Little Gods

by Pratt, Tim

  “I was against this from the start,” Corrigan said. “If we couldn't stop the mortal from his quest, of course you desert kind couldn't."

  “I could have gutted the mortal,” Molter said. He crushed a rock in his hand savagely, tearing his fingers. Stupid flesh, he thought. He looked up. Stupid clouds. “Could have filled his throat with sand. Torn out his eyes. Not stupid obstacles."

  “He's coming,” Corrigan said. “He's almost here. He's passed the trials, and nothing remains but the kiss, the revival, and the triumphant return.” He smirked. “Enjoy your body while you can, djinn. My king will surely take it away once beauty wakes. Your petty obstacles failed."

  Obstacles, Molter thought contemptuously. Corrigan didn't understand that djinns worked differently than his own kind. Molter scurried up the rock shelf, shedding insects as he went, until he crouched on the highest point, beside the beauty.

  Corrigan compared her skin to snow, her lips to roses, but Molter did not know these things. He saw her skin was white as bleached bone, her lips red as the sunset seen through dust. Her hair was yellow as snake's bile, and soft as camel's hair. Corrigan rose slowly, levitating smoothly, until he hovered with his head above the level of the shelf.

  Molter thought of the approaching mortal and smiled. A cockroach fell out of his mouth, onto the beauty's unmoving face, and scurried away. “She cannot be hurt, yes?” Molter said.

  “She is beyond the touch of time and death,” Corrigan agreed. “Until the pure-hearted mortal kisses her."

  Molter bent his head and pressed his mouth to the beauty's. He thrust his tongue between her red lips, parting them.

  “That's disgusting!” Corrigan said. “Stop it. You can't wake her, djinn. You've no heart, pure or otherwise."

  After a long moment, Molter raised his head. He smiled, then jumped off the shelf, straight at Corrigan.

  Corrigan floated backward. Molter landed in a crouch on the sand, jarring lose a small rain of insects.

  “Fool,” Corrigan said. “This is no time for games.” He settled onto the boulder.

  Molter didn't answer him. He sat on the rock and watched the fat fluffy clouds float by.

  “There,” Corrigan said. The mortal crested a dune and approached them. He wore a white cloth over his head, like the tribesmen in the area. A waterskin hung across his chest. He stepped on the flowers.

  “Are they all so big and pale in his country?” Molter asked.

  Corrigan shrugged. “Some."

  The mortal reached them. He hesitated, hand on the hilt of his sword. “Do you challenge me, fair folk?” he asked.

  “You pursued us to this desolate place,” Corrigan said. “You overcame our obstacles. We will not prevent you from touching beauty. We are bested."

  Molter watched as ants ran across the backs of his ravaged hands.

  The mortal came to the wall, keeping his eyes fixed on Molter and Corrigan. He climbed the shelves, stepping on bodies as he went.

  He tread on a bloated woman's body and nearly slipped. The mortal recovered his grip, but the body rolled from the shelf and fell a dozen feet to the ground. Molter started toward the body, angered by the casual sacrilege. He didn't especially care if humans died, but their bodies belonged to the creatures of the air, not the earth. He stopped himself before he reached the body and gave Corrigan an open-mouthed grin. Biting flies emerged from his mouth and flew into his nostrils.

  “Let's watch the kiss,” Molter said. He climbed a mound of boulders for a clear vantage.

  “I don't see why,” Corrigan said, but he floated to the top of the boulders anyway.

  The mortal wasted no time touching the beauty's face or making pretty words for deaf ears. He knelt and bent to kiss her.

  Several scorpions emerged from the beauty's mouth before the mortal's lips touched her. Corrigan gasped. The scorpions ran across the mortal's face and plunged their stingers into his lips, cheeks, and eyes. The mortal shrieked and lurched back. He clawed at his face, and rolled from the shelf, falling heavily to the ground.

  Molter put a finger in his mouth. A scorpion crawled out and sat in his palm. Molter kissed its stinger, then set it on the rock.

  “You did that,” Corrigan said, awestruck. “Not an obstacle at all, but a trap."

