Plants and trees grow wild. Trunks and limbs bend into strange shapes, making the lush, green forest more like something you’d wander into in a dream than reality. Within the overgrown wildlands are the seven Houses. I see the top of Set House’s pyramid and fight the urge to shiver because he’s probably in there. There’s a majestic temple beyond it that belongs to ladies’ choice god, Hermes. Opposite, the black castle of Loki. Then the grove of massive trees surrounding Legba’s home. The slanting sides of Coyote House. The bright flat-topped pyramid of Tezcatlipoca House. But once I fix on our destination, the rest fade into the background.
Enki House is to our right. The forest gives way to marshland around the enormous ziggurat, its angles sharp, golden. What look like birds wheel through the clear sky above the temple at the top of it, but they’re so large they must be gods.
“You OK?” Tam asks, and I glance down at the not-crazy side of the wall. Bree clambers up and swings a leg over at the top, joining me. She’s as silenced by the sight as I am.
Not the revelers, though. They whisper and giggle and are generally obnoxious. “Hurry up, slowpokes!” the lady who greeted me says, as she launches herself off the wall and into the waiting arms of her companions.
Tam reaches the top of the wall, climbing up on my other side. The three of us stand at the same time, without agreement, and jump down together. We land in a messy tangle of arms that keeps any of us from falling.
With Tam’s hand gripping my arm, it’s hard to believe we were kissing last night – and coming to terms with the end of the kissing. Bizarrely, I feel more comfortable around him knowing he was never really
in love with me. We can safely return to the status quo.
“This way,” the lady hisses.
We stumble around bendy trees and jagged-edge vines that look so sharp I’m afraid to touch them. No one speaks. There’s something about sneaking through this odd, shadowed wood that feels unbelievably stupid. If someone told me we were being hunted, I wouldn’t doubt it.
At that thought, I make sure I have Bree’s arm and that Tam follows as I get us to the front, right behind flowing dress lady. She’s clearly done this before. She weaves through the trees, turning sideways when she needs to keep from touching blooms like hungry mouths. We mimic her as closely as we can. The aroma is of earth, breathing and living. The feeling of unseen eyes that consider us prey never goes away.
Finally, our feet hit mud, and we’re out of the forest. I’m relieved until I look up, where Enki House towers over us. But we aren’t quite there yet. There’s a paved path broad enough for the three of us to walk beside each other nearby, and the apple-cheeked hippy makes for it.
So do we.
“Stay on the yellow brick road,” Bree says.
“We’re off to meet the wizard,” and I wince at how grim my tone is.
“Off to meet something,” Tam says. “But seriously, let’s try to stay on it. I’ve heard stories…”
“Keep them to yourself,” Bree says. “Those stories are warnings. We’re ignoring them.”
She’s right. Even I can’t believe we’re doing this. But there’s no choice. Dad may well be in there.
He doesn’t want to see you
. I’m sure that’s the truth, not just the little voice inside me being evil. It doesn’t matter. He’s going to have to deal with me. He can’t vanish and expect that to be fine, that I’ll take the money and go. We owe each other something more than that.
I want us to, anyway.
The way the path curves reminds me of a twisting snake, and not the harmless plastic kind around Bree’s neck. We are careful to stay on it, winding through muddy river delta swampland, all the way to the foot of the ziggurat. The stone and sand sparkle, like the sun itself is inside the bricks.
“Up we go!” Apple-cheek announces, a greedy hunger beneath her cheer.
Her excitement is as troubling as anything else.
The long ramp that extends down the front like a tongue is our new path. To the sides are wide steps carved out of the pyramid-shaped base. Maybe talking will help distract us.
“Tam,” I ask quietly, as we climb, “tell me about Enki.”
“You already know the Sumerians were among the first, the oldest, gods that we know of.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, I mean.” We all have a working knowledge of the tricksters and the major pantheons. Public schools scrambled to add better no-longer-mythology units after the gods woke up. “And let’s drop back. More time to see what the deal is up there.”
The three of us slow to let the revelers pass us.
Tam goes on. “I guess you remember that there are a lot of them? More than most other pantheons combined – one scholar estimated almost four thousand. And in that number are chaos monsters, sentient ancient darknesses, demons with animal heads. Enki has always been one of their leaders, sometimes
the
leader. He’s the lord of the watery deep, the abzu. Think of it as the mysterious water that yielded creation. For what it’s worth, Enki was always supposed to be one of the good guys. Even before.”
