American Gods (57 page)

“But you and Wednesday, you were from the same, you’re both—”

“Norse pantheon. We’re both from the Norse pantheon. Is that
what you’re trying to say?”

“Yeah.”

“So?”

Shadow hesitated. “You must have been friends. Once.”

“No. We were never friends. I’m not sorry he’s dead. He was
just holding the rest of us back. With him gone, the rest of them are going to
have to face up to the facts: it’s change or die, evolve or perish. He’s gone.
War’s over.”

Shadow looked at him, puzzled. “You aren’t that stupid,” he
said. “You were always so sharp. Wednesday’s death isn’t going to end anything.
It’s just pushed all of the ones who were on the fence over the edge.”

“Mixing metaphors, Shadow. Bad habit.”

“Whatever,” said Shadow. “It’s still true. Jesus. His death
did in an instant what he’d spent the last few months trying to do. It united
them. It gave them something to believe in.”

“Perhaps.” Loki shrugged. “As far as I know, the dunking on
this side of the fence was that with the troublemaker out of the way, the
trouble would also be gone. It’s not any of my business, though. I just drive.”

“So tell me,” said Shadow, “why does everyone care about me?
They act like I’m important. Why does it matter what I do?”

“Damned if I know. You were important to us because you were
important to Wednesday. As for the why of it ... I guess it’s just another one
of life’s little mysteries.”

“I’m tired of mysteries.”

“Yeah? I think they add a kind of zest to the world. Like
salt in a stew.”

“So you’re their driver. You drive for all of them?”

“Whoever needs me,” said Loki. “It’s a living.”

He raised his wristwatch to his face, pressed a button: the
dial glowed a gentle blue, which illuminated his face, giving it a haunting,
haunted appearance. “Five to midnight. Time,” said Loki. “You coming?”

Shadow took a deep breath. “I’m coming,” he said.

They walked down the dark motel corridor until they reached
room 5.

Loki took a box of matches from his pocket and thumb-nailed
a match into flame. The momentary flare hurt Shadow’s eyes. A candle wick
flickered and caught. And another. Loki lit a new match, and continued to light
the candle stubs: they were on the windowsills and on the headboard of the bed
and on the sink in the corner of the room.

The bed had been hauled from its position against the wall
into the middle of the motel room, leaving a few feet of space between the bed
and the wall on each side. There were sheets draped over the bed, old motel
sheets, moth-holed and stained. On top of the sheets lay Wednesday, perfectly
still.

He was dressed in the pale suit he had been wearing when he
was shot. The right side of his face was untoucHed, perfect, unmarred by blood.
The left side of his face was a ragged mess, and the left shoulder and front of
the suit was spattered with dark spots. His hands were at his side’s. The
expression on that wreck of a face was far from peafeful: it looked hurt—a
soul-hurt, a real down-deep hurt, fitted with hatred and anger and raw
craziness. And, on some level, it looked satisfied.

Shadow imagined Mr. Jacquel’s practiced hands smoothing that
hatred and pain away, rebuilding a face for Wednesday with mortician’s wax and
makeup, giving him a final peace and dignity that even death had denied him.

Still, the body seemed no smaller in death. And it still
smelled faintly of Jack Daniel’s.

The wind from the plains was rising: he could hear it
howling around the old motel at the imaginary center of America. The candles on
the windowsill guttered and flickered.

He could hear footsteps in the hallway. Someone knocked on a
door, called “Hurry up please, it’s time,” and they began to shuffle in, heads
lowered.

Town came in first, followed by Media and Mr. Npncy and
Czernobog. Last of all came the fat kid: he had fresh red bruises on his face,
and his lips were moving all the time, as if he were reciting some words to
himself, but he was making no sound. Shadow found himself feeling sorry for
him.

Informally, without a word being spoken, they ranged themselves
about the body, each an arm’s length away from the next. The atmosphere in the
room was religious—deeply religious, in a way that Shadow had never previously
experienced. There was no sound but the howling of the wind and the crackling
of the candles.

“We are come together, here in this godless place,” said
Loki, “to pass on the body of this individual to those who will dispose of it
properly according to the rites. If anyone would like to say something, say it
now.”

“Not me,” said Town. “I never properly met the guy. And this
whole thing makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Czernobog said, “These actions will have consequences. You
know that? This can only be the start of it all.”

