by N. D. Wilson
And in a blink, the Earth was gone from beneath them.
“Oh gosh.” Sam wobbled on his feet next to Glory. She yanked his left arm tight, and Cindy pressed the back of Sam’s hand into Glory’s waist, hiding her eyes. In Sam’s right hand, Speck went limp and cold.
They were among stars. Massive stars. Tangles of stars. The blackness was vanishing.
“No,” Samra said. “No, no, no.” She dropped to the floor and curled up, eyes squeezed shut, hands over her ears.
Sam caught his breath and Cindy grabbed Glory’s hand around the hourglass as the planet—with the moon a stationary, tangled pearly knot around it—screamed toward them and then passed by inches from their feet before vanishing behind them.
“Can you stop it?” Sam asked quietly.
“In space?” Glory asked.
“Anywhere.” Sam let go of her hand.
The planet swung around, orbiting faster and faster. The stars became a blinding blur. Samra was crying.
Glory shut her eyes against the light. The hourglass was hot in her hand. Burning. But she couldn’t even uncurl her fingers to let it go. She had to move the cylinder forward again, all the way forward, back to where they started. But how could she?
“We’re dead,” Glory whispered. “Dead.”
“No!” Sam said. “Glory, you have to try something. Anything.”
“Ghost,” Glory said, opening her eyes. “Come on.”
“Twist it again,” Sam said. “Turn the tunnel the other way.”
But Glory wasn’t listening. She lifted the hourglass up to her face, watching the thin liquid blade spin out of its open end.
“Ghost,” she said again, leaning her mouth as close to the glass as she dared. Earth and its moon rings were coming back around. “Ghost. Angel de la Muerte. Brother Segador. If we die here, who will collect us? God. Please. Send him. Send anyone.”
The tunnel shook. Glass was cracking. Melting. Glory looked up, watching the tunnel burning away into sand from the top down. The darkness was descending. She dropped to the floor, pulling Sam down with her by his shirttail.
There was no impact when the tunnel hit Earth. One moment, the glass was shaking and cracking and smoking away around Glory and Sam. And the next, every single bit of glass shattered into sand, revealing the shape of a boy made of black fire in a trucker hat, standing beneath the moon.
Glory was curled up on her back in tall cool grass. A breeze danced across her skin, giving her goose bumps. She could hear water lapping at rocks. And the timer she used to count days was beeping in her binocular case. Her arm was around Sam, holding him tight, but he was snoring. Cindy and Speck both slid his hands up into the air, assessing Glory and then focusing on the boy made of fire. Samra was curled up tight on her side, completely motionless, except for the slow movement of her hair in the wind.
“Was I unclear?” Ghost asked, his voice tinged with anger. “What were you attempting? Have you given up on Peter? On the future?”
Glory swallowed, trying to open her throat and loosen her voice.
Glory shook her head. She felt tears filling her eyes, but she blinked them away quickly. “What was I supposed to do? I chased the Vulture. I did! But I fell, and then . . .” She trailed off. “Are we dead? Are you here to take us?”
The boy’s fire dimmed and he became flesh. He took off his hat, brushed back his hair, and pulled it back on.
Ghost stared at Glory. After a long moment, she shifted in place, glancing down at Sam and Samra.
“What’s wrong with them?” she asked.
“What is wrong,” Ghost said, “is that you moved back through more time than any human is meant to and more than most could ever survive. I put them to sleep. Otherwise, I would be collecting their souls. But I don’t want to collect their souls. I want to collect the Vulture’s soul. I want Peter alive!” His voice rose and rose to a gale-force wind. “I do not want to harvest millions more men and women and children because you have failed them. But I will. As he kills, that is exactly what I will be forced to do, but I will carry your soul along with me so you can see every one of them.”
Glory curled up, throwing her hands over her head. Speck and Cindy were both rattling, coiling Sam’s limp arms above him.
“Do you understand me, Glory Spalding? Glory Navarre? Glory Hallelujah?”
