Last God Standing (21 page)

“
Surabhi Moloke Will U Marry Me?”

I sat in the main concourse of Transworld Charter, staring at my hands. A few feet away, a six year-old girl was repeating the contents of my sign to her mother. The mother was busily texting on her iPhone and only half listening.

“Surabhi Moloke Will U Marry Me?”

“That’s nice, sweetheart.”

“Surabhi Moloke Will U Marry Me? That’s what the sign says, Mommy!”

“Good job, pumpkin. You’re decoding and interpreting.”

“Mommy, why is that brown man crying?”

The mother jerked as if she’d been given an electric shock. When she saw me sitting there, her eyes went wide and round as new saucers. “Amanda! Oh my God!”

The woman stood up and rushed over to where I sat.

“I am so sorry, sir. We normally don’t acknowledge people with different skin colors. I mean, we normally don’t notice… I mean… Amanda, apologize to the nice man.”

“But why is he crying, Mommy? Doesn’t he have a place to live?”

“Amanda! You apologize this very instant!”

“It’s alright.”

I swiped at my eyes with the back of my sleeve. Then I went back to staring at my hands.

No survivors.

My mobile beeped. I grabbed it, hoping…

Sorry for this terrible loss. If there is anything Transworld Charters can do to assist you please contact me at…

I set my phone on the seat next to me and went back to staring at my hands.

Surabhi Moloke Will U Marry Me?

“Sir, are you alright? Can I help you?”

The look on the concerned mother’s face unfolded something sharp in my chest.

“You took the risk.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your daughter embarrassed you, but you still tried to help.”

“Oh. Well. Everyone has to do their part. Right? I mean, if we don’t lend a helping hand every once in a while, the world would slide into chaos.”

Something heavy fell over with a loud crash.

“Amanda, come down from there!”

The woman ran off to attend to her daughter.

I needed to move. I needed to think.

My connection to the power was too unreliable. I could already feel the pain lurking in my head, daring me to try it. And there had been no godfight, no divine breaching to release the power my plan required. There was only one place where I could find the hope I needed: home. At the bottom of my college footlocker lay power enough for a second chance.

“Mommy… who’s Surabhi Moloke?”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

It’s what is.

“But I’ve changed things before. I can fix this.”

You redressed the damages caused by divine breeches in the Eshuum. That’s different.

“I’ve saved millions, billions of lives.”

You’ve operated according to the dictates of your function. To move them forward, protect them from obsolete gods. Now you’re one of them. Surabhi’s death has nothing to do with that.

“But I can fix this. It doesn’t have to happen.”

But it did happen. In the normal course of events.

“But it’s wrong!”

That’s life. Welcome to the world.

“Who would blame me? After everything I’ve done? The sacrifices I’ve made? Who would begrudge me just this once?”

You would blame yourself. It’s a violation of the Covenant you initiated. You know it’s wrong.

“No! I could go on. Fix this one problem and then move on. The Plan would go on.”

You would fail. The knowledge of the violation would undermine the legitimacy of every decision. It’s the essence of corruption.

“You’re wrong. I could bring them back and walk away. I could restore her and never see her again. Wouldn’t that be enough?”

It’s corrupt.

“What would it take to make this right, Connie?”

You can’t make it right.

“I can make it right. We can make it right, Connie. Together.”

You can’t bargain with me. Changing Woman is gone.

“Then… who are you?”

What you’re about to do will wreak havoc with the structure of reality.

“I have no reality without her. I love her.”

You are corrupt. Fallible. Human.

“I can fix this.”

You’ll destroy everything you’ve worked to achieve.

“No,” I said to myself. “I can handle it.”

I looked at my reflection in the polished surface of my Northwestern footlocker. The man who looked back at me was a stranger, his face a grieving mask.

I can fix that too. I can fix everything.

I unlocked the padlock and lifted the lid. Silver radiance filled my eyes, my mind. It nourished a part of me that had gone hungry. It had been nearly a decade since I’d last touched the Shell. Looking into the Eshuum was like diving into the past while dreaming of the future. It was hope and dread in equal measure; every dream humankind has ever dreamed or will dream, and every nightmare that haunts the collective consciousness. The potential for endless invention exists there; every masterpiece, every murderous innovation shimmers within its argent chambers. It is the most powerful phenomenon on Earth and, at one time, it was my home.

“I’m coming, babe.”

Starlight elevated me, empowered my perceptions to levels far beyond those of which my dwindling personal reserves were capable. Without the Shell’s protection my mortal body would have been reduced to screaming ash. But Surabhi was depending on me. I wasn’t about to let her tumble down the well of death and circumstance when I could set things straight with a simple wish. My newly awakened conscience was wrong.

“Lando! What the hell are you doing up there?”

I flicked a luminous tendril at the door, slammed it so hard that it cracked down the center. Herb might have a fit, but nothing this side of an Archangel could open it until I allowed it to open.

