Jim Morrison's Adventures in the Afterlife (35 page)

For a moment the woman sounded almost as wistful. “It’s sad, really. The mark of the last time is all but healed. You can only see the faintest white shadow of a scar.”

“Maybe you didn’t cut it deep enough or write it big enough.”

Her voice hardened. “Then this time it’ll be written large, you son of a bitch. Are you ready?”

The older Morrison lowered his head. “Yes, I’m ready.”

The woman in red took a deep breath. “Close your eyes. Don’t look at me until I’m finished, and don’t make any noise.”

With a swift, deft movement, she traced an arching curve with the rapier point all the way from slightly below one shoulder to slightly below the other. Blood immediately welled through the lacerated skin, holding the shape of the mark for a moment and then trickling downward. The older Morrison bit his lip but, as instructed, made no sound. Outside the window Jim felt his own spine tingle. Without faltering, the woman in red reversed the path of the blade and brought it diagonally across the small of the older Morrison’s back. Then the blade curved back once more, just above the waistband of his jeans, and she finished with a small circular flourish. It was the mark of Zorro in reverse, all in a single complex stroke.

The second initial started with a firm downstroke, but Jim would not see it finished. As the woman in red completed the first stroke, a hand fell on Jim’s shoulder, creating an ice-blue plasma flash of time distortion. Doc Holliday’s bloodshot, heavy-lidded eyes were looking into his. His face was arranged in the deceptively mild half-smile of his diamond foppishness, and when he spoke, it was with the drawl of gentlemanly decadence. “This is really not a good place for you to be, my young friend. Really not a good place at all.”

“Zero minus five minutes and counting. All spectators must now be in their places and protective eyewear should be ready.”

With only five minutes to go before the detonation, the onlookers were torn. Obviously they didn’t want to miss the end of the cat-fight, but their God-King’s atom bomb was calling; the outcome of the confrontation between Semple the Concubine and Suchep the Whore had looked like a foregone conclusion from the moment that Suchep had stooped down and picked up the rock. Now she stood
astride Semple in primitive triumph, naked but for the tatters of her skirt, body smeared with dirt, blood, and sweat, the golden collar wrapped around her wrist like a trophy, and the rock raised above her head in both hands, ready to bring it down to crush Semple’s skull and send her back to the Great Double Helix by the most direct route. Semple could do nothing. She was dizzy and her strength was gone. When Suchep had looked around for a suitable rock with which to administer the coup de grace, Semple had seen her opening, but her legs had refused to work. Now all she could do was close her eyes, accept the inevitable, and hope that any pain would be over in an instant. Acceptance wasn’t that easy, however. A part of her was still seething, resenting that she had come so far only to fail so ignominiously. When she finally returned from the pods, she doubted that she could ever face Aimee again. That is, if Aimee even existed in whatever sector of the hereafter Semple eventually emerged. Only time would tell what might happen if one of them died a second time.

“Zero minus four minutes and counting. Protective eyewear should now be in place.”

At the blare of the trumpets, Suchep, rock still poised, hesitated for a split second. The crowd was now yelling, goading her to finish Semple so they could settle their bets before the bomb went off. In that instant, Semple saw the last possible chance of a reprieve and took it. With an effort she would later consider superhuman, she simply kicked straight up. Her shin hit Suchep hard and squarely in the crotch. The woman gasped and staggered, and the rock dropped from her hands. One victory was all Semple needed. The magical, last-ditch burst of energy extended itself long enough for her to quickly twist and trip her off-balance opponent. Now the crowd was really torn. The catfight had taken a new lease on life, but the main event would go off in three minutes and a diminishing number of seconds.

Semple crawled to where Suchep lay face down in the dirt. She was attempting to push herself up on her arms, but she appeared even more exhausted than Semple. Semple grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head backward so Suchep was staring straight into her face. “So you thought you were going bash my head in with a rock, did you?”

The tables had turned so suddenly that Suchep seemed to be having trouble grasping what had happened. “I—”

Semple slammed the woman’s confused face hard back into the dirt and then raised it again. “Thought you were going to score points with the boys by killing me, did you?”

This time Suchep didn’t even attempt to answer. She seemed almost as resigned to her fate as Semple had been a few moments earlier, and Semple took a perverse delight in ramming her face once more into the dirt. When Semple jerked her head up again, Suchep’s nose was again bleeding. “My name is Semple McPherson, sweetheart. You’d best remember that. You made a serious mistake when you tagged me as some fragile harem pet.”

To emphasize her point, Semple twisted her fingers viciously in Suchep’s hair. “I could kill you right now if I wanted to.”

Because of her bloody nose, Suchep’s breath was coming in short harsh grunts. “No, please . . . don’t . . . ”

“Are you begging me?”

“Don’t . . . kill me . . . I . . . ”

“Zero minus three minutes and counting.”

Even though she was enjoying hurting this bitch who had tried to put the hurt on her, Semple realized she had to finish Suchep or let her go. She toyed with the idea of making a theatrical appeal to the crowd for a thumbs up or thumbs down, but decided they hardly merited that much respect or display. Also, she wasn’t in the mood for murder. To remain angry with this woman for long enough to beat her to death seemed a misuse of energies. Semple leaned forward and breathed into Suchep’s ear. “Just let me hear you beg.”

Suchep’s bruised mouth twisted. “Okay, okay, I’m begging.”

