Through the first portal with its coiling serpents, through the second with its ominous spiked walls and its guardians hissing and letting out little gouts of warning flames, and here the barge slowed. This was the Second Region of Duat, Ra's kingdom, where the sun god would rest for the night. Heroes got to stay here until they moved on to wherever human souls went, and gods who were starting to fade got to come here if they asked nicely. Really lovely, with its bright fields and lush orchards. Azeban might have been tempted to stay if peace and quiet didn't get boring so damn fast.
Ra departed his domain again late at night and traveled through the rest of the Regions before morning. In the Tenth Region, Set would show up to escort him and defend him from the dragon Apep, who wanted to eat Ra on his way back out into the daylight. Every damn day they did this. Set's family was weird.
The third portal loomed above them now, opened by words of power. The heavy wooden doors swung inward to horrible screams since, he had heard, the pivots turned in the eye sockets of souls who had earned punishment. Azeban suspected that might have been true once, and maybe the screams were just for show now, but what did he know? The barge slowed again, docking at the great steps that led into the judgement hall, the throne room of Osiris, so the souls could disembark.
Azeban let go as well, though he stayed below the water line by the steps. The souls went up to the great bronze doors where the doorkeeper challenged them. Once the few souls had passed the doors, the doorkeeper went inside and shut them, and the barge went on its way. In the short interval while the court was in session inside, while Anubis weighed hearts, Thoth recorded names and outcomes, and Osiris led the proceedings, Azeban was alone.
Now he hurried, heedless of the splashes, and set the impossibly pliant netting across the doorway, knew as he did it that he had caged all those inside and denied entrance to any souls who had been scheduled to follow. Terrible power lay in what he did, trapping powerful gods with his own little hands. Power he had never experienced, as if lightning coiled inside him.
He didn't enjoy it. Not one bit.
"This sucks," he whispered as he laid his hand against the netted door. "I'm sorry, Osiris. I really fucking am."
No time for regret or morbid recriminations. He'd already wasted too much time. Two last death domains still to block off, and he would regret those the most. He didn't linger when he stretched the net over the mouth of Mateguas's domain. This was his own family, and the souls who came to stay with the rabbit god were the humans who still believed in Azeban. If he thought about that too much, the guilt would eat his insides out. He would waste precious time curled over his knees weeping hysterically, and Kaukont would die. He had to finish. Maybe there would be a way to fix all this later—please sweet holy waters, let there be a way to fix it—but he had to get Kau safe first.
"I'm sorry, Mateguas." Azeban leaned his forehead against the stones of the portal. "I know this is unforgivable. I'm sorry."
He returned to his blackberry thicket, where he retrieved his coat. Something he needed lay in one of the inside pockets. One more time. Once more through the planar shift to the mouth of one last version of death.
The caves of Cape Matapan gaped before him. Not the pretty tourist sections with the nicely lit stalactites and the boats in the cavern grotto, but farther in, the unfathomably black entrance to the domain of Lord Hades. Behind that black lurked a creature that would tear each limb from Azeban's body in swift efficient strikes, then eat his heart and his head. Already, the growls rose up from the tunnel, drawing nearer.
Azeban sat cross-legged on the floor and tried to exude calm. Not a single piece of calm existed in his shivering, nausea-ridden body, but he could fucking well fake it. The flute he pulled from his coat had belonged to Hermes, and for once, Azeban hadn't stolen it. He'd admired it, and the messenger god had made a present of it. Just as the monster's first head poked through the impenetrable black, Azeban began to play.
It came on, one head, two, three, those broad, mastiff-like heads with their vise jaws, the impossibly large paws, the shoulders wide as a doorway—Cerberus, the ancient war dog who had been with Hades since the war with the Titans, now guardian to his domain.
Azeban coaxed a soothing, cajoling melody from the flute, desperately willing his hands to stay steady, his breath to stay strong. He refused to look up, to see how close the monstrous hound was. If he did, he would freeze, and that would be the end of him. The rumbling growls became snarls. One of the heads let out a deep, belling sound that no one would ever call a bark. Hot breath stirred his hair. A huge black paw took up a corner of his vision, but he kept playing.
