Lord of the feast, p.31
Lord of the Feast, page 31
That was me, the voice inside her said. But I’m the Lord of the Feast now, and I’ve got a reality to disassemble, so if you wouldn’t mind letting me out….
Kate ignored the voice and rose to her feet. Her head still hurt like hell, but she thought she could manage the pain. She had to.
The Lord was no longer looking at her. It had turned its attention to Mrs. No. She fired at it again, this time shooting until she’d emptied the gun’s clip. The Lord’s chest and abdomen were dotted with bullet wounds, all of which bled freely, but the god took no notice of them. It started toward Mrs. No, moving surprisingly fast on its mismatched legs. No ejected the spent clip but as fast as the Lord was moving, Kate knew the woman wouldn’t be able to reload and fire before the god reached her – especially with only one fully functional hand.
But then something sleek and dark-furred rushed toward the Lord, leaped upon it, and began furiously raking its flesh with long curved claws, sending blood flying in all directions. Now that the Lord was alive, it could be harmed like any other physical being, and without its brain, it was nowhere near its full strength. Kate hoped the beast-thing that had been Uncle Felton would be able to do some serious damage to the god, maybe enough to cause it to lose cohesion and collapse into its component parts once more. She caught more movement from the corner of her eye and turned to see a group of people running toward her. No, not toward her – toward Caprice and Ethan. And these weren’t just people; they were her family. Or rather, her family’s spirits.
Tressa broke off from the others and came to her, a sad expression on her transparent face.
You know what you have to do, child. The book told you. And I’m so sorry for how we used you. You deserved better from us…better from me.
Then she rushed off to rejoin the others, gliding several inches above the chamber’s stone floor. As stunned as Kate was to see her family, she forgot about them as her attention focused on Lee. They were also kneeling, expression blank, blood running from their ears and nostrils. They were looking up at the Gyre – the thing that Kate didn’t want to see – and she knew that if Lee didn’t look away soon, it would swallow their mind. She thrust all other thoughts aside and ran to help her partner.
Chapter Seventeen
No finally managed to reload her gun despite having only one usable hand, but considering the amount of damage her furry friend was doing to the god, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She preferred to do her own killing, but in this case, she was more than willing to accept some help. Yes drifted over to her, and she saw that he’d now taken on the shape he’d worn in life. He looked good as a ghost, she thought. He was spooky, but still cute. She wondered if she could touch him or if her hand would pass through him as if he was no more substantial than mist. She was tempted to try, but restrained herself. She didn’t want to embarrass him in front of everyone, especially the other ghosts.
“Do you think he can kill it?” she asked.
Before Yes could answer, the Lord of the Feast pulled the beast-man off of it and then, with seemingly no effort whatsoever, tore him in two. The half-human, half-animal howled in agony as blood and internal organs spilled out of both its halves. The Lord gazed hungrily at the glistening treasures, but then it hurled the two halves of the beast’s body away and continued coming for her.
A headshot hadn’t worked, and the other rounds she’d put in it hadn’t even slowed it down. Maybe if she hit the heart dead on….
Fear not, my love.
Yes floated toward the Lord with the obvious intent of protecting her. It was a sweet gesture, but Yes was a ghost. What the hell could he do to a god?
Not much, as it turned out.
When he was close to the Lord, the creature drew in a massive breath. Yes was sucked toward its mouth as if the Lord was an industrial-strength vacuum and he nothing more than a clump of dust and dirt. Yes looked at her one last time, expression unreadable, and then he was gone, slurped up like the last strand of spaghetti on a plate. No had come to the House of Red Tears with the express purpose of killing Kate to avenge her dead love. But now Yes was doubly dead, and his killer was the monstrous conglomeration that stood before her. She forgot about Kate and began firing at the Lord, advancing with each shot. The god’s body jerked with the impact of each round, but it didn’t go down. When the clip was spent, No dropped the gun and drew the nightstick. She ran to the creature and swung the stick, striking the creature on the sides of the head, on the abdomen, on the cock and balls, but these blows weren’t any more effective than her bullets had been.
The Lord’s right hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat. With its left hand, it yanked the nightstick from her grip, and rammed it into her right eye socket, shoving it in as far as it would go. No’s body spasmed as if she was a short-circuiting machine, and then it went still. The Lord tossed her corpse aside, and when her ghost began to emerge, like a butterfly from its chrysalis, he inhaled it into himself just as he had done with Yes’s spirit. Wherever they went, whatever their state of being – if any – at least No and Yes were together again.
* * *
This is going well, Caprice thought.
