The Prey of Gods

by Nicky Drayden

  “In time, you will heal,” she says, so certain.

  But Muzi knows he won’t. He’s lost his best friend, and on the list of things that’ll fuck you up for the rest of your life, that’s got to be in the top five.

  “I have lost, too. But you can’t live in the present if you keep looking back to change the past.”

  Muzi grunts and shakes off her hand. Like he’s going to take life lessons from a girl half his age. What could she possibly know about loss? And yet she keeps talking, trying to console him, when what he needs is fucking silence, time to let all the anger and guilt swallow him whole. Her words rake across his spine, his heart, and then he can’t take it anymore. He flexes that new muscle above his stomach but below his heart, and it reaches out to her mind. He feels the link, a precise movement now, not just instinct.

  “Shut the hell up,” he commands her, heat surging forth in his face.

  Then the sound of her breathing and the whirring of his alphie are all that remain, punctuated by stifled sobs. A bloody tear rolls silently down his cheek, thick, tacky, warm. Maybe that means he’s going to die, too. Good.

  Nomvula’s mind backwash creeps up on him, wrenching him from one agony to the next. There’s an old man being stoned, the sight of him driving a spike of emotion into Muzi’s heart, so intense he can barely handle it. Love. Belonging. Hope. And it’s all washed away in an instant, replaced by a hatred beyond comparison. A beating. A shower of fire from the sky. No survivors, except her.

  Muzi gasps as he breaks free from the vision, pitching forward from the sudden stop in emotional momentum. Nomvula is a killer. Muzi grabs Elkin’s body and scrambles until his back is pressed into the corner. His ragged breathing catches in his chest on every inhale, every exhale.

  “What are you?” he rasps.

  She discards Muzi’s mind link and the enforced silence as casually as used tissues. “You saw?”

  “Yes, I saw. You’re the one who murdered all those people.”

  “I’ve wept for them all, just like you weep for yours.”

  “But I didn’t kill Elkin!” Muzi shouts, so full of anger, of rage—wishing more than anything those words were true. He had killed Elkin. Muzi should have refused that first taste of godsend, should have talked Elkin down, too. He should have stood up for himself in front of Papa Fuzz and ventured into manhood on his own terms. He should have fled the concert arena with Elkin, instead of being so hell-bent on acting like a hero and rescuing a little girl who he’d thought was vulnerable . . . not this monster sitting before him. “You killed him!”

  Muzi flexes his muscle again, this time wrapping his will around her neck. He hears her choking, then his head is slammed against the wall, a pain jacking through his bones like they’re being sheared apart. She’s fighting back.

  “I’m not your enemy!” she gurgles through the darkness.

  But Muzi doesn’t believe her. Either that, or he doesn’t care. Someone needs to pay for what happened to Elkin. Muzi screams through the pain, grits his teeth, tightens the noose. Then his skin smolders as if it’s about to catch fire, burning all over. “You won’t win,” he says, his words dry and sore over his scorched tongue.

  “Enough!” comes a voice, splitting through the gloom like an axe.

  Darkness parts to reveal hints of facial features: a long chiseled nose, pitted brown skin, yellow eyes like Nomvula’s. Muzi recognizes him from her vision. The man stoned to a pulp.

  The pain’s suddenly gone, and so is his grip on Nomvula.

  “Baba?” she whispers.

  “My child,” he says, his words curt, but heavy with the weight of a million lifetimes. Muzi draws himself back to give the man room. “There’s enough fighting to be done without the two of you at each other’s throats.” He extends his arm, and Nomvula scrambles into his lap. “War is on the eve, a war of gods, and I fear it will destroy everything on this earth.”

  “Sydney,” Nomvula says.

  That demon woman, Muzi thinks.

  “Not a demon,” the man says. “She’s my child, too. As are you . . .” He extends his hand out to Muzi who reluctantly takes it. “And the two of you working together have the power to stop her.”

  Muzi is getting a full-on pervy vibe from the guy, but calling “stranger danger” on a wrinkled old bastard who can pass through locked steel doors probably isn’t going to help the situation. Calloused fingers stroke Muzi’s right cheek, his neck, his shoulder—leaving behind a trail of warmth that seeds itself into his skin, his flesh, his bone. A numbingly white light floods the closet, and suddenly Muzi’s drowning in the acuteness of his own senses, the most disturbing of which is the world slipping out from under him.

