The Afterlife Series Omnibus: Heaven, Hell, Earth, Wasteland, War, Stones

by Mur Lafferty

  * * * * *

  Gamma did not like having to change her focus. But she was in this battle to save the children. As they fell through the sky, she grabbed knives from her sleeve and sliced through Prosper’s vines. He bellowed and sent more vines at her, but she sliced through them as well and reached out to grab the children.

  Her hand closed around Ursula’s arm, but something flew past her, something white and huge, wrapping around James and forcing him toward the water even faster.

  Gamma had only a moment to decide, and with regret, she tightened her grip on Ursula and focused on Alicia’s knife, now, she realized, in Sarah’s possession.

  She appeared on the deck of the Sheridan, holding the hysterical child, and handed her to her shocked sister.

  She hugged her sister tightly and then said, “James?”

  Gamma pursed her lips. “I couldn’t get him. I’m not sure what happened. Something interfered. I’m going back down.”

  She ran to the railing and vaulted over it, diving this time to catch up to the others, who had just hit the water with a massive splash.

  The boy could not have survived that, she thought with regret, but continued her descent with determination. Prosper would pay.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  There were rules one followed; everyone knew there were rules. For the death goddess to outright kill her intended, that was crass; that was crude; that had no grace. But for her to arrange his death? That was something.

  That bitch Gamma had almost interfered, but Morrigan followed the falling group in the form of a diving crow, and she hit the boy as Gamma tried to grab him. He screamed and grabbed at her soft feathers, but she then flew off and waited for him to land in his watery grave.

  So attuned to him she was, she could hear each bone as it snapped when the boy hit the water at terminal velocity. He died instantly, his body causing a great plume of water to splash to almost her height. Prosper and Gamma followed very shortly after. When the water stilled again, he was gone, floating down to the depths of the ocean. She didn’t see the other two gods.

  She circled the water where they had fallen. As the sea started to churn under her, she caught sight of the small wisp exiting the water and floating vaguely south.

  She dove again, wrapping her talons around it. Secure in her grasp, the soul fluttered passively as she flew south.

  Mine.

  * * * * *

  Daniel looked around at the charred remains of the city. As he had been carrying a blinded boy out of the city of Dauphine when Kate had razed it, he hadn’t seen the extent of the destruction. He whistled long and low.

  She was very still at his side. “Why are we here?”

  Daniel shrugged, adjusting the slight weight of the unconscious goddess on his shoulder. “No idea. Is Fabrique here?”

  Professor Burns came to Kate’s side. “Regardless of where we are, we seem to be safe, and I need to see the sun god. Please put him down.”

  Kate gently lowered Barris to the ashy street. His eyes were wide and glazed, and a thin line of drool ran down his chin.

  “Shit,” Kate said.

  Burns nodded. “I’m afraid we’re too late. I didn’t think he would survive the antidote, but one can always hope.”

  Daniel felt a cold finger slide down his spine. “Will the sun rise tomorrow?”

  Kate shrugged from where she kneeled by Barris. “If the sun were to go out, we’d start to freeze in eight minutes. Not to mention what losing the gravitational pull would do to us. Has it been eight minutes since he drank that stuff?”

  Daniel shrugged. “Fabrique would know. Why isn’t she here?”

  Ishmael was in front of them, looking at the ruins with distaste. “Why did you bring me here? This is far from the sea!”

  “We didn’t mean to; we thought we were headed somewhere else. Something went wrong,” Kate said through gritted teeth. Daniel looked at her sympathetically. The bubbly sea god was a lot to take when you were trying to think your way out of a problem.

  Ishmael cocked his head, dog-like, and looked down at Barris, who wore the necklace he had recently been freed from.

  “Well, if those necklaces stifle our power, then wouldn’t they mess with a gadget made by Fabrique?” he asked.

  Kate’s mouth hung open and she stared at Ishmael, then Daniel. Daniel did the quick math — each of the six of them had been in contact with the blue necklaces, or with someone in contact with them, as they went through. Fabrique had gone through alone, and it had looked as if she had gone through to the Sheridan.

