from a pocket. He tossed it at her, and she caught it reflexively. It was a book. She opened to a random page.

We have to stop them before they go through with this ridiculous killing game. Kate says don’t meddle. I ask her if she wants more children to die for her glory, and she just said that the other gods were gone, or dead, and the kids might have a better chance of finding them than we do.

They think bringing the dead gods back will heal the land, make Meridian float again. Their understanding of this stuff is remedial and, frankly, terrifying in its execution.

I told her we could take corporeal bodies again. I told her we could look for the gods ourselves. I think she’s scared.

I can’t say I blame her. We do manage to fuck things up every time we do that. The Greek myths are less bloody than our adventures. Still, we can’t let these kids try and die doing things we’re too scared to do.

Can we?

Julie felt the air leave her lungs slowly. Marcus watched her impassively.

“He’s holding more Games are today,” she said.

Marcus nodded.

“Do you believe it’s Him?” She didn’t indicate she meant a different “Him” this time, but Marcus followed her.

“Read the last entry. He told me where to find you, what you looked like, how to get into this temple, that today would be the best day for you to escape, and that She speaks through you. He said you would be injured and I had to find a way to get you out of the city without running.”

Julie handed the book back without reading any more. Marcus stepped forward to take it from her. “The door’s locked. How did you get in here?”
Julie asked.

“You don’t grow up in Leviathan City after the Fall and not learn a thing or two about getting into and out of secure buildings. Sometimes that ability all that’s between you and a wall of water. Besides, everyone is so excited about the games, it was easy to get in. The crowds are already impressive. Even people from Lathe are here.”

“Before dawn?”

“They wanted to see the beginning of the race to Lathe. Now there are food vendors from Lathe going through the crowds. It’s almost civilized out there.” Amusement tinged his voice, but he remained tense, glancing over his shoulder like he expected Amadeus to walk in.

“He will never let me leave,” she said.

Marcus screwed his face up, suddenly looking much younger than when he’d originally appeared. She pegged him at seventeen, her own age. “We aren’t asking permission.”

Julie pulled the blanket aside and showed the shackles on her bare ankles. Her right ankle was still swollen from her fall. She wouldn’t run far. “The boy who owns this key said so.”

Marcus frowned, the light on his cane leaving shadows over his sharp face.

“Amadeus,” he said.

“How did you know? Did He tell you that much?” Julie asked.

A small smile creased Marcus’ lips. “No. Besides, I’m not that clever. I found your letters.”

Another dip into a side pocket, another presentation of folded letters.

Rage burst inside her like an infected boil, and she fought the desire to shout at him. She lunged across the bed, her hand outstretched to snatch the stack from him. Her knees caught on her nightgown and she ended up stumbling and face planting on the bed. She sat up, face flaming. “Those were private! They were mine!”

“And yet you left them atop a spire in a gargoyle’s lap for anyone to find. And you never went to receive the last one.” Marcus pointed to the letter on top, still sealed with wax.

Julie stared at it. “Last one? No, my letter was the last one. I wrote it after Adam died. Then Amadeus took me after the Games and locked me in here.”

“And yet there is one unread letter.”

She glared at him. “Someone’s playing a joke, then!”

“One question, why didn’t you follow him the way your last letter said?
Follow him into death to hunt for the dead gods?”

“I was going to.” Julie stared at the white bricks in the wall beside her bed, remembering. “I was going to just jump, right there. But I got scared. The goddess started talking to me in dreams that night. Then things got really crazy. Amadeus decided he’s Prosper’s prophet, and I will be his wife since I’m Kate’s prophet. Then he locked me here, and comes up to get my writing every day.”

“Pet prophet.” Marcus crossed his arms, regarding her. The only reason she didn’t throw something at him was that he didn’t seem to be looking at her with pity.

“Adam and I were going to run in the first Games together. It was exciting, we thought he was going to make us his prophets, but, I don’t know, look at old texts, or venture into the wasteland. Then Amadeus started swimming near the coral reef.”

Marcus winced. As Leviathan City was near the reef, they knew the madness that churned from the harvest deity that had rooted there in rage decades ago, when the gods fought.

I continued. “He got scary after visiting Prosper. He was divinely chosen, he said. He was doing the god’s will, killing us would be the god’s will, and therefore it was OK.” She focused on Marcus’ face again. “But you already knew that. Daniel told you.”

Marcus inclined his head.

“I guess I should be grateful to Kate. Now that I’m a prophet Amadeus won’t let me compete. I can’t scavenge or run or do anything but sleep and dream and write. I’m completely safe here, trapped and safe.” Bile rose in her throat.

Marcus held up his walking stick. “If we can get you free, I can get you to the wasteland. I can get you to the Reach.”

Julie looked at him for a long time. “What makes you think we can get there? And what will we find when we do?”

Marcus smiled, then, and raised his walking stick. “As for the second question, I don’t know. But as for the first, these relics are quite powerful, if you can figure out how to use them. If I promise to get you out of here, will you come with me?”

Julie raised an eyebrow. “You’re Daniel’s prophet. I won’t change one guy who wants me in some weird religious marriage for another. You get me out of here and I’m free for real, right?”

His eyes grew wide. “Good gods, Julie, I will set you free right now and let you go wherever you want. I’m not binding you to my side. I just need to know if I should let you go and leave the city, or wait until the right time to let you go and take you with me.” He gestured with the letters he held. “Besides, this showed me quite clearly who your heart belongs to, even if I did have designs on you.”

Julie glared at him. She hated that he knew more about her situation than she did. She hated Daniel telling him secrets about her. She hated being locked in this room, hated being a pet. She had allowed Amadeus to keep her here out of fear. She had seen what he was capable of: the ritual murder of her friends, the zealous following of a mad god.

She sat up straighter. “I’m done being a pawn. Tell me your plan and I may go with you, or not. Regardless, get me out of here. Please.”

His face didn’t move, but she sensed his body relax as if he had been holding his breath. He placed the stack of letters on the edge of the bed. “I don’t need to convince you. Just read the last letter.”

She looked down at the stack, suddenly loathe to touch them. “How do you know what’s in it? Isn’t it sealed?”

“He – Daniel – told me what it would say.”

Julie sighed. “Of course he did.”

This boy wasn’t afraid. He had risked everything to get into her room. He held the diary out to her: silent proof that he dreamed as she did, with the god Daniel speaking through him.

“Why do you need me? I’m a coward,” Julie said, feeling suddenly weak and tired.

He blinked, disbelief crawling across his face. “Because... because you’re a prisoner here. Because you’re Her voice. Because you’re trapped by a guy who’s convinced that a mad god wants him to ritually murder his friends. And, well, it’s the decent thing to do, isn’t it?”

Julie smiled, relieved to see him act like a real person and not an all-knowing enigma.

She sank back on her bed, the iron around her ankle cool and very heavy. Marcus didn’t move from his spot at the doorway.

“How do you plan on getting me out of this room?” she asked.

He fingered his cane again, this time looking more thoughtful than looking to it for answers. “I won’t have to. Amadeus will. He needs you at the Games, to bless them with Kate’s voice. Once you’re in the open, I can get you free if you think you can make it to me.”

Julie was weakened by her days doing nothing but staying in bed, but it hadn’t been long enough to make her feel as if she couldn’t run. “He won’t make it easy. But I won’t make it easy for him, either.”

“Good,” he said. “Read the letter. Later today, you’ll see me in the crowd. If you can get away, if you want to get away, I’ll be there. If you want to stay, I’ll leave Meridian and won’t bother you again.” He reached for his stick with a pale hand, turned the crystal knob like a switch, and disappeared.

Julie covered her mouth to stifle her gasp. The door opened silently and then closed with a click.

She knew relics from before the Fall existed; she had just never seen one in action.

The letters lay on her bed.

She had left her last letter under the gargoyle after she had seen him die. There shouldn’t have been an answer.

She cradled the sealed final letter in her hands.

After Amadeus’ knife had descended into Adam’s chest she had broken from reality. Nothing seemed true. She had descended from their spire as if from a dream where Amadeus’ second, Polly, waited for her. She gave herself up to the bigger girl, and walked without struggle to Amadeus.

He had come to her that night, tried to shower her with kisses, and she gave him neither passion nor revulsion. He had left, confused rather than angry, and then she had dreamed the words of holy Kate that night. They gave her a glimmer of hope.

She broke the seal and read Adam’s last letter to her.

PART TWO:

GAMES

From the Holy Book of Three

You cannot kill a god. It would be easier to kill the wind, or the sea, or an idea. If it can evolve, change, and adapt, it cannot be killed.

• • •

AFTER JULIE’S SOBS OVER ADAM HAD SUBSIDED, she tried something new. She tried to force herself to go back to sleep, or at least enter a deep state of meditation, to see if she could channel the goddess and finish the lingering thought on the page. It didn’t work.

Living in a commune of orphans in the ruins of what used to be a shining floating city doesn’t leave one with a lot of time for introspection. Their days were spent scavenging for supplies or food, raiding the farms of Lathe, attempting to work in or protect their own farms from scavengers, or fighting with the rival gangs. When they had down time, they would gather around Amadeus and he would preach to them of the days before the Fall, when the scientists would create wonders, when Meridian floated, and when gods walked the earth. Before the gods died.

The city had fallen fifteen years earlier. Julie had been a baby, and had no idea how she had survived. A man named Moore had cared for them, teaching some of them how to care for infants, and some how to forage for food. When a child would reach age eighteen, he would send them out into the world to search for a way to restore Meridian.

Moore had died when Julie was ten, his head crushed by a falling rock. It happened a lot in the rotting city; falling stones and beams were always a hazard, but recently Julie had wondered if Amadeus, who had taken control at Moore’s death, had a hand in his death.

Julie wondered where Amadeus kept his information, since he, like most of them, was very young when the city had fallen. It was clear he had access to some of the holy books, but the temples were too dangerous to excavate.

In Amadeus’ flock, the children were safe. He grew up to be larger than many of the other children, tall and broad of chest.

He didn’t always believe Julie’s channeling of the goddess. He scoffed when she said Kate was alive and embodied as the sun, and Daniel was the moon. He asked where the previous gods were: Barris, the sun god, Morrigan, the moon and death goddess, Gamma, the war goddess. Ishmael, the sea god. Chaos, the god of creation. And the others.

No one else was trying to help the world heal — the stupid priestesses in Lathe just worshipped, and the other gangs in Meridian weren’t worshippers of anyone.

Amadeus’ plan was brutal and final and he was just charming enough to convince the children it would work. What Julie wanted to know, and was too afraid to ask him, was why he needed to hold a second Games if Adam and Penny weren’t doing the job he needed them to do in the afterlife. Julie feared that he wouldn’t stop until all of the children had been martyred, with
Amadeus as the last one standing, sacrificing to his dead gods everyone he had ever nurtured.

No matter how much she tried to calm down, she couldn’t stop her mind from racing. The games. More people dead. Whatever Amadeus had planned for her. What Marcus had planned for her. And what Adam had put in his last letter.

She opened her eyes in frustration and tossed the pencil down on her journal. She couldn’t get back to sleep, but Amadeus wouldn’t like what she had stopped with. She had never woken up in the middle of channeling the
goddess before. He would grill her for more information, and she was worried she might just give it to him.

She pondered her problem, and then slowly smiled, the movement feeling odd on cheeks that had displayed nothing but despair for weeks. She felt silly she hadn’t thought of this before.

With her ear focused on the door, listening for anyone coming to bring her breakfast, she took up her pencil and began writing.

• • •

If you didn’t know Amadeus, if you hadn’t learned to fear him, you’d think he was handsome. His skin was the color of the leaves of the wandering orchid, a deep brown with reddish undertones. His eyes were soft and kind, his jaw strong. His smile was radiant, and his laugh infectious. Even at only sixteen, he stood very tall at two meters, and could lift Julie easily.

However, there was no kindness in his face as he scanned Julie’s dream writing. He read it through, then turned the page back and started again.

Julie tried to focus on her breakfast and not watch him closely as he read her prophesies, both the part that Kate had sent her and the part that she had crafted herself. Breakfast was not her usual fare of oats and milk; they had sent eggs, bread, and butter, rare treats stolen from Lathe, no doubt.

Amadeus began to frown, and Julie focused on her eggs, suddenly not tasting them. In her writing, she had tried to play to both his not—so—secret desires as a prophet in his own right, and his disbelief. It was a trick to both reinforce what he knew to be true and still manage to edge on blasphemy to challenge him. It couldn’t be too crazy, nor could it be too close to what he already believed.

She had said what she thought was on the other side of the world: many oceans and a scattering of islands sheltering tinkers unaffected by the war of the gods. She predicted a blacking out of the sun by the moon this morning, which would bring back the power of the destroyed god, Chaos. With Chaos awakened, a new legion of holy warriors would be needed to fight what He brought back with Him. But the children would have to leave Meridian to do it.

She hoped her role as pet prophet would place her as part of Amadeus’ retinue at the Games. There was no way he could leave her here, shackled, waiting for Chaos.

At least, she hoped not.

She ate another piece of bread and chewed slowly, trying to act tired and groggy after a long night of prophesies. Amadeus finally slammed the book down on the bed, making her jump.

“Lies,” he said.

She tried to hide her shock, but was afraid that her plan was written all over her face. She forced herself to hold his gaze.

“Everyone else, all they do is lie,” he said. “They say the Games won’t work, but I know they will. I know it.” He leaned forward, his voice low. “After I go swimming, Prosper tells me things. The same things you wrote about here.” He shook her journal at her.

Julie gaped at him. Had Prosper truly been talking to Amadeus? She had been making up the bit about Chaos, but what if she had still been channeling Kate? Her hand shook, and she hoped she looked awed instead of terrified.

“What does He say?” she asked.

Amadeus stood abruptly and clenched his fists. “It’s hard to make out. He’s intense, and so loud it’s like he floods my head. But I know he talks about
Chaos and revenge, a lot. And he tells me what to do.”

“The Games,” Julie whispered. Prosper really was telling him what to do. It’s possible each sacrifice was really to bolster the god in the ocean.

Amadeus smiled at her and took her hand, warm to her chilly panic.
“Exactly. He made me start the Games to find the dead gods, but he also wants me to find sacrifices to him. He will come back soon, Julie.” His eyes shone with glee. “Today we’re going to be at the games together so Kate and Prosper can see through our eyes. They can see their sacrifices through us.”

“Yes,” she said softly, trying to mask her shock in the face of his zealotry. “Did the race to Lathe and back start already?”

“At dawn,” he said proudly. “You should see the crowds! The race should be over in a couple of hours, then we can go out.”

The first event in the Games was the run to the city of Lathe, circle it, and come back. It took about three hours for the fastest runners among them.

Amadeus seemed to notice Julie, truly look at her, for the first time in a while. His eyes scanned her, stopping on her greasy hair and her dirty nightgown. “Gods, you can’t go out like that. You stink. You don’t look like Her prophet. You don’t look like anyone’s prophet.”

Julie bit her tongue at the accusation — were she not attempting an escape, she would have loved to point out that being restrained by chains did not lend itself to good bathing habits. But instead she hung her head in what she hoped looked like shame.

“Get a bath, then meet me in the kitchen!” he said with the air of finality.

The kitchen was the bottom level of the tower, half buried in the ground. Julie had never been there.

“Oh, and we’re getting married before the sacrifices. I have to be wedded before I go, it’s tradition.”

Tradition? There was no tradition, she wanted to yell at his departing back. Their world was seventeen years old; they hadn’t had time to make traditions.

“Go?” she repeated, her hands icy cold as she caught the key he tossed at her.

“Of course. We’re going to lead the sacrifices in the afterlife,” Amadeus said, winking.

He was gone, leaving her to unlock her chains with shaking hands.

• • •

Any thought she had of stealing away once she got free of her chains was put to rest by her door guards. Polly was identifiable by her heavyset frame and her long black braids, but she wore a hood over her head that matched her blue robes. She nodded to Julie and put an iron grip on her upper arm, leading her carefully down the stairs to a lower level, lavender—scented bathroom.

While bathing, she kept the leather pouch full of sand around her neck. She pulled the cord tight to bring it up close to her throat to keep it from falling into the water. Polly didn’t seem to notice her care of the sand.

As she bathed, she thought about Amadeus’ plan, and wondered if Marcus would be able to get through with his plan.

Julie had been so ready to find the Reach with Adam by her side, and now that the thought came to mind that it could happen today, she wasn’t so excited about it.

