The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead 2 A Post-Apocalyptic Epic (24 page)

Suddenly, Cyn found herself being dragged forward, pulled to the edge of the gate into hell, her boots leaving twin lines in the upturned dirt. She tried to fight the pull. She grabbed rocks and hunks of half-rotted coffin wood. She was still kicking when she had a sudden insight: The Mother was too big, too great to be brought through a gate that was so small, so rudimentary. Her power and her immense essence would destroy the gate if she tried to force her way through—and the Mother didn’t want to destroy it. The gate was the only way for her to see into this world with any clarity. It was the only way for her to impose her will on the earth.

For the Mother to come through, a new gate would have to be constructed, and it would take a soul to build it.

Cyn was pulled right to the edge of the blood glyphs and then lifted to her feet.
Say the words!
the Mother said, speaking directly into Cyn’s mind, again, nearly blowing the fuses there and making her thoughts muddy and slow as if they were coming to her via a telegraph.

The Mother wanted Cyn to say
yes
and so she would say
yes
and she would give her essence to build the gate and she would then die or cease being as if she had never existed. Cynthia Childs would be utterly destroyed. She would be deconstructed and the original spark of her soul would be taken and reabsorbed.

And such was the compulsion and power of the Mother that Cyn felt she would be just fine with that. It would be both good and right. Cyn wanted to please the Mother. She wanted to do her duty. She wanted to agree to everything.

Chapter 23

Tours, France

Cynthia Childs

Giving everything wasn’t just right and good, it was the greatest of all. Cyn found herself nodding again, her chin going up and down and her mouth open and slack. She felt like a complete fool or like a child who was barely able to feed herself and was being offered an ice cream sundae.

“Yes, please, Mother. Take it all. Take all…”

A shadow passing between her and the ultimate glory that was the Mother caused her to jump.

Jack was suddenly next to her. His body trembled so that grave dirt dropped from his shoulders and sweat dripped from the strong line of his jaw. He looked filthy and disgusting. Compared to the Mother, he was little more than a hairless ape.

He placed one of his grubby hands on Cyn’s shoulder, and said: “Don’t do it. If there’s one thing we can’t do it’s bring her into this world. You know, deep down that would be wrong.” His words were not musical. They were harsh and cringe-worthy. They were nails on a chalkboard.

And yet they held truth.

Of course Cyn knew it was wrong to give herself over to the Mother. It was
her
soul on the line after all. It was her soul and yet it was such a little thing, just a tiny gift. And it wouldn’t be wasted. It would be a gift to the Mother and wouldn’t that be the greatest? Cyn nodded in answer, wondering if she had heard the question or was imagining it or if she was just going crazy.

“Please, Cyn,” Jack said, fighting to stay on his feet. Being so close to the Mother was making him wilt and gasp. He had only the breath for whispering: “It’s wrong.”

At his words, the woman frowned a second time and the clouds grew even darker and began to thrash above them. “I can not do wrong,” the Mother said and now her musical voice was hitting harsh, strident chords that made Cyn cringe and Jack blanch. “A god can not do wrong,” the Mother said, going on. “Gods describe right and punish wrong.”

Jack had his hackles up and, after swallowing loudly and taking a breath that sounded like it came from a broken horse, said: “Now, that’s the thing, isn’t it? You are no god. You are nothing. You are…” He had been glaring at the Mother, but now his face contorted and his fingers bent into claws and his Adam’s apple went up and down convulsively while his legs crimped down. It looked as though he was being turned into an old man right before her eyes.

“No,” Cyn whispered, dropping down next to Jack and touching him lightly, as if afraid that whatever was happening to him would run up into her fingers and strike her as well. He was rough and gritty; he smelled unpleasantly of man-sweat, while the Mother was of tulips and cloves.

“Stop it, please,” Cyn begged. “He didn’t mean it. You’re not wrong, Mother. Of course you’re not. You could never be wrong. H-he is the one that is wrong, just stop that, please.”