Not only was the Lord alive and ambulatory, it was drawing power from the Gyre itself. Now all that was necessary for the Incarnation to be complete was for the Lord to reclaim the two halves of its brain from Kate and Ethan. Lee had fulfilled their function by luring Kate here and was no longer a factor in the proceedings, but bound and helpless, they were no threat, and Caprice decided to let them live long enough to witness the Lord come into its full glory.
While the stated goal of the Quintessence was to end the Omniverse’s suffering, Caprice had to admit – if only to herself – that she found the prospect of the destruction itself exciting. And it wouldn’t happen all at once. The Lord might be a god, in many ways an avatar of the Gyre itself, but it was still a physical being. It would take time for it to break down the entire Omniverse. Centuries, perhaps millennia. A swift process on a cosmic scale, but she wouldn’t get to see it. Once the Lord was whole, it would finish off Kate and Ethan, then it would come for Lee, then her. Having the Lord take her life was the greatest honor she could imagine. Still, it would’ve been nice to stay around for a while longer and witness the culmination of her life’s work. She imagined herself as the Lord’s herald, announcing its coming to those who were about to die. Ah well. Some dreams weren’t meant to be. At least she would see the Lord become complete before her death. That would have to be enough.
She’d been surprised by the arrival of her dead family members, but it was only fitting that they be here at the end. In life they may have argued with her over whether or not to risk a second attempt at the Incarnation, but now that they were present, they could see that her unwavering faith had been rewarded. Yes, the road to success had been long and difficult – and not without its casualties – but surely they were as filled with joy as she was. It was good that they were all together again, united in a single purpose, as it was meant to be. Because after all that had occurred, good and bad, weren’t they still family?
Her dead relatives had assumed facsimiles of their earthly forms, and while they were only semi-visible, she could make out the expressions on their faces. None of them were smiling. They came at her then, rushing across the Repository, forms phasing in and out of their barely visible state, as if they were no longer concerned with maintaining the illusion of physical bodies. Tressa was in the lead of course, one instant appearing as herself, the next as wavering distortions in the air. The traitorous bitch led the others – which now included Felton’s spirit – in their attack, and the hatred she saw in their faces struck her like a physical blow. Even after everything that had happened, that she had caused to happen, she had thought her family would come around to her side in the end. But she couldn’t have been more wrong.
She raised her hands, mentally preparing a spell to defend herself, but she was too late. The spirits abandoned all pretense of human appearance and fused into a single mass of rippling energy. It came at her like a wall of solid force, and when it hit her, it knocked her back several steps. She could feel them inside her, roiling and seething, building pressure, as if they were steam and she was a thin-walled metal container.
Then her body exploded.
The pain was excruciating, but it was over in an instant. She looked around, saw her blood, bones, and organs spread outward from where she stood, only how could she see this if she no longer possessed eyes?
Welcome to the afterlife, Tressa said.
Caprice turned and saw her family standing behind her – Tressa, Delmar, Victorina, Elisha, Nila, Dalton, Lissette, Felton, Delora, Cordell, Reyna, and Weston. They no longer looked like phantoms, but appeared as solid, fully fleshed versions of themselves.
Tressa reached out and took hold of Caprice’s arm, her grip firm.
Time to go.
No! Caprice protested. I want to see, I want to see!
The others came forward, the forms flickering, becoming pure energy once more. She felt herself entering the same state, and then they all merged as before, only this time she was part of them. She tried to pull free of the mass, but the others held her, and there was nothing she could do. As one, they began to rise toward the Gyre. They moved slowly at first, but then the great nothingness caught hold of them and pulled them toward the vast void of its mouth. They accelerated, moving faster than Caprice imagined was possible.
I want to see, Caprice pleaded. Just a little more….
But then the Gyre claimed them, and the Shardlows and Lintons were no more.
With two exceptions.
* * *
Kate watched as the ghosts of her family destroyed Caprice’s body and then carried her spirit up to the Gyre. She felt them saying goodbye to her – her parents, Reyna and Weston, Tressa and Delmar, and the others – felt their love, their regret, their shame over what they had helped set in motion ten years ago – and then they were gone.
Now it was just her, Ethan, Lee, and the Lord of the Feast.
You’re going to submit, the voice inside her said. You have no other choice.
If she got down on her hands and knees, she could slam her head against the stone floor repeatedly, dash out her brains, and maybe destroy her half of the Lord’s brain in the process. It was a desperate ploy, but it was the only one she had left. But when she tried to lower herself to the floor, she found she couldn’t move.
Nice try, but I’m in your head too, and I’m not about to let you damage yourself like that. Just let go, Kate. If you cooperate, the extraction process will be noninvasive and painless. Well…relatively painless. No harm will come to you or Ethan. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll have to take what I need by force, and that would be most unpleasant for you.