Julie watched the soap slide off her skin and into the tub, clouding the water. Blood would also cloud the water, she thought, turning it red. She could die right now, in this tub, if she could find a knife. Death on her own terms didn’t seem so bad, but Marcus had promised to get her free. It seemed she was always making choices based on boys and their promises.

• • •

The feeling of a clean body and a clean white robe were so wonderful to almost distract her from the morning’s upcoming events.

Her writing she had hidden beneath her robe, her journal and the letters strapped to her stomach with a length of cloth. Polly had given her perhaps too much privacy, Julie thought, and was grateful for.

Polly led her, hand still tight on her upper arm, to the kitchen. Amadeus was also dressed in white, and he toyed with a dagger, something too clean to be an excavated treasure. He sheathed it and took her hand.

“It’s time. Are you excited?” he asked, but he didn’t even look at her. He had already decided she was excited, apparently.

But Amadeus’ ravings were lost to her when they opened the door and walked up the slight tunnel that led to ground level. The noise was deafening, and when Julie saw the crowd, she stopped cold.

She had never seen so many people. What had to be everyone who lived in Lathe had come. Some extremely pale people stood with wide hats to protect themselves with the sun, visitors from Leviathan City. They all lined the streets to watch for the runners, and they cheered loudly. They didn’t even register Amadeus and Julie.

Amadeus pulled her forward, fingers tight around her wrist. She stumbled along behind him as he followed Polly, her bulk parting the crowd in front of them. Some people reached to touch her robe reverently, carefully, and then they would kiss their fingertips.

Their touch made her stomach turn, and the eggs threatened to return. She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath, but was interrupted by another yank from Amadeus.

He took her to the foot of the ruined temple, where some steps remained to form a sort of dais. The rest of the temple lay on its side, buried into the earth, all doors blocked. Amadeus often used the steps to address the group of them, but now his group was five times larger than usual.

The people at the foot of the she knew: friends, kids she had grown up with, fellow combatants in the games. But others— there were adults there, priestesses and priests of the seven gods, strangers.

Adults.

How can adults condone this? She thought with frantic clarity. Amadeus’ actions had sounded sensible amid the fervent zealousness and the panic over the death of gods. To the other children, his actions had seemed rebellious and free, truly following a god, but now with adults around, suddenly it felt
childish and frightening. Would they stop him?

But the adults looked on with the same spectators’ glee that the children did. They wanted to see the Games, and they wanted to see someone die. They wanted sacrifice.

Julie wanted to turn and run away from this madness. Amadeus’ hand tugged again at her, and at the same time, a green glint caught her eye in the crowd as the sunlight hit the stone atop Marcus’ cane. She focused on him, standing near the back of the crowd, watching her.

A friend. Or at least an ally. Someone.

She stiffened her resolve. She would do this. She was the voice of the goddess, and a girl who would take back her freedom, and she would do this. She would not fall to cowardice again.

“If I enter the Other Lands, by any path, I will be able to find Adam,”
she whispered.

“What was that?” Amadeus looked at her curiously.

“I felt the goddess move within me, that’s all,” she said, smiling.

“You sure it’s not indigestion?” he said, grinning.

Burp and fart jokes. He’s a religious leader, and still a boy. “Pretty sure,” she said. She tried not to look at Marcus, but the green glint caught her eye again. She wondered if it was so obvious to everyone else as it was to her. But no one paid him any attention, or any more attention than they paid anyone in the hundreds in the audience.

Amadeus raised his hands and the crowd fell silent. His command over them, Meridian children and visitors alike, was absolute. “My friends, welcome to this day of competition, this day where we find the best among us to fight our holy war! While this day will bring us many champions, it also helps us find our army to hunt the dead gods. He Who Waits, Prosper, has told me as much, and guided me here today. She Who Shines, Kate, speaks through my girl, here.” He held up Julie’s hand, offering her to the crowd, and they cheered. She managed a smile.

Her childhood friends cheered for her as if she were an unknown savior, not someone who ran with them, skinned knees with them, and foraged for food with them. She felt like a symbol, not a real girl.

Julie looked out among the crowd and saw that Marcus was moving along the outside of the ring of people surrounding them. She saw other movement— he had animals with him. The strange land striding birds, the ostriches. One was reddish purple and one blue, their feathers shimmering in the sun. She had heard they could be tamed, but had never seen them. Once, there were races in Dauphin, but never this far north.

It may have been better to choose something that wouldn’t stand out. But no one seemed to notice him; all eyes were on Amadeus.

Nonetheless, she kept an eye on the boy with the odd birds.

Amadeus squeezed her hand tighter and addressed the crowd again. “Prosper, the god of all things that grow, told me he is not dead, and he is gathering strength to rise, to bring back his brothers and sisters, to rule again! But he needs our help. Who are we to deny a god’s wishes? Good people, the god is testing us, finding the strong among us to serve him. And that is what we are here to celebrate!”

They cheered again as one, and his smile was wide as he looked out among his people.

Marcus had edged his way around the throng of people until he was directly across from Julie — all she had to do was run fifty meters into the crowd and she would be free. If they would let her through. She shifted her feet, waiting for her moment.

“It’s time to announce our engagement.”

“Of course,” Julie said, pasting on her best smile and tried not to watch Marcus. He didn’t mention the “how” part of freeing me. Is he making the distraction or am I just running? Do I wait for him?

“One more thing before our runners return from Lathe!” Amadeus
continued. “This morning after the Games, the prophets you see right here will be married!”

“It’s destined to be,” Amadeus said softly, giving her hand a squeeze. He didn’t loosen his grip, and she tried not to squirm as she realized it was going to be tough to get away from him if he clutched her this tightly.

In the crowd, she could only see Marcus’s hat and the heads of the great birds, peeking over the crowd.

I’ll wait until the runners return. No one will be paying attention to me then. Amadeus looked off into the distance as the runners came into view on the field, sprinting down the slight hill from Lathe.

“And here they come!” shouted Amadeus. The crowd’s focus changed, then, and they cheered the runners.

Amadeus leaned in close to her, and she tried not to shy away from him in disgust. “Forever bonded, my love,” he whispered, and she felt something cold against her wrist. She looked down just as the cuff clicked closed.

Two heavy golden wrist cuffs linked with a silver chain now bound them. The chain glowed blue in the morning light, a bright current threading through the metal like veins. She removed her hand from his and looked at it, her eyes wide. A very faint pulse went through her wrist as she watched, and she looked up at Amadeus. He smiled at her with nothing but adoration on his face, and she tried to go along with her ruse as panic built in the back of her throat.

“Where did you find a relic?” she asked.

“Nada and Amy found it in the sun temple ruins. They believe it belonged to Barris, who held it in preparation for his marriage to the moon, before her first death. They think he flung it from Meridian once he realized she had died, and then when the city fell, his temple landed on top of it. Once we marry, we’ll be pronounced king and queen of Meridian. All relics will belong to us.”

“What—” she swallowed, her throat very dry. “What does this one do besides link us together?”

“It is a wedding bangle,” he said. “When you both concentrate, it will show you visions of your future together.”

Julie had no idea how she was going to think happy future thoughts with Amadeus, once he asked her to do so, she might see her revulsion for him.

“Let’s think about that after the race, it’s not time right now. Look,” she asked, focusing her words and thoughts on the runners nearing the finish line. “It looks like Timothy is going to upset Opal.”

Amadeus whipped his head around, finally focusing on something other than her. The manacle at her wrist stopped buzzing, and Julie flexed her hand a couple of times, testing its strength and how much room her hand had. It was loose, and she thought with something to lubricate it, she’d be able to slip out. But it wasn’t as if Lathe tinkers were apt to store machine lubricant at the destroyed Meridian temple.

Amadeus swore as the runners got closer. He had pinned his hopes on swift Opal, but the long—legged Timothy was just ahead of her. She pumped her legs as the finish line neared, but he still drew away from her, joy scrawled across his dark face. Zealous joy.

He wants to die. This is all madness.

“No,” Amadeus muttered, and Julie wanted to ask why he had set up the Games to send the best warriors to the Other Side if he wasn’t prepared for the occasional upset? Why not just stick a knife into Opal and be done with it?

Because that’s murder, she thought. If it’s ritualized, it’s a reward; the best is given to the gods. If it’s just killing Opal with an order to find the dead gods, then it’s pointless. Meaningless.

She looked at Marcus just as he glanced up, and she met his eyes. He wore a wide—brimmed hat; the fashion of Leviathan City refugees as living under the sun was hard on their paler skin. She couldn’t quite make out his features, but his mouth was turned down in a frown — he had seen her manacle, it seemed. She bit her lip.

Timothy was running harder now, his final sprint toward the finish line lengthening his strides. Amadeus stared at him, gritting his teeth, tensing as if he could affect the outcome of the race.

“It has to be Opal,” he said through his clenched jaw. “It just has to be.”

“It looks like it’s going to be Timothy, Amadeus,” Julie said mildly. “The gods have chosen him. Prosper has chosen him.”

“It can’t be,” he said, his voice hard with fury. He looked at her, the delight at his pet prophet erased. “That’s not what Prosper told me. He can’t be wrong. You don’t know what I have planned for Opal.”

“You said the best at the Games would be sacrificed, yes? What’s wrong with Timothy?” Julie said, hoping to calm him down.

“No, he’s not a believer! Opal has to be divinely chosen or else it won’t work!” His voice took on a high and panicked tone, and Julie stepped back involuntarily. The manacle held her close to his side.

He returned his focus to Opal, who was behind Timothy but losing ground. She was badly winded and looked as if she wouldn’t last the sprint. As they headed for the finish line, right in front of the temple steps, Timothy’s lead lengthened. Julie could tell the moment that Opal gave up: her stride faltered and the tone of the crowd changed, growing louder as Timothy’s win became apparent.

“I have to stop this,” Amadeus said, rummaging in the pocket of his robe with his left, free hand.

Julie wanted to ask how his interference would not negate the “divine choosing,” but when he pulled out the key to the manacles, she bit her tongue. He slipped the key into the hole − on his side — and left her there on the steps. The manacle was still secure around her wrist, Amadeus’ side dangling beside her. Again, she sought Marcus in the crowd.

Amadeus ran down the steps and pushed through the crowd, yelling for people to get out of his way. They parted for him, faster once they saw the knife he held above his head, the shiny dagger Julie had seen him carry. He ran out onto the road at the finish line. The children holding the ribbon that Timothy aimed for saw his face and fled.

Timothy didn’t slow; Julie could tell that she didn’t even see Amadeus. Amadeus leaped in front of Timothy as he neared, knife raised. Julie screamed and Timothy skidded to a stop, tumbling as his tired legs gave out at the sudden ceasing of movement. Amadeus was on Timothy’s back at once. The knife flashed up, and then down, up again, and Julie finally ran, taking the steps two at a time.

The crowd had scattered, screaming, and Julie saw Opal stop in the field, staring at Amadeus, who still stabbed with methodical focus. The glory of being a sacrifice lost its luster, apparently, and she turned and ran back toward Lathe, passing the straggling racers, who dodged her panicked dash away from the finish line.

Julie saw Marcus soothing the struggling birds, and then he raised his staff. The green gem atop it shone brightly, and Marcus slammed the tip of the stick into the ground. The groaning sound wave was almost tangible as it burst from the staff, and the manacle on her arm grew warm. Everything around her turned an odd shade of green, and everyone slowed down, everyone but her and Marcus. He beckoned to her frantically, and she ran through the crowd without resistance. They moved with almost comical slowness, not even noticing her dashing past them.

The manacle searing her wrist, she finally reached Marcus. “Let’s go,” she said. With those words, they raced away, pulling the birds behind them. When they turned a corner and left the crowds behind them, Marcus released his tight grip on his staff and the world sped up, bringing audible chaos back to them.

Julie reeled, disoriented, and fell against an overturned statue of an angel, cutting her calf on the jagged broken stone. She hissed but got back up and followed Marcus as he hurried down the streets.

The streets of Meridian, the safe ones cleared by the refugee children, anyway, were deserted, with everyone near the temple to see the games. Most everyone who had scattered had gone south toward Lathe, or into buildings, but no one had gone north. Their choices were limited, many streets in the city were still blocked by the ruins of whole buildings that remained too dangerous to clear with the rudimentary tools they had. Having grown up in the city, Julie led the way, darting down streets and around corners until the chaos of the crowd was well behind them, trying to ignore her throbbing leg.

“So do you want to tell me what happened back there?” she asked, grabbing onto a topic so she wouldn’t have to think about that knife going up and down, into Timothy’s back again and again.

“With what, the crazy boy or the murder and the botched race?” he said, catching his breath. His eyes were wide and fearful, and he was much more out of breath than she was.

She indicated his walking stick. “Your artifact. What did you do, and why wasn’t I caught up in it like everyone else?”

“Oh!” He looked down at the staff as if he had forgotten about it. “This is what I like to call a thief’s cross. It’s designed to help you in and out of tight situations. Sometimes you disappear, sometimes everything around you slows — or you speed up. I’m not sure which.”

“Can you decide what it does?”

He grinned ruefully, showing unexpected dimples, and some of the fear left his eyes. “No, it’s always a surprise. But it helps me more often than not. As to why it didn’t affect you, I bet it’s because you’re wearing that,” he said, pointing to the manacle.

“Oh yes, this. Amadeus’ wedding present.” She grimaced and raised her wrist. The manacle felt very heavy. “I thought I was stuck for good when he put that on. It shows your future with the person attached to the other end. I can’t even imagine a future with him, so he wouldn’t have been happy with what manifested. I’m glad he got distracted.” She swallowed. “Although I wouldn’t have asked Timothy to pay the price.”

“What happened back there? With the boy he killed?”

“Amadeus wanted Opal to win. He had his heart set on her being the champion and going to find the dead gods. He said Timothy didn’t believe enough.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, combined with his actions,” Marcus said, frowning. “He just sent Timothy there as a martyr regardless.”

Julie glared at him. “I wasn’t about to argue with him. You want me to go back and ask him?” Marcus looked abashed. She took a deep breath and changed the subject, point to Marcus’ thief’s cross. “I didn’t know that the artifacts would affect each other.”

“Neither did I. I was going to try to run in and grab you. Clearly you didn’t need it.”

Julie looked closer at the walking stick in his hand. He held it higher for her inspection. Now that it wasn’t in use, it looked like a simple cane with a roughly cut green stone on top. “Where did you get a relic like that?”

“It’s an odd story,” Marcus said. “There’s a shop in Lathe that sells ideas.”

“Ideas?”

“Yes, just like if it came from your brain, only these come from little boxes. They’re churned out by a relic, and the shop was blessed by Barris before the Fall, so it’s been rather successful in the midst of all the chaos, especially since the authorities don’t seem to care that they make their living with an illegal relic. So I saved up my money doing errand jobs in Lathe, and bought an idea. It told me I needed to come to Meridian and look under a certain ruin. I went scavenging, I guess a couple of days before the first Games, and then found it in one of the houses the gangs had marked at condemned. It was under a bed.”

He looked thoughtfully at the pouch at her throat. “Could I see a bit of the sand?”

Julie’s hand closed around the pouch protectively. “Why?”

“I just have a theory.” He held his hands up, showing no threat. “All right, I don’t need to see it, exactly. Can you just tell me, is the sand very fine and white?”

“Yes,” she said cautiously.

“And you went north right before the games?”

“Yes.”

“Is that all that you brought back?”

“No, some spilled on the gargoyle. I brought some back for Adam, but he didn’t get it.”

Marcus nodded. “When I got the thief’s cross, it was a windy day. When I got out of the building, a wind blew and it knocked down the rest of the house. I barely got out in time. I got some grit in my eyes; I thought it was from the house debris. But that night I had my first dream about Daniel.

“And that house was right under the spire where you and Adam exchanged letters. I read the open ones. I’m sorry.”

Julie barely heard him as her fingers tightened on the pouch. “The sand is why we’re dreaming about the gods?”

He shrugged and turned his attention ahead of them. “I think so.”

And if Adam had gotten the sand instead of you, he might still be here. The thought wasn’t kind, but it was there, and it tasted bitter. She swallowed the resentment and they led the calming birds toward the border of Meridian.

PART THREE:

WASTELAND

WHEN THEY REACHED THE NORTHERN EDGE of Meridian, where the worst of the crumbling buildings lay half—buried in the earth, Julie paused.

“It feels like I’ll never be back here,” she said.

