All Hallows

by W. Sheridan Bradford

  “Oh, and I forgot my grace of truth. Where one will do, I like two. You will correct me if I go about it wrong. Uriah? Pay attention.”

  “Okay.” Uriah continued to stare at the leviathan.

  Maren’s tongue licked her lips, but both surfaces were baked dry. “You don’t need to… anything will do. Doesn’t have to be… free verse works for us, doesn’t it, Uriah? I’ve been admitted to a secondary school. Thought to polish my dabblings with the more structured forms, but that’s yet to begin—the class. I waited too long to restart a formal education. It’s online, which is not a real place, and there are no smacks with rulers or… I’m carrying-on again,” Maren said.

  Yellow clay slithered greasily over the avatar’s face in a swirl that could be anything, but which Maren took for mild impatience. “See if I can do the bard justice.”

  Tocaya assumed a beatific smile, only to break apart into giggling again, as though consumed by a fit of nerves. Her eyes blackened completely in a moment of madness. Uriah Lee’s face went the color of half-burnt tobacco; Maren’s bladder made its presence acutely known.

  The goddess recovered, smiled again, and began mouthing an oath, the jaguar huffing in time, twice per measure. Silhouetted monkeys and a wheeling flock of tropical birds screeched and gibbered, their guttural blasts smashing through the air like cymbals.

  “Hecate would like you to know that she is enjoying this greatly,” Tocaya said in an aside, but Uriah was past processing speech, distracted by the towering watcher, forbidding and still, too massive to be seen in full, its higher reaches garbed in clouds, its shape blotting stars that, by their absence, limned a gargantuan impossibility.

  Maren’s mind unbent within her trance, and she focused on Tocaya’s beauty, listening to the words that fell from the avatar’s lips like jeweled scorpions, heavy-bodied; palpable.

  Her private grace complete—so Maren assumed—the goddess spoke with confidence and inflection, though she did not become more than conversationally loud.

  Am I not whatever I want

  To be? Damsel or god, I cleave

  Capture—no prisoner who can’t

  Refuse the gift or fail to feed.

  Am I beheld to such straight lines?

  Can I not bend space, light, and skies?

  What new worlds I let be seen, shine;

  Those I fold into darkness, die.

  Deified, defiant, in part

  Undone, my shards remain a whole.

  Stare at my weakness, your young arts

  Dying to know how the gods roll.

  Tocaya the unknowable—

  Colossal power; raw, noble:

  Me.

  “Was that a dis track?” The jaguar huffed in Uriah’s direction. Before Maren could reply, Tocaya’s lips curled into a slicing grin, and the world lost its sound.

  The horror obscuring the heavens threw vaporous hands wide, light pouring from a hole in the sky. The coagulated red beam poured like molten steel from a shadowy tentacle; across the horizon, its blue sister drained from a similar appendage.

  The streams combined, reacting with the violence of a supernova—the fusion bathed a titanic visage not meant for mortal view. Uriah bleated in fear, if lips could be read.

  Maren’s palms ignited with hellfire that tortured her as the grace had not. She screamed, her tongue folding in her mouth—and when she could, she looked.

  Her mind was boggled, for Maren saw neither blue nor red—and for good reason: in the avatar’s hands, and her own, a flame burned thick and black, heatless; a slow lava lamp grinding along in taunt of an open fire.

  “Oh dear,” Tocaya said. “Those poor arbiters. They only have the one job.”

  Maren blinked, aware that time had passed. It could be that she’d drifted into another plane of existence—if so, Uriah’s screams had followed her.

  “Blue by any other name,” Maren whispered.

  Tocaya chuckled; the jaguar coughed. “I like that! What is black but an unlit rainbow? Am I Tocaya, or shall we give it another go? I’m having a grand time of hamming it up. You know, I’ve never been especially fond of this planet’s moon. Perhaps if I reduced it to rubble, you’ll—”

  “—No need!” Maren gasped. “If you are not Tocaya, I’m convinced I’ll never know the difference.”

