99 Gods: Betrayer Read online

Crapola. Pete’s face looked too long to fit on a copier for a face scan.

  Without saying a word, Pete placed a several page contract on Dave’s desk and pushed the pile over to him with the barest tips of his fingers.

  One glance and Dave knew. At least he hadn’t gotten the word via a form email.

  He would even sign with his real name, not ‘Daffy Duck’. The generous buyout option was enough to negate his urge to inject his variety of humor into the equation.

  Even this…

  Even this didn’t explain his bowel-clenching woo-woo moment in front of the mirror this morning.

  Dave picked up Ron, Shannon and Stacy from the after-school day-care and wound his way on home, up into the mountains hiding his exurban home from Denver proper. The satellite radio stayed off. The traffic didn’t clog the roads today, despite the day’s floating snow, which normally made his trek to his and his wife’s home in Indian Hills treacherous. The bump at the edge of their noticeably steep but freshly plowed driveway rattled the deal toys in their boxes in the back of his SUV, hushing the low murmurs of his three kids. Dave still couldn’t corral his scattered thoughts, flashing back again to his earlier woo-woo moment: a sidelong glance at himself in the mirror, looking far younger, far more handsome and far more commanding than he had ever been.

  Disturbing. Disquieting. Normally, his little problem didn’t intrude into his daily life in such an obtrusive manner.

  Half way up the driveway, he realized the interior lights already glowed.

  “Mommy’s home?” Ron said, speaking over what sounded like a humorous dogtrainer’s Lias feed. He ran his hands through his eleven year old’s shaggy hair and smiled. His two sisters, nine and seven, chattered in response.

  “I believe so,” Dave said. Either that or a burglar had stopped by for some impromptu home remodeling.

  The kids raced out of the car, ahead of Dave, who took the time to stamp a bit of warmth into his feet before he followed them out of the three car garage and into the main house. “Mommy, mommy, mommy,” went the refrain.

  “Settle down,” Tiff said, after the normal hug exchange. She hadn’t changed from her corporate uniform. In combination with her severe hairstyle, her clothes aged her ten years. Not an improvement, in Dave’s book. “Why don’t you go run off for a while? I want to talk to Daddy.” She paused while the kids detached and ran off toward the game room, where soon one of a half dozen different electronic gadgets would entertain them, and then slid a thick package of paperwork across the granite kitchen island snack bar to him in a manner reminding him of Pete Diaz, earlier. “Got the paperwork from Reynolds.”

  “Oh,” Dave said. Yet another surprise for the day, in this case the divorce paperwork.

  He sighed and read. Tiff went back to her phablet, haphazardly noshing on a plate of microwaved burritos, zapped fresh from the freezer.

  The paperwork exactly matched their regurgitatively reargued verbal agreement. He didn’t expect otherwise. Tiff didn’t have the greedy spouse problem. He did, but he had managed to stifle all the greedy urges he felt over the various pieces of his heart scattered around the house he once thought was his.

  Tiff got the house.

  The property agreement wasn’t in here, though. This paperwork, an elaborate post-nuptial agreement, covered items and issues they didn’t want in the formal divorce papers. The small stuff. What he and Tiff had done to the Reynolds law office in their insistence on doing divorce their own way had nearly given the Reynolds’ lawyers heart attacks.

  After he read the paperwork over twice, he signed. The paperwork already showed Tiff’s elegant and large cursive signature.

  They weren’t easy people.

  “You can stay until you find another place to live, but I want the Dubuque shrine out of your office tonight,” Tiff said.

  Dave blinked through the non-sequitur as he raided the freezer for frozen dinners for himself and the kids. Chicken and rice. Add in a plate of barely edible microwaved vegetables and anyone would get fat, Dave decided. Food like this certainly hadn’t helped him.

  “I thought you appreciated the shrine,” he said, his eyes half-lidded after today’s repeated surprises.

  “I lied,” Tiff said. “I didn’t want to start another fight.”

  Typical Tiff.

  “Why?”

  Tiff didn’t answer, instead finger surfing her phablet. “Your shrine scares the crap out of me, that’s why,” Tiff said, a quiet minute later. “This whole crazy situation scares me, the Gods as well as all the other fringe types the Gods forced out into the daylight.”

