The Wildcard

by Fallacious Rose

  She began to climb the stairs, hoisting herself up one at a time. There was nothing to do but follow her. She was slow as any old lady, wheezing and hissing with each effortful step.

  "One more thing." The Pythia turned on the stair, and stretched. Green jumped back with a gasp. The old woman was gone - instead, the snake glared balefully down at them, with the same pale, jaundiced eyes.

  "Where do we find the one who created us - the older one you speak of?" The snake’s head was on the same level as Baldur’s unmoved face. She stared at him, weaving sinuously.

  "Find the mountain that rises above all waters: the path is through the Gates of Hell."

  The snake dissolved, and only the skinny, black clad old woman remained - a respectable, if not very hygienic, Greek widow. The Pythia pulled a black scarf over her balding skull and continued to haul herself up the stairs. When they emerged, after ten minutes, into the Castalian Cave, Green turned to Baldur in outrage. No less than three tourist buses were lined up at the cave’s entrance, disgorging noisy foreigners of all nationalities bent on viewing the ancient cavern. The Pythia wandered out, mingling unnoticed with the crowd.

  "And you," she said accusingly, "made me walk all that way! When we could have just waited till opening time!"

  Chapter 26

  "Die?" says Frigg, with incredulity. "Us?"

  "Do not be a bigger fool than you can help," says Ishtar, with irritation. Today she looks older than usual, a little more lined under the magnificence. She has never played the Game with such ferocity as in these final months, and it takes a toll. "In the great wars, many died. Death comes to us as it does to everything else in this world."

  "Yes." Frigg twists her hands together, distracted and frowning. "I know that, sister. I am not stupid. But setting aside violence done by immortal to immortal, we do not age as mortals do - therefore we do not die. Of what are we to perish, then - a pestilence?"

  "Maybe," says Isis-Athena, sombre. "Or maybe these are just old whisperings by a creature long past her time. I have not spoken to the Pythia in many a year - I thought she had been driven mad by the poison in the river. And so she may have been."

  "It doesn’t matter," booms Artemis. A brace of rabbits swing head-down from her belt. "There is nothing we can do. The Game will end, and then we will see - either we perish, or this is a fairy tale to frighten us."

  "And Set - what does he know of all this?" asks Ishtar, playing with her rings. One for each new lover: the older ones she kept in a box of ivory, in her boudoir of velvet and musk. “After all, the first of these ‘prophecies’ came from his own shrine - the girl was brought there by his own priest, even?”

  Isis shrugs. "It is not of his doing, I know that. I have seen him furious and pacing like an animal, because the girl spouted words he had not put in her mouth. He knows no more than any of us."

  Frigg leaps to her feet, impatient. "But this is pointless discussion - the question is, what are we to do now? Set has drawn ahead - the boy Orpheus moves away from us, towards the frenzy of the god. The girl Ruby cannot stop him. She will join him, in the end."

  "Give him another girl. One who is stronger, and can influence him towards sobriety," Isis suggests.

  "You do not know love, this is plain," Ishtar sneers. "You cannot just take one girl and substitute her for another. He loves his Ruby."

  "I don’t see why not. They’re all the same. There are women more beautiful than Ruby who would be only too happy to share the boy’s bed: I have seen them. Thousands of them. "

  "It won’t work," says Frigg. "Ishtar is right. You do not know love. We need to find another way."

  "I have a suggestion." Artemis begins skinning a rabbit, while Frigg looks away in disgust. "Show him what death is. He will not be in such a hurry to get there." She holds up the furry corpse, its guts falling out of its belly like a slick red waterfall. "Death is not pretty. He will learn his lesson."

  "How? It will drive him even further into the arms of madness!" Frigg brushes the suggestion off. Artemis’ fingernails are filthy, she thinks - no wonder, she is always killing things and disembowelling them.

  "Not," says Isis thoughtfully, "if it is done the right way."

  "In a dream?" asks Ishtar. "He seldom sleeps now, and the drugs befuddle his mind - it is becoming harder to reach him."

