City of the Plague God

by Sarwat Chadda

  “Welcome back, Sikander.” Gilgamesh clambered over the wreckage, untangling himself from thick ropes of vine and brushing dead foliage off his shoulders. He shook himself like a big bear, hurling off great chunks of mud. He flipped his shovel in his hand as he inspected the carnage around him. “A few demons got in, but they’ve been dealt with.”

  Dealt with? I liked the sound of that. “You joined the fight?”

  “No need.” Gilgamesh sat down on a tree stump. “They wandered into my bed of Venus flytraps. Big mistake.”

  “My guess is your plants are bigger than most?”

  “Quite a bit.” He rested his chin on the shovel and gazed over at me. “How was Kurnugi?”

  Belet’s head jerked up. “You were in Kurnugi?”

  “Yeah, I was.” I stared at Gilgamesh. “You warned me that would happen. I just didn’t expect it to happen within the same hour.”

  He nodded. “Same thing happened to me centuries ago. I served my time but met some old friends while I was there. How about you?”

  I turned to Belet. “I saw your mom. She’s doing great. She’s keeping her sister company.”

  “What? She and Erishkigal hate each other! The last time Mother visited, Erish had her—”

  I stopped Belet right there. “It’s not like that. They’re fine—just the usual sibling stuff. She asked how you were doing. She wants you to be happy, that’s all.”

  “I’ll be happy when I get her back.” Belet fidgeted with Kasusu, as if she were ready to charge through the seven gates to Kurnugi right then. Which I guess she was. She just didn’t know the way.

  “Uh-huh,” I said, humoring her. If I couldn’t bring Mo back, then she…But we had more pressing concerns at the moment. “First we’ve got to save Manhattan.” I opened my jacket and carefully drew out the flower. “With this.”

  Despite having been squashed against me, the flower unfurled, its petals first shimmering, then glowing with the soft light you get just as the sun’s coming up on a clear day. The light that’s full of promise and hope.

  Gilgamesh’s eyes shone as he gazed at it. “Exactly as I remember it.” He pulled a pair of gardener’s gloves from his overalls pocket. “These are a little big for you, but you should put them on. That’s powerful stuff you’ve got right there.”

  I did as he said, and even as I held out the flower, the plants around us began to recover. The patches of mold disappeared from the tree trunks, and the drooping plants rose upright, their leaves turning bright emerald as they basked in the blossom’s light.

  “It’s fighting the disease already,” said Belet, awed. “So what are we going to do with it? Shine it all over the city? Just like that?”

  Gilgamesh shook his head. “There’s too much ground to cover, Belet. I’ll set up the distillation plant out back and turn the flower into a liquid. Then we’ll put it into the water supply.”

  “That sounds great,” I said, grinning at the miraculous plant. Our salvation.

  As I looked, its light began to fade. The petals, one moment unfurled and bright, retreated into the center, curling up as an oily stench suddenly wafted through the greenhouse.

  Flakes of rust fell from the creaking iron frame. More windows cracked, and the trees shook as if afraid.

  Gilgamesh stood up, spinning the shovel in his hand. “Hide the flower, Sikander.”

  Flies clustered over the roof—millions of them, covering every remaining panel and plunging us into twilight.

  Belet drew her sword. “Kasusu?”

  The sword screeched. “I smell them! Twelve o’clock.”

  “This gonna be a last stand?” I asked. “I’ve only just come back from being dead. Again.”

  “Last stand?” Gilgamesh smiled to himself. “That depends on us, doesn’t it?”

  “NOW WOULD BE A GREAT TIME FOR YOU TO BREAK YOUR vow of nonviolence,” I said to Gilgamesh. “Just for an hour or so.”

  He shook his head.

  “Half an hour? Ten minutes?”

  The flies began a strange, repetitive drone, which rose and dropped with a harsh, military rhythm.

  I admit I was terrified. Who wouldn’t be? I wanted to go home and hide under the covers until it was all over. Let someone else take care of it.

  Home? I didn’t have one anymore.

  And that was what this was all about.

