by E. A. Copen
It was unlike any mirror I had ever seen. My basic understanding of a mirror was that it was reflective, but this one wasn’t. The glass was a smoky-black pool. I touched my fingers to the cool surface and watched it ripple like water. “How does it work?”
“Speak his name into the mirror three times,” Hades whispered.
I glanced at the room full of gods behind me, all of them watching me, waiting for me to screw this up. I got the feeling that none of them liked me, Hades aside. They’d have been happy to call the whole meeting a wash and just go home if I failed. I couldn’t fail.
I cleared my throat and turned back to the mirror. “Remiel, Remiel, Remiel.” I suddenly felt like a grade school kid in a friend’s bathroom at midnight, trying to summon Bloody Mary. Maybe this was where the legend had come from. Who knew?
Ripples spread out from the mirror’s center, moving faster and faster with each utterance of his name. For a long minute, nothing else changed. Then, slowly, an image faded in, revealing a familiar throne room of black stone and dark columns. Lucifer’s throne had been damaged in my battle against him, and no one had bothered to repair it. It sat at the far end of the image, the top sliced in half. Seated on the throne was a thin-faced man with a shaved head and dull, brown eyes. He wore a simple white t-shirt and dark pants. No cape, no pitchfork. The new Devil barely looked threatening, but I knew better. Josiah had warned me about Remiel.
Remiel leaned on his fist, looking bored until he realized who was on the other end. Then he sat up, suddenly alert. “Well, if it isn’t the Pale Horseman himself. I was wondering how long it would be before you and I met.”
I decided it would be best to cut straight to business. “You received an invitation to this summit.”
“I did.” Remiel nodded once.
“Why aren’t you here?”
He smirked. “Because an invitation is optional, and I didn’t feel the purpose of your summit had been thoroughly outlined enough to warrant putting my safety at risk. You are hosting my enemies, Horseman. I would be a fool to go.”
I shifted and stole another glance behind me. The gods stared at the mirror, faces of stone. “This meeting isn’t about friends and enemies. Whatever vendettas you have, I hope you can put them aside and join us.”
“For what?” Remiel leaned forward in his throne. “Do you think I don’t know who you are, Horseman, and what you’ve done? You were more than close with Khaleda Morningstar, were you not?”
I swallowed. “Were?”
He ignored my question. “And Josiah Quinn? And Stefan Nikolaides? All of whom opposed my rule. You tell me, Lazarus. If I called a summit of gods who hate you, hosted it in a location hostile to your existence, and had a history of befriending your most hated enemies, would you go?”
He had a point, but I didn’t have to tell him that. “This summit is about souls and the future of the human race.”
“Which I care very little about.” Remiel waved a hand and sat back. “I know what you want. Your hope is to solve what you see as a crisis of souls by asking the gods of the underworld to surrender a significant portion of the souls they’ve stockpiled.”
“Is that true?” Hel asked, rising from her seat.
Remiel shrugged. “I don’t care. When you’ve agreed upon a number, send it to me. I’ll release the souls. It’s of no consequence to me. I have more than enough to achieve my goals. I don’t have time to waste squabbling with lesser creatures. Remiel out.”
The mirror suddenly went black, ripples moving from the outside in. That asshole hung up on me!
“What an awful person,” Yama muttered. You know you’re a jerk when Yama thinks you’re rude.
I turned away from the mirror. “There. He’s not coming, but he agreed to release however many souls the rest of you settle on.”
“Releasing souls!” Hel exclaimed, indignant. “You called us here to ask us to give up the very thing that gives us power and keeps our borders secure? You might as well have summoned us to ask us to step down!”
Nergal folded his hands on the tabletop. “If things continue as they are going, you will eventually become obsolete. Eventually, there will not be enough souls to continue the propagation of the human species as we know it. Then it will fall to Ereshkegal and me to do what must be done.”
“Which is?” Osiris drummed his fingers on the table.