  “Reason, logic—an entire trial by error! This is what I love about you, Maren. Sweet-faced Uriah is fleet and courageous, but she too often dashes to the gift. It is a crutch that cheapens her birthright. A lust for youth is an escape, and it comes at the expense of other gifts bequeathed by her maker—brains and all the rest.”

  “I don’t—” Uriah said, but showed wisdom with a renewed silence.

  “But you Maren, you want to become more than you were meant to be. You are branded with a different stripe—one fashioned by your own hand.”

  Maren turned her palms to her face. What she saw and what she felt were at odds with one another, for she appeared to be unharmed. Her nerves objected strenuously to this assessment. “And what… what of you?”

  “Me? I am.”

  “Flawless?”

  “I know what you want to ask. You have heard the rumor. I will share a truth with you, and you will share it with nobody. Omertà’s the word, yes? Conceive of this earth shattered by a rod of iridium. Trillions of parts float and spread through empty space. A new nucleus would form. Time and gravity would chain the rest back into place, yes?”

  Maren frowned at the goddess. Rather, at her avatar—avatars? Maren wasn’t sure whether the jaguar should count separately. “You’re not fully… you’re not yourself?”

  “Of course I am myself. What else could I be? Yet I am not what I was. I was devastated by… I’ve been eons pulling myself together again. Each restored component wants its say; and each adds, and remembers, and forgets. It is a wonder I have not blown this galaxy to dark matter while I dream.”

  “Ah,” Maren said, because the concept would accept no further caption.

  “Go a few billion years on the mend. See if you don’t talk to yourself, have a few bleak thoughts, and sleep more than you should.”

  “I do all that already,” Uriah noted.

  “Indeed. Now then,” Tocaya said, and clapped her hands together, a sound so mundane it seemed out of place. Maren noticed that the oil and clay was an illusion, or else was quite resistant to spattering. “You have stopped Feri twice by my count. I want to know how.”

  Maren blinked, having thought the issue shelved. She lifted her right hand, twisting her fist to show her bracelet of scars. “I—”

  “—Yes, but the past is the past. I want to hear about this latest rout. You should be so much borsch on the side of the road.”

  “It was… I had a mommet. Feri and I parted on friendly terms, but a hair from her mane stuck to my sleeve. I take future advantage when I can, and thus when the later… confusion… occurred, I—”

  “—Insufficient,” Tocaya interrupted. “Quick thinking, to be sure, but… I already know the answer, Maren. I thought you’d resorted to using a worm, but that little missile is still on its chain, isn’t it? Your last one?”

  “Yes,” Maren said, sick to her stomach. An unbalanced goddess knew of the night worms, and was likely unhappy at knowing.

  “It was your artifice in crafting those that led to my observation. I could care a fig if you’d eaten Feri or it had gone the other way, but done is done. Tell your tiny dancer, here. Tell her what you did.”

  Uriah Lee was back on her feet, irritation replacing fear. “I am not tiny! I won’t take such abuse from anything: not kids in a haunted house, not an oversized werewolf, and not from some crazy—”

  “—It was in my scars,” Maren said softly. “It was in my blood. In my love and hate for Uriah. A simple recipe, but one I had not contemplated before.”

  Uriah gaped at Maren. “Love? For me?”

  “I mentioned scars. I don’t mean the ones I bear from Feri.” Maren lifted her wrist. “I dr
ew on an older wound.”

  Tocaya laughed aloud, oil sliding in yellow and black swirls across the abundant curves of her avatar. “A spat! You do make a delightful couple. Oh, I forgot to be your cleaning lady.”

  Tocaya snapped her fingers for effect; magnetic north moved slightly. Maren exchanged a look with Uriah: the street was clean, and unblemished, and empty.

  “Feri’s presence has been erased past admissible evidence. The vehicle stays, but the bodies are atoms in the air. They will be presumed missing—and so they are. I would stay, but I won’t.” The avatar breathed deeply. “It is a most lively night for death.”

  “Are there places faring badly—compared to here?” Maren asked.

  “Absolutely. A handful of missing mortals doesn’t register. You have no idea what I’m… Santa Muerte is going wild in the south. Three hundred and ninety-three killed by her alone. And unlike La Llorona, she is not mine to control. Not entirely. We do have a working relationship however, which brings me to depart. Farewell, you fools.”

