99 Gods: War Read online

  “The name’s Passion.”

  “Fits,” Atlanta said. She stepped forward and tried to throw Passion. Passion threw her. She picked herself up and Passion’s purple fists thudded into her face and abdomen, followed by an elbow to the chin. Pain lanced through her. She tried to recover and take down Passion with a leg sweep, but he skipped out of the way, grabbed her arm above the elbow, and tossed her twenty feet into a gold-gilt marble wall, about five feet away from the naked woman. Atlanta felt her body thin and she almost blacked out.

  “Your martial arts skills appear to be years out of practice,” Passion said. “Too bad for you, as I am the ideological master of creative destruction.” He smiled and ran at her.

  Atlanta had mental track four make another mental note, this one to get her hand-to-hand retrained. She had learned the Semper Fu back in Basic and had kept it up until she won her place as a Marine aviator. She needed to bring it back up to speed.

  There went more damned time from the advanced college courses she currently audited. Her pre-Apotheosis life hadn’t prepared her for the responsibilities of being a Territorial God, and she was dancing as fast as her feet moved to do the job right.

  She really needed two hundred hour days to keep her from drowning in all of this shit.

  From where she crouched in pain on the floor, Atlanta leapt straight up into the air, hovered, and as Passion, master of the markets’ animal spirits, ran at her, she focused her entire will into her one big discovery, the golden fire. She loosed it from her fingers just before he reached her and blasted it into him and the area around him, which included the naked woman. Passion pancaked underneath the force of the willpower blast, flattened as thin as a rug. Atlanta hung in the air, drained, and as she took great deep breaths she sank slowly to lie flat on the floor. She met the eyes of the two remaining normal humans and growled. They dropped their weapons and fled.

  “Wow,” the naked woman said. “What did you do? It passed right through me. I thought I was a goner there.” She evacuated her chair, another one of those leather and gold filigree things, as if it threatened her personally, and attempted to avoid stepping her bare feet into shattered marble and gore.

  “Golden fire harms Gods but doesn’t damage the furniture,” Atlanta said. “Or even the mortals.” If she had a real body, she knew she would be a mass of bruises. Aching, she picked herself up off the marble tile floor. She needed a good long rest.

  “You’ve gone after Gods before?” the woman asked. Cheeky, forward and fearless, and not at all bothered by any aspect of divine awe. No feeling of hostility or murderous death on her, either. Special, though. Very special.

  “Nope,” Atlanta said. “Experimented on myself.” She looked around and save for the whimpering Indulgence, still spread across the copier, all the rest of the Suits were out cold, or whatever analog passed for ‘out cold’ with their screwy Godly no-flesh bodies. Utterly pathetic. “I’m Atlanta, as you overheard. You need some clothes?”

  “Dana Ravencraft. Yes, I’d like some clothes. These bastards disintegrated mine, and I don’t know any tricks to allow me to get them back.”

  Atlanta walked over to Dana and inspected the tall, willowy, black haired Middle Easterner. Iranian, perhaps? She backed away, to fall backwards into her chair again. “Interesting. You’re not half-bad looking at all, despite the smallish tits,” Atlanta said, wrinkling her nose. Dana’s skin was about as pasty white as Atlanta had ever seen. Dana shivered at Atlanta’s statement. “I can un-disintegrate your clothes for you.” Dana nodded, so Atlanta did. Dana’s clothes reappeared on her, a proper woman’s business suit.

  “Thank you,” Dana said, her voice now a bit unsteady, which pleased Atlanta. Normal humans should feel some respect for Gods. “May I ask a question?”

  “You may,” Atlanta said. She turned her back on Dana for a moment as she went over to Capitalism’s remains. She put her hand on Capitalism’s head and focused her willpower on Capitalism’s mind. If these idiot Gods could play with minds, there shouldn’t be any reason why she couldn’t.

  Nothing. Either Capitalism still maintained his mind shields or she didn’t have what it took. She suspected the latter.

  “Isn’t what you did here going to affect the Integrity of the 99 Gods as well?” Dana said. “You killed all but one of them.”