Glory looked up at him. “Do you think you have a right to be angry with me? How much have you given up in this fight? How much have you lost? Now tell me how much Sam has lost? How much has Peter?” She rose to her feet. “How about Millie? How many times have you had to die, Ghost? Matt and T? Jimmy and Johnny? Drew and Flip and Barto? Tiago and Simon? Jude? Heck, even Speck and Cindy have given up more than you have. Do you know what happens at the end of this fight? I know you do. We die.” Glory pointed at Sam and Samra. “We all do. Maybe we die winning. Maybe we die years after winning. Or maybe we lose, and we all die right away.”
Glory turned, stepping toward Ghost. “All of us will die, and you’ll be the undertaker. Yeah that’s scary, but so what? Being mortal is scary. The Vulture is terrified of it. But do you know what scares me even more? Not being one of the good guys. That would be so much worse.” She sniffed, jaw clenching, ears hot and head ringing. “You talk like we’re all apples falling off a tree, and yeah, maybe we are. But if you think it’s hard being the guy who has to pick us all up, try being one of the apples.”
Ghost didn’t move.
Glory stopped, trying to gauge the boy’s reaction. He was more stone than fire. “Do you understand me, Reaper? Help me save Peter and kill the Vulture or just take my soul now.”
“I have helped you,” Ghost said. “As much as I am allowed. I am not permitted to write the stories of your mortal lives or take the stage in your mortal plays. But I have armed the glass of Father Tiempo. I am lengthening the process of collecting his soul. I have paused your careening time walk rather than collect you dead. I cannot kill the Vulture for you.”
“Why not?” Glory asked.
“If I break the commandments to which I am bound, then I am no better than he is, writing what is not mine to write, touching what is not mine to touch, wielding power that was given to me with the strictest of limits. I will be cast down. I will never fulfill my duties and take my seat in the coolness of the stars. I will be shadow, not light. I will become as others have become before me, less powerful but as vile as the Tzitzimime, who once were mothers of the sunrise and sunset, keepers of all that bloomed. The Vulture would be dead, but I would replace him. Is that what you want?”
Glory sniffed. Now that her anger was easing and no one was shouting, she assessed her surroundings. She was standing on solid ground on the moonlit island with cool earthly air in her lungs and the scent of salt and water clearing her mind.
“Promise me,” she said.
“Promise you what?” Ghost asked.
“That you will do everything you can,” Glory said. “Even if it isn’t enough. And I will do the same.”
Ghost smiled suddenly, walking toward her. He stopped in front of her and held out his hand. “I will. Now you have seen my face twice, so I may as well make the most of it. The next time our eyes meet, your earthly time will be no more. So take my hand.”
Glory looked at the boy’s thin wrist and brown skin, at his long fingers. Then she looked down at Sam, snoring in the grass with Samra behind him. Cindy and Speck met her look one after the other.
“Don’t worry,” Ghost said. “Sam will be fine. I’m showing you something, not taking you anywhere. Taking you would be impossible.”
“Why?” Glory asked.
“Because you are already there,” Ghost said. “I going to show you one of my memories.”
Glory reached for his hand but paused.
“If I die,” she said, “do what you said. Take me with you to collect all the people who are killed because I failed.”
Ghost’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why?”
“Becaus
e they aren’t just apples. It will be awful and they’ll need someone nice,” Glory said. “You’ll just yell at them.”
Ghost laughed and his fingers closed around hers. Cold stopped her blood. Black fire raced up her arm. The world around her vanished.
THE VULTURE SAT IN A HIGH-BACKED RED CHAIR, HIS LONG legs stretched out under the middle of a wide stone table in front of him. His watches were all pocketed, his elbows were resting on the arms of his chair, and his fingers were tented in front of his face, sharp thumbs nesting in his dark pointed beard.
Behind him, the fountain in the center of the courtyard splashed and the gold clock swung from the sundial, catching the red light thrown by the torches and flinging it back. Dozens of tall torches had been set into the courtyard pavers, as much for heat as for light. Strange woven symbols and grids of sticks and bone hung from the torch poles—all freshly hung wards and dream catchers. Another fire had been set in a bronze bowl in the center of the table, and it was at this fire that the Vulture was staring.
