City of the Plague God

by Sarwat Chadda

  There. The button covered with a warning.

  DNT.

  I ripped off the tape.

  Outside the car, Sargon climbed up onto the hood and peered at me.

  Belet put her hand against the windshield. “He’s expecting something.”

  “Yeah, I think he is.” I pressed the button.

  There was a humming sound. Lightning crackled along the dashboard. Sparks jumped through the air around us.

  Ishtar’s Jaguar went full Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

  Belet gasped. The steering wheel melted in my hands. The seats re-sculpted under our bodies, and the chassis screamed as it warped. The windshield dribbled away like wax under a blowtorch.

  The car was having a god surge. The whine of the engine was earsplitting, and the static charge inside was making everything, including us, glow a neon blue. The car shook until our bones bounced.

  “Sik!” Belet grabbed me just as there was an intense flash of white light.

  Then all went silent and still.

  Eyes squeezed shut, teeth clenched, I stayed curled up in my seat, waiting for my heart to stop racing. Then my seat disappeared, and I was sitting on the floor.

  I opened one eye. Then the other.

  I stood up and grinned. “Ya salam!”

  The Jaguar was gone. In its place was a four-wheeled chariot. Not some rickety wooden contraption you’d see in some museum, but the weird, outrageous vehicle of a god, built of sleek, otherworldly metal and shimmering with starlight.

  And in the harness were four majestic lamassus. Sargon, the biggest by far, twitched his wings. Next to him was Simba, rubbing his snout against the feathers. Shere Khan, a huge tiger, had feathers decorated with stripes. Bagheera’s wings were as pure black as a raven’s.

  Belet stood up beside me, her eyes wide with wonder. “Oh, Mother…”

  The reins were made of crackling electricity. I touched one carefully, wishing I had on Gilgamesh’s gardening gloves. Getting electrocuted would end this adventure real quick. But instead of being incinerated by ten thousand volts, all I felt was a warm tingle.

  Kasusu hummed happily. “Nice ride. This reminds me of the time—”

  “I’m sure it does,” said Belet, white-knuckling the side of the chariot and yelling in the wind.

  “Well? You just going to admire the interior?” asked Kasusu.

  “We’re waiting for Daoud,” said Belet.

  “No harm in giving it a little test drive,” I said, holding the reins loosely and giving them a light flick.

  The lamassus growled and tugged and twisted under the yoke. The wheels clattered over the cracked concrete. I winced as one front wheel scraped the wall, tearing out some bricks before I was able to steer in the other direction.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” snapped Belet.

  “Actually, no. But what’s new about that?” I yanked on the reins. “Guys! Help me out here!”

  Sargon glanced over his shoulder and growled.

  I looped the reins around my forearms for a better grip. Energy tingled up my skin, connecting me through the reins to the power of the four lamassus, as if we were all part of a single circuit. Through the chariot I could practically sense the cats’ thoughts and predict their reactions as they prowled along. We made it out to the street.

  “Sik, look.” Belet pointed Kasusu to the right. “We have an audience.”

  Poxies crept toward us, mutated to the point they barely resembled anything human. Their clothes were ragged and covered in filth, their bodies had warped into hideous designs. Insectile limbs stuck out from a few of the jackets, and mandibles clicked from grossly wide mouths. Others were human-headed slugs, trailing silvery slime.

  The lamassus snarled and revealed their long claws.

  I jumped when a scream came from our left. A poxie launched himself at us, mouth frothing and a wicked meat cleaver raised high for some skull splitting.

  Sargon roared and swatted the guy out of the air with a casual swipe. The guy crashed into an abandoned pile of trash bags, and before he could get back up, Sargon was on him, jaws wide.…

  “NO!” I yelled, pulling the reins as hard as I could.

  Sargon yowled, keeping one massive paw on the poxie who’d once been someone I knew. Mr. Georgiou was covered in weeping sores and black bile dribbled from his nostrils, but he was still the person who’d helped us ever since we’d opened the deli.

  “Bad kitty!” I said, straining to hold Sargon back. “Do not eat my neighbor!”