  “I lost my purse,” Uriah said, only to find it in her hands. Maren saw it materialize, but she decided not to mention it—spells of apparition were considered either impossible or best left to the insane. Maren added the idea to her list of later inquiry as a lump in her chest threatened to knock her to the ground.

  “Found it,” Uriah said, sounding dazed.

  Tocaya peered at Maren, calculating and fearsome. Through force of will, Maren didn’t clutch at her chest, though heat radiated down her arms. The avatar pulled at the jaguar’s ears. “I like a display of courage in the face of distress, Maren. Such things shift one’s perspective. They knock the cobs out of the motor. To be brave is to be forever young, they say.”

  “Nothing says youth like a heart attack,” Maren said, amazed she could say anything in the face of the goddess; appalled that what she did say refused to flow through her usual filters.

  “Discomfort is precisely that. Your heart is not failing. It may be that you felt a hiccup registering within a greater transformation.”

  Tocaya tilted her head at an explosion in the distance.

  22

  “Ladies,” the goddess said, the yellow component of her liquid dress fading as her avatar turned darker than the night itself.

  Uriah performed a ridiculous, sweeping curtsey that Maren would have watched more carefully, had Maren’s body not performed the same movement. Shock and anger reddened her face, and she clutched her bowling bag, her lips thinning until they nearly disappeared.

  Tocaya’s eyes filled with the fire of creation. “Bend your knees to no man,” she said, and, to the great surprise of her audience, reciprocated the courtly gesture.

  The goddess walked briskly away, buttocks jiggling with powerful muscle, the train of colorful wildlife padding and flapping behind her in a raucous menagerie.

  “Mind the jaguar,” Maren said to Uriah; it had shoved her aside, its tail curling around her loose hose. If the predator was unmodified, he was nonetheless a marvelous illustration of his species, proud and strutting.

  Uriah stepped to the side and placed a palm on the shiny coat while the jaguar passed.

  “Give me a cat over a werewolf any day,” she whispered. “Did you feel the—and when she…? I’ve eaten my thong twice in ten minutes. I need to change my shield. How’s your heart doing? We need to get you a gift into you, pronto.”

  “My ticker has settled,” Maren said, and it was true enough. “Tocaya was right about the sensation. It was more like my ribs shifted than… I had a widowmaker zip down my left side.”

  “If she turned you into a shapeshifting wolf…”

  “I don’t know what she did, but I am both hurting and recovering. I’ve got hot flashes all through my… you should enter menopause at least once, Uriah. You’re missing an experience.”

  “I’ll settle for a description.”

  “You can have the play-by-play, should I ever go back that far.”

  “Go kill the owner of that face in the window.”

  “And what if she’s—can you try not to offend the gods and monsters for a time?”

  “Sure thing. I want my needle back. Then I’ll scale a bent pole and see if I can become invisible.”

  “Good luck with that—Tocaya wanted a word, or I am mistaken.”

  “With me? She left.”

  “Look at the birds. She didn’t go far. I may know what she wants, but you should ask her yourself.”

  “No and thank you. Kill the girl and let’s get going. It’d be easier if you’d brought another climbing candle.”

  “Oh, yes—let’s light an entire subdivision on fire because it is a nuisance to press a doorbell. No wonder Tocaya wants to talk to you.”

  “Stop teasing about that. I’m shaken as it is.”

  “Climb your pole and hope. You’ll be summoned quick as… that reminds me—how do you move like that?”

  “I know that tone. You’ve already connected dots, and you want to hear someone else speak your mind. It’s from Atalanta’s palace. Her suitor’s soulstone. It burns at both ends.”

  “I’ve had tacos al carbon that can make the same claim.”

  “Ew. It’s a particle accelerator. Power comes from energy not yet spent. My soulstone burns the future. Inefficiently, I should add. The present is enhanced, but I lost several years in the moments it took to embarrass myself with Feri.”

  “It explains why you consume the gift so often.”