The Lord of the Feast – or at least its patchwork body – stood in front of her. None of its pieces matched, with the exception of the eyes, and they moved independently of each other, acting more lizard-like than human. The top of its head was missing, the cavity inside empty and waiting for what she and Ethan had unknowingly kept custody of in their own heads for the last decade. This was a god? This…this thing? The thought was so ludicrous, she almost laughed.
Ethan hurried over to Lee and began working on undoing their restraints.
“I checked The Book of Depravity,” she called out to her cousin, “and I found a way to destroy the Lord.”
Ethan stopped what he was doing and looked at her, hope on his face.
“Was it a rite or spell? Do we need some kind of special mystic object?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing like that. The book said only this: ‘Give the Lord what it requires.’”
“That’s it?” Ethan said.
“Yes.”
Lee still had the ball gag in their mouth, but they shook their head vigorously, indicating they thought this was an extraordinarily bad idea.
Ethan looked at Kate for a moment, and she could tell he was mulling over her words, trying to understand what they might mean. Finally, he shrugged. “Fuck it. Let’s do it.”
All right, Kate thought to the alien presence inside her mind. You can go.
The voice had told her it wouldn’t hurt if she did it willingly, but she expected to feel something dramatic. After all, she’d hosted half of a supernatural being’s mind in her own for over half her life, and relinquishing it should come as a major shock. But all she felt was a lightening, as if a weight had been lifted from her, one she had gotten so used to carrying that she’d come to think of it as a normal part of herself. There was a sense of loss as well, a melancholy feeling that she was no longer whole, but that was it. The voice had told her the truth – it hadn’t hurt. There was no sign on Ethan’s face to indicate whether he experienced the same sensations, but she thought he did.
As Kate watched, brain tissue swelled like a balloon to fill the cavity of the Lord’s skull. The god drew in a deep breath, and its eyes ceased their independent movements and began working in unison. Its mouth stretched into a broad smile, and for the first time since it had risen to its feet, it spoke in a full voice.
“Now this is what I’m talking about!”
It reached up with both hands and gingerly touched its brain.
“It tickles! I guess I’m going to have to find a scalp somewhere. Maybe I’ll take one of yours. Or maybe Lee’s. I really like their hair. I’d say it was fun getting to know the two of you over the last decade, but I’d rather not start off my new life with a lie. Your heads were prisons to me, and I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally be free of your small minds and their even smaller concerns.”
“Just shut up and kill us already, would you?” Ethan said. “I’d rather die than listen to any more of your bullshit.”
The Lord grinned. “As you wish. Since I’m closest to Kate, she’ll have the honor of being the next to die. You’ll have to settle for following her, Ethan.”
“I’ll do my best to contain my disappointment,” Ethan said.
Still grinning, the Lord reached for Kate…but it stopped before it could touch her. It frowned, and a distant look came into its eyes, as if it were thinking of something. Or perhaps remembering.
“This is a god?” it whispered. “This…this thing?”
It held out its hands, examined them, looked down at its body, noted the seams where its mismatched parts joined.
“The people whose bodies I’m made from…. They weren’t avatars of great darkness. They were ordinary humans who committed ordinary, even banal, sins.” The Lord looked up at the Gyre swirling above them, at once too close and so far away. “I’m not really anything, am I? Certainly not compared to that. I’m a joke, a parody, a mockery. I’m not a god, I’m….” Its voice grew small. “I’m nothing.”
The Lord’s left arm shook, and then it detached from the torso and flew upward toward the Gyre. Within seconds, it was lost from sight. The same happened for its right arm, and then its legs. The Lord fell to the floor and lay on its back, gazing up at the Gyre. The torso began to quiver, and Kate knew that any second it would rise, likely taking the head with it, and it too would enter the Gyre and be no more.
“You don’t have to die,” Kate said. “Not unless you want to. You’ve had a home for the last ten years. Two of them, actually. You can come back to us if you want.”
She looked at Ethan, and after a moment’s thought, he nodded his agreement.
“Come home,” she said.
The Lord’s brain began to wither in its skull, losing mass and substance. Kate felt a weight settle on her once more, but she didn’t mind it. It felt good, in fact, like it belonged there.
The head and torso lifted off the floor, splitting apart as they did so, and they flew upward toward the Gyre. Within seconds, the parts had been devoured, and without the Lord’s presence connecting it to the earthly plane, the Gyre winked out, taking the light with it and plunging the Repository into darkness. A muffled cry came from Lee, and Kate didn’t have to be able to read their mind to understand the message – Someone get this goddamned gag off me!
* * *
Lee rubbed their wrists as the three of them stepped off the elevator.
They worked their tongue around in their mouth a couple times, then grimaced.
“I don’t want to ever taste leather again.”
Kate laughed and reached out to take their hand. They exchanged smiles, and then she turned to Ethan.