  “They attacked me first and the Suits aren’t dead, not even close,” Atlanta said. Offing another psychopath would be a plus, she already knew. “They’ll recover. No harm to the Integrity.” She hit Capitalism’s head with golden fire, pancaking it. “Some might recover faster than others, if I’m not careful.”

  “I don’t understand,” Dana said. “When Portland and I spar, what I do to her doesn’t heal so easily, or show this strange silver substance these Ideological Gods appear to be made from.”

  “Interesting,” Atlanta said. She found herself impressed that a softie like Portland had the sense to spar with the more dangerous varieties of willpower. “Our creators said mortals can hurt us if we’re not careful. It’s to keep us in our place, to remind us that although we’re Gods, we’re not God Almighty. I hadn’t realized this was a physical warning.”

  “Creators? You mean the Angelic Host, don’t you?” Dana said. She attempted again to escape from her captor chair and stood up. Atlanta nodded. “Uh, could we get out of here, Atlanta? This place creeps me out, and these Gods’ opinion about what to do with people like me, mortals with unnatural tricks, involves rape, torture and death.”

  “Don’t you want to finish your spying mission?” Atlanta said.

  Dana frowned. “It wasn’t that sort of spying mission. I followed Portland’s orders not to set foot into their lair or to approach the Suits.” Pause. “How’d you know about the spy mission?”

  “You just told me,” Atlanta said. Dana’s eyebrows lowered as several of the young woman’s precious assumptions evaporated. Portland’s servant hadn’t thought her cunning. Or smart. “Take my hand.”

  Dana did as Atlanta ordered. Atlanta bent her will and flew, carrying Dana along beside her. Out the window they went. Then up, Atlanta maintaining breathable air around them. Not that Atlanta believed she needed to breathe, but her Imago breathed, and the Host had warned all the Territorials not to quickly change their Imagos.

  2. (Nessa)

  “Fannie Mae!” Nessa said, making her utterance sound like a four-letter-word. She walked across the worn tan low-pile carpeting of her trailer home to her wall-mounted gun rack. Her eyes flickered from top to bottom and she selected the over-under 30.06 shotgun, the third of seven. She flicked the weapon off the wall with an overhand grip grab, opened it, rummaged through the second drawer of a nearby cabinet, filled with shotgun shells, and grabbed a handful. She loaded two and stuck the rest in her baggy jeans pockets. On a whim, she spied an old pistol of hers, an Enfield revolver, which she grabbed and stuck in the front of her jeans. She smiled. This one wasn’t loaded.

  Trouble. Trouble coming.

  She walked over to a table near her couch, where she had a small mirror lying face down. Nessa looked at herself, not flat on but with her peripheral vision. Her eyes held deep hollows, her lips almost non-existent, her facial bones prominent. Her hair worried her. She flung her hair around to the front of her body, where it hung down to her waist. None of the gathers and clips had shifted at all. Perfect, in her mind, though enough gray shot through her hair a stranger would notice with a simple glance. Her hair almost shined, as it always had, a brown so dark it was almost black, a color on others often dead and lifeless.

  She turned the mirror over and straightened out a bit of clutter, noticing a drawing pad, open to a half-drawn snake’s eye view of a soon to be eaten mouse. She flipped the drawing pad closed and quickly stuffed it back into the magazine rack next to two fellow closed drawing pads.

  “Good enough,” she said, and walked out the front door, past the sod wall, and out to the stone porch. She had built it all, despicably difficult work. Sh
e had also built a wooden bench, a place to sit and ponder nature close to home. The bench already showed too much age. The morning cloud deck, not far above, hinted at breaking up, though from the faint ocean smell on the breeze she doubted the overcast would follow through, at least not today. If she wanted sunshine, she would be living somewhere else.

  She sat on the bench, put the shotgun across her legs, closed her eyes and waited. The temperature was in the fifties, but she no longer felt the cold. What passed for fall here would soon be over, and real cold would follow.

  Many long minutes later, car tires crunched on gravel down the hill below her trailer home and Nessa opened her eyes. Five dwellings shared this ill-maintained driveway, hers at the top. The car, a rental, pulled into view around the last corner of pines and parked in Nessa’s crude and empty parking spot. She didn’t own a car, but she contributed maintenance to the Wilson’s pickup, and used it when she needed wheels.

  Nessa shook her head. She had guessed right.