I summoned the Aspect best suited to realigning circumstantial inconsistencies. Father Flies rose up around me, all cold brilliance and jealousy. It was the mathematician’s God, the cartographer’s Deity, the whitebearded God of Christopher Columbus and Thomas Aquinas, its eyes bright as supernovae.

“You have no place here. Only the all-seeing may wade in the waters of feasibility.”

White light exploded in my skull, gouged the backs of my eyes. I was blind, deafened and battered. Somewhere, something was burning. I could smell frying meat in the air of my parents’ attic and realized it was me: my mind was on fire. I bore down harder, buoyed up by the power of the Eshuum even as it was killing me.

One. Last. Time.

“Depart,”
Father Flies said.
“You’re too late.”

I answered with a shout of silver force. “
Be
quiet
.”

Windows shattered. My parents’ house shuddered as if struck a blow from an invisible giant. Burning brightly, I brushed aside Father Flies, commandeered his extrusions, gripped the reins of will and circumstance and wrapped them around my fists.

“
Reset
.”

Silence, deeper than the void at the beginning of Time. For one weightless moment, I hung, suspended in the moment between… Then something grabbed me, wrapped around my chest, and a guttural voice rasped in my right ear.

“You are mine, dog.”

Cold hits me in the face. I can’t breathe… The air is screaming and my vision keeps shifting; black to red to blinding white. But it’s the cold, hard slap of winter somehow magnified to lethal intensity. Something is holding me, constricting my chest. Then something sharp pierces my side and a red hot agony fills up my world. Something’s pulled me out of the Eshuum, ambushed me. But only a Godlike power could have intercepted me.

“At last he begins to see the light.”

Through the frenzy of pain in my side, I can feel my blood trickling down the fronts of my thighs. Someone’s pressing something sharp against my adam’s apple. The pain in my side pushes me up onto the tips of my toes. Snow like flecks of wind blown ice scour my face, obscuring the dark shape that emerges from the storm.

“I’d say we have his attention, brother. I think you can let him go.”

The pressure on my back lessens as that hot shard slides out of my flesh. Hot blood is pulsing down my legs, between my buttocks. My unseen attacker relaxes his chokehold and I fall to my hands and knees. I can’t catch my breath. I need my inhaler.

“‘And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof.’ That’s from Revelations, Lando. A lot of folks think it’s too dark, but I find it comforting.”

“Let me kill the little traitor now.”

“No, Brother Ares. He’s to be tasked first.”

I look up into a face partially obscured by multicolored ribbons of light, the shifting bands illuminating a dark gray sky. The Northern Lights. Behind the man-shaped shadow, a fractious gray sea surges, whipped by howling winds. I’m in Alaska, maybe the North Pole? The Arctic Circle?

“You know me, son?”

Owen Holiday smiles his serial killer’s smile. He’s dressed in a denim shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, as if the cold has no effect on him.

“It has been given to me, the pleasure of educating you as to certain realities of which you may be unaware. The first and most obvious… You’ve been replaced.”

My lungs are filling up with blood. I reach inward, searching for an Aspect. Skydaddy could blow them both to China, or Father Flies… or Stormface…

“Still fighting, son? You should be thinking about the disposition of your immortal soul.”

Holiday kneels down and looks me in the eye.

“You think my God didn’t know what you were trying to do? That your successor didn’t have you pegged from the moment you decided to pull the plug on all that hard earned belief? Did you really believe He would let it all end?”

Holiday’s words sting, propelled by the force of his strange inner violence.

“What were you thinking, Yahweh? You could have had it all to yourself, maybe for another century. But you wanted more.”

“Just wait, you bastard… just… wait…”

Black flashes pulse before my eyes. Holiday… he’s holding the Shell. It twinkles like a nugget of hard starshine as he rolls it back and forth across his knuckles, like a magician flipping a coin.

“Such a simplistic incarnation. All your headaches, the drinking… the woman. So easy to take it all away.”

“You… you killed Surabhi.”

“Oh no, not me. My God killed your woman. While you were finding yourself, He moved into your empty mansion. A century or so ahead of schedule, yes, but my Lord is always on the lookout for other people’s missed opportunities.”

Stormface… Father Flies... help me…

Abandoner. Betrayer.

I’m weaponless, breathless and bleeding to death.

I can fix this. I’m God.

Not anymore.

“Get him up.”

Ares grabs me under my arms and hugs me to his chest, squeezing me with enough force to make my spine creak. Up close he smells like blood and smoke and downmarket aftershave.

“Hey… it’s true. You really do look like Burt Reynolds.”

“I. DO. NOT!”

Holiday laughs as Ares fumed. I’m dying, but I can still bust balls.

“Besides bearing a disturbing resemblance to Mister Reynolds, Brother Ares here also lacks the power to kill whatever may be left of the You part of you. But never mind – reinforcements have arrived!”