Marcus stopped and looked back at the city with her. They could still faintly hear the crowd’s noise, although faint. “Maybe. If we don’t stop
Amadeus, he definitely won’t let you back in.”

They made their way through the rubble, the birds protesting and fluttering their tiny wings as they hopped from collapsed rooftop to ruined stone.

“So where do we go now?” she asked, watching them.

“Didn’t Kate tell you?”

She frowned at him. “She may have wanted to, but someone woke me up before I finished my dream,” she said pointedly.

He raised his hands. “Fair enough. Daniel tells me north is where we go.”

She nodded. “That’s where the gods died.”

“I’m surprised Amadeus didn’t have the Games there, since it’s a place of such power.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think he’s ever been. I think he’s really scared, wanting everyone else to take the risk for his cause. He would have found a way to kill me as a sacrifice today while staying alive himself, I’m sure.”

Marcus rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry I never got a chance to sit down with him. His charisma must be amazing.”

“You have no idea,” she said. “I can’t even tell you when things started to go wrong.”

They cleared the majority of the rubble, and it was finally safe to ride their mounts. Julie turned to the bird she was leading — a beautiful creature with purple feathers and a huge beak — and put her foot in the stirrups. Then she realized she couldn’t straddle in her ceremonial robes. She adjusted the bird’s simple saddle so she could sit sideways.

Marcus secured his walking stuck to the side of his bird. When he looked at her again, he made a face. “You’re going to slide off if you sit like that.”

“I didn’t have time to pack trousers, sorry,” Julie said, glaring at him. He shrugged and got on his own mount.

“What’s this one’s name?” Julie asked, petting the bird’s neck. It bristled and shook itself, and she grabbed tightly to the saddle.

“I don’t know,” he said, his pale skin flushing. “We never named pets in Leviathan City.”

“Can I name them?”

“I guess so. I don’t really care,” he said. “Let’s move; I am betting Amadeus will send someone after you. The crowd was impressive, but I bet the stranger with the purple and green birds stood out rather obviously, someone will connect us.”

“Right. Let’s go, and I’ll think about the names.”

Glad of a task to occupy her mind, held on as the ostrich lurched forward to follow its companion bird.

As they moved further from the city, the birds’ claws sinking slightly into the gray sand, Julie forced herself not to look back again. She would return, she told herself. How could she not? Meridian, with its ruins and lost glory, was her home. Amadeus or not, she would be back.

The sand grew darker as they went farther north. The area got rockier as well, and the birds took them through a dry riverbed.

Marcus pointed to their right. A small curve of metal stuck out of the dark gray sand. The rest of it was obscured. “That’s the bunker of air pirates. They lived up here and allowed Chaos to taint their bodies and machines. They nearly brought down the gods in an air fight. The wreck of their ships should be around here somewhere.”

“Shelter would be good,” Julie said. “I suppose uncovering an entrance to the bunker to stay the night would be impossible?

He pointed as if she hadn’t seen the mound of sand blocking all but the roof of the bunker. “The sand has been blowing over it for fifteen years. Of course we can’t.” He pulled a canteen from his saddlebag and pointed to Julie’s. “Thirsty? There’s a canteen in your bag.”

Julie got her own, a collapsible bag made of an indeterminate white leather. A circle with a fuzzy, unclear outline was branded on the bag, the symbol of Leviathan City. Some said the circle was the sun seen through the water and dome of the underwater city. Others said it was the moon. Others said it was the view of the city’s dome as seen from the air.

She took a long drink, wetting her throat, and then sighed. “What is this made of?”

“That’s air whale leather,” he said. “Leviathan City people would hunt them when they dove into the sea to breathe.”

“And the symbol?”

He smiled at her as if she were a child. “That’s the sun.”

“I don’t know, it could have been any number of things. We didn’t see a lot of Leviathan refugees in Meridian.” She looked at him curiously. “Does your skin ...hurt?”

He screwed his face up. “Hurt? What in the world do you mean?”

“Well, it’s so pale. I’d think it would hurt if it saw too much sun. I thought that’s why you wear that hat.”

He returned his own canteen to his saddlebag. “Yes, if I get burned, I hurt, just like you.”

He dismounted his bird and looked around while Julie swallowed her embarrassment.

“We do need to find a place to stay,” Marcus said, walking around to stretch his legs. “The birds need to rest.”

The sky was uniform white, and had been since they had moved into the gray—sanded wasteland. Still, Julie was fairly sure by the lack of hunger and fatigue that it was nowhere near sundown. “Why? If we don’t take the bunker, we could go much farther north before we lose the light. I was able to make it all the way to the battlefield and back in a day.”

He staked his bird’s reins deep in the sand, and then loosened the harnesses that held its saddle.

Julie got off her ostrich and mimicked Marcus’ movements. The bird was docile enough for her to fumble the saddle loose and stake its reins in the ground. While she had been fine riding it, she now felt awkward and ungainly on the ground. She took a few practice steps to get used to walking again. She squinted toward the mostly—buried dome of the pirates’ bunker. “What do you think? Full of dead pirates?”

Marcus glanced at it, then walked up the road a ways, squinting to look for other shelters. “Don’t know. But it doesn’t matter, we can’t get in.”

Julie thought of desiccated pirate bodies inside, undisturbed for over a decade. But the thought of spending the night in the open, in the desert, had her shaking her head. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Let’s see if we can get in. If we have to clean out the trash, then we will.”

Marcus frowned and looked back at her. “That’s not respectful.”

“Oh? Why not?” Julie started toward the dome, about thirty meters from the hard packed road. The sand and rock were warm from the day, and seemed to hold more heat than they should. She slid down the embankment and picked her way through the rocks. Broken stone towers stood at the four corners of the compound; for spotting travelers and airships, Julie guessed. The towers had black sand stuck in every nook and cavity, but the wooden ladders to the top looked solid.

“The dead are sacred,” Marcus said, carefully sliding down the embankment after her. He didn’t look as impressive as he had that morning, when he’d been completely in control of the situation. “You bury them at sea. Or, I guess, like your people do it, in the ground. Or burn them. But you don’t refer to them as trash.”

Julie glanced over her shoulder at him. “So you make them fish food instead, and that’s supposed to be better?”

He sputtered. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Look, Marcus, you clean the dead and broken bodies out of enough of Meridian’s ruins, you start to see them as little more than refuse. They aren’t people anymore. Do it for a decade, they’re not even the memory of people.”

They reached the fine mound of sand that blocked the door to the bunker. The mound stood nearly as tall as the bunker. Only the hint of metal peeking out of the top and the upper outline of a door indicated it was there at all.

Julie climbed awkwardly, spilling sand down the makeshift dune, until she reached the top. “Don’t suppose you brought a shovel in all that gear, did you?” she asked.

“I’ve got a small one, yes,” he said. “What if we get it unearthed just to find it locked?”

She laughed at him. “You’ve got a thief’s cross and you’re worried about it being locked?”

He shrugged. “It’s not foolproof. I never know what it will do.”

“Go get your shovel and your thief’s cross,” she instructed. “I’ll see what I can do here.”

The sand was soft and fine between her fingers, and lodged under her fingernails as she dug, but she found the exercise invigorating. She no longer felt the weakness her body had suffered during her captivity in the temple, and she dug with new vigor.

She had half the door uncovered by the time he came back. Sand caked the corners of her mouth and her eyes, and she brushed at her face impatiently with the back of her hand.

When Marcus saw her, his eyes widened and he backed away. “Oh, for the love of the sun and the moon,” he whispered.

“What is your problem?” Julie asked, annoyed. “I’ve almost got the handle
unearthed. Come help me with your relic over there.” She waved her hand at him.

“Julie, I think you need to get out of the sand. I think we need to,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear it of something.

The wind blew and the light began to fade. “No time,” she said. “We need to get somewhere safe.”

“You have no proof this is, uh, safe,” Marcus said. He watched her helplessly, and then he gave in and joined her in the excavation, first with his shovel, digging precisely and neatly, and finally dropping to his hands and knees in the sand and digging out manually.

All Julie wanted was to open the door and get inside. She thought she heard a frightened squawk on the road, but it sounded far away, as if from a dream. Digging out the sand was laborious, because they couldn’t just dig straight down, as the sand kept cascading down on top of them, so they had to remove nearly the entire dune.

It was dark by the time they were done. The nearly full moon shone down on them, and Marcus looked up at it, abruptly.

“We have to go inside,” he said slowly. He rubbed at his left eye absently, smearing the sand over his cheeks.

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” Julie said impatiently. She had lost her headband along the way, somewhere in the sand, and her curls kept falling into her eyes. She pushed them back impatiently.

“No. I mean it’s dangerous out here.” Marcus’ voice still held a dreamlike quality.

“Then stop sounding like a poet and start digging,” Julie said. “Never mind, I think we can try it now.”

The door was mostly in the shadows, but they could barely make out some designs: black on silver, showing the phases of the moon. Marcus reached out his hand and dragged his fingers along them.

“They were worshippers of Cotton,” he whispered.

“Cotton? Who the hell was Cotton?” Julie asked.

Marcus winced, turning his left side to her. “Before she was Morrigan, her name was Cotton. She was the moon who waited for Barris the sun god. But Kate — Kate got angry and burned down the city of Dauphin and killed Cotton, who was imprisoned there. The goddess burned, died, and was reborn. She was the goddess of the moon, but also death and vengeance.”

“Morrigan?” Julie had never heard this story.

Marcus nodded. “Kate felt like shit about that for a long time. Still does, I guess. But she didn’t know what she was doing.” His right eye focused on her, the left still twitching. “They were blinding kids, you know. They’d put a boy’s eye out in order to prepare him to be a priest.”

Julie had heard this part. She nodded. “Because Daniel was half blind.”

Marcus looked up at the moon again. “And now he’s there, seeing everything with his one eye. And he’s telling me to get the fuck inside.”

Julie blinked. “You sounds weird,” she said.

He reached past her for the handle. It was unlocked, and the door
swung inward.

Sand spilled into the hallway, making a shhhhh noise that echoed softly. “Let’s go.” She swiped absently at her face, dislodging some of the black sand that had accumulated there.

She led the way into the dark hallway, unable to make out anything but a few doors on the right and left, and a stairway at the end. She jumped when Marcus shut the door and cut off all the light.

“What are you doing? I haven’t found any light yet!” She spread her arms out to steady herself, and felt Marcus take her hand.

“I can see,” he said, and led her down the hall.

He ignored the doors on the top floor and led her toward the stairway. He guided her to the first step, but she balked. “No, wait. Where are we going? And how do you suddenly know how to get there?”

A loud groan sounded outside, and the ostriches gave another frightened squawk.

Julie swallowed. “Um, lead on, it’s probably safer in here.”

They must have gone down three flights, at least. Her breath was coming short and fast now, and her hand was clammy in Marcus’ warm grip. She experimented with closing her eyes tightly to see if she could see any better when she opened them, but the total darkness continued to plague. And still Marcus led with complete confidence.

He didn’t let go of her, but when they reached the bottom, he said, “We’re here. We’re safe now.”

“Where is here?” she asked. She sensed that the room was large and open, but nothing else. “Can we find some candles or anything?”

“I don’t need them,” Marcus said. “We’re safe, we’re alone. You can rest here.”

“Me? What are you going to do?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, but guided her to a corner. “Sit down,” he said. She complied. His cloak fell over her. “Get some rest. You’re safe. I promise.”

A finger trailed down her cheek, gently brushing away sand, and then he was gone.

• • •

Julie couldn’t sleep. After her first few voiced complaints were ignored, she decided to just listen to Marcus’ movements in the darkness. It sounded like they were in a workshop, with hammering and scraping. But how could he see to do any work? And how could he be sure that the tools were still good?

She remembered a time her friend, Kellin, was working with a rusty tool he had found in a ruin, and it had broken and cut his thumb off. They had bound it as best they could, but he died in agony from an infection.

At some point, she finally dozed off, propped up against the wall.

When she awoke, her butt was numb and her lap was warm. Marcus had rested his head on her leg and fallen asleep.

“Why in all the worlds did he do that?” she muttered, and lifted his head and put it on the floor.

Then she realized she could see.

A faint light emanated from an unknown source, but she could see into the large, windowless bunker.

She had been right, it had been a workshop. But these tools were pristine as if they had been cared for and oiled these past several years. Clearly made before the Fall, they were intricate, with gears and jointed arms and bright green buttons.

Were these more relics?

She got up and stretched her legs, wincing at the stiffness.

She bent to stretch her legs and gasped when she looked down at her gown, which was glowing. No, she realized as she lifted the hem a few inches, she was glowing. The cut she had received during her escape was gone.

Her breath caught in her throat and she backed up, nearly stepping on Marcus, who grumbled and rolled over.

What is going on?

“It’s finally time for us to talk.” The voice that came out of her mouth was not her own, but an older, softer voice with a strange accent. “Also, that sand is coming in quite handy. It’s exactly what I needed to write through you, and now to speak through you.”

Julie couldn’t make her mouth work. Her mind was a whirl of panic.

“This morning you got interrupted before I could tell you the plan,” she said into the room. “Luckily, Daniel was able to tell Marcus what to do. But even I didn’t know the sand would retain so much power. I think we have a way to return some of the divine energy to the world. But that’s not the point now. It’s nice to meet you, Julie. My name is Kate.”

• • •

The goddess was speaking through her, with her mouth. Would it always be like this?

“No, I think you will get control of your body back at sundown. Right now is when I’m the most powerful; the sun is up, after all. Why do you think
Marcus was so busy last night? He could see in the dark, thanks to Daniel, and Daniel told him what to build.”

Julie’s head turned of its own accord and looked at the table where Marcus had clearly been busiest last night. Black sand was strewn everywhere, and in the middle of the table was a round piece of glass about a meter in diameter. It was smoky and imperfect, with bubbles here and there, and it was thicker at the top than the bottom.

“Yeah, it’s not perfect. But it was both of their first times making something like this. Cut them some slack,” Kate said. “Anyway, we think this sand is the portal to the Reach. It held much of the wild power that we lost at the Fall. Marcus’ thief’s cross is the key to opening it.”

And what then?

“We don’t know. We’ve never been there. Unfortunately that asshole
Amadeus may be right. The other gods might be there. And Daniel thinks it’s—well, never mind what he thinks.” The goddess fell silent, and Julie peered at the smoky round glass.

“But what is this?” she asked with her own mouth, surprised to have control again.

“It’s a lens,” a sleepy voice behind her said, and she turned to see Marcus rubbing his eyes. “Why’s it so dark in here?”

“You mean you can’t see anymore?” she asked. Then, in Kate’s voice, she said, “You’re channeling the god of the moon. You can see in the dark – at night. But that skill is useless to you during the day.”

“All this tech and they couldn’t put in a light?” he asked, cranky. “Is there any water?”

“Check the saddlebags. I think there’s some left.” Julie looked through the lens and squinted at the distorted view of the room. “What is this a lens for?”

“Hell if I know. Can we get out of here? This blackness creeps me out.”

Julie wanted to force him to stay there in the dark, not knowing what was going on, the way he had forced her to be last night, but that seemed too cruel. The boy had saved her from Meridian, after all.

She put the lens under her arm and picked up the saddlebags. “Take these,” she said, taking his hand and placing the bags into it. She took his free hand and led him out of the compound.

Marcus squinted at the bright sun, but Julie felt as if it were empowering her, not blinding her.

Marcus pawed at his face where black sand still stuck. “I feel disgusting.”

“I suppose you underwater types washed a lot?” Julie asked as they stumbled out of their little sandy hole.

“Well, of course,” he said, shaking sand from his hair. “Don’t you?”

She shrugged. “It’s less of a priority than finding food.” Still, she rubbed her hands over her face to try to dislodge some of the sand. “Don’t get rid of all of it, though. I think that’s what’s letting Kate and Daniel talk through us.”

He stopped and laughed once, a barking sound. “You say that like it’s
commonplace. ‘What’s new, Marcus?’ ‘I escaped a crazy murderous ritual killing, and then became a mouthpiece of a god. Not much. Thanks for asking.’”

Julie pursed her lips together, feeling the grit between them. “You’re mocking me.”

“I’m mocking this,” he said, waving his hand around, indicating the black sand, the lens, and their disheveled appearance. “Instead of getting divine messages and power, the gods are encouraging us to burrow under the sand, and make glass.”

Kate looked into the distance toward Meridian. She had thought they had traveled far enough to leave the city behind them, but it seemed clear in the distance. She squinted and saw a cloud of dust.

