99 Gods: Odysseia Read online

  “Of course, most great and noble Dubuque, Living Saint above us all,” Betrayer said, followed by a quiet ‘heh heh heh’. Her voice echoed impressively off the marble walls. Dubuque was into marble. “I offer you the location of Nessa’s Telepaths as well as Orlando and the Kid God.”

  “I have my own spies,” Dubuque said.

  She sniffed. “Your spies haven’t found them yet, and by the time they do, your grand opposition will have moved.” Betrayer licked her lips and rubbed her hands. “I have them now, right this verrrry instant. You don’t.”

  “Perhaps,” Dubuque said. Unlike before, he had flooded the Kid God and Orlando’s territory with an insane number of spies. He would find them within a few days.

  Betrayer didn’t want the fucktard to have days.

  “Perhaps? Have you found them yet or not?”

  Dubuque glowered but didn’t answer.

  “Ah hah hah hah,” Betrayer said, and did a little jig. “I found them, yes, I did, before you did. Beyond the moon and the sun, I am power incarnate!”

  “What is your demand this time, you lunatic?” He rested his chin on his arm and looked like he had just eaten the world’s sourest apple.

  “Virtually nothing. In part, I’m offering this as recompense for my last temper tantrum, which I most humbly apologize for. I also want an hour of that asshole, the Recruiter’s, time,” Betrayer said. Not only would this trick buy the people she protected some safety, this would provide perfect cover for her true Leo body. “I have some people I want to locate.”

  “What sort of people?”

  “I’m horny,” Betrayer said. “It’s time I got myself a harem.” Even a moron like Dubuque would be able to tell she lied.

  “Be that way,” Dubuque said. “The Recruiter is one of my most precious resources, and I won’t let you alone with him.” The depths of his lie almost made Betrayer spit in disgust. His prevarications fit their dialog, though.

  “All I ask for is a room and an hour.”

  “You must submit to my blocking your projection from becoming more substantial,” Dubuque said.

  “What? You don’t trust me?” Betrayer said, and sniffed. “Be that way, suckah. Agreed.”

  “A half hour.”

  “Fifty minutes.”

  “You tempt my just rage, Betrayer. Forty minutes. Final offer.”

  Betrayer’s projection’s eyes glowed yellow and she let feigned anger cover her features. “Asshole. Whore of Christ. I agree.”

  “Tell me where Nessa and Ken are, then.”

  “Not so fast,” Betrayer said. “I want a Divine Compact contract on this, first.”

  “Agreed, but only if I get to draw up the contract,” Dubuque said.

  “If you don’t put anything stupid in the contract, sure,” Betrayer said, showing patently fake humility.

  Dubuque composed himself, took a deep breath, thought for a second, and then waited, studying her. A minute later, a flunky brought in a contract, gingerly handed the parchment over to Dubuque and fled post-haste. Dubuque handed the contract back to a stouter functionary, who even more gingerly handed the contract over to Betrayer. She read the contract – clean, save for the part where Dubuque reserved the right to listen in on her dealings with the Recruiter, stuck in as fine print about two thirds of the way through in a trickily worded footnote. She could easily pretend she hadn’t understood.

  Betrayer wanted Dubuque to overhear her questions to Alt.

  “Give me a pen. I’ll sign and take the oath.”

  “Good enough,” Dubuque said.

  “By the way, Divine Compact contracts should be written in legalese, not hokey King James Bible rip-offs.”

  Dubuque glowered.

  The pen provided, Betrayer signed the document and took the oath. Dubuque did the same. The Divine Compact contract became real in Betrayer’s mind, limiting her actions and betrayals, despite the hokey cadences.

  The limitations nearly made Betrayer sick, as did her current betrayal. “The Telepaths are on Big Pine Key, in Florida, with the Kid God and Orlando,” she said. She did have to admit, though, the Telepaths were a gift that kept on giving.

  Dubuque frowned, after reading the truth in her statement. “Why are they there?”

  “Who the fuck knows, they’re idiots,” Betrayer said. “I want the Recruiter. Now.”

  “As you wish. He’ll be in the first antechamber off of this reception area” Dubuque’s throne room “in five minutes. The clock starts then. When you’re finished you take your foul presence out of this place.”

  “No problem with that, your Puissant Holiness.”

  Dubuque’s guards marched her to the antechamber, a small meeting room with chairs that looked like they belonged in the lobby of an expensive hotel and a table with various snacks, and produced Alt. She had warned him ahead of time what to expect, and he feigned utter and total urethra-clenching terror.

  “I have three names and social security numbers,” Betrayer said. “Dickwad, pay attention! I want as many people who have minds like theirs as you can crank out, and I want their locations and social security numbers.” She passed a piece of paper to Alt, which had the names and numbers on them.

  “I can do that,” Alt said. “If they aren’t too uncommon.”

