by Mur Lafferty
Susanoo stumbled backward, flailing. I tried to get out of his way, but the katana passed over my left cheek, nearly painless as it cut me. I heard Kate call my name.
I tried to blink the blood out of my eyes so I could follow what was happening, but everything was through a red lens.
The door to the underworld was open now, and the mountain vomited forth its inhabitants. Something spewed out: a cloud of flies that screamed one name with ten thousand enraged voices. “Izanagi.”
Susanoo fell back, screaming. The sword fell from his hands as the cloud engulfed him. The cloud devoured him before the katana hit the ground.
I blinked again and then the pain came. The blood that obscured my vision did not come from my scalp, but from the left eye itself - what was left of the eye, which wasn’t much. I curled up into a fetal position, moaning, my ruined eye a confusion of pain in my skull.
The socket burned, a searing sensation that left me screaming. I forced my good eye open and actually saw fire dripping from my face, making the blood sizzle. I gasped, knowing I should be terrified of the great buzzing death that hovered nearby, but not caring. The voice whispered one thing, Mother, and then I knew the goddess was before me. Perhaps she could end the pain. I reached out my hands out to her.
The fire stopped and Izanami devoured me. Or I passed out in Kate’s lap. I wasn’t sure.
#
I awoke in the woods, lying on my back. The wound on my face was bound and the burns had a cooling cream on them. My skull throbbed distantly, as if I’d taken some powerful narcotics to forget the pain that was still obviously there.
“He wakes,” said the voice. It was both soft and masculine, like a singer or a scholar.
“Tend to him,” said Izanami. I didn’t see her, but no one else could have the voice that sounded like a million flies screaming at once.
A young woman came into my field of vision, but she wasn’t Kate. She was Japanese, traditionally dressed in a green and silver kimono, with her black hair bound tightly in a bun. She smiled at me and said, “Can you sit?”
I tried to nod, but the pain peeked its head in and threatened to return. With her help, I slowly sat up and looked around.
The woods had considerably less fog; a foul breeze came from the ragged hole in the cliff. Two beings, the cloud of flies that was the goddess Izanami, and a man made entirely of fire, talked to Kate some ways from me.
“Who?” I managed to croak.
“Kagut-suchi,” my doctor replied. “The infant whose birth killed Izanami. Izanagi, his father, murdered him in retribution, and the child’s soul has waited here for thousands of years, waiting for his mother to come for him. He held the pain of your lost eye until you had completed your mission.”
“The voice in my head,” I said, understanding at last. “And you are?”
She smiled at me softly. “Kazuko. Izanami is pleased with your service to her and her family. She has appointed me as your physician and guard.”
I squinted again at the horrific death goddess. The flies had come together tightly to insinuate a woman’s form, but she was still dreadful to look at. Kate talked to her as easily as if she were talking to a manager at a grocery store.
Kagut-suchi walked toward me and kept a respectful – and healthy – distance. He left ashy, smoking footprints on the forest floor. “Thank you for freeing my mother.” He bowed low.
“Just, uh, doing my job,” I said, feeling how lame it sounded right away. “Susanoo, what was he doing here, anyway?”
He gestured a fiery hand at the door to the Underworld. “The end of the world is nigh. My mother was the beginning; she gave birth to us all. She will be the end: the goddess of death. She yearns to take revenge on my father. Susanoo-no-Mikoto is his son, the storm god, exiled from heaven for dishonoring his sister in their longstanding rivalry. He attempted to regain his father’s favor by keeping Izanami imprisoned. This slowed the end of the world. You stopped him. She is free. She can do her job now, allow the wayward souls to go home, and get her revenge on Izanagi when she ascends to heaven.”
He bowed again. “We are indebted to you and hope that Kazuko is a gift worthy of the sacrifice you have given.”
The woman bowed her head. I reached up and touched my bandages gingerly. If given a choice, would I have traded my eye for a traveling doctor? Probably not. But I didn’t have a choice. Still, I knew the Japanese held honor highly, and the gods even more so than the people.