  “I favor traps,” Molter said.

  Corrigan made as if to touch him, then drew his hand back and wiped it on his chest. “Well done, djinn. The king will be most pleased. He may allow you to caper at his feet when he comes to take his holidays here—"

  “No,” Molter said. “Take the beauty, flowers, wet, clouds, take it all away. The desert is done with you.” He watched the mortal thrash at the base of the wall.

  “You don't understand,” Corrigan said. “I'm offering you a place in the king's court."

  Molter stripped a layer of skin away from his arm and let it flutter to the ground. A puff of sand rose from the hole in his flesh. “I am Il-a-mo-ta-qu'in. I refuse your flesh and obstacles. Go. Tell your king."

  Corrigan tightened his lips. He floated to the corpse wall and took the beauty in his arms, then returned to the ground. He walked across the flowers and over the dunes.

  Molter tore away great flaps of his skin. The wind rose at his wish, and scorpions scurried from his body, devouring the smaller insects. Sand covered the flowers, and the clouds moved swiftly toward the horizon. The crows took flight, following Corrigan to his green land beyond the veil.

  Molter left his imitation skin lying on the ground. Returned to his pure form, he built a brief body from dust and stone. He kicked sand over the convulsing, dying mortal. He knelt by the bloated woman-corpse that the mortal had displaced. Reverently, with hands of golden sand, Molter returned her to her place on the wall.

  Down with the Lizards and the Bees

  I dreamed monitor lizards were eating my face; it was one of those dreams, so I got up off my futon, dressed by the gray dawn light from the high windows, and went out. I wore fingerless gloves, so no one could cross my palm with silver when I wasn't paying attention—I'd been bound once too often that way. The trains were crowded, but people moved away from me, though I don't look particularly derelict or mad; they could sense my difference from them, that's all. I changed trains at three different stations, though I could've gotten to my destination in one. I wanted good omens, even manufactured ones, some charms spinning a little in my direction.

  I walked ten blocks from the station into a weedy, broken-down part of Oakland. Even the houses looked dispirited. I'd been here dozens and dozens of times. I never saw anything new anymore.

  I climbed over the ruined rubble of foundation blocks coughed up by the ground in some long-forgotten earthquake, and walked the ragged path I'd worn through the broken glass and wildflowers over the years. I crouched down by the sewer grate where H. lived. I ran my finger along the iron bars, furred with rust; my fingertip came away powdered red. A square sewer grate, 18 inches to a side, darkness and sometimes a stink beneath. A gate to the only underworld I'd ever really believed in.

  “Hey, H.” I said.

  His voice came up from beneath the grate, cool and low. “B. You motherfucker. It's been seasons."

  “Five months,” I said, looking at the ruined wall across the lot, jagged bricks like the silhouette of a stegosaurus made of Legos. “Good months. No dreams."

  “Until last night.” H.'s voice was like candy wrappers blowing along the ground in a parking lot. “Now you need me. Now you come see me."

  “We agreed,” I said, trying to hold myself aloof, trying to remember I was basically talking to a hole in the ground, a loquacious absence, nothing more. “It's better if I stay away."

  “Shit. I changed my mind about that."

  “The dream,” I began.

  “Right down to business, huh?” H. said. “Gimme gimme.” His voice was greedy, deeply desperate. I'd known that side of his personality when he was alive, but it was stronger now that he was mostly gone, nothing left but an intell
igent echo, a talking aftertaste, a splash of memory and blood.

  “I brought you some weed,” I said, reaching for the bag in my pocket.

  “Fuck that. I want rock."

  I sighed. “Weed was good enough last time."

  “That was a long time ago. It's a new season now. Gimme rock."

  He was punishing me. Well, why not? And maybe he really did want rock. It couldn't hurt him now, but I still hated doing it. I'd given him enough drugs when he was alive. “I'll be back."

  You'd think crack houses would change locations, float around to avoid trouble, but I knew one that had been in the same place for years. I knocked on the door, and the man I wanted was home, and awake, having not gone to bed at all the night before. He stood in the doorway of the bedroom, smiling at me. “White boy. Superstar. Been a long time."