  Clouds hang heavily in Nomvula’s mind, but she can just make out a figure standing before her. She blinks away the haze and her vision sharpens. She’s staring at a woman—a sculpture of a woman to be more exact—larger than life size, smooth and etched from the trunk of a tree. Mr. Tau’s work, for certain. There’s the swell of her pregnant belly, cradled by one hand, while the other points down a gentle hill. Her breasts full and alert. Those things Nomvula can’t remember, but the face haunts her, and she swallows back her tears. The slope in her nose, the nap of her hair, the sorrow in her eyes. It was her mother, pregnant with Nomvula inside. Nomvula takes a step forward, reaches out to place her hand against the sculpture’s belly, but she’s pulled back. The whole left side of her is paralyzed.

  And white.

  Nomvula lets out a startled scream.

  “Nomvula?”

  It’s Muzi’s voice, but he’s nowhere to be seen. She tries turning her head, but there’s a strange tug that makes it difficult. She blinks a couple more times and notices the forest beyond the sculpture of her mother—a forest of baobab trees with their trunks as wide and round as her old solar well, and their bristly branches and leaves swallowed up by a fog all the colors of a pretty sunset.

  “Muzi?” she says. “Where are you?”

  “Here,” he says, waving his pale arm in front of her.

  She gasps, then brings her hand to her face, pressing over her familiar features, then past her left cheek, where another face starts all over again. Muzi’s face. It reminds her of that goat of Mr. Ojuma’s, born with two heads. It hadn’t lived long, just a couple weeks, but it was the talk of the entire township for months after. She’d seen it once or twice, before it’d gotten too weak to walk, always trying to move in opposite directions. She’d laughed then. Now it doesn’t seem so funny.

  “I think Mr. Tau means for us to work together,” she says.

  “So he puts us in the same body?”

  “He’s very wise.”

  “If by wise you mean a sadistic asshole, then yeah. I agree.” Muzi twists suddenly, angling Nomvula toward another sculpture. It’s Muzi and his friend Elkin, wrestling with their bodies pressed together, muscles rippling through the wood. One of Elkin’s arms is wrapped tightly around Muzi’s shoulder, and the other points off into the forest, the opposite direction that Nomvula’s mother is pointing.

  “Oh, my,” Nomvula says, remembering how Mr. Ojuma’s boy goats would sometimes play like that.

  “Don’t stare!” Muzi shouts, the heat of his cheek warm against Nomvula’s. “I think we’re supposed to go this way.”

  “Well, I think we’re supposed to go that way,” Nomvula tugs the other direction, but stumbles under his force. She drags her heel, and still she can’t stop him. She clenches her stomach muscles, trying to draw upon her powers, but they slip like sand through her fingers.

  “You’re being selfish!” she screams at him instead. She never should have trusted him. Can’t he see how much she’s hurting? Can’t he feel how close to the surface the creature inside her lurks? She can tame it, she knows it. That must be why Mr. Tau sent them here. “Please, Muzi. We have to learn how to stop Sydney. People are in danger!”

  “They can sort out their own damn problems. Elkin’s got to be here, and I’m going
to find him. Even if it takes me an eternity.” Muzi’s words tickle across her lips, closer than they were before. She presses her hand to her face again and feels. The edge of her mouth blends right into Muzi’s, and now they share an eye. She panics. She reaches for something to grab onto so her body isn’t swallowed into his.

  But the harder she fights, the harder his thoughts press up against hers. She feels his obsession. His anger, hatred, rage. He cusses her, his words slurred with the side of his tongue weighed down by hers. She yells right back at him, and when she runs out of words in English, she shouts some more in Zulu. Through the sting of her anger, she feels their hearts merge, a pain like her chest is being cracked open with each beat.

  We’re going to die, she thinks, just like that goat of Mr. Ojuma’s. Not because it was too sick to live, but because the two halves had wills of their own, too stubborn to work together.

  Maybe I want to die, his thoughts bite back.

  You don’t mean that. You’re still hurting. I wish I could tell you that it gets easier, but it doesn’t.

  And what do you know about anything?