  I’d seen the pain in my parents’ eyes when they remembered Iraq. They’d talk about the bakery on the corner, the schools they’d gone to, how they’d met at the University of Baghdad.…Then, inevitably, they’d fall quiet and the sadness would creep in. They hadn’t been able to save their original home, and they’d struggled and suffered to build a new one here, in Manhattan. I wasn’t about to let them lose it.

  Belet didn’t have a home. She didn’t even have any family. So what was she fighting for? She looked at me sharply, as if she’d sensed my thoughts. It was what she did, simple as that. Ishtar had taught her war like other moms taught their kids cooking or soccer.

  The bushes to our left shook, and my heart jumped. Gilgamesh gestured with his shovel. “They’re here.” He walked outside, and we followed.

  This was it. I grabbed a garden pick.

  We climbed through the broken panes and twisted metal and out into the park itself. The ziggurat wasn’t a haven anymore. We stood among the decaying, rotting vegetation and faced our enemies. Old enemies.

  “Well, lookie here, my friends. Our waiting paid off. I told you they’d be back, but all you did was scoff.”

  Sidana scurried toward us through the wilted foliage. He’d swollen to grotesque proportions since I’d last seen him, and he was now bigger than a horse. Sharp, venom-coated barbs covered his tail. Other demons bounded alongside him: Idiptu, Tirid, and some I didn’t recognize—all bigger, uglier, more diseased. Behind them came the poxies, row after row, going back as far as I could see.

  I glanced at Belet. “Looks like everyone’s here.”

  “Except Nergal. The coward just sent his minions.” Belet gave Kasusu a sharp flick. “Well?”

  The sword muttered. “Let’s swat some flies.”

  But Gilgamesh had other plans. He strode out ahead of us, armed with nothing but his shovel. Even so, all the monsters took a step back. “Leave now, demon! And take your disease-ridden mob with you!”

  “Or what, O Gilgamesh the Great?” Sidana said with a sneer. “Step aside before it’s too late.”

  “This place, these people, are under my protection.” Gilgamesh flipped the shovel from one hand to another.

  The clouds above darkened, and not with flies but a swelling storm. Lightning flashed within the broiling mass, and the sky rumbled. The air filled with static, making my hairs stand on end. The monsters shifted uneasily, snarling and tearing at the trees in frustration. A few edged closer, but none wanted to be first in line. Idiptu pointed an accusing claw at us. “Lord Nergal demands your allegiance!”

  Gilgamesh’s shovel crackled. The earth around him shook, and sparks jumped across his skin. “Then tell him to come here and demand it himself. I will not bow to his sniveling lackeys.”

  Under the stench of rotting vegetation, I smelled burning ozone as the air filled with ions. The rumbling turned into a tree-shaking thunder.

  Gilgamesh twirled the shovel like a baton.

  “You try my patience, demon.”

  I tightened my grip on my pick. It was vibrating as strange energy radiated from Gilgamesh’s shovel. Yes, really.

  Sidana gnashed his crooked teeth. “You laid down your arms to grow plant and flower. Begone, Gilgamesh, for you have no power!”

  “Power?” Gilgamesh furrowed his brow, but in the depths of his eyes, something glowed. “I may have relinquished weapons, demon, but do not be foolish enough to think I’ve given up an ounce of my power.”

  He slammed his shovel into the earth.

  The shock wave hurled us off our feet. As the energy rippled out from the epicenter, it magnified in strength.
The demons tumbled and poxies were sent into the air as trees were torn from the earth and the buildings around Central Park lost their windows in a single devastating sonic explosion.

  The sky shook with endless thunder and erupted with lightning, the clouds bursting with a billion joules of energy. Jagged bolts struck all around us, trees burst into flames, and deep crevasses appeared in the earth. The ziggurat’s iron frame became supercharged as the bolts hit it again and again.

  I grabbed hold of Belet before she was swept away by the hurricane-force wind and pulled her back inside the greenhouse. “Are you okay?” I shouted.

  She nodded as the gust whipped loose soil and leaves all around us. “I think my ears popped!”

