Carrie Vaughn - Kitty in the Underworld

“I promise,” I murmured.

She left me there, closing the door behind her. She didn’t lock it.

I slumped to the floor, hands resting loose in my lap, my mind an odd blank. Nothing to do for it, then, than to wait for night to fall and see if this ritual actually worked.

RULES OF the underworld: don’t eat pomegranate seeds. Don’t eat or drink anything the fairies give you. When you enter through the gates, you must remove all your clothing, all your possessions. You must bring an offering of blood to the shades who dwell there, especially if you want to ask them questions. When you leave the underworld, don’t look back, not for anything.

When Inanna passed the seventh gate and reached the heart of the underworld, she wept at what she found, and all that she had lost. Hubris had brought her to this plight. Divine intervention brought her out.

She had to find a replacement to take her place in the underworld. But her servants had been loyal to her, and she was loathe to repay their kindness by sending them to the land of the dead. Her friends had mourned her, and they, too, she would not ask to take her place. But her husband, Dumuzi, had been at leisure and without care during her time in the underworld, and so she condemned—

No. Ben was looking for me. He’d never give up on me. The only reason he hadn’t found me yet was that he had too much ground to cover, too many places to search. But he was trying, I knew it. I had faith.

The underworld doesn’t always mean death, it isn’t always the end. Sometimes, it’s the beginning. The Hopi tell stories about the beginning of the world, the transition from the previous age to this one, the birth of civilization. Humanity first lived underground, and one day Spider Woman—messenger of the creator, herself a creator of life, a weaver of knowledge—led them through caves to an opening that emerged into the world we know. The underworld, the old world, is the womb that gave birth to humanity. The journey from under the earth is the journey from ignorance to wisdom.

You traveled to the underworld so that you could emerge reborn. With new wisdom, new power. One way or another, I would emerge from this with what I needed to protect what I loved.

But right now, I didn’t know what I was learning here.

I WAITED FOR nightfall, which seemed to both come quickly and take forever. Sitting in the middle of the antechamber, arms around my knees, I dredged up stories from my memory, myths and fables, lost knowledge and lessons learned. I tried not to think about my cell phone and how many messages from Ben it had on it by this time.

When the outer door opened, I flinched, startled, even though I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d been expecting them, hadn’t I?

The four of them filed in. Kumarbis led.

Wolf itched; we were sitting, they were looking down on us, so I climbed to my feet, squared my shoulders. Didn’t look Kumarbis in the eye because whatever else he was, he was still a vampire. But the others—I met their gazes, waited for their reactions. Enkidu was neutral. Sakhmet gave me a comforting smile. I wasn’t much comforted. Zora kept ducking her gaze, looking away. I wondered if she realized she was doing it.

Kumarbis’s arrival meant night had fallen again. The third night. Too long. It hardly seemed to matter anymore. He’d been around for over two thousand years, time probably didn’t mean anything to him.

I wished I could skip forward to when this could all be over. But I stood tall and didn’t look away.

Kumarbis intoned in his ritual voice, “Tonight, we speak in praise of Regina Luporum, also called Lupa Capitolina.” The others bent their heads, as if in prayer. “Tonight, we tell your story.”

I perked up, trying to focus. My latest hero: I could see her, in the picture of the statue I’d printed, snarling and protective. The story Marid had hinted at, of the founding of Rome. The queen of the wolves, who stood up for her kind. Was I anything like her? How could I be?

The vampire continued. “She is not only the defender of the weak, but the savior of an empire. She shows us how by defending the needy, one may become the mother of an empire. What glory for her! Even should she die, as the one of whom we speak died. When the enemies of Romulus came for him, she put herself in their way and fought to her death to stop them. As all mothers will die to protect their children. She saved the life of Romulus, who went on to glory, and so we celebrate her sacrifice…”

This wasn’t right. I knew, because I’d just done the research. “That’s not what happened, not according to the stories. Romulus killed his brother over power. What would their mother have thought of that? How is that protecting the pack? The wolf, the Capitoline Wolf, she saved them, but she didn’t die for them. They didn’t have enemies, they had an argument, and she was out of the picture by then.” At least, the stories didn’t mention her after that.

He bowed his head, a wry smile on his face, the expression of a teacher confronting a recalcitrant student. “The stories are corrupted, unreliable. I know the truth of them. I’ve seen. ”

I gaped. “Seen, as in witness? Are you saying you were there ?”

“I have seen the truth of the stories.”

Maybe he really had been there at the founding of Rome. Maybe he really had seen. Or maybe he was a standard demagogue, offering his interpretations as ultimate truth. Like someone calling in to my show, declaring their opinion of the One True Path.

“Or maybe you’re winging it, like the rest of us.”

“It is the place of mothers—even foster mothers, or those who play the role of mothers—to die for their children.”

Oh for the love of … “A woman should be able to be a mother without being a martyr,” I said.

Again, he offered a condescending smile. “Wouldn’t you die to save your children? Or for a cause you believe in? I see your courage—I think you would.”

Having children had become such an abstract concept for me. I couldn’t have my own, but Ben and I had talked about adopting. Someday. When life got less crazy. Like, when I wasn’t being kidnapped by weird revenge cults. But this wasn’t about children. It was a red herring, a bad argument.

This was a discussion about sacrifice. I’d come back here because I was willing to make that sacrifice, if I had to. But I wouldn’t be doing it for Kumarbis.

“You’re way too eager to fit me into that slot,” I said. “My plan right now isn’t to become a martyr. That time may come, but not yet.”

“You have a destiny,” Kumarbis said. “Zora has seen it in her visions, we all felt it when you arrived here—”

“—when you kidnapped and dragged me here.”

He took a deep breath, the better to lecture with. “You are here for a reason, but more than that you are what you are for a reason. Regina Luporum called to you, guided you—it is your destiny to become her heir. It was your destiny to become the wolf that you are.”

“Are you saying it was my destiny to get attacked and torn up and turned into … this ?”

They all, all of them, stared back at me like it was obvious. In their world, of course these things happened for a reason.

“Yes,” the vampire said.

My teeth were bared, my muscles stiff. I leaned forward, aggressive. The bars around Wolf’s cage were dissolving, turning to air. “That was the worst night of my life,” I said, my voice low to keep from screaming. “I was raped by a frat boy and left in the woods and shredded by a werewolf—where the hell is the destiny in that?”