I bowed as best I could from my seated position. “I am unworthy of the gift; thank you, Kagut-suchi-san.”
He bowed one last time and returned to his mother and Kate. “So she’s going to do her part to end the world, then go kill her husband?” I asked Kazuko.
“She is death,” the woman said. “Her path is clear.”
I cleared my throat and thought of the dying Earth. “Of course.”
“The small piece of a god you carry within you should have begun healing you by now,” she said. “Do you feel any better?”
My head had begun to clear. Hope reared its ugly head, and I said, “Does this mean I will grow the eye back?”
She looked at me, her eyes kind. “Did Odin?”
I sighed. “Well, shit. Sometimes this job really sucks, you know that?”
“I am sure. Most do.”
“Yeah, but most don’t slice out your eye with a katana,” I retorted.
“Hey, dude,” Kate said as she made her way over, her forced nonchalance not fooling me in the least. “You feeling better?”
I glared at her as best I could. “Better than before, when there was a sword in my eye, yes. Better than five minutes before that? No.”
She grinned at me. “You’ve reached the wounded tiger stage already? Excellent.”
I looked away from her. “I’m not up for jokes right now.”
She looked down. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. I owe you my life, or afterlife, or something. If you hadn’t thrown that shield he would have cut me in half.”
She shrugged. “It was all I had. I wish I had done more.”
I took her hand and squeezed it. “Help me up?”
She pulled me to my feet and I leaned on her, the pain in my head blooming anew from the altitude change. “I talked to Izanami and her son. Freeing her was our big goal here, and opening up the underworld. The mist around here was all the souls who haven’t been able to go to the underworld since Izanagi blocked it at the beginning of time. Now they have somewhere to go, and Izanami is free. And you’ve met our bodyguard?”
“You mean my doctor?” Kazuko had been silently sitting up to then; she stood and straightened her kimono. Her sword, a straight Chinese blade, came into view, and I thought about how useful she would have been about half an hour before.
I put a hand to my head. The pain had receded and I knew I’d be healed, as much as I could, in a couple of hours. Kazuko looked into the now-open tunnel to Yomi, the underworld.
“I hope I don’t have to warn you that going there in search of your sister would be a tragic journey,” she said.
“Is she there?” I asked.
Her calm gaze met my eye. “No.”
“Well, then. Let’s go.”
We stopped to bow to the goddess of death and the god of fire before leaving the Shinto afterlife. They bowed back, thanking me once more.
We walked in silence. Kate broke it finally by saying, “That was… intense.”
I snorted. “Understatement of the afterlife, Kate. Nice place. We’ve lost our dog, what I had left of my sister, and now my fucking eye,” I said as the world reverted back to the standard, bland, landscape. “I nearly lost my best friend; what’s next, my balls?”
Kate looked at me directly. “You won’t lose me, Daniel. I’ve got your back, remember?”
Her frank words made me flush, and I looked down.
Kazuko spoke up from behind us. “Izanami died of burns when she birthed Kagut-suchi. She retrea
ted to Yomi where her body and soul were devoured by beetles, maggots, and kaku. Eventually all that was left were the flies that came from the maggots, strengthened by the essence of the goddess within. She waited there for thousands of years, vengeance the only thing on her mind. Vengeance to him who dishonored her and looked upon her after her death when she had bid him not to, and on him who killed her son.”
Okay, I guess that was worse than losing an eye. “Yeah, but—” I said.
“Izanagi sliced the newborn baby Kagut-suchi into eight pieces, each creating new gods and demons. The newborn’s soul has been here ever since, waiting for its mother.”
I tried to interrupt again. “I know, and I—”
She continued. “Millions of people on earth died in the first nuclear attack. Their skin melted and their organs disintegrated. When they enter Yomi, there will be nothing for the maggots and kaku to devour. Those who will die of radiation poisoning or survivor violence will get to rot in Yomi. They will scream as the beetles dig holes in their genitals and maggots devour their—”—
“Okay, okay, I get it! People have it worse off than me. Sheesh.”
