Christopher Rice - The Heavens Rise

If they left him like this, if they didn’t do something , he would not survive for long. Ben was sure of it. And the more he studied its imbalanced form, the more he realized why the creature seemed exhausted. Its massive wingspan made it more suited for flight, but the weight of its heavy, humanoid body must have created incredible drag. There was no way this creature could survive in the wild, if it wasn’t killed by a human. What choice would it have if it went on like this? Fly itself to death?

As he and Nikki crouched against the railing outside the wheelhouse watching its approach, Ben was grasping to figure out what memory of Anthem’s could have given rise to this thing. Then he remembered a drunken late-night phone call, right after Deepwater Horizon blew. They’re burning birds, Benny. In the oil. They’re caught in it but they don’t get them out before they light the fires to burn it off, and they’re all just going up. Are you going to write about it, Benny? You got to write about it, Benny.

The creature jumped down into the water with a great splash and began walking down the side of the boat, away from the wheelhouse, toward the yawning opening in back. The push boat’s weight shifted beneath them as the creature crawled inside the lower deck, and that’s when Nikki turned to Ben and looped several strands of red Mardi Gras beads around his neck. Then did the same to herself.

“I’ll get as close as I can,” she whispered. “You stand by, and when I’m ready . . . you drive him. But not until . . . not until . . .”

“Not until what?”

She bent forward and whispered words into his ear. They were short and sweet and simple enough to remember, but he was still sure he’d forget them in the terror of the moment, so he started whispering them to himself over and over again.

“I don’t know how much of him is still in there, Ben. I don’t know if—”

“He came here, Nikki,” Ben whispered. “Remember that. He came here.”

Nikki turned from him and started slowly down the exterior staircase that lead to the lower deck. He followed a safe distance behind. When they reached the lower deck, they found the creature slumped against one corner of the shadowy steel cavern, its feathered chest heaving. From the way it had jammed its wings up into the corner of the ceiling, holding them there by leaning his upper back against the wall, Ben could see what a terrible compulsion they made for the thing; a giant, undeniable invitation to take to the air, even though the rest of the thing’s body wasn’t properly crafted for flight.

Ben stood his ground outside the door to the lower deck.

Nikki entered the shadows. The creature didn’t seem to notice her approach, then, when she was eight feet from it, she said, “You know, you’re not going make a lot of friends around here with that T-shirt you got on.”

The avian head jerked back on its neck. The beak opened and closed, but no sound came from it.

“True,” Nikki continued, taking several slow steps toward the thing. “You did meet the two of us today, so I guess that’s something. But maybe after school, we can run you by Perlis and get you some of those polo shirts with the crawfish on them. You know, help you fit in a little bit more. What do you say to that, huh, Anthem Landry?”

The creature leapt forward, talons slapping to the metal floor inches from Nikki’s feet. Ben gripped the door frame, prepared himself to take the creature under his command, but when its beak opened, the sound that came ripping out of it had the tinge of a man’s wail in it. Nikki had held her ground and lifted one palm.

“After all,” she continued, but her voice was trembling. “You are the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on, so you can’t blame me for coming up with an excuse to get close, now, can you?”

The creature lifted one talon off the floor, and slowly extended one sharp, curving nail. “Nikki . . .” Ben said quietly.

Nikki shook her head, but she was having trouble keeping her eyes open, and her chest was heaving as the creature’s one nail traveled slowly up the length of her torso. To Ben, it looked like he was searching for a target, and he prayed it wasn’t Nikki’s beating heart or her carotid artery.

“You know . . . Mardi Gras is coming up soon, and we like to watch the parades from Third and St. Charles. It’s not too far from my house. Maybe you could join us, Anthem Landry. Would you like that? Would you like to watch the Ares parade with us?”

The nail found its target, the plastic medallion attached to the beads hanging from Nikki’s neck. A soft, gentle whine escaped from the winged beast. And Nikki said, “Would you like that . . . my hero, my God, my angel?”

Having heard the signal, Ben opened, and just as the scene before him turned silvery and luminescent, the creature’s soul sent him stumbling backward. He felt his ass hit the steel staircase, and then all sense of up and down, all sense of a bordered, orderly world was lost as he was battered by the nightmare-gnarled images pouring through him. The writhing body of the serpent Marshall Ferriot had become, Nikki shrinking from view as the creature rose up through the jungle exhibit’s shattered ceiling. And then there was a soft, radiating glow, beating like a heartbeat within the chaos. And Ben recognized the twirling knots of flame blossoming throughout his consciousness. He could hear the music, he could smell the spilt beer. He could feel the memory of a long-ago Mardi Gras parade coursing through him, and that’s when he realized Anthem Landry was moving through him too.

How ’bout you fuck yourself?” Marissa finally said to the lawyer. “How’s that sound?”

Hilda Lane’s lackey and henchman had been lecturing her for a good fifteen minutes on how her actions had violated the standards clause in her contract, giving the Lanes grounds to fire her as editor in chief of Kingfisher without severance.

The man hadn’t even bothered to inquire after her physical condition when he’d forced his way into her room, even though she’d just been moved out of post-op recovery two days before after running a high fever for the three days. He’d been droning on about how even though there were no witnesses to her shooting, the simple fact that an officer of the law had seen fit to put a bullet in her—God rest his soul; the poor man hadn’t survived his injuries—combined with the slanderous allegations she made against Hilda Lane during their last phone call gave Kingfisher ’s owner ample cause to—and then she told him to go fuck himself and things got real quiet all of a sudden. She’d said it brightly and casually, as if she were suggesting he try adding a little Tabasco to his scrambled eggs every morning.

“I take it this is your way of saying you don’t intend to—”

“I’m real tired and I don’t feel that well and you’re a jerk. So no, it’s my way of saying you should go fuck yourself is what it is.” Maybe it was fatigue that kept her tone breathy and casual. Or maybe she really thought it was good idea for the beady-eyed prick to use some blunt object on one of his orifices. She’d lost track of which pain meds they were giving her. “Seriously, take that contract in your hand, roll it up real narrowlike and see how far up it’ll go. I’ll wait right here till you’re through. And I’ve got some pills lying around if it starts to hurt too bad.”

“Okay,” the lawyer muttered. He sprang to his feet, placed the contract in question back in his briefcase and closed it with a punctilious snap. “Ms. Lane asked me to inform you that she appreciates the time you gave to her—”