  “I don’t think they are, suckah,” Betrayer said. “Come on, time’s a wasting.”

  Alt produced four hundred and seventy five names before her 40 minutes ran out.

  “Time to go,” Dubuque said, physically walking into the room to check up on things. “What do you think you’re getting with those people?”

  Betrayer cackled. “A hell of a good time.”

  Dubuque wouldn’t be able to resist. Four hundred and seventy five of anything Supported and trained would be an army, and if they were in any way special, they would be a huge threat to anyone. He couldn’t help but send out his people to inspect and recruit them out from under Betrayer’s apparently stupid nose, as she hadn’t had the sense to put in a clause in the contract saying he wouldn’t interfere with her recruiting these people. Nor were these potential recruits fully normal. Each of the four hundred and seventy five was a Mindbound; each potentially worthwhile if Betrayer had managed come up with some sort of trick she could use to make something out of them.

  She hadn’t, but Dubuque wouldn’t know.

  Whomever he sent out to check on the four hundred and seventy five wouldn’t be in on the attack, the entire goal of her scam.

  This time, unfortunately, the scam didn’t work.

  Dubuque’s army had been on its way to Big Pine Key even before she finished her forty minutes with the Recruiter, and Dubuque had found a way to hide the fact from her. She didn’t figure out his trick until she picked it up with her full-powered battle projection, back in her insane Virginia lair in the damned Place of Time, not as a prediction of the future but echoed in the future. Dubuque’s move hadn’t even been an option she had seen before in the Place of Time. Not that one could know all the optional futures, a limitation built into the place.

  Betrayer immediately exited the Place of Time and rocketed her battle projection, with a full load of her enchanted weaponry, south to Big Pine Key. After she thought about Dubuque’s actions, the hours-early attack made sense. Although he had forced her to sign a contract preventing her from revealing to anyone in Nessa’s group they were about to be attacked, Dubuque, bless his heart, hadn’t trusted Betrayer to hold to the deal. Instead of maximizing his force levels, Dubuque minimized her interference!

  Which meant he thought she had the power to balk the Divine Compact, which warmed her heart. Or would have, if this didn’t leave the thick smell of disaster curling around her nose. Damn Dubuque!

  The bastard hadn’t taken a single person from his main army to deal with her supposed recruits. Instead, he just depleted his not-very-battle-ready reserves. She had counted on more diversion. Given the havoc she had created in the past day and a half, Dubuque wouldn’t be able
to pull on any power or any reserves from any of his suborned or ally Gods, though. She suspected he didn’t even know he couldn’t pull on his subordinate Gods for reserves yet. His main army would be it.

  Eight hundred Dubuque minions would soon arrive at Big Pine Key, three hundred more than Betrayer’s plans allowed.

  “We’re screwed,” she said to herself as she re-entered the stratosphere. She beat Dubuque’s army to Orlando’s camp by ten minutes, hardly enough time to fix this mess.

  She stopped in the lower stratosphere and scanned the area below. Yes, as planned, Nessa and crew yammered with the damned useless dolphins. Or did until a minute or two ago. Now they scrambled, along with Orlando’s group and Dana’s group, into defensive positions. Thankfully, someone had warned them. Neither Orlando, the Kid God nor the Telepaths had the power to penetrate Dubuque’s current defenses. Who, then, had warned them?

  The dolphins? Well, they were the wild card in this. Nobody knew their capabilities.

  Eight hundred Supported meant that Dubuque’s army would be able to take on Orlando’s crew directly and overwhelm them, no siege needed. She could easily read their orders in their loaned willpower: kill everyone who didn’t surrender, including the Gods. Drag the captives and the remains of the Gods, if any, back to Dubuque. Incinerate the rest. Scatter the ashes. Salt the earth. Proclaim a victory over the immoral attackers. Rewrite the history books to portray the Big Pine Island crew as incestuous helots who copulated with animals and ate human flesh. Blah blah blah.

  For her plans to work she needed a siege lasting a few hours. Otherwise, this was just a moot exercise in betrayal and carnage.

  Fuck.

  “I’m going to have to intervene, even though they’re warned,” Betrayer said, muttering to herself. Worse, she didn’t have time to look into the Place of Time to find out how best to intervene without ruining her plans. She had some tricks backed up, but nothing as forceful or as powerful as what she could do in her own officially former territory. Or with her own body. Or with her lair’s non-portable enchantments.

  She would have to improvise.

  Such as with one of Akron’s discoveries. Direct worshipper backed Supported had a flaw: the trick Dubuque put on them to keep the direct worshipper backing from being removed wasn’t perfect. The trick was a direct territorial defense, Dubuque supported. Outside of Dubuque’s territory his Supported were vulnerable to having their direct worshipper support removed. Akron, who didn’t have an army, sat on her discovery, saving it for a final defense of her territory.

