Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End (9 page)

Mary, Amber and Ariadne
looked at one another uncertainly. Jesus began sauntering towards
the bathroom.

“
Not you, hon,” Lilith said.

Jesus frowned. “What, I’m
not a lady?”

“
I said girls.”

“
Point. But I do make bathing an exacting art.”

“
I’m sure you do,” Lilith said, walking up to her and patting
her ass. “New initiates. Wheat from the chaff,” she said, quietly,
after the three of them were already in the bathroom. With a silk
bag casually flung over her shoulder, Lilith followed them, closing
the door behind her.

Cody swaggered to a nearby
sofa and dropped onto it heavily. He managed to finish the bottle
of whiskey he’d been nursing all night before passing out, still
sitting up.

Jesus and Dionysus looked
at each other. Dionysus sighed, but then smiled wearily. “I was
really excited about the hot tub, too.”

Lilith handed a bundle of
candles to Amber and contemplated the layout of the room. Not the
bath-houses of Tiberius in Ancient Rome, but it would do. Most
importantly, the hot tub could accommodate three.

She made a circular gesture
at Amber, who nodded and began placing them around the hot-tub.
Lilith sat down by the bath and turned the faucet.

“
Leave your clothes over there,” she said, motioning to the
far corner of the room. “Don’t be shy. I’ve seen it all
before...Not that you aren’t fine specimens.”

They did as instructed, and
stood somewhat awkwardly in the center of the room. Lilith began
lighting the candles. “Ardat li li. Lamashtu. Ahi hay
lilitu.”

She snapped restraints on
Mary and Amber’s wrists, but when she approached Ariadne, she
pulled away.

“
Hold on a second. I don’t even–”

Lilith grabbed her by the
throat. Ariadne’s eyes opened wide. “As a famous writer said: You
bought the ticket, now take the ride. OK?”

She let go. Ariadne rubbed
her neck for a moment. “Christ you’re strong.”

Lilith smiled, and bound
her hands as well.

“
I’m not a fan of empty talk. But I’m going to tell you
something that Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Hedwig and Macguyver out
there haven't figured out for themselves yet. We are the scions of
eternity. My memory goes all the way back to ancient
Babylon.”

“
You’re serious?” Ariadne asked.

“
Women told tales of me...I would steal the men away from
them. I would devour their children. I was an abomination. I lived
inside mirrors to seduce the vanity of nubile girls. Can you
imagine? They were afraid of me. I know. You're probably thinking
I'm crazy, and at the same time wondering about all the voices in
your head that won't let you sleep at night. The nightmares that
soak your sheets. I'm not the only one.”

“
Only what?”

“
Demigod.”

“
Ah.”

“
We don't always remember. In fact, more often than not, we
forget.” Lilith put her hand under the faucet, testing the
temperature. “It can take a real shock to bring it to the surface.
First, I've got to draw this bath.”

“
Now I know why you shackled us before telling us your little
story,” Ariadne said.

Lilith laughed. “I like
you. I hope you make it through in one piece.”

“
One piece?”

Lilith felt the water one
last time before turning it off. She got out bronze incense
burners, dropped herbs in, and lit them. Thick black smoke filled
the room.

“
Hope he got to the alarms or this is going to be
short-lived.” She waited, looking up. Nothing. “No? OK then. It’s
time. Get in.”

The room seemed to distort
with the swirling smoke. The girls slipped into the
water.

“
Breathe in deeply. Let all it into your lungs. Breathe in...
and out.”

“
So you’re going to drug us, and then we can attribute the
effects of the– Wait, what the fuck?” Ariadne felt strange. It was
nothing like LSD. “What’s it doing to me?”

“
Clearing out illusions,” Lilith said. She put a hand on
Ariadne’s forehead. “Take your last breath.”

She gulped for air. Lilith
plunged her under the water, and broke into fractals on its
surface.

Amanda was seventeen years
old again, clad in tight denim and a band T-shirt. Ear-buds dangled
like earrings from her ears. Five feet of wristbands, tattoos and
attitude.
Not yet
Ariadne
. Riding a bus to Anywhere But
Here.

There was no way she could
explain to the tear and mascara stained eyes of her sister why
she
knew
she had
to leave. It was more like the pressure before a big storm hits.
The leaves turn up, there’s a faint smell of ozone in the air and
if you are wise to it, you get the hell out. Most people don’t drop
everything on a whim like that, but for Amanda, even on a regular
day, it was common practice. Winding up like everyone else in that
miserable town was worse than any fate she could dream
of.

There had been a price,
even if she knew it was the right choice, the only choice she could
have made. Her sister never called her “sis” again, never told her
she loved her. She became a distant, cold, “Amanda,” delivered on
the other end of a phone before she was passed on to their
neurotic, equally distant and ever-confused mother.

The bus ride that followed
their parting was the longest trip of her life. As she sat stewing
in emotional denial, the incredibly flatulent, obese Mexican that
sat beside her the whole way from Biloxi to El Paso leered over at
her as if they were sharing some private joke, his eyes surrounded
by crinkles like balled aluminum foil. He shot her a disappointed
look before he swaggered off at his stop. Maybe the fat bastard
expected a blow job in the bathroom.

Lilith pulled Ariadne out
of the water. She was half-conscious, hyperventilating. Her eyes
rolled up into her head. Lilith seemed incredibly
pleased.

“
Why is she like that?” Amber asked. “What are you
doing?!”

“
She’s about to have a vision.”

“
Should we call 911?”