  Gilgamesh stood on the first tier of the ziggurat, surrounded by a crackling cage of electricity. The entire greenhouse hummed with power, amplifying his until he was a one-man climate-change phenomenon. His shovel smoked as he raised it above his head like a lightning rod and used it to direct the bolts. They zigzagged across the park in blinding flashes, illuminating the terrified faces of poxies and demons alike. Some began to flee.

  But for every one that ran away, a dozen more poured forward. A few tried to climb the frame of the structure and got electrocuted and fell, stunned and twitching uncontrollably. The whole greenhouse came to life as vines tangled poxies, gigantic Venus flytraps gulped down demons, and trees swatted the waves of flies filling the air.

  Even with the help of the weather and vegetation, though, Gilgamesh was struggling to hold the enemy back. The blight was spreading thick and fast; the greenery was withering, and trees fell as their roots died.

  I zipped my jacket to my chin and told Belet, “We need to get out of here. Save the you-know-what.”

  “I want to fight!” she said, swinging Kasusu overhead.

  “Why?” I pointed up to our luminescent demigod. “We’ve got him!”

  The storm continued to rage inside and outside the ziggurat. The huge trees trembled and swayed as the park echoed with thunderous booms.

  Sidana charged me. He bounded over a fallen oak tree, his long claws churning up the dirt. His beady red eyes were ablaze with rabid fury as he rammed his head into my chest.

  I spun a dozen feet through the air and crashed into a tree trunk. I had just enough time to wrap my hands around his snout before he tried to fit my head into his jaws. He clawed the air furiously, trying to gut me.

  And then he screamed. He jerked backward, thrashing. His tail flicked uncontrollably as he scuttled away, staring down at an oozing gash across his belly.

  Belet rose to her feet and flicked blood off Kasusu. The sword spoke. “One skewered rat coming right up.”

  But even in his death throes the rat was lethal. His tail whipped through the air.…

  “Belet, watch out!”

  She slashed the hideous appendage, and Sidana howled as it flew off. Then he was silent and still.

  But Belet stumbled and dropped to her knees.

  “Belet!” I was beside her in an instant.

  The rat’s barbs had ripped her Kevlar as if it were tissue paper. She winced as I unbuckled the vest and gently spread it open. I could see the venom turning her belly black even as her face turned pale.

  “You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay.…” I fumbled with my jacket zipper. “You’ll be okay.…”

  “Inshallah?” she hissed through gritted teeth.

  While still wearing the big gardening gloves, I pulled out the flower. A single petal would heal everything. We’d still have several left for our magical antidote. The flower’s light spread over Belet, and I watched her sigh, the pain already lifting.

  Sidana was dead, but I should have remembered Idiptu.

  His tongue wrapped around my arm, from elbow to wrist. One tug and I was whipped across the ground. I plowed through the dirt, rolling over and over. Dazed and gasping for breath, I stared up and there he was, towering over me, grinning.

  He ripped the flower out of my hand.

  “WE’LL STOP HERE, JUST FOR A MINUTE,” I SAID, gently lowering Belet off my shoulder and onto the hood of an abandoned car. “I don’t think anyone’s coming after us. Let me have a look at—”

  She slapped my hand away. “Will you stop fussing? I’m fine!”

  She was anything but. Her skin was jaundiced, and when she checked her belly wound, I saw that it was lined with bubbling black sores. She caught my worried expression and scowled. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m just trying to help, though I don’t know why I’m bothering.”

  “What you should have done was stayed and fought on! You practically handed Idiptu the flower! The only thing missing was a ribbon and a little card. How many fights have you run away from now?”

  “All of them,” I said simply. I checked behind us. I couldn’t see any movement, but you never knew. Poxies could be hiding anywhere.

  We’d managed to flee the park, and in all the chaos, no one had pursued us. Why should they? They had what they wanted. The demons’ cries of victory had been louder than the thunder.

  Gilgamesh? I didn’t know. When I’d looked back, he was disappearing under a horde of poxies, too many for even him to shake off.

  We were heading south down Seventh Avenue, hiding from the monsters on the streets. The city had no power. No streetlights, no traffic signals, no flashing billboards over Times Square. Cars sat abandoned, sprinkled in rust. It was eerily quiet without any traffic moving through.