“I think we should probably worry about that later,” she said, hitching the lens higher under her arm. “Someone’s coming.”

He looked in the same direction. “How do you know?” he asked.

“The sun is out,” Julie heard her voice say, and realized if the sun goddess was with her, she could see a fraction of what the sun could. “Come on.”

PART FOUR:

REACH

THE OSTRICHES WERE DEAD, covered with black sand, still tacky and thick with blood.

Marcus’s face fell when he saw them. “What did this?”

“Things still prowl up here, worse than pirates. Didn’t Daniel see what happened?” Julie asked, staring sadly at her mount, which she hadn’t had a chance to name.

“He didn’t tell me what happened if he did. I suppose that thing is more important,” Marcus said, gesturing to the great lens Julie still carried.

“We have the day to travel, and at least now we know what to do, sort of,” Julie said. She put her hand on Marcus’s shoulder. “Come on. It’s not going to help them for you to die too.”

She and Marcus divvied up their belongings and made their way north by the road.

“How did they follow us?” Marcus asked.

“Amadeus had more relics than we knew of, like the manacles, right? Who knows how he knows things? But right now we have to ask ourselves what you, or Daniel, rather, plan on doing with this thing.” She pointed to the lens, which Marcus now carried on his back.

“I was kind of hoping the god would tell us that,” he said. “Unfortunately, he’s quiet now.”

“I guess that’s because the moon has set.” Julie cocked her head, listening to the whisper in her head.

That’s it exactly.

“That’s what Kate says, anyway,” she continued.

“Well, I hope we can last long enough for the moon to come back up,” Marcus said testily. “I don’t like only being useful for half the day.”

“You could try to figure it out yourself,” Julie said.

“Sure, because I can think as well as a god can, no problem at all,” he said.

“Gee, you’re unpleasant when you’re not driven by a god,” she said. “Let’s just get to the place safely and then we’ll figure out what to do next.”

“Isn’t your goddess telling you what to do to smite Amadeus? Why didn’t she give you such practical information when you were locked up?” he asked.

“What is wrong with you?” Julie asked.

“My birds are dead, we’re being chased, and I don’t know what to do next even though gods are apparently talking through my mouth,” he snapped. He turned from her and fiddled with the leather straps holding the lens to his back.

Daniel had a temper, too, Kate said. Anyway, we can talk about that later. I’ll be stronger in your head as the sun rises, and we won’t need your mouth to talk.

Can you tell me what we’re going to be doing?

Daniel has plans with the lens and the sun. We won’t be able to wait for moonrise. I’ll let you know what you need to do. And as for why I didn’t talk to you earlier, I needed the conduit of the sand to get directly in your head. Someday I can tell you about my opinion of gods who always talk directly to mortals, but now’s not the time.

Julie shrugged mentally. She wasn’t one to argue with a deity, especially one who freed her from Amadeus.

She and Marcus trudged north, the black sand swirling and getting into their clothes and caking at the corners of their eyes and mouth. Eventually Marcus took a fine piece of cloth and wound it around his fair face, but Julie felt no discomfort from the sand or the sun. Every once in a while she would turn around to spot Amadeus, and always see the dust cloud a little closer. She blinked, the grit on her face making her feel more powerful instead of uncomfortable. Her fear drained away, and she felt new resolve, although part of her mind told her that was probably the goddess talking.

“We need to keep moving,” she told Marcus as he stopped to drink from his canteen.

“You go on ahead, I need to take a break,” he said, sitting down on a rock by the side of the path. He peeled the fabric from his face with an air of distaste. “They want you, anyway. What are they going to do with me?”

Julie scrubbed her hands over her face. “I’m sure they won’t do anything to you. It’s not like Amadeus kills people for the crime of winning a race. I’m sure his followers are completely sane too.” He didn’t rise to her sarcasm, and drained his canteen.

Julie tried another approach. “And you realize I have no idea what this lens is for, or how you’re going to use it. I need you.”

“I’m not going to use it, you are,” he said absently.

“They’re coming,” Julie said. Despite her new confidence, her eyes
widened as the sun’s power aided her in seeing what Amadeus was using to catch up with her.

It was a chariot, a relic she hadn’t seen, drawn by a huge mechanical horse made from hammered black and gold plates. Its eyes burned with green light. Amadeus stood tall, two of his guards behind him, and the horse thundered over the sand, columns of dust streaming behind it.

“Get up, we have to go. The white sand is over that dune, we’re nearly there.”

They struggled up the dune, black sand falling away from their feet and slowing their pace. Her one hope was that Amadeus’ horse couldn’t run up the dune. Maybe he’d be forced to pursue them on foot; she was a runner, she could escape.

Maybe.

Julie panted. She burned to demand Marcus to explain his revelation about the lens, but they had more pressing needs.

The dune plateaued at the top; the black sand marked with a still—perfect white circle the size of a temple in Meridian. Julie stopped in awe. She had been here once before, but it hadn’t looked like this. Now the white sand shimmered with untapped power; an almost malevolent air hung above it.

“Gods died here,” she whispered. Marcus came up behind her, puffing.

“Can you see it?” she asked, pointing.

He stopped short, his panting ceasing abruptly. “It’s burning,” he said.

“Is that what you see?” she asked. “I only see the power.”

“I can’t go in the circle,” he said. “You have to go and I’ll focus the lens on you. The sun will go through it and — I don’t know. I guess we have to trust the gods.”

Julie wanted to scream. She glanced down the hill. Amadeus had indeed dismounted his chariot and was scrambling up the hill, murder on his handsome face.

“I’ll take my chances,” she said, and ran into the white circle.

The power was so strong it nearly slapped her to the ground. She struggled through it, and turned to face Marcus, who had pulled the lens off his back and was squinting at the sky, his face cloth hanging free. He propped the lens in the sand and angled it.

He is going to focus the sun on you, Kate said in her head. It may burn.

Then what? Julie asked, eyes fixed on Marcus.

I don’t know. I’m sorry. Daniel doesn’t tell me everything. I think it may open a door. You and Marcus go through, taking us with you.

“How does Marcus bring Daniel through if he is the one focusing the lens?” Julie asked out loud, and then Amadeus reached the top of the dune.

Julie shouted wordlessly, but Amadeus was too fast, Marcus too focused on the lens. In one moment it was over, Amadeus was on Marcus, bringing a knife around Marcus’ neck and slicing deep.

Then the world caught fire.

The lens caught the sun and focused it straight on Julie, who screamed as the beam seared through her. She felt her hair shrivel, smelled the acrid scent as it singed away. Pain rippled over her skin as it blistered and then peeled away. Her nerve endings were seared to the point of failure, and she fell. The sand underneath her had melted into glass, and she hit the ground hard.

Her last thought concerned two topics.

I’m sorry Marcus.

At least Amadeus didn’t catch us.

• • •

Julie didn’t so much open her eyes as have her eyes come into being, along with the rest of her. One minute, she wasn’t there, and then she was: flesh knitting around her, becoming whole. When her eyes began to work, she opened them to see branches above her, and then a dusky sky.

She sat up. She had been lying on a mossy bank of a river that flowed sluggishly by, but it was clearly nothing like water. This liquid was pearly white.

She touched her face where she expected to feel burns, or scars, but the flesh was smooth. Her hands, brown and small, were also unhurt.

“Am I dead?” she asked out loud.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” came a voice, the same voice she had heard in her head. A figure stepped from the trees, a young woman with white skin, like Marcus’. Her hair was brown and long, and her eyes sympathetic.

“It’s really the only way to get you here,” she said. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve died too. More than once, actually.” She screwed up her face and thought. “I guess you can say I’ve died three times. It never got easier. Sucked every time.”

“How – wait, what about Marcus? We have to go back for him, Amadeus was—” she paused. “Killing him,” she finished.

“That was necessary?” Marcus’ voice came from the trees, outraged. “Getting a knife in the throat while my friend caught fire in front of me? I couldn’t have just had a nice peaceful drowning, gotten to the afterlife with less drama?” He stumbled into the clearing and knelt beside her. His pale skin was no longer caked with sand, or burned by the sun. “Are you all right?”

“I’m dead,” she said. “But beyond that, I think I’m okay.”

“Sorry, dude, you’re not in the afterlife,” said a male voice. A man walked from the trees wearing dark leather and a long, thin sword at his belt. A worn white rag covered his left eye.

“But you said we were dead,” Julie said, getting to her feet.

Kate ignored her, running to Daniel’s side. She touched his face, and they embraced, kissing fiercely.

“Um,” Julie said, and looked away. Marcus was staring at the ground,
his face red.

“Are you all right?” Julie asked him in a low voice.

“As you said, dead,” he said. “But I was a lot worse a few minutes ago, with a severed head and everything.”

“He severed — oh no,” she said.

“I think he did. I didn’t stay around long enough to see him finish the job,” Marcus said, rubbing his throat.

“Did the gods do the same thing to us that Amadeus was going to?” she said. “I knew Amadeus wanted us to die to find the lost gods, but I didn’t know it would work.”

The reunited gods separated at that moment, pulling apart reluctantly. They focused on Julie and Marcus again.

“Sorry about that. We hadn’t seen each other in a while,” Daniel said. “Anyway, yes, you’re dead. Totally dead.”

“But if you had died normally,” Kate continued, “you would have gone to your afterlife. This is someplace new.”

“Then how did we get here?” Marcus asked.

“That’s what the lens was for,” Daniel said. “You needed to focus it onto the battleground, and that opened a new door. It was the focusing of the power in a place of power. Kind of like putting a bag of holding into a portable hole.”

Kate poked him in the shoulder. “I don’t think this place has invented D&D yet, dude.”

Daniel smiled at her. “All right, fine. Think of it as too much power in one area. Something had to give. Julie, you died when you got hit with the blast, and opened the door. Marcus and I fell through after you when he died.”

“So now what?” Julie said.

The gods looked at each other. “We’re not entirely sure,” Kate admitted.

“Let’s start with this place. What is it, if not the afterlife?” Julie said, reaching to dip her hand into the river.

“No, wait,” Kate said, by her side in an instant and pulling her back. “Don’t touch that. It’s the river of tears, the river of forgetting.”

Marcus crossed his arms over his chest. “But you said this wasn’t the afterlife.”

“It’s an afterlife, not your afterlife,” Daniel said, crouching by the river. “It’s a new one. But all afterlives have things in common. This river runs through all of them. We just opened a new branch.”

“What about the trees?” Julie asked. The trees were made of very hard wood, and reached their leafless branches high into the sky. No sun or moon shone there. This place resembled the dusk, the in—between time of the day.

“A lot of what is created from divine energy just is,” Kate said, sounding apologetic. “We can often control what happens, but not the details of the
outcome.” She trailed off, as if remembering something.

“Anyway, we opened this door for a reason, let’s get moving,” Daniel said.

“I have so many questions,” Julie said. “Why we did this? Why did you need to be with us to reach this afterlife? Why did you want to go here? And how are you any better than Amadeus, since you had to kill us to get us here?”

Kate and Daniel glanced at each other again, and then she took his hand, as if for strength. “We’re sorry about that,” she said. “Honestly. But we couldn’t create this place on our own; we needed the energy that lay within your world. And since we took our place as the sun and moon, we couldn’t affect as much on the world.”

“Things usually got really fucked up when we tried, to mess directly with people,” Daniel said. “So we stopped.”

“But when you and that other guy got the sand, Julie, we found we could see through your eyes.”

“Adam…” Julie looked down and bit her lip. “He died. Is he here?”

Kate and Daniel shared another look. “Most of the kids Amadeus killed ended up in your afterlife, I’m sorry,” Daniel said.

“I won’t see him again,” she said, her voice hollow. “Not even in death.”

Kate and Daniel were silent, and when Julie looked up, their faces were twisted with guilt and anguish.

“This is why,” Daniel said softly, “I said we are very, very bad at what we do. Every time we try to do something good, we mess it up for someone else. So we want to stop being gods.”

“That’s why we came here. We think you can help us,” Kate said. “We want to go home.”

• • •

Although all four of them were souls at this point, with no desire for warmth or food, Kate suggested they stop to rest, build a fire, and talk. Sticking to the basic human needs often calmed a mind, she said. She and Daniel wandered off to find wood for a fire, and Marcus and Julie sat on the bank of the river Lethe, as the gods called it, and watched its thick pearly water crawl by.

“How will they find dead wood in a new place?” he asked.

“They’re gods,” Julie said flatly.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m dead,” she said. “And I’m not with Adam. I wanted to escape Amadeus and reunite with him. I’ve only done one of those things, and it sounds like I’ll never do the other.”

Marcus was silent for a moment. “Sorry,” he said finally. “Daniel said you loved him very much.”

Julie laughed. “Daniel. Kate got to reunite with Daniel,” she said, ashamed at the bitterness in her voice. “They got what they wanted, but we don’t. They’re using us to get him, and then what?”

“I hate having to say I’m sorry over and over again,” Kate said softly from behind them. “But as he said, we’re very bad at this. We don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.”

They both got to their feet abruptly, Julie’s face burning. “I didn’t— I mean—”

“No, you did, and you had every right to,” Kate said sadly. “Come on. Let’s talk.”

They followed her away from the river’s edge. Further on, a fire was burning cheerily in the never—changing dusk. Daniel pointed to some metal cylinders nestled in the coals. “Look! A trick I got from Ashcan Harriet! They’ll be done in a bit.”

Julie and Marcus both looked at Kate, who shrugged. “Ashcan Harriet was an angel,” she said. She gestured to the ground around the fire. “Sit.”

“We could take all night, or what passes for night, telling you all the details,” Daniel began, “but it’s probably best if we give you the short version. We were human once, like you, and then we died. Then the world ended, although we were pretty sure that wasn’t our fault –“

“But it could have been,” Kate interrupted.

Daniel shrugged, not arguing. He continued. “Then we became gods, tried to make a new world, fucked it up big time, made an even newer world — that’s your world, by the way — and fucked that one up too. We had accidentally imprisoned all of the gods. When we tried to free them all, we ended up killing the moon goddess, and then we made the sun god an addict. When the rest found out how we fucked up, they weren’t really in a place to trust us.”

“I can’t blame them,” Kate continued. “The incident your people know as The Fall had the god Chaos leaking into this world, and Morrigan helping it. Barris sacrificed himself by knocking her into Chaos, killing all three of them, and that made the sun and moon go out. So we took those places to keep the world from ending.”

“—Again,” Daniel added.

“Yes, again,” Kate said. “Killing Chaos stripped most of the power out of the world, which caused Meridian to fall and Leviathan’s dome to fail.”

“Since then, we’ve had time to think about stuff, and we realize it’s time to stop this god stuff,” Daniel said. “So we’re trying to find a place to go.”

Julie shook her head, trying to clear Adam’s face from her mind. “Why not just come to Lathe as humans?”

Daniel shrugged. “We tried. It didn’t work like that. We can inhabit special humans, like you two, but that’s the most we can do. And it seems unfair to push out an existing soul just because we want a new place to live.”

“We needed to die, if only metaphorically,” Kate said.

Marcus stood suddenly. “But, what about our home now? Did the sun and moon go out again when Julie and I died?” He looked poised to run, anywhere, to check on the people they left behind.

“Sit down, dude,” Daniel said, frowning. “You don’t think we thought of that? The first time was during a battle; Morrigan and Barris hadn’t put in any safety nets in place to keep things going. They didn’t know they could die. Kate and I set things up so they would keep going just fine.”

Marcus sat down, still tense.

Julie thought for a bit, something nagging at her. “But if you’re not powerful enough to give yourself new bodies, and you said your world ended, how do you plan on fixing that?”

Kate thought for a moment. She spread her hands apart. “Okay, how’s this. You know the machines they used to build Meridian? Cranes? You’ve seen them in your ruins, correct?”

They nodded.

“They were very powerful machines for lifting, holding, moving huge things from place to place. But if you tried to remove a splinter with one of them, you’d fail miserably. The power we have, the power that still lives wild north of Meridian, that’s all untapped power you can use as a tool. But it’s much better for moving the heavens and earths than for removing a splinter.”

Marcus and Julie watched the flames. Kate and Daniel looked at each other again, and then back at them. “So, uh, any more questions?” Daniel asked.

Julie shook her head, but didn’t speak. Something still bugged her.

“What happens to us?” Marcus said. “Let’s say you succeed, we get you wherever you’re going. Then what about Julie and I?”