Kate glanced at the stern woman. “You must be a ball at a party.”
She rewarded us with a tight smile and continued down the road. I was so tired. I wondered if Kazuko would just leave us if we sat down to rest, but Kate wedged herself under my arm and I leaned on her gratefully.
“I’m not really thinking clearly,” I said. “Where do we go from here?”
She held me tightly around the waist and I marveled at her strength. “Let’s get to the roundabout and decide then.”
“There’s not much left keeping me from dropping right here,” I said, resting my head on hers.
“There’s me.”
“I feel like I could sleep until the end of the world.” I whispered into her hair.
“Apparently, that’s not too far off now,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Daniel, wake up,” Kate said. I groaned and rolled over. She nudged me. “No, seriously. Get up.”
I opened my eye and glared at her. She pointed down a road. “You wanted to sleep till the end of the world. Time to wake up.”
I carefully rubbed my good eye and noticed the pain had pretty much left my head. The scars on my face had faded at least by touch, but eye was gone. Forever, I figured. Shit.
The road Kate pointed down was not one we’d traveled before. I’d never considered that one of the roads would lead back to Earth, but clearly that’s where this simple dirt road led, as souls began trudging toward us. Only a few led, but a darker mass on the horizon indicated they were not alone by far. I stood up to see if I could see farther.
“Why haven’t we seen souls on the road before?” Kate asked, joining me.
Odin’s knowledge bubbled up in my head. “There are more than one road to heaven. It’s meant to be a solitary journey. But apparently even metaphysical roads aren’t infinite. They’re overwhelmed with souls. I mean, we had, what, six billion people?”
“More than that,” Kate said.
The mass of people neared us, hollow-eyed souls who barely looked right or left as they passed the roundabout and went unerringly toward their own heaven.
“I wonder if they see the roundabout,” Kate said. “I didn’t see it when I died. Did you?”
“No,” I said. “I think their road goes where it’s supposed to. I’m not sure they even see us.”
So of course I had to be proven wrong when three souls wandered past and turned, focused on us, and then charged.
We had camped in the soft sand in the center of the roundabout, about ten feet from the road. The souls looked like regular humans, but regular humans who were undergoing some horrific torture. One man with knives through his eyes lunged for us with a third knife, apparently not needing the sight he’d been robbed of. My face twitched, more disturbed by the gruesome reminder of my loss than the actual attack.
A woman, her long hair ablaze, tried to use herself as a weapon, launching herself at Kate, her screams nothing but tortured grunts as her vocal cords melted.
The third looked as if it were a garden-variety zombie, rotting flesh dripping and maggots writhing. It moaned and belched a noxious cloud.
All of this I processed after the fact. What really happened was that while Kate and I stood and watched our doom approach, too stupefied to react, Kazuko jumped in front of us. Kate shoved me down and sand flew into the air, and then Kazuko went to work.
Her sword was out instantly. She assessed the threat and cleaved the burning woman in half just as the demon reached Kate. Then the knife-man lost his extending arm in a spray of blood. A nasty sound came from the zombie and Kazuko bent her legs, wrapped her arms in tight, and hit Kate like a small, dense battering ram. She fell over me just as the cloud passed over our heads. Kazuko dropped, rolled, and was up in an instant. She went immediately from a small, compact ball to a wide-stretching, graceful crane, and the zombie’s head landed ten feet away on the edge of the roundabout and bounced into the road.
Just for good measure she beheaded the flailing knife guy, and then calmly wiped her blade with a handkerchief.
I panted in the sand, looking up at her, then at the remains of my assailants, then to Kate, who was as startled as I was, and then back her.
“I believe the borders are fracturing,” she said, scrubbing some soot off her blade. “The rogue beings that exult in chaos have discovered your quest to stop them.”