  “I have a job, you know. Part time at the women’s clinic. I’ll be eligible for benefits if I hit seven months.”

  “You’re—are you eating from the trash?”

  “Piss off. You’re the first one to order veal tartar.”

  “And you look like a teen.”

  “I look into my thirties after that run. Don’t tell me I don’t! With the job, I kill no baby that’s not already dead—or marked for death. I’m getting as bad as you, that way.”

  “It’s scavenging.”

  “No, Maren—it’s surviving. You know I can hunt, but the same product is in the frozen section.”

  “More like a biohazard bag.”

  “Oh, what a load of… this conversation is going straight to—brunch. You only cancelled because you were going to die. We can fight then. Right now, I just want to… Kate’s last feather, I am sore.”

  “The price of your accelerator?”

  “That and the whack to my boobs. I forgot to thank Tocaya for correction of the heavier damage. I didn’t steal it, for the record. The accelerator.” Uriah shook her bosom. “The boobs are mine, too.”

  “You’d have been a fool not to steal such an artifact of such power. I mean the nicket, not your—” Maren indicated her chest.

  “Oh, I would have—I’m merely stating for the record that I did not. Meleager’s last inch was smoldering in the hearth. I couldn’t see it thrown-out by a servant.”

  “It took a horrible toll. I don’t see you dancing as you are. You look much older. Must be pushing twenty. You’ll eat a hundred children to get back to your teens, I suppose.”

  “A hundred? More. The gift isn’t as it was. Nobody knows why. Some think they do… and there are those who hold you to account.”

  “They blame me? For what? I haven’t put my nose in the trough for—”

  “—Exactly. There goes Maren… too good to accept the gift. You’ve insulted—whomever,” Uriah said, indicating the list was extensive and subject to change.

  “Mudlarks and malarkey! What idiot could think there’s an expiration sticker on a soul? Nor is there a fixed rotation. The works don’t jam if I don’t join the buffet.”

  “Not everyone agrees with you there. Who knows who’s right? I can attest to the dilution of the gift. To the reduction of the effect. I’ve… if I want to look as I like, it’s one a day. One at least.”

  “An infant a day? You won’t have escaped detection.”

  “I’ve been… I have other sources. It’s all
a risk. I take the gift from each and any.”

  “New sources? The convent?”

  “That was just—I have a real job. At the clinic? I can’t tell if you are forgetful or never listen to begin with. There are the blobs of tissue. It’s not quite the same as… it’s easy work. Records can be adjusted, and I’m entrusted with disposal, so… it’s enough to be how I appear. I’ve moved around. Forging records is a lark. Develop the right connections and credentials, and the rest is just…”

  “Not fresh kills? And this sustains you into your teens?”

  “There’s… I supplement. You know politicians. I have my own place. Put the right ad in the right spot, and you can do well with a massage chamber. I’m neat and clean and… back alley, the men on the television would call it. Unregulated. I’ve never lost a mother. I deliver the unwanted fetus, put the mother under, feed, clean-up, wake the patient, and it’s done.”

  “Why the face, then?”

  “Like you said: it’s not hunting.”

  “Then hunt.”

  “One a day? This is a world of cameras and artificial intelligence. If you ever come to your senses, be careful. I hunt, but it’s not like the old times.”

  “I have a way around cameras, but you’d just abuse—”

  “—Show me!”

  “Why do I talk? Here comes a convenient ex machina to save me. Told you she’d be back.”

  Tocaya’s avatar walked in a darkness so deep that her shadow was visible as a lighter shape—one that did not at all match her avatar’s body.

  “Maren, your bounty has been removed. I wanted you tested, and you were. You made the team. First string.”

  “Team? I’m not made for that. I was weak. I wanted that Bell girl badly. No, teams are… I learn the rules of sports in order to cheat. That doesn’t mention my age. I’d be a liability.”

  “Don’t weasel before you know what you’re running from. She without temptation is not alive. Who doesn’t want? Can’t love or laugh? I’m told the answer is the dead—but do you know what the dead want?”

  “If shades count, they commonly want retribution, correction, or remembrance. That or blood with wine; they’ll spring at that, too.”