Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth

by Cassandra Khaw

  I turn, and there Nyarlathotep stands in his borrowed skin, curls haloed in silver, the light sleeting through his bones, smiling like he is about to offer me the best damn mortgage plan in real estate history.

  Crack.

  Sisyphus’ neck is briskly snapped.

  “And our side of the bargain is complete.”

  Their song rises to devour my world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE ASSIMILATION IS violent.

  Thoughtless. Instinct-propelled. Performed without concern for my comfort. Cilia of alien consciousness bifurcate into embryonic personalities, not quite theirs, not quite mine, but hungry chimerical amalgamations. Prose, turgid, tumescent with invention, translate themselves into Hokkien, Teochew, Malay, Cantonese; recreate themselves in a manner authentic to the associate culture. The words interlace with images of sanctified ground, of a titanic figure slumbering beneath the water, of eyes, of a sunken-eyed man staring raptly at a filigreed mirror.

  More. A demand, eager. They pry at my memories, divest the amygdala of secrets, the hippocampus of truth. More. My brain ignites with fireworks. The glut of electrical impulses threatens to short-circuit what self remains under the weight of their curiosity. Desperate, I withdraw, building metaphorical walls, a fortress of nothing-to-see-here. The gods—the whatever they are—clamber past my shelter, too ravenous to multitask.

  Possession, I discover, is not unlike digestion: a two-way street beginning with consumption. My new tenants excrete data; name and anecdotes and locations, a chronology of progressively more bizarre occurrences, ending with an aerial shot of a magician refereeing a fist fight in Egypt. A thousand novels, a hundred secret scriptures built in the bones of fiction. Television shows and radio dramas, more short stories than stars dying in the abyss.

  Worship doesn’t require belief. Worship simply needs to be. And a million books and a million fantasies and a million conversations about piscine hybrids and a city buried in the black of the ocean, terrors unimaginable and dream lands unfathomable, is more than enough to gorge a pantheon.

  I wait and wait and wait until at last Nyarlathotep’s presence reveals itself, rapturous, his form oscillating frantically. When he finally burrows himself between his siblings, identity latticed with theirs, with mine, I strike.

  “See you in Hell.”

  The God of Being Missing had not lied. For once, dying is quick and painless.

  “RUPERT?” YAN LUO in his celestial aspect, bigger than worlds; a disc of engraved jade caged in fingers. A pot of tea sits on an adjacent table. Steam ribbons from a bone-china cup. “What are you—”

  “What’s up, chief?”

  “What have you done?” Nyarlathotep is on his feet before I can construct a lie, shimmering between forms, simultaneously the leather-jacketed man in the train and something other, a monstrosity that strangles every description in its crib. “Rupert, what have you done?”

  The last is a shriek that shreds the last pretense of mortality, pulping his larynx as it climbs into an inhuman register. He does not lunge, but something does. A circle of greasily lucent pink flesh rises from around his feet and volleys forward. Seamless, faceless. A hodgepodge of extremities, teeth and talon and terrible things, wound into filaments of muscle and laced together in a grand blasphemy of terrestrial design.

  I dance backwards, but I’m a human spirit stripped from his coat of meat and these are gods, for all the vulgarity of their origin, their pedestrian birth in the mind of a frightened American. They slam me into the ground. The impact is cataclysmic: screams and keratin raking across my face, tendrils puncturing my sides. Something catches in the nerves and I spasm in its grip, retinas misfiring in paroxysms of white. Intestines bulge ropily against the skin of my stomach. Lungs compress; my abdominal cavity inflates with the intruding bio-mass.

  And all the while, something is howling, rage pumping hot through the noise.

  Snap.

  With a click of colossal fingers, existence rewinds. I’m on my feet again and Nyarlathotep is a glistening imago, scrabbling in his cocoon: a clump of pink flesh pimpled with slack mouths and staring eyes, his brethren squirming in polyps.

  He charges again.

  Snap.

  This time, they don’t even reach me. Reality winks its massive eye, and we zip back to where we began. There is no third attempt. Nyarlathotep extends a long-fingered hand, staying them. He trails his gaze up to Yan Luo’s mountainous silhouette.

