by Ramy Vance
“More than what?” Jean asked.
“Kami Subete Hakubutsukan is referred to as a gallery, but that is a quaint term for what it actually is. Make no mistake as to what it is: a prison. A prison for items of power and for creatures too evil to be allowed to exist and too powerful to kill. The Three Who Are One are but three creatures housed in those halls.”
Keiko hadn’t called Kami Subete Hakubutsukan a museum, but a “gallery.” I thought about that word, and I remembered that gallery didn’t always have the artsy, benevolent meaning it does now. Back in the day—my day and before—they used to call a zoo a gallery. And before then, prisons.
The noro eyed me as she spoke and I saw guilt painted on her face. She wasn’t aiding me because once upon a time I had saved her grandmother, Blue. Nor was she helping me because I had a legitimate claim to my soul. She was playing another game altogether.
I thought about the lock she’d given me and how she had instructed me not to enter, but rather get to the threshold and lock the museum’s doors forever. Her gamble was about preventing creatures with legitimate claims from entering. As in, ever.
“The gleipnir chain,” I said. “It wasn’t meant just to keep things out of the museum … it was also meant to keep everything in.”
She nodded.
So the noro had foreseen the danger of creatures like myself—creatures with legitimate claims—entering the museum and exiting with … I don’t know, how about immortality granted by the Golden Apple or Dionysus’s thyrsus, an item so powerful it was said that a scratch from it would drive one insane? Or how about Jack’s Lantern? As in, the actual lantern used by the first soul condemned to wander Earth. It was legend that its light could destroy shadows.
And I’d screwed it up by going all rogue and entering for my soul.
“Who else is inside?” Jean asked.
“The Erlking, Azazel and the Kraken, to name a few.”
“Holy guacamole,” I muttered. Of all the bad in the world, those were probably the top three on the Other Watch List.
Lazlo shook his head in disbelief. “All this time I thought it was but a place of magic only …”
“That was by design,” Keiko said. “Imagine if the elements of the UnSeelie Court who worshipped the Erlking knew their master lived. And what’s more, that he was in the halls of Kami Subete Hakubutsukan? The place would be under constant bombardment from wayward Others looking to free their masters.”
“OK, but if that’s the case, how did all these Others know about the rising of the gods?”
“The same way any god rising to power delivers their message: Heralds.”
“Heralds?” Jean spat the word like it was sour milk. “You mean those blind dorks who always seem to show up with the nio guardians?”
Keiko nodded. “Heralds … would-be prophets driven mad by the words that gods whisper into their ears. To most, they seem like raving lunatics, but to those who know—to Others who know—they are revered as what they truly are: prophets.”
“And what was Gabriel’s legitimate claim?” I asked. “He’s inside, right? Why does he have the right to enter when no one else does?”
Keiko shook her head. “I do not know.”
“OK, history lesson aside, we’re still no closer to a plan.”
“I think we are,” Jean said. “I think we do the Queen Bee strategy.”
We all looked at him blankly.
“What? Not Animal Planet fans? The Queen Bee strategy: when a colony is destroyed and they need to set up camp somewhere else, the bees swarm around the queen bee, protecting her at all cost, while moving her to a new location. In this analogy, you’re the queen bee and this army, well … you get the point.”
“You realize that you just called me an insect whose sole purpose is reproduction.”
“I called you a queen,” he said. “But regardless, we launch an offensive here and cut through the center.” He pointed to the section of the map with the Mongolian death worms. “I saw that there were several ijiraq in camp—they should be able to neutralize the worms. Once we’re past this threat, we break off with two units playing linebacker defense and cut through here. There will be a lot of resistance, but once we make it to this point, we can use the confusion to break away. Just the two of us.”
“How endearing,” I said. “Will you hold my hand, too?”
“Cute, but pay attention.” He set his finger to two points near the hotel. “If we can get to here undetected, I can get you in.”
“How do you figure?”
He pulled out his tricorder. “Remember the tracker you left in the hole? It also has a sonar blip to it, for exactly this kind of infiltration.” He showed me the screen where several caverns twisted beneath the earth, leading to the tracker. “This location should be close enough that your magical arm map will actually show something. This is our back door in, and once you’re in, you do your soul magic stuff and bada bing, bada boom, we’re done.”
“In other words: get me back to where I was to finish the job,” I said, jibbing at Jean’s very chivalrous and completely unnecessary saving of moi.
“Again, sorry. And again, spilled milk. Lazlo, how long until your troops are ready?”
“We will be ready to attack at midnight.”
“There you go. We have a plan,” Jean said, looking at his Mickey Mouse wrist watch. “So in two hours …” He paused, and I saw him mouthing numbers to himself before his eyes widened. “Shit,” he cried out. “Get down! Someone is burning time.”
As the words left his mouth, a banshee manifested. The creature must have been invisible the whole time, listening in on our plans.
The banshee let a shriek that could have been heard on the moon. What followed were several more shrieks and explosions. The Others were attacking.
So much for our plan.