The gods didn’t say anything.

“You’re right,” Marcus said, after a pause. “You’re not very good at this.”

• • •

Julie wasn’t paying attention. She knew they were talking around her, but it sounded very far away. She felt as if she could sense something in the woods, something with newly created eyes, watching them.

I’m not a person anymore; I don’t have a person’s limitations. This is not a body. It’s just an idea of a body. I didn’t die like this; I was burned alive. So this is my perception of what my body is. Should I even have a body? Is it just here to give the others a sense of me?

The others didn’t notice her at all. She looked down at her hands and was unsurprised to find them not there. She stood and jumped experimentally, rising into the air as if she had no gravitational limitations. She flew up into the tan sky and looked down at the new afterlife — what had Daniel — or Marcus, through Daniel — called it? The Reach?

The Reach had borders, Julie was surprised to see. It seemed to only stretch a mile in any direction, thick, leafless trees on either side of the River Lethe. But there was a dark spot to the south of their little party.

She investigated.

Flying was simple. She just thought, and she went in a direction. There was no sensation of air on her face, or a delicious dip in her stomach the way she sometimes felt when running down a hill. She was vaguely disappointed this wasn’t as fun, but as she neared the darkness, the light wavered around her, and she forgot about thrill seeking.

When she saw what the darkness was, she stopped her ascent immediately, suddenly feeling very much as if she had a body, and as if it could get sick with nauseated fear. She blinked, and was back at the campfire. She stood up, and this time the others could see her. They stopped arguing.

“Julie?” Marcus asked. The concern in his voice was palpable, but surprisingly, he sounded as if he were ready to address any threat she voiced. He’s on my side, she thought. I’m not alone here.

“The door we opened. How long was it going to stay open?” she asked, looking at Daniel, whose eye widened in shock.

“Why?” he asked, but she could see by the shock and guilt on his face, he already knew.

“Someone else came through,” she said. “Amadeus is here.”

• • •

Kate whirled on Daniel. “You forgot to close the door? And then someone killed him so he could come through as well? Seriously?”

“It was all experimental,” he said. “I didn’t think of anyone following us. I’m sorry.”

Marcus stayed seated on the ground. “You’re gods. He’s a dead spirit. You’re gods. Can’t you just smite him?”

Kate shook her head. “We are very much like you here. We have more powers only because we’ve got experience. If you had time, you could do the same thing. Stories about gods have them fighting and hurting each other all the time. Spirits are the same way.”

“So? We can’t die in the afterlife, can we?” Julie asked, her voice cracking.

“We definitely can. Haven’t you heard the story of the beginning of
the world?”

“You mean where Kate died and then Daniel found her soul and created a world for her? That’s not real, that’s just a story, right?” Marcus said, frowning.

“We’re right here,” Daniel said. “Did you not HEAR the story we just told you?” He slapped the top of Marcus’ head lightly. “You totally can die out here. She’s done it. I killed one god in the afterlife. A friend of mine once ate a god. Weird shit can happen when you die in the afterlife. We don’t want to go and accidentally create a new world while we’re at it. We’ve done that enough. We probably did enough damage out there by just creating the Reach. It’s best if we just get out of here.”

“No,” Julie said.

Marcus had stood by now, and looked ready to follow Kate and Daniel. He stared at her. “What do you mean, no? The guy who imprisoned you is here. He was going to force you to marry him. Kill you. He killed Adam. Me too, actually. Why in the world would you want to wait here for him to catch up with you?”

Julie looked up at him, studying his pale face, his wide blue eyes.

“I’m tired of running from him. I’m tired of thinking we’re safe from him. If I kill him here, he’ll definitely leave us alone. And if I die here, I might be able to find Adam,” she said.

Marcus made a frustrated sound, and strode into the trees, not looking back.

“We shouldn’t split up,” Kate said.

“Looks like we already have,” Daniel said. “They shouldn’t be alone, either of them. You go after Marcus, and I’ll stay here. I’m armed.”

Kate reached behind her and drew a straight, thin sword with a white tassel hanging from the hilt. It hadn’t been there a minute before. “So am I.” But she nodded to Julie, kissed Daniel lightly, and then ran off after Marcus.

The sky was darkening, but they didn’t hear any indication Amadeus was closing on them.

“You know, we did that once. Left each other in a huff,” Daniel said
conversationally, drawing his sword and looking around the woods. “It was pretty awful. I lost an eye. Twice. She got reborn and then died again when the world ended.” He paused. “Oh, wait. That makes this the fourth time she’s died. Now it’s a tradition.” He laughed, a hollow sound.

“This is different,” Julie said, her mind on Adam. “You two were destined to be together. You were bound to find each other again. I’m still trying to find the one I’m supposed to be with.”

Daniel dug the tip of his sword into the spongy moss. “Yeah, I’ve never had much belief in prophecy. People always misinterpret what the gods are trying to tell them. And what’s the point of knowing prophecy when it’s going to come true anyway? They’re purposefully vague, and you usually only know what they mean after they’ve come to pass. Then people make them mean what they want them to. And yet they are always right, after the fact, of course.”

“What do you mean prophecy? I’m an orphan of Meridian. I grew up in ruins, I went exploring, I got some sand in my eyes and suddenly Kate started talking to me. This wasn’t meant to be. It just happened.”

Daniel nodded, still focusing on the hole he was digging. He looked like less of a warrior than ever. “Sure. You didn’t get your prophecy because your priestess died before she could tell you. That was probably part of the
prophecy, too.”

She stared at him, mouth open. “What are you saying? That this was
destined? That I was supposed to lose Adam and end up here with a refugee from Leviathan and two failed gods?”

He shrugged. “Does it matter? You’re going to do what you want. And whatever you do will be what you’re supposed to do. If the prophets are right.”

“But why are you telling me about this now? Don’t you think one of you could have told me before this? So I could have at least been prepared?” She barely noticed darkness had nearly fallen around them, only the campfire lighting their area.

“Why do you care? You wouldn’t have listened, anyway. All you wanted to do is die and find Adam. You’re not even armed and you’re ready to go fight a psychopath who sacrificed himself to stay on your tail,” he said, raising the sword, its end still dirty from the moss and red soil underneath. He touched the red part of the blade and then brought the finger to his mouth.

The ground rumbled beneath them. Daniel smiled. “I love it when I’m right.” He sheathed the sword quickly and took her hand. “Come with me. We run, and I promise you that I’ll tell you your prophecy, and tell you how to see Adam again.”

The campfire went out, then, and even though she had no lungs, Julie found it difficult to breathe. She was suddenly very afraid. “All right. Let’s go.”

They ran the same direction that Kate and Marcus had gone, the glowing river guiding them through the newly dark woods.

Julie heard a chuckle around the edges of her mind: a whisper that she would never be free from him, that even death could not separate them. She could smell him, motor grease and sand and root vegetables. She could almost feel him beside her. She clung tighter to Daniel’s hand and ran harder.

“Can’t you fly or something?” she asked.

“I suppose. I flew once, with Horus,” he said, sounding like he was thinking aloud. “But the question is, can you fly?”

They followed a bend in the river, and Julie could see the impressions in the moss that Marcus and Kate had made. It comforted her that they were still following the others.

“Yes,” she said, thinking of earlier.

The man beside her was suddenly a brown hawk, rising into the air. She concentrated for a moment, and then heard herself caw as a small crow. She flailed in shock and crashed into the ground, tumbling and spreading feathers everywhere. The hawk landed in a tree and called to her. She couldn’t tell if he was laughing or not.

Physically flying was much harder than just expanding her awareness, she found, and she flapped awkwardly to gain altitude to reach the same branch. She managed to grab it and land, flapping outrageously to stay balanced.

She heard – or felt – something calling to her. She nearly faltered and plunged toward the ground, but settled on the branch.

The hawk let her sit for a moment, and then launched himself into the air, calling for her to follow. She did her best to stay on his tail.

The hawk quickly outdistanced her, then paused, perched in a tree, and waited. She desperately tried to catch up, but heard the beating of mighty wings behind her.

I’m a crow and he’s a monster. That is completely unfair, she thought. She caught herself praying, but realized the gods couldn’t help her. Or rather, that they already were helping her and had done all they could. She refused to look behind her, but wasn’t sure whether the hot breath on her tail was imagined or real.

She neared the tree where Daniel was perched, but still couldn’t get the altitude. The flapping behind her was getting closer, and she saw with dismay that she was dropping towards to the ground — the river, to be exact. She twitched her tail feathers, and found herself rising. She cawed in triumph as she climbed toward Daniel, finally getting the hang of it.

As she gloried in flight at last, talons closed around her breast, trapping her wings, and she was yanked higher, leaving a puff of black feathers behind.

The monstrous bird screeched in triumph as it rose, and its talons pierced her breast. She felt her skin break, hot blood pour out. Her fragile bones popped as he squeezed harder.

Why is he killing me? I thought he wanted to marry me? she wondered as he squeezed. The pain was distant, like something that was happening to someone else. It’s not really my body. This isn’t really me. It’s just a part of me, a small part—

I don’t need you. Now I can have the gods themselves. This is just funny. Punishment. The words were in her mind, now. She screamed, trying to get him out, but all that came out was a choked croak. She felt his presence in her head, accessing what she knew of the gods, what Daniel and Kate had told her. She felt a spike of glee, and then he was gone, mentally and physically, dropping her. She caught sight of a hawk diving, and thought, what was the bother?

She’d abandoned Marcus, abandoned her gods and her quest. Hot shame burned in her pierced chest, and suddenly she wanted to fight back, to stop Amadeus and his sudden power in this world.

She fell toward the bank and prepared herself for the final, bone—crushing impact, but talons wrapped around her own, these ones gentle but firm, and her fall slowed. They soared out over the river, Daniel trying to regain altitude. Julie closed her eyes in relief. Daniel had her. It was going to be all right.

Except that flying out over the river, Daniel got too close to the water, and the top of Julie’s head skimmed the surface.

• • •

She opened her eyes. A woman with white skin and brown hair, in white robes, crouched over a campfire, poking it with a stick. She looked young, but her face was set in a grimace that spoke of years of experience.

“Oh, good. Welcome back,” she said. “I’m Kate.”

She looked around her, taking in the dark, starless sky and the dead trees. She lay on soft moss, and a river flowed nearby, glowing a pearly white.

“You know, when you experience something, you always wonder what you would have done if you were on the other side of the coin,” Kate said. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m not making any sense. What you’re dealing with, I’ve been there — ripped apart, memories severed from my body, completely catatonic. You’d think I could handle this better. Let’s start at the beginning. Your name is Julie. Do you remember that much?”

Julie. She mouthed the word. The name felt strange on her tongue. She shook her head.

Kate pursed her lips. “Yeah. This isn’t easy. Anyway, you’re in the Reach, a new afterlife of sorts created by Daniel and me. We’re gods, by the way, but really bad ones.”

Julie’s eyes flew open, and her heart lurched in panic. She sat up and then held her head as it swam.

Kate rushed over to her and put her hand on the back of her neck. “No, no, not evil. I’m so sorry. I mean we’re doing a bad job. Healing you took a lot out of me, I am not being clear. It’s been a while.”

Something cawed, and Julie’s gaze went to a crow that sat in a tree, watching her with beady eyes.

“Her? Oh, yeah. She’s connected with you, I’m not sure how. She won’t leave your side, I’m afraid. Hope you like birds.”

The woman returned to sitting by the fire, staring into it. “So you probably want to know what happened. Someone who wants you dead followed you here, into the afterlife. He got the hang of manipulating reality way too fast, and attacked you. Daniel tried to save you, but you still got some of the river water on you. That river water takes the memories of your life. Not good. So Daniel called me, and we put you back together.”

Julie looked around, eyebrows raised.

“Daniel? He’s off with Marcus,” Kate said. “Guy stuff. Who knows? Marcus is blaming himself of course. Guys.” She snorted. “Anyway, the thing that attacked you is long gone, now that we know he’s here, we can feel when he’s nearby. Right now, Daniel’s working on expanding the borders of the Reach, trying to find the door out.”

Marcus. That name.

“So do you want to talk, ask me anything?” Kate asked.

Julie shook her head.

“Can you talk?”

Julie shook her head.

“Well, shit. Great job on that one, Kate,” the goddess muttered.

The crow above them cawed again, and flapped down to perch on one of the rocks around the fire. It was a small bird, and hopped from one foot to the other, eyes focused on Kate.

“What’s your story, crow?” Kate asked. “Are you where our Julie is currently hiding?”

The crow cawed a third time.

“Oh. Well, that’s inconvenient, but at least we know you’re still here,” Kate said, sighing. “The part of you that can make words, the part with the memories, is largely inside that crow. We split you when we healed you, I guess.” She rubbed her face and looked disgusted with herself.

Julie looked at the crow with new interest. Her memories were inside it? It was part of her? She held out a hand and the crow hopped over to her, no sense of fear, and flapped clumsily up to perch on Julie’s arm.

“Keep that crow safe. If it dies, I don’t know what I’ll do. Or you. I don’t know what you’ll do,” Kate said.

The ground trembled and groaned again. Julie lay down flat on it, enjoying its rumble. She ran her hand along the moss that grew thick under her.

“Don’t worry about it. The land is new, it’s bound to happen,” Kate said.

It also didn’t like what was happening to it. Julie stopped breathing for a moment. How did she know that? She stroked the ground again, confused, but comforted by its earthy scent and springy touch.

“We think the thing that hurt you is discovering that he’s got some skills when dealing with new worlds,” Kate continued, not noticing her new interest in the rumbling ground. “That fucker is talented. Too bad he’s a psychopath. We could have used him.”

Julie felt a flare of something, a memory of a dark room, and a chain around her foot. Before that, a knife that ended everything. Her heart beat faster and she glared at Kate.

“Hey, no, I didn’t mean we should have gotten him to help us instead of you!” Kate said, holding her hands up as if to ward off an attack. “It’s just a shame when you find out that talented people work for the bad guys. We’re lucky to have you and Marcus. Even lousy gods need friends. If we were better, you wouldn’t be in this position.”

Julie’s eyes widened.

“Yeah, that was our inability to put you back together properly. I did my best. But we’re all kind of dead here, and our powers are limited.”

Julie shook her head. It was too much to take in. The crow on her arm cocked her head.

Now what?

She raised her eyes again to the inept god, who stoked the roaring fire
unnecessarily. Kate saw her watching and smiled shakily. “The one thing I do know is that these things usually work themselves out. I was blown up, and then reformed, and it took a while to come back. I had only one bitter friend to help me along, while you have two semi—experienced gods to help you and a friend. Of course you also have a crazy psycho messing with you, so it all
balances out, I guess.”

Julie looked at the crow again. She tossed her arm up, and the bird took to the air, shrieking and flying in ever—widening circles up and around the campfire. Julie leaned back and closed her eyes and felt the ground warm
beneath her.

• • •

The woods spread out, dark and foreboding, around her. There were no stars or moon in the sky, and the only light seemed to be from the campfire where Julie and Kate sat. A glimmer caught the crow’s eye to the left, about half a mile away. She followed it, a wind coming up and buffeting her wings. She swerved and wheeled, fighting it. The glint shone again, and she struggled harder, but the wind increased.

A gust caught her under her wings, and she tumbled in the air, losing control. She managed to get her wings under her, and headed perpendicular to the glint. The wind stopped, and she tried to circle around, finding it more difficult every time she turned toward the glint. In frustration she dropped altitude, hoping to fly under the wind, and she got a little closer, but then it caught her again and again she went flying.

She landed in a tree, and stood from foot to foot, clacking her beak and considering. Finally, she flew to the forest floor, the moss spongy under her claws. The ground felt friendly, supportive. She liked it.

She skipped, sometimes walking, sometimes flying a few feet. The wind gusted from time to time, but with her wings closed it did little but irritate her eyes. She began to make slight, slow progress.

The light was harder to see from the ground, but whenever the wind was in her face she knew she was on the right track. Eventually she saw it, breaking through the trees, and she hopped closer, keeping as silent as possible.

Three men stood in a clearing next to the river. One of them lay on the moss, blood leaking from his ears. The other was struggling with the third. They wrestled, rolling around on the forest floor, grunting and swearing. The wind roared in a circle above them, and the crow crouched down low.

The men punched each other, hitting ineffectual strikes to the ribs, sometimes hitting the ground instead of each other. The men were stripped from the waist up, one with light skin, one with dark. The dark—skinned man punched the white man’s in the jaw, and his head whipped around to face the crow’s. One of the white man’s eyes was gone, but it had happened long before this fight.