  "We will bring our singer to visit my niece." Isis smooths her hair, a gleam of black humour in her eyes. "I think she may convince him that life is preferable to what is waiting below."

  Chapter 27

  Back in Martha’s cosy little hotel, Baldur put on the electric kettle, and drew a bath, and set a cup of hot cocoa on the rim.

  "Don’t think you’re forgiven - we could have just walked into that damn cave with everyone else, at a civilised time in the morning."

  Green sank into the water with a blissful sigh. It was delicious.

  Baldur was about to retreat to the kitchenette, but she held out her hand, crooking her finger.

  "Come in with me."

  "I thought I was in your bad books."

  "For chrissakes, I was just teasing you. I know we couldn’t have walked in there - otherwise the Pythia would get a lot more visitors than she bargained for. "

  Baldur grinned, but kept walking. Green threw a handful of water at him. He stopped.

  "What are you suggesting, you scarlet woman?"

  She said nothing - just looked, a challenge in her eyes. He shed his clothes and stepped in, curling his body around her. Luckily, it was a big bath, and deep. The hot water covered both of them in a delicious blanket - at least, it covered the important bits. Green rolled over, causing a small tidal wave, and slid on top of his long, muscled torso. The warm water lay between them, lapping under her breasts.

  Baldur reached down and cupped her rear end, drawing her up towards him. He kissed her, lips wet and warm. She felt his erection against her navel, and slid down again, her hands cradling the length of him. She met his eyes, now clear as water, and he smiled, and closed them, sinking down towards her. She took him into her mouth.

  She loved the feeling of him, silky and hard at the same time, and she loved the feeling of power that this gave her - he might be immortal - sometimes - but she could still make his breath come fast and shallow with the urgency of his pleasure. She liked to make it last as long as she could, moving fast, pausing, waiting, swirling her tongue around as if she was eating an ice cream, and then speeding up, just when he least expected it. Playing with him, as his kind played with hers.

  He held her head, and stopped her.

  "Don’t you want me to?"

  "There is something else I want."

  He drew her up again, as easily as if she was a leaf drifting in a still pool, and she wrapped her dripping arms around his shoulders, resting her head against the wet silver of his hair. He guided her down. She sank into him and moved with infinite gentleness, the water barely rippling around them. He smiled up at her.

  "We’ll make a mess."

  "I do not care about a mess." He grasped her waist, pulling her down harder against him, and harder, till their bodies met and ground against one another, spark to tinder. She cried out, and thrashed, the water spilling over the lip of the bath, neither of them paying any attention to it. Baldur wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back down to lie on top of him. They were still within one another, joined.

  "I wish we could stay like this for ever," she said after a while, disengaging and running the hot tap.

  "We’d both get water blisters," he observed, running his hands over her wet breasts. She gasped.

  "You’ll make me want to do it again."

  "I am sorry." He belied the words by bending to kiss the back of her neck, where wet tendrils of hair lay flat and dark against the skin. She sighed and wriggled, and she could tell that he was tempted - but he pushed himself up and out of the bath, tall and gleaming in his nakedness.

  "I am going to leave you, little beast."

  "Le
ave me? Why?"

  "Don’t worry - I won’t be going far. Only to collect pizza for dinner. You will be hungry soon."

  "How do you know?"

  "Believe me, I know

  "Don’t be long."

  He shook his head, and she heard the door to the apartment closing softly as he went. For a while, she lay in the cooling bath, thinking. They were no better off than they had been. A flood, a mountain, the gates of hell? None of it meant anything at all. The only thing that was clear was that they were all going to die - according to the Pythia. Gods, mortals, Baldur, Green - everyone.

  Oh well, she thought, and turned the hot tap with her toe. Nobody ever avoided their fate - wasn’t that the point of all those old stories. Paris destroyed Troy, Oedipus married his mum, MacBeth died when a bunch of old trees came to Dunsinane - and they’d all die too, in less than a month from now. Why the hell shouldn’t Orpheus kill himself with drugs - it wouldn’t make any difference.

  Green climbed out of the bath and opened a bottle of wine. What the fuck - it didn’t matter at all.

