by A. Sparrow
Instantly, it began to grow. Wendell didn’t even notice until an inch thick stem had wrapped around his ankle. He tried kicking it away but his foot remained firmly planted to the ground.
“You little bitch.” His pen disengaged from the Hashmal’s tag and swung towards Urszula’s head. Urszula glared with a nuclear intensity as the sapling surged up out of the ground, wood flowing upward like a geyser. A branch knocked Wendell’s arm off-kilter just as a shock wave burst from the tip of his pen, denting the turf beside Urszula’s head as if an invisible cannonball had hit it, the blow intended to crush her skull had it been on target.
The wood rippled and bulged, enveloping Wendell’s flesh like one of those strangler figs that murder larger trees in the Brazilian rain forest. It was like one of those old nature documentaries with the stop-action, time-lapse photography, hyper-accelerated, years of growth compressed into seconds.
The bole lifted Wendell’s feet off the ground. I lunged over and yanked the pen from his hand just before he was lifted beyond my reach. His face, barely visible now through a knot hole that was squeezing shut, was pinched and furious.
“You fuckers,” he croaked with what little breath he could muster. “I’ll hunt you down on the other side. Don’t think I won’t. I ain’t resting till—”
The knot sealed shut, snuffing Wendell’s last threat. One shiny shoe fell to the turf as his toes became completely encased in burl. All that was evident of Wendell was a bulge ten feet up the trunk of the still growing tree, leaves toothed, its bark smooth and gray—a beech.
The scorpion, paralyzed from the moment the tree attacked Wendell, now collapsed, forming a large junk heap beside the smaller pile that had been Billy.
I knelt down and brushed the hair from Urszula’s brow. “You okay?”
Her lips curled in a faint smile. I could see some of that thirteen year old girl in her if I didn’t look too closely into her world-weary eyes. A smear of dried blood curled down from corner of her mouth. The scythe blade still pinned her shoulder to the grass but I didn’t dare remove it. Who knew what arteries were severed?
“It … does not matter,” she said. “I am done with this place. I am ready to go back home.”
“But that might be … to the Deeps.”
“That is alright with me. It is … a familiar place. I know how to be comfortable there.”
“You’re not gonna die,” I said. “There’s no reason. Help’s coming. Do you hear it? And … you’re not bleeding nearly as bad as Ellen.” The realization made my stomach sink. How much time had gone by since we had last seen Ellen?
“You forget,” said Urszula. We were dealing with a Frelsian. Do you think he would create a scorpion without venom?”
Sirens wailed close. An ambulance was almost on scene. My gaze was drawn to the press box where Ellen lay.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t you dare move.”
Urszula smiled up at me, palm tucked under chin, perfectly relaxed as if she were lounging on a picnic blanket without a care. How could she be so happy? I clambered up the concrete steps to the press box.
Meg was gone, her lashings all shredded on the floor of the press box. Ellen lay all limp and cold, the life all gone from her eyes. I crumpled to my knees and sobbed.
Chapter 44: Olivier’s Will
Ellen’s death was entirely my fault. To think of all the ways it could have been prevented. If we had avoided a showdown with Wendell and I had done his bidding. If I had ditched her and Urszula and gone off on my own, taking on Wendell mano e mano. Any other path would have led to a better result than the one I chose. Why did I always make the worst possible decisions?
Nothing I could do about it now. True, nothing was irreversible in this universe, not even death, but I couldn’t help her if I didn’t know where she had gone. I certainly wouldn’t find her in Root or the Deeps. She had liked living. Those places were reserved for suicides and other criminals of the soul.
I had no desire to stick around Dartmouth and face questioning from the public servants currently screaming to the scene. What could I tell the cops that would make any sense to them? How could they possibly believe the truth, that all of this blood and destruction derived from a disagreement between a drug lord, a homeless kid and an assassin with one foot in the afterlife? What would they think about the hundred foot beech tree swaying in the breeze in the middle of the soccer field? Let them figure it out.