The darker—skinned man rolled again, and they ended up next to the river. He ended up on top, plunging the lighter skinned man’s head into the milky water. The other man struggled, but couldn’t displace his aggressor.

The crow cawed and flapped forward, but the minute she spread her wings, the wind caught her and blew her back. She step—step—hopped until she reached the struggling men. The one with his head in the river was beginning to weaken, the one on top holding his head further under, a smile spreading across his face. Finally, eventually, the man stopped struggling, and the crow tried to picture the man’s lungs full of that milky fluid.

Like hers had been.

The dark—skinned man leaned back and sighed, looking at his two victims. The one who bled from the nose didn’t stir. He lay on his side, back to the river. The crow perched on his shoulder and cawed at the man who stopped forcing the other man under the water. He made a rude gesture at the bird, waving his arm, but he looked too tired to attack her.

Instead, he stood and stretched, gray wings unfurling from his back. He surveyed his work, kicked lackadaisically at the crow, which dodged, and then he leaped into the air, nearly swerving into a tree before he gained altitude.

Now what? The man in the river still had his head deep under, and the crow flew to him, grabbing the waistband of his trousers with her talons and beating her wings, trying to lift him.

She knew it was useless, but it was all she could think to do. Frustrated, she screamed: a ragged sound she hadn’t realized herself capable of making. It felt good. She did it again, letting the woods ring with her anger, her pain. The sound was so piercing, that the other man finally stirred.

He held his head in his hands rolled to his knees, and then spied her and the drowned man. He swore and scooted forward, grabbing the other man’s legs and pulling.

The man came out of the river, face sliding along the moss. His single eye was closed, and milky liquid dribbled from his nose. The crow settled beside him and cocked her head, looking at the still face. She made a soft, distressed sound.

His eye opened, and he sat up abruptly.

“Well, that sucked,” he said.

“Are you all right?” asked the man who had dragged him from the river. “I thought you were—”

The man shook his head. “Nah, I just play dead real good. We weren’t going to win, so I figured I’d let him think he’d drowned me and he’d leave.” He squinted at the sky with his one eye. “Looks like I was right.”

“You played dead?” said his companion, his eyes wide.

The one—eyed man shrugged. “Trickster god. Comes in the job
description. It’s really hard to kill me. I just had to make sure I didn’t drink any of the river.”

“That’s a relief. I wish I was hard to hurt,” the other man said, rubbing the left side of his head.

“Kate should be able to fix you up. Come on, let’s go back to camp. I think this little girl needs to go back,” he said, nodding at the crow, which flew to his outstretched arm. “Although I do appreciate her interfering.”

The crow jumped to his shoulder, glad the wind had left with the monster. The one—eyed man offered his shoulder to the other, and they made their way back to the clearing.

The crow considered the wind for a moment, then on a whim took wing from the man’s shoulder and climbed, this time more confidently. The people had this under control, but no one knew where that monster had gone.

She would follow him.

• • •

“What the hell happened to you?” Kate asked when two men — battered, bleeding, and bruised — staggered back to camp.

“We went after Amadeus,” the one—eyed man said. He grimaced. “We found him.”

“Are you all right?” Kate asked, rising.

The one—eyed man helped the bleeding man to sit. “I’ll be fine. Marcus could use some help though.”

“Don’t know how much I have left in me,” Kate said ruefully. “I used up a lot putting Julie back together. She still can’t talk, though, and she doesn’t remember anything.”

Julie. That was her, she remembered. If a goddess used up almost all of her power healing her, then she should be better off than she was. She stood, trying to get used to the body that remembered being a crow when it had been attacked by that monster, that Amadeus. Julie took a cautious step, then another. She tried to kneel next to the injured man, but ended up
falling next to him.

He looked her, his face puffy. “I’m sorry about what happened to you,” he said.

She smiled. Kate offered her a rag; she took it, and dabbed at the cuts and the blood coming from the man’s ear.

Kate took a step back, letting Julie work. Daniel smirked. “She can’t talk but she remembers basic first aid?”

Kate shrugged. “Who the hell knows how this really works?” She paused. “Wait, where’s her crow?”

“Oh yeah, the one who helped us not totally die at the river side? I liked her.”

Kate made an impatient gesture.

“Right. She flew off before we got here. I don’t know where she went.”

“You’re kidding me. She’s the other half of Julie’s consciousness! We can’t lose her!”

“Oh, excuse me for getting this bleeding guy to the almighty healing goddess,” he said, sarcastically. “I might as well have been drinking at a bar when Kennedy was shot.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sounded good in my head. You know, stinging and mean. I’ll look for her. You take care of Marcus,” he said, the anger draining from his voice.

“He beat both of us back there,” Marcus said, taking the rag from Julie and holding it to his ear. “What makes you think you can take him alone?”

Daniel stood and stretched, his bruises already looking less serious than before. He grinned. “I’m a trickster. I can’t beat him at hand to hand, but I can trick a leopard out of his spots.”

“That was Coyote,” Kate said, still sounding angry.

“Yeah, and she taught me a thing or two, thanks very much,” Daniel said. He stretched and became a one—eyed hawk. He flew to perch on Kate’s shoulder and rubbed his head on her cheek.

She smiled. “All right, I get it. We’re cool. Go get the crow. Don’t fight Amadeus, just bring the crow back.” She frowned at Julie and Marcus. “I have an idea about what to do with her.”

Daniel flew off, and Marcus’ eyes tracked the hawk until it flew from the light of their fire.

“Will he be okay?” Marcus asked.

“He’s been through more than you know. Beating a new god in a new land? He’ll be fine. He might start a new world in the process, or give birth to our child, or come back missing an ear, or having another god friend trailing at his heels, but yeah, he’ll be okay.”

“Somehow I don’t feel better,” Marcus said. Julie was still staring at his face. He put his hand gently over hers. “I’m all right,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

She sat back, holding her hand in place where he held it. Then he let it go and looked in her eyes. She didn’t like the way she felt when he did that. But she couldn’t look away.

“You really don’t remember anything?” he asked.

She shrugged. She remembered enough to understand words. But not her name. Or these other people’s. She remembered this land, though, and that it was frightened. But she couldn’t tell him that.

“That’s a shame,” he said, looking away.

Julie looked away and saw that Kate had dozed off, leaning against a tree. Julie’s eyes went wide as she pointed.

Marcus frowned. “She needs her rest, it’s okay.”

Julie couldn’t voice that she was worried that one god was asleep and the other one was gone, and she had no memory and Marcus was injured. She had no words at all.

“It’s a good idea, actually,” Marcus said. “I know you just got put together again, but I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake. Can you take a watch?”

Julie shook her head wildly, standing, gesturing to indicate the situation they were in, and her own impotence, and inability to even call for help. But Marcus’ eyes were drooping—or, at least, the one that wasn’t already swollen shut was drooping.

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you, and I really need some rest,” he said, and leaned back on the grass.

Julie stood there, alone, helpless.

• • •

There was something about this land. The Reach, they had called it. It was new, the crow knew that. This land with its tall trees and deep rivers was only a little older than she was, in her current incarnation, anyway. She flew, trying to listen or smell in the darkness to track the monster. The land convulsed with a low moan, like she had felt before on the ground. She blinked and realized she could make out the form of the trees. Dawn, or what passed for dawn in this world, was coming.

She marveled that she still felt the ground shake while in the air. It must be quite upset, to be calling to her so loudly. She flew down to investigate.

The woods seemed to go on forever. She worried she wouldn’t find her way back, but just then, she felt a gentle pull back from the way she had come, a small tether to the body she had been created from.

When her claws touched earth, she felt connected to it even more. It was in pain, considerable pain, as if being warped in a way it was never meant to be. That pain honed in on one specific location, and it was close.

The monster was there, the land whispered to her. And he was doing something terrible. The unholy wind ruffled the crow’s feathers. Steeling herself, she crept toward the epicenter of the anguish.

• • •

Julie looked around, turning in a slow circle. In spite of her initial panic, she heard nothing but silence in the woods. If Daniel had flown off to follow the crow, which had flown off to find the monster, then she should be safe. If the threat came here, then Daniel and the crow would be here.

What else was there to fear in this place?

What indeed? She had already lost herself in the river. The bank was about thirty feet away and yet it seemed so close, so dangerous. Its milky water glowed, mocking her.

How could a river mock? She took a step toward it, still unused to this body, the one Kate assured her was the one she should be in. She sat cross—legged at the edge of the river, with a furtive look back to her companions, who slept undisturbed by the embers of their fire. She trailed a finger in the water, fascinated as the disturbance created whorls and eddies downstream. She pulled her finger out and looked at it. It seemed so simple, this liquid, but so dangerous. She wondered if any creatures, pure and blank and innocent, lived under the waters. She ran her hands along the bank at the river’s edge, her fingers digging into the muck under the water.

She scooped out a handful of muddy stones, all of them blue—white, the same milky tint as the water. Then she realized: the woods were getting lighter, she could see colors now. She rinsed the rocks in the water and walked back to the fire.

The land wrenched again. Julie found herself mentally soothing it, making shushing sounds and realizing it was the first sound she had made.

Kate stirred at the sound, and sat up.

“Oh God, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have dozed off. I had the weirdest dream.”

Julie raised her eyebrows.

Kate rubbed her face. “I guess it was a prophecy. Gods don’t have a lot of subconscious dreams.” She smiled at Julie. “Don’t you know what I dreamed? You’re my prophet, aren’t you?”

Julie shrugged. Her mind was as empty as it had been. She knew basic laws of the world, but her own name still sounded odd to her ears, and this woman in front of her was only a god because she said so.

“How’s Marcus?” Kate asked, indicating him with a jerk of her head.

Julie mimed falling asleep and falling over, and Kate smiled. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have left you alone if he could have prevented it. He cares a lot for you.”

Julie frowned. Something was returning to her, something about this young man, and birds, and a lot of black sand. His injuries here concerned her more, now, and she studied him. His face was creased as if he dreamed something upsetting.

Kate got to her feet and stretched. “Of course, you haven’t noticed his feelings because you’re hung up on a dead guy. Then again, we’re all dead.”

Julie didn’t like the way Kate was looking at her. Another memory came to her; intense feelings like a spike, love and anguish and mourning and fear. She tried to grab hold of the memories, but it was like grappling with smoke. Although these feelings were strong, she couldn’t remember what they were about. Or who.

How awkward. Hoping to divert some attention from herself, she
pointed to Kate.

The goddess accurately interpreted her gesture. “I’m doing much better, thanks. Just needed to recharge. I think I can properly take care of Marcus now.”

She knelt beside him. She pulled the sleeves off her pale arms and reached for his shoulders, but he groaned in his sleep, saying something that sounded like, “Oh shit, Kate is going to kill me.”

It didn’t sound like his voice. Kate drew her hand back. “He’s still connected to Daniel. What’s going on over there?”

The ground shifted again, and Julie staggered as she lost her balance.

“Got to get word to Kate. Someone tell her. We need Kate—” Marcus gasped, and he sat up, startling both Kate and Julie.

He whipped his head around, eyes wide, not seeing either of them. Kate grabbed his shoulders. “Take it easy. You’re awake, you’re safe now. Can you tell me what you were dreaming about?”

He shook his head, and then winced, touching the cut on his forehead. “It was a monster, but bigger than Amadeus was before. Daniel — he’s in trouble. He got caught.”

Julie grabbed his hand, her mouth working as she tried to ask the question she needed desperately to know. He stared back at her. “What is it?”

Julie grimaced and let go of his hand, flapping her arms like a bird.

He nodded. “Right. I didn’t see her in the dream. I don’t know where she is.”

Julie didn’t know whether to feel relieved or worried. She looked at Kate.

“Obviously we have to find him,” Kate said. “First, though, you.” She placed her hands on Marcus’ face, an oddly intimate gesture, and Julie found herself looking away.

“Thank you, Lady,” he said with reverence, and when Julie looked again, his bruises and cuts were gone, and he looked much improved.

Kate nodded. “I can find them a lot faster on my own. But I don’t want to leave you two alone.”

Marcus stretched, clearly enjoying a body without pain. “Go. The only threat we’ve seen is what you’re chasing. We promise not to play in the river.”

Julie’s hand clenched around the pebbles in her hand, and she felt vaguely guilty.

“We can follow on foot, don’t worry about us,” Marcus continued.

Kate brushed off her robe. “You will not. You’ll stay here where it’s safe. No offense, but Julie is not in any shape to fight, and I mean either physically or covertly. She’s weak in body and mind, and needs protection.”

Julie frowned and crossed her arms. Marcus nodded at her. “I just said the threat is way over there. I can protect her here from nothing, or go there and protect her, or help you.”

“I’m not having this argument,” Kate said, and shimmered briefly. A small bird, its wings fluttering so fast Julie couldn’t see them, was in her place, and it darted to and fro briefly, and then zipped into the forest.

Marcus swore under his breath. Then he looked at Julie. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken for you. If you’re not willing to seek them out, of course I’ll stay here with you.”

Julie looked at the stones in her hand. Three of them. Ignoring Marcus, she went back to the river’s edge. She stuck her hand in, and pulled more stones from the dirt. Some were large, some were small. More memories assailed her, stronger this time. The tower and the chain, Amadeus and his zealotry. Their strange trip.

“What are you doing, didn’t you just hear what I told Kate? That’s where all this trouble started!” Marcus said, coming up behind her. Julie glared at him, and held her wet hand up to stop him. He paused, his face tense with confusion.

She slipped all of her stones into her left hand and dug with the right until there were too many, and then she put them on the moss beside her. When her memories faded again, she shook her head to clear it, and continued, only more determined now that her theory was proven.

“What are these?” Marcus asked, picking up one of the stones. His face went still, and he stared into the distance.

Julie had reached the edge of a larger stone, deeper in. And then she
realized the stones were sinking into the muck, becoming part of the river. She reached deeper with both hands, tugging the rock. The waters of Lethe swirled around her, pulling her. Seducing her. Why not give up, why not just relax and be blissful and blank forever? She had put too much of her body in the waters. It would be easy. Gentle. She started to tumble forward.

Marcus grabbed her collar and yanked back, and the rock slipped from her fingers. They landed in a heap, her on top of him, back to chest. She wailed, realizing that part of herself was lost to her forever. Marcus’ arms closed around her and she wept, relaxing against him. He didn’t say anything to her, just held her, as the memory of what she lost faded and left only a hole.

“Your memories are the stones,” he finally said, once she had calmed down.

She nodded. “If I’d waited much longer, the river would have had them all.”

She sat up in surprise, realizing what she had said. Or that she had spoken at all. She glanced down and saw a jagged bit of rock in her hand, a piece that had probably broken off the larger one. She rolled off Marcus and scooted over to her pebbles.

She picked them up one by one, smiling at him even though tears still stained her cheeks. “I remember. I remember you, and Daniel and Kate, and my childhood, and the fact that I’m a prophet of Kate.” She named the memories as she picked them up.

Marcus coughed, not meeting her eyes. “What about the one that got away in the river? Do you…?”

She sighed, picking up the last of them, cradling the pile in her hands. “My name, I think.”

“Your name is Julie,” Marcus said.

Julie frowned. “I know that, but it doesn’t sound right to me. I lost the name my mother gave me, all four of them. The hopes she had for me before the gods died and Meridian fell. It’s gone.”

“Then what part of you is still with the crow?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t know what’s not here. I only remember that stone was my name because I just touched it. I’m sure I will forget that soon enough.” She sighed and stared at her hands and the different colors of pebbles. “If I put them down, I’ll lose them again. I can’t just carry these around forever.”

“We’ll figure something out. Why don’t you rest? I can keep watch.” He still had a pained look on his face, and she wondered why he wasn’t happier for her.

She shook her head. “No, we need to find Kate and Daniel. I can help. What did Kate say? I’m an empty shell?” She grinned – it felt fierce, hard. She liked it. “I’m not empty now.”

“But you can’t use your hands without losing those memories, though,” Marcus said. “In a way you’re worse off than you were.”

“I’ll figure something out. We can argue while we walk. Let’s go,” she said. She checked the ground for more pebbles and, satisfied she had all she would ever get, walked into the woods.

After a moment, Marcus followed her.

• • •

The crow hated traveling like a human. But every time she tried to walk, the hot air buffeted her. The monster wasn’t very smart, thinking they would only attack from the air, she thought.

