Salt and Silver

by Anna Katherine

  I draw the circle. I drop the blood. I say the words. And nobody says anything. Roxie sits facing the new island; Christian sits facing the old Door. Ryan drifts between the two, and I am a hub in the center with Stan.

  I am getting really hungry.

  When Ryan passes me next, I grab at his pant leg. Lamia leather, let it be known, is super-slippery. I end up catching at the lioness instead. Her fur is rough on top, but my fingers dig in and I find a kind of softness under it. Is that normal for lions? I have no idea. She looks at me, and does this giant rumbling thing which I think is actually a purr.

  Ryan shivers.

  “What is it,” he asks. He’s looking at Roxie.

  “I’m hungry,” I say.

  He sighs, and drops down beside me. The lioness curls around him, but close enough that I can keep scritching the top of her head. “No,” he says, “you’re not.”

  “I am,” I say. “I totally am.”

  “Me too,” Stan says. “But it’s weird.”

  Neither of us knows what to say to that, except maybe Do you feel like rending us limb from limb and drinking of our soiled flesh? That is awkward to say, and might make Stan feel bad.

  “You might be hungry,” Ryan says at last to Stan, “but you’re not, Allie. You can’t get hungry here. It’s all in your head.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “I am hungry,” I say, “and I am tired of not knowing what is happening. There are rules that I am breaking, and not on purpose either, and that is making me very cranky. I want to help, dammit, but I can’t if you won’t tell me anything!”

  “I—” Ryan looks over at Christian, whose spider is skittering its legs up and down the rock, up and down the rock. Ryan shoots a frustrated look at me. “Roxie will tell you. I have to go for a moment.”

  Sure she will. But Roxie is apparently listening, and maybe she doesn’t hold a grudge, because she stands up from her view of the lapping waters and comes over to our side.

  I slide my sunglasses up on top of my head. Roxie watches me. I hate to admit it, and I won’t ever say it out loud, and I will deny it if asked even under blood oath, but she was right. I need a hat.

  “So tell me what I don’t know,” I start with, which proves I win at conversational gambits.

  Roxie shrugs. “There’s not much. When it comes to fighting, odds are we know more than you do, so let us handle it. Don’t let yourself and Stan get bunched together, and not just because we need you—he’s a werewolf now. And if you see a god, ask it for help. Nicely.”

  “But why am I asking for help?” I reply with exasperation. “No one has told me the worst case scenario yet!”

  Roxie frowns thoughtfully, pulls out her knife, and starts drawing spirals into the dirt in front of her. “There are a lot of ways for the world to end, chère. Some maybe we can do something about, some we really can’t. Some ways were meant to be, and we can’t change them. The world ending in fire and water—that happened once in California about a hundred years ago. The Doors started closing, then disappearing. Ruined the balance of things but good. Hunters from all across the country came to that, and fought the Doors open again. And this was back before any fucking loa got in the way of a hunt.”

  I am imagining rows upon rows of leather-clad hot-ties marching in tandem. With shotguns. And salt.

  “Now,” Roxie continues, “the other end of that, is the world ending in earth and air. And there’s no hunter trick that can fix that. When Doors open, and open, world without end . . . like Christian said before, that’s god territory. Nothing human can fix that, and maybe nothing human should.” She sighs. “But we’re hunters, and that’s what we do. Which is why we’re in Hell, looking around for any gods who might be able to change fate. If fate needs changing, anyway.”

  I am trying to pretend that we just did not have the scariest conversation of my life. “So we’re just going to wander through Hell dimensions forever?”

  “Yes,” says Roxie. “That’s the idea. But we’re hoping to talk to a god or something just as useful before then.”

  “Okay, you guys, seriously, are we really in a Hell dimension? Because this is a little elaborate for a practical joke.” Stan is smiling, but it’s pretty weak.

  “Shut up,” says Roxie.

  I am trying really hard not to agree with her silently, because what if I tell him to shut up with my mind and he does, forever? I just can’t be responsible for anything else in this lifetime, okay? I can’t take on anything else. Not ever.