  Betrayer had wanted to save this trick for the finale, the big fight at the end where she used the allied Gods, Telepaths and the Indigo organization as a distraction to get a shot at Dubuque and Verona.

  What would revealing this trick show now?

  Well, if Betrayer used the trick, here, the use nearly guaranteed her pawns would all die at the end. Bad, but…hell. This would also plant a neon sign saying “Betrayer’s picked sides and is supporting the Telepaths, Orlando and the Kid God.” This would prevent her necessary later betrayals, as Dubuque wouldn’t believe them, wouldn’t believe she was selling out the Telepaths and rebel Gods. Doom. That stopped her plans as cold as the total annihilation of Nessa’s team would do.

  This would also state in big bold letters that Betrayer hadn’t lost any of her War-style capability to innovate, another neon sign saying ‘Betrayer’s too powerful to ignore’. Dubuque and the others would have to go after her. Doom squared.

  However, she did see a way to make the revelation believable and safe. This might rehabilitate Persona in the eyes of Nessa’s team, a bad thing, but a lesser bad thing than the neon signs. This might also not work.

  She needed to take the risk.

  16. (Nessa)

 

 

  Nessa’s eyes flickered over to Dave and Elorie, lit by a single battery powered lantern in the dark tent. They huddled together on a cot with the twins, nicely nulled out in telepathy and willpower. White faced, their hands shook. Not surprisingly, so did Nessa’s. She tried to recall the last time a big battle had found her – there had been so many of them – and realized she had only been caught up in one. Ever. That is, Miami’s assault on Portland’s estate, which he had done with all of two dozen Supported. Hell, his attack happened so early they still called them hopped-up God flunkies, not Supported.

  She and Ken had gotten well and thoroughly mauled in that fight. People in their team had died.

  Nessa sighed. She had experienced all the other fights through people’s memories. The fracas with the Watchers didn’t count, too choreographed on both sides.

  Ken said, finishing his count.

  No wonder she felt like screaming and burying her head in the sand. The numbers? Insanely large. The opposition? Much improved over Miami’s squad of Grade Twos and Threes. She and Ken? The same as always, with a few minor tweaks here and there bought by the low-grade Supported tricks Portland still hadn’t yanked off of them and the benefits of practice against various 99 Gods and their Supported.

  The only thing keeping her from totally losing her cool was the fact they had Orlando’s army around them and Orlando’s direct conscious backing. Until Orlando fell, the backing meant a lot. He might not look it, but he had a prick the size of a baseball bat and balls the size of watermelons. Figuratively speaking. He breathed fire and pissed testosterone.

  His fight with Dubuque was personal, which made all the difference.

  Korua sent.

  Nessa sent.

  Nessa sighed and rolled her eyes. Dolphins! Always with the predator thoughts.

  “Here they come!” Persona said, and then switched to willpower telepathy.

  Dubuque’s army appeared out of their transport warp a kilometer outside of camp and immediately spread out into a vertical plane. Persona said, utterly non-flustered. She had been in far too many of these battles. In fact, Nessa didn’t think Persona had missed a big one yet. Combat had become second nature for her, even the mental yowling panic she hid inside.

  Nessa heard Dana barking out orders on the willpower telepathic channels, all tactical crap way above Nessa’s head. Dana may have been a pacifist once, but she had seen too many battles herself and now could force her mind into battle mode by simple dislike of the enemy.

  Nessa liked the old Dana better.

  Orlando sent, the force of his command aura nailing her mental focus on him.

  Nessa intertwined her hand in Ken’s and became one with him. This time, neither she nor Ken wanted Dave, Elorie, Diana or Uffie in their oneness – they would be hoisting around mental energies that would fry all but Dave’s brain, and likely yank Dave from Psychic to Telepath and give him an ego death.

  Together, she and Ken stepped outside the tent into the oppressive darkness of the cloud-covered night. Nessa saw no signs of the incoming attack. Not yet.

  Dammit, all those Dubuque Supported and still no sign of Blind Tom! She (and, as one, Ken) wanted a shot at that monster so badly she could taste it. Nessa patted herself down again, simple reassurance that she was properly armed for a fight. Orlando’s people had quite a collection of HKs, and she had grabbed two for this fracas. Not that she suspected it would do any good, faced with this many enemies.

  Persona counted down the time until they hit attack range, and as she reached zero, Dubuque’s flying forces blasted with simultaneous fury.

  Eight hundred rainbow-colored helixes shot down from the pitch-black night sky at their ca
mp. Roughly seventy-five were full-powered worshipper-backed Grade One Supported blasts, each individually potent enough to ace an unsuspecting Territorial God who wasn’t in their territory.

  Of course, that would require ‘unsuspecting’ and ‘not in their territory’, neither of which described Orlando. His shields lit up the 1:30 AM sky like New York City having a grand fireworks celebration and stopped them all, with ample spare power remaining. Oooh. Ahhh.

 

  Uffie said.