You're reading Daughters of Men, the second season of the Sons of God series. This is Episode Eight.
Last time, Mae got herself a gun, and Wade got her an appointment with Ziggy.
Need to catch up on past episodes? Click here for the navigation page.
Season two picks up with Mae fleeing to the Windy City after making a deal with the mysterious and otherworldly entity she not so affectionately calls Ziggy, with Special Agent Chance Davies in hot pursuit. With only the ghost of her late husband to guide her — you know, the one she killed in self-defense before dumping his body and getting out of Dodge — she wastes no time making new enemies, and a precious few friends, as she works to untangle the web she’s gotten herself into and discovers just what, exactly, Ziggy wants her for.
The gun helped Mae feel somewhat safer, but it wasn’t enough. With it tucked into a discreet hip holster, courtesy of Sue, she had retrieved her car and navigated through snow and sleet to the nearest hardware store before heading back to her apartment. Ice accumulating on the sidewalk and steps outside her building made her forget all about the other impending threats to her life as she focused on making it inside in one piece.
Once there, the other, less immediate threats once again seized her consciousness. Gripping her shopping bags with one hand and keeping the other on the handle of her weapon, she climbed the stairs to her floor slowly and cautiously as she scoped out the hallway. It was empty.
Her shoulders came down from her ears as she let herself in the busted door, but she remained alert. Not wanting to waste any time in case Gregor decided to put in an appearance, she shrugged off her coat, tossed it on the sofa, and got to work.
An hour later, not only had she repaired the broken door frame, but she had also added a heavy-duty deadbolt and reinforced both it and the door’s hinges with three-inch screws that anchored firmly into the wooden studs surrounding the door. It wouldn’t be impossible for someone really strong to kick it open, but they’d have to work a lot harder and take longer to do it, giving her time to have her gun ready.
She still didn’t feel safe. But she felt more equipped to defend herself, and that was a lot.
Outside, the wind howled and the slow drizzle of sleet, ice and snow had turned into a full-on snow storm. The living room window had frosted over, making it difficult to see out of, but with darkness already setting in and not much to see out there anyway other than a lot of white, it didn’t make much difference. Mae closed the blinds against the cold that was seeping in and turned up the propane on the little wall furnace next to the window. Wade hadn’t said what time Ziggy would show up -- or how, for that matter -- but she wanted to be ready.
She had cleaned up, eaten a quick snack, and was in the middle of making some tea to calm her nerves when a knock sounded on her door.
“You should answer that,” Wade said, suddenly appearing beside it.
Mae acknowledged him with a glance as she approached the door. Her hands shook as she undid the locks, and she wished she’d just had a quick shot of bourbon instead of bothering with tea. Taking a breath to steady herself, she opened the door.
The girl from the magic shop stood there, swallowed up in a parka that clashed with her goth persona, dripping melting snow all over the floor. “You,” said Mae, recovering from her surprise.
“Lucien thought you might be more comfortable with me,” she said, as though that was an explanation. “I’m well-equipped to guide you.”
Mae looked at Wade and raised an eyebrow.
“You didn’t think Ziggy was gonna make a house call, did you, darlin’?” He gestured toward the girl. “You want to talk to him, it’s gotta be on his terms.”
Mae sighed, grumbling inwardly as she stepped aside. “Come on in.” Remembering how quickly Jenna had turned on her, she had to fight the impulse to move her hand to the gun’s handle. Instead, she motioned toward the window and the weather outside. “You came here in that?”
“It wasn’t easy, but I had protection.” She unzipped her coat and fingered a crystal pendant hanging around her neck.
“I’m glad you didn’t break anything coming up the stairs.”
The young woman grinned as she set down a canvas tote that was slung over her shoulder and shrugged out of her parka. “Oh, it was no problem for me.”
Something about the grin, and the way she said it, unnerved Mae. “Well, I don’t want to keep you too long in this mess, so let’s get this show on the road.” Once the girl was inside, Mae shut the door and bolted it before turning around. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Inara.”
Mae stopped herself from asking if that was her real name. She had her doubts. “Okay. Um,” she gestured toward the kitchen. “I was making some tea. Would you like some?”
“Not for myself. I brought some to aid the ritual,” she said on her way to the coffee table. “If you’ve already boiled water, that’s perfect.”
She began to unpack her bag and spread its contents out on the table. With uncommon silence, Wade moved over to watch over her shoulder. Leaving them to it, Mae went to reheat her water in the microwave. When she returned to her living room with the mug, the coffee table was lined with glowing candles, and little baggies of herbs had been laid out, along with a bundle of sage.
“Could you turn off the lights?” Inara asked.
Mae went to the switch by the door and shut off the overhead light, casting the room in candlelit shadow. “Now what?”