  “Like me, your friendly neighborhood useless Psychic?” He knew his pathetic Psychichood bothered Tiff. Almost as bad as the fact he was a devotee of Dubuque, the Living Saint who had saved his life via prayer. Even after all of the meditation practice he had done with Psychic, even after all of his internet reading, he still couldn’t do anything more with it than annoy Tiff.

  Tiff didn’t rise to the bait. “Telepaths and magicians aren’t too bad, but the Minds of the Sea, whoever or whatever they may be, make me want to crawl under the covers and shiver. What’s Earth doing with goddamned sea monsters, anyway?” Tiff frowned and looked away. “I think if there’re any more big fights we’re going to see even more wacko types crawling out into the open. What’s next? UFOs and extraterrestrials? Demons from Hell? The Loch Ness Monster? Bigfoot?”

  Dave grunted and didn’t answer, though his skin did prickle. The prickle said ‘here it comes’. He ignored the prickle.

  “You have a bad day or something?”

  Dammit. “Yes. Pete and the others bought me out.”

  “Hell and doubledamnation, Dave! Why’d you sign the papers? I thought we were going to renegotiate if they bought you out.” Despite the divorce, Tiff still thought in terms of ‘us against the world’. Tiff wanted the divorce because Dave had turned from ‘spouse’ into ‘loveable strategic liability’. In her words. He didn’t agree. He thought the divorce would allow her to work those hundred hour weeks she so desperately wanted.

  Dave thought Tiff needed to upgrade the heat sink on her heart. Too much overclocking.

  “They bought me out with option B,” Dave said. Option B included a tidy lump sum of money as severance, a two year non-compete clause, and a heaping stack of wallpaper-quality IOUs to cover the rest of his stake in the company. “I decided there wasn’t anything to renegotiate.”

  “What are you going to do about the joint child support pool?”

  “I’ve got, worst case, four years of child support in my buyout, not counting generous living expenses for me,” Dave said. “The non-compete clause is only for two years. I have leads up and down the West Coast as well, such as with Marcy, Portland’s Wise Shepherd you introduced to me over the Net. Not that I want to…”

  “Whatever,” Tiff said. He had said he would sign, despite her worries, and so Tiff’s mind had gone on to other things. Such as the video feed on her phablet so capturing her attention. Probably yet another crazy God stunt.

  Just before Thanksgiving Atlanta and Miami, two of the Territorial Gods, had duked it out to their mutual deaths, taking one hundred and seventeen innocent civilians to the grave with them. The initial utopian exuberance caused by the August appearance of the 99 Gods vanished that day, replaced by everything from grudging acceptance to outright hostility. Sides formed. Factions formed. The economy tanked. The public howled on the internet, talk radio and on cable, but the Gods ignored the clamor and continued to play their deadly politics.

  Everyone now called the ongoing disaster the Troubles; the stock market and GDP had fallen by Great Depression percentages, and kept on falling.

  The microwave beeped.

  “Dinner,” Dave shouted into the house intercom. Three kids, not anywhere as malnourished and starving as they thought, appeared after a short thunder of footsteps.

  “Dave, you don’t have to be unrealistic,” Tiff said, once the children ran off after pickin
g desultorily at their microwaved carrots. She had slammed her phablet face down in disgust half way through their kid’s dinner and had spent the rest of the time quizzing the kids about their day. “I can support you if you need.”

  Be still my quacking duck, what’s Tiff up to this time? “Thanks, but I don’t think so,” Dave said.

  “I’d rather have you staying in Denver and living downtown than out of state. The kids would appreciate having you around.”

  Ah. Mystery solved. Just another case of quasi-enlightened self-interest. “I fully intend to get back into the Denver consulting market after the two years are up,” Dave said. He motioned and they moved the conversation into the family room. They sat down opposite each other, with a coffee table smartly in the way. “I’ll even look in Denver first. Promise.” He put his hand on his heart.

  “I’m serious,” Tiff said. She didn’t even smile.

