99 Gods: Betrayer Page 5

  “I didn’t expect anything like this,” Dave said. He had loved Elorie desperately once. A slow careful rekindling could be good. Instead, this was a farce, trampling slapstick comedy over the last tender remnants of romance and youthful humiliation. He wanted no part of this.

  “I said you wouldn’t like it,” Elorie said. Her voice remained cold. If her old memories caused her any pains, she hid them. “I’m positive this doesn’t fit your sense of decorum, but this is part of the deal. You want in, you spend the night.”

  “I still want to know about the two girls,” Jack said.

  Jesus. Dave looked outside and realized they were on US 285, right about where his tire blew out this morning. He fought panic and yet another woo-woo moment. He couldn’t run now, much as he wanted. Not with his head spinning like this. Not with the car moving like this.

  “And, no, I haven’t forgotten how our high school fling ended, and why,” Elorie said.

  His thoughts scattered, vague memories of that fight with Elorie competing with the much more clear and recent memories of his fights with Tiff. Elorie frowned as she waited for his response.

  Elorie had been his first lover. He hadn’t been hers. He couldn’t remember anything about their physical intimacy. He could only remember the excruciating fight a week after Elorie had ended their relationship. He had begged her to come back to him in public, in their high school’s crowded main corridor. He had told her he would be her slave, right in front of all his friends. She had laughed and sauntered away. The unforgettable memory still made him cringe.

  Luckily you’re only young once, Dave took solace in his own mind.

  “What happened afterwards was worse,” Dave said, blurting out the first thing he thought of to fill the dead air.

  “That, too.” The tone was pleasant, but Elorie said her words through clenched teeth.

  “Why? Why this then?” Dave asked. He would catch a cab downtown and slink back home. Tiff would just love this story.

  “I saved you for last, the last recruit for the team,” Elorie said, either ignoring his question or turning his words sideways. She turned to look out the window and muttered something Dave didn’t catch.

  Oh. ‘I didn’t want this. Recruiting you wasn’t my idea at all.’

  “I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand the point,” Dave said, a bit of Tiff’s archness entering his voice. “Have you slept with everyone on the team?”

  Elorie didn’t turn back to him. “I slept with none of the six.”

  Which answered an unasked question of Dave’s: about the number of members of her team. Eight, if he counted himself and Elorie. More than Dave expected.

  The situation made no sense to Dave, and he decided Elorie meant to confuse. Witty comments flew through his head: ‘This is a better initiation than branding’, ‘This is a better initiation than getting totally plastered’, and ‘I would like to examine your birth certificate. This isn’t the Elorie I know’.

  He didn’t say any of them. Instead, he said: “What’s going on, here?”

  She turned back to face him, finally. “You’ll have to wait.” Enigmatic, and enigmatic on purpose.

  He understood, yet more woo-woo. Sex was a form of sacred binding and he was about to jump into the crazy world of the 99 Gods, magicians, Telepaths and kooky types galore – and sex didn’t necessarily involve sleeping with someone, or even intimate body contact. An initiation-by-sex sounded like something ancient and magical, a deliberate splash of the unnatural to wake him up to the fact he no longer worked in the normal world. If his screwy Psychic wooglies would just shut the fuck up, he might even enjoy the challenge of the implied contest of wills.

  The problem was, though, this was about him, not some random person. About him and Elorie. “What if I don’t want any part of this?”

  “I understand,” Elorie said. “If you want out, no problem. We tear up the contract and you get to ride a taxi back home.”

  Dave closed his eyes, mollified for now, examining his feelings. This whole thing had been a hell of a kick in the stomach, but what he found inside surprised him. Elorie’s quest held more of a story than he could imagine. He would never learn more if he didn’t go through with Elorie’s initiation, which might not be what the others in the car intimated. Elorie had said nothing would happen that they both didn’t agree on. He wanted the explanation, and he was positive he could cope with one night worth of crazed hazing.