Something within me snapped. I scrabbled to my knees, rooting through my backpack and yelling. “Give me something. Anything. If You will not protect me, give me something to protect myself. Damn You, give me something!”
“Daniel-” Kate began, but I snarled at her as I found a tiny pocketknife at the bottom of my backpack.
I stared at it and hurled it down an empty afterlife road. “What? Don’t like the fact that I swore at You? That’s one of the Ten Commandments, right? No killing, no coveting, no swearing, and not holding other gods before You? But all I’ve been doing is finding other gods, several of whom have helped me out a ton more than You have. You have me run from gods with swords without giving me one. You have me lose my fucking eye. I’m like Your fucking leashed lapdog, and I don’t even know if I’ll get what I want at the end, because You don’t know where Megan is!”
I gripped my head and howled. The socket where my eye had been throbbed; it had taken longer to heal than I had expected, but then again the stress of the attack and my rage might have inhibited the healing process.
I grabbed the backpack and threw it after the knife. “I’ve had enough of this!”
Abruptly I realized I was being watched. Kate stared at me as if she didn’t know me. Kazuko stood quietly beside the three assassins. She had replaced the straight blade in its sheath, but held a familiar object in her hands.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, willing my voice not to shake.
She held Izanami’s katana, taken, I assume, from the no-longer-with-us Susanoo. “She wants you to have it. If your god will not give you the tools in which to protect yourself, then she will aid you.”
“I don’t want it.” I touched my bandage involuntarily.
“The tool is not to blame for what its wielder does,” she said.
I had been complaining about not having a weapon. Now that I had one offered I didn’t want to touch it. I stared at the hated sword. Kazuko unsheathed it and the runes glinted on the blade. In her hands, it looked like pure silver, with no shadows of malevolence. In my mind, Odin’s knowledge played through all of the proper ways to use the katana, what was forbidden according to bushido, the warrior’s code, and the history of the blade. For a craggy old man, he sure did know a lot about the weapons of a different culture.
“Do you know how to use it, Daniel?” asked Kate. “Anything in Odin’s database?”
I nodded, not taking my eyes from the hated sword. “I know how. In theory.
”
“Then take it. Two people with swords will suit us better than one, and I’d probably cut my own foot off if I tried to use it.”
I shook my head. “Not now. I can’t do it now. I can’t even get used to having a blind side yet.”
“You will never get used to that,” Kazuko said, sheathing the blade. “You will learn to adapt, but you will miss it your whole life.”
I laughed suddenly, the idiocy of my existence hitting me. “Yeah, but I’m dead.”
She stared at me for a moment, and a smile crossed her lips. “You are correct.”
Kazuko put the katana on her right side, opposite her Chinese sword. Kate offered me a hand up. I accepted it and brushed the sand off my jeans.
Kate gently adjusted the bandage on my face, a move of such unexpected intimacy I was stunned for a moment. And in that stunned moment when all I saw was her and her ministrations, I realized what we needed to do.
“We need to go back to heaven. Our first heaven,” I said, and she smiled at me. Kazuko bowed her head slightly. I was tired of this. We needed answers.
#
I’d forgotten about that whole end of the world thing. It’s easy to do so when it’s not so immediate, when you have your own problems, like ancient gods fighting around you and with you, or throwing scary-ass demons at you. But the bombs kept dropping on Earth, which meant that people were dying by the millions.
Heading back to heaven, however, was easier said than done. Kate consulted a book from her backpack and said that nearly two billion souls would be wandering past us (and then amended that she didn’t know how many were going to end up in Hell). But we did not have the luxury of time, we needed answers, and it was clear the afterlife was not handling the influx of souls well.
The road became clogged with the souls of the innocents lost in the wars happening down on Earth. Children, mostly, toddlers to teens, all plodding along. They stared ahead, purposeful, without fear. They were all Japanese, many of them heading back toward the Shinto afterlife we had just vacated.