  The child custody questions had delayed their divorce for two months, as neither wanted to give up any of their hard-earned work freedoms. They never solved the dilemma, but after a long screaming session on the subject Tiff had, out of the blue, decided to start the child custody negotiations over from scratch. Their kids had become her kids in her mind for the first time.

  Negotiating from the they’re my kids position actually worked better, save for Tiff’s tendency to put dollar signs on all the variables. “What would it take? Would an extra two thousand a month be enough?” Tiff said, providing evidence for his mental argument.

  “The problem isn’t the money, but what staying out of the market would do to my resume,” Dave said. He had his own interests, as career-centric as Tiff’s. “It’s…”

  The doorbell rang. Dave raised his hand and went to the door.

  “Expecting anyone?” Tiff said, from behind him.

  “No,” Dave said. All his friends had deserted him after he turned to Dubuque to save his life. “You?”

  “Me?” Tiff said. “Never.” Tiff’s work consumed her life. Before his illness and miraculous cure, Dave had been the one with the social life and friends. He peered through the frosty door and found a woman dressed in an overcoat and winter hat carrying a briefcase and a purse, but couldn’t make out the face. Beyond her he spied a car in the parking circle. The overly bright automatic houselights were on, illuminating two people in the car, one a driver and the other in the front seat, both men. Dave frowned and opened the door.

  “Can I help you?” he asked. “Is…”

  He interrupted his question when the woman glanced up at him from beneath a snow-dusted hood and gave him an expectant look. Familiar face. Stunning beauty. Somewhere a fashion magazine was missing one of its models, and here she was. Pins and needles ran up his arms.

  He had the urge to check behind him to find out if anyone had put a ‘kick me’ sign on his ample rear end, but he manfully restrained the urge.

  “Elorie?” He had been thinking about her last week, wondering the old what-ifs for the umpteenth gazillion time. He couldn’t believe she stood here at his doorway.

  The mention of a woman’s name drew attention from behind him. Tiff padded softly across the family room, muttering something crude about his gender.

  “Yes, Dave,” Elorie said, blinking her long eyelashes. She didn’t appear to be happy to see him. “I know this is sudden, a shock, but I have a job offer for you. I know about your job and personal troubles, and that we have a while to talk before your wife gets home.”

  Tiff walked up behind Dave, hidden from Elorie. Then, at the last second, she stepped to the side and leaned carnivore-like on the doorframe. Typical Tiff. “His wife is already home and Valentine’s Day was last week,” Tiff said. “Do I know you?”

  Elorie’s face fell several octaves when she spotted Tiff. “Pardon me? Probably not,” Elorie said. “If this is a bad time…”

  Tiff shook her head. “I know we agreed we could see other people but…I thought you would go for someone younger.”

  Elorie crossed her arms and her eyebrows went down in offense. Dave repressed the urge to strangle his soon to be former wife. Nobody deserved the full Tiff treatment, especially old acquaintances of his.

  He scuffed his feet, boggled again by Elorie’s appearance here. Disbelief again threatened to waft his mind off into the clouds. “This isn’t what you think, Tiff,” he said, amazed to find the right words. “Tiff, this is Elorie Portath, or at least that was her name when I knew her in high school.” He had run into her twice since, disasters too short to permit gentle inquiries into her marital status.

  “Oh? That Elorie?” Tiff pushed the door open, reaching around Dave to do so. “This will be amusing. Come in, please.”

  With the door fully open, Dave could make out the two men in the front seat of the rental (no one in their right mind ever bought their particular GMC model). Rough-looking types; mobsters, gangsters, hard men of some variety or other. Not the sort of people Dave expected to find with Elorie.

  Elorie uncrossed her arms, matched Tiff glare for glare and stalked in. “Thanks for the invitation,” she said, her tone as falsely friendly as Tiff’s.

  Dave shut the door and followed. Every time he relaxed he decided the day wouldn’t get any worse, but each time he had been wrong. He had the urge to go tell the men in the car their mothers were cheap whores.

  Certainly safer than being inside Tiff’s house right now.

  “May I offer you something to drink?” Tiff asked Elorie, after she sat. Dave had almost pushed to sit them in the piano room, the more formal of their sitting rooms, but Tiff led them to the neatly informal family room. His head continued to spin. Elorie, here? Now? Today? Did she also know that he and Tiff had finalized their divorce? Coincidences this crazy just didn’t happen to ordinary people.

