by Dixie Lyle
“Eli said you already know everything you need to. Just trust your instincts.”
I’ve been asked to do the impossible before. I have been tasked with finding fresh organic strawberries in January and a size nineteen tuxedo in Tokyo. I’ve fielded demands for wasabi-flavored jelly beans, the original lightsabers used in the first Star Wars movie, and the president’s phone number. I may not always have succeeded, but I’ve always done my best and I’ve never given up.
But negotiating an armistice between two feuding Divine Felines with absolutely zero preparation? That set the bar to another level entirely. I mentally cleared my schedule for the next available Wednesday, which I planned on spending wailing, beating my head against my bedroom wall, and shaking uncontrollably. But until then …
I grinned. “Bring it on, mother—”
Which is when I was interrupted by a lion leaping at me.
In the real world—whatever that means—being knocked down by a four-hundred-pound carnivore is usually a prelude to being eaten. Here, it was apparently how they said hello.
“Hello,” said the lion. I was flat on my back and he had a massive paw on each of my shoulders. Oddly, he felt like he weighed almost nothing.
“Hi,” I replied. He wasn’t full-grown yet; his mane was still coming in. His large, golden-brown eyes regarded me with more curiosity than malice.
“Are you food?” he asked.
“Definitely not,” I said.
“Oh. Well, you’re not a lion.”
“I know. Can I get up now?”
“Sure.” He took his paws off my shoulders and sat back on his haunches. “If you’re not food and you’re not a lion, what are you?”
“I’m a human being. Like him.” I jerked a thumb at Ben, who was watching the exchange with interest but no alarm. “Mostly.”
The lion spared Ben a glance, and then a sniff. “You smell kind of like a bird. And kind of like a storm.”
“I’m a Thunderbird. And no, I’m not food, either.”
“Oh.” The young lion sounded a little disappointed. “Well, it was nice to meet you.” He bounded away in the direction of the acacia trees, just as abruptly as he’d appeared.
I got to my feet. “Well, that was … weird. He didn’t even know what species we were.”
“Don’t be so humanocentric. Lots of animals go their entire life without encountering a human being. And some lives are shorter than others.”
I had the feeling there was more to it than that, but I had too many other things on my mind to pursue that particular line of questioning. I shaded my eyes with one hand against the hot sun and peered in the direction the lion had run in. I could see the glimmer of water beside the trees. “I think I see a watering hole over there. Let’s walk that way before we get run over by a herd of wildebeest or something.”
So we did. Neither of us was really dressed for Africa in what I assumed was eternal summertime, but—much like the weight of the young lion—it didn’t seem quite real. I looked down, and my feet were leaving deeper footprints in the dust than they normally would. I was from another, less ethereal world, and didn’t belong here. I hoped there was enough oxygen in the air.
As we walked, Ben told me some of what Eli had relayed to him in their exchange. As a Thunderbird, he could move from one astral plane to another without using the graves as portals, unless the ruler of the realm decided to prevent him from entering.
“You’re a natural negotiator,” Ben told me. “You don’t need to know the history and politics and personal details of these entities in order to deal with them. In fact, Eli said that would work against us; we need to use our guts, not our heads.”
“As long as I don’t wind up wearing them on the outside,” I muttered. Eli may have had faith in me, but I wasn’t convinced the two big cats would feel the same. At least we only had to deal with one at a time.
But that didn’t mean there was only one present. Oh, no.
As we neared the watering hole, I saw lions sprawled at the base of the acacia tree, relaxing in the shade. Many, many lions. If a group of lions is normally called a pride, then this was, at the very least, an overconfidence. Possibly an arrogance.
The thing was, everything was on a much bigger scale than I first thought. The watering hole was more like a lake. The tree? It made a redwood seem like a sapling. And the lions it shaded—all female, I noted—numbered in the hundreds.
At the base of the tree lay Apedemek.
He was much larger than the other lions, of course. Also the only male. And, of course, his mane was on fire.
But the really weird thing? The whole arrangement felt familiar.