Semple had to give the woman credit for managing to retain a shred of defiance in her tone, even while begging for her life. She lowered the woman’s head slightly. “If I let go of you, you’ll just lay there, okay? No tricks? No double-cross?”

“I swear . . . ”

“The damned bomb’s going to go off any minute.”

Suchep groaned. “No tricks. I swear.”

Semple let go of Suchep’s hair, straightened up, and got wearily to her feet. True to her word, Suchep lay face down on the ground, not moving. Semple unwound the collar from the woman’s wrist. “I fear you’re going to spend the next year on your back, earning your living the old-fashioned way.”

Semple faced the crowd as the victor, but the crowd had no time for applause. Self-interest was their only concern as they jostled to
cash in their markers before the explosion. Even though many of them had made money off her at long odds, no one thought so much as to offer her a blanket with which to cover herself. Both she and the fight were history.

“Zero minus two minutes and counting. All monitor and bunker crews must be in place. All loose objects must be secured.”

Semple slowly turned, totally at a loss for what to do. She was beat up, dressed only in a thong bikini, and on the lam. The remnants of her skirt lay in the dust where Suchep had ripped it off her. She gathered up the tatters, wrapping them quickly around her waist as a makeshift kilt. Most of the crowd had started to move back. With the detonation so close at hand, the air of festivity had wilted, giving way to an anxious anticipation. The majority finally seemed to have grasped that Anubis’s atom bomb might be no more efficient than anything else in Necropolis. For all any of them knew, it could just as easily set fire to the atmosphere as go off as planned.

“Zero minus ninety seconds and counting.”

Semple noticed the protective visor she had been given in the royal enclosure was on the ground where she’d dropped it at the start of the fight. She quickly picked it up and put it on. After she’d run from Anubis and battered Suchep bloody, she saw absolutely no point in being blinded by the nuclear flash. She also looped the collar around her neck. Maybe next time around it could buy her some luck instead of provoking trouble.

“Zero minus seventy-five seconds and counting.”

Semple knew she must have presented a decidedly odd figure in her improvised loincloth, wild disheveled hair, and black plastic visor, wearing a gold collar that was worth a small fortune, but this was no time to worry about how she looked. Almost all of the crowd had now donned various forms of what the countdown voice had called protective eyewear, investing them with a strange zombie uniformity that reminded Semple of the audiences at one of the those 3D movies back in the lifeside 1950s. The atomic explosion obviously represented something beyond mere B-movie special effects, though. The act of putting on their souvenir visors and sunglasses seemed to have helped convince the crowd that the bomb constituted more of a threat than they had previously imagined. A low-level mass apprehension was creating a general retreat toward the barriers around the royal enclosure, and a line of Nubians—with spears tipped with functional steel instead of ceremonial gold—had
moved out of the enclosure to reinforce the wood and canvas barricades against a sudden nervous rush by the lower orders. The Nubians were soon augmented by rocketeer police in full riot drag, who emerged from the enclosures at a dead run. Like so much else in Necropolis, the Divine Atom Bomb Festival was now threatening to turn ugly in its final seconds.

“Zero minus sixty seconds and counting. The subclass will prepare to prostrate itself.”

Semple wondered if now, by default, she qualified as one of the sub-class, but she had no intention of kneeling or otherwise humbling herself. Much against both her will and her good taste, she had found herself on her knees in front of the dog-god more times than she cared to dwell upon. As far as she was concerned, that had ceased for good when she’d fled the royal pavilion.

“Zero minus fifty seconds and counting.”

Even Suchep had managed to get to her hands and knees and was crawling after the rest of the crowd. Semple, who had so far refused to retreat, now found herself close to the front ranks of the spectators.

“Zero minus forty seconds and counting.”

She could feel the fear that was permeating the mob, but there was no way she was going to give in to it. To move away from the bomb was to also move toward Anubis, and that was out of the question.

“Zero minus thirty seconds and counting. The subclass will now prostrate itself.”

To Semple’s amazement, the majority of the crowd was dropping to its knees.

“Twenty-nine . . . twenty-eight.”

She had expected the Necropolis underclass to be more rebellious. Even in the mire of dog-god religious repression and poverty, she could hardly believe that a strata of old-time anarchy or drunken bolshevism hadn’t evolved. It looked as though the majority were lacking even the balls of a whore like Suchep.

“Twenty-seven . . . twenty-six . . . ”

The invisible trumpets now maintained a constant scream under the hectoring voice.
“Twenty-five . . . twenty-four . . . at twenty seconds all knees will be bowed, all souls will grovel before the might of Anubis.”

The voice had taken on a chanting, liturgical measure. Anubis or
maybe his Dream Warden seemed to have decided that the big bang would take place in an atmosphere of worshipful devotion.

“Twenty . . . ”

The crowd was on the ground.

“Nineteen . . . ”

Semple was one of the very last to remain standing.

“Eighteen . . . ”

“Fuck this.”

“Seventeen . . . sixteen . . . ”

With the crowd all prone, Semple had a clear and perfect view of the chrome obelisk, at the very tip of which lurked Anubis’s sacred nuke.

“Fifteen. All praise be to the mighty Lord Anubis.”

A celestial choir intoned a rising atonal cadence and the low rumble of a Bach organ was mixed in with the trumpets.

“Fourteen . . . thirteen . . . twelve . . . ”

Semple was finding it all too much. Rather than stand around, knee-deep in prostrate proles, she decided she needed to be positive, to go boldy against the flow of this Necropolis lunacy, to counter it with some lunacy of her own.