  Chapter 28

  Orpheus could stay awake for days, when he was on ‘uppers’ - but when he slept, it was the sleep of the dead. He no longer dreamed of goddesses, or anything at all. His thin body lay naked, tangled in dirty sheets, the remains of takeaway and whisky bottles strewn around the bed. He didn't look at all sexy.

  Ruby threw a bottle at the wall. It broke, showering the bed with the remains of stale wine. Orpheus opened bleary eyes and pulled his long, greasy hair aside from the wetness.

  "What the fuck?"

  "You live like a pig in shit, Orph."

  He muttered something and kicked the sheets aside.

  "What? What did you say?" She thrust her face close to his, trying not to breathe in the stale fumes. His teeth were beginning to look like a homeless guy’s.

  "I said fuck off and leave me in peace." Orpheus turned his face into his pillow, and Ruby yanked it out from under him. She threw another bottle against the wall. Orpheus struggled up.

  "What part of fuck off don’t you understand?"

  "Get out of bed," Ruby screamed, stamping. A piece of broken glass crunched under her shoe. "You’ve been lying here for three days in your own stink. This room stinks, the whole house is a disaster, Stevie and Rob are talking about looking for another band...Wake up to yourself, Orph, everything’s falling apart."

  "So? I’m the world’s biggest rock star. I can trash my room if I want."

  She could have punched him.

  "You’re the world’s biggest rock star, and you’re going to hell in a hand basket. At least let me take you to rehab. You can dry out there, get your shit together..."

  "I don’t want to get my shit together, I want my pills. Where the fuck are my pills?" He pushed himself off the bed, and began scrabbling around in the wine-soaked mess. " No one asked you to organise my life for me - what have you done with my pills?" Orpheus looked at her, suddenly paranoid. "What’ve you done with them?" He grabbed her wrist, hard.

  Ruby shook off the grip with ease. He’d lost a lot of muscle tone recently - even the fans had noticed, according to the gossip sites. Not that they cared - as long as he still had that voice, and that face.

  "I threw them away," she said coldly. "But you know where to get more, so what’s the point. I’m out of here, Orpheus. I’ve had enough. If you’re going to die, do it on your own time."

  She turned her back and marched out, half expecting him to come after her - or maybe call her name. But Orpheus just laughed mirthlessly, and went back to scrabbling around for his uppers. Ruby slammed the door and drew a deep breath of fresh air.

  When she’d gone, he put his head in his hands. He felt like shit - hot, then cold, and the sleep hadn’t done anything for his nerves. If he could get some more pills, they’d fix that - he’d feel more like his old self, happy - well, maybe not happy, but alive, at least. He picked up his mobile to call Jay, his dealer. What the hell, he’d do fine without Ruby. He could have as much sex as he liked, at the crook of a finger. His heart felt clenched and cold, like a stone.

  He was waiting for Jay to pick up when he felt a presence in the room. He looked up hopefully, expecting to see Ruby come tripping in, full of remorse and kisses. She’d changed her mind?

  "What the fuck?" he said again, dropping the phone.

  Three women were staring at him, their eyes lit from within, as no human eyes should be. They were pretty familiar - those chicks from the dreams he used to have, before he took the downers to help him sleep. But this time, they were standing in his room, and he was awake. They weren’t real. They couldn’t be.

  "He looks like something I would not feed my cat, for fear of poisoning it," said the ugly one, regarding him with disgust.

  The tallest one, with grey eyes and dark hair, shrugged and held out a hand.

  "Come with me, boy."

  "No fucking way," Orpheus blurted, looking around for a weapon. His eye lit on the broken bottle which Ruby had thrown at the wall. He reached down to get it - but the ugly woman grabbed the back of his neck in an unbelievably strong grip. She lifted him up like a disgruntled mother cat lifts a kitten who hasn’t had a wash in a long time.

  "God, you’re soft as a worm," she said disgustedly.

  "You’re not here," he said, squeezing his eyes shut. It must be something he’d taken - maybe Jay had cut it, though he always paid for top quality shit. He’d have to have a word with Jay about that.

