Free Beautiful City of the Dead by Leander Watts

body heat cooking the body's water. Fire and water together in the flesh." Saying this, she went back to the stove.
    "This is all so insane. I just want to—"
    "Don't say it unless you really and truly know what you want. Because you might just get it."
    "All right. So what do
you
want?" I asked him.
    His mom turned to watch Relly. He didn't see the look on her face. But I did. And it was scarier than anything Frankengoon or even Knacke had done. It was like the answer to my question was life or death to her. The wrong response and everything would be ruined.
    "I want the band to be a success. I want to play out a lot, too, and record. And I want people to see how great we are."
    "But that's not all?"
    "I guess I want the real thing," he said after a long
stretch of quiet. "I mean, if it's fake or bogus I hate it. If it's all lies, then I want nothing to do with it. TV and textbooks and what kids talk about at school. That's all a lie. You know what I mean?"
    He could see I didn't understand.
    "Like you look at me and I'm just this kid. But I'm also the god of fire. And you're just a kid too, a girl with an Ibanez bass who doesn't say hardly anything at school. And you're the ocean too, and rain, and blizzards."
    Part of me was saying,
Right, sure, I'm Neptuna, goddess of the seas,
and thinking about how crazy it all sounded. I should go home and never come back. Next thing I knew, he'd be talking about human sacrifice or having aliens over for supper.
    But another part was listening real hard and kind of nodding. It was like I knew it all already, only I needed somebody to bring the truth back to mind.
    "You really believe this, don't you? The god part. Earth, wind, fire, and water. The whole bit. You believe it?"
    "One hundred percent." He didn't pause for even a second to answer that one.
    His mom turned away, back to messing around with her wet leaves and lumps of little black berries.
    I let out all the air I'd been holding in my chest. I closed my eyes and relaxed. "All right, then," I said. "Then I believe it, too."

Fifteen
    T HAT NIGHT, SCRATCH ATTACKED. I don't mean he kicked the front door down and burst in swinging. Or came crawling out of the phone like a snaky ghost. No, it wasn't broken windows or bloody threats. All the same, it was an attack. And it made me even more a believer in what Relly had said that day.
    As usual, the house was empty when I got home. My dad was out, at work, I guess. And I had no idea when he'd be back. I nuked some four-cheese lasagna and ate it standing at the kitchen sink. It was good, real good. My dad's cooking was always the best. And he always made sure there was something excellent waiting for me in the fridge.
    I could see a faint reflection of my face in the kitchen window. Only, for a minute it didn't really look like me. I stopped eating, put my plate in the sink, and stared. Who was it, if not me? Was I getting so crazy that I didn't even
know my own face? Slowly, the little jab of panic faded. Yeah, that was me, I told myself, not some stalker peering in.
    After checking a third time to make sure all the doors were locked, I went upstairs.
    I kept hearing weird noises. Usually the scratching of tree limbs on the windows didn't bug me at all. Usually I was fine with the house creaking softly, like the distant noise of my dad's bedsprings as he settled in for sleep. Most times, the hum of the furnace was a comfort when I was alone.
    That night, however, everything seemed wrong.
    There was still mist on the bathroom mirror, though nobody had used the tub all day. The numbers on my alarm clock were flashing, like when the power has gone off. Only, they weren't pulsing in a regular beat. They flashed quickly, then were steady, then throbbed and faded and came back twice as bright.
    The worst thing, though, was when I opened my bass case and took out my Ibanez. I wrapped my fingers around the neck and knew somebody had been playing it, somebody with grimy hands.
    Now, I'm