Rockin’ Offa da Toppa Dis Apocalypse

Here’s a thing. It’s from the untitled tenth book, the one I often refer to as the tenth one. It’s kina like a white album sort of deal, that title-not-title thing—never mind. Anyway, this is the penultimate chapter in that book, reworked slightly for our story:

I saw him there, shining in the his own light, with perfect platinum hair and flawless ivory skin. Tall. Lean. And like a storm.

Wait, wait, wait. Lemme back this up a bit. There’s a part in a car leading up to this, I think. A pink convertible. That’s a better place to start. Gimme just a sec …

Fuck. I can’t find it. Aw, who cares. I’ll just rewrite it from memory. It’ll probably be better that way, anyhow.

We, the three of us—that’s me, Klava, and Roxy—were in the long pink car together. It’s what folks called a land yacht or a whale. I’m driving, Klava is shotgun—literally—and Rocks is in the back seat. She’s still kind of groggy, but she’s coming out of it.

The car was easily going over the cavern rocks, which I couldn’t explain. There’s lava and shit all around, dripping down the walls and stuff, but it isn’t too hot.

“We’re in the center of the world, aren’t we?” I asked Klava.

She smiled at me, beautiful and deadly, like always, but doesn’t say anything.

She doesn’t have to, I thought. I know we are.

After a few minutes of travel, we reached the end of the cavern. There’s a crack in the ceiling, like a vein of sky, opened up and bleeding out air and light. I thought I heard a hiss from it, or maybe a soft and raspy growl, where the light touched the cavern floor.

Okay, I think that catches us to now. I’ll drop the first line again, so you don’t have to go back or scroll up or whatever and reread it:

I saw him there, shining in the his own light, with perfect hair and flawless skin. Tall. Lean. Like a storm.

“Who da fuck’s that?” I asked.

Klava said, “That’s Nickolas.”

I sensed something in her. I’d have flipped my fancy eyes on, but they don’t work on Klava. Plus she can read minds, so she already knew I was curious.

“Yeah, I know him, love,” she said. “We used to have something.”

I felt the heat of jealousy, which is weird for me. I don’t feel that often.

Klava smiled at it. “I know you don’t.”

“Stop that.” Reading my mind, I meant.

“As you like it,” she said.

Nickolas walked closer, each step like a punch to my heart, sending waves of anxiety all through me, like The Black Book is agitated.

“What is with this guy?” I asked.

Klava shrugged.

“I am the end,” he said. Nickolas, or whoever he was.

I scrunched up my face, “Huh?”

He smiled, lips painted dark. Eyes too. “It’s time for the story to end. For good.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

My reflexes told me to go for the sword, so I went for it.

Bill’s belt buckle in hand, I plucked it off me, and it turned to long, lethal silver.

I got this belt buckle sword thingy in the second book, These Are the Things I Know, by the way. Then I tossed it in a junk drawer and forgot about it for awhile. But I got it back at some point, obvs. Not sure when. It’s in there somewhere. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, back to the show …

Nickolas watched it with what I took to be casual interest. He said, “I haven’t seen that in a quite some time.” Then he added, “It was my father’s.”

I kept the sword up, but looked at Klava.

She shrugged again.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nickolas said. “It’s extraneous information.”

“No. Tell me.”

“All right. It’s from another time. Another world. Worlds before this one. He found that sword, and his witchy Amazon lover enchanted it for him. I made a match for it later, in that future.”

“Like our past?” I asked.

“No. My past. It’s not in your universe at all.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t push him, love” Klava said. “I’ve seen him rip apart cities with a thought.”

Nickolas raised a hand. “I am not here to cause anyone hurt or suffering. That’s not why I was sent.”

“Sent by whom?” I asked.

“By Praxis.”

“Who the fuck’s Praxis?”

He smiled. I recognized it, the half-smile. From my family.

Still. I needed to hear it. “Who?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Funny. I don’t remember sending you.”

“Yes you do. You’re only pretending not too. For the story.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. So I said, “Okay. So what’s next?”

“Now the story ends.”

My heart was quick, and the familiar pang of death fear pulsed all through me, The Black Book’s tentacles trying to push out of my skin anywhere they could. “See I don’t like it when you say that …”

“I know. That’s why you picked me. I’m good at it.”