  “Fuck a duck,” he muttered. “That shit messes us up every time we touch it.”

  He reached down in disgust to grab Barris’s necklace, but a shout from Ishmael made him stop. They all stood as a glowing white bird spiraled down from a soot-encrusted steeple.

  “That’s not an ordinary crow,” Kate said, her voice strained.

  Daniel put Persi gently down next to Barris. “What do you think it is?”

  “I … don’t know.”

  He put his arm around Kate. “Then why are you so damn scared?”

  She shoved him off. “I’m not scared.”

  He stepped away, annoyed. “Could have fooled me.”

  The crow landed atop a standing wall of a burned-out house. It cocked its head and looked at Kate and Daniel, hopping a little on its right foot to keep its balance as it clutched something diaphanous in its left.

  “Oh no. No,” Kate said, taking a step back.

  “What’s wrong?” Daniel asked, but the crow hopped from the roof then, its unnaturally large body morphing and twisting, stretching and darkening to form the shape of a diminutive person about five feet tall clad in a cloak of hair. A thin, wrinkled, blackened hand slipped the diaphanous thing inside her cloak.

  The person clutched a scythe that glowed, its white blade winking, and wore a helmet or full mask. Daniel glanced back at Kate, who had gone white.

  The person’s head cocked. Clearly, he or she could see Kate and Daniel.

  She spoke — the voice proving quickly to be female — and all the hairs on Daniel’s neck stood up. “Kate and Daniel. My, my, how lucky for me.”

  Ishmael frowned, counting on his hands. “I have known all my fellow gods upon sight. This one I don’t recognize. That’s odd, don’t you think?”

  “There’s a lot about this that’s odd,” Daniel said. “You know us, madam, but we don’t know you, I’m sorry to say.”

  She chuckled and took a step forward. Kate took another step backward. Daniel glanced at her, surprised to see such bald fear on her face.

  “I was the face of the night, imprisoned by the first two gods, held on an airship. I waxed; I waned; I loved he whose power I reflected.” She jabbed the butt end of her weapon at Barris’s catatonic form.

  “Cotton,” Daniel whispered, nodding.

  She shook her head sharply. “Not anymore. I was imprisoned —”

  “— in Dauphine,” Kate said, her hand covering her mouth.

  The mask nodded. “Oh, yes, and when the holy fire came from the sky to cleanse the city, I was unable to escape my prison. I burned with the city. But I am a goddess and cannot die, so I transformed.”

  “Did you ever wonder why we had no death god or goddess here? I wondered if it simply was that the underworld was waiting for me. I still control the moon, but Cotton is dead. I am Morrigan, goddess of death. I am Morrigan, goddess shaped by the Lady Kate’s wrath.”

  She removed her mask and faced them, her blackened, wrinkled, burned skin stretched across her face, eyes sunken to black holes, nose gone. The lipless mouth grinned at them, and Professor Burns swore quietly behind them.

  Ishmael gaped at her. “Put that back on, woman! You’ll scare the children!” he said. “Although I guess all the children are dead, and therefore have already seen you. Still, goodness, don’t you have any divine power to heal that?”

  Daniel wanted to punch him for his inconsiderate innocence, but Morr
igan, surprisingly, returned the mask to hide the hell that was her ruined face.

  “My power holds the moon in the sky, it opens the underworld for people, and it haunts the dreams of those who carelessly destroy others without thinking of consequences.” The mask turned to face Kate again, who still stared at her.

  The woman’s robe — was it made of hair? — twitched, and she pulled it aside. What emerged made Daniel want to vomit. A ghostly body stepped from under her robe, glowing slightly: a white, translucent version of James, his friend and Alicia’s son.

  “My existence is not all pain and fear, though,” Morrigan said, stroking the boy’s head as he stared at her, unafraid. “Now that I have him, I am no longer alone.”

  “No,” Daniel said, taking a step forward. “You bitch, you can’t have him. What did you do, kill him?”

