All the Gates of Hell (35 page)

"In fact," Jin went on to Shiro, "let's go meet our old friends and I can tell you all at once."

Shiro put a hand on her shoulder. It was a firm grip, and the memories came flooding back, deeper and more intently than that first day. She steeled herself and let them come. She did not flinch this time when the vision took her through their wedding night in her previous mortal incarnation and through the years they had spent together as man and wife. She finally saw past the shadow this time, to what Shiro had been before and what he remained now -- a good man, like so many other good men down through the centuries whose only and greatest sin was that he could not let go.

"Please, Jin. Tell me now."

"I'm going to renounce my oath as a Bodhisattva. I'm no longer going to be Guan Yin."

Shiro took his hand off her shoulder. "Does this mean...? " he began, hopefully, but Jin had learned all too well that mercy and kindness were not the same thing. She crushed his hope like she would a biting fly.

"What were you thinking, Shiro? That, freed from my duties, you and I would set up housekeeping? Well, say that we do. What happens after?"

Shiro frowned. "We would be happy. I...I would be happy."

"As always, you're not thinking this through, Shiro. You may be outside the Cycle at present but as Jin Hannigan I most certainly am not. I will grow old, and I will die."

"And I will mourn you, my love, but you will be reborn, and wherever you go, I will find you."

Jin shook her head. "Try again, Shiro. The human avatar of Guan Yin may have accumulated some karmic debts to pay, but Guan Yin herself, your
true
love, is an Enlightened Being and renouncing her oath does not change that. She will pass into the Divine Flame or Transcendence or whatever you want to call it. Not that what you call it matters -- it is the one place that, by
your own choice
, you cannot follow her. Ever."

Shiro finally understood. His knees were actually shaking. "You won't. You wouldn't!"

"Watch me."

Shiro jumped in front of her and put his hands on both shoulders, holding her back. "I won't let you!"

Over Shiro's shoulder Jin saw Teacher running forward but she held up a hand to stop him and he obeyed, though with obvious reluctance. Jin looked into Shiro's eyes and faced the pain she saw there. She knew what that pain might make him do. She wondered if he knew as much.

"How are you going to stop me, Shiro?" In an instant she was in full demon form, and the grip he'd held on her shoulder was now transferred to her robes somewhere around the height of her belly button.

Shiro held his ground. "I'll... I just will! I'm not afraid of you!"

"Yes, you are, and it's not because of my demon form." Jin reverted to human shape and put a hand on his arm. "Shall I tell you why, Shiro? You're afraid of me because you know the only way you can stop me now is to kill me. Are you willing to do that, you who love me so much?" She already saw the answer in his eyes, but she waited to hear it from him.

"You would be reborn..."

She shrugged. "Which is rather beside the point. Kill me if that's the best you can do, and you go directly into the Avici Hell, which is the one place
I
can't reach
you
and those keys you received from Teacher are useless. Either way, we're separated for eternity. Deal with it."

He just looked at her for several seconds with an awful sadness. "You would deprive the world of Guan Yin just to spite me? Could you really be so cruel?"

"You call me cruel? Sooner or later your 'love' will chain me to the Wheel of Death and Rebirth and what is Guan Yin then? You want me for
yourself
, Shiro, and the world be damned. Well, if the world can't have Guan Yin, neither can you! I'll make sure of it here and now."

"You don't mean that..." Shiro began, but it was a lie and they both knew it.

Jin slapped him hard across the face. "Shiro, my love, I will do whatever it takes. Do you understand me?
Whatever it takes
. First I married you, then I hid from you. Right now I would flay the skin from your back six days a week and have a barbeque with the rest on Sunday if that would get through to you! Now either kill me or let me go. Those are your only options."

Shiro held his grip for several long seconds, but when he finally did release her he was smiling a grim smile. "You're wrong."

"How so?"

"First of all, Jin, you make a damn poor Guan Yin. I told you that before and it's the truth. After all, you abandoned that poor man in prison just because of some misguided sense of revenge. The Guan Yin I know would never have done that!"

Jin shrugged. "Maybe I'm not the Guan Yin you know. That doesn't mean I'm wrong."