“Good at what?”

“Endings. I’ve ended many stories for you, many worlds. It’s my purpose, my function, my raison d’être.”

I looked at Klava.

She looked scared, which scared me even more, The Black Book threatening to jump from my body. It couldn’t, of course, being etched into me and all.

“Klava, you wanna jump in here?”

She said nothing.

“I will,” Roxy said. “Fuck ‘im up, T.”

I looked at the sword then at him. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna work, Rocks.”

“No,” he said. “It won’t. But please, be my guest, if it will make you feel better.”

He extended his hand and a larger version of the sword I was holding materialized. He set it level with mine, crossed the blades.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do it, T,” Roxy said. “You got this girl.”

I felt sweat on my face. “I … I have a doubt …”

“You should,” he said. “You know how this ends. There is no other way. It is your will.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Roxy said to him. “Cut that pretty face, Teresa! Do it now!”

Even though I knew Nickolas was right, I brought the sword up to chop, and he put the point of his gently to my neck, smiled. Then he took a step back, lowered the blade.

I chopped, bringing down all the force I could through a twist of the hips and little stomp of the foot.

He parried easily. Effortlessly.

“I’m really not a fun opponent,” he said. “I’m no good at throwing fights or telling evil plans or anything. I tend to just frustrate and annihilate.”

I winced. “I thought I was past this.”

He nodded. “Yes. You are. So should we end it now?”

I paused.

“No,” Roxy said. “Don’t do it.”

“I wasn’t asking you,” Nickolas said.

Roxy pushed up and sighed. “Fine. I’ll fuckin’ do it.”

Klava put a hand on her arm.

Roxy pulled free. “Get the fuck off me, bitch.”

Klava didn’t do anything, but she warned Roxy with her eyes.

Roxy wasn’t interested. She was after Nickolas.

He looked at me. “How would you like for me to handle this?”

I wasn’t sure. “I don’t know.”

“No rush.” He nodded toward her.

I looked and saw Roxy frozen mid stride.

“Is she okay?” I ask.

“I suppose,” he said. “She seems very unhappy.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes. She is fine. Sorry. I’m not good at jokes.”

“It’s fine,” I said, “But …”

“There truly is no rush,” he said. “We can do this however long you like. Forever if you like. And we can do it again, recursively. It’s why I exist. I know that now.”

But that’s the thing. I was, “Tired. I’m tired, Nicky.”

He nodded. “I know. It’s okay to rest now. It can end. Everything fails. All is swept away.”

Klava walked close to me.

I looked at her.

Her eyes told me first, then her lips.

I kissed her and then said, “I don’t know …”

She cracked a smile. “It’s all right, love. I was made to kill, too.”

I was confused, but I could still see the end. “All … right,” I said. The Black Book was quiet now, and I felt some resolve, even if it were the kind you feel when you’re jacked on adrenaline. “All right,” I said again.

Nickolas checked. “Are you sure? We can’t undo it easily.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I guess. Yeah. Okay. Whatever.”

He raised a hand, and then, just like that, the world came apart.

And by that, I mean, the entire Secretsverse ended. But, me being me, I just made it over again. You might have guessed that based on the fact that you’re here, I’m here, and that recursive jazz Nickolas mentioned in passing a minute ago.

So, T Van Santana & The Codex of Coherence was/is book 12. I didn’t finish it, though. Haven’t. Whatever. I’ve said this many times, but each showing, every time I go out and write a novel, I try to do something a little different with it than I’ve done before in the Secrets. So Codex was my attempt to write from a formula of sorts and it … was a lame experience. Plus, it was late 2016, if you know what I mean, and the world was falling the fuck apart. And the themes are super heavy—way too heavy for a formula book. Or maybe not? I dunno. I’ll find out when and if I finish it. There are parts of it that aren’t my story to tell, too, and those are really hard to write around.

Then book 13—which is SOMA. You’re getting really familiar with that one probably because it’s the backdrop for a lot of our stories together. It’s also my best Secrets novel, I think. This one may turn out better. We’ll see. And they’re linked, so.

