Daystar (18 page)

Paimon pointed the camera at himself.
 
He had a bloody nose.
 
“Neither.
 
Is this thing broken now?”

Furcas held his hand out.
 
“Give it to me, I’ll fix it.”

“I’ll give it to you for a kiss.”

Furcas rolled his eyes.
 
“Right, just a kiss I’m sure.”

Paimon nodded.
 
“Totally.
 
Don’t you trust me?”

Furcas set Dahlia down on a picnic table and beckoned.
 
“Come on then.”

“Oh don’t act like you don’t want it.”
 
Paimon kept the camera up and jumped on Furcas.
 
He pushed him down onto the table.
 
Dahlia’s mouth formed an O as she watched them kiss.
 
Paimon kissed Furcas and bit his lower lip open.
 
Furcas scratched at his face.
 
Paimon released him.
 
“Okay, you can film us again.”
 
He threw the camera at Furcas and grabbed Dahlia.

Furcas picked up the camera.
 
“You asshole!
 
You made me bleed on my shirt.
 
Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of this material?”

Paimon nodded.
 
“Of course I do.
 
All of my clothes are irrevocably stained with yours.”
 
Dahlia kissed Paimon’s cheek.
 
She bit him, hard.
 
Paimon winced, but kept still.
 
“Okay.
 
Dahl-face, stop it.”

Dahlia bit down harder.

Furcas laughed.
 
“Doesn’t feel so great does it?”

Paimon put a hand to her cheek and tapped her.
 
“Stop it, Dahlia.
 
Uncle Paimon does not like that.”

Furcas laughed so hard the camera shook.
 
“Oh, you can dish it, but can’t take it.
 
Poor you.”

“Shut up!”
 
The sound of a car pulling into the driveway could be heard off camera.
 
Paimon swore.
 
“Gimme that.”
 
He shrugged and changed his appearance to that of her uncle.
 
He took the camera.
 
Furcas changed to a four-year-old girl with long brown hair.

Dahlia saw her friend and let go of Paimon’s cheek.
 
“Faith!”
 
Paimon put her down.
 
The two girls ran towards the sandbox to play.

On the floor, Paimon rubbed his cheek remembering the bite.
 
He hit pause on the tape and sighed.
 
A sad smile touched his lips.
 
“How many more of these tapes do we have?”

Belial looked up from the box.
 
“Dozens and dozens, then we have some cds.
 
I have one labeled twenty-one run.
 
What is that?”

Paimon grinned.
 
“Birthday party.
 
We got Dahlia so trashed and Furcas was great he—” His smile faded.
 
“He was great, he…”
 
Paimon shook his head.
 
His hands trembled.
 
“He...Uhm.
 
Shit.”
 
Andy and Belial pulled him into a hug.
 
Paimon curled his legs into his chest and was swallowed by grief.

***

Dahlia and Whitney soared high enough above Earth that they could see the curve of the horizon.
 
They shared a smile.
 
Whitney shrugged and nodded.
 
“You’re sure you can do this without killing everyone down there?”

Dahlia stared at her and shook her head.
 
“You are refreshingly unaware of what I can do.”

Whitney smiled.
 
“Thanks!”

Dahlia closed her eyes and sent her consciousness into the tectonic plates.
 
She tapped her foot to a beat only she could hear.
 
She flicked her wrist and the plates fused, then reformed along the lines she wanted.

Dahlia spun in the air and reached out, her attention fixed on Africa and South America.
 
She waved her hands.
 
The two continents moved together.
 
Dahlia swooped and dove, twisting in possession of a song.
 
The Atlantic Ocean grew subsequently smaller as Europe and Asia began to fuse with North America.

Whitney knew that Dahlia had planned this, but she gaped anyways.
 
“What about Greenland?”

Dahlia shrugged.
 
She let the island stay as-is.
 
“Australia and Greenland, an island of snow, an island of jungle.”

“I thought that was desertish.”

“
Was
desertish.”

Gaea flew up from the planet below.
 
She came to a stop in the air next to her mom; her pale green wings fluttered in the thin atmosphere.
 
She watched Dahlia move and the planet change below.
 
She smiled.
 
“We have gathered, healed, and sedated the humans.
 
What now?”

Dahlia grabbed her daughter by the hand and twirled her.
 
“Amazon, rebuild the forest, all of it.
 
Turn California back into swampland.
 
I want a temperate forest in the north.”

Gaea looked down.
 
“How much of the north?”

Dahlia dipped her and a new inland sea formed below them where Colorado used to be.
 
“As much as you feel like.
 
I have a vision of tall mountains and lots of trees, forests that seem to go on forever.
 
As a rule, just make sure there are climates for all Lilliam to live comfortably outside the City if they choose.”

Gaea nodded and dropped away.

Dahlia found Japan and flicked it over to hug the coast of what had been Asia, but she kept it an island.
 
She looked at Whitney.
 
“Three large islands.
 
I think I will make the south an island paradise with all the little ones.
 
What do you think?”

Whitney bit her nail.
 
“I always wanted to go to Fiji.”

Dahlia grinned.
 
“How about Fiji.”
 
Flick.
 
“Then over to Hawaii and then a hop to New Zealand.
 
Then if you want, you can go island hopping in Indonesia.”