  We exchanged the ritual pleasantries, and I handed over some money, and returned to H.'s lot with a vial of crack. I dropped the lumps of crystal cocaine through the grate. They splashed.

  “Okay,” H. said. “Tell me your dream."

  I settled back comfortably on my heels. “I was on the back of a truck, a flat-bed semi, sitting on some splintery timbers, facing backwards, looking at the road behind. The truck went into a tunnel, total blackness, for a while, then it came out, and we were on a dirt road. The truck slowed down. I saw things running along both sides of the road, pacing us."

  “Us?"

  “Yeah. Somebody was driving the truck. I banged on the window to get the driver's attention, to tell him about the things following us, but he didn't look back. We slowed down some more, because the road was muddy. Then the things jumped on the truck. They were monitor lizards."

  “No shit?"

  “Yeah. I wouldn't even know what a monitor lizard was if it wasn't for you.” I expected him to say “I wouldn't even be dead if it wasn't for you,” but he didn't. “The lizards jumped on me,” I said. “And ... well ... they ate my face."

  H. whistled. “Maybe you were just missing me. Lizards and guilt..."

  “No. It was one of those dreams. For sure."

  “Yeah. Okay. You're going on a journey, with a companion who will choose the path. The destination will matter to him more than you do. There will be terrors and trials. The lizards ... hell, monitor lizards were my favorite ... they might just symbolize monsters, but maybe they mean you'll have to deal with guilt, or something from your past ... maybe even me?"

  He sounded so hopeful. I didn't have the heart to remind him that he was dead, and unlikely to have any bearing on my life anymore, beyond these hollow conversations.

  “I can't back out? I can't avoid it?” I asked.

  “No, bro. You're on the truck.” His voice changed, became playful. “Oh, there's one other thing the dream means."

  “Yeah?"

  “Yeah. Classic symbolism. Straight outta Freud. It means you're gay.” He laughed. It was a terrible laugh, because it sounded almost exactly like he had when he was alive. “Hate to break it to you."

  “Mom and Dad will freak,” I said. “Thanks, H.” I got up to leave.

  “B.,” he said, softly, serious.

  “Yeah?"

  “I love you, B."

  My throat closed up. I shook my head. “Damn it, H. We agreed we weren't going to say that anymore."

  He didn't answer.

  I left, trying to shake off the emotional aftereffects of the conversation, wondering when this thing would happen, when someone else's destiny would hit me like a truck.

  I went to a coffee shop, got tea and a bagel. I can't stomach coffee anymore, not even really milky espresso. It gives me the jitters.

  I sat, leafing through a newspaper. Somebody said “Hey.” I looked up. A skinny guy stood nearby, with a big nose and kinky hair, dressed all in black. He was ugly in an arresting way, with big, light blue eyes. He had nice hands, I noticed that right away; long fingers. I've always liked nice hands.

  “You're him, the guy.” He snapped his fingers. “Bradley Bowman."

  “Yeah.” I looked down at my paper again, but it was too late. This was the guy. The one driving the truck in my dream.

  “I loved you in The Glass Harp,” he said. Most people said that. Then he surprised me. “And that spoken word thing you did, Underwater Monologues, that was great."

  “Thanks,” I said, and meant it. I'd been nominated for a Grammy for Monologues, but not many people had heard it. It was the one decent thing I'd ever written myself.

  “I didn't know you lived around here."

  “Pretty close.” I hesitated, but H. had said it—I was already on the truck. “Want to sit down?"

  “Yeah!” He put down his bag, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “I'm Jay."

  “Good to meet you. Call me Brad."

  “So, uh.” He fidgeted with a coffee spoon. “You, uh, doing anything—"

  “No,” I said. “Pretty much out of the business, since that thing with that director."

  He actually blushed. “I heard about that, yeah."

  My last acting job. Jesus, six years ago. Fourth day on the set, I attacked the director, tried to strangle him, people said. He didn't press charges—everyone figured I was just fucked up about H. dying, and that I was on drugs—but no one wanted to work with me after that, and I didn't audition, didn't return my agent's phone calls. I'd been living off residuals from The Glass Harp and my other movies ever since.

