Chapter 21
“...He sailed off through night and day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year, to where the wild things are,” a voice recited, as the world resolved back into consciousness. I awoke to a young, handsome face looking down at me with loving concern.
I didn’t recognize the man, but I knew he meant me no harm. Though I’d never seen his face before, I was instantly filled with the knowledge that I loved him and that I would sacrifice my life for him without hesitation.
He was Cain. He was Q. He was my god. He was the father, and I was his child.
I shook myself awake and looked at my surrounding. I instantly scrambled for a handhold.
It was night once again, and we were on top of the Space Needle. Cain sat over me as I lay on the cold, slippery steel of the roof. He was no old man now, but a young, tall man with quick, inquisitive eyes. As I regained consciousness, he stood and straightened his suit. He was well-dressed, almost opulent, and strode toward the edge of the dish as if he wasn’t six-hundred feet off the ground with a brisk wind blowing from the south. At the precipice, Vivian and Tebor were waiting, looking glum and cold in the night air.
“Good evening Detective,” Cain said, as I risked pulling myself up to a sitting position.
“What’s going on?” I stammered. It was only slightly less of a stupid question than: Where am I? Or: Who are you? But I didn’t really care. All I wanted was to get back to the Geneing. I wanted nothing else but the ignorant bliss of Eden. Why had Cain brought me out of my perfect dream? What could be so important that he would deny me that?
“You must accept my sincere apologies for pulling you hence from the land of the lotus eaters,” he said. “But your presence is required, once more, in the harsh, cruel, realm fools call ‘reality.’” Cain was standing at the edge of the Needle’s roof, looking down into the darkness. The wind whipped his clothes so harshly around him, it surprised me that he wasn’t blown clear of the rooftop. Tebor and Vivian were similarly buffeted, Vivian’s hair forming a great mane behind her.
“I was...you were...there was,” my mind reeled. I could vaguely remember before the bite. But it didn’t matter. I looked at my wrist. Where Vivian’s knife had cut me there was no wound. “How?” was the question I finally settled on.
“The bliss I can give and I can take away,” Cain said. “The Elysian Fields shall always be waiting, my friend. My colleagues here tell me that I owe you a debt of thanks.” Cain nodded at the dower-faced Tebor and Vivian. “They tell me that it was you, Detective, who decoded Dark’s book, ran his ridiculous little paper chase, and saved me from my interminable prison. For this service, I greatly thank you.”
I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t meant to do it. I remembered meaning to do something very different. The gun...
Cain bowed in gratitude, then shifted into mocking imitation of his two, glum compatriots, comically frowning and moping about. “The giant still thinks we should eat you,” Cain said from behind his hand, point a thumb to Tebor. “And the girl thinks you’re trouble. But they’re terminally shortsighted, as is the tendency of our kind.
“When everything must be accomplished by dawn, you often forget what great things you scurrying, little, defenseless humans can accomplished in the daylight.” Cain turned to look out over the lights of the city skyline. “You forget that all of civilization grow while we slumbered, hiding from the sun. All of it.” Cain gestured at the city lights. “Just look, Detective, all the wonders of the world. I’ve seen them all. From the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, to the harems of Ismail Ibn Sharif. I’ve sailed between the legs of the Colossus and traveled the Silk Road, from Constantine’s throne to the Forbidden City’s gate. I’ve dined with Genghis Khan on the blood of his fallen foes and seduced away Helen from her handsome Menelaus.
“All of these things I’ve done, skulking in the dark, Detective. All this I’ve achieved. But always, in the burning light of noonday, the humans came.” Cain looked up to the moon, hovering in the sky above. “Always, the single, fervid eye, staring down from heaven. He watches us all...always watches...”
“We can end it tonight,” Vivian growled, barely audible over the rush of the wind. “We don’t need him. We don’t need them.” She nodded down off the edge of the Needle’s roof.
I then realized I’d missing something – something down on the ground below – cringing for my life so far away from the precipice of the Needle’s dish. Curiosity begged me forward, but the barking wind and the slippery roof kept me rooted to my spot.
“No,” Cain shook his head. “I see providence stretched out before me, my dear. To slumber and awake to find...an army prepared for me? It cannot be foolish change but a gift. We will not squander it. There will be no mistakes this time. We are the flood this time, my sweet. They shall not drown me again. Those that have come here to destroy me, they will be taught a bitter lesson. Tonight or tomorrow. The tide will rise. We will not abate. We will fill their lungs. The water will rise. Today and the next day and the next day and the next day. Forever. We will drown this globe in blood.”
Now, I knew I was missing something important over the precipice. Something was happening at street level below me. I couldn’t just cling to the cliff face like a baby bird. I slowly, delicately climbed to my feet. My boots squeaked ominously on the wet, angled rooftop. But I staggered slowly until I’d joined the three, windswept figures at the edge of the dish. In an uncharacteristic show of charity, Tebor firmly grabbed my wavering shoulder and held me steady.
I looked down.
Vertigo almost sent me head-over-heels off the edge, but Tebor’s massive mitt held me firm. My eyes watered in panic, blurring away the city below me. But as my head swam, the solid, spinning earth below me began to resolve into view. A crowd of a thousand – no, ten thousand – had gathered at the base of the Needle. A swarm of humanity, clogging the streets of the city for blocks and blocks in all directions.
“Oh my God!” I screamed and lost my footing. I held onto Tebor’s giant fist as a lifeline. “Who are they?”
“Every Genie in the city,” Vivian said, with more than a little pride. “When word that Q had returned...”
“You do have an army,” I observed.
“An army greater than any in history,” Cain said, standing at the very lip of the rooftop, but balancing without effort in the bucking breeze. “One, two, three million strong. All my children. All under my commanded. For my blood runs in their veins. They will obey me. They will obey you,” he said, turning to face me.
“Me?”
“Yes. Every army needs a General. You, Detective, shall be mine.”
“I don’t-” I started. But it wasn’t worth protesting. If Cain commanded me, I obeyed. I was a Genie now, too. Just like the throng below. “We are the tide,” I said instead, somehow knowing it was what Cain wanted to hear.
“Yes, the rising tide. And every other city on Earth shall drown. Each and every vile offspring of my brother will pay for the 10,000 years of my suffering. This world will drown in a new flood, and Eden shall rise from the waves.”
Cain was mad. Insane. As much as the retrovirus in my blood made me love him, I could still see that. What was Eden to him but death and destruction? He’d feed on the blood of humanity until no one was left. No one but his kind. Vampires and Genies, until it was time for the Genies to die.
All he would leave to wander the Earth would be the walking dead. Eternal, cowering in the dark.
“It’s certainly a long way down.” I stated the obvious. It was all I could think to say in the face of the doom of mankind.
“Afraid?” Cain asked, looking at me with a smirk.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“There’s no need to be afraid, Detective,” Cain said, stepping out into nothingness. “Fear is our best ally.”
Cain fell into the darkness, plummeting toward the earth below. As he fell, he spread his arms, and the wind seemed to catch him. He arced up,
banked, and flew back into the sky in a blur of speed.
“And now!” I heard the wind call out. “Let the wild rumpus start!”
Tebor and Vivian each took one of my arms and jumped off the roof of the Needle.