  Sargon raised his paw and cuffed Mr. Georgiou lightly, like he was playing with a mouse, knocking the poor guy out cold. The big cat frowned at me.

  “We can’t kill them,” I said, looking at the bloodthirsty mob approaching, leaning into the wind. “They live around here. Look, that’s Charlie Yen. I’m in math club with him.”

  “They want to tear us limb from limb, Sik.” But even as she spoke, Belet lowered Kasusu.

  Before there could be any further debate, the ground shook. The chariot lurched, and the poxies stumbled as a tremor rippled along Siegel. Then something came bouncing over the block. Something like a colossal toad.

  “Murderers!” Idiptu cried as he descended out of the swirling black sky. He crashed through the roof of Georgiou’s, shattering all the windows as it buckled under the impact. A moment later he rose out of the dust and shook off broken roof tiles. “You’re gonna pay for what you did to my sweet Sidana.”

  When we’d first met, the toad demon hadn’t even come up to my shoulder. But pestilence had been good for him. Now he had to be twenty feet tall at least, and just as wide. He unrolled his tongue down the whole length of the pizzeria, flicking it side to side and splashing stinking saliva over the walls.

  Daoud rushed toward us from down the back alley. He was cradling one of Mom’s tubs of tzatziki in one hand and waving a frying pan in the other. “I’ve done it! A whole pint! This should…” His gaze rose up to Idiptu. “Ya Allah. That’s not good.”

  I gave the reins a sharp flick. The lamassus took up the strain. “Climb aboard, Daoud!”

  Idiptu stood to his full height and extended his arms. He could almost reach our side of the street. “I’m gonna swallow you whole.”

  That wasn’t an idle threat. His mouth had to be ten feet wide.

  Daoud jumped onto the chariot and waved the pan over his head. “Allahu Akbar!”

  Belet looked over at us and shrugged. “This has to be the most peculiar jihad ever.”

  With Daoud on my left, Belet on my right, and me holding the reins, we charged.

  THE POXIES TRIED TO STOP US. THEY FORMED A SNARLING mob, armed with branches, rocks, even shopping carts, and tried to encircle the chariot. But it was like trying to corral a hurricane. The lamassus smashed through them, sending them tumbling like rag dolls.

  “Good kitties,” said Belet.

  The strength of the lamassus and the power of the chariot passed through the reins into me, making us an unstoppable juggernaut.

  The cats were just fast enough to dodge Idiptu’s darting tongue and just nimble enough to stay out of reach of his sweeping arms. As we raced up Fifteenth, in the direction of Manhattan General, he bounded after us in huge, ground-cracking jumps, leaving craters in his wake.

  “Faster!” cried Daoud.

  I glanced back. Idiptu and the poxies were falling farther and farther behind. I pulled the reins hard left, and we swept onto Broadway. Then I saw what lay ahead: a gruesome parade of pestilence.

  “More poxies,” said Belet. “Looks like the entire city has turned out for us. Lovely.”

  I glanced at the plastic tub in Daoud’s hand. Suddenly it didn’t seem so big, certainly not large enough to cure a hospital full of people. We needed a tanker of it.

  “Did you try any?” I asked Daoud. “You know, just as an experiment?”

  He bit his cracked lip. “I was tempted, I admit,” he said. “But I didn’t want to waste a drop.”

 
“It isn’t too late, you know,” I said. “I could sprinkle some on you now, and we could see if it—”

  Sargon roared. The other lamassus joined him, rising onto their hind legs to slice the air with their forepaws. The poxies in front of us, rabid with bloodlust, paused. There were thousands of them, but no one wanted to be the first to take us on.

  Daoud gazed at the huge crowd and tightened his hand on the frying pan. “I guess we get to be heroes, after all, eh, cuz?”

  “About time!” I flicked the reins, and the lamassus pounced forward. They flapped their wings as they ran straight at the horde of frenzied poxies that surged at us as one. Their wings beat harder and harder.

  There were a hundred yards between us, then fifty. The chariot wheels bounced over the uneven asphalt, each time hanging in the air a little longer.

  Twenty yards. I could see the raging madness in the poxies’ bloodred eyes.

  Ten.