  “Look,” I say, and take a deep breath. Calm. Calm. Calm. “Look,” I repeat. “I’m not trying to piss you off. I’ve done that enough times today. But wouldn’t this be easier if we had more of a plan than ‘wander through Hell dimensions waiting for a god to contact us and tell us what to do’?”

  “Absolutely,” Roxie tells me. She draws little spirals on the ground between us with her knife. “But what kind of plan could we have? We’ve never done this before.”

  “Most of us, anyway.” Ryan is back, and settles closer to me. “Allie, you’ve come the closest to going through a Door before this of anyone I know. Who lived to tell about it, anyway. Most people who touch a Door have their soul sucked into it and turn into a demon.”

  His lioness is back. sat waves. “Great,” I say. “Could I still turn into a demon?”

  Ryan nods. “With what you’ve been doing lately, definitely. But at any time any of us can turn into a demon.” He glances over at Christian, who is still clicking quietly by himself. “Looks like Christian’s already started.”

  I look over at Roxie, shocked, but she’s looking down. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.” He pulls out his own knife and starts crosshatching Roxie’s spirals. Maybe this is what hunters do for fun.

  “I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought,” I say. “I don’t think I believed you when you said that souls can be sucked out and people can turn into demons.”

  “You should’ve believed me. I don’t lie,” says Ryan, and Roxie snorts.

  “Sure, cher.” She looks over at me. “You know enough not to summon Doors. That’s all I’m going to say about that. I don’t know what all we’re supposed to be doing here. But if Narnia says it will help—”

  “Narnia talks in riddles.” Ryan rolls his eyes. “If she were less of a pain in the ass, that might be less annoying, but—”

  “I doubt it,” says Roxie, and rolls her own eyes. “Stupid bitch.”

  Ryan’s lioness moves, shifts her weight so that she’s leaning against me. I lean to the side, against her. She’s totally solid, and huge, and comforting. She yawns. I yawn, and I don’t mean to.

  Roxie yawns too. I read somewhere that serial killers don’t yawn after other people do, because group yawning is an empathic response. Points for not going to Hell with a serial killer?

  “You sleep with me,” Ryan says, and I think he’s talking to Roxie because he’s looking at her.

  There’s sleeping now? I don’t care if she’s not a serial killer: “No—I don’t want to sleep by myself.” I know I sound childish and whiny, but I do not want to sleep by myself in a Hell dimension, oh my god.

  Roxie looks at me like I’m a baby, which I know I am to her. “You’re sleeping with Ryan,” she says. “I’m sleeping with Stan.”

  “Ew,” says Stan, and Roxie pinches him.

  “Shut up,” she says. “You’re not my type either.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out slow. I feel a lot better knowing that I’m going to sleep with someone. “You’d better not dream crazy,” is all I say, “because if I wake up screaming, I’m going to have to punch you.”

  “That’s okay.” Ryan yawns big, like how the lioness did. “You punch like a mundane.”

  “I hate you,” I grouse, but when he opens his coat, I hesitate for a minute. I smell bad, like blood and sand and sulphur. There’s ash in my hair from Kur. I’m sweaty from the lava.

  “Come on, Allie,” he says in a low voice. “It�
�s okay.” Like he knows what I am thinking or something.

  I crawl into his arms. My coat is still on me, and it’s sticky from sweat, but this is nice.

  I know I keep saying “nice” when I talk about the little things Ryan does, but it is nice. It’s nice to be protected. It’s nice to know you can protect someone else. I’ve got my arms around Ryan, and even though we sort of hate each other right now—the kind of hate you feel for someone you know can make you feel something that’s not hate, do you know what I mean?—we’re going to stand by each other. I can feel his weapons down his back, the guns replaced with iron and obsidian.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to Ryan, my face in his neck, and his face in mine. I wrap my legs around his hips and settle into his lap, and we lean against his lion. It’s not comfortable at all, and I’m not tired, but I’m slipping into sleep, softening into him.

  “Don’t do it again,” he says to me. His voice is raspy. “I like you human.” That is possibly the most romantic thing he’s ever said to me.

  His heart thuds against mine, and I’m asleep.

