by Mur Lafferty
He kept turning his head to the left to keep me in his sight, and Hermes urged me to use his weakness against him. I feinted left, causing him to over commit, and my sword sliced into his right shoulder. He hissed loudly and jumped back.
I looked at the blood on my sword, as surprised by my successful hit as I was by my lack of remorse. He assessed me, panting.
“Are we done?” I asked. He shook his head and came at me, sword held high. Time seemed to slow as my mind cleared and I saw it all. I finally knew how to end this. I dropped my own sword. I reached up and caught the katana between my palms. The blade dug at my hands, but now I controlled it and didn’t let it go. With a twist, I caused it to dig deeper into my left hand but the hilt popped out of Daniel’s hands. I grabbed his right hand with my right and slapped my deeply cut left hand to his bleeding shoulder. Our blood mixed and-
He cried out, but I could barely hear him through the rushing in my ears. The world around us blurred and we collapsed on a wooden floor, back in the closet where I’d gotten dressed. Had I brought us here?
I held my eyes wide, but could only see through the right. Daniel lay on his back next to me, panting.
He closed his eye. “Do you know, now?”
Yes, finally, I knew it, all of it. The old gods, everyone from Hades to Elohim, were weakening. Not all of them wanted to accept the fact, of course, but new gods had to be found. Years before our births, Daniel and I were chosen. The store - the afterlife - had to be managed. Daniel was the darker, the angrier of us. He was to control hell, manage and punish the dark souls.
It became clear: our journeys, our actions, all had been to teach us of our powers, to make us learn about the metaphysical afterlife. We couldn’t have just been handed the powers of a god; the journey mattered as much as the destination.
And me. I had thought I was nothing, but I was the one who had created anything I needed from the backpack. I was the one who found the Metal Tiger sword. I was the one who had, as a pure soul, been touched by two gods. Heaven was to be mine.
We were not alone. Osiris and the valkyries were to help rebuild the world into a place of peace.
And yet, with our paths separating in front of us, one to Heaven, the other to Hell, we were destined to be alone.
I nodded, although he knew I knew. I was inside him as clearly as he was inside me. I knew the aching depth of his feelings just as he knew mine.
“My God,” I said.
“Yes. You’re God,” he said, laughing.
“I can’t leave you. I won’t. Not now.” I sounded childish to my ears, my mind telling myself that I certainly could, and I certainly had to.
He rolled over. “No. Not now. But soon.” He took my left hand and kissed the palm, healing it instantly. He took the right and did the same. He moved his lips slowly to my wrist then, kissing it softly. My breath became shallow as he moved up the tender skin of my forearm, causing electric shocks to shoot up my arm.
He moved closer to me and touched my face gently. I hadn’t been this close to him, face to face, since we’d come to Hell, and I could see the pink scars from Horus’s attack above and below his bandaged eye. I traced them gently with my finger.
“I would lose the other for you if I had to,” he said. “I’m sorry I could never show you.”
“Show me now,” I said. He leaned in and kissed me. It was everything and nothing like what I remembered from my first days in heaven. In heaven he kissed me exactly how I wanted to be kissed, which was nice, but there were no surprises. Daniel – the whole Daniel - surprised me several times there in the closet.
I moved my head forward as he carefully moved my hair aside and kissed my neck, gasping when he hit the spot that shot waves of pleasure straight down to my knees. He heard me and opened his mouth, biting down right where my neck met my shoulder. My hands scrabbled weakly at his clothes as he deftly removed mine. His hands traced slow designs on my back until I grabbed them and put them where I wanted them.
We weren’t gentle. He hissed when I bit him on the inner thigh. I moaned when he bruised me, digging his fingers into my hips.
His slick salty skin tasted of inevitability. And I tasted, I’m sure, of celebration.
After we had explored feverishly with hands and tongues, I pushed his shoulders back to the floor and moved on top of him, merging our divine natures for the second time. The only coherent thought in my mind was the brief consideration of letting humanity die off or fend for itself, to stay here joined with Daniel forever. The world didn’t need us. We needed us. Tears ran down my face and I cried out as I came, once, twice, then a third time as Daniel clutched me tightly and groaned. Worlds shuddered in our wake.
I collapsed next to him, tears still running. He wiped them gently with his finger. “Don’t. Gods don’t cry.”
I chuckled despite my tears. “I think the divine community is going to learn some new tricks with the likes of us in charge. I’ve never been one to act like the cool kids just for the hell of it.”
He smiled. “That’s what I love about you. Among other things.”
I kissed his searching finger. “Are we enemies now?”
He laughed out loud. “You’ve slain me. Does that count?”
I slapped his chest. “I’m serious!”
“The way I understand it, I’ll a judge, a manager. No, more like security at a carnival. I am not evil, but I punish those who are. You get to give out the carnival prizes and I get to kick out the cheaters. Neither of those people is evil, are they?”
I thought back to the previous fall when, utterly bored and dateless, we had gone to the county fair. The October evening had been hot as we sat in the Ferris wheel, and for one shining moment, when it stopped at the peak, I thought he was going to kiss me. I smiled at the memory.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Get dressed, I suppose. Go back out there and get the keys to the store. Go to work. We’ve got a world to rebuild. I don’t think it’s going to be easy.”