Inara stood and gestured to the couch. “You should sit. Breathe, and try to relax and clear your mind.” Mae settled in the middle of the sofa while Inara knelt across from her. The girl picked up the sage and held it to a candle flame. “This will repel any unwelcome spirits that try to interfere,” she explained as she waved the sage around and wafted its smoke in different directions.
Mae looked at Wade, who smirked and shook his head. “How’s that stuff supposed to repel something with no sense of smell?”
“It doesn’t smell bad,” said Mae. “Reminds me of Thanksgiving dinner.”
A soft smile pulled at Inara’s lips. “It’s not the smell,” she said, as though answering Wade. “It cleanses negative energy from the atmosphere, creating a welcoming energy for positive spirits to come in.”
“That’s me,” said Wade. “Positive Pollyana.”
Mae shared his smirk in spite of herself.
Unaware of both Wade and their private joke, Inara set down the smoldering stick and reached for a bag of herbs. Closing her eyes, she whispered something over it, as though saying a blessing, and then continued to murmur under her breath as she took some from the bag and crumbled it between her hands into the steaming mug. She repeated this with subsequent bags, after the third of which an overpowering stench assaulted Mae’s nostrils and caused her to flinch back and cover her nose.
“Please tell me I don’t have to drink that.”
“Shhh.” Ignoring her, Inara continued to prepare her death decoction, as Mae recalled what Sue had said about opening herself up to demonic forces.
Allowing herself to be shushed for the time being, Mae watched warily while Inara continued adding the contents of each bag to her brew. When she finished, she looked up at Mae and smiled, holding out her hands. “Now we say a blessing together.”
Mae didn’t move. “Look, I’m going to need you to explain to me what all of this is, exactly.”
Inara’s smile faltered, and she lowered her hands. “This is a proprietary blend developed by Lucien to help you relax and open your third eye.”
“My what?”
The girl tapped the center of her forehead. “Your third eye. Your pineal gland. While it’s activated, your spirit will be able to come and go between here and the Second Heaven as well as see and speak to the entities that reside there.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
Inara’s eyelashes fluttered in confusion. “I was told you wanted to speak to an Archon.”
Mae looked at Wade, and the girl’s confused look deepened as she followed her gaze. “What is she talking about?” Mae asked him.
“Ziggy,” Wade said in a tone usually reserved for children who aren’t all that bright. “You want to see Ziggy.” He gestured toward the mug. “This is how.”
“Why can’t Ziggy just meet me here? He did it before.”
“Is there a spirit here with us now?” asked Inara.
Mae nodded, briefly, and focused on Wade, waiting for an answer.
He made a show of sighing heavily. “I don’t make the rules, darlin’. If you want to talk to him, it’s gotta be on his terms. Or else we can call the whole thing off and you can just wise up and do as you're told from now on.”
Mae huffed. “Screw that.” She wanted answers. She wanted to make it clear to Ziggy that she wasn’t a hired killer. And if that’s what he wanted, then she wanted out.
Without giving herself a chance to think and talk herself out of it, she grabbed the mug and chugged its contents, ignoring both the fact that it was still hot and Inara’s panicked protests. She spit the loose herbs and tea leaves that lodged against her teeth back into the cup and wiped her mouth. “Now what?” she asked the girl.
Inara’s hand covered her mouth, and her eyes held a horrified expression that made Mae regret her impulsive move. Lowering her hand, she did her best to cover it over with a smile. “We should have said a blessing first, to ask for protection from hostile spirits you meet on the astral plain. But we can do that now.”
She held out her hands again, and Mae took them, bowing her head as Inara invoked a protective field around her. When she finished, she unclasped the chain around her neck and handed her crystal to Mae. “Put this on. It will add protection.”
“Thanks.” Mae put on the necklace and then leaned back, suddenly feeling sleepy. “Crap. I meant to ask what’s in that stuff.”
“Chamomile,” Inara said, ticking off on her fingers. “Lavendar, ashwaganda--”
“That doesn’t sound bad.”
“Valerian,” Inara added. “Mugword, and psilocybin powder.”
“Wait, what?”
“A tiny amount.”
“So I’m going to be tripping, is what you’re saying.”
“You’re going on a spiritual journey.” Inara stood up. “You should lie down. Get comfortable and close your eyes.”
The stuff was already taking effect. Mae felt dizzy, and her eyes felt heavy. “Yeah. Good idea.”
She leaned sideways until her head sunk into a throw pillow. Inara lifted her feet and placed them on the sofa, then took an afghan Mae had picked up at a thrift store from the back of the couch and draped it over her.
“Don’t worry,” said the girl. “I’ll stay with you until you return.”