“Plague,” said Ereshkegal. “Famine. Death on a scale previously not seen. We would eradicate as many humans as needed to fulfill our quota. If we did that today, we would need to destroy more than one-third of Earth’s population to recoup the losses.”
Hades muttered a curse and sank into his chair. “How long do we have?”
Nergal shrugged. “Months. Less time if you continue collecting souls.”
“I, for one, am not collecting any new souls.” Hel sat back down, crossed her arms and legs. “So few have come to my domain that it would be difficult to do so, and releasing the souls I do have would put me at an extreme disadvantage. Any of you could invade my kingdom.”
Osiris rolled his eyes. “Why would anyone want to invade your dark, dank, hole, Hel?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps you could shed some light on that. Or perhaps we should bring the matter before Isis.”
Osiris shot to his feet. “I’ll not stand here and be insulted!”
“And I have no intention of giving up the power that I have worked so hard to gain,” Yama said and gestured to the mirror. “We all know Remiel intends to invade us eventually. When he does, it will be my kingdom he comes for first. I will need those souls to mount a defense, or else fall. I simply can’t afford it.”
“Can’t afford it?” Hades snorted. “Yama, you have the most souls of all of us except for perhaps me, and I’m willing to give what I have for the good of all.”
Yama narrowed his eyes at Hades. “Will you be giving up those souls before or after you pay the debt you owe my kingdom, Hades?”
In an instant, the table devolved into screaming matches and accusations.
I rubbed my temples. All the arguing was doing more than giving me a headache. The rise in stress left me dizzy. Though I didn’t have a body, I swore I could feel something writhing under my skin with glee at all the fighting. Mask’s voice began to whisper nonsense in my head, and at the same time, my stomach revolted. It felt like I’d swallowed live worms and they were all wriggling in my gut. I’ve got to get this meeting back under control, and fast.
When I looked up, I caught sight of Guy standing in the corner of the room. He gestured to his wrist, though he wasn’t wearing a watch. I caught his meaning. The longer I let the arguing go on, the harder it would be to reign it in. Not only that, but Mask could get a stronger foothold as it went on. I couldn’t afford to delay—time for the nuclear option.
Slowly, as casually as I could, I walked to the door and bolted it shut. No one noticed. They were all too busy arguing. I closed the window shutters and secured them, checked all the potential exits and made sure they were blocked. Then I walked to the end of the table and slammed an open palm to the surface. “Hey, fuckwits!”
The room went instantly silent. All heads turned toward me, eyes staring in disbelief. I didn’t often use Josiah’s language, but maybe I should’ve. It seemed effective.
Yama’s face hardened. “What did you call me?”
I stood straight up. “I didn’t call you anything. I called the lot of you a bunch of fuckwits, but maybe that term’s too complicated for you. You’re acting like a bunch of toddlers fighting over crayons. Look at you! You’re gods! Not preschoolers. You literally have the power to shape the universe as you see fit, yet you’re going to sit at my table and argue over human souls? Souls that don’t even belong to you. They never belonged to you. You were placed in your position to act as a guardian at best. You’re a glorified babysitter for dead people.”
Hel stood so fast she knocked over her chair. “How dare you!”
“How dare you
!” I pointed at her. “And you, and you. How dare all of you. I’ve been nice up until now. I believed that if I got you all together, we could talk like adults and come to a compromise. But I guess I was wrong. You people aren’t capable of compromise. The good news is, there’s still a solution for me to get what I want. I don’t need you. I can replace you.”
Osiris’ green skin paled. “Replace us?”
Here goes nothing. “I’m a Horseman, charged with keeping the balance between gods, fae, and humans. Everyone in this room is screwing up that balance. I’m well within my rights to take each of you out and let someone else step up to take your place. Someone who’ll listen and do what’s right.”
I paused to let that sink in.
Yama started to speak, but I cut him off.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’ve got one hour to come to an agreement.” I held up a finger. “One. Nergal and Ereshkegal will give you a number. Between the four of you, you figure out how to meet it.”