  Nomvula takes a deep breath and slowly she stops pressing against his thoughts, allowing him access into her mind. Her grief. He doesn’t wade very far, just five or six years into her childhood—five or six years of neglect, days spent wandering the dirt paths between her neighbors’ shacks, wearing nothing but a shit-stained T-shirt, two sizes too large, begging for a few spoonfuls of yesterday’s pap. Then she’d spend her nights curled up next to her nearly lifeless mother, grateful she could give Nomvula warmth if nothing else.

  Okay, Muzi says softly. Nomvula feels his muscles untense, and she does the same. We’ll go your way first, but you have to promise we’ll double back and go my way as soon as you’re done.

  Promise, Nomvula says. Their lips pull back into a thin smile.

  It takes them nearly an hour to learn to walk without stumbling, but they adapt, maneuvering down the hill, keeping their center of gravity low. In the desert valley beyond, Nomvula sees a band of travelers wearing tattered white robes. There’re thousands of them, all with the same steady step, gazes forward. No one speaks a single word. There’s only the ragged sound of their combined march.

  Who are they? Muzi asks. Their mouths are nearly their own again, but somehow it’s less awkward to think to each other.

  The dead, Nomvula says. She’s not close enough to make out faces, but she feels them. All those people she’d killed in her township.

  Your mother could be out there, Muzi says.

  A chill runs up Nomvula’s spine, remembering those awful words Ma had called her. She can’t. She’s not ready to face her mother yet. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be ready. Let’s go find Elkin. That’s what you want, right?

  Muzi’s arm comes around to her side for a hug. She flinches and tries to wiggle loose, but he holds her tight. It’s hard, I know. What she did to you was beyond horrible. But if you don’t deal with it now, it’s going to eat you up inside forever. I’ve seen how tragedies can scar people. This doesn’t have to destroy you. Maybe that’s what Mr. Tau wants you to know.

  “We can find her,” Nomvula says. “If that’s what I need to do, I’ll do it.” Her voice is wavy in her throat, but that’s the sort of thing she needed to say out loud to make the rest of her believe. And with her words, the bees awaken. The familiar itch breaks out between her shoulder blades, and her wings slice through her back. Muzi startles, then spins around. “Ag, man. This is bladdy sick.” He flaps the wing on his side. Nomvula does the same to hers. His thoughts are further away now, but she still feels his anxiety over the thought of flying. It’d taken them an hour to learn to walk, after all, and that’s something Muzi’s been doing his whole life.

  “Follow my lead,” Nomvula says. They get a running start, then she flaps her wing, long, steady strokes. They wobble for a moment, but Muzi matches her after a couple beats. They rise up into the air until the dead are as small as ants. In the distance, Nomvula’s eagle eye sees the dead heading for a cliff that drops off into a mournful sea. Gray waves swell, not waves of water, but of souls crashing against one another, arms and legs and heads cresting and falling. A knot gets stuck in her throat. Nomvula stops flapping, bracing herself against the breeze, and they soar, swooping down as fast as gravity will let them. They buzz over the dead, her eye peeled, looking for that familiar face, and it’s not until they’re nearly to the cliff’s edge that Nomvula finds it.

  Mama’s face is ashen, eyes sunken like twin moon craters with a gaze just as distant. She has that same tortured look as the rest of the dead, but it doesn’t bother Nomvula one bit. It’s the look her mother has worn for as long as Nomvula can remember.

  The dead plunge over the ledge, dozens at a time. A few of them step into the air, stares focused forward, keeping one foot in front of the other as if they’re walking over a pane of glass. The ledge on the other side awaits them, an oasis of greenery and sweet, red fruit Nomvula can smell from here. On this side, there’s desert . . . cracked dirt and the occasional yucca sprouting stamen as big as a man, or overgrown agave with broad, wide leaves tipped in purple barbs, threatening to cut flesh like a serrated knife.

  “Hurry,” Muzi whispers to Nomvula. His thoughts are the same as hers, and they both know that Nomvula’s mother isn’t going to be the air-walking sort.

  Nomvula positions herself closer and nearly gags on the sourness of her mother’s breath.

  “Mother!” Nomvula calls out. She doesn’t turn, doesn’t even notice that Nomvula said anything at all. Nomvula’s mother gets steadily closer to the cliff’s edge. “Mother, I forgive—” Her voice quavers, not with anger, but with shame. She can’t bring herself to say those words, not in this lifetime, nor the next. Nomvula turns away as her mother is only steps from plunging into the sea, but then she hears a rasping voice above the crunch of footsteps on parched earth.

