“In comparison to this desert, this is how much of you is human.”
“I don’t get it. That’s impossible. I’m human. I’ve always been human.”
“So, in your mind, you believe that you are, what? Half-human and half-god?”
“Well, up until a few months ago, I believed I was 99 percent human and 1 percent reaper. Then I was told that 1 percent had been split in two: half-reaper and half-god.”
“You can’t be half-reaper. That’s like saying a postman is half-human and half-postman.”
“Or a lawyer is half-demon and half-human?” I heard that a lot.
One corner of his mouth tugged. “Something like that. Reaping is your job, not your heritage, for lack of a better phrase. But you can’t be half-god and half-human. The human side of you is one grain of sand among the 3.6 million square miles that make up this desert. The god part is too powerful. You need to get past that, because it doesn’t work that way.”
I studied Digby. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“You keep talking as though your human body can die. And, yes, it can, but it would take something very powerful to achieve it.”
I stood and abandoned Digby by walking a few feet away. “So, if I’m cut up and thrown into a wood chipper —”
“Did the truck kill you?”
“Well, no, but we went incorporeal. On purpose. If I were unconscious or bound —”
“Dutch, this one grain of sand doesn’t control the shape of the desert. It doesn’t control the drifts. The hills and the valleys. It is infinitesimal in comparison to the desert as a whole.”
“Okay.”
“The part of you that is a god, the whole that is you. A sentient being with immense power.”
“The wind shapes it,” I argued. “An outside force.”
“Just like on the mortal plane, outside forces influence, but the body is still one. The more you understand that, the less your human part” – he held out Digby – “this miniscule aspect of your makeup, can control you.”
“And this is important, I take it.”
“There is another god loose on this plane.”
Ah. Figured we’d come back around to that eventually.
“Right now he is more powerful than you are because he knows one thing to be true above all others.”
“And that is…?”
“He cannot die. Not at the hands of anything less than a god.” He stepped closer. “And neither can you.”
I nodded, trying to let it sink in, to force it to, but there was still a part of me that just couldn’t believe it. “I could trap him like I did Mae’eldeesahn.”
He bit down, the subject clearly raw. “You got lucky.”
No way on heaven or earth could I argue that. “I agree, but —”
“We may have to fight him. But we have an advantage.”
“Yeah?”
“He is one god, just like I am one god. You, Elle-Ryn-Ahleethia, are thirteen. As far as I know, you are the most powerful god to ever exist.”
I nodded again, feeling about as powerful as Digby at that moment.
“You don’t believe me.”
“No, I do. I get it. Sort of. It’s just kind of hard to comprehend the vastness of it. It’s like when you take a native out of the rain forest he grew up in to the open plains and he sees cows in the distance, he thinks they’re flies. His mind can’t comprehend such vastness. Such distance.”
He reached out, ran the back of his hand along my cheek, his touch as light as air, but it was enough. The celestial realm hit me like a tidal wave, tossing me about again, tumbling me through space. Just for a second. Then we were on pavement.
I swayed and looked down. Not pavement. After a quick scan of the area, I realized we were on top of a building. A very tall building.
I wasn’t exactly afraid of heights, but they weren’t my favorite of the three dimensions. I much preferred depth. Deep buildings. But Reyes had placed us on top of the Albuquerque Plaza, the highest building in the city.
Still feeling like a light breeze could send me hurtling to my death, I took hold of Reyes’s T-shirt again. Curled my fingers into it as though that one article of clothing could keep me from falling off, because Reyes hadn’t placed us on the center of the building top. Oh, hell, no. We were smack-dab on a nifty edge looking over a 350-foot drop.
In his defense, the very top wasn’t flat. If he’d placed us there, we would have slid off. So there was that. But we were on the highest edge, and while the world looked super cool from that viewpoint, it was not a place I wanted to be.
“Reyes, this isn’t funny.”
“I didn’t mean for it to be.”
“Why are we here?”
He wrapped his arms around me. “I wanted you to see. You are the desert. You are the whole. Until you believe that, you’re in danger.” He looked out over the city. “You don’t know what Eidolon is capable of. Everyone in this city, in this world, is in danger.” Then he returned to me with a hard gaze. “Our daughter is in danger.”
He was right. If I could do something, anything, to stop Eidolon, I had to try.
He set me at arm’s length but held me tight. Still, for my own peace of mind, I kept my fingers curled in his shirt.
“You can save everyone here. You are the most powerful god in all the dimensions combined.” He shook me. “You just have to believe it to the very depths of your soul.”
I nodded. “I’ll try.”
He relaxed. Pulled me to him. Kissed the top of my head. “That’s just not quite good enough.”