She reached a clearing, but it wasn’t a clearing made by anything natural or god—intended. All of the trees were flattened as if blown by a huge wind. In the middle of the blast, the monster stood, hands raised to the sky, wings stretched up. He looked — well, he looked beautiful. His skin had turned silver, his face beatific. His clawed feet had sunk so deeply into the moss of the forest floor that he looked as if he had connected with the land itself, and his arms reached higher, stretching him, as if he reached for heaven itself.

But this is heaven, she thought, confused. The ground shifted again and the land writhed in pain. She heard a soft chirp, another bird, a hawk in the branches above her. He flew down and landed beside her.

Come back with me. This is too dangerous. He looked at her with his one eye.

We have to stop him. He did this to me.

We can stop him together. All five of us. Come back with me.

The crow thought about the poor shell of the girl she once was. She didn’t want her fighting. No.

The hawk clacked his beak. Then what are you planning on doing?

The crow hopped again into the wind. I don’t know.

That’s just great.

They watched the beautiful monster as it grew toward the sky, its face scrawled with pain and exhilaration.

The hawk looked at the trees that still shielded them, then back at the monster. Oh no. I have to see something, come with me. Fly straight up.

They leapt into the air, but a hot gust caught the crow and she spiraled back, hitting a tree. Ignoring the pain, she desperately fought for altitude. When she cleared the tree line, she saw the hawk climbing high above the monster, intent on climbing, and not seeing the monster take notice of it. The monster smiled. A tendril, like a vine, sprouted from its torso and smacked the bird down just as it leveled out. The hawk fell, pulled down by the tendril. His wings bent in odd angles and downy feathers fell from him like snow.

The crow wheeled in the wind but battled against it. Now that there was enough light in the forest below them, she saw the deep green slowly fading in an ever—widening circle from the monster, who grew slowly in size, his light reaching into the gray nothing that was the sky.

This is what the hawk was looking for. The monster wasn’t reaching for heaven, she realized. He was turning this place into hell.

The hawk struggled under the tendril, but it pushed him into the moss until it was actually burying him. More tendrils came out, most to hold the hawk down as it struggled, but one came after the crow.

She wheeled and dove, away from the monster, flying as fast as she could. The wind finally at her back, she tumbled through the air and fought to gain control so she could ride the wild current behind her. She chanced a look back and it was getting closer. How far could he stretch?

It reached out for her claw, and she tucked it closer to her and dove again, hoping the trees would confuse the tendril.

It worked, the tendril found a branch, twined around it, and pulled the tree from the ground as if it were a blade of grass. The crow darted and dodged through the woods until she had lost the tendril. She came to rest on the ground — safer than a tree — and then saw she was next to the river.

She stared at it for a moment: the horrible liquid that had made her like this, a shattered girl—bird. She then took wing and followed the river south, looking for the clearing where they had stayed.

The humans, the girl and the boy, walked through the forest. The girl held her hands close to her stomach, protecting something.

“So, what do you remember?” the boy asked.

“I told you,” the girl said, sounding irritated. “I know I was a prophet. I’m from Meridian. I know Amadeus imprisoned me. We’re dead, and so is he now, but he’s still hounding me. I remember….” She subsided trailed off and looked at her hands.

The girl held pebbles in her hands. They were different colors, some blue, some green, and some golden. The crow wanted those pebbles. She flew down from the trees and landed on the boy’s shoulder. Both the boy and the girl jumped, and the girl dropped some of the pebbles. In an instant, the crow swooped down to the forest floor and grabbed one of them, the shiniest red one. She flew to a tree and landed, which was a good thing, as the memories that assailed her made her briefly dizzy.

“Oh no, that stupid bird!” cried the girl, gathering up the fallen pebbles.

“Which one was it?” the boy asked, watching the crow in the tree.

“The boy. Adam, I think. I don’t know anymore.” She sounded very sad. “That was the red one. Stupid bird!”

“I don’t think insults will work,” the boy said mildly. “And she’s partly you, isn’t she? Come on, crow. Julie needs that pebble. It’s very important to her.” He pulled something from his pocket and held it up for her. “I’ll trade you! This shiny green one for the red one. Come on, what do you say?”

“Wait a minute, what’s that one? You stole one of my memories?” the girl was outraged.

“I picked it up, wondering what it was. Then you were falling in, and I put it in my pocket and forgot about it,” he said. “I was going to tell you when things weren’t so chaotic.”

“What is that one?” she asked.

“Come on, is there any memory that is more important than the one of Adam?” He shook the pebble at the crow again. It gleamed a strange milky green.

“Who?”

“See, he was so important to you and now you can’t remember. That’s important to you, I promise. Probably your most important memory. This one isn’t so much.”

“They are both part of me,” she said. “I want them both.”

The crow wanted the green pebble. But she was very interested in the pebble in her mouth, though. When her tongue touched it, it tingled and she felt strange and warm, happy and safe. Nothing like she felt here in these monster woods. She wondered if the green one would be the same.

“Come on, little bird, trade with me?”

The crow looked at him, and then her tongue touched the pebble again. She flew down and landed on his arm.

“There’s a good girl,” he said. “Now take the green one and give me back the red.”

Curiosity got the better of her and she placed the red one in his palm. He quickly dropped it on the ground as if it were hot. The girl grabbed it and put it with the others, closing her eyes and remembering. The crow took the green one from the boy and flew into the trees with her prize.

• • •

“I can’t believe you traded my memories like you’re trading for food,” Julie said coldly. It was hard to stay angry because he had given her back the memories of Adam — the notes, the whispered affections, the promises to run away together, and the urge to find him in the afterlife. But she had lost control of a memory and Marcus refused to tell her what it was.

He still watched the crow in the tree. The stupid bird held a part of her now. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“What was the memory? You could see it, couldn’t you? When you held it?”

He didn’t look at her. “It’s gone now. I don’t remember.”

She bristled but hardly could argue, because she couldn’t either. It was one of the first ones she had pulled from the river, but that was all she could grasp. She sighed. “I can’t live like this, Marcus. I’m going to have to use my hands at some point.”

He helped her up, her fingers still tightly clutching the stones. “We’ll
figure something out. But we have to find Kate and Daniel now. The crow is here, not with them, so at least she’s safe.”

Julie glared at the crow, which had flown down again to land on Marcus’ shoulder, the memory still tight in her beak. “Fine, let’s go.”

“She came from upstream.” Marcus pointed. “Should we head that way?”

Julie looked into the woods, where the trees were visibly withering. “I think that’s the way to go, unfortunately.”

The bird cawed, a strangled sound as she still held the pebble in her beak, and took flight again, heading back the way Marcus and Julie had come.

“Hey, get back here!” shouted Julie.

“Let her go,” Marcus said. “She won’t be in danger, that way. Not as much danger, anyway.”

“She’ll probably swallow that rock and my memory will be gone forever,” Julie grumbled.

Marcus’ eyes grew wide. “That’s it. That’s how you keep them with you. Swallow them!”

Julie laughed. “Eat a bunch of rocks? Why would you think that would be a good idea? And even if they wouldn’t make me sick, wouldn’t I, uh, get rid of them later?” She looked down, embarrassed.

“But we’re in the afterlife. We don’t need to eat, or excrete. I’m betting you’d absorb them, and not have to worry about where to keep them! Try it, just one won’t hurt, will it?”

Julie frowned. It made sense, in a twisted way. She took a memory, a simple, small one. Her favorite food, roasted hen, a dish she had tasted three times in her life whenever she was able to steal a bird from Lathe. She could taste it, spiced and juicy, when she put the pebble in her mouth, and she dry-swallowed it, wincing as it went down. But once she swallowed, it didn’t feel like a lump in her throat, it was simply gone. And the memory of roasted hen stayed with her.

“You were right,” she said, wonder in her voice. She took another one and swallowed it, and remembered the names of her friends back in Meridian.

“Come on, you can eat as we go,” he said, and they headed for the desolation, Julie eating her memories along the way.

• • •

Despite her desire to stay with the humans and their wonderfully shiny colored rocks, the crow remembered her initial goal. She flew back to the clearing where the boy’s pack sat next to the embers of the fire. It was harder to use her beak, harder than the fingers she barely remembered having, but she placed the precious pebble in the moss and rummaged her head around the boy’s pack looking for something specific. And there it was. She grabbed the loop of the water skin, no longer needed, and pulled it, flapping and making frustrated noises, until it came free.

It was empty, but plugged tightly with a cork.

Cawing her frustration, the crow pecked at the cork, realizing that every moment she wasted was one more where the gods had to fight without her. She didn’t stop to wonder the ridiculousness at that thought, that two gods needed a little crow to help, but kept poking at the cork, shredding it piece by piece until she was able to pull it free. She upended the water skin just in case and a few drops spilled onto the moss.

The clear drops looked so strange next to the whiteness of the river Lethe, the only water she’d encountered so far in this world. The crow grabbed the strap in her claws and tried to take off, fluttering clumsily. It was hard to carry, she strained several feet, and then landed, discouraged. Then she remembered her pebble, and flew back, leaving the skin behind. She pecked at it, and the wonderful memory came back into her mind, and, reenergized, she returned to the water skin and picked it up, by the skin itself this time so it wouldn’t swing and throw off her balance in midair.

She flew upstream, as fast as she could, savoring the memory and emotions to keep herself going.

• • •

Julie and Marcus stopped arguing when they reached the edge of the trees where the silver monster, thirty feet tall and still growing, continued his destruction of the land. A crater lay next to it, an unmoving hawk in the middle.

“Oh no,” Julie said. “Where’s Kate?”

The hummingbird appeared beside her and blurred, forming the figure of the goddess. Kate’s face was anguished.

“What happened?” Marcus asked.

“He’s nearly killed Daniel,” she said, looking at her lover in the crater. “He’s still there, but he can’t change back.”

“What do we do now?” Marcus said. “Can’t you beat him?”

Kate pressed her lips together. “I can. But the energy needed to destroy him will also take you two and this world with it. I’ve played with huge amounts of power before. Very bad things happen when I do that. Remember the destruction of Meridian? Leviathan City? Yeah, killing a major god leaves a lot of…uh, collateral damage. And like it or not, this jackass is pretty much a god right now.”

Julie saw Marcus wince.

“So there’s nothing we can do? Can’t we even go in and rescue him?” Julie said. “I could try to turn into a crow again—”

“That part of you is already a crow. You can’t access that power anymore until we find a way to get you and the crow back together,” Kate said absently. “But Amadeus is destroying this land, we won’t be able to get out of the Reach if he finishes it.” Her voice was calm, but tears ran down her cheeks and dripped onto the moss, where flowers took bloom in the dead moss, and then wilted as the taint from the monster sapped the life from them.

“Where do we go if we die here?” Marcus asked.

“I don’t know. I could try to make a new land, but I doubt I’d manage. I’m not as powerful as I was. I gave up a lot: first to get to you two, then to travel here,” Kate said. “I thought I’d appreciate losing power, so I wouldn’t fuck up anymore. But it seems whatever I put into this land to create it, Amadeus is stealing. Now he’s much more powerful than me or Daniel.”

Julie frowned and looked at the pebbles in her hand, the ones she hadn’t eaten yet. She wished one of them had a memory of her being insanely clever and innovative.

Her hands closed on the pebbles convulsively, then opened and scattered the pebbles on the ground. “I have an idea. Watch Daniel to make sure Amadeus doesn’t do anything else.” She turned and ran.

Marcus called her name, but she kept running. The memories she had dropped faded from her mind, clearing her head even more, making the idea seem bigger. This was something Lethe couldn’t take from her, because she had learned this after waking up. No matter what she had been in her past, right now she needed the minimal experience she had gained recently.

She sprinted faster, part of her mind remembering that she used to love running, before running was death, before she lost her mind and soul. She dodged the trees and bushes, picking up speed when she saw the shimmer of Lethe ahead.

• • •

The crow damned her new body again and again, wishing she could do more. The land groaned under her claws, not shifting in anger now, but a
dying gasp. She had no time left.

The water skin floated on top of the viscous river. It would have drifted away, but she held it in place by the strap. She couldn’t get it angled so that the river ran into the skin, and she was too afraid of losing what remained of
herself if she tried to peck it to push it underwater.

“We had the same idea,” the human girl said behind her, and the crow flapped in alarm, letting the skin go. The girl deftly grabbed it. She was
panting and smiling, looking more alive than she ever had before. She filled it easily and stood, beckoning to the crow.

She flew to the girl’s arm and dropped the green pebble into her hand. Her face went slack for a moment, then she looked briefly irritated, and then smiled. “That figures,” she said softly, and then swallowed the pebble with a gulp. “Thank you. Let’s go.”

• • •

Julie ran again, hearing the trees crack around her. Limbs began to fall, and she had to dodge them, leaping back or to the side, and once putting on a burst of speed to duck under another one.

“You do realize this is a crazy notion,” she said to the bird. The bird cawed at her, then extended her wings. “All right, less talking, more running. I get it,” she said, and approached where Kate and Marcus were attempting to create a hook out of dead branches to snag Daniel and get him out of the crater.

They looked up as Julie skidded to a stop in front of them, panting. “I’ve got it.” The crow pecked at her ear, gently, but hard enough to remind her. “All right, we’ve got it. We have to get the river Lethe into him. He’ll lose everything.”

“Holy shit. You’re right,” Kate said, her hand flying to her head. She looked up at the monster that towered above them, still concentrating on stripping the land of its power, reaching high and still growing. “The trick is getting him to open his mouth.”

“The trick is getting the water skin that high. We can’t send the crow after what happened to Daniel,” Julie said. “I’m good at throwing, but not that good.”

“We have to distract him,” Marcus said. “Julie, you used to climb the ruins of Meridian, didn’t you?”

Julie nodded.

“Could you climb him if I could distract him?”

Julie looked at what used to be Amadeus. His feet had rooted into the earth like a large trunk, and only his robes remained, bedecked with bark and vines. She nodded.

Kate put a hand on Marcus’ arm. “You saw what he did when Daniel distracted him. This is suicide.”

Marcus shrugged. “It’s suicide either way. One will be faster, that’s all,” he said, smiling wanly. “Let me go before I lose my nerve.”

Kate nodded. “Fine. I’ll grab Daniel when you distract him. Julie, be careful. And remember that we all have more powers than we did when we were human.”

Julie looked at Marcus, who watched Amadeus, his face thoughtful. She walked up to him and kissed his cheek. “Be careful. See you soon,” she said, and then ran off into the woods, but not before she caught his startled glance.

The crow held tighter as Julie wrapped the water skin three times around her wrist, then waited. She saw Marcus walk out into the clearing, stepping over the fallen trees. “Amadeus!” he called. Seeing as she was behind the monster, she couldn’t tell if Marcus had gotten his attention, but she ran anyway and grabbed the vines that made up the hem of Amadeus’ robes. She pulled herself up, and began to climb, her muscles straining, but not as much as she thought they would. These must be those extra skills Kate had mentioned. She pulled harder, and heard Marcus calling Amadeus again.

“You’ve won,” he said. “You’re already the lord of this world. What happened after you tap it dry?”

Julie saw a vine snake out of Amadeus’ robes about ten feet above her and shoot forward out of her field of vision. She heard a crash soon after, and willed herself to climb faster.

He had gotten Amadeus’ attention, but the huge body hadn’t moved yet, aside from the vine. His hands and wings still stretched high, his body ramrod straight.

Another crash, and Julie swore softly. She chanced a look down, and saw Kate running into the woods, Daniel cradled in her arms. One thing down, she thought. But was Marcus okay? She no longer heard him shouting to Amadeus, which might make things difficult once she got to Amadeus’ head. She was about twenty feet off the ground now, and only at Amadeus’ waist. “This is never going to work,” she grumbled.

She shouldn’t have spoken. The vine that had been aiming for Marcus whipped back around to find her. It wrapped around her upper body so fast she had no time to react. It plucked her off the robe and carried her high into the air. The crow flew off her shoulder, screeching.

She heard Marcus call her name, and forced herself to be calm as she was bought in front of the face of her confinement, her nightmares. It was silver; his tree—like self apparently confined to his robe. The eyes had finally focused, staring at her. The face was bigger than she was, and terrifying. Amadeus could swallow her in one bite if he’d wanted to.

“Julie,” he said, the sound nearly deafening her, his breath hot and fetid. “You’ve come back to me. I’ve missed you.”

