by Bryan Camp
Jude grabbed the messenger’s wrist with his bare hand, and again his gift tore through him, revealing what Hē had lost. Jude saw Hē in Paradise, receiving a name, a purpose. Hē. Five. Fifth. He saw Hē protecting Issachar, the fifth tribe of Israel. Saw the angel sicken the livestock of Egypt in the form of the fifth plague. Saw Hē handed the Fifth Trumpet, the one that would unleash the First Woe at the End of Days. Hē took the trumpet, felt its dread power, and felt an impulse never felt before. Wanted to know why such a thing had to be, knew that angels were created without a voice with which to question, much less the autonomy to do so. Felt the desire to question that choice, too, the wisdom of creating beings to be entirely servile. And as that question formed in Hē’s mind, for the first time in the messenger’s eternal, obedient existence, Hē’s angelic feet touched the ground.
Jude saw all that and more, knew now why Hē had always spoken in an echo of his own voice, understood why the messenger had become a murderer, saw who had led the angel to the game in the first place.
The fallen angel howled into Jude’s face using the voices stolen from the victims Jude had seen on his mother’s wall. Sal leaped, growling, at Hē’s back, but those massive, beautiful wings flexed and struck the dog-shape to the ground. Over the angel’s shoulder, Jude could see the other gods, relaxed around the table, content to watch, merely enjoying the show. Hē raised a hand—fingers curled around one of those blades of light—to Jude’s throat, to add his voice to Tommy’s and Renai’s and Dodge’s and Thoth’s.
Jude breathed deep, gathered his rage and his magic, and with a single word spat fire into the angel’s face. Hē hurled him to the ground. Jude rolled on the floor and came up running, the satchel swinging loose in his grip. He darted through the door that led to the mansion on Elysian Fields and ran down the hallway, sprinting for the ballroom and—he hoped—space to maneuver.
So far so good, he thought.
Jude burst into bright light and music and laughter, the never-ending party of the dead. He cursed and shoved his way through the crowd, brushing up against person after person, their cold spirit-forms searing his hot flesh, and then he shouted, the force of his living voice demanding their attention, clearing a space before him. He nearly reached the door that would have let him escape into the Underworld proper, but it slammed shut in front of him. He turned around, looking across the ballroom, where Hē towered in the hallway that led back to the card room, wings stretched overhead, murder in those haunting eyes. Renai dangled from the angel’s grip, alive and awake, but too terrified to move. Sal came limping down the hall behind her. Smoke rose from Hē’s face where Jude’s fire had burned without leaving a mark.
“C’mon, Jude, don’t run,” Hē said, using Tommy’s voice. “Don’t fight it.” A hand petted Renai’s dreadlocks. When the angel spoke again, the voice had switched to Renai’s. “It’s nice in here with us.”
“You have to be stopped,” Jude said, reaching into his satchel as Hē came closer, already dreading what came next. His tingling fingers found what they sought, and pain lanced up his arm as he grabbed it. “What you’re doing is wrong.”
“It’s not wrong,” Hē said in a gravel-filled drawl that took Jude a moment to guess must belong to Thoth. “It’s the nature of things. We all become one in the end.” The angel was just a few steps away. Sal still pulled himself toward them, all the way across the ballroom, moving way too slow to make it in time.
“Renai, now!” Jude yelled, pulling Eli Constant’s cursed revolver free of his satchel and hurling it toward her. Renai lunged against Hē’s restraining grip as the revolver flipped, end over end, toward her hands. Jude didn’t have much luck left, but he reached out once more, twisting and hoping this last gamble would pay off. As the last trickle of his stolen fortune dwindled away—
—the revolver’s grip landed with a smack in the palm of the angel’s hand.
“Jackpot!” Hē said, Dodge’s voice now. “You kiddin’ with this shit? How many guns you gonna try before you think of something else?”
“This one’s different,” Renai said, nearly a whisper.
“Renai, no!”
