Chapter 19
Regret. The one time in her life she’d showed restraint it had come back to bite her in the ass. If she hadn’t pulled her aim at the last second, that bullet would have gone right through Friar’s skull. Sure she’d still be in a pickle, but at least she’d have the satisfaction of seeing his head pop open and his traitorous blood drizzle out, and she could skip over and kick him again and again and laugh and maybe sing a song. But now she was being led by his black-clad ass into a cathedral that as far as she could tell was hovering over/supported by a pile of bodies. In fact, she was starting to suspect that the cathedral itself was made of bodies. The columns and inner walls and the ceiling were all carved in impossible detail with frolicking, joyful bodies touching and feeling and fucking one another. The bases of the columns seemed to be wetter, rawer almost, and they melded with the floor—oh fuck, the floor. It felt like hard black marble but looking close she could see all the whirls and patterns were bodies, all melted together and flattened, grinning, yawning, and screaming up at her.
There were no candles or incense holders, golden watchamacallits or carpets or tapestries—the normal shit you’d find in a church. The shape was a little off too, more like a plus sign than a cross. There were arches (formed of stone? No, bodies of course) and windows, but there was no glass. The ceiling rose up into a dome, which was open up top, and all light came from that strange golden mist. It seemed to her that the singing was louder in here, which was odd because it seemed to be empty—not even any pews—except for her and Friar. Her boots were clacking too loudly against the flesh-marble, and she marveled that with all the other tension, the blood loss, the knowledge she was going to be killed in an awful way, the anger, a little bit of fear, maybe more than a little—despite it all she found room to be annoyed at the sound her boots made.
They came at last to the center of the cathedral, where all the rows of columns converged, all the aisles coming from all the doors and all the bridges and other tunnels leading to what she guessed were houses of other murderers. There was a dais and atop it was an altar, a solid black block of stone that, for a change, didn’t seem to be made out of bodies. It was occupied. A pale white arm hung over the side and she could see that the veins had been opened. Blood trickled down the fingers to fall onto the dais.
“Here she is,” Friar said, beaming back at her. “The girl. The very special girl.”
Saru’s heart lifted and then sank. For the briefest second she thought maybe Friar had been yanking her chain and had found the girl for her. Then for the second-briefest of seconds she realized he had found the girl and murdered her. For the third-briefest of seconds she thought he would let her go, mission accomplished, and then she realized how fucking stupid that was and only then did she feel the guilt for hoping another person’s death meant that she could live. She followed Friar up to the dais and joined him by the altar. The girl was young—God how that twisted the guilt knife—twenty at most but her dark hair had the telltale streaks of gray from using sky. She was pretty, blue eyes open, staring dead at the ceiling, mouth a little open with a spot of blood blending with her lipstick. Her throat had been cut deep, and the veins of her other arm opened as well, arms and legs spread so she looked like she was just relaxing. They’d stripped her naked, pale skin all the way, signs of bruises, breaks, old scars and fuckups that had happened long before Friar had cut her up. There was the telltale triangular bite mark of a venereal inoculation on her mons so it was safe to guess she’d done a bit of bodywork. Shit, perhaps this really was a kindness.
“What was her name?” Saru asked, not really wanting to know, not sure if she cared.
“Ria,” he said. “Just Ria.”
Ria. It wasn’t a name on the list. She hadn’t even gotten that right. Or maybe Jojran had found one of her aliases, just like Fanny Duvak.
“How did you find her?”
“She found us,” he said, sweeping his arm around to indicate all the doors leading into the cathedral. “She found us here, following our voice, the voice of her friend, her lover, her father, mother, brothers, and sisters. She wanted to be safe, wanted protection…”
He was blathering. What did it matter, anyway? Ria was dead; the other women were dead, maybe not now, but eventually. And Saru was dead, as soon as he stopped talking, probably. Better to enjoy her last moments thinking of the good times in life, the few good fucks she’d had and the scratches she’d left in some pretty boys, the time she’d taken LSD and ridden on the Ferris wheel, and that one day where the haze had thinned and turned a little blue and she’d put on a dress and had a picnic in the park. So what if it had been by herself, and the food was just a sandwich she’d bought at a corner store washed down with a forty? It was nice and it felt warm and she’d hiked up her dress and felt sun on her thighs. That was a good day, a good memory—but was it right to go out on? It felt like a lie, to have that as her ending note, as if she’d lived some happy sunshine life that was all doodly-dee and la-dee-da. Better to think about the real times, the good shots she’d made, the solid blows, the perps tied up and dragged, and the ten thousand cracks to her skull that gave her a blood-spit grin. She felt it now, coming for no reason she could tell, and it made her feel good to grin at death. Yeah, this was right.