I saw that gun gripped in Ellen’s hand and had to fight off an urge to take it and shoot myself in the head. But I didn’t want to die. Not anymore. I did want to return to the Deeps, but I intended to dictate the terms.
I buckled down and closed my eyes, focusing my will like a laser on that one goal. I don’t know whether it was the sheer intensity of my anxieties or mere luck but somehow I found traction. The world spun. I swapped existences with a surety and ferocity that I had never managed before. And this time my sword made the trip with me.
I knew I was back in the Deeps when my tears went dry and all the warmth sucked out of my body. I couldn’t move right away, between feeling torn up about poor Ellen, and worried about what was going to happen to Urszula. Not to mention, I was freaked about how Karla had reacted to the sight of me. But I needed resolution. I had to find her again, explain myself, apologize for whatever I had done to disappoint her.
No one noticed me lying there among the other dropouts. I finally roused myself, got up and got my bearings. A man was trying to strap on the abandoned wings of the Seraph. All that fine webbing, those guy lines and pulleys, it looked like some impossible machine da Vinci might have sketched.
Their owner lay shriveled in the dust, though few marchers lingered to gawk at the murdered Seraph. A greater spectacle thundering down from the heights had drawn their attention. The Horus was on the move, creeping slowly but inexorably into the depression.
Most of the horde had rushed up slope to meet it, but a significant minority were content to wait and let it come and take them. A few souls with second thoughts had hightailed it up the other end of the depression, escaping to the plateau. These late-blooming infidels would be welcomed I’m sure by Lady An.
I wheeled around looking for Karla. I found Olivier first, his shredded body leaned up against his precious ‘egg,’ its surface etched with hexagonal facets that seemed sharper now, better defined. It seemed to be pulsing.
Brian, his legs shattered legs, lay beside him. His eyes were closed and he was singing or praying softly under his breath. Karla and some other woman, their backs to me, stood arm in arm watching the Horus slide down the hillside. At its current rate of creep, it wouldn’t be long before it reached us.
Brian’s eyes popped open as I approached. “You brought metal,” he said. “How?”
“I don’t know. It was just something I had with me.”
“That’s not ordinary steel,” said Olivier. “Can’t be.”
“Whatever, guys. It’s just a sword. Didn’t do shit for me over there.”
My eyes clung to Karla, taking in her finely sculpted shoulder blades, the subtle arch of her elegant neck. She had to have heard me talking. Why didn’t she turn around?
My gut tightened as I waddled closer, hesitant and diffident. Olivier’s sharp eyes tracked me, a wry grin building on his lips.
“What is wrong with you? Can’t handle a little drama? The slightest bit of friction and you leave?”
“It wasn’t … my doing.”
Karla finally turned around, mouth agape, eyes so wide.
“James!” She slipped away from her friend’s support, took one gimpy step towards me and collapsed into the dust. She peered up at me from all fours, eyes pleading. “Please! Don’t go yet! I promise I’ll be nice.”
I went over and helped her up. She clung to me like a monkey. I kissed her forehead, her cheek, her lips. Her skin was dry and leathery and tasted like dirt. I sensed some tension in her, some resistance. She did not return my affections.
&nb
sp; “Why did you go?” she whispered, her face pressed against my chest.
“There was some heavy stuff going down on the other side. But I think I really botched.”
“Always … you always have something more important to do on the other side … whatever side I am not on it seems.”
“No. It’s nothing like that. And besides … what’s the deal? You said you didn’t want me here.”
“I never said I didn’t want you. I was mad that you came for me. I thought you had died. That you killed yourself to come find me here.”
“I would have. If that’s what it took. But no. As far as I know I’m still alive.”
“For how long? The Horus will take you now if you stay. So now you should do. I am glad you came. But you must save yourself now.”
“No. I’m not leaving you. Do you know how hard it was to find you?”
“Then you shouldn’t have tried.”
“I made a promise. You made me … promise.”
“But I was just babbling. I was desperate. I was dying and scared.”
