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

by Mur Lafferty

  “So, what’s next?” she asked eagerly, looking at Daniel. “Let’s face this beast.”

  “I don’t remember,” he admitted. “All I remember is ‘deeper into the Dark.’”

  Kate touched Daniel’s arm and drew him away from the gods, who were discussing the battle with relish. She pointed at the ground. “Daniel. Look.”

  Black rivulets, darker than the black sand, slithered past them and away from the pirate camp.

  “What is that?” Kate asked.

  Daniel looked at the camp, and then back down at the moving, snake-like lines in the ground. “I’m not sure, but I think that might be their tattoos.”

  “Seriously? How is that possible?”

  “It’s possible if that wasn’t actually ink,” Daniel said. He watched them slide deeper into the Dark.

  “Shit. You think that’s actually parts of Chaos?”

  “Would it be any weirder than anything else that’s happened here?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “You’re right. Let’s go.” She turned back toward the others.

  He reached out and grabbed her arm on impulse. “Listen. We don’t know what’s going to happen there. We’re fighting this big blob that royally kicked our asses last time, in a place where we can’t trust our powers. Something could —”

  She glared at him, setting her jaw. “Listen to me, Daniel. You’d better not be doing a, “We may die, so, I love you,” speech. I’m not saying goodbye to you. We’re linked; don’t get you that? You and me, puzzle pieces. We click. Once locked together, we’re not going to be apart. Nothing’s been able to separate us for long before, not even that.” She pointed into the Dark. “So if you say goodbye to me, I’m going to punch you.”

  He grinned at her and smoothed her hair back from her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just wanted to tell you that you look lovely today. That’s all.”

  She kissed him, not a peck, and not a long, drowning kiss. It was a firm kiss, a refusal to be the last kiss, a kiss of ownership.

  He remembered a time back when they were mortal, so long ago, it seemed, when she had been angry with him for not emailing all summer when his dad took him on a trip.

  He looked at her, his eyes wide in shock. “Kate, you’re my best friend. Always. If I went away to Saturn for ten years, I would be sure that when I came back, you’d still be my best friend. This kind of friendship doesn’t change. You’re my favorite person in the world.”

  She’d pouted a bit more, but eventually warmed to him again, sure in his affection, if not romantic love, for her.

  “So tell me about the guy you met over the summer and explain to me why he’s good enough to date my best friend,” he’d said then, digging into their standard Saturday night sundae at the local deli.

  He realized that even back then, he knew he’d be spending the rest of his days with this woman.

  She tugged on his hand. “Come on,” she said. “Apparently, we have some tattoos to follow home.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The words echoed in Kate’s head, the voice a whisper of her former lover, Hermes:

  “Verily at the first Chaos came to be,” said Hesiod. Ovid had much more to say:

  Before the seas and this terrestrial ball,

  And Heaven’s high canopy, that covers all,

  One was the face of Nature, if a face:

  Rather a rude and indigested mass:

  A lifeless lump, unfashioned, and unframed

  Of jarring seeds: and justly Chaos nam’d.

  All of their problems, since the beginning, were caused by Chaos getting free. The missing souls in heaven. Daniel losing control of hell. The siege on heaven. The corruption of their first world. And now, its power was leaking into the second world, imprisoning gods and dampening their divine power.

  It had grown. No more did the armies and heaven and hell battle it. Chaos still covered heaven’s dome, unable to get in, but no one was able to get out, either. The vast plains of hell where Kate had hidden heaven were empty. Kate wondered what had happened to the armies. Were they dead? Devoured? Deserted?

  It leaked its influence past the metaphysical plane and into the physical, and Kate could feel its power draining her. She shook her head. Barris was right. She’d been afraid of using her power, probably since razing Dauphine. They’d been torturing boys, blinding them in the name of Daniel, and she’d lost it. Then, terrified of her power, she’d dampened it.

  “This is the moment where we’re supposed to say something dramatic and mighty, right?” whispered Daniel. “And all I can think of is, ‘Holy shit.’”