  He felt a hand touch his cheek, burning his face like a brand. He jerked back with a cry. The red-haired Amazon with the big tits was leaning over him, reaching for him. He smelled her perfume, and felt a sudden desire to rip her clothes off. His erection rose up between them, unbidden. But she wasn’t in the mood.

  "Enough of that, lover boy." She grasped him by the long black hair, and looked at her sisters.

  "Now?"

  Isis nodded.

  The world went black - or more precisely, grey.

  Chapter 29

  "Where the fuck am I?"

  Orpheus shivered. This place was cold, and he had nothing on. His naked calves stung - he seemed to be ankle deep in mud. He lifted one foot with a squelching sound, and the ground sucked and gurgled.

  He was alone, in the middle of a marsh. It even smelled like a marsh - rotting, and wet, and stagnant - and it went on as far as he could see, all around him. There were plants in the marsh - black, slimy trees that had snaked their way up into the dead air and died of suffocation, by the looks of it - and dank, clinging weeds. For all he knew, there were other things too - things that crawled in the mud, and bit. Alligators, crocodiles, crabs - anything could be sneaking around under there, just waiting for his foot to disturb it.

  "Help!" he shouted, as loudly as he could. The sound fell like a dead bird into the water. He realised that there was no other noise - no insects, no birds, and definitely no other people. Only that horrible sucking sound of mud that doesn’t want to let go.

  Somehow, they’d kidnapped him, those three bitches, and taken him out here - god knows where - and left him. He wished they’d left him with a few uppers, at least. He didn’t have the energy for a long trek - fuck, he’d had nothing to eat for three days, practically - just some fried rice and sour milk from the fridge - and a shitload of whisky.

  He shouted again. Nothing. Where was this godforsaken place? Not Florida - too dead for that, and the sky was a leaden grey. And cold...where in America was cold, this time of year. Alaska? With marshes?

  It was no use trying to work it out. He could sit down in the mud and wait - for someone to notice he was missing, for someone to work out where he’d gone - maybe even for the bitches to come back and get him. They had to want something - probably a ransom. They could go to hell. He picked up one foot after the other, grimacing at the horrible sensation of cold, slimy mud sinking around his ankles, and began to walk. He didn’t bother picking a direction. When you don’t have a clue where you
are, any direction is as good as any other. The main thing, he told himself, is not to go in a circle - people who get lost always go in circles. But how would he know? He looked up to the sky, looking for a faint glow that would show where the sun sat behind thick cloud.

  There was no sun. Not even the faintest yellow glow. It was as if, wherever this place was, the light came from everywhere and nowhere. At least it was light. He shuddered to think what this place would be like at night, in the dark. He’d better get himself somewhere before that happened.

  As he trudged, he wondered if he was having a dream. Those three women - they’d only come in dreams, before, so that’d make sense. Kind of. But this wasn’t the kind of dream that you could talk about afterwards, say things like ‘hey man, I went on an amazing trip last night..." This was a frightening, horribly realistic dream. He wished he could wake up.

  After what seemed like a long time, he had got exactly nowhere. The marsh still surrounded him, black, stinking. His legs were shaking from weariness. He didn’t think he could take many more steps, but there was nowhere to rest - no higher ground, no convenient log or bank or - anything. He stood in the mud, feeling it ooze between his toes, and sobbed. The dead air absorbed the sound instantly, and then there was silence.

  He felt like giving up and sitting down in the knee-depth water, cold as it was. He shouldn’t do that, though. To cheer himself, he began to sing - one of his early love songs, a simple, catchy thing that sounded like a laugh at a funeral in this deathly place. He found himself forgetting the words, though he’d sung the thing a hundred times.

  A hand clapped. He jumped, startled, and almost fell. A woman stood on the water beside him, an approving smile on her ghastly face. She looked like someone who’d had too much plastic surgery, and then some.

  "Very nice."

  "Where am I? And who are you?" he stuttered. The woman gestured to a flat boat - more of a canoe, really, painted black.