Last God Standing (22 page)

But the red spiders burst into flame. The death goddess’ hands weave the flames into a roaring whirlwind and send it howling toward Changing Woman. Connie raises her hands as the whirlwind closes around her, shielding her from view.

“Connie!”

Out of the fire a giant black shape rises, and stretches dark wings toward the sky: a Thunderbird. Connie, in the form of the Navajo birdgod, envelops Kali within the shadows of her wings.

I have to help her.

Thor seems content to hang back, laughing, for the moment. But soon he’ll join the fray. When that happens, Connie will die.

Meanwhile, Holiday has turned away from the battle, searching the glowing horizon.

I won’t let it end like this.

Kali dances, a space-warping swirl of color and light and death. The Thunderbird’s feathers turn gray and fall out, the birdgod collapsing into a pile of desiccated bones. Connie stands amongst the debris, old now, her Crone Aspect rising as her power wanes. One of her hands has been mangled. She clutches it to her breast, cradling it, her eyes shining, defiant even now.

I close my eyes, seeking deeper than I’ve ever gone, ever had to go. Holiday must be uncertain about the extent to which I still control the power. Why else has he brought the Big Guns of Divine Destruction? Maybe I can give Connie a moment to get away. I reach up, ignoring the tearing pain in my head, ignoring the screaming agony in my side. I reach…

“Hello, Lando.”

Stormface.

“I need you.”

“I can’t play with you right now, Lando...”

“Listen to me! I know another way you can link up with the power!”

Something screams like a bandsaw ripping through ironwood. I turn in time to see Connie fall to one knee. From where she kneels, her eyes find mine.

You were right, kiddo. Our time is done.

Then Connie smiles.

And one of Kali’s bladed weapons strikes her in the chest.

Changing Woman falls backward into the snow.

“The guy with the hammer! He’s connected!”

“
Does he want to play?”

“Yes! He wants to play!”

Connie isn’t moving.

“They both want to play!”

Stormface glides across the ice; a giant babyhead with burning eyes. Kali, wounded, turns to face it. Three of her arms lay on the ice, and half her face is gone, burned away. She staggers toward Stormface, her right foot dragging a glowing golden line behind her in the snow; whatever energies she borrowed from the Coming must be nearly depleted. She reaches for Thor, but the thunder god ignores her.

“At last! Something I can fight!”

Behind him, a stocky older woman with a dark brown crew cut rises from the shining puddle where Connie fell: Esmeralda Sanchez, her University of New Mexico sweatshirt stained with the blood of her goddess. The lenses of her eyeglasses glint, the Aurora borealis flickering in her eyes as she faces the two immortals.

Changing Woman’s last prophetess raises her right fist to the sky. She shouts a Navajo invocation and hammers her fist down onto the ice. As Kali and Thor advance toward Stormface, the ice beneath them erupts and something huge blasts through and rockets into the air, knocking Thor off his feet. The orca grasps Kali in its jaws as it rises toward the sky: for a moment, killer goddess and killer whale hover in midair. Then the orca smashes down in a furious spray of ice and bloody water. The impact vibrates through my kneecaps. The shelf of ice upon which Esmeralda Sanchez stands upends itself like one end of a giant seesaw. The orca smashes back into the water, holding Kali in its jaws. But Esmeralda Sanchez slides toward the hole in the ice and plunges into the gap between the two ledges.

“Connie!”

A silent detonation shudders through the ice; the power that had elevated Kali just vacated her corpse.

“Mmmm,”
Stormface mumbles, absorbing those energies.
“It’s been too long.”

The surge of power refuels our connection. Stormface surrounds me just as Thor rams his hammer into my defenses. Stormface takes the brunt of the blow. Even so, the impact flings me across the ice. I come to in a snowdrift as Thor drops out of the sky and strikes the permafrost with the force of a dynamite charge, his hammer screaming carnage. He’s too close. He’s too strong. Stormface lashes out; a battering ram of force that strikes Thor. The explosion flings us apart. But Stormface breaks; its protection falls to glowing tatters. Thor lands fifty feet away, unconscious or dead, his godslaying hammer sizzling, its indestructible head buried in the ice.

Connie.

I drag myself across the permafrost toward the gap that claimed Changing Woman and her prophetess, struggling to see through the steam and boiling water below.

“Connie!”

“You’ve done well, old boy. But the tribulation is nearly done.”

Holiday.

“You killed her!”

“A justifiable homicide, my friend. Your plans were disruptive to my patron’s Ascension, His vision: a world eternally ruled by fear. Your little mentor died in service to the greater good. As will your parents, when their usefulness has ended. A lot of people are going to die, Lando. Everything that your other self infected must be purged to allow the new paradigm to settle in. But know that their deaths will not be in vain.”