Set me free once more
,
or he will die and I will take his essence
, the Mother said, her lips not moving.
Say the words. Give yourself to me
.

“Don’t do it,” Jack hissed, forcing himself to his feet in spite of the pain that carved his face in anguish. “She can hurt me, but she can’t kill me; not when I’m like this. She’s like the necromancer. It’s all about the souls with her. Don’t make her stronger by giving her yours.”

“The son is wrong,” the mother said and this time she directed her frown at Jack. He cried out suddenly and went to the ground on his knees. “The mother kills whom she wishes to. She gives life and she takes life. At this moment I do not wish to take life. The Mother teaches only. I teach respect. I teach understanding. I teach you where you belong, Cynthia Childs and what your role is. I show that your power is so much greater than his. Your power is pure.”

Another scream split the air and then Jack was on his side curled into the fetal position save for one arm that stuck out. It hung, looking oddly long as if it was being stretched by some unseen force. His hand shook and his fingers fought to remain closed but in vain.

In seconds, his hand came open and a silver vial fell, its precious water dribbling uselessly into the dirt. Only then did the Mother snap her fingers, releasing Jack. He immediately went limp, his eyes rolling back in his head.

The entire short episode was confusing to Cyn, whose mind had felt riddled with holes to begin with. That was Holy Water Jack had been carrying. Why hadn’t he used it to close the gate? Why had he held onto it?

“Because man is always wrong whether he knows it or not,” the Mother said after “hearing” Cyn’s unspoken questions. “Man is arrogant and condescending. He thinks he knows everything there is to know. And this one,” she gestured with a curled lip at Jack, “thinks that you will chose him over a god. He thinks you will close the gate and shut away your mother forever, simply because he has abused your feelings and has taken advantage of your loving nature. But you know better, to close the gate would be wrong.”

At the word “wrong” a harsh wind struck Cyn causing her to put a hand in front of her face. Through her fingers she could see the Mother though not as a whole. Cyn could see parts of her: the top of her arm, a hip bone, the right knee. Each aspect of the Mother was both perfect and imperfect. Each part was flawless and flawed. Each showed that there was much more to the Mother than Cyn knew. The mother was of fantastic size and was only giving Cyn a glimpse.

“Of course there is more to the Mother because I am
She
. I am the eldest of all. I will be the living god if you free me. Come and say the words. Give your essence, freely.”

Sudden understanding cut at least partially through the fog of puzzlement that Cyn had been drifting in since first seeing the Mother. “I have to die for you to come through and…and I have to die willingly. You can’t force me. Okay, now I get it.” Once again she was confronted with the fact that the gift of the soul was the strongest power behind any magic—even at a “godly” level. “I get it, at least I get what you want from me. Though I’m not exactly sure what you are offering in exchange. If I’m dead, if you take all of me, what do I get out of it?”

The Mother gave Cyn her grandest smile yet—and it was enough of an answer. The smile was a reward people would kill for. Cyn wore a goofy grin and her knees were jelly, but some part of her still held onto her love for Jack. “What about him? Why…why did he want me to stop you?”

“He wanted you to choose him over your mother.”

Cyn glanced down at her lover, her one actual friend, and the only person she would call family. After everything they had been through together, she knew him on a level that was beyond intimate. She had, on more than one occasion, given him her soul.

“And what has he given you in return?” the Mother asked. The question was so out of the blue that Cyn was tongue-tied, causing the Mother to laugh with the sound of crystal wind chimes. “Has he not given you only trouble? Sadness? Anguish? Pain? Where has the joy been in your joining? There has been precious little. He is a man and thus he is like the rest and has brought you only hardship.”