“Quiet!” Hē snapped in Dodge’s voice, aiming the revolver at him. Jude assumed the proper position, hands in the air. “Don’t you see, Jude? I’ve already won. I’m going to take your voice, and then I’m going to take the voice of this city. When I’m through, the whole world will know what it means to be kept silent.” The fallen angel turned a beatific, pitying expression down to Renai. “How is it different, child? Tell me, and I’ll give you back your voice.”
Tears running down her cheeks, the young woman told the angel what Jude had told her, that the cursed revolver held all the guilt and pain of a wasted life, that in the right hands, it was powerful enough to kill a god.
“Really?” the fallen angel said, switching to Jude’s own voice, no mere echo this time, but the very voice Jude heard when he spoke. “It does feel special. Let’s find out.” Sal shouted and Renai shrieked and Jude spoke the word for burn.
And Hē squeezed the trigger.
The revolver imploded, a pulling in instead of expelling out, an eerie rush of silence instead of a roar of sound. There was a brief vacuum of wind, a churning of light and shadow, and the revolver thumped to the floor where Hē had stood. The angel was gone.
Should have known better than to trust a Trickster, motherfucker.
Eli’s curse had been twofold: for the revolver to visit the pain of its original owner on any innocent soul who touched it—if it hurt for him, Jude realized, it would have been agony for Renai—and to make it a magnet, a trap, for sin. If a wicked person ever tried to use it, it would drain the sinfulness out of them. For someone like Hē, whose very essence had become twisted and corrupt, it was a black hole.
In the end, they’d told the angel the truth: in the right hands, it could kill a god.
“You did good, kid,” he said to Renai as he helped her to her feet. “Tears were a nice touch.”
“Yeah? I was worried I was gonna oversell it.”
“I’m cool,” Sal said, a doggie whine in his voice. “Nobody worry about the wounded animal. Everybody loves a tripod dog.”
Before Jude could say anything, Renai rolled her eyes and turned on him. “Are all psychopomps such babies? If only you were able to, I dunno, fly.”
Sal blinked. “Oh.”
While the psychopomp hacked up his raven’s shape, Jude took out his handkerchief and used it to pick up the cursed revolver. I fucking hate guns, he thought. To Renai, he said, “Violent means always lead to violent ends.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s ‘violent delights,’ Romeo.”
Jude grinned. “That’s what I said.”
She ignored him. “What now?” Renai asked, flinching and giggling when Sal hopped onto her shoulder.
“Now, we see if I really am fortune’s fool.”
When Jude walked back into Dodge’s card room, he found everyone still seated as he’d left them, as if nothing special had happened. The vampire stared at something on his cell phone, Hermes—based on his hand gestures—was in the middle of telling Dodge a dirty joke, and Legba had pulled his straw hat down over his eyes and appeared to be napping. Each of the gods had a red door behind them, the same arrangement that had appeared whenever he’d spent too long in this room. Their own personal entrance to the card game.
Jude collapsed into his chair, his body weak and trembling, the revolver like a lead weight in his hand. He let it fall with a thump next to the spread of his cards and folded his hands, one on top the other. For just a moment, as he considered the muscles and joints that were already starting to ache, he regretted leaving Renai’s youthful body for his own. He wanted to ask the gods why none of them had left, but the room seemed pregnant with some possibility, so he waited and watched, looking from deity to deity, and then to the pile of coins and other markers in the center of the table.
Then he realized why they had stay
ed: He had beaten the gods at their own game. He’d won.
And now they had to pay up.
Jude scooped together the markers that Hē had scattered, hiding his revulsion at the teeth Scarpelli used, and stacked his doubloons in front of him. He remembered what Dodge had said, way back when he’d first started this hand: Too small a wager means you forfeit the choice. Which meant, if he understood things correctly, that he could demand whatever he wanted of them, as they had done to him. He felt like a kid at Christmas, unsure which present to start with. Then he saw Sal perched on Renai’s shoulder, remembered that he didn’t have much time. He also recalled whose fault that was.