“So will I,” said Wade.
Mae didn’t find either of their promises reassuring.
She lost all sense of time. The walls and furniture around her melted, revealing geometric shapes and mechanistic structures, moving in ways that made her feel dizzy. She looked at Inara, who had taken on a ghostly transparency, and at Wade, who flickered like an old TV with bad reception. A dark shape stood over him and surrounded him, a hulking shadow made of smoke that seemed to move in and out of him. Is that what Delia saw when she looked at him? What did it mean?
Before she could ask or give it much thought, she felt herself come untethered. Suddenly she floated up, slowly, toward the ceiling. She was afraid to turn and look beneath her, afraid of what she might see. The ceiling opened up, and she passed through the apartment above hers, her upstairs neighbors whom she’d never seen before seated on their sofa, looking like phantoms, their phantom eyes glued to a flickering TV set. An inhuman face filled the screen and appeared to be laughing at the couple, while little creatures danced around in front of it. They reminded Mae of a cross between garden gnomes and the things from the movie Gremlins. And not the cute one.
Taking it all in with a mix of wonder and apprehension, Mae continued to float upward, through the roof of the building and into the dark of early wintry night and snow and freezing rain. But she wasn’t cold, and she could see through it all as she kept going up, up, seeing the thick layers of storm clouds but also seeing inside them, seeing gears and mechanical parts pumping out the precipitation, and seeing past all that to the open sky and stars above.
Overwhelmed, Mae squeezed her eyes shut, but she could still see. She opened them again and was suddenly surrounded by colors and light so dazzling that it blinded her and made her close her eyes again.
“You can look now,” said a familiar voice.
Mae looked and saw a brilliant white light with a humanoid shape coming toward her. She tried to back away, but found herself frozen in place. As the shape drew closer, the light diminished, revealing the familiar, androgynous and impeccably dressed form of Ziggy. He -- it, they, whatever -- walked toward her, though there was nothing for its feet to purchase on. They both hung suspended in what looked to Mae like the inside of a swirling rainbow.
“Why all the theatrics?” she asked.
Ziggy dismissed the question with a wave. “There are no theatrics. This is simply the meeting place between our two kinds. Now.” It clasped its hands and squared its shoulders, leveling a gaze at her. “Do you have serious questions, or are you going to waste my time?”
Mae wracked her brain. She had loads of questions, but not a single one would come to her. At last, a name flitted through her memory, and she seized on it. “Are you Azaroth?”
Ziggy laughed, a contemptuous sound. “Azaroth is of the Rephaim.”
“Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“Yes, actually. If you paid attention to the resources given to your race, you would know. But perhaps you would know them as Anunnaki.” At Mae’s blank stare, Ziggy flicked a hand as if swatting away a gnat. “Azaroth is of no consequence, and surely not the reason you’re here.”
“But if Azaroth isn’t important, then why did you send me to that magic shop so I could get possessed by him?”
“Did I send you there?”
“Didn’t you? Wade said--”
“Did he? Hmm.”
There was a depth of meaning in that hmm, but Mae had a feeling it would be a waste of time to press the matter. “But it was you who sent me to kill Jenna Zebrowski.”
“You didn’t kill her.”
“I’m not a killer.” At Ziggy’s raised eyebrow, she sighed. “I’m not a murderer. If you recruited me to be some kind of assassin--”
Ziggy raised a hand to cut her off. “I sent you to deliver a message.”
Mae looked at him sideways. “I was never given a message to deliver.”
“Your appearance was the message. Her puppet master received it, loud and clear.”
“Why was she killed, then?”
A spread of the hands indicated ignorance. “A number of reasons. Because she failed to kill you. To frighten you and put you on the run so you’ll be less effective. And, of course, to distract from the children.”
“So you knew about the children.”
“Of course I did.”
Mae stared at Ziggy for a moment before asking, “Can we cut through the cryptic bullshit and you can just tell me exactly what you want from me?”
“It seems to me that your friend, the church maven, made it quite clear.”
She stared some more as his meaning sunk in. “Delia.”
Suddenly a room coalesced around her. Disoriented, it took a moment for Mae to recognize it as an apartment, much like her own but with everything reversed. She heard voices behind her and turned to see Delia curled up on a leather sofa, her pajama-clad legs curled beneath her and a book lying open in her lap. Mae’s heart seized as she recognized the man sitting next to her, cradling a large bowl of popcorn in his lap. An easy smile graced his lips as he told Delia a joke, eliciting a smile and an eye roll before picking up her book. His foreign accent was gone, as was his air of pure menace, but his face was unmistakable. Chuckling to himself, Gregor picked up a remote and pointed it at a large television on the wall.