  I wander through a field of grass, freshly cut. It smells wonderful, like spring, and there are stars overhead.

  “Ryan worries, you know,” says a deep voice. I turn around, in a complete circle, but there’s no one there.

  “Who’s there?” I call.

  “You know me. I am the goddess of Babylon, the goddess of courtesans, the goddess of—”

  “Um. sat?” I guess.

  I hear a snort that sounds just like Ryan’s, and suddenly the voice is a lot less O-So-Powerful. “Ištar. And rest your head, child, you have nothing to fear from me. I prefer lovers, and my lovers a bit more . . . a bit more.”

  “Thanks. I think.” I sit down on the grass. It’s damp. I lie back to look at the stars. There’s no moon, and I don’t recognize any of the constellations. Not that I would anyway, but maybe I could pick out the Big Dipper.

  I can feel a hand on my forehead, stroking the top of my head, but when I twist around to look, I can’t see anyone.

  “Do you know my story?” Ištar asks me.

  “No, I don’t know anything about you,” I say apologetically.

  “I went through a Door, a gate with a lion on it to bar the entrance of anyone who would dare confront Ereshkigal, the goddess of the underworld. But I was prideful and thought I could have anything I wanted.”

  Sounds like my friend Amanda, I wanted to say, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “Yes, very much like Amanda . . .” The hand on my forehead pauses, then continues stroking. “Ereshkigal let me through the six gates of Hell, but at each gate I had to take off a piece of clothing; that’s why I’m naked now, always. Once I was through, she—that stupid cow—imprisoned me and killed me with sixty diseases, and no one on Earth could have sex anymore.”

  “That sucks for them.” I turn over and rest my head on my hands. Ištar’s not-really-existing hands are cool against the skin of my neck.

  “Finally the other gods were annoyed enough that they demanded Ereshkigal sprinkle me with the waters of life, and I came back to Earth, at each gate receiving my clothing back. But still I always feel naked now.” She heaves a deep sigh.

  “Ereshkigal sounds like a bitch.”

  “Well, I breached her domain. Surely if she were to breach mine, I’d act much the same. And yet . . .”

  “And yet,” I prompt, when Ištar doesn’t seem to want to keep going.

  “And yet I never did get what I came for in the underworld.” Her hand tightens on my neck. The waters of life came from the hand of the Kalaturru, a sexless thing made by my father. Find that hand. You will get what you’ve come here for.”

  I put my nose in the dirt and smell it. It smells wonderful, like life.

  “What did you come for?” I ask.

  “I came for the love of my youth.” She sounds amused. “But if you ask Ryan, he’ll tell you what the others think, that of course it was to take over the realm of the underworld and cement my position as the most powerful goddess in Babylon.”

  “Don’t you want to be the most powerful goddess?” I ask.

  “What’s more powerful than love?” she replies, and her voice is lighter now, her touch on my neck lighter.

  “I don’t know,” I mumble into my forearms. “I don’t even think I know what love is.”

  I wait for Ištar to answer me, but there’s only silence, and then the smell of the deep earth is gone, and all I can smell is Ryan, rich and heady.

  “Ryan?” I mumble, and he pulls me closer. “Ištar’s weird,” I slur.

  “Shh,” he says, and we move together to turn onto our sides, my head tucked into his neck.

  When we wake up, Christian is where we left him, and Stan is rubbing his arms, and Roxie is humming as she looks across the waters.

  We’re lying down, Ryan and me, and I’m curled up next to him. On my other side is the lioness, keeping me warm. But I’m still stiff from sleeping mostly on the ground; Ryan and I must have separated during the night.

  He’s staring down at me with a weird look on his face. I grin up at him, because for a second, just a moment, it’s like we’re not in a Hell dimension at all. Just for a moment, staring into his eyes, it’s just him and me and our bodies pressed together.

  “You slept for a long time,” he tells me. His breath smells like chocolate, which is unexpected. My breath probably smells like ass, but I open my mouth to talk to him anyway.

  “I totally had a dream about Ištar,” I announce.

  Where she’s sitting next to Ryan, Ištar smiles at me. Her breasts are so high and perky, I am totally jealous.