  In truth, I'd saved the director's life. He was hag-ridden, a thing like a fat lamprey clinging to the back of his neck, feeding on him, backwashing poison into his brain. No one else could see the creature, but I could see all kinds of shit, after H. died. In exchange for a bottle of quaaludes poured down the sewer grate, H. told me how to make a nasty broth to soak my hands in, and then I could touch the lamprey thing as well as see it. It worked. H. is always right, now that he's dead.

  The dead know things, but the living have to do the work.

  I killed the lamprey, ripped it away from the director's neck and tore it apart, and people thought I was trying to kill the director, so I killed my career, too. It was a corpse I didn't mourn much.

  “If it's not too personal,” Jay said. “I mean ... your partner died, right?"

  I nodded. “A long time ago."

  “I only mention it because my girlfriend died a couple of months ago.” He looked at the table. I couldn't read anything into his expression at all. “She got stung by a bee, when we were having a picnic, and it turned out she was allergic.” He shook his head. “She died in the ambulance."

  “Oh, Jay, I'm so sorry.” What a shitty, out-of-nowhere thing. No one was surprised when H. died the way he did. He'd been doing more and more drugs, and I was buying them for him, I had all the connections, and he shot up too much and he died. Simple, straightforward. But to die from a bee sting ... that was bad shit.

  “But I think...” Jay said, and then trailed off. He looked up. He looked into my eyes. “I think I can bring her back."

  Any other day, I'd have figured he was crazy, and excused myself, and taken off. And for me to think someone's crazy, with the things I've seen, that's serious. But I'd had one of those dreams, and Jay had driven me into the darkness, so I just said “How?"

  And he told me.

  We managed to hide in the BART station in Berkeley, which is no mean feat, crouching a little way down the tunnel (well away from the third rail) after the last train of the night passed by. We listened as the BART cops shooed out the stragglers, and heard the metal gates rattle down, blocking us from the world above. We waited for a while, in the dark and the silence, then helped one another back up to the platform. We sat against the wall, our eyes gradually adjusting to the dimness.

  Jay ate potato chips, every crunch as loud as the trump of doom. He didn't seem nervous at all, like he did this kind of thing all the time.

  “How'd you hear about this train?” I asked.

  “Somebody at a party was talking about urban myths, new gh
ost stories, shit like that."

  “Huh,” I said. Thinking I'd never heard about a ghost BART train. Thinking the guy Jay heard at the party had probably made it all up on the spot. Thinking maybe that didn't matter, that the confluence of Jay's need, and my presence, and my dream, would be enough to call something imagined into being.

  “It's good of you to come with me,” Jay said. “It would be harder to do, if I was alone. I might not have come down here at all. Maybe ... maybe your old boyfriend is down there, too."

  I didn't answer. I'd thought of that, sure. But H. had been dead a lot longer than Jay's girlfriend. Did that matter? Could we bring Jay's girlfriend back, but not H., because she was fresher, or because she hadn't earned her death like H. had? I could visit H. any time I wanted, sure, right in the empty lot where he'd died, by the sewer grate he'd puked blood into. But that ghost was residual heat, a fading photograph, not H. himself. If H. had a soul, something essential and eternal, it was ... somewhere else. Maybe where we were going tonight. I didn't want to think about that.

  “What's your girlfriend's name?” I asked.

  “Eunice. She hated that name. Her middle name was Ethel. She hated that worse. I called her E."

  E. And my H. And him Jay, and H. always called me B., though no one else did. I tried some anagrams, didn't come up with anything. Decided it was a coincidence. Some things were nothing more than that, after all.

  We talked about trivial things—my movies, the band he played keyboards for, his job debugging code. After a while I said “When do you think it'll come?"

  Then we heard the hum and rattle, felt the air come pushing down the tunnel. We both stood up. A headlight appeared in the dark, a strange pale white light that illuminated Jay's face. He looked absolutely terrified.