The fat kid started to giggle, a high-pitched, girlish
noise. He said, “Okay. Okay, I’ve got it.” And then, all on one note, he recited:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot
hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold ...”

And then he broke off, his brow creasing. He said, “Shit. I
used to know the whole thing,” and he rubbed his temples and made a face and
was quiet.

And then they were all looking at Shadow. The wind was
screaming now. He didn’t know what to say. He said, “This whole thing is
pitiful. Half of you killed him or had a hand in his death. Now you’re giving
us his body. Great. He was an irascible old fuck but I drank his mead and I’m
still working for him. That’s all.”

Media said, “In a world where people die every day, I think
the important thing to remember is that for each moment of sorrow we get when
people leave this world there’s a corresponding moment of joy when a new baby
comes into this world. That first wail is—well, it’s magic, isn’t it? Perhaps
it’s a hard thing to say, but joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies. That’s
how well they go together. I think we should all take a moment to meditate on
that.”

And Mr. Nancy cleared his throat and said, “So. I got to say
it, because nobody else here will. We are at the center of this place: a land
that has no time for gods, and here at the center it has less time for us than
anywhere. It is a no-man’s-land, a place of truce, and we observe our truces,
here. We have no choice. So. You give us the body of our friend. We accept it.
You will pay for this, murder for murder, blood for blood.”

Town said, “Whatever. You could save yourselves a lot of
time and effort by going home and shooting yourselves in the heads. Cut out the
middleman.”

“Fuck you,” said Czernobog. “Fuck you and fuck your mother
and fuck the fucking horse you fucking rode in on. You will not even die in
battle. No warrior will taste your blood. No one alive will take your life. You
will die a soft, poor death. You will die with a kiss on your lips and a lie in
your heart.”

“Leave it, old man,” said Town.

“The blood-dimmed tide is loose,” said the fat kid. “I think
that comes next.”

The wind howled.

“Okay,” said Loki. “He’s yours. We’re done. Take the old bastard
away.”

He made a gesture with his fingers, and Town, Media, and the
fat kid left the room. He smiled at Shadow. “Call no man happy, huh, kid?” he
said. And then he, too, walked away.

“What happens now?” asked Shadow.

“Now we wrap him up,” said Anansi. “And we take him away
from here.”

They wrapped the body in the motel sheets, wrapped it well
in its impromptu shroud, so there was no body to be seen, and they could carry
it. The two old men walked to each end of the body, but Shadow said, “Let me
see something,” and he bent his knees and slipped his arms around the
white-sheeted figure, pushed him up and over his shoulder. He straightened his
knees, until he was standing, more or less easily. “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got
him. Let’s put him into the back of the car.”

Czernobog looked as if he were about to argue, but he closed
his mouth. He spat on his forefinger and thumb and began to snuff the candles
between his fingertips. Shadow could hear them fizz as he walked from the
darkening room.

Wednesday was heavy, but Shadow could cope, if he walked
steadily. He had no choice. Wednesday’s words were in his head with every step
he took along the corridor, and he could taste the sour-sweetness of mead in
the back of his throat. You protect me. You transport me from place to place.
You run errands. In an emergency, but only in an emergency, you hurt people who
need to be hurt. In the unlikely event of my death, you will hold my vigil ...

Mr. Nancy opened the motel lobby door for him, then hurried
over and opened the back of the bus. The other four were already standing by
their Humvee, watching mem as if they could not wait to be off. Loki had put
his driver’s cap back on. The cold wind tugged at Shadow as he walked, whipped
at the sheets.

He placed Wednesday down as gently as he could in the back
of the bus.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. Town stood
there with his hand out. He was holding something.

“Here,” said Mr. Town, “Mister World wanted you to have
this.”

It was a glass eye. There was a hairline crack down the
middle of it, and a tiny chip gone from the front.

“We found it in the Masonic Hall, when we were cleaning up.
Keep it for luck. God knows you’ll need it.”

Shadow closed his hand around the eye. He wished he could
come back with something smart and sharp, but Town was already back at the
Humvee, and climbing up into the car; and Shadow still couldn’t think of
anything clever to say.

They drove east. Dawn found them in Princeton, Missouri.
Shadow had not slept yet.

Nancy said, “Anywhere you want us to drop you? If I were
you, I’d rustle up some ID and head for Canada. Or Mexico.”