Anyway, as you likely know, SOMA ‘ends’ with me being trapped in the Library Eternal. There’s SOMA-2, which is still heavily under construction. You could say this book you’re reading now is turning out to be something like SOMA-3—or more accurately SOMA-1.5—but let’s not worry about that, m’kay.

So then there’s this, which is from sometime after the Library, somehow:

California left the City behind.

That’s Soma, right? You get that, yeah? Just want to make sure you don’t get lost on me. Okay, lemme roll the reel back.

California left the City behind—two cities, actually.

So you might think I mean Soma and Soma-2 are the two cities, but the second city is actually Azza-Jono. How this California person got to A-J is a mystery, but that’s the second city here.

Winding back again.

California (yeah, let’s say California) left the …

Wait, wait, wait. Who dafuq’s California? you might be wondering.

It’s a person, right? Not the state? you ask.

Right, I say. You’re so pretty! So that California person is a mystery for the reader who starts with book 15, from which this passage is plucked. That book is called No One Ever Knows Why, in case you’re curious. It’s on the map, as you can plainly see.

But since you’re balls deep in secrets at this point, I’ll just tell you here and now: California is me. I’m them. T Van Santana. Why I’m using that alias … don’t worry about that. Just try to relax, remember? Ease into it. Loosen up. Be brave!

All right. One more effing time. I won’t stop it this time, pinky swear.

California (yeah, let’s say California) left the … City behind—two cities, actually; and, contained within each were multitudes of dreams, memories, creatures, layers, lairs, and so on; you get the idea. With them (and we say ‘them’ because they have a range of genders—some static and fixed, others quite mutable) floats along a light, a sort of flame whose fuel is its own essence (even though it would deny the existence of such), an energetic ouroboros of blue-green fire, not flickering exactly, but neither rocksteady. At its base is a sort of rag, not unlike a wick, but without any length, merely an inexact circumference; so think of a pile of melted wax but cloth-like.

The road ahead is long. [Ed. This is a reference to the unwritten Secrets book, T Van Santana & The Long Way Back. Or maybe it’s The Long Road Home or the The Long Way Home. Not sure yet.]

With [continually] tired, yet somehow inexhaustible eyes, California looked down that road. Their left eye flickered and sputtered, so they flicked it with a long-nailed finger—twice, in fact—until the image remained clear.

“I’m getting old, Teach,” California said to the floating light, which hovered near their left shoulder—which, incidentally, was also continuously tired and in pain, to boot.

“We all get old,” the light emanated, its voice clear in California’s head but making no sound waves, only light waves. “We all experience pain, aging, illness, death.”

“Paid in full,” California said with a grin, then scratched an itch in their beard and pulled a gray rag across their face. It had holes in it for the nose and mouth. Over this rag, they clicked into place their mask, a kind of respirator that was fed by tubes exiting each side, going over the shoulders and down the back to the breathing bladder (which itself reminded California of those city backpacks that were popular in the 2010s). All sorts of biomechanical magic happened in the bladder, as well as in the mask itself. California had once understood it; but, since the practical use of it had not required them to remember much, they had not.

“I used to have a near perfect memory, Lantern,” California said to the light.

“Or you thought you did, anyway.”

California sighed. “Yeah. Okay. Whatever.”

They put one old foot on the road, then the next, repeating that process thousands of times, as they had before, as so many had before.

Get it? If you don’t, that’s okay. We’re still stuck in the Library, remember? Loads to go before we get to all that me-as-California business.

Okay. That’s enough for this chapter. Getting too long for mah taste.

Play procedures:

• You may try to write your own continuity of events of your experience of the Secretsverse. I mean, for personal use only. Let’s not get into that whole official continuity bullshit. Later, if you learn the secret of time travel from someone like me or Riley or Knot, you can use this as a means of egress. I know, I know; I already gave you that ability at the beginning of this book; but, that’s for you as a reader, not you in the book, dig? Aw, whatever. Do it however you want.
• Close(-ish) reading question: How do Nickolas and Klava know each other? And what did they used to have? If you get the same answer I have, you can write it on your sheet.
• Lots of books to pick from here to add to your inventory. Any of those mentioned is up for grabs, but remember how much you are currently carrying, where on your person, and how. You can always stow it some place, as I’ve mentioned before.
• One more: Did you survive the apocalypse? Or do you have to start over? Your call, babe.