  “We should have fought,” mumbled Belet, her eyelids closing. Then she jerked back awake and looked at me, embarrassed that I’d seen her weak.

  I just smiled. “It’s okay, Belet.”

  “Can you face the other way?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to cry!” she snapped. “And I can’t with you watching!”

  “Mind if I join you? I could use a good cry myself.”

  She laughed. She cried, too, but she laughed as well. Thunder rumbled above and there was the distant whine of the vast clouds of flies, but this little patch of Manhattan echoed with Belet’s laughter. I couldn’t help but think of Mo. They both laughed when things were at their worst. Belet curled up as the laughter gave way to a groan. “Ow. I think I pulled something.”

  “You need to be more careful.”

  “Or what? I’ll die laughing? There are worse ways to go, Sik.”

  “No one’s dying—it’s no fun at all,” I said. She wasn’t going to be able to make it much farther, even with the help of my shoulder. Her breath was getting shallower by the minute. “We need transportation.”

  “Pick a car, then.” She pointed to one. “That Mercedes will do.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, looking at the rusty heap stuck behind all the others.

  Then my eye caught sight of something lying outside a Target. “Now, I know you’re not gonna like this, but wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  A minute later, I was back with my “transportation.” Belet took one look. “I’d rather die in a gutter.”

  “That can easily be arranged.” I hoisted her up and dropped her into the shopping cart. I laid Kasusu across her lap. “Better?”

  “I’m the daughter of a goddess, you know.” But then she slumped over, her eyes closing and her breath whispering through her pale lips.

  I’d failed everyone. I should have fought Idiptu. I should have grabbed Kasusu and chased after him as he bounded away. I should have cut a path through the hundreds of poxies and rescued Gilgamesh and not let anything stop me. Like a real hero.

  Hero. The word was bitter. The only hero here was lying semiconscious in a rattling shopping cart.

  I’d lost the flower. After all the trouble we’d gone to, I’d let it slip away, just like that.

  I wasn’t going to lose Belet, too.

  We needed to get to Manhattan General. Someone there might be able to help Belet, and if it all went sour, at least I’d be with Mama and Baba at the end.

  My ro
ute to the hospital took us by way of the deli. I wasn’t exactly surprised by what I saw when we reached the corner of Siegel, but that didn’t make it any easier to take.

  “Ya Allah.…” Graffiti covered the exterior. The windows had all been smashed. One corner of the brick was stained with smoke. Someone had set fire to my home.

  I started to read the words scrawled on the outside but stopped myself. The hatred made me sick. As things had gone from bad to worse, people had taken out their anger on the easiest scapegoats: my family. They blamed us for having brought the plague to Manhattan.

  I’d wanted to return home, but it was gone. All that remained was this…defiled shell.

  I dragged the cart to the curb and sat down on the bench outside Georgiou’s. Someone had smashed up his pizzeria. Almost a century of family love and dedication had been poured into the place, and now it was gone, just like that, torn down by a city’s rage.

  “Don’t cry, Sik.”

  Belet rested her head on her shoulder, one arm dangling over the side of the cart. She made an exaggerated frown. “Being sad doesn’t suit you.”

  “I’m sorry, Belet.” I sneezed. My clothes were still damp from my long swim, but what did it matter? It’s not like I could die of pneumonia. “I should have stopped Idiptu.”

  “He would have torn off your arms, and you know it.”

  I looked over at her. “I don’t like you like this, Belet. All reasonable and considerate. It’s freaking me out.”

  “I’ve got no more fight left in me, Sik.” She leaned back to look at the night sky. Clouds of flies drifted over us, their buzzing a faint background droning. “For the first time in a long while, I feel peaceful.…”

  Her serene expression reminded me of Mo’s back in Kurnugi.

  Wait a minute.…

  Belet wanted to see her mother, trade places with her.…

  “Oh, no you don’t,” I said, standing up.

  The sky rumbled, and there was an oppressive weight to the air, a sullen, foreboding pressure, as if it were waiting for something. A cat that had been sitting on the roof of a pickup truck across the street sprang onto the window ledge of our apartment and disappeared into the shadows.