I tried to figure it out as we walked up, and suddenly it hit me. I’d had a short-lived gig when I first started out with a somewhat notorious country singer. He liked three things: booze, groupies, and guns. His preferred method of relaxing after a concert was to surround himself with all three and then hold court on the king-sized bed in his hotel suite. My job—other than procuring the booze—was to make absolutely, positively certain all the guns were unloaded and that no ammunition could be found within a thousand yards of the hotel room. It wasn’t a job I did for very long, but nobody ever got shot while I was doing it.
This felt exactly like that, just without the booze. I wasn’t sure if that would make things harder or easier—but I was about to find out.
Ben and I stopped about twenty feet away. Apedemek was obviously expecting us, but he just stared at us with heavy-lidded eyes, as if he couldn’t really be bothered to wake all the way up.
“Greetings, Apedemek,” I said. I wasn’t sure what the protocol for addressing a god was, but I wasn’t going to start by bowing and scraping; people in positions of authority are used to identifying the status of others quickly, and they tend to file you in their head largely based on first impressions.
He stared at me without speaking. Then he turned his head ever so slightly, to indicate he was looking at Ben. When he spoke, his voice was the rumble of a freight train. WHICH OF YOU IS THE THUNDERBIRD?
“I am,” Ben said. To his credit, his voice stayed firm.
Apedemek turned back to me. WHO ARE YOU?
“My name is Foxtrot.”
WHY ARE YOU HERE? ARE YOU HIS HAREM?
Hoo, boy. “No. I’m here to help you and Waghai Devi arrive at an agreement.”
ARRIVE? WHERE IS THIS PLACE THAT SHE AND I AGREE? IT MUST BE A FARAWAY LAND INDEED.
“Maybe not. It might be a lot closer than you think. I’m here to lead you there.”
AND WHY SHOULD I BE THE ONE TO TRAVEL?
“Because you’re the mightier, of course. You should arrive first. Waghai Devi will follow in your shadow, as she should.”
Okay, that was a little transparent, but I had to test the waters. The smartest guys on the planet will sometimes respond to the most blatant stroking of their egos, even if they know exactly what you’re doing. It’s kind of hardwired in there.
The lion god stared at me for a second, then roared—with laughter. HA! YOU ARE AS SLY AS A LIONESS STALKING A GAZELLE. BUT I AM NO CUB. COME, LET US SPEAK OPENLY.
“Fine by me. I really am here to help resolve this situation. How can I do that?”
BY TALKING THE SUN FROM THE SKY AND COAXING THE RIVERS TO RUN BACKWARD. BY MAKING THE MOUNTAINS FLOAT LIKE CLOUDS. BY MAKING A FLEA KING OF THE WORLD, WITH ALL THE BEASTS BOWING DOWN BEFORE HIM.
“That bad, huh?”
INDEED.
Well, I do enjoy a challenge … “Look, I understand that neither of you can back down. But even when things look impossible, there are solutions. If I were to talk all day, the sun would eventually set on its own, wouldn’t it? So that’s one down already.”
AND THE REST?
I thought for a moment. “Well, rivers run backward all the time. They must. Otherwise, the oceans would fill up and overflow.”
He didn’t reply, but he gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. It might have been amu
sement.
“Make mountains float like clouds? Easy. Look at a mountain’s reflection in a watering hole. The clouds will be above and the mountains below.”
He snorted, but I didn’t stop—I was on a roll. “And the flea is already king of the world, for is he not on top of all creatures? And in their attempts to dislodge him, don’t all animals writhe and prostrate themselves?”
I looked Apedemek in the eye, and waited.
YOU ARE CLEVER, LITTLE ONE. BUT CLEVERNESS ALONE WILL NOT SOLVE THIS PROBLEM. I REQUIRE THE SOUL OF THE LIGER AUGUSTUS, AND SO DOES WAGHAI DEVI. TELL ME, WHAT IS YOUR ANSWER TO THIS PUZZLE?
“Well, it’s a three-part process. First, I talk to you. Then, I talk to her.”
AND AFTER THAT?
I smiled. “After that, a miracle occurs.”