Whitney wiggled in place.
 
“Awesome!”

“If you are feeling like a change, jump down to the Antarctic.”

“Snow place!”
 
Whitney grinned.
 
“Make it have mountains for skiing!”

Dahlia nodded.
 
“Done.
 
Now go down there and start taking apart the roads and buildings.
 
Leave the metal behind, Belial can take that apart later.”

Whitney folded her arms.
 
“Where do you want the broken apart stuff?”

“Incorporate it back into the ground where it came from.”

“Okay dokay.
 
Remember, I want an orchard all to myself!”
 
Whitney dropped towards the planet.

Dahlia danced and twisted in the air.
 
She created waterways instead of roads.
 
The Amazon twisted into the Nile into the Mississippi.
 
She raised mountains impossibly high.
 
Mesas shifted to form cliffs that hung over the ground for miles.
 
She focused on the Grand Canyon and made it much longer and deeper.
 
Lush oases popped up in the brutally hot desert that had formed in the southeast corner of her new super continent.

The landmass glittered in the sunlight.
 
Inland freshwater seas turned to marshes and vast expanses of swamp, all of it fed by the large twisting rivers that crisscrossed the land.
 
Dahlia watched the City rise to the surface.
 
She dropped closer to get a better view.
 
She waited until it settled, then she carved out a giant bay to let in seawater to the east.
 
At the northern end of the City, a huge freshwater lake joined with the palace grounds.
 
Dahlia sang as she watched forests burst forth along the ground to the south of the City.

A sparkle marked where Ra flitted among her pyramids in the desert.
 
Dahlia had kept her cities intact and Ra pulled the ancient structures out of the sand and refurbished them in gold and gemstones.
 

In the ocean, Leviathan did the same for Atlantis, the water rival to the land bound City.
 
Dahlia smiled.
 
The City was the centerpiece, Atlantis ruled in the east, Ra’s city stood to the south.
 
In the far north, Ifrit and Chronos uncovered a sparkling obsidian collection of homes and temples, long unused.
 
It was their city of time, death, and fire.

Dahlia looked to the empty west.
 
She swept her arm and sandy beaches stretched from what had been Alaska down to where the Amazon now met the ocean.
 
Dahlia swirled her finger around and created a huge whirlpool out in the ocean.
 
She considered erasing it.
 
She watched it swirl, shrugged, and left it as is.

Dahlia hummed and a sparkle caught her eye.
 
She reached out and uprooted a city in its entirety, what was left of it at least.
 
Dahlia made an area clear on the western coast.
 
She set Paris down a few miles in from the sea, replacing the Seine with a new river.
 
The city managed to remain relatively intact.
 
The latitude was the same, the weather patterns, flora, and fauna similar.
 
Dahlia had never been to Paris.
 
Now she could.

Dahlia reached out and picked up parts of New York, Vienna, and Tokyo, they became Parisian suburbs.
 
She called out, “Helion!”

Helion flew towards her.
 
He carried Michelangelo’s David.
 
“Yes?
 
Things moved just now, that was confusing…”
 

“But we were fine.”
 
Jacob flew behind him, mostly transparent.
 
He hauled paintings.

“Put the art in Paris.”
 
Dahlia flicked her wrists.
 
“The museums will be intact.”
 
Helion nodded and dropped away.

Jacob nodded to her.
 
“Thank you for the excuse to escape.
 
Helion still had to get rather assertive though.”

Dahlia smirked.
 
“Girls getting to be too much for you?”

Jacob sighed.
 
“They don’t even like me that much, Dahlia.
 
I think they just want to have more sylph babies.”
 
He frowned.
 
“My body is being used as a baby-making sex-doll, or something.
 
If this is all I have to look forward to, I’m not thrilled.
 
Done and next please.”

Dahlia smiled and touched his hand.
 
His body fluctuated, became solid.
 
Small glittering blue scales formed on his temples and the tops of his hands and feet.
 
Webbed wings popped out of his back.
 
His hair color matched the blue of the sky.
 
His teeth sharpened into points and his eyes glinted gold.
 
She let him go.
 
“There.”

Jacob looked himself over.
 
“Now what am I?”

Dahlia shrugged.
 
“Remember that badass dragon you painted for our final project?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, now you can turn into it.
 
Sylph no longer, dragon man!
 
Get a stable girlfriend.”

He grinned.
 
“Serious?”

“Serious.”

“Nice!”
 

Dahlia smirked as he shifted to a dragon the size of a blue whale.
 
Jacob held the art in one claw and chased after Helion, blowing blue flame as he went.

Dahlia spoke to the air, “Berith.”

Berith flew from the surface to join her.
 
“The industrial and radioactive waste has been recycled.
 
The garbage dumps have been reclaimed and no longer dot the land.”

“Good.
 
I would like power restored to Paris, set something up for me.
 
Draw in whomever you need.
 
Then go see to Apple, she has got to be tired after all of this.”

Berith flew towards the ground, leaving Dahlia to examine her work.
 
She swept her hand to the side and the planet rotated beneath her.
 
One vast ocean covered the rest of the planet.
 
Dahlia pointed and an island formed.
 
She created fourteen such places with fourteen different habitats.
 
She ringed the supercontinent with them.
 
She smiled and nodded to herself.
 
“Perfect.”