  “This is not your house.”

  The King of Diyu sets his chess piece down and rises to his full height, bulk eclipsing the effulgence of his fireplace, which burns eternally, fed by dead men’s hair. The fire gilds him in bronze, casts shadows on his face. “You are both guests and I will not tolerate violence between you.”

  “Suits me.” I spit a tooth.

  Nyarlathotep glowers, features teased into a semblance of humanity. Black curls and snug jeans replace tentacles and ramified limbs. His face smooths into inoffensive handsomeness, enough to appeal but not to dazzle, mouth wrenched back into a coyote’s grin.

  “I apologize for the outburst. But we had a deal, Rupert and I. And I did not expect him to renege on his side of our agreement. I did not expect him to murder.”

  “You obviously don’t know me very well.” I scoot behind Yan Luo.

  Admonishing looks, in duplicate.

  “Shutting up now.”

  Yan Luo inclines his titanic head and squats to our level, thoughtfully grabbing at his beard. “I understand your concern and I appreciate how upset you must be”—extending his palm placatingly—“but I promise you that we will reprimand Rupert as per regulation guidelines.”

  Nyarlathotep’s smile freezes. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “Rupert is our employee,” Yan Luo replies, inflection subtly modulated, timbre imbued with quiet authority. “As such, he will be punished according to our rules.”

  “Your rules?” Ice seeps into the smaller god’s voice. “We had an agreement. Rupert belongs to us.”

  “As a subcontractor, certainly,” Yan Luo counters. “He has every right to offer his services as a freelancer, so long as none of those responsibilities conflict with his employment in Diyu. If such conditions arise, I’m afraid that our arrangements supersede all other deals he may have signed. It is in the fine print.”

  The last words are spoken in staccato, every sound weighted with funerary gravitas, an end-of-the-world finality. The subtext is simple: fuck right off.

  But Nyarlatotep won’t be dissuaded. A growl escapes his throat before he composes himself, sickle-moon smile returning in force. “And our standard agreement includes a clause that states that the signee voids all former contractual obligations upon accepting our terms.”

  “Again.” Yan Luo picks a clump of lint from his robes and rubs it between his fingers. “I think you’re confused. Even if your contract states as such, you’ll find that our contract has right of precedence. Furthermore, since Rupert is, in fact, an incorporated entity, all decisions regarding takeovers must be put through the committee and voted upon.”

  Nyarlathotep catches his temples between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. “I think we need to take this to court.”

  “I think so too.”

  “Yes.” A flash of teeth. “Let’s.”

  Yan Luo sighs, and as the echoes of the sound fade from the massive chamber, the walls themselves begin to melt, swapping Yan Luo’s abode for the colosseum that had witnessed Ao Qin’s sentencing.

  Except there is no one else here this time. Just the three of us. The white sand remains distorted, warped by heat, alternatively soot-black or glimmering with contortions of glass. I ignore the blood stains; it’s only polite.

  Yan Luo lumbers towards his judicial stand and clambers into his seat, an excruciating process bookended by old-man grunts and the crackle of disgruntled cartilage. Thump. He steeples fingers over the ledge of his perch and glares.

  “Prese
nt your case.”

  A fwhump of air, woollen, like the gust of wind from a closing door, flutters across the standards. Candle-wicks flare in the audience, attenuating into identifiable shapes: gods and spirits unnumbered, drawn to the promise of drama. When you live forever, I suppose, any cause for diversion is coveted.

  EVERYTHING INEVITABLY GETS more complicated when lawyers become involved.

  Of course, Nyarlathotep argues against Yan Luo’s impartiality, citing personal bias. And of course, Yan Luo will not be persuaded to accept a candidate of the former’s choosing. Naturally, it all becomes quite apocalyptic when I introduce a third variable: my contractual obligations to the ghouls, which states that they acquire full ownership the moment that Diyu’s ability to maintain market share—whatever that means—is brought into question.

  Let’s not even get into what happens when they try to fill the jury.