A shudder went through her body.
“Well, I’m here … for now. However long that will be.”
“You need to leave before the Horus comes.”
“Don’t you … don’t you want me?”
“Yes,” she said. “But not if you have a chance to save yourself. Not if you have to waste your chance of living.”
“It’s not a waste.” I held her closer, and kissed her again and again she kept her lips firm and unyielding, but she still clung to me tightly.
The Horus had plowed into and was already harvesting souls from the leading edge of the horde that had surged up the incline to meet it. But the skirt of blowing dust surrounding the core obscured exactly what was happening to them. We heard no screams, only truncated shouts of excitement. I took that as a good sign.
Karla’s female friend looked at me and smiled awkwardly. She teetered on a mangled foot, little more than a dry sack of loose bones.
“James. This is my friend Amy.”
Amy gave me a shy little wave. “Heard a lot about you.”
“You guys know Brian and Olivier?”
“Please,” said Olivier, rolling his eyes. “This is not the time for social niceties. These are to be our last moments in the Deeps … if we’re lucky.”
“I’m not ready for this,” muttered Brian.
“You don’t have to come with us,” I said.
“Yeah, right. You might have noticed. I ain’t exactly ambulatory.”
“We can get someone to help get you out of here,” I said.
“Nah. What the fuck. I mean … whatever. I had a good run here. It wasn’t gonna be the same with Taro gone.”
“Maybe your friend is one the other side,” said Amy.
“If there is another side,” said Brian.
“Looks like we have company,” said Olivier, gazing over my shoulder.
I followed his eyes to the rim of the plateau where some folks who had reconsidered their commitment to the Horus had fled. A Hashmal and his Protectors were laying into the deserters with their staffs and clubs, cracking heads and limbs with abandon.
“That’s Junger up there,” said Karla. “The angel who hurt me and Amy.”
This Junger was a big man, who carried a massive club and had an enormous bow strapped to his back. There was something familiar about the way he carried himself.
“I’m pretty sure that’s the Hashmal who tagged me.”
“Tagged?” said Karla.
I showed her the smoothed off stub of the arrowhead protruding from my sternum.
“Oh my,” said Karla. “I thought that was just body decoration.” She ran her fingers over my shoulder. “Your skin … the gray … it’s coming off. You are pink underneath.”
“Well, that’s because … like I said. I’m not dead. The gray is all for show.”
Her eyes flared. “Please James! Run! I don’t want you to die. There is no reason to give your soul to the Horus. Save yourself while you have a chance!”
“Karla, no. If the Horus doesn’t get me, the Protectors will.”
“You have your sword. You have the craft. You can fight your way out. Now go!”
She tried to peel away from me but I refused to let go of her.
“Karla. Enough! I’m staying and that’s that. Jeez! Give it a rest, will you?”
“Such a waste. I just want you … to have a life.”
“Listen. I’m exactly where I want to be right now. I’m going with you, wherever that happens to be. We’re gonna be together for a change. No more separation. Got it?”
She relented, resting her chin on my shoulder.
The outer winds of the Horus began to buffet us, splattering us with grit. Oliver squirmed around, positioning his body in front of his precious egg, protecting it from the Horus. The thing was bulging, straining at the seams, looking like it was about to hatch or explode.
Junger and his cronies went about their work, what I took to be standard protocol when hordes contacted the Horus. They were brutally efficient in mowing down and immobilizing strays and deserters. None escaped their net. Some who had fled reconsidered their prospects and came slinking back to the horde.
The logic of this place was becoming clear to me. The Horus was not anything holy, nor was it a portal. It was just a massive trash compactor. Conning these masses of unworthy souls to join the pilgrimage simply made the harvesting of souls more efficient. Like leading unwitting lambs to slaughter. But Junger was less a shepherd than a superintendent of a spiritual landfill, tasked with concentrating and eliminating all of this mobile human trash.