I SEE. He nodded his mighty, flaming head. THEN YOU ARE NOT HERE TO CONVINCE ME TO GIVE UP MY CLAIM?
“Not at all.”
GOOD. I WAS GOING TO EAT YOU, BUT NOW I’M CURIOUS TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS IF I DON’T. YOU MAY GO.
And that was the first round of negotiations.
* * *
We walked back out onto the veldt. I was eager to leave; the whole place had an unreal, unfocused feel, like being in a dream or maybe a cartoon.
But when we stopped, Ben didn’t raise his hands and whip up a whirlwind. He just looked at me and smiled.
“What?” I said.
“You did pretty good.”
“I kept us from being eaten. I don’t know if that qualifies as ‘pretty good’ or ‘barely adequate.’”
“You were great. And look at this! Look where we are! We’re—”
“Someplace we don’t belong. Can we just hit the astral highway, please?”
He shook his head, but he was still smiling. “Okay, okay. I just—thanks, all right? Thanks for stepping up when I was clearly out of my depth.”
“No problem. And you’re right—we are someplace pretty amazing. I’d take the time to enjoy it if I hadn’t just had another huge helping of responsibility dumped on my plate.”
“Yeah, you’ve got a lot going on. Sorry to add to that.”
“Not your fault. But if you’re looking for a nice birthday present for me this year? I’d like a twenty-fifth hour in the day, please. Something between three and four in the afternoon would be nice.”
You know how some men just have this devilish grin that pops up from time to time? I swear that grin is some kind of gremlin that leaps from man to man, and has only two goals in its entire existence: to make women go a little weak in the knees, and to give its host bad ideas.
Ben was wearing that grin right now. My knees were okay, but that funny little tickle in my stomach told me I wasn’t exactly immune.
“Maybe I can do something about that right now,” he said. And before I could respond, he lifted his hands and the air began to spin around us. Lightning crackled and arced and danced.
Just like last time, everything outside the vortex seemed to get farther away. But unlike last time, the landscape wasn’t replaced by another getting closer; no, what happened was that that it got darker instead.
And then the ground dropped out from under my feet.
“AAH!” I yelped. I was falling—
Except I wasn’t. I was floating.
The crackling vortex encircling us expanded, the wall of wind and electricity receding into the distance, no longer linked to Ben’s hands. The illumination it cast was gradually replaced by a million points of light overhead, stars in a night sky all around us.
Underneath my feet was a thunderstorm.
It went on forever, stretching to the horizon in every direction, an endless black-and-gray cloudscape sculpted from cauliflower and brain coral. Lightning rippled and leapt beneath the surface in jagged forks or brilliant sheets. It was brilliant and impossible and mesmerizing.
I looked over at Ben. The devilish grin had been replaced by the self-satisfied look of boy-impresses-girl-and-knows-it. Well, he had.
“Where are we?” I asked. “I’d say we were somewhere in the upper atmosphere, except I’m not freezing to death or having trouble breathing.”
“Where are we? We’re—home, I guess. This is a place only Thunderbirds can go. I don’t know much about it, except that coming here felt perfectly natural. It was one of the things Eli told me.”
“It’s … well, spectacular. But why are we here?”
“Because of something else Eli told me. Time passes differently in the astral realms, Foxtrot. In this case, it’s not really passing at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this is your twenty-fifth hour. We can hang out here as long as we like, and when we go back to reality it’ll be the same time as when we left.”
I blinked. “So what do we do while we’re here?”
“Nothing at all, Foxtrot. That’s the point.”
Nothing at all. It was an idea that was hard to wrap my brain around. You can throw ghosts and gods and drug thugs at me and I’ll adapt on the fly, but the idea of an unplanned vacation was bewildering. The ground under my feet may have disappeared, but my wheels were still spinning at a hundred miles an hour. It was just how I was built.
“Take a deep breath,” Ben advised. “Relax.”
“Sure. I can do that. No problem.”
Easier said than done. Even when my head hits the pillow at night, I’m still making lists and worrying about the next day. And the next week. And the next month. I closed my eyes and tried to make it all go away.
