by Eirik Gumeny
“Bonnacons?” echoed the devil.
“Among other things.”
“Loki must be going after them now too,” grumbled the devil. “That conniving dick,” he continued, pacing back and forth across the café, lost in his own obsessive thoughts. “He must have heard about Seph and those other guys and got worried I’m going to get his job after all.”
“I don’t –”
“We’re going to have to double down.” The fallen angel walked over to Steve Careers and put a hand atop either laptop. He leaned in and said, “Get everyone you can on it, Steve. Everyone. Call in every favor, offer whatever you need to. We’re going to kill those a-holes first.”
“Sure,” replied the former entrepreneur with a slight nod.
Persephone, taking a seat on the large cardboard box next to them, spit out a mouthful of coffee.
“What is this made from,” she asked, studying the paper cup, “feet?”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Every Move You Make ...
A very unhappy-looking gremlin took up the majority of the screen in front of an equally as unhappy Loki Laufeyjarson.
“What do you mean they’re dead?” asked the trickster god. “They’re immortal.”
“Yeah, well, that was apparently more theoretical than practical,” replied the gremlin, scratching an unshapely clawed finger against his cheek.
“And where are the ferret and the cyborg now?”
“The girl they’re with got a call. They’re going to Las Vegas.”
“Why are they going to Las Vegas?”
“To gamble? Get a prostitute or three?” The gremlin shrugged his bony shoulders. “I don’t know, man, I’m only telling you what I heard.”
Loki tapped a few keys, pulling up a window showing the interior of a casino beset by orcs. Gamblers frantically fled, pausing only to shove piles of chips into their pockets or dodge the occasional flying roulette wheel.
“Las Vegas is under siege,” explained the skinny Norseman. “How do you not know that? It’s all over the news.”
“When am I going to watch the news? You’ve got me tailing these assclowns across the entire damn country. And I only have limited data minutes, wink wink. If someone were to increase my retainer, I could maybe –”
“That’s not happening,” replied Loki coldly. “Goodbye, Reginald.” The chaos god closed the Skype window and leaned back in his chair. He stared absentmindedly at the corner of his tiny, sterile office.
“Lucy,” he snarled. “That leather-faced donkeyblower must be luring them to Las Vegas.” He sat up in his chair. “Not if I can help it.”
Loki grabbed his cellphone from his desk and entered a few numbers. He hit send. After a moment, someone on the other end of the line spoke.
“It’s Loki,” said Loki. “You guys still in Nevada?”
“Good,” he continued. “I need you to do something for me.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be
Puck, a Celtic hobgoblin, and Rhiannon, a Welsh fairy queen, stood astride their motorcycles at the Welcome to Las Vegas sign, helmets under their arms, bags of weapons and supplies and beef jerky slung over their shoulders, staring at the explosions and the smoke and the giant mukade – a poisonous Japanese centipede the size of the Lincoln Tunnel – curled around several buildings and the general chaos reigning over the city.
“Yeah ...” said Puck slowly. “I’m not going in there.”
Rhiannon swung her bag forward and pulled her cell phone from an exterior pouch. She thumbed around a bit and then said, “Money’s already hit the account.”
“Idiot.”
“Definitely wasn’t the smartest thing he could’ve done.”
The couple watched quietly as another casino collapsed in on itself, dust and smoke billowing up and blanketing half the city.
Puck started his bike’s engine.
“So ... want to just go fuck around San Diego instead?”
Rhiannon slid on her helmet. “Sounds like a plan.”
“What?” asked the hobgoblin, shaking his head slightly.
“Oh, right.” The fairy queen flipped up the shield of her helmet. “I said, ‘sounds like a plan.’”
“Oh, OK. Cool.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
You Shall Not Pass
The cave troll stood before Queen Victoria XXX, Boudica IX, and William H. Taft XLII, taking up most of the street corner. Nearly ten-feet tall, the monster was a looming mass of muscle and moss, with skin like smoothed rock, perpetually damp and dripping with some kind of perpetually-stagnant liquid. Throwing up its arms and lifitng its head high, the colossus let loose with an unearthly roar, then slammed its fists against the ground, cracking the sidewalke and unleashing a tremor that crawled for blocks.
The three politicians stood their ground, chests heaving, eyes set. Boudica IX, her left arm still hanging limply, wiped the blood from her mouth with her good hand and smiled crooked.
“Same to you, buttface,” she growled.
Then the redheaded Celtic queen charged at the troll, her scimitar held high. The monster bellowed and reached for a nearby stop sign, wrenching it from the ground, and then hurled it, spinning, toward the queen’s midsection. Boudica IX dropped to her knees and slid forward, bending backward, the octagonal metal sailing over her head. Immediately back on her feet, the cloned Briton kicked off the ground and jumped at the cave troll, swinging the blade down at the hulking creature’s neck.
The sword’s edge closed in on its target. Something like fear began rising on the troll’s stony countenance. And then Boudica IX, the last-standing and almost certainly mentally-unstable clone of the ancient warrior queen, was suddenly and fatally speared through the abdomen by an orc.