I nodded and reached out my hand. My backpack was there, holding clothing for both of us. We embraced and kissed once more before opening the door. I tried to make it last forever, but apparently my divine will didn’t reach that far.
“Whip those angels into shape,” I said. “Don’t be a stranger, either.”
He grinned. “Take good care of my sister. And Kate?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
The hurt in my chest managed to lessen a bit and intensify at the same time. “I love you, too.”
We exited the storage room, but we didn’t walk into the general store. Instead we stepped outside into a grand carnival. Carnies shouted at us and children ran past, giggling. Couples held each other as they went round the Ferris wheel, and delicious fried food scents hung in the air.
Daniel looked at me, his eye wide.
I shrugged. “I thought I’d try out that divine power thing.”
Ahead of us waited the two men, now dressed as circus ringmasters. They each held a deed, one printed with white ink on black paper, the other one black on white. Megan ran to Daniel and he picked her up and kissed her.
I knelt in the sawdust and peanut shells and opened my backpack. Souls poured out: the ones from cat Hell, and the Underworld, and lastly the clones, dancing their golden ways out of the pack to coalesce in corporeal form and look around in amazement.
The ringleaders handed us the deeds to the carnival and wandered off, arguing about whether next to play checkers or chess. I smiled at their backs, and turned to say something to Daniel, but he was gone.
My breath caught in my throat, but I refused to cry anymore. I would see him again.
We had work to do, after all.
EARTH
By Mur Lafferty
* * *
The Afterlife Series III
Earth, The Afterlife Series III
Version 1.2
Published by Restless Brain Media on Smashwords
Cop
yright © 2011 Mur Lafferty
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
This is a work of fiction. Resemblances to persons living or dead is coincidental.
To Jason "Colin" Adams.
Keeper of the Silver Bullet and multiple in-jokes.
CHAPTER ONE
There’s a point when you're so cold that you're not cold anymore. That’s usually the point where hypothermia is so bad that you just lie down in the warm snow and die. Unless you’re like those Buddhist monks who can meditate in the mountains and stay warm in nothing but thin white robes.
Or you’re a god and then it means that you've mastered some sort of mind over matter test. This is what Kate hoped anyway.
Kate sat meditating in a cave, out of the worst of the wind and snow. Since taking over, Kate had found heaven both efficiently organized and a nightmare of details. Although the power had been coming to her more easily as the time went on, she still felt as if she were the captain of a grand fleet but didn't know how to swim. She’d done some research on the Wastelands, and told Ganymede — to whom she’d given a job since he didn't know what to do after Zeus's death — to keep things in order for her, just for a little bit.
Mortals never realize their full potential. People stay locked into dead-end jobs, in loveless marriages, in cities they hate, and they never explore their passions or what they're capable of if they just change one little thing. This is why they say unemployment is a great thing to happen to some people, because it forces them to act and do something they wouldn't normally do.
Mortals actually have a great deal of power to touch the world around them, to drive their own lives; they just never do it. Kate was no different: she lived with her unrequited love for years and only really told him that she loved him when she was sure she could never be with him.
That would be Daniel, the current guardian of hell. At that moment, he was climbing the mountain Kate meditated on, coming to her with a problem. He shone like a beacon in her awareness.
But back to potential. Kate pondered the issue of potential as she'd been trying to get her brain wrapped around the concept of all this power. She no longer felt the cold. She could teleport. And this afternoon she created life — which she immediately regretted, since the kitten reacted immediately to the cold, shivering in her hands. Details like this she would have to remember: if she's going to make life, she should do it where it might actually have a chance of survival.
She sighed as she heard Daniel's feet at the mouth of the cave. Her heart quickened and she grumbled at it to slow down. Not opening her eyes from her meditation, she said, “You know, it would be a lot easier to get over you if you didn't visit me.”
With her eyes closed, Kate still knew everything about him, especially his exasperated scowl, which he wore as he surveyed her cave. “What the hell are you doing? All this godlike power and you’re freezing your ass off on a mountain?”
Kate opened her eyes. “Do I look cold?”
He shook the snow out of his hair and came inside the cave. “Whatever. I need to talk to you.”
Kate abandoned the petty attempts to keep him at arm's length and invited him to sit next to her, his goose down jacket poufing around him.
“We’re supposed to be rebuilding the world, or at least putting our own afterlives back in order. What are you doing up here?”
If she told him, he would demand a demonstration, so she just showed him. She concentrated briefly, and the cave shimmered and disappeared, its craggy walls becoming the dark green walls of the apartment they’d shared when they’d been alive. It was completed with the broken television in the corner and the Dresden Dolls poster with the torn corner hung over the couch. Kate had always begged Daniel to frame it, but he’d never got around to it. She settled back in the cushy green secondhand couch they bought that always smelled a little bit like Doritos. “I’ve been practicing. There’s not a lot I can do until I get the hang of this whole power thing.”
Daniel looked around and whistled. “I stand corrected.”