Cry “Havoc!” and Let Slip the Others of War
With lightning-fast reflexes, Jean pulled out his Ka-Bar and sliced open the banshee’s throat. GoneGodDamn, I thought, he’s fast. Faster than I am now. Maybe even faster than I was as a vamp. The banshee’s screams abruptly stopped, the shrill, piercing noise replaced by the gurgling of green blood as she tried to continue her scream.
Jean may have been fast, but she had delivered her message and the advancing army had been poised for action. Immediately, explosions rang throughout the camp and as we ran out of the tent, a friggin’ fireball exploded just feet from the entrance. Thank the GoneGods for my smallness, because had I been a couple inches taller, that lower crest of the ball would have singed my impeccably beautiful auburn hair.
“So much for your Queen Bee tactic,” I yelled at Jean over the noise of the scene.
“I don’t know,” Jean said. “Look.”
He pointed at Keiko, who had pulled out her sword, raising it above her head like the valkyrie warrior she was—like the leader she was. Keiko was issuing orders and gathering the troops into some semblance of order. Her words cut through the chaos, and the surprised Others went from shocked and easy prey to a coherent, collected fighting unit, cutting off the advantage of the advancing army much earlier than expected.
The storm giant at the marquee leapt into the air and grabbed onto the ankle of a red dragon. Blue energy and red fire coursed out of them as they unleashed their fury. Giant vs. dragon, lightning vs. fire … I got my fight, and it was horrific. All I could see were two magnificent creatures of ancient lore and legend killing each other for the belief that their purpose mattered more than the other’s.
Lazlo whistled for Pegasus, who flew in from only the GoneGods knew where and the leshy jumped onto the winged legend’s back. “Go. We’ll do our best to shield you until you are out of the camp,” he said, taking to the sky where three aswangs met him.
The leshy swung his wooden club, knocking two out of the sky before the third one bit down on his neck. Reaching behind him with his free arm, he peeled the creature off him. The aswang took chunks of grass-green flesh and bl
ood with her as she plummeted to the earth. “Go!” he screamed, touching his wound. “Go while you can.”
“Damn it,” I yelled as Jean threw me a shotgun.
Then, darting into the thick brush of the forest, the two of us ran away from the danger of the camp and toward the greater threat of rising gods and their fanatical servants.
I believe this is exactly what they mean by “out of the frying pan and into the fire,” I thought.
It must have been one of my out loud thoughts, because Jean chuckled. “Hellelujah.”
End of Part 3
Part IV
Charon
Witnesseth the Ferryman
Charon has carried many from the battlefield to the next life, but he has never been in a battle himself.
Nor has death ever been a threat. But now he finds himself in the midst of a battle unlike any he has ever seen. Others fighting Others—not for their gods, but for something far less defined. To claim a future for this world that neither side can clearly see.
Invocations of offensive magic fill the air with a low but pervasive thrum of death. Others fall. A giant leaps up to bring down a red dragon. The two had embraced in deadly battle, only for both to succumb to the finality of life.
Death is all around him, all the more evident in the streams of red and blue and green and yellow blood.
He watches in horror as a jinni bleeding smokeless fire pierces the heart of an angel who bleeds light; a dusty puff of brown blood seeps from a dying dwarf; a dead ice dragon drips crystalline stalagmites.
Charon feels their lives leaving them, their essences escaping the mortal coil only to go nowhere. Once upon a time, he would have chaperoned them all to the next place. But in a world where there is no next place, all he can do is watch helplessly as more and more life fades into nothing.
The sensation is overwhelming and Charon falls to his knees, scurrying away on hand and foot. You would think that a reaper such as he would not be frightened by death, but all Charon feels is fear.
Fear, not only for his own death—certainly that is there—but fear for the GoneGod World. For even if the fighting were to stop, how does the world heal from something as terrible as this?
Charon cowers behind a large sycamore tree. He waits. For what? He is not sure. Perhaps he is waiting for the fighting to stop. Perhaps he is waiting for an Other or a human to find him and end his suffering. Perhaps he is waiting for something else entirely.
Then he feels it: that one lost soul that refuses to fade away, but rather cries to be guided back into the body it once possessed.
A living soul that seeks its living host.
And when he sees the young girl from the hotel run into the forest beyond the camp, he knows what he is waiting for.
He knows why he is here.
Not to escort the many fallen to the Land of the Dead, but rather to guide one soul back to life.
Watch How They Run
As we broke through the line of trees, I expected to see a net of Others trying to block our way. What I didn’t expect was every last one of them who’d been positioned to stop our advance being taken down by the arrows and spears from our side. Turning, I saw Keiko pointing her sword in our direction. It looked like we were going to make use of Jean’s Queen Bee strategy after all.
Two pterolykos, with their white wings and wolf-like bodies, followed us into the forest and I stopped running for a long second to see where Keiko was. She was still on the field, her back facing the forest. She wasn’t going to join us in our quest, but rather stay behind and face the assault of the approaching army, guiding her own troops against the onslaught.
Like I said: one hell of a leader.
“You coming?” Jean said, unloading a round into the tree above him. A second later, the red body of a yara-mah-yha-who dropped to the ground.