"But you are wrong. I do have another option."

"Now
you're
bluffing," Jin said, though she prayed to whoever might be listening that he wasn't.

He grinned, and threw Jin's own words back at her. "Watch me."

Shiro walked straight up to Teacher, still standing some distance away.

"King of the First Hell, I release you of your promise made to me so long ago and I submit myself to your will and judgment." He nodded toward both Madame Meng and Jin. "I accept whatever you decide, and will bear it as long as necessary. So let these worthies bear witness. So let it be."

Teacher just stared at him for several long seconds. Then he finally sighed. "All right, Shiro. Let's go back to hell, shall we? And, may I say, it's about damn time."

(())

Epilogue

"Do you have any idea what you almost did?"

Jin was seated on the dais of the statue of Guan Yin having tea with Madame Meng when Teacher came stomping back into the Gateway to All the Hells. Jin continued to sip her tea.

"Yes," she said, calmly. "I almost deprived the world of Guan Yin."

Teacher shook with barely controlled fury. "I cannot believe you would be so reckless! And for what? One man? No one is worth that!"

Jin thought of the girl called Azuki who was also Guan Yin. Probably, Jin thought, even more Guan Yin than she herself was. "Teacher, everyone is worth that," she said, "or no one is worth anything. That's the choice."

For a few long moments Teacher Johnson looked like someone who had just had a bucket of cold water dumped over his head. There was nothing but shock and surprise on his face. Then he started to laugh. Jin and Madame Meng continued to drink their tea while he pulled himself together. Teacher shook his head, looking chagrined. "And they call
me
'Teacher.'" He leaned forward, studying Jin carefully. "Is it you, Guan Shi Yin? Do you remember yourself now?"

"I remember nothing beyond this one life, but I was always Guan Shi Yin."

Teacher sighed. "Pity. I would have liked to have known the real plan."

Now Madame Meng glanced toward heaven and sighed. "This
was
the real plan. Honestly, Emma-O -- I thought you'd have worked that out by now."

Teacher frowned. "This? This hap-hazard, stumbling sort of dumb luck ploy?!"

Jin cut in. "Teacher, what did you expect? Omens? Portents? A host of demons in full battle gear? The destruction of worlds? If I'd thought any of the above would have worked, I'd have arranged more of a show."

"That's not what I meant!"

"Wasn't it? Besides, if Shiro in his blindness and hurt had killed me, in cosmic terms that barely rates a 'so what?' That would have been the end of the avatar known as Jin Hannigan, unfortunately for me, but certainly not of Guan Yin herself."

Teacher shook his head. "I know that. Better, if Shiro had killed you he would have been banished to the Avici hell and Guan Yin would have been immediately returned to her normal divine state, and I score that 'win-win.' I assumed the plan was to provoke Shiro into doing just that. I didn't expect you to threaten to renounce your bodhisattvahood!"

Jin laughed. "Threaten, Teacher? I was
going
to
do
it
, as you damn well know. Besides, the Avici Hell would only have buried the problem," she said. "Not ended it. Either way, if Guan Yin planned for me to die then technically she planned on committing suicide. Beyond the pale for a Bodhisattva, yes?"

Madame Meng spoke up. "Not exactly. I believe that is another reason Guan Yin drank from my fountain: with no memory or understanding of the danger she had placed herself in, you'd be hard pressed to assert that she had committed suicide. Say rather that she knew it was a risk, but that's all."

Jin nodded, slowly. "I can see that. Suicide wasn't even the greatest risk. Guan Yin would never renounce her oath as a Bodhisattva, but Jin Hannigan? She would. Shiro had seen me bluff before. He knew I wasn't bluffing this time, or it wouldn't have worked. That's why Guan Yin That Was couldn't tell me what to do. I had to figure it out on my own."

"Speaking of whom, do you want to know what I did with Shiro?" Teacher asked.

Jin shook her head. "No need. I have a feeling I'm going to see him soon enough...not that he'll remember me this time. Hell's going to work for him now."

"Sooner or later he will remember."