The woman’s body lurched to a halt, momentum folding her, dragging her downward along her assailant’s lance. Her scimitar, literally millimeters from the terrified troll’s neck, dangled from her fingers – and then it dropped, clattering to the ground.
“Bo!” William H. Taft XLII shouted, as the counterfeit Celt hung impaled, dead, from the orc’s weapon.
“Not ... not dead yet,” the redhead corrected, lifting her arm slightly, a single finger extended. Then she coughed up a mouthful of blood. And then another, dark red liquid streaming down her chin. “Oh, no, wait ...”
And then Boudica IX died – for reals this time.
The armor-covered orc roared in triumph, raising its spear – and the clone’s corpse – into the air. Behind the murderer, a dozen more of the misshapen, dark-green humanoids, fresh off their pillaging of several casinos, cheered. More and more orcs were gathering by the moment.
In less time than it took a hummingbird on coffee to blink, an ancient fury rose in William H. Taft XLII – love and loss, years of torment and bottled rage and all kinds of other feelings, all of it boiling over in a scalding torrent of unbridled wrath.
The orc – unaware of this and content to revel in its own bloodlust – tossed the spear, and the woman, unceremoniously to the side, then pulled a pair of daggers from its belt. The slavering man-beast charged at the clone president, several more following behind the first.
William H. Taft XLII, his eyes like sharpened stones, stood up straight, seeming to double in height, then, quickly, unfalteringly, stepped forward and grabbed the lead orc by the neck, stopping the creature’s charge mid-stride and lifting it nearly a foot off the ground. The orc, equal parts confused and panicked, slashed fitfully at the president’s arms, drawing blood but doing very little to help its situation. The ones following after it skidded to a stop, and then, slowly, took a step backward.
“Well, now you’ve done it,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
A fist the size of an office desk slammed into her chest.
“Oh, right,” she coughed, picking herself up and turning to the cave troll, “you.”
The queen grabbed the stop sign lying next to her and then began stalking towards the hu
lking, mildew-covered monster, dragging the metal octagon along the sidewalk behind her. Sparks shot from the pavement in small arcs, sharpening the sign’s edges.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Pee Break
Artemis and Catherine the Great LXIX returned to the idling SUV, buttoning her pants and cinching down her skirt, respectively.
“We’re good to go, Ra,” said the former Greek Goddess of the Hunt, wiping her hands on her jeans.
“Finally,” he replied, leaning against the hood of the vehicle and shaking his head. “Maybe next time you will listen to me when I tell you not to drink all the water.”
“What are you, my dad?”
Ra gave Artemis a weird look.
“Hey, where’s Vulcan?” asked Catherine the Great LXIX, looking around at the vast expanse of desiccated earth and alligatored pavement surrounding them.
“Is he not in his trailer?” asked the Egyptian god-king.
Artemis walked to the Airstream being towed by the SUV, opened the door, and looked in.
“Completely empty,” she said, looking back out.
“Then where ...?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
One Is the Loneliest Number
Vulcan walked out of the rest stop, slightly more than one hundred miles north of his friends.
“Oh, man, guys, sorry about that. I fell asleep on the crapper. You would not believe ...” The Roman god, finally sensing something was amiss, spun around on the cracked asphalt, looking everywhere. Seeing no one in the parking lot, or on the abandoned road, or anything at all for miles, he said: “Guys?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Coping Mechanisms
Catrina Dalisay drove the armored tank-car slowly down Las Vegas Boulevard, the street littered with bodies of all kinds. The Filipina woman was careful to avoid anything that looked like it could have been human, plus the larger chunks of dismembered monsters and the piles of cryptid corpses, lest they gum up the tank’s undercarriage and force her to have to walk through the mess in her sandals.
As she and her passengers neared the bubbling, molten clay ruins of the Mos Eisley Casino, William H. Taft XLII appeared from a side street, jogging towards them and absolutely covered in gore. Catrina put the car into Park and she and Thor got out.
“Thor,” said William H. Taft XLII, running up to him, “Thank Cumberbatch. I need your help.” The mayor-king of Las Vegas pointed toward the enormous mukade still wrapped around the west side of the city. “We got everything else, but that thing does not want to go down.”
“Like yo’ momma,” replied Thor.
“Dude.”
“Sorry.”
“How did we not see that?” asked Catrina.
“There is a lot of smoke over there,” replied Thor.
“So,” began the president, “can you, you know ...”
“Oh, right.”
Almost immediately, the sky turned dark, clouds tumbling in like shoppers to a Walmart on Black Friday. Thunder rumbled loud enough to shatter windows across the city. Then a blinding bolt of horizontal lightning tore through the sky and straight through the mukade, absolutely obliterating the creature, electrocuting the centipede so thoroughly that its component molecules evaporated.
“All set, buddy,” said Thor, clapping William H. Taft XLII on the shoulder. “Is that burger place I like still here?”
The cloned president, turned and crouched away from the monster, unturned and uncrouched, looking at the empty, misty section of sky where the centipede had been.