“Kill you… swear to God… I’ll kill you!”

“New Eden has begun, Yahweh. You’re done.”

Behind him, the sky grows lighter, dawn’s glow illuminating the horizon, but the color… the color is wrong.

“He comes! My Lord’s greatest Lieutenant comes in fire and victory!”

The red light, a pinpoint of flame burning across the sky, whistling as it pushes frigid air aside, dragging sonic booms in its wake. It’s coming fast, and I’m afraid.

Because I recognize that light.

Holiday opens his arms like a man welcoming his long lost brother as the wind from the red light’s descent whips the snow into a million minor storms.

“‘And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand!’”

I’ve searched for him, ignored the uncertainty of our ancient stalemate. But now he’s found me, and I’m about to learn just how stupid I’ve been.

“‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away!’”

The red nimbus lands silently, touching the permafrost without so much as a whisper: the Devil always knew how to make an entrance.

Yuri Kalshnikov steps onto the bloody snow.

His eyes shine in that particularly Red way I remember from our ancient contest. He hid himself in plain sight, passing himself off as my best friend and mortal ally. Now he crackles, incandescent with the power the Devil was supposed to have renounced.

I lay there in a deepening puddle of bloodslush, shut off from the power that might have turned the tide; finally, damnably human. I can barely see him through my tears.

“Was it? Was it always you?”

Yuri stares at me, through me, as if he’s looking into the distant past or some unknowable future. Holiday puts one hand on his shoulder.

“Prove yourself worthy, my brother. Join the winning team.”

Yuri bends and grasps Thor’s hammer. Like a man towing an invisible anchor, he walks toward me, lifting his feet out of the knee-high snow. The hammer pulses, its bass heartbeat thrumming across the ice… the burning, freezing air, beating echoes from my bones, its head throbbing with a purple-white light violent as the heart of murder. Overhead, tongues of lightning flicker through the dark skies as Yuri summons ancient enchantments both divine and demonic, charging the hammer with enough power to slay a god.

“Fool. To have commanded such power.”

His head shakes back and forth like a man in the grip of a seizure, jaw muscles clenching as if he were biting back words too terrible to voice, his scorn straining through gritted teeth.

“We are… children… playing with the fire of the gods.”

Thor’s hammer recasts the ice field in arclight flashes of blue, crimson crawlers of divine lightning and infernal magic. Livid stalks of elemental fire dance surround me, blinding me as shoots of lightning crackle up from the earth and surround me with elemental fury. Yuri steps between the bars of the burning plasma cage. Only his eyes reveal the price of his betrayal.

“We could have remade this world in our image.”

Surabhi. What have I done?

“Yuri… you have a... choice.”

Arcane energies snarl the air, blistering my flesh with a hurricane blast. Arctic air tears the skin of my cheeks and the tendrils of a strange gravity tug me backward as the Devil lifts the stormgod’s blazing hammer.

If I can just reach him, touch him, finally.

“Yuri… you’re… my best friend.”

Then the hammer…

“In this multiverse of universes, most universes are dead. The proton is not stable. Atoms never condense. DNA never forms. The universe collapses prematurely or freezes almost immediately. But in our universe, a series of cosmic accidents has happened, not necessarily because of the hand of God but because of the law of averages.”

Parallel Worlds
. Dr Michio Kaku.

“People are damn crazy.

Every human livin’ knows that’s true.

If God made People in His own image

He must be damn crazy too.”

When he opened his eyes it was into the glare of too-bright lights, shouting and the sounds of praise. He shut his eyes against the glare. But he couldn’t shut his ears.

“Thank God! Thank God in His Heaven!”

“Can someone get her out of here?”

His chest hurt. It felt as if someone was sitting on it. It was difficult to breathe and there were shadows in his mind, dark, moving forms. He was cold, and the smell… like rubbing alcohol. A hospital smell. It was almost worse than the voices.

“His blood pressure is stabilizing. Heart rate normal.”

“Excellent. Let’s get him prepped.”

Darkness again.

“Lando? Lando can you hear me?”

This time he opened his eyes slowly, wincing against the memory of that other time, when light and sound threatened to drive him back into the darkness. It was important to stay out of the darkness. But the pounding in his head forced him to shut his eyes again. The darkness was cool, comforting. In the darkness he could float and forget about… forget about…

“Surabhi.”

Hushed voices. Whispering. Then…

“Who’s Surabhi?”

“Quiet, Charles. Lando… can you hear me?”

“What…?”

“Lando, dear, this is your mother speaking. Can you open your eyes?”

“Easy, Barb. Give ’em some breathing room, fer Cyrus’ sake.”