  How does it all end, you ask? It hasn’t, yet. According to Yan Luo, there’s no telling when it will reach a resolution. For now, I’m confiscated property, alienated from all my masters, protected by interpantheon law, and incapable of being forced into any new legislative activities until this debacle settles itself. Conditionally free, as the case might be.

  Did I plan this? No. Definitely not. Do I really look like the kind of man who would carefully sign portions of his life away, fully aware that some sub-clauses might contradict others, leading to a legal gridlock of Herculean proportions? All the while waiting, just waiting, for the perfect piece to slot into a perpetual motion machine of complications in order to buy himself indefinite liberty?

  Of course I don’t.

  AN ENDING

  “HEY, FARIZ. HOW are you doing?” I rest my forehead on the polymer frame of the phone booth, and try to ignore the man masturbating frantically on a bench five feet away. Even the most middle-of-the-road milquetoast has a breaking point, I suppose. And that man is embracing his with orgasmic abandon.

  “Dude,” Fariz hisses into the phone, sleep-slurred. “Where are you calling from? What time is it there? Are you even allowed to be awake?”

  The frantic onanism is reaching a crescendo; the man’s breathing labors through his moans; his noises deepen to bull-like lowing. I inch a few steps away, cup a hand over the phone. “Honestly, I don’t know. I couldn’t even tell you what day it is.”

  “Thursday?”

  “Real helpful, man. Real helpful.”

  A gaggle of drunken women, hair bleached sunlight-pale, totter unsteadily onto the platform, heels clacking. Their chatter quickly rises to screeching horror. Out of the periphery of an eye I see the masturbator giving them a thumbs-up as the group clatters away.

  “You’re the one that’s calling me out of the blue after I told you—”

  “Yeah. About that.” I push my tongue against the top of my mouth and stare at the ceiling. “What if I told you that you might want to consider, maybe, getting out of the house for a while and laying low? Because there is, and I’m not saying that this is definitely the case, the small chance that a bunch of angry people are about to come visit the manor.”

  “What did you do, Rupert—”

  “People keep asking me that. I never know why. No one ever seems to like it when I tell them the truth. The short answer is: stuff. I did stuff. Stuff that your Uncle and a lot of people in power deserve. But maybe not you, because you didn’t actively fuck me over.”

  “Rupert—”

  A cadre of policemen materialize at the climax of the masturbator’s performance, bright buttons gleaming like headlights in the navy of their uniforms. They escort him away without resorting to unnecessary mockery.

  “I have to go. Good luck. Remember what I said. Get out. And if you’re feeling generous, you know my bank account details. I’m really, really broke.”

  ANOTHER ENDING

  “YOU’RE ALIVE!”

  Veles shrugs, daintily abashed, disarmingly normal in his penguin suit, the shirt slightly too small for his ursine frame. He beams at me. His braids are gathered into a dense ponytail, and he smells corrosively of aftershave.

  “And cleaned up,” I add with a nod. “And working for a proper restaurant?”

  The air is steeped with smells: caramelized onion and fresh pol sambal; cumin and cinnamon, black pepper and fenugreek, turmeric and curry leaves; a complex decoction of stews; meats crisping in their own fats, rich as kings. Sri Lankan high cuisine. You have to love it.

  “New job has dress code.” Another easy shrug. “So Veles comply. Only seem polite. And beside, owners had nice things to say about Veles’ experiences in ‘charitable service.’”

  “I—” A rich pang of happiness, shapeless, wine-sweet. “How?”

  He waves at the empty tables, eyebrows raised. The restaurant is small but well-appointed, if a little cramped. I take his hint and let him lead me towards an unoccupied seat by the window. Bracketed by residential streets, this corner of Croydon is a stolen quiet, unique in its stillness.

  Veles sets a menu in my hands.

  “New gods not so bad,” he remarks, still beaming. “Like children, sometimes. Or angry puppies. Both things that Veles has experience with.”