He turned to the vampire first. Scarpelli picked at his nails as though he’d never been more bored. “Demand of me whatever you wish, sweetmeats; without a Magician or a Voice, this city is still dying. Today? Tomorrow? How long before she slips away for good? Before she rises as my thrall? You’ll have nowhere to hide from me then, and I’ll drink your good fortune from you drop by drop.”
Jude smiled. “You’ve missed the point, vampire.”
“Oh? And what point would that be?”
“That I’ve found my heart.” Dodge and Legba both chuckled, getting it before the vampire did.
Scarpelli made a snort of derision and twirled his finger in a slow circle. “Well, la-di-da,” he said. “How wonderful for you.”
“I found my heart,” Jude repeated. “And it’s here, in this city.” Scarpelli’s eyes narrowed. Clearly beginning to understand, he rose from the table . . . and then above it, the mass of his bruised corpse body lifting into the air, his fangs bared. Even Legba pulled away.
“New Orleans is my home, vampire,” Jude said, his voice calm and certain. “And I don’t remember inviting you in.” Before Scarpelli could say anything—threat or plea or parting barb—before he could lunge toward Jude, before he could even change the expression on his face, he vanished, leaving behind nothing but a lingering taste of blood.
“We’ll discuss your debt later,” Jude said, deadpan, almost starting to enjoy himself. He glanced down at Sal. “Is it wrong that I hope that hurt?”
Legba spoke before Jude could address him. “Before you make your demand of me,” he said, “perhaps we should discuss this.” The loa dug in his pocket and pulled out the silver coin Jude had given him in exchange for Renai’s passage through the Underworld. “If you will recall, I put my money on you.” He shrugged. “It is as I warned you: There is always a price.”
Jude laughed. “I was thinking the same thing,” he said.
Legba hadn’t expected Jude to be amused. “Have I said something humorous?” he asked. Something flickered behind his eyes, a presence Jude recognized: Cross. From behind him, Sal muttered something that sounded like “Careful.”
“Not at all. I was just thinking how nice it is when you’ve paid in advance.” Jude told Legba then, how he’d found Leon Carter—making sure to emphasize that he knew Leon was High John de Conquer—bereft and abandoned and with his trumpet stolen, and how he’d traded away two hundred years of his life in order to get it back. He hoped that Renai wouldn’t mind that he’d left her involvement out of it. But if she did, he had an idea how to make it up to her.
Papa Legba and Mait’ Carrefour struggled, briefly, for dominance, but the old, benevolent side of the loa won and remained in control. His eyes crinkled up into a smile. “Then I owe you my thanks and consider the matter settled.” He used a cane to lever himself to his feet and, frail though he appeared, moved quickly toward his Red Door.
“Forgetting something?”
Legba turned around, feigning surprise. Jude gestured at the markers left on the table.
Legba grinned again and popped himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand. “Curse this senile ol’ head of mine,” he said. “Forget it if it wasn’t sewn on so tight.” All pretense slid away from him. “What is your demand?”
“These two,” Jude said, pointing to Sal and Renai. “Escort them back to the Thrones and plead their case on their behalf. Salvatore shouldn’t be punished just because the heart he was sent to find happened to belong to an immortal, and Renai can’t be held responsible for vouching for a Trickster. Surely the Thrones will listen to you.”
Legba licked his lips, considering. “The psychopomp will be little trouble. But the girl, I fear, has been away from life too long to return to it. Nor would she fare as well against the scales, given her time in company such as yours.”
Sal poked Renai in the shoulder with his beak. “Ow,” she muttered, “what?”
“Tell him,” he said, through gritted teeth that ravens didn’t possess.
“Um . . .”
“Yes, child?”
“I’ve been thinking. I’m not sure I’m ready to try to move on after all. I might be good at what Sal does. Guiding dead souls, I mean.” She grinned, far too full of mischief and beauty and goodness to be gone from this world. “I mean, if he can do it, how hard can it be?”
“I’m only part-time,” Sal muttered from her shoulder.
“Next time you see Barren,” Jude said, “let him know we’re going to have a talk about what happens when Baron Criminel plays with pointy things.”