Doggedly, one might say. No, fuck, don't laugh now.
On the edge of hysteria, it was all he could do not to scream. Weird though. Cerberus hadn't charged. There was no bitey action going on. The snarls had dialed back down to growls. Keep playing, you idiot. Don't stop now.
Soon Cerberus moved directly in front of Azeban. He turned around three times and flopped down on the rock floor of the cavern, all three tongues hanging out as he panted, six ears canted forward to listen to the flute. Finally, three pairs of eyelids began to droop. The left-hand head went down, then the right, and finally the center one came to rest on his hubcap-sized paws.
All six eyes closed, but Azeban kept on, playing softer and softer until the three great heads began to emit doggy snores. The big flaw in this plan was that Cerberus would end up on the outside of the netting, but he couldn't think of a way to fix that where he still ended up with all his fingers. Wasn't really his problem.
He got up carefully, secured his flute so there would be no shocking moment of it clattering to the ground, and tiptoed around the beast. Beasts? Did Lord Hades consider the thing one dog or three? The portal here wasn't more than six feet across, and while Azeban worked, no souls came to cross over. Made the work that much easier.
That was it then. Time to go.
He stepped back through into the human realm and let himself gasp in his blackberry thicket for a few seconds. Shaking with exhaustion, he knew he couldn't have gone on any longer. That was all right. It was time to go get Kau. He didn't let himself think any farther than that.
Once more, really once more into death, this time back to Itzpapalotl's domain of Tamoanchan, but when he stepped into her throne room, it was empty. Anxiety lurched up from the pit of his stomach. What now? More games? I so fucking don't want to play anymore.
He didn't have to search far though, and Itzpapalotl wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. For her, at any rate. In her human-woman aspect, in a black kilt and shawl with her thick ebony hair hanging loose, she was tending her tree. Despite all Azeban knew now, her beauty still nearly stopped his heart—how he'd gotten in trouble in the first place. On a hilltop outside Mazatlán, her sharp profile dusted in moonlight, he'd fallen head over heels in lust so many years ago. He'd thought he was doing the seducing, but she was just deciding how she wanted him. He knew that now and knew he'd been lucky to walk away from a night of heated, scary passion with only a chunk taken out of his shoulder and a broken arm instead of having his heart cut out and devoured like some of her lovers.
Sex was great, but not worth his life.
Never again, but she kept track of him, reeling him back in when she wanted something from him. Fearsome warrior goddess, devourer of souls—still the tree was the other half of her, alien and disconcerting to Azeban, but a strangely gentle part of her. The ancient amate towered overhead, its several trunks and sinuous tangle of surface roots always making it appear to be reaching, searching. Symbolic on its own, he suspected, since this type of wild fig often began as a vine and strangled its host so it might live. I am, the amate declared, and you can't deny me.
Cradled in its endless branches, softly cooing or nursing on the strange protrusions that no mortal amate tree had, sometimes crying until the amate rocked them to sleep, were infant souls. This was the purpose of Tamoanchan as the domain of infant mortali
ty. The amate fed them for the short time they remained until they had the strength and the will to move on. The people who had worshipped Itzpapalotl had believed the babies simply waited to be reborn, hopefully with a better outcome. Azeban had no idea where they actually went.
Itzpapalotl fed the tree. With her own blood. Long ago, it was rumored, the blood hadn't been hers.
"You have finished," she declared softly without turning to look at him.
"Yeah." Azeban swallowed hard and still couldn't manage much past a whisper. "Every single one."
Now she half-turned to pin him with her dark and dangerous gaze. "You should have a reward, little raccoon."
He swayed half a step toward her before he caught himself. "Empress of Night, I'm exhausted and filthy. Would it be… Could I just take Kau and get out of your sight?"
She waved a hand at one of the amate branches, the hand that still held one of her long obsidian knives. "The crow is well. And comfortable now."