“And if we don’t?” Hel crossed her arms. “What then?”
I stared her down. “Then, when I come back into the room, I’ll choose someone, remove their soul, and there will be one less person who gets a say.”
“You wouldn’t!” Her eyes widened.
“I would, and I will.” I pushed away from the table. “Your hour starts now. I’d get busy if I were you.”
Chapter Seventeen
I stormed out of the room and sealed the door behind me with wards that would alert me if anyone disturbed them. No one was leaving that room without me knowing.
“That was pretty ballsy.”
I turned around and found Guy already in the hallway, though I swore I’d left him inside. “How the hell did you get out here?”
He paused halfway through lighting a cigarette. “You didn’t think some warded doors would keep me in, did you? Don’t worry. It should hold them. I’m just a special case.”
“You’re a headcase, is what you are.” I walked past him.
There were some padded benches in the hallway. I found one and plopped into it, holding my head in my hands. What was I going to do if they didn’t come to an agreement? I’d have to make good on my threat, even though I didn’t want to. They’d pushed me to the edge. They had to know that. Would any other Horseman have let them jerk him around like that? Maybe not. Maybe I would’ve been better off threatening people a year ago, before things got this bad. I’d been so wrapped up in my own problems that I didn’t have time to deal with the mess in the underworld, and I was paying for that now.
“After that performance, I could say the same about you.” Guy sat on the bench across from me and leaned back against the wall. “I take it that was your nuclear option?”
I nodded and gave the door a longing look. “I just hope I don’t have to make good on that threat.”
Guy lifted an eyebrow. “You do realize you just told a room full of gods you were going to kill them if they didn’t get along? If I know gods, and maybe I don’t, then they’re going to want to test you. They won’t take you seriously until they see if you’ll actually do it. I wouldn’t expect a deal in the first hour.”
“They should know better than anyone that I’m serious. It’s not like I’ve sat on my hands all this time and done nothing. I’ve killed more gods than the other Horsemen combined, taken down Titans. Hell, the whole reason Remiel is sitting on that throne is that I killed the last Devil.”
I wished I hadn’t said that as soon as it came out of my mouth. While it was true, it made me feel guilty. If I’d thought the situation through a little more, it might not have played out as it did. Morningstar hadn’t left me much of a choice, though. Still, I was sure there was something, anything I could’ve done to ease the transition. I certainly didn’t intend for Remiel to wind up on the throne.
“That Remiel is a piece of work, huh?” Guy said, tapping some ash from his cigarette onto the floor.
I shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“He brought up Josiah. That’s the guy you wanted me to look for, right?”
I nodded.
Guy grunted and smoked his cigarette in silence for a few minutes. “Do you think he’s dead?”
“Josiah wouldn’t let Remiel win, not while he was still breathing.”
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice.”
“If he’s alive, then he’s hurt. Bad.” I pushed up from the bench to pace. “I should’ve kept closer tabs on what was going on, especially since this is all my fault. Whatever’s going on with him and Khaleda, it’s because of me. I should’ve been there to help him more, especially after all he’s done for me.”
“Easy there. Blaming yourself for something you can’t go back in time to change is an exercise in futility.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Guy said firmly. “Look, there’s a finite amount of energy in the world, and you humans only have what? Ninety years on this planet, if you’re lucky? Why waste all that time and energy obsessing over past mistakes? It does nothing but exhaust you and distract you from what’s really important. You want to make your mark on the world? Go do it. Don’t waste your time wallowing in what might’ve been. That thing you did in there? That took guts, kid. You’ve got a whole gaggle of gods pissing themselves. I say good. It’s about damn time someone knocked some heads together and made those idiots get along. Humanity needs more of that. It takes that kind of gutsy forward-thinking to change the world. Your energy is better spent there.”