Legba said nothing, merely smiled a grandfatherly smile, tipped his straw hat to Jude, and led the two psychopomps through his Red Door. On the way out, Sal turned back. “Be seeing you, Jude,” he said. “It’s been real.” Then they were gone.
Hermes started talking as soon as Jude looked in his direction. “I’m merely here as an observer,” he said, “as any arrangements you may have made with Thoth were rendered null and void at the moment of his untimely demise.” His words were as precise as a lawyer giving closing remarks, his tone as slick as a used-car salesman working the lot. Jude imagined none of this “null and void” bullshit would have come into play if Hermes-slash-Thoth had won.
“Of course,” Jude said, cutting off whatever the Greek Trickster was about to say next. “That makes perfect sense.” Hermes touched his tongue to the corner of his mouth, the hint of a smile wavering around his lips. Jude couldn’t tell if Hermes knew Jude had seen through his shtick, or if he thought he really was that good. Either way, he played along. “In fact, I ought to give you something for your trouble.”
Jude picked up the revolver, though its touch, the sight of it, filled him with revulsion. The thing had ended a god, was nothing but an instrument of destruction. Hermes went very still but didn’t flinch, didn’t speak. Jude thumbed open the cylinder, dumped the remaining bullets onto the green felt of the poker table. He snapped the gun closed and slid it across the table to Hermes. “You’re the god of travelers, right? And thieves? Take that on a trip with you. Take it far away, and then lock it away somewhere no thief can get it.” Jude scooped up the bullets and dropped them into his satchel. “I’ll hold on to these. Whatever you do, don’t lose that gun. I never want to see that fucking thing again.” Jude had a feeling that the next time he put his heart on the scales before the Thrones, having anything to do with that revolver would weigh pretty heavily against him.
Hermes picked up the gun with two fingers as if worried that its touch would soil him, too. He tipped a curt nod and faded from view, not bothering with the door, his smile the last thing to vanish.
Which left Jude alone with Dodge.
“Not bad, little one,” Dodge said, “not bad at all. I ain’t seen a cheat that ballsy in ages.” Jude rolled the pearl against his cheek, grateful for the aid its magic had given his voice, the word for burn still on the tip of his tongue. Part of him was still waiting for everything to turn ugly, for Hē to return and rip open his throat—was still waiting for the moment he’d have to light the match and run like hell.
“How did you know?” Jude asked
“That you cheated?” Dodge shrugged and picked up the stump of his cigar. “It’s what I’d have done. What everyone in the room was trying to do. What I can’t figure is how you did it. Where in the n
ame of Oberon’s nutsack did you get enough power to change your own fate?”
“I didn’t.” Jude reached into his vest pocket and pulled out the card hidden there, the one that held his true fate. “I used up all my fortune twisting chance so none of you would notice when I traded this”—he held up the card Dodge had dealt him—“for the Joker I had hidden in my pocket.” The one his mother had painted over with the image of Jude as the Fool.
“Ha!” Dodge laughed and laughed his smoker’s wheezing rumble, tears coming to his eyes.
“I figured you’d all be looking for something big,” Jude said, when the dead god had quieted enough to hear him. “So I went with something small.”
Dodge, still chuckling, shook his head. “Ain’t no such thing as a small magic,” he said. He reached across the table and took the card he’d dealt him out of Jude’s hand, turning it to show him: THE FOOL, exactly as his mother had painted it. The fate he’d created for himself.
“I don’t understand,” Jude said.
“The fuck you think magic is? It ain’t always about calling down storms and bringing the dead back to life, Jude. It’s about tricks. Changes in perception. You fooled a room full of fortune gods. What you call that, if not big magic?” He licked a thumb and rubbed the corner of Jude’s card, swiping away some of the fresh paint. “What if it smeared?”
“Then I’d have been fucked,” Jude said, and joined Dodge’s laughter. It worked. It actually worked. He’d changed his fate. He tried not to think about what that fifth card might have been, otherwise. The relief was almost tangible, a warmth in his body as powerful as any magic.