  Besides, his rationale nicely mirrored his justifications for taking the job, with the extra-added benefit of some intimate time with Elorie. “Okay,” he said, before his stodginess grabbed hold of him. “I’m still in.” He looked forward to a large case of buyer’s remorse.

  Tiff would never do anything like this.

  Probably why he had agreed.

  Some first taste of freedom, though.

  Elorie muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a ‘shit’, followed by something that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle.

  “You the bad man,” Jack said. “She looked forward to doing me.”

  Jesus, again.

  “You deserved it, Jack,” Elorie said, no sob at all in her voice. “Behave, now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jack said. Crazy changeable lady.

  Dave found Jack’s response very interesting and Elorie’s even more so.

  Wisdom is poured forth like water, and glory fails not before him forever and ever; for potent is he in all the secrets of righteousness.

  But iniquity passes away like a shadow, and possesses not a fixed station: for the Elect One stands before the Lord of spirits; and his glory is forever and ever; and his power from generation to generation.

  With him dwells the spirit of intellectual wisdom, the spirit of instruction and of power, and the spirit of those who sleep in righteousness; he shall judge secret things.

  Nor shall any be able to utter a single word before him; for the Elect One is in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, according to his own pleasure.

  -- The Book of Enoch 49, 1:2

  “I lead this team. Understand why.”

  4. (Dana)

  Dana came back to herself teary eyed and gasping, not sure where she was, dizzy and woozy, and with her left shoulder, hip and right hand hurting. Blood ran down from her scalp into her left eye, and the left side of her face was numb. Something roared, punctuated by gunfire. People screamed and cursed and sang off key nonsense words.

  She cleared the tears and blood from her eyes with willpower, and tried to stand. She only got to her hands and knees before she fell again, overcome by dizziness and a sudden pounding headache. Akron, or so Dana presumed, sat next to Dana, entirely silvery of body and significantly thinner than Dana remembered. Only about sixty percent of the presumed Akron remained.

  The last thing Dana remembered she was standing. Akron showed up, and… Nothing. Losing her sense of self in such a way made her feel uncomfortably helpless.

  The world around them was dark and shadowed, lit by flares of Hell-magic. She and Akron were inside a 99 God-style force bubble of the variety meant to keep everything out, making normal sight difficult. Looking through such a force bubble was like looking through an inch of impure bubbly glass. The Hell-beast, now almost twenty-five feet tall and with the appearance of a white-furred oversized sloth with carnivore-style teeth, beat on the force bubble from the outside.

  “I’m not meant for this shit,” Akron said, her volume low, a perceptible whine in the wounded God’s voice. “I’m a nurturer and protector, not some damned fighter. I don’t even understand what’s going on.”

  “How’d I get in here with you?” Dana asked. She slumped face down, with her right cheek on the force bubble. The force bubble was cold to the touch. The Hell-beast pounded on the translucent shell right next to Dana, but Dana couldn’t even feel any vibrations from the blows.

  “I have no idea. I’m having a hard time remembering anything.” Akron hacked up bits of silver and shook her fla
ttened head. “I must have been knocked out. I didn’t think I could get knocked out. It’s like, I dunno, huge chunks of my mind and my senses were gone, and they’re coming back to me piecemeal.”

  Someone chuckled. “You’re rebooting.”

  “Who said that?” Akron said, looking around.

  “I did.”

  “Who is this, Dana? You know, so tell me.”

  This wasn’t Dana’s secret to tell, so she shook her head with a grunt of pain. Her instincts, though, said ‘hold out your hand’. “Akron, hold out your hand, please,” Dana said. Dana, still cheek-welded to the curving side of the force bubble, raised her still numb left hand.

  Akron’s silvery remains pushed out a hand, which she held up. A third person appeared between them, taking both their hands, a small-breasted athletic woman, thirty-ish, about five nine, rather plain looking, dressed in jeans and an oversized blue and magenta checked flannel shirt. She had shoulder-length unruly black hair with indigo highlights, indigo-outlined green eyes, and a presence forceful enough to match Dubuque’s. A mercurial smile echoed across her face.

  “My name is Kara the Godslayer,” she said. “No, Akron, I’m not here for you.”