Lilith stared them down.
“Quiet. We’re not nearly deep enough.” She plunged her under the
water again.

Ariadne’s eyes snapped
open.

She tumbled through empty
space, landing in a stone labyrinth. Implacable wailing greeted her
as she entered light and open air. Squinting, she spun around and
saw a tree, heavy with babies suspended by their navels from red,
pulsing limbs. At first, all she could hear was her heart, working
hard to rush blood through terrified extremities.

Drums beat in the distance.
She felt an immediate sense of peril, and got to her feet. Strange
murals, gouged with bleeding fingernails, children’s paintings and
graffiti lined the walls. The ground was spongy, which made
progress slow and exhausting. She heard hooves beating on the
stone, drawing nearer. Panic overrode every nerve and she ran, her
mouth open in a voiceless scream.

Ariadne was screaming and
thrashing helplessly in the hot tub. Mary and Amber tried to hold
her still.

She ran, not knowing what
from – only that it was terrible and swift. There wasn’t time to
think. She fled on shredded feet along a riverbank, through the
cold and the wet and the wind. She was underneath the world she
knew, retracing her steps along the river and out of the
valley.

Twisted buildings coiled
around her as she fled through their remains. The collapsing
structures were split through their hearts by trees and vines. The
constriction of their limbs twisted basketball hoops in rusted
arcs, SUVs toppled and bent, whole buildings crumbled as nature
reclaimed it all, chewing it slowly as it recycled the materials
once ripped from the Earth.

Silhouettes stood amidst
the rubble. Occasionally she would stumble on a root, or a
discarded children’s toy. Some people stood idly, trying to rebuild
homes as plumes of smoke and fog swirled overhead like peacock
feathers. Other hopeless soldiers marched in ordered rows, ants or
Roman centurions.

Police sirens cried out in
the distance, startling her.
It is a lost
cause
, she thought.

I don’t know why I just
thought that.

I just did.

I am her?

I’m looking down at my
hands as I walk. If I look away from them, even for a moment, I
feel that I might be swept away by an uncontrollable tide. I may
become someone else.

I’m still looking at my
hands as I glide past, an apparition.

I can’t help them. These
people are already dead.

I climb atop a log,
straddling it in the water as if riding a bucking horse. The crowd
disappears back into the mist as I float away, apparitions
themselves.

Still in a delirium, I
look at my reflection in a slender dagger, gently held close to my
breast – a silver sliver of lips and eyes. The knife flicked along
my neck, bringing a gout of sweet-smelling blood; it rushed down my
body in a hot stream, past my breasts and the small oval of my
belly to the black water below. Black and polluted. As the blood
merges with the water, it runs clear. Soon, I could see the rocks
at the bottom of the stream.

I’m dreaming. I’m
dreaming, but this is real.

“
Wake up,” says a voice in my head.

“
It isn’t time.”

“
Wake up,” it says again, and I do.

Lilith smacked Ariadne
across the face. Her breathing returned to normal.

“
Where am I?”

“
Hey, hey,” Mary said, stroking her hair. “I was–”

“
Where am I?” Ariadne repeated.

“
You’re in a hot tub,” Lilith said. “What did you
see?”

“
It was a few years ago. And then it was...you know how it is
when you’re in a dream, and it can be many times at once? No. That
doesn’t make sense.”

Lilith smiled. “It makes
perfect sense. An overlapping of many places and times.”

She blinked. “I don’t know.
I’ve got to think on it.”

“
It is like a dream,” Lilith said. “Before birth, after
death.”

Ariadne scrutinized her
face. “I don’t follow.”

“
You saw a little piece of it. The place that exists between
there and here, is a dream.”

“
Maybe. Maybe it was something like that.”

Lilith kissed her on the
forehead. “You’re one of us.”

It didn’t take Dionysus and
Jesus long to find the X-Box. The two of them were presently
enmeshed in some horribly complicated space battle.

“
You don’t think they need our help in there, do you?”
Dionysus asked.

“
Shut up and die, monkeyman,” Jesus said. “Mushrooms?” She
held up a bruised blue cap.

Dionysus shook his head. He
began mashing on his controller, a crazed look in his
eye.

Lilith pulled Amber out of
the water by her hair with a splash. She gasped and spluttered.
“Ugh. I couldn’t breathe!”

After inspecting her for a
moment, Lilith chuckled. “Mm-hm. Ariadne, Mary...we’re done for
now.” The smoke in the room was clearing.

The two of them wrapped
themselves in thick complimentary bathrobes before slipping out to
rejoin the others.

“
What about me?” Amber asked suggestively.

“
Hey guys?” Loki asked through the cracked door. “Did someone
order room service?”

“
Yes,” Jesus said from within the room. “Send them
in.”

A young bell hop entered
with an absurd spread of food and champagne on a cart. The room
looked like it had been trashed by Guns N Roses. A flat screen TV
lay on its side against the wall for no apparent reason, playing a
nature show. The sofa and love-seat were similarly upturned.
Banging and moaning echoed from the bathroom, but there was sign of
no one except a blissfully snoring Cody, now relocated to the
floor.

“
...Hello?”

Dionysus peeked his head
from under the overturned sofa, like a turtle exploring outside its
shell. The sound of Ariadne’s giggling followed him.

“
Are you sick?” the bell hop asked.

“
Oh no. I haven’t been in a mental asylum in months. Clean
bill of health. Here, let me get your tip.” Dionysus started to
emerge from his cave. Ariadne looked on from behind. They were both
naked.