  The man she recognized climbed out of the rental. “Bolnick,” Nessa said. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Old memories skittered forward in her mind, bad memories, and she pushed them back to where they belonged.

  “Nice to see you too, Vanessa,” the man said, nonchalant, standing at the side of his rental car. A black man in a brown suit. He wasn’t armed. He didn’t flinch when Nessa raised the shotgun.

  “I asked you a question,” Nessa said, a growl entering her voice. “And my name’s still Nessa.”

  “I’m here to ask you a question” pause “Nessa,” he said. “Are you responsible for…”

  “Jesus!” she said, interrupting him. “You’re an idiot for coming here. Questions? Some damned investigation? I’m done with investigations.” Nessa stood and took five quick steps toward the man. He flicked several glances at the shotgun and wrung his hands, but he didn’t move back. “What’s the matter, Bolnick? Forget how to talk? You look old. Tired. Worn down.”

  Again, he didn’t respond. Nessa lowered the shotgun and began to circle the man. “What’s in your ear? Oh my god, little Kenny Bolnick has an ear stud. Woo hoo.” Nessa circled around behind him. “Where’s your ass? Did you lose the damned thing somewhere?” She came around his right side. He didn’t move. “I like the short hair. Much better than when you were shaving your head bald. Say something, Ken, dammit.” She stopped when she got back in front of him.

  Ken shrugged.

  “I guess you’re not leaving, are you,” Nessa said. She felt calmer now, the spoken insults carrying away her sudden ire, and with it her muscle-clenching tension. “Hell, Ken, I’m still bad news. Whatever you want can’t be bad enough for you to want to come here. I’m not into the old stuff anymore. I’ve changed. How’d you find this place, anyway?”

  “I’m a private detective, remember?” he said, his voice calm. His first words since she had gone off on him. “You used to work with me.”

  Nessa shrugged. Her memory wasn’t as bad as he imagined. “Yup, California private detectives, until the explosion and the confrontation. Well, this ain’t fuck’n California, shit for brains,” Nessa said, refinding her original anger. She turned her back on him, stalked back to the bench, and put down the shotgun. “I’m not any better than before. Recently, worse.” A wet sticky scent of pine crawled up the hill and past Nessa’s nose. Rain nearby.

  “I can tell,” Ken said. He reached into his suit jacket, slowly, and brought out a couple of half-pound chocolate bars. “You still like imported dark chocolate? I brought some for you.”

  Nessa laughed, turned and sat down on the bench, and put her head in her hands. “Bribes already, eh? ‘Good doggie, here’s a doggie treat’, shit. It’ll work, too. I’m pathetic. I’m sooo pathetic.” She paused as her mood changed from chagrin back to a few jiggles of ire. Ken didn’t approach. “If you were at all smart, you’d run like hell. I’m not fit company. Sorry about the abuse. You know how I am. Shit, I was abusing you like we’d first met or something. Normally I’m more polite, but I’ve been edgy this last six weeks.” She closed her eyes to quiet her nerves and the feeling of impending mess.

  “Haven’t we all,” Ken said.

  Nessa looked up at Ken. His comment didn’t make any sense to her. It made sense to him, which was enough for Nessa for the moment. “You want to come inside? I can make you some coffee.” Her anger exhausted, her voice faked pleasantly human. Of course she would invite him in after she exhausted her anger.

  Why else had she straightened up her place beforehand?

  Ken took a deep breath and lowered his shoulders. “Okay.” He walked up to Nessa, slow and careful, who stood as he approached. His wary eyes looked down at her from a mere two inch advantage. She opened the trailer door for him and motioned him inside. He went.

  “You still freak near guns, don’t you,” Nessa said, as she followed him in, close behind. Ken grunted and didn’t otherwise answer, bringing a half smile to her face. “Pick a couch, any couch.” She owned only one.

  He sat on the couch and tossed the chocolate bars to Nessa. She caught them, opened one, and broke off a square. As she did, she spied one of Uffie’s ethological manuscripts, a draft paper from four months ago, peeking out from under a corner of the couch. She kicked the document out of sight. “You can lose the pistol. It isn’t loaded,” Ken said.