LC Cooper squinted his eyes open enough to make out several blurred shapes. As the image swam into focus, the first person he recognized was his mother.

“Bar… ba… ra,” he said. His throat. There was something wrong with his throat. It was dry. It felt as if he had been forced to gargle with sand. “M… mother.”

“Yes, dear, praise God. It’s mother.”

“Thr… throat… hurts…”

“That’s the anesthetic, dear. The doctors said it would dry out all your membranes. Would you like some water?”

“Wha… what?”

“WOULD YOU LIKE SOME WATER?”

Water.

A dark vortex. A swirling hole in the red ice leading down… down. Blood… blood on the ice. His blood in the…

“…water, dear. Oh, I forgot, he has to use the straw.”

“Connie!”

“Now just relax, Lando. He shouldn’t try to sit up.”

“Who’s Connie?”

LC opened his mouth to answer.

“Connie… she’s my… my…”

…but he couldn’t remember.

“Boy, Barbie, he don’t look so hot.”

LC squinted toward the speaker, the only other person in the room, a short, barrel-chested man with a blockshaped, bald head. He was wearing a brown suit, light blue shirt and lime green tie covered with pineapples.

“Flaunt,” LC said huskily, his throat burning. “You’re… Chick… Flaunt.”

The barrel chested man frowned appreciatively.

“Chuck, sonny. Chuck Flaunt. But hey, that’s pretty good. Looks like you may have kept a brain cell or two in that noggin o’ yers after all.”

“Bite me, Chick.”

“Lando Kalel Cooper, that’s no way to talk to your father.”

“My what?”

“That’s alright, honey,” Flaunt said. “I got nothing to prove to him, or anybody else. I know who I am. Hell of a lot more than I can say for some people in this room.”

“Charles…”

“Just kiddin’, Barbie.”

Barbie?

“My father?” LC said. “What the hell are you two… are you two…?”

He cleared his throat. His voice… his voice felt… different to him, rougher, harsher.

“What’s wrong with my… with my voice? Why am I in the hospital?”

Barbara approached again, a giant plastic hospital cup in her right hand. She stuck a straw into the top and handed it to him.

“I’ve called Danielle. She was just dropping the children off at school. They’re so excited. They can’t wait to see you.”

LC took a sip of the water. It was cold, soothing to his throat.

“Who’s Danielle?”

Barbara frowned as if she smelled something unpleasant. “We were told to expect this.”

“Expect what? What did you do to your hair? And what’s wrong with your face?”

“I see being in a coma hasn’t improved your attitude.”

“A coma? What are you talking about? I’m perfectly fine.”

But he didn’t feel fine. Something was wrong. Something was… different. But he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. Something about Barbara’s face... And where was Herb? Then another, darker thought…

“Where’s Yuri?”

“Who’s Yuri?”

He remembered a fight, Yuri standing over him, holding something, something so bright it hurt his brain to remember.

Children.

“What do you mean, ‘Who’s Yuri?’”

Blank stares from Flaunt and Barbara.

“Tall, good looking blonde guy?”

More blank stares.

“You said he had a nice package.”

Flaunt was up in a jackrabbit flash. “Hey! Just what the hell do you mean by that, mister?”

“It’s alright, Charles,” Barbara said. Then she pointed at her skull. “That’s the you-know-what talking.”

Flaunt looked unconvinced. “I thought they took care of the ‘you-know-what’?”

Barbara smiled and patted LC’s arm. “We’ll sort all this stuff out soon enough, dear. Mommy’s going to get you all squared away. Then everything will be just the way it should be.”

“Well… look who is back.”

The door to the hospital room swung open and a tall, dark brown man entered the room.

“Hello, Sanjit,” Barbara said. “Sorry. Doctor Aziz.”

“Hello, to all.”

The doctor moved to stand at the side of LC’s bed. Barbara stepped away to give him space to sit on the edge of the bed. That was when LC got his first good look at his mother.

“And how is my most famous patient doing this morning?”

“Lando,” Barbara said. “This is Doctor Aziz. He’s the one who helped you. Remember?”

Barbara was at least thirty pounds heavier than she should have been, her backside and thighs and breasts larger than LC would have believed possible. Her hair, just the day before, had been mostly dark brown with just a few strands of gray beginning to show at the temples. Now it was completely silver, and styled in a way she had always attributed to Republican congresswomen from Texas. Barbara had always hated those “helmet hair” styles, but now she was wearing one. And it was gray.

The bright light flashing in his eyes brought him back.

Light… too bright… burning… blinding…

Children playing with the fires of Creation.

Doctor Aziz clicked his penlight off and stuck it into the pocket of his lab coat.