“Oh,” he said. “I expected that to get all explodey and gross.”
“Me too, actually.” Thor shrugged. “What are you gonna do? Now, about that burger place?”
“Uh, yeah,” replied William H. Taft XLII absently, “Cows ‘R’ Us is still here. There’s a second one in the Super Miragio now, too. I think they’re both still standing.”
“Hot damn,” said the thunder god. “Hey, how’s Cherri[xxxix], by the way?”
“Up yours, Thor.”
“If that’s what she’s into ...”
The hulking presidential clone grabbed the thunder god by the collar of his flannel shirt and slammed him against the bulletproof siding of the tank. “You think this is funny?” he roared.
“Well, I thought that was funny.”
“Do you have any idea what happened here? How many people died?”
“A lot? I don’t think you’d be this angry if it wasn’t a lot.”
“Bo’s dead, Thor. And Marty. And hundreds, if not thousands of civilians,” he explained. “And at least three of the Lincolns ... I didn’t even know they were here, I just found a pile of stovepipe hats ...”
“Oh. Oh, shit. I ... I didn’t know, Billy.”
“Yeah, I know you didn’t know. You never know. Get your head out of your ass sometime.”
“Hey,” replied Thor, grabbing William H. Taft XLII by his bloodied lapels and swinging him into the side of the car, “watch it, man.”
The cloned politician’s hands fell to his sides as his back hit the tank, then immediately balled into fists.
“Why don’t you guys take a breather?” suggested Catrina, her hands outstretched. “You’re probably both hungry.”
“No,” replied the president, seething, staring at the Norseman. “I’m sick of this shit. You guys are always running around like you’re the center of the world and nothing else matters. Well, guess what? You’re not and things do.”
“You think we don’t know that, Billy?” shouted Catrina, tears forming in her eyes. “You think we don’t care? That we don’t lose people too?”
“You might,” replied William H. Taft XLII, before grabbing Thor by the collar again and pushing him backward. “But not him. Or Vicky or Charlie. Boudica was murdered and he’s talking about hamburgers.”
“Hey, I didn’t know, all right?” Thor let go of the mayor-king’s lapels. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Didn’t know,” scoffed the fat man, pulling the thunder god closer. “You couldn’t have figured it out? Asked? Look around you, Thor ...” He nodded toward the ruined city. “You really think there weren’t any casualties here?”
“I don’t know ...”
“For fuck’s sake,” spat the clone, shoving the Norseman away. “I don’t even know why I’m bothering. You don’t care. You’ve never cared.”
“Yeah, well, when you don’t care about anything,” said Thor, standing up straight and stretching his neck, the flatness of his voice betraying him slightly, “you can’t get hurt.” The Norseman put a hand on William H. Taft XLII’s shoulder again. “Now, come on, let’s go get something to eat,” he said, pulling the clone to his side. “It’s what Bo would’ve wanted.”
“Actually, yeah,” replied the president, deflating and putting his arm across Thor’s back. “It probably is.”
The mayor-king of Las Vegas and the former Norse God of Thunder walked off across the entrail-strewn boulevard, the cracked casinos of the strip crumbling and billowing dust before them.
“So are we hanging out here or ...?” asked Mark Hughes, leaning forward and popping his head out of the driver’s door of the luxury tank. “I mean, I could probably eat.”
“I don’t ...” began Catrina, slumping against the side of the car and sliding downward into the chupacabra residue. “I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
We Are All On Drugs
Thor Odinson carried Timmy, the comatose super-squirrel, through the sliding doors of Sergeant Major General Hospital while William H. Taft XLII finagled Mark Hughes out of the armored car and into a wheelchair.
“Fucking hospitals,” grumbled the bed-and-breakfast owner, shoving and fighting against the cloned president and generally not making anyone’s life easier.
“No, it’s cool, man,” replied William H. Taft XLII. “We have the best hospital in the world. With actual trained doctors and everything.”
M
ark looked at the heavyset man dubiously. “I’m holding you personally accountable if something goes wrong.”
“Well, yeah,” replied the mayor-king, knitting his brow. “That’s how it works here. I’m responsible for the well-being of every patient who goes in and out of this place, financially, legally, and otherwise.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
Mark paused a moment, then said, “Why aren’t you running the world?”
“I’m working on it.”
“You’re ...” He furrowed his brow. “Is that something we need to be worried about?”
“No, it’s all perfectly aboveboard. I swear.”
“Look, I know I just said you should be in charge of everything and all, but –”
“Hey, let’s get you some morphine!”
William H. Taft XLII quickly wheeled Mark Hughes into the emergency room.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Like, Really Old
“Email’s ready to go, boss,” said Steve Careers, staring intently at the screen of his laptop.
“Hit Send,” snarled the devil.
The tech entrepreneur did as instructed and slammed his pinky on the Enter button. The email was sent.
Satan stood behind him, arms folded across his chest, his foot bouncing up and down like a tap-dancer after several lines of cocaine.
Eventually, he said: “So ...”
“So now we’ve got to wait.”
“How long?”