“…she was afraid, in pain, lost…”
Just kill me already. Maybe she should kill herself, blow herself up with a micro grenade and maybe take him with her. Could she time it right and hit just him? And what if she missed or he whipped out more hocus pocus and ruined her—was that a dog? She blinked. Still there. She rubbed her eyes, still there, a giant golden dog that she could have just about saddled, sitting on his haunches about ten feet behind Friar. Her scans showed nothing, nothing but two live human bodies and a freshly dead body. No fur balls. She slapped herself. Still there. Friar stopped talking and looked at her. She slapped herself again and felt a twinge of satisfaction that with all her previous impotence she’d managed this tiny victory of confusing him.
“Here boy,” she said. “Good dog.”
Friar turned to follow her gaze. He stared at the spot where she was looking like he was trying to set the dog on fire with his eyes. She had the peculiar thought that Friar couldn’t see the dog, that the dog was only for her. Friar smiled.
“I know you’re there,” he said calmly, but there was a hint of threat in his voice and that gave her hope. The entire time he’d been so relaxed, so calm and casual and unbothered by murder and combat and draining her blood and nearly getting shot in his fucking face—the bastard. To hear him suddenly threaten was—she hoped—a sign that he felt a threat. And almost to confirm her instinct she heard a slithering and a groan, like the gently singing voices had missed a note and were angry. With the slithering came the centipedes, appearing one by one in the entrances, their human-torso heads wriggling their arms like antennae.
The dog didn’t seem bothered by any of this. He, or she, Saru couldn’t tell if it had balls or not, got on all fours and padded to the altar, springing lightly up to rest on top of Ria. Friar followed the dog with his gaze—could he see it now?—and his jaw twitched like he was grinding his teeth. The voices grew angrier, louder. She could see the tips of his blood strings begin to poke from the skin of his hands.
“How dare you!” he called at Ria’s dead body. “How dare you defile this holy place with your presence!”
There was a flash, a column of gold erupted from the dog and enveloped the altar and Ria’s body. The heat forced Saru back but Friar stood firm—blood and pus dribbled from the cracks on his face as the skin charred and split. She decided now was as good a time as any to make a run for it, but as she started for the door the centipede—how was she planning to get past it again?—shot forward and reared up before her, the eyes of the torsos opening wide, the mouths all with mocking smiles, and they laughed at her with their dead mouths and throats, an awful sound of sputtering mufflers and forks caught in the garbage disposal. She skittered to a stop, an inch from a grasping hand covered in lice and worms and rot, and took a step back. The centipede slid back a few feet and she took another step—another step, another slither, another step, another slither, until she was right back where she’d started and the centipede was back in the doorway. Cute.
The column of gold faded and the altar was gone, melted and cooled into a pretty glass slag. Ria stood, alive, intact, skin glowing like pure light, no sign of cut or injury, and her eyes were blue jewels that shone and hurt to look at. Light seemed to pour out of her body, and it was warm and comfortable, and suddenly Saru felt safe, like her big sister had come over from the big kid’s playground to kick that bully’s ass.
“Begone!” Friar hollered at Ria, sounding like he’d smoked a case of cigars. “You are not welcome here!”
She looked at him like he was pigeon shit on her favorite shoes. A beam of blue light shot from her eyes and he vaporized. It happened in a flash, so quick Saru couldn’t even process. He was gone. Ria walked over and put a hand on Saru’s shoulder. It seemed her glow faded somewhat and she was just a girl now, a pretty, naked girl who had been dead a few minutes earlier.
“Sister,” she said, and smiled. “I have come.”
“Enough!”
Saru jolted back, the prod appearing in her hand. Ria turned and another blue beam shot from her eyes. It was Friar’s voice that had called, and out of the corner of her eye she saw another Friar vaporize. And another, and another—they wriggled like tar up from the floor or detached themselves from the columns to swell or shrink and then harden into a new human, a new Friar, intact, dressed in his same ugly suit—that was a small mercy—to be vaporized until the latest of a dozen Friars caught the blue beam in his hand, grasped it like a bright blue tennis ball and then squeezed so it sparked and fizzled into nothing. Ria quit trying to vaporize him for a moment and stared with that same shit-on-my-new-carpet look.
“Go,” Friar said. “It is not your time to know joy.”
“You go,” Ria sneered. “I claim this world.”
“By what right?” he asked. “You are unknown, unwanted.”
“By right of conquest,” she bellowed and spread her arms. “Every organism, every atom of mass, every gasp of atmosphere I claim as mine and I shall destroy all who stand in opposition!”
She shot the beam from her eyes again, brighter, thicker, more intense. He caught it but couldn’t hold on, and it washed over him and he died, Saru guessed. It was hard to tell anymore who was dead and alive and if it really made any difference at this point. Because he was back a second later, in another corner of the room—and maybe that’s how he’d snuck up on her, come to think of it. He hadn’t crept up or swooped down but just squirted up from the floor.
