by Chuck Wendig
Right now, the Barn’s pretty empty of residents. Got the crazy bitch—Aphrodite’s own daughter-in-law, used to live with Aphrodite north of the city, but now given a stall. The unicorn (that awful thing). Last week they had a couple Eloko up in the loft cages—horrible little dwarves, pale and hairless, covered in a coat of grassy sprouts. Got tiny little mouths, but their jaws unhinge and open wide enough to gulp down an entire human being. They’re bound and gagged and, blessedly, weren’t allowed to keep their little bells. Love to ring those things. Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling; they ring the bell, someone comes looking. Someone gets eaten.
Slogutis parks the golf cart. He glances in the back, sees another pile of glimmering golden chain. Walks away without it. Pfeh. I don’t need those, he thinks. Human suffering is chain enough for me.
As he heads toward the Barn, he feels her—Psyche. At first it’s just a gentle sweep, an intrusion that’s equivalent to a glance and then, a stare. But then her invisible fingers try to plunge into his pie and he has to quickly slam the psychic doors to keep her out. He lets her have this thought before he does: You can get in those human heads, lady, but you’re not allowed inside this god-mind, thank you very much.
He unlocks the Barn’s side door. Walks into the stable.
He whistles as he works. He can’t whistle very well. Slogutis carries a tune the way a rust-eaten pail carries water. Still, it brings him pleasure.
Ah. There. The... well, he’s not all human, is he? No, no, he’s not. Frightening parentage, that one. He’s already up on his broken legs, standing there, shaking, swaying, sweating. Eyes rimmed in dark circles, lip sniveling. Got his arms wrapped right around his midsection as if he’s cold, and the way he’s shivering, he might be. Feverish.
“You look like a hot mug of puke,” Slogutis says, his own oily arms folding up into one another. “You’re lucky ol’ Nergal didn’t tear off your head and piss into your neckhole, then animate your headless-puppet-piss-soaked body.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“What an attitude. Listen, I’m not the one who thinks he can go around willy-nilly, killing gods like he’s mopping a floor. Actions have consequences.”
“Go fuck yours—”
“Self, yeah, okay. Conversation over, then.” Slogutis affects a haughty tone, and while bowing, says: “Let us begin the delicious torment.”
He reaches into Cason Cole’s body. Finds all the bundles of nerves, then grabs them hard. In Slogutis’ mind, he braids those pain channels together and sends a searing spike of straight-up agony through the braid to every part of Cole’s body. From the tip of his nose to the tip of his dick. Heart probably feels like it’s exploding. Toes probably feel like they’re being eaten by rats.
It shows, too. The poor sumbitch drops like somebody kicked his legs right out from under him. Lands on the side of his hip. He makes this sound through his teeth—a sound Slogutis is pretty familiar with, actually—that goes a little something like this: Nnnnggghhhhhuuuhhh—and then it kind of... melts into a scream.
He hopes Psyche is enjoying the show. He can feel her there, hovering in his mind.
With the prisoner out of action, Slogutis begins undoing the chain.
Whistling again. Doo-doo-dee-doo.
He throws the chain to the floor, opens the stall.
Grabs Cason by the scruff of his shirt, drags him out.
In the back of the Barn, the unicorn stomps and whinnies. Slogutis hears a pile of somethings rattle against the floor, like someone just dumped a bag of rocks on the ground. Given the sudden burning stink, he’s pretty sure the unicorn just voided his—er, her—unicorn bowels. These days the thing shits coal. Literally shits hunks of shiny anthracite. Smells like charred sulfur.
It’s then that Slogutis realizes something, and as it often is with him, by the time he realizes it, it’s far too late. He realizes:
He doesn’t feel Psyche anymore.
Huh.
And then, just as abruptly, his connection with the prisoner is gone. Cut off. Sheared like a piece of rope in a slamming door.
Cason grunts, rolls over.
Starts to stand.
Still shivery, still shaky. And super-pissed.