  “Of course not, there are rules, after all,” Morrigan said. “He died during a struggle between Prosper and Gamma. He fell overboard. He’s dead, and mine now.”

  “No,” Daniel said again, but Morrigan raised her weapon between them.

  “The one and only time I attacked someone with this, I shredded his soul. I don’t know what it will do to gods. Want to find out? I think I owe Kate a bit of chaos and pain.”

  She stepped forward, and Daniel retreated to Kate’s side.

  “Now’s the time you should grab that sword of yours,” he said to Kate, cursing himself for leaving his sword — the katana that had previously belonged to goddess Izanami — on the Sheridan.

  He glanced at her. She was staring up at the moon, her mouth slightly open. He shook her shoulder. “Kate. Vengeful death god threatening us. Need to move here.”

  She pointed upward at the moon, and Daniel finally followed her glance. Suddenly, for the first time ever, he could see the dark halo around it, indicating the size the moon had once been before Morrigan took some of its power for her own. The void that remained was leaking; darkness oozed from the moon, slowly blotting out the stars.

  Kate’s eyes were wide as she stared at the sky. “Chaos,” she whispered. A tear spilled down her cheek.

  The scream of the wind sounded north of Dauphine, and Professor Burns spoke up from beside the catatonic gods. “Improbability storm!”

  Morrigan turned her mask toward the approaching storm. “He comes; it’s nearly time.”

  “I hate it when I don’t know what’s going on,” Daniel said, pulling Kate away. “Ishmael, get Persi; I’ll get Barris, and then we need to get the fuck out of here.”

  Morrigan lunged then, slicing the air between her and Kate, who still looked shell-shocked. Kate raised her hand automatically, without even focusing on Morrigan, and batted the blade down to bury itself into the swirling ashes at their feet.

  The apparition that had once been James pulled at Morrigan’s robe, his eyes fearful. Daniel could see his mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear the talk of the dead. Morrigan looked at them once more, then split the air with her weapon and entered the underworld, the seam closing up behind her.

  They were alone. Kate’s shoulders slumped, but Daniel wouldn’t let her fall.

  “Do not fucking fall apart on me now. It’s not fair, Kate. Shit’s going down. I need you. We need to get these guys to safety. Think, Kate!”

  “Persi and Barris need their necklaces removed,” she said, staring at her hand, where a thin cut bled freely.

  “Right!” Daniel said. “Then we can give them to Burns, and he’ll be protected. Great thinking.” He remembered how the chaos energy had protected them from the improbability storm, but it did more harm by dampening their own power.

  “Draining away,” she murmured.

  “Ishmael, you are in charge of Persi. Carry her. Remove the necklace only if you have to, to keep her safe. You’re the only one who has a chance of controlling her if she goes all Cthulhu on us.”

  “What is ‘Cthulhu’?” Ishmael said.

  “Tentacles! Scary! Big! There’s no time for explanations; move!” Daniel said.

  He knelt by Barris and felt a brief stab of pain as he realized the god really and truly was gone. He’d obliterated his own mind with Burns’s concentrated idea gunk. Poor bastard. He looked up briefly at the billowing clouds shining with a cold light: the improbability storm, seemingly targeting them. Wind pulled at his hair and he grimaced, knowing they couldn’t outrun the storm. He didn’t know how much he could do with two catatonic gods, an ineffective girlfriend, and one human.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this one, Kate,” he whispered to himself, knowing she wouldn’t respond if he said it loud enough for her to hear.

  Oh, beloved, we will find a way. We always do, came her voice in his head.

  He looked up in surprise and saw that she had stood and was carefully ripping the fluttering hem of her robe to wrap around her bleeding hand. The cut had looked pretty deep, and dark blood stained the moonlit street.

  “I think we should find shelter,” she said. “One of these buildings is better than nothing.”

  Daniel’s relief was cool and refreshing, and with renewed strength he reached out and grabbed Barris’s necklace, pulling it off and tossing it to Professor Burns.