“These people do not want you!” the new Friar hissed. “They desire love!”
“What the chattel of this planet desire is of no concern to me,” Ria said, vaporizing him again.
No new Friar emerged. Ria lifted her arm as though she were tossing a ball and lo and behold a ball appeared, a bright white orb that flew up and cast its harsh fluorescence through the cathedral. There was a flash of light, a thin white ray from the orb and the sound of wires crossing mixed with someone sucking spit. Another Friar, vaporized. Ria had offed the chore of murder to her toy. Lovely. Saru should get one. The flashes came faster and faster until the ball and its light faded. There was a groan behind her and she whirled to see a body detaching itself from a column. It came free with a shcluck and then shivered and slouched its way towards her. The eyes and mouth opened, and from them burst tangles of hair-thin strings. Saru dodged but three stuck in her leg, three orgasmic knife thrusts, and she could feel the blood sucked greedily out. A flash and the wires burned away and the body poofed into a cloud of ash. But more came from the walls, crawling down from the ceiling, men, women, and children with dancing bloody wires poking from their eyes and mouths, metal-spaghetti vomit writhing out, and it seemed they spoke to her then: “Come…come…come, Saru.”
She tossed a micro grenade at the nearest group and blew them all to smithereens. At her back Ria sent more globes into the air, a circling halo of pearls that cackled out death rays. She laughed and shot blue death from her eyes, holding out her hands and bathing the area around them in wide cones of golden flame. Saru tossed another micro grenade, knife in the off-left, prod in the right hand, feeling inadequate. That’s right assholes, come any closer and I’ll zap ya. There was a voice in her ear, Friar, and she turned and strained her neck and looked in every possible direction, but his fat ass was nowhere to be seen. He was in her head, a spirit, a voice, like the singing voices of the pit and the cathedral, not physical but there.
“Do you really wish to serve this woman?” he asked. “Look at her. She is a creature who loves violence.”
That was true enough. Ria was blasting and burning with the joy of a kid in a porno store. A particularly fat corpse waddled at her and she seemed to shiver with delight as she ignited his wires and watched the flames travel back and consume him. And so what?
“Doesn’t bother me,” Saru said, guessing Friar could hear her. A tiny child corpse tottered through the rays of light and fires to try and latch its wires onto her. She kicked it in the head and then nearly vomited when the head tore free and bounced away. Wires slithered through the gore of her neck, worms in mud, and then shot out in all directions. She batted them away with the prod, but one wrapped around her leg and burrowed into her shin. Oh God, oh God yes and no. She sank to her knees and grabbed at the wire but it was sharp and her hands came away with blood. She felt it burrow deep, yes! working its way up her calf into her kneecap.
“Make it stop,” she whimpered—oh God it felt good. “Please make it stop.”
“Come to us,” Friar whispered. “Embrace us.”
“No…” But oh fuck yes.
She kicked out with her left leg and tried to cut the wire with her heel dagger, managing to cut open her shin in the process. She got it the second time and stumbled to her feet, where she swayed back and forth and watched the scene before her like she was staring through an aquarium. They were surrounded now, she and Ria, by a horde of naked, dead bodies spraying bloody snake wires from their eyes and mouths. Ria seemed to dance and laugh as she spun and shot bright colors from her eyes and hands, turning the bodies into fire and ash. She clasped her hands together and shot out a ray of golden fire the width of a truck tire, spinning it around like a flashlight beam, passing through walls and columns and hundreds of bodies and leaving crackling bloody steam and slag behind her. The beam crossed a centipede—still perched in the doorway—and hung there, casting the creature as black swirling particles amidst the gold, and when the beam moved on there was nothing, just a few severed legs clattering against the melted stone in confusion.
“Is this what you want for your world?” Friar asked, still whispering in her ear. “Light and fire? Why not love? Why not have all your desires come to life?”
“You are trying to kill me,” Saru slurred back. “How are you thinking this sounds to me right now?”
“Kill her,” Friar hissed. “Kill the bitch before she burns your world. Before love is lost. Before you are doomed to die the True Death.”
She looked down and saw a dagger in her hand, a black spike, swirled like the floor, and the stone-flesh walls. It was heavy and real, not her boot knife in disguise or her prod. Ria was right behind her, blind to betrayal, caught in the ecstasy of destruction. A hard thrust in her back would do the trick, that would wipe the smile off her face. Little bitch, making me chase you around the city, waiting until the last moment—why couldn’t you have done this earlier? Before we were trapped in this hellhole? Before half the blood had been sucked out of her and aliens had raped her mind? But Saru knew the answer. The Blue God didn’t waste its time with losers. It had only contempt for the weak. It was waiting, chillin’ at the bar to see if anybody wanted to dance, any shapely bones with attitude and a bit of fierce in them. A partner that could throw a punch and take one too, and wouldn’t squat and cry at the first little lost limb. It was her kind of God—an action God, a God of instinct and right-angle decisions, sharp teeth, big guns, hot fire and pain. She tossed the knife, whether it was real or a metaphor.