Julie thought fast. “Yes, and I’m here for you, Amadeus, I love you.” She tried to make the lie as real as possible, her stomach churning in disgust and fear.

He laughed. “I don’t need you anymore, Julie. I loved you. Maybe I still do, but I needed you then, and don’t now. I am this. And you aren’t even fully yourself. What has happened to you, little bird? Why would I need a broken prophet now?” The vine squeezer tighter and she struggled, unable to move her arms.

“You did lead me here, and I am grateful for that,” he said thoughtfully. “I may get lonely after I make this land truly mine. But it seems our physical incompatibility won’t work out in a marriage between a god and a mortal soul.”

Julie barely paid attention to him. She was trying to figure out how to get free so that she could throw the water skin at him, but she was too tightly confined.

“You were always too boring, though,” he said.

“B—boring?” she managed to squeak, mainly to keep him talking.

“Of course. I wanted everything in the world, and you wanted nothing. You had no ambition. You didn’t even try to leave until someone was going to help you.” His hot breath washed his contempt over her. “You would have stayed in that room and rotted, with no attempts to get free at all. You’re not the exciting one, your friend is that. Maybe he should be my companion. But I’ve already broken that toy.”

Julie looked down and saw Marcus sprawled over a fallen tree, unmoving. Blood leaked sluggishly from his mouth.

She choked down a sob and tried to think of a comeback. But her mind was as empty as it had been after Lethe.

“Don’t worry about me, though. I’ll find someone to play with,” he said, and dropped her.

• • •

The crow knew she couldn’t lift a girl. She couldn’t even fly with the full water skin. That didn’t stop her from flying up when the monster dropped the girl. She tried to grab the girl’s shoulders with her talons to slow her fall. They plummeted together, and the crow flapped valiantly, but didn’t make any difference. She finally let go at the last minute, letting the girl hit the ground on her own.

Cawing desperately, the crow circled once and then landed by the girl’s head. The fall had broken her, she lay bloody, unmoving, but amazingly she still lived.

She opened her eyes and saw the crow and smiled, her mouth bloody. “Can’t move,” she whispered. She looked down at her arm, twisted at an odd angle, and saw it still held the water skin.

“Dump it out. Spill it all on the ground,” she whispered to the crow. The crow cocked her head. Why was she saying this?

“Just do it,” she said. “See, we forgot. He’s a plant god now, sort of. He drinks through the ground.”

The crow realized what the girl was thinking, and picked up the water skin, pulling it free from the girl’s arm. She hopped closer to the roots of the monster and dumped the water skin on the ground.

At first nothing happened. Then the ground shifted again, and a crack appeared. The crow felt the land awaken under her. She took flight and chanced a look at the monster’s face. His arms and wings had drooped, and his face was slack. His legs gave out and he fell — to the side, away from her friends, thank goodness — landing heavily on the ground.

The crow looked at the water skin on the ground, and then at the monster, who was slowly shrinking. The goddess Kate stood at the edge of the tree line, focusing on the broken hawk in front of her. In an instant, her lover turned back into a man in long black robes. She ran to attend the humans then.

The crow snagged the empty water skin on the ground and flew to the man. She caught her claws in his robe, and pulled, cawing.

Kate looked up from where she was kneeling over Marcus. “That’s brilliant. Go with her, Daniel.”

The god looked at her with confusion, and then nodded. He ran into the woods, the crow flying behind him.

• • •

Kate stood next to a boy, tall and dark, with a somber, shy smile. She held a crow on her shoulder.

“We have restored most of what we could. I’m just sorry we didn’t realize everything earlier, including your situation,” she said.

“I’m just glad to be alive. Or whatever passes for it. Is — is Julie going to be okay?”

“She is,” Kate said. The crow on her shoulder cawed.

“Does she remember me?”

• • •

Julie woke slowly, eyes feeling sticky and new. The sun beat down on her, which was a novel feeling – the sun hadn’t shown itself in this forest. She licked her lips and rubbed her hand over her face, then realized she could move without pain. She sat up.

They were back at the clearing, Marcus asleep beside her, breathing deeply. Kate slept as well, her head pillowed on Daniel’s leg.

The god smiled at her, putting his finger to his lips. Julie stretched, feeling her limbs strong and unbroken. She walked around the fire and sat next to Daniel.

“What happened?” she asked.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” he said, grinning. “Well, Kate rescued me and used the last of her power to heal me. After your brilliant move to get the Lethe into Amadeus through his roots — wish we’d thought of that sooner, would have hurt a lot less — he started releasing his power. Only like your memories, they belonged to Lethe this time, so the crow and I ran to the river to salvage what we could. We got most of his powers, including what he had taken from Kate and me. She was able to heal you two. We brought you back here to let you sleep to finish the healing.”

“Where is the crow now?” Julie asked.

“I had to help Kate bring you both back here, so she’s helping to get the other stones you left back at the battle. Here she comes,” he said, pointing.

The crow flew in, landing on Daniel’s outstretched arm. She spat a pebble in his hand, and then cawed when she spied Julie. She flew off again.

“I dreamed about Kate,” Julie said, frowning at the sleeping goddess. “She was talking to a boy, another one who’s not here, but they were talking about me.”

Daniel rubbed the back of his head and looked uncomfortable. “Right. These might clear that up for you.” He pointed to a small pile of stones by the fire. They were smooth, white, blue, green, and red.

“I can’t believe she’s bringing them to me. She stole one of them before. But gave it back.” Julie thought for a moment about what the crow had given her and looked at Marcus, feeling strange and calm.

“Anyway, we told you weird shit happens when we actually do something big with our divine powers, right? Well, turns out we made this afterlife out of an actual soul. And that soul is the guy you’ve been looking for.”

Julie blinked at him. “The guy I’ve been looking for...”

“Yeah, he had hung onto your world so tightly because he was waiting for you, so he was kind of floating around when we opened the door. So in our usual manner of flailing about with power we don’t understand, we latched onto him and used him to make this place. Do you remember him? He was the reason you wanted to die. To look for him. You found him, congratulations,” Daniel said, watching her closely.

“I don’t remember,” she said slowly.

“That’s why those pebbles might help you,” he said, pointing again.

She didn’t remember the memories they were supposed to contain, but she remembered the red one giving powerful emotions. She reached a hand out and then pulled it back.

The crow returned, then, and dropped another pebble into Daniel’s hand. He made a face. “This isn’t power, this is a memory of how shitty he was to Julie.” Daniel tossed it back into Lethe. “Good riddance.”

Julie held out her arm to the crow. “I guess Kate wasn’t able to put us together again?” she asked. She kind of wished she could turn into a crow again, even though her brief time as a crow had been full of pain and terror.

“No. We’re fairly sure she’s more of an echo of your personality instead of having anything you’re missing. She might have most of the power of the two of you, because she’s definitely more than crow,” Daniel said, reaching out and stroking the bird’s head softly.

“Maybe she should have part of my personality,” Julie said. “She’s earned a bit of individuality, after all.”

“Dude, that’s a big gift,” Daniel said. “Are you sure?”

Julie reached over to the pile and plucked the red one off the top, making a guess. When the emotions washed over her, she winced and held it out to the bird. “Here, take it. Hurry, please.”

Striking like a snake, the crow struck out and took the red pebble, lifted her head up, and let it slide down her throat. As the memory faded in Julie’s mind, she quietly said good—bye to Adam.

• • •

It was like when the god had fed her the first pebble; the memories and thoughts were much stronger when she swallowed the pebble than when she simply held it. The crow looked at Julie one last time and took wing, cawing loudly, and flew into the woods.

The gods had put much back together, restored the energy to the trees, even righting the blight around where the monster had taken root. But the land was still cracked, wide enough for a person to climb out of it. She sat in a tree and watched until she saw strong arms appear at the edge of the crack, then a head, then a strong back, then his legs. He blinked once and looked right at her.

She flew down and shifted form until she had taken the shape she used to have.

“Julie,” Adam said, smiling at her, his wide smile cementing her memories.

She stepped into his arms and he held her for a moment.

“I’m —I’m not her. Not all of her, anyway,” the words felt odd in her mouth, and they hurt to say. But she had to tell him the truth.

“You’re the only one who knew who I was. The gods didn’t even know. You knew me then. You know me now.” He touched his forehead to hers. “I don’t remember everything from my life. I remember you. Meridian. Not much else.”

She looked up at him and kissed him, and nothing else mattered.

• • •

Julie was standing by the river Lethe when Marcus came up behind her.

“Why did you do it?” he asked her.

She didn’t turn to look at him. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she hoped her voice didn’t shake. “Do what?”

“You gave the crow your memories. I was awake, I saw you.”

“Just one,” she said softly. She remembered giving up the memory, and that it was a painful decision. The memory of what it was, and why she did it, was hazy, but she remembered that it was the right decision for her. “I could ask you why you kept my memories of how I felt about you,” she said.

“You got them back?” he said, sounding surprised.

“The crow gave them to me. Before we fought Amadeus.”

There was a pause. Then he said, “I didn’t want you to have to make a choice. If we ever found A— um, him, you’d have to make a tough decision. I’ve known since the beginning who you would pick, so I thought I would make it easy for you. That way you wouldn’t have to worry about hurting me.”

“It wasn’t your decision. It was mine. And I made it. And I don’t even have the luxury of having your memories to see if you feel the same about me.”

He took her shoulders gently and turned her to face him. “You don’t need stones to know the answer to that,” he said.

“I wasn’t sure,” she said.

He kissed her, hesitantly, softly, and made her sure.

• • •

Daniel and Kate were looking at a map when Julie and Marcus returned.

Kate looked up and smiled at them. “Daniel flew around and got a map of the area. This is officially some other gods’ domain now. The boy Adam has become god of this place, and an aspect of Julie has become the crow goddess, goddess of memories.”

Daniel nodded. “And although they definitely would let us stay here, it’s time to go the hell home. So they gave us a map!” He pointed at an unclear spot on the map to the south. “Here is our exit.”

Julie stared at them. “Me? A god?”

Kate laughed. “The aspect of you that was the crow. You’re still you, as wonderful, brave, and innovative as you always were.”

“So what about us?” Marcus said. “Are we still dead? Do we move on, or stay here?”

“I think Meridian needs you. There’s some wild power to tame in the wasteland, some children who need real leadership and care.” Kate went to each of them and kissed their foreheads. “That is enough to get you back from the dead.”

Daniel then did the same, kissing both of their foreheads. “And that should be enough to give you the, ah, skills to handle the wild power that’s still there. Just be nice to the tinkers when they find out what’s happened. They’re going to be pissed that you know more than they do.”

“Will we still dream of you?” Julie said.

Kate smiled ruefully. “I doubt it. All the power that we got back from Amadeus was used in putting everything back together. We made Adam and Julie— crow Julie, sorry – gods, brought you back from the dead, and gave you some demigod—like power. We’re spent.”

Daniel waved his hand like it didn’t matter. “Listen, we don’t want it anymore. While it was fun to wreak havoc and make worlds and stuff, we’ve had enough adventuring. I’m dying for a cheeseburger, and Kate really wants to catch up on TV shows.” Julie frowned, not understanding. “Never mind. We’re homesick.”

“But the holy writings say your home was destroyed,” Marcus said. “Where do you have to go?”

Daniel rolled his one eye. “All right, we didn’t use up our power on you kids. Turns out if you give up all – and we mean all — your divine power, absolutely every last drop, you can do some pretty impressive stuff. While you guys were out, we got to work with the other two gods here and, well, we’ll see.”

“It may be another land of dinosaurs and one—eyed boys, or it might be home. We won’t know, but we hope we got it right,” Kate said. She stood, brushing moss off her backside. “Anything else?”

“Is Amadeus dead?” Julie asked, the name tasting like spoiled milk in her mouth.

Kate shook her head. “He’s a powerless soul, wandering the forest around here, blank as anything. All of his power and memories were taken either by us, absorbed by the riverbed of Lethe, or given to Adam and the crow. He’s still here, but harmless.”

“Then I guess we are going back,” Julie said, suddenly loathe to leave her friends. “We’ll miss you.”

She embraced them fiercely, first Daniel, and then Kate. Tears pricked her eyes, but she hid her face in the goddess’ shoulder so that her robe would soak them up. Marcus took his turn hugging the gods, and then they stood back awkwardly.

The gods turned south, waving. “Tell awesome stories about us!” Daniel called over his shoulder.

“We will,” said Marcus.

“Wait, which way is our home?” Julie asked, but the gods were gone.

“The south was unmapped, he said,” Marcus said hesitantly.

“That’s not the way home, that’s their home,” Julie said.

“I think it’s anyone’s home. Remember we’re in an afterlife, not a real world.” He looked up and saw the crow sitting in the tree watching them. She cawed once, and flew a few yards ahead and cawed again.

Julie shrugged. “Follow the crow. Seems like as good an idea as any.”

Hand in hand, they followed the crow home.

• • •

As for Kate and Daniel, it was almost as if they had never left.

Almost.

They almost made a world that was right — that was their goal, all along — one without any imprisoned gods or blinded children or wandering Jews and Centurions.

“I missed jeans,” Kate said, fingering the stiff new denim on her thigh as they sat together at a burger joint. “Those robes were pretentious.”

“What’s wrong with that? No one has more right to be pretentious than a god.” Daniel asked. “I missed having two fucking eyes, man.” He waved his hand at his left ear. “Look, Kate! Peripheral vision! I can see my hand!”

Their meal arrived and he dove in. “Damn, I missed good ketchup. Why couldn’t we make a world with decent food? We never got tomatoes right. Not once.”

Kate looked at a newspaper that spoke of the tenuous peace that happened after a very real nuclear scare the previous week. The people of the Middle East, who worshipped the goddess of the stones, had nearly bombed those that followed the pantheon of the god of the land and the goddess of ravens. Zealot followers of the god of wandering were persecuting people they suspected of following the gods who fled.

“I suppose that will never end,” Daniel said, sighing, looking at the television on the wall, where the news feed was broadcasting a riot in the Holy Land of Stones, Arizona. “People have to have something to believe in. And they have to bug other people about it.”

“That’s okay,” Kate said, looking out the window at her home. “Rebirth, memory, cleverness, plants, death, ideas… there’s a lot to believe in. I wish they wouldn’t pray to Amadeus, but we’re done meddling there. As long as they remember they have to believe in people, too, I think they’ll be okay.

“Now,” she said, changing the subject. “Are we getting married or not?”

He stared at her, chewing a French fry. “I was going to ask you in moonlight, probably in an Italian restaurant somewhere. But you’ve ruined it now.”

She laughed. “Daniel, I’ve ruined so many damn things in the past few years. I’ve ruined worlds. I really don’t think asking you to marry me will be in the top ten.”

He looked thoughtful. “It’s going to be tough finding a church to get married in. Seeing as how we believe in all the gods.”

His eyes widened in mock outrage. “Wait a minute. Where’s my ring? If you’re asking, you’d better give me a big fucking stone.”

Kate grinned and slid a small black stone across the table.

Daniel stared at it. “You kept one.”

“Couldn’t help myself.”

He grinned, impressed. “And I thought I was the naughty trickster god. Kate, we screw everything up when we have power. What is this anyway?”

“I don’t know. It’s the last thing the crow brought to me, right before we left. It might be the last dribble of Amadeus’ power. Or it might have come from Julie’s tears that soaked into my robes. I haven’t had the courage to use it and find out. So I thought I’d give it to you. It’s a good reminder of everything we’ve been through.”

Daniel stared at the stone on the table, then looked up into her eyes.

“Yeah, what the hell. Let’s do it.”

MUR LAFFERTY

IS AN AUTHOR AND PODCAST PRODUCER. She has released several works via audio podcast, including her novel Playing For Keeps, the audio drama The Takeover, and of course the novellas in the Heaven series. She’s won the Parsec Award, the Podcast Peer award, The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Author, and the Manly Wade Wellman Award.

Her published works include Playing for Keeps (Swarm), The Shambling Guides I: The Shambling Guide to New York City, and The Shambling Guides II: Ghost Train to New Orleans, not to mention several short stories. She is the host of I Should Be Writing.

Mur lives in Durham, NC with her husband, Jim Van Verth, their daughter, and two dogs.

Twitter: @mightymur

Blog: murverse.com

Stones, The Afterlife Series VI

Published by Restless Brain Media on Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Mur Lafferty

Stones by Mur Lafferty is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Layout by Pablo Defendini.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or dead
is purely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America.

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