  The four lamassus roared simultaneously, and Sargon, taking the lead, leaped. I mean leaped. My guts dropped to my ankles as the chariot shot skyward. The lamassus, freed from the ground, lowered their heads to direct all their power to flight. With each beat of their wings, we climbed higher between the canyon of skyscrapers.

  I shouted over the howling wind. I don’t remember what I said exactly—I was too caught up in the moment—but if you can’t have fun flying over Manhattan in a magical chariot drawn by four massive winged cats, then when can you?

  Belet, her jaw fixed, nodded even as she clutched the side of the chariot all the tighter. Kasusu was cheering, shouting about some great chariot battle in Kadesh. The sword was loving this, while I struggled to keep down my rice dinner as the chariot rocked and spun in the hurricane. Daoud was praying really hard.

  We never saw Idiptu coming. He must have been waiting down one of the side streets. He catapulted himself straight onto the back of the chariot, propelling us right into—and through—the glazed windows of a building.

  Belet tried her best to cover me as glass shards sliced through the air.

  The chariot hit the floor of an open-plan office and limped around, the left front wheel trembling unevenly. Two of the lamassus, Shere Khan and Simba, had been torn free of the harness and were lying on the floor, mewling pitifully as they shrank back into their cat forms.

  Idiptu, who had jumped off one second before impact, swung himself through the shattered windows. “There’s no escape for you now,” he said, saliva dripping from his immense mouth.

  Belet grimaced as she plucked a thin triangle of glass from her arm. “We need to end this, Sik.”

  She was right. I tugged the reins, struggling to keep the chariot upright as I turned it to face Idiptu. We’d been so close to reaching the hospital.…“Do you think you and Kasusu could…? Hey, where’s Daoud?”

  We both scanned the room.

  He lay to the right of the demon, his face bleeding from a dozen cuts. The tub had slipped from his hands and was rolling toward the broken window.

  Idiptu smacked his lips as he zeroed in on Daoud. He flicked out his tongue and wrapped it around our friend like a boa constrictor. The demon opened his mouth wide.…

  The tub began picking up speed.

  “Mine!” yelled Belet. She leaped off the chariot platform and dashed toward the plastic container.

  I slapped the reins hard over the two remaining lamassus, Sargon and Bagheera. They didn’t need any encouraging—they had a reviled demon in their sights. Their claws shot out, long and sharp.

  Idiptu’s eyes widened as the chariot sped toward him. He dropped Daoud, but not fast enough.

  When we slammed into the giant toad, it was like crashing into a brick wall. The impact jarred me all the way through to my toes and punched the air from my lungs. Sargon and the black panther tore at Idiptu, ripping great, ragged chunks of slimy flesh off his bones. The demon’s scream is a sound I’ll remember till the end of my days. I had no doubt it was the first time in a looong time he’d ever felt terror. Sargon buried his fangs into the disgusting creature’s shoulder, and a fountain of green blood sprayed the ceiling.

  Belet slid across the floor and clasped the tub as it tottered on the ledge.

  As the lamassus jumped out of the way of Idiptu’s slime, I left a pair of deep chariot grooves across the toad’s head. Maggots spewed from the wounds across his body as he took a few rasping breaths. I pulled the chariot to a halt to make sure they were his last.

  “Shukran,” said Daoud as we helped him to his feet. Despite having been torn up by glass and nearly squeezed to death, he was smiling…until he saw the chariot. “Your chariot looks almost as bad as I do.”

  “We left half the team back there.” I jerked my head toward the cats.

  “Be careful with this,” said Belet, handing me the tub before going to check on Shere Khan and Simba. “They’re only dazed, but their god surge is spent,” she reported, stroking them. “You were both so brave.”

  I wasn’t sure how to say the next part, but I had to. “Without four lamassus pulling it,” I started, “I don’t know if the chariot can carry—”

  Daoud interrupted. “Do what you need to do.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Daoud’s right,” said Belet, wrapping her bleeding arm with her sash. “Sargon and Bagheera will get the job done.”

  I started to lift the lid of the precious container of serum. “First, Daoud, let’s fix you up with a little—”

  “Don’t waste any more time,” said Daoud, waving me off. “Go save your folks already!”