  “Buuuuah,” Dana said. “I’m seeing you. Did I just…” get initiated into the Indigo inner circle?

  “Nope. We’re cheating, here. I’m inefficiently wielding Akron’s willpower for her, to save the both of you. If ‘save’ is the right word,” the Godslayer said. “Said Hell-beast out there wasn’t able to nosh on most of you, Akron, but what he ate of you has messed you up real bad and gravely endangered the lives of my friends and charges. The bastard’s physically real now. And you, Dana, were about to lose your guardianship over the Kid God as well as being stripped of your Regency and your Supported tricks, so I guess I saved you as well.” This wasn’t the ‘oh I’m filled with love’ Godslayer, or the snarky bad-pun addicted goofy Godslayer, but the Godslayer being harsh and effective. Right now, the Godslayer reminded Dana of Atlanta. “The damned thing out there ate the Kid God’s projection, and who knows what the Hell that’s going to do to the Kid God in the long run.”

  “You’re an Angel,” Akron said. “But not part of our Angelic Host. You’re…you’re a trainee Archangel, and you’re different.”

  The Godslayer growled. “Shhh. None of that now. I’m trying not to advertise my status.” She paused and shook her head. “We’ve got a serious problem. I need to be out there, or my people are gonna die. You need to finish your reboot so you can take over this shield. Now!”

  “I am not a computer!”

  “Close enough for gummint work,” the Godslayer said, sounding for all the world like Grover. She bent her head down to Akron and got all Indigo-ee. “Do. It.”

  The universe wiggled and the Godslayer vanished. Akron shook her head and lost the silver, her business suit reappearing from nowhere. The force bubble lifted off the ground and floated up, about fifty feet, and stopped. The bubble became transparent. “So, she’s the secret behind the Indigo?”

  “Uh huh,” Dana said. “You don’t feel threatened?” Ever since Dana had learned the Godslayer’s name, she had feared this day would come.

  “By an Angel?” Akron said, with a half-snort. “She didn’t create us, so she can’t end us, or, at least, not without our permission.” Akron sighed. “I guess you’re part of us enough for me to not get any feelings of wrongness about telling you our secrets. Tune your senses to Mission and remember.”

  Dana did – and her memory of the Godslayer changed. She was no longer a typical American woman, but a well-armed warrior goddess, her attire more steampunk than anything else Dana could analogize, complete with a set of opaque goggles above her eyes and forehead, right at her hairline. The Godslayer carried four scalps on her belt, one from each of the Hell-gods she had slain. Dana attempted to understand the rest of what she sensed, now, about the Godslayer, but the details remained beyond her. She synopsized her new understanding as: in Hell, the Godslayer is ferocious, terrifying and dangerous, a true warrior Angel. On Earth she can only do limited do-gooder style Angel-magic and use the indigo glow trick to help the Indigo group. “Her Mission required her to save you.”

  “Uh huh, and I have a bad feeling her Mission would require her to save even Dubuque,” Akron said. “She doesn’t have the right to judge…what the hell are those crazy people of yours doing!”

  Before Dana had time to shoot back a ‘They aren’t my people, we’re just allies’ comment Akron swooped the force bubble down to near the ground and shrank it, so using outside measurements she and Dana were only a foot tall or so.

  The Indigo had retreated about a hundred feet away from the Hell-beast, which was now outside of its dust-prison and slowly shambling toward them across the brown weeds, one verrrry slow step at a time. Jan knelt on the muddy ground, a knife in her right hand and a bedpan in her left, held just above her breasts.

  “…the answer is ‘no’,” Jan said. “Yes, I know it’s your turn, Greg, but for you, against something powered up and made real by 99 God-style magic, this would be certain death. I know my strength and yours, and how much it’s going to take to get rid of this damned thing.”

  The people arrangement reeked of pain and old arguments. Grover, Amanda and Jurgen faced away, repelled by Jan’s planned action. Lara and Epharis, holding hands, stared vacantly at Jan, and they both sung or chanted something low and inaudible under their breath. Greg Clover, down on one knee beside Jan, had his hands spread wide in his pleading. She didn’t see Elise to begin with, but finally found her to the side, flat on her back, covered in blood and not moving save for the slow rising and falling of her chest.

