by Tom Holt
‘Laudable,’ said the colleague quickly. ‘And the precise vector you had in mind?’
‘How about,’ said Julian, ‘a power of attorney?’
The colleague winced. It was bad enough having to be here, on his own, with Julian Magus, the Great White Shark of the legal profession, knowing that a misplaced comma, let alone an inopportune word, could torpedo an entire career that had been thirty years in the carving out. The golden rule is, never disagree with The Man. Any lawyer worth his clove of garlic and silver bullet will tell you that.
‘Highly lucid thinking there, Jule,’ he therefore said. ‘Certainly an avenue we must explore with the last breath in our bodies. But just very briefly turning it upside down and looking at it in the mirror, I’ve got this little niggle somewhere that says that all the gods gave the godchildren powers of attorney hundreds of years ago. Like, when they retired? I must have lost you somewhere.’
‘Powers of attorney, yes,’ Julian replied, staring at the corner of the ceiling. ‘But not permanent ones.They could be revoked like that, any minute. What we want is something a bit more lasting.’
‘But.’ The colleague could feel the hot breath of Mr Cock-Up on the back of his collar, but somehow he couldn’t help himself. ‘I mean, I’m clearly being really dumb here, but all powers of attorney can be revoked. Can’t they?’
Julian smiled. It was a long, slow smile. Generations back in its evolutionary matrix, wolves and bears and sabre-toothed tigers had played their part in its development. That smile alone was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to the firm of Haifisch & Dieb.
‘Not if the person giving the power is certified insane, Leon,’ he said. ‘I’d have expected you to have thought of that one for yourself.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘Oh come on. Not again.’
Mr Kortright, supernatural agent, the only man in history ever to tell the goddess Kali that she probably had something there but it needed a lot of working on, shrugged. ‘It’s the best I can do for you,’ he said. ‘Good solid work. You should be grateful.’
‘But it’s so demoralising. I’d rather do voice-overs.’
At his end of the telephone connection, Mr Kortright smiled wryly. ‘Pan, good buddy, if I could find some way for you to break into voice-overs, I’d be a very happy man.You’ve just got to face facts, buster.Your stuff - well, these days the kids don’t want it, okay? They got video games, they got consciousness-expanding drugs, they got all kinds of stuff they never dreamed of in your day. Jumping out from behind bushes and shouting “Boo!”, you’re lucky to be working at all.’
‘I can do other things,’ Pan replied nastily. ‘I can turn you into a tree, for starters.’
‘Go ahead,’ Kortright sighed, ‘faites ma jour. As a tree I wouldn’t have to try and find something positive to say about Herne the Hunter and his Amazing Performing Roedeer. And it wouldn’t change the fact that passé is passé. Look, you want the job, or do I give it to Huitzilpotchli?’
Pan blinked. ‘Who?’
‘Little Pre-Columbian guy, square ears. He also does ritual chants and juggles with the skulls of enemies slain in battle.’ Mr Kortright cringed involuntarily. ‘Usually he drops them. Go on, the choice is yours.’
‘All right,’ Pan said, ‘I’ll do it. But it’s the last time, all right?’
‘That’s the spirit, kid. You can’t beat an old trouper.’
Pan replaced the receiver, and allowed his shoulders to slump. It hadn’t always been like this.
‘Taxi!’ he shouted.
Back in the old days, before all the rest of them packed it in, he’d really been somebody. Back then, of course, they didn’t have all this psychology.
A yellow cab drew up to the kerb, and a bald head appeared through the driver’s window. ‘Where to, mac?’ it said.
Back then, if you wanted to have an emotion, you had to have a god. If you wanted to feel jealous, you were visited by Eris, Lady of Strife. Anybody who fancied a spot of overweening pride had to wait until Hybris, the spirit of Arrogance, worked through her backlog sufficiently to fit you in next Thursday morning. Sexual desire was impossible without the presence of Eros, the blind, flying archer; a deity so overworked that it was a miracle humanity reproduced itself into the third century BC. And if you wanted a spot of blind terror, Pan was your man.