“How good?” I ask.
There are pictures of bearded priests and winged creatures and ornate inscriptions in long forgotten languages carved into the ziggurat alongside the ramp.
“One of the most famous stories about him involves the creation of humankind.”
Bree says, “Hang on… I thought that, yes, they’re older than people, but they didn’t create us. We’re just different species, different evolutionary tracks.”
“Listen to you, evolutionary tracks,” I tease. “Someone’s been doing their science homework. Fancy.”
Bree pulls a face at me.
Tam shrugs. “So the Society claims. Who knows for sure? But we do know that gods exist and what they’re like. They don’t care about right and wrong, not like we do. A lot of them view us as…”
“Cows?” I supply. “That they can kill and eat and… do whatever else they want with? And my dad may be giving them carte blanche to do just that
and
we’re walking in the front door of one of their houses. OK. This is making me feel so much better. Please, go on.”
“So, there are lots of versions of this story. In the one I like the best, Abzu is still a being – a god himself – in addition to being the mysterious water. The older, more powerful gods are basically using the newer, less powerful ones as slave labor. And the new ones start complaining. It’s loud, because Abzu starts making noise of his own, about how he’s going to flood the entire world, drown everything out. Enki’s mother decides her son can take care of Abzu, so she goes to wake him up.”
“But supposedly the new gods were being so loud – how’s he asleep?” Bree asks.
“Chalk that up to story blur.” Story blur is the part of myths that don’t make any kind of sense. “Or maybe he’s just a really deep sleeper. Enki does finally wake up for his mother, and he then magically puts Abzu to sleep and confines him below his city.”
“Where do the people come in?” I ask.
“Oh,” Tam says, “right. Well, everyone agrees that gods shouldn’t be doing all this hard labor, so Enki makes people, to do the work for them.”
“Cows,” I say. “Labor cows. I’m not getting the part where he’s a good guy.”
“Later there are tons of myths about him helping humans out, giving us knowledge. Art. Water for crops.”
“Don’t all the tricksters have stories about them like that?” I press him. “Isn’t that why the Society knew they’d be willing to do the go-between thing? I thought it doesn’t mean they’re really that friendly.”
“
I
took you to those meetings.” Tam rakes a hand through his messy hair. “All I know is Dad thinks Enki’s one of the more sympathetic to us.”
That might explain why my dad would come here. If he needs help.
Whatever I was going to say next is stolen by the appearance of the winged creature. It launches out of the temple’s entrance and into the air. Brown and black wings spread wide as it circles above us in lazy swipes. The body belongs to a giant eagle but the head… That’s all lion.
“Holy crap,” Bree says.
“Tam,” I say, “would that be a chaos monster?”
Tam lifts a hand to shade his eyes. “Nah. Anzu. He’s the son of a bird goddess. Part eagle. Enki likes to keep him close. He’s not supposed to be one of the good guys.”
“Great.”
The revelers in front of us point and cheer and speed up. Not that they need to. We’re nearly to the top already. With each step closer, I become less ready to face whatever lies ahead.
My
stuffed shirt of a dad’s been hanging out with part eagles? Then Anzu roars like this is a circus and one of us stuck our hand in his cage, and I have to rethink.
My
cranky, rule-obsessed dad’s been hanging out with part eagles, part mad lions?
We finally arrive at the top, where the temple sits. Straight ahead is a long hallway with arched entrances that I assume leads to the interior where Enki and company are. The revelers walk in without a hitch. But I stop on the flat stone, still open to the sky.
Anzu the giant lion-eagle swoops. Close. Closer. I feel wind from his wings in my hair.
Bree and Tam rush toward the first arch, but I’m afraid to go with them. Afraid Anzu will take notice of them, like he has of me.
I peer up at Anzu, wishing for him to fly off or up or anywhere away. But he’s so near I can see the precise edge where his feathers shift from brown to black. He lands in front of me and his enormous lion nose twitches. He’s sniffing the air.
“Nice monster,” I say, and my voice only shakes a little bit. Hardly any. Dad would be proud, if he could see me.
