City of the Plague God: Chapters 8–15

Just then two paramedics came out our front door wheeling a gurney.

I watched as Mama and Baba lay there in medically induced comas with ventilators breathing for them because their lungs were full of fluid.

"Healing's not my forte, but I'll slow the illness as much as I can."

But instead of lying on a bed suited for a king, I'd have preferred to be at home on my rickety pallet with bedding from the discount aisle at Target.

He started in on cheek lifts. Really. "It is. How do you think they all look so good after thirty?"
"Plastic surgery?"
"You're way too young to be so cynical. Try it. It'll stop those frown lines from getting deeper."

He put the pancakes on a plate and handed it to me with a wistful expression. "So long, carbs."

"Your whim is my command, goddess."

Gods die in so many ways. They lose worshippers and they just fade away, or they can become…irrelevant.

"You need to understand the scale of the problem, Sik. We're dealing with a renegade god."

"I call it the Thor Conundrum. What is he, a god or a superhero?"

But there are mysteries, wonders far greater that even I don't understand. I am not omniscient, nor omnipotent.

"In the culture I once belonged to, we called it Ea. But each culture has given the power a name that suits it best. The name you use is as good, and as profound, as any I have ever known."

I stifled a laugh, but not very well.

But then I'd apparently broken out of the hospital in a rabid rampage, and every student with a cough or runny nose was now a suspected plague carrier and being rushed to the doctor.

Forklifts rumbled along the steel-lined chasms.

"I think we need to get one thing straight: You're the action heroine. You lead." Belet didn't disagree. Humility was not part of her personality.

It wasn't hard to imagine the refugees, huddled together with their meager belongings.

I looked closer and realized what they were—words. Cuneiform. It didn't have the glamour of Egyptian hieroglyphs—it was made up mostly of dashes—yet it was from these marks that history had officially begun. But cuneiform was found in museums, displayed in glass cases and preserved as something precious, not scratched into a steel slaughterhouse.

"Thanks for stating the blatantly obvious, Sik," replied Belet.

I wondered, fleetingly, if demons had their own union.

Egg-size boils covered their faces, thick green veins pushed hard against sickly yellow skin, and a decaying stench emanated from them, almost as bad as the one from that night I'd met Sidana and Idiptu.

Tatt Man's grotesquely bulbous knuckles cracked noisily as he made his fists.

"What was it you were saying about weapons, Sik?" Belet asked with forced nonchalance.

I sucked in a single deep breath, my lungs pushing painfully against the vise trapping my chest.

Ishtar had given me a very cursory once-over when we'd gotten back and declared me fit and well, all the while
 telling us about the nightclubs she and Daoud had visited.

She sounded both desperate and bemused, as if she couldn't understand why all parents didn't raise their kids to be ninjas.

The sword made a surly hum. "Why waste both our times? You haven't got it in you to be a hero. Believe me, I've taught the best. The very best."

"Are you saying his exploits were exaggerated?"

Gilgamesh succeeded at everything. Every demon he fought, he vanquished. Every princess he set out to rescue, he got. Every kingdom he battled, he conquered.

"Every army needs cannon fodder," said Kasusu cheerily.

"Come here, you mangy fleabag."

"You going somewhere, or just wearing a hole in that carpet while you preen?"

"They say it's a blight—the trees are diseased. They have to chop them all down. Those beautiful trees."

We got in and headed to the isolation ward at the top of the building.

"It's Archetype Number Fifteen: The Mousy Hottie."
"What are you talking about?"
"You know, the nerd in the front of the classroom who everyone ignores..."

There they stood, both holding the vase, face-to-face, Daoud's specs precariously balanced on his nose.

Mama and Baba lay within their airtight sterile chambers, buried under tubes and cables and lit only by the wall of monitors.

The slime congealed on his cheeks and forehead, glistening sickly in the low light.

"You must have met him at some point."
"And what if I did?" spat Idiptu. It might have happened thousands of years ago, but clearly the encounter still rankled.

"But unicorns are the deadliest, fiercest, and most bloodthirsty of all creatures, both mundane and supernatural. Their kill ratio is six times higher than a dragon's."