‘Wall Street,’ Pan replied, opening the passenger door. His hooves clunked on the sill of the door. For all that he kept them discreetly hidden in Helena Rubinstein designer chinos and top of the range Reeboks, Pan had the legs and feet of a goat. Worse; a goat with rheumatism.
‘And get a move on, please,’ he added. ‘It’s absolutely essential I get there by ten.’
The cab driver turned round in his seat and scowled at him. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I’ll get there as fast as I can, don’t panic.’
‘Sorry. Force of habit.’
Nowadays, they had emotions. Like all manifestations of the Do-It-Yourself tendency, emotions were quicker, cheaper and somehow, to Pan’s way of thinking at least, infinitely tawdry. And there was no romance any more, no glamour. You couldn’t bribe Paranoia with a sacrifice of firstling lambs, or appease Claustrophobia with a hymn and a prayer. All right, Lyssa and Hecate wouldn’t have taken a whole lot of notice either, but at least you’d have had the feeling of getting a personal service, provided by trained professionals. And say what you liked about the gods, they’d had style.
Once.
‘Thanks,’ Pan said, leaning forward and putting his hand on the doorhandle. ‘Anywhere here will do.’
‘Okay.’ The cabbie drew up, looked at the meter and asked for his fare. Pan stared at him. It wasn’t the best he’d ever done, but it was still good enough.
‘Hey, mac, no offence. So maybe it’s a bit on the high side. Let’s just talk it over, and . . .’
Stare.
‘The ride’s on me, okay?’
Stare.
‘Look.’ The taxi driver was sweating. ‘How’d it be if I gave you fifty bucks and we forgot the whole thing?’
‘Done.’
Perks, Pan thought, folding the money into his pocket and cloppity-clopping his way up Wall Street; one of the few fringe benefits. And am I prostituting my Art, putting the wind up tradesmen? Yes. Good.
Wall Street. Again. It was as bad, he felt, as appearing on chat-shows. He pushed open a pair of huge smoked glass doors and trudged in.
His mind wasn’t on the job and he overdid the stare he gave the security guard. He felt a bit guilty as he walked on, leaving the poor man cowering under the front desk with a paper bag over his head.
He overdid the elevator, too. As soon as he got out of it, the wretched thing bolted straight up to the thirty-second floor and stayed there. It was gone midnight before the maintenance men were able to talk it down.
It was, he realised, because he was feeling depressed and bad-tempered after talking to Kortright. And the reason it had got to him so badly was that what Kortright had said was true. He was indeed over the hill. Over Everest, even. Maybe it was time he retired, like all the others.
By now he had won through to the dealing room itself, and he stood in the doorway, looking for a suitable victim. His eye lit on a small, round young man with glasses and just enough hair remaining to thatch a toolshed in Lilliput. He walked over and leaned on the computer terminal.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘In twenty minutes,’ said Pan, staring, ‘the dollar is going to fall so far it’ll probably burn up on re-entry.’
The market maker gazed at him out of round, glazed eyes. ‘Why?’ he said.
‘It’s the British,’ Pan replied. ‘The War of Independence was fixed. Results of tests show that George Washington was on steroids.’ He paused, turned up the stare by about three degrees, and bent it into a grin. ‘If I were you, I’d start selling now.’
‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’
‘Don’t mention i
t.’
By the time he reached the ground floor, walking down fire stairs that seemed to want to edge away from him, the dollar was so far down you couldn’t have traced it with a metal detector, and switchboards were jamming and systems going down right across the world as the financial rats scrambled to leave the floating ship. As he pushed through the doors and set hoof to pavement, Pan was acutely conscious of the buzz, the high feeling of having scared the recycled food out of tens of thousands of people who’d never done him any harm in their entire lives. It was a good feeling. It was what being a god is all about.
But, he reflected as he clattered down into the subway, it’s still only a cheap commercial job, and I’m lucky to get that. Dammit, it is time to retire.
Definitely.
First thing tomorrow.