“Fuck you,” she said to Friar, and in her mind she burned him, tied him to a post under a pile of dry logs and sent him in ashes to the sky. The heat was real, rushing through her brain, and she could feel it licking, lapping at the walls around her mind, human walls, God walls, barriers thrown up by the weak and fearful and now burned, burned, burned away to let the fire of her instinct free. The fire traveled to her eyes and flared, and the blurry half-dead spectator vision faded. She saw clearly, more clearly than she ever had, and stood straighter. Her hand grasped the handle of her prod, transformed, a scepter now, hard, heavy, bronzed with sharp blue jewels around a vicious head that crackled with lightning-fire energy. She raised her head to the heavens and screamed her war cry and embraced the gift of the Blue God. Ria let fly a wave of fire and paused to smile and say, “Welcome, sister.”
And then she threw her hands up to the heavens as well, and the cathedral shook. Saru screamed and charged the hordes of bodies, each swing of the scepter an arc of lighting flame that splashed away her enemies in droves. She laughed at the tickles of their wires bouncing against her skin; their cries to come now sounding less like menace and more the pleading of a beggar. A smash to the face, an explosion of color and splatter of blood. Two quick knocks, two bodies on the floor. A backhand blow, an uppercut, a carefree spin that would leave her dead in the real world, every pat and tap of her new toy was death and she reveled in it. Here was love. Here was power. Here at last was an offer of real temptation. Fuck your peace, your love, your ten million bucks and luxury. I am home.
Ria kept her arms upraised and light burned through the fake light, the lying light of the golden mist. True light cut away the haze, bright, impossibly bright, and yet with her new eyes it felt good and right, growing more and more around them until the beast, the bodies began to sizzle and pop, the stone grew sweaty and moist and dribbled away, the centipedes screamed and thrashed as they burned and burst and her clothes caught flame and dissolved, an agony as her implants boiled in her skull, the shivs in her thighs and the armor plates and pins throughout her bones all vaporized, but her skin and blood and hair and tits and eyes were all intact and crying out in joy at the heat of the light now so strong and wide and powerful that all was white, the pure, perfect white of a star. And she felt herself rising then, the walls and ceiling gone, the floor itself now made of light, rising, rising, up now free of the ground, a perfect circle in a beam of light, rising like an elevator to the heavens.
The light dimmed somewhat, the whiteness fading, the glorious hot subsiding into a cool air on her naked body. She stood next to Ria on a pure white disk floating high in the air and caught in a beam of light. Below was a pit of fire, the cathedral and the soup of bodies burned away, the corruption of the UausuaU purged from the earth. The fire burned white hot, cresting in waves like an ocean, an ocean of fire in the city’s heart that she knew would burn forever, a warning to those who would defy the Blue God. Were there innocents trapped in the beam? Men and women in their homes, unknown to the UausuaU, caught in the fire for no reason other than chance? No. There were no innocents. There were only the weak and the strong. Faithful servants of the Blue God and enemies to be destroyed. Above, the source of the beam, a galaxy of colors, a moon-sized chandelier hanging over the earth. She saw, knew this was the domain of the Blue God, its kingdom, its vessel, and that it had been there all along and only now was this world worthy of its vision.
She felt the fear of the people from below and reveled in it. The light called, demanded they come, and they came, all the people of the city, and with her new eyes she saw far, far to the streets where they gathered in crowds like a New Year’s celebration, clamoring up stairs to stand on rooftops, to spill from their caves, out from sewers and from under bridges, from their lofts, and barracks, their hovels and mansions, all summoned by the light. The black clouds, the hateful haze that had for so long denied her servants light began as well to burn and die and vanish, great snaking vines of golden light wrapping through the sky and pushing away every speck and particle of interference. The chandelier hung heavy and bright in a black sky, all other light from the city dying before it, the trash fires and electric lights flickering to black, the stars themselves retreating so that all was black in the sky above, the city below and the chandelier casting its light down upon Ria and the pit of flames, and the new God of this realm. And her new eyes showed her with a sense more than sight alone that the people of the city knelt and prayed and wailed with fear and some with joy at the gifts of the Blue God. Ria surveyed her kingdom, the world she was to command, frowning at the silver forest to the east. She took Saru’s hand and let it drop. She looked her in the eyes, and Saru saw that she was a God yes, and still a girl, young, terrified, who’d lived her whole life day to day on the streets of Philadelphia. She hugged her, gently, fearfully, not sure how it worked, and then, after a long moment, she let go and Ria was once more a God, commanding her to kneel. She knelt, and for the first time in her life, Saru Solan did as she was told.
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