  “What did she tell you?” asks Roxie. She looks almost excited, which, you know, might not be unwarranted.

  I separate myself from Ryan and sit up, stretching. Ugh, yes, really sore from sleeping on the ground.

  “She said that nothing is more—no, she asked me, ‘What is more powerful than love?’ and said that we are looking for the waters of life. In somebody’s hand. Or something like that. The stars looked weird.”

  “There are no stars in the underworld, chère,” says Roxie, but Ryan is shaking his head.

  “Waters of life. From a hand? That could be a lot of things. A lot of dimensions. There’s nothing in any of the tales giving the location of that kind of thing.” Ryan sounds frustrated.

  “The water of life is what Scots used to call Scotch,” offers Roxie, brow furrowed. She really is super-gorgeous, even when she is angry at me and I am still sort of angry at her. The scars on her face only enhance her awesome mystery vibe.

  Ryan thinks I’m pretty, though. He’s been a real jerk, but he said so. I remember what his hands felt like on my body and shudder a little.

  “Hey. Hey, Allie.” Ryan snaps his fingers. “Did she say anything else?”

  “Yeah, she said that you worry too much.” I stick my tongue out at him and he rolls his eyes.

  “Thanks, that’s a real help.”

  I look over at Christian. “Christian? You have any ideas?” He clicks at me, and I scowl. “That is unhelpful,” I tell him, but he doesn’t seem to care.

  Ryan stands up and brushes his hands on his pants. “We have to get going,” he says.

  Roxie stands, and holds out her hands to me. I guess I am forgiven. When I take them, I feel her snakes slither over me and shudder again, this time in the bad way.

  “Thanks,” I force myself to say.

  We stand by the edge of the water. I still have no idea how we’re going to get across. I am not swimming, I am making that clear now. Not in these clothes. Or in that water—I do not trust Hell waterways.

  Ryan has come up behind me. I can feel the heat of him through my coat, smell the sandalwood. He murmurs in my ear, “You’ve had a dream, Allie. Is that what the Door gave you?”

  No. It’s not the Door’s voice—it’s Ištar’s, in my head. I can almost hear her frowning at the idea.

  “No,” I
say. His mouth brushes my pulled-back hair. I can feel his lips touch my skin.

  “What did you get, Allie?”

  The Doors haven’t given me anything here. I don’t think. But now I send my thoughts out to that Door on the other island, the one we need to get to, and all I say is, Help.

  Ryan exhales.

  And a black boat rises from the waters.

  If there is one thing I don’t want to do, it’s step into that boat. There is no way. It is rickety and old, and, I realize, it is not actually black. It’s a deep, dark red. So red that it looks black. It’s only slightly bigger than a row boat.

  You know something? I don’t approve of this Hell dimension stuff. I really don’t. I don’t approve of elemental demons, and I don’t approve of rickety boats, and I just do not approve of any of this bullshit. I especially don’t approve of being a blood bank. These damn hunters—Ryan included—might as well be vampires, because that’s all they see when they look at me: blood.

  “Come on, Allie,” says Ryan. He has Stan leaning on him on one side, and with his other arm he takes my elbow. I hate that every time he touches me I feel it. I feel it. He touches me and I just want to melt all over him.

  “I don’t want to,” I tell him mulishly.

  “You have to, chère.” Roxie on my other side. Christian is already clambering into the boat, his feet making weird noises. Not the noise that boots make, but, I realize, the spider noises. He’s making the spider noises, but it’s him making them, not the spider.

  I look over at Ryan to see if he noticed it too. He’s watching Christian and his mouth is set in a grim line. I guess that’s a yes.

  “Okay,” I announce. “I will get in the damn boat. But I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have to like it.” Roxie takes my other arm. “Come on, chère, let’s go.” She takes a deep breath before clambering into the boat. It rocks in the water, and the water splashes a little. Where it hits the lava rocks, it sizzles.

  And I realize: Roxie doesn’t want to do this either. No one is happy about this. And I’ve been so caught up in my own issues that I haven’t realized it. As much as this is an adventure, this also sucks for everyone, not just me.