"OK, NOW YOU'RE GOING to tell me everything," I said. "What is going on, Relly? You've got to tell me."
We were walking along a gravel path in Mount Hope Cemetery. My first real date. Other girls get a movie and dinner. I got The Beautiful City of the Dead, as Relly called it. Other girls got small talk about school or TV or bands coming to town. Not me.
"We're gods," he said.
"Right. We're gods."
"I'm not kidding."
"I know you're not kidding," I said. "That's what scares me."
"It's true, Zee. You saw me. You saw the fire come, right? That was no lie."
"And I'm going to burst into flames, too? That's what you're going to tell me next, right?"
"No. Not flame. Not you."
"Then what are you talking about? Gods? I'm about as godlike as a ... as a ... You're talking like a looney! You know that?"
"Just because you're looney doesn't mean you don't tell the truth."
We walked along, silent, for a while.
The cemetery really is a beautiful place, with winding paths and little ponds, hills overgrown with tall grass, endless ranks of gravestones. I didn't put up any fuss when he said he wanted for us to go there. I knew we could be alone there, just the two of us and a quarter million dead people. I like the quiet. I like the weeping maidens, angels, draped urns, crosses, and obelisks. I guess it was kind of romantic, even. Just the two of us, walking on a cold afternoon.
I'd brought along my notebook and copied down some of the gravestone poetry.
Weep not for me, my friends so dear.
I am not dead, just sleeping here.
My grassy bed, my grave you see.
Prepare in life to follow me.
"We're gods. Both of us," Relly said again after a while.
"You mean, like, I'm Venus and you're Jupiter?"
"Not planets, gods. The real thing. Gods that once were and will be again." I hated it when he talked this way. And I loved it too. Until that minute, scuffing through the dead leaves in Mount Hope, I would have just said I couldn't stand it when Relly talked like he was insane. But something had changed. In me maybe, in him, or in the whole world. I don't know. Whatever it was, it gave me a feeling like I'd never had before.
Right, me, the bass player hidden back behind Relly and Jerod. Right, the girl who never talked. I was a god. Me, Zee, lousy at school, sniffling with colds half my life, the one nobody noticed. I was a god now. Or maybe I always had been.
I wanted to laugh. And I guess if I'm being honest, I wanted to cry too. "It's all a lie," I whispered. "But go on, keep talking."
"It's not a lie. We've got the power, Zee. Real power like hardly anyone in the whole world. Gods don't die. Think about it, Zee. You'll never have to die."
We stopped, looking down on a pond in a little steep-sided valley. The water was utterly still and inky black. It was strange, what I felt. Peaceful and terrified at the same time. The quiet of the cemetery gave me a sense of peace. And Relly beside me, talking about gods, made me want to run and never turn back.
The strangest thing was not that I'd have these feelings, but that I'd have them at the same time. How could I hold such opposites in my heart? But I did. I hated Relly for the way he made me feel. And I never wanted to say goodbye. I loved being in the graveyard with him and I wanted to escape like a drowning swimmer wants air.
"OK, we're gods," I said. No point in arguing with him. He was so matter of fact. "So what does that mean?"
"First, we're not like everyone else." That was almost funny. Me and Relly like other people? A couple of Ghost Metal kids on a date in the cemetery. How could anyone think that was normal?
"I mean that the same rules don't apply to us. Because we're gods."
"So I can skip school and I won't get in trouble? Secret gods don't have to take final exams?"
"I'm serious, Zee. Serious as a heart attack."
"All right. So we're different and the rules don't apply to us. What else?"
"They'll do anything to get what they want from us. From you."
"Who's they?" I asked.
"Knacke, for starters. And Frankengoon. He's part of it, too. And Scratch. That's the one who called you, the guy with the big eye."
"OK, so the bio teacher, the assistant principal, and the janitor are going to get us somehow?"
"You can laugh all you want, Zee. But sooner or later you're going to understand. You're going to believe."
"I'm trying to understand!" I was almost yelling now. "But this is all totally insane. You get that, right? This is not the way things are supposed to work."
"Yeah, I get it. And it's still the truth. They'll do anything to get what they want. There's a war coming, Zee. A battle to the death."
"A battle between a teenage heavy metal band and a high school janitor?"
"That's what it looks like on the outside. But on the inside, it's a lot bigger, a lot scarier, and way more important. And anyway, Scratch isn't really a janitor. He just was there yesterday to see you, to get at you. He won't be back with the mop and bucket. He'll take some other form."
"Like what? An evil librarian? The lunch lady from hell?"
"Making jokes won't change anything, Zee. What I'm saying is true. When the four true elements come together—fire and water, air and earth—then there's power like you can hardly imagine. Then it's real."
"What's real?"
"Think about it, Zee. What do gods have that mortals don't?"
"Funny names."
He scowled. "What else?" I thought of the Ghost Metal sound, the crowd at Waterstreet going nuts for us. "What else?" he demanded.
"You mean like people worshiping, making offerings?"
"And?"
"They live forever."
He nodded. "That's what Knacke wants. He's old, Zee. Way older than he looks. He's sick. And he's going to die soon if he doesn't get what he needs."
It was already way too much. Every answer he gave stirred up another dozen questions. My brain was already in overload mode. Words came out of Relly's mouth. And I guess I understood them. But it was too much. I started to shut down.
Soon enough he saw what was going on. "We should get on back," he said. "Are you cold?"
I nodded. He put his arm around me. It didn't drive off the cold. But the numb, faraway feeling wasn't so bad anymore.