The truth in that statement was evident by the fact that Cyn’s eyes slid from Jack to rest on the upturned dirt just next to him. Her mind flashed with images: him stabbing her with a knife, him threatening to kill her with a sword, him stealing her blood and taking her soul. “But…but that was a gift. At least it was supposed to be. I don’t think you get it, ours is a different sort of relationship,” she said. “We have a duty and an obligation and a destiny. We support each other in our fight.”

With a cluck of her tongue and a shake of her head, the Mother said: “
He
has saved the world.
He
is the sorcerer.
He
is the one who fights and claims the glory. You are there only to clean up his vomit and keep him from getting in trouble. As so many, you do not see. Your heart is too great. You are blind to the fact that he is not the only one with a destiny. You have one as well. You can become one with a living god.”

There was that word again. Whenever the Mother of Demons had called herself a god it had made Cyn wince. Everything she had experienced in the last year had pointed to the fact that there was only one source of ultimate goodness, while there seemed to be an endless number of tributaries leading to the foul bog that was evil.

The Mother of Demons was just a very large tributary.

“Good and evil are subjective,” the Mother said, her frown coming back, churning the skies, causing thunder to ripple above. “What a god does is by definition, good. Do you understand? Evil and good are subjective. What is good for one may be evil for another. That is simple. That is elemental. You would do well to learn the differences between…”

Her words faltered and Cyn was abruptly jarred from the trance she always found herself in when the Mother spoke. They were being watched. Cyn turned and saw a faint shimmer in the air and felt that strange sensation of being under an invisible spotlight that she and Jack had experienced earlier.

Of course the Mother could sense it with ease. Her frown turned into a glare as she suddenly spun to stare up into the darkening sky. Then with a growl, she snapped her fingers and a bolt of some sort of energy that was a cross between lightning and fire, flashed through the air, passing so close to Cyn that the little blonde hairs on her arms stood straight up.

The bolt scorched the sky, sending up a trail of smoke and for just a brief second, Cyn caught sight of something that was nearly beyond description. Suspended ten feet off the ground was what looked like a pale white worm, a foot in diameter, with strange blood-red “hairs” sprouting all along its curving, squiggly, undulating length.

It stretched away off into the distance.

The worm was “lit” by the Mother’s magic. There was a flash of light and a scream and the weird feeling of being watched was gone. The entire episode couldn’t have lasted more than three seconds and yet in that short time Cyn found that she was suddenly and completely in control of herself. She saw with perfect clarity the Mother for the demon she was and she saw Jack as he was in reality: just an average man thrust into the unwanted position of being a hero.

And she saw herself: a pawn to the Mother and a lifeline to Jack. She was his anchor. She was what kept him sane. But what was she beyond that?

“I’m just a girl,” she said and as always that lie was good enough for her. Frantically, she dug for one of her remaining vials of Holy Water and once again, the silver vial burned her hand as she held it.

“Stop,” the Mother said, this time in a gentle voice, one that was so full of charm that Cyn’s hand stopped poised above her head. “Consider what you are doing. Consider the power you are giving up. Consider that you are angering your god.”

There was that word again: god. “You keep using that word,” Cyn said, matter of factly. “I don’t think it means what you think it means.” At this, the Mother’s pearl eyes flashed to black while at the same time, the silver vial burned hotter than ever. Cyn had to throw the vial or drop it. Holding it was no longer an option.

She chose to throw it and it left her hand, tumbling end over end.

Too late she remembered that she hadn’t unstoppered it! It flew at the circle of glyphs and she thought that it would either bounce away or be swallowed up by the gate; however, it hit what appeared to be a wall of air, broke open and sprayed what looked like diamonds, each glittering and sharp and each exploding a millisecond later.

There was a white light as pure as the glitter from the stars and then both the Mother and the gate vanished. Cyn took one unsteady step and then fell over, the sky of France spinning high above her. All she saw was blue sky and gentle puffy clouds. Everything was suddenly diffuse and soft, everything except the feel of Jack’s hand which found hers.

The hand was warm and strong and fit hers perfectly.