  He was amazing me more with every passing minute.

  “There might be more demons out there,” Belet warned me. “And we don’t know where Nergal has gone off to. Be careful.”

  “‘Be careful’?” I said, looking shocked. “I hope you’re not going all mushy on me, Belet.”

  She made a sour face and a gesture that was probably rude back in ancient Mesopotamia.

  “I won’t be long.” I sealed the tub of Mo’s Promise and put it securely between my feet on the chariot platform. “I’d tell you to stay up here, out of trouble, but, hey, who am I kidding?”

  I tugged the lamassus into a sharp right. Then I ducked behind the front panel as they leaped out the shattered window. More glass rained down, but then we were out in the raw gusts howling down Broadway.

  I looked back to see Belet standing at the opening. She raised Kasusu and shouted, but the wind stole her words.

  It was time to pay Mama and Baba a visit.

  I flicked the reins and drove into the heart of the storm.

  THE CHARIOT STRUGGLED AGAINST THE ELEMENTAL battering. Rain, driven horizontal by the winds, blinded me, and I was drenched and bruised. I couldn’t see to steer, so I just gripped the frame for dear life as we smashed against gust after gust.

  I smelled the raw ozone in the electricity-charged air around me. As we sprinted into the clouds themselves, the odor grew stronger.

  The sky was lit up by gigantic sheets of brilliant lightning. Thunder erupted around us, and shock waves of sound sent us spinning. The two lamassus strained for all they were worth to keep us moving forward, but I knew they were tiring.

  Where was the hospital? I couldn’t see it below. There were no streetlights to navigate by. The only feature was the dark green block of Washington Square Park, sporadically lit by lightning flashes.

  Masses seethed along the streets below—the countless poxies on a rampage of mindless destruction, driven beyond insanity by Nergal’s diseases. Even if I could reach the hospital, would I be too late? What if Mama and Baba were poxies now?

  I couldn’t think like that. The two people I loved most in the world were down there somewhere. Not to mention my friends, teachers, neighbors, customers…

  The tub contained every single one of my hopes, everyone’s hopes. I picked it up from between my feet and hugged it tightly to my chest.

  Sargon growled, but he sounded weak. Then his ears twitched nervo
usly. I heard a distant roaring.…

  A golden thunderbolt burst out of the clouds.

  I got a glimpse of wings, of shining armor, and a crown as the thunderbolt crashed into the chariot, dragging us down hundreds of feet, the lamassus beating their paws uselessly in the air, unable to resist the impact that hurled us toward the ground.

  We tumbled, me dangling from the chariot front with one hand, the other still clutching the tub as we spun over ourselves. I just managed to get one foot hooked on the spoke of a wheel as we performed a series of world-class corkscrews. When we finally leveled out, I struggled back into the carriage and re-looped both reins around one forearm. We pushed through another great wall of wind, into a cloud, and then out the other side…

  To find Nergal waiting.

  He circled us, soaring on two pairs of wings that shimmered with the colors of the rainbow. His skin, unmarked and smooth, radiated golden light, and his black hair flowed from under a helmet crowned with three pairs of horns. He carried a spear of gold and silver, long enough to skewer a bus sideways.

  I fell to my knees, my head still spinning from our aerial acrobatics. Every muscle, every bone, ached. Was he making me feel this way, or had I just gone beyond utter exhaustion? “So…new makeover?”

  Yup, my mouth muscles were still working even when everything else was on shutdown.

  He orbited the chariot, gliding smoothly over the buffeting winds, spear raised. “Why do you still fight, mortal?”

  “I was wondering the same thing.” I stood up, but I had to lean my elbows on the chariot rim. Wow, he actually glowed—I had to squint to gaze at him. “But we don’t have to. I’m happy to accept your surrender anytime.”

  “This attempt at wit…has it ever worked for you?”

  “There’s always a first time.” I glanced around. I was just above the spires of the taller buildings on the Upper East Side, nowhere near the hospital. I shielded my eyes as I turned to Nergal. “Now I have a question for you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why are you doing this? You got what you wanted.”