No more time pressure. The word imminent is now meaningless. I’m here and now and no place else.
But I still have to talk to Waghai Devi and figure out how to finesse Apedemek and what the hell do I tell ZZ and Shondra about Abazu—
I opened my eyes again. Gave Ben a nervous glance. He seemed perfectly at home, his legs bent at the knees and his feet straight as if he were perched on an invisible branch. Like a bird.
“No good, huh?” he said. “Afraid of heights?”
“Heights don’t bother me. It’s more like I can’t turn my brain off.”
“Maybe I can help.”
He drifted closer to me, apparently just by thinking about it, then behind me. He put his hands gently on my shoulders. “Ouch. These aren’t muscles, they’re rocks. I think I’m getting a contact migraine just by touching them.”
“I don’t get migraines. I don’t have the time.”
“Uh-huh.” He started to rub the base of my neck with both thumbs, very lightly.
I snorted. “You call that a massage? I’ve got knots in there that would make Popeye cry.”
“Easy there, tough gal. This is supposed to be therapeutic, not a fight to the death between your trapezius and my opposable digits. Just let me work for a minute, okay?”
“Hmmph. Yeah, yeah.”
So I let him attempt the impossible with his puny, sadly outmatched thumbs. And I found myself floating facedown and stretched out, staring at the storm beneath me as he massaged my shoulders and neck.
It was the lightning, oddly enough, that actually let me loosen up. The flickering patterns were hypnotic, a constant, ever-shifting, low-level pulsing of light that never flared into the dramatic. It felt more like watching the neurons fire in a planet-sized brain than looking at a gigantic storm, and my own thoughts started to slow and drift like they were clouds.
And yeah, okay, the massage was pretty good, too.
He had strong hands. And he had that touch a good masseuse has, the ability to sense how tight a muscle is and how much force to apply to it. Too much and it’s painful; too little and it’s frustrating. You need enough pressure that it starts to hurt … and then a little bit more.
A really good masseuse will cause his subject to produce a noise somewhere between a moan of pleasure and a groan of pain; I call it the mcgroan. The mcgroan is entirely involuntary, and sometimes a little embarrassing. It’s like saying “Ouch!” and “Oh, God, don’t stop
,” at the same time.
I didn’t even realize I was mcgroaning until he stopped.
And I stopped.
He pushed on my right shoulder, very softly, while pulling on my left. No, this wasn’t some clever chiropractic move—it made me rotate like a chicken on a spit, spinning slowly around so that I was staring up at the stars instead of down into the storm. I bet every masseuse alive wishes they had a table that could do that.
And then he kissed me.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ever been kissed by a supernatural being while floating between a thunderstorm and sky full of stars? After a really good massage?
Yeah. Me neither.
It wasn’t our first kiss, but it was the first time he’d kissed me. And last time hadn’t gone all that well, due to him being extremely distracted and me reading his signals all wrong.
This time was better. Lots and lots better.
Okay, maybe I wasn’t entirely prepared. But I wasn’t entirely caught off guard, either; anytime a guy brings a woman to an exotic, secluded location, part of her is thinking He totally brought me here to make out.
And sometimes, we’re even right.
The kiss went on for a while. I’m not sure it was the best one I ever had, but it was definitely the most memorable. A kiss that makes you feel like you’re floating is one thing; one that happens while you actually are is something else.
But—me being me—I started to think about other things. Like what happened when the kiss was over. I mean, in the real world there were beds and bathrooms and toothbrushes and birth control; here they still hadn’t gotten around to gravity. If things progressed, what was I going to do with my clothes? Hang them on the nearest star?
Which is why, when the kiss was finally over, I looked at him for a second and said, “Um.”
“Um?”
“I’m sorry, that didn’t come out quite right.”
“I usually rate better than an Um.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“It’s not like I was expecting a Wow or a Yee-haw. But an Um? I feel a little let down.”
“It’s not you. It’s … here.”
He glanced around and then smiled. “I thought it was pretty romantic, myself.”