  “I thought they would have tried to, you know, kill you or—”

  “Here is thing that Veles learned. Thousand of years ago, man was too busy staying alive to understand social topics like wage parity, inequality, xenophobia. Now, there is language for it. There is knowledge. And there are gods to watch over the little ones, gods with voices that cannot be silenced any longer.”

  “So they took you in?” I pick out a simple course: egg appam and duck curry, sweet tea to counter any excessive spice.

  “Something like that.” His smile, bright, brilliant with a yearning hope, is something I know I’ll always carry with me to dark places.

  “I—what about everyone else? Hildra—”

  “Modelling now.”

  “—and—and the feldgeist?” My voice staggers to a pause as a memory surfaces: the explosion in the soup kitchen. The rusalka and the fox were in there with me.

  “Safe,” Veles says, to my surprise. “She and Adriana are two sides of coin, da? They will always find each other, always save each other. Elsa brought her home. They live on farm now outside of London.”

  “And the fox?”

  The god-turned-waiter spreads his palms. “Who knows? Tricksters don’t die. They only get bored. Any more questions? Or should Veles go get Rupert food?”

  “I—” A drizzle springs into life outside. “No. I’m good.”

  Veles walks away to fulfill my order, leaves me to contemplate the rain as it tinsels London in silver.

  ALSO AN ENDING

  THE LAST TIME I see them is in the garden of a elegant café, its wall bedecked with illustrations of Parisian leisure. Flowers tangle in black-steel trellises, starbursts of vivid purple. People ramble over coffee and buttery croissants, curled on plain wooden benches. A golden retriever, snuggled under a table, watches as two tow-headed children race between tables.

  I almost miss them in the halcyon bustle, too preoccupied with the dissection of a duck confit. But then the sunlight catches on Persephone’s hair just so and I raise my gaze to lose myself in her smile. She’s still pale, still possessed by that otherworldly pallor, still unhealthily gaunt, but her eyes are alive, and she’s laughing at something someone just said and the sight of it eases the weight of a hurt I didn’t even know I had.

  Her companion tilts a glance over her shoulder, lips crooking a wry little smile: Demeter. She daubs clotted cream from her mouth and winks an eye before rising to her feet, sundress falling in ripples of paisley. Persephone remains seated, attention transfixed by the butterfly that had deigned to perch on a raised hand.

  A breeze carries an unseasonal warmth across the space, a promise of summer gone but not forgotten. Demeter tucks a curl behind an ear as she draws close. I’m mesmerized by the simple gesture, by the power that washes from her: golden whea
t, a lungful of love and the headiness of a good harvest. She sits and I can hardly breathe through the impulse to offer worship. For once, it isn’t a desire coerced, but something purer.

  I’m marvelling over the implications when Demeter speaks, voice soft. “So.”

  “So.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Not bad, all things taken into consideration.” The golden retriever is finally coaxed into entertaining the kids. It gambols around them in circles, accelerating with every orbit. “How are the two of you doing?”

  “We’re good. Persephone is talking. Eating. She’s damaged—” Demeter’s lips vanish into a line. The butterfly spreads its wings: iridescent blues and cyans, like stained-glass windows pieced from sapphires. “But it will be alright. We have eternity.”

  I pop a slice of fried potato into my mouth. The flavor is perfect: salty, steeped in garlic, soaked in the juices from the duck. “What are you going to do now with all that cosmic power?”

  She makes a moue. “That might be slightly too generous a description for what I’ve inherited. But to answer the question: I don’t know. We’ll see. Perhaps, we will begin by seeing how we can make up for what we’ve broken. I have a lot to make up for.”

  I nod. “Seems like a good place to start.”

  Demeter leans over and touches her lips to my forehead. “Be well, Rupert. I hope you find the peace you need.”

  And with that, she sashays out of my life.

  SIMILARLY,

  ANOTHER ENDING

  “WHO ARE THESE women?”

  I shrug and jab a finger at random geriatrics, elbows propped on the lip of the counter, legs stretched long. It had been an ordeal, corralling all the old ladies. “That’s Nan. That’s Grandma. That’s Popo, Ah Ma, Grandmother, Granny. I think that’s—”