The black curtain behind the Vulture’s altar had been drawn on the cavernous City of Wrath. But much to Mrs. Dervish’s consternation, El Buitre had invited the mothers to leave the city and join him in his garden. The shadow-clothed sisters and their two generals had passed through the shrine’s protections Mrs. Dervish had so carefully maintained against them. Now they and their generals were seated at a stone table with the Vulture, filling the cave with their stench and staring at the untouched wine, cheese, grapes, and sliced apples that Mrs. Dervish had provided. Four furious eyes drifted to the enormous horsehide maps the mothers had unrolled across the table ends. The man with the white beard and the scarred scalp was on the Vulture’s left. The younger one, with his hair slicked straight back on the top of his head, sat on the Vulture’s right. He had both hands on the table, his fingers quietly tracing lines on the hides.
Mrs. Dervish stood behind the Vulture’s chair, clasping both hands tight at her waist.
Razpocoatl leaned forward across the table, the bowl of fire throwing fingernail shadows behind every feather on her face, her white eyes glowing orange. “We promised you an army,” she said. “And we have gathered you an army.”
“You offer me soulless locusts,” the Vulture said. “Well and good. I will loose them. But your dead and damned werebeasts and skin-walkers must remain under my control even after the conquest is complete. I will achieve the rule of new mankind with the souls still in. This is a necessary term of your service.”
Mrs. Dervish nodded. “Even if he should banish them back into darkness, they must be sworn to obey.”
Magyamitl did not lean forward, and her shadow robes and black eyes made her face look like a mask. Her two taloned hands were playing with a necklace of flesh at her throat. “It is our power that chains time to your heart and soul. It is our labor that has gathered you an army of devourers and our two sons who will command it. It is our wrath that will give you the world. We have felled the priest and fed on his anointing. We have terms, as well.”
The Vulture plucked an entire cluster of grapes off a platter and leaned back into his chair. “I am aware. Play your parts and I will hear them.” He looked at the two men. “Alexander, Young Son of Night, and Scipio the Scarred, you are a pair of frightening outlaws indeed. Are you ready to begin this war in earnest?”
The two men nodded. The Vulture popped a grape into his cheek and smiled.
“Then let us begin,” he said. “Prepare me doorways through the darkness into my chosen Seattle. Our rotting army will enter her streets in a frenzy with the rising sun. Mothers, find me storms. Cold storms. Despair. Then tear open the skies between times and let their brutality join our invasion. Snow and ice will suit me better than lava for now. And fetch me monsters from ancient seas. Biggest is best. Fill the sound with boat killers. There must be no escape from the city onto the water.” He stretched a hand out over the horsehide to his right, finally tapping the spot he wanted. “Begin with the Miracle boy’s island. Storm his moment. Find him. Cut him down.”
The two mothers smiled.
“When his heart has been taken,” the Vulture continued, “and a living city belongs to me, we will move to the next, and the next, and the next. Until even you have fed enough and I banish the gorged walkers back to their hells.”
Both mothers smiled and the shadows hardened on their feathered faces.
“But you have yet to name your price,” the Vulture said. “What must El Buitre pay the mothers in exchange for the world?”
The smiles widened.
“These things only,” Razpocoatl said.
“Give us our choice of servants from among the living and the dead,” said Magyamitl. “And give us a city to rule them as we please.”
Razpocoatl stretched out a shadowy hand flat above the fire. The flames disappeared into her palm, like they had vanished up through a hole. She looked into the Vulture’s eyes, her own white orbs sparkling.
“But most of all,” she said, “give us the girl called Glory. She will be our daughter, and we will make her a queen of night and darkness.”
11
Mother T
GLORY HAD NO FEET, NO HANDS. BUT HER SENSES WERE still alive enough to see and smell and feel. She was in a cave city she had seen before, lit with hundreds of torches; and she was floating up a narrow street, weaving around men and women and children and dogs as she passed between dozens of small stone houses. The warm desert air was dry on her skin and the smoke from the torches burned in her lungs . . . but she had no lungs. She wasn’t even breathing.