What made this collection of suicides and miscreants think they deserved better from this universe? They had rejected the investment the powers-that-be had made in them, opting instead for death. What made them think they had a right to any further existence?
The storm was close enough now that a cloud of debris obscured the shape of the Horus, rendering its core invisible. A roar shook the ground. Vibrations rattled my bones, harmonizing with Brian, who sang his last song cycle with abandon. I couldn’t help but hum along under my breath.
The Horus skimmed the leading edge of the horde where the healthiest and most fanatical of the pilgrims had jockeyed for what they thought was a prime position. But they were being punked. In its typically cruel fashion, it curved around the bulk of the crowd, arcing over to us, the battered and broken, the stragglers and dropouts, gifting us the last laugh.
“I wish … I wish I could cry,” said Karla, quaking in my arms.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be okay,” I said, reflexively, even though I expected that once the Horus it us we would cease to be altogether. But Karla harbored no delusions.
“These moments we have left … they are our last,” she said. “All that we will ever have. All there will ever be for us.”
“It was worth it. Just so you know. All I ever wanted was to find you. To be with you again. And I did. All I wanted was to be with you. The rest … doesn’t matter.”
A tear, a real one, formed in the corner of my eye and instantly froze. A small miracle. I had no idea I was capable, that this dusty and withered shell of a body held any liquid.
A huge feathered shaft came flinging out of the haze and slammed into Karla’s back, passing through her soft parts and into my belly. The force of it staggered us, but we did not cry out, or even flinch. There was no pain, no blood. We were skewered together like hunks of meat on a kebab.
“That son of a bitch!”
I glared through the haze at our distant tormentor. My anger surged to a white-hot glory, stirring the forces contained within me. I raised the sword high above our heads, but just like had happened at Dartmouth, my power could find no outlet.
“What is this?” She ran her fingers along the strange, glassy fletching.
“Junger. The bastard tagged you … us … with an arrow.”
Neither of us made a
ny effort to extract it. Junger had done us a favor. There was no way the storm could tear us apart now, not that I had any intention of letting her out of my arms. We would face the Horus as one.
“This is it, James,” said Karla, clinging to me tightly as the core of the Horus bore down on us. “You should have never come for me, but … but I’m glad … I’m glad you did.” She buried her face against my shoulder.
“Everybody stand back,” said Olivier. “It’s show time.”
I looked up. “Stand back? Why?”
There was a ripping sound behind us. Olivier, grinning like a demon, came squirming and writhing through the dust like an injured worm, trailing his wrecked torso. His egg expanded upward like a jumpy house inflating, doubling its dimensions with every outward pulse.
“What the hell?”
“Better get a move on,” said Brian, dragging himself along with his powerful arms, as if he were swimming in the dust. “This is gonna be big.”
As he passed Olivier, he reached out and gave the man a firm tug to slide him along. Amy hobbled over and latched on to us for support. We lurched away from the rapidly expanding dome.
Just as the Horus had begun to accelerate, it abruptly slowed as if sensing, fearing Olivier’s object. But mass and momentum made it impossible to stop quickly enough to prevent it from plowing into the now house-sized dome now growing like a fourth stage lung tumor, creating new hexagonal facets along every seam, spitting out buds that also began to grow as they bounced and rolled past us. Some, lighter than air, floated into the Horus, captured by its wind.
“What is this?” said Karla. “What kind of spell craft?”
“Not mine,” said Olivier, beaming like the proud father of a newborn. “It comes from the old lore of the infidels. Ancient, in fact. It took a long time to build and I’ve been waiting a long time to unleash it.”
And then it happened, an event that made the multitudes of souls in the myriad hordes chasing after the great dust storm reconsider their firmly held beliefs, at least for a moment.
***
The outer sheath of the Horus slid over us, kicking up a thick wall of blowing that peppered our faces and bodies like a sandblaster. The humming core, glowing golden, came into view, consuming a few stray buds from Olivier’s monstrous egg. They popped with dull but powerful reports and they continued to burst as the core barreled forward unimpeded.