“I’m sticking with you guys,” said Shadow. “It’s what
Wednesday would have’wanted.”

“You aren’t working for him anymore. He’s dead. Once we drop
his body off, you are free to go.”

“And do what?”

“Keep out of the way, while the war is on,” said Nancy. He
flipped his turn signal, and took a left.

“Hide yourself, for a little time,” said Czernobog! “Then,
when this is over, you will come back to me, and I will finish the whole thing.”

Shadow said, “Where are we taking the body?”

“Virginia. There’s a tree,” said Nancy.

“A world tree,” said Czernobog with gloomy satisfaction. “We
had one ifl my part of the world. But ours grew under the world, not above it.”

“We put him at the foot of the tree,” said Nancy. “We leave
him there. We let you go. We drive south. There’s a battle. Blood is shed. Many
die. The world changes, a little.”

“You don’t want me at your battle? I’m pretty big. I’m good
in a fight.”

Nancy turned his head to Shadow and smiled—the first real
smile Shadow had seen on Mr. Nancy’s face since he had rescued Shadow from the
Lumber County Jail. “Most of this battle will be fought in a place you cannot
go, and you cannot touch.”

“In the hearts and the minds of the people” said Czer-nobog.
“Like at the big roundabout.”

“Huh?”

“The carousel,” said Mr. Nancy.

“Oh,” said Shadow. “Backstage. I got it. Like the desert
with the bones in.”

Mr. Nancy raised his head. “Every time I figure you don’t
have enough sense to bring guts to a bear, you surprise me. Yeah, that’s where
the real battle will happen. Everythin’ else will just be flash and thunder.”

“Tell me about the vigil,” said Shadow.

“Someone has to stay with the body. It’s a tradition. We’ll
find somebody.”

“He wanted me to do it.”

“No,” said Czernobog. “It will kill you. Bad, bad, bad idea.”

“Yeah? It’ll kill me? To stay with his body?”

“It’s not what I’d want at my funeral,” said Mr. Nancy. “When
I die, I just want them to plant me somewhere warm. And then when pretty women
walk over my grave I would grab their ankles, like in that movie.”

“I never saw mat movie,” said Czernobog.

“Of course you did. It’s right at the end. It’s the high
school movie. All the children goin’ to the prom.”

Czernobog shook his head.

Shadow said, “The film’s called Carrie, Mr. Czernobog. Okay,
one of you tell me about the vigil.”

Nancy said, “You tell him. I’m drivin’.”

“I never heard of no film called Carrie. You tell him.”

Nancy said, “The person on the vigil—gets tied to the tree.
Just like Wednesday was. And then they hang there for nine days and nine
nights. No food, no water. All alone. At the end they cut the person down, and
if they lived ... well, it could happen. And Wednesday will have had his vigil.”

Czernobog said, “Maybe Alviss will send us one of his
people. A dwarf could survive it.”

“I’ll do it,” said Shadow.

“No,” said Mr. Nancy.

“Yes,” said Shadow.

The two old men were silent Then Nancy said, “Why?”

“Because it’s the kind of thing a living person would do,”
said Shadow.

“You are crazy,” said Czernobog.

“Maybe. But I’m going to hold Wednesday’s vigil”

When they stopped for gas Czernobog announced he felt sick
and wanted to ride in the front. Shadow didn’t mind moving to the back of the
bus. He could stretch out more, and sleep.

They drove on in silence. Shadow felt that he’d made a decision;
something big and strange.

“Hey. Czernobog,” said Mr. Nancy, afteB a wrote. “You check
out the technical boy back at the motel? He was not happy. He’s been screwin’
with something that screwed him right back. That’s the biggest trouble with thf
new kids—they figure they know every thin’, and you can’t teach them nothin’
but the hard way.”

“Good,” said Czernobog.

Shadow was stretched out full length on the seat in the
back. He felt like two people, or more than two. There was part of him that
felt gently exhilarated: he had done something. He had moved. It wouldn’t have
mattered if he hadn’t wanted to live, but he did want to live, and that made
all the difference. He hoped he would live through this, but he was willing to
die, if mat was what it took to be alive. And, for a moment he thought that the
whole thing was funny, just the funniest thing in the world; and he wondered if
Laura would appreciate the joke.