  “I’m sorry,” the voice says.

  Muzi and Nomvula spin around, catching a glint in Nomvula’s mother’s sorrowful eyes as one foot steps over the ledge. Nomvula finds herself hoping against hope that she’ll find her footing midair to cross the vast emptiness to safety, but she goes, down, down, down, and plummets toward the sea. Nomvula lurches, and like instinct, Muzi flaps his wing as they swoop over the lip of the cliff, then glide down, pulling their wings in close to their bodies, gaining speed. Below, waves of the dead reach up with soulless eyes and gaping mouths and loose, pale skin draped over skull and bone.

  Nomvula reaches for her mother. Their fingertips touch and Muzi maneuvers, angling to wrap his arm around the woman. Then he starts beating his wing, and they slow, but don’t stop. There’s too much weight, both the physical kind and the emotional kind. Nomvula’s so tired of being angry. She’s just so, so tired that she stops flapping altogether, and they begin to somersault down toward the waves.

  “Keep your mind clear,” Muzi shouts, his wing flapping hopelessly against the air. “I can’t do this by myself! We’re a team, remember?” And with that, they slip farther apart. Nomvula winces at the rattle their ribs make as bone pulls from bone, and the tearing and knitting of flesh as their torsos become their own again. Both wings are hers now, as she and Muzi remain attached only at the hip.

  As they fall, Muzi reaches out to the cliff’s sheer surface. Rock scratches and scrapes at their skin as Nomvula makes a weak attempt to slow their descent. Muzi grabs at the leaves of an agave that’s made purchase in the slightest of ledges. He yelps as the plant’s barbs plunge into the meat of his palms. The roots hold, even as Nomvula’s mother lands in the wedge of their torsos. But the way the dirt is crumbling all around the plant, they won’t hold for long.

  “I wish I could have loved you like you deserved.” The woman wraps her arms around Nomvula and squeezes tight, and then she throws herself back, her body tumbling into the surf below.

  Grief overwhelms Nomvula, and her wings stop beating as she reaches out. The p
hysical weight is gone, but her emotional weight . . . it presses down on her so hard, she can’t even catch her breath, let alone fly. The tether between her and Muzi snaps, and they become their own persons again at the exact wrong moment. Then Nomvula begins the drop that will reunite her with her mother.

  Muzi feels Nomvula slip away from him. He shifts his weight, then slaps his hand around her forearm, clenching tight. “Grab on to me!” he shouts, sharp agave teeth cutting deeper into his grip as he tries to hold on with his other arm.

  “Mother!” Nomvula says.

  Muzi wants to help her. God, he wants to help her, but they need to get airborne, or they’re going to suffer the same fate. Mr. Tau wanted them to learn to work together, and they’d done that, their cooperation loosening their bond to the same body. It was like one of those Chinese finger puzzles. You can try to force it apart, pulling with all your might, and you’ll get nowhere. But if you reverse the action, fingers coming together, working together, then the solution is easy. Only now, Muzi doesn’t want to be apart. If she can’t fly them out of here, he’s going to have to do it. And he knows it’s going to break his heart.

  The words foam up in his throat, tacky and bitter. “No one will ever love you, Nomvula,” he says.

  She looks up at him startled, the gold of her eyes surrounded by bloodshot whites, like a hundred tiny bolts of red lightning.

  “Your mother doesn’t love you. Sydney doesn’t love you. Mr. Tau doesn’t love you.”

  She bares her teeth, curses Muzi’s name in a low growl, and only stops as their arms begin to fuse together. She shrieks and pulls away from him, her jarring movement causing the dirt around the plant’s roots to shift. “Let go of me!”

  The pain in her eyes makes Muzi want to cry, but he has to stay strong. He pauses, no longer seeing the powerful being before him, but a fragile, vulnerable little girl. His words are like weapons in his mouth, they pierce through her skin, sink right into her tender heart. His words could destroy her in the most inhumane way. The words gather in his throat, he could so easily gulp them back down, but instead, he steadies his nerves and takes aim. “You know it’s true! Why else would he send you here? He wanted you to see your mother get swallowed up into the sea. He wanted you to hurt.”