I deflated and sat on the bench with another sigh. “I know that. I want to be like that, to not let all the small stuff get to me, but it piles up, you know? It beats you down by inches until you’re six feet under and have no idea which way is up. That’s my life, man—crisis after crisis. I’m just so damn exhausted from living like that. All I want is to be with Emma. To make her happy. To be happy and spend time with the people I care about. But there’s always something pulling me away. Some disaster I have to deal with or someone else’s problems I’ve got to fix. I can’t do it all.”
“So don’t.” Guy blew out a mouthful of smoke. “Nobody ever did everything in a day. You ain’t perfect. No one’s askin’ you to be. Just pick one thing a day, one big thing to tackle. As long as you do that every day, that’s three hundred sixty-five things a year. Do that every day for fifty years, and you’ll have solved eighteen thousand plus problems. That’s how empires are built, kid. Not overnight, one brick at a time, one day at a time. And that’s how you build your future.”
“What about when I can’t do that?”
He stood and crossed the hallway to pat me on the back. “Then you do what you can and accept that you’re human and have limitations. I envy you, you know.”
I blinked. Guy was an immortal monster with a power I could only barely understand. “You do?”
Guy nodded. “You know what you’ve got that I’ll never have? Friends. People who care about you enough to help. Emma and Nate and Hades. Any one of them would put their life on the line for you.”
“You don’t have anyone?”
He shrugged and leaned against the wall next to me. “Nature of the gig. Not many people like me around, and those that are… Well, let’s just say we don’t get along. And getting involved with humans never ends well. It’s better for everyone if I’m just a blip on the radar. There and gone.”
There was a time when I thought like Guy, that everyone would be safer if I cut myself off from them. People around me tended to get hurt. At least, that’s how I saw it. Having a relationship meant being vulnerable. It meant getting hurt. Emma and I, we’d had our fair share of disagreements. She’d even shot at me once or twice. But we worked through it. We were stronger together. It took me far too long to see that.
Guy gestured back toward the door with his cigarette. “Say they come to an agreement. What then?”
“Then I leverage my part in striking that deal to get a favor from Ereshkegal and Nergal. That favor gets us to
the Nightlands where I can dump Mask once and for all, which you promised to help me with.”
“I will, but you’ve got to understand it’s not as easy as just walking in, leaving a part of you behind and walking back out.”
He hadn’t told me exactly what was involved, and I’d been too afraid to ask. Some of the things I’d run into while I was in the Nightlands terrified me. The giant flesh wall Mask had been speaking for still haunted my nightmares. “What exactly will I have to do?”
“Do you remember that book? There’s a spell in there that will separate Mask from you, but it only works in the Nightlands. We’ll have to call on the strength of one of the deities he’s betrayed, which makes it highly likely that that goddess will make an appearance. She’s not what you’d call a friendly sort. Anyway, the spell’s not an easy one. I can do it, but it’ll incapacitate me for a short time afterward, and you’ll be pretty beat up too.”
“What’s to stop Mask or this other goddess from squashing us?”
“Nothing,” he said plainly, “which is why I said it would be easier to shoot you. They probably won’t just squash us, you know that? To them, you’re food. They’ll digest you alive. Not a fun way to go.”
I struck the back of my head against the wall. “Great. I’m going to be a chew toy for an elder goddess. I always knew I was meant for great things.”
“Maybe you can talk them out of it.” The way he said it told me he thought it was impossible. I’d talked my way out of worse things, though. Guy didn’t know me well enough to know how good I was at bullshitting my way out of hairy situations.
We spent the rest of the hour making occasional small talk about things I’d done, places I’d been, or where I wanted to go. He asked a lot of questions but avoided giving me any straight answers when I tried to get information out of him. I couldn’t tell if he was just uncomfortable talking about himself, or if he was really trying to avoid telling me anything. He was a strange person, Guy Smith, though I supposed he wasn’t so much a person as a parasite using a person’s body and soul as a marionette. Creepy, when I thought about it.