  “No, I’m fine,” Elorie said. She had taken off her snow-dappled coat and laid it on the back of her chair. She wore designer jeans and a fancy-cut dark blouse, mostly hidden by a blue wool sweater that reeked of Needless Markups. She kept her purse in her lap and put her briefcase at her feet. When Dave had known her in high school Elorie had the beauty of youth, nice looking but not exceptional. Each time he had run into her she had been more beautiful. Now? Fashion model.

  Too bad the same thing hadn’t happened to him. All he had got out of his years was a midlife belly, an early case of gray hair mixed in with the dark, and thinning on top.

  “So,” Tiff said. She leaned back against the couch, casual and predatory. “I want to hear this job offer. I take it you know about the pending divorce and the fact Dave’s partners at DPMJ just bought him out?”

  Elorie glanced at Dave, frowned, and then back at Tiff, her expression blank again. “Are you his agent?” Elorie’s voice still reeked of New York City. Dave’s Puerto Rican tinged New York accent had vanished years ago, lost and never to be found. His generic American appearance from his younger days had gone the other way; he now resembled several of his couldn’t-pass-as-anything-but-Hispanic Uncles. All he needed to complete the picture was their big bushy moustaches.

  “Legally I’m still his wife. I’ll serve as his agent until he snaps out of it. You’ve shocked him. The day’s shocked him.”

  “Okay. The job’s ten thousand a month, no benefits, paid in advance at the beginning of each month,” Elorie said.

  “Doing what?”

  “Confidential,” Elorie said. “Travel will be involved, which we pay for.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Confidential as well.”

  Tiff nodded, as if she understood. “How’d you find out Dave’s partners were going to buy him out? I didn’t know and I have the resources to keep track of such things.”

  Tiff’s comment jolted Dave back to reality, reminding him of the netherworld he had found in Tiff’s life when he and Tiff finally talked about their differences. Her data brokerage firm gave him the creeps, as did her job as a ‘social engineering’ supervisor. She knew how to be a person, professionally and elec
tronically, to better data mine their records.

  “I understand you have questions,” Elorie said. “But I can’t talk about any of them.”

  “Telepaths. Portland’s group, I’ll bet,” Tiff said. Dave’s eyebrows shot up at Tiff’s reach. She had leapt far ahead of him, as usual these days. Self-defense had forced her to show all her moves, and what she had shown terrified him. “How else could you know?”

  Elorie didn’t answer.

  Tiff did have a point. She had intimated many times that her company dealt with the Gods and their organizations of wacky types. But why him?

  A deceased fortuneteller’s comment, saying he was meant for greater things, rattled through his mind. Perhaps she had been right.

  No. No way.

  “I don’t think I’m interested in a blind job offer,” Dave said. Especially if Tiff had punctured Elorie’s mystery. Messing in the affairs of the Gods was dangerous. Even at a sizeable percentage of his old salary. His one little dance around Godly affairs would last the rest of his life. Literally.

  Elorie took a deep breath and relaxed. Almost a smile. Dave couldn’t help but marvel.

  “The stunned awakes,” Tiff said. “Good. I’ll leave you two to hash this out on your own, now that you’re back among the thinking, Dave.” She stood and walked toward their office, then turned when she reached the hallway. “The Recruiter” the well-known Telepath Alton Freudenberger “must have made one of his rare mistakes if you got sent here, Elorie.” Tiff, the libertarian’s nightmare, as normal had lapped the intel curve. “If you don’t believe me, Elorie, I can show you Dave’s shrine to Dubuque.”

  Tiff turned and strolled off, phablet in hand, as happy as any evil data-miner could be.

  Dave turned back to Elorie. Her eyes turned icy, her face perfectly blank. “No mistakes were made,” she said. “Your almost ex-wife is right, though, about the Telepaths and Portland. They are why I’m here.”

  Tingles ran up and down his arms again. “Uh,” Dave said, the most intelligent thing that came to his mind. He didn’t run, though, and a deeper part of him started the tedious task of figuring out why.