“So, what have you been working on?”
Daniel got very busy loosening his coat. “Look. My world is a little bit more chaotic, thanks very much. I haven’t had the luxury to study.”
“You’re whining.”
He finally met her eyes, glaring. “Why are you riding me, Kate?”
Kate sighed and looked at the floor. “Because it's easier than jumping into your arms and begging you not to leave me again. Now, what you need?”
He was silent. Kate couldn’t tell if the flush in his face was left over from the cold, or something else. After a moment he cleared his throat. “It’s this weather — well, the weather you had before you brought us here.”
“Snow?”
“In hell.”
“It froze over?”
He laughed, bitterness tingeing the sound. “I guess so. I hadn’t thought of that whole ‘hell freezing over’ thing, but I suppose that's what’s going on. Every place I've been to has been icy. Once I figured out you were on this mountain, I thought it was your doing.”
“Why would you think that? Daniel, I don't have control over hell, and this mountain is in the Wasteland. I just came out here to meditate. I can't control the Wasteland either.”
He snorted. “Well, shit. Kate, if you're not controlling the weather here, and I can't control the weather in hell, what good is all this power we’re supposed to have?”
She stood, and the apartment disappeared. They were back in the cave. Kate wore a knitted cap, a pink goose down jacket, and her backpack. She rooted around inside, handed Daniel a Traveler’s necklace, and took one out for herself. “I guess we should go find out.”
He finally smiled at her and slipped the chain around his neck. They walked outside and looked around. The mountains surrounding them were uniformly snowy and stormy, except for one. A peak stood apart from the others: an odd Technicolor mountain both could have sworn hadn’t been there before. Its pink peaks rose above the gray trees, yellow rivers, and bright green and blue grass.
“Did you see that place on your way up?” she asked.
Daniel shook his head. “You?”
“No, I teleported here. I haven’t looked outside much.”
Daniel just looked at her.
“What? I told you I’ve been practicing! Stop glaring at me and let's get going.”
The going was easy despite the weather and snowdrifts. Kate and Daniel half -walked, half-slid down the mountain. At the bottom, the snow still fell, but the wind had died considerably, making it easier to talk.
Daniel inspected two metal rails that ran along the low hills. “Are these train tracks? I thought the Wasteland had no roads.”
“I thought the Wasteland had no rules,” Kate said. “I guess if a train comes by, we should catch it.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead over his missing eye. “You know, I have to admit I hate modern-day adventures. Odin’s knowledge is no use to me at all in this case.”
Kate touched the god who resided in her own mind and found that Hermes had little help here either. “I guess we have to rely on our own talents here.”
“Great. I’m King of the Underworld and I'm catching a train like a hobo because I don't know anything better to do?”
Kate laughed. “King. Right. And weren’t you that great homeless advocate back in life?”
“Yeah, what’s your point?”
“Well, isn’t ‘hobo’ kind of rude?”
“That’s what they were! Hobo was the name for a vagrant who traveled from job to job. He doesn’t want to be tied down. He’s not lazy; he’s just fiercely independent. It’s not a mean term for homeless person. It had more weight during the day when you could get on a train, go to a new town, and get a job in a farm or a factory. Today — well, I mean, when we were alive — that was more difficult. I don’t think there were many hobos in our time.”
She caught sight of a lone figure walking through the snow toward them. “Well, sp
eaking of hobos, we could ask that guy walking the tracks.”
Daniel squinted his good eye. “Dude, he's not just walking the tracks; they’re disappearing behind him.”
As the man neared, each wooden slat, and a couple of feet of rail it was attached to, vanished after his feet touched it. He raised his hand as he neared Kate and Daniel, smiling through the stubble on his face and chewing on a cigar butt. His clothes were patched with brightly colored ragged pieces of cloth, and one of his shoes was missing part of the toe, revealing a filthy sock. His ragged brown fedora was pushed back on his head so Kate and Daniel could recognize a brand on his dark skin: the Greek letter Omega. The hobo removed his hat with a flourish and bowed. “Well H. bless my soul; I didn't think I'd see anyone on this trip. Not many people make the trek these days.”
Kate extended her hand and the hobo took it. “I’m Kate, he’s Daniel, and we’re Travelers headed for that mountain over there.”
“Professor Omega, the final hobo, at your service.”
“The final hobo?” Daniel asked.
Professor Omega’s smile died. “You don't know your hobo lore, do you? I was destined to walk the earth from job to job until all of the hobos went home to the Big Rock Candy Mountain. Once all the hobos are home, I roll up the tracks and we live in paradise.”
Daniel smacked his hands together, his gloves making a whap sound. “Of course, the Big Rock Candy Mountain! Hobo Heaven!”
“But why is it out here? Why isn’t it linked up to the other heavens?” Kate asked.
“Since when have hobos been linked to regular society?” said Professor Omega.
“Are you a god or something? The God of the Hobos?” Daniel asked.
“I’m just the last. The Hobo God rules the Big Rock Candy Mountain.”
“Do you think you could take us to talk to him?” Kate asked.
“Not many people want to see the Hobo God, but he is wise above all hobos.”