  “Apt words,” she muttered. It was certainly holy. And certainly shit.

  “That is our enemy? That is our god?” Gamma asked.

  “Doesn’t look like much,” Ishmael said, looking very pleased with himself.

  Daniel coughed. “You blew back some pirates, Aquaman. This is a bit different. Don’t get cocky. This thing knocked Kate and me into another dimension, and apparently had enough influence on creating this world to imprison the seven of you. You going to hit it with your firehouse?”

  Ishmael stiffened. “You said you needed an elemental attack.”

  Kate chewed her lip. “I don’t know how literal it is. Those Greek poets were all about metaphor. I guess the four of us should go in and attack, the others backing us up. Barris and Ishmael go in first — fire and water being opposites — then Morrigan and I will attack.”

  The gods nodded, but Morrigan just stared at Chaos, her mask hiding any thoughts. Kate looked at her. “Are you up to this?”

  The mask turned toward her and she tried not to shiver. “Are you?” Morrigan asked.

  Kate gritted her teeth and wings burst forth from her back. She reached back for her sword, thinking, this should really be a bow, an air weapon. Her hand closed around a supple bow, and she smiled. That’s more like it.

  Morrigan changed into a crow, flying toward the pulsing dome. Kate took wing herself, skirting around, notching an arrow into her bow. This felt ridiculous, but she had no other thoughts. Morrigan circled Chaos from the other side and landed short of the dome.

  Up close, Chaos was a roiling mass of nothing, a horrific lump of oily sludge, a black that looked as if you could fall into it. Kate blinked to keep it from pulling her in, and continued flying around the perimeter. She caught sight of Morrigan and shouted, “Now!”

  The death goddess’s scythe was out and she swiped at Chaos just as Kate let loose an arrow, pumping her divine energy into it as it left.

  The arrow sank into Chaos and disappeared, and she saw no damage from Morrigan’s attack.

  No damage, but Chaos clearly awakened. Pseudopods extended in all directions, making it look like an angry squid. One of them swiped at Kate, but she dodged it, picking up speed. She saw three try to encircle Morrigan, but she changed into a small crow, dexterously dodging the oily whips and rising high in the air to head back to the others. She and Kate landed at the same time.

  “That went well,” Kate said dryly. “Anyone got a plan B?”

  Barris nodded. “Ishmael and I can spread our attacks over a wide range. You two can attack specific places. Do we know of a weak spot: A head? A heart?”

  Kate waved at it. “It’s a big blob! You find a weak point.”

  “We should all go in together,” Barris suggested. “Ishmael and I will hit it together; you and Morrigan strike different spots.”

  Kate nodded, and the four attacked again.

  Chaos was awake now, its pseudopods waving wildly. Kate flew low, looking for any sort of weakness. How did you find a weakness in a big black blob of silly putty? She dodged another swipe and then she realized the attacks were different this time. Chaos seemed to be flailing about wildly, not attacking with knowledge or craft.

  Of course, she thought wryly. It’s Chaos.

  She flew higher than the other gods, Morrigan landing and slicing through pseudopods as Kate lobbed arrows at the
mass. Then Barris and Ishmael, the latter lifted high by a geyser of water from the dry earth, both sent vast amounts of fire and water to wash over Chaos.

  Great gouts of steam rose from it, and Kate increased her arrow volley.

  Chaos screamed, the unholy screech echoing in her ears and mind. The pseudopods flailed again, wilder this time.

  “I can’t believe it; it’s working,” Kate whispered. She laughed aloud. “Guys, it’s working! Keep it up!”

  * * * * *

  Daniel watched the battle, rubbing his hands together. Gamma growled beside him. Fabrique stood patiently.

  “Can’t we go in and help?” Daniel said.

  “He is right,” Gamma said.

  Fabrique shook her head. “You know what they said. They will let us know when they need us. We wait here.”

  “Come on, we can’t hurt! More people helping will be better, not worse!” His hands opened and closed. Kate whipped around like a hummingbird, sending streaks of silver at the squirming god, its horrible screeches shaking the ground.