It times out so, when Cason’s fist clocks Slogutis in his pale, thin-lipped mouth, the minor god of pain and misery figures it out:
Psyche’s not in his head anymore because she’s back in Cason’s.
She’s the slamming door that sheared his rope.
Suddenly he’s being thrown around like a dance partner, and Cason Cole has taken the lead—Slogutis slams into a post, then a stall gate, then another post. Fist breaks his teeth. Slams into the side of his head. His gut. His nuts.
A tiny thought strikes him: The Beast has awakened. If only for a moment.
As Cason picks him and hurls him ten feet toward the back of the Barn, Slogutis reaches out wildly, blindly, a pair of lashing mental ropes that—as he slams against the wooden floor and bowls over, rolling another ten feet—fail to find purchase.
At first.
But then, as Slogutis lays flat, his head smacking dully against the old wood, his psychic lassos seize a pair of minds.
Cason’s.
And Psyche’s.
It’s not easy. It is, in fact, a challenge that requires the uttermost concentration. Slogutis stands, a seed of bitterness blooming fast in his stomach, because once upon a time, this would be a task equivalent to blinking both eyes at the same time—totally natural, without issue. He could let a wave of torture roll over entire armies if he so chose. His power, the power of all the gods, was once nearly infinite. But now, since the Great Usurper seized the throne...
He can’t think about that now. Or he’ll lose at least one, maybe both, of his victims.
Slogutis stands. Sees the wild-haired looney-bird Psyche in her stall. This time, nobody swaddled her in a straitjacket—the Driver said it’d be better if the chain was wound directly around her, and that’s what it is, here. A golden chain wrapped around her body again and again and again. A body now seizing in abject anguish.
The pain god chuckles.
“You... think... you... can stop... me.” He shakes his head. Sweat beads on his grimy brow, his ink-black hair stuck to his forehead. “You’re... less than... me.”
Then he hears something behind him.
The rattle of a chain.
He turns. Sees Cason on the ground, body wracked with spasms.
But he’s got something in one of his hands—a golden chain, death-gripped like an eagle talon holding a serpent.
Where the hell did he get it?
“You... don’t... need that.”
Slogutis twists, sends a psychic knife through the bones of Cason’s wrist: his fingers jerk open, and the chain drops.
And then the floorboards vibrate.
There’s a snort, and—
Something very sharp punches through Slogutis’ chest. Something quite visible, in fact: a unicorn horn. Twisted and black with his own heart’s ichor. The unicorn stomps a hoof, shattering wood.
Then it screams in victory.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Goodnight, Moon
IF AT ANY point in Cason’s life one were to ask him, What is the strangest thing you think you’ll ever see? who knows how he’d answer? The Internet. Life on Mars. Hell, one time, he saw a tiger piss on a little girl at the Philadelphia Zoo. That was pretty strange.
But he never figured he’d answer: I’ll see a unicorn impale a lesser pain-god through the heart with its horn, rear back in victory, scream like a demon, then turn around and punch a hole in the barn door and run off—oh, with the pain-god still impaled on the horn.
And yet that’s exactly what happens. Cason, in the middle of an excruciating paroxysm, expended all his effort to reach up, grab the chain binding the unicorn’s stall door, and pull it off.
The stall door drifted open, and the unicorn stepped out.
It was a ragged, tattered thing�
��a froth-slick coat, eyes like burning cigar-tips, nostrils flaring and cracked teeth showing.
The only thing about it that looked at all pure and innocent was its horn: it was like a perfect spiral of polished ocean shell, glimmering with an iridescent shimmer.
Then it stabbed that horn through Slogutis’ chest. His blood blackened the horn, and the shimmer was lost.
It rose up on its back legs. Keened like a banshee.
Before Cason even knew what was happening, the thing burst free of the back wall, blowing it open in a rain of splinters. The one-horned hell-horse galloped away, Slogutis’ own screams trailing away with it.
There comes a sound like a gasp and then a whooping, raspy laugh, and it takes a few seconds before Cason realizes it’s his own damn self making that sound.
He stands, again on wobbly legs.