She was following an old woman. How she knew this, she wasn’t sure, because the woman was wearing a hooded black robe and only her hand—gripping a tall cane—was visible.
I know this place, Glory said. But her voice was a thought that never touched the air.
Yes. The voice belonged to Ghost.
This is the cave where Sam got his arms, she said. Manuelito and Baptisto lived here.
Yes, said Ghost. Cities die as well as men.
What happened?
Do not be distracted. Watch.
The woman in the robe stopped at the curtained doorway of a small cubicle house. Raising her cane, she tapped lightly on the wall, and then the old woman pushed back her hood and scanned the city around her, as if she may have been followed.
Her thick, perfectly white hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she looked directly at Glory, her eyes focused.
Glory was looking into the face of a much older version of herself.
And then the curtain was peeled open, revealing a tall young boy, with black hair, no shirt, and a thick tangle of necklaces. The boy smiled, bowed, and stepped aside. The old woman entered.
Be calm, Ghost said. You are seeing what I have seen.
Glory couldn’t respond. She was sweating from nervousness, wanting the dream to be over, but instead, her vision closed in on the house. She floated toward the door, and then through the curtain and inside.
The house was warm. A cooking fire devoured twigs beneath a small clay pot. The tall boy was there. And a woman seated on a beautiful rug on the floor—woven all of black and white and red. She held a baby boy, clothed in white and red, and the bottom of a wooden barrel sat empty on the rug beside her. Glory noticed all of this, but barely. Her focus was on herself, her very old self.
The woman spoke a language like wind and rocks and falling water. Glory watched herself kneel on the rug before the mother and hold out her thin bony hands to take the baby. Glory winced at the splotches on her skin, at the coarseness of her white hair and the hard creases on her brow.
I’m so . . . Glory’s thoughts trailed off.
Beautiful, Ghost replied.
Horrible, Glory said.
Lovely as a ripened field, said Ghost. Rich as an ancient tree still bearing fruit in her final season.
Glory felt embarrassment at the strange compliment, but the scene in front of her overwhelmed her self-reflection.
Her older self was singing to the baby, holding him tight to her shoulder, swaying gently on her knees, singing into his neck. Tears striped her old cheeks with a much younger shine.
Wait, Glory thought. She looked at the tall boy by his mother. This was Manuelito’s cave city. The boy had Manuelito’s face, his eyes, even his height. And Manuelito’s brother . . . she looked back at the baby as her older self leaned over, placing him in the bottom of the empty barrel. He kicked and punched with displeasure, arching his back.
“Peter Atsa,” Old Glory said, and her aged voice carried a scratch like a breeze carries leaves. “It is strange to meet you now when I have known you so many other times. You will meet me again when I am younger and you are older. I have seen you lay your life down in victory. To do that as you must, you need courage beyond measure, and a heart always pouring but never emptied. Little Eagle, be stubborn enough to outcircle the Vulture.” Sand trickled out of Glory’s hands and down the sides of the barrel, and the boy became still. “Be selfless enough to save us all. Be my friend and my teacher. Be faithful to the Maker of stars and men, be strong and fearless and full of song. Be Tiempo, Father of Time. May you receive a double portion of the spirit of seers and walkers that I have been given and carried for you until now.”
With that, Old Glory cupped her shaking hands in the air above the barrel. A liquid clearer than water welled up from her palms, mounding up into an orb before spilling down into the barrel in two streams.
The barrel began to fill and the baby was still as it did, mouth open and eyes wide. It rose above his eyes and then lapped over his face, but he did not fear and he did not fight. The falling streams became trickles and then drips. The old woman’s hands were empty, and once more, she began to sing.
The baby, Glory said. How can he breathe?
And then half of the house was swallowed in darkness. A cold stench filled Glory’s nostrils and she tried to pull away.