I growled as I ran after Jean, leaping over the unconscious red Australian vampire and moving deeper into the forest. The pterolykos were right behind us, providing cover while some of the more “floral” Others stalked us. I’m talking hill trolls, dark elves and pixies.
Granted, pixies didn’t seem that dangerous, but they were pack hunters who had centuries of experience using their smallness to their advantage. Think Gulliver and you’ll get a sense of their tactics.
Still, Jean and I were running so fast with the pterolykos behind us that none of them really slowed us done. We were making great time, and at this pace we’d be at the hotel in a matter of minutes.
But we weren’t going to the hotel, were we? We were heading toward Jean’s secret passageway west of the hotel. But every time we adjusted course to head there, inevitably something would happen to force us toward the hotel.
We weren’t lucky or good—the Others on Team Three Dead Gods were herding us toward a trap. Jean must have come to the same realization as me, because he abruptly stopped running.
“We’re fuc—” An arrow flew so close to his shoulder that it took lint as it sailed by. Jean didn’t even flinch. Rather, he threw out his arms and screamed, “Shoot me! Come on—an arrow right here should do it.” He put a hard finger on his forehead. “Or here.” One over his heart. “Come on.”
The larger of the two pterolykos drew close to Jean. “What are you doing?” he growled, scanning the forest for more marauders.
Jean ignored it, focusing on a point in the treeline.
I didn’t. “They’re herding us. They won’t kill us. Well, they won’t kill me and him. You guys I’m not so sure.”
“Humph,” the pterolykos spat.
“Go back—help the others.”
“But the noro priestess—”
“—told you to help, and you’ve done that. You’ve done all that you can. They will kill you. They won’t kill us.” I focused on where Jean was looking. “At least, not right away. Isn’t that right?” I screamed. “Come out, come out wherever you are.”
Three baba yagas appeared at the point we had been fixed on. Their camouflage had been so good that it looked like they had simply manifested out of nowhere.
The pterolykos lifted his bow, but I put a hand out. “No. There’s no hope for you here. The only reason you’re not dead is because they don’t want to aggravate us. But that courtesy only works up to a point. Go. There is nothing you can do for us now. Please, just go.”
The pterolykos hesitated before lifting his arm straight up and letting out a mighty roar. He turned away to rejoin the fight on the beach.
↔
Jean and I walked to the lead baba yaga, who guided us to the hotel with respect and honor. Now that our intentions to follow were clear, they saw no need to harm us. They wanted us to follow them to the hotel to … what? Have a pow-wow? Discuss the meaning of life now that three gods were coming back?
One thing was blatantly clear: for guys who wanted to help the gods rise, they didn’t get the memo that I was a threat. Kind of made sense, though. The gods communicated to the Heralds through dreams and delirium. Not the most reliable line of communication, and if the message got muddled—as it often did when gods spoke to mortals—then as far as they were concerned, I was just the girl with the map.
I was also the girl who had a legitimate claim to enter the museum. For all they knew, I wanted the gods to return.
But the danger was far from over, because whatever or whoever they thought we were, these guys were smart enough to ask questions first, kill later.
And “kill later” was almost certainly on their to-do list.
The Boys in Black
They took us to the camp where the zen rock garden had become a hell of a lot less zen and a hell of a lot more prisoner-campy. A large, makeshift pen housed all the Others who had either fought against those who worshipped the Three Who Are One, or who had simply come to the Celestial Solace Hotel for a holiday. Either way, no one was in five-star accommodations anymore.
From the ground, the view of the place was a lot more real than it had been from the satellite pictur
es. And seeing Harry and Aki—bloodied, bruised, but intact—filled me with both relief and sadness. Neither of those Others deserved what was happening to them and by the GoneGods, I would do everything in my power to make this right.
My two battered friends gave me slight nods as their hopes I’d rescue them were dashed by me being brought through all tied up.
The baba yaga presented us to a friggin’ angel who sat next to two Heralds, both of whom were humans in their characteristic robes with that thousand-yard stare in their dazed eyes. I recognized them from the alleyway and our fight with the nio back on Okinawa.
From the way the three of them sat, a position of prominence hadn’t been given to any one of them. Rather, they sat around more like an elder council. And given two of them were insane, this trip was turning out to be a bit more progressive than practical.
“Welcome, welcome,” the angel said, light literally beaming out of him. He looked like a glow-in-the-dark figurine, his white skin and wings reflecting the little light the moon offered. Up close, I saw that he was an ordinary angel—not an archangel, seraph or cherub. Up in Heaven, this guy would have been a worker bee whose primary purpose was worshipping the Big Guy in all the forms He took.
Jean took a seat in front of the council. “The name’s Jean. Jean-Luc Matthias—and before you say it, I know all about the missing Mark, so let’s skip it. And you are?” He gestured at the angel.
“My name does not concern you,” the angel said. “But for simplicity’s sake, you may call me Daniel. After all, he was the first of your kind to mention one of my kind by name. And given how much He was into letting you talking monkeys do all the naming, it’s only fitting.”