Heart seizing, Azeban steeled himself for the horror of bloody feathers and crushed bone, but the cage hanging on the tree was larger now, big enough for Kau to hop a few steps back and forth. The breath Azeban let out was perilously close to a relieved sob.
"Thank you. Oh sweet waters, thank you. Can I get him down, please?"
She stared at him for a long, hellishly uncomfortable moment. "You may go if you like, Azeban. The crow will remain with me."
"What?"
"I know your heart. I know you will feel… remorse. That you will pity the humans and the death lords who have been denied." When she turned completely toward him, her shawl transformed into her huge, obsidian wings. "The little ones are safe with me. All other human souls will await what I have set in motion. And if a certain raccoon feels pity for them beforehand, the raccoon will go to the death lords and tell them. Someday you may do so, if I allow it, but not so soon."
"You stone cold—fuck you! I've done everything you asked me to!"
"Yes. So obedient. So thorough. I will keep the crow. If you breathe a word of what you've done to anyone, I will know. I will kill him by degrees and let you watch."
"No, you can't." Azeban tried to think through the panic flooding his brain, but he was drowning fast. "You can't. They'll find out. They'll see the nets. They'll just take them down. What good does this all do?"
"Oh, my sweet love. Only you and I can see the nets. Only you could set them. Only I can take them down. Did you think I hadn't considered these things in all the years I had to weave them?"
"It's… Please. I won't say anything. I promise. You know I can keep a promise. Please let me have Kau, please." He dropped to his knees, too close to hysterics for shame or dignity. "Please."
She smiled down at him, eyes cold as the vastness of space. "No."
Azeban's heart slowed to a single painful thud. Then another. Before he could think about how dangerous or stupid it was, he was on his feet and made a leaping grab for the lowest branches of the amate. Snatch the cage and go. He could do this.
A sharp, sickening agony flared below his left shoulder blade, and he lost his grip. When he fell, she stood over him, blood dripping from her knife. Azeban's blood.
"Caw!" Kau screamed. "Cawcawcawcaw!" Go, Az, run! Now!
Azeban turned the corner in reality and fled.
Picking Up Strays
Chapter Five
There was a ghost on the sidewalk outside the funeral home, no one Charon recognized. The humans simply walked through him, of course. Even sensitive humans could ignore ghosts in full sunlight. The young man's forehead was creased with some anxiety as he paced back and forth, to the corner and back to the front steps of Charon's business.
When the foot traffic diminished after five, Charon couldn't stand it anymore. He poked his head out of the front door, met the young man's eyes quite pointedly, and said, "Did you want to come in?"
"You can see me?"
Charon tried hard not to roll his eyes. He believed he succeeded. "Yes. I can see you. Do I look like a garden variety mortal to you?"
"I'd guess not. Did you have to invite me in? Is that how it works?"
"You're not even the sparkly kind of vampire. I'm just being polite. Did you lead a manners-free life?"
The young man—ghost—shook his head. "Great. I get the comedian crypt-keeper."
"And I get the smartass ghost. Are you coming in, or are you going to make people think I'm talking to myself?"
The ghost frowned, stuffed his hands in the pockets of his suit pants, and slouched up the steps. The suit of indeterminate hue, since ghosts and color didn't play nicely together, looked to Charon's discriminating eye to be on the low end of cheap. Maybe the family didn't have funds. Possibly. More likely they didn't want to "waste" a good suit on someone who was about to be buried in it. While Charon did his best not to judge too harshly, disrespect for the dead stirred his anger cauldron faster than nearly anything else could.
He kept his expression carefully neutral though. "I'm Karl Stygian, from the sign out front."
"Oh. Jason. Sinclair." Jason extended a hand, scowled at his transparent appendage, and stuck it back in his pocket. "You talk to a lot of ghosts?"
"Not as many as I once did. Unavoidable in my profession though." Charon cocked his head, wondering why Jason seemed more… detailed than most wandering shades. "Are you searching for something? Someone?"