Behind him, the frozen sea grows violent. The shattering of icebergs fills the air as the horizon begins to glow. The wind slices at my cheeks, my fingers. I can feel the blood freezing into a thin sheet on my thighs.

“‘And I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth that the wind should not blow on the earth, not on the sea, nor on any tree!’”

Two shining portals open in midair. Two burning figures step out onto the ice, sending up torrents of steam. Although I’ve forgotten more about my former life than could be contained by a hundred mortal lifetimes I recognize the gods Holiday has summoned to kill me: Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Time and Destruction, She who is called Destroyer and Mother Death. Around Her throat dangles a necklace of human skulls. Each of Her six hands grips a weapon capable of generating incalculable force, Her skin the color of clear summer skies, Her eyes twin pools of liquid midnight. Her song could unbind the fabric of reality. As far as I knew she went into retirement back in the early Nineties after a massive influx of Hindus into the West weakened the grip of her pantheon at home. Now here she stands, Her face beautiful and terrible, in full Aspect.

Next to her stands Thor, the Norwegian god of thunder. Wielding his magic hammer, he was strong enough to atomize a mountain range. He once held power over the world’s storms, until the coming of Christianity forced him into obsolescence. Now storms swirl around him once more, dancing to his call. He is huge, his hair and beard like a raging wildfire. The hammer he grips in his right fist crackles with lightning. It’s screaming, its cry melting the permafrost beneath his feet into hissing slush.

Ares joins them and assumes his greatest Aspect: Andreiphontes the Manslayer, God of War and the Horrors of War. In his fists any weapon can slay thousands. At his command entire nations have consumed themselves in berserker fury. At the height of his power, he could transform himself into a mighty bear, or a murderous leviathan, or any other lethal seeming to achieve his ends. Now he stands nearly seven feet tall, his eyes aflame.

They’re anachronisms, disenfranchised and forgotten by all but scholars and movie buffs. Yet now they tower above me, vital and eager to reclaim their bygone glory.

And in front of them stands the mad prophet of the godstalker, the god of whom Zeus warned. Holiday raises his voice to the blackening skies.

“‘And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, saying Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty. Who shall not fear thee and glorify thy name? For all nations shall come and worship before thee.’”

He pockets the Shell and looks down at me, his face swollen with dark joy.

“Your mother and I will miss you, Lando.” Then he turned to his divine assassins. “Brothers… Sister… kill him.”

It can’t end like this. Do something.

The world is growing dim. I reach out, seeking the power. The pain that detonates in my head is immense and final. I taste smoke and blood.

Ares unsheathes his sword.

“This is no battle. The little bastard’s already half dead.”

Then something bursts through the skin of Ares’ throat. For a moment, golden light pierces the darkness from a network of shining cracks racing through the War God’s body, while blood the color of molten gold pours from his mouth. Then Ares opens his arms… and explodes. The something that pierced Ares falls to the snow: it’s an arrow, a shining silver arrow.

As steaming gobbets of once-immortal flesh rain down all around me, I look toward the direction from which the arrow came. And I see her. Flashing beneath the gray-black clouds, leaping toward us across the surging sea, she’s coming, riding the godhorse, eight-legged Slepnir – a nutbrown young woman in glowing deerskins, her long black hair flying, a second arrow already drawn.

The Golden Lady. Changing Woman.

Connie.

Her war cry silences the shriek of the winds. Where her horse runs across the surface of that bitter sea, the clouds part and her husband, the Sun, shines his face upon the waters. Even as Kali begins her Dance of Destruction and Thor summons a tempest to blast her into atoms, Changing Woman comes, trailing Spring’s warmth in her wake.

The Navajo religions tell of her bow, how it was given to her by her son, Monster Slayer. It was formed from the wood of the First Tree, strong enough to harness the power of the sun, or the fury of the storm. With it, the Navajo gods could incinerate the monstrous enemies of humankind. Still singing, Connie fires. The arrow soars through the sky, sweeping aside the darkness like a golden comet plummeting through the blackness of space.

But Kali Durga raises a Song of her own: its power is the power of Death and it burns Changing Woman’s arrow to ash, a wave of unlife that murders every living thing in its path. As the echoes of Kali’s voice pass over the surging seas, the waters go black. Dead fish pop up in spots all along the shore. The death surge shatters Connie’s bow with a sound like a detonation. Connie clutches her right hand to her breast. Then the force of Kali’s song strikes Connie and the godhorse: Odin’s steed falls into the water, dead. Changing Woman leaps at the last minute, somersaulting to land on the ice.

Kali surges forward, arms waving above her head. In one of her right hands a long, curved knife appears, blazing with a hazy blue light. But Connie raises a shield with the emblem of a spider emblazoned on its face, deflecting Kali’s blow. She pulls back, her arms crawling with red spiders as big as tarantulas. Kali spins, shrieking, her power pulping the red spiders, staining the snow with burning bodies. But the survivors quickly cover her. Kali disappears beneath a living red wave.