It was a scene of comfy domesticity, just a father hanging out with his daughter, except for the hulking, smoky shadows surrounding them. There were so many that they crowded one another, each of them standing as tall as the ceiling, every one attached to Gregor with a smoky black tether of some kind. It quickly became plain to Mae that Delia could see these things, or at least sense their presence, but was making a show of ignoring them.
The man Mae knew as Gregor was in the middle of another joke when a phone vibrated on an end table beside him. He picked it up and glanced at the screen. Suddenly one of the smoke entities flowed into him and his whole demeanor changed. He sat up straight, and as he answered the call, his accent returned. Delia quietly closed her book and got up, went to her room and shut herself inside. Three of the beings followed her, passing through the closed door as if it didn’t exist.
Mae felt a hand on her shoulder. When she turned, she was back in the swirly rainbow place, face to face with Ziggy. “Now you know why I brought you here.”
“But -- but what do you expect me to do about it?”
Ziggy smiled, exposing teeth that reminded her of the Big Bad Wolf. Mae shivered. “Do what you do best.” It held up two fingers and thrust them at Mae, penetrating her forehead. “Remain awake, so you can see them coming.”
Her head felt like it would split in two, and the front of her brain felt like it was on fire. She fell, plummeting back the way she came, arms and legs flailing until she landed in her own bed in her tiny bedroom. She gasped for breath and tried to sit up, but couldn’t move. Not a muscle, not a single twitch, except for her eyes, which widened in fear as those hulking shadow figures melted out of her walls and loomed over her. She tried to scream, but no sound would come. The creatures surrounded her, pinning her down as one of them slithered up from the foot of the bed and stretched itself out on top of her.
Jesus Christ, Mae screamed inside her head, and just like that, the shadows vanished. She sat up, no longer in her bed but on the sofa, Wade and Inara both there, watching her intently.
Mae’s stomach heaved. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
Inara moved quickly, producing a plastic grocery bag and handing it to Mae just in time. “Sorry,” she said, patting Mae gently on the back. “I should have warned you that might happen.”
After heaving Inara’s magic tea and whatever else remained in her stomach into the bag, Mae got unsteadily to her feet and went to the kitchen to dispose of the bag and rinse her mouth with water. Inara followed her. “Did you find what you were seeking?”
Mae spit into the sink, then took a glass from the dish drainer and filled it with water. Her throat felt raw as she rasped, “I think I got more than I bargained for.”
Inara nodded. “I should have warned you that could happen, too. Sorry. I’m still new at this.”
“Well, you got the job done. Thanks.” Mae remembered that she still wore Inara’s crystal. It felt like a heavy weight around her neck. She pulled it off over her head and handed it back, but as it hung there, she stared, fascinated, at black and purple smoke that swirled inside the pendant.
Inara reached out and took it from her. “If you’re okay, I guess I’ll be going now.”
Mae nodded. “Do I owe you anything?”
With a smile, the girl shook her head. “It’s taken care of.” Mae noticed then that her eyes were solid black. She was pretty sure they hadn’t been before. She was also pretty sure it wasn’t contacts this time.
“Be careful out there.” Mae nodded toward the window, indicating the weather.
“I’ll be fine,” Inara said as she went to collect her bags. On the way out, she handed Mae a business card with the magic shop’s logo. “Call me if you have any unpleasant aftereffects.”
Mae tucked the card in her pocket, though she had no intention of calling these people, and nodded. After closing the door and fastening all the locks and bolts, she turned to see Wade seated on the sofa. His appearance hadn’t changed from when she was in her trance. She narrowed her eyes, and he tilted his head. “What?”
She shook her head. She didn’t know what the shadow around him meant, and she didn’t want to tip her hand. “Nothing.”
He got to his feet. “So what did Ziggy say?”
Mae shrugged. “Ziggy was as cryptic and unhelpful as ever.”
“Well, can’t say that’s surprising. So, are you gonna go haring off on your own?”
“No. No, I think I’m gonna stick around for a while.”
He nodded, appearing satisfied. “Good. So, what now?”
Mae sighed, and started toward her room. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
“Well, then, I guess I’ll be seeing you.”
Without turning around, she waved at him with the back of her hand, and then shut herself in her room. She leaned against the door with a huff of air. No way would she be sleeping tonight, after all she’d seen. She had too much to process, and too much to figure out.
Even so, exhaustion pulled her toward the bed. She fell onto it, and even as her mind swirled with questions, her eyes closed, and soon, her mind went blessedly silent.
Daughters of Men is taking a mid-season break until mid-October while I work on some short stories. Subscribe for free so you don’t miss anything!
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please help other readers find it with a like, comment, restack or share.
Still here? If you’re enjoying this, you might also like…