  “You didn’t used to be able to tell,” Nessa said, words garbled by the piece of chocolate in her mouth. She sucked on the square as slowly as she could, to make it last. The chocolate was wonderful. She took the old Enfield revolver out of her jeans and put it on the kitchen counter before she hunted around for the instant coffee. She didn’t drink the stuff but she always kept a jar of it handy for her infrequent visitors. If instant coffee could go stale, hers had years ago.

  “This’s yours, Nessa?” Ken said. Nessa turned and saw him ogling one of her inexpert paintings, of a chimpanzee Uffie called Crackback. Crackback had a dead vole in his hand, surrounded by his native jungle. The chimpanzee was just about to eat the vole. “It’s perfect, as if you were another chimp crouching and warily watching this important male.”

  Nessa made the instant coffee, taking a moment to straighten out her napkin holder. “Thanks. That’s what it’s supposed to look like.” Although she kept the painting out because Uffie adored it, she saw all the flaws. Horrid.

  “You’re forgetting to eat again, aren’t you?” Ken said.

  “You’re one to talk. You know how things go.”

  Ken looked at his own thin arms. “If I’m with people who eat, I remember to eat too.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t care,” Nessa said. “If I really need food, I’ll eat.” She grinned and broke off another piece of chocolate. “With one exception.” She glanced at her gaunt hands and lower arms. The veins on her hand did stick out, and the skin looked sucked in around her hand bones, her wrist reduced to a big knob. Age, she had thought, but Ken could be right. The last six weeks had been exceptionally bad. She couldn’t remember consuming anything but tea. “How much chocolate did you bring me?” she said. “Out in the rental vehicle?”

  “Enough.”

  “Dammit, you have some sort of job going and you want me functional, don’t you?” Nessa said. She brought Ken his coffee and placed the mug in his hands. She sat down on the coffee table in front of him, crowding him on purpose. He took a sip and made a face. She wiggled around so her legs thrust rudely between his.

  “Now you’re trying to poison me,” Ken said.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “You interrupted my question, but perhaps the questions can wait,” he said. He studied her closely, as if she was the target of his investigation. “So, how’s life been treating you?”

  Nessa shook her head. He meant work questions, not chit-chat questions. “I’m alive,” she said. “I work, when I can, with my collaborator. You never met her. Her name’s Uffie Zumbrennen and she’s a Professor of Zoology at Stanford.�
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  “Back home, not here,” Ken said.

  “Back home. The work doesn’t pay much, so when I need money I do odd jobs around here. Cleaning, mostly.”

  “Anyone in your life?” Ken asked. “You didn’t ever get back with Ron, did you?”

  “No, his luck ran out,” Nessa said. Ken blinked but didn’t respond to her limp joke. “No, dammit, I didn’t get back with him or kill him, though I thought about it. I eventually divorced the son of a bitch.” Last Ken knew she and Ron had separated. “Nobody since him, though. I learned my lesson after the explosion.” She looked at Ken, careful like. “Isn’t your question getting a bit too close to our last big fight?”

  Ken turned away as she examined him. She put together what she saw and made connections. “You’re not wearing a wedding band anymore.”

  Ken nodded.

  “How long?”

  “A little over a year,” he said. “Eat some more chocolate.”

  She nibbled down a quarter square without thinking. “Why do you keep prompting me to eat?”

  “Your appearance, Nessa,” Ken said. He slowly raised his hand toward her, and when she didn’t flinch back, he ran an index finger over her face. “You’re nothing but skin and bones and your hygiene’s slipped.”

  “Crap, I hadn’t realized about the hygiene,” Nessa said, more physically self-aware than normal. Almost embarrassed. “This bothers you? You still care?”

  Ken nodded.

  His comment brightened Nessa’s day. “Well, those problems sort of happen. Especially recently. You know about me and mirrors,” Nessa said. Ken shrugged. “If you want, I’ll let you wash my face. Like old times.” Old bad times.

  “Okay,” Ken said. Nessa directed him to a washcloth, which he dampened in the kitchen sink. He put a tiny drop of dish soap on the cloth, grabbed a towel, and came back to wash off Nessa’s face. Slowly. Carefully. Impersonally. Unwanted memories filled her mind again, memories from before the confrontation, and she banished them to where they belonged.