  “I said no, and I meant it,” Fabrique said. Her voice had an edge that Daniel had never heard, not even when she was enraged at Kate. He looked over at her and saw black lines appear over her dark skin. Her eyes lost their intelligent spark and she grinned at him. “I think we can take them ourselves. After you, that is.”

  Gamma stood on his blind side. Daniel decided not to waste time looking to see if Chaos had his little tattoo snakes under her skin as well. In an instant, his katana was in his hand and behind him, blocking her attack.

  Great. Warrior goddess. Trying to kill me. I told them I should be fighting Chaos. I might have a better chance with it.

  He took a quick whirl to the left and stepped back, better to get the two goddesses in front of him. Fabrique was calmly looking through her pockets, the tattoos moving over her face. Gamma’s tattoos made lines on her face, coating it in deep black except for a wide horizontal line that left her eyes exposed. She looked at Daniel’s sword and grinned.

  “A sword? Against me?” She held her own sword, a wicked long sword with a wavy blade, held at her side, not even trying to defend herself. Daniel stepped forward, katana high, hoping his connection to his sword, given from the death goddess Izanami, would give him some sort of edge.

  Gamma’s hand shot out and closed over the blade. She threw her head back as the blade disappeared, absorbed into her. She looked at him and her eyes glowed silver. “Lovely sword. Thank you.”

  “Hey! I liked that sword,” Daniel said, and threw the hilt at her. She dodged it easily and lunged for him, knives drawn.

  Fighting her wouldn’t work, he realized, and he took the shape of a small pterodactyl, flying up and out of Gamma’s reach. Her blade nicked his left wing and he screeched in pain, a sound drowned out by another one of Chaos’s bellows.

  Come on, Kate! Kill that thing before Gamma and Fabrique get into the fight, he thought, wheeling toward the battle.

  Fuck! A pinkish ray whizzed past him, narrowly missing him. Fabrique had apparently found what she was looking for. This is no good; I gotta keep them away from Kate, he thought. He turned on his wingtip, his left wing dripping blood, and then came up with an idea.

  * * * * *

  Chaos was shrinking. Kate’s divine arrows were limitless, and the other three worked at their attacks tirelessly. Who knew it would be this easy?

  Every once in a while, she would check on the other three, and see Morrigan’s mask tilted up toward her as her death scythe sliced squirming pseudopods from Chaos. She tried not to think anything of it as she loosed the arrows.

  A glimmer appeared in the midst of Chaos’s bulk — the Dome of Heaven! It really was shrinking. Kate called more encouragement to the gods and focused on attacking the shrinking mass around the revealed part of the dome.

  Laughing, she imagined getting free of this, and going home. Wherever that would be, they would get there. She and Daniel would be free of this war.

  The laughter was driven from her throat as she was hit with a pseudopod and tumbled wildly through the air. Pain coursed through her body as her delicate wings shattered. If it had been a human’s attack, she could have healed instantly, but Chaos was about as far from human as you could get. She soared through the air and landed hard, breaking her left ankle and right wrist as she rolled. She could barely register the pain in her limbs as her entire world narrowed to the overwhelming agony in her back.

  She skidded to a stop and lay stunned. Sight threatened to leave her as black blossoms appeared in her view. She blinked as a masked face appeared above her.

  “Morrigan. Help me. Get Daniel.” Kate whispered.

  “The one who made me. Unmade at my feet. And your lover brought me right to you. I didn’t have to do anything,” Morrigan said. She gripped her scythe, and Kate was pretty sure she was grinning.

  * * * * *

  Daniel hoped his idea would work. Fabrique kept firing her weird pink weapon at him, and he felt an odd tingling as she fired it, and faltered in mid-air. The bitch made a weapon with chaos energy, he realized in shock. And she thinks we can’t be trusted?