‘The rear crankshaft cotter pin, thirty-six,’ Odin repeated, ‘is connected to the offside flywheel, seventy-two, by a split pin, nine.’ He peered through his bifocals at the diagram.
‘Give it here,’ demanded Thor impatiently. ‘You’ve probably got it upside down again.’
Odin tightened his grip on the instruction manual, which was twenty centuries old and held together with brittle yellowed Sellotape. ‘It’s perfectly simple,’ he said, for the seventh time. ‘We must just have overlooked some perfectly obvious . . .’
‘Where does this bit go?’
Odin and Thor looked round, and saw Frey, patron god of all those who stand about with their hands in their pockets while other people do all the work, held up a small oily widget. ‘I found it on the floor,’ he explained.
‘Bloody hell,’ Thor exclaimed, ‘that’s the manifold release pawl. Why the hell didn’t you mention it before?’
‘You were standing on it.’
‘Give it here.’
Twenty minutes with a screwdriver later, Thor straightened his back, wiped his forehead with the dirtiest handkerchief in the universe, and picked up the widget; which sprang salmon-like from his fingers and was at once lost to sight in the deep carpet of wood-shavings, empty crisp packets and bits of paper that covered the floor of the shed.
‘I think,’ said Frey, ‘it landed somewhere over there.’
Odin sighed. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘let’s all stay calm. Everything is always somewhere.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Thor replied, burrowing his way head-first into a pile of empty sacks. ‘What about Excalibur? What about the lost kingdom of Atlantis? What about . . . ?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Only because I’m a bloody good guesser.’
‘Excuse me.’
Thor looked up. His hair was full of coal-dust and a dead mouse had entangled itself in his beard. ‘Now what?’ he demanded.
‘This time you’re kneeling on it.’
‘Am I?’ Thor said. ‘Ouch!’ he added. ‘Yes, you’re quite right, well spotted. Right then, let the dog see the rabbit. Now, where did I put my screwdriver?’
‘The rear crankshaft cotter pin, thirty-six,’ said Odin, ‘is connected to the offside flywheel, seventy-two . . .’
‘I’ve just done that.’
‘You can’t have.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because,’ Odin replied, ‘here’s the split pin in my hand.’
Yes, thought Thor, so it is. If I was to kill you now, there’s no way it would be murder. Pesticide maybe, but not murder. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Frey, pass me the mole wrench.’
Atheists would have you believe that there are no gods, but this is patently absurd; because if there were no gods, who made the world? Look at the world, consider the quality of design and workmanship. Consider who is supposed to have made it. Convinced? Of course you are. The San Andreas fault wasn’t San Andreas’ fault at all.
‘Now then,’ Thor said. He’d skinned his knuckles, banged his head on the rocker arm and caught his nose in the overhead cam. He was also a thunder and lightning god, and thunder gods, like doctors, never really retire. It would be as well for the world’s sake if the engine started first time.
‘Ready?’
‘Ready.’
Thor turned the crank, and there was a loud groaning noise. It could have been the gears waking from nearly two thousand years of sleep; or it could have been the laws of physics saying that there was no way the engine was going to work because all the bits had been put back in the wrong places, and being told by the other forces of nature to put a sock in it. Whatever it was, it was followed by a splutter and a roar and then a peculiar sound like a hippopotamus pulling its foot out of very deep mud . . .
‘It’s working,’ Thor shouted. ‘Sod me, it’s bloody well working! Will you just look at—’
... Followed by a loud bang, and then silence. Small bits of sharp metal dropped down through the air. There was a very peculiar smell.
‘I don’t think it was meant to do that,’ said Frey.
‘Are you a doctor?’
‘No,’ replied the postman, ‘actually I’m a postman. Did you want to see a doctor?’
‘Are you sure you’re not a doctor?’
‘Yes. Now if I could just get past . . .’
Minerva, former goddess of Wisdom, stood her ground. She was still in her dressing gown, worn inside out, and her slippers were on the wrong feet. ‘I told them,’ she said, ‘I want to see a doctor. I keep telling them, you know, but they don’t listen. Will you have a look at my knee?’