Anzu roars loud enough to wake a god.
I step back once, then again. He stalks forward, claws scraping the stone.
We are locked in a terrible dance. His giant teeth are knife-sharp and on full display as he bares them at me, roaring.
My heart threatens to stop. I’m shaking, and it’s like yesterday all over again. Death is staring me in the face. Maybe if Dad can’t see me, he’ll hear me. I suck in a breath and go for volume. “Dad! Dad, I could use some help!” I shout.
Behind me, Tam says, “Kyra, no sudden moves.”
Tell that to the monster.
Anzu claws toward me, his mouth stretching wide enough to swallow the world. He’s close enough that I can see the clumped mats in the fur of his mane. I have
nowhere
to go to get away. Sheer panic kicks in. I cringe, lifting my backpack in front of me. But it’s a too-weak reaction behind
a too-small shield.
After Oz’s observation that my backpack isn’t much of a weapon, I am keenly aware that I don’t have
any
way to defend myself.
“Tam, go inside,” I manage. It doesn’t matter that my voice shakes, since Dad’s not showing up to be proud. I couldn’t shout for him again now, even if I thought he’d show. “Make sure Bree gets out of here. OK?”
It’s only then that I notice Anzu is no longer coming
at
me. He’s stopped. In that brief reprieve, Tam grabs me and tugs me backward. I turn and we lunge for the first arch. I expect to feel the back of my T-shirt ripping, claws and teeth tearing into me. I wait for that roar to sound too near to survive it.
But no flesh-rending pain or ear-scorching warning comes. We’re through the arch, and another, and the rest, tripping forward as fast as we can over the mosaic floor.
Bree is waiting for us at the end of the hall. The temple entrance is visible from here, and so is Anzu, pacing in front of it. But he stays outside.
“You are not going to believe this,” Bree says, pointing up an adjoining passage. Beyond it is another broad archway.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, fighting to catch my breath. “At this point I’d believe anything, except that I’m getting out of here past that thing.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Now that we’re not evading a monster, I take in the place. The walls have changed from the glimmering gold of the sand outside to a blue deep as a night sky or the bottom of the ocean. The floor’s mosaic patterns are wavy lines that must indicate water and curving ones that might be Enki’s horns. Yes, horns.
“The only way out is in, then,” Tam says.
Bree whirls on him, green eyes wide and afraid. “How are you keeping your shit together like this?”
“One of us has to.” Tam is trying to be funny.
But I punch his arm. “Excuse me. We all are.” I put my backpack on so I don’t have to carry it. “Bree, what’s unbelievable?”
“The blessings. This way.” She waves at the passage, frowning, and we start up it.
Tam ignores Bree, somehow not getting that she’s worried. He says to
me
, “He couldn’t hear you. That’s all. He would have come.”
Sure, Dad not showing up to rescue me stings. But that doesn’t mean I’m surprised by it. I exaggerate my shrug. “Sure. He would’ve.”
Bree stops at the arch, and when we join her, it turns out she might be right. I do have trouble believing the scene in front of us.
Several of the revelers writhe, moaning, on the tiled floor of a large rounded chamber with those same seamless blue walls. The woman with the flowing dress tips her head back and opens her mouth. A bright-red fishtail slowly lowers until it touches the woman’s extended tongue. She pulls back with a blissed-out smile and spins around in joy. The revelers aren’t what defies belief, though, it’s the
things
doing the “blessing.”
Long tanks form a border around the edges of the room. The glass is smudged with grime, not the spotless clean of the temple. The water within is so deep and dark that it appears black, as if
they’re
swimming in ink.
Oh, yeah. The
they
.
They’re not quite as big as Anzu, but still larger than any man-fish thing should be. They’re not mermen or anything ridiculous like that. They’re nothing you’d put in a child’s storybook, unless you wanted to mess that kid up for life.
They are the size of small whales, the oversized tanks hardly big enough for them to do more than turn around in, and there’s enough of them that the water ebbs in endless swells. Their heads end in disconcerting fish lips that contain giant jaws with rows of razor teeth. (The teeth make me think of Legba. I don’t want to think of Legba.) Their bodies are a mix of scaled hues, the tails sharp-finned as they swipe from the tank to touch the tongues of the revelers.