What had most likely been blond eyebrows in life drew together. "I'm kinda lost. I think. Maybe."
"Do you mean geographically? You don't know where you are?"
"No! I mean, no. This is Philly. I know where I am. But I'm not supposed to be here anymore, am I?"
"That's an excellent start." Charon waved him toward the chairs in the waiting room, waiting until they had both settled before he began the usual questions. Did he know the circumstances of his death? Car crash. Did he blame someone for it? No, just an accident. Was there someone he couldn't bear to leave? This met with a shrug. No, Jason was on his own, so it wasn't a towering love cut too short holding him back.
"Have you tried to cross over?"
Jason ran a hand back through transparent hair. "Not at first. I was kinda confused. Then I thought I'd stay for my funeral."
"How was that?" Charon failed to keep the dry tone out of his question.
"Oh, fucking awful. But you knew that. I can tell." He shook his head. "Everybody so upset. I mean, for real. Not pretend upset. I didn't stay long. Went outside where it was quiet and headed toward the bright circle in front of me. It was easy. I was feeling better. Lighter."
He stopped and stared into nothing. Charon prompted him gently. "And?"
"It went away. The light was gone."
Well, that's new. "Gone?"
"Yeah. Snuffed out. Like someone slammed the door."
"Ah." Human shades often shared common threads in their experiences, but still every human soul was unique. Jason had experienced the yearning in a way Charon hadn't encountered before. "Jason, I can't tell you what to do. I can only advise. What's happened to you, this inability to cross, isn't unusual. It means you've left something undone."
Jason's chuckle was forced and uncomfortable. "You mean like finding my murderer? I'm not a Hollywood ghost, Mr. Stygian."
"It doesn't have to be something so extreme. You might not understand right away what it is. Somewhere in your subconscious though, there's something holding you here."
"Okay… say I buy that. What do I do?"
"Go back to the people and places you know. Your home. Your parents. Grandparents. Do a bit of haunting in the places you knew best in life. It will come to you. I promise."
Jason stared at the floor a moment with his jaw clenched tight. Then he nodded and stood. "Okay. All right. I'm the one who's gotta figure it out, right?"
"Exactly."
"Thanks, Mr. Stygian." This time he let Charon wrap careful fingers around his insubstantial ones for a handshake. With a resolved air and a hint of a smile, he wal
ked back out of the funeral home, through the door this time like a proper ghost.
"You're welcome, Jason," Charon said to the empty room. "Good luck."
After he closed up the funeral home, he walked for a bit to take in the autumn air. It certainly hadn't been the first time he'd given similar advice. There'd just been something odd about the whole exchange. Something, again, that he couldn't pin down. Far too much of that lately.
Instead of teleporting right to the condo, he flashed to the walkway beside the Brandywine. The ghosts of leaves whispered over the path and crunched underfoot. Skeletons were probably more apt and less poetic. Still, fall was when he felt most connected to the living world. Small wonder.
Squirrels rustled about in the leaves, searching for all the secrets hidden underneath. Finches argued in a nearby thicket. Evening crickets were beginning their slow, late-season songs. Human poetry painted autumn as a season of death. It truly wasn't. It was the season of anticipation, of mad preparations for the siege of winter.
It was… Wait. Did squirrels cry? No, of course not. Someone was sobbing nearby, heartbroken, despairing sounds. Charon turned toward it, fully aware that the tears might truly be heartbreak, a result of personal human matters, and none of his business. He couldn't simply ignore such distress though. What would his lordship say? When he'd taken two steps in that direction, the sobbing stopped. Profoundly disturbed, Charon hurried up the hill toward a dense stand of blackberry bushes.
"If you would move aside, please," he asked the thorn-heavy brambles. They grumbled at him, as blackberry thickets will, but creaked apart far enough for him to enter.
The pile of cloth on the leaf-strewn ground had seen better days. Torn and stained, a jumble of discards. Maybe I didn't— No, the pile of clothing breathed. The mound of shaggy, dirty hair on the far end wasn't a ratty stole someone had tossed.
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