  Daniel soared in low, the fight with Chaos behind him and the two corrupted gods in front of him. Maybe if Fabrique missed him, she’d at least hit Chaos. He wheeled and turned, concentrating hard to make up for the lost mobility in his left wing. He got close enough to see Gamma’s grin as she held two knives and waited for him.

  This is really going to hurt, he thought, and forced himself to change from the pterodactyl to coyote, the massive canine that had stolen Morrigan from the Underworld. He rolled and skidded to a stop on three legs, holding the fourth high. With the shape-change, his cut wing turned into a nearly severed paw, gushing blood. He neatly clipped the last bit of skin from the paw and picked it up. He tossed it at the goddesses, and it transformed in midair into the shadow imp that had saved him.

  My own little bit of Chaos. How do you like that?

  The wounded coyote backed up and watched as Gamma tried to slice the imp open with her knives, confusion scrawled over her face as she slipped right through him.

  Fabrique aimed for the imp with her gun, and again, it went through it, hitting Gamma on the other side. The warrior goddess went down, and didn’t move, looking paralyzed rather than dead.

  Fabrique’s eyes grew wide behind her goggles and she backed up, dropping her weapon. Her hands went to her pockets as she looked for anything else to help her as the imp danced closer. She screamed once as it grew and leapt on her, engulfing her.

  Daniel wondered through his pain-hazed mind what it would do to her, but turned his head at Kate’s scream.

  Morrigan stood over Kate, her scythe raised. There was no way Daniel could make it there in time.

  He began to run, hobbled on three paws, leaking blood from the fourth.

  * * * * *

  Kate didn’t know what the scythe would do to her. It had cut her at Dauphine, and the wound still leaked blood many hours later. That didn’t bode well.

  She still faced her death with open eyes. She was completely guilty and didn’t blame Morrigan for her hatred. She took a deep breath as the scythe raised.

  A blinding flash filled her vision and she blinked, only to find it, — and Morrigan — gone. She turned her head to face Chaos and saw Barris and Morrigan barreling toward it, too fast to stop, Morrigan squirming in Barris’s grasp.

  Chaos reached out to embrace them, and then they were swallowed.

  Chaos rippled as if it were a pond full of ink, then it began to shimmer. It bellowed once more, and if Kate had been able to cover her ears, she would have.

  Then it exploded outward in a flurry of glittering shards, forged crystalline godstuff falling around them.

  A coyote as big as a house ran up to her, whining. It stood over her, shielding her from the falling debris. “We did it,” she said, smiling at him.

  * * * * *

  Daniel’s canine self had fierce loya
lty to the woman he shielded, but his sensitive ears still picked up a rumbling from behind them. From their world, Meridian.

  Kate was smiling, her poor shattered body bent in many places. She was alive, still divine, but so broken he didn’t know what could heal the damage done by Chaos.

  Another rumble. And then something occurred to Daniel.

  Chaos had had a hand in making the world, in imprisoning the gods, in forging the xenophobia of Leviathan City, in fueling mad tinkers’ experiments, and in sowing the ground around Meridian and Lathe with enough energy to keep the buildings afloat.

  Fuck, he thought. He reached down and picked Kate up in his jaws as gently as possible and ran back toward the physical plane.

  Behind him, heaven glittered gloriously, and the gates began to slide open.

  * * * * *

  Daniel loped as fast as his three paws could carry him. He felt Kate try to touch his mind, inquisitive and pain-wracked, but she withdrew at his own pain-riddled animal mind.

  He cleared the hills with three bounds and ran towards Meridian, where his fears were already realized.

  He remembered astronomy from high school, how the moon not only moved the tides but also gave the Earth its slightly oblong shape. Without the moon, it would return to being round. Which would likely cause earthquakes.

  But with Chaos gone…they hadn’t thought about what effect that would have on the world.

  Meridian was falling.

  Several of its supporting cables snapped as it listed north, as if seeking the energy it once had in abundance.

  Kate finally understood. From Daniel’s jaws, she cried out in horror as the whole city fell the several hundred feet from where it had rested so comfortably. Buildings crashed into each other, debris and dust rising into the air, the lights going out.