  Barris disappeared and Daniel fell back, swearing at the burst of heat that engulfed him, but didn’t harm him. He blinked at looked up at the suddenly familiar fiery angel standing before them.

  The man shook his head and looked around, taking in his surroundings and companions. He looked at the improbability storm, nearly upon them, and then raised his hands above his head. He grew, then, increasing mass and height till he was as tall as a house. He reached down, gathered them all in his burning arms, and lurched into the sky, flying straight up.

  Below them, the ruined city of Dauphine crumbled under the weight of Chaos.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Kate barely registered her surroundings as the angel grabbed her and the others and flew off. The only thing she could see was the chaos around her, and how stupid they’d been this whole time.

  Daniel was yelling in alarm, Ishmael was shouting questions over the din of the storm, and Persi remained asleep. Professor Burns clutched the necklace, eyeing the flames that went out as they touched him.

  As they flew over the clouds, northeast, Kate closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax. She refused to beat herself up by what she didn’t know. The issue of Morrigan was directly her fault and she didn’t know how to make that right. But she would come up with something. For now, she was just so tired.

  The angel deposited them on a hilltop, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I would have gone farther but Professor Burns’s necklace is draining me too much.”

  Burns stepped away quickly once he was put down. He stared at the angel with wide eyes. “I know you. I’ve seen you at night.”

  “We all have,” Daniel said grimly, folding his arms.

  “I haven’t!” said Ishmael. “But where did Barris go?”

  “You’re Barris, aren’t you?” asked Kate.

  The angel nodded.

  “But —” Daniel started, but Barris interrupted him.

  “I am where the sun’s power goes after it goes down. When the sun comes back up, I have to give the power back.”

  “Why did you never tell us this?” Daniel asked.

  “Part of what I give up at night is the memory of who I am,” Barris said, frowning. “I try to remember every time, maybe thinking I’ll live my life differently if I know what awaits me at night. But I don’t. As for why I never introduced myself to you as I am now, I wasn’t ready. I wanted my freedom.”

  Kate waved her arms in frustration. “Why do people keep saying stuff like that? We didn’t imprison you in the first place, and we’re not imprisoning people now!”

  “Prosper didn’t come with us of his free will,” Daniel said.

  Kate whirled on him. “Et tu, Daniel?”

  He put his hands up, palms out, placating her. “Hey, I b
elieve in what we’re doing. But we are searching for the gods to help us fight a war, are we not?”

  Kate hung her head. He was right. She’d been raising an army with no consideration on whether the gods would agree to fight. She glanced back up at Barris.

  “So you know what you’re like during the day?” Kate asked.

  Barris nodded. “I am fairly sure, yes. I am addicted to ideas and not worth much of anything.”

  Daniel shared a stricken look with Kate. “Actually, you’re worse off than that. You kinda OD’d on ideas and ended up catatonic. We thought you were gone for good.”

  Barris frowned and looked down, his blonde hair hanging into his face. “When I search within myself for the person I am during the day, he is gone.”

  He shrugged briefly and smiled. “At least my nighttime form is still functioning.”

  “As long as you don’t have one of those goddamned necklaces,” Daniel said, glaring at the hated jewelry in Burns’s hand. “I wish we knew what that was made of.”

  Kate looked up at the moon again. The seeping blackness had slowed, probably because the improbability storm had eased up its attack on Dauphine.

  “I know what it’s made of,” she said, looking south, watching the final colorful assault on Dauphine.

  “What? How did you figure that out?” Daniel asked.

  Kate closed her eyes and accessed the divine knowledge gifted from the gods she had met during their journeys. “You said it yourself. Chaos. Not the word, but the deity. Chaos was around before the universe, before the gods. It was first. Then the Universe came, and Order, and Chaos got chained. It stayed there just fine until the world ended. But when the metaphysical earth went away, it found an escape hatch. It wants power again, but it also wants to punish those who chained it.”

  “So that’s the siege on heaven,” Daniel said.