Looks over. Sees Psyche. Slumped against the back corner of the stall, legs folded beneath her. She says, her voice cracking, “I suppose I don’t need to talk into your mind anymore.”
“Guess not.”
“That was spectacular. Although a unicorn on the loose...”
“Will that be okay?”
She manages a shrug.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asks.
“What?”
“Am I beautiful?”
She is. Or was. Her hair’s a hot mess. Looks like she French-kissed a wall socket. Her cheeks are tear-stained. She’s pale, frail. This is not the pinnacle of beauty deserving Aphrodite’s jealousy-fueled scorn. Maybe once, but not anymore.
Still, he nods. “You are.”
Psyche offers a small smile.
“We just made a great deal of noise. They’ll come for you, sooner rather than later. I don’t know where you’ll go, but head the same direction as the unicorn—there are woods at the far side. You might be able to lose them there. If you—”
She pauses as he heads inside the stall, grabs a fistful of golden chain, and yanks it free before tossing it into the corner, sending up a cough of hay dust.
Psyche looks confused. “What just happened?”
“I freed you.”
“Why?”
“I’m not going out there alone.”
“I hurt people. I hurt your wife and son.”
“All the more reason for you to come with me and help fix all that.”
Hesitantly, she stands.
“Besides,” he says. “We were having a conversation and I suspect you weren’t done talking. Am I right?”
She nods and is about to say something—
But then her eyes roll back in her head for a moment.
When she returns her gaze to Cason, she says:
“Someone else is coming.”
WAY HE SAYS it, all the words run together so they sound like some kind of heretic prayer, some madman’s mantra: “This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, thisisabadidea thisisabadidea thissabaddea thissabaddea—”
The bad idea in question is driving a yellow cab full throttle down the long-ass driveway leading to a house filled with—if Tundu was to understand this correctly—an unholy host of gods and monsters. The ranking gods and monsters of the region, in fact.
But that’s what he’s doing.
Giant foot mashed against the pedal.
Car rocketing down the paved drive.
Past a gazebo.
Past a terrace.
Past a succession of marble fountains and statuaries—a woman rising out of a clamshell spewing water from her mouth, a different woman rising out of a bubbling cauldron, a man standing with palms out and stone lightning rising from his hands.
And straight toward a massive farmhouse. The kind with an east wing and a west wing and made of gray stone and filled with angry deities.
Tundu can’t help it. He screams.
So loud he can barely hear the radio.
Crackle-hiss. “—left turn left turn left you big ape—”
This is a bad idea.
This is a bad idea.
Tundu sees where the asphalt becomes gravel and he cuts the wheel left—the tires squeal just as something flies overhead, something human-shaped but with very big bat-like wings. Gravel kicks from under the wheels and he guns it again.
In the distance, a big barn.
That’s where Frank said to go.
That’s where Frank said they’d have taken Cason.
So, that’s where Tundu’s going.
Screaming all the way.
AND LIKE THAT, boom, powder keg. Frank’s been sitting in a distant tree for the better part of a day, rifle scope (sans rifle) in his hand, peering out at the Barn for some sign, any sign, that it would be safe to mount a rescue effort—okay, a totally insane super-psycho-batshit effort—to nab Cason. Tundu asked how the hell this place wasn’t a crazy over-protected compound and the answer there was simple: the gods never expect anyone to actually assault this place. They’re gods. They’ve got it covered.
Frank chuckles. Arrogant assholes, this group.
Then, it all went down. Someone in a golf cart. Shrieks of pain from within the big red barn. The wall blew out and a—a unicorn? Christ, an actual unicorn—fled, galloping forth with something, or rather, someone, impaled upon its horn.
Frank likes chaos. It is optimal operating conditions for him.
And that, down below, looked like chaos. He gave Tundu the signal over the walkie and, sure enough—
A yellow cab bounding toward the pastoral prison.
The voice, suddenly in his ear. Disembodied.
Are we almost back on track?
The air shimmers when it speaks. He smells a whiff of char.
“Almost.”