  “You need to second me on this,” Jan said. “You need to be ready to do what needs to be done, if something goes wrong.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You must,” Jan said – and as she said ‘must’, she momentarily glowed indigo. Greg nodded, his argument defeated. He bent down, took Jan’s sword, and stood behind her. Ready to strike and behead her.

  “We can’t interfere,” Akron said. “Because of the force barrier they can’t hear us or see us, and if I relax the force barrier to allow them to, the damned Hell-beast over there will start devouring us again.”

  Dana nodded. As Elise feared, the dust had been a trap for the 99 Gods. Akron’s force barrier stopped the Hell-beast’s ability to feed, and stopped its terror and horror projections, but at the cost of being able to do anything. From the expressions on Grover, Amanda and Jurgen’s faces, Dana realized that to them, the Hell-beast had its impossible mind-bending mouth open and it dripped shadows from its fur. Here, inside the force bubble, there was none of that. Just a visible enormous transformed lab rat. The transformation was real, at least real enough to bounce light. If Jan was right, the transformation was real-real, as ‘cut it and it bleeds’ real as one of the 99 Gods’ bodies.

  The other horror effects hadn’t been real, though.

  Jan slit her throat, blood pulsing out in heartbeat spurts, much of the blood landing in the bedpan, which Jan held steady. Greg, behind her with sword raised, did not move.

  Dana screamed and leapt toward Jan, forgetting she was only a foot tall and confined to a force bubble. She beat on the force bubble wall, her thoughts starting to numb in disbelief from the repeated bits of insanity drilling into her mind.

  “It’s magic, foul magic those two witches are doing,” Akron said. “Hell magic! Forbidden magic! They’re evil! I must destroy them!”

  The same thoughts and emotions coursed through Dana’s mind, but she didn’t stop screaming, alternating from belief and disgust to disbelief and negation.

  “Do not interfere.” The Godslayer’s harsh voice. “Watch and learn the cost we, the Indigo, are required to pay to perform our guardianship.”

  A long forever passed for Dana, as she continued to scream through the waning and diminishing pulses of Jan’s blood from her throat. About half way through, Jan closed her
eyes, leaving a beatific smile upon her paling lips. When the bleeding stopped the three around her moved. Epharis and Lara dipped their fingers into Jan’s self-inflicted knife wound and, with bloody fingers, drew symbols on each other’s faces with Jan’s dying blood. Greg dropped the sword and held Jan’s lifeless sitting body upright while Epharis and Lara did their blood writing. The two witches stood, turned and walked toward the Hell-beast. Behind them, Greg lowered Jan’s alabaster white and now lifeless body to lay flat on the ground; he turned away, put the bedpan of blood to the side, and began to shake.

  When Epharis and Lara passed Grover, Jurgen and Amanda, the three joined hands and followed the witches, chanting. No silliness now, and nothing obscure or arcane, just a simple “Go home. Go home. Go home…”

  Akron moved the force bubble to follow. When the two witches reached the Hell-beast the creature stopped and bowed before them. “A life was paid,” Lara and Epharis said, in sing-song unison, their voices rippling magical command. “We are the Indigo. You cannot remain.”

  The bowing Hell-beast bowed lower, and in its bowing shrank, until it vanished entirely, space curdling around the beast’s departure. Lara reached down and picked the lab rat up by the tail. The lab rat squeaked and clawed back, its teeth unnaturally large and sharp. Dana inhaled to scream, the utter illogic of the events before her wounding her psyche. Words interrupted her scream.

  “Die, you motherfucking Hell-infested piece of shit!” Lara slammed the lab rat to the ground and began to pound on it with a cross made from welded-together pennies. Lara continued her cursing and bashing, in what to Dana appeared to be a rage-induced psychotic tantrum. Dana held her breath, consciousness in tatters and aching to fade.