“Yes, he seems a little disoriented. But that’s to be expected after the type of procedure he’s undergone.”

“Procedure?” LC said. “What kind of procedure?”

Barbara sat on the edge of his bed and took one of his hands in hers.

“Lando, dear… you nearly died yesterday. Well, I suppose technically you were dead. But Doctor Aziz brought you back.”

Doctor Aziz stepped forward, his round, brown face all smiles. “It was touch and go there for a while. But I’m happy to report that the surgery was a complete success. We were able to remove most of the tumor.”

“Tumor? I have…”

“Had!”

“I… had… a tumor?”

“A slightly non-malignant but very bothersome brain tumor, yes. It was the cause of your terrible headaches…”

No.

“…and your colorful hallucinations.”

Aziz chuckled. “You were very nearly lost to us, my friend. My wife told me, ‘Sanjit, if you let him die I will never speak to you again. He’s the Funniest Man in the world!’ So when your heart stopped beating yesterday morning I thought I would be spending the next ten months sleeping on the couch! But we did our very best and you came back to us. So now I expect you to make a full recovery.”

Brain tumor?

“The next few months will be very difficult,” Aziz said. “You will have to learn to walk again. During the six weeks of medically-induced coma, your muscles atrophied, but not as much as we might have expected. You should be fully ambulatory by early next year. I must say, you held up very well for someone who has spent the last two months flat on his back.”

“A coma? But I don’t remember… can’t remember…”

“This is normal, considering your brains have been jostled about a bit.”

Aziz stepped next to Barbara and laid his hand on her left shoulder. “But you remember this pretty lady, don’t you?”

LC nodded. Of course he remembered Barbara. But her hair… the laugh lines in her face… her weight gain…

“And your hilarious stepfather? You remember him, don’t you?”

Flaunt nodded curtly, his bald head reflecting sunlight from the open window. Unfortunately, LC did remember Flaunt.

“Where’s my father? Where’s Herb?”

Barbara looked worriedly toward Aziz. But Aziz smiled encouragingly. LC’s gut filled up with dread.

“Your father passed away, Lando.”

“What?”

“It’s been fifteen… no… my goodness it must be…”

“Twenty years ago,” Flaunt said. “It was that goddamn ostrich shoot, Lando. You were there, remember? Sonofabitchin’ bird kicked him to death…”

“Charles…”

Herb… my father… dead?

“But I don’t… I can’t…”

“Think for a moment, Mister Cooper,” Aziz said. “Do you remember anything from before your coma? Before you came to the hospital?”

LC closed his eyes, tried to cast his mind back, beyond the darkness, the emptiness that waited for him in the corners of his memory the way a faithful dog awaits its master.

Back.

“I remember someone shouting, my chest hurt… I remember smelling alcohol and someone talking about my heart rate…”

“Very good! That was yesterday. What else do you remember?”

Back.

“Think back now.”

“I remember…”

We love you, Daddy!

LC swallowed, trying to overcome the sudden lump that had formed in the back of his throat. The lump seemed to grow larger as the feeling in his gut intensified.

“I… I remember…”

…to thank every one of you for all your kind thoughts. This is way too much excitement for a simple little brain surgery…

Hi Ho!

We love you, LC!

“I remember…”

…where thousands of fans have gathered at the New Kingdom of Amun Medical Arts Center to offer late-night titan, LC Cooper their fond wishes and hopes for a speedy recovery…

…my family and I appreciate all the cards and prayers…

“I remember…”

Daddy are you gonna die and go live with Grandpa Ptah?

He had to stop, had to look away from the memories that played against his mind’s eye like home movies from someone else’s life. His throat was filling up with the bothersome lump, and his vision was swimming again.

“My life… I remember my life…”

The door to the room opened again and a woman, tall and too thin, with skin the color of caramel and short, black hair, stepped hesitantly into the room…

“Is it… is he…?”

…and before she could finish, three children piled through the door and onto his bed.

“Daddy!”

He couldn’t speak. He knew them. Their names were Haru, the Falcon, Son of Isis; Oheo, the Iroquois word for Beautiful; and Herbert-Hasani... it meant Handsome. They were his children. He could no more forget them than he could forget his own name.

Lando Kalel Cooper.

The woman stood tentatively at the door, watching while the people on the bed embraced and laughed and wept. He remembered her too. He tried one last time to clear the bothersome lump from his throat.

“Hello, Danielle.”

Danielle’s eyes grew misty as well. She stepped forward and took his hand in hers.

“Hello, LC.”

His family was there, together, the way he remembered. His children. His wife. His mother. The memories were flooding back now, slowly but steadily. Life.

This is my life.

He was home.