‘If you like,’ said the postman, taking two unobtrusive steps backwards. ‘But I am in fact a postman, and—’
‘They’re still trying to poison me, of course,’ Minerva confided. ‘You tell them, they’ll believe you if you’re a doctor.’
The side door opened, and Thor put his head round. Having taken in the scene at a glance, he winked at the postman, tiptoed up behind Minerva and shouted very loudly indeed in her ear.
‘Right,’ he said, a few moments later, ‘shouldn’t have any more nonsense out of her for a day or two. Last time she didn’t come down for a week. Have you got a parcel for me? Registered?’
‘Um,’ replied the postman. Of all the places he delivered to, Sunnyvoyde was the one he dreaded most. Since his round also included the Grand Central Abattoir, the explosives factory and the Paradise Hill Home for Stray Killer Dogs, this was probably significant.
‘Name of Thor?’ he asked.
‘That’s me.’
‘Sign here, please.’
Back in the seclusion of his room, Thor ripped the package open and ploughed his way through the obligatory balls of rolled-up newspaper and grifzote shapes until he found what he was looking for. He examined it.
For once they hadn’t sent the wrong bit. He was impressed. Maybe his luck was about to change.
He stuffed the small metal object into the pocket of his cardigan and stumped off to find Odin. On his way he bumped into Frey, who was trying without much success to hide a bunch of bananas down the front of his jacket.
‘Has it come?’ Frey asked.
Thor nodded, and produced the object. ‘Probably not quite to size,’ he said, ‘but we can soon have a few thou. off it with the file, and then with luck we should be in business. Why are you trying to hide those bananas up your jumper?’
‘Sssh,’ Frey hissed. ‘I’m not supposed to eat bananas, the old bag thinks they give me wind.’
‘And do they?’
‘Whose side are you on, exactly?’
Half an hour later, the vital component was in place, and the three gods stood nervously beside their pride and joy. Somehow the thought that when the crank turned, this time the engine might fire and run and the beast would be back in action once again was extremely unnerving, and the emotions registering on the gods’ unconscious minds must have been akin to those of a doctor who, having managed to eliminate all known illnesses and cure death itself, suddenly remembers that he has a wife, three children and a mortgage to think of.
‘Ready?’
‘Suppose so.’
‘Gosh,’ Frey said, ‘it works. Well I never.’
‘There’s no need to sound quite so surprised,’ Odin replied. ‘I mean, it was really pretty straightforward when you think about it.’
‘Was it?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Where did I get the idea that it was horrendously difficult from, then, I wonder.’
They stood for a while, staring. Ten seconds later, it was still working. And ten seconds after that. And ten seconds after that . . .
‘Okay,’ Thor said briskly. ‘Now we’ve got it going again, what are we actually going to do with it?’
To the gods all things are possible, all things are known. ‘Um,’ said Odin.
‘I mean,’ Thor went on after a longish pause, ‘there’s all sorts of things we could do with it.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘All sorts of things.’
‘The possibilities are endless.’
‘Only . . .’ Thor bit his lip. ‘Just now, like on the spur of the moment, I can’t quite remember, you know, offhand . . .’
Small, muffled bells rang in Frey’s memory. ‘Something to do with fun-fairs, I think,’ he said. ‘And church fêtes and that sort of thing.’
‘Really?’
‘I think so,’ Frey replied. ‘Of course, it’s been a long time.’
Odin came to a decision. ‘Why don’t we take it for a ride?’ he said. ‘You know, a test drive. Just to make sure it actually is working all right. Before we actually do, um, whatever it was we were going to . . .’
‘Good idea.’
‘Fine.’
In retrospect it was a pity that, in the excitement of the moment, they drove out through the shed door without remembering to open it first; but at least it proved that the old jalopy was still as robust as ever. The gods, however, didn’t let it worry them, once they’d brushed the bits of doorframe and hinge out of their eyes. Almost as soon as the engine started to move, a strange exhilaration seemed to sweep over them; a longing, almost, for some long-forgotten sensation that had something to do with speed, the open sky, the wind in one’s hair . . .