Go to it, then.
Frank climbs down out of the tree and runs toward the barn, grinning like a fool.
CASON WANTS TO kiss him. So he does just that. He hobbles over to Tundu fast as his rickety legs will carry him, throws his arms around the massive human-shaped redwood tree, and gives him a big kiss on his cheek. Tundu laughs, nervous.
“Whoa, man. Prison changed you.”
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Cason says. “Is this a dream?”
“No dream, chief. No dream.”
Then Psyche steps out of the shattered barn-hole. She says: “No dream, but it’ll be a nightmare soon enough. We have to go.”
“Look,” Tundu says, pointing over the roof of the cab toward the distant treeline. Sure enough, Frank is bounding toward the car, cackling like a mad crow.
Psyche bristles. Cason holds out a hand, says, “This gonna be a problem?”
She scowls. Before she can answer—in the distance, back toward the farmhouse, a shriek. An inhuman, impossible shriek.
Psyche stiffens. “The Driver. We have to go.”
Into the car. Tundu behind the wheel. Cason up front. Psyche in back.
Tundu takes a deep breath. Blinks. Cason sees he’s scared. Which has a right amount of sense to it—because Cason’s scared, too. Terrified not just of this moment, not just of the escape, but what happens after. You’re not human, a little voice reminds him. Is that really true? No time to think about it now.
Because Tundu guns it.
First, toward Frank.
Cason’s knee knocks against something. A shotgun rattles.
Window down. Shotgun up. Pump-action. Stock sawed off, barrel shortened. He jacks a shell into the chamber, checks the safety, hopes he’s remembering how the hell to do this—
Tundu gets the car close to Frank, then pulls the emergency brake and cuts the wheel—the cab’s back end slides around like a pad of butter drifting across a hot skillet, turning the taillights toward Frank.
Frank whoops like a war chief, throws open the door. He’s saying something, clapping Cason on the shoulders—
But Cason can’t hear him.
All he can hear is his own heartbeat as something slams down onto the grass about fifty feet in front of them, the headlights capturing the horror.
&n
bsp; It wears a chauffeur’s uniform.
But it has long wings—no feathers, only black skin shining red where the flesh thins around the margins of fat veins.
It has a human face, a woman’s face, but then the jaw opens wide and razor teeth glint. Arms grow long. Legs, too. Fabric ribs. White claws—white like pus, not white like ivory—thrust out from the tips of fingers and poke through black boots.
She shrieks. Long whip-like tongue flicking the air, throat ululating.
“Tisiphone,” Psyche hisses.
“Hey!” Frank barks. “What the hell is this broad doing here—”
Cason growls. “Shut up, Frank.”
The Driver begins stalking toward the car.
“Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit,” Tundu says, leaning back in his seat like somehow he can avoid what’s coming.
But he can’t. None of them can.
Cason tells him: “Gun it.”
Tundu doesn’t hesitate. He punches the accelerator. The back tires spin on dew-slick grass. The cab’s back-end wobbles and shifts left and right—but it doesn’t move forward.
“No, no, no, no!” Tundu cries. “Go-go-go-go-go, you piece of shit!”
Cason grabs the shotty, pops the door, leans out over it—
He jerks the trigger.
Buckshot sprays the Driver in the face. It’s like throwing M&M’s at a wall. The shot just bounces off and she shakes her head.
The car lurches forward—
The passenger side door closes on Cason’s torso and he winces—
The Driver leaps up onto the hood of the car, howling—
A claw swipes through the air just as Cason slides his body back into the car, the door clicking closed behind him.
The windshield of the car is filled with the beast.
“I can’t see! I can’t see!” Tundu’s driving blind, jerking the wheel left and right, trying to shake the monster—
The Driver’s mouth opens, wide, too wide, her mouth a black abyss, and from that abyss rises a wretched song that causes the entire car to hum and vibrate, pieces rattling against other pieces—Cason can feel it in his teeth, just as all the glass in the car spider-webs, cracks spreading, windows and windshields still in their frames.