Jin smiled a wan smile. "Doesn't matter. He still loves me, but now he won't leave any hell until he's actually ready to leave. And I won't come to him one moment before. This part is over. Another has just begun."

"Smart girl," Teacher said. "What now?"

"As for myself," Madame Meng said, rising. "Pleasant as this has been, I have work to do."

Jin put her empty cup back on the tray, which a moment later had vanished along with Madame Meng. "I think that's probably true of all of us."

"Jin, you've done what you were put here to do. There's no need to stay in your human form. Personally I plan to abandon mine quite soon."

"And I'll mourn you, since it's the human thing to do. And that's what I am. It's not a 'form.' Teacher, this is
me
, right here, right now. Besides, I still have at least one more thing that I need to do as Jin Hannigan and not as Guan Yin. After that, feel free to convince me. But I warn you: I'm stubborn."

He smiled. "Suit yourself, but I guess you always do."

Teacher took his own separate way out of the Gateway to All the Hells. Jin remained alone seated on the dais.

Well, not quite alone.

"How did you know?" she asked. She glanced up at the serene golden face far above her. "Girl, I'm talking to you."

SO I ASSUMED. COULD YOU BE MORE SPECIFIC?

"How did you know I'd figure it out?"

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'VE 'FIGURED OUT,' JIN?

"Don't play coy with me. Not now. This was your plan, wasn't it? That I would confront Shiro, despite your warnings?"

YOU SAID IT YOURSELF, LUV -- YOUR CONFRONTATION WITH SHIRO WAS INEVITABLE, AND THERE WERE ONLY TWO POSSIBLE RESULTS. I THINK YOU MADE THE BETTER CHOICE, FOR WHAT THAT'S WORTH. HOW DID I KNOW? ARE YOU SO SURE I DID?

"No. That's why I want to hear it from you," Jin said grimly.

I AM YOU, JIN. HOW COULD I NOT KNOW WHAT I WOULD DO TO REDEEM SHIRO, OR ANYONE ELSE, GIVEN THE CHANCE? There was a pause, then: SOMEONE'S CALLING YOU.

"I know. And if you're really me, you know who and why. Two more questions before I go: Why Medias? And you knew my mother, once upon a time, and not as a client. What was she to you?"

IN ANSWER TO BOTH YOUR QUESTIONS: SHE WAS MY MOTHER, TOO. ONCE UPON A TIME.

Jin just shook her head. "Damn, I
am
an idiot."

EXCEPT WHEN YOU'RE NOT. YOU'VE GOT WORK TO DO, JIN. SHAN CAI AND LUNG NU ARE WAITING FOR YOU.

"I released them."

YOU CAN'T, OR AT LEAST NOT FOR LONG. LIKE IT OR LUMP IT, THEY COME WITH THE JOB. LATER, LUV.

In an hour's time Jin stepped through a portal into a jail cell where a man was awaiting a sentencing at once far worse and far better than he ever suspected or, deep down, believed he deserved.

"Hello, Lucius," Jin said.

He looked up, startled. "Jin? Jin Hannigan? Is that you?"

She smiled a little wistfully at him. "Yes, Lucius, it's me... more or less."

"How -- how did you get in here?"

"Never mind that. The important thing is: how do you get out?"

"I don't understand."

Jin nodded. "You sure as hell don't. Not yet, anyway. So, Lucius--you got a minute? We need to talk."

-The End-

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Parks has been writing and publishing fantasy and science fiction longer than he cares to remember…or probably can remember. His work has appeared in
Asimov’s SF
,
Realms of Fantasy
,
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
, and several “Year’s Best” anthologies. His first collection,
The Ogre’s Wife
, was a World Fantasy Award Finalist in 2002 and his work has also been a nominee for the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature. He blogs at “Den of Ego and Iniquity Annex #3”, also known as:
www.richard-parks.com

Personal Note: “With or without a traditional publisher (I’ve gone both ways), it’s hard for any writer to develop a readership in these days of fractured genres. If you enjoyed ATGOH, I would appreciate it if you would consider reviewing the book at Amazon, B&N, or the venue of your choice. Word of mouth and reader endorsements are simply the best advertising there is.”